Day: November 1, 2025

• Frances Schultz sold her home in the Hamptons in 2017. Now she lives in the Cotswolds.
• The Cotswolds, often called the “Hamptons of England,” are drawing in Americans like Schultz.
• She likes both, but she said the British countryside was what she needed at this stage of life.

This essay is based on a conversation with Frances Schultz, an American artist and writer in her mid-60s who lived in the Hamptons and now owns a house in the Cotswolds. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I moved to the Hamptons, in spite of it being the Hamptons, and later to the Cotswolds, in spite of it being the “Hamptons of England.” The status-symbol side of these places was never what drew me in.

The Hamptons and the Cotswolds are completely different from one another, but there’s a reason they’re both so popular: They’re fantastic. They have beautiful houses, interesting people, and great restaurants and stores.

Both are attractive, but the Cotswolds called to me for other reasons — the beauty, the history, the people and their sense of humor, and the way I sometimes feel like I’m living in a very wholesome BBC television series.

I’m originally from North Carolina and spent most of my adult life there and in Georgia, but I’d always wanted to live in New York.

In my early forties, back in 2000, I finally made the move. I bought an apartment in the city and a little cottage in East Hampton, thinking I’d be able to visit the Hamptons for a few weeks at a time. I could only afford the cottage because it needed a lot of work, but restoring it made me happy.

It had a small garden, and for a time, the cottage was just perfect. I could cut flowers and keep vases of them all over the house. But the idea of staying there for weeks at a time was unrealistic. I was bouncing back and forth between the city and the Hamptons a lot. It was pretty strenuous constantly packing, unpacking, and driving the three-hour slog on the highway every weekend.

The English countryside felt like the perfect antidote

Not long after I bought the cottage, I also met a man who lived on a ranch in Southern California. We started doing the bicoastal commute and, after four years, we married. I started living in California while still maintaining the properties in New York.

My husband wasn’t keen on traveling to the Hamptons, and I wasn’t spending enough time there to justify the big investment. So, eventually, in 2017, I decided to sell the East Hampton cottage.

The marriage ended a couple of years ago, but I’d already become interested in the idea of owning a house in the English countryside long before then. It felt so different from the California desert, where you could grow grapes and dahlias, but otherwise it was hot and dry most of the time.

The English countryside felt like the perfect antidote, and without my Hamptons cottage, it also felt like it could fill a real hole in my life.

England called to me. I like the culture, the history, and the literature. I love the houses, the flowers, and Georgian architecture, and, most of all, I adore the English sense of humor. You can always manage to have a funny time talking to everyone, from Lady So-and-So at a drinks party to the server in a pub.

I have a friend whom I met in London 35 years ago, who lives in the Cotswolds, with whom I started discussing the idea of owning a house in the English countryside. We agreed that I should rent a house in the Cotswolds first to see how I’d like it.

‘Buying a place in Connecticut would have been much easier’

I spent the summer of 2023 in the Cotswolds, and I loved it. Very soon after, I started working with a professional house hunter. We found this house in Painswick, Gloucestershire — or rather, it found me. It’s not in the “posh” part of the Cotswolds, near Burford, Bibury, or Bourton-on-the-Water, but it’s still part of the AONB — an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

I bought it in the fall of 2023 for £1.5 million. Honestly, buying a place in Connecticut would have been much easier. The process was a heavy lift, no matter how you look at it.

The house needed work, and I had to understand the different laws around conservation and the costs of renovating in the UK. I was doing it from the US, and the time difference alone, as well as the other logistical challenges of doing this from across the ocean, added time and expense to the whole process.

The house was nearly ready this past summer. I spent June through early September in the Cotswolds, and I’m back again now after a brief stint in the US.

The good thing about my job as a painter and writer is that I can do them anywhere, and the four-hour time difference between London and New York is easily surmounted. Being able to paint, cook, and write in my house this summer has been so gratifying.

I often ask myself, ‘Do I like the Cotswolds more than the Hamptons?’

