Fashion collaborations are nothing new, but 2025 felt like a year particularly stuffed with branding matchups.
Theres a reason why this might be happening. Online platforms have become crowded, [there are] rapidly accelerating trend cycles, [and] its become more challenging than ever for brands to stand out, Cassandra Napoli, a head culture forecaster at WGSN, says. Collaborations continue to be a unique and important tool for marketing and maintaining cultural relevance. The best lead to attention-grabbing virality, as was the case with Nike x Skims first drop, Sandy Liang x Gap, and Willy Chavarria x Adidas.
Collaborations have become so important because brands have a need to attract new cohorts of communities and consumers . . . as well as provide a new expression of brand DNA and satisfy many customers need for newness, Gemma D’Auria, global leader of apparel, fashion, and luxury at McKinsey, tells Fast Company.
But the truth is fashion has become inundated with collabs, and the net result of so much noise has ultimately had the opposite effect: We’re numb to them. A collaboration alone is no longer enough to excite. To sell, theyll have to resonate with a brands core audience, while also tapping into culture and surprising consumers with something new.
What brands could break the internet together? Insiders reveal their blue-sky collaboration ideas for 2026.
[Illustration: FC]
1. A Gap collab with a luxury design partner
Gap has been on a roll. The American fashion brand not only wooed shoppers this year with the aforementioned Sandy Liang drop, but its denim campaign with Katseye went viral for good reason: an incredible campaign spot that called back to its Y2K days with rising talent and fresh choreo (unlike the controversy-laden American Eagle good jeans mess that dropped weeks before).
Multihyphenate host and former Essence editor Blake Newby wants to see Gap bring more designer partners on board. I feel like theres a synergy in the brand ethos of a Loewe girl and a Gap girl, Newby says, adding that Loewe has already proven it’s comfortable with collabs thanks to its drops with On Running, for instance. (Plus, Loewe has its own denim with real brand ID.)
Gap has also just been doing such cool creative things. We would of course expect this to be at a higher price point [than normal Gap], but it would be so fabulous to see Gap merge their love for denim and basics with the way Loewe does [a similar thing].
[Illustration: FC]
2. A Chanel partnership that scales smaller masters of the métier
People are expecting a lot from Chanel right now. The French luxury house is freshly under the creative leadership of Matthieu Blazy, who made his runway collection debut in October. Hes being celebrated for breathing new life into the brand, and fashion people are curious to see a Chanel collaboration.
Technically, the brand edged into collab territory in October: Blazy revealed a white button-up on the runway in partnership with 187-year old Parisian shirtmaker Charvet. But for Blazy, it wasnt a collaboration as much as it was highlighting a house of craftsmanship, as the brand already does in its Métier dArt collection.
Itll be interesting to see what other things [Chanel Creative Director] Matthieu Blazy taps into because hes really attuned to craftsmanship, Jalil Johnson, author of the Consider Yourself Cultured Substack says. It would be more interesting for these storied houses to give resources to smaller entities to see what they can produce on a bigger scale, like if Chanel worked with Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, referring to the intergenerational group of women in a rural Alabama town crafting brightly hued and intricate patterned textiles.
[Illustration: FC]
3. A pairing that dares to expand Herms sportswear
Adjacent to Chanel, strategist and collaboration expert Bimma Williams wants to see a storied house work with an unexpected brand. For Williams, the dream would be to see Herms and its recently appointed Mens Creative Director Grace Wales Bonner do a collaboration with Adidas. (Believe it or not, Herms already offers an HermsFit line, and Wales Bonner and Adidas have already done drops.)
Adding Herms to that mix, he thinks, would be a masterclass in craft and restraint, merging heritage, sport, and contemporary cultural intelligence. Perhaps what people are craving is for an uber high fashion house to finally cave and break its mold to collaborate with another brand that seems out of the high-end purview.
A spin on the Birkin would inject some much-needed energy into the highly coveted bag for Amy Odell, a New York Times bestselling author and writer of Back Row on Substack.
I think the Birkin is getting stale, and theyve got to mix it up, Odell, who wrote biographies on Anna Wintour and Gwyneth Paltrow, tells Fast Company. Herms wont sell the Birkin to Nike . . . but what if you had a Birkin you could take to the gym? I feel like everyone would talk about that. Or, they could collaborate with Tiffany & Co.opulence is coming backand do a fully glittery, diamond bag.
