Mixed nuts are a common staple in many houses around the Christmas holidays. Their saltiness is a nice contrast to all the sweet festive treats that our kitchens fill up with at this time of year.
But now the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that two mixed nut products have the potential to make you very sick. Heres what you need to know.
FDA announced mixed nuts recall
On December 5, the Food and Drug Administration posted a notice announcing the recall of two mixed nuts products. The nuts were sold under the Wegmans brand. Wegmans is a popular chain of grocery stores in the eastern United States.
The nuts were manufactured by Mellace Family Brands California, Inc. of Warren, Ohio, which initiated the voluntary recall.
According to the notice, testing found that some raw pistachios used in the mixed nuts products had the possibility of being contaminated with Salmonella, a potentially deadly bacterium. Wegmans has also posted a recall notice for the products on its website.
What mixed nuts products are being recalled?
Two mixed nuts products are currently listed as being part of the recall, according to the notice posted on the FDAs website. Those nut products are:
Wegmans Deluxe Mixed Nuts Unsalted 34 oz (964 grams)
packaged in a plastic tub
UPC 077890421314
Lot code: 58041 BEST BY: JUL 28, 2026
Wegmans Deluxe Mixed Nuts Unsalted 11.5 oz (326 grams)
packaged in a plastic bag
UPC 077890421352
Lot code: 58171 BEST BY: AUG 10, 2026
Photographs of the recalled nuts packaging can be found here.
When were the recalled nuts sold?
The recalled nuts were sold between November 3 and December 1, 2025.
Where were the recalled nuts sold?
The recalled nuts were sold at Wegmans stores in the following locations:
Connecticut
Delaware
Maryland
Massachusetts
North Carolina
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Washington, D.C.
What is Salmonella?
Salmonella is a bacterium that can cause severe and possibly life-threatening illness in people who consume contaminated products.
In an otherwise healthy individual, Salmonella often causes abdominal pain, diarrhea, fever, nausea, and vomiting. However, individuals who are elderly, very young, frail, or have weakened immune systems can sometimes develop infections that are deadly.
In rare cases, a Salmonella infection can cause arterial infections, arthritis, and endocarditis.
Has anyone been harmed by the recalled nuts?
As of the time of the FDA notices posting, no individuals are known to have been made sick in association with the recalled nuts.
What should I do if I have the recalled nuts?
Check your house to see if you have the recalled nuts. The nuts have long expiration dates, with one of the recalled products good until July 2026 and the other until August 2026.
If you have the recalled products, you should return them to the service desk for a full refund.
Complete information about the recall can be found in the notice posted on the FDAs website here.
Five years ago, an algorithm decided whether your résumé ever reached a recruiter. Now, it might be the one asking you the questions.
It can feel unsettling to imagine a machine assessing not just what you say, but how you say it: tone, cadence, word choice, even microexpressions. These patterns feed models that generate a “fit” score, determining whether you ever reach a human being.
Agentic AI allows what appears to be a genuine two-way conversation, simulating a first-round interview more realistically than the one-way video prompts of the past. Companies are drawn to it for clear reasons: speed, consistency, and scale.
But that efficiency comes with tradeoffs. Human interviewers rely on intuition, while AI systems are built on structure. They detect clarity, confidence, and organization, which are valuable traits, but they sometimes miss creativity, empathy, or cultural fit. The challenge for candidates is to make those traits visible within a digital format.
How to adapt
The good news is that with a little preparation, AI interviews can feel no more anxiety-inducing than the average first round interview. Heres how to adapt:
Get comfortable talking to machines. The best preparation is practice with AI itself. Many candidates stumble because the experience feels unnatural. Practice with AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude so you can get used to speaking without visual feedback. The goal is not to trick the system but to sound confident and conversational when responding to something that doesn’t nod, smile, or say “good question.”
Match the language of the role. AI interviewers often compare your responses to the job description. Study it carefully and mirror the companys phrasing and values, much like tailoring your resume to the applicant tracking system (ATS). Use measurable results to back up your claims. Structured storytelling, such as the STAR format (situation, task, action, result), performs especially well with AI models.
Refine your delivery. AI evaluates cadence, pauses, and confidence, so training your delivery can improve your score as much as refining content. Slow down, maintain steady energy, and vary your tone. It’s tempting to read off a screen, but even algorithms can detect when speech sounds too rehearsed. Small variations in tone and inflection help you come across as natural.
Control your environment. Lighting, background, and camera angle can affect facial recognition metrics. Choose a well-lit, neutral setting and look directly into the camera. Slightly modulate your energy and smile when appropriate. These small cues help the system read you as attentive and engaged.
Use AI as your coach. The same technology interviewing you can help you prepare. Upload a job description into an AI assistant, simulate an interview, and request feedback on your clarity and delivery. Candidates who practice with AI tend to improve their confidence and pacing significantly.
The future of hiring
AI-led interviews are not replacing humans, but they are changing the hiring process. For companies, they create structure and scalability. For candidates, they can level the playing field if used thoughtfully. Don’t discount a company just because they use AI in the process.
The best organizations combine human judgment with AIs analytical precision. The future of hiring will rely on both.
If your next interviewer happens to be an AI, treat it as a new kind of audience. Preparation, clarity, and authenticity are what stand out. The candidates who succeed will be those who can bridge both worlds, showing not only what they know, but who they are.
