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Let’s face it: The fact that AI is amazing is no longer all that … amazing. The technology is under ever-increasing pressure to prove its real-world value for consumers, businesses, and researchers in specific contexts. These honorees in the applied AI category are proving AI’s worth for fashion advice, pharmaceutical advice, coding, and much more. Alta For bringing AI to personal styling For people who lack style expertise or time for outfit planning, the task of choosing what to wear can be a daily frustration. Alta built a personal AI stylist app that generates outfits based on users’ actual wardrobes, lifestyle, budget, weather, and upcoming events—whether they’re dressing for a board meeting in Switzerland or a summer wedding in Napa. Users can upload their wardrobe or let the app automatically scrape their fashion buys from receipts and photos, then receive personalized suggestions they can visualize on customized avatars. The style agent learns each user’s unique style preferences, getting smarter with use. Alta raised $11 million from top-tier investors including Menlo Ventures, secured a partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America that gives CFDA members access to its AI platform, and partnered with tidiness guru Marie Kondo to offer premium closet organization services. Ambience Healthcare For freeing doctors from documentation drudgery Caregivers spend countless hours every week filling out patient charts—time that could be spent on actual patient care. Ambience Healthcare has developed an AI platform that listens in on patient–physician conversations in the exam room via a phone app and automatically generates comprehensive medical notes. The AI then creates a draft summary of the notes—complete with suggested ICD-10 and CPT codes—that the caregiver can review, edit, and sign. The system integrates with major electronic health record systems such as Epic and Oracle Cerner. Cleveland Clinic is now implementing Ambient’s solution after doing a comprehensive head-to-head test of “AI scribe” solutions for healthcare, testing five leading solutions with hundreds of clinicians and across more than 80 medical specialties over six months. Bolt For bringing vibe coding to the browser Building web and mobile applications traditionally requires multiple development teams, technical infrastructure, and months of coding. Among the highest-profile entrants in the new category of vibe coding tools, Bolt changes app creation by letting users describe what they want to build in natural language then instantly generating code. The platform handles front-end and back-end development logistics as well as hosting without complex setups or cloud services. After launching with a single tweet in October 2024, Bolt’s business grew quickly, scaling from zero to $40 million annualized recurring revenue in just four months. The company secured $83.5 million in Series B funding at a $700 million valuation. Cradle For accelerating protein engineering with AI Traditional protein engineering is slow, expensive, and unpredictable, hindering progress in pharmaceuticals, materials science, and biotechnology. Cradle harnesses generative AI to accelerate protein design by creating entirely new protein sequences tailored for specific functions. This distinguishes Cradle from DeepMind’s AlphaFold, which predicts the structures of proteins. The platform reduces experimental iterations, improves success rates, and uncovers novel structures that were previously out of reach for developing therapeutics, sustainable materials, and industrial enzymes. In 2025, Cradle expanded to 21 customers, including Johnson & Johnson and Novo Nordisk, demonstrating real-world validation of its technology in high-stakes drug development. GitHub For making AI coding collaborative In the age of AI coding assistants, developers are under pressure to ship code faster while maintaining quality, often forcing a choice between speed and control. Since becoming the first widely used coding assistant, GitHub Copilot has evolved beyond simple code suggestions into a tool for creating entire new software features and functions. But GitHub and its parent company, Microsoft, have taken a distinct approach to developing Copilot: Rather than pursuing full automation, GitHub designed Copilot to leave the human coder firmly in control. The assistant works like a good human teammate, GitHub says, showing its work and asking for review before anything ships. GitHub says Copilot’s user base quadrupled year over year in 2025 and now includes 15 million developers and more than 77,000 organizations. Google For applying secure open models to healthcare Healthcare AI developers often struggle to build medical applications because they can’t access specialized models that handle sensitive data securely. Google’s MedGemma family offers the first open multi-modal models trained specifically for medical text and image comprehension, enabling developers to keep sensitive data within private environments while adapting models for specific use cases. The models range from 4 billion to 27 billion parameters, small enough to fine-tune and serve on a single GPU, with the 27B version featuring clinical reasoning capabilities useful for patient triage and differential diagnosis. MedGemma achieved over 150,000 downloads from more than 10,000 developers in its first month, with the community creating and sharing more than 100 fine-tuned versions on Hugging Face. Hebbia For extracting insights from financial document chaos While making critical risk assessments and investment decisions, financial services professionals often must rely on unstructured data contained within numerous documents. Hebbia custom-built a generative AI solution for finance that lets users more quickly capture insights from millions of diverse documents located all around the organization. An investment banker might use Hebbia to generate conclusions from a call transcript, or someone in private equity could use it to identify potential risk factors before signing an investment deal. Hebbia can also summarize external documents such as market reports and credit agreements. The platform’s versatility across multiple financial tasks helped Hebbia secure a $130 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Hebbia says it now serves 30% of all U.S. asset managers and has processed over 100 million documents, or 10 times more than its nearest competitors. Jigsaw For making sense of massive public conversations Governments and other organizations struggle to synthesize thousands of public comments on civic issues. Traditional analysis methods can take months to deliver results, leaving feedback loops open too long for meaningful action. Jigsaw, an incubator inside Google, used Google’s Gemini AI model to create a toolkit called Sensemaker. It identifies key topics and themes from large-scale online conversations, allowing users to understand thousands of perspectives within minutes while preserving discussion richness. The technology surfaces patterns, areas of agreement and disagreement, and actionable insights from data that was previously impossible to process at scale. In its pilot with Bowling Green, Kentucky’s BG2050 initiative—a project addressing the expected doubling of the city’s population by 2050—local leaders used Sensemaker to analyze a four-week online conversation, enabling them to draw insights from community input that would have otherwise remained buried in unstructured data. Pando For taming logistics chaos Global logistics has faced relentless disruption in recent years, from the Russia–Ukraine war to sourcing upheavals caused by the The President administration’s tariffs. Pando recently added an AI agent called Pi to its platform for managing complexity and risk. The agent is powered by proprietary logistics language models and can automate operations such as requesting shipment from a carrier, invoice validation, and anomaly detection. The agent recommends actions, explains its logic, and executes tasks after confirmation. Within weeks of Pi’s launch, a number of Fortune 50 brands, including Meta, onboarded Pando, demonstrating the platform’s ability to handle the complexities of enterprise-scale logistics. Samsung Electronics America For making AI feel natural on mobile devices Smartphone AI features can sometimes feel gimmicky or disconnected from real-life workflows, creating barriers and distractions rather than enhancing the user experience. The features not only have to be useful but they have to show up at the right times and right places in the UX. Samsung did it right with Galaxy AI, which it integrated directly into its smartphones’ Android operating system to provide context-aware, personalized experiences through multimodal AI agents that can interpret text, speech, images, and videos. Users can perform multistep actions across apps, using plain language to get directions, send messages, and update calendars simultaneously. The Galaxy S25 series implementation has earned widespread praise from tech reviewers—Tom’s Guide remarked, “The S25 Ultra is packed with smarter AI features I wish the iPhone 16 Pro Max had.” Sonar For ensuring AI-generated code meets enterprise standards AI coding assistants have proved that they can accelerate software development, but as the tools have evolved to touch more and more parts of an organization’s code, they also can introduce hard-to-detect flaws that show up as bugs later on. Sonar’s platform uses AI to scan software for quality problems then fixes them. Fixes are informed by the platform’s deep experience—it analyzes more than 300 billion lines of code every day, the company says. The platform’s AI Code Assurance mode provides stricter quality gates for AI-generated code, while AI CodeFix generates contextual repair suggestions based on precise analysis findings rather than generic recommendations. Sonar says that 70% of developers rate its fix quality at 4 or 5 out of 5. Typeface For generating end-to-end marketing campaigns Marketers too often must choose between AI-generated content that’s generic or that is off-brand. Typeface created the first AI marketing platform that orchestrates the entire content process from brief to finished campaign. While the Typeface integrates with more than 30 AI models, the company trains custom models that maintain brand voice, tone, and visual identity. The platform’s Brand Hub is a searchable AI content repository that enforces compliance and governance guidelines. Spaces provides a visual workspace where marketers create personalized emails, ads, web pages, and videos without becoming prompt engineers. Typeface secured major enterprise deals with Fortune 100 companies, including Asics, in 2025. Vermillio For arming creators against deepfakes Vermillio makes a new kind of IP protection platform that identifies the unauthorized use of a person’s likeness or voice in synthetic or AI-generated audio and video. Traditional content protection systems can fail to detect AI-generated content derived from a face or voice because they’re better at detecting exact replicas of the original content. Vermillio’s TraceID technology assigns digital signatures to every fragment of intellectual property, creating “soft bindings” through digital hashes and fingerprints that aren’t easily removed by generative AI models. Vermillio’s platform tracks IP usage across images, text, audio, and video, ensuring proper attribution and compensation while detecting harmful deepfakes. Vermillio says it had more than 130,000 pieces of unauthorized AI-generated content taken down in Q4 2024 alone. In March 2025 the company closed a $16 million Series A round led by Sony Music Entertainment and including Disney and Warner Music Group. Warp For reimagining the terminal for the AI age Developers have long preferred to control their machines via a command-line terminal because it’s more direct and precise. Unfortunately, the terminal, which was born in the 1970s, hasn’t kept up with new developments in AI-powered coding assistants and agents. So Warp built a modern, AI‐powered terminal for developers called an Agentic Development Environment (ADE). The environment maintains the command line’s power while adding support for natural-language-based AI coding assistance and the ability to manage multiple AI agents. The result is a platform where AI agents have more visibility into the code base so that they can detect potential problems and offer ways of fixing them. Warp says it has seen 90% year-over-year growth in its user base, with 600,000 active developers now using the platform, including 16,000 engineering teams. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

