On November 19, Block Inc. held its first Investor Day in three years. Jack Dorsey, the company’s cofounder, chief executive, and “Block Head,” took to the stage and summarily posed what many investors and others in the industry were likely thinking.
Our business is complicated, he said. We want to make it much easier to understand going forward.
Dorseynotably clean-shavenproceeded to summarize the past few years at Block. The company is indeed much more complex now than when it was founded in 2009 as Square, named for the point-of-sale system that was the companys first product.
Four years ago, it changed its name to Block, a much more fitting moniker given its increasingly multidimensional portfolio, which now includes not only Square but also Cash App, Afterpay, Tidal, Bitkey, and Proto.
For Oakland, California-based Block, the growing pains were real as it has evolved from a single-product company to one that now facilitates payments (and buy-now-pay-later features) for both customers and merchants, has its hands in the crypto space, and even offers a streaming platform for musicians and creators.
The numbers bear it out: After going public in 2015, Block saw its stock price peak in 2021 at more than $270.
Like many other tech companies, Block has seen its shares fall from their pandemic-era highs. The stock is down roughly 26% in 2025 and the company fell short of Wall Street’s projections for its third-quarter earnings in November.
But Block has been making some behind-the-scenes moves over the past few years to right the ship. A major philosophical change, key acquisitions, and a renewed focus on simplicity have Blocks leadership excited about the companys future.
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A lesson in shape-shifting
Changing from a Square to a Block required fundamental organizational and philosophical shifts, which have been the most important aspect of Blocks evolution.
We decided to functionalize the company, says Owen Jennings, Blocks business lead.
That meant making big internal shuffles and reorganizing how information moved between engineers, designers, sales staff, and executives. It also meant putting functional leads into positions where they could be most impactful, whether they were working on product development or sales strategies.
We dissolved the business units and brought functional leaders to the top who reported directly to Jack, he says. He adds that the companys multiple business units were siloed and had different goals and models, which were leading to the wrong outcomes.
What became evident was that Block needed to find ways to serve both merchants and customersusing its products to either transact (via Cash App) or process payments (via Square).
The most obvious [thing] we could bring to the world was connecting the two worlds: consumers and sellers, Jennings says. But it wasnt happening based on the structure we had.
Since the reorganization, “it feels like were one massive company,” Jennings adds, but those changes took time to implement.
Functionalization happened within 18 months, says Nick Molnar, Blocks sales and marketing lead and the cofounder of Afterpay, who decided to stay with Block when it acquired Afterpay in early 2022.
Molnar says that while he is a relative Block newbie (Jennings, by contrast, has been at the firm for more than a decade), he’s seen a notable shift at the company. Meanwhile, most people arent even seeing the full results yet.
The back half of this year, youre seeing the work of the previous 18 months,” he says.
Blocks leaders have also married the functional model to the Rule of 40, a metric common in the SaaS sector, which says that a companys growth rate and profit margin should sum up to 40%.
Amrita Ahuja, Blocks foundational lead, says that prior to instituting the Rule of 40 framework, the company had expected that wed advance margins every yearwe wanted to share the trade-offs behind long-term growth and profitable long-term growth.
So we reoriented the company from the inside out,” she added. “That was really a language we built for the company. It helped us move faster and become more efficient, and ensure investments were going to drive growth.
The Rule of 40, paired with the new functional model, also allowed Block to reorient its larger focus on simplicitysomething it had gotten away from over the years as its business and structure have grown more complicated and convoluted.
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Basic building blocks
Ahuja first came to the company as Squares CFO in 2019. The thing that was striking to me, working at my first tech company, was the level of trust and transparency, she says. There was so much information, and everybody had access to it.
But, naturally, things get more complicated as a company grows, as Square did when it contended with the pandemic and then morphed into Block.
Square started with payments, then we built more than 30 products around it, Ahuja says.
It was a similar situation with Cash App. The kernel was around social money, peer-to-peer transactions,” she adds. “Now we have built a dozen products around that.
Over the years, its become increasingly important to get back to basics and “focus on the things that mean the most to our customers, Ahuja says, adding, “Weve already built a lot of depth and complexitynow its about making sure the right product gets surfaced at the right time for customers.
That is exactly what Block is doing now.
In recent months, Block has announced several new products, including new tools and features under its Square AI suite, Square Bitcoin, and Neighborhoods, a new feature for Cash App, which connects customers with local businesses.
With crypto finding wider adoption and a friendly regulatory framework, and AI being basically everywhere and anywhere, developing and releasing these types of products clearly makes sense for Block.
But Jennings says that Dorsey is not merely jumping on trends for the sake of doing so.
