A potent winter storm threatened blizzard-like conditions, treacherous travel, and power outages in parts of the Upper Midwest as other areas of the country braced Monday for plunging temperatures, strong winds, and a mix of snow, ice, and rain.The snow and strengthening winds began spreading Sunday across the northern Plains, where the National Weather Service warned of whiteout conditions and possible blizzard conditions that could make travel impossible in some areas. Snowfall totals were expected to exceed a foot (30 centimeters) across parts of the upper Great Lakes and as much as double that along the south shore of Lake Superior.“Part of the storm system is getting heavy snow, other parts of the storm along the cold front are getting higher winds and much colder temperatures as the front passes,” said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service office in College Park, Maryland. “They’re all related to each other different parts of the country will be receiving different effects from this storm.”The weather service warned of “dangerous wind chills” as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34.4 degrees Celsius) in North Dakota and into Minnesota from Sunday night into Monday.In the South, meteorologists warned severe thunderstorms are likely to signal the arrival of a sharp cold front bringing a sudden drop in temperatures and strong north winds that will abruptly end days of record warmth throughout that region.The high temperature in Atlanta was around 72 F (22 C) on Sunday, continuing a warming trend after climbing to 78 F (about 26 C) to shatter the city’s record high temperature for Christmas Eve, the National Weather Service said. Numerous other record high temperatures were seen across the South and Midwest on the days after Christmas.But the incoming cold front was expected to drop rain on much of the South late Sunday night into Monday, and a big drop in temperatures Tuesday. Forecasters said the low temperature in Atlanta to 25 F (minus 3.9 C) by early Tuesday morning. The colder temperatures in the South are expected to persist through New Year’s Day.In Dallas, Sunday temperatures in the lower 80s (upper 20s C) could drop down to the mid 40s (single digits Celsius). In Little Rock, high temperatures of around 70 (21 C) on Sunday could drop down to highs in the mid-30s on Monday.“We’re definitely going back towards a more winter pattern,” Oravec said.The storm is expected to intensify as it moves east, drawing energy from a sharp clash between frigid air plunging south from Canada and unusually warm air that has lingered across the southern United States, according to the National Weather Service.
Leah Willingham and Jeff Martin, Associated Press
Construction materials are responsible for nearly one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions. And as global demand for construction continues to rise (it has already tripled over the past 25 years), its emissions are bound to climb even higher.eIn fact, some, like environmental engineer and University of Virginia professor Andres Clarens, see materials potential negative impact as so existential that he calls them the last major frontier in the fight against climate change. If thats the case, we need to reduce the emissions associated with commonly used building materials like cement and steeland we need to develop alternative materials that emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions by default. And we need to do it fast.This year, material designers delivered. Some of these new materials are still in the testing phase, others are already on the market. All five have tremendous potential to make our buildings more sustainable.[Photo: RMIT University]1. A superstrong material inspired by the deep-sea spongeEarlier this year, researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology invented a bio-inspired building material that is both lightweight and resilient under pressure, which could help reduce the use of steel and concrete. The key to their innovation? A little creature that lives thousands of meters deep in the ocean.The deep-sea sponges lattice-like skeleton, which has been optimized over millions of years, can absorb force while maintaining its strength. According to the researchers, a similarly designed material could enable thinner load-bearing walls and slimmer columns, which in turn, would reduce the amount of steel and concrete required to achieve structural integrity.The material is still in the testing phase.[Photos: InventWood]2. A Superwood that is stronger than steelSeven years ago, scientists at the University of Maryland said they discovered a way to make wood so strong that it could compete with steel. This year, their research culminated in the launch of Superwood, a material that has 50% greater tensile strength than steel and a strength-to-weight ratio thats 10 times better.Superwood was developed by a spin-off startup called InventWood, which began mass-producing the material this summer. The companys first facility in Frederick, Maryland, can produce one million square feet of Superwood per year, with applications varying from interior finishes to exterior-grade panels for siding and roofing.The plan, according to InventWood cofounder Alex Lau, is to build a larger facility that will scale to over 30 million square feet, enabling use in infrastructure and large developments.[Image: Carbon Smart Wood]3. A cross-laminated timber made of fallen treesBy some estimates, cities lose a staggering 36 million trees a year to storms, insects, and disease. Over the past six years, the Washington, D.C.-based startup Carbon Cambium has salvaged six million board feet of wood from these fallen trees, diverting it from the landfill, and turning it into usable timber for furniture with companies like Room & Board and Sabai.This year, the startup developed its first product for the construction industry. Carbon Smart Wood is the first cross-laminated timber (CLT) made from salvaged trees, which promises to make mass timber construction even more sustainable.The company offers millwork like decking and flooring, and full CLT structural panels for buildings. Forty thousand linear feet of the material will appear on the facade of the new JFK Airport expansion in 2026.a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91453541/architects-embracing-rammed-earth-designs">Horizon House [Photo: Casey Dunn/courtesy Lake Flato]4. A new take on rammed earthRammed earth, a building technique where damp soil is compacted in layers within temporary forms, has propped up buildings for millennia. This year, the humble material got an upgrade when researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology encased it in a cardboard tube.The resulting material, dubbed cardboard-confined rammed earth (CCRE), consists of rammed earth thats been compacted inside cylindrical tubes. Typically, rammed earth walls also include a dose of cement to improve strength and durability, but the cardboard formwork in CCRE acts as a shell, negating the need for cement. The researchers say the cardboard helps protect the rammed earth from surrounding environments, while additional treatment on the cardboard can extend its life as well. They have also developed a similar version using carbon-fiber tubes.To date, the team has built a small-scale prototype, but if scaled, the material could be used to build low-rise and modular buildings with no cement.[Image: courtesy Joe Doucet and Partners]5. A paint that changes colors with the seasonsWeve known for a while now that painting surfaces like streets and roofs in white can make them cooler because white reflects heatand painting them black can make them warmer because black absorbs heat.This year, industrial designer Joe Doucet took this time-tested innovation to a new level by developing a climate-adaptive paint that can change colors based on the outside temperature. The paint, which can be mixed with other tints (so you can still have your yellow house) could save an estimated 2030% in energy costs every year. Doucets team is currently testing the final formula, with the goal of licensing it to paint manufacturers when ready.
