Greetings, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In.
Even by tech-industry standards, the air of serene confidence OpenAI CEO Sam Altman projects in public appearances is overwhelming. Still, that doesnt mean he never sweats behind the scenes. Indeed, we learned this week that Altman is downright concerned about the future of his companys flagship product, ChatGPT.
On December 1, The Informations Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo reported that Altman had initiated a code red effort within OpenAI to make its chatbot more personalized and customizable. The move involves diverting resources from other efforts, such as developing AI agents and monetizing the companys platform through advertising.
Drawing on an Altman memo distributed to OpenAI staffers, Palazzolo and Woos story says he called now a critical time for ChatGPT. Their piece doesnt spell out the reasons for his alarm in much detail. But it ties his redeployment of resources to Googles recent surge as a provider of AI platforms and products, which Altman called out as at least a short-term issue for OpenAI in an earlier memo.
Since he wrote that one, Google released Gemini 3 Pro. The new version of its LLM has achieved breakthrough high scores in multiple AI benchmarks, along with excellent reviews. No wonder Altman is feeling pressured.
ChatGPTs historic success leaves OpenAI with more to lose than any other AI chatbot company. In October, Altman said it had reached 800 million active weekly users, a figure few tech products have ever reached. I dont know of any truly reliable comparative stats on usage of the major AI chatbots. But every chart Ive seen tells a similar story, with ChatGPT sailing along by itself in the stratosphere and everyone else huddled in its shadow.
Why is that? Well, with ChatGPT OpenAI created the modern AI chatbot category, giving itself a head start that still matters three years later. People who use these products have different tastes and priorities, but ChatGPT has evolved rapidly. It remains one of the strongest options, even though GPT-5 turned out to be ludicrously overhyped. Despite furious competition from startups and tech giants alikeincluding worthy contenders such as Anthropics Claudenobody has come up with anything manifestly superior enough to knock it off its pedestal.
But it might be a mistake to assume that ChatGPT has an everlasting lock on its market, akin to the one Google secured in conventional search engines early in this century. Altman clearly doesnt think so. And over the past couple of weeks, Ive come to think the market might be more fluid than I realized.
Thats because Ive found myself spending far less time with ChatGPT (as well as Claude, my other chatbot of habit). Instead, Ive taken almost all of my AI needs to Googles new version of Gemini.
Now, when I wrote about Gemini 3 Pro for Plugged In shortly after its release, I did tend to accentuate the negative. That was based on experiencing some pretty severe hallucinations on its part, some of which it oddly tried to blame on others.
Having used the new Gemini a lot more since then, Ive given it more opportunities to impress meand it has. Ive used it for everything from discovering lesser-known bossa nova music to vibe coding to figuring out how to manually install apps on my network server. In those instances when I tried the same task with ChatGPT, Ive consistently liked Geminis responses better.
But the lesson Ive drawn isnt just that Googles AI has improved by several orders of magnitude since the days when Bard, its proto-Gemini, was a slightly embarrassing also-ran. Its also dawned on me that absolutely nothing is keeping me from leaving ChatGPT for Gemini. Its been one of the most frictionless transitions between platforms Ive ever experienced.
For instance, no learning curve was involved: The two chatbots have damn near the same user interface. Nor did I have anything stored in ChatGPT that provided a powerful incentive to stay there, the way my Gmail archive (and rules Ive set up to organize my inbox) induces me to keep using Gmail.
Even ChatGPTs memory featurewhich tries to mine your chat history to improve its responseshasnt figured out enough about me to make the app stickier. It still feels more like an eager-to-please stranger than an old friend. As does Gemini and every other AI bot.
As a person who uses AI, the realization that Im not boxed into ChatGPT has been . . . kind of thrilling, actually. For OpenAI, however, its a problem. I currently pay OpenAI $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus and Google $26 a month for a Workspace Business Plus account. But along with enterprise-grade Gemini, Googles $26-per-month plan gets me a full complement of productivity tools, 5TB of cloud storage, and more. At some point, ChatGPT Plus might look expendableespecially if I continue to prefer Gemini.
Now multiply my decision process by the 220 million paying users OpenAI has said it expects to have by 2030. Without them, the business model behind its mind-bendingly expensive plan to build out its data center capacity would crumble. If users of ChatGPTs free plan defect to Gemini in significant numbers, it would also complicate the companys intention of becoming an ad platform.
Altmanunderstands all this. Thats why he set off the code-red alarm to quickly bolster ChatGPTs user experience. It explains why hes particularly focused on personalization and customization, two features that would help the chatbot feel less like an easily replaceable commodity. According to The Informations report, Altmans memo also said that OpenAI is about to release a new reasoning model that beats Gemini 3 in its internal tests.
Personally, I hope that the companys gambit to quickly make ChatGPT much better pays off. If it does, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and other AI purveyors will feel even more heat to make similar great leaps forward. May the best chatbot win. And even if they start to feel like they truly understand our needs and desires, may it remain as simple to flit between them as it is now.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged Inon Flipboard.
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The Fast Company AI 20 for 2025These 20 technologists, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and creative thinkers are pushing artificial intelligence in unexpected directions.
The data center boom is fully underway, and the numbers are staggering: billions of dollars in costs, millions of square feet worth of buildings, gigawatts of energy, and millions of gallons of water used per day. But before these AI-fueling behemoths can get up and running, there’s an extensive amount of prep work needed to build the infrastructure those data centers rely upon, with a whole other set of staggering costs, material flows, and resource requirements.
The infrastructure behind (and below) the data center boom is in the midst of its own massive scale building boom, with no end in sight. That’s created a thriving business for the companies that provide the raw materials used to make that infrastructure.
