Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

By noon on a recent Tuesday, my calendar had already decided what kind of manager I would be. Back-to-back 1:1 meetings until the end of the day. Nothing was on fire, yet nothing was moving either. That might be fine in a slow cycle. It is not fine when you are releasing new features in real time and your best engineer has three recruiters in her inbox. In this market, teams don’t just compete on comp alone. They compete on how much freedom they have to actually create and build. We ran a simple test at my company. We canceled the standing 1:1. We kept space for new hires and anything sensitive, like a performance review. Everything else moved to an as needed basis.…

Like many ambitious tech companies before it, OpenAI introduced itself to the culture at large with big claims about how its technology would improve the world—from boosting productivity to enabling scientific discovery. Even the caveats and warnings were de facto advertisements for the existential potential of artificial intelligence: We had to be careful with this stuff, or it might literally wipe out humanity. Fast-forward to the present day, and OpenAI is still driving culture-wide conversations, but its attention-grabbing offerings aren’t quite so lofty. Its Sora 2 video platform—which makes it easy to generate and share AI-derived fictions—was greeted as a TikTo…

In 1995, the kids’ brand Hanna Andersson debuted matching family pajamas, kick-starting a trend. Three decades later, it’s become a tradition in many families to buy PJs emblazoned with reindeer or Christmas trees or menorahs to wear during the holidays. But if you’re concerned that seasonally specific sleepwear may not be so eco-friendly—after all, how much use will your toddler get from those Santa Claus jammies?—Hanna Andersson has a suggestion for you: Why not buy them secondhand? In 2023, Hanna Andersson launched Hanna-Me-Downs, a website for customers to buy and sell pre-owned products. If you scroll through the site, you’ll find thousands of gently used Hanna A…

As AI oozes into daily life, some people are building walls to keep it out for a host of compelling reasons. There’s the anxiety about a technology that requires an immense amount of energy to train and contributes to runaway carbon emissions. There are the myriad privacy concerns: At one point, some ChatGPT conversations were openly available on Google, and for months OpenAI was obligated to retain user chat history amid a lawsuit with The New York Times. There’s the latent ickiness of its manufacturing process, given that the task of sorting and labeling this data has been outsourced and underappreciated. Lest we forget, there’s also the risk of an AI oopsie, including …

Leaders are praised for “seeing around corners” and told to “skate to where the puck is going.” But what if you can’t even see your own feet, let alone a puck or a distant corner? Today’s volatility and uncertainty obscure any clear path to the future, and the forecast isn’t improving any time soon. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, 52% of experts expect an unsettled two-year horizon, 31% anticipate turbulence, and 5% foresee storms. Even if the weather were clear, setting a direction of travel is increasingly difficult as leaders face more complex problems with no obvious or easy solution. Close to 60% of business executives admit that they are missing opp…

If it seems like Black Friday deals, and holiday shopping in general, is starting earlier and earlier, you’re right. Just in time for, um, Halloween, both Walmart and Best Buy have announced plans for their 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Black Friday, always the day after Thanksgiving, falls on Friday, November 28 this year. Deals generally continue through that weekend into Cyber Monday, which falls on December 1. However, in recent years, many retailers have jump-started the sales some two, or even three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. And this year is no different. Here’s what to know. When do Walmart’s Black Friday deals start? The …

In 2015, I had a stillborn baby girl. I found out during a prenatal appointment that my daughter had no heartbeat. Because I was in my second trimester, I was admitted to the hospital’s labor and delivery ward. The same ward where women deliver live babies. Except I did not get to bring my baby home. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. I’ve talked openly about pregnancy loss for many years. I’ve advocated for more openness in the workplace. It’s a way to honor my daughter, to use my voice to make things better for other grieving parents. Bereavement policies should cover pregnancy loss My employer at the time had a very flexible leave …

Imagine a Yelp-style user-review site that lets users generate and post AI video reviews of local businesses. Say one of these videos presents a business in a bad light, and the business owner sues for defamation. Can the business sue the reviewer and the review site that hosted the video? In the near-to-immediate future, company websites will be infused with AI tools. A home decor brand might use a bot to handle customer service messages. A health provider might use AI to summarize notes from a patient exam. A fintech app might use personalized AI-generated video to onboard new customers. But what happens when someone claims they’ve been defamed or otherwise harmed b…

Ted Bundy had courtroom groupies. Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez were sent love letters in prison. Now, in the age of social media, thousands like, share, and thirst in the comments over stylized fan edits of serial killers. There’s a term for this psychological phenomenon: hybristophilia. A new study has found a connection between young women’s engagement with this type of TikTok content and their sexual attraction to criminals. Those who liked or repeatedly watched clips glorifying notorious serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer or fictional villains like Joe Goldberg from Netflix’s “You,” scored higher for hybristophilia, than those who scro…

For women reading this article, how old were you when you received your first sexual advance from a man? For men reading, ask any woman you know. Better yet, ask several of them. I bet their answers turn your stomach. In late September, The Guardian reported that Meta used back-to-school photos of teenage girls to advertise the Threads app to fully grown men. Girls as young as 13. These photos were posted by regular moms on Facebook and Instagram, some of whom had their profiles set to private. The photos of girls in their school uniforms appeared in-feed as advertisements resembling organic “suggested” threads posts, or were outright cross-posted without cons…

