Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

The Super Bowl is a lot of things. NFL title game. Pop concert. Cultural institution. It’s also The Only Day People Care About Ads. That last one is worth a lot of money to the brands who decide to advertise during the big game. Back in 2000, E-Trade used its Super Bowl ad to joke about how much money it spent. A chimp hits play on a tape deck, climbs up on a lawn chair, and proceeds to clap and dance for 30 seconds. The tagline? “Well, we just wasted $2,000,000.” But how much does a Super Bowl commercial really cost? We’ve all probably seen headlines about the outrageous costs of a single 30-second spot, which, this year, is nearing about $8 million. And i…

While having lunch with a few fellow business owners recently, our conversation turned to the topic on every entrepreneur’s mind—artificial intelligence. It turns out that AI tools have quietly woven themselves into our daily routines, whether we’re brainstorming, researching, or synthesizing data, were also using it in slightly different ways. Tools like ChatGPT are like Swiss Army Knives for productivity and creativity. It’s no surprise that in the latest McKinsey Global Survey on AI, 65% of organizations reported regularly using AI—the technology is here to stay. That said, leaning too heavily on AI can go awry. If you delegate content creation to ChatGPT, for …

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Healthcare navigation was supposed to be the ultimate guide—a GPS for the healthcare maze. Instead it’s more like an old paper map with half the roads missing. What was meant to simplify care has become just another layer of complexity, dressed up as concierge support but too often steering people based on cost, not quality. At a time when AI, telehealth, and integrated care mo…

It may be winter and there may be a biting chill in the air, but the dozen men and women who have packed this small sauna room in east London are happily sweating away in their swimwear. It’s more than 90 degrees Celcius (194 Fahrenheit) in here — and it’s about to get even hotter. As ice blocks infused with lavender oil melt over sizzling hot stones, releasing fragrant steam, “sauna master” Oliver Beryl turns on some ambient music and starts to vigorously wave a towel in a circular motion above his head to spread overpowering waves of dry heat around the room. “Now try finding someone and sit back to back with them,” Beryl suggests. “Or, if you want, maintain…

The intense red color of classic lipstick traditionally comes from an unlikely source: crushed bugs that live on cactus plants in South America. It takes tens of thousands of the ground-up insects to make just a pound of the vivid red dye. The red coloring, called carmine, also shows up in food—from red velvet cupcakes to sausages, gummy candies, and some versions of strawberry yogurt. In the cosmetics industry, major brands started moving away from carmine in the 2010s because of ethical concerns. A growing number of consumers wanted vegan makeup. (Crushing bugs also creates an allergen because of other bug parts that end up in the dye.) But because synthetic dyes do…

If you’ve ever felt like your pet knows exactly when to pull you away from the stress of your computer screen, you aren’t alone. A landmark study surveying over 30,000 pet owners in 20 different countries found that 78% of dog or cat owners report that their pets remind them to take breaks during work or tasks, with 50% of the participants saying this happens daily. The study, which was conducted by YouGov on behalf of Mars, is the largest international survey of its kind in the world. The findings resonated deeply with David Reilly, global VP at Mars. “If my dog’s at daycare, I don’t take a break at lunch time,” he says. “But if my dog’s not at daycare, som…

Consider a self-employed entrepreneur who racked up thousands of dollars in medical bills after a visit to the emergency department due to lack of employer-sponsored health insurance. Or the entrepreneur whose business never got off the ground—not because they lacked skill or demand, but because the burden of complicated taxes or owing money they didn’t expect made them walk away before they could even get started. This sentiment underscores how current policies can deter potential entrepreneurs from leaving traditional employment. Despite all of this, in recent years, solopreneurship—the practice of running a business without a team or employees—has grown drastically…

For more than two decades, users have turned to search engines like Google, typed in a query, and received a familiar list of 10 blue links—the gateway to the wider web. Ranking high on that list, through search engine optimization (SEO), has become a $200 billion business. But in the past two years, search has changed. Companies are now synthesizing and summarizing results into AI-generated answers that eliminate the need to click through to websites. While this may be convenient for users (setting aside concerns over hallucinations and accuracy) it’s bad for businesses that rely on search traffic. One such business, educational tech firm Chegg, has sued Google i…

