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Authoritarian acolytes will tell you that, to be strong, a country must “demonstrate force.” White House advisor Stephen Miller recently put that worldview plainly on CNN, arguing that “the real world…is governed by strength…by force…by power”—a claim belied, as it were, by history. America did not become a superpower primarily by proving it could dominate. It became a superpower by proving it could partner. After World War II, the United States stood unrivaled militarily. Yet it did not rely on force alone to secure its position. Instead, it invested in rebuilding a shattered world. The Marshall Plan was not charity—it was a strategy, linking economic recover…

The Ford Mustang Mach-E cruises down a London road choked with traffic, using its onboard AI system to avoid jaywalkers and cyclists, and navigate roadwork as it drives to its destination. The autonomous vehicle from British startup Wayve Technologies is on a test run ahead of the U.K. government’s robotaxi trials set to launch in the spring. Tech companies including U.S. company Waymo and China’s Baidu also plan to take part in the pilot program, making London the latest arena in the global robotaxi competition. While self-driving cabs aren’t new, London’s ancient road layout and busy streetscapes could pose special challenges for the technology. There’s also skeptici…

For the last several years, enterprises have treated AI as something to test. A pilot here, a proof of concept there. That era is ending. According to new global DeepL research, a survey of 5,000 global executives on the impact of AI agents reshaping business, 69% expect AI agents to fundamentally change how their companies operate in 2026. Nearly half anticipate major transformation, while another quarter say that change is already underway. This moment didn’t arrive overnight. While 2025 was the year agentic AI moved from theory to application, enterprises are making the shift structural this year. Leaders are no longer asking whether AI works but rather deciding wh…

Before the holidays, Adam Conner began vibe coding. Like everyone else in the know, he was using Claude Code. Compared to popular chatbots, Anthropic’s advanced AI agent speaks the language of computers: code. Normally, you click buttons in browsers, open folders, and drag files. But you can also do so by coding—interacting with software by typing commands into a terminal, a text-based app. Claude Code goes beyond such primitive tasks, though: an AI that can code can effectively do nearly anything on a computer. “We expected developers to use Claude Code for coding, but then something unexpected happened,” an Anthropic spokesperson tells Fast Company. “We started…

Bourbon was once hailed as the poor man’s drink. The spirit has since developed, however, from a mass-market American staple into a luxury class, and limited releases, higher prices, and brands vying for prestige have caused a crowded top tier. Even though the premium field has widened, the very top of the market remains stubbornly narrow, according to whiskey expert Fred Minnick. During a blind tasting of his top 100 American whiskeys of 2025, Minnick evaluated leading contenders anonymously. Even without labels, the rankings reflected the same hierarchy seen at retail and on the secondary market. The most scarce, high-status bottles still rose to the top, regar…

Cheap tote bag collections everywhere just got an attachable clip-on upgrade. Snatch is a shoulder strap system designed to attach and detach to fabric surfaces without damaging them. The clips are comprised of three pieces of hardware—a button, slotted loop, and fastener—and they can give thin-handled tote bags new life with a wider, sturdier shoulder strap in just a few steps, exemplifying a simple and solutions-oriented Occam’s razor approach to product design. To assemble, you place fabric over the button piece and thread it through the aluminum slotted loop. The fastener holds it all into place, and the strap is then attached onto a g-hook on the slotted…

If you’re in the Northeast, there’s a good chance you’ll be hunkering down inside for a few days as a major snowstorm batters the East Coast. And if you have a flight to catch, well, there’s a high probability that it might not be taking off at all. Due to the blizzard, which is forecast to bring up to two feet of snow in some areas, thousands of flights have already been canceled or delayed. Here’s what you need to know if you have a flight to catch. Thousands of flights have already been canceled due to the snowstorm As of the time of this writing, 5,348 flights within, into, or out of the United States today have already been canceled, according to data…

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. During Charles Giancarlo’s first all-hands meeting after becoming CEO of Pure Storage in 2017, an employee asked: “How long are we going to keep the name Pure Storage?” The question suggested that having “storage” in the company’s name limited the range of products and services it could offe…

