Since exercise can make you smarter, less stressed, and happier, Google decided to find ways to help employees exercise more often. The research team assigned employees to one of three groups:
People in one group were asked to pick a convenient two-hour window, and to follow a strict routine: something along the lines of work out at 6 p.m. every day. They then received a financial reward every time they worked out.
People in a second group followed a flexible plan, working out whenever they wished. They also received a financial reward every time they worked out.
People in the third group (the control group) were simply encouraged to work out more: no routine, no plan, no financial reward pay.
Unsurprisingly, getting paid to exercise worked a treat: People in the routine and the flexible groups worked out more often than those in the control group.
More surprisingly, after four weekswhen the exercise habit was theoretically established, and the researchers stopped paying participantsthe flexible group (the people who followed a plan) were more than twice as likely to keep working out than the strict group (the people who had established a rigid routine).
Sound odd? Possibly, since high achievers love to talk about consistently following their rigid (especially morning) routines.
Problem is, routines are great until something disrupts that routine. In fact, the more rigid your routine, the more likely your routine will occasionally get disrupted. Something comes up, and you have to miss todays 6 p.m. workout? There goes your routine for the dayand since habits are a lot easier to break than form, tomorrows workout is also in peril. (Decades into exercising regularly, if I miss two workouts in a row, its still really hard to make myself work out on the third day.)
The flexible group? Their exercise wasnt tied to a specific routine or time. They often worked out when they planned, but sometimes they worked out when they could. Or they squeezed in a shorter workout. They wanted to work out, and taking a flexible approach gave them the latitude to figure out how to make it happen.
The difference? A somewhat flexible approach isnt a routine; its a practice. Here are a few examples of the difference:
Making cold calls every day between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. is a routine. Making 10 cold calls by the end of every day is a practice.
Holding an all-hands Zoom call every day at 10 a.m. is a routine. Checking in with one or two employees by the end of every day to see if they need help is a practice.
Eating broccoli and a sweet potato for lunch every day is a routine. Getting four or five servings of vegetables every day is a practice.
Routines are what you do. Practices are also what you do, but more important, they shape who you are.
Cant make cold calls at 4 p.m.? If you truly believe sales cures all and you make selling a practice, youll catch up later. Or make a few calls earlier in the day.
Cant hold an all-hands Zoom call at 10 a.m.? If you truly believe your job is to motivate and develop employees, youll make checking in with employees a practice. Youll stop by and chat with someone on your way to your office. Or youll spend a few minutes pitching in on the shop floor.
If what you want to do is important, youll find a way. As Ryan Holiday writes about routines and practices:
The difference is in the flexibility.One is about daily rhythm. The other is a lifelong pursuit. One can be ruined by something as simple as hitting the snooze button one too many times or getting called into work unexpectedly. The other can adapt accordingly.One (a routine) is something you made up. The other (a practice) is something you do.
Routines are fine, but if something happens to disrupt your routine, take a step back and focus on the goal your routine is designed to help you achieve, and then just achieve that goal in a different way.
Never lose sight of the fact that every element in a routine is goal-driven, and there are a variety of ways to achieve a goal. To grow sales. To check in with employees. To monitor performance. To get customer feedback.
To do almost anything.
If you can follow a certain routine, great. I eat the same thing for breakfast every day. Thats easy. The only way its hard is if I let myself run out of protein bars.
In most cases, though, routines are tough to consistently follow. Thats where practices come in. I want to live a longer, healthier life, so I try to work out every day. Most days, thats around 4 p.m. But sometimes its as late as 7 p.m., and other times earlier in the day. Most of the time that involves an hour or so of lifting, but if I cant get in a full hour, Ill modify what I do. If I cant use weights, Ill do bodyweight exercises. If lifting was a rigid routine, having to adapt would be irritating, and maybe even feel defeating. Since lifting is a practice, having to adapt is actually fun. (The other day I only had 30 minutes or so to work out, so I did 400 pushups and 400 vertical leg lifts.)
As Holiday would say, working out isnt something I made up. Its what I do. Exercise is a lifelong pursuit.
And I can keep doing it because, instead of a rigid routine, its a flexible practice that allows me to adapt to whatever the day might bring.
Jeff Haden
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Americans are likely to have spent a record $1 trillion-plus this holiday shopping season alone, and about $5.5 trillion in retail sales in all of 2025, according to estimates by the National Retail Federation. That includes many unhappy returns for retailers: And when it comes back to them, a lot of the $850 billion in returned merchandise is often cheaper to discard than to inspect, sort, and reselladding millions of tons to landfills every year.
