Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Finally, some good news for renters: Housing rental market concessions are at their highest level in over a decade, as lower demand and higher supply drive landlords to compete for prospective tenants by offering all sorts of incentives and freebies. Let’s take a look at the numbers. In January, 16.6% of stabilized apartments in the U.S. were offering some type of concession, one point higher than the previous month, and the highest since over a decade ago in 2014, according to RealPage Market Analytics as reported by CNBC. What is a rent concession? Rent concessions are generally one-time incentives, freebies, or perks, such as free rent for a few months, free…

A giant cheesesteak running through multiple terminals at the Philadelphia airport might not solve the world’s problems, but it will make people smile. It’s National Cheesesteak Day, after all, so a little joy is necessary. In honor of this unique day, here’s some history on this lesser-known holiday. We even threw in some ideas on how to celebrate and make Rocky Balboa proud. Brief history of the Philly cheesesteak The cheesesteak is an American invention that originated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The desire for something new struck two Italian-American brothers, Pat and Henry Olivieri, one day in 1930. The brothers ran a hot dog cart, but were craving som…

The answer to America’s submarine bottleneck, the U.S. Navy has decided, lies as much in software as it does in steel. A new multibillion-dollar facility in Cherokee, Alabama, aims to harness AI and robotics to build submarine components faster and more reliably. The automated “factory of the future” will produce parts for the Navy’s Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, both central to the U.S. fleet. It will cost $2.4 billion to develop. “This factory is the first of three facilities designed to address the most critical bottlenecks in the maritime industrial base,” said John C. Phelan, secretary of the Navy, in a stat…

Since Patrick Star first posed it to Squidward Tentacles, the internet hasn’t been able to get the question, “Is mayonnaise an instrument?” out of its collective head. Luckily, experts have finally stepped in to give us an answer. Those experts include Hellmann’s, the world’s biggest mayo brand, and researchers at Northumbria University, led by Dr. Rachael Durkin, its Head of Global Music Technologies, who employed fields like acoustics, musicology, and organology—the study of musical instruments—to put the question to rest. Their inquiry takes inspiration from one of SpongeBob SquarePants’s most beloved early episodes, “Band Geeks.” In a much-memed scene, curmudg…

In a 1944 issue of Arts & Architecture magazine, the architect and designer Charles Eames sounded an alarm. “It has been estimated that one million five hundred thousand houses each year for a period of 10 years will be needed to relieve the urgent housing problem of this country,” he wrote. “The enormity of such a need cannot even be partially satisfied by building techniques as we have known and used them in the past. Large scale industry would seem to be the only logical means by which we can achieve an enterprise of such proportion.” Throughout their careers, Charles and Ray Eames explored how industrial production could impact home building, most famously th…

The modern kitchen has become a canvas for self-expression, a place where consumers obsess over aesthetics and materials with an intensity usually reserved for fashion. They carefully consider the color of their Dutch oven, the kind of wood in their cutting board, and where to display their glass canisters. And yet, tucked into the corner of that same beautiful kitchen, is almost certainly an unattractive trash can that looks like it was designed in 2000 and never revisited. The home goods market is massive and growing. It was valued at $960 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2030. But aside from premium brand SimpleHuman, which paved the way for …

Imagine you need to organize a meeting with people in Portland, Tokyo, and Sydney at the same time. Off the top of your head, what’s a time that’d actually work for everyone? Don’t feel bad if you’re befuddled. Time zones are confusing! You can try to memorize the time difference between different cities, but even that only works some of the time. Daylight Saving changes the time in some places but not others, for one thing—and in the hemisphere opposite yours, it changes it in the opposite direction. That’s why you shouldn’t try to schedule meetings across time zones off the top of your head. No matter how crafty you may be, there are just too many factors to kee…

With layoffs still dominating headlines, many job seekers assume the biggest challenge in today’s market is competition. But new research suggests another obstacle may be quietly draining applicants’ time and emotional energy: job postings that may not actually be hiring. Recent analysis of more than 175,000 job listings across industries found that roughly one in seven postings remain active for more than 30 days, even when companies may no longer be accepting candidates. Some listings remain online for months, continuing to collect applications long after hiring decisions have effectively been made. These roles are often referred to as “ghost jobs.” For job seek…

