Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Most of us assume bullying is something we age out of by middle school, high school at the latest. By the time you’re a professional—especially one with credentials, experience, and a résumé you worked hard for—you expect a baseline of mutual respect. And yet. If you’ve spent enough time in workplaces, on boards, or in other community organizations, you’ve probably had that moment where your stomach tightens in a meeting and you’re not entirely sure why. A comment lands sideways. A tone shifts. Someone interrupts you for the third time. You walk away replaying the exchange, wondering whether you imagined it or whether something subtle but unmistakable just happene…

During his family’s annual summer vacations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, high schooler Ajith Varikuti began to notice something concerning. Homes on the narrow line of barrier islands that Varikuti had grown up visiting from his hometown Charlotte were no longer there. “I started seeing more and more news articles about entire houses being completely destroyed. And it started clicking, because some of those houses that were being destroyed I’d seen in my previous years there,” he says. Varikuti, who was then a 9th grade student, knew there had to be a solution. So, as part of a student design competition organized by the design software company Autodesk, Varikuti …

Single this Valentine’s Day? You’re not alone. New research from The Harris Poll shows that nearly half of Americans (46%) are not in relationships—many of them on purpose. The report, shared exclusively with Fast Company, calls it a “cultural revolution,” where people are using singlehood as a way to prioritize their agency rather than focusing on traditional relationship expectations. Not everyone is staying single, but 80% of Americans say you don’t need marriage to be happy. In fact, singles are more likely than those in relationships to say they live a fulfilling life. More time for friendships—or careers The idea of what makes a fulfilling relationsh…

Daters: It might be time to spring clean your dating app profile. More than 50% of young Americans have gone on a date with someone who looked different from their profile photos, according to a new survey from dating app Hily. That’s led 54% of Gen Z and 62% of millennial daters to either end a date early or decline a second one, Hily found after surveying 3,700 dating app users earlier this month. “For a variety of reasons, quite a few people don’t regularly update their profile pics, some not even when their looks change,” the company wrote in an accompanying blog post. “Women tend to be afraid of being judged for their appearance, while men feel like the …

Target CEO Michael Fiddelke is reshuffling his leadership team and making other changes shortly after stepping into the top job at the retailer that has struggled operationally. Rick Gomez, the 13-year Target veteran who oversees the chain’s vast inventory of merchandise, will leave the company. And Jill Sando, the chief merchandising officer overseeing a handful of categories like apparel and home and who has been with the company since 1997, will retire. Lisa Roath, who oversaw food, essentials, and cosmetics, will take Fiddelke’s previous job as chief operating officer, the company said Tuesday. Cara Sylvester, who had been chief guest experience officer, will …

A powerful advisory group within the CDC voted Friday to overturn a longstanding precaution designed to protect newborn babies. If the change is approved by the acting director of the agency, the government will no longer universally recommend the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. The shot, which provides protection from the leading cause of liver cancer, has been standard practice for newborns since 1991. Friday’s 8-3 vote is a milestone for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who quickly began reshaping the public health agency to reflect his personal views on vaccines after being sworn in early this year. Kennedy has long been a prominent vo…

​​​​​The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. More people will require surgery this year than ever before. ​​​​And next year, that number will rise again. By 2030, more than 313 million surgical procedures will done annually. This is a demand the current healthcare system can’t keep up with. The result will be longer wait times, more complications, and a system stretched far beyond its limits. For decades, surgical innovation has …

There are few things everyone can rally behind as much as finding a lost dog. But what if that mission is actually a workaround for mass surveillance? That’s the question many people are asking following a Super Bowl commercial from Ring, Amazon’s doorbell camera and home security brand. The 30-second video shows a series of missing dog posters and claims that 10 million pets go missing every year. It pitches Ring’s Search Party feature as the solution. Launched in November, Search Party takes a photo of the pet and taps into Ring cameras across the area. They can then use AI to identify the missing pet and send an alert. The ad claims that at least one dog …

Resilience is no longer just about grit or recovering from setbacks. It’s about anticipating change, staying agile in uncertainty, and continuously evolving. The most future-ready organizations build resilience not just at the leadership level, but across their entire workforce—equipping employees with the skills, mindsets, and support systems they need to turn disruption into momentum.  People today expect more—learning, development, well-being, and strong leadership—to help them navigate the future of work. Companies that invest in these areas don’t just retain top talent; they build workforces that are unstoppable. Here are four powerful strategies to embed r…