Tucked in a forest of trees in Luxembourg City is a hulking piece of urban infrastructure that, if all goes to plan, will soon be taken over by birds. The structure is a two-columned concrete water tower that has been designed to function as a habitat for local and migratory birds. In contrast to most essential elements of a city’s infrastructure that usually try to avoid being infested by wild animals, this water tower had birds in mind from the very start. The water tower habitat was designed by Temperaturas Extremas Arquitectos SLP, an architecture firm based in Madrid. The project’s site is part of Natura 2000, a European ecological network of areas dedicated to…

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit said last week hackers had stolen digital tokens worth around $1.5 billion, in what researchers called the biggest crypto heist of all time. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said the crypto was taken from a “cold wallet” – a digital wallet usually stored offline and so supposedly more secure – that was used for ether tokens. Blockchain research firm Elliptic said the hack was more than double the last-biggest crypto heist and “is almost certainly the single largest known theft of any kind in all time.” The crypto industry has suffered a series of thefts, prompting questions about the security of customer funds, with hacking hauls totalling more…

Tax Day is right around the corner—an annual reminder that without the option to file jointly, singles pay more per dollar earned than married people. Tax advantages are just one of more than 1,000 legal and economic benefits married couples enjoy, a disparity worsened by marketplace and employer practices. Despite its disadvantages, single living is on the rise. While the average age of first marriage was just 21 in 1960, today it has risen to 29. Half the adults in the U.S. are unmarried, and half of them aren’t seeking a relationship. As many as a third of Zoomers may never tie the knot. But this shift is more than cultural—it’s redefining the rules of personal…

Andrew Brodsky is a management professor at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also CEO of Ping Group and has received numerous awards, including being chosen by Poets & Quants as one of the Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors of 2023. What’s the big idea? Instant messaging, email, video calls, and other digital tools have largely replaced in-person communication for most workplaces. We have all become virtual communicators, and with this comes a new set of rules for interpersonal success. The PING framework distills best practices for optimal outcomes when relying on technology to communicate. Below, Andrew shares five key i…

Under the rally cry of “Altadena Is Not for Sale,” the people of the multi-racial, middle-class town of Altadena, California, are aiming to take charge of their own recovery and rebuilding from the Los Angeles Eaton fires, which killed 17 people, burned more than 14,000 acres, and destroyed over 9,000 homes and businesses. Three community organizations and the local Native American tribes reflect the various perspectives, and collective unity, on how Altadena might avoid the fate of other communities whose recovery ended up being controlled by big developers. Altadena: Not For Sale, My Tribe Rise, and Altadena Strong are three community organizations who have cohosted…

Her voice cracking with emotion as she stood under the fluorescent lights, Janice Blanock asked her local legislators in southwestern Pennsylvania to take a moment and leaf through the photos of her son that she’d handed them. “There’s really nothing different that I can say to you that I haven’t said already over the last several months,” she told supervisors for the tiny township of Cecil outside Pittsburgh. “I can, however, share these photographs. These are just a few of the many pictures we have of our son Luke, from the time he became ill until before he died.” The supervisors were gathered to vote on a zoning ordinance amendment that would greatly increase …

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. From a young age, feedback from authority figures shape our self-perception. Unfortunately, too many young people internalize the message that they should only pursue what comes easily to them. I know this firsthand. As a student, I was interested in STEM but found it challenging. After an educator told me to focus on what I was “good at,” I believed I could never succeed in sci…

Recently, an ear infection and subsequent case of hives kept me in bed for a week. The first few days, I was tired and told myself to rest. But the rest of the week? Well, I enjoyed staying in bed, drinking coffee, and lingering over Wordle, Spelling Bee, and emails. So, the following week, I stayed in bed a little longer than usual, too. Turns out, I was hurkle-durkling. Hurkle-durkle is a Scottish term that originated in the 1800s. It means “to lounge in bed when you should be up and about.” While it was meant to be judgmental, it became a TikTok self-care trend with mindful mornings that prioritize mental health over productivity. In the U.S., the practice goe…

