Misbehavior on digital platforms can be tricky to manage. Issue warnings, and you risk not deterring bad behavior. Block too readily, and you might drive away your user base and open yourself to accusations of censorship. But a new study, presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, suggests a more effective path forward.
Researchers at Northeastern University and Roblox conducted two large-scale field experiments involving more than 770,000 Roblox users to study how suspension duration affects user behavior. The first experiment compared one-hour versus one-day suspensions for users with a single recent policy violation. The second experiment compared one- to three-day suspensions for users with a second recent violation. They tracked outcomes such as likelihood of reoffending, number of subsequent violations, user reports against offenders, and engagement metrics like days active and total time spent on the platform.
Its very common for platforms to issue consequences for violations of the community standards, but theres actually not a ton of causal evidence in the research about how effective different kinds of consequences are, says Jeffrey Gleason, one of the studys authors and a researcher at Northeastern University and Roblox.
The study found that longer suspensions significantly reduced reoffense rates, the number of consequences, and user reports. Longer suspensions also appeared to make users think twice before misbehaving again, increasing the time it took for them to reoffend.
The longer the suspension, the greater its impact on user behavior. A one-day suspension reduced reoffense rates by 6.7% compared to a one-hour suspension, while a three-day suspension reduced it by 8.1% compared to a one-day suspension. The deterrent effect lasted for at least three weeks, though its impact diminished over time, suggesting that some users eventually reverted to old behaviors.
One promising approach is to address bad behavior early. Harsh penalties for first-time violations were more effective at preventing repeat offenses. A one-day suspension lowered reoffense rates by 12.6% for first-time offenders, compared to just 4.4% for frequent violators. And despite concerns that suspensions might drive users away, the study found that users generally remained active on the platform after being banned.
Theres always been this long debate around what is the trade-off between safety and engagement, and the fact that were seeing that you can do really important safety-related work while not sacrificing engagement is maybe not surprising for us, but may be surprising for other platforms, says Alex Leavitt, principal researcher for trust and safety at Roblox and co-author of the paper.
The experiments only tested suspensions of up to three days, and the effects of longer suspensions remain unknown. Its also uncertain how these findings would translate to other platforms. Still, the research offers valuable insights into curbing bad behavior online.
We now have more public evidence around that fact, says Leavitt, so we can lean into that.
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
A new McKinsey & Co. study finds that CEOs and their chief marketing officers (CMOs) are becoming increasingly disconnected, and the gap between CEOs and CMOs perceptions of the marketing function appears to be widening: Nearly two-thirds of chief executives say they are comfortable with modern marketing, up from just half in 2023; meanwhile, only 31% of CMOs believe their CEOs are comfortable in the marketing world, down from four points from a year earlier.
That may be part of the reason CMOs and other creative leaders I met at Cannes Lions last week suggested that chief executives consider spending some time at the annual festival of creativity.
To be sure, most marketing executives arent suggesting CEOs come to Cannes Lions for a deep dive into marketing tactics and metrics. Rather, they feel corporate leaders would benefit from being immersed in an environment that celebrates and inspires groundbreaking multimedia work and its creators.
A creativity immersion experience
I would love to bring CEOs to the basement of the Palais so they could see the work and draw inspiration from that, says Valerie Vargas, senior vice president, content creation and advertising, AT&T, referring to the conference center where Cannes Lions winning entries are exhibited. Vargas also recommends that someone from the head of advertising or marketing hand-pick a series of talks for the CEO to attend, sparking ideas and new ways of thinking about problem-solving. Finally, she suggests the marketing team organize a dinner for the CEO and their agency creative teampeople who usually dont get to meet with the companys top executives.
Others believe a trip to Cannes could help CEOs understand the role that creativity will play as companies adopt generative AI tools and other technologies to increase productivitymaking it harder for many companies to boast an operational or information technology edge. Were moving to a world where creativity is the single most important differentiator among brands, says Zach Kitschke, global chief marketing officer of Canva, the design software company.
David Droga, vice chair of Accenture (and most recently CEO of Accenture Song), goes one step further: Creativity is going to drive the outcomes of AI, he says. Thats what creativity has done every time it has been infused into a new technology. He cites the example of modern photography, a technology that was invented and advanced by chemists and scientists but flourished and took on new energy in the hands of artists and other creatives.
Marisa Thalberg, executive vice president and chief customer and marketing officer for retailer Catalyst Brands, contends that Cannes may not be right for every CEO but says its important for chief executives to understand the value for attendants. For me, Cannes is a uniquely valuable few days, not only for the creative and business inspiration but for the concentrated opportunity for learning, connections, and idea generation, says Thalberg. I can make more happen in a few days that would otherwise take weeks . . . or never happen at all.
Can Cannes bring CEOs and marketers together?
CEOs, are you disconnected from your marketers? Marketers, what dont your chief executives understand about your role? Send your thoughts to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and Ill try to work the answers into my newsletters.
