Early in my career, I learned a valuable lesson that has stayed front and center. I was working for a company struggling to meet its marks. We were doing fine, but not knocking it out of the park. I walked into a quarterly business review, confident in our marketing metrics. We were hitting or surpassing every KPI, and I presented our achievements with pride. My CEO made a statement that stopped me in my tracks: Marketing success means nothing unless the company as a whole is winning.
That moment was a turning point. In our focus on metrics, its easy to overlook what really matters. Its a lesson I was grateful to learn early and one I believe every leader should embrace.
THE POWER OF MEASURING WHAT MATTERS MOST
As business, and particularly marketing professionals, metrics are drilled into us. Its what we were taught, so it would be predictable for me to operate like that. Dont get me wrong, metrics still matter. But they arent the only thing that matters.The problem with a laser focus on your individual departments goals is that it tends to be myopic, focused only on your stats. We track what’s measurable. We celebrate what’s improving. We report on what highlights our teams productivity. However, it’s easy to optimize for your own scorecard without checking whether those scores are driving company growth.
The harder work is asking whether we’re moving the needle on the larger business goals and aligning your metrics to that.
Unfortunately, your department dashboard can show improvement while the company and customers need something different. Your team can hit targets while overall revenue needs a different kind of support.
My CEOs feedback helped me see this gap. Marketing wins that don’t translate to business wins are just activity, and this insight applies to all areas of the business. Fortunately for me, this CEO knew that I was early in my career and provided me with a teachable moment.
MY APPROACH NOW
Since that conversation, I’ve changed what my team measures and how we define success. Every initiative has to answer two questions: How does this support overall company growth and health? And how does this help our customers?
Not just “how does this improve our brand score” or “how does this boost engagement?” Those might indicate progress, but they’re not the end goal. Business impact is the goal.
This means:
Throwing support behind products customers will actually buy
Building brand equity that translates into customer preference and pricing power
Improving customer experience in ways that drive retention and expansion
Creating demand that converts to revenue
4 WAYS TO ALIGN METRICS WITH BUSINESS GOALS
If you lead any function, here are four things to consider to better align your efforts with business outcomes. See if any of these resonate with you:
Start with company goals. What three to five outcomes would make your CEO and board happy this year? Revenue growth? Customer retention? Market share? Margin improvement? Build your metrics from there.
Connect your work to those outcomes. Draw clear lines between your initiatives and company business goals. If you can’t make that connection, you have an opportunity to refocus.
Celebrate progress, not victory. Improving KPIs shows progress. That’s worth acknowledging. But it’s not the finish line.
Make your metrics achievable, with room for growth. The best metrics show you where you’re creating value and where you have room to improve. They help you make better decisions about where to focus your efforts.
WHY BUSINESS ALIGNMENT CREATES BETTER RESULTS
When you tie your success to your companys success, several things happen.
You make better decisions about what to prioritize. You have clearer opportunities for collaboration with other departments, reducing silos. You create more customer value. You build stronger cases for resources because you’re speaking business impact language.
HOW MY TEAM OPERATES TODAY
When my team presents quarterly results now, we start with how the business is performing. Then we show how our work has contributed, or the opportunities for improvement. It connects our work to what matters. It helps us focus (or refocus) on creating real value rather than just checking boxes.
The CEO was right. Marketing success means nothing unless the company as a whole is winning. But here’s the good news: When you align your metrics with business goals, everyone wins more often.
Melissa Puls is chief marketing officer and SVP of customer success and renewals at Ivanti.
The battle for Warner Brothers Discovery got hotter this week as Paramount launched a hostile bid of $108.4 billion for the company, topping Netflixs agreement last week to pay nearly $83 billion for the companys streaming and studio assets.
Its the largest M&A deal of 2025 and rightfully will receive tough scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe. The ultimate price for Warner Brothers Discovery will certainly factor heavily into who wins the fight, especially with investors, and there could be additional bidders and proposals.
For sure, an acquisition by Netflix of one of the oldest Hollywood studios, Warner Brothers, and its HBO Max streaming service would have ripple effects across the industry, though not in the way critics contend.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren called it an anti-monopoly nightmare that would harm consumers and American workers. Actress Jane Fonda, who’s appeared in successful Netflix shows and movies, called it catastrophic. Titanic Director James Cameron declared it a disaster. Roy Price, the former head of rival Amazon Studios, penned a New York Times editorial proclaiming the end of Hollywood.
Such histrionics forget how Netflix already slowly yet systematically reordered the global entertainment industry over the last 25 years through a strategy of addition, not subtraction. By innovating from the margins, Netflix challenged outdated models, rewarded risk-takers, and gave consumers more control for better value. In doing so, it created countless opportunities for all stakeholders.
Traditional antitrust reviews focus on market share and whether the resulting combination has the power to harm consumers and competitors alike. Key will be how narrowly or broadly antitrust authorities define the market. For example, will they evaluate the deal solely on streaming TV services, all TV including broadcast and cable, or all entertainment options including games, music, etc. But even in the narrowest of interpretations, a Netflix-HBO combination would still face steep competition from well-funded rivals such as Disney, Amazon, Comcast, Apple, and Paramount.
