What's on Your Mind?

President The President recently promised to make America the “crypto capital of the world.” And his administration is working hard to make that pledge a reality. White House officials have established a working group on digital asset markets and directed federal agencies to craft a strategy to cement U.S. leadership. The president’s legislative team, meanwhile, helped push the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act),through Congress earlier this summer, thus creating the first federal framework for stablecoins. And they’re working to pass the Clarity Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act), which would finally settle dispute…

If you slip a tiny wearable device on your fingertip and slide it over a smooth surface like a touchscreen, you can feel digital textures like denim or mesh. The device, designed by researchers at Northwestern University, is the first of its kind to achieve “human resolution,” meaning that it can more accurately match the complex way a human fingertip senses the world. In previous attempts at haptic devices like this, “once you compare them to real textures, you realize there’s something still missing,” says Sylvia Tan, a PhD student at Northwestern and one of the authors of a new study in Science Advances about the research. “It’s close, but not quite there. Our …

When it comes to podcasting, it’s Joe Rogan’s world. The Joe Rogan Experience was the most popular podcast of 2025, according to Apple’s just-released rankings. This is the first year Rogan has topped the Apple charts. Last year, he took the bronze medal, behind The Daily and Crime Junkie (both of which still made the Top 10 this year). Two years ago, he didn’t make the list (thanks to an exclusivity agreement with Spotify, signed in 2020—where he also currently holds the No. 1 spot). Rogan’s podcast certainly had head-turning guests this year, including a much-listened-to interview with Elon Musk. The Daily, from The New York Times, was Apple’s second-most popula…

If there’s an AI application in media that has had a rough road, it’s the chatbot. With the runaway success of ChatGPT, the whole idea that chat might be the next big thing in audience experiences took on new value, and several publications dove in, offering portals or widgets that enable readers to explore their content in a new way. I think it’s fair to say none of these have been home runs, but some are more promising than others. Chatbots from Skift, USA Today, and The Texas Tribune have all seen some quiet success in user engagement, and while “chat” likely won’t save the media industry, it may well play an important role. Beyond the wins of improving site search…

Here’s a sad story: The other day, my wife and I woke up and realized we were out of coffee. Honestly, if you want to throw a wrench into the Murphy household and hamper our routine, take away the coffee. Anyway, the story ends much better; I threw on a baseball hat and drove to the supermarket down the road. But it also reminded me of a study I’ve wanted to share here, led by researchers at Tulane University who analyzed data on 40,725 Americans and their coffee-drinking habits over nearly a decade. In short, they found something remarkable about when people drink their coffee. Drink it in the morning The study, supported by the U.S. National Heart…

In a world of hustle culture and stressors of all kinds, joy can seem both illusive and impossible. But despite barriers, you can create the conditions for happiness. Well-being and joy are critical issues today, with 69% to 77% of Americans feeling stressed about factors like the economy, current events, violence, and lack of connections, according to the American Psychiatric Association. In addition, a global mental health study of 17,000 people across 16 countries by Ipsos/AXA found that 64% face stress, 43% are suffering from depression, and only 25% of people are flourishing. But strategies for “micro joy” can be a solution to the struggles and a way to build…

When I was learning to play bass, my first teacher told me, “Find your groove and stay in it.” As a musician, that meant discovering the rhythm that allowed me to lock in with the drummer so the rest of the band could shine. Years later, as a consultant and culture architect, I realized the same principle applies to productivity: Each of us has a groove—a natural style of working—that, once discovered, allows us to perform at our best. The challenge is that most professionals attempt to replicate productivity systems that don’t align with their brain’s natural rhythm. They read about a CEO waking up at 4 a.m. or a time-blocking hack and feel frustrated when it doesn’t…

Most personal branding advice assumes you’re one thing. But what if you’re not? What if you’re a strategist and an artist, a CEO and a musician, a parent and a community builder? For leaders who live at these intersections, the advice to “pick a lane” can feel suffocating. I know this tension firsthand. My own path has spanned finance, strategy, leadership development, writing, and creating art. Initially, I worried that showcasing this diversity would appear disjointed. Over time, I realized that my multidimensionality isn’t a liability; it’s part of my brand. The question isn’t “How do I simplify myself?” It’s “How do I integrate my many identities into a cohe…

Five years ago, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong did a bold thing. He banned political conversations at work. He made this decision because he knows what the job of a business leader is: to deliver for customers, employees, and shareholders. More recently, another executive did the opposite. Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s fame left the company as part of a row with its parent company over social activism. For Greenfield, political stances are not just part of the company; they ultimately outweigh everything else. This stark difference is very instructive at this time. Amid America’s rising polarization, what stance should businesses take? Many people who think…

Colleagues are a critical part of what makes your work experience enjoyable and meaningful. You interact with your colleagues and (in the best of cases) create a neighborhood of peers that you can rely on both to push the work forward and to share the joys and tribulations of the workday. That’s why annoying colleagues can be a particular thorn. When you have a peer at work that you don’t want to deal with, it disrupts the flow of your day and diminishes your intrinsic enjoyment of work. So, what can you do to deal with annoying coworkers? A lot of that depends on what is making them annoying. Here are a few possibilities. Missing social norms One thing th…

Business leaders are scrambling to understand the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence. But if companies are struggling to keep up, can today’s business schools really prepare students for a new landscape that’s unfolding in real time out in the real world? Stanford University thinks it might have the answer. At its Graduate School of Business, a new student-led initiative aims to arm students for a future where AI is upending in ways that are still unfolding. The program, called AI@GSB, includes hands-on workshops with new AI tools and a speaker series with industry experts. The school also introduced new courses around AI—including one called “AI for Hum…

