Mark Zuckerberg and opposing lawyers dueled in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, where the Meta CEO answered questions about young peoples use of Instagram, his congressional testimony, and internal advice hes received about being authentic and not robotic.
Zuckerberg’s testimony is part of an unprecedented social media trial that questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm children.
Attorneys representing the plaintiff, a now 20-year-old woman identified by the initials KGM, claim her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Meta Platforms and Googles YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.
Beginning his questioning, the plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier laid out three options of what people can do regarding vulnerable people: help them, ignore them, or prey upon them and use them for our own ends. Zuckerberg said he agrees the last option is not what a reasonable company should do, saying, I think a reasonable company should try to help the people that use its services.
When he was asked about his compensation, Zuckerberg said he has pledged to give almost all of his money to charity, focusing on scientific research. Lanier asked him how much money he has pledged to victims impacted by social media, to which Zuckerberg replied, I disagree with the characterization of your question.
Lanier also asked Zuckerberg about what he characterized as extensive media training, including for testimonies like the one he was giving in court. Lanier pointed to an internal document about feedback on Zuckerberg’s tone of voice on his own social media, imploring him to come off as authentic, direct, human, insightful and real, and instructing him to not try hard, fake, robotic, corporate or cheesy in his communication.
Zuckerberg pushed back against the idea that hes been coached on how to respond to questions or present himself, saying those offering the advice were just giving feedback.
Regarding his media appearances and public speaking, Zuckerberg said, I think Im actually well known to be sort of bad at this.
The Meta CEO has long been mocked online for appearing robotic and, when he was younger, nervous when speaking publicly. In 2010, during an interview with renowned tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, he was sweating so profusely that Swisher asked him if he wanted to take off the hoodie that was his uniform at the time.
Lanier spent a considerable stretch of his limited time with Zuckerberg asking about the companys age verification policies.
I dont see why this is so complicated, Zuckerberg said after a lengthy back-and-forth, reiterating that the companys policy restricts users under the age of 13 and that they work to detect users who have lied about their ages to bypass restrictions.
Zuckerberg mostly stuck to his talking points, referencing his goal of building a platform that is valuable to users and, on multiple occasions, saying he disagreed with Laniers characterization of his questions or of Zuckerbergs own comments.
Zuckerberg has testified in other trials and answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms, and he apologized to families at that hearing whose lives had been upended by tragedies they believed were because of social media. This trial, though, marks the first time Zuckerberg will answer similar questions in front of a jury. And, again, bereaved parents are expected to be in the limited courtroom seats available to the public.
The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.
A Meta spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the allegations in the lawsuit and said they are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.
One of Meta’s attorneys, Paul Schmidt, said in his opening statement that the company is not disputing that KGM experienced mental health struggles, but rather disputing that Instagram played a substantial factor in those struggles. He pointed to medical records that showed a turbulent home life, and both he and an attorney representing YouTube argue she turned to their platforms as a coping mechanism or a means of escaping her mental health struggles.
Zuckerberg’s testimony comes a week after that of Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, who said in the courtroom that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms. Mosseri maintained that Instagram works hard to protect young people using the service, and said it’s not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for peoples well-being.
Much of Mosseri’s questioning from the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, centered on cosmetic filters on Instagram that changed peoples appearance a topic that Lanier is sure to revisit with Zuckerberg. He is also expected to face questions about Instagrams algorithm, the infinite nature of Metas feeds and other features the plaintiffs argue are designed to get users hooked.
Meta is also facing a separate trial in New Mexico that began last week.
Kaitlyn Huamani and Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writers
A new $7.25 billion settlement between Bayer and a group of cancer patients could wrap up a huge wave of lawsuits against the company over allegations that it didnt warn consumers about cancer risks associated with the weedkiller Roundup.
Bayer faces more than 180,000 claims over Roundup, which contains the herbicide glyphosate the chemical at the center of the controversy. Most of those claims are from people who used the weedkiller, which is sold at any hardware or garden store, at home. The lawsuits have prompted Bayer to pull glyphosate out of many products under the Roundup brand, though glyphosate is still commonly used by farmers and in the agriculture business broadly.
