What's on Your Mind?

Spring break season is in full swing, and summer vacations will be here before you know it. Layoff fears, however, have some Americans forgoing their paid time off (PTO) just when they need it the most—but experts warn pushing themselves won’t help their careers, either. According to a new survey conducted by outplacement services provider Careerminds, 17.5% of American workers worry that using their PTO will make them more vulnerable to layoffs, and an equal proportion believe it will negatively impact performance reviews or promotion opportunities. “It’s not paranoia; it’s being pragmatic,” says Amanda Augustine, a certified professional career coach for Careerm…

Canva’s new AI tool, launching today, is going to save time, money, and headaches for so many people. Called Magic Layers, it turns any flat bitmap image into a fully editable Canva project, extracting text, objects, and components into individual layers. This tool marks a fundamental shift in how we handle digital assets. Until now, a rendered image was basically a locked vault of pixels. If you wanted to change a typo or swap a background, you had four options: 1) Hunt down the original project file, 2) painstakingly change it in Photoshop, 3) accept a generative AI patch job, or 4) close the laptop and escape to live a real life somewhere by a nice beach. Magic Layers…

Fast Company will be back in Austin, Texas this March 13–16 for its 13th annual Fast Company Grill at South by Southwest. Hosted at Cedar Door Patio Bar & Grill in downtown Austin, attendees can expect four days packed with engaging programming, networking opportunities, activations and raffles, delicious food and drinks, live musical performances, and exclusive parties. We have a compelling lineup of speakers joining us, including: Ben Cohen, Cofounder, Ben & Jerry’s John Stamos, Actor, Producer, Author, and Chief Innovation Officer, Zeam RJ Scaringe, Founder and CEO, Rivian Lana Condor, Actor, “Pretty Lethal” Maddie Ziegler, Actor…

Shares in Bumble Inc. (Nasdaq: BMBL), maker of the Bumble dating app, are surging this morning after the company announced its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results. The stock price bounce will be a relief to investors in dating companies, an industry that has suffered severely in recent years due to so-called swipe fatigue among users. Here’s what you need to know about Bumble’s earnings and why its stock is surging this morning. Bumble beats on Q4 revenue Today, Bumble reported its Q4 2025 results. And on the surface, those results weren’t great. As a matter of fact, just purely based on a year-over-year comparison, many of the company’s most import…

Since its founding in 2010, GoFundMe has become the go-to platform for helping others in need, with more than $50 million raised every week and more than 8,000 fundraising campaigns launched every day. But using the platform to raise money from friends, family, and generous acquaintances or strangers often doesn’t come naturally, especially when people are already dealing with a traumatic situation like a house fire, medical problem, or other emergency. “In order for help to occur, people have to do something quite difficult, which is asking for help,” says GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan. “That’s something that almost no one likes doing, so it’s a hard threshold to cro…

When Kevin Ketels bought an electric 2026 Chevrolet Blazer last year, he wasn’t thinking about the cost of gas. He just thought EVs were better and “wanted to be part of the future.” Now that the Iran war is spiking prices at the pump, the Detroit man is happy he is no longer filling up his 11-year-old gas-powered SUV. “Electricity can go up, but it won’t go up nearly as much as gas will and it won’t go up nearly as fast, either,” said Ketels, 55, an assistant professor of global supply chain management at Wayne State University. Experts say prolonged high gas prices may drive some EV interest and sales, especially if drivers assume their electricity prices won’t be aff…

We’re now one month into a partial U.S. government shutdown due to a Department of Homeland Security funding lapse. Yet, employees with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are still expected to show up for work. As of last Friday, many TSA employees missed their first full payday and instead received $0 paychecks. Due to financial concerns, many have been calling out sick or resigning to find alternative income sources. Staffing issues have led to longer lines and increased wait times at U.S. airport security checkpoints nationwide. Now the CEOs of major U.S. airlines are publicly calling on Washington to end the shutdown. In an open le…