“The focus for the most part is always on the facility . . . but what gets a lot less attention today is actually what it takes to build the infrastructure around them,” says Nathan Creech, president of the Americas division at CRH, the $81 billion market cap building materials company. “Most people don’t see the below-the-ground infrastructure for water, for telecom, for energy that it takes, or the road systems to get in.”
CRH is the largest building materials company in North America and Europe, providing aggregates, cement, road, and water infrastructure for building projects around the world. The company is currently working on more than 100 data centers in the U.S. This data center work was highlighted in the company’s third quarter financial results as a “robust” growth area and part of its $11.1 billion in quarterly revenue, which the company expects to continue to rise for the foreseeable future.
Grading and site preparation underway at a Microsoft data center construction site in Aldie, Virginia. October, 2025. [Photo: Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
Most of CRH’s large data center projects are covered by nondisclosure agreements, but you can probably imagine some of its potential customers. As competition for AI dominance heats up, so-called hyperscalers like Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle are investing in ever bigger data centers. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have announced multibillion-dollar data center building sprees. According to one report, total data center construction spending is expected to exceed $52 billion in 2025. These investments will lead to a lot of state-of-the-art buildings. But first, they’ll require even more traditional infrastructure. And with construction material costs rising 40% over the past five years, all that infrastructure is part of the reason so much money is being spent to build these data centers.
“Think about the water, energy, and communication systems required to operate themit’s a huge logistical challenge and demands a significant amount of expertise,” says Creech.
What it takes to build a data center
Once a big tech company has identified the site for a new data centera process that requires its own complex calculus to balance spatial demands, electricity generation capacity, and access to watera significant amount of concrete and asphalt has to be laid down.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
The estimated size of data centers varies from 20,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet, but CRH notes that average data center building typically requires 150,000 tons of aggregates, or enough to build a four-mile long lane of interstate highway. This is used to lay the concrete foundation for the building, as well as subsurface structures like water retention cisterns and retaining walls. Most of this material is mined and supplied locally. Roads have to be built to access these sites both during construction and operation, requiring even more raw materials.
CRH operates more than 2,000 manufacturing plants and quarries across the U.S., and Creech estimates that 85% of U.S. datacenters sit within 30 miles of one of these facilities. For those projects that aren’t located near an existing facility, CRH builds them.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
“You hear about the main investments, but what you never hear about are the investments that we’re making in greenfields and building out new mines and making sure that there’s asphalt plants and concrete plants and pipe plants and paver plants that are in the area,” Creech says. “Because our products, you can’t ship them very far.”
Speed has become a priority for many of these projects. Earlier this year Meta revealed that it was accelerating the startup time for new data centers by building them with hurricane-proof tents. A spokesperson told Fast Company at the time that tents are currently being set up as part of at least one of the multi-gigawatt data centers the company is building, located in New Albany, Ohio.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
Creech says this time pressure has also changed the way CRH approaches these big projects. Typically site works and utility infrastructure can take between three and six months to build, but he says there have been cases where CRH has sped up the delivery timeline of the baseline concrete pad infrastructure to just four weeks.
An Amazon Web Services data center under construction on Quail Ridge Ln in Stone Ridge, Virginia. March, 2024. [Photo: Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
The race to stand up AI data centers has some analysts concerned about overbuilding, cautioning that dynamics in data center technology and future demands may put some of the infrastructure being built at risk of becoming obsolete or even unnecessary. Some have even called this an “infrastructure bubble.”
In the near term, none of these concerns seem to be stopping the building boom that’s now underway. And as it continues to progress, it’s going to require a whole lot of concrete.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
While the iPhone 17 is expected to be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season, some of the early adopters of Apple’s latest phone may be moving on to something different already.
New data from B-Stock, a B2B marketplace for wholesale liquidation of returned and overstock inventory, finds that large cellular carriers are already moving “bulk quantities” of iPhone 17s through the resale channels for B2B customers. One sale on the site currently offers 111 iPhone 17 Pro Max units (with bidding for the lot standing at $80,200 as of Wednesday afternoon).
All totaled, there were more than 300 iPhone 17 devices up for resale on the site as of Wednesday.
The sales aren’t impacting the value of the phones, however. B-Stock says it’s seeing resale prices on the phones maintaining 94% of the retail price.
And to be clear, theres not a big wave of people returning their phones. B-Stock says the return rates are largely in line with predecessors on a percentage basis (and actually lower than the iPhone 16). But with the strong sales of the 17, an overall greater number of units is expected to be returned.
The used-phone market has been gaining strength for some time. Earlier this year, tech research and advisory firm CCS Insight said the secondhand smartphone market is growing faster than the primary market, with a growth rate of 6% year over year in 2024. Apple devices make up 60% of the overall used market.
“The growing demand for used smartphones is driven by a stronger desire for low-cost devices, increased consumer awareness, and partnerships between telecom operators and retailers,” said Leo Gebbie, CCS Insights principal analyst and director for the Americas, in a statement. “Refurbished smartphones, which are often up to 50% cheaper than new devices, now also come with warranties, flexible financing options, and reliable after-sales service, increasing consumer trust.
Last year, secondhand smartphones generated revenues of $7.6 billion in the U.S. (and another $13.2 billion in the Asia-Pacific region).
Meanwhile, International Data Corp. (IDC), a market intelligence firm, forecasts global shipments of used smartphones will grow by 3.2% year over year in 2025, which is triple its prediction of sales gains from new smartphones. That’s due to a growing number of trade-in programs, improvements in the quality of refurbished devices, and a rising environmental awareness among consumers.
The trend isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon. IDC expects the used smartphone market to see 5.8% growth in 2026 before tapering off slowly to 4.9% by 2029.
