Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

I’ve spent much of my career in fintech, but some of the most inspiring innovations I’ve seen came from a town most people have never heard of. In early 2025, Ipava State Bank, a tiny community institution in western Illinois, embedded a small amount of life protection into every eligible checking and savings account. No app to install, no portals, no extra steps—coverage was calculated from balances and capped per account. Six months in, reported results included $3.45 million in protection delivered, 7% deposit growth, 4.8% higher average balances, and a 25% increase in customers reaching maximum coverage levels—at a time when many peers were losing deposits. Th…

Leadership listening is in sharp decline, and the consequences run deep. A survey from People Insights found that only 56% of employees believe senior leaders genuinely make an effort to listen, which is down from 65% two years ago. We live in a world where algorithms reward noise. Visibility has become a proxy for value, and airtime is the metric that many use to measure leadership presence. But real influence doesn’t come from speaking more. It actually comes from listening better. Influence grows through empathy, trust, and the ability to see and understand people. The disconnection crisis When leaders stop listening, people stop contributing. Ideas fade…

Colleagues are a critical part of what makes your work experience enjoyable and meaningful. You interact with your colleagues and (in the best of cases) create a neighborhood of peers that you can rely on both to push the work forward and to share the joys and tribulations of the workday. That’s why annoying colleagues can be a particular thorn. When you have a peer at work that you don’t want to deal with, it disrupts the flow of your day and diminishes your intrinsic enjoyment of work. So, what can you do to deal with annoying coworkers? A lot of that depends on what is making them annoying. Here are a few possibilities. Missing social norms One thing th…

Venture capital powers innovation, yet investment decisions still favor the familiar. From the original design of the industry to the women reshaping its future, the patterns that drive investment may be poised for change. Is venture capital ready for a new outfit? On October 25, 1988, the Women’s Business Ownership Act (H.R. 5050) was signed into law, granting women the right to own and operate businesses without a male cosigner. This landmark legislation was a breakthrough for women’s economic independence. Yet by that time, generations of deal making had already embedded a pattern of men investing in men. Pattern matching is woven into the fabric of venture cap…

David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is seen as the top contender to buy Warner Bros Discovery, with analysts and experts saying the tech scion’s access to deep pockets and Washington ties give him an edge in what could be the media industry’s biggest merger in years. Fresh off the Paramount-Skydance deal in August, the newly minted media mogul is eyeing one of Hollywood’s prized assets that is home to HBO, Warner Bros Studio and a streaming unit with more than 120 million subscribers. His $60 billion approach was rejected by Warner Bros Discovery on Tuesday, Reuters first reported. But the company has put a for-sale sign and attracted other potential suitors includ…

If there’s an AI application in media that has had a rough road, it’s the chatbot. With the runaway success of ChatGPT, the whole idea that chat might be the next big thing in audience experiences took on new value, and several publications dove in, offering portals or widgets that enable readers to explore their content in a new way. I think it’s fair to say none of these have been home runs, but some are more promising than others. Chatbots from Skift, USA Today, and The Texas Tribune have all seen some quiet success in user engagement, and while “chat” likely won’t save the media industry, it may well play an important role. Beyond the wins of improving site search…

Imagine you’re watching a basketball game. You’re not focused on the stat sheet—you’re watching how the players read the court, pivot when a play breaks down, and celebrate their teammates. Those moments tell you a lot more about how someone performs under pressure than any metric ever could. I think about hiring the same way. Like a stat sheet, a résumé might list someone’s achievements, but it won’t show how they adapt under pressure or support a team. Yet in the age of AI, companies often overlook that, prioritizing technical skills instead. According to a 2024 report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, 71% of employers said they would choose an AI-fluent candidate wi…

Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old, far-left state lawmaker, who promised to transform city government to restore power to the working class and fight back against a hostile The President administration. In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises. With his commanding win, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of Sou…