The space and telecom industries can look increasingly intertwined as satellite roaming—today for messages, tomorrow for data—becomes a standard feature. But while wireless services have the luxury of iterating as often as they want once they start signing up customers, space startups have to take things one launch at a time. Eascra Biotech For making the International Space Station a pharmaceutical research lab Eascra has one of the most interesting worksites of any of this year’s honorees: the International Space Station, where astronauts conduct research on developing nanoparticles to treat cancer and other maladies. Growing these materials in microgravity yields more uniform particles that can store mRNA drugs at room temperature—not the subzero conditions mRNA medication usually requires. Impulse Space For bringing the space tug concept closer to commercial reality Founded by SpaceX veteran Tom Mueller, Impulse Space helps launch providers take their payloads farther with its Helios kick stage—which can send a satellite from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit in a day—and its smaller Mira space tug. The company has raised $300 million and has won contracts from NASA and the Space Force to develop its platforms further. MobileX For leveraging AI to resell wireless service as cheaply as possible Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) can look alike, especially when so many of them are now properties of the big three wireless carriers. But MobileX, which resells Verizon’s network, stands out for extremely low rates, starting at $3.48 a month and maxing out at $24.88. Its secret weapon? The company applies AI to analyze patterns of use to match customers with the most affordable plan that fits. US Mobile For bringing choice and flexibility to the wireless resale market US Mobile has experienced a rocket-launch trajectory since its 2016 debut—in 2025, it made its first appearance on Consumer Reports’ survey of subscribers at the top of that list. Unlike most MVNOs, it resells each of the big three wireless carriers—under cutesy names (“Dark Star” means AT&T, “Light Speed” T-Mobile, “Warp” Verizon). It lets subscribers choose among the three on the fly with its Teleport feature, tapping the best coverage for their everyday whereabouts. Varda For making pharmaceutical materials in space Manufacturing in microgravity has been a part of humanity’s imagined off-world future for decades, but Varda has finally done it by building its own uncrewed satellite and reentry capsule. That allows life-sciences customers to generate crystals for pharmaceutical uses that are more uniform than what gravity would allow. Following successful landings by Varda’s capsule, in June the company launched its first mission built on an in-house satellite bus; a month later, it announced a $187 million fundraising round. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

After federal funding for renewables evaporated this year, the future path of the energy sector has been unclear. But even in uncertain times, companies are advancing the technology needed to push for a clean-energy transition—while also accommodating for a new grid that needs to keep up with the huge power demands of the wave of data centers coming online. From new battery tech to all-day solar power to better ways to track emissions and more, these innovations can help see the sector through this precarious period. Exowatt For generating solar power even when the sun isn’t shining Exowatt’s P3 unit is a power plant in a 40-foot-long shipping container. The unit uses solar energy to heat a thermal battery—essentially a very hot piece of clay—that can then provide consistent power from solar even at night. The modular design will allow a series of P3 units to be quickly deployed to power new data centers without overwhelming the existing grid and needs no rare earth materials like lithium to operate. The company has raised $70 million so far from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Open AI’s CEO Sam Altman. General Motors For rolling out a new kind of battery Lithium batteries may only have one element in the name, but they also require quite a bit of nickel and cobalt, two rare earth elements that have expensive (and sometimes ethically fraught) supply chains. Researchers at General Motors say they have recently made a breakthrough with a new kind of lithium-manganese rich (LMR) battery, which uses cheap and abundant manganese. Besides solving supply chain and cost issues, the automaker’s innovation has also addressed old issues with LMRs losing charge quickly. The company is planning to roll out its new formulation batteries by 2028, and it says they could boost the range of its EVs to 400 miles per charge. Greenlane For building the electric truck charging infrastructure network As the electrification wave comes for freight trucking fleets, the truck stop must also evolve, providing fast charging for large vehicles on highways around the country. Greenlane, a company founded with backing from Daimler Truck North America and BlackRock’s climate fund, aims for widespread deployment of its Greenlane High-Speed Charging System, with 12 pull-through lane 400 kW chargers. The company opened its flagship charging station on I-15 Southern California in April 2025 and plans to expand to electrify the entire highway from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Persefoni For powering climate reporting, with some help from AI As governments around the world demand more climate disclosure from companies, the time and money it takes to keep track of all the data can be daunting, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Climate accounting software company Persefoni’s newest Pro offering helps those companies collect and report that data—even Scope 3 emissions, involving emissions from suppliers and customers, which are notoriously hard to track. To solve the problem, the software’s Scope 3 Data Exchange lets companies request emissions data directly from their suppliers. It also uses generative AI to help generate reports and ensure compliance with major emissions standards around the world. In its first year available, the software amassed more than 6,000 users. X, the Moonshot Factory For building the first map of the entire grid There is currently no working map of the world’s electric grid. Tapestry, a project from Google’s X, the Moonshot Factory, is working to change that. The effort—now active in the U.S., U.K., Chile, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, is combining AI-powered inspection and advanced simulation tools to help operators plan, maintain, and scale the grid. Its two products use machine learning to help quickly inspect grids and solve problems and to plan for future grid expansion. This year, the company began partnering with Chinese operators. It’s also helping PJM—the largest grid operator in North America—model ways to bring renewable sources online faster. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

