Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Hello again, and thank you for reading Fast Company’s Plugged In. In 2013, David Min came to Disney CEO Bob Iger with a big idea. Min, a founding partner at Disney’s investment arm, Steamboat Ventures, was now head of innovation for the entire company. He had concluded that something fundamental needed to be done about Disney’s relationship with the tech industry. “We—meaning The Walt Disney Company—didn’t really have a very good reputation at the time for working with startups,” he remembers. Tech accelerators such as Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars were changing how high-potential concepts got their shot at becoming thriving businesses. Min thought Dis…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Speaking on D.R. Horton’s earnings call last week, CEO Paul Romanowski was asked about geographic housing demand trends and if rising inventory in Florida and Texas was impacting the sales of America’s largest homebuilder. “Some of the [recent] buildup we’ve seen in inventory has had some impact on [our] sales when you look at portions of the Florida market and as well isolated to some of the Texas markets where they saw a significant run-up in valuations,” Romanowski responded. “We’ve seen some moderation there. But generally, as we enter into the s…

Back in 2015, the Chicago Bears told Brandon Marshall no. The personable All-Pro receiver had been appearing as an analyst on Showtime’s Inside The NFL on his days off during the previous season, but new Bears management weren’t going to allow it. “Right then, I knew I wouldn’t be a Bear anymore,” Marshall told CBS in 2016. “Because I think that the business of the NFL is growing every single day, and players are being told to stay in a box and just play football, and we’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, not only to grow as men and businessmen but to experience different things.” A lot can change in a decade. This week, the NFL is announcing a new initiat…

Andy Hunter decided something needed to be done about the endless rise of Amazon in 2018—the year that the e-commerce giant surpassed 50% of book sales in the U.S. market. “I was concerned at that rate of growth,” says founder and CEO of Bookshop.org. Hunter did a back of a napkin projection and figured that by 2025, Amazon would have secured an 80% share of the U.S. market. That worried Hunter, who had long worked in the publishing industry, especially when paired with stats showing half of all independent, local bookshops in the country went out of business at the same time as Amazon became ascendant. “I felt very strongly that books are too important to our culture…

Yesterday, shockwaves rippled across the American tech industry after news spread over the weekend about a powerful new large language model (LLM) from China called DeepSeek. News of DeepSeek’s capabilities—not to mention the fact that it is open-source and free for anyone to use and modify—sent U.S. markets reeling, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which saw $1 trillion evaporate from its market cap as AI-adjacent stocks such as Nvidia and Broadcom were hit hard. U.S.-listed shares of TSMC, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), also took a dive. But today, some of those stocks are recovering, at least to a degree. Here’s what you need to know about …

Over the years, I’ve observed how the approach to housing in the U.S. has shifted. And while affordable housing has faced challenges in how it’s understood and accurately represented, there is increasing awareness of the need for more accessible, safe, and stable housing options for all. It is time to recalibrate our approach to housing—one that not only addresses economic disparities but also fosters community and enhances the quality of life for all residents. Affordable housing is essential for providing a foundation that allows people to contribute meaningfully to their communities. It is one of the reasons my architecture firm recently acquired a firm that speci…

In cities across the U.S., the housing crisis has reached a breaking point. Rents are skyrocketing, homelessness is rising and working-class neighborhoods are threatened by displacement. These challenges might feel unprecedented. But they echo a moment more than half a century ago. In the 1950s and 1960s, housing and urban inequality were at the center of national politics. American cities were grappling with rapid urban decline, segregated and substandard housing, and the fallout of highway construction and urban renewal projects that displaced hundreds of thousands of disproportionately low-income and Black residents. The federal government decided to try to…

The days are getting longer, sunnier, and warmer in the western hemisphere. Those bright summer days have a bigger impact on the workforce and the physical office than you may think. The obvious ones are longer lunches and fewer people in the office due to vacations. Yet when everybody is in the office, there is one common human habit happening during the summer that is often overlooked. One that undermines employee productivity and increases a building’s carbon emissions. The productivity killer? Sunshine. Not that anybody is against it, but when the sun is at its highest and hottest, sun glare and heat penetrating the glass panes in office buildings prompts employe…

