My bus rolls into Port Authority. I’ve got 10 minutes to get across town for my first meeting. I sprint down the escalator, run through droves of people, and arrive at a subway turnstile. I swipe my MetroCard through the magnetic reader, step forwardonly to get crotch-checked by a locked metal bar and flipped the finger by a screen that displays PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN. I give it another swipe. INSUFFICIENT FARE.
To refill my MetroCard, I power walk toward the kiosk. It refuses to read my credit card. I swipe a few more times. Nothing. I sift through my back pocket, discover a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and slide it into the machine. It won’t accept my cash. I waffle-iron the bill flat with my hands and feed it back in.
[Photo: Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News/Getty Images]
The kiosk spits out my refilled MetroCard. Baked into its awful blue and yellow design is this same awful experience, on repeat.
The MetroCard has been a defining artifact of New York City’s subway system for more than three decades. In that time, some might argue, it has become an icon of design. I respectfully disagree.
Design is inextricable from experience. The MetroCards design is as outdated as its technology. Fortunately, after years of poor MetroCard experiences like mine, the MTA has made its final update to the swiping technology.
In 1993, the MetroCard was introduced as a replacement for subway tokens. It existed for decades as New Yorkers dominant method for accessing the subway. But in 2019, the MTA announced they were introducing a tap-and-go system called OMNY. That year, they installed it on Staten Island buses and across 16 subways as part of a pilot program. Over the next four years, they installed OMNY machines throughout all five boroughs.
Manhattan and Brooklyn were early adopters. By November 2024, 60% of riders were using OMNY, according to Shanifah Rieara, the MTAs chief customer officer. Running two systemswith their duplicative costsmeant we had to set a certain date, she says. But that date was continually delayed due to slow installation and technical issues with the remaining vending machines. Now, with an OMNY reader and vending machine at nearly every transit location, the MTA will say goodnight to the MetroCard. And theyll save at least $20 million in operational costs.
A Design That Wouldnt Go Away
The MetroCard design remained more or less the same since the ’90s. Why? Were wedded to the nostalgia and the brand, says Rieara. We had no interest in changing it.
[Photo: MTA]
When it was redesigned in 1997, the look of the MetroCard was novel. There were new gradient and perspective tools at the designer’s disposal. Someone at the MTA had a field day: they created a glowing yellow sunset, a reflection, and a skewed MetroCard logo, which mimicked a train. This design looked fast. Riders would have expected a frictionless swiping experience, not a constant PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN.”
In contrast, the original MetroCard design from 1993 was less ambitious. It was also more honest. The gradient was pure utility: it directed the rider to swipe left. And that MetroCard logo? It floated in a vague 3D space. The design didnt mimic. It didn’t overpromise.
[Photo: MTA]
Transit card design shouldn’t put you to sleep. In Hong Kong, they have the Octopus card, which features a dynamic yellow, green, and blue infinity loop. Paired with a small typographic Octopus logo, the cards modernist design looks like something out of Chermayeff & Geismar & Havivs studio. Its confident. And since 1997, the cards functionality has delivered upon the designs promise with mostly reliable tap-and-go service.
[Image: Octopus]
One of my favorite parts of the Octopus card? It embraces being a collectible item. Riders can customize their cards with ornaments like Pokémon keychains and plastic googly eyes from the movie Minions. This level of customization creates the perception of quality serviceyou wouldn’t chuck your tricked-out card in the trash next week.
David Bowie collector’s edition Metro Cards, 2018. [Photo: Eduardo MunozAlvarez/VIEWpress/Corbis/Getty Images]
Over the years, MetroCard riders would receive special cards, but the design was a half-measure: a partial print on the back of the card. It looked like an ad. These cards featured a range of icons, from artist Barbara Kruger to baseball player Jackie Robinson to musician Olivia Rodrigo. For a plastic card that was often reissued, the MTA could’ve treated each of these heavy-hitters to a full redesign of the card. Other countries do it.
[Photo: Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group/Getty Images]
Londons transit card, the Oyster, will occasionally trade in its signature two-tone blue for a special design on the front of the card. Theyve celebrated the royal wedding of William and Kate, the Queens Diamond Jubilee, the 150th anniversary of the Underground, and even the 20th anniversary of the Oyster card itself, which debuted in 2003. These designs arent anything to write home about, but at least they create a shared celebratory moment for the rider.
[Photo: John Phillips/UK Press/Getty Images]
Looking Ahead
Oysters parent company, Transport for London, licensed its scanning technology to the MTA for the OMNY. So far, Ive had a solid experience with the new card. Every Thursday afternoon, I rush downtown to my office after teaching a class at School of Visual Arts in Gramercy Park. I need to catch up with three hours of missed work and meetings, and unlike my Port Authority MetroCard nightmares, the OMNY taps without a hitch. That keeps me sane.
