AI is radically changing the future of the workplace from redefining jobs to fueling the rise of so-called work slop. Live on stage at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Box CEO Aaron Levie, LinkedIns Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman, and Metas Head of Business AI Clara Shih share their insider perspectives on AI optimism, uncertainty, and navigating this unprecedented era.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian and recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
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Aneesh, there’s a real debate about the impact of AI on work and some say it will be positive, some say it will be negative. You’ve said it will be spectacular. Why?
Raman: I’m at LinkedIn, we are if nothing else, a platform of people. We go where the species goes. So for two years I have thought about human intelligence as my core focus For humans, work has kind of sucked since the industrial age. We have turned ourselves into efficiency machines, whether you’re at the assembly line or sending emails, it’s more, better, faster. More, better, faster… That isn’t who humans are. AI is going to out-efficiency us, robots going to out efficiency us.
That’s okay. We became the apex species, not because we were the most efficient, but because we were the most imaginative, the most innovative AI is going to force us finally to broaden our view of human intelligence. I’m pessimistic about our state of being ready for that because it’s entire new systems of education, employment, entrepreneurship, but we’re going to have to fix that and that’s great, I think.
Clara, we’ve heard this term that’s become very popular, work slop, that AI-generated work is creating more work. It’s like volume over quality Is work slop just a phase for AI? Is it like a bug that we’re going to fix or is this a feature and something that we’re always going to have to be vigilant about when we’re in a world where so much can be created so easily?
Shih: I think there’s always been work slop. I’ve been responsible for some work slop, especially earlier in my career. I think certainly AI makes it easier to create lots of work slop, and so just like any new technology. I can imagine the very first spreadsheets when they were invented, people weren’t sure how to use it. The features probably didn’t include checking the formulas, and so there were probably some really bad, incorrect spreadsheets. The same thing is happening now.
Raman: Like any tool, use it. Do not misuse it. Do not overuse it. There’s already lots of research. MIT has great research with brain scans that if you overuse AI, you’ll deplete your ability to grow critical thinking skills. AI helps individuals get started, but if everyone’s using it across a team, sameness creeps in. So it’s all about how you use it.
Aaron, you founded Box. You know how important and distinctive a culture can be in an organization. Each company is different. All of our cultures, each one is different. When we add AI agents to our work, do we need to orient them like we do new employees? If we all use off-the-shelf AI, are we going to end up with off-the-shelf culture?
Levie: Certainly. And by the way, I’m actually fine with lots of work slop because all I see is lots of files that are going to get generated
That’s good for you.
Levie: I think everybody here is familiar with context engineering. It’s sort of a simple analogy, which is if you have an employee off the street, super-intelligent person, doesn’t know kind of what job they’re in, they just appeared and you’re like, “Okay, today you’re a lawyer and the next day you’re a marketer and the next day you’re a coder.” That’s kind of what an AI model is. And so you have to give it the context necessary to be able to perform its tasks.
And so maybe actually ironically, if anything, you’ll have to get more context than the person would. It’s actually very easy for an employee to pick up the general cultural sort of norms and work practices because they can just look over at one other person and say, “Oh, I see the way that you just collaborated over there.” And so we’re more of a collaborative culture versus we just make really quick decisions and then move forward. An AI agent again doesn’t know, “Did I just join SpaceX or did I join Patagonia?” I’m assuming those are two different ends of the cultural spectrum. So you’re going to have to tell the agent effectively like, “Who are you right now? And here are the norms in our organization, and here is the context about the business process that you’re involved in.”
Clara, I talked to one CEO last week who said like he’s being pressured to adopt AI in areas that he’s not sure it’s actually beneficial for the business, but he feels like, “Oh, I’m getting this push from all different parts of the organization, investors, and the board.” How do leaders strike the balance between, “I got to be in this,” versus, “It’s not really showing any measurable impact now yet”?