“This is a massive ecological problem, as well as a financial problem for these companies,” says Ryan Ryker, CEO of rScan. Based in South Bend, Indiana, the startup has developed software and logistics services to help transfer these products from the beleaguered original sellers to resellers more eager to do the work of making money on a returned product. “Theres a lot of people who are looking to make side cash,” says cofounder and chief logistics officer Julian Marquez about their small-business clients.
But it’s not easy. Instead of getting, say, a shipping pallet of all the same product, such as a power tool, resellers have to sort through a mishmash that can contain dozens of different itemsincluding many one-offs. rScan’s offering for them sounds simple: a barcode-scanning app. But behind that is an entire data infrastructure to help resellers understand what they’ve got and how to sell it. Scanning the UPC barcode on a box pulls up the item’s product name and brand, images, detailed descriptions, and manuals. Resellers can first ascertain the product’s condition and whether everything that should be in the box is.
If they decide it’s worth selling, rScan can pull from its database the dozens of product attributes required by online marketplaces and format complete product listings tailored to venues such as Amazon, eBay, or Shopify. The company regularly scrapes these sites to survey what products are selling for and estimate a price for the reseller’s listing.
rScan charges 30 cents per month per unique item that is scanned and in their catalogue for as long as its listed for sale online. (So selling 10 of the same product would cost 30 cents per month, total.) The company also takes a percentage of monthly sales, from 1% to 3.9% on a sliding scale that ramps up as vendors sell more. Clients range from newbies working out of a garage to what Ryker calls, “sellers that are doing multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
Retailers from High School
For Ryker, rScan was tailored to the challenges he’d personally encountered. “Resale is something I previously dabbled in prior to the pandemic. From there, there was a lot of returns going on with COVID, the rise in e-commerce sales, things of that nature,” he says.
But his retail experience goes back to high school in the 2010s when he and Marquez established their own apparel brand, called Culture Clothing, which ran for a couple years and grossed about $45,000 in its best year. They mostly sold at concerts and show venues, but also called on another classmate, Rod Baradaran, to set up an ecommerce site.
In 2021, the three reunited to cofound rScan. Baradaran reprised his tech role, coding the app and the online services, developing the price-setting algorithm, and serving as COO. (A fourth cofounder, Michael Altenburger, joined a few months later.) The companywhich was bootstrapped by the foundersnow has 36 employees.
Taking on a Clunky System
It’s not that returned goods would all go into the trash without rScan. “The real advantage of being able to get this online faster and on ecommerce [platforms] is that you have a much wider market where these products can be distributed and actually used, says Baradaran.
The three seem especially proud of helping side-hustlers make ends meet. Marquez also works in the RV manufacturing industry around South Bendwhich has taken a hit in recent years, with hundreds of layoffs in 2025 alone. He helped one of his coworkers get into online resale as a safety net when his earnings dropped.
“If he didn’t have rScan at the time, he would have had to either sell something or lose a part of the lifestyle that he was already used to living with,” says Marquez.
He was able to take advantage of rScan’s physical as well as virtual services. The company runs a warehouse to receive returned goods from retailers, hold them for small clients who don’t have their own storage space, and help arrange shipping to buyers. It was also a chance to test and refine the software by running their own resale business. “We kind of dogfooded our own product when we first started,” says Baradaran. In May 2025, rScan upgraded to a 53,000-square-foot warehouse in South Bend.
Living Up to Values
While they have eschewed outside investors so far, rScan recognizes it may need to go that route to scale up. “We want to make sure that they share the same vision as us, and as long as that’s alignedabsolutely, says Baradaran.
Helping not just sellers but the planet is a key part of that vision. By its own accounting, rScan says it has saved over 840,000 pounds of products from going into the trash.
After rScan scales more, the founders plan to seek independent verification of their ecological impact in the process of becoming a Benefit Corporation. To be certified as a B Corp, a company has to pass an initial and ongoing evaluation by the nonprofit B Lab of its environmental impact, social responsibility, transparency, and accountability to all stakeholdersnot just investors.
“Ultimately, our goal is to democratize entrepreneurship,” Baradaran says in an email. “In doing so, we drive sustainability by extending the lifecycle of consumer goods that would otherwise end up in landfills.”
Remember that scene in The Devil Wears Prada when Miranda Priestly silences Andy Sachs with a perfectly delivered monologue about a cerulean blue sweater? Andy had dismissed it as trivialjust another fashion detail. But Miranda’s lesson wasn’t about the sweater. It was about power: When you think you’re outside the system, you’re actually reinforcing it. You can’t opt out of the fashion system. You can only choose whether you’re aware of it.