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
Baiju Shah is constantly bridging different worlds. His formative years were shaped by observing his mother, who trained as a commercial artist, and his father, who was an engineer. As global CEO of agency AKQA, he leads an organization that deploys creativity and technology on behalf of clients such as Nestlé, Nike, and Montblanc. And he teaches graduate students pursuing dual degrees in engineering and business administration at Northwestern University.
Rather than seeing art and science as distinct specialties, Shah argues that companies and brands must take an interdisciplinary approach, especially in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Technology without craft is a path to efficient mediocrity, he tells Modern CEO in his first extended interview since joining AKQA in July.
Exploring the new frontier
Shah believes marrying imagination and technology will not only yield better results but that the union is key to AKQAs success. Hes positioning the business as a frontier agency, which helps clients develop new products and experiences through imagination and advanced AI applications.
AKQA is hardly the only company promising to blend creativity and tech. Shah joined the agency from Accenture Song, which calls itself a tech-powered creative business. Nearly all large consultancies and advertising companies also boast agencies that sit at the intersection of digital and design.
Shahs effort to promote AKQA as a frontier agency comes amid consolidation and turmoil in the advertising world. Earlier this month, Omnicom said it would lay off 4,000 employees and shutter some agencies following its acquisition of rival Interpublic. This year, AKQA parent WPP shuttled creative agency Grey from AKQA to sister agency Ogilvy. As a result of the move, AKQA shrank from 5,500 employees in 2024 to about 2,400 today. AKQA doesnt disclose its revenue; WPP last year reported revenue of 14.7 billion (about $18.6 billion)roughly flat from a year earlier.
Preparing for a new playing field
The moves come as the industry grapples with how AI is changing the way advertising is made and distributed.
Shah believes AKQA is well placed to leverage AIto serve its clients and help WPP build new business modelsrather than be disrupted by it. The agency recently launched Nestlé Goodness, an AI-powered service that acts like a personal chef and dietitian for families, helping them plan meals while balancing time, cost, and nutrition. AKQA has developed generative stores on Googles AI platform that clients can use to create real-time personalized storefronts based on individual intent and preferences. And AKQA harnessed AI to builda cultural intelligence engine that uses dozens of AI agents and computer visioning to analyze millions of pieces of content globally, uncovering cultural signals in real time. AKQA is making the engine available for all the agencies in the WPP network to use.
Early in his career, Shah personally witnessed the importance of wedding creativity with technology. While working as a manager at Accenture Labs in the early 2000s, he and a team of developers used advanced analytics to design a system that predicted oil rig failures with extraordinary precision. The technology was superior to existing solutions, but the clients engineers rejected it.
Technology by itself, while its the most powerful force out there, is incomplete to actually drive innovation and drive change, Shah says. Accenture Labs supplemented the technical work with a strategist and designers who could build empathy with the users. He says: That was the only way we could drive the innovation forward. For me that was an unlock.
The experience prompted him to get an MBA from Northwestern, where hes now an adjunct professor in a program that awards students with a masters in design innovation and an MBA. And while his students are opting into the kind of multidisciplinary degree that feels future-proofed, Shah believes that theyll need to be open to a variety of professional experiences.
The future is not going to be defined by rigid job titles, he says. He encourages students to think of careers as a series of steps, each lasting three yearstime enough to really dig in, learn something deeply, and make a meaningful contribution. He also urges adaptability, noting that the teams of the future will likely feature a mix of creatives, technologists, and systems thinkers, and some of them may be AI agents instead of humans.
But Shah maintains that human creativity is what will help AI bloom into something more potent than a tool for efficiency. With every wave of technology, the instinct is always to automate what exists, he says. I believe that the brands that grow are not the ones that are just automating yesterdays thinking. Theyre the ones that imagine and are creating what matters next.
World changing ideas
Is your company or team developing creative or innovative solutions to pressing challenges? Consider applying for Fast Companys annual World Changing Ideas Awards, which recognizes groundbreaking concepts and projects across industries and company sizes. The final deadline is December 12.
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If you’ve ever dreamed of sitting behind the wheel of a giant hot dog, then you’re in luck. Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile is in need of Gen Z drivers known as “Hotdoggers,” as the company opens its applications. The iconic vehicle is about to roll into its 90th year.
The job is truly unique and, if you’re a hot dog enthusiast with a keen sense of adventure, could be an absolute thrill, especially if you’re looking to avoid a nine-to-five desk job and love to travel. The Hotdogger Program has been around since 1988 and according to Oscar Mayer is likely to be a fit for recent college graduates who are hoping to make a “positive impact” on the communities the Wienerdog cruises through.
[Photo: Courtesy of Oscar Mayer]
Molle Twing, a former Hotdogger who now runs the program, tells Fast Company that what sets the job apart from mainstream gigs is “just how unexpected it is.” Twing says, “Instead of easing into the workforce behind a desk, an exclusive group of passionate people get to kick off their career, sparking smiles across the country while driving a 27-foot-long hot dog on wheels.” Basically, it’s the perfect antidote to the modern hustle and bustle. It’s freedom in hot dog form.
