Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Every time you ask ChatGPT to draft an email, or prompt an AI assistant to help you decide which refrigerator to buy—somewhere, a data center hums to life to make it happen. These facilities, which can span the size of a small city, are the unglamorous physical infrastructure behind the AI revolution. They’re cavernous buildings packed with servers, cooled by industrial systems, drawing power at a scale that strains local electrical grids. What almost no one talks about is the human beings building them. To construct a single data center, developers source millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, lithium, and critical metals from supply chains that stretch across …

There’s trouble in AI-generated paradise. TikTok’s most popular AI-generated series “Fruit Love Island” has millions of followers, but that may not be enough to save it from video takedowns and shifting online attitudes toward AI. “Fruit Love Island” is exactly what the title implies: a one-to-one recreation of the popular dating show Love Island, rendered with AI and featuring humanoid fruit as contestants. When hot new bombshells enter this villa, they’re anthropomorphic cherries, bananas, pineapples, and more. “Welcome to Fruit Love Island, where eight single fruits are about to flirt, fight, and trust—things get messy fast,” begins the first episode. …

School is out for Rec Room: The social gaming platform announced on Monday it is shutting down this June, despite “reaching over 150 million players and creators along the way” since its founding in 2016. “Despite this popularity, we never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business,” the company said in a statement. “Our costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue we brought in. “We spent a long time trying to find a way to make the numbers work.” “But with the recent shift in the VR market, along with broader headwinds in gaming, the path to profitability has gotten tough enough that we’ve made the difficult decision to shut thin…

There’s a pattern hiding in the biographies of the most brilliant minds: repeatable habits anyone can practice. It has nothing to do with being a genius. You don’t need talent or intelligence, though that helps. Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write by dismantling essays he admired, rewriting them from memory. And comparing his version to the original. Charles Darwin spent years obsessively collecting barnacles (spineless animals that look like small circular white rocks) before publishing anything about evolution. Richard Feynman rebuilt physics from first principles in notebooks he kept purely for himself. None of these men was following a specific rule. Nobody…

Telling the truth is good for business. A 2024 research paper shows that an honest culture can boost financial performance by over 20%. And in a 2004 article by MIT Sloan Management Review, 76% of staff say the honesty of a business affects their decisions on where to work. We know it matters to organizations. After all, words like “honesty,” “integrity,” and “truthfulness” appear in more than 65% of all corporate value statements. Unfortunately, just 19% of staff trust that their leaders are telling the truth, according to a 2024 report. Trust is at historic lows, in part because, despite us all saying truth and honesty matter, it’s never been easier to lie and …

Your team is busier than ever. Calendars are packed, inboxes are overflowing, and everyone is racing from one meeting to the next. So why aren’t the breakthroughs happening? Here’s the paradox: We’ve optimized for activity, not creativity. According to Microsoft research, people now spend 60% of their workday on communication tasks alone. That’s meetings, emails, and messages. Another study from Dropbox found that 46% of knowledge workers say they don’t have enough time for creative work, and only 8% of employees regularly propose new ideas. The problem isn’t that your team lacks creativity. It’s that we’ve scheduled every minute for execution and left zero ti…

A newsletter about the state of the product job market recently went viral in the design corner of the internet. It’s exposing a widespread debate about whether the role of the designer is narrowing in the age of AI. On March 24, Lenny Rachitsky, a former Airbnb product developer and author of the business Substack Lenny’s Newsletter, published an article featuring exclusive data on the state of tech hiring in early 2026. The data was collected by TrueUp, a tech job marketplace tracker. Overall, it paints a positive picture for the tech job market. But for designers it points to a moment of hiring uncertainty. TrueUp found that design roles have plateaued since …

In this first half of 2026, we see that marketers are increasingly channeling the Australian songstress Olivia Newton-John and her 1981 hit that called the world to “get physical.” The big shift we see is that brands are rediscovering the power of the physical experience, the touch, the communal moment, the atmosphere, and the desire for human connection. As AI-generated content floods screens with efficiency, creativity, and personalization, more brands are also leaning into the physical experiences that offer this human energy. These experiences are real, memorable, and shareable—and they anchor brands in lived moments that blur into culture rather than drifting int…

