Microsoft is the latest tech giant to announce its new return-to-work (RTO) mandate. The first phase of the mandate is set to start in February 2026, requiring Seattle-area employees living within a 50 miles radius of a Microsoft office will need to be in office at least three days a week. Over the next year, the company expects the same from the rest of its U.S. and international employees.
Microsoft was one of the last big companies to offer their workforce flexibility. Competitors like Google, Meta, Amazon, Zoom, and AT&T have all announced their own unique policies requiring workers to be in the office.
These are all innovative, technology-led companies. Yet their RTO mandates and hybrid work policies are all supremely outdated.
Instead of honestly considering what the future of work means for employees and how it can benefit companies, many leaders are scared that if employees are allowed to work from anywhere, they will lose a bit of control over their workforce.
Real leaders are embracing the future. At Gather, we recognize that flexibility is the key to accessing higher tier talent, bigger clients, and ultimately better business outcomes.
Change of mindset
Once upon a time, CEOs were huge fans of working from home. Many notable business leaders are on record stating the benefits of working from home from a business, personal, and even a societal level. Mark Zuckerberg famously said, I’ve found that working remotely has given me more space for long-term thinking and helped me spend more time with my family, which has made me happier and more productive at work.
Why the sudden shift?
These RTO mandates arent to build culture or increase productivity or any of the other canned responses. Instead, many companies are locked into long-term leases on office spaces in cities all across the country. For decades, a 10-year lease for office space was the norm for large corporations. It kept rent costs stable and allowed companies to set up roots in major hubs across the nation. When companies signed these leases, it was a smart move.
Then came the pandemic. People were forced to work from home. Large office spaces werent just unnecessary; they became a hazard for employee safety. All work shifted to remote work, and the results spoke for themselves.
A study from the U.S. Career Institute found that companies can save up to $10,600 per employee who works remotely and remote work can have a positive impact on an employees mental and physical health. Countering many productivity claims, the study also found that 79% of managers feel their team is more productive when working remotely.
RTO does more harm than good
Fast forward a few years post-pandemic, and these long-term leases still exist. Despite all the benefits seen from remote work, companies are desperate to justify their massive spends on office space. So, employees are coerced to get their butts back in seats with rigid mandates bolstered by claims of productivity.
These mandates have already demonstrated a negative impact on employees and businesses alike. There is little evidence that RTO mandates improve a companys financial performance, according to an MIT Sloan Management Review article. RTO mandates disrupt employees established positive work routines, leading to higher attrition, especially among high-performing employees and those with caregiving responsibilitiesanother strike against corporate America and its record with women in the workforce.
Whats more, RTO mandates often function as thinly veiled layoffs, further increasing attrition and the exodus of top talent while decreasing trust. A recent study from Workways found that 71% of HR leaders report eroded trust post-RTO announcements and 80% of companies lost talent because of the mandates.
Even if returning to the office actually increased productivity, to make the terms of returning so inflexible disregards the way people work. Even when these mandates are classified as hybrid and only require a few days in the office, companies are missing the point. To be truly productive requires flexibility and agility.
A new definition of hybrid
In 2025, defining hybrid work must go well beyond the outdated discussion of where work is being done. Hybrid must be multifaceted. Companies need to approach hybrid work by considering which projects and teams come together for collaborative roles and which need the privacy and focus of working independentlyand recognizing that those parameters can change depending on project demands. It is a balance of people, places, tools, and culture.
To be clear, Im not anti-office. There is a time and a place for bolstering corporate culture and collaboration. However, the decision should not be made by executives in an ivory tower but by team leaders based on the needs of their teams.
RTO mandates will continue to make headlines for the rest of this year and any time a major company announces its new policy. But, as these long-term leases diminish, lets see how many mandates remain.
The debate is not and has never been about the RTO mandates themselves. The real debate is on the future of work and what that looks and feels like for leaders.
The pandemic made it clear: Companies are perfectly capable of adapting to the wants and needs of the workforce when forced to do so.
The real future of work isnt about office space, water cooler talk, or butts in seats. It is rooted in trust, respect, and readiness to embrace change. The leaders that follow this path will set their companies up for success, winning the battle for talent and performance.
Justin Tobin is founder and president of Gather.
In recent conversations with customers and peers, Im not hearing Which AI model or tool should we pick? Im hearing How do we operationalize AI across our critical workflows?
People are starting to understand real digital transformation doesnt come from a bolt-on solution. It happens when we treat AI as a foundational force and an engine for lasting change. The shift toward an AI-powered workplace requires leaders to enable organizational intelligence across the enterprise.
WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL INTELLIGENCE?
At Wrike, we define organizational intelligence as the seamless integration of human insight and AI capabilities to drive measurable outcomes at increased speed and scale. Its the difference between patchwork AI adoption and true collaboration between humans and machines.
Done right, organizational intelligence blends human creativity, judgment, context, and intent with AIs strength in driving automation, data synthesis, and pattern recognition. When all of that is present at the same time, AI stops being a feature and evolves into a core part of how a business learns.
Unlocking organizational intelligence goes beyond a change in mindset, although thats key, too. R Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, who I sat down with recently, said everyone is avoiding doing the hard part right nowthe data strategy. But how we handle and manage data is equally critical to getting AI transformation right, alongside culture adjustments, and our enthusiasm toward the technology.
