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Have you seen the new Volvo ad made with generative artificial intelligence? Go ahead. Watch it. . . . I’ll wait. If you think it looks awful, you’re not alone. The physics are all wrong, with hair, sand, and objects going in the wrong direction at the wrong time. The humans look like they’re made of plastic. Their emotions are forced, their expressions deformed, their smiles anything but warm. Instead, they likely fill you with an uncanny Grand Canyon of dread. The lighting is artificial, too—no film, digital camera, or grading would produce that unnatural palette. Some people are saying that Volvo made a mistake by not putting a car in the ad, obviously not realizing that currently there’s no video generator that can reliably re-create objects. Had the ad’s creators tried to produce a Volvo, they’d have ended up with a car with morphing proportions and features that change from shot to shot. The ad was made with Midjourney, which is pretty bad, but Sora, Kling, or Luma would have screwed it up too. And while apparently it is fine to create uncanny humans for promotional purposes, I’m pretty sure that the Swedish car company wouldn’t have accepted a Frankenvolvo. [Image: Volvo Cars KSA]According to Adweek, who spoke to Lion, the Dubai-based creative agency behind the spot, the ad is an effort to reintroduce Volvo to Saudi Arabia after years of pulling back on business in the region. Lion’s founder and executive creative director, Osama Saddiq, told the publication: “The ad is a mélange of ‘technically accurate and culturally resonant renders for Saudi Arabia. AI today is rarely humanized—most executions are tactical, with little focus on brand storytelling. Our approach was different. We started by crafting a narrative that strategically aligned with Volvo’s comeback in the region.” The issue, of course, is that nothing in the ad feels human, mammalian, or even protozoan. [Image: Volvo Cars KSA]According to Lion, using AI reduced production timelines from “months to weeks.” That might be enough to sell a business on the technology. And sure, there’s a place for AI in current production, but generating entire ads is not it—at least not yet. We’ve seen this exact issue time and time again with brands that use technology for technology’s sake. From Coca-Cola to Toys “R” Us, brands that use emerging technology as a shorthand for creative innovation usually come to regret it. [Image: Volvo Cars KSA]I’m sure some people will protest this ad for its ethical considerations; because they don’t like the idea of AI putting people in the creative and film industries out of a job. That’s a real concern. But the reason this ad shouldn’t exist is simpler than that: It just looks bad. So here’s a piece of advice for ad creators out there: It’s time to forget about AI for a few years. Come back to it when it’s ready, and when you have a good idea for how to actually use it. View the full article

Stanley Druckenmiller has spent years quietly running his family office. Now one protégé is Treasury secretary and another is vying for Fed chairView the full article

How are the world’s most creative people using AI to drive their work forward? This was the question at the heart of an in-depth survey Fast Company recently conducted in partnership with Whalar, a leading social agency focused on content creators. We found that, for most, AI has become a routine part of the creative process—and a return to an AI-free working life has become almost unfathomable. Yet the survey also found the world’s creative elite are grappling with a technology that gets more powerful and useful every day but remains unwieldy, error-prone, and not entirely trustworthy. “I want people to understand how well it can augment and enhance the thinking process—not just the creative and generative thinking process, but the thinking process itself,” said one respondent. “If AI is used responsibly, it’s a wonderful collaborative partner and needn’t be feared.” We sent the detailed (anonymous) survey to a diverse cohort of people who have been honored in Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business” list over the years, plus a selection of independent content creators, and got 100 responses. The result offers a close look at how the world’s leading creatives are using this revolutionary technology to shape the future of their industries and the wider world. “The internet first revolutionized the playing field by democratizing publishing and audience access,” says Neil Waller, co-CEO of the Whalar Group. “Now, AI is creating the next massive rebalancing, this time in creative production capability. What excites me most is watching creators, who are inherently nimble and unburdened by legacy systems, adopt AI tools with remarkable speed. ” EARLY AND ENTHUSIASTIC ADOPTERS First, here are some key stats on the respondents: Forty-seven percent of those who responded were founders, partners, or principals of their companies, and 65% were 10 C-suite or higher. The top industries were tech (22%), design (16%), and entertainment (14%), and substantial numbers came from healthcare, science and research, and the nonprofit sector. The size of their organizations ranged from global behemoths to solo creators. Twenty-two percent of respondents booked more than $1 billion in revenue in 2024. Twenty percent did less than $1 million. Unsurprisingly, these folks are not new to AI, for the most part. More than a third (39%) have been aware of AI usage in their industry for more than five years, and 19% began using it themselves that long ago. Another third (30%) began using the technology two to three years ago, a timeframe that aligns with the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022. “Eighty-three percent have incorporated AI into their creative process, and nearly half (48%) rely on it for most or all of their projects. “I absolutely use it every single day—probably five times a day or more,” says Joel Bervell, a med-school student and popular influencer known on TikTok and Instagram as the Medical Mythbuster. Text-based software still dominates usage. Three quarters (74%) of the respondents use AI primarily to generate or manipulate words, with only 26% saying they mainly use it for still images or video. “Whenever I use AI for writing, I make sure to make it my own,” says Amy Merrill, an artist, musician, web designer, and founder of Plan C Pills, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving abortion access nationwide. “But sometimes my tired and overstretched brain needs help synthesizing, and I’m grateful for the tool to be able to take a heady, complex question or issue and compress it into a more or less understandable response that I can adapt, correct, personalize, and use. Sometimes it feels like it saves me time in the clumsy human part, while allowing me to preserve the thought leadership part.” WHICH TOOLS ARE MOST POPULAR? OpenAI’s ChatGPT continues to dominate the LLM market, with 69% citing it as their go-to app, followed by Google’s Gemini (28%), Anthropic’s Claude (19%), and Microsoft’s Copilot (18%). Google leads in AI search, but it’s far less dominant than in traditional search. While well over half of respondents (57%) say they primarily use Google’s AI summaries, 14% cited Perplexity and 7% Microsoft’s Bing. Twenty-eight percent said they don’t use AI search at all. (For those tallying up the numbers, respondents could select more than one answer.) On the image side, Midjourney came out on top at 28%, followed by Adobe Firefly at 19% and OpenAI’s DALL-E at 16%. “We use Midjourney to create posters for our shows,” says Plan C Pills’ Merrill. “We love the experience of prompting and feeding in inspiration, and in return getting something we never would’ve thought of.” Fashion designer Arturo Obegero recently collaborated with an artist to create an ad campaign featuring real models against an AI-generated backdrop. “We never would have been able to afford that shoot [IRL],” he says. In that vein, notes Waller of Whalar, “a creator with passion, vision, and an AI tool kit can now produce content that previously required a 20-person team and a seven-figure budget.” Although AI generally saves time and money, it’s not always smooth sailing. “While the AI tools helped generate images quickly, it can be a real struggle to get results that meet our standards,” said one respondent, articulating a theme that came up repeatedly in the anonymous responses. “We have spent many hours sifting through hundreds of generated images that more or less looked similar. It’s [often not] until we manually create more specific visual inputs such as sketches or quick 3D models/ screenshots that we’re able to direct the images to be more specific and distinctive and reflect our aesthetics and design principles.” Despite AI’s growing role in image creation, video tools have yet to see widespread adoption outside industries that rely on them, with 76% of respondents saying they don’t use them at all. Of those who do, Adobe Premiere Pro was the most popular application (15%), followed by Runway (5%), and Synthesia (3%). Among respondents who use AI to help write code, ChatGPT was most popular at 25%, Github Coplit was second at 10%, and Claude third at 8%. WHERE AI IS HELPING THE MOST (AND THE LEAST) We asked respondents how AI is affecting their creative work and overall business. A plurality of respondents praised production speed (44% “very positive”) and idea generation (35%), with marketing/promotion (25%) and revenue generation (25%) tying for third. Production speed and idea generation go hand in hand. Many respondents noted that AI allows them to focus on creative ideation by automating tedious tasks and enabling rapid iteration without the need for physical prototypes. “This dual transformation—amplifying creative potential while streamlining business operations—is why AI represents such a profound accelerator for the creator economy,” says Waller. “When harnessed the right way, it’s not replacing the creator’s voice. It’s supercharging it, and unlocking the next chapter of growth.” On the flip side, there were grave and consistent concerns about consumer trust. “My greatest fear is not about creativity,” said one respondent. “My greatest fear is that we are entering a dystopian era when people will lose trust in what they see and hear.” “I now doubt every video I see on the internet,” said another. “Everything is no longer a ‘wow’ video since it could possibly be AI.” We also asked for respondents’ views on how AI will affect the job market in their industries. Surprisingly, 39% said it would have neither a positive or a negative impact on job creation, and 34% said it would have a “somewhat positive” or “very positive” impact. Only 28% predicted the impact would be “somewhat negative” or “very negative” impact. But when asked to predict how many jobs in their industry would be replaced by AI, 42% replied that about a fifth of all jobs would be lost to machines. THE PARADOX OF AI That apparent contradiction reflects a macro theme that infused the survey results in a variety of ways: a sense that we are living through a technological shift that is existentially game-changing but ultimately still nascent. Think of it like a young and immensely talented athlete: The potential is indisputable and crystal clear, but the coordination and mastery just aren’t there yet. “It fails all the time in code, but I just test and ask for revisions,” said one respondent. “I used it to help prep me for a business meeting,” said another. “The client company had just emerged from Chapter 11, and ChatGPT didn’t think to mention that little fact.” Overall, though, most respondents took the rise of AI as an inevitable and ultimately positive thing that nevertheless requires human will to control. “Are you gonna let AI take over you,” asks Joel Bervell, the Medical Mythbuster, “or are you gonna let it enhance your work?” In that spirit of optimism, we’ll close with the most utopian anonymous comment in the entire survey: “I truly believe we are unlocking new insights into information, understanding, creativity and human potential, including our growing ability to understand the ecosystem we live in and the vast potential to coexist with each other and everything else in it. Let’s do this!!” View the full article

