What's on Your Mind?

Personal networking can help grow your business, but it can also help you grow as a person and a leader. The key is in how you view it. For some, it is a necessary evil—collecting names and LinkedIn connections like a dance card. For others, it is no game—it is getting to know someone on a genuine basis, even if it will never help them. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members about the role personal networking plays in their own growth strategies. Not surprisingly, many had thoughts about it, and those thoughts are insightful. 1. PRESSURE-TEST IDEAS Personal networking is how I pressure-test ideas, spot patterns early, and learn from leaders navigating s…

Pay transparency laws were supposed to address the pay disparities that tend to impact women and people of color in the workplace. Over the last decade, 15 states have introduced laws that require varying degrees of disclosure from employers—from including explicit salary ranges in job postings to verbally sharing those details with prospective employees during the interview process. But new research out of Cornell University indicates that those laws have not been as effective as intended—in part because many employers fail to truly comply with them. These laws often do not clearly articulate how broad a salary range should be, and simply instruct companies to …

Fancy a chauffeur? Uber is courting the well-heeled with a new ride option that will see it extend its reach from a taxi alternative to offering a more exclusive, limousine-style service. Uber announced Thursday it will launch a chauffeur ride option—Uber Elite—that will offer a “luxury ride experience” targeting executives and other frequent travelers. Uber Elite will become the rideshare operator’s most expensive option, and will be offered on an invite-only basis for current Uber Black and Uber for Business clients in San Francisco and Los Angeles, followed soon by New York. Uber is banking on a market for “a more elevated experience,” though the accompanying c…

Nothing says springtime like a canvas tote drop from Trader Joe’s. That’s right. The highly anticipated shopping bags are back and ready to fly off the shelves (and, probably, the resale sites) once again. Trader Joe’s totes are historically massively popular. The brand’s mini totes, which are just 13-by-11-by-6 inches, first dropped in 2024 and became an instant sensation after going mega-viral on TikTok. Once they sold out, they quickly began popping up on resale sites. While the totes only cost $2.99 in stores, resellers majorly marked them up, with some listing the bags for hundreds or even thousands. Since 2024, Trader Joe’s has released a few other versions of …

The U.S. military was able “to strike a blistering 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of its attack on Iran” thanks in part to its use of artificial intelligence, according to The Washington Post. The military has used Claude, the AI tool from Anthropic, combined with Palantir’s Maven system, for real-time targeting and target prioritization in support of combat operations in Iran and Venezuela. While Claude is only a few years old, the U.S. military’s ability to use it, or any other AI, did not emerge overnight. The effective use of automated systems depends on extensive infrastructure and skilled personnel. It is only thanks to many decades of investment and experi…

OpenAI’s first artist in residence is launching a new company that aims to turn your thoughts into actual products. Today, entrepreneur and roboticist Alexander Reben announces Phyzify, a lab using AI tools to rapidly prototype physical objects based on your imagination. “There’s a huge gap between idea and [bringing that] thing into existence,” says Reben, cofounder of Phyzify. “And I really think AI and robotics and quantum computing and all the technology that’s about to come is going to accelerate [closing] that gap [and] make walking across that bridge a lot easier.” But what Reben has in mind is far greater than just 3D printing. He’s envisions Phyzify as a …

Encyclopedia Britannica is suing OpenAI for allegedly misusing its reference materials to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. The Chicago-based Britannica Group runs Britannica.com and Merriam-webster.com, the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Creator of the 250-year-old Encyclopaedia Britannica, the company ended its print edition in 2012, survived Wikipedia, and has since focused on educational software and digital growth, including selling artificial intelligence agent software, according to The New York Times. Britannica had acquired Melingo AI in 2000, which offers “AI-powered solutions and natural–language processing” in multiple l…

Michael, a 42-year-old tax accountant, came to my office complaining of chronic anxiety, chest pressure, and what he called tunnel vision. “It’s like I’m stuck inside my screen,” he told me. “Even when I’m not working, I’m holding my phone and my brain won’t shut off.” Is that you? Americans spend 93% of their time indoors. Insomnia, depression, metabolic disease, cognitive decline, chronic inflammation, burnout, insulin resistance, sedentariness, loneliness. We engineered the human animal into a box and spend billions managing the symptoms the box causes. Here is what I want leaders reading this to understand: your people are not burned out. They are indoors too …

