What's on Your Mind?

In a world where work-life boundaries are increasingly blurred, the well-being of employees has emerged as a pivotal issue. Despite leaders’ good intentions, a stark reality persists: While a staggering 91% of executives believe they prioritize employee well-being, only 56% of employees share that sentiment. This disconnect, revealed in a recent Deloitte study, underscores a critical gap that companies must bridge if they are to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. As businesses grapple with the complexities of modern work, a framework is emerging to guide leaders: The Four Pillars of Worker Well-Being. These pillars offer a comprehensive approach to fostering a h…

During my tenure at Facebook, now Meta, from 2014 to 2017, posters were plastered all over the grounds. “The job is only 1% done.” “Move fast and break things.” I was struck by one in particular on my first day of orientation: “Nothing at Facebook is someone else’s problem.” No matter my department or title, I had permission to take ownership of a problem and fix it. It’s the corporate version of “If you see something, say something,” or, in this case, do something. The irony is that I’m saying something because I see what Meta is now doing. It is actively making their problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) everyone else’s problem. To me it’s clear the comp…

Nearly three in five people worldwide—a significant 58%—plan to look for a new job in 2025. That’s a lot of people in the hunt and if you’re one of them, it can feel a bit overwhelming. It doesn’t help that many job seekers are also feeling stuck, applying to more positions than ever yet hearing back less often. The shifting job market, influenced by more competition and the growth of AI, has made old strategies less effective. To succeed, job seekers need to rethink their strategy—focusing on roles that align with their skills, crafting tailored applications, and finding ways to stand out. The good news? With a clear, intentional approach, you can navigate these chal…

It was the year 2000. We survived Y2K and sat at our computers obsessed with a strange new game called The Sims. It was the first game I ever played where the protagonist could be late to work, forget to take out the garbage, or be so preoccupied by the doldrums of life that they might pee themselves. I, alongside millions, was hooked and could not articulate why. Born from the mind of Will Wright—the same designer who bucked the industry’s penchant for arcade games for world simulators like SimCity—The Sims is almost as hard to define now as it was then. Is it a virtual dollhouse? A simulacrum of suburban life? A neighborhood of tamagotchis with jobs? An HGTV ho…

Reid Hoffman returns to Rapid Response to explore today’s AI landscape, and the future promised by a concept he calls “superagency.” Hoffman shares his vision for what an AI-infused workday will soon look like, how we should address society’s greatest fears about technology, and more. As we enter a daunting new era—politically, socially, and technologically—Hoffman urges listeners to choose curiosity over fear. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leader…

Paola Antonelli has a litmus test for worthy design. People often ask the Museum of Modern Art’s senior curator of architecture and design how she decides what to add to the museum’s collection, and she gives them simple instructions: “Close your eyes and think, If this object did not exist, would the world miss out?” she says. Of course, filling one of the world’s preeminent art museums is not quite that easy. Antontelli says you also have to consider an object’s form, function, and problem-solving utility—but her litmus test is something she returns to again and again. “It doesn’t mean that something has to be necessary,” Antonelli clarifies. Take, for example, the …

Starbucks’s new CEO, Brian Niccol, made a bet last September that the company could draw customers back into its stores by reintroducing personal touches you might see at smaller, third-place sort of coffee shops, like handwritten names on to-go cups. Here we are about four months later, and Starbucks has beaten Wall Street expectations, announcing $9.4 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of last year during its earnings call Tuesday. Niccol attributed the chain’s performance to “getting Back to Starbucks and those things that have always set us apart.” (Though it’s worth noting that the company’s sales are still down year over year.) Starbucks developed a b…

As climate change causes increasingly severe natural disasters, it’s also increasingly threatening our art, culture, and shared history. In the recent Los Angeles wildfires, billions of dollars in fine art may have been consumed; architectural gems by Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, and others were destroyed; and the warehouse of Belmont Music Publishing, a repository chronicling Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg, was lost in what the composer’s son called “a profound cultural blow.” For museums, archives, and libraries, which often operate as nonprofits on limited budgets, meeting these increased risks poses significant financial constraints. This challenge …

Today’s fast-paced workplace requires us to change and adapt at increasing speeds, while managing complex interpersonal demands. Despite these challenges, we can utilize emotional intelligence to meet these continually increasing demands and excel in our new reality. The basis of emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our emotions—as well as know how they impact others. Beyond that, emotional intelligence gives us greater ability to understand the emotions of others, allowing for greater empathy. This in turn increases our ability to work effectively with others of different backgrounds and perspectives. Glenn Llopis, author of …

Happiness over one’s lifetime has been popularly described as looking like a U-shaped curve: The joys of youth are followed by the challenges of our 20s and 30s before an upswing later in life that reaches a peak after retirement. While that may be true—or not—in wealthier countries such as the United States, it doesn’t apply to low-income, nonindustrialized societies. That is the main finding of a study I led that examined aging in rural, subsistence-oriented communities in 23 countries across the Global South. And our results have implications for global health amid aging populations and growing economic insecurity. In our study, we found that happiness levels d…

