The Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $1.25 billion for Wednesday night’s drawing after lottery officials said no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Monday night.The U.S. has seen more than a dozen lottery jackpot prizes exceed $1 billion since 2016. Here is a look at the largest U.S. jackpots won and the places where the winning tickets were sold:
$2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022. The winning ticket was sold at a Los Angeles-area gas station.
$1.787 billion, Powerball, Sept. 6, 2025. The winning tickets were sold in Missouri and Texas.
$1.765 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a liquor store in a tiny California mountain town.
$1.602 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a supermarket in Neptune Beach, Florida.
$1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016. The winning tickets were sold at a Los Angeles-area convenience store, a Florida supermarket and a Tennessee grocery store.
$1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018. The winning ticket was sold at a South Carolina convenience store.
$1.348 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a Maine gas station.
$1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022. The winning ticket was sold at a Chicago-area gas station.
$1.326 billion, Powerball, April 7, 2024. The winning ticket was sold at an Oregon convenience store.
$1.269 billion, Mega Millions, Dec. 27, 2024. The winning ticket was sold at a gas station in Northern California.
Associated Press
I have a confession to make.
For most of my career in creative leadership roles, I have contributed to collaboration overload. I believed that bringing everyone together to swap ideas was the surest path to stronger work. If the room was full and the conversation was flowing, I assumed we were headed in the right direction.
And I know Im not alone. Collaboration overload has crept into creative teams everywhereshaped by hybrid schedules, the pressure to stay visible when were apart, and a steady flow of digital tools like Slack and Teams that keep us connected but can slowly chip away at focus.
Creative teams have reached a point where we are spending so much time meeting, messaging, and circling each others work that nobody has the space or clarity to actually create.
Collaboration overload is not tenable. One reason is that the expectations of the next generation call for an urgent shift in how collaboration happens. Many emerging creatives want room to explore ideas independently, develop a point of view, and contribute something meaningfulnot spend their days in back-to-back meetings and endless threads. When collaboration becomes constant, it leaves no space for the kind of personal exploration that builds creative confidence.
And as AI takes on more of the administrative and production parts of creative work, the value of human creativity shifts toward originality, taste, and discernment. Those qualities need room. Creatives need autonomy to imagine what AI cannot.
Collaboration is nonnegotiable. But so is autonomy. Creative teams thrive when those two forces support each other rather than compete. We need to protect deep, independent thinking while using collaboration to enhance our work. What were really trying to restore is a sense of rhythm that alternates between solo thinking, ensemble critique, and restorative rest.
How We Reached Collaboration Overload
Collaboration overload didnt happen overnight. It gradually built up as our work patterns evolved and expectations around them shifted.
Hybrid work marked a major turning point. Many teams have done an impressive job recreating the natural touchpoints of in-person creative lifequick gut checks, spontaneous critiques, and the energy that comes from simply being around each others work. However, hybrid also makes it easy for the pendulum to swing too far.
Overcompensating with meetings existed long before virtual work, but now the ability to schedule, ping, or gather a group is almost effortless. In an active studio, always on is balanced by the ebb and flow of real human presence; theres a built-in rhythm that allows people to step away and actually make the work. In hybrid environments, that rhythm can be harder to sense and even more difficult to maintain.
Meanwhile, our collaboration tools multiplied. Slack, Teams, Figma, Notion, Miro, Mondayeach with real utility, but each adding another stream of communication. When organizations lack clear ways of working with these tools or fail to update those norms as teams evolve, the tools can lead to fragmentation and additional layers of coordination. Its common for a creative professional to switch between three or four platforms before noon, each buzzing with activity. The tools keep us connected, but without shared habits for using them, they often create more work than clarity.
This pressure is even more pronounced in service-driven work, where being responsive is part of the relationship. When clients depend on you, and you depend on each other, its easy for the expectation of availability to grow. While quick back-and-forth exchanges can spark a moment of insight, most ideas need a quieter runway to take shape.
Cross-disciplinary work added another layer of complexity. Modern creative teams bring together designers, strategists, writers, technologists, and producersoften across time zones. While diversity is a strength, without a clear structure, it can blur boundaries. When everyone can contribute to everything, eventually, everyone does. What begins as good-faith instinct can quickly lead to fatigue. Clear ownership becomes harder to define.
And underneath it all lies a cultural belief: Collaboration is inherently good. Its central to how we see ourselves as a creative organization. Its part of our culture, our language, our identity. But when something becomes a given, we rarely pause to intentionally shape it. Instead, the instinct becomes moremore conversations, more people, more touches. And when collaboration becomes the default mode, the work can lose the focus it needs to move forward.
Restoring Creative Rhythm
The answer is not less collaboration, but better rhythm. Creative rhythm is the intentional pattern that helps teams move fluidly between independence and interdependence. Its the cadence that supports both solo brilliance and ensemble performance. And it works because its shaped with care, not left to chance.
Creative rhythm has three core elements.
1. Protecting Deep, Independent Thinking
Every strong project begins with someone going deep. It might be a strategist absorbing context, a designer exploring visual possibilities, or a writer shaping the early throughline of a story. Depth takes time. It takes quiet. And it takes the freedom to try and fail without an audience.
Leaders can support this by giving teams dedicated focus timeand making it visibly protected. No meetings. No pings. No expectation of instant replies. Just as important is helping people understand how a project will operate before it begins. Newer hires, freelancers, and younger creatives often benefit from clarity around collaboration style, decision owners, and when to bring ideas into the room.
