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Creating a corporation involves several vital steps that guarantee legal compliance and effective governance. First, you need to choose a unique name and file the Articles of Incorporation with your state. Then, you’ll appoint a board of directors and draft bylaws to outline operations. Don’t forget to hold an initial board meeting to adopt these bylaws. Each step is critical for laying a solid foundation, so let’s explore these processes in detail. Key Takeaways Choose a unique name for your corporation, ensuring it complies with California regulations and includes a corporate designator. File the Articles of Incorporation, providing necessary details and paying applicable state filing fees. Appoint directors to oversee management, and document their appointments for compliance and transparency. Draft and adopt bylaws outlining governance structure, meeting procedures, and voting protocols. Identify and obtain necessary licenses, permits, and an Employer Identification Number (EIN) to ensure legal operation. Choose a Name for Your Corporation When you’re ready to create a corporation, how do you choose the right name? Start by ensuring it complies with California corporation formation regulations. Your corporation’s name must include a corporate designator like “Corp,” “Inc,” or “Ltd.” Next, check if your chosen name is already in use; it can’t be identical or too similar to an existing corporation’s name. Furthermore, avoid words suggesting government affiliation or restricted activities, as these might violate state laws. Conduct a trademark search to confirm your name doesn’t infringe on existing trademarks, which could lead to legal issues. Finally, verify its legality and availability with the Secretary of State’s office before proceeding with your registration. File Articles of Incorporation Filing the Articles of Incorporation is a crucial step in establishing your corporation, as this legal document officially creates your business entity. In New York, you’ll need to prepare the articles, also referred to as the certificate of incorporation, which must include critical details like your corporation’s name, principal office address, registered agent’s name and address, the number of authorized shares, and the incorporator’s information. Each state has its own filing fees, ranging typically from $50 to several hundred dollars. Many states, including New York, allow you to file articles of incorporation online, speeding up the process. Once submitted, the state reviews your articles, and if approved, you’ll receive your certificate of incorporation NY, confirming your corporation’s legal standing. Appoint Corporate Directors When you appoint corporate directors, you’re selecting individuals responsible for overseeing your corporation’s management and making key policy decisions. Most states require at least one director, but some may need more, depending on your corporation’s structure. It’s essential to follow state laws regarding qualifications and to document these appointments properly for compliance and transparency. Responsibilities of Directors Corporate directors play an important role in steering the organization in the direction of success by making significant policy and financial decisions. They guarantee the corporation complies with legal and regulatory requirements, protecting the interests of shareholders and stakeholders. Directors are responsible for electing corporate officers who handle daily operations and implement the board’s strategic decisions. Maintaining accurate corporate records is critical, including documenting meeting minutes to reflect governance activities. For example, directors must be familiar with the California Limited Liability Company operating agreement and the articles of incorporation for a New York corporation, as these documents outline key operational guidelines. Number of Required Directors Comprehending the number of required directors is vital when establishing a corporation, as it directly affects governance and decision-making. Most states require at least one director, but if your corporation has multiple shareholders, you might need a minimum of three directors. Directors oversee corporate governance and guarantee compliance with regulations, so selecting the right individuals is critical. In a single-member corporation, you can serve as the only director, simplifying your s corp operating agreement. Keep in mind that states have specific age and residency requirements for directors, often mandating a minimum age of 18. Always consult your state’s regulations to confirm the exact requirements for directors before finalizing your inc filing, securing your corporation’s legal compliance from the start. Draft the Bylaws When you draft the bylaws, you’re setting up the vital governance structure for your corporation. This includes outlining meeting procedures, voting protocols, and the process for amending the bylaws as needed. It’s imperative to guarantee these documents comply with state laws and are regularly reviewed to reflect your corporation’s evolving needs. Governance Structure Outline Establishing a well-defined governance structure is crucial for the effective operation of a corporation, so drafting bylaws becomes a necessary step in this process. These bylaws outline the roles and responsibilities of directors and officers, detailing how many directors are needed, their term lengths, and the processes for their election or removal. It’s important to include rules for board meetings, including quorum requirements and notice periods for transparency. You’ll likewise want to specify how the bylaws can be amended during guaranteeing compliance with state laws, similar to an California operating agreement in California or a California agreement. Consulting with a legal professional during drafting these bylaws can help tailor them to your corporation’s unique needs and guarantee legality. Meeting Procedures and Protocols To guarantee smooth operations within a corporation, it’s vital to clearly outline meeting procedures and protocols in your bylaws. Your corporate bylaws should specify how often meetings occur, how much notice is required, and the quorum needed for decision-making. Furthermore, you must record minutes from all meetings to maintain transparency and legal compliance. Bylaws must also detail voting procedures for directors and shareholders, including methods like in-person or electronic voting, along with the majority thresholds for decisions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQqcg0EpEY It’s important to include rules regarding appointing and removing directors and officers to guarantee accountability. When drafting your small business corporation form, keep in mind that these bylaws can be amended but typically require a specific process to involve stakeholders. Amendment and Review Process Amending and reviewing your corporate bylaws is crucial for maintaining an effective governance structure, especially as your business evolves. Your bylaws define the rules guiding your corporation, and they need to adapt to changes, like an s corporation conversion to LLC. To guarantee your bylaws remain relevant, consider these key aspects: Directors: Determine the number of directors, their qualifications, and election procedures. Amendments: Clearly define the process for making changes, including notice and voting requirements. Review: Store your bylaws with corporate records and schedule regular reviews to stay compliant with state laws. Hold a First Meeting of the Board of Directors Once you’ve filed your articles of incorporation, it’s time to hold the first meeting of the Board of Directors, which plays a crucial role in establishing your corporation. This meeting typically occurs after you receive your certificate of corporation NY, marking your new york corporate registration. During this initial gathering, you’ll adopt corporate bylaws and appoint corporate officers. It’s also vital to set the corporation’s fiscal year and document all decisions accurately in the meeting minutes, as these serve as a formal record. Most states require compliance with the bylaws for procedures and voting, so make sure you’re familiar with these guidelines. Finally, consider discussing the potential election of S corporation status to understand its tax implications. Issue Corporate Stock Issuing corporate stock is a critical step in establishing your corporation’s ownership structure and facilitating investment. You’ll need to determine the number of shares to issue according to your articles of incorporation and state regulations. This formalizes ownership interests and allows shareholders to invest in your company. Provide stock certificates or electronic records to shareholders. Maintain accurate records of stock issuance, including details of each transaction. Guarantee compliance with securities laws, especially if you plan to register stock offerings with the SEC. As you navigate this process, keep in mind that comprehending how to file an LLC in California and completing California LLC registration can help you establish a solid foundation for your corporation. Obtain Licenses and Permits How can you guarantee your corporation operates legally and efficiently? Start by identifying and obtaining the necessary licenses and permits required by federal, state, and local authorities. These requirements vary by industry and location. Common licenses include an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS, a seller’s permit for retail businesses, and zoning permits from local planning boards. If you’re wondering how to form an LLC in California or how to register LLC in California, be sure to check the specific licensing needs for your industry, especially if you’re in healthcare or legal services. Additionally, keep in mind that some licenses need periodic renewal, so keep track of expiration dates to avoid disruptions in your operations. The SBA offers resources to assist you in this process. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Steps to Start a Corporation? To start a corporation, first choose a unique name that meets state regulations and includes a corporate designator like “Inc.” or “Corp.” Next, file articles of incorporation, including crucial details such as your registered agent and office address. Appoint a board of directors and draft bylaws for governance. Hold an initial meeting to adopt these bylaws and appoint officers. Finally, secure any necessary licenses and obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. Can I Start a Corporation by Myself? Yes, you can start a corporation by yourself as a single-member entity. You’ll need to file articles of incorporation with your state’s corporate office, designating yourself as the incorporator and possibly the sole director. It’s important to follow corporate formalities, such as adopting bylaws and holding initial meetings. Even though you’ll typically be the sole shareholder, you can issue stock. Consulting a business attorney can help guarantee you comply with state regulations during this process. Is It Better to LLC or Incorporate? Choosing between an LLC and a corporation depends on your business goals. An LLC offers simplicity, pass-through taxation, and fewer compliance requirements, making it ideal for smaller operations. Conversely, incorporating allows for stock issuance and potential access to larger investments, but it comes with double taxation and more regulatory formalities. If you plan to grow considerably and seek outside funding, a corporation might be better, whereas an LLC suits simpler, smaller ventures. What Is the First Step for a Corporation? The first step for a corporation is selecting a unique business name that meets state regulations. You need to include a corporate designator, like “Inc.” or “Corp.” Confirm your name isn’t already in use or infringing on trademarks. Conducting a trademark search is essential to avoid legal issues. Furthermore, verify your name with the state’s Secretary of State office to guarantee compliance with naming rules before moving on to the next incorporation steps. Conclusion Creating a corporation is a structured process that involves several important steps. By choosing a unique name, filing the necessary documents, appointing directors, and drafting bylaws, you establish a solid foundation for your business. Holding an initial board meeting, issuing stock, and obtaining the required licenses guarantee legal compliance and operational readiness. Following these steps carefully will help you navigate the intricacies of incorporation and set your corporation up for future success. Image via Google Gemini This article, "How to Create a Corporation – Step-by-Step Guide" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Creating a corporation involves several vital steps that guarantee legal compliance and effective governance. First, you need to choose a unique name and file the Articles of Incorporation with your state. Then, you’ll appoint a board of directors and draft bylaws to outline operations. Don’t forget to hold an initial board meeting to adopt these bylaws. Each step is critical for laying a solid foundation, so let’s explore these processes in detail. Key Takeaways Choose a unique name for your corporation, ensuring it complies with California regulations and includes a corporate designator. File the Articles of Incorporation, providing necessary details and paying applicable state filing fees. Appoint directors to oversee management, and document their appointments for compliance and transparency. Draft and adopt bylaws outlining governance structure, meeting procedures, and voting protocols. Identify and obtain necessary licenses, permits, and an Employer Identification Number (EIN) to ensure legal operation. Choose a Name for Your Corporation When you’re ready to create a corporation, how do you choose the right name? Start by ensuring it complies with California corporation formation regulations. Your corporation’s name must include a corporate designator like “Corp,” “Inc,” or “Ltd.” Next, check if your chosen name is already in use; it can’t be identical or too similar to an existing corporation’s name. Furthermore, avoid words suggesting government affiliation or restricted activities, as these might violate state laws. Conduct a trademark search to confirm your name doesn’t infringe on existing trademarks, which could lead to legal issues. Finally, verify its legality and availability with the Secretary of State’s office before proceeding with your registration. File Articles of Incorporation Filing the Articles of Incorporation is a crucial step in establishing your corporation, as this legal document officially creates your business entity. In New York, you’ll need to prepare the articles, also referred to as the certificate of incorporation, which must include critical details like your corporation’s name, principal office address, registered agent’s name and address, the number of authorized shares, and the incorporator’s information. Each state has its own filing fees, ranging typically from $50 to several hundred dollars. Many states, including New York, allow you to file articles of incorporation online, speeding up the process. Once submitted, the state reviews your articles, and if approved, you’ll receive your certificate of incorporation NY, confirming your corporation’s legal standing. Appoint Corporate Directors When you appoint corporate directors, you’re selecting individuals responsible for overseeing your corporation’s management and making key policy decisions. Most states require at least one director, but some may need more, depending on your corporation’s structure. It’s essential to follow state laws regarding qualifications and to document these appointments properly for compliance and transparency. Responsibilities of Directors Corporate directors play an important role in steering the organization in the direction of success by making significant policy and financial decisions. They guarantee the corporation complies with legal and regulatory requirements, protecting the interests of shareholders and stakeholders. Directors are responsible for electing corporate officers who handle daily operations and implement the board’s strategic decisions. Maintaining accurate corporate records is critical, including documenting meeting minutes to reflect governance activities. For example, directors must be familiar with the California Limited Liability Company operating agreement and the articles of incorporation for a New York corporation, as these documents outline key operational guidelines. Number of Required Directors Comprehending the number of required directors is vital when establishing a corporation, as it directly affects governance and decision-making. Most states require at least one director, but if your corporation has multiple shareholders, you might need a minimum of three directors. Directors oversee corporate governance and guarantee compliance with regulations, so selecting the right individuals is critical. In a single-member corporation, you can serve as the only director, simplifying your s corp operating agreement. Keep in mind that states have specific age and residency requirements for directors, often mandating a minimum age of 18. Always consult your state’s regulations to confirm the exact requirements for directors before finalizing your inc filing, securing your corporation’s legal compliance from the start. Draft the Bylaws When you draft the bylaws, you’re setting up the vital governance structure for your corporation. This includes outlining meeting procedures, voting protocols, and the process for amending the bylaws as needed. It’s imperative to guarantee these documents comply with state laws and are regularly reviewed to reflect your corporation’s evolving needs. Governance Structure Outline Establishing a well-defined governance structure is crucial for the effective operation of a corporation, so drafting bylaws becomes a necessary step in this process. These bylaws outline the roles and responsibilities of directors and officers, detailing how many directors are needed, their term lengths, and the processes for their election or removal. It’s important to include rules for board meetings, including quorum requirements and notice periods for transparency. You’ll likewise want to specify how the bylaws can be amended during guaranteeing compliance with state laws, similar to an California operating agreement in California or a California agreement. Consulting with a legal professional during drafting these bylaws can help tailor them to your corporation’s unique needs and guarantee legality. Meeting Procedures and Protocols To guarantee smooth operations within a corporation, it’s vital to clearly outline meeting procedures and protocols in your bylaws. Your corporate bylaws should specify how often meetings occur, how much notice is required, and the quorum needed for decision-making. Furthermore, you must record minutes from all meetings to maintain transparency and legal compliance. Bylaws must also detail voting procedures for directors and shareholders, including methods like in-person or electronic voting, along with the majority thresholds for decisions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQqcg0EpEY It’s important to include rules regarding appointing and removing directors and officers to guarantee accountability. When drafting your small business corporation form, keep in mind that these bylaws can be amended but typically require a specific process to involve stakeholders. Amendment and Review Process Amending and reviewing your corporate bylaws is crucial for maintaining an effective governance structure, especially as your business evolves. Your bylaws define the rules guiding your corporation, and they need to adapt to changes, like an s corporation conversion to LLC. To guarantee your bylaws remain relevant, consider these key aspects: Directors: Determine the number of directors, their qualifications, and election procedures. Amendments: Clearly define the process for making changes, including notice and voting requirements. Review: Store your bylaws with corporate records and schedule regular reviews to stay compliant with state laws. Hold a First Meeting of the Board of Directors Once you’ve filed your articles of incorporation, it’s time to hold the first meeting of the Board of Directors, which plays a crucial role in establishing your corporation. This meeting typically occurs after you receive your certificate of corporation NY, marking your new york corporate registration. During this initial gathering, you’ll adopt corporate bylaws and appoint corporate officers. It’s also vital to set the corporation’s fiscal year and document all decisions accurately in the meeting minutes, as these serve as a formal record. Most states require compliance with the bylaws for procedures and voting, so make sure you’re familiar with these guidelines. Finally, consider discussing the potential election of S corporation status to understand its tax implications. Issue Corporate Stock Issuing corporate stock is a critical step in establishing your corporation’s ownership structure and facilitating investment. You’ll need to determine the number of shares to issue according to your articles of incorporation and state regulations. This formalizes ownership interests and allows shareholders to invest in your company. Provide stock certificates or electronic records to shareholders. Maintain accurate records of stock issuance, including details of each transaction. Guarantee compliance with securities laws, especially if you plan to register stock offerings with the SEC. As you navigate this process, keep in mind that comprehending how to file an LLC in California and completing California LLC registration can help you establish a solid foundation for your corporation. Obtain Licenses and Permits How can you guarantee your corporation operates legally and efficiently? Start by identifying and obtaining the necessary licenses and permits required by federal, state, and local authorities. These requirements vary by industry and location. Common licenses include an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS, a seller’s permit for retail businesses, and zoning permits from local planning boards. If you’re wondering how to form an LLC in California or how to register LLC in California, be sure to check the specific licensing needs for your industry, especially if you’re in healthcare or legal services. Additionally, keep in mind that some licenses need periodic renewal, so keep track of expiration dates to avoid disruptions in your operations. The SBA offers resources to assist you in this process. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Steps to Start a Corporation? To start a corporation, first choose a unique name that meets state regulations and includes a corporate designator like “Inc.” or “Corp.” Next, file articles of incorporation, including crucial details such as your registered agent and office address. Appoint a board of directors and draft bylaws for governance. Hold an initial meeting to adopt these bylaws and appoint officers. Finally, secure any necessary licenses and obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. Can I Start a Corporation by Myself? Yes, you can start a corporation by yourself as a single-member entity. You’ll need to file articles of incorporation with your state’s corporate office, designating yourself as the incorporator and possibly the sole director. It’s important to follow corporate formalities, such as adopting bylaws and holding initial meetings. Even though you’ll typically be the sole shareholder, you can issue stock. Consulting a business attorney can help guarantee you comply with state regulations during this process. Is It Better to LLC or Incorporate? Choosing between an LLC and a corporation depends on your business goals. An LLC offers simplicity, pass-through taxation, and fewer compliance requirements, making it ideal for smaller operations. Conversely, incorporating allows for stock issuance and potential access to larger investments, but it comes with double taxation and more regulatory formalities. If you plan to grow considerably and seek outside funding, a corporation might be better, whereas an LLC suits simpler, smaller ventures. What Is the First Step for a Corporation? The first step for a corporation is selecting a unique business name that meets state regulations. You need to include a corporate designator, like “Inc.” or “Corp.” Confirm your name isn’t already in use or infringing on trademarks. Conducting a trademark search is essential to avoid legal issues. Furthermore, verify your name with the state’s Secretary of State office to guarantee compliance with naming rules before moving on to the next incorporation steps. Conclusion Creating a corporation is a structured process that involves several important steps. By choosing a unique name, filing the necessary documents, appointing directors, and drafting bylaws, you establish a solid foundation for your business. Holding an initial board meeting, issuing stock, and obtaining the required licenses guarantee legal compliance and operational readiness. Following these steps carefully will help you navigate the intricacies of incorporation and set your corporation up for future success. Image via Google Gemini This article, "How to Create a Corporation – Step-by-Step Guide" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Treasury yields swung wildly after a soft jobs report as oil's surge added a new complication for the Fed, raising concerns about the rate path ahead, according to the head of correspondent business development at AD Mortgage. View the full article

