What's on Your Mind?

Do you know that the longer a decision-maker views your résumé, the more likely it is that you’ll get an interview? Recent research combined eye-tracking and machine learning to understand résumé decisions better. The most actionable conclusion was that Experience section dwell time predicts interview invitations. That’s next-level information. We’ve had eye-tracking studies for years. They tell us what readers look at, but give no additional meaning. Now, by applying AI, we know which sections of the résumé matter the most for getting interviews. I was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years. For the last 10 years, I’ve been writing executive and board ré…

Over the next 20 years, an estimated $84 trillion will change hands in the U.S.; some call this the Great Wealth Transfer, others the Silver Tsunami. This wealth is held in cash and assets, but also in the estimated 2.9 million private U.S. businesses that are owned by those over 55. Many retiring business owners will look to sell their company to private equity or larger conglomerates, while others will pass their businesses on to their heirs. A few are considering something more radical: giving their company away to good causes, like Paul Newman who gave his eponymous food company to Newman’s Own Foundation when he passed away in 2008. This idea remains radical eno…

In early 2022, the meal delivery company I founded, Tovala, went out to raise $100mm from venture capitalists. Our business could not have been hotter. We’d crossed $110mm of revenue, growing over 100% YoY. We had retention that was 3–4 times better than other meal delivery services. We had low awareness, lots of room for product innovation, and a seemingly clear path to an IPO. Then the war broke out in Ukraine, and capital markets started to get spooked. All of the sudden, fast-growing, unprofitable consumer businesses were out of vogue. We managed to raise $32mm, not a small sum, but it felt like a failure. It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to…

After more than 70 years, the Ford Motor Co. finally has an architectural centerpiece. The automaker’s new global headquarters has officially opened in Dearborn, Michigan, just outside Detroit and within eyeshot of some of the main facilities that have sustained the company for more than a century. Covering 2.1 million square feet and designed by the architecture and design firm Snøhetta, the new building sprawls across four circuitous stories. Getting from one side to another is a trek. During a two-hour walking tour of the building, a week ahead of its official opening, I traversed at most a quarter of the overall space. This immense size is the building’s stren…

In a perfect world, my job wouldn’t exist. I’m a consumer privacy advocate, which means I spend my days fighting for something that should be automatic: your right to control and protect your own personal information. Unfortunately, we dropped the ball. In the era of social media and hyper-targeted ads, we didn’t build the right privacy infrastructure to protect ourselves. Instead, we let tech companies sell us the story that knowledge is power and data is the price. Yes, knowledge is power. But data—a dry, emotionless word for who and what we are as humans—should be our super power. It should be ours to control and use to improve our lives, not just something co…

New locker rooms. Rows of seats removed. Every last Real Madrid sign hidden from sight. These are just some of the measures the National Football League took to transform one of the world’s most iconic soccer stadiums for a matchup between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Commanders. On November 16, the two teams will compete on the field of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu, though the pitch won’t look anything like its usual self. To get the field ready, the NFL spent $2.32 million on a series of temporary renovations. The most fundamental change was to the playing surface itself. Since soccer pitches are shorter than American football fields, the playing field h…

Outdoors brand Yeti dropped its new holiday commercial, and it has a lot of what you’d expect from a seasonal spot. “Bad Idea” outlines all the reasons you probably shouldn’t get a Yeti for someone you care about: “Don’t get them a Yeti,” says the voice-over, as a ribboned cooler flies out the back of a pickup truck. “Unless you like dogs that are always wet, eyebrows that are still growing back, and sand in places sand should never be.” By the end of the commercial, it’s clear that the brand is aiming at people who are obsessed. It could be surfing, fishing, camping, golf, whatever—it’s about those chasing the dream wherever it leads them. But for all its charmi…

This week’s biggest business news is perhaps that the U.S. federal government shutdown finally ended; however, that ending didn’t come without more than a few noteworthy concessions. Meanwhile, a beloved coffee chain walked straight into a strike on one of its biggest promo days, and a regional grocer found a way to turn literal loose change into both PR and foot traffic. In the background, the tech world reminded everyone that hype cycles come with fine print. CoreWeave, one of the hottest names in AI infrastructure, delivered blockbuster revenue but still saw its stock sink on news of a delayed data center. IBM, facing louder rivals in quantum computing, rolled out …

