A wild winter storm was expected to bring strong winds, heavy snow and frigid temperatures to the Great Lakes and Northeast on Tuesday, a day after a bomb cyclone barreled across the northern U.S. and left tens thousands of customers without power.The storm that hit parts of the Plains and Great Lakes on Monday brought sharply colder air, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice and rain that led to treacherous travel. Forecasters said it intensified quickly enough to meet the criteria of a bomb cyclone, a system that strengthens rapidly as pressure drops.Nationwide, more than 153,000 customers were without power early Tuesday, more than a third of them in Michigan, according to Poweroutage.us.As Monday’s storm moved into Canada, the National Weather Service predicted more inclement weather conditions for the Eastern U.S, including quick bursts of heavy snow and gusty winds known as snow squalls.New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that whiteout conditions were expected Tuesday in parts of the state, including the Syracuse-metro area.“If you’re in an impacted area, please avoid all unnecessary travel,” she said in a post on the social media platform X.Snow piled up quickly in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on Monday, where as much as 2 feet (60 centimeters) fell in some areas, according to the National Weather Service. Meteorologist Ryan Metzger said additional snow was expected in the coming days, although totals would be far lighter.Waves on Lake Superior that were expected to reach 20 feet (6 meters) Monday sent all but one cargo ship into harbors for shelter, according to MarineTraffic.com. Weather forecasting on the lakes has improved greatly since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 1975 after waves were predicted at up to 16 feet (4.8 meters).The fierce winds on Lake Erie sent water surging toward the basin’s eastern end near Buffalo, New York, while lowering water on the western side in Michigan to expose normally submerged lakebed even the wreck of a car and a snowmobile.Kevin Aldrich, 33, a maintenance worker from Monroe, Michigan, said he has never seen the lake recede so much and was surprised on Monday to spot the remnants of old piers dating back to the 1830s. He posted photos on social media of wooden pilings sticking up several feet from the muck.“Where those are at would typically be probably 12 feet deep,” he said. “We can usually drive our boat over them.”Dangerous wind chills plunged as low as minus 30 F (minus 34 C) across parts of North Dakota and Minnesota on Monday. And in northeast West Virginia, rare, nearly hurricane-force winds were recorded on a mountain near Dolly Sods, according to the National Weather Service.In Iowa, after blizzard conditions eased by Monday morning, high winds continued blowing fallen snow across roadways, keeping more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) of Interstate 35 closed. State troopers reported dozens of crashes during the storm, including one that killed a person.On the West Coast, the National Weather Service warned that moderate to strong Santa Ana winds were expected in parts of Southern California through Tuesday, raising concerns about downed trees in areas where soils have been saturated by recent storms. Two more storms were forecast later this week, with rain on New Year’s Day potentially soaking the Rose Parade in Pasadena for the first time in about two decades.
Associated Press writers Julie Walker in New York; Corey Williams in Detroit; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut; and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed.
Leah Willingham and Jeff Martin, Associated Press
Shares opened mixed in Europe on Tuesday after slipping in Asia as some regional markets wrapped up trading for the year.Crude oil prices edged higher and gold and silver resumed their ascent. U.S. futures were flat.In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi rang out the final session for 2025 in a traditional year-end ceremony.“By realizing a Japanese economy that earns the trust of investors around the world, we will create a virtuous cycle in which global capital flows into Japan,” Takaichi said.The benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.4% to 50,339.48, its first year-end close above 50,000. It ended 2025 up nearly 25%.With just two trading days left before the year ends, most big investors have closed out their positions and volume has been thin. Most global markets will be closed Thursday, New Year’s day, and some will also be closed Wednesday and Friday.In early European trading, Germany’s DAX was nearly unchanged at 24,348.38. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.1% to 9.876.73, while the CAC 40 in Paris had barely budged at 8,112.37.Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 0.9% to 25,854.60, while the Shanghai Composite index was virtually unchanged at 3,965.51.In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% lower to 8,717.10.South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.2% to 4,214.17, while Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.4%.India’s Sensex was down less than 0.1%.On Monday, stocks slipped in quiet trading on Wall Street. The S&P 500 fell 0.3%. It’s still up more than 17% for the year and it remains on track for its eighth monthly gain in a row.The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5%, while the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5%.Big technology stocks with outsized valuations were among the heaviest weights on the market. Nvidia and several other companies focusing on AI or benefiting heavily from the developing technology have become some of the most valuable in the world.Nvidia fell 1.2% and Broadcom fell 0.8%.Tech shares have wobbled recently as investors have grown skeptical over the whether the eventual payoff will justify hefty investments in artificial intelligence.The price of gold gained 0.7% early Tuesday after falling 4.6% the day before. It’s up about 64% for the year.Silver prices gained 4.4% after slumping 8.7% on Monday. They have more than doubled in 2025.The precious metals fell back on Monday when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the largest trading floors for commodities, asked traders to put up more cash to make bets on precious metals.Treasury yields fell in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.11% from 4.13% late Friday.Treasury yields have fallen significantly from the start of the year, after the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate to help counter a slowing jobs market. That risks heating up inflation that is already stubbornly above the central bank’s target rate of 2%. Interest rate cuts could boost the economy by making loans less expensive, but that benefit could be nullified by rising inflation stunting economic growth.In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. crude oil gained 14 cents to $58.22 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 12 cents to $61.61 per barrel.The U.S. dollar slipped to 156.00 Japanese yen from 156.05 yen. The euro fell to $1.1769 from $1.1774.
