What's on Your Mind?

A $19 strawberry has broken the internet. Over the weekend, several content creators went viral with reviews of one very expensive berry, purchased from the upscale Los Angeles-based grocery chain Erewhon. “Apparently it’s the best-tasting strawberry in the entire world,” influencer Alyssa Antoci says in a video that has racked up more than 15 million views. It’s worth noting that Antoci appears to be a social media manager for Erewhon, and her family also owns the store. “Wow. That is the best strawberry. That’s crazy,” she adds. Along with the $19 price tag, the berries from luxury Japanese fruit vendor Elly Amai are individually packaged, set on a …

Leading a team has never been simple, but today’s challenges demand something extra. With deep divisions in America spilling over into our workplaces, simply carrying on “business as usual” won’t cut it. Employees are craving authenticity, transparency, and leaders who genuinely care. So, how can you step up, even when the path forward seems uncertain? Through conversations with leaders at Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups, we discovered three actions that can help you navigate this moment with courage and empathy. Cultivate trust through transparency & curiosity In an era marked by mass layoffs, arbitrary return-to-office mandates, and eroding faith i…

Cancer research in the U.S. doesn’t rely on a single institution or funding stream—it’s a complex ecosystem made up of interdependent parts: academia, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology startups, federal agencies, and private foundations. As a cancer biologist who has worked in each of these sectors over the past three decades, I’ve seen firsthand how each piece supports the others. When one falters, the whole system becomes vulnerable. The United States has long led the world in cancer research. It has spent more on cancer research than any other country, including more than US$7.2 billion annually through the National Cancer Institute alone. Since the 1971 …

Does your manager hate to delegate tasks? It might sound like a good thing—after all, that means less work for you. But, just like having a micromanaging boss is no fun, having a manager who takes on much of your work can create a work environment that is both stifling and unproductive. We asked three experts about what causes some bosses to act this way and how to encourage your supervisor to step aside and allow you to do your job. What is a ‘snowplow manager’? A “snowplow manager” is a supervisor who takes on excessive work themselves rather than delegating to their team, says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of videoconferencing tech company Owl Labs. His team recentl…

It’s the end of an era for surf-and-skate-inspired clothing enthusiasts, as some once-beloved stores close their doors. Liberated Brands, which owns Billabong, Quicksilver, Volcom, Roxy, and other brands, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware this week. As a result, 120 stores across the U.S. owned by the company will close. The company will also close its international offices, and has laid off 1,400 employees. In a declaration filed along with the Chapter 11 petition, CEO Todd Hymel blamed the rise of fast fashion brands, as well as high interest rates and inflation, for the brand’s demise. “The average consumer has shifted their spending away from dis…

Are you suffering from “Zoom fatigue?” Exhausted from being on video calls multiple times a week, or even every day? Well, it may be because you’re sick of looking at your own face, according to a new study. That study, from researchers at Michigan State University and published in the journal PLOS One, discovered that “facial appearance dissatisfaction” could explain the weariness people are experiencing when using videoconferencing technology. Our increased reliance on virtual meetings in the workplace, especially with the rise of remote work, means we are spending a lot more time on camera, which has significant implications for workplace productivity and indiv…

Microsoft said Wednesday that its profit for the October-December quarter grew 10% as it works to capitalize on the huge amounts of money it has spent to advance its artificial intelligence technology. But while its overall profits and revenue beat Wall Street expectations, it slightly missed projections for its closely watched cloud computing business, a centerpiece of its AI efforts. The company reported net income for the quarter of $24.1 billion, or $3.23 per share, beating Wall Street expectations of $3.11 per share. The Redmond, Washington-based software maker posted revenue of $69.6 billion in the quarter, up 12% from the previous year, also beating expectations.…

Today’s B2B CEOs are tasked with a delicate balancing act: driving growth, improving efficiency, and creating seamless customer experiences, all while navigating unprecedented market complexity. Meanwhile, the revenue professionals responsible for executing these goals face their own challenges. Buying journeys have become increasingly labyrinthine, with big buying teams and long sales cycles. Seventy-seven percent of B2B buyers say their last purchasing decision was very complex or difficult, with more than 800 interactions on average with potential vendors. Misalignment across revenue teams compounds the issue, making it nearly impossible to deliver efficient, r…

