Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

More than two decades of research—from Harvard professor Amy Edmondson’s pioneering studies to Google’s landmark Project Aristotle—have found that the strongest predictor of high-performing teams isn’t talent or strategy, but psychological safety. As Edmondson defines, it’s “a shared belief held by team members that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” It’s what gives people the confidence to speak up, take creative risks, and learn from failure—and it’s foundational to innovation. But one critical truth is often overlooked: Leaders can’t create psychological safety for others if they haven’t first cultivated it within themselves. I learned this the h…

There’s a new sheriff in Bentonville. Today, Walmart announced that John Furner will become the company’s new CEO and president, effective February 1 next year, succeeding longtime boss Doug McMillon, who is retiring. McMillon has been at the helm of the retail giant since 2014. Prior to becoming CEO, he led Walmart’s international division for four years, after leading Sam’s Club, a Walmart subsidiary, between 2005 and 2009. “Serving as Walmart’s CEO has been a great honor and I’m thankful to our Board and the Walton family for the opportunity,” McMillon said in a statement Friday. Why is McMillon retiring? “This is the right time to retire because th…

Seeing peers lose their jobs has a way of making people weird. It’s not much different from grief. When someone loses a loved one, you can almost feel the tension: people fumbling for the right words, hoping not to say something insensitive, then saying something insensitive anyway. “Everything happens for a reason.” “They’re in a better place.” That is, assuming any condolences are shared at all. Many of us have been there. You don’t want to overstep. Don’t want to make the person feel worse. I get it: Showing sympathy can feel like a minefield. The same thing happens when companies downsize their staff, only the loss isn’t life. It’s employment. When someone get…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. AI assistants are now more than simple answer machines. ChatGPT’s new Study Mode, Claude’s Learning Mode, and Gemini’s Guided Learning represent a significant shift. Instead of just providing answers, these free tools act as adaptive, 24/7 personal tutors. Guidde | Create how-to guides with AI Tired of explaining the same thing over and over again to your colleagues? Guidde is an AI-powered tool that helps you explain the most complex tasks in seconds with AI-generated documentation. Turn boring documentation in…

A few months ago, I was lying in bed, lightly clutching my phone, when Instagram Reels presented me with a brief video that promised an impossible soap opera: There were animated cats—with feline faces but unmistakable human bodies—living seemingly human lives, including in a human-seeming house and also, for some totally unclear reason, at a seemingly human construction site. There was drama: A female cat appeared to have been knocked up. There was also, somehow, a related love triangle involving two far more muscle-y male cats vying for her affection. None of the cats actually spoke. Yet somehow the plot proceeded, with one cat winning the heroine’s heart. It was well r…

Every year, the $463 billion global footwear industry make 20 billion pairs of shoes for just 8 billion humans. Since virtually none of them are recyclable, they will end up clogging up landfills around the world. For decades now, the fashion industry has been on a mission to make products recyclable. But shoes have been a much harder puzzle to crack than clothing. While garments are made from just a handful of materials, shoes are far more complex objects. A sneaker can be made of 50 different materials from foam insoles to leather exteriors to cotton laces, all glued together with adhesives. A handful of brands have prototyped one-off recyclable shoes, like Adi…

Public servants manage a geographically distributed group of people across dozens of public and private organizations daily. Cybersecurity officials work with state and federal counterparts, and homelessness coordinators work with public health departments and nonprofits. State veterans affairs departments sit at the intersection of educational and health benefits along with housing and job assistance. From my conversations with public servants across the country, it’s clear that most critical government functions cannot happen without collaboration. This makes it paramount to have a deep understanding of who does what across dozens of organizations for government…

Despite the now widespread use of AI in workplaces, workers aren’t actually becoming more productive, according to a new survey led by Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp Labs. The report finds that while employees are using modern AI tools more than ever, they’re using them to create subpar work. The new report calls the phenomenon “workslop,” which it defines as “AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.” In other words, it’s thoughtless, sloppy work that someone will eventually have to clean up. The problem is widespread up and down the corporate ladder. Per the report, 40% of emp…

