Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth surged to $749 billion late Friday after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Tesla stock options worth $139 billion that were voided last year, according to Forbes’ billionaires index.
Musk’s 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable.”
The Supreme Court said that a 2024 ruling that rescinded the pay package had been improper and inequitable to Musk.
Earlier this week, Musk became the first person ever to surpass $600 billion in net worth on the heels of reports that his aerospace startup SpaceX was likely to go public.
In November, Tesla shareholders separately approved a $1 trillion pay plan for Musk, the largest corporate pay package in history, as investors endorsed his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
Musk’s fortune now exceeds that of Google co-founder Larry Page, the worlds second-richest person, by nearly $500 billion, according to Forbes’ billionaires list.
Rajveer Singh Pardesi, Reuters
With its goofy block lettering and bright colors, the MetroCard feels like a relic, which it sort of isan early 1990s design, complete with gradients and drop shadows, thats managed to stick around long enough to become one of New Yorks defining symbols. At a time when generic minimalism and the sheen of AI-generated graphics have taken over, its unmistakable graphics feel refreshing. And the fact that a 31-year-old fare payment system is still in circulation when most tech today becomes obsolete in a matter of months is a remarkable achievement.
But the end is near: on December 31st, the MTA will stop selling MetroCards and completely phase them out on an imminent date that the agency has yet to announce. Loving tributes have already begun as the city pays its respects to the slim piece of plastic that kept commuters moving for three decades.
Its not as iconic as the token, but maybe in the future it will be, says Jodi Shapiro, curator of the New York City Transit Museum, which on December 17 opened FAREwell, Metrocard, a new exhibition on the cards history.
While it might be New York City Transits second-most famous fare payment system, it has had a tremendous effect on the metropoliss culture, how people get around, and what good municipal design ought to accomplish. It all began with a big ask: getting New Yorkers to change their habits.
Peter Stangl (MTA Chairman from 19911995) swipes a brand-new MetroCard through a turnstile, 1994. [Photo: New York Transit Museum]
A generational shift
For 40 years before the MetroCard, New Yorkers paid for the subway using tokens. Dropping it into a turnstile wasnt much different than paying with coins. The MetroCard was a technical leap that changed how riders experienced the public transit system.
At the time of its introduction, not many people used swipe cards, Shapiro explains. If you were familiar with them, you probably worked some kind of job where there was a security measure.
[Photo: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images]
The idea to replace tokens percolated in the late 1970s, when city council member Carol Bellamy proposed the idea. But it took until the 1980s for the MTA to take fare cards seriously.
Richard Ravitch, the chairman at the time, wanted to update the system and keep it on par with Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Paris, which already adopted magnetic strip cards. He argued that it would encourage off-peak ridership, curb fare evasion, and allow the sale of monthly passes. ’Passes will encourage mobility, Ravitch said, and enhanced mobility will increase commercial activity in this region. The MTA launched the MetroCard in January 1994 and existed side-by-side with tokens for nearly a decade.
With the change to a fare card also came a change to the turnstiles. To riders, the subways built environment doesnt change all that much, but when it does, its bigthe Vignelli/Noorda signage, demolishing the El lines, the fare evasion spikes and fins. The MetroCard was responsible for a major physical shift: electrified turnstiles, which were required to power the magnetic strip readers, and with them electrified emergency exit gates that can be remotely opened by booth clerks.
The 90s are calling
Now back to the MetroCard itself. With a blue gradient background, MetroCard spelled out in golden block letters that ascend in angle and descend in size from the bottom right to top left corner, the card is 1990s to the core. The decade was a highly experimental time for graphic designers because of the freedom desktop publishing, a relatively new tool at the time, gave them. With typography in particular, designers obliterated the rules. They set type on curves, stretched and warped letterforms, and layered text.
[Photo: New York Transit Museum]
Cubic Transportation Systems designed the magnetic strip and the turnstile readers, but the exact designers of the graphics are unknown. The most Shapiro has been able to concretely find is that a group of people within the MTA was responsible for the visual direction. Compared to the disciplined Helvetica wayfinding signage throughout the system, the MetroCard waspure pop, especially after the MetroCard Gold replaced the original in 1997.
What is MetroCard?, 1993. [Photo: New York Transit Museum Collection]
It wasnt just a cosmetic change, Shapiro says. It indicated visually that the magnetic strip was functionally different. Magnetic strip technology improved in the first few years after the original card debuted and more information could be encoded onto it. The new cards enabled free transfers between buses and the subway and also let the MTA sell 7-day and 30-day unlimited passes. (The new magnetic strips also gave rise to green and white student passes and gold and white reduced-fare cards for seniors and people with disabilities.)
For this iteration of the MetroCard, the agency reversed the colorsblue lettering on a gold gradient backgroundand added a drop shadow to the text. The MTA logo in the top corner switched to gold, too, giving the image a faint resemblance to a sunset.
