Scott Adams, the creator of the uber-popular and satirical comic strip Dilbert, has died. He passed away on January 13, after announcing his diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer last spring. He was 68.
On Tuesday morning, the cartoonists former wife, Shelly Miles, shared the news of his death during a livestream on X. Miles read from a statement that Adams had prepared himself for the occasion.
I had an amazing life, the statement said. I gave it everything I had. If you got any benefits from my work, I’m asking you to pay it forward as best you can. That is the legacy I want. Be useful. And please know I loved you all to the very end.
Dilbert was created in 1989, and it broke new ground, offering a refreshing and pointed critique of white-collar work life. It became known for its ever-relatable digs about the drudgery of office culture and insufferable bosses, long preceding relatable movies and TV shows like Office Space and The Office, which featured similar dismal (and hilarious) views of work culture years later.In its heyday, the comic strip appeared in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, with an estimated readership of more than 150 million. Adams’s strip amassed such popularity that he was named the 1997 recipient of the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award. That same year, Dilbert (the character) became the first fictional person to make Time magazine’s list of the most influential Americans.However, while Dilbert became one of the most popular cartoons of all time, Adams battled deep controversy in his later years. In 2023, hundreds of newspapers dropped the classic comic after Adams made racist comments on his podcast, saying that it no longer makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. He also described Black people as a “hate group.”Adams said his statements were taken out of context. Still, the incident, and its aftermath, effectively ended Dilbert‘s wide syndication in newspapers. Other comics weighed in, too. “He’s not being canceled. He’s experiencing the consequences of expressing his views,” Bill Holbrook, creator of the strip On the Fastrack, told The Associated Press at the time. “I am in full support of him saying anything he wants to, but then he has to own the consequences of saying them.”Regardless of Adamss troubling personal views and complicated legacy, Dilbert has played a large role in the conversation around work life. Experts say that his cartoons’ outspoken critiques of bosses and work life, which were perhaps ahead of their time, can’t be rolled back.
Phil Lohmeyer, a cartoonist, animator, and middle school design teacher from Connecticut, tells Fast Company that hes confident the kind of office critiques made popular by Dilbert will live on because they are so universal. Dilbert wasn’t as much about the characters, even though the characters themselves became famous. It was more about the annoyance of middle management, he notes.
Lohmeyer says that the idea truly resonated with office workers, who posted the comics in their cubicles in the 90s, or emailed them to coworkers. While younger generations might not be well-versed in Dilbert, the teacher still sees the ideas show up in his middle school classroom. The kids make fun of the rules, schedules, and more, he says. They use comic strip humor to question the system, kind of how Adams was doing years ago.
While so much has changed in offices and classrooms alike, Lohmeyer says that feeling seen in your role will forever be relevant. Adams turned work issues into cartoon gags, making the previously invisible finally visible.
Iranian demonstrators’ ability to get details of bloody nationwide protests out to the world has been given a strong boost, with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service dropping its fees to allow more people to circumvent the Tehran government’s strongest attempt ever to prevent information from spilling outside its borders, activists said Wednesday.
The move by the American aerospace company run by Elon Musk follows the complete shutdown of telecommunications and internet access to Iran’s 85 million people on Jan. 8, as protests expanded over the Islamic Republic’s faltering economy and the collapse of its currency.
SpaceX has not officially announced the decision and did not respond to a request for comment, but activists told The Associated Press that Starlink has been available for free to anyone in Iran with the receivers since Tuesday.
Starlink has been crucial, said Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian whose nonprofit Net Freedom Pioneers has helped smuggle units into Iran, pointing to video that emerged Sunday showing rows of bodies at a forensic medical center near Tehran.
That showed a few hundred bodies on the ground, that came out because of Starlink,” he said in an interview from Los Angeles. “I think that those videos from the center pretty much changed everyone’s understanding of what’s happening because they saw it with their own eyes.
