In 2025, Amazon, Dell, Apple, Google, IBM, Meta, Salesforce, and dozens more have doubled down on demands for employees to return to the office (RTO) at least three days a week, if not all five. And theyre getting exactly what they want.
Now, when I say exactly what they want, you might be expecting me to paint a picture of workers happily returning to their daily commutes, overcrowded highways, cavernous or claustrophobic offices, constant interruptions, and extra expenses, and all of it resulting in massive productivity gains.
Thats not happening, the productivity-gains part. And the longer we play this out, the sillier the performances of productivity theater have become. The truth is, the science on productivity is still out.
So you have to go with your gut. Or your experience. And what 30 years of gut and experience tells me is that the real question isnt whether people are more productive at homeits whether companies can afford to lose their best talent over this.
Right now, tech workers are desperate. Companies know it. Thats why Amazon can demand five days in the office and get compliance instead of resignations.
But the labor market isnt static; it never was. In fact, it tends to whipsaw back and forth every few years. Remember 2022? Companies were begging people to take jobs. Signing bonuses, remote work, unlimited PTOwhatever it took. Candidates were ghosting interviews. That shoe was totally on the other foot, and it was a Doc Marten.
But if we look at history, even recent history, a lot of companies that are mandating RTO now are writing the future resignation letters for their best employees, to be delivered the nanosecond the tech job market stops being the worst in history.
Let me tell you how common sense foreshadows a reckoning for RTO.
How did we get here?
I dont want to defend remote work. I really dont. But Im a huge fan of common sense.
Its a little ironic that remote work accelerated with another mandatethat we all stay home for most of 2020 and a lot of 2021. I, for one, still cant believe that happened. But its what happened next that mattered.
As the pandemic restrictions lifted almost universally by 2022, the natural calls by employers for their employees to return to the office were met with an unexpected backlash.
No, thanks. Were more productive, our work-life balance is much better, we feel better, and anyway you said we could do this.
That backlash peaked in 2024, when a bunch of Dell employees, shockingly, chose to take the hit to their company future rather than come back to the office.
Thats fine. Wed rather do a better job in a more comfortable environment. By the way, weve moved to New Zealand.
Yeah, it got silly. And corporate tech did not take that silliness lying down. Employees needed to return to the office because . . . well, because its always been that way. Does it matter that in a post-pandemic internet business world, that physical proximity no longer matters? That doesnt matter.
As employers started stamping their feet over the mandates, I started talking about common sense. For one, the long-term hits these companies were taking to their talent candidate pool, their employee morale, and their productivity when measured from the employees perspective, were costs that were going to far outweigh their sunk real estate costs in the short term.
But then corporate tech got smart. Sort of. Employers started making the misguided assumption that the employees who were most dead set against returning to the office were the ones that the company could live without. RTO became a natural, if completely illogical, weeding-out mechanism.
And that kinda worked. But kinda didnt. Sure, the troublemakers all found the door and gave the finger on the way out, but the go-along-to-get-along crowd stopped performing and got performative, and the rest of the tech workforce got ready to revolt.
Then the employers got bailed out by the worst tech labor market in history.
When there are more job seekers than jobs, tech companies can mandate a company loyalty sing-along every morning, and the entire workforce will start warming up their vocal cords.
Whats next for the labor market and RTO?
Well, what does common sense tell us?
Productivity is in the eye of the beholder. In any position where creativity, innovation, or even decision-making matters, Id argue that there is no stable metric for productivity that goes beyond correlation to causation where employee performance is concerned.
So you have to go with simple, common-sense concepts. Evolution doesnt come wit introductory pamphlets. There is no title card for the next phase of the future of work. It just happens, and you evolve or die.
And if we couldnt connect the dots that the internet had made physical proximity irrelevant in every case where it wasnt mandatory (i.e., surgery, construction, airline pilot), the pandemic lockdowns ironically hammered that point home.
As an evolutionary concept, the productivity argument no longer even matters. Its the same productivity argument that was being made when we were deciding whether everyone still had to wear suits and skirts to work.
But if that kind of common sense doesnt sway the naysayers, I can make the argument even common-sensier.
Yo. 2022.
The job market was supposed to have recovered by now. It hasnt, and that has emboldened a lot of employers to lean into their leverage with their supply of scarce and valuable jobs. But the market will recover.
When it does, the first questions that are going to need to be answered are:
Why am I on a Zoom with the person down the hall?
Why can we only hire within a two-hour commute of some of the most expensive real estate in the country?
Why am I wearing this three-piece suit with matching fedora and a pocket watch? Im a database administrator.
Because when an employee has leverage, questions like that no longer make any sense. And the very same companies demanding RTO now will likely be forced to offer remote work again to compete for scarce, valuable talent.
Theyll be right back where they started, while their talent heads to those smart companies that see remote work as an evolutionary concept, and are creating solutions that accommodate both remote and in-office employees.
If you are also a fan of common sense, please join my email list and Ill shoot you a quick heads-up when I spout something close to it.
