If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. Megan Waskiewicz used to sit at the top of the bleachers, rest her back against the wall, and hide her face behind the glow of a laptop monitor. While watching one of her five children play basketball on the court below, she knew she had to be careful. The mother from Pittsburgh didn’t want other parents in the crowd to know she wa
The debate over abortion is front and center once again, after Politico published a leaked draft on Monday of a Supreme Court opinion indicating the Court voted to reverse Roe v. Wade. And for startups that focus on reproductive health issues, the Court’s decision could be a major turning point. Medication abortion, which generally costs around $300 from a telemed provider, induce a miscarriage after stopping the growth of the pregnancy. The drugs have a safety rating that exceeds 99% and
It’s one thing for a government agency to engage a private business to help verify the identity of tens of millions of taxpayers (who use that agency’s website), and handle their biometric and personal data for that purpose. It’s quite another to let that private business replace the government as the de facto gatekeeper and owner of that critical data. That can trigger loud opposition, as the IRS recently found out.
The IRS had the right idea when it set out to block exten
From a very young age, Britney Winters had an interest in hair, but she never imagined she’d launch a game-changing wig company. In 2019, after leaving her job at Shell, she launched Upgrade, a digital platform that allows customers to create customized, high-quality wigs. “I realized that an online destination for hair and wig services was missing from the industry,” the Harvard Business School graduate tells Fast Company. “We’re the only wig retailer where yo
Every product should have a story, a narrative that explains why it needs to exist and how it will solve your customer’s problems. A good product story has three elements:
It appeals to people’s rational and emotional sides. It takes complicated concepts and makes them simple. It reminds people of the problem that’s being solved—it focuses on the “why.”
The story of your product, your company, and your vision should drive everything you do. I remember
Turning electrons into money can be a dirty business. Just ask the people who live near the Greenidge Generation power plant on scenic Seneca Lake in Dresden, New York. The decommissioned coal-burning plant, which was purchased by a Connecticut private equity firm in 2014, has been converted to run on natural gas. Since 2020, though, it has provided power not to local customers, but to nearly 20,000 crypto-mining computers running 24/7. It produced Bitcoin worth more than $100 million last year.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. I’m sharing with you today my tool kit for focused work. This isn’t for a typical workday, because those include lots of meetings, teaching, and other appointments. Consider it a window into my deep work tool kit, for days when I have time to focus. I hope you’ll find elements that work for you too.
9 a.m. Trello. Chec
And as Fast Company launches its sixth annual World-Changing Ideas recognition program—a celebration of bold innovations aimed at changing our future for the better—we’re already thinking about how we can again leverage partnership to help one of those many companies and concepts driving transformation and igniting good across industries, communities, and cultures have an even bigger impact. In 2021, through a new partnership between Fast Company and Genpact, the digital tra
Founded in 1997 by Bert “Tito” Beveridge in a 1,000 square foot shack in rural Austin, over the last quarter-century Tito’s has grown into one of the country’s most well-known vodkas—complete with a distinctive and approachable all-American brand identity. This year, Tito’s celebrates its 25th anniversary with a campaign that blends its central Texan-rooted heritage with immersive hi-tech—along with a standalone virtual reality (VR) experience set
So, you want to go viral on TikTok? Well, so does everybody else. “This is where consumers are,” Movers+Shakers cofounder and CEO Evan Horowitz says of the platform. “All of Gen Z, pretty much all millennials—this is becoming their dominant social app. If you want to reach them, they’re here.” Along with cofounder and chief creative officer Geoffrey Goldberg, Horowitz and his team have helped brands like e.l.f. Cosmetics go viral on TikTok, racking up 20