I recently argued that return-to-office mandates arent really about productivity; theyre about control. Ironically, my article published smack-dab in the middle of a September inflection point of increasing office time requirements, a phenomenon Owl Labs dubbed hybrid creep.
And now, perhaps shockingly, Ive started a new job with a team that (gasp!) has an office. When I wrote my argument against RTO, I had no inkling that I would soon be back in an office (part-time) myself. I am now basically in a live experiment. So far, its changed how I feel about the idea of going into an office. It hasnt changed my view on RTO.
A lab for truly flexible work
My new team has a completely flexible work-location approach. There is an office, and we can come in if we want to. But theres no requirement or badge-swiping.
Those of us who are local also collaborate daily with colleagues in drastically different time zonesEurope, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific (APAC). So our overall team is distributed enough that in-person work cant be our organizing religion. That makes my current situation a fascinating window into what happens when people are free to optimize their work model to their life needs, versus an imposed framework of what a workday is mandated to look like.
When in-person time is voluntary, rhythms emerge instead of rules
Im seeing that when location is genuinely a choice, people start building rituals.
Theres a weekly team meeting for which many people choose to be in the office. There are social opportunities like an annual holiday party and happy hours. And the office itself is an uplifting, interactive place where dogs are allowed, theres a bar in the kitchen area, and people play music throughout the day.
A few teammates come in more often simply because thats what works best for them. If someone is visiting from another location, the office fills up as people come in to see them.
In-office time also doesnt have to be a full day. Many of us have early calls with EMEA, so we take those from home, head into the office midmorning, and leave before rush hour to finish up from home again. A main team meeting is midday, on purpose, to make that flow possible.
A morning Slack thats more than a status report
Another ritual I love is a deceptively simple morning Slack each person sends sharing where theyll be that day and whether theyll be offline at any point.
On the surface, it sounds like basic coordination. In reality, it feels like a daily good morning and a window into each others lives.
The messages arent just Ill be online 9-to-5, WFH. Theyre things like We had a loss in our family, so Ill be taking the day off;My puppy was sick last night, so Im working from home; andHeaded to a workout midday and will be back online by 2.
These tiny updates are powerful because they keep us connected and normalize being a human with a life outside work. They also give us opportunities to respond and help cover for each other.
How Im using the office now
Im going into the office about two days a week, with my Tibetan terrier Basil trotting alongside me, eager to greet everyone when we walk in. My colleague keeps a laser pointer at his desk; Basil goes wild chasing the dot when we need a laugh break.
Im trying to schedule one-on-ones for days when others are in, so theyre in-person catch-ups, not just agenda boxes checked off. We get the power of group thinking around a table, friendly greetings, and the ability to take a walking meeting instead of more staring at a screen.
All of this feels like support, not surveillance. No one is proving they exist by punching a proverbial time clock. We go in by choice, which gives me gratitude for the option versus dreading going to an office.
So, has this changed my view on RTO?
Absolutely not. If anything, its reinforced my original point that dictating office time is a sign of poor leadership. The benefits Im witnessing wouldnt exist in the same way if they were forced rather than organic. The difference isnt office versus remote. The difference is a culture of empowerment versus a culture of control.
In a control culture, leaders start with mandates such as how many days people must come in, and then try to retrofit culture. Any sense of flexibility is granted like a favor.
In an empowerment culture, leaders start with trust and clarity: Heres what we need to achieve, heres how well communicate, here are your options of where you can work. Then they let people design their own patterns inside that useful guidance.
In the first model, the office is a compliance tool. In the second, the office is a resource people leverage when it helps.
A growing body of research on RTOs exists
Were far enough past pandemic-forced flexible work to start seeing how different work-location models perform and their impacts. For example, a large study done at Baylor University tracked the LinkedIn histories of workers at S&P 500 firms and found that when companies imposed RTO mandates, turnover jumped by about 14% and hiring took longer. Even more concerning, turnover was more likely among top talent and those important to diversity (especially women, whose turnover rate was three times that of men).
A separate two-year study of more than 800,000 employees by Great Place to Work found that productivity stayed stable or improved after moving to remote work; what mattered most was leadership quality and trust, not where people sat.
I expect that in the long term, companies that dont empower their team members with flexible work location will experience enough brain drain that it will be difficult to remain competitive. There must be a better way, and I believe Im experiencing a version of it.
What leaders can draw inspiration from
You may not be able to copy our exact setup, but you can borrow from these themes:
Replace mandates with rituals. Instead of dictating fixed in-office days, anchor around events such as weekly team meetings designed for collaboration, planning on-sites, and celebratory events that people actually want to attend.
Design for life needs. If you want in-person time, schedule office-based meetings to avoid peak commutes and respect caregiving schedules.
Start micro-updates. A daily or weekly Where Ill be check-in across the team takes only a minute for each person and creates a real sense of presence and care.
Foster inclusion. The office should be a place where everyone feels invited. Ensure that people who are typically remote feel this too. They get invites to all major happenings like holiday parties, a CEO visit, etc. And when someone from another office or region visits, others know so they feel invited to come in.
