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We need to talk about AI. Have you noticed it often just isn’t—well, very intelligent? Already, we’ve lived through years of AI hype. We’ve watched companies pitch AI as a great tool for writing boring corporate emails. We’ve seen it shoehorned into all kinds of places it doesn’t belong. And it’s often just been bad. We’re all exhausted. So let’s cut through the fluff: The AI we’re about to go over is actually impressive. I’ve never felt that AI truly delivered—until now. I’m genuinely impressed—and I didn’t expect to be. If you’re intrigued, great! If you’re thinking, “We’ll see about that,” that’s also OK—don’t take my word for it. You truly need to try it y…

Struggling to get enough spinach in your diet? Rather than rustling up a salad or green smoothie, one TikToker has a rather unusual hack to ensure she hits her daily greens goal. “I call it dinosaur time,” TikTok user @sahmthingsup said in a video posted last month, wherein she stands over the sink and stuffs handfuls of raw spinach into her mouth. While it may not be the most appetizing way to consume the leafy greens, the food “hack” has already racked up more than one million views. “For added enrichment, put on a dinosaur documentary,” one user commented. Another added: “My life changed when I realized I could do this with any food I should be getting…

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you carefully laid out all the context for your manager, only to have them cut you off? Or maybe you’ve found you’re eager to dive into the tactical details of a project while they keep steering the conversation back to vision. These moments can leave you frustrated and confused. You’re doing what seems logical, yet somehow it’s not landing. The good news is that these disconnects usually aren’t about your competency or the quality of your ideas— they’re about different styles. Studies have found that two primary dimensions shape how people communicate and approach their interactions at work. The first is dominanc…

March might be over but the madness continues into April. The NCAA’s 68 Division I men’s college basketball teams have battled it out on the courts in single-elimination play, leaving four teams standing. This year the Final Four have something in common: They all were granted No. 1 seeds on Selection Sunday. Duke, Florida, Auburn, and Houston were all safe bets when filling out a bracket, and they delivered on that promise. Here’s what you need to know heading into the remaining competition, and how to tune in. Do the No. 1 seed teams always make it to the end? The short answer is no. This is only the second time in history this has happened. The last time was 200…

It’s a story that sounds almost too outrageous to be true. Deel, a $12 billion company in the HR tech space, is facing serious allegations of corporate espionage, according to a lawsuit filed by its competitor, Rippling. The lawsuit—filed earlier this month in a California court—claims Deel orchestrated a “multi-month campaign to steal a competitor’s business information with help from a corporate spy.” Rippling alleges that Deel planted an employee to infiltrate its operations, targeting customers in an effort to lure them away. According to the suit, the alleged spying lasted over four months. During that time, the employee (identified in court documents only by…

Spotify just opened up a new stream of revenue for podcasters. That is, if they’re uploading video. What was once an audio-first medium, podcasting is now increasingly filmed and produced. That started on YouTube, which is now racking up one billion podcast viewers a month. While Spotify has hosted podcasts for a decade now, the company is suddenly racing to stay competitive, rolling out new features and monetization tools. That includes their Partner Program, which allows podcasters to earn money directly from the streams of premium subscribers, so long as they’re using a video aspect. “We decided to focus on video because that’s where we see a lot of audiences…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. When I was 12 years old, my parents enrolled me in a kids’ coding class at the YMCA. This was 1983—before the internet—typing code from magazines like Compute! into a computer with a green-on-black screen and seeing what it did. And the experience would go on to shape the course of my life. I’ve been in software for more than 30 years, most of them at Intuit. I started there as a software en…

Tj Power is the lead neuroscientist at the DOSE Lab and cofounder of Neurify, a trailblazing organization in the mental health sector. He is also a renowned international speaker, having captivated audiences worldwide and worked with major corporations and health services. What’s the big idea? Human brain chemistry is at odds with modern lifestyles. The activities and habits that naturally boost dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins have been largely replaced by routines that leave us feeling depleted. Uplift mood, tune focus, boost energy, and deepen relationships by fostering optimum conditions for your body’s favorite neurotransmitters. Below, Tj sha…