AP video journalist Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
Ive done it, youve done it, weve all done it. With the best of intentions, we set big goals for our future: get a work promotion, lose 20 pounds, run a marathon. And too often, we give up a few months later, realizing we bit off more than we could chew. Why? We get enamored with the idea but the execution? Not so much. Goals can seem straightforward, but without a specific plan or realistic milestones, they quickly fizzle out.
The Appeal and Problem of Big Goals
Big goals can quickly inspire us and make us feel like were putting effort into forward progress. But goals are only as good as the plans that support them. You cant build your dream house without an architectural drawing.
New Years resolutions are a great example. Every January, we feel compelled to proclaim a grand milestone well achieve to make our lives betterlike quitting a bad habit or getting eight hours of sleep. According to a study by Strava, 80% of New Years resolutions fail by February. Sounds familiar? Thats because while setting a goal might feel empowering, the lack of planning leaves us with nothing but good intentions.
Taavo Godtfredsen and Samantha Allison, authors of The 5x CEO, studied cohorts of CEOs to determine what made the best leaders and their teams rise to the top. As one portfolio company CEO told them, “Create the strategic outcome that you’re trying to get to and then align your actions relentlessly to deliver it.”
The Danger of Wildly Ambitious Goals
Im not saying to not set big goals. The mistake to avoid is setting goals that are too big or too vague. For example: imagine deciding that youre going to lose 30 pounds in two months. First of all, good luck. Second of all, while this is a noble goal, its incredibly easy to get discouraged if progress doesnt come quickly, or if you dont have a clear path to follow. The goal is so large (or intimidating) that it becomes a demotivator.
A better approach would be to set smaller goals with milestones that you can realistically achieve. Instead of losing 30 pounds, break it down into manageable milestones: lose five pounds in the first month, aim for three workouts a week, and so on. Each small achievement gives a feeling of progress, and the cumulative effect is much more sustainable over time.
Similarly in business, setting a goal to “Be the category leader!” is ambitious and inspiring, but without a step-by-step plan on how to get theremarket research, increased sales support, innovative partnershipsits just a distant dream. Setting smaller goals within that larger vision (e.g., increase sales by 10% this quarter, build a social media presence, etc.) gives you specific targets to work toward.
Goals Need Plans. Period.
Goals are like the destination on a map, but your plan is the GPS that gets you there. Without that road map, you could be driving in circles. Plans that break down larger goals into smaller, actionable steps make the journey manageable, measurable, and motivating.
I like the example of Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. As an entrepreneur, she had a big goal: to create a revolutionary undergarment that would change the way women feel about their clothing. But Blakely didnt just rely on this one big idea. She broke her goal into smaller steps: she spent time learning about manufacturing, secured a meeting with potential investors, and went through the process of patenting her product. Impressively, Blakely started Spanx with just $5,000, but by creating a detailed plan and breaking her vision into incremental steps, she eventually created a billion-dollar business.
Create a Plan That Works
So, how do you turn goals into actionable plans? Try these tips:
Break it Down: Divide your goal into smaller, manageable chunks. If your goal is to write a book, dont just aim to write a book. Set specific targets, like write 500 words a day or complete one chapter per month.
Set SMART Goals: The SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) is a simple yet effective way to ensure your goals are grounded in reality. Rather than saying, I want to get fit, say, I will work out four times a week for 30 minutes for the next three months.
Create a Timeline: Every goal needs a timeline attached to it. Deadlines create urgency and help you stay accountable.
Eliminate Obstacles: What might stand in your way? Whether its time, money, or motivation, identifying potential barriers helps you plan for and eliminate them.
Track Progress: Regularly check your progress. Are you meeting your milestones? Make adjustments as needed.
The Power of Consistency
Like many things in life, its not the grand gestures but rather the accumulation of daily actions that make an impact: the daily writing, the daily workouts, the daily efforts that add up to lasting change. The more you break them down into manageable steps and stay consistent, the more achievable they become.
