What's on Your Mind?

Job interviews are nerve-wracking at the best of times. But for those who see themselves as introverts, they can be extra intimidating. It’s not due to a lack of skill. The ability to think on your feet and sell yourself—no doubt important in the interview process—tends to come more easily to those who go through life a little more extroverted. And yet more Americans see themselves as introverted than extroverted. Contrary to conventional wisdom, that’s not necessarily a bad trait in the workplace: Research has found that introverted leaders outperform extroverts by 28%, driving higher productivity from their teams. Connar Walford, student success lead at t…

One minute, you’re watching a hilarious or even completely bland YouTube short. The next? You realize you’ve just lost an hour of work time or managed to stay up way too late—again. Losing track of time when watching shorts is not an uncommon experience. But now, YouTube wants to help you set limits to stay on task, hit the hay, or just, ya’ know, not lose precious hours of your life to Shorts. On Wednesday, the video streaming giant rolled out a new timer feature on its mobile app. When users log on, they can go into their settings and click on “shorts feed limit” to set a timer that will remind them to stop scrolling. Once users hit their time limit, the app wi…

Venture capital powers innovation, yet investment decisions still favor the familiar. From the original design of the industry to the women reshaping its future, the patterns that drive investment may be poised for change. Is venture capital ready for a new outfit? On October 25, 1988, the Women’s Business Ownership Act (H.R. 5050) was signed into law, granting women the right to own and operate businesses without a male cosigner. This landmark legislation was a breakthrough for women’s economic independence. Yet by that time, generations of deal making had already embedded a pattern of men investing in men. Pattern matching is woven into the fabric of venture cap…

Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI and three other entities on Wednesday, alleging their involvement in an “industrial-scale, unlawful” economy to “scrape” the comments of millions of Reddit users for commercial gain. Reddit’s lawsuit in a New York federal court takes aim at San Francisco-based Perplexity, maker of an AI chatbot and “answer engine” that competes with Google, ChatGPT, and others in online search. Also named in the lawsuit are Lithuanian data-scraping company Oxylabs UAB, a web domain called AWMProxy that Reddit describes as a “former Russian botnet,” and Texas-based startup SerpApi, which lists Perpl…

In today’s world, where success is often tied to financial accomplishments, status, and impressive job titles, Warren Buffett offers a refreshing perspective: True success is about the love we share. Yes, love. Buffett once said, “Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.” Buffett’s wisdom gets to the core of what matters, reminding us that, ultimately, life’s real currency is the relationships we nurture that lead to two-way love. Who do you want to have love you? Are you a leader, manager, founder, or CEO with scores of people looking at you f…

This year has not been a great one for grocery stores, with chains like Kroger and Safeway closing locations in recent months. Now, the Southeastern grocery chain Winn-Dixie appears to be following in their footsteps, with its parent company planning to sell or possibly shutter 32 Winn-Dixie stores by the end of 2025 as its focus shifts to its home state of Florida. It will also transition or close eight Harveys Supermarket locations. The 40 stores impacted span Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Southeastern Grocers (SEG), the Jacksonville, Florida-based company that owns both chains, posted a list of stores that it will transition, with some id…

Breakfast has started to get a little riskier. More than six million eggs have been recalled since Sept. 29 over salmonella concerns. This week those concerns grew when the FDA expanded its earlier recall from Arkansas-based Black Sheep Egg Company and elevated the recall to Class I, which describes the highest possible risk to public health. The move follows a string of other recent egg recalls. In August, the FDA announced the recall of large brown cage-free Sunshine Yolks produced by Country Eggs, LLC of Lucerne Valley, California, and sold under the Nagatoshi Produce, Mizuho, and Nijiya Markets brands. Those products reportedly sickened at least 95 people across 1…

It doesn’t look like a Rivian truck, but a new electric bike took shape at the EV company. A startup called Also, which spun out from the EV maker earlier this year and raised $105 million, launched the $4,500 e-bike today, along with a delivery quad for logistics companies and another four-wheeler that consumers could use instead of a typical cargo bike. The idea sparked three years ago, after Rivian founder RJ Scaringe met with Chris Yu, head of product and innovation at the bike brand Specialized. “We connected over a really basic question, which is: why doesn’t that magical experience that you get out of a Rivian exist in anything smaller than a car?” say…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists just published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will rise +1.2% between August 2025 and August 2026. Heading into 2025, Zillow’s 12-month forecast for U.S. home prices was +2.6%. However, many housing markets across the country softened faster than expected, prompting Zillow to issue several downward revisions. By April 2025, Zillow had cut its 12-month national home price outlook to -1.7%. However, in recent months, Zillow has stopped issuing downward r…

Meta, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram—as well as Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp—announced on Wednesday it is laying off about 600 employees from its new AI “superintelligence” research lab. The news was first reported by Axios. Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment. That lab, dedicated to pursuing an artificial intelligence system that would reportedly surpass human intelligence, was announced back in June after Meta said it was investing $14.3 billion in Alexandr Wang’s Scale AI and bringing him on board. The cuts come as Big Tech ramps up its investment in artificial intelligence, pouring billions in an increasingly competitive,…

