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GameStop Corp. is forging ahead with efforts to reduce its physical footprint in the first weeks of 2026. The video game retailer is closing stores in numerous states this month, according to local media reports, and emails and store signage shared by customers on social media, part of its ongoing effort to reduce costs and adapt to changes in shopping habits. The closures are not completely unexpected. In its third-quarter earnings report on December 9, GameStop said it had already closed 590 stores in the United States during the previous fiscal year as part of a “store portfolio optimization review.” In a December filing to the Securities and Exchange Comm…

If brands want to reach the shoppers of the future, they’ll need to meet them where they already are: playing video games. For this youngest generation, the coolest places to hang out aren’t the local mall or park but inside virtual worlds. While Millennials had Sega Mega Drives and Mario Kart, and Gen Z grew up on The Sims and Angry Birds, Gen Alpha — born between 2010 and 2024 and still under 17 — is coming of age in a world even more seamlessly integrated with technology. Gaming is no longer fringe culture; it’s where they socialize. Analysts at investment bank UBS recently found that while older generations still spend about two more hours per week on social p…

If there’s one thing worse than having to assemble a PowerPoint presentation, it’s being forced to sit through an achingly dull one conducted by someone else. So what if there were a better option—a way anyone, regardless of skill, could create a sleek and actually engaging slideshow that looks like a professional designer had a hand in it? If you ask Grant Lee, we’ve already reached the point where that’s possible. And it doesn’t end with presentations. Lee is the founder of an AI-centric startup called Gamma. You may not have heard of it yet, but 50 million people have—and are already using the service. That’s led the scrappy, 30-person company to reach a mi…

I’m not one for binaries, but it’s likely you’re either aware of Gap’s 2025 comeback tour, or you have a healthy amount of screen time. For those of us who aren’t full luddite teen (aspirational), I’m here to tell you that Gap is continuing its play to cement its place among the fashion set—and cultural domination—in 2026. We’re seeing this with Gap’s announcement today of a new Spring collection kicking off a multi-season partnership with Victoria Beckham, bringing clean lines and refined classics that harken from the designer’s British sensibilities to the eponymous American brand. The 38-piece line of wardrobe staples will be available online and in select global G…

Gap stock is plummeting this morning in early trading after the company reported its fourth-quarter results after the bell yesterday. As of this writing, shares of Gap Inc. (NYSE: GAP) are down more than 12%, and its recent temporary store closures are partly to blame for that. Here’s what you need to know. Gap’s Q4 2025 results The iconic retail chain turns 56 this year, and during its long life, it has seen its fair share of ups and downs. The company’s name-brand Gap stores were an iconic mall staple in the 80s and 90s, but in the early 21st century, the brand faced growing competition from online rivals and shifting brand loyalties among Gen Z—something the com…

Fashion collaborations are nothing new, but 2025 felt like a year particularly stuffed with branding matchups. There’s a reason why this might be happening. “Online platforms have become crowded, [there are] rapidly accelerating trend cycles, [and] it’s become more challenging than ever for brands to stand out,” Cassandra Napoli, a head culture forecaster at WGSN, says. Collaborations continue to be a unique and important tool for marketing and maintaining cultural relevance. The best lead to attention-grabbing virality, as was the case with Nike x Skims’ first drop, Sandy Liang x Gap, and Willy Chavarria x Adidas. “Collaborations have become so important because …

Getting a seat at the Masters is notoriously difficult, with tickets to the golf tournament only available to the public through an online lottery that has to be entered a year in advance. But the Masters may have an even more exclusive offering than attendance: a limited edition garden gnome potentially worth thousands of dollars. In 2016, Augusta National, the Georgia golf course that hosts the Masters every year, released the first gnome of what is now a coveted set of ten. Each year, the gnome sports a different outfit. Sometimes it’s a golfer, sporting a set of clubs and a sweater vest. Sometimes it’s an attendee, flexing its badge and a signature Masters snack l…