It’s sometime after midnight on a Monday morning when Zach unlocks his phone and starts scrolling for something to bet on. He’s 26, tucked into his childhood bed at his parents’ house in Washington, D.C. He moved back in after a stint in Las Vegas that didn’t go as planned. The NFL is done for the night. The NBA’s late games have wrapped. Mainstream sports are fast asleep. In FanDuel’s live betting tab, he finds a women’s tennis tournament streaming from somewhere in Southeast Asia. Two unranked, unknown teenagers, one boasting a 0–1 career record. Empty arena, no ball boys. Between points, the players jog to the fence to retrieve the ball themselves. He puts mone…

A Samsung Galaxy Tri-Fold smartphone sits beside something we haven’t seen before. It’s a round screen with a swiveling head. Called Project Luna, it has the mechanical charm of Luxo Jr., and a beep not so different from Wall-E. “The guests are here,” whispers a voice. Moments later, we hear an orchestra begin to play. Project Luna and the Galaxy become the conductors of a wide array of Samsung products and concepts, all of which share the same, pulsating orb graphic animation that lands somewhere between a face, mouth, eye, and the light ring of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL. This is how Samsung is saying hello to its visitors at Milan Design Week for its exhibitio…

What comes to mind when you think of sports sunglasses? Maybe it’s rec spec goggles or big, mirrored cycling sunglasses. While these glasses are fine for action, they’re not exactly what you’d call stylish. Warby Parker is looking to change that with the launch of Warby Parker Sport, a collection of performance sunglasses starting at $195. “I’m really proud of where we ended up where these are glasses that have all of the great function of great sports glasses, but something where you’re not going to look back in 10 years and think, why was I wearing this crazy shield on my face?” Warby Parker co-founder and co-CEO Neil Blumenthal tells Fast Company. The l…

I have a confession to make. I keep a secret document in my Google Drive titled “Fund Theses That Piss Me Off.” And every time I read about a venture capital fund with a generic, meaningless, or buzzwordy thesis that manages to raise a bunch of money regardless, I copy and paste it into my burn pile. This is how I started to notice a couple of years back how sometimes VCs will make dramatic changes to their thesis and investing focus. And it happens not just at a fund level, but across whole chunks of the industry, too. Take, for instance, climate VC. This was a white-hot category not too long ago. Today, all of a sudden, all the climate funds are gone, or they’v…

Pity the middle manager. Even before the emergence of AI, these jobs had increasingly become a one-way ticket to burnout and misery. Since 2013, the average number of direct reports has increased by almost 50% to twelve employees, according to Gallup. The same poll revealed that less than one-third of managers are engaged at work, while over a quarter are planning to leave their jobs. Enter AI: The ever-changing chimera, swathed in hype, is now making life more complicated for managers. Executives are bewitched by AI’s promise of productivity. Rank-and-file employees oscillate between fear that AI will take their jobs and overusing it. Those sandwiched in between, the…

In the fast-paced world of consumer packaged goods (CPG), innovation has become one of the most overused—and misunderstood—terms in our vocabulary. Walking the halls of Expo West this year, the sheer scale of innovation on display is staggering. Every aisle promises a new solution to our food system’s woes—higher protein, added fiber, or the latest superfood infusion. Yet a troubling question persists: How much of this is actual food innovation, and how much is marketing dressed up as engineering? The modern CPG landscape excels at generating hype but often fails to create lasting value. Brands appear overnight, fueled by venture capital and massive marketing spends, …

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 morning. On any given workday, you might find Whatnot employees hawking trading cards, apparel, or other items on the digital live-shopping app. They’re not slacking on the job or trying to make rent—they’re actually evaluated on whether they’ve spent time selling and buying on the app. “…

Venmo is getting its first full app overhaul since its inception in 2009, and it’s addressing some major UX issues that have made using the platform feel like the digital equivalent of flipping through a phone book. When Venmo was launched, it was a breath of fresh air in the finance space. It stood out for its social network-style approach to bill splitting and rent requests. Since then, though, Venmo’s aspirations have far outgrown its app interface. In the first quarter of 2026, PayPal (Venmo’s parent company) shared that Venmo’s total payment volume was up 14% year-over-year, marking its sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. According to Alexis So…