And this merger review will have the added intrigue of President Trump already making clear hell be directly involved in deciding which offer gets approved despite his son-in-law Jared Kushner partially funding Paramounts bid.
With all that said, Paramount has already mounted an aggressive roadshow for Warner Brothers Discovery investors to convince them to pledge their shares. That means Netflix too will need to woo investors, regulators, and politicians in what will undoubtedly be its biggest publicity tour ever. And the strongest argument it can make lies in its very own story.
Full disclosure: I led Netflix corporate communications team from 2014 to 2017, know the company deeply, and remain a shareholder. I also led PR for other corporate mergers including Xeroxs hostile bid for HP until the effort was scrapped due to the pandemic. I served as lead antitrust reporter at Bloomberg News during the late 1990s.
The Netflix Narrative
Today many people look at Netflix and see an entertainment behemoth valued at more than $400 billion with a lot of market power. But it didnt start out that way and its success certainly wasnt assured.
In its most fundamental sense, Netflix epitomizes the American Dream. Not because it became big, but because it began small and showed how ordinary people with a better idea and a lot of grit could up-end well-entrenched industries. Netflix demonstrated when you level the playing field and bet on people instead of institutions, you unleash possibility that couldnt previously be imagined.
Netflix has been underestimated at every turn, perhaps even this latest one. In the early days, banks turned it down for financing, Blockbuster Video executives laughed them out of the room and former Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes famously dismissed the company as the equivalent of the Albanian army, suggesting it was no threat at all.
Netflix didnt succeed by manipulating government loopholes or seeking regulatory protections to fend off competition. It identified a compelling need in the marketplace, analyzed how new technologies could solve it, and got to work building an alternative. It took risks, learned, pivoted, and kept moving, leaving no aspect of the entertainment experience untouched.
Candidly, it would be hard to overstate the many ways Netflixs very existence benefited consumers, the entire entertainment ecosystem as well as adjacent markets such as consumer electronics, telecom, tech, marketing, language translation, and more.
From the start with mail-order DVDs and then as a streaming platform, Netflix put consumers and their pain points at the heart of its decision-making. For example, I recall numerous meetings where we discussed whether price increases should go into effect for inactive accounts. (Short answer: No. In fact, I believe Netflix is now cancelling inactive accounts rather than continuing to charge people.) It partnered wherever possible even with would-be competitors to simplify, expand, and enhance the entertainment experience.
When Netflix launched original streaming content in 2012-2013, the company didnt just usher in a new Golden Age of TV. They changed everything from how content was made, released and experienced within the broader ecosystem. How?
Here are just a few ways:
It broke the scarcity model of appointment TV and movie windows, exponentially increasing the number of stories told as well as the formats, frequency and topics. Its increasing content budgets forced rivals to do the same, putting billions more into the creative community than previously existed. This year alone, Netflix is expected to spend $18 billion on content for a global audience topping 300 million. Many of its hits including Stranger Things, Squid Games, and Orange is the New Black never would have found a home or as large an audience on traditional networks. By broadening the pool of creators and reducing risk, Netflix also has been able to save beloved shows including most recently Sesame Street as well as launching unknown talent and reigniting careers of others. (Looking at you, Jane Fonda.)
By releasing all episodes of a TV show at once, Netflix didnt just create binge-watching. It disintermediated traditional distribution methods that frustrated consumers and restructured the entire entertainment business. Cable bundles eroded, theaters needed to rethink exclusive agreements, studios launched their own streaming apps, and direct-to-consumer models stopped being where you dumped content that bombed at the box office. Consumers were able to decide on what schedule to watch shows and whether theyd prefer to see something in a theater or on the couch at home. And instead of having to pay for each movie or show separately, Netflix provided an enormous portfolio of content for a flat monthly fee.
Beyond content, Netflix transformed the entire entertainment experience from end to end. By insisting on effortless viewing for consumers, Netflix accelerated entire industries, from Smart TVs and mobile devices to cloud computing and AI. In Los Gatos, labs tested and rated TVs, devices, and even internet service providerscalling out ISPs that throttled speeds to protect cable monopoliesand shared those ratings publicly so consumers could choose accordingy. Engineers built advanced compression technology to reduce mobile data overages and deliver high-quality streaming even on limited bandwidth. To build its OpenConnect Network, Netflix invested more than $1 billion to deploy some 17,000 servers in 158 countries that prepositioned popular titles close to viewers. This eliminated buffering (Who could forget that spinning circle from the early days?), reduced global internet congestion, and saved ISPs billions in transit costs. By aggressively distributing 4K and HDR content at scale, it sped adoption of Ultra HD, reshaping consumer demand and pushing the entire hardware industry toward higher-quality images.
And while the company has been bringing the worlds stories to the world, it has invested heavily in the country where it got its start. As if knowing it would need to make this case at some point, Netflix posted a Made in America document on its website back in April of this year, highlighting the ways it benefits America. According to the document, it has contributed $125 billion to the US economy from 20202024, hired more than 140,000 cast and crew members, worked with over 550+ U.S. production companies, and filmed more than 900 titles across all 50 states.
