What's on Your Mind?

The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics may be winding down, but the memories will linger for years to come. The competition began on Wednesday, February 4, with the official opening ceremony on Friday, February 6. A little more than two weeks later, the Games will conclude with an epic closing ceremony on Sunday, February 22. So much action was packed into the event that it was a full-time job keeping up. Since a lot of people have actual full-time jobs, here’s a look back at the highlights, endearing moments, and heartbreaks of the XXV Olympic Winter Games. How can I track 2026 Winter Olympics medals? First things first. You can stay up to date with all of the …

Our capacity to juggle several tasks at once is among the most important capabilities of the human cognitive system. Just consider a typical day in the life of a modern human: you glance at your phone while waiting for coffee to brew, skim headlines while half-listening to a podcast, mentally rehearse a client pitch while walking your child to school, reply “noted” on Slack during a meeting while updating a slide deck, check your bank balance while standing in line, and, in a moment of entirely optional productivity theatre, scroll through a friend’s Facebook feed to see what their cat had for breakfast (admittedly, not the most important addition to our already heavy…

Snapple might be gearing up for a long-awaited comeback by taking a page out of its ‘90s playbook. On February 18, Snapple’s parent company, Keurig Dr Pepper, announced that the beloved tea brand is unveiling a refreshed visual identity designed to “return the Snapple brand to icon-status.” The new look, which will roll out beginning this March, includes new graphics, a logo inspired by the brand’s ‘90s look, and an updated bottle design that hearkens back to its original glass packaging. At the same time, Keurig Dr Pepper told Fast Company that it’s reinvesting in marketing efforts for Snapple, including through an ongoing campaign focused on the drink’s hometown of …

For decades, formative assessment has been a silent engine for learning—powering insights about student progress and worker readiness. But let’s be honest, in a world where technology is evolving faster than human skills, it’s time to ask questions about traditional teaching and learning models, and in many cases, modernize them. So, let’s talk about formative assessment in the age of AI. Formative assessment is the ongoing process educators and workplace trainers use to understand where students are in their learning and how to adjust instruction accordingly, through homework, essays, quizzes, and short writing assignments. Eighty percent of educators rate formative …

Meatball fans beware: A nationwide recall is underway for a popular brand of frozen meatballs sold at Aldi. The recall is due to the possibility that the product may contain metal fragments, which could cause serious injury if consumed. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? On Sunday, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) posted a safety alert about a Class 1 recall—the highest possible designation the agency assigns to recalled products. A Class 1 recall means that there is “a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death,” according to the…

Spirit Airlines is hanging on by a thread –but it is hanging on. The budget airline announced a plan Tuesday that would put it on track to exit its second bankruptcy in less than two years and stay in operation. The arrangement will keep the company alive while shrinking its expenses and operations down to an even smaller size than what it aimed for during its first bankruptcy, which it filed for in November 2024. With financial support from its creditors, Spirit says it plans to emerge from bankruptcy in late spring or early summer. The company plans to keep its core identity as a value carrier that can still offer fliers “the lowest fares in the sky” while bolst…

What are the hallmarks of a luxury brand? Exclusivity, artisan craftsmanship, and a high price tag to match. But iconic fashion house Gucci may have just learned the hard way that advertising can undermine all those qualities—especially if it’s made with AI. On February 23, Gucci started posting promotional images for its upcoming Primavera Fashion Show, its first show under new creative director Demna. The first few photos were inoffensive—Michelangelo’s David statue, a pair of leather loafers—but then, things took a turn. The next four pictures Gucci posted came with a disclaimer in their captions: “Created with AI.” The AI-generated ads included renderings of a…

AI has not changed the importance of judgment in product leadership. What it has changed is the cost of getting it wrong. Early in my career, I learned a principle that still guides how I think about building products: The strongest decisions rarely start with perfect data. They start with conviction, a hypothesis shaped by experience, customer insight, and pattern recognition. What ultimately separates high-performing product organizations from average ones is how quickly and confidently instinct is validated. That validation is the true role of product analytics, and increasingly, it is where AI amplifies its value. Analytics tests whether what you believed woul…