This functional experience is reflected within OMNY’s design. That black and white card is straightforward, no b.s. It uses Neue Haas Grotesk, aligning with the utilitarian typography of the MTA’s graphics system. The inline cutaway of the letters signal road lanes and railroad tracks, the barcode highlights the card’s scanning technology. This design isn’t overly dramatic like the MetroCard of yore.
[Photo: Schvaxet/Wiki Commons]
But is a functional design enough for New Yorks transit card of the future?
Design is culture. The comedian Kareem Rahma turns a MetroCard into the microphone for his podcast. The store OnlyNY sells MTA-licensed merch, like metal subway signs and mini-lampposts. To others, those objects are utility. To New Yorkers, they’re identity.
The OMNY card is a real opportunity to intertwine culture and design. This year, the MTA proved they truly care about design: they unveiled an animated movie by designer Giorgia Lupi, titled A Data Love Letter to the Subway. Their new subway mapthe first update in 50 yearsnods to a classic design by Massimo Vignelli. And most subway stations finally have digitized schedules with slick typography.
If the MTA continually updates the OMNY card, in print and digital form, it will become a cultural artifact. New York is full of designers with pride whod love to create a special edition OMNY. Champions Design could give the card attitude. Collins could celebrate civic glory. Center could give it a sports flair. These special designs would create a shared moment among New Yorkers. But, those designs need to hit at the right moment.
When Zohran Mamdani takes the NYC mayoral office in January, design shouldnt sit at the bottom of his to-do list. He’s got audacious ideas. If they go well, great design will cement the experience in our minds. A free bus that runs on time? A special-edition OMNY card would floor us with a sense of New York pride.
I started building Simple in 2019 with a vision that one day, a digital product could help people fix their health as effectively as a human. Five years later, we turned this vision into a company with 160M in ARR, and a team of more than 150 people across multiple countries.
If you only look at the highlights, my story can look like a straight line of an entrepreneurs journey. However, getting there required me to rebuild my own thinking and habits. You see, I have ADHD, and a mind that constantly scans for what can go wrong. For years, I treated that as a bug. It only became my superpower once I learned how to direct it. That isn’t an easy journey, but these lessons helped me master my mind and turn a bold idea into a sustainable, fast-growing business.
Consistency beats intensity
When you see most weight-loss products, theyre usually based on the principles of intensitywhether thats a 30-day challenge or extreme dieting. They sell well, but they rarely stick. Ive tried most of these methods myself7-day water fasts, restrictive eating, vegan, keto, and much more. However hard I tried to push through, nothing worked in the long term.
In Simple, we tried a different approach where consistency beats intensity. That means designing features like daily check-ins and context-aware prompts around this idea of helping users sustain effort.
The same principle changed how I work. Early in my career, discipline meant 18-hour days, which led me to rock bottom. Discipline doesnt mean doing it all. It means focusing on what actually matters. It means saying no when necessary, doing the tasks that you find boring, and avoiding the temptation to fix everything at once.
Your anxiety is helpful if you learn when not to listen to it
When my cofounder left the company in 2021, about a year and a half after we started, I suddenly became responsible for everything at once. Frankly, it wasnt what I expected. If you have an anxious brain, you probably know this well: your mind runs endless what if scenarios. I was constantly thinking about what could go wrong, and I couldnt relax. Overtime, I realized that most of my fears had no real basis, but a few were extremely useful early warnings, so my job was to learn the difference.
I wrote down everything that was bothering me, then asked myself these three questions:
1. Is this a real problem, or just me spiraling?
2. If its real, can I do something about it in the next 24 hours?
3. If yes, what is the smallest concrete action?
You need to believe that it will work, regardless of how irrational it seems
When we first pitched Simple, there was little evidence that an app could coach health as well as a human. Given the fact that it was prior to the AI boom, not many believed we could do it. The early version product focused on intermittent fasting. It worked, but we knew it was only one piece of the puzzle.
Moving from a simple fasting tracker to a full weightloss coach (and eventually to a holistic AI health coach) required out-of-the-box decisions. If you want to innovate, many people will disagree with you, but you should still move forward. We had to redirect resources from a working funnel toward a vision that didnt yet exist in our metrics. If you dont radiate a basic conviction that things will work (even while you are brutally honest about risks), nobody will bet their career on your idea.
Discipline and high standards are an ultimate form of self-love
For a long time, I thought self-love meant giving myself more rest or treating myself gently. Some of that is important, but in moderation.
The more honest definition of self-love I came to is this: Loving yourself is also discipline, confidence, and high expectations. Its wanting the best for yourself, and asking the maximum from yourself. When youre scaling a company fast, its easy to become the weak linkyoure sleep-deprived, which means that youre slow to make decisions. You avoid hard conversations, and you keep the wrong people in the team too long. When youre not consistent in your standards and habits, not only do you betray yourselfyou also betray your team, because youre not showing up as a leader when they need you to.
