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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. Gregg Renfrew is back. Four years after the entrepreneur sold her clean skincare and cosmetics brand Beautycounter to The Carlyle Group in a deal valued at $1 billion—and more than a year after she and the private equity firm shut down the company amid falling sales—Renfrew today is officially laun…

On a recent weekday in Aspen, Colorado, Stu Landesberg stood with a group of firefighters on a mountainside and watched a drone take off and fly toward a simulated fire. The drone detected the “hotspot”—a pile of ice, since wildfire risk was too high that day for real flames—and then aimed and blasted it with fire suppressant. The test flight was one of thousands that Landesberg’s startup, Seneca, has run while operating in stealth mode over the last several months. The company officially launched today, announcing that it has raised $60 million. It aims to reshape wildfire response—and help protect wildfire-prone communities in a way that hasn’t been possible until n…

President Donald The President said Sunday that the United States could purchase Argentinian beef in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers. “We would buy some beef from Argentina,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One during a flight from Florida to Washington. “If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.” The President promised earlier this week to address the issue as part of his efforts to keep inflation in check. U.S. beef prices have been stubbornly high for a variety of reasons, including drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest in cattle herds there. The President has been working to help Argentina bolster i…

China’s economy expanded at the slowest annual pace in a year in July-September, growing 4.8%, weighed down by trade tensions with the United States and slack domestic demand. The July-September data was the weakest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2024, and compares with a 5.2% pace of growth in the previous quarter, the government said in a report Monday. In January-September, the world’s second largest economy grew at a 5.2% annual pace. Despite U.S. President Donald The President’s higher tariffs on imports from China, its exports have remained relatively strong as companies expanded sales to other world markets. China’s exports to the United States fell 2…

With no end in sight for the political standoff that shuttered the federal government, funding for some key programs is drying up. More than 40 million Americans may not see their food stamps issued next month, as the government shutdown extends into its third full week. Some states have begun warning their residents of the looming threat to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. “Because Republicans in Washington D.C., failed to pass a federal budget, causing the federal government shutdown, November 2025 SNAP benefits cannot be paid,” a notification on Pennsylvania’s SNAP info page reads. New York Governor Kathy Hochul demanded …

Hannah Alsark says that Adobe’s top clients—the owners of some of the most protected, most valuable brands and IP in the world—had a stark message for the company regarding Firefly, its generative AI engine: They wanted more, and they wanted better. “They told us they actually needed models that understood all their products, all their brands, their creative direction,” says Alsark, Adobe’s VP of GenAI New Business Ventures. “They have characters, they have particular motion styles, and they needed us to train on that.” Firefly—which uses prompts to create assets across all Adobe’s vector, bitmap, and motion apps—couldn’t do this because it doesn’t understand bra…

Stocks are climbing on Wall Street Monday and pulling near their records following last week’s roller-coaster ride. The S&P 500 rose 1% and got back within 0.4% of its all-time high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 358 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% higher just before noon Eastern time. Cleveland-Cliffs helped lead the way with a jump of 24% after the steel company’s CEO, Lourenco Goncalves, said it would provide details soon about a potential deal with a major global steel producer that could mean bigger profits. He also said Cleveland-Cliffs has potentially found rare earths at sites in Michigan and Minnesot…

As tech companies shell out millions for top AI talent—even reportedly billions—regular rank-and-file employees are left wondering how to get in on the action and land a job in artificial intelligence. One report found that job postings that mention needing at least one AI skill had salaries 28% higher than other jobs, which translates to $18,000 more. Jobs that required two AI skills had a 43% salary jump. To begin with, it’s worth considering where the AI jobs are and how this intersects with your interests and existing skills. Many jobs in AI can roughly be divided into five different categories: researchers engineers business strategists doma…

