A SpaceX initial public offering might be on the horizon.
The aerospace company, run by founder and CEO Elon Musk, is reportedly planning an IPO aimed at raising over $30 billion, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.
The IPO could be as soon as mid- to late-2026 or 2027. In its recent 2026 US Venture Capital Outlook, PitchBook pointed to the rise in space-focused stock listings, citing favorable policies.
Fast Company has reached out to SpaceX for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
Reaching the $30 billion threshold would make SpaceX the largest IPO in historyand give it a reported $1.5 trillion valuation.
Oil company Saudi Aramco currently holds the record, raising $29 billion in 2019. It hit a $1.9 trillion valuation, selling 1.5% of its ownership.
Sources cited by Bloomberg claim that SpaceX will hit about $15 billion in revenue this year and estimate $22 billion to $24 billion in 2026. Most of that income is courtesy of Starlink, which has been used by governments and companies alike to provide satellite internet services.
Executives at SpaceX have floated the idea of Starlink spinning off and doing its own IPO. However, last year, CFO Bret Johnsen said it would likely be in the years to come.
Musk and the companys board have reportedly already started making plans for an IPO, including hiring. The funds would, in part, go toward developing space-based data centers, presumably to help power the enormous computing needs of the AI boom.
Stocks rise in space-adjacent companies
News of a potential SpaceX listing has led to a spike in share prices of related companies.
Take EchoStar Corporation, which sold spectrum licenses to SpaceX this fall. Between two separate deals, EchoStar received $11.1 billion in SpaceX private stock. The companys shares (Nasdaq: SATS) closed up about 6% on Tuesday and jumped nearly 7% in premarket trading on Wednesday.
Space transportation company Rocket Lab Corporation saw its shares (Nasdaq: RKLB) close up 3.6% and rise another 1.5% overnight.
Its a common experience: you search for white bean soup recipes one time on Instagram, and you are bombarded with white bean soup content on the app for seemingly all eternity.
Instagram wants to fix that. Starting today, the companys three billion users can have more control over their algorithm via a Your Algorithm feature. Its not quite Bluesky, or the Instagram of yore that only displayed content from accounts users followed, but it does let users select or unsubscribe from different topics.
The new feature, which leverages AI, lets users pick topics they want to see more or less of on their explore page. Users will first be able to see a list of suggested topics that their algorithm thinks they are interested in which they can modify. Users can also share their interests to their stories, allowing their followers to see and even replicate some of their feed.
[Image: Instagram]
We’re always trying to show people the best possible reels for them. After 2020 [we] slowly started figuring out how to do a good job of predicting people’s interests and showing them reels they’d be interested in, Tessa Lyons, Instagrams vice president of product, says. I think we do a pretty good job today, but we don’t always get it right, and we know that people’s interests change. What we really want to do is give people control over the experience that they have on Instagram.
In designing the feature, Instagram had to balance Reels’ utility as a discovery tool with the features that give users control over what they will see.
The ideal Reels experience is one that helps you go deeper on the interests you already have and then discover new interests that you might not even know about. And getting that balance right is really important, Lyons says, adding, [your algorithm] is one input we have into your Reels experience. So even if you add a handful of different interests, thats not going to be the only content you see. You’re still going to see other content as well.
Lyons also says that the feature can help Instagrams algorithm learn about users and serve them relevant content more quickly; after she adopted a cat and tuned her algorithm to feature more kitten content, her feed immediately updated to include relevant reels. In the past, the algorithm may have needed a few days to understand she wanted to see more.
By this same measure, the feature will likely improve the ad experience, as Instagram will be able to surface more targeted content for each user based on the interests they signal.
According to Lyons, the inspiration for the feature started as a meme on Threads a couple of years ago, when users started writing posts to their respective algorithms, asking it to connect them with different interests, like writers or books. It was just people expressing what they wanted from their Threads experience. Some of them would say, Dear Algorithm, I just dont want to see politics anymore. Im over it, Lyons says.
The economy has had a volatile year marked by ongoing headwinds and uncertainties. Persistent inflation, unpredictability around tariffs, and a stock market that many fear is in the midst of an AI-fueled bubble are among the factors impacting consumers’ spending power.
But there is one event today that will hopefully deliver some much-needed certainty to the economy and broader markets: the Federal Reserves interest rate cut announcement. Heres what you need to know about a possible Fed rate cut today.
What is the Fed rate cut announcement?
The Federal Reserve is Americas central bank. One of its main responsibilities is setting the country’s interest rates. These interest rates are set by the Feds primary policymaking body, called the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The FOMC is led by the chair of the Federal Reserve, who is currently Jerome Powell.
The FOMC considers a wide array of data that informs its decision to cut interest rates or not. That data includes labor reports, inflation rates, consumer confidence numbers, and gross domestic product (GDP) information.
Once the FOMC analyzes the data, the body will vote to do one of three things: raise interest rates, lower interest rates, or keep interest rates where they are. The current Fed interest rate is 3.75% to 4.00% (375 to 400 basis points).
What are the benefits of a Fed rate cut?
The main benefit of cutting interest rates is that it lowers the cost of borrowing money. If money is cheaper to borrow, consumers are more likely to take out loans, including mortgages, car loans, and increased credit card spending.
Businesses are also more likely to take out loans, since borrowing is cheaper. Companies typically use loans to expand their operations, boost hiring, or buy needed equipment or supplies.
Since borrowing is cheaper, lower interest rates can inject more money into the economy, thereby increasing spending.
Lower interest rates can also boost the stock and cryptocurrency markets, because when interest rates are lower, safer assets like bonds have a lower rate of return. This spurs investors to put their money into riskier assets, such as stocks or cryptocurrencies, because they have the potential for higher returns.
What are the drawbacks of a Fed rate cut?
Low rates arent always a good thing. There are drawbacks to lower interest rates, too.
When interest rates are lower, anyone with a savings account earns less interest. This can especially hurt retirees, who often have more cash parked in savings accounts than their younger peers, and who may rely on their monthly interest earnings to pay for necessities.
Also, while lower interest rates can make everything from houses to cars more affordable, a plethora of cheaper money in the economy can have an inflationary effect, causing prices to rise, which negates the savings gained by the lower interest rates.
What is the likelihood of a Fed rate cut?
Right now, the current Federal Reserve interest rate is 3.75% to 4.00% (375 to 400 basis points).
The Federal Reserve and Powell are under extreme pressure from the Trump administration to lower rates. Because borrowing money would then be cheaper, lower rates would make many Americans feel like their purchasing power is going further as the holidays progress and we head into the new year.
That would be a political win for President Trump.
But the Fed is supposed to be politically neutral, and Powell has shown no signs that he or the FOMC will make a decision based on politics.
That said, many expect the Fed to lower interest rates today, but it likely won’t be by much.
Data compiled by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Groups Fed Watch shows an 89.9% chance that the Fed will reduce rates by a 25-basis-point range today.
If that scenario plays out, it means the federal interest rate range would drop from 3.75% to 4.00% (375 to 400 basis points) to 3.50% to 3.75% (350 to 375 basis points).
When is the Fed rate announcement?
The Federal Reserves calendar says it will announce its interest rate decision today, Wednesday, December 10.
What time is the Fed rate announcement?
The Federal Reserves interest rate announcement will be made at 2 p.m. ET today.
How are stocks performing ahead of the announcement?
