Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

It’s April again, and that means hundreds of millions of Americans have been logging on to H&R Block or heading to their accountant to see how much they owe in taxes for 2025. For many who file, that dreaded number can feel like a nebulous sum. So how does the federal government use that hard-earned cash? There’s a website breaks it down for you, Spotify Wrapped-style. Tax Wrapped is the latest digital project from Riley Walz, the technologist responsible for viral websites including Find My Parking Cops, a tool to track San Francisco’s parking authorities; Looksmapping, a map that ranks restaurants based on the “hotness” of their patrons; and, most recently…

My first job was an unusual one, but I learned so many lessons from it that I carried with me throughout my career. I was in my last year at Cambridge and was planning to leave the next year for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard when a British publisher approached me. He had seen me at a televised Cambridge Union debate speaking on the changing role of women and he wrote to me asking me if I would write a book on the subject. I replied, “Thank you, but I can’t write.” He replied: “Can you have lunch?” So I took the train to London and ended up getting both lunch and a book contract with a modest advance. That was my first lesson: take risks. People start…

When the NFL Draft comes to Pittsburgh next week, civic leaders will be using the spotlight to celebrate football’s Steelers—and the city’s growing reputation as a technology and artificial intelligence hub. The events include an AI pitch competition where judges including area native Mark Cuban will award startups from a 1.75 million prize pool—with preference given to companies with a presence in Pennsylvania. There’s a growing number of startups that fit that bill. As the name suggests, VC firm Valley Capital Partners is based in Silicon Valley. But for the past few years, firm general partner Mitchell Kokko has been living across the country in Pittsburgh. …

In case you didn’t hear, we just went back to the moon. NASA has been heavily promoting the Artemis II mission for months, which concluded on April 10 after its four astronauts splashed down off the coast of California. No doubt, this venture was an objectively awe-inducing feat. The space agency successfully demonstrated the most powerful rocket it’s ever built, the Space Transportation System, and tested Orion, its crew vehicle, with a crew for the first time. NASA’s astronauts also traveled farther into space than ever before, and humans saw the dark side of the lunar surface with their own eyes (another major first). But how excited did the rest of humanity ge…

There’s a good chance you have a Great Value product in your home right now: perhaps chicken nuggets in the freezer, or paper towels on your counter. The brand (Walmart’s largest private label, which launched in 1993) turns up in 9 out of 10 American households. By Nielsen’s count, that makes it the largest consumer packaged goods brand in the United States—bigger than Coca-Cola and Pampers. Until now, Great Value’s packaging has been designed to telegraph low prices: Walmart estimates that these products save the average family more than 35% annually compared to national brand equivalents. Its white background, blocky letters, and straightforward blue logo were meant…

No matter how talented and ambitious you are, your ability to do well in your job and career, and especially enjoy your professional life, largely depends on where you work—in particular, the workplace culture. Defined broadly as the formal and informal rules that determine “how we do things around here,” workplace culture is a sort of human algorithm that governs the social dynamics in organizations, much like national culture does so for countries. Although there is no such thing as a universally good culture, and there are many different ways of creating positive working environments under which people thrive, there are rather consistent patterns when it comes to t…

A lot of people go out on their own after a layoff, especially in the current economy. And when they do, they tend to focus on what they don’t know: how to find clients, how to set pricing, how to market themselves. But a long corporate career also builds some core competencies that translate directly into running a solo business. I spent 15 years in a corporate environment, including a role on an executive team. I pivoted to a new career, and then found myself laid off 18 months later. I made the snap decision to start my solo business the next day. While a lot of aspects of starting a solo business were intimidating, there were things I knew I could do well bas…

From the outside, ambitious professionals look confident and in control. Promotions, leadership roles, packed calendars—they all signal someone who has it figured out. But many high achievers are quietly struggling with something else: they’ve stopped trusting their own instincts. Ambition trains you to listen outward. Performance reviews, promotions, praise, and metrics reward the ability to meet external expectations. Over time, that habit can drown out the internal signals that tell you when something feels aligned and when it does not. Rebuilding self-trust rarely happens in a single breakthrough moment. It happens gradually as you start recognizing the pa…

Americans can’t get enough chicken—brands like Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A have risen as fast-food superstars while others race to consolidate their spot as winners of the chicken sandwich wars. Now, Chili’s is entering the game in a big way. Value menus, a staple of chain and fast-food restaurants, bundle multiple menu items at a discounted price, giving customers a full meal without the full cost. Now, Chili’s—whose value meal includes an entrée, fries, a soda, and bottomless chips and salsa—is adding chicken sandwiches to the mix. “We’re setting our sights on fast food chicken sandwiches, offering our gigantic Big Crispy and Spicy Big Crispy chicken sandwich…

Any leader who steps into the role of CEO at an established company competes with the legacy of their predecessors. Only some of us are lucky enough to have had a mentor come before them, one who was as vested in their successor’s success as they were in their own. Jerry Lee, now a retired architect and executive director of our MG2 Foundation, was my CEO predecessor at MG2 and my mentor. Jerry has always understood growth as something far deeper than financial success. From the earliest days of his career, he learned that resilience and purpose come from how we show up for others. “Part of being generous,” he once said in a commencement speech at Washington State Uni…