Gary Vaynerchuk prides himself on being ahead of the curve. As the chairman of communications company VaynerX and the cofounder of Resy, not to mention an angel investor in brands like Twitter, Facebook, Uber, and Venmo, he knows a thing or two about trends in business. And in a new interview with CBS Mornings, he shared what he thinks is to blame for consumer burnout: not advertisers, social media, or even consumers themselves—but modern parenting. “I think that parenting needs to be called out of the last 40 years,” Vaynerchuk said. “I believe that the burnout, the insecurity, all the stuff we talk about, I believe the reason we’re buying more stuff is, we’re using …

As the Super Bowl clock ticked just below three minutes left in the game, Eagles wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith picked up the giant Gatorade cooler, snuck behind head coach Nick Sirianni on the sideline, and hit him with the traditional shower celebration. It was probably one of the best ads of the Super Bowl, and it wasn’t even a commercial. And yet, it still told a story about how close the ties are between this brand and one of the most significant moments in sports. This year, Gatorade celebrates its 60th anniversary since Dr. James Cade first concocted his formula to keep the Florida Gators football team hydrated. Gatorade chief brand of…

Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes. PepsiCo, Gatorade’s parent company, said Thursday that the brand wants to broaden its reach to non-athletes who are looking for ways to hydrate, whether they’re on a long flight, going for a walk or nursing a hangover. New packaging highlights the specific ways Gatorade’s various drinks and powders work and the research behind them. The change reflects U.S. consumers’ booming interest in beverages with perceived health benefits. Jack Doggett, a food and drink analyst with the consulting firm Mintel, said his research indicates 60% of consume…

Amid tariff whiplash and the rejuggling of global trade, GE Vernova’s CEO Scott Strazik is finding a way to stay “relentlessly optimistic.” Strazik returns to the Rapid Response podcast to share how the company plans to continue its success as one of Wall Street’s top-performing stocks, despite looming supply chain disruption and market unpredictability. 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 Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Res…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Before there was Apple, Medtronic, or Tesla, there was General Electric (GE). Created in 1892 from the combination of Thomas Edison’s Edison General Electric and two other competitors, the American conglomerate was once the most powerful, valuable, and inventive company in the world. …

Google announced its widely anticipated Gemini 3 model Tuesday. By many key metrics, it appears to be more capable than the other big generative AI models on the market. In a show of confidence in the performance (and safety) of the new model, Google is making one variant of Gemini—Gemini 3 Pro—available to everyone via the Gemini app starting now. It’s also making the same model a part of its core search service for subscribers. The new model topped the scores of the much-cited LMArena benchmark, a crowdsourced preference of various top models based on head-to-head responses to identical prompts. In the super-difficult Humanity’s Last Exam benchmark test, which …

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are taking Gemini Space Station Inc. into the prediction market space. The cryptocurrency exchange’s CEO and president, respectively, said on Thursday that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has granted a Designated Contract Market (DCM) license to a company affiliate called Gemini Titan, LLC. Gemini Titan will offer event contracts written as yes-or-no questions about future occurrences, essentially letting U.S. users gamble on the outcomes of everyday events. As examples, Gemini in its announcement provided the questions, “Will 1 bitcoin end this year higher than $200k?” and “Will Elon Musk’s X end up paying the f…

If the holiday hustle and bustle is stressing you out, the night sky is providing a perfect moment to pause and wonder at some majesty this weekend, as the Geminid meteor shower (Geminids) is set to peak. The Geminids are technically active annually—this year, from around December 1 through 21, and the action peaks on the evenings of the 12th and 13th. Let’s take a look at the science and history behind this cosmic phenomenon, before we dive into how best to view it. When was the Geminid meteor shower first discovered? These days, the Geminid meteor shower is considered by NASA to be “one of the best and most reliable annual meteor showers.” The event s…

Cursive handwriting is making a big comeback in schools for students of the Gen Alpha generation (born between 2010 and 2025). New Jersey and Pennsylvania are the most recent in a growing number of states to bring old-fashioned penmanship back into the classroom, with governors in both states enacting legislation this year requiring schools to teach it. New Jersey had stopped requiring it in 2010—but new legislation now mandates schools there to teach cursive to kids ages 8 to 11, in third to fifth grades. The Garden State follows about two dozen states in mandating that cursive handwriting be taught. Those states include California, which signed a law in 2024 req…

