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Amazon’s new Echo Dot Max is a $99 ball. Its Echo Studio is a $199 ball. Its Echo Show is a tablet (starting at $179), attached to a ball. For its grand refresh of its Alexa-powered line of speakers and tablets, Amazon spent three years rethinking the foundations of its audio engineering to conquer the home theater market in the most spherical manner possible. “Legitimately—they sound really good,” says our senior editor Liz Stinson, after a listening test. But from my own discussions with the design team, it’s clear that what Amazon has created are not just new voice assistants, or even mix-and-matachable speakers capable of creating a 3D soundscape for movies an…

Google’s YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit President Donald The President brought after the video site suspended his account following the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol following the election that resulted in him leaving the White House for four years. The settlement of the more than four-year-old case earmarks $22 million for The President to contribute to the Trust for the National Mall and a construction of a White House ballroom, according to court documents filed Monday. The remaining $2.5 million will be paid to other parties involved in the case, including the writer Naomi Wolf and the American Conservative Union. Alphabet, the par…

The new Adobe Premiere Mobile is now available for free in the Apple Store. It promises “pro-level” video editing for YouTube and TikTok pros—or anyone who needs cutting multiple tracks of video at 4K resolution together with motion graphics, subtitles generation, overlay captions, AI-generated stickers, and a never-ending list of technical features. That’s cool, but Adobe really had me on board when it showed off its AI sound generator, which can interpret your vocals to generate actual effects. Like you hum, “pa-pa! pa-pa! Paaaaa-para-pa-PA!” in your iPhone’s microphone, ask Premier to turn it into a fanfare, and it will remake your voice into a full orchestral 20th…

OpenAI just released Instant Checkout for ChatGPT—a new feature that lets users directly make purchases within the ChatGPT interface. ChatGPT can now spend your money for you. It’s a huge deal—both for users, brands, and the future of agentic AI. Here’s why. Stickers at the ready Consumers are already enthusiastically turning to chatbots like ChatGPT to research products before deciding what to buy. As TechCrunch shared earlier this year, referrals from chatbots to top merchant websites are up almost 400% year over year. I personally used ChatGPT to research an $800+ laptop purchase this summer. Before, users could do their research in ChatGPT, …

Wholesale Produce Supply, a food supplier based in Minneapolis, has recalled more than two dozen varieties of its fresh cut and processed cantaloupe products due to a risk of contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced. According to a notice posted by the FDA on Monday, September 29, no illnesses have been reported to date, but Listeria has the potential to cause serious infections. Here’s what to know: Which products are affected by the recall? Wholesale Produce Supply fresh cut cantaloupe was sold to distributors in Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, who may have distributed the product to other states.…

Charlie Javice, the founder of a startup company that promised to revolutionize the way college students apply for financial aid, was sentenced Monday to more than seven years in prison for cheating JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million by greatly exaggerating how many students it served. Javice, 33, was convicted in March of duping the banking giant when it bought her company, called Frank, in the summer of 2021. She made false records that made it seem like Frank had over 4 million customers when it had fewer than 300,000. Addressing the court before she was sentenced, Javice, who was in her mid-20s when she founded the company, said she was “haunted that my failure has …

Shares of Spotify Technology SA were put on the spot this morning as the Swedish audio-streaming company announced that CEO Daniel Ek will be transitioning out of the role at the end of the year. He will be replaced by two new co-CEOs: Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s current co-president and chief product and technology officer, and Alex Norström, co-president and chief business officer. Ek will remain with the company and oversee its long-term strategy and capital allocation, and provide guidance in his new role as chairman of the board. Kicking and streaming Investors may take some time to absorb the news. Spotify stock, listed in the U.S. and trading on t…

Shares of Beyond Meat slumped to a record low on Monday after the maker of plant-based meat launched an exchange offer for convertible bonds to cut more than $800 million in debt. The stock was last down 32.1% at $1.93, after falling as low as $1.23. The company last month posted a revenue drop and a wider-than-expected loss, citing weak U.S. consumer demand. It said it was still facing “an elevated level of uncertainty” and will not provide any full-year estimates. Consumer spending has been affected by economic uncertainty and consumer tastes have been shifting in the plant-based meat market. The company will exchange its $1.15 billion 0% convertible not…

