Route 66. The name alone evokes nostalgia for a simpler, freer time in American history, when roadies stopped for a hot dog with ketchup, then drove into ocher sunsets suspended over the Mojave desert.
Ever since it was built in 1926, the Mother Road has gained mythical status, drawing millions of visitors from around the world yearning for a taste of old Americathe one before the interstate highway system favored speed over experience.
For Rhys Martin, who has spent years on the road with his camera, this isn’t what Route 66 is about. Yes, you can travel back in time and get a glimpse of Americana, but the route isn’t fossilized in the past. It’s very much still breathing.
“Route 66 is more than just this 1950s sanitized version of American history,” he says. “It’s diverse, it’s evolving, and I like to say that no matter who you are or where you’re from, somewhere on Route 66, you’ll find your reflection.”
Martin, who manages the Preserve Route 66 program at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is part of a group of advocates and preservationists who want to change the narrative around Route 66 from one that paints the road as a mirror into the past to one that reflects the present, where many communities still live and people still work.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
His team’s mission has now culminated in Route 66 Rewind: a browser-based experience that lets users drive across 33 landmarks along the route from their own (virtual) vintage car or motorcycle. You can steer the wheel, pick a radio station, and see how the Midpoint Cafe or the U-Drop Inn looked in previous decades.
[Photo: Kansas Historic Route 66 Association]
The experience was codeveloped by Google Arts & Culture with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and is part of a larger storytelling hub that lives on the Google Arts & Culture platform. The team turned archival photographs into videos using Googles AI video generator Veo, composed the radio music using music generation model Lyria, and wrote the radio commentary using Gemini. The result is a sim road trip that uses AI in the best possible way: to direct the narrative back to people, and highlight the human experience that continues to shape the route today.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
Route 66: A corridor of stories
Martin first saw the road through the lens of a camera. Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he’d heard of Route 66, but he knew only the broad strokes. Then one day in 2013, he hopped into his late father’s Mustang and drove to Miami, Oklahoma, to photograph the Coleman Theatrea 1929 vaudeville theater with a facade “so ornate it had no business being in the town of Miami,” he recalls. The surprising discovery had him wondering: What else was on the highway?
Martins curiosity led him on a two-year road trip across Route 66 that grew into a decade-long love affair with the people he met along the way. “Eventually I realized it’s a corridor of stories,” he says.
One of the biggest misconceptions about Route 66 is that the destinations along its route have faded into ghost towns. The construction of the interstate highway system in the 50s and 60s, followed by the decommissioning of the route in 1985, no doubt stripped many of these towns of their purpose. As travel evolved and car speeds got faster, the need for frequent gas stations and motels diminished. The government divested. People left towns.
But not everyone left. In Tulsa, entrepreneurs like Mary Beth Babcock have spent years revitalizing stretches of the road. In 2019, she transformed the historic Pemco gas station into a souvenir shop called Buck Atoms Cosmic Curios, complete with two very on-brand, 20-foot-tall mascots that double as roadside attractions.
That same year, Dutch entrepreneur Sebastiaan de Boorder and his wife, Anna Marie Gonzalez, renovated the 1919 Aztec Motel in Seligman, Arizona, which reopened as the Aztec Motel & Creative Space in 2021. “There is so much development still coming to Route 66, and most of it is mom and pops who’ve always dreamed of having a business on Route 66, Martin says.
[Photo: Arizona Preservation Foundation]
Today, the American dream that once defined Route 66 looks different. Some might say it doesn’t exist at all. But for Martin, it lives on along the Mother Road.
“I agree that the American dream doesn’t quite hit like it used to,” he tells me, “but on Route 66, you still find people who have bought into the cliché that Route 66 means freedom, and they are adding their story to this highway that’s now entering its second century.”
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
AI fills the gaps of archival memory
Route 66 is now approaching its centennial. Next year, various destinations along the route will burst into caravans and car parades to celebrate the route’s legacy. But for the team behind Route 66 Rewind, the goal isn’t just to celebrate the past but to galvanize the next generation.
“Preservation creates,” says Martin, noting that anytime a building is preserved, it activates the connection people had with it while helping young people engage with the conversation. “That’s how you inspire the next generation to add their story to this long history.”
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
With its AI-powered features and fun UX, Route 66 Rewind presented itself as a way to make history exciting for younger people. But when the team sat down to convey said history, they realized they didn’t know how many of these places looked in their heyday, beyond a few archival photographs. AI became a way to fill in what Amit Sood, the founder and director of Google Arts & Culture, calls “the gaps of archival memory.”
The Google team worked with the National Trust team to collect black-and-white photos and written accounts they could use to prompt AI, cross-referencing each output with experts at the Trust.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
The resulting videos act as miniature time capsules of a bygone era. In Collinsville, Illinois, you can follow ketchup bottles stream past on a conveyor belt inside the now-defunct Brooks Foods ketchup factory. In Lebanon, Missouri, you can peek inside the now-closed Munger Moss Motel, its iconic neon sign flickering under a 1960s sun.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
But as Sood points out, these dreamy snapshots inspire you to preserve, too. The hope is that the AI-powered vision of, say, the Threatt Filling Stationthe only Black-owned-and-operated gas station during the Jim Crow erawill pique your interest enough for you to visit the storytelling hub and learn about the craftsmen who are now working to restore the building’s “giraffe-stone” exterior.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
Next year, Route 66 is likely to be designated a National Historic Trail. The designation, which is being championed by members of both the U.S. House and Senate, could help preserve the historic route, boost tourism, and support local economies ahead of the highway’s centennial celebration.