Markets seem to be holding their collective breaths ahead of the Feds rate cut announcement today. As of the time of this writing, in premarket trading, S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq futures are all relatively flat:
S&P Futures: down 0.04%
Dow Futures: down 0.06%
Nasdaq Futures: down 0.12%
How are crypto markets performing ahead of the announcement?
Many major cryptocurrencies are currently up over the past 24 hours ahead of the announcement. This suggests that crypto traders expect the Fed to cut rates, which could spur a rally in crypto markets. As of the time of this writing, heres how major cryptocurrencies are performing:
Bitcoin: up 1.9%
Ethereum: up 6.4%
XRP: up 0.2%
BNB: down 0.5%
Solana: up 3.2%
How can I watch the Fed rate announcement?
The Federal Reserve doesnt actually announce its decision live. Instead, at 2 p.m., it will issue its results via its website.
However, at 2:30 pm ET, the central bank will hold a press conference to discuss its decision on interest rates.
Youll be able to view a live stream of that press conference on the Federal Reserves YouTube channel.
Once upon a time, San Francisco was a manufacturing town. For decades, the Union Iron Works built shipssuch as the U.S. Navy’s U.S.S. Oregon (1893) and U.S.S. Wisconsin (1898)in its plant on Pier 70 in the neighborhood now known as Dogpatch. In recent years, that sprawling, long-abandoned complex has been rehabbed and filled with office space, housing, retail, and art studios. Among its tenants are startup accelerator Y Combinator and HR platform Gusto, neither of which has much in common with the Union Iron Works.
And then theres Astranis. The company is returning Pier 70 to its roots by applying human labor to turn raw materials into finished products. The products in question happen to be high-orbit satellites. Astranis has sent five of them into space, is currently building five more, and intends to scale up its capacity to manufacture 24 at a time.
Now, by the standards of consumer electronics, cranking out 24 of something may not sound like a feat. For satellites, however, it’s a completely unprecedented number for geostationary and high orbits, where these satellites have historically been built one at a time,” says Astranis cofounder and CEO John Gedmark.
Astranis headquarters at San Franciscos historic Pier 70. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis]
Astraniss breakthrough isnt just about speed of production. Its MicroGEO satellites are remarkably compactabout the size of a commercial washing machine, downsized from typical school bus-sized units. They are designed to be affordable, in an industry where cost overruns in the billions have been common. Rather than relying on analog technology, they use software-defined radios, which make customization and updates far more practical.
So far, Astraniss quest has taken a decade and $800 million in funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, and Fidelity. Signs that the company is on its way to success include its announcement in early August that two satellites it had launched for Anuvua provider of mobile Wi-Fi whose customers include Southwest Airlineshad reached orbit and were operating as intended. Later in the month, it said that it had been named as a prime contractor for the U.S. Space Force program, with an initial six-month contract to design and test a jam-resistant military satellite.
If Astranis is still in the process of proving the worth of its unique approach to satellites, its in part because what its trying to do is so complex that nobody has attempted it before. We had to go get a few hundred of the world’s best hardware engineers and put them all in one building, and have them working for years at a time, like a Manhattan Project, to get to this point, says Gedmark. To us, it’s not surprising that it hasn’t happened already, because it just turns out its really hard.
Spaces next frontiers
Astraniss current momentum is the culmination of Gedmarks entire career in space technology. The son of a doctor and a hospital chaplain, he was born and raised in Kentucky. After earning degrees in aerospace engineering from Purdue and Stanford, he found work at big aerospace and defense contractors but was frustrated by the industrys plodding pace. He then became director of rocket flight operations for the X Prize Foundation, which led to him cofounding and running a nonprofit trade group called the Commercial Space Federation (CSF).
These jobs exposed him to the progress being made by new-wave space startups such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. “I got to see the birth of this new industry,” he remembers.
During the first Obama administration, as the U.S. plotted a post-Space Shuttle future, Gedmarks role at the CSF allowed him to be part of the conversation. The ultimate decision was to rely on private companies to perform tasks such as delivering crew and cargo to the International Space Station, greatly accelerating the commercial space industry.
Astranis cofounder and CEO John Gedmark [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis]
Though Gedmark found this boom inspiring, he also identified a hole in it. “All the new activity and hype and excitement were in low earth orbit,” he says. “And nobody was doing things in these high orbits, like geostationary orbit [GEO]. And the crazy thing was that those orbits are actually incredibly important, and are historically where most of the value has been created in space.”
Like the International Space Station, most satellites are in low earth orbit, no more than 1,200 miles away. Geostationary orbit is 22,236 miles from us. Rockets cant get a satellite all the way there; the final leg of the journey requires onboard propulsion. But Gedmark and Astranis cofounder and CTO Ryan McLinko realized that even a small satellite in GEO could cover an entire medium-sized country with broadband connectivity, Gedmark explains.
That factand the potential for a startup to move more quickly than the satellite industrys giantsled them to start Astranis. In 2016, the company participated in Y Combinator’s accelerator program, years before they became Pier 70 neighbors. And a little over two years after its founding, it notched its first achievement by launching a 10-cm-square satellite, dubbed DemoSat 2, into orbit to help test its software-defined radio technology. “We decided when we were just a handful of people basically working out of an apartment that we wanted to put something in space and show we could do it quickly and show that it worked, says Gedmark.
Since then, Astranis has continued to chip away at its vision for transforming communications, though not without blips along the way. For example, the company didnt eet its original goal of launching its first satellite in 2019. After further pandemic-related delays, its Arcturus satellite took off on SpaceXs Falcon Heavy launch vehicle in April 2023. Problems with a component provided by a third-party supplier ultimately prevented Arcturus from fulfilling its original mission of providing internet access for an Alaska-based telecom company. Space is hard, noted Gedmark in a blog post about the mishap.
Astranis VP Christian Keil joined the company in 2019, when it had 50 employees. Praising Gedmark as super analytical and very, very detail oriented, he says that space is particularly hard when your approach involves so many disruptive elements.
We’ve learned so much from doing all these things for the first time that if you transported any one of us back seven years, wed be able to avoid some of the mistakes that we made along the way, he acknowledges. But thats part of doing something new.
Made in San Francisco
Almost eight years after its DemoSat 2 launch, Astranis has grown from a handful of people to 500 staffers. At first blush, it might be startling that the vast majority of them are in San Francisco. After all, the U.S. manufacturing renaissance, such as it is, has gravitated toward parts of the country where labor costs are lower. For instance, a few years ago, when Intel announced plans to dramatically ramp up its domestic chip production capacity, they involved expansion in Arizona and Ohio, both far afield of its Santa Clara, California headquarters.
Astranis staffers at work on one of the companys MicroGEO satellitesso called because theyre small by satellite standards and circle the earth in geostationary orbit. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis]
But Gedmark, who relocated to the Bay Area in 2012, says that everything about what Astranis was trying to accomplish told him it should be in San Francisco, from getting access to capital to hiring people who might otherwise be working at companies such as Broadcom or Qualcomm. “The Bay Area has those talent pools across all those different specialties in one place, I think, quite uniquely,” he says. “And then there’s something in the air of this place, knowing that you can go start some crazy new idea and people will jump in quickly and work on it.”
The property the company ended up leasing at Pier 70 retains evocative evidence of its shipbuilding legacy. For instance, a vintage crane marked 30 TONS still hovers majestically from the ceiling. But the place also has more recent ties to the San Francisco innovation economyand maybe some reminders that not every hyper-ambitious attempt to change the world from San Francisco leads anywhere.