The Cardvaark, proposed mascot for MetroCard, 1993. [Photo: New York Transit Museum Collection]
The MetroCards graphics were friendly and, like the genius of the Antenna-designed MetroCard machine, taught riders how to use it. (There was even a plan to have an affable MetroCard mascot named the Cardvaark to boost early adoption.) You can only swipe it in one direction and so the text orientation indicates which side should go up and the slanted lettering mimics the swiping motion. That clipped top-right corner? Its an accessibility cue to let riders with low vision know how to orient the card through the reader.
[Photo: Kyeema Mizell/Adobe Stock]
Human-centered design
About that swipe: Its a motion that requires just the right speed: not too fast, not too slow, just brisk enough much to the annoyance and exasperation of tourists as well as daily riders who dont want to look like newbies. (The exact speed should be between 10 and 40 inches per second.) The cool thing about the MetroCard is the swipe mechanism is human powered, Shapiro says.
SubTalk: Refill your MetroCard, 2004 [Image: New York Transit Museum Collection]
Relying on the manual labor of riders had ripple effects, like traffic jams at turnstiles, but on the whole its a lot simpler than the alternative: a conventional magnetic ticket reader, which mechanically draws a card in, reads it, and spits it out. The machine could jam at any of those three steps, which is risky given the volume of straphangers in New York. Over 4.6 million people ride the subway each day, which means that a single turnstile can clock thousands of swipes a day; in 2011 the busiest turnstile saw over a million riders pass through.
How many points of failure do you really want to have with a system that has that amount of transactions? Shapiro says. And the answer is you want to have as few points of failure as possible. When you have a human-powered card reader, that’s only really one point of failure. In the calculus of subway math, lost time and expense of fixing a jam is worth a lot more than personal embarrassment. (Just ask Hillary Clinton and George Pataki.)
[Photo: Brandon Klein/Adobe Stock]
From to fare passes to holy grails
While the MetroCards front gave it its identity and functionality, its back turned it into a collectors item. This was by design from the beginning, too. The graphics enticed people to buy and use them and offered an advertising opportunity. The MTA described them as walking billboards. MetroCards are printed using flexography and CMYK color, a process that results in crisp, vivid imagery and a high level of customization.
Since tokens were a big souvenir for people’s trips to New York, then why wouldn’t the Metro Card be one? Shapiro says. The MTA launched the MetroCard with four collectible fixed value cards$1.25 (a single-ride fare at the time), $5, $10, and $20. Each denomination featured a different scenic view of New York on the back: Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Center, Times Square, and the skyline.
First limited edition MetroCards, 1994 [Photo: New York Transit Museum Collection]
Through the years, the MTA issued many more special-edition MetroCard that celebrated the city and its culture, over 400 in all. The Transit Museum has several thousand MetroCards in its collection and just a fraction of them are in the exhibition. Theyre grouped thematically based on recurring motifs including sports teams, musicians, artists, PSAs and safety ads, commemorative moments, and transit facts. There was definitely some fun being had, Shapiro says.
The first five years alone featured the New York Rangers winning the Stanley Cup, an illustration of subway riders by the Brooklyn-born artist James Rizzi, and an ad for Gang Starrs album Moment of Truththe first time rap artists appeared on the card. Gang Starr is great, Shapiro says, but one of their members is from Boston so I cant forgive that.
In 2012, the MTA changed the MetroCard rules to allow special graphics on the front amid a wider expansion of advertising in the system. (Before then, the MTA issued a MetroCard with a green logo in honor of climate week.) The Brooklyn Museum took advantage of this to publicize its David Bowie exhibition in 2018 as did Instagram with its content creators campaign from 2024, the very last limited-edition MetroCards printed.
[Images: New York Transit Museum]
The MTAs collectors item strategy worked. After the Supreme card launched to hordes of Hypebeasts rushing to vending machines (the NYPD had to barricade the lines and limit buyers to two cards apiece), resellers listed the limited-edition MetroCards for upwards of $1,000 (you can find them on the secondary market in the double digit range now). And some holdouts are still hoping their Biggie cards will fetch $5,000. But the rarest, according to Shapiro, is actually a special prepaid New York Times MetroCard mailed to newspaper subscribers in 1994. You couldn’t buy it from a booth or anything like that, she says. One is listed on eBay for $950.
Its interesting to see something that is such a fundamental part of every New Yorkers commute becomes some kind of grail on the secondary market, Shapiro says. Its odd. While Shapiro doesnt personally collect MetroCards, she has held onto a select few, including Barbara Krugers designs released for the 2017 edition of Performa, the James Rizzi illustrations, and ads from defunct businesses like Kozmo and Urban Fetch.
Compared to the MTAs annual operating budget, around $20 billion, the revenue it earned from MetroCard campaigns is anemic. From 2012 to 2018, the MTA averaged about $600,000 a year in ad revenue. It rose to $1 million in 2019 then dropped to zero during 2020 on account of the pandemic, then ticked up to $166,000 per year between 2021 and 2023. In 2024, promos earned $641,000.
