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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. In recent weeks Modern CEO has published predictions for 2026 from CEOs across industries and a list of books that can help leaders get ready for the year ahead. We invited readers to share their own prognostications and book recommendations. (Respect to the author who endorsed her own book…

A federal appeals court on Thursday backed a ruling that held Apple in civil contempt for brazenly defying an order designed to open its iPhone app store to other payment systems besides its own, but the decision also reopened a door for the company to collect commission from the rival options. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals mostly validated a scalding contempt order issued in April by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for violating a key part of her September 2021 findings in a legal battle instigated by video game maker Epic Games. But the Ninth Circuit’s 54-page decision overturned one key part of G…

Lots of research shows that doing mental exercises can ward off dementia and the effects of aging, but can it actually make you better at your job? While it’s hard to imagine the late musical theater virtuoso Stephen Sondheim needing any kind of extra creative stimuli, he in fact had a well-known love of stimulating puzzles and games. And he didn’t just play them. The Tony-winning composer behind Broadway hits such as Sweeney Todd, Company, and a heartwarming ditty about presidential assassins also cultivated a side hustle as a designer of cryptic crossword puzzles and a frequent host of game nights and scavenger hunts. Barry Joseph, a game researcher and designe…

In the C-suite, relationships can make or break your effectiveness, and too often, we’ve been taught that you must choose to be either a friend or a colleague, but never both. The fear is understandable. Too much closeness, and you risk favoritism. Too much distance erodes trust, but our research and experience as leadership advisers point to a different reality: genuine, trust-based relationships are not a liability; they’re a leadership advantage. The real risk isn’t choosing one or the other; it’s failing to integrate both. Morag’s Ally Mindset Profile data reveals a telling truth: 67% of respondents say their success has been undermined by their peer relationships…

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so,” is a quote, often attributed to Mark Twain, that people like to repeat because it so captures our everyday experience. You can learn things that you don’t know, but it’s incredibly difficult to unlearn something you believe to be true. There’s real science behind this. Things we experience are packed away in our brain as the connections called synapses, which form and evolve over time. These connections strengthen as we use them and degrade when we do not. Or, as neuroscientists who study these things like to put it, the neurons that fire together, wire together.…

A startup called Adapt is betting that it can be an AI hub connecting other software tools to help answer questions and get things done. When users pose questions or ask for help with a business task, Adapt can answer based on information from the web and business data to which it’s been given access, similar to other AI tools. But it can also automatically launch a virtual machine, essentially a computer in the cloud from which it can connect to a wide range of internet-based software, pull information from databases, and craft custom code to analyze data and create charts and visualizations. It’s an approach that cofounder and CEO Jim Benton says lets users w…

It’s that time again. The calendar has flipped, the resolutions are written, and you’re probably sitting in your office chair at your office desk looking at a lukewarm cup of office coffee, wondering if you’ve really got another year of fluorescent lights and “serendipitous” coworker interactions in you. Let’s make a pact: No more. It’s time to find a great remote job. Unfortunately, you can’t find 21st-century work using 20th-century methods. If you’re still scrolling through the generic “Big Box” job boards and getting buried in 5,000 applications for one role, you’re doing it wrong. Instead, here are the five sites you should check first when you’re looking…

The teaching profession requires a certain degree of patience. Particularly when students discover a new trend to latch onto and repeat at every given opportunity. The latest so-called “brain rot” phrase to flood the classroom: “6-7.” If you don’t have any Gen Alphas in your life and have no idea what I’m talking about, count yourself lucky. Some teachers have taken to social media to share their exasperation with the trend that has recently overrun classrooms, with schools outright banning it in some instances. “Say 6-7 one more time,” one teacher posted on TikTok, pretending to address a student in her class. “We’re gonna call your mom in about 6-7 minutes, let …

Chipotle is officially in its Ozempic era. Today, the brand is launching an all-new High Protein Menu in the U.S. and Canada, which it describes as “a clean menu for the protein movement.” The menu comes with six items, including proteinmaxxed burritos and bowls and a new salad option. The real stand-out, though, is what Chipotle is billing as its “first-ever snack,” but is really just a tiny cup of chicken. The High Protein Cup is a topping-less, four-ounce serving of adobo-seasoned chicken that you could easily hold in the palm of your hand—and it’s a perfect, if somewhat depressing, symbol of the GLP-1 age. For Chipotle, the new menu means embracing two e…

The Salt Lake City Olympics planned for 2034 are now the Utah Games after organizers announced a new logo and name to reflect the multi-community work that goes into hosting the largest winter sports event on Earth. The state’s Governor, Spencer Cox, says the new logo has united people—though not in a good way. “It’s really brought people together because everyone seems to not like it,” Cox said at a recent press conference. The new logo is temporary until the final emblem of the Games is released in 2029. It spells out “Utah” in irregularly shaped characters (does that say “IJTAH?”) that are stacked on top of “2034.” Its launch color palette is just black and…