Organizations require a robust foundation for data. This includes designing, structuring, and connecting information so AI can interpret not just isolated facts, but the full business context and meaning behind them.
WHY AI ALONE ISNT THE ANSWER
While business leaders race to bring on AI tools, adoption has often outpaced ROI. McKinsey reports that while a vast majority of companies plan to increase AI investments (92%), only about 1% of leaders say their organizations have reached true AI maturity, where AI is fully integrated and yielding substantial outcomes.
Many popular AI solutions solve isolated problems, automating individual tasks without addressing deeper needs for team alignment, context, and strategy. Instead of outcome-driven decision-making, organizations end up with more fragmentation. Disconnected automations, inconsistent data, and siloed workflows compound inefficiencies.
Recent Wrike research found that 41% of knowledge workers said their companies lost critical information in the past year due to scattered systems and siloed knowledge across platforms.
Thats not a technology failure. Its an organizational one and a leadership oversight that can limit company growth.
3 PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE ORGANIZATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Think of the project manager juggling four different collaboration platforms, each with partial information. AI introduced in that environment wont spark clarity. It will multiply the noise.
As leaders, its our responsibility to move our organizations beyond tool adoption and toward systemic intelligence: connecting people, processes, and platforms into a unified whole. That requires rewiring the way we work and rethinking how we manage data, context, and collaboration. Three principles stand out to me:
1. Build foundation over features
Chasing the newest AI tool can be tempting, but fragmented adoption creates the illusion of scale without delivering true capability. Prioritize a unified foundation where AI can plug in, learn, and operate effectively by clearly documenting and standardizing workflows, improving data hygiene, and consolidating the supporting platforms to drive visibility and ownership.
The question to ask isnt What tool are we adopting? but What system are we building?
2. Make context your competitive edge
AI cant read between the lines if there are no lines to read between. Too often, critical knowledge lives in meeting notes, hallway conversations, or in the minds of employees. Without this context, AI produces generic outputs that lack trust and relevance.
Leaders must operationalize context, as well as embed decision rationales, project outcomes, and other institutional knowledge into workflows. This may come in the form of structured fields for project outcomes, standardized post-mortems, or AI agents trained on your organizations language and workflows.
In a market where business advantage often depends on nuance such as customer preferences, regulatory shifts, and competitive signals, context may be the single sharpest edge we as leaders can champion.
3. Reframe ai as a multiplier, not a shortcut
AI should accelerate human creativity, critical thinking, and connection, not bypass them. This requires leaders to redefine roles: What must humans own, and where can AI extend their reach?
Trust and governance are also non-negotiable. Teams will only adopt AI if they know security and ethics are protected. Leaders who ignore these responsibilities risk stalling adoption before it even begins.
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE CONNECTED
Moving forward, organizations that thrive wont be defined by the size of their AI stack. Theyll be known for how intelligently they connect teams, workflows, and outcomes so the enterprise learns and improves with every project.
Companies that link people, processes, and platforms into a single intelligent system will adapt faster, innovate more effectively, and build resilience in a rapidly changing environment. Leaders who prioritize organizational intelligence now are setting the stage for these long-term advantages.
Your true differentiator isnt AI alone. Its connection, context, and the combined capacity of humans and machines to learn together within a shared system of record for work.
Tom Scott is the CEO at Wrike/a>.
Yesterday, after the stock markets closing bell, Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) reported its Q3 2026 financials.
Investors were eagerly anticipating the results, as the company is widely seen as a bellwether for the broader artificial intelligence market. Nvidias Q3 results were all the more anticipated as fears over an AI bubble have grown in recent months.
But those fears seem to be put to bed, at least temporarily. Nvidia didnt just meet expectations. It beat them.
As a result, Nvidias stock price is jumping in premarket trading todayand it’s helping lift the stock prices of most other chipmakers and Big Tech giants. Heres what you need to know.
Nvidias Q3 results lift NVDAs stock price
Yesterday, Nvidia reported Q3 results that beat expectations. This includes revenue of $57.01 billion and an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.30. As noted by CNBC, LSEG analysts had expected Nvidia to post $54.92 billion in revenue and an adjusted EPS of $1.25.
But it wasnt just these all-important beats that investors are celebrating.
Nvidia also said it expects revenue in its current Q4 to reach around $65 billion. Analysts had been expecting around $62 billion. Further, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang started off the companys financial call addressing fears about an AI bubble head-on.
Theres been a lot of talk about an AI bubble, Huang said. But from our vantage point, were seeing something very different.
He went on to detail three broad technological transitions, which he says are driving the AI industry.
As a result of the good news, Nvidia shares are jumping in premarket trading this morning, as of the time of this writing.
Currently, NVDA shares are up nearly 5% to almost $196 per share. Yesterday, NVDA shares closed up 2.85% to 186.52.
But over the past five-day period, NVDA shares had sunk 3.76% as fears of an AI bubble grew. However, based on Nvidias stock price this morning, the companys quarterly results and forecast have allayed investors’ fears.
And Nvidias stock price isnt the only one that is rising.