Throughout 2025, weve watched companies treat employees with a stunning disregard: rolling layoffs (with thousands let go at a time), unchecked workloads, turning a blind eye to burnoutwith 76% of U.S. workers reporting at least one health condition todayand a near-gleeful rush to replace people with AI.
Over 200,000 American women quit their jobs this year, many citing inflexible policies and lack of support for balancing work and life. Relentless rounds of cuts have destabilized employee trust and left employees uncertain and questioning leadership at every level. Across industries, leaders have routinely prioritized short-term efficiency over human impacts, sending a clear signal that employee well-being is treated as irrelevant to how most CEOs define organizational success.
Despite a year in which many companies acted as if they were actively anti employee well-being, theres clear evidence that 2026 will be the year everything changes. This isnt wishful thinking or naivete. Its grounded in hard business realities that CEOs can no longer afford to ignore.
First, investorsthe same ones who have historically applauded employee layoffsare beginning to reward companies that prioritize employee flourishing because multiple years of research show that firms with high well-being scores consistently outperform peers in stock performance, profitability, and innovation. Second, the talent market is unforgivingtop performers now demand workplaces that offer trust, growth, and the conditions to thrive; ignoring this risks losing the very people who drive competitive advantage. Additionally, weve reached a point of destabilizationa crisiswhere people are hitting a no more moment and simply wont continue in the old way any longer. This will be a major catalyst for change. Third, the AI-driven transformation of work depends on human adaptability; organizations that fail to foster well-being, learning, and resilience will sabotage their own investments in technology. Finally, the reputational and financial costs of ignoring well-being are increasingly visible, from mass departures of key employees to heightened public scrutiny. Taken together, these forces create a perfect storm: 2026 is the year CEOs will have both the incentive and the imperative to finally make employee well-being a central strategic priority.
The Reckoning Arrives
If 2025 will be remembered for the callousness and disregard organizations showed their people, 2026 will be remembered as the year CEOs felt the consequences of those decisions and were forced to pivot. And this shift wont happen because leaders suddenly became more empathetic. It will happen because the data is now unequivocal: employee well-being isnt a soft ideaits a hard, proven driver of performance, retention, customer experience, innovation, and long-term value creation. When people feel genuinely valued, respected, supported, treated humanely, and that they truly belong, they dont just perform more optimallythey think more clearly, solve problems more creatively, and bring far greater energy and commitment to their work. Research from leading business schools and global workplace studies demonstrates this; 2026 is simply the year the evidence becomes impossible for CEOs to dismiss.
The Well-BeingPerformance Link Is No Longer Debatable
For years, employee well-being was treated as a feel-good afterthoughtsomething leaders knew mattered but never put on the same level as profits and shareholder returns. That era is over. Rigorous, multiyear research from investment firm Irrational Capitalanalyzing thousands of public companies, including the entire S&P 500 and Russell 1000shows that organizations in the top 20% for employee well-being have outperformed the market by hundreds of basis points. Oxford research finds that a single-point increase in employee happiness correlates with billions in additional annual profit for large enterprises. McKinsey on burnout, Deloitte on retention, Gallups global workplace dataall of it points to the same conclusion: when people feel genuinely supported, productivity, profitability, innovation, and customer loyalty surge. Harvard leadership professor Arthur C. Brooks puts it bluntly: Happier employees are more profitable, more productive employees. Thats just the way it is. Investors are now baking these realities into their models. The gap between human flourishing and financial flourishing isnt philosophical anymoreits mathematical.
Where Companies Have Gone Wrong
Most organizations spent the past decade conflating well-being with wellness programs. They handed out meditation apps, gym stipends, and yoga classes while ignoring the root causes of poor well-being: uncaring and untrustworthy managers, a lack of connection and belonging, expectations of always being onand feeling unappreciated for ones hard work. The result was predictableburnout soared, engagement flat-lined, and the best people walked away. The damage is undeniable in 2025s data. Trust in senior leadership has fallen to its lowest point in years. Employees are using words like disconnect, misalignment, distrust, and hypocrisy in record numbers. The power shift back to employers has been used to push return-to-office mandates, endless restructurings, and the forever layoffsmall, rolling terminations that keep everyone fearing theyll be next, exhausted, and diminished in what they can contribute.
Why 2026 Changes Everything
2025 exposed the cost of treating people as expendble. 2026 will reveal the cost of continuing to do so. The forces now converging leave CEOs no room to hide:
Investors have begun rewarding cultures of genuine care. The same financial logic that once justified layoffs now proves that sustained well-being creates superior performance. Boards are asking hard questions about turnover, culture risk, and the long-term sustainability of workforce models built on burnout.
