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StubHub’s 2024 revenue surged 29.5%, it reported on Friday in its U.S. initial public offering paperwork, as the online ticketing marketplace moves ahead with its long-sought New York flotation. A handful of companies are moving ahead with stock market listings despite volatility arising from uncertainty around U.S. trade policy. Nvidia-backed startup CoreWeave and Swedish fintech Klarna are among the companies gearing up to go public in New York. StubHub, one of the biggest secondary ticketing marketplaces for live events, will sell new shares in the proposed offering, it said. Its revenue jumped to $1.77 billion in 2024, compared with $1.37 billion a yea…

Across the U.S., dozens of proposed solar, wind, and battery projects—encompassing thousands of gigawatts of potential power—are backlogged as they wait to be allowed to plug into the power grid. And, even in areas where renewable energy projects are already online, their output is often heavily curtailed. This clean energy bottleneck stems from the fact that, as demand for renewable energy rises, the U.S. isn’t building new transmission lines fast enough to transport large amounts of clean energy from point A to point B. Now, there’s a company looking to address that problem with a simple yet radical solution: Putting renewable energy into giant batteries and trans…

Technology workers in Kenya have held a vigil for a colleague who died in unclear circumstances after she was unable to travel to her home in Nigeria for two years. Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, a content moderator for TikTok employed by the subcontractor Teleperformance Kenya, died last week and her decomposing body was discovered in her house after three days. It was unclear what caused her death, but colleagues say she had complained of fatigue and was “desperate to go back home.” Teleperformance Kenya told the Associated Press on Wednesday that they didn’t deny Olubunmi her leave to go home. Her family in Nigeria says she only traveled once since coming to Kenya t…

Featuring Joon Choi, President, Weverse; Aron Levitz, President, Wattpad Webtoon Studios and Co-President, Wattpad and Gita Rebbapragada, Chief Operating Officer, Crunchyroll. Moderated by Tania Rahman, Social Media Director, Fast Company. Cultivating a loyal fan base is every brand’s dream. So why not take a page out of the book of companies that have made fandom the foundation of their business? Hear from execs at Weverse, Crunchyroll, and Wattpad to gain an understanding of how these companies cultivate and serve their diehard fandoms—and how you can apply that approach to your customers. View the full article

A popular “true crime” YouTube channel has been pulling in millions of views with videos about gruesome murders. As it turns out, None of them are real. One of those videos, titled “Husband’s Secret Gay Love Affair with Step Son Ends in Grisly Murder,” claimed to detail a gruesome crime in Littleton, Colorado. After it amassed nearly two million views, viewers reached out to local reporter Elizabeth Hernandez. But there was no record of the crime—because it never happened. The murder was entirely fabricated by a YouTube channel called True Crime Case Files that used ChatGPT and AI-generated imagery. According to 404 Media’s Henry Larson, over 150 similar videos ha…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. When architects constructed the Notre-Dame Cathedral in the 13th century, they reinforced its structure with 28 flying buttresses. These famous buttresses are credited with saving the entire roof from collapse during the devastating 2019 fire. Today, as nonprofit organizations brace against shifting economic winds, I’m reminded of these critical architectural supports when I consider the wraparo…

A New York-based AI startup called Hebbia says it’s developed techniques that let AI answer questions about massive amounts of data without merely regurgitating what it’s read or, worse, making up information. To help generative AI tools answer questions beyond the information in their training data, AI companies have recently used a technique called retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG. When users ask a question, RAG-powered AI typically uses a search-engine-style system to locate relevant information it has access to, whether that’s on the web or in a private database. Then, that information is fed to the underlying AI model along with the user’s query and an…