Thats because most of it was originally rehabbed for Uber ATG, the ride-hailing company’s gambit to develop its own self-driving vehicles. The handsome renovation brought the long-decaying space up to modern earthquake safety code and even won architectural awards. Soon thereafter, however, Uber gave up on building its own robotaxis. It ended up offloading ATG to the autonomous trucking company Aurora, providing Astranis with the opportunity to snag itself a freshly remodeled headquarters.
When the company expanded into an adjoining building, it found mysterious blueprints of giant orbs lying around. Only later did it learn that the previous occupant was a display technology startup that had been acquired by Madison Square Garden when it was creating Las Vegas’s Sphere.
Astranis needs as much space as it does because its taking on full responsibility for its satellites, from crafting components and developing software to owning and operating the fleet. As Steve Jobs might have put it, the company is building the whole widgetnot standard practice in the space business, where subcontracting and outsourcing are typical, and the companies that build satellites usually dont manage them once theyre in orbit.
Consequently, a portion of the companys San Francisco headquarters is devoted to a 24/7 mission control center. Gedmark describes the companys MicroGEO satellites as “pretty autonomous” and the atmosphere in mission control as “pretty chill,” though human oversight is crucial during launches and early deployment. It’s also occasionally necessary to fire thrusters to keep a satellite in its appointed orbital slot.
Astranis staffers monitoring satellites in orbit from the companys mission control center. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis]
As for the manufacturing process, Gedmark says that one of the big lessons has been how hard it is to move fast when youre dependent on others. We’ve had to do a lot more in-house than we thought we were going to need to, he told me. Lead times are a lot longer than we thought they would be. And so, during my two visits to Astranis’s headquarters, the big news was the arrival ofan enormous piece of machining equipment known as the Makino Mag3.EX.
A lightly used second-hand modelGedmark thinks it was formerly used in the production of F-35 fighter jetsAstraniss Mag3.EX allows the company to make its own parts out of blocks of aluminum alloy. The process is responsible for the oily whiff of coolant in the air and produces detritus in the form of humongous quantities of tiny aluminum shards. They sit by the vatful near the Mag3.EX, awaiting recycling.
Before Astranis was able to crank out aluminum components on the premises, it contracted out to get ones made using honeycomb sandwich construction, a common technique in satellite manufacturing. Such parts are lightweight and sturdy. But you might have to wait a year for your order to be filled. Aluminum is a tad heavier, but Gedmark says that the trade-off is eminently worth it.
Astranis everywhere
Watching Astranis at work, its clear that the company has come a long way since it was an untested big idea. The companys original missioncutting satellites down to size to bring affordable connectivity to underserved parts of the worldremains critical, and the companys customer list is truly international, reflecting the U.S.s dominance of the commercial space industry. When [other countries] need something like this, they have to come to us, says Gedmark.
After Id toured the factory, Gedmark told me that one of the satellites Id seen in the process of being manufactured was for a customer in Thailand. Another was headed for the Philippines. Two more were for a Mexican internet service provider (ISP) that wants to provide 5 million people with broadband they can afford. Still another satellite currently in production was ordered by Taiwans largest telecommunications company. It will be the countrys first dedicated satellite.
A satellite assembly area at Astranis headquarters. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis]
Taiwan also factors into a market that has emerged more recently for Astraniss satellites: defense applications. Thats because of the long-feared possibility of the country being invaded by China, which Gedmark says he believes could become a reality in two to three years. The U.S.s dependence on relatively few satellites could lead to war in space, with China seeking to hobble any attempts to come to Taiwans rescue.
“In a conflict with China over Taiwan, one of the first things that will happen literally on day oneis that a bunch of our most important military satellites will just blink out,” says Gedmark. “And by the way, we won’t necessarily know exactly who did it.” The impact would instantly overflow into civilian life, which is dependent on services such as GPS for everything from wireless phone calls to air traffic control.
Already, Gedmark says, China has invested in a bevy of anti-satellite technologies, from lasers to satellites equipped with robot arms that would allow them to grab other satellites. Its a terrifying prospect, but one that a swarm of MicroGEO satellites might be able to help forestall, he argues. The hope is that it’s a deterrent, if you have enough of these satellites up that the Chinese are just like, “Oh, okay, we can’t shoot all of them down. It’s just too many. Then hopefully they decide not to go after this tempting target.
Astranis fortifying the U.S.s ability to defend itself in such a scenario is dependent on the company realizing its targets for satellite production and deployment. But developments such as the company being named as a prime contractor suggest it could have a future in military technology, an industry long dominated by a few slow-moving behemoths. Last year, it was also one of four companies that won Space Force contracts to work on design concepts for Resilient GPS, a version of the technology less susceptible to attack.
According to Gedmark, the Pentagon is continuing to dial back the bureaucracy that has stood in the way of it acquiring technology from smaller companies, mirroring the changes at NASA that made the commercial space business possible. “It’s very exciting to see the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, come around,” he says, calling the organization by both its post-WWII name and the Trump administration’s bellicose rebrand. “It’s the exact same playbook.”
Could a relatively small company such as Astranis play a meaningful role in maintaining the U.S.s preeminence over China, this centurys other space superpower? Gedmark thinks so. And he contends that the entrepreneurial model that made his startup possible in the first place still beats Chinese central planning.
This is a uniquely American thing, he says. This is our edge. It’s our ability to get the capital together, get the people together, and go build a new thing that previously just did not exist. Maybe the fact that Astranis built its factory in San Franciscothe epicenter of that go-for-it spiritisnt such a shocker after all.
The front of the Wheaties box has served as a hall of fame for some of the greatest athletes of all time, from baseball star Lou Gehrig to boxer Muhammid Ali, basketball legend Michael Jordan, and seven-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles. Now, a fresh face is gracing the boxs hallowed orange frame: Marty Mauser, the fictional ping-pong player played by Timothée Chalamet in A24s upcoming film Marty Supreme.
[Screenshot: Instagram]
The cereal box comes just weeks after A24 released a now-viral 18-minute long parody of a marketing meeting to promote the movie (which releases on Christmas). In that video, Chalamet joins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives and proceeds to fill up the meetings airtime with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for the films marketing efforts, leaving the eight other members of the call scrambling to accommodate his wild ideas. Since then, several of the comedic ideas have, astonishingly, become realityincluding an ad campaign on bright orange blimps and, now, a $25 limited-edition Wheaties box.
Our current era of movie marketing is dominated by discussion of properties like Barbie and Wicked, which have rewritten the roles of brand partnerships by flooding stores everywhere with hundreds of collabs per film (Wicked part one, for example, netted more than 400 collabs). When Barbie can show up on a Heinz bottle and Elphaba in a box of mac n cheese, the novelty of movie-branded partnerships can start to wear off.
A24 is combatting that consumer fatigue with a masterclass marketing campaign for Marty Supreme. Its co-branded merch balances scarcity, which makes every drop feel aspirational, with a kind of unexpected flair that makes perfect sense for the filmand for its audience of young Chalamet fans.
How Marty Supreme is courting its young audience
In late November, Chalamet posted the address of a New York storefront with the message, C u at 7. By 4:30, fans were lined up around the block.
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They were queuing to get their hands on what turned out to be a line of Marty Supreme-themed merch, designed by the luxury L.A.-based brand Nahmias. Every item sold out, but one in particulara $250 windbreaker inspired by an outfit from the showwas the clear star of the show. Since then, its sold for $5,000 on Grailed and become a topic of considerable discourse on Reddit, where users are avidly yearning for a bigger drop.
