Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

More than two dozen privacy and advocacy organizations are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to remove a network of covert license plate readers deployed across Southern California that the groups believe feed data into a controversial U.S. Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program that scans the country’s roadways for suspicious travel patterns. “We ask that your administration investigate and release the relevant permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits. An Associated Press investigation published in No…

When my business went through a difficult season, I turned to my friend, ChatGPT. I asked the Large Language Model (LLM) for insights and advice on how to leverage my strengths and pivot my business as budgets for women’s leadership programs shifted downward. When the well-framed answers started pouring in, I didn’t pause to check in with myself and ask if my opinion diverged from ChatGPT or whether this advice aligned with my values and mission. In fact, I didn’t even think to ask ChatGPT what might work in my favor if I just stayed the course. I was a “LLeMming”: a term Lila Shroff uses to describe compulsive AI users in The Atlantic. Lila Shroff shares that just as th…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During an earnings call in June 2025, KB Home’s McGibney—whose company prefers outright home price cuts over incentives when adjustments are needed—said that some buyers turning to competitors are effectively overpaying for new builds to obtain mortgage rate buydowns. If those buyers need to sell in the near term, he warned, they could find themselves underwater and unable to recoup the artificially high base prices. “I believe that there are [builder] customers that are overpaying for the home to effectively get an incentive… They may potentially be…

From AI tools to self-driving cars, new technologies regularly tout themselves as being autonomous. Yet, their companies often have to recruit us humans for help in unexpected ways. The most recent example comes courtesy of Waymo’s self-driving cars. The Alphabet-owned company has been hiring DoorDash drivers to close vehicle doors after a passenger leaves them open, CNBC reports. Yes, Waymo’s whole thing is driverless cars, but it needs another type of driver to show up and fix the simplest things. The arguably embarrassing predicament came to light when an Atlanta-based DoorDash driver shared Waymo’s request on Reddit. It reportedly offered the gig worker $…

When I spoke at the Arabian Business Awards a few years ago, I showed a slide describing research that shows meetings literally make people dumber: a study published in Transcripts of the Royal Society of London found that meetings cause you to (during the meeting) lose IQ points. A bunch of people in the audience took photos of that slide. The same was true when I presented a slide describing research published in Journal of Business Research showing that not only do 90 percent of employees feel meetings are unproductive, but when the number of meetings is reduced by 40 percent employee productivity increases by 70 percent. A bunch of people took photos of th…

The new year has so far not been kind to the share price of Big Tech stocks, particularly the so-called Magnificent 7. These seven companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—are America’s tech crown jewels. Combined, they have their hands in the hottest areas of tech, including artificial intelligence, mobile computing, chipmaking, and transportation. Yet all of these tech companies have seen their share prices decline since the beginning of the year. Here are some possible reasons why. The Magnificent 7 is seeing red in 2026 As of this writing, there isn’t a single Magnificent 7 stock in the green for 2026. Their year-to-date return…

If you’re tuning in to the Milan Cortina Olympics, you may be one of many spectators who’s suddenly invested in the sport of curling. You’re in good company: Swedish designer Gustaf Westman, best known for his chunky homeware, has become so fascinated by the event that he used it as inspiration for his latest design. Curling centers on an object called a “curling stone.” Using its gooseneck handle, competitors slide the round, 44-pound stone down an ice shuffleboard toward a target zone. Westman’s “curling bowl,” which he debuted on Instagram on February 10, reimagines the object as a snack bowl. The stone’s handle has been cleverly converted into the perfect slot fo…

Eileen Gu, the 22-year-old Chinese freeskier who just became the most decorated Olympian in women’s freestyle skiing, stood up for herself when speaking to a reporter at a press conference this week. In doing so, the skier unwittingly gave women everywhere an absolute masterclass in knowing their worth. The skier, who previously earned a gold medal and two silvers at the Beijing winter games in 2022, has earned two more silver medals at the current Milan Cortina games, becoming the most decorated athlete in her sport. And she’s not finished yet—Gu is still set to compete in the women’s halfpipe qualifier on Thursday and the halfpipe final on Saturday. The skier is al…

You can put a lot of different things in fried rice, but certainly not glass. Unfortunately, that might be an ingredient in certain packages of Trader Joe’s chicken fried rice. Frozen food manufacturer Ajinomoto Foods North America is recalling more than 3 million pounds of chicken fried rice products due to potential glass contamination. The recall includes products with both Ajinomoto and Trader Joe’s branding. The manufacturer, based in Portland, Oregon, notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) after it received four customer complaints of glass in the rice. As of Thursday, February 19, no related inju…

Walgreens will lay off hundreds of employees as the pharmacy chain continues to struggle with increased competition and higher-than-desired costs. On top of this, the newly private company is expected to close at least another few dozen retail stores in 2026. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Walgreens has announced that it will cut at least 628 jobs across two states, according to communications it sent to the states in question earlier this month. A Walgreens spokesperson confirmed the layoffs with Fast Company when reached for comment. News of the layoffs was first reported by Bloomberg. The job cuts include 469 positions in the company’s ho…

When word started circling that AMC Theaters was screening an AI-generated short film, the internet’s cinephiles took it personally. On Wednesday, some social media users reported that the short was playing in the pre-show before trailers at select AMC locations. A little digging revealed the source: Earlier this week, the short, titled Thanksgiving Day, was announced as the winner of the inaugural Frame Forward Animated AI Film Festival. The prize package included a nationwide theatrical release, which apparently entailed making its way to AMC’s screens. Movie lovers across social media were immediately up in arms. Some called for boycotts. Some found it insultin…