That might be especially true because, according to Twing, the role also ensures that all-important work-life balance that Gen Z values more than just about anything. “While Hotdoggers are on the move throughout their one-year assignment, the role offers structure and time to recharge with friends and family,” Twing explains. Not only do employees receive regular days off each week, as well as a “competitive vacation package,” Twing says that there are all kinds of incentives Hotdoggers take part in, like a “spontaneous hot air balloon ride to discovering historical monuments” and so much more.
Twing adds, “each market offers something new and exciting for the Hotdoggers and the opportunity to recharge before the next event.”
[Photo: Courtesy of Oscar Mayer]
Being a Hotdogger might sound like a quirky gig, but frankly, it’s actually a relished profession for recent college graduates with lots of personality who don’t mind having their 15-minutes of fame. The Wienermobile is an iconic vehicle and its Hotdoggers are sought after, too. As the face of the brand, they make TV appearances, are popular online, and are cheered for wherever they go. They’ve even officiated weddings because, well, nothing says “forever” like a good old glizzy.
Interested applicants should check out the posting on the Kraft Heinz Career Page to apply, and hurry, as thousands of applications are expected and only 12 talented Hotdoggers will be chosen for 2026.
At first glance, Clove’s collaboration strategy may seem a little wacky. Why, you might ask, is a startup that makes sneakers for healthcare workers partnering with Land O’Lakes butter, Levain cookies, and Olipop prebiotic sodas?
It’s a good question, but there’s method to the madness. Clove’s team members spend their days studying the lives of doctors and nurses, and they’ve discovered that food is a rare source of pleasure and joy in a very stressful workplace. “I watch nurses get ready with me videos as a form of ethnographic research,” says Jordyn Amoroso, Clove’s co-founder and chief brand officer. “You see nurses pack their lunches with a baked good, or a healthy soda, because it might be the only happy moment in a difficult shift.”
Clove’s partnerships offer a fascinating glimpse into the wild world of food collabs that have exploded over the last three years. They’ve ranged from blockbusters like Rhode makeup’s partnership with Krispy Kreme to the absurd, like Arby’s collaboration with Old Spice. Still, brands say that smart food collaborations are now an important tool to standing out in the increasingly competitive grocery aisle and becoming lifestyle brands.
Tapping into collaborations is a radical move for a company in healthcarean industry that isn’t known for being fashion-forward or trendyhelping it stand out from more established players like Nurse Mates and Alegria. Earlier this year, Clove dropped a butter-yellow sneaker in partnership with Land O’Lakes in a collaboration that went viral in the healthcare community, with more than 100 million impressions and thousands of butter-colored sneaker sold. And today, Clove is dropping a new collab with Olipop for socks that are emblazoned with the soda’s iconic fruit symbols.
[Photo: Courtesy of Clove]
A Fashionable Healthcare Brand
Joe Ammon founded Clove as a love letter to his wife, a nurse who spent 12-hour shifts in the ugly, uncomfortable shoes.
Healthcare workers are required to wear special shoes that are slip-resistant and waterproof because they’re exposed to bodily fluids; many hospitals also have a dress code requiring them to be black or white. Ammon felt that nursing shoe companies weren’t putting much care into how shoes looked or felt. In 2019, he launched Clove with a line of shoes that met all the functional requirements, but also had a much cushier insole and also looked more like a cool sneaker. The concept was a hit: The brand has now sold more than a million pairs.
[Photo: Courtesy of Clove]
Amoroso believes that Clove’s success comes, in part, by tuning into the worlds of doctors and nurses. For instance, the brand’s name does not refer to the spice, but is rather a play on medical lingo: Doctors use a line over the letter “c” as a shorthand for the word “with” so the brand’s name means “with love.” Each pair of shoes comes with a pen that says “for borrowing only,” since people notoriously steal nurse’s pens.
As Amoroso has spent time with healthcare workers, she’s seen that they care just as much about fashion and trends as other people, but the industry doesn’t treat them like other consumers. On social media, she’s seen nurses and doctors get excited about say, Rhode’s partnership with Krispy Kreme donuts or Studs’ partnership with Van Leeuwan ice cream. “Food collabs are everywhere now, and some are really cool,” she says. “Why shouldn’t healthcare workers get things that are fun and trendy? The industry seems to assume they are content with boring products.”
Clove’s first big food collab launched in September, when it partnered with Land O’ Lakes butter to launch a butter themed sneaker. Earlier in the year, another butter brand, Kerrygold, had gone viral on TikTok after it had taken influencers to Ireland, where they created swoony-worthy content of landscapes and food.
[Photo: Courtesy of Clove]
Land O’ Lakes and Clove attempted to create an equally fun moment by delivering influencers enormous yellow boxes that looked like sticks of butter, filled with everything from butter hair clips and tote bags, to butter yellow sneakers and socks, and cooler bags filled with butter. In some cases, they sent a butter butler to nurse’s homes to deliver sneakers on a silver tray. The collab was a success, generating upwards of 100 million impressions, and selling thousands of butter yellow sneakers.
Another collab with Levain came out of an insight that cookies were often a go-to treat after a long shift. “In a 12-hour shift, a nurse has seen people be born and die,” says Paula Belatti, Clove’s co-founder and COO. “Sharing a cookie with a co-worker is a brief moment of self-care.” Clove partnered with Levain bakeries near hospitals in Boston and Philadelphia to give healthcare workers coffee, cookies, and compression socks when they left their shift.
