What's on Your Mind?

When I cofounded Brilliant Earth in 2005, e-commerce was still in its infancy. I believed technology could reshape the jewelry industry entirely—changing how customers find pieces they love, personalizing their own designs, and reimagining the customer experience. We launched as a digital-first venture to do just that. Now, two decades into our pioneering digital journey, I’ve realized something surprising: Our most sophisticated online tools have actually made in-person interactions more valuable. I believe the brands leading the next wave of innovation aren’t choosing between digital and physical. They’re using digital excellence to help create meaningful in-person …

Below, Paul Leonardi shares five key insights from his new book, Digital Exhaustion: Simple Rules for Reclaiming Your Life. Paul is a professor of technology management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a frequent consultant and speaker to a wide range of companies, such as Google, Microsoft, YouTube, McKinsey, GM, and Fidelity. He is also a contributor to the Harvard Business Review. What’s the big idea? We are the first generation in human history to carry the entire world’s information, connections, and distractions in our pockets. It’s no wonder that the technology once promised to make life easier now leaves us tired and overwhelmed. Pa…

There’s bad news for those using digital surveys to try to understand people’s online behavior: We may no longer be able to determine whether a human is responding to them or not, a recent study has shown—and there seems to be no way around this problem. This means that all online canvassing could be vulnerable to misrepresenting people’s true opinions. This could have repercussions for anything that falls under the category of “information warfare,” from polling results, to misinformation, to fraud. Non-human survey respondents, in aggregate, could impact anything from flavors and pricing for a pack of gum, to something more damaging, such as whether or not someone …

Detective Mike McCaffrey laughs when I ask if they busted the door down. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies. Normally, he says, they would. But in this instance, it’s not the ticket scam perpetrator’s residence. It’s his mother’s. So, in this high-rise apartment building on 96th Street in Manhattan, he simply knocks. The mother answers, kindly, oblivious to why the NYPD is at her door on this Tuesday morning. Inside, tucked in a small living room nook, is the man they’ve come for—the son, 28-year-old Nikhil Mahtani—surrounded by cellphones and laptops, tangled in charging cables. Months earlier, the NFL had tipped off law enforcement about Craigslist ads selling tick…

Digits is taking on QuickBooks and Xero, with the world’s first AI-powered Autonomous General Ledger, allowing small business owners and accountants to put their accounting needs almost completely in the hands of AI. Digits announced the service—which went live Monday—at HumanX in Las Vegas, after working on it for the past five years in stealth mode and putting it in the hands of hundreds of companies to test out over the past year. The platform serves as an alternative to other accounting software or platforms, such as QuickBooks or Xero, but stands out as it uses its own proprietary AI technology. Jeff Seibert, the co-founder and CEO of Digits, says that puts t…

Across the U.S., the realities of healthcare affordability are reaching a breaking point, with premiums and out-of-pocket costs straining household budgets and forcing some families to consider going without coverage or delaying care, simply because they cannot pay. This isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s about everyday decisions: skipping preventive visits, postponing prescriptions, or weighing health needs against rent and groceries. As healthcare costs grow while federal funds and subsidies shift, our systems are under duress, and people are being forced to make impossible choices. In this context, the question for business leaders, in healthcare and b…

Earlier this week, Time published an explosive story about an American company that reportedly revived a long-extinct species, the dire wolf. To some, it’s a scientific miracle: Some 10,000 years after the species went extinct, the planet is once again home to three living dire wolf pups, brought about by the ingenuity of scientists at Colossal Biosciences. But let’s not mistake spectacle for substance. Yes, it’s cool that biotechnology can now create animals that resemble extinct species. Colossal is already eyeing its next acts—the woolly mammoth and the dodo. But beyond the buzz and the billion-dollar ambition, this project doesn’t offer real solutions to our plane…

The nightmare scenario of Atlantic Ocean currents collapsing, with weather running amok and putting Europe in a deep freeze, looks unlikely this century, a new study concludes. In recent years, studies have raised the alarm about the slowing and potential abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic end of the ocean conveyor belt system. It transports rising warm water north and sinking cool water south and is a key factor in global weather systems. A possible climate change -triggered shutdown of what’s called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC could play havoc with global rain patterns, dramatically cool Europe while warming the rest of the world and goose s…

Chat platform Discord filed confidentially for an initial public offering in the United States, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The U.S. IPO market regained momentum in 2025 after nearly three years of sluggish activity, but hopes for a stronger rebound were tempered by tariff-driven volatility, a prolonged government shutdown and a late-year selloff in artificial intelligence stocks. Deliberations are ongoing and the company could decide not to proceed with a listing, the report said. A Discord spokesperson told Bloomberg “the company’s focus remains on delivering the best possible experience for users and building …