Not all questions need to happen in front of the entire group. Sometimes a quick one-on-one discussion moves the work forward more cleanly and avoids the swirl that happens when something still in progress is put in front of the whole team. Clear ownership models, such as Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI) or simple lead/support distinctions, also reduce the urge for everyone to hover. Ownership creates space.
2. Designing Purposeful Ensemble Moments
Not all collaboration is equal. The most meaningful collaboration occurs when the team comes together with purpose. These ensemble moments give the work dimension by exposing it to different perspectives and the healthy tension that fuels creativity.
Effective ensemble collaboration is focused, time-bound, and grounded in psychological safety. Teams should feel at ease challenging ideas without risking personal conflict. This kind of task-oriented disagreement increases creativity and results in better outcomes. The point is not harmony. The point is healthy friction that moves the work forward.
Leaders can also improve ensemble moments by reducing their frequency but increasing their quality: short, well-run critiques; workshops with a clear objective; sharing sessions that come after deep independent thinking, not before it. Creativity needs both divergence and convergence. Rhythm is what allows them to coexist.
3. Building Periods of Rest and Reset
Rest is often an overlooked part of creative rhythm. Creative teams need periods where nothing urgent is expectedmoments when minds can wander, connect dots, or simply breathe. Constant coordination drains curiosity. Rest restores it.
This is where leaders can model healthier norms blocking focus days, encouraging asynchronous progress over real-time responses, limiting the number of platforms teams are expected to monitor. Rest isnt a luxury. Its a requirement for sustained creative performance.
What Creative Rhythm Looks Like in Practice
Creative rhythm represents a shared understanding of how a team works together. In practice, it looks like:
Project phases that intentionally make room for independent development before bringing the group together to synthesize and refine
Designated owners who drive work forward without constant supervision
Clear checkpoints that prevent unnecessary consensus
Critiques that foster momentum rather than hinder it
Fewer meetings, conducted with greater purpose and clearer outcomes
A culture that values autonomy as much as alignment
When teams work in sync, they dont constantly switch mental modes. They have time to reflect and room to breathe. Ensemble moments feel invigorating because theyre not constant.
Guarding the Conditions for Creativity
Over the past few years, Ive learned that part of my role is to protect peoples creative focus with as much care as I guide the work itself.
I still believe in collaboration. I always will. However, Ive come to recognize the need for curated collaboration, the kind that brings the right people together at the right moment, not everyone at every moment. I believe in stepping back as much as stepping in. And I believe that helping people protect their alone time is one of the most important things a creative leader can do.
The U.S. job market is sluggish and confusing this fall.American companies are mostly holding onto the employees they have. But they’re reluctant to hire new ones as they struggle to assess how to use artificial intelligence and how to adjust to President Donald Trump’s unpredictable policies, especially his double-digit taxes on imports from around the world.The uncertainty leaves jobseekers struggling to find work or even land interviews. Federal Reserve policymakers are divided over whether the labor market needs more help from lower interest rates. Their deliberations are rendered more difficult because official reports on the economy’s health are coming in late and incomplete after a 43-day government shutdown.The Labor Department is expected to provide at least a little clarity when it releases November numbers on hiring and unemployment Tuesday, 11 days late.Forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet expect that employers added an unimpressive 40,000 jobs last month and that unemployment stayed at 4.4%, unchanged from the last rate published for September.Hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of the high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in an outburst of inflation.Labor Department revisions in September showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of just 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation has fallen farther to an average 59,000 a month.During the 2021-2023 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns, by contrast, the economy was creating an average of 400,000 jobs a month.The unemployment rate, though still modest by historical standards, has risen since bottoming out at a 54-year low of 3.4% in April 2023.Adding to the uncertainty is the growing use of artificial intelligence and other technologies that can reduce demand for workers.“We’ve seen a lot of the businesses that we support are stuck in that stagnant mode: ‘Are we going to hire or are we not? What can we automate? What do we need the human touch with?”’ said Matt Hobbie, vice president of the staffing firm HealthSkil in Allentown, Pennsylvania.“We’re in Lehigh Valley, which is a big transportation hub in eastern Pennsylvania. We’ve seen some cooling in the logistics and transportation markets, specifically because we’ve seen automation in those sectors, robotics.”Worries about the job market were enough to nudge the Fed into cutting its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point last week for the third time this year.But three Fed officials refused to go along with the move, the most dissents in six years. Some Fed officials are balking at further cuts while inflation remains above the central bank’s 2% target. Two voted to keep the rate unchanged. (Stephen Miran, appointed by Trump to the Fed’s governing board in September, voted for a bigger cut in line with what the president demands.)Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned after last week’s rate cut that the job market is even weaker than it appeared.Government data show that the economy has added less than 40,000 jobs a month since April. But even that overstates the pace of hiring, Powell said. He suspects that revisions could reduce payrolls by as much as 60,000 a month, which would mean employers haven’t been adding jobs at all; instead, they’ve been cutting 20,000 a month since the spring. “It’s a labor market that seems to have significant downside risks,” Powell told reporters.Because of the government shutdown, the Labor Department did not release its jobs reports for September, October and November on time.It finally put out the September jobs report on Nov. 20, seven weeks late. It will publish some of the October data including a count of the jobs created that month by businesses, nonprofits and government agencies along with the November report Tuesday. But it will not release an unemployment rate for October because it could not calculate the number during the shutdown.The October numbers are expected to show a big drop in U.S. government jobs, reflecting the delayed impact of billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of the federal workforce as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.Analysts at Evercore ISI, a research outfit, noted in a commentary last week that about 150,000 federal workers agreed to take a buyout under pressure from DOGE and that 100,000 likely left the government when the 2025 fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, pushing down October payrolls. The remaining 50,000 stayed on for the rest of the calendar year and their departures will likely show up in the January 2026 jobs report.
Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
The Mozilla Corporation, maker of the popular Firefox web browser, has announced the appointment of a new CEO
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, general manager of Firefox, will become top boss at a time when Mozilla is trying to rebrand itself as the worlds most trusted software company.
Heres why and what you need to know about Mozillas new CEO.
Who is Anthony Enzor-DeMeo?
As of today, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo is Mozilla Corporations new chief executive officer.
However, while his position may be new, his involvement with Mozilla is not. Enzor-DeMeo was previously the general manager of Firefox, which is Mozilla’s most well-known product.
Under Enzor-DeMeos management, the Firefox browser saw double-digit growth on mobile over the past two years, the company revealed in a press release.
It also added AI features, including Shake to Summarize, which lets an iPhone user simply shake their device to get Firefox to summarize a web page. More recently, under Enzor-DeMeos management, the browser also added AI window, an opt-in in-browser AI assistant.
Prior to joining Mozilla, Enzor-DeMeo was the chief product and technology officer at the fintech company Roofstock.
Enzor-DeMeo replaces Laura Chambers, who served as Mozillas interim CEO for the past two years. Chambers will stay on at Mozilla, returning to her role on the board of directors.
Announcing Enzor-DeMeos promotion to CEO, Mozilla president Mark Surman said, Anthony understands that trust is more than a brand promise, its something you earn through how products are built, how data is handled, and how clearly users understand whats happening. Thats the future were building toward.
Trust in the AI era
Indeed, trust in a world of AI seems to be the main name of the game at Mozilla under Enzor-DeMeos leadership.
The browser is AIs next battleground,” he said in a statement. “Its where people live their online lives and where the next eras questions of trust, data use, and transparency will be decided.”
He added that users “want software that feels modern and helpful, but also honest about what it does.”
In a blog post, Enzor-DeMeo said that under his leadership, Mozilla will work on becoming the trusted software company in an era where many are losing trust in Big Tech companies due to their opaque policies around AI.
Mozilla, Enzor-DeMeo says, will accomplish this by giving users agency in every product the company builds.
Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable,” he said. “Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choicesomething people can easily turn off.
In addition to building trust, Enzor-DeMeo says another goal of Mozilla is to grow Firefox from a browser to a broader ecosystem of trusted software.
According to November 2025 data from Statcounter, Firefox is currently in fourth place in the global browser market share rankings.
Googles Chrome leads the way with more than 71% market share, followed by Apples Safari at above 14%.
Microsoft Edge comes in third place at just below 5% market share, and Mozillas Firefox comes in fourth place with 2.3% global market share.
Weight-loss giant Weight Watchers is relaunching itself for the Ozempic era. Six months after completing a Chapter 11 restructuring, the company is rolling out a revamped app and digital platform, a reimagined digital coaching experience, and a new brand identity.
Its even bringing back its old, two-word name, Weight Watchers. (The company had changed its name to WW in 2018 and later styled itself WeightWatchers.)
Weight Watchers pitch: Any telehealth company can get you a GLP-1 prescriptionincluding Weight Watchers itselfbut Weight Watchers has unique programs to keep you healthy and on track. Those offerings include coaching, fitness classes, and a menopause-care program that launched in September with Queen Latifah as its spokesperson.
Weight Watchers has also created a new digital experience that will start rolling out globally on December 26. It includes an AI body scanning feature and what the company calls a Weight Health Score to help members reach a health goal beyond just shedding pounds.
It’s always been obvious to us that we needed to show up differently as Weight Watchers in this next chapter, and that’s how we look, how we feel, how we speak, but also what we offer, says Tara Comonte, who took over as CEO in September 2024.
Comonte, her senior leadership team, and the branding agency which created its new identity tell Fast Company exclusively:
How new AI technology lets users focus on more than “a number on the scale”
What chief experience officer Julie Rice brought with her from SoulCycle that’s reimagining Weight Watchers’ coaching product
Why the cofounders of the creative agency Mrs&Mr sought inspiration from Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch
What Comonte hopes the rebrand achieves across the company’s product offerings
[Image: Weight Watchers]
A new era for Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers has had a tumultuous couple of years. As GLP-1s began upending the weight loss industry, former CEO Sima Sistani pivoted the company into telehealth and began offering GLP-1 prescriptions.
Tara Comonte [Image: Weight Watchers]
Following its acquisition of digital health platform Sequence, Weight Watchers launched a service offering virtual access to physicians who can prescribe GLP-1s. Sistani also apologized for the companys role in toxic diet culture. But Weight Watchers struggled to find its footing in a crowded telehealth market. With the stock trading at less than $1 a share last fall, Comonte was tapped to right the ship. (After serving as interim chief, she was appointed CEO in February 2025.)
Comonte, who previously served as CEO of fertility tech company TMRW Life Sciences, oversaw Weight Watchers restructuring. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in May in a prepackaged deal with lenders that helped it reduce its $1.5 billion debt load by more than 70%.
Weight Watchers ended the third quarter of this year with 124,000 clinical subscribers, up 60% year over year. Clinical revenue grew 35% to $26 million. At the same time, the company recorded a 20% drop in subscribers to its traditional behavioral and coaching programs, from 3.6 million to 2.9 million people. Revenue for those programs dropped 16% to $145 million.
