What's on Your Mind?

Food banks and pantries were already struggling after federal program cuts this year, but now they’re bracing for a tsunami of hungry people if a pause in federal food aid to low-income people kicks in this weekend as the federal government shutdown persists. The rush has already begun. Central Christian Church’s food pantry in downtown Indianapolis scrambled Saturday to accommodate around twice as many people as it normally serves in a day. “There’s an increased demand. And we know it’s been happening really since the economy has downturned,” volunteer Beth White said, adding that with an interruption in funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program…

The Federal Reserve will almost certainly cut its key interest rate on Wednesday and could signal it expects another cut in December as the central bank seeks to bolster hiring. A cut Wednesday would be the second this year and could benefit consumers by bringing down borrowing costs for mortgages and auto loans. Since Fed chair Jerome Powell strongly signaled in late August that rate cuts were likely this year, the average 30-year mortgage rate has fallen to about 6.2% from 6.6%, providing a boost to the otherwise-sluggish housing market. Still, the Fed is navigating an unusual period for the U.S. economy and its future moves are harder to anticipate than is typically …

As more and more drivers purchase electric vehicles, some people have voiced concerns about how the EV boom could further strain our aging, stressed electricity grid. More EVs means more electricity demand, which could require costly infrastructure upgrades or limit when drivers can charge if demand is too high. But one long-talked about promise of EVs is that they could actually make our electricity grid more resilient. Through bidirectional charging, EVs could essentially act as batteries parked outside your home, powering houses so that they don’t need to rely on outside electricity. They could also even send energy back to the grid. A handful of EVs c…

The world’s largest retailer has announced massive job cuts before the holidays. On Tuesday, Amazon said in a memo to staff that it will lay off 14,000 employees. Here’s what you need to know about the Amazon layoffs, and why these aren’t the last jobs that Amazon will likely cut in the future. What’s happened? On Tuesday, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, announced the company was eliminating “approximately 14,000” positions. Galetti sent a memo about the layoffs to Amazon employees, which was then published to the Amazon website. The headcount reduction of 14,000 positions is less than the up to 30,000 job …

Early in my career, I was fortunate to cross paths with a mentor who changed how I saw design—and myself. He ran a small studio whose influence reached far beyond its size. He led with a quiet confidence and quick wit, showing how intelligence and humility could coexist in the creative process. I was passionate about the craft, but there was still so much more to learn about the tools, and about business. He taught me how to infuse storytelling into design. How to navigate constraints. How to bring meaning to every project, not just the ones that sparked instant excitement. He reminded me that creativity thrives on play and curiosity, and that if you lose joy in the proce…

In January 2025, subway riders at the 59th Street-Lexington Avenue station in Manhattan noticed a surprising new addition: spiked metal partitions between each fare gate. Some commuters called the partitions “silly and foolish.” Others said they were “a waste of money.” Over the past nine months, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has rolled out the same spiked partitions to 183 stations across the subway network, with more on the way. Like spikes on a handrail prevent people from sitting on it, these metal screens (which the MTA calls “sleeves”) are designed to prevent people from hoisting themselves over the turnstiles. They’ve also turned what was already an…

As a mother of two little girls, I expected that puberty would be a tempestuous time for our family, full of emotional roller coasters and bodily changes. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. When my oldest daughter turned 9, her pediatrician said she could get her period within the year. I was blindsided: When I was growing up, girls expected to get their periods around the age of 13. I rushed out to buy a pack of menstrual pads to keep in her backpack, in case she gets her first period in school, and ordered The Care and Keeping of You, the iconic puberty guide that has sold 8 million copies since it debuted in 1998. I’m far from the only flummoxed paren…

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough is ready to spill the tea in a new newsletter. Called The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe, the revamped newsletter for the popular morning show on the network that will soon be called MS NOW (the name change is official on November 15, the network says) took its inspiration from the world of print magazines. It’s designed to be part of a larger flywheel to grow and connect with the show’s audience. “We wanted something that was visually arresting, that was simple, elegant, and that people could read and get insight from,” Scarborough tells Fast Company. The newsletter will be sent in the early afternoon, Monday through Friday, …