A reader writes: I have a new employee who is refusing to do some parts of her job. She hasn’t done this with me directly, but when I left for a week’s vacation, I gave very clear guidance on what she should be working on. That included learning to use some of our equipment, practicing her job skills, and reviewing training videos with the team. Unfortunately, while the other team members were focused on the training videos, she was watching personal videos on her phone. Each team member later told me separately that when they asked her to participate, her response was, “No, I’m not going to do it.” What should I do now? Minda Zetlin responds: Unless your …

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months. Of the 50 largest metro area housing markets, 21 major metros now have more homes for sale than at the same point in 2019. Last year, that count was 13 markets. T…

When the camera was invented in 1826, many people thought painting would die. But it didn’t. Instead, painters found new ways to express themselves. Painters reinvented expressionism, impressionism, and abstract art. Monet, Munch, and later Picasso, all thrived after the camera arrived. When personal computers became common in the 1980s, there was fear that creative thinking would become less valuable. But computers opened the door to digital design, animation, and new forms of storytelling. Studios like Pixar, founded in 1986, showed how technology could help artists create worlds that were impossible before. When Photoshop launched in 1988, photographers worri…

While I’m happy to extol the powers of the written word, sometimes you need a little something extra to get your point across. I’m not just referring to pictures, either, but also to annotations, flowcharts, and freeform drawings. These illustrative tools can be a powerful way to convey your message, whether by themselves or on top of an existing image. Allow me to (*ahem*) illustrate exactly what I mean, using a free tool that might end up being the image-editing, markup-magic-creating supplement you never knew you needed. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to di…

Frequent flyers and travel hackers who visited SeatGuru on October 31 were met with an unpleasant surprise: a shuttered website directing them to Tripadvisor’s homepage. After nearly a quarter-century in operation, the beloved website that helped fliers determine which seats to grab, and which to avoid, is gone. Here’s why, and three SeatGuru alternatives to try now. What was SeatGuru? SeatGuru was a website highly regarded by frequent fliers. The site hosted seatmaps for thousands of airplanes and categorized every seat on each aircraft in order to help fliers figure out which to book and which to avoid. “Good” seats were those with qualities like the most legroom…

After a decade in development, legendary documentarian Ken Burns is set to release his long-awaited series, The American Revolution. In the lead up to the premiere, Burns shares key lessons he gleaned from the founding of the United States—and the parallels between the revolutionary era and today. He also reflects on his admiration for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, and the obstacles he faces in his ongoing quest for truth. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top busine…

Every fall, I anticipate the winter holidays with almost childlike joy. I look forward to familiar traditions with friends and family, eggnog in my coffee, and the sense that everyone is feeling a little lighter and more connected. At the same time, I feel anxious and annoyed by the manufactured sense of urgency around gift giving: the endless searching and second-guessing shaped by advertisers, retailers, and cultural expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I mostly love giving—and, yes, receiving—gifts during the holidays. But as a researcher who studies consumer psychology, I see how those same forces, amplified by constant buying opportunities and frictionless onlin…

Underperformance usually shows up in the guise of missed deadlines, low-quality work, or a bad attitude. This gets spotted sometimes, but not always, by a leader who then has to make a choice: when and how to tackle the underperformance. However, the problem can be exacerbated by acting too quickly: there is often a fierce desire within leaders to jump to action. They want to stop the badness, stop the ripples, and solve the situation as quickly as possible. But often, this means that they make assumptions about what is causing the underperformance and how to solve it without taking a little time to explore the real reasons behind the poor performance. The problem…

The public disclosure of more than 20,000 pages of newly released documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been the subject of much online discourse this week. While the emails themselves are full of damning revelations, particularly regarding Epstein’s relationship with President Donald The President, the internet’s attention has been caught on another detail. “BREAKING: Newly released emails reveal Jeffrey Epstein struggled to compose sentences in English,” journalist Tom Elliott posted on X. “Why can none of these very rich and powerful men type or spell,” journalist Jill Filipovic asked. In case you haven’t seen it, one such email read…