Nike and U.S. Soccer just revealed the official team jerseys for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and they’re the perfect blend of something old and something new. The U.S. men’s national team (USMNT) kits include two distinct home and away jersey designs that take visual inspiration from the American flag. The home “stripes kit” features classic rippling red and white waves; the away “stars kit” highlights subtle shining stars on a dark navy backdrop. The designs will be worn across all 27 U.S. Soccer national teams (including men’s and women’s, youth, and senior teams) in the lead-up to the 2026 World Cup, which will conclude with a final match on home soil at New Y…

For much of the last decade, corporate America told a tidy story about progress: Pride logos, employee resource groups, executives marching in parades. The implication was that the workplace closet—the quiet calculation LGBTQ+ employees make about how much of themselves to reveal at work—was slowly disappearing. Talk to enough queer professionals today, though, and a different picture emerges. Corporate America is still tricky to navigate. And, after years of people leaving, the closet is starting to fill up again: In January, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) reported that nearly half of LGBTQ+ adults are now less open about their identity than a year ago. Katy, …

There’s long been debate as to whether coffee is good for you. But this new study suggests that caffeinated coffee, as well as caffeinated tea, could lead to lower incidence of dementia. So if your morning routine involves making a bleary-eyed beeline to the coffee maker immediately upon waking—you may be doing something right. The study comes from researchers at Mass General Brigham and the Broad Institute of Harvard University and MIT, and was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The teams studied 131,821 individuals from two cohorts: one group of men and one group of women in the U.S., all of whom did not have diseases like dementi…

A new case in front of labor regulators could answer a question many workers might have contemplated. Can your employer fire you for speaking out against the CEO? During a hearing this month, the National Labor Relations Board—the federal agency tasked with enforcing labor law—weighed in on a case involving software company Atlassian, which reportedly fired an engineer in 2023 for criticizing the CEO over a restructuring plan that led to job losses. The NLRB argued that Atlassian had illegally fired the employee, Bloomberg reported this week, after obtaining a transcript of the hearing through a Freedom of Information Act request. The employee in question, Denise …

A Planned Parenthood affiliate just settled an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over claims of discrimination against white employees, in a notable example of the agency’s ongoing focus on DEI-related discrimination. The $500,000 settlement will put an end to an EEOC investigation against Planned Parenthood’s Illinois chapter, which was initiated by employee complaints that the organization allegedly “segregated employees by race, subjected white employees to harassment, and engaged in disparate treatment against white employees regarding terms, conditions, and privileges of employment,” according to the agency. The EEOC found that Pl…

Sure, when chatbots aren’t outright hallucinating, they can be helpful tools for gathering information, generating ideas, and completing tasks. But some of the biggest players in the AI chatbot space—including OpenAI, Google, and Meta—aren’t exactly known for strong privacy protections. So you have to have a lot of blind faith that the data you give to their chatbots won’t be used in ways you might not like, such as building a profile around you and your prompt history for the purposes of advertising or tracking. So, what’s a person to do if they don’t trust Big Tech with their chatbot data? Give up AI chatbots entirely? Luckily, they don’t have to. I’ve been …

In business conversations today, there’s generally an eye roll when someone brings up “sustainability” or “ESG.” Once a favorite of investors, boards, and marketers, sustainability has been politicized, deprioritized, and in many cases quietly shelved. At the same time, a new headline dominates: AI. AI is the strategy, the investment thesis, the growth promise. It’s exciting…and it should be. But amid the whiplash, we’ve stopped talking about something far more long-lasting: purpose. Even at the most recent meetings of global leaders in Davos, energy and climate played a role, but purpose took a backseat. And that’s a problem. ESG is not purpose. AI is not pur…

As businesses race to become AI-ready, job seekers are racing just as quickly to keep up. New data shows that candidates are getting the message: AI skills are showing up more often on resumes. But this change is exposing a deeper disconnect: the labor market increasingly rewards AI fluency, while the education system often discourages it. According to a new report from Monster.com, the number of resumes that mention AI skills has surged in just two years, going from 3.7% in 2023 to 12.8% last year. Per the report, the most notable increase was from 2024 to 2025 when the number of mentions ticked up by 7.6 points. The previous year, it only accelerated by 1.5 poin…