Since the outbreak of demonstrations Dec. 28, the death toll has risen to more than 2,500 people, primarily protesters but also security personnel, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Starlink is banned in Iran by telecommunication regulations, as the country never authorized the importation, sale, or use of the devices. Activists fear they could be accused of helping the U.S. or Israel by using Starlink and charged with espionage, which can carry the death penalty.
Cat-and-mouse as authorities hunt for Starlink devices
The first units were smuggled into Iran in 2022 during protests over the country’s mandatory headscarf law, after Musk got the Biden administration to exempt the Starlink service from Iran sanctions.
Since then, more than 50,000 units are estimated to have been sneaked in, with people going to great lengths to conceal them, using virtual private networks while on the system to hide IP addresses and taking other precautions, said Ahmad Ahmadian, the executive director of Holistic Resilience, a Los Angeles-based organization that was responsible for getting some of the first Starlink units into Iran.
Starlink is a global internet network that relies on some 10,000 satellites orbiting Earth. Subscribers need to have equipment, including an antenna that requires a line of sight to the satellite, so must be deployed in the open, where it could be spotted by authorities. Many Iranians disguise them as solar panels, Ahmadian said.
After efforts to shut down communications during the 12-day war with Israel in June proved to be not terribly effective, Iranian security services have taken more extreme tactics now to jam Starlink’s radio signals and GPS systems, Ahmadian said in a phone interview. After Holistic Resilience passed on reports to SpaceX, Ahmadian said, the company pushed a firmware update that helped circumvent the new countermeasures.
Security services also rely on informers to tell them who might be using Starlink, and search internet and social media traffic for signs it has been used. There have been reports they have raided apartments with satellite dishes.
There has always been a cat-and-mouse game, said Ahmadian, who fled Iran in 2012 after serving time in prison for student activism. The government is using every tool in its toolbox.
Still, Ahmadian noted that the government jamming attempts had only been effective in certain urban areas, suggesting that security services lack the resources to block Starlink more broadly.
A free Starlink could increase the flow of information out of Iran
Iran did begin to allow people to call out internationally on Tuesday via mobile phones, but calls from outside the country into Iran remain blocked.
Compared to protests in 2019, when lesser measures by the government were able to effectively stifle information reaching the rest of the world for more than a week, Ahmadian said the proliferation of Starlink has made it impossible to prevent communications. He said the flow could increase now that the service has been made free.
This time around they really shut it down, even fixed landlines were not working, he said. But despite this, the information was coming out, and it also shows how distributed this community of Starlink users is in the country.
Musk has made Starlink free for use during several natural disasters, and Ukraine has relied heavily on the service since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It was initially funded by SpaceX and later through an American government contract.
Musk had raised concerns over the power of such a system being in the hands of one person, after he refused to extend Ukraine’s Starlink coverage to support a planned Ukrainian counterattack in Russian-occupied Crimea.
As a proponent of Starlink for Iran, Ahmadian said the Crimea decision was a wake-up call for him, but that he couldn’t see any reason why Musk might be inclined to act similarly in Iran.
Looking at the political Elon, I think he would have more interest … in a free Iran as a new market, he said.
Julia Voo, who heads the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Cyber Power and Future Conflict Program in Singapore, said there is a risk in becoming reliant on one company as a lifeline, as it creates a single point of failure, though currently there are no comparable alternatives.
China has been exploring ways to hunt and destroy Starlink satellites, and Voo said the more effective Starlink proves itself at penetrating government-mandated terrestrial blackouts, the more states will be observing.
It’s just going to result in more efforts to broaden controls over various ways of communication, for those in Iran and everywhere else watching, she said.
David Rising, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell and Melanie Lidman contributed to this report.
As Americans struggle with an affordability crisishigh inflation and an even higher cost of living, especially when it comes to housingBilt is launching three new, low interest credit cards with rates capped at 10% on new purchases for the first yearincluding a premium card offering with a $495 annual fee.
The Bilt Card 2.0 series launches next month on February 7. “Between now and January 30, existing cardholders will be able to seamlessly transition and pre-order a new Bilt Card in their Bilt account or online,” according to a statement on the company’s website.
