Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

For decades, America has told a singular story about success, suggesting that the only acceptable path to success is a four-year degree. Any other trajectory was treated as a detour. Fortunately, that story is changing with new, acceptable ways to achieve success. At both the federal and state levels, the U.S. is gradually reinventing its education system to value skills, not just diplomas. From new federal initiatives like Workforce Pell to state-led Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), policy is beginning to catch up to what the economy has been signaling for years. As a country, we need electricians, plumbers, welders, and builders as much as we need white-collar wor…

As recently as 2021, Figma was a one-product company. That product was Figma Design, the dominant tool for creating app and web interfaces. The company’s subsequent addition of offerings such as FigJam (whiteboarding) and Figma Slides (presentations) was hardly a frenzied land grab. But the announcements Figma made this week at its Config conference in San Francisco cover so much ground that my impulse was to interpret them as a massive, sprawling new attempt to take on . . . well, almost everybody. Figma Make turns prompts into AI-generated code? Shades of GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and numerous other AI programming tools. Figma Sites provides features for constructing, h…

The social media platform X said Thursday it has blocked access to jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu ’s account in Turkey, complying with a Turkish court order — the latest measure targeting a key rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, Elon Musk‘s X said that while the company abided by the order, it disagrees with it and is legally challenging it. It said X complied to avoid severe punishments, such as the throttling of the whole platform in Turkey. “X has been and will continue to object to removal orders including government requests in courts to protect users when those requests do not align with principles of free expression, due process, or oth…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2026-27 school year has officially opened. Despite the U.S. government shutdown, the Education Department will continue to process the FAFSA. If you plan to attend college next year, Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, recommends that you fill it out as soon as you can. If it’s your first time applying, here’s what you need to know: How does the FAFSA work? The FAFSA is a free government application that uses students’ and their families’ financial information to determine whether they can get financial aid from the federal gov…

Last week, subscribers of Microsoft’s Game Pass were in an uproar over plans to hike the price from $19.99 per month to $29.99. One of the most surprising reactions, however, came not from gamers, but from retail partner GameStop. While you’ll pay $30 per month if you sign up for Game Pass Ultimate directly with Microsoft, you’ll get the same old price — for some indefinite period — if you stick with GameStop. “Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is still $19.99 a month with us. You’re welcome,” the retailer wrote in a social media post. Gamers can subscribe to GamePass directly from their XBox, via their PC, and on the web. Those who plan to take advantage of the lower price …

Today (Monday, September 29) is National Coffee Day. To celebrate, many coffee shops and eateries are promoting discounts and freebies. Keep these National Coffee Day deals and freebies in mind when stopping to get your daily dose of caffeine. Bruegger’s Bagels Rewards members can get a free hot or iced coffee with a purchase when ordering in the app. Burger King Burger King Royal Perks rewards members can get a free medium iced coffee with a minimum purchase of $1 when ordering through the Burger King app. Members must activate the offer before placing an order. Caribou Coffee On September 29, receive a free medium hot or iced classic latte with …

If you have ever interviewed for a job, there is a non-trivial probability that you have encountered “tricky” or quirky interview questions. These are questions that are intentionally unexpected, abstract, or only loosely related to the actual requirements of the role. Rather than systematically assessing job-relevant skills, they are designed to surprise candidates, test composure, or signal creativity. Interviewers often defend these questions as clever ways to evaluate problem-solving ability, cultural fit, or performance under pressure. The evidence tells a different story. Decades of research in industrial-organizational psychology show that unstructured, braintease…

It’s World Happiness Day, otherwise known as International Day of Happiness, but if you’re not feeling the love, you’re not alone. Many Americans aren’t that happy, according to the World Happiness Report 2025, which ranks happiness across nations. In fact, America doesn’t even make the top 10 or top 20 happiest countries in the world, and instead now sits at No. 24—earning its lowest ranking yet. (Spoiler alert: Finland once again is the happiest.) The report, which asked people from 140 countries to evaluate their life, looked at six major factors to predict happiness: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and perceptions…