Cultural touchstones
More than being trophies for transit nerds, the MetroCard simply became part of the fabric of the cityliterally. Ana Ratner, the editor of The Other Almanac and a lifelong New Yorker, recalls how she and her friends used to gather spent cards (broken boxes where riders discarded spent cards were jackpots) and make clothes out of them. I wasn’t that good at it, so I did square things like wallets and tote bags, but then friends of mine could make dresses and those are really cool, Ratner says. You would punch holes in different parts of the MetroCard, link them with metal loops or wire or string, and then you’d have the chain tunic dress. Teen Vogue even feature one of her friends with a MetroCard-wrapped desk in its Last Look column. She was extremely crafty, Ratner adds.
Juan Carlos Pinto, an artist based in Brooklyn, has been making collages out of MetroCards since 2002, using the ads on the back to bring color to his mostly blue, gold, and yellow compositions. Of course I will miss the card, he says. It became my bread and butter. But the switch to other forms of payment is unavoidable. Change is good.
Numerous other artists have used the card as material, too. The Transit Museums next MetroCard show, opening in March, will chronicle it as an artistic medium. On the conceptual side, Shawn Lawrence James, aka The Blue Hundreds, a 40-year-old artist born and raised in Bed-Stuy, wrote a song in 2015 about the MetroCard that was featured in an exhibition at MoMA PS1. In it, he describes a glitch within two-trip tickets (bending the card just right lets riders swipe in for free, a trick he learned 20 years ago) against a backdrop of rising transit costs and increased policing of fare beaters. He saw the song as a way to help people save money, stay out of trouble, and offer access on your own terms, James says. The song was kind of like a protest.
As the MTA phases out the MetroCard this graphic ephemera and the culture around it will slowly fade away. When tap-to-pay through OMNY fully takes over, many riders will never need a dedicated physical object to ride New York City transit, a first in over 160 years.
Since transportation started in New York City in the 1860s, you’ve always either had to have a ticket or a token, Shapiro says, noting that tokens existed and were in use before the subway opened. Its going to be weird to not have everyone using something tangible.
With the MetroCards retirement comes another casualty of dematerialization (remember ticket stubs, loyalty cards, and handwritten correspondence?) and another retreat into the digital wallets trapped in our phone screens.
As the MetroCard exits daily circulation, we also lose the collective experience it embodied. On any given day, thousandsmaybe even millionsof New Yorkers carried the same exact object, with the same messages printed on them. The MetroCard is a link to a specific place and time: a PSA about the dangers of subway surfing, a fact about the most checked-out book in the NYPL system (that would be The Snowy Day by Jack Keats), or a simple poem. When the MTA released the Biggie cards, in honor of what would have been his 50th birthday, fans lined up for hours for the chance to buy one. Whos not going to want this, being born and raised in Brooklyn? a woman from Brighton Beach told the New York Post.
[Image: New York Transit Museum]
Presumably, the MTA could offer limited-edition OMNY cards, but since their expiration date, usually five years after issuance, is longer than the MetroCard and its cost, $5 each, is also higher, theres less incentive to switch up the graphics. A spokesperson from the MTA says that moving to a contactless payment unlocks potential for new customer-friendly promotions and fare discounts and mentioned a Barilla activation that turned pasta boxes with an OMNY decal stuck on them into a one-way ticket. Has anyone collected these?
I, for one, havent swiped my MetroCard in nearly a year (it expired on January 31, 2025) since contactless payments are so much more convenient, but the scuffed up card with a PSA about not going on the tracks for any reason remains in my wallet, and likely will for quite sometime as a tribute to the legendary object. [a]
Over the past five years, the remote work revolution has changed life as we know it for corporate folks like myself. And while Im on the record singing the praises of working from home, Id like to set the record straight: Its not without its faults.
Dont get me wrong, Ive enjoyed my weekday afternoon naps and time away from co-workers. But Ive also come to realize that before the pandemic, we were putting a little bit too much gas on working from home. Is WFH convenient? You bet your ass it is. Waking up and not having to get out of bed or get in the shower or get dressed because Im taking all my meetings with the camera off is a lifestyle Ive come to appreciate.
But what has actually depreciated is my personal satisfaction with my apartment, my building, and my neighbors. Im not the only person dreading the stricter return-to-office policies companies like Paramount and Microsoft are mandating for the new year, but there are some aspects of working from home that I certainly wont miss.
Lets start with my own pad, a modest one-bedroom with a nice view. Its one of those places that often garner compliments from first-time guests after they return from the bathroom. You know what Im talking about. They walk out, still drying their hands with a paper towel, look around, and say, Wow, youve got a nice place here. Ive always appreciated that, because I felt the same way. But when I began working from home, I started to realize that what I had is not enough.
Specifically, I need a building that can help a brother out when it comes to maintenance. I may not live in The PJs, but our super, Randy, has the apathy of Thurgood Stubbs. Which I wouldnt care about if it didnt infringe on my own work performance. Dude almost never comes to the building, and when he does, he tries to get everything done in one day. Its inefficient as hell. While Ive successfully plunged a toilet back in my day, Im no Black Tim The Toolman Taylor, which usually leaves me at Randys mercy when things go haywire at home.