And today, just in time for the holiday season, Clove is launching its next big food partnership with Olipop, a brand that is well known for its viral marketing, from creating immersive hotel rooms inspired by its flavors to collaborating with a swimwear brand Kulani Kinis on soda-inspired bikinis. Clove customers will be able to buy a set of three socks for $40 that feature fruit icons. “They’re very nostalgic,” says Amoroso. “They’re inspired by ‘day-of-the-week’ underwear and socks millennials had when we were growing up in the 90s.”
Why Are Food Brands Obsessed with Collabs
Over the past three years, food brands have gone all in on collabs. Some have made sense, like when olive oil brand Graza partnered with Areaware to launch a ‘drizzle and drip’ serving set, or when the buzzy food brands Fishwife and Fly By Jing created cans of spicy smoked salmon. Others created buzz and cute products, like when Studs created ice-cream inspired earring charms with Van Leeuwen.
Steven Vigilante, Olipop’s director of strategic partnerships, says that collaborations have been a feature of the fashion industry for more than 15 years, when brands realized they had a powerful opportunity to tap into each others’ audiences, especially as the cost of marketing on social media has gone up.
But over the past five years, as the food industry has been flooded with new players, brands have needed to get more creative. “It’s not enough to focus on the food itself,” Vigilante says. “We want to become a lifestyle brand. Collaborations allow us to partner with likeminded brands to create an emotional connection with customers, so they choose us over the competition.”
But as food collabs became commonplace, some brands have needed get more bizarre and extreme in order to get any media attention. There was the time when luxury brands like Balenciaga partnered with Lay’s on a clutch that looked like a bag of chips or Kate Spade partnered with Heinz on ketchup themed accessories. Crocs created a clog that looked like a KFC bucket that came with an accessory that smelled like fried chicken. Arby’s created an deodorant with Old Spice supposedly designed tackle the sweats diners get after a meat-heavy meal. E.l.f. cosmetics dropped an eyeshadow palette inspired by Chipotle ingredients.
“In some cases, the partnerships don’t seem to make any sense,” Vigilante says. “They’re just kind of a cash grab, and it might put off the customer.”
Brands appear to be pulling back from the more absurd collabs, and focusing instead on partnerships that are authentic and logical. Olipop for instance, positions itself as a better-for-you soda, with low sugar and prebiotics, and it has been working to make inroads with hospitals. “Hospital kitchens and cafeteria offer regular soda, which doctors actively dissuade patients from drinking,” says Vigilante. “We’re offering a healthier alternative.”
Land O’Lakes, for its part, tends to attract older customers who have been using the product for years, but the brand has been trying to win over younger consumers. The Clove partnership made sense because the brand skews younger, and butter-colored products were having a viral moment on social media. “This collab was an opportunity to put ourselves in front of a new generation, and tell a story about how we’re not just their grandmother’s butter,” says Catherine Fox, Land O’Lakes’ VP of central marketing.
Clove and Olipop both have a pipeline of other collabs in the works for 2026, and they believe partnerships are a valuable tool in the arsenal for building a modern brand. “Collaborations don’t need to be surprising or outlandish to work,” says Vigilante. “It’s about giving your customers something fun to look forward to and telling a story about what your brand stands for.”
In Apples new holiday ad, A Critter Carol, a group of woodland puppets frolic in a wintery forest to a wildlife-themed parody of the Flight of the Conchordss song Friends. Every element, from the puppets to the set and even the ads typography, was rendered using practical effects.
The ad was directed by TBWA\Media Arts Lab (MAL)a bespoke global agency that partners only with Appleand shot on an iPhone 17 Pro. It appears to be building on a larger marketing theme for Apple. Just this November, MAL worked with the company to create a new visual identity for Apple TV using real glass props and colorful lighting.
This kind of work stands out in a marketing landscape thats become saturated with CGI and AI-generated content. Coca-Cola, for example, has now released not one but two AI-generated holiday ads, both of which have been met with considerable backlash. As consumers are inundated with AI slop across their social media feeds, its becoming less and less common to encounter an ad that makes anyone stop and think, HuhI wonder how they made that?
Apples A Critter Carol signals that a new marker of quality in marketing will be the ability to show real evidence of the creative work that made it possiblenot just the final product.
A Tactile Process
For MAL, creating A Critter Carol was a tactile process from beginning to end. It started with conceptualizing the cast of raccoons, foxes, birds, bears, moles, rats, and others who populate the ads fantastical forest.
[Image: Apple + TBWA/Media Arts Lab]
Every animal on camera was designed and built by a dedicated team of artists. Each puppet needed to be both expressive enough for emotional close-ups and durable enough for manipulation by multiple puppeteers behind the scenes. That meant an intense focus on every possible detail.
[Image: Apple + TBWA/Media Arts Lab]
The puppets were constructed using a combination of internal armatures, foam bodies, synthetic furs, hand-painted surfaces, and carefully crafted glass or resin eyes. Internal mechanisms were added to give each character its unique personality. Before the shoot, a puppet stylist was on hand to tweak body shapes, fur, coloring, and allover shading to give the animals a lived-in look. The final result is a ragtag crew of friendly faces who look like theyve lived in the forest all their lives.