Our honorees in the new tech visionaries category are executives who applied new thinking to pressing problems. One is working to take cellular broadband places it’s never gone before. Another aims to make the tech industry less dependent on the risky business of mining rare earth materials. And the third is applying AI to the thorny challenge of defending against ever-smarter missiles and drones. Abel Avellan, CEO, AST SpaceMobile For sending cellular broadband to space Founded in 2017 by chairman and CEO Abel Avellan, AST SpaceMobile has launched six of its BlueBird satellites into low Earth orbit, with plans to have 60 more in orbit by the end of 2026. The goal is to deliver the world’s first satellite-based cellular 4G/5G broadband to unmodified smartphones, soaring past the technological limitations that have kept reliable high-speed cellular delivered through other means from reaching nearly half the world’s population. Under Avellan’s leadership, the company has signed more than 50 wireless providers as strategic partners and raised $2 billion-plus from investors such as AT&T, Google, Rakuten, Verizon, and Vodafone. Ahmad Ghahreman, Cyclic Materials For giving rare earth materials a new lease on life Rare earth materials such as neodymium and dysprosium are critical to everything from consumer electronics to data centers to energy production. But mining them is saddled with issues relating to geopolitics (China dominates the market), human rights, and climate change. Cyclic Materials CEO and cofounder Ahmad Ghahreman oversaw the invention of CC360, a process that recycles these materials—99% of which currently go to landfill—from disk drives. Among those working to help the company commercialize its technology are Amazon, BMW, Hitachi, and Microsoft, all of which participated in its $55 million Series B funding round. Amy Gilliland, General Dynamics Information Technology For using AI to defend against missiles and drones An $8.5 billion unit of defense giant General Dynamics, GDIT is led by president Amy Gilliland. The company worked with Amazon Web Services to develop an AI platform for the U.S. Department of Defense called Defense Operations Grid-Mesh Accelerator, or DOGMA. It helps protect against attacks by highly maneuverable missiles and drones by ingesting data from a network of sensors, analyzing it, and notifying the right operators on the ground—all swiftly enough to evade any attempts to jam communications systems. During tests at the DoD’s Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) event in 2024, DOGMA reduced the time necessary to make decisions from 30 minutes to 30 seconds. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

This year’s wellness and fitness honorees encompass innovations in sleep, fitness, and mental well-being. They help users chill out, de-stress, and take concrete actions to reduce their chronic disease risk. Sure, some of these may seem over the top. But as technologies improve and reach scale, what’s over the top now could become a basic necessity tomorrow. Ammortal For building the ultimate rejuvenation machine The Ammortal Chamber may be the ultimate self-care flex at the moment. The fully immersive “wellness experience” combines red light therapy for cellular regeneration, vibro-acoustic sound therapy to harmonize the nervous system, pulsed electromagnetic fields to reduce inflammation and accelerate recovery, molecular hydrogen to combat oxidative stress, and guided breathwork and visual meditation for deep mental relaxation. After rolling out to luxury hotels and some two dozen wellness centers earlier this year, it’s now available for consumers who aren’t stressed out by the $160,000 price tag. iFutureLab For making sleep more restorative Autonomous furniture? Why not? iFutureLab’s Heka AI Mattress combines artificial intelligence—its TrackR AI Sleep Chip System—with an array of biomedical sensors to sense and release body pressure and adjust lumbar support based on body position. Since launching in 2018, the company has opened more than 630 “experience centers” worldwide and reached 200,000 users. Molecular You For tracking the metrics of healthy longevity Unlike traditional blood tests, which focus on a limited set of biomarkers for a few conditions, Molecular You measures more than 280 proteins and metabolites from a single blood draw, identifying presymptomatic signals of dozens of chronic conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, heart and liver disease, autoimmune disorders, and diabetes. The results include targeted suggestions for addressing patient concerns. The Vancouver-based “healthy longevity” company launched its $1,100 test in Canada in 2023 and is now available in the U.S. market through a partnership with lab-testing company HealthQuest Esoterics. It raised a $5 million Series A in August, bringing total funding to $29 million. Saucony For giving running shoes a “non-Newtonian” bounce Saucony’s latest technological advance in footwear engineering sounds more like an advance in quantum engineering: Its new proprietary IncrediRUN foam exhibits “non-Newtonian behavior.” It softens under light impact and stiffens under force, offering significant improvements in cushioning, energy return, and durability compared to the three main foams used in most running footwear. The material’s responsiveness springs from its novel polyester elastomer (TPEE) and Saucony’s advanced foaming process. Fine-tuned through mechanical testing, athlete feedback, and material engineering in Saucony’s Human Performance and Innovation Lab, IncrediRUN debuted in Saucony’s Endorphin line of training shoes in March 2025. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

Across both white-collar and blue-collar settings, productivity depends on how well information is organized and communicated. DataSnipper uses AI to help auditors quickly surface relevant details in lengthy legal documents, while Sharebite streamlines employee meal programs for the hybrid workplace. Tines has developed a unified AI platform to manage a wide range of workplace software, and Weavix has reimagined the shop-floor radio for modern communication needs. DataSnipper For helping rapidly sift through lengthy financial documents Auditors often need to extract dates and financial details from dense documents such as leases, loan agreements, and meeting minutes—tasks too complex for a simple “Ctrl+F” search. DataSnipper automates this work directly within Excel, using AI to respond to written prompts and link results back to their source for quick verification. Launched in April 2025, the tool is already credited by audit firms with reducing document review time by 25%. Sharebite For taking the hassle out of employee meal programs Feeding employees has become more complex in the hybrid-work era. Sharebite’s Passport program provides workers with a Visa card that employers can configure to work only at specific times and locations, encouraging in-office attendance. The company’s Stations service simplifies group ordering for central pickup at the office. For every meal purchased, Sharebite donates a meal to people in need through its charity partners. Tines For building one unified AI system to command workplace cloud software While many workplace tools now feature AI assistants, Tines has developed a system that can coordinate across multiple cloud platforms, from trouble-ticketing systems to IT management services. Launched in September 2024, Tines Workbench connects securely to a wide range of software and converts plain-language instructions into precise, preapproved actions. The technology has gained traction quickly, helping Tines raise a $125 million Series C funding round in February 2025. Weavix For building the future of two-way radio communication Worksite radio communication has evolved far beyond the analog walkie-talkie. Weavix’s Walt Smart Radio System adds features such as Slack-style departmental channels, AI-powered translation, and geofencing for security. The radios support voice, text, and photo messages, making them useful in settings like manufacturing plants. Designed for tough environments, they can be operated while wearing gloves or other protective gear, and badge-tap authentication makes handoffs simple at shift changes. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process. View the full article

For the past five years, Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards have celebrated technological breakthroughs that are changing the way we work and live. This year’s awards include 137 honors for innovations impacting everything from applied AI to telecommunications to agriculture. Arriving at that cadre of winners from a pool of 1,200 applicants requires many hours of work sifting through applications, scrutinizing projects, and deciding which achievements rank at the top. Here is a peek into how our small army of editorial staffers make it happen. Methodology Our team of editors and writers assessed each application based on factors such as: Relevancy: What pressing problem does the technology solve? Ingenuity: How novel is the technology? Progress and potential: In what ways has the technology already proven itself? Is it positioned for long-term viability and scalability? Impact: What kind of impact—from economic to cultural—might the technology have over the next five years? Each winner is chosen after multiple rounds of evaluation and conversation between judges about its performance on the above criteria, a monthslong process. “With Next Big Things in Tech, our aim is to honor projects based not only on what they’ve already achieved but where they’re poised to go,” says Fast Company global technology editor Harry McCracken. “Whether honorees are still in the lab or already on the market, they’re driving progress in tangible ways on an array of fronts.” Meet the team Judges Adam Bluestein, Morgan Clendaniel, Yasmin Gagne, Connie Lin, Maia McCann, Harry McCracken, Steven Melendez, Chris Morris, Jared Newman, Alex Pasternack, Rob Pegoraro, Adele Peters, Ross Rubin, Mark Sullivan, Marty Swant, Max Ufberg, Mark Wilson Coordinator Shealon Calkins Design/Photo Jeanne Graves, Anne Latini, Daniel Salo, Mike Schnaidt, Amy Wong Development Bryan Cuellar, Heda Hokschirr, Cayleigh Parrish View the full article

