Back when I was working at a big corporation, there was a time I was part of a meeting to sync up on a project with the senior leadership. I wasn't the one who drafted the plan, but since everyone in the team was required to be present during these sync-ups, I was there too.

After the presentation, the senior leader remained silent for a moment, then turned to my team leader. As he put down his cigar, a few words slipped through his lips: "Don't always dine at places averaging 500 yuan per person."

In product design, besides needing skills as enchanting as a succubus, the influence of one's surroundings is also key:

For instance, Apple is considered the top leader in the industry, so one must use the whole suite of Apple products. The rationale is if you haven't experienced the best, you can't create the best.

While this argument holds water, forgetting that one is merely the lucky individual atop the highest wave makes such extrapolation no different from asking why one does not eat minced meat.

On the eve of Shanghai's lockdown, the city entered "battle royale" mode. Every day, there were reports of another neighborhood being sealed off.

One day, my colleague was taking a taxi home from work and noticed the driver had a suitcase in the back. Asking why he had so much luggage while driving for Didi, the driver explained that his residential complex had been sealed off, and he couldn't return home, spending weeks living in his car instead. My colleague asked, "Why don't you go home to sleep?" The driver replied, "If I don't drive for Didi, I don't make money."

It was then my colleague truly understood, not everyone is like her, able to work and earn money from home. For many, being trapped at home means watching money fly out the window every minute.

Rather than calling "Folding Beijing" a science fiction novel, it's more accurate to label it as realistic fiction.

Once, visiting a friend in LA, I asked him what he thought about the homeless issue. While driving, he gestured towards the window and said, "As long as you're in the car and they're outside, they don't exist."

This conversation reminded me of a long-lost headhunter who reached out for a chat, revealing he couldn't pay off his microloan debts and was afraid to tell his family. The amount was roughly 200 thousand yuan.

The "folding" occurs both in Beijing and LA.