Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. As ResiClub has closely documented, Florida has been the epicenter of U.S. housing market weakness in 2025. However, KB Home executives now believe the worst may be behind them—at least for their business—in the Sunshine State. While giant homebuilder KB Home—which has a $4.3 billion market capitalization—isn’t ready to call it an inflection point for the entire state, it believes its price cuts in Florida were more than sufficient to stabilize demand for its business. In fact, it may have cut too deeply in Florida and could now need to raise pri…

It’s time we recognize the compelling case for “wellness governance.” Being a leader today requires a new level of performance. One that overrides fatigue, can suppress internal signals, and absorbs constant urgency, all while rapidly context-switching. Simply said, modern leadership demands have increased, and not everyone is—or wants to stay—on board. Today’s leaders face growing expectations, dynamic responsibilities, and constant pressure to perform amid deep uncertainty and an ever-accelerating business ecosystem. This is reshaping the role of leadership into something increasingly challenging to sustain, and driving CEOs like HSBC’s Noel Quinn to step back a…

Think about the last time you made a purchase using your phone. Maybe you were at a coffee shop and when your turn came, you opened your payment app, tapped your phone on the payment device, grabbed your cappuccino, and were done. Quick and easy. Maybe too quick and easy. Did the coffee shop miss a chance to engage with you? Did Mastercard miss an opportunity to show how their brand made this “priceless” moment possible? Did you miss an opportunity to teach your 8-year-old daughter a lesson on the value of money? As business leaders in an increasingly digital landscape, we’ve learned to treat “friction” as a dirty word. “Remove friction at all costs” is the ra…

Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) was never really meant to serve Pittsburgh. When the modern airport opened in 1992, it was built as a hub for U.S. Airways, primarily serving as a connection point for passengers heading elsewhere. Tens of millions of passengers used PIT annually, though only a small number of them were actually flying into or out of Greater Pittsburgh. Most stayed in the terminal, leaving one gate only to enter another, which was fine—until it wasn’t. “In 2004, the hub went away. Passengers plummeted. All those connecting passengers left,” says Christina Cassotis, who came on as CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority in 2015. After years …

What does it mean to be “smart” or “dumb”? Few questions are more deceptively complex. Most of us have strong opinions about what those words mean, but scratch the surface and it becomes clear that “smart” and “dumb” are slippery, subjective constructs. What seems smart to one person may strike another as naive, arrogant, or shortsighted. Worse still, our own perception of what’s smart can shift over time. Yesterday’s clever decision can look like today’s regrettable blunder. Take Jay Gatsby, for instance. His grand plan to reinvent himself, amass a fortune, and win back Daisy once seemed like the height of romantic intelligence; but in the end, it revealed itself…

Six years ago, the commercial production process for Fortune 500 companies, tech innovators, and global giants meant six-figure budgets, and months of research, scripting, and voice actor castings. Every campaign was a marathon of design thinking and strategic storytelling. Today, however, with the help of AI tools, those very steps can unfold in a fraction of the time, and a quarter of the cost. For marketing and communications leaders, the landscape has drastically shifted overnight. The most innovative brand leaders have always thrived on speed. What allowed them to exist beyond the curve was their ability to stay ahead of the story, and see around corners before a…

A new year has brought a new pay rate for more than 8.3 million Americans. The minimum wage is going up in 19 states this week, with workers in Hawaii earning as much as $2 more an hour. Collectively, these pay increases will boost paychecks by a total of $5 billion, according to the Economic Policy Institute. While the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour hasn’t budged in nearly two decades, and still applies in eight states, many states and cities have steadily been increasing their minimum wages to well over double that amount. Seattle’s minimum wage, at $21.30 per hour, is now nearly triple that federal threshold. As is the case with Seattle, 47 cities …

Black, unassuming, about the size of a pack of chewing gum: On the surface, the Fire TV 4K Select stick released in mid-October looks just like any other streaming device made by Amazon. Plug it into your TV, and you’ll be greeted by Amazon’s tried-and-true living room interface, complete with icons for popular streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video. And yet, the Select streaming stick is unlike any of its predecessors. That’s because the device is running Vega – a new, Linux-based operating system Amazon has quietly been building over the past couple of years as a replacement for its legacy, Android-based Fire OS. The company plans to eventually la…

Most people don’t realize how overstimulated they are until they finally step away from the noise. As an executive at a hospitality brand that helps guests reconnect with nature, I see it all the time: Guests arrive tense and distracted, constantly checking their phones. But after just a day or two offline in nature, something shifts. You can see it in their posture, their breath, their pace. They didn’t realize how much they needed to disconnect until they did. It’s not just about screens, though screen time is a big part of it. It’s the entire rhythm of modern life—always on, always reacting. That’s why more people are rethinking what luxury really means. Luxury…

Eat this, not that. This one food will cure everything. That food is poison. Cut this food out. Try this diet. Don’t eat at these times. Eat this food and you’ll lose weight. With society’s obsession with food, health, and weight, statements like these are all over social media, gyms, and even healthcare offices. But do you need to follow rules like these to be healthy? Most often the answer is no, because health and nutrition is much more complex and nuanced than a simple list of what to eat and what to avoid. Despite this, rules about health and nutrition are so common because of diet culture—a morality imposed by society that sees falling outside the arbitrary idea…