In an era obsessed with authenticity, what we wear is the first language we speak. Yet most leaders remain unconscious of this language’s strategic power. They treat their closets like personal decisions rather than professional assets. They should reconsider.
The Hidden Cost of Misalignment
Leaders are increasingly discovering what fashion psychologists have long known: Appearance isn’t superficial. It’s foundational. What you choose to wear tells peoplein millisecondsabout your authority, perspective, and influence. It encodes identity, status, belonging, and intent. For leaders managing organizational stress, navigating role transitions, or recovering from burnout, this matters far more than aesthetics.
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Jennifer Heinen, a fashion psychologist who works with organizational leaders, puts it plainly: Clothing functions as a semiotic system. Your wardrobe sends signals whether you intend to or not. As Heinen likes to remind us, Clothing is not the solution to everythingbut it is the first layer of contact. The question isn’t whether you’re communicating through fashion. It’s whether you’re doing it consciously or by default.
The problem emerges when there’s friction between your internal reality and external presentation. When someone emerges from burnout but is still wearing the costume of their old role, for instance, they create internal discord. The nervous system feels the mismatch. They perform coherence while experiencing fragmentation. This triggers constant self-monitoringthe exact nervous system stress that deepens burnout.
The 3 R’s: A Framework for Intentional Alignment
Heinen has developed a recognition-regulation-repair framework that gives leaders a practical road map. It’s designed not as a makeover strategy, but as a nervous system intervention.
Recognition addresses identity. It’s about feeling seen and contextually understood rather than misread or self-edited. When a leader transitions into a new role, the first step is recognizing what’s no longer accurate about how they’re being perceived. Often, they’re still dressed for the identity that once kept them safe.
Regulation focuses on the nervous system itself. This is where fashion psychology becomes a strategic tool. By intentionally shifting clothing choicesremoving restrictive or sensory-overloading pieces, choosing fabrics and fits that support rather than stress the bodyleaders can influence their own emotional stability and cognitive clarity. When a leader feels supported by what they’re wearing, decision-making under pressure improves. Fatigue decreases. Emotional resilience strengthens.
Repair addresses transition. It involves intentionally marking the end of one phase and the beginning of anothernot just cognitively, but physically and emotionally. This prevents the kind of liminal anxiety in which people aren’t quite ready to let go of old identities. By curating a new look that reflects who they’re becoming, leaders give their nervous system permission to integrate change rather than resist it.
Moving From Performance to Presence
Here’s the tension most leaders live in: They invest heavily in mental health and physical fitness, yet they largely ignore emotional recovery. During times of economic uncertaintywhen leaders manage layoffs, absorb team stress, and navigate complex organizational changethe emotional toll is significant. Yet corporate wellness conversations rarely address it.
Fashion psychology fills that gap. Clothing choices become a strategic intervention for emotional resilienceone of the most accessible tools available. When appearance and identity align, you eliminate the energy drain of code-switching. You move from constant self-monitoring to coherent presence. You show up as yourself rather than performing a version of yourself.
This is what I call “inside-out leadership.” It’s an authentic way of guiding teams in which leaders tap into personal experience and intuition, and encourage their teams to do the same. It requires vulnerabilitya willingness to signal, through how you show up, that you’re genuinely aligned with what you’re doing. Your wardrobe either supports this or undermines it.
The Real Power: Magnetism Over Beauty
Tina Turner distinguished between beauty and magnetism in a way that reframes this entire conversation. In the mid-1980s, she spoke openly about self-confidenceowning her attractiveness and presenceas her source of power in an industry shaped by sexism and racism. Attractiveness, she understood, isn’t about conventional beauty standards. It’s about magnetism: the pull that comes from excellence and authentic confidence in your craft.
Fashion psychology operates the same way. It doesn’t create something false. It amplifies what’s already true about a leader’s capability. The real power isn’t in looking good. It’s in looking aligned with what you actually do well. Your wardrobe strategy becomes a competitive advantage rooted in authentic capability, not superficial polish.
3 Actionable Steps for Leaders
If you’re ready to treat your closet like a strategic asset rather than a personal preference, start here.
1. Audit for alignment. Spend a week noticing which pieces make you feel most capable, clear-headed, and present. Which ones trigger self-monitoring or discomfort? Which ones feel congruent with who you’re becoming (not who you were)? Document patterns. Your nervous system already knows what’s working.
