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This desert city gets less than 9 inches of rain a year and experienced the two hottest years in its recorded history in 2023 and 2024. But El Paso Water started planning decades ago for this hotter, drier climate. Last Thursday, the utility broke ground on its latest project to secure water for the city of 700,000: an advanced water purification facility that will deliver 10 million gallons per day of purified water from the city’s wastewater stream directly into its drinking water supply. El Paso’s Pure Water Center, which will go online by 2028, is the first direct-to-distribution reuse facility in the country. Treating wastewater for reuse as drinking water …

You have probably noticed that you have times during your day when you’re locked in and feel like you’re working at your peak and other times when your mind isn’t keeping up with everything that needs to be done. Some of that may reflect your circadian cycles. If you’re a morning person, you may arrive at work in the morning raring to go, but if you’re a night person, it may take you a while to get warmed up. A big influence on your cognitive effectiveness is fatigue that can build up over the course of the day. A lot of work on ego depletion suggests that the more difficult mental work you do in a day, the harder it can be to continue to do that work later. In some s…

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. Regardless of whether your company has a strict in-office policy or supports a flexible schedule, the reality is that office attendance is at its highest levels in five years, according to Bisnow. Nobody would argue the need for a healthy office, especially one with more people in it. And if you ask what makes a healthy office, most would say it is one that supports physical health and safet…

Hello again, and thank you for spending time with Fast Company’s Plugged In. Last October, I visited the Silicon Valley headquarters of 1X Technologies—the startup behind a humanoid home robot called Neo—and spoke with its VP of product and design, Dar Sleeper. Among the points he made was that long-standing public expectations have set a high bar for household robots. Naturally, he name-checked the world’s most iconic one. “The ultimate, North Star, in a lot of people’s minds, is Rosie the Robot,” he told me. “A Jetsons world where you ask and receive, and it makes your life better, you spend more time with your family, you’re more present.” Sleeper’s reference return…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Summer officially starts in a few weeks, but I’ve already ordered and preordered the books that will keep me company on airplanes and trips to the beach. The first Modern CEO reading list was heavy on buzzworthy titles. Last year’s edition was a bit more dutiful, highlighting three works that …

As tech companies continue slashing jobs with impunity, workers are right to be fearful—and fed up. But it appears that overall layoffs may actually be slowing down, according to the latest report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In April, employers across the country announced 83,387 job cuts, an uptick of 38% from the 60,620 cuts during the month prior. That figure is, however, lower than it was in April 2025, when layoffs had reached 105,441. Overall layoffs for 2026 have also significantly dropped in comparison to last year: As of April, employers have disclosed plans for over 300,000 layoffs—half the number of layoffs that had been annou…

A new study paints a promising picture for the ways that digital technology use affects the aging brain. Published in Nature Human Behavior last month, neuroscientists at Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin conducted a meta-analysis drawing on 57 different studies and data from more than 400,000 participants over the age of 50. A digital brain boost The new study found that across the board, the use of everyday digital technology like computers, smartphones, and the internet is associated with lower measures of cognitive decline in middle-aged and older adults. The strength of that positive association was comparable to established protect…

Hiring in 2026 won’t look much like hiring even two years ago. If you don’t pay attention, you will get left behind. I was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years. I’ve written executive and board résumés for the last 10 years. I’ve never seen so much change in candidate sourcing happen so quickly. CEO priorities and expectations have shifted. AI is reshaping how candidates get surfaced. Résumé sameness has skyrocketed. Candidate shortlist cycles have accelerated. For you to be visible, your résumé has to do more than describe your work. It has to hit leaders’ priorities, satisfy automated systems’ tests, and make sense. The following five trends show you w…

The latest wave of tech layoffs doesn’t have to be a step backward—it can be a launchpad. If you’ve spent years shipping products, debugging systems, and partnering with go-to-market teams, you already have what many founders don’t: domain insight and a network. Pair that with AI “employees,” (role-specific software agents trained on your company’s data that can perform defined tasks like drafting on-brand content, qualifying leads, and updating CRMs) and your severance becomes seed capital for a lean, scalable company. What’s different now is that the traditional barriers to starting a business have collapsed. The math is transformative: What once required $500,000 in …

Corey duBrowa spent much of his career advising some of the world’s most scrutinized leaders—from Marc Benioff at Salesforce to Sundar Pichai at Google. Now, as CEO of global communications firm Burson, he’s helping executives navigate a charged marketplace shaped by AI disruption, ICE activity, and nonstop reputational risk. He explains why reputation remains one of the most powerful (and most misunderstood) assets in business, and how leaders should decide whether, when, and how to speak up. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scalepodcast, R…

From dating apps spreading the paradox of choice onto young daters to social media stunting the social skills of generations to come, modern relationships are comically complicated. For daters trying to navigate what seems like a minefield of one bad experience after another, they are turning to social media to share their past experiences and dating dealbreakers with the new “date cancelled” trend. The meme is simple: users follow a template-like structure, posting “date cancelled” followed by their personal icks and irks collected from past relationships. While the format has expanded to various social media platforms, most of the users engaging with the tre…

When deciding if something is worth the effort, whether you’ve already exerted yourself or face the prospect of work, changes your calculus. That’s what we found in our new research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. When you consider a future effort, more work makes the outcome less appealing. But once you’ve completed the work, more effort makes the outcome seem more valuable. We also discovered that hiding behind this general principle of timing there are individual differences in how future and past effort shapes people’s value for the fruits of their labor. What’s it worth to you? In our experiment, we gave participants a choice…

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, maintain a …

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke shared an internal memo on X on Monday that stressed the importance of using AI effectively in daily tasks. In fact, he wrote, using AI is now a “fundamental expectation” of Shopify employees. Spotify product designers are now expected to use AI tools to do all platform feature prototypes. The results, Lutke says, are more exploratory and faster to produce and share. Shopify already provides employees with access to various AI coding tools from Github (Copilot), Cursor, and Anthropic (Claude code). “Our task here at Shopify is to make our software unquestionably the best canvas on which to develop the best businesses of the future,” Lutke wr…

U.S. hospitals generate nearly six million tons of waste each year, and a single patient can be responsible for more than 30 pounds a day. Much of that waste comes from the operating room (OR), which accounts for up to a third of a hospital’s total output and is among the most expensive areas to manage. A large portion comes from single-use devices, packaging, and transport materials. These practices are often criticized, and not without reason. But in settings like transplantation, much of that waste is directly tied to protecting patients. I’m often asked, “Why not make devices reusable?” or “What about the environmental impact?” After years in the OR and workin…

The Epstein Files are dominating nightly news broadcasts and newspaper front pages. But in the media ecosystem there’s another format that’s proving a massive draw to news consumers: a podcast run by a non-journalist and entirely generated by AI. The Epstein Files is an investigative documentary podcast that, at the time of writing, has published 97 episodes—new episodes get uploaded twice daily—and notched up more than 700,000 downloads in a matter of days. That puts it in the top 10 rankings of podcast series on Apple Podcasts, and in the top 30 on Spotify. But it’s created by Adam Levy, an entrepreneur with a background in building data products and content creation, …

A new word has entered the business headline writer’s lexicon over the last month: the “SaaSpocalypse.” Between mid-January and mid-February 2026, around a trillion dollars was wiped from the value of software stocks. The S&P North American Software Index posted its worst monthly decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Individual stocks have been savaged, with even Microsoft, the ultimate tech blue chip, falling by more than 10%. The panic is real. But is it rational? The catalyst for this turmoil was a series of product launches from AI companies—most notably Anthropic’s Claude Cowork tool and its subsequent upgrades—demonstrating that AI agents are now capable of…

OpenAI, Meta, and Elon Musk’s xAI are not accidentally drifting into romance and sex. They are deliberately inviting it. In recent months, major AI companies have opened the door to romantic and sexual relationships between humans and machines: flirtatious chatbots, erotic roleplay, AI “girlfriends,” and emotionally dependent companions. These systems are designed not merely to assist or inform, but to bond—to simulate intimacy, desire, and belonging. This is not a novelty feature. It’s a strategic choice. And at scale, it represents something far more dangerous than a questionable product decision. WHY AI COMPANIES ARE ENCOURAGING INTIMACY Romance is the m…

Every working parent has that one thing keeping them from completely losing it. Some have the Mary Poppins-like nanny who knows exactly when to show up with wet wipes and organic muffins. Others swear by meal kits, color-coded Google calendars, or chore charts their family actually follows (unicorn families, basically). For me? It’s a group text. Not glamorous, not particularly organized, but it’s my lifeline. This is where playdates get arranged, last-minute pickup emergencies get solved, and critical intel on the latest stomach bug gets dropped. It’s also where I can admit, “I fed my kids popcorn and blueberries for dinner,” and instead of side-eye, I get heart …

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. Retail is at a turning point. AI is no longer a futuristic idea or marketing buzzword—it’s a business necessity. Consumers expect intelligent, seamless, and personalized experiences at every touchpoint. The brands that deliver on those expectations will win. Those that don’t will fall behind. Still, when I talk with retail leaders, I hear the same concerns again and again: How do…

Featuring Paul Feig, Founder, FeigCo; and Director and Producer, Another Simple Favor. Moderated by Kc Ifeanyi, Executive Director of Editorial Programming, Fast Company. Producer and director Paul Feig is looking to strike gold twice with the follow-up to his 2018 hit film A Simple Favor starring Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick, and Henry Golding. Beyond the plot twists and intrigue, Feig’s sequel further exemplifies his commitment to telling women-led stories including Jackpot!, Ghostbusters, Spy, The Heat, and Bridesmaids. Join Feig for a one-on-one conversation on his unique approach to comedic storytelling with complex female lead characters at the center. View the…

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. Tariffs, trade, imports, exports, prioritization, energy, and dominance are all words that have been flooding the headlines lately. In this world of globalization, it is an equilibrium of exchanges, ensuring we have enough of something but not too much. We see this balance come to life in supply and demand graphs of critical minerals, often in the context of batteries or energy dominance. The supp…

The debate around AI ROI has gotten loud—and, frankly, a little cyclical. One moment, we’re hearing that AI is the key to exponential growth; the next, that 95% of AI pilots fail. At Addi, we’ve been able to leverage AI to grow 4x faster while operating at ~2x the profitability of BNPL peers. This year alone, we’ve saved more than $500,000 from our AI initiatives. But how have we accomplished such strong AI ROI? The difference between performative AI and AI with returns isn’t in which model or tool you’re using; it’s how your team is using them. Here’s how we’ve driven genuine AI-native team adoption and built a workflow/data pipeline that actually makes sense. 1) H…

Generative artificial intelligence technology is rapidly reshaping education in unprecedented ways. With its potential benefits and risks, K-12 schools are actively trying to adapt teaching and learning. But as schools seek to navigate into the age of generative AI, there’s a challenge: Schools are operating in a policy vacuum. While a number of states offer guidance on AI, only a couple of states require local schools to form specific policies, even as teachers, students, and school leaders continue to use generative AI in countless new ways. As a policymaker noted in a survey, “You have policy and what’s actually happening in the classrooms—those are two very different…