B-Stock is not the only company seeing the latest round of iPhones hold their value. On SellCell, a marketplace for consumers to sell their smartphones and devices, the iPhone Air had a trade-in value of $760 as of Wednesday, compared with a retail price of $999 for the same model. That’s despite numerous reports that demand for the iPhone Air model was significantly lower than expected, with Apple reportedly cutting production on the line.
It’s not just the iPhone 17 that’s seeing sustained demand. The iPhone 16 is retaining 72% of its original price, B-Stock reports. And the iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and iPhone 14 Pro Max are the three most frequently sold models on the site’s B2B platform.
The strong demand in the used smartphone market doesn’t seem to be impacting sales of new iPhone models. Apple is expected to have a record year in 2025, thanks to the latest series of phones, with shipment forecasts of 247 million or more, IDC says.
The iPhone 17 is selling very well in China, Apple’s largest market, and has reversed the slowdown Apple was seeing in the U.S. and Western Europe. In fact, the popularity of the iPhone 17 was a key reason Apple’s market capitalization topped $4 trillion earlier this year.
Columbia Sportswear just lauched its Endor collection, and I want it all. Inspired by the clothes worn by the rebel squad that took on the Death Star’s shield generator in Return of the Jedi, it’s the latest and largest Star Wars drop from Portland, Oregon-based company. It’s also the best fit for the brand since its Empire Strikes Back‘s Echo Base Han Solo parkas, which I missed back in 2017, and I will forever feel like a dumb Tauntaun for not grabbing one (they run for almost $1,000 each now).
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
The highlight of the collection is General Han Solos Trench, a $600 jacket that mimics the camouflage duster that Harrison Ford wore while leading the strike team on the forest moon. Unlike cheap Amazon costumes, this and the rest of the line is built with actual functional specs, using an Interchange system that pairs a waterproof shell with an inner vest lined with Columbias Omni-Heat Infinity gold thermal reflectors.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Yes, the fabric that literally went to space (unlike Ford). Its loaded with fan-service details, including Aurebesh messagesthe basic galaxy alphabetand a Rebel Alliance patch, but its the practical application that matters. You can wear it to sneak into an Imperial bunker or just to survive a rainy commute in Seattle.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Six hundred galactic credits for a trench may seem like a lot, but according to Erin Steele, Special Projects Manager for Columbia Sportswear, the Endor drop’s prices are consistent with similar styles in their product line. Steele says that like the other Star Wars drops they developed closely with Disney and Lucasfilm, this clothing line is very far from cosplay.
“The Battle of Endor is such an outdoor rich moment in the film, so we were really excited by the range of silhouettes, especially since outerwear is truly our specialty,” she says. “While we leaned heavily on the original costume pieces for inspiration, we identified silhouettes that are modern and wearable for everyday life.”
In the movie, she points out, Han is wearing a standard trench layered over his vest and shirt. In their version, they translated those layers into the company’s 3-in-1 multilayer technology, called Interchange. Plus they added a hood that wasn’t in the original.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
If you want to look more like Luke or Leia speeding through the redwoods, there is the Endor Issue Poncho, which goes for $400. This piece replicates the hand-sprayed camouflage look of the original film costumes, but adds modern waterproofing.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
For those who prefer something less flowing, the Endor Issue Cargo Vest ($150) and Endor Issue Pant ($130) offer a more tactical, everyday utility vibe. Both feature the collections signature camo print and functional pockets, making them the most wearable items if you don’t want to look like you just walked off a convention floor.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
There is the $220 Endor Issue Boot, a rugged hiker that has a Rebel insignia on the tongue and comes with two sets of laces, because apparently, even in a galaxy far, far away, shoe customization was a thing, too.
And, of course, you can’t do Endor without the anthropophagous murder bears. I hate with a vengeance almost as much as I hate to admit that the Ewok Fleece Jacket is pretty damn cute. It is exactly what it sounds like: a high-pile, ultrasoft fleece jacket that has a Ewok-shaped hood with ears on it. Its available in adult sizes for $80, and in youth ($75) or infant bunting ($70) versions if you have kids. One bit I like: It features original concept art on the chest patch, a nice nod to the Lucasfilm archives.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Same technology as the regular Columbia stuff
According to Becca Johnson, the company’s special projects director, the Ewok Bunting and Jacket use “tried-and-true plush, cozy fleece, with warmth as the main objective for those styles.” She says that “during testing with kids, they were so well received that they literally didnt want to take them off.” They do look comfy.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Although they are clearly Star Wars design, the nature of the Endor drop makes it look like a perfect fit for a company like Columbia. They work just the same, too. Johnson tells me that all these products use their core technologies for body and footwear. “All of these materials have already gone through rigorous real-world testing. We know they perform in dense, damp environments here on Earth, so were confident theyll hold up just as well on Endor,” Johnson says.
The collection drops on December 11, 2025. If you are a Columbia Greater Rewards member, you get early access at 6:30 a.m. PST; everyone else has to wait until 7 a.m. PST. Given how fast previous drops have sold out (the Empire Strikes Back Han Solos parka sold out in just six minutes), you might want to set an alarm and hope the Force is with you. Or just wait five years and pay triple on eBay like I am tempted to do with that damn coat every single winter.
The Phoenix Mercury rebranded for the first time in team history, and the new look is part of a wider trend across the WNBA as teams modernize their logos for a growing league.
The new Mercury logo shows an “M” that’s a simplified version of the letter taken from the team’s old script wordmark. The bottom of the “M” is angled up at 19.97 degrees as a nod to the team’s 1997 founding as one of the league’s eight original franchises, and it’s set on a circle with a crescent shadow that represents the planet Mercury. The modernized logo was designed in-house.
