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Unsuspecting Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) investors might be startled this morning if they glance at a stock price chart for shares in the TV streamer. As of the time of this writing, popular stock tracking sites like Yahoo Finance and apps like Apple Stocks are showing that Netflix’s shares dropped more than 90% on Friday, when they began the day trading at more than $1,100. Those same charts now show that NFLX shares are trading at “just” around $111 each. But don’t panic. Netflix’s shares haven’t actually lost 90% of their value. NFLX stock just split. Here’s what you need to know. Why are Netflix shares trading so ‘low’? Netflix shares are currently trading at around $111 in premarket. That’s roughly 90% less than where the stock was trading when the bell closed on Friday. So what’s happened? Netflix shares did indeed trade at over $1,100 on Friday (the company’s shares have traded in the four-digits for months). But when markets closed on Friday, Netflix initiated its previously planned 10-for-1 stock split. As Fast Company previously reported, Netflix announced in October that it would split its stock 10-for-1 after the close of the market on Friday, November 14. NFLX shares would begin trading at their new split-adjusted price when markets opened on Monday, November 17, which is today. So that dramatic stock price “fall” that you are seeing on some financial charts this morning isn’t actually a fall in the value of Netflix’s stock. It’s just a temporary display of the difference between the pre- and post-split adjustment in Netflix’s share price. And even though Netlfix’s shares are trading at 90% less than they were on Friday, qualifying investors who owned the shares that day will find they now have nine additional NFLX shares for each one they previously had, meaning the total value of their Netflix shares are the same (provided they did not sell any between then and now, and adjusting for any early-morning trading increase or decrease today, of course). Why did Netflix split its stock? Companies split their shares for a variety of reasons. In Netflix’s case, when the streaming TV giant announced its share price split on October 30, it said it was doing so to “reset the market price of the Company’s common stock to a range that will be more accessible to employees who participate in the Company’s stock option program.” Many large companies offer employee stock purchase plans that let their employees buy shares at a slight discount on a monthly or quarterly basis. When employees buy stock in the company they work for, it generally incentivizes them to ensure the company performs as well as possible, so their personal shares increase in value. The problem for Netflix was that its shares were trading at over $1,000 apiece and, even with its employee purchase plan discounts, that put even a single share of the company out of reach for many employees. But with the stock now trading at around $111 per share, a single share is much more affordable to the average employee. Could Netflix’s stock split benefit its share price? It’s important to note that stock splits don’t change the fundamental value of a company. A company with 10 shares valued at $1,000 each is worth the same when it is composed of 100 outstanding shares valued at $100 each. The total value of all the company’s shares remains the same pre- and post-split. However, the lower value of a post-split share can make the stock more attractive to retail investors, who normally might balk at (or be unable to afford) a single share valued at $1,000. Those same investors may decide, or now be able to afford for the first time, to pick up shares in the same company if a single share now costs only a few hundred dollars. And if more retail investors start buying shares post-split because the individual share price is now more affordable, that could boost the company’s stock price. In this way, share splits can potentially benefit a company’s stock price—not because of the split itself, but because investors react to the stock’s now lower price. Whether that potential benefit actually materializes in Netflix’s stock remains to be seen. View the full article

Transitioning to a new industry often seems like a daunting prospect if you feel like you have to start from scratch, but that’s not necessarily the case. There are numerous strategies you can employ to navigate career changes, including translating existing achievements into relevant terms, finding unique opportunity gaps, and leveraging transferable skills in meaningful ways. Take it from professionals who have personally experienced this transition (or have helped others through it): you can build forward from experience rather than starting over. Build Forward From Experience, Not From Scratch When I was transitioning from more than 20 years in corporate roles to launching my own business, I told a colleague I felt like I was starting over. “Why couldn’t I have done this at 20,” I said, “before spending decades building all this other experience? It feels like I’ve hit reset on my career momentum, and the mountain ahead looks huge.” She smiled. “You’re facing your version of Everest,” she said. “But you’re starting at base camp, thousands of feet above where others begin.” She was right. I wasn’t starting from scratch. I was starting from experience. Every skill I’d developed working for others was still mine to use. I’ve remembered that reframe ever since and share it with clients who are shifting into something new. When you move into a different industry, start by looking at what still applies. Connect the dots between where you’ve been and where you’re going. Ask yourself: What problems or structures feel familiar? How do the revenue models, customer relationships, or supply chain challenges overlap? Which of your strengths will transfer naturally into this new space? Do your homework. Use AI to gather insights about your new industry. Talk to people who’ve made a similar jump. You’ll discover that what you know remains relevant—you just need to translate it. When I moved from an HR leadership role in healthcare software to one in petroleum distribution, I quickly realized the challenges were similar. Different products, same human dynamics. A client made a successful transition from investment banker to graduate career adviser for international finance students by leaning into his most transferable (and enjoyable) expertise—decades living in Asia, fluency in Mandarin, passion for mentoring, knowledge of the banking world. He’s at a premier university and loves his work. Another client leapt from corporate program manager to nonprofit executive by trusting her strengths—strategic alignment, stakeholder management, resource prioritization, and risk and issue management. Skills she learned at a huge organization applied differently—with phenomenal results. Bottom line: you’re not starting over. You’re building forward. Ground yourself in where you’ve been, learn what’s ahead, and construct bridges between the two. That’s how you climb your next mountain, starting from base camp and not from scratch. Tina Robinson, Founder and CEO, WorkJoy Gain Industry Access Through Consulting Projects First To not start completely from scratch in a new industry, I’d advise doing a little side-gig or consulting project within the new industry before pursuing full-time roles. For example, if you are a finance executive who wants to break into climate tech but keeps getting rejected because of the lack of relevant industry experience, you could try to get a freelance role first. For instance, offer to do a 90-day cash flow optimization project for a climate startup. Such an experience will help you see how the new industry operates from inside out, learn all insider terminology, see the unique problems that you can help solve, and make some useful connections who can then advocate for your work. This can change everything about your job search: you are no longer an outsider trying to get in; you’re already on the inside solving real problems. Many companies will take a risk on a consultant they wouldn’t take on as a permanent hire, and once you’re in, the “industry experience” barrier disappears. Jan Hendrik Von Ahlen, Managing Director & Cofounder, Career Coach, JobLeads Join Digital Communities to Connect Skills Meaningfully Join a digital community, talk with professionals in that industry, and connect the dots from your skills to their needs. I have 15-plus years of marketing and communications management experience, and somewhere along the way, I realized that my team leadership skills and passions in developing communicators and leaders overlaps with the field of L&D (learning and development). I joined an L&D Slack community, which opened myriad doors for me. Through the community, I signed up for their mentorship program and started working with a fantastic mentor to understand how my skills could transfer; I joined a book club, where I could share insights with L&D professionals; I signed up for coffee chats, where I listened to their pain points and discussed possible solutions; and I joined the digital conversations, adding my thoughts or asking questions and collaborating with colleagues in the space. In that way, I listened to stories, learned the ins and outs of the function, and gained valuable insight that helped me connect the dots from my skills and passions to this new function and all it encompassed. In this way, instead of starting from scratch, you can leverage your skills in ways that are meaningful based on empirical evidence. You can also leverage your new network to identify solutions you didn’t know you could provide and to explore opportunities you didn’t know existed. I can’t say enough good things about all the value digital communities have added to my professional career. As I’ve meandered through functions and industries for nearly two decades, communities have made all the difference. Laura Goldstone, Senior Director of Communications and Branding Strategy, AdDaptive Intelligence Inc. Make Skills Company and Industry Agnostic The dawn of AI has many professionals worried about their current careers and considering, if not pursuing, a career shift. First, realize that the days of an entire career with a single company, or even a single industry, are gone for most people, regardless of your education level, geography, or industry. Second, realize that much of your knowledge and many of your skills are company and industry agnostic. Start by making a comprehensive list of your knowledge, skills, and experience. Are you a good writer? Are you a Microsoft Excel expert? Do you have any certifications like “Project Management Professional” or “Six Sigma Black Belt?” Have you managed people? Take your time and be thorough. Note everything on the list that is useful outside of your current or last company and industry. Next, rewrite your résumé to be company and industry agnostic, using your list as a guide. Again, take your time and focus on your audience, who does not know your company or industry specifics, acronyms, etc. Be sure anyone could read the résumé and understand your competencies and their value in any company. Lastly, practice interviewing and answering common interview questions. Here, AI can be very helpful in identifying industries and companies in “hiring mode” and generating likely interview questions. Use a family member or friend for “role play” interviews to practice your responses. Even though you may have used AI to generate the likely interview questions, do NOT use AI to generate the best responses. The responses must be yours and must be genuine. Just be you. Interviewers can smell AI-generated and/or “boiler plate” responses within a few words. While this strategy may seem “old school” to some, I can attest that it still works as well as ever. I have a client who transitioned from financial services to healthcare analytics. Their core principles of data interpretation, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder communication used in finance translated well to the healthcare industry. They used this strategy, while also enrolling in a short online course to gain familiarity with healthcare-specific terminology and regulations. Because they could demonstrate how their existing skill set aligned with the new role’s requirements, they were able to secure a mid-level position instead of starting in a junior role. Don’t underestimate the value of your hard-earned knowledge, skills, and experience. Joe Palmer, Managing Partner, Prosperity Partners Consulting, Inc. Map Your Strengths to Find Transferable Joy Write down your primary work responsibilities and rate them on a scale of 1–5, with 5 being the tasks you do with ease, excellence, and joy. Consider what the high scores tell you about your performance, thought process, relationship building skills, motivations, and work style. This gives you a road map of the type of work you would enjoy in the new industry and examples of the responsibilities and skills you hold that transfer over. When I coached someone using this strategy, she quickly realized why she was burned out as an attorney. She quit not too long after and found success transferring her legal knowledge to the nonprofit space. Jaclynn Robinson, Founder | Organizational Consultant and Executive Coach, Nine Muses Consulting, LLC Find Opportunity Gaps Others Miss One of the main operating strategies I brought with me when I transitioned from executive production into successfully founding my own company in the world of brand strategy is, “Hit it where they ain’t,” a quote popularized by baseball hall of famer Willie Keeler. If you adopt this strategy, everything else you do will ladder up to it. This is a transferable skill. It’s true of baseball, advertising, and business in general. I’ve fine-tuned this skill, like a strategic curiosity looking for the useful gaps, throughout my career shifts and growth, and it’s served me well. For example: we live in a highly digital world. Where most entrepreneurs I know are focused on winning in the digital space, we’re focused on finding real-world, offline opportunities to connect. We’ve joined a number of business development councils and networking groups that have taken our business to the next level. Segmenting 10% of my week to making meaningful connections within my space through both potential clients and competitors has been transformative for us as a business, and me as a leader. The world around you is built by people who, in any realm, decided their 24 hours would be put towards building the world around them in their own vision, not someone else’s. “Hitting it where they ain’t” is about having the courage to dream big, taking a big swing, and making sure to follow through. Andrew Stadelberger, Founder, Player/Coach Leverage Executive Advising for Leadership Positions One of the most overlooked transferable skills is executive advising. Consultants learn early how to communicate with and earn the trust of senior leaders. Their ability to distill complexity, identify what truly matters to the business, and operate with executive presence uniquely positions them for leadership roles. Several of my clients have leveraged this skill to step into senior positions—a senior manager became a department head leading 25 people, and another advanced straight from manager to director of partnerships—without having to start over. Cydnee DeToy, Career Coach, Cydnee DeToy Coaching Translate Achievements into Target Role Language Start by picking one target role and gather 10 job posts for that role so you can see the same tasks and words repeating. Then translate your current achievements or roles into that language on a single page that lists three results you’ve delivered that match those tasks, written in plain terms with the metric that field is using. Build two small proofs of work that fit the role, such as a sample analysis, a short teardown, or a simple workflow built from public data, and keep them tight enough that a busy manager can read them in five minutes. While you build those pieces, talk to five people who do the job today. Connect using LinkedIn, politely ask how they spend a normal week, what gets them judged, and what a good first 90 days looks like, then adjust your proofs to mirror what they told you. This gives you a clear story, real information, and the right words, which is what hiring managers need to see when you come from somewhere else. Jeff Mains, Founder and CEO, Champion Leadership Group Showcase Expertise Through Content Creation Platforms One great way to make a smooth transition into a new industry is by tapping into your transferable skills through writing on Substack. I’ve used this platform to share insights from my teaching experience in careers and personal development, which have helped me pivot into a new career as a coach. By emphasizing the skills I already possessed and picking up new skills such as writing and marketing along the way, I have managed to connect the dots between education and entrepreneurship. Writing not only gave me a platform to showcase my expertise but also allowed me to engage with an audience that appreciated my viewpoint, making the whole transition feel like a natural evolution instead of having to start from square one. Katharine Gallagher, Founder, Personal and Professional Growth, katharinegallagher.com Take Small Steps Before Making Big Leaps When you know you want to transition into a new industry, you should focus on starting small and doing it step by step. You cannot simply drop everything, leave your company, and expect to get hired by a new company for a senior position. The best approach in my opinion is starting by listening to podcasts, interviews, and webinars from industry experts. Transferable skills like good adaptation, project management, and attention to details will be your biggest allies because the soft skills are always important, and you need to learn just the hard skills. I’ve been working in the HR industry, and when I knew I wanted to change my career, I started working on it eight months before. I read magazines about digital marketing, started following industry leaders, and launched my small side-hustle project, which worked like a playground for testing my new skills and knowledge. Jan Kawecki, Cofounder, Kontra Outsider Perspective Becomes Your Greatest Advantage Every industry is drowning in sameness, so even though it may seem counterintuitive, you should lean into the fact that you’re an outsider. The fact that you don’t come from that world is your leverage. You have a different perspective, a different mindset, a different network even. A lot of people complain about imposter syndrome, and that’s a very real phenomenon, even with people who have been in the industry for ages. So I don’t think the advice of “fake it till you make it” is really practical. It’s better when you look at yourself as the fresh variable in a system that’s been running on the same formula for too long. And it also allows you to be more authentic. That honesty translates and people respond to it because it doesn’t feel rehearsed. Paul Carlson, CPA & Managing Partner, Law Firm Velocity Strong Communication Skills Outweigh Technical Experience Developing one’s interpersonal and communication abilities is a highly effective strategy to avoid starting from scratch when transitioning between industries. Oftentimes, companies believe it is easier to teach employees technical skills than social skills. Therefore, displaying strong interpersonal skills can be viewed as highly advantageous for employers and can compensate for having minimal or no experience within a specific industry. As a clinical psychologist, when working with clients who are looking to pivot between job industries or are starting fresh without a prior employment history, a major focus of our work is on strengthening their interpersonal and communication skills. Examples of these skills, which can be developed through a range of practices, include speaking confidently, maintaining strong eye contact, practicing empathic and reflective listening, and displaying relatable body language. Kimberly Glazier Leonte, PhD, Psychologist, Break The Cycle, LLC; Clearview Horizons, PLLC View the full article