In East Hampton, I think there is a cohesive community of people who live there year-round, but I never felt part of it. Instead, it’s all these busy New Yorkers spending their busy weekends in busy East Hampton. In the Cotswolds, however, there are people from all walks of life.

My neighbors in Painswick have all become friends. We have each other’s keys and look after each other. When I walk to the post office, I add 15 extra minutes because I’ll stop for at least two or three conversations. That doesn’t happen in East Hampton.

It really is so charming in the Cotswolds.

In the Hamptons, I loved being near the sea. I miss dipping my toes in the ocean and seeing my New York friend. But we have Zoom, and you quickly find out that when you have a house in a place people love to visit, people will visit.

People are sometimes surprised that I made this move in my mid-sixties. But, girl, if you’re getting up there in age, you’d better start figuring out what you want in life. I think I still have a lot of runway left, but I know the end is out there, and I can see it.

This stage in life brings maturity and wisdom, making you realize the importance of focusing on who you are and what you want.

It’s clear that the Cotswolds are a better fit for me at this point, and living here is what I want.

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman‘s comments helped spark concerns about an AI bubble.
• Mark Cuban says he doesn’t see similarities to the dot-com bubble.
• There’s disagreement, even among business leaders and tech CEOs, around the existence of a bubble.

The AI boom shows no sign of slowing down. Some top business leaders are concerned that a bubble is about to burst.

In August, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave voice to those fears about the future of AI. Since then, other CEOs, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, have dismissed concerns of an AI bubble.

Here’s what leading tech CEOs and business leaders are saying about what’s ahead.

• Erik Heintz is a producer who found stability in micro dramas after being laid off from Disney.
• Micro dramas, popularized in China, are gaining traction in the US via apps.
• The shoots are fast-paced and require quick thinking, but provide jobs in a contracting Hollywood.

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Erik Heintz, 49, a producer in Burbank, California, about his experience working in the booming micro drama business. The trend grew out of China and has taken off in the US via popular apps like ReelShort and DramaBox. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m from Massachusetts, and I’d moved to California for the Coast Guard. I’d been pursuing a career in music when I landed a job in Hollywood through a film producer friend. One thing led to another, and I became a talent manager. I did a lot of cold calling, getting the mail room treatment, doing crazy tasks for talent.

Fast forward a few years, and after freelancing for production companies that serve Disney, I was brought on as a permanent employee, supporting ABC, Hulu, Freeform, and Onyx, on creative marketing campaigns. It’s feast or famine in Hollywood, and I was blessed to get more of a permanent thing. I have three kids, and my wife is in entertainment, too, and there were often times one of us wouldn’t be working.

Then I got laid off in 2023. It was definitely an existential crisis moment. So many people were getting laid off. The competition to get similar roles is really tough. I did a bunch of different things: consulting, marketing, business development.

I got introduced to vertical dramas through one of the production companies we used at Disney, Snow Story, that brought me on as an executive producer. First, I had my misgivings because micro dramas were known for having low budgets and arduous schedules. But when I got on set, I saw a lot of the crew that I had been working with over the years. So I’m, like, fully in.

The first one I made was “Keys to My Heart.” It’s sort of a countryfied version of “A Star is Born,” for an app called Shortical. I’ve worked on 25 so far and have 10 more in development, for ReelShort, DramaShorts, and other apps.

I’m super grateful to be working in micro dramas. They keep the lights on and pay the mortgage. It’s hard to get a 9-to-5 job, and freelancing is tough. Everybody’s really feeling the pinch. I’m using all my skills in this job. I could be driving an Uber, but luckily, I’m doing what I love.

Fast-paced shoots, quick decisions

The hours are similar to a traditional Hollywood shoot — 12 to 16 hour days — but the pace is different. Instead of shooting six pages a day, you’re shooting 12 to 14, so you don’t have as many takes.

We have to be really creative and be problem solvers because you’ll have to make decisions on the fly. For example, one time our location fell out because it was double-booked. So, we chose a different angle of the room and redressed it as a café.

Another time, we had to show an heiress landing on a private plane and the plane set we booked fell out. So our director got a toilet seat and we put a green screen behind it and made it look like a window. It was one of the most engaging moments of the film, and you can’t tell it’s a toilet seat.