The science around glyphosate is controversial. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in users if applied as directed, and does not require companies selling it to include a warning about links to cancer. The World Health Organizations cancer agency classified the chemical as a substance likely to cause cancer in humans more than a decade ago, though those findings faced scrutiny a few years later over reports that the published version differed from a draft.
Just last month, a landmark study determining that glyphosate didnt pose a risk to human health was retracted, 25 years after its publication. The retraction, prompted by emails revealing Monsantos influence, undermines a longstanding regulatory foundation that has cited the key research for decades.
A long battle
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over Bayers effort to fend off an onslaught of cancer-related lawsuits over Roundup in April. While the new settlement proposal wont affect that case, it could help both Bayer and the plaintiffs hedge their bets if the Supreme Court doesnt side in their favor.
Bayer, a German pharmaceutical and biotech giant, is best known for making the common pain reliever Aspirin. The company acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, betting that owning a major player in the agriculture business would diversify its business and pay dividends down the road as farming supplies boomed. That hasnt come to pass, and Monsantos costly litigation has further dragged Bayers share price down from its highs around a decade ago. Today, Bayer is worth less than the price it once paid for Monsanto.
Hundreds of thousands of lawsuits
Out of the cases against Bayer over Roundup so far, only a sliver were decided by a jury, yielding 13 decisions favoring the pharmaceutical giant and 11 siding with plaintiffs. Last year, a jury in Georgia ordered Bayer to pay $2.1 billion in damages to a plaintiff who suffers from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer that begins in white blood cells. Some other cases have been resolved in separate settlements, but many remain unresolved.
Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Bayer would make payments into a designated fund on a yearly basis for 21 years, which could total up to $7.25 billion, to resolve most of the outstanding Roundup lawsuits. That money would then be doled out to people based on their Roundup usage, age of cancer diagnosis and the severity of their disease.
Under the settlements terms, agricultural and industrial workers who faced regular exposure to the products chemicals could receive an average of $165,000 if they were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma under the age of 60. Residential users, those diagnosed later in life, and those with less aggressive cancer could receive tens of thousands in compensation.
Bayer has said that it could still cancel the settlement, which does not yet have court approval, if too many plaintiffs decide to opt out and reject its terms.
Supreme Court poised to decide
Last month, the Supreme Court said that it would hear a case on the issue in order to determine if federal laws protect Bayer, which complies with the Environmental Protection Agencys rules, from lawsuits filed in state courts. The EPA does not require products including glyphosate to be sold with a cancer warning.
Bayer praised the Supreme Courts decision to take the case, arguing that farmers need regulatory clarity around the widely used product and calling the milestone an important part of its effort to significantly contain litigation around Roundup. It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said.
On February 2, wellness influencer Peter Attia stepped down from his role as chief science officer at the protein company David. On February 12, Goldman Sachs top lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler announced her resignation from the company. And on February 13, Hollywood agent Casey Wasserman revealed that he would sell his talent agency.
All of these business execs worked in very different spheres, but their sudden departures can be traced back to the same point of origin: their names cropped up again and again in the Department of Justices (DOJ) latest trove of Epstein files, released in late January. Over the past few weeks, many prominent figures have stepped down from their high-profile positions amidst growing scrutiny over their relationships to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A new tool called Jwiki is dedicated to compiling all of that information in one placeon, as the name suggests, a webpage designed to mimic Wikipedia.
[Screenshot: Jwiki]
Its the latest interface from a team of developers who have spent the last several months converting the notoriously dense and convoluted Epstein files into easily searchable interfaces, condensing about 3.5 million pages of material spread across .txt files, zip files, and Google Drive folders into recognizable formats.
With Jwiki, instead of sifting through all of the Epstein files for individual mentions of various public figures (a nearly impossible task for members of the public), users can simply search their name and receive a succinct summary of their involvement with Epstein.
How two technologists build the “Jsuite”
Jwiki comes courtesy of a team led by technologists Riley Walz and Luke Igel. Walz has previously built several viral websites, including San Franciscos Tech Jester and a tool to track the citys parking cops. In November 2025, Igel, whos the CEO of an AI company called Kino, requested Walzs help with a tool to demystify Epsteins emails. They built the first iteration in just one night.