Discussions came as Colm Kelleher tries to pressure Swiss government to back down over proposed capital rulesView the full article

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Performance assessment matters: Research from McKinsey & Co. maintains that companies with a focus on employee performance see 30% higher revenue growth and lower attrition rates than their peers. In the past, though, top executives seemed to care mostly about the results of employee reviews: GE chief Jack Welch, for example, famously used performance appraisals to rank employees and fired those scoring in the bottom 10%. Performance reviews reviewed Dan Springer, CEO of Ironclad, makes the case that CEOs who care about culture should also dig into the quality of employee reviews. When he joined the 650+-person AI contract-management-software company, employees praised the culture but, he says, indicated that manager evaluation of their work was often lacking. “When you asked if they were getting the kind of feedback that they needed to do their jobs, they didn’t say ‘no,’ but they were sort of bemused by the question,” he recalls. Springer conducted a training session on how to do performance reviews, going as far as role-playing a review with chief financial officer Helen Wang, who delivered an unvarnished assessment of Springer’s first few months on the job. (“Helen’s tough,” Springer says. “I think people really enjoyed seeing the CEO get reviewed.”) The CEO then read one written midyear review from every frontline manager—about 80 in total. He says about 20% were outstanding. Another 60% were solid—clear, metrics-driven, with specific examples. But roughly 20% missed the mark. Some featured long narratives that showed care for the employee but lacked actionable guidance. Others were short and vague. Springer tapped these managers for further training on how to give effective feedback. “We really did try to make it fun and not boring,” he says. A chance to fill in the gaps With a résumé that includes CEO roles at Docusign and Responsys, Springer notes that at Ironclad and many other tech companies first-time managers sometimes get promoted without proper training. “The great news is, our people are really smart,” he says. “Some people had not been trained on these best practices.” He says he believes Ironclad’s efforts to improve the quality of reviews will lead to better feedback in the long run and also send a powerful message to the organization. “A number of employees feel that Ironclad has a kind and understanding culture, and while we have great company performance, they wanted to see our leaders raise the bar on addressing low [performance] and rewarding high performance,” he says. “So as CEO, I want to ‘up’ the sense that we’re a performance culture by demonstrating that any chance I get.” Privately held Ironclad says its annual recurring revenue is north of $150 million, and top line is growing about 40% a year. Springer says he aspires to take the company to “another level.” Why better reviews matter While Springer joined Ironclad in April, he opted not to rewrite corporate goals midyear. Now, he is focused on finalizing goals for the company’s next fiscal year, which starts in February 2026. Springer says corporate goals will be centered on customer success, business and financial performance, innovation (particularly around AI), and employee success. Once they’re established, managers and employees will create objectives and key results that align with the company’s priorities. “It’s a challenge to give good feedback if you don’t have clear goals to talk about,” he says. I asked Springer why he’s been so engaged in performance management and why other CEOs might want to invest time in making sure their employees are dispensing constructive feedback. “There are only two reasons why, I think, a CEO should really care,” he says. “One is that they want to have a high-performance company, and two, they want to develop their talent. Those are pretty important reasons.” How are you raising the bar? How does your organization approach performance management? Are there ways your CEO is directly involved in the process? Share your insights with me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and we’ll include some of the best reader feedback in a future newsletter. Read and watch more: feedback loop • How top CEOs get better at giving feedback • Can AI make performance reviews less terrible? • Executives, here’s the one question your employees should ask during reviews View the full article

Over the summer, Bogg bags were ubiquitous at beaches and parks. This year alone, it has sold more than $100 million of these plastic totes full of holes that come in a rainbow of colors. But now, the brand is trying to get you to bring your Bogg bag to dinner at a fancy restaurant, or the office, or a hot date. Today, Bogg releases its newest line, which it is describing with a delightfully tongue-in-cheek name: Bougie Quilted Collection. The structure of the bag hasn’t changed much; it is still made of plastic and has plenty of holes on it. But it also has a quilted texture, reminiscent of the surface of a Chanel flap purse or a nylon Prada bag. And it comes with an array of accessories, like chain, pom-poms, and pearls, designed to elevate the bag. The question is: Will Bogg fans buy this as an everyday bag for the winter, before they’re ready to head back to the beach again? Kim Vaccarella, Bogg’s founder and CEO, believes they will. Over the past few years, she’s identified a very devoted customer who tends to buy the bag in many colors, collecting them in the same way people collected Stanley tumblers. But given that the bag was designed for the beach, Bogg sees a big dip in sales after the summer. The Bougie bag is designed to test customers’ appetite for an everyday bag that they can carry throughout the winter. The bag comes in the same three sizes as the original, from the enormous tote to the ‘bitty’ which is more like a small purse. “We know we’re not a fashion bag,” says Vaccarella. “But we wanted to create a bag that is more fashionable, so you can use it in more places, especially when you don’t want to be carrying your Gucci or Chanel purse.” Bogg has grown exponentially over the last few years. Vacarella first came up with the design of the original bag back in 2011. She was looking for a solid beach bag that would carry everything she needed for the day while also being easy to clean out. The company was a tiny operation for years; it only had two employees as recently as 2018. But something happened in the pandemic. For a brief period, canvas and cloth bags were considered problematic because they carried germs, so nurses and teachers turned to Bogg to carry their stuff to work, and would hose them down afterwards. This was also a time when people were flocking to parks and beaches to get out of the house while remaining socially distanced. The Bogg bag suddenly became a useful accessory. In the years that followed, Bogg bags—with their distinct Crocs-like aesthetic—began showing up everywhere, and word of mouth spread. They are particularly popular in families with school age children. Customers quickly found that there were many use cases for the bag outside the beach, from sports practice and school events to tailgating. “They keep finding new uses for them,” says Vacarella. “Kids are using them to bring their stuff to school. Over Halloween and Easter, kids are using them to collect candy.” Every year, Bogg has doubled in size. And this year, Bogg will generate $100 million in revenue, which is as much as it has made in total since 2011. Now, Vacarella is keen to continue building momentum. It’s a conundrum that other brands have faced. Consider Crocs and Birkenstock —both of which are highly functional, unique looking shoes that suddenly became ubiquitous in the mid-2000s. These brands have tried to continue growing by producing a constant stream of new products, including regular collaborations with other brands. Since they are both summer shoes, they’ve both come up with shearling-lined closed toed shoes that can be worn during the colder months. This strategy has worked: Crocs generated more than $4 billion in revenue last year, while Birkenstock made more than $2 billion. Will the Bougie bag help Bogg achieve its next level of growth? Over the last few years, Vacarella has made the bags in a wide range of colors and patterns, and she’s noticed customers coordinating the bags with their outfits. Now, she’s giving them even more options. When she designed the Bougie bag, she decided it was important to keep the holes, since they have become Bogg’s defining feature. “In the past, when I created prototypes of bags without holes, customers said they just didn’t look like Bogg,” she says. Still, the quilted texture gives the bags a slightly different, trendier aesthetic. Will Bogg’s customers take a cue from the bag’s name and bring it to bougie places? We’ll have to wait and see. View the full article