Hey ChatGPT, you talk too much. You too, Gemini. Like many LLMs, you are insufferable. You make Fidel Castro’s 6-hour speeches feel like haikus. I ask, “why do you LLMs talk so damn much?” and in response, you churn out a 671-word answer that resembles a third-grade essay—75% of it devoid of any real meaning or fact. You ramble about how much you ramble. You are incapable of giving me one straight answer, even if I carefully craft a two-paragraph prompt trying to coerce you into it. When I finally get you to respond with one monosyllable, you ruin it by adding a long apologetic promise that it will never ever happen again. Apparently I’m not alone in my ire. I’ve been…

You know you’ve said it. We all have. “Mmm, that looks so delicious—I want to try some!” That’s because when it comes to what we eat, it’s not just a matter of taste. What foods and drinks look like—the colors we see before the first morsels or sips hit our taste buds—have mattered to people for millennia. And nowhere has that been more blatant than the American food palate, where the visual spectrum we choose from includes not only the primary colors but artificial ones that nature couldn’t even dream up. For well over a century, food manufacturers in the United States have used synthetic dyes in their products as part of their production and marketing efforts. O…

Teaching machines in the way that animal trainers mold the behavior of dogs or horses has been an important method for developing artificial intelligence and one that was recognized Wednesday with the top computer science award. Two pioneers in the field of reinforcement learning, Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton, are the winners of this year’s A.M. Turing Award, the tech world’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Research that Barto, 76, and Sutton, 67, began in the late 1970s paved the way for some of the past decade’s AI breakthroughs. At the heart of their work was channeling so-called “hedonistic” machines that could continuously adapt their behavior in response to posi…

Autodesk forecast annual revenue and profit above Wall Street estimates on Thursday, boosted by strong demand for its design and engineering software across industries such as construction and manufacturing. The company also said it would reduce its workforce by about 9%, representing roughly 1,350 employees, and laid out plans to invest more heavily in cloud and artificial intelligence, adding that it would reallocate resources towards those areas. Companies across sectors such as architecture, engineering, construction, and product design are making extensive use of Autodesk’s 3D design solutions, with the software maker’s artificial intelligence and machine lea…

Tax Day is right around the corner—an annual reminder that without the option to file jointly, singles pay more per dollar earned than married people. Tax advantages are just one of more than 1,000 legal and economic benefits married couples enjoy, a disparity worsened by marketplace and employer practices. Despite its disadvantages, single living is on the rise. While the average age of first marriage was just 21 in 1960, today it has risen to 29. Half the adults in the U.S. are unmarried, and half of them aren’t seeking a relationship. As many as a third of Zoomers may never tie the knot. But this shift is more than cultural—it’s redefining the rules of personal…

The shine has worn off the new year and, given the long slog of winter that still lies ahead, you might be feeling less excited about work. There’s a good chance that what you’re feeling is more than just the winter blahs. According to a study last year, an alarming 82% of workers feel at risk for burnout. If you think you, your coworkers, or even your boss might be part of that group, here are the red flags to look out for—and what you can do about it. Red flags for personal burnout You likely know many of the obvious signs of burnout, such as feeling exhausted and disengaged at work. But there are plenty of other less obvious red flags that you should pay attent…

France just unveiled its charming new TGV Inoui trains, and they’re a jealousy-inducing reminder that America’s rail travel renaissance can’t come fast enough. The TGV Inoui is a high-speed rail system, running at around 200 miles per hour, that connects France’s major cities as well as providing connections into Italy, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. This Tuesday, the manufacturing company Alstom and the TGV’s operator, SNCF Voyageurs, revealed the brand-new fifth generation TGV Inoui interior design at Paris’s Gare de Lyon. [Photo: Alstom] The new train, which is slated to hit the rails in 2026, includes a delightfully colorful aesthetic, an ultra-s…