Data centers have become the starting blocks in the global race for AI supremacy. Tech giants like Meta, Alphabet, and OpenAI have committed hundreds of billions of dollars collectively to building more of them. States are offering incentives for their development, and President Donald The President signed an executive order in July cutting regulations to speed up construction. For all the breakthroughs they promise, the environmental toll of these facilities is already staggering: According to the International Energy Agency, U.S. data centers used roughly 185 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024—more than all of Pakistan’s 248 million people used that year. To keep hot servers cool, a typical 100-megawatt hyper-scale data center consumes as much water per day as 6,500 homes. And, as with the factories and railroads that powered previous technological revolutions, the impact on surrounding communities can be especially profound. This premium story, accompanied by original photography commissioned by Fast Company, documents: Why one of Meta’s data center neighbors says, “I haven’t drank my water in years.” The number of homes that could be powered with the electricity consumed by one Meta data center How much the area’s light pollution has increased since 2020 What the ongoing data center boom is doing to electricity prices in states like Georgia What does “the cloud” look like? For Beverly Morris, it’s hulking, windowless buildings, bright lights, and literal clouds of dust. Peter Essick In 2020, two years after Beverly and husband Jeff Morris bought their home in Mansfield, Georgia, construction crews began clearing the way for what would turn out to be one of Meta’s largest data centers, a sprawling, 2.5 million-square-foot complex—larger than the state’s largest shopping mall—just 1,000 feet from their front door. With no official notice to Morris from Meta or surrounding Newton County representatives, the oak forest across her dirt road was felled; eventually, a white glow from a row of perimeter spotlights flooded their home nightly. “Nature was run out of there completely,” Morris says. By 2022, during busy construction days, thick plumes of red dust would storm across their property. After a particularly bad onslaught, Morris called the phone number she found on a construction sign; a crew soon showed up with power washers to hose down her house. “There was a red river running off of my roof,” she says. It was such a spectacle that one of the workers insisted on capturing it on his phone. She now wishes she’d obtained the video. “Everything was covered in red.” Beverly Jeff MorrisPeter Essick The new factories “The cloud” has never been a very helpful description of the global infrastructure of the internet, but as the global race for AI supremacy ramps up, a new, more apt metaphor has emerged. “I think everybody should stop saying data centers,” interior secretary Doug Burgum told a conference in D.C., where in July, The President signed an executive order cutting regulations to speed up data center construction. Burgum cited the term used by the CEO of Nvidia: ”It’s not data centers. It’s AI factories.” But these giant warehouses aren’t factories in the traditional sense. Even the most compute-intensive data centers employ few full-time workers. Most of the work in a data center is done by automated systems and software that manage the infrastructure, while the core computation of training and inference is powered by energy-hungry chips, often made by Nvidia. In the first half of 2025, spending on data centers—including big investments from Meta, Alphabet, OpenAI, Amazon, and xAI— contributed as much to U.S. GDP growth as household consumer spending—an unprecedented economic shift. But tremendous cash isn’t the only cost, and tech companies aren’t the only ones shouldering the burden. In Mansfield, Morris says the impact of all the digging and blasting to build Meta’s data center, known as Stanton Springs, eventually extended to her well water. By 2023, the pipes in her house were clogged with sediment, wrecking appliances and slowing faucets to a drip. “I haven’t drank my water in years,” says Morris, who estimates she’s spent about $5,000 on repairs so far. She said a July appraisal found that her property’s value had cratered. Peter Essick The extent to which the construction of the data center contributed remains unclear. A Meta spokeswoman told The New York Times that “the company had recently commissioned a well study on the Morrises’ property and said it was ‘unlikely’ that its data center affected the supply of groundwater in the area.” Though the study—a copy of which was reviewed by Fast Company—assessed the impact of the facility’s construction and operations on local groundwater and nearby wells, Morris says “Neither Meta nor anyone else came on my property to do a groundwater study.” Meta declined repeated requests for comment on this story. “It has changed the way that I live here,” she says. “And they really accept no responsibility for it. And they’re big enough to do that.” How AI’s power needs affect everyone Tax breaks and relatively cheap power have turned the Atlanta area into the country’s fastest-growing hyper-scale data center market. Demand is so high that the Peach State has delayed closing several coal-fired power plants. Only a few years ago, Big Tech touted bold carbon targets. Now Bob Sherrier, a staff attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Georgia office, says the data center blitz “will deepen our reliance on dirty, volatilely priced methane gas and coal for decades.” (Stanton Springs consumed 968,000 megawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, according to Meta‘s most recent numbers, enough to power about 90,000 average homes.) Nationally, Morgan Stanley estimates that forecasted data center demand will require an additional 45 gigawatts, or about 10% of all current U.S. generation capacity—equivalent to 23 Hoover Dams. The data center build-out also means that all the “cheap power” that’s drawn developers to states like Georgia isn’t actually that cheap: Nationally, the cost of building out new transmission lines and substations to power the AI push is contributing to surging electricity rates for customers across the country. “In Georgia, our rates have gone up six times,” Morris says. Peter Essick Power is only part of the equation: Keeping chips cool means withdrawing and consuming immense amounts of water, and developers prioritize places that are hot and dry, where power tends to be cheaper, meaning most data centers are being built in areas with high water stress. According to the local water authority, the Stanton Springs facility guzzles about 10% of Newton County’s daily water supply. In Newton County, demand is rising so fast that residents could face a water deficit by 2030, according to a 2024 report. Growing AI’s footprint—and impact Some of the world’s biggest projects are emerging in neighboring Louisiana. In Memphis, a supercomputer for Elon Musk’s xAI has been relying on dozens of unpermitted temporary gas turbines, exacerbating health issues in the surrounding community. In Richland Parish, a plan to build 2 gigawatts’ worth of gas turbines for a Meta data center project was recently approved by planning authorities, despite local objections that the process was rushed and lacked transparency. But the scale of the project is no secret: “Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook. Not to be outdone, OpenAI and Oracle are building an 800-acre data center in Texas that will form part of the Stargate project, a partnership with the The President administration to create a nationwide backbone for training ever-larger AI models. Backed by a $100 billion investment from Nvidia (much of it to be spent on its own chips), the five-data-center project could demand upwards of 10 gigawatts—about as much energy as consumed by all of New York City. Morris, who grew up in Georgia, misses the fireflies that used to surround her house, which glowed until the data center showed up. Even with the spotlights switched off, the facility, now operational, still creates a dome of light visible from miles away. (The area’s Bortle score, a measure of light pollution, shows a 25% increase in artificial brightness since 2020.) The sounds of construction have been replaced by a constant electric hum, periodic alarms, and the intermittent buzz of diesel generators. Morris admits to feeling powerless, but has found some comfort online—even on Facebook—connecting with others across the state who are pushing back against new data center development. “I know I’m not the only one now,” she says. And she’s right. Last month, the city council for the nearby city of Social Circle unanimously enacted a 90-day moratorium on new data centers. A version of this story appears in the latest issue of Fast Company magazine. View the full article

Takeover of Nexperia plunges Netherlands into US-China tech warView the full article

When people ask me, “What do you do?” the question still gives me pause. For over two decades at Christie’s, I could easily answer by handing out a business card with my title clearly stated: global managing director. It had a nice ring. But the longer I stayed in corporate life, the more I realized I wanted more titles under my name, not fewer. Over those years, I led many teams and eventually became global head of strategic partnerships, a division I launched in my second decade at the company. But my true passion began at 24, when I volunteered as a charity auctioneer for nonprofit galas after work. That passion grew into a career that took me to more than a thousand stages over 20 years, and ultimately became what I was most recognized for outside the company. In 2019, I published my first book, The Most Powerful Woman in the Room Is You, based on lessons I learned in the corporate world while excelling in a role traditionally dominated by men. While my Christie’s card still read global managing director, I preferred the titles auctioneer and now author. In the years that followed, I pursued the “white space” those titles opened, ultimately leaving Christie’s to launch the Lydia Fenet Agency, representing charity auctioneers. The years I spent honing my skills onstage prepared me to fully embrace life as a multi-hyphenate. Today, I hold the titles of CEO, auctioneer, author, keynote speaker, retreat host, social media influencer, and mom of three. This November, I’ll host my first summit at Rockefeller Center, The Most Powerful Woman in the Room Summit. I’ve built a career and a life that are not only lucrative, but also more fulfilling and exciting, because I answer only to myself. Here are three lessons I’ve learned that helped me build a thriving multi-hyphenate career: 1) Become an expert in one thing—and look for the white space To succeed as a multi-hyphenate, you must drill down on what makes you unique and become an expert. Once you’ve defined your expertise, you can build from there. My foundation is auctioneering, but that skill opened doors into public speaking, consulting, teaching, and storytelling. Identify the adjacent skills you’ve developed and move into that white space. 2) Say yes to what gives you energy In corporate life, I said yes to everything, even when it wasted time and drained me. Now, as an entrepreneur, I say yes only when I want to. If I don’t, I pass along the opportunity to someone in my network and stay connected. Saying yes with intention creates energy instead of depleting it. 3) Have fun with failure The faster you learn to fail, the more successful you’ll become. I usually juggle five or six projects at once, knowing half won’t work out. If you tie your happiness to one outcome, failure feels devastating. But when you diversify, you learn, adapt, and keep moving forward. Success comes and goes, so swing big, and remember: You’re the only one who defines what success looks like. View the full article

