Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Researchers at Northwestern University just found a way to make a temporary pacemaker that’s controlled by light—and it’s smaller than a grain of rice. A study on the new device, published last week in the journal Nature, found that the tiny pacemaker delivered effective pacing in both animal subjects and human hearts from organ donors. The device is designed specifically for patients who need temporary pacemaking—like newborn babies with heart defects or heart surgery patients—and it’s made with materials that allow it to safely dissolve into the body once it’s no longer needed. The current standard in temporary pacemakers (called an “epicardial” pacemaker) invo…

You are probably hearing other business owners refer to the term “the second bite” with a big smile on their faces. The second bite refers to the opportunity that arises after a business owner sells less than 100 percent of their ownership stake. By leaving chips on the table, business owners have the chance to partner with a private equity firm to accelerate growth and business value. This can lead to a second bite which comes during the next sale of the business. At some point, many great businesses reach an inflection point: a time when the owner wants a partner who can help preserve and enrich the future of the business (and do it in the right way). When a busine…

If you were to establish an electric truck company today, would the trucks be built in America? In April 2025, the answer is yes. In 2022, even after the pandemic, the answer might have been different. That was the year I initially founded Chang Robotics, a company that manufactures what we believe to be one of the world’s most powerful battery-operated commercial rigs. Its first commercial use will be for fast snow removal in airports and other mission-critical facilities. At the time, advisors, investors, and partners all said “Let’s take this to China. I’ll bet we could get this done in six months.” I declined. New Manufacturing Should Focus on Bei…

Some office buildings are simply not blessed with natural light. Maybe they’re standing in the shadows of something taller. Or perhaps their windows are mostly oriented to the dark north instead of the sunny southwest. Or maybe they’re so big and wide that sunlight can’t find its way into their murky depths. Whatever the reason, the lack of natural light presents problems ranging from additional energy usage to diminished human well-being and productivity. CBT, an architecture firm based in Boston, has been exploring unique ways of solving these problems. Using passive design approaches that require no additional energy, the firm is finding innovative ways to bring mo…

When my emergency IAR app sounds at 3 a.m., there’s no room for ego, second-guessing, or hesitation. In that critical moment, all that matters is trust, teamwork, and execution. While I have spent decades in the corporate world, some of my most valuable leadership lessons have come from my experience as a volunteer EMS first responder. In the field, when I’m assisting in a life-threatening trauma situation or responding to a car accident, leadership is put to the test under extreme pressure. But whether I’m piloting an ambulance on a dark highway or guiding my company through turbulent times, the principles remain the same: Know your role, remove the noise, maint…

Hiring professionals who see countless job applications every year begin to notice patterns of red flags that can instantly disqualify a candidate. Here, experts share their thoughts on the most commonly made mistakes. Avoid the White Fonting Trick Surprisingly, many candidates still use the “white fonting” tactic on their résumés. This practice stems from an outdated piece of advice that has spread over time: include extra keywords or copy the entire job description, reduce the font size, and change the color to white. The intention is to make the text invisible to the eye but still detectable by applicant tracking systems. It’s essentially an attempt to game the …

The closing days of February were not good ones for job security in the tech industry. Over the month’s final week, major industry players, including HP, Grubhub, and Autodesk announced plans to reduce their workforce, while another startup seems to be shutting down entirely. Here’s what you need to know about the latest round of tech layoffs. HP to cut up to 2,000 workers Without a doubt, the largest number of job cuts over the last week of February was announced by computer maker HP. In a Form 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), dated February 27, HP revealed it will eliminate between 1,000 and 2,000 of its workers. The layoffs …

Fast food giant Yum Brands has worked for years to distance itself from third-party tech partners. Last week, it made the ultimate power move: a development deal with Nvidia, a tech giant consistently ranked among the most valuable companies in the world. “We want to own the intellectual property. We want to own the technology,” Yum Brands chief digital and technology officer Joe Park told the Wall Street Journal. “That’s a shift in our strategy as we think about AI.” In other words: Yum knows its strength and wants full control over its own data. The company will build more services for its 61,000 restaurants with Nvidia’s tech with the goal of quickly processin…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. A year ago, our company made a bold move. We put up a million dollars in prize money for any of our team members—no matter their role—who came up with transformative ways of using AI to serve our clients. As a health marketing agency, we saw it as our version of the renowned XPRIZE, hoping that this initiative would truly spark meaningful change and inspire us to think bigger for our clients. …

Curiosity isn’t just a valuable personality trait—it’s a leadership superpower. In a business environment where innovation dictates success, curiosity serves as the catalyst for breakthroughs and industry reinvention. Yet, despite its transformative potential, curiosity remains one of the most undervalued tools in leadership today. According to a Harvard Business Review study, curiosity fosters openness and collaboration while reducing decision-making errors. Yet only 24% of organizations actively encourage it, leaving a wealth of untapped potential on the table. The best leaders don’t just seek answers; they reframe problems. Instead of asking, “How do we fix this?” …

I was mid-text argument with my colleague John when I caught myself, again, hovering over the “send” button, rewriting the same defensive message for the third time. It was about politics. But frankly, the content didn’t matter. What mattered was how my nervous system was lighting up like a pinball machine. I wasn’t responding. I was reacting. So I stopped. I paused the conversation, switched from text to voice note, and eventually asked if we could meet in person so that I could show up in a way that honors him. That single decision, to press pause, completely changed the tone and outcome of the conversation. By meeting in person, John and I demonstrated that we …

It’s only 9 a.m. and Michelle, a middle manager in a government organization, just received her eighth panicked email from a team member asking about the impending layoffs that were announced yesterday afternoon. People are clearly worried, and Michelle is beginning to feel overwhelmed. She’s in an unfortunate, yet common, position. She wants to keep people calm and focused, but information comes in drips from leaders above her. The culture she worked so hard to build is becoming flooded with uncertainty. People are scared. What can Michelle do to minimize feelings of threat and help the team keep running smoothly? Layoffs aren’t the only context in which uncerta…

