What's on Your Mind?

If Nike hired Michael Jordan to work at headquarters, would you expect the marketing team to start sinking three-pointers? Of course not. He’s extraordinary, but skill doesn’t spread by proximity. Here’s a better question: What do Nike employees need to know about basketball? The rules. Game duration. Equipment specs. Enough to design better shoes, write sharper campaigns, and forecast demand accurately. They don’t need to play in the NBA. And Nike doesn’t need to hire NBA players to improve its business. The same is true for AI. Most companies don’t need extreme AI talent to unlock real efficiency gains. They need people across the organization to underst…

Thomas Edison said that success is “1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” But what if his famous formula is missing a key ingredient? What if success demands not just creativity and perseverance, but a third, much less discussed skill? Modern neuroscience suggests it does. Research shows mastering this often overlooked ability will not only upgrade your brain, but make it much more likely you’ll achieve your goals (with less perspiration along the way). The secret ingredient for success What is this magic ingredient? Some scientists call it a strategic mindset. Others term it metacognition. Whatever label you go with, the idea is straightforwar…

American Airlines will begin offering free, high-speed Wi-Fi on flights beginning this month. The airline made the announcement this week in a press release, explaining that the service will extend to around two million flights in 2026. However, not all fliers will receive the perk. The new service will be sponsored by wireless provider AT&T. “Free high-speed Wi-Fi isn’t just a perk—it’s essential for today’s travelers,” said Heather Garboden, chief customer officer at American Airlines, in the release. The rollout won’t kick off all at once, the announcement explained, but instead will happen in phases. This month, the service will be available only on…

Hiring likely remained subdued last month as many companies have sought to avoid expanding their workforces, though the job gains may be enough to bring down the unemployment rate. December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November. The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market…

Barely 10 days into the new year, it already feels like you can’t look away from the news. In the last week alone, the U.S. military captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and took over operations of the country; President The President withdrew the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, including a major climate treaty; and an ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis resident, sparking outrage and widespread protests. If it seems impossible to focus on work—or anything else, for that matter—amid all this troubling news, you’re not alone. Plenty of research in recent years has shown that Americans are overwhelmed by the state of politics and feel a heighte…

You’ve put in the hours, delivered results, and earned the respect of your peers. But when it comes to moving up, the biggest obstacle isn’t performance or policy—it’s your boss. Managers often hold disproportionate power over career mobility. Research shows they can become the gatekeepers who decide who advances and who stalls. Gallup finds managers account for up to 70% of the variance in engagement, and half of employees say they left a job to escape their manager. Add to that the fact that companies fail to pick the right person for the job 82% of the time, and it’s clear why bad bosses cost organizations billions in lost productivity, stalled growth, and attritio…

2025 was a fairly humdrum year for Apple from a hardware perspective. While the company’s software—including the “26” versions of iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS—got a major visual overhaul, Apple’s hardware lineup included just one brand new product: the iPhone Air. But that is set to change in 2026. This year, Apple is expected to release a number of brand-new hardware products, along with some updates to existing ones. And yes, AI will be a focus, too. Here’s what—and when—to expect from Apple in 2026. iPhone Fold The most anticipated device Apple is expected to release this year is a foldable iPhone. Colloquially known as the “iPhone Fold,” this device will b…

We’ve had branded entertainment since Procter & Gamble invented soap operas back in the 1930s. But today, brands are forced to diversify the ways in which they gain and hold our attention. It’s no longer as viable or effective to depend on traditional paid media tools. Innovative marketers are increasingly investing in content and experiences that attract and engage audiences rather than interrupt and annoy them. And the shift is driving results. Brands of all stripes talk about “brand entertainment,” but it’s the exceptions that truly create actual entertainment. I’ve spent a lot of time this past year writing and talking on the Brand New World podcast abou…

Late last year, Meta confirmed it would effectively be abandoning the metaverse, a nebulously defined project that spurred the company’s 2021 rebrand and has cost it over $70 billion since. At a strategy meeting at Mark Zuckerberg’s Hawaii compound, Reality Labs, the division responsible for the metaverse, was told to cut its budget by 30%, versus only 10% across the rest of the company. Reality Labs’ fate was arguably a long time coming: The division has never turned a profit, with cumulative losses these past five years totalling $73 billion. Wall Street reacted positively to the news, adding $69 billion to its market capitalization. You remember the metaverse, don…