Designer and educator Omari Souza conceived of his new book Design Against Racism: Creating Work That Transforms Communities, well before the The President administration began its campaign to demonize diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the ideas the book wrestles with aren’t a reaction to a single moment in time; they’re deeper, and go to the heart of design’s pitfalls—and potential. Souza, a first-generation American of Jamaican heritage, born and raised in the Bronx, now teaches at the University of North Texas in Denton. In September 2020, his online event “The State of Black Design” drew more than 2,000 live viewers. Souza’s book challenges design students and professionals alike to rethink consequences, collaboration, and context, and offers fresh insights and arguments about what design is really for. We spoke in September. The book is propelled by the idea of “restorative design,” which I think we can say descends, or is evolved, from the idea of restorative justice. Can you, for those unfamiliar, say a little bit about what restorative justice is? Restorative justice is a social science practice that focuses less on punitive punishment and more on communal healing. So it is asking questions about who’s been harmed, what their needs are, whose responsibility it is to meet those needs, and how can relationships and trust be built and repaired in order to move forward. It also believes that punitive measures actually perpetuate harm rather than resolve the issue at hand. Restorative design is really this idea of: How do we survey whether or not the products, services, or artifacts we create cause harm to folks? And if they do, how, as designers, do we attempt to repair the harm that’s been done and reestablish trust with the audiences that have been harmed? With that in mind, how did the book come to be? Why did you feel the need to do this? I have not been in academia as long as some of my contemporaries, but one of the things that I have noticed with the field of design is that it treats the practice as a trade. There’s a handful of skills they want you to learn, not a lot of conceptual thought, or of teaching students how to quantify or even think about some of the harm that the designs that they make may have. So I’ve been thinking for years about, “How do I introduce to students frameworks to consider people that happen to fall on the fringes, who may be harmed by particular practices?” And I came across a book by Zora Neale Hurston, whose primary focus was African and African-diasporic folklore. So she would travel from Harlem, New York, before the end of the Jim Crow South, before women had the right to vote or own a bank account without their husband’s permission. She would drive through the South as a Black woman on her own, to capture and tell these stories. And her efforts were rehumanizing these audiences and capturing details about them that were otherwise omitted. Her entire process was around humanizing and giving the same respect and gravitas that she would give to anyone. The book arrives in a moment that has become hostile toward formal efforts to increase and implement diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and we’ve seen a lot of companies backing away from those programs and that kind of branding. I wonder if you see the current cultural-political climate making the book’s message more challenging? More urgent? Both? I think both, for a number of reasons. When I started writing this book, it was a few years shy of the George Floyd incident. So there were a number of companies and organizations and political officials that were making pledges to assist in rectifying harm that was already being caused. I assumed the book might not be as important to people by the time it came out, just because there seemed to be so much momentum around acknowledging these issues. But I still felt that it was important to have a book like this that can be a part of the design dialogue. With the current administration, it has felt like there’s a ton of rollbacks to progress that was being made, and it has felt that a lot of work like this is being targeted. I’m a professor currently in the state of Texas, and with Senate Bill 17, there are certain words that we can’t even say in a classroom. As a UX designer and a research professor, it’s really hard to teach people how to design experiences for folks without talking about the different needs of different audience groups. I think it makes it extremely important for professors to find a way to still teach those skill sets. Listening, particularly to overlooked or unheard voices, seems like a big theme of restorative design, and the book. If you’re designing a school, you write at one point, talk to the janitors, not just the principal. A lot of creative practices have traditionally been top-down. So you have this figure who happens to be charismatic and extremely talented, who will create this philosophical approach that other people buy into. And then once they buy into it, they begin to distribute it. So it’s kind of built from the top of the hill and then rolls its way down as the accepted approach. But if you spoke to the janitor and designed the school for the janitor, the students, as well as the principals, you might find some innovations in the school experience that you otherwise may not have had if you only spoke to the principal. At one point in the book, you write, “everyone designs; it’s an innate human ability.” It struck me because I feel like the profession spent the last 20 or 30 years arguing that designers are a unique problem-solving species. But in the book, you write a lot about “co-designing” and why it’s so important to the restorative design practice. I think designers sometimes elevate themselves above the people that they’re designing for, versus designing alongside them. And that’s kind of what I mean by co-design. It’s very hard to design something effectively for an audience that you have no connection to. An exercise that I do for my students is to have them map their experience attempting to go to the bathroom at a concert or a sporting event. I just ask them to list the steps. And for the men, the steps are always three to four. For the women, the steps range from eight to 30. I’ll ask the women to explain to the men the complexity of the factors shaping those steps. It ranges from the length of the line, the size of the stall, whether there’s a place to hang their purse, the complexity of the outfit, whether they’re with a child, on their cycle, yada, yada, yada. I ask the men to raise their hand if they felt that they would’ve been able to equitably design a bathroom experience for the women without their input. All of them put their hands down. I ask the women: Do you feel that you can design an equitable experience for yourselves and the men in the room? They keep their hands up. But then I’ll add a caveat. What if the woman you’re designing for is trans, or what if she’s disabled? What if she’s from another section of the world where the bathroom toilet flushes with a different mechanism or the symbols are different? The hands begin to drop. So it’s my way of saying that yes, you’ve been trained as a designer, and yes, you might be intelligent. But without immersions into particular cultures, you don’t know the bottlenecks that they have. There’s a lot in the book about understanding histories, but as you say in your conclusion, a big part of the idea is to imagine and frame a different future or different futures. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because one of the criticisms often used against DEI seems to be that it’s too backward-looking and negative, dwelling on past wrongs instead of looking ahead. I find that whenever people say that something is too backward-looking, it’s really their way of saying that looking back is painful. I think for me and for the book, the idea of restoration or healing is never comfortable. If you get a tattoo, if you break an arm and it’s healing in the cast, it’s wildly uncomfortable. The healing process is always something that is inconvenient. However, the question then becomes what do you want? If harm perpetuates, then it becomes hard to establish trust and it becomes hard to move forward. So when envisioning a brighter future, we have to think about: What actions do we need to take in the meantime? There are a few examples that I used in the book of companies that wanted to establish partnerships in particular communities, and before beginning, they needed to emphasize the history of corporate relationships with particular communities. If you’re looking for an end to conversations around DEI, or around systemic oppression, then in many regards addressing systemic oppression and then helping to heal the harm that’s caused, that’s how you stop it. It’s how you stop it. It feels like some want to step over the wound and hope that it heals on its own; like if people don’t pay attention to it, it won’t hurt anymore. But in reality, it’s more akin to a hunger or broken bone than it is to a scratch, and it’s not something that you can just ignore. View the full article

The housing agency director told Sen. Cortez Masto a Federal Home Loan Bank reform review is ongoing and took issue with Sen. Warren's inquiries about meeting transparency. View the full article

In order to believe in the idea of "competition" in credit scores, the Washington housing community must believe that large institutional investors who buy whole loans and mortgage-backed securities are really, really dumb, writes the Chairman of Whalen Global Advisors View the full article

