What's on Your Mind?

Every January, we’re bombarded with resolutions rooted in consumption—buy this, try that, subscribe to something new. For Gen Z, this consumer-first vision of the New Year feels outdated and hollow. Instead, Gen Z is turning to peers for a community-driven “soft start” to the year ahead. Popularized on TikTok, January resets offer a modern alternative to the outdated idea of resolutions. This shift from consumer-driven goals to community-supported resets is especially visible in how Gen Z is approaching health and wellness in 2026. It’s not surprising either. Earlier in 2025, millions of young people took to social media to publicly document their quit journeys us…

From the outside looking in, the life of a content creator is enviable. Shopping, jet-setting, star-studded events, all documented for their audience of thousands. But new research tells a different story. A study by Creators 4 Mental Health, conducted in partnership with Lupiani Insights & Strategies and sponsored by Opus, BeReal, Social Currant, Statusphere, and the nonprofit AAKOMA Project, spoke to more than 500 full- and part-time creators across North America about their work, mental health, and well-being. One in ten creators reported having suicidal thoughts tied to their work. That rate is nearly double the national average of 5.5%, according to the…

Since our return from Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, we have been dissecting the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. The WEF surveyed more than 1,000 companies from 22 different industries across 55 countries to attempt to predict and paint a picture of what work will look like in 2030. The encouraging news is that there are projected to be 170 million new jobs globally by 2030; however, 92 million jobs are expected to be eliminated due to AI automation. That is a net gain of 78 million jobs by 2030. To get a true understanding of why and how this shift will occur, here is a look at the story beneath the story. 4 factors reshaping the glo…

Berkshire Hathaway is buying Occidental Petroleum’s chemical division for $9.7 billion in what may be the last big acquisition involving the consummate dealmaker, Warren Buffett. Buffett wasn’t mentioned anywhere in materials released by Berkshire Hathaway discussing the deal Thursday, potentially signaling a passing of the torch to Vice Chair Greg Abel, to whom Buffet will hand the CEO title in January. Buffett will remain chairman at Berkshire and will still be involved in deciding how to spend the conglomerate’s colossal pile of more than $344 billion in cash. Berkshire’s cash reserves have been growing for years because Buffett has been unable to find any …

Across America, a new generation of farmers is reimagining what it means to work the land. They are engineers, ecologists, and entrepreneurs—people who see farming not only as a way to grow food, but as a form of innovation. In fields across the country, these farmers are harnessing soil science, biodiversity, and technology to restore what decades of extractive agriculture have depleted. Their work represents one of the most powerful opportunities of our time: The opportunity to regenerate our planet from the ground up. Yet, the odds they face are immense. Land prices have soared, access to capital is limited, and isolation comes with choosing a career path few under…

Maybe your car broke down, your computer was stolen, or you had a surprise visit to urgent care. Emergencies are inevitable, but you can prepare to deal with them by building an emergency fund. “There are so many things that happen in our lives that we don’t expect and most of them require financial means to overcome,” said Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant. The industry standard is to save three to six months of expenses in an emergency fund. However, this can feel daunting if you live paycheck to paycheck or if you have debt. But if you’re in either of these situations, it’s even more crucial to build a financial safety net that can help you in tim…

Looking for some holiday cheer? Customers who want to try Starbucks’ new holiday treat, the Frozen Peppermint Hot Chocolate drink, will have to go to Target, where it will be exclusively available throughout the holiday season at all in-store Starbucks cafes. The drink is a creme Frappuccino with a blend of mocha sauce, milk, and ice, poured over a layer of peppermint-flavored whipped cream and red and green sprinkles, finished with another layer of that same whipped cream and sprinkles. Starbucks is hoping to capitalize on the holiday season and the holiday craze around its special drinks and limited-edition cups. And customer enthusiasm is high, as evidenced by …

