Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Netflix exceeded Wall Street’s revenue estimates for its holiday quarter, as it crossed 325 million subscribers, the company said on Tuesday. Revenue came in at $12.1 billion for October through December—topping forecasts of $11.97 billion for the quarter, according to analysts surveyed by LSEG. Nielsen reported that Netflix’s monthly viewership rose 10% in December, thanks largely to the final season of hit sci-fi series “Stranger Things,” which generated 15 billion viewing minutes. Netflix also streamed two National Football League games on Christmas Day and released a third film in the “Knives Out” murder mystery series. Investors remain focused on Netflix’…

The “American woman in Pakistan” now has a crypto coin. If you don’t know who that is, American Onijah Andrew Robinson recently went viral after claiming she flew to Pakistan to marry a 19-year-old she met online, only to be rejected. Instead of returning home, she has become somewhat of a celebrity in Pakistan, holding high-profile press conferences in Karachi where she demands money and declares her plans to “rebuild” the country. Thanks to TikTok, she has since gone international as that “American woman in Pakistan.” In an interview with the City 21 news channel, Robinson announced her entry into the crypto market last week. “I would like to say I am launching…

Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions. Q: How do I get a hiring manager to respond to me? A: I’ve been on both sides of this scenario. I know how frustrating it can be to send your résumé and cover letter out into the void and wait for weeks without hearing anything. I also know how overwhelming it can be as a hiring manager to shift through hundreds of applications while meeting all of the normal demands of your job. So it’s a delicate balance. As a candidate you just want to know, but you also …

After 17 years, Airbnb’s Brian Chesky is hitting reset—reinventing the business from the ground up and expanding the brand in unexpected ways. Chesky joins Rapid Response to explain why now is the right time for Airbnb’s “great reinvention” and takes us inside his relationship with Sam Altman, revealing previously unheard details about Altman’s brief yet tumultuous dismissal from OpenAI. 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 top business leaders navigating real-time c…

Water scarcity is often viewed as an issue for the arid American West, but the U.S. Northeast’s experience in 2024 shows how severe droughts can occur in just about any part of the country. Cities in the Northeast experienced record-breaking drought conditions in the second half of 2024 after a hot, dry summer in many areas. Wildfires broke out in several states that rarely see them. By December, much of the region was experiencing moderate to severe drought. Residents in New York City and Boston were asked to reduce their water use, while Philadelphia faced risk to its water supply due to saltwater coming up the Delaware River. Before the drought, many people…

Well, well, well—look who suddenly wants a word with the sheriff in the fair-use Wild West landscape of artificial intelligence. As Bloomberg reports, Microsoft and its partner company OpenAI are investigating the white-hot Chinese startup DeepSeek after Microsoft security researchers allegedly discovered people linked to DeepSeek withdrawing large amounts of data through the company’s API last fall. Elsewhere, White House AI czar David Sacks told Fox News on Tuesday that there is “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek “distilled” knowledge from OpenAI’s AI models. These allegations align with other suspicious aspects of the new AI. For instance, when a Fast Company…

The devastating California wildfires have led to a number of benefit events, from concerts to comedy shows, with the intention to fundraise for wildfire recovery efforts. The team at Critical Role, meanwhile, is going to do what they do best: play Dungeons & Dragons. Critical Role announced a special live one-shot D&D adventure titled “Freaky Thursday,” featuring Bells Hells, the characters from its third D&D campaign. The charity event stars Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey, and Liam O’Brien, with game master Matthew Mercer. “Let’s do some chaotic good,” wrote O’Brien on X, sharing the an…

The cost of Valentine’s Day may be a lot higher this year compared to last year. You’ve probably heard the price of eggs has skyrocketed, but if you haven’t already started shopping for your Valentine, be prepared for some sticker shock, especially for perennial favorites like roses and chocolates. Here’s why. How much will I pay for roses this year? Depending on where you live, you might be paying a hefty price. This Valentine’s Day, the average price for a dozen long-stemmed roses (red or white) is a staggering $90.50, 2% more than last year, according to FinanceBuzz as reported by CBS News. Yet a 2% hike would be getting off easy, considering that if you liv…