I have what I consider a healthy skepticism toward authority. I’ve always considered leaders—despite what titles they hold—as fallible people who don’t necessarily deserve blind adulation or deference. That skepticism has made it hard for me to adopt the “company man persona,” which might explain how little of the proverbial corporate ladder I’ve climbed. And rather than take responsibility for that, I’m going to “blame” my dad: The instinct to question rather than comply, to think critically instead of playing yes-man, came from him. We never had a formal conversation about it. I just watched how he moved through the world—confident, grounded, with little to prove—a…

A public showdown between the The President administration and Anthropic is hitting an impasse as military officials demand the artificial intelligence company bend its ethical policies by Friday or risk damaging its business. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei drew a sharp red line 24 hours before the deadline, declaring his company “cannot in good conscience accede” to the Pentagon’s final demand to allow unrestricted use of its technology. Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, can afford to lose a defense contract. But the ultimatum this week from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posed broader risks at the peak of the company’s meteoric rise from a little-known computer scie…

Target will stop selling cereals containing synthetic colors by the end of May. The Minneapolis-based discounter said Friday it had been phasing out synthetic colors in cereals for several years. Right now, 85% of its cereal sales already come from products made without synthetic dyes. Target said it has worked with national brands and its private brands to reformulate products as needed. Some cereals — including Trix and Lucky Charms, which are made by General Mills — will have updated formulations, Target said. Target said it will no longer carry brands that don’t reformulate, but it didn’t name the brands. General Mills announced last year that it planned t…

“We are cooked.” That’s the sentence I see with every AI-generated Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube short made with Seedance 2.0. And yes, we are. The walls of reality have finally vanished, sucked in by a black hole of Nvidia chips. So I’m going to Nancy Reagan the hell out of everyone and demand a global public service announcement like that old “Just Say No” to drugs campaign, which was everywhere when I was growing up. We need Mr. T back to make young and old fools listen up, because the companies printing money with their generative video tech are doing zilch to fix the planetary problem they have created. The message? Everyone should stop believing everyt…

Networking as a solopreneur can feel impossible. LinkedIn is full of the sort of hustle-culture aficionados who think yoga at 4 a.m. is something to brag about and who want you to buy their online course. Joining a networking referral group often costs money and can require a big time commitment without a guarantee of new leads. Asking friends and family to make referrals for you gives you flashbacks to that one summer in college when you got roped into selling Cutco knives. But solo businesses are already nontraditional, so you might as well embrace quirky networking opportunities. Some of my best freelancing leads have come from Tumblr, carpooling, and on one memora…

Gee whiz, Gboard: You’re really falling behind. For all the many ways Google’s Gboard keyboard makes tapping out text a breeze on Android, its ability to transcribe your speech and turn it into words isn’t exactly awe-inspiring. Android’s voice-to-text setup has always been pretty good, relatively speaking—but now, newer and more effective options are popping up, and it’s suddenly seeming like a system from the past. Last month, I introduced readers of my Android Intelligence newsletter to a new Android voice typing tool called Typeless that blows Gboard out of the water with its ability to actually understand what you’re saying and transform it into accurate,…

Small-business owners are up against a lot. It can be difficult to come up with the funding required to take an idea and turn it into something profitable, especially in an economy that can often feel less stable than many of us might prefer. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad idea to start your own small business. In fact, the opposite is often true. If you have an idea and a plan you believe in, the future of your small business can be wide open. Of course, there are a few considerations to keep in mind along the way, Chedva Ludmir tells Fast Company. Ludmir, who founded the consulting and coaching firm Consider Labs, regularly works with entrepreneurs…

Mattel just got its first custom global typeface in over 80 years, and it’s brimming with brand easter eggs. Mattel operates dozens of brands under its corporate umbrella, each with their own visual identity and brand voice. But, until now, Mattel has never had its own proprietary typeface for its overarching brand, instead opting to license multiple existing fonts on a global scale—an endeavor that was not only expensive, but also came at the cost of visual consistency across Mattel’s many product lines. Otis Gibson, founder of the Chicago-based creative agency Gertrude, says his agency was tasked with “putting a lasso” around Mattel’s corporate identity. Their solution,…

Smartphones have been the greatest drivers of creative democratization over the past 15 years, giving people a powerful voice and platform. Recent advancements in the “brains” behind these devices are almost limitless, from their software and processing power to their AI capabilities. But what about their bodies? For years, the smartphone’s physical form has remained a familiar slab of glass and ceramic. This form factor, once revolutionary, is now becoming a physical constraint on creativity. Over time, smartphone design has created a paradox. The very tool meant to capture our memories can prevent us from truly living in the moment. While the intention was to connec…