Appointing a chief of staff is a critical first step for any CEO looking to make impactful leadership decisions. But an executive who merely utilizes their chief of staff as an administrative extra set of hands risks missing out on meaningful transformation opportunities. The critical decision to position a chief of staff as a true executive partner, when executed well, can be a bold investment that impacts a CEO’s legacy. Based on my own experience as a chief of staff for a Series A unicorn-to-be and my current work coaching and placing these professionals, I’ve seen firsthand that today’s chiefs of staff act as leadership amplifiers. They occupy a unique position at…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Here’s the annual U.S. household income needed to finance the purchase of the typical valued U.S. home: January 2020: $51,646 January 2021: $51,740 January 2022: $62,669 January 2023: $86,184 January 2024: $92,006 January 2025: $92,538 That’s a +79% shift in just 5 years. Methodology: This Zillow calculation is conservative and assumes a 20% down payment and the homebuyer spends less than 30.0% of their monthly income on the total monthly payment. This is a financed purchase, of course. For typical home value, Zillow economist…

Thermal pools, hammams, banyas, onsens, shvitzes, cold plunges, steam rooms, and saunas: Hot and cold water, and the communal experience of steam and sweat, has been a pillar of social and wellness cultures across millennia. Now a new crop of brighter and busier spaces known as social bathhouses seek to re-create the benefits of communal bathing with a callout to today’s overstressed, always-connected culture. As one bathhouse owner says, “You’re half naked, your phone’s in the locker, everyone’s going through something together.” There isn’t a comprehensive count of social bathhouse openings, but there’s a sense that it’s a nascent category in American fitness c…

As millions of new graduates enter the job market this spring and summer, many may encounter a potentially frustrating paradox: They need experience to get hired, but they need a job or internship to gain that experience. This paradox is deepening in today’s labor market. At Deloitte, we recently released a Global Human Capital Trends report that found that 66% of hiring managers say most recent hires are not fully prepared for their roles, most often due to a lack of experience. Meanwhile, research has shown that a majority of employers have increased experience requirements over the past three years, and many “entry-level” roles today often require two to five years of…

Back in January, State Farm announced that it was canceling its plans to run a Super Bowl commercial due to the impact of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. “Our focus is firmly on providing support to the people of Los Angeles,” the company said in a statement at the time. But now the company is taking its Super Bowl work and bringing it to another pillar of its advertising calendar, March Madness. The spot stars Jason Bateman as . . . Bateman, a less-than-adequate substitute for Batman. Created by agency HighDive, the spot also has Grammy-winning artist SZA, popular streamer Kai Cenat, and content creator Jordan Howlett (aka Jordan the Stallion). Last week,…

There’s a reason Haliey Welch seemingly vanished from the internet overnight: she’s the focus of an upcoming documentary exploring her meteoric rise—and dramatic fall—from viral fame. The 22-year-old influencer will be the subject of an upcoming documentary from Emmy-winning production company Bungalow Media + Entertainment, according to Deadline. “The documentary will chronicle how Welch, a young woman from a small-town with no active social media presence, unknowingly created a viral moment that gave way into a global phenomenon,” per a press release shared with the outlet. The documentary will focus on Welch’s “unexpected rise to fame, the scrutiny that followe…

Disability rights could be under threat. People with disabilities are protected from discrimination and given equal access to education, healthcare, employment, and public services under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. However, Republican attorneys general in 17 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia) have sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), asking courts to declare Section 504 unconstitutional. Last May, HHS required that 504 services be provided to people experiencing gender dysphoria. T…

On Friday, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar in the northern part of the country. Reuters reports the quake’s epicenter was about 17.2 km (about 10.6 miles) from Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city with a population of about 1.5 million people. The quake destroyed buildings, roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure in the country. So far, 1,700 people have been confirmed dead and 3,400 injured, but officials say the final death toll may pass 10,000. The quake also hit neighboring Thailand, bringing down a 33-story building with people inside. In Myanmar, the effects of the natural disaster are intensified due to the civil war the country has…

An attorney for a Texas pipeline company said Wednesday at trial that he will prove various Greenpeace entities coordinated delays and disruptions of a controversial oil pipeline’s construction in North Dakota, and defamed the company to its lenders. Attorneys for the Greenpeace defendants told a jury there is no evidence to back up the claims by Dallas-based Energy Transfer, which seeks potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from Greenpeace. The case is tied to protests in 2016 and 2017 of the Dakota Access Pipeline and its controversial Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipel…