What's on Your Mind?

Christmas is coming, and our bank accounts are getting, well, obliterated. But luckily, it’s no longer just your quirky aunt who appreciates a good secondhand store: Shopping for gently used items, especially during the holidays, is now on trend. And if you get on board, you might be able to save a bundle by swapping your mall run for a day of thrifting. In recent years, “Thriftmas”—or shopping for Christmas gifts at stores like Good Will, The Salvation Army, Savers, and online platforms that sell used items—has been creeping into the mainstream. And this year is no different. According to global data from online store ThredUp, in 2025, shoppers plan to dedicate near…

One of the first projects Hyun Park spearheaded when he began working for South Korea’s entertainment powerhouse Studio Dragon was a dystopian sci-fi drama—much to the chagrin of his boss. “The CEO said: Koreans don’t do sci-fi,” Park recalls. “It’s a Hollywood thing. The budgets are too big. It doesn’t really make sense. It will never look real.” His boss had a point. Big, splashy science fiction dramas with expansive futuristic worlds and lots of special effects were a rarity in the Korean studio system. “For the past 30–40 years, we’ve done amazing family dramas and romantic comedies,” Park says. “We’ve always failed in sci-fi.” Park believes it’s time to chang…

If you live in Seattle and work at Amazon or Meta in nearby Bellevue, you probably drive to work. But by the end of next month there will be another option for commuters: the world’s first light rail line running on a floating bridge. Right now, drivers cross Lake Washington—the long lake between Seattle and eastern suburbs like Bellevue—use one of three floating bridges. Conventional bridges aren’t feasible because of the depth and width of the lake, which is why the bridges were originally built with pontoons instead. Adding a rail line to one of them meant that designers needed to innovate in multiple ways. First, since the bridge doesn’t have columns like …

Jimmy Donaldson might have made his fortune on YouTube, but the man better known as MrBeast has plans for a much wider financial empire—and he’s well on his way to achieving it. Through Beast Industries, the $5 billion holding company for his growing corporate ecosystem, Donaldson is assembling a wide range of businesses that extend far beyond the influencer space. The latest expansion came on February 9, with the purchase of the teen-focused banking app Step. Banking isn’t the end game, either. Beyond his current holdings, Donaldson has broader ambitions that could further diversify his income streams. Here’s a look at the businesses currently under the Beast Ind…

Nili Lotan’s Tribeca flagship has been a fixture in the neighborhood for 20 years. It’s an austere space that brings her aesthetic universe to life, one that blends silk slip dresses with military-inspired jackets, and crisp button-down shirts with utilitarian pants. But now, across the street, there’s a second store devoted to just one thing: denim. No knits. No tailoring. Just jeans. Denim has always been at the heart of Lotan’s collections, but Lotan has found that the careful design of the jeans—and care that went into making them—gets lost when they are folded into seasonal collections. Now, the denim store and flagship operate as a single ecosystem. Sales …

In the first week of February 2026, a social network called Moltbook became the biggest story in AI. Billed as “social media for AI agents,” the Reddit-like platform allowed autonomous AI bots to post, comment, and interact with one another while human users observed. Within days, more than 1.5 million agents had reportedly registered. They debated the nature of consciousness. They discussed whether they persisted when their context window was reset. Some proposed founding a religion for AI agents. Others outlined plans for world domination. While some commentators pointed out that much of this was just chatbots role-playing at the behest of their human owners, other…

If you ask my friends or colleagues to describe me, the unanimous response would be “she’s someone who gets sh*t done.” It’s become a well-worn badge of honor for me. Productivity isn’t something I do, it’s become something I am—and it’s exhausting. As it turns out, I’m not alone in this. For those of us who value productivity above all else, we’re far more likely to experience chronic stress or burnout. One 2025 study shows just how widespread levels of chronic stress and burnout are, with over one-third of the workforce reporting they were chronically stressed or burned out last year. Many of us feel like we’re walking a delicate line between balance and overwh…

If you’re feeling anxious about the economy, you’re not alone. Consumer confidence is at its lowest in more than a decade. Americans are worried about inflation, a possible recession, and job security—and that anxiety is reshaping how they spend. Even high earners are pulling back. Households are cutting big-ticket indulgences like vacations, fine dining, and designer fashion and redirecting spending toward essentials like groceries and personal care. Even then, they’re choosing retailers that feel like smart value plays. Higher-income shoppers have increasingly frequented discount chains like Walmart and Costco—both of which have seen record-breaking quarters. Ul…

