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Denying reality is one of the most persistent, successful strategies in Donald The President’s playbook. It helped him inject ambiguity into an electoral defeat in 2020, dismiss his surging unpopularity more broadly, and contend he never said things he actually said on live television. Some aspects of reality, however, are simply undeniable, such as the amount of money in one’s bank account and how far it will go at the supermarket. Nevertheless, since Democratic politicians like Zohran Mamdani won big on November 4 with a message of affordability, The President has been falsely insisting America has seldom been more affordable than it is right now. It’s a messaging s…

As 2026 takes shape, the most successful leaders will adopt new tools with responsibility and vision while keeping the human side of shopping alive. These 10 tech trends in retail tech and AI are evolving, transforming how brands design, distribute, and deliver experiences. These are not distant forecasts, but happening in real time across retailers, marketplaces, and consumer ecosystems. 1. Predictive intent engines Reactive personalization is being replaced by predictive intent engines. Instead of waiting for a customer to browse, AI anticipates the customer’s next wants based on contextual data like weather, life events, and even local cultural moments. For …

On any day during her eight years as First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama said she could go from giving a speech to meeting with a counterpart from another country to digging in her vegetable garden with groups of schoolchildren. And her clothes had to be ready for that. There was too much else to do, including raising daughters Sasha and Malia, and she said she didn’t have time to obsess over what she was wearing. “I was concerned about, ‘Can I hug somebody in it? Will it get dirty?'” she said Wednesday night during a moderated conversation about her style choices dating back to growing up on the South Side of Chicago to when she found herself in the nationa…

The headache of planning a ski trip stands in sharp contrast to the freedom of effortlessly slicing down the slopes once you actually get up the mountain. If you’re tired of worrying about squeezing all of that gear into your car or wrestling with chains in the cold, Uber’s latest option for getting you to the slopes is one way to go. The company continues to broaden the services you can book through its app, and now Uber wants you to not only hail one of its rides up the mountain, but also book your ski pass on the way. Through a partnership with Vail Resorts, Uber is offering an option to buy an Epic Pass through the app. The Epic Pass, sold by Colorado ski gia…

Verizon is planning to cut about 15,000 jobs in the telecommunications company’s largest-ever layoffs as part of a restructuring under its new CEO, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The layoffs, affecting about 15% of its workforce, are set to take place as soon as next week, the person said. Verizon’s shares rose about 1.4% on the news. They have largely stagnated over the last three years, with a gain of 8% compared with the S&P 500’s near-70% rise. A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment. The cuts, following the appointment of former PayPal boss Dan Schulman as CEO in early October, are aimed at its non-union management …

Hi there, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. Last year, I left Twitter gradually, then all at once. Throughout 2024, Elon Musk’s wildly irresponsible stewardship of his social network—I refuse to call it X—left me increasingly disengaged. But the role he played in Donald The President’s reelection proved to be my breaking point. As of this week, it’s been a year since my last tweet. Now, I can’t claim to have abandoned Twitter entirely. I’m still lurking, though only sporadically. When my reporting for a story leads me there—it’s certainly one of the principal places people talk about AI—I go. Add up all my activity, and it amounts to maybe 2% of the time I …

It should come as a shock to no one: The 2026 Latin Grammy Awards were all about Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican superstar won album of the year for his landmark release “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.” After thanking his family and all those who worked on the album, he ended his speech with “Puerto Rico, I love you, thank you.” Those are powerful words honoring a record that doubles as a love letter for his island. The artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio was destined to dominate from the jump. He also won the first award of the night, for música urbana album. Halfway through the show, the singer found himself back on stage accepting the música urbana song trophy for “DTmF.” …

As a community organizer in New York City, Sharifa Khan spends a lot of time visiting food distribution hubs, community gardens, and local shelters. While speaking with community members, she often encounters the same issue: people want to get involved in volunteering, but they’re not sure where to start. So, Khan decided to make a tool to address that—and it couldn’t have come at a more important moment. Dora.nyc, short for Directory of Resources & Aid, is a new website dedicated to compiling New York City’s mutual aid offerings into one easy-to-understand resource. It’s designed both for those seeking aid—like food, housing, and immigration services—as well as t…

