What's on Your Mind?

Formula 1 announced a five-year deal Friday with Apple, which will be the global motorsports series’ U.S. broadcast partner beginning next season. ESPN had been the broadcast partner since 2018 and through the explosion of popularity of F1 in the United States, but notified the series at the start of this year it would not be extending its deal. At the same time, Apple was working with the series on “F1 The Movie,” an original film released internationally in cinemas and IMAX in June. It will make its global streaming debut on Apple TV in December, has already grossed nearly $630 million globally as both the most successful sports movie in history and most lucrati…

Are you ready to hand over control of your portfolio to artificial intelligence? Fahad Hassan, cofounder and CEO of AI-powered wealth management platform Range, thinks you should seriously consider it. Hassan’s five-year-old company is introducing “Rai,” a new proprietary AI wealth advisor that, he believes, will give a huge swath of American households access to the sophisticated advice and planning that was traditionally only accessible to those with sky-high net worths. “Rai is the first product, the first AI agent, that we believe can do the work of human advisors just as well, if not better,” Hassan says. And while plenty of other fintech companies have r…

What if the women leaders who were long overlooked are the ones we can’t afford to ignore today. The proverbial career ladder has long been the dominant metaphor for success. For many, it works: a clear, linear climb, one predictable rung at a time. For others, it doesn’t, because the ladder was never built to hold the weight of multiple roles and ambitions. Women, in particular, have mastered a multi-hyphenate model of leadership out of necessity: mother and manager, founder and caregiver, mentor and innovator. What looked “nonlinear” was simply a different kind of training ground, one that creates resilience, adaptability, and perspective. Today’s multi-hyphenat…

Working with your romantic partner isn’t just a niche phenomenon; it’s a growing trend. A recent study from the National Library of Medicine reveals nearly one in four U.S. small businesses are run by romantic couples. Yet, for all the talk of “power couples” in the startup world, precious little unfiltered insight exists on what it actually takes to share a bed, a budget, and a booming enterprise. For many, the lines between personal and professional don’t just blur; they cease to exist. My husband, Joe, and I are the founders behind Serenity Kids, now the fastest-growing shelf-stable baby food brand in the U.S. Our origin story is uniquely intertwined with our perso…

On September 25, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol informed his employees in a public memo that the company would be cutting 900 corporate roles and closing down stores. However, the memo didn’t share exactly how many stores would close and where they’re located—leaving employees scrambling to compile that information on their own. Starbucks is framing the restructuring as a part of Niccol’s broader “Back to Starbucks” plan, a sweeping initiative designed to return Starbucks to its heyday in the mid-2010s. That includes redesigning store interiors, rethinking menus, and making the ordering experience feel less “transactional.” As of right now, Starbucks is still on …

Most people don’t give the display screens on their commuter trains a second thought, but for designer Emily Sneddon, they’ve proved to be a well of inspiration. Sneddon lived in San Francisco, where she worked at the design agency Collins, from 2021 until this year when she moved back to her home country of Australia. She designed Fran Sans, her first ever font, after noticing the display on San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) recently retired Muni Metro Breda Light Rail Vehicle. Unlike New York City, which handles its public transit through a single agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), public transportation in San Fra…

Just know this: There’s going to be a conversation about artificial intelligence at Thanksgiving this year. An AI superfan is going to gush about chatbots and go on, at length, about how “These things just seem to know everything.” The dinner table’s funnyman will play a highly cringe video they made with the technology. Someone else will either be flummoxed or horrified. A proud guest will declare a vow of abstinence—in fact, they’ve never even used ChatGPT, they will reveal. One self-important guest will feel very smart when recounting the time they caught an AI making a mistake, once. They’ll tell everyone about it. These conversations will be bad. There will…

There’s not a more fairy-tale story in business. Nike CEO Elliott Hill began as an intern. Worked about every job imaginable at the company. Was passed up as a fave for the CEO role in 2020 when John Donahoe was brought in from Bain. And then, finding himself retired, and charter member of a silver fox baseball league in Austin, the swoosh boomeranged in from the clouds and Hill hitched a ride back to Beaverton. Now, after a year at the helm, Hill’s still dealing with Nike’s COVID hangover, brought about (at least in part) by Donahoe, who bolstered profits by selling waves of retro sneakers to people at home, all while reorganizing the core innovation team structure t…

My first time plopping down on my therapist’s couch, I tried to breeze through the basics. Yes, upbringing, romance, family, social life—all important. But I entered that softly lit space to vent about the place that eats up a third of my waking life. I was there to talk about the office. The physical location wasn’t the issue; the office snacks were elite. The problem was the people: the supervisor with no respect for work-life balance, the snooty coworker firing off slick emails, the boy’s club that would always look out for its own. Being the only Black employee there wore me out in ways I couldn’t always name. And talking it out with a licensed professional who lo…