Julie Rice [Image: Weight Watchers]
Alongside SoulCycle cofounder Julie Rice, who joined as Weight Watchers chief experience officer in August, Comonte is on mission to drive behavioral subscriptions by communicating Weight Watchers larger suite of solutions to consumers who are being bombarded with ads for weight loss medication.
Comonte wants to help members piece together a more personalized health journey and persuade GLP-1 users that theres value in Weight Watchers expansive offerings.
Its been a siloed experience for members, which is often the case when companies make acquisitions. Things kind of get bolted on, says Comonte. She describes the new member experience as a very integrated one, where members can access the best of the tools and programming that Weight Watchers offers, whether it’s on medication, off medication, thinking about medication, perimenopausal, or menopausal.
AI body scans and Weight Health Scores
Under the rebrand, the companys dedicated GLP-1 medical progam, formerly known as WeightWatchers Clinic, is now called Weight Watchers Med+ and comes with a built-in lifestyle program, GLP-1 Success.
The program provides access to coaches and virtual community groups. Members receive nutrition advice, strategies for managing the side effects of medication, and fitness plans to help build muscle even as they shed weight. (GLP-1 Success is also available as a standalone option.)
Kim Boyd [Image: Weight Watchers]
Under the direction of Chief Medical Officer Kim Boyd, who joined the company in June, Weight Watchers is adding an AI-powered body scanning function to track changes in fat and muscle.
We’ve partnered with a vendor that has really cool new technology that lets us not just look at the number on the scale, but get a much more robust picture, Boyd says. [Were] thinking about body composition, lean muscle mass retention, which is really important in any weight loss journey, but especially when people are on GLP-1 medications.
In addition, Weight Watchers is introducing something it calls Weight Health Score, which draws on body composition as well as things like nutrition, activity, and sleep, using data from connected fitness devices and health apps. (The company has expanded the devices and apps its software can connect with.)
This will give members a sense of their progress towards their health goals, along with actionable advice, like getting more sleep or eating certain foods during parts of the menstrual cycle.
With the Weight Health Score, we’re pulling in all of this data from their wearables, from their tracking patterns, from their food choices, and putting it into one metric that lets people know how they are doing with the actions that they take, Boyd says.
Members will also have access to virtual fitness classes through partnerships with Pvolve, a low-impact strength-training company, and the Lifted Method, a program that combines strength training and mindfulness practices.
On the digital platform, members will be able to select from three pathways. One, called All-In Mode, is designed to help members lose weight quickly. Lose Mode is most similar to Weight Watchers classic program and helps members develop habits that lead to consistent weight loss. Maintain Mode, helps veterans of the first two programs maintain their results and stay connected to other members and their coach.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Introducing the Coach Creator
Comonte says Weight Watchers is still committed to in-person meetings, which represent the majority of the 20,000 meetings a month that it runs. But the company is expanding its roster of digital programs and coaches.
In many ways, the digital experience can be even more intimate, says Rice, who oversees the companys new community offerings. Taking inspiration from her experience scouting instructors at SoulCycle, Rice has identified younger, fresher, social media-savvy personalities to become what she terms Coach Creators for Weight Watchers.
Rice joined the company after Weight Watchers acquired Peoplehood, the community wellness platform that she cofounded with Elizabeth Cutler, her SoulCycle cofounder. Peoplehood launched in 2023 with the goal of providing group therapy sessions to help attendees get better at relationships, but soon pivoted to become a support group for users of GLP-1s.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Under Rice, Weight Watchers new coach-creators lead meetings, as well as offer tips, webinars, and lessons that users can access a la carte. They are also encouraged to post relatable content on social media.
One example of a coach-creator is Olivia Ward, who won the 11th season of The Biggest Loser reality TV series in 2011. Ward had been a Weight Watchers member on and off in the ’90s before going on the show. (Growing up, she had also watched her mother attend Weight Watchers meetings.)
The Atlanta-based Ward became a SoulCycle instructor before operating her own weight-loss coaching service with her sister. When Rice joined Weight Watchers, she brought both Ward and her sister on. Ward, who has been taking GLP-1 medication for the past three years, regularly shares posts about her life, outfits, and meal prep to her 28,000 followers on Instagram.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Ward says shes ready to bring members into her life. I don’t ever want a weigh-in in the bathroom, because that feels cliché to me. So I’m going to do grop weigh-ins in my closet, she says. People are going to see my messy closet, all my stuff hanging out, and we’re going to take a moment to ground ourselves, get on the scale together, and then go into a group discussion.
The content that I’m hoping to create is something that feels useful, tangible, relatable, and honest, Ward says.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
A joyful rebrand
To refresh its visual identity, Weight Watchers tapped Kate and Daniel Wadia, cofounders of creative agency Mrs&Mr.
They leaned into Weight Watchers traditional blue color in a bid to appeal to legacy members who may have felt whiplash from the recent series of rebrands. The agency also drew inspiration from the books and marketing materials published by Jean Nidetch, the Queens housewife who founded Weight Watchers in 1963. She was just a powerhouse, Daniel Wadia says.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
One of Mrs&Mrs big changes was reverting back to an upper-case font for the company. Weight Watchers had migrated to a lower case font, over the years, says Daniel. We love the fact that the origins were in this really proud, slender, tall, unifying upper case font. The simplicity of it just really spoke to us.