Across cultures, people often wrestle with whether having lots of money is a blessing, a burden, or a moral problem. According to our new research, how someone views billionaires isn’t just about economics. Judgment also hinges on certain cultural and moral instincts, which help explain why opinions about wealth are so polarized. The study, which my colleague Mohammad Atari and I published in the research journal PNAS Nexus in June 2025, examined survey data from more than 4,300 people across 20 countries. We found that while most people around the world do not strongly condemn having “too much money,” there are striking cultural differences. In wealthy, more econ…

Below, Zelana Montminy shares five key insights from her new book, Finding Focus: Own Your Attention in an Age of Distraction. Zelana is a behavioral scientist who is pioneering a transformative approach to mental health and resilience. She has built a career advising and speaking for Fortune 500 companies, global organizations, and academic institutions. Her recent clients include American Express, Coca-Cola, Estee Lauder, Bank of America, UCLA, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. She appears regularly on The Doctors, Good Morning America, The Today Show, and Access Hollywood. What’s the big idea? We live in a world that is quietly, relentlessly unraveling our atten…

Two decades of coaching leaders and developing myself as a leader have taught me a key lesson: Leadership isn’t a destination. Just when you think you’ve reached the top of the mountain, look up—you’ll see another peak waiting. The truth is, there’s no secret sauce for leading yourself or others. Leadership is an ever-evolving process of learning and growing. The best leaders never stop evolving. Here are four lessons every great leader eventually learns. 1. Humility is a strength Humility is often mistaken for weakness. In one survey, more than half of fifth and sixth graders described humility as “embarrassed, sad, or shy.” Adults often confuse it with hu…

The announcement came suddenly on Thursday. A Fortune 500 technology client needed an interim CFO immediately. Its previous executive had departed unexpectedly, leaving a $2.3 billion merger and reorganization in limbo. By Monday, Denise, the number two finance executive, occupied the interim CFO post. She faced 10,000 skeptical employees and a board expecting miracles. Interim leadership has exploded: The number of Fortune 1000 companies that have used an interim CXO has increased 117% since 2022. Yet most leaders enter these roles unprepared for the unique demands that await. Not only do these leaders suffer, companies do as well. When leadership transitions fa…

On a recent flight, I watched a woman try to sneak an oversize briefcase and suitcase onto the plane. When challenged, she waved her boarding pass at the gate agent and declared, “Do you see what that says?” pointing to her top-tier status. “That means I get to do what I want.” Her sense of entitlement was staggering, but familiar. Leaders of organizational transformation, such as major digital/data analytical capability overhauls, or launching a new set off offerings across the globe, often cling to equally delusional rationalizations. And just like that traveler, their self-justifications backfire. The odds of transformation success are already dismal: 70% to 80…

When David Dominé moved to Louisville, Kentucky, for law school in the 1990s, he was captivated by the historic district of Old Louisville, lined with stately Victorian mansions. After he bought a reputedly haunted home in the neighborhood—and had “some strange things happen” there—he began researching the ghost stories told in the area. That led Dominé to write books about the community’s legendary hauntings. Soon, reader interest convinced him to offer tours, leading to a business he calls Louisville Historic Tours. Dominé’s company now has about nine tour guides, mostly people interested in local history. Many live in the neighborhoods where they give tours. “We s…

AI is radically changing the future of the workplace — from redefining jobs to fueling the rise of so-called “work slop.” Live on stage at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Box CEO Aaron Levie, LinkedIn’s Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman, and Meta’s Head of Business AI Clara Shih share their insider perspectives on AI optimism, uncertainty, and navigating this unprecedented era. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian and recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Respon…

The U.S. Department of Energy has struck a $1 billion deal with Advanced Micro Systems (AMD) to build two supercomputers that have unprecedented power to supercharge scientific advances ranging from nuclear power to developing cancer treatments. The partnership, first reported by Reuters on Monday, will ensure the U.S. government has the necessary computing power to accommodate enormous amounts of data—and could deliver about three times the AI capacity of current supercomputers. The artificial intelligence-powered supercomputers could be deployed for advancing nuclear power and replicate fusion—the process that fuels the sun and creates massive amounts of energy. …

Rare earth stocks find themselves underground on Monday as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects that China and the U.S. will work out a trade deal in the near future. Meanwhile, stock markets largely soared on news of the trade optimism, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up roughly 0.5%, the S&P 500 up 1%, and the Nasdaq up 1.6% as of midday Monday. Bessent, appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday news program, said that he anticipates that China will resume soybean purchases from the U.S., and that there could be an announcement on Thursday when President The President and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in South Korea. “I’m not going…