Make the office earn its gravity. If your office isnt a place people want to be (no dogs, decent spaces to collaborate, or sense of warmth), fix that before you fixate on policies.
Many keep asking, How do we get people back to the office? Thats the wrong question.
The better questions asked by true leaders are How do we give people the autonomy to choose the best place to do their best work while making the office one of those places? and How do we foster a culture that invites people in?
My current experience is proof that when you take these approaches, the in-office magic happens, no mandate required.
On the edge of Boulder, Colorado, a remarkable convergence of mutually beneficial collaboration is underway, and it could reshape how housing gets built, who builds it, and who is able to afford it.
This is all happening inside BoulderMOD, a new modular housing factory built by the city of Boulder for use by the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and powered by the labor of apprentice modular home builders from area public high schools.
The students come to the factory several hours a day for hands-on education in advanced home building, working on actual modular homes that are now being installed in a section of Boulder devastated by flooding. At full capacity, the factory could produce up to 50 homes per year.
[Photo: courtesy City of Boulder]
BoulderMOD is a joint venture between the Boulder Valley School District, Flatirons Habitat for Humanity, and the city of Boulder, and each of the three partners is tallying very tangible returns. The school district gets to offer an advanced trade-based curriculum that prepares its students for careers they can start immediately. Flatirons Habitat for Humanity gets to streamline and multiply its housing production capabilities, and the city gets to chip away at a deeply ingrained housing affordability crisis.
[Photo: courtesy City of Boulder]
“It’s game-changing,” says Dan McColley, executive director of Flatirons Habitat for Humanity. “It is a complete reinvention of the way we are serving families and meeting the needs of our community.”
This innovative partnership has its roots in tragedy. In 2013, devastating floods washed through the Boulder valley. One of the hardest-hit areas was the Ponderosa Mobile Home Park, a 68-unit community of permanently placed mobile homes, and though no lives were lost, many of the homes were heavily damaged.
In a city where the median home price currently hovers around $1 million, Ponderosa was a rare place of affordability, and seemed on the verge of being lost completely. The city stepped in and, working with the community, annexed the mobile home park in 2017 and upgraded its infrastructure to prevent future flooding. It partnered with Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild housing for any resident who wanted to stay, and committed to preserving the community’s affordability in perpetuity.
Getting that done was going to require an unconventional approach. “At the time, the Flatirons Habitat affiliate was building maybe three or four homes a year and looking at replacing 70-ish mobile homes,” says McColley. “It was going to take us a long time if we used our traditional model.”
[Photo: courtesy City of Boulder]
New skills, new homes
In 2019, the city approached the school district about following through on those commitments. Factory-built modular housing was identified as the most efficient way of rebuilding damaged homes. The city had funding for the rebuilding effort in its affordable housing fund, and a willing builder in the Habitat for Humanity. But it didn’t have the factory. So city officials reached out to representatives at the Boulder Valley School District, which had recently opened a trade-focused campus called Apex that offers career pathways to high school students. One of its programs was centered on construction. The city asked the district if that program could expand in a new direction.
“[The city] had this aspirational vision of what would happen if they were able to partner with the school district, build a facility, and then in a meaningful way take moves to help with the affordable housing issues in our community,” says Rob Anderson, superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District.
After five years of planning, that facility came online. The city built the $13 million BoulderMOD facility using funds from its affordable housing program, with some state and federal grants and private foundation money. Construction of the facility was finished in late 2024, and the space was then outfitted with about $1 million worth of construction tools and equipment.
[Photo: John Risi/courtesy City of Boulder]
Flatirons Habitat for Humanity staffed the facility, and the school district created a curriculum to support the production process. Production started in February 2025, with around 30 high school juniors and seniors in the factory every week, working on every stage of construction, from framing, electrical, and plumbing to drywall and roofing. The first two duplexes were placed on the Ponderosa site in November and December.
“It felt like the right thing to do for our community, for our kids. But man, it’s exceeded expectations,” Anderson says.
The Habitat projects are also helping support the community in other ways, including tapping into local suppliers for energy-efficient building materials. For example, Alpen, a high-performance window manufacturer located near Boulder, is providing all the windows for the Ponderosa homes.
McColley says the pace of construction will increase as the teams refine their processes and as the students gain more hands-on experience. The duplexes being built for the Ponderosa project are particularly conducive, as they use a single and relatively simple design for each three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom unit.
“At full production, the house will take about eight weeks to move from one end of the factory to the other, and then we’ll have about four, maybe five weeks of site work to do before the family can move in,” says McColley. “We’ll be cutting our construction timeframe from 9 to 12 months to about 12 weeks.”
[Photo: Linda Sanders/courtesy City of Boulder]
It’s so fast that it’s tweaking one of the standard elements of the Habitat for Humanity building process, which requires homebuyers to contribute to the cost of their home via 200 hours of sweat equity during construction. Homes built at BoulderMOD will progress so quickly that a homebuyer’s sweat equity will likely extend into someone else’s home.
