With its many extraterrestrial guest stars, The X-Files was always meant to be a spooky show. One of its earliest episodes, however, is now eerie in a way its creators likely never intended.
In Ghost in the Machine, a first-season standout that originally aired in 1993, a sentient, corporate-created AI turns deadly when it perceives a threat to its existence.
That description may rightly sound near-identical to any number of previous killer-computer plotlines2001: A Space Odyssey being the most obvious touchstone, along with Terminator 2, which had come out just two years earlier.
What sets this X-Files episode apart from other entries in the lethally sentient AI canon is that it pits a safety-minded tech CEO against a belligerent U.S. Department of Defense, which is desperate to use this companys AI in guardrail-free combat operations.
Sound familiar?
A ghost in the machine
Across its nine original seasons, two feature films, and a reboot, The X-Files cultivated an overarching mythology. The shows creators wisely took frequent off-roading adventures, though, with standalone Monster of the Week episodes that helped keep fans on their toes.
Ghost in the Machine is one such excursion, only the monster in this case turned out to be AI.
The show begins with the CEO of too-cutely named software company Eurisko (you risk-o?) writing a memo about shutting down the Central Operating System AI that runs corporate HQ.
Unfortunately, because the AI is surveilling the entire building, it picks up on this plan and chooses instead to shut down with extreme prejudice the CEO himselfvia electrocution.
Enter FBI special agents Fox Spooky Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Their investigation quickly leads them to Euriskos founder, Brad Wilczek, who is initially willing to take the fall for his CEOs murder.
By digging a bit deeper, though, Mulder discovers that not only is Euriskos AI the true culprit, the Department of Defense has been trying to get its hands on that AI for years, only to be snubbed each time by Wilczek.
(It’s a learning machine, one character says. A computer that actually thinks. And it’s become something of a holy grail for our more acquisitive colleagues in the Department of Defense.)
Eventually, Mulder and Scully work with Wilczek to fry the AI, much to the chagrin of a Defense Department mole who has been working at Eurisko the whole time. File closed!
Back in 1993, Ghost in the Machine fit snugly into the paranoid truth is out there ethos of a sci-fi show about alien conspiracies. Now, its not closer to the realm of documentary.
Although the show would return to the subject of AI again 25 years later in one of the reboot episodes2018s Rm9sbG93ZXJz, a more Black Mirror-y spin on fearing ones smartphoneits the older and admittedly cheesier outing that is far more relevant in 2026.
Its most glaring point of prescience, of course, is that it appears to have predicted with spooky accuracy the recent battle between the U.S. government and AI heavyweight Anthropicnot to mention the governments use of AI in its current war with Iran.
Our more acquisitive colleagues in the Department of Defense
Unlike his fictional counterpart in The X-Files, Anthropic cofounder Dario Amodei was very much interested in lending his AI model to Uncle Sam. Last July, Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide its Claude model for use in classified and operational work.
It was only when negotiations began over what such work might actually entail that irreconcilable differences emerged.
As the back-and-forth dragged on through late 2025 and into this January, the major sticking points involved Anthropics demand of usage restrictions on Claudemainly, that it shouldnt be deployed for mass domestic surveillance or for building fully autonomous weapons without human oversight.
The Pentagon insisted otherwise.
Heres where the similarities between Amodei and Euriskos Wilczek get really interesting. (The fact that Amodei bears something of a physical resemblance to Wilczek cant be ignored either.)
Why did the fictional founder want to protect civilian populations from the U.S. Defense Department using his AI? He explains it himself in the following exchange with Mulder:
Wilczek: After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Robert Oppenheimer spent the rest of his life regretting he’d ever glimpsed an atom.
Mulder: Oppenheimer may have regretted his actions but he never denied responsibility for them.
Wilczek: He loved the work, Mr. Mulder. His mistake was in sharing it with an immoral government. I won’t make the same mistake.
Amodei publicly presents himself in a similar light, if with less on-the-record talk about government immorality.
He has frequently recommended Richard Rhodess book The Making of the Atomic Bomb in interviews, reportedly used to give copies of the book to new employees, and keeps one on prominent display in the Anthropic library.
Though Amodeis peer, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, has also spoken often of Oppenheimer as a cautionary example, Amodei has now proven more willing to stick to his guns on the issue.
In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum to drop its demand for safety guardrails or face consequences. Anthropic refused. As a result, Hegseth made good on his threat, formally designating Anthropic a supply chain riskthe first time the Pentagon has applied that label to a U.S. AI firm.
Anthropic has since sued the Pentagon over this measure. As a bonus, the White House labeled Anthropic a radical left, woke company, and President Trump directed all federal agencies to stop using Claude.
Meanwhile, former Oppenheimer-recaller Altman has agreed to let OpenAI fill the military void, albeit with guardrails, according to the company.
AI at war
The X-Files episode Ghost in the Machine ends with the Department of Defense thwarted and its desired AI, which has ostensibly been destroyed, telegraphing to viewers it is still alive, so to speakthe epilogic hand flying out of a grave in a horror movie.
In real life, though, the government got a hold of its AI without the need for any innuendo.
Despite the formal ban on federal use of Anthropics tools, parts of the U.S. military continue to rely on Claude in combat operations, since they were already deeply embedded. (Removing them completely could take months.) In the meantime, according to the Wall Street Journal, the current war with Iran is demonstrating Claudes usefulness.
AI tools are helping gather intelligence, pick targets, plan bombing missions and assess battle damage at speeds not previously possible, the report reveals. AI helps commanders manage supplies of everything from ammunition to spare parts and lets them choose the best weapon for each objective.
On February 28, at the start of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, a Tomahawk missile struck an Iranian elementary school, claiming the lives of at least 175 peoplemost of them children. Recent reporting strongly suggests that not only was the U.S. at fault for the missile strike, but that the school was on a U.S. target list and may have been mistaken for a military site.
As of this writing, nobody in the U.S. government has claimed responsibility for the mistake.