Chipmaking stocks jump after Nvidias earnings beat
Nvidia is a sort of bellwether for chipmaker stocks. If Nvidia is doing well or, more importantly, forecasting growth, many investors believe that growth potential could favorably affect other chipmaker stocks and the stock prices of the companies that those chipmakers rely on.
And today, it appears Nvidia is indeed having a rising tide lifts all boats effect on broader chip stocks.
As of this writing, major chipmakers and chip-adjacent companies are seeing their stock prices rise in premarket, including:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMD): up 4.3%
Arm Holdings plc (Nasdaq: ARM): up 3.3%
Broadcom Inc. (Nasdaq: AVGO):up 2.8%
Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC): up 1.8%
Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU):up 2.3%
NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA): up 6%
QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM):up 0.8%
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE: TSM):up 2.5%
Big Tech shares are also rising after Nvidias earnings
It’s not just chip stocks that are getting a lift after Nvidias earnings.
As Nvidia is grouped in with the Magnificent Seven, its positive earnings often help lift the share prices of other tech giants, many of whom are deeply invested in the AI space.
As of the time of this writing, those other tech giants are also seeing green in premarket trading, including:
Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG):up 1.9%
Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN): up 1.6%
Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL):up 0.4%
Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META): up 1.2%
Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT): up 1%
Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA): up 1.9%
Of course, while investors are cheering Nvidias earnings beat this morning, plenty of industry watchers still have fears that an AI bubble could be upon us.
For now, Wall Street appears happy to put those fears on the back burnerat least until Nvidias fourth-quarter earnings approach in another three months.
In a world where AI can churn out chart-toppers in seconds and ticketing algorithms treat fans like data points, we risk losing the soul of live music. But a quiet countermovement is making a comeback right in peoples living rooms, backyards and basements.
Once the gritty domain of garage bands and DIY punks, house shows are becoming a structured, sustainable model for music communities embraced by a myriad of musical genres and accessible to all ages. House shows arent just an indie throwback. They serve as a blueprint for re-humanizing music and sustainable artist development, and cities should treat them as civic infrastructure.
Today, fans crave authentic, offline experiences. In Huntsville, Alabama, were betting big on this grassroots phenomenon, not as nostalgia, but as a future-proof cultural strategy meant to empower emerging artists, foster authentic human connection and fill gaps that traditional venues cant.
THE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE SHOW
Van Halens first gigs were at backyard keg parties in California. Hoobastank, Incubus and Linkin Park formed the alternative rock sound of the early 2000s in their parents garages.
But what defines a house show? A house show is first and foremost grounded in a sense of community. Often, a local band or willing host offers up their home to community members for an intimate musical performance. Artists and hosts run the full show, from tickets and gear to promotion, gaining skills theyd never get in a traditional venue.
In 2025, major acts like the All-American Rejects and Machine Gun Kelly are embracing the format. Beyond big-name acts, artists all over the world are curating experiences where audiences can witness the next big thing up close, all while creating connections across demographics. Families, young fans and seasoned music lovers can gather in intimate, inclusive spaces.
Take Common Man, a Huntsville-based husband-wife duo who are now touring the U.S. but remain fiercely dedicated to their community. Now dubbed Common House, Common Man members, Meredith and Compton Johnson, transformed the basement of their home into a live music venue. The duo has not only used house shows to launch their own exposure but also to provide other touring musicians and artists in the community with a platform to perform and reach new audiences in an inclusive environment. Recently, theyve taken their house show model global and performed at homes throughout Scotland. And theyre not aloneHuntsvilles house show scene also includes Boardman House, another grassroots venue making space for live music.
THE CIVIC BET ON THE LIVING ROOM
Cities shouldnt just invest in amphitheaters. They should also invest in cultural infrastructure at the neighborhood level to create intimate, fan-focused environments where artists are in more control of their concert experiences and show revenues, in the venues where careers are born and communities are formed.
When cities support smaller venues, theyre offering benefits traditional venues and platforms cant. For example, were:
Helping with business and/or LLC formation for liability protection.
Advising on ticketing and professional sound and lighting.
Guiding artists through compliance with sound ordinances and neighborhood approvals.
Prioritizing artist pay and sustainability.
Cities often prioritize large or mid-sized venues due to their significant economic impact. House shows fill a different and equally vital gap. They empower artists to control ticket prices and profit margins, bypassing bar-sales-driven venue models. They create peer networking opportunities and act as incubators for emerging talent, offering artists the chance to book, promote and manage shows on a small scale, thereby building skills that can scale to larger venues.
Most importantly, house shows democratize music, embedding it in communities instead of keeping it behind ticketing paywalls. In short, they rebalance the live music economy.
THE REAL-LIFE ANTIDOTE TO AI
In an age where AI-generated bands with entire albums have millions of streams and AI-enhanced performances of deceased artists are gaining popularity, ethical questions are being raised about authenticity and creative displacement.
House shows deliver what algorithms cannot: shared human connection, local community and unpredictable magic in the room. Huntsville frames house shows not as nostalgia, but as a future-proof strategy for live music ecosystems.