Joe Procopio
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
It’s the digital equivalent of a clogged drain. You boot up your computer, click the Google Chrome icon, and… wait.
You wait to type a search term. You wait for the page to load. You wait while your once-speedy gateway to the internet chugs along like a steam engine trying to keep up with a bullet train.
The problem: Chrome is a beast a powerful, functional beast, but a beast nonetheless.
Over time, it gets bloated, weighed down by all the digital detritus we pile onto it. But don’t despair. You don’t need a new computer, you just need a digital declutter. Here’s how we’re going to put some pep back in your browser’s step.
Note that though feature names and their locations may differ slightly, most or all of these fixes work for Chromium-based browsers as well, such as Microsoft Edge.
Disable (or remove) unused extensions
This is almost always the main culprit. You installed an extension that seemed like a good idea a year agoa coupon clipper, a niche productivity tool, a way to add a trail of sparkles to your cursorand now it’s silently sucking down your RAM like quicksand.
Every single extension needs a little slice of your computer’s brain to run, and they add up fast.
To access your extensions, do the following:
Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
Go to More Tools > Extensions.
Look at the list. Be brutal. If you don’t use it at least once a week, toggle it off or, better yet, click Remove.
You’ll be surprised how many extensions you forgot you even had.
Put dormant tabs to sleep
You have 37 tabs open right now. One is a work document, one is a recipe you’ll never try, one is a YouTube video you paused three days ago, and three are different iterations of fantasy football research.
Every single one of those tabs is demanding resources, even the ones you haven’t looked at in days.
Google knows we have this problem, which is why it created the Memory Saver feature. It essentially puts inactive tabs to sleep, freeing up system memory for the tabs you’re actually using.
Heres how:
Click the three-dot menu and go to Settings.
Click Performance in the left sidebar.
Make sure Memory Saver is toggled on.
You can also designate certain sites to always stay active (like a live chat or your email), so the important stuff stays awake, and the less important stuff gets a well-deserved nap.
Clear cache and cookies
This is the classic, “have you tried turning it off and on again?” of browser optimization.
Your cache stores parts of websites (images, code, etc.) so they load faster the next time. Your cookies store user data. Over time, these piles of tiny files get huge, slow down your browser’s ability to find what it needs, and generally get in the way.
Heres how to clear them.
Use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + Del (Windows/ChromeOS) or Command + Shift + Del (Mac).
Set the Time range to All time.
Make sure Cached images and files is checked. Cookies and other site data is optional: clearing it logs you out of everything, which is annoying, but can help.
Click Clear data.
It’s a quick blast that clears out the deep recesses of your browser. Do this once a month, and you’ll notice a difference.
Check for updates
Sometimes, the answer isn’t some clever hack or esoteric settingit’s just making sure you have the newest version.
Google is constantly tweaking Chrome to make it run faster and consume less power. If you haven’t closed your browser in a week, you’re probably running on old software.
Heres how to check for updates:
Click the three-dot menu.
Go to Help > About Google Chrome.
Chrome will instantly check for and apply any updates. You might be prompted to relaunch.
Even if youre not asked to relaunch, do it anyway. A clean relaunch can solve a world of problems.
On a recent vacation in Berlin, Emma Watkins, a marketing assistant working in the U.K., wrote a three-star review of a bar she visited. It was fine, but not amazing, and not what I expected from the high ranking reviewit was four-point-something, she recalls. Upon returning home, she noticed her middling review of the establishment was taken down. When they said it was defamatory I was confused, she says. I did some Googling, then realized what had gone on. And suddenly the high rating for what I thought was pretty average made sense. (Fast Company is not naming the bar so as not to fall foul of Germanys defamation laws itself.)
Watkins isnt alone in losing trust in reviews of German businesses on Google. For much of the world, Google is far more pervasive than Yelp. If you want to find the best tourist attractions, bars, or restaurants in a new city outside the United States, your first port of call is likely Google Maps.
The system works relatively well. The best restaurants are rewarded with good reviews, while would-be customers can make their own judgment on establishments that garner a two- or three-star rating. Some are weighed down by vicious one-star reviews from (likely?) nightmare customers while, in other cases, public judgment has rendered its verdict on the establishment.
Except, that is, in Germany, where practically every restaurant, bar, and tourist attraction appears to be suspiciously excellent. The country seems to be filled with four- and five-star establishments.
In Germany, an overly permissive defamation system means that any criticism of a business is likely to be wiped out by Googles takedown system. Fully 99.97% of Google Maps reviews taken down for defamation across the entire 27-country European Union are for businesses based in Germany, official European data shows. Social media is full of complaints that businesses in the country refuse to countenance negative reviews. There are German-language websites offering advice on how to strike negative reviews from Googles register. These articles themselves have ratings, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, receive a score of 4.3 out of 5.
This is all part of the job of search engine optimization (SEO), which often extends into reputation management, says Manick Bhan, CEO of Search Atlas, a global SEO software company. Removing negative reviews isnt new. But weaponizing Germanys defamation system in this way is.