2. Identify your identity markers. Work with a stylist or simply journal through three words that represent the essence of how you want to show up as a leaderconfident, accessible, bold, precise, or whatever resonates. Then test every wardrobe decision against these markers. If a piece doesn’t align with all three, it doesn’t belong.
3. Mark your transitions intentionally. If you’re moving into a new role or emerging from a difficult period, resist the urge to stay in old uniforms. Curate one or two anchor pieces that signal the new phase. Make it physical. Make it visible. Let your nervous system know you’re really moving forward.
The wardrobe you choose is a form of leadership communication. Make sure you’re saying what you mean.
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Every January, were bombarded with resolutions rooted in consumptionbuy this, try that, subscribe to something new. For Gen Z, this consumer-first vision of the New Year feels outdated and hollow.
Instead, Gen Z is turning to peers for a community-driven soft start to the year ahead. Popularized on TikTok, January resets offer a modern alternative to the outdated idea of resolutions. This shift from consumer-driven goals to community-supported resets is especially visible in how Gen Z is approaching health and wellness in 2026.
Its not surprising either. Earlier in 2025, millions of young people took to social media to publicly document their quit journeys using #QuitNic. The content didnt resemble traditional wellness influencer culture. It wasnt polished or aspirational. It was candid and raw, discussing withdrawal, setbacks, cravings, and the emotional work of quitting. The transparency resonated. Comment sections became support networks. More and more young people posted their own progress. Quitting nicotine became a shared, communal wellness actnot a private health struggle.
GEN Z PLANS TO QUIT
As we enter this new year, this momentum continues. Truth Initiative data shows that 67% of nicotine users ages 1824 plan to quit in 2026, with 60% planning to quit within the next year. Their primary reason: to improve mental and physical health.
The trouble is that quitting has never been more urgent or more complex. Todays nicotine market has been deliberately engineered for dependence. Nicotine products are larger, cheaper, and more potent than ever before. Even as unit sales declined, the total amount of nicotine sold in e-cigarettes surged by 249% from February 2020 to June 2024. From disposable e-cigarettes to high-potency nicotine pouches, and smart vapes with screens, games, and Bluetooth connectivity, these products are flooding the market illegally. Its happening faster than oversight can keep up. Its no wonder that quitting often feels like trying to outmaneuver an industry designed to restrict freedom and undermine agency.
The result? Millions of young people remain trapped in a cycle of nicotine addiction. New research shows that the share of daily middle and high school e-cigarette users who attempted to quit but were unable to rose from 28.2% to 53% between 2020 and 2024, and a Truth Initiative study of teens who vape indicated that 76.2% vaped within 30 minutes of waking up, pointing to signs of growing nicotine dependence. For young adults aged 18-24often dubbed the JUUL generationnicotine use remains stubbornly high, with many dual-using cigarettes or newer pouch products, like ZYN, VELO, or on!.
THE NEED FOR EVIDENCE-BACKED TOOLS
A wide body of evidence shows that young adults make more quit attempts than any other age group, yet they are the least likely to use evidence-based quit support. Why? Many arent aware of quitting resources available to them.
Leaning into this Gen Z social movement, Truth Initiatives Quit Collective pulls together influencers who are acting on the #QuitNic trend. By supporting them with real resources, like EX Program from Truth Initiative, our organization is bringing light to the conversations about nicotine that have otherwise been stigmatized or ignored.
While Gen Z is listening to social influencers online, we also know from focus groups and qualitative data that they are looking for evidence-based tools. Truth Initiatives approach is to pair advice from experts and experienced quitters in a free and confidential program. It guides users every step of the journey, from understanding triggers to coping with cravings. It meets young people where they already areon their phones, online, and on social platformsmaking support accessible in real time.
Gen Z is absolutely walking into 2026 with goals and aspirations. By prioritizing genuine connections and well-being, theyre redefining what it means to set intentions for the year ahead. In the process, they are offering a lesson for organizations and brands alike: Authenticity beats aspiration, connection matters more than consumption, and wellness cant be built on systems that profit from dependence.
Kathy Crosby is CEO and president of Truth Initiative.
Investors are feeling less hot about the makers of cooling systems for data centers after the CEO of Nvidia Corp. stoked concerns that demand for their products could dry up.
Shares of Modine Manufacturing Co. led declines in this sector, tumbling as much as 21% Tuesday before recovering some of those losses to close about 7.5% lower. Other makers of water-cooled systems and similar productsincluding Johnson Controls International PLC, Trane Technologies PLC, and Carrier Global Corp.also fell as much as 6.2% on Tuesday.