Americans have done a shoddy job of teaching reading and math to the majority of our students. Our scores, when compared to other nations—most with fewer resources—are plummeting. As a scientist, I try to stay solution oriented. To ensure that we bend the curve and change the future, we must first concede that we have failed our students. We’re at the dawn of a new educational era—the age of artificial intelligence. And there is no way we will get it right in this new era if we are still struggling with the previous one. As a congenital optimist, I am hopeful that when it comes to teaching AI—I mean this in its broadest sense, well beyond the practice of coding—t…

Every year, American taxpayers are eligible to put a certain amount of money into their retirement accounts, including 401(k)’s and IRAs. But each year, the upper allowable threshold for these accounts tends to rise. This is done in order for the limits to keep up with the rate of inflation. And now, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced its new limits for 2026. Here’s what you need to know. What is the IRS 2026 401(k) limit? According to a notice published by the IRS on November 13, the limit on individual contributions to various retirement accounts in 2026 is rising. If you have a 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457 plan, or the federal government’s …

The public disclosure of more than 20,000 pages of newly released documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been the subject of much online discourse this week. While the emails themselves are full of damning revelations, particularly regarding Epstein’s relationship with President Donald The President, the internet’s attention has been caught on another detail. “BREAKING: Newly released emails reveal Jeffrey Epstein struggled to compose sentences in English,” journalist Tom Elliott posted on X. “Why can none of these very rich and powerful men type or spell,” journalist Jill Filipovic asked. In case you haven’t seen it, one such email read…

Every fall, I anticipate the winter holidays with almost childlike joy. I look forward to familiar traditions with friends and family, eggnog in my coffee, and the sense that everyone is feeling a little lighter and more connected. At the same time, I feel anxious and annoyed by the manufactured sense of urgency around gift giving: the endless searching and second-guessing shaped by advertisers, retailers, and cultural expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I mostly love giving—and, yes, receiving—gifts during the holidays. But as a researcher who studies consumer psychology, I see how those same forces, amplified by constant buying opportunities and frictionless onlin…

While I’m happy to extol the powers of the written word, sometimes you need a little something extra to get your point across. I’m not just referring to pictures, either, but also to annotations, flowcharts, and freeform drawings. These illustrative tools can be a powerful way to convey your message, whether by themselves or on top of an existing image. Allow me to (*ahem*) illustrate exactly what I mean, using a free tool that might end up being the image-editing, markup-magic-creating supplement you never knew you needed. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to di…

After a decade in development, legendary documentarian Ken Burns is set to release his long-awaited series, The American Revolution. In the lead up to the premiere, Burns shares key lessons he gleaned from the founding of the United States—and the parallels between the revolutionary era and today. He also reflects on his admiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, and the obstacles he faces in his ongoing quest for truth. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top busine…

This week’s biggest business news is perhaps that the U.S. federal government shutdown finally ended; however, that ending didn’t come without more than a few noteworthy concessions. Meanwhile, a beloved coffee chain walked straight into a strike on one of its biggest promo days, and a regional grocer found a way to turn literal loose change into both PR and foot traffic. In the background, the tech world reminded everyone that hype cycles come with fine print. CoreWeave, one of the hottest names in AI infrastructure, delivered blockbuster revenue but still saw its stock sink on news of a delayed data center. IBM, facing louder rivals in quantum computing, rolled out …

Over the next 20 years, an estimated $84 trillion will change hands in the U.S.; some call this the Great Wealth Transfer, others the Silver Tsunami. This wealth is held in cash and assets, but also in the estimated 2.9 million private U.S. businesses that are owned by those over 55. Many retiring business owners will look to sell their company to private equity or larger conglomerates, while others will pass their businesses on to their heirs. A few are considering something more radical: giving their company away to good causes, like Paul Newman who gave his eponymous food company to Newman’s Own Foundation when he passed away in 2008. This idea remains radical eno…

You’ve decided to start a solo business. Congratulations! I’ve been a solopreneur for years and love being my own boss. My decision to become a full-time freelance writer happened overnight. I lost my full-time job at a marketing agency. Looking around, the job market seemed bleak. Working for myself was a way to start earning money immediately to pay bills. However, I’d been thinking about a solo business for months. So while the timing wasn’t my decision, it was a direction I was headed anyway. I had been freelancing alongside my 9-5 job for a few years, so I had the “infrastructure” in place to turn my side hustle into a full-time business. What you nee…

