What's on Your Mind?

A lot of people go out on their own after a layoff, especially in the current economy. And when they do, they tend to focus on what they don’t know: how to find clients, how to set pricing, how to market themselves. But a long corporate career also builds some core competencies that translate directly into running a solo business. I spent 15 years in a corporate environment, including a role on an executive team. I pivoted to a new career, and then found myself laid off 18 months later. I made the snap decision to start my solo business the next day. While a lot of aspects of starting a solo business were intimidating, there were things I knew I could do well bas…

From the outside, ambitious professionals look confident and in control. Promotions, leadership roles, packed calendars—they all signal someone who has it figured out. But many high achievers are quietly struggling with something else: they’ve stopped trusting their own instincts. Ambition trains you to listen outward. Performance reviews, promotions, praise, and metrics reward the ability to meet external expectations. Over time, that habit can drown out the internal signals that tell you when something feels aligned and when it does not. Rebuilding self-trust rarely happens in a single breakthrough moment. It happens gradually as you start recognizing the pa…

Americans can’t get enough chicken—brands like Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A have risen as fast-food superstars while others race to consolidate their spot as winners of the chicken sandwich wars. Now, Chili’s is entering the game in a big way. Value menus, a staple of chain and fast-food restaurants, bundle multiple menu items at a discounted price, giving customers a full meal without the full cost. Now, Chili’s—whose value meal includes an entrée, fries, a soda, and bottomless chips and salsa—is adding chicken sandwiches to the mix. “We’re setting our sights on fast food chicken sandwiches, offering our gigantic Big Crispy and Spicy Big Crispy chicken sandwich…

Any leader who steps into the role of CEO at an established company competes with the legacy of their predecessors. Only some of us are lucky enough to have had a mentor come before them, one who was as vested in their successor’s success as they were in their own. Jerry Lee, now a retired architect and executive director of our MG2 Foundation, was my CEO predecessor at MG2 and my mentor. Jerry has always understood growth as something far deeper than financial success. From the earliest days of his career, he learned that resilience and purpose come from how we show up for others. “Part of being generous,” he once said in a commencement speech at Washington State Uni…

Earlier this year, financial technology company Block laid off 4,000 employees—around half the company’s workforce—in its push to embrace AI. Based on a recent interview, it seems like CEO Jack Dorsey has some more major changes in store for the company. And if true. . . he’ll have quite a few more performance reviews to fill out this year. In a recent episode of the Long Strange Trip podcast, Dorsey said he wants to cut middle management layers from five managers down to two or three this year. “In the most ideal case, you know, there is no layer,” he said in the podcast episode. “Everyone in the company reports to me, and that would be all 6,000 of the company. And …

Looksmaxxer leader Braden Peters—better known as Clavicular or “Clav”—likes to smash his cheekbones with a hammer and do meth to stay lean. What does he not like? Being associated with the incel community or questioned about his manosphere friendships on television. In a recent segment for 60 Minutes Australia, journalist Adam Hegarty sat down with Clavicular, but the interview was abruptly cut short when Clavicular walked out. For those unfamiliar with Clavicular, the New Jersey-born Kick streamer, 20, has risen in popularity over the last few months for sharing his looksmaxxing journey—what he calls a movement of self-improvement—where he resorts to rather extre…

Delta just unveiled the new version of its most premium seat, and it’s designed to let passengers stretch out just like they would in their bed at home. On April 13, the company announced that the “next generation” of its Delta One suites, which are made for long-haul international and domestic flights, will debut in early 2027 on new Airbus A350-1000 aircraft. The updated design will include a flat bed that’s been expanded by more than three inches, a custom cushion to act like an in-air mattress, and a new cubby to store shoes. Delta’s announcement comes just weeks after United (the second-largest airline by revenue behind only Delta itself) officially debuted …

Engineering is one of the most male-dominated workforces in America. As of 2023, only 16% of engineers in the U.S. were women. Marketing, meanwhile, is an industry led by women: Though it has a more even split, the field still employs more women than men, with 60% of marketing roles in the U.S. held by women. But a phenomenon in new job listings has some experts wondering if marketing is undergoing a reinvention—one designed to make it a more enticing field for men. The discourse began when brand consultant Miranda Shanahan pointed out a trend she’s noticed on LinkedIn. “I’m convinced marketing jobs are being rebranded so that boys can do it too,” Shanahan said in…

“This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.” The day’s forecast called for high winds, but around midday in downtown Manhattan, it felt like a perfect spring day. The sun shone high in the sky last Tuesday as people gathered on the sidewalk around the corner from City Hall. Municipal employees mingled about, chatting excitedly. The cause for celebration wasn’t the weather—but a sleek, modernist-looking shed on the sidewalk where there had once stood a vacant newsstand. The structure may not have looked like much, but it had been years in the making. Since 2021, Los Deliveristas Unidos—a union of app-based delivery workers—h…

The man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home had written about AI’s purported risk to humanity and traveled from Texas to San Francisco intending to kill Altman, authorities said Monday. Authorities allege 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama threw the incendiary device about 4 a.m. Friday, setting an exterior gate at Altman’s home alight before fleeing on foot, police said. Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI’s headquarters about 3 miles (4.83 kilometers) away and threatened to burn down the building. Moreno-Gama is opposed to artificial intelligence, writing about AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending …

When I launched TaskRabbit in 2008, I thought entrepreneurship was about persistence. The narrative in Silicon Valley was simple. If you believe in an idea strongly enough and push hard enough, success eventually follows. Years later, after building TaskRabbit into one of the companies that helped define the early gig economy, I started hosting a podcast called “Breaking Precedent.” I wanted to talk with founders, investors, and innovators who had changed the rules in their industries. What I expected to hear were stories about grit and determination. What I actually heard were stories about something else entirely. Again and again, the most pivotal moments in the…

“I would like to introduce our Principal Auctioneer for the Broad Arrow sale today, Lydia Fenet at the Amelia.” As I walk up the steps to the podium to take my place next to the auction reader, I look out at a packed room of over a thousand people sitting and standing around the room. 10, 9, 8. Adrenaline floods my body. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. 7, 6, 5. Shoulders back. Chin up. Eyes forward. I listen as the reader finishes the last minute sale announcement and gives a brief description of the first car we will be selling. 4, 3. As he is finishing the description I open the binder that holds all the auction information in front of me, glancing at th…

The call comes on a Tuesday morning. Taiwan Strait tensions have escalated overnight. Markets are already moving. Your CFO is on one line, your General Counsel on another. By the time you’ve hung up, your head of communications is in the doorway. Most CEOs have planned and prepared for this moment. In my work running a global communications firm, I’ve been part of the war-gaming sessions. But I’d contend that most leaders aren’t ready for it. Not because they haven’t been paying attention to geopolitics—they have. But because their teams have been assessing the Taiwan risk through a single lens: geoeconomic exposure. The financial model has been stress-tested. The…

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. “If you elegantly avoid the subject of money,” says Emma Grede, “money will somehow elegantly avoid you.” Grede is most certainly not avoiding the subject of money, ambition, or other topics some women may consider taboo. In her new book, Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work …

Have you noticed the junk-food aisle at your local grocery store is looking a little, well, funky lately? Blame the youngest generations of shoppers. While the preferences of Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers are likely leading to healthier choices for all of us, they’re also reshaping the snacking industry. Some changes include snacks that are available in smaller sizes and have cleaner ingredients, according to data from Nielsen IQ, as reported by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), an industry trade group. One of the most consequential changes is that shoppers are seeking out healthier snacks. Among parents of Gen Alpha kids who are buying snack…

Seven & i Holdings, the Japan-based owner of 7-Eleven, has announced that it plans to close hundreds of stores in North America over the next year. The store closures are an attempt to reduce costs and increase profitability for the chain of convenience stores ahead of a U.S. initial public offering for its North American unit, which was recently delayed. Here’s what you need to know. 645 store closures in North America Tucked away in Seven & i Holdings’ brief summary for its fiscal year 2025 last week was news that the company plans to close more than 1,000 locations in its fiscal year 2026, which runs from March 1, 2026, to February 28, 2027. Acc…

CoreWeave is having a very eventful week, and its stock price reflects it. Shares of the AI cloud-computing firm (Nasdaq: CRWV) are up more than 37% in five days following deals with Meta Platforms and Anthropic. On Thursday, April 9, CoreWeave announced a six-year agreement with social media giant Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram. CoreWeave will supply AI cloud capacity to Meta through December 2032. “The dedicated capacity will be deployed across multiple locations and will include some of the initial deployments of the Nvidia Vera Rubin platform,” CoreWeave stated in a release. “This distributed approach is designed to optimize performance,…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. While many growth markets in Texas and Florida have seen some of the biggest power shifts toward homebuyers since the Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out, Beazer Homes CEO Allan Merrill acknowledged at ResiDay 2025 last November that Beazer Homes—America’s 23rd-largest homebuilder—doesn’t plan to chase the relatively tighter housing markets in the Northeast and Midwest. Instead, he said the builder plans to stay focused on growth markets in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida, which—despite experiencing a greater post–Pandemic Housing Boom cycl…

Money market funds are mutual funds that invest in short-term debt instruments with high credit quality, including US Treasury bills and short-term unsecured corporate-backed notes (aka commercial paper). Money market funds aim to sustain a net asset value of $1.00 per share while offering higher yields than bank savings accounts. What are the advantages and risks of using a money market fund? Money market funds are popular with both individual savers and corporations, who often use them as a tool for managing the cash on their balance sheets. They are available through any major brokerage platform and often offer features such as check writing, making them easy to…

The long-running rumor that Mark Zuckerberg is secretly a robot is starting to feel a lot less like a joke. According to a report by the Financial Times, Meta is building out a “photorealistic, AI-powered 3D” version of its CEO that employees can interact with and get direct feedback from. Sources told the publication that the bot will be trained on his image, mannerisms, tone, speaking style and public statements to give employees a fully authentic Zuck experience. Zuckerberg himself is directly involved with training the AI avatar “so that employees might feel more connected to the founder through interactions with it,” according to the Financial Times. He also star…

Today, April 14, is World Quantum Day. The day marks the beginning of an annual event in which scientists and educators around the globe work to raise awareness of the underlying science behind technologies that could radically transform our world in the years ahead. Here’s what you need to know. What is World Quantum Day 2026? World Quantum Day is an annual awareness day organized by quantum scientists worldwide. According to the day’s official website, the initiative is “decentralized and bottom-up,” meaning there is no single organization promoting World Quantum Day. Instead, individual scientists work in tandem to promote the event. Those scientists, in tu…