Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Can a headline-making squabble with a client actually be good for a brand? This week’s dispute between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, a high-profile player in the super-competitive field of artificial intelligence, may be just that. The dispute involves whether the Pentagon, which has an agreement to use Anthropic technology, can apply it in a wider range of scenarios: all “lawful use” cases. Anthropic has resisted signing off on some potential scenarios, and the Pentagon has essentially accused it of being overly cautious. As it happens, that assessment basically aligns with Anthropic’s efforts (most recently via Super Bowl ads aimed squarely at prominent …

“I really want to see a mass driver on the moon that is shooting AI satellites into deep space,” Elon Musk said last week when he announced his plan to go to the moon. “It’s going to be incredibly exciting to see it happen.” He’s right. I want to see it too, although probably we will both be dead before his vision is realized. The lunar mass driver—essentially a cannon that uses magnetic power to accelerate an object—is a key component to launch the million satellites Musk wants to put in orbit around the Earth. But Musk wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea. Smarter people than him thought about this in the 1970s as the solution to a key problem for human …

Even if you barely use AI, pretty soon you’ll be paying the price for it. Due to the demands of AI data centers, memory supplies are drying up for all kinds of devices, from phones and laptops to desktop PCs and game consoles. Three companies control nearly all the world’s DRAM production—Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix—and they’ve shifted production toward the type of RAM that those data centers run on. This comes at the expense of RAM for consumer electronics, resulting in a shortage that could last into 2028. It’s early days for the fallout, but what sounded like an abstract concern in 2025 is quickly becoming real, as electronics makers ra…

Is it lawful to call boneless chicken wings ‘wings’? According to a U.S. District Judge, yes. On Tuesday in Illinois, Judge John Tharp reached a verdict in a case brought against Buffalo Wild Wings alleging that the wings aren’t wings and shouldn’t be referred to as such on the restaurant chain’s menu. The suit, which was first brought by customer Aimen Halim in March 2023, claimed the business had violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act by referring to the product as “boneless wings” instead of something the plaintiff deemed more fitting, such as “chicken nuggets. In the end, the judge didn’t feel the case had any bones. In a 10-page ruling, Tharp wrote, “Bonel…

OpenAI, the maker of the most popular AI chatbot, used to say it aimed to build artificial intelligence that “safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return,” mission statement. But the ChatGPT maker seems to no longer have the same emphasis on doing so “safely.” While reviewing its latest IRS disclosure form, which was released in November 2025 and covers 2024, I noticed OpenAI had removed “safely” from its mission statement, among other changes. That change in wording coincided with its transformation from a nonprofit organization into a business increasingly focused on profits. OpenAI currently faces several lawsuits related to i…

AI is transforming how teams work. But it’s not just the tools that matter. It’s what happens to thinking when those tools do the heavy lifting, and whether managers notice before the gap widens. Across industries, there’s a common pattern. AI-supported work looks polished. The reports are clean. The analyses are structured. But when someone asks the team to defend a decision, not summarize one, the room goes quiet. The output is there, but the reasoning isn’t owned. For David, the COO of a midsize financial services firm, the problem surfaced during quarterly planning. Multiple teams presented the same compelling statistic about regulatory timelines, one that tur…

You’re interested in AI but you’re human: You’ve got emails to answer, deadlines to meet, and you don’t have 40 hours a week to sift through academic papers on large language models. You just want to know what’s happening, why it matters, and maybe how to use it to get home a little earlier. In that spirit, here are five AI podcasts to help you get smarter and stay informed without wasting your time. The AI Daily Brief For the busy professional who needs the headlines fast, there’s The AI Daily Brief. It’s usually about 20 minutes, which is perfect for the commute or while you’re brewing that second pot of coffee. Host Nathaniel Whittemore does a great …

The workplace presents a distinctive set of disclosure dilemmas, beginning with the strange fan dance of interviewing. We are trying to put our best foot forward; to convince our potential employer we’re a perfect fit and consummate professional, yet we’re asked, “What are your weaknesses?” and “What are the biggest mistakes you’ve made?” Even the seemingly laidback “So, tell me about yourself” can feel like a trap. Where should we start? There has been a lot of buzz in recent years about the benefits of “bringing your whole self” to work. There’s some evidence for those benefits. Letting others see more of you than you might ordinarily show them forges bonds, includ…