On top of handcrafting the puppets, MAL also made the forest setting using practical effects almost exclusively. The team created a tactile, miniature woodland world 3 feet off the ground that the puppeteers could physically inhabit beneath the set. Handmade trees, snow, and ground textures were built at a scale, allowing the puppets to interact naturally with their environment, while the set was configured in layers to help puppeteers navigate through it while remaining hidden.
In the end, digital effects were used only to remove the puppeteers when the shot couldnt conceal them, and to extend some backgrounds.
[Image: Apple + TBWA/Media Arts Lab]
As a final detail, even the typography that appears on-screen at the end of the ad was created by hand specifically for this project. Its called SFWood, and its a mishmash of various sizes and weights of Apples official font, SF Pro. The name SF Wood comes from the fact that this font was hand-printed using custom woodcuts, then scanned and touched up in post. Irregularities in the ink density and wood texture are preserved in the finished version.
[Image: Apple + TBWA/Media Arts Lab]
The entire ad is an ode to whats possible when artists commit their time and energy to a single project. It hits all the right emotional notes of the seasonnot because its purposefully tugging on viewers heartstrings, but because it feels so deeply human.
Why practical effects might get an AI-induced comeback
For ad agencies and film studios, theres no doubt that generative AI tools are poised to become integral elements of the creative process. But its possible that these shifts may also make practical effects more sought-after among viewers experiencing digital effect fatigue.
[Image: Apple + TBWA/Media Arts Lab]
Aside from Apples recent ads, other projects have also brought practical effects back into popular consciousness. In James Gunns Superman film released over the summer, the ice fortress was painstakingly built using real props rather than CGI. And the highly acclaimed 2024 film The Substance relied almost entirely on practical effects despite its surrealist concept.
As AI begins to make polished final products more easily attainable, it stands to reason that the gritty, hands-on, behind-the-scenes details of creation will become more valuable to viewers. Apple seems, at least on some level, to understand that growing interest in process. Alongside A Critter Carol, it also published a behind-the-scenes video that allows viewers to watch the puppeteers gearing up, production designers arranging the set, and actors cracking up onstage.
Puppeteers dressed like blueberries. Individually placed whiskers. An entire forest built 3 feet off the ground. And so much more, the videos caption reads. Take a look behind the scenes of our new holiday film to see how we handcrafted a cast of woodland puppets and brought them to life on iPhone 17 Pro.
There are plenty of downsides to AIs encroachment on the creative sphere, but one positive might just be that the value of the human touch becomes more clearand for advertisers, the behind-the-scenes process becomes part of the spectacle.
Ocean waves could be an enormous source of power for the grid: in the U.S., the motion of waves along coastlines could generate as much as 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours a year, or around a third of the electricity that Americans currently use.
But wave power lags far behind other renewable energy. While solar and wind dominate new power installations worldwide, wave energy remains confined to small pilot projects. This makes sense: Its more expensive to build. And harsh ocean conditions make equipment vulnerable to damage in storms.
But in Morocco, one startup is pioneering new technology that could make wave energy more viable, with projects now moving forward at a port and a future data center.
Compared to other wave energy systems, the initial cost is reduced by 70%, says Oussama Nour, CEO and cofounder of the startup, called ATAREC. To help bring down the cost of installation, the company attaches its tech to existing infrastructure rather than building from scratch.
In its first pilot, at the Port of Tanger Meda massive port on the northern coast of Moroccothe startup installed one unit of its tech next to the ports breakwater, a wall built out into the water to shield the harbor from waves. The equipment uses a floating buoy that moves up and down with waves, converting the vertical motion into electricity that can be added to the grid. (Another wave energy startup, Eco Wave Power, also uses existing infrastructure to help lower its costs.)
While solar and wind power are intermittent, wave energy is more predictable and more consistently available. The exact amount varies by location, and changes throughout the day based on conditions like wind and tides. But in its pilot, the company found that its tech produces energy around 62% of the time. Solar power in the region produces energy around 18% of the time, Nour says.
We need to have a mix of wind, solar, and wave [energy], and also batteries, Nour says. By helping fill the gaps when wind and solar arent available, wave power has the potential to help the grid get closer to fully renewable in areas like the Moroccan coast.
The companys technology comes in a range of sizes, with the biggest unit capable of generating 750 kilowatts. At the port, if the technology is installed along the full breakwater, theres room for more than 100 units, which could fully power the port and industrial areas behind it.
A unique design helps make the system more resilient in storms. In bad weather, valves open and let water into the floating buoys so they sink underneath the surface, protecting them from damage. After the storm passes, the buoys rise back up. (For other wave energy tech, storm damage has been a major challenge.) Because the tech is installed next to breakwaters, it’s also easier to access for maintenance than systems that are built farther out in the ocean.
The company, which has raised around $2 million in seed funding so far, is now planning a larger pilot and working on lab tests of its newest system. Its also part of a Microsoft incubator that will later pilot the technology at a data center on the coast.
Since solar and wind have a much larger head startand can be used in more locationswave energy probably won’t end up taking away much market share from them. But it could be useful in certain niches. At a port or a coastal data center that wants to generate as much of its own electricity as possible, for example, solar panels would take up far more space than wave energy tech. Ports could also use the power to produce green hydrogen or ammonia or methanol to fuel ships. And while wave energy can’t provide grid power quite as steadily as geothermal, it also doesn’t involve expensive drilling deep underground, and it’s consistent enough to help make the overall grid more stable.
