What's on Your Mind?

Early in my career, I learned a valuable lesson that has stayed front and center. I was working for a company struggling to meet its marks. We were doing fine, but not knocking it out of the park. I walked into a quarterly business review, confident in our marketing metrics. We were hitting or surpassing every KPI, and I presented our achievements with pride. My CEO made a statement that stopped me in my tracks: “Marketing success means nothing unless the company as a whole is winning.” That moment was a turning point. In our focus on metrics, it’s easy to overlook what really matters. It’s a lesson I was grateful to learn early and one I believe every leader should e…

Year-end giving can be a moment of reflection, but for businesses and philanthropy alike, it should also include looking forward and asking the question, what’s next? One throughline from this past year is uncertainty. Uncertainty has rewritten how we work, live, and lead. Yet, one thing that still holds true is we share a responsibility to keep systems strong so no one is left behind, especially children. I’ve seen firsthand how instability isn’t just economic, it’s deeply human. I’ve seen it in a mother whose baby’s survival depended on something as small as a packet of therapeutic food. In that moment, you understand that systems created as large scale solution…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. After announcing another 25-basis-point cut to the Federal Reserve’s short-term rate, Fed Chair Jerome Powell—whose term ends on May 15, 2026—was asked about the U.S. housing market. Powell acknowledged that recent rate cuts won’t restore affordability to the U.S. housing market. He suggested that the country needs to build more housing units—and noted that central bankers “don’t really have the tools to address” it. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters on December 10, 2025: “So the housing market faces some really significant challenges, …

For the past two years, I’ve written predictions for how AI will continue to change the media industry and the business of news in the coming year. Prognosticating is a risky business even at the most tranquil of times, and media’s AI era is anything but: bots are multiplying, newsrooms are shrinking, and new business models always seem to be still developing. Last year, four of the five predictions I made came true, those being the spread of audio experiences like NotebookLM’s audio overviews, a greater emphasis on content licensing, more “legit” AI-generated content, and publishers doing more with their own summarization and chatbots. I should have probably known my…

“Season’s greetings” aren’t as cheery when it’s a season of layoffs. November marked the eighth time this year that job cuts were up over the same period the year before, according to research from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. To make matters worse, hiring in November was down 35% from 2024, marking the lowest year-to-date total since 2010. News about the current labor market can be unnerving—even more so when layoffs are hitting your company. Being prepared can help make it less so. And one group of people knows more about that than most. A page out of the prepper book The word prepper may bring to mind images of shows like Doomsday …

At one time or another, we’ve all sat next to someone interesting on a plane or a train, making small talk that sometimes leads to long-winded conversations about life, the world, even personal struggles or accomplishments. It’s been said it’s easier to talk to a stranger . . . but could these random, chance chats lead to networking opportunities? To be clear, vacation provides crucial time to unplug, relax, spend time with family and friends and is vital in maintaining work-life balance—so no one is saying you should treat your holiday like a business conference. (Not least any travel companions you may have.) But the trick is, should you recognize when a c…

Experts have compressed their predictions for when artificial general intelligence (AGI)—the type of AI that can equal or exceed human intelligence—will arrive. When predictions were first made in 2023, AGI was expected to arrive in 50 years. Newer estimates say five years. When GPT-5 came out this summer, it demonstrated surprising leaps in reasoning and memory, further accelerating those timelines. Progress is moving faster than anyone anticipated, and what once felt speculative now feels inevitable. Meanwhile, small teams are shipping products that would have required 100-person companies two years ago. The gap between the AGI debaters and the builders (those w…

The end of the year is the perfect time to take stock of where you are, what you’re good at, and what you want to develop in the new year. The job market continues to be intense and competitive, so you’re wise to consider hiring trends and how you can best prepare and set yourself apart. There is one skill that tops the list for getting the job, building your career, and becoming indispensable: resilience. Resilience has many forms. At a general level, resilience is about adaptability, flexibility, and responsiveness to multiple situations. But when you consider it through a few lenses, it brings terrific focus to what you must be wicked good at for the brightes…

The last thing you want when dealing with a hot oven is any added burn risk. But some owners of Oster’s countertop ovens have experienced just that. Oster’s parent company, Sunbeam Products, is recalling over a million units of Oster French Door Countertop Ovens due to its doors unexpectedly closing. The company has received 95 reports of this occurring, leading to burn injuries, two of which were second-degree burns. Where and when was the product sold? According to a notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the recall includes about 1,290,000 units in the United States and another approximately 104,195 units in Canada. In the U.…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman issued a housing market warning during a speech at the Kentucky Bankers Association Annual Convention in Asheville, North Carolina on September 23. Bowman noted that housing activity has slowed significantly, with declines in single-family construction and sales coinciding with rising inventories and falling house prices in many markets. “Declines in housing activity, including single-family home construction and sales, have been accompanied by higher inventories of homes for sale and falling house prices,…

Wholesale Produce Supply, a food supplier based in Minneapolis, has recalled more than two dozen varieties of its fresh cut and processed cantaloupe products due to a risk of contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced. According to a notice posted by the FDA on Monday, September 29, no illnesses have been reported to date, but Listeria has the potential to cause serious infections. Here’s what to know: Which products are affected by the recall? Wholesale Produce Supply fresh cut cantaloupe was sold to distributors in Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, who may have distributed the product to other states.…

