What's on Your Mind?

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. It’s the time of year when we all make promises to ourselves. I’m committing to read more, procrastinate less, and squeeze in an extra hour of piano practice a week. I asked other CEOs to share their 2026 New Year’s resolutions; here are seven responses, in their own words. Omar Abbosh,…

Ketchup-inspired luggage. Soap based on the characters from Stranger Things. A hot sauce energy drink. These are just a few of the brand collaborations that we’ve seen in 2025—and it’s safe to say that all’s not well in the world of brand partnerships. A few years ago, the art of the brand collab most often involved bringing together two brands that already had overlapping design styles, fanbases, or product categories. Recall partnerships like Nike and Apple’s successful 2016 Series 2 Watch launch, for example; or Dolce & Gabbana’s elevated designs for Smeg in 2019; or even Lego’s 2020 collection with Ikea. All of these pairings make some measure of intuitive sen…

I started building Simple in 2019 with a vision that one day, a digital product could help people fix their health as effectively as a human. Five years later, we turned this vision into a company with 160M in ARR, and a team of more than 150 people across multiple countries. If you only look at the highlights, my story can look like a straight line of an entrepreneur’s journey. However, getting there required me to rebuild my own thinking and habits. You see, I have ADHD, and a mind that constantly scans for what can go wrong. For years, I treated that as a bug. It only became my superpower once I learned how to direct it. That isn’t an easy journey, but these lesson…

My bus rolls into Port Authority. I’ve got 10 minutes to get across town for my first meeting. I sprint down the escalator, run through droves of people, and arrive at a subway turnstile. I swipe my MetroCard through the magnetic reader, step forward—only to get crotch-checked by a locked metal bar and flipped the finger by a screen that displays “PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN.” I give it another swipe. “INSUFFICIENT FARE.” To refill my MetroCard, I power walk toward the kiosk. It refuses to read my credit card. I swipe a few more times. Nothing. I sift through my back pocket, discover a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and slide it into the machine. It won’t accept my cash. I waffle-i…

There’s bad news for those using digital surveys to try to understand people’s online behavior: We may no longer be able to determine whether a human is responding to them or not, a recent study has shown—and there seems to be no way around this problem. This means that all online canvassing could be vulnerable to misrepresenting people’s true opinions. This could have repercussions for anything that falls under the category of “information warfare,” from polling results, to misinformation, to fraud. Non-human survey respondents, in aggregate, could impact anything from flavors and pricing for a pack of gum, to something more damaging, such as whether or not someone …

As employers have wrested back control of the job market, it has been a sharp contrast to the post-pandemic years when workers seemed to hold the power. In 2025, employees fretted about their job security and the sweeping impact of artificial intelligence on their work lives—not to mention corporate America’s continued commitment to keeping them in the office for longer. Here, we’ve compiled some of the most popular Work Life stories from this year—on the issues that consumed you most. The “996” schedule This year saw the return of hustle culture in Silicon Valley, as AI startups popularized a grueling work schedule that became popularized in China. The “996…

Many traits—like impulsivity, hyperfocus, and nonlinear thinking—that get pathologized in school or corporate environments are the same ones that create natural entrepreneurs. View the full article

The irony of modern work life hits you somewhere between your third consecutive hybrid meeting and the moment you realize you’ve been holding your breath for the past hour. We’ve engineered every process for maximum output, yet reports consistently show that workplace burnout is affecting us more than ever. As someone who followed the straight-A path from childhood—chasing perfect grades, moving from one goalpost to another through MBA to big tech product executive—I’ve witnessed this optimization obsession firsthand while shaping experiences for over half a billion users. But what if the solution isn’t another wellness program or time management technique? What i…

Lululemon Athletica‘s founder Chip Wilson said on Monday he had launched a proxy fight by nominating three independent directors to the company’s board, just over two weeks after the apparel maker announced the exit of CEO Calvin McDonald without a clear successor. Lululemon shares have shed nearly half their value this year as the company struggles to find its footing with younger and affluent shoppers, while battling stiff competition from fast-growing newer rivals such as Alo Yoga and Vuori, as well as pressure from activist investor Elliott Management. Wilson has nominated three director candidates to Lululemon’s board, including former On Running co-CEO Marc …

The start of a new year usually brings new motivation to achieve goals like eating healthier or finally cleaning your basement. Many resolutions also focus on financial goals, such as paying off credit card debt, saving for a new house, or simply getting more educated about money. “New Year’s is a really good time to review and realign your financial goals overall,” said Erica Grundza, certified financial planner at Betterment, an investing and savings app. When building your goals for 2026, Grundza recommends focusing less on the past and more on an optimistic, yet realistic, vision for the future. She recommends that you focus on reestablishing the “why” behind …

Robots have long been seen as a bad bet for Silicon Valley investors — too complicated, capital-intensive, and “boring, honestly,” says venture capitalist Modar Alaoui. But the commercial boom in artificial intelligence has lit a spark under long-simmering visions to build humanoid robots that can move their mechanical bodies like humans and do things that people do. Alaoui, founder of the Humanoids Summit, gathered more than 2,000 people this week, including top robotics engineers from Disney, Google, and dozens of startups, to showcase their technology and debate what it will take to accelerate a nascent industry. Alaoui says many researchers now believe hum…