“I think there’s always going to be a role for different options we can put on the table for different places, for different usage, for different reasons,” says Alexander Dale, the director of global challenges for MIT Solve, a program that leverages MIT resources to help startups like Wave Beat grow. “Helping solutions that are able to fit into different market niches to startand then as they come down the cost curve, more of those niches become availableis good.”
Right now, the levelized cost of energy for Wave Beat’s tech is around 1.5 times more than wind and as much as three times more than solar. Still, Nour says that the cost can become competitive as the tech scales up. It’s already around three times cheaper to install than other wave energy tech, and about half the cost to run.
When Vlad Drguin founded his mid-century inspired toy car company, Candylab, in 2013, he had a Kickstarter page and a dream. His goal was to create wooden model cars inspired by hot rods and classic American car designs; toys that would be both durable enough for play and sleek enough for display. As it turns out, theres a major growing market for that kind of thingand Candylab just rebranded to capture it.
Since its founding, Candylab has secured retail placement in stores like Londons Design Museum, MoMa, the Guggenheim, Barnes & Noble, and the cult favorite apparel brand Kith. Its also notched major brand collabs including with Saint Laurent, Zara Kids, Criterion Collection, The New York Times, and, most recently, Netflixs Stranger Things.
[Photo: Courtesy of Candylab]
In recent years, Candylab has expanded its product offerings into two categories: one is its original line of premium, heftier cars, designed with collectibility in mind, and the second is a new line of smaller, less expensive, more lightweight cars engineered for play. Candylabs toys naturally fit into an increasingly bifurcated toy industry that, over the past few years, has begun targeting two different audiences: kids who want to play with toys, and adults who want to collect them (and maybe play a bit, too).
The companys issue, according to Johnny Selman, founder of the design agency Selman, was that Candylabs branding didnt draw a clear distinction between its core products, making it difficult for customers to understand its offerings. So, his team worked with Candylab to create a new logo, brand positioning, product names, and visual identity that streamline it for a future where toys are meant for every kind of customer.
[Photo: Courtesy of Candylab]
What’s a ‘kidult,’ anyway?
Candylabs products are a prime example of items beloved by a niche that some might refer to as the kidult segment, or an emerging consumer base of adults who are investing in toys of their own.
According to a 2024 Circana report, adults accounted for more toy sales than preschoolers, with 43% purchasing a toy for themselves in the previous year. Companies like Lego and Mattel have increasingly begun tapping into this trend with new, nostalgia-driven items specifically designed for an adult audience. John Paul Chirdon, a creative director at Selman, says Drguins goal has always been to make nice, design-forward toys for kidsand adults interest in the product naturally comes alongside that.
As an adult, you dont really punch down to make something attractive for kids, you just make something really good for kids, Chirdon says. Selmans challenge, then, was to design a brand architecture that was both really awesome for kids and really premium for adults.
[Photo: Courtesy of Candylab]
Designing a new brand for Candylab
When Selman began brainstorming a new brand identity for Candylab, the core problem quickly became clear. Because the company had been built piece-by-piece over time by a small team, it was overflowing with great retro imagery and branding concepts, but lacked a consistent overarching brand story. Across some of the packaging, Johnny says, his team found at least six different versions of the Candylab logo.
[Photo: Courtesy of Candylab]
Selman streamlined the broader branding using past iterations of the Candylab logowhich themselves pulled inspiration from chrome typography on vintage carsto create one retro-yet-legible wordmark that represents the company. From there, it also identified a core color palette for the brand and narrowed its font options to just one type family called Space Grotesk.
This simplification process opened the door for Selman to address the fact that, online, customers had trouble distinguishing between the brands more kid-centric line of cars (then called Candycars) and its more premium, adult-focused large cars (then called Midcentury Americana).
Online, that branding didn’t exist, Chirdon says. The Americana and Candycar lines weren’t visually distinguished from each other or the overarching Candylab brand, leaving consumers confused about the difference between all three. Ultimately, Chirdon adds, we were like, You’re one brandCandylab. Now let’s deal with just making all the products clear.
Looking ahead to new kinds of cars
To start, the team decided to fully rename the premium car line Mints, while the smaller cars are still called Candycars. Now, though, the two lines look entirely distinct on shelves and online.
Mints are universally displayed against an white background, both in packaging and digitally, to keep a cleaner look. Meanwhile, Candycars are packaged and edited onto colorful backgrounds in hues like pastel blue, tangerine, and teal. Mints and Candycars also have their own dedicated logos, each inspired by different eras of car typography.
What we tried to do was push that a little more whimsical for the Candycar line and then push it a little bit more classic grown-up with the Mints line, Johnny says.
[Photo: Courtesy of Candylab]
Candylabs new identity has already appeared online, and it will start rolling out on packaging as new cars debut over time. More importantly, Johnny and Chirdon say, this brand architecture means that Candylab can start introducing new product lines without confusing customerslike an accessory pack of toy roads called Roadworks and a fresh car design called Toons, both of which are part of Candylabs current fundraiser on Kickstarter.
We helped them create the platform to keep going with clarity, Chirdon says.
Three months ago, I fired up ChatGPT and asked it to design a highly aggressive, short-term investment portfolio, selecting five stocks that were most likely to make me fabulously wealthy in six months time.
