What's on Your Mind?

Saudi oil giant Aramco reported Tuesday a $26.9 billion profit in the third quarter, down slightly from last year as global energy prices remain depressed over concerns of too much oil being on the market. Aramco’s results serve as a bellwether for the wider oil industry, which is still digesting the OPEC+ decision this weekend to halt planned production increases in the first quarter of next year over supply worries. Benchmark Brent crude, at just under $65 a barrel, has been fluttering near a four-year low. In filing on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange, Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., reported overall revenue of $111 billion in the third quarter, c…

In early 2024, Ben Collins was contemplating the future of the media business—and his place in it. He was in the process of resigning after spending six years as a senior reporter at NBC News, exhausted by the disinformation beat that took him to some of the darkest and most disturbing corners of the internet. It hadn’t helped that in December 2022 NBC News had suspended Collins from the Elon Musk beat following his highly critical coverage of the gazillionaire’s acquisition of Twitter. The media landscape looked bleak. Layoffs were decimating storied media titles like Sports Illustrated, and Collins was hearing rumors that G/O Media, the holding company owned by priv…

There’s never a dull day in the world of weight-loss medication. This week brought new restrictions on compounded GLP-1 medication, the cheaper, copycat versions of brand-name drugs that telehealth companies like Hims & Hers and Noom had been offering. Other developments include news that GLP-1 pills are on the way, and that a bankruptcy filing by weight-loss giant WeightWatchers is imminent. Let’s dive in. The end of copycat weight-loss drugs When the Food and Drug Administration declared that GLP-1 drugs were in short supply in 2022, it opened the door for compounding pharmacies to legally fill the gap and make copies of brand-name medications by altering som…

Financial technology is now entering its third act, marked by a significant shift in how platforms and businesses interact with financial services. The first wave brought democratization, with businesses gaining access to online credit and lending tools aimed at leveling the playing field. The second wave moved these products inside platforms, embedding payments and finance into everyday software workflows. Despite their impact, these steps left business owners managing multiple fragmented systems. Today, platforms are in a race to embed financial services; as of 2021, 73% planned to integrate lending features into their software within two years. The opportunity is h…

Think about how many emails you receive each day. Then how many of those include the phrase “please find attached” in the body. One X user has made a plea to retire the phrase, a relic leftover from a time when business communication relied on typewritten letters posted in envelopes, which actually included attached documents to be found. The post quickly went viral, gaining nearly 15 million views since it was posted earlier this week. While the user doesn’t elaborate why exactly they personally take issue with the phrase, or what to say instead, the post had the desired effect, with many weighing in with their own takes on modern email etiquette. Some agr…

Leaders typically spend January prepping for the year ahead. But that’s difficult when you’re eight months pregnant, and your baby has zero concern for your deadlines. I’ve lost count of how many times people have asked how long I’ll be away, whether I’ll be checking my emails, or what support I’ll need when I return. People often expect leaders to have all the answers, but the truth is: I don’t know yet. Lucky for me, that uncertainty worked to my advantage. It forced me to change my approach from setting goals to building flexibility. This has resulted in a team that is autonomous and adaptable, whether I’m in the room or away on leave. You don’t have to hav…

As the largest art and design school in the United States—with nearly 17,000 students enrolled at its Savannah and Atlanta campuses—the Savannah College of Art and Design prides itself on offering a course of study for almost every type of creative person. Along with degree programs in animation, film and television, game development, graphic design, and illustration, SCAD tempts students with courses in beauty and fragrance, sneaker design, luxury and brand management, and equestrian studies. There’s a new degree program this school year, in Applied AI, that is attracting a different sort of attention. As I learned directly from faculty, students, and industry veter…

