What's on Your Mind?

The behavioral health sector is at a crossroads. The landscape is shifting rapidly, and for many, it feels harder than ever to plan. The One Big Beautiful Bill is a sweeping piece of legislation that redefines Medicaid eligibility and coincides with a broader restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the The President administration. Combined, these changes have introduced new questions about sustainability, staffing, and service delivery. While some details are still in flux, the direction is crystal clear: Providers will need to adapt. To help make sense of what’s changing, I recently joined a discussion with Chuck Ingoglia, C…

The day after the jewelry heist at the Louvre in Paris, officials from across Washington’s world-famous museums were already talking, assessing and planning how to bolster their own security. “We went over a review of the incident,” said Doug Beaver, security specialist at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, who said he participated in Zoom talks with nearby institutions including the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art. “Then we developed a game plan on that second day out, and started putting things in place on Days 3, 4 and 5.” Similar conversations are happening at museums across the globe, as those tasked with securing art ask: “Could that happen here…

Let’s be real: No one has a perfect business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan. And that’s okay because perfection isn’t the goal—resilience is. A client once told me they had a mature BCDR plan. Then a hurricane hit. Their primary data center flooded. Admins needed to reach a backup site in another state, but flights were grounded, roads iced over, and their own homes were underwater too. Suddenly, you’re asking people to choose between their jobs and their families. That’s not just a logistics problem; it’s a human one, reminding us that even the best plans can fall apart in practice. But while FEMA estimates that one in four businesses never reop…

Picture this: You walk into a coffee shop, order a latte, and pay with your phone. To you, it feels like checking out with Venmo. And to the cashier, it’s business as usual. But behind the scenes, something different is happening: You just paid with crypto. This isn’t science fiction—it’s already happening. From Starbucks to Walmart, retailers are rolling out crypto acceptance, and consumers are responding. Surveys show 39% of U.S. crypto holders have shopped with crypto (with 9% doing so daily), while 23% of non-holders say they’d use crypto if they could shop with it. That’s millions of shoppers who want the choice to pay with digital assets, but don’t realize t…

I keep seeing articles and conferences about “humanizing” AI in one way or another. And while I get the sentiment, I think they’re taking the wrong approach. There’s no point in making technologies more human. Being human is our job. If anything, AI is less an opportunity to humanize technology, than to re-humanize ourselves. Let’s start at the beginning. AI is just the latest, perhaps greatest advancement yet in what OG computer scientist Norbert Wiener dubbed “cybernetic” technologies. Unlike traditional technologies, cybernetic ones take feedback from the world in order to determine their functions. They work less like a machine you turn on than a home heater’s th…

The health care industry, like many others, has traditionally relied on tried-and-true conventional, one-way marketing tactics. However, that strategy is no longer enough to break through to consumers. More than 81% of consumers tune out generic ads and crave more engaged and personalized content, signaling that marketers need to adapt and stop ineffective communication that tries to pull consumers to them. Instead, we must go to our customers, meeting them precisely where their attention already lives. We know a great story has the power to transcend demographics, evoke emotion, and build lasting connections. Ultimately, brands are collections of human beings, an…

Greetings and thank you once again for reading Fast Company’s Plugged In—and a happy Halloween to you. Recently, I used Apple Photos to revisit the photos I took during the 2015 Thanksgiving holiday. There were some gems in there—memories I’d like to preserve forever. But there were even more images I regretted saving in the first place. You already know the ones I’m talking about. The near-duplicates of other, better photos. The blurry misfires. The shots of people with their eyelids drooping or mouths agape. The ones I accidentally took of the floor when my thumb slipped. Did I mention that the treasured pictures of loved ones remain intermingled with detrit…

AI’s explosive growth depends on a backbone of vast energy-hungry, water intensive data centers, costing hundreds of billions of dollars in resources. The challenge—and opportunity—of the moment is ensuring this infrastructure scales without hollowing out long-term value. Across the U.S., states are racing to attract data center facilities with lucrative incentives. The promise is economic growth and prestige. The reality is more complicated: hidden costs borne by communities, power grids, and ecosystems. As a venture capitalist focused on hardtech and sustainability, I see this tension as both risk and opportunity. The future of AI will belong to those who reconc…