In the meantime, perhaps the AI-powered platform will galvanize tourists both domestically and from abroad to get on the road and see how the myth lives on. “The goal is to keep the car rolling down the street and get more people engaged,” Martin says. “It’s going to be a big party [next year], but that’s definitely not the end. Its the start of the next 100 years.”
Generic store brand groceries can increasingly be found in the pantries, fridges, and freezers of Americans across all income groups. Once designed to communicate value and affordability, a new generation of private labels designed for high earners is driving sales.
Among households earning more than $100,000 a year, 82% say they’ve increased the frequency of buying store-brand groceries “often” or “very often,” according to a report from Alvarez & Marsal Global, a consulting firm.
That’s compared to 74% of households earnings less than $100,000 a year who also say they’ve increased their store-brand grocery purchases.
Grocers have rebranded and grown their portfolio of private label brands over the past several years to cater to consumers pressed by inflation, and it’s paid off as the highest-earning shoppers make up an increasingly large share of the economy. The report attributed the steep increase among the highest-earning Americans to “improvements made in private label products.”
[Photo: Walmart]
Nowhere is this more true than Walmart, the leading grocer since 2019, which launched a new private label called Bettergoods in 2024 that includes products that are plant-based, organic, or gluten-free. These products intentionally cater to the Whole Foods shopper with bright, well-designed packaging. The company reported quarterly revenue of $179.5 billion, up 5.8%, and said high-income households were part of the reason why.
“We continue to benefit from higher-income families choosing to shop with us more often,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on the company’s earnings call late last month.
Upgraded, design-ified generic brands aren’t just boosting high-income shopping, though. The report found 68% of shoppers across all income groups believe store brands offer quality that is as good or better than national brands, and switching to store brands was the No. 1 way shoppers said they cut their grocery bill.
[Photo: Aldi]
Those trends are shaping the industry. Albertson’s says it’s aiming for private labels to eventually account for 30% of its business, Aldi put its name on all its products for the first time, and Amazon debuted a new branded online grocery store with packaging that makes good use of its new font, bright colors, and white space.
With high-income households driving so much spending, industries from airlines to produce are especially catering to the shoppers with high-end products and premium experiences. At the grocery store, though, the success of private labels proves that when it comes to cooking dinner, even the highest-earning among us are looking for a good deal.
Rare earths monopoly. Unrivaled manufacturing supply chains. Free AI models that rival, or surpass, its American counterparts. More research papers and more STEM doctorates than anyone else. If you are reading a lot about these topics lately, you know how Chinas decades-long strategy to become the top global superpowerand the greatest threat to U.S. world dominationis coming to fruition. What you may not be aware of is the other crucial part of Beijings plans; its industrial ramp up to dominate the most crucial resource on the planet: the oceans.
Chinas pursuit of maritime dominance has shifted from a regional ambition to a global reality, driven by a breakneck speed naval expansion that rivals that of the U.S. during World War II. The Asian country has already produced the worlds largest military fleet by ship count (although Washington still dominates in tonnage thanks to its large aircraft carrier groups). Yet Beijings strategy for controlling the Indo-Pacificand beyondrelies on more than just warships; it increasingly depends on gray zone tactics that blur the line between scientific research and military projection. China is systematically deploying dual-use “civilian” assetsfrom oceanographic survey ships to militarized fishing fleetsto map key strategic waterways and assert sovereignty without firing a shot.
This “advancing without attacking” doctrine is now escalating with a new class of megastructures designed to solidify China’s permanent presence in contested waters. While the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) challenges U.S. supremacy with advanced carriers like the Fujian and new nuclear carriers in preparation, Beijing is simultaneously rolling out a parallel infrastructure of floating islands and underwater bases.
[Image: China State Shipbuilding Corporation]
China says that it is built for the blue economythe idea that the oceans are a huge resource still waiting to be untappedwhich is true. But, oh the wonders! These facilities are engineered with military-grade survivability, effectively functioning as forward-operating bases that extend China’s reach far beyond its shores while maintaining a veneer of civilian legitimacy.
The latest entries in this network of assets are deep-sea bases, underwater server farms, and, now, a floating research platform engineered to withstand nuclear blasts. Together, these projects form a connected infrastructure designed for long-term operations, resource extraction, and data processing at sea designed not only to gain scientific and industrial advantages but to expand Beijings footprint in the world’s oceans.
First of its kind
Lets look at these one by one, starting with the most impressive: Detailed in a research paper published earlier this month in the Chinese Journal of Ship Research, the new Deep-Sea All-Weather Resident Floating Research Facility is a 86,000-ton semi-submersible platform described by its developers as a mobile, self-sustaining artificial island.
Contracts with the shipyard that will build itthe China State Shipbuilding Corporationspecify a twin-hull vessel 453 feet long and 279 feet wide, with a main deck rising 148 feet above the waterline, according to the South China Morning Post. It is designed to house 238 people for up to four months without resupply. Its an incredible project with no rival anywhere in the world.