As soon as ChatGPT launched, Odyssey Gohain saw the writing on the wall. The now 27-year-old was working as a marketer in Amsterdam at the time, looking to move into a more senior role when the powerful AI tool started replacing individual tasks, then team members—including an older colleague whose career Gohain idolized. “I thought maybe in three, four years, I’ll be in her place. And she got laid off,” says Gohain, who was let go soon after. After moving back home with her parents in 2023, Gohain started an independent marketing business as a solopreneur. Two years later, she is still earning less than at her previous role, but says the transition has offere…

Another week, another questionable TikTok trend. The latest internet sensation has social media users asking someone to film them dancing. Instead, the dancer clicks the flip-camera button mid-dance — filming the filmer instead of themselves. And while the trend is meant to be funny (and, of course, get clicks), not everyone is laughing. The prank, called the flip-camera trend, has resulted in hundreds of videos showing awkward, close-up faces of people who believe they are filming friends (or even strangers) circulating on the platform. However, some of the videos are awkward to view, and are resulting in some major embarrassment. That’s especially true when the vide…

The 2025 Leonid meteor shower is forecast to peak this weekend, lighting up the night sky with up to 15 meteors an hour whizzing by at 44 miles per second, according to Live Science. The Leonids peak is expected to be visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere this Sunday, November 16 into early Monday, November 17, according to the Planetary Society. Expect prime meteor shower viewing, since the moon is expected to only be 9% full, giving viewers mostly dark skies. Here’s what to know about seeing the dazzling display. What is a meteor shower? Meteor showers, or “shooting stars,” occur as Earth passes through the trail of dusty debris left by…

In a new report, AI company Anthropic detailed a “highly sophisticated espionage campaign” that deployed its artificial intelligence tools to launch automated cyberattacks around the globe. The attackers aimed high, targeting government agencies, Big Tech companies, banks, and chemical companies, and succeeded in “a small number of cases,” according to Anthropic. The company says that its research links the hacking operation to the Chinese government. The company claims that the findings are a watershed moment for the industry, marking the first instance of a cyber espionage scheme carried out by AI. “We believe this is the first documented case of a large-scale…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to powdered dietary supplements. According to the latest update from the agency, the outbreak has sickened almost a dozen people, with three hospitalized. The outbreak has also sparked multiple product recalls. Here’s what to know: What’s happened? On Wednesday, November 12, Brooklyn-based Food to Live voluntarily recalled its “Organic Moringa Leaf Powder” and “Organic Supergreens Powder Mix” products due to a risk of Salmonella contamination. These products were distributed through retail and wholesale channels nationwide. The FDA publishe…

Lawyers representing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, branches of the Sackler family that own it, cities, states, counties, Native American tribes, people with addiction and others across the U.S. are expected to deliver a nearly unanimous message for a bankruptcy court judge Friday: Approve a plan to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits against the company. If U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane abides, it will close a long chapter — and maybe the entire book — on a legal odyssey over efforts to hold the company to account for its role in an opioid crisis connected to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including deaths from heroin and illicit fentanyl. Closing arg…

A team of researchers has uncovered what they say is the first reported use of artificial intelligence to direct a hacking campaign in a largely automated fashion. The AI company Anthropic said this week that it disrupted a cyber operation that its researchers linked to the Chinese government. The operation involved the use of an artificial intelligence system to direct the hacking campaigns, which researchers called a disturbing development that could greatly expand the reach of AI-equipped hackers. While concerns about the use of AI to drive cyber operations are not new, what is concerning about the new operation is the degree to which AI was able to automate so…

President Donald The President has worked to blame Democrats for the government shutdown, but a majority of Americans are unconvinced that it’s Democrats’ fault. The President’s administration has used the levers of the state to communicate partisan messages during the shutdown, which ended November 13. Ultimately, however, messaging through government channels like web design, out-of-office email replies, and public service announcements weren’t enough. A 52% majority of Americans blame The President or Republican lawmakers for the shutdown, according to a poll this week from Stack Data Strategy, a London market research firm. That’s in line with an NBC News …