Shih: I see this all the time from various leaders that I meet with. I think it’s first being hands-on and really getting in there and understanding the capabilities because I think with that judgment, with that firsthand experience, only then can leaders really know, “Okay, I want to apply it here but not here.” Another really great success formula is splitting up the team, having people focus on immediate use cases. What can I unlock today that will show me ROI this quarter, next quarter, versus what are the bigger bets where just I see the secular trend and we have to skate to where the puck is going
Levie: One pitfall that a lot of existing organizations will fall into, like us included when I walk around and try and talk about what kind of processes we can bring automation to, I think there is this idea that we have this sort of end-state utopian view of AI can do anything and can automate anything. The reality is that if you drop AI into today’s business process, it’s going to actually do very little and you have to actually re-engineer your workflow and you have to re-engineer your process. I think a lot of times, unfortunately, you’ll see people try and drop in AI into a process where then even with thebest automation, you’re going to get a 10% gain or whatnot of that workflow.
It’s not world-changing.
Levie: It’s not world-changing, but it’s because you didn’t think about re-engineering the workflow for AI. And we thought AI would work how we do. It turns out it might be the case that we have to work how AI does and we have to be actually in service of the agent to make it most productive as opposed to this unfortunate reality where we probably thought it would make us productive.
It’s a little terrifying. Your job is to make the AI more productive?
Levie: Totally. Well, so there was some offsite 15 years ago where one of our engineering managers told me about the inverted pyramid. His job is to enable all the people below him technically in a hierarchy, but to be as productive as possible. And it was sort of this inversion of like he works for them to make them as effective as possible. And the reality is that that’s kind of what we’re going to be doing with AI agents for quite some time because we’re going to be working to make them effective And if you look at the five and 10 and 20-person startups that are AI-native fully, they don’t have a single business process, that’s basically what they’re doing. They’re working to support agents to be super effective, and that’s just a totally different way to work.
Raman: Make them more productive to make you more impactful.
Shih: Yeah, help you help me.
Raman: I think we have to be affirmatively pro-human. It’s hard to state how radical it is.
The U.S. Department of Energy has struck a $1 billion deal with Advanced Micro Systems (AMD) to build two supercomputers that have unprecedented power to supercharge scientific advances ranging from nuclear power to developing cancer treatments.
The partnership, first reported by Reuters on Monday, will ensure the U.S. government has the necessary computing power to accommodate enormous amounts of dataand could deliver about three times the AI capacity of current supercomputers. The artificial intelligence-powered supercomputers could be deployed for advancing nuclear power and replicating fusionthe process that fuels the sun and creates massive amounts of energy.
Were going to get just massively faster progress using the computation from these AI systems that I believe will have practical pathways to harness fusion energy in the next two or three years, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters.
Shares of AMD rose nearly 1% in midday trading on Monday. The semiconductor makers stock has more than doubled in value this year, and the company recently forged a partnership to supply its chips to OpenAI to build out AI infrastructure.
Neither the Department of Energy nor AMD responded immediately to a request for comment from Fast Company.
SUPERCOMPUTER TIMELINES
The forthcoming supercomputers could be used to further advancements in technologies for defense and national security, including helping the U.S. government to manage its arsenal of nuclear weapons, along with accelerating drug discovery for the treatment of cancers, Wright told Reuters. My hope is, in the next five or eight years, we will turn most cancers, many of which today are ultimate death sentences, into manageable conditions.
The first of two supercomputers, Lux, could be up and running within the next six months and will be based on AMDs MI355X artificial intelligence chips and the companys central processing units (CPUs) and networking chips. The supercomputer system is co-developed by AMD, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
The timeline for Lux will mark the fastest deployment of this size of supercomputer that AMDs CEO, Lisa Su, has ever seen, she told Reuters. “This is the speed and agility that we wanted to [do] this for the U.S. AI efforts.”
A second, even more advanced supercomputer, called Discovery, will have a longer timeline for completion and is expected to be ready for operations sometime in 2029.
Rare earth stocks find themselves underground on Monday as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects that China and the U.S. will work out a trade deal in the near future.
Meanwhile, stock markets largely soared on news of the trade optimism, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up roughly 0.5%, the S&P 500 up 1%, and the Nasdaq up 1.6% as of midday Monday.