Its tempting to set huge, audacious goals, but without a plan to back them up, you risk disappointing yourself. So start small, plan your steps, and stay consistent. Its the journeyone small step at a timethat leads to big results.
Ketchup-inspired luggage. Soap based on the characters from Stranger Things. A hot sauce energy drink. These are just a few of the brand collaborations that weve seen in 2025and its safe to say that alls not well in the world of brand partnerships.
A few years ago, the art of the brand collab most often involved bringing together two brands that already had overlapping design styles, fanbases, or product categories. Recall partnerships like Nike and Apples successful 2016 Series 2 Watch launch, for example; or Dolce & Gabbanas elevated designs for Smeg in 2019; or even Legos 2020 collection with Ikea. All of these pairings make some measure of intuitive sense. But over the past couple of years, something has clearly changed.
As the online attention economy becomes increasingly saturated through the daily deluge of marketing content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, its becoming more and more difficult for brand collabs to make a splash and reach widespread audiences the way they mightve in years past. So, brands have started adopting a new tack: rather than selecting partners that make obvious sense within their brand world, theyre opting for collabs with the most shock value possible.
In an interview with Fast Company on the topic back in September, Grace Murray Vazquez, executive vice president of strategy at the influencer marketing company Fohr, explained the strategy: Its less about getting audiences to try the collaboration, and more about reminding them to reach for the original thing. Its ultimately not just bizarre; it is like a calculated unexpectedness.
The end result is that, nowadays, lots of brand partnerships seem more like they were randomly selected out of a hat rather than carefully considered. Here are a few of the weirdest examples of this late-stage capitalist phenomenon that weve seen in 2025.
[Image: 5 Hour Energy]
5-hour Energy x Taco Johns
Nothing says gut health quite like energy drinks and hot sauce. Thats why, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, 5-hour Energy linked up with the Mexican fast-food joint Taco Johns on an “energized” hot sauce and a spicy energy drink. This one would be perfect to try out right before a long runwhat could go wrong?
[Photo: Heinz]
Heinz x Herschel
Elsewhere in the realm of wacky food brand collabs, Heinz tapped the travel supply company Herschel to turn its iconic ketchup into a carry-on and roller bag. Both pieces included a tear here ketchup visual, an interior print featuring Heinz ketchup packets, and a custom removable belt and luggage tag in the shape of, you guessed it, a Heinz packet.
Apparently, the collab was inspired by the quarter of Gen Z and millennials who pack their own condiments when dining on-the-gobut, to be honest, if you pack single-serve ketchup packets in your luggage, we cant trust you.
[Photo: Chipotle]
Beis x Chipotle
If you went to the airport without repping your favorite food brand this year, did you even travel? Heinz and Chipotle would like to say no.
In December, Chipotle got an up-market boost through an 11-piece capsule collection with the luxe travel brand Beis. The lunch included an $128 burrito-inspired duffle bag; a $378 silver roller bag; and a $48 burrito sling designed to carry a Chipotle burrito and insulated to keep it warm. Surely no one will mind when you dig into a hearty burrito on the plane, as long as it comes in a chic wrapping device.
[Photo: P&G]
Wicked x Swiffer
Frankly, it would be gross negligence to write a list of weird brand collabs from 2025 without mentioning Wicked: For Good. The duologys first installment racked up more than 400 brand partnerships and integrationslikely more than any film, everand while an official number hasnt been revealed for the second film, its almost certainly also in the hundreds.
There are a lot of weird collabs to choose from this year, but one of the strangest has to be Wicked: For Goods product launch with Swiffer, which makes the bold assumption that if fans liked Glinda and Elphabas singing, theyd probably love to clean the floors with mops inspired by them, too.
Stranger Things x Dr. Squatch
Speaking of cleaning, are you keeping up with Stranger Things season 5? If so, the soap company Dr. Squatch is betting that youre probably wondering when you can lather up in the shower with a product inspired by its iconic charactersand its bravely stepping in to meet that need.
The brand recently launched four soaps based on the show, with innovative scents like Vecnas Curse (featuring notes of juniper and blood orange) and “Squack Signal (featuring notes of iced lavender and cherry soda, and also a picture of Steves face, because, duh).
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
Its the time of year when we all make promises to ourselves. Im committing to read more, procrastinate less, and squeeze in an extra hour of piano practice a week. I asked other CEOs to share their 2026 New Years resolutions; here are seven responses, in their own words.
Omar Abbosh, chief executive officer, Pearson
My resolution next year is to climb a tough peak in the Chamonix Valley in France. The why is because its been on my list for 15 years, and its overdue. The how is a detailed set of logistical, physical, mental, and family preparations.
