What's on Your Mind?

A culture of fear makes it easy to cloud our judgment For thousands of years, walking and horseback riding were the fundamental modes of transport, and settlement patterns were a direct reflection of transport options. Compact, low-rise villages and cities made sense based on how far people could reasonably travel on foot or by horse. This was true all the way up until the late 1800s. Then came an invention that let people travel incredible distances in seconds, entirely reshaping cities with dense population clusters. The technology was a sturdy box designed to transport multiple people at once, but often carried just one. I’m talking, of course, about the elevat…

Reading or sending emails may seem like an innocuous task, but sometimes, this simple act can trigger a dramatic bodily response. Like forgetting to literally breathe. “Many of us have heard of sleep apnea: the condition where breathing gets interrupted during sleep.” Dora Kamau, Lead Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher at mental health app Headspace, told Fast Company. “Email apnea is a similar idea—just happening in the middle of your workday,” When we’re intensely focused on a task, the brain will “switch off” certain unconscious functions to redirect its processing power to the task at hand. In that state, a lot of people unknowingly alter their breathing, tak…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. More than 600,000 podcasts released 27 million episodes in 2025. Keeping up with even a tiny fraction of those 70,000-plus daily releases is impossible. So I’ve been exploring new ways to keep up with audio: podcast summaries, audio digests, and cool new tools for finding and saving audio highlights. Podsnacks: Get podcast summaries by email Get podcast summaries delivered to your email with Podsnacks. Catch up on shows you don’t have time to listen to. The free digest includes AI-generated summaries drawn from 25 of the most popul…

Accessibility is often treated as a technical problem. Does it meet standards? Is it ergonomic? Is it safe? Those questions matter, but they are incomplete. Many products fail not because they don’t function, but because they make the user feel singled out. Shame is one of the most powerful barriers to product adoption, and it is rarely discussed in design reviews. People delay using canes, grab bars, hearing aids, or mobility supports even when they would meaningfully improve daily life. Why? Because many products still communicate something the user does not want to say out loud: Something is wrong with me. If we want accessible design to succeed, and we want pe…

At 12, I was walking around a very affluent neighborhood with my father and he said, “Mikey, all these people in these nice houses, not one of them could run a gas station.” That stuck with me. The gas station test isn’t about intelligence or ambition, it’s about aptitude for running a successful business. As a strong student, then an investment banking analyst, then a private equity associate, I was in this jetstream towards a career in investing. But can investors run gas stations? Does it matter? This concept was always in the back of my mind. I dove so deep into business details as an investor that my interest actually inhibited my performance. I was propelled…

With Netflix now streaming original podcasts and Apple announcing a “category-leading video experience” on its app this spring, the meaning of the word “podcast” has grown increasingly diffuse. It was much easier to pin down during the medium’s mid-aughts infancy. Back then, a podcast was simply asynchronous talk radio—the natural next step after moving from terrestrial radio, to satellite platforms like SiriusXM, to a new and purely digital format that could be downloaded and consumed on demand. In the years since, the definition has vastly expanded. Essentially, any form of episodic audio or video content that involves people speaking into microphones can now b…

Companies want to hire workers with artificial intelligence skills, but don’t want to pay the premium. Those are the findings from a new report from Payscale, a leading online provider of data on salaries and compensation. Payscale’s 2026 Compensation Best Practices Report finds that while 60% of companies mention AI as part of their job descriptions, only 55% are willing to shell out extra money for those skills in the form of higher salaries, bonuses or even equity in the company. Why? Well, according to the report, there are a few reasons for the discrepancy, including the impact of a tight job market on hiring, coming at a time when businesses are also tighten…

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will resign from teaching at Harvard University amid a campus review of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the university announced Wednesday. Summers, who has been on leave since November and whose name appeared hundreds of times in newly released Epstein files, will leave at the end of the school year, according to a statement from Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton. “Professor Summers has announced that he will retire from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard at the end of this academic year and will remain on leave until that time,” Newton said. In a statement, Summers said it was a difficult decision and e…

