Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

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 TikTok f…

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…

Below, Eric Becker shares five key insights from his new book, The Long Game: A Playbook of the World’s Most Enduring Companies. Eric is the founder and chairman at Cresset, an award-winning multi-family office with billions in assets under management. He also co-founded Sterling Partners, a value-added, growth private equity firm. With his long history of starting, backing, and nurturing companies, Eric advises founders, entrepreneurs, private equity partners, and ultra-high worth families. What’s the big idea? Companies that last not one generation, not two, but for a hundred years and beyond share certain things in common. It is no accident when a company en…

Cheating has long been an unwelcome but expected risk in the hiring process. While most people are honest and well-intentioned, there are always a handful of candidates who attempt to game the system. Today, however, the problem is evolving at an unprecedented speed. Generative AI has made new, more sophisticated types of cheating possible for any position, from software development to finance to design. In my work with hundreds of employers helping them hire and develop talent, I’ve seen firsthand the myriad ways candidates attempt to game the system. So, why are candidates resorting to these methods? Sometimes, candidates are attempting to secure a position they’re …

Over the years, I have conditioned myself to only be able to focus in 25-minute increments, a timer counting down in my peripheral. The five-minute break following? It’s like a reward. It is now accepted wisdom that taking regular breaks during the workday makes one more productive. How long those breaks should be, however, depends on which productivity method you are subscribed to. Recently, a University of Cambridge mental health researcher has suggested that longer breaks could, in fact, be more effective at tackling those afternoon slumps. “The most productive people work for about 52 minutes at a time and then take 17-minute breaks,” Olivia Remes shared on …

Japanese auto manufacturer Mazda has released a simplified new logo, and it has bigger implications than your typical brand refresh. It’s indicative of a broader branding—or should we say blanding—trend that’s taking over the car industry. Mazda Motor Corp. rolled out a new, flatter version of its logo at the Japan Mobility Show 2025 in October that did away with the dimensional, beveled silver chrome effect the logomark used to have in favor of a solid black line. The new M mark is more angular, too, evoking a pair of wings that was first introduced in 1997. The company says it designed the flat new logo for improved visibility, especially in digital environments. T…

The people of New York have spoken. In electing Zohran Mamdani mayor, they voted for generational change, democratic socialism, and joyful pop-culture politics. The historical significance of Mamdani’s victory will be parsed for days, weeks, and years to come. But the people of New York did not just elect a mayor, they also voted to change the way housing gets built in one of the tightest housing markets in the United States. Voters passed three ballot initiatives designed to speed up and increase housing production by an even greater margin than Mamdani’s victory. With these ballot initiatives, Mamdani also won a huge victory—one he didn’t even campaign for, th…

The erosion of freedom rarely happens overnight; it’s written into law, one ruling at a time. ACLU’s Chase Strangio lays bare how the U.S. legal system is failing its people under a growing wave of authoritarianism and systemic rollbacks of civil liberties. View the full article

“Get laid off with me.” So read the closed captions of a recent TikTok post. “My boss just put a 15 minute sink on my calendar,” creator @mbraindump said in the now-viral post. “I can’t believe this is really happening. Getting laid off, okay, here we go.” It is a sinking feeling that’s sadly familiar to myriad workers. In just the past week, thousands have fallen victim to mass layoffs at Amazon, Target, Paramount, CBS, and other large companies. After Amazon laid off 14,000 corporate employees last week, or 4% of its white-collar workforce, a number of workers started cropping up on social media to document their experiences. The trend of documenting be…

Every professional faces cycles consisting of booms, busts, restructurings, and reinventions. The difference between those who endure and those who fade isn’t luck or timing; it’s adaptability. In volatile economies, careers built on curiosity and agility thrive long after others stall. No market cycle lasts forever. Careers, like economies, move through expansions and contractions. It’s vital to continue upskilling, remain flexible, and adapt to market cycles. They are not always predictable, but the leaders who adapt, always learn, network, reflect, and rebalance will outperform the cycles. Adaptability Is the New Alpha In finance and beyond, resilience has …

America’s aviation system is straining under the weight of the longest government shutdown on record: thousands of flight cancellations, long delays at major airports, and frustrated travelers nationwide. In an unprecedented move, the Federal Aviation Administration last week ordered airlines to scale back domestic flight schedules, saying the cuts are meant to ease pressure on an overstretched system and help manage air traffic control staffing. Unpaid for more than a month, some air traffic controllers have begun calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobs—leaving more control towers and facilities short-staffed. The numbers show t…

As 2026 takes shape, the most successful leaders will adopt new tools with responsibility and vision while keeping the human side of shopping alive. These 10 tech trends in retail tech and AI are evolving, transforming how brands design, distribute, and deliver experiences. These are not distant forecasts, but happening in real time across retailers, marketplaces, and consumer ecosystems. 1. Predictive intent engines Reactive personalization is being replaced by predictive intent engines. Instead of waiting for a customer to browse, AI anticipates the customer’s next wants based on contextual data like weather, life events, and even local cultural moments. For …

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…

When you open Microsoft Excel to review quarterly results or check Waze to optimize your route to the office, you’re tapping into technologies born not in corporate boardrooms, but in university labs. Thinking of innovation, our minds often jump to the titans of tech: Jobs, Musk, Altman, Gates, Bezos. But behind everyday tech innovations and healthcare breakthroughs are academic researchers whose work catalyzed billion-dollar industries. The unsung heroes of the lab and lecture hall have laid the groundwork for some of the most transformative technologies of our time. A few make celebrity status as Nobel prize winners, but the glory of most academics is poorly understood…

