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While working as an engineer at Tesla, Niccolo Cymbalist never planned to start a business. But he’d been considering an idea for new technology—an autonomous, wind-powered cargo ship. Then, while on paternity leave in 2024, he discovered a free program that helps scientists and engineers launch businesses for the first time. Weeks after finishing the program, called 5050, Cymbalist had launched a startup called Clippership. The company’s first ship is being built in the Netherlands this year. Without the accelerator, he says, the company likely wouldn’t exist. The program has now helped scientists and engineers launch 100 businesses, from Huminly, which uses enzy…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. This bonus newsletter from Davos explores the strategic relationship between CEOs and chief technology officers. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. In my previous life as a technology journalist, I wrote and edited countless stories about corporate chief technology officers (CTOs) emerging as key partners to their counterparts in the C-suite. When marketing functions became more data-driven, chief marketing officers clamored for attention from product and engineering. Today, chief financial offic…

For decades, people with disabilities have relied on service dogs to help them perform daily tasks like opening doors, turning on lights, or alerting caregivers to emergencies. By some estimates, there are 500,000 service dogs in the U.S., but little attention has been paid to the fact that these dogs have been trained to interact with interfaces that are made for humans. A team of researchers from the United Kingdom wants to change that by designing accessible products for, and with dogs. The Open University’s Animal-Computer Interaction Laboratory in the UK was founded in 2011 to help promote the art and science of designing animal-centered systems. Led by Clara Man…

Let me set a scene for you: A manager at a tech company pings his team at 6:01 p.m., asking for a “quick favor before morning?” The millennial responds instantly with “Sure, give me a sec” while texting their partner to warn they will be late for their kids’ game. The Gen X employee gives a thumbs-up emoji and plans to do the work after the kids are asleep. The Gen Z parent has a different vibe altogether, responding, “I’m offline for day care pickup and will handle in the morning,” then logging off. It’s a move that likely stuns most millennial and Gen X colleagues, but this is what happens when boundary-setting appears in a workplace built around p…

Shares of Facebook owner Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) are surging in premarket trading this morning after the company announced its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings yesterday afternoon. The earnings not only exceeded investor expectations, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg also laid out his vision for how artificial intelligence is set to transform the company—and personal computing—in the years ahead. Here’s what you need to know. Meta reports strong Q4 2025 earnings Expectations for Meta’s Q4 2025 were relatively high, but when the company announced its latest quarterly earnings after the bell last night, they exceeded what most investors had hoped for. Here are the…

For business partners Victoria Jackson and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, their lives are intermingled with work. As cofounders of 15-month-old bookstore Godmothers in Summerland, California, the pair have built a space that they both longed for: a bookstore perched on a magical slice of Santa Barbara County, outfitted with cozy nooks to read and gather, a cafe, and an events space for author events and workshops. Since its September 2024 opening the space has become a beacon of community, creativity and conversation––what Walsh calls “a beautiful creative cathedral” for everyone from that mom in carpool to Oprah Winfrey. “Godmothers is a great representation of coming up w…

The University of California Irvine’s new healthcare campus has a long list of innovative features, from its combined inpatient-outpatient surgical suite to its outdoor chemotherapy infusion terrace to an entire floor dedicated to staff only. The one thing it doesn’t have is a gas line. The multi-building healthcare campus with 144 hospital beds officially opened in December as one of a very few major hospitals around the world that runs entirely on electricity. CO Architects, which designed the all-electric hospital alongside design-build partner Hensel Phelps, claims it’s the only hospital larger than 500,000 square feet to pull this off. “Healthcare is just…

Pizza Hut is closing hundreds of “underperforming” locations nationwide, according to parent company Yum! Brands, which reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings on Wednesday. The company said it will shutter about 3% of Pizza Hut’s U.S. locations, or some 250 locations in the first six months of 2026, as the fast-causal chain struggles amid competition from Dominos Pizza and an overall decline in store sales and consumer demand. Fast Company has reached out to Pizza Hut for a list of locations that will be closing. Globally, Pizza Hut opened over 440 new restaurants in the fourth quarter of 2025 and nearly 1,200 restaurants in 2025, in 65 countries. Taco Bell…

Chevrolet’s latest splashy ad has all the hallmarks of a campaign strategically tied to America’s 250th anniversary. There’s the modern interpretation of a 75-year-old jingle that’s sung by an up-and-coming country singer. A bird’s-eye view of a pickup truck atop a natural landmark in Utah. A television debut on February 6 during the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics. In every choice, Chevrolet is carving out friendly, apolitical terrain at a moment when Americans have mixed feelings about such patriotism. A record-low 58% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, according to a Gallup survey from last year. That’s down 9 percentag…

Planned layoffs have now reached their highest rate since 2009’s Great Recession. The data comes from Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ new layoffs report, which revealed that U.S.-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, marking the highest rate to start a year since 2009. Also notable, in the same month, just 5,306 planned hires were announced—the lowest total on record for January. According to the data, that means layoffs are up a staggering 118% from the same period a year ago, and 205% from December 2025. “Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January,” Andy Challenger, workpla…

You’ve worked together before. You trust each other. You know how the other person thinks under pressure. On paper, it’s the safest move. In many ways, it is. Shared history creates speed—faster decisions, candid conversations, less time decoding intent. When CEOs bring former colleagues into senior roles, baseline trust feels like rocket fuel. But familiarity also introduces a hidden risk that undermines executive teams far more often than leaders anticipate. What I see repeatedly in executive teams built on shared history is the quiet formation of inner circles. Leaders who “go way back” share shorthand, context, and trust earned elsewhere. Others, often equ…

Below, Kate Murphy shares five key insights from her new book, Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony. Murphy is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Texas Monthly, among other publications. What’s the big idea? Humans are instinctively wired to sync with one another, and this invisible alignment of bodies, brains, and emotions shapes attraction, trust, and belonging. It can deepen connection and fuel cooperation, but it also makes feelings and behaviors contagious, giving each of us more influence over others than we realize. Listen to the audio version of this Book B…

MacKenzie Scott helped build one of the most recognizable companies in modern history—all while writing her first novel. As Amazon scaled from a fledging startup to a global force, Scott was simultaneously cultivating a literary life. Long before Amazon, Scott launched her literary career. While studying creative writing at Princeton University, Scott landed herself a highly coveted spot as one of Toni Morrison’s advisees, a relationship that would shape her literary pursuits. “This writer that I admired so much also turned out to be such a gifted and devoted teacher,” Scott said at the dedication for Princeton’s Morrison Hall. “She has given me a real example o…