The city is changing fast, and so are we. From rising rents and a shifting skyline to the quieter work of neighbors feeding neighbors, we unpack how hope can take root right in the middle of pressure—no slogans, just people doing the next right thing.

I sit down with Brian Upton, the mind behind Santa Cruz Vibes, to trace his path from hometown kid to media founder and to examine a different way to build a platform. We talk about why impressions aren’t the same as influence, how abdication (not charity) shapes trust, and what it means to hand 20% of your pages, screens, and mics to nonprofits with no strings attached. Brian breaks down the business side in plain terms and then flips it: numbers keep the lights on; narrative keeps the soul intact.

We go deeper on grief for a city that won’t return to what it was—and why that might be a good thing. Equity asks more of us than nostalgia. We explore the tension between local problems and global patterns, the myth of Santa Cruz exceptionalism, and the real stakes of transforming a small, magnetic place where wealth and working-class realities sit shoulder to shoulder. Along the way we share a practical philosophy for creators: treat each episode like a message in a bottle and let go of the scoreboard. Expectation kills meaning; presence creates it.

AI threads through our talk as both tool and test. If algorithms deliver answers faster than we can form questions, what remains for people? Craft, conversation, and honest rooms. Why we use technology on the back end and guard the front end as human. Think cave painting, not clickbait: make something true, send it into the world, and resist the urge to manipulate. That’s how stories build communities instead of silos.

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