Guru Gowrappan, CEO, Asurion
I am obsessed with customer experience, so my New Years resolution is to personally use and engage with every customer touchpoint across [device insurance company] Asurions products and services on a regular basis to ensure we are delivering truly world-class experiences. I am a huge user of our productsand was even before my tenureand when I tested a few touchpoints just before joining, the insights I was able to share with the team were immediately actionable and improved real customer journeys. I am also currently going through the same training we require of all of our customer-facing employees so I can also be on the ground, supporting our customers directly.
Marcin Kleczynski, CEO, Malwarebytes
My life mantra is, Evolve or die. True in business and tech, true in daily life. That means my New Years resolution has three prongs. For my mind, to read as many books as possible. For my body, to do 100,000 push-ups. And for my business, to talk to at least five customers a week. I want to make sure we dont forget the power of humans in cybersecurity amidst all the focus on AI.
Gerrit Marx, CEO, CNH
My New Years resolution is to accelerate the shift toward AI-powered predictive farming. AI can now read field, machine, and environmental signals in real time, giving farmers earlier clarity to boost productivity and reduce uncertainty. When growers can anticipate issues and fine-tune inputs with precision, it strengthens efficiency, sustainability, and the long-term health of their most valuable assetthe soil.
Penny Pennington, managing partner, Edward Jones
My resolution is to be even better at being human. Thats different from be a better human. Theres an active debate right now about what being human is all about, and I believe being human is an advantage and to be greatly prized. A better human means I am measuring myself against humans. To be actively part of the debate about human and machine, I would like to set a challenge for myself to be better at being what only a human can be. Fundamentally, I believe that what sets us apart is that we value and thrill at emotions [that] are uniquely human. I believe the joy of epiphany is uniquely human, and I want more epiphany in my life in 2026.
Scott Strazik, CEO and president, GE Vernova
The world needs much more energy than it has today, and a larger portion must be electric power for people and communities around the world to thrive. In order to deliver the breakthrough innovations that will meet surging global demand, the industry is going to need thousands of innovators, builders, scientists, and engineers. In 2026, all of us at GE Vernova are committed to investing in programs and opportunities that encourage the brightest and the best young minds to choose careers in our sector and shape the future of energy.
Graham Weaver, founder and CEO, Alpine Investors
My New Years resolution is to have more fun, be lighter, and enjoy myself moreespecially at work. I think its easy to take life and work too seriously. But when I really reflect, life is about sharing an epic journey with extraordinary people. I know that when I look back, Ill see this time Im in right now as the good old days. I want to have the awareness to recognize that while Im in them, not just after theyve passed.
What will you achieve in 2026?
What are your personal or professional resolutions for 2026? Send your resolutions to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Id love to feature some of the most compelling commitments in a future newsletter.
Read more: the best of 2025
The Businessweek 2025 Jealousy List
Barack Obama shares his 2025 favorites
The best design of 2025, according to Fast Company
My bus rolls into Port Authority. I’ve got 10 minutes to get across town for my first meeting. I sprint down the escalator, run through droves of people, and arrive at a subway turnstile. I swipe my MetroCard through the magnetic reader, step forwardonly to get crotch-checked by a locked metal bar and flipped the finger by a screen that displays PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN. I give it another swipe. INSUFFICIENT FARE.
To refill my MetroCard, I power walk toward the kiosk. It refuses to read my credit card. I swipe a few more times. Nothing. I sift through my back pocket, discover a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and slide it into the machine. It won’t accept my cash. I waffle-iron the bill flat with my hands and feed it back in.
[Photo: Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News/Getty Images]
The kiosk spits out my refilled MetroCard. Baked into its awful blue and yellow design is this same awful experience, on repeat.
The MetroCard has been a defining artifact of New York City’s subway system for more than three decades. In that time, some might argue, it has become an icon of design. I respectfully disagree.
Design is inextricable from experience. The MetroCards design is as outdated as its technology. Fortunately, after years of poor MetroCard experiences like mine, the MTA has made its final update to the swiping technology.
In 1993, the MetroCard was introduced as a replacement for subway tokens. It existed for decades as New Yorkers dominant method for accessing the subway. But in 2019, the MTA announced they were introducing a tap-and-go system called OMNY. That year, they installed it on Staten Island buses and across 16 subways as part of a pilot program. Over the next four years, they installed OMNY machines throughout all five boroughs.
Manhattan and Brooklyn were early adopters. By November 2024, 60% of riders were using OMNY, according to Shanifah Rieara, the MTAs chief customer officer. Running two systemswith their duplicative costsmeant we had to set a certain date, she says. But that date was continually delayed due to slow installation and technical issues with the remaining vending machines. Now, with an OMNY reader and vending machine at nearly every transit location, the MTA will say goodnight to the MetroCard. And theyll save at least $20 million in operational costs.
A Design That Wouldnt Go Away
The MetroCard design remained more or less the same since the ’90s. Why? Were wedded to the nostalgia and the brand, says Rieara. We had no interest in changing it.