I think the appeal of mini dramas is that you’re watching them on your phone, the same place where you get dopamine hits from scrolling on social media or TikTok. I don’t think it’s as big on the coasts. But I’ve definitely met people in the business who watch them — they’re the same people that like soaps or telenovellas or romance novels.

I’ve seen people in Hollywood look down on them. And nobody wants to be another Quibi. It grew too big, too fast, whereas their counterpart, Vine, with those six-second videos, wasn’t highly produced. I feel like we still shouldn’t go that top-heavy just yet.

Now, large studios want to go where the eyeballs are. The production quality has gone up. I’m using an LED volume wall in the film I’m working on now — something I used at Disney. We used a real Harley-Davidson in another.

Studios are talking about using verticals to make companion content between seasons. We’ve seen that with television shows doing mobile-only content. There’s also interest in faith-based films and having more diversity in front of the camera. And we’re going to see a lot of brand integration. Maybe the big streamers will put a vertical video player in their app for streaming content. It’s like a little gold rush.

After Kahlil Lalji closed the first funding round earlier this month for his new AI company, Natural, one of the first things he wanted to do with the money was embark on a rite of passage for new tech founders: Buying a billboard around San Francisco. He quickly found out he would have to be patient.

“If you want to buy billboard space, you have to wait six to nine months,” Lalji said, adding it was even worse when he tried to secure prime space around Y Combinator’s outpost in the Dogpatch or Jackson Square, the home of many startups. “It’s already been completely sold for all of 2026, and there’s no clear date as to when I could ever have those billboards.”

Low-tech billboards for high-tech companies along Interstate 280 and 101 have long been part of the Bay Area landscape, but their popularity has soared this year as the AI boom has increased the number of well-funded companies needing to stand out. There is also a shift in marketing, as enterprise startups adapt a consumer marketing playbook. And, San Francisco has roared back to life with apartments, office space, and yes, billboards, in high demand.

The only better business to be in right now than selling advanced chips to AI companies is selling them billboards, joked Keith Messick, Vercel’s chief marketing officer.

“The San Francisco billboard market is so hyper competitive right now,” said Messick. “It’s really amazing.”

AI, the World Cup, and the Super Bowl drive ‘insane competition’ for billboards

As little as two years ago, billboard companies frequently called Messick, offering steep discounts for unsold inventory, known as remnant rates. Now the leverage has shifted. In the rare case space opens, Messick says he gets a call to pay top dollar and has to make a decision in less than 24 hours, or a competitor will snap up the deal. That has led to hoarding.

“Most people are trying to lock them down for as long as possible,” Messick said. “It’s an interesting dynamic because there is this phenomenon of worrying if you let a billboard go, you won’t be able to get another one.”

Demand is so strong that Clear Channel Outdoor cited San Francisco as a key driver for its US revenue growth earlier this year.

Rates vary greatly, though they are increasing by as much as 40% next year in some locations, according to Heather MacKinnon, head of brand at Mercury, which provides banking services to startups.

“There’s obviously insane competition with all of the AI companies right now, which are definitely driving up demand for these units,” MacKinnon said. “But also next year, San Francisco is hosting the Super Bowl and the World Cup, and those events have driven people to plan out a lot longer because bigger brands are coming in wanting that space.”

Clear Channel and Outfront Media, the other major billboard owner in San Francisco, declined to share pricing. Michael Marvin, Outfront Media’s sales director, would only say, “We are a supply and demand business.”

He added that “prime inventory”— essentially anything from the San Francisco airport to downtown — is sold out for the next year.

Marketing has ‘gone back in time’

Most people, even in San Francisco, would be hard-pressed to tell you the difference between Vanta (security and compliance) and Vercel (developer tools and web infrastructure) — despite both companies being worth billions.

Vanta plastered San Francisco with playful billboards that read “Compliance that doesn’t SOC 2 much,” a reference to an arcane security certification that would likely soar over the heads of most people driving by.

