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There’s no shortage of challenges facing employers and the U.S. workforce. From economic concerns to the impact of AI, both workers and organizational leaders are navigating big changes. One trend deserves particular attention: working mothers are reevaluating their place in the workforce. As reported by the Washington Post, the share of mothers aged 25 to 44 with young children who are in the workforce is on the decline, reaching its lowest level in more than three years. This shift has direct implications for recruiting, retention, and overall market competitiveness. But it also opens the door for leaders to make a meaningful difference for their employees. Unde…

Time capsules are designed to be resilient by nature. But no time capsule has survived as long as designers hope “America’s Time Capsule” will. The time capsule, designed for the semiquincentennial of the U.S. founding, is being created by America250, the nonpartisan, congressionally mandated group organizing commemorations for this year. The plan is to bury the time capsule underground in Philadelphia at Independence National Historical Park on July 4, and for it to be opened in another 250 years, in 2276. The problem is time capsules, which are typically buried underground, and exposed to the elements, don’t really last that long. “We’ve unburied some time …

Entrepreneurs face more stress, fear, and anxiety in a single day than most people experience in a year. When building something in a crowded market, motivation doesn’t just dip—it can disappear entirely. What is the difference between those who burn out and those who break through? They’ve mastered the three fundamentals: finding their real “why,” setting their own scorecard, and playing the long game. New competitors launch monthly in the vertical drama space where I work. At DramaShorts, we’ve maintained our position among the top 15 apps globally by refusing to play someone else’s game. While others chase viral trends, we focus on building sustainable engagement.…

Germany’s SPRIND, the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, and Sweden’s Vinnova, the country’s innovation agency, are two bodies that traditionally haven’t worked hand in hand. But the challenges the world currently faces have brought the two public innovation agencies together to back teams from across Europe building systems that can defend airports, nuclear plants, and civilian sites from hostile drones. One team, led by Martin Saska, a robotics professor at Czech Technical University in Prague, is among those being backed by the agencies to develop anti-drone technology. Beyond supporting a single company, the partnership offers Europe a way to stand firm ami…

A quiet shift is reshaping the trajectory of wealth in America, but it isn’t happening in the boardrooms of Wall Street or the halls of Silicon Valley. It’s unfolding in neighborhoods, driveways, and home offices across the country, powered by teachers, software engineers, nurses, military families, and small-business owners who never expected to become real estate investors at all. As the cofounder and CEO of a rental technology company that supports independent property owners (and as an investor myself), I see this transformation every day. What starts as an unexpected ownership moment often turns into a thoughtful plan for long-term financial stability. Many i…

Imagine you are searching for a new mattress online and find something surprising. The retailer displays an ad featuring a “Mattress Comfort Scale” running from 1 (soft) to 10 (firm), followed by the message that if your firmness preference is at either end, this mattress is not for you. Wait . . . what? A retailer telling someone not to buy its product? No way! Why would a company tell potential buyers that the product might not suit them? Our team of professors—Karen Anne Wallach, Jaclyn L. Tanenbaum, and Sean Blair—examines this question in a recently published article in the Journal of Consumer Research. Marketers spend billions trying to persuade consumers th…

From streamlining administrative tasks to enhancing brainstorming sessions, AI is becoming an essential workplace companion. Yet, despite its transformative promise, its integration isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. We recently conducted research at Lucid Software to uncover AI usage in the workplace. We found that more than a third of workers globally are already using AI for fundamental tasks like generating ideas (39%), creating content (37%), communicating summaries (33%), and finding documentation (31%). When thinking about how we’ve adopted the technology into our products, our decade-long investment in intelligence has been key to building an AI-ready platf…

The Miami Grand Prix, hosted at the Hard Rock Stadium’s 3.3-mile Miami International Autodrome, will look and feel different this year. In its fifth year, the race will spotlight the city with new experiences, activations like the MSC Yacht Club, and new sight lines for spectators. While relatively new to Formula 1’s 24 Grand Prix race season, the Miami GP’s agreement to serve as a host city until 2041 is an indicator that F1 is focused on investing in the U.S. market. It’s a big departure from F1’s history. “ We used to turn up in the U.S., race, and [then] expect everyone in the U.S. to continue to stay in love with us, engage with us, and that was probably ar…

Many things remain uncertain about AI’s future impact on our lives. One that isn’t in doubt is that more and more of the world’s software will be written, at least in part, by software. Already, 25% of Google’s code is generated by AI, CEO Sundar Pichai said last October. By 2028, projects research firm Gartner, 75% of enterprise developers will use AI tools in their work. This trend is reflected in programmers’ embrace of products such as GitHub Copilot and Cursor, which let them call on generative AI to fill in some of the specific code as they tackle a project—essentially a fancy form of autocomplete for software engineering. The next step beyond that is AI coding …

