What's on Your Mind?

New Jersey Transit urged riders to reach their destinations before the end of the day Thursday or risk being stranded as last-minute talks continued in a bid to avert a rail strike by train engineers that would affect some 350,000 commuters in New Jersey and New York City. The labor dispute is stressing out some Manhattan commuters and already disrupting travel to Shakira concerts Thursday and Friday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Amid the uncertainty over whether the strike would happen, the transit agency canceled train and bus service at the stadium. The system’s advisory provided riders with details on contingency plans that would take effect if engineers w…

“I’ve had more caviar since starting work on the Celestiq than I have during the entirety of my career at General Motors,” Erin Crossley, Cadillac’s design director for color and trim, says before tucking into a ramekin at Gucci Osteria on Rodeo Drive. The uptick in caviar consumption is a leading indicator that Cadillac is going upscale. As design director for the Cadillac Celestiq, the American luxury brand’s new, bespoke electric vehicle, Crossley sits with customers from all over the world and mines more than 350,000 permutations to deliver their perfect personalization. The low-slung EV with a 303 mile range starts at $340,000, pushing the American automa…

The 4chan website is down, and continues not to load for many users, according to Downdetector. (Downdetector is a platform that monitors online services and internet-related issues, and is essentially a crowd-sourced outage reporting tool.) This outage comes amid unconfirmed reports on social media, including on Reddit, that the internet message board was hacked. Fast Company has reached out to 4chan for comment and did not hear back immediately. The outage was first reported on Downdetector at around 9:57 p.m. ET on Monday night, and peaked soon after around 10:12 p.m. ET, when 1,265 users reported the problem. Since then, users have taken to monitoring the pla…

It’s time to celebrate your favorite singers and musical acts by tuning into the American Music Awards tonight (Monday, May 26, 2025) at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Unlike the Grammy Awards, the AMAs put the power in the hands of the fans. As explained on the AMA website, nominations are based on “key fan interactions” such as record sales, number of streams, and tour revenue, while the winners are voted on by the public at large. While most of the polls are closed, there is still time to cast your vote for the Collaboration of the Year and Social Song of the Year. Let’s get up to speed so you can enjoy all the music. Have the AMAs always been on Memorial Day? …

In the defining years of American business, founding CEOs were virtually synonymous with the companies they led. Walt Disney was Disney incarnate; Dale Carnegie came to represent the steel industry itself. These figures were not just company leaders; they were the gravitational center around which entire industries revolved. Those days are gone. Though we still have echoes in modern chief executives like Tim Cook or Richard Branson, these figureheads, too, are becoming rarer. In fact, the average CEO tenure is the lowest in recent history. Over the past three years, CEO turnover has reached record highs, with 58 leadership changes in the S&P 500 alone. This patter…

Humans, for all our intellectual sophistication, are still tribal creatures at heart. We tend to gravitate toward people who are like us—individuals who look like us, think like us, share our values, and even mirror our quirks and tastes. On the surface, this makes intuitive sense. It explains the evolutionary origins of empathy: we feel the joys, sorrows, and struggles of others more deeply when we perceive them as part of our own “in-group.” But here’s the catch: What feels good for individuals can be disastrous for diversity. If left unchecked, our biological instinct to seek sameness undermines one of the core ingredients of high-performing organizations—diver…

A strong solar storm headed to Earth could produce colorful aurora displays across more U.S. states than usual Tuesday night. The sun earlier this week burped out huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections, leading space weather forecasters to issue a geomagnetic storm watch. Northern lights were forecast in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Parts of northern Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania may also get a view. The strength of the light show will depend on how Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar bursts, said …

Tesla has reached a potentially lethal moment in its history, and it isn’t solely due to CEO Elon Musk’s political radicalization. Years of design and technology stagnation have led to a languishing model line and outdated technology. Back in 2023, I wrote that the beleaguered carmaker should aspire to survive and become yet another car manufacturer. Now that objective feels more pressing—and distant—than ever. The company just announced a new quarter of abysmal vehicle sales. Tesla’s first quarter of 2025 was a disaster—a 71% decline in net income compared to the same quarter last year—except for a better-than-expected gross margin thanks to its energy business. Its …