As companies adopt AI, the conversation is shifting from the promise of productivity to concerns about AI’s impact on wellbeing. Business leaders can’t ignore the warning signs. The mental health crisis isn’t new, but AI is changing how we must address it. More than 1 billion people experience mental health conditions. Burnout is rising. And more people are turning to AI for support without the expertise of trained therapists. What starts as “empathy on demand” could accelerate loneliness. What’s more, Stanford research found that “these tools could introduce biases and failures that could result in dangerous consequences.” With the right leadership, AI can usher …

Most of the software that truly moves the world doesn’t demand our attention: It quietly removes friction and gets out of the way. You only notice it when it’s broken. That’s not a bug in the business model; it’s a feature. In fact, “unnoticed but indispensable” is the highest customer-satisfaction score you can get. Consider these categories that already figured this out. The log-in that isn’t a task anymore Password managers, once you build the habit, fade into the background. They fill the box before you even remember there was a box. Single sign-on (SSO) systems go a step further and make logging in to everything feel like one action instead of 17 small, an…

The trajectory of our national economy is a central concern of every American. Our living costs rise as would-be hegemons battle over neocolonial control through tariff policies. And while social media creativity holds our attention, some part of us recalls older ways of storytelling, and we wonder, where do we belong? Most of us, even newcomers to this country—especially newcomers—were taught from an early age that anyone who works hard will eventually thrive. But we repeatedly see and know that this is merely a story told to us, not reality. The community in which you are born has a tremendous impact on your eventual life outcomes. If you are born into a poor commun…

I’ve spent much of my career in fintech, but some of the most inspiring innovations I’ve seen came from a town most people have never heard of. In early 2025, Ipava State Bank, a tiny community institution in western Illinois, embedded a small amount of life protection into every eligible checking and savings account. No app to install, no portals, no extra steps—coverage was calculated from balances and capped per account. Six months in, reported results included $3.45 million in protection delivered, 7% deposit growth, 4.8% higher average balances, and a 25% increase in customers reaching maximum coverage levels—at a time when many peers were losing deposits. Th…

All eyes were on Nvidia’s quarterly earnings announcement on Wednesday, as investors looked for signs of weakness indicating that the so-called “AI bubble” is about to deflate. In fact, Nvidia appears to be selling graphics processing unit (GPU) chips for data centers as fast as it can make them. On the call, Nvidia reported better-than-expected revenues of $57 billion for its October-ending quarter, a 62% increase over the same quarter last year. Revenues rose by $10 billion, or 22%, from the prior quarter. Perhaps most importantly, the company projected revenues of $65 billion in the current quarter. As a result, Nvidia shares rose 5% after the earnings were …

In planning meetings, in brainstorms, in the messy moments when decisions need to be made before all the information is in, AI is my copilot. But not in the “cute robot helper” way. I treat it like my sharpest strategist, fastest researcher, and most unflinching truth-teller. As the CEO of Quantious, a future-forward marketing agency that works with tech companies, my job is to stay fast, smart, and endlessly curious; not just for myself, but for my clients. Having executive-level AI by my side is how I operate at scale without sacrificing strategy or soul. Forget about the “hype” of AI. Let’s talk about what it really takes to work smarter, experiment faster, and…

Nvidia forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, betting on booming demand for its AI chips from cloud providers against the backdrop of widespread concerns of an artificial intelligence bubble. The results from the AI chip leader mark a defining moment for Wall Street, as global markets looked to the chip designer to determine if investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure expansion had resulted in towering valuations that potentially outpaced fundamentals. The world’s most valuable company expects fiscal fourth-quarter sales of $65 billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $61.66 billion, accord…

The Labor Department said Wednesday that it will not be releasing a full jobs report for October because the 43-day federal government shutdown meant it couldn’t calculate the unemployment rate and some other key numbers. Instead, it will release some of the October jobs data — most importantly the number of jobs that employers created last month — along with the full November jobs report, now due a couple of weeks late on Dec. 16. The department’s “employment situation” report usually comes out the first Friday of the month. But the government shutdown disrupted data collection and delayed the release of the reports. For example, the September jobs report, now co…

Agentic AI is coming, whether you’re ready for it or not—a PwC survey published earlier this year found that 88% of U.S. companies are beefing up their agentic AI budgets, and a broad majority have adopted AI agents in some capacity. When it comes to using AI agents for shopping or in the commerce space, more than half of consumers are or will be doing so by the end of the year. But many people still aren’t quite sure how or when to use AI agents. They may not know where to find them, how to prompt them, and in some cases, if the agent they are interacting with is legit or potentially a disguised bad actor. Fetch, an AI firm founded in 2017 in the U.K., is trying to…

Country music fans have something extra to be thankful for each November beyond turkey. Traditionally, the Country Music Association Awards—aka the CMA Awards—take place during the second-to-last month of the year. Wednesday, November 19, is the big day in 2025 for the 59th annual event. Let’s get you up to speed on everything you need to know about “country music’s biggest night” so you can confidently two-step your way through the evening. What’s the venue for the 2025 CMA Awards? The 59th CMA Awards will be held at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Who’s hosting the 2025 CMA Awards? Lainey Wilson is back to emcee the awards. Last year, sh…