Sales has historically been a true proving ground for new technological breakthroughs. CRM systems, predictive analytics, tools that promise better targeting, faster follow-up, and higher close rates have to be proven, or shown to be false in the realm of sales. The next technology to be proven is agentic AI. Agentic AI will create the most profound transformation sales will undergo in this century. Agentic AI systems can act independently, pursue goals, adapt to context, and collaborate with humans through the duration of a sales cycle, no matter how short or elongated. AI alone already saves sales team members over two hours a day in admin tasks, and agentics will …

Zig-zagging around the glass-and-steel perimeter of the UC Berkeley Grimes Engineering Center, 36 thin metal rods could be what it takes to prevent the building’s total destruction. The rods are the central element of a novel seismic-responsive structural system that is designed to help the building snap back to its original shape in the event of a major earthquake. Their trick is an embedded cluster of taut cables made from a highly flexible compound called a shape-memory alloy that’s capable of bending under tension—like the lateral shaking in a California earthquake—and then straightening out. Developed by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill …

Globally, the majority of people say they’re extroverted, and if you’re an introvert, you may feel out of touch, out of sync, or disconnected. You may also struggle to find friends, make friends, or sustain friendships. But it’s possible to feel not only connected and fulfilled, but also comfortable with yourself as an introvert. It’s a critical issue today. We’ve all become more isolated, with increasing numbers of people who say they’re lonely or they don’t have enough friends. Relationships are critical to physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being. But it’s possible to create great friendships at work and in life, even if you’re an introvert. THE IMPOR…

When fintech company Block laid off 40% off its workforce last week, CEO Jack Dorsey explained the decision in a memo to employees that he also shared on social media. He was eliminating more than 4,000 jobs in the name of AI efficiency, he said, even though the company’s profitability was increasing. Though much of his letter was addressed to those who were losing their jobs, he ended with a note to those who’d be staying on. “What I’m asking of you is to build with me,” Dorsey wrote. “We’re going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. How we work, how we create, how we serve our customers.” But one Block employee who survived th…

Utah-based outdoor retailer Sportsman’s Warehouse may be closing some of its stores in the near future. “As part of the Company’s review of its stores, we have identified about five stores for potential closure due to underperformance and lack of profitability,” Sportsman’s Warehouse wrote in its Fiscal Year 2025 financial results press release. Sportsman’s Warehouse did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment on which stores it identified at the time of publication. Sportsman’s Warehouse has 148 locations spread across 32 different states. The brand is mostly centered around western states, with 17 stores in California, 14 in Washington, and 13 in U…

Feeling numb as your boss announces your promotion. Fighting back tears as you skim the email offering you a new stretch opportunity. Knowing you “should” be excited to grab coffee with the industry leader who could open doors, but really it just feels like a drain. On paper, you’re doing everything right and hitting the milestones you once worked so hard to reach. And yet, internally, you feel exhausted. Disconnected. Frustrated by a success that looks good, but doesn’t feel good. This doesn’t mean you need a vacation. It means you may be burned out for a reason no amount of time off or spa days will fix. While burnout has become so common that the World Heal…

There aren’t enough hours in the day to be an expert on every issue (even though we’re expected to hold a strong opinion on just about everything). I prefer to stick to topics I’m already familiar with or in the process of learning. But sometimes, especially on X/Twitter, I’ll post color commentary about an issue that’s not in my wheelhouse. It’s a good way for me to keep the bigger picture of human flourishing in sight. Those topics might be childhood independence, economics, mental health, or vehicle size. I’m not singularly focused on vehicle size, but it’s a growing issue among people who already drive badly. The percentage of new vehicle sales/leases for pickup t…

By now, anyone who follows major brands has seen it or heard of it: The small bite that went ‘round the world. McDonald’s CEO and chairman Chris Kempczinski recently posted a video of himself on Instagram trying the brand’s newly launched Big Arch burger. It was basically the golden arches version of a dorky corporate unboxing. When he got the Big Arch into his grips, he took a reasonable, if small, bite and said, “I love this product. It is so good.” Cue the online mockfest. Kempczinski didn’t deliver the news like an amphetamine-laced nano-influencer. No, here he was eating like some quarter-zip normie on a first date. On a scale of 1-10 in exec…