As part of our work to provide trustworthy information on Google Maps, we remove reviews if they violate our content policies or local lawsnot simply because a business dislikes them, a Google spokesperson tells Fast Company. Reviewers get notified if their contributions are removed and have the option to appeal that decision.
Typically, removing a negative review involves reaching out to the reviewer and asking them to reconsider their feedback, Bhan says. But in places like Germany where the digital laws are particularly strict, some SEOs handle the process differently. They often classify negative content as defamation and file formal complaints, essentially using a legal loophole to have the content removed by Google or similar platforms, Bhan says.
Germanys stringent regulations make it possible for business owners to claim virtually any individual review as defamatory. Googles own support site highlights that its aware of the matter. In response to a Google product experts explanation of how the review matter is a known issue, everyday users are acknowledging the power imbalance. I get it, but it really skews the value that ratings in Germany really mean, one user wrote.
Google does not comment on how it handles takedown requests. But experts have observed that the company tends to take action against negative reviews reported as defamatory if the reviewers cant cough up evidence they were actually at the establishment in questionlike a check or bill for the meal allowing the business owners to claim that the reviews are fictional. Under German law, the legal burden of proof is on those making statements rather than on prosecutors bringing a defamation case needing to prove the statements are false.
Its why many users less-than-glowing reviews are taken down by Google.
Bhan points out that taking down reviews when asked, even if the review is likely legitimate but lacking documentary evidence the reviewer was there, is an easier route for Google than keeping it up. Google doesnt want to risk penalties or fines from European regulators, so it may comply with such requests automatically, sometimes even at the expense of search quality, Bhan says. Its less about doing whats fair for users and more about staying compliant. This is clearly whats happening here in Germany.
Of course, there are precedents for people to weaponize reviews to harm the reputation of businesses they disagree with. That’s why its seen as important to have the ability to dispute what are believed to be incorrect or non-factual reviews. But that weaponization can go both ways.
The SEO expert is frank about the practice of weaponizing takedowns for defamation in Germany. Its not ideal, its not moral, but if everyone else is playing by those rules, businesses may feel forced to do the same.
The quality of our decisions defines our legacy as leaders. We make around 35,000 decisions a day and close to 800,000,000 in a lifetime. Not all decisions are equal. Many are default, some are reversible, but the consequential ones leave us with no U-turn. Decision-making is inescapable. So, lets delve deeper into the anatomy of good decisions.
What drives good vs. bad?
Our decisions are deeply rooted in our values, competence, courage, and compassion. The psychological context from which decisions flow includes our emotional intelligence, comfort zone, values, moods, needs, decision-making style, and crucially, our self-awareness. Good decisions matter, but what drives the chemistry of good versus bad?
Emotionally intelligent leaders have mastered the skill of responding rather than reacting. They understand the interplay between their comfort zone and their fears and the limitations this imposes. They have identified their nonnegotiable values. They understand that moods are biochemical responses to be tamed before making consequential decisions. They know their basic human needs can generate significant blind spots and patterns of decision-making of which they must become aware. Finally, leaders have preferred decision-making styles that determine both the quality and speed of their decisions. This is the chemistry of decision-making.
Its clear, then, that the thoughts and emotions of a leader have the greatest impact on the quality of their decisions. So what are the safeguards for good decisions? Competence, courage, and compassion boosted by self-awareness and supported by values.
The foundation
Self-awareness is foundational. It enables us to see ourselves similarly to how others see us. We can stand outside ourselves and observe our behavior and the effect it has on our personal and professional relationships and the results we achieve. Self-awareness includes consciousness of our internal dialogue, the words we use, and the impact these words have on our emotions and behaviors. I have conducted thousands of Business Emotional Intelligence psychometric profiles and seen that on a standard deviation scale of one to ten, over 65% of leaders score between 4 and 7 on the self-awareness scale.
Without self-awareness, we look outward for the causes of failure, blame others, and cast ourselves in the role of a victim instead of a responsible leader. With deep self-awareness, we are better positioned to apply the three Cs of good decisions: competence, courage, and compassion.
The three Cs
Competence means that we are capable of transforming our knowledge and experience into practical and coherent actions. We have sufficient objectivity to recognize that we do not know everything and that in this complex world with unparalleled depth and breadth of knowledge, we are not the ultimate reference for anything. We surround ourselves with competent, multidisciplinary teams who bring complementary capabilities into our circle of influence. We welcome those who ask uncomfortable questions, scrutinize the details, point out the risks, and have respectful adult-to-adult conversations with us. Most important of all, we do not want to be the “Emperor” in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Courage. The willingness to make unpopular decisions, admit that we were wrong or that we made a mistake, is what courage looks like in decision-making. It takes courage to look in the mirror and objectively (as is humanly possible) examine the facts from multiple perspectives, scrutinize the logic, face our biases, and strip away the vanity of our egos in order to make the hard decisions. Here are three questions and their shadow questions that can help us make decisions based on principle instead of popularity:
What did you focus on?