According to Yang Deqing and his team at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the facility is built for “all-weather, long-term residency.” Its superstructure contains critical compartments for emergency power, communications, and navigation that are hardened to remain operational after a nuclear explosion.
[Image: China State Shipbuilding Corporation]
The platform is rated to operate in Sea State 7rough seas with waves between 20 feet and 30 feetand to survive typhoons up to Category 17, the highest rating on the Chinese scale. Project leader Lin Zhongqin stated that his team is “racing to complete the design and construction, aiming for operational status by 2028.” The vessel will cruise at approximately 17 miles per hour to conduct deep-sea observations and test mining technologies in areas including the South China Sea.
But perhaps the most impressive thing after its absurdly large size and its towering dual-hull design is the material they invented to make it capable of withstand a nuclear shock wave without the weight of traditional heavy armor.
The engineers designed a “sandwich bulkhead” using a lattice of corrugated metal tubes. These tubes, folded at a precise 21.25-degree angle with walls just 0.02 inches thick, utilize something technically called a “negative Poissons ratio which means that, unlikestandard materials that bulge outward when compressed, this structure contracts inward and densifies, distributing the impact. They claim their simulations showed a 2.4-inch thick panelroughly the width of a smartphoneoutperforming thicker steel plates. Under a simulated nuclear blast pressure of 25.8 psi (177.83 kilopascals), the design reduced maximum structural displacement by 58.53% compared to conventional armor.
An underwater space station
China is also deploying a James Bond-like underwater base located at a depth of roughly 6,560 feet in the South China Sea, which appears to be the first out of many. According to project leader Yin Jianping, of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, the project is a “space station in the sea.” Connected to a fiber-optic network, its pressurized modules are designed to host six scientists for up to a month.
The base will investigate how to extract methane hydrateto help satisfy the countrys ever-growing energy needsand survey deposits of rare earth elements, cobalt, and nickel. It will be supported by the drilling ship Meng Xiang and a network of uncrewed submersibles that will double as a surveillance system for the country.
In parallel, China has deployed its first commercial underwater data center off the coast of Hainan. A 1,433-ton structure submerged 115 feet deep that houses 24 server racks. Project manager Pu Ding points out that they put the entire data cabin in the deep sea because seawater can help cool down the temperature.”
The developers claim this passive cooling can save around 90% of the energy typically used for climate control in land-based centers. A similar test unit near Shanghai will draw power from offshore wind farms, and the company that is building this data center estimates that over 95% of its energy will come from renewable sources. The idea is not new. Microsoft tested it and found out that, indeed, it works great. Surprisingly, the Redmond, Washington company is not working on it anymore and will not scale the idea up.
Which is both sadbecause of the huge energy waste that current server farms represent, which could be greatly reduced by natural coolingand shocking because the U.S. is in the middle of a worldwide war for AI domination with China. The latter is not leaving a stone unturned to win that war, which is precisely what this new floating megastructure is all about. Beijing is not going to stop at making your iPhones, your rare earth magnets, and building the best AIs using the largest army of STEM doctors in the world. China wants to become the biggest maritime superpower toojust like Spain, Britain, and the U.S. in past centuries. And we are witnessing its overture in real time.
Mark Mansons 2016 book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck delivered some hard truths and prescient advice to millions of readers seeking answers. Now hes building an AI-based application to do the same.
At that time, Manson says the self-help field was unrealistic, not very evidence basedjust designed to make you feel good, inspiring him to write a book that offered a more skeptical, realistic, and zero bull shit approach to personal growth and self-help.
Nearly a decade later, Manson says hes seeing the same pattern in the digital world, with millions turning to generic AI platforms for guidance, only to receive unrealistic, potentially harmful advice. Thats what inspired him to team up with serial tech entrepreneur Raj Singhwho most recently sold his AI hotel concierge service GoMomentto create on-demand life coaching app Purpose, which launches this week.
The AI tool offers users life guidance and actionable steps to solve problems, from career to relationships and beyond. It also seeks to challenge, rather than validate users (something many experts have argued many AI platforms do), albeit in a polite, supportive tone. It pairs existing research into cognitive behavioral therapy with data gathered from users upon sign up, and retains conversation history to track patterns over time. According to an internal survey, 41% of early users said the app has been life-changing.
We’ve actually had a number of people tell us that they’ve cried while using it, Manson says. We really tried to build this AI to go deep quickly, to not beat around the bush or do any fake pleasantries.
Fast Company caught up with the author-turned-tech-founder from Los Angeles to talk about the legacy of The Subtle Art, whether were ready to share our deepest thoughts with an app, and why AI is the perfect tool to deliver personalized coaching at scale.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Were you surprised by the success of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck?
The scope of the success caught me off guard. My pie-in-the-sky dream at the time was a million copies, so the fact that its exceeded that so drastically has been a pleasant surprise.
Why do you think it was such a hit?
When I got started in this industry in the early 2010s, self-help was very touchy-feely, very woo-woo. It was, in my opinion, unrealistic, not very evidence basedjust designed to make you feel good. It felt like there was a deep hunger, especially among millennials, for a skeptical, realistic, zero-bullshit approach to personal growth and self-help. That was the inspiration.