San Diego-based Shield AI is developing a first of its kind fighter jet: a 2,000-mile-range pilotless plane that takes off and lands vertically and uses artificial intelligence to fly itself, even when adversaries jam navigation and communication systems. Like the company’s smaller, combat-tested autonomous drone, the V-BAT, the X-BAT doesn’t need a runway, allowing it to launch from remote islands or the decks of aircraft carriers or drone ships. But with its larger blended wing body design, the X-BAT can carry missiles and electronic weapons. Instead of propellers, it’s powered by an afterburning jet engine. “Airpower without runways is the holy grail of deterr…

From July 14 to November 9, 2023, the American actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, representing 160,000 people, went on strike over a labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Eventually, both sides agreed to terms that theoretically would put limits on how actor’s images and output could be used. Strike over, everybody went back to work and the entertainment industrial complex started humming again. But they apparently never took heed of the lessons offered by a somewhat obscure 2013 movie, The Congress, which eerily anticipated the crisis Hollywood is now facing. Caught by surprise? Really? Fast-forward to September of 2025. Dutch actor an…

Ukraine’s state security service has unveiled an upgraded sea drone it says can now operate anywhere in the Black Sea, carry heavier weapons and use artificial intelligence for targeting. Ukraine has used the unmanned naval drones to target Russian shipping and infrastructure in the Black Sea. The Security Service of Ukraine, known by its Ukrainian acronym SBU, has credited strikes by the unmanned vessel known as the “Sea Baby” with forcing a strategic shift in Russia’s naval operations. The range of the Sea Baby was expanded from 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), SBU said. It can carry up to 2,000 kilograms (about 4,400 pounds) of payload, S…

Spending just 36 minutes listening to your own brain waves, over four sessions, can reduce stress and anxiety, according to a new study by neuroscientists at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Published in the journal Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, the study looked at how to reduce stress-related symptoms in 144 healthcare workers with moderate-to-high levels of perceived stress. The healthcare workers were placed in two groups: one that received four sessions of a sound-based relaxation intervention over two weeks, and another that was put on a control group waitlist. The workers spent a little over half an hour relaxing in a …

Data shows that workers and bosses are already at war over where to work, with management demanding more days in the office and employees trying to buck these mandates. But according to a recent report, a new front has opened in the battle over workplace flexibility. It centers not on where employees work but when. When videoconferencing company Owl Labs surveyed 2,000 U.S. workers for its 2025 State of Hybrid Work report, almost half reported they did not have enough flexibility in regard to when they worked. What kind of flexibility were they hoping to get? Something that Owl Labs calls “microshifting.” You may know it simply as breaking up your day as you see …

Cable giant Charter Communications is laying off close to 1,200 employees, or just over 1% of its 95,000-person workforce, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. The job cuts will be related to corporate management positions within the company and will not impact sales or service roles, the source said, adding that the layoffs are intended to streamline operations. Charter follows other media and cable peers that are trimming their workforce. Last month, Reuters reported exclusively that Comcast was planning to cut jobs at its biggest unit, housing broadband and pay TV, to centralize operations. Newly merged Paramount Skydance will begin ma…

The Louvre in Paris reopened on Wednesday, three days after thieves made off with historic jewellery worth an estimated 88 million euros ($102 million) in a spectacular heist that has raised urgent questions over security lapses at the museum. Visitors queued to enter through the Louvre’s glass pyramid for the first time since Sunday’s brazen robbery, in which hooded assailants broke through a second-floor window using a stolen movers’ lift before making off with jewels from the royal collection. Later on Wednesday the museum’s director will appear before the French Senate to answer lawmakers’ questions. The Galerie d’Apollon, the ornate gilded hall that was r…

Stocks are drifting near their record heights on Wall Street Wednesday, while the price of gold falls again to trim more off its tremendous gain for the year. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% in early trading and is sitting just underneath its all-time high, which was set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 65 points, or 0.1%, coming off its own record. The Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time. Bank stocks were holding relatively steady after Capital One Financial, Western Alliance Bancorp and others reported stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. The report from Western Alliance was particularly welcome af…

“What?!” That single word is the most frequent reaction Aasiyah Abdulsalam gets when she tells people about her company, Renatural, which makes wigs with no lace. The surprise stems from the fact that most commercial wigs today are built with a lace base—a lightweight mesh cap that mimics the scalp but is really scratchy and only comes in a limited palette of colors. Instead of lace, Abdulsalam has designed a proprietary silicone band to anchor the wig without visible mesh. After launching the Wig Fix three years ago and selling 80,000 units in her first year, she decided to expand from simply supplying an accessory to reinventing the wig itself. Launching tod…

Don’t look now, but meme stock mania appears to be back with a vengeance this week. This time around, Beyond Meat, Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND) and Krispy Kreme, Inc. (Nasdaq: DNUT) are the two main stocks getting all the attention from meme investors. Here’s what you need to know. Beyond Meat shares skyrocket again On Monday, Fast Company reported on the surging share price of Beyond Meat, the producer of plant-based meat alternatives. The company started the trading week by enjoying a stock price surge of more than 67% in premarket trading that day. But far from any change in the company’s financial fundamentals, what seemed to be driving shares higher were short…