[Photo: MTA]
When it was redesigned in 1997, the look of the MetroCard was novel. There were new gradient and perspective tools at the designer’s disposal. Someone at the MTA had a field day: they created a glowing yellow sunset, a reflection, and a skewed MetroCard logo, which mimicked a train. This design looked fast. Riders would have expected a frictionless swiping experience, not a constant PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN.”
In contrast, the original MetroCard design from 1993 was less ambitious. It was also more honest. The gradient was pure utility: it directed the rider to swipe left. And that MetroCard logo? It floated in a vague 3D space. The design didnt mimic. It didn’t overpromise.
[Photo: MTA]
Transit card design shouldn’t put you to sleep. In Hong Kong, they have the Octopus card, which features a dynamic yellow, green, and blue infinity loop. Paired with a small typographic Octopus logo, the cards modernist design looks like something out of Chermayeff & Geismar & Havivs studio. Its confident. And since 1997, the cards functionality has delivered upon the designs promise with mostly reliable tap-and-go service.
[Image: Octopus]
One of my favorite parts of the Octopus card? It embraces being a collectible item. Riders can customize their cards with ornaments like Pokémon keychains and plastic googly eyes from the movie Minions. This level of customization creates the perception of quality serviceyou wouldn’t chuck your tricked-out card in the trash next week.
David Bowie collector’s edition Metro Cards, 2018. [Photo: Eduardo MunozAlvarez/VIEWpress/Corbis/Getty Images]
Over the years, MetroCard riders would receive special cards, but the design was a half-measure: a partial print on the back of the card. It looked like an ad. These cards featured a range of icons, from artist Barbara Kruger to baseball player Jackie Robinson to musician Olivia Rodrigo. For a plastic card that was often reissued, the MTA could’ve treated each of these heavy-hitters to a full redesign of the card. Other countries do it.
[Photo: Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group/Getty Images]
Londons transit card, the Oyster, will occasionally trade in its signature two-tone blue for a special design on the front of the card. Theyve celebrated the royal wedding of William and Kate, the Queens Diamond Jubilee, the 150th anniversary of the Underground, and even the 20th anniversary of the Oyster card itself, which debuted in 2003. These designs arent anything to write home about, but at least they create a shared celebratory moment for the rider.
[Photo: John Phillips/UK Press/Getty Images]
Looking Ahead
Oysters parent company, Transport for London, licensed its scanning technology to the MTA for the OMNY. So far, Ive had a solid experience with the new card. Every Thursday afternoon, I rush downtown to my office after teaching a class at School of Visual Arts in Gramercy Park. I need to catch up with three hours of missed work and meetings, and unlike my Port Authority MetroCard nightmares, the OMNY taps without a hitch. That keeps me sane.
This functional experience is reflected within OMNY’s design. That black and white card is straightforward, no b.s. It uses Neue Haas Grotesk, aligning with the utilitarian typography of the MTA’s graphics system. The inline cutaway of the letters signal road lanes and railroad tracks, the barcode highlights the card’s scanning technology. This design isn’t overly dramatic like the MetroCard of yore.
[Photo: Schvaxet/Wiki Commons]
But is a functional design enough for New Yorks transit card of the future?
Design is culture. The comedian Kareem Rahma turns a MetroCard into the microphone for his podcast. The store OnlyNY sells MTA-licensed merch, like metal subway signs and mini-lampposts. To others, those objects are utility. To New Yorkers, they’re identity.
The OMNY card is a real opportunity to intertwine culture and design. This year, the MTA proved they truly care about design: they unveiled an animated movie by designer Giorgia Lupi, titled A Data Love Letter to the Subway. Their new subway mapthe first update in 50 yearsnods to a classic design by Massimo Vignelli. And most subway stations finally have digitized schedules with slick typography.
If the MTA continually updates the OMNY card, in print and digital form, it will become a cultural artifact. New York is full of designers with pride whod love to create a special edition OMNY. Champions Design could give the card attitude. Collins could celebrate civic glory. Center could give it a sports flair. These special designs would create a shared moment among New Yorkers. But, those designs need to hit at the right moment.
When Zohran Mamdani takes the NYC mayoral office in January, design shouldnt sit at the bottom of his to-do list. He’s got audacious ideas. If they go well, great design will cement the experience in our minds. A free bus that runs on time? A special-edition OMNY card would floor us with a sense of New York pride.
I started building Simple in 2019 with a vision that one day, a digital product could help people fix their health as effectively as a human. Five years later, we turned this vision into a company with 160M in ARR, and a team of more than 150 people across multiple countries.