The X-Files episode and movies like Terminator 2 stoked the fear that a sentient AI might decide to wipe out all of humanity. They couldnt foresee the more immediate threat in 2026: that an immoral government would decide to wipe out a portion of humanity and let AI take the blame.
James Beard Award-winning chef René Redzepi, who co-founded the iconic, Michelin Starred Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, announced his resignation on Wednesday. The announcement comes following years of allegations of abuse, assault, and the creation of a toxic work environment at the restaurant which is one of the world’s most famous, influential and acclaimed dining spots.
Back in 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, entire industries were upended with a long-overdue, global reckoning that held countless high-profile men accountable for past behavior of abuse, leading to widespread cultural and workplace change. The chauvinistic toxicity of the restaurant industry was especially highlighted, with big names like Mario Batali, Todd English, John Besh and many others hit with abuse allegations that triggered restaurant closures and public resignations.
Now, nearly a decade later, the latest incident with Redzepi underscores just how far the workforce, and the restaurant world in particular, may still have to go to create safe workspaces that operate at the most elite levels in their industriesand to hold perpetrators accountable.
Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at workplace consultancy firm Culture Partners, tells Fast Company that restaurants are “pressure cookers,” but asserts that shouldn’t excuse abusein restaurants, or any other workplace led by highly successful leaders highly visible in their field.
Dismantling the mythology of the brilliant tyrant
While abuse claims followed Redzepi for years, the heat on the chef reached a boiling point after an explosive New York Times report was published earlier this month.
The piece detailed Redzepi’s alleged abuse from 2009 to 2017, with reports of a kitchen being run by “unpaid interns” working 16-hour shifts, a habit of “public shaming,” and an explosive episode that involved punching an employee. Employees said that kind of abuse was common: Going to work felt like going to war, former employee Alessia, who didn’t want her surname to be published in the piece, told the outlet. You had to force yourself to be strong, to show no fear.
The bombshell NYT report came just ahead of a new Noma pop-up’s opening in Los Angeles. When the pop-up opened on March 11, a crowd of protesters were outside. Key sponsors like American Express, Resy and Blackbird had pulled their funding the day before. The chef’s resignation soon followed.
I have worked to be a better leader and Noma has taken big steps to transform the culture over many years, Redzepi wrote on Instagram following the opening. I recognize these changes do not repair the past. An apology is not enough; I take responsibility for my own actions. In a post just days earlier, Redzepi also acknowledged his abusive behavior, which he admitted involved physical acts of aggression, and said he was simply “not able to handle the pressure.”
Fast Company has reached out to Noma for comment.
While workplace culture has undeniably changed in recent years, as individuals (especially women) have spoken out more frequently about workplace harassment and abuse thanks to the #MeToo movement, challenges still exist. Working in an office and a restaurant are drastically different experiences, for examplethe latter tends to be an extraordinarily fast-paced environment that can lend itself to toxic conditions.
Kriegel says that more recent representation on shows like The Bear, coupled with brave employee voices, could be helping to bring about some long-awaited change within the industry. The Emmy-winning Hulu hit features toxic bosses at world-class restaurants, but it also shows the impactincluding traumato employees.
“Workers are speaking up, and audiences are starting to see the human cost behind the mythology of the ‘brilliant tyrant,'” Kriegel explains.
“Shows like The Bear are great because they dont just glorify the chaos of the kitchen. They show what it does to people.”
According to a 2021 survey of 4,700 restaurant workers from Black Box Intelligence, 49% of restaurant workers experience emotional abuse from managers, and 15% reported being sexually harassed by managers or coworkers. (Thats not even including abuse from customers: 62% of respondents said they receive emotional abuse or disrespect from customers, and another 15% are sexually harassed by them.)Kriegel says that the narrative is definitely beginning to shift, even when it comes to the restaurant industry. “The world is moving away from tolerating abusive leadership simply because someone is talented,” Kriegel explains.
If Redzepi’s resignation is any indication, that may be true.
Nothing says springtime like a canvas tote drop from Trader Joe’s. That’s right. The highly anticipated shopping bags are back and ready to fly off the shelves (and, probably, the resale sites) once again.
Trader Joe’s totes are historically massively popular. The brand’s mini totes, which are just 13-by-11-by-6 inches, first dropped in 2024 and became an instant sensation after going mega-viral on TikTok. Once they sold out, they quickly began popping up on resale sites. While the totes only cost $2.99 in stores, resellers majorly marked them up, with some listing the bags for hundreds or even thousands. Since 2024, Trader Joe’s has released a few other versions of the totes as well, like Halloween-themed bags, which were also massively popular.
Now, the bags are coming back, and this time, you can get one in a larger (more practical?) size. Nakia Rohde, a Trader Joes spokesperson, told Fast Company that the “next new bag will be a large canvas bag with lavender handles and a pink logo.” That means you’ll be able to hold way more TJ’s goods.
But if your heart is set on the mini bag, don’t fret. They are heading back to stores this spring, and they’ll be popping up in the same springtime colors as last year: delicate pink, baby blue, mint green, and lovely lavender.
Still, you’ll have to stay nearby Trader Joe’s if you want to snag one. Rohde did not give an exact date that any of the totes will be available nationwide, but said they should be in stores by mid-March, with dates varying based on location. It may also be a good idea to refer to your local TikTok influencer.
TJ’s tote bags are certainly not the first item to experience viral fame that leads to an instant surge in purchases. Stanley tumblers, mini waffle makers, beauty products, and tons of other everyday items have, too. However, the Trader Joe’s totes have not seemed to lose their luster since they first arrived on the scene. And, remarkably, it all happened without the brand even having to advertise the bags at all. Our Mini Canvas Tote Bags certainly sold more quickly than we anticipated, Rohde told AP News in 2024. Before we had the opportunity to promote them in any way, customers across the country found them at their neighborhood Trader Joes.
Pay transparency laws were supposed to address the pay disparities that tend to impact women and people of color in the workplace. Over the last decade, 15 states have introduced laws that require varying degrees of disclosure from employers, from including explicit salary ranges in job postings to verbally sharing those details with prospective employees during the interview process.