For billions of Christians around the world, Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. While this is not an official federal holiday, federal offices are already closed because it always falls on a Sunday. Many private businesses and retail chains also choose to close their doors on this day, so even if you don’t celebrate, you may be impacted by the festivities. Here’s a look at what is open and closed on Easter Sunday, which is today, April 5, 2026: Mail, schools, and the stock market There will be no mail delivery from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), because it is not typically delivered on Sundays. The only exception is Priority Mail Express…

My kids have been really into sea shanties lately (my family has eclectic musical tastes.) There are a surprisingly large number of modern shanties on YouTube and TikTok. But one historic song, The Wellermen, really spoke to me. Going down a rabbit hole of the song’s history, I learned that it was written in 1966 by a New Zealander. But the whaling classic was inspired by a much older song from 1820. Eventually, I found the lyrics to the original. But there was a problem–the words were cryptic and the melody was lost to the sands of time, making it impossible to sing. So, I decided to leverage today’s most powerful music-generating AI to bring it back.…

What’s behind a new wave of apps in the Apple App store? It’s probably two words: vibe coding. Apple’s App Store was flooded with 235,800 new apps in the first quarter of this year—an increase of 84% over the same time last year, according to new data published by The Information—after steady declines of 48% from 2016 to 2024. That builds on a trend from last year, in which developers created a whopping 600,000 new apps, leaving people wondering what is behind the big push. It turns out—perhaps not surprisingly, with artificial intelligence tools making it easier to create an app more quickly—that there’s more apps flooding into Apple’s App store. What’s t…

After years of working with clients across various industries at Dreamix, certain patterns repeat. Not the technical work—that varies enormously—but in the conversations that happen before the work begins. The assumptions clients bring into a vendor selection process often shape the outcome more than the technology choices that follow. Three of those assumptions are worth questioning before signing anything. 1. Don’t design the team before scoping the problem. A client arrives with a fixed requirement for five senior engineers, a specific tech stack, and product availability by a certain date. The project scope comes later. I understand their reasoning. Sen…

From Peppa Pig to Sesame Street, kids will be able to step into their favorite character’s universe in a new Netflix gaming app for children launching Monday. Aimed at children aged 8 years and under, ‘Netflix Playground’ is the streaming giant’s latest app offering age-appropriate games and activities included in all Netflix memberships. “We’re building a world where kids can not only watch their favorite stories, they can step inside them and interact with their favorite characters,” said John Derderian, Netflix Vice President of Animation Series and Kids & Family TV, in a press release announcing the app. Netflix Playground is set to be available in the…

I’ve heard it too many times to count, “We’ve never done PR before and are getting ready to announce [insert your major milestone of choice]” Too often, businesses wait until they have big news to begin thinking about strategic communications. They’re about to close a funding round, launch a product, or enter a new market. But here’s the thing: If you’re just starting to think about PR now, you’re already behind. After nearly 20 years leading communications for fintech companies and financial institutions, I can confidently say that the organizations that benefit most from major announcements began building visibility long before the moment arrived. WHY CO…

Lowe’s Foundation is making a major investment in future skilled tradesworkers. On Tuesday, the home improvement retailer announced it would commit an additional $200 million to training 250,000 tradespeople by 2035 through its Gable Grants program, bringing its overall commitment to $250 million. The investment comes amid a rising need for skilled tradespeople driven by a surge in AI developments. According to JLL’s 2026 Global Data Center Outlook report, the global data center sector is expanding by about 14% a year. Over the next four years, nearly 100 gigawatts of capacity will be added, which will require a $3 trillion investment. At the same time, we’re seeing …

On my last day at my old job, I couldn’t go in. I’d been burning through sick days for months (more than I could explain to my manager) because I didn’t yet have words for what was happening to me. I was 25, running product at a tech company, trying to build a career while quietly unraveling. I’d been to the ER twice that year, seen a string of specialists, and been told by more than one doctor that my symptoms were probably psychological. I was terrified. Eventually, I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease, a condition where the immune system attacks the body’s own tissue. An estimated 50 million Americans live with an autoimmune disease, and women make up 80% of…

The real question about Anthropic’s new Claude Mythos Preview AI model is whether it (and future models like it) will be more helpful to defensive cybersecurity or to hackers. To find out, Fast Company asked a number of cybersecurity pros. Claude Mythos, released in “preview” on April 9, is Anthropic’s biggest and most capable frontier AI model. Anthropic researchers say that during its training, the model showed a unique ability to find security vulnerabilities deep within software code, then create exploits to gain administrator-level access to software systems, including operating systems. Because of this, Anthropic says, Mythos is too dangerous to release to…

