What's on Your Mind?

Paul Thomas Anderson’s ragtag revolutionary saga “One Battle After Another” took top honors at Sunday’s 83rd Golden Globes in the comedy category, while Chloé Zhao’s Shakespeare drama “Hamnet” pulled off an upset over “Sinners” to win best film, drama. “One Battle After Another” won best film, comedy, supporting female actor for Teyana Taylor and best director and best screenplay for Anderson. He became just the second filmmaker to sweep director, screenplay and film, as a producer, at the Globes. Only Oliver Stone, for “Born on the Fourth of July,” managed the same feat. In an awards ceremony that went almost entirely as expected, the night’s final award was the most s…

Shares of the budget airline Sun Country were flying today after the carrier announced an upcoming merger with Las Vegas-based competitor Allegiant. In a press release published on January 11, Allegiant shared its plan to acquire Minneapolis-based Sun Country in a $1.5 billion cash and stock transaction, which is expected to close in the second half of 2026. Per the release, the merger will bring together a shared customer pool of nearly 22 million annual fliers across 175 cities and more than 650 routes. It will also give Allegiant access to Sun Country’s multi-year partnership delivering packages with Amazon Prime Air, which Allegiant CEO Greg Anderson told CNBC…

When my mom was dying, hospice came daily and stayed for about ninety minutes. They answered questions, checked what needed to be checked, and did what good professionals do: They made a brutal situation feel slightly less impossible. And then they left. Ninety minutes go fast when you are watching your mother decline. The rest of the day stretches out in a way that does not feel like time so much as exposure. Every sound becomes a data point. Every small change feels like a decision you did not train for. Her breathing sounds strange. What do we do? How often should we turn her to avoid bedsores? What is the diaper situation, exactly? That was the gap, the lo…

It’s that time again. The calendar has flipped, the resolutions are written, and you’re probably sitting in your office chair at your office desk looking at a lukewarm cup of office coffee, wondering if you’ve really got another year of fluorescent lights and “serendipitous” coworker interactions in you. Let’s make a pact: No more. It’s time to find a great remote job. Unfortunately, you can’t find 21st-century work using 20th-century methods. If you’re still scrolling through the generic “Big Box” job boards and getting buried in 5,000 applications for one role, you’re doing it wrong. Instead, here are the five sites you should check first when you’re looking…

About a year ago, an advertisement caught the attention of Ashleigh Ruane, a PhD student in physics at the University of Cambridge. The ad was simple but unusual: Teach AI about physics. Curious, she clicked. She learned that experts across fields—from physics and finance to healthcare and law—were now being paid to help train AI models to think, reason, and problem-solve like domain specialists. She applied, was accepted, and now logs about 50 hours a week providing data for Mercor, a platform that connects AI labs with domain experts. Ruane is part of a fast-growing cohort of professionals who are shaping how AI models learn. According to Freelancer, thousands o…

By now, the headlines almost write themselves: humanoid robots everywhere, AI in everything. Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 didn’t disrupt that narrative—it confirmed it. What changed was the subtext. This was the year AI stopped feeling experimental and started feeling infrastructural. Intelligence has shifted from novelty to baseline, forcing harder questions about consequence, control, and agency—not just what technology can do, but how it reshapes systems once opting out is no longer realistic. For years, progress at CES has been measured in speed, scale, and spectacle. In 2026, a different metric quietly surfaced: judgment. The most advanced products we…

In the summer of 2024, Squarespace’s chief marketing officer, Kinjil Mathur, attracted criticism when she told Gen Z job seekers that they, like her, should be “willing to do anything” to land their first job. “I was willing to work for free, I was willing to work any hours they needed—even on evenings and weekends,” Kinjil told Fortune. “You really have to just be willing to do anything, any hours, any pay, any type of job.” The online backlash to Kinjil’s statement was immediate and brutal, forcing her to walk those comments back. “I shared my own college internship experiences, and my words were misrepresented as career advice for a whole generation,” Kinjil later …