Decisions that concern other people will hurt, but you still have to make them
One of the hardest parts of scaling Simple was making changes to the leadership team. Some hires were clear mistakes, while others were great at an earlier stage but became a brake on the company later. Firing or moving on from such people can be emotionally painful because you invest trust and hope in them.
What helps me with this is to separate the person from the role. You can value their contribution, and still accept theyre no longer the right fit. Giving them more time wont turn a bad hire into a great fit. Itll only make the situation more expensive, so rip off the band-aid, but dont forget to show your appreciation.
Your company scales at the same speed you do
In 2023, I realized our biggest bottleneck wasnt our market, investors, or team. It was me.
I placed my attention on growth and marketing, and I struggled to see what the company really needed to improve. I vividly remember the day I realized, because it was the day Simples growth trajectory drastically changed. I cut back on experiments and focused on the product and science behind it. Within a year, we repositioned Simple from a tracking app to a weightloss coach, and our AI coach became a central part of the product. At the same time, retention improved, and so did our financial metrics.
Around the same time, I wrote a phrase in my notes that I come back to often.
The universe gives me exactly as much energy as I need to handle my goals. If the goals become bigger, more energy will come. And since then, Ive learned that every new stage of company growth is also an invitation to become a new version of myself.
As employers have wrested back control of the job market, it has been a sharp contrast to the post-pandemic years when workers seemed to hold the power. In 2025, employees fretted about their job security and the sweeping impact of artificial intelligence on their work livesnot to mention corporate Americas continued commitment to keeping them in the office for longer.
Here, weve compiled some of the most popular Work Life stories from this yearon the issues that consumed you most.
The 996 schedule
This year saw the return of hustle culture in Silicon Valley, as AI startups popularized a grueling work schedule that became popularized in China. The 996 schedule refers to a 72-hour workweekin other words, working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a weekand has grown more common in Silicon Valley as founders and tech leaders scramble to outrun the competition. But experts say this could stoke burnout at a time when workers are already stretched too thin.
The steady drumbeat of RTO
The return to office is here to stay, despite how workers may feel about it. Business leaders like Jamie Dimon have been among the most vocal supporters of in-office work, dismissing employee concerns and the concept of work from home Fridays. Hes not alone: Amazon employees were forced to return to the office five days a week, while the federal government put an end to remote work this year.
The truth behind quiet quitting
Were still talking about quiet quitting. While older generations might think Gen Z workers are lazy or lack motivation, Fast Company contributor Jeff LeBlanc argues quiet quitting is a rational response to workplaces that lack fairness, structure, and alignment with employee values. Leaders who cant retain Gen Z talent should wonder whether theyre the problem, he writes. The question isnt whether Gen Z is willing to work hard. The real question is: Are leaders willing to evolve?
The rise of job hugging
In a tough job market, many employees are actually job hugging rather than quiet quitting. But doing so can actually hurt workers who are unhappy with their job situationor speed up their burnout. Cognitive reframing can helpfocusing purely on the positive aspects of a draining role, such as a friendly team, and tuning out the rest, writes Alex Christian. Sometimes, however, the only solution is to wait it out and hope that the economy turns around.
The fractional leadership boom
In the years since the pandemic, many senior leaders have been reevaluating what they want out of work. Enter the fractional role, which has enabled experienced C-suite leaders to set their own schedule and work across multiple companies. Fractional leaders have become more common at companies that dont need someone in the position full-time, allowing people in these roles to find more balance.
The plight of middle managers
Middle managers have had a challenging few years. As the pressures on them mount, many are headed for a crash, according to meQuilibriums Jan Bruce. With Gen Z increasingly rejecting the manager track, there could be a shortage of qualified leaders in the years to come, she argues. So what can companies do differently? Explicit policy decisions can help managers protect and promote their own mental and physical well-being, Bruce writes. This might look like mandatory disconnect periods, sabbaticals, or easing access to acute mental healthcare resources. Making sure managers have consistent, supportive check-ins with their own supervisors can help reduce isolation.
The importance of office friends
Workplace friendships are not what they used to beand its not good for business. Friendships at work can help boost employee performance and well-being, writes Fast Company contributor Mark C. Crowley. In fact, leaders should create an environment that encourages connection and invests in those friendships. Creating a culture where connection is valued doesnt just improve employee moraleit strengthens retention, creativity, and performance, he writes. By fostering friendships, leaders dont just build better teams; they create desirable workplaces.
The productivity gains from AI
We all know AI is reshaping how we work. But as the technology permeates the workplace, it might just be revealing how much of what we do is busywork. Were witnessing a productivity revolution without a purpose revolution, write Fast Company contributors Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Alexis Fink. Tools are improving, but the work remains hollow. Instead of using AI to invent better ways of working, many companies are simply using it to churn out more of the same, only faster.
Theres bad news for those using digital surveys to try to understand peoples online behavior: We may no longer be able to determine whether a human is responding to them or not, a recent study has shownand there seems to be no way around this problem.