There is clearly a need for affordability at this point in time more than ever, Bilt chief executive officer Ankur Jain said in an interview with Bloomberg. It felt like we should be the brand to do this.
The move follows President Donald Trump’s call last Friday for a one year, 10% limit on credit card interest rates, saying he supported the Credit Card Competition Act, a bill that if passed by Congress, could provide more oversight on credit card companies.
Here’s what to know.
What are the advantages of Bilt cards?
Bilt cards offer mortgage and rent payments rewards, unlike many credit cards that focus on, say, travel or merchandise points.
What this means is Bilt customers earn rewards just for paying their rent and mortgage bills.
However, the rewards are not solely limited to that. Customers also earn points on purchases at any one of Bilt’s 45,000 partners, including everything from Walgreens to Lyft to your local gym, according to the New York Times.
What are the three new Bilt 2.0 cards?
There are three new Bilt Card 2.0 credit cardsincluding a premium card offering with a $495 annual fee, called the Bilt Palladium card.
All three cards earn 4% back in Bilt cash on spending, and allow customers to pay their rent and mortgage with no transaction fees.
Here’s a breakdown of the three cards below:
BILT BLUE CARD
A no-annual fee card with flexible rewards
$0 annual fee
BILT OBSIDIAN CARD
Card offers 3X points on dining or groceries, and offers Bilt Travel Hotel credits
$95 annual fee
BILT PALLADIUM CARD
Premium card with high-value rewards and elevated benefits like annual Bilt Cash, Bilt Travel Hotel credits, and Priority Pass
$495 annual fee
If youre sick of paying for subscription services, Tesla has some bad news for you.
The EV maker announced Wednesday that going forward, its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software will only be available as a monthly subscription not a one-time payment. Tesla CEO Elon Musk broke the news on X, the social media platform he owns, noting that the shift will happen on February 14. FSD will only be available as a monthly subscription thereafter, Musk wrote, offering no details about how that change would affect the softwares pricing.
While the price of access to Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode has fluctuated over time, the current one-time purchase price for the software is $8,000 or $99 paid as a monthly subscription. Tesla once charged as much as $15,000 for the technology, which promises to intelligently and accurately complete driving maneuvers for you, including steering, making lane changes and parking. The feature requires active driver supervision and doesnt make the vehicle autonomous, Tesla disclaims on the Full Self-Driving website.
Teslas decision to flip to a subscription model for its self-driving software may not land well with some Tesla buyers, but its not a total surprise. In November, Teslas shareholders approved an eye-watering pay package for Musk that consolidates even more power at the company with the mercurial billionaire with the promise of a payout that could be worth $1 trillion. One of the pay package milestones Musk must hit to unlock the biggest executive payout in history? Boosting Teslas Full Self-Driving software to 10 million monthly active subscriptions before 2035.
Much of Teslas future revolves around the future of its self-driving tech, but Musk has broken many promises about the software along the way. In California, the company is facing legal woes over deceptive marketing practices that suggested Teslas technology was autonomous, even as it required close supervision from a human driver at the wheel hence the softwares current nomenclature: Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Musk has also asserted that Teslas vehicles would be appreciating assets thanks to the self-driving software a claim not borne out by Teslas recent tanking used vehicle prices.
Teslas competition heats up
Depending on where you look, Teslas competition is either out ahead or catching up fast. Earlier this month, Chinese company BYD bumped Tesla from its top slot as the worlds bestselling electric vehicle maker. Tesla reported that it delivered 1.64 million EVs last year, a 9% dip from the year prior. In the last quarter of 2025, Tesla missed sales expectations, tallying 418,227 sales a decline connected to Trumps decision to kill the hefty U.S. tax credits designed to give Americans a break on qualifying EVs.
Tesla, like Musk, has a lot of irons in the fire. The company is also investing aggressively into the robotaxi business, even as its self-driving tech faces scrutiny from federal regulators for reckless behavior. Tesla has a lot of catching up to do on that count, with Alphabets Waymo leading the push into autonomous taxi service across major U.S. cities like Austin, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Teslas own robotaxi experiment has yet to impress, based on Fast Companys own firsthand experience. Unlike Waymos own properly self-driving taxis, Teslas robotaxis still come with a human supervisor an awkward compromise and a long way from Musks lofty promises of a fully autonomous near-future.