But new research out of Cornell University indicates that those laws have not been as effective as intendedin part because many employers fail to truly comply with them.
These laws often do not clearly articulate how broad a salary range should be, and simply instruct companies to provide a good faith salary range. (The pay transparency law in New York, for example, states that at the time a job is posted, the range must be the minimum and maximum annual salary, or hourly rate the employer believes, in good faith, they are willing to pay.) As Fast Company has previously reported, this means some employers provide broad salary ranges that technically abide by the law, but are of little use to job applicants.
Cornells findings show that these wide salary bands can have the exact opposite effect than was intended by advocates of pay transparency: Across four studies, researchers saw significant variation in the breadth of salary rangesand a clear pattern of women preferring jobs with narrower salary bands compared to their male counterparts. So even as pay transparency laws have sought to put all applicants on even footing, women are often discouraged from applying to jobs with wide salary ranges, reinforcing gender-based pay gaps. But it turns out women face obstacles even when they opt for jobs with narrower ranges.
In terms of the implications of this work, those that applied to narrower pay ranges then negotiated less assertively, says Alice Lee, the lead author and assistant professor of organizational behavior at Cornells School of Industrial and Labor Relations. If women are sorting into jobs with narrow pay ranges, that is then constraining their likelihood to negotiate assertively for a higher salaryand these policies that are intended to mitigate these gaps might be actually perpetuating these gaps.
Lees research team conducted a collection of studies to understand the effects of pay transparency laws. In an analysis of nearly 10 million job postings, they found a broad spectrum of pay ranges. Two following studies looked at how applicants responded to different job postings, along with how they negotiated when they started interviewing. A final study tested out a few interventions that the researchers thought might encourage women to apply to jobs with wider ranges.
There were a few things that did seem to make a difference for female applicantsnamely, being more transparent about how compensation was determined in the original job posting. We just included some clarifying information to the job ads in addition to the pay ranges we provided, Lee says. It was just two sentences that informed applicants of the typical starting salary, as well as sort of the qualifications and the system through which pay is determined . . . for those that saw the job ad with this clarifying information, women applied just as frequently as men to jobs with wider pay ranges, and we also saw no gender gap in negotiation behavior.
As Fast Company has reported, overly broad salary ranges have been a recurring issue in states that have enacted these laws. The language of these pay transparency laws leaves room for interpretation, and many employers are not particularly incentivized to volunteer more information than necessary. (Pay transparency laws could impose stricter limits on salary bands, as is the case in states like New Jerseythough this might be a tough sell in regions where corporate interests hold more sway.) The state agencies that enforce these laws tend to prioritize the most flagrant violationsemployers who openly flout the law and do not disclose any salary range, for examplewhich means there are fewer repercussions for companies that effectively try to get around the law by posting unhelpful salary ranges.
In New York City, for example, the New York City Commission on Human Rights brought 33 complaints against a variety of employers in the year after the citys pay transparency law took effect in late 2022. But the vast majority of those complaints focused on companies that had neglected to include any salary information in their job postings. While the agency did bring a handful of complaints against companies that used very broad ranges, Fast Companys reporting found that there were other major employers who posted jobs with salary bands that spanned about $100,000.
Employers have their reasons for posting wide salary ranges. Many of them want to stay competitive to attract the best talentwhich can mean leaving some room for negotiating compensation, even if that might exacerbate pay disparities. Sometimes companies dont have a clear compensation strategy and scramble to come up with an appropriate salary band, which is especially likely for AI roles that are in demand and can command high salaries.
But companies can send the wrong message when they use broad salary rangesin turn alienating prospective employees. Lee says there is an element of risk aversion that also plays into why women are more likely to steer clear of broad salary ranges. Job applicants may also make assumptions about how much a company values equitable pay practices or the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion more broadly. If a company cares about [diverse talent]which I think, personally, all companies shouldthen they should absolutely care about what their pay ranges are signaling, Lee says.
For employers who purport to care about pay equity, Cornells research suggests that employers only need to take a few steps to embrace the spirit of these pay transparency laws. Providing even minimal context on how compensation is determinedalong with a typical starting salarygoes a long way. The researchers found that women responded positively to relatively basic language, which noted your exact offer will reflect your relevant experience, skill level and the responsibilities of the role, in line with our standardized compensation guidelines. In some cases, Lee says, it might make sense for a company to use a large salary band, but outline specific pay tiers within that range, based on experience and qualifications.
Lee points out that these laws do give workers an opening to ask more questions about compensation and advocate for themselves. But ultimately, its companies who hold a lot of power in those negotiations, regardless of legal protectionsand many of them may not even be aware of the message they are sending to prospective employees.
I do thinkI hopethat some employers do truly care about attracting [diverse] talent, and you might be constraining and preventing many of those people without even knowing so, Lee says. I think these findings might come as a surprise to some people.
Fancy a chauffeur? Uber is courting the well-heeled with a new ride option that will see it extend its reach from a taxi alternative to offering a more exclusive, limousine-style service.
Uber announced Thursday it will launch a chauffeur ride optionUber Elitethat will offer a luxury ride experience targeting executives and other frequent travelers. Uber Elite will become the rideshare operators most expensive option, and will be offered on an invite-only basis for current Uber Black and Uber for Business clients in San Francisco and Los Angeles, followed soon by New York.
Uber is banking on a market for a more elevated experience, though the accompanying cost may be difficult to justify for some people.
Just consider the hypothetical ride that the company shared as an example in its announcement. An Uber Elite customer could request a ride from the San Francisco International Airport to the citys Union Square, with an option for a meet and greet at baggage claim, for a whopping $177.95 for the roughly 13-mile journey. Thats more than three times the cost of an UberX, a standard ride-alone option, while the citys BART system costs only $11.80 for that same journey.
PREMIUM PRICING FOR PREMIUM EXPERIENCE
The premium pricing is seemingly justified by a premium experience: Uber Elite will partner with fleet companies that employ professional chauffeurs driving luxury vehicles.
