What's on Your Mind?

Five years ago, tech angel investor Chris Adamo and a few friends jumped on a burgeoning trend in the digital asset world: they used a virtual real estate broker to buy 23 parcels of property in a metaverse called The Sandbox. He doesn’t remember exactly how much he spent, but it was around $200,000 for the whole group. The real estate, to be clear, consisted of pixelated parcels in “hip,” “trendy” virtual “neighborhoods,” an asset that crypto bros and Web3 enthusiasts like Adamo saw as the future of tech and digital investment. At one point, it ballooned tenfold in value. Adamo was far from alone. Across the four major metaverse platforms, property sales topped $500 mill…

In a new neighborhood in Helsinki, you can skip owning a car. One key part of the district’s design? A new bridge that’s part of the city’s growing bicycle superhighway network. The 1.2-kilometer-long bridge, about three quarters of a mile, connects an island called Laajasalo to the city center. It opens to cyclists and pedestrians on April 18 and will soon also include trams. No cars can cross it; drivers have to take a longer route over an older bridge. On one edge of the island, a former industrial site is now filled with apartment buildings, and the population is quickly expanding across the whole island. “We’re looking at quite large new numbers of reside…

If you watched the Super Bowl in 2026, you likely saw Serena Williams share her weight-loss journey on GLP-1 medications in a commercial. Like millions of others around the country, if you’ve ever considered taking one of these drugs, you probably went online to learn more about where you can get them and how much they cost. Online searches for GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy have risen dramatically since 2022. Advertisements like Williams’s Super Bowl commercial both reflect and help drive that growing demand. More and more advertisements for weight-loss medications are appearing in people’s daily lives. These ads can be appealing, intrusive, confus…

At the Aysaita Refugee Camp in northeastern Ethiopia’s Afar region, there are about 40,000 Eritreans struggling to meet their basic daily needs. For the 10,000 children younger than 10 who live in the camp, that includes one often overlooked resource: play. At many refugee camps around the world, play can, understandably, become an afterthought as humanitarian organizations focus on delivering essentials like housing and food. But studies show that play is critical for helping kids develop executive motor function and relational skills. It’s also a key therapeutic tool for children who have experienced trauma. These insights inspired Playrise, a U.K.-based charity designi…

Work sucks for women. Not all women, but far too many. There’s the gender pay gap, where full-time working women earn 81 cents for every dollar men earn, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau. There’s the glass ceiling that prevents women from leadership advancement, as evidenced by the fact that only 37% of leadership positions in the U.S. are held by women despite representing 47% of the workforce. Let us not forget the disproportionate harassment at work that women experience compared to men, the gender sidelining, and the exclusion from the “boys’ club.” And if that’s not enough, there’s the additional unpaid domestic work that women are expecte…

Sunday has long been regarded as the day of rest: After a week of early wake-ups and diligently checking off to-do lists, there finally comes the one day where doing nothing is not only socially acceptable—but actively encouraged. Or so you thought. More and more Americans are now optimizing their Sunday as a means of self-improvement. This might look like light cleaning and calendar organization. Or meal-prepping while marinating in an avocado face mask. Rather than rest, Sunday is now a day to reset for the week ahead. While hardly groundbreaking, the idea has taken off online with almost a million videos tagged #sundayreset on TikTok. Searches for “Sunda…

Most business leaders are laser-focused on the existential threat that AI poses, with many of them citing it as a reason for major layoffs. At an event this week, however, Indeed CEO Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba suggested there was another force that would wreak havoc on the labor market—one that he argued was more pressing. “Actually, what is happening in all developed countries, including European countries and the U.S., what is happening is a big demographic change: an aging labor market,” Idekoba said at Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Wednesday, as Business Insider reported this week. He said the sheer number of workers aging out of the workforce and retiring would…

If you’ve been curious about #vanlife but can’t justify dropping $100,000 on a kitted-out camper, a new patent from a Chinese automaker offers a compromise – but you might not like it. Seres, a prominent EV maker out of China, just secured a patent for an in-car toilet that slides out and tucks away beneath the seat. The patent, first reported outside of China by Autoblog, was filed in April of last year, approved last week, and is currently active. The patented design looks practical enough, with a rail system that allows a compact toilet to slide out from under the seat like a drawer and remain hidden from view when not in use. The design is intended to “satisfy…

