• Andrew Tsao transitioned from a six-figure tech job to being an artist in New York City.
• Medicaid and lifestyle changes helped him heal after the switch.
• Tsao's first art show, "The Art of Surrender," marks his farewell to NYC before returning to Taiwan.

It took Andrew Tsao a layoff from his six-figure tech job, Medicaid-subsidized therapy, and a psychedelic session to realize he wanted to be an artist in New York City. His first art show ended up as his goodbye letter to the city he called home for 13 years.

The 34-year-old artist and life coach, born in California and raised in Taiwan, is based in Brooklyn and recently finalized his first art exhibition, "The Art of Surrender." The collection, displayed in T.O.L.K. — a Bushwick café and art gallery in mid and late July — served as his final homage to the city, as he returned to Taiwan on August 5 to complete the military service required to retain his citizenship.

Since the opening, he has sold his first four pieces at his first art show, two for $500, with the help of the coffee shop's owners, who did not take a commission. He was able to hold the show under his planned budget.

Yet, it was just a year ago that he started calling himself a part-time artist. During his time in New York City, he has worked in B2B sales, held multiple tech jobs at startups, become a career and life coach, and found his passion for art. All the while, he has had to learn how to afford to practice art in one of the most expensive cities in the country after his income fell from six figures to under $25,000 when he left the corporate world.

Tsao is among the many New Yorkers who have adapted how they live to keep up with the city’s high cost of living. Business Insider has documented similar trade-offs throughout our Cost of the City series.

From a one-way ticket to a six-figure career

After graduating from the University of Southern California, Tsao moved to New York with a one-way ticket and no job lined up. He worked in B2B sales before transitioning into the tech industry, where he became a product manager, earning over $100,000 a year at a healthcare startup doing opioid addiction treatment.

Then came the pandemic. Although Tsao's company had gone fully remote a few months prior, he was laid off on May 15, 2020. Frustration with the layoff led to Tsao taking steps toward entrepreneurship. He began coaching early-stage founders and taught them how to build websites without coding.

The career change came at a financial cost: Tsao watched his annual income fall from six figures to less than $25,000. He had some money in his 401(k) and savings from his tech career, which he invested in opening his own business. Although he could move back in with his parents in Taiwan if things got worse, the loss of financial stability weighed on him and made him reassess his priorities.

"It is true that there are things that could feel more heavy," like paying bills, he said. "I was able to really be clear with myself of what I need to really feel joyful and safe."

Tsao found that while the city takes a lot, it offers a lot too

Tsao realized his priorities were to have a roof over his head and access to affordable food. The trade-offs he made included going out less often, cooking rather than ordering delivery or eating out, and choosing longer subway commutes over Uber rides.

"It actually did allow me to realize that there's a lot of things that are really beautiful in New York, even if you're not having as much disposable income," he said.

Tsao concluded that New York City can be unaffordable and affordable at the same time.

He exchanged pricey concerts for walks through Prospect Park, came up with creative date ideas, and took advantage of the Culture Pass, which gives New Yorkers free access to museums and libraries. He shifted from buying books from Amazon to discovering the Brooklyn Public Library, which became his favorite place to read and find books.

"I found creative ways to really enjoy living in New York City, especially Brooklyn, on a budget," he said.

During the pandemic, he moved into a two-bedroom apartment with in-unit laundry, which he split with his ex-girlfriend. By the time he moved out in June 2026, the rent was around $1,300 each. He temporarily stayed in a sublet until he moved to Taiwan.

Besides rent, he budgeted around $150 a month for groceries and kept his art-supply costs down. Most of his materials were donated by friends or found on Brooklyn patios. Yet, he did pay $12 per bottle of ink and about $38 for Posca markers.

Healthcare was one of the biggest shifts he experienced

As Tsao's income bracket fell, he was caught by something else — Medicaid. After qualifying for the federal program, he began to receive both emotional and physical treatment, which he would not have looked for when working in tech and paying for his own private health insurance.

Through Medicaid, he began seeing a social worker at Le Santé Health Center in Flatbush for weekly therapy sessions.

"I was trying to separate my identity and value from productivity, output, and how people perceived me," he said. "I would not have gotten therapy if I had not been on Medicaid."

He also began to receive Medicaid-subsidized physical therapy for chronic pain in his upper-right shoulder, which had developed in 2020 from a combination of leaning forward at his desk and recreational bouldering.

"From a health level, it was the most abundant I had ever felt," he said. "That was really one area that the change in affordability didn't make me feel more constrained. Actually, it made me feel like I had more options."

A new beginning in art, and a farewell to New York City

Tsao found that what he enjoyed about coaching was the emotional guidance he brought to it. In 2022, he replaced his technical, no-code coaching with coaching for executives and people in leadership roles — $200-$250, hour-long sessions — which were his main source of income.

"I realized I liked talking about those feelings more than I liked the technical coaching," he said.

Tsao realized he "also wanted to live" what he was coaching.