Apple was the last champion of the pay once, own forever crowd, a safe harbor for some of the creatives fleeing Adobes monthly ransom. Now it has introduced Creator Studio, its own subscription-based offering that bundles together tools including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage (as well as newly AI-infused productivity apps like Pages and Numbers).
There are already two major creative suits out there: Adobe Creative Cloud and Canva. The former is clearly oriented to the high end, enterprise, and prosumer spaces with heavyweight apps like Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator. The latter focuses on individual, small companies, and enterprises, with a strong productivity and template-based creative suite that has recently been expanded with free professional creative tools.
With Creator Studio, however, Apple has put a bunch of tools into a brown paper bag of confusion: The assortment is too complex for the Canva crowd, yet underpowered compared to the Adobe suite.
[Image: Apple]
Stiff competition
Adobe CC is the true bundle for creators. It covers every industry: design, publishing, motion design, video, audio, and even office productivity via Acrobat. For $70 per monthno perpetual, one-time-payment licenses available anymoreyou get all you need, plus Adobe’s AI, Firefly. In fact, for most people is overkill. Not many people do even a third of what Adobe CC covers. This is why so many people are fed up with their subscription model (worth noting: it still has about 41 million paying users).
Canva is an all-in-one bundle for everyday creators: a browser-first suite that makes it easy to design social posts, presentations, simple videos, print materials, and brand kits without needing pro expertise. Its built around a cloud account with a big free tier, plus paid plans ($15/month for individuals and $10/month per user for the teams version) that include AI tools. For a while, Canva was “enough” for 90% of what people make, and anything heavierlike advanced photo compositing, full motion graphics pipelines, high-end audiousually lived elsewhere. Now, however, they added free perpetual licenses for the Affinity suite, which competes with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
Both of them are coherent in their focus and power in their own way. That’s not really something you can say about Apple’s new $13 monthly subscription package. Apple is asking us to pay for a hodgepodge of apps where the flagship video editor, Final Cut Pro (FCP), may not even be the runner-up anymore. Outside of very high-end video editingstill dominated by AvidAdobe Premiere Pro sits comfortably at the top of the market share charts with an estimated 30 million users in 2024. I say estimated because Adobe hasnt released official numbers. Like Apple, which last claimed Final Cut Pro had 2.5 million users in 2018. A lot has changed since that year and many video editors now argue that Blackmagic Design’s Resolve is the best video editor (and it is free).
[Image: Apple]
Another main plate in the Creator Studio is the newly acquired Pixelmator Pro, which Apple is seemingly positioning as its Photoshop killer. If you want a potential Adobe killer, you look at Affinity. Now owned by Canva, the Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher) is a genuine triple-threat that rivals Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign with a free (again, there are free options to most of the Apple and Adobe apps) price tag.
[Image: Apple]
Affinity reportedly added 1 million users in a single week. Pixelmator Pro just cant compete with that. Its a lovely app, but pretending it replaces Adobes pro design tools or Affinity is like saying go-kart can replace a Formula 1 car because they all have wheels. (By the way, if you own Pixelmator Pro, you will be forced to subscribe to Creator Studio because Apple says that your license will not receive any updates. A hint of whats to come.)
[Image: Apple]
The AI card doesnt cut it
To compensate, Apple is dangling “exclusive intelligent features” as the primary reason to subscribe, locking automated toolslike Logic Pros new session players and Final Cuts magnetic maskbehind the paywall. Its a weak card to play, especially when you consider how far behind Apple has fallen in the AI races. Are people going to value access to these AI tools enough to justify Creator Studios $13 monthly payment? Time will tell.
And what in the world are Pages, Numbers, and Keynote doing here? These productivity apps were already free and were never pro, no matter how many AI features you add to them. Why would a creative person pay for a free word processor that hasnt meaningfully evolved in years? Or a spreadsheet that is a joke compared to Excel? And sure, Keynote is slick, but have you heard about Canva? Or Google Slides for that matter?