By the end of October, David, who works at a roughly 2,000-person finance firm in New York, already knew he’d be working during the holiday season this year. Usually at the office, he learned he’d at least get to work remotely between December 26 and January 1—with the way the financial calendar fell, it was inevitable that he couldn’t just disappear for clients (like institutional investors and family offices) during that time. He says the schedule doesn’t really bother him. “I’m not in a trench in the middle of a battlefield here. I’m not laying bricks,” he says. “It’s not terribly unrealistic work that they’re asking us to do.” Mainly, he’s expected to respond…

December is here, and another year has blown by. Chances are, you’re going to get some time off for the holidays. If so, you may have a week(-ish) to recharge before you have to ramp back up in January. In order to get the most out of your time off, it would be ideal if you could unplug from work completely to give your mind a rest and to focus on family, friends, and yourself. There are a few things you can do to prepare now that will help a lot and will also make your transition back to the office go smoothly. Close as many tasks as possible Research going back almost 100 years finds that when you have a task to complete, you are highly motivated to finish it…

For most of my career at L’Oréal, I sold confidence in a tube: lipstick. But lipstick isn’t just about applying color to your lips. It’s about identity. Ritual. Power. Beauty has never been superficial. It’s always been about self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-expression, knowing that how you’re feeling inside is reflected on the outside. Today, the boldest expression of that confidence comes from beyond the makeup bag: It’s a full night’s sleep working with a skincare routine, balanced hormones supporting a healthy glow, nutrients fueling both energy and radiance, and gut health supporting complexion. The truth is simple: Health is the new lipstick. Healt…

Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, still admires Facebook. Not the Facebook of today, but the Facebook circa 2005. When it pretty much just told you someone’s birthday and let you poke ’em. “It would still be a great product!” exclaims Chesky. “We’re not going to be that company [making it], but there’s still a need for it.” But while Chesky doesn’t want to build Facebook 2.0, he is laying the groundwork for Airbnb to become something much closer to a social network. Airbnb’s fall updates launching today are but the first steps in a significant reframe of the experience of using Airbnb—one that is moving it closer to social networking, and another that embeds i…

The announcement came suddenly on Thursday. A Fortune 500 technology client needed an interim CFO immediately. Its previous executive had departed unexpectedly, leaving a $2.3 billion merger and reorganization in limbo. By Monday, Denise, the number two finance executive, occupied the interim CFO post. She faced 10,000 skeptical employees and a board expecting miracles. Interim leadership has exploded: The number of Fortune 1000 companies that have used an interim CXO has increased 117% since 2022. Yet most leaders enter these roles unprepared for the unique demands that await. Not only do these leaders suffer, companies do as well. When leadership transitions fa…

Judge a book by its cover, and you might think that American Canto, the memoir by Vanity Fair‘s outgoing West Coast editor Olivia Nuzzi, is destined to be a classic. The memoir, which chronicles Nuzzi’s drama-filled life and career as a political reporter in the The President era, features a strikingly simple cover that serves as shorthand for the book’s ambitions. “The intent was to give the book a clean, no-frills design that felt both classic and contemporary,” says Simon & Schuster senior art director Alison Forner, who’s also designed book covers like Ezra Klein’s all-type cover Why We’re Polarized and Garrett M. Graff’s Watergate: A New History. Nuzz…

Headwinds across the business world challenge any leader striving to make an impact beyond shareholder value. Few organizations know this struggle better than the B Team, born out of Richard Branson’s drive to elevate the role and responsibility of business in society. CEO Leah Seligmann shares why some leaders are pulling back, where others are pressing forward, and which actions can have the greatest impact—from climate change to diversity. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations …

The smartest financial move I ever made was to stop contributing to retirement savings. It may sound counterintuitive, even reckless. Dave Ramsey would have stress dreams about this article, but it may be time to get a divorce from your 401(k). Here’s the truth: You actually don’t need millions to retire. Those retirement calculators love to spit out impossible numbers: $3 million, $5 million, sometimes more. Numbers so big they make financial freedom feel like a five-decade slog. Here’s the part they leave out. Most people following the “save for 40 years” script never hit those numbers. They keep working and waiting, but they’re aiming for a moving goalpost.…