Ask yourself one question: Is your incentive plan changing employee behavior in a way that drives better business outcomes? If the answer is no, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Profit sharing, stock options, and employee ownership are popular tools, and in many cases they’re useful. Employees generally appreciate them. But here’s the catch: Appreciation doesn’t equal action. And more importantly, satisfaction isn’t engagement. Too often, these programs fail to move the needle where it matters most: day-to-day performance. If your performance compensation doesn’t change performance, it’s not performance compensation. Over the past three decades, working with hundreds of companies, we’ve uncovered a proven path to building incentive plans that don’t just look good on paper—they energize employees and fuel real, measurable growth. Here’s what you need to do. 1. Define the right team Business is a team sport. And, like any sport, performance hinges on clearly defined teams. For small companies, this often means everyone is part of one incentive group. For larger companies—think several hundred employees or more—the game changes. Here, success lies in breaking the business into smaller, functional units—branches, departments, value streams, or what appliance company Haier refers to as “microenterprises.” Once defined, each team can be treated like its own business, with an incentive structure tailored to its unique goals and challenges. 2. Do the homework—with everyone The best incentive plans begin with a 360-degree understanding of your business. That means gathering: Customer insights. What do your customers truly value? Asking them this question directly, in a real conversation, deepens relationships and boosts repeat and referral business. Employee input. What opportunities or roadblocks do they see on the front line? This step transforms employees from task-doers to trusted partners. Manager perspectives. Do their views align with employees’? If not, that’s a conversation worth having, and having often. Financial trends. Review the last five years to spot patterns in profit, debt, and cash flow. Your numbers will tell a story. Listen closely. 3. Identify the right metric to rally around Once the homework’s done, form a working group of leaders to interpret the data. What’s the one performance metric that best defines success for your business right now? If you’re in survival mode (drowning in debt or bleeding cash), then liquidity becomes the metric. But most often, the focus is operational: cost per ton in a mine, job margin dollars in landscaping, or throughput in a bottlenecked department. Whatever it is, it must be specific, measurable, and universally understood by the team. It should be something they already have their hands on every day. 4. Build a scoreboard everyone can read How can you win if you don’t know the score? Once your team has a metric, you need a visual scoreboard that updates frequently and clearly communicates progress. When people can see the real-time impact of their efforts, engagement soars. Tap into your existing systems whenever possible. Your scoreboard should do three things: Show current performance versus baseline and budget Make it obvious whether the team is winning or not Include a forecast element to encourage forward-thinking Here’s an example: It’s clear when this team is winning—that is, beating prior performance and budget. There should be ongoing discussions as to why and how. You’ll also note the forecast line: This motivates everyone to see what can be done to improve future performance. 5. Craft a self-funding incentive plan With your metric and scoreboard in place, it’s time to build the plan. Start by calculating the value of improved performance. If a department boosts output or gross margin, what is that worth in dollars? This becomes your bonus pool. We recommend a simple, equitable formula: 33% to employees (the incentive) 33% reinvested in the company 33% set aside for taxes This is what we mean by “self-funding.” Everyone wins—employees, leadership, and the business itself. Next, decide how to distribute the bonus. A commonly effective approach is to base it on a percentage of each employee’s base pay. It’s transparent, scalable, and easy to explain. Express payouts in terms employees understand, like hours of pay, to boost resonance and clarity. Don’t forget edge cases. How will bonuses work for those on extended leave? Address these details upfront to prevent confusion later. 6. Roll it out and rally the group Once the plan is ready, bring your people together. Thank them for their contributions and explain how the performance metric was chosen based on current challenges and opportunities. Walk through the scoreboard and incentive structure. And then, perhaps most importantly, challenge every employee—including managers—to submit one idea they believe could improve performance (and their bonus) in the next two weeks. Remove names, share the ideas, and spotlight the most promising ones. This creates a culture of continuous improvement. 7. Work the plan, week in and week out Incentive plans are not “set it and forget it” tools. They’re living systems. Leaders must stay close to the action—tracking performance, celebrating wins, learning from missteps, and keeping everyone’s eyes on the scoreboard. When done right, these plans do more than move numbers. They reshape culture. They turn passive employees into active business partners. They provide a sense of purpose and psychological ownership, making work feel like a shared mission—not just a job. If you’re ready to build a culture of what we call Economic Engagement, start with the steps above. And when the results start showing up—in your numbers, your morale, and your momentum—don’t forget to share your success story. Make sure to celebrate with your employees, a.k.a. your trusted partners. After all, they’ve earned it. —Julia Banks Julia Banks, a former Harvard Business School research associate, is the director of research at management consulting firm Economic Engagement. The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com. This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. View the full article

Deal comes despite Donald The President targeting Perkins Coie with executive order that posed ‘existential risk’ View the full article

Black, unassuming, about the size of a pack of chewing gum: On the surface, the Fire TV 4K Select stick released in mid-October looks just like any other streaming device made by Amazon. Plug it into your TV, and you’ll be greeted by Amazon’s tried-and-true living room interface, complete with icons for popular streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video. And yet, the Select streaming stick is unlike any of its predecessors. That’s because the device is running Vega – a new, Linux-based operating system Amazon has quietly been building over the past couple of years as a replacement for its legacy, Android-based Fire OS. The company plans to eventually launch Vega across a wide range of devices, including smart displays, streaming devices, even car dashboards. The adoption of Vega represents one of Amazon’s most ambitious hardware-related initiatives ever since the launch of the first Fire TV device over a decade ago. It also prompted backlash from consumers and lukewarm reception from developers. But for the company, launching Vega may be worth the pain. “Amazon has always wanted to create its own software ecosystem,” says Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart. Betting on Vega allows Amazon not just to optimize the code running on its devices, but also to break free from Google and take control of its own destiny. Android was developed to run on phones When Amazon launched its first Fire TV streaming box in early 2014, it did so by using a version of Google’s Android OS that the company customized to its own needs. For that, Amazon decided not to license Google’s Play Store and other services available on officially Google-sanctioned hardware. Instead, it simply used open source Android code freely available to anyone, and built its own Fire TV app store and services on top of that foundation. “Android [has] been and remains super, super important to our product lines – it is wonderful how Google has built and supported that platform,” wrote the outgoing Amazon devices executive Robert Williams in a recent LinkedIn post, adding: “However, we also felt that we could build something more purpose-built for consumer electronics devices that was faster and used more modern components and design.” There are sound technical reasons for this approach: Android is, at its core, an operating system for mobile phones, and many of its components are either not required or not optimized for other kinds of devices. That’s why Google itself switched from Android to a new, custom OS called Fuchsia for its smart displays in 2021. Similarly, Amazon first launched Vega on a smart display, the Echo Show 5, in 2023, albeit without publicly announcing the switch. “We started where we could have the biggest impact right away,” explains Tapas Roy, Amazon’s vice president of device software & services. “Vega’s integration with our custom-designed silicon accelerates AI query response times, such as for Alexa+, making our Echo lineup ideal for joint development.” An insurance policy against Google Other reasons for an alternative to Android are less technical. While Google has maintained the core Android code as an open source project, it has also long tightly controlled what device makers can and cannot do if they want access to the company’s Play Store, and other commercial Android components. Google in particular frowned upon efforts to build alternative, customized distributions of Android, something that’s known among open source insiders as forking. Fire OS is the most popular forked version of Android in Western markets, leading to significant friction between the two companies. The conflict came to a head when Amazon began approaching third-party consumer electronics companies about making TVs powered by Fire OS a few years after launching its own streaming adapters. At the time, Google told TV makers that they couldn’t use Fire OS if they also were using Google’s Android on other devices, including phones. Google justified this by arguing it was trying to prevent fragmentation, but the move also effectively kneecapped Amazon’s smart TV efforts. The conflict resulted in an antitrust investigation in India that got resolved with a settlement earlier this year. Google and Amazon separately came to an agreement on the issue, paving the way for manufacturers like TCL to build TVs powered by Fire OS. Despite this truce, Vega OS can be seen as a kind of insurance policy against Google. If the search giant were to further restrict the use of Android in the future, Amazon wouldn’t be left empty-handed. At least publicly, Amazon is committed to shipping devices with both operating systems for the foreseeable future. “We’re not moving away from Android,” says Roy. “We’re a multi-OS company, and Fire OS isn’t going anywhere. Creating and managing our own operating system lets us innovate across the whole tech stack within our devices where we need it.” Amazon has no plans to make Vega available to third-party device makers, Roy said. Pushback from developers and consumers Amazon has faced some pushback from consumers after launching the Vega-powered Select stick. While Android-powered Fire TV sticks are rated 4.6 stars and up on Amazon’s shopping website, the Select model currently has a 3.6 star rating, with a whopping 25% of reviewers awarding it just a single star. Part of the backlash has to do with the fact that prior Android models allowed consumers to install their own apps from sources other than Amazon’s official store – a feature frequently used for apps designed to access pirated content. Vega does not offer a similar “sideloading” feature. Amazon has also struggled to gain support from app developers and publishers for the device. Smart TV app developers already deal with a very fragmented landscape, with devices made by Roku, Samsung, Google, and LG, all requiring them to build different versions of their apps. At launch, the Select Stick was missing native apps from a number of major publishers, including CBS, PBS, and BET. To make up for those shortcomings, Amazon adopted a novel approach: For the time being, it is simply running the existing Android apps for services like these in the cloud. In most cases, consumers will notice little to no difference to an app running on the device itself. Some functionality, however, simply isn’t compatible with this approach. As a result, Select stick owners currently don’t have access to a Spotify app on the device. Despite the initial extra investment, publishers could ultimately benefit from porting their apps to Vega. The operating system is based on technology that will, at least in theory, allow developers to consolidate their codebase across multiple operating systems. “Developers can reuse their … code from one project to another, within or outside of Amazon apps, to make the most of their time and efforts,” Roy says. Aside from those practical considerations, developers do have another factor to contend with: With over 200 million Fire TV devices sold to date, Amazon is a giant in the streaming hardware space. If the company keeps shipping new devices running Vega, publishers may just have to fall in line and rebuild their apps for the new operating system. “There are likely to be growing pains,” says Greengart, adding: “I would give Amazon extremely high odds for success with Vega OS.” View the full article

