Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Some seven million Americans are now on GLP-1 weight loss drugs, a figure expected to rise to 24 million by 2035. These medications curb users’ appetites for fatty, ultra-processed foods, and grocery stores are noticing: total sold units of doughnuts, cakes, and cookies are down by 10%, 19%, and 13%, respectively, compared to five years ago. With this drop in revenue from junk food, grocery stores need to think about how to make more money from other categories. For Whole Foods, there’s one aisle that brims with potential: supplements. Today, Whole Foods is introducing a new line of Japanese-inspired supplements called Apothékary onto its aisles. The brand is known fo…

The obesity rate in the U.S. is continuing its downward trend. The news comes three years after obesity rates hit a record high. In 2022, almost four out of 10 (39.9%) of Americans met the threshold for the classification, however, the number first began to shrink in 2023. Now, the rate of obesity is now down to 37%, according to new data from Gallup. The new findings are based on data from three nationally representative surveys of 16,946 U.S. adults. And while the numbers don’t seem massively significant, the report found that those three percentage points add up to around 7.6 million Americans who no longer meet the criteria for being obese. According to the n…

Custom AI models are not just for the AI giants anymore. Because the 37-person startup Krea is releasing its first generative AI model as the design tools startup repositions itself as a full-fledged AI research lab. The move is significant for Krea, but it also seems to tease an almost inevitable moment in the rapidly evolving AI market, where smaller players in the industry can make more disruptive bets. On one hand, Krea can hardly call itself a bootstrapped startup anymore. It’s now raised $83 million through its Series B at a $500 million valuation. On the other, it’s tiny compared to the leading frontier model companies, which constantly raise more money t…

As the global migrant crisis continues to dominate our airwaves, Welcome.US has triggered a dramatic impact on U.S. immigration, resettling 800,000 refugees across all 50 states. The organization’s cofounder and CEO, Nazanin Ash, shares how her team developed an effective and efficient model, unlocking a nonpartisan community of 2 million volunteers, supported by corporate partnerships with the likes of Meta, Google, and Uber. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s to…

As the global migrant crisis continues to dominate our airwaves, Welcome.US has triggered a dramatic impact on U.S. immigration, resettling 800,000 refugees across all 50 states. The organization’s co-founder and CEO, Nazanin Ash, shares how her team developed an effective and efficient model, unlocking a nonpartisan community of 2 million volunteers, supported by corporate partnerships with the likes of Meta, Google, and Uber. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s t…

Wendy’s announced plans to close a “mid-single-digit percentage” of its underperforming U.S. store locations, during its quarterly earnings call on Friday, or 200 to 350 of some 6,000 locations, according to CNN. The news comes as the fast-food giant reports third-quarter profits of $44.3 million, with $549.5 million in revenue, beating analyst expectations by 2.71%; and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 24 cents, versus 20 cents. International business delivered strong system-wide sales growth, with international net unit growth expected to come in over 9% in 2025. Shares in Wendy’s Co. (NASDAQ: WEN) were up about 2% in midday trading on Friday, after Wendy’s…

Bringing home the Baconator is not as easy as it used to be, and it’s about to get even harder in cities around the country. Fast food giant Wendy’s is continuing its push to close hundreds of locations as it seeks to stabilize profits and shed underperforming restaurants. Nearly six months after the burger chain first announced the plan on an investor call, its U.S. footprint is decidedly smaller, with multiple states seeing net store declines in the double digits, according to a review of Wendy’s store locator tool. As of Friday, the tool showed 5,675 locations in the United States. That’s roughly 200 fewer locations than what it showed at the end of Sep…

Wendy’s is moving ahead with its plans to close hundreds of restaurants, amounting to between 5 and 6% of its total stores in the U.S., according to its fourth quarter earnings report. The report, published on February 13, showed that Wendy’s business in the U.S. is currently lagging behind its international efforts. Total same-store sales fell 10.1% over the quarter, driven by performance in the U.S., where same-stores sales were down 11.3% compared to 2% at international locations. Overall, global systemwide sales were $3.4 billion, a decrease of 8.3% from the previous quarter. According to Wendy’s interim CEO Ken Cook, one way the company is addressing this tr…

Dream job alert: Wendy’s is looking to hire a “chief tasting officer”—and the role pays $100,000. The fast-food company launched a contest to find the perfect person for the unique job. The new CTO will create content and taste-test Wendy’s food on camera. Wendy’s is known for its humorous approach to marketing and branding. The job ad is no exception. The contest website reads: “Do you hate your job? Are you too iconic to be opening PDFs for your boss? Ever been told you’re a personality hire? Do you care more about bacon than bottom lines? Are you more about JBC than KPI?” Want to try your luck at landing the coveted role? Here’s what you need to kno…

The Wendy’s Company could go private if billionaire Nelson Peltz has anything to say about it. The Trian Fund Management cofounder is looking for outside investors to help with a takeover of Wendy’s, the Financial Times reports. The news isn’t exactly surprising—in February, Trian used its regulatory filing to announce it might sell its stake or attempt a takeover of Wendy’s. Peltz and Trian currently own a 16% stake in Wendy’s, along with the Peltz family’s minority stake in a New York-area Wendy’s franchise owner. Peltz’s son, Bradley Peltz, and Trian cofounder and president Peter May are also on the board of Wendy’s. Fast Company reached out to Trian and W…

