What's on Your Mind?

A new study paints a promising picture for the ways that digital technology use affects the aging brain. Published in Nature Human Behavior last month, neuroscientists at Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin conducted a meta-analysis drawing on 57 different studies and data from more than 400,000 participants over the age of 50. A digital brain boost The new study found that across the board, the use of everyday digital technology like computers, smartphones, and the internet is associated with lower measures of cognitive decline in middle-aged and older adults. The strength of that positive association was comparable to established protect…

In my decades of working in cybersecurity, I have never seen a threat quite like the one we face today. Anyone’s image, likeness, and voice can be replicated on a photorealistic level cheaply and quickly. Malicious actors are using this novel technology to weaponize our personhood in attacks against our own organizations, livelihoods, and loved ones. As generative AI technology advances and the line between real and synthetic content blurs even further, so does the potential risk for companies, governments, and everyday people. Businesses are especially vulnerable to the rise of applicant fraud—interviewing or hiring a phony candidate with the intent of breaching an o…

Jason Momoa is a tough act to follow. Especially if you’re a Guinness marketer. Last year, the brand partnered with Momoa to direct and star in a U.S. spot for his favorite beer that ended up getting 13 billion impressions. So this year, Guinness decided to celebrate an even more valuable partner—its actual customers and fans. For the newest iteration of the long-running “Lovely Day for a Guinness” tagline—first rolled out in a 1935 ad campaign—the brand collected stories from customers across all 50 states. Among the stories is the Treme Brass Brand in New Orleans, who share pints of Guinness before taking the stage. The Chicago Plumbers Union are in ther…

Billionaire businessman, investor, former shark, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban knows a bit about running a company and leading employees. The serial entrepreneur has founded and invested in successful businesses from food brands to tech startups and pretty much everything in between. Cuban often shares his insights about sweat equity and staying involved in running one’s own business. Here are three of the most actionable pearls of leadership wisdom from Mark Cuban—and how you can put these quotes into action in your own leadership. 1. Embrace Sweat Equity “Sweat equity is the most valuable equity there is.” Put simply, “sweat equity” is the val…

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby conjures up images of gilded Art Deco opulence: cloche hats and shimmering flapper dresses; a freeflow of French 75s and festivities. And that’s thanks, in part, to kaleidoscopic films like Baz Lurhmann’s 2013 adaptation of the novel. But when you read Gatsby, you discover a less glamorous narrative that has perhaps been overshadowed by contemporary Jazz Age visual clichés—one that is essentially a dark portrait of its times with a bit of rot at its core, thanks to the titular swindling bootlegger Jay Gatsby. And that’s what luxe publisher The Folio Society sought to reflect in its brilliant limited-edition illustrat…

Last year, when Canva used a rap song to promote its new suite of products for businesses, the reaction online was about what you’d expect. “Call 911 I’m having a cringe overdose.” “This is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fault.” The performance at Canva’s annual summit, Canva Create (Disclosure: Fast Company is a Create media partner), reminded many of corporate musical escapades of the past, like Bank of America’s adaptation of U2’s “One” back in 2006, or Randi Zuckerberg’s Twisted Sister-inspired ode to crypto in 2022. But for Canva, it drove attention and traffic to the brand. More than 50 million people saw the rap battle within 48 hours, which boosted social media…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve traveled across the U.S. and Europe, attending back-to-back leadership conferences. These weren’t your average networking events; they were filled with C-suite executives asking difficult questions in a particularly charged moment: What’s next for DEI? How do we adapt and innovate when it comes to AI? How do we steer employees in a politically divided country? On stage, speakers repeated polished points, but to me, the most important part of what these gatherings offered wasn’t the panel talks—it was the smaller, informal meetings taking place, the standing around high-tops, and the walks to the various meals. In these candid conversation…

The companies behind AI models are keen to share granular data about their performance on benchmarks that demonstrate how well they operate. What they are less eager to disclose is information about their environmental impact. In the absence of clear data, a number of estimates have circulated. However, a new study published in Cornell University’s preprint server arXiv offers a more accurate estimation of how AI usage affects the planet. The research team—comprised of scientists from the University of Rhode Island, Providence College, and the University of Tunis in Tunisia—developed what they describe as the first infrastructure-aware benchmark for AI inference, …

As recently as 2021, Figma was a one-product company. That product was Figma Design, the dominant tool for creating app and web interfaces. The company’s subsequent addition of offerings such as FigJam (whiteboarding) and Figma Slides (presentations) was hardly a frenzied land grab. But the announcements Figma made this week at its Config conference in San Francisco cover so much ground that my impulse was to interpret them as a massive, sprawling new attempt to take on . . . well, almost everybody. Figma Make turns prompts into AI-generated code? Shades of GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and numerous other AI programming tools. Figma Sites provides features for construct…