Oil prices spiked near $120 per barrel before falling back Monday as the Iran war intensified, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and pummeling financial markets. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading near $106 per barrel, up 14%, before the opening bell. West Texas Intermediate, the light, sweet crude oil produced in the United States, soared above $119.48 per barrel but fell back closer to $103. The war’s toll on civilian targets grew as Bahrain accused Iran of striking a desalination plant vital to drinking water supplies. Bahrain’s national oil company declared force majeure for its shipments after an Iranian attack set its refinery complex ablaze. The legal declaration releases the company of contractual obligations because of extraordinary circumstances. Oil depots in Tehran smoldered following overnight strikes by Israel. Oil prices have surged as the war, now in its second week, ensnares countries and places that are critical to the production and movement of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf. Prices moderated after the Financial Times reported that some members of the Group of Seven industrial nations were considering releases of strategic oil reserves to alleviate pressure on the markets. French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that “the use of strategic reserves is an envisaged option.” He said G7 leaders could meet this week to coordinate a response to climbing energy prices. France currently holds the rotating presidency of the G7 group. Separately, finance ministers from the G7 nations are meeting Monday by video conference to discuss the repercussions from the war. On Saturday, President Donald The President downplayed the idea of turning to America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, saying U.S. supplies were ample and prices would soon fall. Roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil — about 20% of the world’s oil — typically are shipped every day through the Strait of Hormuz, according to independent research firm Rystad Energy. The threat of Iranian missile and drone attacks has all but stopped tankers carrying oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Iran from traveling through the strait, which is bordered in the north by Iran. Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE have cut oil production as storage tanks fill due to the reduced ability to export crude. Iran, Israel and the United States also have attacked oil and gas facilities since the war started, worsening supply concerns. The surge in costs for oil and natural gas is pushing fuel prices higher, cascading through other industries and jolting Asian economies that are especially vulnerable due to the region’s heavy reliance on imports from the Middle East. Iran exports roughly 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, mostly to China, which has called for an immediate end to the fighting. Beijing may need to look elsewhere for supply if Iran’s exports are disrupted, another factor that could increase energy prices. “All parties have their responsibility to ensure stable and smooth energy supplies,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in a briefing Monday. “China will take necessary measures to safeguard its own energy security.” South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned Monday of strict penalties for refiners and gas stations caught hoarding or colluding on prices, saying it would be wise to find alternatives to supplies that must travel through the Strait of Hormuz. Across Southeast Asia, the spike in prices has led to long lines outside filling stations. “Higher oil and gas prices will affect everyone and our economy,” said Le Van Tu, who was waiting outside a gas station in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi. “All activities, including those using petrol based transportation will be affected.” South Korea’s Kospi tumbled 6% to 5,251.87. The last time Brent and U.S. crude futures traded near the current level was in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine. Higher energy costs push inflation higher, straining household budgets and denting the consumer spending that is a main driver of many big economies. Those worries have spilled into financial markets, pulling share prices sharply lower. In the U.S., the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline rose to $3.48 as of early Monday, up nearly 50 cents from a week earlier, according to AAA motor club. Diesel, used heavily in shipping, sold for about $4.66 a gallon, a weekly increase of more than 80 cents. The price of natural gas in the U.S. also has climbed during the war, though not by as much as oil. It was selling for about $3.34 per 1,000 cubic feet early Monday. That’s up from Friday’s closing price of $3.19. This story has been corrected to show that the Israel-U.S. attacks on Iran started Feb. 28, not March 1. Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok. Associated Press journalist John Leicester contributed from Paris. —Alex Veiga and Elaine Kurtenbach, AP business writers View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Outdoor security cameras have become common, but the ones that balance good video quality with simple setup still tend to cost a fair bit. That’s why this deal is worth a look. Right now, a two-pack of Arlo Essential Spotlight Cameras is $151.29 at Woot, compared with $259.99 on Amazon for the same bundle. If you have Amazon Prime, you’ll get free standard shipping; otherwise, shipping costs $6. Woot doesn’t ship to Alaska, Hawaii, PO Boxes, or APO addresses. The deal is scheduled to run for a week, though it could end earlier if the cameras sell out. Physically, the cameras are small and designed for outdoor use, with an IP65 weather-resistant body that can handle rain and dust. They run on a rechargeable battery rated for up to six months, although the exact lifespan depends on how often motion events occur. Also, the battery isn’t removable, so you’ll need to take the whole camera down and bring it inside when it’s time to recharge, notes this PCMag review. Arlo Essential Spotlight Camera $151.29 at Woot $259.99 Save $108.70 Get Deal Get Deal $151.29 at Woot $259.99 Save $108.70 The camera records 1080p video with a 130-degree field of view, which gives you a wide look at driveways, yards, or entryways without needing multiple cameras. Daytime footage looks crisp and detailed, and the camera includes 12× digital zoom if you want to inspect something in the frame more closely. As for its nighttime footage, when motion is detected, a built-in LED spotlight can turn on and light up the scene so the camera records color night video instead of the usual black-and-white view. It also works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT, which means you can view the feed on a smart display or trigger other smart home devices when motion is detected. This camera does not support Apple HomeKit. Motion alerts show up quickly on your phone, and the system can identify people, animals, and vehicles with Arlo’s advanced detection features. The catch is that those smarter alerts and recorded clips require an Arlo Secure subscription. Without it, you still get live viewing and basic alerts, but saved video and some detection tools are locked behind a monthly plan starting at $7.99 per month for one camera. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $119.00 (List Price $179.00) Samsung Galaxy S26 512GB + $100 Amazon Gift Card (Black) — $899.99 (List Price $1,099.99) Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 AI Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds + $20 Amazon Gift Card — $179.99 (List Price $199.99) Google Pixel 10a 128GB 6.3" Unlocked Smartphone + $100 Gift Card — $499.00 (List Price $599.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $329.00 (List Price $349.00) Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm] Smartwatch with Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L. Sleep Score, Fitness Tracker, Health Monitoring, Always-On Display, Water Resistant — $329.00 (List Price $429.00) Amazon Fire TV Soundbar — $99.99 (List Price $119.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Shares in Hims & Hers Health (NYSE: HIMS) are soaring this morning after an unconfirmed report that the telehealth company is entering into a deal with Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE: NVO) to sell its popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, including Wegovy. The rumored deal is as surprising as Hims & Hers’s surging stock price this morning, especially considering that just last month, Novo was threatening to sue the telehealth provider. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Late on Friday, Bloomberg reported that Hims & Hers has reached an agreement with the Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk to sell Novo’s weight-loss drugs, including the popular GLP-1 pill Wegovy. According to the publication, which cited an anonymous source, the news could be publicly announced as soon as today. Fast Company has reached out to Hims & Hers and Novo Nordisk for comment. The reported partnership between the two firms would be a stunning reversal in their relationship, which, as recently as last month, was highly acrimonious. Their feud stems from an announcement in early February that Hims & Hers would sell a compounded version of Novo’s Wegovy weight-loss pill at a third of the price Novo sells it for. Hims & Hers said its compounded version would sell for $49 per month, before rising to $99. Novo sells its Wegovy for $149 per month. While Novo Nordisk owns the patent to Wegovy, Hims & Hers sought to get around this by offering not a generic version of the drug but a compounded one. Compounded drugs are ones that are nearly identical copies of a drug. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sometimes allows pharmacists to create compounded versions of drugs when the name-brand version is a short supply, as was the case with many GLP-1 drugs in 2024 and 2025. However, by the middle of 2025, the GLP-1 shortage was largely resolved, and compounding pharmacies were ordered to stop making their compounded versions of the drugs. Regardless, in February, Hims & Hers announced it would sell its own GLP-1 drug made from semaglutide, the same active ingredient in Wegovy. This led to fierce backlash from Novo Nordisk, which threatened to sue Hims & Hers. The FDA similarly threatened to take action against the telehealth company. As a result, shortly after announcing its Wegovy knockoff, Hims & Hers said it would no longer release its own version. Given the contentious nature of this ordeal, few thought Hims & Hers and Novo Nordisk would ever play nice together in the future. But according to Bloomberg’s report, that’s just what the two companies are planning to do now. Why is Novo playing nice with Hims now? While Novo and Hims & Hers did briefly have an agreement to sell the Danish company’s branded Wegovy on its platform in 2025, that deal fell through in less than two months. Few expected the two companies to work together again. Yet, if Bloomberg’s report is accurate, they now are. But why? The most likely reason is that Novo Nordisk wants to expand the market for Wegovy, and the fastest way to do that is to have the medication available for purchase in as many places and on as many platforms as possible. Wegovy isn’t the only weight-loss drug available, and it risks being overshadowed by the accelerating adoption of other drugs. As Hims & Hers becomes increasingly popular among consumers as a source for their medications, Novo has likely concluded that the platform’s rising popularity is worth setting aside old hostilities to help Wegovy capture as much market share as possible. How are HIMS and NVO share prices reacting? The share price of Hims & Hers is skyrocketing on the report that the telehealth firm has reached a new deal with Novo Nordisk. As of the time of this writing, in premarket trading, HIMS stock is up nearly 45% to $22.77. On Friday, HIMS stock closed at $15.74. Unfortunately for Novo Nordisk investors, the rumored partnership has had a relatively negligible impact on NVO stock. As of the time of this writing, NVO shares are up about half a percent to $38.79 in premarket. Before this morning’s premarket boost, HIMS stock was down over 51% year to date. This means that if the HIMS gains hold, the stock could earn back most of its 2026 losses in just one trading session. As for Novo Nordisk, the company’s stock price is also down significantly year to date. As of Friday’s close at $38.58, NVO shares had lost nearly 25% of their value since 2026 began. View the full article