House shows arent replacing arenas or amphitheaters; instead, they complement them, with a thriving layer of hyperlocal, artist-first experiences. House shows are a missing piece of the live music ecosystem, and Huntsville is proving that cities can invest in culture not just from the top down, but from the living room up. As AI reshapes how music is made and consumed and fans crave authentic, in-person experiences, these intimate gatherings remind us that the real reasons we gravitate towards music are innately human and communal.
Matt Mandrella is the music officer for the city of Huntsville, Alabama.
Strategy textbooks taught us that sustainable competitive advantage that commanded premium prices was best protected by powerful barriers to entry. Build a moat, create switching costs, leverage access to high costs of entry, own distribution channels, and it would be difficult for startups to compete for your markets. But the forces of disruption operate by different rules, systematically destroying the very foundations of pricing power by making the previously difficult and expensive suddenly easy and cheap. The basis of competition changes, from excellence along well understood dimensions of merit to good enough.
The ‘good enough’ revolution in pricing
I have sympathy for incumbents. Theyre accustomed to working really hard to deliver on demanding criteria for quality, reliability, and excellence, only to find that fickle customers are spending their money on good enough that do just fine. Consider some examples:
Peak book and the advent of e-readers. E-readers lack the tactile satisfaction of turning pages, the smell of paper, and the aesthetic appeal of a beautifully bound book, not to mention the satisfaction of having an author personally sign your copy (if the latter doesnt matter to you, please dont break my heart and tell me). Yet e-books offer instant delivery, the ability to carry thousands of books in one device, adjustable fonts, built-in dictionaries, and search functionality. For many readers, thats good enough. Further, Amazon can sell bestsellers for $9.99 because the marginal cost is near zero, undermining hardcover pricing power. And were now in a world where AI makes it easy for anybody to author a book, commoditizing the authority that being a book author used to convey.
Digital Board Games vs. Physical Board Games. Electronic games lack the social ritual of gathering around a table, handling physical pieces, and reading opponents’ body language. But they enable play with friends anywhere in the world, handle all rules automatically, provide instant matchmaking with strangers, and eliminate setup/cleanup time. A $40 board game becomes a $5 app. Of course, there is a big debate about whether becoming subservient to the companies that want you to rent, rather than own, is a good thing or not.
Streaming Fitness vs. Gym Memberships. Peloton, Apple Fitness+, and YouTube workouts can’t replicate the full equipment range of a commercial gym, the fine-tuning of a professional coach, or the energy of in-person classes. But they eliminate commute time, remove scheduling constraints, offer unlimited class variety, and provide privacy for self-conscious exercisers. A $30/month digital subscription undermines $150/month premium gym memberships for many users.
In the industrial age, you could count on scarcity. It was hard to manufacture with quality at scale. It was hard to do advanced engineering. It was hard to source and assemble materials. For many of us, disruptors change the basis of competition entirely by removing the constraints that once justified premium pricing.
The mechanics of price erosion
Traditional pricing power rested on three pillars: scarcity, complexity, and friction. Companies could charge premiums because their offerings were hard to access, difficult to replicate, or cumbersome to replace. Disruptive technologies attack all three simultaneously. Take professional photography. The scarcity of skilled photographers, expensive equipment, and darkroom expertise once justified substantial fees.
Smartphone cameras and AI-powered editing apps haven’t just reduced these coststhey’ve eliminated entire categories of photographic services. The wedding photographer still commands premiums, but passport photos, real estate listings, and product shots have been democratized beyond recognition.
The financial services industry offers another compelling example. Robo-advisors now provide portfolio management that once required expensive human advisors. The algorithms aren’t more sophisticated than what top wealth managers offer, but they’ve made “good enough” portfolio management available for basis points instead of percentage points. When Charles Schwab can offer comprehensive financial planning for free as a customer acquisition tool, traditional advisors’ ability to charge 1-2% annually becomes increasingly tenuous.
Strategic implications for incumbents
In a world where technology makes everything easier and cheaper, competitive advantage increasingly comes from business model innovation rather than product superiority. Amazon Web Services doesn’t charge premiums because its infrastructure is superior; it dominates because it transformed computing from a capital expense to an operating expense, fundamentally changing how companies think about IT resources.
The most successful responses involve three strategic moves. First, companies need to be open to unbundling their offerings, recognizing that customers will no longer pay premiums for features they don’t value. Second, they must shift from product-centric to ecosystem-centric thinking, finding new sources of value in sticky network effects and data rather than in the core product itself. Third, they must embrace the reality that in many categories, the price will trend toward marginal costwhich in digital goods means effectively zero.
The new basis of competition
As traditional pricing power erodes, new sources of competitive advantage emerge. Speed of innovation, ecosystem orchestration, and customer intimacy become more valuable than product features. Creating stickiness that makes it hard to switch, adding value to the experience and reinforcing new forms of scarcity perhaps embedded in algorithms are all powerful ways that digital firms sustain competitive advantage.
Spotify, for instance, operates in a world where recorded music is effectively free. Its pricing power doesn’t come from exclusive content but from its recommendation algorithms, social features, and ecosystem integrations. The premium isn’t for the musicit’s for the experience around the music. And for artists, their revenue is increasingly coming from what is scarce the experience of attending a live performance.