With uncertainty as the new norm, leaders are understandably searching for psychological anchors. They’re looking for ideas that can steady people and sustain energy through change. One of those anchors is hope. Across corporate mission statements, fresh publications from thought leaders, and HR manifestos, corporations have elevated hope from a state of being to a strategic imperative. But what happens when an emotion becomes a business model? How to define hope in an organizational context Psychologically, hope is a cognitive and motivational state defined by three elements: agency (belief in your capacity to shape outcomes), pathways (the ability to identify…

If you’re in the Northeast, there’s a good chance you’ll be hunkering down inside for a few days as a major snowstorm batters the East Coast. And if you have a flight to catch, well, there’s a high probability that it might not be taking off at all. Due to the blizzard, which is forecast to bring up to two feet of snow in some areas, thousands of flights have already been canceled or delayed. Here’s what you need to know if you have a flight to catch. Thousands of flights have already been canceled due to the snowstorm As of the time of this writing, 5,348 flights within, into, or out of the United States today have already been canceled, according to data…

Unlocking the power of genetics to provide meaningful answers to patients when they matter most is at the crux of precision diagnostics. As technologies advance, costs fall, and evidence builds, genomic sequencing has great potential to transform the trajectory of patient care. It will do so by shortening the diagnostic odyssey. It will guide and speed up more personalized and effective treatment decisions. And it will improve patient outcomes more than ever before. For innovation to truly scale, it will require deep collaboration and seamless integration across the healthcare ecosystem. BUILD A STRONGER PARTNERSHIP ECOSYSTEM Making genomic sequencing a standard pr…

The devil might’ve worn Prada in 2006, but two decades later, the fashion elite are wearing books. Case in point: Coach’s hot new accessory is a keychain made out of literal hardcovers. Coach revealed the new “book charms” in a series of social posts on February 25. Created in collaboration with the publisher Penguin Random House, the charms include adorably teeny, fully readable versions of classics like Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, alongside more recent titles like Untamed by Glennon Doyle and A Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita. The book bag charms will be available for $95 on the Coach website …

Since taking over the coffee chain in 2024, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol has been on a mission to go “back to Starbucks” and rekindle the feeling of warmth inside the coffee giant. That’s led to new store designs, new employee training, new uniforms, new menu items, and new staffing—which have helped the company break out of a two-year sales rut. But as part of this deep strategic exploration, Niccol made two specific asks for Starbucks’s cross-discipline design team that are being revealed today: an iconic new cup and a new plush chair. As the literal touchpoints between the consumer and the company, “they are the biggest signals we have of warmth, comfort, an…

Shares in the financial technology company Block soared more than 20% in premarket trading Friday after its CEO announced it was laying off more than 4,000 of its 10,000 plus employees, reconfiguring to capitalize on its use of artificial intelligence. “The core thesis is simple. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey said in a letter to shareholders in Block, the parent company to online payment platforms such as Square and Cash App. “A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better,” he said. Dorsey’s comments explicitly naming AI as a key driver behind the move were also posted …

Stablecoins that offer interest-bearing rewards may increasingly resemble bank deposits. But unlike traditional deposits, they lack the regulatory safeguards that undergird the banking system. That gap, according to JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum, risks creating what he calls a “parallel banking system.” The issue is already on lawmakers’ agenda. During JPMorgan’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, Evercore analyst Glenn Schorr noted that Congress is preparing to debate stablecoin policy, referencing a letter from the American Bankers Association that underscores the urgency of addressing a loophole around interest on stablecoins. Schorr added that Treasury estimated “$6.…

The U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran led to commercial flights disruption on Saturday across the Middle East and beyond as regional airspaces began closing and tens of thousands of travelers around the globe were stranded. Israel, Qatar, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain closed their airspace, while Oman’s Muscat International Airport shut down and all flights were restricted over the United Arab Emirates, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. Major airlines based in the Middle East with worldwide networks canceled hundreds of flights while many other travelers were unexpectedly diverted to airports across Europe or flown back to departure airpor…

It’s 4:59 PM on a Friday. You’re the Head of Design at a mid-sized biotech firm—mid-sprint, mid-thought—building out a set of specialized design roles that will define how your team delivers value for the next three years. Then the email arrives. Your recruiting partners have sent a pre-written job description, authored by a product manager, with a mandate to use it as-is. The title: UX/UI Designer. You pause. Not because the gesture wasn’t well-intentioned—it was. But because you recognize exactly what this moment represents: a quiet, recurring erosion of role clarity that has followed the design profession for over a decade. One ambiguous title, multiplied a…

There’s a saying: you can’t control the world, but you can control yourself. This perspective is critical when navigating an uncertain economy. I learned this lesson the hard way, right out of college, when taking my first steps into the full-time workforce. The timing was around the 2008 Recession. Despite being lucky to land a job that I loved, the economic instability pushed me to realize I could not depend on a corporate role for my livelihood long-term. So I started exploring freelancing in 2010, when I went on Craigslist and searched for freelance writing roles. That’s how I landed my first client. In 2011, one year after building my portfolio, I earned an …

In 2023, as Texas lawmakers debated Senate Bill 13—a controversial bill aimed at restricting certain books in public school libraries and expanding parental oversight—Steve Wandler was among the dozen-plus parents, educators, and advocates who testified before the legislature. Wandler wasn’t just another concerned citizen. He was a Canadian entrepreneur who had relocated to Texas the year before to found Bookmarked, a fledgling startup that promises to help school districts manage their library collections and give parents greater visibility into what their children are reading. The legislation addressed the very issue Wandler believed his company could help solve. Th…