When the clock strikes midnight tonight, the U.S. government could shut down. If that happens, it will be because Congressional Republicans and Democrats could not reach an agreement on a new funding bill, which is required to keep the government running. As noted by CBS News, one of the key sticking points between Democrats and Republicans involves healthcare provisions in the proposed bill. Democrats want provisions in the bill that would help fund healthcare for millions of Americans across the country. They also want restrictions on President The President’s ability to withhold such healthcare funding. Republicans have so far refused to entertain these provisi…

For decades, the baby food aisle has been dominated by big players like Nestlé, which makes Gerber brand products, and Danone, whose brands include Happy Family. Angela Vranich and Ben Lewis—high school sweethearts turned entrepreneurs—wanted to change this. Even though they didn’t yet have children, they believed that millennial parents were looking for new sources of food for their growing families. “Millennials had spent their twenties drinking fresh-pressed juices and eating salads,” Vranich says. “When they started having kids, they were looking for food that was more nutritious than what they grew up eating.” In 2017, the pair launched their direct-to-co…

Experts are warning that tariffs on pharmaceuticals are likely to increase shortages of essential medications. The government’s ongoing investigation into the national security implications of importing pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients is widely understood as a precursor to sector-specific tariffs, which a White House advisor has said are likely. On the other hand, the administration recently issued a new executive order laying the groundwork for tariff exemptions for some pharmaceutical products imported from countries that reach trade agreements with the United States. As a result, manufacturers, pharmacists, doctors and patients are in limbo. Digi…

More than a month after the The President administration forced a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut to stop construction—costing the developers more than $2 million per day—the project just resumed work. On August 22, the government issued a stop-work order for the Revolution Wind project, which is designed to power 350,000 homes. It cited unspecified “national security concerns” despite years of review by federal agencies including the Department of Defense. Hundreds of workers were left idle. On September 22, a federal judge granted the developers a preliminary injunction to allow construction to continue. Judge Royce Lamberth, …

Remember CDs? There’s a new company betting that, if you don’t already, you’re about to. Jewel is a Norwegian company specializing in manufacturing high-end display cases for CDs. The brand recently soft-launched online in Europe and is planning to expand to the U.S. in the coming months. It offers products that range from an $130 freestanding case that fits four CDs to a $300, 16-slot case designed to be mounted directly onto the wall. Launching a CD-based brand more than 20 years after CDs hit their peak feels like a counterintuitive prospect. After all, how many people even own a CD player these days? But Marius Brandl, Jewel’s founder, says the brand’s thesis …

We know that having friends at work is good for your performance and happiness. But could ChatGPT replace your happy hour bestie? According to a new study from KPMG that surveyed more than 1,000 professionals, almost all (99%) would be open to the idea of an AI chatbot assuming the role of close friend or trusted companion at work. That same study teases out a separate, also compelling thread: 45% of workers reported feelings of loneliness at work. That’s a huge jump, up nearly double from last year. On top of that, the survey found that friendship seems to be a big priority for most workers—even over money. More than half (57%) of those surveyed said they wo…

As press releases go, it was a mic drop moment. On September 4, OpenAI announced that it was coming after LinkedIn. And it was coming after job search specifically. For those unfamiliar with the story, it was reported across multiple sources that not content with torpedoing Google, education, interpersonal relationships, and entire industries such as psychiatry or management consultancy (both smugly considered untouchable until about 15 minutes ago), OpenAI is now coming after the age-old industry of human resources. Specifically, the $300 billion company wants to streamline the process of hiring by automatically matching candidates to roles via context alone,…

A decade ago, inventor Jeneva Bell launched a startup called Ruggable that seemed radical at the time: A rug brand with products that you could throw in your home washing machine when they got dirty. Rugs have been a household staple for thousands of years, adding warmth and color. But wool and cotton rugs are delicate and require expert cleaning—which creates challenges for people who have toddlers, or pets, or cups of coffee that occasionally spill. Bell knew there was another way, so she designed a rug with two parts—a base and a polyester top layer—that could be separated and cleaned in a home washing machine. She believed that if she created a product that lo…

In summer 2019, Bob McDonough took a full stack web development coding bootcamp at the University of Pennsylvania. An English-turned-telecommunications major in college, McDonough had been working at a bar while sending out job applications for positions he barely wanted. Most paid below $50,000 a year, an undesirable salary for a 27-year-old in Philadelphia. McDonough says his “degree really wasn’t doing it” for him. “So, I figured I’d add a certificate to stack my résumé,” he says. What McDonough was doing was upskilling—the practice of learning new skills or sharpening old ones to attain maximum desirability in the job market. While taking this web dev course,…