McColley says building the 70 or so homes for the Ponderosa project will occupy BoulderMOD for the next few years, but his organization is already looking at using it for other Habitat for Humanity housing projects across the Boulder region. Every home built there will be sold as an affordable housing unit, and McColley expects about 90% of its production to be modular from this point on.
“Everything about what we do is different because we’re doing it this way. We’re building houses faster and we’re giving them out to families much more quickly in a much higher volume than we’ve done before,” McColley says. “So we’re tackling the affordable housing crisis in the near term through a different production process, but we’re also tackling it in the long term by training a new generation of construction professionals.”
The school district is already planning to expand the size of BoulderMOD to accommodate more students, even those not explicitly using it as a career path. “I see kids who plan on attending competitive four-year colleges and universities not even interested in construction signing up for this,” Anderson says.
Whether or not it turns into a job, the students at BoulderMOD are doing more than just learning construction skills. “They are learning how to build. They’re not working on bird houses or dog houses to learn their construction techniques. They’re working on people’s houses, and that’s something that is not lost on them,” McColley says. “They understand at a level that I frankly did not expect the community impact that they are having by building these homes.”
At a time when it seems like everything’s getting more expensive, Ikea keeps making cheaper and cheaper USB-C chargers.
Its newestthe 20-watt, single-port Sjösssells for $3.99. Youd pay more than four times that for Apple’s 20-watt, single-port USB-C charger, priced at $19. Charging cables for both are sold separately.
[Photo: Ikea]
Ikea has moved more aggressively into home electronics since last year. The company released a revamped range of smart home products in fall 2025 and opened pilot in-store pop-up shops in select U.S. Best Buy locations, meaning the brand now shares kiosk space with tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Meta. Its strategy: selling products that are designed to be simple, stylish, and, above all, affordable.
[Photo: Ikea]
Ikea already sells a 65-watt charger for $25 and a 30-watt charger for $8; its newest and smallest model is also its cheapest. Priced not to break the bank if you leave one behind in the hotel room and need a replacement, Ikea’s charger comes in just one colorway: white and light mint green, but each includes colored stickers to personalize.
Not content to sell us only Billy bookcases, Ikea’s push into home tech ranges from smart lights and wireless speakers to kitchen appliances and now ultra-cheap chargers. Everyone’s favorite Swedish furniture company has quietly become something of a tech company on the side.
Fast Company is now accepting applications for our annual Best Workplaces for Innovators awards.
This marks the eighth year we will be recognizing companies and organizations around the world that most effectively empower employees at all levels to improve processes, create new products, or invent whole new ways of doing business.
In addition to honoring the worlds overall Best Workplaces for Innovators, we will recognize companies in 19 categories, including a brand-new category, Skilled Labor, singling out companies that depend heavily on talented employees with the kinds of increasingly coveted technical expertise acquired through votech training and trade schools.
New Best Workplaces for Innovators categories
In addition to Skilled Labor, other new categories this year include:
Cybersecurity and Enterprise Software
Industrial and Manufacturing
Technology and Science
Advertising, Marketing, and PR
Biotech, Healthcare, and Life Sciences
Financial Services and Fintech
To select winners, the editors of Fast Company carefully review and score every application. An outside panel of industry experts then assesses the finalists to help determine the top 10, while the editors compile category winners based on application scores.
At a time of intense competition for talent, when elite prospects are receiving unprecedented compensation packages, companies with robust innovation cultures have a real edge, says Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. Best Workplaces for Innovators allows our editors to identify organizations that most successfully encourage all their employees to be creative, to experiment, to invent.
Recognition in the fall issue
Companies selected as Best Workplaces for Innovators will appear in the fall 2026 issue of Fast Company magazine and on fastcompany.com in September. For more information and details, see the FAQs.
Last years Best Workplaces for Innovators issue honored nearly 200 diverse organizations from around the world, including Motorola Solutions (No. 1), Mattel (No. 7), Genentech (No. 25), and the only two companies that have made the cut every single yearSiemens (No. 10) and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (No. 50).
What differentiates Fast Companys Best Workplaces for Innovators awards from other best places to work lists is that its the only major business magazine recognition program that emphasizes innovation as the primary workplace perk.
Any organization that can demonstrate a serious and sustained commitment to building a culture of innovation that yields tangible results is eligible to applypublic, private, or nonprofit. For more information or to apply, visit fastcompany.com/apply/bwi.
For more than a decade, Fast Company has been recognizing outstanding achievement with its awards programs. Our Most Innovative Companies list celebrates organizations that are transforming industries and shaping society through paradigm-shifting products, insights, or services. Innovation by Design focuses on individuals and firms that are addressing some of the worlds most intractable challenges through design solutions. World Changing Ideas highlights emerging initiatives that aim to enhance life for all of us. Brands That Matter and Next Big Thing in Tech shine a light on the worlds most relevant brands and highlight the most potent emerging developments in technology.
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In todays article, were sharing the full results from the Q4 2025 Zoodealio-ResiClub Real Estate Agent Survey. To conduct our real estate agent survey, ResiClub partnered with Zoodealio, a cash-offer platform, and iBuyer-management software designed for real estate agents.
Among the 204 agents who took the survey, half (51%) have been real estate agents for 15 years or longer.