Bessent, appearing on CBS Face the Nation Sunday news program, said that he anticipates that China will resume soybean purchases from the U.S., and that there could be an announcement on Thursday when President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in South Korea.
I’m not going to get ahead of the two leaders who will be meeting in Korea on Thursday, but I can tell you we had a very good two days, he said. “So I would expect that the threat of the 100% [tariff] has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export control regime.
Part of those export controls concerns rare earth minerals, which are used in the manufacturing of a wide variety of products, such as vehicles and consumer electronics. And Bessents comments led to some earthquakes in the market on Monday, as rare-earth stocks fell significantly.
Shares of MP Materials, for instance, were down more than 9% since the market opened, as of midday Monday. USA Rare Earth Inc., likewise, was down roughly 10%.
Notably, MP Materials share price is up more than 312% year-to-date and USA Rare Earth shares are up roughly 85%. So investors are still making out well, despite todays downturn.
The issue at the molten core of the rare earth trade is the fact that China controls the vast majority of rare earth mineral production and refining. By some measures, the Chinese control as much as 70% of rare-earth mining, 80% of refining and processing capacity, and more than 90% of the worlds supply.
That means those minerals are scarce, which drives up pricesand share prices of companies operating in the space outside of Chinese control.
While we dont know yet what kind of trade deal or agreement will surface later this weekor if one will at allBessents signaling that things are heading in a positive direction is whats having an effect on rare-earth stocks today.
If it seems like Black Friday deals, and holiday shopping in general, is starting earlier and earlier, you’re right.
Just in time for, um, Halloween, both Walmart and Best Buy have announced plans for their 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Black Friday, always the day after Thanksgiving, falls on Friday, November 28 this year. Deals generally continue through that weekend into Cyber Monday, which falls on December 1.
However, in recent years, many retailers have jump-started the sales some two, or even three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. And this year is no different.
Here’s what to know.
When do Walmarts Black Friday deals start?
The world’s largest big box retailer often sets the schedule for Black Friday deals, according to Axiosso take note.
This year, Walmart said it will hold two different Black Friday sales events, rolling them out at different times online and in stores nationwide.
Walmart+ members (those who pay for the retailers subscription tier) get first access to the deals starting on Thursday, November 13 at 7 p.m. ET, with sales opening for everyone else online and in-stores on Friday, November 14 and ending on November 16.
The second event starts on the Monday before Thanksgiving, on Monday, November 24 at 7 p.m. ET for Walmart+ members; then online-only on Tuesday, November 25 through Thursday, November 27; and finally, both in-store and online on Black Friday itself, Friday, November 28 to Sunday, November 30.
Walmart Cyber Monday 2025 sale
The same drill goes for Cyber Monday, when Walmart+ members get early access beginning at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 30 for the online-only sale.
The sale starts on Monday, December 1 for all shoppers.
Best Buy 2025 Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales
Best Buy is starting even earlieron Halloween (yes, you read that right).
This Friday, October 31, Best Buy is rolling out its early Black Friday tech deals called “DoorBOOsters”available on the Best Buy App, BestBuy.com and in-store. Members of Best Buy’s two programs, My Best Buy Plus and My Best Buy Total members, also get up to $25 in bonus rewards on select products.
More Black Friday sales kick off Thursday, November 20, with savings on computing, gaming, home theater, wearables, and more.
Cyber Monday comes a day early, on Sunday, November 30, with up to 50% off select tech.
No one does the holiday shopping season like Best Buy, so we decided to expand the definition of holiday and start the fun on Halloween this year, Jason Bonfig, chief customer, product, and fulfillment officer at Best Buy, said in a statement. Whether you want to shop in your costume, or wait until Black Friday, well be here all season long with the best gifts, unbelievable deals and endless ways to discover the coolest products.
Holiday shopping is forecast to increase at a lower rate than last year, as Americans feel the effects of Trump’s tariffs; inflation and the skyrocketing cost of living, including higher grocery costs; and a government shutdown which has many federal workers going without paychecks amid mass firings.
Holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 2.9% and 3.4% in 2025, according to Deloittes annual holiday retail forecast, versus 4.2% in the same period in 2024.
Its official: Twitter.com is about to bite the dust forever.
According to a series of tweets from Xs @Safety account, posted between October 24 and October 25, the social media platform plans to finally retire the Twitter domain on November 10. Currently, searching for Twitter.com still leads directly to X, but soon, that will no longer be an option.
The domains phase-out comes more than two years after Twitter owner Elon Musk renamed the platform X in July 2023, much to the dismay of many loyal users.
At the time, critics argued that the rebrand was destined to fail, with some going so far as to call it brand suicide.
And while many former users have indeed jumped ship to competing platforms like Threads and Bluesky in the years since Musks $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, it looks like the new name is here to stay.
The announcement that Twitter will soon disappear into the annals of internet history came subtly buried in a message from Xs @Safety account that, due to the domains retirement, users who rely on certain two-factor authentication (2FA) methods will need to update their log-ins before November 10.
Heres what you need to know about the notice:
How to make sure your X account doesn’t get locked
According to an initial post from @Safety, all X accounts that use a security key as their 2FA method will need to re-enroll their key in order to keep accessing X after November 10.
Per a second post, a security key does not refer to users who rely on an authenticator app to log into X.
Instead, this notice only pertains to anyone using a physical security key (like a Yubikey), or a passkey, which is an encrypted, passwordless log-in option that typically requires users to enter a face scan or fingerprint scan.
These methods are typically used to keep accounts safer, since they make it more difficult for hackers to access passwords and log into accounts remotely.
If you use a security key or passkey to log into X, heres what you can do before November 10 to avoid locking your account:
Open your account and navigate to Settings.
Select Security and account access, then click “Security” and open the Two-factor authentication section.
Click the Add another key option and follow the steps to create a new security key or passkey thats linked to the x.com domain rather than the former Twitter.com domain.
Per the @Safety post, After November 10, if you havent re-enrolled a security key, your account will be locked until you: re-enroll; choose a different 2FA method; or elect not to use 2FA (but we always recommend you use 2FA to protect your account!)
X did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment on what other steps its taking to ensure that the Twitter retirement process proceeds smoothly.
Small importers for large U.S. retailers rushed in China-made strollers and wares meant for spring and are storing the goods in their own warehouses to avoid the big tariff bills that had been threatened over the next month.
Before Sino-American talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur eliminated the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1, importers were expecting to shoulder the staggering levies.
In response, importers of goods sold at retailers Walmart, Amazon, and Target chose to risk loading their balance sheets with inventory that may take months to move out, and pay more for warehousing costs. They’re also betting consumer spending holds up in the spring as lower-income consumers rein in spending and the economy remains uncertain overall.
“We are trying to front-load spring orders,” said Leslie Stiba, CEO of high-end stroller-maker Austlen Baby Co. “We brought in as much as we could manage.”
Stiba said she placed orders for 20% to 25% more strollers for spring 2026her biggest seasoncompared to the last. Overall, she is holding 50% more inventory than before the start of Trump’s trade war, and has held off on hiring due to the new expenses.
Front-loading has become the norm for months now, as businesses have tried to get in front of Trump’s vacillating levies. Importers bulked up shipments from China during the six-month tariffs truce between the two countries, triggering a surge in shipping rates and port activity.
Reuters reporting, in the days before the framework of a tariff truce was hashed out on Sunday, shows the phenomenon continued for spring 2026 shipments.
Like many importers of China-made goods, Stiba had to stop shipments earlier this year when Trump first imposed tariffs of about 145%. The halt hurt her business because she did not have enough inventory to fill orders.
Ahead of schedule
Some Chinese suppliers took a more relaxed view, baking tariff-related uncertainty into their business plans.
“Whatever happens on November 1 will happen, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” said a toymaker in southern China, who did not want to be named for privacy reasons.