Corporate culture isn’t built by policies. It’s built by moments—the unscripted experiences that catch us off guard, bring us closer, and quietly shape how we show up for one another. But many efforts labeled “culture-building,” including onboarding programs, leadership retreats, and all-hands meetings, still feel like productivity theater: tightly scheduled and heavy on performance. Today, it’s worth asking whether that model has simply run its course. Consider this: what if the future of culture-building isn’t about managing people, but about designing experiences that allow people to feel something real together? What if awe, story, and shared creativity weren…

New York City is a city of walkers. More trips are made on foot than by car (41% versus 28%) and the city’s “80X50” climate action plan envisions that 80% of all trips by 2050 will be made either on foot, by biking, or by public transit. The problem is that pedestrian movement in the city has remained largely unmapped and underestimated—until now. Together with a team of researchers, Andres Sevtsuk, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has built what he says is the first complete model of pedestrian activity in New York City—and it’s a model that can now be applied to any U.S. city. The model, which maps foot traffic across al…

Cheap tote bag collections everywhere just got an attachable clip-on upgrade. Snatch is a shoulder strap system designed to attach and detach to fabric surfaces without damaging them. The clips are comprised of three pieces of hardware—a button, slotted loop, and fastener—and they can give thin-handled tote bags new life with a wider, sturdier shoulder strap in just a few steps, exemplifying a simple and solutions-oriented Occam’s razor approach to product design. To assemble, you place fabric over the button piece and thread it through the aluminum slotted loop. The fastener holds it all into place, and the strap is then attached onto a g-hook on the slotted…

Boom Supersonic wants to build the world’s first commercial supersonic airliner. Founded in 2014, the company set out to make air travel dramatically faster — up to twice the speed of today’s passenger jets — while also aiming for a smaller environmental footprint. For years, Boom has focused on developing the high-performance engine technology needed to sustain supersonic flight. Though the company has not yet debuted its revolutionary jet, last year it identified a new and potentially lucrative application for its novel technology: generating electricity for the data centers powering the artificial intelligence boom. Many of these data centers want the kind of f…

As AI use continues to grow, so is frustration with the technology. From strange responses that don’t make any sense to learning curves to how it’s implemented at work, there’s no shortage of AI quirks to get used to. However, how users are responding to those annoyances is vastly different. According to a new report from Adobe Acrobat and Firefly, frustrations are not few. In fact, of the 1,008 AI users survey, 91% said they have abandoned generative AI tasks in favor of non-AI methods over said emotion. Mostly, that’s because writing quality AI prompts is a key strategy in effectively using the tool, but it’s not always totally intuitive. There’s a definit…

The Big Gulp might have some new competition in the realm of giant beverages from an unlikely dark horse: Dunkin‘. Over the weekend, Dunkin’ customers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts began posting head-turning images of giant coffee buckets on the menu at their local stores. While some commenters doubted the veracity of these reports, a Dunkin’ spokesperson confirmed in an email to Fast Company that the donut chain is indeed testing out a 48-ounce collectible bucket at select stores after noticing buzz around coffee buckets taking off on social media. A “coffee bucket” is exactly what it sounds like: a giant iced latte served in a plastic container that l…

When a new general-purpose technology emerges—be it railroads, electricity, computers, etc.—companies react in predictable ways. A small minority tries to reinvent themselves around it; the majority looks first for ways to cut costs. Right now, in the middle of the most significant technological inflection since the internet, many organizations are choosing the second path. They deploy artificial intelligence to automate call centers, reduce head count in back offices, and squeeze marginal gains out of existing processes. They measure “AI ROI” in payroll savings and hours reclaimed. It feels rational. It feels disciplined. It feels safe. It is also the fast…

At a park near Canberra, Australia, a series of small white pyramid-shaped boxes are part of a new experiment: Can “frog saunas” help bring back an endangered species? The green and golden bell frog—an iconic Australian amphibian with a call that sounds like a cross between a power tool and a quacking duck—is already extinct in the area. Like other frog species around the world, it was a victim of a deadly fungus called chytrid that has been killing amphibians for decades. But scientists are reintroducing the vibrant frog with the hope that a design intervention can help it survive. The “sauna” is a simple design, with bricks inside a plastic enclosure that he…