In addition to the option to be met at baggage claim by the chauffeur, riders can expect complimentary amenities that some Uber drivers already offer in quest of a 5-star rating: Chargers, bottled water, mints, and hand-sanitizing towelettes. Riders can also make special requests, like champagne, which surely come at an extra cost.
[Image: Uber]
But there is a notable perk for anyone who has dealt with the frustration of trying to reach a human through Ubers customer support options: Uber Elite riders will have access to premium 24/7 phone support, which will be available before, during, and after the trip. Whats more, riders can call their chauffeur directly before pickup and rides can be arranged with as little as one hour notice or up to 90 days in advance.
Chauffeur services have become the new battleground for rideshare companies. In October, Lyft acquired TBR Global Chauffeuring for about $110 million, expanding its reach into the luxury market in more than 3,000 cities in 120 countries. That said, Lyft has also been appealing to more budget-conscious customers recently, with recent blog posts touting the benefits of opting for rideshare versus car rentals and car ownership.
Since its founding in 2009, Uber has steadily expanded its options to corner nearly every transportation option, from bikes to air taxis in select markets. Last year, riders booked more than 13.5 billion trips with Uber, the company reported last month.
Even so, Ubers stock has stalled; its fallen more than 27% from an all-time high in October and slumped nearly 2.8% in mid-day trading on Thursday.
René Redzepi, the chef behind Copenhagen’s Noma, has resigned from the iconic restaurant he co-founded and its food non-profit MAD, amid abuse allegations. The move comes after protesters gathered outside Noma’s 16-week Los Angeles pop-up Wednesday.
A recent New York Times article reports that former employees of the restaurant allege a pattern of abuse, including “punching, slamming, screaming,” from 2009 and 2017. The Times interviewed dozens of former employees throughout 18 of the chef’s 23 years at the restaurant. The report also alleges unpaid interns worked 16-hour days.
On Wednesday, protestors outside Noma’s L.A. pop-up chanted and held up signs that read Unpaid Labor Built Your Empire, and No Michelin Stars for Violence. (The price for dinner at the L.A. residency is a staggering $1,500 a person.)
Fast Company has reached out to Noma and Redzepi for comment on the allegations and protest.
Noma, which under Redzepi, put New Nordic cuisine on the map, holds three Michelin stars and is considered one of the best restaurants in the world, if not the best.
“An apology is not enough; I take responsibility for my own actions,” Redzepi wrote on Instagram. I have worked to be a better leader and Noma has taken big steps to transform the culture over many years. I recognize these changes do not repair the past.”
“After more than two decades of building and leading this restaurant, Ive decided to step away and allow our extraordinary leaders to now guide the restaurant into its next chapter,” he added.
As a result of the controversy, a number of corporate sponsors have withdrawn their support for the L.A. pop-up, including American Express and its booking playform Resy, Blackbird, and Cadillac.
Redzepi’s fall from grace is especially surprising given the number of accolades the chef has received over the years and the cult-status Noma achieved.
However, he is not the first celebrity chef to resign amid accusations of abuse. Perhaps the most notable is Mario Batali, who was forced out of his Italian food-hall Eataly in 2017 after sexual harassment and assault accusations, and had to sell his minority stake in the company. He was later found not guilty in a Boston court while on trial for indecent assault and battery in 2019.
In 2020, Waymo began offering fully driverless rides to the public in Phoenix, turning the city into the closest thing the U.S. has to a real-world laboratory for autonomous vehicles. What began as a cautious pilot has since grown into a sprawling robotaxi network that now includes freeway travel and service to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Since then, Waymo has expanded to cities including San Francisco and Austin, while rivals like Tesla and Zoox are racing to deploy their own autonomous fleets. But the technologys spread has come with a steady stream of logistical and political questions for the cities hosting it (especially since Phoenix, with its wide roads and relatively simple grid, represents one of the easier environments for autonomous vehicles to navigate).
Fast Company spoke with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego this week at Austin’s South by Southwest festival about what its actually like to govern a city where driverless cars are more fully integrated into the transportation system. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Youve overseen Phoenix during the whole arc of Waymos rollout. Whats changed in the city once AVs moved from a pilot to something residents can actually use?
People have really appreciated Waymos expansion onto the freeways, because they can get where theyre going more quickly if its a longer distance. When we started, we were the first airport to have autonomous service in the world, which is a point of pride for Phoenix. We originally started pickups at our Sky Train, and now weve moved to the curb. We tried to be very safety-focused and make sure we tested and piloted before we did full deployment. Its a point of pride for us that we were the first in the world to have autonomous vehicle service at the airport. We think it really shows were a technology-forward city and that were willing to embrace innovation.
Whats been the biggest benefit of having those Waymos on the streets in Phoenix?
We had a real shortage of drivers, so more people have the ability to get where theyre going, particularly during hours like overnight when its harder to find people who want to be working. So its really improved quality of life for riders. Weve also seen some traffic-calming impacts. The Waymos go the speed limit. Phoenix has above-average traffic speeds for big cities in the United States, so speeding and red-light running are challenges for us. Waymos follow traffic rules, so thats helped have a traffic-calming effect.
Have you seen any evidence in Phoenixcrash data, traffic incidentsthat verifies Waymos are making the roads safer? Are there other metrics you look at?
We look at Waymos crash data, and the Waymos crash less than traditional human drivers. I dont know that weve done a full analysis, but we couldwe probably should. Youre the second person to ask me that today, so maybe Ill take the hint and do that analysis.
Based on the Phoenix experience, whats something cities tend to underestimate when they first start integrating AVs into the roads? What adjustments do they have to make?
Its really important to have good communication. If there are issues with the programming, you want to make sure Waymo knows and can fix them. When weve reported issues to Waymo, theyve been great about adapting the programming.
What does the communication pipeline between your office and Waymo look like?
Our first responders work directly with Waymo. If were going to have an unusual event or an emergency were responding to, they have the ability to work directly with the company. We also work directly with Waymo to report any incidents or opportunities, or if we want to partner on anything.