This means that all online canvassing could be vulnerable to misrepresenting people’s true opinions. This could have repercussions for anything that falls under the category of information warfare, from polling results, to misinformation, to fraud. Non-human survey respondents, in aggregate, could impact anything from flavors and pricing for a pack of gum, to something more damaging, such as whether or not someone could get government benefitsand what those should be.
The problem here is twofold: 1) humans not being able to tell the difference between human and bot responses, and 2) in instances where automation is regulating action based on these responses, there would be no way to use such polling and safeguard against potentially dangerous problems as a result of this indistinguishability.
The study by Dartmouths Sean J. Westwood in the PNAS journal of the National Academy of Sciences, titled The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research, claims to show how we can no longer trust that, in survey research, we can no longer simply assume that a coherent response is a human response. Westwood created an autonomous agent capable of producing high-quality survey responses that demonstrate reasoning and coherence expected of human responses.
To do this, Westwood designed a model-agnostic system designed for general-purpose reasoning, that focuses on a two layer architecture: One that acts as an interface to the survey platform and can deal with multiple types of queries while extracting relevant content, and anothercore layer that uses a reasoning engine (like an LLM). When a survey is conducted, Westwoods software loads a demographic persona that can store some recall of prior answers and then process questions to provide a contextually appropriate response as an answer.
Once the reasoning engine decides on an answer, the interface in the first layer outputs a mimicked human response. The system is also designed to accommodate tools for bypassing antibot measures like reCAPTCHA. Westwoods system has an objective that isnt to perfectly replicate population distributions in aggregatebut to produce individual survey completions [that] would be seen as reasonable by a reasonable researcher.
Westwoods results suggest that digital surveys may or may not be a true reflection of peoples opinions. There is just as likely a chance that surveys could, instead, be describing what an LLM assumes is human behavior. Furthermore, humans or AI making decisions based on those results could be relying on the opinions of simulated humans.
Personas
Creating synthetic people is not a new concept. Novels, visual media, plays, and advertisers use all sorts of creative ideas to portray various people in order to tell their stories. In design, the idea of Personas have been used for decades in marketing and User Interface design as a cost-cutting and timesaving trend. Personas are fictional composites of people and are represented by categories like Soccer Mom, Joe Six-pack, Technophobe Grandmother, or Business Executive. Besides being steeped in bias, Personas are projections of what the people creating them think these people would be and what the groups they might belong to represent.
Personas are a hidden problem in design and marketing, precisely because they are composites drawn from real or imaginary people, rather than actual people — the values ascribed to them are constructed by other peoples interpretations. When relying upon Personas instead of people, its impossible to divine the true context of how a product or service is actually being used, as the personas are projected upon by the creator, and are not real people in real situations.
Thus, the problems with using Personas to design products and services often arent identified until well after such products or services come to market and fail, or cause other unforeseen issues. This could be worse when these human-generated Personas are replaced with AI/LLM ChatBot personas with all the biases that these entailincluding slop influences or hallucinations that could make their responses even more odd or potentially even psychotic.
Quant versus qual
Part of the larger problem of not understanding peoples needs with surveys started when research shifted to statistical data collection based on computation, also known as quantitative methods, rather than contextual queries based on conversations and social relationships with others, or qualitative methods. As Big Data came online, people began to use quantitative methods such as online surveys, A/B testing, and other techniques to understand customer/user behavior. Because machines could quickly compile results, quantitative research seems to have become an industry standard for understanding people.
It is not easy to automate qualitative methods, and replacing them with quantitative methods can forfeit important context. Since almost a generation has gone by with the world focused on computational counting, its easy to forget about the qualitative data methodsfound in social sciences such as Anthropologythat use contextual inquiry interviews with real people to understand why people do what they do, rather than trying to infer this from numerical responses.
Qualitative research can give context to the quantitative data and methods that rely upon machines to divine meaning. They can also work outside of big data methods, and are grounded in relationships with actual people, which provides accountability to their beliefs and opinions. The process of talking with real people first contextualizes that content, leading to better outcomes. Qualitative methods can be quantified and counted, but quantitative methods cannot yet easily be made to be truly broadly contextual.
One difference between using qualitative and quantitative methods has to do with transparency and understanding the validity of peoples responses. With older human-made Personas, there are obvious assumptions and gapsits crude puppetry and projection. But when people become manufactured by Chatbot/LLMs that utilize a corpus of knowledge mined from massive volumes of data, there can be fewer ways to separate fact from fiction. With chatbots and LLMs, the artificial entity is both the creator of the person, potentially the responder to te person, and either the interpreter of that fake chatbot persons responses, or being interpreted by an LLM. Thats where it can get dangerous, especially when the results of this type of slop tainted research are used for things like political polling or policing.
Westwoods research has shown that: Rather than relying on brittle, question-specific rules, synthetic respondents maintain a consistent persona by conditioning answers on an initial demographic profile and a dynamic memory of previous responses. This allows it to answer disparate questions in an internally coherent manner,generating plausible, human-like patterns It can mimic context, but not create it.