Shop around for a new car and you’ll come across an array of acronyms. There’s BEVs (battery electric vehicles), HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles), PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), and of course that’s all in contrast to ICE (internal combustion engine) cars. Soon, American shoppers could see another option on dealership floors: EREVs, or extended-range electric vehicles. EREVs are like a cross between a gas car and an electric vehicle, but different from a hybrid. The technology has been around for years and has seen success in China. Now, automakers across Europe and the United States are showing interest in the technology, hoping it can help more people transition away from gas cars—as long as it doesn’t cause more customer confusion. EREV vs hybrids An extended-range electric vehicle has an electric motor that uses energy from a battery. But it also has an internal combustion engine that kicks in to generate electricity when the battery loses its charge. EREVs can be plugged into any EV charger—even fast chargers, which take between 20 minutes to an hour to get an EV battery to 80%. That’s different from hybrids in a few ways. Hybrid cars also have a gas engine and an electric motor, but the gas engine directly powers the wheels when driving at higher speeds. HEVs also rely on regenerative braking to recharge the battery, and are never plugged in to charge. Plug-in hybrids have a bigger battery and, as their name says, can be plugged in to charge—but most aren’t compatible with fast chargers, and tend to charge more slowly. The Mazda EZ-6 [Photo: Mazda] EREVs then are even more of a middle ground between an electric vehicle and a gas car. The technology can extend a car’s range, alleviating that range anxiety that still plagues consumers. The Mazda EZ-6, an EREV currently available in China, boasts a total range of more than 800 miles with both its battery and gas engine, for example. But because they don’t solely rely on EV charging, they can also ease charging stress, especially in places that still don’t have enough EV chargers. EREVS aren’t new—but do consumers want them? EREVs have been available in China for years, and sales there have been picking up speed. EV sales are strong in China in general—Chinese brands account for more than three-quarters of global EV sales—and technological advancements have made EVs there ultra affordable. EREV sales more than doubled in China over the prior year, Bloomberg reported in August 2024, accounting for 30% of the country’s plug-in hybrid sales. But EREVs aren’t even that new to the U.S., says Patrick Hertzke, a partner at McKinsey & Company who focuses on the EV and automotive sector. The technology was in GM’s Chevy Volt and the Cadillac ELR, though production on those vehicles ended in February 2019 and February 2016, respectively. (The Cadillac ELR saw low sales of just over 3,000 units.) A Chevy Volt [Photo: jetcityimage/Getty Images] No EREVs are currently for sale stateside—but the concept is coming back. Ram has an EREV model in the works, as does Scout Motors, and Ford has hinted at looking into the tech. EREVs are still months or years away for U.S. customers, but the technology is taking hold as automakers look to amid concerns of charging stress and range anxiety, while also capitalizing on lower battery prices. “You have an ability to find this different blend that could be interesting to some consumers,” Hertzke says. McKinsey surveyed more than 2,000 U.S. drivers about EREVs, and whether they’d be likely to choose one, in late 2024. First, the survey asked what vehicle drivers would be interested in buying next, without listing EREVs as an option. To that, 44% of respondents said they’d pick a gas car, while 27% said a hybrid, 17% a full battery EV, and 10% a plug-in hybrid. When they asked again and added EREVs to the list, and explained that they’d get a combined range of 400 to 500 miles, 18% said they’d pick an EREV. And it wasn’t just people interested in full battery EVs that switched over. “[EREVs] stole share from all the others,” Hertzke says; the amount of people picking a gas car dropped by 6 points, hybrids by 7, and full battery EVs by 4. “It was really across the board exciting consumers as something new that might fit their lifestyle.” EREV confusion But getting consumers excited about EREVs means making sure they understand what they are, and that could be a challenge. Consumers are already inundated with multiple terms and lots of EV info, and so automakers need to clarify the differences with EREVs. Adding to that challenge is the fact that carmakers might brand their extended range options differently. “Some are saying EREV, some are saying REEV. Some are calling them super hybrids, some are going to call them hyper hybrids,” Hertzke says. Companies will have to make a decision about whether to brand these cars their own way or try to use an industry term. When talking to automaker clients, Hertzke says this is a big question they have about EREVs: “How do we communicate this appropriately to consumers and with our dealers, which are also now going to be inundated with more choice and more complexity?” Carmakers also have to figure out how to price these new models. Because they would use a smaller battery, the vehicles could potentially cost less than a full EV but more than a gas car. That could help entice more buyers, especially since EREVs could offer benefits that hybrid and gas cars don’t, like bidirectional charging. But automakers have been losing money on full battery EV sales, and so they may end up pricing EREVs a bit higher than necessary, as a way to make up some of those losses. “It’ll be very interesting to see how they’re positioned, how they’re priced, how they’re communicated to consumers, and that’s one of the hottest debates raging at automakers today,” Hertzke says. What U.S. automakers are doing next U.S. automakers are already working on rolling out some EREV options. Ram may be the closest; its 1500 Ramcharger is an EREV truck (though the Ram site calls it a “range-extended electric truck) expected in 2025. It’ll come with a range of 690 miles—higher than the current F150 Lightning range that tops out around 320 miles. Ford is also reportedly working on the technology for EREVs, though the company wouldn’t “speculate” about future products to Fast Company. A spokesperson noted that the brand has said that EREVs and other technologies “have the potential to offer more” when it comes to choices for customers. (Ford CEO Jim Farley has been vocal about driving—and loving—the Xiaomi SU7, a Chinese EV, and though that isn’t an EREV, Xiaomi has been working on such options, including an EREV SUV.) Scout Motors, a U.S. offshoot of Volkswagen, is also working on an extended range electric truck, called the Terra, as well as an SUV (both with a range of 500 miles), though neither are expected until 2027. “We fully expect we’re going to see more [EREV] models in the U.S. and in Europe [in the next two to three years], and we’re going to see more auto brands adopt these,” he says. “It’s going to create some pretty exciting new products. And we do expect to see consumers pretty interested in these once they understand them over time.” View the full article

