What's on Your Mind?

The chief executive of Primark, one of Europe’s biggest fast fashion retailers, has resigned after an investigation into his behavior toward a woman in a social environment. Paul Marchant, Primark’s CEO since 2009, has apologized to the individual involved and resigned with immediate effect, the company said Monday. Shares in Primark’s parent, Associated British Foods, fell 4.9% in early trading, compared with a 0.8% drop in Britain’s benchmark stock index. Marchant “acknowledged his error of judgement and accepts that his actions fell below the standards expected by the company,” Primark said in a statement. The retailer has 451 stores in 17 countries across …

The Ford Pinto. New Coke. Google Glass. History is littered with products whose fatal flaw— whether failures of safety, privacy, performance, or plain old desirability—repelled consumers and inflicted reputational damage to the companies bringing them to market. It’s easy to imagine the difference if these problems had been detected early on. And too often, businesses neglect the chance to work with nonprofits, social enterprises, and other public interest groups to make product improvements after they enter the marketplace or, more ideally, “upstream,” before their products have entered the crucible of the customer. For companies and consumer groups alike, this…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. This week, Zillow economists published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will fall by 0.9% between April 2025 and April 2026. After a series of downward revisions—beginning in January, when Zillow’s 12-month national home price forecast was +2.9%, and subsequently lowered each month until reaching -1.7% last month—Zillow has finally stopped downgrading its outlook. That said, it’s fair to call the Zillow economist bearish, given that for this forecast to be correct, 2025 …

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s radiation levels have significantly dropped since the cataclysmic meltdown in Japan 14 years ago. Workers walk around in many areas wearing only surgical masks and regular clothes. It’s a different story for those who enter the reactor buildings, including the three damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. They must use maximum protection—full facemasks with filters, multi-layered gloves and socks, shoe covers, hooded hazmat coveralls and a waterproof jacket, and a helmet. As workers remove melted fuel debris from the reactors in a monumental nuclear cleanup effort that could take more than a century, they are facing both h…

Between the rise of quiet quitting, the evolution of hybrid work, and concerns about artificial intelligence, we live in tumultuous times. In order to retain talent, it’s important for leaders to adapt to the changing needs of their employee population. This is a particularly large challenge at the moment since it requires understanding and supporting very different groups. There are currently five different generations from all walks of life in the workplace. They have a wide range of preferences when it comes to money management, lifestyle, and retirement goals. Finding ways to better understand and engage with the needs of unique employee segments can enhance …

Think you’ve got game? Time to put it to the test with Tinder’s latest launch in collaboration with OpenAI. On Tuesday, Tinder rolled out The Game Game—a new experience designed to help users practice their flirting skills by chatting with an AI voice, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o model. Players are dealt a stack of virtual cards, each introducing a different AI persona and a hilariously exaggerated rom-com scenario (think: a luggage mix-up at the airport or accidentally crushing someone’s sunglasses on the beach). Your challenge? Charm your way through it. The bot makes the first move, and users respond in real time—earning feedback on their game as they go. Nail t…

Don’t let Canva’s rainbow gradients fool you. The Aussies are relentless, and their global conquest through easy-to-use design software continues as they set their sights on markets owned by Adobe and Microsoft. Even after a controversial price increase last year, growth is still explosive. Canva has added 50 million active users over the past 12 months, bringing its total to 230 million, with $3 billion in annual revenue. But despite this success, Canva decided it was time for a redesign. And it’s launching what the company considers its biggest overhaul since the app launched in 2012. It includes a Teams-crushing approach to file collaboration, a powerful AI-fueled spre…

The bible tells us to “love your enemies,” and major sports teams seem to be taking that doctrine seriously. Or at least their stadium concession stands are. Fans come to stadiums for the game, but they almost always indulge in the food, too—which typically reflects the cuisine of their home team’s city. But now, baseball and football stadiums have begun offering some local bites of their opponents’ teams in a bid to sell more concessions. On March 27, Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, stadium food for the Washington Nationals will offer a new signature concession item: a platter of loaded nachos dubbed the “Stolen Plate Special.” The toppings on those cheesy…

The recent exposé Careless People, by former Facebook (now Meta) executive Sarah Wynn-Williams, has received significant attention for its jaw-dropping revelations about the social media company and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. According to the author, company decisions enabled the Chinese Communist Party to suppress dissent, undermined the mental health of teenage girls, and led to genocide in Myanmar and election interference in the U.S. While there has been much attention to details showing the moral bankruptcy of Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg, there has been less discussion of how financial pressures shaped executives’ decisions. Are Meta’s leaders just “…

One recent rainy afternoon, I found myself in an unexpected role—philosophy teacher to a machine. I was explaining the story of the Bhagavad Gita to a leading large language model, curious to see if it could grasp the lessons at the heart of one of the world’s most profound philosophical texts. The LLM’s responses were impressively structured and fluent. They even sounded reflective at times, giving a sense that the AI model knew that it was itself part of this millennia-long conversation. Yet there was something fundamental that was missing from all the answers the machine gave me—the lived experience that gives wisdom its true weight. AI can analyze the Gita, but i…

There’s nothing spooky about ghostworking, apart from how popular it may be right now. The newly coined term describes a set of behaviors meant to create a façade of productivity at the office, like walking around carrying a notebook as a prop or typing random words just to generate the sound of a clacking keyboard. (Some might call this Costanza-ing, after Jason Alexander’s example on a memorable episode of Seinfeld.) Pretending to be busy at the office is not something workers recently invented, of course, but it appears to be reaching critical mass. According to a new survey, more than half of all U.S. employees now admit to regularly ghostworking. That statistic …

