Were living through a seismic workforce disruption. Business leaders are poised to have a significant impact on the way our economy is shaped over the next decade. You already see it with the big company CEOs creating a cult of celebrity far beyond anything weve seen historically, but this phenomenon cascades down to all leaders across companies. Today, however, your personal brand is built in authentic micro-momentshow you lead meetings, navigate change, and bring others along. What story are you telling?Earlier this month, I sat down with Marissa Andrada and Al Dea at Guilds Opportunity Summit to discuss why personal brand building is no longer optional for leaders who want to drive meaningful impact.
DOES PERSONAL BRAND NEED A REBRAND?
The concept of a personal brand can sound like a marketing buzzword. But if you write it off as such, youre going to fall behind.
We arent advocating for leaders to break out their tripods at a conference and do the latest Taylor Swift TikTok dance (but if thats authentic to you, go for it).
Your personal brandor leadership signature if you really want to avoid the b wordis built through micro-moments: the tone you bring to a meeting, the decisions you make, and how you develop and support people during times of transformation.As Al put it, Every stakeholder conversation is a chance to show people what youre about. That starts with understanding the beliefs and motivations that drive others.
People can only see things from their seat, he added. If you want them to see things from yours, you first need to see things from theirs.
ELEVATE YOUR WORK THROUGH STRATEGIC STORYTELLING
Personal brand canand shouldcoexist with humility. For the introverts among us, this isnt about self-promotion. Its about translating your teams impact into stories that resonate with the business.
Strategic storytelling connects people to purpose. It transforms complex initiatives into narratives that inspire action and resonate with the business.
As leaders, we can help our teams do this by focusing on what I call the three Cs: clarity, commitment, and consistency.Clarity: Clear really is kind. Strip out jargon and acronyms. Ask yourself: Would the average employee understand what Im trying to say? If not, simplify.Commitment: Audiences can sense when youre reciting a script versus speaking from conviction. Belief cant be fakedand when leaders try, trust erodes fast.
Consistency: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your leadership signature wont be either. Words and action, over a sustained period of time, reinforce your stated values. The small, unseen momentshow you respond to challenges, how you show up when no ones watchingcreate the foundation of your credibility.
2 SHIFTS TO BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND FOUNDATION
Mindfully consider your personal style and how you want your brand to show up. Gut-check that with others. Ask yourself: What do you want others to say about your leadership? Does that align with the feedback I receive? If not, where are there gaps and how can I work toward reconciling them?
Here are two shifts you can make today to create that foundation.
1) Ground in outcomes
Too often, leaders fall into the same traps we coach early-career workers to avoid on their resumes. Shift away from the activity, into the outcome.
Activity: We led a large-scale software integration this quarter.
Outcome: We transformed how our company connects people strategy to business results.Leading with outcomes helps to contextualize the weight and the why behind your teams work, building credibility with the listener.
2) Mind your language
On our San Diego panel, Marissa shared a story of her time at Universal Studios. Early on, she introduced herself to business leads with HR-speak: Im here to help develop a new performance management and talent planning process.
She received clear, actionable feedback that the corporate jargonwhat she jokingly called corponicswas not resonating. The very colleagues she was trying to rally did not know what she was saying.Taking their feedback, she dropped the lingo, and recalibrated to human-first language.
Instead of succession planning, she said, Were growing fast. When youre ready for your next role, how do you ensure someones ready to step into your seat?
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP IN AN ERA OF ERODED TRUST
Personal brands can no longer be “crafted” in a conference room with a team of external consultants.
Todays workforce is skeptical, discerning, and exhausted. Decades of information overload, polarization, and change have left employees craving authenticity and wary of anything that feels performative. People are drawn to leaders who reflect their stated values through daily interactions.
If you think your leadership brand only lives on LinkedIn, youre tracking the wrong KPIs.
Do your public posts reflect the experiences your customers and teams are having privately? The leaders who will define the next decade are those whose public narratives match their private behaviors.
When leaders clarify their values, master storytelling, and lead with authenticity, they dont just strengthen their own brandsthey rebuild trust in business itself.
One example Marissa shared in San Diego, was her time as chief people officer at Chipotle and the experience of partnering with Guild to transform their employee tuition reimbursement program into an initiative that reinforced the companys belief in peoples potential. The result? Measurable business outcomes. Chipotle saw stronger retention and greater internal mobility made possible by the new skills through education.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Building a personal brand isnt about self-promotion. Its about creating alignment between who you are, how you lead, and the impact you create.