For more than a century, a stretch of riverfront in Toronto was an industrial wasteland, with oil storage tanks, factories, and shipping infrastructure sitting on former wetlands. Now, part of the site is a sprawling new park, and next year, construction will begin on a new neighborhood inside it. “It’s incredibly transformed,” says Emily Mueller De Celis, a landscape architect at the firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, which won a competition to “renaturalize” the area in 2007. “Rather than walking around in and amongst oil refineries and other industry, now you are immersed in nature, walking along the banks of a river with spectacular views back to the city.” The area was dotted with factories in the late 1800s. The river was dredged and corralled into a channel as the city tried to flush pollution from the factories into the nearby harbor. By the early 1900s, the wetlands in the area—now overrun with toxic waste—were filled in to build a new industrial district. Pollution kept getting worse. The changes to the river also caused new flooding. By the 1980s, activists were calling for the restoration of the river. By the early 2000s, the government launched an effort called Waterfront Toronto to revitalize the area and create new flood protection, and it started to demolish some of the old industrial infrastructure. The scale of the $1.4 billion project, along with inevitable delays, meant that it’s taken a very long time. “This is the largest infrastructure project in North America,” says Mueller De Celis. The project carved out more than 1.3 million cubic meters of soil, reshaping a new mouth for the river and creating a new island where the park, called Biidaasige Park, now sits. The design helps protect adjacent areas from flooding. From the beginning, Waterfront Toronto wanted to use green infrastructure for flood protection. “They had the vision to identify that this wasn’t going to be an engineering solution,” Mueller De Celis says. “It would be a solution that really tied us back into the naturalized system of the [river] valley, and into the public realm to get people access to nature.” The excavated river is now deeper and surrounded by new wetlands where the water can spread, with berms that help hold water back from other neighborhoods. The island where the park sits was built high enough to avoid flooding. A coalition of partners working on the project carefully designed the park to help bring back wildlife to the area. The park is filled with trees that will eventually form a canopy forest. Along the edge of the river, where engineers might typically use stone or concrete, the team brought in large trees and locked them together in a pattern that helps prevent erosion—and creates new “fish hotels” in the empty spaces as habitat. Other felled trees were laid down hanging over the water to add more new space for amphibians, fish, and birds. Red-tailed hawks, eagles, and otters have returned. This summer, the first phase of the park opened to the public, and the next phase will open in 2026. The park surrounds the new island, and the center will soon become a mixed-use development. Design work started this year on streets and infrastructure, and construction of new homes is expected to begin next year. Eventually, the island will be home to 15,000 residents, 3,000 jobs, and another 15 acres of park space. Nearly a decade ago, Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary focused on urban technology, hoped to build a smart city along a nearby part of the waterfront. But it abandoned the project in 2020. Toronto is now focused on using the whole area to help deal with its housing shortage. At the beginning of 2025, the Canadian government, along with the city and provincial governments, invested another $975 million to build new housing on the waterfront. The park and redesigned river had to come first, to make sure any new development would be protected from floods. “It’s a different way of thinking about building within a city,” Mueller De Celis says. View the full article

Repeat after me: You do not need expensive software just to make basic edits to PDF files. Maybe if you’re a legal professional collecting countless e-signatures on confidential documents, a tool like Adobe Acrobat is a necessity. For the rest of us who just need to sign, merge, split, or fill out PDF documents, there are simple online tools that do the job just as well. The latest advancement in online PDF editing? One that doesn’t require you to upload any of your personal files—and doesn’t even need an internet connection to function. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures! Try this instead of Acrobat The next time you need to edit a PDF, check out PDF Barber​. ➜ PDF Barber​ is a free online PDF editor that processes your documents directly in your browser, promising not to ever upload them to its own servers. ⌚ It takes just a minute or two to edit a PDF file, with no logins or usage limits. ✅ To get started, choose the type of edit you want to perform, make your adjustments, and download the modified file. As of this writing, PDF Barber offers 14 different editing tools—including tools for splitting and reordering pages, merging separate documents, appending signatures, and filling out form fields. Each of these tools is separate from one another, which makes them individually pretty simple to use. If you want to rotate a PDF file, for instance, you can just head to the Rotate page, then choose which pages to flip. (This does mean, however, that if you want to make a few different kinds of successive edits, you’ll need to download a new resulting file each step of the way.) As for PDF Barber’s privacy claims, I tested them by loading the website, turning off my computer’s internet connection, then using a bunch of the editing tools. Most of them worked entirely offline, though the Split tool produced an error message when I tried to download the zip file with all my documents. ⚠️ While most of PDF Barber’s tools work offline, though, you do still need an internet connection to load the website initially. You can install the site as a progressive web app, but it still needs a connection at the outset. For 100% offline use, PDF Barber offers a Chrome extension​—though it’s limited to 30 edits before requiring a $10 lifetime license. When I tried installing the extension with Chrome’s Safe Browsing settings set to “Enhanced,” the browser threw up a “Proceed With Caution” message, noting that the extension isn’t trusted by Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing measures. Google says new extension developers may need a few months​ to become trusted​. That may be the issue with PDF Barber’s Chrome extension, which otherwise doesn’t require access to your browsing data or any other unusual permissions. But as long as you have any kind of internet connection, you can just bypass the extension, load the PDF Barber website, and edit unlimited documents for free, knowing that nearly all of it is working offline. And if your work is so sensitive that you must be completely cut off from the internet to do it, maybe you should be paying for a solution after all. PDF Barber is primarily web-based​, with no downloads needed—though you can install its Chrome extension​ if you’d like. The tool is completely free to use, so long as you stick to the web version. You’ll only run into a payment requirement if you opt to use the browser extension beyond its limited trial period. The PDF Barber ​privacy policy​ is clear about the fact that the service handles all processing locally, on your own device, and doesn’t collect or even so much as see your documents, files, or any manner of personal info. Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletter—starting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app that’ll tune up your days in truly delightful ways. View the full article

BlackRock’s assets under management surge as Wall Street earnings kick offView the full article

