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We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Sony ULT Field 5 is currently $191.95 on Amazon, down from $349.99, and that price drop is what finally makes this speaker feel properly positioned. Sony ULT Field 5 Wireless Portable Bluetooth Speaker $191.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $158.04 Get Deal Get Deal $191.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $158.04 At full price, it was competing with larger, louder options that offered more raw power for the money. With this discount, it makes more sense as a mid-size outdoor speaker that prioritizes bass, durability, and flexibility. PCMag gave it an “excellent” rating, largely because it delivers deeper low-end sound than most speakers in its size class without becoming unwieldy. This is neither a pocket speaker nor a party cannon. It is designed to strike a balance between portability and sound impact, where both are important. Physically, the Field 5 feels built for abuse. The rectangular body is wrapped in a tough fabric mesh, with passive radiators on each end and subtle LED lighting around them. Those lights can be customized or turned off entirely. The speaker is rated IP67, so dust is a non-issue, and brief drops into water should not cause panic. On top, the controls are simple and tactile, including a large ULT button that changes how the bass behaves. ULT 1 leans into deeper rumble, while ULT 2 pulls things tighter for a more punchy sound. Bass is the clear strength here. It hits harder than you would expect from a speaker this size. The trade-off is in the highs, which can sound a little thin unless you tweak the EQ. Connectivity is where the Field 5 shows its versatility. Bluetooth 5.3 supports multipoint connections, and Sony’s Party Connect lets you link multiple compatible speakers, though they all need to be from Sony, since this speaker does not support Auracast. There is also a 3.5mm AUX input, which is becoming rare on portable speakers and is useful for wired sources. Codec support includes SBC, AAC, and LDAC, which is a plus for Android users who care about audio quality. Battery life is rated at up to 25 hours, and fast charging delivers about two hours of playback from a 10-minute charge. The USB-C port can also charge your phone in a pinch. This speaker is still pricey compared to simpler Bluetooth options, and it favors bass over balanced clarity. Still, if you want a rugged speaker with strong low-end and flexible inputs, this deal makes it far easier to justify. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 3 Noise Cancelling Heart Rate Wireless Earbuds — $199.00 (List Price $249.00) Sony WH-1000XM5 — $248.00 (List Price $399.99) Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 10.9" 64GB Wi-Fi Tablet (Graphite) — $139.99 (List Price $219.99) 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) Blink Outdoor 4 1080p 3-Camera Kit With Sync Module Core — $74.99 (List Price $189.99) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $29.99 (List Price $49.99) Meta Quest 3 512GB Mixed Reality VR Headset with Controllers — $499.00 (List Price $499.00) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

In December 2024, our survey with Harris Poll asked B2B marketers to share their top areas for investment in 2025. Artificial intelligence tools were at the top of the list. It also wasn’t surprising to see the AI architects named Time magazine’s Person of the Year as the ripple effects of the technology continue across every sector. And in 2026, we will see B2B decision makers do something new: return to basics andembrace AI to reimagine what’s possible. This approach reveals a compelling duality in how marketers are planning for 2026. There’s a return to what we’ve always known while also betting big on AI as a force not only reshaping work, but rewriting today’s B2B marketer and modern buyer playbook. According to our most recent Harris Poll survey, next year will bring a clear acknowledgement that while the fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed, the way we execute these absolutely will. THE PENDULUM SWINGS BACK For years, marketers have chased the next shiny object: new formats, new platforms, new channels. But the pendulum is swinging back. According to the survey, leaders say their biggest 2026 investments will focus on customer experience and brand building—not the newest social platform or the latest ad tech novelty. There’s a collective realization happening. In an environment of AI-enabled disruption, the brands with the strongest emotional equity and deepest buyer trust will win. By doubling down on loyalty, automation, and reputation, organizations can differentiate and ensure that every marketing dollar contributes to sustainable, long-term growth. Loyalty isn’t a metric anymore; it’s a moat. But this return to what works doesn’t necessarily mean a return to traditional tactics. AI ISN’T REPLACING STRATEGY More than half of marketing decision-makers (55%) expect AI to reshape both the development and execution of marketing strategies. That’s not a subtle shift. It means strategy will move from something built in quarterly cycles to something that updates dynamically based on behaviors, signals, and real-time learning. This shift requires marketers to embrace AI, not fear it. When positioned as a strategic input, AI enables strategy to evolve with the market and puts leaders in the strongest position to reach today’s modern buyer at the right time and place. AI becomes the connective tissue unifying audience data, creative insights, content intelligence, and activation. Audience understanding becomes dynamic as AI continuously interprets signals and behaviors to identify who’s truly in-market. Content and messaging adapt in real time as AI learns what resonates across channels. Orchestration becomes predictive, determining where buyers are most likely to engage next and routing the right message to the right surface. Measurement shifts from backward-looking to forward-driving, surfacing early signals that guide creative, budget, and activation decisions. The strategy itself becomes fluid, evolving, and continuously optimizing. Instead of asking, “Is my strategy right?” marketers will ask, “Is my strategy learning fast enough?” ZERO-CLICK IS RESHAPING BRAND COMPETITION Nearly half of marketing leaders (45%) believe AI-powered search and assistants will dramatically change how customers discover brands. That means marketers are beginning to understand a new reality: In 2026, competition happens before the click. In a zero-click environment, the buyer journey is no longer linear. People are forming opinions inside AI Overviews, chat assistants, recommendation engines, and result pages that summarize expertise without ever sending traffic your way. The “search → click → read → evaluate” journey marketers built their strategies around has been replaced by one where discovery and evaluation happen simultaneously—often without a website visit. Buyers may never land on your page, yet they’ve already developed a perception of your credibility, authority, and relevance. This shift demands a fundamentally different approach to visibility. It’s no longer enough to create great content; brands must create signals. Reputation, authority, and consistency become the new KPIs, because AI systems rely on patterns across the broader ecosystem, not just what lives on your domain. Zero-click environments reward brands that show up with clarity and coherence across every channel, not just the ones they own. The brands that win are the ones influencing the answer long before a user ever reaches a brand webpage. This isn’t a retreat from brand building; it’s an evolution of it. AI DOESN’T REPLACE THE BASICS, IT AMPLIFIES THEM The survey findings tell a clear story: AI doesn’t exempt marketers from doing the hard work of brand building; it makes that work even more essential. Rather than overshadowing fundamentals like loyalty, reputation, and customer experience, AI deepens their impact. It enables personalization at a level previously impossible and transforms audience understanding by replacing static personas with living intelligence. With AI orchestrating channels dynamically instead of treating them as disconnected tactics, the longstanding divide between brand and performance marketing collapses. The two disciplines become interdependent, each strengthened by AI’s ability to learn, predict, and adapt across the entire customer journey. But recognizing AI’s potential and operationalizing it are two very different things. The real competitive advantage in 2026 won’t come from experimenting with a handful of tools; it will come from embedding AI across the full lifecycle, including strategy, creation, activation, measurement, and optimization. Marketers already feel this shift coming. AI is becoming the operating system of modern marketing, not an accessory. The question for the year ahead isn’t whether marketers will use AI; it’s whether they will scale it in a way that elevates the core principles that have always distinguished the strongest brands. BACK TO BASICS, BUT SMARTER The headline for 2026: AI is making the basics matter more. Marketers are rediscovering that trust, loyalty, and brand still determine winners, while embracing AI to execute those fundamentals with far greater intelligence, speed, and impact. And next year, the brands that thrive will be the ones that combine timeless principles with transformative technology—going back to basics, but this time with an engine powerful enough to take them further than ever before. Great marketing and advertising have always been an art. AI doesn’t diminish that; it simply elevates it. Keith Turco is CEO of Madison Logic. View the full article

In the fall of 2024, six college students joined forces to start an AI company together. Five of them had met while studying computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The sixth, its CEO, was pursuing a degree in childhood and adolescent development at Sacramento State, with an eye on becoming a grade-school teacher. That wasn’t the only thing that made him an outlier. He also happened to have been in the tech industry for well over thirty years—longer than his fellow founders had been alive. The Georgia Tech students are Ian Boraks, Jacob Justice, Drake Kelly, Ella McCheney, and Abhinav Vemulapalli, all of whom happen to be 21. The Sac State student/tech veteran is Bill Nguyen, whose past startups amount to a guided tour of Silicon Valley trends over the years, from “push” technology to unified messaging to digital music to social networking to telehealth. Their new company, Olive.is—Olive for short—is developing technology to make AI better at grasping the full meaning of spoken communications, as conveyed by elements, such as inflection and dialect, that current models may gloss over. It plans to offer its tech as a service for enriching AI-powered applications in education and other areas. Olive’s name references the company’s ambitious hope of fostering better understanding—an olive branch, if you will—between humans and machines. It’s still in the process of researching and developing its AI model, and has raised $5 million in seed funding from education-focused venture capital firm Owl Ventures and Georgia Tech. The unusual founding team was a selling point to Owl, which also backed one of Nguyen’s previous ventures, Hazel Health. As students themselves, the Georgia Tech founders “are deeply connected and have a lot of recency with the ideal cohort of potential users that are going to benefit from all this technology,” says Owl’s Lyman Missimer. “But Bill is giving this team the full kind of Silicon Valley hustle out in the middle of Atlanta.” More than words can say When I first met Nguyen in 2006, he was already a Silicon Valley vet and burbling with enthusiasm for a company he’d founded called Lala, which helped people trade CDs through the mail. (It later moved into music streaming and was acquired by Apple in 2009.) His knack for high-energy pitchmanship helped his next company, the location-based, photo-centric social network Color, raise $41 million from firms such as Sequoia. It was ultimately best known for crashing and burning, as detailed in a 2011 Fast Company feature by Danielle Sacks. Today, Nguyen is as exuberant as ever when discussing Olive’s goals and origin story, and doesn’t seem to have aged nearly 20 years since our earliest encounter. As he explains it, AI models for turning speech into text, such as OpenAI’s Whisper, have gotten uncannily good at correctly transcribing the literal meaning of what they hear. Yet the words we choose hardly convey our intent all by themselves. Elements such as inflection matter, too—and are sometimes absolutely crucial to understanding what someone is trying to say. “There’s definitely a lot in human conversation that gets chopped off by LLMs,” says Nguyen. “For example, if you ask me a question and I go, “Yeeeeeees?”—he infuses the word with uncertainty—“it’s not really a ‘Yes.’ But an automated speech recognition system will basically truncate all that nuance, get rid of it, and just put it as a ’Yes.‘” If existing LLMs struggle with some of the subtleties of how we talk to each other, it’s at least in part because they’ve been trained on material that’s publicly available in vast quantities, such as podcasts. Such recordings “probably sound really, really clean and they’re great audio,” says Nguyen. “But that’s not how we actually converse.” Nguyen’s interest in this current limitation of AI is intertwined with his long-standing passion for education. Years before he went back to school to become a teacher himself—he’s halfway to earning his degree—he cofounded a public charter school near Lake Tahoe. As a result, he learned that few doctors in the area accepted Medicaid, greatly limiting student access to healthcare. That helped catalyze Hazel Health, which provides telehealth services through K-12 schools. It now serves 5,000 of them in 19 states. Bill NguyenElla McChesney The Hazel experience left Nguyen attuned to the real-world challenges schools face as they adopt technology. He provides an example relating to speech recognition. “In a school district, one of the things that they have to focus on is the ability to understand when to do an intervention for a student around reading,” he says. In theory, AI might help by analyzing audio of them speaking. But only if it understands what they’re saying, regardless of whether ”a student has a Mexican-American vernacular, African-American English vernacular, or Hawaiian vernacular.“ To complicate matters, “Children are especially hard [for AI to understand], because they have very limited vocabulary,” says cofounder McChesney. “So in order to express themselves, they find more creative ways to use words. And so what we’ve seen is that that can mean that models misinterpret them more, which can have negative consequences, especially when teachers are trying to leverage these tools to help them bring better experiences to the classroom.” The glimmer of opportunity in the idea of training AI models using audio that reflects how real people talk—especially students—led to Olive’s founding. How Nguyen, based in Tahoe, ended up collaborating with a bunch of young techies in Atlanta is a story in itself. At first, he noodled on the idea with Justice, who is his son as well as a fellow Olive founder. As they forged ahead, the project expanded to include more people from Justice’s social circle. McChesney, whose credentials include high-school work at the Department of Defense and four years interning at Lockheed Martin, had recently returned from a study trip to Korea when she joined the effort, right as Nguyen was prepping to pitch the company to investors. “I got a text while I was in Costco from Drake, and he’s like, ‘Bill wants your résumé, send it in the next 10 minutes,” she remembers. “Which would’ve been great if I wasn’t in a Costco with my phone at 5% and no cell service, because Costco is a giant steel box.” She Airdropped her CV to a friend, who sent it to Nguyen just in time. The Atlanta-based cofounders do much of their partnering with Nguyen over Discord, though they quickly ran into the limitations of typed messages as a form of collaboration. In their minds, that only underlined the richness of verbal communications and the importance of teaching AI to comprehend it. “We’d always end up doing late-night calls, because that was the easiest way to communicate amongst ourselves, and the easiest way to really get our ideas across and understand what people are saying,” says McChesney. “There’s no ambiguity, the way there is in a lot of these text messages, and we can iterate faster. That really inspired what we’re trying to do here.” It’s all in the data To overcome current AI models’ limitations when it comes to capturing how humans express themselves verbally, Olive had to start with better data. More specifically, it had to start with raw audio of people talking to each other in unscripted situations. “Our whole idea was if we can get really clean data sets, if we don’t remove any of the information, if we train a model that actually retains all of this context, then we can solve these mission-critical cases,” says Nguyen. More specifically, it decided to start with audio recordings of students engaged in conversations with professionals such as teachers and therapists—recorded, it stresses, with the participants’ permission and awareness that they could be used for training. As the company was finding sources of such material, Nguyen’s background at Hazel Health came in handy. “We worked with school districts, we worked with universities,” he says. “The data set is pretty extensive now. It’s north of 40,000 hours.” The company also built an iPhone app of its own, which I tried in pre-release form. Taking advantage of the beefy AI capabilities of Apple’s newest smartphone chips, it builds an understanding of the user’s needs by applying Olive’s models to verbal input. All processing is done on the phone, and input isn’t used for training purposes. Olive doesn’t see this app replacing other AI tools so much as enhancing them. For instance, you could talk into the Olive app at length about an app you’d like to create, then have it turn your verbal meanderings into a product requirements document to feed into a vibe-coding platform. “You‘re using your voice to have a more engaging conversation and actually hash it out,” says McChesney. “That’s what makes this so cool.” However, Olive isn’t building its business around this iPhone app. Nor does it intend to provide fully-baked applications based on its technology. Instead, it plans to offer its AI model as a cloud-based service. Other companies will be able to use it as a technological layer in their own creations, providing them with a deeper understanding of speech than they’d get by relying entirely on existing voice models. Along with possible uses in education—ranging from tutoring to helping scale up college counseling—Olive is targeting hiring, healthcare, and finance as areas where it hopes to find customers. “These are all high stakes, and they’re all regulated in terms of what you can do,” says Nguyen. They’re also all places where the limitations of existing AI may introduce harm that Olive hopes to overcome through better, fairer comprehension of a wider range of communications styles. “You want AI access to be more equitable,” says McChesney. “You want everyone to be able to leverage these tools, because these tools are inherently part of our workforce.” The company’s home page is currently devoted to a sobering blog post, “Covert Racism: The Voice Inside the Machine.” Heavily footnoted, it cites research that shows how prejudices are baked into AI in ways that can be difficult to detect even if its creators are actively trying to combat bias. “The part of it that’s mind-blowing to me is people are not getting jobs,” Nguyen says. “People are getting declined on loans. People are having adverse health effects. And no one knows why.” Olive’s potential to steer AI in a better direction might be particularly relevant in education, where the technology is still in the process of finding applications and the company has a shot at being foundational. ”Every major new technological shift is developed, built, and scaled, and then 10 years later it finally finds its way into education,” says Owl Ventures’ Missimer. “When we saw what Bill and team were building, we knew that the edtech market couldn’t wait 10 years for this type of technology, especially in a time where voice is becoming such a larger part of the technological stack.” With that in mind, Owl is helping to introduce Olive to other companies in its portfolio of education startups. They include Amira Learning, a 2025 Fast Company Next Big Things in Tech honoree that offers a suite of AI and neuroscience-based reading aids. Given that Olive’s strategy is to provide its AI model as an ingredient for other companies’ products, those kinds of relationships have everything to do with its long-term fate. For now, it remains tiny, though it’s already grown to nine people. Nguyen says he’s reveling in the hands-on experience of running something so tiny. At his previous, larger startups, “I, as the founder, was pretty separated from the actual engineering process,” says Nguyen, who is not an engineer by background. “But now I’m not. I’m in the code base. I check it every day. I know what’s happening with it.” Once again, he exudes enthusiasm. Once again, he’s working on something that taps into the tech industry’s current obsession. Nguyen, who dubbed himself “the Don Quixote of startups” in Sacks’ 2011 article, may not be destined to run Olive forever. (Did I mention his intention to become a grade-school teacher?) But if this startup takes flight, having helping his youthful cofounders get it off the ground will be a legacy in itself. View the full article