Sunbridge appears to be a quintessential example of 21st century sprawl. A 27,000-acre residential mega-development taking shape outside of Orlando, Florida, it’s set to include more than 30,000 new homes in total when complete—a few neighborhoods, miles of trails, and a K–8 school have already been completed. It’s riding a growth boom in Central Florida; this fast-growing section of the Sun Belt has added more than 1,000 people every week in recent years. But within the different subdivisions being constructed at Sunbridge over the next 30 years, a landscape will emerge with each new home and green space that’s much more wild, native, and sustainable than the stereotypical manicured, monoculture green lawns ringed with white picket fences. “My spiel for Sunbridge is that you leave your house and in 10 minutes, you’re immersed in nature,” says Clint Beaty, senior vice president of Operations at Tavistock Development Company, which is developing Sunbridge. “I’m not talking about a single tree next to a retention pond. I mean a deer is going to walk up to you, and you may see bald eagles, all 15 minutes from the Orlando International Airport.” Sunbridge was just named the nation’s first Homegrown National Park Community, a designation highlighting the project’s focus on native plants, nature conservation, and sustainability focused on restoring a measure of biodiversity. Containing an array of different single-family homes, constructed by different developers, mostly ranging in price between $300,000 and $600,000, the larger development will feature a slate of standard suburban homes. According to Tavistock, a majority of the plants will be native, and interspersed with all those homes will be 13,000 acres that will be preserved as an interconnected network of natural habitats, including ​​lakes, wetlands, and oak hammocks, a type of forest habitat native to Florida and the Southeast. Conservation goes private Typical Florida developers often put the most expensive homes on the water and charge a premium; Sunbridge will leave those waterfronts open and wild for all to enjoy. In the long term, Beaty says, this philosophy will drive value; the challenge is, in the short term, getting homebuyers to understand that. The Homegrown National Park concept—a marketing term, not an actual registered and protected public place—was cofounded by scientist and author Doug Tallamy, and aims to regenerate and restore 20 million acres of native habitat across the U.S., mostly on private land, in an effort to stem the biodiversity crisis. The pollution and the loss of habitat have put roughly 40% of animals, plants, and ecosystems in the U.S. at risk. The nation currently has 44 million acres of traditional green turflawn, which Tallamy calls “dead space” in terms of its ability to support diverse species and local ecosystems. Why should we develop property in a way that expels nature? And while Tallamy says there are parks and preserves for preservation of wildlife, if 78% of the U.S. is privately owned—85% of land east of the Mississippi is in private hands—something has to make landowners take biodiversity more seriously. He hopes Sunbridge becomes the first of many such developments, and can help make the case to landowners that this strategy is both cost-effective and consumer friendly. “If we don’t do conservation on private property, we’re going to fail,” he says. “You can’t say we’re not going to do conservation where we develop, because that’s everywhere.” Landscaping the future While the Homegrown National Park focuses on flora and fauna, the team behind Sunbridge came to the idea while looking at water. Like other fast-growing parts of the country, such as Phoenix, Central Florida faces water shortages and hard limits on growth if business-as-usual development continues. The Central Florida Water Initiative predicts the region will face a 96 million gallon-per-day water shortfall starting in 2045. The landscaping philosophy of Homegrown National Park—native plants that require much less water, less maintenance, and less fertilizer—can reduce irrigation and fertilizer runoff. Sunbridge developers estimate that when the entire project is complete and occupied in the coming decades, the planned Florida-native and drought-tolerant landscaping palette will save between 39,000 to 146,300 gallons of water daily, and help cut outdoor water use by 75%. In addition, it will contain what’s called keystone plants, native species, such as live oaks, that support local insects and animals. Tallamy says that traditional American landscaping, which uses a variety of non-native plants for decorative purposes, doesn’t feed local species and can disrupt the existing food web. Developers hope this plan not only allows the development to grow without bumping up against resource limits, but also proves to be a point of differentiation that attracts future buyers and even adds a premium to home prices. They’ve been aggressively marketing the development’s trails, greenspace, lakes, and landscape, dubbing it a “naturehood.” Beaty, who grew up in Florida, remembers playing in backyards in July with brown grass as a kid, since it was so challenging to water. Ever since Disney came to Florida, he says, that’s the (artificial) expectation people have of the Florida front yard. “This is the horticultural challenge of our time,” says Tallamy. “How do we make ecologically accessible landscapes that are also pretty?” Finding the solution in sprawl It may seem counterintuitive to count suburban developments as part of the solution to the biodiversity crisis, since they’re a significant cause of the problem in the U.S. Sprawl development in the 21st century alone has eaten up more than two million acres annually in the U.S., according to the Center for Biological Diversity, leading to significant habitat and species loss: roads, fences and structures break up habitats; fertilizers and pollution harm plants; and light and noise pollution impact animal health. While Sunbridge remains the first large development to sign on, Homegrown National Park has also been busy with other collaborations, partnering with regional and state Native Plant Societies, including the Native Plant Society of Texas, to engage and support developers and HOAs that are interested in integrating the Homegrown National Park model. One of the challenges going forward will be maintaining the initial philosophy of native plantings and more sustainability minded landscaping. Since there aren’t necessarily strong ways to mandate lawn care or plant choice—there won’t be an overarching homeowners association enforcing standards—Beaty hopes the good faith approach they’re taking, which favors carrots instead of sticks, will prove itself over time. This will include a number of resources and support, including publishing a curated list of native plants, and a variety of community programs to help with lawn care and to promote conservation. Residents will also be given digital water dashboards to help monitor their consumption, and messaging about how a healthier, more native lawn means fewer chemicals that aren’t good for your kids and a lower utility bill every month. Advocates say these kinds of development agreements, and efforts at urban rewilding in cities, can, along with the vital preservation of remaining natural habitat, help slow and ideally reverse the biodiversity loss being felt around the globe. Tallamy says that scientists already understand what needs to be done to fix the biodiversity crisis. Projects like Sunbridge, which seek to sell residents on the benefits of a more biodiverse landscape, can help get more momentum behind deploying those solutions. “We know how to increase biodiversity,” he says. “What we’re fighting now are sociological problems.” View the full article

AIME's CEO takes an additional AI leadership role, ALTA elects new president and Revolution, Tidalwave, Visio welcome chief operating officers. View the full article

With over 800 student organizations on campus, the University of Pennsylvania already seems to have a club for every interest, from investment banking to beekeeping—even cheese. Now, add AI to the mix. In September, dozens of Penn students gathered in the engineering school auditorium for the debut of the Claude Builder Club, sponsored by AI company Anthropic. Over the course of this semester, the Builder Club has plans to host a hackathon, demo night, and other opportunities to create projects using artificial intelligence. “I need the Claude premium for a year,” says Crystal Yang, a freshman who attended the first meeting. Claude, she had heard, is “better for coding and sounding more human in writing.” Like Yang, many attendees were interested chiefly in the free Claude Pro and API credits offered. But according to their responses at the first meeting, a number of attendees also wanted to spend the semester working on problems with climate, healthcare, and manufacturing. “Hearing other Penn students stand up and share what problems they were working on solving with the help of AI was genuinely inspiring,” says Alain Welliver, one of the Builder Club ambassadors leading Penn’s chapter. As an ambassador, Welliver is responsible for promoting the club and developing programming. He’ll receive a $1,750 stipend for his work. Welliver, an engineering student, saw the ambassadorship opportunity this summer on LinkedIn and was quickly interested—he had considered creating a similar club before. To land the role, he completed a written application form about projects he’s built and his perspective on AI, and did an interview. The Builder Clubs are part of Anthropic’s broader Claude for Education initiative, which also includes a “Learning mode” in Claude and free campuswide access for partnering universities. Drew Bent, the education lead on Anthropic’s Beneficial Developments team, suggests that economics students who take part in the Builder Clubs could, for example, use their Claude app to create an interactive simulator for a macroeconomics concept in minutes. The first iteration of Builder Clubs debuted this fall semester; there are now over 60 participating universities. They’ve launched at seven of the eight Ivy League schools, SEC schools like the University of Georgia and Vanderbilt University, and international universities like the London School of Economics. According to Greg Feingold, who leads the Builder Club program for Anthropic, over 15,000 students have signed up. More than 25 of the chapters exceed 100 members. By the end of the semester, Feingold hopes to empower students to build projects they’re interested in, especially those who have found AI tools too costly or otherwise inaccessible before. “I really want us to find those students who are not technical students and have them participate,” Feingold says. “I just know that we’re going to get some really amazing stories of people who have never written a line of code but were able to make an app for the first time.” A certain type of agency Victor Lee, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, says tech companies have launched similar programs in the past, pointing to Apple’s Swift Coding Clubs as an example. “A lot of groups are trying to jockey for position and recognition, especially amongst a user base that is likely to be core to them,” he says. Across college campuses, AI companies are everywhere. During the last finals season, OpenAI offered free ChatGPT Plus. At Penn, students recently waited in line for over an hour at a Google Gemini pop-up event—which included free Gemini-branded Owala water bottles. This has created concerns for educators, who worry many students are using AI to cheat. In addition to being a Builder Club ambassador, students can apply to be a Campus ambassador and promote Anthropic products directly to peers. Anuja Uppuluri, one of the first ambassadors, shared on X Anthropic’s $1/month Pro subscription deal for Carnegie Mellon University students this spring. Her post received tens of thousands of views, and in the comments section, multiple students asked for the offer to be available at their schools too. Uppuluri feels thankful that she took her introductory computer science courses before LLMs got popular: The temptation to use an AI tool would have been all too alluring. “There’s some type of agency about Claude Code that makes it different,” Uppuluri notes. “It doesn’t make it a tool. I think it makes it more like a pair programmer.” Welliver finds Anthropic to be one of the few AI companies with an approach that fully aligns with his values. Part of the Builder Club programming that Anthropic has developed is education about AI safety and the societal impacts of AI. “If you ask my friends, they’d probably be like, ‘Alain’s the last person to become a brand ambassador,’” Welliver says. Anthropic, though, is “really intentionally trying to do an ethical approach to advancing AI. I think those values transfer over to the club.” View the full article