We live in a culture that glorifies leadership. Titles like manager, director, or CEO are treated not just as jobs, but as glamorous career destinations (even when the actual job is anything but). In the corporate world, ambition and talent are often defined by how many people report to you, and the ladder of success is measured by headcount under your name. You can be the most talented coder, designer, analyst, or scientist, but sooner or later the corporate current will push you toward leading others. It is the professional equivalent of a rite of passage: You can only go so far unless you manage people. This obsession with leadership explains why nearly everyone wants to be one, and why admitting that you don’t may get interviewers and recruiters to label you as “unambitious.” The fact of the matter is, that the number of people aspiring to lead far exceeds the number of people who can actually lead, especially if we measure leadership talent not by the ability to get the job but actually having a positive impact on your team and organization after you do (yes, this applies to politics, too). Data from organizational psychology is sobering: Most people are not competent leaders. Studies suggest that 50% to 60% of leaders are seen as ineffective by their employees, and engagement surveys regularly show that “my manager” is the single biggest factor driving dissatisfaction at work. In other words, the demand for leadership positions is far greater than the supply of leadership competence. The real problem is not the enthusiasm for leadership, but that people are bad at evaluating their own leadership potential. Many confuse ambition with aptitude, confidence with competence, or popularity with effectiveness. Fortunately, science has given us some reliable markers. Leadership is not mystical. It can be assessed. And while there is no perfect recipe, there are 10 questions you should ask yourself if you are considering the move from individual contributor to leader of others. Think of this as a checklist, not a guarantee of success, but a necessary starting point. Do you have technical expertise? In the past, leaders were legitimized because they knew more than the people they supervised. The master craftsman became the workshop head. The top surgeon ran the department. The best soldier led the unit. Today, AI and automation are eroding the value of expertise. A machine can often answer factual questions faster and better than your boss. Still, expertise matters, not just what you know but whether others see you as credible. A leader without expertise is like a captain who cannot sail: The crew will not follow. The key is not to be the smartest in the room, but to have demonstrated competence in a domain that earns you the respect of those you lead. This legitimacy is essential. Without it, your authority will be questioned at every turn. Are you a fast learner? Intelligence is often misunderstood. It is not about trivia knowledge or SAT scores. It is about the ability to learn new things quickly. In leadership, this matters enormously. Every new project, crisis, or strategy requires you to absorb information, process it, and adapt. Smarter leaders are more likely to solve complex problems, avoid repeating mistakes, and keep pace with change. The real measure is not raw IQ but whether you can demonstrate learning agility. The best leaders are not those who never make mistakes, but those who rarely make the same mistake twice. Are you curious? If IQ is the ability to learn, curiosity is the willingness to do so. It fuels exploration, questions, and the humility to say “I don’t know.” Curiosity also enhances intelligence because it pushes you to acquire knowledge you did not have. Meta-analytic studies show that trait curiosity predicts leadership effectiveness. The paradox is that curiosity tends to decline with age and expertise. The more senior we become, the more tempted we are to rely on what we know instead of questioning it. The best leaders resist this temptation. They continue to ask questions even when they already have answers. Do you have integrity? This should go without saying, but it rarely does. Leadership without integrity is not just ineffective, it is dangerous. Integrity is not about never making mistakes, but about having a moral compass. It requires altruistic values and, critically, self-control: the ability to resist temptations, avoid abusing power, and make decisions that benefit the group rather than the individual. History is full of leaders who failed on this count, from corporate scandals like Enron to political leaders who enriched themselves while destroying their nations. A lack of integrity may not always prevent people from climbing to the top, but it always determines how they are remembered. Do you have humility? Humility is the underrated secret of leadership. It means knowing what you do not know, being self-critical, and acknowledging when proven wrong. It also means being able to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you in certain areas and not feeling threatened by it. We crave humility in leaders precisely because it is so rare. Politicians who admit mistakes are refreshing because they are exceptions. CEOs who credit their teams rather than themselves stand out because they are uncommon. Humility is not a weakness, but an understated strength. Without it, leaders become delusional. With it, they inspire trust. Are you ambitious? Ambition has a bad reputation, but it is essential. Leaders need drive, energy, and persistence. The crucial distinction is motivation: Why do you want to lead? If your ambition is fueled by power hunger, vanity, or narcissism, you will likely harm others in the process. The right kind of ambition is prosocial. It is about wanting to make others better, to create impact beyond yourself, and to leave a legacy that matters. Do you have people skills? Leadership is the ability to build and maintain a high-performing team. That requires emotional intelligence: empathy, listening, influence, and conflict resolution. It will be very hard for you to lead if you cannot manage yourself, or manage others. You can be brilliant, curious, and ambitious, but if you cannot connect with people, you will never sustain their trust or loyalty. Think of great coaches in sports. Their tactical knowledge is important, but their ability to motivate, read the mood of a locker room, and manage egos is what separates the great from the mediocre. Leaders in business face the same test. Your success is measured not by your individual performance, but by the collective performance of the group you lead. Can you tame your dark side? Everyone has one. For some, it is arrogance. For others, impulsivity, paranoia, or aggression. These “dark side” traits are not inherently bad, since they often fuel ambition and resilience, but when unchecked they derail careers. The difference between great and terrible leaders is not the presence of flaws, but the ability to control them. Good leaders know how to edit themselves, even when nobody forces them to. They resist the temptation to “just be themselves” when their unfiltered selves would damage relationships. As I illustrate in my latest book, Don’t Be Yourself: Why Authenticity is Overrated and What to Do Instead, some of the best leaders succeed not by being authentic, but by being disciplined versions of themselves. Can you inspire others? Charisma is a multiplier. When you are competent and ethical, charisma amplifies your impact. Leaders who can communicate a vision with confidence, passion, and clarity are far more effective at rallying teams. But charisma without substance is dangerous. It can make bad leaders even more destructive by persuading people to follow them off a cliff. Think of Martin Luther King Jr., his charisma mattered because it was grounded in integrity, purpose, and competence. Compare that with countless populist leaders whose charisma fuels division and chaos, not to mention charismatic leaders who were utterly destructive (most populist brutal dictators or colorful tyrants fit the bill). If you are ethical and competent, be as magnetic as possible. If you are not, please be boring. Are you coachable? Leadership is never a finished product. Even if you check every box above, the world will keep changing, and your skills will eventually become outdated. The only way to stay relevant is to be coachable: to seek feedback, listen, and adapt. Some of the most successful leaders in history were relentless learners. Leaders who stop learning become rigid, outdated, and irrelevant. Being coachable is not about deference. It is about evolution. So, should you be a leader? If you can answer “yes” to most of these questions, you are better prepared than the majority of people who aspire to lead. If not, it is worth reconsidering. There is no shame in remaining an expert, an individual contributor, or a collaborator without a managerial title. In fact, organizations increasingly recognize the value of technical specialists who do not want to, or should not, manage people. Of course, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge the elephant in the boardroom: Plenty of people ascend to leadership not because they are especially talented, but because they lucked into the right family, the right network, or the right school tie. Nepotism, privilege, and elite membership still grease the wheels of many leadership careers. I’ve left these off the checklist for the simple reason that not everything that is should be. Just because these forces still work doesn’t mean we should celebrate them, let alone confuse them with actual leadership potential. Leadership is not for everyone, nor should it be. But when done well, it can transform teams, organizations, and societies. When done badly, it can destroy them. The checklist above is not just about career advancement, it is about protecting others from the wrong kind of leadership. If you do not have the integrity, humility, or people skills to lead, the most responsible thing you can do is abstain. In the end, leadership is not about you. It is about what you do for others. And that is the question worth asking before you chase the title: Do you want to lead for their sake, or yours? View the full article

’Tis the season for carved pumpkins, god-awful candy corn, and an inevitable workplace costume that lands someone a well-earned talking-to from HR. Halloween is near, which means it’s the perfect time to reflect on a tale from the cubicle that’s even spookier than Tales From the Crypt. It starts with three words that would strike fear in the heart of anyone who’s ever worked in corporate America. Performance. Improvement. Plan. Taken at face value, the phrase sounds gentle, maybe even helpful, like the start of a company-sponsored self-care journey. In reality, a PIP is usually the workplace equivalent of a death sentence, a corporate guillotine that gives “being on the clock” a whole new meaning. At least that’s how it felt early in my career when it happened to me. The news hit like a cold email from HR with no greeting. I remember sitting across from my manager (let’s call her Lisa) at a long-ass boardroom table, fluorescent lights humming, my coffee going cold as she explained the “expectations moving forward.” She had that tone people use when they’re rehearsing empathy. And while I tried to keep my composure, all I could hear as Lisa spoke was, “Your days here are numbered.” I was working at a startup—one of those scrappy, ever-changing companies where job descriptions are more like suggestions. Every few months, my priorities shifted, as did my boss, team, and sometimes the department I worked in. Still, I kept my head down, remained adaptable, and did solid work. But at some point after my third job title change, I started to lose steam. Projects dragged. Deadlines slipped. Some of it was on me—constant change can burn out even the most proactive employee. But a lot of it came down to the chaos: unclear direction, competing priorities, constant pivots. I’d go from one “urgent” request to another, without anyone assessing my workload or considering whether I was merely spinning my wheels. So it was a wake-up call when Lisa summoned me into that 1:1 meeting and told me I was being put on a PIP (no Gladys Knight). I didn’t just need to tighten up; I needed to learn how to move in a room full of vultures. There’s something humbling about having your performance questioned in black and white. I felt embarrassed, frustrated, and, honestly, a little angry. I’d been juggling a revolving door of responsibilities while management kept changing the rules mid-game. But once the sting wore off, I realized this was a turning point. I could either take it as a big L like the late Harlem rapper or treat it as feedback. I decided to lock in. The thing is, I had a publicity problem. So many of my contributions were going unseen, unrecognized, or worse, attributed to someone else. I set out to change that. Asana became my amigo. Weekly emailed status updates to Lisa became the norm. Long division had nothing on the way I was showing my work. I also stopped waiting for clarity. If directions were vague, I asked all of the questions until I got specifics. If priorities clashed, I pushed for alignment. It wasn’t easy; when you’re a young professional, advocating for yourself can feel like being confrontational. But I also understood how silence had been making me complicit in my own confusion. Believe it or not, things improved. My work got sharper. My time management leveled up. Even Lisa softened a bit, noticing that I was handling the pressure with a new kind of steadiness. I started to believe I might survive the PIP and come out on the other side even stronger—not unlike how 50 Cent emerged from the gunsmoke of nine bullet wounds before becoming a household name. Then the layoffs hit. Lisa sat there silent while her boss broke the news: My role was being eliminated as part of a “restructuring.” I raised an eyebrow when she assured me it had nothing to do with the PIP. It didn’t really matter, though. All that growth, all that effort—and I was still out of a job. But I didn’t walk out defeated. I knew I’d done my best work during that PIP. I learned the annoying art of workplace communication and receipt-taking. I stood up for myself. And I left that job with more confidence than I had going in. That was the real win. (Not to mention the years-later apology from Lisa, who admitted that she “undervalued” me. Better late than never, I guess.) My Scottie PIPpen days taught me a difficult but necessary truth: Sometimes you can do everything “right” and still get caught in the wrong storm. But if you use that pressure to sharpen your processes, you’ll come out stronger, no matter how it ends. So if you ever find yourself cast as the main character in your own workplace horror story, don’t panic. Get organized. Get visible. Get curious. (And get your résumé updated, just in case.) Because it’s not about proving anyone else wrong. It’s about proving to yourself that even when things get scary, you’re built to survive. The Only Black Guy in the Office is copublished with LEVELman.com. View the full article