The bad news is that for many experts with years of investment in the old paradigms, the good enough revolution will make their experince less valuable. The good news is that democratizing who can create whats good enough can be a basis for massive growth.
Timothée Chalamet just posted an 18-minute-long video to his Instagram to promote his upcoming A24 film, Marty Supreme. It might be his best role yet.
In the video, Chalametsporting a bright yellow tank top, buzz cut, and dainty necklacejoins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives who will be leading the promotional campaign ahead of the film’s release on December 25. After awkward introductions, Chalamet proceeds to fill up the meetings airtime with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for the films marketing efforts, leaving the eight other members of the call scrambling to accommodate his wild ideas.
On A24s YouTube channel, where the video is posted under the title Timothee_Chalamet_internal_brand_marketing_meeting_MartySupreme, its gained almost 100,000 views. And on Chalamets personal Instagram, its been watched almost 10 million times.
The campaign, which is a parody of an actual marketing meeting, sees Chalamet fully commit to the part of snobbish actor with no regard for his coworkersand clearly, its resonating. The meta concept sticks the landing by balancing absurdist humor with an uncanny eye for the moments that make our digital workplaces just a little bit universally awkward.
An absurd ad campaign you just might buy into
Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie, is a sports-comedy film loosely based on the life of American ping-pong player Marty Reisman. The most information that we have about the film thus far comes from A24s official trailer, released on November 11, in which Chalamet embodies a version of Marty whos brash, determined, and extremely self-confident.
Those characteristics come out in full force through the new Marty Supreme ad, which plays like a surrealist comedy of errors about how not to behave in a Zoom meeting. Less than two minutes into the call, Chalamet has already taken control of the meeting, explaining that his philosophy for the movies marketing is led by three principles: culmination, “integration,” and fruitionizing” (which he admits is not a real word).
Things only get weirder from there. First, Chalamet suggests that his character, Marty Supreme, appear on boxes of Wheaties cereal. Then he gears up to introduce something his creative director has been working on for six months, only to reveal a single orange color swatch. Finally, he escalates to suggesting that Marty Supremes marketing should include a fleet of blimps, an activation at the Statue of Liberty, and an orange Eiffel Tower.
[Poster Image: A24]
As Chalamets ideas get more and more grand, the other people on the call are forced to keep a straight face. Its a particular genre of humor that plays unbelievable absurdity against the everyman, a concept thats seen success in shows like Nathan for You, The Rehearsal, and I Think You Should Leave.
Subtly skewering Zoom meetings for the sake of cinema
Where the new Marty Supreme ad really shines, though, is in its subtle dissection of the awkward Zoom call, an experience that almost every remote worker suffered through during the pandemic. From the painfully long introduction sequence to the clunky shift to screen sharing (during which Chalamet reveals a computer background of himself receiving an award), constant interruptions, and sprinklings of corporate-speak, every beat feels like a truly torturous meeting.
While it’s unclear exactly why A24 chose to advertise Marty Supreme through advertising parody (considering that it’s a movie that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the marketing world), the video does seem particularly geared toward an online audience of young Chalamet fans. By balancing the ridiculous with the real, the ad strikes a relatable note thats perfectly suited to attracting modern viewers.
i feel like I am an imposter in a professional zoom meeting, one Instagram user wrote under the video. i know this is supposed to be a joke, but I’ve been in a lot of entertainment marketing meetings, they are exactly like this, another fan wrote on YouTube.
Some may argue that Dune or Call Me by Your Name represent Chalamets best work. Marketers everywhere know its Timothee_Chalamet_internal_brand_marketing_meeting_MartySupreme.
Here’s the thing about Wellington boots: They’re great when it’s raining, because they keep your toes dry and toasty. But when the rain stops, you feel a little silly stomping around in heavy rubber boots.
But what if your rain boots looked like any other fashion-forward boot you’d be comfortable wearing rain or shine? What if they looked like, say, a classic pair of Dr. Martens?
I have good news. Dr. Martens has designed a rain boot that mimics one of its most iconic designs, the 1460 eight-hole lace-up boot, which first came to market in 1960. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a Dr. Martens boot, like the heel tab for easy pull-on, the grooved sole, and even the stitching. What’s different though, is that each component is waterproof, ensuring that your feet will stay dry in puddles and downpours.
“You style this boot just like you would any other Dr. Martens,” says Adam Meek, Dr. Martens’ chief product officer. “You could wear them to a festival, or a night out on the town.”
The original 1460 (left) and the 1460 Rain (right) [Photo: Dr. Martens]
The Comfort Boot That Became A Sensation
Dr. Martens was originally founded by a German doctor, Klaus Martens, in the postwar years. At the time, most boots were made from hard leather and provided very little arch support. After he hurt his ankle in a skiing accident, he began tinkering with the design of a new kind of boot made from softer leather with soles that had air pockets that provided cushioning and bounce. This distinct insole was later branded “Airwair” and has been incorporated into the Dr. Martens logo.
The shoes he prototyped were so comfortable that he decided to sell them for 2 (68.31 or $90 in today’s money). Within five years, the brand was selling so many shoes that Martens decided to open his own factory and sell them globally. In 1960, the brand launched the 1460, a lace-up boot distinctive yellow stitching and a pull tab, which went on to become the brand’s best-selling style, and continues to be popular today.