The survey was fielded from November 17 to December 29, 2025. Respondents included real estate agents spanning all regions of the U.S., giving us a ground-level view of buyer urgency, seller motivation, leverage shifts, commission structures, and expectations for the next 12 months.
Heres what the results revealed.
Buyer urgency cools and leverage continues to shift away from sellers
Nationally, a majority (55%) of agents say buyer urgency is lower than it was 12 months ago. The pullback is most pronounced in the Southwest, where no agents reported seeing buyer urgency pick up, and 65% reported seeing lower urgency.
This slowdown is underlined by a continued downturn of buyer demand, with 52% of U.S. agents reporting lower homebuyer demand relative to 12 months ago.
As buyer demand softens and inventory continues to build, 54% of U.S. agents now say sellers outnumber buyers, with 64% of agents in the Southeast noting the trend, reinforcing that buyers are gaining negotiating power as they move less urgently.
Moreover, the overwhelming majority of agents across all regions (82%) agree that the leverage continues to shift toward homebuyers in their local housing markets.
As buyer urgency fades, seller urgency is rising. Nationally, 45% of agents say seller urgency is higher than it was 12 months ago, led by the West (51%), Southwest (48%), and Southeast (46%). In these regions, fewer sellers appear willing to wait for conditions to improve.
By contrast, the Northeast looks more stable: 55% of agents there say seller urgency is about the same as a year ago.
Agents expectations for 2026
In Q4 2025, 39% of agents surveyed expected home prices in their local market to increase over the next 12 months, up from 28% in Q3. The shift is driven by a rise in expectations for prices to stay flat or see slight appreciation, with only 2% of agents anticipating price increases of 5% or more.
Mortgage-rate expectations have dipped lower over the past quarter. Earlier in 2025, many agents were still bracing for a higher-rate outcome by the end of the year. As the year progressed, that view softened: Throughout Q4, most agents reported their expectations shifted toward a mid-6% end point, with far fewer expecting rates to remain in the 7% range.
Overall confidence is weak, but agents see growth coming from existing homeowners
Some 60% of real estate agents surveyed describe their business outlook for the next 12 months as optimistic, led by those in the Southeast (67%).
Where do agents think the pie can grow the most in 2026? They say more homeowners are looking to downsize.
Roughly 43% say downsizers will be the fastest-growing client segment, followed by move-up buyers (20%). First-time buyers trail well behind (15%), reflecting ongoing affordability constraints.
Agent commissions are holding upbut theyre still mad at NAR
Sentiment toward the National Association of Realtors remains weak: 57% of agents describe their view as somewhat unfavorable (26%) or very unfavorable (31%), while only 13% express a somewhat favorable (10%) or very favorable opinion (3%) of the organization.
Agent compensation structures remain largely similar to the way they were prior to the March 2024 NAR settlement: 88% of sell-side deals and 82% of buy-side deals still use fixed-percentage commissions, mostly in the 2% to 3% range. Alternative structures are more common on the buy side but remain a minority.
Meanwhile, about 10% of U.S. agents say they have discussed iBuyer cash-offer options with clients very often in the past year. These conversations are most common between agents and clients in the Southwest and the Southeast.
Big picture
The Zoodealio-ResiClub Real Estate Agent Survey results from Q4 2025 show a market moving in the same direction, but with more clarity than in Q3. Buyer urgency has cooled further, seller urgency has picked up, and the majority of agents say sellers outnumber buyers, reinforcing the ongoing shift in negotiating power toward buyers.
At the same time, expectations around home prices have firmed modestly, with fewer agents anticipating declines and more expecting flat to slight growth in the next 12 months. As in Q3, agents expect activity to be driven primarily by existing homeownersparticularly downsizers and move-up buyers. Meanwhile, post-settlement agent sentiment toward NAR remains poor, and commission structures remain largely unchanged.
The Swiss company Punkt has released its latest handset, the MC03, a cellphone that merges minimalist hardware design with a matching UX experience that promises total privacy protection against greedy corporations who want to track you and own your data for their own benefit. This thing got me at “DeGoogled From the Core,” which is one of the phone’s declared core selling points.
According to founder Petter Neby, “Punkt is about using technology to help us adopt intelligent habits for less distracted lives.” In 2015, Punkt launched its first phone, the MP01, as a secure device that supported only text and calls. No apps. No tracking. Punkt later released the MP02an even simpler phone that had a small screen and physical buttonsand the MC02, a secure phone with basic encrypted apps like email and calendar.
The new MC03 acknowledges that while people might appreciate this obsession with monastic simplicity, security, and privacy, there is clearly a need for some extra features from time to time, like ordering food, getting a cab ride, or wasting time on Instagram.
[Photo: Punkt]
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Punkt MC03 UX design divides your phone experience into two environments: One is a distraction-free, fully protected private environment called the Vault; the other is called the Wild Web, and its where all the Android apps you want to install live.
