What's on Your Mind?

As the rest of the world speeds ahead toward an electrified future, the U.S. is doubling down on gas-powered cars. President The President announced a proposal this week to slash stricter fuel economy standards put in place during the Biden administration. By reversing the standards, the White House further aligns itself with the oil and gas industry, with some automakers happily going along for the ride. “We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, CAFE standards that impose expensive restrictions,” The President said, referencing the Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules. “And all sorts of problems – all sorts of problems …

President Donald The President plans to travel to Pennsylvania on Tuesday to highlight his efforts to reduce inflation even as fears mount about a worsening job market and amid signs that Americans are still feeling squeezed by high prices. A White House official said The President would be making the trip to discuss ending the inflation crisis that he says was inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the trip has not been formally announced. It was not immediately clear where in Pennsylvania The President would be visiting. Last month’s off-year elections showed a shift away from Republicans as public concern…

Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) rose on Thursday after Bloomberg reported the technology company was planning to cut spending across its division by 10%, with as much as 30% cuts to its virtual reality group, which includes the so-called metaverse. This could potentially include layoffs, which could come as early as January, and are part of the company’s 2026 budget, according to the article. Meta—the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp—develops metaverse technologies, such as the Horizon Worlds platform. Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment. Meta stock rose 5.7% in early trading Thursday, before settling up a…

Twenty years ago, not too long after Youtube itself launched, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla started uploading videos to the platform. What started as two teenagers trying to make each other laugh turned into the biggest channel on YouTube. It was the first ever to reach 10 million subscribers. Eventually Smosh was acquired by a company called Defy Media. The company would expand rapidly–more videos, more cast members, even a movie–but then came turmoil and uncertainty for Smosh. Padilla left the company in 2017, largely due to creative differences with Smosh’s parent company. He returned to the business in 2023, when he and Hecox purchased Smosh from YouTuber-led med…

It’s been a tumultuous year for the legacy retailer, shaped by new tariffs, shifting consumer habits, and the constant flip between “wartime” and “peacetime” leadership. Tony Spring, Macy’s Inc. chairman and CEO, shares why his team is now on “version 27 of the plan,” and what it really means to court the next generation of shoppers. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert 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 Response wherever you ge…

When Jon LaMantia, a Long Island-based business reporter, was in journalism school, his professor drilled one rule into his students: you get two exclamation points a year and no more. “So if you use them in January,” LaMantia recalls being told, “you better hope there’s nothing to exclaim for the rest of the year.” The rule stuck. LaMantia still thinks about that rigid quota today. “I use exclamation points all the time in texts and emails. If you don’t, the message sounds more stern,” he says. “But I can’t remember the last time I used one in a business article.” Strong feelings about the exclamation point aren’t uncommon. People tend to either love it or l…

For a while now, we’ve been hearing warnings about AI eliminating jobs. First, it was only at the fringes. But now it’s starting to bite into roles once thought untouchable. It isn’t just administrative work, copywriting, or design anymore; even advisory roles, data analytics, and coding are being reshaped by automation. But history teaches us that technological disruption doesn’t eliminate work, it reshapes it. The industrial revolution, for example, didn’t end human contribution, it simply redefined the places where humans bring the most value. AI is doing the same thing today. While it does, in fact, take (or reduce the need for) some jobs, it can, and will, p…

It’s the end of the year and the pressure is on, demands are high, and you’re probably close to the end of your rope as you try to wrap up your remaining projects before the holidays start. If that’s you, you’re not alone. Holiday stress is very common: In a survey by LifeStance Health, 57% of respondents said they experience stress over the season. But it’s possible to maintain your energy and momentum and not only get things done but stay engaged and finish strong. Fortunately, there are a few pragmatic strategies to maintain your energy and momentum through the end of the year. 1. Maintain control You’re likely to start feeling out of control. This is becaus…

When I was cycling across the country on my bike, I spent anywhere from six to nine hours a day in the saddle—for almost three solid months. It made a lot of people wonder: What did you listen to all day long? “Was it mostly music, or more like audiobooks, podcasts?” asked a friend of mine when we went for a drink at a bar after I got back home. “What was on your playlist?” “Nothing,” I said. She frowned slightly, as if she’d misheard me. “What do you mean, ‘nothing?’” “I mean, nothing. I don’t listen to anything when I ride,” I replied. “I don’t even wear earbuds.” You could see the wheels of her mind grind to a standstill. “What the hell. You…