A year after the launch of the short-lived Coca-Cola Spiced, Coke is adding another new flavor to its lineup. Coca-Cola Orange Cream is scheduled to go on sale Feb. 10 in the U.S. and Canada. It will be sold in regular and zero sugar varieties. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. said Monday that it developed the soda, which mixes cola with orange and vanilla flavors, in response to growing consumer demand for the comforting, nostalgic flavor. Orange cream — first introduced with the Creamsicle ice cream bar in 1937 – has enjoyed a recent renaissance. Olipop, a probiotic soda, introduced an orange cream flavor in 2021. Carvel reintroduced its Orange Dreamy Creamy ice …

Every four years, the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) provides a snapshot of how students across the country are performing in math and English. It doesn’t tell us about individual students; instead, it gives us information about how well our public schools are preparing students. The 2024 results showed that 28% of 8th graders were proficient in mathematics (on grade level), and 30% were proficient in reading. In both, the average scores and proficiency rates are still below 2019 rates. One explanation for this dismal reality? Public schools simply aren’t capable of delivering results for students. But look closely at historical trends in NAEP R…

The future may be female, but in economic terms, the present is as well. The gender gap—which references how much more the average man in the United States earns compared to the average woman—has eroded in recent years, largely because women are earning more money, according to new data from the Bank of America Institute. In a report published this month, the data shows that women’s median discretionary spending increased 0.9% year-over-year during November, and that it’s been growing faster than men’s spending over the previous two-year period. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, female workers’ median annual income growth is growing faster than male workers,…

Illinois lawyer Mathew Kerbis markets himself as the Subscription Attorney, charging businesses and individual clients a monthly rate for legal advice and offering additional services like contract review and legal document drafting for a flat fee. Kerbis is a fairly tech-savvy lawyer—he’s a regular at the American Bar Association’s ABA Techshow conference, he hosts a podcast about subscription-based billing and other industry innovations, and he uses a Stripe-integrated web portal to streamline client payments. So it’s not surprising that he’s spent time experimenting with AI tools to help him do legal research, draft documents, and otherwise assist clients more effi…

When famous and powerful people open up about their autism experiences, it often gets attention. One example is Bill Gates sharing an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings. In it, he writes that “if I were growing up today, I probably would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum.” But although this caused some struggles, he also notes: “I wouldn’t trade the brain I was given for anything.” For many in the autistic community, this visibility can feel like a win. Seeing a successful person identifying as autistic can inspire hope and serve as a reminder: An autistic brain is not something to be ashamed of. In fact, there is much to celebrate. But…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified a recall of Frito-Lay potato chips at the highest level of risk. The newly announced classification means that under certain conditions, those who consume the chips are at risk of experiencing serious adverse health consequences or even death. Here’s what you need to know about the Frito-Lay potato chips recall. What’s happened? On December 16, 2024, Frito-Lay issued a voluntary limited recall on select packages of some of its Lay’s Classic Potato Chips. The recall was first published on the FDA’s website two days later. But this week, the FDA said in its enforcement database that it has classified the reca…

For years, Google made it incredibly easy to look up someone’s address, phone number, age, and other personal info. All you had to do was type in a person’s name and where they live, and you’d get all kinds of details from sites like Whitepages and Spokeo, which pull together that info from public and private sources. Creepy as this is, doing anything about it has always been a slog, and most people never bothered. While some companies charge hundreds of dollars per year to remove this data on your behalf, that’s not really necessary. If you have an hour or so to spare, you can hide your personal information from casual snoopers on Google, and even on the people s…

In an effort to monetize the social media platform, Elon Musk’s X announced Tuesday it would be partnering with Visa on a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment services for its upcoming X Money Account. The product, which is likely to launch in the first quarter of this year, would enable users to move funds between their bank accounts and a digital wallet in real time, similar to Venmo or Zelle, with more deals on the horizon, CNBC reported. CEO Linda Yaccarino said on X it will launch later in 2025 and is just the “first of many big announcements about X Money this year.” Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, has struggled to make X profitable …

Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been largely avoided by lawmakers, influencers, and the public. Among them: What is the future of insurance when people’s homes are increasingly located in areas of climate risk—whether wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, or the rising sea levels? Those questions have bedeviled policy makers in California—where insurance giants like State Farm, Farmers, and Allstate announced last year that they were no longer writing new policies in the state due to the surge in wildfires (in 2024 alone, firefighters a…