But what did you miss?
What did it mean?
How was your interpretation distorted by your assumptions?
What did you do?
What action did you not take?
Compassion. Awakening our humanity by looking at our fellow humans and recognizing that they too have feelings, needs, and perspectives is what empathy is about. We do not have to agree or disagree with them. Understanding others enriches and expands our range and depth of experience. It does not threaten our existence. Compassion is not pity. It is a recognition of what makes us human. If we close our eyes to what is happening around us, we miss the most critical component of all. Decisions are not driven by facts. Decisions are driven by emotion and justified by facts. By ignoring emotions we omit one of the most critical components of good decisions.
Fear of the unknown
According to the Center for Creative Leadership and Harvard Business School, the greatest fear of the CEOs of the 200 top companies in the U.S. is not knowing what they dont knowfor example, what the next disruptive technology will be and where it will come from. Emotion is what drives action, not logic. Recognizing this will improve the quality of our decisions and ensure that good decisions are acted upon.
Good decisions are actionable, aligned, and sustainable through clarity of purpose based on values. Values are what matters most to us. However, we are often unaware of our values because values drive our default behaviors, habits, and unconscious biases. The good news is that we can become conscious of what our values really are by analyzing our most difficult and life-changing decisions. Embedded in our subconscious programming, once consciously identified, values enable us to find our purpose and make decisions that are not only attainable but also sustainable. Life-changing decisions like leaving your medical practice to become a bestselling author or volunteering to do unpaid work because you want to contribute are good examples. Our values drive and support our decisions.
In conclusion, self-awareness boosts good decisions because it enables leaders to look inward and outward and objectively separate their assumptions from the true causes of problems. The three Cscompetence, courage, and compassionform a powerful triad upon which great leaders can make better decisions. Looking for the facts through multidisciplinary perspectives, separating ego from objectives, and understanding the human impact of decisions are safeguards. Finally, when good values are aligned with purpose, decisions become more actionable. These are the foundations of good decisions.
Its a well-known fact that phone time before bed makes it harder to sleep. Studies show that a nighttime scroll keeps your brain active, delays REM sleep, and may even disrupt your circadian rhythm. Now, Ikea has created an unusual solution to this damaging habit: designing a dedicated bed for your phone.
The Ikea Phone Sleep Collection is essentially an ultra-miniaturized version of an Ikea bed frame, made in the perfect dimensions to cradle your smartphone on a bedside table. Embedded in the beds frame is an NFC chip that tracks how long the phone has been tucked in. If the time exceeds seven hours for seven consecutive nights, the user is rewarded with a shopping voucher of around $27. Despite its diminutive size, this five-piece product, like almost all of Ikeas inventory, comes flat-packed and requires self-assembly.
From the masters of sleep comes a new revolution in rest: A complete breakthrough in bedtime that will change the world for good, an ad for the phone bed reads. Its the innovation you didnt know you needed until now, and that you will never not need again.
Unfortunately for doomscrollers in the U.S., the agency Memac Ogilvy made the the Phone Sleep Collection exclusively for Ikea customers in the United Arab Emirates, where its currently available to locals who spend more than $207 on Ikea products. While the phone bed is clearly a marketing ploy, its not exactly an outlandish idea within todays growing market for hacks to reduce screentime.
[Photo: Ikea]
Why tucking your phone into bed makes sense, actually
Around 2017, dumbphones enjoyed a spike in popularity as smartphone users began to realize just how much their phones dictated their daily lives, with brands including Nokia and Consumer Cellular jumping in on the trend. Since then, though, the dumbphone craze has waned slightly as smartphones have become an increasingly integral and unavoidable tool for both work and life. Instead, luddite hopefuls are turning to creative alternatives to cut their screentime.
Recent solutions have included screentime reducing apps, like Hank Greens Focus Friend or the Touch Grass app; a Brick device that blocks distracting apps; and even a phone case thats so heavy its literally hard to pick up. The Ikea phone bed is basically another concept within this realm, except specifically geared toward the nighttime ritual.
“While the Phone Sleep Collection is a limited launch here in the UAE, its underlying principle addresses a universal challenge,” says Carla Klumpenaar, Ikea UAE’s GM of marketing, communications, HF & retail design. “We believe that small, mindful rituals, like tucking your phone into its own bed, can create better routines that can contribute to improved sleep quality and mental clarity. This initiative transforms an everyday challenge into an engaging lifestyle habit, underlining IKEAs commitment to offering meaningful solutions that extend beyond just furniture.”
Is it silly? Of course. But if it works to reclaim even a bit of shut-eye, it might just be genius.
Once upon a time, the big idea was simplework from anywhere! Thanks to technological advances, you didnt need to be tethered to your office desk to collaborate with coworkers (or swap memes with them). As long as you had your laptop and good Wi-Fi you could be by the pool on a tropical island, drink in hand, and a magnificent sunset in the background.