That initial tool, called Jmail, allows users to wade through Epsteins seemingly endless email correspondence in a Gmail-style interface. To build it, Walz and Igel used Googles Gemini AI to run optical character recognition (OCR) on the individual emails and map it onto a simulation of Epsteins actual inbox.
[Screenshot: Jwiki]
Since then, Walz and Igel have relied heavily on vibe coding to expand the Jsuite into other apps like Jamazon; which tracks Epsteins Amazon orders through receipts; Jflights, which converts his flight data into a searchable map; and Jphotos, which compiles the files thousands of photos into one massive folder. In an interview with the publication Arena on February 12, Walz and Igel said that the Jsuite is receiving an average of 10,000 visitors daily, with a peak of well over a million visitors in a single day.
How to use Jwiki
According to a post from the official Jmail account on X, Walz and Igels team built Jwiki using their existing Jmail data. Upon first opening the site, users are greeted with a homepage that includes sections for a daily featured article, top articles by email volume, and top articles by viewership. The wiki includes entries on people, places, and events referenced in the files.
[Screenshot: Jwiki]
Users can either click on one of these displayed entries or look into their own areas of interest via a search bar. Clicking on Lesley Groff, Epsteins longtime executive assistant, for example, leads to a Wikipedia-style summary that includes a breakdown of her background, correpondence with Epstein (a whopping 224,747 emails), personal connections, and visits to Epsteins properties. It also includes a concluding section called Criminal Exposure Assessment,” which, according to Jmails post on X, cites U.S. codes that people may have been breaking as seen in the Jmail record.
[Screenshot: Jwiki]
We believe that the US government has a responsibility to fully investigate the people implicated by these files, the X post reads.
Each Jwiki entry comes with the important caveat that its contents were generated by AI, meaning it’s fairly likely the resource is peppered with some inaccuracies and potential hallucinations. To address that concern, the Jmail team announced on X on February 18 that theyd opened the site for public contributions. Users can now sign in, propose edits to articles, and view the full revision history of every change. The edits are then reviewed and either approved or denied by a team of admins. Ultimately, the team says, its goal is Wikipedia-style open editing, where the articles self-correct.
As the Epstein files slowly begin to bring powerful business leaders to account (albeit not in a court of law), Jwiki is one of the best tools available to the public so far to understand exactly what the rich and powerful were up to behind closed doors.
JPMorganChase said Wednesday it plans to open more than 160 new bank branches in over three dozen statesand renovate nearly 600 moreas part of a nationwide, multibillion-dollar push for more affordable financial services.
Those branches will include locations in rural and low-to-moderate income (LMI) communities in the Northeast, Southeast, America’s “Heartland” or Midwest, and Southwestincluding in North and South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Tennessee this year.
JPMorganChase tells Fast Company those will include branch locations in: “Greater Philadelphia, Greater Boston, the Tampa Bay area, MinneapolisSaint Paul metro area, RaleighCary metro area/The Triangle, and the Charlotte metro area.”
According to The Brookings Institution, the affordability crisis has reached every corner of the country, hitting middle-and-lower income earners the hardest, resulting in a 29% cumulative price increase since 2019 for Americans.
Along with opening the branches, Chase plans to invest in local businesses, affordable housing, and job training, help fuel economic growth, and build stronger communities.
Every Chase branch is a reflection of its neighborhood, Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase consumer banking said in the release. Each branch represents our promise to stand alongside our customers as partners, helping them navigate and achieve their financial goals.
The expansion is part of Chases 2024 strategy to open more than 500 new branches, renovate 1,700 locations, and hire 3,500 employees nationwide over a three year-period.
JPMorganChase financials
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) were trading up 1.3% in midday trading on Wednesday at the time of this writing.
The company reported strong fourth-quarter earnings last month with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) coming in at $5.23, exceeding estimates of $4.92, and better-than-expected revenue of $46.77 billion versus, $46.20 billion. At the time of this writing, it had a market capitalization of over $847 billion.
Emerald Fennells Wuthering Heights is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of filmand for the most part, critics are falling in the hate it camp.