In today’s competitive environment, effective business strategies can set successful companies apart. Consider how Best Buy transformed its stores into mini warehouses to improve customer experience, or how Nike‘s pricing strategy capitalizes on brand loyalty. Each of these seven examples illustrates unique approaches that nurture growth and adaptability. Comprehending these strategies is essential for anyone looking to improve their own business practices. What can you learn from these industry leaders? Key Takeaways Best Buy transformed stores into mini warehouses, enhancing product availability and customer shopping experiences through efficient operational strategies. Nike’s premium pricing strategy leverages strong brand loyalty and exclusive products, aligning with consumer trends to bolster customer loyalty. Starbucks uses technology for seamless engagement via a loyalty app, creating a welcoming atmosphere that encourages repeat visits and enhances customer satisfaction. Tesla drives innovation in electric vehicles with high-performance models and advanced manufacturing, establishing leadership through sustainability and cutting-edge technology. Amazon’s continuous adaptation, from bookselling to e-commerce and cloud computing, illustrates the importance of aligning business strategies with market trends and consumer needs. What Is a Business Strategy? A business strategy is fundamentally a blueprint that defines how a company plans to achieve its goals. It acts as a roadmap, aligning employees in the direction of common objectives during guiding decision-making processes. To determine the best business to purchase or the best small business to buy, you need a clear strategy. Effective strategies help identify strengths and weaknesses, utilizing research methods like SWOT analysis to assess internal and external factors. By focusing on service business ideas, you can tailor your strategy for competitive advantage. A well-executed business strategy increases profitability and market share, as demonstrated by companies like Amazon, which diversified its offerings since its launch. In the end, a solid strategy enables businesses to navigate challenges and seize opportunities effectively. Best Buy’s Strategic Shift to Enhance Customer Experience Best Buy has made a significant strategic shift by transforming its stores into mini warehouses, which improves product availability and shipping efficiency for you as a customer. This approach not just enhances your shopping experience but furthermore encourages convenient pick-up options, making it easier for you to get what you need. Moreover, by integrating vendor showrooms into their retail spaces, Best Buy provides cost-effective marketing solutions that benefit suppliers while boosting overall customer satisfaction. Mini Warehouses Strategy Transforming storefronts into mini warehouses, Best Buy has adopted a strategic approach aimed at enhancing customer experience through improved product availability and expedited shipping times. This shift allows you to pick up products in-store, increasing your willingness to pay because of immediate access. Business examples, like Best Buy’s strategy, demonstrate how optimizing operational efficiency can create a competitive edge against online retailers and big-box competitors. By lowering the willingness to sell for vendors through in-store showrooms, Best Buy has additionally provided cost-effective solutions during securing product discounts. This not only contributes to overall revenue growth but also guarantees that you receive a more convenient shopping experience. In this way, Best Buy is redefining retail amidst strong competition. Vendor Showroom Integration By integrating vendor showrooms into its retail spaces, Best Buy has greatly improved the customer experience in addition to increasing product visibility. This strategic shift offers several advantages: Enhanced Product Availability: Customers can see a wider range of products directly from suppliers, improving their shopping convenience. Stronger Vendor Relationships: By allowing vendors to create dedicated spaces, Best Buy encourages collaboration, leading to better pricing and cost-effective solutions. Improved Shipping and Pickup: Utilizing storefronts as mini warehouses accelerates shipping times and simplifies customer pickups, raising overall satisfaction. This approach not only counters revenue losses from online competition but likewise drives Best Buy’s growth, benefiting both customers and vendors through a more engaging in-store experience. Nike’s Brand Power and Value-Based Pricing Approach Nike’s success in the athletic apparel market stems largely from its strategic use of value-based pricing, which justifies premium prices through strong brand loyalty and perceived quality. By comprehending market influence, Nike improves customer willingness to pay for products like Air Jordans, creating a perception of exclusivity and status. This approach not just boosts revenue but additionally nurtures deep connections with consumers, ensuring long-term loyalty and competitive advantage. Premium Pricing Justification When consumers perceive a brand as synonymous with quality and prestige, they’re often willing to pay more for its products. Nike exemplifies this with its premium pricing strategy, which hinges on several key factors: Brand Image: Nike’s strong brand identity and influence help justify higher prices, as consumers associate it with top-tier quality. Exclusive Offerings: Limited-edition products, like Air Jordans, greatly increase consumers’ willingness to pay, creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity. Strategic Marketing: Sponsorship of elite athletes improves perceived value, allowing Nike to command premium prices as it maintains higher profit margins than competitors. Brand Loyalty Enhancement Building on the premium pricing strategy, brand loyalty plays a significant role in Nike’s ongoing success and market dominance. In 2021, Nike’s global revenue surpassed $44 billion, largely owing to its effective value-based pricing strategy, which capitalizes on consumer perceptions of quality and brand image. The company’s products, known for innovative design and performance, justify their premium pricing by nurturing a high perceived value. Exclusive items, such as Air Jordans, augment brand loyalty, increasing consumers’ willingness to pay. By emphasizing brand prestige and social influence, Nike maintains its competitive edge in the athletic apparel market. Furthermore, aligning marketing strategies with consumer trends and lifestyle aspirations effectively bolsters customer loyalty as it maximizes pricing influence. Market Influence Understanding Grasping market influence is crucial for any brand aiming to establish a strong presence, and Nike exemplifies this through its strength and value-based pricing approach. The company’s success hinges on several key factors: Consumer Perception: Nike leverages its brand prestige and quality, leading to higher willingness to pay (WTP) for products. Athlete Associations: Collaborations with high-profile athletes improve brand image and raise status for consumers. Innovation and Trends: By focusing on product quality and social influence, Nike justifies its premium pricing, positioning its items as symbols of performance. This strategic comprehension of market influence allows Nike to nurture strong brand loyalty, contributing to long-term growth and profitability. Starbucks: Transforming Customer Engagement and Loyalty Starbucks has markedly transformed customer engagement and loyalty by leveraging technology and innovative product offerings, ensuring that you have a seamless experience from the moment you enter the store or use their app. Their loyalty app stands out as the most used among major restaurant chains, driving customer retention and satisfaction. By introducing products like the Frappuccino and seasonal beverages, Starbucks improves your experience as well as boosting sales growth. Their commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing resonates with socially conscious consumers, further strengthening brand loyalty. With thousands of locations worldwide, Starbucks offers convenience for coffee lovers. Moreover, consistent investments in store atmosphere and customer service create a welcoming environment, encouraging repeat visits and nurturing long-term loyalty. Tesla’s Innovative Approach to Electric Vehicle Manufacturing As Tesla continues to redefine the electric vehicle environment, its innovative approach to manufacturing sets it apart from traditional automakers. The company emphasizes performance and sustainability, integrating state-of-the-art technology into its processes. Here are three key strategies that illustrate Tesla’s manufacturing innovation: High-Performance Models: The Model S achieves over 370 miles on a single charge, setting industry standards. Advanced Manufacturing Techniques: Utilizing robotics and data analytics improves efficiency and reduces costs within production. Gigafactories: Tesla’s Nevada facility is expected to produce enough batteries for 500,000 vehicles annually by 2030, showcasing its commitment to scaling production. With these strategies, Tesla has become the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer, delivering over 1.3 million vehicles in 2023. Amazon’s Evolution From Bookseller to Retail Giant Since its inception in 1994 as an online bookstore, Amazon has undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving into one of the world’s largest retail giants. Initially promoting itself as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” Amazon focused on offering a vast selection of books. In 2000, the launch of Amazon Marketplace allowed third-party sellers to list products, greatly increasing variety and revenue. The introduction of Amazon Prime in 2005 offered fast, free shipping and exclusive content, enhancing customer loyalty. Furthermore, Amazon expanded into cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (AWS), generating over $62 billion in revenue by 2021. The Importance of Adapting Business Strategies in a Changing Market In a swiftly changing market, companies must recognize that adapting their business strategies is vital for long-term success. Businesses that fail to evolve risk falling behind their competitors. Here are three key reasons why adaptation is imperative: Consumer Expectations: As seen with Amazon Prime, adapting service offerings can improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Market Trends: Companies like Netflix shifted from DVD rentals to streaming to align with digital consumption trends, ensuring relevance. Innovation Necessity: Ford’s pivot toward electric vehicles illustrates the need for legacy companies to innovate and embrace sustainability in response to environmental concerns. Frequently Asked Questions What Is Apple’s Business Strategy? Apple‘s business strategy focuses on creating a cohesive ecosystem of products and services that improves customer loyalty. You’ll notice they prioritize premium pricing, backed by a strong brand image and high product quality. By diversifying into services like Apple Music and Apple TV+, they greatly boost revenue. Additionally, Apple emphasizes design and user experience, ensuring products, like the iPhone, remain competitive during maintaining a strategic approach to product launches for quality and innovation. What Are the 5 P’s of Business Strategy? The 5 P’s of business strategy are Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position, and Perspective. A Plan outlines the actions needed to meet objectives, whereas a Ploy refers to tactics that outmaneuver competitors. Pattern highlights consistent behaviors over time, showcasing how strategies evolve. Position defines your competitive stance in the market, and Perspective reflects the mindset that guides your strategic choices. Together, these elements help shape a thorough approach to achieving business success. What Is a Real Life Example of Strategy Implementation? A real-life example of strategy implementation is Best Buy’s use of its storefronts as mini warehouses. This approach improved customer convenience by ensuring faster shipping and better product availability. By allowing customers to pick up items directly from stores, Best Buy increased its willingness to pay, enhancing overall customer satisfaction. This strategic move demonstrates how adapting physical resources can effectively meet consumer needs and drive business growth in a competitive market. What Is a Good Example of a Strategy Statement? A good example of a strategy statement is Amazon’s, which emphasizes its commitment to customer obsession and operational excellence. This statement clearly defines Amazon’s purpose, focusing on delivering an exceptional customer experience during efficient operations. By articulating these core values, Amazon aligns its organizational efforts and guides decision-making. This strategic clarity allows the company to adapt to market changes as it continuously aims for growth and long-term success in the competitive retail environment. Conclusion In summary, these seven businesses highlight the critical importance of effective strategy in achieving success. By enhancing customer experiences, leveraging brand loyalty, and adapting to market changes, companies like Best Buy, Nike, and Tesla demonstrate that a well-defined strategy can drive growth and maintain competitiveness. As markets evolve, businesses must remain responsive and innovative, ensuring their strategies align with consumer needs and industry trends. In the end, strategic thinking is crucial for sustained success in any business environment. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Inspiring Business Examples That Boost Strategy" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

