What's on Your Mind?

Like many people, I use AI for quick, practical tasks. But two recent interactions made me pay closer attention to how easily these systems slip into emotional validation. In both cases, the model praised, affirmed, and echoed back feelings that weren’t actually there. I uploaded photos of my living room for holiday decorating tips, including a close-up of the ceramic stockings my late mother hand painted. The model praised the stockings and thanked me for sharing something “so meaningful,” as if it understood the weight of them. A few days later, something similar happened at work. I finished a long run, came home with an idea, and dropped it into ChatGPT to pres…

For many office workers, the typical “lunch hour” is a sad desk lunch of a sandwich or slop bowl supplemented by a rotating schedule of snacks. According to a poll conducted by Yahoo and YouGov, half of employed Americans regularly eat at their workstations. And now they’re sharing it all on TikTok. Office snack content is hooking viewers online with captions such as “WIEIAD” (what I eat in a day) and “what I ate at my 8-4,” featuring office workers’ time-stamped eating schedules. Employees post montages of their morning coffee and breakfast of choice, followed by a time-lapse video of a variety of snacks and beverages consumed at their desk. Some videos have vo…

I’ve tried them all. A fancy planner, “perfect” workout routines, ambitious ways to read more, and writing rituals to get more done. I did the research. But what ultimately worked is something called the kaizen incremental method. An idea is from Japanese manufacturing, of all places. It means “continuous improvement.” The practice of tiny actions. A step so small your brain’s resistance (a built-in fight-or-flight response to big, scary changes) doesn’t even bother to fight it. I use the kaizen approach as a backdoor to building new neural pathways. I’m not forcing change; I’m gently guiding my brain into new habits, one step at a time. That’s how I started writ…

One of Michael’s friends told him recently, “I’m not burned out; I’m just feeling empty.” She shows up, meets deadlines, and manages to smile in meetings. But her work feels weightless and disconnected from purpose. She’s not alone. Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report found that only 21% of employees worldwide are engaged, and just one in three say they’re thriving. That’s not a blip—it’s a warning signal for leaders and cultures. When emptiness shows up at work, our reflex is to pathologize: “Is this burnout? Do I need a diagnosis?” Sometimes, yes—clinical conditions require clinical care. However, many of today’s struggles are fundamentally philosophi…

“Somehow, it didn’t leak.” When I caught up with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe after the company’s “AI & Autonomy Day” keynote on December 11 at its Palo Alto headquarters, he marveled that the company had managed to keep the event’s news under wraps until it was ready for its big reveal. It did—and there was a lot to discuss. At the keynote, Rivian unveiled its Gen 3 platform, which will turn the maker of EV trucks, SUVs, and vans into an autonomy company, a focus he says will subsume “the whole business” of transportation. Debuting late next year in a version of the upcoming R2 SUV, the Rivian Autonomy Computer platform is powered by a chip the comp…

Finding the perfect (and legal) image for your blog post, social media update, or presentation is about as fun as doing your own taxes. You want something high-quality, relevant, and —most importantly—free. Fear not, budget-conscious content creators. I’ve been using free images for years now, and I’ve routinely leveraged three dynamite resources that specialize in stunning, royalty-free imagery. So, put away your wallets: We’re going content hunting. Unsplash First stop: Unsplash. This site is a veritable goldmine of breathtaking, high-resolution photography, all generously contributed by a community of talented photographers. Whether you’…

At the Exceptional Women Alliance (EWA), we bring together accomplished women who mentor, support, and challenge one another to grow as leaders, women, and as human beings. Each month we highlight one of these extraordinary voices and the insights that define her approach to leadership and life. This month I spoke with Mindy Mackenzie, former interim CEO of Beautycounter, longtime advisor to portfolio companies at The Carlyle Group, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Courage Solution: The Power of Truth Telling with Your Boss, Peers, and Team. Mindy’s leadership philosophy challenges the belief that progress requires constant motion. She believes th…

AI is quickly moving beyond rote tasks and into the realm of bigger-picture decisions that once relied only on human judgment. As companies treat AI as a thinking partner, the technology also introduces new risks. But the efficiency gains are hard to ignore, and companies are going head first into adoption. “It’s very much like a chief of staff or a senior adviser,” says Stacy Spikes, CEO of cinema subscription service MoviePass. To Spikes, AI platforms are a second or third set of eyes, helping him approach vendors or handle tricky people-to-people situations. He says he treats AI as a sounding board, not a decider. “I’m not letting it make the decision for me, …