In 1966, Bruce Henderson, the founder of the Boston Consulting Group, articulated what would become one of the most influential ideas in the history of business strategy: the experience curve. Its origins date back to T. P. Wright’s original 1936 paper, “Factors Affecting the Cost of Airplanes.” Wright discovered a relationship between the cumulative production of a physical good and the costs associated with producing it. The breakthrough was that you could predict your future cost structure in a way competitors couldn’t. In 1966, BCG did a major study for a semiconductor firm and made a similar discovery. As Martin Reeves describes it, they found “that a company’s u…

The hardest part of teaching—or leading meetings—is sparking engagement. Getting people to engage enthusiastically with something new can be tough. It’s especially challenging if people are overwhelmed, super busy, or just tired. As we aim to stretch people’s thinking in a new direction, tools are just one part of the overall picture. But they can help. Last week I shared five tools for creating learning paths, interactive lessons, and new kinds of digital notebooks. Today’s follow-up recommendations focus on creative engagement. You don’t have to be a teacher to find these resources for opening up participation useful. If you lead a team, run meetings, or collabo…

Making the move to management is not for every employee, yet many think it’s the only option for climbing the ladder. There’s an art to coaching individual contributors who either want to take that step, or offering a promotion to someone you think is ready. It’s important to approach this not just as an opportunity, but a teachable moment. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members how they coach team members to make this move and got much wise counsel in return. Their ideas might improve how you approach this with your employees. 1. TRUST YOUR PEOPLE I tell them I am trusting them, and in turn, they need to trust their people. Trust is giving someone an ass…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Florida’s particularly intense overheating during the Pandemic Housing Boom is the key reason for its downside pricing vulnerability. While U.S. home prices rose +41% between March 2020 and June 2022, Florida home prices surged +51% over the same period—leaving some parts of the state significantly overvalued. Only, it takes a large enough shift in the supply-demand equilibrium for that vulnerability to manifest into falling prices. Of course, over the past three years, 5 factors have come together to create a supply-demand equilibrium shift large en…

The modern kitchen has become a canvas for self-expression, a place where consumers obsess over aesthetics and materials with an intensity usually reserved for fashion. They carefully consider the color of their Dutch oven, the kind of wood in their cutting board, and where to display their glass canisters. And yet, tucked into the corner of that same beautiful kitchen, is almost certainly an unattractive trash can that looks like it was designed in 2000 and never revisited. The home goods market is massive and growing. It was valued at $960 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2030. But aside from premium brand SimpleHuman, which paved the way for …

Novo Nordisk just launched a new subscription program for Wegovy customers. In an announcement Tuesday, the Danish GLP-1 maker said the new program will help “reduce cost uncertainty” so that people can maintain access to their obesity drugs. Wegovy contains semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist used for chronic weight management. Novo Nordisk also promised savings of up to $600 per year for the pill form of the drug and up to $1,200 per year for the injections with a 12-month subscription. Eligible patients can choose the self-pay options that work best for them. A three-month plan will cost users $329 per month. A six-month plan is $299 per m…

As you have probably heard, most of human history, civility was not the default setting. Societies were rougher, hierarchies more brutal, and interpersonal interactions often governed by blunt displays of power and overt physical aggression rather than kind or cordial exchanges. In medieval societies, for instance, everyday interactions were far less restrained by norms of politeness. Status determined how you were treated, and those with power often exercised it quite openly. Rudeness, intimidation, and direct confrontation were not social faux pas so much as ordinary features of life in rigidly stratified societies. Fortunately, we have come a long way. Today, succe…

In 2019, Colorado adopted a law prohibiting conversion therapy for minors. It defined the controversial term as any practice or treatment attempting “to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” But a talk therapist from the state, Kasey Chiles, said the law inhibited her right to free speech in her practice—and as of a ruling on Tuesday, March 31, the Supreme Court voted overwhelmingly in her favor. The Supreme Court decided 8-1 to strike down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors, setting a precedent that could undermine similar laws in 23 states and the District of Columbia. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch justified …

Anyone who has spent time in a workplace knows the “go-to” person. They are the colleague who can figure things out when others cannot, and who steps in when something complicated needs to get done. Early in your career, becoming that person feels like success. In many ways, it is. Being capable accelerates opportunity. Leaders notice you, people trust you, and your reputation grows. But over time, something subtle happens. The more capable you prove yourself to be, the more people rely on you. I call this the capability curse. The capability curse occurs when someone’s proven ability to solve problems leads others to depend on them for nearly every challe…