Gen Z isn’t “quiet quitting”—they’re rejecting outdated leadership. That’s the conversation my recent Fast Company article sparked, and the response has been overwhelming. Leaders, managers, and employees from across industries have reached out, confirming what many of us have seen firsthand. Workplace culture is changing fast, and leadership needs to evolve with it. But as the dust settles on this conversation, I’ve been thinking about a different question: If leadership needs to evolve, what role does Gen Z play in shaping the change they want? It’s easy to say leadership is broken—and in many cases, it is. But just as bad leadership creates disengaged employees, disengaged employees can reinforce bad leadership. And while Gen Z is demanding more fairness, structure, and transparency from their workplaces, the truth is: building better leadership isn’t just a job for managers. Gen Z is in a unique position in the workforce. They’re the first generation that’ll work alongside more generations than any before them, whether that’s boomers delaying retirement, or Gen X, millennials, and even the generation coming up behind them. This isn’t just a leadership shift—it’s a multigenerational workplace shift. That means creating better workplaces will require something more than just rejecting old models—it will require bravery, self-advocacy, and a willingness to collaborate across generations. Past generations have valuable knowledge, hard-earned experience, and different perspectives that can help Gen Z navigate the workforce—if they engage with them. If Gen Z wants a different kind of workplace, they also have to play an active role in creating it. Here’s how. 1. Know the difference between bad leadership and imperfect leadership There’s a big difference between a truly toxic work environment and a flawed or frustrating one. Not every manager is a bad leader—many are undertrained, overwhelmed, or trying to adapt to the same changing workplace dynamics as everyone else. Instead of assuming leadership is the enemy, Gen Z employees can look for opportunities to bridge the gap. If they’re not sure about what the company expects, they should ask their manager. If they get inconsistent feedback, perhaps it’s worth requesting regular check-ins. When they wait for leadership to be “perfect” before engaging with it, it sets everyone up for failure. Ask yourself: Am I giving leadership the same patience I want them to give me? 2. Find common ground across generations Many credit Gen Z with bringing work-life balance back into the conversation. That’s a good thing. But sometimes, the conversation confuses balance with disengagement. Healthy boundaries mean knowing your limits and advocating for yourself. But they don’t mean withdrawing from conversations that can actually improve workplace culture. If you’re frustrated by leadership, speak up constructively and respectfully. If you see a manager is struggling, offer feedback or solutions. Employees that cocreate workplaces result in better cultures than companies that try to dictate their culture in a top-down manner. At the same time, finding common ground with older generations can make workplace relationships stronger. It’s easy to assume boomers and Gen Z have nothing in common, but that’s not always the case. Remember, bridging the gap doesn’t mean ignoring generational differences—it means looking for shared values and experiences. Ask yourself: Am I setting boundaries—or just checking out? Am I looking for ways to build connections across generations, or assuming those gaps are too big to close? 3. Be part of the solution, not just the critique A lot of companies don’t get Gen Z—there’s no denying that. But change doesn’t happen just by pointing out what’s wrong. The best way to shape workplace culture is to lead by example. Want more transparency? Be transparent in your own work. Want stronger communication? Initiate conversations and share ideas. Want a culture of fairness? Look for ways to support your colleagues, not just yourself. This is especially true in a multigenerational workplace. Each generation brings something to the table—and bridging that gap will require curiosity, mutual respect, and a willingness to learn from those who came before. The future of leadership is collaborative Yes, leadership needs to evolve. But Gen Z isn’t just the future of the workforce—they’re the future of leadership. And leadership isn’t something that just happens at the top. It happens every time someone takes initiative, creates clarity, or builds trust in the workplace. Leaders will not be the only ones building the workplace of the future. Teams, employees and managers need to work together if they want to create something better. That’s the real challenge—and the real opportunity. Is Gen Z ready to lead the change they want to see? View the full article

A new book on venture capital and private equity explores how those two forces have helped push homeownership further out of reach for millions of Americans. And the author believes that amid the deregulation and job cuts of the second Trump administration—staffing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development may be cut in half—consumers are even more likely to get a bad deal. “They’re playing with fire,” says civic technologist Catherine Bracy. “It’s catastrophic on a scale that I don’t have words for. What that means for the rental and mortgage market . . . it could put 2008 to shame.” In Bracy’s new book, World Eaters, she traces how venture capital and private equity came to be, how they impact the health of our economy and the labor market, and how they exacerbate inequity and the housing crisis. She chose that title because she believes the approach of venture capital—a sort of casino mentality, where big bets are encouraged despite the risks—is subsuming the economy, “eating industries and infecting the mindset of how people think about what the economy should be.” Bracy, who cofounded the nonprofit advocacy group TechEquity in 2016, has long pushed for more consumer protections and better transparency around tech business models. World Eaters traces how post-Great Recession opportunities allowed tech and VC money to get into the single-family rental home market and begin building out new housing products, including fractionalized ownership and rent-to-own pathways. These models have had mixed results. Fractionalized ownership firms like Landa have gotten into legal trouble, while Divvy, the massive rent-to-own company was subject to significant consumer complaints; it has been sold, with much of its staff laid off earlier this year. Bracy has a warning about how technology may further impact the housing market during the Trump administration. “Housing is the cornerstone of a normal person’s economic well being, so when you start to undermine consumer protections, when you start to . . . allow corporations to do whatever they want to do, that’s only going to be worse for consumers,” she said. How Property Tech Can Pressure Aspiring Homeowners Bracy argues that in many cases, property tech, or proptech, firms have presented themselves as companies seeking to help consumers who don’t traditionally qualify for homeownership. But Bracy argues, there’s a reason these customers were deemed too risky for traditional financial products, and perhaps they shouldn’t be placed in a position where they’re trying out untested or unregulated ideas. She believes the housing market is entering an even more unregulated phase that will allow a larger variety of tech firms to push new products and services; many consumer regulators with AI and tech experience have been let go from the federal government, and new federal guidance seeks to encourage alternative financing arrangements. “Even with the assumption that the government was there to provide consumer protections or civil rights protections [before this administration], there was still a feeling it was ripe for mass exploitation,” she said. “Now there’s none of that, and there will be more desperate people, so you’re increasing the market size.” Venture capital in real estate startups was basically nonexistent in 2008, Bracy notes, but by 2017, the market globally had grown to $9 billion, demonstrating the impact that these funding models and firms had on the market. She argues that while a number of issues, like zoning and construction costs, contribute to high housing costs, the VC models that have made single-family rental housing a large and growing asset class are exacerbating the problem. Bracy’s coverage of the housing market in World Eaters pays particular attention to a new generation of firms utilizing cryptocurrency and blockchain, such as LoftyAI. (Lofty didn’t respond to attempts to reach it for an interview.) Many focus on the idea of fractionalized ownership, and utilizing this technology to split the cost of ownership among many and make it easier to be a real estate investor, theoretically democratizing access. But Bracy argues that consumers often don’t understand the risks of their investments, and unwieldy ownership and operations mean the tenants living in these investments can suffer from nonresponsive landlords. She’s particularly alarmed at the legal grey area these firms reside in—there’s no real precedent in real estate securities law. That’s compounded by the fact that Trump has repeatedly professed his support for crypto, including a recent plan to create a national crypto reserve. “I would watch the crypto in the housing space,” Bracy said. “These models are terrifying, and they’re only going to get easier to build, scale, and replicate.” View the full article