Hes willing to be patient for a long period of time to the extent that he has conviction, and hes been proven right many times, Jennings says of Dorsey, who is also a cofounder of Twitter and, more recently, the competing social media platform Bluesky, although he’s no longer involved in either.
“The power of Jack is that when he comes to the all-hands or presents the company strategy, its incredibly simple,” he adds, “and gets to the essence of what were trying to do.”
The big question: Will it all pay off?
A chip off the new Block
Blocks leaders say that the pieces are in place for a sort of corporate renaissance.
I believe that Block has the ingredients it needs to accelerate its growth, that flows through a really strong, profitable business thats growing in line with some of the best companies in the world, says Molnar.
So even as it may seem like the companys been underachievingperhaps in terms of sagging stock and recent earnings missesthose on the inside say they are brimming with confidence.
Were leading, and will continue to lead, says Jennings, who is particularly confident about Square Bitcoin, which offers no-fee Bitcoin payments for sellers around the world through its existing point-of-sale systems.
He thinks Block is well-positioned to take advantage of the growing ubiquity of Bitcoin payments in the years ahead.
As for Blocks broader goals? During its Investor Day 2025 presentations, the companys 2026 guidance showed expectations of nearly $12 billion in gross profit, an increase of 17% year-over-year.
It also released, for the first time, a three-year financial outlook that lays out what Blocks leadership is expecting, a sign that Block is fully grown up out of its startup stage, and that it’s here for the long haul.
By 2028, Block’s outlook shows, the company anticipates gross profit growth will be in the mid-teens, and that adjusted earnings per share growth will be somewhere around 30%, and on track for further revenue growth.
That would mark quite a turnaround, but Block executives believe they have the team, product mix, and leadership to persevereeven if it takes some time.
Jack is very good at knowing when to be patient and impatient, says Ahuja. From the first day I joined the company, there was a conversation about what his title should be: CEO or editor? Hes the editorhe’s the person who guides us in how we focus our efforts.”
During his comments at Investor Day, Dorsey echoed Ahujas sentiment. Ive never felt more confident that we have all the tools, the structure, the team, and the people to prove this out,” he said.
Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare on Friday said it was investigating an outage that took place in the morning that brought down several global websites including LinkedIn, Zoom and others, the second such crash to affect the company in less than three weeks.Cloudflare said the issue had been resolved, and that it was was “investigating issues with Cloudflare Dashboard and related APIs,” or application programming interface that allow software systems to communicate with each other.The company said the outage was not due to an attack. A change to how its firewall handles requests “caused Cloudflare’s network to be unavailable for several minutes this morning,” the company said.Users on social media platform X also reported problems accessing the website.Edinburgh airport had to shut down briefly on Friday morning. But the airport later said the outage was a localized issue that was not related to Cloudflare.In November, a Cloudflare outage affected users of everything from ChatGPT and the online game, “League of Legends,” to the New Jersey Transit system.Last month Microsoft had to deploy a fix to address an outage of their Azure cloud portal that left users unable to access Office 365, Minecraft and other services. The tech company wrote on its Azure status page that a configuration change to its Azure infrastructure caused the outage.Amazon also experienced a massive outage of its cloud computing service in October.
This version has been updated to reflect that Edinburgh airport says its temporary shutdown was not related to the Cloudflare outage.
Associated Press
Netflix has announced that it intends to buy legendary Hollywood studio Warner Bros. in a deal valued at approximately $82.7 billion.
The deal, which must be approved by regulators, will further consolidate the entertainment industry and give Netflix ownership of some of the most iconic films and television franchises ever, not to mention HBO.
Heres what you need to know:
Whats happened?
Today, Netflix and Warner Bros announced a deal in which Netflix will purchase the legendary Hollywood studio, along with its HBO Max and HBO divisions, for a total enterprise value of approximately $82.7 billion (which Netflix says has an equity value of $72.0 billion).
The deal isnt exactly a surprise, as Warner Bros had previously put itself up for sale publicly and Netflix was expected to be one of the primary bidders for the companys assets. However, the deal marks a major milestone for the streaming giant, which is not known for large-scale acquisitions.
The news comes after Warner Bros. Discovery, the company’s owner, announced this summer that it would split the current company into two, with the new ones owning its Streaming & Studios assets and Global Networks divisions, respectively.
With todays announcement, Netflix is essentially buying the Streaming & Studios company that will spin off from Warner Bros. Discovery next year.
When the deal closes, Netflix says each WBD shareholder will receive $23.25 in cash as well as $4.50 in shares of Netflix common stock for every share of WBD common stock they own.
