What's on Your Mind?

“Meta profits, kids pay the price,” was the message delivered by dozens of grieving families at the doors of Meta’s Manhattan office on Thursday. Forty-five families traveled from across the U.S. and as far as the United Kingdom to hold a vigil outside the East Village headquarters of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Holding photos of their children, they spoke about lives lost to cyberbullying, sextortion scams, and suicide-glorifying content—calling on Meta to take immediate action to protect children on its platforms. On a pile of rose bouquets, the families and demonstrators placed an open letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg. Signed by more …

Amazon leaned into the advertising funnel in a big way during its 2025 Upfront event at the Beacon Theater in New York City on Monday night. Perhaps the most notable product enhancement the company unveiled was the use of AI to generate contextual advertising on its Prime Video platform—meaning that ads can and will be created on the fly, using AI, depending on the specific scene of a TV show or movie that is on the screen at any given time. For instance, if a viewer is watching a scene involving a loving phone call between a mother and daughter, pausing the show could result in an ad for mobile phone service, with AI-generated text dynamically created, right the…

The The President administration is loosening rules to help U.S. automakers like Elon Musk’s Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals. U.S. companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the Transportation Department said Thursday. The department also said it will streamline crash reporting requirements involving self-driving software that Musk has criticized as onerous and will move toward a single set of national rules for the technology to replace a patchwork of state regulations. “We’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” s…

Lately, I’ve felt weighed down by the constant churn of chaos and uncertainty—like I’m carrying a low-grade tension in my body that never fully lets up. The news is dizzying. The pace of change is relentless. Some days it feels like we’re lurching from one crisis to the next with no time to process, no moment to exhale. I find myself waking up already bracing for what the day might bring. It’s like the ground is constantly shifting, and we’re all being asked to find our footing in real time. And then there are the quieter, internal questions I carry with me—the ones that tug at me in the middle of the night or when I’m trying to make sense of the day: Am I doing enoug…

Mel Robbins’s best-selling book, The Let Them Theory, has captured the imagination of millions of people, earning critical acclaim and resonating deeply with those seeking peace in a chaotic world. The core premise is simple yet powerful: let people be who they are, let them make their own choices, and most importantly, don’t waste your energy trying to change others. It’s a philosophy of radical acceptance—an invitation to stop being burdened by the expectations, behaviors, and opinions of those around us. At first glance, this mindset seems liberating. Who wouldn’t want to shed the weight of trying to control the uncontrollable? In a time where burnout is rampant and p…

Let’s be clear: We shouldn’t expect kids to be experts in financial literacy. As much as they love YouTube, I doubt many spend their time watching videos of Warren Buffett. However, the oldest members of this Gen Alpha group will become adult consumers soon enough, and between the way they approach money and their perception of spending, two things are quite clear. The first is that regardless of their industry, companies will be put to the test by this generation. The second is that Gen Alpha may have a rude awakening when faced with the harsh realities of life. We’ve done several studies on Gen Alpha, with the most recent focusing on their thoughts and interacti…

At eight months pregnant with my first child, I walked into my boss’s office, ready for a pivotal meeting. I had spent months designing a new crisis management program for our university—one that would improve student outcomes and reduce institutional risk. This was the moment I’d learn whether my work would be implemented. I had poured everything into this project. It reflected my expertise, positioned the university at the forefront of best practices, and—for me personally—offered the challenge and recognition I craved. My current role felt stagnant, and this opportunity was exactly what I needed. My boss was thrilled with my proposal and agreed I was the right …

On Main Street in the village of Freeville, New York, on a 2.8-acre lot where a dilapidated single-family house once stood, there are now a dozen tiny storybook-like cottages surrounded by the property’s pine trees. The development, completed last year, is helping bring new life to the village. It’s one example of what’s possible when towns don’t have overly restrictive zoning. It’s charming. The design encourages neighbors to know one other. And it offers housing for far more people on the same amount of land. The project is the third tiny house village in the region from a local developer, Bruno Schickel. His career started as a typical general contractor—he bui…

