What's on Your Mind?

Through the end of the 2010s, people were a company’s infrastructure. Large workforces provided the scaffold upon which a business could build capacity for complexity: hire more people, take on more work. Artificial intelligence has upended this relationship, decoupling a company’s potential productivity from its headcount and redefining which businesses will fare best. As a result, America’s mid-sized companies are disappearing: the number of businesses with between 250 and 499 employees has fallen by 22.5% since 2020. Meanwhile, the independent professional economy is quickly growing to take their place: 30.4 million U.S. solopreneurs (businesses with a single e…

Say what you will about business and media mogul Kim Kardashian, but if there’s one thing she undoubtedly excels at, it’s building a personal brand so recognizable that all of her ventures scream “Kim.” She’s done it once again with her new energy drink brand Update, which looks like it could’ve organically spawned in the walk-in fridge of her sleek Los Angeles home. Update is a four-year-old energy drink brand founded by CEO Daniel Solomons. On February 24, the brand revealed a full packaging and design overhaul and introduced Kardashian as a cofounder in its new era. In an interview with Fast Company, Solomons said that Kardashian had been a steady customer since 2023 a…

As the Barack Obama Presidential Center takes shape ahead of its June 2026 opening, some observers have pointed feedback about an element of the building’s design. The Chicago tower features all-caps lettering that wraps around two sides of the building. But for many people, the text—an excerpt from the former president’s speech in 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama—is nearly impossible to read. Its designers say legibility isn’t the only—or even the primary—function of the lettering. “One of the key questions I asked at the beginning was, are people supposed to read this?” says designer Micheal Bierut, who typeset t…

The impact of GLP-1 medications on weight loss is undeniable, but emerging research suggests the results may only be temporary. A growing body of evidence shows that when patients stop taking GLP-1 drugs, much of the weight they lost returns—and so do the medical complications that may have prompted treatment in the first place. “The only way that they work is if you keep taking them,” Scott Isaacs, an endocrinologist at the Grady Health System in Atlanta, told Market Watch. “And when people stop taking them, they have a lot of weight regain, and the medical problems that went away tend to come back.” New research from the University of Oxford found that weight i…

When I worked a corporate job, I was often in charge of purchasing decisions. At one company, my team had inherited a lot of homegrown solutions. I saw the limitations of these products and was quick to replace them if the budget allowed. In corporate settings, “build vs. buy” is a well-known decision framework. Companies weigh the cost of developing something in-house against purchasing an outside solution. It’s often simple math: how much time and resources does it take to maintain this internally versus what does it cost to buy or outsource? Solopreneurs face the same decision constantly. However, the stakes are a lot higher when it’s your own time and own mo…

Being a freelance designer has its perks, but pay transparency is not one of them. Designers are constantly forced to second-guess themselves: Should you charge a day rate or a project fee? Are you earning as much as your peers? Is AI taking work/jobs away from you? Today we’re launching a new, data-driven effort in partnership with the American Institute of Graphic Arts to help you answer those questions and more with confidence. It’s called the Design Pricing Transparency Project, and it’s dedicated to helping freelance designers understand how much they should be charging for their work. We’re asking designers across the industry—graphic design…

Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and philanthropist Melinda French Gates, has a low-key terrifying question she throws at those interviewing for a role at her startup. The 23-year-old recently raised a $35 million Series A for Phia, the AI shopping agent she cofounded in April 2025 with her Stanford University roommate Sophia Kianni. The startup, which has since garnered more than 1 million users and grown revenue elevenfold, is currently valued at around $185 million. Gates recently joined Brian Sozzi, Yahoo Finance executive editor, on the Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast and revealed her go-to interview question f…

In a time when hiring has slowed dramatically, layoffs have become the norm, and AI has flattened early differentiation, even job titles have blurred. The problem is that capable, experienced people increasingly describe feeling stalled, unseen, or interchangeable in today’s workforce. Consider the current landscape of advice to understand the dilemma. People are encouraged to stand out, but without guidance on how to do so. They’re told to pick a lane and niche down, while careers are becoming more nonlinear. What’s missing is a true strategy that reflects how work actually functions today. That’s where optimal distinctiveness becomes an advantage. Social psycho…