Announcing the deal, Greg Peters, co-CEO of Netflix, said, With our global reach and proven business model, we can introduce a broader audience to the worlds [Warner Bros. creates]giving our members more options, attracting more fans to our best-in-class streaming service, strengthening the entire entertainment industry and creating more value for shareholders.
What IP will Netflix acquire under the deal?
Netflixs purchase deal for Warner Bros, HBO Max, and HBO will give the streaming giant ownership over one of the most lucrative intellectual property portfolios out there.
If the deal closes, Netflix will own:
DC Universe
Batman
Superman
Wonder Woman
Friends
Game of Thrones
The Big Bang Theory
The Harry Potter film franchise
Touching on the IP aspect of the deal, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said, Our mission has always been to entertain the world. By combining Warner Bros. incredible library of shows and moviesfrom timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friendswith our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better.
What has Warner Bros said about the deal?
In a statement, David Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said, Todays announcement combines two of the greatest storytelling companies in the world to bring to even more people the entertainment they love to watch the most.”
When does the Netflix-Warner Bros deal close?
Netflix says that it expects the transaction to close in the next 12-18 months, putting a likely closing date sometime in 2027.
However, Netflix and Warner Bros can likely expect extreme regulatory scrutiny of their deal. While Netflixs and WBDs boards of directors unanimously approved the deal, it will not be finalized until regulators give the go-ahead.
How have the companies’ stock prices reacted?
Shares in Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) fell in premarket trading on Friday. As of this writing, Netflix stock is down just over 4%.
Shares in Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBD) were essentially flat in premarket trading as of this writing.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning people to stop using certain types of glucose monitor sensors after the company that makes them, Abbott Diabetes Care, said the devices were linked to seven deaths and more than 700 injuries.Certain FreeStyle Libre 3 and FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus sensors may provide incorrect low glucose readings, FDA officials said this week. Such readings over an extended period may lead people with diabetes to make bad treatment decisions, such as consuming too many carbohydrates or skipping or delaying doses of insulin.“These decisions may pose serious health risks, including potential injury or death,” the FDA said in the alert.The sensors are devices that measure glucose levels in fluid just beneath the skin to provide real-time measurements of sugar in the blood. Information from the sensor is sent wirelessly to a device or phone.The warning affects about three million sensors in the U.S. from a single production line, Abbott officials said in a statement. About half those devices have expired or been used, the company added. As of Nov. 14, the company reported seven deaths worldwide and 736 serious adverse events. No deaths occurred in the U.S., where 57 injuries were reported.Abbott has notified all customers of the problem. The company said it has identified and resolved the issue in the affected production lot.The FDA said people should stop using affected sensors and discard them.The problem involved FreeStyle Libre 3 sensors with model numbers 72080-01 with unique device identifiers 00357599818005 and 00357599819002. It also involved FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus sensors with model numbers 78768-01 and 78769-01 and unique device identifiers 00357599844011 and 00357599843014.People can visit www.FreeStyleCheck.com to check if their sensors are potentially affected and request a replacement, the company said. No other FreeStyle Libre products are affected.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Jonel Aleccia, AP Health Writer
Scented candle lovers, the day you have waited for all year is finally here.
Today marks the kick-off of the annual Candle Day sales event from Bath & Body Works, during which the retailer’s pricey scented wax pillars will go for just a third of their regular cost.
Heres what you need to know about Candle Day 2025.
What is Candle Day 2025?
Candle Day is Bath & Body Works’ annual candle sale bonanza. Throughout the year, many of the companys three-wick candles go for $29.95 each, but during Candle Day, many of those candles can be had for prices as low as $9.95.
Due to the massive savings, Candle Day is a sales event that candle lovers across America look forward to each year.
However, dont let the Candle Day name fool you.
Much like Amazon Prime Day, the title of the event is a bit misleading. As with Prime Day, Candle Day is not actually only a 24-hour event and instead runs across multiple days.
During the event, Bath & Body Works says, over 180 varieties of candles will be on sale.
When is Candle Day 2025?
There are two different elements to Bath & Body Works Candle Day 2025: the online element and the in-store element.
Candle Days deals are available both in-store and online, but the online portion of the sale actually kicks off earlier. For Candle Day 2025, the online (and mobile app) deals began at 10 p.m. last night, December 4.
The in-store Candle Day event officially kicks off this morning at 6 a.m. Candle Day 2025 then runs both online and in-store from Friday, December 5, through Sunday, December 7.
How much are Candle Day prices?
Most three-wick candles at Bath & Body Works cost around $29.95 throughout the year. But during the Candle Day sales event, many of those same candles can be purchased for just $9.95.
Customers will get the same sale price no matter if they shop online, in the mobile app, or in-store.