New York City is a city of walkers. More trips are made on foot than by car (41% versus 28%) and the city’s “80X50” climate action plan envisions that 80% of all trips by 2050 will be made either on foot, by biking, or by public transit. The problem is that pedestrian movement in the city has remained largely unmapped and underestimated—until now. Together with a team of researchers, Andres Sevtsuk, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has built what he says is the first complete model of pedestrian activity in New York City—and it’s a model that can now be applied to any U.S. city. The model, which maps foot traffic across al…

Ghost jobs are postings for positions that don’t actually exist for various reasons, and they waste countless hours for job seekers who apply to roles that were never meant to be filled. Experts in recruiting and career strategy have identified specific warning signs that reveal when a posting is likely fake or abandoned. This guide breaks down how to recognize these red flags before investing time in an application, so you can better focus your efforts on genuine opportunities. Prioritize Responsive Employers that Show Immediate Engagement One reliable way to identify a ghost job is to see whether applying to it leads to any human response at all. Today, silence h…

After officials released millions of pages of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, revelations in his emails and other files have led to the resignations of multiple corporate executives, new investigations into abuses by Epstein and potential accomplices, and even the arrest of the United Kingdom’s former Prince Andrew. For those looking to research Epstein’s vast correspondence and web of connections across industry, government, and academia, some of the most effective tools have been built not by federal investigators or big-name news organizations but by a scrappy team of volunteer developers. Starting with a website called Jmail, which …

With uncertainty as the new norm, leaders are understandably searching for psychological anchors. They’re looking for ideas that can steady people and sustain energy through change. One of those anchors is hope. Across corporate mission statements, fresh publications from thought leaders, and HR manifestos, corporations have elevated hope from a state of being to a strategic imperative. But what happens when an emotion becomes a business model? How to define hope in an organizational context Psychologically, hope is a cognitive and motivational state defined by three elements: agency (belief in your capacity to shape outcomes), pathways (the ability to identify…

Snapple might be gearing up for a long-awaited comeback by taking a page out of its ‘90s playbook. On February 18, Snapple’s parent company, Keurig Dr Pepper, announced that the beloved tea brand is unveiling a refreshed visual identity designed to “return the Snapple brand to icon-status.” The new look, which will roll out beginning this March, includes new graphics, a logo inspired by the brand’s ‘90s look, and an updated bottle design that hearkens back to its original glass packaging. At the same time, Keurig Dr Pepper told Fast Company that it’s reinvesting in marketing efforts for Snapple, including through an ongoing campaign focused on the drink’s hometown of …

A CEO sits in a boardroom, staring at a strategy deck generated overnight by AI. The analysis is sharp. The recommendations are confident. The numbers line up. And yet something feels off. It feels flat, almost a little too perfect . . . This moment is becoming increasingly common for leaders. Artificial intelligence is now one of the most powerful management tools ever created. It can analyze markets in seconds, surface patterns no human team could find, and generate plans on demand. For many executives, AI already feels indispensable. But as intelligence scales at unprecedented speed, a quieter question is emerging inside organizations: How do we ensure AI…

If you walk into a grocery store in the Netherlands or Germany, you might not realize you’re being steered toward plant-based protein, from vegan tortellini to plant-based yogurt. But across Europe and the UK, major retailers are quietly driving that shift. And they’re seeing results at a time when plant-based sales are struggling in the US. Lidl, a budget supermarket, grew UK sales of its private-label plant-based line by nearly 700% from 2020 to 2025. In Germany, France, and Italy, plant-based retail sales are growing across multiple categories, with most of that growth coming from supermarkets’ own brands. Lidl is one of several retailers with a deliberate stra…

Corporate culture isn’t built by policies. It’s built by moments—the unscripted experiences that catch us off guard, bring us closer, and quietly shape how we show up for one another. But many efforts labeled “culture-building,” including onboarding programs, leadership retreats, and all-hands meetings, still feel like productivity theater: tightly scheduled and heavy on performance. Today, it’s worth asking whether that model has simply run its course. Consider this: what if the future of culture-building isn’t about managing people, but about designing experiences that allow people to feel something real together? What if awe, story, and shared creativity weren…