It’s not often that headlines about customer “brawls” end up morphing into good news for a brand. But that’s arguably what’s happened to Starbucks thanks to the bungled rollout of its limited-run “Bearista” cups becoming the first new craze of this holiday season—even including good-natured copycat tributes from the likes of Aldi and Walmart. At first, the Bearista debut on November 6 seemed like a black eye. The 20-ounce glass tumbler, shaped like a cute bear sporting a Starbucks beanie, sparked immediate viral demand, with customers at some locations lining up at 3 a.m. to score one. This apparently caught the company off guard, and supplies of the $30 object ran out almost instantly. Frustrated customers slammed the brand online (some claiming stores were woefully understocked), and in a few cases physically battled each other for what was available. “‘Bearista’ cups brew up brawls at Starbucks,” Fox News reported. With fistfight accounts and clips circulating online, the fiasco took on a Waffle House vibe—not exactly the community-centric third place experience the coffee giant tries to cultivate. Starbucks apologized “for the disappointment.” But the story didn’t go away. It evolved. Of course the bear tumblers materialized on eBay, on sale for hundreds of dollars. But less predictably, a new round of social media videos—and mainstream press coverage of them—explained how to DIY your own bear-shaped drinking vessel dupe by draining honey packaging and perhaps drawing on the Starbucks logo for fun. Aldi began winkingly promoting a $5 gingerbread-figure cup for those who “missed out on that $30 bear”; Walmart chimed in with its own version, a bear-shaped bottle of its Great Value brand honey filled with coffee. All of this has been lighthearted, and ultimately a tribute. Thus the Bearista mini-craze was pulled back from becoming a borderline squalid tale of corporate fumbling and manic consumerism. Instead, it’s as if the market has decided that thanks to this absurd incident, bear cups are, somehow, out of nowhere, now a Holiday Thing. And that works out rather neatly for Starbucks, which this week, in the direct aftermath of the Bearista freakout, began rolling out this year’s version of its traditional holiday-object lineup. On November 13 it started offering the new iteration of its annual reusable Red Cup promotion—a free, limited-edition cup, in four design choices, for certain orders from its holiday menu. And it has teased new holiday merch additions to its lineup, including a collaboration with fashion brand Roller Rabbit slated for early December. Meanwhile, though Starbucks has declined to comment on whether the Bearista will return (a McRib-style mystery?), demand clearly transcends any ill will about the botched debut. “We want the 🐻cup ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️,” reads the top response to one Starbucks Instagram post hyping the new Red Cup designs. “Don’t ignore our bear cup requests!” echoes another response. “We want more!” In other words, what looked like a brand blunder is now arguably the happiest story of the early Brian Niccol era—certainly better than news of store closings or lagging earnings or union disputes. The Bearista tale, however chaotic, has ended up making Starbucks feel relevant, in a good way. If there is such a thing as the right kind of brand brawl, this was it. View the full article

For years, we’ve treated confidence in the workplace as something that rises with seniority. The longer you’re in the game, the more secure you should feel, at least in theory. But new data is telling a different story. Confidence is quietly increasing among early and mid-career employees, while many senior leaders are facing a growing sense of doubt. The emotional center of the workforce is shifting, and it says a lot about how work, identity, and leadership are changing. The View from the Ground Glassdoor’s latest numbers show something many leaders might not expect: Confidence is rising among those at the beginning and middle of their careers. Entry-level confidence ticked up 1.9 points and mid-level roles rose 2.3. After several years defined by layoffs, volatility, and reorganization, you’d think this group would be the most anxious. But instead, they’re slowly stabilizing—and in many cases, feeling more empowered. One possible explanation is that younger employees, particularly Gen Z, have grown up in uncertainty. They graduated into disrupted schools, unpredictable labor markets, and news cycles dominated by instability. Adaptation became the norm. So rather than viewing change as a threat, many see it as the default environment, something to work within rather than fight against. Hybrid work and flexible career pathways also matter. Many early-career professionals now build identity and stability not from a single employer, but from a mosaic of work, skill-building, networking, and side projects. They have learned to diversify not only their income but their sense of purpose. This gives them a form of psychological safety: When your career has multiple anchors, no single wave capsizes the ship. And importantly, younger workers are redefining what it means to succeed. It’s less about climbing a ladder and more about gaining agency, having influence over how, when, and why they work. Even small signals of autonomy can boost confidence: the ability to negotiate schedules, contribute ideas early, or move laterally to explore new roles. So, while the headlines focus on uncertainty, many early-career employees are quietly reframing it. They’re not waiting for perfect stability to feel secure. They’re building confidence through adaptability, community, and self-direction. The Shifting View from the Top While those in the frontline are earning their sea legs, it seems executives and their peers are losing their footing. Many aspects of workforce management stabilized post pandemic, but confidence in executive leadership teams’ abilities to manage their teams, responses to critical issues, and readiness to address technical disruptions has trended downwards. From board members to C-suite team members themselves, there is an increasing belief that leadership teams are unable to withstand the demands of conflicting constituents and put the interests of the company above their own. These votes of incompetence are taking their toll in the confidence of those at the top. For a long time, it seemed the era of grey-haired expertise was impenetrable. The sentiment was that having seen it before, you would be trusted to resolve any problem and people would trust you. The Boomers and even Gen Xers who would fit that mold, however, are not perceived to be able to keep up. In some instances, it is made explicitly obvious that their value is waning. But regardless of age, leadership is exhausting. In the face of technological advancements and AI, topics that any employee may grapple with, executives are too often seen to be out of touch. It seems that the complexities of leadership are taking their toll. There are endless questions about the pros and cons of remote, hybrid, (or return to office) work modalities; international economic instability and politics are impacting trade and augmenting cost pressures; and retention is still a problem that has not fully recovered from the Big Quit. While leader responsibilities are not new, there do not seem to be right answers or resolutions to strive to achieve. Decision fatigue, and constant uncertainty may be eroding their sense of control. As a result, senior level employees have seen employee confidence fall month over month, a concerning trend as it may impact hiring and investment plans. In addition to task-related burnout, senior leaders are also unsure of how their reactions to colleagues and direct reports are measuring up. Many feel the weight of being both empathetic and decisive—a balance that’s emotionally taxing. This dip may reflect a growing leadership gap: leaders caring deeply, but struggling to sustain optimism. Despite moving in opposite directions, both groups reflect the same reality: The workplace is changing faster than people can adjust. For younger employees, that change still feels full of possibility. For leaders, it feels like exhaustion. Understanding both sides could be key to rebuilding trust and confidence across the organization. View the full article

More than two decades of research—from Harvard professor Amy Edmondson’s pioneering studies to Google’s landmark Project Aristotle—have found that the strongest predictor of high-performing teams isn’t talent or strategy, but psychological safety. As Edmondson defines, it’s “a shared belief held by team members that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” It’s what gives people the confidence to speak up, take creative risks, and learn from failure—and it’s foundational to innovation. But one critical truth is often overlooked: Leaders can’t create psychological safety for others if they haven’t first cultivated it within themselves. I learned this the hard way. While earning my MBA at Stanford, I cofounded Embrace, a social enterprise that created a low-cost, portable incubator for premature babies in underserved communities. Our device has now helped to save over 1 million newborns. As CEO, I was praised for my vision and tenacity. I moved to India—home to over 20% of the world’s premature babies—and routinely worked 80 to 100-hour weeks. Over the years, we saved thousands of lives. We were recognized by President Obama, received funding from Beyoncé, and were featured in media around the world. On the outside, I appeared unstoppable. On the inside, I was running on fumes. One day, in the middle of a team meeting, amid an endless string of fires, I broke down in tears. Mortified, I thought I had failed as a “strong leader.” But the next day, my head of operations pulled me aside and said: “Thank you for being so open yesterday. You seem superhuman to us. You never sleep. You never stop. Seeing you be vulnerable allows us to be, too.” He went on to share how exhausted the team was. By hiding my own fatigue and pretending to have it all together, I had unknowingly created a culture of burnout. My team didn’t feel safe to speak up or admit struggle—because their leader didn’t either. That moment cracked something open in me. Achievement as currency Raised in a first-generation Taiwanese-American household, I had learned early that love was conditional and achievement was the currency that earned it. When I failed to meet expectations, I was punished—sometimes violently. So I became a perfectionist. I learned to work harder, aim higher, and never show weakness. As a leader, I held my team to the same impossible standards I held myself to. I avoided discomfort, rewarded overwork, and unintentionally reinforced burnout and emotional suppression. When Embrace nearly collapsed after a decade of challenges, I was forced to confront the pain that had long driven me. I finally realized that feeling so powerless throughout my childhood had driven me to help the most powerless people in the world. But my drive was also fueled by fear. Fear of not being enough. Fear of letting others down. Fear that if I stopped striving, I would lose my value. Many high-achieving leaders are driven by a deep desire to make an impact—and an equally deep fear that they are not enough. From an early age, we learn that achievement earns approval, so we keep raising the bar. But the very qualities that fuel success can also become liabilities: overwork that burns out teams, perfectionism that stifles innovation, control that suffocates creativity. Over time, these behaviors create cultures where exhaustion and disengagement take root. The antidote is not more strategy. It’s self-awareness. As I began doing my own inner work—through leadership coaching, therapy, and mindfulness—I started to recognize the unconscious patterns that had long gone unquestioned. I learned to honor my emotions, listen to my body, and lead from a place of balance—one that makes impact not only meaningful, but sustainable. When leaders build inner safety—by acknowledging emotions, setting boundaries, and extending compassion to themselves—they make it safe for others to do the same. That’s where empathy and authentic connection begin. It’s how trust takes root—and how cultures of innovation and resilience are built. In a world of accelerating change, where AI is transforming industries, the leaders who will build lasting impact aren’t those who power through at all costs. They’re the ones who pause, reflect, and build safety from the inside out. The Action Plan So what can leaders do? Feel your feelings—and listen to your body. Leaders often suppress uncomfortable emotions to appear strong or composed. But unprocessed feelings don’t disappear—they resurface as tension, anxiety, or burnout. When you pause to fully feel your emotions, you can lead from awareness rather than reactivity. Your body often signals what you’re feeling before your mind catches up. Tight shoulders, shallow breathing, or fatigue are quiet cues that something needs attention. Learning to notice and respond to these signals with care strengthens emotional intelligence—the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in yourself and others. Practice self-compassion. Research shows that self-compassion—not self-criticism—is what fuels resilience and growth. Treating yourself with the same understanding you’d offer a friend allows you to recover faster from setbacks and lead with greater empathy and authentic connection. Cultivate self-awareness. A powerful tool for this is “parts work,” which helps you identify the different inner voices that drive you—the perfectionist, the critic, the people pleaser. When you begin to understand these parts, you can lead from your center instead of your fears. This awareness helps to cultivate inner psychological safety. Download a free parts work exercise here. Model vulnerability. When leaders are open about mistakes, fears, uncertainty, or difficult emotions, it creates permission for others to do the same. This builds trust and encourages psychological safety at every level. True leadership is not about control or perfection. It’s about the courage to face discomfort—in ourselves and others. Let go of outcomes and focus on values. We’re conditioned to define success by results. But outcomes are not always within our control. Leading from your values—like compassion, service, or growth—keeps you grounded and connected to why you do the work. Outcomes may change, but values endure. They’re what sustain both purpose and mental well-being over the long run. View the full article

