Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Halloween is a fun, scary time for children and adults alike—but why does the holiday seem to start so much earlier every year? Decades ago, when I was young, Halloween was a much smaller affair, and people didn’t start preparing until mid-October. Today, in my neighborhood near where I grew up in Massachusetts, Halloween decorations start appearing in the middle of summer. What’s changed isn’t just when we celebrate but how: Halloween has evolved from a simple folk tradition to a massive commercial event. As a business school professor who has studied the economics of holidays for years, I’m astounded by how the business of Halloween has grown. And understanding why …

If you are dealing with an employee or colleague who consistently underperforms and makes excuses, it can be extremely frustrating. When someone underperforms it not only slows down team progress and lowers the quality of work, but also forces others to take on extra tasks. This increases the workload for the rest of the team, which often means more stress and potential burnout for those left picking up the load. It can also create a sense of unfairness and lead to conflicts among team members due to the uneven distribution of effort and responsibility. For managers, handling underperformance adds extra work as well, taking up valuable time and energy that could be spent…

There’s a saying I’ve found myself sharing in coaching conversations with senior leaders lately. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It’s my response to a significant pattern playing out right now across every sector I work in, and that’s constant busyness masquerading as leadership. We know from the Microsoft Work Trend Index 2025 that 80% of employees and leaders lack sufficient time or energy to do their work. Meetings are ad hoc and continue after hours. Some 52% of leaders say their work feels chaotic and fragmented. These leaders are facing the biggest shifts or inflection points their businesses have possibly ever experienced. For many, this is da…

It’s been called the AI Super Bowl, thanks to Anthropic and OpenAI launching what (hopefully) might become AI’s very own Cola Wars. It’s been called the MAHA Bowl, thanks to brands like Novo Nordisk promoting Wegovy pills, while Ro and hims & hers are pitching telehealth services, Novartis got NFL tight ends to relax for prostate cancer checks, and pharma company Boehringer Ingelheim hypes kidney health. But we know it was the Super Bowl because mixed in amongst the trends were Sabrina Carpenter’s FrankenPringles man, both T-Mobile and Coinbase hit play on the Backstreet Boys, Oakley Meta made connected glasses look pretty good, and Manscaped somehow turned s…

Rite Aid is moving quickly to close additional store locations after selling a substantial chunk of its pharmacy business to other companies last week. The drugstore chain, which is winding down operations after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a second time earlier this month, has listed 95 store locations that it wants to close as it continues to seek buyers for its retail operations. The locations span six states, with Rite Aid’s home state of Pennsylvania being hit hardest. The list includes more than 70 Pennsylvania stores. Competitors scoop up Rite Aid’s pharmacy assets The move to close additional locations was disclosed in a court filing one…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. When assessing home price momentum, ResiClub believes it’s important to monitor active listings and months of supply. If active listings start to rapidly increase as homes remain on the market for longer periods, it may indicate pricing softness or weakness. Conversely, a rapid decline in active listings beyond seasonality could suggest a market that is heating up. Since the national pandemic housing boom fizzled out in 2022, the national power dynamic has slowly been shifting directionally from sellers to buyers. Of course, across the country, that …

Using your email address as your username has become the standard. In many cases, you simply enter your email address and choose a password. Some services remove the need for a password altogether, allowing you to register using just your email address and a onetime code sent to it. Others offer the option to connect your account directly to your Google or Apple identity. As we scroll, shop, apply, and register across services, our email address quietly becomes our identity everywhere, from shopping platforms to banking to travel. Over time, more and more of our activity starts pointing back to a single account. While it all feels convenient, there is an issue we …

Jack in the Box announced Wednesday that it will close between 150 and 200 underperforming restaurants as part of a broad restructuring effort, with approximately 80 to 120 restaurants shuttering by December 31, 2025. The remainder will close over time, based on the termination dates of their respective franchise agreements. Fast Company reached out to Jack in the Box for a list of locations it will be closing, but did not hear back by time of publishing. The initiative is part of the company’s “JACK on Track” strategy—a comprehensive plan aimed at improving long-term financial performance across its restaurant system, strengthening its balance sheet, and reaffirm…

To sell the idea of last year’s Wienie 500 to Oscar Mayer, creative agency Johannes Leonardo used AI to show what a race among the iconic Wienermobiles might look like when they took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s historic oval. “That is an inherently brilliant idea that most people will go, ‘That’s fun,’” said the agency’s CEO, Helen Andrews, during a panel discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “It’s a good example of how AI can accelerate creativity, not replace it.” While AI can be a powerful way for brands to accelerate production and analyze consumer data, creative types must recognize that just because they can use these tools doesn’t mean they…

I have never had any interest in getting a hardware wallet like the new Ledger Nano Gen 5. But talking with Susan Kare—the designer of the original Apple Macintosh icons and an endless torrent wonderful pixel art—made me realize I need one. “The idea that an individual can really control their own assets without a government or anything political coming between you and your assets. I like that,” she tells me. The Ledger Nano is a 0.3-inch-thick credit card-sized block that keeps your digital assets secure by storing them offline. It has a frontal e-ink display that displays a grid of pixel art icons that look very much like the original Mac. For the Nano Gent 5, Kare …