[Image: Apple]
Who is creator studio actually studio for?
So who is Creator Studio actually for? The only logical customer I can think of is someone like a YouTuberyour typical solo creator who edits videos, can cook something in Logic Pro, and needs to slap together a thumbnail in Pixelmator. For them, paying $129 a year is a steal compared to Adobes $600. But thats a narrow slice of the $56-billion creator economy Apple claims to target.
Musicians using Logic Pro (perhaps the only Creator Studio tool that still has the crown in its respective industry) probably don’t need a video editor. Video editors using Final Cut don’t need a spreadsheet app. And so on.
Judging by this thread on Reddit or this one in an Apple user forum, people seem to agree that this is a bad movepeople are tired of subscriptions. Even fan publications like Apple Insider have slammed the move. Apple users fear that eventually the company will kill the one-time-only licenses and force everyone into the subscription model. While Apple hasnt replied yet to questions about the potential future end of licenses yet (we will update the article when/if they do) its the shareholder-friendly thing to do.
“I see a bunch of Americans drinking hot water with lemon and honey, eating congee, drinking hot pot, drinking more soup, eating Chinese vegetables,” one Chinese creator, Emma Peng, recently shared in a TikTok, currently with over 3 million views. “I just want to say that my culture can be your culture. Youre doing really good hydrating yourself. Im proud of you.”
The becoming Chinese trend is currently everywhere on the app, and while the name might give pause, its mostly about adopting lifestyle habits rooted in traditional Chinese medicine.
In the past month or so, Chinese creators have gone viral for espousing the benefits of common Chinese cultural practices,like drinking hot water, wearing house slippers, and trading cold salads and yogurt for hot congee and boiled apples during the colder months. The comment section, meanwhile, is full of Americans diligently taking notes.
Another creator at the forefront of the trend is Chinese American TikToker Sherry Xiiruii. In one viral clip, with 1.4 million views, she announces: Tomorrow, youre turning Chinese. I know it sounds intimidating, but theres no point fighting it now you are the chosen one.
Usually, when a trend involves adopting elements from, or becoming, another culture, it is met with cries of cultural appropriation. Some users have understandably expressed mixed feelings about the cultural practices they were once made fun of for now being repackaged and sold as a viral trend.
However, in this case the response from Chinese creators is is overwhelmingly positive. Its perhaps unsurprising a trend rooted in self-improvement has gained traction in the first month of the New year, especially given many of the wellness tips and hacks that go viral online have existed for millennia in Ancient Eastern medicine. As one TikTok creator said: All I have to say is what took yall this long to catch on?
Still, the appetite for Chinese culture is not limited to TikToks wellness algorithm. “You met me at a very chinese time in my life,” a viral X post from April 2025 reads, a nod to Fight Clubs iconic one-liner. Meanwhile, posts about chinesemaxxingwhich amounts to smoking cigarettes crouched low to the ground and donning toggle jacketsstarted cropping up online throughout 2025.
As producer Minh Tran wrote in a recent Substack post titled My Year of Rest and Chinesemaxxing: Part of the reason these videos dont feel like outright mockery is because theres some kernel of truth and desire in the cosplay. Though things have always been made in China, we are increasingly making ourselves in the image of the Chinese.
Here, he notes the Labubu mania of 2025. The collectible plush toys, made by Chinese toymaker Pop Mart, were in many ways the standout trend of the year, tripling the companys profits and sparking a buying frenzy that spanned the globe. Or recall when for a brief momentit looked like the Chinese social media platform Rednote would replace TikTok, as users migrated from the platform and bid goodbye to their personal Chinese spy ahead of the potential ban (that never came) over national security concerns.
Across tech and other industries, China is the U.S.s closest competitor and, in many ways, its greatest challenger. At a time where America is more divided than ever, and the country’s politics a source of national embarrassment for many, people are looking beyond the countrys borders for alternative ways of living.
