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Some flavor crazes flirt with us and fade. Others stay and make themselves at home. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but the Dubai chocolate movement seems to have put down roots and is spreading at a brisk clip. The sweet flavors and thick texture that have made Dubai chocolate bars a hit are morphing into other kinds of confections too. Let’s back up for a minute. The original and now-classic Dubai chocolate bar was created by Fix Chocolatier in the United Arab Emirates in 2021, and by 2023 had exploded on social media. Rich and indulgent, it features a thick, milk chocolate shell usually encasing a creamy pistachio (and often tahini) filling mixed with crispy, s…

Dubai, the go-to destination for influencers, is now doubling down on its biggest market with the launch of its very own “influencer academy.” Jointly funded by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism and a travel content creation agency, the “Beautiful Destinations Academy” offers three months of social media “training” for “students,” aimed at bolstering Dubai’s tourism industry. The academy is still accepting applications for four budding influencers, who will be paid to travel and live in the city starting next month. A promotional video by Beautiful Destinations describes the program as “an elite training environment where we invest in you to support Duba…

At least 112 North American bird species have lost more than half their populations in the past 50 years, according to a new report published Thursday. Among the birds showing the steepest declines are Allen’s hummingbirds, Florida scrub jays, golden-cheeked warblers, tricolored blackbirds and yellow-billed magpies. “These are the very real consequences if we are unable to conserve and protect the crucial habitats that birds need,” said study co-author Mike Brasher, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Ducks Unlimited. For several decades, waterfowl stood out as a conservation bright spot with duck populations growing nationwide even as many other groups of bir…

In any language, silence sounds just about the same. It carries a thunderous kick, though, when it comes from Duolingo, the world’s most popular language-learning app, and its famously irreverent social media presence. Facing heavy backlash online after unveiling its new AI-first policy, Duolingo went dark over the weekend on the social media channels where it cultivated an enormous following with quirky posts. The company even took down all of its posts on TikTok and Instagram, where it has 6.7 and 4.1 million followers, respectively, after both accounts were flooded with negative feedback. After days of silence, the company on Tuesday posted a bizarre video message …

Duolingo launched 148 new language classes that were built by generative AI, the company announced Wednesday. The move, which more than doubles it current language offering, comes as the gamified learning platform is facing criticism for replacing contract workers with artificial intelligence. “Developing our first 100 courses took about 12 years, and now, in about a year, we’re able to create and launch nearly 150 new courses. This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners,” Duolingo CEO and cofounder Luis von Ahn said in a press release. “This launch reflects the incredible impact of our AI and automation investments, which have…

It’s a horrible day for investors in Duolingo. Shares of the language learning app with the green owl mascot are falling off a cliff after the company reported its fourth quarter results. Yet it’s not the results themselves that are causing investors to dump the stock. Rather, it’s more about forward guidance the company has issued. Here’s what you need to know. Duolingo’s Q4 by the numbers Yesterday, after market close, Duolingo (Nasdaq: DUOL) reported its fourth quarter 2025 results. On the surface, many of the company’s most critical metrics saw decent gains for the quarter, including: Daily Active Users: 52.7 million (up 30% year-over-year) Paid Su…

Shares in language learning platform Duolingo, Inc. (Nasdaq: DUOL) are plummeting this morning. As of this writing, the stock is down a staggering 25% in premarket trading. That cliff edge comes after the company reported strong Q3 numbers yesterday. So what’s the reason for today’s fall? Here’s what you need to know. Duolingo reports a strong Q3 2025 By nearly every metric, Duolingo had a strong third quarter, which ended on September 30, 2025. Here are the key metrics the company reported for its Q3: Daily Active Users: 50.5 million (up 36% year over year) Monthly Active Users: 135.3 million (up 20% YOY) Paid Subscribers: 11.5 million (up 34% YOY)…

After introducing a new strategy for performance reviews to include evaluations of how effectively workers use AI, Duolingo founder and CEO Luis von Ahn said employees started questioning the decision: “For a while,” von Ahn said, AI usage was a metric of company performance reviews. But it won’t be anymore, once employees pushed back. Now, Duolingo has backtracked on using AI use as a performance metric. Employees had asked if they were simply using AI for AI’s sake. “At the end, we backtracked, and we said, ‘No, look. The most important thing in your performance is you are doing whatever your job is as well as possible,’” von Ahn said in a recent episode of the…

Popular language learning app Duolingo is giving its bite-size lesson treatment to one of the oldest games in the world: chess. Duolingo’s chess course will take users, who can range from complete novices to those with a solid understanding of how to play, through its gamified exercises to become better game players. The focus is mostly on attracting new players, including those who have felt chess is too difficult to learn or otherwise inaccessible. “For the most part, a lot of chess products out there are usually built by an advanced user for more advanced-use cases—someone who already is familiar with chess and is kind of trying to elevate their abilities even further,…

When Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s CEO, sent an internal memo about AI last year, he didn’t expect it to go viral—or to ignite a firestorm about the future of work. Now he unpacks what he got right, what he got wrong, and what the backlash taught him about the real limitations of AI. It’s a candid reckoning with hype, growth, and the surprisingly complicated promise of technology in education. 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…

During last year’s NCAA Tournament, basketball fans complained about the lack of a team-focused Cinderella storyline to define the event. The only double-digit seed to advance to the Sweet 16 was Arkansas, out of the SEC, coached by Hall of Famer John Calipari. That’s hardly the kind of underdog we’re used to seeing. In 2023, Princeton made it to the Sweet 16, Florida Atlantic lasted until the Final Four, and Fairleigh Dickinson University beat No. 1 seed Purdue. And we’re unlikely to ever see a repeat of 2022, when Saint Peter’s made the Elite 8. The 2025 tournament was one of the “chalkiest” of all time, meaning the teams that made the final rounds were pretty …