If it seems like Black Friday deals, and holiday shopping in general, is starting earlier and earlier, you’re right. Just in time for, um, Halloween, both Walmart and Best Buy have announced plans for their 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Black Friday, always the day after Thanksgiving, falls on Friday, November 28 this year. Deals generally continue through that weekend into Cyber Monday, which falls on December 1. However, in recent years, many retailers have jump-started the sales some two, or even three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. And this year is no different. Here’s what to know. When do Walmart’s Black Friday deals start? The …

It’s official: Twitter.com is about to bite the dust forever. According to a series of tweets from X’s @Safety account, posted between October 24 and October 25, the social media platform plans to finally retire the Twitter domain on November 10. Currently, searching for Twitter.com still leads directly to X, but soon, that will no longer be an option. The domain’s phase-out comes more than two years after Twitter owner Elon Musk renamed the platform X in July 2023, much to the dismay of many loyal users. At the time, critics argued that the rebrand was destined to fail, with some going so far as to call it “brand suicide.” And while many former users …

Small importers for large U.S. retailers rushed in China-made strollers and wares meant for spring and are storing the goods in their own warehouses to avoid the big tariff bills that had been threatened over the next month. Before Sino-American talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur eliminated the threat of U.S. President Donald The President’s 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1, importers were expecting to shoulder the staggering levies. In response, importers of goods sold at retailers Walmart, Amazon, and Target chose to risk loading their balance sheets with inventory that may take months to move out, and pay more for ware…

Meta’s Threads app is leaning into impermanence. Starting Monday, the platform is rolling out “ghost posts,” a new post format for sharing fleeting thoughts that automatically disappear after 24 hours. Think Snapchat or Instagram Stories—except, for text. Unlike regular Threads posts, replies to ghost posts go straight to the user’s messaging inbox rather than inline, and only the author will be able to see who liked or responded to them. It’s a subtle but significant shift toward private engagement within a public feed, providing a middle ground of sorts between Twitter’s public discourse model and Instagram’s close-friends Stories. Meta says the feature is a…

Trust is the essence of collaboration: as Yuval Harari eloquently noted, we as a species would not exist if it weren’t for our superior ability to collaborate so effectively—and it’s largely down to trust. In the days of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, decisions on trust were relatively straightforward, even when it came to appointing leaders. Indeed, our ancestors lived in small groups of closely related individuals and spent all of their time together. Furthermore, the key attributes they were interested in evaluating or judging were easy to observe: courage, practical knowledge, hunting and fishing dexterity, and physical strength. There was no need then for psychom…

U.S. President Donald The President received a royal welcome on Monday in Japan, the latest leg of a five-day Asia trip which he hopes to cap with an agreement on a trade war truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The President, making his longest journey abroad since taking office in January, announced deals with four Southeast Asian countries during the first stop in Malaysia and is expected to meet Xi in South Korea on Thursday. Negotiators from the world’s top two economies hashed out a framework on Sunday for a deal to pause steeper American tariffs and Chinese rare earths export controls, U.S. officials said. The news sent Asian stocks soaring to record pe…

Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, grew up with MTV and empty houses, earning them the name “latchkey kids.” The first generation who logged onto AOL Instant Messenger and played video games while still enjoying the freedom that came before helicopter parents took over is fascinating. But as a small generation that falls between baby boomers and millennials, they’re often overlooked. When it comes to their spending power, however, Gen X is small but mighty. According to a new report from ICSC, a trade association for retail real estate, Gen X may have more spending power than brands realize. While Gen X only makes up around 19% of the U.S. population, th…

I have never had any interest in getting a hardware wallet like the new Ledger Nano Gen 5. But talking with Susan Kare—the designer of the original Apple Macintosh icons and an endless torrent wonderful pixel art—made me realize I need one. “The idea that an individual can really control their own assets without a government or anything political coming between you and your assets. I like that,” she tells me. The Ledger Nano is a 0.3-inch-thick credit card-sized block that keeps your digital assets secure by storing them offline. It has a frontal e-ink display that displays a grid of pixel art icons that look very much like the original Mac. For the Nano Gent 5, Kare …