In today’s competitive environment, effective business strategies can set successful companies apart. Consider how Best Buy transformed its stores into mini warehouses to improve customer experience, or how Nike‘s pricing strategy capitalizes on brand loyalty. Each of these seven examples illustrates unique approaches that nurture growth and adaptability. Comprehending these strategies is essential for anyone looking to improve their own business practices. What can you learn from these industry leaders? Key Takeaways Best Buy transformed stores into mini warehouses, enhancing product availability and customer shopping experiences through efficient operational strategies. Nike’s premium pricing strategy leverages strong brand loyalty and exclusive products, aligning with consumer trends to bolster customer loyalty. Starbucks uses technology for seamless engagement via a loyalty app, creating a welcoming atmosphere that encourages repeat visits and enhances customer satisfaction. Tesla drives innovation in electric vehicles with high-performance models and advanced manufacturing, establishing leadership through sustainability and cutting-edge technology. Amazon’s continuous adaptation, from bookselling to e-commerce and cloud computing, illustrates the importance of aligning business strategies with market trends and consumer needs. What Is a Business Strategy? A business strategy is fundamentally a blueprint that defines how a company plans to achieve its goals. It acts as a roadmap, aligning employees in the direction of common objectives during guiding decision-making processes. To determine the best business to purchase or the best small business to buy, you need a clear strategy. Effective strategies help identify strengths and weaknesses, utilizing research methods like SWOT analysis to assess internal and external factors. By focusing on service business ideas, you can tailor your strategy for competitive advantage. A well-executed business strategy increases profitability and market share, as demonstrated by companies like Amazon, which diversified its offerings since its launch. In the end, a solid strategy enables businesses to navigate challenges and seize opportunities effectively. Best Buy’s Strategic Shift to Enhance Customer Experience Best Buy has made a significant strategic shift by transforming its stores into mini warehouses, which improves product availability and shipping efficiency for you as a customer. This approach not just enhances your shopping experience but furthermore encourages convenient pick-up options, making it easier for you to get what you need. Moreover, by integrating vendor showrooms into their retail spaces, Best Buy provides cost-effective marketing solutions that benefit suppliers while boosting overall customer satisfaction. Mini Warehouses Strategy Transforming storefronts into mini warehouses, Best Buy has adopted a strategic approach aimed at enhancing customer experience through improved product availability and expedited shipping times. This shift allows you to pick up products in-store, increasing your willingness to pay because of immediate access. Business examples, like Best Buy’s strategy, demonstrate how optimizing operational efficiency can create a competitive edge against online retailers and big-box competitors. By lowering the willingness to sell for vendors through in-store showrooms, Best Buy has additionally provided cost-effective solutions during securing product discounts. This not only contributes to overall revenue growth but also guarantees that you receive a more convenient shopping experience. In this way, Best Buy is redefining retail amidst strong competition. Vendor Showroom Integration By integrating vendor showrooms into its retail spaces, Best Buy has greatly improved the customer experience in addition to increasing product visibility. This strategic shift offers several advantages: Enhanced Product Availability: Customers can see a wider range of products directly from suppliers, improving their shopping convenience. Stronger Vendor Relationships: By allowing vendors to create dedicated spaces, Best Buy encourages collaboration, leading to better pricing and cost-effective solutions. Improved Shipping and Pickup: Utilizing storefronts as mini warehouses accelerates shipping times and simplifies customer pickups, raising overall satisfaction. This approach not only counters revenue losses from online competition but likewise drives Best Buy’s growth, benefiting both customers and vendors through a more engaging in-store experience. Nike’s Brand Power and Value-Based Pricing Approach Nike’s success in the athletic apparel market stems largely from its strategic use of value-based pricing, which justifies premium prices through strong brand loyalty and perceived quality. By comprehending market influence, Nike improves customer willingness to pay for products like Air Jordans, creating a perception of exclusivity and status. This approach not just boosts revenue but additionally nurtures deep connections with consumers, ensuring long-term loyalty and competitive advantage. Premium Pricing Justification When consumers perceive a brand as synonymous with quality and prestige, they’re often willing to pay more for its products. Nike exemplifies this with its premium pricing strategy, which hinges on several key factors: Brand Image: Nike’s strong brand identity and influence help justify higher prices, as consumers associate it with top-tier quality. Exclusive Offerings: Limited-edition products, like Air Jordans, greatly increase consumers’ willingness to pay, creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity. Strategic Marketing: Sponsorship of elite athletes improves perceived value, allowing Nike to command premium prices as it maintains higher profit margins than competitors. Brand Loyalty Enhancement Building on the premium pricing strategy, brand loyalty plays a significant role in Nike’s ongoing success and market dominance. In 2021, Nike’s global revenue surpassed $44 billion, largely owing to its effective value-based pricing strategy, which capitalizes on consumer perceptions of quality and brand image. The company’s products, known for innovative design and performance, justify their premium pricing by nurturing a high perceived value. Exclusive items, such as Air Jordans, augment brand loyalty, increasing consumers’ willingness to pay. By emphasizing brand prestige and social influence, Nike maintains its competitive edge in the athletic apparel market. Furthermore, aligning marketing strategies with consumer trends and lifestyle aspirations effectively bolsters customer loyalty as it maximizes pricing influence. Market Influence Understanding Grasping market influence is crucial for any brand aiming to establish a strong presence, and Nike exemplifies this through its strength and value-based pricing approach. The company’s success hinges on several key factors: Consumer Perception: Nike leverages its brand prestige and quality, leading to higher willingness to pay (WTP) for products. Athlete Associations: Collaborations with high-profile athletes improve brand image and raise status for consumers. Innovation and Trends: By focusing on product quality and social influence, Nike justifies its premium pricing, positioning its items as symbols of performance. This strategic comprehension of market influence allows Nike to nurture strong brand loyalty, contributing to long-term growth and profitability. Starbucks: Transforming Customer Engagement and Loyalty Starbucks has markedly transformed customer engagement and loyalty by leveraging technology and innovative product offerings, ensuring that you have a seamless experience from the moment you enter the store or use their app. Their loyalty app stands out as the most used among major restaurant chains, driving customer retention and satisfaction. By introducing products like the Frappuccino and seasonal beverages, Starbucks improves your experience as well as boosting sales growth. Their commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing resonates with socially conscious consumers, further strengthening brand loyalty. With thousands of locations worldwide, Starbucks offers convenience for coffee lovers. Moreover, consistent investments in store atmosphere and customer service create a welcoming environment, encouraging repeat visits and nurturing long-term loyalty. Tesla’s Innovative Approach to Electric Vehicle Manufacturing As Tesla continues to redefine the electric vehicle environment, its innovative approach to manufacturing sets it apart from traditional automakers. The company emphasizes performance and sustainability, integrating state-of-the-art technology into its processes. Here are three key strategies that illustrate Tesla’s manufacturing innovation: High-Performance Models: The Model S achieves over 370 miles on a single charge, setting industry standards. Advanced Manufacturing Techniques: Utilizing robotics and data analytics improves efficiency and reduces costs within production. Gigafactories: Tesla’s Nevada facility is expected to produce enough batteries for 500,000 vehicles annually by 2030, showcasing its commitment to scaling production. With these strategies, Tesla has become the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer, delivering over 1.3 million vehicles in 2023. Amazon’s Evolution From Bookseller to Retail Giant Since its inception in 1994 as an online bookstore, Amazon has undergone a remarkable transformation, evolving into one of the world’s largest retail giants. Initially promoting itself as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” Amazon focused on offering a vast selection of books. In 2000, the launch of Amazon Marketplace allowed third-party sellers to list products, greatly increasing variety and revenue. The introduction of Amazon Prime in 2005 offered fast, free shipping and exclusive content, enhancing customer loyalty. Furthermore, Amazon expanded into cloud computing with Amazon Web Services (AWS), generating over $62 billion in revenue by 2021. The Importance of Adapting Business Strategies in a Changing Market In a swiftly changing market, companies must recognize that adapting their business strategies is vital for long-term success. Businesses that fail to evolve risk falling behind their competitors. Here are three key reasons why adaptation is imperative: Consumer Expectations: As seen with Amazon Prime, adapting service offerings can improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Market Trends: Companies like Netflix shifted from DVD rentals to streaming to align with digital consumption trends, ensuring relevance. Innovation Necessity: Ford’s pivot toward electric vehicles illustrates the need for legacy companies to innovate and embrace sustainability in response to environmental concerns. Frequently Asked Questions What Is Apple’s Business Strategy? Apple‘s business strategy focuses on creating a cohesive ecosystem of products and services that improves customer loyalty. You’ll notice they prioritize premium pricing, backed by a strong brand image and high product quality. By diversifying into services like Apple Music and Apple TV+, they greatly boost revenue. Additionally, Apple emphasizes design and user experience, ensuring products, like the iPhone, remain competitive during maintaining a strategic approach to product launches for quality and innovation. What Are the 5 P’s of Business Strategy? The 5 P’s of business strategy are Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position, and Perspective. A Plan outlines the actions needed to meet objectives, whereas a Ploy refers to tactics that outmaneuver competitors. Pattern highlights consistent behaviors over time, showcasing how strategies evolve. Position defines your competitive stance in the market, and Perspective reflects the mindset that guides your strategic choices. Together, these elements help shape a thorough approach to achieving business success. What Is a Real Life Example of Strategy Implementation? A real-life example of strategy implementation is Best Buy’s use of its storefronts as mini warehouses. This approach improved customer convenience by ensuring faster shipping and better product availability. By allowing customers to pick up items directly from stores, Best Buy increased its willingness to pay, enhancing overall customer satisfaction. This strategic move demonstrates how adapting physical resources can effectively meet consumer needs and drive business growth in a competitive market. What Is a Good Example of a Strategy Statement? A good example of a strategy statement is Amazon’s, which emphasizes its commitment to customer obsession and operational excellence. This statement clearly defines Amazon’s purpose, focusing on delivering an exceptional customer experience during efficient operations. By articulating these core values, Amazon aligns its organizational efforts and guides decision-making. This strategic clarity allows the company to adapt to market changes as it continuously aims for growth and long-term success in the competitive retail environment. Conclusion In summary, these seven businesses highlight the critical importance of effective strategy in achieving success. By enhancing customer experiences, leveraging brand loyalty, and adapting to market changes, companies like Best Buy, Nike, and Tesla demonstrate that a well-defined strategy can drive growth and maintain competitiveness. As markets evolve, businesses must remain responsive and innovative, ensuring their strategies align with consumer needs and industry trends. In the end, strategic thinking is crucial for sustained success in any business environment. Image via Google Gemini This article, "7 Inspiring Business Examples That Boost Strategy" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

There are a lot of methods to try in the never-ending quest for a way to sort through and slim down our bulging inboxes. They're different enough that there's certainly one out there that matches or comes close to matching your exact needs, but they do all have one thing in common: They rely on the chronology of when each email came in. Let’s try turning that approach on its head, and instead, sort by sender to weed through the mess. Why you should sort your inbox by senderWhen purging your messages, you probably have an organizational system you follow, like the 4Ds. You go through and decide what gets deleted, done, delegated, or deferred—but there’s not much pattern recognition if you’re just starting at the top and working your way down. Every day's demands or outreach might look different depending on what you have going on at that time. Sorting your inbox by sender instead of most recent helps you see whose (or what) messages you receive most. If it’s a newsletter or mailing list, you can delete them all in one go, but if it’s a specific person at work, you might get a signal that they tend to need a response from you. From there, you can prioritize their emails, maybe adding them as a favorite contact or paying special attention for new correspondence from them, since you know their messages are more consequential than others. Even if you're using the one- or two-touch methods, which call on you to open every single email the moment you get it, this can be helpful because you'll feel a sense of urgency around specific senders once you identify the patterns. So instead of deleting or delegating emails one by one, you can try nuking or dealing with entire batches from certain senders to make the sorting process faster. How to sort by sender in GmailIn Gmail, if you’ve already found a message from the person or entity whose emails you want to bundle up, you can right-click it from your inbox and hit “find emails from.” This brings you to an inbox only of messages from that sender. You can also access this inbox by typing “from:[their email address]” in the search bar, or clicking the advanced search button and entering their name into the “from” field. Unfortunately, you can’t sort your entire Gmail inbox by sender, and instead can only make bundles sender by sender, but it still helps with batching them up. How to sort by sender in OutlookOutlook is better than Gmail for this method. In fact, it allows you to sort your entire inbox not only by sender, but by other recipients, size, and more. At the top of the inbox, hit “Filter,” then “Sort by.” Depending on what version you’re running, you may have to go into the “View” tab and hit “From” in the Arrangement group. The emails will line up in your inbox by sender, making them easy to bundle and delete. View the full article

Threshold to increase to £2.5mn from April after backlash, following original proposal of £1mnView the full article