Management at the Bay Area transportation startup Glydways wants you to be clear about what the company is not: It may plan to move people in futuristic autonomous pods, but it’s not hyperloop-grade vaporware. And its funding by big-name Silicon Valley investors does not make it a ride for the 1%. “Public transit for everyone, everywhere,” says founder Mark Seeger. But Glydways is starting smaller than that. Its first green-lit project (after a temporary test track now under construction next to an abandoned mall in Richmond, Calif.) and others under consideration by local governments will have Glydways’s four-seat electric vehicles plying short on-demand routes between existing business and transportation hubs. [Image: Glydways]That debut pilot effort—a half-mile route linking a convention center and arena to the last stop on a people mover outside Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport—is on a small enough scale to evoke the Vegas Loop that Elon Musk’s Boring Company opened as a shortcut between three of the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. “We want to see how well the system operates with various fluctuations of riders showing its ability to scale and that it is indeed a viable transit option,” says Krystal Harris, program director for ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts. After two years of free-fare service, that agency and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority will assess how things worked and if the technology merits expansion. Putting a cap on capexThe $18 million in construction and operational costs that Harris cited may seem steep for such a short distance, but not in the context of U.S. transit construction expenses that have made the country exceptional in the wrong way. For example, the $3 billion Silver Line extension that Washington’s Metro system opened to Washington Dulles International Airport and beyond in late 2022 cost $263 million a mile, including a large rail yard built by the airport. That, however, looks like an outright steal next to other U.S. rail projects, topped by the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access project in New York and its $3.5 billion a mile expense. Glydways, meanwhile, touts a design for simple, narrow guideways that require neither rails nor electric power via overhead wires or third rails that it says will cost 90% less than traditional transit. [Image: Glydways]“We can do it for tens of millions,” Glydways CEO Gokul Hemmady says, adding that at-grade costs could run still lower at just $2 to $3 million per mile while elevated paths needed to avoid grade crossings could run $15 million a mile. “The moment you’re in pedestrian-class infrastructure, your costs plummet,” he says. “The world knows how to build this.” Construction costs of some recent U.S. cyclist and pedestrian infrastructure fall roughly into that minor-league ballpark. A trail being built along the SMART commuter-rail line in Sonoma and Marin counties in California has run about $4 million a mile. Two bridges on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail constructed over wide roads in Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia had project costs around $30 million a mile. But a veteran transit consultant who has led projects in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand warned against expense extrapolation. Writes Jarrett Walker: “They will have to build out a demo project before we know.” No human operators, some operating costsThe operational part of the Glydways pitch involves leveraging autonomous-vehicle advances to provide high-frequency, on-demand service around the clock at fares not that far above traditional transit—with the ability to transport 10,000 people an hour. “We offer ride-hailing-like experience at a fraction of the cost,” says Hemmady. Pressed for an example, he cites the Oakland Airport Connector, an automated, elevated train that runs between that airport and Bay Area Rapid Transit’s Oakland Coliseum station for a one-way fare of $7.45. But while those fares covered 96% of the connector’s operating costs pre-pandemic, Hemmady says Glydways’s lower costs—30% of other modes of transit, the company says—will let it clear a profit: “We are the only mass transit system that is revenue positive.” A Glydways vehicle shown off at CES 2025 was all shiny modernity, with a streamlined exterior hiding camera, lidar and radar sensors, and large doors that slid open to reveal a clean plastic interior with tap-to-pay terminals by those doors. The closest visual parallel: the pod-like Zoox robotaxis now rolling around Vegas in test drives. The lack of human operators or attendants has led some critics to raise safety concerns, but Glydways emphasizes that short waits at stations and the limited number of passengers per vehicle will keep it safe. [Animation: Glydways]Older, almost as small-scale “personal rapid transit” systems built on older autonomous technology—such as one that runs between campuses of West Virginia University in Morgantown, W. Va.—have operated without incident for decades. Larger automated-train systems rely on a combination of surveillance and patrolling. For example, Vancouver’s SkyTrain equips its driverless trains with emergency intercom systems and contact systems while having attendants and transit police at stations. Next stopsAfter the Atlanta pilot, Glydways has advanced to final stages of consideration in a San Jose project to link that city’s Caltrain and Amtrak train station with San José Mineta International Airport—a 3.4 mile route that Google Maps estimates as a seven-minute drive but a 40-plus-minute transit adventure. Glydways says it can build that mostly elevated route, with its vehicles taking eight minutes between the station and the airport, for under the city’s $500 million cost cap but isn’t specifying a cost estimate. The city council should be voting on its proposal, which allows for possible extensions to such nearby traffic generators as Apple’s headquarters, in the coming weeks. [Image: Glydways]This company has a comparable plan not far north of San Jose in Contra Costa County, where it’s pitched its technology as an automated transit network to provide transportation from train stations to nearby destinations. And in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario, Glydways has advanced a proposal to use its vehicles in a tunnel to connect Ontario International Airport with the closest Metrolink commuter-rail station. The Boring Company had earlier offered a version of the Vegas Loop concept but abandoned that bid in 2022. Glydways’s proposition of robotic transportation has the advantage of not having to coexist with human-driven traffic like robotaxis like Waymo. And the company has the advantage of funding from such deep-pocketed investors as the VC firm Khosla Ventures and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. But in the realm of transit, self-driving technology isn’t something Glydways invented, and many transit agencies outside the U.S. already employ it on higher-capacity subway and light-rail lines. And as autonomous mobility continues to advance on public roads, Walker suggests that established transit operators will be able to make better use of it than any startup that has to pour new concrete—even if the technology goes into something as unfancy as buses. Says Walker: “If driverless technology becomes available, debugged, and socially accepted, there will be all kinds of applications, including much bigger-vehicle services that will be a better use of scarce space in dense cities.” View the full article

Over the past year, a growing number of corporate employers have shown signs of backing away from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the workplace, amid mounting social pressures and the risk of litigation from right-wing activists. President Trump’s recent executive orders—which explicitly threaten legal action against the private sector over “illegal DEI” practices—have only exacerbated those concerns, leading companies to take more forceful action or, at a minimum, reevaluate their diversity programs. In a report released today by the research insights firm Gravity Research, nearly three-quarters of corporate executives claim that potential federal investigations into corporate DEI have been keeping them “up at night.” This sentiment was nearly universal across the finance sector, with 95% of leaders expressing those concerns—in line with reports that Wall Street firms have pared back their DEI initiatives over the last year. “When we actually talk to our clients, there’s a lot of question marks around: ‘I thought we were legally compliant,’” says Gravity Research president Luke Hartig, noting that the group of employers surveyed includes Fortune 500 companies. “We don’t have a clear answer to that question just yet. However, the fact that 74% said that they fear federal investigations tells us that it’s at least creating a sense of fear and anxiety among these large companies, even if we’re still uncertain as to exactly how far this can go.” The report also captures how many companies have responded to the executive orders and anti-DEI movement, with 64% saying they were redefining or rebranding their DEI functions—a common shift among employers that have altered their DEI programs recently. Many companies reported altering their public messaging on DEI: In 2025 alone, 66% of companies say they have cut back on the use of DEI terminology in their external communications. That can mean curtailing mentions of “equity” or the acronym DEI, opting instead for terms like “inclusion” and “belonging,” which might be less loaded. “We know terminology matters, but the work is more important,” one executive explained as part of the survey. “We are striving to communicate in a way that won’t attract undue attention so we can protect the work versus having to defend the work with external actors.” And yet, many companies are still worried about how their workers may react to these changes, with 60% of respondents saying they expected to see employees mobilize on political or social issues. In fact, the majority of respondents said they were “feeling pressure to make an internal statement reaffirming their commitment to inclusion and belonging,” according to Hartig, though only 28% have actually done so. Despite all the pushback to corporate DEI—and the changes that have already been made at a number of companies—most of them are still not entirely culling their ranks. Gravity Research found that most employers were not eliminating C-suite DEI roles, though certain sectors were more likely to do so; this shift was especially evident in the consumer staples sector, where 20% of employers had made changes to C-suite DEI positions. Even prior to Trump’s executive orders, however, consumer companies and retailers have been particularly vulnerable to the DEI backlash, as evidenced by the response to conservative activist Robby Starbuck’s social media campaigns over the last year. “When [we] talk to the chief diversity officer community, we definitely hear a lot of anxiety about the future of DEI-dedicated functions within companies,” Hartig says. “But certainly the research shows that they are not getting rid of it all together.” As Fast Company has reported, plenty of companies have continued to stand their ground on DEI or have made minimal changes to protect against potential legal risks. That much is also clear from the report, which indicates that 80% of companies are “actively monitoring” anti-DEI laws and legal challenges, rather than taking immediate action. While a good share of employers have adopted semantic changes, their approach has been more conservative as it relates to cutting DEI programs. About half of respondents have revised DEI trainings, but few have taken more significant steps like cutting employee resource groups. That said, a sizable portion of employers (34%) are now reconsidering their participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual survey measuring workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ workers, which can be traced back to the anti-DEI campaign that Starbuck has waged across social media. Several major companies—including McDonald’s, Target, and Walmart—have already pulled out of the HRC survey in recent months. As Hartig points out, moves like this appear to be motivated more by social pressure than by legal consequences. Gravity Research has found that even companies that have yet to bow out of the survey are now more reticent to advertise their scores publicly—which many employers have long used to send a signal to LGBTQ+ workers. “At least from major companies, we’ve seen virtually no publicization of their HRC scores,” Hartig says. “This was something that companies previously touted and used as a sign of being an inclusive employer. Will that change as we get closer to Pride month? Will companies start to talk about that? Maybe. But it certainly reflects a broader movement from the corporate community.” View the full article