He’s not a movie buff, so New York musician Larry Saltzman doesn’t always watch the Oscars. This year, however, he’s got a rooting interest. Saltzman taught actor Timothée Chalamet how to play guitar for the role of Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” In turn, Chalamet earned a best actor nomination and the film is also up for best picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday. A guitarist who’s performed with Simon & Garfunkel, Bette Midler and David Johansen, as well as in the pit at Broadway productions “Hairspray” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” Saltzman has developed a specialty in teaching actors how to play music for their roles. Besides Chalamet, recent pupils …

The Daytona 500 is one of the more challenging races on the NASCAR circuit. The speedway is long and narrow, forcing drivers to be more aggressive. And the weather in central Florida doesn’t always cooperate. During the 2024 event, a deluge of rain had forced a Monday conclusion. After 41 lead changes and with only eight laps to go, a crash involving half the field prompted a red flag and a 15-minute delay. At the end, another collision between leader Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric opened the door for William Byron to zip by and take the checkered flag. Byron’s win wasn’t a huge surprise—he’d notched 10 prior wins on the NASCAR circuit—but his backstory is unusual.…

James Chappel is an associate professor of history at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center. He is the author of Catholic Modern, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and The New Republic. What’s the big idea? Aging in America is becoming one of our country’s most important policy arenas. With more old citizens than young ones, the relevance of elder members in society has never been greater. Despite great progress in the quality of old age over the past century, there is much need for growth in terms of practical policy and cultural perceptions. Below, Chappel shares five key insights from his new book, Golden …

The new Netflix series Running Point stars Kate Hudson as president of a fictional pro basketball team, the Los Angeles Waves. And the Pepperdine Waves have a problem with it. Attorneys for Pepperdine University in Malibu have filed a lawsuit against the streaming service and Warner Bros. Entertainment arguing they “have taken valuable intellectual property” from the school and infringed on its trademark ahead of the show’s premiere today. Attorneys for the University claim the fictional team’s branding is too similar to its own, and that it uses the same blue and orange team colors and mascot. They argue this will create consumer confusion and falsely suggest a link …

Remember when Netflix cost $9 per month and The New York Times website was free? Well, the days of online media feeling like a bargain are long gone. Today, it’s become a costly convenience. But there are still great deals to be had, thanks to cheap yearlong introductory subscriptions, budget bundles, and libraries. One thing to skip: those one-month free trials that are easy to sign up for but even easier to forget to cancel. Here are some of the best ways to truly save on digital media. Free content with ads or from the library Free news sources include the Associated Press, the BBC, DW (Germany’s international broadcaster, available in English), The Free…

When White Lotus first season debuted in 2021 and shot to near-instant acclaim, it was a sleeper hit for HBO. But now, four years later, HBO is well aware of just how enthusiastic White Lotus’s fanbase has become—and, to tap into the show’s highly online viewership, its marketing team has decided to officially don their tin foil hats and fangirl right alongside the rest of us. White Lotus recently debuted its own TikTok page dedicated to stirring up conversation around the show’s third season, which just debuted. It’s the first time that the show itself will have a separate TikTok presence from HBO’s broader account. White Lotus’s marketing team is in a unique positio…

Meghan carries many titles these days. Besides being the Duchess of Sussex, she’s a podcaster, a philanthropist, a children’s book author, the star of a Netflix show, and the founder of a direct-to-consumer startup. But when I sit down to speak with her, she says she’s recently taken on a new role: that of Tooth Fairy. Archie, her 6-year-old son, recently lost his first tooth. Meghan rushed home to ensure she could be the one to leave a little money and a small dinosaur under his pillow. At 2 a.m., Archie woke Meghan up excitedly to tell her what had happened. “I had a lot of business meetings the next morning, but I still chose to cuddle with him the rest of the nigh…