Watch more: Cannes do
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The future of socializing
Since launching Boardroom in 2019, Rich Kleiman and NBA star Kevin Durant have grown the media company into an influential player that confidently straddles business, sports, and entertainment across content, films, TV, and events. Its newest venture is a membership club that Kleiman sees as key to building a long-lasting brand legacy.
I really want to build a sustainable brand that lasts, Kleiman tells Fast Company. By having this core membership community, and having them become, in a lot of ways, voices of this brand, I thought was really crucial.
Kevin Durant (left) of the Phoenix Suns and Rich Kleiman sit courtside at the 2023 WNBA All-Star Game. [Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images]
Launching later this month, the Boardroom Members Club will feature regular members-only events, VIP access to Boardroom flagship activations at NBA All-Star, Art Basel and more, exclusive networking opportunities, and a private digital platform.
For me, I saw this boom in membership clubs in the city, and while they all have their own thing, whether it’s the food or the location or the brand name or the type of people that go there, I didn’t think that there were actually communities there that benefited your career, says Kleiman. And for me, I felt like that was my special sauce, understanding the importance of being in a room with the right mix of people.
Boardrooms media arm churns out newsletters, social posts, and content that reaches over 52 million unique monthly visitors. The company is on track to nearly double revenue in 2025, and average monthly reach has increased by 74% in 2025. Its film and TV output in recent years includes the Apple TV series Swagger, Showtimes Emmy-nominated doc NYC Point Gods, and the Oscar-winning short Two Distant Strangers.
However, it was events like Boardrooms annual CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit that showed Kleiman the potential in combining quality content and the community of people who gather around it. Like an IRL LinkedIn for cool people. I thought that was really exciting, and I wanted to create a version of it that was exclusive to members, he says. I wanted that to feel a bit exclusive, because those conferences can be overwhelming for people that are trying to get information and trying to connect.
Members Club events will have the same vibe and feel of the brands bigger events but with more intimate programming. The big names are still in the room, but make them truly accessible and they understand that like they’re there now to integrate with this community, says Kleiman. And [those big names] want that too. It’s really infectious for anyone at any level, to be around that type of hunger and that type of curiosity and excitement. Seeing our consumers and knowing theyre part of our brand and in our comments and at our parties, but they wanted more, and I wanted to give them more.
The combination of not only connecting with Boardroom content, but with fellow fans and members that can impact their own careers and businesses, is where Kleiman sees the most long-term potential.
For me, the real excitement is creating something that I can point to potentially decades from now and say, That was us, we built that.
Youve no doubt heard of Microsofts Copilot. But can you define exactly what it is?
If you find that question a challenge to answer concisely, youre not alone. In the scramble to convert increasingly ubiquitous generative AI capabilities into recognizably branded tools, Copilot has succeededsometimes to the detriment of its own brand.
Consider the most recent evidence of the Copilot brands cultural profile: a request from the Better Business Bureaus National Advertising Division recently asked Microsoft to adjust its Copilot branding and advertising to avoid confusing or misleading consumers. Part of the problem, it seems, is the way Microsoft has stretched the Copilot brand into a kind of catchall for all things AI. (Microsoft Copilot itself says there are multiple Copilots, each tailored to specific tools and platforms, listing about a half-dozen key examples.)
In part, the NAD argued that Microsofts claims that Copilot boosts productivity and ROI were backed only by a study that actually measured a perception of productivity. It also suggested Microsoft is using the Copilot name across so many AI products and features its not always clear which advertised capabilities apply in which use cases. A description of Copilot working seamlessly across all your data, for example, might mislead a user who wasnt clear on which Copilot-branded tool it referred to.
Based on the context of the claims and universal use of the product description as Copilot, NADs recommendation concluded that consumers would not necessarily understand the differences. A Microsoft statement to Fast Company said that while it disagreed with NADs critical conclusions, it is happy to make small adjustments to help customers better understand the differences between the chat and in-app experiences, or to clarify when a study reflects consumer perception.It’s true that the Copilot name has (to the annoyance of some users) long replicated itself across multiple Microsoft product lines as an all-purpose signifier of AI integration. As The Verge has argued previously, this seems to be partly the fallout from efforts to attract more business customers to pay for Copilot capabilitiesand that plays out in occasionally confusing ways. For example, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) is actually distinct from Business Chat for Microsoft 365 Copilot (formerly Business Chat, a component of Teams).
This gets at a deeper issue. The irony may turn out to be that there are just too many Copilots (and not just at Microsoft), and the term is being run into the ground. In fact, it risks becoming less of a signifier than a near-generic cliché (see the sparkle emoji of generative AI branding).