In his new book Ding Dong: How Ring Went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone’s Front Door, Ring founder Jamie Siminoff pulls back the curtain on the chaotic, often absurd reality of building one of the most recognizable consumer tech brands of the last decade. The following excerpt captures one of the book’s most pivotal moments: the high-stakes, borderline-reckless gamble to secure the name “Ring.com,” a decision that nearly emptied the company’s bank account, tested the patience of his investors, and set the stage for a brand that would soon reshape home security. eBay.com. Half.com. Cars.com. Shop.com. Toys.com. And yes, Nest.com. So many great four-letter domain na…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists use an economic model they call the Zillow Market Heat Index to gauge the competitiveness of housing markets across the country. This model looks at key indicators—including home price changes, inventory levels, and days on market—to generate a score showing whether a market favors sellers or buyers. Higher scores point to hotter, seller-friendly metro housing markets. Lower scores signal cooler markets where buyers hold more negotiating power. According to Zillow: Score of 70 or higher = strong seller’s market Score fro…

On the heels of Starbucks’ recent announcement it will be cutting 900 corporate roles and closing 1% of its Northern American stores by the end of 2025 (after accounting for both new openings and closures), Starbucks Workers United said Tuesday that 59 of those locations marked for closure are unionized locations. Starbucks Workers United, the worker-led effort to unionize Starbucks baristas, represents 12,000 baristas in 45 states and Washington D.C., across more than 650 cafes. The closures, announced last week by CEO Brian Niccol, are part of a massive $1 billion restructuring strategy dubbed “Back to Starbucks,” aimed at turning around declining sales and bran…

To a certain point, cars are fantastic inventions making it easy to get to far-flung places, opening doors for new places to live or work or play. But there’s a tipping point when the built environment and our lives are arranged around motor vehicles where the benefits start to come undone. Building to prioritize space-hogging cars brings a long list of negative externalities. In Greek mythology, the god Dionysus granted King Midas his wish for the power to turn everything he touched to gold. Midas revels in the effortless wealth—objects, furniture, and even the ground beneath him turn to gold. The Midas touch was great right up until he wanted to eat or drink or jus…

When you’re trying to snazz up your emails with a signature at the bottom, it’s all too easy to overthink it. Gmail’s signature tool offers extensive formatting options. (Want to sign off in Comic Sans? Go for it.) And typical signature-builder sites can get even more complex, with seemingly endless fonts, buttons, and shiny doodads to choose from. The truth is, you don’t need all that to sign your emails in a presentable way. Just an image and a handful of descriptive lines should do the trick, and this free tool will give you just that without tempting you to go overboard. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. …

Media personalities and online influencers who sow social division for a living, blame the rise of assassination culture on Antifa and MAGA. Meanwhile, tech CEOs gin up fears of an AI apocalypse. But they’re both smokescreens hiding a bigger problem. Algorithms decide what we see, and in trying to win their approval, we’re changing how we behave. Increasingly, that behavior is violent. The radicalization of young men on social networks isn’t new. But modern algorithms are accelerating it. Before Facebook and Twitter (X) switched from displaying the latest post from one of your friends at the top of your feed with crazy, outrageous posts from people you don’t know…

When the NFL and Apple Music announced Bad Bunny as the 2026 Super Bowl half-time show headliner, the choice surprised some. But to anyone tracking the data over the past few years, it was inevitable. In 2022, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti redefined the market, driving Latin music’s streaming growth to new heights. It later became the first Spanish-language album nominated for Grammy Album of the Year. The takeaway is simple: When you have accurate, real-time data, you don’t guess where culture is going, you know. That kind of foresight is exactly what industries need now, especially as AI accelerates change at a pace that demands evidence, not instinct. In real time, …

Creativity has always been governed by time—not just how long it takes to bring an idea to life, but how long a creator can stay “in flow.” Every designer knows the frustration of an idea hanging in digital limbo. But those pauses, once accepted as inevitable, are now starting to vanish. Figma, the cloud-based interface design tool, and Google Cloud, the computing and storage platform, have announced the integration of Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash directly into Figma’s design platform. The collaboration aims to let designers generate visuals and make edits almost instantly, eliminating the lag between an idea and its execution. For users, that means faster collabor…

Below, Ben Rein shares five key insights from his new book, Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection. Ben is an award-winning neuroscientist who has spent a decade studying the biology of social interaction. He is the chief science officer of the Mind Science Foundation, an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, and a clinical assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo. He also teaches neuroscience to an audience of more than 1 million social media followers. What’s the big idea? Loneliness is a problem. Many of us feel this, and all of us are seeing it affect society. But why is isolation so harmful? Why are virtual interactions a poor substit…

The other day, a friend confessed her new nightly routine: hiding in the bathroom for ten minutes after putting her kids to bed. The reason wasn’t to scroll TikTok, but to breathe. “It’s either that or cry into the mac and cheese,” she laughed. It struck me: parenting in 2025 often looks like quietly triaging our own stress while juggling work deadlines, permission slips, Slack pings, and dinner prep. Headlines scream about the youth mental health crisis, but what rarely makes the front page is the state of the people raising those kids. Working parents are running on fumes. And here’s the part we can’t gloss over: our kids’ emotional health is directly tied to ours. …