You know the scenario: You have a bunch of unread emails . The more that come in, the more anxious you get—and the more you procrastinate on sorting through them. How do you decide which ones to reply to and in what order? Even when the amount of unreads isn't overwhelming, your choice can determine how your workday will go. In general, you should choose a side between a last in, first out (LIFO) or first in, first out (FIFO) approach—and, in my opinion, the best choice is LIFO. What are LIFO and FIFO?LIFO and FIFO are terms that come from the financial world—respectively, they stand for “last in, first out” and “first in, first out.” They’re often used by accountants to describe inventory but can refer to anything where items are coming “in,” like, well, emails. In this context, it refers to the practice of responding to either your oldest or your newest unreads first, then working your way in the opposite direction from there. Why is LIFO better than FIFO for email management?LIFO, or the practice of answering the most recent emails before older ones, is more common than FIFO for good reason: Your most recent emails are the ones most likely to be time-sensitive, relevant, or actively blocking someone else’s work as they go unanswered. Meanwhile, the older a message gets, the higher the odds are that the window for a perfect response has already closed. At that point, stressing over it doesn’t magically make you more punctual, it just slows you down. Focusing on what’s right in front of you helps you stay responsive and on top of your current workload, which is usually what your job (or life) actually rewards. "But what if I left the older ones too long?" you worry. Don't—if something from the past is truly urgent or important, you’ll get a follow-up and, even though that might be embarrassing for you, it’ll bump the older content at hand into LIFO territory anyway. LIFO essentially relies on the idea that the older problems will sort themselves out or be brought back to your attention if they have to be. It’s like giving yourself grace on what you missed and focusing instead on what you can take care of right now. It works best if you rely on it when you have to, but commit to dealing with incoming mail in a more timely way going forward. If you miss too many emails and have to get too many follow-ups, your reputation will take a hit. That's why LIFO works best in general: Once you create the habit of responding to the last-in, you'll eventually stop having first-in messages at all. Of course, there might be times when you don’t get a follow-up or really do miss something important from the past. One day a week or so, use the time that you’ve blocked out for your email management to work in FIFO mode, going through your emails reverse-chronologically to make sure you didn’t miss anything big. Using FIFO too consistently can have negative consequences, though. If you’re always working on tasks from the past, you risk missing newer, more urgent ones that need immediate attention. Save it for one day every once in a while and use your time to handle pressing matters on a day-to-day basis. An important element of either strategy is timing. Make sure to block out time for email management every day, ideally using a scheduling tactic like timeboxing. Dedicating specific, uninterrupted time to your inbox management makes it more doable and ensures you’ll actually handle the emails in the first place, whereas answering them sporadically through the day opens you up to the possibility of being distracted or procrastinating more frequently. If you're struggling to adopt a LIFO mindset, consider the "one-touch" method. With this more intense approach, you commit to opening every email as soon as you get it. It will force you to build a habit that results in you never letting any email get away from you. Open the email, respond to it, and either delete or archive it, depending on if you’ll need it later. If it requires no response, even better. Schedule any required tasks into your to-do list, then keep on moving. You're more likely to get the task done when you need to simply by virtue of being readily aware of it because you opened the message as soon as it came in. View the full article

Say what you will about Crumbl Cookies. It’s always sure to get a reaction. Earlier this month, when a sudden swirl of social media rumors began to suggest that the polarizing bakery chain was closing down, some of the online reactions were downright gleeful. “Too sweet and too expensive!” went one typical comment. The chatter was so loud that Crumbl cofounder Sawyer Hemsley took to TikTok to dispel the rumor, explaining that the fast-growing chain is just moving offices as it prepares for its next wave of expansion. But while reports of Crumbl’s demise may be premature, the chain has in fact closed a number of locations over the last few years following a period of accelerated growth. Here’s what to know: Is Crumbl Cookies still growing? According to Rhonda Bromley, Crumbl’s VP of public relations, Crumbl now has 1,103 locations in the United States and 25 in Canada, up from just 326 at the end of 2021. And the Utah-based chain will indeed continue to expand its footprint next year. “We have no plans for growth to stop and will be opening many more stores in both the United States and Canada in 2026,” Bromley tells Fast Company. Which Crumbl Cookies locations have closed? At the end of 2021, Crumbl hadn’t closed any of its locations, which speaks to the rapid, social media-fueled growth that it had famously experienced in its early years. But over the last few years, at least 19 locations have closed, according to a Fast Company review of media reports, online review platforms like Yelp, and Crumbl’s own store locator. The shuttered stores, which were located across 10 states, are listed below. A Crumbl spokesperson confirmed the closures. California 481 Madonna Rd Ste D San Luis Obispo, CA 93405 550 Woollomes Ave Ste 105 Delano, CA 93215 2750 41st Ave Ste E Soquel, CA 95073 12274 Palmdale Rd Ste 102 Victorville, CA 92392 8126 E Santa Ana Canyon Rd Ste 167 Anaheim, CA 92808 32545 Golden Lantern Ste C Dana Point, CA 92629 Connecticut 360 Connecticut Ave Unit 4 Norwalk, CT 06854 Colorado 1805 29th St Ste 1136 Boulder, CO 80301 3480 Wolverine Dr Ste G Montrose, CO 81401 Florida 1695 W Indiantown Rd Ste 22-23 Jupiter, FL 33458 Georgia 2615 Peachtree Pkwy Ste 210 Suwanee, GA 30024 Illinois 1441 N Wells St Chicago, IL 60610 1530 E Lake Cook Rd Wheeling, IL 60090 Ohio 3038 Westgate Mall #20 Fairview Park, OH 44126 34330 Aurora Rd Solon, OH 44139 Pennsylvania 3741 West Chester Pike Ste 103 Newtown Square, PA 19073 604 228th Ave NE Sammamish, WA 98074 Tennessee 8068 Hwy 100 Nashville, TN 37221 Utah 4211 Pony Express Parkway Suite 130, Eagle Mountain, UT 84005 It’s not unusual for restaurant chains to close locations even as they grow their overall footprint, as some stores will inevitably underperform or could succumb to other unfavorable location-specific factors. A Crumbl spokesperson did not directly respond to the question of why these stores have closed. Why did people think Crumbl was closing for good? Some of the online rumors appear to have been spread by AI-powered social media accounts that post misinformation for engagement, as Reddit users pointed out in the Crumbl subreddit. At the same time, a Bloomberg Businessweek story this month took a decidedly unflattering view of the brand and raised questions about its ability to sustain hypergrowth. The story may have added fuel to the rumors that Crumbl’s days are numbered. Crumbl, which was founded in 2017, is known for its substantial social media presence. It has almost 11 million followers on TikTok alone, so it makes sense that rumors about the company would spread quickly across the internet. Also, as stated earlier, controversy around Crumbl is not exactly new. It was more than a year ago that food blog Delish.com posed the question: “Has the Crumbl backlash begun?” We’ll let you decide the answer for yourself. View the full article

You quit the 9-to-5 to have more control over your time. You wanted flexibility, autonomy, and the freedom to structure your days around your life instead of someone else’s schedule. Yet here you are, apologizing to a client for not responding to a message immediately. Feeling guilty on a Tuesday afternoon when you’ve only worked for four hours that day. Checking Slack at 9:00 PM because that’s been your routine for most of your working career. Many solopreneurs don’t realize they’ve inadvertently recreated corporate life until they’re already living it. You traded a demanding boss for a dozen demanding clients. You swapped mandatory meetings for back-to-back Zoom calls. That freedom you craved? Doesn’t exist in your solopreneur world. To find actual freedom as a solopreneur, you have to recognize that you’re following a corporate playbook—and make a conscious decision to change. Identify your ‘corporate workday’ habits Corporate habits are deeply ingrained. We’ve worked that way for so long that they just feel like “how work is supposed to be done.” For me, it was the instant email (or Slack) response. In my corporate job, quick replies signaled that I was on top of things, engaged, and reliable. When I started freelancing, I brought that habit with me. If a client sent me an email, I’d reply immediately—even if I was in the middle of the grocery store. Here’s something to try: What would happen if you took an entire day off, unplanned? Not a vacation day you scheduled weeks in advance, but a spontaneous decision to step away from your client work on a Wednesday. Does that break your clients’ expectations around your response time? Does the idea make you feel a bit squeamish? Those feelings are your corporate habits talking. To embrace your freedom, you have to undo the rigid 9-5, “always on” mentality. Structure your work for outcomes, not time spent Corporate life is built around a 40-hour workweek. Even if you finish your work in less time, you’re often expected to fill the bucket of the workweek with more work. As a solopreneur, if you price your work by the hour, you’re invariably still tied to the amount of time you work—which has its limits. You’ll have more freedom if you can earn the same amount (or more!) even if you work less. Clients pay you for your expertise and outcomes, not the number of hours you put in. Over time, you’ll get more efficient, and each project will require fewer hours. You’ll have a shorter workweek (if you choose), and can break free from a 9-5 schedule even more. Build systems that protect your boundaries Corporate life often has no boundaries. Someone else dictates your workload, schedules your meetings, and approves your PTO. I’ll never forget the time a CEO texted me on a Saturday morning because he found a typo on a blog post and wanted me to fix it right that minute. No boundaries. When you work for yourself, you might assume boundaries will naturally emerge. They won’t, unless you choose to define and enforce them. The easiest way to do this is to build systems that make boundaries automatic. Turn off notifications. Set up email filters. Block off time for deep work and use a calendar scheduling app so clients can’t meet with you during that time. Boundaries are necessary if you don’t want to feel like you’re constantly working or letting other people control your schedule. Don’t let yourself fall back into old habits It’s easy to fall back into corporate habits because they feel familiar. It can be uncomfortable to shake things up at first. You should regularly review your work habits to see if you’re falling back into patterns that aren’t serving you or your business. You have to be intentional about the hours you work and how you interact with clients. The way to build a sustainable solo business is to find a schedule that works for you. Maybe you still follow a mostly 9-5 schedule, even if you’re more flexible with your days. Maybe you work best late at night or before the sun rises. Any of those decisions is fine, as long as you’re in control of when and how work gets done. View the full article

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It’s easy, for me at least, to be cynical about the state of design. Our visual environment can feel bland, everything from brands to buildings homogenized around similar styles. The ever-impending AI takeover can make the future of this work uncertain. My reading around design this year tended to focus on two things: looking back and looking ahead. In looking through design history, I was looking for glimpses of alternative ways of designing: the experimental, the absurd, the weird. And in looking forward, I was searching for hope in a dark time, for answers on how design, and the design industries, move beyond the stasis I feel like we’re in. The intersection of these interests is an attempt to understand what design is, what it has been, and what it could be next. The books that were my favorite this year are the books that show design as something fun, experimental, future-looking, and constantly in flux. The Invention of Design by Maggie Gram Maggie Gram’s excellent new book, The Invention of Design, is one of those books I’m surprised didn’t already exist, and now I don’t know how I’ve lived without it for so long. This is not a history book of famous designers or trends or movements but rather an intellectual history of how the “idea” of design came to be what it is today. Charting the major conceptions of design from beauty to problem solving, thinking to experience, Gram, a designer and historian, presents design as an inherently optimistic endeavor but one that often fails to live up to its promises. A *Co-*Program for Graphic Design by David Reinfurt What does it mean to teach graphic design today? Or better yet: what does graphic design even mean today? The designer and educator David Reinfurt thinks through these questions in this casual and conversational book built around three courses he’s taught and developed at Princeton University over the last decade. Jumping back and forth through design history, moving across formats and mediums, and inviting a range of voices to participate in the conversation, Reinfurt shows that graphic design continues to be an expansive, ever-shifting space in which to think about ideas and how they move through the world giving us a flexible framework to think through teaching the next generation of designers. The House of Dr. Koolhaas by Francoise Fromonot Perhaps the strangest book I read this year but also most delightful, Francoise Fromonot’s The House of Dr. Koolhaas is the first book from Gumshoe, a new series from Park Books that approaches architecture criticism as if it were a detective novel. Written and packaged like the pulpy genre—complete with over-the-top illustrated covers and cliff-hanging chapters—Fromonot does a close reading of Rem Koolhaas’s Villa Dall’Ava, untangling its place both in Koolhaas’s work and in the larger architectural media context. Propulsive, insightful, expansive, and highly illustrative, I can’t wait to see what buildings the series tackles next. Buildings For People and Plants by WORKac In this focused, highly visual monograph, the New York-based architecture office WORKac presents ten built projects that together can be read as the thesis for the firm’s ideas. Founded in 2003 by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, WORKac has worked across scales and contexts and styles but in this book, a coherent body of work emerges, showing how the studio has engaged with color and form, civic interests, and sustainability. Sparse on text and heavy on photographs (almost 200, total), Andraos and Wood make the case for an architecture that engages with the world—an architecture for people and plants, if you will—and they show us how they’ve done just that. Could Should Might Don’t by Nick Foster Nick Foster, futures designer, former design director of Google X, and self-described “reluctant futurist” writes in his great book that when we imagine the future, we often imagine images made by other people and those images have become strangely homogenized. Foster thinks that’s a problem. Through breezy chapters, he probes how we imagine the future, how it becomes reality, and most importantly, who has a stake in that future. In doing so, he makes the case for a more rigorous, thoughtful, and provocative way to think about the future and how we get there. Archigram: The Magazine You can’t talk about avant-garde architecture without talking about Archigram, the British collective that drew upon their interests in everything from pop art to Buckminster Fuller. Over 15 years, the collective also published Archigram, a lo-fi, experimental, and freewheeling magazine to share their ideas. Long hard to find, this gorgeously packaged box set includes facsimiles of all ten issues, including flyers, pockets, and pop-ups, alongside an excellent reader’s guide that features writing from Archigram founder Peter Cook, architecture writer Reyner Banham, and tributes from Kenneth Frampton, Norman Foster, and more. It might be a stretch to call this a “book” but it’s a worthy collectable for anyone interested in experimental architecture, design history, publishing, and zine culture. Enshittification by Cory Doctorow In 2023, the science fiction writer and pioneering blogger Cory Doctorow coined a term that seemed to perfectly describe the moment we seem to be stuck in: “enshittification.” Writing about online platforms, Doctorow described enshittification as the gradual worsening of so many services we’ve come to rely on. Two years later, he’s expanded that into a full book, looking at everything from Facebook to the iPhone App Store, to Twitter while also making the case that we, as users, can take back the internet we are losing. Though not explicitly a book about design, designers will certainly see themselves in these pages as Doctorow shows how the design of so many services have shifted from solving problems for users to padding the pockets of shareholders View the full article