After months of rigorous searching, you’ve found your ideal executive candidate. They tick every box on paper and seem perfect in interviews. But then reality hits: Your “Cinderella candidate” isn’t prepared for the real-world challenges of the role. Now what? A popular study highlights just how common—and costly—this scenario is. A 2015 research report from Corporate Executive Board found that 50% to 70% of leadership hires fail within 18 months. And that can cost the company one-half to twice the hire’s annual salary, according to a 2019 Gallup report. Given the high levels of remuneration, the financial impact can be even more severe at the executive level. As …

For those tired of waiting in line to buy a new smartphone or anxiously refreshing a delivery tracking site to make sure a new phone arrives intact, Verizon’s Straight Talk Wireless brand is offering another option: phones from a vending machine. Straight Talk, a Verizon prepaid brand exclusively available at Walmart, has launched vending machines that dispense packaged iPhone and Android devices, similar to the tech vending machines often seen at airports. Customers can browse phones and plans via a touchscreen interface, then pick and pay for what they want, all without needing to wait for a salesperson. And when they take their new phone out of the box, it’s a…

In HBO’s hit show Succession, patriarch Logan Roy pitted his children against each other for the top spot of leading his media conglomerate. Those who’ve seen the show will know how it ends, but what if he took a different route? What if he established a collaborative, multi-generational leadership team to guide Waystar RoyCo into the future? Granted, it would have made for far less dramatic tension (and probably fewer award wins) for the show. But for Roy’s shareholders, it would’ve been a smarter move in a rapidly changing media industry. Succession planning is a non-negotiable principle for any thriving organization, yet it’s also one of the hardest to get right. …

Adobe will be giving its priciest subscription tier an AI-first rebrand—and adding an even higher price tag. Adobe’s Creative Cloud All Apps subscription, which includes access to more than 20 Adobe apps, will soon be known as “Creative Cloud Pro,” the company announced last week. The renamed subscription plan will give users expanded access to Adobe’s AI-powered tools and apps, but for a price: For subscribers on an annual plan, the cost will increase from $59.99 to $69.99 monthly, or from $659.88 to $779.99 annually. Beginning on June 17th, any members of Creative Cloud All Apps will be automatically opted into Creative Cloud Pro. According to Adobe’s announceme…

Are you ready for another 140 days of summer vacation? Disney announced today that the long-awaited reboot of its animated hit Phineas and Ferb will be back on June 5 for the start of a 40-episode run across Disney’s linear and streaming platforms. The action picks up the summer after the show’s original run left off, with the kids a year older but not visibly changed—except for an extra orange stripe on Phineas’s trademark T-shirt. Co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh are back at the helm. Originally launched on Disney XD in 2008 (after a 2007 “sneak peek”), the animated show—about two inventive stepbrothers on summer vacation, their pet pl…

Restaurant diners can be a sticky-fingered bunch. Who hasn’t been tempted to slip a particularly nice cocktail glass or a tiny saltshaker into their bag after lunch? But as dining out gets more expensive, more people seem determined to get their money’s worth, swiping everything from cups and plates to steak knives and even cheese graters. And not only are they getting away with it, they’re proudly flaunting their loot online. ​​In a viral video with more than 900,000 views, one creator boldly holds up a stolen cheese grater and asks, “What’s the best thing you’ve ever stolen from a restaurant?” Rather than backlash, the comments section reads like a c…

Novo Nordisk’s closely-watched Alzheimer’s trials of an older oral version of its semaglutide drug failed to help slow the progression of the brain-wasting disease, the firm said on Monday, a blow to the obesity drug giant that sent its shares sliding. The trials, which Novo had previously called a “lottery ticket” to underline its highly uncertain outcome, were testing whether the medicine could slow cognitive decline in patients. The setback scuppers hopes for Novo that Alzheimer’s could open a major new market for GLP-1 medicines such as semaglutide, as it faces rising competition to its blockbuster drugs in its core treatment areas of obesity and diabetes. …

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. With the U.S. government reducing and, in some cases even freezing federal funding, many nonprofits will need to seek other sources of philanthropic support. According to the 2024 Giving USA Report, corporate charitable giving in the U.S. totaled $36.6 billion in 2023, making it the fastest-growing nonprofit revenue source over the past five years. But less quantifiable is the value many c…

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. We need to change the conversation about how we diagnose autism—and what we believe causes it. Lately, there’s been growing attention on environmental toxins and singular external triggers as explanations for autism. But the reality is far more nuanced. As a clinical geneticist and PhD genomic scientist with over a decade of experience working in medical affairs and clinical genomics, I’ve …

Almost seamlessly, the two sides of a scenic forest in Alberta, Canada, have been woven back together. Located between Calgary and Banff National Park, this stretch of the Canadian Rockies is sliced in two by the Trans-Canada Highway, one of the busiest roadways in the province. That’s had deadly consequences for the area’s abundant wildlife, as well as the tens of thousands of people who drive through it every day. But now, after years of mounting wildlife-vehicle collisions, the danger to animals and humans is being addressed with a stunning new wildlife overpass. The Bow Valley Gap wildlife overpass is a roughly 200-foot-wide cap over a four-lane highway, toppe…

A gust of wind sweeps over bare soil, kicking up enough dirt and dust to cut visibility to nearly zero, and for drivers, the dust storm seems to come out of nowhere. Such conditions resulted in a pileup on Interstate 70 last week in western Kansas involving dozens of cars and trucks that left eight people dead. Blinding dust also prompted New Mexico’s transportation department to close Interstate 25 from the Colorado border southwest to Las Vegas, New Mexico. Hazy or dust-darkened skies have recalled the “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s, when millions of tons of blowing soil buried farms and coated towns across the Great Plains. Lesser storms occur every year, particularl…