It’s an experience almost everyone is familiar with: that moment after you’ve been mindlessly snacking on a bag of Cheetos, when you realize that your fingers are now coated in a gritty, fluorescent orange dust. The finger dust phenomenon is so ubiquitous that Doritos and Cheetos have each run their own ads centering on the topic. Now, PepsiCo is debuting a version of both iconic snacks that come sans artificial orange. PepsiCo recently announced a product line called “Simply NKD,” a new sub-category of Doritos and Cheetos that come with no artificial flavors or dyes, rendering them “completely colorless.” The collection will include orange-dust-free versions of Doritos Nacho Cheese, Doritos Cool Ranch, Cheetos Puffs, and Cheetos Flamin’ Hot, set to arrive on shelves starting on December 1. PepsiCo already sells a line of Cheetos and Doritos called “Simply” that are made with no artificial colors or flavors, but they come in separate flavor offerings like white cheddar. “Simply NKD,” on the other hand, are supposed to taste exactly like the classic Doritos and Cheetos you know and love, just with a less vibrant appearance. For PepsiCo, the Simply NKD line is part of a larger effort to expand the company’s focus on health and nutrition, as a growing number of customers (especially young people) become more invested in wellness. It also signals a broader trend across the snack and beverage industry, as major corporations rush to replace artificial food dyes amidst new legislation from the The President administration designed to phase out certain artificial dyes. PepsiCo’s next move PepsiCo has recently been on a mission to shift its brand toward a healthier product lineup—including, most recently, by rebranding its corporate identity to resemble stalks of grain and a droplet of water. In a February earnings call, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta explained that the company has seen “a higher level of awareness in general of American consumers toward health and wellness,” which he said was driving shifts in how consumers approach snacking. PepsiCo has followed that trend by pouring more investment into health-conscious moves, including by acquiring the grain-free, “healthy” tortilla chip brand Siete Foods and the prebiotic soda brand Poppi, as well as prepping to launch its own prebiotic cola brand this fall and introducing Lay’s and Tostitos with no artificial colors or flavors by the end of the year. Meanwhile, PepsiCo is facing another external pressure to change some of its core offerings: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to phase out eight petroleum-based artificial colors from the nation’s food supply. Already, many major companies have pledged to remove synthetic dyes from certain snacks and candies, including Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Nestlé, and Campbell’s. PepsiCo announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to using natural colors in its foods and beverages. As of now, about 40% of its U.S. products use synthetic dyes, including Doritos and Cheetos, which both rely on a combination of Yellow 6, Yellow 5, and Red 40 to achieve their iconic hues. Right now, PepsiCo is actively working on finding natural alternatives to color its core products like Gatorade and Cheetos—a process that could take several years. In the meantime, the company is betting that some customers will prefer a new version of their favorite snacks without any color additives at all. How PepsiCo designed dust-less chips Simply NKD are Doritos and Cheetos as you’ve never seen them before—both in and out of the packaging. Compared to their electric orange original counterparts, these “naked” versions of the snacks are both a light yellow hue. In an interview with Bloomberg, Rachel Ferdinando, CEO of PepsiCo Foods U.S., said that expert tasters tried the chips under special red lights that prevented them from seeing the chips’ color in order to ensure that the NKD versions are just as tasty as the orange ones. The chips’ packaging has similarly lost its quintessential color. Both the Cheetos and the Doritos bags are mostly white, with pops of orange, red, and blue depending on the specific flavor. “To communicate that the new products are free from artificial flavors and dyes—making them colorless—we intentionally stripped away the classic bright hues that consumers expect, starting with a blank canvas,” a PepsiCo Foods U.S. spokesperson told Fast Company, adding that the design differentiation is enhanced by incorporating elements like a matte finish, metallic accents, and a simplified presentation. And in case anyone is still confused, every bag comes with the phrase, “Naked of dyes” alongside an arrow pointing to an image of the chip. “When you see the Simply NKD bag on the shelf against the sea of colorful bags, it’s hard to miss,” the spokesperson says. The visual identity is obviously walking a fine line between communicating the nakedness of the chips while also steering clear of any visual signals that would consign them to the health food category. In other words, these aren’t “healthy” Cheetos and Doritos; they’re just colorless. View the full article

Prime Minister Donald Tusk stops short of linking Moscow to explosionView the full article

A few days ago, I wrapped a coaching call with a senior executive navigating a complex restructuring—work that demands steadiness in ambiguity, patience when emotions rise, and the discipline to stay grounded while others are spinning. Minutes later, I walked into my kitchen and found my child in a mismatched Halloween costume, eating shredded cheese out of the bag, and crying because her Lego creation was “too wobbly to be art.” The contrast was sharp, but the underlying lesson was familiar. Parenting and leadership rarely feel similar in form, but they draw on the same internal architecture. Both require influence without force, emotional regulation under pressure, and the ability to create clarity in chaotic, unpredictable environments. Both ask us to decide when to step in, when to step back, and what it means to act with intention instead of urgency. Across my work with senior leaders, and in my own life as a parent, I’ve seen these patterns repeat. The skills we associate with leadership are often forged in everyday family life, and the habits that make parenting sustainable often strengthen our leadership. Here are six lessons that cut across both domains. 1. Emotional steadiness is a leadership skill Composure is often misunderstood as restraint or politeness. In reality, it is the capacity to tolerate emotion—your own and others’—without reacting impulsively. At home, this can look like staying calm through a meltdown or responding thoughtfully to a child’s frustration. At work, it means anchoring your team when uncertainty is high or when interpersonal tensions flare. Across settings, emotional steadiness supports psychological flexibility: the ability to remain centered enough to think clearly, consider options, and choose a productive response. The more leaders practice this, the more they can navigate ambiguity without defaulting to control, reactivity, or avoidance. 2. Clarity beats complexity Parents learn quickly that children thrive with specific expectations and simple instructions. Adults are no different. Leaders often overexplain to project expertise or avoid difficult conversations, but complexity usually obscures rather than illuminates. Clarity requires the discipline to say: Here is what we’re doing. Here is why. Here is what success looks like. Clear communication reduces cognitive load, increases accountability, and strengthens follow-through. When leaders simplify the path, teams can focus on execution instead of interpretation. 3. Boundaries are care, not control In family life, boundaries allow routines to run, needs to be understood, and conflicts to be resolved without constant negotiation. They protect rest, attention, and relationships. At work, boundaries function similarly. They create predictability, prevent burnout, and help teams focus on what matters most. Many leaders struggle more with boundaries at work than with children at home. Over-functioning often comes disguised as praise: “You’re the only one I trust with this.” But taking on too much erodes capacity and models unhealthy norms. Boundaries are not barriers; they are structures that support shared responsibility and mutual respect. 4. Repair matters more than perfection Parents inevitably make mistakes—raising their voices, rushing through routines, reacting too quickly. The critical practice is repair: circling back, naming what happened, and reconnecting. Repair teaches accountability, empathy, and relational safety. Organizations benefit from the same ethic. Leaders sometimes avoid repair because they fear it signals weakness, but unaddressed ruptures undermine trust. A brief acknowledgment—“I want to revisit that; I didn’t handle it as well as I could have”—can diffuse tension, clarify intent, and rebuild confidence. Repair is the foundation of psychological safety, which drives performance far more reliably than perfection. 5. Autonomy develops courage Watching a child wobble on a bike for the first time is uncomfortable, but it builds resilience. The workplace equivalent is resisting the urge to overmanage. Empowering people to make decisions and learn through experience expands their competence and confidence. Micromanagement, by contrast, signals fear—fear of failure, judgment, or loss of control. Autonomy is not abdication. It requires clear expectations, appropriate guardrails, and support when needed. But real leadership involves stepping back enough for others to step forward. Growth happens in the wobble. 6. Purpose lives in the mundane Parenting quickly teaches that meaning is built less through big milestones and more through accumulated micro-moments: answering questions while cooking dinner, revisiting hard conversations, showing up consistently even when enthusiasm is low. Steadiness matters more than spectacle. The same is true in organizational life. Culture is shaped not by strategy decks or keynote speeches but by everyday interactions—how leaders greet people, how they listen, how they give feedback, how they respond on difficult days. Purpose is expressed through small behaviors that signal what the organization values and how people should treat one another. The contexts are different, but the core work is the same. Leadership, in any environment, asks for clarity, steadiness, and intentional action. The setting changes, but the work is the same: stay steady, stay human, and lead with intention wherever you are. View the full article

Policy reviews of GSEs and Basel rules could reshape the MSR market, opening opportunities for banks and altering Fannie, Freddie MBS dynamics. View the full article