Earlier this year, financial technology company Block laid off 4,000 employees—around half the company’s workforce—in its push to embrace AI. Based on a recent interview, it seems like CEO Jack Dorsey has some more major changes in store for the company. And if true. . . he’ll have quite a few more performance reviews to fill out this year. In a recent episode of the Long Strange Trip podcast, Dorsey said he wants to cut middle management layers from five managers down to two or three this year. “In the most ideal case, you know, there is no layer,” he said in the podcast episode. “Everyone in the company reports to me, and that would be all 6,000 of the company. And …

Looksmaxxer leader Braden Peters—better known as Clavicular or “Clav”—likes to smash his cheekbones with a hammer and do meth to stay lean. What does he not like? Being associated with the incel community or questioned about his manosphere friendships on television. In a recent segment for 60 Minutes Australia, journalist Adam Hegarty sat down with Clavicular, but the interview was abruptly cut short when Clavicular walked out. For those unfamiliar with Clavicular, the New Jersey-born Kick streamer, 20, has risen in popularity over the last few months for sharing his looksmaxxing journey—what he calls a movement of self-improvement—where he resorts to rather extre…

AI is everywhere—in emails, slide decks, and calendars. But just because it’s omnipresent in workplaces doesn’t mean employees are embracing the tech. In fact, they could be doing just the opposite. A new report by generative AI company Writer and research firm Workplace Intelligence reveals that 29% of workers surveyed across the U.S., U.K., and Europe admit to sabotaging their company’s AI strategy. The survey included 2,400 workers: 1,200 C-suite execs and 1,200 employees, ranging from individual contributors to managers/team leads. The report details many forms of resistance. In some cases, employees said they have ignored guidelines, opted out of AI training,…

You’re scrolling Netflix at 10 pm, exhausted. You don’t read a single review or check Rotten Tomatoes. You pick the thumbnail that catches your eye: a face, a pose or gesture, a moment that sets the expected tone of the movie. Now contrast that with the last time you bought a car, or researched a medical diagnosis, or tried to understand a ballot measure you actually cared about. Different mental gears entirely. That difference has a name: the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Developed by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo in the 1980s, the ELM explains how people process persuasive information differently depending on their motivation and ability to think critically. “Elab…

Given the barrage of brands competing for your attention, some days it can feel as if the only time one can reliably expect to escape the desperate frenzy of consumerism is while asleep. However, as You Need This, the new documentary from Academy Award-winning producer Adam McKay’s Yellow Dot Studios reveals, a lot of corporations are hoping to break into that last safe haven as well. Weaving together several threads, the film, which debuted April 7 on Apple TV and Prime Video, traces Americans’ love of shopping back to our colonial past and connects it with the rise of fast fashion—all in service of a broader story about the current economic system and the catastr…

The man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home had written about AI’s purported risk to humanity and traveled from Texas to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, authorities said Monday. Authorities allege 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama threw the incendiary device about 4 a.m. Friday, setting an exterior gate at Altman’s home alight before fleeing on foot, police said. Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI’s headquarters about 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) away and threatened to burn down the building. Moreno-Gama is opposed to artificial intelligence, writing about AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending …

Seven & i Holdings, the Japan-based owner of 7-Eleven, has announced that it plans to close hundreds of stores in North America over the next year. The store closures are an attempt to reduce costs and increase profitability for the chain of convenience stores ahead of a U.S. initial public offering for its North American unit, which was recently delayed. Here’s what you need to know. 645 store closures in North America Tucked away in Seven & i Holdings’ brief summary for its fiscal year 2025 last week was news that the company plans to close more than 1,000 locations in its fiscal year 2026, which runs from March 1, 2026, to February 28, 2027. Acc…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. “If you elegantly avoid the subject of money,” says Emma Grede, “money will somehow elegantly avoid you.” Grede is most certainly not avoiding the subject of money, ambition, or other topics some women may consider taboo. In her new book, Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work …

Have you noticed the junk-food aisle at your local grocery store is looking a little, well, funky lately? Blame the youngest generations of shoppers. While the preferences of Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers are likely leading to healthier choices for all of us, they’re also reshaping the snacking industry. Some changes include snacks that are available in smaller sizes and have cleaner ingredients, according to data from Nielsen IQ, as reported by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), an industry trade group. One of the most consequential changes is that shoppers are seeking out healthier snacks. Among parents of Gen Alpha kids who are buying snack…

With the growing momentum of the “No Kings” protests, activists have increasingly turned to the 3.5% rule—Erica Chenoweth’s observation, based on over a century of historical data, that once a protest movement mobilizes 3.5% of the population, it achieves its goals within a year. As a result, many have begun to treat the 3.5% threshold as a primary objective. Not so fast. Even Chenoweth herself has cautioned that the rule is “a descriptive finding, not necessarily a prescriptive one.” Her subsequent research has shown that at least one uprising—in Bahrain—reached a 6% participation rate and still failed. In fact, most successful movements never reach the 3.5% level at…

CoreWeave is having a very eventful week, and its stock price reflects it. Shares of the AI cloud-computing firm (Nasdaq: CRWV) are up more than 37% in five days following deals with Meta Platforms and Anthropic. On Thursday, April 9, CoreWeave announced a six-year agreement with social media giant Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram. CoreWeave will supply AI cloud capacity to Meta through December 2032. “The dedicated capacity will be deployed across multiple locations and will include some of the initial deployments of the Nvidia Vera Rubin platform,” CoreWeave stated in a release. “This distributed approach is designed to optimize performance,…