At a time of broken climate pledges and an economy-wide bearhug of automation and artificial intelligence, the dominant themes of the recently announced 2026 National Design Awards—climate action, sustainability, dedication to craft—are a refreshing reset. Rewarding innovation and impact among U.S.-based designers, the awards are both an honor and a pulse check on the state of design. This year’s group of winners represent a diverse group of practitioners and firms exploring ways that work in design and the arts can counteract environmental catastrophe and re-center the human hand in shaping the future. Honorees include the indigenous underpinnings in the textiles…

Next week, a rare celestial event will take to the skies. On March 3, amateur astronomers will get to witness a blood moon and a worm moon all at once. According to Space.com, a blood moon occurs during a total lunar eclipse, as the Earth passes directly between the Sun and Moon and casts a shadow across the moon’s surface. The moon appears red due to the way the Earth’s atmosphere filters sunlight. “This effect, known as Rayleigh scattering, is the same reason that the sky takes on magnificent shades of red and orange around sunset,” the site explains. While different seasons often bring exciting astrological events, this one is exceptionally rare. According to N…

Gen Z still believes in true love, even if the pursuit looks a little different from their parents’ generation. That’s according to a new Tinder x Harris Poll white paper shared exclusively with Fast Company. The survey was conducted online in the U.S. on behalf of Match Group by the Harris Poll from September to October 2025, among a nationally representative sample of 2,500 single adults ages 18 to 79. Some 80% of Gen Z singles said they believe they’ll find true love, and 74% said they believe they’ll get married, compared to 57% and 43% of all singles, respectively. That might surprise some at a time when young people are reportedly having less sex, going …

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…

The crypto market got some good news on Wednesday morning, as Circle reported better-than-expected earnings numbers, sending its stock soaring. Circle, a fintech company that issues and regulates stablecoins among other things, reported fourth-quarter and full fiscal year 2025 earnings early Wednesday, which showed that total revenue grew 77% to $770 million during the fourth quarter, and net income for the quarter increased by $129 million. Adjusted EBITDA also grew 412% during the quarter. For the full year, total revenue grew 64% to $2.7 billion. In response, Circle shares took off, skyrocketing more than 15% during pre-trading. By midday Wednesday, the stock …

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…

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…

Women’s sports continue to thrive. Record-breaking WNBA viewership, a flood of new brand investment, and now Unrivaled: the women’s basketball league built by players, for players. Commissioner Micky Lawler pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to launch a high-stakes sports startup in the full glare of the public eye. The question is no longer whether women’s sports can compete. It’s how fast they can grow. 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 Scalepodcast, Rapid Responsefeatures candid conversations with today’s top business le…

Ten years ago, I ended a meeting at WeWork with an offer to grab a free beer on tap. Last week, I ended it with a similar offer, except this time the beverage on offer was kombucha. The seemingly innocuous shift is symbolic of a bigger evolution underway at the coworking giant: less coolness, more functionality. WeWork is growing up, and its newest location in downtown Manhattan is the most visible proof yet: 250 Broadway, which opened in January, is WeWork’s first outpost in the city since 2019—the year WeWork abandoned its initial public offering and ousted cofounder Adam Neumann as CEO. The space adds 60,000 square feet to the company’s New York portfolio, which al…

Some bad news for all the mutual fund managers out there: A new study from researchers at Harvard Business School seems to support the fear that artificial intelligence and machine learning could do their jobs. But here’s the catch—with only about 71% accuracy, depending on how predictable their trades are. The working paper “Mimicking Finance” from Lauren Cohen, Yiwen Lu, and Quoc H. Nguyen, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds “that 71% of mutual fund managers’ trade directions can be predicted in the absence of the agent making a single trade.” The paper goes on to say, “For some managers, this increases to nearly all of their…

Early drivers steered cars by pushing a lever left and right. That was fine at slow speeds, but disastrous when you accelerated. It took years before the steering wheel arrived. Granola CEO Chris Pedregal says AI interfaces are still in the lever era. Pedregal, who in 2019 sold the edtech startup Socratic to Google, says we’re just beginning to figure out how humans should interact with AI. Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, people still associate AI with typing into a chat box. Granola is betting on a new approach to AI-enhanced note-taking. The London-based startup doesn’t record audio or video or send bots into your meetings. Instead, its tool sits on y…