Just because a startup fails doesn’t mean it can’t cash out big. According to a report by Forbes, defunct companies are selling their digital footprints to AI companies as training data—and making real money from it. Shanna Johnson, the CEO of now-defunct software company cielo24, told the publication that she was able to sell every Slack message, internal email and Jira ticket as training data for “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” This isn’t a one-off scenario. SimpleClosure, a startup that helps companies like cielo24 shut down, told Forbes that there’s been major interest from AI companies trying to get their hands on workplace data. Because of this, SimpleC…

Like many, I’ve never met a chatbot I trust completely. Not only do they have a propensity to hallucinate by making up facts, but you can never be sure what their parent companies do with the information you provide. Most AI companies say they use your data to further train their models, but anonymize it first. However, you just have to take them at their word on this. Still, chatbots can be useful for summarizing and explaining complicated information, such as the kind contained in many bank statements, medical reports, and mortgage contracts. So if you do choose to upload sensitive documents like this, you should take steps to redact as much personal information…

Spring is in the air! The tulips are blooming, college acceptance letters are zooming into email inboxes, and the majority of parents with college-bound students are panicking about paying for their kid’s schooling. Ain’t this time of year grand? There’s a lot that families can do to tame the cost of higher education, starting with filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which determines a student’s eligibility for federal aid, applying for scholarships and grants which don’t need to be repaid, and considering the cost of attendance when comparing college acceptance offers. But for some college students, there is a funding gap between their…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Based on our analysis of the Zillow Home Value Index, U.S. home prices are up just +0.8% year-over-year between March 2025 and March 2026. That marks a deceleration from the +1.2% growth rate a year earlier—though national year-over-year home price growth has recently stabilized, ticking a tad higher from a low of -0.01% in August 2025. In the first half of 2025, the number of major metro area housing markets seeing year-over-year declines climbed. That count has since stopped ticking up. 31 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 10%…

You’ve likely heard of vibe coding and very well may have conducted an experiment or two yourself, enlisting Claude or some other AI tool to create a simple website or an interactive game. OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy coined the phrase with a tweet in February 2025. In its simplest terms, vibe coding involves telling an AI program what you want to accomplish and having the AI create the code. It uses natural language provided by the user to generate the software. Vibe coding is a truly revolutionary democratizer of software development. It allows anyone with a computer and a little imagination to come up with software that appears, at least on the surface, to …

“What brand am I wearing?” Sydney Sweeney says, looking into the camera as the shutter snaps, revealing a rotation of summery denim looks. The mood suddenly calms, her eyes close, she takes a deep breath, seagulls call in the background. “Yeah, that one,” she says with a giggle. The ad marks the return of one of the most notorious brand partnerships in recent memory, as American Eagle launches a new campaign to hype its denim shorts called “Syd for Short.” It’s a perfectly pleasant, perfectly innocuous piece of brand work meant to conjure the free-spiritedness of summertime (and, you know, maybe make you forget about—or at least move on from—the last time Sweeney ha…

The advancement of artificial intelligence has shifted rapidly from abstract curiosity to an immediate personal threat for millions of workers. People aren’t just wondering if jobs will change—they’re asking whose jobs, how fast, and whether their own will be next. Making matters worse, several tech companies have already executed a staggering number of layoffs—almost always citing AI as the cause. On its own, this unpredictable unfolding of an entirely new and disruptive technology would be enough to unsettle us—yet we all know it’s just one of several forces compounding an already profound—and growing—sense of uncertainty in our lives. Add to this the volatile t…

Companies are currently grappling with how to use AI, and results vary. At times it can feel like the blind are leading the blind. As you watch leadership in your organization chart a path to engage with AI, what can you do to ensure that your company doesn’t get it completely wrong? 1. Educate yourself To contribute to any discussions around the use of AI in your organization, you have to be educated. That education requires a few components. You should certainly be aware of the ongoing conversations that are happening broadly in the business press. But, most of the people with a platform to speak to mainstream and social media have a viewpoint and/or product…

Karlee Rea had a gut feeling she was going to get laid off. In February, there were whispers among coworkers that layoffs were coming for employees at LTK, the creator e-commerce platform where Rea worked for nearly five years. The Dallas-based 26-year-old decided to vlog her day: She woke up early, hit the gym. Then it was time for work. Turns out, Rea’s gut feeling proved to be correct. That morning, she was part of staff cuts that the company said impacted a “low, single-digit percentage of LTK’s overall head count,” from software engineers to creator-facing roles. Rea decided to include the devastating development in her vlog. “This was my first big-girl …