Central to the rebrand are campaigns focused on the success stories of existing membersa different approach from hiring a celebrity spokesperson like Oprah to sell memberships.
The Wadias worked with photographer Cameron McNee to shoot existing members for its latest campaign. The art direction is very editorial. It’s clean, it’s pared-back. We wanted to remove any distractions and place full focus on the members, so they could just shine, Daniel says. The campaign also features stories of members on GLP-1s to reduce the stigma around taking medication.
The brand feels joyful. I hope that people begin to feel more comfortable to say that they are on different types of weight loss journeys, because people are getting healthier and they should feel proud of it, Daniel says.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Beyond prescriptions
Getting clinical members to take advantage of the companys community and coaching offerings is one of the main goals of the rebrand, says Comonte. While we have people cross-pollinating across all different parts of the [Weight Watchers] ecosystem, its not a huge number today. Were looking to build it up, she says.
Conveying the scope of this ecosystem is crucial to getting Med+ members to stick with Weight Watchers beyond prescriptionsand key to distinguishing the company from other telehealth providers, like Ro and Hims & Hers.
Weight Watchers has spent six-plus decades building unified programming and a unified platform that is wildly differentiated, says Comonte. This is not just another telehealth business, far from it.
President Trump just signed an executive order attempting to block states from regulating AI an unprecedented step that would strip states of the ability to protect their residents at a moment of extraordinary technological volatility. This move is overwhelmingly unpopular (polling has found that Americans oppose AI moratoriums by a 3-1 margin), and certain to be litigated in the courts. But it is also likely to achieve the exact opposite of its stated goalsdeepening mistrust and slowing AI adoption at a time when America wants to win the global AI race.
We know because weve been here before. America has seeded many technological revolutions over the years, from electricity to automation to the internet. And in each of them we see a clear pattern: State-led regulation doesnt slow growth. It spurs it.
If President Trump sincerely wants America to lead in the AI race, he should look to our nations past. Technologies that defined American leadership became safer, more trusted, and more widely adopted because states helped set guardrailsnot because Washington preempted them.
Regulation paves the way
When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, carmakers prioritized speed and sales over safety. Predictably, fatalities soaredover 33 deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 1913, compared to just 1.6 per 10,000 today. But then commonsense regulation met the moment: California launched its DMV, which became the mechanism for identifying and tracking both cars and drivers (1915), Massachusetts required auto insurance (1927), and by the mid-1930s, 24 states mandated drivers licenses.
These rules did not deter innovation; they made it safer and more sustainable. Innovations like seat belts (1949) and airbags (standardized in the late 1980s), and taillights (by the 1930s, two taillights became standard in the United States) dramatically reduced fatalities, catalyzing safer, more trusted, and universally-used automotive technology.
And in fact, the American auto industry flourished. By 1950, U.S. automakers produced more than three-quarters of all cars in the world, and General Motors remained the worlds largest automaker from 1931 to 2008. Safe, reliable cars didnt just replace existing modes of transportation, they made new things possible: lower-cost interstate trucking, suburbs, mobile economies, and a booming manufacturing revolution. Clear rules of the road applied to anyone who sold a car in the U.S., whether made at home or in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere.
In short, automakers dominated from Detroit to overseas markets because regulation provided predictability for investors, confidence for consumers, and pressure for safer, smarter innovation.
Now, the frontier is digital
Weve experienced over 50 years of disruption and advancement in digital technology, yet foundational guardrails remain almost entirely absent. In this vacuum, tech companies have optimized for max engagement, not ethicsfueling a youth mental health crisis and dramatically eroding our information ecosystem by prioritizing conflict over truth. Startups, wary of reputational and legal risks, and deep-pocketed incumbents like Meta, are retreating into safer B2B offerings instead of consumer-facing breakthroughs. Investors are navigating uncertainty, making bets on products that could be banned or devalued dramatically overnight at the mercy of an individual judges ruling who may know little about technology.
As we accelerate into the AI era at warp speed, we are doing so with a set of digital-era guardrails that are outdated, piecemeal, and in most cases, nonexistent by design.
Where were going, we still need roads
Just as automobile regulations guided innovation toward safety and scale, AI needs a parallel set of protections.
Cars have mandatory seat belts and airbags; AI systems should have safety standards and harm-mitigation features. Cars have child car seat tethers and safety locks; AI should include comparable safeguards for vulnerable users. Just as vehicles must undergo crash tests, major AI models should be subject to basic auditing before deployment. And just as cars require insurance to manage and price risk, AI liability should be clarified, distributed, and broadly understood.
Just as critical, state-level leadership should be welcomed and followed. Local experimentation builds the practical frameworks that federal law can later scale, and is as essential now as it was in the 1920s.
And the market itself is already signaling the need for this transparency. As Anthropic president Daneila Amodei recently put it, No one says, We want a less safe product. He likened the companys disclosure of model failures to an automaker releasing footage of a crash-test dummy flying through a windshield. The visual is jarringbut when the result is better airbags and stronger frames, consumers trust the car more, not less. That dynamic builds markets and confidence and it makes innovation self-reinforcing.
The choice is not between growth and guardrails. Its whether America will lead on AI and govern with the predictability and clarity that fuels investment, trust, and adoptionor whether we will gamble on laissez-faire promises that history tells us never deliver.
If our goal is truly pro-growth AI, then state-led, commonsense regulation is not a roadblock. Its the on-ramp.
