What's on Your Mind?

Biometric authentication—the ability to unlock your devices by using just your face or fingerprint—is one of the few smartphone features that, even today, leave me feeling like we’re living in the future. When I was a kid, technology like facial recognition was limited to science fiction. But as cool and useful as biometric authentication is, the technology can also leave us vulnerable. Here’s why—and how to protect yourself. It’s not just journalists and activists who can have their biometrics used against them Last month, journalists got a stark reminder that their biometrics might not keep the data they have on their devices safe from law enforcement searches. W…

Olympians aren’t just physically exceptional—they’re masters at managing where their attention and energy go. Cognitive research finds a key link between working memory and performance: elite athletes are better able to regulate their memory and attention than their less-trained peers, and this ability predicts better performance under pressure. What separates peak performers isn’t just effort, but also the discipline to balance their mental load. In other words: their “thoughtload.” Consider thoughtload the invisible tax on your ability to perform. It consists of three problems that erode your effectiveness: The cognitive demands of competing priorities…

The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics may be winding down, but the memories will linger for years to come. The competition began on Wednesday, February 4, with the official opening ceremony on Friday, February 6. A little more than two weeks later, the Games will conclude with an epic closing ceremony on Sunday, February 22. So much action was packed into the event that it was a full-time job keeping up. Since a lot of people have actual full-time jobs, here’s a look back at the highlights, endearing moments, and heartbreaks of the XXV Olympic Winter Games. How can I track 2026 Winter Olympics medals? First things first. You can stay up to date with all of the …

Alysa Liu, who quit skating at 16, didn’t ‘need’ a gold medal, she told reporters in Milan—she had already found joy. The 20-year-old from California, who won the first individual Olympic gold in women’s figure skating for the U.S. after 24 years, didn’t need to be champion. She says she was just thrilled to perform. “I don’t need this [medal],” Liu said right after winning, full of joy, while cheering on her competitors. “But what I needed was the stage and I got that, so I was all good. No matter what happened.” Liu isn’t feigning enthusiasm for the cameras. You can feel it radiating from her body when watching her skate—which she did, flawlessly, when perfo…

As major employers have slashed jobs over the last year, many of them have cited artificial intelligence or automation to justify the cuts. AI was referenced in nearly 55,000 layoffs in 2025, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas—and the latest figures suggest that trend is continuing into this year alongside a record-high surge in job cuts, which crossed 108,000 in January alone. But economists and experts have repeatedly said that employment data does not indicate AI is replacing jobs en masse at the moment. And it seems even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shares this skepticism over whether AI is actually responsible for the layoffs roiling the wo…

The Class of 2020 still aren’t over the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling their graduation. Apparently they never stop bringing it up, according to TikTok. Now their complaints are being used as a punchline. Being robbed? “Did you know that I didn’t get a graduation.” Slip on ice? “I didn’t have a prom, I didn’t have a homecoming.” Oh, your grandma just died? “Okay, well if you think that’s bad, I literally didn’t graduate.” While the trend has been around since Gen Z did—or didn’t—graduate in 2020, with some reminiscing on those “unprecedented” times and others crashing their siblings’ graduations in place of their own, it has recently picked up traction again…

We’re told from a young age to follow our dreams. But for Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon, chasing your dreams is overrated. Instead, she recommends a different approach, especially for young people: “Chase your talents, not your dreams.” The 49-year-old, who has a $400 million-plus net worth, shared the advice in an Instagram reel this week: “I just got off the phone with a young woman who is looking for career advice,” she says in the clip, which has since racked up over 482,000 likes and thousands of comments. “She wants to switch from one job to another,” Witherspoon says, adding that the woman is currently unhappy at work. This is a predicament many …

My family had Slide Show Night when I was growing up. Not every Saturday, but a whole bunch of Saturdays. Either my sister or I would be in charge of setting up the projector, the screen, and loading the carousel. During the show, there’d be a few landscapes or skylines taken during vacations, but almost all the shots were up close. Like most dads, mine wasn’t a professional photographer, but he did a good job of capturing memory triggers: faces, gestures, and decorations. Before we were driving age, my sister and I were given our own cameras as Christmas gifts. We’d spend our own money buying and developing film. We basically documented our Gen X life: playing in th…

A federal judge has ruled that Tesla is still required to pay $243 million over a 2019 crash involving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot, despite the company’s efforts to overturn the verdict. In August 2025, a jury found Tesla liable for the death of Naibel Benavides Leon, a 22-year-old woman who was killed when George McGee, who was driving a Tesla Model S, drove through an intersection while he bent to look for his dropped phone. The crash occurred in Key Largo, Florida, in 2019. McGee’s vehicle, which was equipped with Tesla’s Autopilot technology, crashed into an SUV that was parked on the shoulder, killing Leon and injuring Dillon Angulo. “I trusted the…

You’re stuck in traffic again, late for work, watching brake lights stretch to the horizon. According to the most recent data in the U.S. (2024), here are some of the ways traffic jams are lowering the quality of life: Americans lost an average of an entire work week sitting in traffic. Commuter costs have surged 16% over the past five years to reach $269 billion annually. Congestion time for commuters has gone up 10% since 2019 and it’s 19% for trucks delivering all the products we buy. Stress increases of 80%, and aggressiveness increases of 52%. Long stretches in traffic lead to back pain, leg pain, and headaches. There’s no one solution to dealin…