By cultivating clarity of values, mastering the art of strategic storytelling, and leading with authenticity, todays executives can build personal brands that elevate their voices and strengthen trust in their organizations. In doing so, leaders transform branding from an exercise in visibility into a discipline of influence anchored in purpose.
Rebecca Biestman is CMO of Guild.
Enterprises across the globe are pouring an estimated $1.5 trillion into artificial intelligence, and the results are already significant: AI has added more than $400 billion to the U.S. economy alone. Yet beneath these headline numbers lies a less celebrated truth. Most GenAI projects (95%) are failing to deliver a return on investment.
This disconnect isnt a technology problem. Its a transformation problem. And the fix is not coming from the boardroom or the IT department. Its coming from the cubicles, the customer service desks, and the HR teamsthe employees who know firsthand where bottlenecks and opportunities exist.
THE BOTTOM-UP AI MOVEMENT
New data, based on a survey of 200 IT executives at billion-dollar U.S. companies that we conducted, reveals a quiet but historic shift in how innovation happens. For the first time, non-technical employees are driving the adoption of agentic AI, systems that can act on their own, make decisions, and automate complex workflows, at a scale weve never seen before.
A staggering 91% of executives say that non-technical staff are playing a larger role in AI projects than they did in any previous wave of technology adoption. These arent hypothetical use cases or innovation theater projects. The majority (78%) of these initiatives are laser-focused on solving real, persistent, everyday challenges. From automating repetitive workflows to surfacing insights buried in mountains of data across numerous systems, employees are using AI to reduce their digital friction and return their focus to projects they are passionate about and drive the business forward.
The results of our research78% of leaders reported that agentic AI has already caused a significant transformation in at least one part of their operations. This isnt about incremental change; its about reimagining how work gets done.
A CHANGING CORPORATE POWER STRUCTURE
This shift isnt just technical. Its changing the structure of organizations. For decades, IT departments have been the gatekeepers of new technology, often operating as the tallest tower in the enterprise. But the data shows that it is changing fast. Only 38% of executives now believe IT will be the department most responsible for AI innovation in the next three years, based on our survey results.
The old notion of shadow IT, where teams bypass official channels to use their own tools, has long been viewed as risky or even reckless. But now, this approach is being recognized for what it really is: A sign that employees across the business are hungry for solutions, and they are willing to take the initiative to get them.
Other business teams, such as operations, human resources, and customer service, are stepping up as leaders in AI-driven change. This redistribution of power is making organizations more agile and responsive, and its opening new avenues for career advancement. Four in ten executives expect AI to create upward mobility for all employees, not just technical specialists.
THE HUMAN SIDE OF AI TRANSFORMATION
This bottom-up shift presents new cultural complexities. While 89% of employees are receptive to AI tools, theres a strong preference for integration into existing workflows. Our survey reveals that 65% favor AI enhancing current processes over forcing a complete overhaul.
This approach highlights a key tension: incremental improvement versus bold transformation. The most forward-thinking companies are designing AI around people, not the other way around, and as one IT executive put it in their response to our survey, [Agentic AI is] going to challenge the way we work today, but also open a new front door to smarter, faster, and more collaborative ways of working.
Leaders must recognize the cultural and structural impact of agentic AI, and the companies that succeed will be those that embrace these shifts while keeping people and purpose firmly at the center. Balancing immediate adoption with the potential for true innovation requires a delicate touch. Leaders need to meet employees where they are while inspiring them to envision a future in which AI amplifies their capabilities, enabling them to focus on supervising systems and applying judgments in complex scenarios.
WHAT COMES NEXT
First, leaders should recognize that the most successful AI initiatives arent handed down from the top, they bubble up from the front lines. Organizations that empower employees to identify problems and experiment with solutions will outpace those that rely on mandates and one-size-fits-all platforms.
Second, the IT departments role must evolve. Rather than acting as a gatekeeper, IT can become an enabler, providing guardrails, tools, and support while giving other departments the freedom to innovate.
Finally, leaders must address the cultural hurdles that come with any major change. That means investing in education, building trust in new tools, and ensuring that every employee, regardless of technical background, has a chance to participate in the AI future.
AIs real promise isnt in algorithms or hardware. Its in unleashing the creativity, expertise, and ambition of every person in the organization. The future of enterprise AI is bottom-up, not top-down. And the companies that embrace this shift will be the ones that truly transform.