Are there any new or limited-edition candles for Candle Day 2025?
Yes. This year, Bath & Body Works is unveiling new, limited-time, and limited-edition candles for Candle Day 2025.
The 2025 limited-edition candle is called Holiday Dill-ight, which the company describes as Inspired by the quirky holiday tradition.”
The company is also unveiling several new candle collections.
The Sunday Funday collection includes Neapolitan Ice Cream, Gummy Candies, Glazed Cherries, Butterscotch Swirl, Sugared Waffle Cone, and Hot Fudge Drizzle.
The Perfect Pairings collection includes Coffee & Donuts, Chips & Salsa, Pizza & Ranch, and Popcorn & Slushie.
And the Holiday Bucket List collection includes new candles like Rum Rum Reindeer and Christmas Road Trip, along with returning holiday favorites Sweater Weather, Merry Mimosa, and Vanilla Balsam.
Candle Day 2025 marks the retailer’s 14th Candle Day event. It comes just days after Newell Brands, parent company of Yankee Candle, announced it would be closing 20 Yankee Candle stores this year.
Bath & Body Works has also struggled this year, reporting a 1% decrease in net sales for its third quarter. It expects sales will decline in the “low single digits” for the full year.
Shares in Bath & Body Works (NYSE: BBWI) are down almost 50% in 2025.
The District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virgina (DMV) region is emerging as a national test case for the future of office space.
As cities across the country grapple with persistent office vacancies, D.C. is taking a bold approach: Instead of focusing solely on residential conversions, it is pioneering a broader strategy to convert offices toanything.
While the concept of office conversions isnt new, most efforts have been centered on residential use. D.C.s strategy breaks that mold.
In January 2025, the city launched the Central Washington Activation Projects Temporary Tax Abatement, better known as the Office to Anything program. This policy targets buildings that arent suitable for housing conversion and opens the door to a wider range of uses.
With this program, D.C. is positioning itself as a laboratory for alternative office conversions, from data centers to hospitality and mixed-use spaces. As federal workforce reductions continue and General Service Administration (GSA) leases expire, the DMV faces mounting vacancies. This presents a rare opportunity for other cities to watch D.C.s approach in action and consider how similar policies could reshape their own urban cores.
WHY D.C.S OFFICE MARKET SIGNALS A NATIONAL SHIFT
The DMV is ground zero for federal downsizing, with one-fifth of all federal workers, according to Brookings, and 46 million square feet of office space leased by the government. With our Federal Property Pulse (FPP) tool, we are tracking these GSA leases and cancellations across the U.S. Since January 2025, 24 leases in the region have been canceled, contributing to 1.9 million square feet of vacant office space. This is over 4% of the total space leased by the GSA. The FPP shows that another 9.98 million square feet of space could enter the already struggling DMV office market in the next year.
This is a critical moment for the region. As the structure of the federal government continues to evolve, so must the economic core.
Brookings DMV Monitor reported a mismatch in displaced federal government workers and available private sector positions. While there are new jobs entering the market, many of these are unsuited to the 17,000 displaced federal government workers, as the new roles are concentrated in construction, hospitality, and healthcare sectors.
As GSA lease expiries and cancellations increase and federal workforce reduction continues, D.C. could become a case study for the role of office conversions in supporting a shifting economic core.
FEDERAL LEASE EXPIRIES: A TICKING CLOCK FOR OFFICES
A wave of expiring federal leases is approaching. As part of the effort to cut government spending, the GSA will reduce its leased footprint by allowing expiring leases to lapse without renewal. With the GSA leasing 145 million square feet of office space across the U.S., the DMV will not be the only region affected. Of that space, 51.4 million square feet are already in holdover, soft-term, or nearing soft-term.
While we can predict an influx of former GSA-leased properties will enter the market, lease terms make it difficult to know exact timing. GSA leases typically include a noncancellable hard-term followed by a soft-term, where leases can be terminated with 120180 days notice. This creates uncertainty around when properties will re-enter the market.
UNLOCK NEW USES FOR OFFICE SPACE
The initial hype around office-to-residential conversions was driven by a rise in vacant office properties in favorable downtown neighborhoods. These properties helped address housing shortages, but many of the most viable buildings have already been repurposed.
With residential conversion options narrowing, cities must assess market demand and local economic drivers to identify alternative uses. The D.C. Office to Anything policy seeks to reposition underutilized office assets into higher-performing uses based on zoning, market demand, and building characteristics. Key alternative uses include small-scale industrial, data centers, hospitality, and mixed-use spaces.