The Vault is the phone’s main screen. Here youll find the core built-in apps and services, all designed with safety and privacy from the ground up, with encryption, no third-party tracking, no data profiling whatsoever. Stuff like mail, messaging, calendar, contacts, or your file cloud live here. They’re featured on a white-on-black home screen in Helvetica type that’s meant to recall the iconic design aesthetic of Dieter Rams for Braun (an influence that permeates all of Punkts products).
The Wild Web features a fully customizable “external” screen, where youll find your standard rows of icons (white over black square buttons) over a white background. Its clearly distinct from the Vault so it changes your mindset: Security is not guaranteed here, although each app lives in a privacy bubble.
According to the company, the phone runs each app in its own walled playground, with no access to other data or hardware on the device. Punkt says this ensures your data privacy and limits third-party tracking from app to app (although if you use the same Gmail credentials to log into each app, Google will be able to track you on the server side).
Ending you are the product
The secret sauce behind this phone is AphyOS, a custom operating system that severs the umbilical cord that typically tethers Android phones to Mountain View’s data-harvesting servers. While a standard Android device “calls home” to Google every 4.5 minutes to report your location and habits, AphyOS uses “hardened code.”
This OS core has been reinforced to block attacks and close security loopholesassisted by what the company calls a bank-grade Secure Element chip that keeps your data on the device. It cuts out the bloatware and hidden background services that drain your phones battery and your privacy, giving you what Neby calls “a modern, premium device without the need to compromise.”
All of this digital sovereignty comes with a price tag, but thats exactly the point that Punkt is trying to make: Do you want to pay with your private life or do you want to pay to keep your life private? The MC03 includes a 12-month subscription to AphyOS, after which you will have to pay roughly $10 per month to maintain it.
By paying for the operating system, you become the customer rather than the merchandise sold to advertisers. As Andy Yen, founder of partner company Proton, puts it: “People deserve choice. Choice over the phone they use, the software they rely on, and who they share their data with.”
The monthly subscription price is not to use the phone but to pay for the services. The subscription bundles 5 GB of cloud storage, email, messaging, and calendar into a single secure package. But the real power comes from its integration with Proton. The phone comes with Proton Mail, Drive, Calendar, VPN, Wallet, and Pass, effectively replacing the entire Google Workspace with an encrypted alternative.
For messaging, Punkt has preinstalled the cross-platform encrypted client Threema directly into the MC03s Vault, ensuring your chats have “rigorous data protection and rock-solid security” right out of the box, the company claims. It also includes a VPN called Digital Nomad, which protects your connection on sketchy public Wi-Fi networks. Unlike standard VPN apps, this one is integrated directly into the operating system for better performance and requires no extra setup or third-party subscription.
p>Finally, the phone forces you to confront the cost of your digital life with the Data and Carbon Ledger. Punkt says this dashboard doesn’t just let you manage app privacy permissions in real time; it actually tracks the energy consumption and carbon footprint of every app you use, pushing you to make smarter, more sustainable choices about how you use your device. The ledger also gives you “full transparent control over app data flow,” allowing you to see and restrict app-specific privacy permissions.
[Photo: Punkt]
Nice hardware too
The object itself is a solid piece of industrial art designed in Switzerland and manufactured in Germany. Solid, matte gunmetal finish. Simple. Nothing added for effect. Just a metal-and-glass slab with a 6.67-inch OLED screen with the usual high-end 120Hz refresh rate standard.
One of the best features, however, is its removable 5,200mAh battery, which, oh boyin an era where phones are sealed shut like tombs, allowing users to swap their own power source is a radical act of repairability that extends the device’s life indefinitely. I missed this from the old 90s candy phones, and now I want it.
The MC03 doesn’t skimp on the modern specs required for the Wild Web. It sports a 64-megapixel main camera that the company claims can capture sharp images in low light, backed by an ultrawide lens for landscapes and a macro lens for close-ups. Like most phones, its water and dust resistant, and supports wireless charging. Priced at $699, its shipping in Europe later this month and hitting North America in the spring.
The federal government signaled a new direction in federal funding this week when it announced plans to put as much as $150 million into a private semiconductor startup. Instead of a grant or a loan, the government would take an equity stake.
It’s a meaningful departure from how federal funding has traditionally operated. For years, federal R&D support came structured as non-dilutive grants and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards that didn’t require equity concessions. An early-stage company proves its idea with federal support, investors wait for validation, and the company grows. If the government begins converting grants into equity stakes, that calculus changes fundamentally.
A quiet shift
The semiconductor deal is the latest in what has otherwise been a relatively quiet shift taking place inside the federal funding system as the Trump administration considers treating some grants like venture investments.
For founders, this creates genuine uncertainty. The government has not yet defined the rules of engagement for what ownership in a startup means. There are no clear answers about how much equity might be taken, how dilution would work over time, when the government expects a return, or who would manage these positions.
Startups already struggle to keep their capitalization tables clean enough for private investment. Adding a federal agency to the picture introduces new friction. While experienced investors routinely ask about investor composition before committing capital, even seasoned ones may hesitate if the answer includes “the United States government.”