At a time of skyrocketing costs in the U.S., looming tariffs, and fears of a recession, New Yorkers are finally getting some good news: Over 8 million people in the Empire state will receive a sort of stimulus check, or officially, an “inflation refund check” this year, according to Democratic governor Kathy Hochul. The refunds come as Americans continue to battle high inflation, driving up prices on everything from housing to groceries, stemming from the global COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. While inflation has steadily decreased from its 2022 high of 9.1%, prices have not re-adjusted to levels before the pandemic, according to Newsweek. Last week, Hochul s…

You’ve spent years building a robust professional network. You’ve cultivated relationships with peers, mentors, and industry leaders. So when you signal that you’re exploring new opportunities, you expect your network to perform. Yet too often, promising conversations dissolve into silence. Warm introductions never materialize. Emails go unanswered. This isn’t a reflection of your professional standing. It’s a design problem: you’re making it too hard for people to help you. The fix is straightforward. Make it easy. Here are three ways to do so. Ask To Write to Their Contact Directly When you reach out to a contact seeking an introduction to a decision-maker, a…

A normally quiet Atlanta neighborhood has suddenly found itself flooded with traffic early in the mornings. It’s not tourists. It’s not new neighbors. In fact, it’s not people at all, but an overwhelming amount of driverless cars. The cars are from robotaxi company Waymo, which has been operating in Atlanta since June of 2025. The company has a fleet of about 100 cars in the city—and when they’re not being called to provide rides, some of those Waymos have mysteriously decided to spend their free time circling a few residential streets. One of the neighborhood’s residents explained the situation to local news channel WSB-TV, saying that she and her neighbors first…

We live in a culture that glorifies leadership. Titles like manager, director, or CEO are treated not just as jobs, but as glamorous career destinations (even when the actual job is anything but). In the corporate world, ambition and talent are often defined by how many people report to you, and the ladder of success is measured by headcount under your name. You can be the most talented coder, designer, analyst, or scientist, but sooner or later the corporate current will push you toward leading others. It is the professional equivalent of a rite of passage: You can only go so far unless you manage people. This obsession with leadership explains why nearly eve…

Whether you call him groundhog, woodchuck, or whistle-pig, or use the full genus and species name, Marmota monax, the nation’s premier animal weather forecaster has been making headlines as Punxsutawney Phil for decades. The largest ground squirrel in its range, groundhogs like Phil are found throughout the midwestern United States, most of Canada, and into southern Alaska. M. monax is the most widespread marmot, while the Vancouver Island marmot (M. vancouverensis) is found only on one island in British Columbia. In total, there are 15 species in the genus Marmota, found around the world from as far south as the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico and the Pyrenees Moun…

If the 1990 classic movie Ghost is any indication, the dead love a good tune. We all remember when the recently deceased Sam (Patrick Swayze) had his infamous pottery session with his very alive partner Molly (Demi Moore). Now, Liquid Death and Spotify are aiming to use music in a similar way, by giving a few hundred of the recently deceased the opportunity to hear their favorite music for all of eternity. The two brands have collaborated on what they claim to be the first-ever Bluetooth-enabled speaker urn. The tasteful white urn has a top outfitted with a Bluetooth speaker. Spotify is also introducing the “Eternal Playlist Generator” in the U.S., where you can…

It’s easy to be charmed by the first delivery robot you see. I was driving with my kids in our Chicago neighborhood when I spotted one out the window last year. It was a cheerful pink color, with an orange flag fluttering at about eye level and four black-and-white wheels. It looked almost like an overgrown toy. When I told the kids that it was labeled “Coco,” they started waving and giggling as it crossed the street. Over the months that followed, spotting Cocos rolling down the sidewalk became one of our favorite games. Then, last fall, another type of delivery robot appeared. This one was green and white, with hardier all-terrain wheels and slow-blinking LED eyes. …

Grating coworkers, tone-deaf bosses, a ninth ask for revisions on a PowerPoint deck—as the workday annoyances pile up, it’s only a matter of time before every worker hits a boiling point. And when they do, they often hit up a trusted colleague to vent to in a direct message on a platform like Slack or Teams. “So often you’re sitting in a meeting, you’re hearing something, and you’re like, ‘Am I crazy, or are they contradicting themselves? Did they change the strategy again? Can you believe they just said this thing?’” says one former employee at a consulting firm, who agreed to speak to Fast Company anonymously. Sounding off to coworkers in DMs feels like both an out…

Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation that would fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies Thursday, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown if Republicans and the White House do not agree to new restrictions on President Donald The President’s surge of immigration enforcement. As the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, irate Senate Democrats laid out a list of demands ahead of a Thursday morning test vote, including that officers take off their masks and identify themselves and obtain warrants for arrest. If those are not met, Democrats s…

It has been a bruising 24 hours for investors in memory chip storage companies, including Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK), Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC), and Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX). Yesterday, all four leaders in the memory chip space ended the day significantly lower. Here’s what’s happening—and why some are questioning whether the RAM shortage that has driven these companies’ stock prices to new heights will soon come to an end. Memory chip stocks get pummeled—again Just a few weeks ago, the sky seemed to be the limit for memory chip makers. After all, the world is in the middle of …

A hearing Wednesday before Nevada’s high court could provide the first public window into a secretive legal dispute over who will control Rupert Murdoch’s powerful media empire after he dies. The case has been unfolding behind closed doors in state court in Reno, with most documents under seal. But reporting by The New York Times, which said it obtained some of the documents, revealed Murdoch’s efforts to keep just one of his sons, Lachlan, in charge and ensure that Fox News maintains its conservative editorial slant. Media outlets including the Times and The Associated Press are now asking the Nevada Supreme Court to unseal the case and make future hearings public. The…