In her book You Were Born for This, Chani Nicholas describes her first encounter with astrology, a reading at age 8, which came at just the right time in a rough childhood: "In a situation that threatened to obliterate me, someone looked down to a book of symbols and numbers...to uncover a truth about me that would save my life." In her words, she felt "witnessed." Eventually, she would learn the practice and develop an internet-famous brand, one that warmly puts the ancient study in the context of 2021. For Chani and her followers, the movement of Saturn can have just as much to do with their relationship to social justice and the environment as their love life and career.

She gets that some people might be skeptical, but as she recently told Kara Swisher: "What do I care? We just all need healing...I just want everyone to go find the thing that works for them and use it." For a lot of people, astrology is that thing. Some investors price the business potential of the market at $2.1B. Understanding Twitter and Instagram-or at least the fun stuff, the memes-requires a baseline fluency in the language of the stars. And for anyone actively interested in astrology or queer culture, Chani Nicholas is a trending voice.

In the past six years, she has written a column for O magazine, read the charts of iconic celebrities on her own Netflix series, and published a NYT bestseller. This year, she adds to that long list of achievements a new app, CHANI, which hosts weekly podcasts, personalized readings, and meditations for subscribers-in her words, "a place to reflect and duck into when you need it."

Here, Nicholas (a longtime Dropbox customer) shares how she built a career out of her passion, the values she holds as a leader, and why astrology is having a such a bright moment in the sun.