The new adaptation of Emily Brontës classic novel is catching flak as critics say it oversimplifies a complex story of generational trauma and racial tension into a straightforward romance laced with Fennells signature shock value (shes also the director behind Promising Young Woman and Saltburninfamous bathtub scene and all). But a recent comment from star and producer Margot Robbie takes criticism out of the equation, instead saying that as an artist, critics opinions never cross her mind.
At a recent panel for Vogue Australia, Robbiegiven her dual role as producer and leading actresswas asked how much she thinks about her audience while making a movie, as opposed to immersing herself in the story.
I consider audience always. Ive never, ever been on set and thought, What are the critics going to think of this?’ Robbie replied. Im like, Whats an audience going to feel right now? Whats their emotional response going to be?
“I just believe you should make movies for the people who are going to buy tickets to see the movies,” Robbie added. “Its kind of as simple as that.
Margot Robbie (left) and Emerald Fennell on the set of Wuthering Heights. [Photo: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.]
Robbie has produced all three of Fennells films, but Wuthering Heights is the first she appears in. I love working with Emerald [Fennell] because she always prioritizes an emotional experience over a heady idea, Robbie said. Shell let a cool idea fall by the wayside to offer the option that is going to be most exciting for an audience.”
Robbies take was immediately divisive online. Some fellow filmmakers, including Cobra Kai writer and director Jon Hurwitz, echoed Robbies sentiment. This is the way. Audience first. Always, Hurwitz wrote in a post on X.
This is the way. Audience first. Always. https://t.co/oX8hRlVH7M— Jon Hurwitz (@jonhurwitz) February 18, 2026
But others took issue with Robbies reading, noting that it frames films more as commercial products than as works of artnot to mention that critics are audience members themselves.
Critic and editor-in-chief of AwardsWatch Erik Anderson pointed out that actors and directors never say this when their films get good reviews in his own response to Robbies statement.
Why do actors and directors never say this when their films get good reviews https://t.co/PLl1LhFHhl— Erik Anderson (@AwardsWatchErik) February 18, 2026
On Rotten Tomatoes, Wuthering Heights is currently labeled rotten, with a critic score of 59%. In his review, The New Yorkers Justin Chang deemed the adaptation extravagantly superficial. For The Guardian, Adrian Horton dubbed it a big movie with a very small mind. And in a take that went viral, Vultures Allison Willmore called the film Fennells dumbest movie, while also praising it as her best to date.
That appeal to the lowest common denominator is working for Wuthering Heights, at least on a commercial level. The film made $83 million globally over the Presidents Day holiday weekend, debuting as the number-one movie in North America. Robbies audience-first philosophy clearly gets butts in seatsbut if every creative ditches their heady ideas in favor of broad appeal, the future of film as an art form doesnt look quite as promising.
Below, Jennifer Reid shares five key insights from her new book, Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life from Unreasonable Expectations.
Jennifer is a psychiatrist, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and busy mom of two boys. She is also the creator, host, and author of A Mind of Her Own podcast and Substack newsletter.
Whats the big idea?
Women are socialized to feel constant guiltnot because they are doing something wrong, but because they are held to impossible expectations. This guilt can be unlearned by understanding its roots and replacing self-criticism with healthier ways of caring, motivating, and relating.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Jennifer herselfin the Next Big Idea App.
1. Guilt: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Guilt, in certain circumstances, can be a helpful emotion. For centuries, humans have used guilt to help them connect, collaborate, and build community because the ability to feel guilty when weve harmed someone expresses to them that we care enough to feel badly about what has happened. It also motivates us to try to make a repair.
Guilt begins to lose its benefit, though, when we are victims of manipulative guilt, whether from our families, our social networks, or in our cultural experiences. Gosh, I wish you were able to visit us more often, but I guess youre really busy with your big, important job. Manipulative guilt can feel pretty terrible.
The most toxic guilt, however, is the type of guilt so many women feel almost constantly. This generalized, self-critical guilt leads to thoughts like, Why cant I do anything right? and Why dont I ever feel like Im doing enough? Rather than responding to a particular harm weve committed, were feeling guilty for falling short on several sky-high, unreasonable expectations. Importantly, this is not because we are getting something wrong. This is something women have been socialized to experience, often from a very young age, by the people who care for us and the culture during our lives. We are taught to feel guilty, and we are excellent students.