On Jan. 29, Asian American communities around the U.S. will ring in the Year of the Snake with community carnivals, family gatherings, parades, traditional food, fireworks and other festivities. In many Asian countries, it is a festival that is celebrated for several days. In diaspora communities, particularly in cultural enclaves, Lunar New Year is visibly and joyfully celebrated. In the Chinese zodiac, 2025 is the Year of the Snake. Different countries across Asia celebrate the new year in many ways and may follow a different zodiac. What is the Lunar New Year? The Lunar New Year — known as the Spring Festival in China, Tet in Vietnam and Seollal in Korea — i…

Have you ever worked under someone you just couldn’t wait to get away from—maybe to the point where you’d daydream about finding a new job (or hoping they’d leave instead)? That’s what we call an “Extinguisher.” These leaders sap energy from their teams and throw up roadblocks that stand in the way of success. On the flip side, “Generators” are those leaders who inspire and empower people to reach their full potential—and they’re the ones everyone wants to work for. Most of us want to steer clear of Extinguishers (and make sure we never become one ourselves). The trouble is, it’s not always obvious when you’re dealing with one—at least not until you’re already burned …

The “influencer accent” is taking over TikTok. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, scroll through your FYP page and listen. British singer-songwriter Cassyette pointed out this trend in a recent TikTok video, calling out influencers for raising their tone at the end of sentences, almost as if they’re asking a question. In the video, which has been viewed 1.2 million times, she asked: “Guys, serious question, is it just me, or is there this new influencer voice that English influencers specifically use?” Mimicking the voice, she continued: “It sounds like I’m asking you a question, which might be really confusing, but I’m actually not. I’m just going up …

Recently, I saved a major exclusive story from nearly getting killed at the eleventh hour. After developing the communications strategy, writing several versions of a pitch that a broader team of external partners would use over the course of the campaign’s phases, and personally intervening when the opportunity was nearly lost after one of the parties involved fumbled, that same party later said to me, “Thanks for your help.” Help. Twenty years in public relations, including over a decade running a successful consultancy, and my strategic leadership was reduced to “help”—a word that carries centuries of loaded meaning for Black women in America. It’s a word that seems …

The Grammy Awards will look a little bit different this week. Each year, the Recording Academy hosts a multitude of events to welcome the music industry during Grammy week and record labels do the same. However, many institutions have canceled their plans—Universal Music Group, Sony, Spotify, BMG, and Warner Music Group among them—and instead are allocating resources to help those affected by the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires. The Grammys will still take place on Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles but now will focus its attention on helping wildfire victims. How will Grammy week differ in 2025? Within days of fires ravaging the Pacific Palisad…

The Chinese AI company DeepSeek is making major waves across the tech industry after rising to prominence seemingly overnight. The artificial intelligence tool emerged in the top spot in Apple’s App Store yesterday, above competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini—and on a comparatively tiny timeline and budget. But there’s another way that DeepSeek is quietly outdoing its American competitors: through its branding. Late last week, DeepSeek released an updated version of its open-source chatbot called DeepSeek-V3, a product that has some tech analysts describing the company’s efforts as “a shot across the bow at the U.S. tech world.” DeepSeek-V3 performs si…

Recently, Chinese startup DeepSeek created state-of-the art AI models using far less computing power and capital than anyone thought possible. It then showed its work in published research papers and by allowing its models to explain the reasoning process that led to this answer or that. It also scored at or near the top in a range of benchmark tests, besting OpenAI models in several skill areas. The surprising work seems to have let some of the air out of the AI industry’s main assumption—that the best way to make models smarter is by giving them more computing power, so that the AI lab with the most Nvidia chips will have the best models and shortest route to artificial…

How often do our workplace communications open with “I hope you are well” or “I trust you are doing fine”? These “wellness checks” reflect the fact that everybody has become more conscious of the need to be kind to others. That’s a good thing. Our workplace has become a setting where the best bosses and colleagues take pride in showing sensitivity to the emotional and physical well-being of others. And for these reasons, beginning a letter or a conversation with “I hope you are well” has some merit. But even if it reflects the best of intentions, this opening should be abandoned. Here’s why—and some suggested replacements. Why to stop saying “I hope you are w…