Zohran Mamdani loves the Knicks, and while all New Yorkers may not be a fan of the democratic socialist mayor’s policies, few are likely to argue with his passion for NYC’s most popular teams. The 34-year-old mayor has been vocally supporting his team as they make their first NBA finals run since 1999. At the same time, Mamdani has been using the exciting and wildly popular historic moment to capture the attention of New Yorkers and direct them toward pressing political matters. In a political ad that aired on Wednesday night during post-game coverage, Mamdani reminded New Yorkers to get…
Author: Staff Writer
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on Meta’s bid to deploy advanced commercial AI agents across its massive messaging network. I also look at Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s crafty defense of data center water usage, and at a dramatic shift in public sentiment against new data center projects. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this…
A decade ago, success in media meant capturing the largest possible audience. Today, it increasingly comes from serving the superfans. But a deeper shift is underway. The most engaged audiences are no longer centered around the original franchise—they’re centered around specific moments, characters, or interpretations of it. Sub-fandoms are already driving more engagement than the source material itself. We see this across entertainment, from viral clips to gaming, where watching others play has become as big as—or bigger than—playing the game itself. However, the content cycle hasn’t caught up to this change. Studios release major films every few years, or…
McDonald’s spent decades training customers that if you had a dollar, you could get a burger. Now it’s trying to redefine what “value” means, and it turns out customers have a very different idea. More important, those customers aren’t about to pay $2.50 for something they think should cost a lot less without complaining about it. It’s less a story about burgers and more a story about trust. Specifically, it’s a story about the promise McDonald’s has made its customers for decades. It’s also about the trust problem the company created entirely on its own when its customers decided it was no longer keeping…
Four generations are now sharing the same workplace: baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z. Each generation brings different expectations around leadership, communication, flexibility, and AI implementation. As a result, managers are stretched to the limit and are searching for a strategy that works across generations. In this episode of FC Live, moderated by executive digital director Maia McCann, Fast Company editor Shalene Gupta and multigenerational workplace expert Lindsey Pollak have a candid conversation about what’s actually driving the tension. They are joined by two Gen Z members of the Fast Company editorial staff, María José Gutiérrez Chávez and…
Senator Bernie Sanders wants the American public to own half of the country’s largest AI companies. The senator said this week that he will soon introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would create a public fund through a onetime 50% tax on the stock of major artificial intelligence companies. The public, in his telling, would get voting shares, board representation, and eventually a claim on the trillions of dollars that AI may generate. While that might sound, at first, like another sweeping and unlikely bill from the Vermont Independent, its timing is interesting: A day later, President…
When the MTA painted the subway station entrance at 34th Street and Eighth Avenue just outside Madison Square Garden in team colors to commemorate the New York Knicks’ first appearance in the NBA Finals since 1999, the blue looked perfect, but MTA’s creative team knew the orange wasn’t a match. “We are New Yorkers. We are Knicks fans. We know this didn’t feel right,” Gene Ribeiro, deputy chief customer officer for the MTA, tells Fast Company. “We just wanted it to be absolutely perfect.” It turns out achieving perfection wasn’t as easy as pulling a Pantone swatch. It required a…
Many feel it, but few say it out loud: Board recruiting isn’t working the way it should. Boards question whether they’re truly accessing new talent or simply recycling familiar names. At the same time, highly qualified leaders wonder why they’re never in the mix. Both perspectives are right. The process is hardwired to consistently surface the same people. THE NUMBERS TELL THE STORY The pattern is clear and persistent: Boards largely recruit former CEOs and CFOs who are already known within the board ecosystem. That is predictable. We’re wired to minimize risk, and “new” often gets labeled as risky. The…
“It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind…” The words at the beginning of this article are, of course, from A Wrinkle in Time by Medeleine L’Engle. (They’re also wrapped in quotation marks, an indication that they aren’t original to this article.) And yet, the atmospheric and imagination-stimulating power of words can be easily stolen by others. In the age of AI? That’s more front of mind than ever. (And…
I grew up in New Jersey and raised my children there. I watched politicians make promises, raise taxes, expand government, and drive businesses and productive people out of the state. Every year it became more expensive, more corrupt, and more hostile to anyone trying to build something. The state has fallen into absolute ruin to the point where I am hesitant to visit. In a new low for the Garden State, New Jersey voters have selected Adam Hamawy as the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 12th District. The controversy surrounding his campaign stems from reports that he volunteered in…