Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

About an hour after the men’s college basketball season ended in Indianapolis with a Michigan Wolverines’ championship on April 6, the team’s coaching staff was already working hard at trying to win the next one. The transfer portal—a digital compliance tool and database to systematically manage the transfer process for student-athletes—opened for Division I men’s basketball players on midnight after the title game, and it set off a firestorm of entries with players seeking massive paydays. However, the public doesn’t actually know for certain who is getting how much money. And in today’s disinformation economy, it’s become a haven for fake news to take the mantle…

The tiny easy chair Mikael Axelsson is holding in his hands—a dollhouse-size combination of bent wire, hand-carved foam, and hot glue—has been a white whale for the Ikea designer since he first modeled it back in 2014. The concept was simple, or at least he thought it would be: Build a frame of metal, fill it with a balloon-like cushion, and reinvent novelty 1990s blow-up furniture into a modern home furnishing. But after trying to take the Barbie-size model he’d built and expand it into a full-scale piece of inflatable furniture, he had two major problems. First, he could never quite figure out how to make an inflatable cushion that didn’t feel like an exercise ball…

These days, many founders feel pressure to raise tremendous amounts of venture capital. But it wasn’t always like this. Most people are surprised to learn that four of the most valuable companies in the world barely raised any VC funding at all by today’s standards. Apple is believed to have raised less than $1 million before its IPO. Amazon raised about $8 million. Microsoft raised about $1 million. Google raised $25 million. Add it all up, and it’s less than $35 million in total VC funding. Granted, that’s about $74 million in today’s dollars, but it’s still a relatively small investment that led to four companies that are worth around $14 trillion today. Before…

Walk into any office and you’ll hear it. “She’s so nurturing — she’d be great leading the wellness committee.” “Don’t worry, the guys will handle the heavy lifting on this pitch.” “You look amazing today!” These statements arrive warmly, often from people who genuinely mean well. That’s exactly what makes benevolent sexism one of the most insidious and under-addressed forces in modern workplaces. Unlike overt harassment, benevolent sexism doesn’t announce itself. It hides behind chivalry, compliments, and cultural tradition. It flatters women while quietly limiting them, wraps restriction in a ribbon and calls it care. And for that reason, it tends to go unchallenged …

For 30 days, a drum roller compacted dirt on a 30-acre airport extension in Austin, Texas, without a human behind the wheel. According to the contractor, Dynamic Site Solutions, the machine dropped daily downtime from six hours to under one hour, nearly doubling its productive hours on site while registering zero accidents thanks to a safety system that is designed to avoid any ‘Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Roadrunner with an ACME steam roller’ outcome. The technology behind it is an aftermarket robotic brain built by Crewline—a four-person startup headed by CEO Frederik Filz-Reiterdank and CTO Mohamed Sadek—that can be installed on an existing steamroller in ab…

What comes to mind when you think of sports sunglasses? Maybe it’s rec spec goggles or big, mirrored cycling sunglasses. While these glasses are fine for action, they’re not exactly what you’d call stylish. Warby Parker is looking to change that with the launch of Warby Parker Sport, a collection of performance sunglasses starting at $195. “I’m really proud of where we ended up where these are glasses that have all of the great function of great sports glasses, but something where you’re not going to look back in 10 years and think, why was I wearing this crazy shield on my face?” Warby Parker co-founder and co-CEO Neil Blumenthal tells Fast Company. The l…

GameStop is providing details on a new compensation package for CEO Ryan Cohen that is dependent on him meeting certain “significant” performance targets. The video game retailer said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that Cohen would have to grow its market capitalization to $100 billion and it would need to hit $10 billion in cumulative performance EBITDA — or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — for his award to fully vest. GameStop said Cohen won’t receive any guaranteed pay, which it defines as no salary, no cash bonuses, and no stock that simply vests over time. “His compensation is entirely ‘at-risk,’ meaning he will only b…