[Photo: Dr. Martens]
Dr. Martens shoes immediately took off with working class people who needed durable, comfortable everyday shoes. They were quickly adopted by postal and factory workers. But as the brand entered the ’60s and ’70s, it became popular with youth subcultures, including mods, punks, goths, new wave musicians, and hippies. And today, Meek says the brand continues to have a very wide range of customers.
Last year, the brand generated 787.6 ($1.03 billion) in global revenue, which was a 10% dip from the year before, partly due to the overall slow down in the U.S. market.
“From a design perspective, we stick very closely to the brand’s original design principles, which are grounded in simplicity and comfort,” he says. “But that has allowed for enormous versatility, and allows people to use it as a vehicle for self-expression. We sell boots to young people trying to make a statement, and older people just looking for comfort.”
[Photo: Dr. Martens]
Designing a Rain Boot That Doesn’t Look Like One
While many Dr. Martens fans wear their boots out in inclement weather, since many styles are fairly water-resistant, the brand hasn’t designed many truly waterproof boots in its 78-year history. To design the new 1460 rain boot, Meek went back to the brand’s archive, and found boots that the original Dr. Marten designed before he even launched his brand. He found one that was waterproof, but did not have the silhouette of the Wellington boot, which has become the de facto rain boot design of our time. This inspired the team to think about how to reinvent the rain boot to look more like a traditional Dr Martens boot.
“It was obvious there was a need for more rain boots,” he says. “Extreme weather means that it is becoming wetter in many parts of the world. We wanted to create a versatile boot that stayed true to the brand.”
[Photo: Dr. Martens]
The team took the structure of the 1460 boot, but tried to make it fully waterproof. The boot is made from PVC plastic. All elements that would let water seep in have been eliminated, such as laces. And while there appears to be stitching around the heel, these are actually faux stitches: The heel is actually heat sealed to the upper using Goodyear Welting technology used to make tires. And the sole features that same comfy AirWair technology.
[Photo: Dr. Martens]
Fashioning for Durability
For the original working class people who embraced Dr Martens, it was important that the boots were durable, because they didn’t have a lot of disposable income to frequently replace footwear. Meek says that that durability continues to be an important design principle.
Most boots within the brand’s catalog are designed so they can be easily resoled by slicing off the sole with a heated knife, and sewing on a new one. In fact, the brand has a resale site where customers can send in old boots, which will be resoled and then resold. The company is in the early stages of developing a system that will allow customers to send in their old shoes to be refurbished so they can hold onto them for longer.
[Photo: Dr. Martens]
These rain boots have been designed along the same principles. They’re made from heavy-duty materials that will live up to years of inclement weather, and eventually, when the sole wears out, it will be possible to replace them with a welting process. For Meek, this is important because this encourages more environmentally friendly behavior.
“We approach sustainability through longevity,” he says. “I like to think of our products as something you can hand down to a family member, along with all the stories they carry.”
New York City scaffolding is so commonplace it has become a kind of extra architectural skin covering the city. It’s estimated that there are more than 9,000 of these “construction sheds” (another term for scaffolding) installed across the city, enough to stretch nearly 400 miles if they were put end to end.
They do the important work of shielding pedestrians from potential falling debris during building construction and renovation projects, but they also shroud large swaths of sidewalk in dark and cloistered tunnels made of an unfortunate jumble of steel poles and plywood.
Construction scaffolding is the city’s ubiquitous, utilitarian, and mostly unpleasant necessary evil. And now, a new effort aims to rethink their form with a series of new, more appealing designs.
Six new designs for scaffolding have just been announced by New York City’s Department of Buildings, and they replace the dark and convoluted sheds of today with bright, airy, and open versions. The new scaffolding designs come from two design teams led by the New York-based architecture and urban design firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) and the global design and engineering firm Arup. Simplified and minimal, each of the six designs turns the workaday construction shed into a more open and accessible add-on to the built environment.
[Image: PAU]
Time for a makeover
The new designs are a result of the “Get Sheds Down” initiative, an effort launched by the city in 2023 to update the look of construction sheds and revise the rules and regulations that govern when and where they’re used. The sheds currently in use in New Yorkand many other citieshave been largely unchanged since the 1980s. Usually hunter green and made up of a kit of parts consisting largely of steel poles and plywood, the current shed system is a boxy shield, but it’s also an obstacle for people moving down sidewalks, entering buildings, or getting in and out of vehicles on the street.
After a public bidding process, the city hired two design teams led by PAU and Arup to reimagine the shed. They were asked to create six designs for alternative sheds that maintain public safety while also improving the pedestrian experience, beautifying the streetscape, and keeping the cost of installing sheds reasonable for building owners.
[Image: PAU]
PAU’s three designs use a slanted form, a transparent roof, and a streamlined kit of structural parts to make a much more open and airy shed. “We were very focused on the pedestrian experience,” says Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of PAU. “The slanted design lets more light and air in. It’s a very simple thing.”
Just as important, Chakrabarti says, was the elimination of the cross bracing between columns, X-shaped metal poles that act almost like walls on the existing sheds. PAU’s design makes each column stronger so that only one horizontal beam is needed to connect them.