Looking beyond the office-to-residential model could offer cheaper conversions and shorter timelines. Small scale industrial and logistics conversions come in around $100-$150 per square foot with timelines of 6 to 12 months, while residential conversions cost $250-$400 per square foot with 24-to-36-month timelines. Not only do industrial uses offer lower conversion costs, but shorter timelines could also result in quick returns on investment.
It isnt only a matter of cost and timelines; alternative office conversions are better suited to meet the needs of an individual market. For some cities, data centers are emerging as an opportunity for conversion. With a projected shortfall of over 15 gigawatts of processing power by 2030, vacant office properties located near economic and urban centers could help to curb demand. In particular, offices can be converted to edge computing facilities that distribute processing and data storage, keeping these capabilities closer to data sources.
WHAT MAKES CONVERSIONS WORK?
Successful conversions depend on two things: physical feasibility and financial viability. Local government support is key to improving the viability of conversions through streamlined approval processes, zoning flexibility, and financial support.
Zoning is one of the first, and more formidable hurdles that office conversions face. If a commercial property cannot be rezoned, the entire viability of the project falls apart. Downtowns with zoning flexibility will see the most success in the long run. In Texas, statewide zoning flexibility is enabling office conversions in cities like Dallas.
Local government can also play a major role in determining the financial viability of a conversion project. Without tax incentives or subsidies, the cost of conversions could be prohibitive. This is part of what makes D.C.s Office to Anything conversions so appealing. Providing a 15-year temporary property tax freeze, the policy improves viability. Combined with the potential for lower conversion costs for nonresidential uses, these projects could become more appealing for developers.
SCALE THE STRATEGY
The DMV isnt alone in facing office vacancy challenges. Across the U.S., millions of square feet in GSA properties stand to enter the market. D.C. can show us what to do with that vacant space. Office conversions dont have to mean housing, they can mean anything. As cities continue to rethink their economic cores, the success of D.C.s Office to Anything strategy could redefine how we use space.
Mark Rose is chair and CEO of Avison Young.
Greetings, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In.
Even by tech-industry standards, the air of serene confidence OpenAI CEO Sam Altman projects in public appearances is overwhelming. Still, that doesnt mean he never sweats behind the scenes. Indeed, we learned this week that Altman is downright concerned about the future of his companys flagship product, ChatGPT.
On December 1, The Informations Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo reported that Altman had initiated a code red effort within OpenAI to make its chatbot more personalized and customizable. The move involves diverting resources from other efforts, such as developing AI agents and monetizing the companys platform through advertising.
Drawing on an Altman memo distributed to OpenAI staffers, Palazzolo and Woos story says he called now a critical time for ChatGPT. Their piece doesnt spell out the reasons for his alarm in much detail. But it ties his redeployment of resources to Googles recent surge as a provider of AI platforms and products, which Altman called out as at least a short-term issue for OpenAI in an earlier memo.
Since he wrote that one, Google released Gemini 3 Pro. The new version of its LLM has achieved breakthrough high scores in multiple AI benchmarks, along with excellent reviews. No wonder Altman is feeling pressured.
ChatGPTs historic success leaves OpenAI with more to lose than any other AI chatbot company. In October, Altman said it had reached 800 million active weekly users, a figure few tech products have ever reached. I dont know of any truly reliable comparative stats on usage of the major AI chatbots. But every chart Ive seen tells a similar story, with ChatGPT sailing along by itself in the stratosphere and everyone else huddled in its shadow.
Why is that? Well, with ChatGPT OpenAI created the modern AI chatbot category, giving itself a head start that still matters three years later. People who use these products have different tastes and priorities, but ChatGPT has evolved rapidly. It remains one of the strongest options, even though GPT-5 turned out to be ludicrously overhyped. Despite furious competition from startups and tech giants alikeincluding worthy contenders such as Anthropics Claudenobody has come up with anything manifestly superior enough to knock it off its pedestal.
But it might be a mistake to assume that ChatGPT has an everlasting lock on its market, akin to the one Google secured in conventional search engines early in this century. Altman clearly doesnt think so. And over the past couple of weeks, Ive come to think the market might be more fluid than I realized.
Thats because Ive found myself spending far less time with ChatGPT (as well as Claude, my other chatbot of habit). Instead, Ive taken almost all of my AI needs to Googles new version of Gemini.
Now, when I wrote about Gemini 3 Pro for Plugged In shortly after its release, I did tend to accentuate the negative. That was based on experiencing some pretty severe hallucinations on its part, some of which it oddly tried to blame on others.
Having used the new Gemini a lot more since then, Ive given it more opportunities to impress meand it has. Ive used it for everything from discovering lesser-known bossa nova music to vibe coding to figuring out how to manually install apps on my network server. In those instances when I tried the same task with ChatGPT, Ive consistently liked Geminis responses better.