The cost of neglect is now impossible to hide. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that workplaces are a major driver of the nations mental health crisis. The result is spiking turnover, steep drops in productivity, skyrocketing medical claims, and a workforce whose resilience has been systematically erodedlosses that dwarf the cost of actually supporting people.
Young talent is reshaping the expectations of work. Gen Z and millennials, who will soon be the majority of the workforce, refuse to accept fear, overwork, or indifference as normal. They demand growth, stability, and humane leadershipand they walk quickly when they dont get it. The mistake leaders continue to make is by framing this attitude as entitlement. Its not. Its clarity. Younger generations simply refuse to tolerate what older generations accepted as normal. The battle for talent has become a battle for well-being.
AI is acceleratingnot reducingthe need for well-being. The belief that technology could replace people and eliminate the need for authentically supportive leadership has been proven wrong. AI demands adaptability, creativity, emotional intelligence, and resiliencecapacities that collapse under chronic stress. Organizations that want their people to master the tools of the future must first keep them energized and trusted today.
A new leadership mandate is forming. This is the shift Deloitte calls human sustainability: the deliberate choice to build organizations where people can thrive for the long haul, not just survive to the next quarter. It means embedding respect, growth, and genuine care into every systemhiring, development, compensation, communication, and even the way difficult decisions are handled. Most importantly, well-being must become a leadership competency. Leaders must learn the importance of trust, how team cohesion gets built, how psychological safety is created, how meaningful work is designed, and how human energy is sustained. Leaders must embrace new practices known to support human thriving.
The companies that make this pivot in 2026 wont just repair the damage of 2025. Theyll dominate the decade. Theyll keep their best people and attract everyone elses. Theyll turn AI from a source of fear into the greatest amplifier of human potential weve ever seen. Theyll build resilience that no disruption can break.
In my new book, The Power of Employee Well-Being, I lay out exactly how this transformation happens and why its the single greatest untapped performance lever left in most organizations. The evidence is settled. The investors are watching. The talent is voting with their feet. And 2026 is the year the old excuses finally die. Leaders who still treat people as costs to be managed will be left behind. The rest of us will be building the futureand its one where people are flourishing, trusted, and bringing everything they have to work every single day.
Happy New Year!
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
Last December, Modern CEO named the inaugural Modern CEO of the Year. The goal was to recognize a business leader who embodied the traits frequently covered in this newsletter: inclusion, accessibility, humility, and innovation amid unprecedented uncertainty. We looked for a person with vision and grit, someone who is growing a company sustainably. The methodology isnt scientific, but this year, one name stood out: Flexs Revathi Advaithi.
Meet the Modern CEO of the Year
Advaithi didnt set out to ride the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. After becoming CEO of Flex (formerly known as Flextronics) in 2019, she zeroed in on the contract manufacturing companys power-focused business, which makes components that manage, regulate, and distribute power for advanced semiconductors and systems. Advaithi understood that business segment well from her years working at Eaton, the power management company. She bet that technology companies would continue to need more power and computethe processing power and other resources needed to run applicationsplus systems to cool equipment to keep it from overheating.
She quietly began to build a portfolio of products and services to design, manage, and deploy power, compute, and cooling infrastructure. Today, that business is growing 35% year-over-year, and Advaithi expects it to generate about $6.5 billion of Flexs fiscal 2026 annual revenue, projected to reach $26.7 billion to $27.3 billion. As Modern CEO went to press, Flex stock was up 65%, outperforming the broader market and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index.
Either we were very smart, or we got lucky, Advaithi says. But when [generative] AI emerges and people start talking about power-hungry compute, the strategy we put together looks like its a winning strategy.
Strategic leadership, personal adversity
Advaithi is quick to point out that her remaking of the power portfolio was part of a strategic approach she applied to all parts of Flexs business, which includes supply-chain management and manufacturing of components for electronics and automobile makers and the healthcare industry.
Indeed, Flex did more than simply capitalize on AI in 2025. This year, the company also helped its clients figure out strategies for dealing with new tariffs. And Advaithi led the company while undergoing treatment for breast cancer for part of the year. Shes currently in remission.
Advaithi says her board of directors supported her decision to keep working after she was diagnosed with cancer in August 2024 even though intense chemotherapy would mean missing travel and interactions with employees and customers. But Advaithi says shes never been a 24/7 CEO and has always made time for family, friends, and activities, so she felt confident that the company could thrive without her being constantly on call.
For Advaithi, the decision was affirming. Having that purpose, keeping myself grounded, having something to push myself out of bed, kept me going in a pretty significant way, she says. She also says she wanted to show the business world and other patients that those undergoing treatment, especially women, were capable of reliance and strength. I felt like I had a duty and obligation to show that it could be done, she says, acknowledging the support of her family and the ability to access high-quality care.
A guide for uncertain times
With manufacturing facilities in 30 countries, Flex this year found itself consulting with clients on how best to navigate the new tariffs announced by the Trump administration at the start of the year. Using sophisticated software that analyzed everything from labor costs to rare-earth mining risks, Flex offered customers different options to make and deliver goods as well as develop longer-term manufacturing and supply chain strategies.
That dispassionate, disciplined approach is not unlike the way Advaithi is thinking about the AI growth opportunity, which many now feel is approaching bubble territory. Rather than building her business around speculation about investment needed to support AI hyper-scalers, Advaithi says shes focused on the power needs of data centers that have already been announced for 2026.