Anthropic’s Claude Code tool is having a moment: It’s recently become popular among software developers for its use of agents to write code, run tests, call tools, and multitask. In recent months the company has begun to stress that Claude Code isn’t just for developers, but can let other kinds of workers build websites, create presentations, and do research—and stories about non-coders completing interesting projects have filled social media. The latest offering, called Cowork, is a new version (and a rebranding) of Claude Code for work beyond coding, and it could dramatically widen the audience for Anthropic’s tools within the enterprise. Cowork is in “research prev…

A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears will lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other state — a few hundred, by some estimates. Nearly half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly $350 billion budget, comes from the top 1% of earners. A large health care union is attempting to place a proposal before voters in November that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires — including stocks, art, busin…

Heinz’s newest product isn’t a ketchup, or a mayo, or some Frankenstein combination of the two. It’s a box—and it’s solving a problem that’s plagued lovers of french fries for decades. The patent-pending “Heinz Dipper,” unveiled on January 13, is an innovation the company is describing as a “first-of-its-kind fry box.” At first glance, it looks like a classic french fry box that you’d get at any run-of-the-mill fast-food joint, but a closer examination reveals a pullout compartment (shaped like Heinz’s keystone logo) that can hold two packets of whatever condiment you prefer. The Heinz Dipper is debuting at more than 33 restaurant and sports stadium partners arou…

“Never skip leg day” sounds like something a swole gym bro with killer quads might harp on about. But doctors also sing the praises of lunges and split bench squats, and not for the reason you might think. In a recent article for Vogue, California-based physician Dr. Chris Renna said: “Stronger leg muscles are linked to better cognitive function in aging mainly through their effects on blood flow, metabolic health, brain structure, and physical/social activity patterns.” Muscle mass starts to decline at age 30. As the largest muscle group in the body, maintaining muscle strength in the thighs and glutes is especially important for healthy aging—and apparently, bra…

Ikea’s new store is in the metaverse. The company announced Wednesday it’s piloting a limited-edition pop-up in Roblox’s “Welcome to Bloxburg” game offering players Ikea products they can use to decorate virtual homes. This is the first time that the Swedish furniture retailer has entered gaming in a meaningful way, since an earlier Roblox game in 2024, according to the company. It comes after noticing for years how young adults and teens were building and designing homes in games and wondering why Ikea wasn’t a part of it. “Ikea wanted to better understand how Gen Z and Gen Alpha think about furnishing and self-expression, recognizing the need to meet them on…

In 2025, employers cited artificial intelligence as the rationale for nearly 55,000 layoffs at companies like Amazon and Microsoft. And with the new year barely underway, we’re already seeing a new crop of AI-related job cuts. Citigroup is cutting over a thousand jobs, according to Bloomberg, and in a memo this week, CEO Jane Fraser warned of more layoffs later this year. “Over time, we can expect automation, AI and further process simplification to reshape how work gets done,” she added. Meanwhile, Meta is conducting more layoffs in its virtual reality division, cutting about 1,500 jobs as part of a broader strategic shift to invest further in AI. Given these r…

r/Bald is a popular subreddit where those who are losing their hair or have recently taken the plunge and shaved their heads can find support, encouragement, and a general ego-boost from the community’s 1.4 million weekly visitors. Created in 2011, the subreddit has 23,000 weekly contributions. Often, they follow the format of men uploading photos of their receding hairlines. “Is it time?” reads one recent post. The answer, in almost every instance, is yes. The before-and-after transformations are overwhelmingly met with enthusiasm and welcoming responses. “Might as well go all the way” one recent post read. “10 years younger my dude!” replied one Redditor. Anot…

Everything from coffee to a used car is more expensive these days, and now your music streaming service is too. Spotify announced this week that it will raise prices for U.S. subscribers – again. Spotify Premium plans will jump up to $12.99 from $11.99 starting with the next billing date. The streamer last increased prices for U.S. users in 2024 after a decade-plus run of charging $9.99 for ad-free listening on its premium individual streaming plan. The main individual plan isn’t the only Spotify subscription getting a price hike. Discounted student plans are getting bumped up to $6.99 from $5.99, the Duo two-person plan will go to $18.99 from $16.99 and the stre…