Before becoming a coach for neurodiverse individuals with ADHD, Justine Capelle Collis had a successful advertising career. She worked in Australia and the UK, and also across the US and Canadian markets. Her clients have included Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. And she achieved all this without realizing that she has ADHD. That realization came when she became a mother. Both of her sons were diagnosed with ADHD, and she started asking questions. “How do I advocate” and get “the system to bend” for them, rather than having them “fit into the system and then break?” she asked. She then went on a personal journey to retrain. Collis enrolled in po…

The data center boom is fully underway, and the numbers are staggering: billions of dollars in costs, millions of square feet worth of buildings, gigawatts of energy, and millions of gallons of water used per day. But before these AI-fueling behemoths can get up and running, there’s an extensive amount of prep work needed to build the infrastructure those data centers rely upon, with a whole other set of staggering costs, material flows, and resource requirements. The infrastructure behind (and below) the data center boom is in the midst of its own massive scale building boom, with no end in sight. That’s created a thriving business for the companies that provide the …

While the iPhone 17 is expected to be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season, some of the early adopters of Apple’s latest phone may be moving on to something different already. New data from B-Stock, a B2B marketplace for wholesale liquidation of returned and overstock inventory, finds that large cellular carriers are already moving “bulk quantities” of iPhone 17s through the resale channels for B2B customers. One sale on the site currently offers 111 iPhone 17 Pro Max units (with bidding for the lot standing at $80,200 as of Wednesday afternoon). All totaled, there were more than 300 iPhone 17 devices up for resale on the site as of Wednesday. The sale…

Columbia Sportswear just lauched its Endor collection, and I want it all. Inspired by the clothes worn by the rebel squad that took on the Death Star’s shield generator in Return of the Jedi, it’s the latest and largest Star Wars drop from Portland, Oregon-based company. It’s also the best fit for the brand since its Empire Strikes Back‘s Echo Base Han Solo parkas, which I missed back in 2017, and I will forever feel like a dumb Tauntaun for not grabbing one (they run for almost $1,000 each now). The highlight of the collection is General Han Solo’s Trench, a $600 jacket that mimics the camouflage duster that Harrison Ford wore while leading the strike team on the…

The Phoenix Mercury rebranded for the first time in team history, and the new look is part of a wider trend across the WNBA as teams modernize their logos for a growing league. The new Mercury logo shows an “M” that’s a simplified version of the letter taken from the team’s old script wordmark. The bottom of the “M” is angled up at 19.97 degrees as a nod to the team’s 1997 founding as one of the league’s eight original franchises, and it’s set on a circle with a crescent shadow that represents the planet Mercury. The modernized logo was designed in-house. The rebrand comes at an inflection point for the team, which lost star player Diana Taurasi to retirement in F…

Authenticity is currency. You can spend it recklessly and go broke, or invest it strategically and build wealth. Most leaders are choosing bankruptcy without even realizing it. Right now, workplaces are debating authenticity. Some call “bring your whole self to work” a dangerous myth that punishes marginalized employees. Others claim it’s the secret to engagement and retention. Both are right—and both are missing something. Unfiltered authenticity without skill can be destructive. And yes, marginalized employees pay a higher price when they try to be authentic in systems that weren’t built for them. But your team already knows when you’re faking it. Th…

As Sir Isaac Newton discovered, the core scientific law of gravity is that what goes up must come down. The principle applies in many areas, which is why markets are jittery about the near-unchecked, three-year growth of stock prices fueled by the strength of the generative-AI revolution. The market is on a tear, with a large gap growing even wider between public market valuations and the significantly higher private-market valuations of AI-exposed companies. The top five tech companies in the U.S. are, collectively, valued at more than the combined size of the Euro Stoxx 50, the U.K., India, Japan, and Canada—and account for around 16% of the entire global public equ…