Jennifer Meyer always knew she wanted to work in fashion. It probably comes, she says, from the hours she spent in her grandmother’s Santa Monica, California, apartment, playing with art supplies, and the small kiln her grandmother kept on the kitchen counter. “She did a lot of enameling,” says Meyer, an LA-based jewelry designer. “She had all of these colors and plaques to put things on; wiring. I would design things with her for fun; I have this love of design from her.” Still, as the daughter of an entertainment executive, Meyer didn’t really have a road map for a career in design. She completed her education on the East Coast, studying child and family psychology…

Instacart is launching a new stand-alone app called Fizz, designed for groups to order snacks and drinks ahead of parties for a flat $5 delivery fee. The platform, developed in collaboration with the hugely popular event invite app Partiful, enables partygoers in the 30 U.S. states where alcohol delivery is legal to add items to a shared cart from nearby participating grocery stores. Instead of splitting the bill, each user is prompted to pay only for what they’ve added, with an option to include a tip for the shopper. Back in February, Instacart’s chief product officer, Daniel Danker, approached Partiful CEO Shreya Murthy about partnering on the app. The team…

Zipline’s cofounder and CEO Keller Cliffton charts the company’s recent expansion from transporting blood for lifesaving transfusions in Rwanda to retail deliveries across eight countries—including high-profile partnerships with the likes of Walmart, Chipotle, Panera, and the Mayo Clinic. Zipline’s do-good health efforts and commercial deliveries are all part of Cliffton’s vision for a radical, new transportation network that meets consumers’ desire for accessibility and speed. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Res…

When Cadillac designed its new ultraluxury EV, the handcrafted Celestiq, the design team had to completely rethink its battery pack: a standard EV battery wouldn’t fit inside. “We had a challenge, because due to the low roof height and the expressive proportions, there wasn’t room for a typical battery in this vehicle,” says Tony Nausieda, chief engineer of electrical propulsion systems at GM. “It would have been probably pretty straightforward to do something like an internal combustion powertrain, but that was not at all what anybody wanted to do. This was conceived to be an electric vehicle.” They couldn’t compromise on the low lines of the car. It also had…

As the Class of 2025 graduates into an uncertain and fast-changing working world, they face a crucial question: What does it mean to be successful? Is it better to take a job that pays more, or one that’s more prestigious? Should you prioritize advancement, relationship building, community impact or even the opportunity to live somewhere new? Sorting through these questions can feel overwhelming. I am a business school professor who spends a lot of time mentoring students and alumni in Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2012. As part of this effort, I’ve surveyed about 300 former undergraduate students and spoken at length with about 50 of them. Throug…

REI has long enjoyed a reputation as a progressive company that promises strong benefits and promotes a culture of inclusion and sustainability. As a consumer cooperative, the outdoor retailer has also eschewed a typical corporate structure. But in recent years, against the backdrop of a union drive, some workers have described a culture at odds with REI’s purported values. Despite successful union efforts at 11 of its 180 total stores, REI workers have not managed to successfully negotiate a contract with the company. The National Labor Relations Board is also currently looking into dozens of unfair labor practice charges brought by workers. Last week, REI members vo…

Crocs have taken a lot of forms over the years. From collaborating with Balenciaga to send 10 inch platform clogs down the runway to collaborating with Taco Bell to make a sold-out Mellow Slide together, Crocs is no stranger to whimsy. Now, Cros is partnering with the happy-go-lucky Finnish design house Marimekko to produce a line of shoes that feature the brand’s signature prints. “Marimekko and Crocs both have a very similar brand philosophy to bring joy, positive energy and playfulness to the world,” says Rebekka Bay, Marimekko’s Creative Director. “Our lifelong mission at Marimekko is to bring joy and color to people’s everyday lives, and collaborations with glob…

After a record-breaking 2024 and exciting offseason, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is primed to keep the ball dribbling in 2025. The season kicks off tonight (Friday, May 16, 2025) with three exciting matchups. Here are some fun facts, history, and everything you need to know to get up to speed about the new season, including how to stream the games live. A brief history of the WNBA The WNBA was not the first professional women’s basketball league. That honor fell to the American Basketball League, which operated from 1996-1998. But it is the only one to have the support of the NBA. The WNBA was founded in 1996 and began balling in 1…