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The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed a new rule that could reshape how independent workers are classified in the United States. After nearly two decades of legal battles, policy swings, and political fights, the agency is once again attempting to clarify one of the most contested questions in modern labor law: Who gets to work independently, and under what rules? For me, this debate isn’t theoretical. I have been living inside it for nearly 20 years. Today, as the chief legal officer for a platform dedicated to connecting independent healthcare workers with open shifts, I have seen our legal system struggle to truly take care of the exact workers it says it…

A researcher revealed that the vibe-coding platform Lovable exposed users’ chat histories with AI models to other users accessing the platform through an API (application programming interface). X user @weezerOSINT, reported the exposure in a post on Monday. “I made a Lovable account today and was able to access another user’s source code, database credentials, AI chat histories, and customer data are all readable by any free account,” the researcher wrote. The post included a screenshot of another Lovable user’s project code and chats, along with an unresolved ticket for the bug that allegedly caused the data leak. Lovable has a mass data breach affecting every …

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…

For investors hurtling toward retirement, sitting tight with stocks has been the path of least resistance in recent years. Stocks, especially U.S. names, have soundly outperformed bonds. However, recent events should serve as a wake-up call to take some risk off the table and give bonds a closer look. Stocks have recently encountered some volatility but they’re still near all-time highs. That provides pre-retirees and retirees with an opportune time to scale back equity exposure and plow the proceeds into safer assets like cash and high-quality bonds. The benefits of de-risking The key benefit that bonds confer to a retirement-decumulation portfolio is their lower…

A new streaming service is betting that comedy doesn’t need to be a category; it can be the whole platform. On May 5, comedy distribution company 800 Pound Gorilla Media will launch Gorilla Comedy+. The boutique streaming service will feature a 250-plus-title library of stand-up specials, including new sets from Patton Oswalt, Pete Holmes, Emmy Blotnick, Jourdain Fisher, and Nish Kumar, alongside the company’s existing catalog. Gorilla Comedy+ is partnering with Cineverse, using its AI-powered Matchpoint platform to build apps across devices. The service will handle distribution and onboarding, while Cineverse’s tech stack will also enable interactive features layered…

A judge is expected to sentence OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department on Tuesday, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis. The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal civil and criminal probes it was facing. If the judge signs off, other penalties will not be collected in return for Purdue settling the other lawsuits. After years of legal twists and turns, the settlement was approved by another judge last year and could take effect May 1. It requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion to s…

Picture this: You’re at the gate, shoes pinching after a long walk through the terminal, and you know you packed your flats. They’re right there, somewhere in your carry-on. But getting to them means hoisting the bag onto a bench, unzipping the clamshell, and watching your carefully packed clothes threaten to spill out onto the airport floor. By the time you’ve wrestled the bag back together, your flight is boarding. It’s a scenario that has played out in airports for decades—because for all the advances in materials and wheels and tracking technology, the fundamental architecture of the carry-on suitcase has barely changed. Open from the middle, split in half, dig ar…

Starting today, McDonald’s U.S. customers will finally have access to the newest McValue platform, an updated menu that the burger chain has touted as offering more flexibility and better deals. Don’t be surprised if your next trip to the drive-thru isn’t meaningfully cheaper as a result. Announced earlier this month, the new menu offers an array of breakfast, lunch, and dinner items for under $3. While that’s an attractive price point to be sure, it’s not quite as attractive to some customers as what was on offer with the original McValue menu when it was introduced last year. That menu, you might recall, allowed customers to add various items for just $1 i…

You can now book haircuts, doctors’ appointments, and food deliveries through Yelp. The business search and review platform has rolled out integrations with providers including DoorDash, Zocdoc, and Vagaro, letting users book appointments and order food directly from a Yelp listing or through the AI-powered Yelp Assistant. Users could already request quotes from businesses ranging from home and auto repair professionals to beauty experts. The Yelp Assistant is also getting its own tab in the app, as the company aims to become a destination not just for its hundreds of millions of user-contributed reviews but for answering questions about local businesses and booking their…

Power has a way of narrowing progress—and the narrowing follows a pattern. Early in my career, a senior colleague took credit for ideas and work I had shared while onboarding him to the team. It wasn’t subtle: same thinking, same framework, different owner. When I raised it, I was told to assume good intentions. When I pushed for accountability, I was told I was being “testy.” The behavior was never examined. The outcome was never corrected. I have since seen the same logic repeat across organizations: good intent is treated as a substitute for accountability. This is not a rare story. This is a system caught in the act. Women now earn the majority of college …

