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On a recent Saturday, several hundred people flocked to Los Angeles International Airport and spent most of the day looking at airplanes — all because they follow the same airline-industry blog. That sentence may require some explanation even if you’ve read a post or two on Cranky Flier, the commercial-aviation chronicle written by industry veteran Brett Snyder. The avgeek gathering Snyder calls Cranky Dorkfest began in 2011. Snyder, based nearby in Long Beach, decided to see if any of his readers — many of whom regularly show up in comments on his blog under aviation-related pseudonyms — wanted to meet up. So Snyder suggested a triangular park between LAX’s Runway 2…

There’s no doubt we are witnessing a quiet shift in labor: artificial intelligence is no longer confined to experimental labs or consumer chatbots, it is now eroding the foundation of human labor in ways that are less visible, but potentially more consequential, than the headlines about “AI assistants” or “superintelligence.” Last week, Google abruptly terminated 200 AI contractors, many of them involved in annotation and evaluation work. Officially, the company described this as part of a ramp-down, but workers pointed mainly to low pay and job insecurity. What matters is that the roles being cut are precisely those that ensure human oversight of AI systems: the rat…

Ever wondered what happens when you add random household items to the same bowl every day for 100 days straight? Well, you’re in luck. One TikTok account has made it their mission to find out—so you don’t have to. The anonymous account, known simply as Bowl of Danger, adds “random stuff” to a bowl each day until they “get in danger.” The experiment began in January with a dollop of sunscreen. Each day, something new entered the mix: sugar, whipped cream, deodorant, lit firecrackers, batteries, nail polish, vodka, a whole pizza, a Big Mac. “Can’t imagine how bad that reeks,” someone wrote in the comments. “I just unlocked a new facial expression,” a…

One of Hollywood’s crown jewels is on the block: WarnerBros. Discovery, the parent company of HBO, CNN, and major movie franchises like Harry Potter and the D.C. universe, officially confirmed this week that it is open to a sale. The company has already received multiple offers, but wouldn’t disclose any of the parties bidding for its assets; potential acquirers reportedly include Paramount Skydance, Netflix, Comcast, Amazon and Apple – a who’s who of the modern streaming landscape. The disclosure followed public overtures from Paramount, which reportedly was willing to pay as much as $24 per share, or around $60 billion total, for the publicly traded media company. W…

The question came innocently enough: What do you want to be when you grow up? Lindsay’s daughter, after a brief pause, looked up and confidently replied, “I want to be a client.” The simplicity of the answer hid the complexity of what she had observed: The clients always seemed to get the very best version of her mother. In her daughter’s young mind, being a client meant holding a special place—one that commands focus, care, and an unwavering commitment. As two mothers navigating full-time legal careers, that moment was not lost on either of us. It reveals a truth that is often glossed over in the narratives about working women, especially those of us balancing pr…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. Blade Runner wasn’t so far-fetched after all In Blade Runner 2049, Ryan Gosling’s Officer K has a live-in girlfriend named Joi, played by Ana de Armas. The two interact like a real couple—they share familiar banter and seem to have a history together. But Joi is a hologram, projected from ceiling-mounted emitters in K’s apartment. She’s not human; she’s an advanced form of spatial computing—a future-facing concept we’re already seeing the early stages of today. The “AI girlfriend” (or bo…

I’ve spent much of my career in fintech, but some of the most inspiring innovations I’ve seen came from a town most people have never heard of. In early 2025, Ipava State Bank, a tiny community institution in western Illinois, embedded a small amount of life protection into every eligible checking and savings account. No app to install, no portals, no extra steps—coverage was calculated from balances and capped per account. Six months in, reported results included $3.45 million in protection delivered, 7% deposit growth, 4.8% higher average balances, and a 25% increase in customers reaching maximum coverage levels—at a time when many peers were losing deposits. Th…

Tom Broughton, the founder of the British eyewear brand Cubitts that has recently landed in the U.S., wants to make you a set of glasses that you’ll be able to wear your entire life. “They could outlive you,” he says. That’s a radical notion these days. Over the past three decades, as fast fashion has become the norm, the price of eyewear has come down alongside the price of clothes and shoes. Brands like Zenni and Warby Parker market their glasses as a fashion statement that is so affordable, you can change them up whenever you want. You could wear a different pair every day of the week. Broughton finds this approach to eyewear problematic for many reasons. For one t…

When the new year rolls around, many people will resolve to get in better shape. Last year, Americans poured $44.8 billion into the fitness industry, flocking to gyms and buying at-home fitness equipment. But it usually takes just two weeks for people to abandon their goals. Gym memberships go unused. Peloton bikes collect dust. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found that amidst all the fitness options on the market, personal training tends to lead to better results for several reasons: It involves a personalized program, fits into the participant’s schedule, and requires being accountable to the trainer. But personal training is expensive, priced…

There’s nothing spooky about ghostworking, apart from how popular it may be right now. The newly coined term describes a set of behaviors meant to create a façade of productivity at the office, like walking around carrying a notebook as a prop or typing random words just to generate the sound of a clacking keyboard. (Some might call this Costanza-ing, after Jason Alexander’s example on a memorable episode of Seinfeld.) Pretending to be busy at the office is not something workers recently invented, of course, but it appears to be reaching critical mass. According to a new survey, more than half of all U.S. employees now admit to regularly ghostworking. That statistic …