Small dwelling units are booming as solutions for affordable housing, camping, and glamping. But of most interest, at present, is the opportunity this category provides as a source of transitional housing during times of climate crisis and regional disasters such as the L.A. fires. California already had increasingly positive regulation toward accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and tiny homes prior to the January 2025 Los Angeles fires. In the wake of the current disaster, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass issued an emergency executive order: Return and Rebuild. This new mandate eliminates the significant regulatory hurdles of rebuilding to organize efforts with a theme of “urgency,…

Nearly three in five people worldwide—a significant 58%—plan to look for a new job in 2025. That’s a lot of people in the hunt and if you’re one of them, it can feel a bit overwhelming. It doesn’t help that many job seekers are also feeling stuck, applying to more positions than ever yet hearing back less often. The shifting job market, influenced by more competition and the growth of AI, has made old strategies less effective. To succeed, job seekers need to rethink their strategy—focusing on roles that align with their skills, crafting tailored applications, and finding ways to stand out. The good news? With a clear, intentional approach, you can navigate these chal…

In the run-up to this weekend’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, fans couldn’t be more excited to see the Philadelphia Eagles face off against the Kansas City Chiefs, as the latter attempts to make Super Bowl history as the first team to win the championship three times in a row. With advertising prices hitting all-time highs, and an exciting halftime show featuring recent Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar scheduled, why are ticket sales plummeting? That’s right: Ticket prices for Super Bowl LIX are down 30% over this past week, or around 50% cheaper than last year. Currently, the cheapest seats are selling for somewhere between $3,057 to $4,300 before taxes on the secondary mar…

David Ko, CEO of Calm, speaks with Brendan Vaughan about the state of mental health solutions in the workplace. View the full article

Multiple earthquakes are rattling Santorini, a volcanic island in Greece, prompting authorities to dispatch rescuers with tents, a sniffer dog and drones, and to shut schools on four islands. Residents have been warned to avoid indoor gatherings, check escape routes, stay away from cliffs and to drain swimming pools to reduce potential structural damage to buildings in the event of a large earthquake. Greece lies in a highly seismically active part of the world, and earthquakes are frequent. The vast majority cause no injuries and little or no damage, but the country has also seen deadly quakes. Earthquakes can’t be predicted, but authorities are taking measures a…

Remote work is here to stay, and late-stage startups offer a nice mix of financial backing, stability, and potential for success that might be lacking in your current job. If you’re looking for a chance to join a company on the move while working from the comfort of your own home, this is the list for you. From AI to health to cybersecurity and more, these remote-friendly companies have plenty of openings. Grafana Labs: 50 Grafana Labs provides a suite of tools—including Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, and Tempo—that help organizations monitor, analyze, and understand their applications and infrastructure. Grafana Labs is hiring for a variety of remote roles, in…

Spirit Airlines has rejected a merger offer with Frontier as it prepares to exit bankruptcy. Wednesday, Frontier made its second offer to merge with the bankrupt Spirit Airlines, but Spirit rejected it on the grounds that it was financially insufficient. In 2022, Frontier offered to acquire Spirit for $2.9 billion, but the offer was ultimately rejected when Spirit chose to accept a higher offer from JetBlue (which was later blocked for antitrust concerns). Frontier Airlines put forward its current merger offer in hopes of creating a strong, low-fare airline together. “We have long believed a combination with Spirit would allow us to unlock additional v…

Imagine this: A team meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. in California. For software developers in Mumbai, it’s 5:30 a.m. the next day—prime sleeping hours or, at best, the tail end of an exhausting night shift. In Poland, where other team members are based, it’s already 1 a.m., and the developers are long offline. Awkward timing for a call, to say the least. How do these time zone differences impact overall efficiency? As more projects rely on globally distributed teams with members from every corner of the world, this question is becoming increasingly urgent. This is underscored by a study conducted by Harvard Business School professor Prithwiraj Choudhury. It found th…

For all the industries that are facing existential crises from the emergence of artificial intelligence, one is seeing a happily profitable outcome. Architects are increasingly being commissioned to design the brick-and-mortar infrastructure supporting the AI boom. These data centers—big warehouse-like buildings stuffed with whirring servers sucking up hundreds of megawatts of power—are becoming a major, and majorly lucrative, part of the architecture industry’s bottom line. “We’ve got about 200 people working strictly on data center projects,” says Joy Hughes, a design manager at the architecture and design firm Gensler. It’s a subset of the architecture business tha…