Coincidentally a lot of the cultural observations at the timelike about social media and distraction and chronically comparing ourselves to othershave aged really well. I think I identified early on the world we were heading toward.
How has your life changed since?
Financial security is probably the single biggest change, and thats great, but being a very successful author is weird in that the book is the celebrity, not me. Im not getting recognized on the street or anything. Its just a bunch of numbers on emails that youre like wow, thats a large number. Then you go back to your same apartment and hang out with your same friends.
Why transition from author to tech cofounder?
When my career started to blow up, there were opportunities to do seminars and start a coaching business, but I didnt really want to charge somebody $5,000 to spend a weekend in a hotel ballroom with me. Ive been obsessed with this question of, how can we help more people? Like, what does a better version of this industry look like?
One of the problems I identified well before ChatGPT came out is that the stuff that actually works doesnt scale, and the stuff that scales doesnt work. My book was read by millions of people, but a book has to talk in broad principles, and the reader needs to connect the dots for themselves. It might move the needle for some people, but not much. What really works is working with an excellent coach or therapist, which is extremely personalized and requires a major investment of time and energy, so it doesnt scale.
Then ChatGPT came out, and I heard people were asking it big life questions. I tried it myself, and it does okay in terms of some questions, but not others. It felt like there was an opportunity for a properly trained AI to scale that personalization.
How did you meet your cofounder?
At a poker game. After ChatGPT came out, I was meeting with AI companies, but they didnt really get it. And then I sat down next to Raj Singh at a poker game just as he was finishing a sabbatical in 2023, and was independently thinking about doing something with AI and mental health. We started chatting, and it turns out we were thinking about the same question.
What is Purpose all about? What makes it different from generic AI platforms?
Purpose is a personalized AI mentor designed to help you find clarity and direction in your life as soon as possible. One of the biggest issues I see with using ChatGPT for life questions is that its default approach is to validate you. If you complain about your ex-girlfriends, ChatGPT will tell you theyre terrible, and youre a great guy, so just pick yourself up and itll be okay when what you might actually need to hear is like, hey dude, you might be the problem. The goal with Purpose is to build an AI that will challenge your assumptions, poke holes in some of your beliefs, point out blind spots, and help you reconsider how you see your own approach.
The app does take a positive tone, though.
Theres a fine line between flattery and positivity, and its something were trying to calibrate all the time. It changes based on the user, the context, the issue.
Part of our onboarding experience is designed to get an early read of the users personality traits. The AI speaks to people differently based on how agreeable they are. Some people want very direct advice, others want it to be a bit more encouraging and positive, and its something were working on fine tuning all the time.
The entire field of psychology is already in all these LLMs. The value is finding that calibration. ChatGPT is poorly calibrated for it, partly because of the sycophancy, partly because of the lack of personalization, partly because of the poor memory. Were trying to fix those things.
Are people open to receiving that advice from a bot?
When you’re talking to a humaneven a trusted person, like a therapistit’s almost impossible to not worry what that person thinks about you. With AI, I dont care. I dont feel shame: I just say what I feel. And what Ive also found is that when it gives me harsh feedback, I dont feel that social anxiety thats attached to criticism or negative feedback from a person.
What about privacy and security concerns?
Trust is by far the most important thing in this space. We are building Purpose with all the highest security and privacy regulations, like HIAA and GDPR. Conversations are anonymized on each device, so even if somebody puts a gun to my head or Rajs, we cant share your conversations, because we dont have any way to identify individual users. Its also entirely self-fundedwhich is something Raj and I feel very strongly aboutto keep the proper incentives in place and not jeopardize the goal and mission of the product.
Whats next for you personally?
I am going to be strongly involved in Purposes product design, but I do feel like its probably time to write another book. Its been about five years, and I need to get back on that horse.
Did Purpose suggest that?
Not specifically. But it probably would have if I asked.
OpenAI appeared to be closer to pulling the trigger on advertising in ChatGPT in recent days, but a growing threat from Google has forced the company to pause those plans as it gears up for a quickly escalating chatbot fight.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent a memo to staff on December 1 declaring a “code red” and ordering the company’s primary focus to be on improving ChatGPT. As part of that directive, Altman reportedly said the company would be pushing back work on other projects, including the introduction of advertising to its chatbot.
The about-face came just days after Tibor Blaho, an engineer working on a Chrome extension that offers pre-written prompts for ChatGPT, posted on social media that he had discovered lines of code which heavily referenced ads in a beta version of ChatGPT’s Android app, including mentions of “ads feature,” “search ad,” and “bazaar content.” (That beta has not yet been released to the public.)
Altman has hedged when the topic of ads in ChatGPT has come up previously. While saying he “hates ads” personally, he added at a 2024 Harvard University fireside chat that he was “not totally against them” and stressed, “I’m not saying OpenAI would never consider ads.”
He cushioned those comments, though, by saying “ads plus AI is uniquely unsettling to me. When I think of GPT writing me a response, if I had to go figure out exactly how much was [a sponsor] paying . . . to influence what I’m being shown, I don’t think I would like that very much.”
The discovery of ad code is not conclusive proof that ChatGPT will incorporate advertisements into its chatbot. It’s possible OpenAI is planning to work with other companies to let them personalize ad content on other sites based on ChatGPT usage.