From streamlining administrative tasks to enhancing brainstorming sessions, AI is becoming an essential workplace companion. Yet, despite its transformative promise, its integration isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. We recently conducted research at Lucid Software to uncover AI usage in the workplace. We found that more than a third of workers globally are already using AI for fundamental tasks like generating ideas (39%), creating content (37%), communicating summaries (33%), and finding documentation (31%). When thinking about how we’ve adopted the technology into our products, our decade-long investment in intelligence has been key to building an AI-ready platf…

By Gordon Boggis and Michael DiTullo Imagine sitting in a café where the clatter of a fork hitting a plate across the room drowns out your conversation with the person sitting next to you. Have you ever worked in an open office filled with overlapping video calls, making it almost impossible to focus on the document on your screen? Perhaps you recall discussing sensitive matters in a bank while overhearing equally private conversations from the next office. These everyday examples highlight how disruptive noise pollution can be and how important it is to prioritize acoustics. The reality is that poor acoustics are a pervasive yet solvable problem. Like a pebble in…

There only a few absolute truths in life. The two most recognizable are death, and unless you’re very rich or politically connected, taxes. There are, however, numerous others just a slight tier below; not the least of which is that nearly everyone has a story of themselves or someone close to them wanting to be an architect at some point in their lives. In our collective societal brains we envision these rarified individuals to be highly creative thinkers and mathematical whizzes who are constantly innovating. Those who study history might even think of the great masters of antiquity such as Imhotep, Vitruvius, Brunelleschi, or other unknown masters of ancient Rome, …

Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday. The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water almost right from the start. “That’s the kind of environment that could have been essential to the steps that lead from elements to life,” said the Smithsonian Institution’s Tim McCoy, one of the lead study authors. NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams (4 ounces) of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, deliveri…

Get ready for an onslaught of ads full of celebrities, cute animals and snack brands during breaks in the action at Super Bowl 59 on Feb. 9, when the Philadelphia Eagles face the Kansas City Chiefs at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Anheuser-Busch, Meta, PepsiCo, Frito-Lay, Taco Bell, Uber Eats and others will vie to win over the more than 120 million viewers expected to tune in for the broadcast on Fox and via the free livestream on Tubi. Demand for ad space was robust this year, said Mark Evans, executive vice president of ad sales for Fox Sports, with ad space selling out in November and a waitlist for marketers ready to take the space of anyone who pulle…

Amazon.com was sued on Wednesday by consumers who accused the retailing giant of secretly tracking their movements through their cellphones, and selling data it collects. According to a proposed class action in San Francisco federal court, Amazon obtained “backdoor access” to consumers’ phones by providing tens of thousands of app developers with code known as Amazon Ads SDK to be embedded in their apps. This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, revealing sensitive information such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations and health concerns. “Amazon has e…

The devastating California wildfires have led to a number of benefit events, from concerts to comedy shows, with the intention to fundraise for wildfire recovery efforts. The team at Critical Role, meanwhile, is going to do what they do best: play Dungeons & Dragons. Critical Role announced a special live one-shot D&D adventure titled “Freaky Thursday,” featuring Bells Hells, the characters from its third D&D campaign. The charity event stars Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, Laura Bailey, and Liam O’Brien, with game master Matthew Mercer. “Let’s do some chaotic good,” wrote O’Brien on X, sharing the an…

“What’s more motivating than a punch card?” That’s the simple idea behind a recent so-called “punch party” that creator @emiliamariehome hosted with friends. On January 24, @emiliamariehome posted a video on TikTok of her group of friends creating punch cards (think: loyalty cards) as a Galentine’s day activity. It quickly went viral, gaining over 1.5 million views. Because whether it’s scoring a free cappuccino at your local coffee shop or a fresh loaf of bread at an independent bakery, the satisfaction from punching that final hole in a punch card is unmatched. Now, social media users are hacking that dopamine hit to achieve their own goals, from dating to readi…

Legoland Florida plans to lay off 234 workers, primarily performers, in an effort to be more competitive in central Florida’s thriving theme park market, company officials said. The theme park resort in Winter Haven, Florida, said in a notice to the state of Florida last Friday that the permanent layoffs would start at the end of March and last through the beginning of April. Three-quarters of the workers cited for layoffs were performers, and another fifth also was involved in the entertainment side of the theme park, according to the notice. The theme park resort, whose workers are nonunion, has about 1,500 employees. The theme park resort is owned by Me…

Spirit Airlines has rejected a merger offer with Frontier as it prepares to exit bankruptcy. Wednesday, Frontier made its second offer to merge with the bankrupt Spirit Airlines, but Spirit rejected it on the grounds that it was financially insufficient. In 2022, Frontier offered to acquire Spirit for $2.9 billion, but the offer was ultimately rejected when Spirit chose to accept a higher offer from JetBlue (which was later blocked for antitrust concerns). Frontier Airlines put forward its current merger offer in hopes of creating a strong, low-fare airline together. “We have long believed a combination with Spirit would allow us to unlock additional v…