Getting good sleep is critical. A 2018 study found that people who sleep for five to six hours are 19% less productive than people who regularly sleep for seven to eight hours per night. People who sleep for fewer than five hours are nearly 30% less productive. Sure, they’re awake longer. But they actually get less done. That’s because other research shows that only getting six hours of sleep makes any task that requires focus, deep thinking, or problem-solving a lot harder. In fact, where attention and reaction time are concerned, only sleeping six hours is like drinking a couple of beers, and only sleeping four hours is like drinking five beers. Other research s…

During the final weeks of his battle with ALS, the late actor Eric Dane teamed up with ElevenLabs to restore his voice with the use of artificial intelligence technology—creating an emotional moment for his family, friends, and nurses when they heard how authentic it was. “The final version of Eric’s voice sounded exactly like him,” Rebecca Gayheart Dane, his widow, said during a recent discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “If you are familiar with him at all, you know he had a very distinct voice and he had a distinct way of telling his stories—he was witty, acerbic, he just had a lot of personality—and this voice captured that so perfectly. It sounded so re…

Unlike on the popular TV series Severance, most people don’t get to disconnect from what’s happening in the rest of their lives when they arrive at work each day. While employees can take steps to manage their stress and anxiety, it’s also imperative that employers have their backs—and foster a work environment that prioritizes mental health. The constant barrage of unsettling news headlines, economic uncertainty, and concerns about job security create a heavy cognitive load for many American workers that’s only made worse by an “always-on” hustle culture, which also causes burnout. To address this systemic exhaustion, the best leaders are those who practice…

Introspection? Marc Andreessen’s never heard of it. Speaking on David Senra’s podcast, the cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest venture capital firms, said he has “zero” levels of introspection: “As little as possible. Move forward. Go,” he added. “I find that people who dwell on the past get stuck in the past,” he said in the interview. “It’s a problem at work and it’s a problem at home.” The noted AI accelerationist went on to state that introspection is a “manufacture” of the early 1900s. Sigmund Freud and his peers are held responsible, according to Andreessen, for introducing concepts such as second guessing, guilt and self-criticism. …

For the past two years, the dominant corporate conversation around artificial intelligence has been painfully predictable. Executives talk about productivity, copilots, efficiency gains, and cost savings. Boards demand AI road maps. Consultants package urgency into slides. Entire organizations scramble to prove that they are “doing something with AI.” But beneath all that noise lies a much bigger shift, one that many companies still seem determined not to see: AI is not simply a tool for making organizations more efficient. It is a technology that changes the minimum viable size of an organization. And once that happens, many of the assumptions that defined the mo…

Global energy prices soared Thursday after Iran attacked two oil refineries in Kuwait and a key natural gas facility in Qatar that can supply one-fifth of the world’s liquified natural gas. The attacks added to fears the energy crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic may be longer and more extensive than feared, with lasting damage to oil and gas production. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose nearly 6% to $113.77 per barrel, up from less than $73 per barrel on the eve of the war. U.S. benchmark crude was less affected by the latest attacks in the Middle East, rising less than 1% to $96.26 per barrel. The European TTF benchm…

Most organizations genuinely want to support their people. We invest in wellness apps, coaching programs, and leadership development, all with good intentions. Yet burnout rates keep climbing. Aflac’s WorkForces Report from November 2024 referenced that burnout affected nearly 3 in 5 American workers with employees experiencing high levels of stress rising to 38% in 2024, up from 33% in 2023. The issue isn’t effort or resources. It may simply be that we’re solving for the wrong problem. I recently sat down with Natallia Miranchuk, founder of SOULA, an AI-powered emotional support platform that combines neuroscience, health expertise, and artificial intelligence to add…

When actress Maddie Ziegler first read the script for the film Pretty Lethal, which premiered at SXSW over the weekend, she was immediately drawn to it because of its authenticity—even if, sure, the ballerinas are also seen scrappily fighting like a bunch of feral cats. “There’s been so many dance films that have not accurately depicted what it’s like to be a real-life ballerina,” Ziegler said during a panel discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. After first gaining fame as a young dancer on the reality show, Dance Moms, Ziegler had strayed from dance to instead pursue acting, and this project proved both emotional and cathartic for her. “It just completel…

