What's on Your Mind?

Nearly a quarter of American workers didn’t take any of their vacation days this year. That’s according to a report published in October from FlexJobs based on a survey of over 3,000 U.S. workers. Despite workers being more burnt out and disengaged than ever, many refuse to take time off. Could unlimited PTO be to blame? It’s been well-documented that unlimited PTO may not be the generous gift workers are led to believe. A recent skit from TikToker and comedian Jacob Capozzi assumes the role of “the guy who invented unlimited PTO” to highlight some of the reasons why. Capozzi poses as an executive who wants to incorporate “something more interesting to get p…

For an architect whose name and work have become known all over the world by laypeople and architecture fans alike, Frank Gehry’s buildings are about as far from the mainstream as one can get. Bent, curved, and clad in shiny metal, the most famous buildings by Gehry, who died last week at 96, are also the most improbable. Coming up with the flamboyant designs for landmark buildings like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles was only part of what made Gehry one of the most successful and celebrated architects in American history. Just as impressive are the ways Gehry helped explore and expand the architecture technologies used …

The front of the Wheaties box has served as a hall of fame for some of the greatest athletes of all time, from baseball star Lou Gehrig to boxer Muhammid Ali, basketball legend Michael Jordan, and seven-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles. Now, a fresh face is gracing the box’s hallowed orange frame: Marty Mauser, the fictional ping-pong player played by Timothée Chalamet in A24’s upcoming film Marty Supreme. Instagram The cereal box comes just weeks after A24 released a now-viral 18-minute long parody of a marketing meeting to promote the movie (which releases on Christmas). In that video, Chalamet joins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives and pr…

Paired with high-deductible healthcare plans, health savings accounts help ease healthcare costs. HSAs are a triple tax-advantaged vehicle in the tax code, allowing for pretax contributions, tax-free compounding, and tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses. However, few owners fund their HSAs to the maximum, and even fewer invest their HSA dollars outside a savings account. Most consumers likely don’t fill their HSAs because they lack the financial means; critics note that the HDHP/HSA combination can be less beneficial for lower-income workers. But even wealthy consumers may decline to fully fund their HSAs. Many HSAs charge account-maintenance fees and e…

There are three kinds of annoying colleagues. I have already written about dealing with annoying bosses and colleagues. What happens if the source of your annoyance is one of your direct reports? Once again, dealing with what bothers you depends a lot on what it is causing the problem. Here are four common causes of annoyance. 1. The one who sucks up It is natural for people who are ambitious to want to find ways to get ahead. Obviously, doing great work is important, but a little self-promotion can’t hurt either. After all, if you have lots of direct reports, you may not notice everything that everyone is doing. So, you should expect that the folks who work fo…

Change is often presented as an enigma. Unlike a traditional management task, you can’t just devise a plan and execute it. To be an effective change leader, you need to embrace a certain amount of uncertainty because change, by definition, involves doing new things, and that always involves some measure of unpredictability. Still, that doesn’t mean change is mysterious. We actually know a lot about it. In Diffusion of Innovations, researcher Everett Rogers compiled hundreds of studies performed over many decades. Around the same time, Gene Sharp led a parallel effort to understand how large-scale political movements drive social and institutional change. So while…

“I want to talk about something that I feel like maybe is a little controversial,” content creator Jaclyn Hill said in a video posted earlier this week. The OG beauty influencer got her start on YouTube well over a decade ago. She’s since grown across different social media channels, including Instagram and TikTok, where she has 8.5 million and 1.2 million followers, respectively. In the video, which has since racked up over 3.5-million views, she opens up about how she’s been struggling to get views on TikTok and feels like she’s “running through mud” to connect with her followers. “When you have a million followers, but you’re getting 30,000 views, this is jus…

They look like ordinary basketball courts. But two new courts built next to public housing in New York City double as flood prevention. In a sudden flash flood—when the city’s aging sewer system can easily become overwhelmed and streets can fill with water—the sunken basketball courts act like retention basins. The design can hold as much as 330,000 gallons, with the court’s lowest areas filling like a pool and additional water stored in bioretention cells beneath the surface. The project “becomes like a sponge, which basically holds the water as much as it can,” says Runit Chhaya, principal at Grain Collective, a landscape architecture firm that worked on the…