Given the current geopolitical context, the becoming Chinese trend is perhaps about more than sipping hot tea and house slippers. As Tran writes: The threat of the Chinese Century looms over us all.
Silicon Valley fintech giant Bilt announced an overhaul of its credit cards on Wednesday, which notably will include an introductory rate on all card users interest rates at 10% for one year.
The promotion comes at a time of heightened political rhetoric around the cost of credit cards, with President Donald Trump announcing last week that he also is seeking a one-year cap on credit card interest rates of 10%.
New York-based Bilt, which originally built its business model around earning rewards on rent and other routine purchases, has been branching out into other financial products as it has grown. The Silicon Valley-backed startup was valued last year at $10.75 billion and has been expanding its partnerships with landlords, and is now starting to build in rewards programs for other routine transactions, like a customers mortgage payment. The company says roughly 1 in 4 landlords now accept Bilt.
In an interview, Bilt CEO Ankur Jain said Bilt was deciding to cap its interest rates on credit cards for one year to meet the bipartisan call for a solution on the issues of affordability that he says many of his customers are facing. Candidly, Jain also said it could be a chance to lure in new customers.
If [a credit card rate cap] is going to happen, wed rather be at the forefront, Jain said.
The 10% rate applies as an introductory annual percentage rate (APR) on new eligible purchases for the first 12 months for cardholders approved for one of Bilts three new cards. After that, purchases, balance transfers, and cash advances carry APRs that can run well above 20%, similar to other rewards cards.
The credit card industry has long pushed back against any caps on interest rates on its products, with the average credit card interest rate hovering around 21%. They have faced their most serious challenge yet with Trump, who has embraced the populist idea of capping credit card interest rates for one year. Researchers at Vanderbilt University estimated that Trump’s proposal would cost the credit card industry $100 billion. Left-leaning politicians like Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have long embraced capping credit card rates.
Bilt is effectively offering its new and existing customers a promotional ratenot unlike other promotions the credit card industry does to attract new customers, like a zero percent APR or promotions for customers who transfer balances. But the announcement by Bilt, being small relative to the giants JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, and American Express, may have political ramifications. Politicians can now point to Bilt voluntarily capping interest rates for all its customers and ask why its larger competitors are unable or unwilling to embrace the same move.
The new credit cards from Bilt follow the good, better, best model that other credit card companies have adopted. The center of the program is Bilt Cash, which is a points program that converts into cash back inside the Bilt ecosystem. These are often merchants that have signed up with Bilt to help attract customers in the local area. Bilt is also keeping its transfer partners with several airlines and hotels through its Bilt Rewards points program.
At the top end of Bilts new credit card program is the Bilt Palladium Card, with a $495 annual fee, which will give $400 annual credits toward hotel stays as well as $200 in Bilt Cash. The middle-tier card will be the Bilt Obsidian Card, which focuses more of its rewards accumulation on dining out and grocery purchases and carries a $95 annual fee. The basic card will be called the Bilt Blue Card, which has no annual fee, but will also offer cash back and points accumulation, but at lower multiples compared to the annual fee cards.
Bilt is trying to move beyond its credit card for renters identity and focus more on being a financial liaison between local merchants, landlords, and renters in the area. Bilt previously partnered with Wells Fargo on its credit card program, but that partnership is coming to an end in February in what appears to have been an acrimonious divorce. Wells Fargo apparently lost $10 million a month on the Bilt credit card, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, and chose to end its partnership several years before it was supposed to expire in 2029.
The new card is being issued in a partnership with the credit card operations company Cardless, while the bank Column N.A. will be the issuing bank.
By Ken Sweet, AP business writer
The most dangerous people in a company are stressed leaders.
I say that with full self-awareness. Ive worked for a few and came uncomfortably close to becoming one myself.
Ive always had an impulsive temperament. On good days, it made me decisive. On bad days, reactive. Add long hours and the pressure of scaling a startup, and my emotional state began to spill onto the team.
Focusing on mental health, rest, and mindfulness fundamentally changed how I build my company and how I see my role today.