The first significant use of the term copilot as an AI-associated name was actually GitHub Copilot, a 2021 release, which allowed users to work with AI in a form of pair programming, according to a Tech Republic mini history of the term. But Microsoft (which owns GitHub) followed soon after, and swiftly came to dominate its use. Windows keyboards now even include a Copilot keyfeaturing the Copilot logo, a ribbony splotch of colorful gradientsto invoke the Copilot in Windows experience. In practice, Microsofts version of the Copilot brand Security Copilot, Copilot Studio, Copilot in Wordis sometimes a product and sometimes a feature.
All of which has arguably diluted the impact of the Copilot brand. Salesforce, Moodys, and Appian, among other companies, now use copilot in AI-related product names. More generally, in the AI context, copilot has come to serve essentially the function that assistant used to: a humanizing nickname for a variety of tech products that are being sold as not just a digital tool, but a kind of trusted peer.
Of course, one of the challenges facing such products at the moment is living up to outsized promises and hopes, like huge overnight productivity boosts. Oftentimes, these tools feel less like a copilot and more like a temperamental trainee. Thats not to say that generative AI wont deserve the promotion from assistant to something more partner-like. But copilot, as an increasingly common and all-purpose term, can sometimes sound like title inflation. And thats not a brand meaning Microsoft had in mind.
Heres a troubling reality check: We are currently evaluating artificial intelligence in the same way that wed judge a sports car. We act like an AI model is good if it is fast and powerful. But what we really need to assess is whether it makes for a trusted and capable business partner.
The way we approach assessment matters. As AI models begin to play a part in everything from hiring decisions to medical diagnoses, our narrow focus on benchmarks and accuracy rates is creating blind spots that could undermine the very outcomes were trying to achieve. In the long term, it is effectiveness, not efficiency, that matters.
Think about it: When you hire someone for your team, do you only look at their test scores and the speed they work at? Of course not. You consider how they collaborate, whether they share your values, whether they can admit when they dont know something, and how theyll impact your organizations cultureall the things that are critical to strategic success. Yet when it comes to the technology that is increasingly making decisions alongside us, were still stuck on the digital equivalent of standardized test scores.
The Benchmark Trap
Walk into any tech company today, and youll hear executives boasting about their latest performance metrics: Our model achieved 94.7% accuracy! or We reduced token usage by 20%! These numbers sound impressive, but they tell us almost nothing about whether these systems will actually serve human needs effectively.
Despite significant tech advances, evaluation frameworks remain stubbornly focused on performance metrics while largely ignoring ethical, social, and human-centric factors. Its like judging a restaurant solely on how fast it serves food while ignoring whether the meals are nutritious, safe, or actually taste good.
This measurement myopia is leading us astray. Many recent studies have found high levels of bias toward specific demographic groups when AI models are asked to make decisions about individuals in relation to tasks such as hiring, salary recommendations, loan approvals, and sentencing. These outcomes are not just theoretical. For instance, facial recognition systems deployed in law enforcement contexts continue to show higher error rates when identifying people of color. Yet these systems often pass traditional performance tests with flying colors.
The disconnect is stark: Were celebrating technical achievements while peoples lives are being negatively impacted by our measurement blind spots.
Real-World Lessons
IBMs Watson for Oncology was once pitched as a revolutionary breakthrough that would transform cancer care. When measured using traditional metrics, the AI model appeared to be highly impressive, processing vast amounts of medical data rapidly and generating treatment recommendations with clinical sophistication.
However, as Scientific American reported, reality fell far short of this promise. When major cancer centers implemented Watson, significant problems emerged. The systems recommendations often didnt align with best practices, in part because Watson was trained primarily on a limited number of cases from a single institution rather than a comprehensive database of real-world patient outcomes.
The disconnect wasnt in Watsons computational capabilitiesaccording to traditional performance metrics, it functioned as designed. The gap was in its human-centered evaluation capabilities: Did it improve patient outcomes? Did it augment physician expertise effectively? When measured against these standards, Watson struggled to prove its value, leading many healthcare institutions to abandon the system.
Prioritizing dignity
Microsofts Seeing AI is an example of what happens when companies measure success through a human-centered lens from the beginning. As Time magazine reported, the Seeing AI app emerged from Microsofts commitment to accessibility innovation, using computer vision to narrate the visual world for blind and low-vision users.
What sets Seeing AI apart isnt just its technical capabilities but how the development team prioritized human dignity and independence over pure performance metrics. Microsoft worked closely with the blind community throughout the design and testing phases, measuring success not by accuracy percentages alone, but by how effectively the app enhanced the ability of users to navigate their world independently.
This approach created technology that genuinely empowers users, providing real-time audio descriptions that help with everything from selecting groceries to navigating unfamiliar spaces. The lesson: When we start with human outcomes as our primary success metric, we build systems that dont just workthey make life meaningfully better.