The constant decision that CEOs have to make today is looking at growth, risk-taking, and discipline, she says. Ive only worked with industrial companies, so I feel like you have to [ask]: Where are you five years from now? Where are you 10 years from now? And have you built a business thats viable and sustainable?
More Modern CEOs
Who would have been your pick for Modern CEO of the Year, and why? Send your submissions to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and well highlight readers choices in an upcoming newsletter.
Read more: top CEOs
YouTubes Neal Mohan is Times CEO of the Year
Barrons 2025 Top CEOs
Inc.s 2025 Business Leaders of the Year
Every December, millions of people pause to take stock of their lives before the new year. Some gather for vision-board parties, others sketch out New Years resolutions, and many quietly vow to finally get organized before the clock hits midnight. But this year feels different.
Were closing out 2025 in an economic climate defined by weekly corporate layoffs, social media posts from people with excel trackers archiving hundreds of job applications, and sidelined workers hopelessly looking for jobs for over a year. Families are being pushed to the brink by rising prices, and a generational affordability crisisfueled by a shortage of three to four million homes nationwide, according to analysts by conservative estimateshas made it harder than ever to build stability.
Across platforms, people describe the ground shaking beneath them: seasoned professionals struggling to get callbacks, families displaced by rent increases, and workers in every sector worried that technology is reshaping roles faster than organizations can adapt. Americans are questioning not just their career trajectory, but their worth and stability in an economy where the rules keep shifting.
Yet history showsfrom the Industrial-boosted Gilded Age to the social mediadriven reality-show erathat moments when disruption and innovation collide also create unexpected openings. These periods force society, and individuals, to reconsider not just what they want from the world but what tools they already possess, or can rapidly develop, to navigate it with greater agency. Thats where a concept I call the Economy of Self becomes essentialand freeing.
The Economy of Self isnt manifestation or hustle culture. Its the intentional practice of viewing yourself as an entity with specific value and designing a personal economic ecosystem that enables you to gain ground at best, or protect the ground beneath you at worst. Its the acknowledgment that while no one can control the macroeconomy, we can engineer our microeconomy in ways that produce clarity, resilience, and optionality.
First, establish clarity
The foundation of the Economy of Self is clarity. In an unpredictable job market, individuals need an honest inventory of what they know, what they can do, and what they can deliver in an instant, transactional mass environment. Too many people underestimate their expertise because their worth has long been defined by job titles and affiliation instead of outcomes. Thinking like an entity allows you to see your value from an outside perspective and helps you highlight what you individually have to leverage. Clarity is the first act of economic powerbecause you cannot price, position, or promote what you cannot articulate.
Clarity creates the conditions for structure. Once you understand your value, you can package it. For some, that means turning expertise into discrete service offeringsproducts instead of retainersthat solve specific pain points for clients or employers. In a landscape where many workers are bridging employment gaps or supplementing income through project work, productization of personal expertise becomes a viable stabilizing tool. When you articulate your work as something a customer can buy, not just something an employer can assign, you reclaim the power to shape your own market.
Next, supply chain development
Finally, the Economy of Self requires supply-chain developmentintentionally strengthening the channels that connect your skills to real-world opportunities. That means engaging consistently rather than virally: showing up in your professional networks, posting subject matter ideas regularly, participating in events and conferences, and cultivating relationships that keep your name active in the rooms you want to be in. Supply chains arent built on sudden bursts of visibility; they are built through repetition, reliability, and presence.
If this sounds like a lot, thats because it is. We are living through an economic and technological convergence that rewards intentional self-design more than ever. But the Economy of Self isnt about perfection or reinvention. Its about adapting strategically when the external environment becomes unpredictable. Its about reclaiming agency when traditional structures feel increasingly fragile.
As we enter 2026with all its uncertainty and possibilitymany people wont have the luxury of waiting for stability to return. The future belongs to those willing to treat themselves not just as workers or job candidates, but as dynamic economic actors with assets, supply chains, and value propositions of their own.
In a world where the ground keeps shifting, the most powerful thing you can build is an economy that starts with you.
All the changes to the White House over the past year read like a reality TV drama. Clashes with architects. A lawsuit over the East Wing demolition. Paving over the beloved Rose Garden and turning it into an exclusive club. President Trumps promise (or was it a threat?) to make federal buildings beautiful again primarily played out at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Now it has become the prime exemplar of Magatecture, whose aesthetic expression revolves around three key traits: Make it big, make it gold, and make it monetizable.
[Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images]
It is tradition for presidents to redecorate the White Housethe Oval Office and first familys private quarters typically get a refresh with each incoming administrationbut for the most part, they serve as stewards of a public building.
The White House of modern memory is largely the result of Jackie Kennedys belief that it should be a living museum furnished with the finest American art, furniture, and decorative objects. In fact, the executive mansion hasnt seen such dramatic structural change since Harry Truman had it rebuilt in the 1940s when it was on the verge of collapse.
[Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images]
What separates the renovations happening today from the ones of the past is just how slapdash they are. Trump seems keen on making his mark with little regard for design integritytaping up a paper sign with Oval Office printed in gold Shelly Script, affixing gaudy gilded appliqués on just about any empty surface, and releasing error-laden digital renderings of the new ballroom with stairs leading to nowhere and misaligned windows.
Ranking near the top of the downgrades is the refurbished Lincoln Bathroom, once a subtly art deco interior with seafoam green tile (courtesy of the Truman renovation) now sheathed in white statuary marble and accented with gold fixtures, like a three-star hotel powder room.