Our capacity to juggle several tasks at once is among the most important capabilities of the human cognitive system. Just consider a typical day in the life of a modern human: you glance at your phone while waiting for coffee to brew, skim headlines while half-listening to a podcast, mentally rehearse a client pitch while walking your child to school, reply “noted” on Slack during a meeting while updating a slide deck, check your bank balance while standing in line, and, in a moment of entirely optional productivity theatre, scroll through a friend’s Facebook feed to see what their cat had for breakfast (admittedly, not the most important addition to our already heavy…

If you have ever interviewed for a job, there is a non-trivial probability that you have encountered “tricky” or quirky interview questions. These are questions that are intentionally unexpected, abstract, or only loosely related to the actual requirements of the role. Rather than systematically assessing job-relevant skills, they are designed to surprise candidates, test composure, or signal creativity. Interviewers often defend these questions as clever ways to evaluate problem-solving ability, cultural fit, or performance under pressure. The evidence tells a different story. Decades of research in industrial-organizational psychology show that unstructured, brainte…

The workplace presents a distinctive set of disclosure dilemmas, beginning with the strange fan dance of interviewing. We are trying to put our best foot forward; to convince our potential employer we’re a perfect fit and consummate professional, yet we’re asked, “What are your weaknesses?” and “What are the biggest mistakes you’ve made?” Even the seemingly laidback “So, tell me about yourself” can feel like a trap. Where should we start? There has been a lot of buzz in recent years about the benefits of “bringing your whole self” to work. There’s some evidence for those benefits. Letting others see more of you than you might ordinarily show them forges bonds, includ…

You’re interested in AI but you’re human: You’ve got emails to answer, deadlines to meet, and you don’t have 40 hours a week to sift through academic papers on large language models. You just want to know what’s happening, why it matters, and maybe how to use it to get home a little earlier. In that spirit, here are five AI podcasts to help you get smarter and stay informed without wasting your time. The AI Daily Brief For the busy professional who needs the headlines fast, there’s The AI Daily Brief. It’s usually about 20 minutes, which is perfect for the commute or while you’re brewing that second pot of coffee. Host Nathaniel Whittemore does a great …

American statesman and polymath Ben Franklin’s legacy includes inspirational quotes on frugality, honesty, and hard work. He’s less frequently thought of as an icon of successful aging. But as doctor and author Ezekiel Emanuel recently pointed out on Big Think, “At a time when the average age at death was under 40, he lived to 84, fully mentally competent all the way to the end.” That makes the founding father a worthy source of advice on aging well. What’s the biggest lesson we can learn from him. Unsurprisingly, given he lived at a time when dentures were made out of wood and surgery was done without anesthesia, Franklin can’t teach us anything about the latest …

The fleeting nature of the Olympic Winter Games makes them all the more alluring. The scarcity is almost sacred. Competitors work their whole lifetimes for one shot at glory that takes place over a period of just a few weeks. To celebrate every athletic achievement at the XXV Olympic Winter Games, the closing ceremony will take place Sunday, February 22. Here’s everything you need to know including how to tune in. Where will the Milano Cortina Olympic Closing Ceremony take place? Just like William Shakespeare intended, it’s fair in Verona where we lay our scene. The Milano Cortina Closing Ceremony will be held at the Verona Arena, which many historians believe …

AI is transforming how teams work. But it’s not just the tools that matter. It’s what happens to thinking when those tools do the heavy lifting, and whether managers notice before the gap widens. Across industries, there’s a common pattern. AI-supported work looks polished. The reports are clean. The analyses are structured. But when someone asks the team to defend a decision, not summarize one, the room goes quiet. The output is there, but the reasoning isn’t owned. For David, the COO of a midsize financial services firm, the problem surfaced during quarterly planning. Multiple teams presented the same compelling statistic about regulatory timelines, one that tur…