Fast Company has reported on incidents in San Francisco where robotaxis can stall and take time to clear off the roads, partly because theres no human driver to communicate with. Have there been incidents like that in Phoenix?
Early on, we had a street closure for an arts festival and a bunch of Waymos got very confused by it. We shared the incident, and Waymo updated the programming. We havent had a repeat of the issue. Generally, when weve had challenges, theyve been fixable. We dont have the same problem repeatedly. Weve trained our first responders, and its important to me that as new entrants come into the autonomous vehicle market, first responders can communicate with vehicles from outside the car. Thats worked fine with Waymo.
In Arizona the state regulates autonomous vehicles. The city does not. But its been a partnership. For example, we had an issue where a Waymo drove into a pole in an alley. We shared the issue, and they updated the programming. I think they reported it to the federal government, but we werent their regulator. We were more like their partner.
When you say they update the programming, what does that mean?
I think they go out, look at what happened, and make sure the system understands how to react to that type of object or situation.
There was an issue in another community where there was a stop sign in the bed of a pickup truck. The Waymo saw the stop sign and stopped, because it was programmed to stop when it sees one. But it wasnt aware of a moving stop sign driving down the street. Once they programmed it to understand that situation, it was fixed.
Are other AV companies coming to Phoenix?
Right now we have Waymo and Tesla. Zoox announced last week that it plans to come, but it hasnt arrived yet.
Is there a point where there could be too many AV companies operating in a city?
I chaired the U.S. Department of Transportations Transforming Transportation Advisory Committee, and one of our recommendations was that certain safety standards should be common across companiesfor example, first responders should be able to communicate with vehicles from outside the car.
In Phoenix were also starting to think about how to design cities for more autonomous vehicles. Do we need more drop-off and queuing space in front of buildings? Should we adjust parking ratios? Some people in Phoenix imagine having their own autonomous vehicle that drops them off at work, then goes and makes money as a robotaxi and comes back later. I think were a ways away from that.
But we do think about whether traffic might move differently if there are more AVs. That could have environmental benefits and reduce the need for pavement. I care a lot about climate action and emissions. Waymos are lower-emission compared to our average vehicle fleet, and reducing tailpipe emissions helps us with our air-quality challenges. I grew up with asthma, so thats something Ive cared about for a long time.
Have there been actual changes to urban design yet, or is that still theoretical?
Were really looking at our parking minimums. Id love to see Phoenix devote less space to pavement and more to active uses. That could help enable better mass transit as well.
There are ongoing discussions about bringing Waymo to New York. Do you think the calculus changes in a much denser city?
In some ways there could be benefits. A Waymo can see many things at oce, whereas a human driver has a limited field of vision. But cities should be ready to train first responders and make sure all stakeholders understand how to work with the technology.
What does transportation look like five or 10 years from now in Phoenix?
We recently went to voters with a ten-year plan. As part of that, we talked about advanced transportation technologies. Im really interested in how these technologies can help Phoenix grow up rather than outencouraging more density and more sustainable land use.
And voters approved that plan?
Yes, with 78% approval. It was our general plan for the city. We also passed a regional transportation sales tax and set aside $250 million for advanced technology.
Are other cities asking you about Phoenixs experience with Waymo?
Yes. Weve had people from all over the world come visit. Delegations from the European Union, officials from Prague, and others have come to see how our regulatory system evolved and how the safety systems work. Ive taken visiting officials on Waymo rides when theyre interested in bringing the technology to their own cities.
The first head of government to ever ride in an autonomous vehicle was the Dutch Prime Minister in Phoenix in a Waymo. The Secret Service was very nervous about protecting him, so they did a lot of test runs. We had this bizarre parade through downtown Phoenix where there was a relatively small Jaguar with the prime minister surrounded by large armored Secret Service vehicles.
Have you taken Waymos yourself?
Yes. I was the first customer when we expanded service to Sky Harbor Airport. It was a good experience, except there were a bunch of cameras watching as we drove up, and I unbuckled early so I could get out quickly. The Waymo stopped because I had unbuckled. So it was my fault. As mayor, Im glad theyre responsive to safety issues. As a human, it was a little embarrassing.
The biggest new restaurant trend is small.
Special menus with petite, less expensive portions are popping up all over, from large chains like Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory to trendy urban eateries and farm-to-fork dining rooms.
Restaurants hope that offering smaller servings beyond the children’s menu will meet many different diners needs. Some people want to spend less when they go out. Others are looking for healthier options or trying to lose weight. Younger consumers tend to snack more throughout the day and eat smaller meals, said Maeve Webster, the president of culinary consulting firm Menu Matters.
These are really driven by, I think, changes in the way people are thinking about their relationship with food, the way they spend money on food, what is a good value and whats not, Webster said.
Looking for value
Beth Tipton, the co-owner of Daniel Girls Farmhouse Restaurant in Connersville, Indiana, introduced an eight-item Mini Meals menu last fall after several customers requested smaller portions. The menu, which includes daily specials like a half piece of meatloaf with green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy for $8, now accounts for about 20% of the restaurant’s orders, she said.
Older adults make up about half of the restaurants clientele, Tipston said, and some customers told her the regular menu was a stretch for their budgets. As someone who underwent weight-loss surgery, she also knew from experience that many restaurants won’t allow adults to order from their children’s menus.
We wanted it to be available to all without the word kids meals attached, Tipton said. With the rising costs all around us we wanted to help in any way we can, and this is a great option.
Eating out and GLP-1s
Some restaurants are adding menus to court users of GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Zepbound, Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro.
Last fall, restaurateur Barry Gutin ran into two different friends who told him they were taking GLP-1s and struggling to find restaurant meals that met their dietary needs and smaller appetites. GLP-1 users tend to eat less, so they need nutritionally dense foods that are low in fat and high in protein and fiber.
Gutin, the co-owner of Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar in Philadelphia, Washington, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Orlando, Florida, reached out to a doctor who specializes in weight loss and to Cuba Libres culinary director, Angel Roque. Over the next month, they developed the chains GLP-Wonderful menu, which is available during dinner.