Bhavin Shah is the CEO of Moveworks.
Lets be honest: When we talk about workplace equity, menopause rarely makes the agenda. But it should. This life stage impacts half the workforce, often right when women are at the peak of their careers, influence, and leadership.
As a CEO and advocate for womens health, Ive seen firsthand how menopause becomes an invisible career barrier. And now the data backs it up: Ignoring menopause in the workplace isnt just a health oversight, its a systemic equity issue.
According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, full-time, year-round working women earn only 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024, a gap thats actually widening. The year before, women earned almost 83 cents for every dollar. That should stop us in our tracks.
Menopause often coincides with a critical phase in a womans career, when experience, insight, and leadership potential are at their highest. But symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, hot flashes, and mood swings can disrupt work and energy levels. The issue isnt the symptoms, its the silence surrounding them.
Women are expected to power through. Some do, but for many it turns into what is known as the midcareer cliff. Women begin quietly stepping back, missing promotions, or leaving leadership roles altogether. This isnt just personal loss, its organizational erosion. When experienced women exit, we lose innovation, mentorship, and momentum across the pipeline.
THE BUSINESS IMPERATIVE
Lets be clear: Supporting women through menopause isnt a favor. Its a business imperative. If we want strong, competitive, resilient organizations, we need more women in leadership roles at every age, including midlife and beyond.
Heres how companies can show up:
1. Make menopause part of the conversation
Start normalizing it, openly, not awkwardly. Include menopause in DEI and wellness conversations just like we do with maternity or mental health. Train managers. Create employee resource groups. Let women share experiences, not suffer in silence.
2. Back words with policy
Talking is great, but action matters. Promote flexible work options, access to hormone therapy or menopause specialists, and comprehensive benefit programslike what we did recently at Beacon Wellness Brands in partnership with Midi Health. These arent perks, theyre proof points.
3. Measure what matters
If youre not tracking retention and promotion by age and gender, youre missing the story. Look at your data. If mid-career women are quietly disappearing, menopause might be a hidden factor.
At Beacon Wellness, we believe real equity means meeting women where they are. That includes menopause. When we normalize and support this stage, women can keep leading, innovating, mentoringand building the future of work.
Equity isnt a box to check off, its something you nurture over decades. And if were serious about closing the wage gap, we have to support the years that define a womans legacy, not just her entry.
Workplaces that support women ultimately strengthen their entire organization.
Maria Warrington is the CEO of Beacon Wellness Brands.
A new study from MIT that shows that AI might be poised to replace a lot more jobs than what initial estimates might predict. According to researchers, a hidden mass of data reveals that AI is currently capable of taking over 11.7% of the labor market.
The new estimate comes courtesy of a project called The Iceberg Index, which was made through a partnership between MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a federally funded research center in Tennessee. According to its website, the Iceberg Index simulates an agentic U.S.a human-AI workforce where 151M+ human workers coordinate with thousands of AI agents. In simpler terms, the tool is designed to simulate precisely how AI is poised to disrupt the current workforce, down to specific local zip codes.
The Iceberg Index model treats Americas 151 million workers as individual agents, each categorized by their skills, tasks, occupation, and location. In total, it maps more than 32,000 skills and 923 occupations across 3,000 counties. In an interview with CNBC, Prasanna Balaprakash, ORNL director and co-leader of the research, described this as a digital twin for the U.S. labor market. Using that base of data, the index analyzes to what extent digital AI tools can already perform certain technical and cognitive tasks, and then produces an estimate of what AI exposure in each area looks like.
Already, state governments in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Utah are using the index to prepare for AI-driven workforce changes. Here are three main takeaways from the study:
AI is more pervasive in the workforce than we think
Perhaps the biggest finding from the study is the discovery of what it calls a substantial measurement gap in how we typically think about AI replacing jobs.
According to the report, if analysts only observe current AI adoption, which is mainly concentrated in computing and technology, theyll find that AI exposure accounts for only about 2.2% of the workforce, or around $211 billion in wage value (the report refers to this as Surface Index). But, it says, thats only the tip of the iceberg.
By factoring in variables like AIs potential for automation in administrative, financial, and professional services, the numbers rise to 11.7% of the workforce and about $1.2 trillion in wages (this calculation is referred to as Iceberg Index).
The studys authors emphasize that these results only represent technical AI exposure, not actual future displacement outcomes. Those depend on how companies, workers, and local governments adapt over time.