Forward-thinking companies would recognize that talent could be found in the most unexpected places. Employees get to mix and match their work with the life they love. Governments would enable this with offers of special digital nomad visas. The whole world would become one big, friendly workplace.
Hold that thought. Before you swap suits for flip-flops, you should recognize that the future of work might not be what you pictured. An alternate future is taking shape, where geopolitics is shaping who works, the location of work, and the type of work. Driven by national security concerns and a proclivity to support their companies at the expense of others, governments are reshaping the future of work.
YOUR remote work (Can YOU do the work remotely?)
The first promise of remote work was that work could be democratized. More people from around the world could access jobs in a far more distributed model of talent and collaboration. Ideas flow across the world and organizations benefit from a more global intelligence. But that promise collides with geopolitical reality.
Take the case of Apple. As the company started to move some of its manufacturing operations to India, it needed to hire workers at scale. According to an Economic Times report, Apples ecosystem in India was expected to create 600,000 jobs. But who works at these facilities is an increasingly geopolitically fraught question.
There were initially hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians supporting Apples expansion in India. But more than 300 of them were asked to return to China recently. The recall of engineersthe second in recent monthswas seen as a push by China to curb technology transfer to Indian operations and prevent manufacturing exits from the country. To continue operations, Apples suppliers have turned to engineers from Taiwan.
Driven by geopolitical objectives, government restrictions increasingly shape who can work on leading or cutting-edge projects, the individuals a company can hire, and how long they can stay in those roles.
Global companies are taking a close, hard look at their workforce and making difficult choices about who gets to work on different types of projects. Technology companies in Silicon Valley are increasing security vetting of potential recruits to keep commercial information secure. Changing tariff rates could risk millions of jobs in Asia and elsewhere. Thai workers manufacturing solar cells are bearing the brunt of a trade war between China and the U.S. A large-scale study of foreign directors in listed Chinese firms found that as political relations deteriorated, foreign directors were more likely to exit from their roles. On the other hand, scientists at U.S. federal agencies facing layoffsespecially those with expertise in artificial intelligencewere targeted for recruitment to research operations in China.
your REMOTE work (Can you do the work REMOTELY?)
The second promise of remote work is that work could be done from anywhere. As the technology continues to improve, employees don’t need to be in the office or even in the country. Digital nomads skipped through cities, countries, or even continents. You could log in to work while also visiting your family in another country. You adopt a more flexible lifestyle. But geopolitical reality strikes again.
As countries emphasize sovereignty, data security, and the protection of strategic interests, the data, models, and technology resources that can be used from other countries becomes more limited. The Financial Times reported that foreign universities and research institutes lost access to Chinas largest academic database. More countries are adopting data localization laws, which require businesses to store certain types of data within the country to protect national security. The U.S. restricts the transfer of citizens data to countries of concern.
Such requirements make it harder to access data and information from another country, even for employees of the same company. American business travelers to China may not, for instance, have access to their work email. Financial analysts working at a fanatic pace to evaluate deal opportunities may find that they need to be on the ground in a given market to access relevant data, not because the technology to transfer those data to another country doesnt exist, but because political interests prevent the transfer of such data overseas. Some companies are asking staff traveling to certain countries to use temporary loaner phones and not bring company laptops. Without your trusty laptop, expect disruptions to work and productivity.
your remote WORK (Can you do the WORK remotely?)
The final promise of remote work is that technology would allow you to do your job; i.e., execute the same tasks as you would have when it was business-as-usual. But geopolitics has changed the job description for many employees.
Focusing on teams, operations, or finances of a business used to be the typical mandate for a manager. With appropriate routines in place, these tasks could even be completed from a remote location. But todays managers have to take on different tasks. Consider Jensen Huang, the CEO of the worlds most valuable company, NVIDIA. For years, Mr. Huang avoided the rough and tumble world of Washington lobbying, preferring the company of the video-gamers.
But when the companys AI chips became enmeshed in global politics, Mr. Huangs work changed. He crisscrossed the world convincing lawmakers to facilitate the sales of his companys chips. He became a geopolitical superstar convincing leaders from the U.S. to China about his companys role in their vision.
Mr. Huang is not alone. Fortune reported on how companies set up teams to track political developments and quickly present leadership with optionsbut that those team members completely dropped their day jobs. With the need to have an ear to the ground and interact with political actors, remote work becomes increasingly challenging.
Protests against President Trumps decision to send the National Guard into American cities have no shortage of whimsy, but the empire struck back against one demonstrator.
A lawsuit filed on October 23 accuses police officers and a National Guard member of violating a protesters constitutional right to play the Imperial March theme from Star Wars.
The D.C. resident, Sam OHara, was tightly handcuffed and detained for 20 minutes after ignoring a warning from a National Guard member to stop playing the song. In the complaint, OHara alleges that four Washington, D.C., police officers, an Ohio National Guard sergeant, and the District of Columbia violated his First Amendment rights.
Government conduct of this sort might have received legal sanction a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit on OHaras behalf, stated. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from restraining individuals from recording law enforcement or peacefully protesting, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the Districts prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures.