Logitech may be known for keyboards, webcams, and gaming gear, but CEO Hanneke Faber is going beyond AI-first. She explains how she’s leading the hardware brand through an AI shift, approaching it as a leadership challenge, not just a tech one. Faber also shares lessons from competitive diving and navigating ever-shifting global tariffs. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. Logitech is known by many people for its computer mouse. “The mouse built this house,” I think you said once, a nice nod to Disney. But in recent months, the conversation about Logitech has been around AI, the cutting edge of technology. It’s kind of a neat trick for a business with a reputation for a not-necessarily-sexy piece of hardware. Well, of course, we do think that mice are very sexy. But that aside, we’re not just a place that builds mice. In the age of AI, hardware is definitely sexy again. AI needs hands, needs eyes, needs ears. So that’s where we come in, and we’re building AI-enabled products at scale, which is exciting. You spoke at a Fortune conference last fall. There was a lot of attention around adding an AI agent to your board of directors. Any progress with that? Yes. I wouldn’t say we have an actual AI agent that’s formally a board member, but we’re using AI very fundamentally in our board meetings and in the preparation for our board meetings. I think we’re lucky. My board members are AI-savvy, all of them. We offered them the same training that we offer to all of our employees. And in preparation for our board meetings, we run the materials through an AI gem that we’ve built. So you get really great feedback, actually, from an AI board member up front. And that helps shape the discussion when we go into the meeting. And this is your proprietary agent. You’re not sending this out into the world so that Anthropic or OpenAI or someone else can sort of peek in on it? No. That obviously wouldn’t be smart because the data that’s in there is very confidential. So yes, it’s proprietary. How much do you consider yourself a technologist? Your background is largely in consumer products at Unilever and Procter & Gamble. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. A little over two years ago, I was selling mayonnaise, literally. So it is a different industry, but there are also a lot of things that you learn in consumer goods, and I also spent time in retail, that is very applicable here. In the end, we sell products for people, for users. So understanding that consumer, that customer, starting from there and designing products that will delight that user is critically important. And that’s no different whether you’re selling mayonnaise and ice cream or mice and cameras. Now, when you came on board, it was clear that Logitech needed a bit of a turnaround. Is that something that particularly appealed to you? I’ve heard from others that sometimes that’s where the opportunities are for a first-time CEO role. Yes. And I think the waters were troubled, but not deeply troubled. It’s just that we had come off that COVID sugar high. Therefore, eight quarters in a row, the business had declined. So confidence was low and things were hard when I came in, but it was clear to me from the start that it wasn’t a foundational issue. The guts were good. It just needed a little bit of a refresh and a reinjection of energy and strategy, honestly. And that’s what we’ve done. So we’re now on our eighth quarter of top- and bottom-line growth. And you just had to dive in, I guess. That’s my dad joke, because you were an accomplished diver in your youth, a seven-time Dutch national champion. Is that right? That’s right. Back in the Stone Age. No, it’s very impressive. Is leading a new business in a new industry like trying a new dive? I do often say, when people ask what you learn from your sporting days, that diving especially is a sport where you have to take risks. So you’re up on a 10-meter platform, 33 feet in the air, and you have to do flips and turns, and it is really scary. And it’s always scary. It’s not just scary the first time. Every time, it’s kind of scary. So when people ask me, “Was this a scary move? Are you scared to present? Are you scared to do a podcast? Are you scared to move industries?” I’m like, “You know what? A back two-and-a-half off the 10-meter, that is scary.” Compared with that, very few other things are truly scary. As you describe it, it sounds like you kind of have to get used to being scared when you’re jumping off that board because, as you say, it’s scary every time. Is that the same way in business, that you just have to get used to the uncertainty, the instability, whatever’s going to happen next? Yes, I think that’s a great insight. Some people say it’s not a marathon, or it’s a series of sprints, or something. But yes, it’s a series of new situations where you don’t always know what to expect that can be a little scary. And I think you have to find a way to enjoy that to keep going. Not to overdo this analogy, but just as you’re implementing your new plans at Logitech, which by all indications are working, you’re hit with a new challenge when the The President tariffs come down. It’s like being scared on the next dive, I guess. Something like 40% of your products for the U.S. market were made in China. Was there a moment you remember hearing about tariffs where you were like, “Oh no, not this”? It was certainly a tough day, Liberation Day, April 1, 2025. For almost everyone in our industry, we produce our products around the world, but not necessarily in the United States, and the United States is a big market for us. But we quickly figured out that we actually were in a position of competitive strength. Only 30% of our business is in the United States. Seventy percent of our business is not, so it was not affected by tariffs. We have a very diverse manufacturing footprint, and this is all my predecessor’s work. I take zero credit for that. Yes, 40% came from China, but we also make in five other countries. So we were able to move things around, and by the end of the calendar year, only 10% of our products for the U.S. came from China. We have a strong brand, which gives you loyalty and gives you some pricing power, and we needed that. You raised prices pretty quickly, by around 10%. And I don’t like raising prices, but in this case, it absolutely was the responsible thing to do. And if you decide you’re going to do it, I always think it’s better to rip the Band-Aid off right away. So we did it very quickly. I think that gave us the advantage that by the time the holiday season came around, in October and November, we were through the pricing pain, and that was really important. Taking pricing, especially in consumer markets, just takes a while. You have to convince customers that’s the right thing to do and get it reflected on the shelf. Again, I thought that was a competitive advantage. So when the bigger bulk of your consumer revenue was coming through, people had sort of accepted it by then. Exactly. How much do you worry about new The President-related disruptions? At the World Economic Forum last month, I saw The President said that the former Swiss president rubbed him the wrong way as an explanation for tariffs on Switzerland, which is where Logitech is registered, right? I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it. It’s a really dynamic world. I often say to my team, “Today is the slowest day of the rest of your lives.” And there is a lot happening, not just in the U.S. and with the U.S. administration. There’s a lot happening around the world. So we roll with the punches. Of course, we do risk assessments, and we think through what could happen and how we mitigate that. Manufacturing diversification is a critical part of that. It just makes us more resilient when we don’t manufacture in one place. So we absolutely look at what might happen around the world and how we mitigate that, but we can’t lose sleep over that every day because then we wouldn’t be doing our jobs. View the full article

When leaders think about burnout, they often imagine visible distress, absence, emotional overwhelm or resignation. However, burnout does not always look like struggle. Often, it looks like competence. It looks like the person who always delivers. The one who volunteers to pick up the slack. The one answering work emails while watching their son’s nativity play, so they do not let anybody down. The one who says, “It’s fine, I’ll sort it.” The one who absorbs tension in the room so others do not have to. These people are not on a performance plan or raising red flags. They are not the ones asking for help. They are functioning. And those around them may not see anything wrong. This group is called the ‘Silent Middle’, made up of capable, conscientious professionals who are neither thriving nor in crisis. The Silent Middle sits between high engagement and visible breakdown. They are steady, reliable and productive. They keep organisations moving. And because they keep performing, their strain goes unnoticed. We have mistaken coping for capacity. Just because someone is holding it together does not mean they are well. The cost of coping quietly The Silent Middle rarely disrupts. They adapt. They extend their hours without calling it overwork. They absorb unrealistic deadlines rather than risk being seen as difficult. They manage their reactions so they are perceived as composed, and they soften their opinions to maintain harmony. From a leadership perspective, this can look like resilience. Often, it is masking. Or as I call it, pretending. Pretending is the subtle adjustment people make to fit what their environment rewards. It is presenting calm when you feel stretched, saying yes when you mean ‘not yet’. It is editing your perspective so you remain collaborative rather than inconvenient. It is frequently praised and almost always promoted. The more competent someone appears, the less likely anyone is to ask what it is costing them. Over time, the gap between internal experience and external performance becomes expensive. When people consistently override their own signals to maintain competence, their self-trust erodes. They stop asking, “Is this sustainable?” and start asking, “How long can I keep this up?” The World Health Organization defines burnout as chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. What that definition does not fully capture is sustained incongruence, the daily cost of pretending. When there is a gap between what someone thinks and what they say, what they feel and what they express, the nervous system works harder. Vigilance increases and recovery decreases. Burnout is not driven by workload alone. It is often driven by the strain of holding yourself together. Why high performers are especially vulnerable The Silent Middle often includes high-capability professionals who derive identity from contribution. They are proud of being reliable. This makes them more likely to overcommit, absorb ambiguity and protect others from friction. They become cultural shock absorbers. And here is the important distinction: They continue to perform. Gallup research consistently shows that a majority of employees are not fully engaged, yet most continue to meet expectations. Output can remain stable long after energy begins to decline. Burnout does not immediately reduce productivity. It reduces capacity. Creativity narrows and risk appetite shrinks. Discretionary effort drops and innovation slows. People do what is required, but little beyond it. Leaders look at metrics and see delivery. What they do not see is the quiet loss of imagination, challenge and forward thinking. This is not simply a well-being issue. It is a strategic performance risk. The Silent Middle holds institutional knowledge, relational capital and operational stability. When their engagement thins, productivity does not collapse overnight. It erodes gradually. By the time someone resigns citing burnout, the depletion has often been building for years. What leaders must do differently If the Silent Middle is a cultural issue, the solution will not sit inside a lunch-and-learn well-being session. It sits inside leadership behaviour. It begins with congruence. Most organisations say they value honesty. Far fewer make it safe. When disagreement is subtly penalised or optimism is rewarded over realism, people learn quickly what to edit, and the result is politeness instead of progress. Leaders who want to reduce masking must respond to challenge without defensiveness. They must invite realism and reward those who surface risk early rather than those who quietly compensate. Strength also needs redefining. In many environments, endurance is mistaken for capability. The employee who absorbs the most pressure is often seen as the strongest. But endurance without recovery is not resilience. It is depletion delayed. When leaders model boundaries, realistic pacing and visible recovery, they recalibrate what strength looks like. There is also a structural question. Human beings are cyclical. Energy rises and falls. Capacity expands and contracts. Yet many organisations operate at sustained peak output, quarter after quarter. When linear output is demanded from nonlinear humans, burnout becomes predictable. Sustainable performance requires rhythm, deliberate recovery built into the system rather than left to chance. And then there is self-trust. The Silent Middle often overrides internal signals in order to remain dependable. Over time, misalignment becomes normal. Leaders can shift this by changing the tone of performance conversations. Instead of asking only about results, ask about energy. Instead of asking how quickly something can be delivered, ask what a sustainable pace would look like. These conversations surface strain before it becomes resignation. Finally, value must be decoupled from output. When self-value becomes conditional on performance, people will betray their own limits to stay needed. If contribution is the only currency, exhaustion becomes a badge of honour. Cultures that recognise identity beyond output reduce the need for pretending. The strategic advantage The organisations that will outperform over the next decade will not be those that extract the most hours. They will be those that understand human capacity. They will design cultures where people can perform without pretending, contribute without self-erasure and rest without penalty. The Silent Middle is not fragile. They are capable professionals doing their best in demanding systems. But functioning is not the same as thriving. If competence is the only thing you measure, pretending becomes the safest strategy. And when pretending becomes normal, burnout stops being an exception. It becomes culture. View the full article

The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei has dashed the US president’s hope of picking Iran’s new leaderView the full article

