What's on Your Mind?

When you think of leaders you admire, you likely imagine them as authentic, at least in the sense of seeming genuine, real, and trustworthy. Science confirms this is usually the case. For example, data tells us that trustworthy leaders stand out for their “no thrills” patterns of behavior: They are, in other words, predictable, reliable, and unlikely to shock their employees or followers with erratic or excitable behavior that freaks them out. Furthermore, the best meta-analysis (quantitative review of hundreds of independent top studies) on personality and leadership tells us that one of the most consistent predictors of whether someone emerges as a leader,…

A few months ago, I was lying in bed, lightly clutching my phone, when Instagram Reels presented me with a brief video that promised an impossible soap opera: There were animated cats—with feline faces but unmistakable human bodies—living seemingly human lives, including in a human-seeming house and also, for some totally unclear reason, at a seemingly human construction site. There was drama: A female cat appeared to have been knocked up. There was also, somehow, a related love triangle involving two far more muscle-y male cats vying for her affection. None of the cats actually spoke. Yet somehow the plot proceeded, with one cat winning the heroine’s heart. It was well r…

Darin Fisher is a little older than the fresh-faced, newly minted PhD types you see roaming the well-appointed floors at OpenAI’s second location in San Francisco’s Mission Bay district. Before arriving at the AI super-startup, he spent 25 years working on some of the most important web browsers in the history of the web: He worked on Netscape Navigator, which helped define the early consumer internet. He worked on the popular Firefox browser at Mozilla, then went to Google, where he was a member of the Chrome team. After Google, he wanted to explore alternative browsers; he did so first at Neeva (which offered an ad-free experience), then at the Browser Company, whi…

Shares in CoreWeave Inc are sinking this morning after the company revealed its third-quarter 2025 results yesterday. While the New Jersey-based AI infrastructure firm more than doubled its revenue from the same quarter a year earlier, it also revised down its full fiscal 2025 forecast, sending its stock price tumbling. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, AI infrastructure company CoreWeave announced financial results for its Q3 2025, which ended on September 30. There was some good news for the quarter, including revenue of nearly $1.4 billion (up 134% year over year) and a revenue backlog of $55.6 billion (up 271% YoY). Revenu…

The Senate passed legislation Monday to reopen the government, bringing the longest shutdown in history closer to an end as a small group of Democrats ratified a deal with Republicans despite searing criticism from within their party. The 41-day shutdown could last a few more days as members of the House, which has been on recess since mid-September, return to Washington to vote on the legislation. President Donald The President has signaled support for the bill, saying Monday that “we’re going to be opening up our country very quickly.” The final Senate vote, 60-40, broke a grueling stalemate that lasted more than six weeks as Democrats demanded that Republicans negoti…

The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history appears to be nearing an end, but not without leaving a mark on an already struggling economy. About 1.25 million federal workers haven’t been paid since October 1. Thousands of flights have been canceled, a trend that is expected to continue this week even as Congress moves toward reopening the government. Government contract awards have slowed and some food aid recipients have seen their benefits interrupted. Most of the lost economic activity will be recovered when the government reopens, as federal workers will receive back pay. But some canceled flights won’t be retaken, missed restaurant meals won’t be made u…

Amazon ushered in a new era for television advertising when it converted Prime Video into an ad-supported experience by default in 2024. By the middle of this year, some 130 million U.S. viewers were on Prime Video’s ad tier, watching between four and six minutes of ads per hour, according to an Adweek report. The move is part of the company’s long-term plan to dominate television advertising as viewership shifts from traditional broadcast and cable TV to streaming platforms. “The digital advertising landscape is rapidly evolving with streaming TV becoming mainstream,” says Kelly MacLean, VP of Amazon DSP, the company’s ad-buying platform. Under MacLean, Amazon’s…

Japanese technology giant SoftBank said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia, raising $5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia in October, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. SoftBank reported its profit in April-September soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about $13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7% year-on-year to 3.7 trillion yen ($24 billion), it said. The company’s fortunes tend to flu…

After enough Democrats caved this week and agreed to fund the federal government without guarantees for extending healthcare subsidies for tens of millions of Americans, a big question on the minds of many is “Will my health insurance premiums go up?” Unfortunately, the answer is likely to be a resounding yes, according to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), the nonprofit health research institute. Here’s how much more individuals and families of four can expect to pay for their healthcare premiums in 2026, unless Republicans decide to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits—something the majority of GOP congresspeople have …

To the uninitiated, the term Scope 3 might sound like an obscure technical label. However, for those managing corporate carbon emissions, the term can inspire a range of emotions, from dread to dismay. Scope 3 emissions are generated by indirect upstream and downstream operations, and typically account for the largest share of a company’s carbon footprint. They also lie outside the organization’s direct control. Although one of the sustainability agenda’s most daunting items, technology can provide solutions to the Scope 3 challenge. There’s mounting pressure to tackle these emissions, as institutional investors such as pension funds pay close attention to the cli…