The rebrand comes at an inflection point for the team, which lost star player Diana Taurasi to retirement in February, and lost the 2025 WNBA championship to the Las Vegas Aces in October. The Mercury are considered the WNBA’s best-run organization, according to an anonymous survey of WNBA players released by The Athletic in July, in part because of their facilities. Mercury President Vince Kozar tells Fast Company, “Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to be a fan.”
From left: The teams previous logo, and the new one [Image: Phoenix Mercury]
It also comes at an inflection point for the league. Game attendance is at an all-time high, and the WNBA is expanding. The Golden State Valkyries joined last season, with the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo set to debut next year, and future franchises planned for Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia, which would bring the league to 18 teams by 2030. In a more crowded league, teams are simplifying their branding to stand out.
Before the Mercury, the New York Liberty introduced a simplified version of the teams Statue of Liberty logo in 2020 that’s just Lady Liberty’s hand holding a torch. And in 2021, the Seattle Storm dropped a logo showing a detailed Space Needle illustration in favor of a simpler form of the landmark.
“What we learned looking at the Storm and Liberty examples was you can do a really clean modernizationone that cleans up the 90s busyness of the logo and streamlines your color schemewithout completely rebooting or reimagining your marks,” Kozar says.
[Image: Phoenix Mercury]
The mark is the team’s primary logo, but it has other new marks too, including those that set the team name in a futuristic sans-serif font. There’s a global mark that wraps the Mercury logo in a roundel, a “Merc” logo that writes out the nickname over a map outline of the state of Arizona, and a “PHX” logo that Nike created in 2021.
Kozar says these additional marks, which will appear on uniforms, courts, and merchandise, “just give our brand so much more depth and diversity.
Authenticity is currency.
You can spend it recklessly and go broke, or invest it strategically and build wealth. Most leaders are choosing bankruptcy without even realizing it.
Right now, workplaces are debating authenticity. Some call “bring your whole self to work” a dangerous myth that punishes marginalized employees. Others claim it’s the secret to engagement and retention.
Both are rightand both are missing something.
Unfiltered authenticity without skill can be destructive. And yes, marginalized employees pay a higher price when they try to be authentic in systems that weren’t built for them.
But your team already knows when you’re faking it. That difference between genuine authenticity and performed authenticity determines everythingtrust, safety, retention, innovation.
Think about the best leader you’ve ever had. Now the worst. What separated them?
Kevin Built Wealth. Nancy Went Broke
An employee once described two former managers to melet’s call them Kevin and Nancy.
Kevin had emotional intelligence. When you sent an email that landed wrong, he’d follow up: “Hey, I think you meant this . . .” He remembered small details from weeks ago. You felt seen. He operated from a place of genuine care.
Nancy was polished. She said all the right things about supporting her team. But over time, you realized it was packagingfriendly but transactional. Like a car salesman calling you “buddy” while steering you toward the close. Surface-level all the way down.
The result? People trusted Kevin enough to be vulnerable, to take risks, to bring their full selves. With Nancy, they performed. Stayed professional. Protected themselves.
Kevin built wealth. Nancy went brokelosing her best people in the process.
The Cost of Going Broke
When leaders perform authenticity instead of practicing it, the price is steep.
Trust erodes: Employees start second-guessing everything you say. They stop bringing you problems until they’ve become crises. They smile in meetings but vent about you in private Slack threads.
Performance declines: When people feel unheard, they stop trying. They do the minimum, knowing their ideas will be dismissed or reworked later. Half-hearted efforts, wasted hours, and endless redos are all symptoms of leadership that performs authenticity instead of practicing it.
Psychological safety vanishes: When you fake authenticity, your team learns to fake it right back. No one risks being vulnerable or challenges ideas. Creativity dies quietly in conference rooms where everyone nods along.
Your best people leave: Not always loudly. Not immediately. But they start looking. They stop investing. They give you their labor, not their loyalty.
For marginalized employees, the cost is even higher: Research shows the toll of code-switching and masking isn’t just emotionalit’s biological. Black adults, for example, “weather” years faster under chronic workplace stress, aging 6.1 years beyond their peers. Ninety-one percent of neurodivergent employees mask their traits at work, and most report burnout as a direct result.
That’s what happens when people spend their careers navigating leaders like Nancyconstantly calculating, code-switching, and self-protecting while leadership performs its way through “authenticity.” It doesn’t just drain engagementit literally accelerates aging and drives talent out the door.
What Building Wealth Actually Looks Like
Kevin didn’t just happen to be authentic. He had the emotional intelligence to make authenticity work.
Here’s what that looks like in practicethe four pillars of authentic leadership:
Self-Awareness (Know Yourself): Kevin knew his triggers and blind spots. When he got impatient, he recognized it and communicated expectations clearly instead of lashing out. Nancy probably had no idea how she came acrossor worse, she knew and didn’t care.
Transparency & Honesty (Show Yourself): Kevin admitted mistakes and shared challenges thoughtfully. Nancy talked about transparency but never revealed anything real. Her vulnerability was scripted.
Consistency & Integrity (Be Yourself): Kevin’s actions matched his words whether you were in the room or not. People knew what to expect. Nancy adapted to the audiencewarm in meetings, different behind closed doors.
Respectful Adaptation (Balance Yourself): Kevin was authentic without being unfiltered. He knew how to disagree respectfully, to be real without being reckless. Nancy confused polish with professionalism and never learned the difference.
Without EQ, authenticity is chaosbluntness masquerading as bravery, oversharing disguised as vulnerability.
With EQ, authenticity becomes the foundation for trust, creativity, and growth.
Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: You might be Nancy and not know it.
Cognitive dissonance lets us live with a lie. When we forfeit self-awareness for comfort, we convince ourselves we’re being authentic while we’re actually performing. We package our niceness. We script our vulnerability. We say the right words while our team watches our actionsand knows better.
