Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Six years ago, when Michael Buckley returned to True Religion‘s offices as CEO, the denim brand looked nothing like the one he had built a decade earlier. Buckley was the brand’s president between 2006 and 2010, when True Religion was a luxury brand that sold jeans priced between $300 and $500 at Neiman Marcus and Barneys. Buckley helped grow revenues to more than $300 million a year, but after he left, the brand hit hard times, as it struggled to adapt to e-commerce. It filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and again in 2020. In 2019, after serving as CEO of Differential Brands Group (which owns Hudson Jeans), Buckley came back to True Religion to clean up the mess. He’s …

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, trust erod…

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like a 7.5-foot-tall Chewbacca holding a candy cane. At least, according to the team at Home Depot. Home Depot has long been known as a purveyor of holiday decor, from pumpkins at Halloween to a wide selection of real and artificial trees at Christmas. In recent years, though, it’s been upping the creative ante on its decor game to capture new audiences—and, in some cases, to score a viral hit on TikTok. This year, it’s doing just that with two new additions to its holiday lineup: life-size, animated versions of Star Wars’ Chewbacca and R2-D2 ($349 and $299, respectively), complete with movie-accurate, motion-activated sound e…

When life gives people lemons, most try to make the best out of a bad situation. Instead, Beau du Bois, vice president of bar and spirits at Marisi Italian restaurant in La Jolla, California, found himself with an incredible opportunity. In 2021, the Adler and Lombrozo families, owners of the Puesto Mexican restaurant chain, tapped du Bois to build Marisi’s bar program from the ground up. One of the first actions du Bois took when learning about this new venture was starting a batch of limoncello, using a lesser-known Amalfi Coast technique. “They told me about Marisi almost exactly a year before we opened,” du Bois tells Fast Company. “And the very next day, even…

Hello again, and thank you for spending time with Fast Company’s Plugged In. Last October, I visited the Silicon Valley headquarters of 1X Technologies—the startup behind a humanoid home robot called Neo—and spoke with its VP of product and design, Dar Sleeper. Among the points he made was that long-standing public expectations have set a high bar for household robots. Naturally, he name-checked the world’s most iconic one. “The ultimate, North Star, in a lot of people’s minds, is Rosie the Robot,” he told me. “A Jetsons world where you ask and receive, and it makes your life better, you spend more time with your family, you’re more present.” Sleeper’s reference return…

When Raising Cane’s recently opened its first-ever location in Meridian, Idaho, it wasn’t a particularly remarkable event for the restaurant chain. The fast-growing chicken purveyor also opened six other restaurants in five other states on the exact same day in November. It aims to open close to 100 new stores this year. But some Idahoans were willing to stand outside in chilly fall weather for more than 48 hours to be the first in the state to get a taste of Raising Cane’s, whose exceptionally narrow menu features chicken fingers, french fries, a secret proprietary dipping sauce, and simple sides like garlic toast and coleslaw. “We had customers camping out since…

There’s a generational shift happening in workplaces that goes far deeper than debates about RTO or perks and snacks. Gen Z—the cohort that learned to communicate through stories, stickers, and swipe culture—is fundamentally reimagining how work gets done. After analyzing data from 2,475 professionals across our latest research, I’m convinced they’re crafting the future of work. Gen Z intuitively understands something many organizations are still learning. As we live in a world drowning in information, clarity is a competitive advantage. And increasingly, that clarity is offered visually. The Visual-First Expectation Sound familiar? Workplace tools mirror socia…

Every few weeks, Americans get another letter in the mail that starts the same way: “We’re writing to inform you that your personal data has been exposed.” A retailer gets hacked. A hospital. A supermarket. A travel site. It never ends. Most of us feel like we’ve lost control over who has our information and how it’s being used. But a new kind of privacy technology, one that lets companies confirm what they need to know without ever seeing your personal details, may finally offer a way out of this mess. We’ve slipped into a world where giving away our personal information is the “cost” of participating in modern life and where we’re frustrated, but not surprised, when…

Measles infections in America have hit their highest numbers in 33 years. In 2025, cases have topped 1,900, and that number is expected to rise due to an ongoing outbreak in South Carolina. Here’s what you need to know about America’s latest measles outbreak and why the upcoming period could spell troubling times with the disease. What’s happened? Earlier this week, the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) announced 27 new cases of measles in the state since the previous Friday, raising the total number of active measles cases in the southeastern state to 111. Due to the outbreak, there are currently 254 people in quarantine, with another 16 in…

Lululemon might just be entering a new—and improved—era. On Thursday, December 11, the athleisure apparel company shared a mostly positive third-quarter earnings report and announced the departure of its CEO, Calvin McDonald. McDonald will leave Lululemon Athletica on January 31, after seven years in the post. He previously served as CEO of Sephora Americas. The last year has been one of underperformance for Lululemon. In October, the company’s controversial founder and largest independent shareholder, Chip Wilson, took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Lululemon’s direction. While he didn’t go as far as to name McDonald, Wilson wrote, “…

This morning, OpenAI released the company’s new GPT-5.2 model. If you’re a coder or someone who follows AI benchmarks for fun (hey, I won’t judge), this model will excite you tremendously. For everyone else, prepare to be underwhelmed—or rather, prepare to wait another month or so for the real OpenAI new release to come out. Keeping up with the Joneses GPT-5.2 is fundamentally about making small tweaks and improvements to the already fairly new GPT-5.1 model. Today’s release improves OpenAI’s performance on a variety of industry benchmarks. GPT-5.2 is faster and more efficient than its predecessor, and it does a better job solving scientific and t…

More than 18,000 Amtrak workers will receive a $900 bonus before the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Thursday evening. Funding for the bonuses will come from Amtrak’s executive leadership team bonus packages, the statement said. The federal administration urged executive leadership “to forgo 50% of the bonus packages that would have been paid out under the misplaced priorities of the previous executive bonus structure.” Amtrak set all-time records for both ridership and revenue in the 2025 fiscal year, according to its annual report, with over $2.7 billion in ticket revenue from 34.5 million riders. The bonuses were applauded by some…

Nobody wants to swipe anymore. Dating apps like Bumble and Tinder are scrambling to keep younger users engaged, and dealing with problems like bots on their platforms. But one brand is breaking the pattern and winning. Hinge’s “designed to be deleted” tagline signals its strategy: focus on meaningful connection, not endless swiping. The app can feel slower and even harder to use, leading to fewer matches but ultimately more dates. Now, the big question is whether Bumble and Tinder can pull off a similar shift toward quality over quantity. View the full article

Soccer fans have accused FIFA of a “monumental betrayal” after latest prices for World Cup tickets began to circulate on Thursday. The governing body allocates 8% of tickets to national associations for games involving their team to sell to the most loyal fans. And a list published by the German soccer federation revealed prices ranged from $180-$700 for varying group stage games. The lowest price for the final was $4,185 and the highest was $8,680. Those group-stage prices are very different from FIFA’s claims of $60 tickets being available, while the target from United States soccer officials when bidding for the tournament seven years ago was to offer hundreds of th…

In the past decade, AI’s success has led to uncurbed enthusiasm and bold claims—even though users frequently experience errors that AI makes. An AI-powered digital assistant can misunderstand someone’s speech in embarrassing ways, a chatbot could hallucinate facts, or, as I experienced, an AI-based navigation tool might even guide drivers through a corn field—all without registering the errors. People tolerate these mistakes because the technology makes certain tasks more efficient. Increasingly, however, proponents are advocating the use of AI—sometimes with limited human supervision—in fields where mistakes have high cost, such as health care. For example, a bill in…

Ford Motor Co. has stepped up technology in its popular F-150 pickup to combat the ever-evolving techniques car thieves have at their disposal. It is the latest cat-and-mouse move that the automaker hopes will help customers avoid the costly and frustrating process that occurs when vehicles are swiped and includes a feature that won’t allow an engine to start even if a key fob is in the pickup. Motor vehicle thefts recently have been on the decline in the U.S. after several years of increases. Still, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that more than 850,000 vehicles were stolen in the U.S. in 2024, pegging losses at $8 billion. But thefts dropped 2…

A federal appeals court on Thursday backed a ruling that held Apple in civil contempt for brazenly defying an order designed to open its iPhone app store to other payment systems besides its own, but the decision also reopened a door for the company to collect commission from the rival options. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals mostly validated a scalding contempt order issued in April by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for violating a key part of her September 2021 findings in a legal battle instigated by video game maker Epic Games. But the Ninth Circuit’s 54-page decision overturned one key part of G…

Onetime cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison after a $40 billion crash revealed his crypto ecosystem to be a fraud. Victims said the 34-year-old financial technology whiz weaponized their trust to convince them that the investment — secretly propped up by cash infusions — was safe. Kwon, a Stanford graduate known by some as “the cryptocurrency king,” apologized after listening as victims — one in court and others by telephone — described the scam’s toll: wiping out nest eggs, depleting charities and wrecking lives. One told the judge in a letter that he contemplated suicide after his father lost his retirement money in the scheme. …

This week, a new fashion boutique quietly opened in SoHo. Much like its neighbors, H&M and American Eagle, the new shop features racks of affordably priced, trendy apparel. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was another fast fashion label, but it’s not: it’s Target. Target has retrofitted its existing SoHo store as a “design-forward concept store,” with a focus on fashion and beauty. The store’s entrance, which features a long hallway drenched in the brand’s iconic red, is full of racks with sparkly skirts and faux-fur jackets for holiday parties. Target has dubbed this area “The Drop” and will feature new, seasonal merchandise that is updated every six to eight weeks…