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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has defended the resource-intensive use of AI by comparing it to all the energy—and food—that humans require, sparking a wave of backlash across social media. That comparison, experts in climate and tech spaces say, is misguided, downplays the climate risks associated with AI, and illustrates the disconnect between tech CEOs and the rest of society. Altman’s comments came while speaking to the Indian Express at the India AI Impact summit. The outlet asked him to address some of the common criticisms of AI, including the amount of energy and water the technology requires. “One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is peop…

When a new general-purpose technology emerges—be it railroads, electricity, computers, etc.—companies react in predictable ways. A small minority tries to reinvent themselves around it; the majority looks first for ways to cut costs. Right now, in the middle of the most significant technological inflection since the internet, many organizations are choosing the second path. They deploy artificial intelligence to automate call centers, reduce head count in back offices, and squeeze marginal gains out of existing processes. They measure “AI ROI” in payroll savings and hours reclaimed. It feels rational. It feels disciplined. It feels safe. It is also the fast…

A new word has entered the business headline writer’s lexicon over the last month: the “SaaSpocalypse.” Between mid-January and mid-February 2026, around a trillion dollars was wiped from the value of software stocks. The S&P North American Software Index posted its worst monthly decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Individual stocks have been savaged, with even Microsoft, the ultimate tech blue chip, falling by more than 10%. The panic is real. But is it rational? The catalyst for this turmoil was a series of product launches from AI companies—most notably Anthropic’s Claude Cowork tool and its subsequent upgrades—demonstrating that AI agents are now capa…

Three weeks into her new role as VP of operations, “Maria” got an 11:47 p.m. Slack from her COO: “Where are we on the Q3 supply chain numbers?” She had sent him those numbers that morning. She sent them again. By 6 a.m., Maria’s boss had changed the entire project scope based on a board conversation she didn’t know had happened. By noon, he’d cc’d the CEO on a complaint about “delays”—delays caused by his own shifting priorities. Maria didn’t push back: She absorbed the burden. She reframed his abrupt messages before forwarding them to her team. She stayed late recalculating projections to match his latest mandate. She deflected her team’s frustration with carefu…

At a park near Canberra, Australia, a series of small white pyramid-shaped boxes are part of a new experiment: Can “frog saunas” help bring back an endangered species? The green and golden bell frog—an iconic Australian amphibian with a call that sounds like a cross between a power tool and a quacking duck—is already extinct in the area. Like other frog species around the world, it was a victim of a deadly fungus called chytrid that has been killing amphibians for decades. But scientists are reintroducing the vibrant frog with the hope that a design intervention can help it survive. The “sauna” is a simple design, with bricks inside a plastic enclosure that he…

By now, you’ve surely noticed it. Jean waistlines, sky-high not so long ago, are going lower. Low enough that you might need to think of underwear as outerwear. Across the fashion industry, experts agree that in 2026, ultra-low-rise will be a key business driver in the denim sector, with some brands saying that their low-rise styles have replaced the eternally popular high-rise as their best selling cut. “What we’re going to see in this next decade is [it’ll be] really dominated by the low-rise,” says Amy Williams, CEO of Citizens of Humanity group, which also owns the premium denim brand Agolde. “Right now, you’re sort of at that early stage where people are jus…

In 2001, Antoni was working at a business that was underperforming and facing layoffs. People didn’t know who would be cut or when. You could tell by people’s behavior that anxiety was at an all-time high. Managers were “networking” in the right corridors, colleagues started to crowd meetings to look indispensable, and teams were slowing down because nobody wanted to make the wrong move. One leader chose a different tactic. Every day, at the same time, he stood in the same spot where anyone could walk up to him. He shared what he actually knew (not what he guessed), answered questions without theater, and ended with a concrete direction for “today.” People still didn’…

U.S. Army personnel may be training for cyberwar, but their own web browsing is quietly feeding the surveillance economy. According to a recent study by the Army Cyber Institute at West Point, corporate surveillance has deeply infiltrated the U.S. Army’s unclassified IT infrastructure in the continental United States. The researchers—who declined an interview request, citing increased scrutiny of external engagements by the Department of Defense—analyzed the 1,000 most frequently requested internet resources on Army networks over a two-month period and found that 21.2% were “tracker domains.” Those domains exist solely to harvest user data and analytics. A follow-…