President Donald Trump departs the White House on November 5, 2025. [Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu/Getty Images]
Trump speaks the language of opulence, with little grasp of the vocabulary that makes rooms designed to this sensibility actually sing. Instead, Magatecture is most comfortable with superlatives, expressing itself through scale and the appearance of expense. To wit: Trump proudly installed two nearly 100-foot-tall flagpoles (the actual height is closer to 80 feet).
[Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
The changes dont support the language within the Make Federal Architecture Beautiful Again executive order he issued in August, which proclaimed that all federal buildings ought to inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public.
When those excessive gold embellishments are ridiculed as cheap Home Depot products (though Trump says he brought in his gold guy to fabricate them) its hard to argue that they represent distinguished design. Money talks, wealth whispers, and this spit shouts Temu Versailles.
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For a president who knew how to channel grandeur, look to Chester A. Arthur. In 1882, he hired Louis Comfort Tiffany to renovate the White House. One of his most indulgently furnished spaces was the Red Room, a parlor and sitting room occasionally used for small dinner parties. Tiffany painted the walls a rich Pompeiian red, blanketed the ceiling with copper and silver stars, installed a cherry-wood mantle adorned with glass tile, and commissioned a pink frieze.
The furniture was equally lavish and included mirrors encrusted with gemstones, screens from East Asia, tall urns, and chairs upholstered in fringed damask. It was so lavish that Theodore Roosevelt had most of the decor stripped out during his administrations renovations, which the architecture firm McKim, Mead & White oversaw.
Even more modest chapters in White House history reflect rigor. Michael S. Smith, President Barack Obamas decorator in chief, balanced the homes formal nature with more comfortable, approachable, and modern details, including an Oval Office done up in demure earth tones. While initially dismissed as an audacity of taupe, it was still thoughtfully composed and respected the architecture.
White House historian William Seale told The New York Times that the calmed-down space felt welcoming, while interior designer Sheila Bridges noted that its understated look was appropriate considering the economic recession at the time.
[Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images]
There isnt any sensitivity at play now. Amid a government shutdown, Trump ordered the demolition of the East Winga highly unusual command from the president, but a routine developer tacticwhich is now the subject of a lawsuit from preservationists who argue it violated numerous laws.
What will take its place, if all goes according to Trumps wishes, is a ballroom of monstrous proportions; at an estimated 90,000 square feet, it would be roughly the same size as the West Wing and main house combined. To fund the Palladian-style building done up with Corinthian columns, Venetian windows, and crystal chandeliers, Trump has solicited an army of corporate donors to bankroll the $400 million bill.
But the buck certainly does not stop here. Ever the businessman out for personal benefitsome estimates say Trump and his family have earned $3.4 billion from the presidencyhe converted a small room near the Oval Office into a MAGA merch display in which he proudly slings baseball caps to foreign leaders.
President @realDonaldTrump showing President Zelenskyy and President Macron his 4 More Years hat pic.twitter.com/c7dhAkZMuF— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) August 19, 2025
If anything, pettiness seems to be the modus operandi. Hes talked about building a new ballroom since 2010, and even pitched the idea to the Obama administration. David Axelrod, Obamas chief adviser, said Trump called him with his credentials. He said, You know, I build ballrooms. I build the greatest ballrooms and you can come down to Florida to see them, Axelrod told NPR. Nothing came of the call.
Trump brought up his proposal on the 2016 campaign trail, and afterward then-White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the idea was never seriously considered. Im not sure that it would be appropriate to have a shiny gold Trump sign . . . on any part of the White House, he said. None of the ballroom renderings so far have shown a Trump sign on them, but given how he had his name added to the Kennedy Center facade, its not a stretch to imagine the final building similarly branded.
[Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
Then there are the changes to the West Wing colonnade. Trump hung portraits of previous commanders in chief (except for Joe Biden, who is depicted with an autopen signing his signature and labeled it The Presidential Walk of Fame inyou guessed itbig gold letters). Then came more gilded embellishments. And just last week, he installed plaques beneath each presidents portrait with his take on their legacy, written in the style of his Truth Social rants, often laden with misinformation.
One year down, three more to go. If the renovations so far are any indication, expect to see a lot more gold.
A little while ago, Id submitted my article to a well-respected publication that Id done a lot of research for. I was beyond excited and delighted when, following an encouraging meeting with a senior editor, Id heard that they accepted it for publication. It had taken months to get the article to this point, many previous failed submission attempts, and over a decade of expertise and experiencebut Id finally done it! And it was going to be career-changing. Unfortunately, what happened next was anything but.
After an initial follow-up email from the editor, I was informed that the article was under revision and would be sent for review shortly. Weeks went by, and I politely followed up and heard nothing back. A month passed, and another polite follow-up resulted in silence. Another month passed, and then another. Over a period of six months, my follow-ups resulted in total silence. Finally, I resigned myself to the fact that Id been professionally ghosted.
Id expect this from a Tinder date, but not from an editor of a prestigious journal. I felt shocked, confused, and disappointed. When I confided in a close colleague, they shared a recent experience of being ghosted for a promotion. A senior manager had made that promise but never spoke about it again. That made me wonder: Is professional ghosting becoming the norm rather than the exception?
The definition of ghosting
“Ghosting” is a term that originally stemmed from internet culture, and people use it to describe when one party abruptly ceases communication without explanation. People often talk about it in the context of online dating, but it has made its way to the professional context. Now, its a description for a job interview you never hear back from, clients pulling contracts abruptly and ceasing all contact, or a colleague simply ignoring email after email.
