Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

In 1985, Intel was in trouble. Japanese competitors were dominating the memory chip market that Intel had helped invent. Inside the company, leadership debated what to do. During one conversation, Andy Grove, then Intel’s president and COO, asked CEO Gordon Moore a deceptively simple question: “If we were replaced tomorrow, what would a new CEO do?” Moore didn’t hesitate. “He would get us out of the memory business.” The two men looked at each other and realized something uncomfortable. They already knew the answer; they just hadn’t acted on it. Intel exited the market that had defined its identity and doubled down on microprocessors, a decision that reshaped the comp…

While smartwatches have spent the last decade fighting for our attention with buzzing notifications and glowing screens, a quieter revolution has been moving down to our fingers. Yes, the smart ring market has matured from a niche experimental category into a legitimate hardware battleground where the stakes involve more than just step counts. For anyone looking to track their health without (or while) strapping a small computer to their arm, the landscape is now crowded with options that balance high-end aesthetics with serious sensor arrays. Here are some to check out. Oura Ring 4 ($349 + $6/month) The Oura Ring 4 remains the undisputed heavyweight ch…

A decade of light-night history is closing out this week, with Stephen Colbert’s tenure as the host for “The Late Show” coming to an end on Thursday. Filmed in the Ed Sullivan Theater, The Late Show is CBS’s flagship late night talk show, first airing in 1993 with David Letterman hosting. Colbert first joined the show in 2015 following successful stints at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, with his political monologues during the first The President administration helping grow his popularity, particularly among more liberal viewers. His vocal critique of The President is also seen by many as precipitating the end of his hosting duties. CBS parent company P…

In 2006, Amazon Web Services was a fledgling—and a bit of an oddity. Amazon had taken the cloud-computing technologies it had created for its own operations and turned them into a business. Any organization could use them to build out an online presence without managing any infrastructure. Amazon watchers struggled to suss out what the e-tailer was up to: “I have yet to see how these investments are producing any profit,” carped one Wall Street analyst. At the very start—when it was still a big deal if AWS collected $100 in revenue in a single day—an AWS product manager named Matt Garman had lunch with a friend who worked in another part of the company. “[The coworker] a…

They’re calling it “discomorphism.” To mark its 20th birthday, Spotify introduced a revamped logo that bedazzled its green, circular mark into a shimmering dark green disco ball. Following backlash online, Spotify assured its users that the old logo is coming back soon. “Alright, we know glitter is not for everyone,” the music streaming service said on social media. “Our temp glow up ends soon. Your regularly scheduled Spotify icon returns next week.” Alright, we know glitter is not for everyone. Our temp glow up ends soon. Your regularly scheduled Spotify icon returns next week. — Spotify (@Spotify) May 17, 2026 Spotify tells Fast Company the disco bal…

OpenAI has prevailed in its fight against Elon Musk. A jury on Monday found that Musk did not file his lawsuit against the AI giant within the statute of limitations. The judge quickly agreed with the jury, making the ruling final. The win for OpenAI came after less than two hours of jury deliberation. Within 20 minutes, the judge, who could have taken up to a month to issue a final ruling in the case, agreed with the advisory jury and issues the final say. Musk had alleged that OpenAI “stole a charity” when it converted into a for-profit company. With the case now behind it, a major obstacle in OpenAI’s path toward becoming a publicly traded company has been…

Have you been there? A medical emergency lands you in the ER only to be discharged with a stack of papers, prescriptions to fill, and instructions for your doctor. Will those papers make it to your next appointment? Will you be able to answer, “What diagnosis did the ER give? How many weeks are you supposed to take this RX?” It depends on what kind of fog you were in when you left. There must be a better way. Healthcare’s most dangerous moments often do not happen in the emergency room, but when the patient moves from one system to another—from hospital to home or from specialist to primary care. In transitions, communication breaks down easily, plans fall apart, and in…