This realization, tied to his period of personal healing and one psychedelic session, led Tsao back to art. During that session, he began picking up art materials and rediscovered his love of painting. Afterward, he began using art materials he had received from friends and carving out time to create while supporting himself through coaching. His mixed-media abstract work featured in the exhibition explores ancestry, Eastern and Western identities, and connection to the self through ink, collage, crayons, and colored markers.

This shift is what led him to his first art exhibition and now to the send-off for the city he lived in for 13 years. He will miss the city's pizza and diversity, but most importantly the vibrance of its people — from buskers on the subway to dancers in Washington Square Park.

"I think about the New York that doesn't really relate to things with price," he said. "I definitely do think about the concerts I've been to, the food I've had, the encounters at that. But most importantly, the love letter is everything in between. It's for the little pockets of magic."

• Walmart took a $175 million hit to profit growth last quarter because of fuel expenses.
• The retailer's CFO said it took the hit to preserve "trust" with customers rather than raise prices.
• If costs remain high through this year, the company said it would need to increase prices.

Walmart says it managed to keep prices steady in the face of rising fuel costs last quarter by taking a $175 million hit to profit growth.

That might not last.

Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said the company is facing hundreds of millions in new energy costs this year, which would lead to price hikes later in the year if fuel costs don't come down soon.

"We're confident this was the right approach to reinforce customer trust and support share gains over the long term," Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said Thursday on the company's first quarter earnings call. "That said, these are real impacts to cost of goods sold for us and our suppliers."

Walmart reported $177.8 billion in revenue for the first quarter, up 7.3% from the same period last year. US stores saw comparable sales growth of 4.1%, beating Bloomberg analyst estimates. Its operating income of $7.5 billion was up 5% year over year, with the fuel impact accounting for a quarter of a percentage-point drag.

The company also said its growth in other revenue streams, such as e-commerce, memberships, and advertising, helped it hold the line on prices during a challenging quarter for energy costs.

The cost pressures led Walmart to set adjusted earnings per share guidance of about $0.73 for the coming quarter, below the expected $0.75. The full-year outlook remained unchanged but was below expectations.

Walmart's stock fell about 7% after the market opened on Thursday morning.

"We're not bulletproof to some of these things that are happening in the economy," Rainey said.

Walmart has passed other costs along to shoppers in the past. Rainey said last year that tariffs were "too high" and the company would raise prices. It was one of the first major retailers to do so. Rainey said this year that any tariff refunds it receives from the government would be invested in lowering prices.

Last quarter, US drivers turned to Walmart's warehouse chain, Sam's Club, in a big way for relief on gas prices, lifting that segment's comparable sales growth to 5.9%.

"That tells you that customers are coming to us looking for value," Rainey said of Sam's Club gas purchases.

But Sam's Club also flashed affordability warning signs.

"The number of gallons that customers fill up with when they come to our fuel stations fell below 10 for the first time since 2022. That's an indication of stress," Rainey said.

• Amazon is testing a new 24/7 delivery service, offering premium slots for faster shipping options.
• Amazon's new delivery model can add high costs, but increased sales volume could help turn a profit.
• Amazon is also testing premium, faster deliveries for an extra fee.

Amazon built the "Everything Store." Now it's trying to become the every-hour store.

The e-commerce giant is testing a new delivery system that breaks the day into 10 distinct windows spanning 24 hours, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider.

That's a meaningful expansion from Amazon's traditional delivery hours, which typically run from 6 am to 10 pm. The new structure effectively turns delivery into a rolling, all-day cycle, with faster options carrying premium fees.

The initiative, led by Udit Madan, Amazon SVP of worldwide operations, began as a pilot program with plans to potentially expand across the network later this year, according to the documents.

Selling speed

If successful, it would mark one of the most significant changes to Amazon's delivery model in years, shifting the company from offering fast shipping as a default to selling speed as a premium product.

As part of the effort, Amazon has explored charging extra fees for fast delivery options, including 45-minute and 2.5-hour services, according to the documents.

By expanding delivery hours and introducing paid upgrades for faster service, Amazon is trying to turn the final and most expensive stretch of its logistics network into a new source of profit.

According to internal projections, Amazon projects the new delivery fees and higher sales volume will ultimately make faster shipping a meaningful profit driver, even as it expects hundreds of millions of dollars in near-term costs.

"Explore avenues to monetize (charge ship-fee) on the last 1-hr of delivery," one of the documents stated.

Starting as a small pilot

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider the company is conducting a "small pilot in a few US locations" to test a new delivery structure that will "introduce shorter delivery windows" and provide customers with "more frequent delivery options throughout the day."

Amazon has not decided on the future rollout of the new program and is evaluating customer response before deciding whether to expand it more broadly, the spokesperson added.

This is unrelated to last week's launch of 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options, the spokesperson also said. That built on a limited 30-minute ultrafast service introduced last year.

"We are always innovating on behalf of customers and continue to find new ways of offering them lower prices, greater selection, and more convenience," the spokesperson said in an email statement.

Slicing up a day

Under the new system, Amazon divides the day into named, overlapping windows, each roughly three hours long.

The windows span early-morning slots like 3 am to 6 am through evening and overnight periods such as 8 pm to 11 pm and 11 pm to 4 am, each with internal codenames ranging from "Sunrise" and "Coffee" to "Nightowl."