Capital One has launched an AI agent designed to help consumers with one of the most frustrating, time-consuming processes in life: buying a car. The banking giant’s Chat Concierge provides information, makes decisions, and takes action using multiple AI agents. Mimicking human reasoning, the product aims to assist consumers in all aspects of the research process involved in making a car purchase, from comparing vehicles to scheduling test drives. “Buying a car is a stressful experience,” says Prem Natarajan, EVP, chief scientist, and head of enterprise AI at Capital One. “The possibility that we can make this really important purchase for people a frictionless …

By now, most people know not to trust everything they see on TikTok. But scams on the platform are becoming increasingly sophisticated, thanks to deepfake technology. A new report from Media Matters for America, published this week, identified multiple TikTok accounts using deepfake influencers and fake storytimes to promote wellness products to unsuspecting users. These accounts appear to be part of an affiliated network, using the same content format and often promoting exactly the same products with little to no scientific backing. One now-deleted TikTok account, which had over 245,000 followers, amassed more than 4.1 million likes promoting its “secret to perf…

YouTube isn’t just a website anymore. And computers and smartphones aren’t even the primary ways that people watch YouTube content, either. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, in his annual letter to the YouTube community yesterday, wrote, “TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S.” At the same time, he said, creators “have moved from filming grainy videos of themselves on desktop computers to building studios and producing popular talk shows and feature-length films.” Ahead of posting his letter, Mohan spoke with Fast Company about how YouTube—which is celebrating its 20th year—is responding to changing viewer habits and givin…

As wind-driven wildfires spread through the Los Angeles area in January 2025, fire-spotting technology and computer models were helping firefighters understand the rapidly changing environment they were facing. That technology has evolved over the years, yet some techniques are very similar to those used over 100 years ago. I have spent several decades studying combustion, including wildfire behavior and the technology used to track fires and predict where wildfires might turn. Here’s a quick tour of the key technologies used today. Spotting fires faster First, the fire must be discovered. Often wildfires are reported by people seeing smoke. That hasn’t…

Our cognition and mental well-being are crucial factors for our quality of life and put us in a good position to contribute to society. Ultimately, it can be near impossible to achieve physical goals and demanding life challenges if our brain health is not optimal. Yet most of us appear to be more concerned with physical health than brain health. According to the YouGov website, the most popular New Year’s resolutions in the U.K. in 2024 were doing more exercise, saving money, losing weight and dieting—with about 20% reporting they were failing some resolutions just six days into the year. A large study of approximately 1,000 participants showed that mental health fea…

It was the year 2000. We survived Y2K and sat at our computers obsessed with a strange new game called The Sims. It was the first game I ever played where the protagonist could be late to work, forget to take out the garbage, or be so preoccupied by the doldrums of life that they might pee themselves. I, alongside millions, was hooked and could not articulate why. Born from the mind of Will Wright—the same designer who bucked the industry’s penchant for arcade games for world simulators like SimCity—The Sims is almost as hard to define now as it was then. Is it a virtual dollhouse? A simulacrum of suburban life? A neighborhood of tamagotchis with jobs? An HGTV ho…

Global leaders recently gathered at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, under the theme of “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age.” What exactly is the “Intelligent Age” and, more importantly, how can we ensure that everyone can participate in this new age? WEF defines the Intelligent Age as a transition away from the Industrial Age to a new phase of human civilization. It’s a clear and compelling definition. But what is much less clear is the conversation about the importance of equity and how to approach it. There are many ways leaders can consider equity as they build and adopt AI and other frontier technologies: clear global policies, reaching new markets, …

This story was originally published by ProPublica. The icebreaker Aiviq is a gas guzzler with a troubled history. The ship was built to operate in the Arctic, but it has a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. Its waste and discharge systems weren’t designed to meet polar code, its helicopter pad is in the wrong place to launch rescue operations and its rear deck is easily swamped by big waves. On its maiden voyage to Alaska in 2012, the 360-foot vessel lost control of the Shell Oil drill rig it was towing, and Coast Guard helicopter crews braved a storm to pluck 18 men off the wildly lurching deck of the rig before it crashed into a rocky beach…