Weeks ahead of his death, Pope Francis dedicated this month’s prayer intention to new technologies and the hope that it can serve “every person, especially the weakest.” “How I would like for us to look less at screens and look each other in the eyes more,” Pope Francis said in a prerecorded video released April 1. “Something’s wrong if we spend more time on our cellphones than with people. The screen makes us forget that there are real people behind it who breathe, laugh, and cry.” Pope Francis died at 88 Monday morning, the Vatican announced in a statement on X, just after his appearance in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday. Pope Francis, in his 12-year papac…

Fun fact: The saying “work smarter, not harder” is coming up on its 100th birthday. Coined in the 1930s by industrial engineer Allen Morgenstern, this simple, pithy directive is arguably more achievable today than ever before. Thanks to generative AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, it’s never been easier to quickly create text, images, code, and more. Here are few practical ways you can leverage them to power up your productivity. Create content If you spend any time crafting marketing copy, drafting emails, outlining blog posts, or even brainstorming ideas, generative AI tools can save you an incredible amount of tim…

After making his mark in Silicon Valley, Icelandic designer and tech mogul Haraldur “Halli” Thorleifsson is now solving a far more analog problem: the inaccessibility of local storefronts. As a wheelchair user, Thorleifsson knows firsthand how exclusion can be built into a city. “If you don’t see anyone using a wheelchair,” he says, “it’s not because they don’t exist—it’s because they have nowhere to go.” Thorleifsson has experienced such access barriers to public spaces throughout his life, but the turning point came on a late-night walk with his family in downtown Reykjavík, when he couldn’t join his son in a corner store because of a single step at the entrance. …

It’s inevitable that you’ll experience a slow period as a freelancer. No matter how long you’ve been at it, you’ll be faced with lulls from time to time where opportunities are coming in less frequently or not at all. Sometimes it’s not about you: Certain types of projects are impacted by seasonality, budget cycles, and economic conditions. But other times, you could be the reason the engagements are starting to taper off, whether you’ve not staying up to date in your field or the competition is outpacing you. To get out of these slumps, and prevent them from happening often, be intentional about what you’re doing during these slow stretches. Reframe your mind…

When people talk about how AI might reshape media, the term “hyper-personalization” comes up a lot. In broad terms, it means that AI can tailor the experience around your preferences—assuming it has enough data about you. To some extent, algorithms and ad tech have been doing this for years, recommending links and stories based on your clicks and browsing behavior. What generative AI brings to the table is the ability to adapt the content itself. A large language model could, in theory, understand the kinds of stories I care about and modify what I’m reading—maybe by adding an angle relevant to my region. It could even offer up different lengths or even formats. If I’…

Remember the viral “Ice Bucket Challenge” of 2014? Over a decade later, it’s back—but this time, the focus is mental health. If you were living under a rock in 2014, the challenge involved participants pouring ice water over themselves, posting the video to social media, and nominating others to join in, all while raising awareness for a cause. The campaign raised millions for ALS research. Now, it’s making a comeback—this time to support Active Minds, a nonprofit promoting mental health awareness and education for students. The Mental Illness Needs Discussion (MIND) club’s #SpeakYourMIND campaign launched on Instagram in March, started by a group of students at t…

A strong solar storm headed to Earth could produce colorful aurora displays across more U.S. states than usual Tuesday night. The sun earlier this week burped out huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections, leading space weather forecasters to issue a geomagnetic storm watch. Northern lights were forecast in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Parts of northern Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania may also get a view. The strength of the light show will depend on how Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar bursts, said …

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Building a resilient technology company is hard. Building one that can withstand constant policy change is another level of hard. Right now, companies across sectors—not just fintech—are staring down government and regulatory shifts happening faster than most orgs can process, let alone implement. For industries like financial technology, where regulatory changes directly impact how produc…

Shares in video game giant Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTWO) are plummeting in early morning trading today after the company’s subsidiary, Rockstar Games, announced that it is delaying the release of its next flagship title, Grand Theft Auto VI, from fall 2025 until May 2026. Here’s what you need to know about the delay and how investors are reacting. Grand Theft Auto VI delayed until May 2026 In December 2023, Rockstar announced that GTA6—perhaps the most anticipated game of all time—would launch in the fall of 2025. Now, the studio has announced the game’s release is being pushed back until May 26, 2026. Rockstar’s announcement was brief. In …

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is enthusiastic about the company’s pilot with Waymo. In Q1 prepared remarks, he said the launch in Austin has “exceeded our expectations,” noting that the 100 self-driving vehicles there were busier than 99% of the city’s human drivers. The strong performance has Uber looking ahead to its next Waymo rollout in Atlanta. But Waymo isn’t Uber’s only autonomous partner. Just hours before Khosrowshahi’s comments were released, Uber announced an expanded deal with WeRide, a global rival to Waymo. WeRide’s robotaxis will soon launch in 15 new cities outside the U.S. and China. While Waymo may be Uber’s marquee U.S. partner, the rideshare giant…

Hertz is notifying customers that hackers may have stolen personal information like credit card details and social security numbers during a data breach on one of its vendors. In a notice on its website, Hertz said an unauthorized third-party stole data during a cyberattack on Cleo Communications’ file-transfer platform between October 2024 and December 2024. Hertz, which also owns the Dollar and Thrifty rental brands, said it confirmed the attack on Feb. 10 and concluded April 2 that the information exposed by the breach could have included customers’ names, contact information, dates of birth, credit card information, driver’s license information, and informat…

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video-sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months. The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin. “TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of…