If this stirs some discomfort, that’s your cue to practice emotional intelligenceto pause, reflect, and not defend.
Try this on Monday morning:
Practice the pause. When someone challenges you, do you immediately defendor take a beat to ask, “What if they’re right?”
Audit yourself. Do you remember what your people tell you? Do you follow up weeks later? When you admit a mistake, are you learningor just managing your image?
These small acts separate the leaders building wealth from those heading toward bankruptcy.
The Return on Investment
When you invest authenticity wiselywith emotional intelligence as your guidethe returns compound:
Trust multiplies: People stop hedging. They bring their full thinking, their wild ideas, their honest concerns. Problems get solved faster because no one’s wasting energy performing.
Retention stabilizes: Your best people stay not for perks but for purpose. They don’t just work for youthey work with you.
Innovation accelerates: Psychological safety fuels risk-taking. Teams build what mattersnot just what looks good in presentations.
Culture sustains itself: Authentic leaders create authentic teams. It spreads. New hires learn what’s truly valuednot what’s written on the wall, but what’s modeled in the room.
The difference between Kevin and Nancy wasn’t personality or charisma. It was the willingness to do the inner work required to show up authentically and skillfully.
Kevin built wealth because he had the emotional intelligence to make authenticity work. Nancy went broke because she never learned th difference between saying the right words and being real.
The question isn’t which leader you want to be.
The question is: Which leader are your people actually experiencing?
As Sir Isaac Newton discovered, the core scientific law of gravity is that what goes up must come down. The principle applies in many areas, which is why markets are jittery about the near-unchecked, three-year growth of stock prices fueled by the strength of the generative-AI revolution.
The market is on a tear, with a large gap growing even wider between public market valuations and the significantly higher private-market valuations of AI-exposed companies. The top five tech companies in the U.S. are, collectively, valued at more than the combined size of the Euro Stoxx 50, the U.K., India, Japan, and Canadaand account for around 16% of the entire global public equity market, according to Goldman Sachs.
Its not just AI model makers and the firms that provide their infrastructure: Its the associated industries that help serve the AI market. Earlier this year, Harvard economist Jason Furman estimated that U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was almost entirely due to investment in data centers.
Investors in companies like Nvidia are seeing blockbuster returns, as the firms value has risen more than 1,200% in the past five years, thanks to being one of the few companies able to provide the computer chips required for the AI revolution. Even so, some are worried that Nvidia is providing financing to customers looking to buy its chipsa supposedly circular chain that short sellers have quibbled with. (Nvidia, for its part, has issued responses to market analysts to refute those claims.)
It all adds up to a tetchy time, with nervousness and debate about an AI bubble. Not helping matters are the public comments about the current moment by some of the industrys biggest names.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that were currently in an AI bubble where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has called it a frenzy. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a podcast in September that an AI bubble, and its potential burst, was definitely a possibility. Comparisons have been drawn to the 2000s-era dot-com bubble.
Weathering the storm
So if we are in an AI bubble and it does burst, then wholl be left standing at the end of it?
The idea that entire economies might be hit by the bursting of any bubble is unlikely to happen, reckons Christopher Tucci, professor of digital strategy and innovation at Imperial College Business School in London.
The internet bubble, for example, wiped out many companies and investors, but the technology itself only grew in importance afterwards, he says. Tucci sees AI in a similar way, noting, Even if the investment bubble bursts, the underlying technology will remain critical and will continue to advance.
And while the bubble continues to inflate, Tucci believes thats good news for smaller companies. At the moment, large amounts of money are flowing into AI startups, he says. This lowers startup costs, increases the number of competing companies, and creates vulnerabilities, mainly for investors.
But if and when that bubble bursts, those smaller companies are more likely to be exposed, while larger companies will be insulated from more significant risks.
Survivors will be the ones that own distribution, says Sergey Toporov, partner at early-stage VC firm Leta Capital. Toporov is blunt about the lack of a moat for smaller companies, saying, Nobody cares about your best-in-class AI startup unless people actually know it exists.
In that view, companies like the big four AI firmsGoogle, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Metaare likely to weather any storm, but smaller competitors could struggle. The rest will consolidate or become specialized model shops, Toporov says.
Smaller companies that have what Toporov calls defensible advantages like proprietary data or deep integration into business workflows could withstand an AI-caused market correction. He says the same is true for firms with strong distribution, recurring demand, and a deep technical moat.
Companies that piggyback on existing technology, including AI wrapper services that use their larger competitors AI models in order to provide answers to their customers, sometimes in specific specialties, may face a tough road ahead.
Big unknowns
However, not everyone agrees with that vision of the future. AI apps with high valuations look the riskiest at the moment, says Sampsa Samila, professor of strategic management at IESE Business School. They dont have easy moats against improving foundation models or other apps.
Samila believes even those that operate foundation models, like OpenAI, could be in a difficult position. Foundation labs burning billions are also looking shaky, he says. It’s not at all easy to see how OpenAI will manage, unless it develops winner-take-all superintelligence.
In part, thats down to what Samila sees as circular financing deals, including those supported by Nvidias funding in order to obtain Nvidia chips to power their models.
While OpenAI could struggle because of its cash burn, Samila contends that bigger, more established names in the space are better placed to weather the problems. Google is interesting because they control TPUs [tensor processing units], have proprietary data from Search, YouTube, and Gmail, and are already monetizing AI through Cloud, he explains.
But the big unknown for Google is whether its rollout of AI-native ads can replace its search revenue. Another area of concern for Google, given competition from the likes of Microsoft, is that its tech stack doesnt always integrate well with the existing IT systems being run by organizations.
Amongst the AI apps, deep embedding into customer workflows is going to be key to survival, Samila says. Many companies tend to use Microsofts products rather than Googles in large part because its what theyve always done.