In the past, women’s work bags were designed to assert power. Women marched into the boardroom with hyper-structured “girlboss” totes or aggressively minimalist tech clutches. But there’s a shift taking place. Many work–life bags today are softer, both visually and physically. They’re lighter. They collapse. They transition seamlessly from the office to the many other things that fill your life: The mid-day grocery run, a coffee meeting that turns into school pickup, dinner with friends straight from the office. Every year, I test dozens of bags in search of the ones that best capture how we’re actually living and working right now. It’s clear that work bags are …

San Francisco restaurant Mister Jiu’s is kicking off its 10th anniversary celebration next month with a three-part dinner series in its Chinatown kitchen. The restaurant will host 10 celebrated Chinese chefs from around the world, including Dan Hong from Sydney, Australia’s Mr Wong, and ArChan Chan from Ho Lee Fook in Hong Kong. Guests, seated in tables of four or eight, pay $285 each for 16 dishes from four chefs, all inspired by classic banquet-style dining. The even is nearly sold out, and, according to executive chef and owner Brandon Jew, an exciting creative collaboration that the restaurant couldn’t afford to produce on its own. The extravaganza is sponso…

When looking for an apartment in San Francisco today, artificial intelligence can seem inescapable; and that’s not just because every rental building seems to have an AI bot answering calls. In San Francisco, the technology’s ascendency—and the subsequent skyrocketing job growth— has helped make the apartment market one of the tightest in the nation, with the fastest growing rent in the U.S. Lisa McCarrel, Managing Partner of Move Bay Area, a relocation and rental housing service, has seen the rental market become frenzied in recent months due in part to the increase in AI and AI-adjacent jobs. With units harder to come by, she’s seen some potential tenants offer…

Neuroscientists have found birding is actually a brain hack. A new study published in JNeurosci, the Journal of Neuroscience found birdwatching may actually alter the structure and function of your brain—what is known as neuroplasticity—effectively helping to boost cognitive abilities, especially in more seasoned bird watchers. “Our brains are very malleable,” lead researcher Erik Wing, a research associate at York University in Toronto, explained. Wait, what exactly is neuroplasticity? Neuroplasticity is basically the process or way your brain learns, creates memory, and adapts to experiences and trauma, according to Psychology Today. Research shows that …

In medicine, “rare” is often used to describe conditions that affect relatively few people. But when you work in healthcare long enough—especially at the very beginning of life—you realize rare diseases are not rare at all. As a neonatologist, I cared for newborns whose symptoms didn’t follow a familiar script. An infant struggling to breathe. A baby who couldn’t feed. A child whose development stalled without a clear explanation. In the NICU, there is no luxury of time. Families are desperate for answers, and clinicians are making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information. Too often, we treated what we could see while suspecting there was something deeper…

Throughout Kim Kardashian’s two-decade career in the public eye, the reality TV star’s entrepreneurial endeavors have included shapewear clothing brand Skims, makeup brand KKW Beauty, cofounding a private equity firm, and a super popular mobile game. But with her latest venture, Kardashian is stretching her mogul credentials into beverages, which has been familiar terrain for celebrities. She has become a “cofounder” of the energy drink company called Update. Though the startup has existed for four years—meaning Kardashian wasn’t a day-one founder—Update’s CEO and cofounder Daniel Solomons tells Fast Company that she has been a steady customer since 2023 and two years…

Home Depot’s fourth-quarter performance was muted by ongoing caution from American consumers in a weak housing market, but the home improvement retailer topped Wall Street expectations. The Atlanta company earned $2.57 billion, or $2.58 per share, for the three months ended Feb. 1. Stripping out one-time charges or benefits, earnings were $2.72 per share, topping analyst projections for per-share earnings of $2.53, according to FactSet. A year earlier it earned $3 billion, or $3.02 per share. An extra week in fiscal 2024 added approximately 30 cents per share to the year-ago quarter. Home Depot’s stock rose more than 3% before the market opened on Tuesday. Revenue to…

“I want a space odyssey. I wanted Star Wars. I got close to that once.” That’s production designer Hannah Beachler, talking about the grand filmic world she wants to build next. For our February episode of By Design, we spoke to Beachler (Creed, Black Panther) about her latest work with director Ryan Coogler on Sinners—the most Oscar-nominated film of all time. We caught up with her last time before she bagged an Oscar on Black Panther and then designed the sequel. https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/evergreen-assets/safelinks/2/atp-safelinks.html She’s up for her second Academy Award for production design on Sinners next month, and she shared the pai…