Back to the basics
When GenAI is moving towards conducting the surveys, acting as respondents, and interpreting the surveys, will we be able to tell the difference between it and real people?
A completely automated survey loop seems fictional, until we see how many people are already using Chatbots/LLMs to automate parts of the survey process even now. Someone might generate a persona, then use that to answer surveys that AI has designed, that someone else will then use a Chatbot to access AI to interpret results. Making a complete loop could be terrible: someone may then use AI to turn the Chatbot created, Chatbot answered, and AI interpreted survey responses into something that impacts real people who have real needs in the real world, but instead has been designed for fake people with fake needs in a fake world.
Qualitative research is one path forward. It enables us to get to know real people, validate their replies, and refine context through methods that explore each answer for more depth. This type of work AI cannot yet do as LLMs currently base answers on statistical word matching, which is unrefined. Bots that replicate human answers will mimic a type of simulated human answer, but to know what real people think, and what things mean to them, companies may have to go back to hiring anthropologists, who are trained to use qualitative methods to connect with real people.
Now that AI can falsely replicate human responses to quantitative surveys, those who believe that both quantitative methods and AI are the answers to conducting accurate research, are about to learn a hard lesson that will unfortunately, impact all of us.
Many traitslike impulsivity, hyperfocus, and nonlinear thinkingthat get pathologized in school or corporate environments are the same ones that create natural entrepreneurs.
The irony of modern work life hits you somewhere between your third consecutive hybrid meeting and the moment you realize you’ve been holding your breath for the past hour. We’ve engineered every process for maximum output, yet reports consistently show that workplace burnout is affecting us more than ever.
As someone who followed the straight-A path from childhoodchasing perfect grades, moving from one goalpost to another through MBA to big tech product executiveI’ve witnessed this optimization obsession firsthand while shaping experiences for over half a billion users.
But what if the solution isn’t another wellness program or time management technique? What if it’s something far simpler, and more subversive?
What if the solution is putting aside your work and engaging in a little play?
Research from Johns Hopkins University’s International Arts + Mind Lab, detailed in the 2023 bestseller Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, shows that engaging in art reduces the stress hormone cortisol, no matter your skill level, with some benefits appearing in as little as 20 minutes. A 2025 study of nearly 2,500 people across five countries found that creativity can be reliably predicted by how often the brain switches between its default mode network (active during mind-wandering) and its executive control network (which handles focused attention and cognitive control). These brief creative interludes enhance productivity by allowing different brain networks to make new connections.
Ive found that weaving micro-creativity practices into my days has increased my daily joy, aliveness, and overall wellbeing. At work, these creative breaks help me shake off the energy from difficult meetings, discover fresh perspectives when I’m stuck on problems, and connect more meaningfully with teammates who join me in these playful moments.
Here are a few practices I love that you can use now to sneak a little play into your workday.
1. Become a Workplace Tea Alchemist
Turn your coffee break into a micro-adventure by experimenting with tea combinations. Mix Earl Grey with chamomile, or green tea with cinnamon. Research the origins of different blendsdid you know Bigelow started as a small family business in 1945? If you’re more of a coffee drinker, create your own flavor experimentsadd a dash of cardamom or vanilla extract, or challenge yourself to draw a heart in your foam. (Wonky shapes count as art too!)
This curiosity-driven exploration activates what psychologists call openness to experience, which correlates with better conflict resolution abilities and cognitive flexibility.
2. Replace To-Do Lists with ‘To-Doodle’ Lists
Instead of writing “Review Q3 budget” in stark text, sketch it. Draw a treasure chest for budget review, a mountain for the challenging client presentation, or abstract shapes that represent your energy around each task.
This isn’t about artistic skill; it’s about engaging the right brain’s pattern recognition while planning left-brain tasks.
3. Invite Random Hallway Interactions
Ask one unexpected question to someone you see regularly but rarely talk to deeply, like “If you could teleport anywhere right now for lunch, where would you go?” or “If colors had personalities, which one would be your best friend?”
The security guard who greets you each morning might have fascinating insights about the most interesting characters in the building. One such conversation led me to discover that Dolly Parton finds creative inspiration in graveyards, where she walks among headstones, finding sparks for her next song!
4. Open Team Huddles With ‘What I’m Saying No To’ Bingo
Start each team huddle by sharing one thing you’re actively choosing not to do this week, but make it a game. Create a bingo card with common “no” categories like “unnecessary meeting,” “weekend work,” “social obligation,” and see who gets bingo first as team members share their weekly boundaries.
This ritual normalizes boundary-setting, reveals hidden priorities, and creates psychological permission for intentional choices about time and energy.
5. Become a Workplace Note Fairy
Write tiny, anonymous notes of appreciation and leave them where colleagues will find them: “Thank you for always restocking the coffee!” Your enthusiasm in meetings is contagious!” “Someone here gives the best hallway wavesthank you!”