The The President administration’s widespread cancellation and freezing of clean energy funding is also hitting essential work to improve the nation’s power grid. That includes investments in grid modernization, energy storage, and efforts to protect communities from outages during extreme weather and cyberattacks. Ending these projects leaves Americans vulnerable to more frequent and longer-lasting power outages. The Department of Energy has defended the cancellations, saying that “the projects did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” Yet before any f…

A momentous week in the technology sector made it clear there is no sign the boom in building artificial intelligence infrastructure is slowing — despite the bubble talk. Nvidia, whose processors are the AI revolution’s backbone, became the first company to surpass $5 trillion in market value. Microsoft and OpenAI inked a deal enhancing the ChatGPT maker’s fundraising ability and OpenAI promptly started laying groundwork for an initial public offering that could value the company at $1 trillion. Amazon said it would cut 14,000 corporate jobs, just days before its cloud unit posted its strongest growth in nearly three years. These developments, along with numer…

If you plan to hand out chocolate this Halloween, you might be in for more trick than treat. The price of cocoa remains high after spiking last year – a trend that has shoppers turning away from a perennial favorite sweet treat, even on a holiday that revolves around candy. Compared to the Halloween season last year, chocolate costs more this year and consumers are buying less of it. Overall candy prices have risen a whopping 78% since 2020, according to an analysis from consumer finance site FinanceBuzz, which tracked candy prices across four major retailers. A 100-piece bulk bag of Halloween candy costs an average of $16.39 in 2025, up from $9.19 in 2020 and $14…

Spot the robin’s egg blue of a Tiffany box, and you know there’s luxury inside. Or the sturdy brown of the UPS truck, and you expect reliable service. Yellow Minions make you smile, and Valentino’s vivid Pink PP Collection makes you want to step out and step up. Color is more than decoration. Color is a powerful tool that drives business and creates cultural relevance. The right hues build trust, drive sales, and make brands unforgettable, while the wrong ones can cost you customers and credibility. The launch of Coke Life in a green rather than familiar red can probably contributed to the product’s uphill battle with consumers. Even tinkering with a color combina…

Imagine living in a house with the latest smart home system: lights dim on voice command, your thermostat learns your schedule, your refrigerator orders milk before the carton runs out. It’s practical yet delightful. It improves your daily life. Now imagine that same house built on shaky foundations: the electric wiring is aging, and the plumbing is rotting. No matter how advanced your devices are the structure won’t support them reliably. That’s the difference between AI and blockchain. AI is the smart tech; blockchain is the well-designed infrastructure that ensures everything works reliably, predictably, and with integrity. Similar to how a home needs both …

Cheating has long been an unwelcome but expected risk in the hiring process. While most people are honest and well-intentioned, there are always a handful of candidates who attempt to game the system. Today, however, the problem is evolving at an unprecedented speed. Generative AI has made new, more sophisticated types of cheating possible for any position, from software development to finance to design. In my work with hundreds of employers helping them hire and develop talent, I’ve seen firsthand the myriad ways candidates attempt to game the system. So, why are candidates resorting to these methods? Sometimes, candidates are attempting to secure a position they’re …

Leonardo da Vinci is often credited with writing the first resume in 1482, meaning the resume has been with us for more than five centuries. And though its layout has evolved over the years, the premise hasn’t: a piece of paper that tells someone where you’ve worked, what you studied, and maybe a bullet or two about what you’ve accomplished. That’s the problem. The resume is designed to tell us where someone has been—not what they can actually do. It shows what the last person who hired you needed done in their company that they thought you could handle. It looks backward when the world of work we live in today demands that we look forward. It inflates titles, overval…

Earlier this week, I had AI handle all of my grocery shopping. Using Perplexity’s Comet browser, I provided a link to my shopping list on Google Keep, then asked it to put everything in my cart for a Kroger pick-up order, making sure to select previous purchase items when multiple options are available. Within a few minutes, Comet had picked out all the correct items—including the taco shells and fake meat we usually get for taco night—and plopped me onto the check-out page. This kind of scenario explains why so many AI companies are now trying to build their own browsers. Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia both became widely available without an…