Five Critical Dimensions of Success
Smart leaders are moving beyond traditional metrics to evaluate systems across five critical dimensions:
1. Human-AI Collaboration. Rather than measuring performance in isolation, assess how well humans and technology work together. Recent research in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons showed that AI-generated postoperative reports were only half as likely to contain significant discrepancies as those written by surgeons alone. The key insight: a careful division of labor between humans and machines can improve outcomes while leaving humans free to spend more time on what they do best.
2. Ethical Impact and Fairness. Incorporate bias audits and fairness scores as mandatory evaluation metrics. This means continuously assessing whether systems treat all populations equitably and impact human freedom, autonomy, and dignity positively.
3. Stability and Self-Awareness. A Nature Scientific Reports study found performance degradation over time in 91 percent of the models it tested once they were exposed to real-world data. Instead of just measuring a models out-of-the-box accuracy, track performance over time and assess the models ability to identify performance dips and escalate to human oversight when its confidence drops.
4. Value Alignment. As the World Economic Forums 2024 white paper emphasizes, AI models must operate in accordance with core human values if they are to serve humanity effectively. This requires embedding ethical considerations throughout the technology lifecycle.
5. Long-Term Societal Impact Move beyond narrow optimization goals to assess alignment with long-term societal benefits. Consider how technology affects authentic human connections, preserves meaningful work, and serves the broader comunity good.
The Leadership Imperative: Detach and Devote
To transform how your organization measures AI success, embrace the Detach and Devote paradigm we describe in our book TRANSCEND:
Detach from:
Narrow efficiency metrics that ignore human impact
The assumption that replacing human labor is inherently beneficial
Approaches that treat humans as obstacles to optimization
Devote to:
Supporting genuine human connection and collaboration
Preserving meaningful human choice and agency
Serving human needs rather than reshaping humans to serve technological needs
The Path Forward
Forward-thinking leaders implement comprehensive evaluation approaches by starting with the desired human outcomes and then establishing continuous human input loops and measuring results against the goals of human stakeholders.
The companies that get this right wont just build better systemstheyll build more trusted, more valuable, and ultimately more successful businesses. Theyll create technology that doesnt just process data faster but that genuinely enhances human potential and serves societal needs.
The stakes couldnt be higher. As these AI models become more prevalent in critical decisions around hiring, healthcare, criminal justice, and financial services, our measurement approaches will determine whether these models serve humanity well or perpetuate existing inequalities.
In the end, the most important test of all is whether using AI for a task makes human lives genuinely better. The question isnt whether your technology is fast enough but whether its human enough. That is the only metric that ultimately matters.
When Marsya Ancker-Robert was younger, her father used to tell that her that he wanted to be buried naked, under a tree in the woods. The idea horrified Ancker-Robert, but when her father passed away earlier this June, the first call she made was to a Dutch company called Loop Biotech.
Since 2020, Loop Biotech has been making biodegradable caskets out of mycelium, the root-like structure of mushrooms, and hemp. Unlike traditional wooden caskets, which are often treated with chemicals that leech into the soil, the company’s offerings are made of natural materials that enrich the soil as they biodegradea process that only takes 45 days after burial.
So far, Loop Biotech has sold about 2,500 caskets in Europeprimarily in the Netherlands, but also in Germany and other parts of central Europe. But Ancker-Robert’s father, Mark Ancker, has just become the first person in the U.S. to be buried in Loop Biotech’s mycelium casket, called the Living Cocoon. “It was dignified, and beautiful,” says Ancker-Robert, who buried her father in a forest clearing on his property. “I have confidence that my dad will be fully part of the garden by winter.”
[Photo: Loop Biotech]
Growing caskets
Loop Biotech was founded in 2020 by Bob Hendrikx, an architect and biodesigner known for his affinity for nature-based solutions, like a Living Bin that uses sea anemones to “eat” or compost our trash, or a Living Couch that uses algae water to cleanse the air around it. It is part of growing cohort of start-ups shaking up the $622 million green burial market with nature-based solutions. Resting Reef, from London, turns cremated ashes into underwater memorials that double as coral reefs. Coeio, from California, makes burial suits out of mushrooms and other organisms that accelerate decomposition.
For Hendrikx, nature was always the starting point. When the designer first came up with the idea for a mycelium casket, he wasn’t looking for sustainable solutions to burial. He was looking for ways to harness mycelium’s natural ability to recycle dead organic matter into nutrient-rich soil. He knew that mycelium thrives best in soil, which led him to question the kinds of applications it could most benefit. “We call it organism-centered design,” he says, contrasting the approach with human-centered design.
[Photo: Loop Biotech]
Today, Loop caskets are made with mycelium, hemp, and nothing else. The two ingredients are mixed and poured into a mold, and a coffin grows out of that mold in just seven days. But nailing down the exact formula took several years. “Too long,” says Hendrikx with a laugh.
Mycelium is a finicky organism that needs the right conditions to grow and is influenced by several environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, CO2, and oxygen. Even the moon, which influences air pressure on Earth, can have an effect, he says: “Collaborating with nature really allows you to see this interconnectivity of the ecosystem.”