2. The Four Furies of expectations.
Our guilt triggers are incredibly diverse, involving our roles as friends, sisters, daughters, mothers, romantic partners, and employees. But the foundation of all this guilt is based on just two key factors: our expectations and our perceived reality. This is the Guilt Equation, which tells us that our guilt increases when what we believe we should be doing (our expectation) doesnt match what were able to accomplish (our reality). If, for example, we believe a good mother would never forget to pack a bagged lunch on a field trip day, and it slips our mind, here comes the intense guilt.
The often unreasonably high expectations women face tend to fall into four main categories, which I call the Four Furies:
We are expected to be constant caretakers, making sure everyone in our lives has everything they need, even if this means (and it often does) that we put ourselves last.
We must be hyper-accountable, especially for other peoples thoughts and feelings, even though we dont have any actual control over these: Mom seems sad. If I were a good daughter, I would be able to say the right thing to cheer her up.
We are expected to strive for perfection in all things, but especially in our bodies, our minds, and our self-control.
We should be able to have it all, balancing each of our responsibilities effortlessly, even when we feel totally overwhelmed.
3. Guilty can be sneaky.
Before beginning the process of lowering this guilt, its important to recognize another fundamental truth: guilt may be serving us in a variety of ways. We may believe we need this guilt because it provides us with something we really wantmotivation. After all, if we dont feel guilty for skipping a day at the gym or berating ourselves for choosing to sleep in a little instead of getting up with our alarm, then doesnt this mean we will simply give up on ourselves?
Guilt can also become a protective stand-in for emotions we dont feel safe feeling, much less expressing, such as anger or frustration. We tell ourselves, I shouldnt be so upset that my partner didnt do what I asked. Hes been really stressed at work, and I should be more understanding.
These benefits of guilt, however, are costly because they force us to believe we are getting something wrong, relying on harmful self-criticism to push us toward a goal. Or we repeatedly shift these difficult thoughts and feelings inward where they continue to make us miserable, with no relief in sight. Instead of guilt, we can learn to tap into healthier and more beneficial strategies, such as using self-compassion to enhance motivation and allowing ourselves to experience the full range of natural human emotions. We can also focus our all-important attention on the ways we are already showing up, and the many things we are doing well.
Guilt can also become a protective stand-in for emotions we dont feel safe feeling, much less expressing, such as anger or frustration.
In addition, although we cant control the thoughts and feelings of people in our lives, we can shape our interactions with them through crucial communication strategies, including learning to accept disappointment in ourselves and others, being clear and consistent with our boundaries, and practicing the powerful art of delegation, even when were met with an eye roll or other clear expressions of frustration.
4. We can SPEAK up for less guilt.
To learn concrete steps for lowering guilt, Id like to introduce SPEAK:
Showing Up
Paying Attention
Examining the Evidence
Taking Action
Keep Going
By showing up, you are telling yourself that you are important enough to warrant time, attention, and care, which is no small thing. Paying attention involves becoming a curious, non-judgmental observer of your thoughts and feelings throughout the day, which later allows you to examine the evidence for helpful clues about your own unique guilt triggers.
As you gain these crucial insights, you can begin to take action. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach but instead, it allows you to use the strategies you find most helpful. You could challenge unreasonable expectations by learning to limit unhealthy comparisons, especially with strangers on social media. You can rewrite unfair childhood scripts such as being labeled the girl who took care of everybody, by learning about cognitive restructuring, which involves treating your initial guilty or self-critical thoughts as rough drafts, rather than the final product. You can strengthen your sense of self-efficacy by adopting a growth mindset and using tools from positive psychology to reject the idea that you must be perfect to be loved. Finally, and most importantly, you can vow to just keep at it, every single day.
5. Lowering guilt for ourselves and future genrations.
We have been socialized to feel guilty, repeatedly reminded that we should be striving for unreachable levels of caretaking, accountability, perfection, and life balance. This has not occurred on an individual level, however, but rather as a delayed shift of the expectations women continue to face, even as weve fought for and achieved more opportunities to create the families, careers, and lives we most desire.