On one occassion, my kitchen sink randomly started leaking. And while Randy promised to come take a look as soon as possible, I knew that could take days. So I rolled up my sleeves and aimlessly poked around under the sink, losing track of time and logging in a few minutes late for a Zoom meeting as a result. Ugh.
(Speaking of video conferences, due to my apartments ancient infrastructure, were apparently not equipped to receive Fios service, which means our internet connectivity is more than seldom subpar. With the number of times Ive been told Im frozen on calls, youd think I lived in Antarctica. Burr!)
There are other obstacles that WFH has presented. Since my name is the first in my buildings intercom directory, Im the default buzzer for delivery workers who are too lazy to find the appropriate resident receiving a package or food order. All due respect to delivery persons, but with an average of damn near four rings a day for deliveries that are rarely my own I just want to tell them to buzz off.
Last but not least, my neighbors have replaced my former officemates as daily distractions of choice. An opera singer lives in the apartment directly below mine, which means her practice sessions can sound less like music and more like cries for help. Theres just so much drama in whatever shes singing that on several occasions, while Ive been speaking in a meeting, Ive been concerned that my co-workers think a murder or violent sex is happening somewhere in my background.
There are other offenders: the neighbor with a dog whose barks are so loud that youd think it was living in my unit; the grunting fitness buff who racked up on free weights last year and slams them on the floor during workouts like hes at the damn gym; the new parents across the hall whose bundle of joy gets to crying for hours at a time at approximately 1 a.m. and 1 p.m. daily.
The list of grievances can go on, but honestly, Im sure lots of folks have their own issues, whether tending to their own households during work hours or simply being thirsty for a change of scenery. My solution to the WFH woes has been to get an escape by popping out to a cafe for a few hours a couple of times a week. Because lets be real the true value in remote work isnt necessarily the fact that its happening from your own residence; its that its not happening at the office.
Its been a pretty wild year in the world of advertising and brand work.
Amid broader industry shifts, there has been some incredible brand work created this year across many different platforms, film, experiences, and more. But as we bring 2025 to a close, I wanted to take a more targeted look at some of the best commercials of this year.
Ive tried to adhere to criteria that includes level of difficulty, creative inventiveness, risk, and sheer entertainment. Despite how much great work is out there, sadly, most advertising can be generously categorized as cultural wallpaper. But these select few pieces of brand werent a waste of timethey made me laugh, think, and, yes, crave a fast-casual margarita.
Lets dive in, shall we?
Best Social Commentary Commercial for a Meat
Australian Lamb The Comments Section
What is it about Australian Lamb? And Im not even talking about the meat. The Aussie meat producer marketer is making a habit of crafting hilarious social commentary while hyping the taste and quality of its young sheep.
This year, it holds a mirror up to online culture and the absurdity of how people act in the comments compared to IRL.
The results are simply delicious.
Best Self-Aware AI Commercial That Absolutely No one Should Copy But Many Will
Kalshi The Worlds Gone Mad
If you were watching the NBA playoffs when this ad aired, youd be excused if you thought someone snuck some shrooms in your beer glass. Unhinged doesnt even begin to describe how the prediction market platform Kalshi went about introducing itself to the broader American public.
Hilarious, wild, and an absolute AI-generated nightmare, the spot immediately grabbed attention, but also burned the bridge of shock-and-awe AI ads behind it. Any other spot that tries to use this approach will just be a copycatsee: McDonalds now-pulled European holiday spot. Im definitely not a fan of AI slop advertising, but here Kalshi sets the bar for AI as a creative ad gimmick.
Bonus points here for the equally funny behind-the-scenes spot that quickly followed online.
Best Reinterpretation of a Classic Tagline
Nike Why Do It?
When Walt Stack ran across the Golden Gate Bridge in Nikes first commercial, Just Do It became the tagline and philosophy that propelled the swoosh to become an iconic global brand. Now almost 40 years later, Nike needed to remind a new generation what Just Do It actually means.
Launched in September, the brands campaign was called Why do it?, and it took aim at the pervasiveness of cringe culture, which often frames earnest effort as uncool. Those three words mean so much to us, but we cant just be holier-than-thou about it, Nike chief marketing officer Nicole Graham told me at the time. We have to make sure that those three words are resonating with each generation.
Narrated by Tyler, the Creator, and starring a laundry list of star athletes, this was a stylish way to bridge the brands heritage as an iconic advertiser, with a modern message that shouldnt get old.
Best Blockbuster Video Game Commercial
Battlefield 6 Live Action Trailer
Created with agency Mother LA, the video game giant appears to be bringing Battlefield 6 squads to life with the help of Zac Efron, NBA All-Star Jimmy Butler, chart topper Morgan Wallen, and MMA fighter Paddy Pimblett. It harkens back to the days when Call of Duty enlisted Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel (2010), or Jonah Hill and Avatars Sam Worthington (2012) to hype its new releases. Except the celebs in this spot only last for about three seconds.
