What's on Your Mind?

Anxiety about costs and affordability is particularly high among Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians, even at a moment when economic stress is widespread, according to a new poll. About half of Asian American and Pacific Islander adults said they wanted the government to prioritize addressing the high cost of living and inflation, according to the survey from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted in early December. In comparison, a December AP-NORC poll found that about one-third of U.S. adults overall rated inflation and financial worries as the most pressing problems. The findings indicate t…

Leadership loves speed. You see it in job postings: “We’re a fast-paced environment.” And you hear it: “Decide quickly.” “Respond ASAP.” “Fix it… now.” And yes, action needs to happen at work. But reacting quickly and leading effectively aren’t the same thing. Some of the biggest leadership mistakes don’t happen because someone’s careless. They happen because someone feels pressure to respond immediately and prioritizes urgency over accuracy. Someone makes a mistake and you groan. You hear feedback and go on the defensive before you’ve even fully heard it. Someone gets sick during a key project and your first thought is, “How will this get done now?” The…

One of the giants of the gaming business has tumbled off a cliff. Ubisoft, the French game publisher best known for the Assassin’s Creed series, just announced plans to dramatically reorganize its business. In the process, the company will kill six games it had in the works, including a long-awaited Prince of Persia title that was expected this month. Ubisoft shares dropped by more than 30% following the news. The game publisher said the changes are designed to make it more agile in order to drive a “sharp rebound” for the company, which has seen its stock tank over the last five years. To chart that course, Ubisoft said it will selectively close the game studios…

Capital One is buying Brex in a $5.15 billion stock-and-cash deal that underscores how traditional banks are turning to fintech startups to modernize the way businesses manage money. The acquisition, announced Thursday, would bring the San Francisco–based corporate card and expense management company into the fold of one of the largest U.S. financial institutions. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2026, pending regulatory approval and customary conditions. Brex CEO and cofounder Pedro Franceschi will continue to lead the company as part of Capital One. At first glance, the deal looks like a straightforward expansion into corporate cards. In reality, it i…

Below, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein shares five key insights from her new book, The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. Goldstein is an award-winning philosopher, writer, and public intellectual. She is the author of 10 books of acclaimed fiction and nonfiction and has held various visiting professorships and fellowships at elite academic institutions. Her first novel was The Mind-Body Problem. What’s the big idea? We all want to feel connected to others and know that we matter. The ways we go about making our lives matter shape who we are, the meaning we find, and the mark we leave on the world. Listen to the audio version …

So, you’ve finally done it. No more putting it off, pushing through the grind, waiting for a more opportune time once things settle down. Alas, you’ve mustered up the gall to cash in on your paid vacation time. Now you have several days strung together to travel, rest, or do whatever the heck your heart desires. I love that for you. But before you slam your work laptop shut and “Yabba dabba doo!” your ass out of the office, there’s one last thing. You’ve gotta leave behind a message letting folks know you’ll be gone. You need to draft an out-of-office message. Out-of-office notes tend to be pretty standard—courtesy auto-replies letting folks know you’re not workin…

If you’re a typical American, you get home from work and start flipping switches and turning knobs—doing laundry, cooking dinner, watching TV. With so many other folks doing the same, the strain on the electrical grid in residential areas is highest at this time. That demand will only grow as the world moves away from fossil fuels, with more people buying induction stoves, heat pumps, and electric vehicles. That’s a challenge for utilities, which are already managing creaky grids across the United States, all while trying to meet a growing demand for power. So they’re now trying to turn EVs from a burden into a boon. More and more models, for instance, feature “vehicl…

A reader asks: Two years ago, I began managing Craig, who had been doing the same tasks day in and day out for a decade. He hadn’t adapted to new technology, best practices, or industry trends. My first order of business was to coach him and challenge him to grow and learn. For more than a year, we built up a great trajectory. People saw how much his work improved and commented on it frequently, and said he seemed revitalized in many ways. His progress gave me a lot of hope that he could become good at the modern demands of his role. Then about six months ago, Craig suddenly reverted to his old patterns. It was as if the prior year of progress got completely wiped…

Spammers and malicious actors inundate us with a steady stream of text messages—often purporting to be from legitimate institutions or companies. Stanching this flow isn’t easy. Just as the unwanted emails we receive often tell us that we can simply unsubscribe via the “unsubscribe” link, these text messages explain that we can opt out of future communication simply by replying “STOP.” But that’s not always a safe way to deal with these unsolicited texts. Here’s why—and what you should do instead. The problem with replying “STOP” to unsolicited text messages We’ve all had it happen. We get a text message pitching us a product or asking for a political donation. At …

When crypto first gained prominence more than 15 years ago, one of the big selling points of the currency was its lack of ties to any specific government. Unlike fiat currency, cryptocurrency offered the possibility of a purely mathematical currency that was unrelated to politics, governance, or taxes. While crypto is still touted as an alternative to fiat currency, such as the U.S. dollar, the real world of politics, governance, and taxes has found a way to intrude on the use of this alternative currency in America. Specifically, the IRS requires U.S. taxpayers to report crypto earnings on their taxes. Because in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except t…