Being the great-grandson of the French artist Henri Matisse can be complicated. Alex Matisse grew up in the Northeastern United States, and being a Matisse meant being immersed in art. It’s what his family talked about at the dinner table; the walls of his home were full of paintings usually seen only in museums. By the time he was in elementary school, Alex could recite his great-grandfather’s most notable works, like La Danse and the Nu Bleu series. Like many of the Matisse children, Alex had artistic inclinations. Throughout his school years, he thrived in art classes, and in fourth grade he fell in love with pottery in an after-school program. But when Alex be…

Popular language learning app Duolingo is giving its bite-size lesson treatment to one of the oldest games in the world: chess. Duolingo’s chess course will take users, who can range from complete novices to those with a solid understanding of how to play, through its gamified exercises to become better game players. The focus is mostly on attracting new players, including those who have felt chess is too difficult to learn or otherwise inaccessible. “For the most part, a lot of chess products out there are usually built by an advanced user for more advanced-use cases—someone who already is familiar with chess and is kind of trying to elevate their abilities even further,…

The most frequent mistake companies make when applying? They fail to focus on a single, representative example of internally grown innovation. Here’s some advice on how to produce a more compelling application for Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators 2025. Get Real Jargon won’t win you any awards. Applications that read as if they were written to appeal primarily to an internal audience are not likely to earn high marks from our judges. Use clear language to describe your innovation programs. We’re looking for companies that do more than just talk the talk. Be Current Focus on a recent or ongoing example. We’re looking for current hotbeds of innovat…

Michael Long is not the typical neuroscience guy. He was trained as a physicist, but is primarily a writer. He coauthored the international bestseller The Molecule of More. As a speechwriter, he has written for members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, presidential candidates, and Fortune 10 CEOs. His screenplays have been performed on most New York stages. He teaches writing at Georgetown University. What’s the big idea? Dopamine is to blame for a lot of your misery. It compels us to endlessly chase more, better, and greater—even when our dreams have come true. Thanks to dopamine, we often feel restless and hopeless. So no, maybe it’s not quite accurate to call it…

Charging a car, or electric vehicle, typically takes about 350 kilowatts. Charging an entire ocean freighter, or electric vessel, could take 20 megawatts, roughly 57 times more power. It’s a striking difference in power and generating capacity, and illuminates the challenges and opportunities behind greening the freighters and container ships crisscrossing the earth’s oceans. Across the Atlantic, maritime green energy provider NatPower Marine is developing the infrastructure to establish the world’s first operational electrified shipping corridor between Ireland and England. This includes electric boats and chargers and the renewable energy projects—which include…

Elon Musk is a visionary genius to some, unpredictable and dangerous to others. Love him or loathe him, Musk’s personality looms as large as his net worth. This is consistent with decades of scientific research highlighting a strong connection between personality and entrepreneurial talent. There is a range of character traits and dispositions that make entrepreneurs different from others, especially when they succeed in their ventures. Psychologists often describe personality in terms of the Big Five traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) and also warn about the “Dark Triad” of darker traits (Narcissism, Machiavellianism, …

In recent months, the New York City subway system has seen a string of shocking and deadly incidents of violence, including several passengers who have been shoved from the platform into the paths of moving trains. A recent report finds that misdemeanor and felony assaults within the subway system have tripled since 2009. For everyday riders and visitors alike, there is now a lurking fear that their next trip on the subway could be dangerous. Many, including the governor of New York, are seeking solutions, which range from adding more police presence to increasing surveillance to installing more lighting to combatting fare evasion. But there’s another approach that co…

Most email apps have strong opinions about what your inbox should look like. Notion Mail is the opposite. The new offshoot from productivity app Notion is all about flexibility. It lets you slice and dice your emails however you want: group them by date, create dedicated sections for specific contacts, add notes, or even turn your inbox into a list of action items. There’s also an AI labeling feature that can automatically sort things like package updates or health-related messages. It can feel overwhelming at first—but so can Notion itself. That hasn’t stopped the productivity platform from amassing 100 million users, with use cases ranging from simple note-taking to com…