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. The average price net of incentives of new-builds sold by Lennar—America’s second largest homebuilder—came in at $386,000 in Q3 2025. That’s down -10.2% from $430,000 in Q4 2024 and down -21.4% from $491,000 in Q3 2022. While last quarter Lennar acknowledged that it will no longer be as aggressive in prioritizing volume over margin going forward, the giant homebuilder said that doing so (i.e., volume > margin strategy) over the past few years helped it gain market share while some other builders were more conservative. “During the past three years of difficult market conditions, we have maintained volume, we’ve grown market share, and we’ve re engineered our operating platform for a better and more efficient future when the market bottoms and normalizes, we’re extremely well positioned with very strong market share in strategic markets, and our margin is leveraged to the upside,” Stuart Miller, co-CEO of Lennar, said on the homebuilder’s December 17 earnings call. While there’s undoubtedly weakness in the housing market—in particular in pandemic era boomtowns in Texas and Florida—Lennar’s headline drop in home prices might be giving the impression of a greater home price correction than the homebuyer is actually seeing. See, Lennar’s average selling price, net of incentives, reflects the average selling price after incentives are deducted—it is not the actual price paid by the typical homebuyer before incentives. While some of the average selling price decline is due to outright price cuts and some to a mix shift toward smaller homes, the biggest driver is aggressive incentive spending—primarily through mortgage rate buydowns. To isolate the impact of incentives, ResiClub reverse-engineered Lennar’s sales-price math. ResiClub estimates that in Q3 2022, Lennar spent roughly $12,074 in incentives on a typical home sale. By comparison, in Q4 2025, typical incentive spending by Lennar had risen to about $62,837 per home. When accounting for incentive spending, the typical Lennar homebuyer in Q3 2022 paid around $503,074. In Q4 2025, the typical Lennar homebuyer paid about $448,690—roughly 10.8% less than in Q3 2022, which marked Lennar’s peak quarter. With incentives now accounted for, the outstanding question—which ResiClub can’t answer just yet—is how much of that 10.8% decline reflects mix shift versus outright declines in home prices? “As you may recall, last quarter, I noted that declining interest rates could signal the start of a market recovery. Unfortunately, that turnaround has not yet materialized. As [mortgage] rates slowly moderated in September, eased more in October and remained flat in November, the customer response remained fairly tepid, suggesting that a combination of affordability and consumer confidence issues were continuing to limit demand,” said Miller on the earnings call. Miller added that: “While traffic was consistent, customers were both hesitant and limited by what they could afford to purchase. With that said, our fourth quarter results show the continued softening of market conditions and affordability. Sales volumes have been difficult to maintain, and required additional incentives to achieve our expected pace and to avoid an unintended buildup of excess inventory.” View the full article

A new extension for Chrome stops AI slop from invading your life. Called Slop Evader, it is a temporal firewall that modifies your Google search queries to exclude any results indexed after November 30, 2022. That is the day the ChatGPT asteroid hit the open web, upending culture and reality as we know it. Installing Slop Evader is easy: just add it to Chrome, toggle it on, and suddenly, the scroll of generative garbage vanishes. You are back in the “old” internet knowing that every article you read is not the product of simulated intelligence. It’s an enticing idea, especially given that the latest estimation is that more than 50% of all new articles on the internet are now generated by AI. But the digitally Amish lifestyle has an obvious flaw: You aren’t just evading slop; you are evading legitimate news, scientific breakthroughs, and culture itself. Which, on second thought, maybe is a good idea too. The Chrome extension works on a premise that is 50% brilliant, 50% useless, and 100% depressing. Slop Evader is a powerful statement, but not exactly a solution. It’s a vacation from the permanent doubt that comes from clicking on anything these days. Kill AI switch It doesn’t seem the AI slop will stop. Europol predicts that by 2026, 90% of online content could be synthetically generated. We are no longer surfing a web of human knowledge; we are drowning in a sea of hallucinations. We don’t need gimmicks. We need a way to access information without risk of being deceived by machines. We need a built-in toggle in every browser and platform to turn off the machine-generated trash. Since AI can no longer be detected by software, our only hope lies in proving what is real, not spotting what is fake. There are already some efforts to do exactly that. For images, videos, and sound, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authentication (C2PA) has proposed a digital birth certificate for every pixel and sound wave you encounter. The technology already exists to cryptographically sign media at the point of capture, creating an unbroken chain of custody from the camera lens to your screen. When I spoke to Ziad Asghar—SVP of product management at Qualcomm—to talk about the end of reality, he told me that fake audio and video content is a big concern for everyone. “As these [AI] technologies become more prevalent, this is going to be a challenge,” he says. He was right two years ago, he is even more right today. We need content that works like NFTs, using blockchain-like certificates to prove a video or an article wasn’t hallucinated by a GPU. Qualcomm has successfully integrated C2PA support directly into its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform. The chip uses cryptography to sign the actual pixels of your photos the moment you snap them. Sony, Canon, and Leica have also rolled out firmware updates that sign images right at the point of capture. If you shoot with a Sony Alpha 9 III or a Canon EOS R1 today, you can generate a tamper-evident digital birth certificate for that file. The problem is that most platforms shred this information when you upload. There are exceptions. TikTok supports C2PA and tells users what content was actually captured by a camera. Google has started integrating C2PA into its Search and Ads platforms, allowing the ‘About this image’ tool to verify provenance. And LinkedIn has the best option: The company says that it overlays an icon on C2PA-signed images that users can click to inspect the edit history. So it can be done. If there was another certification standard for other types of content—like this article—and if every platform supported the standards in full, users would be able to push the Kill AI switch. But, of course, you know where this ends. Yeah, it will never happen The same tech giants adopting these standards are simultaneously playing a cynical double game. While Meta and TikTok claim to be cracking down on AI slop by downranking third-party generated content, they are aggressively pushing their own AI tools. TikTok limits the reach of external AI videos while actively encouraging you to use its in-app AI filters. Meanwhile, Meta says it will “throttle down” AI content promotion, but they give users AI tools to create an eternal tsunami of slop. They aren’t trying to save the internet from AI. They are trying to secure their own monopoly on AI pollution. They want to ensure that the only slop you consume is the premium, high-margin slop they generated for you. It is all about revenue domination. If you use Midjourney, you are a spammer. If you use Meta AI, you are a “creator.” We can’t expect the companies profiting from AI creation to give us tools to deactivate the very content we create on their platform. So it seems, for now, our best (and imperfect) bet is something like Slop Evader—a time machine to transport you to a simpler time. View the full article

One April night eight years ago, two tech leaders sat down with a former Forest Service employee at Terroir, a natural wine bar in San Francisco. Then they started sketching out a plan that would eventually reshape California’s housing policy. Landmark housing reforms that passed in the state in 2025, one that allows more housing to be built near transit stops, and another curbing the use of environmental law to block new housing—and which many believed would never succeed—can be traced back to that night, five bottles of wine, and crucial backing from Silicon Valley executives. An unlikely new leader Brian Hanlon, the Forest Service employee, was an unlikely leader for a new housing movement. Hanlon moved to the Bay Area in 2010 after dropping out of a PhD program, and got a job managing grant paperwork for USFS. He wasn’t planning to work on housing; he considered becoming a winemaker. But he soon saw the impact of California’s housing policy directly. When he first arrived in the area, apartments were still relatively affordable. Within a year, he saw demand spike: every open house he visited had 20 to 30 people competing for the same apartment. Over the next couple of years, as rents in the city continued to rise, Hanlon got involved with rental advocacy groups, but quickly saw the limitations. He felt advocates weren’t engaging with what he saw as a basic problem: restrictive policy made it too difficult to build housing, and the shortage of housing—not just landlords trying to extract higher rents from renters—was what was driving up prices. “Even then, I was like, ‘It’s not landlord greed.’ There aren’t enough homes. Landlords are just as greedy in Houston, Texas, or wherever else,” he says. “I kind of got excommunicated from that movement because I believed in more housing.” A friend introduced him to Sonia Trauss, a math teacher who had started advocating for new housing development at planning meetings—a YIMBY (“yes in my backyard”) counterpart to the resistance to new construction that was common in San Francisco, which is commonly characterized as NIMBY (“not in my backyard”). This resistance came largely from two separate, but sometimes aligned, groups: first, homeowners who believe new constructions of apartments around their homes will lower the resale value, obstruct their views, and otherwise affect “the neighborhood character”; and second, advocates for low-income tenants who believe that the new construction pushed by the YIMBY movement in gentrifying working-class neighborhoods will accelerate the damaging process of pricing out long-time residents. The first group is more powerful politically at the state level, but at the start of Hanlon and Trauss’s advocacy in San Francisco, many of the fights were with the second, leading to vitriolic conflict in the city (and online). Trauss faced intense criticism for comparing tenant advocates to The President voters during a speech at hearing. And in one incident, Hanlon was at a public film screening about the eviction crisis, talking with a resident who was fighting a plan to demolish his apartment building, when an activist forced him out of the event, screaming “Get the fuck out!” As the conflicts continued in San Francisco, Hanlon decided he needed to do more than tackle one planning meeting—and one building—at a time. After he and Trauss secured some funding, they founded a nonprofit, California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund, and filed a lawsuit against a Bay Area suburb for not building enough housing. They lost the suit, and Hanlon realized that they needed to change direction. “I was like, alright, well, we’re going to fail as a nonprofit if we don’t change the law,” he says. Rewriting the law With help from a likeminded developer he’d met, Hanlon brought together a group of land-use attorneys, planners, and other developers and explained why the lawsuit had failed and how he wanted the law to change so cities would have to allow more construction. Hanlon copied the existing law into Microsoft Word, rewrote it based on feedback from the group, and then gave it to a lawyer to draft a real version of a potential bill. Then he started heading to Sacramento, meeting with anyone who’d talk. A lawyer from the Building Industry Association told him that he was wasting his time. “I’m like, alright, thanks for your feedback,” he says. “And then I just kept going.” At the time, he had little money and few connections. At a housing conference, he entered a contest to meet the new chair of the state’s Department of Housing Development—the competition involved guessing the number of Monopoly houses in a giant jar. “I remembered a little bit of middle school geometry or something, and I just looked at the jar and did the right math and guessed the right number of houses,” he says. He won a lunch with Ben Metcalf, the new chair, and peppered him with questions about housing reform in the state. Meanwhile, he was starting to make more connections in the tech industry. Trauss had already gotten some support from tech CEOs like Yelp’s Jeremy Stoppleman, who saw that the housing shortage could hurt their industry since it was so hard for employees to find a place to live. Like others, he’d read a viral article in TechCrunch from Kim-Mai Cutler explaining how housing policy restricted development. “That story really helped put everything in perspective—like, oh, this is actually by design,” Stoppleman says. “[It was] many years of decisions to specifically constrain housing production, density, and growth. That created a real point of frustration as a person leading a business with thousands of employees here in the Bay Area.” Hanlon met Zack Rosen, CEO of the WebOps platform Pantheon, on Twitter. “I got in a fight with him on the internet,” Rosen says. “I got into one of those things where it was back and forth, back and forth, and by the third time, I’m like, man, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” He suggested to Hanlon that they meet up for coffee, and they became friends. Rosen, too, wanted to invest in a solution to the housing crisis. “The tech industry didn’t create these terrible housing policies, they predate us,” Rosen says. “However, the success of our industry and these terrible housing policies are a train wreck. The net effect of that train wreck is immiseration for the state of California—you know, teachers teaching [while] homeless in San Francisco. I mean, it’s insane. So for me, it was like, look, the tech industry has a special responsibility to help solve it.” A few weeks later, Hanlon ran into Rosen in Sacramento, along with Nat Friedman—the former CEO of GitHub, now head of Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, who had come to Sacramento to talk about housing with an assemblymember. They started walking through the capitol building, and knocked on the door of the governor’s office, where they managed to wrangle a meeting with staffers on the fly. Policymakers wanted to act, but the issue was complex, and they needed help understanding what laws could truly help. On the drive back home, Rosen started thinking about partnering with Hanlon. Making a bet on a new startup nonprofit They stayed in touch, and nearly a year later, Rosen, Friedman, and Hanlon met at the wine bar to talk about the potential for a new nonprofit. They talked for hours, closing out the bar. Hanlon pitched them on the vision of a new housing advocacy organization for the state that would work on new policy, build coalitions and a grassroots movement, and massively scale up homebuilding. At the time, Hanlon was still working on a shoestring budget, helping shepherd a housing bill called SB 167—based on what he’d drafted earlier—through the committee process. “Imagine all that we could do if I had a real team and a real budget?” he said. They didn’t know exactly how the new organization would work. “We ended up with more questions than answers,” says Rosen. “But we had a direction. We had a strategy.” They were sold on the idea. “It was reminiscent to me of the beginnings of a great startup,” he says. “It just felt like hey, here’s this obvious idea. No one’s doing it. Is it possible to do? Absolutely. Is it incredibly difficult to do? Absolutely. Let’s go do it.” Within a couple of months, they had raised hundreds of thousands for the project. Hanlon resigned from his previous nonprofit with Trauss. Rosen joined the new organization, California YIMBY, as a cofounder. It’s something that probably only would have happened in San Francisco. “I don’t think I ever would have raised this sort of philanthropic capital just given my profile—I’m some guy who was working for the Forest Service and moved to the Mission because I was really into wine, fixed gear bikes, and shows,” Hanlon says. “That doesn’t sound like someone I’d want to make a big bet on to try to rebuild the built environment of the world’s fourth largest economy.” But his vision resonated with them, and with friends of Friedman’s who gave to the new nonprofit. “Brian’s a mile a minute—very fast on his feet, very thoughtful, had clearly done tons of research, knew his stuff,” says Stoppleman. “It was a really unique strategy that he was laying out. For me, it’s exciting to meet people at that stage when they’re just getting going. Obviously brilliant, lots of energy, a lot of passion, probably some naivete. There is a parallel, 100%, to the startup world.” The tech leaders who put in money also were willing to try something new. “I don’t mean to just make a paean to enlightened tech leaders, but I will say, San Francisco’s entrepreneurial tech leaders don’t treat the status quo or entrenched power as immutable reality,” says Hanlon. “They treat it as problems to be solved and building a new future. And that’s rare and uncommon . . . I think there’s this real sense that we’re not on this Earth for very long, it’s good and right to work quickly to solve your problems. And also, that failure isn’t the worst thing. The worst thing is not trying, or trying and not being ambitious.” Sweeping changes in policy After the nonprofit was founded in 2017—as a 501(c)(4) organization, so it’s allowed to lobby full time—it led advocacy for SB 167, a bill that made it harder for cities to fail to comply with state laws designed to force cities to approve more housing. The organization also fought for new laws that make it easier to build ADUs and “missing middle” housing like duplexes. But the biggest victories, after earlier failed attempts, came this year. First, the state passed a set of laws that reform CEQA, the California’s environmental law, which has sometimes been used as a method to stop development. Some housing now has a faster review process under the law. When the nonprofit first began working on CEQA reform, they were told that it was impossible. This fall, the state also passed SB 79, a law that legalizes large apartment buildings near major transit stops throughout the state—even when local laws restrict density or height. That can help significantly shrink the state’s housing shortage. In L.A., alone, by one estimate, it will eventually zone for 1.46 million new housing units. Along with CEQA reform, it was something they’d first talked about at the wine bar. “That was really was got Nat and Zack excited that night,” Hanlon says. Earlier attempts to pass the law, including a bill introduced in 2018, helped change the conversation about housing. Academics had long argued for more housing near transit, but this type of policy was new. “That’s the first bill, to my knowledge, that had actually been commensurate with the scale of the problem to actually solve it,” Hanlon says. It died quickly in committee, but got people talking in other cities. In New York City, the planning office held a meeting to discuss it. Other advocacy groups in other states started considering new changes to state policy. The latest version of the bill barely passed. It’s likely the only bill in the history of the state, Hanlon says, to become law after “rolling” the first two policy committee chairs, meaning it passed over their objections. The bill had to make it through nine votes, and then the governor’s vote. At each step, it barely made it. “This was incredibly, incredibly hard fought.” Still, he says, despite fierce opposition to the bill, including citizen protests and formal opposition from dozens of city councils, the debate was less heated than it had been in the past. Previous bills had faced widespread, statewide activism in large town halls and protests—many of which were organized by Livable California, a group of homeowners founded by a former oil executive that fights zoning changes and regulations that would make it easier to build apartments—along with a deluge of op-eds and even a study with false data that argued that Los Angeles could meet its housing needs with vacant apartments. Now, the ideas behind the YIMBY have now become more mainstream. Policymakers have largely accepted the idea that the housing shortage is a supply problem, and that policy has held back development. “YIMBY benefits from being correct,” says Rosen. “It’s real. It’s substantive. It’s right. It also benefits from taking what should be an obscure issue like zoning, and turning it into something that’s real and personal for people—housing. And that was clear from the beginning.” When the YIMBY movement started to take off, “what wasn’t clear was how you would translate that movement that was getting attention into change of government that would enable a boom in housing,” he says. “There’s a huge leap between those things. We’ve got a long list of modern-day political movements that capture attention and don’t deliver the outcome. It’s not that any of the work of translating attention in a movement into outcomes is like rocket science. But it’s tremendously difficult work. And it’s very deliberate kind of work, very strategic work. It’s very stage sequenced. To me, it feels like kind of like scaling a company.” The work isn’t done. The next big battle, Hanlon says, is the steep fees that local governments impose on new developments, which can make building infeasible even when other barriers are taken away. But 2025 has “absolutely been a breakthrough year,” says Rosen. “We have a lot left to do. But I don’t know that there’s going to be a political lift that heavy.” View the full article