The “New Tab” page in Chrome is the digital equivalent of a blank stare. A white void. Nothing, and plenty of it. Why are we settling for this? Your browser’s start page is the most valuable real estate on your computer. It’s the first thing you see! Instead of looking at an empty space, you could be looking at a command center. Here are five Chrome extensions that turn that boring start screen into something actually useful. Momentum If you want your browser to feel less like a software application and more like a high-end wellness retreat, Momentum is the gold standard. Every day, it greets you with a stunning, high-res landscape photo and a simpl…

In 2023, Ken Lux found himself in an FBI briefing on child trafficking. The CEO of Luxe Aviation was there as the past commander of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office’s Air Squadron, a volunteer cadre of 50 general aviation pilots supporting police missions and community service. Lux recalls the FBI agent relaying the story of a since-jailed airline pilot who used his credentials to traffic children to clients in the Philippines with chilling negotiations. “I have a girl that’s 12 years old for your client,’” the pilot said. The client’s response: “No, we think we need an 8-year-old.” The group was horrified. “I have two daughters,” Lux says. “We said, ‘Wa…

In today’s experience economy, cultural capital is increasingly valuable, especially for cities seeking to differentiate themselves. Municipalities routinely invest in traditional industries, physical infrastructure, and innovation pipelines, but music is often siloed as “entertainment.” Music can function as an economic engine, a form of cultural connective tissue, and a powerful competitive differentiator. The scale of the opportunity is significant. The music industry contributes more than $212 billion to the U.S. GDP and accounts for 2.5 million jobs nationwide. Cultural exports are not just symbolic; they shape global perception, attract investment, and support w…

A startup called Adapt is betting that it can be an AI hub connecting other software tools to help answer questions and get things done. When users pose questions or ask for help with a business task, Adapt can answer based on information from the web and business data to which it’s been given access, similar to other AI tools. But it can also automatically launch a virtual machine, essentially a computer in the cloud from which it can connect to a wide range of internet-based software, pull information from databases, and craft custom code to analyze data and create charts and visualizations. It’s an approach that cofounder and CEO Jim Benton says lets users w…

Tax filing season is underway, and the IRS expects 164 million people will file returns by April 15. The average refund last year was $3,167. This year, analysts have projected it could be $1,000 higher, thanks to changes in tax law. More than 165 million individual income tax returns were processed last year, with 94% submitted electronically. People with straightforward returns should not encounter delays, but because of an exodus of IRS workers since the start of the The President administration, the national taxpayer advocate has cautioned that the 2026 tax filing season is likely to present challenges for those who run into problems filing. While last yea…

Meetings are breeding grounds for three highly toxic power moves: AMPLIFICATION: The boss speaks, and suddenly it’s gospel. People start self-censoring, sugarcoating bad news, and swallowing their dissenting opinions. INCOMPETENCE: When a leader can’t run a meeting, it drains the room’s energy. People leave annoyed and wondering why they bothered to show up. JERK BEHAVIOR: Bullies, interrupters, and blowhards hijack the room. Collaboration isn’t just stifled—it’s publicly executed. These power moves reduce meetings to lifeless, performative rituals where the people who hold the most power call the shots and everyone else plays defense. But it doesn’t h…

In the 1950s, the Air Force designed cockpits for the average pilot by measuring thousands of pilots and calculating the average for 10 key physical dimensions—height, arm length, torso size, etc. They assumed most pilots would be close to average in most dimensions. When researchers actually checked, they found that out of 4,063 pilots, exactly zero were average on all 10 dimensions. Not a single pilot fit the average they’d designed for. Even when they reduced it to just three dimensions, fewer than 5% of pilots were average on all three. By designing for the average, the Air Force created a cockpit that fit virtually no one well, and that had serious consequences f…

Around 70% of large-scale corporate transformation efforts fail. That figure has remained consistent for 25 years—and it comes from an era of relatively manageable change. Artificial intelligence will demand far more of companies: faster adaptation, more comprehensive reinvention, and continuous evolution rather than periodic adjustment. Yet more than three years after the launch of ChatGPT, only 5% of businesses report extracting significant value from their AI initiatives. If companies struggled with transformation before, the coming years will be harder still. Managing rapid change is becoming the central competency for business leadership. Every serious observer a…

Amazon is rolling out a new feature in hopes of retaining, or perhaps attracting, new Prime members. The tech giant announced Wednesday that Alexa+, its AI-powered assistant, is now available for free to all Prime members. Last March, Amazon began offering an “early access” preview for the new voice assistant that saw an “inspiring” response, with tens of millions of customers requesting access, according to a statement. The company has revamped its legacy Alexa product to handle more complex interactions—offering examples of how users can engage in “deep conversations” with Alexa+ that may be ongoing over the course of potentially several days, as the technology …