Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

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…

Fast Company’s Maria Jose Gutierrez Chavez reports on how millennials are taking over TikTok to share memories of life during the 2008 recession—and offer tips on how to survive. View the full article

A group of about 19 Buddhist monks and their rescue dog, Aloka, are walking from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to promote world peace. Their planned route spans approximately 2,300 miles across 10 states and is expected to take 120 days to complete. Here’s what to know about their journey and how to follow along in real time: Why are the monks walking? The group has been sharing updates about their journey on their official Walk for Peace Facebook page. According to the Facebook page, the walk is intended to promote the “awareness of peace, loving kindness, and compassion across America and the world.”​ Their movement has drawn massive support …

Andrew McCutchen hasn’t had the conversation with 7-year-old son Steel yet, but the Pittsburgh Pirates star knows it’s probably coming at some point. Steel, already playing in a youth baseball league, will probably come home at one point and ask his five-time All-Star father if he can have whatever hot item his teammates might be wearing during a given spring. McCutchen plans to accommodate Steel up to a point. The oldest of McCutchen’s four children is already rocking an arm sleeve, just the way dad does. Yet if Steel is hoping his father will spring for a sliding mitt — a padded glove a player can slip over one of their hands to protect it should the hand ge…

At 12, I was walking around a very affluent neighborhood with my father and he said, “Mikey, all these people in these nice houses, not one of them could run a gas station.” That stuck with me. The gas station test isn’t about intelligence or ambition, it’s about aptitude for running a successful business. As a strong student, then an investment banking analyst, then a private equity associate, I was in this jetstream towards a career in investing. But can investors run gas stations? Does it matter? This concept was always in the back of my mind. I dove so deep into business details as an investor that my interest actually inhibited my performance. I was propelled into …

Incredibly, when you think about it, US-based venture capital has remained structurally unchanged for half a century. The well known model revolves around the 10-year fund lifecycle, the 2-and-20 fee structure, and the relentless push for growth and outsized returns. Decisions are made in mysterious ways and are known to be full of bias against founders who don’t fit a certain mold. But even as rivers of investment flow into anything touching AI, there may yet be an ironic twist to come. Venture investing involves optionality and power laws. Very few investments will generate any returns at all, but the sector is premised on the idea that within any portfolio there wi…

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 Univer…

Part of a figure skater’s job is to make their routine look as effortless and graceful as possible, as if they’re floating on ice and soaring into the air through sheer force of will. In reality, they’re often launching themselves multiple feet into the air with what amounts to sand bags on their feet; generating hundreds of pounds of centripetal force through rotations; and landing on a blade that’s just 3/16 of an inch wide. At the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, NBC is using an AI tool developed by a former MIT researcher to help audiences understand just how mind-boggling the feats of today’s Olympic athletes are. Jerry Lu Jerry Lu is a 2024 MIT gra…

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. The influence of millennials and Gen Z on B2B purchasing decisions is undeniable. As these generations continue moving into leadership roles, their approach to decision making, especially in B2B environments, is shaping how brands leverage various marketing and sales strategies.  While today’s B2B brands are aware of social media’s role in engaging these decision makers, many fail to fully integrate…

A comedy festival in the capital of Saudi Arabia has provided golden material for comedians who declined the offer on principle—or would’ve done, if they’d received an invite in the first place. The debut Riyadh Comedy Festival, running Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, bills itself as “the biggest comedy festival in the world.” In the line up of more than 50 comedians, some like Bill Burr and Pete Davidson, whose firefighter father was killed in the 9/11 attacks, came as a shock and disappointment to fans. The irony is also not lost that many of these same comics, who have publicly railed against cancel culture and preached about freedom of speech, sold out to a regime that …

Meta’s decision to end its professional fact-checking program sparked a wave of criticism in the tech and media world. Critics warned that dropping expert oversight could erode trust and reliability in the digital information landscape, especially when profit-driven platforms are mostly left to police themselves. What much of this debate has overlooked, however, is that today, AI large language models are increasingly used to write up news summaries, headlines, and content that catch your attention long before traditional content moderation mechanisms can step in. The issue isn’t clear-cut cases of misinformation or harmful subject matter going unflagged in the absence o…

Forget Donald The President. A new analysis suggests the U.S. public’s sharp lurch into polarization began in 2008, years before his first presidential campaign. Researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Political Psychology Lab tracked shifts in Americans’ views across nearly four decades and found that divisions were broadly stable through the 1990s and early 2000s, before rising steadily from 2008 onward. Using more than 35,000 responses from the American National Election Studies between 1988 and 2024, they estimate that issue polarization has increased 64% since the late 1980s, with almost all of that change occurring after 2008. The research uses a machine-lear…

It’s time to become an armchair expert on sports that you only think about every four years. In other words, the 2026 Winter Olympics have arrived. This year’s competition takes place in two Italian cities, Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, and the surrounding regions. It is not Cortina’s first rodeo, as the city hosted previously in 1956, while the country of Italy has hosted the games three times prior. The action kicked off on Wednesday, February 4, when the world’s best alpine skiers and curlers strutted their stuff. Despite the curling, the official Olympic Opening Ceremony takes place today (Friday, February 6). Here’s everything you need to know so you can …

I spend most days in rooms where four generations argue about the same spreadsheet. Boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z staff the same executive teams, often guided by directors from a fifth—the Silent Generation. Four different eras, four different mental operating systems, one quarterly earnings call. When leaders tell me, “We’ve got a generation problem,” what they usually have is a self-awareness problem. A widely cited review of so-called generational differences at work found that many popular stereotypes don’t hold up very well when you look at actual data on values and attitudes. At the same time, more recent research shows that age-mixed teams can outp…