Does your manager hate to delegate tasks? It might sound like a good thing—after all, that means less work for you. But, just like having a micromanaging boss is no fun, having a manager who takes on much of your work can create a work environment that is both stifling and unproductive. We asked three experts about what causes some bosses to act this way and how to encourage your supervisor to step aside and allow you to do your job. What is a ‘snowplow manager’? A “snowplow manager” is a supervisor who takes on excessive work themselves rather than delegating to their team, says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of videoconferencing tech company Owl Labs. His team recentl…

The dramatic images of wealthy neighborhoods burning during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires captured global attention, but the damage was much more widespread. Many working-class families lost their homes, businesses, and jobs. In all, more than 16,000 structures—most of them homes—were destroyed, leaving thousands of people displaced. The shock of this catastrophic loss has been reverberating across Southern California, driving up demand for rental homes and prices in an already unaffordable and competitive housing market. Many residents now face rebuilding costs that are expected to skyrocket. Climate-related disasters like this often have deep roots in p…

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. Interim leadership is on the rise in the U.S. Nearly a quarter of new CEOs named in the first two months of 2025 were hired on an interim basis, versus 8% in the same period last year, according to a recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The surge in interim leadership co…

A significant proportion of the U.S. workforce is pushing back against Artificial Intelligence adoption at their jobs. According to a new study by generative AI platform Writer, 31% of employees—including 41% of Gen Z workers—admit to “sabotaging” their company’s AI strategy by refusing to adopt AI tools and applications. As a result, roughly two-third of executives say Generative AI adoption has led to tension and division within their organization, with 42% suggesting it’s “tearing their company apart.” “There’s active resistance where it’s like, ‘I really don’t believe in this strategy whatsoever, and I’m either going to completely ignore it, or do my own thing…

Starbucks’s new CEO, Brian Niccol, made a bet last September that the company could draw customers back into its stores by reintroducing personal touches you might see at smaller, third-place sort of coffee shops, like handwritten names on to-go cups. Here we are about four months later, and Starbucks has beaten Wall Street expectations, announcing $9.4 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of last year during its earnings call Tuesday. Niccol attributed the chain’s performance to “getting Back to Starbucks and those things that have always set us apart.” (Though it’s worth noting that the company’s sales are still down year over year.) Starbucks developed a b…

Lore isn’t just for games like The Elder Scrolls or films like The Lord of the Rings—online, it has evolved into something entirely new. The Old English word made the shortlist for Oxford University Presss’ 2024 Word of the Year (though it ultimately lost to brain rot). Oxford defines lore as “a body of (supposed) facts, background information, and anecdotes relating to someone or something, regarded as knowledge or required for full understanding or informed discussion of the subject in question.” Historically, the term has been tied to teaching and knowledge-sharing, with roots stretching back nearly a thousand years. Today, however, lore has evolved into intern…

As climate change causes increasingly severe natural disasters, it’s also increasingly threatening our art, culture, and shared history. In the recent Los Angeles wildfires, billions of dollars in fine art may have been consumed; architectural gems by Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, and others were destroyed; and the warehouse of Belmont Music Publishing, a repository chronicling Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg, was lost in what the composer’s son called “a profound cultural blow.” For museums, archives, and libraries, which often operate as nonprofits on limited budgets, meeting these increased risks poses significant financial constraints. This challenge …

Your insurance needs change over time. The policies that work for a single, 20-something professional renting an apartment with three roommates may be completely wrong for the same person after marriage, babies, and a cozy mortgage in a good school district. If you’re struggling to determine how your coverage should change over time, the following guidelines can help. Auto insurance: Follow the bell curve Basic car insurance offers liability coverage, in case you cause an accident that injures a third party or damages their property. This is the kind of insurance that nearly every state in the nation requires drivers to carry. While liability coverage protects …

Nearly 33% of women say they feel anxious about their careers in 2025, and another 17% feel overwhelmed. Close to 60% of women say current events are increasing stress levels and disrupting focus at work. These findings come from recent data from careers platform InHerSight. They overlay already concerning data about surging anxiety across the U.S. In 2024, 43% of adults reported feeling more anxious than they did the previous year, compared to 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022, according to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association. Anxiety about career progression and stress from current events are distinct challenges. However, they share a common thread. Both af…