But the lesson Ive drawn isnt just that Googles AI has improved by several orders of magnitude since the days when Bard, its proto-Gemini, was a slightly embarrassing also-ran. Its also dawned on me that absolutely nothing is keeping me from leaving ChatGPT for Gemini. Its been one of the most frictionless transitions between platforms Ive ever experienced.
For instance, no learning curve was involved: The two chatbots have damn near the same user interface. Nor did I have anything stored in ChatGPT that provided a powerful incentive to stay there, the way my Gmail archive (and rules Ive set up to organize my inbox) induces me to keep using Gmail.
Even ChatGPTs memory featurewhich tries to mine your chat history to improve its responseshasnt figured out enough about me to make the app stickier. It still feels more like an eager-to-please stranger than an old friend. As does Gemini and every other AI bot.
As a person who uses AI, the realization that Im not boxed into ChatGPT has been . . . kind of thrilling, actually. For OpenAI, however, its a problem. I currently pay OpenAI $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus and Google $26 a month for a Workspace Business Plus account. But along with enterprise-grade Gemini, Googles $26-per-month plan gets me a full complement of productivity tools, 5TB of cloud storage, and more. At some point, ChatGPT Plus might look expendableespecially if I continue to prefer Gemini.
Now multiply my decision process by the 220 million paying users OpenAI has said it expects to have by 2030. Without them, the business model behind its mind-bendingly expensive plan to build out its data center capacity would crumble. If users of ChatGPTs free plan defect to Gemini in significant numbers, it would also complicate the companys intention of becoming an ad platform.
Altmanunderstands all this. Thats why he set off the code-red alarm to quickly bolster ChatGPTs user experience. It explains why hes particularly focused on personalization and customization, two features that would help the chatbot feel less like an easily replaceable commodity. According to The Informations report, Altmans memo also said that OpenAI is about to release a new reasoning model that beats Gemini 3 in its internal tests.
Personally, I hope that the companys gambit to quickly make ChatGPT much better pays off. If it does, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and other AI purveyors will feel even more heat to make similar great leaps forward. May the best chatbot win. And even if they start to feel like they truly understand our needs and desires, may it remain as simple to flit between them as it is now.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged Inon Flipboard.
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The data center boom is fully underway, and the numbers are staggering: billions of dollars in costs, millions of square feet worth of buildings, gigawatts of energy, and millions of gallons of water used per day. But before these AI-fueling behemoths can get up and running, there’s an extensive amount of prep work needed to build the infrastructure those data centers rely upon, with a whole other set of staggering costs, material flows, and resource requirements.
The infrastructure behind (and below) the data center boom is in the midst of its own massive scale building boom, with no end in sight. That’s created a thriving business for the companies that provide the raw materials used to make that infrastructure.
“The focus for the most part is always on the facility . . . but what gets a lot less attention today is actually what it takes to build the infrastructure around them,” says Nathan Creech, president of the Americas division at CRH, the $81 billion market cap building materials company. “Most people don’t see the below-the-ground infrastructure for water, for telecom, for energy that it takes, or the road systems to get in.”
CRH is the largest building materials company in North America and Europe, providing aggregates, cement, road, and water infrastructure for building projects around the world. The company is currently working on more than 100 data centers in the U.S. This data center work was highlighted in the company’s third quarter financial results as a “robust” growth area and part of its $11.1 billion in quarterly revenue, which the company expects to continue to rise for the foreseeable future.
Grading and site preparation underway at a Microsoft data center construction site in Aldie, Virginia. October, 2025. [Photo: Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
Most of CRH’s large data center projects are covered by nondisclosure agreements, but you can probably imagine some of its potential customers. As competition for AI dominance heats up, so-called hyperscalers like Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle are investing in ever bigger data centers. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have announced multibillion-dollar data center building sprees. According to one report, total data center construction spending is expected to exceed $52 billion in 2025. These investments will lead to a lot of state-of-the-art buildings. But first, they’ll require even more traditional infrastructure. And with construction material costs rising 40% over the past five years, all that infrastructure is part of the reason so much money is being spent to build these data centers.
“Think about the water, energy, and communication systems required to operate themit’s a huge logistical challenge and demands a significant amount of expertise,” says Creech.
What it takes to build a data center
Once a big tech company has identified the site for a new data centera process that requires its own complex calculus to balance spatial demands, electricity generation capacity, and access to watera significant amount of concrete and asphalt has to be laid down.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
The estimated size of data centers varies from 20,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet, but CRH notes that average data center building typically requires 150,000 tons of aggregates, or enough to build a four-mile long lane of interstate highway. This is used to lay the concrete foundation for the building, as well as subsurface structures like water retention cisterns and retaining walls. Most of this material is mined and supplied locally. Roads have to be built to access these sites both during construction and operation, requiring even more raw materials.