Netflix attracted more than 300 million subscribers by building the worlds most powerful global distribution platform and ensuring its content is easy to access and enjoyable to watch. Its not in the companys business interests to horde content made by Warner Brothers and nothing in its history would suggest such an approach.
As for the theater owners expressing concern, their stiff-arming of Netflix led the company to buy its own theaters in L.A. and NYC to premiere movies so they could be awards eligible. This combination may finally force them to face societys viewing evolution and up their game to attract more theatergoers.
Chief Salesperson
Both co-CEOs at NetflixTed Sarandos and Greg Petersare impressive. But if Netflixs corporate story is one of the American Dream, its the same for Teds personal one.
I often thought Ted must wake up every day and say pinch me. Because nothing about his childhood would make anyone think hed be in the lofty position he is today at the top of an industry he deeply and thoroughly loves.
One of five children, he grew up in a working class, Greek-American family in Phoenix, where he often recalled watching videotaped soap operas and other shows with the whole family gathered round. He dropped out of college after two years and worked at the local video store near his home. It was after he began climbing the ranks at video rental companies that Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings reached out and sold him on the idea of joining Netflix.
The rest, as they say, is history. As the chief content officer prior to co-CEO, Ted was the main driver behind the companys move into original programming. Through a combination of passion, charm, and high intuition, he built the companys credibility in a clubby industry that long looked askance at outsiders.
Not only did his American Dream unfold alongside Netflixs, hes a highly skilled communicator, who connects with people in a very human way through personal storytelling and warmth. And with critics concerned about how Netflixs tech pedigree might change old Hollywood, Teds love for all things and people Tinsel Town oozes from every pore.
Netflix Everywhere
When we launched Netflix globally in early 2016, we used #NetflixEverywhere to mark the moment. That edict has never been more appropriate and necessary in the battle for Warner Brothers Discovery.
Netflix will need to actively tell its story to every audience on repeat for the next 1218 months or, as weve already seen, risk having its many detractors push unflattering and perhaps even untrue counternarratives.
Media interviews, major business and investor conferences, and congressional meetings all provide the opportunity to remind decision-makers and would-be critics that success itself isnt a problem if it was obtained fairly and by serving customers better than others. Its not like other companies didnt have ample time to beat Netflix at their own game over the last 1015 years.
And no one loves a come-from-behind story better than the guy in the Oval Office.
As we enter the 2025 home stretch, Bitcoin is once again down, dipping below $90,000 on Thursday, following the Federal Reserve’s highly anticipated interest rate cut by 25 basis points on December 10.
So why is crypto taking a hit, even when markets are up?
Why Bitcoin is faltering
One reason for Bitcoin’s drop after the rate cut is that traders had already fully priced in the cut ahead of the Fed’s announcement.
Unlike stocks, bitcoin is already in a bear market, where bad news gets accentuated and good news ignored, Michael Terpin, author of Bitcoin Supercycle, told Fast Company. Since the 25 basis point cut was already built in, bitcoin traders particularly ETF investors experiencing their first bear market were looking for more and pressed the sell button.”
Some other reasons for the sell off: Traders took a long term look at the macro economic environment ahead and got spooked, plus fear of increased inflation in 2026, according to analysts who spoke to Decrypt.
On midday Thursday, at the time of this writing, the digital cryptocurrency (BTC) was trading down over 2%. Its part of an overall decline in the crypto market that also saw closely watched digital asset XRP (XRP-USD) fall about 3%, hovering around $2 per token on Thursday, while Ethereum (ETH-USD) was down over 5% and was trading at $3,223 at the time of this writing.
Crypto, equities continue to decouple
Meanwhile, the stock market continues to experience gains (the S&P 500 is up over 16% this year), decoupling from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies which continue to strugglemarking the first time the crypto and stock markets have split since 2014, Bloomberg reported.
“For most of its history, Bitcoin has been decoupled from stocks. Its only in recent years that it mimicked tech stocks during risk-on to risk-off swings,” Terpin explained. “Bitcoin follows a four-year cycle, while stock market cycles prior to the money printing bonanza of the pandemic have been ten year cycles ending in 1929, 1989. 1999-2000, and 2009.”
The Architects of AI were named Time’s person of the year Thursday, with the magazine citing 2025 as when the potential of artificial intelligence roared into view with no turning back.
For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIMEs 2025 Person of the Year, Time said in a social media post.
The magazine was deliberate in selecting people the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI rather than the technology itself, though there would have been some precedent for that.
Weve named not just individuals but also groups, more women than our founders could have imagined (though still not enough), and, on rare occasions, a concept: the endangered Earth, in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982, wrote Sam Jacobs, the editor-in-chief, in an explanation of the choice. The drama surrounding the selection of the PC over Apples Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie.
One of the cover images resembling the Lunch Atop a Skyscraper photograph from the 1930s shows eight tech leaders sitting on the beam: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the CEO of Googles DeepMind division Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, who launched her own startup World Labs last year.
Another cover image shows scaffolding surrounding the giant letters AI made to look like computer componentry.
Five of the eight people selected Musk, Zuckerberg, Huang, Altman and Su are already billionaires with a collective fortune of $870 billion, based on the latest estimates compiled by Forbes magazine. Much of the wealth has been accumulated during the past three years of AI fever.