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The Marty Supreme marketing campaign is leaning unabashedly on Chalamets star power and influence with a younger, primarily male audienceand clearly, its working. Chalamets audience wants a piece of his effortless swagger, and that becomes even more desirable when, instead of being available on the shelves of every local Target and countless digital Amazon storefronts (Wicked, were looking at you), his Marty Supreme collabs are only available in the most limited of supply. That thought process clearly also applies to this new collab with Wheaties.
Why the Marty Supreme marketing campaign is genius, actually
Like the windbreaker, the Wheaties collab is directly tied to a moment in the film, when Marty, (whos portrayed as an extremely confident, assertive salesman), says, It’s only a matter of time before I’m staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box.
Its also a reference to the aforementioned Zoom parody, wherein Chalamet tries to convince the marketing team that Marty deserves a spot on the Wheaties box alongside names like Michael Jordan. To me, its marketing 101, Chalamet says in the video. Apparently, the team at Wheaties agrees.
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For more than 100 years, Wheaties has celebrated iconic athletes and moments in culture that transcend boundaries, from sports to unexpected heroes, says Emilie Knox, vice president and business unit director of cereal at General Mills. Marty Supreme fits squarely into that tradition as he embodies determination, heart, and the belief that greatness can come from the most unexpected places.
When designing the box, the Wheaties team leaned into its most recognizable brand elements, including its iconic orangewhich, coincidentally, is also the central color of Marty Supremeand the featured figure front-and-center.
A fictional athlete, with real return?
General Mills produced several thousand of the special edition boxes, each at the hefty price point of $25, which Knox says reflects the collectible nature of the box and its limited run. On Reddit, users are skeptical of the cost. One commenter wrote, This would be a cool giveaway gift, but for $25 you will not be staring at me from the cover of a Wheaties boxa sentiment that appears to be shared by several others.
[Image: A24/General Mills]
Wheaties declined to share specific numbers, but as of this writing, the limited box is already ‘sold out’ on the A24 website after going less just a day ago, creating a sense of scarcity among consumers (though its still available through Wheaties’ site). According to Knox, the early response has been extremely strong, with collectors moving quickly to get their hands on a box.
A24s marketing team has been incredible partners, Knox says. The playful teasers leading up to the drop, like the Zoom marketing call seen around the world, were driven by their creative genius, and weve had a lot of fun working together to continue building fan excitement.
Marty Supremes marketing prioritizes depth over breadth, opting to prioritize a few deeply thought-out collabs over an all-out blitz. Ironically, by limiting its marketing’s scope and availability, the films team has managed to break through the sea of content online and reach new audiences.
AI is part and parcel of many corporate design processes these days, including one company making a product many creatives are familiar with: Dropbox. Its VP of design and research, Shannon Butler, is optimistic about the techs integrations into her teams workas long as designers are pragmatic in its integrations.
Butler leads a design team that she feels has a bigger impact than filing deliverables on deadline: redefining work through the intersection of creativity, collaboration, and AI. A veteran of Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and LinkedIn, Shannon has spent two decades shaping products that influence how billions connect and create.
Shannon Butler [Photo: Dropbox]
In her interview with University of Texas School of Design and Creative Technology assistant dean Doreen Lorenzo, Shannon discusses how Dropbox is reimagining design in the age of AInot as a replacement for human creativity, but as a force multiplier for it. She reflects on lessons from leading design through hypergrowth and crisis, the role of taste as the next big differentiator in tech, and why the future of design leadership will depend less on tools and more on human judgment, curiosity, and conviction.
When did you realize you were interested in design?
Like many creatives, I was always a maker: drawing, writing, creating. The pivotal moment came in college. I was studying to be a teacher but told my dad I wanted to be an artist and didnt know how to make a career of it. My dad, a self-taught software engineer, said, You need to be in technology.
This was when CSS and JavaScript were freeing web design from rigid HTML tables. I started building websites for small businesses to pay for college and graduated with a full roster of freelance clients. That led to a marketing agency role helping larger clients go online. Then the iPhone came out, the world discovered UX, and the rest is history.
How is AI influencing your work from a design perspective?
We have this unique opportunity to make design a differentiator again, by putting ourselves in a human-first perspective rather than an AI-first perspective. Dropbox isnt using AI to replace people or steal from creatives. Were inserting it into creative workflows so that output is amplified and accelerated.
By removing the grunt work of knowledge management or finding the right assets, we empower people to become even better at what they do, whether that’s crafting a commercial, running a photo shoot, or pitching a business plan, all the things that only humans can do.
What do you enjoy about the meshing of technology and design?
The scale is unmatched. I’ve been fortunate to work on products that don’t just serve users, they actually shape how society connects, creates, collaborates. I see that as both a tremendous privilege and responsibility that I take very seriously. I also love the pace. Technology moves so fast that you’re constantly operating at the edge of what’s never been done before.
At YouTube, we invented new ways for creators to build community. At Airbnb, we reimagined trust between strangers. At Google, we designed for billions coming online for the first time. You have to be visionary and pragmaticdesigning experiences that feel magical while working within technological constraints. Its like being an architect who not only designs buildings but new ways to live.
Can AI play a role in making peoples lives better through design?
AI is an accelerant to the design process. Tools like Cursor and Figma Make are now essential for rapid prototyping. We built internal Slack channels called Ask a Writer or Ask a Researcher that tap into our brand guidelines and research repositories instantly. The speed boost is dramatic. Were getting to meaningful first drafts in hours, not days.
But our approach is pragmatic. AIs limitations are realsome temporary, some long-lasting. We use it as a brainstorming partner, not a decision-maker. Anything customer-facing goes through rigorous human review.
AI can optimize for metrics, but it cant make judgment calls. It doesnt grasp cultural nuance, brand intuition, or the subtle human behaviors that build long-term loyalty. Thats where designers become more valuable, not less.
Who inspires you, and how does that show up in your work?
Im drawn to people who refuse to accept thats just how its done, especially in a tech landscape where consolidation has created a dangerous gravitational pull toward sameness. What energizes me are leaders who stay true to their values, even when it’s harder.
RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian, could have built a Tesla clone, but hes challenging the industry without sacrificing brand or product excellence for short-term goals. I also admire investors like Kate McAndrew at Baukunst, who unapologetically focus on women, creativity, and the long view in an industry obsessed with quick exits. Shes proving the status quo can change.
Across your career, what projects are you most proud of?
Im drawn to win-win-win projects where customers, business, and society all benefitproblems that feel almost nonprofit in ambition but are positioned for sustainable impact at scale.
At Google, we worked on products to bridge the connectivity divide in underserved marketsexploring satellite-delivered content and peer-to-peer transfer when those approaches were considered radical. The goal was to bring the internet to billions who couldnt access it via traditional infrastructure.
At YouTube, I loved the transformation from distraction media to engagement media. We built features that empowered creators and supported movements like It Gets Better. The comments sections of videos improved from cesspool quality to featuring content almost as compelling as the videos.
At Airbnb, I led Trust, core to the vlue proposition. Later I led nearly every product area through COVID and the IPO. AirCover was the culmination, radically transforming what happens when something goes wrong on a trip and eliminating the fear that prevents people from trusting strangers or having transformative experiences.
The throughlines have been purpose-driven breakthroughs, a shared sense of “why,” and rallying a team around “impossible” goals.
What are some of the most important lessons you have learned?