OpenAI did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the ad code.
ChatGPT has become a Goliath in the AI space. In October, Altman disclosed that the chatbot sees 800 million weekly active users, a big jump from the 500 million WAUs it reported at the end of March. It has amassed that sizable user base in just three years.
But as it has grown, so too have competitors. Googles Gemini AI has emerged recently as perhaps the most serious threat to OpenAI’s dominance, outpacing ChatGPT in industry benchmarks. Gemini 3, released last month, also has a huge built-in user base, as the technology was inserted into Google Search as well as a full suite of developer tools.
Altman’s memo indicates the company is feeling the pressure from Gemini and other AI firms, which (like OpenAI) are spending heavily in the race for leadership in the AI space. Altman told his team that work needed to be done on improving personalization for users, increasing speed and reliability, and widening the range of questions that ChatGPT can answer.
Right now, OpenAI generates much of its revenue from partnerships with businesses that use its API model and via paid subscriptions to its most advanced technology. (A free version that is less advanced is available to users who prefer not to pay.)
The company is on track to hit $20 billion in revenue this year. Altman has said he expects that figure to grow to hundreds of billions by 2030.
Even so, the company says it cannot guarantee it will turn a profit within the next five years, given the high cost of computing. In the meantime, it expects to post massive losses, including a projected $74 billion shortfall in 2028.
Businesses still spend billions each year on management training programs, but here we are in 2025with a growing leadership gap and executives scrambling for answers.
And if I can get honest for a moment: Were still approaching the problem backward.
Senior leaders keep promoting high-performing individual contributors into leadership roles and expecting them to figure it out on the fly. Many dont have the time, support, or temperament to lead people well. Then were surprised when the results are uneven or the team burns out.
Before companies invest in another round of training, they need to start with a more fundamental question: Are we choosing the right people to lead? And more important, are we modeling the leadership behaviors we want them to learn?
Start with what actually works: Model servant leadership
Leadership boils down to people, trust, and relationships. And the simple truth is still the same today: Great leaders lead by serving. They focus on what their people need to succeedclarity, coaching, safety, and supportnot on protecting their own ego or authority.
For readers familiar with my coaching work and the book I authored earlier this year, you know Ive been beating this drum for years: Servant leadership has moved from a niche, values-driven concept to the core operating philosophy of many of the worlds most admired and profitable companies.
After over two decades of developing leaders, Ive seen a consistent pattern: The best leaders genuinely want their people to thrive. Theyre willing to put the teams needs first, share credit freely, and take responsibility when things go sideways.
They grow people rather than simply manage tasks. And that kind of growthpersonal, professional, relationalis what builds resilient teams.
Whether you lead 3 people or 3,000, these behaviors will elevate your impact and build trust faster than any leadership playbook.
1. Build trust through real, intentional caring
Strong leaders show interest in peoples work, their goals, and their long-term direction. Theyre curious about what motivates each person and intentional about creating opportunities that stretch their skills.
This isnt soft. Its emotional engagementand its one of the biggest drivers of performance and retention.
Think about it: When leaders support their people through promotions and pay raises (first and foremost), internal moves, stretch assignments, or removing obstacles from their path, it sends a powerful messageyou matter. As the (often-attributed) John C. Maxwell quote goes, People dont care how much you know until they know how much you care.
When employees feel their leaders genuinely care, confidence rises, performance follows, and career paths become healthier and more aligned with their strengths.
2. Use empathy to connect with others and drive results
In 2018, Global training powerhouse Development Dimensions International (DDI) assessed 15,000-plus leaders across 20 industries and found empathy to be the strongest predictor of overall performanceespecially the ability to listen and respond with empathy.
That hasnt changed. If anything, the modern workplacewith hybrid teams, rising burnout, AI, and constant changehas made empathy even more essential.
But empathy isnt a strategy you perform and it doesnt come from a to-do list. It shows up in how you listen, how you check in, and how you respond to someones realityeven when their experience is different from your own.
Empathic leaders dont just hear what people say; they understand the context, emotions, and challenges behind it. That perspective creates psychological safety, and safety unlocks creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration.
3. Be radically transparent
A transparent culture builds trust and fosters collaboration. When people feel safe voicing their thoughts, it deepens engagement and creates a more resilient, trustworthy team dynamic. Tip: Encourage employees to ask any questionyes, even the hard ones.
People also dont stress around transparent leaders and teamwork isnt undermined, because information is shared openly to let everyone know whats going on at all times. Going a step further, studies prove that organizations that share privileged information with their employeestypically reserved for the ivory tower in command-and-control power structuresreduce uncertainty and alleviate stress about where they are headed and why. One example of openness, perhaps a bit extreme for most companies, is social media optimization company Buffer. It goes so far as to post its formula for salaries online for everyone to see, including the compensation of CEO Joel Gascoigne.
Bringing it home
No leadership framewor works without spending real time with your people. Learn who they are, what energizes them, and what blocks them. Understand their strengths, their motivations, their values, and their blind spots.
So heres a question worth asking yourself today:How well do you really know the people you lead?
If you want to advance your leadership impact, start by serving. Learn what matters to your team. Shape roles that offer meaning and purpose. Use their strengths wisely. And champion their growtheven if that growth eventually takes them to a new team or a new company.