In a record weird year for the economy, the price of silver is the latest thing to behave strangely. The price of the second fiddle precious metal has soared over the last month, hitting record highs and outpacing the growth of gold. After hovering between $15 and $25 an ounce for much of the last decade, the price of silver topped $40 an ounce this fall before spiking to a record high of $82 at the end of December. After topping $80 on Monday, silver fell back closer to $70 an ounce – still more than double what the metal was worth only a year ago. Precious metals like silver tend to do well in times of economic uncertainty and 2025 has fit that bill and then som…

SoftBank Group will acquire digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge Group in a deal valued at $4 billion, the companies said on Monday, as the Japanese investment firm looks to deepen its AI-related portfolio. The acquisition would expand SoftBank’s exposure to digital infrastructure as the Japanese conglomerate is positioning its portfolio to focus on artificial intelligence. DigitalBridge shares rose about 9.7% to $15.27 on Monday, following a 45% rise earlier this month after Bloomberg News first reported the acquisition talks. The $16 per share offer represents a 15% premium over DigitalBridge’s closing price on Friday and values the company at $2.92…

Wall Street’s main indexes kicked off the final week of the year on a softer note on Monday, as heavyweight technology stocks retreated from last week’s gains that had pushed the S&P 500 to record highs. The information technology sector weighed on the S&P 500, as most tech and AI-linked stocks declined, with Nvidia down 1.8%, Broadcom off 1%, and Palantir Technologies shedding 1.4%. “This is (not) the beginning of the end of the tech dominance, it’ll turn out to be a buying opportunity,” said Hank Smith, director and head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust. “A big reason for that is the top tech names, excluding Tesla, do not have challenging v…

Below, Muriel Wilkins shares five key insights from her new book, Leadership Unblocked: Break Through the Beliefs That Limit Your Potential. Muriel is the founder and CEO of the leadership advisory firm Paravis Partners. She is also an executive coach to high-performing C-suite and senior executives, as well as host of the award-winning podcast Coaching Real Leaders. What’s the big idea? When leaders get stuck, their first instinct is to do more and push harder. But those actions don’t create lasting results because they’re focused on what they do and not on what they think. Sustainable leadership growth comes from examining the beliefs that drive our actions. …

It’s that time — December’s waning days, when we prepare to turn the calendar page. Many Americans take stock, review goals accomplished and unmet, ponder hopes and plans. How’s our health? What’s up with our money? What about the country? Will the coming year look like the departing one year, or be something entirely different? Are we ready? It can be an overwhelming period. So The Associated Press reached out to professionals with varying expertises — home organization, risk management, personal training, personal finance, and political science — to talk about their perspectives on changes and transitions. And for something a little different, we gave each inte…

We’re at a rare inflection point. Robots are moving from research labs and factory floors into everyday life. Right now, they’re being dropped into human spaces and, often, missing the mark. Yet embodied AI is becoming more intelligent, manipulation more capable, and perception more attuned. These shifts are giving robotics a new expressive range, the ability to move, interact, and take shape in ways that feel natural in human environments. It’s a moment full of possibility. Currently, people see robots as humanoid helpers or robotic arms, but we don’t have to be limited to these. They represent only a small slice of a much broader category of intelligent and autonomo…

Zohran Mamdani has promised to transform New York City government when he becomes mayor. Can he do it? Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, already faces intense scrutiny, even before taking office in one of the country’s most scrutinized political jobs. Republicans have cast him as a liberal boogeyman. Some of his fellow Democrats have deemed him too far left. Progressives are closely watching for any signs of him shifting toward the center. On Jan. 1, he will assume control of America’s biggest city under that harsh spotlight, with the country watching to see if he can pull off the big promises that vaulted him to office and handle the everyday duties of the j…

For years, accessibility was treated as a compliance exercise, something required rather than desired. Yet in today’s consumer landscape, where aging, chronic illness, and situational disability touch every household, accessibility is no longer a specialty category. It is one of the biggest growth opportunities in business. Companies that recognize this shift are discovering a new kind of ROI. It is not return on investment alone. It is return on inclusion. Return on inclusion happens when brands design products, services, and experiences for people across all levels of ability, not as an afterthought but from the start. When companies do this, they not only expand th…

Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91. Bardot died Sunday at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals. Speaking to The Associated Press, he gave no cause of death, and said that no arrangements had been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month. Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman.” Directed by then husband Roger Vadim, it tr…

A potent winter storm threatened blizzard-like conditions, treacherous travel, and power outages in parts of the Upper Midwest as other areas of the country braced Monday for plunging temperatures, strong winds, and a mix of snow, ice, and rain. The snow and strengthening winds began spreading Sunday across the northern Plains, where the National Weather Service warned of whiteout conditions and possible blizzard conditions that could make travel impossible in some areas. Snowfall totals were expected to exceed a foot (30 centimeters) across parts of the upper Great Lakes and as much as double that along the south shore of Lake Superior. “Part of the storm system is get…

Construction materials are responsible for nearly one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions. And as global demand for construction continues to rise (it has already tripled over the past 25 years), its emissions are bound to climb even higher.e In fact, some, like environmental engineer and University of Virginia professor Andres Clarens, see materials’ potential negative impact as so existential that he calls them the “last major frontier” in the fight against climate change. If that’s the case, we need to reduce the emissions associated with commonly used building materials like cement and steel—and we need to develop alternative materials that emit fewer greenhouse …