CRH operates more than 2,000 manufacturing plants and quarries across the U.S., and Creech estimates that 85% of U.S. datacenters sit within 30 miles of one of these facilities. For those projects that aren’t located near an existing facility, CRH builds them.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
“You hear about the main investments, but what you never hear about are the investments that we’re making in greenfields and building out new mines and making sure that there’s asphalt plants and concrete plants and pipe plants and paver plants that are in the area,” Creech says. “Because our products, you can’t ship them very far.”
Speed has become a priority for many of these projects. Earlier this year Meta revealed that it was accelerating the startup time for new data centers by building them with hurricane-proof tents. A spokesperson told Fast Company at the time that tents are currently being set up as part of at least one of the multi-gigawatt data centers the company is building, located in New Albany, Ohio.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
Creech says this time pressure has also changed the way CRH approaches these big projects. Typically site works and utility infrastructure can take between three and six months to build, but he says there have been cases where CRH has sped up the delivery timeline of the baseline concrete pad infrastructure to just four weeks.
An Amazon Web Services data center under construction on Quail Ridge Ln in Stone Ridge, Virginia. March, 2024. [Photo: Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
The race to stand up AI data centers has some analysts concerned about overbuilding, cautioning that dynamics in data center technology and future demands may put some of the infrastructure being built at risk of becoming obsolete or even unnecessary. Some have even called this an “infrastructure bubble.”
In the near term, none of these concerns seem to be stopping the building boom that’s now underway. And as it continues to progress, it’s going to require a whole lot of concrete.
[Image: courtesy CRH]
While the iPhone 17 is expected to be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season, some of the early adopters of Apple’s latest phone may be moving on to something different already.
New data from B-Stock, a B2B marketplace for wholesale liquidation of returned and overstock inventory, finds that large cellular carriers are already moving “bulk quantities” of iPhone 17s through the resale channels for B2B customers. One sale on the site currently offers 111 iPhone 17 Pro Max units (with bidding for the lot standing at $80,200 as of Wednesday afternoon).
All totaled, there were more than 300 iPhone 17 devices up for resale on the site as of Wednesday.
The sales aren’t impacting the value of the phones, however. B-Stock says it’s seeing resale prices on the phones maintaining 94% of the retail price.
And to be clear, theres not a big wave of people returning their phones. B-Stock says the return rates are largely in line with predecessors on a percentage basis (and actually lower than the iPhone 16). But with the strong sales of the 17, an overall greater number of units is expected to be returned.
The used-phone market has been gaining strength for some time. Earlier this year, tech research and advisory firm CCS Insight said the secondhand smartphone market is growing faster than the primary market, with a growth rate of 6% year over year in 2024. Apple devices make up 60% of the overall used market.
“The growing demand for used smartphones is driven by a stronger desire for low-cost devices, increased consumer awareness, and partnerships between telecom operators and retailers,” said Leo Gebbie, CCS Insights principal analyst and director for the Americas, in a statement. “Refurbished smartphones, which are often up to 50% cheaper than new devices, now also come with warranties, flexible financing options, and reliable after-sales service, increasing consumer trust.
Last year, secondhand smartphones generated revenues of $7.6 billion in the U.S. (and another $13.2 billion in the Asia-Pacific region).
Meanwhile, International Data Corp. (IDC), a market intelligence firm, forecasts global shipments of used smartphones will grow by 3.2% year over year in 2025, which is triple its prediction of sales gains from new smartphones. That’s due to a growing number of trade-in programs, improvements in the quality of refurbished devices, and a rising environmental awareness among consumers.
The trend isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon. IDC expects the used smartphone market to see 5.8% growth in 2026 before tapering off slowly to 4.9% by 2029.
B-Stock is not the only company seeing the latest round of iPhones hold their value. On SellCell, a marketplace for consumers to sell their smartphones and devices, the iPhone Air had a trade-in value of $760 as of Wednesday, compared with a retail price of $999 for the same model. That’s despite numerous reports that demand for the iPhone Air model was significantly lower than expected, with Apple reportedly cutting production on the line.
It’s not just the iPhone 17 that’s seeing sustained demand. The iPhone 16 is retaining 72% of its original price, B-Stock reports. And the iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and iPhone 14 Pro Max are the three most frequently sold models on the site’s B2B platform.