If you only look at the highlights, my story can look like a straight line of an entrepreneurs journey. However, getting there required me to rebuild my own thinking and habits. You see, I have ADHD, and a mind that constantly scans for what can go wrong. For years, I treated that as a bug. It only became my superpower once I learned how to direct it. That isn’t an easy journey, but these lessons helped me master my mind and turn a bold idea into a sustainable, fast-growing business.
Consistency beats intensity
When you see most weight-loss products, theyre usually based on the principles of intensitywhether thats a 30-day challenge or extreme dieting. They sell well, but they rarely stick. Ive tried most of these methods myself7-day water fasts, restrictive eating, vegan, keto, and much more. However hard I tried to push through, nothing worked in the long term.
In Simple, we tried a different approach where consistency beats intensity. That means designing features like daily check-ins and context-aware prompts around this idea of helping users sustain effort.
The same principle changed how I work. Early in my career, discipline meant 18-hour days, which led me to rock bottom. Discipline doesnt mean doing it all. It means focusing on what actually matters. It means saying no when necessary, doing the tasks that you find boring, and avoiding the temptation to fix everything at once.
Your anxiety is helpful if you learn when not to listen to it
When my cofounder left the company in 2021, about a year and a half after we started, I suddenly became responsible for everything at once. Frankly, it wasnt what I expected. If you have an anxious brain, you probably know this well: your mind runs endless what if scenarios. I was constantly thinking about what could go wrong, and I couldnt relax. Overtime, I realized that most of my fears had no real basis, but a few were extremely useful early warnings, so my job was to learn the difference.
I wrote down everything that was bothering me, then asked myself these three questions:
1. Is this a real problem, or just me spiraling?
2. If its real, can I do something about it in the next 24 hours?
3. If yes, what is the smallest concrete action?
You need to believe that it will work, regardless of how irrational it seems
When we first pitched Simple, there was little evidence that an app could coach health as well as a human. Given the fact that it was prior to the AI boom, not many believed we could do it. The early version product focused on intermittent fasting. It worked, but we knew it was only one piece of the puzzle.
Moving from a simple fasting tracker to a full weightloss coach (and eventually to a holistic AI health coach) required out-of-the-box decisions. If you want to innovate, many people will disagree with you, but you should still move forward. We had to redirect resources from a working funnel toward a vision that didnt yet exist in our metrics. If you dont radiate a basic conviction that things will work (even while you are brutally honest about risks), nobody will bet their career on your idea.
Discipline and high standards are an ultimate form of self-love
For a long time, I thought self-love meant giving myself more rest or treating myself gently. Some of that is important, but in moderation.
The more honest definition of self-love I came to is this: Loving yourself is also discipline, confidence, and high expectations. Its wanting the best for yourself, and asking the maximum from yourself. When youre scaling a company fast, its easy to become the weak linkyoure sleep-deprived, which means that youre slow to make decisions. You avoid hard conversations, and you keep the wrong people in the team too long. When youre not consistent in your standards and habits, not only do you betray yourselfyou also betray your team, because youre not showing up as a leader when they need you to.
Decisions that concern other people will hurt, but you still have to make them
One of the hardest parts of scaling Simple was making changes to the leadership team. Some hires were clear mistakes, while others were great at an earlier stage but became a brake on the company later. Firing or moving on from such people can be emotionally painful because you invest trust and hope in them.
What helps me with this is to separate the person from the role. You can value their contribution, and still accept theyre no longer the right fit. Giving them more time wont turn a bad hire into a great fit. Itll only make the situation more expensive, so rip off the band-aid, but dont forget to show your appreciation.
Your company scales at the same speed you do
In 2023, I realized our biggest bottleneck wasnt our market, investors, or team. It was me.
I placed my attention on growth and marketing, and I struggled to see what the company really needed to improve. I vividly remember the day I realized, because it was the day Simples growth trajectory drastically changed. I cut back on experiments and focused on the product and science behind it. Within a year, we repositioned Simple from a tracking app to a weightloss coach, and our AI coach became a central part of the product. At the same time, retention improved, and so did our financial metrics.
Around the same time, I wrote a phrase in my notes that I come back to often.
The universe gives me exactly as much energy as I need to handle my goals. If the goals become bigger, more energy will come. And since then, Ive learned that every new stage of company growth is also an invitation to become a new version of myself.
As employers have wrested back control of the job market, it has been a sharp contrast to the post-pandemic years when workers seemed to hold the power. In 2025, employees fretted about their job security and the sweeping impact of artificial intelligence on their work livesnot to mention corporate Americas continued commitment to keeping them in the office for longer.
Here, weve compiled some of the most popular Work Life stories from this yearon the issues that consumed you most.
The 996 schedule
This year saw the return of hustle culture in Silicon Valley, as AI startups popularized a grueling work schedule that became popularized in China. The 996 schedule refers to a 72-hour workweekin other words, working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a weekand has grown more common in Silicon Valley as founders and tech leaders scramble to outrun the competition. But experts say this could stoke burnout at a time when workers are already stretched too thin.