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. In today’s business environment, uncertainty is the new norm: 70% of current CEOs surveyed by management consulting firm AlixPartners say their companies face high levels of disruption. To lead through such terrain, boards and recruiters searching for future CEOs need to focus less on a candidate’s résumé and start asking whether an executive has the capacity to be agile. “When you’re working on CEO succession, with the clients we serve, there’s less of a debate about whether people are qualified,” says David Lange, a managing director and member of Russell Reynolds Associates’s (RRA) Global Board & CEO Advisory Practice. “It’s much more about: ‘Can they scale; can they adapt; can they evolve?’” Measuring pivot potential RRA has developed a methodology for measuring what it describes as a “leader’s dynamic quality to continue evolving and leading through change.” The firm does so through its Leadership Portrait, an assessment model it has been refining over the last 26 years. The portrait endeavors to quantify factors such as curiosity, drive, resilience, and social intelligence. It more recently has sought to measure “potential realization” by evaluating an executive’s values, desire to have an impact, and self-awareness of their strengths and limitations. Indeed, Margot McShane, co-lead of RRA’s Global Board & CEO Advisory Practice, notes that a leader’s willingness to say, “I don’t know,” and seek answers from their team is an asset in a rapidly changing business environment. “We think some self-doubt with a CEO can be a very helpful thing, because it keeps them curious and aware of blind spots which can derail them and organizations,” she says. Evaluating candidates on potential realization can lead boards to consider and anoint candidates who might have been passed over in a previous era. In an insight report on its Leadership Portrait, RRA shared the example of a client that passed over its chief operating officer (COO) and elevated its chief financial officer (CFO) to CEO. What the former CFO lacked in traditional operating experience, he made up for in a leadership portrait that showed he had courage, the potential to learn, and the ability to navigate risk. RRA says under the new CEO, the company’s stock price increased 60% over two years. Meanwhile, the traditional CFO skill set—including mastery of financial data to make airtight decisions—may not necessarily signal agility. “That is no longer actually as important as the ability to make sense fast,” Lange says. Measurement’s impact One unknown: whether this uncertain environment will make directors impatient with new CEOs. In an interview for Stanford Business School’s View From the Top speaker series, former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon—whose 12-year tenure at the retail giant is widely considered a success because of how he embraced technology and led the company through the pandemic—confessed that when he first became CEO he was repeatedly told that he took too long to make decisions. “As the years went, that stopped being on my [reviews] because I think I got more confident and more self-aware that sometimes decisions just needed to be made,” he said. Interestingly, McMillon’s statement welcoming his successor John Furner highlighted a few traits that suggest the new CEO’s potential realization. “His curiosity and digital acumen combined with a deep commitment to our people and culture will enable him to take us to the next level,” McMillon said. I asked RRA’s McShane if there are things aspiring CEOs can do to increase their chances of getting the top job, given that boards are now looking for candidates who display values, impact, and self-awareness. “Don’t think about what your next job is; think about what your last job would be—and what [you] need to do, personally and professionally, to make that happen,” she says. “What we know about any CEO candidate is that they have to own their ambition.” How do you measure agility? CEOs need to be agile, but so do team members. Are there agility indicators you seek when hiring? How do you know if they can realize their potential? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Send me an email at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Read more: leadership acumen Adapting to change is the most critical professional skill today How to drive business agility and accelerate growth The CEO pipeline is running dry View the full article

You know Graza—or, at least, you’ve probably seen its squeeze bottles of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) on grocery store shelves. They’re green, opaque to protect the contents, and sold in two variations: Sizzle, for cooking, and Drizzle, for finishing. Since the brand launched its direct-to-consumer site in 2021, it’s become a staple of the olive oil aisle. With national distribution across stores like Whole Foods, Kroger, and Costco, its squeeze bottles (sometimes accompanied by its beer-can refills) are sold in more than 28,000 stores. It has also been making small excursions into other parts of the store, with Ithaca using Graza oil for a co-branded hummus. But now Graza is planting its flag in the condiment aisle with three new mayonnaise variants: Original, Fancy, and Garlic Aioli—all of which are available in plastic squeeze bottles and glass jars. It started rolling out to Whole Foods locations and other retailers in January. Though company cofounder and CEO Andrew Benin acknowledges that “in some situations, you shouldn’t reinvent the wheel,” Graza still wanted to make its mark. Its mayo is the first commercial mayonnaise made with 100% unrefined oils, and he said he wanted the Garlic Aioli to taste “like your Spanish mother-in-law’s aioli.” (Considering Benin has a Spanish mother-in-law, he’s a relatively trustworthy source on that one.) As when Graza broke into the olive oil category, its launch of a mayo amid booming demand for condiments will be an uphill battle for the company. But Benin relishes the opportunity to make his mark—again. “Olive oil was exciting to us because there’s so much longevity to it—we’re a part of a really big whole with a lot of history,” he says. “We feel the same way about mayonnaise.” Mayo the Graza way Because of the popularity of its original two olive oils, last year Graza introduced a high-heat variant made of pomace oil (the pulp remnants of an EVOO pressing). “We had a lot of pressure to expand,” Benin says, adding that he was slow to settle on an expansion because things like vinegar or salt “weren’t actually connected to olive oil.” That’s where mayo—which is made of up to 65% oil—felt like a natural way to use its existing product in a new way. Graza’s classic mayo uses a combination of its EVOO and pomace oil, while Fancy and Garlic varieties use 100% EVOO. For each iteration of the products, Benin says Graza got input from condiment experts and Graza employees. Each new version was set up in the kitchen of Graza’s Domino Park office in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, with a sheet of paper for notes and a pile of spoons (plus a bowl for the dirty ones). “If you think about all the small adjustments we made, all the formulas, I think we tasted mayo over 20,000 times in this office,” Benin says. “A lot of mayo, a lot of full bellies being, like, ‘I don’t want lunch because I think I just had mayo for lunch.’” Though the products satisfied Graza employees, they now have to cut the mustard with consumers who are currently inundated with condiments, especially mayo. The condiment craze Graza’s mayo faces competition that includes not just legacy giants like Kraft and Unilever’s Best Foods and Hellmann’s, but also a growing slate of celeb-backed products. Last year, actor Glen Powell launched his Walmart condiment line Smash Kitchen, which features an organic mayo. And chef-influencer Molly Baz’s brand Ayoh Mayo—with retro-inspired branding that rivals Graza’s in its distinctiveness—rolled out nationwide at Target in January, after having launched online in 2024. The surge in brands is responding to a larger boom in consumer demand, according to Claire Dinhut, a former TV producer and an author whose Instagram @condimentclaire focuses on sauces. She says the “Mayo-sance” got its start during the early days of the pandemic. “Especially during lockdown, people’s outing of the day was going to the grocery store,” Dinhut says, adding that people were looking for simple ways to spice up their home cooking. That was beneficial to the condiments retail market. In 2020, McCormick—a global sauce manufacturer of staples like Frank’s RedHot, Cholula, and French’s mustard—saw a 5% rise in sales over the previous year, driven by growth in consumer purchases. Since then, demand hasn’t slowed down, and neither has growth. The global condiments market is projected to grow from $106.37 billion in 2026 to $176.53 billion by 2034. The U.S. market alone is projected to reach $32.84 billion by 2032. The prospect of Graza shaving off even a little bit of the mayo giants’ sales means big money, and the brand is benefitting from a swing in consumer sentiment from “mayo hate” in the 2010s to a renewed ardor. “It was apparently cool to hate mayo for some reason,” Dinhut says. “But I think the same thing has happened with butter. It’s anything that maybe has a little bit more fat content or is a little bit heartier—people have preconceived notions about them, and it’s cool to not like that thing.” But now, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement—and broad consumer interest in less processed products (whole milk and all)—could help Graza pull in customers from its more processed rivals. “So many brands are coming out with condiments, and I think they’re a really easy way to make that brand’s taste resonate through other people’s dishes and cooking,” Dinhut says. “I think it’s really smart from a brand perspective.” Playing to its strength Though Graza’s mayo comes with claims of being unrefined, its success will also rely on its recognizable packaging and branding. CEO Benin hopes that using its recognizable brand will help do with mayo what it did for oil. “We’ve been trying to get more people to understand that Graza is much more about what’s inside its packaging than the outside,” he says. Graza’s mayonnaise packaging sticks true to the OG bright and playful style, reminiscent of its olive oil. The containers feature a joyful olive and egg duo (or a smiling garlic bulb on the aioli package). The labels feature an illustrated olive, and the lids of its glass jars have a repeating olive and vine motif. For as much as Benin doesn’t want Graza to be known simply for its packaging innovation, the company’s branding is one of its strongest assets. With the mayo, as with the olive oil, its packaging is something of a Trojan horse to get people to look at it, and then to try it. He knows he probably won’t convert the most fervent mayonnaise haters, but he’s hoping to intrigue mayo apologists enough to try Graza’s version. “We get excited when there’s this big pool that we can plug into and say, ‘How are we going to make it better? How are we going to stand out? Where can we do things the Graza way?’” Benin says. View the full article