I told myself I won’t check emails until I check off my “one thing” to do for the day. I couldn’t do it. I always reach for the phone in the morning. Willpower wasn’t enough. The brain is wired to take the path of least resistance. Fighting it every day with willpower won’t work. These days I use systems. I work with rituals. I get my most important tasks (MIT) done between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. I schedule my MIT’s the night before. And get straight to work at the scheduled time. Ninety percent of the time at the same place. I’ve done it for so long, I do it on autopilot now. My three-hour block means no motivation required. I’m not relying on willpower to stay “producti…

How can you keep your brain agile and young throughout your life, even as you get older? By spending time on creative pursuits as often as you can. That’s the fascinating finding of a study by researchers from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile and Trinity College in Ireland, among others. As the study’s authors note, earlier studies have shown a connection between creative activities such as playing a musical instrument and improved brain health. They wanted to know just how creativity affects brain health. So they first recruited more than 1,200 healthy people as controls, and then compared them with 1,467 research participants who spent at least some of their time …

Put down Wordle. New brain-exercise-for-the-day just dropped. “Can you read 900 words per minute?” a viral post that has been doing the rounds on X, challenges. “Try it.” If you made it to 600 words per minute, that’s more than twice the speed of the average reader. If you made it to 900, congratulations—according to some back-of-the-napkin math, that makes you 278% faster than the national average (which is 238 words per minute). By that same logic, it could take you around 40 seconds to read this 600ish word article. But should it? As one X user pointed out, “this is like brainrot for reading.” Or as Jane Ollis, medical biochemist and founder at AI-pow…

If drivers want to switch away from a completely gas-powered car to something electric, they have a few options. Namely: battery electric vehicles, hybrids, or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). All are seen as a way to reduce transportation emissions and move away from gas-guzzling internal combustion cars. But it turns out, plug-in hybrid owners may not actually be plugging in their vehicles, making PHEVs not quite the environmental solution that they seem like. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, speaking this week at the Automotive Press Association conference in Detroit, touched on this reality when talking about GM’s plans with electric and hybrid vehicles. “What …

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said on Friday it will start including ads for those who use the app for free, or have the cheapest subscription, ChatGPT Go. In the coming weeks, the company plans to start testing those ads in the U.S., which will directly relate to user prompts and conversations, “so more people can benefit from our tools with fewer usage limits or without having to pay,” the company said. According to OpenAI, the ads will be “clearly labeled” at the bottom of the chat and users can turn off personalization if they want. As for whether the ads will influence the answers ChatGPT provides, OpenAI said the “responses are driven by what’s objective…

What did the latest holiday shopping season reveal about consumer confidence going into 2026? Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach unpacks the signals he’s seeing across global spending—from shifting consumer sentiment to AI’s growing role in financial security. Miebach also explores how credit cards fit into a future shaped by crypto, digital wallets, and agent-driven commerce, and what it will take for businesses to stay competitive amid continued market disruption. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features c…

Most of us know that job loss is emotionally difficult, but what’s less talked about is the experience of knowing you will be terminated without knowing when. This process can be drawn out and draining—a form of anticipatory grief—an emotional response to a loss before it occurs. Often experienced by the loved ones of terminally ill patients, a version applies in the workplace when job loss is on the horizon. In today’s volatile landscape, this kind of professional uncertainty is increasingly common, prompting leaders—in limbo due to mergers, acquisitions, funding losses, or downsizing—to feel a loss of self-identity, irritability and helplessness at not being in control.…

For professionals looking to moodboard, but sick of juggling Instagram lists and Pinterest boards, Cosmos arrived in 2023 to woo millions of users in an otherwise crowded market. With a pared-back design, and an algorithm trained on a carefully seeded list of creatives, it topped the Design category in the App Store, and the company reports it’s now used by creative teams at companies including Nike, Apple, and Amazon, who snag over 10 million pieces of content a month from across the internet for their collections. This growth has been enough to raise a $15 million Series A from Matrix Partners, GV, Accel, and Squarespace CEO Anthony Casalena, as the company con…