But it got them talking about the company, according to Terrence Rohan, an early investor in Vanta.

“It’s effective when you’re clever and memorable,” said Rohan. “The value is in brand building.”

Investors poured $35.7 billion into AI startups last quarter, according to Crunchbase data, which VCs say makes standing out all the more important.

“There are so many startups and branding is an incredible way to differentiate yourself,” said Abstract VC’s Anthony Heckman. “These details matter now more than ever. And having a memorable billboard is absolutely one of the ways founders can build their brands.”

Vercel’s billboards have tried to grab eyeballs with simply a line of code: “~/ npm i ai.”

“There’s a shift where everything feels like consumer marketing, even if you’re selling boring enterprise tech,” explained Vercel’s Messick. “People are thinking about getting attention.”

Billboards also serve as a “reinforcement” mechanism to convey a company’s success, according to Messick.

“There’s an implied idea that if someone has a lot of billboards, they’re doing really well,” he said.

A strong physical presence can also be helpful when hiring is so competitive, according to Ray Wu, managing partner at Alumni Ventures.

“A lot more VC dollars are coming into the AI space, so everybody is trying to hire the best people and the Bay Area is the talent pool,” Wu said. “It brings legitimacy to a company.”

Far from being a Vanta or Vercel, Natural, which is building payments infrastructure for AI agents, is not even three months old. Spending $250,000 on billboards will be worth it if the company acquires just 100 customers, says Lalji.

“In the payments, the lifetime value of a customer is quite high, said Lalji. “Backing out that math is not impossible to make it seem rational.”

As hard as it is to buy prime billboard space, the tougher task comes from designing something that will actually get people talking as part of a complete marketing strategy, according to Mercury’s MacKinnon.

“Right now, if you drive the Skyway, it’s a bunch of black and white billboards all saying something about AI that all blend together,” she said, referring to an elevated section of Highway 80 that runs through downtown San Francisco. “I don’t think that a standalone billboard like that is going to do anything for you other than make the founder and the team happy when they drive by it.”

Some see the flood of billboards as yet another sign of an AI bubble, amounting to little more than an expensive vanity project.

“If it starts the right conversations, great,” said Ashu Garg, general partner at Foundation Capital. “If not, the founders just paid for a giant selfie.”

Halloween may be over, but Netflix’s November slate is chock full of spooky offerings, including Guillermo Del Toro’s new Frankenstein adaptation, streaming Nov. 7, and the thrilling The Beast in Me, out Nov. 13, in which Claire Danes plays an author who is neighbors with a suspected murderer, played by Matthew Rhys.

There’s also a salute to veterans to mark Veterans Day, with the documentary series Marines (Nov. 10), a deep dive into life in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific.

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And if you haven’t had time to sink your teeth into the Jaws movies for the 50th anniversary of the first film in the franchise, you have until Nov. 15 to watch them.

Here’s everything coming to Netflix in Nov. 2025—and what’s leaving.

Here are the Netflix originals coming in November 2025

Nov. 3

Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches

In Waves and War

Nov. 4

Leanne Morgan: Unspeakable Things

Squid Game: The Challenge (Season 2)

Nov. 5

Heweliusz

Just Alice

Nov. 6

The Bad Guys: Breaking In

Death by Lightning

The Vince Staples Show (Season 2)

Nov. 7

As You Stood By

Baramulla

Frankenstein

Groom & Two Brides

Mango

Nov. 8

Countdown: Jake vs. Tank

Nov. 10

MARINES

Sesame Street (Volume 1)

Nov. 12

A Merry Little Ex-Mas

Being Eddie

Dynamite Kiss

Eloá the Hostage: Live on TV

Mrs. Playmen

Selling the OC (Season 4)

Nov. 13

The Beast in Me

Delhi Crime (Season 3)

Had I Not Seen the Sun (Part 1)

The Last Samurai Standing

Tee Yai (Born to Be Bad)

Unicorn Academy: Chapter 4

Nov. 14

The Crystal Cuckoo

In Your Dreams

Jake Paul vs. Tank Davis

Lefter: The Story of the Ordinarius

Nouvelle Vague

Nov. 17

Gabby’s Dollhouse (Season 12)