This drone is so small that it can sneak anywhere. Flying with the stability and agility of a normal quadcopter, its design is unlike anything you’ve seen before. The tiny aircraft, which could fly comfortably through a Pringles can, also has a built-in camera. Imagine the Death Star’s trench-run-like possibilities. “I wanted to build the world’s smallest FPV drone,” declares its creator in his how-to video. While there are other commercial drones that are almost as small, I couldn’t find a true first-person-view drone—a remote-controlled aircraft you can maneuver with VR glasses on—that could approach the diminutive size of this thingamajig. To create the dro…

The structural DNA of the newest statement lamp from Ikea is hidden inside its glowing, basket-like construction, but it will be familiar to almost anyone who’s ever assembled a piece of Ikea furniture. Named Ödleblad, the spherical lamp is made up of 60 snap-together pieces that were inspired by the shape of the Allen key wrench, the most essential tool in the Ikea pantheon. But in a twist, the Allen key that inspired the lamp’s design isn’t even needed to put it together. Instead, the Allen key shaped components are flat pieces of birch veneer that use precisely placed notches to slot together, forming pentagon-shaped rings that patch together like an oversize socce…

Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN and HBO, announced Tuesday that it is up for sale after receiving unsolicited interest from multiple potential buyers. The news adds a new wrinkle to an already-planned shakeup at the media giant. In June, WBD announced plans to cleave the company into two separate publicly traded companies. The company’s streaming and studio brands—which include HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, and New Line Cinema—would be part of Warner Bros., while Discovery Global would oversee its cable networks that include CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery. Though it’s not abandoning plans to split the company, WBD indicated in its announce…

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have joined prominent computer scientists, economists, artists, evangelical Christian leaders, and American conservative commentators Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck to call for a ban on AI “superintelligence” that threatens humanity. The letter, released Wednesday by a politically and geographically diverse group of public figures, is squarely aimed at tech giants like Google, OpenAI, and Meta Platforms that are racing each other to build a form of artificial intelligence designed to surpass humans at many tasks. The letter calls for a ban unless some conditions are met The 30-word statement says: “We call for a prohibition on …

Breakfast has started to get a little riskier. More than six million eggs have been recalled since Sept. 29 over salmonella concerns. This week those concerns grew when the FDA expanded its earlier recall from Arkansas-based Black Sheep Egg Company and elevated the recall to Class I, which describes the highest possible risk to public health. The move follows a string of other recent egg recalls. In August, the FDA announced the recall of large brown cage-free Sunshine Yolks produced by Country Eggs, LLC of Lucerne Valley, California, and sold under the Nagatoshi Produce, Mizuho, and Nijiya Markets brands. Those products reportedly sickened at least 95 people across 1…

One minute, you’re watching a hilarious or even completely bland YouTube short. The next? You realize you’ve just lost an hour of work time or managed to stay up way too late—again. Losing track of time when watching shorts is not an uncommon experience. But now, YouTube wants to help you set limits to stay on task, hit the hay, or just, ya’ know, not lose precious hours of your life to Shorts. On Wednesday, the video streaming giant rolled out a new timer feature on its mobile app. When users log on, they can go into their settings and click on “shorts feed limit” to set a timer that will remind them to stop scrolling. Once users hit their time limit, the app wi…

In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet. It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year. The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation’s daily finances. Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department, told The Associated Press that a…

It looks like I’m walking on Nerf darts. Twenty-two foam nubs protrude from the bottom of this shoe. When I slide it on, it almost feels like I’m walking on bubble tape—or like, with every step, an octopus tentacle is suctioning to my foot. Even through a thick cotton sock and all that foam, I can feel textures underfoot. I sense the individual blades of grass on a soccer pitch, and dragging my sole along a textured running track feels a bit akin to licking the roof of my mouth. Am I calmer? Perhaps. I’m certainly more mindful. But I also wonder if I’d notice this sensation in an hour. This is Nike Mind—the company’s first foray into apparel that puts your…