Set to Smashing Pumpkins Bullet with Butterfly Wings, it quickly becomes clear that the game doesn’t need to rely on the celebrity of Efron, Butler, Wallen, and Pimblett, but its strength is actually in the community of everyday players that make it what it is.
A clever play on a classic gaming trope to help launch a blockbuster.
Best Meta Movie Marketing Award
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” opened with $345 million in worldwide sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, notching the second-best global debut of the year and potentially putting James Cameron on course to set yet more blockbuster records.Sixteen years into the “Avatar” saga, Pandora is still abundant in box-office riches. “Fire and Ash,” the third film in Cameron’s science-fiction franchise, launched with $88 million domestically and $257 million internationally. The only film to open bigger in 2025 was “Zootopia 2” ($497.2 million over three days). In the coming weeks, “Fire and Ash” will have the significant benefit of the highly lucrative holiday moviegoing corridor.But there was a tad less fanfare to this “Avatar” film, coming three years after “Avatar: The Way of Water.” That film launched in 2022 with a massive $435 million globally and $134 million in North America. Domestically, “Fire and Ash” fell a hefty 35% from the previous installment. Reviews for “Fire and Ash” were also more mixed, scoring a series-low 68% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes.Yet those quibbles are only a product of the lofty standards of “Avatar.” The first two films rank as two of the three biggest box-office films of all time. To reach those heights, the “Avatar” films have depended on legs more than huge openings.“Avatar” (2009), opened with $77 million domestically but held the top spot for seven weeks. It ultimately grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. “The Way of Water” also held strong to eventually tally $2.3 billion globally.
James Cameron, right, director and co-writer of “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” poses with his wife Suzy Amis Cameron at the premiere of the film on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. [Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP Photo]
“The openings are not what the ‘Avatar’ movies are about,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. “It’s what they do after they open that made them the no. 2 and no. 3 biggest films of all time.”For “Fire and Ash” to follow in those footsteps, it will need robust ticket sales to continue for weeks. Working in its favor so far: strong word-of-mouth. Audiences gave it an “A” CinemaScore.In interviews, Cameron has repeatedly said “Fire and Ash” needs to perform well for there to be subsequent “Avatar” films. (Four and five are already written but not greenlit.) These are exceptionally expensive movies to make. With a production budget of at least $400 million, “Fire and Ash” is one of the costliest movies ever made.“James Cameron is not known for his low budget movies,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “You can’t exactly create the world of Pandora on the cheap. If you’re going to have a 3D movie, an epic film that’s three hours and 17 minutes, it’s a huge buy-in of money, time, resources, and then you have to hope the audience wants to once again go along on that ride.”“Fire and Ash” was especially boosted by premium format showings, which accounted for 66% of its opening weekend. A narrow majority of moviegoers (56%) chose to watch it in 3D.The “Avatar” films have always been especially popular overseas. “Fire and Ash” was strongest in China, where its $57.6 million opening weekend surpassed the two previous movies.
‘David’ overperforms and ‘Marty Supreme’ sets a record
“Fire and Ash” didn’t have the weekend entirely to itself. A trio of other new wide releases made it into theaters in hopes of offering some counterprogramming: Lionsgate’s “The Housemaid,” Angel Studios’ “David” and Paramount Pictures’ “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.”In the race for second place, “David” came out on top. The animated tale of David and Goliath collected $22 million from 3,118 theaters, notching the best opening weekend for Angel Studios, the Christian-oriented studio that emerged with 2023’s surprise hit “Sound of Freedom.”“The Housemaid,” Paul Feig’s twisty psychological thriller starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, opened with $19 million 3,015 theaters. The Lionsgate release, which cost about $35 million to make, is set up well to be one of the top R-rated options in theaters over the holidays. Based on Freida McFadden’s bestselling novel, it stars Sweeney as a woman with a troubled past who becomes a live-in maid for a wealthy family.Trailing the pack was “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” which collected $16 million from 3,557 theaters. The G-rated film, based on the Nickelodeon TV series, is the first “SpongeBob” theatrical movie since 2015’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.”All of this weekend’s new films will hope the ticket sales keep rolling in over the upcoming Christmas break. Starting Dec. 25, they’ll need to contend with some new wide releases, including A24’s “Marty Supreme,” with Timothée Chalamet; Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue,” with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson; and Sony’s “Anaconda,” with Jack Black and Paul Rudd.Before expanding on Christmas, “Marty Supreme” opened in six theaters over the weekend, grossing $875,000 or $145,000 per theater. That was good enough for not only the best per-theater average of the year, but the best since 2016 and a new high mark for A24. The film, directed by Josh Safdie and starring Chalamet as an aspiring table tennis player in 1950s New York, is the most expensive ever for A24.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
“Avatar: Fire and Ash,” $88 million.
“David,” $22 million.
“The Housemaid,” $19 million.
“The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” $16 million.
“Zootopia 2,” $14.5 million.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” $7.3 million.
“Wicked: For Good,” $4.3 million.
“Dhurandhar,” $2.5 million.
“Marty Supreme,” $875,000.
“Hamnet,” $850,000.