Earlier this year, TikTokers declared the start of the Great Meme Depression of 2025. In the months since, things haven’t picked up much. As 2026 approaches, some internet users have decided to take matters into their own hands rather than risk yet another year of AI slop and brainrot humor. It’s time to take it back to 2016. The Great Meme Reset of 2026 was first proposed by TikTok creator joebro909 in a video from March, according to KnowYourMeme, in the thick of The Great Meme Depression. In the clip, he suggested that all memes be wiped from memory in an effort to rescue TikTok from the drought. In September, TikTok creator golden._vr took up the call, …

Ask yourself one question: Is your incentive plan changing employee behavior in a way that drives better business outcomes? If the answer is no, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Profit sharing, stock options, and employee ownership are popular tools, and in many cases they’re useful. Employees generally appreciate them. But here’s the catch: Appreciation doesn’t equal action. And more importantly, satisfaction isn’t engagement. Too often, these programs fail to move the needle where it matters most: day-to-day performance. If your performance compensation doesn’t change performance, it’s not performance compensation. Over the past three decades, working with hu…

Beep, beep: Amazon is making a bigger move into the market for used vehicles. The retail giant and Ford Motor Company announced a partnership today which will mean car buyers in three major cities can shop for, finance, and purchase a certified pre-owned Ford vehicle on Amazon Autos. This new partnership is initially launching in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Dallas, with plans to expand, and will allow customers to complete all steps of the car-buying process online before scheduling a pickup time at a participating dealer and signing the paperwork. “The addition of Ford certified pre-owned vehicles to Amazon Autos represents an exciting expansion of our store, givi…

Looking for some holiday cheer? Customers who want to try Starbucks’ new holiday treat, the Frozen Peppermint Hot Chocolate drink, will have to go to Target, where it will be exclusively available throughout the holiday season at all in-store Starbucks cafes. The drink is a creme Frappuccino with a blend of mocha sauce, milk, and ice, poured over a layer of peppermint-flavored whipped cream and red and green sprinkles, finished with another layer of that same whipped cream and sprinkles. Starbucks is hoping to capitalize on the holiday season and the holiday craze around its special drinks and limited-edition cups. And customer enthusiasm is high, as evidenced by …

Being the children of Francis Ford Coppola had a profound impact on the filmmaking sensibilities of Sofia and Roman Coppola, but their mother, Eleanor Coppola, may have played a larger role in nurturing their creative pursuits. “She taught me how to be in charge without being loud, and the importance of being real,” Sofia writes in her introduction to Two of Me: Notes on Living and Leaving, Eleanor Coppola’s posthumous memoir, published by A24 on November 11. Sofia and Roman convened in New York City last week for a conversation about the book and their mother, who died in April 2024 at the age of 87. One of Eleanor’s last wishes was to have Two of Me, which…

It’s not just executives or knowledge workers in offices who are using artificial intelligence. It’s being adopted in fields like healthcare, retail, hospitality, and food services, too. But frontline workers often aren’t prepared for AI adoption. In fact, many are completely unaware that it’s being implemented in their workplaces at all. Workplace management platform Deputy surveyed 1,500 frontline workers across the U.S., U.K., and Australia for its “2025 Better Together Survey: How AI and Human Connection Will Transform Frontline Work.” The survey found that nearly half of workplaces (48%) use AI. However, only 1 in 4 workers say they regularly interact with it. B…

Soooo, do you Labubu? The furry creature went viral this year thanks to Dua Lipa, Blackpink’s Lisa, and Kim Kardashian all buying into the adorably bizarre, plushy monsters. The results were millions in sales, long lines, and frantic scrambles as people tried to get their hands on this latest trendy phenom. Labubu’s Chinese parent company, Pop Mart, reported global revenue for Q3 (July through September) jumped by about 250% compared to a year earlier, and sales in America were up by more than 1,200%. But it goes beyond Pop Mart, as brands from South Korea, Japan, and other Asian countries are finding more inroads into American culture. Just as American cultural influ…

The U.S. stock market is slipping again on Tuesday, following a global sell-off, as Nvidia, bitcoin and other Wall Street stars keep falling on worries that their prices shot too high. Home Depot is also dragging the market lower after saying it made less in profit during the summer than analysts expected. The S&P 500 dipped 0.4%, following up on sharp swings the last couple weeks, and pulled further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 373 points, or 0.8%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower. The struggles are a sharp turnaround from the months of relentless rallying for the U.…