The economy is recovering in a biforcated K-shape, meaning that while inflation and a tight job market has led to less spending among lower-income consumers, America’s wealthiest shoppers are still buying, so there could still be a market for what would surely be an exorbitantly priced luxury good.
Elsa Peretti jewelry on display in New York, circa 1970. [Photo: PL Gould/Images/Getty Images]
4. A collaboration that revives ’70s era Elsa Peretti x Halston
The Italian jewelry designer and fashion model Elsa Peretti has had a legendary collaboration with Tiffany & Co. since 1974. Peretti, who passed away in 2021, is behind the American jewelers popular bone cuffs and other sculptural pieces. But what some may not know is that Peretti also worked with Halston to design not only a fragrance bottle, but jewelry and accessories, too.
A re-edition of this duos work would be a dream come true for The Millenial Decorators Julia Rabinowitsch, who recently collaborated on a shoe collection with Reformation. Id love to see a revival of the pieces Peretti did, especially as I collect vintage Elsa for Halston pieces, and they are becoming increasingly rare, she adds.
[Illustration: FC]
5. A duo that offers a new take on classic Missoni patterns
Across the board, experts want one thing in a collaboration: for it to be unexpected. For stylist and founder of experiential shopping platform Sweet Like Jam, Mecca James-Williams, designer-led collaborations with bigger luxury houses would catch her eye. Imagine Christopher John Rogers, known for his unique technicolor touch and bold silhouettes, with Missoni, she says.
James-Williams isnt the only one interested in merging Missonis signature zigzags and geometric patterns. British TV exec June Sarpong would be interested in the brand working with British artist Yinka Ilori, known for his savvy use of bright colors, evident in his collabs with The North Face and Bloomingdales. Across both fashion insiders, theres a real interest in seeing how the brand would keep the foundations of its signature while playing with a more flexible element, namely color.
Whatever brands decide to do in 2026, its important that their collaborations form with intention and a real understanding that to land well, they have to make us wish we thought of the pairing first.
LinkedIns AI-powered job search feature is expanding to new audiences.
The toolwhich lets job seekers find relevant open positions without needing to exactly match keywords in the job title or descriptionwill soon be available to all LinkedIn members using the site in English and expanding to Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese. AI-powered job search is already used by 1.3 million people daily, with more than 25 million job searches conducted via the tool every week. And initial data indicates that job seekers without a four-year college degree who use the tool are 10% more likely to get hired than before, according to the company.
This is a really meaningful shift, because our vision is economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, says Rohan Rajiv, senior director of product management and product lead for job search at LinkedIn. We know that in the past, if you were a line cook or a taco chef, it wasn’t that easy to find those jobs on LinkedIn.
The AI search tool even lets users specify general properties of a job, like saying I want to protect the worlds oceans, and find relevant listings, he says. Thats a result of careful, iterative development of a large language model-powered system that can parse job titles, descriptions and other data, understanding the nuances of how listings may vary by location and industry. One job listing may refer to partnerships, while another listing for a similar position refers to business development work, for example. And the AI is able to deliver both listings to potential applicants without them needing to search for a specific keyword.
Compared to traditional keyword searches, it felt more intuitive and less mechanical, writes Anderson Cheng, who recently found a job at the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency via the tool, in an email to Fast Company. The biggest surprise was how well it surfaced roles I might have skipped over based on title alone, but that were actually a strong fit once I reviewed the description more closely.
The AI is carefully designed to be speedy, so users dont have to wait long for results, as well as accurate and internally cost effective, Rajiv says. The results are created in part by LinkedIn staff evaluating them using a second LLM-powered system, then providing the core AI with additional examples in areas where it underperforms. Using AI to evaluate results lets the company check a broader sample than they could practically look at by hand.
The magic of building these products is that you’re able to evaluate these products at scale, says Rajiv.
The expanded AI access comes as the Microsoft-owned platform continues to evolve beyond a mere virtual rolodex and resume board, perhaps especially in the post-pandemic era. Revenue has more than doubled from $7 billion in 2020 to $17 billion in 2025, according to LinkedIn. It has long been used by recruiters to find potential candidates and vet applicants, making maintaining a profile there critical in many industries. If you say something in your résumé, they might look at your LinkedIn and see if those things line up, says Daniel Usera, a clinical associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who has studied LinkedIn. Job searches are also a big part of what LinkedIn offers. The company reports that every minute, nearly 50 new hires are made through LinkedIn and more than 11,000 job applications are submitted through the platform.