To blame? The next generation of Nvidias computer chips, announced on Monday, which won’t require the same type of cooling systems. Thats because the new Rubin platform will feature extreme codesign that integrates chips, trays, racks, and more, Jensen Huang, the chipmakers CEO, said during a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday.
100% liquid-cooled system
Describing the 100% liquid-cooled system thats now in production as a breakthrough, Huangs brief remarks in a hourlong-plus presentation managed to rattle investors, as chillers have previously been a crucial component in data centers.
The comments create some questions/concerns about the longer-term positioning of chillers within data centers over time, particularly as liquid cooling becomes more prominent, Baird analyst Timothy Wojs wrote in a note to clients, as Bloomberg reported. Liquid cooling allows systems to operate at higher temperatures, Wojs added.
More fallout from CES
And makers of cooling systems werent the only victim of Huangs CES comments: Shares of Amphenol, which makes cables, sensors, and other connectors for data centers, fell as much as 6.6% on Tuesday before ending the day 1.1% higher amid worries that its products would no longer be needed, as Barrons reported.
While Huangs comments caused turmoil in other parts of the stock market, Nvidia stock also fell even as the S&P 500 notched a new record high on Tuesday. The stock closed nearly 0.5% lower.
Nvidias Jensen Huang is one of the tech industrys longest-serving chief executives, leading the chipmaker since cofounding it in 1993. Now hes the recipient of a long-standing technology award: the IEEE Medal of Honor, established by a predecessor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1917.
Huang was named the recipient of the medal (and an accompanying $2 million prize) at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6 in recognition of his lifetime of work in accelerating computingthe technique of using specialized chips like Nvidias graphics processing units to speed specialized operations such as rendering images for video games, crunching numbers for scientific research, or, critically for the industry today, powering artificial intelligence.
Nvidia reached an unprecedented $5 trillion market valuation in October, with its chips providing much of the computing power behind todays AI.
It just is so important to have this kind of compute power at our fingertips, to be able to make advances so quickly, says Mary Ellen Randall, president and CEO of IEEE.
Nvidia released what it calls the first GPU, the GeForce 256, in 1999. At the time, the chip was principally recognized for advancing computer gaming, letting developers and artists add unprecedented levels of graphical detail without compromising speed. Under Huangs leadership, the company soon began work on CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), a system that enables developers to harness the parallel processing capabilities of its chips for a variety of computational tasks.
That proved to be critical for recent advances in AI; Nvidias chips and development platforms today power AI technologies such as ChatGPT and other large language models, as well as autonomous vehicles and industrial robots.
Nvidias market capitalization has fallen since its October high amid questions about a possible AI bubble, including concern about Nvidias investments in AI firms that in turn purchase its chips. But the company maintains a valuation of more than $4 trillion as huge swaths of the economy seek to harness artificial intelligence software that its chips are optimized to run.
We’re in unprecedented times where AI is accelerating everything, says Randall.
Advances by Huang and his Nvidia colleagues build on the work of previous winners of the Medal of Honor, first awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1917 to Edwin Howard Armstrong, who was pivotal in developing radio-related technologies including FM broadcasting.
Other early recipients included Lee de Forest, whose work with vacuum tubes paved the way for todays transistor-powered electronics; Claude Shannon, known for his groundbreaking work tying mathematics to electronic circuitry and digital computation; and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
The Institute of Radio Engineers merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1963, forming IEEE, a nonprofit that in November announced its membership had grown to 500,000 across 190 countries. Today Medal of Honor recipients are selected by IEEEs board of directors based on consultation with a team that includes past IEEE presidents, previous award winners, and other esteemed members of the organization, Randall says.
Several recent recipients of the IEEEs top award have been innovators in computer and internet technology, including Ethernet cocreator Robert Metcalfe, recognized in 1996, and Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, instrumental in developing the internets core TCP/IP data routing protocol, recognized in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Other Medal of Honor winners from the chipmaking industry include former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, recognized in 2000; Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, awarded in 2008; Morris Chang, founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), recognized in 2011; and Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli, last years award recipient.
Randall says Huangs work builds upon the innovations of previous Medal of Honor recipients while helping to pave the way for tomorrows technologies.
All those types of things are fundamental to how we got to today, she says. And this is certainly a very important step in the transition of technology for the future.
Nvidias Jensen Huang is one of the tech industrys longest-serving chief executives, leading the chipmaker since cofounding it in 1993. Now hes the recipient of a long-standing technology award: the IEEE Medal of Honor, established by a predecessor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1917.