The AI takeover is not limited to the coasts
Its fairly common to assume that the most AI job exposure is concentrated in coastal hubs, where tech companies predominantly gather. But the Iceberg Index shows that AIs ability to take over work force tasks is distributed much more widely.
Many states across the U.S., the study shows, register small AI impacts when accounting solely for current AI adoption in computing and tech, but much higher values when other variables are taken into consideration.
Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee register modest Surface Index values but substantial Iceberg Index values driven by cognitive workfinancial analysis, administrative coordination, and professional servicesthat supports manufacturing operations, the study reads.
How this data can actually make a difference
Now that MIT and ORNL have successfully established the Iceberg Index, theyre hoping it can be used by local governments to protect workers and economies. Local lawmakers can use the map to source fine-grain insights, like examining a certain city block to see which skill sets are most in use and the likelihood of their automation.
Per CNBC, MIT and ORNL have also built an interactive tool that lets states experiment with different policy leverslike adjusting training programs or shifting workforce dollarsto predict how those changes might affect local employment and gross domestic product.
The Iceberg Index provides measurable intelligence for critical workforce decisions: where to invest in training, which skills to prioritize, how to balance infrastructure with human capital, the report reads. It reveals not only visible disruption in technology sectors but the larger transformation beneath the surface. By measuring exposure before adoption reshapes work, the Index enables states to prepare rather than reactturning AI into a navigable transition.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits declined last week in a sign that overall layoffs remain low, even as several high-profile companies have announced job cuts.
U.S. applications for unemployment benefits in the week ending Nov. 22 dropped 6,000 from the previous week to 216,000, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The figure is below the 230,000 forecast by economists, according to a survey by data provider FactSet.
Applications for unemployment aid are seen as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The job cuts announced recently by large companies such as UPS and Amazon typically take weeks or months to fully implement and may not yet be reflected in the claims data.
The four-week average of claims, which softens some of the week-to-week volatility, dropped 1,000 to 223,750.
For now, the U.S. job market appears stuck in a low-hire, low-fire state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low, but has left those out of work struggling to find a new job.
The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 15 rose 7,000 to 1.96 million, the government said. The increase is a sign that the unemployed are taking longer to find new work.
Last week, the government said that hiring picked up a bit in September, when employers added 119,000 new jobs. Yet the report also showed employers had shed jobs in August. And the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, its highest level in four years, as more Americans came off the sidelines to look for work but did not all immediately find jobs.
On Tuesday, the government reported that retail sales slowed in September after three months of healthy increases. Consumer confidence plunged to its second-lowest level in five years, while wholesale inflation eased a bit.
The data suggests that both the economy and inflation are slowing, which boosted financial markets’ expectations that the Federal Reserve will reduce its key interest rate at its next meeting Dec. 9-10.
Christopher Rugaber, AP economics writer
The job of a headline is to draw attention to the article beneath it. When a headline instead draws attention to itself, it feels as wrong as a carnival barker cursing out passersby.
The New York Times, which remains among the worlds load-bearing newspapers, has published plenty of stories in 2025 with that rogue carnival barker vibe. Why is someone screaming this at me? would be a natural response to headlines like Did Women Ruin the Workplace? which NYT ran earlier this month, inspiring an apoplectic backlash that forced editors to change it to the only-slightly better Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?. Since that controversial header is one of many quickly corrected misfires from the Paper of Record this year, maybe something else is going on beyond avant-garde attention-grabbing.
Its nothing new for New York Times headlines to undergo embarrassing post-publication edits, presumably after someone got yelled at. What feels different now is that headline debacles appear to be arriving more regularly in the second Trump termand nearly as often on the News side as on the Opinion side, despite each division having its own separate editors. Even longtime media critics like the NYT Pitchbot account on social media agree this has been a particularly cursed year for NYT headlines. The question is: To what end?
Headline mismatch
Sometimes, a headline is bending like a tortured circus contortionist to avoid stating the obvious. A recent News story offered the phrase Blending family and governance to describe Donald Trump enriching himself through business ventures while being the actual president. A froth of piping hot internet outrage swiftly followed. NYT then changed the headline to Trump Organization Is Said to Be in Talks on a Saudi Government Real Estate Deal, which sounds blessedly less like a story about finding innovative business loopholes for presidents.