Alexander Balan was on a California beach when the idea for a new kind of drone came to him. While tossing a football, he realized that its form factor could translate into a lightweight unmanned aerial system (UAS) designed for rapid deployment and autonomous targeting. This eureka moment led Balan to found Xdown, the company that’s building the P.S. Killer (PSK)—an autonomous kamikaze drone that works like a hand grenade and can be thrown like a football. To create the PSK, Xdown teamed up with several defense companies, including Corvid Technologies, a North Carolina-based military contractor that specializes in the design, development, and prototyping of weap…

Intel‘s promised $28 billion chip fabrication plants in Ohio are facing further delays, with the first factory in New Albany expected to not be completed until 2030, local media outlet The Columbus Dispatch reported on Friday. The first factory will begin operations sometime shortly thereafter in either 2030 or 2031, the report said, citing the chipmaker. Shares of the company, which originally scheduled to begin chipmaking in Ohio factories in 2025, were up more than 5%. Intel has been cutting capital expenses after its expensive bid to become a contract chip manufacturer for other companies, in a move to restore its lost glory, strained its balance sheet. …

The Girl Scouts have been sued by consumers over the alleged presence of “heavy metals” and pesticides in its popular Thin Mints and other cookies. A proposed class action lawsuit was filed on Monday night in federal court in the New York City borough of Brooklyn against the 113-year-old nonprofit and the cookies’ licensed producers, ABC Bakers and Ferrero USA’s Little Brownie Bakers. It cited a December 2024 study commissioned by GMO Science and Moms Across America that tested samples of 25 cookies from three U.S. states. The study said Girl Scout cookies contained at least four of five heavy metals – aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury – that can ha…

Graham Allcott has written six books, including the global bestseller How to Be a Productivity Ninja. He is the founder of Think Productive and has privately coached prominent international business leaders. What’s the big idea? Kindness, empathy, and psychological safety at work are not just fluffy, hippie ideas. They are key drivers of outstanding performance. Kindness is a practice that requires strength, skill, and intentionality. With it, every team can create an environment of abundant wellbeing, innovation, and growth. Below, Graham shares five key insights from his new book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work. Listen to the audio version—read by …

The tops of dried, bent cornstalks crunch underfoot. Jill Holtz’s gaze is fixed on the ground ahead. She wanders into the nearby woods and weaves between twisted branches. Then, Holtz spots something and starts to riffle through the withered twigs. To the untrained eye, it’s easy to overlook. But for Holtz, it’s instantaneous recognition. Scraggly, white lines give the appearance of shattered glass, but a name can still be made out at the top. It is a sonogram strip—crinkled, abused by the elements, but intact. In early February, Holtz combed through parts of a flattened cornfield in Swannanoa, North Carolina—a rural area razed by fierce floodwaters from Hurri…

Cloud-based designer platform Figma on Tuesday confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the United States, more than a year after a $20 billion deal to be acquired by Adobe was shelved due to regulatory roadblocks. Figma had been widely considered as a candidate to go public after antitrust regulators in Europe and Britain blocked Adobe’s deal in December 2023 in what would have been one of the biggest acquisitions of a software startup. Last year, Figma was valued at $12.5 billion after it closed a deal to allow its employees and early investors to sell their stake to new and existing investors. The U.S. IPO market, which made a strong comeback …

As we enter spring, the days may be getting longer, but the average workday seems to be contracting. Corporate employees in the U.S. now seem to be ending their day at 4:39 p.m., according to a new report by the workforce analytics platform ActivTrak. That’s more than 40 minutes earlier than when workers clocked out just two years prior. While employees still start their day on average just before 8 a.m., the average length of the workday has dropped to about eight hours and 44 minutes. The report, which looked at data from nearly 220,000 workers at 777 companies, indicates that productivity has actually increased by 2% despite the slight reduction in time worked. Som…