Huang was named the recipient of the medal (and an accompanying $2 million prize) at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6 in recognition of his lifetime of work in accelerating computingthe technique of using specialized chips like Nvidias graphics processing units to speed specialized operations such as rendering images for video games, crunching numbers for scientific research, or, critically for the industry today, powering artificial intelligence.
Nvidia reached an unprecedented $5 trillion market valuation in October, with its chips providing much of the computing power behind todays AI.
It just is so important to have this kind of compute power at our fingertips, to be able to make advances so quickly, says Mary Ellen Randall, president and CEO of IEEE.
Nvidia released what it calls the first GPU, the GeForce 256, in 1999. At the time, the chip was principally recognized for advancing computer gaming, letting developers and artists add unprecedented levels of graphical detail without compromising speed. Under Huangs leadership, the company soon began work on CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), a system that enables developers to harness the parallel processing capabilities of its chips for a variety of computational tasks.
That proved to be critical for recent advances in AI; Nvidias chips and development platforms today power AI technologies such as ChatGPT and other large language models, as well as autonomous vehicles and industrial robots.
Nvidias market capitalization has fallen since its October high amid questions about a possible AI bubble, including concern about Nvidias investments in AI firms that in turn purchase its chips. But the company maintains a valuation of more than $4 trillion as huge swaths of the economy seek to harness artificial intelligence software that its chips are optimized to run.
We’re in unprecedented times where AI is accelerating everything, says Randall.
Advances by Huang and his Nvidia colleagues build on the work of previous winners of the Medal of Honor, first awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1917 to Edwin Howard Armstrong, who was pivotal in developing radio-related technologies including FM broadcasting.
Other early recipients included Lee de Forest, whose work with vacuum tubes paved the way for todays transistor-powered electronics; Claude Shannon, known for his groundbreaking work tying mathematics to electronic circuitry and digital computation; and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
The Institute of Radio Engineers merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1963, forming IEEE, a nonprofit that in November announced its membership had grown to 500,000 across 190 countries. Today Medal of Honor recipients are selected by IEEEs board of directors based on consultation with a team that includes past IEEE presidents, previous award winners, and other esteemed members of the organization, Randall says.
Several recent recipients of the IEEEs top award have been innovators in computer and internet technology, including Ethernet cocreator Robert Metcalfe, recognized in 1996, and Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, instrumental in developing the internets core TCP/IP data routing protocol, recognized in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Other Medal of Honor winners from the chipmaking industry include former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, recognized in 2000; Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, awarded in 2008; Morris Chang, founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), recognized in 2011; and Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli, last years award recipient.
Randall says Huangs work builds upon the innovations of previous Medal of Honor recipients while helping to pave the way for tomorrows technologies.
All those types of things are fundamental to how we got to today, she says. And this is certainly a very important step in the transition of technology for the future.
Stocks rose on Wall Street Tuesday afternoon and approached more all-time highs.
The S&P 500 added 0.6% and is hovering around the record it set in late December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 482 points, or 1%, after setting a record on Monday. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.6% as of 3:01 p.m. Eastern.
Big tech companies were making some of the most notable moves.
Amazon, which has reached into both retail and technology, surged 3.7%. It is one of the most valuable companies in the world and its outsized stock valuation helped counter losses elsewhere in the market, including a 1.7% loss from Apple.
Micron Technology rose 8.8%, also helping to lift the market.
Nvidia, which is often the biggest force behind the market’s direction, wavered throughout the day and was down most recently by 0.2%.
Sandisk surged 25.8% for the market’s biggest gain. The stock’s value has jumped more than 800% since spinning off from Western Digital last February. The gains have been driven by artificial intelligence and the resulting demand for data-storage hardware. Western Digital rose 17.2%.
Technology companies, especially those focused on artificial intelligence, are being closely watched this week during the industry’s annual CES trade show in Las Vegas.
AI advances helped propel the broader market to a series of records in 2025. Investors will be watching companies for any updates that could shed more light on the big corporate investments in AI technology.
The price of benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 2% to $57.13 per barrel, pulling back from sharp gains a day prior when the market reacted to U.S. forces capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a weekend raid. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.7% to $60.70 per barrel.
Treasury yields rose in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.18% from 4.15% late Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more closely with expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do, rose to 3.48% from 3.45% late Monday.
Gold prices rose 1% and silver prices rose 5.7%. Such assets are often considered safe havens in times of geopolitical turmoil. The metals have notched record prices over the last year amid lingering economic concerns brought on by conflicts and trade wars.
Markets in Europe and Asia gained ground.
Outside of company announcements, Wall Street is preparing for several updates on the U.S. labor market this week, along with reports on the services sector and consumer sentiment. They will help paint a clearer picture of how vital parts of the economy closed out 2025 and the direction they could take in 2026.