Uncertainty has become a defining feature of life today, a reality that challenges workplace leaders to adapt rapidly, make decisions with limited information, and foster stability amid constant and sometimes highly erratic change. At the same time, this uncertainty directly affects employees, making it incumbent upon leaders to provide the support and direction their teams need to successfully navigate an unpredictable world with both resilience and clarity. It goes without saying that the role of a leader has grown increasingly more complex, requiring us to instill stability, foster adaptability, and maintain focus without being overwhelmed by the relentless pac…

Fabric and craft retailer Joann Inc. is officially shutting down all of its stores following a turbulent bankruptcy process. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January for the second time in less than a year, initially saying it would keep its stores open while restructuring its debt. However, just weeks after the filing, Joann reversed course and announced it would close 500 of its roughly 800 locations, as Fast Company reported. The closure of those stores was just the beginning. As part of the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, Joann held an auction on February 21 to sell off its assets. A limited liability company called GA Joann Retail P…

Why are AI chatbots so intelligent—capable of understanding complex ideas, crafting surprisingly good short stories, and intuitively grasping what users mean? The truth is, we don’t fully know. Large language models “think” in ways that don’t look very human. Their outputs are formed from billions of mathematical signals bouncing through layers of neural networks powered by computers of unprecedented power and speed, and most of that activity remains invisible or inscrutable to AI researchers. This opacity presents obvious challenges, since the best way to control something is to understand how it works. Scientists had a firm grasp of nuclear physics before the first …

Earlier this week, Time published an explosive story about an American company that reportedly revived a long-extinct species, the dire wolf. To some, it’s a scientific miracle: Some 10,000 years after the species went extinct, the planet is once again home to three living dire wolf pups, brought about by the ingenuity of scientists at Colossal Biosciences. But let’s not mistake spectacle for substance. Yes, it’s cool that biotechnology can now create animals that resemble extinct species. Colossal is already eyeing its next acts—the woolly mammoth and the dodo. But beyond the buzz and the billion-dollar ambition, this project doesn’t offer real solutions to our plane…

If a single type of building could define our present time, it would undoubtedly be the data center. Underpinning the increasingly online way we work, shop, and entertain ourselves, data centers provide the computing power and storage to handle all the Zoom calls, Amazon purchases, and Netflix streams a person can cram into their day. And now as compute-hungry artificial intelligence dominates the future of nearly every sector of the economy—and possibly society as a whole—the data center will become even more ubiquitous. A headlong data center building boom is already underway. One report finds that average monthly spending on data centers has increased 400% in the l…

Since its last major redesign in 2022, Airbnb has been all about the destination. Staying in homes so unique or glamorous—from McMansions with amazing pools to surrealist homes in a shoe—that they might be worth a trip unto itself. But starting today, Airbnb is expanding its purview beyond homes…again. It’s launching a new product called Airbnb Services, and redoubling on Airbnb Experiences (first launched in 2016). What are Airbnb Services? Services considers everything you might want to accompany that home you’re renting. Photography. A manicure. A massage or spa treatment. A personal trainer. A private chef or fully catered experience. It’s basically eve…

Back in January, Kohl’s announced that it would be closing 27 of its stores across America in order to help the company control costs and increase operational efficiency. At the time, Kohl’s described the closing locations as “underperforming” and said “the closures will occur by April 2025.” And now it looks like Kohl’s remains on track for that “by April” deadline. As first noticed by USA Today, the 27 stores that Kohl’s had previously announced would be closing now list their last day of operation as this Saturday, March 29, on Kohl’s store locator tool. For example, the store locator listing for the Kohl’s located at 1116 1st Street in Napa, California, now l…

Were it not for his experience in North Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt said he never would have become president of the United States. After his first wife and mother died on the same day in 1884, the eventual 26th president retreated to modern-day North Dakota to mourn and reflect. Next July, more than a century after Roosevelt’s death, a presidential library in his honor is slated to open in the state that held so much significance in his life. And the visionaries behind the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library hope a visit to the Medora, North Dakota-based library will prove as restorative to people in the modern era as this area once was for Roosevelt. That m…

The Golden State Warriors are known for their electrifying plays and superstar Stephen Curry, but now the team is pioneering a fresh gameplan: blending sports and entertainment in a way no NBA franchise has before. As the first and only NBA team with its own record label, Golden State Entertainment, the Warriors are expanding their reach with “For the Soil,” a new album released this week. The project featuring the Bay Area’s top music artists — from E-40, Too Short, Saweetie, G-Eazy, Goapele, LaRussell and Larry June — arrives just in time for the league’s All-Star Game weekend in San Francisco. “A basketball team with a record label is unheard of until now, whic…

As a nearly 60-year-old brand, Hot Wheels has been a playroom staple for generations of children. But while the tiny cars and buildable track sets have managed to find their way into the playrooms of millions of children, the looping, curving track pieces have always been a bit of a challenge to actually put together. Mattel, which created the Hot Wheels brand in 1968, knows this is a pain point, especially at the younger end of their target market. Recent research found that less than a third of kids aged 3 to 6 are able to assemble Hot Wheels track sets without help. “That to us was a really big call to say that we need to approach this in a different manner,” says …