In the past few years, while navigating the streets of San Francisco, bus and trolley operators have documented a growing presence on the city’s streets: Waymo robotaxis, often devoid of any front-seat human driver, causing problems. Sometimes, they report the cars for signs of an illegal maneuver, like when in September, a driver operating the city’s 45 electric bus noticed a Waymo trying to pass on double solid yellow lines at Stockton and Columbus, an intersection along its route. Or for a near miss—like, when, last December, a Waymo was caught by a city light rail train’s video camera making a dangerous left turn at “high speed.” Very often, transit operators flag a stalled robotaxi, or several, blocking a public street. Clearing the vehicle might require a transportation official to reach out to a Waymo call center, or even the cops, for help. This process, which involves the city’s Traffic Management Center (TMC), can take as long as an hour to resolve. Back in 2024, the city’s MTA even created a new dedicated dispatch category to log these reports: “Driverless Car Incident.” The sight of a stalled Waymo isn’t new. But a TMC database, obtained by Fast Company via a public records request, suggests that reports of problematic robotaxis are being filed more often, and that the procedure for handling stalled vehicles is not yet seamless. Fixing the robotaxi blockage can involve waiting for a remote Waymo assistance team helping the vehicle’s AI get moving again, a transit dispatcher complaining to a Waymo call center, or even a cop taking control of the vehicle themselves and driving it away. When the smart city goes dark Last December, Waymo and the city’s approach to this problem was pushed to the brink when a partial blackout in San Francisco knocked out city traffic lights—and left Waymos across the city in a confused standstill and government officials on hold with the company’s call center in the middle of an emergency. Concern that Waymos can disrupt public services came up again recently, after one of the robotaxis was recorded briefly blocking an ambulance in the aftermath of the Austin mass shooting. “In recent years we implemented new reporting mechanisms for our operators to report incidents that involve driverless vehicles,” the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Authority tells Fast Company. “By doing so, we’re adapting to the evolving landscape in San Francisco and making sure that we can provide the best service possible for our customers.” “Waymo is committed to continuous improvement,” Lety Cavalcante, who serves as Waymo’s director of operations and head of its operators center, tells Fast Company. “We established even closer communication with San Francisco emergency officials, and are developing additional capabilities to facilitate smoother interactions between our operations and transit workers when on-road issues arise.” The company says it’s also implemented changes to ensure that both first responders and transit operators are prioritized when they call Waymo for help. Still, Waymo disputes the descriptions of some of the events described in documents, and says the public transit operators’ reports are not a useful way of characterizing how their vehicles actually behave on the road. In regards to the first case—the robotaxi that allegedly passed on solid yellow—Waymo said its car was actually waiting behind the bus while it picked up passengers, and that the car was slowly trying to pass around the left side of the bus. Before the car was actually next to the bus, the public transit vehicle began to move, and the Waymo returned to its original lane. In regards to the second incident—the dangerous left turn near a train—Waymo says the train was in an opposing lane and the car was about 100 feet away. Of course, the promise of self-driving cars is that they’re supposed to be safer than human drivers. Indeed, some of the issues documented in the database, like Waymos allegedly cutting off buses, or parking in areas reserved for public transit, are infractions that humans also commit, and possibly far more often. Research suggests that autonomous cars can outperform human drivers, and are even less likely to be involved in serious accidents. Waymo says it’s reduced serious crashes, airbag deployments, and collisions involving pedestrians. (It was also spotlighted as one of Fast Company‘s Most Innovative Companies last year.) But self-driving cars are also a different sort of beast: They are powered via AI, deployed as a coordinated fleet that’s monitored by a single company. And they’re growing evermore popular: Waymo, which raised $16 billion earlier this year, is now successfully operating across the U.S., including in Phoenix, Arizona, and Atlanta. Meanwhile, competing AV companies like Tesla and Zoox are also operating, though they all remain far behind Waymo in San Francisco: Tesla vehicles don’t operate without human drivers yet, and Zoox only has a small number of cars on the road. Waymo’s success has made the once-futuristic idea of autonomous vehicles relatively commonplace in cities. But next-generation cars also introduce next-generation traffic jams. Which means interactions that once felt surreal—“honking at a driverless car makes me feel insane,” as one constituent, in an email obtained through a public records request, recently wrote to the San Francisco MTA—are poised to become a routine, and increasingly consequential, part of everyday life. Waymo’s trolleycar problem Waymo acknowledges its self-driving cars sometimes cause issues for public transit operators. This is where the company’s event response team, which Waymo describes as a specialized subunit within a larger remote assistance team, comes in: First responders and transit operators have access to a hotline number that reaches this team. That team is then supposed to help get a vehicle moving again, which might involve having Waymo personnel come physically drive the car away. Waymo says that, at the request of law enforcement, police officers and other first responders also have the ability to manually take over its robotaxis. On the ground, resolving these issues, and getting public transit moving again, can sometimes take a while, according to an analysis of the data obtained by Fast Company. The city’s Traffic Management Center (TMC), which receives calls about roadway obstructions from public transit operators, can take about 20 minutes, on average, and haven’t significantly improved between 2024 and 2025, according to an analysis by Mary Cummings, an engineering professor who studies autonomous vehicles at Carnegie Mellon University. In busy cities, delays can slow down dozens of public transit riders, and other cars, too. The TMC database shows complaints of blocked vehicles date back to at least 2023. The SF MTA has, for years, flagged its concerns about hazardous “unplanned stops,” including to the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s main autonomous vehicle regulator. In 2024, the MTA began tracking a new dispatch category called “Driverless Car Incident.” That decision was made a few months after Waymo started pulling its precautionary safety drivers from its cars, and truly driverless service began, an official at the MTA tells Fast Company. It was at that point, they say, that the transportation agency started seeing the real challenges introduced by AVs. “Robotaxis impose burdens on other road users that are not there with human drivers,” argues Philip Kooperman, another engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon. “Now, maybe the benefits outweigh the burdens, but you have to recognize the burdens are being posed.” City streets are chaotic places, and Waymos are only a tiny fraction of the problems that get reported to San Francisco’s traffic control center. Also, incidents involving Waymos aren’t always the fault of Waymo. The reports appear to reflect preliminary descriptions, and aren’t the results of full investigations. Still, they reveal what can be a convoluted workflow. When public transit drivers encounter a Waymo problem, they report it to the city’s traffic control center, an SF MTA official explains. Traffic controllers can then contact Waymo’s call center for the event response team, which may help guide the vehicle away remotely or dispatch an employee to move it manually. But, in the case of a delay, or if they’ve had difficulty reaching Waymo, they may also call a first responder. Several of the reports include complaints about the quality of the Waymo call center. “Waymo contacted and was ZERO help,” noted one complaint, which came after a public transit operator reported a robotaxi blocking the street in both directions. “Waymo was attempted but kept being routed to a call center that was no help,” noted another report, which came at an intersection where traffic signals needed to be reset. Several reports discuss cops getting involved. This is not something police should be involved in, but sometimes the situation requires it, the San Francisco MTA official says. One report references a separate Waymo call center number that reaches an enterprise support team. Waymo did not explain why the number was referenced in the report, but says it’s for a team that supports it for Waymo test drivers—not first responders or transit operators. For now, Waymo transit operators are supposed to contact the same first responder number that police use, though it’s working on creating a separate hotline for transit operators and government officials. The San Francisco Police Department, which is referenced repeatedly in the document, did not respond to a request for comment. Blackout blues On December 20 of last year, a circuit breaker at an indoor substation operated by California utility provider, PG&E ignited, sparking a fire that knocked out power across much of San Francisco. This mass outage caused serious problems for the city’s Waymo fleet. When Waymos encountered the temporarily disabled traffic lights, many stalled, waiting for confirmations from the company’s remote assistance team. In some areas, squads of robotaxis sat with their hazard lights flashing, clogging streets, according to footage later uploaded online. Some incidents were reported to the Traffic Management Center, including one trolleybus driver who was blocked by four stalled Waymos. The city’s traffic control office contacted Waymo support but was unable to resolve the situation, the report noted, and a city inspector eventually showed up to clear the scene. Overall, there were more than 42 reported incidents involving autonomous vehicles between 2 p.m. and midnight on the day of the blackout, according to a city filing viewed by Fast Company. Firefighters also needed to move a robotaxi blocking them from the very substation fire that originally caused the blackout. One Waymo delayed an ambulance by 40 minutes, the city says. There were other problems: The Department of Emergency Management, the city’s 911 service, did try to engage Waymo, but the company was unresponsive, a city official tells Fast Company. Eventually, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie both called and texted Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of the company, about the issue. In the messages, which were viewed by Fast Company, he flagged all the locations where the cars had caused problems, which she subsequently thumbs up. “All cars are pulled over or actively headed back to base,” she later wrote. “Trips are done—no hailing.” The issues continued even after service was suspended, the filing states. Ultimately, the city’s 911 service placed more than 31 calls to Waymo’s first responder hotline and spent more than two hours and 36 minutes of call time trying to contact the company. “While we cannot document this in detail, a large majority of this time was spent on hold; one SFDEM staff person remained on the Waymo first responder hotline for 53 minutes—most of that time on hold,” noted the city. Though many were resolved quickly, Waymo has said that there were ultimately more than 1,500 stoppage events during the blackout. Pete Wilson, president of TWU Local 250A, which represents the city’s transit workers, said robotaxis repeatedly stalled when traffic lights failed, causing them to stack up and block streets, buses, and rail lines. “During the blackout they did not know what to do when the stop lights went out, so they just stopped,” he tells Fast Company. “Then another Waymo would come and pull up next to the first one and stop.” Relying on the mayor to text a company’s CEO is not a great emergency response plan, and other municipalities don’t necessarily have leaders as connected to Big Tech as Lurie. Waymo has since promised to be more responsive in future emergencies, a city official told Fast Company, and the Department of Emergency Management says it’s since had “productive” conversations with the company. The wait time experienced by emergency dispatchers was unacceptable, Waymo told Fast Company, and the company plans to improve its emergency operations. “We’re encouraged by our recent preparedness performance demonstrated during subsequent power outages, city-wide protests, and other large scale events in San Francisco, including the Super Bowl,” adds Cavalcante, from the company. Waymo says it’s briefed a bevy of agencies, as well as the Governor’s office, since the blackout, and says it will deploy dedicated incident management personnel on site in the future. Communication overload As Waymo explains it, when the company’s robotaxis encounter trouble or a confusing situation, they’re supposed to seek confirmation from a team of remote assistant agents staffed by humans. But, as first reported by Fast Company, the December blackout highlighted a gap in defenses: When communications networks and systems are overwhelmed—which often happens during emergencies—vehicles can’t quickly connect to the remote teams that help the cars’ software navigate confusing situations. There can also be challenges with reaching the specific team that helps first responders. The company tells Fast Company that it’s making improvements to the Waymo Driver that will enable more decisive and efficient navigation during future events. Still, the emergency has raised questions about who should pick up the slack when a Waymo stalls, whether it’s confused by a troubling intersection, and blocking a bus, or because it can’t make out the traffic lights during a blackout. Critically, Waymo maintains that its cars are autonomous, so even when the remote assistant agents are called into help, they are simply advising the car, and not remotely driving the vehicle. Some lawmakers have raised concerns that some of these workers are based in the Philippines. Several people affiliated with Waymo are mentioned by name in the MTA reports, but Waymo did not comment on where, specifically, they were based. Waymo says that employees on the event response team, which interfaces directly with first responders, are based in the U.S. The California DMV is currently developing regulations for remote drivers and remote assistance, a spokesperson says, and the agency is still engaging AV manufacturers on emergency response. In the aftermath of that blackout, the San Francisco MTA has urged the California Public Utilities Commission, which serves as the main regulator of the technology in the state, to consider how autonomous vehicle providers approach disaster preparedness, especially in a case of “fleet-wide failure.” Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the California Public Utilities Commission, says the agency “continues to gather information from Waymo related to the power outage in San Francisco.” The SF County Transportation Authority has called for more transparency into the frequency of AV stoppages, but has since deferred conversations to Bilal Mahmood, a San Francisco city supervisor. Mahmood, for his part, recently compared the robotaxis to the carriage from Cinderella. “Just like in the fairy tale, we can now see that those carriages can turn into pumpkins at the drop of a hat,” he said during his introductory remarks at a city hearing focused on the blackout’s impact on AVs. There, Mary Ellen Caroll, the head of the city’s emergency response office, said she remains concerned about the impact of Waymos on first responders who have to remove vehicles, and about what might happen in a future emergency, including a cyber outage. Offshore remote control The public still doesn’t know how often Waymos block traffic. While Waymo publicly reports a range of data to the California Public Utilities Commission, the company reports stoppage data, along with other trip detail data, to the agency confidentially. At a public hearing in January, an attorney representing the company claimed that the stoppage data could inadvertently reveal data about “fleet utilization” and, if shared publicly, could reveal trade secrets. Indeed, the numbers obtained by Fast Company only tell part of the story. It’s possible that some public transit operators don’t even file these reports. These operators are a minority of the drivers on San Francisco streets. When asked whether it seemed like Waymo cared about the impact its vehicles might have on public transit, the official at the San Francisco MTA said it was difficult to tell. They recalled a social media post from a while back, which saw customers on the phone with Waymo—reporting on their car inferring with public transit—and receiving remarkable service. But it’s hard to tell if that’s the norm, the official tells Fast Company, since that’s data the city just doesn’t have. Waymo did not tell Fast Company how often its cars stall or block transit, but said its robotaxis have completed 40 million miles of autonomous driving throughout the three years covered by the TMC reports. There’s little the SF MTA can do to change this workflow, the city agency says. “California law gives permitting authority over AVs to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC),” the transportation agency tells Fast Company in a statement. “San Francisco does not regulate AVs or set conditions on their operations – either day to day or in relation to disaster and emergency response.” Still, Waymo behavior is a big enough problem that, inside the San Francisco MTA—which maintains oversight of the city’s streets—even staffers sometimes grumble about them. In one December email obtained via public records request, Ricardo Olea, a city traffic engineer, remarked on one recent email, complaining that Waymos had been stopping in a no-stopping lane. “[N]ot a good place to block traffic,” wrote Olea. “The bigger problem is that Waymo has decided that the NO STOPPING signs don’t apply to them, so who knows what other bad places they stop at.” View the full article

Issey Miyake’s latest design is a pair of sunglasses inspired by the art of pottery. The glasses, called “Uroko,” are part of Miyake‘s Spring Summer 2026 collection, Dancing Texture. Rather than the typical two-lens structure, they feature eight separate lenses that curve around the temples like a trippy optical illusion. While the design itself reads futuristic, the texture of the frames is almost organic—like a relic of an ancient advanced society. They’re set to debut on Miyake’s website in mid-March for $680. Each piece of the Dancing Texture collection, which includes structured garments alongside billowing, patterned textiles, pulls inspiration from the work of the late potter Kamoda Shōji, who’s considered to be one of Japan’s most influential ceramic artists of the 20th century. The Uroko glasses are not only based on a common motif found in Kamoda’s work, but also mimic the finishing process of his clay pottery, making each pair a one-of-one. A combination of 3D printing and Japanese craftsmanship Kamoda, who died in 1983, rose to national popularity in the 1970s thanks to his approach to pottery that blended attention to Japan’s ceramic history and his own innovative concepts. He used local clay from the small town of Tōno, which was typically used for roof tiling, making it unusually rough. Instead of relying on a potter’s wheel, he preferred to hand-coil the clay, which meant a distinctly labor-intensive process. Per a 2022 exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, every one of Kamoda’s pieces was designed to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. To capture that ethos of texture, function, and aesthetics, Miyake’s team started with a design that’s an ode to one of Kamoda’s signature patterns. The Uroko’s eight lenses are a reference to a swath of finely detailed scales, which Kamoda often returned to in his ceramic work, frequently as an intricate web that would cover an entire vase or bowl. Miyake’s team created a custom 3D-printed template for the frames, which includes two lens spaces for the eyes and six more spaces that circle around to the ears. Given the unusual shapes of the glasses, mass-produced lenses were out of the question. Instead, Miyake’s team designed lenses with a specially engineered concave cut to fit within the compact frame. “Each lens is cut into a scale-like shape so that it fits precisely into its corresponding frame,” a brand spokesperson explains. “Because the frames are small and uniquely shaped, we went through many rounds of prototyping to refine the lens geometry. Through this process, we developed a lens shape that can be fitted seamlessly into the frame without any gaps.” Once the lenses were finished, craftsmen on Miyake’s design team assembled each component by hand. As a final detail, they hand-finished the frames, purposefully accentuating their textured surfaces to reveal subtle variations in the 3D-printed material. This step, like the glazing of a series of ceramics, ensures that no two pairs of glasses are the same—and makes any imperfections an intentional part of the design. View the full article

Borrowers or lenders could use the prediction markets as a hedging tool, although experts noted the lack of trading volume as cause for caution. View the full article