The steady drumbeat of RTO
The return to office is here to stay, despite how workers may feel about it. Business leaders like Jamie Dimon have been among the most vocal supporters of in-office work, dismissing employee concerns and the concept of work from home Fridays. Hes not alone: Amazon employees were forced to return to the office five days a week, while the federal government put an end to remote work this year.
The truth behind quiet quitting
Were still talking about quiet quitting. While older generations might think Gen Z workers are lazy or lack motivation, Fast Company contributor Jeff LeBlanc argues quiet quitting is a rational response to workplaces that lack fairness, structure, and alignment with employee values. Leaders who cant retain Gen Z talent should wonder whether theyre the problem, he writes. The question isnt whether Gen Z is willing to work hard. The real question is: Are leaders willing to evolve?
The rise of job hugging
In a tough job market, many employees are actually job hugging rather than quiet quitting. But doing so can actually hurt workers who are unhappy with their job situationor speed up their burnout. Cognitive reframing can helpfocusing purely on the positive aspects of a draining role, such as a friendly team, and tuning out the rest, writes Alex Christian. Sometimes, however, the only solution is to wait it out and hope that the economy turns around.
The fractional leadership boom
In the years since the pandemic, many senior leaders have been reevaluating what they want out of work. Enter the fractional role, which has enabled experienced C-suite leaders to set their own schedule and work across multiple companies. Fractional leaders have become more common at companies that dont need someone in the position full-time, allowing people in these roles to find more balance.
The plight of middle managers
Middle managers have had a challenging few years. As the pressures on them mount, many are headed for a crash, according to meQuilibriums Jan Bruce. With Gen Z increasingly rejecting the manager track, there could be a shortage of qualified leaders in the years to come, she argues. So what can companies do differently? Explicit policy decisions can help managers protect and promote their own mental and physical well-being, Bruce writes. This might look like mandatory disconnect periods, sabbaticals, or easing access to acute mental healthcare resources. Making sure managers have consistent, supportive check-ins with their own supervisors can help reduce isolation.
The importance of office friends
Workplace friendships are not what they used to beand its not good for business. Friendships at work can help boost employee performance and well-being, writes Fast Company contributor Mark C. Crowley. In fact, leaders should create an environment that encourages connection and invests in those friendships. Creating a culture where connection is valued doesnt just improve employee moraleit strengthens retention, creativity, and performance, he writes. By fostering friendships, leaders dont just build better teams; they create desirable workplaces.
The productivity gains from AI
We all know AI is reshaping how we work. But as the technology permeates the workplace, it might just be revealing how much of what we do is busywork. Were witnessing a productivity revolution without a purpose revolution, write Fast Company contributors Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Alexis Fink. Tools are improving, but the work remains hollow. Instead of using AI to invent better ways of working, many companies are simply using it to churn out more of the same, only faster.
Theres bad news for those using digital surveys to try to understand peoples online behavior: We may no longer be able to determine whether a human is responding to them or not, a recent study has shownand there seems to be no way around this problem.
This means that all online canvassing could be vulnerable to misrepresenting people’s true opinions. This could have repercussions for anything that falls under the category of information warfare, from polling results, to misinformation, to fraud. Non-human survey respondents, in aggregate, could impact anything from flavors and pricing for a pack of gum, to something more damaging, such as whether or not someone could get government benefitsand what those should be.
The problem here is twofold: 1) humans not being able to tell the difference between human and bot responses, and 2) in instances where automation is regulating action based on these responses, there would be no way to use such polling and safeguard against potentially dangerous problems as a result of this indistinguishability.
The study by Dartmouths Sean J. Westwood in the PNAS journal of the National Academy of Sciences, titled The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research, claims to show how we can no longer trust that, in survey research, we can no longer simply assume that a coherent response is a human response. Westwood created an autonomous agent capable of producing high-quality survey responses that demonstrate reasoning and coherence expected of human responses.
To do this, Westwood designed a model-agnostic system designed for general-purpose reasoning, that focuses on a two layer architecture: One that acts as an interface to the survey platform and can deal with multiple types of queries while extracting relevant content, and anothercore layer that uses a reasoning engine (like an LLM). When a survey is conducted, Westwoods software loads a demographic persona that can store some recall of prior answers and then process questions to provide a contextually appropriate response as an answer.
Once the reasoning engine decides on an answer, the interface in the first layer outputs a mimicked human response. The system is also designed to accommodate tools for bypassing antibot measures like reCAPTCHA. Westwoods system has an objective that isnt to perfectly replicate population distributions in aggregatebut to produce individual survey completions [that] would be seen as reasonable by a reasonable researcher.