On Wednesday, the U.S. government will release its report on job openings for November. The October report showed that U.S. job openings had barely budged. Weekly unemployment data will be released on Thursday and the broader monthly employment report, for December, will be released on Friday.
Outside of the employment reports, the Institute for Supply Management will release its latest services sector update on Wednesday, while the University of Michigan will release its latest consumer sentiment survey Friday. They are both widely monitored because the services sector makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy, and consumer sentiment has been shaky under the weight of higher prices and economic uncertainty.
The Fed will be analyzing all of that data and more ahead of its next meeting in late January. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times late in 2025 to try and counter the economic impact of a softer jobs market. Lower interest rates on loans can help bolster economic activity.
Cutting rates also risks fueling inflation at a time when it remains stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target and could potentially reheat. Rising inflation could counter any benefit from lower interest rates and weigh more heavily on the economy.
Wall Street expects the Fed to hold interest rates steady at its January meeting.
Damian J. Troise, AP business writer
AP business writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
Weve grown strangely comfortable separating things that were never meant to be separated: leadership from management, vision from execution, and perhaps most damaging, culture from strategy.
Inside companies, this split shows up everywhere. A CEO announces a bold future about democratizing access or building a place where people take smart risks. Then culture gets handed to HR as if it belongs on a separate track, while the business strategy unfolds on its own timeline. The result is predictable. Employees are asked to navigate the distance between what leaders say and how the organization actually works.
That distance is not neutral. It creates avoidable friction, the kind of drag that occurs when people try to act on values the organization has not built around. Built Ins 2024 Culture Report shows that 74% of employees feel demotivated in a poor cultural fit, and 61% would leave for a stronger cultural fit even without a major raise. The message is clear: Misalignment is expensive.
NEEDED: CLARITY AND STRUCTURE
But the deeper cost is structural. Avoidable friction emerges when leaders declare a value but never define it or embed it into the operating model.
You say you value accountability, but there is no shared understanding of what it looks like.
You say family first, but still expect employees to respond while out of office.
You say being a good partner matters, but your incentives penalize anyone who extends the sales cycle to build trust.
This is not about leaders being disingenuous. It is about the reality that business is messy, and unspoken values tend to override the ones printed in the handbook. When leaders are not honest about what truly matters, employees spend more energy decoding the hidden rules than doing the work they were hired to do.
The fix is clarity, not charisma.
The organizations gaining ground today are not the ones with inspirational posters or expansive value lists. They are the ones willing to make their values operational. That is why the B Corp movement has more than doubled since 2020, with 10,394 certified companies currently, across 103 countries. Leaders are discovering something simple and powerful: When culture is strategy, performance compounds. According to Deloittes 2025 Global Human Capital Trends, companies with positive cultures deliver 30% higher innovation and 40% better retention. Analysis from McKinsey has shown that companies with a healthy culture are three times more likely to outperform companies with unhealthy cultures.
What these companies share is not moral perfection. It is precision. They name fewer values. They define them. They make them actionable. They hold themselves accountable in the same ways they expect from their teams.
Because here is the truth most leaders overlook: Every organization already has a culture. The question is whether it reflects the strategy or contradicts it.
CULTURE MUST BE VISIBLE
If you want to reduce avoidable frictionand the burnout, confusion, and turnover that followculture cannot remain a sentiment in an employee handbook. It has to be visible in hiring criteria, promotion decisions, meeting norms, resource allocation, and the daily choices that signal what actually matters.
This often feels intimidating, which is why culture gets handed to HR like an extracurricular. But culture is not extra work. Culture is the work. And you do not need more values to fix it. You need fewer values with deeper integrity. When your words match your systems, the organization exhales. People stop guessing. Teams regain momentum.
Alignment is not just a leadership obligation. It is a relief. For leaders, for employees, and for the business.
When culture becomes strategy, you no longer have to push the organization forward. You create the conditions, and the culture pulls the strategy with it.
Natasha Nuytten is CEO of CLARA.
If you were building global teams in 2025, you wouldnt need me to tell you it was a crazy year. We experienced economic volatility and AI disruption. Plus, tightened borders caused companies to adjust and readjust their approaches.
2026 wont be calmer. But the elements we need to master to stay competitive are now coming into focus: Navigating mobility disruption, creating unity across increasingly distributed workforces, and building the transparent, compliant infrastructure needed to employ people anywhere.