The company has a 1,500-square-meter growing facility in Delft, Netherlands with the capacity to grow 500 caskets at a time. In order to scale, Hendrikx wants to double the production capacity and potentially speed up the growth, too. This facility is what the company calls their blueprint. Once it is optimized, Hendrikx is hoping to replicate the model outside the Netherlands and grow the caskets locally, using local materials.
The company has raised just over $3 million to date, and is planning a new funding round to finance the expansion. And for Hendrikx, the road to success transcends mycelium caskets. “Once we are profitable, we’ve shown the world that you can enrich nature while making money, so it’s a business case for a regenerative business model,” he says.
[Photo: Loop Biotech]
A first for the U.S.
The burial in Maine marks a new chapter in the company’s journey, with mycelium caskets ($3,995) and urns ($395) now available to customers nationwide. But Hendrikx says he’s been getting requests for years.
America is experiencing a green burial revolution. The total number of green burial cemeteries in the U.S. has quadrupled over the past 10 years, going from just over 100 in 2015 to more than 400 by March 2025. Over the past two decades, the nonprofit Green Burial Council has seen a 72% increase in demand from cemeteries for more sustainable end-of-life options.
Loop Biotech’s expansion will likely depend on how willing people are to spend a few extra dollars on a biodegradable casket. An entry-level casket in the United States hovers around $800 for a simple metal burial casket, though average costs range from about $2,000 to $5,000.
It will also depend on how fast the company establishes a robust infrastructure in the country. Already, Hendrikx has built a network of distribution partners and sustainable funeral homes that offer green burial alternatives. They also have a warehouse in Los Angeles where they can ship their products from. But if your local funeral home doesn’t offer mycelium caskets, and you’ve never heard about the company, you may never know it exists.
[Photo: Loop Biotech]
Ancker-Robert found out about Loop Biotech from a Tedx talk that Hendrikx gave in January, and she was really surprised she was the first person to order one. As it happens, Loop Biotech was gearing up to launch in the U.S. on World Environment Day when she called.
Ancker-Robert allowed Hendrikx to film the ceremony, which turned into a small act of generosity for the planet. People made offerings of his favorite foods as well as flowers that Ancker-Robert will plant right above her father’s resting place so they can grow into a perennial flower garden. “The process is helping to turn the grieving process into one of creation and gives me something to daydream about instead of focusing on the loss,” she says. “I would much prefer to think of my father as part of the garden than as a dead body lying in the ground.”
Ancker-Robert describes her father a free spirit who, in the ’80s, would jump into dumpsters to salvage food and drive around his community to distribute it. “There’s a famous picture of the traffic jam on the way to Woodstock. In it there is a young man in a striped shirt sitting on a VW bus looking at the traffic with binoculars,” she says. “That’s my dad.
Cities, and those who live in them, are clamoring for more green space, and the benefits parks, trees, and recreation areas provide. The Trust for Public Lands annual ParkScore report found nearly a quarter of Americans in the 100 largest cities dont live within a 10-minute walk of a park or green space.
While few cities have acres and acres of space to transform into parkland, they do have opportunities to create new types of urban parks, such as elevated parks, pocket parks fashioned from vacant lots, rails-to-trails projects or capping highways to create new greenspaces. New research, including exclusive project analysis for Fast Company, finds that these projects have a significant cooling impact, showcasing how these kinds of infrastructure interventions can provide some of the densest parts of urban America with much-needed cooling.
A study conducted by Climate Central on behalf of the High Line found that New York Citys iconic linear park offers unique cooling and shading benefits, in addition to the social and environmental benefits of adding park space.
High Line, NYC [Photo: Max Harlynking/Unsplash]
We always had a suspicion that we can also make our community more healthier and livable, and we wanted data around it, says Alan van Capelle, Executive Director of Friends of the High Line.
Researchers started by tracking the urban heat island intensity (UHII) of the areas surrounding the High Line in Manhattan. This measurement captures the additional heat created in urban environments by buildings and pavement, as well as density. Some neighborhoods near the High Line exhibited a 12.9 degrees Fahrenheit UHII, among the highest temperatures Climate Central has found after analyzing 65 U.S. cities.
But the parkvia the obvious shading impact from the structure itself, but even more importantly, from the additional shading, transpiration, and overall cooling benefits of so many additional trees and plantscut the UHII to just 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit along many stretches of the park, creating an 8 degree Fahrenheit cooling impact.
There was variance along the High Line, with areas that are primarily rocks and shrub exhibiting a less pronounced cooling impact, underscoring how its not just shading that makes the difference. And its not exactly news that parks provide cooling benefits to cities. But evidence that adaptive reuse parks in the midst of cities can achieve such pronounced temperature differences suggest that they can be an important tool for urban cooling.
