What's on Your Mind?

It’s no secret: Landing a job in today’s economy can feel overwhelmingly difficult. Qualified candidates regularly apply to hundreds—sometimes even thousands—of positions before receiving that one coveted offer. In fact, over half of unemployed job seekers have been searching for four months or longer, highlighting how competitive the market has become. And it’s not just the job market itself that’s challenging. We’re living through one of the most turbulent periods in modern history: The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.1%, the highest in over two years. 23,000+ tech layoffs occurred in the first three months of 2025 alone. Nearly 50% of Americans are liv…

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 morning. Interim leadership is on the rise in the U.S. Nearly a quarter of new CEOs named in the first two months of 2025 were hired on an interim basis, versus 8% in the same period last year, according to a recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The surge in interim leadership co…

According to the latest Gallup State of the Workplace report, employees are seeking new jobs at the highest level since 2015. This trend has been coined “The Great Detachment.” A key reason for this is increasing employee dissatisfaction with management. For instance, Gallup’s research shows that those who work in companies with bad management practices are nearly 60% more likely to be stressed, and stress is the second most-cited factor influencing employees’ decisions to quit. People’s values have also changed post-COVID-19. Employees prioritize well-being. They expect their contribution to be recognized, and if they aren’t valued or supported, they aren’t prepa…

The first few weeks of working for a new boss are exciting. You’re ready to jump in, hopeful for growth opportunities, and eager to please. Your boss is enthusiastic, too, likely welcoming you with open arms, setting up 1-1’s, and taking a keen interest in your professional development. You both want to make a great impression on each other. Yet, as the new job glow wears off, you may find yourself confused by how quickly your boss’s attention vanishes. The leader you were excited to work for becomes the person ignoring your emails, giving haphazard feedback, and postponing your 1-1 (again!). Working for a boss who is overwhelmed is a frustrating, yet not uncommon…

On Maui’s North Shore, inside an industrial building that was once a pineapple cannery, an architecture office sits across the hall from a surfboard manufacturer. When the architects first moved in, they noticed something: Every few days, the dumpsters in the back would fill up with scraps of foam from making the boards. David Sellers, one of the architects, realized that the foam could be used in a building material—insulated blocks that are typically made from a mix of concrete and new polystyrene foam. “I was just like, ‘We shouldn’t be throwing this away,’” says Sellers, principal architect at the firm, Hawaii Off Grid. “We live on an island, with limited space. S…

While home sales and remodeling rates remain low, Thumbtack—which connects homeowners with professionals to do work on their houses—says business is booming. In fiscal 2024, Thumbtack saw revenue of $400 million, up 27% from the previous year, with billions of dollars going to the roughly 300,000 small businesses that book work through the platform. Cofounder and CEO Marco Zappacosta attributes the company’s success to more than 15 years of work helping users find the right, trustworthy professional—even if they’re not entirely sure what they need to fix a problem in their home—bolstered by recent advances in artificial intelligence. “You’ve got to remember this i…

When the House of Cinema in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, was demolished in 2017, it was an architectural awakening for the city. A large circular concrete building completed in 1982, the House of Cinema was an instant cultural and architectural landmark in the city, then part of the Soviet Union. Its demolition, to make way for a controversial commercial development project, spurred many in the city to worry about which landmark would fall next. That led the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation to launch a citywide research project to document endangered buildings. Most were built between the late 1960s and early 1980s when the Soviet Union sought to frame its a…

Chinese aerospace giant Comac has unveiled its plans for the C949, a supersonic aircraft designed to fly 50% farther than the Concorde and produce sonic booms quieter than a hairdryer. Scheduled to debut in 2049—coinciding with the centenary of the People’s Republic of China—the aircraft positions China to challenge US supersonic projects like NASA’s X-59 and Boom Supersonic’s Overture in a race to redefine global air travel. “The most important thing here is that this shows supersonic is a race—and China’s interested,” says Blake Scholl, CEO and founder of Boom Supersonic. “Advanced airplanes symbolize technological superiority, and it’s no accident that China wants …

When my emergency IAR app sounds at 3 a.m., there’s no room for ego, second-guessing, or hesitation. In that critical moment, all that matters is trust, teamwork, and execution. While I have spent decades in the corporate world, some of my most valuable leadership lessons have come from my experience as a volunteer EMS first responder. In the field, when I’m assisting in a life-threatening trauma situation or responding to a car accident, leadership is put to the test under extreme pressure. But whether I’m piloting an ambulance on a dark highway or guiding my company through turbulent times, the principles remain the same: Know your role, remove the noise, maint…

As renewable energy gathers steam around the world, the harms of mining its mineral components continue to grow. On the environmental front, for example, there’s the destruction of Indonesian rainforests to mine nickel and the draining of precious South American groundwater reserves to obtain lithium. There’s also the human toll, which can be seen in forced displacement and child labor exploitation in the cobalt-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as violence toward Indigenous people living on nickel-studded lands in the Philippines. The devastation raises the question: Is the world better off just sticking with the status quo? With these factors, is renewa…

When deciding if something is worth the effort, whether you’ve already exerted yourself or face the prospect of work, changes your calculus. That’s what we found in our new research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. When you consider a future effort, more work makes the outcome less appealing. But once you’ve completed the work, more effort makes the outcome seem more valuable. We also discovered that hiding behind this general principle of timing there are individual differences in how future and past effort shapes people’s value for the fruits of their labor. What’s it worth to you? In our experiment, we gave participants a choice…

Chances are, you or someone you know has been the target of a scam. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), reported scams cost Americans more than $12.5 billion in 2024—a 25% increase from the previous year. But as scams grow more sophisticated, so do their opponents. A growing number of online vigilantes are flipping the script, turning the scam on the scammers—and racking up millions of views in the process. Mashable’s Chris Taylor recently spoke to a few who’ve turned scambaiting into full-time work. Rosie Okumura got into scambaiting after her mother was tricked out of $500 by a pop-up on her computer. Now, she channels her acting skills—mimicking we…

Roughly half a mile behind the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Ariel’s Grotto in Walt Disney World sits a nondescript cement warehouse with the words “the can-do people” written on the outside. Should tourists somehow get lost in that corner, located just outside the Magic Kingdom, it’s a place they would never pay attention to. What they might never imagine, however, is that generic building is the lynchpin of the Disney experience. Welcome to Central Shops, a rarely spoken part of Disney that’s off-limits to visitors and most of the company’s cast members (Disney’s term for its employees). It’s ground zero for Disney World’s ride safety and an essential part of park ope…

If you’re finding yourself contemplating whether you can get an extension on this year’s tax return, you’re not alone. Forty percent of Americans still haven’t filed. There’s something almost perverse about the IRS placing tax day smack-dab in the middle of the loveliest month of the year. Want to enjoy the warm weather, cherry blossoms, and the sunshine reflecting off the pasty white skin of everyone venturing outside for the first time since last fall? Too bad! You have to excavate all of your financial decisions from the previous year while simultaneously trying to remember your math skills—or risk the wrath of an IRS agent named Spike. That’s why it’s somethi…

To San Francisco chef and restaurateur Thomas McNaughton, QR codes are an efficient way to serve a crowd. Sure, the codes—and restaurants that use them—have endured much loathing. And, yes, people still love to criticize them. But at the newest location of McNaughton’s Flour + Water Pizzeria, set to open later this month, QR codes are the star. There’s good reason. The 1,800-square-foot restaurant sits a few blocks from Oracle Park, where the San Francisco Giants just opened the baseball season. It needs to handle serious spikes in business from game-day crowds and pump out pizzas fast. “We envision a scenario where, for two hours, it’s completely gangbusters befo…