After a fairly significant hardware upgrade in 2025, it’s sounding like things will be quieter for the iPhone this year. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in his newsletter this week that the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will “represent minor tweaks” from their predecessors and “won’t be a big update.” Much of the attention in fall 2026 is expected to be on Apple’s first folding phone. Gurman did, however, note that the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will have “a new camera system with a variable aperture,” which caught my eye as a phone camera obsessive. There have been rumors about this for years, but I wasn’t expecting it to be perhaps the key feature of what are like…

Generative AI may be both the most useful and the most mystifying tool of our modern-tech era. The problem—aside from all the endlessly documented issues around accuracy—is that generative AI generally seems to function in a DOS-like blank prompt form. The onus is squarely on you to figure out what to ask and how to put these saucy systems to use. That black-box feeling is especially apparent when you look at NotebookLM, an “AI-first notebook” launched by Google nearly two years ago. The idea behind NotebookLM is that you upload your own source materials within carefully confined notebooks, and you can then lean on Google’s Gemini AI to interact with that material…

What are the hallmarks of a luxury brand? Exclusivity, artisan craftsmanship, and a high price tag to match. But iconic fashion house Gucci may have just learned the hard way that advertising can undermine all those qualities—especially if it’s made with AI. On February 23, Gucci started posting promotional images for its upcoming Primavera Fashion Show, its first show under new creative director Demna. The first few photos were inoffensive—Michelangelo’s David statue, a pair of leather loafers—but then, things took a turn. The next four pictures Gucci posted came with a disclaimer in their captions: “Created with AI.” The AI-generated ads included renderings of a…

One week ago, a Savannah, Georgia, woman was killed during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pursuit. It’s not the first time in recent weeks that a bystander has been killed by ICE. However, this story—one involving a Black bystander—hasn’t taken off with the same ferocity as others that have flooded our feeds and torn at our collective heartstrings. In fact, many haven’t even heard about the recent incident. Dr. Linda Davis, a beloved 52-year-old mother of five, was struck by a truck driven by a man who was fleeing immigration officers. Davis taught kindergarten and first grade at Herman W. Hesse K-8 School in Savannah’s south-side suburbs, less than…

Spirit Airlines is hanging on by a thread –but it is hanging on. The budget airline announced a plan Tuesday that would put it on track to exit its second bankruptcy in less than two years and stay in operation. The arrangement will keep the company alive while shrinking its expenses and operations down to an even smaller size than what it aimed for during its first bankruptcy, which it filed for in November 2024. With financial support from its creditors, Spirit says it plans to emerge from bankruptcy in late spring or early summer. The company plans to keep its core identity as a value carrier that can still offer fliers “the lowest fares in the sky” while bolst…

Unlocking the power of genetics to provide meaningful answers to patients when they matter most is at the crux of precision diagnostics. As technologies advance, costs fall, and evidence builds, genomic sequencing has great potential to transform the trajectory of patient care. It will do so by shortening the diagnostic odyssey. It will guide and speed up more personalized and effective treatment decisions. And it will improve patient outcomes more than ever before. For innovation to truly scale, it will require deep collaboration and seamless integration across the healthcare ecosystem. BUILD A STRONGER PARTNERSHIP ECOSYSTEM Making genomic sequencing a standard pr…

Eight times the output. Same job. Same title. Not 80%. 800%. That’s a lot. And yet, most hiring systems and processes are almost perfectly designed to miss those people. This isn’t a talent shortage. We’ve normalized a measurement problem for so long that it barely registers as a problem anymore. Across industries, hiring has been optimized for efficiency and familiarity. We screen for credentials that look impressive, resumes that read cleanly, and career paths that resemble the ones we already trust. It feels rigorous. It feels fair. But it isn’t actually predictive of performance. In fact, the more polished a hiring process becomes, the more likely it is to filter …

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is sounding the alarm bell, warning investors that he is starting to see some similarities between today’s financial landscape and the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, nearly 20 years ago. “Unfortunately, we did see this in ’05, ’06, ’07, almost the same thing,” Dimon said at the firm’s annual investor day in New York on Monday. “The rising tide lifting all boats, everyone was making a lot of money, people leveraging to the hilt. The sky was the limit.” “I don’t know how long it’s going to be great for everybody,” he explained. “I see a couple of people doing some dumb things . . . they are just doing some dumb things.…