Its also a social network, where 17,000 new connections are formed every minute. Another recently released AI feature, known as AI-powered people search, helps users find potential connections based on plain language criteria, like investors with FDA experience for a biotech startup or Northwestern alumni who work in entertainment marketing, rather than simply looking people up by name and employer. The platform has also given people new ways to express themselves in recent years, including adding short-form video similar to TikTok.
LinkedIn posts are sometimes mocked and parodied for their excessive business boosterism, and cringey work lessons drawn from personal trauma. But the site has become a legitimately unique place for people to share work updates, from promotions to hiring announcements, along with insights about their fields.
We kind of have this sense of professionalism in terms of how you’re supposed to post, how you’re supposed to interact, says Usera. And the topics are generally professional in nature.
More than 1.9 million feed updates are viewed every minute as of October 2025, according to the company, which reports that comments on the network are up 24% year-over-year. Usera says his research indicates that tagging other people in LinkedIn posts, perhaps in celebrating their achievements and contributions to your own work, can help boost engagement. And while he hasnt yet formally studied the LinkedIn cringe phenomenon, he says awkward posts can result from attempts at modesty, where people allude to personal achievements in roundabout ways, and those forced analogies between the personal and professional.
Maybe the lesson is you don’t need to always be creative, he says. You can just be factual and just trust that your network supports you and will be happy for you.
And as the platforms AI job search functionality expands, the same lesson likely applies to job postings. While job description language have historically sometimes been an afterthought, providing clear detail about what a position entails helps ensure it shows up in AI-powered searches, says Rajiv.
We are moving away from a world focused on keywords to a world where you need to say things as they are, he says.
If youre job searching right now, it can feel like your efforts and outcomes arent lining up. The job search is changing, and competition isnt easing. The result: nearly 80% of job seekers say they feel unprepared to find a new job this year. At the same time, two-thirds of recruiters say its become harder to find qualified talent over the last year. This tension has become a defining feature of the job hunt.
Theres no denying that AI is reshaping how work gets done, and in the new year, both recruiters and job seekers are planning to use the technology to gain a competitive edge. The good news is that the fundamentals of what makes for a good hire havent changed drastically. But as AI tools continue to evolve, the way job seekers show up and hirers evaluate talent is shifting.
As LinkedIns Career Expert, I have front-row access to how the job market is changing, based on our unique data and member insights, and have spent over a decade helping professionals navigate their careers with confidence as work continues to evolve.
Heres what job seekers need to know about how to stand out and make AI work for them, not against them, in 2026.
Do focus on your skills, dont try to game the system
When job seekers update their résumé or LinkedIn Profile, many fall into the same trap: trying to say everything at once. In the age of AI, that can look like keyword stuffing in hopes an LLM picks it up. But this often backfires, making applications feel inauthentic or mismatched to the role.
Instead, what works best is to lead with the actual skills you haveand specific explanations as to what you actually did, how you did it, and what came of it. Saying you led a cross-functional launch that improved customer retention by 2x, for example, gives far more insight than a dense list of generic responsibilities. This level of detail will help you stand out to recruiters, many of whom are already tapping AI to find candidates with skills theyd never have found before.
So, take the time to revisit how you present your qualifications. You may even rediscover skills youve been applying for years without realizing theyre in-demand now, like problem-solving and adaptability, so you can stand out more and have an easier time spotting roles that are actually a good fit for you.
Dont be intimidated by the AI interview, do practice ahead of time
For many job seekers, the first interaction with a potential employer now happens through an AI-led prescreen or interview. That alone can be enough to throw people off. The format feels unfamiliar, but my biggest advice to job seekers is to treat it like a normal interview.
Today, AI-led prescreenings help hiring teams manage application overload so they can spend their time evaluating and interviewing candidates who are truly a good fit. In fact, two-thirds of recruiters say AI prescreening interviews can help them get better insights about candidates, even across a large applicant pool.
For job seekers, I recommend practicing an AI interview beforehand so youre not caught off guard the first time you encounter one. Use AI tools to practice a run-through, testing out your responses to common interview questions, how youd introduce yourself, and how youd describe your strengths and yes, your weaknesses (aka opportunities for growth!).
If youre able to clearly communicate your experience and what youll bring to the role, youll move more smoothly through the hiring process, from pre-screening to live interviews.
