KQED's Forum Did Your Great Resignation Career Change Work Out?
Mar 13, 2026
Ezequiel (Zeke) Anderson, baker who turned a private-chef past into Rise Up Bakery. Aki Ito, Business Insider tech and workplace reporter. Alex Neese, former Apple marketer who launched Wilder Walks guiding trips. They discuss pandemic pivots into baking, outdoor guiding and entrepreneurship. Short stories cover financial tradeoffs, seasonality, prototyping new paths, loneliness of small-business life and lasting workplace shifts.
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Trail Rescue Sparked Full Career Reinvention
- Alex Neese left a marketing job at Apple after a traumatic wilderness rescue and hiked the 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail as a five-month reset.
- That hike launched a five-year rethink that led him to start Wilder Walks, balancing summer guiding with winter consulting.
Labor Tightness, Not Mass Dropout, Fueled 2021 Mobility
- The Great Resignation was driven mainly by a hot labor market that let workers switch for better pay and conditions, not mass quitting to opt out.
- Aki Ito explains that 2021–22 mobility reflected employer desperation and worker leverage that has since evaporated.
Sourdough Became Therapy Then A Business
- Ezequiel (Zeke) Anderson pivoted from private chef to baking during the pandemic, teaching himself sourdough while coping with social and political trauma.
- Baking became a Zen practice that healed him and scaled into Rise Up Bakery sales at Berkeley Bowl.