Despite a weekslong multinational crackdown, scam centers along the Thai-Myanmar border are still operating with up to 100,000 people working there, the top police general leading Thailand’s operations against the fraud compounds told Reuters. Thailand is fronting a regional effort to dismantle scam centers along its borders, which are part of a Southeast Asian network of illegal facilities that generate billions of dollars every year, often using people trafficked there by criminal gangs, according to the United Nations. Based on early assessments of some of the 5,000 people pulled out of sprawling scam hubs in Myanmar’s Myawaddy area, hundreds went there volunta…

QR codes have become a convenience of modern life. Just scan the black and white mosaic with your phone’s camera and you can do everything from connect to your hotel room Wi-Fi to pay for that public parking space to pull up a restaurant menu. But QR codes can also leave you vulnerable. That’s because scammers, organized criminal gangs, and shady nation-states are using the unassuming tech to get you to hand over your data unwittingly. Here’s how they’re doing it, and how you can protect yourself. People love the convenience of QR codes—but so do scammers It’s hard to believe that something nefarious can lie within a QR code, but it can. In order to understand…

The job market is rough right now. Mass layoffs have people desperately clinging to their current positions. The Great Flattening has more and more workers competing for a dwindling number of roles as entry-level roles dry up and AI potentially rendering entire career paths obsolete. Long-term unemployment is at a post-pandemic high, with more than one in four workers without jobs unemployed for at least half a year. Which makes it a nerve-wracking time to be moving through any sort of career upheaval. If you do find yourself unmoored in the current market, whether or not by choice, it could be a good time to recalibrate and get clear on your next steps. Th…

The news that Microsoft is making 9,000 workers redundant this year, with a focus on jettisoning managers, has sent ripples through the business world. Andy Jassey, Amazon’s CEO, explicitly said this summer that AI advances will lead to job cuts. So it’s no wonder that workers all over the world, including one in five Gen Z workers, are “very concerned” that AI will take their job in the next two years (with Americans being more concerned than Europeans), and 32% of U.S. workers believe that AI will lead to fewer job opportunities. AI has advanced to encompass a vast range of skills, not only data-driven ones such as coding and debugging, but also more managerial task…

A group of college students braved the frigid New England weather on Dec. 13, 2025, to attend a late afternoon review session at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Eleven of those students were struck by gunfire when a shooter entered the lecture hall. Two didn’t survive. Shortly after, a petition circulated calling for better security for Brown students, including ID-card entry to campus buildings and improved surveillance cameras. As often happens in the aftermath of tragedy, the conversation turned to lessons for the future, especially in terms of school security. There has been rapid growth of the nation’s now US$4 billion school security industry. …

It’s peak season for fevers and runny noses, and when it comes to the flu, the illness has been rampant this year. In some areas, the flu has been so widespread, schools have even closed to help communities get well. This week, local news outlets have reported school closures in at least 10 states due to higher than normal flu numbers. Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee, have all kept kids home in order to disinfect, and allow teachers and students time to get well. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent data, 27 states and Washington, D.C., are experiencing “v…

Your interest in longevity may be entrepreneurial; after all, people who want to live longer, healthier lives are a huge market. Or maybe, if you hope to be wealthy, there’s what Warren Buffett called the Methuselah technique: a long life and a high rate of return. More likely, though, your interest in longevity is personal. We all hope to live a longer, healthier life. The problem is, the recommendation bar for living a longer life can seem impossibly high. One study found you need between 150 and 300 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity to “mitigate” the risk of death associated with sitting. Another study found you need to jog five days a week for …

Want to be wealthier? Get married. According to a study published in Journal of Sociology, the net worth of a married person grows approximately 75 percent more during their thirties, forties, and fifties than the net worth of an unmarried person. (That’s per person in the relationship, not per couple.) Want to make a higher income, and feel more satisfied with your job? Get married. A Washington University in St. Louis study found that people with relatively prudent and reliable partners tend to perform better at work, earning more promotions, making more money, and feeling more satisfied with their jobs. What the researchers call “partner conscientiousness” pred…