For decades, the business world has quietly subscribed to a myth: that cognitive performance peaks early and declines steadily thereafter. It’s a belief baked into hiring practices, promotion decisions, and even redundancy strategies. Youth is equated with innovation, speed, and adaptability; age with decline, resistance, and risk. If we ask ourselves, “Am I a better/more effective employee now than I was at 21?” most of us would say, “Yes!” Science and data prove what we already know: that many of the cognitive capabilities that matter most in today’s complex, fast-moving organizations improve with age. The wrong model of intelligence The traditional view of …

Solopreneurs make dozens of business decisions every day. Which client to prioritize. Whether to raise rates. Which tool to try. In a corporate job, there are committees, managers, and approval chains to share the decision-making load. When you’re running a solo business, every call is yours. When I was a product manager, I learned to sort decisions into two categories: ones you can easily reverse and ones you can’t. It sounds almost too simple, but it changed how quickly I moved and how much I deliberated. That same framework can be applied directly to running a solo business. Reversible decisions: move fast Most business decisions are reversible. You can chan…

Lawyers notoriously struggle with technology. The legal profession is one of wood-paneled courtrooms and leather-bound lawbooks—not apps and chatbots. The infamous Lawyer Cat of the early pandemic Zoom era is an especially hilarious example of what happens when lawyers are forced to embrace tech they wouldn’t otherwise touch. And when lawyers use artificial intelligence, it often goes just as poorly. A Massachusetts lawyer was sanctioned for citing nonexistent cases hallucinated by ChatGPT in an official court filing, and California recently fined an attorney $10,000 for similar AI-hallucinated errors. It’s no surprise, then, that lawyers can be relu…

A Samsung Galaxy Tri-Fold smartphone sits beside something we haven’t seen before. It’s a round screen with a swiveling head. Called Project Luna, it has the mechanical charm of Luxo Jr., and a beep not so different from Wall-E. “The guests are here,” whispers a voice. Moments later, we hear an orchestra begin to play. Project Luna and the Galaxy become the conductors of a wide array of Samsung products and concepts, all of which share the same, pulsating orb graphic animation that lands somewhere between a face, mouth, eye, and the light ring of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL. This is how Samsung is saying hello to its visitors at Milan Design Week for its exhibitio…

It’s tempting to think that stacking a team with top talent guarantees results. Add AI, and you’ve got supercharged individuals. But star performers don’t automatically create high-performing teams—and AI can make things worse. Duke dean and professor Scott Dyreng saw this firsthand. His M.B.A. students worked in teams, with the option to “break up” for the final project. Before AI, about 5% did. After AI, over half went solo, he writes in The Wall Street Journal. Dyreng found that AI disrupted core teamwork skills, like negotiating and reaching agreements. But instead of banning it, he used AI strategically—for meeting analysis, summarizing discussions, and reporting…

“Founder mode” often glorifies speed, control, and intensity. The hands-on leadership style has sparked debate about whether it is sustainable over the long term. Below, industry experts who have studied the balance between maintaining close involvement and building scalable systems share twelve practical strategies for preserving energy, delegating effectively, and staying connected to what matters most without burning out. Make Space For Strategic Clarity “Founder mode” often celebrates speed, control, and relentless activity. In the earliest stages, that intensity can be an advantage, helping founders move quickly, test ideas, and build momentum. Where it be…

The U.S.military is paving the way for the regular deployment of high-energy laser weapons on American soil for air defense amid the expanding threat of low-cost weaponized drones. The Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S.Defense Department have reached a “landmark safety agreement” regarding the use of laser weapons to counter unauthorized drones at the U.S.-Mexico border following a safety assessment that concluded such countermeasures “do not pose undue risk to passenger aircraft,” the FAA announced on April 10. The assessment and resulting agreement were the direct result of two laser incidents along the southern border of Texas in February, which promp…

When Maria looked at herself in the mirror for the first time after her mastectomy, she stood very still. One hand rested on the bathroom counter. The other hovered near the flat space where her breast had been. The scar was raw and angry. The loss was quiet but enormous. Her body felt foreign. In moments like these, people are often urged to be resilient – which can feel like being told to show no weakness, to push through no matter what. Or they imagine resilience as bouncing back: returning somehow unscathed to be the person you were before. But standing in that bathroom, Maria knew there was no going back. And toughness wouldn’t change what had happened. T…