AI tools like ChatGPT are reshaping mortgage marketing, forcing lenders to rethink SEO, brand authority and how they show up as consumers turn to generative search for answers. View the full article

When the Department of the Interior announced on Monday that it was suspending the leases of five offshore wind farms that are currently under construction, it blamed national security concerns. Military experts say that’s an excuse. “I think it is all made up,” says Dave Belote, a retired Air Force colonel who previously led the Department of Defense’s energy siting clearinghouse at the Pentagon and who currently consults with onshore wind companies about military issues. “I’ve got 15 years of experience that I will stack against the Secretary of Interior to say that is all made up to please a president that just irrationally hates ‘windmills.’” Each of the five projects—two off the coast of New York, and others in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Rhode Island—went through a yearslong vetting process that closely involved the Department of Defense, now renamed the Department of War. (After the administration threatened some of the wind farms earlier in the year, New York Governor Kathy Hochul reportedly negotiated with the The President administration and even agreed to approve a natural gas pipeline in exchange for saving one of the wind farms—but those efforts may now have been in vain.) Any potential military issues were already fully considered, says Belote. When it announced the new cancellations, the Department of Interior cited radar issues. But that’s already well known—and the Department of Defense has known how to deal with it for more than a decade. Spinning wind turbines do interfere with radar, but wind project developers currently pay for a software patch that edits that interference out of NORAD’s radar scope. With a bigger investment, the radar itself could be upgraded to eliminate the issue without relying on the patch. The military needs to know how to deal with wind turbines regardless of whether they’re in U.S. waters. China, for example, has 129 offshore wind farms. “They are concentrated along the shorelines in the most militarily significant areas around Shanghai and around Taiwan Strait,” says Belote. “If any American is launching from a carrier or Guam or Japan or Korea and pointed west at the Chinese shoreline, that man or woman in the fighter cockpit or bomber cockpit is going to have to deal with a whole bunch of spinning wind turbines on their radar scopes or head of displays. So the whole idea that we can neither train nor detect threats in the presence of small numbers of offshore wind turbines is ludicrous.” The administration has also cited unspecified “classified” issues, but Belote says—as someone who has considered all possible issues that could theoretically occur—that those issues don’t exist. “There’s no there there,” he says. (The Department of Defense said it could not immediately respond to Fast Company‘s request for a comment on the issue.) On the East Coast, Belote argues that the military could even make use of the infrastructure on offshore wind turbines because they already have power, fiber optics, and security that could improve communications in military exercises. There’s also a bigger national security argument: wind is a critical domestic energy source at a time when the country needs to rapidly ramp up production. “Energy security is national security,” Kirk Lippold, a retired Navy commander, wrote earlier this year. “America’s coastal regions host nearly 40% of our population, and offshore wind offers a direct and effective way to provide these areas with utility-scale energy. This is not just about power—it’s about ensuring that those economic centers remain online amid geopolitical instability or supply chain disruption. When we cede control of our energy future—whether to geopolitical rivals, volatile oil markets, or outdated infrastructure—we weaken our ability to defend American interests at home and abroad.” A group of retired senior military officials echoed the same arguments in an open letter to Secretary Burgum in May. Because of the strain that data centers are putting on the grid, “it has never been so important that our country is energy independent,” they wrote. “When we rely on energy from foreign countries, it leaves us vulnerable to global market shocks outside of our control.” Collectively, the offshore wind projects could power more than 2.5 million homes and businesses. They also could help tackle soaring energy bills for consumers. It’s not clear what will happen next. The The President administration also tried to stop Rhode Island’s Revolution Wind project earlier in the year, but a court stepped in and the project resumed construction. “When the The President Administration imposed a stop work order on Revolution Wind several months ago based on similarly vague assertions regarding national security, the courts found that order was unlawful and stopped the The President administration’s effort to obstruct the build-out of clean, affordable power,” says Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. “The administration is now trying to unlawfully stop these five projects which are creating thousands of jobs and making electricity more affordable, including Revolution Wind. We will see what happens in the courts.” Even if the administration fails again in court, another pause will make it harder for the projects to survive. When Revolution Wind previously stopped work, it reportedly cost the developer more than $2 million a day. View the full article

Lego has a nostalgia problem. I do, too. Like Hollywood and its eternal cycle of remakes, the Danish company has found a bottomless treasure pot full of GenX and Gen Z people willing to burn their credit cards to turn their golden memories into bricks. By my count, 2025 alone brought a record-setting 16 sets related to old Lego properties and external IPs, shattering 2023’s previous peak of 9 sets. Whether that’s considered a problem or not depends on who you ask. You can argue that we (the people who keep buying these sets) are all the ones who have the problem. The Danish are just milking it. Building Lego soothes kids and adults alike but, when you are putting together these nostalgia-sets, there is an additional satisfaction factor. It’s part of you, it’s what you know, like that old song that plays in your head from time to time and you have the urge to play on your headphones. As you assemble it, you can’t help but enjoy the way in which the Billund designers have abstracted the original objects and created details and features that seem impossible to reproduce at pixel-size brick resolution. Lego won’t share sales figures but, privately, insiders have hinted that these sets bring in lots of revenue, especially because they are large and complex with many pieces and high price tags. The year-over-year increase of new sets seem to confirms this: Between 2014 and 2022, the company released an average of 3.7 sets per year tapping into ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s themes. That number has more than doubled. From 2023 through 2025, Lego produced 31 nostalgia-focused sets—a dramatic acceleration that establishes a new baseline. Many of these sets are part of the Lego Icons line, which launched in 2020 as a way to tap into the growing appetite from Lego’s adult customers. Other sets come through the Lego Ideas, launched in 2008, a sort of Kickstarter-ish platform that asks fans to submit designs for official Lego sets. These are then voted on by the community and a handful become commercial products each year. Until 2024, it was an open design call but that year Lego launched explicitly decade-targeted design challenges. First came the “Turn Back Time—80s Challenge,” which generated more than 290 submissions. The challenge proved so successful that Lego immediately launched a “Build Your Nostalgia—90s Throwback” competition for 2025. Rather than waiting for the nostalgia to happen organically, Lego is now actively soliciting it because it works. Now, if you are like me—or my son, who is definitely not a Gen X but is growing up in Gen X culture—you may be wondering what’s cool this year. Well, that’s why I’m here, my friends. These are the best at every price point all the way up to the crazy nuts $1,000 Death Star (now, if you buy that one, then you will have a very real problem of the financial kind). Home One Starcruiser This is a tiny reminder that Star Wars Original Trilogy sets remain a cornerstone of Lego’s nostalgia strategy. Released January 2025 for $70, this 559-piece Rebel Alliance frigate appeared in Return of the Jedi as part of the climactic Endor battle. It’s a compact set designed for anyone who wants a manageable Star Wars display without a 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon commitment. That it came out on the very first day of 2025 signals how central Star Wars remains to Lego’s calendar. The Simpsons: Krusty Burger This year also brought a new Simpson set. Homer’s favorite fast-food joint comes to life with 1,635 pieces. The Krusty Burger has been serving fictional beef since the show’s early ’90s heyday, and Lego has captured every detail: the oversized signage, the drive-through window, and a small buildable Krusty the Clown figure. It’s the kind of set that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is—a shrine to a show that defined a generation’s sense of humor. At $210, it’s a reasonable price point for 1990s pop-culture archaeology. The set includes minifigures of Homer, Marge, Krusty, and the rest of Springfield’s best and finest. Williams Racing FW14B & Nigel Mansell After releasing Ayrton Senna’s McLaren last year, this is Lego’s tribute to one of Formula One’s most dominant seasons: 1992, when British driver Nigel Mansell piloted the Williams FW14B to legendary status. With 799 pieces and priced at $80, this is the kind of nostalgia that doesn’t rely on Hollywood but will appeal to the GenX and GenZ generations. The model includes working steering and suspension details that make it feel less like a toy and more like precision engineering translated into plastic. Blacktron Renegade This one is pure Lego archaeology and made a lot of people happy back in the late ’80s. The Blacktron theme launched in 1987 and became one of the company’s most iconic design languages—a line of villainous space vehicles with electric lime-yellow and black color schemes that defined entire childhoods, opposite from the late ’70s good guys of the Galaxy Explorer. The Blacktron Renegade, $100, resurrects that aesthetic with precision. Minifigure Vending Machine This one emerged from Lego’s Ideas platform, and it is a meta-nostalgic deep cut. The 315-piece set is essentially a tribute to Lego’s own 1980s and ’90s theme history. The vending machine dispenses minifigures, but the real genius is that it functions as a shrine to classic Lego design eras. It’s designed to celebrate the Classic Space, Pirates, and Castle themes that defined childhoods. Priced at $100, it’s Lego essentially building a monument to itself, self-referencing nostalgia so dense that it risks becoming an emotional black hole. Gremlins: Gizmo The 1,125-piece set captures Gizmo, the Mogwai creature from Gremlins, in brick form. The process of bringing Gizmo to life required Lego’s design team to solve problems that shouldn’t exist. How do you suggest fur texture with plastic bricks? How do you create a nose that reads as a nose without being literal? Lego senior model designer Chris McVeigh told me how he tackled the fur question by using a specific element he originally developed for Lego’s 2023 Architecture set of Himeji Castle: a small 2×2 plate with an upturned corner. “I decided to use that to give the effect of wispy hair flowing off the model,” McVeigh says. For the nose, he experimented with half-circle and full-circle plates, ultimately landing on a 2×2 round plate with subtle cutouts. “It’s one of the exciting things about Lego,” McVeigh explains. “The brain fills the blanks.” At $110, it’s priced in the mid-range for a detailed character build, which is appropriate for a creature that required months of design refinement to get exactly right. The Goonies This 2,912-piece behemoth, priced at $330, recreates an iconic scene from Richard Donner’s 1985 adventure film. Born from Lego’s “Turn Back Time—80s Challenge,” where it competed against more than 290 other submissions, the set includes buildable structures and minifigures of the main Goonies characters. It doesn’t get more cultish than that. Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship OK, so this one is early aughts but, with Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp, it feels ’90s to me. Released in September, it’s backordered everywhere, becoming one of the company’s hottest hits. The $380 set brings Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl to life with 2,862 pieces, recreating the iconic pirate ship from the 2003 film The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, complete with detailed rigging, a functioning ship’s wheel, a working cannon, and a brig with torture implements. Multiple minifigures come with the set, including Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, Elizabeth Swann, and Will Turner. Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D This was a shocker for Lego aficionados, who are used to living in a Star Wars dominated world. Just for that, it became the champion of 2025 nostalgia releases with 3,600 pieces. Priced at $400, it reproduces the Starship Enterprise-D from TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, which aired from 1987 to 1994 and defined what Star Trek meant to millions of people who never watched the original. The model measures 23.5 inches long and includes a working saucer separation function—a feature so technically ambitious it required serious engineering. It has all the crew (nine minifigures), including Captain Picard. It’s also bundled with set 40768, the Star Trek Type-15 Shuttlepod, a 261-piece GWP that features opening wing doors and a detailed interior LCARS display. Lego Game Boy The $60 set recreates the original 1989 Nintendo Game Boy in brick form with impressive accuracy. The measurements are almost identical to the original and it includes posable directional buttons, a pressable A/B button cluster, and a buildable cartridge slot. The set even includes minifigure-scale versions of classic Game Boy games like Tetris and The Legend of Zelda printed on the buildable cartridges. It’s also my favorite set because you can actually make it into a real Game Boy using this kit. Death Star This is no Lego Set. At 9,023 pieces and $1,000, this is a bloody actual moon. It is so big it must actually have its own gravity field. It is also the most expensive Lego set ever made, breaking the previous record held by both the Millennium Falcon UCS ($850) and the AT-AT UCS ($850). Released back in October, this Death Star is a cross-section cutaway of the Empire’s most infamous space station that features little vignettes from A New Hope and Return of the Jedi: the detention block, trash compactor, tractor beam control room, Moff Tarkin’s boardroom, and the Emperor’s Throne Room where Luke and Vader’s final confrontation takes place. It stands 27.5 inches tall and it is 31 inches wide. The build includes 38 minifigures—including three different Luke Skywalkers—Tatooine outfit, Stormtrooper disguise, and Return of the Jedi’s Jedi Knight—two Han Solos, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Grand Moff Tarkin, and even the internet-famous ‘Hot Tub Stormtrooper’ from the Lego Star Wars video games. Lego Ideas X-Files: The Truth Is Out There This set is not released yet, but it was announced in 2025 as the winner of Lego’s “Build Your Nostalgia—90s Throwback” challenge. While it is currently in development with no official release date or price yet confirmed, the design won a competitive fan vote against four other finalists: Edward Scissorhands, The Fifth Element, Jumanji, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer—all quintessential ’90s intellectual property. The fact that the X-Files won tells you everything about which generational cohort Lego is chasing right now. It’s also a great fit for our times, as the show that defined paranoia and skepticism for everyone born between 1970 and 1990. View the full article

