What's on Your Mind?

When my business went through a difficult season, I turned to my friend, ChatGPT. I asked the Large Language Model (LLM) for insights and advice on how to leverage my strengths and pivot my business as budgets for women’s leadership programs shifted downward. When the well-framed answers started pouring in, I didn’t pause to check in with myself and ask if my opinion diverged from ChatGPT or whether this advice aligned with my values and mission. In fact, I didn’t even think to ask ChatGPT what might work in my favor if I just stayed the course. I was a “LLeMming”: a term Lila Shroff uses to describe compulsive AI users in The Atlantic. Lila Shroff shares that just as th…

A client once described to me what happened after they had lived through a traumatic assault. For a long time, life stayed busy enough that they rarely had to think about it. Work, obligations, and everyday distractions filled the hours. Whether intentionally or not, staying occupied kept the past at a distance. Then one day things slowed down. There was a rare stretch of quiet. And in that quiet the memory returned all at once, like a tsunami. We might not have lived through trauma of that magnitude, but the example reveals something about distraction itself. When our attention is constantly absorbed elsewhere, we can avoid more than a painful memory. We can avoid o…

The American job market is now filled with so-called ghost jobs —listings for positions that don’t actually exist, from companies that have no intent to hire—wasting not only hours of your time, but also your money, too. According to a comprehensive study by Enhancv, a global AI resume builder, 37% of people looking for jobs are now paying a “ghost tax”—reporting direct out-of-pocket expenses, including travel, childcare, and paid certifications, as a result of chasing phantom listings. The March 2026 study surveyed 1,000 U.S. professionals across all career levels. “When job seekers are losing actual money to engage with a company’s brand, we aren’t just look…

Every holiday season feels high stakes, but 2025 may be the most unforgiving yet. Consumer demand remains resilient, but retailers are facing a tangle of economic headwinds, from tariffs and supply chain volatility to rising ad costs and leaner teams. In an uncertain economy, the margin for error shrinks, and the cost of a slow site or a fragile storefront grows even steeper. For years, retailers have measured holiday readiness by promotions, inventory planning, and staffing strategies. But there’s a blind spot: performance readiness. How fast, resilient, and visible your digital storefront is when shoppers show up can determine whether you hit your holiday forecast o…

You’ve been knocking it out of the park. Your projects deliver, your name comes up in leadership meetings, and now you’ve been tapped for the next step: your first management role. It’s exciting. It’s validating. But it’s also a lot like stepping off a cliff with no parachute—especially if no one’s told you what leadership really requires. In fact, nearly half of first-time managers report feeling unprepared when they take on their new roles. Why? Because being a high-achieving individual contributor is a completely different job than managing people. It’s not a promotion—it’s a profession. So, before you accept that new title and the “corner Slack channel” that c…

Some frustrated passengers are waiting hours in line at airports around the country, due to a stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding, which has resulted in many TSA officers working without pay to walk off the job. At Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas, lines were out the door earlier this week, according to the airport’s X account that posted this video of passengers waiting in the dark at 4:30 a.m. And it gets worse. According to the Transportation Security Administration, many airports could “literally shut down . . . particularly smaller ones,” if TSA officers continue to call out instead of coming to work, CNN reported. While TSA…

While most teams have managers and team leads, many also have something less official, but just as recognizable: the “workplace parent.” They’re the go-to for advice . . . even for things that may not even be related to work. They remember birthdays, organize celebrations, and somehow have everything you might need. Paper clip? No problem. Jumper cables? Of course. The phone number for the receptionist you’re too scared to call—don’t worry, they did it for you. But what does it really mean to be the caretaker of your workplace? And can that caring nature sometimes hold you back professionally? Here are four signs that you’re the workplace parent, plus the r…

I spent several years of my career in the uncomfortable role of middle manager. On one side, I had executives asking me why my team couldn’t “do more,” and on the other side, my employees told me they were stretched too thin. It was an endless tug-of-war. I was both the enforcer of company expectations and the advocate for my team’s needs. At times, my role felt at complete odds with itself. Executives push for efficiency and growth, while employees look for empathy and stability. Middle management, understandably, feels like a pressure cooker. The shifting role of middle management My role as a middle manager was many years ago. Today’s middle manager…

Authenticity is a critical leadership trait. Research shows that it facilitates more trusting relationships and a more positive working environment. Often, though, in my executive coaching practice, I hear senior leaders use ‘authenticity’ as a covert excuse to resist development. When clients say, “That doesn’t feel authentic,” it’s often a signal they’re avoiding growth. They’re fearfully or righteously attached to a static version of their leadership. This is a major liability. As leaders elevate in seniority, they must adapt their approach. They need to experiment with different ways of thinking, communicating, and engaging to navigate increased scope and complexi…

The world’s biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Opening arguments for the first, in Los Angeles County Superior Court, begin this week. Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube will face claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. TikTok and Snap, which were originally named in the lawsuit, settled for undisclosed sums. “This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and br…

Arianna Huffington, author, entrepreneur, and founder of The Huffington Post believes in one key to success above all else: getting enough sleep. “When I get eight hours, I feel ready to handle anything during the day without stress and without paying a heavy price in terms of my own health and my own mental well-being,” Huffington, the author of The Sleep Revolution, told NBC. Here’s how sleep can lead to greater success and happiness for you: Huffington’s Personal Journey With Sleep Back in 2007, Huffington was constantly sacrificing sleep to work 18-hour days. Then, one morning, she woke up on the floor of her home office in a pool of her own blood. S…