You’ve decided to start a solo business. Congratulations! I’ve been a solopreneur for years and love being my own boss. My decision to become a full-time freelance writer happened overnight. I lost my full-time job at a marketing agency. Looking around, the job market seemed bleak. Working for myself was a way to start earning money immediately to pay bills. However, I’d been thinking about a solo business for months. So while the timing wasn’t my decision, it was a direction I was headed anyway. I had been freelancing alongside my 9-5 job for a few years, so I had the “infrastructure” in place to turn my side hustle into a full-time business. What you need on Day 1 is a lot different than what you need on Day 1,001. Here are some of the minimum things you need to get started. 1. Pricing Before you even start talking to potential clients, you need to know what you’ll charge for your services. Will you charge by the hour? By project? On a retainer? Pricing is one of the hardest things to figure out when you start your own business. You often don’t have a good benchmark to know what you should charge compared to other solopreneurs doing similar work. You can start with your salary if you were working full-time at a company. Break it down into an hourly rate (even if you’re charging on a per-project basis). Keep in mind that you’ll also be paying taxes and covering your own business expenses. In addition to determining pricing, you’ll also need a way to present pricing to a potential client. You might want to consider software that lets you put together polished proposals for clients. Some can even collect e-signatures and payments as an all-in-one tool. But this isn’t necessary. You could also put together a proposal in a tool like Canva. You’ll also want to have clients sign a contract, agreeing to your pricing and terms. You could pay a lawyer to draw up a contract for you, but that’s often cost-prohibitive for new solopreneurs. Instead, you could look for a template that you can modify, or use this free one from the Freelancers Union. 2. A website I’m a big advocate for launching a website for your solo business. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Mine isn’t—it simply provides some information about my background and the services I offer. It includes a link to my portfolio of work and a “Contact Me” form. A website, even if it’s a one-pager, gives your business credibility. It also provides more information than you can showcase on a site like LinkedIn. Ideally, you would connect your website to your own domain. If you’ve never done this before, it sounds scarier than it actually is. Most website builders will provide step-by-step instructions to connect to a domain you buy from a company like GoDaddy or Cloudflare. If you want to take it a step further, you can connect your domain to Google Workspace so that your email address is @yourdomain.com. However, Google Workspace isn’t free. If you’re not ready to pay for it, you can always connect your domain to your email later. 3. An invoicing and payment tool My first invoices were created in Google Sheets. I was lucky that my clients paid me via check, because otherwise, I’m not sure how I would have collected payments. You’ll want to make it easy for clients to pay you, in the method of their choosing. Some may want to send you a bank transfer, while others want to use a credit card. I’ve even worked with companies outside of the U.S. and needed to collect international payments. Payment should never be a point of friction. Some tools provide invoicing, payment, and accounting all in one. Or, you can use a standalone product like Stripe to create invoices and collect payments. Platforms like Stripe will charge you a fee (a percentage of the invoice), but they will handle the payment processing for you. They collect money from the client— using whatever payment method the client chooses—and then send it to your bank account. 4. A plan to find clients Once you have the foundational things in place (pricing, a website, and invoicing/payment), you can start to think about how you’ll find clients—or how they’ll find you. This is not a single-day activity. Everything else I’ve mentioned can be pretty quick to set up. Marketing yourself is a long-term strategy. When I first started freelancing full-time, I was desperate for work (I’d just lost my job!). I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. I joined several Slack communities and networked with potential clients. I was a guest on podcasts to get my name out into the world. Effective tactics will depend on the services you offer, but you’ll need to do some hustling to find your first few clients. Your approach will likely evolve as your business grows. What worked for me in my first few months looks very different now. Over time, I learned which clients and projects aligned best with my skills and services—and which ones didn’t. Starting a solo business can feel overwhelming at first, especially in the early days. However, you get to design and build something that’s fully your own. Start with the foundation you need on Day 1, and you’ll figure out the rest as you go. View the full article

Earlier this year, TikTokers declared the start of the Great Meme Depression of 2025. In the months since, things haven’t picked up much. As 2026 approaches, some internet users have decided to take matters into their own hands rather than risk yet another year of AI slop and brainrot humor. It’s time to take it back to 2016. The Great Meme Reset of 2026 was first proposed by TikTok creator joebro909 in a video from March, according to KnowYourMeme, in the thick of The Great Meme Depression. In the clip, he suggested that all memes be wiped from memory in an effort to rescue TikTok from the drought. In September, TikTok creator golden._vr took up the call, proposing a time and a date for what they dubbed, “The Great Meme Reset”. “The last resort for memes,” the video’s caption read. “The Great Meme Reset. December 31st, 2025, 11:59. Memes are rising from the grave.” Since then, internet users have been reup0ping classic memes, like Nyan Cat and Harambe, made popular before TikTok was even a glint in millennials’ eye, thus wiping clean the last decade of internet culture. With Elon Musk threatening to bring back Vine but in AI form and a new six-second app backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey reviving more than 100,000 archived Vine clips, now seems as good a time as ever to introduce such classics as “FRE SH VOCADO” and “Damn Daniel” to the youth of today. Everything old is new again. The appeal of a return to an internet undiluted by AI slop is undeniable, but is 2010 humor really so much better than the brainrot trends of today? Awkward Turtle and Annoying Orange just don’t hit the same in the cold light of 2025. With the rapid pace of the meme cycle these days (who even remembers the Conclave memes earlier this year?!), the pull of nostalgia for a time where memes evolved at a slower pace is strong. Yet, the algorithm marches onwards, in some cases eating itself in its insatiable demand for viral content. Trying to force it backwards is futile. Inevitably, The Great Meme Reset Of 2026 will soon meet the same fate as Evil Kermit and Big Chungus before it. It’s the circle of life. View the full article

Ex-leader was tried in absentia after fleeing to India in wake of popular uprisingView the full article

Stories about AI-generated fabrications in the professional world have become part of the background hum of life since generative AI hit the mainstream three years ago. Invented quotes, fake figures, and citations that lead to non-existent research have shown up in academic publications, legal briefs, government reports, and media articles. We can often understand these events as technical failures: the AI hallucinated, someone forgot to fact-check, and an embarrassing but honest mistake became a national news story. But in some cases, they represent the tip of a much bigger iceberg—the visible portion of a much more insidious phenomenon that predates AI but that will be supercharged by it. Because in some industries, the question of whether a statement is true or false doesn’t matter much at all—what counts is whether it is persuasive. While talking heads have tended to focus on the “post-truth moment” in politics, consultants and other “knowledge producers” have been happily treating the truth as a malleable construct for decades. If it is better for the bottom line for the data to point in one direction rather than another, someone out there will happily conduct research that has the sole goal of finding the “right” answer. Information is commonly packaged in decks and reports with the intention of supporting a client narrative or a firm’s own goals while inconvenient facts are either minimized or ignored entirely. Generative AI provides an incredibly powerful tool for supporting this kind of misdirection: even if it is not pulling data out of thin air and inventing claims from the ground up, it can provide a dozen ways to hide the truth or to make “alternative facts” sound convincing. Wherever the appearance of rigor matters more than rigor itself, AI becomes not a liability but a competitive advantage. Not to put too fine a point on it, many “knowledge workers” spend much of their time producing what the philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshit.” And what is “bullshit” according to Frankfurt? Its essence, he says, “is not that it is false but it is phony.” The liar, Frankfurt explains, cares about truth, even if only negatively, since he or she wants to conceal it. The bullshitter, however, does not care at all. They may even tell the truth by accident. What matters to bullshitters isn’t accuracy but effect: how their words work on an audience, what impression they create, what their words allow them to get away with. For many individuals and firms in these industries, words in reports and slide decks are not there to describe reality or to conduct honest argumentation; they are there to do the work of the persuasive bullshitter. Knowledge work is one of the leading providers of what the anthropologist David Graeber famously called “bullshit jobs”—jobs that involve work that even those doing it quietly suspect serves no real purpose. For decades, product vendors, analysts, and consultants have been rewarded for producing material that looks rigorous, authoritative, and data-driven—the thirty-page slide deck, the glossy report, snazzy frameworks, and slick 2x2s. The material did not need to be good. It simply needed to look good. And if that is the goal, if words are meant to perform rather than inform, if the aim is to produce effective bullshit rather than tell the truth, then it makes perfect sense to use AI. AI can produce bullshit better and more quickly and in greater volume than any human being. So, when consultants and analysts turn to generative AI to help them with their reports and presentations, they are obeying the underlying logic and fundamental goals of the system in which they operate. The problem here is not that AI produces bullshit—the problem is that many in this business are willing to say whatever needs to be said to pad the bottom line. Bullshit vs. quality The answer here is neither new policies nor training programs. These things have their places, but at best they address symptoms rather than underlying causes. If we want to address causes rather than apply band-aids, we have to understand what we have lost in the move to bullshit, because then we can begin figuring out how to recover it. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig uses the term “quality” to name the property that makes a good thing good. This is an intangible characteristic: it cannot be defined, but everyone knows it when they see it. You know quality when you run your hand along a well-made table and feel the seamless join between two pieces of wood; you know quality when you see that every line and curve is just as it should be. There is a quiet rightness to something that has this character, and when you see it, you glimpse what it means for something to be genuinely good. If the institutions that are responsible for creating knowledge—not just consulting firms but universities, corporations, governments, and media platforms—were animated by a genuine sense of quality, it would be far harder for bullshit to take root. Institutions teach values through what they reward, and we have spent decades rewarding the production of bullshit. Consultants simply do in excelsis what we have all learned to do to some degree: produce something that looks good without caring whether it really is good. First you wear the mask, they say, and then the mask wears you. Initially, perhaps, we can produce bullshit while at least retaining our capacity to see it as bullshit. But over time, the longer we operate in the bullshit-industrial complex, the more bullshit we produce, the more we tend to lose even that capacity. We drink the Kool Aid and start thinking that bullshit is quality. AI does not cause that blindness. It simply reveals it. What leaders can do Make life hard. Bullshit flourishes because it is easy. If we want to produce quality work, we need to take the harder road. AI isn’t going away, and nor should we wish it away. It is an incredible tool for enhancing productivity and allowing us to do more with our time. But it often does so by encouraging us to produce bullshit, because that is the quickest and easiest path in a world that has given up on quality. The challenge is to harness AI without allowing ourselves to be beguiled into shortcuts that ultimately pull us down into the mire. To avoid that trap, leaders must take deliberate steps at both the individual and organizational levels. At the individual level. Never accept anything that AI outputs without making it your own first. For every sentence, every fact, every claim, every reference, ask yourself: Do I stand by that? If you don’t know, you need to check the claims and think through the arguments until they truly become your own. Often, this will mean rewriting, revising, reassessing, and even flat out rejecting. And this is hard when there is an easier path available. But the fact that it is hard is what makes it necessary. At the organizational level: Yes, we must trust our people to use AI responsibly. But—if we choose not to keep company with the bullshitters of the world—we must also commit and recommit our organizations to producing work of real quality. That means instituting real, rigorous quality checks. Leaders need to stand behind everything their team produces. They need to take responsibility and affirm that they are allowing it to pass out of the door not because it sounds good but because it really is good. Again, this is hard. It takes time and effort. It means not accepting a throwaway glance across the text but settling down to read and understand in detail. It means being prepared to challenge ourselves and to challenge our teams, not just periodically, but every day. The path forward is not to resist AI or to romanticize slowness and inefficiency. It is to be ruthlessly honest about what we are producing and why. Every time we are tempted to let AI-generated material slide because it looks good enough, we should ask: Are we creating something of quality, or are we just adding to the pile of bullshit? That question—and our willingness to answer it honestly—will determine whether AI becomes a tool for excellence or just another engine that trades insight for appearance. View the full article

Early this year, Mark Zuckerberg made headlines by saying corporate culture needs more “masculine energy.” This sentiment was echoed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s call for the military—an employer of 2.1 million Americans—to return to a “warrior ethos”, promoting traditional masculine standards like aggression and athleticism. And yet, according to recent news reports, recruits at ICE (another workplace) are struggling to pass basic fitness tests, and Hegseth allegedly installed a makeup room at the Pentagon. Such contradictions remind me of a former manager who once criticized a potential hire for being “kind of girly,” yet spent most of his free time online researching spa treatments and shopping for floral polos. Masculinity standards can be nebulous and conflicting. GQ’s 2025 State of Masculinity Survey asked 1,929 American men their thoughts and beliefs on masculinity, and men surveyed defined “masculine” as “strong,” “protective,” and “tough”—but when asked how they’d like to be described by a friend, they said “respectful,” “honest,” and “responsible.” It seems even men themselves are confused about what masculinity is. Meanwhile, the GQ survey also found that 68% of men think about how to be masculine every single day. “Men are navigating mixed messages,” says gender equality and masculinity researcher Dr. Sarah DiMuccio, Head of Research and Development at Above & Beyond, a DEI consultancy and leadership academy based in Copenhagen. “‘Be more open and empathetic.’ But also: ‘man up’ and ‘be decisive.’” In today’s world, workplace leaders are doubling down on a narrow, quasi-toxic version of masculinity, determining who gets heard, who gets promoted, what behaviors are rewarded and what the tone of the organization is. This impacts the way men behave, define success, and shapes business, as well as larger culture. The consequences are real: Economically, harmful behaviors associated with masculine stereotypes cost the United States over $15.7 billion each year. Masculine performance—and anxiety As a gay man, I’ve never been naive about how masculinity is used as currency. But because I was raised in what I now realize was a very progressive household, it wasn’t something I worried much about. I started rethinking how I performed it after being passed over for a work promotion. My then manager (the floral-polo-bedecked one) encouraged me to apply for this interview, telling me I was a natural fit. While I’d never mentioned being gay to him before, it somehow came up during an interview he’d sat in on. The unofficial, non-HR-sanctioned feedback I got from him when I didn’t advance? “I think they were just looking for, like, a sports-and-beer guy.” Can I absolutely prove it was being gay? No, but I’d bet money on it. A 2022 study published in Sex Roles: a Journal of Research found that both gay and straight men tend to prefer gay colleagues who are in leadership roles to present as masculine. And while I subjectively feel I present pretty masculine, masculinity and sexuality are routinely conflated. Even at more progressive companies, I now strategically choose when to acknowledge my sexuality. It’s hard to blame me, when work culture (and the wider culture) rewards a very narrow idea of “masculinity,” putting it on a pedestal for others to conform to. Dr. Travis Speice, a sociologist specializing in gender and sexuality studies, says, “Sometimes, it doesn’t actually matter how we perform our gender or our sexuality in the workplace—it’s other people who decide whether it’s acceptable or not.” This can lead to some absurd-seeming contradictions. One might think Pete Hegseth’s installation of a makeup studio in the Pentagon flies in the face of “warrior ethos,” but if others have already deemed him (or any man) the “right” kind of masculine, it might not matter. And yet: “I don’t know that any performance is absurd if the performer feels like there is a social advantage by following through with that performance,” Speice says. On top of the muddied definitions and public displays of masculinity, the pressure for men to perform as masculine at work worryingly has an adverse effect on everyone involved. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Social Issues, entitled “Work as a Masculinity Contest,” found that workplaces prevalent with men attempting masculine performance tend to be ones also filled with toxic leadership and bullying, as well as fewer opportunities, more burnout, and worse wellbeing for the women in the office. “Success comes to focus not on meeting performance goals,” the study says, “but on proving you are more of a man than the next guy. Thus, being a top performer is tantamount to being a man—or for the winners, ‘the man.’” The need to prove masculinity at work can cause men to behave aggressively, embrace risky behaviors, and sexually harass others. Half of men have taken time off from work to cope with mental health struggles, but less than one in ten would disclose said struggles. DiMuccio was a researcher on a 2021 study entitled Masculine Anxiety and Interrupting Sexism at Work, which found that 94% of men at work experience “masculine anxiety”: the stress men feel living up to masculine expectations. She points out how the way this anxiety manifests doesn’t always look like nervousness: “Sometimes it looks like bravado, competition, or withdrawal.” Speice adds that “In some work environments, straight men may feel even more pressure to perform traditional masculinity,” desperate to prove their ‘real man’ status. The tech bro: Our loudest archetype At the moment, few industries capture the celebrated absurdity of masculinity’s narrowest view more than Big Tech. “Silicon Valley is embracing a new era of masculinity,” Zoe Bernard wrote in her 2023 piece for Vox entitled “Silicon Valley’s very masculine year”. (An award that Silicon Valley is about to win for the third year in a row, and maybe then we can retire the trophy.) Tech’s “leaders are powerful, virile, and swole,” Bernard writes. Today’s tech bros—Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk—have become the unofficial poster boys for performative masculinity, trading in hoodies and office foosball tables for MMA and bow hunting. Nick Clegg, former Meta Vice President of Global Affairs, recently critiqued the tech bros (though it should be noted he spoke highly of Zuckerberg as a colleague), in an interview with The Guardian, hinting at the fragility of performative manliness. He called the trend “cloyingly conformist,” adding: “I couldn’t, and still can’t, understand this deeply unattractive combination of machismo and self-pity.” Dr. Peter Glick, a Professor of Psychology at Lawrence University (and co-author of the Work as a Masculinity Contest study) told me that traditional masculine roles provided men with a set of privileges that some feel are slipping away due to gender equality and DEI advances. “My own sense is that if anything, we have moved into a phase of highly reactive, defensive, aggrieved masculinity,” he says, especially “among many men who resent loss of status, power, purpose, and clarity with respect to how to fulfill masculine identity.” DiMuccio agrees, citing the influence of the manosphere: a loose, online network of blogs, forums, and social media promoting traditional masculinity and highly critical of anything it deems “feminist.” “Men are promised belonging and purpose, but in a way that is deeply problematic, misogynistic, and reinforces narrow versions of masculinity even more,” she says, noting that these spaces thrive on masculine anxiety. They turn the fear of losing status or identity in a changing world into resentment—and performance. “If you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression,” says Clegg. Rethinking masculinity Growing up, being perceived as masculine wasn’t something I worried about. I attribute that to my father, who, on paper, embodies traditional masculinity: He’s tall, not super emotive, and possesses the authoritative air befitting a retired Marine Colonel. But his is actually a more nuanced version of masculinity: While he certainly has protective and imposing traits, he’s neither aggressive nor bombastic, embodying a quiet confidence that seeks neither attention nor approval. He modeled being a decent guy, not arbitrarily proving he was “the man.” Perhaps those qualities—a steadying, grounded presence that doesn’t default to performing toxic traits or demanding others to comply with them—is what “masculinity” in the workplace could look like instead. DiMuccio thinks that deep down, “Most men do know, at some level, that these [toxic] behaviors —silencing others, overcompensating, refusing to ask for help—undermine teamwork and performance.” But she points out that, in many workplaces, the social rewards of being perceived as masculine still justify the performance. “It’s not that men don’t care about the greater goal. They do. But the cultural script of masculinity is so strong that it can override logic. Changing that requires shifting what we reward and recognize as leadership and success at work,” DiMuccio says. For better or worse, the concept of masculinity will continue to shape the ways we live and work. We can point out its hypocrisies and absurdities all we want, but the reality is that the ways men choose to telegraph masculinity shape who gets ahead, who gets heard, and how teams function—reflecting a broader cultural tendency to reward appearances, conformity, and social signaling over substance. Recognizing this dynamic might empower individuals to identify and call out the smoke and mirrors—and allow more men to stop playing pretend. View the full article

If you work in an office, your next coworker might not be human at all. Workers are already well-acquainted with artificial intelligence in the office, using AI tools to take notes, automate tasks, and assist with workflow. Now, Microsoft is working on a new kind of AI agent that doesn’t just assist, but acts as an employee. These “Agentic Users” will soon have their own email, Teams account, and company ID, just like a regular coworker. “Each embodied agent has its own identity, dedicated access to organizational systems and applications, and the ability to collaborate with humans and other agents,” states a Microsoft product roadmap document. “These agents can attend meetings, edit documents, communicate via email and chat, and perform tasks autonomously. The rise of AI has already spelled death for middle management, and is having a “significant and disproportionate impact on entry-level workers in the American labor market,” according to economists at Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab. Gartner projects that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will incorporate agentic AI, and at least 15% of daily business decisions will be made autonomously by AI agents. If AI employees can soon take over the grunt work no one wants to do, like scheduling and reporting, leaving people to handle the big picture tasks, that’s a win, right? Yet it also raises questions like: whose job is it to supervise AI employees? How much can AI really be entrusted with? And what happens if, or when, something goes wrong? Last year Deloitte surveyed organizations on the cutting edge of AI, and found just 23% of these organizations reported feeling highly prepared to manage AI-related risks. According to one study, 40% of agentic AI projects could be canceled by the end of 2027 due to inadequate risk controls, unclear business value and escalating costs. As AI rapidly establishes itself as a workplace norm, 2025 will be remembered as the moment when companies pushed past simply experimenting with AI and started building around it, Microsoft said in a blog post accompanying its annual Work Trend Index report. The rollout of “Agentic users” could start later this November, according to internal documents first reported by The Register. With Microsoft Ignite this week, stay tuned. View the full article

Bond investors remain on alert after U-turn on plan to raise income taxView the full article