US president claims Danish territory is needed ‘for national security’View the full article

How should leaders prepare for AI’s accelerating impact on work and everyday life? AI scientist, entrepreneur, and Pioneers of AI podcast host Rana el Kaliouby shares her predictions for the year ahead—from physical AI entering the real world to what it means to onboard AI into your org chart. El Kaliouby cuts through today’s biggest AI headlines, bringing to light the insights that will matter most in the months to come. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert 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. Let’s look ahead to 2026. You sent me some fascinating thoughts about AI’s next-phase impact on business, and I’d love to take you through them. The first one was the rise of what you called relationship intelligent AI. So everybody’s worried that AI is going to make us less human and take away our human-to-human connections. There is definitely a risk of that. But I think the thing I’m most excited about for 2026 is how AI can actually help us build deeper human connections and more meaningful human experiences. And the way this happens is through AI that can really help you organize your relationships and your network and surface connections that you need and maybe make warm introductions to you. I love connecting with people, but my relationship data is a mess. It’s all in my brain. Some of it is in LinkedIn, some are on WhatsApp. I take a lot of notes when I meet new people and I use an AI note taker. It’s just a mess. It’s very disparate data sources. And I always think of this scene in, do you know The Devil Wears Prada? Have you seen? Oh, that’s exactly what I was thinking of. The character is kind of whispering in your ear. Exactly. It was Anne Hathaway [as Andy], and she was with Meryl Streep [as Miranda] at this gala. And this guy and his partner were moving toward Miranda and she [didn’t rememeber their names]. And Andy whispers in Miranda’s ear: “He’s the ambassador and his new wife.” And I was like, “That’s exactly what I need. I need an AI version of Anne Hathaway.” And it’s now doable with LLMs because it’s all this unstructured, messy data that an AI can take all of that, contextualize it, and hopefully be that AI chief of staff for you. Is that like a product? Is that something that you would have to do to turn your chatbot, whatever, your Claude or your ChatGPT into that? Or is it a new product that you think is going to come out that will make that easy for you? There are already a number of new companies that are starting in this space. So one company’s called VIA.AI, it’s a Boston-based company. They do this for sales professionals and BD professionals who have to do this for their work. There’s a company called Goodword that I’m very excited about. They’re doing this for just the average person. Like you and I, we have very strong networks, but how can we organize it? So I’m excited about that one. There’s a company called Boardy that does this for investors and founders. So it’s becoming a thing, and I’m excited to see how these companies take off in 2026. They’re all fairly new, so it’ll be interesting to see how they evolve. Yeah, and whether they can stay ahead of some of the bigger chatbots that may just try to integrate some of this capability into the products they already have. That’s always the case in this kind of evolution of technology: What’s a feature and what’s a company, right? What’s an independent service? Absolutely. When I’m looking at these companies and I’m diligencing them, that’s a key question that I ask. Is this something that the next version of ChatGPT or Gemini is just going to implement? And if the answer is yes, then that’s obviously not a defensible company. But a lot of times there’s this additional moat of data and algorithms that you need to sit on top of these LLMs. And I believe in this relationship intelligence space, I don’t think this is something that just a kind of an off-the-shelf LLM can do. It really needs to know you. It needs to know your data, it needs to know your relationships. And you have to trust it enough to share all that data with it, right? Absolutely. That’s your proprietary data, whether it’s about your business or about you individually. Exactly. And I don’t want this to all go up to OpenAI’s cloud. I want to trust that I have control over these really private relations. If you and I have a conversation about our kids, I don’t necessarily want that to now sit in a general OpenAI cloud and be used to train the next ChatGPT. So that safety and security, appreciating the privacy and the importance of this data, is really key. Another business change you expect in 2026 is the insertion of AI into the org chart. This is about who manages AI, like performance reviews and team culture impacts? Yeah, so this goes back to the thesis that there’s this shift in how AI is creating value, and it’s not a tool anymore. Well, it is a tool. It’ll always be a tool, but it’s not a tool that helps you get work done faster. It could actually take an end-to-end task and get it done for you. And I’ll give a few examples. So I’m an investor in a company called Synthpop, and instead of building a tool that helps healthcare administrators accelerate or really become efficient in how they do patient intake, it just takes the task of patient intake. It does the thing end to end. And so if you then imagine what that means for a hospital or a clinic, it will have a combination of human workers collaborating and working closely with AI coworkers. And so then the question becomes, well, who manages these hybrid teams? Sometimes it’s a human manager, sometimes it’s an AI manager. I’m also an investor in a company called Tough Day, and they sell you AI managers. And then how do you do performance reviews for these hybrid teams? How do you build a culture? Like at Affectiva, my company, culture was our superpower. How do you build a culture when some of your team members are AI and some of your team members are humans? So I think that is going to spur a lot of conversation around how do you build organizations that are combinations of digital agents and human employees? As you talk about this merging of AI agents and humans in work, it brings up that looming question about the impact of AI on jobs and employment. And some numbers are coming out now that make it seem like, “Oh, it’s bad for jobs.” There are other numbers coming out that are like, “Oh, we’re actually hiring more people because of it.” Do you have a prediction about what is going to happen with that in 2026? Is AI going to take over roles that have been done by humans that quickly? We had a really fascinating roundtable discussion at the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference and the headline was like, “Is AI killing entry-level jobs?” And actually, a lot of the Fortune companies and also AI companies that were around the table were basically saying, “No, we’re hiring more entry-level jobs. They’re just not the same jobs that we were traditionally seeing.” And also the career ladders have changed. So my prediction is we’re going to see an entirely different organization where I think if you are able to come in an entry-level position, for example, but work very closely with AI and be AI-native and be AI fluent and be able to wear multiple hats, I think that’s going to go a long way. As opposed to this very siloed job trajectory where you come in, this is your little task, and then you do more of it, and then you go up the career ladder. I think that’s going to change. I think young people are looking for different ways of working, and I think AI is changing all of that anyway. Will there be jobs that will go away? I think so. I can’t remember who said this line, but it’s now very popular: “It’s not AI that’s going to take your job. It’s going to be somebody who knows how to use AI.” And I believe that to be true. View the full article

By the end of October, David, who works at a roughly 2,000-person finance firm in New York, already knew he’d be working during the holiday season this year. Usually at the office, he learned he’d at least get to work remotely between December 26 and January 1—with the way the financial calendar fell, it was inevitable that he couldn’t just disappear for clients (like institutional investors and family offices) during that time. He says the schedule doesn’t really bother him. “I’m not in a trench in the middle of a battlefield here. I’m not laying bricks,” he says. “It’s not terribly unrealistic work that they’re asking us to do.” Mainly, he’s expected to respond to emails and move forward client processes already in the works. David (who, like other employees Fast Company spoke with, is using his first name only to avoid professional repercussions) is one of many office workers who stay on the clock during winter holidays. Per a 2023 CalendarLabs survey of more than 1,000 full-time U.S. employees, 24% reported planning to work on Christmas Eve, 12% on Christmas Day, and 27% on New Year’s Eve. Exclusive data from 2024 and 2025 shared with Fast Company by Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom show that these figures tend to be higher for remote workers, 13.3% of whom work on Christmas Day compared to just 1.9% of those who work in person, while nearly 39% of remote employees work the day after Christmas, versus 16% who work in-office. Many employers don’t explicitly require office workers to clock in during this Christmas through New Year’s period, at least not in a typical 9-to-5 fashion. But a few main factors drive people to do it anyway: They have time-sensitive tasks, their higher-ups continue to work so they feel the need to mirror that behavior, and, during this precarious economic time, they fear not showing up could lead to a layoff. “The pattern I see in organizations is consistent,” says Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. “Coverage needs do not stop, and many knowledge workers stay online in some capacity because of deadlines, client expectations, end-of-year close—or simply because they feel they will fall behind if they disconnect.” “There’s always an expectation that you have some level of availability” While it’s obvious why those working in retail or delivery don’t quit from late December through the new year, some knowledge workers still have time-sensitive tasks during the season. “In litigation, things come up and you have to deal with them,” says Thomas, an attorney working at a law firm in New Jersey. Last December, he had a hearing scheduled for the day after Christmas and had to prepare on short notice. Other times, lawyers will work through the end of the year to meet billable hour requirements. Software engineers, meanwhile, may find themselves suddenly on call to put out code-based fires, and marketing professionals could face unexpected publicity nightmares. David, because he works with high-net-worth clients who tend to retreat to second (or third, or fourth) homes during the holidays, had been told early in his career that work gets quieter when this happens. But he’s found that the opposite plays out. “[That’s] when people have the most questions, because that’s when they actually read their mail or their statements,” he says. “There’s always an expectation that you have some level of availability.” Though these time-sensitive needs are reasonable drivers for clocking in, Robert Kovach, a work psychologist who’s long advised senior executives, says working during this season is often “less about the work that needs to be done . . . it’s about [the worker’s] identity.” Working at this time of year “almost becomes a proxy for commitment, ambition, indispensability,” he says. People do it to signal that they’re reliable and valuable. Responsiveness rewarded Again, this usually doesn’t come down to formal office policies. The “strongest drivers” for people to work during holidays “tend to be culture signals and incentive structures,” says Tsipursky. Leaders “reward responsiveness,” for example, by publicly praising those who reply quickly during holidays and using phrases like “We can count on you” during performance reviews. That responsiveness can look like anything from hourly Slack check-ins to responding same day to emails. Typically, says Kovach, bosses don’t “mandate” this, they “model” it, like by sending emails at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Per Ryan, a software engineering manager in New York, “no one is asked to work” during this time of year at his company, “but people feel committed to their outcomes and delivery.” And even though tech companies, in his experience, “rarely set schedules for the holidays . . . outside of on-call support,” many employees still work in the competitive industry. “The real standard becomes ‘Do not disappear,’ even if no one says that out loud,” Tsipurksy says. That can lead to anxiety-fueled holiday working, often compounded by fears of layoffs that happen all too frequently this time of year. “After the efficiency layoff trend that started with Twitter and Elon [Musk] and continued to wipe the industry, roles are scarce and competition has naturally increased,” says Ryan. Expectations in his industry, he adds, are high among both peers and management, and people tend to meet them by working harder and more. Plus, there’s the added fear of “AI taking white-collar jobs,” says Kovach. “In the economic climate we’re in right now, fear is a big [driver for wanting] to be seen as being productive.” This could help explain why remote workers work more this time of year—and during holidays and weekends in general, as Bloom’s research revealed, during which remote workers’ office activity can exceed those working in person by up to 41.5 percentage points. Since they’re not literally seen by higher-ups, they spend more time making themselves seen via emails time-stamped on January 1, or slack messages that role in on December 24. Some people enjoy holiday working: “‘Future You’ appreciates ‘Present You’” Required or not, plenty of people like heading into the office during holidays. A friend of mine who works at a health insurance company calls it a chill time to come in. In the past, it even paved the way for her to get unique, one-on-one time with a “very high up” superior—she got to give them a solo presentation while everyone else was off. Then there are people who don’t enjoy the holiday season. They may not have much family or they may get depressed at this time of year, so work offers a positive distraction. Of course, not everyone celebrates Christmas, and they may prefer saving vacation days for other occasions. Younger workers told Fast Company that they plan to have kids in the future but don’t yet, so they figured they’d put in their time during the holidays now, build up goodwill, and take vacation when their situations change down the line. “When I take days off, I don’t know what to do with myself,” says David, so he finds himself checking his phone for office-related notifications. One of his big pros for working during holidays is that afterward, “you don’t come back to a giant hornet’s nest of things you need to do,” he says. “’Future You’ appreciates ‘Present You’ for keeping the machine moving.” However, these pros are easier to come by in office cultures that aren’t fueled by passive-aggressive pressure. When leaders do things like schedule “optional” meetings between Christmas and New Year’s Day, set immediate post-holiday deadlines, or repeatedly send follow-ups to unanswered messages, it sends a clear message—that “silence has consequences,” Tsipursky says. In healthier office environments, “companies set explicit expectations, plan coverage rotations, and protect true time off,” Tsipursky says. Just as leaders can model working too much over the holidays, so can they set a positive example for stepping away. “If a senior person disconnects visibly, everyone else gets permission,” Kovach says. Ultimately, superiors can confuse being available with being valuable. Taking time off during holiday periods is often the mental reset people need to work more productively when they return. “What [leaders] have to be really careful about,” Kovach says, “is they’re not unconsciously equating responsiveness, or being on, with performance.” View the full article