Imagine the scene: Your plane just landed late. You’ve barely got enough time to catch your connection, but first you’ve got to convince the other passengers to let you off before them. Good luck. Recently, though, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant flipped the script, according to Kathrin Peters. Peters, co-founder of consulting firm Withiii Leadership, says a recent flight taught her one of the best real-life lessons she’s ever seen in “generating instant connectivity.” After confirming the plane’s late arrival, the flight attendant asked passengers to raise their hand if they were ending their journey in Salt Lake City, the flight’s destination. After most …

Instacart just became the first company to offer an end-to-end integrated shopping experience with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s yet another signal that AI is about to upend the way we shop—and, maybe, the way we cook. The new partnership was announced by Instacart and OpenAI on December 8. To use the interface, ChatGPT users need to make an Instacart account and then surface Instacart within their chat thread using a prompt like, “Instacart, help me shop for apple pie ingredients.” From there, they can discuss recipes, ingredient swaps, and their preferred store with ChatGPT, which will help them order all of the items they need from Instacart without ever changing tabs or …

Wealthfront Corp. is looking to rake in the wealth after going public on Friday. The Palo Alto-based automated digital wealth platform raised $486 million after selling 43.6 million shares, putting the company’s valuation at roughly $2 billion. Wealthfront shares began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “WLTH.” The company made more than 34.6 million shares of common stock available for the IPO for $14—an offering that expires on Monday, December 15. The stock was up around 4% by mid-afternoon on Friday afternoon after trading began. To mark the occasion, the company’s leadership—including CEO David Fortunato, cofounder and chairman Andy Rachleff, a…

Can ChatGPT dethrone Gemini? Is Tim Cook capable of leading Apple into the next wave of AI? As 2025 winds down, journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher cuts through the noise and decodes what’s really happening across OpenAI, Meta, Google, and more. Then, Swisher sizes up the state of Disney, Netflix, and the escalating bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. 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 business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid R…

Any office party can be challenging, but holiday office parties are particularly stressful. After all, the season brings a set of demands—including the need to be “merry and bright” when you may not feel that way. To survive this end-of-year event (and to use it to advance your career), here are three strategies that will work wonders. 1. Use Holiday Parties as a Chance to Get to Know New People There are good reasons to circulate broadly at your next holiday party and not to hang out with people you already know. Clustering with friends can lead to excessive drinking, and with that comes danger to your health and safety. Staying with your pals or people you wo…

Just under a year after the rebirth of the Kickstarter favorite Pebble smartwatch, the founder of that tech gadget is debuting the company’s next product. The Pebble Index 01 is a smart ring of sorts, but instead of focusing on health data or sleep cycles, the sole purpose of this ring is to help wearers remember thoughts that bolt out of the blue during the middle of the day. “Do you ever have flashes of insight or an idea worth remembering? This happens to me five to 10 times every day,” Eric Migicovsky, who shepherded Pebble from Y Combinator to an angel investment of $375,000 to the record-setting Kickstarter campaign, wrote in a blog post. “If I don’t write d…

I’ve tried them all. A fancy planner, “perfect” workout routines, ambitious ways to read more, and writing rituals to get more done. I did the research. But what ultimately worked is something called the kaizen incremental method. An idea is from Japanese manufacturing, of all places. It means “continuous improvement.” The practice of tiny actions. A step so small your brain’s resistance (a built-in fight-or-flight response to big, scary changes) doesn’t even bother to fight it. I use the kaizen approach as a backdoor to building new neural pathways. I’m not forcing change; I’m gently guiding my brain into new habits, one step at a time. That’s how I started writ…

An increasing number of companies are finding the much-promised financial gains of implementing artificial intelligence in the workplace have been slow to materialize. But that isn’t stopping many CEOs from spending even more on AI in the coming year. A new study from advisory firm Teneo finds that 68% of CEOs will increase their AI spending next year. A growing number, however, are aware that they need to start showing returns on that investment—and an important part of their job is convincing shareholders to remain patient. “As efforts shift from hype to execution, businesses are under pressure to show ROI from rising AI spend,” the company wrote. “Large-cap CEO…

Is Reddit like other social media platforms? That’s the question before the High Court of Australia in light of the country’s under-16s social media ban. Last week, Reddit filed a lawsuit in Australia’s highest court seeking to overturn the country’s recently enacted social media ban for children. The San Francisco-based firm claims the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication. The lawsuit follows a case filed last month by Sydney-based rights group Digital Freedom Project. Reddit is also asking the High Court to rule that even if the legislation is valid, that Reddit is not like other social medi…