We all have goals, but at least some of the difference in achieving those goals comes down to how you frame them. In a study published in PLOS One, the researchers separated participants’ goals into two basic categories: Avoidance goals: stopping or preventing an undesired behavior. “Stop ignoring interpersonal issues between employees.” So is “stop putting off important tasks.” So is “stop watching so much TV.” So is anything you want, or wish, to stop doing or do less often. Approach goals: adopting a new behavior. “Complete the most important task on my to-do list every day.” So is “Compliment at least one employee every day.” So is “Eat at least one servi…

It’s the first week of December. If you don’t already have the Christmas tunes blasting in the office, what are you waiting for? The debate over listening to music while at work, however, often divides offices. Some love to crank up the merry melodies while toiling away, and find silence to be deafening. Others can only listen to mood music or instrumental playlists like “coffeeshop jazz in the background” or “LoFi Girl,” featuring low-fidelity, calming beats. And still others insist on complete silence. As the countdown to the holidays begins, Google searches for “Christmas playlist 2025” have spiked this past week. But could listening to Mariah Carey or Michael…

A new scientific study warns that using artificial intelligence can erode our capacity for critical thinking. The research, carried out by a Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University scientific team, found that the dependence on AI tools without questioning their validity reduces the cognitive effort applied to the work. In other words: AI can make us dumber if we use it wrong. “AI can synthesize ideas, enhance reasoning, and encourage critical engagement, pushing us to see beyond the obvious and challenge our assumptions,” Lev Tankelevitch, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research and coauthor of the study, tells me in an email interview. But to reap those benef…

In 2015, in Gallup’s “State of the American Manager” report, then CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton made an assertion that startled many and quietly confirmed what others already suspected: “Most CEOs I know honestly don’t care about employees or take an interest in human resources. Sure, they know who their stars are and love them—but it ends there. Since CEOs don’t care, they put little to no pressure on their HR departments to get their cultures right . . .” Given the unique vantage point Clifton had into American business at the time, he offered a rather harsh and honest assessment. And, more than a decade later, the obvious question worth asking isn’t whether Clif…

Technological advancements in various fields of science are shattering what some scientists once deemed impossible. In recent years, researchers have mitigated the existential threat of asteroids, unlocked the power of immunotherapy to treat cancer tumors, and achieved unprecedented control over the human vestibular system. These scientific innovations have been fostered by new types of cross-disciplinary collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence tools. And though they’re approaching it from vastly different perspectives, planetary science, pathology, and neuroscience researchers shared at the World Changing Ideas Summit in November how they’re re…

An environment conference opened in Nepal on Friday to discuss global climate change, including the impact on the highest Himalayan peaks where snow and ice are melting. The three-day conference in Kathmandu titled, “Climate Change, Mountains and the Future of Humanity,” is expected to include discussions of critical climate issues. “From the lap of Sagarmatha (Everest), the world’s highest peak, we send this message loud and clear that to protect the mountains is to protect the planet. To protect the mountains is to protect our seas. To protect the mountains is to protect humanity itself,” Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli told participants at the opening meeting.…

Over the past two decades, the concept of mindfulness has become hugely popular around the world. An increasingly ubiquitous part of society, it’s taught everywhere from workplaces and schools to sports programs and the military. On social media, television, and wellness apps, mindfulness is often shown as one simple thing—staying calm and paying attention to the moment. Large companies like Google use mindfulness programs to help employees stay focused and less stressed. Hospitals use it to help people manage pain and improve mental health. Millions of people now use mindfulness apps that promise everything from lowering stress to sleeping better. But as a pr…

Chances are, if you’re not an Italian grandma or a skilled home chef from Rome, you’ve probably messed up while trying to make cacio e pepe. At least, that’s the thesis underpinning the scientific study “Phase behavior of Cacio e Pepe sauce,” published on April 29 in the journal Physics of Fluids. The study—conducted by a group of scientists from the University of Barcelona, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany, the University of Padova in Italy, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria—is pretty much what its title suggests: a full-on scientific investigation into the most “optimized recipe” for the creamy, peppery pasta d…