Selena y Los Dinos

Nov. 18

Gerry Dee: Funny You Should Say That

Nov. 19

The Carman Family Deaths

Champagne Problems

Envious (Season 3)

The Son of a Thousand Men

Nov. 20

A Man on the Inside (Season 2)

The Follies

The Great British Baking Show: Holidays (Season 8)

Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (Season 4)

Nov. 21

ONE SHOT with Ed Sheeran

Train Dreams

Nov. 24

Missing: Dead or Alive? (Season 2)

Nov. 25

Is It Cake? Holiday (Season 2)

Nov. 26

Jingle Bell Heist

Stranger Things 5: Volume 1

Nov. 28

Left-Handed Girl

The Stringer: The Man Who Took The Photo

Here are the TV shows and movies coming to Netflix in November 2025

Nov. 1

A Very Vintage Christmas

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

Baby Driver

Back to the Future

Back to the Future Part II

Back to the Future Part III

Broadchurch (Season 1)

Broadchurch (Season 2)

Broadchurch (Season 3)

Charlie’s Angels

Crazy Rich Asians

Dear Santa

Doctor Sleep

Don’t Worry Darling

Dr. Dolittle

Dr. Dolittle 2

Elvis

Frances Ha

Game Night

Happy Christmas

The Hangover

The Hangover: Part II

The Hangover: Part III

I Know What You Did Last Summer

In the Heights

Isn’t It Romantic

Judas and the Black Messiah

Just Mercy

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

Life of the Party

The Little Things

Merry Liddle Christmas

The Nun II

Ocean’s 8

Paddington 2

The Patriot

Ready Player One

Tenet

This Is the End

Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas

The Way Back

Wonka

Nov. 2

King Richard

The Outfit

Nov. 4

Minx (Seasons 1-2)

Nov. 5

Election

Nov. 6

Bride Wars

Nov. 7

A Holiday Engagement

Christmas in the Heartland

Labyrinth

My Dad’s Christmas Date

Nov. 8

The Emoji Movie

Nov. 11

Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas

No Sleep ‘Til Christmas

Same Time, Next Christmas

Nov. 13

Koati (Season 1)

Moulin Rouge!

The Sandlot

Nov. 15

A Royal Date for Christmas

A Sprinkle of Christmas

A Vineyard Christmas

Becoming Santa

Christmas Casanova

Everybody’s Fine

Just Like a Christmas Movie

Meet Me at the Christmas Train Parade

Royally Yours, This Christmas

Nov. 17

Blue Beetle

Zodiac

Nov. 21

Marry Christmas

Mistletoe Mixup

Nov. 24

Santa Bootcamp

Nov. 27

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Here’s what’s leaving Netflix in November 2025

Nov. 1

47 Meters Down

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Blow

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Despicable Me

Despicable Me 2

Eat Pray Love

The Fast and the Furious

2 Fast 2 Furious

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Fast Five

Fast & Furious 6

Furious 7

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Happy Gilmore

Horrible Bosses

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park III

Minions

Ride Along

Ride Along 2

She’s All That

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Shrek

Shrek 2

Shrek Forever After

Shrek the Third

Six Feet Under (Seasons 1-5)

Starship Troopers

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Thirteen

Total Recall

Varsity Blues

Weird Science

Wet Hot American Summer

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Nov. 6

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Reba (Seasons 1-6)

Nov. 8

A Star Is Born

Nov. 13

Archer (Seasons 1-13)

Nov. 14

Madame Web

Smile

Nov. 15

A.P. Bio (Seasons 1-4)

First Wives Club (Seasons 1-3)

Jaws

Jaws 2

Jaws 3

Jaws: The Revenge

Nov. 16

Mamma Mia!

Nov. 17

Trolls: The Beat Goes On! (Seasons 1-8)

Nov. 20

Shahs of Sunset (Seasons 3-4)

Nov. 22

San Andreas

This is the second hormone-free option for menopausal women approved for use in the U.S.