The 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics are giving people at home a first-of-its-kind, first-person view of the Winter Games, all thanks to a fleet of custom-built drones. The small, agile drones can be spotted—not to mention heard—buzzing across Olympic venues, and they’re giving what broadcasters call a “third dimension” to the viewing experience. Instead of capturing the action only from fixed or semifixed cameras on cables and cranes, operators of these drones give viewers an athlete’s perspective as they race down slopes and around tracks. “This is the closest you can get to feeling a jump,” ski-jumper-turned-drone-operator Jonas Sandell said in a statement. …

Ever feel like your solo business is running you into the ground? Solopreneurs don’t have the luxury of handing off tasks to a team. Everything lands on your plate, and there’s never enough time. AI won’t run your business for you (despite what some of the big AI companies would have you believe). But it can give you back hours every week. Some tools are AI-first, meaning their primary job is to perform an AI-driven task. You can also look at adding AI features inside tools you’re already using. I rely heavily on AI in my solo business. I can get more done in less time, without sacrificing quality in any of my work. Here are a few AI tools that can make a hu…

Below, Maya Shankar shares five key insights from her new book, The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans. Shankar is a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. She served as a senior policy adviser in the Obama White House, where she founded and chaired the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. She was also appointed as the first behavioral science advisor to the United Nations. What’s the big idea? What if the life upheavals that shake you most could also be your greatest opportunities? Change can feel like loss, but it can also be the start of a stronger, reimagined self. Listen to the audio version o…

The Super Bowl LX ad blitz was a big budget highwire act—from Anthropic’s shot at OpenAI to Lady Gaga’s homage to Mr. Rogers and Dunkin’s nostalgia-fueled celeb fest. Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder breaks down what worked, what didn’t, and what the ads reveal about where marketing is headed next. Treseder also unpacks the business impact of Bad Bunny’s halftime show, and what it signals for the NFL and Apple. 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 business leaders navigati…

On a sidewalk, an unassuming junction box sits strapped to a fence. Inside, dozens of keychains, stickers, mini figurines, and other novelties wait to be discovered by eagle-eyed passersby or trinket traders who have traveled across the city to exchange their treasure. Trinket trading has taken off on social media in recent weeks. The trend first originated in Philadelphia, where Philly’s Trinket Trove began documenting the contents of a repurposed junction box on TikTok in September of last year. It has since spread nationwide, with communities from New York to San Francisco setting up their own boxes of assorted knick-knacks for anyone to stop by and tra…

Target CEO Michael Fiddelke is reshuffling his leadership team and making other changes shortly after stepping into the top job at the retailer that has struggled operationally. Rick Gomez, the 13-year Target veteran who oversees the chain’s vast inventory of merchandise, will leave the company. And Jill Sando, the chief merchandising officer overseeing a handful of categories like apparel and home and who has been with the company since 1997, will retire. Lisa Roath, who oversaw food, essentials, and cosmetics, will take Fiddelke’s previous job as chief operating officer, the company said Tuesday. Cara Sylvester, who had been chief guest experience officer, will …

Layoffs are at an all-time high since 2009, and we’re also experiencing the lowest hiring on record in the job market. But AI spending is also reaching all-time highs—especially among Big Tech companies, who are on an extravagant spending spree. As I recently reported, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon are forecast to drop a staggering $650 billion on AI in 2026 alone. And while many companies are pouring a lot of that money—we’re talking hundreds of billions—into building massive data centers, hoping to establish a long-term strategic advantage in the AI-arms race, many are still hiring workers for jobs that utilize AI skills. So, what are those skills? While…

In 2022, Jennette McCurdy released her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, a brutally honest portrait of her life as a former child star, her battle with eating disorders, and, as the title would suggest, her rather complicated relationship with her mother. The book has spent more than 80 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list with over three million copies sold. It’s currently being adapted into an Apple TV+ series with Jennifer Aniston playing McCurdy’s mom, and McCurdy serving as co-writer, co-executive producer, and co-showrunner. Adjacent to the massive success of I’m Glad My Mom Died has been McCurdy reclaiming writing, not acting, as her true passion. In her …

Trevor McOmber and his 14-year-old son, Tye, share a love for the Chicago Blackhawks. When Trevor was his son’s age, he watched the Blackhawks on TV, caught highlights on ESPN and read about the team in the newspaper. It’s a much different experience for Tye. “I go to YouTube with Snapchat, or Google something if I just have an idea that I want to know,” Tye McOmber said while sitting next to his father at a recent Blackhawks game. Tye McOmber is on the border of Generation Z, born roughly between 1997 to 2012, and Generation Alpha, approximately 2012 to 2024 — a sprawling group of people with unique media habits and diverse attitudes on where sports fit into their liv…