Healthcare.gov, the government health insurance marketplace website, launched in October 2013 only to buckle under the weight of just 2,000 simultaneous users. As millions of Americans stared at error messages and frozen screens, a political crisis unfolded, but so did a new era of government technology. The result was 18F, an in-house digital services consulting agency that brought Silicon Valley expertise to government, challenging decades of outdated procurement practices and introducing a radical new approach to building digital public services. Founded on March 19, 2014, by Presidential Innovation Fellows, 18F was housed within the Technology Transformation Services department of the General Services Administration, or GSA. The name 18F was derived from the address of GSA headquarters: 1800 F Street. On March 1, 2025, just a few weeks shy of 18F’s 11th anniversary, the Trump administration eliminated the agency and laid off its staff. As a researcher who studies public administration and technology, I have observed the transformational role 18F played in government digital services. The unit’s elimination raises the question of what the future of those services will look like. Impact of 18F 18F served a unique role as an in-house digital consultancy for the U.S. government, drawing on innovative strategies to improve public service through technology. Within 18F, teams consisting of designers, software engineers, strategists, and product managers worked together with federal, state, and local agencies to not only fix technical problems but to build, buy, and share technology that helped to modernize and improve the public’s experience with government services. Over nearly 11 years, 18F built an impressive portfolio of successful digital projects that transformed how people interact with the U.S. government. Even if the average person is unfamiliar with 18F, the odds are quite high that they have at least encountered one of its many products or services. For example, 18F supported the Internal Revenue Service in creating IRS Direct File, a free online tax filing tool that provides taxpayers with a simplified filing process. As of today, IRS Direct File is available in 25 states and is expected to serve 30 million eligible taxpayers during the 2025 tax filing season. 18F has been pivotal in modernizing and securing digital systems to help create more streamlined and secure user experiences for the public. For instance, Login.gov is a secure single sign-on platform that simplifies access to multiple government services for users. Perhaps the most notable of 18F’s modernization efforts that touches nearly every aspect of government today is the U.S. Web Design System. The comprehensive design system was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Digital Service in 2015. It helps support dozens of agencies and makes nearly 200 websites more accessible and responsive to user needs. How 18F worked What set 18F apart was its approach. Rather than spending years on giant information technology contracts that often failed to deliver, 18F championed agile development. Agile and lean methodologies have been popular in Silicon Valley startups and software companies for decades due to their flexibility and focus on rapid iteration. By applying agile development principles, 18F focused on breaking down large projects into manageable pieces with incremental improvements based on frequent user feedback. This approach allowed continuous adaptation spurred by user feedback and changing requirements while reducing risk. Another cornerstone of 18F’s innovative approach was its focus on user-centered design. By focusing on the needs of the people who actually used government services, 18F was able to go beyond merely satisfying technical requirements to design digital products that were more accessible and user-friendly. The idea was to understand the end users and the problems they encountered in order to effectively design products and solutions that addressed their needs. It also aimed to provide a consistent user experience and earn the users’ trust in the services. By prioritizing open-source development and collaboration, 18F also helped to make government IT more affordable. Making project code transparent meant that agencies could reuse the code and reduce the cost of duplicate development efforts across agencies and levels of government. 18F also had a hand in helping agencies develop their own technology capacity, whether by teaching them how to build software using open-source development and agile methodologies or by teaching agencies how to hire and oversee technology vendors themselves. This model was especially beneficial for state and local agencies following 18F’s expansion in 2016 to provide services to state and local government agencies that receive federal funding. End of an era The elimination of 18F marks the end of an era, raising concerns about both current and future technology projects. As of now, there does not appear to be a succession plan, leaving many federal agencies without ongoing support for their digital transformation efforts. Critics also argue that the loss of 18F means the loss of significant technical expertise within the government. These changes come at a time when agencies are experiencing substantial personnel shifts, rendering digital services potentially even more critical. As agencies brace for more personnel cuts, the public may need to rely more on digital services to fill the gap amid growing staffing shortages. Since the news was announced, current and former 18F team members as well as advocates of the unit have taken to social media platforms, including X, Bluesky, and LinkedIn, to share stories of its successes, honor its legacy, and share 18F resources. Kayla Schwoerer is an assistant professor of public administration & policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Project 2025 called for the privatization of all sorts of government agencies and services, and Elon Musk—who has been helping enact that plan—said this week that the U.S. should privatize Amtrak specifically, calling the national passenger rail service a “sad situation.” It’s not the first time Amtrak privatization has been suggested, or that the rail system has been criticized. Train travel in the U.S. is notoriously lacking: Huge regions of the country aren’t serviced by rail; trains are often delayed or have infrastructure issues; and tickets can be expensive, making driving or even flying more affordable for many people. But privatization wouldn’t solve those issues, experts say. Instead, it could add operational costs, deteriorate service, result in higher fairs, and still leave the system unprofitable. Musk’s interest in privatization is another example of the way he has tried to kill government-funded transportation to serve his own interests, notably his Hyperloop project, which undermined high-speed rail efforts in California. Musk’s conflicts of interest Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have taken unprecedented steps to shrink the federal government. While dismantling those services, Musk has also attempted to further his own companies, for example pushing his Starlink broadband product as a solution to outdated air-traffic control systems. Musk has also targeted agencies that specifically investigated or fined his companies. “[Musk] has some power and authority, it seems now, to sell off pieces of federal work and assets, but he also seems to have his hand out to get some of these contracts,” says Donald Cohen, director of In the Public Interest, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, and author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back. “Just because of that, he’s not the right voice to be listening to on how to make government better, because he’s clearly got some interest in getting his hands on multibillion-dollar contracts.” In a 2015 biography of Musk, author Ashlee Vance wrote that part of Musk’s motivations behind announcing the Hyperloop were to force the cancellation of California’s high-speed rail development. (Despite getting hundreds of millions of dollars in funding—even some from the 2021 infrastructure bill—the Hyperloop company shut down in 2023.) Musk has voiced animosity toward mass transit for years, instead sharing his preference for private cars. And he has an interest, of course, in selling Teslas. Privatized Amtrak: Higher costs, worse service, safety concerns Still, Musk isn’t the only one to suggest privatizing Amtrak; it’s been a conservative talking point for years. In 2003, urban planning expert Elliott Sclar wrote a report for the Economic Policy Institute in response to that faction, called Amtrak Privatization: The Route to Failure. “The passenger rail service is blamed for failing to show a profit,” he wrote. But this insistence that Amtrak should be profitable “is an effort to impose a highly selective business model on what is really a public service.” If Amtrak were privatized, it could actually mean fewer rail options for the country. A private model would likely eliminate rural routes with low ridership that don’t make as much money as more popular ones. (Amtrak’s state-sponsored routes, in contrast, don’t have profit goals because the states simply want to provide residents with ridership options.) Cohen points to the privatization of hospitals as an example of this effect: “Rural hospitals are closing because there aren’t enough patients,” he says. “The market is exactly the wrong place to put something if you want a rail transportation system that meets the needs of all of America.” Amtrak has a unique structure; technically it operates as a for-profit company, not a public authority, but the president appoints its board of directors and the federal government is its majority stockholder. It also gets funding from both federal and state sources depending on the type of route. Privatizing Amtrak wouldn’t necessarily make it cheaper to operate—which is true for any entity, as all the business expenses (executive compensation, shareholder returns, debt) would still be there, plus a private company would seek to maximize profits by cutting costs and charging more. That could happen by paying workers less, reducing staffing, or cutting corners that would affect safety. Employing fewer workers is a safety issue itself, because overworking a short staff can lead to fatigue and errors, an issue the freight rail industry has been dealing with in recent years. After cutting costs, a privatized Amtrak could also raise prices for consumers—either on tickets, or by adding extra charges for things like baggage. We’ve already seen private airlines take these steps, increasing baggage fees and charging other “junk fees” on top of base ticket prices. It’s also often more expensive to fly to a smaller town or “spoke city” than to a major airport hub, because—just like for rural rail lines—the demand for those routes isn’t as high. The privatization of British Rail is an example of these impacts, and is largely seen as a failure. Once state-owned, British Rail was privatized in the early 1990s by the right-wing Tory government. Afterward, one union report revealed that at least 1.5 billion pounds (nearly $2 million) “leaks out of Britain’s railways every year” because of its operating companies, subcontractors, or other costs; little of that is reinvested in the railway. For passengers, rail costs in Britain are almost 8% higher than they were before privatization. After privatization, British Rail also experienced notable safety issues, including four fatal accidents that led to 49 deaths. Britain has since reversed course, passing a bill in 2024 to renationalize its rail services. Privatizing Amtrak wouldn’t totally erase the need for federal transit funding, either. Brightline West, a private high-speed rail line in the works between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, California, once said that project would require “no capital or operating funding from the government.” But it’s since sought, and received, a $3 billion federal grant. If private companies took over Amtrak, they also wouldn’t have the right to operate on freight tracks, which own 97% of Amtrak’s route network. Amtrak has that right through federal statutes, but it’s not transferable to private companies. Amtrak is almost profitable—but that’s not the point Though Amtrak has never made a profit, its business has been growing. The rail service saw an all-time high ridership record in 2024, and has plans to double its ridership by 2040. “Amtrak’s business performance is strong. Ridership and revenue are at all-time highs, and transformative projects are underway that will greatly improve the customer experience,” a spokesperson told Fast Company. By maintaining this momentum, Amtrak says it’s “on track to reach operational profitability—for the first time in history—during this administration.” Privatizing Amtrak now could jeopardize that progress, Cohen says. But still, profitability isn’t the point, especially when you consider the benefit rail transportation provides. This goes back to the idea of Amtrak being a public service—even a public good. By Cohen’s definition, to be a public good a service shouldn’t be something we need individually, but rather something everyone needs, and something that we all benefit from having. Even if someone doesn’t have children, for example, public education benefits them because it’s in everyone’s interest to have an educated nation. The same argument could be made for transportation. Train travel options help prevent more car and air travel, which have disastrous environmental effects, and which come with other costs like traffic. Rail also helps people live in many different places, or be able to travel around for tourism. “For mobility, for transit, it’s in our interest for people to get to work,” Cohen says, “without polluting our environment.” View the full article