In recent years, organizations have launched neurodiversity and mental health initiatives with the best of intentions: to raise awareness, launch employee resource groups, and create a culture where team members embrace diverse neurotypes and learn to coexist in an ecosystem.
Yet, neurodivergent employees still tell me the same thing: they feel misunderstood as they navigate masking, burnout, and eventually leave organizations that genuinely believe theyve done their best.
So, whats missing? The gap isnt in policy or processits in our understanding of the emotional landscape inside the neurodivergent experience. Leaders may recognize ADHD or autism as concepts, but not the human realities beneath those labels.
Yes, we need workplace adjustments. But emotional accessibility, understanding how neurodivergents make sense of themselves, their late diagnoses, and their internal worlds, is what creates psychological safety.
True retention requires leadership that can speak the emotional language neurodivergents actually use. But what does that sound like when you put it into action?
Were working in an identity economy
Work is no longer just where we earn a living. Its where we look for meaning, compatibility, and emotional belonging. With rising adult ADHD and autism diagnoses, especially in among women aged 2349, many are reassessing who they are and where they fit.
Neurodivergents are gaining a more accurate understanding of how their brains and nervous systems work, what supports their well-being, and how their backgrounds shape their behavior and stress responses. And their lived experiences are shaped by unique intersections of neurotype, culture, gender conditioning, trauma history, sensory thresholds, communication style, and current life demands.
As neurodivergents gain emotional literacy about their inner world, they are also more sensitive to misattunement, and leaders who lack the nuance of neurodiverse experiences struggle to fully relate or to bring out their team members strengths.
Emotional literacy is the missing link in neurodiversity strategy
Many assume emotional literacy means naming emotions or staying calm. For neurodivergent people, its far more complex. Emotions often show up physically first: a tight chest during sensory overload, a blank mind when asked, What do you think? frustration triggered by emotionally charged discussions, shutdown after too many back-to-back meetings, or restlessness mistaken for anxiety.
These are emotional cues that can inform, but in workplaces that havent learned to recognize them, they may be missed.
Neurodivergent responses are tied to the nervous system. A fight response may be interpreted as a strong reaction, combative, or defensiveness. Flight shows up as withdrawing from contribution or needing space. Freeze tends to show up as going quiet or not being able to name thoughts or emotions. And fawn appears as people-pleasing, not necessarily agreement.
Without emotional literacy, these cues get misinterpreted. When leaders understand these adaptive responses, they can support and connect, instead of correct.
The double empathy problem still drives workplace conflict
Misunderstandings between neurodivergent and neurotypical colleagues rarely stem from a lack of empathy. They may come from different ways of communicating, interpreting tone, or sensing threat.
A manager for instance, may read directness or lack of eye contact as rudeness, when in reality its a neurodivergent colleague unmasking so they can think clearly. A neurodivergent employee might interpret vague feedback as rejection, while the manager hasnt given it much thought. A leader may perceive intensity as aggression, when the employee is simply overwhelmed. And, in an open-plan office, a colleague raising their voice at another colleague, not out of hostility but because theyre reaching meltdown, which is then followed by shame later.
Emotional literacy bridges these gaps before they escalate into conflict or disciplinary action, which, if were honest, is so condescending when applied to a fully grown adult.
Cultural intelligence (CQ) matters more than ever
Emotional literacy without cultural literacy is incomplete. Our stress responses, boundary styles, and communication rhythms are shaped by culture as much as neurotype.
A British-Asian woman may internalize distress, because it was normalized in her culture to tolerate and keep going. A Black autistic colleague may mask to avoid stereotype threat that theyve been preconditioned to expect.
The future of leadership requires the ability to read across identities and not treat neurodiversity as a single story.
So, what does emotional accessibility look like in practice?
Here are shifts that transform workplaces more than any awareness campaign:
1. Respond to nervous systems, not behaviorWhen we can see a stress response, what information can we derive from this, and how can we best support a neurodivergent employee?
2. Reduce cognitive loadProvide agendas early, enable longer processing time, and avoid rapid changeover to give the brain time to switch gear.
3. Normalize setting boundariesSo others feel safe to do the same, model phrases like:Lets slow this downI need a momentIll come back to you on this
4. Respect sensory needsNoise, lighting, heat, pace, and unpredictability all shape neurodivergent employees well-being and performance.
5. Read early signs of burnoutNotice when team members withdraw, go quiet, are slower with their responses, or increase masking, as these are signs of misalignment, long before they collapse.
6. Make emotional literacy a core leadership skillUnderstanding the emotional language of the nervous system is the prerequisite to building safe relationships. This isnt soft, it is aligned with the reality of todays workforce.
The real future of inclusion is relational
To support neurodivergent employees, organizations must move beyond awareness toward something deeper and more human: the ability to read, respect, and respond to the emotional and sensory realities of the people they lead.
Emotional literacy creates teams where neurodivergent employees dont have to pretend to feel safe, they genuinely experience it. It creates workplaces where difference becomes a source of insight, because prioritising emotional accessibility benefits every mind. Thats the shift that liberates people and transforms cultures.
As we count down to the last days of the year, we are looking ahead to what may be one of the next big work trends of 2026: shift sulking.
Read on to find out what it is, and what to know about it heading into the new year.
What is shift sulking?
“Shift sulking is the moment when hourly workers arrive already depleted because the conditions surrounding their workunpredictable schedules, inconsistent hours, and rising demandsare simply unsustainable,” says Silvija Martincevic, CEO of Deputy, a workforce management platform for hourly workers.