Gen Alpha, the youngest generation of active consumers in the market, are teetering on the onset of teen angst. For many of them, an unavoidable trigger of it will be those pesky hormonal-triggered breakouts. It’s a moment for the skincare industry to once again swoop in and offer tweens and teens a smorgasbord of problem-skin creams, gels, patches and facemasks treatments. That part hasn’t changed for generations of consumers. What’s evolved are the strategies brands are using today to reach the youngest of them. Previous generations of teens, for instance, would see ads for acne brands in glossy magazines, newspaper inserts, on TV during Nickelodeon commercial b…

Let’s be clear: We shouldn’t expect kids to be experts in financial literacy. As much as they love YouTube, I doubt many spend their time watching videos of Warren Buffett. However, the oldest members of this Gen Alpha group will become adult consumers soon enough, and between the way they approach money and their perception of spending, two things are quite clear. The first is that regardless of their industry, companies will be put to the test by this generation. The second is that Gen Alpha may have a rude awakening when faced with the harsh realities of life. We’ve done several studies on Gen Alpha, with the most recent focusing on their thoughts and interacti…

Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, grew up with MTV and empty houses, earning them the name “latchkey kids.” The first generation who logged onto AOL Instant Messenger and played video games while still enjoying the freedom that came before helicopter parents took over is fascinating. But as a small generation that falls between baby boomers and millennials, they’re often overlooked. When it comes to their spending power, however, Gen X is small but mighty. According to a new report from ICSC, a trade association for retail real estate, Gen X may have more spending power than brands realize. While Gen X only makes up around 19% of the U.S. population, th…

Connecting with Gen Z is crucial for brands, especially as teens and twenty-somethings gain spending power and influence. But doing so can be a bit of an art. That’s why a new crop of companies are offering “translation” services for brands that want to speak Gen Z’s language and, as they say, get “locked in.” While many Gen Z translation businesses are still in their infancy, the Wall Street Journal reported that it already represents a multi-million-dollar industry. Some analysts estimate that Gen Z’s spending power is set to grow to $12.6 trillion by 2030, up from $9.8 trillion in 2024, according to the Journal. At the same time, Gen Z is far more digitally n…

If you want to instantly reveal your age, just order a hot black coffee — seriously. Gen Z is flipping the script on how coffee is consumed, and spoiler: they like it cold, sweet, and loaded with creamer. For a lot of younger drinkers, that very first cup of coffee was just as likely to be iced as it was hot. And get this—about 85% of Gen Z coffee fans are adding creamer, compared to just 70% of coffee drinkers overall. That shift in taste is making waves in the industry. Nestle, for example, has been rolling out new products to keep up—from cold-dissolving instant coffee to liquid espresso concentrates and all kinds of flavored toppings. “We’ve done a lot of thin…

If you follow any Gen Zers on social media, you may know they seem to abide by one piece of sage wisdom: Go big or go home. That much is certainly true when it comes to their wild prom-posals and sometimes scary-extravagant gender-reveal parties. And apparently, it also holds true for their Valentine’s Day celebrations. According to a new survey from CouponFollow, on average, Americans in relationships plan to spend around $155 on the day of love this year. But Gen Z? Gen Z wouldn’t be satisfied unless they were going above and beyond. The generation that seems to enjoy flashy celebrations will spend far more on cards, chocolates, and stuffed animals, budgeting $235 t…

I think back to freshman year, when my friends and I would cram onto a lumpy dorm-issue twin bed and huddle around one phone, collectively cringing as we swiped through Hinge. That was my first foray into dating apps. It took me a week—and a handful of dead-end chats—before I deleted it. As it turns out, I’m far from alone. According to mobile app analytics company AppsFlyer, 65% of dating apps downloaded in 2024 were deleted within a month. This year, that number has climbed to 69%, AppsFlyer told Fast Company. During the pandemic, dating apps were a lifeline. Gen Z spent much of their formative years—high school, early college—on Zoom, and online dating…