December 15, 2025—the deadline for enrolling in a marketplace plan through the Affordable Care Act for 2026—came and went without an agreement on the federal subsidies that kept ACA plans more affordable for many Americans. Despite a last-ditch attempt in the House to extend ACA subsidies, with Congress adjourning for the year on December 19, it’s looking almost certain that Americans relying on ACA subsidies will face a steep increase in healthcare costs in 2026. As a gerontologist who studies the U.S. healthcare system, I’m aware that disagreements about healthcare in America have a long history. The main bone of contention is whether providing healthcare is the responsibility of the government or of individuals or their employers. The ACA, passed in 2010 as the country’s first major piece of health legislation since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, represents one more chapter in that long-standing debate. That debate explains why the health law has fueled so much political divisiveness—including a standoff that spurred a record-breaking 43-day-long government shutdown, which began on October 1, 2025. In my view, regardless of how Congress resolves, or doesn’t resolve, the current dispute over ACA subsidies, a durable U.S. healthcare policy will remain out of reach until lawmakers address the core question of who should shoulder the cost of healthcare. The ACA’s roots In the years before the ACA’s passage, some 49 million Americans—15% of the population—lacked health insurance. This number had been rising in the wake of the 2008 recession. That’s because the majority of Americans ages 18 to 64 with health insurance receive their health benefits through their employer. In the 2008 downturn, people who lost their jobs basically lost their healthcare coverage. For those who believed government had a primary role in providing health insurance for its citizens, the growing number of people lacking coverage hit a crisis point that required an intervention. Those who place responsibility on individuals and employers saw the ACA as a perversion of the government’s purpose. The political parties could find no common ground—and this challenge continues. The major goal of the ACA was to reduce the number of uninsured Americans by about 30 million people, or to about 3% of the U.S. population. It got about halfway there: Today, about 26 million Americans, or 8%, are uninsured, though this number fluctuates based on changes in the economy and federal and state policy. Health insurance for all? The ACA implemented an array of strategies to accomplish this goal. Some were popular, such as allowing parents to keep their kids on their family insurance until age 26. Some were unpopular, such as the mandate that everyone must have insurance. But two strategies in particular had the biggest impact on the number of uninsured. One was expanding the Medicaid program to include workers whose income was below 138% of the poverty line. The other was providing subsidies to people with low and moderate incomes that could help them buy health insurance through the ACA marketplace, a state or federal health exchange through which consumers could choose health insurance plans. Medicaid expansion was controversial from the start. Originally, the ACA mandated it for all states, but the Supreme Court eventually ruled that it was up to each state, not the federal government, to decide whether to do so. As of December 2025, 40 states and the District of Columbia have implemented Medicaid expansion, insuring about 20 million Americans. Meanwhile, the marketplace subsidies, which were designed to help people who were working but could not access an employer-based health plan, were not especially contentious early on. Everyone receiving a subsidy was required to contribute to their insurance plan’s monthly premium. People earning $18,000 or less annually, which in 2010 was 115% of the income threshold set by the federal government as poverty level, contributed 2.1% of their plan’s cost, and those earning $60,240, which was 400% of the federal poverty level, contributed 10%. People making more than that were not eligible for subsidies at all. In 2021, legislation passed by the Biden administration to stave off the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic increased the subsidy that people could receive. The law eliminated premiums entirely for the lowest income people and reduced the cost for those earning more. And, unlike before, people making more than 400% of the federal poverty level—about 10% of marketplace enrollees—could also get a subsidy. These pandemic-era subsidies are set to expire at the end of 2025. Cost versus coverage If the COVID-19-era subsidies expire, healthcare costs would increase substantially for most consumers, as ACA subsidies return to their original levels. So someone making $45,000 annually will now need to pay $360 a month for health insurance, increasing their payment by 74%, or $153 monthly. What’s more, these changes come on top of price hikes to insurance plans themselves, which are estimated to increase by about 18% in 2026. With these two factors combined, many ACA marketplace users could see their health insurance costs rise more than 100%. Some proponents of extending COVID-19-era subsidies contend that the rollback will result in an estimated 6 million to 7 million people leaving the ACA marketplace and that some 5 million of these Americans could become uninsured in 2026. Policies in the tax and spending package signed into law by President Donald The President in July 2025 are amplifying the challenge of keeping Americans insured. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the Medicaid cuts alone, stipulated in the package, may result in more than 7 million people becoming uninsured. Combined with other policy changes outlined in the law and the rollback of the ACA subsidies, that number could hit 16 million by 2034—essentially wiping out the majority of gains in health insurance coverage that the ACA achieved since 2010. Subsidy downsides These enhanced ACA subsidies are so divisive now in part because they have dramatically driven up the federal government’s healthcare bill. Between 2021 and 2024, the number of people receiving subsidies doubled—resulting in many more people having health insurance, but also increasing federal ACA expenditures. In 2025, almost 22 million Americans who purchased a marketplace plan received a federal subsidy to help with the costs, up from 9.2 million in 2020—a 137% increase. Those who oppose the extension counter that the subsidies cost the government too much and fund high earners who don’t need government support—and that temporary emergencies, even ones as serious as a pandemic, should not result in permanent changes. Another critique is that employers are using the ACA to reduce their responsibility for employee coverage. Under the ACA, employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance, but for companies with fewer employers, that requirement is optional. In 2010, 92% of employers with 25 to 49 workers offered health insurance, but by 2025, that proportion had dropped to 64%, suggesting that companies of this size are allowing the ACA to cover their employees. Diverging solutions The U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in the world by far. The projected increase in the number of uninsured people over the next 10 years could result in even higher costs, as fewer people get preventive care and delayed healthcare interventions, ultimately leading to more complex medical care Federal policy clearly shapes health insurance coverage, but state-level policies play a role too. Nationally, about 8% of people under age 65 were uninsured in 2023, yet that rate varied widely—from 3% in Massachusetts to 18.6% in Texas. States under Republican leadership on average have a higher percentage of uninsured people than do those under Democratic leadership, mirroring the political differences driving the national debate over who is responsible for shouldering the costs of healthcare. With dueling ideologies come dueling solutions. For those who believe that the government is responsible for the health of its citizens, expanding health insurance coverage and financing this expansion through taxes presents a clear approach. For those who say the burden should fall on individuals, reliance on the free market drives the fix—on the premise that competition between health insurers and providers offers a more effective way to solve the cost challenges than a government intervention. Without finding resolution on this core issue, the U.S. will likely still be embroiled in this same debate for years, if not decades, to come. Robert Applebaum is a senior research scholar in gerontology at Miami University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

In the world of the long-running kids show Cyberchase, Motherboard, a sort of digital queen and literal technocrat, is the beneficent but impaired leader of all of cyberspace. She is—we are to understand—a legitimate ruler, yet faces constant attacks from the odious Hacker, a green-skinned android who dresses like a vampire and whose only goal is to sow chaos and eventually take control of Motherboard’s realm, which we might describe as something akin to a metaverse, or ever-expanding digital world. Luckily, a trio of human kids named Inez, Mattie, and Jackie—a squad—visit cyberspace frequently, where they embark on missions to help protect the ever-embattled Motherboard from her nemesis. They’re frequently assisted by Digit, a robotic “cybird” that guides them through various missions. Cyberchase is a publicly funded STEM-themed program created by the public television channel WNET Thirteen. It’s been airing on PBS Kids since 2002. As such, every challenge the squad takes on can be answered with numbers, or at least some kind of mathematical concept. Sometimes, an episode involves a mission with subtraction, fractions, or even negative numbers! The whole point of the squad’s trials and tribulations is to teach children basic science, technology, engineering, and math concepts through adventures. Sandra Sheppard, who created the show and now serves as executive producer, says its writers keep a close eye on how well U.S. students are doing with math concepts, especially as general math performance in the country continues to decline: Incoming freshmen at the University of San Diego increasingly need remedial math education, according to placement test performance, and national U.S. high school math performance has been sinking for years, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress. Parents report that social media continues to be a major distraction for kids. In response, Cyberchase has adapted its content for the social media age, producing shorts that create snippets of its larger math lessons as well as online gaming content. For its upcoming season, slated to premiere in spring 2026, it has released its first seven-minute episodes, which are intended to find a midpoint between a full episode and short-form content. Fast Company chatted with Sheppard about public television in the age of streaming and TikTok, the value of the PBS Kids brand, and how she’s adapting a beloved show’s math content to meet American kids where they are. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. I have a very particular memory of learning about negative numbers before everyone else, and then revealing this secret knowledge that I had learned through Cyberchase. But I didn’t have a smartphone or a computer with the internet until high school. How can you possibly get kids to the show when you’re competing with smartphones, chatbots, and TikTok? Over the last decade, if not more, the approach to reaching kids is really very multi-platform, because we know kids are using multiple devices and watching in a myriad of ways. I think our partners at PBS Kids have been great in developing products and tools so that kids can really watch anywhere. Cyberchase is on the PBS Kids Video app and it streams everywhere, including YouTube. We also offer games, and that continues to be a really important part of the learning. Thinking about getting our content where kids are watching is constantly on our mind, as is developing content for those platforms and experimenting on those platforms. That includes shorter-form content, vertical shorts, and different kinds of compilations. Have you had more success with some platforms rather than others? Probably most children watch our content on streaming. That being said, there still is a dedicated audience for linear broadcast. And it’s a very diverse audience. Across the platforms, full episodes continue to be the driver of engagement. That’s not to say short-form content isn’t popular, or compilations aren’t popular, but we find that kids are still really driven by story. A full episode is 22 minutes. We’ve been experimenting this coming season with seven-minute stories, a little more bite-size—as long as they’re a full narrative, so kids can have that kind of rich experience of watching a full story. Can you talk a little bit more about the seven-minute episodes? They’ll be coming out in March. It allows us to focus on math concepts a little bit more simply in bite-size stories, and really focus on some of the characters that we know our audience loves. There are Buzz and Delete, our bumbling henchmen who are buddies and semi-lovable in their own right. We’ve got a whole series of shorts that feature them in these kind of friendship-oriented adventures. We can, in a short time, focus on a single strategy of subtraction, or focus on how to estimate using weight and why that’s an important tool. That’s not to say we’re moving away from long form, but it’s fun to experiment in that space. Those will be released digitally on all the PBS Kids platforms and YouTube. How do you compete with the whole of the internet using algorithm-driven engagement when trying to get kids to your math-based content? The PBS Kids brand is a very safe and trusted brand. For young children, parents, and families, we still guide many of their viewing experiences. And I think they see us as a trusted source of content. That’s not to say that there’s not lots out there and that it hasn’t become more fragmented. There are loads of choices. How do you measure the sort of uptake of the ideas for kids? Is that something you study to make sure that they’re understanding math? How does that work? We do a lot of initial developmental research, where we put ideas in front of focus groups of kids and families and test them out as early scripts. That gives us the opportunity to tweak up front. But we’ve also done a number of studies with external evaluators to really look at: Are kids learning the specific content in the shows? The good news is that we are really kind of a proven research model in that kids do learn from the series. Something I’ve heard anecdotally from people I know who teach math is that kids seem to really be struggling. Especially after the pandemic, it seems like American students are really doing poorly in math. What’s the role of Cyberchase in that? There certainly have been some national reports from the National Center for Education Statistics and the American Education Panel that have shown some real concerns in terms of math knowledge and gaps. Post-COVID, there have been some widening gaps. Interestingly, in this season we made kind of a renewed commitment to focusing on topics like subtraction, which can be a complex topic for young children. For some, addition comes more readily. Subtraction, especially as a kind of mental map exercise, can be challenging. We are embracing topics that could use some extra support. We live in a world that is changing. We’re all inundated with data, some of it AI-driven, some of it not. We’ve also focused in the last couple of seasons on data science, not only collecting and representing data, but looking at it and making sense of it reasonably. Another topic that we’re tackling this season is fractions. I think that’s a topic that for a lot of kids takes a lot of reinforcement. Patterns are a foundational topic in math and a foundational topic in programming. Giving kids more exposure to patterns, all kinds of patterns, too. I’ll say one other theme that I’m really excited about is connecting math to civics and the community. Certainly some of that involves data, but we have a very special show that’s going to be released called “Every Flipper Counts.” It’s set in this wonderful cyber site of Penguia where the penguins have to pick a new team captain for their belly bowll, and the squad comes in and they introduce voting as a fair way to decide. There’s a lot of math and figuring out how to set up a fair vote. How have the cuts to public media impacted you? As a station, we’re always looking at ways to be more relevant, more sustainable. We have some wonderful funders of Cyberchase who are very supportive. For decades, Cyberchase did receive funding from the National Science Foundation. And for the moment, that’s not happening. It’s a complicated time and we have to navigate a path forward and find new ways to be smart, be cost effective, and bring in new supporters. Final question: Is Cyberchase the metaverse? It is an imaginary cyber world. The metaverse term came later. It’s a whimsical, vast landscape of these wonderfully rich, imaginary cyber sites. It’s given us, as writers, an unbelievable place to go. View the full article

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