“I don’t think very many people are assuming that tariffs will rise dramatically. People might be doing some front-loading deals with the assumption that we will have a three-month extension window, but there wasn’t enough time to move orders forward to meet the November 1 deadline even if you wanted to.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday he anticipates that a tariff truce with China will be extended beyond the November 10 expiration date.
Deng Jinling, manager of a Chinese company that exports thermos flasks to the United States, told Reuters before Sunday’s development that her shipments were still going out normally and she wasn’t worried about further levies.
“Theres no rush,” she said. “Most of the goods have already been shipped. Only about 20% of the U.S.-bound cargo is left.”
Not all U.S. importers ramped up shipments.
Spreetail, which distributes large items like trampolines, was waiting to see if the tariffs would stick, said chief merchandising officer Owen Carr.
Spring merchandisefrom warmer-weather apparel to Easter basketsusually arrives stateside at the end of the year, with volumes peaking right before China’s Lunar New Year celebration in winter.
“Until there is a clear path forward or a resolution (to the trade war), we can expect to see more front-loading,” said Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer at the Port of Long Beach, the U.S.’s second-busiest. “It has resulted so far this year in a tsunami of cargo.”
This year, record volumes including spring goods are far ahead of schedule, he said.
Mitigating risks
Retailers are ordering more from suppliers’ domestic warehouses, rather than picking up directly from China, executives at toymakers Hasbro and Mattel have said on recent calls. That allows them to mitigate tariff risks and control the pace of stocks on their shelves as shoppers tighten budgets.
Holiday toymaker Hey Buddy Hey Pal, which imports Easter-egg decorating kits from China, already has 50% of its goods for the spring ready to be shipped from a warehouse in Dallas, said Curtis Gill, co-founder of the company.
Balsam Hill, which supplies artificial Christmas trees and seasonal decor, recently decided to move forward with spring orders of floral wreaths it had been holding back on placing, said CEO Mac Harman.
“We did a scaled-back order for spring,” Harman said, adding that he raised prices.
Jessica DiNapoli, Siddharth Cavale, and Arriana McLymore, Reuters
Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein, Casey Hall, and Sophie Yu.
Metas Threads app is leaning into impermanence.
Starting Monday, the platform is rolling out ghost posts, a new post format for sharing fleeting thoughts that automatically disappear after 24 hours. Think Snapchat or Instagram Storiesexcept, for text.
Unlike regular Threads posts, replies to ghost posts go straight to the users messaging inbox rather than inline, and only the author will be able to see who liked or responded to them. Its a subtle but significant shift toward private engagement within a public feed, providing a middle ground of sorts between Twitters public discourse model and Instagrams close-friends Stories.
Meta says the feature is aimed at reducing the pressure of permanence and sparking more spontaneous conversation.
Disappearing posts, reappearing trend
If this sounds familiar, its because social media has been flirting with ephemerality for years. Snapchat built an empire on vanishing messages, and Instagram Stories borrowed the format and made it mainstream. Even X (formerly Twitter) experimented with Fleets, its own 24-hour post format, before quietly shelving the feature in 2021 after low engagement.
Threads take, however, differs in intent. Rather than mimic Story-style content, ghost posts appear directly in the main feed where conversations actually happen and fade quietly after a day. Its a move that positions Threads as both reflective of older, text-driven social media, and responsive to users increasing desire for less performative spaces.
Building a more flexible feed
Ghost posts join a growing list of new Threads features designed to broaden the platforms creative range.
Over the past few months, Meta has added support for 10,000-character text attachments, and a Spoilers toggle that hides media or text until tapped. Together, the updates seem to position Threads as a kind of social sandbox, one where both the long-form essay and the fleeting thought can coexist.
Trust is the essence of collaboration: as Yuval Harari eloquently noted, we as a species would not exist if it werent for our superior ability to collaborate so effectivelyand its largely down to trust.