You don’t need a perfect jump shot or the exhaustive knowledge (or opinions) of Stephen A. Smith to land a career in sports. You can get far on passion and a desire to spread that love of the game throughout an increasingly fan-driven world. Sports marketing—which encompasses everything from managing multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals and crafting social media campaigns for local teams to coordinating fan activation at the Super Bowl—is one of the most robust components of the sports industry, which is worth at least $500 billion globally. To understand the state of play in this arena, Fast Company analyzed nearly 2,800 job listings on Google for Jobs between April…

Below, Joe Nucci shares five key insights from his new book, Psychobabble: Viral Mental Health Myths & the Truths to Set You Free. Joe Nucci is a licensed psychotherapist. As a content creator, he contextualizes mental health misinformation. His videos at @joenuccitherapy reached over 10 million people in the first six months of posting and his writing can be found in his newsletter, Psychobabble. What’s the big idea? Psychobabble replaces mental health misconceptions with liberating truths that can help readers avoid misinformation, navigate important debates in the mental health field, and better maneuver their own therapy journeys. The problem is not tha…

The ChompSaw is a power tool made for kids to cut, craft, and create with cardboard. Its unique design makes it perfectly safe for little hands to use and easily carve precise corners or elegant edges through old boxes. Developed by college friends Kausi Raman and Max Liechty, ChompSaw raised $1.2 million in less than a month on Kickstarter and has already sold more than 30,000 units online. The ChompSaw is a winner of Fast Company’s 2025 Innovation by Design Awards. View the full article

The evidence is mounting. There was a time when a college degree all but guaranteed a job. Not anymore. For decades, entry-level roles served as the primary on-ramp into the workforce for college graduates. They offered young professionals a foothold—an opportunity to build experience, earn income, and grow into long-term careers. But today, that pathway is rapidly eroding. And it’s leaving an entire generation of educated workers without a clear way in. Today’s college graduates are facing one of the most hostile job markets in recent memory, especially when it comes to entry-level roles. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a 9.3% unemployment rate for …

Across all sectors of the economy, there is a lot of churn in leadership right now going all the way to the top. The C-suite and its equivalent in many organizations has become a merry-go-round. When a new leader is hired into a key role, they must quickly get adapted to how things work in order to make positive changes while breaking as few things as possible. Great leaders have strategies to enable them to engage their new team quickly and institute change effectively. Here are four strategies that are critical. 1. Meet your team In a leadership role, you are likely to have many teams in your portfolio. In order to do anything successfully, you need to know w…

Maxwell House is doing some downsizing. For a limited time, it’s changing its name to Maxwell Apartment. Just in time for National Coffee Day, the coffee brand owned by the Kraft Heinz Company announced that while supplies last, it’s selling a year’s supply of its specially packaged coffee for just $40 on Amazon, or what it’s calling a 12-month “lease.” It’s the same exact coffee, just cheaper at about 10 cents less per ounce. (It also has a new name for the first time in 133 years.) The brand cites statistics that coffee drinkers could save more than $1,000 a year with the offer compared to daily cafe runs. That’s not enough for a down payment on a home, but it’…

Hillshire Brands, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, has recalled some 58 million pounds of corn dogs and sausage-on-a-stick products, saying they “may be contaminated with extraneous material, specifically pieces of wood embedded in the batter,” according to the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The problem was discovered after the Tyson Foods subsidiary received multiple consumer complaints, five of which involved injuries. Upon investigation, Hillshire Brands determined that the wooden sticks entered the production process prior to product battering. The FSIS has received no additional reports of injury from consumption of these prod…

Spending on AI infrastructure is now contributing more to U.S. GDP growth than the entire consumer economy, according to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The comparison, which was posted to Twitter (X) by economist Heather Long on Monday, suggests that hype may not be the only thing propping up the high stock prices and valuations of AI companies such as Nvidia and OpenAI. Here, “consumption” means consumer spending on goods and services for personal use, which traditionally contributes about 70% of U.S. gross domestic product. “AI Spending” means business investment in software and information processing equipment, including data center construction, c…