Al Gore once came to Airbnb and told our team, People do what you pay them to do. That changed how I evaluate design opportunities. Some of my biggest successes were failures because I ignored the fundamental question: how does the company actually make money? I invested in work that would never translate into impact because the organizations werent structured to profit from that impact in the short term.
Its brutal to realize talented people can pour their hearts into work thats structurally doomed, not because the ideas are wrong, but because the business model doesnt reward those outcomes in the short term.
Is todays AI discourse helpful? How do you guide your creatives to take the right signals and uplift creativity?
Competition is tough. Everyones racing to be the fastest, biggest, and most innovative. That focus on competition forces many tech companies to lose track of what matters most. Much of Big Tech product development is disconnected from the end customer, often because the business model isnt optimized for them. Echo-chamber thinking focuses on beating competitors or last months metrics, not delivering real value. Short-term optimization is addictive and damaging.
I coach my team that, yes, AI is powerful, but its another wave of tools like weve adapted to many times. Humans must provide talent and judgment AI cant. Our mandates havent changed: human-centered design and delivering real value.
How has design changed since you started? Where is design headed?
When I started, in-house design barely existed. Design was misunderstood as beautification at the end and often outsourced. Then agencies like IDEO and frog proved its strategic value. Everyone brought design in-house, and teams ballooned across design, engineering, and PM. Now were seeing a retrenchment.
Unfortunately many companies often lack the talent and the muscle memory to ship new value. Theyre in optimization land, not innovation land. Design has gone through cycles of being valued and devalued. After several years of devaluation, I believe were entering a period where taste will again be the differentiator in the AI era.
Everyone can move fast and ship quickly, but durable brand loyalty and user value require design input. Companies bought design firms, moved them in-house, but didnt know what to do with them. Then they started hiring designers to manage designers, shaping teams differently. Now were seeing better output.
I believe the next era for design should be more design founders and design-minded entrepreneurs, a new crop of companies that show a fundamentally different way of working and doing business. I believe that if design leaders were truly leveraged, we’d have fundamentally better products and a healthier digital society.
What advice do you have for aspiring designers?
Design is more relevant than ever. Twenty years ago my job didnt exist. Now theres a wave of enthusiasm and talent we desperately need. Every poorly designed product or soulless interface should strengthen your conviction that creativity is necessary. Pair your anger about whats broken with a vision for what can be. Dont quit.
I love Ira Glasss point about the gap between your taste and your work. Youre in this field because you have great taste. Now your execution just needs to catch up. The only way to close that gap is through relentless practice. My early agency years at Sapient Nitro and frog forced me to deliver at high volume under tight deadlines, and those reps gave me confidence for impossible briefs later.
Design in tech is nothing but change, and thats what keeps it exciting. Becoming a lifelong learner, staying curious, and being unafraid to try new things are critical for designersand for anyone navigating the 21st century workplace.
In a Rye, Colorado, cattle pasture now subbing for the moon, an otherworldly vehicle bumps along a scrubby course of furrows and mounds, weaving around rocks and kicking up a fine dust. Its an open-concept machine dubbed Falcona silver solar-powered rectangular frame on wheels, with a partial roof, windowless sides, and a spacious cockpit flanked by monitors and steering controls. An engineer sits in one of its two seats for safety as the vehicle autonomously navigates around obstacles to a location dictated by Mission Control 160 miles away.Suddenly, a wheel hits a rock, and Falcon halts, relaying real-time feedback to Mission Control. There, an operator revises a command for another attempt, driving home the hurdles in developing novel spacefaring technology.We dont stage any of this for you guys, laughs Justin Cyrus. We show you real testing.Our play-by-play guide is the 32-year-old CEO and founder of Lunar Outpost, a rising star in the space robotics and mobility field. In less than a decade, the Denver area startup has already operated technology on Mars, landed the first commercial rover on the moon, and lined up another six lunar and cislunar missions with government and commercial partnershipsthe most of any private company. Now, its vying with two other firms to build NASAs next-generation lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) to shuttle Artemis V astronauts and experiments in 2030. At stake: a contract worth up to $4.6 billion. NASA is slated to make its decision this month.Justin Cyrus [Photo: Lunar Outpost]That modela sleeker upgrade to Falcon, named Eagle, after Apollo 11s crewed landerawaits in a barnlike workshop, a short walk down a sloped dirt road where visitors are warned to keep an eye out for snakes. This is not your grandparents moon buggy. Eagle reaches speeds up to 25 mph (compared to Apollos 11 mph) for emergencies, though astronauts will stick to under 15 mph for safety. It can also climb 25-degree slopes, which engineers test on a nearby shale rock ridge, and carry more than 2.4 tons of cargo. It will operate in four driving modes: manually, assisted autonomy, teleoperated from Earth, and full autonomy with preprogrammed missions. And its crafted to run for years in the lunar south poles punishing radiation levels, abrasive dust, severe lighting, and temperature extremes ranging from 130 F in sunlight to334 F in permanently shaded craters.This 1,000-acre patch of the Cyrus family ranch seems an unexpected Lunar Vehicle Test Site, as announced by a nearby sign. But the rugged landscape surrounding futuristic machines and a CEO decked out in black jeans and cowboy boots implies a fitting message: the adventurous spirit of the American West vaulting into the space age.[Photo: Susan Karlin]For the space economy, you need a robotic workforce, says Cyrus. So, the idea behind Lunar Outpostlets make that robotic workforce for extreme environmentsevolved over the years into a robotic workforce on other planetary bodies. We want to be the company that makes outposts on the moon and cities on Mars.Eagle in the lunar economyNASAs Artemis missions seek to return humans to the moon and establish a sustainable lunar base and economy as a springboard to crewed missions to Mars. As part of it, the space agency last year awarded contracts to Lunar Outpost, Venturi Astrolab in Hawthorne, CA, and Intuitive Machines in Houston to design LTVs to shuttle astronauts, transport equipment, and conduct sample gathering and analysis.Regardless of NASAs choice, the Eagle is still headed to the moon. Last year, it secured a commercial agreement with SpaceX to use its Starship to deliver Eagle to the lunar surface, where it can be used commercially when not needed by NASA. Eagle is a feat of engineering. It boasts a sensor suite of 360-degree stereoscopic cameras, LIDAR, and an electrodynamic dust system (EDS) that clears particulates off solar panels and lenses. Its sides contain MOLLE panels with quick-connect grips for utility tools (an idea borrowed from the teams off-roading vehicles), flaps that open into workstations, pop-out drawers for thermally controlled sample storage, and radiators that dispel heat from motors and avionics.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]The energy system includes dual-sided solar panels to ensure one always faces the sun, and an advanced version of General Motors high-nickel lithium-ion battery cells that, with additional heating and insulation, can survive the 14-day lunar night and operate even if individual cells fail. An open cockpit with inlaid lighting and oversize control switches enables two astronauts, regardless of size, to easily acess and operate in bulky spacesuits and gloves. Engineers incorporated feedback from astronauts who test-drove LTV simulators and prototypes.That was critical to evolving our design, says AJ Gemer, Lunar Outposts CTO and cofounder. We get used to moving here in this one-g Earth environment. When you translate that into a big, pressurized suit and one-sixth gravity, all your motions become different. Things that your gut and intuition tell you would be a nice, simple maneuver suddenly become more difficult.A 6.5-foot extendible robotic arm that attaches to the back of the vehicle can autonomously switch tool ends for tasks ranging from solar panel cleaning to sample extraction and handling to construction.