Ice cream lovers rejoice: Ben & Jerry’s has something new and exciting to introduce to the world. The Vermont-based ice cream company announced that it will add ice cream bars to its lineup. The new ice cream bars will be available in these five flavors: Caramel Blondie Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cookie Dough PB Pretzel Strawberry Cheesecake A December 10 company news release noted that each ice cream bar “features decadent ice cream, plenty of chunks and swirls, dipped in a chocolatey coating with cookie pieces.” The new product line will be available at retail stores as soon as January 2026. Each box will feature four ice cream bars. T…

One hot new phone of 2025 has no screen, can’t send a text, and needs to be plugged into the wall. But to buyers of the Tin Can, that’s a definite plus. The Tin Can, from a Seattle startup of the same name, grew out of conversations cofounder and CEO Chet Kittleson had with fellow parents about the challenges of enabling kids to connect with friends and relatives without giving them full-fledged cellphones. While children of the 20th century could pick up the house landline to call a grandparent or schedule a sleepover, today’s kids are often left dependent on parents for scheduling playdates and connecting with family until they’re old enough to carry their own smar…

America’s small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They create two-thirds of new jobs, power innovation, and anchor communities across the country. But that backbone is under real strain. Rising healthcare costs dominate the headlines, but what’s missing from the conversation is how deeply they impact the small businesses that keep our economy running. At Gusto, we see this strain firsthand. Our latest Small Business Jobs Report showed hiring slowed in November as owners continue to navigate higher costs and uncertainty. Rising healthcare premiums aren’t the only challenge, but they’re making it that much harder to grow and hire with confidence. Since 202…

Santa keeps delivering for quantum computing investors this year. On Monday, shares of well-known quantum computing firms shot up by double digits, with D-Wave Quantum stock up almost 15% and Quantum Computing Inc. up 11%. Shares of IonQ Inc. and Rigetti Computing were likewise up roughly 10%. The exact catalyst spurring those increases is unclear. It may have initially been sparked in part by D-Wave’s Monday announcement that it would be attending the CES 2026 trade show next month. The Palo Alto-based company plans to showcase its “award-winning annealing quantum computing technology, hybrid quantum-classical solvers, and real-world customer use case…

During the week of Christmas, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced food recalls for several holiday treats. Before you begin enjoying your holiday snacks, it’s a good idea to check whether any of the goodies you have at home were recently recalled. Here’s what you need to know. The following food products are part of recent food recalls: ​Atwater’s cookie tins Choceur cookie butter holiday bark Choceur pecan, cranberry and cinnamon holiday park Troemner Family Farm Pfeffernusse Cookies You can find more details about each product recall below. Atwater’s cookie tins On December 22, 2025, Baltimore-based Atwater’s recalled…

Wall Street was largely unchanged early Wednesday as markets hovered near record levels on a holiday-shortened trading day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1% as of 9:45 a.m. Eastern. The S&P 500 index was up less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.1%. Markets will close at 1 p.m. ET for Christmas Eve and are closed for Christmas. Markets will reopen for a full day of trading on Friday, however volumes are expected to be light this week with the holiday and most investors having closed out their positions for the year. Much of the focus remains on the state of the U.S. economy and where the Federal Reserve will move interest rates. Investors ar…

In 2025, AI became officially unavoidable: It had been lurking in the background before, as early adapters experimented with it. But this year, companies invested more than $202 billion in AI, a 75% increase from $114 billion invested in 2024. Major tech companies fought bitterly over AI talent, offering astronomical pay packages. There was a groundswell of demand for talent, and unsurprisingly this spread to the demand for AI, data science, and engineering jobs, which increased 28% compared to 2024, according to data provided to Fast Company by IT staffing company Mondo. The firm also provided data on the top five jobs that took off in 2025, which we’ve listed by vol…

A Powerball ticket purchased at a gas station outside Little Rock, Arkansas, won a $1.817 billion jackpot in Wednesday’s Christmas Eve drawing, ending the lottery game’s three-month stretch without a top-prize winner. The winning numbers were 04, 25, 31, 52 and 59, with the Powerball number being 19. The winning ticket was sold at a Murphy USA in Cabot, lottery officials in Arkansas said Thursday. No one answered the phone Thursday at the location, which was closed for Christmas. The community of roughly 27,000 people is 26 miles (42 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock. Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot higher than previous expected, making it the second-largest in…