History lessons
There is instructive history here. Twenty years ago, the state of Texas launched the Emerging Technology Fund with the goal of supporting high-growth technology companies through a venture model. The fund encountered structural problemsincluding non-dilution clauses that prevented it from being fairly diluted alongside other investorsthat ultimately undermined its portfolio companies’ growth. New investors wouldn’t fund them because the risk was not shared fairly.
The lesson is clear: Public capital can be valuable, but if it ignores downstream market dynamics and investor expectations, it can choke off the very growth it intends to catalyze.
The timing of this equity push is particularly concerning given that SBIR and STTR programshistorically the backbone of non-dilutive federal support for early-stage companiesexpired on September 30, 2025, and remain unauthorized. With traditional grant pathways frozen and equity stakes emerging as the new model, founders face unprecedented uncertainty about federal funding structures. The scale of this disruption is significant: These programs typically distributed approximately $4.73 billion annually to support scientific progress and early company formation.
That scale alone makes it essential to understand how any replacement federal support structure would function.
Program officers are experts in research evaluation and scientific merit. They are not trained to make venture-style assessments about valuation, equity terms, or long-horizon return timing. Asking them to perform both roles simultaneously creates tension. Conversely, finance-oriented staff who understand investment models are not necessarily equipped to evaluate frontier science. These programs do not operate like traditional venture funds.
Ripple effects
If the federal government proceeds with equity investments, it must understand the implications for early-stage companies and the ripple effects that follow. If federal agencies become equity holders, they will need to establish clear standards: How are positions structured? Who holds them? When is liquidity expected? How does the relationship evolve as companies raise capital? How are equity percentages, dilution rights, and board representation determined? These decisions cannot be improvised. They determine whether private investors engage or walk away.
Startups also need to reconsider their assumptions about federal programs. If equity or royalty components begin appearing, founders must decide what they are prepared to trade for early capital. They’ll need to understand how those terms affect later fundraising rounds and how private investors react to a federal stakeholder at the ownership table.
Digital health and medtech founders already have to navigate a complex landscape of regulatory pathways and clinical validation procedures. Having to decipher unclear investment rules from an early funder is more likely to stymie growth than accelerate it.
Eyes wide open
That’s not to say startups should avoid federal funding if equity is introduced. They may simply need to approach it with clear-eyed expectations about the long-term implications.
There is opportunity here if the federal government establishes clear rules. Beyond Texas, other states have experimented with public venture approachessome that helped companies grow, others that created lasting complications. If policymakers systematically study both categories, they can avoid repeatable mistakes.
The worst outcome would be moving forward without a framework and discovering too late that the system discourages private capital, slows company formation, or generates new burdens on innovators, investors, and taxpayers.
Policymakers have a responsibility to design federal equity participation that is predictable enough that companies aren’t blindsided by unclear terms, and transparent enough that private investors understand the government’s expectations and governance role. Otherwise, having Uncle Sam on your capitalization table may come with complications no one is prepared to manage.
Ellie Ghassali was on a plane back to the U.S. from Sydney when he spilled red sauce on his new phone. The phone still had its screen protector on, so he just peeled it off, and the red sauce was gone. At this very moment, an idea popped into his head: What if you could “peel off” your dinner plate in a similar way?Ghassali, who lives in New Jersey, is now the founder and CEO of Peelware, a company that makes disposable, peelable dinnerware that is biodegradable and compostable. Plates come in stacks of 15, meaning that you eat on the top layer, peel it off and compost it when you’re done, then eat anew on the next layer (the 14th). And then the next layer (the 13th), and so on. This reduces the need for single-use plastic plates, which are wasteful and often end up in a landfill. The concept is also more sustainable than the typical plant-based disposable plate, because it uses even less material per plate (considering one plate is basically as thin as parchment paper).The leakproof material, which took three years to develop and is now FDA-approved, feels a bit like parchment paper, but it’s more pliable. And each layer is made of plant-based wood pulp and sugarcane, with a sand-based coating. There is no wax, plastic coating, or PFAS (forever chemicals), which some parchment paper is treated with. And plates are just the beginning.[Photos: Peelware]Convenience has long fueled the American market. By some estimates, the U.S disposable tableware industry was worth $10 billion in 2025, and is showing no signs of slowing in the near future. While plastic ruled the industry for years, many brands are now rushing to make more sustainable alternatives, like World Centric or Repurpose, which make plant-based compostable plates and cutlery from annually renewable plants like sugarcane or bamboo. Peelware is part of that ecosystem, though it also comes with a reinvented UX.A paper plate made with 12 tons of pressureShortly after Ghassali got off the plane, he rushed home to make a prototype in his garage. The first prototype consisted of two regular plates that he ran over with his car in order to test how they would bond when compressed under immense pressure.Three years and 12 different models later, Peelware plates are now made by compressing layers with a hydraulic press. Ghassali explains that there are no additive layers or glues between each layer. What holds them together is simply 12 tons of pressure, as well as a cleverly designed