When word started circling that AMC Theaters was screening an AI-generated short film, the internet’s cinephiles took it personally. On Wednesday, some social media users reported that the short was playing in the pre-show before trailers at select AMC locations. A little digging revealed the source: Earlier this week, the short, titled Thanksgiving Day, was announced as the winner of the inaugural Frame Forward Animated AI Film Festival. The prize package included a nationwide theatrical release, which apparently entailed making its way to AMC’s screens. Movie lovers across social media were immediately up in arms. Some called for boycotts. Some found it insultin…

We have a complicated relationship with creativity. Intuitively, we understand its value—the ability to produce new ideas and novel innovation. Instinctively, we know that it presents opportunities for marketplace advancements. When we think of some of the most revered organizations in modern times, like the Apple’s and Disney’s of the world, we point to their creative contributions and their impact. However, although most companies revere organizations with a creative culture, there is a deep-seated misnomer that some companies are inherently creative and others just aren’t, as if creativity is a rare gene or a divine gift that is bestowed on some and coveted by others. …

At one point in my life, I managed a team of seven. My days consisted of 1:1 calls, performance reviews, and running interference between the team, other departments, and customers. I thought that’s what I wanted: the perceived power and responsibility of being a manager. But in reality, it was very stressful. Today, I have been a solopreneur for three years. The assumption is that solo businesses are a starting point. You launch alone, build momentum, hire employees, and scale. That’s the entrepreneur’s playbook, right? But over 80% of small businesses in the U.S. have no employees, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. For many of us, tha…

The venerable business case study method got its start in 1921 at the Harvard Business School. The method became standard at the school throughout the 1920’s and since then Harvard has a near-monopoly grip on the business, selling its cases to over 4,000 rival schools. Cases can be useful and informative, but recognize that they aren’t reality. The companies featured typically require that the case writer submit the case to them for approval. That introduces survivor bias—whoever is still around at the time of publication gets to dictate how the narrative is told. Another issue is that the companies selected and held up as exemplars are subject to the halo effect. Th…

Is it lawful to call boneless chicken wings ‘wings’? According to a U.S. District Judge, yes. On Tuesday in Illinois, Judge John Tharp reached a verdict in a case brought against Buffalo Wild Wings alleging that the wings aren’t wings and shouldn’t be referred to as such on the restaurant chain’s menu. The suit, which was first brought by customer Aimen Halim in March 2023, claimed the business had violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act by referring to the product as “boneless wings” instead of something the plaintiff deemed more fitting, such as “chicken nuggets. In the end, the judge didn’t feel the case had any bones. In a 10-page ruling, Tharp wrote, “Bonel…

Walgreens will lay off hundreds of employees as the pharmacy chain continues to struggle with increased competition and higher-than-desired costs. On top of this, the newly private company is expected to close at least another few dozen retail stores in 2026. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Walgreens has announced that it will cut at least 628 jobs across two states, according to communications it sent to the states in question earlier this month. A Walgreens spokesperson confirmed the layoffs with Fast Company when reached for comment. News of the layoffs was first reported by Bloomberg. The job cuts include 469 positions in the company’s ho…

The worst days of the pandemic are long behind us, but the world is still reeling from its aftereffects. For some people, this has driven a dramatic reprioritizing of what’s important in their lives, including where they work and the kind of energy they’re prepared to give to the company that employs them. According to a new survey, one result of the pandemic aftershocks in the workforce is a sharp rise in how much people want to take time off to travel. Younger Americans are so keen to vacation, in fact, that they’re putting off big life decisions and even going into debt. Not only could this shift in priorities affect your business if you’re trying to attract young …

OpenAI, the maker of the most popular AI chatbot, used to say it aimed to build artificial intelligence that “safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return,” mission statement. But the ChatGPT maker seems to no longer have the same emphasis on doing so “safely.” While reviewing its latest IRS disclosure form, which was released in November 2025 and covers 2024, I noticed OpenAI had removed “safely” from its mission statement, among other changes. That change in wording coincided with its transformation from a nonprofit organization into a business increasingly focused on profits. OpenAI currently faces several lawsuits related to i…

Those in steady employment in 2026 might feel like they won the lottery, as the number of job openings dwindles at the same time as layoffs continue to hit. This has caused some recruiters to shift their focus from employers to the unemployed: Instead of companies hiring recruiters to find and place talent, job seekers are now the ones enlisting recruiter services to help get a foot in the door, coughing up hefty fees (either a flat rate or a cut of the candidate’s first-year salary once they land a job). The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the trend which has come to be known as “reverse recruitment.” One boutique agency the Journal spoke with, Th…

It’s hard to tell AI news from AI hype at the best of times, but the most recent surge around agents, triggered by many developers embracing Claude Code a couple of months ago, feels like something different. With the viral freakout over Moltbook, the agent social network, and the Super Bowl ad slap fight between OpenAI and Anthropic, AI has escalated to a new level of mainstream attention. Everyone’s forgotten about the AI bubble and is instead dancing around the AI “inflection point,” when AI in general and agents in particular begin to take over huge swaths of knowledge work, with massive consequences for the economy and the workforce. The recent sell-off of SaaS s…