OHara began filming the National Guard deployment in D.C. over the summer, often following behind Guard members while playing the song and then posting the videos to a TikTok account that has more than a million likes across 24 videos.
Armed National Guard should not be policing D.C. residents as we walk around our neighborhoods, OHara said. It was important to me not to normalize this dystopian occupation.
The Imperial March theme is associated with the fictional fascist empire from Star Wars; its main villain, Darth Vader; and the empires foot soldiers, the Stormtroopers. The Galactic Empire, long a fixture of pop culture, intentionally echoes the aesthetics and policies of Nazi Germany.
The government doesn’t get to decide if your protest is funny, and government officials cant punish you for making them the punch line, ACLU-DC senior staff attorney Michael Perloff said in a press release. Thats really the whole point of the First Amendment.
Clashes over National Guard deployment
The lawsuit is the latest clash in courts over the Trump administrations decision to deploy National Guard troops to a handful of U.S. cities with Democratic leadership. The National Guard has already been activated in Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and Memphis, though those deployments are the subject of ongoing court battles between state and local leaders and the federal government. Trump has also threatened deployments in New York City, Baltimore, the Bay Area, St. Louis, and New Orleans.
The National Guard is historically called in by state governors to help with emergencies and natural disasters, but guard members can also be mobilized by the federal government for national emergencies. Last year, National Guard members deployed in 17 states conducted search and rescue missions and delivered food and water to victims of Hurricane Helene.
Since first deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles in June against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Trump has escalated his unprecedented use of the state military force in U.S. cities. Trump claims that the National Guard is necessary to quell urban crime, but violent crime has already dropped dramatically in many of the cities targeted for the unusual deployments. Homicide rates dropped by 50% in the first half of 2025 in Portland, Oregon, and in Memphis, robbery, burglary, and larceny hit 25-year lows this year.
As I have said from the beginning, the number of federal troops we need in Portland is zero, Mayor Keith Wilson said of the deployment earlier this month. Not from Oregon. Not from California. Not from Texas. And not from anywhere else.
On October 23, Trump appeared to back down from a threat to send the National Guard to San Francisco after a persuasive phone call with the CEOs of Nvidia and Salesforce. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great, Trump wrote on Truth Social. They want to give it a shot. Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday.
Chicken suits and Star Wars
As the courts decide the legality of Trumps unilateral use of National Guard troops, protesters are weaponizing absurdism and humor against the presence of federal law enforcement. In Portland, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has famously attracted a growing crowd of peaceful protesters wearing inflatable animal costumes. The trend was inspired by the early appearance of a frog-suit-clad activist who has since been pepper sprayed directly into his air-intake vent.
Another Portland protest regular famous for wearing a chicken suit explained the use of humor in a recent interview with the citys alt-weekly: What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it [says] that were actually not that afraid, Jack Dickinson, 26, told the Willamette Week.
When they try to describe this situation as war-torn, it becomes much harder to take them seriously, Dickinson added. Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and its eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.
This week, tech companies were either melting down in real time or promising a future where computers are smarter than we are. Investors panicked, calmed down, panicked again, and then bought T-shirts for sea otters. We saw a giant internet outage that reminded everyone just how dependent the modern world is on one company. We also saw a stock that most people had basically pronounced dead suddenly rip higher like it was 2021 again.
There was drama in Washington, too. The White House leaned even harder into AI content as a political weapon, raising a question that has been building all year, which is: Are we entering the AI misinformation era for real, or are we already in it and pretending we aren’t? At the same time, Meta cut jobs in the name of moving faster on artificial intelligence, and Apple gave Wall Street something to cheer about by proving that, yes, people will still buy a new iPhone if you make it fast, thin, and expensive.
But the biggest optimism play of the week came from someplace totally different. Taylor Swift wore a vintage aquarium T-shirt, and her fans turned that into millions of dollars for sea otter rescue in a matter of hours. There are very few forces on Earth that can move money that fast. Central banks. Oil markets. Taylor Swift.
AWS outage hits much of the internet
An overnight outage at Amazon Web Services took down big parts of the internet, including apps and sites like Reddit, Lyft, and McDonalds. The problem was tied to AWS systems in one U.S. region, but because so many companies run through that same infrastructure, the impact went global. Amazon said the root issue was a DNS problem that it has mostly fixed, but a lot of users still saw slowdowns and random errors long after the first alert. The outage was another reminder that a huge amount of the modern economy sits on top of someone elses server.
Beyond Meat stock suddenly rips higher
Beyond Meats stock shot up more than 60 percent after spending the past few weeks in penny stock territory. The spike does not mean the business is suddenly healthy. Demand for plant-based meat has cooled, sales have dropped, and the company is still deep in trouble. What actually happened is a classic short squeeze in which traders who were betting against the stock got forced to buy shares back fast, which pushed the price higher.