Im still a CEO, but Ive also become something elsethe chief energy officer.
What follows is everything I wish Id known earlier about leading with emotional regulation and grounded energy.
WHY EVERY CEO MUST ALSO BE A CHIEF ENERGY OFFICER
We must stop seeing ourselves only through an operational lens. Gantt charts and product roadmaps matter, but not if you walk into a room as an emotional thunderstorm.
Once you understand that, you start to see the full scope of the CEO role, including taking responsibility for the emotional climate of our workplace.
The Workforce Institute at UKG found that 69% of employees feel their manager impacts their mental health as much as their spouses.
Stress spreads in a domino effect, and the leader is the domino that knocks all the others over.
Domino 1: Stressed leader. Research in organizational psychology shows that under stress, leaders are rated as less inspiring, less supportive, and less able to provide intellectual stimulation.
Domino 2: Psychological safety. Teams sense tension and stop bringing ideas, feedback, or early warnings. They dont want to add to your load or trigger a reaction.
Domino 3: Innovation and creativity. Managing your emotional state drains the resources your team needs to experiment.
Domino 4: Proactivity. When employees dont feel safe, they avoid ownership and only wait for direction.
HOW I LEARNED TO LEAD WITHOUT BRINGING STRESS WITH ME
Culture is shaped by what leaders practice, not what they preach. Small, daily actions help you stay regulated and create a team environment that feels safe and energized. These habits made the biggest difference for me, specifically the Mind Heart Body method.
I rely on this three-pillar system, which I call the religion of awakening, to reset before and after stressful moments.
1. Mind Notice the tension
I pause and look for micro-signals of stress: a tight jaw, shallow breathing, a sudden urge to move faster without any real reason.
2. Heart Understand the emotion behind it
I ask:
What am I actually feelingirritation, fear, fatigue?
What is this reaction trying to tell me?
Is this about the situation or about me?
3. Body Move to reset your state
Our nervous systems respond to movement faster than they respond to logic. A 10-minute walk or a few stretches can pull me out of fight-or-flight mode.
DEVELOP MICRO-HABITS TO RESET YOUR ENERGY
Micro-habits are simple, require no major cultural shifts, and have an almost immediate impact. These three have been a game-changer for me.
1. Set aside time to pause throughout the day
Start meetings with one minute of breathing or quiet reflection. It helps everyone disconnect from whatever they were doing before and step into the conversation with a clear mind.
Take regular two-minute reset pauses to notice your breath or posture. This calms your nervous system and prevents stress from building throughout the day.
Pick one time block a day to step back from multitasking. Constant context switching keeps you in a low-level state of stress.
Close your laptop for 30 seconds between tasks to reset your focus.
2. Set an energy baseline for the week
Every Monday, I map out my energy like my schedule. This helps me spot red flags before they become stress triggers and make space for recovery.
Whats likely to drain me this week?
Which meetings require my best energy, and which ones can be lighter?
Where do I need to build in recovery time?
3. Model healthy urgency
Every Monday I label tasks by priority: what needs attention today, what must happen this week, and optional things that can easily roll into next week.
This simple system forces me to prioritize intentionally instead of throwing everything into one important bucket. For the team, it removes unnecessary pressure and gives them the mental space to concentrate on what actually matters.
WHAT A PEOPLE- AND ENERGY-FIRST WORKPLACE CAN LOOK LIKE
When something helps me show up better, I bring it into the organization so everyone can benefit. As a CEO, I try to model the energy I want my team to feel. I lead Pilates sessions, share mindfulness tools and meditation techniques, and talk openly about moments when I need to reset.
But to make well-being work at scale, weve also built structure around it. We rely on the same methods that underpin our BetterMe Business solution, a platform that supports practical wellness habits in the workplace, to make things like emotional training, mindful breaks, and movement part of our day-to-day routines. Heres how that looks for our team:
Office spaces for movement, like walking paths for meetings
Training access, with in-office and online options
Running clubs, tennis meetups, and outdoor activities instead of bar events for team-building
Regular check-ins that create space for feedback and honest dialogue
Access to a corporate wellness platform that provides stress management tools
I believe that the future of work isnt about squeezing more out of people. Its about taking care of the energy that keeps them going.