President Donald Trump talks of big change in his second term of office. But he’s not forgetting small change, either. Trump ordered the Treasury Department to stop making pennies with a February 10 sentence on his social media account that followed years of conservatives pointing out that putting a copper-coated zinc disc in your pocket costs the government more than a cent—almost 4 cents today. Will Trump’s order make the penny disappear? There is no sign that the U.S. Mint will stop pressing pennies in Denver and Philadelphia, and Mint officials did not respond to requests for clarification this week. But the presidential penny pledge is already being felt in one niche world. It’s a little-known world that depends on buying pennies wholesale, loading them into machines and persuading parents to feed a few dollars into machines that stamp designs on the pennies—Paw Patrol, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—as they are stretched between metal rollers at funfairs. Small orbits of collectors and craftsmen have developed around them. And without the penny, the whole thing faces an uncertain future. The last pennies? New copper pennies vanished from circulation in 1982—73 years after the first Lincoln penny was minted. They were replaced by coins of mostly zinc thinly coated with copper. The solid copper old ones were more pliable and easier to stamp, making them hot items for kids at funfairs. “They’ll clean ’em so when they elongate the dino or shark of the printed coin it maintains a ghost image of the printed head of Lincoln,” said Brian Peters, general manager of Minnesota-based Penny Press Machine Co. “Pre-1982 copper pennies, they bring those.” Jeweler Angelo Rosato worked for decades in the 1960s and ’70s hand-printing pennies with scenes of their New Milford, Connecticut, hometown and historical and sentimental scenes. Everything was obsessively cataloged, including more than 4,000 penny photographs. “We’re big fans of the penny. Keep the penny,” said Aaron Zablow of Roseland, New Jersey, who was with two of his sons at the American Dream mall. “I like the pennies,” his 9-year-old son Mason said. Some don’t want the U.S. to stop making cents Critics say the rise of electronic commerce and the billions of pennies in circulation mean the U.S. could stop printing the copper coins tomorrow and see little widespread effect for decades. But some people are watching fearfully to see if Trump’s public critique of the penny will affect their business. Alan Fleming, of Scotland, is the owner of Penny Press Factory, one of a number around the world that manufacture machines that flatten and stamp coins. “A lovely retired gentleman in Boston sold me over 100,000 uncirculated cents a couple of years ago but he doesn’t have any more,” Fleming wrote. “I will need to purchase new uncirculated cents within the next 12 months to keep my machines supplied and working!” Regardless of what happens to niche businesses like Fleming’s, penny defenders say they’re an important tool for lubricating the economy even if they’re a money-losing proposition. Since the invention of money, humankind has wrangled with the question of small change, how to denominate amounts so small that the metal coin itself is actually worth more. In 2003, Thomas J. Sargent and another economist wrote “The Big Problem of Small Change,” billed as “the first credible and analytically sound explanation” of why governments had a hard time maintaining a steady supply of small change because of the high costs of production. Why pay money for coins? In a digital world with the line blurring between the real and the virtual, tactile coins have been reassuring. “What this all tells you about the United States as a country is that it’s an incredibly conservative country when it comes to money,” said Ute Wartenberg, executive director of the American Numismatic Society. Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters are sometimes designed by artists laser-sculpting tiny portraits of leaders and landmarks using special software. “It’s pretty cool because when I tell people what I do I just say my initials are on the penny,” Joseph Menna, the 14th chief engraver of the United States Mint, said in the 2019 film Heads-Up: Will We Stop Making Cents? Fleming is hoping some lobbying may help: “Maybe we should take a trip to Washington and ask to speak to President Trump and Elon Musk and see if we can cut a deal on buying millions of pennies from them.” —By Michael Weissenstein and Joseph B. Frederick, Associated Press View the full article