It made sense for Time to anoint AI because 2025 was the year that it shifted from a novel technology explored by early adopters to one where a critical mass of consumers see it as part of their mainstream lives, Thomas Husson, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, said by email.
The magazine noted AI company CEOs’ attendance at President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year at the Capitol as a herald for the prominence of the sector.
This was the year when artificial intelligences full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out, Jacobs wrote.
Some experts expressed caution over the AI boom and the race to develop increasingly powerful systems.
Leading AI companies are working feverishly to replace humans in every facet of life, and theyre not being shy about it, said Anthony Aguirre, executive director of the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, which works on AI safety issues. The impact on our society could be catastrophic if there are no guardrails protecting whats human, and most important to us.
AI was a leading contender for the top slot, according to prediction markets, along with Huang and Altman. Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope whose election this year followed the death of Pope Francis, was also considered a contender, with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani topping lists as well.
After winning his second bid for the White House, Trump was named 2024’s person of the year by the magazine, succeeding Taylor Swift, who was the 2023 person of the year.
The magazine was bought by Marc Benioff in 2018. Benioff, one of the co-founders of cloud-computing firm Salesforce, has called AI probably the most important technological wave of his lifetime. He has repeatedly said he doesn’t get involved in Time’s editorial decisions.
The magazine’s selection dates from 1927, when its editors have picked the person they say most shaped headlines over the previous 12 months.
Mike Catalini, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Matt O’Brien, Kelvin Chan, and Michael Liedtke contributed to this article.
This fall, President Trump took aim at the H-1B visa, in a move that has been telegraphed for years amid criticism that the program diverts jobs away from American workers. In September, Trump announced that new applications for the work visa would now be subject to a $100,000 feea bold attempt to curtail excessive use of the H-1B program.
The H-1B program, which was established through the Immigration Act of 1990, has been widely embraced by tech employers to enable hiring skilled talent from abroad, with companies like Amazon and Meta sponsoring thousands of H-1B workers every year. While H-1B workers hail from dozens of countries, an outsized portion of themabout 80%are hired from India and China. But the program has also repeatedly come under fire due to claims that it outsources jobs and undercuts wages by paying foreign workers below market rate.
Trumps proclamation has sparked confusion as employers have scrambled to figure out how the fee would reshape their hiring and recruitment plansand which workers would be subject to it. For the big tech companies that are among the most avid users of the H-1B visa, a $100,000 fee is not a huge price to pay.
But lawyers say many companies that use the visa more sparingly are now unable to shoulder the steep cost of hiring H-1B workers.
What we’re seeing is the $100,000 fee is not just impacting small employers who are like, we can’t pay that, says immigration lawyer Sandra Feist, who works with many people who are seeking an H-1B visa. No employer that I have spoken withand that includes very large organizations and large universitieshas said it’s worth it. This impact is being felt across all sizes of companies and institutions. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major business lobbying group, has filed a lawsuit challenging the fee, deeming it unlawful and cost-prohibitive for employers seeking to hire H-1B workers.
Feist says several companies she works with that typically enter the H-1B lottery on an annual basis are reevaluating their hiring strategy and planning to sit it out next year. In many cases, the muddled rollout of the fee and the lack of clarity on exceptions has created a chilling effect that is discouraging employers from sponsoring foreign workers altogether, even if they already have a visa.
There are a lot of instances where this fee does apply and is prohibitive, but there are also many circumstances where this fee would not apply based on the current guidance that we’ve received, Feist says. But employers are so fearful of the uncertainty and volatility around immigration.
How the fee is impacting employers
The same logic has influenced how early and mid-stage startups are approaching hiring at the moment, according to Sophie Alcorn, an immigration lawyer who works with tech startups and founders. A significant portion of H-1B visas are held by people who came to the U.S. as students and simply changed their immigration status.
But many founders are now hesitant to hire foreign nationals, even if they have already obtained a work visa or are currently authorized to work in the U.S.
A lot of small businesses just don’t have the resources or information to understand that if those people are maintaining valid status in the U.S., then the $100,000 fee would not apply to them, Alcorn says, citing the example of speaking with a recent graduate who had three job offers revoked when their immigration status was disclosed. (This person was authorized to work without restriction for the year ahead.)
H-1B workers can often play a significant role at small companies and startups, where they might be the sole person hired with their particular skillset, Alcorn says.
Due to the visa fee, however, Alcorn has found that startups are steering clear of those workers and opting instead to hire people who have secured the O-1 visa. (That visa does not have to be tied to the employer, and is awarded to people who possess extraordinary ability in their field. It can offer more flexibility and job mobility than the H-1B, particularly in fields that rely on freelance or contract work.) But this can deny opportunities to workers who dont have the qualifications they might need to secure an O-1. A lot of the really brilliant, talented engineers are not famous and don’t have a public profile, she adds. Many of them are not PhD researchers. They’re often very scrappy individuals with a lot of work experience.