Victoria Repa is the CEO and founder of BetterMe.
Ikea’s new store is in the metaverse.
The company announced Wednesday that it’s piloting a limited-edition pop-up shop in Roblox’s Welcome to Bloxburg game offering players Ikea products they can use to decorate virtual homes. This is the first time that the Swedish furniture retailer has entered gaming in a meaningful way, since an earlier Roblox game in 2024, according to the company. It comes after noticing for years how young adults and teens were building and designing homes in games and wondering why Ikea wasn’t a part of it.
[Photo: Ikea]
“Ikea wanted to better understand how Gen Z and Gen Alpha think about furnishing and self-expression, recognizing the need to meet them on platforms they already use and learn from how they interact with products and spaces in a digital environment,” Ikea’s chief digital officer Parag Parekh tells Fast Company.
“At Ikea we are always curious and eager to develop and connect with people where they are. Today many people are online, and many people are gaming,” he says. “This is an area where we want to see if there is an appetite for Ikea as a brand and our products also in the gaming world.”
[Image: Ikea]
Ikea’s goal: better understand Gen Z and Gen Alpha
The pilot is intentionally small, as its primary goal is to gather learnings for the company. For now it will be available only for people in Australia and Sweden from January 22 to February 5. Located inside the virtual Bloxburg Fancy Furniture Store, which players can access in the the game’s town center, people can choose from items like the Stockholm sofa, the Brännboll inflatable gaming chair, and Ikea’s stuffed toy shark named Blhaj.
The company says it chose its selection of products based on items that are less common in the game, are classic Ikea designs, or are items that the Bloxburg team suggested players might like.
“Overall, the aim is less about ‘selling’ a catalog and more about understanding how customers express home furnishing ideas and how Ikea products can support that in a digital world,” Parekh says.
[Photo: Ikea]
Unboxing Ikea’s tech moves
Ikea’s entry into gaming comes on the heels of other tech-forward moves. Last year the company relaunched its smart home line and opened branded kiosks selling Ikea products in select U.S. Best Buy locations. But it’s also late to the metaverse party.
Brands including Gucci, Nike, and Walmart opened their own Roblox experiences in 2022but the trend never caught on in a big way. Today, the dream of a widely used virtual metaverse has been declared effectively dead, and Meta laid off hundreds in its own virtual reality division on Tuesday. There are signs of a possible resurgence, though, with examples like Ikea’s foray into the space and Coach’s collection on Sims 4 this week proving that brands aren’t abandoning virtual worlds as spaces to show off their products completely.
[Photo: Ikea]
For Ikea, the challenge in translating its physical home furnishings for a virtual world was balancing recognizability and simplicity, since items needed to feel instantly like they had Ikea proportions, colors, and silhouettes while also working smoothly in a gaming context. Luckily, Ikea already has all its products created in 3D, and Bloxburg modified those same models with Ikea’s approval to turn them into gamified objects.
“We are very pleased with the outcome,” Parekh says.
There will also be an in-person component for Ikea’s Roblox experience, with hidden QR codes set to go up at Ikea locations in the two pilot countries that vistors can scan to unlock extra items. And an Ikea in the metaverse could one day come to other countries, too. The company says its virtual shop pilot is just a starting point, and it believes we’ll see more of its home furnishings in games going forward.
The State Department says it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries whose nationals are deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States.
The State Department, led by Secretary Marco Rubio, said Wednesday it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the countries affected in accordance with a broader order issued in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become public charges in the U.S. The suspension will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant, or temporary tourist or business visas.
The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of Americas immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people, the department said in a statement. Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits.
The statement did not identify which countries would be affected by the pause, but President Donald Trump’s administration has already severely restricted immigrant and non-immigrant visa processing for citizens of dozens of countries, many of them in Africa.
The suspension will begin on Jan. 21.
Matthew Lee, AP diplomatic writer