Corruption at unprecedented levels with a murderous regime, a mark of totalitarian fascism but: "Blending family and governance" makes it sound like a harmless avocation. #BrokenTimes— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis.bsky.social) 2025-11-15T23:18:25.948Z
The Times has this problem where they are afraid to say things frankly, says the anonymous person behind the long-running X and Bluesky account, NYT Pitchbot, which regularly mocks the framing of stories in NYT and The Washington Post.
Other times, the headline might be at odds with the story its hyping up. Amid ongoing revelations about the extent to which Jeffrey Epstein claimed Trump knew about his sex trafficking empire, a News story from last week took an arch tone in describing the fallout from recently unearthed Epstein emails and the broad, powerful network of people with which Epstein held sway.
It was then saddled with the unfortunate headline Epstein Emails Reveal a Lost New York, which provoked a digital jetspray of bile on social media. Judging from the headline, one might reasonably conclude it was a wistful lament for a golden age of sex crimes in the city. (It was later changed to Epstein Emails Reveal a Bygone Elite.)
NYT: We Miss the Old, Rapey New York, Before Our Favorite Financiers Becane Disgraced— Keith Decent (@keithdecent.bsky.social) 2025-11-16T16:33:33.821Z
That "clubby" NYT headline is awful, but the piece itself is clear-eyed & observant, if cool in tone it's by a strong writer & it documents the creepy, backpatting insider world of guys griping about MeToo as it happens. The NYT is always doing this! If the hed was different, the piece wd be legit— Emily Nussbaum (@emilynussbaum.bsky.social) 2025-11-16T17:17:45.491Z
Over on the Opinion side, plenty of headlines seem expressly designed as ragebait, practically begging Bluesky users to screenshot them into viral infamy. (More so than usual, even.) The same week readers were greeted with Did Women Ruin the Workplace, for instance, one of the writers credited with that piece authored a column bearing the headline Mamdanis Victory is Less Significant Than You Think. That headline arrived the morning after Zohran Mamdanis win in New Yorks mayoral race, before anyone could credibly claim special knowledge about its significance or lack thereof. It did not go down smoothly online, which felt like the entire point.
He actually lost by winning— Molly Knight (@mollyknight.bsky.social) 2025-11-05T14:47:02.508Z
we can chalk it up to youth and inexperience but the biggest mistake the mamdani campaign made was winning by 8.8% and not 1.5%, which is the margin needed for the media to say its a total mandate— andy (@andylevy.net) 2025-11-05T14:25:22.439Z
With headlines like these being a predictable pattern this year, in both News and Opinion, its no wonder the Times is so easily memeable. Social media users are forever fixing the papers headlinesa genre of dunk even the White House oafishly attempted earlier this year.
A growing trend
When an NYT headline is especially galling, followers of the NYT Pitchbot account tend to tag its creatoreither to make sure hes seen the offending headline, or to suggest a past NYT Pitchbot post may have willed it into existence.
According to the person who runs the account, this year has been heavy on such occasions.
Even bigger than Did Women Ruin the Workplace was Charlie Kirk Was Doing Politics the Right Way,” the anonymous creator tells Fast Company, describing the headline of an Ezra Klein op-ed NYT ran the morning after the polarizing MAGA influencer was killed. [It was] the worst ever. That had the biggest response from my readers that I have ever seen.
Although the person behind NYT Pitchbot claims The Washington Post generates more forehead-slapper headlines than the Times these days, at least theres a simple explanation for that lapse. In the leadup to Trumps electoral victory in 2024, owner Jeff Bezos pulled the papers planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and hes since announced sweeping changes to the opinion section, giving it a more Trump-friendly bent. Amid an exhaustive exodus of talented writers, one remaining columnist recently boasted, Were now a conservative opinion page.
But whats the New York Times excuse for producing headlines that seem scientifically engineered to cause a nuclear meltdown on Bluesky?
Traffic watch
One possible explanation is that the editors are indeed aiming for maximum outrage. A hate-share gets just as much as much traffic as any other kind, after all, and modern media incentives heavily favor the pot-stirring headlines NYT keeps cooking up.
I think that they think the dumb headlines encourage people to click through, adds the creator of NYT Pitchbot.
Its hard to argue with the strategys apparent success. Theres only so many times one can see the same screenshot of a headline furiously posted online before clicking to find out whether the outrage is warranted or overblown. (Your mileage may vary.)
