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A startling message came over the radio from an air traffic control tower near Los Angeles less than a week into the federal government shutdown: “The tower is closed due to staffing.” Without enough air traffic controllers to guide planes into and out of Hollywood Burbank Airport, the tower went dark for almost six hours on Oct. 6, leaving pilots to coordinate their movements among themselves. Flight delays averaged two-and-a-half hours in one of the first visible signs that the shutdown was already taking a toll on the nation’s aviation system. Since the shutdown began Oct. 1, the Federal Aviation Administration has reported controller shortages in cities across the U…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. There’s no doubt about it: Housing market softening across the Sunbelt—the epicenter of U.S. homebuilding—has caused homebuilders to lose pricing power over the past year. Amid the additional margin compression, some giant homebuilders are adjusting their strategies. Lennar is finally easing up a little on its market share, taking volume-over-margin strategy, while KB Home—a homebuilder ranked No. 526 on the Fortune 1000—said on December 18 that it plans to lean even harder into built-to-order (more on that below). At the end of last week, KB Hom…

When Steve Jobs wanted to motivate his Mac team at Apple, he didn’t give them corporate pep talks or send them to management retreats. Instead, he told them they were “pirates” fighting against the “navy.” The message was clear: stay scrappy, stay rebellious, and don’t let the corporate machine slow you down. That pirate mentality worked. The Mac team moved fast, took risks, and delivered something revolutionary. But here’s the irony: Apple was itself the navy they were once fighting against. Today, with over 160,000 employees and a market cap exceeding $3 trillion, Apple faces the same challenge that confronts every successful company—how do you stay pirates when you…

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. Last December, Modern CEO named the inaugural Modern CEO of the Year. The goal was to recognize a business leader who embodied the traits frequently covered in this newsletter: inclusion, accessibility, humility, and innovation amid unprecedented uncertainty. We looked for a person with vis…

Before the age of technological distraction, we lived more in tune with our bodies. We spent more time outdoors where the sun regulated our circadian rhythms, which has been scientifically proven to reduce anxiety and depression. Without constant distraction, people sat in their boredom, which became drivers of artistic endeavors, creative ideas, and human connection. But how many of us can remember the last time we were truly bored?Drove without music, or sat in a coffee shop simply looking out the window? Today, our digital devices have optimized our lives to the point of exhaustion. In pursuit of a frictionless experience, technology has eradicated the natural …

TikTok’s U.S. operations are now managed by a new American joint venture, ending a long-standing debate over whether the app would be permanently banned in the United States. The good news for TikTok users is that this deal guarantees that the app will continue to operate within America’s borders. But there’s some bad news, too. Successive U.S. administrations—both Biden’s and The President’s—argued that TikTok posed a national security threat to America and its citizens, partly because of the data the app collected about them. While all social media apps collect data about their users, officials argued that TikTok’s data collection was a danger (while, say, Face…

Around 70% of large-scale corporate transformation efforts fail. That figure has remained consistent for 25 years—and it comes from an era of relatively manageable change. Artificial intelligence will demand far more of companies: faster adaptation, more comprehensive reinvention, and continuous evolution rather than periodic adjustment. Yet more than three years after the launch of ChatGPT, only 5% of businesses report extracting significant value from their AI initiatives. If companies struggled with transformation before, the coming years will be harder still. Managing rapid change is becoming the central competency for business leadership. Every serious observer a…

AI isn’t eliminating human work. It’s redistributing human judgment, away from routine tasks and into the narrow zones where ambiguity is high, mistakes are costly, and trust actually matters. This shift helps explain a growing disconnect in the AI conversation. On one hand, models are improving at breathtaking speed. On the other, many ambitious AI deployments stall, scale more slowly than expected, or quietly revert to hybrid workflows. The issue isn’t capability. It’s trust. The trust gap most AI strategies overlook AI adoption doesn’t hinge on whether a system can do a task. It hinges on whether humans are willing to rely on its output without checking …

Jeffrey Epstein’s network of money and influence often intersected with scientific and academic communities. The disgraced financier spent years cultivating relationships with researchers at elite universities, frequently dangling the promise of funding. Some of the work he supported has had, and may still have, direct and indirect impacts on Silicon Valley’s most powerful technologies. Epstein was first convicted in 2008 on charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution, yet he continued to maintain a web of relationships across the worlds of technology and academia until he was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019. The Department of Justice’s latest …

JPMorgan Chase unveiled its new 60-story headquarters to the public on Monday, one of the first major office buildings to be constructed after the COVID-19 pandemic and one that will remake the New York City skyline for decades. The bronze and steel tower at 270 Park, which reportedly cost $3 billion, replaced the Union Carbide Building, which sat on a full city block at 48th Street and Park Avenue for nearly 60 years. JPMorgan expects to house roughly 10,000 of its 24,000 New York-based employees in the new building, with employees starting their first workday at the tower at the same time as the company holds its ribbon cutting ceremony. “For 225 years, JPMorgan…

Low Earth orbit is already getting crowded. Around 14,500 active satellites are circling Earth, and roughly two-thirds of them are run by SpaceX. Now, in filings connected to Elon Musk’s plan to fold SpaceX and his AI firm xAI together ahead of an IPO, the company has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch up to one million more. The figure is so large it would dwarf the number of satellites currently in orbit. In fact, it is more than every object ever sent into space by every nation combined. So why is Musk planning it, and what would it mean for the rest of us? In a public update posted on the SpaceX website as part of the me…

Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, grew up with MTV and empty houses, earning them the name “latchkey kids.” The first generation who logged onto AOL Instant Messenger and played video games while still enjoying the freedom that came before helicopter parents took over is fascinating. But as a small generation that falls between baby boomers and millennials, they’re often overlooked. When it comes to their spending power, however, Gen X is small but mighty. According to a new report from ICSC, a trade association for retail real estate, Gen X may have more spending power than brands realize. While Gen X only makes up around 19% of the U.S. population, th…

Netflix missed Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings targets because of an unexpected expense from a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities, while it offered a forecast a touch ahead of Wall Street projections for the rest of the year. The report failed to impress investors accustomed to fast-paced growth from the streaming video pioneer. Shares of Netflix, which had risen 39% this year ahead of the earnings report, fell 6.3%, to $1,163.80, in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Netflix posted net income of $2.5 billion and diluted earnings per share of $5.87 for July through September, a period when the animated K-Pop Demon Hunters became the most-watched movie in Net…

Leaders are praised for “seeing around corners” and told to “skate to where the puck is going.” But what if you can’t even see your own feet, let alone a puck or a distant corner? Today’s volatility and uncertainty obscure any clear path to the future, and the forecast isn’t improving any time soon. In a recent World Economic Forum survey, 52% of experts expect an unsettled two-year horizon, 31% anticipate turbulence, and 5% foresee storms. Even if the weather were clear, setting a direction of travel is increasingly difficult as leaders face more complex problems with no obvious or easy solution. Close to 60% of business executives admit that they are missing opp…