You don’t wait for the sidewalk. You don’t check an app to see if it’s working. You don’t wonder if it’s meant for someone else. Sidewalks are just there—always available, always on. And when they’re well designed, you barely notice them. They quietly support everything: commerce, mobility, safety, health, and freedom of movement. Sidewalks don’t require instructions. They’re intuitive. Step on, move forward. That’s the framing we need for local bus service. A well-run bus system is an express sidewalk—a piece of infrastructure that dramatically expands the number of destinations within walking distance. Unfortunately, buses aren’t thought of that way. In most Ame…

We’ve all heard the familiar directive: “We’re going through another reorganization and will be cutting 20% of headcount, but priorities remain the same and, in fact, may expand.” Meanwhile, you’re being told to “just make it work” without offering additional resources, guidance, or support. This conversation, unfortunately, isn’t unique. It represents the silent crisis engulfing middle management across America. Middle managers—who oversee 90% of the U.S. workforce—are facing unprecedented challenges in 2025. Recent KPMG data reveals nearly one-third are actively disengaged, while 62% report unsustainable stress levels as they struggle with expanded responsibilities am…

When a fake wedding announcement featuring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson popped up in a late-year print issue The Boston Globe, it looked like a star-studded romcom was underway. But “The Drama,” indie studio A24’s latest film, has stirred controversy, and most audiences don’t know what its about. The film’s trailers, the first of which was dropped just a day after the wedding announcement, revealed a somewhat vague plot line—Zendaya and Pattinson play Emma and Charlie, a couple grappling with the aftermaths of a confession as they ready for their wedding. Speculation on the film’s big twist ignited a flurry of conspiracies and theories online, ranging from mere c…

MrBeast has again defended his philanthropy‑as‑content, clapping back at critics who say he is “only in it for the views.” On April 13, in a post on X, Jimmy Donaldson—better known as MrBeast—rebutted accusations of virtue‑signalling for profit, pointing out that his two worst‑performing videos this year are the charitable ones. He shared a screenshot of his “Top Recent Videos” and noted that, of the ten most recent uploads, “I Helped 2,000 People Walk Again” and “Watch This Video To Feed 1 Person In Need” had the lowest view counts in their first 22 ½ hours online (24.3 million and 21.3 million views, respectively). By contrast, the top performers—“Beat Ronaldo, Win $1…

Even though Tarana Burke is still correcting some past misconceptions about the #MeToo movement that went mainstream about eight years ago—it’s not dead, for example, and it wasn’t a witch hunt—she’s focused on the future. Specifically, the movement’s founder said organizing has already begun for the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. “I’m really looking forward to what we can do to build on the campaign we started in 2024,” Burke, chief vision officer of Me too. International, said Saturday during a discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “I’m really excited about the idea of building a constituency; imagine us voting along the lines of our survivorship.” One go…

The vertical video feed is coming to the Netflix app. The streaming service announced Tuesday that in the coming weeks it will pilot the new feature, which it will populate with short-form clips of movies and shows tailored to the end-user’s viewing habits. Netflix users will be able to swipe through the feed to watch, save, or share content with friends, just like Tiktok. Yep the user interface that took over social media is making its way into streaming—but most importantly for Netflix, it’s a play for improving its own content discovery engine. “We know that swiping through a vertical feed on social media apps is an easy way to browse video content, and we also know …

CC BY-ND Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted office life, American workplaces are settling into a new rhythm. Employees in remote-friendly jobs now spend an average of 2.3 days each week working from home, a research team that tracks remote employment has found. And when you look at all workers – and not just those in remote-friendly positions – they’re working remotely 1.4 days a week, or 28% of the time. That’s a huge change from 2019, when remote work accounted for only 7% of the nation’s paid workdays, even if it’s down from the height of the pandemic in 2020, when 61.5% of all work was remote. And it’s a giant leap from 1965, the dawn of telewor…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Have you ever wanted to break up with your doctor—not because of the practitioner, but because of the difficulty in engaging with their practice? You’re not alone. I’ve left doctors for that reason and McKinsey has found that nearly 25% of consumers have delayed care because they hate everything about the process. System complexity is not doctors’ fault, but making the care experience easier for pati…