Silicon Valley is rallying around a new extinction narrative. Agentic AI, autonomous systems capable of executing workflows on their own, could make traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications obsolete. Big Tech investors worldwide argue that if artificial intelligence agents can update customer relationship management (CRM) records, create project tickets, and resolve support requests autonomously, companies may soon question whether to continue to pay per-seat subscription fees for software designed primarily for human operators. Public markets have reacted as if that future is already underway. Since early 2026 (January to February), the S&P 500 Software and Services Index has fallen roughly 30%, wiping out nearly $1 trillion to $2 trillion in market value amid fears driven by agentic AI. The sell-off hit many of the SaaS pioneers, including Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Snowflake. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software exchange-traded fund (ETF) dropped more than 20% as investors began pricing in what some industry experts now call the “SaaSpocalypse.” The launch of Anthropic’s Claude Cowork in late January amplified investor fears. The agentic AI platform introduced a “computer-using agent” (CUA) capable of autonomously operating desktop software across multiple applications, allowing it to complete complex workflows without requiring human interaction with traditional interfaces. In early enterprise tests, Claude Cowork demonstrated the ability to handle tasks typically performed inside specialized SaaS tools. Inside SAP, one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world, however, the narrative looks very different. Christian Klein, SAP’s CEO, believes the industry is misreading the moment. He says AI agents will not eliminate enterprise applications. They will make them more important than ever. “What we are seeing is the market over-rotating on the belief that AI agents will replace every application and every seat license overnight. And that’s simply not how enterprise technology works,” Klein tells Fast Company in an exclusive conversation. “The breakthroughs are real, no question. But the sell-off conflates the disruption of lightweight, stand-alone tools with the disruption of deeply integrated systems that actually run businesses.” Klein, who joined SAP as an intern in the late 1990s, has witnessed multiple waves of disruption across enterprise software—from the dot-com collapse to the emergence of subscription pricing. He says each transition brought predictions that traditional enterprise software would disappear. Each time, software ultimately became more valuable. From his perspective, agentic AI does not eliminate the need for systems that manage enterprise truth. “While building agents is becoming easier by the day, deploying them across end-to-end supply chains or financial close processes, with full compliance and audit trails, is much more complex. That’s where 90% of the effort has to be invested,” he notes. Why the SaaS Boom Is Facing Investor Doubt The SaaS model, built on recurring subscriptions tied to employee head count, rests on a simple assumption: As companies grow, the number of software seats they purchase grows with them. Agentic AI challenges that premise directly. Instead of logging in to a dozen enterprise applications and assigning work to multiple teams, a single employee can prompt an autonomous agent to complete a task. The seat-based subscription model that powered the SaaS boom over the past two decades is beginning to look fragile in a world where software no longer depends on human seats to generate value. Early enterprise deployments are already showing signs of that shift. Some companies report declining seat demand in categories such as project management, CRM administration, and customer support workflows—areas where automation can quickly replace repetitive human tasks. Atlassian shares plunged roughly 35% earlier this year after the company reported its first meaningful decline in enterprise seat growth. Investor anxiety that AI agents could bypass traditional workflow interfaces also sent ServiceNow stock down about 11%—even after the company reported earnings that beat market expectations—triggering broader panic across the enterprise software sector. Meanwhile, a new generation of venture-backed startups such as Adept.ai and Replicate.dev are building what some investors call “service-as-software” or “SaaS 2.0” companies. Instead of selling application licenses, these firms deploy autonomous agents that complete entire business tasks and charge customers based on outcomes rather than user seats. Klein, however, argues that most discussions about the “death of SaaS” overlook a crucial distinction. Agents still need systems of record. Even the most advanced AI agents depend on structured business data, governance policies, and access controls to operate safely. “An agent that doesn’t understand how your business actually runs will quietly cascade errors into wrong decisions and real financial losses,” Klein says. However, he adds that as agents take on workloads, pricing will evolve toward usage-based or outcome-based models. “This shift will favor platforms with deep workflow integration over solutions that sell licenses to individual users. The value will move to whoever owns the business context, the data, and the governance that make that agent reliable.” According to the research and advisory firm Forrester, global SaaS spending is projected to grow from $318 billion in 2025 to $576 billion by 2029, a trajectory that suggests the enterprise software core is not disappearing. SAP’s recent financial results offer some support for that thesis. The company reported 30% growth in total cloud backlog in fiscal year 2025, reaching €77 billion ($88.7 billion), while cloud revenue rose 23% during the same period. Its cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite grew nearly 28%. Perhaps more tellingly, SAP Business AI was included in about two-thirds of its fourth-quarter cloud deals. The Future of AI Agents Lies Inside Enterprise Software SAP has largely weathered the SaaSpocalypse, with its stock falling only modestly (about 13% through mid-February 2026), while maintaining a market capitalization of roughly $235 billion as of March. That performance has significantly outpaced many pure-play SaaS peers, including ServiceNow. Klein says that of SAP’s 50 largest deals in Q4, about 90% included either AI capabilities or Business Data Cloud, the company’s unified data layer. “Customers want AI deeply embedded in the systems their operations already depend on, powered by data they can actually trust,” he notes. The company’s flagship platform is Joule, a generative AI copilot and orchestration layer integrated across SAP’s enterprise software suite, along with a growing ecosystem of autonomous “Joule agents” designed to automate complex workflows for finance, procurement, supply chain management, and human resources. Instead of navigating software interfaces externally, these agents rely on the company’s existing business logic, process expertise, and data models. SAP’s internal data infrastructure also plays a key role. SAP Knowledge Graph organizes relationships across enterprise data, enabling AI systems to reason about how business processes connect across departments. The goal, Klein explains, is to transform enterprise systems with AI into what he calls “operating systems for autonomous work.” The company’s current hybrid model, combining RISE subscriptions with embedded AI orchestration, positions it as a platform adapting to the emerging service-as-software era. However, industry experts note that SAP software can still be complex to implement, and many customers remain in the middle of lengthy migrations from legacy on-premise systems to the company’s cloud platforms. A Competitive Reset Across Enterprise Software SAP is not alone in making this bet. Major cloud platforms are racing to embed agentic AI directly into enterprise data environments. Databricks, Google BigQuery, AWS Redshift, and Microsoft’s enterprise software stack are all integrating autonomous agents that operate within governed data layers. The competitive battleground has shifted from building better models to controlling enterprise context. “The current AI moment is different in speed and scale. Whoever owns the business logic, the process orchestration, and the governed data layer wins. AI agents don’t float above enterprise systems. They need them as their operating foundation,” Klein says. Some of the most vulnerable companies in the SaaS sector are narrow point-solution vendors. Applications that perform a single function, such as ticket management or basic analytics, face greater risk from automation. Dan Faulkner, CEO of SmartBear, says platforms that manage entire enterprise workflows appear more defensible. “Many SaaS products have been accessible via API [application programming interface] for years. The agents aren’t bypassing the software; they’re just using the API to work with it, rather than the human-oriented GUI [graphical user interface] people use,” Faulkner says. “Enterprise software will undoubtedly have to adapt to accommodate the growing population of agentic versus human users. Agents will have different constraints and capabilities than humans, so we may start to think of agent-forward work streams and human-forward work streams.” He explains that companies that fail to tap into the AI-oriented enterprise IT budget will struggle. Likewise, Kate Leggett, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, says that enterprises often spend $10 million a year on CRM and $100 million a year on ERP to support business-critical operations. These systems are deeply integrated into their operations and designed to support workflows that adhere to country-dependent regulatory compliance standards. “Companies are not risking regulatory penalties and ripping out these deep investments right now and substituting them for AI agents,” she says. “AI consumption-based pricing will increase over time. Some of these vendors offer flex credits to preserve overall spend for a customer, where seats can be converted to consumption credits.” Leggett explains that while “vibe coding” and DIY software development are gaining attention, enterprises still need the expertise to build, maintain, and scale that code over time while ensuring it remains secure and compliant. For core business workflows, that remains far from a trivial task, she notes. If SAP’s Klein is right, the future may look different. Instead of eliminating enterprise software, agentic AI could transform it into the infrastructure that governs autonomous work. The SaaSpocalypse may not signal the death of enterprise software. It may mark the beginning of its next evolution. “Enterprise software isn’t just code. It’s knowledge of how the businesses worldwide actually operate—the processes, the rules, the edge cases, plus the hard-won trust that comes from keeping mission-critical processes running at scale. You can’t vibe-code that in a garage,” Klein says. “Speed matters, but depth wins.” View the full article

Walt Disney Imagineering has revealed the inner workings of its latest creation: a real-life 3D version of Olaf, the funny snowman from Frozen, complete with a detachable carrot nose that kids can steal. According to Disney Parks, creating the snowman was a far greater challenge than standard bipedal humanoids, which rely on symmetrical weight distribution to stay upright. Olaf is a physical anomaly: He has a massive, heavy head perched on a remarkably slim neck, with two floating snowballs for feet and arms as thin as literal tree branches. This introduced equilibrium, mechanical, and thermal problems that the team had to solve. Adding to these design and technological difficulties, the robot also had to capture its soul through motion, which is one of the biggest challenges that roboticists face today. As David Müller and his team from Walt Disney Imagineering reveal in a newly published research paper about Olaf: “This isn’t just about replicating the animation; it’s about emulating the creators’ intent.” To bridge the gap between a CGI (computer-generated image) snowman and reality, the team had to invent new technologies in the field of legged robotics—cramming a bizarre skeleton into an incredibly tight space—and rely on deep reinforcement learning so the machine didn’t face-plant or literally melt its own hardware. Announced back in November 2025, Olaf will interact with guests when the World of Frozen officially opens at Disneyland Paris on March 29. Backwards anatomy Robo-Olaf is a 34.9-inch-tall, 32.8-pound machine, featuring a custom exterior made with iridescent fibers to mimic the animated Olaf’s “snow-like shimmer that catches the light just like fresh snow” in the real world. The most complex mechanical problem was hiding the machine’s legs. In the films, Olaf’s feet just glide under his body like slick snowballs. To replicate that effect in our three-dimensional reality, Disney engineers had to dump traditional robot design entirely. Instead, according to their research paper, they engineered “a novel asymmetric six-degrees-of-freedom leg design.” Essentially, they built the legs backwards to each other. The left leg features a backward-facing hip motor and a forward knee, while the right leg uses a forward hip motor and a backward knee. This bizarre layout ensures the metal joints don’t collide inside the snowman’s constrained lower body when it walks. All that internal machinery is masked by a flexible polyurethane foam skirt that looks like a snowball but deflects enough to allow the robot to take wide, stumbling recovery steps if it loses its balance. Space inside the torso was so tight that engineers couldn’t even fit motors inside the shoulder joints. As one of the robot’s inventors explained in the presentation: “Since there is not enough space for actuators at the joint, we place them inside the torso and drive the arms using a spherical five-bar linkage.” The rest of his features—arms, eyebrows, hair, and that iconic carrot nose—are attached with magnets, allowing them to snap off during a fall in order to prevent damage (and be used for some great jokes). But building a weird skeleton is useless if it can’t walk. To nail the specific, goofy gait of the character, human coding simply wasn’t enough. Disney turned to reinforcement learning, an artificial intelligence technique that works like an evolutionary sandbox. In a virtual simulation, the software was fed the exact animation files from Walt Disney Animation Studios and tasked with figuring out how to fire the motors to balance the heavy head and match those movements without real-world Olaf face-planting every few steps. Through relentless trial and error, the AI discovered the precise mathematical inputs needed. That AI training also saved the robot from destroying itself. Olaf’s massive head is controlled by tiny motors packed inside a narrow, heavily insulated costume neck. The large head, driven by small actuators, creates a high risk of overheating, Müller says in the video introducing Olaf’s robotic guts. So they augmented the motion and talking AI model simulation with an additional thermal model. That model tracked the temperature of each part, feeding the resulting actuator temperatures into the AI motion engine. The neural engine then got a reward whenever it achieved a motion that kept the temperature within safe parameters, effectively mitigating heat buildup. If the neck motors approach their 176-degree Fahrenheit limit, the AI subtly adjusts Olaf’s posture on the fly, reducing the torque required to hold his head up and letting the hardware cool down without breaking character. Silencing the machine When the engineers first translated the Olaf’s CGI walk into physical motion, they realized that the footfalls sounded too loud. Walking robots naturally hit the floor hard in order to stabilize themselves, but the sound of heavy robotic footsteps would immediately shatter the idea of a weightless snowman gliding across a room. To solve this, Disney’s team returned to the AI simulation and coded an impact reduction reward. Müller and his team essentially taught the software to prioritize putting its feet down gently, forcing the algorithm to dramatically decelerate the mechanical feet right before they struck the floor. The research data proves that this single algorithm tweak drops the footstep noise by 13.5 decibels, making Olaf walk much more quietly while still maintaining the character’s signature heel-toe strut. It’s not silent, like the animated version, but it’s also not like the Terminator is coming to kill a bunch of kids. While AI controls the robot itself, the actual performance is “puppeteered via a remote interface.” An operator offstage triggers a specific gesture or a line of dialogue, and the AI seamlessly blends that commanded animation into its active balancing calculations. The result of all this mechanical and cleverly engineered AI is the most realistic and lively robot I’ve ever seen. The thing feels so amazingly alive that I want to go party with the little guy, and I don’t even like Frozen. View the full article