1. Rethink mobility strategies
After a decade or so of relative calm, global mobility is now being disrupted from every angle. Thats because geopolitical instability, along with economic shifts and competing visa regimes are fundamentally changing how companies access and rely on talent.
Governments are modernizing immigration with digital platforms like the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, yet the same environment is producing abrupt travel restrictions, emergency evacuations, and rising protectionism. The result is a system that is technically more advanced but practically more unpredictable.
Sharp increases in visa costs in some major economies have pushed many companies to rethink their talent strategies. High fees and uncertainty are accelerating offshoring and nearshoring, especially for high-value work in AI, product development, and cybersecurity. Yet with many companies facing hiring freezes and restructuring, mobility in 2026 will need to be more selective and strategy-led, not volume-driven.
To thrive in this new landscape, companies should build mobility capability in-houseowning compliance knowledge, digital tooling, and real-time monitoringwhile deepening partnerships with specialist mobility consultants who can navigate complex jurisdictions. This kind of hybrid model will ensure companies are poised to rapidly respond to regulatory changes in an uncertain world.
2. Overcommunicate around AI workflows
AI is already embedded in day-to-day work, but without clear communication, it can easily create more noise rather than value: generic content, duplicated effort, and confusion over what is trustworthy. Most teams are still bolting AI onto old workflows, instead of redesigning those workflows with AI in mind.
Overcommunicating around AI workflows means making it clear how AI is used, why its used, and where humans fit in the loop. Teams should openly align on what should be automated, what should remain human-led, and how decisions are made and documented. The clearer the communication, the more consistently teams can use AI without compromising quality or accountability.
For AI to support unity rather than undermine it, organizations should:
Make it clear that AI is a tool for productivity, not as a quiet headcount reducer. Transparency builds trust and encourages adoption.
Establish shared guidelines on when and how to use AI.
Create internal spaces where people can share prompts, tools, and lessons.
3. Hire for soft skills
Tethered to the emergence of AI is an increasing skills gap. Workers often feel confident that they are employable, while employers increasingly question whether available talent matches the demands of modern, tech-driven roles.
Education systems still lean toward linear, narrow training, while careers are becoming more non-linear and cross-functional. In 2026, employers that struggle to find hard skills will need to hire for potential instead by focusing on soft skills like communication and problem solving. Also look for curiosity and comfort with ambiguity.
The most resilient global teams will build around people who can move across domains, learn new tools quickly, and evolve with the business, instead of those optimized purely for todays job description.
4. Understand transparency mandates
Finding the right talent is one problem. Employing people compliantly and fairly across borders is anotherespecially with the new regulatory challenges 2026 is throwing our way. New pay transparency rules require employers to show not just what they pay, but how they arrived at those decisions.
Early evidence from transparency laws in some regions suggests they can meaningfully narrow pay gaps when combined with structured reporting. The next wave, including EU-wide pay transparency requirements, will push employers to formalize compensation frameworks and maintain audit-ready data.
Many organizations are underprepared. Only just over half of employers are putting money into improving wage transparency. Employees often feel in the dark about how pay works, and ad hoc transparencysuch as publishing a few rangeswont fix that. In 2026, companies will need payroll and HR systems that can:
Produce locally compliant payslips
Classify roles consistently across borders
Surface pay data by region, role, and gender
Without this infrastructure, it becomes difficult to demonstrate that outcomes are structured, comparable, and non-discriminatory.
5. Build the infrastructure of global employment
In 2026, global companies are expected to expand quickly, de-risk that expansion, and provide a consistent employee experience worldwide. Spreadsheets and fragmented vendors simply cant keep up.
The response is the rise of dedicated global employment infrastructure: employers of record, global payroll systems, and collaboration suites.
Built correctly, the right stack:
Keeps contracts, benefits, and payslips locally compliant
Provides a single source of truth for workforce data
Enables real-time visibility and control for leaders
Reduces misclassification, tax, and security risks
In a year of continuous change, this kind of infrastructure will prevent global expansion from becoming a tangle of entities, local providers, and hidden liabilities.
PREPARE FOR 2026
Mobility disruption, distributed work, AI, skills gaps, and regulatory shifts are converging into a single test: Can your organization operate as a coherent global system?
The teams that win in 2026 will:
Treat mobility as a strategic lever
Design AI-augmented workflows that enhance clarity and cohesion
Hire for adaptability and potential, not just narrow experience
Treat transparency as a business priority rather than an afterthought
Build compliant employment infrastructure that can scale
The world is not getting simpler. But with the right strategies in place, businesses can leap the hurdles and continue to unlock the benefits of global teams.
Sagar Khatri is CEO of Multiplier.
