What's on Your Mind?

Lululemon today named Heidi O’Neill, a 26-year Nike veteran, as its next CEO, ending a monthslong search to replace Calvin McDonald, who stepped down from the top job after six years at the company. O’Neill, most recently Nike’s president of consumer, product, and brand, will start September 8 and be based in Lululemon’s Vancouver headquarters. The choice signals where Lululemon’s board thinks the company needs to go next—and it’s worth asking whether they’ve gotten the diagnosis right. For most of the last decade, Lululemon was one of the fastest-growing apparel brands on the planet. Under McDonald, who took over as CEO in 2018, the company more than tripled its …

Compliments come in many forms, and handling them well is an important part of building strong relationships and projecting a positive image. Sometimes a simple “Thank you” will do. But in other cases, praise may have a negative undertone, which you will want to respond to. Still others may be laudatory comments that you can build upon. Here’s how to respond to a broad range of compliments. 1. “I LIKE YOUR STYLE” The best and easiest answer to this compliment is “Thank you.” Whenever someone compliments you on your style (“I love your look” or “I love your purse/tie”), responding with “Thank you” shows grace and appreciation. Don’t undercut those complimen…

Women face discrimination on several different fronts at work. They are 14% less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues. They still face pay gaps. And they suffer professionally for being caregivers at home, facing higher levels of burnout and a higher incidence of leaving the workforce altogether. According to a new report, working women also face unfair assumptions about their health from men. A new survey from Mira, a fertility tracking and health site, found that more than a third (37%) of men surveyed said they attributed a female colleague’s behavior to their hormones. Even more men (39%) said that they expect women to manage their emotions “diff…

As artificial intelligence puts Americans out of work, there are programs available to help them land on their feet—but experts warn they’ll need to ramp up quickly to meet the demand. One new pilot program sends a $1,000 monthly stipend to workers displaced by AI while providing career support to help them return to the workforce. Called the AI Dividend, it’s an initiative that’s privately funded through donations to the Fund for Guaranteed Income (a nonprofit that distributes cash through various programs, including its AI Commons Project) in partnership with What We Will, which provides recipients with community support and career resources. The Fund for Guaranteed…

We are living through a fundamental shift in what work is for. As AI takes on more routine cognitive tasks, the uniquely human capacity to imagine, connect, and create meaning becomes the primary source of organizational value. Yet most companies are still measuring performance metrics prioritized for a different era: inventory turnover, cost per lead, and utilization rates. These metrics were designed to optimize extraction. They are poorly equipped to cultivate imagination. The organizations that will win in the Imagination Era are those that build new measurement systems to match their new ambitions. Not because metrics are magic, but because what a company ch…

For a company with one of the most important jobs in information security, assessing the risks and opportunities of AI might feel less like an analytical exercise and more like a roll of a 20-sided die. That’s because a password manager, which already has to defend a customer’s most valuable credentials against both outside attackers and the customer’s own carelessness, now has to contend with AI on multiple fronts. AI can help a password-management firm develop code and find vulnerabilities faster, but it may also enable clients to ship sloppy, vibe-coded apps that expose passwords. And while AI agents promise to zip through complex tasks with a single-minded foc…

There’s a question I ask every guest on my podcast, Inspired with Alexa von Tobel. It comes near the end of every conversation, after we’ve gone deep on business models, hard pivots, and the relentless grind of building something from nothing. The question is simple: What’s a mantra that runs through your head? I started asking it on a hunch. After years as a founder, dropping out of Harvard Business School to launch LearnVest during the height of the financial crisis, scaling it to acquisition, and then building Inspired Capital, I had come to believe that mindset wasn’t a soft variable. It was a hard one. The words we repeat to ourselves shape the decisions we make,…

The first sign that something had changed was the Topo Chico. It arrived on our porch one afternoon—a case of it—along with Graza olive oil and La Roche-Posay face wash. When our 4-year-old announced she would eat nothing but Uncrustables for the foreseeable future, a box arrived within the hour. The prices were lower than on Amazon, and we got them faster, with no delivery fee. It turns out that my husband had gotten hooked on Walmart—all without ever setting foot in a store. Earlier this year, he discovered that our American Express card included a Walmart+ membership. He activated it on a whim. Since then, he’s been placing orders on the app almost daily, from go-t…

