What's on Your Mind?

There’s been a lot of noise in the advertising industry lately, from restructuring to consolidation to massive financial recalibrations at the industry’s biggest companies. It’s easy, in moments like this, to frame finance people as the enemy of creativity, something I’ve been reading a lot of recently. I don’t buy that. To me, the issue isn’t financial leadership. It’s the posture that financial leaders take. In a creative business, the CFO doesn’t just manage the numbers. They influence behavior, and their actions shape culture and whether a company builds or simply protects. It shows how they engage: are they leaning into tough conversations, helping solve …

The AI behemoth Anthropic released a report this week about the widening “AI skills gap.” In it, the research suggests that a widening gap may be emerging between those who use AI frequently for work and those who don’t. The report data shows that those with at least six months of experience with the company’s chatbot, Claude, have a higher success rate when collaborating with the system than those without. This can lead to an advantage in an ever-changing labor market landscape as AI becomes an integral part of the job market. In an interview with TechCrunch, Anthropic’s head of economics, Peter McCrory, spoke about how the report does not yet prove a broader sh…

There’s a tremendous, ageless opportunity hiding in plain sight, but marketers need to look through a different lens to see it. Right now, there are some 35 million U.S. empty nester women, as I calculate it, and a growing percentage of them are single. They aren’t retreating into rest and relaxation; they are stepping out to exult in activities they finally have the time, money, and motivation to pursue. Historically, marketers have largely overlooked this demographic. Or, if they address this market, it’s only for margin and share growth. That’s the wrong framework. The real opportunity isn’t just about capturing their spending power, it’s about recognizing a profo…

Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. Before we get underway, a little self-promotion: Apple’s 50th anniversary is on April 1. As the big day approached, I realized that many people present at the company’s creation were still very much with us. So I interviewed 23 of them for an oral history, “How Apple Became Apple: The Definitive Oral History of its Earliest Years.” It’s chock-full of great tales as told by everyone from cofounder Steve Wozniak to Liza Loop, the first Apple user. Hearing these pioneers reminisce, I felt like I had been there, too—and so will you, I think. Here’s the article. When OpenAI launched its Sora app last September…

In a 1944 issue of Arts & Architecture magazine, the architect and designer Charles Eames sounded an alarm. “It has been estimated that one million five hundred thousand houses each year for a period of 10 years will be needed to relieve the urgent housing problem of this country,” he wrote. “The enormity of such a need cannot even be partially satisfied by building techniques as we have known and used them in the past. Large scale industry would seem to be the only logical means by which we can achieve an enterprise of such proportion.” Throughout their careers, Charles and Ray Eames explored how industrial production could impact home building, most famously th…

It’s so easy to cheat now. Using generative AI, anyone can get a free meal or product. They can even get free money by scamming the government itself. And, like radiologists have just discovered, they can even cheat doctors and insurance companies by using AI-generated X-rays. According to a new study published by the Radiological Society of North America, most experts can’t distinguish fake fractures from the real thing now. Undetectable insurance fraud is one click away. It’s just the last of a growing list of low-hanging fruit, zero-cost scams made possible with the power of AI. And it’s only going to get worse. Fake x-rays The Radiological Society of North …

The cutting board may be the most used object in your kitchen, but its design hasn’t changed considerably since 3,000 BCE, when the ancient Egyptians began using slabs of wood for food preparation. The cutting board has to do a lot of work: It needs to absorb knife marks, soak up onion juice, and be big enough to hold vegetables and scraps. On a daily basis, home cooks are forced to confront the logistical problem of where to put the parsley they just chopped when they move on to the carrots. By the end of meal prep, the kitchen counter is littered with food waste and crowded with mismatched bowls of ingredients. It seems like a minor inconvenience, one that most …

Leadership and management lessons aren’t always figured out off the bat. Making some mistakes and realizing that what works for you doesn’t work for everyone else is valuable. It’s impossible to go back and change the past, but you can think through how you manage now and see if it’s still effective. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members about their staff management lessons and how their approach has evolved. Their insights can help you lead your staff better without having to make those same mistakes yourself. Here’s what nine Impact Council members shared—hard earned pearls of wisdom. 1. ALIGN ON GOALS Earlier in my career, I sometimes moved so quickly…

Every April, the internet fills up with green logos, limited-edition packaging, and pledges that will be quietly retired by May. We’ve gotten good at calling that out. Greenwashing is understood, documented, and increasingly prosecuted. What we talk about less is the other problem: the brands that are actually doing the work, but have stopped saying so. Both are failures. Just different kinds. Here’s what’s actually happening. The share of S&P 100 companies using “ESG” in their sustainability report titles dropped from 40% in 2023 to just 6% in 2025. But the work hasn’t stopped. According to a 2025 EcoVadis study, 87% of U.S. companies have actually increased …