Whatever happens, most people believe there are fundamental differences between a possible imminent burst of the AI bubble and the dot-com stock market crash. The Magnificent Seven tech firms have a 24-month forward price-to-earnings ratio that is 25 times their collective valuationhigh, but half the level it was in the dot-com era. Price-to-earnings growth is also around half the level it was a quarter century ago.
And many of the biggest names in the space are well-capitalized tech firms with cash reserves that can pay for any financial hiccups ahead in a way that the dot-com eras biggest names couldnt.
Regardless, those in and around the AI sector need to be aware of whats ahead.When a correction comes, venture capital will dry up potentially for several years, Tucci predicts. In the long run, however, AI as a technology will continue to grow in importance, regardless of short-term investment cycles.
In 1983, Howard Schultz was an employee of Starbucks, a small chain of coffee stores that mainly sold beans (and no drinks), when he was sent to Milan for a trade show. As Schultz observed Italians visiting their local cafés, he loved what he saw, describing it as a sense of community, a real sense of connection between the barista and the customer.
A few years later, after Schultz convinced Starbuckss owners to sell him the company, the new owner attempted to build that same type of connection here in the U.S.
To do so, Schultz knew he had to take care of his people. He called them partners, not employees, a symbol of a more collaborative working relationship. Over the years, Starbucks offered perks that were typically unheard of for part-time workers in food service, benefits like health insurance and contributions to college education.
Nowadays, though, Starbucks seems to have lost the reputation for looking after its people.
No doubt, at least part of the reason for that is Schultz has stepped down as CEO, multiple times, returning as the company struggled under his successors. A few years ago, after taking over on an interim basis, Schultz even went on a listening tour, visiting stores across the country to find out how the company had lost its way.
Starbuckss brass, and even Schultz himself, became hopeful when the company tapped Brian Niccol, former CEO of Chipotle, to take over the helm. In the world of fast food and fast casual dining, Niccol was a superstar. Most recently, he had completed a major turnaround at Chipotle, a company that saw sales double in Niccols first year as CEO, along with a major rise in stock price.
Everyone wondered the same thing: Could Niccol do the same for Starbucks?
In the beginning, I liked what I saw. Niccol vowed to return Starbucks to its roots, with a renewed focus on serving the finest coffee and a plan to update stores to make them more welcoming. Niccol also returned fan favorites, like condiment bars so customers have more control over customization.
But as more details of Niccols turnaround plan surfaced, concern grew. Baristas would be required to adhere to a much stricter dress code. They were given a set of guidelines, even a script, detailing their interactions with customers. Baristas were instructed to write something genuine on each customer cup, with threats of repercussions if they didnt.
This is the fatal flaw in Niccols turnaround plans. The workplace has evolved, and command-and-control management is no longer effective, at least not long term. Thats especially true in the service industry, where trust empowers employees to connect with customers.
Beyond that, Niccols latest policies are antithetical to how Schultz built Starbucks in the first placea company that prided itself on putting its people at the center of everything it did.
In contrast, Niccol and his team would benefit from taking a close look at a recent turnaround story, led by a CEO who, like Niccol, had experience resurrecting a dying brand: James Daunt of Barnes & Noble.
A former investment banker turned bookstore owner, Daunt took over the helm of Americas largest bookstore chain in 2019, which had been in steady decline for years. Since Daunt took over, Barnes & Noble has experienced a resurgence, leading to an expansion of dozens of new stores in 2023.
This wasnt Daunts first successful turnaround. The British businessman did something similar in the U.K., where he revitalized another chain of flailing bookstores, Waterstones.
So, how did Daunt get lightning to strike, twice? His hallmark strategy was simple: Give power to local store managers.
We sort of take three steps forward and then one step back, Daunt once said in an interview with The New York Times. The forward is my constantly encouraging and pushing for the stores themselves to have the complete freedom to do absolutely whatever they wanthow they display their books, price their books, sort their sections, anything. Those freedoms are difficult if you lived in a very straitjacketed world where everything was dictated to you.
In essence, Daunt turned local Barnes & Noble stores, and Waterstones stores before that, into indie bookstores. The strategy worked because of the trust he put in his people, and the power he gave them.
Of course, theres more than one way to turn a company around. Niccol found success at Chipotle. But a focus on efficiency and policies over people is diametrically opposed to Schultzs dream for Starbucks: that Italian-inspired vision of local connection between barista and customer.
I believe Niccols overarching goal to return Starbucks to its roots is a good one. But the companys ability to produce that experience of connection will depend on the people who are serving the drinksand that will require rebuilding a culture where Starbucks employees feel supported and cared for, not threatened.
If Starbucks can get back to taking care of its people, its people will take care of the customers. And the turnaround will take care of itself.
By Justin Bariso
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This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister site, Inc.com.
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When I was cycling across the country on my bike, I spent anywhere from six to nine hours a day in the saddlefor almost three solid months.
It made a lot of people wonder: What did you listen to all day long?
Was it mostly music, or more like audiobooks, podcasts? asked a friend of mine when we went for a drink at a bar after I got back home. What was on your playlist?
“Nothing,” I said.
She frowned slightly, as if shed misheard me. What do you mean, nothing?
“I mean, nothing. I dont listen to anything when I ride,” I replied. “I dont even wear earbuds.”
You could see the wheels of her mind grind to a standstill. What the hell. You . . . you just ride along in . . . in what? In total silence?
“More or less,” I said, laughing.
“Allll dayyy longgg??
“Yeah.”
She was gobsmacked. I would go completely out of my mind.