The act of crafting these small surprises shifts your brain from problem-focused thinking to wonder. One teammate told me that leaving weekly mystery notes became her favorite stress-relief ritual!
6. Go on Office Color Hunts
Set a timer for three minutes and hunt for a specific color throughout your workspace. How many shades of yellow exist in your office?
This micro-adventure forces you to notice your environment with fresh eyes and activates “attention restoration,” the mental reset that comes from shifting from directed attention to fascination.
The beauty of these three-minute playful acts lies in their accessibility. Unlike meditation apps or wellness programs, they don’t require special equipment or cozy conditions. They work precisely because they fit into the existing structure of your day.
More importantly, they address what organizational psychologist Dr. Christina Maslach identifies as the core drivers of burnout: lack of control, insufficient rewards, and values mismatch. These micro-creative acts restore a sense of agency, provide immediate intrinsic rewards, and reconnect you with the playful, curious aspects of yourself that often get buried under performative environments.
The goal isn’t to become more creative in order to be more productive. It’s to remember that you’re human, not a productivity machine. And sometimes, that three-minute reminder is exactly what it takes to feel alive again in a world that has optimized everything except joy.
Lululemon Athletica‘s founder Chip Wilson said on Monday he had launched a proxy fight by nominating three independent directors to the company’s board, just over two weeks after the apparel maker announced the exit of CEO Calvin McDonald without a clear successor.
Lululemon shares have shed nearly half their value this year as the company struggles to find its footing with younger and affluent shoppers, while battling stiff competition from fast-growing newer rivals such as Alo Yoga and Vuori, as well as pressure from activist investor Elliott Management.
Wilson has nominated three director candidates to Lululemon’s board, including former On Running co-CEO Marc Maurer, former ESPN Chief Marketing Officer Laura Gentile and former Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg.
The board installed Chief Financial Officer Meghan Frank and Chief Commercial Officer André Maestrini as interim co-CEOs while they search for a permanent replacement.
Reuters had reported that Elliott Management, which disclosed a $1 billion stake in the company earlier this month, had been working closely for months with former Ralph Lauren executive Jane Nielsen for a potential CEO role.
When asked whether Wilson was teaming up with activist investor Elliott in pushing for the board change, a person familiar with Wilson’s thinking said he was not working with any other investor. At the same time, Elliott’s campaign for a new CEO would not interfere with his plans, the person added, asking not to be named.
Wilson had spoken to Nielsen, but any CEO selected by the company before board changes would not have Wilson’s support, the source said.
“The recent CEO change announcement was the third total failure of board oversight, with no clear succession plan in place. Shareholders have no faith that this board can select and support the next CEO without input from a board with stronger product experience,” Wilson said in a statement.
Lululemon did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The company’s shares rose about 1% in morning trading.
“Adding three new board members seems like something that Lululemon would be willing to do. It might keep Wilson from constantly attacking the board, at least. The nominees appear to be fine, although only one of the three (Maurer) has direct experience in Lululemon’s industry,” Morningstar analyst David Swartz said.
Wilson likely did not ask for a board seat for himself as he owns a significant stake in Lululemon’s competitor Amer Sports, Swartz added.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about Wilson launching a proxy fight against Lululemon’s board earlier in the day.
Wilson’s history with Lululemon
Wilson is one of the biggest independent shareholders of Lululemon, with a 4.27% stake as of December 2025, according to LSEG data.
The yogawear maker’s founder had previously called for an urgent search for a CEO to replace McDonald, led by new, independent directors with a deep knowledge of the company to restore a “product-first” mindset at the company.
This is not the first time Wilson has pushed for changes at Lululemon’s board.
After founding the apparel company in 1998, Wilson withdrew from daily operations in 2012 and resigned as chairman a year later following a recall of see-through yoga pants that led to the departures of top executives amid a public-relations storm.
He also quit the director post in 2015 after clashing with the board over strategy. However, a proxy fight was averted after Wilson agreed to sell about half of his 27% stake to private-equity firm Advent International for $845 million in return for two additional director positions.
Juveria Tabassum, Sanskriti Shekhar, and Anuja Bharat Mistry, Reuters
The start of a new year usually brings new motivation to achieve goals like eating healthier or finally cleaning your basement. Many resolutions also focus on financial goals, such as paying off credit card debt, saving for a new house, or simply getting more educated about money.
New Years is a really good time to review and realign your financial goals overall, said Erica Grundza, certified financial planner at Betterment, an investing and savings app.
When building your goals for 2026, Grundza recommends focusing less on the past and more on an optimistic, yet realistic, vision for the future. She recommends that you focus on reestablishing the why behind your approach to money and how you want to make it work for your life. This can be as simple as saving $10 each week in a savings account, or a bigger goal like saving to buy a house in the coming years. Its all about your own journey.