[Image: PAU]
The baseline version of the shed uses this configuration with a transparent roof. A large version can be used for bigger buildings and broader sidewalks with more widely spaced structural columns that double up to provide more strength. And for smaller-scale projects or emergency installations, PAU has designed a version that uses a high-strength netting on its slanted side, offering safety and a nearly clear view to the sky above.
A new take on an old form
Arup’s three designs also bring in noticeably more light than the existing shed system, while also offering variability for the different conditions found across the city. One design, named the Rigid Shed, uses a grid-based structural system with prefabricated connection nodes, minimizing materials and connections during assembly.
[Image: Arup]
Another design, the Flex Shed, has a similar grid approach but with an even simpler set of posts and beams that can be adjusted in three dimensions to accommodate things like street trees, fire escapes, and the dozens of types of street furniture and infrastructure that exists on city sidewalks. Maybe the most elegant of ll the six solutions, the Air Shed is a balcony-like cantilever that only anchors to the sidewalk at points alongside the building. Rather than creating a tunnel people have to traverse, it forms a thin canopy overhead that some people might not even notice.
[Image: Arup]
“The inspiration for the Air Shed is essentially a wall-mounted shelving system,” says Seth Wolfe, a principal at Arup.
Arup has been working on these ideas for more than a decade. The firm first got involved back in 2009 when it partnered with the architecture firm KNE Studio on a submission to another city-led shed redesign effort. KNE Studio’s design was a finalist in that design competition, and the two firms remained in contact and continued to work on new shed designs in conjunction with the shed installing company Core Scaffolding.
When the Get Sheds Down initiative launched, the team was primed to participate. “We had momentum going into the RFP,” says Kevin Erickson of KNE Studio. “We had stuff cooking on the backburner.”
The six new designs resulting from the “Get Sheds Down” initiative join a range of scaffolding types in use in cities around the world, with a range of materials and price points. The winner of New York City’s 2009 shed design competition, Urban Umbrella, is now a provider of upscale sheds across the city. Simpler approaches are also in use.
Chakrabarti notes that scaffolding in Hong Kong is still made from bamboo. He even suggested early on in the Get Sheds Down process that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea in New York. “I actually asked the question,” he says. “I got laughed at.”
New York City’s Department of Buildings is now working with PAU and Arup to make the designs available for public use by builders and contractors doing construction and renovation work on buildings across the city. Next, each of the new designs will be made into mockups that can be evaluated and tested. Some of these new shed designs could begin appearing at building sites and on city sidewalks before the end of 2026.
The six new designs add to what Chakrabarti calls a “menu” of options for builders in the city, some of whom may still opt to use the existing system. He says providing more choice is a way to achieve the main goal of the initiative, which is to improve the experience of people in New York City who will inevitably encounter construction sheds.
“You can use a Lego set to build an ugly thing, or you can use a Lego set to build a beautiful thing,” Chakrabarti says. “But the first thing you’ve got to do is understand the Lego set.”
Spend a few minutes on developer Twitter and youll run into it: vibe coding. With a name like that, it might sound like a passing internet trend, but its become a real, visible part of software culture. Its shorthand for letting AI generate code from simple language prompts instead of writing it manually.
In many ways, its great. AI has lowered the barrier to entry for coding, and thats pulled in a wave of hobbyists, designers, and side-project tinkerers who might never have touched a codebase before. Tools like Warp, Cursor, and Claude Code uplevel even professional developers, making it possible to ship something working in hours instead of weeks.
But heres the flip side: when AI can move faster than you can think, its easy to run straight past the guardrails. Weve already seen how that can go wrong, like with the recent Tea app breach, which shows even polished, fully tested code can hide critical vulnerabilities if humans dont review it thoroughly. Optimizing for speed over clarity lets AI produce something that works in the moment, but without understanding it, you cant know what might break later. This isnt just technical debt anymore; its a risk to customer trust.
The instinctive reaction to solve this trade-off is to throw more tech at the problem: add automated scans, add a secure by default setting. Those things matter. But Id argue that failure in vibe coding doesnt start with tooling, it starts with leadership. If you dont lead your team through this new way of working, theyll either move too slow to benefit from AI or move so fast they start breaking things in ways a security checklist cant save you from.
The real job is steering, not slowing down
When we built agentic coding agent Warp 2.0, we put a simple mandate in place: Use Warp to build Warp. That means every coding task started with prompting an AI agent. Sometimes it nailed it in one shot; sometimes we had to drop back to manual coding. But the point wasnt dogma, it was to force us to learn, as a team, how to work in an agent-driven world.
We learned quickly that more AI doesnt automatically mean better. AI can write a thousand lines of plausible-looking code before youve finished your coffee. Without structure, thats a recipe for brittle, unmaintainable systems. The real challenge was getting people to treat AI-generated code with the same discipline as code they wrote themselves.
Thats a leadership problem. Its about setting cultural norms and making sure they stick.
Three things leaders need to get right
1. Hold developers accountable
The biggest mental trap is treating the AI as a second engineer who owns what it wrote. It doesnt. If someone contributes code to a project, they own that code. They need to understand it as deeply as if they typed it out line by line. AI wrote it should never be an excuse for a bug.