The menu has five classic Cuban options. Roque said the pollo asado on Cuba Libre’s regular menu has nearly 1,000 calories; on the GLP-1 menu, that’s slimmed down to 400 calories, but heavy on protein and fiber. He said it was also important to keep the GLP-1 meals flavorful and colorful, to stimulate appetites.
Many times when people are on those kind of regimes, they feel that they cant do the same as everybody else. So we wanted to show them, yes, at Cuba Libre, you can,” Roque said.
Gutin said the menu has increased business. He estimated that 10 to 20 groups at each location every week have at least one person who requests the GLP-Wonderful menu.
People say, Thank you for serving us, Gutin said.
Big chains go small
Olive Garden, whose seven-item Lighter Portions menu rolled out nationwide in January, said GLP-1 users were one consideration. The Italian-style restaurant chain also wanted to appeal to patrons pursuing healthier diets or more affordable meals, said Rick Cardenas, the president and CEO of Olive Gardens parent company, Darden Restaurants.
There is a consumer group out there that believes in abundance, but abundance is different for everybody, Cardenas said in September during a conference call with investors. So consumers can choose. Were not changing our entire menu to make it a smaller portion.”
The Asian fusion chain P.F. Chang’s began offering medium-sized portions last fall. The Cheesecake Factory added smaller, lower-priced Bites and Bowls to its menu last summer, while TGI Fridays recently began testing an Eat Like A Kid menu with smaller portions.
A long-term change
Smaller portions arent a new concept. Twenty years ago, small-plate tapas restaurants were all the rage, for instance.
But to Webster, the menu consultant, the scaled-down dishes appearing now feel like a longer-term shift. For one thing, the trend is not tied to any particular cuisine. Webster also thinks consumers are thinking more about food waste than they used to, and smaller portions can alleviate some of their concerns.
I think it is a core need that consumers have, and a demand that has been lingering under the surface for a long time because restaurant meals, particularly at chains, have become so large, she said. Sure, it sounds great to take leftovers home, but they never taste as good.
During a recent visit to Shelburne, Vermont, from his home in North Carolina, Jack Pless was delighted to see the Teeny Tuesday menu at Barkeaters Restaurant, which specializes in locally sourced food. Pless, whos in his 60s and used to own a restaurant, said he cant eat as much as he used to at meals.
So many times you go out to restaurants, especially me or my wife, and well take home a box and itll sit in the refrigerator for two, three days and start to grow a beard, he said.
Julie Finestone, the co-owner of Barkeaters, said she introduced the Teeny Tuesday menu last month to bring in more weekday business during the winter. She was concerned about the cost of offering lower-priced food options, like $12 reuben sliders, but said the decision has brought in more business than she expected.
Finestone said shes pretty confident Teeny Tuesday will become a year-round fixture.
Some people, its dietary. Some have smaller appetites. Some people dont like to overindulge in the middle of the week, Finestone said. I think that it just spoke to people.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business wrtier
AP Video Journalists Mingson Lau and Amanda Swinhart contributed.
There’s a $298 midi dress on Reformation’s website with delicate lace detailing throughout and a button front that allows you to show some legit’s the kind of dress the brand is known for, versatile and a little seductive. On Quince, there’s what appears to be the same dress: It has the same silhouette, the same fabric, the same drape. The Quince version costs $69.90.
That $228 difference is Quince’s entire business model. At a time of inflation, when consumers are looking to curb their spending, Quince’s approach has been wildly successful. Eight years after launch, Quince generates upwards of $1 billion in annual revenue, has a 1,000-strong staff, adds hundreds of new items to the site per week, and has expanded beyond clothing to furniture and home goods, menswear and kids, wellness products like collagen peptides, and even food. (Its $125 caviar has been a huge hit.) This week, Quince snagged $500 million in Series E funding, valuing the company at $10.1 billion.
Quince hasn’t achieved this scale without blowback. It has been sued by the parent companies of Coach and UGG for copying their designs, and Williams-Sonoma has taken aim at its comparative advertising practices. Most recently, Quince has been hit by a consumer class action lawsuit claiming its pricing is deceptive. All of this has shaped the public perception of Quince as a company that makes cheap knock-offs.
Now, Quince is betting that it isn’t enough to be known as a dupe factory. It needs something more: a brand.
In a sign of this evolution, Quince hired Dakota Kate Isaacswho previously built the cult skincare brand The Ordinaryto be its first head of brand strategy and narrative.
“My role is not to create a new story,” she tells Fast Company. “It’s to humanize Quince and let consumers get a glimpse behind the curtain.”
[Photo: Quince]
The Copycat’s Playbook
In 2018, Sid Gupta, his wife Zunu Mittal, and two others launched Quince in Palo Alto, California. These founders believed they had identified enormous inefficiencies in the retail industry that consumers end up paying for. Whereas Direct-to-consumer brands educated consumers about how bypassing department stores allowed them to cut out retail markups. Quince was built to go deeper into the system and be, in its parlance, a “manufacturer-to-consumer” brand.
By working directly with factoriescutting unsold inventory that inflate prices and eliminating brokers, suppliers, and other middlementhey could sell products at a fraction of the price of competitors, including $50 cashmere sweaters, $80 silk blouses, and $100 linen sheets.
Quince isn’t shy about the fact that it is actively monitoring what consumers are searching for on the internet and figuring out how to make cheaper versions of other brands’ best-selling products. In a radical move that has ruffled the industry, Quince points out on each product page how much other brands charge for items that look indistinguishable; they are often two, three, or five times more expensive.
[Photo: Quince]
Can Quince Become a Real Brand?
Quince brought on Isaacs to create an identity for the company that goes beyond being a copycat. Isaacs built her career at The Ordinary, a cult skincare label that disrupted the beauty industry with transparent pricing and ingredient-forward marketing.
Starting as a P.R. intern, Isaacs quickly proved her mettle and spent five years building the company’s entire U.S. operation from scratchhiring staff, developing social media strategies, getting into retail. One of her biggest accomplishments was landing the brand in Sephora. Sephora’s merchants initially resisted The Ordinary because they thought it would encourage their customer to trade down from more expensive labelsbut it eventually became one of Sephora’s top-selling brands.