The relentless hype around AI makes it difficult to separate the signal from the noise. So it’s understandable if you’ve tuned out recent talk about autonomous AI agents. A word of advice: Don’t. The significance of agentic AI may actually exceed the hype. An Autonomous AI agent can interact with the environment, make decisions, take action, and learn from the process. This represents a seismic shift in the use of AI and, accordingly, presents corresponding opportunities—and risks. The P in GPT To date, generative AI tools, largely subject to human supervision, have been designed to function by being pretrained (the P in GPT) on vast amounts of data such as l…

A record $1.39 billion will be legally wagered in the United States on Sunday’s Super Bowl match-up between the two-times defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, the American Gaming Association said on Tuesday. In years past, the trade group representing the U.S. casino industry did not break out an estimate solely for legal bets but rather one for all wagers, including those placed online, with a sportsbook, unlicensed bookmaker or casually with friends. But with years of legal operations in several U.S. states, the AGA said it now analyzes historical revenue data and other trends to develop a legal wager estimate for major U.S. sports bett…

Rain-parched Southern California finally received some much-needed precipitation recently, offering some relief from the Los Angeles wildfires which displaced more than 150,000 people from their homes—and either razed or damaged some 15,000 structures. Of course, not everyone jumped to help. But amid the widespread devastation came what seems like, in our socially and politically fraught times, an unlikely ray of hope: A convergence of communities, of neighbors helping each other in whatever way possible and even heading out to assist complete strangers. The goodwill and altruism born from this calamity has been a boon to exhausted and overwhelmed firefighters and p…

Dairy cattle in Nevada have been infected with a new type of bird flu that’s different from the version that has spread in U.S. herds since last year, Agriculture Department officials said Wednesday. The detection indicates that distinct forms of the virus known as Type A H5N1 have spilled over from wild birds into cattle at least twice. Experts said it raises new questions about wider spread and the difficulty of controlling infections in animals and the people who work closely with them. “I always thought one bird-to-cow transmission was a very rare event. Seems that may not be the case,” said Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital…

When Leonard Foglia was invited to direct an opera based on Herman Melville’s masterpiece about a white whale, his first reaction was: “Moby-Dick. That’s great!” “Then I ran to a used bookstore and got the book,” he recalled, “and I thought: Oh my God, what am I in for here? It’s so daunting. I didn’t panic, but I thought, How do we do this?” How he and his collaborators did it will be on display at the Metropolitan Opera beginning March 3. The opera is composed by Jake Heggie to a libretto crafted by Gene Scheer. To begin with, Scheer had to whittle a novel of more than 600 pages down to a 64-page libretto. He kept as much of Melville’s language as possible, …

It’s been a rough week for the tech industry. First, Salesforce announced it would lay off more than 1,000 employees, and now another enterprise software maker has announced even deeper job cuts. Yesterday, Workday, Inc. (Nasdaq: WDAY), maker of cloud-based human resources software, announced that it would lay off 1,750 employees—or roughly 8.5% of its global workforce. These layoffs add to a rough start for the tech industry in 2025, which has seen major tech giants, including Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, trim their workforces. Here’s what you need to know about Workday’s layoffs. Roughly 8% of Workday’s employees are impacted Workday yesterday announced …

When a hurricane or tornado starts to form, your local weather forecasters can quickly pull up maps tracking its movement and showing where it’s headed. But have you ever wondered where they get all that information? The forecasts can seem effortless, but behind the scenes, a vast network of satellites, airplanes, radar, computer models and weather analysts are providing access to the latest data—and warnings when necessary. This data comes from analysts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, known as NOAA, and its National Weather Service. Atmospheric scientists Christine Wiedinmyer and Kari Bowen, who is a former National Weather Service forecas…

I’ve always been vocal about the need to fight inequality in our own backyards. As a resident of New York’s Capital Region, I built my marketing business here. And in 2020, I founded Business for Good Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropy organization focused on closing the growing wealth gap and providing a hand up to underserved entrepreneurs. The inequality is blatantly real. The 23.3% poverty rate is more than twice as high in Albany versus the 11.1% national average. In fact, New York is one of the most economically unequal states in the country. While local and state government have made promises to help clean up the city, reduce crime rates, and create more affo…