I revisited my definition of strategy several years ago and realized recently that I hadn’t written about it—just presented it privately to executive teams in the context of my strategy work with them. I decided to rectify that oversight by writing this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) piece on it called Revisiting my Definition of Strategy: Compelling Desired Customer Action. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. Need for a DefinitionFor any field to develop, the terms used in the field must be defined. Otherwise, participants can’t discuss the field intelligently, and it is therefore hard for the field to advance. I experienced that phen…

If you’re familiar with Gallup data about employee engagement, they have been playing one of their Top 40 hits for decades now. It’s a classic we’ve all heard. The tune? “People don’t quit companies; they quit managers.” We’ve known this for years, but here we are, still stuck in the same leadership crisis. Too many managers don’t understand the difference between managing work and leading people. Here’s the plain truth: You manage the work; you lead humans. And when leaders miss that, the culture and performance pay the price. The brutal truths So, if you’re willing to take a hard look in the mirror, here are seven brutal truths about leadership every leader n…

We know that having friends at work is good for your performance and happiness. But could ChatGPT replace your happy hour bestie? According to a new study from KPMG that surveyed more than 1,000 professionals, almost all (99%) would be open to the idea of an AI chatbot assuming the role of close friend or trusted companion at work. That same study teases out a separate, also compelling thread: 45% of workers reported feelings of loneliness at work. That’s a huge jump, up nearly double from last year. On top of that, the survey found that friendship seems to be a big priority for most workers—even over money. More than half (57%) of those surveyed said they wo…

Did you buy a new pink dress to watch the Barbie movie, only to never wear it again? An Oura ring because your favorite TikTok influencer had it? A new pair of baggy jeans because ’90s fashion is making a comeback? Niche trends fueled by social media can influence your shopping decisions. Participating often brings some happiness and a sense of community, but the problem comes when you do it so often that you’re not using your money to achieve your financial goals, or worse, you get into debt, said Erika Rasure, chief financial wellness advisor for Beyond Finance, a financial services company. Whether it’s coastal grandma or clean girl aesthetic, microtrends can take a …

Remember CDs? There’s a new company betting that, if you don’t already, you’re about to. Jewel is a Norwegian company specializing in manufacturing high-end display cases for CDs. The brand recently soft-launched online in Europe and is planning to expand to the U.S. in the coming months. It offers products that range from an $130 freestanding case that fits four CDs to a $300, 16-slot case designed to be mounted directly onto the wall. Launching a CD-based brand more than 20 years after CDs hit their peak feels like a counterintuitive prospect. After all, how many people even own a CD player these days? But Marius Brandl, Jewel’s founder, says the brand’s thesis …

Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk turned to the actors from Apple’s 2000s “Get a Mac” ads to differentiate its GLP-1 medication amid a rising sea of competitors. On January 20, the Danish pharmaceutical company announced its “There’s Only One Ozempic” campaign starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. The actors are reprising their roles from Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads playing the personifications of a name brand and the alternative—but now for weight-loss drugs. Long personified Mac in the original Apple campaign by dressing in a more youthful, casual way than Hodgman, who personified a stuffy, dorky PC by wearing glasses and a suit and tie with a closely cropped haircut. …

Being asked to apply for a promotion is often framed as an unqualified win: validation that your work is seen and your potential recognized. Yet for many high-achieving professionals, that invitation can spark as much ambivalence as excitement. Because the question isn’t only “Can I do this?” It’s also “Do I want to live this way?” Promotions can be career accelerators, but they also reconfigure your days, your priorities, and your sense of balance. The challenge is learning to evaluate the opportunity without being swept away by it—to discern whether it’s truly aligned with this season of your life. The recognition feels good—until the logistics set in T…

Many news outlets have reported an increase—or surge—in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, diagnoses in both children and adults. At the same time, health care providers, teachers, and school systems have reported an uptick in requests for ADHD assessments. These reports have led some experts and parents to wonder whether ADHD is being overdiagnosed and overtreated. As researchers who have spent our careers studying neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, we are concerned that fears about widespread overdiagnosis are misplaced, perhaps based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the condition. Understanding ADHD as one end of a spectrum Discu…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on the terms of Nvidia’s investment in OpenAI, in which the GPU maker gets guaranteed chip sales, an equity stake, and likely a product road map for years to come. I also look at the industry’s fixation on huge models and the quiet appeal of small ones. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and f…

Whiskey has always carried weight. Think crystal tumblers, low-lit bars, Don Draper pouring a glass after a big win, or Sinatra crooning with a dram in hand. These rituals and symbols have long defined the category, but in 2025 they may also have held it back. While other “dusty” drinks made surprising comebacks this summer (see Bacardi’s Breezer relaunch, Smirnoff Ice chasing Gen Z, even cask ale enjoying a 50% surge among 18–24-year-old pub-goers), whiskey didn’t seize the moment. The idea of making whiskey more appealing to younger drinkers isn’t exactly breaking news. But it matters now more than ever, thanks to a new opportunity with this demographic. According t…