The $100,000 fee is supposed to only apply to new applicationsbut existing H-1B workers are feeling the effects of it all the same. While H-1B workers can transfer their visa status if they find a new job, the restrictions of the visa can leave people in a precarious limbo if they get laid off. H-1B workers who lose their jobs are granted a 60-day grace period to find new employment and retain their visa status. In this job market, however, its no small feat for workers to land a new role within that timeframe.
Sharadha Kodem, an immigration lawyer who represents many H-1B workers, says that with the $100,000 fee in place, employers may be forced to pay up if they want to hire an H-1B worker but are unable to do so within 60 days. If a worker has to leave the country in the interim, their new employer risks being saddled with the $100,000 fee when they return with a new visa, Kodem says.
What this means for foreign workers
For aspiring H-1B workersbe it students or refugees with temporary status protecting them from deportationthe fee has thrown a wrench in their future plans.
The Trump administration has claimed that the $100,000 fee will not be levied on current H-1B workers or recent graduates who are seeking to change their status and switch to an H-1B visa. But their guidance also notes that the fee will be imposed if a worker is deemed ineligible for a change of status or extension. This vague language gives the administration broad discretion to determine who is eligible for a change of status, Feist saysand whether they will be slapped with a $100,000 bill. A recent Washington Post report found that foreign workers are already facing greater scrutinyand denialswhen they apply for work visas, including the H-1B.
Its not just tech workers or H-1B visa aspirants from India and China who are impacted by stringent policies like this one. Im working with a costume designer from Ukraine, and our plan was to file in the lottery this spring, Feist says. I’ll have to revisit that in light of the $100,000 fee. Feist is working with several people from Ukraine who have temporary protected status, for whom securing an H-1B would have been their best chance at staing in the U.S. If the administration has the final say on whether the fee should be waived, they could arbitrarily foist it on applicants from certain countries, Feist says.
The general hope is that, as the administration sees what a chilling effect this has on employers who are seeking essential workers that they can’t find in the U.S. workforce, that they will slowly narrow the scope of the fee and perhaps provide more clear guidance, she adds. Our hope is that the administration sees the light.
Why this does not address H-1B abuses
The Trump administration has framed this fee as a ploy to discourage companies from abusing the H-1B program or using it to source cheaper labor. In practice, however, the fee seems to be making it more difficult for companies to use the program the way it was originally conceived: to recruit highly skilled talent that they cant find stateside.
Meanwhile, for the leading tech companies that routinely file thousands of H-1B petitions to sponsor workers from abroad, $100,000 amounts to the equivalent of a paltry rounding errorand hardly qualifies as an obstacle. Those companies will likely face less competition for H-1B approvals, as the fee deters many employers from applying at all.
This is benefiting the exact employers that [the administration says] they are targeting, Feist says. It is only very large companies that over rely upon H-1B and sponsor tens of thousands of them each year that will benefit from this. And normal employers who are hiring an ophthalmologist or a teacher or a therapist or an architectthey will be disadvantaged.
The debate over the H-1B program dates back decades, with people on both sides of the aisle calling for reform long before President Trump assumed office.
One of the key critiques of the program has been that deep-pocketed companies can effectively game the lottery by flooding it with applicationsand that certain companies use the H-1B visa to undercut wages. The H-1B program has wage requirements but offers four different wage levels, and some research indicates that many workers are being paid at the lowest wage levels, which are supposed to be reserved for entry-level jobs. (Other research has found that employers are by and large paying market rate.) The backlog of green card applications also leaves many H-1B workers without a legitimate path to citizenship, forcing them to spend decades in the U.S. on a visa that is tied to their employment.
Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, says that employers who pay lower wages to H-1B workerswhich typically includes outsourcing and staffing firms like Infosys, Cognizant, and Tatastill benefit from the program, even if they are now saddled with the $100,000 fee.
They’re multi-billion dollar companies, and they get a lot of wage savings from using the program, he says. So [the fee] is not very well-targeted, and it could have unintended effects. And it just doesnt get at the heart of what’s wrong with the H-1B program.
What could actually reform the H-1B program
The new fee fails to reform the H-1B program in a meaningful way, and it seems even Trump is of two minds about the role of this visa. Even as Trump has cracked down on legal immigration, he has touted the value of H-1B. In a Fox News interview last monthnot long after he introduced the $100,000 feeTrump said the U.S. workforce lacked certain talents and needed the H-1B visa to bring over highly skilled workers. “You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, Im going to put you into a factory and were going to make missiles, he added.
There are changes to the H-1B program that could move the needle, though its not clear whether those efforts will actually target the companies that lean heavily on the H-1B visa.
The Trump administration is putting forth proposals that would likely amend the lottery system and prioritize applications for H-1B petitions that are at a higher wage levelin other words, give more weight to jobs that pay better. In theory, this could help prevent tech companies and outsourcing firms from exploiting the lottery system, while also ensuring H-1B workers are paid fairly.
But some lawyers argue that it would simply reinforce the advantage held by tech firms, who can afford to pay higher wages, and make it more difficult for other applicants to land an H-1B visa if overall wages are depressed in their sector. The Labor Department has also stepped up enforcement of the H-1B program through an initiative called Project Firewall, which is intended to investigate potential abuses of the H-1B visa, including but not limited to wage theft.