Over the past 50 years in the shoe trade, I have had my fair share of failure. The biggest lesson I learned, at the start of my career, is not to devote time and energy to a business or project that has little chance of success. This might sound obvious, however sometimes you are so involved in the detail of the day to day running of the business that you don’t stand back and question the future viability of what you are doing. I was a women’s shoe manufacturer in London in the 1980s. If I had looked at the big picture I would have seen that the future of manufacturing in the U.K. for low technology, high labor content businesses like footwear manufacturing, was u…

When artificial intelligence-backed tractors became available to vineyards, Tom Gamble wanted to be an early adopter. He knew there would be a learning curve, but Gamble decided the technology was worth figuring out. The third-generation farmer bought one autonomous tractor. He plans on deploying its self-driving feature this spring and is currently using the tractor’s AI sensor to map his Napa Valley vineyard. As it learns each row, the tractor will know where to go once it is used autonomously. The AI within the machine will then process the data it collects and help Gamble make better-informed decisions about his crops — what he calls “precision farming.” “It’s not g…

Cancer research in the U.S. doesn’t rely on a single institution or funding stream—it’s a complex ecosystem made up of interdependent parts: academia, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology startups, federal agencies, and private foundations. As a cancer biologist who has worked in each of these sectors over the past three decades, I’ve seen firsthand how each piece supports the others. When one falters, the whole system becomes vulnerable. The United States has long led the world in cancer research. It has spent more on cancer research than any other country, including more than US$7.2 billion annually through the National Cancer Institute alone. Since the 1971 …

Most entrepreneurs are familiar with diminishing returns: how, when other variables stay constant, at some point putting in additional time and effort results in increasingly smaller results. Since resources are always limited, figuring out where to spend your entrepreneurial time so it delivers the best bang per hour is critical. That same premise extends to health and fitness. If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you try to stay reasonably fit not just because it’s good for you, but because exercise helps you perform better under stress. Can elevate your mood for up to 12 hours. Can even make you a little smarter. Still: how healthy and fit . . . is healthy and fi…

In 2023, Ken Lux found himself in an FBI briefing on child trafficking. The CEO of Luxe Aviation was there as the past commander of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office’s Air Squadron, a volunteer cadre of 50 general aviation pilots supporting police missions and community service. Lux recalls the FBI agent relaying the story of a since-jailed airline pilot who used his credentials to traffic children to clients in the Philippines with chilling negotiations. “I have a girl that’s 12 years old for your client,’” the pilot said. The client’s response: “No, we think we need an 8-year-old.” The group was horrified. “I have two daughters,” Lux says. “We said, ‘Wa…

When it comes to EVs, a bigger battery isn’t always better. Ford Motor Company is making that bet as part of its effort to manufacture a new suite of more affordable electric vehicles—beginning with a $30,000-starting-price mid-size electric truck set to launch in 2027. To get more out of a smaller battery, Ford has had to reimagine every step of its manufacturing process. It has scrapped the typical assembly line process in favor of what the automaker calls its “Ford Universal EV Platform,” and simplified every part of its EV, from the miles of wiring inside the electric system to the number of parts that make up its frame. And it’s had to rethink the batter…

Ford Motor Co. has stepped up technology in its popular F-150 pickup to combat the ever-evolving techniques car thieves have at their disposal. It is the latest cat-and-mouse move that the automaker hopes will help customers avoid the costly and frustrating process that occurs when vehicles are swiped and includes a feature that won’t allow an engine to start even if a key fob is in the pickup. Motor vehicle thefts recently have been on the decline in the U.S. after several years of increases. Still, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that more than 850,000 vehicles were stolen in the U.S. in 2024, pegging losses at $8 billion. But thefts dropped 2…

Robert Reich has been warning people about the dangers of inequality for decades, in all sorts of different ways. He’s interacted directly with politicians as a member of three different presidential administrations, most notably as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary. He’s taught thousands of college students at Harvard, Brandeis, and UC Berkeley. He’s written 18 books. And for 11 years, he has run Inequality Media, a nonprofit dedicated to informing the public about income and wealth disparity, among other imbalances of power in our society. Inequality Media now has 15 million followers across all its social media channels. At a time when Americans are increasingly payi…

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 …

At its core, public health is about driving healthy behavior changes by building awareness, meeting people where they are, and offering solutions that are accessible and grounded in evidence. Throughout my career, I have worked on issues ranging from foster adoption and drunk driving prevention to tobacco prevention and cessation, always with science as our foundation. But the media landscape, and how people engage with information, has changed dramatically. To remain relevant and effective, public health must evolve. That means rethinking not just what we communicate, but how we motivate, engage, and sustain healthy behaviors. WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO LEAN IN Gamific…