What's on Your Mind?

Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician working in a maternity ward in the 1840s. He noticed something disturbing: women giving birth in the ward staffed by doctors and medical students died from “childbed fever” at rates of 10-35%, while a nearby ward staffed by midwives had death rates under 4%. The key difference was that doctors were coming straight from performing autopsies to delivering babies, without washing their hands. They would dissect cadavers in the morning, then examine pregnant women in the afternoon with just a quick rinse. In 1847, Semmelweis instituted a policy requiring doctors to wash their hands with a chlorine solution between the autopsy room and the …

House flippers are about to get an AI assist on their next renovation project. Kai is an AI-powered tool that can visually identify what’s needed to fix up a house and put it on the market. The system converts photos and videos of house projects into SKU-level material specifications and cost estimates, making it fast and easy for an institutional home renovator to create an actionable renovation plan and order all the materials needed to get the job done. Kai has just launched a partnership with home improvement retailer Home Depot to link its building material and product selection tools directly with Home Depot’s 3.5 million item inventory list. Home renovators…

Year-end giving can be a moment of reflection, but for businesses and philanthropy alike, it should also include looking forward and asking the question, what’s next? One throughline from this past year is uncertainty. Uncertainty has rewritten how we work, live, and lead. Yet, one thing that still holds true is we share a responsibility to keep systems strong so no one is left behind, especially children. I’ve seen firsthand how instability isn’t just economic, it’s deeply human. I’ve seen it in a mother whose baby’s survival depended on something as small as a packet of therapeutic food. In that moment, you understand that systems created as large scale solution…

Verizon just announced that its current CEO, Hans Vestberg, is stepping down—and the wireless carrier is pulling another seasoned leader out of retirement to take its helm. In a press release published on October 6, Verizon announced that former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman will be leading the company, effective immediately. In the meantime, Vestberg (who has held the title since 2018) will stay on as a special adviser at the company until October 4, 2026. Schulman has served on Verizon’s board of directors since 2018, and was elected lead independent director in December 2024. “Dan is a seasoned and decisive leader with a unique set of experiences, and a proven re…

Flight reductions at 40 major U.S. airports will remain at 6% instead of rising to 10% by the end of the week because more air traffic controllers are coming to work, officials said Wednesday. The announcement was made as Congress took steps to end the longest government shutdown in history. Not long after, President Donald The President signed a government funding bill to end the closure. The flight cuts were implemented last week as more air traffic controllers were calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobs — leaving more control towers and facilities short-staffed. Air traffic controllers missed two paychecks during the impasse. The Depa…

On a recent stroll by my local Allbirds store in Harvard Square, I had to do a double take. In the window, the brand was advertising its new Varsity collection: a ’70s-inspired sneaker line with a rubber sole and a feminine color palette that weaves together pink, olive green, mustard, and brick red. It’s an unmistakably fashionable shoe that wouldn’t look out of place at New Balance and Saucony, or even Valentino and Celine. Allbirds, which launched in 2014, isn’t known for chasing trends. It has always led with sustainability, starting with the “wool runner” that quickly became a cult sneaker in tech circles. Over the years, it hasn’t strayed far from this original …

Cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for misleading investors who lost billions when his company’s crypto ecosystem collapsed in 2022. Kwon, known by some as “the cryptocurrency king,” pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court in August to fraud charges stemming from Terraform Labs’ $40 billion crash. The company had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable “stablecoin”—a kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. But prosecutors say it was all an illusion that came crumbling down, devastating investors and triggering “a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets.” Kwon,…

I think back to freshman year, when my friends and I would cram onto a lumpy dorm-issue twin bed and huddle around one phone, collectively cringing as we swiped through Hinge. That was my first foray into dating apps. It took me a week—and a handful of dead-end chats—before I deleted it. As it turns out, I’m far from alone. According to mobile app analytics company AppsFlyer, 65% of dating apps downloaded in 2024 were deleted within a month. This year, that number has climbed to 69%, AppsFlyer told Fast Company. During the pandemic, dating apps were a lifeline. Gen Z spent much of their formative years—high school, early college—on Zoom, and online dating…

New research has found that AI-powered content moderation systems from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek don’t always come to the same conclusions about bad language on the internet. View the full article

JPMorgan Chase’s new $3 billion global headquarters in midtown Manhattan was finally unveiled the week of October 20 after six years in the making. But rather than highlighting the Danny Meyer-curated food hall, imported taps that pour a perfect pint of Guiness, or lighting that adjusts with circadian rhythms, online attention has been focused on another feature of the 270 Park Ave. skyscraper. “Congratulations JPMorgan on the opening of your new headquarters!” billionaire Michael Dell posted on X last week, alongside a photo of what seems to be a trading floor in the new office. The image features row upon row of his company’s monitors in four-screen setups, dup…

For a show that lasts roughly 13 minutes, the Super Bowl halftime performance has fueled decades of conversation. Sometimes the spark comes from a single moment — as it did when Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” triggered a broadcast reckoning. Other times, it arrives through imagery and intent, from Jennifer Lopez’s 2020 caged children staging that critiqued U.S. immigration policies to children at the U.S.-Mexico border to Kendrick Lamar’s carefully layered Black storytelling, delivered as Donald The President watched from his seat inside the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The halftime show magnifies everything — fashion ch…