Even in the age of electric cars and AI generated everything, we’re still using the same three technologies to insulate most of our clothing. And they work mostly the same way. Wool, down, and most recently, Primaloft (aka synthetic down) are all used to create “loft”—a fluffy substance that traps pockets of air. It’s that air that’s ultimately creating a barrier between you and the outside cold to keep you warm. But now, Nike is taking this premise to its ultimate conclusion, and launching its first coats that are insulated by nothing but air. And to tweak their warmth, you can even pump them up and deflate them as you like. The technology will debut in the T…

Elliott Hill spent his entire career at Nike. But he spent a full year as its CEO before giving his first media interview in the role. In mid-October, the company invited a select group of global journalists to Beaverton, Oregon, to see the latest in Nike innovations. We tried a slew of ambitious products that will hit the market over the next year plus: mind-altering footwear, exoskeleton sneakers, and a jacket that inflates to keep you warm. And a few of us got to speak with Hill. Hill is the third Nike CEO I’ve interviewed for Fast Company. He’s not as introspective or soft-spoken as the design leader Mark Parker. He’s not as unapologetic or headstrong as the …

I don’t know how Henri Cartier-Bresson would have reacted to Leica replacing the optical viewfinder on his camera with an artificial display. Perhaps the French photographer and cofounder of Magnum Photos wouldn’t have cared one bit about it. Or maybe he—a profound humanist—would have disliked the idea of it almost as much as I do. Cartier-Bresson once famously said that his Leica “became the extension of [his] eye, prowling the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to ‘trap life’—to preserve life in the act of living.” That’s a little harder to accomplish with Leica’s new camera. Today, Leica is launching the M EV1. It’s the first M …

President Donald The President has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time after failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking, and terrorism. Zhao had asked The President for a pardon previously. He has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September. The President’s most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged…

Oil prices spiked Thursday after the U.S. announced massive new sanctions on Russia’s oil industry in an attempt to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and end Moscow’s brutal war on Ukraine. U.S. benchmark crude jumped 5.8%, to $61.91 per barrel midday Thursday, and analysts say if the situation remains static, U.S. consumers will soon be paying more at the pump. Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said while it was difficult to predict with certainty because of the number of moving parts, consumers will likely see a bump in prices as early as next week, if not sooner. “We’ll probably start to see motorists be i…

The FBI dropped a bombshell indictment on Thursday, announcing arrests and criminal charges against dozens of people allegedly involved with gambling and rigging NBA games. The whole thing involved not only some of basketball’s biggest names, but also the mob. At a press conference in New York, FBI Director Kash Patel announced “a historic arrest across a wide-sweeping criminal enterprise that envelopes both the NBA and “La Cosa Nostra,” more commonly known as the Sicilian Mob or Mafia. Among some of the high-profile individuals indicted are Chauncey Billups, an NBA hall-of-fame player and current head coach of the Portland Trailblazers, and Terry Rozier, who current…

You may not realize you’re still clinging to the corporate world’s measures of success, but they can undermine your solo efforts. View the full article

Meta is working to make its apps better for boomers. This week the company announced new UX features designed to deter scammers and make Meta’s apps safer for older adults. Scammers today use all kinds of tricks to part people from their money, like soliciting personal information under the guise of fake government benefits, brazenly pretending to be customer service support, and chatting up unwitting people in the comments section of a real business’s social media page to lure them to another page. New features for older users Meta says its new in-app warnings are meant to combat that type of behavior, and will be triggered by suspicious activity. On t…

It’s time to crown the champion of America’s pastime—even if a Canadian team earned its way into the battle. The first pitch of the 2025 World Series will be thrown out tonight: Friday, October 24. The Toronto Blue Jays will try to stop the Los Angeles Dodgers from becoming the first team since the 2000 Yankees to win consecutive championships. The Blue Jays will also try to prevent Shohei Ohtani from making any baseball history. Both feats are a tall order. Let’s take a look back at how the two teams got here and speculate on Ohtani’s potential firsts before we get into how to watch the World Series. The road to the World Series Ironically, the Blue …