Jake Coyle, AP Film Writer
Power was restored Sunday to the bulk of the 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco impacted by a massive outage a day earlier that caused major disruptions in the city.About 17,000 customers remained without power as of noon Sunday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said. PG&E said earlier its crews were working to restore electricity in several neighborhoods and small areas of downtown San Francisco following Saturday’s outage.PG&E in a statement said it expects to restore power to remaining customers no later than 2 p.m. Monday.“The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive, and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” the utility said, referring to the substation at 8th and Mission streets. That fire has been blamed for some of the blackouts. The outage remains under investigation.PG&E said it mobilized additional engineers and electricians to help with restoration efforts.“This is a very complex work plan and will require the highest amount of safety focus to ensure safe work actions,” PG&E said. No injuries have been reported.The outage, which occurred shortly after 1 p.m. on Saturday, left a large swath of the northern part of the city without power that began to grow in size. At its peak, the outage represented roughly one-third of the utility company’s customers in the city.At about 4 p.m. on Saturday, PG&E posted on X that it had stabilized the grid and no further outages were expected.Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations on Saturday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were “significant transit disruptions” happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops. Waymo, the operator of driverless ride-hailing vehicles, suspended its services. At least one video posted on social media appeared to show a Waymo vehicle stopped in the middle of an intersection.
Jaimie Ding and Susan Haigh, Associated Press
Shares in Rocket Lab Corp were heading for their second day of gains on Monday after the aerospace manufacturer was named as one of four companies that will build tracking satellites for the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA).
The stock (Nasdaq: RKLB) was up more than 4% in premarket trading on Monday as of this writing. That’s in addition to a jump of 17% on Friday when the news was announced. Share are now trading at record highs.
What did the Space Development Agency announce?
The SDA, a unit of the United States Space Force, said on Friday that it awarded four companies with contracts to build 72 satellitesor 18 apiecewith the aim of expanding missile tracking and defense systems. The total value of the award is $3.5 billion.
In addition to Rocket Lab, the SDA also named Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris Technologies. The constellation of satellites is expected to launch in 2029.
Long Beach California-based Rocket Lab has been gaining more attention recently for its Electron orbital rocket, which is lighter than the heavier vehicles manufactured by rivals SpaceX and Blue Origin.
As Fast Company previously reported, the Electron’s lightweight nature gives it an edge in certain complex missions where precision and speed are prioritized.
A head-turning market rebound
After going public during the ill-fated SPAC craze of 2021, Rocket Lab stock struggled to rise above $10 a share. It limped along for well over three years.
But the stock has really broken out this year as excitement has grown around satellite buildouts and Rocket Lab executed successful launches for companies like Kinéis, a French operator of internet-of-things satellites.
For its third-quarter financial results released last month, Rocket Lab reported record revenue of $155 million and said it had secured a record 17 Electron launch contracts.
The company reported a net loss of $18.3 million for the second quarter, much narrower than the $52 million net loss it reported a year earlier.
As of Friday, Rocket Lab’s stock was up more than 182% year to date and was trading at $70.52 a share.
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! 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.
From technological advances and geopolitical changes to workplace culture shifts and market pressures, 2025 has been a year of change, uncertainty, and disruption.
Im Gwen Moran, and for nearly three years as Modern CEOs editor, Ive had a front-row seat as Mansueto Ventures CEO and Chief Content Officer Stephanie Mehta talks to business leaders and experts to help CEOs navigate the modern world. Every year, I recap some of the key insights from a year of interviews with the array of leaders featured in the newsletter. Here are four themes that we saw repeatedly in 2025.
Uncertainty and change were everywhere
Leaders faced nearly constant changeand more than a few curveballsthis year. When E.l.f. Beauty CEO Tarang Amin was named inaugural Modern CEO of the Year near the end of 2024, little did he know that tariffs, blowback over an influencer scandal, and attacks on the diversity efforts that E.l.f. champions were awaiting him in the coming months. When we asked CEOs to share their thoughts on leading during times of great uncertainty, we got responses representing industries from architecture to pharmaceuticals.
Some of the changes we saw this year will have lasting ripple effects. Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman talked about closing one of the worlds largest and most well-known philanthropies over the next two decades. What had become an annual check-in with former SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley was canceled after she and the company parted ways, leaving TIAAs Thasunda Brown Duckett as the only Black woman currently leading a Fortune 500 company.
AI still dominates the conversation
One of the most pressing mandates many CEOs face is figuring out how to realize the potential of artificial intelligence (AI). And they were forthcoming about their opportunities and challenges this year. Weber Shandwick CEO Jim OLeary discussed how his firms multifaceted AI use is giving him back what most leaders value most: time. OLeary estimates that AI saves him one to two hours per day.
This spring, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach said the quiet part out loud when he discussed how his company made head count cuts to invest in AI. Then, during the summer, seven leading C-level execs gave us a peek at how they are using AI to do their own jobs.
Regardless of their path, leaders dont succeed in a bubble
This years reporting showed us that there are many paths to the CEOs office, from intern to chief financial officerand even a comeback story as former Beautycounter CEO Gregg Renfrew took the reins at her new beauty company, Counter.
