Though they might look like the same people, those who left the office at the start of the pandemic have dramatically different priorities, expectations, and needs than those who are returning today, according to Microsoft’s second annual Work Trend Index. The follow up to last year’s report — which earned Microsoft a spot on Fast Company’s top 10 most innovation companies in data science list — combines insights from more than 30,000 workers in 31 countries an
I’m holding a sesame seed bun stuffed with tomato, lettuce, pickles, onion, ketchup, mustard, mayo, American cheese, and a classic-looking burger patty: This is the McDonald’s McPlant burger, and it looks a lot like the Quarter Pounder with Cheese Deluxe—although the patty is made from ingredients, such as peas, rice, and potatoes. With the caveat that I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time, I think that it also tastes like the version made from meat. McDonald’
President Biden released his long-awaited executive order (EO) on cryptocurrency on March 9. The crypto community reacted with relief. The price of Bitcoin went up 8.4% that day and crypto leaders from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse to Coinbase’s policy chief Faryar Shirzad publicly praised the order. Biden’s order certainly could have been worse. But it may not be the panacea the community thinks it is, either. Let’s start with the good news. There’s a lot in this exe
Video games catch a lot of flack from critics who say the medium can be harmful to players. But the science on that claim is murky, at best. Now, one of the video game industry’s veteran executives is teaming with a medical device expert to make games that are specifically designed to help treat health conditions. DeepWell Digital Therapeutics, which launched Tuesday, plans to make video games that both entertain and provide treatment for a variety of issues, including mental health, one
Editor’s Note: This article is part of Fast Company Spark, a new initiative for middle and high school readers. The sharp fear of not having enough clean water to drink starting at six years old, as I was growing up in a working-class neighborhood at the south periphery of Puebla city in Mexico, is an experience I’ll never forget. It showed me a side of the climate crisis that people are experiencing around the world, and what happens when powerful countries and corporations p
With an ongoing shortage of infant formula leaving some parents frustrated and out of options, there’s at least a sliver of promising news: Infant formula startup Bobbie just raised $50 million dollars to expand its European-style infant formula offerings in the U.S. market. Founded in 2018 by Laura Modi and Sarah Hardy, Bobbie touts itself as a more holistic alternative to the major brands. Modi, now the CEO of Bobbie, says the idea for the company came when she was b
Designers are known to be exceptionally creative—but their success isn’t just luck and talent. Creativity is nothing more than an amalgamation of skills and habits that you must strengthen over time. This is particularly relevant now, as we navigate what’s become known as the Great Resignation. People everywhere are quitting their jobs, many of them because they were creatively stymied, leading to a surprising boom of new-business creation. [Image: courtesy HarperCollins Lea
It shouldn’t come as a tremendous surprise that Adobe would like to be a leading purveyor of tools for creating content for the metaverse. It’s a reasonable enough aspiration for the company, given its nearly 40-year-history as a kingpin of software used for generating imagery and experiences, from the printed page to the web and beyond. There’s just one catch: The metaverse doesn’t exist yet. And in its fullest sense, it can’t—not until the te
With an ongoing shortage of infant formula leaving some parents frustrated and out of options, there’s at least a sliver of promising news: Infant formula startup Bobbie just raised $50 million dollars to bring its European-style infant formula to the U.S. market. Founded in 2018 by Laura Modi and Sarah Hardy, Bobbie touts itself as a more holistic alternative to the major brands. Modi, now the CEO of Bobbie, says the idea for the company came when she was breastfeeding her daughter, duri
Have you ever felt a creeping sensation that someone’s watching you? Then you turn around and you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Depending on where you were, though, you might not have been completely imagining it. There are billions of things sensing you every day. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight—inside your TV, fridge, car, and office. These things know more about you than you might imagine, and many of them communicate that information over the interne