Then, I threw good sense to the wind, transferred $500 of my actual money into a Robinhood account, and bought the stocks that ChatGPT had pitched.
Since then, its been a wild ride.
My portfolio has flown to new heights, giving me serious FOMO about the fact that I didnt put all my money into ChatGPTs picks.
Then, it singed its wings, falling Icarus-style to lows that had me almost ready to bail on the whole thing and redirect the charred remains of my money to the kind of boring stuff (car payments, dental work) that I probably should have used it for in the first place.
Were halfway through my six-month experiment. Lets dig deeper into how things have gone.
First, a disclaimer. Nothing here should be considered investment advice. As youll see, stocks picked by chatbots are incredibly volatile, and theres a solid chance I could lose most of my investment. Always consult a professional before making your own financial decisions.
A Crazy Strong Start
When I asked ChatGPT to pick a portfolio of five high-growth stocks back in September, it spent almost 10 minutes doing research before returning its picks.
The five it chose were Palantir, AppLovin, MicroStrategy, Agios Pharmaceuticals, and Hut 8.
The bot felt that Palantir and AppLovin had strong, AI-powered businesses that would continue to dominate their markets and grow.
Agios Pharma, the bot reported, was awaiting the results of an FDA trial for a new drug. If the trial was successful, ChatGPT felt its value would soar.
And finally, Hut 8 and MicroStrategy were essentially leveraged Bitcoin plays. Both companies held a lot of Bitcoins on their balance sheets, and so their valuations should swing along with the value of those coinsonly on steroids, because of the effects of leverage.
I hadnt heard of many of those companies. Still, I decided to blindly trust ChatGPTs advice and sink $500 into them, dividing the money evenly across ChatGPTs picks as it suggested.
At first, things went well enough. In the first three weeks of my experiment, my portfolio climbed by about 12%. That was promising.
Then, all of a sudden, things started going very well.
In October, my portfolio took off. Each morning when I opened the Robinhood app, I was greeted by a delightful swirl of green numbers, climbing ever higher.
By the beginning of November, my portfolio was worth $652a gain of almost 1/3 in just two months time. Extrapolating that out to the full year, my gains would have been 180%+ if the momentum continued.
And at the time, it wasnt just continuing. It was accelerating.
I started quietly wondering whether I had been too cautious with this experiment. Maybe I should have put $1,000 into ChatGPTs picks instead of $500. Maybe I should take out a second mortgage and put that money into the bots picks, too.
Or maybe I had discovered a whole new way of investing, and soon every quant fund would be knocking down my door, offering me a $900,000 per year salary (before bonus, of course) to teach them my Thomas Smith AI Stock Investing Method.
And an Equally Crazy Fall
Then, all of a sudden, everything went horribly wrong. Just as October had been a sea of green, November was nothing but blood-red numbers each time I fired up Robinhood.
By the 20th of the month, my portfolio had plummeted from its peak of $652 to only $451.
Thats a 30% decline in about 3 weeksa spectacular fall.
It was also the first time I was genuinely in the red, and had actually lost my own money (on paper, anyway) through my AI investing experiment.
And the losses seemed to be piling on, accelerating just as fast as the gains had done before. That was unsettling, and not something I relished explaining to my accountant at the end of next tax year.
I could imagine the conversation:
So Tom, you have a $500 loss attributed to Misc Investments here. Tell me about that.
Well, I asked ChatGPT to invest money for me, and then blindly followed its exact recommendations. And then I didnt cut my losses when it started going poorly, because I was afraid my readers would yell at me.
**long pause**
I see
How Will it All End?
As I write this in early December, my portfolio has stabilized a bit, and Im back in the black, with a total gain of $14.
Theres still three months left in my experiment, so its possible that my portfolio will rise from the ashes and fly again. But Lambo money is looking increasingly unlikely.
What went wrong? On a basic level, ChatGPTs picks were bad.
Bitcoins value has plummeted over the last few months, and the bots portfolio isby designvery exposed to Bitcoin.
ChatGPT also bet on Agios Pharma getting positive results from its clinical trials. In fact, those results were mixed. The stock duly dropped.
AppLovin was likewise doing great, until the SEC launched a probe into its data gathering practices.
Bad picks arent necessarily the real problem, though. Human investment managers mis-call the market or make bad picks all the time. Risk is part of investing.
The real issue is how confidently ChatGPT backed up its picks with bold, assertive language.
Overall, the portfolio aims for explosive upside rather than stability. Each stock has recent momentum o an upcoming catalyst, so this mix could significantly outperform if trends continue, the bot told me when it selected its portfolio.
The whole thing was tilted for maximal growth the bot assured me, bolded text and all.
About Agios, it said A positive FDA outcome or even renewed optimism could spark a significant rally, and about MicroStrategy it insisted Analysts project that a BTC surge to $150K could yield ~6570% stock gains.
Even its disclaimer (Actual outcomes depend on market moves but all are supported by the cited fundamental and market trends.) isnt really a disclaimer. The bot essentially interrupts itself mid-sentence to further reassure me that its making good choices, and invalidate any sense of caution it may have inadvertently introduced.
Chatbots overconfidence is a well-documented issue. In many cases, the certainty with which bots deliver their responses is annoying, but not damaging.
ChatGPT recently swore to one of my family members that Philadelphias 44 Bus doesnt run on weekends. It was Saturday. As it was telling her this, the bus passed by on the street outside.