Despite their different backgrounds, they have one thing in common: They need great people around them to succeed. Leaders shared insights about performance management, the importance of strategic partnerships, the challenges of keeping CEOs safe, and what happens next in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Additionally, one of our top-performing pieces was about how boards need to focus more on their No. 1 job: succession planning.
Creativity and community fuel growth
Modern CEO dropped dispatches from Cannes Lions in June. It was clear that this Festival of Creativity has grown into an important event for CEOs. As Shelley Zalis, founder and CEO of the Female Quotient, a community of women in business, put it: Any CEO who wants to grow, innovate, and stay culturally relevant will benefit from being here. The importance of creativity is a message AKQA Global CEO Baiju Shah discusses with the next-generation business leaders he teaches at Northwestern University. He believes that a fusion of technology and creativity is essential for businesses, especially in the age of AI.
Another recurring theme in this years coverage was community. Cult brand co-CEO AJ Kumaran, who heads chicken chain Raising Canes, attributes his companys success to a rigorous focus on its community. And your community includes your team, too: WorkJam CEO Steven Kramer explained how enlisting the wisdom of frontline workers can help you find market insights and solutions.
What lessons did you take away from Modern CEO in 2025?
Were there issues of Modern CEO that helped you or gave you something to think about this year? Wed love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts in an email message to stephaniemehta@mansueto.com.
Read more: other Modern CEO highlights
Conscious capitalism isnt dead
Why your companys next CEO might be a multi-hyphenate
Modern CEO readers share their thoughts on top leaders
When I talk with business leaders about Gen Z, the same frustration often bubbles up: They wont stay. Its said with a kind of bewildered shrug, as if the younger generation has suddenly rewritten the rules out of thin air. I heard it again last week during a radio segment I did about generational dynamics at work. The host asked why Gen Z feels so comfortable moving on so quickly.
Heres what Ive learned after a decade teaching them, coaching them, and watching them navigate the workplace: Gen Z doesnt think theyre doing anything unusual. And frankly, once you look at the data, its hard to argue with them.
A new Youngstown State University study of 1,000 full-time U.S. professionals found that nearly half of Gen Z workers are already planning to leave their jobsnot for higher pay, but for better growth. That is the highest rate of all generations surveyed.
Its not impulsiveness. Its not disloyalty. Its something far more reasonable. Its “growth hunting.”
What Companies Assumeand Whats Actually Happening
Theres a familiar script about young workers: Theyre too quick to leave, too impatient, too everything. That narrative has been around for so long that many leaders use it as the default explanation without thinking.
But when nearly one out of two early-career workers say they cant picture a future where they are, that points to something systemicnot personal.
Heres what the data actually shows.
Eighty-six percent of Gen Z say they wont pursue upskilling unless their employer helps pay for it. Thats not a lack of drive. Thats the reality of trying to build a career while carrying historic student debt and paying rent that climbs faster than wages.
Forty-three percent say theyre too burnt out to take on education outside of work. Thats not an excuse. Thats a sign that the modern workload has pushed people to their limit long before you ever ask them to add night classes.
And seventy-six percent say the main thing blocking their advancement is costnot interest, not effort, not ambition. Cost.
Taken together, the message is straightforward: This generation isnt avoiding responsibility. Theyre asking employers to share it.
Why Growth Hunting Makes Sense Right Now
Older generations built careers around staying put and climbing step by step. That path made sense when wages matched living costs and companies offered predictable ladders.
Gen Z is coming of age in a completely different economy. Careers dont unfold in neat lines anymore. Skills expire quickly. Entire industries shift in a few years. And the price of staying competitive keeps climbing. So Gen Z does the logical thing: They move toward the places where they can grow.
Theyre not chasing titles. Theyre chasing momentum.
Every semester, I watch students who are smart, thoughtful, and deeply motivated figure out how to build a career in a landscape that changes constantly. Theyre not waiting for permission. But they will absolutely walk if an employer refuses to invest in them. And honestly, thats rational.
Growth hunting is not about impatience. Its about survival.
The Leadership Miss That Keeps Repeating
For years, companies have preached the language of development and continuous learning. Theyve told young employees to take initiative, expand their skills, stay ahead.
Gen Z listened. And now they want to know why the bill for that development keeps landing on their doorstep.
You cant ask workers to level up and then close the door to the support they need to do it. You cant talk about retention and then offer no path forward. You cant position upskilling as essential and then make it unaffordable.
This is where the generational disconnect becomes obvious. Companies say they want a future-ready workforce. Gen Z is asking them to mean it.
A Cultural Standoff That Was Bound to Happen
This feels like the moment where the values of Gen Z and the habits of corporate culture finally collide. Not because Gen Z is rebelling, but because theyre taking organizations at their word.
If you say you value growth, you have to create it. If you say you care about development, you have to invest in it.
Otherwise, Gen Z will simply walk toward someone who does.