Neuroscientists have found birding is actually a brain hack. A new study published in JNeurosci, the Journal of Neuroscience found birdwatching may actually alter the structure and function of your brain—what is known as neuroplasticity—effectively helping to boost cognitive abilities, especially in more seasoned bird watchers. “Our brains are very malleable,” lead researcher Erik Wing, a research associate at York University in Toronto, explained. Wait, what exactly is neuroplasticity? Neuroplasticity is basically the process or way your brain learns, creates memory, and adapts to experiences and trauma, according to Psychology Today. Research shows that …

Eight times the output. Same job. Same title. Not 80%. 800%. That’s a lot. And yet, most hiring systems and processes are almost perfectly designed to miss those people. This isn’t a talent shortage. We’ve normalized a measurement problem for so long that it barely registers as a problem anymore. Across industries, hiring has been optimized for efficiency and familiarity. We screen for credentials that look impressive, resumes that read cleanly, and career paths that resemble the ones we already trust. It feels rigorous. It feels fair. But it isn’t actually predictive of performance. In fact, the more polished a hiring process becomes, the more likely it is to filter …

A culture of fear makes it easy to cloud our judgment For thousands of years, walking and horseback riding were the fundamental modes of transport, and settlement patterns were a direct reflection of transport options. Compact, low-rise villages and cities made sense based on how far people could reasonably travel on foot or by horse. This was true all the way up until the late 1800s. Then came an invention that let people travel incredible distances in seconds, entirely reshaping cities with dense population clusters. The technology was a sturdy box designed to transport multiple people at once, but often carried just one. I’m talking, of course, about the elevat…

Your colleagues decide in less than a minute whether your email is worth replying to. Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index Report shows that the average employee receives 117 emails a day, and most are skimmed in under 60 seconds. In other words, if your email takes someone more than a minute to understand, there’s a strong chance you won’t be getting a timely response. Well-written emails don’t just make you sound smarter; studies show that they also reduce misunderstandings and speed up responses. Here are five simple ways to get faster email responses, while also helping your recipient preserve mental energy and time. BREAK UP WITH THE EMAIL BRICK Long bloc…

For decades, digital transformation raised hopes of simpler work. And while many companies found complexity instead of clarity, the story isn’t over. AI brings a new wave of hope and energy, and with that, a new kind of tension. Whenever I connect with business leaders, I can feel their deep optimism and sincere sense of responsibility to deliver on AI transformation. Leaders want to boost productivity and stand by their people. They’re guiding teams through uncertainty while inspiring them to embrace change. That’s why AI transformation is a people challenge as much as a tech challenge. Org charts are shifting. Roles are evolving. And the new priority for leaders…

Yet another powerful person has stepped down after being named in the Epstein files. Børge Brende, president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF), best known for hosting an annual summit of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, has stepped down after an internal investigation into his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a statement released Thursday, Brende announced that after eight years in his role, he’d be resigning in the wake of the latest batch of files released from the federal investigation into Epstein. “I am grateful for the incredible collaboration with my colleagues, partners, and constituents, and I believe now is the right mo…

Artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia on Wednesday announced another quarter of astounding quarterly growth as investors try to decipher whether technology’s latest craze is overblown hyperbole or a springboard into a new era of prosperity and productivity. The results for the November-January period blew past the analyst projections that shape investors’ perceptions, as has been the case since Nvidia’s high-end chips emerged as AI’s best building blocks three years ago. Nvidia’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue surged 73% from the previous year to $68.1 billion while its profit nearly doubled to roughly $43 billion, or $1.76 per share. “No quarter has had more riding …

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Since the 2008 housing bust and subsequent Great Financial Crisis (GFC), mortgage lending has steadily shifted away from big banks. In the years that followed—amid tighter regulations, higher capital requirements, and elevated litigation risk—many large banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, reduced their mortgage footprint. In that void, nonbank lenders, also known as independent mortgage banks (IMBs), such as Rocket Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), and loanDepot, gained market share. Now, a top Federal Reserve …