Walk through almost any manufacturing plant today, whether the frontline professionals crushing oilseeds, processing corn, or producing ingredients, and you’ll notice something subtle but important. The tools that help turn agricultural crops into products that feed and fuel the world are getting smarter, more precise, and more capable. Most conversations about the bioeconomy focus on what farmers grow or what consumers buy. But the real transformation is happening in the middle, in the molecular steps that quietly make modern, low-carbon manufacturing possible. Catalysts and enzymes, the biological and chemical tools that convert agricultural inputs into usable material…

Dutch semiconductor chip machine maker ASML recorded a record net profit of 9.6 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in 2025 on sales of 32.7 billion euros fueled by AI-driven demand, the company reported Wednesday as it also announced plans to slash its workforce by about 1,700, about 4% of its workforce. The growth comes despite Dutch government restrictions on exports of machines that can be used to make chips that can be integrated into weapons systems. The measures, initially announced in 2023 and later expanded, are seen as part of a U.S. policy that aims at limiting China’s access to such technology. “In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more …

At the Winter Olympics, skiers, bobsledders, speedskaters, and many other athletes all have to master one critical moment: when to start. That split second is paramount during competition because when everyone is strong and skilled, a moment of hesitation can separate gold from silver. A competitor who hesitates too much will be left behind—but moving too early will get them disqualified. Though the circumstances are less intense, this paradox of hesitation applies to daily life. Waiting for the right moment to cross the street, or pausing before deciding whether to answer a call from a number you don’t recognize, are daily examples of hesitation. Importantly, some ps…

Spot the robin’s egg blue of a Tiffany box, and you know there’s luxury inside. Or the sturdy brown of the UPS truck, and you expect reliable service. Yellow Minions make you smile, and Valentino’s vivid Pink PP Collection makes you want to step out and step up. Color is more than decoration. Color is a powerful tool that drives business and creates cultural relevance. The right hues build trust, drive sales, and make brands unforgettable, while the wrong ones can cost you customers and credibility. The launch of Coke Life in a green rather than familiar red can probably contributed to the product’s uphill battle with consumers. Even tinkering with a color combina…

Snow has returned to the Philadelphia region, and along with it, the white residues on streets and sidewalks that result from the overapplication of deicers such as sodium chloride, or rock salt, as well as more modern salt alternatives. As an environmental scientist who studies water pollution, I know that much of the excess salt flows into storm drains and ultimately into area streams and rivers. For example, a citizen science stream monitoring campaign led by the Stroud Water Research Center in Chester County (about 40 miles west of Philadelphia) found that chloride concentrations in southeastern Pennsylvania streams remained higher than levels recommended by t…

Getting dressed for work in the morning can be complicated. Gone are the days of the office dress code. While most of us are happy that our bosses no longer dictate that we wear collared shirts, heels, or shift dresses to work, this means the burden of figuring out what is appropriate now lies squarely on our shoulders. As corporate culture has become increasingly more relaxed, with denim often replacing trousers, finding the right balance between formal and casual can be tricky. If you show up to work in a three-piece suit, you might look like you don’t understand your company’s values. But if you wear your favorite baggy jeans, you might come off as unserious. And loo…

Apparently any place looks better if you just say it’s Japan. That’s according to a TikTok trend, dubbed the “Japan effect.” First reported in Casey Lewis’s youth trends newsletter After School, the trend has users making slideshows of two images. For all intents and purposes they are the same, except one is labelled with the original location and the second is labelled Tokyo, Japan. The idea being that the “Japan effect” is so strong, just the location tag can filter how we perceive an ordinary street or an average American neighborhood. Scrolling through the comments, those watching these TikTok videos genuinely believe the second image looks better than the f…

As we count down to the last days of the year, we are looking ahead to what may be one of the next big work trends of 2026: shift sulking. Read on to find out what it is, and what to know about it heading into the new year. What is shift sulking? “Shift sulking is the moment when hourly workers arrive already depleted because the conditions surrounding their work—unpredictable schedules, inconsistent hours, and rising demands—are simply unsustainable,” says Silvija Martincevic, CEO of Deputy, a workforce management platform for hourly workers. “Because millions of shifts run through our platform every week, Deputy sees this deep-seated strain in the data we…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Speaking to investors earlier this month, D.R. Horton CEO Paul Romanowski said that the spring 2025 selling season for America’s-largest homebuilder is off to a slower-than-normal start. “This year’s spring selling season started slower than expected as potential homebuyers have been more cautious due to continued affordability constraints and declining consumer confidence,” Romanowski said on the company’s earnings call. It isn’t just D.R. Horton. “We do not see the seasonal pickup typically associated with the beginning of the spring sell…

Sending LinkedIn DMs—the digital version of cold-calling—can come across as pushy and is becoming a much-less-effective strategy for job seekers. Luckily, there is so much more that LinkedIn is capable of when it comes to facilitating job hunting. Here experts share their advice for engaging with companies, catching recruiters’ attention, and opening doors to new career opportunities, all without sending unsolicited messages. Optimize Your Profile for Recruiter Visibility We see many talented professionals who believe they need to constantly send direct messages to get noticed on LinkedIn, but we find the most effective approach is often more subtle. A fantastic strategy…