In my old banking job, where I worked for 12 years, I found myself frustrated with the slow pace of the work, the layers of red tape and approvals to get anything done. After all, banking was a highly regulated industry, and while there were many rules to follow, they were just simply being a good bank by following them. I felt tired, drained, and lacked energy—similar symptoms to burnout. While the organization was frequently voted a “best place to work,” I couldn’t figure out why my “great job” felt so bad. I wasn’t overworking or spending endless evenings logging in, so the typical paths to burnout didn’t make sense. What I was actually experiencing was rust out. …

Does your manager hate to delegate tasks? It might sound like a good thing—after all, that means less work for you. But, just like having a micromanaging boss is no fun, having a manager who takes on much of your work can create a work environment that is both stifling and unproductive. We asked three experts about what causes some bosses to act this way and how to encourage your supervisor to step aside and allow you to do your job. What is a ‘snowplow manager’? A “snowplow manager” is a supervisor who takes on excessive work themselves rather than delegating to their team, says Frank Weishaupt, CEO of videoconferencing tech company Owl Labs. His team recentl…

AI startups are the belle of the VC funding ball, and it’s coming at the expense of pretty much every other type of company. That’s a main takeaway from a report published by Silicon Valley Bank on Tuesday. That report found that roughly 40% of VC funding in the U.S. last year came from venture funds that “list AI as a focus. Those comprise more than 15% of U.S. VC funds—a number that has doubled over the past five years. “Put all together, this reflects not only the investor enthusiasm around the space, but also the funds required to properly deploy into capital-intensive hypergrowth AI startups,” the report reads. And with AI companies sucking up a good perc…

Ugly might be the new cute: Just look at Labubu, a “kind of ugly” plush toy that has sparked a buying frenzy across the world, especially in Asia, reported CNN. People from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur flocked to shopping malls on Friday to get the latest edition of the oh-so-collectible furry, while they quickly sold out online. Inspired by Nordic folklore, the toothy stuffed animal has high, pointy, rabbit-like ears, big round eyes, and a mischievous grin with serrated teeth. Made by Chinese toymaker Pop Mart, Labubus come in so-called “blind boxes” the size of a hand, which keep the contents a mystery until the box is opened. Pop Mart, which sells collectibles, has …

Why are AI chatbots so intelligent—capable of understanding complex ideas, crafting surprisingly good short stories, and intuitively grasping what users mean? The truth is, we don’t fully know. Large language models “think” in ways that don’t look very human. Their outputs are formed from billions of mathematical signals bouncing through layers of neural networks powered by computers of unprecedented power and speed, and most of that activity remains invisible or inscrutable to AI researchers. This opacity presents obvious challenges, since the best way to control something is to understand how it works. Scientists had a firm grasp of nuclear physics before the first …

Six years ago, I wrote (with colleague Jennifer Riel) a Harvard Business Review article on functional strategy. But the questions about functional strategy keep coming unabated. It is a vexatious issue for CEOs, functional leaders, and boards of directors. So, I thought it would make sense to dedicate a Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) to Functional Strategy: The Three Key Functional Leader Tasks. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. How Did We Get Here? In the business world today, there are great differences of opinion as to what functional strategy is or even whether functions should have strategies. A prevalent view holds that …

The Federal Reserve’s influence on the economy is immense, and often misunderstood. President of the San Francisco Fed Mary Daly gives an exclusive, firsthand look into the central bank’s daily decision-making, explaining how the Fed’s policies, at both the regional and national level, ripple through society. From housing prices to immigration’s impact on labor, Daly weighs the major factors shaping the U.S. economy. As political and market pressures mount, she reflects on what it means to lead with discipline and data, and what every business leader can learn from the Fed’s balancing act. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by t…

I was watching comedian and political commentator Bill Maher talk about Reverse Improvement (RI), and it struck me how profoundly relevant this idea is to the leadership challenges highlighted in this article and the themes we’ve explored in my upcoming book, TRANSCEND: Unlocking Humanity in the Age of AI. Reverse Improvement, as Maher describes it, occurs when technological progress unintentionally diminishes core human skills and values. Maher’s idea of RI isn’t just about clunky tech updates or frustrating software upgrades—it’s about a much larger, more insidious phenomenon: how technological “advancements” can subtly, and sometimes drastically, lead to the erosion of…

The current king of social media is the short-form video platform TikTok. It’s where trends are forged, news is broken, and opinions spread. Owned by China’s ByteDance, the app has an estimated 1.99 billion users—33% fewer than Facebook’s three billion—and yet Meta is desperately trying to mimic TikTok’s features in its apps (particularly Instagram). But despite its popularity, TikTok has been under siege in 2025. It is facing the threat of a U.S. ban, which would jeopardize the livelihoods of millions of Americans who rely on the app to earn a living. And even if it survives, by transferring its assets to U.S.-owned interests, TikTok’s U.S. algorithm could change und…