Westwoods results suggest that digital surveys may or may not be a true reflection of peoples opinions. There is just as likely a chance that surveys could, instead, be describing what an LLM assumes is human behavior. Furthermore, humans or AI making decisions based on those results could be relying on the opinions of simulated humans.
Personas
Creating synthetic people is not a new concept. Novels, visual media, plays, and advertisers use all sorts of creative ideas to portray various people in order to tell their stories. In design, the idea of Personas have been used for decades in marketing and User Interface design as a cost-cutting and timesaving trend. Personas are fictional composites of people and are represented by categories like Soccer Mom, Joe Six-pack, Technophobe Grandmother, or Business Executive. Besides being steeped in bias, Personas are projections of what the people creating them think these people would be and what the groups they might belong to represent.
Personas are a hidden problem in design and marketing, precisely because they are composites drawn from real or imaginary people, rather than actual people — the values ascribed to them are constructed by other peoples interpretations. When relying upon Personas instead of people, its impossible to divine the true context of how a product or service is actually being used, as the personas are projected upon by the creator, and are not real people in real situations.
Thus, the problems with using Personas to design products and services often arent identified until well after such products or services come to market and fail, or cause other unforeseen issues. This could be worse when these human-generated Personas are replaced with AI/LLM ChatBot personas with all the biases that these entailincluding slop influences or hallucinations that could make their responses even more odd or potentially even psychotic.
Quant versus qual
Part of the larger problem of not understanding peoples needs with surveys started when research shifted to statistical data collection based on computation, also known as quantitative methods, rather than contextual queries based on conversations and social relationships with others, or qualitative methods. As Big Data came online, people began to use quantitative methods such as online surveys, A/B testing, and other techniques to understand customer/user behavior. Because machines could quickly compile results, quantitative research seems to have become an industry standard for understanding people.
It is not easy to automate qualitative methods, and replacing them with quantitative methods can forfeit important context. Since almost a generation has gone by with the world focused on computational counting, its easy to forget about the qualitative data methodsfound in social sciences such as Anthropologythat use contextual inquiry interviews with real people to understand why people do what they do, rather than trying to infer this from numerical responses.
Qualitative research can give context to the quantitative data and methods that rely upon machines to divine meaning. They can also work outside of big data methods, and are grounded in relationships with actual people, which provides accountability to their beliefs and opinions. The process of talking with real people first contextualizes that content, leading to better outcomes. Qualitative methods can be quantified and counted, but quantitative methods cannot yet easily be made to be truly broadly contextual.
One difference between using qualitative and quantitative methods has to do with transparency and understanding the validity of peoples responses. With older human-made Personas, there are obvious assumptions and gapsits crude puppetry and projection. But when people become manufactured by Chatbot/LLMs that utilize a corpus of knowledge mined from massive volumes of data, there can be fewer ways to separate fact from fiction. With chatbots and LLMs, the artificial entity is both the creator of the person, potentially the responder to te person, and either the interpreter of that fake chatbot persons responses, or being interpreted by an LLM. Thats where it can get dangerous, especially when the results of this type of slop tainted research are used for things like political polling or policing.
Westwoods research has shown that: Rather than relying on brittle, question-specific rules, synthetic respondents maintain a consistent persona by conditioning answers on an initial demographic profile and a dynamic memory of previous responses. This allows it to answer disparate questions in an internally coherent manner,generating plausible, human-like patterns It can mimic context, but not create it.
Back to the basics
When GenAI is moving towards conducting the surveys, acting as respondents, and interpreting the surveys, will we be able to tell the difference between it and real people?
A completely automated survey loop seems fictional, until we see how many people are already using Chatbots/LLMs to automate parts of the survey process even now. Someone might generate a persona, then use that to answer surveys that AI has designed, that someone else will then use a Chatbot to access AI to interpret results. Making a complete loop could be terrible: someone may then use AI to turn the Chatbot created, Chatbot answered, and AI interpreted survey responses into something that impacts real people who have real needs in the real world, but instead has been designed for fake people with fake needs in a fake world.
Qualitative research is one path forward. It enables us to get to know real people, validate their replies, and refine context through methods that explore each answer for more depth. This type of work AI cannot yet do as LLMs currently base answers on statistical word matching, which is unrefined. Bots that replicate human answers will mimic a type of simulated human answer, but to know what real people think, and what things mean to them, companies may have to go back to hiring anthropologists, who are trained to use qualitative methods to connect with real people.
Now that AI can falsely replicate human responses to quantitative surveys, those who believe that both quantitative methods and AI are the answers to conducting accurate research, are about to learn a hard lesson that will unfortunately, impact all of us.
Many traitslike impulsivity, hyperfocus, and nonlinear thinkingthat get pathologized in school or corporate environments are the same ones that create natural entrepreneurs.