When you invest in people this way, you dont just build stronger teams. You build a healthier culture, a deeper bench of future leaders, and long-term success for everyone involved.
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Marcel Schwantes
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
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Age really is just a number when it comes to social media, as new research from Ampere Analysis shows that more than half of users ages 55 to 64 now watch influencer content every week.
This number is up by 10 percentage points since 2020. In the U.K., the figure has also risen over the past five years, from 30% to 38%.
TikTok and YouTube, in particular, are behind the growthproof that Boomers social media presence is no longer limited to Facebook.
The biggest surprise in our latest data wasnt how popular influencer videos have become, it is how rapidly this trend has extended to older audiences, Annabel Yeomans, senior research manager at Ampere Analysis, said in a statement on December 1.
That age group55 to 64delivered the highest growth in YouTubes monthly viewing from the first quarter of 2020 to the third quarter of 2025, up by 25% in the U.S. and 14% in the U.K.
In the past year alone, TikToks monthly active users grew 6% in the U.S. and 16% in the U.K. among audiences ages 55 to 64.
The growing popularity of influencer content with older viewers comes as YouTube has established itself as a living-room viewing experience.
More than a quarter (29%) now use a smart TV monthly to watch YouTube, as smart TV ownership among internet users ages 55 to 64 in the U.K. and the U.S. is up 20 percentage points since the pandemic, jumping from 59% to 79%.
As viewing habits diversify and platforms like YouTube and TikTok become part of living-room viewing, the lines between social and traditional platforms are blurring, Yeomans said.
Streaming platforms have responded by partnering with influencers on premium content, as Netflix has with kids educator Rachel Anne Accursos Ms. Rachel videos and Amazon has with Molly-Mae Hagues docuseries, Molly-Mae: Behind It All.
And yet, just 15% of older consumers globally feel represented in the advertising they see, according to GWI, jumping to 20% for those who follow brands or influencers on social media.
To fill this gap, the number of so-called granfluencers is also increasing. These older creators represent a fast-growing demographic of social media users, and thus are starting to catch marketers attention.
New opportunities for collaboration across different platform types are emerging, Yeomans said. Streaming services are increasingly partnering with influencers, an approach that first attracted younger viewers and is now gaining traction among older audiences.
There’s a lot of chatter right now about an AI bubble, fueled in part by a perception that productivity gains from AI are largely illusory. I can’t speak to the market, and whether AI is broadly overvalued or undervalued, but I can tell you that in the past year alone, AI has completely transformed how I work.
Looking at the tools today that didn’t exist a year agodeep research, browser agents, the big leaps in performance for all the latest modelsthere’s a host of ways AI can speed up or enhance many tasks of knowledge workers, especially journalists. As an independent journalist, I’m perhaps a little less constrained than most (my AI policy is whatever I want it to be), and AI has made me rethink how every part of the job gets done.
So bubble or not, that shift is already here. To better articulate this and highlight tools and techniques that are broadly useful, I’ve broken down several ways I use AI in my writing, researching, and reporting.
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The most intuitive way to organize this is by walking through the story processfrom developing ideas to hitting publish to sharing on social media. Here are 10 ways I use AI as a journalist and content creator:
Beat monitoring: The set of stories that any individual reporter needs to keep up with is different, and AI’s ability to personalize and summarize is extremely helpful here. I find ChatGPT Pulsewhich doesn’t just compile stories, but explains why they’re relevant to your work and includes other personal info (like your schedule)to be extremely helpful, but it’s also constrained to the Pro plan ($200/month). A stripped-down, but still useful tool is scheduled tasks in ChatGPT or Perplexity, where you craft a prompt that searches for the latest stories you’re interested in and sends it to your inbox.
Accelerated skimming: Once I land on an article that I’m interested in, I often read the summary before deciding if I want to spend the time reading. There’s a dedicated button for this in Perplexity’s Comet browser, and there are a host of browser extensions that do this for Chrome. On X, I find the ability to simply reply to any post with “@grok what is this post about?” for a short, instant explanation to be a huge time-saver, especially for memes and trends I’m seeing for the first time.
Going deeper: When Google’s NotebookLM made its big splash last fall with its ability to create instant conversational podcasts, many dismissed it as a gimmick. But I find the feature to be an incredibly useful tool for getting primed on a topic or news story. You can either drop a single URL in the folder or use the new Fast Research feature to find a story, generate your audio overview, and boomyou have a short podcast all about the thing you’re researching. Listen at 1.5x speed to blaze through it even faster.
Story ideas: Finding the connections and missing angles in between stories will always be a mostly human-driven process, but NotebookLM is a good partner here as well. Prompting it to suggest story ideas based on the questions implied or not answered in the set of articles in the notebook is often a great starting point for a story idea.
Getting in the weeds: Once I know the idea I’m running with, it’s time to research. AI is obviously great at this, specifically the deep research tools that have emerged in the past year. I use them all, but differently: Perplexity is excellent for a first passit’s fast, but typically not as thorough as the others. I generally find Gemini to be the best at finding sources on the web, but less great at prioritizing them. My go-to for serious research is ChatGPT, which I find to be the most thorough. It’s also excellent for turning its deep research abilities inwarddirecting them at a large set of files in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder (via Connectors).