Leaders cant just say this once; they have to model it. When you review code, ask questions that make it clear you expect comprehension, not just functionality: Why does this query take so long to run? What happens if the input is null? Thats how you set the standard that understanding is part of shipping.
2. Guide AI with specifics
Using large, one-shot prompts is like cooking without tasting as you go: sometimes it works, but usually its a mess. AI is far more effective when you request small, testable changes and review them step by step. Its not just about quality, it also builds a feedback loop that helps your team get better at prompting over time.
In practice, this means teaching your team to guide the AI like theyd mentor a junior engineer: explain the architecture, specify where tests should live, and review work in progress. You can even have the AI write tests as it goes as one way to force smaller, verifiable units of work.
3. Build the review culture now
In AI workflows, teams move fastest when AI and humans work side by side, generating and reviewing in small steps. The first draft of a feature is the most important one to get eyes on. Have someone review AI-generated work early and focus on the big-picture questions first, like whether its secure, reliable, and solves the right problem.
The leadership challenge is making reviews a priority without slowing anyone down. Have teams aim to give feedback in hours, not days, and encourage finding ways for work to keep moving while reviews happen. This builds momentum while creating a culture that values careful, early oversight over rushing to get something done.
Guardrails only work if people use them
Safety tools and checks can help catch mistakes, but they dont replace good habits. If a team prioritizes speed over care, AI guardrails just get in the way, and people will find ways around them.
Thats why the core of leading in the AI era is cultural: you have to teach people how to integrate AI into their workflow without losing sight of the fundamentals. The teams that get this right will be able to take advantage of the speed AI enables without bleeding quality or trust. The ones that dont will move fast for a while, until they ship something that takes them down.
Vibe coding isnt going away, and I think thats a good thing. So long as teams lead with people, not just technology, they will come out ahead and create better experiences for users along the way.
For its 2026 postage stamps, the U.S. Postal Service is going colorful and graphic.
USPS gave a first look at some of the stamps set to be released next year, including the latest edition of its Love stamp, stamps commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S., and stamps depicting figures including a boxer, a martial artist and actor, and a pair of published poets. The stamps will be released on a rolling basis beginning in January and available at Post Office locations and online.
This early preview of our 2026 stamp program underscores the Postal Services commitment to celebrating the artistry and storytelling that make stamps so special, Stamp Services director Lisa Bobb-Semple said in a statement. Each stamp is a small work of art an entryway into a larger story that connects people, places and moments in history.”
[Image: USPS]
Many of the stamps are bright or use typography in bold or creative ways. The 2026 Love stamps are a series of four illustrations of stylized red, white, and blue birds by illustrator James Yang that were inspired by midcentury U.S. design and Japanese children’s book illustrations, according to USPS.
[Image: USPS]
Stamps for Muhammad Ali designed by USPS art director Antonio Alcalá show an Associated Press photo of the boxer with his gloves up and his last name in big, all-caps, sans-serif type in red and black that evokes a boxing match promotional poster.
[Image: USPS]
A painting of Bruce Lee by artist Kam Mak shows the martial artist and actor against a yellow brushstroke background as he kicks the words “USA FOREVER” and “BRUCE LEE,” which were cleverly angled to look like he snapped them in two.
[Image: USPS]
For its “Figures of the American Revolution” stamps, multiple artists depict 25 people, from household name Founding Fathers like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin to lesser known figures as Deborah Sampson, the only woman to earn a military pension in the war after she dressed up like a man called Robert. The diverse selection of people were chosen to represent the Revolution as a collective effort, USPS says.
“Its unusual to design a pane of stamps featuring 25 different portraits” USPS art director Ethel Kessler said in a statement. “But that number felt essential. How else could you begin to tell the story of the Revolutions complexity with fewer?”
[Image: USPS]
The typographic “Declaration of Independence” stamp also marks next year’s anniversary with “1776” written out in feather quill pens by typographer Juan Carlos Pagan.
[Image: USPS]
The “Lowriders” stamps pay homage to customized lowrider cars with photos by Philip Gordon and Humberto Beto Mendoza and gothic-style type paired with flourishes borrowed from lowrider paint jobs. Photographer David Schwartz contributed images for the “Route 66” stamps, which celebrate the 100th anniversary of the iconic highway.
[Image: USPS]
Other forthcoming stamps including “International Peace” showing an origami crane by Peace Crane Project founder Sue DiCicco, “Bald Eagle: Hatchling to Adult,” a pane of five stamps depicting the life of America’s national bird, and a stamp commemorating Colorado’s 150th anniversary.
[Image: USPS]
Writer Phillis Wheatley, who published what’s believed to be first book by a woman of African descent in the American Colonies, appears on the 49th Black Heritage stamp by artist Kerry James Marshall. Sarah Orne Jewett, a novelist and poet, appears on the 35th Literary Arts series by artist Mark Summers. Next year’s Lunar New Year stamp shows a horse mask by Sally Andersen-Bruce.
[Image: USPS]
USPS says more stamp announcements are forthcoming, and it’s also planning to rerelease an old stamp next year as part of its Stamp Encore Contest.
[Image: USPS]