Being ghosted is confusing at best, and at worst, it can completely kill your confidence. Thats because ghosting creates what psychologists call an “ambiguous rejectiona rejection that lacks clarity and closure. An ambiguous rejection is distressing because our brain has no resolution, so it stays stuck in a loop of hope and disappointment, and is unable to complete the “ending process.”
Professional ghosting is exactly that: an end of a relationship without an actual end. And the uncertainty this creates is malignant. Neuroscience shows that it triggers our threat response, which activates our nervous system and spreads anxiety and stress in the body.
And if its happening within a company, research shows that it can kill employee trust quicker than you can say “boo.” Its no wonder that being ghosted can feel utterly destabilizing.
Is professional ghosting on the rise?
Research suggests that ghosting has become more commonplace since the pandemic. In Meghan Walsh’s recent article for the global consulting firm Korn Ferry, she cites data showing that three-quarters of employers were ghosted by a new hire in the past year, with an even higher percentage of job seekers saying theyd been ghosted during the interview process. So whats causing this?
There are a multitude of reasons why ghosting might be on the rise. It might be due to an increasingly competitive job market, shifting digital communication norms, and the seemingly ever-increasing time constraints of modern life. But in any case, in the age of artificial intelligence and automationwhere you can literally have a bot write an email for you in less than three secondsIm calling BS on these excuses. I think its time we found our courage and relearned what quality communication looks like.
The politeness paradoxwhy silence feels safer (even when its much worse)
The psychological phenomenon called the politeness paradox explains why you might think its okay to ghost someone. The politeness paradox is when you avoid giving someone bad news out of fear that it will be more hurtful than silence. However, in actuality, people overwhelmingly prefer clarity over nothing at all. It feels worse to be dealing with the ambiguity of being ghosted rather than being told a simple “no.”
Let this be a call to action: Have the courage and the respect to communicate thoughtfully and transparentlyand close the loop so people can move on. Your moment of discomfort delivering “bad news” saves someone else from agonizing over a lack of closure. As someone whos been on the receiving end of ghosting, I assure you that the kindest thing to do is to put someone out of their miseryrather than leaving them in the brutal “what if’ limbo.
Here are five steps to help you move forward from professional ghosting.
1. Acknowledge the disappointment
Ghosting is an emotional roller coaster. Youll experience a wave of different feelings as you try to make sense of it: hurt, disappointment, and rejection. Dont gaslight yourself by minimizing your experience. Being ghosted absolutely sucks. Acknowledge your emotions and confide in a trusted friendthis helps process the experience and regulate your nervous system.
2. Dont take it personally
Ghosting says more about someone else’s avoidance patterns, and nothing about your worth. Your mind will create stories about your inadequacies or capabilitiesnone of these are rooted in the truth of the situation.
3. Meet yourself with self-compassion
Be the friend you need right now rather than your own worst enemy. The experience of being ghosted can quickly descend into negative self-talk, overanalyzing what we might have done wrong, or berating ourselves. In Buddhist teaching, we call this the second arrow. By judging yourself harshly, you amplify your suffering. Instead, offer yourself comfort, words of kindness, and gentle encouragement, as you would a friend.
4. Let go of finding closure
The reality is that you might never get an explanation. That is outside of your control. Closure becomes something yo need to offer yourself, not something you wait for others to give you. This takes you from feeling powerless to reclaiming your agency.
5. Move forward with intention
Being ghosted was a moment of clarity for me. I refuse to replicate this behavior to others. Instead of letting my anger drive my future behavior toward others, Im allowing it to transform my perspective so I can do better by others. Id rather have an uncomfortable conversation than leave someone else in the distress of ambiguous loss. Silence is easy, but kindness takes courage.
Ghosting may be becoming more common, but that doesnt mean we should normalize or accept it. To create workplaces that are more human, we need to invite humanity back into how we communicate. That means replying (even if briefly), closing loops, delivering an honest message with kindness, and recognizing that our own discomfort is not an excuse for disrespect.
Professional ghosting can leave a real scar. But it was also a moment of clarity for mea choice to lead from a place of clarity, courage, and empathy. And if youve been ghosted, let it sting, but dont let it shrink you. Take the lesson, and let it remind you of the kind of person you want to be.
As always, many of this year’s best apps are ones you’ve probably never heard of.
Sure, there are some big names on this list, particularly in the buzzy field of artificial intelligence, but the real standouts of 2025 innovated on a smaller scale. They give you better ways to take notes or remember things, write with just your voice, have fun snapping photos, or even indulge in some gaming classics.
For this list, “apps” include desktop and mobile software, along with browser extensions and web tools. Some apps are entirely new, while others received transformative updates that make them worthy of a fresh look. Hopefully, you’ll discover something that quickly becomes a must-have.