When you think of an operating system, you probably think of interfaces to open, workflows to follow, screens to move through. Work has always lived inside those boundaries. At Anthropic, that logic is starting to break. The company is reorganizing itself around a simple, destabilizing premise: work no longer needs a fixed system to run through. Anthropic says employees now rely on Claude, its flagship AI model, along with its products Code and Cowork, for most of their day-to-day work. The model is starting to function as an “internal operating system.” What once required navigating multiple systems, stitching together data, and coordinating across teams now begins w…

Chipotle, like almost every other fast casual restaurant, has been battling an ongoing period of increased inflation and lower consumer spending. Last year, the company saw what its CEO Scott Boatwright described to investors as a “broad-based pullback in frequency” of customer visits, especially among low- to middle-income customers and younger consumers, due to concerns about the economy. But the burrito chain has a master plan to address that, and it’s currently moving into its next phase: making earning rewards feel more like a game. The company’s fourth quarter report showed a revenue increase of 5.4% to $11.9 billion. But those gains were partially offset by a 1…

The gravy train is picking up steam again at Hardee’s. The Southern-inspired fast food chain has been quietly reopening locations across the Southeast after an explosive legal battle with a franchisee had led to dozens of store closures late last year. Newly reopened Hardee’s restaurants in at least three states—Georgia, South Carolina, and Missouri—are being described in job listings as “now corporate owned,” according to recent ads posted on Indeed.com and SimplyHired. They share addresses with Hardee’s restaurants formerly operated by franchisee ARC Burger, whose 77 locations shuttered in December 2025. Some of the listings are marked as “urgent.” …

McDonald’s drinks menu is growing to soon include new flavors, dirty sodas, and eventually energy drinks. The fast food chain is adding new menu options later this year like a Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer, a Dirty Dr Pepper, and a Mango Pineapple Refresher, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. McDonald’s confirmed to Fast Company that crafted sodas and new Refreshers will be introduced nationwide beginning next month. “Our fans’ love for McDonald’s beverages runs deep, from rallying for the return of Hi-C Orange Lavaburst to coining the iconic ‘Spicy Sprite,'” McDonald’s US tells Fast Company. “Next month, we…

Looksmaxxer leader Braden Peters—better known as Clavicular or “Clav”—likes to smash his cheekbones with a hammer and do meth to stay lean. What does he not like? Being associated with the incel community or questioned about his manosphere friendships on television. In a recent segment for 60 Minutes Australia, journalist Adam Hegarty sat down with Clavicular, but the interview was abruptly cut short when Clavicular walked out. For those unfamiliar with Clavicular, the New Jersey-born Kick streamer, 20, has risen in popularity over the last few months for sharing his looksmaxxing journey—what he calls a movement of self-improvement—where he resorts to rather extre…

It’s a brutal hiring market for new grads. Hiring has slowed across multiple industries and competition is especially fierce given AI has recently begun to take on tasks usually associated with entry-level roles. According to a recent analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 is up, hitting 5.8 percent at the end of 2025. Overall, hiring is down 7% year over year, and still well below pre-pandemic levels, says Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s Head of Economics. In an effort to help new graduates manage the intimidating start to their career journey, LinkedIn just released its 2026 Grad Guide, which analyzed …

Election after election, Democratic strategist James Carville’s maxim, “It’s the economy, stupid!” has held true. But in coming political campaigns, candidates will encounter an especially virulent strain of economic anxiety—driven by artificial intelligence—that is proliferating among lower-wage, working Americans. AI’s advances are directly intersecting with Americans’ economic security. Candidates across parties, states, and offices will have to adapt to this new reality, quickly. New data show why. As AI reshapes the labor market and impacts individual economic prospects, these voters view it in increasingly dire terms. Merit America, the workforce developm…

AI companies love to make bold claims about healthcare. Alphabet’s Isomorphic tells us that “frontier AI can unlock deeper scientific insights, faster breakthroughs, and life-changing medicines.” Lila confidently markets its AI as a tool for “faster discovery for every field where breakthrough science matters.” And they’re spending as though they believe the hype. Anthropic recently acquired stealth startup Coefficient Bio for $400 million. But there’s only one true test of any healthcare AI: Did it work in humans? Did it create a medicine that saved someone’s life? And bluntly, most companies have not achieved that. Let’s look at the number of treatments brought …