The Associated Press spoke with people who are making financial resolutions for 2026. Heres a look at what theyre planning and how you can draw inspiration for your own resolutions:
Making achievable plans
Resolutions can easily turn into unattainable goals that feel more like a dream, said MarieYolaine Toms, a coach and founder of Focused Fire, a financial coaching company. To avoid setting unrealistic expectations, Toms follows a no resolutions mindset and instead focuses on making an actionable plan.
What I say every year is that I am not making resolutions, Im making plans that can be tracked forward, traced back, and tweaked until completion, Toms said.
Recently, Toms encouraged her clients to check their credit report with the three credit bureaus and, based on their credit reports, make an attainable plan to start a savings account. For example, adding $25 to their savings account every week.
Whether youre trying to pay off debt or save for a vacation abroad, the first step towards making a plan can be creating a budget. When making a budget, its best to find a technique that works for you, whether its the classic 50/30/20 plan or another budgeting style.
If youre building a budget for the first time, you can find some expert recommendations here.
Paying off debt
After losing her job as a magazine editor in September, Rachel Pelovitz, 33, had to take a closer look at her finances. Having acquired a significant amount of debt over the last few years due to her husbands year-and-a-half-long unemployment, Pelovitz explored several options to pay it off. Ultimately, Pelovitz and her husband chose to sell their house and work with a debt consolidation organization.
Rather than rely on getting more debt, we are currently selling our house, Pelovitz said.
Pelovitzs main goal for 2026 is to pay off half of her credit card debt. And, with some of the money from selling the house, start investing moderately.
If youve also experienced a layoff, you can read expert recommendations to help you take care of your finances and your mental health here.
Building a savings account
For Jenni Lee, 27, this is going to be the year when she gets strict about building her savings account. While Lee considers herself generally good with money, over the last six months she has overspent and wants to rein it in. The long-term goal for her savings journey is for Lee to buy a house.
Im now in my late 20s, Im starting to really think about where I pinch now so it wont hurt later when I finally decide to purchase and own a place, said Lee, a tech worker and lifestyle TikTok creator based in Chicago.
As she saves for her future home and possibly a trip to South Korea, Lee wants to cut unnecessary spending on clothing items and eating out.
Social media microtrends are a common influence on peoples shopping decisions, and this can lead to overspending. If youre looking to avoid spending money on microtrends, you can find experts recommendations here.
Building an emergency fund
If you are in a position to do so, having multiple financial goals youre working towards at the same time can be a great way to speed up your progress. For Worcester resident Melanie Duarte, 23, her New Years money goals include paying off her student loans and credit card debt while building an emergency fund.
I made sure to include it in my budget, even if its something as small as like $50. I just want to make sure I still put something in (my emergency fund) so that it eventually multiplies, said Duarte, who owns a marketing agency.
Duartes family didnt speak openly about finances when she was growing up. But, since she opened her own business, Duarte has been slowly working on rewriting her relationship with money.
If youre looking to start an emergency fund or create better habits while you save, you can read some experts recommendations here.
Finding balance
Finding a balance between saving for your long-term goals while also making sure you enjoy your money is important, but it can also be challenging. After the death of her grandfather just a few years after retirement, Tiana Stewart, 26, felt that he didnt get to enjoy the fruits of his labor. So, this past year, Stewart decided to enjoy her life and travel.
I do understand saving for retirement is important, but I also want to enjoy my life and the money that I work for at this time, especially being in my 20s, said Stewart, who lives in Maryland.
But now, as she reflects on her financial future, Stewart wants to focus on paying off debt, saving, and investing. Having a healthy balance between enjoying life and saving for the future is what she wants to work toward.
For some, participating in budgeting challenges such as the no-buy year can be a great way to set boundaries on your spending and set aside money towards your financial goals. Many people start such challenges at the beginning of the year and commit to keep going until the end, but others start with a no-buy month.
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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
The Trump administration will award each U.S. state between $147 million and $281 million in 2026 under a new rural health transformation program aimed at improving access to care and service quality, a senior White House aide said on Monday.
The initiative, authorized under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will provide $50 billion over five fiscal years. It will make $10 billion available each year from fiscal 2026 through fiscal 2030 for all 50 states.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said the fund is intended to improve rural health outcomes that have worsened over decades, while avoiding costly new construction.
“This is a massive effort to change the unfortunate reality that has overtaken rural healthcare in America, which is that your ZIP code has started to predict your life expectancy,” Oz told reporters. He said the money will also support other pilot projects across the country.
Officials said they will allocate half the funding equally among states, with the remaining $25 billion distributed based on factors tied to rural health systems, state policy actions, and initiatives states propose in their applications.
Administration officials also said they will recoup funds if states fail to meet certain criteria or do not carry out pledged actions.
“The purpose of this $50 billion investment in rural healthcare is not to pay off bills,” Oz said. “The purpose of this $50 billion investment is to allow us to right-size the system and to deal with the fundamental hindrances of improvement in rural healthcare.”