For the past decade I have volunteered at St. Francis Inn, a soup kitchen in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Kensington, for those not from Philly, has long had a reputation for potent but affordable street drugs. Interstate 95 and the Market-Frankford elevated commuter train line provide easy access to the neighborhood for buyers and sellers, and abandoned buildings offer havens for drug use and other illicit activity. St. Francis Inn Ministries, which was founded by two Franciscan friars in 1979, serves sit-down breakfast and dinner for thousands of people each year, many of whom suffer from poverty, homelessness, and substance use disorder. It also…

After a viral disappearance and rumors of his demise, Duo the owl is alive—and he’s finally ready to speak: “I said, ‘It’s either Spanish or vanish.’” Watch the full tell-all interview and hear from the bird behind the chaos. View the full article

The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that the helicopter tour company whose sightseeing chopper broke apart in flight and crashed in New York, killing the pilot and a family of five visitors from Spain, is shutting down operations immediately. The FAA, in a statement posted on X, also said it would launch an immediate review of New York Helicopter Tours’ operating license and safety record. The move came hours after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer had called on federal authorities to revoke the operating permits of New York Helicopter Tours. The company’s sightseeing helicopter broke apart in midair and plunged into the Hudson River Thursday, killing the tourist…

Curiosity is one of the most consequential forces in human history. Every scientific breakthrough, technological leap, and cultural advance begins not with knowledge, but the desire to know. At its core, curiosity drives us to close the gap between what we know and what we want to know, a cognitive itch triggered by uncertainty and resolved through learning and the pursuit of meaning. Curiosity as an evolutionary advantage Early humans who explored their environments, experimented with tools, and learned from novel stimuli were more likely to secure resources, avoid threats, and pass on their genes. As a result, curiosity became embedded in our biology, reinforced …

All sense of survivors’ guilt was fleeting for those residents whose homes remained standing after wildfires ripped through the Los Angeles area three months ago. Many worried that smoke from the Eaton wildfire that destroyed more than 9,000 structures and killed 18 people may have carried toxins, including lead, asbestos and heavy metals, into their homes. But they struggled to convince their insurers to test their properties to ensure it was safe to return. Nicole Maccalla, a data scientist, said embers burned more than half of her roof, several windows and eaves were damaged, and her house in Altadena was left filled with ash, debris, soot and damaged appliances. She…

The humanoid robotics revolution is just around the corner. Test models are already working in factories alongside human beings across the world, while AI companies develop new foundation models designed to help robots navigate their environments as easily as humans do. But computer “brains” are useless without the skeletons that give humanoid robots their form—and the many components that make up those skeletons need to come from somewhere. Alongside bearings, which reduce friction, motors, and gears, the average humanoid robot relies on dozens of screws—key components that convert the rotational motion produced by a motor into linear motion. Traditionally, ball …

When people talk about how AI might reshape media, the term “hyper-personalization” comes up a lot. In broad terms, it means that AI can tailor the experience around your preferences—assuming it has enough data about you. To some extent, algorithms and ad tech have been doing this for years, recommending links and stories based on your clicks and browsing behavior. What generative AI brings to the table is the ability to adapt the content itself. A large language model could, in theory, understand the kinds of stories I care about and modify what I’m reading—maybe by adding an angle relevant to my region. It could even offer up different lengths or even formats. If I’…

At its core, public health is about driving healthy behavior changes by building awareness, meeting people where they are, and offering solutions that are accessible and grounded in evidence. Throughout my career, I have worked on issues ranging from foster adoption and drunk driving prevention to tobacco prevention and cessation, always with science as our foundation. But the media landscape, and how people engage with information, has changed dramatically. To remain relevant and effective, public health must evolve. That means rethinking not just what we communicate, but how we motivate, engage, and sustain healthy behaviors. WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO LEAN IN Gamific…

In early February, the 22-year-old design brand Areaware announced it will close on May 1 citing tariffs and “mounting pressures on the home goods industry” in a letter posted to its Instagram account. “Every product we’ve made has been an act of optimism—a belief that good design can make our world a little better,” the letter said. “Lately though, our world has been making that difficult for us to do.” It’s been a challenging few months for good design brands. In December, Food52, the parent company of Schoolhouse and Dansk, declared bankruptcy; earlier in February, it was stripped for parts and sold at auction. While Areaware and Food52 don’t share the exact same …

Advertising in generative AI systems has become a fault line. Last month, OpenAI released that it would start running ads in ChatGPT. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, OpenAI’s chief financial officer defended the introduction of ads inside ChatGPT, arguing that it is a way to “democratize access to artificial intelligence,” and that this decision is aligned with its mission: “AGI for the benefit of humanity, not for the benefit of humanity who can pay.” Within days, Anthropic fired back in a Super Bowl commercial, ridiculing the idea that ads belong inside systems people trust for advice, therapy, and decision-making. In some way, this is a spat about ho…