The U.S. federal government shut down one minute into October, bringing with it uncertainty about jobs and the economy. The shutdown hasn’t brought significant turmoil to the stock market as of yet. Most notably, futures have dropped but not significantly, with the Dow shrinking 0.41%, the S&P 500 down 0.45%, and the Nasdaq losing 0.50%, at the time of publishing. Meanwhile, gold prices have skyrocketed in response to the shutdown, reaching an all-time high early Wednesday morning that neared $4,000. Just after the day’s 12:01 a.m ET shutdown, spot gold reached over $3,894, while U.S. gold futures hit $3,922. Both have since dropped slightly, but rem…

Heartwood Preserve doesn’t look like typical stormwater infrastructure. Instead of a primarily utilitarian design, this project in Omaha doubles as public art. Meyer Studio Land Architects created a series of 14 sculptural water retention basins across 500 acres of land that sit in a watershed at risk of flooding. The project is meant to be enjoyed by the public and even has features that educate about climate change. Heartwood Preserve is a winner of Fast Company’s 2025 Innovation by Design Awards. View the full article

It’s not just Hollywood that’s been grappling with how to deal with AI-generated characters. Wikipedia editors are figuring all this out as they go along, too. Following reports this week that an AI “actress” named Tilly Norwood is attracting interest from talent agents and rattling real-life performers who make their living in movies and on TV, Wikipedia editors moved quickly to create a page for the character—and almost immediately began arguing over how to describe it. Is it a synthetic actress? Is it even a she? Can Tilly Norwood, despite having 45,000 followers on Instagram, be accurately described as doing anything? These are the types of questions tha…

As President Donald The President’s regulators revamp bank rules, big lenders expect their capital requirements could fall, in a stunning victory for the industry which faced a big hike under former President Joe Biden, according to senior industry executives. Aiming to cut red tape that The President’s agency picks say is hurting the U.S. economy, they are working on the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. capital rules since the global financial crisis of 2008. In addition to narrowing the “Basel Endgame” capital hikes which sparked unprecedented pushback from Wall Street banks, the Fed plans to reduce a capital surcharge levied on risky global banks, shrink a k…

Pepsi has a new challenge: keeping products like Gatorade and Cheetos vivid and colorful without the artificial dyes that U.S. consumers are increasingly rejecting. PepsiCo, which also makes Doritos, Cap’n Crunch cereal, Funyuns and Mountain Dew, announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to using natural colors in its foods and beverages. Around 40% of its U.S. products now contain synthetic dyes, according to the company. But just as it took decades for artificial colors to seep into PepsiCo’s products, removing them is likely to be a multi-year process. The company said it’s still finding new ingredients, testing consumers’ responses and waiting for …

Napheesa Collier is more than just a WNBA star who is critical of her league and its leadership. The Minnesota Lynx player is a vice president of the players union, which means she will be sitting across from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert at the negotiating table ahead of an Oct. 31 deadline to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. If that doesn’t cause enough tension, Collier is also a co-founder of Unrivaled, a three-on-three women’s basketball league that plays in the winter and features WNBA stars. That could give her additional leverage to try to press the WNBA as talks unfold. Here’s a look at some of the implications of Collier’s headline-gra…

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…

Whether it’s Sam Altman surreptitiously stealing GPUs from a Target, trying to make a break for the door under the gaze of security cameras as he tucks a box containing a valuable computer chip under his arm, or Super Mario appearing in Star Wars, the rupture in reality brought about by OpenAI’s AI-generated video social network, Sora, is significant. What previously would have been decried as deepfaked videos have gone viral on social media in the last two days, while also outstripping the release of Meta’s competing product, Vibes. Users, including some OpenAI employees on social media, have been revelling in their ability to create outlandish content involving rea…

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 has yet to disclose when it will begin rolling out the paid storage plans. 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. At stake is the size of your Memories, and the comp…

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…

Uniqlo, the Japanese retailer known for its monochromatic casual wear and accessories, is gearing up to significantly expand its U.S. physical footprint next year. The brand will open 11 new stores across seven cities in spring and summer 2026, Uniqlo told Fast Company. The expanded fleet will include four new stores in New York City: three in Manhattan and an additional location in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The new locations come two decades after Uniqlo opened its first U.S. store in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood in 2006. For fans of Uniqlo’s ultra-stretch jackets, Pufftech vests, and functional backpacks, it gets even better: The company is al…

Republican and Democratic lawmakers at an impasse on reopening the federal government provided few public signs Sunday of meaningful negotiations taking place to end what is about to be a six-day shutdown — with President Donald The President saying that layoffs are occurring. Asked on Sunday night when federal workers would be fired as he has threatened to do, The President told reporters: “It’s taking place right now and it’s all because of the Democrats.” “The Democrats are causing the loss of a lot of jobs,” The President added, declining to answer a question about which agencies are subject to the cuts. The possibility of layoffs would escalate an already tense si…

Wall Street is hanging near its records on Monday, as technology stocks keep rising. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 17 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher. Advanced Micro Devices soared 32.6% to help lead the market after announcing a deal where OpenAI will use its chips to power artificial-intelligence infrastructure. As part of the deal, OpenAI could own up to 160 million shares of AMD if it hits certain milestones. A frenzy around AI has been one of the main reasons Wall Street has been hitting record after record, though that’s also …