Amazon’s Fire TV lineup has gone from a perfectly simple concept—a stick that streams video—to a corporate naming convention nightmare. There’s the HD, the 4K Select, the 4K Plus, the 4K Max, and the Cube. Clear as mud. Let’s try to make sense of this lineup, shall we? The Budget Basement: Fire TV Stick HD The Fire TV Stick HD is your entry point. It handles 1080p, and that’s pretty much the whole story. It works fine for an older TV—the kind you put in the guest room or the garage. At $25, it’s cheap, it’s simple, and it’s a little slow, both performance-wise and thanks to its aging Wi-Fi 5 chipset. If you have a 4K television, walk past this one a…

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…

Costco is famously adored by its fans, and its leadership wants the discount big-box chain to remain beloved. Costco co-founder and former CEO James Sinegal so fervently believes in keeping customers happy that he’s driven to profanity to express the strength of his feelings. “You can’t say ‘People are our most important product,’ and hang signs all over the place that say ‘People are our most important product,’ and then treat them like shit…. Your customers or your suppliers are going to see that you don’t really mean it,” he recently told an interviewer. Which is why a recent policy change by the retailer is so fascinating. Starting this month, Costco b…

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…

Porte Neue is the typeface of effortless sophistication, and that’s why the ‘Fast Company’ design team chose it for the latest issue View the full article

Porte Neue is the typeface of effortless sophistication, and that’s why the ‘Fast Company’ design team chose it for the latest issue View the full article

The term brand entertainment is tough to define. For many people, it’s an oxymoron and these two words should never be in the same room as one another. For many others, though, it’s simply when brands make stuff we actually want to pay attention to. It could be a short ad, or a feature-length film, or a live event. What it isn’t is an annoying waste of time interrupting our attention from actual entertainment like TV, sports, music and movies. I’ve spent a lot of time on the Brand New World podcast looking at different ways different brands are doing this right. From WhatsApp creating a Netflix doc about the Mercedes F1 team, to Dick’s Sporting Goods formally es…

On November 6, Sweetgreen announced that it was selling Spyce, its division that developed and made its Infinite Kitchen technology to automate the assembly of its bowls and salads. The acquirer is Wonder, the “restaurant and mealtime superapp,” as Fast Company dubbed it earlier this year. With that, it’s time to eulogize Sweetgreen’s star-crossed life as a tech company. No more dreams of AI, blockchain, or robots. Sweetgreen receives $100 million in cash and $86.4 million in Wonder stock, a positive return given that it acquired Spyce in 2021 for a total cost of $70 million. Wonder, which is privately held, was valued north of $7 billion in May after it raised an…

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…

Retirement saving requires key decisions: when to start, how much to save, and where to invest. The investing decision has drawn more attention as government regulators work to open 401(k) plans to alternative assets such as private market investments. Below, we compare the paths of two hypothetical retirement savers and their outcomes. A tale of two retirement savers Laura and JR are two 25-year-olds newly employed at the same company, in the same role. Step 1: Deciding to Save On her first day at work, Laura committed 10% of her $75,000 salary to her 401(k). That earned her company’s 3% annual match (it matches 50% up to 6%), and 13% in total savings. She…

Last week, Fast Company reported that regional banking giant TD Bank is planning to close more than 50 U.S. locations by the end of January. But TD Bank isn’t the only regional bank closing branches. In October, Citizens Bank disclosed that at least 14 branches throughout the United States will shutter, according to public filings. Here’s what to know and where they were located. Why is Citizens Bank closing branches? Reached for comment by Fast Company, a Citizens Bank spokesperson said its retail footprint is constantly changing along with people’s banking habits. “We regularly review customer banking patterns and make thoughtful adjustments, opening ne…

As I write this my 6-and-a-half-month-old daughter is sitting on my lap in my home office, where she spends an hour or two each day. Despite all the toys I’ve laid out for her, the thing she typically reaches for is my keyboard, occasionally leading to the odd typo. I’ve been a freelance journalist for about 12 years, but never has this work-from-home, choose-your-own schedule arrangement been so valuable. Last year I was able to be with my wife at almost every doctor’s appointment, ultrasound, and blood test before we became parents in April. Since our daughter was born, I have enjoyed the flexibility not only to make it to every pediatrician appointment and give…

As a community organizer in New York City, Sharifa Khan spends a lot of time visiting food distribution hubs, community gardens, and local shelters. While speaking with community members, she often encounters the same issue: people want to get involved in volunteering, but they’re not sure where to start. So, Khan decided to make a tool to address that—and it couldn’t have come at a more important moment. Dora.nyc, short for Directory of Resources & Aid, is a new website dedicated to compiling New York City’s mutual aid offerings into one easy-to-understand resource. It’s designed both for those seeking aid—like food, housing, and immigration services—as well as t…

The public disclosure of more than 20,000 pages of newly released documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been the subject of much online discourse this week. While the emails themselves are full of damning revelations, particularly regarding Epstein’s relationship with President Donald The President, the internet’s attention has been caught on another detail. “BREAKING: Newly released emails reveal Jeffrey Epstein struggled to compose sentences in English,” journalist Tom Elliott posted on X. “Why can none of these very rich and powerful men type or spell,” journalist Jill Filipovic asked. In case you haven’t seen it, one such email read…

A few days ago, I wrapped a coaching call with a senior executive navigating a complex restructuring—work that demands steadiness in ambiguity, patience when emotions rise, and the discipline to stay grounded while others are spinning. Minutes later, I walked into my kitchen and found my child in a mismatched Halloween costume, eating shredded cheese out of the bag, and crying because her Lego creation was “too wobbly to be art.” The contrast was sharp, but the underlying lesson was familiar. Parenting and leadership rarely feel similar in form, but they draw on the same internal architecture. Both require influence without force, emotional regulation under pressure, …