Why do some climate innovations fail to deliver? Not because they’re flawed, but because the business world misjudges their economics. From hydrogen to EV infrastructure, carbon-capture startups to precision farming tools, companies around the world are pouring money into climate tech. But for every promising climate innovation that scales, several more fizzle out too soon. Not because the science doesn’t work. But because the business case was either overestimated or underestimated at the wrong time. In the race to build the future, too many businesses are still blowing it on climate economics. Some assume customers will pay for green solutions at any price. Othe…

China will impose tariffs of up to 19.8% on pork imports from the European Union, a drastic drop from preliminary tariffs of up to 62.4%, its Commerce Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry’s announcement followed an investigation the Chinese side launched into imports of pork from the trading bloc after the EU imposed provisional tariffs on China-made electric vehicles. Beijing also levied anti-dumping duties on European brandy, most notably cognac produced in France, though major brandy producers received exemptions. Imports of dairy products from the EU likewise were subject to anti-dumping probes. The EU runs a massive trade deficit with China: over 300 billi…

The founder of Slack once deemed email “the cockroach of the internet.” He wasn’t the first to lament the extreme survivability of our inbox. From text messages to social media to office messaging platforms, all sorts of communication technologies have teased the promise of killing email by connecting us to others in faster, richer ways. And yet, more than 50 years after its invention, ye olde email is more popular than ever. Some 1 billion people spend three hours a day in email—adding up to more than a trillion hours collectively per year, according to the email app Superhuman. And there’s no sign of this slowing down. “More people use Gmail every single month than…

Hershey’s has finally jumped on the Dubai chocolate trend, and it typifies the intentional approach the company is taking to viral candy. The Hershey’s Company announced it’s releasing a limited-edition Hershey’s Dubai-Inspired Chocolate Bar that adds green pistachio filling and kadayif pastry to a classic break-apart Hershey’s chocolate. They’re treating the release like a sneaker drop: only 10,000 bars are being released. “We don’t chase every trend, but this one was big enough, and there was an opportunity to do it in a Hershey way,” Dan Mohnshine, Hershey’s vice president of demand creation strategy and brand development, tells Fast Company. To make th…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. After announcing another 25-basis-point cut to the Federal Reserve’s short-term rate, Fed Chair Jerome Powell—whose term ends on May 15, 2026—was asked about the U.S. housing market. Powell acknowledged that recent rate cuts won’t restore affordability to the U.S. housing market. He suggested that the country needs to build more housing units—and noted that central bankers “don’t really have the tools to address” it. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters on December 10, 2025: “So the housing market faces some really significant challenges, …

What’s one thing most Americans likely don’t know? Demand for donor sperm is increasing. Initially established in the 1970s to help men undergoing vasectomies and facing cancer treatments, sperm banks today support people facing a wide range of challenges on their path to pregnancy. Alongside heterosexual couples dealing with infertility issues like azoospermia and young men facing cancer diagnosis, single mothers by choice, and same-sex couples are frequently turning to sperm banks in hopes of building their family. With approximately 1,500 sperm donors serving the entire United States, a new sperm bank, Premier Sperm Bank, is venturing to address modern family build…

How do I control my emotions? I get asked that question a lot. As an emotional intelligence coach, I’ve received thousands of emails from readers over the years who get caught up in a cycle of emotional thinking, which leads them to say or do things they later regret. Often, this results in harm to their closest relationships, professional and personal. Here’s the thing: Emotions aren’t bad. They’re what make us human, and that’s a good thing. The key isn’t taking emotions out of the equation. Rather, you want to balance emotions and rational thinking, so you can look back and be proud of what you’ve said or done. To help with this, I recommend using simpl…

No one can deny that the internet, especially social media, can pose significant dangers. Now, a new survey has found that about one in five parents and carers know—and have supported—a child who has experienced online blackmail. The survey, from the U.K.’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), also showed that one in ten of these individuals’ own children have experienced blackmail online. According to the NSPCC, bad actors often start communicating with young people on public platforms before actively moving the conversation to end-to-end encrypted messaging services—making it more challenging for them to be tracked. Only 43% o…