As inflation causes prices to rise, there is a cost that disproportionately impacts women—the “egg freezing tax.” In 2023, over 40,000 women froze their eggs—a safe, proven way to invest in more control over the timing of one’s family—which has grown in popularity for many reasons: general declines in fertility rates, delayed family building, and increasing numbers of women choosing to become a single mom by choice. Despite having founded three companies, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done was freeze my eggs. In my early thirties, while building my first startup in San Francisco, my nights were a blur of teaching myself to self-inject and tracking complex medica…

The last time I set foot in this historic Chicago mansion built in the heart of Michigan Avenue, I’d been served one less-than-generous slice of lukewarm prime rib. This is back when it was a Lawry’s steakhouse. I remember white tablecloths, silver serving trays, one decent staircase, and just the stodgiest of old rooms that felt less like I was in the Gilded Age than at a funeral parlor. Now, when I step inside the lobby, a large wooden door slides open in front of me. I enter a room with a ringing telephone. And when I pick it up, my journey begins . . . With the help of the architecture firm Rockwell Group and the design firm Pentagram, the McCormick mansion h…

Grocery stores waste around four million tons of food in the U.S. each year—mostly fresh food, since it’s hard for store managers to know exactly how many cartons of strawberries or pounds of beef to keep in stock to meet demand. Until fairly recently, most of that planning happened manually. But AI tools from the startup Afresh are helping stores cut waste by as much as 25%. The company announced $34 million in new funding today to expand, co-led by Just Climate and High Sage Ventures. A decade ago, when Afresh cofounders Matt Schwartz and Nathan Fenner were MBA students at Stanford and looked at the challenge of food waste, they started visiting grocery stores a…

The annual Lyrid meteor shower is back, reaching its peak on Tuesday evening and at predawn on Wednesday. On average, 10 to 20 meteors are produced per hour during a Lyrid shower. But, in some rare occasions “outbursts” can occur, with up to 100 meteors produced in an hour. According to the American Meteor Society, Lyrids will be mostly visible in the Northern hemisphere at dawn, although limited availability will also be available to those in the Southern Hemisphere. The Lyrid shower is among the oldest recorded meteor showers, dating back as far as 2,700 years. The meteor shower is visible when Earth travels through the path of Comet Thatcher, rendering a t…

Nearly two out of three American adults have used an AI-powered search tool in the past six months. But here’s the stat that should keep every product builder up at night: only 15% say they trust the results “a lot.” That gap between adoption and trust is the defining challenge for the next era of AI search. Consumers are showing up, but they are questioning the results. As product builders, we have to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Are we building experiences that earn and deserve consumer trust? The Walled Garden Problem Yelp partnered with Morning Consult to survey more than 2,200 U.S. adults on how they use and perceive AI-powered search. The fin…

I have been thinking about a question that nobody in enterprise software seems to want to sit with: why can the most advanced AI models in the world solve Olympiad-level mathematics but fail to reliably extract a total from an invoice? This is not an academic exercise for me. I have been building automation software for twenty years. My company has processed billions of documents for some of the largest enterprises in the world. Yes, I have a stake in this answer. But twenty years of watching models work on real enterprise data, not benchmarks, gives you a different view than turning a model in a lab. And when those real-world models cannot get the simple stuff right,…

When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the reaction was immediate and visceral: this works. For the first time, millions of people experienced AI not as a distant promise, but as something useful, intuitive, and even with its flaws, astonishingly capable. That instinct was correct. The conclusion that followed was not. Because what works brilliantly for an individual at a keyboard has proven surprisingly ineffective inside an organization. Two years later, after billions in investment, countless pilots, and an endless stream of “copilots,” a different reality is emerging: generative AI is exceptional at producing language. But companies do not run on language: …

Employees are jostling to level up their AI skills, and, according to a new report, also using AI to help them learn more, whether it’s asking for extra help to clarify concepts and solve problems, or picking up new skills. The report uses results from a survey conducted by Fractl on behalf of the The American College of Education (ACE). The survey included more than 1,000 U.S. workers who use AI tools as part of their day to day. Somewhat unsurprisingly, a large percentage of workers are using AI to improve their skills. Sixty-three percent of workers said that they used AI to learn skills they didn’t get formal training on from their employer. However, 65% of wo…

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 …

Conflict, while uncomfortable, is a fact of life. However, few of us deal with it well–either we avoid it until it swells into resentment, or it explodes creating damage we often fail to repair. In her new book, Anchored, Aligned and Accountable: A Framework For Transcending B*llshit and Transforming Our Lives and Work, (foreword by Brené Brown) leadership coach Aiko Bethea lays out a framework for transforming conflict into personal growth. For Fast Company, Brené Brown sat down with Aiko Bethea to discuss the cornerstones of the framework and how applying it can change our lives. Brené Brown: Your Anchored, Aligned and Accountable Framework, has completely shi…