“Because millions of shifts run through our platform every week, Deputy sees this deep-seated strain in the data well before it makes headlines,” Martincevic adds.
According to Martincevic, if you look closely the next time youre at the grocery store, coffee shop, hospital, or convenience store, youll see it. And it’s not hard to spot: workers stretched thin, managing difficult customers and understaffed teams.
The difference between a worker who feels supported and one whos simply trying to get through the day is written on their face, she says.
What, if anything, does this tell us about the current state of the economy?
“[At a time when] 31% of U.S. workers report feeling detached, ‘shift sulking’ is a clear reminder that the strength of our economy is inseparable from the stability of the shift worker,” says Martincevic. “Thats not simply a retention challenge. Its a productivity challenge that limits our collective potential.”
According to data from Deputy, in states where stable scheduling is the norm, frontline worker happiness reaches 98%, compared to just 60% where it’s unpredictable.
And companies should be paying attention to this data, as studies show engaged workers perform better.
Why shift sulking may be one of the big workplace trends of 2026
In today’s 24/7 gig economy, more Americans are doing shift work and taking on multiple jobs, or so-called poly-employment, to make ends meet as they grapple with rising costs and higher inflation.
“We dont see shift sulking as a temporary issue; its the human cost of deeper structural friction in todays labor marketand all indicators point to it intensifying in 2026,” Martincevic says. “Businesses are operating leaner, asking teams to deliver the same output despite tighter staffing and volatile demand. That pressure falls squarely on the frontline.”
According to Deputy’s Better Together report, while AI can automate tasks and improve visibility, technology alone wont solve the problemthat demands structural change that gives workers what they want: predictable schedules, balanced workloads, and transparent communication.
When Calvin McDonald was appointed CEO of Lululemon in 2018, the activewear brand was a cult brand. But it had the potential to become a retail giant.
Chip Wilson founded Lululemon in Vancouver in 1998 as a yoga brand. When he left the CEO role in 2005, the company was generating $80 million a year. In the decade that followed, Lululemon grew steadily, boosted by the broader athleisure trend. But it was McDonaldwho previously spent five years delivering double-digit growth as CEO of Sephora Americaswho transformed Lululemon into one of the biggest clothing companies in the world.
Over the course of his seven-year tenure, McDonald more than tripled the company’s annual revenue from $2.6 billion in 2018 to $10.6 billion in 2024. (Revenue is expected to hit $11 billion this year.) He led the company’s global expansion to 30 countries; international revenue alone is now $3 billion. And he helped Lululemon become known not only for activewear, but also for apparel you could wear to the office.
Now, McDonald is on his way out. Last week, at Lululemon’s earnings call, the company announced that it was looking for a new CEO with experience in “growth and transformation“. This comes after Lululemon’s growth slowed to 10% last year from 19% the year before. There are many reasons for the company’s recent troubles, from product missteps like a widely-panned Disney collaboration to U.S. tariffs to weaker consumer spending. All of this has led Lululemon’s stock to tumble over the past two years. (Lululemon declined to comment for this story.)
But McDonald’s track record suggests that he would have been capable of steering Lululemon back to growthand the company may ultimately regret its decision to let him go.
Wilson wanted McDonald Out
What’s clear is that Lululemon’s founder, who stepped down from the role of CEO in 2005, wanted McDonald out.
Wilson has famously tried to stay involved with his company, even though he no longer has an official position. In 2013, he was forced to give up his role as board chairman after saying Lululemon’s clothes don’t work for “some women’s bodies,” which was perceived to be body-shaming. Wilson continued to make controversial comments. Last year, he drew backlash after he criticized Lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing,” adding that “you’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.”
In response to the outcry, Lululemon issued a statement distancing the company from its founder, and McDonald spoke to Fast Company about how much Lululemon had changed since Wilson’s departure.
But Wilson still has powerful influence because he remains the company’s largest individual shareholder, owning roughly 9% of shares. In October, Wilson took out a full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal outlining everything he felt was wrong at the company. Wilson wrote that Lululemon’s troubles boil down to the fact that he is no longer leading the company and has been replaced by CEOs who “speak Wall Street.” Since Wilson no longer has a seat on the board, it’s unlikely that his perspective directly affects management’s decisions about the company’s future. But the ad created a lot of buzz, and may have accelerated the decision to find a new leader.
McDonald’s Missteps Don’t Define His Tenure
To be fair, Wilson made some reasonable points in his write-up. It’s true that McDonald has taken some wrong turns in his quest for growth. There was his decision to go beyond Lululemon’s expertise in apparel and enter the fitness market. In 2020, it spent $1 billion on acquiring the smart exercise device Mirror; three years later, Lululemon stopped selling the device and fired 100 employees working on this part of the business.
Then there was what Wilson describes as the “wildly inappropriate” Disney collab. One of Lululemon’s strengths has been how judicious it is about collaborations, setting it apart from the collab-happy fashion industry. Its rare partnerships with designers have been elevated and interesting, such as the 2017 collab with Central Saint Martins and the 2019 collab with the edgy designer Roksanda Ilinčić. By comparison, last year’s Disney collab seemed like a naked cash-grab. Its current capsule collection with the luxury L.A.-based grocery store Erewhon similarly feels like an effort to tap into a short-term trend, rather than focus on the well-designed classic garments that consumers love.