Do invest in relationships, dont wait until you need them
Even as AI becomes more ingrained in the job search process, its still humans who make the biggest impact in your job search and career more broadly.
But a mistake people make is waiting until theyve started looking for a new job to tap into their network. Even well-intentioned messages can come across as transactional if you’re only reaching out when you need something.
Strong connections often start with shared context, not a specific ask, so reaching out early and often to your network is the best approach. This can be as simple as sending a quick check-in to a former coworker, a past manager, or a recruiter you meant to follow up with. A simple saw your promotion, congrats or this made me think of you goes further than you think. If youre not sure what to say, there are a ton of tools you can tap to help you find some common ground or the right words.
The biggest takeaway: when relationships are warm, people are more likely to vouch for you or share opportunities you might not otherwise see. This can make all the difference, especially in a tough job market where many hiring managers give extra consideration to applicants who have a referral.
Bottom Line: Use AI to get clearer, not slicker
Hiring may look different than it did a few years ago, but the basics havent changed as much as it may feel. Skills, curiosity, and judgment still matter.
What has changed is how job seekers can use AI to take charge of their job search. On LinkedIn, you can now describe what type of role you want, using plain language, and jobs you might not have thought to search for will come up. You can take a similar approach when looking for a new connection too, making it easier to build your network.
When used strategically, AI can help you job search more intentionally so you can spend your energy where it matters most, and put your best foot forward in 2026.
If you signed up for an Amazon Prime membership between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, Amazon might owe you as much as $51.
This comes after the online retail giant entered into a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that the company used deceptive practices to enroll customers in its Prime membership. Heres what you need to know.
Whats happened?
Amazon and the FTC have agreed to a settlement over allegations that the online retailer used deceptive practices to enroll people in its Amazon Prime membership, while also making it difficult for those same individuals to cancel the membership.
The settlement was reached in September 2025, with Amazon agreeing to pay $2.5 billion to eligible U.S. customers. Of that, $1 billion goes toward paying a civil penalty. The remaining $1.5 billion will be used to refund eligible customers up to $51 each.
As part of the settlement, Amazon did not admit to any wrongdoing.
Who is eligible for the refund?
There are two groups of people eligible for a refund. Both groups must have signed up between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025.
Automatic payment group: In this first group, you must have enrolled in Prime through a so-called “challenged enrollment flow.” And you may not have used more than three Prime benefits in a 12-month period from June 23, 2019, to June 23, 2025. If you’re part of this group, you should have received your payment automatically by December 24, 2025, with no action required on your part.
Claims process payment group: In this second group, you must have either unintentionally enrolled in Prime through a challenged enrollment flow or unsuccessfully tried to cancel Prime. Further, you must have used more than three Prime benefits but less than 10 during the covered 12-month period.
The window for submitting a claim for the second group opened on Monday, January 5. According to the settlement website, eligible customers should receive a notice via mail or email with instructions for filing a claim by January 23.
What is a challenged enrollment flow?
According to the FTC and the settlement administrator, that term refers to various pathways to sign up for Prime: The Universal Prime Decision Page (UPDP), Shipping Option Select Page (SOSP), Prime Video enrollment flow, and Single Page Checkout (SPC).
The good news is that you don’t personally need to determine if you signed up through a challenged enrollment flow to submit a claim. According to the FTC, Amazon will determine that for you.
How much money does Amazon owe me?
If you fall into either group, Amazon will refund your Prime membership fee up to $51.
What do I have to do to get my refund?
If you are part of the first group, you should have automatically received your refund payment from Amazon with no action required on your part.
If you are in the second group, you should receive a notice via email or regular mail from Amazon that tells you how you can submit a claim.
You have until July 21, 2026, to submit a claim.
What else should I know?
Those who think they may be eligible for a refund should check out the official settlement website, which has a list of frequently asked questions.
Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the “U.S. military is always an option.” President Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance.“The Nordics do not lightly make statements like this,” Maria Martisiute, a defense analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “But it is Trump, whose very bombastic language bordering on direct threats and intimidation, is threatening the fact to another ally by saying ‘I will control or annex the territory.'”The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Frederiksen in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island “belongs to its people.”Their statement defended the sovereignty of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark and thus part of NATO.This weekend’s U.S. military action in Venezuela has heightened fears across Europe, and Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated the U.S. leader’s desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump told reporters Sunday.Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested the meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website.Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he spoke by phone Tuesday with Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland.“In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO,” Barrot told France Inter radio Wednesday.Asked if he has a plan in case Trump does claim Greenland, Barrot said he won’t engage in “fiction diplomacy.”While most U.S. Republicans have supported Trump’s statement, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, blasted Trump’s rhetoric in a statement Tuesday.“When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” the statement said. “Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.”