In April 2000, Elsevier published an article in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, which claimed that the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) from the Monsanto Company didn’t pose a risk of cancer or other health issues for humans. Twenty-five years later, the publisher has retracted that paper, citing litigation that revealed it was based solely on unpublished studies by Monsanto itself. Furthermore, Elsevier states that the article (titled Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans) appears to have been co-written with Monsanto employees, despite no explicit accreditation. Mo…

The way consumers search is changing faster than the industry expected. This holiday season, many shoppers are looking for gifts inside AI platforms, rather than retailer sites or traditional search. They are asking natural questions like: “Find me a cruelty-free skincare gift for sensitive skin under $100.” “What are good gift ideas for a three-year-old that are safe and durable?” “What are the safest, nontoxic treats for my Golden Retriever?” This shift is already measurable. Adobe Digital Insights reports a 4,700% year-over-year increase in retail visits driven by AI assistants between July 2024 and July 2025. At the same time, click-through rates from SEO …

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed a $7.1 million fine on a New York-based property management firm Thursday, accusing it of violating sanctions by managing luxury real estate properties for oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Gracetown Inc. had received 24 payments between April 2018 and May 2020 totaling $31,250 on behalf of a company owned by Deripaska. OFAC says it gave Gracetown notice that dealings with Deripaska were prohibited, but the firm proceeded anyway. Justice Department filings from 2022 connect Gracetown Inc. with U.K. businessman Graham Bonham-Carter, w…

It’s been less than two months since President The President began his demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make room for his “big, beautiful White House Ballroom,” and the President is already parting ways with the original architect behind the project. On December 4, a White House spokesperson confirmed to The Washington Post that the original ballroom architect, McCrery Architects, has been traded in favor of the firm Shalom Baranes Associates. The swap comes after multiple reports that The President and Jim McCrery, CEO of McCrery Architects, clashed repeatedly over the size and scope of the new ballroom. The construction of a giant ballroom is on…

The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and was on track earlier in the day to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 69 points, or 0.1%, as of 12:29 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher. If the S&P 500 finishes the day at a record, it would mark the latest time the U.S. stock market has powered past what appeared to be a debilitating set of worries. Most recently, those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology,…

It is a relatively rare phenomenon: While the stock market continues to experience record gains (the S&P 500 is up over 16% this year), Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continue to struggle, making it the first time the crypto and stock markets have split since 2014, Bloomberg reported. That split, with Bitcoin down while stock markets soar, is somewhat unusual. On midday Friday, at the time of this writing, the digital cryptocurrency (BTC) was trading down over 4%, hovering around $88,945—far below its record high of over $125,000, but still above a recent low of $85,000 (down almost 30% from the high). Here’s what to know. Why is the split between cryp…

When film cameras were invented, people didn’t become filmmakers overnight. We pointed cameras at theater stages, digitizing what already existed. It took us a while to reimagine what film cameras could unlock. The real opportunity wasn’t recording theater plays. It was stepping outside and inventing cinema. That’s where many nonprofits are with AI today. Most still layer it on top of existing processes, not because they don’t care about innovation, but because they lack both the frameworks to identify the right use cases and the capacity to act on them. True innovation starts when organizations have the space, skills, and confidence to reimagine how impact itse…

A recent New York Times headline—“Did Women Ruin the Workplace?”—sparked a firestorm across social media. Alison Moore, CEO of Chief, the prestigious network for senior women executives, is pushing back on this notion with data and nuance. Drawing from an exclusive nationwide survey of women leaders, Moore unpacks how evolving career paths are being misread, the impact of market disruption, and why women-centered spaces remain vital. 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 Scalepodcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today…

In South Korea several weeks ago, the U.S. and China came to a temporary agreement, in which they’ll kick a rare-earth can down the road. The agreement took the form of a one-year pause in the dispute between the two nations over rare earth elements (REEs): China postponed imposing newly announced export controls on 17 different REEs and, in turn, the U.S. announced it would reduce certain tariffs on Chinese goods. For years, the United States and its allies have grappled with a troubling resource reality: China dominates the global supply of REEs and critical raw materials (CRMs)—the essential ingredients of our digital age. From smartphones to electric vehicle…