If the explanation is as simple as clicks-at-all-costs, though, its truly a sorry state of affairs for the world. The New York Times is still the crown jewel of legacy media, with all the authority and hefty subscriber base that come with it. If even the upper echelon of journalism is subject to the whims of algo-bait, SEO sorcery, and dying digital readership, what chance does any publication have? As TikTokers, substackers and AI podcasters map out the future of newsand the president attempts to hold dominion over itlegacy media has a responsibility to stay tethered to an era of concise language and a shared reality in its stories and their packaging.
In 2025, NYT has too often fallen short of that low bar.
When a headline describes the anti-vaxx Secretary of Health as hitting his stride just days after a second Texas child died from a disease the U.S. officially eliminated 25 years ago, its failing its readers.
When a headline uses Trump says to uncritically pass along the presidents preferred framing, it feels like capitulation.
And when a headline grossly underplays the gravity of a U.S. president threatening his political enemies with death, its practically daring him to give it a go.
In a recent piece, the NYT editorial board used 12 metrics to illustrate that the U.S. is well on its way to becoming an autocracy. If the News editors who contributed to that piece believe its findings, they might agree this moment urgently demands political, scientific, and moral clarity. If the Opinion editors also believe our democracy is backsliding, they might admit its the worst possible moment to ask regressive questions about women in the workplace for hate-clicks, something they likely wouldnt have done just a year or two ago.
In the meantime, both groups seem to be ushering in a world where the New York Times continued existence is less significant than you think.
A wave of vital prescription drugs is about to get a lot cheaper for people on Medicare.
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it has successfully negotiated lower prices for 15 drugs, including medications used for asthma, diabetes, arthritis and multiple forms of cancer. The list includes Ozempic and Wegovy, Novo Nordisks drugs for Type 2 diabetes and weight management, as well as Rybelsus, Novos oral GLP-1 for treating diabetes.
The deal for cheaper prescription drugs grew out of an initiative put in place by the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature legislative package passed in 2022 during the Biden administration. That law opened the door for Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.
The first wave of those negotiations happened last year, when the Biden administration secured pricing for 10 prescription drugs, including diabetes drug Januvia, arthritis drug Enbrel and Eliquis, which is used for blood clots. Many of the drugs the federal government wanted to make cheaper have life-saving applications.
The new round of 15 drugs with lower prices came out of negotiation through that same process rather than Trumps Most-Favored-Nation plan to lower prescription drug prices through executive action and direct pressure on drug makers.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration secured a separate deal to lower the price of drugs like Novo Nordisks Wegovy and Eli Lillys Zepbound in exchange for three years of tariff relief. That deal will also reduce costs for people who want to buy weight loss drugs directly out of pocket.
Whether through the Inflation Reduction Act or President Trumps Most Favored Nation policy, this is what serious, fair, and disciplined negotiation looks like, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Medicare Director Chris Klomp said in a press release.
New pricing under the deal reflects the prices Medicare will pay drug companies, not what consumers will pay to fill their prescriptions. Under the new terms, Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy drop from $959 for a 30-day supply to $274, while Trelegy Ellipta, an asthma inhaler, drops from $654 to $175. The full list of renegotiated drug prices is available on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website.
Trump officials clash over GLP-1s
In a press release, even Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr praised the new drug prices. Kennedys public support for the drug deal suggests that he has fallen in line behind Trump, who wants to make GLP-1 drugs available to more Americans.
Kennedy is famously opposed to weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and has made misleading statements about them in the past, including the false claim that Novo Nordisk doesnt market its own drugs in its home country of Denmark. Theyre counting on selling it to Americans because were so stupid and so addicted to drugs, Kennedy said in an interview he shared on Instagram last year.
Kennedy sang a different tune in the announcement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, vowing to use every tool at our disposal to make healthcare more affordable for seniors. President Trump directed us to stop at nothing to lower health care costs for the American people, Kennedy said.
Historically, Medicare cant legally cover the cost of drugs prescribed solely for weight loss, but the Trump administration is pushing to get around those rules something the Biden administration also pursued.
While the nations top health official has reservations about prescription weight loss drugs being made available to more people, most Americans dont share that view. A survey last year from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 61% of adults think Medicare should cover the cost of GLP-1 drugs for people wishing to lose weight.
Discussions around the role of work in our lives are frequently divided into two camps. Do what you love and youll never work a day in your life, one side proclaims. The other: A job just needs to pay the bills.
The first school of thought is an example of intrinsic motivation. Here, the enjoyment of work for works sake is motivating enough, rather than relying on external rewards like money or praise. And while its great to love your job, recent research suggests that it can become problematic when intrinsic motivation is regarded as morally superior to other motivations.