Associated Press journalists Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed to this report.
Stefanie Dazio, Associated Press
Warner Bros. again rejected Paramount’s latest takeover bid and told shareholders Wednesday to stick with a rival offer from Netflix.Warner’s leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Skydance-owned Paramount’s overturesand urged shareholders just weeks ago to back its the sale of its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, meanwhile, has sweetened its $77.9 billion offer for the entire company and gone straight to shareholders with a hostile bid.Warner Bros. Discovery said Wednesday that its board determined Paramount’s offer is not in the best interests of the company or its shareholders. It again recommended shareholders support the Netflix deal.Late last month Paramount announced an “irrevocable personal guarantee” from Oracle founder Larry Ellisonwho is the father of Paramount CEO David Ellisonto back $40.4 billion in equity financing for the company’s offer. Paramount also increased its promised payout to shareholders to $5.8 billion if the deal is blocked by regulators, matching what Netflix already put on the table.The battle for Warner and the value of each offer grows complicated because Netflix and Paramount want different things. Netflix’s proposed acquisition includes only Warner’s studio and streaming business, including its legacy TV and movie production arms and platforms like HBO Max. But Paramount wants the entire companywhich, beyond studio and streaming, includes networks like CNN and Discovery.If Netflix is successful, Warner’s news and cable operations would be spun off into their own company, under a previously-announced separation.A merger with either company will attract tremendous antitrust scrutiny. Due to its size and potential impact, it will almost certainly trigger a review by the U.S. Justice Department, which could sue to block the transaction or request changes. Other countries and regulators overseas may also challenge the merger.
Associated Press
The stock prices of RAM and NAND manufacturers surged yesterday, with Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) up 10%, Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) up 27%, Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) up 16%, and Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX) up 14%.
The driving factor behind this recent stock surge is a shortage of RAM, or random-access memory. The shortage expected to last throughout 2026, and it could mean that youll pay much more for personal computers and smartphones this year.
Heres what you need to know about the RAM shortage of 2026.
Why is there a RAM shortage in 2026?
The RAM shortage in 2026 can essentially be blamed on one thing: artificial intelligence. Major tech giants like Google and Amazon, as well as other so-called hyperscalers, are rushing to build as many AI data centers as possible.
These data centers are packed with servers, and those servers run all the powerful AI services that are quickly becoming ubiquitous.
Data center servers are made of various componentsstorage, CPUs, GPUs, and, critically, RAMthat are needed for them to be able to carry out their AI tasks.
RAM is the short-term storage that digital devices use to quickly perform tasks. RAM, also colloquially known as memory chips, holds onto data for the short term. It differs from other forms of computer storage, like NAND chips, which are the flash storage used in SSDs, that are designed to hold data for the long term.
The more RAM your smartphone or computer has, the faster it runs and the more quickly it carries out tasks.
Manufacturers are racing to keep up with AI demand
The problem now, which is driving the RAM shortage, is that RAM manufacturers have limited production capacity, so they must decide which types of RAM to produce.
The servers used in AI data centers use a more advanced type of RAM than the RAM found in smartphones and personal computersand right now, that RAM is in high demand from tech giants in need of data centers.
Big Tech companies are willing to pay a premium to get their hands on as much RAM as possible for their AI data centers, which means RAM manufacturers are prioritizing the production of the RAM that AI companies require over the RAM that consumer electronics companies acquire.
This prioritization is leading to a shortage of the traditional RAM that is used in laptops and smartphones.
The shortage could mean pricier smartphones in 2026
A shortage of any component often drives up its price, meaning consumer tech companies are now paying more for the traditional RAM that their devices require.
In a TrendForce analysis published on Monday, the market intelligence firm reported that conventional DRAM contract pricesthe kind of RAM used in consumer electronicshave increased between 55% and 60% quarter over quarter.
This price increase is due to the RAM shortage, and will likely mean that youll pay more for a new smartphone or laptop this year.
Smartphone and computer manufacturers will typically not choose to absorb the costs of pricier components, instead passing them on to consumers to avoid a negative impact on their bottom lines.