In the days of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, decisions on trust were relatively straightforward, even when it came to appointing leaders. Indeed, our ancestors lived in small groups of closely related individuals and spent all of their time together. Furthermore, the key attributes they were interested in evaluating or judging were easy to observe: courage, practical knowledge, hunting and fishing dexterity, and physical strength. There was no need then for psychometric assessments, AI, or scientific tools to assess either leadership potential or integrity, and mistakes were extremely costly because if they picked the wrong leader the whole group would just vanish at the expense of better led rival groups.
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But, fast-forward to our modern times, things are uncomfortably complex and hard for everyone. At work we must infer whether we can trust our colleagues, coworkers, and bosses, even when we never met them in personthey are, in physical terms, purely pixels on the screen of our Zoom calls. In politics voters are asked to pick between shrewd politicians who have mastered the art of deceit and manipulation and specialize in telling people what they want to hear, irrespective of their actual leadership capabilities. Unsurprisingly, the world is led by heads of states who enjoy dismal levels of popular approval, even when they rose to power with legitimate voter support. As I illustrate in my latest book, politicians are the ultimate example of the disconnect between our perceptions of leaders authenticity, and their actual honesty or genuineness.
And yet, there is still reason to be hopeful and no reason to give up. Fortunately, science provides serious lessons for improving our ability to trust the right person and minimize the risk that we end up trusting the wrong person. In fact, the science of trust includes hundreds of robust studies decoding the predictors or determinants of individual differences in trust, as well as practical learnings on how to infer them in the most objective, reliable, and risk-free way.
Here are five key lessons to consider:
1) Despite the complexity of trust inferences, people make trust evaluations and decisions in a fraction of a second: As Amos Trervsky and Daniel Kahneman put it, humans may be capable of thinking slow or rationally, yet most of the time we think fast, which is a euphemism for not thinking at all. Indeed, not only do we make rapid, careless, and furiously fast inferences of other peoples character traits, we are also overconfident about the accuracy of our inferences, and stubbornly wedded to them to the point that no amount of evidence will change our mind. This may be the best explanation for why no amount of facts or evidence may change voters preferences even after its blatantly obvious that they chose poorly (not least because they themselves are disadvantaged by their own choices). The solution? Well, we must learn to distrust our instincts and refrain from following our gut feeling. It is only through gathering reliable and predictive data, and following the facts, that we can hope to focus on substance rather than style. This is particularly important when we are assessing potential candidates for leadership roles, whether its the president of a country or a senior leader in a firm.
2) Leaders who are just being themselves ought not to be trusted: As I illustrate in my latest book, there is a paradoxical relationship between how authentic we feel and how authentic other people think we are. In particular, behaving without any pressures to conform and displaying your uninhibited and uncensored thoughts and feelings to others will feel authentic to you while polarizing, alienating, and annoying others (it is, alas, what powerful and entitled leaders do when they stop caring about how others see them). In contrast, the leaders who are seen as not just trustworthy, but also competent by others, know how to manage their reputation, engage in strategic impression management, and go to great lengths to show only the best version of themselvesthat is, the elements of their character and identity that align with the situational demands. In other words, they know where the right to be themselves ends and their obligation to others begins. This is why empathy, self-control, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and EQ are far better predictors of leadership integrity and performance than self-perceived authenticity is.
3) Charisma is a dangerous signal. Although charisma is a clear enabler of effective leadership, not least because it helps people to emerge as leaders, it can also help leaders to mask their incompetence or unethical motives. In that sense, you can think of charisma as an amplifier: when leaders are honest and competent, it will help them in their quest to turn a group of people into a high-performing team; but when they are dishonest or incompetent (or even worse, both), their charisma will turn them into pretty harmful, destructive, and toxic creatures. Since charisma is often conflated with trustworthinesswe like and admire people who seem charismatic and therefore gravitate towards them, including when it comes to trusting themit would be usefl to resist the allure of charisma when we infer integrity or competence in leaders. Quiet, low key, serious, and intelligent people make excellent leaders even if they dont seem entertaining. Charismatic, charming, entertaining, and attention-seeking leaders may use their social skills to manipulate, influence, and seduce, especially when they have psychopathic, narcissistic, or Machiavellian tendencies.