This can be our legacy: living our best lives with far less guilt.
But this also represents an opportunity for massive change. Much has been written about intergenerational transmission of trauma, a powerful influence on future populations down to the level of their gene expression. What this suggests is the considerable potential for women of this timethrough our refusal to continue living with constant guilt, unfair expectations, and overlooked contributionsto create a cascade of agency and empowerment that affects generations of women to come. This can be our legacy: living our best lives with far less guilt.
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.
It now takes more than 23 weeks on average for an unemployed person in the US to find a new job. For 1 in 4 unemployed people, or 1.8 million Americans, they are still job hunting six months later.
Long-term unemployment is now at its highest level in three years. Thats not great news for those affected by the layoffs sweeping through companies like Target, Amazon, Nike and Pinterest in the first months of the year.
As of January 2026, there are 386,000 more long-term unemployed Americansthose who have been looking for jobs for more than 27 weeksthan there were in January 2025.
How did we get here?
A low-hire, low-fire environment defined much of 2025 and is now carrying over into 2026. While this has kept the unemployment rate historically low, at just over 4% in December, news of corporate layoffs wereand still arenever far from the headlines.
The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that companies slashed more than 108,000 jobs last month, the most since October and the worst January for job cuts since 2009.
U.S. employers added just 181,000 jobs in all of 2025, compared to 1.46 million in 2024. Private employers added 22,000 jobs in January, payroll processor ADP reported last week, again far fewer than economists had predicted. Another upshot of a low-hire, low-fire environmentfewer people quitting their jobs, with most opting to sit tight in their roles and ride out a tumultuous economy.
This perfect storm means those in need of a job are having a harder time finding one.
Its simple math: The supply of job seekers is far outpacing demand. Roughly one million more people are seeking work than there were available jobs as of December, according to BLS data analyzed by Indeed.
By now, theyve also exhausted their 26 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits in many cases, which replace less than 40% of a persons previous income on average.
The long-term unemployment issue shows no signs of abating. Instead, faced with a stagnant market and a broken social contract, many are getting creative with solutions.
The unemployed-to-self-employed pipeline has never been stronger. Others are channelling their inner doomsday prepper.
Some, instead of spending their days poring over job listings or firing out résumés, are simply accepting their fate and reframing it as their funemployment era.
Whatever the casea lot of Americans are out of work. And staying that way for a long time.
Gary Vaynerchuk prides himself on being ahead of the curve. As the chairman of communications company VaynerX and the cofounder of Resy, not to mention an angel investor in brands like Twitter, Facebook, Uber, and Venmo, he knows a thing or two about trends in business. And in a new interview with CBS Mornings, he shared what he thinks is to blame for consumer burnout: not advertisers, social media, or even consumers themselvesbut modern parenting.
I think that parenting needs to be called out of the last 40 years, Vaynerchuk said. I believe that the burnout, the insecurity, all the stuff we talk about, I believe the reason we’re buying more stuff is, we’re using it as Band-Aids and glitter because we’re not strong enough to be secure in what we are and who we are and what we have.
What many people blame on an oversaturated market and the omnipresence of social media, Vaynerchuk attributes to overly lax parenting. After all, he says, being inundated with ads is nothing new.
We grew up with Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. MTV Cribs had plenty of run, he pointed out. We want to blame technology for a much bigger issue, which is modern parenting misstepped. We don’t hold kids accountable, we don’t ground, we definitely don’t whoop.
Vaynerchuk claimed he receives tens of thousands of DMs from 20-to-30-year-olds every month that often cite frustration with being coddled by parents, from being tracked on apps like Life360 into adulthood, to having their lives bankrolled with no expectation of paying their family back.
We’re sending these kids into the real world, and we’re wondering why they’re depressed,” Vaynerchuk continued. “They’re depressed because they weren’t taught any accountability. Eighth place trophies for everyone.”
We’ve demonized losing, when losing is the teacher,” he added.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by CBS Mornings (@cbsmornings)
Elsewhere in the interview, Vaynerchuk gave his predictions for the next big industry in Americalive shopping, already a half-trillion dollar industry in China, is where social media in 2009 wasas well as for the future of artificial intelligence.