Still, as Costa points out, the threat of enforcement may not be a deterrent for billion-dollar employers that have come to rely on the H-1B visa.
Companies get disbarred from the program very, very rarely, he says. If the penalty is mostly just recovering back wages, then you’re just paying what you owed that worker anyway.
Walt Disney and OpenAI make for very odd bedfellows: The former is one of the most-recognized brands among children under the age of 18. The near-$200 billion companys value has been derived from more than a century of aggressive safeguarding of its intellectual property and keeping the magic alive among innocent children.
OpenAI, which celebrated its first decade of existence this week, is best known for upending creativity, the economy, and society with its flagship product, ChatGPT. And in the last two months, it has said it wants to get to a place where its adult users can use its tech to create erotica.
So what the hell should we make of a just-announced deal between the two that will allow ChatGPT and Sora users to create images and videos of more than 200 characters, from Mickey and Minnie Mouse to the Mandalorian, starting from early 2026?
Terms of the deal
As part of the three-year agreement, OpenAI has committed to continuing to implement robust trust and safety measures, as well as controls to stop illegal or harmful content. Disney hopes that means you cant make lewd footage of Belle and the Beastbut given the precarity of AI-model guardrails, and the ease with which they can be jailbroken, theres no guarantee.
Thats what makes the deal so puzzling for Disney, an externally benign behemoth that has long acted like an attack dog in defending unauthorized use of its intellectual property.
Some Disney fans and content creators will undoubtedly celebrate the news and the opportunity to play in the Companys sandbox in a more official way, says Rebecca Williams, a researcher who studies Disney and its business at the University of South Wales. But there are clear questions over copyright here.
Among them is how much influence Disneyinfamously controlling over how its characters are depictedwill have over the 800 million ChatGPT users creations. Although the deal reportedly will result in the creation of a joint steering committee to dictate the use of IP, this is a company that has previously sued providers of costumed characters for child birthday parties for unauthorized use of its IP. And as it brokered its deal with OpenAI, lawyers for Disney sent a letter to Google alleging copyright infringement on a massive scale. (Google did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment on the claims.) Disney is famously an IP defender and very aggressive, says Carissa Véliz, an AI ethicist at the University of Oxford, and OpenAI just throws it out the window.
Character control
Theres also a big shift in how Disney is ceding control of how its characters are depictednot least given Sam Altmans statement this fall that he wants to give verified adult users of OpenAI tools the ability to engage in erotic interactions, and, more generally, to loosen restrictions on OpenAIs tools.
Disneys statement frames this very much as giving fans control, offering them more creativity, and greater opportunities to connect with Disney characters and stories, says Williams. It remains to be seen whether this is what fans actually want
The deal also requires a shift for OpenAI, too. Presumably, that approach to slackening controls for users across OpenAI apps and services to be more permissive in what they can say, do, and create using the firms technology will have to be tightened more when talking about Disney properties.
Alongside letting Disney fans create their own AI versions of favorite characters, the House of Mouse is also leaping headlong into the AI space: As part of the agreement, Disney is investing $1 billion in equity into OpenAI and will reportedly become a major customer of the company.
A new frontier for copyright
The deal also alters both firms approach to copyright. All the talk between Bob Iger and Sam Altman about redefining the future of storytelling is bluster, reckons Adam Eisgrau, senior director for AI, creativity and copyright policy at the Chamber of Progress, a tech trade group. The biggest story today is what they apparently also have agreed between the lines, he says. That includes the idea that theres no future in content companies fighting fair use to sue generative AI developers for direct copyright infringement over training inputs, and that generative AI developers want to cut more deals to preclude secondary liability legal fights over their outputs.
But more than anything else, the deal potentially changes the idea of what made Disney Disney, reckons Véliz. How is it going to affect creativity in the long run? she asks. The raison detre for IP is to incentivize creativity, and when we undermine it, we give talent fewer reasons to focus on being creative, she explains. Its very ironic that a company like Disney, known for valuing talent, for valuing creativity, for valuing craftsmanship, is making a deal with a company that arguably represents the opposite of that.
Mickey Mouse, welcome to the AI era.
Fans will soon be able to create short-form generative AI videos featuring more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters thanks to a three-year agreement that The Walt Disney Co. inked Thursday with OpenAI. In addition to a $1 billion equity investment in the tech company, Disney will become the first major content licensing partner on OpenAIs Sora app.
The new collaboration offers an opportunity for Disney to extend the reach of our storytelling through AI, Bob Iger, Disneys CEO, said in a statement. Bringing together Disneys iconic stories and characters with OpenAIs groundbreaking technology puts imagination and creativity directly into the hands of Disney fans in ways weve never seen before, giving them richer and more personal ways to connect with the Disney characters and stories they love.
As for what Disney gets out of this deal, the media giant said it will become a major customer of OpenAI and receive warrants to purchase additional equity. Disney employees will also have access to ChatGPT and use OpenAIs tools to build new products and experiences.
DISNEYS CLASHES WITH AI
The move by Disney is interesting on two fronts: The company is famously and aggressively protective of its characters, while it has had other recent clashes over AI.