Back in November, Fast Company and Johns Hopkins partnered for the first-ever World Changing Ideas Summit in Washington, DC, an event that convened leaders across business and academia to engage with the ideas and innovations reshaping the future. Knowing we were heading into a new year that undoubtedly is bringing new challenges to every industry, we asked some of our speakers working in space, healthcare, AI, and the intersections therein, what would be top of mind for them in 2026: “We’re in a race against resistance.” Akhila Kosaraju, founder and CEO of Pharebio, is using predictive and generative AI to power drug discovery. The startup plans to develop 15…

Chris Cuomo is returning to SiriusXM, putting him on the air with morning and evening talk shows. He will host a two-hour weekday show centered on listener calls on the satellite radio company’s P.O.T.U.S. channel, starting Jan. 20 at 7 a.m. Eastern. Guests on his first few shows include Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, sportscaster Bob Costas, and political consultant James Carville, the company said Tuesday. Cuomo previously hosted a show at the network but quit in 2021, shortly after he was fired from CNN when it was revealed that he assisted his brother, former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in fighting accusation…

You know the feeling: You’re replying to emails, navigating open tabs, responding to direct messages, when suddenly, it happens—your standing weekly 2 p.m. gets canceled abruptly. “Giving everyone 30 minutes back today,” the organizer says. A rush courses through your nervous system: You’re free. Nothing about this recurring meeting is particularly onerous or necessarily stressful. And yet, at this moment, you feel like a burden has been lifted. Maybe you even audibly sigh in relief. That sudden sense that all is right in the world has a psychological cause, Dr. Wilsa Charles Malveaux, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles, explains to Fast Company. A neutralized thre…

Fujifilm’s newest camera model, the Instax Mini Evo Cinema, is a gadget that’s designed for the retro camera craze. The device is a vertically oriented instant camera that can take still images, videos (an Instax camera first), connect with your smartphone to turn its photos into physical prints, and capture images in a wide range of retro aesthetics. It’s debuting in North American markets in early February for $409.95. Fujifilm’s new model taps into a younger consumer base’s growing interest both in retro tech and film photography aesthetics—a trend that’s been driven, in large part, by platforms like TikTok. The Instax Mini Evo Cinema turns that niche into a cl…

The State Department says it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries whose nationals are deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States. The State Department, led by Secretary Marco Rubio, said Wednesday it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the countries affected in accordance with a broader order issued in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become “public charges” in the U.S. The suspension will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant, or temporary tourist or business visas. “The The President administration is bringing …

While traveling to Riyadh for the Fortune Global Forum, FII9, and the Global Health Exhibition, I witnessed something that should be a wake-up call for health systems everywhere. Saudi Arabia is already operating the kind of connected, AI-enabled healthcare infrastructure many countries are still debating how to build. At FII9, the conversation was unmistakable. Global innovation momentum is shifting toward the Middle East, and nowhere more than Saudi Arabia, where national digital platforms like Sehhaty already give millions of residents unified access to their health data. At the Global Health Exhibition, I saw population-level analytics, AI-powered diagnostics, multiom…

When I was a product marketing leader for a corporate regional bank, I found myself getting annoyed during an all-day strategy meeting. My frustration came from hearing the same voices, sharing the same old ideas. I wondered why other people, especially the women in the room, weren’t speaking up. I remember thinking, “Well, you could be the one to speak up.” I felt nerves jump in my throat and doubt sink heavily in my stomach. Who was I to speak up? I thought that others in the room were smarter than me since they had higher titles and more experience. Looking back now, I realize that I had a big problem, a Pedestal Problem. I silenced my ideas because I was intimida…

For most people, leaving Apple after two decades would mean stepping away from sleek design and obsessive detail. For Xander Soren, it simply meant translating those principles into a different medium and bottling them. During his 20-plus years at Apple, Soren helped shape some of the company’s most culture-defining products and creative tools. He was the original product manager for iTunes, worked on the launch of the iPod, led the development of GarageBand, and oversaw features like iPhone ringtones that became ubiquitous parts of Apple’s ecosystem. His career spanned Apple’s rebirth into a design-led powerhouse, a period in which he absorbed the philosophy of …