In the midst of economic uncertainty, polarizing politics, global conflict and a future that is largely out of focus, many consumers are continuing to fight the good fight when it comes to using their dollars to drive positive change. It’s the 13th year that I have helped run an annual survey on the momentum of socially responsible spending, nonprofit giving, and earth friendly practices, called the Conscious Consumer Spending Index. This year we found that despite a worsening view of the state of the world, consumers are holding firm in their support of conscious brands: A majority of respondents said they were actively supporting purposeful companies, while roughly…

Every morning, people fasten their watch, slip on a bracelet, and head out the door without thinking much about what they might encounter along the way. The air they breathe, the dust on their hands, and the surfaces they touch all feel ordinary. Yet many chemical exposures happen quietly, without smell, taste, or warning. What if something as simple as a silicone band around your wrist could help track those invisible exposures? Environmental monitoring has traditionally relied on snapshots of exposure from a water sample collected on a single day, a blood sample drawn at one point in time, or soil tested from a specific location. But exposure unfolds gradually a…

As the midterm election primaries inch closer, some candidates are focusing their campaigns on how they’ll regulate artificial intelligence. On the right, populist Republicans are warning that the AI industry stands to undermine the Make America Great Again movement. On the left, there’s worry about the sector’s growing political and social power. Across the spectrum, there’s near-universal concern about what the technology might be doing to children. The donor class is now getting involved: A super PAC called Leading the Future backed by OpenAI executive Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz plans to spend as much as $100 million in the midterms to support its prefe…

Tests of ByHeart infant formula tied to a botulism outbreak that has sickened dozens of babies showed that all of the company’s products may have been contaminated. Laboratory tests of 36 samples of formula from three different lots showed that five samples contained the type of bacteria that can lead to the rare and potentially deadly illness, the company said Monday on its website. “Based on these results, we cannot rule out the risk that all ByHeart formula across all product lots may have been contaminated,” the company wrote. At least 31 babies in 15 states who consumed ByHeart formula have been sickened in the outbreak that began in August, according to …

Rumors are circulating of potential strike action next month from CorePower Yoga instructors, who say they are paid less per hour than the cost of a single class drop-in fee. CorePower Yoga has a cult following online, particularly for their Hot Sculpt classes, and currently has more than 200 locations across the US. But in the r/Corepower subreddit, a recent post urges members to pause or quit their membership to show support for instructors, who are fighting for fair wages and cleaner studios. “If you can stomach it to pause or quit your membership, it will benefit you as a consumer as well as the instructors who are paid on average $16/hour to teach and who a…

What do Marriott, Peloton, and Major League Baseball (MLB) have in common? Each has recently navigated a major crisis in the court of public opinion. Marriott’s licensing agreement termination with Sonder left guests stranded and fuming mid-stay. Peloton announced its second product recall in just two years. And the MLB is the latest major sports organization whose players have been swept up in sports betting scandals. Crisis is everywhere. And while big brands may dominate the headlines, smaller companies face equally urgent situations. Regardless of a company’s size, leaders must be prepared when the ever-turning wheel of misfortune lands on their spot—because it wi…

J. Crew just revealed its apparel collection with the U.S. Ski & Snowboard teams for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. It’s an ode to retro ski aesthetics that even the most amateur athlete (or viewer) can get behind. The 26-piece collection, which includes everything from graphic sweatshirts and refined knitwear to ball caps, wool socks, and cozy leggings, is the first installment of J. Crew’s three-year-long partnership with U.S. Ski & Snowboard, announced in March. Prices for the entire J.Crew U.S. Ski & Snowboard collection range from $49.50 to $498. It will be available online and in select J. Crew stores starting January 8. Each product co…

It should be shocking to nobody that we’re dealing with an absolute surplus of AI consumables. Breakthroughs. Policy changes. New tools that promise to “10x your productivity.” Most of it is either too technical, too abstract, or just plain filler. You don’t need another wall of text, you need the signal. Luckily, there are a handful of AI newsletters that consistently deliver real value without taking up half your morning. (My editor wanted to make sure you knew about Fast Company’s own such newsletter, by senior reporter Mark Sullivan: AI Decoded. You can sign up for it here.) The Rundown AI: The Daily Scan If you have exactly five minutes between pouring…

Most of the software that truly moves the world doesn’t demand our attention: It quietly removes friction and gets out of the way. You only notice it when it’s broken. That’s not a bug in the business model; it’s a feature. In fact, “unnoticed but indispensable” is the highest customer-satisfaction score you can get. Consider these categories that already figured this out. The log-in that isn’t a task anymore Password managers, once you build the habit, fade into the background. They fill the box before you even remember there was a box. Single sign-on (SSO) systems go a step further and make logging in to everything feel like one action instead of 17 small, an…

When it comes to agentic artificial intelligence, the fear of missing out factor is clear. Organizations are plopping down agents, in part, because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing. But FOMO is not a business strategy. To make agentic AI work, business leaders need to ignore the hype and concentrate on establishing exactly what agents can do for them, how, and at what cost. Our own work has proved that AI agents, which independently plan and execute complex multistep tasks, can deliver substantial value by accelerating timelines and reducing costs. And that is just the start. The ever-improving ability of AI agents to work with people to plan, communicate, …