High Line, NYC [Photo: Polina Rytova/Unsplash
Climate Central found that other such parks exhibit similar impacts. In exclusive research for Fast Company, Jennifer Brady, senior data analyst for Climate Central, applied existing data and research to a number of newer urban parks across the country and found similar cooling impacts.
Chicagos 606, an elevated rails-to-trails project on the citys near northwest side, may cool the adjacent neighborhoods 6 degrees Fahrenheit to 8 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the precise build type and density. Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, which caps a highway adjacent to downtown and runs through one of the citys hottest neighborhoods, yields approximately 4 degrees Fahrenheit to 6 degrees Fahrenheit cooler temperatures.
The Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans and Railroad Park in Birmingham, Alabama, both located in relatively cooler parts of their respective cities, still cool adjoining areas by 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chicago, 606 Trail [Photo: Shep McAllister/Unsplash
The design of these parksincluding shade structures, shading impact with bridges and overhangs, and of course plants and tree covercan make a big difference, said Brady. It also helps that much of this kind of abandoned industrial infrastructurecomposed of cement and old buildingsadds to the heat, so simply removing them reduces urban heat gain.
But it also shows that targeting particular dense areas with the most pronounced heat island effect can be done, and make a dramatic change. Theres always been a strong case to transform vacant lots and leftover lots in areas without park access, both from a recreation and health angle as well as public safety. Adding cooling and climate resilience to the list should make an even stronger case for more investment in these kinds of industrial reuse park projects.
Klyde Warren Park, Dallas. [Photo: TrongNguyen/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus]
Last year, the nations 100 largest cities invested a record $12.2 billion in parks; steering more of that funding towards these types of projects can have serious resilience impacts in an era of heightened climate change.
Van Capelle said theres currently 49 other such reuse park projects taking place across North America that are part of the High Line Network, an advocacy group for these kinds of green space projects. He sees the heat island mitigation impact as just another reason to advocate for and invest in these projects.
Being able to step out of your apartment and go into a cool location, being able to know that in the summertime, when the city can become uncomfortable, theres a place like the High Line that runs along a number of neighborhoods is vitally important, said van Capelle.
For 13 years, Subway Surfers download rate has been consistent: about one million new installs every single day.
Half of those downloads come from users upgrading to new devices. The other half comes from children aging into phone usage, and users in less developed countries reaching a level of affluence that allows them to purchase their first smartphones. This steady influx of players has made Subway Surfers the most downloaded mobile game of all time, with 4.5 billion lifetime downloads.
Recently, however, Subway Surfers traffic has arrived in more dramatic waves. In 2020, the app saw a surge of new users after TikTokers discovered a way to hack the game. In 2022, a 10th anniversary social media campaigncombined with a TikTok-viral no coin challengeonce again sent downloads soaring.
Mathias Gredal Nrvig, CEO of Subway Surfers parent company SYBO, understands the vital role social media plays in the games continued growth. Many of its early competitors have vanished: Draw Something and Zombie Farm are no longer on the app store, and Temple Run (which once inspired Subway Surfers) has stagnated. Through TikTok, though, Subway Surfers has kept its edge.
The fact that TikTok loves us means were also being rewarded by Apple and Google, because their algorithms see what trends on other platforms, Nrvig says. Its a flywheel of activation.
Subway Surfers social media dominance
TikTok is crowded with so-called brain rot content. These posts typically layer two unrelated videos: one showing a TV show or narrated Reddit post, the other featuring a video game. Also called sludge content, the videos lull the doomscrolling brain into a passive state, watching and listening as the parallel feeds play. Its like Cocomelon for teenagers.
@bekiedit23 #creatorsearchinsights #reddit_tiktok #aitastories #redditstoriestts #redditredings #reddittiktok #fyp #Aita #viral #edit #subwaysurfers #xyz #subway #subwaysurfersstorytime original sound – beki – beki
Nrvig takes a much sunnier view of these videos, saying they give you a moment of zen. They also frequently feature Subway Surfers, repeatedly bringing TikTok users back to SYBOs IP. Theres no clear evidence that these brain rot videos drive viewers to the App Store, but they certainly do keep Subway Surfers in the conversation.
[TikTokers] know were not going to go after them for posting our content, Nrvig says. We have a very different approach from other companies, where they do a lot more policing of social media.
Subway Surfers in-house social media channels are led by Celia Zimmermann, SYBOs head of player experience. While the company produces plenty of its own content across platforms, the team also spends considerable time supporting the flow of organically created content. Zimmermann describes the games openness as brave, noting that many community managers at other gaming companies dont have the same speed for green-lighting. We have IP that were able to be quite flexible with, she says.
This social momentum is especially important for Subway Surfers young audience. Many tween players gather on platforms like TikTok. SYBO does not track younger players directly, but Nrvig estimates anecdotally that about half of the games players are under 18. That figure does not account for the many kids playing on adult devices, which could push the percentage even higher.