The space and telecom industries can look increasingly intertwined as satellite roaming—today for messages, tomorrow for data—becomes a standard feature. But while wireless services have the luxury of iterating as often as they want once they start signing up customers, space startups have to take things one launch at a time. Eascra Biotech For making the International Space Station a pharmaceutical research lab Eascra has one of the most interesting worksites of any of this year’s honorees: the International Space Station, where astronauts conduct research on developing nanoparticles to treat cancer and other maladies. Growing these materials in microgravity yields more…

Since 1818, loyal readers of the Farmers’ Almanac have turned to the publication for weather predictions, gardening tips, astronomy calendars, and more. But, on November 6, the Farmers’ Almanac announced that the 2026 edition of the magazine will be its last. The news came through a post to the Farmers’ Almanac website by editor Sandi Duncan and editor emeritus Peter Geiger. “It is with a great appreciation and heartfelt emotions that we write to share some sad news,” the note reads. “After more than 200 years of sharing a unique blend of weather, wit and wisdom, we’ve made the very difficult decision to write the final chapter of this historical publication.” P…

One minute, you’re watching a hilarious or even completely bland YouTube short. The next? You realize you’ve just lost an hour of work time or managed to stay up way too late—again. Losing track of time when watching shorts is not an uncommon experience. But now, YouTube wants to help you set limits to stay on task, hit the hay, or just, ya’ know, not lose precious hours of your life to Shorts. On Wednesday, the video streaming giant rolled out a new timer feature on its mobile app. When users log on, they can go into their settings and click on “shorts feed limit” to set a timer that will remind them to stop scrolling. Once users hit their time limit, the app wi…

Twenty-five years ago, Google unveiled Adwords, which pledged to enable advertisers “to quickly design a flexible program that best fits [their] online marketing goals and budget,” Google cofounder Larry Page said at the time. The principle was simple. AdWords allowed advertisers to purchase individualized, affordable keyword-based advertising that appears alongside search results used by hundreds of millions of people every day. That decision was a game changer for Google. Advertising now accounts for around three in every four dollars of revenue the company has made so far this year, growing 10% in the last year alone. The product, since renamed Google Ads, has …

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…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked imports of spices this week from an Indonesian company amid widespread worries of radioactive contamination. The agency said it found cesium 137 in spices—specifically cloves—from Indonesian company PT Natural Java Spice that were shipped to California. The discovery marks the second food product imported from Indonesia found to have radioactive contamination, as recalls of potentially tainted imported shrimp expanded. “Products from PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati and from PT Natural Java Spice will not be permitted to enter the U.S. market until these firms provide the FDA with information to adequately demonstrate that th…

Why are some jobs better than others? Well, it largely depends on people’s preferences. In other words, one person’s dream job may be another person’s nightmare. And yet, there are also clearly some universal or at least generalizable parameters that make most people accept the idea that some jobs are objectively better than others — or at least seen by most as generally preferable. Pay and purpose For example, jobs that pay well, offer stability, and provide opportunities for growth are almost universally considered better. A tenured professorship, a senior engineering role at a reputable company, or a stable medical position all combine financial security…

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. When we named Tarang Amin Modern CEO of the Year in December 2024, the E.l.f. Beauty chairman and chief executive had racked up a string of notable successes. Under Amin’s leadership, the publicly traded cosmetics company had posted 23 consecutive quarters of net sales and market share growth. E.l.…

An investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft, and Nvidia is buying one of the world’s biggest data center operators with nearly 80 facilities in a deal worth $40 billion to secure coveted computing capacity for artificial intelligence. The purchase of U.S.-based Aligned Data Centers from Australian Macquarie Asset Management on Wednesday is the first deal for the AI Infrastructure Partnership formed last year which includes Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX and Elon Musk’s startup xAI among its backers. “With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI,” said BlackRock CEO Larry Fink,…

Have you ever been to the Gamerhood? Part game show, part reality series, it recently wrapped its fourth season in August. Over five weekly episodes on Twitch and YouTube, the show pitted gaming creators like Kai Cenat, Ludwig, Mark Phillips, and Berleezy, against each other in a combination of gaming and IRL challenges. The third season from last summer attracted more than 23 million views. In September, the show went mainstream when season four landed on Prime Video. Even before that, just on YouTube and Twitch, season four was getting about 20 million views for each episode. Not too shabby for a show created by a brand. That’s right, Gamerhood is fully owned by St…