What's on Your Mind?

In early 2023, Shopify made a bold and deliberate decision that rippled through its entire organization. Without warning anyone or conducting a phased rollout, they removed over 12,000 recurring meetings from employee calendars. They put a company-wide pause on all Wednesday meetings, and consolidated larger group sessions into a single window each week. From the outside, it looked like a scheduling adjustment. On the inside, it was an intentional reevaluation of how the company valued time, attention, and collaboration. Surprisingly, the decision resulted in very little chaos. Teams adapted and work moved. Space led to clarity surfacing. Shopify reported that the…

The 2025 WNBA season is upon us, and it’s already making waves. From Caitlin Clark draining logo threes to Paige Bueckers debuting for the Dallas Wings, and the Golden State Valkyries hitting the court for the first time, pre-season coverage has been electric. For those of us who’ve spent years advocating for women’s sports, the buzz surrounding this season isn’t just exciting, it’s a powerful reflection of the league’s progress and promise. Rising viewership. New sponsorships. Sold-out arenas. Long-overdue increases in minimum salaries making their way into collective bargaining agreements. These are signs that the tide is turning. But let’s not mistake momentum for …

Data analytics firm LexisNexis Risk Solutions said it suffered a data breach that could have affected the names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and contact information of more than 364,000 people. The company said in a filing with Maine’s attorney general that an “unauthorized third party” stole data from a third-party platform used for software development. A spokesperson told TechCrunch, which earlier reported of the breach, that an unknown hacker accessed its GitHub account. The breach dates back to last Christmas, though the company said it only discovered it on April 1. “Upon learning of the issue, we promptly launched an investigation …

LG Electronics USA is recalling half a million electric ranges that have been involved in at least 28 fires, resulting in numerous injuries and a few pet deaths. But instead of issuing a refund or replacement, the home appliance maker is sending customers warning label stickers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) posted an alert on Thursday that it received at least 86 reports of “unintentional activation of the front-mounted knobs” leading to “at least five fires,” which “caused extensive property damage totaling over $340,000” as well as burns and eight minor injuries, with three fires resulting in pet deaths. According to the announcement, customers …

To make the most of its stores and keep customers coming back to shop in person, baseball hat retailer Lids announced Wednesday that 20 locations will have a newly redesigned store concept this month built for customization and personalization. Physical retail’s not dead, but to breathe new life into it—not to mention make more money from the remaining square footage—brands are rolling out more personalized in-store customer experiences. Concierge-style customer service along with customizable products have become the name of the game to counter the many headwinds physical retail has faced in recent years, including the rise of online and social media shopping, the pa…

Liftoff Mobile, a California-based mobile app marketing provider, announced on Thursday that it plans to launch . . . into the public markets. The company, backed by Blackstone, is targeting a valuation of nearly $5.2 billion for its IPO, and is looking to raise as much as $762 million in funding by selling more than 25 million shares. Share prices are expected to range between $26 and $30. It will trade under the ticker “LFTO.” The company’s roots go back to 2012, when it was initially founded. A majority stake was later acquired by Blackstone in 2021, and Liftoff was then combined with Vungle to create a single, large, independent mobile adtech platform. That pl…

Think about the last piece of health advice you actually followed. Chances are, it wasn’t from a medical journal or even a doctor’s office. Most likely it was from a colleague, a neighbor, or a trusted friend—the kind of advice that feels personal and authentic. As humans, we’re wired to trust people we know or feel like we know. That’s why two-thirds of Americans now seek health information on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and other social platforms, where it’s easy to connect with others who have relatable voices or similar stories. The default ways we explored our symptoms in the past, i.e., by seeing a doctor or referencing a handful of known credible sour…

LinkedIn’s AI-powered job search feature is expanding to new audiences. The tool—which lets job seekers find relevant open positions without needing to exactly match keywords in the job title or description—will soon be available to all LinkedIn members using the site in English and expanding to Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese. AI-powered job search is already used by 1.3 million people daily, with more than 25 million job searches conducted via the tool every week. And initial data indicates that job seekers without a four-year college degree who use the tool are 10% more likely to get hired than before, according to the company. “This is a really meani…

Is LinkedIn the new TikTok? Short-form video is now the fastest-growing category on LinkedIn, growing at twice the rate of other post formats on the platform. According to LinkedIn, total video viewership surged 36% in the first quarter of 2025. Now, LinkedIn is doubling down on video with new features to boost discovery and engagement. The full-screen vertical video experience, first launched on mobile, is now coming to desktop. Users can tap a video, swipe through more, and explore a new video tab for TikTok-like scrolling. Videos are also getting front-and-center placement on the platform. Now, when you search a topic, relevant videos will appear in a swi…

Many tech observers initially believed the software engineers would become scarce in the face of AI. But that hasn’t turned out to be the case—in part due to the power of human ingenuity. “Software engineers are spending less time coding,” says Aneesh Raman, the chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn, who just published the book Open to Work: How to Get Ahead in the Age of AI. “But now they’re getting to build things in a way they couldn’t before. They’re going into conversations with clients and customers. Or they’re thinking about the ethical implications of what they build.” In their book, Raman and his co-author—LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky—argue that …