As artificial intelligence begins to “devour the world,” job seekers must adapt their strategy to stand out in the hiring process. Hiring managers have begun to populate their interviews with questions about how prospective employees use AI in their work. According to industry experts, these types of questions will become more common as time goes on and AI continues to advance. In fact, 88% of C-suite leaders say speeding up AI adoption is important over the next year, according to LinkedIn’s 2025 Work Change Report. This can be daunting for people who don’t work in technology. You certainly don’t want to tell a hiring manager that you use ChatGPT to write and ideate everything for you, but you also don’t want to seem behind. We asked three hiring experts in different industries how non-techies can best navigate questions about AI in a job interview. Tip 1: Show curiosity Good news! Not being skilled in AI isn’t a deal-breaker. Even if you are far from an AI expert, you should highlight your curiosity about the technology in your interviewing process, notes Gillian Davis, chief people officer at strategic communications firm Mission North. She recommends that job applicants speak about a willingness to learn and adapt quickly. “It’s most important that you’re interested in AI, that you have a curiosity about it, and that you’re willing to look at it as a powerful complement to talent,” Davis says. AI is most powerful in the PR and communications space when it’s used as a way to tackle the mundane tasks, she says. Davis suggests showing off your understanding of what AI’s capabilities are, how you can apply it to real-world scenarios, and your willingness to continue learning about and adapting to the new technology. For example, you could talk about ways you’ve used AI to be more productive and to free yourself up to perform the highest-value parts of your work. Davis says when she speaks with potential hires who are wary of integrating AI into their work, she sees it as a “red flag” for Mission North. “That’s just not the world we live in anymore,” she says. Tip 2: Know who you’re dealing with Most of the largest organizations in the world are adopting AI and looking for creative ways to use the technology, according to Siobhan Savage, CEO of workplace intelligence platform Reejig. To best understand any company’s outlook on AI, Savage recommends combing through its most recent earnings report, noting that CEOs are often “very vocal” about their companies’ AI attitudes. Savage suggests providing specific examples about how you use AI to optimize your work if you’re interviewing for a company that’s embracing the technology. If instead the company hasn’t spoken much about AI adoption, she suggests highlighting the fact that you’re keeping up to date with all the latest developments. For example, you could share that you’ve used AI to automate the more mundane parts of your job, or discuss how you’ve heard other people use it in your industry. “Whether you’re in tech or PR, it doesn’t matter,” Savage says. “Everyone in a company cares about productivity.” Tip 3: Even if there’s no right opinion, have one When interviewing potential hires for his PR firm, Shore Fire president Mark Satlof likes to use questions about AI as small talk. But he treats applicants’ answers like a Rorschach test where he learns a lot about their work ethic and values, he says. “You can answer it a million different ways and I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer,” Satlof says. He notes, however, that he would not be interested in hiring someone who says they will never use AI. He wants prospective employees to “have a stance” and “show engagement” with technological developments. It’s okay if someone is skeptical of AI or, alternatively, completely gung ho about the technology. Satlof just wants your opinion to be grounded in research and knowledge. He recommends that job applicants do their research before any interview about the various areas and capabilities of AI. For example, he says applicants should understand the difference between the broad catchall of AI versus the specifics of what a large language model is. (If you’re wondering: AI refers to everything a computer does that simulates complex tasks, and LLMs are a type of AI that interprets and generates human language.) Applying for jobs can be a stressful experience, and it can be hard to know the right thing to say at all times. But by researching the company, brushing up on the basics of AI, and expressing a willingness to learn, you can present yourself as a good fit for any job. View the full article

As toy inventors, toy manufacturers and buyers for stores that sell toys met for a four-day annual trade show in New York last weekend, a topic besides which items were destined for holiday wish lists permeated the displays. President Donald Trump had announced days before that he planned to increase the extra tariff he put on Chinese imports in February to 20%. Would he? By Tuesday, the last day of the Toy Fair, attendees had their answer, and the talk about how it would affect the prices of playthings grew more urgent. Nearly 80% of the toys sold in the U.S. are sourced from China, according to the Toy Association, a national industry group that sponsors the show formerly known as the North American International Toy Fair. Many toy makers are now renegotiating prices with retailers and taking a hard look at their products to see if they can cut costs. Greg Ahearn, president and CEO of the Toy Association, said price increases of 15% to 20% are expected on games, dolls, cars, and other toys by the back-to-school shopping season. The price range that U.S. consumers are willing to pay is anywhere from $4.99 to $19.99, leaving little wiggle room to raise prices, he said. “It’s untenable,” Ahearn said, noting that small businesses make up roughly 96% of the American toy industry. Trump also moved forward this week with 25% tariffs on products imported from Canada and Mexico. Some companies have moved some of their manufacturing to Mexico to be closer to the U.S. On Wednesday, though, the president granted U.S. automakers a one-month exemption from the tariffs on the neighboring North American nations. Trump’s changing statements and policies on tariffs have made it challenging for toy companies to plan accordingly. Basic Fun CEO Jay Foreman said he didn’t rush late last year to get shipments of Tonka trucks, Care Bears, and other toys his Boca Raton, Florida-based company produces in China because he wasn’t sure if the 60% tariff on Chinese goods that Trump discussed on the campaign trail would come to pass. “If you plan in a chaotic environment, you have a much greater chance of being wrong than being right,” Foreman said when interviewed Sunday at his Toy Fair booth. All of Basic Fun’s toy products are made in China except for K’Nex, a construction set made in the U.S., he said. After Trump instead imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods last month, Foreman said he worked hard to persuade retailers to share some of the cost so he didn’t have to pass it on to consumers. Now that the import duty has doubled, he said he will have to raise prices for many of his items. For example, a Tonka Classic Steel Mighty Dump Truck, which now retails for $29.99, will likely go up to $39.99 as early as the fall, Foreman said. The Toy Association lobbied hard to exempt the toy industry from the 10% to 25% tariffs Trump levied on Chinese goods during his first term. The group lobbied again this time around, trying to educate members of Congress that toy companies can’t replicate the expertise found in Chinese factories. Ahearn noted there’s a lot of sophistication of manufacturing and craftsmanship that has been built up over time over generations in China. The high-skilled and lower-cost labor force that is available in China is not available currently, and it will take this same amount of time to build that up. Some toy companies are looking at ways to avoid raising prices. Steve Rad, CEO of toy maker Abacus Brands, said the Austin-based company considered switching to factories in countries like Cambodia or Vietnam, but concluded they don’t have the same level of skills. He does, however, plan to start having one of the company’s China-made products manufactured in the United States. Abacus Brands found a Texas factory that said it could produce Pixicade, which converts doodles and drawings into playable video games, at no additional cost. The U.S.-made version is expected to be in stores by August, Rad said. Other Abacus Brands toys are more complex, Rad said, and he doesn’t see making them in the U.S. as feasible. Instead, he’s exploring whether he can lower costs by cutting some product features. Foreman, of Basic Fun, said he plans to offer new spins on his existing toys to make them look new. Take Mash’ems, which are soft, water-filled collectibles that feature different licensed characters packaged in small cardboard boxes. “Maybe I’ll change the color of the box,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll put it in a plastic container.” Some retailers already have received letters from toy suppliers announcing immediate price increases. Richard Derr is the owner of the Learning Express franchise in Lake Zurich, Illinois, and president of the 85-member Learning Express franchise council. He questions if those suppliers are acting in good faith since many of them had sped up deliveries from China ahead of the tariffs. He and other Learning Express franchisees are studying alternatives to suppliers that suddenly want to raise prices, Derr said. He said he isn’t too worried about customers comparing what a toy costs compared with the year before since 65% of his products are new to the market. “We are in the era of one day, one thing, one day, two things, and it changes up and down,” Derr said. “So to put out something now, I think, is just preparing the stew when in fact the stew may not even be cooked.” —By Anne D’Innocenzio, AP business writer View the full article

