What's on Your Mind?

The U.S. is in the middle of a digital infrastructure revolution. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and edge technologies are transforming industries and redefining what’s possible, from national security to personalized medicine. But as AI headlines focus on coders and cutting-edge tech, the real story is unfolding in workshops and job sites where skilled workers are making innovation physically possible. Unlike the dot-com boom or the mobile era, this AI-driven transformation isn’t just about servers and software. It’s about the concrete, steel, cables, power, and cooling systems that serve as the nervous system of our digital society. As the demand for hype…

When Iga Światek breezed to victory in this year’s Wimbledon women’s final, little mention was made of the head-to-toe On kit she was wearing. The reaction was testament to the “softly, softly” approach used by On these last few years—but the victory and subsequent exposure cemented its place among the fastest-growing challengers in a category long dominated by household names like Nike, Adidas, and Puma. Together, these legacy brands still command a significant portion of the global athletic footwear market, but their grip is loosening. Between 2021 and 2023, challenger brands like Hoka and On (sometimes referred to as On Running) grew their revenues by 29%, compared…

Most brands still buy attention. The impactful ones earn devotion, the kind people will rally behind and fight to protect. Consumers want a role in movements, not just transactions. When brands focus solely on economics, spark and engagement disappear. Consequential brands ignite a shared spirit, tapping into values, not just wallets, and building communities of advocates. But how do you actually build cultural power? For my forthcoming book Branding as a Cultural Force: Purpose, Responsibility, and Resonance (Columbia University Press, 2025), I interviewed creative leaders worldwide to find out. Across those conversations, six clear strategies emerged—actionable …

Glen Powell has proven that he can hold it down as the star of blockbuster movies, from Twisters to Hit Man. But on October 3, in his hometown of Austin, he was holding down the grill at the parking lot of his local Walmart. Powell’s grill work was pulling double duty as promotion for his new TV comedy, Chad Powers, and for Smash Kitchen, his clean food brand, which launched at Walmart in April. The brand debuted with a suite of condiments including ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and barbecue sauce that look and taste on par with heritage brands but are made with all-organic ingredients. Priced from $1.97 to $4.97, they’re just pennies more expensive than their legacy …

On December 1, podcaster and venture capitalist Harry Stebbings posted on LinkedIn that candidates were 200 times more likely to get into Harvard University than they were to get a job at the $6.6 billion valuation AI startup ElevenLabs. According to his statistic, out of 180,000 applicants in the first half of the year, only 0.018% were hired by the AI voice agent platform. That figure—extrapolated from a July spike in applications—may have been hyperbole. But it still went viral. And out of tens of thousands of applications, just 132 candidates eventually got the job at ElevenLabs—indeed, much lower than Harvard’s 3% to 4% admission rates. “On average, we’re se…

Uber is on Wednesday launching its own version of a bus system along busy routes, calling it its most affordable ride option yet. The rideshare company has introduced Route Share, a new service offering pickups every 20 minutes along busy corridors during weekday commute hours. Available from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. local time, the service will launch in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Boston, and Baltimore Riders can select the Route Share option to see nearby routes and book a seat anywhere from seven days to 10 minutes before their intended pickup. They’ll then be prompted to walk to the set pickup area where the drive…

For more than 60 years, contraception has been almost exclusively a women’s responsibility. Today, women have more than 14 modern contraceptive options, while men have just two: condoms and vasectomies. That imbalance has pushed women to shoulder physical side effects, financial burden, medical risks, and the career impact of family planning—costs that have been accepted as the “status quo” for far too long. But the tide is shifting. Men are increasingly vocal about wanting to participate in family planning, and new science is finally catching up. For the first time in history, there are multiple male contraceptives in clinical trials, some only a few years away from …

Twenty years ago, getting promoted to manager was a major milestone. Today it’s a punishment. That’s according to recent research from LinkedIn. In a survey of more than 10,000 LinkedIn users, nearly 7 in 10 said they would leave their job if they had a bad manager. But only 30% said they want to become a people manager within the next few years. So, why the change? Why doesn’t anyone want to be the boss anymore? We could sum up the answer in seven words: Nobody showed them how to lead effectively. The data backs this up. Global consulting firm West Monroe surveyed 500 managers and found that 66% of those received eight hours or less of manager training. O…