The parallel to Quince is not lost on Isaacs. Just as The Ordinary challenged the assumption that skincare had to be expensive to be effective, Quince is challenging the assumption that quality clothing and home goods require premium prices. “The consumer has kind of been conditioned to believe that quality must be expensive to be real,” Isaacs says. “I’ve seen behind the scenes, I know how this works.”
When Quince approached Isaacs for this new role, she was intrigued by the opportunity to help bridge the gap between consumer perception and what she thought was a very radical business model underneath. She empathizes with some consumers’ wariness about Quince because she had similar reservations when she first encountered the brand four years ago. “My perception prior to joining the business was like, ‘Something’s sketchy here, like something’s off,'” she recalls.
But as she’s gone behind the scenes at Quince, she believes there’s a compelling story to tell about how the company is radically reimagining the supply chain and democratizing quality. “People should think about Quince less as a brand and more as a new operating model for retail,” she says.
Her job, as she sees it, is not to spin a new narrative but to do a better job explaining what the company already does. Isaacs is inspired by Everlane’ approach to storytelling when it first launched in 2011, as it tried to explain how the cost of a t-shirt balloons thanks to expensive brand campaigns and department store markups.
Over the years, Everlane has moved away from this messaging, which gives Quince an opportunity to pick up where it left off. Isaacs wants every consumer touchpointfrom the first ad impression to the moment a package arrivesto convey a consistent message about quality, transparency, and the logic of the system.
[Photo: Quince]
The Dupe Problem
But changing consumer perception is no easy task. And Quince is known as being a dupe-maker extraordinaire.
Quince’s rise is inseparable from the broader cultural moment that made dupe culture mainstream. For years, buying knockoffs carried a social stigmasomething you did but didn’t necessarily advertise. That has changed in the era of social media and inflation, when many creators proudly share cheaper dupes of their favorite products.
Susan Scafidi, a professor of fashion law at Fordham Law School, has observed this change closely. “Everyone has access to imitation goods, and social media celebration of dupes has become a communal way to concurrently show off fashion knowledge and financial savvy,” she says. “Dupe, a diminutive nickname for ‘duplicates,’ does some of the work of making the otherwise morally questionable world of fakes, copies, knockoffs, replicas, and worst of all counterfeits, sound adorable.”
When asked about the dupe characterization, Isaacs pushes back. “Many silhouettes are not unique to a single brand,” she says. “These are things that have existed for years across categoriesa silk slip dress, a cashmere sweater, linen bedding. These are not proprietary designs. They’re ubiquitous products that a lot of brands produce.”
While Quince does makes general items that aren’t visually associated with a single brand, it has also copied designs with distinct features, like the Reformation dress, Coach’s Rogue bag, and UGG boots. Scafidi notes that while Quince has managed to avoid the most common fast-fashion IP violationsinfringing trademarked logos or copyrighted fabric printsit has found itself in more complex territory. Trade dress claims, like those brought by Deckers about Quince’s version of UGG boots, argue that a shoe’s silhouette alone can be protected IP if consumers strongly associate that shape with a particular brand.
Quince pushed back against Deckers with an antitrust countersuit that argued that the company is running a “litigation mill” to maintain a monopoly over sheepskin boots. “That action may be largely part of Quince’s efforts to control the narrative and cast itself as a good guy,” Scafidi says, “a quality-oriented, transparent, slow-fashion brand trying to deliver value to consumers.” (Deckers lost its key trade dress claim, but it has come back with a new wave of lawsuits.)
The Williams-Sonoma lawsuit alleges that by directly comparing its products to Pottery Barn and West Elm, Quince is unfairly benefitting from these brands’ hard-earned reputation for quality. Quince is fighting back, calling the suit a case of an established brand using litigation to squash a scrappier competitor. There has yet to be a ruling.“Brands can’t stop Quince from engaging in legitimate comparisons,” Scafidi says. But she points out that if Quince is, in fact, making lower quality products than those of Pottery Barn and West Elm, “creating a halo effect around lesser goods could be deceptive.”There hasn’t yet been a ruling.
[Photo: Quince]
The Work Ahead
Legal issues aside, Neil Saunders, managing director and analyst at GlobalData Retail, argues that building a brand entirely on dupes is a losing business strategy in the long run. “If your competitive position in the market, especially in fashion, is that you go around copying everyone else, you’ll definitely find an audience for it, but it’s not very imaginative,” he says. “If you’re a copycat, you’re always later to market. Premium brands do well because they have a distinct point of view and people will buy into that aesthetic.”
That’s a ceiling that even a $10 billion dupe company will eventually hit, Saunders says.
Without a strong brand, consumers have no reason to stick with Quince if a cheaper dupe-maker shows up. “I don’t know how defensible this business model is,” says Vidyuth Srinivasan, founder of Entrupy, a tech company focused on fighting counterfeits. “They’ve done an awesome job scaling this business model, but it is definitely possible to replicate it.”
Now, it falls on Isaacs to reshape Quince’s identity from being maker of lower-priced goods to having a compelling story in its own right. Her goal is to focus on Quince’s efforts to shake up the status quo and democratize quality. The companies that have done this bestEverlane’s ‘radical transparency’ era, The Ordinary’s ingredient-obsessed honesty, Warby Parker’s mission-driven pricingsucceeded by making their mission feel urgent and understandable, then keeping it front and center.
The $500 million raised in this round will go toward building a world-class team, expanding into new international marketsCanada is live, Europe is nextand deepening the company’s range of categories. The investment, Isaacs says, reflects confidence in something more durable than a dupe strategy. “This latest round has really shown the trust in the system that exists,” Isaacs says.
For now, the Reformation dressand the Quince dress that looks almost exactly like itare still both for sale. The question is whether Quince can get consumers to want it not just because it’s cheaper, but because it’s Quince.