Online creators are giving their followers some unusual advice to help lower their flight ticket prices: head to the public library. Over the past few days, multiple viral posts have sprung up wherein creators claim that they were able to score major savings on flights (up to thousands of dollars, in one case) by booking their tickets on a public library computer rather than their own personal devices. “Yeah, so I just tried this, and it worked for me,” creator Ellyce Fullmore told her followers in an Instagram video posted on May 16, which now has nearly 250,000 likes. She added, “We got a flight for $500 cheaper from booking on the library computer. What in th…

A federal jury has sided with OpenAI and its top executives in a feud with Elon Musk, who accused them of betraying a shared vision for it to guide artificial intelligence’s development as a nonprofit dedicated to humanity’s benefit. The nine-person jury unanimously found that Musk waited too long to file his lawsuit (Musk v. Altman et al.) and missed the deadline for the statute of limitations. Musk, the world’s richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, the company that launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing $38 million in its first years, Musk accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his …

With gas prices hovering around $4.51 a gallon, there’s little relief for drivers heading into the busy Memorial Day weekend, the official kickoff to summer travel. Or, is there? While it might seem like an unlikely panacea, Cracker Barrel could bring some unexpected solace. Here’s what to know. What’s happening? On Tuesday, Cracker Barrel launches a 10-week nationwide “Fuel Your Summer Road Trip” giveaway of $250,000 in free gas—and food—to Cracker Barrel Rewards members during this summer’s peak road trip season. The deal lasts through July 26. A total of 250 Cracker Barrel Rewards members will each receive $1,000—a $500 gas gift card and a $500 food gift…

AI is changing the job hunt for candidates and employers, but also the recruiters caught in the middle. From AI-screened video interviews to platforms like Paraform that reward recruiters for smart matches, the hiring industry is evolving fast. But as these tools get smarter, one question remains: Will human recruiters still have a seat at the table? View the full article

The day John Lennon was shot, on Dec. 8, 1980, he and Yoko Ono gave an interview to a San Francisco radio crew from their home in New York’s Dakota Apartments. They were promoting their new album “Double Fantasy,” but the two-hour conversation was wide ranging. Though the interviewers had been warned “no Beatles questions,” Lennon and Ono were thrillingly open. That day, Annie Leibovitz also shot the famous portrait of a clothes-less Lennon wrapped around Ono. The interview is similarly naked. The two, particularly Lennon, riff on love, their relationship, creativity, life after the Beatles, raising their toddler son, writing songs in bed and much more. At the age of 40…

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was looking for connection wherever they could find it. To connect with friends, maybe that meant playing a long-distance round of Among Us. To connect with family, perhaps you hopped on a group FaceTime. And to connect with coworkers, you used Microsoft Teams’ beloved Together mode for meetings. . . . Oh, wait, you didn’t do that? Launched in 2020, Together mode transformed virtual meetings within Teams. Rather than displaying a standard Zoom-style array of each attendee in their own box with their own background, Together used AI to cut out each person’s head and shoulders, then composited them next to each ot…

If you think memory prices are high now, just wait. A new report from Citrini Research forecasts that Nvidia’s next-generation Rubin AI platform will require more than 6 billion GB of Low-Power Double Data Rate memory (LPDDR) in 2027. LPDDR is the low-power memory used in devices like smartphones, tablets, and ultra-thin laptops. If Citrini is correct, Nvidia could consume more LPDDR memory than Apple and Samsung combined. That could spell bad news for consumers looking to upgrade phones and other personal devices, especially as rising memory costs are already affecting prices across consumer electronics. Rubin, named after astronomer Vera Rubin, is a big bet …

Higher education is under pressure from every direction. Shifts in finance and policy, high tuition costs, and a decline in public trust have forced colleges and universities to rethink how they prepare people for work. At the same time, employers face persistent talent shortages and widening skills gaps. These challenges have created momentum for a more practical, outcome-driven model built on deeper collaboration between educators and employers. When these partnerships are designed well, they can strengthen workforce infrastructure. They can also align education with labor market needs and expand career pathways. CLOSE THE MIDDLE SKILLS GAP Strong employer-educator pa…