Coinbase said on Monday it will buy prediction markets startup The Clearing Company, its tenth acquisition this year, as the crypto exchange looks to expand beyond its core digital assets business. Prediction markets let users buy and sell contracts tied to the outcomes of real-world events, ranging from elections and economic data to sports and policy decisions, effectively turning investors’ forecasts into tradable markets. Supporters say the prices can reflect collective expectations more accurately than polls or forecasts, while critics argue the products blur the line between financial markets and betting, drawing growing scrutiny from regulators. Predict…

The world’s largest retailer has announced massive job cuts before the holidays. On Tuesday, Amazon said in a memo to staff that it will lay off 14,000 employees. Here’s what you need to know about the Amazon layoffs, and why these aren’t the last jobs that Amazon will likely cut in the future. What’s happened? On Tuesday, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, announced the company was eliminating “approximately 14,000” positions. Galetti sent a memo about the layoffs to Amazon employees, which was then published to the Amazon website. The headcount reduction of 14,000 positions is less than the up to 30,000 job …

This week’s biggest business news is perhaps that the U.S. federal government shutdown finally ended; however, that ending didn’t come without more than a few noteworthy concessions. Meanwhile, a beloved coffee chain walked straight into a strike on one of its biggest promo days, and a regional grocer found a way to turn literal loose change into both PR and foot traffic. In the background, the tech world reminded everyone that hype cycles come with fine print. CoreWeave, one of the hottest names in AI infrastructure, delivered blockbuster revenue but still saw its stock sink on news of a delayed data center. IBM, facing louder rivals in quantum computing, rolled out …

After a decade in development, legendary documentarian Ken Burns is set to release his long-awaited series, The American Revolution. In the lead up to the premiere, Burns shares key lessons he gleaned from the founding of the United States—and the parallels between the revolutionary era and today. He also reflects on his admiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, and the obstacles he faces in his ongoing quest for truth. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top busine…

The past year saw unprecedented change and turmoil in the labor market, from pandemic-era layoffs to AI fundamentally and tangibly turning the workforce on its head. But it’s in these times of uncertainty and transition that leadership becomes of paramount importance. In 2025, the very nature of leadership itself morphed along with the times, and specific themes resonated with readers in specific ways. And they’re bound to remain very much in the game heading into 2026. Here are some of Fast Company’s most popular leadership stories from the last year. Managing underperformers We live in a world of quiet quitting and more workers rejecting hustle culture and th…

When AI systems started spitting out working code, many teams welcomed them as productivity boosters. Developers turned to AI to speed up routine tasks. Leaders celebrated productivity gains. But weeks later, companies faced security breaches traced back to that code. The question is: Who should be held responsible? This isn’t hypothetical. In a survey of 450 security leaders, engineers, and developers across the U.S. and Europe, 1 in 5 organizations said they had already suffered a serious cybersecurity incident tied to AI-generated code, and more than two-thirds (69%) had uncovered flaws created by AI. Mistakes made by a machine, rather than by a human, are directl…

Outdoors brand Yeti dropped its new holiday commercial, and it has a lot of what you’d expect from a seasonal spot. “Bad Idea” outlines all the reasons you probably shouldn’t get a Yeti for someone you care about: “Don’t get them a Yeti,” says the voice-over, as a ribboned cooler flies out the back of a pickup truck. “Unless you like dogs that are always wet, eyebrows that are still growing back, and sand in places sand should never be.” By the end of the commercial, it’s clear that the brand is aiming at people who are obsessed. It could be surfing, fishing, camping, golf, whatever—it’s about those chasing the dream wherever it leads them. But for all its charmi…