Anthropic announced Thursday that it has added web search capability to its Claude chatbot. It’s not a new feature to the AI world—but the company’s approach stands as one the most thoughtful to date. Much like its rival Perplexity, Anthropic’s Claude works relevant information from the web into a conversational answer, and includes clickable source citations. Web search is available as a “feature preview” for U.S. users of the Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, with plans to expand to the free tier and to more countries What sets Anthropic’s web search feature apart is that it is automatic. Rather than requiring users to manually select a web search on a given query …

Music is everywhere—playing in coffee shops, on hold lines, in Ubers, behind YouTube ads, and of course, in your earbuds while you work. It’s so constant, we often treat it like harmless background noise. But the brain doesn’t. Whether we realize it or not, music is processed across multiple brain regions tied to attention, memory, and emotion—meaning even passive listening can impact how we focus, feel, and make decisions. “Background music” is never truly in the background. It either supports or competes with your mental state. And that means we have a choice. In today’s fast-paced work culture, where multitasking is the norm and focus is scarce, how we use musi…

I was strolling up the hill in Greater Boston to a French cooking class. The rich aroma of melting butter and fresh herbs greeted us as it wafted through the chilly fall air. My friend Sylvie and I were eager to learn the art of soufflé-making. The French instructors asked for everyone’s background. When Sylvie said she was from France, they pressed her to be specific: Which part of France? When they learned she hailed from Strasbourg, the Parisiennes exchanged disapproving glances. Sylvie eyed their silent, snooty disdain. It got worse. When Sylvie started asking about techniques, we received curt responses and pronounced sighs. We left feeling as deflated as a c…

For about 20 years, Docusign has been known as a tool for collecting digital signatures—helping businesses replace paper forms with electronic versions that are just as secure and legally binding. Just over a year ago, the company announced its development of an “intelligent agreement management,” or IAM, platform. This platform uses AI not only to gather signatures but also to assist with creating new agreements and organizing contracts after they’ve been signed. These features contributed to strong earnings in Docusign’s most recent quarter, beating analyst expectations and helping customers transform contracts from hard-to-manage text files and paper printouts into act…

After Chobani owner and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya and his wife welcomed a baby in late 2015, he started to wonder whether his company was fully supporting its employees as they became parents. When he returned to work, he inquired about the company’s parental leave policy. “I asked, what happens at Chobani when someone has a baby or a new member of their families?” Ulukaya recalled. “The response was: We don’t have [a policy]. We have disability insurance. That insurance in New York offers up to 75% coverage for six weeks, basically. And that’s what we offered for birthing parents.” Ulukaya says he was “shocked” and immediately asked his team what they could do differentl…

After grabbing a handful of popcorn at an event held by California-based startup Savor, my fingers are left with a familiar sheen: the residue of the butter that coats the small kernels. When I later grab a blini (topped with lentils), the small pancake is so full of butter that it immediately coats my tongue in a velvety layer of fat. A mushroom “scallop,” grilled in butter, is rich and savory. The butter used in all these dishes is rich, creamy, indulgent. But it isn’t made from animals. It isn’t even made from plants, like avocado oil or coconut oil or olive oil. Instead, it’s made from energy—on this night specifically, methane. [Photo: courtesy Savor] Sa…

I’ve served the NASA space program for many years as an adviser, research scientist, flight surgeon—and astronaut. My career has encompassed both in-flight and non-flight contributions to NASA, supporting space missions, space medicine, and research in advancing human space flight. Space exploration encompasses a fair amount of uncertainty by nature. The space program’s early days were fraught with a number of crew losses, including the Apollo 1 mission, and the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle missions. The challenges of space flight were on full display during the Apollo 13 crew’s near-disastrous mission on the way to the moon in 1970. We all know those infamo…

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a health alert for a pre-cooked, frozen pork carnitas product sold at Aldi grocery stores that “may be contaminated with foreign material, specifically pieces of metal.” Cargill Meat Solutions manufactures the product for Aldi exclusively, so it was only sold at Aldi stores. According to the USDA, the product was shipped to Aldi stores nationwide, so the alert applies to all U.S. locations. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? To be clear, the USDA’s Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is issuing a public health alert, not a recall, “because this product is no longe…