Ford is recalling nearly 413,000 Explorer SUVs in the U.S. The recall comes after federal regulators warned that a faulty rear suspension component called a “toe link” could restrict a driver’s steering control. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall report, the recall impacts 2017-2019 Explorer vehicles, with the company estimated around 1% of the selected models are affected. The notice also explained that the recall is an expansion of previous NHTSA recall, number 21V537. “The root cause has not been fully determined to date,” a Feb. 20 report explained. “Some reports indicate vehicles experienced a seized CABJ”, which “will resu…

The advice you get early in your career can disproportionately shape your future. I can recall two or three conversations from when I was a college kid who liked writing that melted away ambiguity and set my vague ambitions on a path into the fog like a compass. For the latest release by The Steve Jobs Archive, the group is making the advice of some of the most uniquely impactful people in the world available to everyone. Given that Jobs did not own many physical objects, the archive has served as more of a repository of ideas for the next generation to think different. Each year, the Archive takes on SJA Fellows. And each year, it gives these fellows a book of l…

As built-in AI pops up in more aspects of everyday life, laymen are counting on the experts to keep technology safe to use. But one Meta employee’s misadventure with AI has social media users fearful for the future of AI alignment. Summer Yue is the director of alignment at Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company’s AI research and development division. Her LinkedIn bio states that she’s “passionate about ensuring powerful AIs are aligned with human values and guided by a deep understanding of their risks.” If anyone would have a handle on keeping AI in check, it’s Yue—and yet, on February 22, she posted about losing control of AI on her own computer. In a pos…

The Epstein Files are dominating nightly news broadcasts and newspaper front pages. But in the media ecosystem there’s another format that’s proving a massive draw to news consumers: a podcast run by a non-journalist and entirely generated by AI. The Epstein Files is an investigative documentary podcast that, at the time of writing, has published 97 episodes—new episodes get uploaded twice daily—and notched up more than 700,000 downloads in a matter of days. That puts it in the top 10 rankings of podcast series on Apple Podcasts, and in the top 30 on Spotify. But it’s created by Adam Levy, an entrepreneur with a background in building data products and content creatio…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Just 10 days ago, on February 10, Japan-based Sumitomo Forestry announced that it had agreed to acquire Tri Pointe Homes—a large U.S. homebuilder ranked No. 715 on the Fortune 1000—for $4.5 billion, signaling that Japanese builders were further accelerating their buying spree of U.S. homebuilders. Fast-forward to today, and Stanley Martin Homes—which has been owned by Japan-based Daiwa House since 2017—announced that it has agreed to buy United Homes Group, which has a strong presence in the Carolinas, for $221 million—further accelerating Japanese b…

Dark Sky was a rarity in the app world. Universally beloved, the weather app had an uncanny ability to tell you when to expect rain, down to the minute. So when Apple announced plans to buy it six years ago, there was a collective sigh of frustration. The Android version, of course, disappeared almost immediately, while the iOS version was folded into Apple’s native Weather app. (The standalone iPhone app was discontinued.) The integration was never quite the same, though, and it seemed as if the magic of Dark Sky was lost. Now, however, the team behind the app is hoping lightning strikes twice. The developers of Dark Sky have announced a new iPhone app called Acm…

“I want a space odyssey. I wanted Star Wars. I got close to that once.” That’s production designer Hannah Beachler, talking about the grand filmic world she wants to build next. For our February episode of By Design, we spoke to Beachler (Creed, Black Panther) about her latest work with director Ryan Coogler on Sinners—the most Oscar-nominated film of all time. We caught up with her last time before she bagged an Oscar on Black Panther and then designed the sequel. https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/evergreen-assets/safelinks/2/atp-safelinks.html She’s up for her second Academy Award for production design on Sinners next month, and she shared the pai…

Meatball fans beware: A nationwide recall is underway for a popular brand of frozen meatballs sold at Aldi. The recall is due to the possibility that the product may contain metal fragments, which could cause serious injury if consumed. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? On Sunday, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) posted a safety alert about a Class 1 recall—the highest possible designation the agency assigns to recalled products. A Class 1 recall means that there is “a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death,” according to the…