A gust of wind sweeps over bare soil, kicking up enough dirt and dust to cut visibility to nearly zero, and for drivers, the dust storm seems to come out of nowhere. Such conditions resulted in a pileup on Interstate 70 last week in western Kansas involving dozens of cars and trucks that left eight people dead. Blinding dust also prompted New Mexico’s transportation department to close Interstate 25 from the Colorado border southwest to Las Vegas, New Mexico. Hazy or dust-darkened skies have recalled the “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s, when millions of tons of blowing soil buried farms and coated towns across the Great Plains. Lesser storms occur every year, particularl…

Dutch Bros Inc. shares surged more than 27% in premarket trading Thursday after the coffee chain posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results and announced plans to expand mobile ordering and food offerings. Revenue rose 34.9% to $342.8 million, surpassing Wall Street estimates. Same-store sales grew 6.9%, and adjusted earnings per share reached 7 cents, both exceeding expectations. The company forecasts 2024 sales between $1.555 billion and $1.575 billion, exceeding analyst projections. “Our efforts to develop our foundational transaction drivers—innovation, paid media, and our Dutch Rewards loyalty program—are working,” CEO Christine Barone said in a …

Starbucks competitor Dutch Bros saw its stock price rise in premarket trading on Friday after the coffee chain posted double-digit revenue growth in its most recent quarter. However, shares were flat as of late morning, with the stock (NYSE: BROS) hovering at just over $50 a share. Perhaps even more important for the stock—and for those investors who are long on it—is the coffee chain’s announcement that it is on track to nearly double its store footprint by 2029. Here’s what you need to know. Dutch Bros has a record Q4 2025 Dutch Bros was founded in 1992, but it’s only in recent years that the coffee chain started to become a household name, thanks to its ev…

In the ’90s, Dyson transformed the way we clean our homes by launching the most powerful vacuum cleaner the world had ever seen—one that used a cyclone, rather than suction, to extract dust. Three decades later, Dyson has incorporated this same technology into almost every kind of vacuum you could imagine, from robots to heavy-duty mops. Today, Dyson adds a new vacuum to its portfolio: One focused specifically on cars. Priced at $280, it’s three or four times more expensive than similar handheld vacuums by brands like Shark or Bissell, but it’s one of the most affordable products within Dyson’s range. The vacuum comes with three tools designed specifically for cleanin…

e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE:ELF) announced on Wednesday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire rhode, the beauty brand founded by Hailey Rhode Bieber, alongside its Q4 earnings for the fiscal quarter ending March 2025. (Shares of ELF closed down over 1% Wednesday afternoon, before the news was announced.) “e.l.f. Beauty found a like-minded disruptor in rhode,” said e.l.f. chairman and CEO Tarang Amin. “rhode further diversifies our portfolio with a fast-growing brand that makes the best of prestige accessible.” According to a press release sent to Fast Company, the deal is built on “both brands’ shared focus on disruption and product innovation, setting the …

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. When we named Tarang Amin Modern CEO of the Year in December 2024, the E.l.f. Beauty chairman and chief executive had racked up a string of notable successes. Under Amin’s leadership, the publicly traded cosmetics company had posted 23 consecutive quarters of net sales and market share growth. E.l.…

Arborists are turning vacant land on Detroit’s eastside into a small urban forest, not of elms, oaks and red maples indigenous to the city but giant sequoias, the world’s largest trees that can live for thousands of years. The project on four lots will not only replace long-standing blight with majestic trees, but could also improve air quality and help preserve the trees that are native to California’s Sierra Nevada, where they are threatened by ever-hotter wildfires. Detroit is the pilot city for the Giant Sequoia Filter Forest. The nonprofit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is donating dozens of sequoia saplings that will be planted by staff and volunteers from A…

We all call planet Earth home and benefit from having a healthy dwelling place. Earth Day, which is today (Wednesday, April 22), is a great time to reflect on our responsibility to maintain and preserve this sanctuary for future generations. Let’s take a look at the history of the holiday and some of the festivities and demonstrations taking place around the world this year. Who created Earth Day? While it is now a global event, Earth Day was first conceived by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and Representative Pete McCloskey of California, and held on college campuses in the United States in 1970. The men were inspired by the student anti-war protest …

Imagine sitting with friends in front of a charcuterie board and a bottle of Syrah at a French bistro. If you reach for your smartphone, a waiter blows a referee’s whistle, issues you a “penalty card,” and tells you a second infraction will get you eighty-sixed. Such faux-pas enforcement is routine at Le Petit Jardin in Montpellier in southern France, which implemented a strict “no-phone use” policy in 2017. While this approach seems farcically extreme, the idea of restricting phone use in restaurants and bars is gaining traction in the U.S., and not just in the “coastal elite” cities. Sneaky’s Chicken, in Sioux City, Iowa, for example, offers compliance incentives: …

You can find plastic containers storing food in just about every grocery store. But a new study makes a strong case for never eating out of a plastic container, especially those meant to be heated, ever again. The new study, published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, found that eating out of plastic containers, even for a short period of time, is alarmingly dangerous for heart health. The research demonstrated that particles from plastic containers were able to leach into food products, and those particles had a clear, and very fast-moving impact on changes that lead to heart failure. The study was performed in two parts. The first polled 3,000 people o…