4) Our ability to trust is significantly reduced under stress, anxiety, or pressure. This is obviously a huge problem, since in these instances it is usually imperative to trust the right person. In other words, the more we need to trust people, the more vulnerable we are to trusting the wrong person. The lesson here is obvious: dont make trust-related decisions when your emotions are clouding your judgment; first relax, breathe, look for the right moment and the right mental zone, then try to think rationally.
5) Some people are naturally more trusting than others: this depends not just on their personality, but also the culture in which they grew up. Paradoxically, prosocial and healthy cultures are more likely to engender trust, since free riders and imposters are less likely to emergebut this also makes those cultures more vulnerable and susceptible to such toxic agents. In contrast, corrupt, antisocial, and failed cultures will have low levels of trust, since everybody is rightly paranoid of being cheated or deceived by others. However, this will make it impossible to cooperate and collaborate in such cultures, which further contributes to their downfall. At the individual level, it is helpful to understand whether your bias is too much trust or too much skepticism, so you can always recalibrate or adjust your impressions towards a more objective center point.
In the end, trust remains the ultimate leadership currency: hard to earn, easy to lose, and impossible to fake for long. Titles, charisma, or confidence may help leaders gain followers, but only integrity, a reputational accolade that must be gained through long-term actions rather than short-term impressions, keeps them there (unless they decide to keep themselves there through excessive force, power, or unlawful means). In an age where image routinely outpaces substance, the most trustworthy leaders will be those who act as if someone were always watching; not because they fear being caught, but because they dont need to hide.
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U.S. President Donald Trump received a royal welcome on Monday in Japan, the latest leg of a five-day Asia trip which he hopes to cap with an agreement on a trade war truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump, making his longest journey abroad since taking office in January, announced deals with four Southeast Asian countries during the first stop in Malaysia and is expected to meet Xi in South Korea on Thursday.
Negotiators from the world’s top two economies hashed out a framework on Sunday for a deal to pause steeper American tariffs and Chinese rare earths export controls, U.S. officials said. The news sent Asian stocks soaring to record peaks.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for President Xi and I think we’re going to come away with a deal,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One before landing in the Japanese capital Tokyo.
TRUMP MEETS JAPANESE EMPEROR
Wearing a gold tie and blue suit, Trump shook hands with officials on the tarmac and gave a few fist pumps, before his helicopter whisked him off for a scenic night tour of Tokyo. His motorcade was later seen entering the Imperial Palace grounds, where he met Japanese Emperor Naruhito.
Trump has already won a $550-billion investment pledge from Tokyo in exchange for respite from punishing import tariffs.
Japan’s newly elected prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is hoping to further impress Trump with promises to purchase U.S. pickup trucks, soybeans and gas, and announce an agreement on shipbuilding, sources with knowledge of the plans told Reuters.
Takaichi, who became Japan’s first female premier last week, told Trump that strengthening their countries’ alliance was her “top priority” in a telephone call on Saturday.
Trump said he was looking forward to meeting Takaichi, a close ally of his late friend and golfing partner, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, adding: “I think she’s going to be great.”
Thousands of police are guarding Tokyo. A knife-wielding man was arrested on Friday outside the U.S. embassy and an anti-Trump protest is planned in downtown Shinjuku.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Japanese counterpart Ryosei Akazawa, architects of the tariff deal agreed in July, are set to hold a working lunch on Monday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, travelling with Trump alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is also expected to meet his new counterpart, Satsuki Katayama, for the first time.
IMPERIAL WELCOME FOR TRUMP’S RETURN
Trump was the first foreign leader to meet Naruhito after he came to the throne in 2019, continuing an imperial line that some say is the world’s oldest hereditary monarchy.
Naruhito’s role, however, is purely symbolic, and the key diplomacy will take place with Takaichi on Tuesday.
Trump and Takaichi are set to meet at the nearby Akasaka Palace, where he met Abe six years ago, and will be welcomed by a military honour guard. Among the investment pledges, the two countries will sign a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday on investment in shipbuilding, a source with knowledge of the plans said.
