Thrilled to bring Nerd Nite Presents: Three Spreadsheets to the Wind to @caveatnyc on May 16 w/@paulacroxson, Maia & me. Excel + story telling + drinks! nyc.nerdnite.com

The last time we surveyed New Yorkers about their paychecks, the math was easy. Well, easier. In 2005, a blogger at Gawker made $30,000 and the CEO at Lehman Brothers more than $35 million. Back then, there was no “gig economy,” at least not as we know it today, and coffee shops from Bed-Stuy to the Upper East Side weren’t lousy with model–pickleballer–nanny–actor–producer–DJ–creative directors. Some 20 years later, amid a radically different economic environment in which the nature of work feels as if it’s about to change forever, we set out to conduct a similar experiment. We reached into our network of sources, blind-messaged LinkedIn profiles, put out a casting call on Instagram, even stopped strangers in Union Square. What we discovered, just before a jobs report earlier this month confirmed a dwindling labor market, is that salaries across most industries have not kept up with inflation in a city that has become exorbitantly expensive. Of course, there are plenty of people, especially at the very top, doing all right on their salary plus bonus and stock options. The aim of our latest investigation wasn’t simply an excuse to be nosy. The hope was to capture this moment and provide some sideways service to those wondering what else there might be to do. It’s not too late to try to become a tugboat engineer, is it? 60 New Yorkers share what they do and how much they make for our latest cover story: nymag.visitlink.me/8UWFXW

Thirty years after his first SantaCon, ‘Fight Club’ author Chuck Palahniuk wonders how a safe space to enjoy self-destruction went so sideways. ‘Evading the police during SantaCon seems like small potatoes compared to dodging social-media claimers.’ vulture.com/article/chuck-pa…