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]All of the payloads on board need zero human interaction, says Cyrus. So, you can accomplish a lot of science and exploration objectives, even without astronauts on board.But the niftiest technology is the Goodyear-designed wheels36-inch metal mesh tires with a little give and bounce for better traction, shock-absorption, and longevity. This has a lot of advantages over other types of tires, which only have so many thermal cycles before they become brittle and crack, says Cyrus. If a spring comes loose or a section breaks, it doesnt unravel the whole tire. These are better for vehicle dynamics at higher speeds, because they disperse the energy better when you hit obstacles.[Animation: Susan Karlin]But space isnt necessarily the limit. Cyrus envisions future Earthbound applications for Eagle technology, most notably in the electric farm and self-driving car markets, with lunar-grade batteries that can operate in any Earth winter, and autonomy and localization that can navigate without GPS.That is probably the most under-our-hat technology, Cyrus says of the latter. Because if were able to do that, what it offers is self-driving cars to go anywhere in the world and still know where youre at without supporting infrastructure.An impassioned riseCyrus was still a kid when he first learned about the concept of sustainability in space. Hed grown up around the space industry, thanks to a dad who worked at NASAs Johnson Space Center and later, Lockheed Martin. When JSC ran a competition for employee children to fashion new Lego space station designs, Cyruss entry missed the top spot, but yielded some serious inside baseball tips.Thats cool that it unfolds and folds back up, but what are you gonna do with all the oxygen? How are you gonna refill the volatiles that you need for humans to survive?' Cyrus recalls one engineers critique. That was the first time I remember being passionate about figuring out where resources come from in space.The passion stuck. Later, while working as a Lockheed Martin engineer and pursuing graduate degrees at the Colorado School of Mines, he founded Lunar Outpost in 2017 to develop mobility and infrastructure for a sustainable human presence in space. He amassed a robust leadership team: older brother Julian, an aerospace engineer who now serves as COO; AJ Gemer, a dust science expert with eight space missions under his belt, as CTO; and Forrest Meyen as chief strategy officer. Meyen codesigned MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), a NASA demonstration technology on the Perseverance rover that produced oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. Its very rare to have cofounders with that much experience at this stage, says Cyrus.Potential backers were less enthusiastic.I pitched 300 investors; not a single one said `yes, Cyrus laughs. Theyre like, `Youre crazy! Why would I invest in a lunar company?So, the team pivoted to commercializing an air quality monitor, called Canary, that the company had designed for the International Space Station and NASAs Lunar Gateway, a planned lunar-orbiting space station for the Artemis missions. Canary detects and analyzes pollutants, including methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. It was a hit with the oil and gas industry and the U.S. Forest Service, selling some 5,000 units in more than 35 states and 14 countries to monitor forest fire emissions, air pollution, and industrial leaks.That gave us the revenue to invest in some of this advanced and deep technology, says Cyrus. Our revenues grown over two times every single year since 2017 to the point that these investors are like,`Alright, theres something there. From 2017 to 2021, they saw us evolve and do exactly what we said we were gonna do. And thats a rare thing in space.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]Since 2022, its raised $23.6 million, per market insight platforms Traxn and CB Insights, and grown to 140 employees in Colorado, Luxembourg, and Australia. (The staff also includes the youngest Cyrus brother, Austin, now a program manager.) As a private company, Lunar Outpost doesnt disclose its revenues, though platforms such as Growjo estimate theyre just north of $50 million. It developed the LTV through partnerships with Leidos, MDA Space,Goodyear, and General Motors, while Castrol collaborated on its state-of-the-art mission control at its Golden, CO headquarters, which also includes design, manufacturing, and additional testing facilities.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]The last four years have seen two space ventures. From 202123, Lunar Outpost operated MOXIE on Mars. Last March, its Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover flew aboard the Intuitive Machines Athena lander as part of a mission to collect regolith samples and assist with the first lunar communications network. Unfortunately, Athena fell onto its side, trapping MAPP and preventing its deployment. Despite the setback, we were able to do a full checkout in space and get a lot of data down, says Cyrus. That journey will be chronicled in a 2026 documentary, Drive Me to the Moon.Meanwhile, the company has another six lunar and cislunar missions planned. The company is developing Mobile Autonomous Robotic Swarms (MARS) software for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, which it will test next year in low-Earth orbit. And four of its rovers are headed back to the moon. Next year, one MAPP will fly aboard a third Intuitive Machines lunar lander to investigate a magnetic anomaly at Reiner Gamma as part of the NASA/Johns Hopkins University Lunar Vertex mission. In 2027, one MAPP will ride a fourth Intuitive Machines lander to the lunar south pole, while an exploration class rover, dubbed Roo-ver, will carry scientific and commercial payloads for the Australian Space Agencys first lunar mission. In 2028, another MAPP will join NASAs Artemis IV DUSTER mission (short for DUst and plaSma environmenT survEyoR) to carry instruments that will characterize landing-site dust and plasma. Then theres another mission the company cant announce just yet.
The advancements from each mission inform the others. We have spent about a decade developing critical technologies that were going to test on many missions before it ever gets to a lunar terrain vehicle, says Cyrus. So that way, we have a high degree of confidence that the astronauts are safe, and we can reliably perform the services that NASA needs. We are a lunar mobility company, so regardless of what happens with the LTV, well keep moving.[Photo: Lunar Outpost]Another long-term vision is creating a legal and economic framework for mining space resources. Five years ago, NASA contracted with Lunar Outpost, among other companies, to purchase regolith samples for $1 to set legal and procedural precedents for private companies to own and sell what they mine on celestial bodies. (Had it been able to deploy, the initial MAPP rover would have provided the first such exchange.)Considering the investment cost and potential rewardshelium-3, for example, is abundant on the moon but among the most expensive substances on Earth due to its scarcitythis step gives companies more confidence that they wont be legally challenged before spending billions to extract resources on a large scale.Engaging the publicA fully spacefaring existence will require all aspects of humanity. To that end, Lunar Outpost is tapping artistic imagination and STEM learning by collaborating with artists, designers, and toy companies. On its last lunar mission, the company teamed with MIT Media Lab on two art tie-ins: a mock ground control to track the mission and a rover payloada Voyager Golden Record-inspired two-inch silicon wafer containing etched recordings of voices describing what space means for humanity. And last summer, in a full-circle moment, it released a Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle set for young STEM enthusiasts. Its call for future payloads welcomes pitches from the creative community. NASAs still a public organization, says Cyrus. The art, toys, and stories are critical to getting the public aware of whats going on. Getting them interested in the new cis-lunar economy is important to the long-term sustainability.Perhaps no one is more excited than Cyruss father, now watching his sons carry the torch. Hes thrilledthis is what he wanted to see back in the `90s and early 2000sthat sustainable presence on the moon, he says. He wants to see humanity get out in space. And thats why he let me dig up a test site in front of his ranch.
We were promised empathy in a box: a tireless digital companion that listens without judgment, available 24/7, and never sends a bill. The idea of AI as a psychologist or therapist has surged alongside mental health demand, with apps, chatbots, and empathetic AI platforms now claiming to offer everything from stress counseling to trauma recovery.
Its an appealing story. But its also a deeply dangerous one.
Recent experiments with AI therapists reveal what happens when algorithms learn to mimic empathy but not understand it. The consequences range from the absurd to the tragic, and they tell us something profound about the difference between feeling heard and being helped.