A daunting stream of testimony and evidence has been presented in a New Mexico case that explores what the social media conglomerate Meta knew about the effects of its platforms on children. State prosecutors allege Meta failed to disclose the risks that its platforms pose for children, including mental health problems and sexual exploitation. Meta’s attorneys have said the company has built-in protections for teenagers and weeds out harmful content but the company acknowledges some dangerous content gets past its safety nets. Attorneys prepared for closing arguments to jurors next week after Meta on Friday closed out its showing of testimony and evidence and the …

When Rare Beauty, Bogg, and Goodles arrived in stores, they had to vie for shelf space with well-established brands making beauty products or beach bags or boxes of macaroni and cheese. But these brands quickly amassed cult-like followings by being very intentional with their missions to foster a sense of loyalty with customers. Although her legions of fans might have lined up to try the beauty products in Selena Gomez’s line, Rare Beauty, the company was founded with a bigger mission baked in: To support youth mental health by donating 1% sales to the Rare Impact Fund. While the company has found that customers will come for the products, they stay for the mission, E…

To sell the idea of last year’s Wienie 500 to Oscar Mayer, creative agency Johannes Leonardo used AI to show what a race among the iconic Wienermobiles might look like when they took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s historic oval. “That is an inherently brilliant idea that most people will go, ‘That’s fun,’” said the agency’s CEO, Helen Andrews, during a panel discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “It’s a good example of how AI can accelerate creativity, not replace it.” While AI can be a powerful way for brands to accelerate production and analyze consumer data, creative types must recognize that just because they can use these tools doesn’t mean they…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Google’s AI, Gemini, has quickly become one of the AI tools I rely on most. It builds dashboards and creates remarkable infographics. It spins out comprehensive research reports in minutes that would once have taken days to assemble. It’s improving every month. On March 13, Google announced Ask Maps, so you can query Gemini about things like “Which nearby tennis courts are open with lights so I can play tonight?” On March 10, Gemini added new integrations to build, summarize, and analyze your Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Here …

For the past several months, the food scientists at PepsiCo have been working overtime to dream up new products that meet young consumers’ health and wellness demands. First, there was a new Starbucks coffee protein drink. Then, there were dustless Cheetos. And now, the company’s latest innovation is Doritos Protein. Doritos Protein launched in select retailers this month and come in two different flavors: classic Nacho Cheese and Sweet & Tangy BBQ. One 28 gram serving of these chips contains 10 grams of protein and 150 calories, compared to the meager two grams of protein in a 28 gram, 150 calorie serving of standard Doritos Nacho Cheese. And, unlike regular Dor…

Trust hasn’t disappeared from business. It’s been renegotiated. As artificial intelligence moves from novelty to infrastructure, people are changing how they decide who deserves credibility. In Mission North’s 2026 Brand Expectations Index, we surveyed more than 1,500 U.S. adults and knowledge workers to understand what builds trust today, and what quietly undermines it. Some of the results run directly against conventional thinking. Here are five rules for 2026. 1. Visibility alone doesn’t build credibility For years, executive communications equated presence with power: more interviews, more panels, more posts. But only 24% of respondents say frequent CEO…

When leadership trends become corporate wallpaper, they risk losing the very edge that made them useful in the first place. That’s where psychological safety risks finding itself today. It’s plastered on slide decks, plugged into engagement surveys, and whispered in HR circles as the answer to “Why don’t people speak up?” but it’s rarely connected to what happens after someone actually does speak up. This distinction between permission to speak and protection from consequences matters more than leaders often realize. Psychological safety tells you that people feel comfortable raising questions or concerns and that they believe they won’t be overtly sanctioned for …

Fashion resale company Poshmark just got its first app redesign in 15 years, and it’s taking a page out of Depop’s book of UI. The new look encompasses an updated algorithm, redesigned navigational tools, and a new, streamlined aesthetic. It comes as a pivotal moment for the second market, which, according to ThredUp’s 2025 Resale Report, is expected to reach $367 billion by 2029, growing 2.7 times faster than the overall global apparel market. The majority of this growth, the report notes, has been driven by young consumers—millennials, Gen Zers, and Gen Alpha shoppers who are familiar with buying products through apps or in-app features like TikTok Shop. And com…