In June, Disney and Universal Pictures sued the AI image creator Midjourney, alleging that the company trained its AI models on their intellectual property. And Disney jumped into another AI-related legal tussle this week. The company sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google on Wednesday, accusing the tech giant of using UA to engage in copyright infringement on a massive scale, as Variety reported.
By partnering with OpenAI, Disney is busting open its massive toy chest of popular characters spanning the decadesfrom Mickey Mouse to Darth Vader, Ariel, and Captain Americaas fodder for AI creators. The company even teased that some of these fan-created videos could stream on Disney+.
It will be interesting to see how this partnership plays out once fans can start creating videos, which is estimated to begin sometime in early 2026. When Sora launched in September, the blowback came fast and furious after users flocked to the platform to create AI-generated videos featuring all sorts of popular characters. Within weeks, the Motion Picture Academy urged OpenAI to stop allowing copyright infringement on the platform.
EMPHASIS ON RESPONSIBILITY
But Disney and OpenAI emphasized in their announcement that the companies have a shared commitment to the responsible use of AI, which includes protecting the rights of creators.
This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences, Sam Altman, cofounder and CEO of OpenAI, said in a statement.
How, exactly, opening up the Disney library of characters to use on an AI platform benefits society is a bit unclear. But the agreement seemingly will give Disney more control over how its characters are used in this new era.
And, at the very least, investors seem intrigued by the partnership. Disney shares rose nearly 1.5% amid a broader market rally as of mid-day Thursday.
If budgeting spreadsheets and lofty financial goals leave you stressed rather than inspired, consider another New Years ritual: an end-of-year money audit.
The word audit might not sound all that fun. But just like an accountant, its helpful to approach your money behavior as neutral and impersonal as possible.
At the end of every year, people tend to jump straight into resolutions: cutting spending, tightening budgets, and promising themselves theyll finally get disciplined in the new year, Jack Howard, Head of Money Wellness at Ally Bank, told Fast Company.
But I think the most meaningful financial reset starts somewhere much quieter: with your emotions. One of the most overlooked parts of financial wellness is understanding the emotional habits behind our money choices.
Its not about creating a strict budget; its taking stock of the emotional habits behind your spending. When you understand whats working (or not), you can make more intentional choices about what to amplify, adjust, or leave in 2025.
Before the holidays get rolling, it can be helpful to take a pause to conduct an emotional money audit. December is a great time to do this because you can go into the new year feeling confident about where you are financially and plan for the upcoming year.
Heres how Howard recommends people approach their own audit, to start off 2026 on the right financial footing.
Start with reflection, not restriction
Look back at the year through the lens of how your spending made you feelsecure, stressed, impulsive, proud? Howard says. Notice patterns without judgment. Ask yourself which habits supported your financial well-being and which ones held you back.
More than one in five American adults (22%) said they’d had to dip into their savings to cover their expenses in the past year. And as traditional milestones, like starting a family and homeownership, feel further out of reach for many, treat culture, the habit of indulging in small luxuries has taken grip.
Examine the habits beneath your behaviors
And yet much of our adult spending behavior started long before we were old enough to even make our own money. I call these our ‘money roots,’ Howard says. Take a moment to understand what triggers certain financial choices and which habits you want to start, continue, or stop heading into 2026.
Get a clear, full picture of your finances
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Americans owe more debt than at any point in historymore than $18.5 trillion in total. In such circumstances, it can be easier to bury your head in the sand or throw caution to the wind and book that three-week trip to Europe.
When you dont have a clear picture of whats coming in and going out, everyday decisions can feel overwhelming, Howard says. Start by listing out your current income, expenses, savings, and debt. Be specific so you can see where your money is actually going.
Create a realistic, values-based spending plan for 2026
Money wellness isnt about always saying ‘no’ to spending, says Howard. Its just as much about saying yes intentionallyto the things that you truly value.
Figure out your core values, and invest in them. Is it an expensive gym membership or overpriced fitness class? Is it that coffee you buy on the way to work everyday that puts a smile on your face? Budget for the purchases that bring you joy and cut costs elsewhere.
The goal is never perfectionits progress
The power of compounding is not limited to investments. Focus on creating positive financial wellness momentum to propel you into the new year, says Howard. Set clear, manageable milestones and outline small, steady steps to build traction, like setting a weekly money check-in, automating tiny transfers towards your goals, or reviewing one spending category at a time.
Last week, Netflix announced it was buying Warner Bros. in a massive $82.7 billion deal. The streaming giant’s acquisition will set Netflix, which already leads the streaming wars, even further apart from competitors, as it will also add HBO, a Warner subsidiary. But while the deal will further cement Netflix’s domination, questions are swirling around how it will impact viewers, as well as the talent platforms rely on.Streaming platforms have recently undergone consolidation, creating three mega-platforms. According to a Forbes survey, Netflix is the most popular streaming service in America with 55% of Americans saying they use it, followed by Amazon Prime (51%), and Disney+ (49%). And, for talent, like actors and writers, the further consolidation of streaming platforms may escalate financial worries that have already been growing for some in the entertainment industry.