Last June, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky took on a second job. Microsoft, the social network for business professionals’ owner since 2016, expanded his responsibilities to include Microsoft 365—the suite still better known by its former name, Microsoft Office—and its Copilot AI assistant. The role charges him with making AI useful in a productivity context, a goal that’s still very much a work in progress. But Roslansky also remains in charge of LinkedIn, a place whose entire reason for being springs from the network effect of its billion-plus members. Their unique connections, learnings, and willingness to help other people can’t be fed into an LLM and reprocessed into the…

New AI features from LinkedIn will soon help job seekers find positions that best suit them—without the need for exact keyword matches or specific job titles. LinkedIn’s new AI-powered job search interface allows users to express their goals in plain language, says Rohan Rajiv, LinkedIn’s head of career products. For example, users can type a phrase like “business development or partnership roles in video games” and still be matched with relevant positions in the gaming industry, even if job listings don’t use those exact terms. Job seekers can also enter more abstract goals like “using brand marketing skills to cure cancer” to uncover marketing roles at pharmaceu…

The most famous dead person to ever wear sunglasses just might be Bernie Lomax. Until now. Because the namesake for the 1989 hit comedy Weekend at Bernie’s was a fictional character, but you dear reader, you are very real. Liquid Death just announced its newest collab, this time with sunglasses brand Pit Viper, to make what its calling “Sunglasses for Dead People.” According to Liquid Death, 87% of people who have near-death experiences report seeing a blinding bright light. That’s not an exact science, but the canned water brand isn’t letting that get in the way of a good bit. Available on Pit Viper’s site for $119, the limited-edition shades feature shatt…

If the 1990 classic movie Ghost is any indication, the dead love a good tune. We all remember when the recently deceased Sam (Patrick Swayze) had his infamous pottery session with his very alive partner Molly (Demi Moore). Now, Liquid Death and Spotify are aiming to use music in a similar way, by giving a few hundred of the recently deceased the opportunity to hear their favorite music for all of eternity. The two brands have collaborated on what they claim to be the first-ever Bluetooth-enabled speaker urn. The tasteful white urn has a top outfitted with a Bluetooth speaker. Spotify is also introducing the “Eternal Playlist Generator” in the U.S., where you can…

“I want a space odyssey. I wanted Star Wars. I got close to that once.” That’s production designer Hannah Beachler, talking about the grand filmic world she wants to build next. For our February episode of By Design, we spoke to Beachler (Creed, Black Panther) about her latest work with director Ryan Coogler on Sinners—the most Oscar-nominated film of all time. We caught up with her last time before she bagged an Oscar on Black Panther and then designed the sequel. https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/evergreen-assets/safelinks/2/atp-safelinks.html She’s up for her second Academy Award for production design on Sinners next month, and she shared the pai…

A Massachusetts-based seafood importer and distributor has recalled salmon that was sold across multiple states due to concerns that the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a potentially deadly bacteria. The company, Slade Gorton & Co., says the recall affects one lot of Wellsley Farms Farm-Raised Atlantic Salmon. The two-pound packages of frozen salmon were sold at BJ’s Wholesale Club across seven states. A recall notice was published Thursday, February 12, by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To date, no illnesses have been reported. Here’s what you need to know. What product is included in the recall? The recall ap…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a public health alert on Monday for FreshRealm’s ready-to-eat meals— shipped directly to consumers by HelloFresh—due to possible contamination from listeria. HelloFresh is a German-based meal-kit company operating in the United States and globally in Europe, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. FreshRealm notified FSIS that the spinach used in the products tested positive for listeria bacteria. So far, no illnesses have been reported. However, FSIS said it expected additional products will be affected, and asked consumers to check this public health alert frequently as the age…

A deadly outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes linked to prepared pasta meals is continuing to spread across the United States. Since September 25, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have identified three new states with infections, bringing the total number to 18 states. The agencies first reported food recalls associated with the outbreak in June. In the last month, seven new cases have been identified, alongside six new hospitalizations. That brings their respective totals to 27 cases and 25 hospitalizations since the outbreak began. Two more deaths have also been reported, with six deaths record…

For decades, the baby food aisle has been dominated by big players like Nestlé, which makes Gerber brand products, and Danone, whose brands include Happy Family. Angela Vranich and Ben Lewis—high school sweethearts turned entrepreneurs—wanted to change this. Even though they didn’t yet have children, they believed that millennial parents were looking for new sources of food for their growing families. “Millennials had spent their twenties drinking fresh-pressed juices and eating salads,” Vranich says. “When they started having kids, they were looking for food that was more nutritious than what they grew up eating.” In 2017, the pair launched their direct-to-co…

After years of complaints, some customers who were overcharged for an event by Ticketmaster might finally get some of their money back. On April 20, D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced that Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, will pay $9.9 million in a settlement to resolve his district’s allegations that it “misled customers about ticket prices, charged deceptive fees, and used illegal pressure tactics to get fans to buy tickets for a decade.” A total of $8.9 million is expected to be returned to D.C.-based Live Nation customers in the coming months. This settlement is the result of a months-long consumer protection investigation conducted by…

Investors in the live entertainment giant Live Nation are feeling optimistic this morning after reports that the company has settled its civil antitrust lawsuit with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and 39 participating states. The settlement will cost Live Nation, but it means that the company has narrowly avoided a forced breakup with its popular subsidiary, Ticketmaster. The reports come after a week-long trial in which the DOJ laid out its argument that Live Nation and Ticketmaster rely on anticompetitive conduct to create a monopoly over the live events industry in the U.S., leading the DOJ to call for a separation of the brands. On March 9, sources close to…