I recently heard from a historian of science at All Souls College, Oxford. He forwarded me ​an essay​ he wrote about Nicolaus Steno, a seventeenth-century anatomist and geologist who was later ordained as a Catholic Bishop. Steno’s training as a scholar unfolded in a period challenged by a novel problem: information overload. Here’s how the essay describes it: “Books were a leading distraction in the early modern period—and how envious we should be of those times. From the 1500s onward, with the development of the printing press and the humanist revival of ancient philosophies, knowledge became available at a much greater pace than ever before.” This created pressing questions for aspiring thinkers, including: “How do we decide what to read? How long should we read it for? Must every single chapter be excerpted?” Part of the solution was the development of “new note-taking techniques,” including the copying of excerpts into a master notebook called a book of commonplaces. (For more on this technique, I recommend William Powell’s delightful 2010 techno-history, ​Hamlet’s Blackberry​). But as the essay on Steno elaborates, better notes weren’t enough on their own, as there were simply too many good books available. In response to this reality, Steno, during his university studies in the 1650s, innovated some more advanced attention management strategies: “[H]e learned to focus on specific themes, rather than letting his mind read multiple things quickly. A ‘harmful hastening should be avoided’ as he put it. His solution was to ‘stick to one topic.’ In practice, that meant blocking specific moments of time to go through the hardest tasks. As he wrote in his personal notebook, ‘before noon nothing must be done except medical things.’ … As Steno told a friend, he took ‘almost all the morning hours’ to read the works of the Church Fathers and old biblical manuscripts available at the Medici library.” In other words, Steno created a method that combines what we might now call ​slow productivity​, ​deep work​, and ​time blocking​. The lessons here are clear. The use of our brains to think deeply about meaningful ideas isn’t new. It’s been at the core of the human experience since the early modern period, when access to sophisticated information first became somewhat widespread. The best practices developed back then remain the best practices today: avoid overload, focus on one thing at a time, and block off specific hours in your day for your most mentally demanding efforts. AI Reality Check: Two weeks ago, a small financial services firm, Citrini Research, published ​an essay​ describing a bleak scenario in which AI agents destroy the white-collar job market in the near future. The piece went viral and was ​cited as a factor​ in a modest decline of the S&P 500 the next day. The Citrini essay wasn’t the first to float this scenario. In recent weeks, there have been multiple credulous articles and op-eds in major publications proposing similar outcomes (e.g., ​1​, ​2​, ​and 3​). But the negative impact on the stock market seems to have been the last straw for serious economists who began to push back on these technological ghost stories last week. (I particularly enjoyed a Deutsche Bank analyst who, perhaps borrowing ​some of my​ terminology, ​told the Times​ that the Citrini article had a “vibes-to-substance ratio” that was “undeniably high.”) If you’re looking to reduce your blood pressure about this idea that AI is about to unravel the economy, I suggest reading ​a detailed response article​ published by an analyst from the Global Macro Strategies group at Citadel. It begins with a bit of finance geek sarcasm: “Despite the macroeconomic community struggling to forecast 2-month-forward payroll growth with any reliable accuracy, the forward path of labor destruction can apparently be inferred with significant certainty from a hypothetical scenario posted on Substack…” It then continues to systematically destabilize the economic naivety of these breathless op-eds and viral essays about how AI will dismantle the economy all at once. It certainly made me feel better. (If you’re looking for additional soothing of your AI anxiety, then you should also check ​the first episode​ of my new AI Reality Check podcast series, which I published last Thursday. I have a new episode of the series coming out this upcoming Thursday as well.) The post The Original Attention Crisis appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

A recent Wall Street Journal survey found a 38-point gap between how executives and employees experience AI at work. C-suite leaders report saving eight or more hours weekly. Two-thirds of front-line workers say the tools save them less than two hours—or nothing at all. Most leaders read that as a rollout problem. A training problem. A communication problem. It’s none of those things. This month, a National Bureau of Economic Research study of 6,000 executives confirmed what the WSJ data was already pointing to: the vast majority are seeing no measurable productivity gains from AI. Not a small shortfall. A near-total disconnect between investment and results. Here’s what I keep seeing when I work with leadership teams navigating this: the technology isn’t the problem. The problem is what organizations do—and don’t have—to absorb it. Organizational immunity Every organization has what I’d call an immune system. Embedded processes, governance structures, risk practices, cultural norms—all built to protect the existing operation. They do exactly what they were designed to do: reject things that don’t fit. AI doesn’t fit most existing operating models. Not because it’s bad technology. Because the organizational architecture wasn’t built to run it. Think about what happens when a company deploys AI. The pilot succeeds. Everyone celebrates. Someone gets budget to scale. And then—quietly, slowly—it stalls. Leaders say the technology underperformed. Or the team wasn’t ready. Or the timing was off. What really happened: the organization lacked the mindsets, skillsets, and operating conditions to absorb what the pilot proved could work. The gap isn’t in the tools. It’s in the internal architecture required to put them to use at scale. The potential The evidence that this works when those conditions exist is real. EY’s 2025 Work Reimagined Survey, which drew on 15,000 employees across 29 countries, found that when AI is integrated properly—into actual workflows, with training, clear use cases, and psychological safety—productivity gains of up to 40% are achievable. The potential is there. For most organizations, the conditions for realizing it are not yet in place. What makes the current moment particularly costly is that many organizations are actively dismantling what little absorption capacity they had. The financial logic seems clean: cut headcount to fund AI investment. Reduce labor costs while increasing the capability of automated tools. Except the people being cut are often the judgment layer—mid-level managers and senior individual contributors who know the context, catch the errors, translate AI outputs into actual decisions, and course-correct when something goes sideways. These are exactly the people whose expertise makes AI useful rather than risky. You can’t automate judgment. And you can’t rebuild it quickly once it’s gone. IBM’s chief human resources officer said recently that the company is tripling its entry-level hires in 2026. The reasoning was direct: eliminating early-career roles to fund AI creates a leadership pipeline problem that shows up years later. It’s a longer view than most organizations are currently taking—and it’s the right one. The 38-point perception gap makes complete sense once you see this pattern. Executives use AI primarily as a thinking and communication tool. It genuinely helps at that level. Front-line employees are being asked to use it to do more work, faster, in environments where they’re already stretched—where no one has shown them what good looks like, and where a failed experiment feels career-threatening rather than instructive. The conditions for finding value don’t exist. So, no surprise, they don’t find it. The plan What should leaders actually do with this? Three questions I’d be asking about your organization before the next planning cycle closes: Are you measuring the right thing? Most AI ROI metrics track usage—licenses deployed, training hours logged, features activated. None of that measures whether your organization can absorb what it’s deploying. The better question: can your people make better decisions, faster, because of AI? If you can’t answer that with specific evidence, you’re measuring the tool, not the outcome. Have you built the conditions for honest feedback? When employees fear that surfacing problems signals incompetence or redundancy, you lose the signal that would tell you what’s working. Resistance isn’t obstruction. It’s usually the most accurate diagnostic information you have. Organizations that treat it as intelligence—rather than an obstacle to manage—tend to catch implementation problems before they become write-offs. Does someone own the capability — not just the technology? Most organizations have a clear owner for AI infrastructure. Very few have someone accountable for building the organizational capability to use it well. Those are different problems. Confusing them is expensive. The companies that will see real returns from AI in the next three years aren’t necessarily the ones investing the most. They’re the ones building the internal architecture to absorb what they deploy. That’s not a technology decision. It’s a leadership one. View the full article

You can save considerably today with some excellent retailer coupons. For instance, Yogurtland has a BOGO offer on yogurt and ice cream cups via their app, which is ideal for a treat. At HSN, the Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum is just $25, a notable drop from its original price. Target‘s Vera Bradley throw blankets are now $12.34, whereas Amazon features a Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food 2-Pack for $9.39 and the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99. More savings await you. Key Takeaways Yogurtland App: Enjoy a BOGO offer on yogurt or ice cream cups exclusively through the Yogurtland app on October 27. Shark Cyclone Vacuum: Purchase the Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum for $25 with free shipping, reduced from $70. Vera Bradley Throw Blankets: Grab Vera Bradley throw blankets at Target for just $12.34, originally priced at $65. Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food: Buy a 2-pack of Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food on Amazon for as low as $9.39, with potential digital coupons. Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer: Get the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99, down from $250, with options for additional savings. BOGO Yogurt or Ice Cream Cups at Yogurtland On October 27, Yogurtland is rolling out an enticing buy one, get one (BOGO) promotion on yogurt or ice cream cups, available exclusively through their app on iOS and Android devices. This BOGO deal lets you enjoy a second cup at no extra cost, making it a perfect opportunity to explore new flavors or share a treat with a friend. Yogurtland’s extensive variety of flavors and toppings means there’s something for everyone. To maximize your savings, consider looking for Yogurtland coupons or other food shopping coupons that can improve your dessert experience. Whether you’re searching for digital coupons or printable coupons for food, knowing where to get coupons can save you money. You might additionally check grocery shopping coupons or supermarket coupons for additional deals. Don’t miss out on this fantastic chance to indulge in delicious ice cream or yogurt during taking advantage of this great promotion. Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum for $25 Shipped at HSN The Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum, now priced at just $25 with free shipping at HSN, presents a notable opportunity for pet owners seeking effective cleaning solutions. This vacuum is designed to tackle pet hair and dirt, making it an ideal addition to your cleaning arsenal. With robust suction and a lightweight design, you can easily maneuver it around your home. Feature Benefit Price $25 with free shipping Design Lightweight for easy handling Suction Strength Effective on various surfaces Pet Hair Specific Customized for pet owners Regular Price Originally $70, now considerably reduced While you’re at it, consider exploring grocery store discounts. Learn how to find coupons for groceries, including free digital coupons for Walmart or where to get grocery coupons. You can likewise check for printable grocery coupons and digital grocery coupons to cut costs on household supplies. Vera Bradley Throw Blankets for $12.34 at Target Currently, you can snag Vera Bradley Throw Blankets for just $12.34 at Target, a substantial drop from their original price of $65. This offer represents significant savings of over 80%, making it a fantastic deal for anyone looking to improve their home decor as colder months approach. Target discounts like this one encourage you to act quickly, as the promotion may be available for a limited time. If you’re interested in maximizing your savings, consider using grocery store digital coupons or exploring where to find coupons for groceries to complement your shopping trip. Many stores with coupon apps also provide additional savings opportunities. Printable coupons for grocery shopping can further improve your overall experience. As you shop, keep an eye on the best stores to coupon for more home decor deals, ensuring you enjoy great savings on items like the stylish Vera Bradley blankets. Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food 2-Pack for as Low as $9.39 on Amazon If you’re looking to boost the health of your indoor plants, the Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food 2-Pack is now available on Amazon for as low as $9.39. This recent deal provides crucial nutrients, promoting ideal growth for your plants. The convenience of purchasing a 2-pack not merely saves money but guarantees you have enough food on hand for continued care. Features Benefits Pricing Crucial Nutrients Promotes Healthy Growth As low as $9.39 Convenient 2-Pack Saves Money Significant Discount Available Recent Availability Urgent Purchase Recommended Check for Digital Coupons For those interested in savings, consider looking into where can I find grocery coupons or how to get grocery coupons. Utilize grocery coupon codes and manufacturer coupons app to maximize your savings during purchasing. You can pull up coupons online or check a coupon database for additional deals. Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99 on Amazon For those seeking a versatile kitchen appliance, the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer is available on Amazon for $129.99, a significant drop from its regular price of $250. This air fryer is perfect for everyone, whether you’re cooking for yourself or a large family. Here are three key features you’ll love: Multi-Functionality: Air fry, bake, roast, and dehydrate all in one appliance. Smart Cooking System: Automatically adjusts time and temperature for ideal results. Large Capacity: Easily accommodates meals for gatherings, making meal prep a breeze. If you’re additionally wondering, “where do I find coupons for groceries?” or “how can I get grocery coupons?”, consider using a free coupons app or clip coupons online. You can also pull up coupons and look for free digital coupons for Walmart today. Enjoy your new kitchen gadget and the convenience it brings! Frequently Asked Questions What’s the Best Store to Coupon At? When deciding the best store to coupon at, consider factors like discounts and policies. Target often offers promotions like up to 50% off on seasonal items. Amazon can provide savings of up to 70%, particularly for Prime members. Kohl’s is known for extensive coupons, especially during Black Friday, with sales reaching 70% off. Walmart’s digital coupons and price matching make it competitive, whereas Best Buy thrives in electronics discounts during major sales events. Can You Do Extreme Couponing Now? Yes, you can still do extreme couponing today. With digital coupons available through retailer apps, stacking discounts has become easier. Retailers often provide exclusive coupons for both new and existing customers, enhancing your savings potential. Nevertheless, successful couponing requires planning, like tracking weekly ads and comprehending store policies on coupon usage. Keep in mind that some stores limit the number of coupons per transaction, so familiarize yourself with these rules to maximize your savings effectively. What Is the Temu $100 off Code for Existing Customers? To access the Temu $100 off code for existing customers, log into your Temu account and check your account settings for available promotions. This code often comes with specific terms, like a minimum purchase requirement or an expiration date, so review those details carefully. Furthermore, keep an eye on your email or the Temu app for other discounts or promotions customized for you, as they frequently update their offers. Which Coupon Finder Is the Best? When considering which coupon finder is the best, it depends on your shopping habits. Honey and Rakuten excel at automatically applying discounts during checkout, whereas RetailMeNot offers an extensive database of promo codes. If you prefer cashback options, CouponCabin may suit you. For bridging traditional and digital couponing, SnipSnap is effective, and Coupons.com provides printable coupons for in-store use. Evaluate these options based on your preferences and shopping style to maximize your savings. Conclusion To summarize, today’s retailer coupons offer significant savings across various products. You can enjoy a BOGO deal on yogurt at Yogurtland, snag a Shark Cyclone Pet Vacuum for just $25 at HSN, or find Vera Bradley throw blankets at Target for only $12.34. Amazon features a 2-Pack of Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food for as low as $9.39 and the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99. Take advantage of these deals to maximize your savings. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "5 Best Retailer Coupons You Can Use Today" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