The strong demand in the used smartphone market doesn’t seem to be impacting sales of new iPhone models. Apple is expected to have a record year in 2025, thanks to the latest series of phones, with shipment forecasts of 247 million or more, IDC says.
The iPhone 17 is selling very well in China, Apple’s largest market, and has reversed the slowdown Apple was seeing in the U.S. and Western Europe. In fact, the popularity of the iPhone 17 was a key reason Apple’s market capitalization topped $4 trillion earlier this year.
Columbia Sportswear just lauched its Endor collection, and I want it all. Inspired by the clothes worn by the rebel squad that took on the Death Star’s shield generator in Return of the Jedi, it’s the latest and largest Star Wars drop from Portland, Oregon-based company. It’s also the best fit for the brand since its Empire Strikes Back‘s Echo Base Han Solo parkas, which I missed back in 2017, and I will forever feel like a dumb Tauntaun for not grabbing one (they run for almost $1,000 each now).
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
The highlight of the collection is General Han Solos Trench, a $600 jacket that mimics the camouflage duster that Harrison Ford wore while leading the strike team on the forest moon. Unlike cheap Amazon costumes, this and the rest of the line is built with actual functional specs, using an Interchange system that pairs a waterproof shell with an inner vest lined with Columbias Omni-Heat Infinity gold thermal reflectors.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Yes, the fabric that literally went to space (unlike Ford). Its loaded with fan-service details, including Aurebesh messagesthe basic galaxy alphabetand a Rebel Alliance patch, but its the practical application that matters. You can wear it to sneak into an Imperial bunker or just to survive a rainy commute in Seattle.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Six hundred galactic credits for a trench may seem like a lot, but according to Erin Steele, Special Projects Manager for Columbia Sportswear, the Endor drop’s prices are consistent with similar styles in their product line. Steele says that like the other Star Wars drops they developed closely with Disney and Lucasfilm, this clothing line is very far from cosplay.
“The Battle of Endor is such an outdoor rich moment in the film, so we were really excited by the range of silhouettes, especially since outerwear is truly our specialty,” she says. “While we leaned heavily on the original costume pieces for inspiration, we identified silhouettes that are modern and wearable for everyday life.”
In the movie, she points out, Han is wearing a standard trench layered over his vest and shirt. In their version, they translated those layers into the company’s 3-in-1 multilayer technology, called Interchange. Plus they added a hood that wasn’t in the original.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
If you want to look more like Luke or Leia speeding through the redwoods, there is the Endor Issue Poncho, which goes for $400. This piece replicates the hand-sprayed camouflage look of the original film costumes, but adds modern waterproofing.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
For those who prefer something less flowing, the Endor Issue Cargo Vest ($150) and Endor Issue Pant ($130) offer a more tactical, everyday utility vibe. Both feature the collections signature camo print and functional pockets, making them the most wearable items if you don’t want to look like you just walked off a convention floor.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
There is the $220 Endor Issue Boot, a rugged hiker that has a Rebel insignia on the tongue and comes with two sets of laces, because apparently, even in a galaxy far, far away, shoe customization was a thing, too.
And, of course, you can’t do Endor without the anthropophagous murder bears. I hate with a vengeance almost as much as I hate to admit that the Ewok Fleece Jacket is pretty damn cute. It is exactly what it sounds like: a high-pile, ultrasoft fleece jacket that has a Ewok-shaped hood with ears on it. Its available in adult sizes for $80, and in youth ($75) or infant bunting ($70) versions if you have kids. One bit I like: It features original concept art on the chest patch, a nice nod to the Lucasfilm archives.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Same technology as the regular Columbia stuff
According to Becca Johnson, the company’s special projects director, the Ewok Bunting and Jacket use “tried-and-true plush, cozy fleece, with warmth as the main objective for those styles.” She says that “during testing with kids, they were so well received that they literally didnt want to take them off.” They do look comfy.
[Photo: Columbia Sportswear]
Although they are clearly Star Wars design, the nature of the Endor drop makes it look like a perfect fit for a company like Columbia. They work just the same, too. Johnson tells me that all these products use their core technologies for body and footwear. “All of these materials have already gone through rigorous real-world testing. We know they perform in dense, damp environments here on Earth, so were confident theyll hold up just as well on Endor,” Johnson says.
The collection drops on December 11, 2025. If you are a Columbia Greater Rewards member, you get early access at 6:30 a.m. PST; everyone else has to wait until 7 a.m. PST. Given how fast previous drops have sold out (the Empire Strikes Back Han Solos parka sold out in just six minutes), you might want to set an alarm and hope the Force is with you. Or just wait five years and pay triple on eBay like I am tempted to do with that damn coat every single winter.