The new system also gives Amazon tighter control over how delivery options are presented.

According to the documents, Amazon wants to show customers specific arrival times, making delivery feel precise and predictable, not just fast. For example, it wants to say the package "arrives in 45 minutes," instead of a window range, the documents showed.

The Amazon spokesperson said the company already provides delivery estimates like "arrive by," and, in some cases, more precise timing as it continues to improve accuracy over time. Amazon is not moving to "exact, minute-by-minute scheduling," the spokesperson added.

Amazon believes a steady, deliberate rollout of the new delivery service will help it better learn and measure the impact before expanding across the full network, according to one of the documents.

Speed is expensive

The plan to charge for faster delivery marks a broader shift for Amazon. For years, the company bundled new perks into Prime at no extra cost. Now it's increasingly charging for premium features, from ad-free Prime Video and Whole Foods deliveries to services like One Medical.

For the faster delivery fee, Amazon benchmarked similar services from Walmart, Instacart, DoorDash, and UberEats, one of the documents showed.

The Amazon spokesperson said this is not a shift away from "fast, free delivery" or "a change in approach." The Prime membership continues to offer "significant value, including fast, free delivery on millions of items, alongside optional faster delivery options in some cases," the spokesperson added.

The push for all-day delivery and speed, however, comes at a cost.

One estimate, based on expanding the service to all sites by July, projects more than $330 million in costs this year and over $780 million next year. A slower rollout, reaching full scale by September 2026, would bring next year's costs closer to $490 million, according to the documents.

At the same time, Amazon expects faster shipping to drive higher order volume and revenue, with the goal of ultimately making the model pay for itself.

The company projects the fully scaled program will increase sub-same-day delivery volume by at least 40 million units this year alone, helping offset the added costs through higher sales and new revenue streams, including premium delivery fees. Those fees are expected to generate at least $20 million in incremental revenue this year, according to the documents.

Over time, Amazon expects the model to turn profitable, projecting about $40 million in operating profit this year and roughly $260 million in 2027 if fully rolled out by September 2026, the documents added.

That helps explain why Amazon is moving quickly to expand all-day delivery. The company wants to "blitz scale" the model across its network this year after the current pilot test, according to one of the documents.

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• Pay for gig work varies significantly across apps, a new Gridwise report found.
• The report estimated hourly pay rates for ride-hailing, delivery, and other types of gig work.
• Taskrabbit, Walmart's Spark, and Uber ranked among the highest-paying apps, Gridwise found.

The gig economy has grown to include apps from Uber to Instacart. They don't all pay the same.

Average hourly pay on the apps varied in 2025, according to data analytics company Gridwise, which analyzed about 1 billion tasks across ride-hailing, delivery, and other gig work apps.

Workers for Taskrabbit, a platform where users hire independent contractors for yard work, home repair, and other physical tasks, earned the highest hourly pay rate at $38.

Spark, Walmart's delivery service, took second place at $23 an hour, with Uber just behind at $22.

DoorDash's hourly pay was $11, the lowest of the apps Gridwise analyzed.

Some companies say their workers earn higher hourly rates than Gridwise's estimates suggest. A Taskrabbit spokesperson said that its gig workers earn $49 an hour on average, although earnings vary by location. Uber said last year that the company's drivers earn $32 per hour while actively working on the app.

Gridwise compiled the estimates for its annual gig mobility report, released last week. The hourly pay data includes base pay, bonuses, and tips that workers received.

The data show that the best-known gig services don't always offer the best pay for workers, Ryan Green, CEO of Gridwise, told Business Insider.

Walmart launched its Spark delivery service as a test in 2018, years after competitors such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. Spark drivers pick up or shop orders at Walmart stores, helping the retailer grow its delivery business quickly.

"They just snuck up on the market and have rapidly grown into this space," he said.

Ride-hailing fares have risen faster than driver pay

Some gig workers have told Business Insider that it's harder to make money on apps like Uber and DoorDash than it was several years ago, due to higher competition and lower pay rates.

Most gig workers are responsible for their own costs, such as car maintenance. As a result, some gig workers have decided to accept only the trips that pay them the most for their time.

The price of gas, which has shot up in the past two weeks after the US started a war with Iran, is the latest cost pressure on ride-hailing drivers.

Uber and Lyft increased prices last year — and passed on a fraction of that hike to the drivers who make their businesses possible.

From December 2024 to December 2025, average customer ride prices on Uber and Lyft rose 9.6%, according to Gridwise. Over the same period, driver gross pay per trip increased 3.6%, and gross pay per hour rose 4.1%.

"We saw a modest increase on the driver side, and a much more substantial increase on the pricing side," Green said.

Last year, Gridwise found that weekly pay on most ride-hailing and delivery apps fell in 2024.

Delivery workers for services like DoorDash also saw an increase in per-hour pay last year — 3.2% — though their working hours on the platform rose about 17%, according to Gridwise.

Were you a gig worker in 2025? Business Insider is gathering information on gig worker earnings for a coming story.

You can contact Alex Bitter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501.