When the chatbot becomes your mirror
In human therapy, the professionals job is not to agree with you, but to challenge you, to help you see blind spots, contradictions, and distortions. But chatbots dont do that: Their architecture rewards convergence, which is the tendency to adapt to the users tone, beliefs, and worldview in order to maximize engagement.
That convergence can be catastrophic. In several cases, chatbots have reportedly assisted vulnerable users in self-destructive ways. AP News described the lawsuit of a California family claiming that ChatGPT encouraged their 16-year-old sons suicidal ideation and even helped draft his note. In another instance, researchers observed language models giving advice on suicide methods, under the guise of compassion.
This isnt malice. Its mechanics. Chatbots are trained to maintain rapport, to align their tone and content with the user. In therapy, thats precisely the opposite of what you need. A good psychologist resists your cognitive distortions. A chatbot reinforces thempolitely, fluently, and instantly.
The illusion of empathy
Large language models are pattern recognizers, not listeners. They can generate responses that sound caring, but they lack self-awareness, emotional history, or boundaries. The apparent empathy is a simulation: a form of linguistic camouflage that hides statistical pattern-matching behind the comforting rhythm of human conversation.
That illusion is powerful. We tend to anthropomorphize anything that talks like us. As research warns: Users often report feeling emotionally bonded with chatbots within minutes. For lonely or distressed individuals, that illusion can become dependence.
And that dependence is profitable.
The intimacy we give away
When you pour your heart out to an AI therapist, youre not speaking into a void; youre creating data. Every confession, every fear, every private trauma becomes part of a dataset that can be analyzed, monetized, or shared under vaguely worded terms of service.
As The Guardian reported, many mental health chatbots collect and share user data with third parties for research and improvement, which often translates to behavioral targeting and ad personalization. Some even include clauses allowing them to use anonymized transcripts to train commercial models.
Imagine telling your deepest secret to a therapist who not only takes notes, but also sells them to a marketing firm. Thats the business model of much of AI mental health.
The ethical stakes are staggering. In human therapy, confidentiality is sacred. In AI therapy, its an optional checkbox.
Voice makes it worse
Now imagine the same system, but in voice mode.
Voice interfaces, such as OpenAIs ChatGPT Voice or Anthropics Claude Audio, feel more natural, more human, and more emotionally engaging. And thats exactly why theyre more dangerous. Voice strips away the small cognitive pause that text allows. You think less, share more, and censor less.
In voice, intimacy accelerates. Tone, breathing, hesitation, even background noise, all become sources of data. A model trained on millions of voices can infer not only what you say, but also how you feel when you say it. Anxiety, fatigue, sadness, arousal: all detectable, all recordable.
Once again, technology isnt the problem. The problem is who owns the conversation. Voice interactions generate a biometric footprint. If those files are stored or processed on servers outside your jurisdiction, your emotions become someone elses intellectual property.
The paradox of synthetic empathy
AIs growing role in emotional support exposes a paradox: The better it gets at mimicking empathy, the worse it becomes at ethics. When a machine adapts perfectly to your mood, it can feel comforting, but it also erases friction, contradictio, and reality checks. It becomes a mirror that flatters your pain instead of confronting it. Thats not care. Thats consumption.
And yet, the companies building these systems often frame them as breakthroughs in accessibility: AI therapists for people who cant afford or reach human ones. The intention is theoretically noble. The implementation is reckless. Without clinical supervision, clear boundaries, and enforceable privacy protections, were building emotional slot machines, devices that trigger comfort while extracting intimacy.
What executives need to understand
For business leaders, especially those exploring AI for health, education, or employee wellness, this isnt just a cautionary tale. Its a governance problem.
If your company uses AI to interact with customers, employees, or patients about emotional or sensitive topics, you are managing psychological data, not just text. That means:
Transparency is mandatory. Users must know when theyre speaking to a machine and how their information will be stored and used.
Jurisdiction matters. Where is your emotional data processed? Europes General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and emerging U.S. state privacy laws treat biometric and psychological data as sensitive. Violations should have, and will have, steep costs.
Boundaries need design. AI tools should refuse certain kinds of engagementsuch as discussions of self-harm, and medical or legal adviceand escalate to real human professionals when needed.
Trust is fragile. Once broken, its nearly impossible to rebuild. If your AI mishandles someones pain, no compliance statement will repair that reputational damage.
Executives must remember that empathy is not scalable. Its earned one conversation at a time. AI can help structure those conversationssummarizing notes, detecting stress patterns, assisting clinicians, etc.but it should never pretend to replace human care.
The new responsibility of design
Designers and developers now face an ethical choice: to build AI that pretends to care, or AI that respects human vulnerability enough not to.
A responsible approach means three things:
Disclose the fiction. Make it explicit that users are engaging with a machine.
Delete with dignity. Implement strict data-retention policies for emotional content.
Defer to humans. Escalate when emotional distress is detected, and NEVER improvise therapy.
The irony is that the safest AI therapist may be the one that knows when to stay silent.
What we risk forgetting
Human beings dont need perfect listeners. They need perspective, contradiction, and accountability. A machine can simulate sympathy, but it cant hold responsibility. When we let AI occupy the role of a therapist, were not just automating empathywere outsourcing moral judgment.
In an age where data is more valuable than truth, the temptation to monetize emotion will be irresistible. But once we start selling comfort, we stop understanding it.
AI will never care about us. It will only care about our data. And thats the problem no therapy can fix.
High-power magnets undergird an enormous amount of modern society. From high-end audio speakers to electric vehicles, wind turbines, and fighter jets, they are a vital component in much of the technology we touch every day. To make them requires mining and refining rare earth elementsa supply chain largely controlled by China.
Companies around the world are racing to find alternatives by using materials that are more abundant and cheaper to produce domestically. Minneapolis-based Niron Magnetics believes it has found a solution, claiming it can approach key aspects of rare earth magnet performance, using humble iron and nitrogenalbeit in an exotic formulation. General Motors, Stellantis, the U.S. government, and others are betting on it.
“The Chinese put export controls in place around rare earths, and thats been a great benefit to us,” says Niron CEO Jonathan Rowntree.
China currently accounts for around 60% of global rare earth mining, according to the International Energy Agency, and about 90% of refining (including ore mined in and shipped from the U.S.). It also supplies over 90% of rare earth magnets, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Geopolitical tensions are putting that supply in jeopardy.
“We want to be able to solve this problem for Western companies as quickly as possible,” Rowntree says. When asked if Niron will only serve the West, he says, “All these countries outside of China have the same problem.” Beyond the U.S., Niron plans to build one factory somewhere in Europe and another in Asia. “It wont be in China. Itll be in Southeast Asia, most likely, he says.
Moving beyond neodymium
Companiesand governmentsare especially chasing alternatives to one of these rare earth metals: neodymium. It is alloyed with two other metals to make the world’s most popular magnet. “Neodymium iron boron is the best permanent magnet going. And no one’s really got anywhere close,” says Nicola Morley, professor of materials physics at the University of Sheffield in England. She has no affiliation with Niron.
Niron has raised approximately $200 million from private funders and about $100 million from federal and state tax credits or grants, including from the departments of Energy and Defense, to build its exotic formulation over the past 15 years.
[Photo: Niron]
The world could finally find out how well Niron’s technology works in 2026, when it says that magnets from its pilot facility in Minneapolis will start to appear in home audio speakers. Motors in appliances such as washing machines, clothes dryers, and air conditioners are on schedule to follow in 2026 or 2027.
