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Lufthansa announced on Monday it plans to cut thousands of workers as it aims to increase profitability and efficiency, in part by relying more heavily on artificial intelligence. The airline group said it will eliminate a total of 4,000 jobs worldwide by 2030, the majority of which will be in Germany—with a focus on administration roles, not operational ones. “The Lufthansa Group is reviewing which activities will no longer be necessary in the future, for example due to duplication of work,” the company said in a statement. “In particular, the profound changes brought about by digitalization and the increased use of AI will lead to greater efficiency in many are…

The resurgence of high-profile IPOs in 2025 shows no sign of abating—especially in the fintech space. This week, Wealthfront Corporation announced its intention to go public. Here’s what you need to know: What is Wealthfront? Wealthfront Corporation was founded 17 years ago, in 2008. It is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and is led by CEO David Fortunato. The company is one of a number of fintech firms that operate in the robo-advisor space. It offers a financial platform and dedicated smartphone app that allow users to invest in various assets, including stocks and bonds. The company also offers cash accounts and automated index investing. Wealthf…

On the heels of Starbucks’ recent announcement it will be cutting 900 corporate roles and closing 1% of its Northern American stores by the end of 2025 (after accounting for both new openings and closures), Starbucks Workers United said Tuesday that 59 of those locations marked for closure are unionized locations. Starbucks Workers United, the worker-led effort to unionize Starbucks baristas, represents 12,000 baristas in 45 states and Washington D.C., across more than 650 cafes. The closures, announced last week by CEO Brian Niccol, are part of a massive $1 billion restructuring strategy dubbed “Back to Starbucks,” aimed at turning around declining sales and bran…

Last week, in subway stations and train cars across all five boroughs of New York City, stark black-and-white print ads appeared featuring a variety of servile messages. “I’ll never leave dirty dishes in the sink,” one read. “I’ll never bail on our dinner plans,” another said. “I’ll binge the entire series with you,” a third promised. The ads—which rolled out on September 25 in the form of more than 11,000 car cards, 1,000 platform posters, and 130 urban panels—are part of a massive outdoor campaign for Friend, a wearable AI company billed as a portable “companion.” Since the campaign rolled out, it has received overwhelming criticism from local New Yorkers, with…

Despite being under a year old and having no revenue, Fermi America had a very successful initial public offering (IPO) this week. The company, which aims to provide data and power centers for artificial intelligence, saw its shares (Nasdaq: FRMI) close at $32.53 on their first day of trading Wednesday, up nearly 55% from their IPO price of $21 per share. Fermi’s stock price continued to rise through after-hours and into premarket trading on Thursday, reaching $36. It reached a high of $39 per share overnight, before dropping closer to $37 ahead of the market opening. What is Fermi? The company was cofounded by Rick Perry, former Texas governor, a GOP pr…

Berkshire Hathaway is buying Occidental Petroleum’s chemical division for $9.7 billion in what may be the last big acquisition involving the consummate dealmaker, Warren Buffett. Buffett wasn’t mentioned anywhere in materials released by Berkshire Hathaway discussing the deal Thursday, potentially signaling a passing of the torch to Vice Chair Greg Abel, to whom Buffet will hand the CEO title in January. Buffett will remain chairman at Berkshire and will still be involved in deciding how to spend the conglomerate’s colossal pile of more than $344 billion in cash. Berkshire’s cash reserves have been growing for years because Buffett has been unable to find any …

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Short screech. Long screech. Static. More beeps. On September 30, one of the most memorable—if not infuriating—waiting experiences since the dawn of the internet went the way of the dodo. AOL finally discontinued its dial-up service. If you grew up in the ’90s, you knew that sound by heart. Some of you also knew to bring a newspaper while waiting for a single web page to load. AOL’s iconic 30-second symphony of screeches and static wasn’t just the sound of connection. It was the sound of anticipation, of mandatory patience in an increasingly impatient world. Today, that pause is all but extinct. Pages load more or less…

Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. It’s reshaping industries, expediting innovation, and shifting how we work at unprecedented speed. For many leaders and employees alike, that reality sparks an uneasy question: if AI can do my work, where does that leave me? The answer lies not in competing with AI, but in doubling down on what makes us distinctly, and irreplaceably, human. In my work on human leadership, I’ve explored how leaders can step into a technology-centric future without sacrificing humanity. The truth is: AI can process, predict, and optimize. But it cannot lead, inspire, or create meaning in the way that humans can. Here are five leadership skill…

Wall Street nudged past yesterday’s record highs in early trading Friday as investors continue to shrug off the U.S. government shutdown, now in its third day. Futures for S&P 500, Nasdaq and the Dow Jones Industrial Average all added 0.2% before the bell. All three closed at record levels on Thursday, boosted by gains of chipmakers and artificial intelligence companies. Markets have largely ignored the shutdown of the U.S. government after Democrat and Republican lawmakers failed to reach agreement on funding. U.S. President Donald The President and congressional leaders were not expected to meet again soon and the Democrats have held fast to their demands to pres…

Snapchat rankled some of its most loyal (and heavy) users when it announced last week it will begin charging for storage plans for Memories, its version of a digital archive for Snaps and stories. Even though the Santa Monica, California-based social media company promised that “nothing will change” for the vast majority of Snapchatters, who have less than 5 gigabytes (GB) of Memories, it will begin rolling out paid storage plans, at a yet undisclosed date. The company told TechCrunch that plans will range from $1.99 per month to $15.99 per month for storage plans, depending on the amount of data of Memories. The company indicated you could have thousands of Snaps…

Companies ask job applicants for references all the time. It’s a way to verify a potential hire’s history and skills, vet their candidacy, and assess character and cultural fit. So why can’t the same thing be done in reverse—where you can ask past employees to assess the company you’re applying to? Sure, there’s Glassdoor. But short of salty ex-employees publicly dragging old employers on social media—a relatively uncommon move, considering it’s deemed unprofessional and may result in legal retaliation—there are no real formalized processes to run references on a company you’re applying to. A recent Reddit post presented the argument: “Jobs be asking me for 3 …

Headwinds across the business world challenge any leader striving to make an impact beyond shareholder value. Few organizations know this struggle better than the B Team, born out of Richard Branson’s drive to elevate the role and responsibility of business in society. CEO Leah Seligmann shares why some leaders are pulling back, where others are pressing forward, and which actions can have the greatest impact—from climate change to diversity. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations …

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. could deliver a policy win for the The President administration in just a few months after the Food and Drug Administration enlisted GSK to help it fast-track approval of a decades-old drug to treat an autism-related disorder. The FDA’s unusual move will allow it to bypass a lengthy label update for generic versions of the drug, leucovorin, or new clinical trials, a tactic academics, lawyers and doctors questioned. A GSK spokesperson told Reuters it plans to complete the new use application for the branded version of leucovorin “as quickly as possible.” Once the British drugmaker does that work, the FDA would normally…

Matchmaking is an ancient dating process that stretches back thousands of years. But as online dating fatigue has begun to dominate the modern-day discourse around finding love, one company is betting that matchmaking will see a revival, and they’ve spent years developing a tool to make it happen: an AI matchmaker named Tai. One might argue that all modern dating apps aim to serve as a kind of matchmaker; an intermediary whose purpose is to connect two singles with each other. But Adam Cohen-Aslatai, CEO of the matchmaking company Three Day Rule, says dating apps still put the onus on users to choose the right partners based on what the algorithm serves. In contrast, …

With no end in sight to the political impasse in Washington that has shut down the government, the U.S. IPO market is expected to experience a significant slowdown just as it was beginning to show signs of life again. Some companies are nevertheless forging ahead with their listings. Phoenix Education Partners, parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, which announced its IPO plans one day before the shutdown began, said on Wednesday that it has priced its shares at $32. That’s the midpoint of its earlier targeted range of between $31 and $33 a share. The company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the “PXED” ticker sy…