As AI becomes more advanced in quality, leaders are increasingly invoking AI to justify unpopular decisions like layoffs. However, much of that story collapses under scrutiny, and workers know it. This gap between rhetoric and reality is eroding trust. This amplifies inequities and quietly sets organizations up for long-term cultural and performance damage. Author, speaker, and strategist Lily Zheng sees a clear pattern: executives are using AI to explain decisions that are in fact driven by past mistakes, investor pressure, or leadership preference. Companies that went on aggressive hiring sprees during the pandemic are now quietly “correcting” courses. They’re frami…

The most sustainable piece of clothing you own probably has nothing to do with recycled polyester or organic cotton. It’s the little black dress you’ve worn on repeat for 15 years and the pair of ripped Levi’s 501s you can’t imagine ever throwing away. The harder question—the one the fashion industry has never quite figured out—is how to design something like that on purpose. How do you make a garment someone loves now and will continue to wear for years? This is something Sarah Bonello thinks about constantly as she designs for her new label, The Park. After decades in fashion PR, where she developed a finely tuned sense of what the market was missing, Bonell…

Los Angeles just became the first major school district to put limits on screen time at school. The resolution, which was brought by Nick Melvoin, a concerned parent, passed 6-0 with one recusal. Now, screens in schools will no longer be a free-for-all. The district will have to create policies around screen time based on both grade level and subject. The resolution will also prohibit screens in first grade and below, bans screen time at recess for middle and elementary schoolers, and will restrict access to YouTube in class. Additionally, it will make clear to parents how they can go about opting out of using screens at school. Screen time is part of most …

Employees at Meta Platforms may soon feel like they’re spilling TMI to their employer’s MCI. The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is installing new software—reportedly dubbed Model Capability Initiative (MCI)—on its employees’ computers and workstations that will, among other things, track and capture mouse movements and keystrokes in an effort to train AI models, Reuters first reported on Tuesday. It’s all part of a broader effort to develop autonomous AI agents that can perform specific work tasks. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that the company was, indeed, pushing forward with the measure. “If we’re building agents to help people com…

Celebrities are continuing to learn the hard way that publicly pontificating about their views on AI, like politics, might come with far more risk than reward. The latest incident involves beloved Academy Award winner and Walk the Line star Reese Witherspoon, who is facing ongoing backlash for an Instagram video she posted last week—and then again defended this week—encouraging women to learn more about AI. In a recent video posted from what appears to be her kitchen, Witherspoon told her followers that she’s worried not enough women are using AI. Her evidence: An informal poll she took at a recent meeting of her book club, where most of the members told her they wer…

As visitors head into downtown Vancouver through the city’s False Creek Flats neighborhood, the first thing they’ll see is the Hive: a 10-story office building built out of wood and shaped like a giant honeycomb. Beneath its webbed exterior, the building is hiding a clever design system that keeps it safe from earthquakes by allowing it to wiggle, shake, and settle. The Hive, designed by the Toronto-based architecture studio Dialog, is the tallest seismic-force-resisting building made from mass timber in North America. By substituting mass timber for typical steel-and-concrete construction, the building is sequestering a total of 4,403 metric tons of CO2; equivalent …

The point of mopping floors is to clean them, but it’s actually pretty messy, as you’re sloshing increasingly grimy water from your bucket to the floor. Are you actually cleaning, or just redistributing the filth? Joseph Joseph, a U.K. houseware design studio and manufacturer, has a new solution: a two-chamber mop bucket called the UltraClean that separates the fresh soapy water from the dirty water, and squeezes out the mophead as you go. This just might be the biggest advancement in mop bucket technology—yes, it’s a thing—since the mop wringer. The secret to the UltraClean system is its slot, which is designed to do two things at once: clean and rinse. Here’s ho…

German aviation group Lufthansa is cutting back on flights amid fuel price surges related to conflicts in the Middle East. On Tuesday, the company announced plans to eliminate 20,000 short-haul flights through October, a decision expected to save around 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel. The adjustments to the flight schedule will impact the unprofitable routes across the Lufthansa Group network, which includes Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and ITA Airways. “Passengers will therefore continue to have access to the global route network, particularly long-haul connections,” the company said in a press statemen…