When a neutral preference becomes charged with moral meaning, social scientists call it moralization, Mijeong Kwon, assistant professor of management in organizational behavior at Rice Business, recently wrote for The Conversation. Once intrinsic motivation becomes moralized, loving what you do is seen as not only enjoyable but virtuous.
A 2023 study co-authored by Kwon found that those who saw intrinsic motivation as virtuous, also looked down upon other common motives, such as money or recognition. So deeply embedded in the consciousness of the American workforce is the idea that its not enough to just have a job, you must also love that job. If you dont define yourself by your professional achievement, it must, therefore, be a sign of something lacking.
While there are many benefits to being intrinsically motivated, there are also downsides to placing moral value on this way of working.
Most jobs (yes, even the ones we love) include long stretches of tedious work or less enjoyable tasks. When intrinsic motivation becomes a moral imperative, workers may feel guilty for not springing out of bed eager to get to the office each day.
It can also lead to burnout or result in staying too long in an unsuitable role while overlooking other important life needs, like making sure the bills get paid.
Theres also the fact that many workers will never experience this type of love for their job. This isnt a moral failure; its a fact of life. Yet, researchers found those who moralize intrinsic motivation also are guilty of pushing that expectation onto others around them.
In a study of nearly 800 employees across 185 teams, Kwon and her fellow researchers found employees who moralized intrinsic motivation were less willing to help out colleagues they saw as less passionate than those they perceived as loving their job.
And yet The Great Detachment has 79% of employees disengaged at work, the lowest level seen in a decade. Mass lay-offs and stagnant wages have only added to this feeling, as well as a pull towards career minimalism, as disillusioned workers instead save their real ambitions and passions for off the clock. After all, why give everything to a role when it may no longer exist next month?
Still, a belief in the ideal of intrinsic motivation is very convenient for those at the top of the food chain who profit from workers willingness to go above and beyond without the promise of being fairly compensated in return.
As many continue to reevaluate the role of work in their lives, its worth keeping in mind that loving what you do is a privilegenot a sign of moral superiority.
Ikea just launched a new collection of speakers that double as actual pieces of art.
The collection, which includes three round bluetooth speakers, two lamp speakers (called the Kuglass), and one new version of Ikeas beloved Fado lamp, was made in collaboration with the Swedish designer Tekla Evelina Severin (also known as Teklan). Severin, who is known for her work as a colorist, photographer, and designer, brings a keen eye for color and pattern to the designs, turning a product that might otherwise be an eyesore into one worthy of display. In fact, it would be difficult to even recognize the products as speakers upon first glance.
Tekla Evelina Severin [Photo: Ikea]
This collection is an evolution of Ikeas broader mission to make in-home tech products not only functional, but also aesthetically pleasing. Teklans colorful touch bumps that goal up a notch by turning the new line of speakers into true design objects.
How Ikea is making home tech aesthetic
Ikea introduced its first line of speakers, called Eneby, in 2018. They were ultra-simple, square, and wall-mountable, available in a dark and light gray colorway. The companys new collection with Teklan shows just how much our relationship with home electronics has expanded since then. As tech becomes more integrated throughout the average American home, customers are increasingly looking for products that blend seamlessly with their decorand dont draw too much attention to their actual functions.
In recent years, Ikea has built out its speaker portfolio with more creative additions like the Symfonsik picture frame speaker and Vappeby outdoor speaker lamp . While the brand is known for its minimalist style, in recent months, its started to inject more color and surprising forms into its home electronics offerings. Just earlier this month, Ikea introduced a wide range of updated smart home products, designed to simplify the connected smart home experience, that look like analog devices on the outside and come in hues like rust orange and mint green.
[Photo: Ikea]
Tech is everywhere and growing, but I think few see it as part of the homes identity, says Sara Ottosson, product developer at IKEA of Sweden. Most of the time you end up adjusting your home to the tech, rather than the other way around, simply because these products arent designed to harmonize with anything, and we dont think it should be like that.
With this new collection, Ottosson says, the whole point was to make speakers feel like they belong among furniture and textiles.
[Photo: Ikea]
Inside the the design of the new collection
To do that, Ottossons team started by approaching the design of the new collection similarly to how they would approach a new chair or lamp.
The speaker archetype is often this sharp box, where the design is something added onto the technology, Ottosson says. Thats just how the category has looked for a long time. We come from home-furnishing design, so we naturally approach things from a different side. We were curious about what happens when you work with softer shapes, colors, and patternsthings that make a product feel more like part of the home, that harmonizes with the rest.