Of course, not all social media trends are positive. In New York City, a TikTok challenge recently encouraged some young people to try hopping between subway cars. At least six people died in 2024 attempting the stunt. Nrvig calls the trend unfortunate and says SYBO would never repost or amplify dangerous content, though the company ultimately decided not to issue a public statement.
Train surfing has been a thing that people are doing in New York, thankfully very seldom, but we havent seen with our downloads that people think of it as something they can do in real life, Nrvig says. Its clearly a game, and a silly game at that, and therefore we dont have any direct connection to it.
Can TikTok keep a 13-year-old game on top?
Nrvig sees Subway Surfers as part of a standout group of Scandinavian mobile games. Theres Angry Birds, launched in 2009, and Candy Crush, which debuted in 2012. Both remain strong performers, though Subway Surfers download rate now outpaces them by a sizable margin, according to analysts. It also stands out as the only game in the group embracing such a deeply TikTok-driven strategythough it remains hard to say whether virality and revenue always go hand in hand.
While SYBO declined to share exact revenue figures, Nrvig notes that 80 to 85% of the companys revenue comes from advertising, with the rest gnerated through in-app purchases. Monthly active users remain relatively steadyaside from viral spikesat 100 to 150 million. With such a stable user base, revenue shifts at SYBO tend to follow fluctuations in the ad market.
Analysts are split on Subway Surfers future. Samuel Aune, a gaming insights analyst at Sensor Tower, supports Nrvigs view of long-term stability. He describes the games 10-year download curve as really consistent, especially when compared to its peers. Not a lot of games have lived 10-plus years, he tells Fast Company.
Ariel Michaeli, CEO of Appfigures, takes a more skeptical stance. Mobile game downloads have declined across the board on both the App Store and Google Play. But Subway Surfers has dropped a little bit more than everyone else, he says, citing the companys internal tracking. It used to be number one for a very long time. Over the last few months, it started slowly going down [the ranking] . . . Subway Surfers has been around for so long that theres fatigue.
And what if TikTok disappeared? That seems unlikely in the U.S. for now, with President Donald Trump having extended the TikTok ban deadline for a third time. But in India, where TikTok is banned, Subway Surfers had to pivot. Facebook is their go-to, and so is YouTube, so thats the place where we go to engage with them, Zimmermann says.
For now, Subway Surfers holds its lead. Nrvig argues that among todays top-ranked mobile games, it is the only one growing organically. Its steady stream of downloads continues, driven by strong, recognizable IP and smart social media strategynot by less transparent forces.
Were still the most downloaded viral game, Nrvig says. Everyone else has paid for their traffic to get on that list.
UX designers and product designers have very similar jobs. They both arrange digital parts. They both use Figma more than other designers do. And, according to a recent Fast Company analysis of design job listings, they start out with pretty much the same entry-level salary, around $70,000 a year.
But as their careers progress, those salaries diverge. Among job postings asking that a candidate have between four and five years of experience, the average salary offered for UX designers was about $123,720, while the salary for product designers was $149,850. By the time these types of designers reach more developed stages of their careers, requiring at least eight years of experience, UX designers are offered an average of about $153,920, while product designers can earn $197,579. Thats about 28% more for product designers.
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UX design vs. product design
To understand what might be driving the discrepancy in salary between UX and product designers over the course of their careers, it is helpful to look at differences in the actual duties that each type of worker performs, and how their careers typically progress. A UX designer is responsible for the feel and flow of a product, e.g. the user experience, while a product designer oversees both visual elements of an app or website and what types of features it should even have to begin with.
Alexander Benz, a UX designer, product manager, and CEO of Blikket, a design and development agency for DTC brands, explains that people who start out as UX designers tend to go on become UX managers, involved in the production of a products design system, or they become other kinds designers. But as product designers develop in their careers, they begin branching out into other parts of the business, interfacing with stakeholders from across the organization.
When you get into the product, he says, then you also have a bigger responsibility to . . . [take] in the ideas from stakeholders and manage more people in the whole process.” For example, while a UX designer might create a flowchart and visual style for a money transfer feature in a banking app, the product designer is closer to the metal, helping determine what components the app’s feature should actually containDoes it save a list of past transfer recipients? Does it autocomplete input fields?and so on, while considering the feature’s broader success metrics and technical constraints. “I think that is where the salary difference comes in.
UX designers everywhere
Another factor that could be contributing to the salary discrepancy is supply. There are simply more UX designers today than product designers. This may be because UX design boot camps, such as General Assembly and Springboard, proliferated in the 2010s, when interest rates were low, capital was cheap, and a new startup was seemingly being born every minute. These young companies all needed tech-savvy designers on staff to create their wireframes and user journeys, and boot camps minted them.
Boot camps are based on the notion that certain jobs require practicing and perfecting a mostly fungible set of best practices that can be deployed to any client. Boot camps are accessible, cheaper than college or graduate school, and have created hundreds of thousands of additional workers in their respective fields.