And my friend wasnt alone in her astonishment. Nearly everyone, upon learning that Id rawdogged a 4,150-mile cross-country cycling trip, looked utterly dumbstruckbereft, almost. I began to realize that while most people think its pretty daunting to cycle the entire U.S.A., they can vaguely imagine what it would be like as a physical challenge: Daunting, sure, but you just put your butt in the saddle and keep going, and youll get there. They dont want to do that epic, exhausting ride, but they can comprehend it.
But the idea of avoiding all media, all day long? They have no mental equipment to imagine that. It completely breaks their model of how the world works.
Except heres the thing: Its kind of awesome.
Silence is golden
Now the thing is, I am not some sort of anti-technology, anti-screens guy. I dont avoid media on principle, like one of our modern wild-eyed destroy-your-phone desert prophets. Quite the opposite. Even when Im on a road cycling trip, I use my phone a tonto navigate, to check the weather (tornado alert apps are particularly useful in Kansas, let me tell you), or just to dork around on social media.
But during the act of cycling itself? Silence, it turns out, is golden.
Part of why I dont wear earbuds while riding is safety. Im often riding along smaller county roads with SUVs and 16-wheelers hooshing past, barely a few feet away. I want to sense when theyre coming up behind me. I want to be able to hear the dopplering thrum of an approaching engine. I once tried some earbuds that let the outside sound bleed through, which kind of worked. Still, I worried I might get too absorbed in the music, and stop being vigilant about the traffic. So I ditched them.
But I found that I didnt miss it. It turns out that, when I turn off media for seven hours on end, my cycling brain goes to some really interesting places.
One of the things about cycling is that your mind is simultaneously busy and free. Cycling requires you to make a lot of constant, tiny decisions: Avoid that pothole, watch out for that pedestrian, swerve around that constellation of broken glass near the curb. You need to be vigilant. The psychologist Nick Moore writes about how navigating traffic on a bike requires a minutely focused state. The world contracts to a space just a few inches wide and a million miles long, outside which nothing exists.
But these decisions arent hard to make, and theyre over quickly, so I dont wind up being mentally exhausted by them.
A feast for the senses
Meanwhile, theres a ton of stimulation. Cycling cross-country is a feast for the senses. While arriving in a city, Id pass by ornate graffiti inside railway underpasses and marvel at the often-corroded architecture on the outskirts of town. Downtown, Id hear thingssnatches of overheard conversation from people I passed by, or bits of Bhangra music blasting from a fast-food joint.
Out in the deep countryside of the Great Plains, Id pass by sprawling crop-watering machinerysplayed across fields like a massive stick insectand watch it come alive in the dawn, puffing clouds of mist over the green wheat and corn. I saw road signs dented with bullet holes, a swollen river that had swallowed an SUV during a storm swell, and a massive longhorn that stared closely at me as I nervously rode past. In the Rocky Mountains, I came across a 16-wheeler hauling a single blade for a wind turbine so massive that it was the length of a city block.
Your senses feel like theyre constantly engaged in a non-stressed fashionlike your body is constantly taking notes on the world around you.
Its a neat interplay of forces: Cycling occupies your forebrain with a welter of tiny decisions, while also feeding your mind with the chill and gorgeous spectacle of the world at large. Together, it seems to loosen up my hindbrainshifting it into a new and meditative gear.
Pondering ideas
Often, Id find myself pondering ideas triggered by the world around me. While cruising through Trenton, New Jersey, I passed a crumbly little strip mall with a tae kwon do joint next to a hot yoga salon, and it started me marveling at how America has phagocytosed so many of the worlds historic physical/mental/spiritual-fitness cultures and absorbed them, Borg-like, into the Puritan quest of bettering our fallen, lazy gnostic selves.
Ill also discover that, almost without noticing it, Im meditating on a bigger life issuesome challenge at work, some memory of my late mother, some friend Ive been meaning to call, a passage in a book Id forgotten but that now intrigues the hell out of me. I often suspect those deep, arc-of-life thoughts rise up precisely because of the curious, tripartite mental state of cycling. The top layer of vigilance keeps me focused, the stimulus of the world inspires ideas, while the deep ocean of my latent mind churns quietlyuntil, suddenly, some aha moment pierces the surface, like a cresting dolphin.
Now, I dont want to oversell the mental state of cycling in silence! This is not about experiencing soul-shattering Eat-Pray-Love breakthroughs out there in the saddle. I havent had any Einstein-level insights. Its more like it creates a useful atmospher in the mind. I come back less jittery, more prepared to handle the everyday thinking of life.
Would listening to music or podcasts or audiobooks break that spell? Would it block that sense of flow? I suspect so. In my daily life, Im not about to stop listening to music or stop scrolling around on my phone. Im a nerd; I love marinating in news and essays about science and technology and culture.
But on the road, I need silence.
Before becoming a coach for neurodiverse individuals with ADHD, Justine Capelle Collis had a successful advertising career. She worked in Australia and the UK, and also across the US and Canadian markets. Her clients have included Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.
And she achieved all this without realizing that she has ADHD.
That realization came when she became a mother. Both of her sons were diagnosed with ADHD, and she started asking questions. “How do I advocate and get the system to bend for them, rather than having them fit into the system and then break? she asked.
She then went on a personal journey to retrain. Collis enrolled in post-graduate study, and went through a specialist coach training in neurodivergent coaching. But along the way, she received her own ADHD diagnosis.
Being a mother of two sons with ADHD required “a different way of parenting,” she says. It also highlighted the feeling that something was off.
“I couldn’t make sense of it,” Collis recalls. “I can have a successful career, I can achieve all of these incredible things. Why am I failing at this thing that I’m biologically wired to do: which is to have kids?” A conversation with a coach friend of hers, who was also practicing to be a neurodiversity coach, revealed some ‘penny-dropping’ moments.