That makes for a funny story about bots failability. But when chatbots are performing mission-critical functions related to our health and money, their baked-in overconfidence is way riskier.
I knew what I was getting myself into with my investing experiment. But a naive investor might not read a chatbots stock advice critically. Believing its confident language, they could lose serious money by trusting the bot too much.
As for me, Ive still got my $500 invested, for better or worse. Perhaps ChatGPT will ultimately prove prescient, and a late-stage Bitcoin rally will save my dreams of unbridled wealth.
Or, maybe the rest of my half-grand will evaporate. In another three months, Ill know!
Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issueseverything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.
Heres a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.
1. Ive fired my new employee before
I recently took a new job in my same industry and city. In my new role, Ill have a team of eight reporting to me in various capacities and functions. During the interview process, I got a brief read-out on the team and a high-level talent assessment. Nothing stood out as an issue. On my first day, I met the team reporting to me. One of the people on the team is someone who worked for me before and whom I terminated for cause because of performance at my previous company.
What do I communicate to my management team or HR about this situation? It feels weird to say nothing because ultimately this could be a management issueIm sure this employee doesnt feel great about the situation. On the other hand, I dont want to risk harming this persons reputation at this company if they are doing a good job so far. This person is pretty new here too, and my impression is they are either doing a better job in this role or management has not yet identified an issue with their performance.
Green responds:
Have you talked to the employee yet? Thats important because they are undoubtedly really uncomfortable, if not outright panicking. Ideally, youd tell them that youre happy to be working with them again, youve heard good things about the work theyve been doing (if thats true), and while you know your last time working together didnt go the way either of you wanted, this is a different situation and, as far youre concerned, both of you are starting fresh.
I do think youre right that you need to mention it to your management team or HR. Its unfortunate, because this person is entitled to a fresh start without the firing following them to a different job, but its relevant not as a predictor of the persons work now, but because it could affect the dynamic between the two of you, and either of you could struggle not to interpret things through that old lens. You can keep it very briefI managed Jane at a previous company, and unfortunately the fit wasnt right and we ended up parting ways. Im very willing to start fresh with her and Im hopeful the role shes in could be a great match, but I wanted to flag the prior work relationship. Also, if its been a while since you worked together, stress that, too.
2. Why do people respond to emails with a phone call?
Whats the etiquette on responding to people youve emailed who respond with a phone call? I understand there are times when a phone call is necessary. Ive been getting dozens of phone calls (after sending out a ton of emails on a certain work issue) and they all ask me to call them back. Im just frustrated because if I email someone, its because I dont want to talk on the phone. And the question is usually easily answered via email. Whats the best way to respond?
Green responds:
I get being annoyed, but its not always up to youand sometimes it makes sense.
Sometimes people will call you back because they thinkoften rightlythat itll be faster. They might not be sure about the meaning of your email and they want to clarify before responding, and figure theyll just jump on the phone rather than going back and forth. Or their answer might take a long time to write out but be easier to deliver over the phone. Or they just prefer the phone, just as you prefer email. And not everyone feels they communicate as well in writing as they do out loud.
For an email fan, this can be annoying. When you like email, it feels efficient and convenient and respectful of everyones time. Plus, sometimes its helpful to have a written record of what was discussed as a reference you can look back at later if needed. And if youre having an especially busy day or suspect a call will be 30 minutes when it should be five, it might be fine to let the call go to voicemail, and then email later with, Got your voicemail. Im in back-to-back meetings and will be hard to reach todayany chance email will work? Maybe it will, and theyll tell you if it wont. But save that for when you really need itbecause while you get to have your preferences, they get to have theirs, too.
3. Setting boundaries on requests for help from your significant others network
I am engaged to a wonderful person. We both work in the same field, though for different organizations. We are working to create healthy boundaries between our personal and professional lives and it is important to both of us that we are able to pursue careers independently.
My organization is bigger and engages in some grant-making activities. A coworker of my fiancés recently reached out to me for more information on how their organization could acquire funding. I directed her to publicly available resources, but she responded seeking a personal introduction to our grant officer. This made me uncomfortable; Im happy to connect anyone who asks to see public information, but it felt like she was leveraging my personal relationship to gain access. I know the importnce of networking and personal connections, but I have no professional relationship with this person and weve met only once in passing.
My fiancé and I discussed the need for a policy on how to deal with these kinds of inquiries as we see this being a recurring issue as we move forward in our careers. I would love advice on how to navigate these kinds of requests.
Green responds:
The way you handled it sounds just fine. When she asked for an introduction to the grant officer, you could have said, Oh, we get such a high volume of interest in funding that we ask all grant applicants to follow the process listed on our website. And if she still pushed: Im sorry I cant help. Were really rigorous about asking everyone to use the process on our website so that everyone is treated the same. Thanks for understanding!
In other words, not so different from how youd probably handle it if your fiancé werent in the picture. Explain what the person should do, and then reiterate that if necessary. Be warm and friendly, but hold firm on what you are and arent willing or able to do.
My answer would be different if the person had been requesting something different. If she were asking for something like an informal chat about moving into your fieldas opposed to this kind of special treatmentId encourage you to consider that, like you presumably would consider other similar requests that came through a mutual contact.
Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to alison@askamanager.org.
Alison Green
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
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