As for how much more consumers can expect to pay for their devices this year, the Financial Times reported this week that prices could rise by up to 20%.
However, some industry analysts are expecting personal device price rises of less than 20%, notes the FT. That’s because consumer device companies could conceivably find ways to cut costs elsewhere, which they may be keen to do to avoid sinking sales of their devices during a period when most consumers already feel cash-strapped.
RAM maker stock prices soar
Given that the price of RAM chips is rising and demand from deep-pocketed Big Tech companies shows no signs of abating, its little surprise that the stock prices of memory makers are on an upward trajectory as of late.
Yesterday, the share prices of four of the largest DRAM and NAND flash memory makers surged on the Nasdaq, with Micron, Seagate, Western Digital, and SanDisk all up by double digits.
That sharp rise in memory maker stocks came after Mondays report from TrendForce as well as after comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
At CES 2026 this week, Huang said that the memory storage market was a “completely unserved market today and one that will likely be the largest storage market in the world, basically holding the working memory of the world’s AIs, according to Business Insider.
Thanks primarily to this market demand, DRAM and NAND memory makers have seen their stock prices surge over the past six months.
As of yesterdays close, Microns stock price was up more than 44% in the past six months, Seagates was up 121%, Western Digitals was up 231%, and Sandisk’s was up a staggering 653%.
Chat platform Discord filed confidentially for an initial public offering in the United States, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. IPO market regained momentum in 2025 after nearly three years of sluggish activity, but hopes for a stronger rebound were tempered by tariff-driven volatility, a prolonged government shutdown and a late-year selloff in artificial intelligence stocks.
Deliberations are ongoing and the company could decide not to proceed with a listing, the report said.
A Discord spokesperson told Bloomberg “the company’s focus remains on delivering the best possible experience for users and building a strong, sustainable business.”
Discord did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Discord, which was founded in 2015, offers voice, video and text chatting capabilities aimed at gamers and streamers. It had more than 200 million monthly active users, according to a December statement on its website.
Prakhar Srivastava and Nathan Gomes, Reuters
I recently argued that return-to-office mandates arent really about productivity; theyre about control. Ironically, my article published smack-dab in the middle of a September inflection point of increasing office time requirements, a phenomenon Owl Labs dubbed hybrid creep.
And now, perhaps shockingly, Ive started a new job with a team that (gasp!) has an office. When I wrote my argument against RTO, I had no inkling that I would soon be back in an office (part-time) myself. I am now basically in a live experiment. So far, its changed how I feel about the idea of going into an office. It hasnt changed my view on RTO.
A lab for truly flexible work
My new team has a completely flexible work-location approach. There is an office, and we can come in if we want to. But theres no requirement or badge-swiping.
Those of us who are local also collaborate daily with colleagues in drastically different time zonesEurope, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC). So our overall team is distributed enough that in-person work cant be our organizing religion. That makes my current situation a fascinating window into what happens when people are free to optimize their work model to their life needs, versus an imposed framework of what a workday is mandated to look like.
When in-person time is voluntary, rhythms emerge instead of rules
Im seeing that when location is genuinely a choice, people start building rituals.
Theres a weekly team meeting for which many people choose to be in the office. There are social opportunities like an annual holiday party and happy hours. And the office itself is an uplifting, interactive place where dogs are allowed, theres a bar in the kitchen area, and people play music throughout the day.
A few teammates come in more often simply because thats what works best for them. If someone is visiting from another location, the office fills up as people come in to see them.
In-office time also doesnt have to be a full day. Many of us have early calls with EMEA, so we take those from home, head into the office midmorning, and leave before rush hour to finish up from home again. A main team meeting is midday, on purpose, to make that flow possible.
A morning Slack thats more than a status report
Another ritual I love is a deceptively simple morning Slack each person sends sharing where theyll be that day and whether theyll be offline at any point.
On the surface, it sounds like basic coordination. In reality, it feels like a daily good morning and a window into each others lives.
The messages arent just Ill be online 9-to-5, WFH. Theyre things like We had a loss in our family, so Ill be taking the day off;My puppy was sick last night, so Im working from home; andHeaded to a workout midday and will be back online by 2.
These tiny updates are powerful because they keep us connected and normalize being a human with a life outside work. They also give us opportunities to respond and help cover for each other.
How Im using the office now
Im going into the office about two days a week, with my Tibetan terrier Basil trotting alongside me, eager to greet everyone when we walk in. My colleague keeps a laser pointer at his desk; Basil goes wild chasing the dot when we need a laugh break.