Productivity
Raycast: Open Raycast with a keyboard shortcut, and you can quickly find files, search the web, access your clipboard history, paste frequently written text snippets, reposition your windows, look up emojis, ask AI questions, and more. It’s a Swiss Army knife of time-saving tools for power users, and it finally arrived on Windows and iOS this year to complement the long-running Mac version. (Windows, Mac, iOS)
Payload: Cloud storage is great, but sometimes you need a faster way to send files to yourself. Payload checks your Wi-Fi network for any devices where its app is installed, then uses that connection to transfer files almost instantly, without ever leaving your local network. Previously desktop-only, Payload arrived on mobile devices this year and launched an optional online service for remote file sharing. (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android)
Ghost Capture App: This free app streamlines the act of adding items to your to-do list. Just long-press the little ghost icon and say what you’re trying to accomplish, and it will create a task that syncs to either Apple Reminders or Google Tasks with no extra buttons to push. (iOS)
Monotype: Typewriter Simulator: If you miss (or, for that matter, remember) the feel of writing with a typewriter, this app is for you. It provides an on-screen typewriter that produces a satisfying clack with each key press, followed by a ding and the need to hit Enter (or, more appropriately, Return) at the end of each line. When you’re finished, you can copy the text into whatever document editor you normally use. Thankfully, the app allows you to delete without any Wite-Out. (Mac)
Antinote: Apple’s default TextEdit app is too clunky when you’re just trying to jot down some quick thoughts. Antinote speeds things up with a clean, plain-text scratch pad, which you can pop open with a keyboard shortcut (Option+A by default). You can also create to-do lists by typing “todo” at the top of a note, or perform calculations by typing “math” at the top. It’s a $5 onetime purchase after a free trial. (Mac)
Orb: Most internet speed test tools just give you a snapshot of upload and download speeds. Orb instead lets you run persistent speed tests throughout the day, providing a clearer view of overall reliability. You can even set up the app on multiple devices around the house to see where the connection is weakest. (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)
AI
Proton Lumo: While most AI companies keep a record of your chat history and may even share conversations with human reviewers, Proton’s Lumo AI makes a point of being oblivious. Proton doesn’t log users’ chats or use them to train its models, so the company has no way of accessing your chat history. (iOS, Android, web)
Perplexity Comet: Amid a wave of AI web browsers, Perplexity stands out for its ability to navigate the web on your behalf. Try letting it cancel your subscriptions, search across multiple flight deal sites, or even put a single question to multiple AI tools to see how their answers differ. Just be careful about letting it access sensitive data. (Windows, Mac, Android)
Wispr Flow: Your phone or computer’s built-in voice dictation features are fine if you don’t mind doing a lot of manual cleanup. Wispr Flow manages to be a lot more accuratesometimes eerily soas it uses AI processing to both clean up your text and learn from your writing tendencies over time. It’s also just convenient to use in short bursts with push-to-talk keyboard shortcuts. (Windows, Mac, iOS)
[Screenshot: Jared Newman]
Superwhisper: Another voice dictation app, Superwhisper stands out by letting you use on-device speech-to-text models with no online processing. This allows for unlimited usage without any privacy concerns while still offering handy shortcuts for push-to-talk mode. (Windows, Mac, iOS)
Google Gemini: Google’s AI assistant isn’t new, but its built-in “Nano Banana” text-to-image model that arrived this year would be a killer app on its own. Start by uploading any image, then ask to render it in a different visual style, remove objects (including chain link fences), zoom and enhance, or add more images to the scene. You can even draw around parts of the image to show where the edits should go. (iOS, Android, web)
Dia: The most thoughtful of the AI browsers, Dia lets you @ mention your open tabs to synthesize information from them, ask questions about your browser history, and take action in web apps like Gmail and Google Calendar. Its smartest feature, though, is its search box, which automatically routes your queries to AI or web search, based on what you write. (Mac)
Sora: What if there was a social network where you didnt need to stop and wonder if something was generated by AIbecause everything was generated by AI? Thats the premise behind OpenAIs Sora. You can even create an AI doppelgänger of yourself and control who can use it in their videos (just you, just your friends, or everyone). Yes, deceptive Sora deepfakes leaking onto the rest of the internet with their watermarks removed is an issue. But at its best, the app itself is silly, fun, and not at all misleading. (iOS, Android)
Photo and video
Affinity: Serif’s image editing suite is a popular subscription-free alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator, and Designer, so users got nervous last year when the company was acquired by Canvaitself a subscription-driven business. This year, Canva didn’t just honor its promise to offer Affinity without a subscription, it released the entire desktop suite for free. The only catch is that you need a Canva accountand a subscription if you want to use some AI tools. (Windows, Mac)
Not Boring Camera: This iPhone app offers a more fun way to take photos, with skeuomorphic buttons and knobs for zoom, exposure, focus, and more. The two-second preview of snapped photos that appears in the viewfinder is an especially nice touch, allowing you to quickly discard a bad picture while staying in photography mode. (iOS)
Cassette: The self-proclaimed “Home Video Player” app offers a fun way to revisit all the footage you’ve captured on your iPhone. The app groups your videos by year, presenting them as VHS tapes on a shelf. Tapping on a cassette gives you a stream of auto-playng videos, which you can either swipe through TikTok-style or advance through with the fast-forward and rewind buttons. (iPhone, iPad)
Google Vids: Google’s foray into multitrack video editing lets you combine multiple video and audio clips with transitions, voice-overs, and subtitles. Of course, there’s an AI angle, with an option to generate video clips using Google’s Veo 3 model, but otherwise it’s just an easy way to edit videos online for free. (Web)
Detail: Apple’s winner for “Best iPad App of the Year,” Detail is a handy tool for professional (or aspiring) content creators. It helps record video in a variety of ways, including making reaction videos and reading script from an on-screen teleprompter, and its AI editor can help trim out unwanted bits. The real power, though, comes from being able to combine multiple iPhones and iPads for things like split-screen video podcasts, live monitoring on an iPad while shooting on your phone, and recording top-down iPhone footage while speaking into an iPad. (iOS, Mac)