Meta has prevailed over an existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling Tuesday after the historic antitrust trial wrapped up in late May. His decision follows two separate rulings that branded Google an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising, dealing yet another regulatory blow to the tech industry that for years enjoyed nearly unbridled growth. The Federal Trade Commission “continues to insist that Meta competes with the same old rivals it has for…

When the new year rolls around, many people will resolve to get in better shape. Last year, Americans poured $44.8 billion into the fitness industry, flocking to gyms and buying at-home fitness equipment. But it usually takes just two weeks for people to abandon their goals. Gym memberships go unused. Peloton bikes collect dust. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found that amidst all the fitness options on the market, personal training tends to lead to better results for several reasons: It involves a personalized program, fits into the participant’s schedule, and requires being accountable to the trainer. But personal training is expensive, priced…

AI models have a voracious appetite for data. Keeping up to date with information to present to users is a challenge. And so companies at the vanguard of AI appear to have hit on an answer: crawling the web—constantly. But website owners increasingly don’t want to give AI firms free rein. So they’re regaining control by cracking down on crawlers. To do this, they’re using robots.txt, a file held on many websites that acts as a guide to how web crawlers are allowed—or not—to scrape their content. Originally designed as a signal to search engines as to whether a website wanted its pages to be indexed or not, it has gained increased importance in the AI era as some compa…

Timothée Chalamet just posted an 18-minute-long video to his Instagram to promote his upcoming A24 film, Marty Supreme. It might be his best role yet. In the video, Chalamet—sporting a bright yellow tank top, buzz cut, and dainty necklace—joins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives who will be leading the promotional campaign ahead of the film’s release on December 25. After awkward introductions, Chalamet proceeds to fill up the meeting’s airtime with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for the film’s marketing efforts, leaving the eight other members of the call scrambling to accommodate his wild ideas. On A24’s YouTube channel, where the video…

IT development has been around for more than 60 years and it has undergone radical transformations from the emergence of the first programming languages and OS development to the internet boom and the current AI era. Although programming tools and approaches are constantly changing, one thing remains constant: Only those developers who can adapt and master new knowledge and skills survive. I’m the chief software officer of a 70-strong team that designs a predictive maintenance system (PdM): A solution based on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and AI. Without continuous growth, our developers cannot remain competitive. The same is true in nearly every industry; wh…

Chris was frustrated. He’d used Artificial Intelligence (AI) extensively in college. Now at his first job, he saw very few of his colleagues ever experimenting with it. At first, Chris tried bringing up AI conversationally. He mentioned creating a meal schedule, as well as planning a cool weekend trip itinerary. But when he suggested to his manager how they might want to incorporate AI into their workflow, he felt rebuffed. Chris isn’t alone. As the first group of highly experienced AI users is starting work, they have experience with AI. However, they lack the credibility and subject matter expertise to transform workflows. Championing change management initiatives (es…

A growing number of Amazon employees have signed onto an open letter issuing some dire warnings about the company’s sprint toward AI. The letter, signed by more than 1,000 workers and published this week, calls out Amazon for pushing its AI investments at the expense of the climate and its human workforce. The letter’s supporters come from a wide array of roles at the company, including many software engineers, and even employees focused on building AI systems. “We believe that the all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development will do staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth,” the letter’s authors wrote. “We’re the workers who de…

There’s an old myth that Inuit cultures have as many as a hundred words for snow. I remember learning about it in school, and there was just something wonderful about the idea that people’s perceptions can be so deeply rich and different. I guess that’s why, although it has been debunked many times, the story keeps getting repeated. There is also a lot of truth to the underlying concept. As anybody who has ever learned another language or lived in a different culture knows, people’s perceptions vary widely. In The WEIRDest People In The World, Harvard’s Joseph Henrich documents how important and interesting these differences can be. So if the Inuit snow myth hig…

For many children, the experience of getting their first pair of glasses is an inevitable milestone, the first in a lifetime of visits to the eye doctor. But what if those lenses could actually help preserve the child’s vision and reduce the chances for more serious eye problems in adulthood? That’s the promise of a new type of lens approved by the Food and Drug Administration in September. While the technology has previously been available in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world, it’s now rolling out in the U.S. Here’s what to know about the new approach. What is myopia and why is it increasing? Myopia, commonly called nearsightedness, is when people can clearly…

AI image generators used to be terrible at handling text. Even once the models mastered hands with five fingers, the presence of mangled, nonsensical, vaguely Cyrillic-looking text was a dead giveaway that an image was generated by AI. Not anymore. Today’s most advanced image generators have slowly improved their text generation. OpenAI’s image generator within ChatGPT handles basic text tasks fairly well. And design-centered models like Ideogram are great for simple, practical text tasks like creating video thumbnails. This week, though, Google has released Nano Banana Pro, an updated version of its wildly popular AI image editing tool. Nano Banana P…

New research now suggests that our brains are still in the teenage phase until we “peak” in our early thirties. Researchers from the University of Cambridge looked at scans from around 4,000 people up to the age of 90 to reveal the connections between their brain cells. Rather than progressing steadily over our lifetimes, research published in the journal Nature Communications suggests our brain goes through five distinct phases in life, with key turning points happening at ages nine, 32, 66, and 83. The first stage, from birth to nine, sees the brain rapidly increasing in size. Around age nine, the “adolescent” phase begins as the brain works on increasing its e…