Im trying to schedule one-on-ones for days when others are in, so theyre in-person catch-ups, not just agenda boxes checked off. We get the power of group thinking around a table, friendly greetings, and the ability to take a walking meeting instead of more staring at a screen.
All of this feels like support, not surveillance. No one is proving they exist by punching a proverbial time clock. We go in by choice, which gives me gratitude for the option versus dreading going to an office.
So, has this changed my view on RTO?
Absolutely not. If anything, its reinforced my original point that dictating office time is a sign of poor leadership. The benefits Im witnessing wouldnt exist in the same way if they were forced rather than organic. The difference isnt office versus remote. The difference is a culture of empowerment versus a culture of control.
In a control culture, leaders start with mandates such as how many days people must come in, and then try to retrofit culture. Any sense of flexibility is granted like a favor.
In an empowerment culture, leaders start with trust and clarity: Heres what we need to achieve, heres how well communicate, here are your options of where you can work. Then they let people design their own patterns inside that useful guidance.
In the first model, the office is a compliance tool. In the second, the office is a resource people leverage when it helps.
A growing body of research on RTOs exists
Were far enough past pandemic-forced flexible work to start seeing how different work-location models perform and their impacts. For example, a large study done at Baylor University tracked the LinkedIn histories of workers at S&P 500 firms and found that when companies imposed RTO mandates, turnover jumped by about 14% and hiring took longer. Even more concerning, turnover was more likely among top talent and those important to diversity (especially women, whose turnover rate was three times that of men).
A separate two-year study of more than 800,000 employees by Great Place to Work found that productivity stayed stable or improved after moving to remote work; what mattered most was leadership quality and trust, not where people sat.
I expect that in the long term, companies that dont empower their team members with flexible work location will experience enough brain drain that it will be difficult to remain competitive. There must be a better way, and I believe Im experiencing a version of it.
What leaders can draw inspiration from
You may not be able to copy our exact setup, but you can borrow from these themes:
Replace mandates with rituals. Instead of dictating fixed in-office days, anchor around events such as weekly team meetings designed for collaboration, planning on-sites, and celebratory events that people actually want to attend.
Design for life needs. If you want in-person time, schedule office-based meetings to avoid peak commutes and respect caregiving schedules.
Start micro-updates. A daily or weekly Where Ill be check-in across the team takes only a minute for each person and creates a real sense of presence and care.
Foster inclusion. The office should be a place where everyone feels invited. Ensure that people who are typically remote feel this too. They get invites to all major happenings like holiday parties, a CEO visit, etc. And when someone from another office or region visits, others know so they feel invited to come in.
Make the office earn its gravity. If your office isnt a place people want to be (no dogs, decent spaces to collaborate, or sense of warmth), fix that before you fixate on policies.
Many keep asking, How do we get people back to the office? Thats the wrong question.
The better questions asked by true leaders are How do we give people the autonomy to choose the best place to do their best work while making the office one of those places? and How do we foster a culture that invites people in?
My current experience is proof that when you take these approaches, the in-office magic happens, no mandate required.
On the edge of Boulder, Colorado, a remarkable convergence of mutually beneficial collaboration is underway, and it could reshape how housing gets built, who builds it, and who is able to afford it.
This is all happening inside BoulderMOD, a new modular housing factory built by the city of Boulder for use by the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and powered by the labor of apprentice modular home builders from area public high schools.
The students come to the factory several hours a day for hands-on education in advanced home building, working on actual modular homes that are now being installed in a section of Boulder devastated by flooding. At full capacity, the factory could produce up to 50 homes per year.
[Photo: courtesy City of Boulder]
BoulderMOD is a joint venture between the Boulder Valley School District, Flatirons Habitat for Humanity, and the city of Boulder, and each of the three partners is tallying very tangible returns. The school district gets to offer an advanced trade-based curriculum that prepares its students for careers they can start immediately. Flatirons Habitat for Humanity gets to streamline and multiply its housing production capabilities, and the city gets to chip away at a deeply ingrained housing affordability crisis.
[Photo: courtesy City of Boulder]
“It’s game-changing,” says Dan McColley, executive director of Flatirons Habitat for Humanity. “It is a complete reinvention of the way we are serving families and meeting the needs of our community.”