Trump responds to protests with AI video
After the nationwide “No Kings” protests, President Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself in a fighter jet dumping sewage on protesters. He also dismissed the nearly 7 million people who showed up, saying they do not represent the country. Vice President JD Vance boosted a matching AI-style meme of Trump in a crown. Critics say this kind of content is basically making the protesters point for them and also shows how comfortable the administration is with pushing AI-altered media at scale.
Meta cuts 600 jobs from its AI lab
Meta said it is cutting about 600 jobs in the new AI superintelligence lab that it launched this year. Leadership says the smaller team will be able to move faster and make decisions with less internal debate. The company has been pouring tens of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence and high-end infrastructure, including new data centers and ad tools. The layoff news barely moved the stock, which suggests investors see this as normal cost control for a company that is still planning to spend heavily on AI.
Quantum computing stocks pop on takeover rumors
Shares of several U.S. quantum computing companies jumped after reports that the Commerce Department is talking to them about possible government investments. The basic idea is that Washington may want a financial stake in these firms in exchange for federal funding. Traders read that as a sign that quantum is getting treated like strategic tech, similar to chips and rare earth minerals. The result was a fast rebound for names like IonQ and Rigetti after a rough day in the broader market.
Gold and silver prices fall hard
Gold and silver both dropped sharply after hitting record levels earlier in the week. Prices for gold fell back toward the low $4,100 range per ounce, and silver slid under $50. The pullback suggests investors are feeling slightly less panicked about things like tariffs, inflation, and the government shutdown. In plain terms, money moved out of crisis mode and back toward risk.
Iceland finds mosquitoes for the first time
Scientists confirmed that mosquitoes have now shown up in Iceland, a country that’s basically never had them in human history. Warmer average temperatures are making the island friendlier to insects that could not survive there before. The specific species they found is cold-tolerant, which means it might be able to last through Icelandic winters and stick around. It is a small discovery with big implications because mosquitoes carry disease, and climate change is helping them expand north.
Egg recalls keep growing
More than 6 million eggs have now been pulled over salmonella concerns tied to Black Sheep Egg Company and others. The FDA escalated the recall to its highest risk tier and keeps adding new affected lots and brands. Experts say the spike in recalls is not only about farms doing something wrong. It is also about better, faster testing that can spot contamination earlier and force products off shelves before people get sick.
Apple hits a record high on iPhone 17
Apple stock hit an all-time high, at around $264 a share, after early data suggested the iPhone 17 lineup is selling faster than last years iPhone 16 launch. The standout this cycle is the new iPhone Air, which is thinner, lighter, and still priced as a flagship. Strong demand in both the U.S. and China helped fuel the rally and gave investors fresh confidence heading into Apples next earnings report.
Taylor Swift raises millions for sea otters
Taylor Swift wore a vintage Monterey Bay Aquarium T-shirt in her latest concert film, and her fans did the rest. The aquarium brought the shirt back, priced it at $65.13, and raised more than $2.3 million for sea otter rescue and rehab. The campaign ran on Tiltify, which let the aquarium process tens of thousands of orders almost instantly. It was a case study in what happens when fandom, nostalgia, and e-commerce all hit at once.
You dont have to be an avid reader of restaurant industry trade publicationsthough I can attest that they are oddly fascinatingto realize that everythings getting more expensive.
The good news is that theres an easy way to counteract those rising menu prices. By purchasing discounted gift cards, you can defray the cost of fast-food, fast-casual, and sit-down chains, and maybe even some other retailers that have nothing to do with stuffing your face.
All you need is a place to find authentic, cheap gift cards and a little foresight on when to buy them.
This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!
Gift cards for less? Yes, please!
To buy gift cards for less than their actual cash value, head to CardCash.com. It presently only handles orders from within the United States.
CardCash connects people who want to sell their unused gift cards with those who want to buy them.
It takes just a few seconds to see what gift cards are available, though youll need an account to make a purchase.
Most of CardCashs gift cards are digital and arrive via email, so you can start using them instantly.
When you search for a retailer on CardCash, youll see a list of available gift cards, with the biggest percentage discounts appearing at the top. You can also sort the list by value and cost.
The discounts on CardCash range from pennies to several dollarsor sometimes even moreper card.
If youre not looking for anything specific, you can also check out CardCashs Epic 20% Discounts and Deals pages. There youll find cards with greater-than-usual percentage discounts.
You can save yourself time and see only cards with especially significant discounts.
When looking at discount percentages, keep in mind any cash-back offers youd normally get at the store by paying with your credit card. If your card offers 3% back at restaurants, for instance, a gift card with a 3.5% discount probably isnt worth the trouble.
After buying a gift card, youll get a couple of emails from CardCash: One is your order receipt, while the other contains your digital gift card as a PDF attachment. The PDF will show the gift card number, PIN (if necessary), and barcode to scan in-store.
All the info you need for any purchased cards comes to you via email.
Waitis CardCash actually legit?
Ive used CardCash on four occasions over the past few weeks, and on three out of those four occasions, everything went smoothly.