All services from Paris Gare du Nord have been cancelled while French police work to remove explosive deviceView the full article

Mortgage lender says short supply and strong demand will push prices higher this yearView the full article

And the vibes ahead of today’s jobs reportView the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. CEO is making two finalist candidates have dinner with him at the same time Wondering if you can tell me if this situation is as crazy as I think it is. My company is hiring for an executive level role for an office we are standing up in a new state. This role will report to our CEO and it’s important we get the right person in place. We’ve narrowed it down to two final candidates, they have interviewed with other C-suite employees, and the feedback is similar on both candidates (both would likely be great in the role). Our CEO wants to take them both to dinner … at same time, together. After I pushed back on this idea, the CEO brought it up in a larger team meeting, and every person agreed this wasn’t a good idea. But our CEO is convinced this is the way to go. His reasoning is a little competition would be good for them and help him make the final decision. Beyond being unprofessional, I think this would make the candidates question our culture and if they even want the role. I feel like this is a disaster in the making. Is there a scenario when taking two candidates to the same business dinner would be a good idea? No, this is a terrible idea! Any decent candidate is going to wonder if your management culture pits people against each other in dysfunctional ways, and it’s going to be an awkward position for both of them.. Hiring isn’t about candidates going head to head with each other at the same dinner table; it’s about the employer assessing candidates against their own set of metrics and deciding who’s the strongest match. A lot of excellent candidates would be turned off by this and decline. That said, if they’d be taking a job with a CEO who thinks “a little competition is good for them,” it’s probably better that they find that out now. 2. My manager eavesdrops on conversations My manager has a habit of eavesdropping: she will lurk around a corner listening to a conversation for a couple of minutes then appear, having taken a side. I find this really creepy. Recently she took it to a whole new level. A supervisor and I were having a somewhat heated discussion about something in a room where it’s quite hard to eavesdrop (thick doors). My manager came into the room and walked over to a computer and started using it. Our discussion paused and I said something like, “Uh, do you want to be involved in this conversation, Mary-Jane?” and she said no, she was just there because someone had left a computer logged in, which is a security issue. We stood there awkwardly as she fiddled with the computer (logging out takes two seconds), just the three of us in the room. Eventually the conversation continued and she continued to pretend she wasn’t listening. Later on I got written up for being disrespectful to the supervisor in that conversation. There isn’t really a question here, but, your thoughts? Well, your manager is an eavesdropper. I don’t know that it’s creepy, per se, but it’s weird — she’s your boss so she has the authority to just involve herself if she wants to, rather than pretending that she’s not listening until she’s suddenly responding. There might be some circumstances where you can sort of call it out, by saying, “Mary-Jane, you look like you’re paying attention — do you want to give input?” In some situations, if you have a ton of capital (and I mean a really significant amount) and want to use some of it, then after she’s popped up having clearly been lurking around the corner, you could say, “It always throws me off to realize someone has been listening where we can’t see them! I would rather you just join us straight away in the future.” (But you need to be deeply valued and your job rock solid, for that to even approach being a good idea, and even then it’s probably not worth it unless you’re about to lose your mind over this.) Beyond that, all you can really do is be aware that she does this, so if you ever don’t want her to pop up in a conversation or opine on it later, pick your locations carefully. But I’m curious what else she’s like as a manager, because my guess is that this isn’t the only way she’s weird about how she exercises authority. To be clear, there are times as a manager where it’s useful and legitimate to listen into conversations that you’re not an active part of — like paying attention to how an employee talks to coworkers or explains a project on a client call. But it shouldn’t be a covert thing, where people assume they have privacy and really don’t, or where it makes people feel scrutinized or micromanaged or like they don’t have any autonomy. More here: I can hear everything my staff says — should I pretend I don’t? 3. I’m panicking in my new job I’m a marketer with 13+ years experience in my field. Throughout my career, I’ve established a reputation for having a strong work ethic, being an expert in my role, and being a smart, dependable teammate. I was at my most recent role for four years, and in the beginning it was great. I even received a departmental award for my work. About midway through my tenure there, I got a new boss who, after a few months, made my working environment really toxic. (She constantly switched up expectations and goals, had me constantly reexplain very basic parts of the job more than a year in, and would accuse me of doing things I never did.) Fast forward to just before Christmas this past year, I got fired for a situation that was largely out of my control. I threw myself into the job search and was lucky enough to start a new role after two months of unemployment. It’s a fully remote job in the same field (marketing) but in a wildly different industry. It’s been 2.5 weeks and I feel completely overwhelmed. Everyone has been nice and said it’ll take a while to catch up and to reach out with any questions but I can’t get a read on my boss. She’s clearly very good at her job, but is also very busy, so there hasn’t been a ton of onboarding. I’m terrified of not meeting expectations or catching up quickly enough and being fired again. Is this a normal feeling for any new job, or is this a reflection of my fit with this company? Also, is it bad if, at the six-month mark, I start job searching again if I still feel the same way I do today? It’s a very normal feeling. If you’re still feeling this way in six months — or better yet, eight — then sure, start looking around, but two and a half weeks is nothing and it’s really common to be feeling this way, even for a job you will master in time. It might help to think about specifically what’s making you feel unmoored. Can you make a list of questions that you’d feel more settled/secure if you knew the answers to? Are there people with similar roles who you can ask to coffee, say you’re feeling overwhelmed, and ask for help setting in? Also, if she hasn’t already covered this, try asking your boss what she’d like to see you accomplish in one month, three months, and six months, since knowing that might help you get your bearings. Last, is there one project you can pick to dive into, asking questions of colleagues as you go? Picking just one project when you’re overwhelmed in a new position can sometimes be a good way into the job and to learn as you go. 4. Questions to ask when interviewing for my own job I have been doing my role on a temporary basis for 2.5 years. Soon I have to interview for it on a permanent basis. What kind of question can I ask which won’t sound like I don’t understand the role or the organization? You can ask about what goals they have for the role over the next year (or next few years) and if there’s anything they want to see the person in the job approach differently than has been historically done. If there are known challenges or changes on the horizon (or ongoing), you can ask about how those will affect the job. Plus, think about anything else that might be on your mind — are there things you wish you knew about their vision for the role/strategy/etc.? If so, think about whether you can shape those into useful questions. Related: how to prepare for an internal interview View the full article

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Xero has announced the rollout of its new reconcile period feature, designed to enhance bank reconciliation by allowing users to verify the accuracy of financial data more efficiently. The feature is currently being introduced to customers in the United States and Canada. Reconcile period enables users to compare their bank statements with Xero accounting transactions more effectively. The feature allows users to: Define a period with a date range and balance to compare against statement lines. Quickly identify missing, duplicate, or incorrect transactions. Confirm accuracy by saving a period when it balances. Protect reconciled transactions from being altered. Generate a reconciliation report as a lasting record. According to Xero, this feature is an optional enhancement that does not change the existing real-time bank reconciliation workflow but offers an additional verification step for users who require it. Xero developed the reconcile period feature in response to user feedback emphasizing the importance of accurate financial verification, particularly for internal month-end close processes. Xero tested the reconcile period feature with accounting and bookkeeping professionals before launch, saying it received positive feedback from beta testers. Xero plans to expand the feature further by allowing users to attach PDF bank statements to their reconciliations. The reconcile period feature is rolling out gradually and will be accessible under a new tab on the main reconciliation account page once available. Image: Xero This article, "Xero Introduces Reconcile Period Feature for US and Canadian Customers" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article