For the first time in nearly half a century, the city of Detroit has a major new addition to its skyline. Hudson’s is a $1.4 billion ground-up downtown development of two buildings covering more than 1.5 million square feet, including residential, office, hotel, retail and event space. It’s a large-scale argument that for all of the city’s troubles—from its precipitous population decline to its high poverty levels to its rock bottom 2013 municipal bankruptcy—the city has brighter days ahead. This assertion comes from Bedrock, the real estate arm of billionaire Dan Gilbert, who has almost single handedly breathed life into the city’s downtown core through a decade…

For many high-impact runners, it fels like Mom and Dad are fighting. Strava, the popular fitness-tracking app, is suing the fitness wearable giant Garmin over alleged patent infringement and breach of conduct. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 30 in a Colorado district court, alleges that Garmin is infringing on two patents — segments and heatmaps — and also broke a written agreement between the two companies, as first reported by DC Rainmaker. For many athletes, Strava and Garmin go together like Oakley sunglasses and On Running shoes. A trend report published last year by Strava showed that Garmin’s Forerunner was among the most popular smartwatches for its users. If y…

Customer experience is entering the sci-fi age: knowing and understanding customers on an individual level, providing personalized service, and dedicated moments. All of this is becoming possible thanks to technological innovation. And as it shifts, we’re moving beyond the age of reactive service, where customer satisfaction was measured by stale, bi-annual surveys. We’re entering an era of proactive, predictive customer care. Companies’ missions today should be to transform every interaction into a moment of loyalty and growth, a goal we are working to achieve through our latest in-house innovation: the Customer Experience Index, or CXI. While many companies talk abo…

There’s a chill in the air—and not just from the weather. A newly arrived La Niña pattern is setting the stage for a potentially wild winter, with experts predicting snow-packed northern states, a drier South, and maybe even more late-season hurricanes. Meanwhile, markets caught their own cold snap after fresh U.S.–China trade tensions sparked a global sell-off. Still, not all the week’s headlines were gloomy. Uniqlo is going on a U.S. growth spree with 11 new stores planned for next year. But other industries are feeling the squeeze—from whiskey makers battling tariffs and falling demand, to airlines struggling through a government shutdown that’s leaving thousands o…

How many female entrepreneurs, bankers, and industrialists from the past can you name? You could be forgiven for thinking that, until relatively recently, there were none at all. Women are commonly assumed to have spent most of history as housewives. But in my new book, Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power, I present a revised economic history of the world—one that places women at the heart of the development of the global economy. Here are just five of the (many) ways that women have powered the global economy from the Stone Age to the present day. 1. Creators of global money Before electronic payments, banknotes, and silver coins, it was cloth—…

When we consider the subway, it’s often for reasons that have to do with decay and deterioration. The switches are outdated. The elevators are broken. The train is late (again). Of course it could be better, but rarely do we pause to take in what the system does right. Its 25 lines, 472 stations, and 665 miles of track traverse the city and offer a tremendous amount of mobility. And now, a new digital installation at the Fulton Street subway station by the information designer Giorgia Lupi and her team at Pentagram pays tribute to the system. “Sometimes adults lose the ability to see magic in mundane things and to treat what we experience every day with a …

Long Beach Airport had a trailer problem. Long Beach’s quaint municipal airport originally opened in 1924 when airplanes flew using propellers—and the art deco terminal hadn’t undergone a full-scale renovation since. Instead, it adapted to the increased spatial demands of late 20th and early 21st century air travel, like increased security screening and modern baggage handling, in a rather temporary way: trailers. “It was known as the trailer park airport,” says Michael Bohn, a partner at Studio One Eleven, a Long Beach-based architecture and design firm. “It just became a hodgepodge. You went down these crazy aisles, and through different trailers. They had ven…