The rollout comes as President Donald Trump faces weak approval ratings, with inflation and cost-of-living concerns dominating voters’ minds ahead of next year’s congressional elections.
Trump performed strongly with rural voters, who made up about 36% of his voters in the 2024 presidential election, compared with 16% for his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, according to the Pew Research Center.
Moderate Republicans, who are pivotal to maintaining the party’s razor-thin majority in Congress, face added pressure as the House has not extended enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, leaving many marketplace enrollees projected to see higher premiums starting January 1.
Andrea Shalal and Sriparna Roy, Reuters
Robots have long been seen as a bad bet for Silicon Valley investors too complicated, capital-intensive, and boring, honestly, says venture capitalist Modar Alaoui.
But the commercial boom in artificial intelligence has lit a spark under long-simmering visions to build humanoid robots that can move their mechanical bodies like humans and do things that people do.
Alaoui, founder of the Humanoids Summit, gathered more than 2,000 people this week, including top robotics engineers from Disney, Google, and dozens of startups, to showcase their technology and debate what it will take to accelerate a nascent industry.
Alaoui says many researchers now believe humanoids or some other kind of physical embodiment of AI are going to become the norm.”
The question is really just how long it will take, he said.
Disney’s contribution to the field, a walking robotic version of Frozen character Olaf, will be roaming on its own through Disneyland theme parks in Hong Kong and Paris early next year. Entertaining and highly complex robots that resemble a human or a snowman are already here, but the timeline for general purpose robots that are a productive member of a workplace or household is farther away.
Even at a conference designed to build enthusiasm for the technology, held at a Computer History Museum that’s a temple to Silicon Valley’s previous breakthroughs, skepticism remained high that truly humanlike robots will take root anytime soon.
The humanoid space has a very, very big hill to climb, said Cosima du Pasquier, co-founder of Haptica Robotics, which works to give robots a sense of touch. There’s a lot of research that still needs to be solved.
The Stanford University postdoctoral researcher came to the conference in Mountain View, California, just a week after incorporating her startup.
The first customers are really the people here, she said.
Researchers at the consultancy McKinsey & Company have counted about 50 companies around the world that have raised at least $100 million to develop humanoids, led by about 20 in China and 15 in North America.
China is leading in part due to government incentives for component production and robot adoption and a mandate last year to have a humanoid ecosystem established by 2025, said McKinsey partner Ani Kelkar. Displays by Chinese firms dominated the expo section of this week’s summit, held Thursday and Friday. The conference’s most prevalent humanoids were those made by China’s Unitree, in part because researchers in the U.S. buy the relatively cheap model to test their own software.
In the U.S., the advent of generative AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini has jolted the decades-old robotics industry in different ways. Investor excitement has poured money into ambitious startups aiming to build hardware that will bring a physical presence to the latest AI.
But it’s not just crossover hype the same technical advances that made AI chatbots so good at language have played a role in teaching robots how to get better at performing tasks. Paired with computer vision, robots powered by visual-language models are trained to learn about their surroundings.
One of the most prominent skeptics is robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of Roomba vacuum maker iRobot who wrote in September that todays humanoid robots will not learn how to be dexterous despite the hundreds of millions, or perhaps many billions of dollars, being donated by VCs and major tech companies to pay for their training. Brooks didn’t attend but his essay was frequently mentioned.
Also missing was anyone speaking for Tesla CEO Elon Musks development of a humanoid called Optimus, a project that the billionaire is designing to be extremely capable and sold in high volumes. Musk said three years ago that people can probably buy an Optimus within three to five years.
The conference’s organizer, Alaoui, founder and general partner of ALM Ventures, previously worked on driver attention systems for the automotive industry and sees parallels between humanoids and the early years of self-driving cars.
Near the entrance to the summit venue, just blocks from Google’s headquarters, is a museum exhibit showing Google’s bubble-shaped 2014 prototype of a self-driving car. Eleven years later, robotaxis operated by Google affiliate Waymo are constantly plying the streets nearby.
Some robots with human elements are already being tested in workplaces. Oregon-based Agility Robotics announced shortly before the conference that it is bringing its tote-carrying warehouse robot Digit to a Texas distribution facility run by Mercado Libre, the Latin American e-commerce giant. Much like the Olaf robot, it has inverted legs that are more birdlike than human.
Industrial robots performing single tasks are already commonplace in car assembly and other manufacturing. They work with a level of speed and precision thats difficult for todays humanoids or humans themselves to match.
The head of a robotics trade group founded in 1974 is now lobbying the U.S. government to develop a stronger national strategy to advance the development of homegrown robots, be they humanoids or otherwise.
We have a lot of strong technology, we have the AI expertise here in the U.S., said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, after touring the expo. So I think it remains to be seen who is the ultimate leader in this. But right now, China has certainly a lot more momentum on humanoids.
Matt O’Brien, AP technology writer
Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report.