You can save considerably today with some excellent retailer coupons. For instance, Yogurtland has a BOGO offer on yogurt and ice cream cups via their app, which is ideal for a treat. At HSN, the Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum is just $25, a notable drop from its original price. Target‘s Vera Bradley throw blankets are now $12.34, whereas Amazon features a Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food 2-Pack for $9.39 and the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99. More savings await you. Key Takeaways Yogurtland App: Enjoy a BOGO offer on yogurt or ice cream cups exclusively through the Yogurtland app on October 27. Shark Cyclone Vacuum: Purchase the Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum for $25 with free shipping, reduced from $70. Vera Bradley Throw Blankets: Grab Vera Bradley throw blankets at Target for just $12.34, originally priced at $65. Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food: Buy a 2-pack of Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food on Amazon for as low as $9.39, with potential digital coupons. Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer: Get the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99, down from $250, with options for additional savings. BOGO Yogurt or Ice Cream Cups at Yogurtland On October 27, Yogurtland is rolling out an enticing buy one, get one (BOGO) promotion on yogurt or ice cream cups, available exclusively through their app on iOS and Android devices. This BOGO deal lets you enjoy a second cup at no extra cost, making it a perfect opportunity to explore new flavors or share a treat with a friend. Yogurtland’s extensive variety of flavors and toppings means there’s something for everyone. To maximize your savings, consider looking for Yogurtland coupons or other food shopping coupons that can improve your dessert experience. Whether you’re searching for digital coupons or printable coupons for food, knowing where to get coupons can save you money. You might additionally check grocery shopping coupons or supermarket coupons for additional deals. Don’t miss out on this fantastic chance to indulge in delicious ice cream or yogurt during taking advantage of this great promotion. Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum for $25 Shipped at HSN The Shark Cyclone Pet Handheld Vacuum, now priced at just $25 with free shipping at HSN, presents a notable opportunity for pet owners seeking effective cleaning solutions. This vacuum is designed to tackle pet hair and dirt, making it an ideal addition to your cleaning arsenal. With robust suction and a lightweight design, you can easily maneuver it around your home. Feature Benefit Price $25 with free shipping Design Lightweight for easy handling Suction Strength Effective on various surfaces Pet Hair Specific Customized for pet owners Regular Price Originally $70, now considerably reduced While you’re at it, consider exploring grocery store discounts. Learn how to find coupons for groceries, including free digital coupons for Walmart or where to get grocery coupons. You can likewise check for printable grocery coupons and digital grocery coupons to cut costs on household supplies. Vera Bradley Throw Blankets for $12.34 at Target Currently, you can snag Vera Bradley Throw Blankets for just $12.34 at Target, a substantial drop from their original price of $65. This offer represents significant savings of over 80%, making it a fantastic deal for anyone looking to improve their home decor as colder months approach. Target discounts like this one encourage you to act quickly, as the promotion may be available for a limited time. If you’re interested in maximizing your savings, consider using grocery store digital coupons or exploring where to find coupons for groceries to complement your shopping trip. Many stores with coupon apps also provide additional savings opportunities. Printable coupons for grocery shopping can further improve your overall experience. As you shop, keep an eye on the best stores to coupon for more home decor deals, ensuring you enjoy great savings on items like the stylish Vera Bradley blankets. Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food 2-Pack for as Low as $9.39 on Amazon If you’re looking to boost the health of your indoor plants, the Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food 2-Pack is now available on Amazon for as low as $9.39. This recent deal provides crucial nutrients, promoting ideal growth for your plants. The convenience of purchasing a 2-pack not merely saves money but guarantees you have enough food on hand for continued care. Features Benefits Pricing Crucial Nutrients Promotes Healthy Growth As low as $9.39 Convenient 2-Pack Saves Money Significant Discount Available Recent Availability Urgent Purchase Recommended Check for Digital Coupons For those interested in savings, consider looking into where can I find grocery coupons or how to get grocery coupons. Utilize grocery coupon codes and manufacturer coupons app to maximize your savings during purchasing. You can pull up coupons online or check a coupon database for additional deals. Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99 on Amazon For those seeking a versatile kitchen appliance, the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer is available on Amazon for $129.99, a significant drop from its regular price of $250. This air fryer is perfect for everyone, whether you’re cooking for yourself or a large family. Here are three key features you’ll love: Multi-Functionality: Air fry, bake, roast, and dehydrate all in one appliance. Smart Cooking System: Automatically adjusts time and temperature for ideal results. Large Capacity: Easily accommodates meals for gatherings, making meal prep a breeze. If you’re additionally wondering, “where do I find coupons for groceries?” or “how can I get grocery coupons?”, consider using a free coupons app or clip coupons online. You can also pull up coupons and look for free digital coupons for Walmart today. Enjoy your new kitchen gadget and the convenience it brings! Frequently Asked Questions What’s the Best Store to Coupon At? When deciding the best store to coupon at, consider factors like discounts and policies. Target often offers promotions like up to 50% off on seasonal items. Amazon can provide savings of up to 70%, particularly for Prime members. Kohl’s is known for extensive coupons, especially during Black Friday, with sales reaching 70% off. Walmart’s digital coupons and price matching make it competitive, whereas Best Buy thrives in electronics discounts during major sales events. Can You Do Extreme Couponing Now? Yes, you can still do extreme couponing today. With digital coupons available through retailer apps, stacking discounts has become easier. Retailers often provide exclusive coupons for both new and existing customers, enhancing your savings potential. Nevertheless, successful couponing requires planning, like tracking weekly ads and comprehending store policies on coupon usage. Keep in mind that some stores limit the number of coupons per transaction, so familiarize yourself with these rules to maximize your savings effectively. What Is the Temu $100 off Code for Existing Customers? To access the Temu $100 off code for existing customers, log into your Temu account and check your account settings for available promotions. This code often comes with specific terms, like a minimum purchase requirement or an expiration date, so review those details carefully. Furthermore, keep an eye on your email or the Temu app for other discounts or promotions customized for you, as they frequently update their offers. Which Coupon Finder Is the Best? When considering which coupon finder is the best, it depends on your shopping habits. Honey and Rakuten excel at automatically applying discounts during checkout, whereas RetailMeNot offers an extensive database of promo codes. If you prefer cashback options, CouponCabin may suit you. For bridging traditional and digital couponing, SnipSnap is effective, and Coupons.com provides printable coupons for in-store use. Evaluate these options based on your preferences and shopping style to maximize your savings. Conclusion To summarize, today’s retailer coupons offer significant savings across various products. You can enjoy a BOGO deal on yogurt at Yogurtland, snag a Shark Cyclone Pet Vacuum for just $25 at HSN, or find Vera Bradley throw blankets at Target for only $12.34. Amazon features a 2-Pack of Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food for as low as $9.39 and the Ninja Foodi Smart XL Air Fryer for $129.99. Take advantage of these deals to maximize your savings. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "5 Best Retailer Coupons You Can Use Today" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

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It sounds like an obvious business decision: cut headcount, reduce costs, and signal efficiency to the market. When Block CEO Jack Dorsey eliminated more than 4,000 jobs—nearly half the company’s workforce—citing AI-driven efficiency gains, the company’s stock rose more than 20% within hours. Citigroup is executing CEO Jane Fraser’s plan to cut 20,000 roles by the end of 2026. Morgan Stanley recently reduced its workforce by 2,500 positions across its major business divisions, despite posting record revenues in 2025. The announcements are framed as strategic resets. The market often rewards them. But the real consequences rarely show up in the stock price. They show up the following Monday morning, when the people still there sit down at their desks and try to figure out what just changed. What many executives discover is that the organization doesn’t simply continue with fewer people. Work that once moved quickly begins to encounter friction. Teams grow more cautious about acting. Momentum slows. This pattern isn’t a sign of disengagement. It’s structural. When headcount changes quickly, the informal systems that allowed teams to operate efficiently disappear with the people who carried them. Authority becomes unclear, risk tolerance drops, and people wait for signals before acting. The organization is left operating with less context, less coordination, and less slack in the system—while leadership still expects full-speed performance. Through our work advising and coaching senior leaders—Kathryn as an executive and team coach and Jenny as an executive advisor and leadership development expert—we’ve seen this dynamic repeat through restructurings, mergers, and strategic pivots. Layoffs don’t just remove people. They also remove the informal networks, unwritten decision rules, and the institutional memory that help work move forward. What remains is a workforce operating with less psychological and operational fuel—while leadership still expects full-speed performance. Restoring momentum requires more than reassurance. Here are five actions leaders can take to help teams regain traction. 1. Name the Loss Most leaders try to move quickly past the pain after layoffs. They schedule an all-hands, announce the new org chart, and immediate pivot to the next set of priorities. But moving on too quickly often backfires. When Citi CEO Jane Fraser told employees, “We are not graded on effort. We are judged on our results,” the business message was clear. But for those remaining, the emotional subtext—grief, guilt, fear—had nowhere to land. People who just watched colleagues lose jobs at a company posting record revenues often experience survivors’ guilt alongside deep uncertainty about what comes next. Acknowledging that reality does not require performative optimism. It means creating space for honest conversation. Leaders demonstrate appropriate vulnerability help teams process what happened and begin rebuilding trust. Within 48 hours of a layoff announcement, hold a small-group conversation (no more than 15 people) with remaining team members. Come prepared to listen rather than present. Two questions can open the conversation: 1) What are you most worried about right now? 2) What do you need from me? Capture themes and reflect them back through town halls and written updates so employees see their concerns shaping leadership’s response. Acknowledging the loss doesn’t slow recovery. It clears the emotional static that prevents teams from moving forward. 2. Reset Decision Ownership One of the least visible consequences of layoffs is how quickly decision ownership becomes blurred. When teams shrink, responsibilities rarely disappear—they are redistributed quickly and often informally. Projects lose clear owners. Decisions begin climbing the chain of command. People become less certain about who is empowered to act. The leaders who shorten the distance between questions and answers move quickly to re-establish decision clarity by answering three questions for every major workstream: Who owns the decision? Who should contribute input? Who is responsible for execution once the decision is made? After layoffs, teams rarely slow down because they have lost capability alone. More often, they slow down because the organization’s decision architecture has quietly shifted—and no one has rebuilt it. 3. Rebuild the Psychological Contract After the initial shock passes, many teams enter a second phase: recalibration. Employees begin reassessing their relationship with the organization, and what they owe it in return. The implicit agreement that once shaped how people approached their work—how much effort to invest, how much risk to take, how secure the future feels—has shifted. In one recent survey of layoff survivors, 65% said they’d made a costly mistake or felt hesitant to act at work after layoffs due to lack of training, and nearly half reported a drop in morale and engagement. People often become more cautious in meetings, less willing to challenge ideas, and more focused on protecting their own role than helping the broader team succeed. Some companies are experimenting with ways to preserve that contract even as technology reshapes roles. JPMorgan Chase offers one model for rebuilding that contract. Rather than eliminating workers displaced by AI, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said the firm redeploys them into other roles with retraining, relocation assistance, and income support. “We have displaced people from AI,” Dimon noted, “and we offer them other jobs.” Signals like this shape how employees interpret the organization’s commitment to them. Rebuilding trust requires more than reassurance. Leaders must demonstrate through consistent decisions and clear communication that initiative and judgment are still valued—and that employees will be supported when they exercise them. Without that reset, employees often remain in a holding pattern, waiting for the next change rather than investing fully in the work ahead. 4. Narrow Priorities to What Actually Matters When teams suddenly shrink, expectations rarely do. The strategy may remain the same, but the organization’s capacity to execute it rarely does. When priorities remain unchanged while resources decline, teams face a different problem: too many demands competing for limited attention. Instead of moving faster, people spend more time trying to determine where to focus. The result isn’t acceleration—it’s paralysis disguised as busyness. Restoring momentum requires strategic simplification. That means identifying what truly matters in the next phase of the organization’s work and being explicit about what can wait. Projects that once seemed essential may need to pause. Initiatives that were previously “nice to have” may no longer fit the organization’s capacity. Hold a priority reset session within two weeks of any significant headcount reduction. Ask: If we could only accomplish three things this quarter, what would they be? Then make those three things visible, repeated, and properly resourced. Clarity about priorities reduces hesitation. When people understand where to focus, they are far more likely to move forward with confidence. 5. Deliver a Visible Win After major workforce changes, teams often enter a holding pattern. People hesitate to move forward while they wait to see whether more disruption is coming. The leaders who help teams regain momentum don’t rely on messaging alone. They create an early, visible win—resolving a long-standing operational issue, delivering a delayed milestone, or launching a small improvement that had previously stalled. It doesn’t need to be large to matter. Small wins matter because they reset the story teams tell themselves about what’s possible. Instead of focusing on what was lost, people begin to see that the organization can still move forward. Confidence doesn’t return through reassurance alone. It returns when people see momentum being restored. Layoffs may reset strategy and costs. They also quietly disrupt how work actually gets done—and in the current wave of AI-driven workforce reductions, that disruption is happening at a scale and speed that most organizations are not built to absorb. The executives who navigate this moment well are not simply pushing for results. They are also rebuilding the conditions that allow performance to return: clear authority, rebuilt trust, narrowed priorities, and visible proof that forward motion is possible. The stock price reflects the announcement. What follows is a leadership problem—and it requires a leadership solution. View the full article

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