Targeting highly specific information: When the key to your story is a singular document or piece of data, it’s helpful to outsource the task of finding it to a browser agent. For example, court documents are typically kept in hard-to-navigate services like PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). Just finding the right case often involves performing several searches, especially if you’re unsure of the exact names involved or the specific court. When given clear tasks like this, a browser agent like Comet or ChatGPT Atlas is the perfect research intern, usually finding exactly what you’re looking for in just a few minutes.
Writing coach: Now that I’ve gathered and processed all the background material, it’s time to write. For my columns and original reporting, I don’t let AI write for me, but I do often use it as a coach. I’ve crafted a Custom GPT to act as an inquisitive interviewer: probing me with several questionsverballyrecording my long responses, and then assembling them all into an outline once I’m done. From there, I’m off to the races, sometimes returning to the coach when I go in an unexpected direction. The process helps me write in about half the time as before.
Writing intern: I write a news igest for my Thursday newsletter, with each item coauthored by AI. For these short blurbs, I’ve built a Claude Project that’s trained on my style, the digest format, and the target audience. Once given a story or news trend, it writes a one-paragraph summary in my style, which I then edit and add to. It turns a 15-minute process into something that takes about five minutes. (And, yes, I’m fully transparent to my audience when AI acts as a coauthor.)
Copy desk: Everything I write goes through my AI copy desk: First, a Custom GPT looks at it critically but constructively, suggesting edits (and sometimes further research) to make the piece stronger. Then another GPT does a proofreading pass, aimed at making it either more newsy or conversational, depending on the context. Importantly, neither GPT does automatic rewritesthey’re all suggestions that I can take or leave.
Social media manager: Finally, once the piece is live, I have specific prompting that writes social copy for LinkedInboth for my personal profile and The Media Copilot company page. In this case, I don’t manually paste anything into an assistant on the web, but instead use Zapier, an automation tool that automatically generates the social post and queues it up for my review. That saves a lot of back-and-forth between browser windows and ensures I never miss a post.
I hope you see a pattern in what I’ve laid out: Each process involves AI bringing things to my attention, but it prioritizes my attention. In my view, AI is an extraordinary accelerant for specific tasks in story creation, but the process needs human review and judgment throughout. And while AI can be a helpful writing “intern” for very specific formats, I keep the text in anything substantive (such as this column) human written.
That human centricity will remain, no matter how intelligent and automated parts of the process get. While I don’t doubt that AI will continue to improve, the point of using it is to sharpen, accelerate, and amplify how I communicate with audienceshuman audiences. Machines can be great partners, but the moment they become the focus is when we stop communicating and are just creating “content.” The media just experienced an era dominated by SEO, algorithms, and lowest-common denominator thinking. Let’s not do that again.
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Below, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic shares five key insights from his new book, Dont Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead).
Chamorro-Premuzic is the chief innovation officer at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, cofounder of Deeper Signals, and an associate at Harvards Entrepreneurial Finance Lab.
Whats the big idea?
Authenticity is overrated and can backfire, especially at work. Success comes from strategic self-presentation, empathy, and balancing personal freedom with responsibility to others.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Chamorro-Premuzic himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Authenticity isnt the life hack its cracked up to be
Authenticity has become one of the most celebrated traits in every single area of life, especially in the workplace. But this trenddespite its well-intentioned beginningshas not gone according to plan. What was initially supposed to free people from the pressures of conformity in the workplace is backfiring in surprising ways.
Excessive praise of being ‘true to yourself’ can fuel narcissism, extreme individualism, and a disregard for obligations to others.
While research in positive psychology shows that feeling aligned with ones true self can boost mood and well-being, societys obsession with authenticity has a darker side. Excessive praise of being true to yourself can fuel narcissism, extreme individualism, and a disregard for obligations to others. This cultural phenomenon often harms more than it helps, especially in professional settings.
2. The four traps of authenticity
For leaders who want to be competent, effective, and create an inclusive and diverse working culture, it is important to avoid the four authenticity traps. The following mantras seem to propel beneficial behaviors, but can actually hurt objective career success:
Always be honest with yourself and others. Most people think of themselves very positively, but decades of research show this self-perception is largely biased and often misaligned with how others see them. Even when we are self-aware, honesty isnt always what others want. They often prefer encouragement, positive feedback, or polite social interaction over unfiltered truth.
Always stay true to your values. Following your values blindly can be dangerous if those values are harmful, destructive, or antisocial. History is full of leaders who acted consistently with their values but caused great harm. Even for ordinary people, rigid adherence to ones values can prevent self-reflection, fuel polarization, and make always follow your heart misleading advice.
Dont worry about what others think. The idea that we shouldnt worry about how others see us is unrealistic because humans naturally perceive the world through others perspectives and rely on social feedback to grow. Ignoring others input may preserve a self-image of heroism, but it prevents real development as leaders, colleagues, and human beings.
Bring your whole self to work. Our whole selfincluding the grumpy, impulsive, or self-centered partsis rarely fully welcomed at work, so telling people it is safe to express themselves is a bit of a trap. Organizations should focus on creating inclusive environments that balance self-expression with being a responsible, collaborative team member, recognizing where personal freedom ends and obligations to others begin.