edge that folds down to prevent layers from coming apart. “There’s nothing like this paper,” he says. “You can’t get it anywhere else.”Since Peelware launched in July, the company has sold 6,000 units. Earlier last year, the company had launched with a white version that Ghassali ended up retracting, as it was bleached with chlorine. His team couldn’t fulfill the first batch of orders, which left many customers angry enough to vent on Reddit. But Ghassali says the company has now reverted to a natural, unbleached material, and is back in business and fulfilling orders. They can ship internationally, thanks to collaborations with paper mills around the world.At-home testing has mixed (but mostly good) resultsWhen I tried the plates at home, I was a little skeptical. The layers were so thin I couldn’t believe my knife wouldn’t slash through the paper. I also worried that saucier foods would leak through to the bottom layer. So I decided to stress-test them with two of the oiliest foods I had in my fridge: first, leftover noodles with chili crisp; then, gnocchi with pesto. I also poured a spoonful of olive oil and left it sitting on the plate for two hours.The result took me by surprise. No amount of scratching cutlery against the plate did any damage. None of the olive oil seeped through. The pesto dish left the underneath layer slightly more wrinkled than it was, but none of the oil had actually leaked through. The only meal that appeared to pose a slight challenge was the noodle dish, which showed a couple of oily patches on the layer below. That night, the underneath layer smelled like chili crisp, but the smell was gone by the following morning. (Ghassali says the company will soon be releasing a new version in which each layer is 25% thicker, which may remedy the problem.)For now, Peelware sells peelable plates, which it calls Peelplates. In spring 2026, the company will also launch Peelbowls with the same folded edge, and later on, Peelcups and Peeltrays. Peelable cutting boards are also in the pipeline, which Ghassali sees as a safer alternative to the countless plastic boards out there that release microplastics when you run a knife through them.To be sure, wooden cutting boards remain your best bet, and ceramic dinnerware isn’t going anywhere. But next time you’re throwing a casual party with 20 people busying around in your kitchen, peelable plates just might be your new best friend.
Decades after selling Americans on the idea of jumping through transactions with online strangers, Craig Newmark is trying to get them to hold off on clicking through.
Last September, the Craiglist founder-turned-philanthropist and tech-policy activist launched Take9, a program pushing a nontechnical response to the complex problems of online scams and frauds.
Traditionally, security advice has focused on tools: Install security updates promptly, use a password manager, enable multifactor authentication, and upgrade to passkey logins if you can.
But phishing scams, misinformation campaigns, and other digital attempts to part people from their money, or their account credentials, evolve constantly. They usually retain one common element, though: They aim to provoke a response rooted in fear or anger, not thought.
In fewer words, theyre targeting your lizard brain.
Take9s advice doesnt involve any software or settings: Simply take a nine-second pause and think before you click, download, or share. Newmark has been working on the problems of digital security for a long time. But his previous efforts were aimed more at professionals. Take9 is aimed at individuals with fingers poised over a touchscreen, a mouse, or a keyboard, uncertain of what to do next.
No one is looking out for regular peopleand that’s how I identify, if nothing else because I’ve been a customer-service rep for the great majority of my work life, Newmark says on a video call. We all need a hand in terms of protecting ourselves, our families, our homes.
The federal government seems less likely to lend that hand after the Trump administrations deep cutbacks of federal cybersecurity staffing and programs. With Take9, Newmark is trying to help people help themselves in a low-tech way.
Please hold up
Waiting can give your noggin a chance to downshift. Thats the core advice of Take9.
There’s some behavioral research which suggests you wait a little while, and they typically cite 9 or 10 seconds before you actually go in and click things, Newmark says. He cites his own past misadventure rushing to buy some knockoff Ray-Ban sunglasses: I only realized after that I gave bad people my credit card number.
Compromised credit cards are relatively easy to fix. A hacked email account or social media presence can, by contrast, leave a much wider blast radius. And the messages trying to spoof or scare us into giving up critical credentials keep coming, because the attackers know that few of us can resist the urge to click.
It’s an ongoing problem with certain members of the family, but I will not disclose specifics, because Mrs. Newmark would yell at me, Newmark says.
As secondary steps to learning to take a beat before a click, the Take9 site offers pointers on the usual technological countermeasures, such as using a password manager and upgrading to passkey logins. (We would take exception with the sites recommendation to avoid public Wi-Fi; the advent of nearly universal encryption between sites and browsers should relegate that outdated advice to tech-myth status.)
It also invites visitors to sign up for a mailing list for updates on its campaign, partners, and useful resources.
Incremental improvements
Newmark isnt counting only on more self-aware behavior to slow the flood of attacks.
I think progress is being made, he says, pointing first to the rise of more secure domain-name-service systems that encrypt lookups of site names to prevent an attacker from shunting a visitor to a hostile look-alike.
Hes also optimistic about threat-sharing partnerships such as Global Signal Exchange, launched in October by Google and the industry groups DNS Research Federation and Global Anti-Scam Alliance.
GSE, which Newmark supported with a $1 million contribution in December, lets member firms share data about attackers and attacks confidentially to coordinate responses and research into future threats.
Newmark says hes already benefited from Googles addition of on-device AI to screen calls and messages from noncontacts for likely scam patterns, demoed at Google I/O two years ago and initially shipped in March.
