Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

There appears to be a recent epidemic of users hijacking companies’ AI-powered customer service bots to turn them into generic AI assistants. The goal is to get the branded bots to do their bidding, without having to subscribe to an AI service. Sometimes, people force the bots to do things that they are not supposed to do, like giving extraordinary product deals and even helping them to take legally problematic actions. Most recently, a wave of LinkedIn posts and social media videos went viral for claiming that users had coaxed McDonald’s customer-service virtual assistant to abandon its burger-centric purpose and to debug complex Python programming code instead. One …

Staples is ready to party, just in time for graduation season. The office supply retailer is adding Party City shop-in-shops to 700-plus of its stores in 34 states across the U.S. Customers will be able to buy party supplies and decor, including balloons, gift bags, and favors; have helium balloons inflated; and order other celebration must-haves like personalized invitations, banners, and posters using Staples’ same-day print and marketing services. The companies announced their partnership in a joint news release on April 21. As part of the collaboration, Party City will also sell its products at Staples.com. Shoppers can use this store locator tool to find …

The main reason Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran fires people? Having a bad attitude. On a recent podcast episode of The Burnouts, Corcoran shared that after hiring her first salesperson from another firm and training her “like crazy for a year-and-a-half,” there was one thing training couldn’t fix: her attitude. That experience taught her a straightforward, non-negotiable hiring principle. While skills can be taught, a good attitude cannot. “I learned a very valuable lesson: [if you] have somebody who has a bad attitude, they’re going to suck up other people into their attitude,” Corcoran said in the podcast episode. One person’s negative outlook c…

Just days after the record-breaking Artemis II splashed down in the Pacific, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is ready to talk about what comes next. An entrepreneur turned space chief, Isaacman gets frank about the agency’s ambitions to build a permanent lunar base, put boots on Mars, and push the search for extraterrestrial life further than ever before. Plus, he shares why he sees the accelerating space race with China as one of the most consequential competitions of our time. 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 Res…

If you’ve had a Capital One savings account in recent years, the bank may soon send some money your way after a U.S. judge approved a $425 million settlement this week. Better yet? You don’t have to do anything to claim your stake in the class action lawsuit that was initially filed against the McLean, Virginia-based bank in 2024. To be eligible for settlement funds, you must have had a Capital One 360 Savings account at any time from mid-September 2019 through mid-June 2025. WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR A PAYMENT The case stems from allegations that Capital One “acted deceptively regarding the marketing and payment of interest on its 360 Savings account product,” acc…

The job search is exhausting: an application, several rounds of interviews, skills assessments, and, increasingly, even a work trial. Work trials are when an interviewee is asked to complete job-related tasks over a short period of time—often a few days or up to a week—so an employer can evaluate how they perform in a real working environment before making a hiring decision. As recruiters and hiring managers sift through a flood of applications that can sound increasingly similar—especially in the age of AI—these trials have emerged as a way to evaluate candidates in real time. This shift raises important questions: Are work trials a better predictor of succe…

When The Las Vegas Raiders announced Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza as the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft yesterday, it kicked off what might just be the most special time of year for any football fan. This three day draft period—April 23-25—is unquestionably the moment in the year when the highest number of fans are at their most optimistic. No wins, no losses, just new beginnings, new players, new possibilities. It’s also a marquee event for the league. About 600,000 people attended last year’s draft in Green Bay over its three days, across seven rounds, 32 teams, and 257 picks. On TV and streaming, the draft drew massive audiences, …

Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. Last weekend, I stopped by a gadget kiosk at my local mall—but not to buy a phone case or get a cracked screen replaced. Instead, I was there to get my irises and face scanned by a device called the Orb so I could receive a credential known as a World ID. Its purpose: to provide verifiable proof I’m a human being. Like everyone on the internet, I have grudgingly accepted the need to complete CAPTCHA tests, a truly irritating form of personhood verification that has been with us for almost 30 years. But until fairly recently, it hadn’t dawned on me that more conclusive evidence might be necessary. It did, howeve…

Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) has long played second fiddle to the more established giants in the AI race. For much of that race, the technology powering the hardware AI needs to run on has been GPUs, like the kind Nvidia excels in making. But as industry focus shifts towards how CPUs can accelerate AI tasks, Intel’s recent earnings report shows the company is starting to benefit significantly, sending its stock price surging today. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, Intel reported its first-quarter 2026 financial results for the period that ended on March 28. Those results were much better than analysts had been expecting. The most s…