Ford is recalling nearly 413,000 Explorer SUVs in the U.S. The recall comes after federal regulators warned that a faulty rear suspension component called a “toe link” could restrict a driver’s steering control. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall report, the recall impacts 2017-2019 Explorer vehicles, with the company estimated around 1% of the selected models are affected. The notice also explained that the recall is an expansion of previous NHTSA recall, number 21V537. “The root cause has not been fully determined to date,” a Feb. 20 report explained. “Some reports indicate vehicles experienced a seized CABJ”, which “will resu…

Unlocking the power of genetics to provide meaningful answers to patients when they matter most is at the crux of precision diagnostics. As technologies advance, costs fall, and evidence builds, genomic sequencing has great potential to transform the trajectory of patient care. It will do so by shortening the diagnostic odyssey. It will guide and speed up more personalized and effective treatment decisions. And it will improve patient outcomes more than ever before. For innovation to truly scale, it will require deep collaboration and seamless integration across the healthcare ecosystem. BUILD A STRONGER PARTNERSHIP ECOSYSTEM Making genomic sequencing a standard pr…

Eight times the output. Same job. Same title. Not 80%. 800%. That’s a lot. And yet, most hiring systems and processes are almost perfectly designed to miss those people. This isn’t a talent shortage. We’ve normalized a measurement problem for so long that it barely registers as a problem anymore. Across industries, hiring has been optimized for efficiency and familiarity. We screen for credentials that look impressive, resumes that read cleanly, and career paths that resemble the ones we already trust. It feels rigorous. It feels fair. But it isn’t actually predictive of performance. In fact, the more polished a hiring process becomes, the more likely it is to filter …

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is sounding the alarm bell, warning investors that he is starting to see some similarities between today’s financial landscape and the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, nearly 20 years ago. “Unfortunately, we did see this in ’05, ’06, ’07, almost the same thing,” Dimon said at the firm’s annual investor day in New York on Monday. “The rising tide lifting all boats, everyone was making a lot of money, people leveraging to the hilt. The sky was the limit.” “I don’t know how long it’s going to be great for everybody,” he explained. “I see a couple of people doing some dumb things . . . they are just doing some dumb things.…

What are the hallmarks of a luxury brand? Exclusivity, artisan craftsmanship, and a high price tag to match. But iconic fashion house Gucci may have just learned the hard way that advertising can undermine all those qualities—especially if it’s made with AI. On February 23, Gucci started posting promotional images for its upcoming Primavera Fashion Show, its first show under new creative director Demna. The first few photos were inoffensive—Michelangelo’s David statue, a pair of leather loafers—but then, things took a turn. The next four pictures Gucci posted came with a disclaimer in their captions: “Created with AI.” The AI-generated ads included renderings of a…

As the Barack Obama Presidential Center takes shape ahead of its June 2026 opening, some observers have pointed feedback about an element of the building’s design. The Chicago tower features all-caps lettering that wraps around two sides of the building. But for many people, the text—an excerpt from the former president’s speech in 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama—is nearly impossible to read. Its designers say legibility isn’t the only—or even the primary—function of the lettering. “One of the key questions I asked at the beginning was, are people supposed to read this?” says designer Micheal Bierut, who typeset t…

AMC, the world’s largest movie theater chain and a one-time darling of meme stock traders, said this week that it expects to continue closing more movie theaters than it opens going forward. While the move is sure to disappoint cinephiles, AMC believes that shuttering certain cinemas will ultimately be better for the company’s bottom line. Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming AMC theater closings. What’s happened? On Monday, AMC Entertainment Holdings reported its fourth-quarter 2025 financial results as well as its full-year 2025 results. It’s fair to say the company did not have a blockbuster quarter or year. For the company’s Q4 2025, which en…

It’s no secret that fast casual restaurants have struggled in recent years, with some companies turning to cheaper options as a way to lure customers back. The latest chain to do so is Panera Bread, which just announced its first-ever value menu. It includes 10 items that are each $4.99. Customers must pick at least two items to use the menu and will get the typical free side of an apple, chips or bread. Anyone who has been to Panera will recognize it as a scaled-down version of the long-standing You Pick Two deal. There are four half sandwiches, three half salads, and three cups of soup. There will be a rotating seasonal item, but to start Panera’s…

The home of the “Mona Lisa” is getting a new boss. Art historian Christophe Leribault, a veteran museum director, is taking over at the Louvre, shouldering the challenge of getting the world’s largest museum out of crisis after the brazen heist in October of the French crown jewels. French government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon announced Wednesday that Leribault is taking over from outgoing Louvre director Laurence des Cars, who resigned Tuesday. The difficulties he inherits are formidable. The daylight robbery — among the highest-profile museum thefts in living memory — exposed alarming security holes at the Paris landmark. The former royal palace has also s…