This innovative partnership has its roots in tragedy. In 2013, devastating floods washed through the Boulder valley. One of the hardest-hit areas was the Ponderosa Mobile Home Park, a 68-unit community of permanently placed mobile homes, and though no lives were lost, many of the homes were heavily damaged.
In a city where the median home price currently hovers around $1 million, Ponderosa was a rare place of affordability, and seemed on the verge of being lost completely. The city stepped in and, working with the community, annexed the mobile home park in 2017 and upgraded its infrastructure to prevent future flooding. It partnered with Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild housing for any resident who wanted to stay, and committed to preserving the community’s affordability in perpetuity.
Getting that done was going to require an unconventional approach. “At the time, the Flatirons Habitat affiliate was building maybe three or four homes a year and looking at replacing 70-ish mobile homes,” says McColley. “It was going to take us a long time if we used our traditional model.”
[Photo: courtesy City of Boulder]
New skills, new homes
In 2019, the city approached the school district about following through on those commitments. Factory-built modular housing was identified as the most efficient way of rebuilding damaged homes. The city had funding for the rebuilding effort in its affordable housing fund, and a willing builder in the Habitat for Humanity. But it didn’t have the factory. So city officials reached out to representatives at the Boulder Valley School District, which had recently opened a trade-focused campus called Apex that offers career pathways to high school students. One of its programs was centered on construction. The city asked the district if that program could expand in a new direction.
“[The city] had this aspirational vision of what would happen if they were able to partner with the school district, build a facility, and then in a meaningful way take moves to help with the affordable housing issues in our community,” says Rob Anderson, superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District.
After five years of planning, that facility came online. The city built the $13 million BoulderMOD facility using funds from its affordable housing program, with some state and federal grants and private foundation money. Construction of the facility was finished in late 2024, and the space was then outfitted with about $1 million worth of construction tools and equipment.
[Photo: John Risi/courtesy City of Boulder]
Flatirons Habitat for Humanity staffed the facility, and the school district created a curriculum to support the production process. Production started in February 2025, with around 30 high school juniors and seniors in the factory every week, working on every stage of construction, from framing, electrical, and plumbing to drywall and roofing. The first two duplexes were placed on the Ponderosa site in November and December.
“It felt like the right thing to do for our community, for our kids. But man, it’s exceeded expectations,” Anderson says.
The Habitat projects are also helping support the community in other ways, including tapping into local suppliers for energy-efficient building materials. For example, Alpen, a high-performance window manufacturer located near Boulder, is providing all the windows for the Ponderosa homes.
McColley says the pace of construction will increase as the teams refine their processes and as the students gain more hands-on experience. The duplexes being built for the Ponderosa project are particularly conducive, as they use a single and relatively simple design for each three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom unit.
“At full production, the house will take about eight weeks to move from one end of the factory to the other, and then we’ll have about four, maybe five weeks of site work to do before the family can move in,” says McColley. “We’ll be cutting our construction timeframe from 9 to 12 months to about 12 weeks.”
[Photo: Linda Sanders/courtesy City of Boulder]
It’s so fast that it’s tweaking one of the standard elements of the Habitat for Humanity building process, which requires homebuyers to contribute to the cost of their home via 200 hours of sweat equity during construction. Homes built at BoulderMOD will progress so quickly that a homebuyer’s sweat equity will likely extend into someone else’s home.
McColley says building the 70 or so homes for the Ponderosa project will occupy BoulderMOD for the next few years, but his organization is already looking at using it for other Habitat for Humanity housing projects across the Boulder region. Every home built there will be sold as an affordable housing unit, and McColley expects about 90% of its production to be modular from this point on.
“Everything about what we do is different because we’re doing it this way. We’re building houses faster and we’re giving them out to families much more quickly in a much higher volume than we’ve done before,” McColley says. “So we’re tackling the affordable housing crisis in the near term through a different production process, but we’re also tackling it in the long term by training a new generation of construction professionals.”
The school district is already planning to expand the size of BoulderMOD to accommodate more students, even those not explicitly using it as a career path. “I see kids who plan on attending competitive four-year colleges and universities not even interested in construction signing up for this,” Anderson says.
Whether or not it turns into a job, the students at BoulderMOD are doing more than just learning construction skills. “They are learning how to build. They’re not working on bird houses or dog houses to learn their construction techniques. They’re working on people’s houses, and that’s something that is not lost on them,” McColley says. “They understand at a level that I frankly did not expect the community impact that they are having by building these homes.”