2026 will be a good year for people who love to walk where cars once drove. As climate change accelerates—and cities continue to grapple with congestion and air pollution—urban priorities have been shifting. In May this year, Parisians voted to close 500 streets to traffic across all 20 arrondissements. London is moving forward with plans to pedestrianize sections of the world-famous Oxford Street, as well as Regent Street, and Piccadilly Circus. Meanwhile, Barcelona’s centuries-old promenade, La Rambla, is in the last stretches of a long-term redesign that will be completed in 2027, widening the pedestrian promenade and limiting access to residents’ vehicles and publ…

There’s no shortage of inspiration for what to do with a part of the house that’s not quite looking its best. Interior design magazines and furniture blogs are stuffed with idealized bedrooms, and online vision boards make it easy to cast a dragnet over the myriad images of classy lounges or perfectly ordered home offices. But there’s always the unavoidable catch that while these images may be helpful references for how to rethink a room, they don’t actually represent your room. A new AI tool offers a more personalized alternative. Created by the online interior design service Havenly, it’s an app-based AI design assistant that takes user-submitted images of rooms and…

Planes at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport were briefly left flying blind overnight as the airport experienced another radar outage – the second incident in less than two weeks. The most recent radar outage, first reported by ABC news, occurred just before 4 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday and lasted for a minute and a half. “There was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace,” an Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson confirmed in a statement provided to Fast Company. Why New York area planes are…

Health and wellness is a product category littered with broken promises and bad pitches. These Brands That Matter honorees have created work for products that aim to uplift, help, and encourage across a wide range of challenges and issues, big and small. Bobbie Many new mothers feel pressured to breastfeed their children but cannot for a variety of reasons. Bobbie has been working to change the narrative around using formula through advocacy and education efforts, while offering an organic product that still meets the FDA’s nutrition requirements. Its “Ask for Help” campaign with Meghan Trainor revealed that 86% of mothers felt frequent or constant negative emotio…

I’ve been writing professionally since 2002, and in that time, I’ve experimented with lots of different strategies to keep myself on track. (I’ve been a columnist at Fortune and Fast Company, and am now a contributing writer for The New York Times Opinion Section, in addition to cohosting Slate’s Money podcast, and I’ve been an editor, reporter, and opinion writer for a number of other places.) I also have, shall we say, a fragmented attention span, and my therapist likes to routinely bring up how many women my age have undiagnosed ADHD, which I now take as a not-so-subtle hint. So I need systems and routines maybe a bit more than the average person, and it has taken …

Ask friends what kind of tech gift you should get for your parent, grandparent, or another older person in your life, and chances are you’ll get the same generic suggestions, like a digital picture frame or a portable Bluetooth speaker. But these gifts will almost certainly remain little used throughout the year. (I mean, how many digital picture frames would you like?) Instead, this holiday season, why not get an older loved one a tech gift they’ll actually use (and that might put your mind at ease, too)? Here are five types of gifts that older people may truly find beneficial. Smartwatches with fall detection Talk to any older person about health concer…

In the run-up to the annual U.N. climate conference, set to take place in Brazil’s Amazon in November, the construction of a road is drawing attention, with critics arguing it will lead to environmental degradation. Before the talks, called COP30, the state government of Para is building a 13-kilometer (8-mile) avenue designed to ease traffic on a major highway that runs parallel. The road was planned long before Belem, a metropolitan area of 2.5 million people that sits on the edge of the Amazon, was chosen as conference host. That hasn’t spared it sharp criticism, however, because the road is expected to cut across the last remnants of rainforest in Belem. R…

Shares of Krispy Kreme Inc. (NASDAQ: DNUT) plunged over 28% on Thursday after the donut-and-coffee chain said it will no longer pay out its quarterly dividend and that it was “reassessing” the deployment of its planned McDonald’s rollout, and fell short of earnings expectations, according to Bloomberg. Krispy Kreme’s earnings missed expectations for the first quarter of 2025, with the company posting an EPS (earnings per share) of negative $0.05, coming in below the EPS forecast of negative $0.04. It posted revenue of $375.2 million, within previous guidance but below a forecast of $385.11 million. Following the announcement, Krispy Kreme’s stock fell by 28.18% in…

A hearing Wednesday before Nevada’s high court could provide the first public window into a secretive legal dispute over who will control Rupert Murdoch’s powerful media empire after he dies. The case has been unfolding behind closed doors in state court in Reno, with most documents under seal. But reporting by The New York Times, which said it obtained some of the documents, revealed Murdoch’s efforts to keep just one of his sons, Lachlan, in charge and ensure that Fox News maintains its conservative editorial slant. Media outlets including the Times and The Associated Press are now asking the Nevada Supreme Court to unseal the case and make future hearings public. The…