On May 11, media entrepreneur Byron Allen announced a deal to buy a majority stake in BuzzFeed—the millennial-favorite news site that closed its Pulitzer Prize-winning news division in 2023. Allen is swooping in as savior of the 20-year-old publication, which otherwise would have had to file for bankruptcy as a result of its shrinking revenue. Allen will replace founder Jonah Peretti as CEO of BuzzFeed; Peretti will become president of BuzzFeed AI. “Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost by expanding into free-streaming video, audio, and user-generated content,” Allen said in a statement announcing the deal. “As of this moment, wi…

The country that gave the world ABBA punches far above its weight in global pop music. In early April, Zara Larsson was the fourth-biggest female artist on Spotify, behind Taylor Swift, Olivia Dean, and Raye. The month prior, Larsson had become the first Swedish artist to top the Billboard Global 200. Her fans were delighted. So were Swedes. Sweden’s music industry is a clear example of soft power. An army of Swedish songwriters and producers appear in the credits of pop hits. Max Martin has written more chart-toppers than anyone except Paul McCartney. The Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, and Robyn are household names. With a population of just 10.6 million people, Sw…

Custom AI models are not just for the AI giants anymore. Because the 37-person startup Krea is releasing its first generative AI model as the design tools startup repositions itself as a full-fledged AI research lab. The move is significant for Krea, but it also seems to tease an almost inevitable moment in the rapidly evolving AI market, where smaller players in the industry can make more disruptive bets. On one hand, Krea can hardly call itself a bootstrapped startup anymore. It’s now raised $83 million through its Series B at a $500 million valuation. On the other, it’s tiny compared to the leading frontier model companies, which constantly raise more money t…

Martha Stewart just launched a new startup called Hint—an “always-on, AI-native home management platform” set to launch this summer. The venture was born out of a conversation Stewart had with Kyle Rush, her neighbor and an AI engineer. The two wanted to create software that can help identify and solve pesky home repairs, as well as reduce expenses. After Stewart partnered with Rush and home-services executive Yih-Han Ma, Hint was born. “The first thing you do is give us your address,” Ma explained to Fortune. Then, Hint pulls publicly available data on the property. Users can upload further information, like inspection reports and insurance policies, to give Hint…

First there was nutrient timing, then proteinmaxxing—now, fibermaxxing is the latest viral wellness trend everyone is talking about. On TikTok, social media influencers can be seen extolling the virtues of fiber (hashtag #fibermaxxing). One such influencer is @shanny_do, a self-proclaimed “fiber-obsessed gastroenterologist,” who posted with gusto about what she packs each day for work at the hospital. (For the curious, that’s a bowl that includes: Ethiopian spicy lentils, some plain black beans straight from the can, baba ganoush and carrots; a second small bowl of berries—black, blue and raspberries; a Z bar—a kid’s protein snack bar made of oats—and an apple.) A…

Ferrari’s first-ever all-electric vehicle, the Luce, was designed to look “entirely new,” the company says, and so far the reaction to the new EV has been polarized. Shares of the Italian luxury automaker fell in premarket trading Tuesday after Ferrari unveiled the car named after the Italian word for “light” on the anniversary of its first Rome Grand Prix victory. The Luce, expected to sell for about $640,000, was designed by former Apple chief design officer Jony Ive and Marc Newson through their design collective LoveFrom. Online, people expressed their disappointment. The Luce doesn’t look like a Ferarri, some complained, suggesting it has the sleek, …

Being critical of AI is far from a fringe position in the United States. Recent polling shows that half of U.S. adults feel more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. And among Gen Z specifically, excitement and hope around artificial intelligence are falling while anger over the tech increases, with 42% of Gen Zers saying AI makes them anxious. But those increasingly common AI-critical sentiments are reportedly raising flags with the federal government. More than a thousand pages of unpublished reports acquired by Wired show a worrying trend across America: Federal intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement are targeting “anti-te…