And heres the twist: They dont feel guilty about it. Theyre not sneaking out the back door. Theyre leaving through the fronthead highbecause the expectations were never mutual to begin with.
What Employers Can Do
This doesnt require an overhaul. It just takes intention. And while every organization is different, here are a few approaches that can make a real difference.
Put money behind upskilling. Even partial funding shifts the relationship.
Make advancement transparent. When people have to guess, they eventually stop trying.
Tackle burnout before talking development. Growth cant happen when people are running on empty.
Promote based on readiness rather than time served. Tenure alone doesnt tell you whos capable.
Ask employees what growth actually means to them. The answers are often more practical than leaders expect.
These arent the only steps, but theyre a meaningful start. And theyre far more achievable than most leaders realize.
The Future Belongs to the Growth Hunters
Gen Z isnt running from work. Theyre running toward growth. They know what it costs to stay still, and theyre not willing to pay that price. Not anymore. They arent rejecting the workplace. Theyre asking it to evolve with them.
When employers offer real development, this generation will show up with incredible commitment. When they dont, Gen Z moves on with the same honesty and clarity they bring to everything else. That clarity is a gift if leaders choose to use it.Because building a workplace where people can grow isnt just good for Gen Z. Its good for everyone.
If a single type of building could define our present time, it would undoubtedly be the data center. Underpinning the increasingly online way we work, shop, and entertain ourselves, data centers provide the computing power and storage to handle all the Zoom calls, Amazon purchases, and Netflix streams a person can cram into their day. And now as compute-hungry artificial intelligence dominates the future of nearly every sector of the economyand possibly society as a wholethe data center will become even more ubiquitous.
A headlong data center building boom is already underway. One report finds that average monthly spending on data centers has increased 400% in the last two years, adding up to more than $50 billion in 2025 alone. One tally contends that there were more than 1,200 data centers either built or approved for construction in the U.S. by the end of 2024; another suggests the total number of data centers in the U.S. is now more than 4,100.
The scale and spread of data center building is staggering, and there seems to be no end in sight. All of this is why it’s so disappointing that the design of data center architecture is, by and large, very, very boring.
[Photo: halbergman/Getty Images]
The typical data center looks something like this: a cluster of large, rectangular warehouses 15 or 20 feet tall, each covering about the area of a professional soccer field. The building’s walls are usually made from tilt-up concrete panels with little adornment. There are few windows, and if there were more they would look out on large outdoor clusters of equipment for cooling equipment, electricity generation, and wastewater treatment.
Increasingly, the entire complex is surrounded by security fencing or even opaque walls. For anyone passing by or living in their vicinity, there may be little to see beyond the data center’s unending nighttime glow. For what could be considered the most important buildings of the decade, this is a decidedly dull aesthetic. It is the architecture of value engineering and the minimum viable product.
The companies behind these facilities would argue that data centers are more like utilities or infrastructure and therefore don’t need the kind of design a more public-facing building would. But even when these data centers are not located near large communitiesthough many actually arehow they look can send a powerful message about their owners’ sense of responsibility for their many downsides.
A missed opportunity
By now, the negative externalities of big data centers are well known. From their excessive energy use to their inflationary impacts on local electricity rates to their deep thirst for water to the sheer size of their sprawling campuses, the costs of the data center building boom can feel excessively high, especially in the face of hallucinating chatbots, disinformation campaigns, and unavoidable AI slop.
In this light, the warehouse design approach of most data centers is the architectural equivalent of burying one’s head in the sand, a supermax prison tucked out in the boondocks, far from any discourse over mass incarceration or human rights. The boring design of data centers is a missed opportunity to counter their negative externalities with at least a little upside.
[Photo: courtesy of Gensler]
There are some data centers that are offering glimpses of what a better design could be. Some data companies and spec builders are turning to large and renowned architecture firms to add an extra layer of design to what can be fairly cookie cutter buildings meant primarily to house computers. Some designs are emphasizing natural light and natural materials in their small but important human-centric office and entry spaces.
Others are prioritizing new building materials and server cooling equipment that lowers both the embedded and operational carbon impacts of the facilities. Still others are blending themselves into dense urban locations, bringing smaller scale data centers closer to specific types of users. Some look like modern office complexes. If they weren’t so big, some even look like they could hold a high end restaurant or retaier.
But for every data center trying to soften its blow on society, there are dozens, if not hundreds, that are spreading as much computing power over as large an area possible that can draw in the enough resources to get the servers up and whirring as soon as possible. This looks to be the predominant developmental strategy. Design is largely an afterthought.
[Photo: Gerville/iStock/Getty Images Plus]
AI companies and other so-called hyperscalers are scrambling for suitable building sites near electricity generation and transmission lines, making it likely that data centers will edge closer and closer to preexisting communities. This proximity will increase the need for more sensitive design approaches. Some better design is happening now. As the building boom carries on, much more will be needed.
The companies behind the AI race have been unambiguous about AI’s potential to dramatically reshape society. If that’s true (the jury is still very much out), perhaps those companies could spend a bit more effort signaling AI’s importance by making its vast and growing physical footprint less of a total bore.