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a salmonella outbreak linked to dietary supplement powder that left 45 people sick and a dozen people hospitalized across the country. In the wake of the outbreak, New York-based Superfoods, Inc. has issued a voluntary recall of Live it Up-brand Super Greens dietary supplement powder in the original and wild berry flavors. However, the FDA cautions that additional products might join the recall during its investigation. “To determine a source of contamination, FDA is conducting a traceback investigation of products ill people reported consuming before becoming ill and is working with state partners to sample…

A reader asks: A while back, an employee who reported to me (I’m a man) became visibly pregnant soon after she started. But she never brought it up. Not with me, not with HR, not with anyone. I didn’t ask her about it, though nearly everyone else in our office asked me. I cringed when I responded since it was obvious she was pregnant but I felt that I needed to protect her privacy. I felt like I was walking around on pins and needles with this very obvious elephant in the room. Her job description included occasionally lifting objects up to 40 pounds, and the only way I treated her differently was that I went out of my way to pick up anything remotely heavy. E…

Imagine you’re talking to someone and they suddenly start to add advertising to the exchange. What might that look like? In a 1965 episode of the classic sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, the protagonist uses her magical powers to create fake parents for herself in order to impress a date. She crafts them to be “just like the people on television commercials,” making them speak using sentences from commercials. Her synthetic “parents” appear friendly and normal—until they start talking, reciting ads verbatim for products like “streak-away” for gray hair, dish soap, “Grippo” denture adhesive, and deodorant. They have so much to say, yet communicate nothing at all. Somethin…

Chipotle is going for gold again with the return of its gold-foil burritos for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Starting January 15, Chipotle will offer a few Olympian-inspired menu items on the Chipotle app and online. Then in February, Chipotle will wrap every burrito in gold. For Chipotle, the Olympics are an opportunity to shake off a slump. Chipotle shares plummeted 19% in October 2025, and its operating margin was down 1% in Q3. The company hasn’t announced its full 2025 financial results yet, but sales are expected to decline (a reversal from February 2025 projections). Key segments of the company’s customer base—younger people and low- to middle-income households…

Honda says its refreshed H logo represents a “second founding” for the company. Honda 2.0, then, is designed to look like it’s from the future. The Japanese automaker announced on January 13 that it’s adopting a new logo across its automobile business. The company has had some sort of an H mark since 1963, and its new mark is wider than its last, with stems that slant outward as they move upward. The logo is now freed from being inside a frame, and Honda compares it to “two outstretched hands.” It’s meant to evoke a shape, not just a letter. As the automotive industry electrifies and upgrades its tech, automakers including Audi, Kia, and Tesla have turned to d…

As protests in Iran intensify, satellite technology has become one of the only ways for people in the country to circumvent a total internet blackout and heavy restrictions on phone service. Now, as a number of people in the country turn to SpaceX—the company now providing free access to Starlink—there are growing calls for Apple to get involved, too. At least one member of Congress has now reached out to Apple urging the company to turn on satellite texting in Iran. The office of Rep. Buddy Carter, a Republican from Georgia, confirmed to Fast Company that they’d been in touch with Apple about opening up satellite messaging—which lets iPhone users send messages even w…

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…

Each year on the holiday that bears his name, Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for his immense contributions to the struggle for racial equality. What is less often remembered but equally important is that King saw the fight for racial equality as deeply intertwined with economic justice. To address inequality—and out of growing concern for how automation might displace workers—King became an early advocate for universal basic income. Under universal basic income, the government provides direct cash payments to all citizens to help them afford life’s expenses. In recent years, more than a dozen U.S. cities have run universal basic income programs, often smalle…

Struggling to fall asleep is irritating. Struggling to get enough sleep is at least partially debilitating. Research shows: People who sleep five to six hours are almost 20 percent less productive than people who sleep seven to eight hours per night. People who only get six hours of sleep per night have greater difficulty performing any task that requires focus, deep thinking, or problem-solving. People chronically sleep-deprived (think six hours or less) have a much harder time performing complicated tasks. So, yeah: Performing at your best requires getting enough sleep. But what if you struggle to fall asleep? Here are three techniques sleep sc…