A voluntary layoff? In this economy? The mass layoff meat grinder is out in full force this week. In just the past couple of days, thousands of workers have fallen victim to job cuts at Amazon, Target, Paramount, CBS, and other large companies. YouTube has also quietly introduced voluntary exit packages for employees who are willing to be laid off with severance benefits, according to an internal memo first reported by Alex Heath’s Sources AI newsletter. Adding words like “opt in” or “voluntary” in front of separation, retirement, and severance packages is the new way to soft-launch layoffs, in the hope of making the idea of losing one’s job slightly more pal…

Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that President Donald The President’s administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using contingency funds during the government shutdown. The judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island gave the administration leeway on whether to fund the program partially or in full for November. The rulings came a day before the U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s s…

It’s certainly been a spooky week for the Walt Disney Co. and Google. The two corporations are in the midst of a carriage dispute that has resulted in a blackout of Disney’s networks on Google-owned YouTube TV, leaving viewers unable to access popular channels including ESPN and ABC. Disney began notifying viewers on October 23 about the dispute and warning that its networks could be removed from the pay-TV streaming platform. All of that came to a head in the last 48 hours as the two parties failed to come to an agreement on a new deal, and YouTube TV began removing Disney’s networks about 30 minutes before the previous carriage deal expired at midnight Eastern t…

Ted Bundy had courtroom groupies. Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez were sent love letters in prison. Now, in the age of social media, thousands like, share, and thirst in the comments over stylized fan edits of serial killers. There’s a term for this psychological phenomenon: hybristophilia. A new study has found a connection between young women’s engagement with this type of TikTok content and their sexual attraction to criminals. Those who liked or repeatedly watched clips glorifying notorious serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer or fictional villains like Joe Goldberg from Netflix’s “You,” scored higher for hybristophilia, than those who scro…

Amazon is leading the U.S. stock market on Friday to the finish of another winning week and month. The S&P 500 was virtually flat after giving up a modest gain from the morning. The index is still near its all-time high set on Tuesday, and it’s on track to close a third straight winning week and a sixth straight winning month, which would be its longest monthly winning streak since 2021. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 102 points, or less than 0.2%, as of 1 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher. Amazon led the way after jumping 10.3%. The retail giant was by far the strongest force pushing upward on the market after reportin…

Amid a crowded field of candidates, New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has managed to cut through the clutter—with a campaign poster that challenged every convention of visual design. New Yorkers found that the poster’s colors struck a chord—MetroCard yellow, Mets blue, and nods to classic bodega signage. But a hasty glance could easily have missed just how deliberate every choice was, from typeface to shade to layout. In the most recent episode of the By Design podcast, Fast Company spoke with Tyler Evans, the designer who took Mamdani’s brand identity—created by the creative studio Forge—and turned it into an instantly iconic campaign visual. Evans, curre…

More buildings are being converted into apartments in the U.S. than ever before, and it’s not just old offices that are finding new use. After the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted relocation patterns and work arrangements nationwide, suddenly vacant city office space seemed like prime real estate for housing. But it’s actually hotels more than any other building type that are driving the spike in conversions now: Hotels made up 37% of all apartment conversions in 2024, followed by offices at 24%, industrial at 19%, schools at 8%, and other at 12%. New sourcing to meet newfound growth This shift in sourcing comes at a time when a record number of converted apartments…

The 9-to-5 is fading, replaced by a fragmented cycle of early logins, late-night pings, and weekend catch-up. Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index shows the “infinite workday” is no longer an edge case. It’s the norm for many knowledge workers. Unfortunately, it seems the pandemic-era “triple peak” work pattern—morning, afternoon, and an evening spike—has stuck. After-hours activity is rising. Meetings after 8 p.m. are up 16% year over year, and by 10 p.m. nearly one-third of active workers are back in their inboxes. Weekends are not off-limits: Among those working weekends, about 20% say they check email before noon on Saturday and Sunday. During the week, prime …

After a double-digit loss in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, Andrew Cuomo launched his independent bid for the office in June with a video mimicking the style of his primary adversary, Zohran Mamdani. Since then, his campaign seems to have taken most of its cues from the pair’s supposed common adversary, President Donald The President. Throughout his run, Cuomo has used AI slop in attack ads every bit as disgraceful as the worst of The President’s Truth Social feed, while flirting with the kind of fearmongering and bigotry that have colored The President’s entire political career. It’s a questionable choice in a campaign filled with questionable choice…