Arizona’s highest court has created a pair of AI-generated avatars to deliver news of every ruling issued by the justices, marking what is believed to be the first example in the U.S. of a state court system tapping artificial intelligence to build more humanlike characters to connect with the public. A court in Florida uses an animated chatbot to help visitors navigate its website, but the Arizona Supreme Court is charting new territory with the creation of Victoria and Daniel. Made of pixels, the two avatars have a different job in that they serve as the face of news coming from the court just as a spokesperson made of flesh and blood would do—but faster. The use of A…

Shares of Arm Holdings plc (Nasdaq: ARM) are surging this morning after the semiconductor design firm announced it will begin making its own chips for AI workloads. The move from chip designer to chipmaker represents the most significant shift in the company’s business model in its 35-year history. Here’s what you need to know. Arm ravamps its business model For over three decades, the British semiconductor firm had one primary business model: it designed chips and then licensed those designs to other companies, including Apple and Qualcomm, which would then make their own semiconductors based on Arm’s designs. Under this business model, Arm essentially made t…

With the moon looming ever larger, the Artemis II astronauts raced to set a new distance record Monday from Earth on a lunar fly-around promising magnificent views of the far side never seen before by eye. The six-hour flyby is the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years. A prize — and bragging rights — awaits Artemis II. Less than an hour before kicking off the fly-around and intense lunar observations, the four astronauts were set to become the most distant humans in history, surpassing the distance record of 248,655 miles (…

NASA is going back to the moon, and you can watch the launch live. On April 1, the agency will stream the launch of its historic Artemis II mission. Four astronauts—commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen—will be aboard the spacecraft for NASA’s first crewed moon mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. NASA’s livestream will start at 12:50 p.m. ET on its YouTube channel and NASA+. The launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. ET and lasts for two hours. (There are launch opportunities every day from April 1 to April 6. At the time of this writing, conditions look good for launch on April 1.) “Certainly all indicati…

After glorious lunar views, a moving dedication, a malfunctioning toilet, and a floating Nutella, Artemis II is poised for the riskiest part of its 10-day journey to the far side of the moon. The Orion spacecraft, Integrity, is slated to enter the Earth’s atmosphere tonight at 7:45 EDT at a blistering 25,000 mph and 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The autonomously guided capsule will slow down and dissipate heat through a time-honored “skip” maneuver that dips it in and out of the atmosphere in a suborbital arc, then back in again for a final descent. Think of skipping a stone on the water’s surface to slow it down. The technique involves shifting Orion’s center of mass…

Humanity is always aspiring to stretch itself to achieve new goals, including exploring new frontiers. The Artemis II crew accomplished this, traveling 252,000 miles away from Earth, the farthest any human has ever been before, breaking the Apollo 13 record. The four brave individuals are set to return Friday, splashing down off the coast of California, near San Diego. Here’s everything you need to know about the landing, including how to tune in. How did the Artemis get its name? The name Artemis is a throwback to the first NASA moon missions. Apollo 11 saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take giant leaps for mankind on the surface of the moon on July 20, …

While I was leading a tour of the National Air and Space Museum in January 2026, a visitor posed this insightful question: “Why has it taken so long to return to the moon?” After all, NASA had the know-how and technology to send humans to the lunar surface more than 50 years ago as part of the Apollo program. And, as another tour guest reminded us, computers today can do so much more than they could back then, as evidenced by the smartphones most of us carry in our pockets. Shouldn’t it be easier to get to the moon than ever before? The truth is that sending humans into space safely continues to be difficult, especially as missions increase in complexity. New …

Circa 1450, the creative community was jolted. The printing press had just been invented in Europe. Scribes, typically monks who had spent lifetimes perfecting the spiritual art of hand-copying manuscripts, saw their specialized skills suddenly rendered obsolete. Yet in short order, the disruptive innovation democratized knowledge, enabled the Renaissance, and created entirely new creative roles for editors, typesetters, printmakers, and illustrators. More than five centuries later, Photoshop sparked similar concerns about devaluing traditional skills and compromising image integrity. Artists worried it would cheapen the craft. Instead, it became foundational to moder…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. This bonus newsletter from Davos explores the strategic relationship between CEOs and chief technology officers. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. In my previous life as a technology journalist, I wrote and edited countless stories about corporate chief technology officers (CTOs) emerging as key partners to their counterparts in the C-suite. When marketing functions became more data-driven, chief marketing officers clamored for attention from product and engineering. Today, chief financial offic…

You wouldn’t pay a surgeon to file your tax return, and you wouldn’t ask your accountant to perform your appendectomy. The same is true for AI: Organizations should start realizing that different AI providers excel at different needs, from coding to specialized research or creative design. Over the coming year, enterprises will absorb a variety of these AI providers’ technologies in earnest and at scale—department by department, role by role. Legal teams will standardize on tools like Harvey. Customer service teams will rely on Glean or purpose-built agents. Development teams may choose resources from Anthropic. Marketing, engineering, finance, and HR will similarly g…