The most challenging conversation to have with brands is one that defies a commonly held belief: great content is enough. For decades, the marketing industry has abided by the same foundational belief that if they create something worthy of attention, their target audience will naturally engage with it. But this approach is a liability for both their reach and revenue. Today, brands are rapidly losing ground to content creators and bot farms, which each exhibit stronger algorithmic intelligence. Recommendation engines are governed by engagement velocity rather than resonance. Regardless of quality, the content that ultimately keeps users on the platform longest–watchi…

For most of the past decade, individuals have largely defined the creator economy: one creator, one channel, and one voice, building a direct relationship with an audience. That model has produced massive businesses and cultural influence. It’s not the end state. It’s the starting point. Recently, several executives who helped build major cable networks have told me: This moment feels like the early days of cable TV. The more you examine it, the more the comparison holds. Before cable, television was limited, with few networks, constrained distribution, and narrow programming. Cable did not just introduce more content; it fundamentally changed how content was pack…

Days after Spirit Airlines shut down in the middle of the night, a lawyer for the defunct budget carrier stood before a bankruptcy judge and apologized to the price-conscious customers who might struggle to find affordable flights in its absence. “We apologize most specifically for those Americans who may now be priced entirely out,” Spirit lawyer Marshall Huebner said in court, thanking all the passengers who relied on the airline during its 34-year run, many of whom, he said, “could not otherwise have afforded air travel.” Spirit’s May 3 demise is not the only curveball confronting people planning trips a week before the summer travel season has its traditional U.S. l…

Everlane—once an icon of ethical fashion—is reportedly being sold for $100 million to Shein, arguably the least ethical fashion brand on the market. Everlane had been on shaky financial ground for years, and majority owner L Catterton began shopping it around in March. But few expected it to sell to a Chinese retailer credibly accused of forced labor and labeled by Yale researchers as “the biggest polluter in fast fashion.” It’s the latest blow to a wave of ethical consumer brands that sprung up in the 2010s to court millennials. Last month, Allbirds—the sustainable sneaker startup—sold off its footwear assets, abandoned its environmental mission, and pivoted to artific…

When Bob’s Red Mill began in 1978, it was a flour company operated out of a literal red mill by one dedicated married couple. Since then, it’s grown into a grocery store staple with more than 200 products—and, along the way, its fascinating brand story has gotten lost amidst a sea of colorful, overwhelming packaging. To fix that, the company has spent three years on a full branding overhaul to bring all of its products back under one mill roof. Bob’s Red Mill began as the passion project of the late Bob and Charlee Moore, a husband and wife duo who started their own flour milling business as a way to introduce more whole grains into their family’s diet. And, according…

It starts with Jason Sudeikis in the make-up trailer for what must be the latest season of Ted Lasso, where he’s asked if he’s heading back stateside for the World Cup. He says no, then for some weird reason, taps his script with his Visa card. Poof! The script is now a World Cup match ticket. Thus begins Sudeikis’ surreal trip home, as dramatized in Visa’s new World Cup commercial “Tap in.” The campaign uses a simple play on words—in football, a tap-in goal is the easiest there is—to illustrate the ease with which fans can use Visa in and around the 2026 World Cup. Along the way in the campaign we see football stars Lamine Yamal, Erling Haaland, Jorge Campos, and le…

For the past two years, companies have been asking the wrong question: how do we use AI in our processes? That question made sense at the beginning. When large language models first appeared, the instinct was natural: take what already exists, from workflows to functions, decision chains, etc., and try to accelerate them. Add copilots. Add assistants. Add automation layers. Improve productivity. But as we’ve seen, that approach doesn’t scale. As I’ve argued in previous pieces, enterprise AI hasn’t failed because the technology doesn’t work. It has failed because we tried to place it in the wrong layer. Large language models were never designed to run a company, …