The reason she was able to succeed in her professional career, she explained, was that she had freedom and agency to design her working life in a way that aligned and worked for her. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case with other neurodiverse employees, who are often forced to survive in a world that is not designed or conducive to them doing their best.
But some companies are turning to coaching in an attempt to address this.
The growing awareness of neurodiversity
Like Collis, Dr. George Sachs also built a career while having ADHD. Sachs cofounded an app called Inflow with Levi Epstein and Seb Isaacs after 20 years of working as a clinical psychologist. The app provides support with adults with ADHD through various tools, including coaching. And while their customers are primarily individuals, they do work with organizations and universities that offer Inflow to their employees.
Sachs believes that social media has contributed to the rise of awareness in neurodiversity at work. Companies like EYand Microsoft for example, have a range of policies to support neurodiverse individuals.
They do that through work arrangements, modified workspaces, and educational resources. Thanks to social media, says Sachs, people have become more aware of diagnostic criteria for various neurodiversity conditions.
“At the same time, the concept of disorder is changing,” he says. Rather than seeing their conditions as a disorder, he explains, “you’re seeing this movement towards acceptance of difference.”
The value of neurodiversity-specific coaching
Neurodiversity exists on a spectrum, and even those with similar diagnoses often have unique struggles and challenges. And as a result, companies can’t rely on one-size-fits-all benefits, says Gijo Matthew, Chief Product Officer at Spring Health. The mental health platform launched a neurodiversity hub earlier this year.
“We decided to invest in neurodiversity because traditional mental health benefits often fall short for this community, leaving many employees without the resources they need to be successful, Matthew says. It’s that particular specificity that can make coaching a valuable tool for neurodiverse individuals.
Jill Johnson, a coach who works with executive leaders, women, parents, and individuals with ADHD, describes coaching as a ‘partnership.’ The coach might have a particular expertise, Johnson says, but “it’s also the lived experience of the client, who brings an equally important role to figuring out how to helpand taking ownership of how they can be successful in life, or in the workplace.”
How coaching helps neurodiverse individuals
Roman Peskin, CEO and co-founder of ed-tech startup ELVTR, also didn’t receive a diagnosis until later in his life. He describes trying a series of ‘normal’ jobs in his twenties that he was subsequently fired from, first as a travel agent, then later running a travel website. “Both times I got fired for the same reason,” he says: “not incompetence, but procrastination and inconsistency. Id do great work in bursts, then mentally disappear.”
This is something that Collis is familiar with. “The single biggest thing for brains like ours,” she explains, “is they fire up on interests, not based on external urgency, or what someone else or some external source says it should be. Even though we might know we need to do this thing first, we’re wired that way. So we have to function in a way that harnesses that capability, rather than forcing it into a box.”
For Peskin, that’s the value that coaching can potentially bring, though he stresses that the coach needs to understand what it’s like to have a “high-octane brain.” It won’t work if you have “neurotypical productivity guru pushing a GTD masterclass down your throat,” he says.
“A good coach could start by naming whats going on so you stop thinking ‘Im broken.’ Then help install realistic framework: sprints instead of marathons, accountability, focus blocks, external structure,” Peskin continues.
Because neurodiversity encompasses a wide range of conditions, a level of personalization is also necessary. A 2025 University of Reading study that looked at the inclusivity of a neurodiversity coaching program found that some neurodivergent individuals, for example, do better with text-based or audio-only coaching rather than via video conferences.
Coaches also need to be flexible and responsive in how they communicate. The study cited that some autistic individuals, for example, may face difficulty with open-ended questions. This means that coaches need to be able to adjust their method in a way that works for the employee.
The importance of organizational culture, support, and education
Peskin stresses that companies cannot rely on coaching to be the be-all and end-all. “I think of coaching as software,” he says. ÜMost companies still need to fix the hardware.”
“You can’t coach your way out of a toxic system,” says Collis. “So if the culture in a workplace is fundamentally broken, or not safe from a psychological perspective, then those issues need to be addressed first.”
For neurodiverse individuals, that support starts with education. There are a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes about neurodiverse individuals, says Sachs. For example, like the idea that those with ADHD might struggle to get their work done, or that everyone on the autism spectrum is blunt and introverted. A coach may be able to help a neurodiverse individual with time management or emotional regulation at work. However, the onus is also on the organization to provide a supportive and flexible environment so they can actually do those things.
This starts from the top. As a 2022 study published in AIB Insights concluded, any neurodiverse-inclusive initiative needs to have buy-in from leadership go have any chance of success.
It’s also about ensuring that the neurodiverse employee is employed in a role that actually allows them to use their strengths. “If your job is repetitive admin in an open-plan office with Slack on fire all day, no amount of coaching will turn that into a good fit for an ADHD brain,” says Peskin.
Coaching is also not a substitute for competent management, Peskin says. “If you bolt coaching onto a culture of constant interruption, vague expectations, and busyness show-offs, it just becomes an expensive Band-Aid on a system thats causing the wound.” Many neurodiverse employees also struggle with sensory distractions, as a 2025 Ernst and Young study found. For a workplace to be truly inclusive, it needs to facilitate flexible working arrangements or a physical space where neurodiverse employees can work without interruptions.
Ultimately, Peskin wants to see an attitude shift that sees neurodivergent talent as a strategic asset. As the 2022 study found, when organizations provide neurodiverse individuals the opportunity to play to their strengths, they’re more likely to make meaningful contributions to the company. In the abstract, the authors wrote, “the actions taken to accommodate neurodivergent employees often spill over to the benefit of all employees.”
Peskin says, “Neurodivergent talent is a competitive advantage, not a DEI show off. We dont need fixing. We need the rules of the game adjusted so our strengths actually count.”