Major League Baseball said its authorized gaming operators will cap bets on individual pitches at $200 and exclude them from parlays, a day after two Cleveland Guardians were indicted and accused of rigging pitches at the behest of gamblers. MLB said Monday the limits were agreed to by sportsbook operators representing more than 98% of the U.S. betting market. The league said in a statement that pitch-level bets on outcomes of pitch velocity and of balls and strikes “present heightened integrity risks because they focus on one-off events that can be determined by a single player and can be inconsequential to the outcome of the game.” “The risk on these pitch-level marke…

Retirement saving requires key decisions: when to start, how much to save, and where to invest. The investing decision has drawn more attention as government regulators work to open 401(k) plans to alternative assets such as private market investments. Below, we compare the paths of two hypothetical retirement savers and their outcomes. A tale of two retirement savers Laura and JR are two 25-year-olds newly employed at the same company, in the same role. Step 1: Deciding to Save On her first day at work, Laura committed 10% of her $75,000 salary to her 401(k). That earned her company’s 3% annual match (it matches 50% up to 6%), and 13% in total savings. She…

You may see more smiles next time you walk into a Target. That’s because the big box retailer is hoping to provide an “elevated” customer experience with it’s new “10-4” policy, requiring staffers out on the floor to smile, wave, and welcome customers within 10 feet—and greet those just 4 feet away, USA Today reported. Fast Company has reached out to Target for comment. The policy comes less than three weeks before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which officially kicks off the busiest and most profitable time of the year. Many stores, including Target, have already begun to roll out their Black Friday sales this year. Target’s early 2025 Black Frida…

Apple said it has pulled two of China’s biggest gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, under pressure from Chinese authorities, in the latest sign of a tightening grip on the LGBTQ+ community. An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company removed the two dating apps from China “based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China”, without further elaborating. “We follow the laws in the countries where we operate,” the spokesperson told The Associated Press. A check by The Associated Press on Tuesday found that the two apps are not available on Apple’s app store in China, although an “express” version of Blued could still be found. It was uncl…

The tech industry is moving fast and breaking things again—and this time it is humanity’s shared reality and control of our likeness before and after death—thanks to artificial intelligence image-generation platforms like OpenAI’s Sora 2. The typical Sora video, made on OpenAI’s app and spread onto TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook, is designed to be amusing enough for you to click and share. It could be Queen Elizabeth II rapping or something more ordinary and believable. One popular Sora genre is fake doorbell camera footage capturing something slightly uncanny —say, a boa constrictor on the porch or an alligator approaching an unfazed child—and ends with a mild sh…

ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula is being recalled in 12 states due to concerns it may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to investigate a multi-state outbreak of infant botulism. As of November 10, 15 infants who were either fed the formula or exposed to it have developed infant botulism in 12 different states. Those states are: Arizona, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. The investigation remains ongoing. All 15 infants were hospitalized, and no deaths …

Young people early in their careers are understandably alarmed by reports that their jobs are most at risk from AI automation. Some are even reconsidering their career choices due to what’s been dubbed AI anxiety. But job seekers shouldn’t give up. People whose jobs are threatened by AI must look for ways to play to their strengths and their human qualities. They should focus on the many areas where humans outshine AI—things like relationship building, resourcefulness, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and leadership. For much of the labor force, of course, it won’t be possible to avoid AI completely. Many occupations will involve working with AI not just as an as…

Just when you thought you’d seen it all on Capitol Hill, reopening the federal government appears to have hit yet another roadblock: Hemp. A day after Democratic Senators reached a deal with their Republican counterparts in the Senate to end the longest government shutdown in history, a vote on the agreement was held up by a provision in the bill that would ban the unregulated sale of hemp-based or derived products. The provision relates to funding for the Department of Agriculture, and was flagged by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, home to a burgeoning hemp industry. Paul introduced an amendment to strip the language on Monday, but the amendment failed. Subsequent…

Glassdoor Economic Research has released its Worklife Trends report for 2026. A key theme highlighted throughout is the growing disconnect between workers and their leaders. A notable contributing factor is that smaller, regular layoffs—which the report dubs as “forever layoffs”—are becoming more common than less frequent mass layoffs. Rolling layoffs are among several reasons why many employees feel anxious and less secure in the workplace. Let’s review the report findings. ‘Forever layoffs’ are becoming the norm Layoffs are back to pre-pandemic levels. And smaller, more frequent job cuts are now common. Glassdoor refers to these mini, rolling layof…

The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as Wednesday, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result. Democrats didn’t get the heath insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them. The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emoti…