For more than a century, Utah has kept gambling almost entirely out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries and no racetracks that allow bets, a prohibition rooted in the conservative ideals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.But now, the state is fighting a new, more challenging battle to keep gambling outside its borders. It’s on the verge of enacting a law intended to undercut prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on anything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles to whether the United States will go to war.While regulators and other states are still debating whether those markets constitute finance or gambling, Utah has already made up its mind.“We are putting a casino in the pocket of every single American, and they are targeting especially young people,” said Gov. Spencer Cox. “It is really awful what they are doing, and we are going to make sure this doesn’t happen in our state.”Cox said he will sign the legislation, putting conservative Utah at odds with the federal government. Kalshi has already sued the state, and the company is backed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets.The conflict puts Utah, a place that’s not known for picking fights, on the frontlines of a cultural, political and economic battle sweeping the country. On one side is a state deeply rooted in what is widely known as the Mormon church, where both politicians and faith leaders have treated the issue as a moral crusade. On the other is a growing industry Kalshi and Polymarket are estimated to be worth $20 billion each after their last fundraising rounds with connections in Washington that may offer some regulatory protection.President Donald Trump‘s eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in the latter. Trump’s social media platform Truth Social is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.Whoever wins this round could shape how other states handle the issue in the future.“What’s at stake here is whether states will be able to regulate gambling or if gambling is going to be subsumed into finance and ultimately regulated by Congress,” said Todd Phillips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written extensively about prediction market regulation.
Utah takes aim at prop betting
Polymarket and Kalshi allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. Contracts are typically priced between one cent and 99 cents, which roughly translates to the percentage of customers who believe that event will happen.The companies argue they offer products that allow customers to manage risk, like how farmers can buy corn futures to lock in the price of their crops ahead of time. And derivative markets like the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange have long offered what are known as binary options to investors, which bet on whether an event will or will not happen.But unlike those derivative markets, the bulk of Kalshi’s trading volume and roughly half of Polymarket’s are now tied to sports. Kalshi said it saw more than $1 billion in volume traded on the Super Bowl alone.Utah is seeking to limit prediction markets from doing business in the state by taking aim at proposition betting in sports, which can be a significant source of their revenue.The bill that Cox plans to sign would expand the state’s gambling ban to include wagers on certain events happening in a game rather than the game’s outcome. An example of these “prop bets” would be how well a particular player performs, or a team hitting a specific threshold like rebounds or other metrics.The legislation also aims to stop sportsbooks companies like FanDuel and DraftKings that have set up their own prediction markets, which analysts say could allow the companies to get around state gambling prohibitions.Because of the vocal opposition of Utah officials, Kalshi preemptively sued the state in late February, asking a federal judge to stop Utah from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. The judge has yet to rule on Kalshi’s request. Other judges in Nevada and Massachusetts have issued early rulings in favor of states looking to ban Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports betting in their states, while judges in New Jersey in Tennessee have ruled in favor of Kalshi.Kalshi argues its product is different from sportsbooks companies or casinos because customers are betting against each other instead of against the “house,” spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Trump has agreed with Kalshi and has asserted that it has exclusive regulatory oversight of prediction markets. The agency argues states cannot ban the products from operating in their jurisdiction just because they are morally opposed to them.“To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court,” chairman Michael Selig said recently in a video posted to social media.
A moral crusade with religious roots
It’s the first major issue in which Cox has clashed with Trump in the year and a half since the Republican governor worked his way into Trump’s good graces after not voting for him in 2016 and 2020.Patrick Mason, the chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, said he is not surprised to see Cox and other Utah Republicans take a stand against prediction markets, even if it means going against their own party’s leadership in Washington. In the state, where about half of the 3.5 million residents are Latter-day Saints, even a simple game of church bingo is a rare sight.“Maybe they play for M&Ms, but never money,” he said.All the state’s major politicians, including the governor, lieutenant governor and its entire congressional delegation, are members of the church headquartered in Salt Lake City. When they view an issue as moral rather than political, the faith’s teachings often take precedence over appeasing the party, Mason explained.Church doctrine prohibits gambling in any form, saying it is motivated by “a desire to get something for nothing” and is destructive to individuals and families.“The idea that it goes against a sense of work ethic, a kind of fair exchange, has always been at the heart of the way a lot of people think about themselves in terms of Utah identity, and certainly Latter-day Saint identity and ethics,” Mason said.Because of Utah’s religious roots, the state has prohibited gambling since it was admitted to the Union in 1895. Along with Hawaii, it has the strictest gambling prohibitions in the country. Utah doesn’t even allow broad multi-state lotteries like Powerball or Mega Millions.
Utah leads on both state and federal fronts
Phillips, the professor focused on industry regulation, said if Congress does not step in to clarify whether these new prediction markets are legal, the issue will be left to the courts.“The line between gambling and finance is very, very fine,” Phillips said. “There’s a reason why Congress has, over and over again, stepped in to define and regulate financial markets when the products skew too close to gambling.”There is already some moement on Capitol Hill, led in part by another Utah Republican.Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah and Democratic Rep. Salud Carbajal of California introduced bipartisan legislation this week to more aggressively regulate prediction markets. The bill would prohibit the platforms from allowing bets on war, assassinations, terrorist attacks or election outcomes, and allow states to ban sports-related betting.“We, as a society, should not be taking bets on whether we are going to invade Cuba,” Moore said.Democratic senators have also said they will introduce legislation to ban wagers on violence.“It’s insane this is legal,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on social media.In court filings, Kalshi has tried to argue that its sports prediction market has economic utility and usefulness. It uses an example of an insurance company that underwrites the careers of college athletes using prediction markets to hedge the risk. Kalshi also argues that hotels, travel agencies and stadium management companies may be able to use prediction markets to hedge their risk against underperforming sports.Moore said he is not swayed by Kalshi and Polymarket’s economic arguments.“Utah’s economic outlook has been strong for many years,” he said. “I see no need why we need to embrace these as an economic tool.”
Ken Sweet and Hannah Schoenbaum, Associated Press