3. Authenticity can hurt career and leadership outcomes
Career and leadership success require strategic self-presentation. Rather than imposing an unedited self on others, people benefit from deliberately managing how they are perceived. This involves understanding the social context, adapting to the needs of others, and making intentional choices about what to share and how to share it. Effective impression management isnt manipulative; its a practical way to achieve real-world goals without compromising integrity.
4. Effective leadership is about managing perception
Leadership is less about indulging in self-expression and more about creating value for others. Leaders must distinguish when trustworthiness becomes oversharing, understanding how to manage emotions and communicate effectively rather than engage in inappropriate self-disclosure.
Authenticity without strategic awareness can lead to missteps.
It is crucial that employees receive information in a way that helps them grow. Authenticity without strategic awareness can lead to missteps, whereas thoughtful communication fosters influence, loyalty, and effective collaboration.
5. Authenticity is a rare privilege
Complete self-expression is often a luxury of the powerfula privilege for the elite. Only those with status can impose their unfiltered selves with fewer consequences. But for most people, this approach risks professional and social setbacks. Success comes from balancing authenticity with empathy, collaboration, and awareness of social and organizational norms. Dont just be yourself. Be strategically, responsibly, and thoughtfully yourself.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Annoying peers are hard enough to deal with. Things get even more complicated when the annoying person is your boss. As with peers, there are several ways that a boss can be annoying. Unfortunately, you have to tread lightly with many (though not all) bosses.
To be clear, the focus here is on annoying bosses, not toxic ones. A boss who is a narcissist, a harasser, or who sows mistrust isnt just annoying, theyre bad for you and the organization. Im going discuss four things that may seem petty, but if you start dreading your engagements with your boss (or resenting them for their foibles), it can come back to hurt your working relationship.
The cipher
Some people are blessed with the ability to communicate clearly. They open their mouths, and full paragraphs of well-formed sentences spill out that illuminate whatever they are talking about. But, as Steve Martin once said, Some people have a way with words, and others . . . uh . . . not . . . have a way.
If your boss is in that latter category, they may ask you to do things, give you feedback, or generally talk about things going on at work that you dont fully understand. It might be tempting to nod along with them and then try to figure it out later. That avoids an awkward discussion, but it probably causes more problems than it solves.
Instead, develop a routine with your manager to summarize the outcome of meetings/discussions at the end. Tell your boss that this is to help you remember. Then, repeat back the important bits. Your boss will correct anything you get wrong. As an added bonus, this exercise might give your boss additional words and phrases they can use to talk to you about similar things in the future.
The micromanager
A boss who gets into the details of your work is frustrating, because youd like to be able to complete what youre doing without constant oversight. There are two common reasons why bosses micromanage.
When someone gets their first supervisory role, they are usually in a transition from front-line work to management. Because their job (up to that point) involved doing something just like what you are doing now, it may be hard for them to let go of the details of the work to focus on what they need to do with their new position. For these bosses, it is often okay to have a gentle conversation in which you ask questions about their new responsibilities and provide a subtle reminder that the front-line work is not part of their day-to-day any longer.
The second typical source of micromanagement is anxiety. When your boss is not confident in their leadership or when they feel threatened by other factors at work, they may clamp down on the people working for them to ensure that nothing goes wrong. While this tactic may make them feel better, it makes everyone else miserable.
There are two things you can do here. First, create a schedule of checking in with your boss every so often. Youd like to get that to once a week if you can, but you may have to start by doing it at the end of a work shift, or every two days, and gradually work your way to once a week. Second, provide a shared document of the status of projects. This record is helpful anyhow, because it can be used when something goes wrong with a project. If your boss has access to the status of key projects, they may be less likely to pester you for those details and add suggestions about how they would approach things.
The forgetter
One of the Big Five personality characteristics is conscientiousness, which reflects the degree to which you focus on details and follow rules. Some bosses are highly conscientious, and they are up on the details of every project. Others are not.
When your boss is not conscientious, they may be great at giving strategic and tactical advice, but they may forget things later. They may miss meetings that dont make it to their calendar, or forget something they told you they would do later.
A forgetful boss needs more constant reminders than a conscientious one. Follow up meetings with a written summary of key points and any specific information you need from your boss later. Send that summary by email. Even bosses who arent that conscientious are likely to check their email and to respond to direct requests on those emails.
If there are particular things you need to get from your boss by a specific date, coordinate with their admin if they have one. Try to ensure that key dates and requests get on their calendar. Often, a forgetful boss is aware that things slip through the cracks, and so they have a system to help them keep from dropping too many balls.
The (long-winded) storyteller
One thing about being the boss is that people feel like they need to listen to you. Some bosses (particularly those who have been in a leadership role for a while) get used to having an audience, and they may use meetings and even hallway conversations as an opportunity to regale you with stories.
A good storyteller keeps it brief and relevant. If your boss is not a great storyteller, then seeing them wind up to tell a long tale can send shivers of dread up your spine. You may have to bear a certain number of these storiesparticularly if youre sitting in the break room. But, you should try to have something scheduled up against meetings you have with your boss so that you have something you need to get to. That way, if your boss does launch into an epic narrative, you have a good reason to excuse yourself and move on.