As Madonna promotes her new album, she’s going where only one pop diva has gone before: Grindr. Ahead of the July launch of Confessions II, Grindr will feature an evolving takeover with exclusive content and limited-edition drops. The partnership debuted Thursday with Madonna’s profile nestled in Grindr’s grid of nearby users. Tapping the profile opens an ad with a voice memo from the singer, and a link to preorder a limited picture disc vinyl of Confessions II as a nonstop mix that blends each track into the next. “Hi Grindr, it’s mother,” the voice memo says. “I wanted to go where the hottest action was, so I got on the grid.” The partnership—which the compa…

Amid a merger with SpaceX, a $60 billion option to acquire the AI company Cursor, and an upcoming public offering, Elon Musk’s xAI firm is still losing employees. Every xAI cofounder, other than Elon Musk, has now exited the company. Dozens of people who served on xAI’s engineering and program staff have also departed, a Fast Company review shows. This overlaps with a significant share of the people meant to direct the startup under a new organizational structure that was only announced in February. While it’s natural for employees to come and go from any company, the string of xAI departures—and these are only the publicly searchable ones—is notable because they come …

Experts have a lot of ideas about persuasion. Some suggest leveraging social proof to show that people have adopted the idea and had a positive experience. Others emphasize the importance of building trust and appealing to emotional, rather than analytical arguments. Still others insist on creating a unified value proposition. The problem is that change is not about persuasion. The best indicator of what we think and do is what the people around us think and do, and that effect extends out to three degrees of separation. It is not only those we trust, but even the friends of our friends’ friends—people we don’t even know—that affect our opinions and actions. So ev…

NASA is looking not to the stars but back to our planet for inspiration. In honor of Earth Day, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shared an interactive digital tool turns satellite images of the planet’s landscapes into a typeface. “The planet can spell your name—literally,” the Kennedy Space Center’s X post says. Using a feature called “Your Name in Landsat,” users can type in whichever word they choose into the generator’s textbox. The site will then generate the phrase using landscapes from Earth, like rivers, lakes, farmland, and more. When hovering over each “letter,” users can learn more about where the landscape is located and even its coordinates. NAS…

April is shaping up to be yet another brutal month for job cuts in the technology sector. But the announcements may not have the immediate effect that many companies are hoping for. Here’s the latest on the situation. Microsoft to offer buyouts to 7% of its US workforce While Microsoft hasn’t announced another round of layoffs, the Windows giant is planning job reductions of another kind. As Fast Company reported yesterday, the Redmond, Washington, company is expected to offer buyouts to 7% of its U.S. workforce by the end of June. A buyout is when a company offers an employee a financial incentive to resign. Buyout helps companies avoid being forced to ch…

Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket have roared into the public consciousness, drawing scrutiny from regulators and politicians. They’ve also captured the imagination of social media users, some of whom post outlandish claims of striking it rich by pointing AI models at prediction markets and making bank. But a new study published in the Cornell University archive arXiv suggests it’s not as easy as that. Researchers at Arcada Labs, through its Prediction Arena benchmark, tested six frontier AI models by giving each $10,000 to trade on prediction markets over 57 days earlier this year, tracking how they handled real-time information and decision-making on pla…

There is an “unprecedented degree of change in the business environment,” as one CEO in the latest Fortune/Deloitte CEO survey put it. If you’re struggling to scale your company, you’re not alone. Growth is harder and fatigue is everywhere. This volatile environment makes focus all the more important. I have worked with over a hundred VC or Private Equity backed startups through scaleups, and there are consistent barriers that every CEO and C-Suite, no matter your industry or business model, must overcome in order to grow successfully. As my old boss at Cisco, John Chambers, used to say “Concentrate on what you can control, not on what you can’t.” As a leader, here ar…

Note: This article discusses sensitive topics like suicide and self-harm. If you or someone you know is in danger, please call the national suicide and crisis lifeline at 988. LLM-powered chatbots have brought humans and technology closer together than ever before–but at what cost? Many people have begun turning to LLMs for advice, seeking guidance on anything from fitness plans to interpersonal relationships. But for society’s most vulnerable minds (e.g., adolescents, the elderly, and those with mental health conditions), this intimacy presents a hidden danger. These tools can descend into something darker: enablers for suicide and self-harm (SSH). Chatbots have …

Earlier in my life, I worked for a global company. I passed my manager in the hallway, and wanted to ask her a question. She was stressed and answered before I had even completed the question. I tried again. She did it again. On the third attempt, I looked at her and said, “Can you please be quiet until I have finished my question?” She stopped. I finished. She answered and then rushed away. Five minutes later, I did the exact same thing to one of my own people. That moment has stayed with me for decades. It wasn’t the most dramatic experience of my life, but it was one that made me embarrassed. I’d like to think that I’ve learned something since then. But it’s easy to…