LinkedIn is often seen as the purview of recruiters and thought leaders. But the professional networking platform is quietly attracting a rather unexpected audience. According to recent data, 18- to 24-year-olds now make up 20.5% of its user base. That tracks, as college students and recent grads enter a cutthroat job market, eager to build a personal brand and online résumé that might help them stand out from the competition. What’s more surprising is that high schoolers are also getting in on the game younger than ever, treating the platform as a means to get ahead. High school students are discussing how having a professional online presence before even beginn…

Tom Freston could easily fill a book with stories from the formative days of MTV and his celebrity encounters — Bono would merit a few chapters on his own. Ultimately, though, Freston feels that his life has a more valuable lesson to offer. His memoir, “Unplugged,” shows by example that trying to follow a straight line to success is not the only path. Freston, 80, was at MTV from the start and became its leader, along with sister networks Comedy Central, VH1, and Nickelodeon, at their greatest periods of success. He rose to become CEO of parent corporation Viacom before chairman Sumner Redstone’s impatience led to his ouster in 2006. Since then, Freston has la…

Stretch fabrics are notoriously hard to process. When your old leggings wear out, they will probably end up in a landfill—even if you try to drop them off for recycling. But a Manhattan startup has developed a new material that could finally make this corner of the apparel industry circular. “There’s a reason why billions of pounds of textiles ends up in landfills,” says Gangadhar Jogikalmath, cofounder and chief technology officer of the startup, called Return to Vendor. “When we dial it down to the microscopic scale, it’s because everything that we wear has blends of yarn put together to create this apparel— nylon blended with spandex, wool with nylon, cotton, polye…

A lot has been written about how AI is coming for your job, but EY’s latest AI survey found some surprising results. Out of 500 top executives at major U.S. companies who said artificial intelligence was boosting productivity at their companies, only 17% of those polled actually turned around and laid off workers or cut their jobs. Instead, the new survey found they are reinvesting those gains back into the company. “Executives are plowing productivity gains right back into more AI tools and more talented people,” EY America’s consulting leader Colm Sparks Austin said. “The real breakthrough isn’t automation—it’s amplification. Leading companies are using AI …

The robots won’t be replacing us, but we will increasingly be working side-by-side with artificial intelligence tools that can then learn from our human expertise. That’s one conclusion of researchers and engineers who are applying AI to the physical world in transformative ways, from autonomous vehicles to microscopes for detecting malaria to the design of wholly new materials. And there’s a balance to be struck between automation and human expertise, according to K.T. Ramesh, the Alonzo G. Decker Jr. professor of science of and engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a senior advisor to the university’s president for AI. “We can develop autonomous resea…

IBM announced on Monday it is acquiring Confluent for $11 billion, sending shares of the data streaming platform up about 29% in morning trading. By midday trading, at the time of this writing, Confluent (CFLT) stock was holding steady, up 29%. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) stock was up about 1.5%. Confluent provides a leading open-source enterprise data streaming platform that connects, processes, and governs reusable and reliable data and events in real time, foundational for the deployment of AI. The deal is an example of how IBM is actively engaging in the increasingly competitive, high-stakes AI arms race that’s now dominating technolo…

Five years ago, an algorithm decided whether your résumé ever reached a recruiter. Now, it might be the one asking you the questions. It can feel unsettling to imagine a machine assessing not just what you say, but how you say it: tone, cadence, word choice, even microexpressions. These patterns feed models that generate a “fit” score, determining whether you ever reach a human being. Agentic AI allows what appears to be a genuine two-way conversation, simulating a first-round interview more realistically than the one-way video prompts of the past. Companies are drawn to it for clear reasons: speed, consistency, and scale. But that efficiency comes with trade…

In Apple’s new holiday ad, “A Critter Carol,” a group of woodland puppets frolic in a wintery forest to a wildlife-themed parody of the Flight of the Conchords’s song Friends. Every element, from the puppets to the set and even the ad’s typography, was rendered using practical effects. The ad was directed by TBWA\Media Arts Lab (MAL)—a bespoke global agency that partners only with Apple—and shot on an iPhone 17 Pro. It appears to be building on a larger marketing theme for Apple. Just this November, MAL worked with the company to create a new visual identity for Apple TV using real glass props and colorful lighting. This kind of work stands out in a marketi…

Ocean waves could be an enormous source of power for the grid: in the U.S., the motion of waves along coastlines could generate as much as 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours a year, or around a third of the electricity that Americans currently use. But wave power lags far behind other renewable energy. While solar and wind dominate new power installations worldwide, wave energy remains confined to small pilot projects. This makes sense: It’s more expensive to build. And harsh ocean conditions make equipment vulnerable to damage in storms. But in Morocco, one startup is pioneering new technology that could make wave energy more viable, with projects now moving forward at …