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders are set to vote Thursday on the company’s proposed $81 billion sale to Skydance-owned Paramount, in a mega merger that could vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape. Paramount wants to buy all of Warner. That means HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like “Harry Potter” and CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof as Paramount’s CBS, “Top Gun” and the Paramount+ streaming service. And a greenlight from shareholders would bring the acquisition closer to the finish line. Shareholders are expected to meet at 10 a.m. ET to vote on the deal, which is valued at nearly $111 billion, including debt, based on Warner’s current…

American Airlines is leaning further into the idea that airport lounges should feel less like generic waiting rooms and more like extensions of the cities they serve. Its latest project in Nashville makes that strategy pretty clear. At Nashville International Airport (BNA), the airline is planning a new Admirals Club that will significantly expand its footprint and redefine what a lounge can be. A much bigger lounge The new space in Concourse A will span about 17,400 square feet, nearly triple the size of AA’s current lounge at the airport. When it opens, it’s expected to be the largest airline lounge at BNA, giving travelers far more room to spread out, …

You want to be happier. You want to feel more fulfilled. You want to live a longer, healthier life. Hold that thought. Lewis Terman, a Stanford University psychologist, was a pioneer in I.Q. testing. His revisions of the Stanford-Binet test helped it become a widespread tool for measuring general intelligence. In 1921, he identified 1,500 children who had scored 135 or higher on the test and began one of the longest longitudinal studies ever conducted. (The New York Times calls Terman and his study of “Termites,” as the kids called themselves, the “grandfather of all lifespan research.”) Terman’s study was guaranteed to outlive him, but that was the point…

Many consumers may be pausing their travel plans until whenever the U.S.-Iranian fuel crisis ends. But if you were hoping that airline ticket prices and other ancillary costs will come down afterward, the CEO of United Airlines has some bad news for you: Airlines may not lower prices to their pre-war levels even after fuel prices fall. Instead, they’ll pocket the profits. Here’s what you need to know. Ticket prices rise as Iran war drags on This week, United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAL) reported its Q1 2026 earnings. For all intents and purposes, it wasn’t a bad quarter. Total operating revenue was up 10.6% year over year to $14.6 billion, capacity rose 3.4…

Three congressional candidates wagered on the outcome of their own elections on Kalshi, according to the prediction market, which said Wednesday that it fined and suspended the men from their platform for five years. It is the latest high-profile case of alleged insider trading on prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket, which have brought bipartisan scrutiny from Congress and calls for stricter regulations of the websites where people can put money on just about anything. Kalshi’s disciplinary documents named Mark Moran, who is running as an independent in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race; Ezekiel Enriquez, who ran in a Texas Republican primary for a U.S. House s…

The United States’ advanced manufacturing future may have an unexpected limiting factor: a dire shortage of welders. While venture capital has placed big bets on a cutting-edge future of data centers, defense tech, and robotics, actually making the physical devices remains a challenge without finding the right talent to melt, fuse and repair metal. The American Welding Society projects that the country will need more than 320,000 new welding professionals by 2030, which means hiring about 80,000 new welders every year. Path Robotics believes the future of America’s manufacturing workforce will be augmented with torch-wielding robots. The Columbus, Ohio-based company,…

For digital nomads, logging on to work from a cafe, co-working space, hotel lobby or airport lounge is a way of life. Remote working has been made possible by reliable high speed internet and turbocharged by the pandemic. For some remote workers, that includes working from somewhere other than their home, perhaps because their company doesn’t have a physical location in their area, or because they don’t have an ideal home office setup. Working in public, however, doesn’t come without privacy and security risks. Here’s a quick reminder of precautions to take: Read the rulebook Hybrid or fully remote working is the norm for many jobs, so it’s a good idea to check f…

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 via email here. AI flattery drives engagement—and distorts judgment Social networks like Facebook and TikTok use a range of techniques to keep us engaged and scrolling (and ultimately viewing ads). One of the most effective is tailoring content to our tastes and preferences, a strategy that has proved highly addictive. Last month, a Los Angeles jury found that Meta’s and Google’s use of infinite scrolling and algorithmic recommendations caused a young user to become addicted, and ordered the compa…