Of course, AI is a weapon that can point either way: AI-generated people can now convincingly imitate real ones. And this attack isnt just a problem for IT hiring. Businesses have been scammed out of millions of dollars by AI deepfakes.
Newmark suggests that families agree on a code word that only they would know but allows that there might be something better.
Many security experts think there is. The recommend that if youre in doubt about a call from somebody who sounds like a friend or family member, hang up and call them back directly. Or ask the caller about something that only the real person would be in a position to know.
What does success look like?
Can a project with a goal as subjective as making people a little more street-smart online have a definable finish line?
Real success would look like ransomware scammers simply giving up because protections were that good, Newmark says. Scammers would find other crime to exploit.
But he also allows that those are impossible metrics. Those are examples of the perfect, and were not going to get there, he says, noting that hes in it for the long haul. Newmark says he still gets angry about the idea of somebody trying to rip off his customers. I take it personally, and I think everyone involved in any kind of platform should feel the same way, he says. It should piss them off.
Since exercise can make you smarter, less stressed, and happier, Google decided to find ways to help employees exercise more often. The research team assigned employees to one of three groups:
People in one group were asked to pick a convenient two-hour window, and to follow a strict routine: something along the lines of work out at 6 p.m. every day. They then received a financial reward every time they worked out.
People in a second group followed a flexible plan, working out whenever they wished. They also received a financial reward every time they worked out.
People in the third group (the control group) were simply encouraged to work out more: no routine, no plan, no financial reward pay.
Unsurprisingly, getting paid to exercise worked a treat: People in the routine and the flexible groups worked out more often than those in the control group.
More surprisingly, after four weekswhen the exercise habit was theoretically established, and the researchers stopped paying participantsthe flexible group (the people who followed a plan) were more than twice as likely to keep working out than the strict group (the people who had established a rigid routine).
Sound odd? Possibly, since high achievers love to talk about consistently following their rigid (especially morning) routines.
Problem is, routines are great until something disrupts that routine. In fact, the more rigid your routine, the more likely your routine will occasionally get disrupted. Something comes up, and you have to miss todays 6 p.m. workout? There goes your routine for the dayand since habits are a lot easier to break than form, tomorrows workout is also in peril. (Decades into exercising regularly, if I miss two workouts in a row, its still really hard to make myself work out on the third day.)
The flexible group? Their exercise wasnt tied to a specific routine or time. They often worked out when they planned, but sometimes they worked out when they could. Or they squeezed in a shorter workout. They wanted to work out, and taking a flexible approach gave them the latitude to figure out how to make it happen.
The difference? A somewhat flexible approach isnt a routine; its a practice. Here are a few examples of the difference:
Making cold calls every day between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. is a routine. Making 10 cold calls by the end of every day is a practice.
Holding an all-hands Zoom call every day at 10 a.m. is a routine. Checking in with one or two employees by the end of every day to see if they need help is a practice.
Eating broccoli and a sweet potato for lunch every day is a routine. Getting four or five servings of vegetables every day is a practice.
Routines are what you do. Practices are also what you do, but more important, they shape who you are.
Cant make cold calls at 4 p.m.? If you truly believe sales cures all and you make selling a practice, youll catch up later. Or make a few calls earlier in the day.
Cant hold an all-hands Zoom call at 10 a.m.? If you truly believe your job is to motivate and develop employees, youll make checking in with employees a practice. Youll stop by and chat with someone on your way to your office. Or youll spend a few minutes pitching in on the shop floor.
If what you want to do is important, youll find a way. As Ryan Holiday writes about routines and practices:
The difference is in the flexibility.One is about daily rhythm. The other is a lifelong pursuit. One can be ruined by something as simple as hitting the snooze button one too many times or getting called into work unexpectedly. The other can adapt accordingly.One (a routine) is something you made up. The other (a practice) is something you do.
Routines are fine, but if something happens to disrupt your routine, take a step back and focus on the goal your routine is designed to help you achieve, and then just achieve that goal in a different way.
Never lose sight of the fact that every element in a routine is goal-driven, and there are a variety of ways to achieve a goal. To grow sales. To check in with employees. To monitor performance. To get customer feedback.
To do almost anything.
If you can follow a certain routine, great. I eat the same thing for breakfast every day. Thats easy. The only way its hard is if I let myself run out of protein bars.
In most cases, though, routines are tough to consistently follow. Thats where practices come in. I want to live a longer, healthier life, so I try to work out every day. Most days, thats around 4 p.m. But sometimes its as late as 7 p.m., and other times earlier in the day. Most of the time that involves an hour or so of lifting, but if I cant get in a full hour, Ill modify what I do. If I cant use weights, Ill do bodyweight exercises. If lifting was a rigid routine, having to adapt would be irritating, and maybe even feel defeating. Since lifting is a practice, having to adapt is actually fun. (The other day I only had 30 minutes or so to work out, so I did 400 pushups and 400 vertical leg lifts.)
As Holiday would say, working out isnt something I made up. Its what I do. Exercise is a lifelong pursuit.
And I can keep doing it because, instead of a rigid routine, its a flexible practice that allows me to adapt to whatever the day might bring.
Jeff Haden
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
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