Below, Paul Leonardi shares five key insights from his new book, Digital Exhaustion: Simple Rules for Reclaiming Your Life. Paul is a professor of technology management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a frequent consultant and speaker to a wide range of companies, such as Google, Microsoft, YouTube, McKinsey, GM, and Fidelity. He is also a contributor to the Harvard Business Review. What’s the big idea? We are the first generation in human history to carry the entire world’s information, connections, and distractions in our pockets. It’s no wonder that the technology once promised to make life easier now leaves us tired and overwhelmed. Pa…

Planning to hit the road this holiday season? Or maybe just thinking about an extended drive of some sort for sometime in the new year? The next time you’ve got a driving adventure ahead of you, today’s Cool Tools discovery is exactly the new virtual companion you need. It’s a truly cool app I encountered recently that enhances your standard navigation setup and offers some really smart extras that’ll make whatever trip you’re taking infinitely more interesting—and enjoyable. Lemme show ya what it’s all about. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sor…

In his reflections on the 2025 Wall Street Journal CEO Council summit held in December, WSJ Leadership Institute president Alan Murray noted that CEOs are not actually preoccupied with AI, tariffs, or geopolitics. Instead, they’re focused on something far more fundamental: people and culture. How do you build an organization that can adapt, collaborate, and innovate amid persistent volatility? That instinct is correct. Yet one of the most effective tools for strengthening culture and developing talent remains surprisingly underused—skills-based volunteering (SBV). In a world shaped by geopolitical conflict, climate disruptions, pandemic aftershocks, and unpredicta…

The U.S. government on Thursday released a new crash test dummy design that advocates believe will help make cars safer for women. The Department of Transportation will consider using the dummy in the government’s vehicle crash test five star-ratings once a final rule is adopted, the agency said in a news release. Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a head-on crash, and they are 17% more likely to be killed in a car crash, than men. The standard crash test dummy used in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration five-star vehicle testing was developed in 1978 and was modeled after a 5-foot-9 (175-centimeter), 171-pound (78-kilogram) man. The fem…

Costco’s latest promotional offering just dropped, but members aren’t rushing to claim it. At select warehouse club locations, members can now take home complimentary 3-pound bags of Gala apples. The shopping warehouse’s unique business model, wherein membership fees contribute largely to its revenue, means that it focuses on plugging its membership more than advertising specific products. Costco puts significant effort into encouraging people to join, or upgrade and renew, existing memberships. In the past, Costco has offered enticing items like tote bags to coax customers into automatic membership renewals, but the promotional bag of apples is not as appealing…

In November, Apple laid off dozens of sales employees in a rather unexpected move for the tech giant. Apple is the rare tech company that has steered clear of mass layoffs, particularly among its peers in the trillion-dollar club. The layoffs “came as a surprise” for those who lost their jobs, according to a Bloomberg report—and they impacted some employees who had been with the company for decades. The post-pandemic job market has come to be defined by layoffs, in tech and beyond: A Glassdoor analysis finds that there was a peak in 2023, but layoffs have since continued at a more frequent cadence relative to the years prior. A variety of sectors have been hit hard—a…

The design of the steel-ribbed umbrella has changed little since it was introduced in the 1850s, but the mechanical engineers and origami experts who made an umbrella that works by folding say they’ve finally improved upon it. The $249 Ori umbrella has a frameless design with a laminate composite canopy, which fits into a 3.5-centimeter cylinder smart handle with an OLED display. That means there are no steel elements that can go haywire and leave you with a misshapen mess when you’re caught in a strong wind. It seems we finally have an umbrella that looks like it was invented in the 21st century. The design team included origami experts who usually work in aerosp…

You may remember this, if you are old enough: in 2002, search engine optimization (SEO) transformed from a technical curiosity into a full-blown industry. All of a sudden, agencies, consultants, and “black-hat sorcerers” emerged overnight, offering tricks and hacks to get brands onto the first page. Today, we stand at the dawn of the next wave: what some call Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) or simply AI Engine Optimisation (AIO). The logic is similar: get your brand seen, but the stakes are higher, the rules blurrier, and the risks far more structural. Imagine a world where users no longer click search results but instead ask an…

If you’ve ever taken a sick pet to the vet’s office, you know the pain of seeing your four-footed family member hurting. Then, of course, comes the secondary anguish of figuring how to pay for their veterinary care, which may have you wishing you’d ponied up for pet insurance. While Insurify reports that the average cost of a routine vet visit is about $138 for a cat and $214 for a dog, emergency veterinary care can run the gamut from $300 to $10,000, according to Marketwatch. The insurance industry touts pet insurance as the financial solution to the high cost of veterinary care. Like human health insurance, you pay monthly premiums so that your pet insurance wil…

Annoying peers are hard enough to deal with. Things get even more complicated when the annoying person is your boss. As with peers, there are several ways that a boss can be annoying. Unfortunately, you have to tread lightly with many (though not all) bosses. To be clear, the focus here is on annoying bosses, not toxic ones. A boss who is a narcissist, a harasser, or who sows mistrust isn’t just annoying, they’re bad for you and the organization. I’m going discuss four things that may seem petty, but if you start dreading your engagements with your boss (or resenting them for their foibles), it can come back to hurt your working relationship. The cipher Some p…