In recent years, a number of actors have openly raised concerns about fair pay, as streaming platforms began to change the game. While traditional broadcast series pay residuals for each re-airing, as a percentage of the actor’s salary, later agreements changed the way actors earned residuals entirely. The new formula was based around a predetermined licensing fee, rather than the number of re-runs. Netflix, which seemed to favor paying actors more upfront while rather than residuals may have been particularly guilty of underpaying talent. And there was no shortage of actors calling the streaming giant out.
A number of actors on some of Netflix’s most popular shows have spoken about their low-ball paychecks, having to keep their day jobs, or even pay for their own transportation to the set a conversation which gained traction with the 2023 writer’s strike. Alysia Reiner, who played the warden Natalie (Fig) Figueroa, in Netflix’s hit series, Orange is the New Black, told New York Magazine in a 2023 interview, about the “risk” that actors took during the early days of streaming, saying that “the reward for Netflix does not seem in line with the reward for all of us who took that risk.”
Reiner continued, “I can go anywhere in the world and Im recognized, and Im so deeply grateful for that recognition. Many people say theyve watched the series multiple times, and they quote me my lines. But was I paid in a commensurate way? I dont think so.
With the latest transaction under way, SAG-AFTRA addressed the reignited concerns around talent’s pay in a Dec. 5 statement, explaining that the consolidation “raises many serious questions about its impact on the future of the entertainment industry, and especially the human creative talent whose livelihoods and careers depend on it.” The statement continued, A deal that is in the interest of SAG-AFTRA members and all other workers in the entertainment industry must result in more creation and more production, not less. It must do so in an environment of respect for the talent involved.”
However, it seems like those things may not come without a fight, especially given how Netflix prefers to put big-budget films directly on its streaming service for subscribers, rather than opting for theatrical releases. That recent transaction has some groups, like the Directors Guild of America (DGA), already expressing “significant concerns ” over the development. In a Dec. 5 statement, the DGA said, We believe that a vibrant, competitive industry one that fosters creativity and encourages genuine competition for talent is essential to safeguarding the careers and creative rights of directors and their teams.”
The DGA added that it will be meeting with the streaming giant “to outline our concerns and better understand their vision for the future of the company.”
Jon Shavitz, an independent filmmaker and writer living in Los Angeles, also addressed concerns around the deal in a recent blog post, writing that the experience of going to the movie theater is endangered as the giants take over, but it’s not because audiences don’t want theatrics, which, in his view, is utterly irreplaceable.
Audiences still want the big screen,” Shavitz writes. “They still want the magic of the lights coming down and the quiet anticipation before the picture starts. They still want to gasp with a hundred people at the same time. You cant algorithm that. You cant stream your way out of that fundamental human appetite for an exciting theatrical-only event.”
Still, Shavitz tells Fast Company that the concern creators are feeling around financials, as well as potentially fewer jobs, is “fair. He says that, simply, the streaming model doesnt work as far as getting talent paid fairly. Still, the writer says he’s also hopeful that people within the industry “will fight to fix what’s broken,” noting that he believes the economics of deals such as this which dont support talent, could ultimately force a return to core business fundamentals. By that he means an eventual return to the ever-evaporating exclusive theatrical windows.
As he writes in his blog, Netflix’s deal is an “overreach” that will force both those working within the industry, as well as audiences, to decide between “a streaming-only future for major release films, or working to restore the very thing that made cinema a cultural force in the first place”.
Once the deal goes through, whatever happens next, Shavitz says, will be “up to us industry and non-industry people alike to fight for the theatrical experience.”
Fast Company reached out to Netflix for comment.
Cryptocurrency mogul Do Kwon is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday for misleading investors who lost billions when his companys crypto ecosystem collapsed in 2022.
Kwon, known by some as the cryptocurrency king, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court in August to fraud charges stemming from Terraform Labs $40 billion crash.
The company had touted its TerraUSD as a reliable stablecoina kind of currency typically pegged to stable assets to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. But prosecutors say it was all an illusion that came crumbling down, devastating investors and triggering a cascade of crises that swept through cryptocurrency markets.
Kwon, who hails from South Korea, has agreed to forfeit over $19 million as part of the plea deal.
While federal sentencing guidelines would recommend a prison term of about 25 years, prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Kwon to 12 years. They cited his guilty plea, the fact that he faces further prosecution in Korea, and that he has already served time in Montenegro while awaiting extradition.
Kwons fraud was colossal in scope, permeating virtually every facet of Terraforms purported business, prosecutors wrote in a recent memo to the judge. His rampant lies left a trail of financial destruction in their wake.
Kwon’s attorneys asked that the sentence not exceed five years, arguing in their own memo that his conduct stemmed not from greed, but hubris and desperation.
In a letter to the judge, Kwon wrote, I alone am responsible for everyones pain. The community looked to me to know the path, and I in my hubris led them astray, while adding, I made misrepresentations that came from a brashness that is now a source of deep regret.
Authorities said investors worldwide lost money in the downfall of the Singapore crypto firm, which Kwon cofounded in 2018. Around $40 billion in market value was erased for the holders of TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg.
Kwon was extradited to the U.S. from Montenegro after his March 23, 2023, arrest while traveling on a false passport in Europe.