[Photo: Ikea]
For the three circular speakers (called the Solskydd family), the team tapped longtime Ikea designer Ola Wihlborg. He reimagined the tech as round, soft objects that can either rest on decorative stands or mount directly to the wall. And for the two speaker lamps (called Kuglass), Ottoson says the product team pushed the concept of an embedded speaker further than they ever have before. The lamps are designed to read instantly as a table lamp, with the soft shade and friendly silhouette almost entirely disguising the tech component.
[Photo: Ikea]
What truly elevates the collection to design object status is Severins selection of colors and patterns. The speakers come in a teal striped design, a subtly 3D red pattern, and a soft orange; while the lamps are available in dual-tone red and green.
[Photo: Ikea]
The result, Ottoson says, is something we simply havent had before at Ikea: a combination of shapes, colors, patterns, and light that feels like a sensory experience.
Teklan pushed us toward her ways and unconventional combinations, going for colors from nature, and tones that feel nostalgic and emotional, Ottoson says. The idea was to make the products truly feel like home furnishing design with technology inside, rather than technology wrapped in a design.
They go by names like @TRUMP_ARMY or @MAGANationX, and their verified accounts proudly display portraits of President Donald Trump, voter rallies, and American flags. And theyre constantly posting about U.S. politics to their followers, sounding like diehard fans of the president.
But after a weekend update to the social media platform X, its now clear that the owners of these accounts, and many others, are located in regions such as South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Elon Musks X unveiled a feature Saturday that lets users see where an account is based. Online sleuths and experts quickly found that many popular accounts posting in support of the MAGA movement to thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers are based outside the United Statesraising concerns about foreign influence on U.S. politics.
Researchers at NewsGuard, a firm that tracks online misinformation, identified several popular accountspurportedly run by Americans interested in politicsthat instead were based in Eastern Europe, Asia, or Africa.
The accounts were leading disseminators of some misleading and polarizing claims about U.S. politics, including ones that said Democrats bribed the moderators of a 2024 presidential debate.
What is the location feature?
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, announced Saturday that the social media platform is rolling out an About This Account tool, which lets users see the country or region where an account is based. To find an account’s location, tap or click the signup date displayed on the profile.
This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square. We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X, Bier wrote.
In countries with punitive speech restrictions, a privacy tool on X lets account holders only show their region rather than a specific country. So instead of India, for instance, an account can say it is based in South Asia.
Bier said Sunday that after an update to the tool, it would 99.99% accurate, though this could not be independently verified. Accounts, for instance, can use a virtual private network, or VPN, to mask their true location. On some accounts, there’s a notice saying the location data may not be accurate, either because the account uses a VPN or because some internet providers use proxies automatically, without action by the user.
Location data will always be something to use with caution,” said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech and a former director of the International Fact-Checking Network. “Its usefulness probably peaks now that it was just exposed, and bad actors will adapt. Meta has had similar information for a while and no one would suggest that misinformation has been eliminated from Facebook because of it.
Which accounts are causing controversy?
Some of the accounts supported slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk as well as President Donald Trumps children. Many of the accounts were adorned with U.S. flags or made comments suggesting they were American. An account called “@BarronTNews_,” for instance, is shown as being located in Eastern Europe (Non-EU),” even though the display location on its profile says Mar A Lago. The account, which has more than 580,000 followers, posted on Tuesday that This is a FAN account, 100 % independent, run by one guy who loves this country and supports President Trump with everything Ive got.
NewsGuard also found evidence that some X users are spreading misinformation about the location feature itself, incorrectly accusing some accounts of being operated from abroad when theyre actually used by Americans. Investigators found several instances where one user created fake screenshots that appear to suggest an account was created overseas.
It’s not always clear what the motives of the accounts. While some may be state actors, it’s likely that many are financially motivated, posting commentary, memes and videos to draw engagement.
For the most visible accounts unmasked this week, money is probably the main motivator, Mantzarlis said. That doesnt mean that Xas documented extensively by prior work done by academic and nonprofit organizations that are being attacked and defundedisnt also a target for state actors.
Users were divided over the new ability to see an accounts location information, with some questioning whether it went too far.
Isnt this kind of an invasion of privacy? One X user wrote. No one needs to see this info.
Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writer
Associated Press Writer David Klepper contributed to this story.
