What's on Your Mind?

The Super Bowl is mere days away and chances are you’ve seen most of the ads already. Right? Let’s rewind for a 10-second Super Bowl ad history lesson that goes like this: In 2011, Volkswagen decided to drop its full ad—called “The Force”—online the Wednesday before the Super Bowl. This was brand marketer blasphemy! But it worked. Ever since, more and more brands began dropping ads earlier and earlier, which then evolved into creating teasers for the ads to run even earlier. If you’re confused as to why this happens, don’t sweat it, even Christopher Walken wasn’t sure in BMW’s 2024 Super Bowl teaser. Super Bowl commercials are no longer just Super Bow…

On most golf courses, silence is sacred. At the WM Phoenix Open’s 16th hole, noise is the point. Every year, tens of thousands of fans pack into a stadium-like enclosure at TPC Scottsdale, turning a short par 3 into one of the most recognizable—and rowdiest—settings in sports. Missed putts are booed. Holes in one trigger cascades of beer. The atmosphere is closer to a college football rivalry than a PGA Tour stop. But as iconic as the 16th hole has become, its future wasn’t guaranteed by tradition alone. Behind the spectacle, the structure itself had reached a limit—architecturally, operationally, and environmentally. “We made the decision that that was as goo…

Laying people off takes its toll. “Going back 25 years plus ago, I can still remember every situation that I had to do it in,” says Robert Kovach, a work psychologist and former corporate executive. The experience sticks with you, he says. Because it’s not just about “operational stress: Have I filled out the forms? Made the calls?” It’s also filled with “moral stress,” he adds. “Even when the decision is necessary, it can feel like a violation of your own personal values.” People laying off their coworkers often feel a clash between their responsibility to their company and their responsibility to be a good person to the people they’re laying off—parti…

An Olympic torch is a small, flaming time capsule. Since the start of the modern Games in 1936, the torch has been passed by thousands of runners in a relay that goes from Olympia, Greece to the host city’s stadium. It’s a feat of engineering, since it needs to be durable enough to resist wind and rain, while keeping the Olympic flame arrive. But torch designers also imbue them with symbolic meaning. The Berlin 1936 torch was engraved with the Nazi iconography of an eagle. The Sapporo 1972 torch was a thin, cylindrical combustion tube that was a marvel of Japanese engineering. The Rio 2016 torch featured rippling blue waves celebrating the country’s natural b…

Burnout is best understood as a work-related psychological syndrome arising from sustained emotional and interpersonal strain. It has three core components: emotional exhaustion, characterized by chronic affective depletion; depersonalization, in which work becomes alienating and psychologically distancing rather than engaging; and reduced professional efficacy, marked by declining confidence, poorer self-appraisals, and a loss of self-worth. Importantly, burnout is not the same as stress. Rather, it is a pattern of responses to work stressors, and can also be distinguished from depression by its work-specific context. Burnout is best assessed via self-report questio…

It’s easy to be charmed by the first delivery robot you see. I was driving with my kids in our Chicago neighborhood when I spotted one out the window last year. It was a cheerful pink color, with an orange flag fluttering at about eye level and four black-and-white wheels. It looked almost like an overgrown toy. When I told the kids that it was labeled “Coco,” they started waving and giggling as it crossed the street. Over the months that followed, spotting Cocos rolling down the sidewalk became one of our favorite games. Then, last fall, another type of delivery robot appeared. This one was green and white, with hardier all-terrain wheels and slow-blinking LED …

The news cycle is seemingly always full of OpenAI stories. The state of various investments from fellow tech giants like Nvidia and Microsoft, the competitive landscape between other big AI players like Google and Anthropic, and, of course, the more existential questions surrounding the direction of artificial intelligence and its impacts on society. For its new Super Bowl campaign, OpenAI is focusing on a simpler narrative: how ChatGPT helps people build things that have real-world impact. The company will roll out a 60-second national spot during the big game, but it has also made three regional ads, which are debuting exclusively on Fast Company. The regional s…

Mark Cuban’s enthusiasm for artificial intelligence is well known. He has called the technology the “ultimate time-saving hack” and bluntly stated that if you’re not learning AI, “you’re f—ed.” But with his latest investment, the billionaire bypassed the plethora of AI startups and focused instead on something more human-centered. Cuban has invested an undisclosed amount in live events company Burwoodland, which produces nightlife experiences throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The investment will make him a minority owner in the company. Founded in 2015 by Alex Badanes and Ethan Maccoby, the New York City-based company says it has sold more than 1.5 million…

One of the things that I love about working for myself is that I don’t need to ask anyone’s permission before making a decision. If I want to make a change, I go for it, on whatever timeline makes sense for me. But the freedom of solopreneurship can be a double-edged sword. Since you don’t need approval from other people, nothing is stopping you from chasing every shiny tool, course, or strategy that promises to solve your problems. The ability to say no to distractions is an underrated skill for solopreneurs. There’s a difference between making strategic decisions and letting yourself be pulled in a million directions. You need to master the former and resist t…

Pizza Hut is closing hundreds of “underperforming” locations nationwide, according to parent company Yum! Brands, which reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings on Wednesday. The company said it will shutter about 3% of Pizza Hut’s U.S. locations, or some 250 locations in the first six months of 2026, as the fast-causal chain struggles amid competition from Dominos Pizza and an overall decline in store sales and consumer demand. Fast Company has reached out to Pizza Hut for a list of locations that will be closing. Globally, Pizza Hut opened over 440 new restaurants in the fourth quarter of 2025 and nearly 1,200 restaurants in 2025, in 65 countries. Taco Bell…