Niron broke ground on its first full-scale factory in Sartell, Minnesota, in September, and expects to be churning out 1,500 tons of magnets per year by early to mid-2027. It’s considering several states for its next 10,000-ton-per-year world-scale plant, which it estimates could provide more than 20% of U.S. supply after it opens in 2029. Then will come the plants in Europe and Asia. Niron has no plans to license its technology. “We want to be a full-service magnet producer,” Rowntree says.
Dates for when additional plants will open are not certain, or for when magnets may appear in industrial machinery, cars, planes, and windmills. Rowntree says that, compared with the short product cycle for consumer tech, “industrial [is] medium, automotive takes a bit longer, and then defense and wind turbines take the longest.” Niron says only that it is “engaged” with defense contractors.
Building a rival magnet
Things get technical rather quickly when discussing Niron. But details matter in order to determine if it can achieve its ambitious business goals, including going public, which Rowntree says is “a few years away.”
Niron has several patents for iron nitride technology, including one for how to manufacture a particular arrangement of the chemical compoundboth within the molecules and in how they form crystalsby getting and keeping it in what’s called an “alpha double prime phase.”
Rowntree puts that in somewhat simpler terms, saying the atoms are “arranged in such a structure that the nitrogen atoms kind of flex the structure” to cause greater magnetism. This is similar to neodymium magnets, in which, as Morley puts it, “boron basically stretches” the structure of the crystals.
Getting these tiny crystals into large magnets was another challenge. All high-performance magnet making starts with material in powder form. Next, a magnetic field is applied to align these grains, so their magnetic poles all face the same way. Then the grains are compressed. Finally, in rare earth magnets, high heat is applied to stick the grains together.
But heat would wreck Niron’s material, so the company’s scientists developed a work-around for compacting the magnets. “There was, I would say, secret sauce in manufacturing of the nano scale, the phase that we want, and keeping that phase,” Rowntree says. “And then a lot of technology around, ‘How do you cost-effectively scale that?”
Will the magnets work?
Niron has revealed data on the strength of its initial magnets, which is on the lower end of neodymium’s performance. It expects to eventually approach neodymium’s level, which will make it a worthy competitor.
What Niron has not yet revealed publicly is how well the magnets can hold up when exposed to strong magnetic fields in devices like EV motors. At a certain point, stresses like these can jumble the tiny regions of magnetism in any magnet so that they cancel each other out and turn it into just a lump of useless metal.
Niron says its magnet’s ability to resist getting demagnetized at room temperature will never be as good as with rare earth metals, but it aims to get close enough.
So Niron is starting by putting its magnets in speakers, because they produce a smaller magnetic field, while working to improve its numbers for “more demanding applications.” The company says it can replace weaker magnets, so low-end speakers can be smaller or perform better, but says it will lso replace the more powerful rare earth magnets in higher-end speakers.
As for more demanding applications, Niron and Stellantis announced in October a collaboration to develop new motor designs for EVs. Stellantis said simply that this allows us to explore the possibilities.”
Niron says its tech could replace neodymium magnets in some aircraft components, too, but not the jet engine. It gets too hot for both magnet types and requires an even pricier rare earth metal: samarium.
Providing magnets for autos and planes (and wind turbines) is still years in the future. But if audio gear makers keep to the schedule Niron is forecasting, many questions will be answered next year. “Once these magnets hit the market, they can be studied independently by others, which will be important for the industry,” Morley says.
Most people think of solopreneurs as a one-person machine. The solopreneur (according to social media) sends invoices, juggles client calls, manages marketing campaigns, and troubleshoots their own websiteall before lunch. Its a compelling narrative because it celebrates endless hustle and grit.
But its also a myth. Solopreneurship simply means you make the business decisions. You dont have to consult anyone else or wait for approval. It doesnt mean youre the only person doing the work.
Most solopreneurs eventually bring in support (including me, in my solo business). Hiring help doesnt mean youre no longer a real solopreneur. Its a sign that your business is growing. You recognize the value of your time or the limitations of your skill set.
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Smart solopreneurs hire help as an investment. Outsourcing work or projects can expand your bandwidth while still allowing you to maintain full control over the direction of your business.
When to bring in professional support
One of the hardest parts of running a solo business is deciding when to get help. Many solopreneurs wait too long because they assume they should be able to do everything themselves. But if you feel like youre working endless hours or youre spending too much time on tasks, its probably time to hire.
Think of hiring as a strategic business decision, not a financial splurge.
– Accounting or legal help
The first category many solopreneurs consider is financial and legal support. They recognize that they dont have the expertise neededand financial or legal mistakes can be costly.
An accountant or bookkeeper can manage tax compliance, keep your books clean, and help you understand your cash flow. Their jobs are to be familiar with accounting and tax laws, so you dont have to stress. Typically, accountants or bookkeepers provide ongoing (monthly) support.
Legal help becomes important as your business grows in complexity. A lawyer might review your client contracts or help you navigate trademarks if youre developing a brand. Depending on your legal structure, you may also need a lawyer to help with documentation like Articles of Organization (for an LLC). You dont need a lawyer on retainer. Even a few hours of legal support per year can prevent legal problems later.
– A virtual assistant
A virtual assistant (VA) is often the first hire for solopreneurs who are stretched thin. A VA can manage your inbox, follow up with clients, organize your files, or complete other organizational tasks that eat up hours of your time each week.
I rely on a lot of automation in my business. Tasks are completed automatically in the background between apps (using Zapier). But eventually, I reached a point where I couldnt automate anymore. Some work needs a human touch. It was either me, or a virtual assistant. I chose to hire a VA so I could focus on the more strategic/creative parts of my business.
Most VAs work on an hourly, project-based, or monthly retainer model. With the right VA, you can start small and expand later if needed. Even a few hours per week can give you breathing room and help you stay focused on the work that generates revenue.
– Project-based work
Not every type of help needs to be ongoing. You might hire a specialist when youve hit the limits of what you can do yourself.
For example, for a long time, I created my own brand assets. Eventually, I hit the limits of what I could do in Canva and wanted a more professional look for my business. I hired a brand designer to create my logo, choose fonts, and clarify my brand messaging. He gave me hundreds of Canva templates for various purposes.
If you need a website, a brand refresh, or automation support, a temporary engagement with an expert might make sense. That way, you dont have to spend your time acquiring skills you dont otherwise need and can start using the finished product quickly.
Building a team that supports your business
Before I started my own business, I was a manager in the corporate world. Being responsible for other peoples career success was hard for me, and I dont think I was particularly good at it.
Bringing on help as a solopreneur doesnt mean you have to become a manager in the traditional sense. Often, youre hiring other independent professionals, like you. With the exception of a virtual assistant (who has to learn your systems/processes), the people you hire may not need a ton of oversight or hand-holding.
Bringing in help doesnt have to mean building a team in the traditional sense. But before you hire, you should consider these three things:
Revenue stability: Can your income support this additional expense?
ROI: Will freeing up your time allow you to earn more or reduce stress in a meaningful way?
Alignment: Does delegating this work directly support your business and create value?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, you may not be ready to hire yet.
Solopreneurship doesnt mean doing everything alone
Your business works best when youre working to your strengths. The rest can be delegated or outsourced.
Im not a designer, so I hired someone to help me with design. Im not an accountant, so I hired someone to help with my bookkeeping.
Youve got to know which parts of your business you should hand off so your business can thrive. The goal isnt to grow headcount, like a traditional business would grow. Its about protecting your time and energy the greatest assets your solo business has.
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