Want to use Discord from next month? You’ll have to hand over a photo of your ID or a scan of your face to verify you’re of age. It’s part of a new process introduced by the chat app aimed at ensuring no one underage is using the platform. All new and existing users, the company says, will be given a “teen-appropriate experience” by default, including content filtering and limited access to spaces that host adult content. To regain the experience they previously had, users will need to prove their age through one of several options, including video selfies or sharing a photo of an identity document. (Discord did not immediately respond to Fast Company’s request for co…

The year is quickly coming to an end, and that means tech platforms are tripping over themselves to roll out their year-end recaps—all hoping to capture the virality that Spotify’s Wrapped year-in-review recap commands each year. Already in December, we’ve seen Spotify Wrapped, Apple Music Replay, Amazon Music Delivered, and YouTube Recap, with more, like the popular Snapchat Recap, set to debut in the coming weeks. One of those debuts has occurred today, as well. Popular chat platform Discord has now released its personalized Wrapped-like recap: Discord Checkpoint. Here’s what to know about it and how to view yours. Discord announced Discord Checkpoint 2025 Di…

The Walt Disney Company has agreed to pay a $10 million civil penalty as part of a settlement to resolve allegations it violated child privacy laws, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. A federal court order in the case involving Disney Worldwide Services Inc and Disney Entertainment Operations LLC also bars Disney from operating on YouTube in a manner that violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the department said. The order requires Disney to create a program that will ensure it properly complies with the privacy law on YouTube in the future, it added. The law requires websites, apps, and other online services aimed at children under 13 to…

The Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday began layoffs expected to lead to 1,000 job cuts across the company. Josh D’Amaro, who in February succeeded Bob Iger as chief executive, announced broader layoffs following a move in January to consolidate Disney’s marketing division. The cuts are expected to fall across the Burbank, California-based company’s traditional television businesses, including ESPN, as well as its movie studio. Employees in product and technology, and in certain corporate functions will also be affected. “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-…

A jury on Monday quickly and completely rejected a man’s claim that Disney’s Moana was stolen from his story of a young surfer in Hawaii. The Los Angeles federal jury deliberated for only about 2 ½ hours before deciding that the creators of Moana never had access to writer and animator Buck Woodall’s outlines and script for Bucky the Surfer Boy. With that question settled, the jury of six women and two men didn’t even have to consider the similarities between Bucky and Disney’s 2016 hit animated film about a questing Polynesian princess. Woodall had shared his work with a distant relative, who worked for a different company on the Disney lot, but the woman testified du…

Last week, Disney briefed the press on how it’s bringing the entire Hulu catalog into its Disney+ app, with a dedicated tab for accessing Hulu’s more adult-oriented fare. But despite all the headlines you might’ve seen about the Hulu app shutting down, Disney says it’s not happening anytime soon, if at all. According to Disney, the company has no timeline for getting rid of the dedicated Hulu app, and will continue to sell stand-alone Hulu subscriptions. The company still sees Hulu as an important part of its streaming strategy, serving as a catchall for content that doesn’t fall under tentpole Disney brands such as Star Wars and Marvel. Outside of the United States, …

The Walt Disney Company’s stock price soared on Wednesday, up by 10% at the time of publishing, as the company surpassed earnings expectations and unveiled its first new theme park development in 15 years. Following Disney’s second quarter earnings report, the entertainment giant announced an agreement to build a new resort and theme park in Yas Island, United Arab Emirates. “As our seventh theme park destination, it will rise from this land in spectacular fashion, blending contemporary architecture with cutting edge technology to offer guests deeply immersive entertainment experiences in unique and modern ways,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement. While…

The Walt Disney Company posted first-quarter earnings Wednesday that beat on the top and bottom lines, but it also revealed the start of predicted streaming subscriber losses at its Disney+ service. The service lost 700,000 subscribers over the final three months of 2024, which is the first quarter of Disney’s fiscal year 2025. The media and entertainment giant had warned during its fiscal fourth-quarter report in November that it expected a “modest decline” in core subscribers during the first quarter of 2025. Hulu picks up the streaming slack Total paid Disney+ subscriptions currently rest at 124.6 million, compared with 125.3 million at the end of the fisca…

Disney reported $22.46 billion in revenue for the quarter, which just missed analyst expectations and resulted in a 5% drop in premarket trading on Thursday. The entertainment division—which includes the company’s streaming, linear networks, and theatrical business—saw a 6% drop in revenue. Streaming did see some gains: Disney+ and Hulu ended the quarter with 196 million subscriptions, an increase of 12.4 million subscribers from the previous quarter. However, Disney’s linear networks dropped 16% to $107 million, compared to this time last year, while operating income fell 21%. The company’s theatrical releases also saw declines with both the drop in linear …