A problem arose, though, after purchasing a Five Guys gift card immediately before eating there. The card, which cost $57.65, had an advertised value of $65.29but when I tried to pay, it only showed a value of $11.57. Using that amount drew the balance down to $0.
After getting home, I contacted CardCashs customer service and did not identify myself as a journalist so as to avoid getting special treatment. I received a response and a refund for the difference in balance the next day.
As CardCash notes on its website, this is an inherent risk with buying gift cards on its platform, which merely serves as a marketplace between buyers and sellers. Theres nothing to inherently stop a seller from using a gift card after selling it, or from selling a stolen gift card that later gets deactivated.
For these kinds of situations, CardCash says it guarantees the value of gift cards for 45 days, so you can contact them and get a refund. But it also suggests confirming gift card balances yourself immediately after the purchase, which Ill absolutely be doing in the future.
Either way, my experience underscores an important caveat with CardCash: Dont spend more on gift cards than you expect to spend in a 45-day period. For one thing, you might end up accruing so many cards that itll be hard to keep track of them allbut more importantly, youll be out of luck if something happens to the cards value.
While Ill keep using CardCash personally, Ill be sure not to stockpile more gift card credit than I need.
CardCash is completely web-based. Itll work in any browser, on any deviceno downloads or installations required.
Its free to use as a buyer, with the only cost being whatever price you pay for a card. The person doing the selling pays the sites fees.
You do have to create an account in order to make a purchase. You can either sign in with your Google account or with any valid email address. The sites privacy policy is clear that no personal info is ever sold or shared in any shady-seeming wa.
Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.
Like many ambitious tech companies before it, OpenAI introduced itself to the culture at large with big claims about how its technology would improve the worldfrom boosting productivity to enabling scientific discovery. Even the caveats and warnings were de facto advertisements for the existential potential of artificial intelligence: We had to be careful with this stuff, or it might literally wipe out humanity.
Fast-forward to the present day, and OpenAI is still driving culture-wide conversations, but its attention-grabbing offerings arent quite so lofty. Its Sora 2 video platformwhich makes it easy to generate and share AI-derived fictionswas greeted as a TikTok for deepfakes. That is, a mash-up of two of the most heavily criticized developments in recent memory: addictive algorithms and misinformation.
As that launch was settling in (and being tweaked to address intellectual property complaints), OpenAI promised a forthcoming change to its flagship ChatGPT product, enabling erotica for verified adults. These products are not exactly curing cancer, as CEO Sam Altman has suggested artificial intelligence may someday do. To the contrary, the moves have struck many as weirdly off-key: Why is a company that took its mission (and itself) so seriously doing . . . this?
An obvious risk here is that OpenAI is watering down a previously high-minded brand. There are multiple major players in AI at this point, including Anthropic, the maker of ChatGPT rival Claude, as well as Meta, Microsoft, Elon Musks Grok, and more. As they seek to attract an audience, they will have to differentiate themselves through how their technologies are deployed and what they make possible, or easy. In short, what the technology stands for. This is why slop, memes, and sex seem like such a comedown from OpenAIs carefully cultivated reputation as an ambitious but responsible pioneer.
To underscore the point, rival Anthropic recently enjoyed a surprising amount of positive attentionan estimated 5,000 visitors and 10 million social media impressionsfor a pop-up event in New Yorks West Village, dubbed a no slop zone, that emphasized analog creativity tools. This is part of a Keep Thinking branding campaign aimed at burnishing the reputation of its Claude chatbot. The company has positioned itself as taking a cautious approach to developing and deploying the technology (one thats attracted some criticism from the Trump administration). It has also made Anthropic stand out in what can be a move-fast-and-break-things competitive field.
AI is a field thats spendingand losingvast sums, and lately casting about for revenue streams in the here and now while working toward that promised lofty future. According to The Information, OpenAI lost $7.8 billion on revenue of $4.5 billion in the first half of 2025, and expects to spend $115 billion by 2029. ChatGPT has 800 million monthly users, but paid accounts are closer to 20 million, and these recent moves suggest that it needs to build and leverage engagement. As Digiday recently noted, OpenAI increasingly seems to be at least considering ad-driven models (once dubbed a last resort by Altman).
Writer and podcaster Cal Newport has made the case that developments like viral-video tools and erotica chat are emblematic of a deeper shift away from grandiose economic impacts and toward betting [the] company on its ability to sell ads against AI slop and computer-generated pornography. Its almost like a sped-up version of Cory Doctorows infamous enshittification process, pivoting from a quality user experience to an increasingly degraded one designed for near-term profit.
This is not entirely fair to OpenAI, whose every move is scrutinized partly because its the best-known brand in a singularly hyped category. All its competitors will also have to deliver real value in exchange for their massive costs to investors and society at large. But precisely because its a leading brand, its particularly susceptible to dilution if its seen as straying from its idealistic promise, and rhetoric. A cutting-edge AI pioneer doesnt want to be perceived as an existential threatbut it also doesnt want to be branded as just another source of crass distraction.