Camo Streamlight: The free Windows app makes you look better on Zoom calls by surrounding the outer edges of your screen in bright white. It takes inspiration from those ring lights you can attach to your screen, and while the effect is subtle in a well-lit room, it can make a big difference when the room lightning isn’t great. (Windows)
Shutter Declutter: If your Apple Photos library is swimming in tens of thousands of images you couldnt care less about, youre not alone. Shutter Declutter can help you finally make progress at pruning them. It lets you efficiently swipe to delete the detritus, and reminds you each day to review pictures you took on todays date in previous years. The fewer fuzzy and/or accidental shots that remain, the more you can enjoy the photos worth preserving. (iOS, iPadOS)
Security and privacy
UBlock Origin Lite: Apple’s Safari browser finally has the free, open-source, customizable ad-and-tracker blocker it’s been missing. This offshoot of the venerable uBlock Origin does a great job decluttering web pages, and you can dig into its settings menu to tailor the filtering rules to your likingfor instance, to hide cookie notices or social media widgets. The same extension is also available for Chrome. (iOS, Mac)
Have I Been Pwned?: For more than a decade, Have I Been Pwned? has been invaluable for checking whether your email and passwords have been exposed in data breaches. (The answer is almost certainly “yes.”) This year, the site added a personal dashboard with a full history of breaches for your email address, the types of data exposed, and optional email addresses for the next time your email is compromised. (Web)
Proton Authenticator: Proton’s two-factor authentication app is what Authy used to be before it discontinued its desktop apps. It allows you to set up 2FA codes that add an extra layer of protection to your online accounts, then back up and sync them to your other devices. This makes 2FA more convenient while reducing the odds of getting locked out. (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android)
Leisure time
WikiTok: This clever website takes the addictive infinite scroll of TikTok and applies it to random Wikipedia pages, so you can swipe through until something catches your interest. The experience is far less scintillating, but that’s kind of the point. Try using it before bed. (Web)
Iconfactory Tapestry: If you’re feeling burned out by social media, Tapestry lets you stitch together a chronological feed of your favorite internet content sources. Those can include publications, YouTube channels, Reddit forums, Bluesky accounts, and even custom sources such as a Gmail inbox. (iOS, Mac)
Pocket Casts: This venerable podcast player continues to establish itself as the best option that works on any device, not just those made by Apple. This year, Pocket Casts made its web player free, and it syncs your progress from the mobile app for picking up where you left off. It also overhauled its search function, added recommendations for similar podcasts, and launched searchable transriptions as a paid feature. (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, web)
DOSBox Pure Unleashed: This free app drastically simplifies the previously complex task of running old DOS games on your computer. Instead of having to deal with command prompts, you can just drag and drop the files into the DOSBox window and select the .EXE file you want to run. All you need to do beyond that is supply the games, which are easily obtainable from sources like the Internet Archive and My Abandonware. (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Two years ago, a $575 million battery factory planned in St. Louis, Missouri, was set to be the first large-scale lithium iron phosphate (LFP) facility in the U.S. This November, after the Trump administration withdrew a grant for the project, it was cancelledbecoming one of more than 50 major clean energy projects to be scrapped or scaled back in 2025.
From January through November, as federal policy turned against clean energy, companies abandoned more than $32 billion in investments, according to the most recent data from E2, a nonpartisan organization that tracks clean energy projects in the U.S.
Some companies are still announcing new projects, but lost investments are now outpacing them by three to one. “The scale of cancellations shows how fragile this moment is for Americas clean energy economy,” says Michael Timberlake, director of research at E2.
The list includes a new $4.3 billion General Motors EV plant in Michigan that’s being retooled to make gas-powered vehicles, a $3.2 billion Stellantis battery factory in Illinois that was cancelled, and a $2.6 billion battery factory in Georgia that was scrapped by a Norway-based manufacturer, among dozens of other projects. The majority of the cancelled projects are factories, not clean energy generation plants, though some solar or wind farms may not show up on the list because their cancellations are harder to track. (Though there is some evidence the administration is changing its mind about batteries, specifically.)
The cuts add up to nearly 40,000 lost jobs, according to E2. Republican congressional districts lost the most large-scale projects, 37 in total.
What’s harder to track than cancellations is how many projects might have been announced under different political conditions that now won’t ever break ground. Up until the 2024 election, Timberlake says monthly announcements consistently exceeded $1 billion in investment. Last month, that total was $550 millionless than the value of the cancelled battery project.
“We’ll never recover those jobs and those investments that were going to be announced in 2025 under a different political environment,” says Timberlake. “And thats going to add up over time to a significant loss in step with the rest of the world. We’ve now lost a lot of what could have been, and it’s going to be hard to ever get that back.”
It’s not clear yet what will happen in 2026. Still, despite the setbacks, the industry still has strengths. The fact that the list of cancelled projects wasn’t longer “is a good sign of the health of the clean energy economy and how robust it is and how the economics still work,” Timberlake says.
Nearly all of the energy added to the grid in 2025 came from solar, wind, or batteries, despite the Trump administration’s efforts. As the surge in energy demand continues, driven in part by data centers, clean energy is still a quick, affordable way to meet that demand. And some projects are continuing to move forward. “The market is still there,” he says.
Culture rot is when everything that once made a company good gradually starts to disappearresulting in sinking morale, low productivity, lots of gossip, quiet quitting, and overall cynicism. And it can cause big problems for everyone.