Takaichi is also expected to reassure Trump that Tokyo is willing to do more on security after telling lawmakers on Friday she plans to accelerate Japan’s biggest defence build-up since World War Two.
Japan hosts the largest concentration of U.S. military power abroad. Trump has said previously Tokyo is not spending enough to defend its islands from an increasingly assertive China.
While Takaichi has said she will speed plans to boost defence spending to 2% of GDP, she may struggle to commit Japan to any further increases that Trump seeks, as her ruling coalition does not have a majority in parliament.
Trump is due to leave on Wednesday for Gyeongju in South Korea, where he will hold talks with President Lee Jae Myung. Bessent told reporters the overall framework of a deal with South Korea was also done but would not be finalised this week.
Thursday’s expected meeting with Xi will come after Washington and Beijing have raised tariffs on each other’s exports and threatened to halt trade involving critical minerals and technologies.
Neither side expects a breakthrough that would restore the terms of trade that existed before Trump’s return to power.
Talks to prepare for the meeting have focused on managing disagreements and modest improvements, before a visit by Trump to China expected early next year.
Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski, Laurie Chen, Jihoon Lee and Ju-min Park
Trevor Hunnicutt, John Geddie and Tim Kelly, Reuters
Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, grew up with MTV and empty houses, earning them the name “latchkey kids.”
The first generation who logged onto AOL Instant Messenger and played video games while still enjoying the freedom that came before helicopter parents took over is fascinating. But as a small generation that falls between baby boomers and millennials, they’re often overlooked.
When it comes to their spending power, however, Gen X is small but mighty. According to a new report from ICSC, a trade association for retail real estate, Gen X may have more spending power than brands realize.
While Gen X only makes up around 19% of the U.S. population, the demographic is responsible for 31% of online and in-person spending, the report finds.
Not only do Gen Xers buy more in stores than baby boomers, millennials, and Gen Z across categories (luxury, fitness, and total retail costs), they’re also driving spending on dining out.
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Per the report, Gen X is responsible for nearly one-third of all restaurant spending.
Tom McGee, president and CEO of ICSC, said in a press release that Gen X is “the powerhouse driving todays retail economy, spending more per shopper than all other generations.”
Outsized spending impact in five states
According to the report, Gen Xers are such powerful spenders that their mere presence in locations across the United States actually has a major impact on the market in that area.
More than one-third of the generation’s population lives in just five states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania, and their spending is impactful.
It’s especially evident in Florida cities like Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, as well as Houston, Texas, and more.
We know that younger shoppers tend to be deeply loyal to the brands they love. But Gen X is exceptionally set in their ways, too. No big surprise. I mean, have you ever met a Gen Xer? You can’t convince them to love something they hate and vice-versa.
That’s likely why 81% of latchkey kids say they are loyal to the brands they trustand they probably always will be.
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“Gen X is pragmatic, loyal to brands they trust, and influential decision-makers for themselves, their children, and their parents, McGee says. For retailers, there is no bigger near-term growth opportunity than winning the loyalty and the dollars of Gen X.
Gen X isn’t just spending more than other generations. They’re also plugged in online, as they are massively tech-savvy, using online tools like social media regularly. According to the report, 92% of the generation is on social media daily.
Still, brands aren’t marketing to them. Only 5% of brand influencing spending targets Gen X, which experts say is a huge mistake.
“Theyve got wealth . . . They may be looking to start to make that semi-retirement-type transition,” Ryan Marshall, president and CEO of PulteGroup, a homebuilder, says in the report, “but they still consider themselves to be very young and active.”
Those factors definitely seem to promote spending. But soon, that may be especially true of Gen X, as a major transfer of wealth is about to take place. Around one in three Gen Xers expect to receive an inheritance, which could come out to around $308 billion annually in spending.
While Gen X’s lingo may be lowkey dated, their currency still works. Brands may be focused on appealing to on-trend millennials and Gen Zers, but they’d be wise not to write off the MTV kids just yet.