Wendy’s is feeling blue. Light blue, to be exact. In April, a new design concept accompanied the opening of the burger chain’s 100th store in the Philippines. In addition to its digital-first layout, the new Wendy’s boasts a light blue facade instead of a red one. The refreshed restaurants are now available to franchisees across the company’s international markets. Wendy’s tells Fast Company that locations are also open in Chile, England, and Scotland, but there are currently none in the U.S. The blue color scheme is part of an initiative Wendy’s is calling “Future Fresh” that could make one of the brand’s secondary colors more primary if adopted widely. On the co…

Wendy’s shares rose on Friday after the fast-food giant reported stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings, beating analyst estimates despite poor U.S. store performance, with U.S. same-restaurant sales falling 7.8%. That slow but steady growth reflects the burger chain’s effort to turn around sales by shedding low-performing American restaurants and improving menu quality. The plan comes amid an overall decline in fast-food store traffic, as American consumers grapple with higher prices and the cost of food and living soars. “We are in the early innings of our turnaround,” Ken Cook, Wendy’s CFO and interim CEO, told analysts on Friday’s earnings call. In the …

When I visited Malaysia and Singapore as a child, I was always curious about the many Chinese herbalist shops we’d pass on busy shopping streets. They looked like they were from another universe. As I peered through the windows, there were glass canisters full of mysterious ingredients: goji berry, bird’s nests, pearl dust, tiger bones, gazelle antlers. We never went inside. My parents—who were trained as a nurse and a biochemist respectively—brushed aside Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as unscientific at best, and dangerous at worst. So I grew up skeptical of these practices. I rolled my eyes when people suggested taking ginseng tea to boost my energy. I stayed c…

On a March afternoon, artificial intelligence detected something resembling smoke on a camera feed from Arizona’s Coconino National Forest. Human analysts verified it wasn’t a cloud or dust, then alerted the state’s forest service and largest electric utility. One of dozens of AI cameras installed for the utility Arizona Public Service had spotted early signs of what came to be known as the Diamond Fire. Firefighters raced to the scene and contained the blaze before it grew past 7 acres (2.8 hectares). As record-breaking heat and an abysmal snowpack raise concerns about severe wildfires, states across the fire-prone West are adding AI to their wildfire detection t…

Ten years ago, I ended a meeting at WeWork with an offer to grab a free beer on tap. Last week, I ended it with a similar offer, except this time the beverage on offer was kombucha. The seemingly innocuous shift is symbolic of a bigger evolution underway at the coworking giant: less coolness, more functionality. WeWork is growing up, and its newest location in downtown Manhattan is the most visible proof yet: 250 Broadway, which opened in January, is WeWork’s first outpost in the city since 2019—the year WeWork abandoned its initial public offering and ousted cofounder Adam Neumann as CEO. The space adds 60,000 square feet to the company’s New York portfolio, which al…

In 2023, creator and social agency Whalar Group announced an ambitious plan to create physical campuses for content creators to learn, make, and collaborate with their peers. Now the company is opening the doors to its first campus in Venice, Calif. this month with an additional location in Brooklyn launching this spring and a London location slated for 2026. Part production studio, part co-working space, part university, The Lighthouse is membership-based community designed to help creators and their teams level-up both their content and the businesses they’re building around it. “If you look at [20th century German art school] Bauhaus, Andy Warhol’s Factory, Sil…

Before media outlets began comparing OpenAI’s Sam Altman with the father of the atomic bomb, and before Amazon’s Jeff Bezos got jacked, we had Nathan Bateman, the iron-pumping, AI-developing tech broligarch played by Oscar Isaac in the 2015 film Ex Machina. Written and directed by Civil War helmer Alex Garland, Ex Machina is ostensibly about a modern-day Turing test. Bateman, the mastermind behind a Google/Facebook surrogate, has secretly developed a humanoid AI and arranged for talented coder Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) to fly out to his remote compound for a week to determine whether Ava (Alicia Vikander) exhibits enough consciousness to pass for human. You know, sort …

The average U.S. employee clocks nearly 21 full business days working from their phone each year. That’s according to new research from Adobe Acrobat, who surveyed over 1,000 full-time employees on their habits and opinions around work phone etiquette. As worklife boundaries continue to blur, the work doesn’t stop when you step out of the office’s four walls. For many employees, they now carry it with them in their pocket, checking emails first thing from bed, or making calls on the go between meetings. In the early days of the iPhone, the “sent from my . . .” signature conveyed status. Back in 2013, The Atlantic referred to it as a “humble brag.” More than a de…

When Netflix was finally ready to bring back its massive international hit TV series Squid Game for Season 2 after a three-year hiatus, it had a unique marketing challenge: remind people why they fell in love with a Korean action drama that revolves around a murderous contest. Approximately 39 months had passed since the debut of Squid Game took the world by storm with its coordinated green tracksuits, Pink Guards, and twisted takes on children’s games. The first season exploded to the surprise of everyone, becoming a global pop culture sensation. Back in 2021, Netflix marketing outside Asia was largely reactive to what audiences were excited about. This time, there …

Yes, there are the New Year’s traditions of setting ambitious goals and ditching bad habits, but one evergreen resolution that ought to top lists is to banish bad design. Why endure something that simply doesn’t work (or is an affront to aesthetics) any longer than we have to? In the spirit of fresh starts, we polled experts in architecture, tech, industrial design, and urbanism on the everyday annoyances and the big-picture issues that they think are in desperate need of a refresh in 2026. (Top on my personal list? Eye-searing headlights.) Design is inherently an optimistic act, and by fixing these issues, we’re a step closer to a more beautiful and better world…