But while there were many boot camp options for budding UX designers, no such counterpart emerged for product designers. There is no oversupply, Benz says. Instead, product designers occupy roles in their companies that are more difficult to delineate. Their jobs require technical and soft skills that take more than a few months to master. There is no crash-course curriculum in product design.
More good news for product designers
Product designers are enjoying an extra advantage right now. Because their jobs cant be codified into a standard set of steps and principles, they are largely protected from LLMs. As language models become more sophisticated at performing junior- and, increasingly, senior-level coding tasks, they are threatening all sorts of jobs in tech. Its the jobs that LLMs dont understand that are arguably safest.
In other words, the very qualities that make UX designers a target for easy boot camps also make them a target for AI. And the job description of a product designerthe fact that the role involves constant communication with individuals inside and outside an organizationmeans that it is relatively more protected from automation.
For UX designers who might be looking for both a salary boost and a shovel to dig an anti-automation moat around their careers, it’s a great time to pivot.
This article is part of Fast Company‘s continuing coverage of where the design jobs are, including this year’s comprehensive analysis of 170,000 job listings.
When youre job-hunting for the first time, that old adagewho you know matters more than what you knowcan seem daunting.
In my two decades of helping new professionals access their desired industries, Ive learned that creating meaningful networks can start from scratchbut conventional networking advice doesnt always hold up. Instead, you need to emphasize your value. Heres how to tackle it.
1. Launch an Outreach Campaign: The 100-Connection Method
The most successful networking strategy I have observed requires a deliberate approach to building professional relationships. Develop a list of future workplaces within your industry, then aim to reach out to 100 of their professionals.
How to execute this:
Use LinkedIn, company websites, and industry publications to find professionals who work at your target organizations.
Build a system with a spreadsheet to handle your outreach efforts over a period of 36 months.
Develop specific connection requests that show your serious interest in their professional development, with personal messages via email or LinkedIn.
Dont request employment opportunities; rather, ask to hear about their professional path.
The majority of experts are willingand even eagerto discuss their careers with young professionals who make thoughtful approaches to them. When your outreach is authentic and specific, Ive seen a positive response rate of up to 40%. Once you start, make it scalable: Aim for 23 new connections per week.
2. Offer Value Before Seeking It
Young professionals fail to understand that networking requires them to provide value first before expecting anything back. Heres how to do it.
Offer industry trends to relevant professional networks during face-to-face interactions.
Connect professionals to contacts in your existing network, regardless of their network size.
Write blog posts, LinkedIn articles, or research summaries that demonstrate your understanding of the industry.
People naturally feel compelled to give back to you when you help them. When youre reaching out to 100 people, that multiples.
3. Use Technology to Remove Traditional Barriers
Modern technology has made networking more accessible to all people than ever before. Use these tools strategically:
Virtual meeting platforms: Geographic limitations no longer exist. Through video calls you can establish business relationships with leaders from across the country (or beyond).
AI-powered research tools: The combination of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and company websites and industry databases helps you find appropriate contacts and discover their professional backgrounds prior to making contact.
Professional transcription services: Use tools like Otter.ai during informational interviews to generate precise recordings, which enables you to maintain full attention on relationship development during discussions.
4. Master the Art of Informational Interviewing
The standard job interview places you in a position to request something from the interviewer. Through informational interviews, you provide an opportunity to acquire knowledge from professional expertise. Heres how to get the full use out of an informational.
Create 57 well-prepared questions that focus on your acquaintances career development, professional understanding, and industry advice.
Keep meetings to 2030 minutes maximum.
During the conversation, ask for the names of three professionals who can provide valuable insights.
Send a thank-you note to the participants right after the meeting.
Not sure where to start? These are some helpful questions to ask.
What changes has the industry undergone during your professional lifetime?
What are the most important skills that are rising to prominence in your field?
Who should I reach out to next in my industry exploration?
5. Transform Conversations into Lasting Relationships
Young professionals who succeed maintain valuable relationships from their business contacts instead of just collecting business cards. Turn these conversations into assets.
You should document the most important information that comes from your conversations.
Write about the lessons youve learned and share it with your network.
Develop a system for staying in touch with connections, whether that be quarterly check-ins, sharing relevant articles, or congratulating them on achievements.
Look for ways to reconnect contacts with each other when it makes sense.
Develop a personal advisory board from your 100 connections; 10 to 15 people will establish long-term mentorship roles. Nurture these relationships consistently.
The Long-Term Payoff
Recent graduates who focus on value creation instead of value extraction have successfully made industry-changing career transitions and built strong professional networks.
Begin by establishing one professional connection during this present week. Focus on what you can learn from them and how you might be helpful. Strategic and consistent relationship building produces surprising opportunities that surpass your expectations.
Remember: You’re not building a network to get somethingyou’re building relationships to contribute something. Its from there your network will grow.
