What's on Your Mind?

For decades now, Google has been the unquestioned champion of search—our digital oracle, the first and last stop for every question, from “What’s the best pizza place near me?” to “How many protons are in a carbon atom?” But here’s the key difference now: while Google has started to incorporate AI with features like AI Overviews and the new AI Mode, a traditional keyword search is great for finding facts, but not so great at understanding context. It’s like asking a librarian for a book on “dogs” and expecting them to know you really want to know how to train a puppy. You might get a whole library, but you still have to find the right book yourself. That’s w…

French luxury goods company Kering said Sunday it is selling its beauty division to L’Oreal for 4 billion euros ($4.66 billion). Under the agreement, Clichy, France-based L’Oreal will acquire the House of Creed high-end fragrance company as well as licenses to create beauty and fragrance products for Kering brands like Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga. The companies said they will establish a strategic committee to ensure coordination between Kering brands and L’Oréal. Kering and L’Oréal said they are also exploring joint business opportunities in the wellness and longevity market, combining L’Oreal’s innovation with Kering’s deep understanding of luxury clients. T…

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…

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…

Not long ago, one of our coaching clients called us in a panic. His team was floundering, his peers were keeping their distance, and the feedback from HR was . . . not glowing. He was baffled. “I’m hitting the numbers,” he said. “What else do they want from me?” We’ve had this conversation more times than we can count, and this is what we’ve learned: Leaders rarely fall short because they lack intelligence, but because they lack emotional intelligence. The emotional gaps are what bruise egos, stall progress, and erode trust until there’s nothing left to stand on. Research supports this: High emotional intelligence in leaders is linked to stronger team communicatio…

Melinda French Gates has been very busy since her divorce and subsequent departure from the Gates Foundation. For example, she launched her own venture, with $12.5 billion to put toward advancing causes she cares about, specifically those related to women and families. She has even gotten involved in politics, endorsing a candidate for the first time ever. French Gates isn’t new to leading an organization, or to leading people. She has spent the past few decades leaving her imprint on what is arguably the most influential charitable organization in the world. Still, I imagine it can all get a little overwhelming at times. The key to managing it all isn’t to work const…

Cable giant Charter Communications is laying off close to 1,200 employees, or just over 1% of its 95,000-person workforce, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. The job cuts will be related to corporate management positions within the company and will not impact sales or service roles, the source said, adding that the layoffs are intended to streamline operations. Charter follows other media and cable peers that are trimming their workforce. Last month, Reuters reported exclusively that Comcast was planning to cut jobs at its biggest unit, housing broadband and pay TV, to centralize operations. Newly merged Paramount Skydance will begin ma…

Ukraine’s state security service has unveiled an upgraded sea drone it says can now operate anywhere in the Black Sea, carry heavier weapons and use artificial intelligence for targeting. Ukraine has used the unmanned naval drones to target Russian shipping and infrastructure in the Black Sea. The Security Service of Ukraine, known by its Ukrainian acronym SBU, has credited strikes by the unmanned vessel known as the “Sea Baby” with forcing a strategic shift in Russia’s naval operations. The range of the Sea Baby was expanded from 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), SBU said. It can carry up to 2,000 kilograms (about 4,400 pounds) of payload, S…

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…

Hurricanes are America’s most destructive natural hazards, causing more deaths and property damage than any other type of disaster. Since 1980, these powerful tropical storms have done more than US$1.5 trillion in damage and killed more than 7,000 people. The No. 1 cause of the damages and deaths from hurricanes is storm surge. Storm surge is the rise in the ocean’s water level, caused by a combination of powerful winds pushing water toward the coastline and reduced air pressure within the hurricane compared to the pressure outside of it. In addition to these factors, waves breaking close to the coast cause the sea level to increase near the coastline, a phenomeno…

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 …

Clippy, the animated paper clip that annoyed Microsoft Office users nearly three decades ago, might have just been ahead of its time. Microsoft introduced a new artificial intelligence character called Mico (pronounced MEE’koh) on Thursday, a floating cartoon face shaped like a blob or flame that will embody the software giant’s Copilot virtual assistant and marks the latest attempt by tech companies to imbue their AI chatbots with more of a personality. Copilot’s cute new emoji-like exterior comes as AI developers face a crossroads in how they present their increasingly capable chatbots to consumers without causing harm or backlash. Some have opted for faceless s…

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…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Since mortgage rates spiked in 2022, many large homebuilders have tried to make homes more affordable by shrinking them, stripping them down, or pushing buyers farther out. Allan Merrill, CEO of Atlanta-based Beazer Homes—a publicly traded builder with a $710 million market capitalization and the 23rd-largest single-family homebuilder last year—believes that’s the wrong approach. “The way I think about it is, I don’t want to sell you a cheaper home,” Merrill told ResiClub last week. “I want to sell you a home that costs you less every month to live i…