A growing number of Amazon employees have signed onto an open letter issuing some dire warnings about the company’s sprint toward AI. The letter, signed by more than 1,000 workers and published this week, calls out Amazon for pushing its AI investments at the expense of the climate and its human workforce. The letter’s supporters come from a wide array of roles at the company, including many software engineers, and even employees focused on building AI systems. “We believe that the all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development will do staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth,” the letter’s authors wrote. “We’re the workers who de…

From my earliest days as a journalist, I’ve always prized my dictaphone. It sounds quaint now, but I actually remember excitedly keeping up with advancements in the field. Sony’s ICD-TX50 was a particular revelation for me in 2012, with its tiny OLED display and world’s-thinnest 6.4mm frame. There was no sleeker way to show up to Tokyo press conferences. In recent years, though, my dictaphone collection has taken on a new, less physical form. Google’s Pixel phones have been a revelation for journalists, offering real-time, on-device transcription through the Recorder app. I’ve often found myself bringing a Pixel along to a press event even if I wasn’t actively using i…

We used to argue whether design was about aesthetics or about functionality. But in 2025, those conversations seemed downright quaint. Simpler debates for a simpler time. Now we’re wondering if craft can survive the age of AI, and if we’ll ever escape the politicization of every brand and object again. For the December episode of our podcast By Design, I discussed these trends and more with Fast Company senior editor Liz Stinson. We were joined by some of our brightest friends in the industry who shared their biggest own moments in design for the year, including Paola Antonelli (senior curator at MoMA), Cliff Kuang (FC Design’s first editor and senior staff d…

For those of us who earn a living publishing content on the open internet, Amazon’s lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity can seem darkly amusing. Perplexity is among the many AI companies that has spent years extracting value from the internet in exchange for little. Its crawlers have synthesized endless amounts of content from publishers, even working around publishers’ attempts to block this behavior, all so Perplexity can summarize content without having to send traffic to the websites themselves. Now Perplexity and its rivals are going a step further, with a new wave of AI browsers that can navigate pages automatically. Perplexity has Comet, OpenAI has ChatGP…

Caralynn Nowinski Collens, Ramille Shah, and Adam Jakus spent years developing an innovative technology to regenerate injured bone. The results, they thought, were . . . okay. The company they founded, Dimension Bio, received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for its approach: providing a 3D-printed lattice or “scaffold” for new bone to grow in. However, it didn’t form new bone fast enough to compete with established treatment methods, such as transplanting a patient’s own bone tissue. But Collens, Dimension’s CEO, sees the experience as a net positive, validating the company’s technology and processes with the FDA. That could help the Chicago-based star…

If you have ever lifted a weight, you know the routine: challenge the muscle, give it rest, feed it, and repeat. Over time, it grows stronger. Of course, muscles only grow when the challenge increases over time. Continually lifting the same weight the same way stops working. It might come as a surprise to learn that the brain responds to training in much the same way as our muscles, even though most of us never think about it that way. Clear thinking, focus, creativity, and good judgment are built through challenge, when the brain is asked to stretch beyond routine rather than run on autopilot. That slight mental discomfort is often the sign that the brain is actu…

J. Crew just revealed its apparel collection with the U.S. Ski & Snowboard teams for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. It’s an ode to retro ski aesthetics that even the most amateur athlete (or viewer) can get behind. The 26-piece collection, which includes everything from graphic sweatshirts and refined knitwear to ball caps, wool socks, and cozy leggings, is the first installment of J. Crew’s three-year-long partnership with U.S. Ski & Snowboard, announced in March. Prices for the entire J.Crew U.S. Ski & Snowboard collection range from $49.50 to $498. It will be available online and in select J. Crew stores starting January 8. Each product co…