Alphabet said on Wednesday it was targeting capital expenditure of $175 billion to $185 billion this year, in yet another aggressive ramp-up in spending from the Google parent as it deepens its investments to push ahead in the AI race. Analysts on average had expected Alphabet to spend about $115.26 billion this year, according to data compiled by LSEG. Shares of the company fell more than 6% in extended trading. Revenue at Google Cloud grew 48% to $17.7 billion in the fourth quarter ended December, compared with analysts’ average estimate of a 35.2% jump, according to data compiled by LSEG. Cloud computing majors have poured hundreds of billions of dollar…

Rent can eat up an entire paycheck at the start of the month, so a growing number of renters are turning to a financial product that promises relief by letting them split the bill — for a price. So-called “rent now, pay later” services have emerged over the past few years as housing costs climb and paychecks grow less predictable, particularly for lower-income and gig-economy workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rents have jumped nearly 28% in the past five years. Companies such as Flex, Livble, and, more recently, Affirm, say breaking rent into multiple payments can help renters manage cash flow. But consumer advocates warn the products typically…

Just in time for the Super Bowl, PepsiCo is cutting the price of Doritos, Cheetos, Lay’s, Tostitos, and other snacks by up to 15%. The move comes after consumers complained the chips were too pricey. “Our customers . . . have been honest with us about how rising everyday costs are making their daily decisions harder. Message received,” PepsiCo said in a statement. “Lowering the suggested retail price reflects our commitment to help reduce the pressure where we can,” PepsiCo Foods U.S. CEO Rachel Ferdinando added. The new discounted prices roll out this week, ahead of this Sunday’s big game, one of the biggest days for snack purchases. PepsiCo said supermarket…

Don’t tune into the Super Bowl hoping for a break from the tumultuous politics gripping the U.S. The NFL is facing pressure ahead of Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots to take a more explicit stance against the The President administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement. More than 184,000 people have signed a petition calling on the league to denounce the potential presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Super Bowl, which is being held at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area. The liberal group MoveOn plans to deliver the petition to the NFL’s New York City headquarters on Tuesday. Meanwhile, anticipation …

At a factory in Austin, a startup recently finished its first prototype: a row house it plans to replicate in cities nationwide to help with the housing shortage. Row houses—narrow, multistory homes that share walls with neighbors on each side—are ubiquitous in older neighborhoods from Brooklyn to San Francisco, but aren’t commonly built now. The American Housing Corp., wants to bring them back. “Row homes are an underbuilt category in the United States,” says Riley Meik, cofounder and CEO of the American Housing Corp. The company has developed a kit of parts that can be quickly manufactured, shipped to building sites in dense urban neighborhoods, and assembled, h…

Discounting has been part of retail’s toolkit for decades, and it can be effective, especially during high-stakes shopping seasons. But as promotions become more frequent across the industry, companies are taking a closer look at the downside: Short-term sales gains don’t always come with long-term loyalty or durable margins, and customers remember how a brand made them feel far more than what they saved at checkout. What’s often missing from the conversation is the role of experience-led value. Loyalty isn’t built through price alone—it’s built through moments that make a customer feel recognized, appreciated, and confident they made the right choice. When brands com…

You wouldn’t pay a surgeon to file your tax return, and you wouldn’t ask your accountant to perform your appendectomy. The same is true for AI: Organizations should start realizing that different AI providers excel at different needs, from coding to specialized research or creative design. Over the coming year, enterprises will absorb a variety of these AI providers’ technologies in earnest and at scale—department by department, role by role. Legal teams will standardize on tools like Harvey. Customer service teams will rely on Glean or purpose-built agents. Development teams may choose resources from Anthropic. Marketing, engineering, finance, and HR will similarly g…

Shares in Palantir Technologies (Nasdaq: PLTR) are rising this morning, one day after the AI data analysis software company with significant U.S. government contracts reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings. Here’s what you need to know about Palantir’s latest results and its rising stock price. Palantir’s Q4 2025 beat Wall Street expectations Yesterday, Palantir announced its Q4 2025 earnings, and investors breathed a sigh of relief. For Palantir’s Q4, which ended on December 31, the company brought in $1.41 billion in revenue, signaling 70% year-over-year growth. The majority of that revenue comes from Palantir’s U.S. customers, which is split roughly even…

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered roughly 1,000 unprotected gateways to OpenClaw, an open-source and proactive AI agent that can be controlled through text conversations with apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. The gateways were found on the open internet, allowing anyone to access users’ personal information. One white hat hacker also reportedly gamed OpenClaw’s skills system, which lets users add plugins for tasks like web automation or system control, to reach the top of the rankings and be downloaded by users around the world. The skill itself was innocuous, but it exploited a security vulnerability that someone more nefarious could have used to cause serious harm…

So-called rare earth elements aren’t actually rare. It’s just difficult to refine them into the purified forms that are needed for making things like electronics or clean energy tech. The standard processes are also toxic, which is one reason that the world has outsourced production to China. Supra, a startup that spun out of the University of Texas at Austin, is taking a different approach that’s clean, low-cost, and makes it possible to capture some of the billions of dollars’ worth of critical minerals that are trapped in waste in the U.S. Dr. Sessler The company’s technology uses supramolecular receptors, “a string of molecules built to grab specific molecu…

In 2026, audiences across the United States will experience some of the most iconic sporting events in the world—from Super Bowl LX and NBA All-Star weekend to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. For Comcast NBCUniversal, it marks one of the most significant years in our sports history, which will unite millions of fans. But sports are more than entertainment—they’re a force for connection, growth, and transformation. These events offer a rare moment to unite people and leave a lasting impact well beyond the games themselves. EXPAND ACCESS TO YOUTH SPORTS Early access to sports can shape a child’s future. According to the Aspen …