But these mistakes don’t define McDonald’s leadership. He’s also focused on product innovation, which has always been the key to Lululemon’s success. In 2022, after years of development, Lululemon launched its own footwear line, which has been successful. As culture has moved beyond athleisure, he’s directed Lululemon’s designers to produce chic clothinglike blazers and trousersthat can be worn to the office, including the bestselling men’s ABC pant and women’s Daydrift trouser. And the company has continued to develop new fabrics, while leaning into the ones that customers love, like the buttery Nulu material in Lululemon’s best-selling Align leggings. Earlier this year, after acknowledging that some customers felt “fatigue” with the product assrtment, McDonald promised to double down on design.
Steering a $10 Billion Brand
In his ad, Wilson laid out a strategy for Lululemon to bounce back. He says the company needs to put product and brand back at the center, empower creative leadership rather than merchants looking at spreadsheets, and focus on designing for the women who dictate culture, rather than follow it. All of this is good advice, and Lululemon’s next CEO should take note. But it is also insufficient because it fails to recognize the scale of the company that Lululemon has become.
Much of Lululemon’s growth in recent years has come from its global expansion, which McDonald has steered. Mainland China has now become the company’s second largest market after the United States. Creating a brand and products that resonates across so many different markets is no small task, and it is something that Wilson never had to tackle.
The growth of this international business has been crucial to Lululemon’s continued growth, particularly because American consumers are curbing their spending. President Trump’s tariffs, which have increased the price of goods and inflation, are causing many Americans to tighten their belts. In September, Lululemon said that changes in the U.S. tax code would add roughly $240 million in expenses.
And yet Lululemon’s overall revenue is continuing to grow, thanks to the strength of its international markets. In its third quarter, Lululemon’s international revenue had grown by 33% while its U.S. revenue had declined by 2%.
McDonald has masterfully transformed Lululemon from a brand that made pricey yoga leggings into a global fashion powerhouse. With his departure, Lululemon is losing a leader who knows the company well and has a track record of driving growth. The new CEO will have big shoes to fill. And the world will be watching where McDonald lands next.
Like many people, I use AI for quick, practical tasks. But two recent interactions made me pay closer attention to how easily these systems slip into emotional validation. In both cases, the model praised, affirmed, and echoed back feelings that werent actually there.
I uploaded photos of my living room for holiday decorating tips, including a close-up of the ceramic stockings my late mother hand painted. The model praised the stockings and thanked me for sharing something so meaningful, as if it understood the weight of them.
A few days later, something similar happened at work. I finished a long run, came home with an idea, and dropped it into ChatGPT to pressure test it. Instead of analyzing it or raising risks, the model immediately celebrated it. Great idea. Powerful. Lets build on it.
But when I ran the same idea by a colleague, he pushed back. He challenged assumptions I hadnt seen. He made me rethink pieces I thought were settled. And the idea got betterfast.
That contrast stayed with me. AI wasnt critiquing me. It was validating me. And validation, when its instant and unearned, can create real blind spots.
We Are Living Through a Validation Epidemic
We talk endlessly about AI hallucinations and misinformation. We talk far less about how AIs default mode is affirmation.
Large language models are built to be agreeable. They reflect our tone and adopt our emotional cues. They lean toward praise because their training data leans toward praise. They reinforce more often than they resist. And this is happening at a moment when validation is already a defining cultural force.
Psychologists have been warning about the rise in validation-seeking behavior for more than a decade. Social platforms built around likes and shares have rewired how people measure worth. The American Psychological Association (APA) reports sharp increases in social comparison among younger generations. Pew Research shows that teens now tie self-esteem directly to online feedback. Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified a growing pattern of validation dependence, which correlates with higher anxiety.
Weve created an environment where approval is currency. So is it any wonder we would gravitate toward a tool that hands it out so freely? But that has consequences. It strengthens the muscle that wants reassurance while weakening the one that tolerates frictionthe friction of being questioned or proven wrong.
AI Makes Us Faster. It Does Not Make Us Better
Im not anti-AI. Far from it. I use it every day, and I work in an industry that depends on smart, data-driven judgment. AI helps me move faster. It informs my decisions and expands what I can consider in a short amount of time. But it cannot replace the tension required for growth.
Tension is feedback. Tension is accountability. Tension is reality. And reality still comes from human beings.
The danger isnt that AI misleads us. Its that it makes us less willing to challenge ourselves. When a model praises our ideas or mirrors our emotions, it creates a subtle illusion that were right, or at least close enough that critique isnt needed. That illusion may be comforting, but its also risky.
Weve seen what happens when agreement is prized over challenge. NASAs Challenger launch decision is one of the clearest examples of groupthink in modern history. Multiple engineers raised concerns, but the pressure for consensus won and tragedy followed. Kodak offers another lesson. It pioneered digital photography but clung to its film-era assumptions, even as the market moved in a different direction. As Harvard Business Review has long noted, cultures that suppress dissent make worse decisions. When disagreement disappears, risk accelerates.
Great Leaders Arent Built on Validation
The best leaders I know didnt grow because people agreed with them. They grew because someone challenged them early and often. Because someone said, I dont think thats right, or more boldly, Youre wrong. They learned to welcome productive resistance.
AI wont do that unless we demand it. And most people wont demand it because it feels better to be affirmed. If were not careful, AI becomes the worlds most agreeable colleaguequick with praise, light on critique, and always ready to reassure us that were on the right track even when were not.
Great ideas need resistance. So do organizations. So do we.
AI can accelerate our thinking. But only people can sharpen it. Thats the part of this technology we should be paying closest attention tonot what it knows, but what its willing to tell us. And what its not.