It’s spring, and nature is pulling me away from my computer as I write this. The sun is shining, the world is warming up, and the birds are chirping away. And that got me thinking: What if a smartphone app could translate all those chirps for us? No, I’m not talking about an app that will translate bird sounds to human speech (although that would be neat). Rather, the app we’re about to go over tells you what specific species is making any bird sound around you—kind of like Shazam, only for nature. All you have to do is hold up your phone and press one button. It’s an app I’ve personally used a bunch over the years and happily rediscovered this year. It’s espe…

For the past 30 years, the web browser has been the primary way humans navigate the internet. It makes sense, then, that as artificial intelligence becomes more humanlike in its capabilities, it would use the same tool. That’s basically the idea behind AI-powered browsers, which are definitely having an “it” moment now that OpenAI has launched Atlas, its own web browser that incorporates ChatGPT as an ever-present helper. Atlas follows Perplexity’s Comet, which arrived in the summer to quickly capture the imagination of what an AI browser could do. In both cases, the user can, at any time, call up an AI assistant (aka agent), able to perform multistep tasks—such as navig…

Clippy, the animated paper clip that annoyed Microsoft Office users nearly three decades ago, might have just been ahead of its time. Microsoft introduced a new artificial intelligence character called Mico (pronounced MEE’koh) on Thursday, a floating cartoon face shaped like a blob or flame that will embody the software giant’s Copilot virtual assistant and marks the latest attempt by tech companies to imbue their AI chatbots with more of a personality. Copilot’s cute new emoji-like exterior comes as AI developers face a crossroads in how they present their increasingly capable chatbots to consumers without causing harm or backlash. Some have opted for faceless s…

A Jesuit priest says he prefers going to prison than paying a 500-euro ($541) fine for participating in a climate activists’ street blockade in the southern German city of Nuremberg. The Rev. Jörg Alt started serving his nearly month-long prison sentence on Tuesday in Nuremberg. “Today, I am starting my 25-day alternative custodial sentence in Nuremberg prison,” he said before entering the prison. “I don’t like doing this, especially as my health is no longer the best at the age of 63. But I see no alternative, because it’s the last form of protest I have left in this specific case to draw attention to important issues” such as climate change. In November, Alt…

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” opened with $345 million in worldwide sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, notching the second-best global debut of the year and potentially putting James Cameron on course to set yet more blockbuster records. Sixteen years into the “Avatar” saga, Pandora is still abundant in box-office riches. “Fire and Ash,” the third film in Cameron’s science-fiction franchise, launched with $88 million domestically and $257 million internationally. The only film to open bigger in 2025 was “Zootopia 2” ($497.2 million over three days). In the coming weeks, “Fire and Ash” will have the significant benefit of the highly lucrative holiday moviegoing corrid…

Every year, Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley issues a challenge to his team that would make most executives—and their teams—break into a cold sweat: Reinvent 50% of the Australian Open. Not subtle changes or a few tweaks. Half of everything, so no two tournaments are ever the same. Today, to help satisfy Tiley’s mandate, the event has evolved into a three-pronged innovation machine. There’s an in-house R&D lab that’s been developing analytics, broadcast, and fan engagement advancements for more than 15 years, alongside a startup accelerator that’s piloted 40 companies, and a $40 million VC fund to capitalize those startups. “The 50% innovation challenge creates some…

As the founder of World Central Kitchen, renowned chef and humanitarian José Andrés has truly mastered the art of leading through crisis. Andrés shares insights from his new book, Change the Recipe—a candid collection of personal stories that doubles as a playbook for navigating uncertainty, breaking rules, and leading with heart. José also explores how AI is poised to reshape the food industry and more. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navi…