OpenAI never wanted to build a chatbot. As an early beta tester for OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, I can vouch for the fact that the company was caught totally off guard by ChatGPT’s runaway success. An email that OpenAI sent me on November 28, 2022—just two days before ChatGPT came to market and kicked off a trillion-dollar, multiyear, economy-distending AI scramble—didn’t even mention the new interface. Rather, it bragged about the company’s then-revolutionary “DaVinci” model and how it could “deliver clearer, more engaging, and more compelling content” and allow developers to “take on tasks that would have previously been too difficult to achieve.” From the breathless tone of the email, it was clear that OpenAI had bigger ambitions than creating a text-based tool to help you argue with your insurance company or write KPop Demon Hunters fanfics. As Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of product, admitted this week, the company “got a little sidetracked” by ChatGPT. Now OpenAI’s true ambitions are becoming increasingly clear. In Turley’s words, OpenAI “never meant to build a chatbot.” Instead, the company always planned “to build a super assistant.” And that’s exactly what it’s now doing. The ‘super app’ In America, our app landscape is highly fragmented. Yes, if you want to know how fast bamboo grows or figure out the chords for R.E.M.’s 1985 classic “Wendell Gee,” you might fire up the ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini app and ask the bots. If you want to post to social media, though, you’re likely to reach for Instagram, TikTok, or—perhaps steeling yourself for the possibility of encountering MechaHitler—X. Need to bank? Open up the crappy app for your local bank branch with the UI from 2012, and hope for the best. Buying something? There’s Amazon, Instacart, and DoorDash for that. Want to secretly determine how much wealth your friends have accumulated? Zillow to the rescue! In other parts of the world, apps aren’t like that at all. Many countries, especially in Asia, have super apps that integrate all those functions and more into one tool, often controlled by a single, über-influential company. In China, WeChat provides messaging and gaming, but also mobile payments, social media, and mini apps for things like ride-hailing, paying bills, and even getting city services. In many Southwest Asian countries, Grab provides financial services, rides, food delivery, and much else. In the Middle East, Careem provides similar functions. Africa, Latin America, and many other geographies have similar super apps. America doesn’t. And to American technology companies, that’s a big problem. Because the apps are so all-encompassing, their creators control incredible amounts of capital and power. Tencent, the company behind WeChat, had revenues of more than $90 billion and profits approaching $30 billion in 2024—much of it driven by WeChat—and is growing fast. That’s an especially colossal sum in China, making Tencent one of the country’s most profitable companies, behind only a handful of largely state-controlled banks and conglomerates. Here in America, Elon Musk had ambitions to turn X into a super app, but his politics and penchant for second grade humor got in the way. No one else has really taken up the gauntlet. Until now. OpenAI Eats Everything At its October 2025 “Developer Day,” OpenAI made clear that it intends to create a super app, and will spend an almost limitless amount of money to make that happen. During the event, the company announced the ability to run apps directly within the ChatGPT interface. These are very similar to the “mini apps” that have made WeChat so powerful. Initial partners include Spotify and Zillow, but the list will inevitably grow. Simultaneously, the company has rolled out multiple functions that make it look less like a chatbot maker and more like a super-app company. Last week, OpenAI launched new features that let the bot spend your money for you, as well as a protocol to allow direct purchasing from any merchant who opts in. OpenAI’s Sora social network—where all the content is joyfully fake—takes on TikTok and has immediately leapt to the No. 1 spot in Apple’s App Store. And earlier this year, OpenAI shared that it plans to launch a browser to rival the ubiquitous Google Chrome. OpenAI seems to suddenly be everywhere, doing everything. That broad-ranging ambition is the hallmark of a super-app maker. And again, if all the signals weren’t clear enough, Turley essentially confirmed the company’s new direction with his “super assistant” comments. So, will it work? If any company can create a super app, it’s OpenAI. With its wild consumer success, the company has access to bottomless pits of capital. ChatGPT has 800 million weekly active users, and that number continues to grow. OpenAI is the first company in a generation to create an entirely new way of interacting with computers. Its intelligent chat interface lends itself to the integration of other apps and services. My own experience using Instant Checkout confirms that buying things within the ChatGPT interface really is seamless. Still, America’s existing tech titans won’t go quietly. Google is reportedly expanding its own Gemini app, and its Nano Banana system proves it can still grab the public’s attention. Meta already has its own Sora doppelgänger. And while OpenAI is growing quickly, its revenue is only around $10 billion—a drop in the bucket compared to Google’s $350 billion, and still a fraction of the revenue of its Chinese super-app rivals. OpenAI would love to take over every aspect of your digital life. And it may. But despite the hype, the company still has a very long way to go. View the full article

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While most employers offer mental health care coverage as part of their health insurance packages, major gaps in care exist. According to new research, many employers aren’t sure how mental health care services are being used by employees. The 2025 Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) Employer Survey, released Friday, polled professionals at 400 companies with 500 or more employees who made benefits decisions. Mental health coverage was a given almost across the board (97% of respondents said their company offered it), and several companies covered nontraditional programs, like financial therapists (62%) and mindfulness apps (74%). However, there were also several gaps in coverage. Only two-thirds of companies covered substance use treatment. Only one-third of companies covered ongoing treatment for chronic conditions, and only a quarter covered care for those with “diverse cultural backgrounds and unique employee needs.” Even lower on the spectrum was stigma reduction campaigns that help create an environment that encourages employees to seek mental health care. Interestingly, the gaps in coverage could be explained, at least in part, by the fact that companies largely aren’t tracking whether their employees are using mental health services. Only 22% analyzed claims data to ascertain how benefits were being used. Likewise, only 37% of employers measured how satisfied employees were with their health care plans overall. “Complete and transparent access to claims data enables employers to design benefit programs that truly meet the needs of their employees and their families,” said Margaret Faso, policy director with the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, in a press release. “This study reinforces the importance for employers to continue efforts to achieve transparency to better support the health and wellbeing needs of their workforce.” However, the survey also found that employers don’t feel that the breadth of mental health care services, pricing, or quality should be their responsibility. Only 10% said that the employer should be responsible for those aspects of care plans, and instead, that responsibility is on insurance companies (28%), federal (30%), and state governments (24%). View the full article

US Treasury secretary says China’s restrictions on critical mineral will hurt their own international standingView the full article