All of it is gonna lead to us having more time for leisure, he said. I think there’s a scenario where we go to a four-day work week because of efficiencies and subsidies from the biggest winners in AI.”
People are worried about losing money,” Vaynerchuk continued. “People are scared of losing their jobs. But the tractor was invented when 80% of us worked on farms 200 years ago, and we found new jobs . . . Instead of, wah, wah, wah, what about, Let me take control of it? What about all the people that might get inspired by this interview, and get a job in three years that pays them three times more that they’re happy about, because they took the AI surfboard instead of putting their head in the sand?
Ikea plans to open even more new stores this year. On Wednesday, the Swedish furniture retailer released its 2025 Annual Summary, which included plans to open four new locations. Ikea previously announced plans to open six new stores, bringing the new total for openings slated in 2026 to 10.
The latest batch of locations includes stores in Chicago, Fort Collins, Los Angeles, and Tulsa. The six previously announced Ikea locations include: Huntsville, Alabama; University Park in Dallas; Phoenix; Rockwall in Dallas; the Chantilly/Dulles area in the Washington region; and Houston-Webster, Texas.
Per the announcement, Ikea had a successful 2025, despite a challenging economic environment. The company reported $5.3 billion in total sales and said it saw foot traffic from more than 61 million people. It opened 14 new locations and its Ikea Family Rewards program reached 25 million membersa 17% increase from the previous year.
FY25 was a year of meaningful connection and growth despite a challenging external environment. We strengthened our ability to serve customers through new store formats, digital innovation and expanded rewards, all while reinforcing our commitment to communities and the environment, said Rob Olson, Interim CEO of Ikea U.S., in the announcement.
Olson continued, Looking ahead to FY26, we will build on this momentum, focusing on continued investment in the U.S. to make Ikea more affordable, accessible and sustainable.
For the state of Oklahoma, the Tulsa location will be its first-ever Ikea. It comes after a campaign called Tulsa Loves Ikea championed the idea. On social media, dozens of Tulsa residents couldn’t contain their excitement when commenting on a post about the opening. One local wrote, “I cant wait to go play house inside ikea!” Another commented, “The way I’m jumping up and down at work right now… so exciting!”
Last year, Ikea’s new CEO Juvencio Maeztu spoke to Fast Company on why the chain is committed to keeping prices low, citing inflation and high costs of living. Maeztu also credited “the need to socialize” as to why Ikea stores still draw customers while other chains are collapsing.
“People still have the need to go out,” Maeztu said. “Thats why its important that we call it a meeting placenot necessarily a shopping centerand when you visit our meeting place its a way to connect with the communities . . . to create traffic with engagement and food and events.”
For the past decade I have volunteered at St. Francis Inn, a soup kitchen in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Kensington, for those not from Philly, has long had a reputation for potent but affordable street drugs. Interstate 95 and the Market-Frankford elevated commuter train line provide easy access to the neighborhood for buyers and sellers, and abandoned buildings offer havens for drug use and other illicit activity.
St. Francis Inn Ministries, which was founded by two Franciscan friars in 1979, serves sit-down breakfast and dinner for thousands of people each year, many of whom suffer from poverty, homelessness, and substance use disorder. It also runs Maries Closet, a charity that provides free used clothing and housewares.
These ministries are operated by a core team of nine full-time members, hundreds of volunteers from local high schools and colleges, and an ad hoc team of folks from many walks of life.
In the years Ive been volunteering at St. Francis, significant changes have occurred in Kensington, including gentrification, soaring housing prices and increased police activity. Such changes can make it harder for people who suffer from poverty and homelessness to remain in the neighborhood.
Around 2018, the number of guests visiting St. Francis Inn was already dwindling noticeably. I heard volunteers speculate on whether St. Francis Inn should relocate further north in Philadelphia where there are more people in need. Others wondered whether St. Francis Inn should create a mobile unit that traveled to people in need wherever they may be.
As I listened, I realized that this was a business decision. As a professor of management at St. Josephs University in Philadelphia, I decided to present this decision to the students in my Management Honors Capstone Seminar. In January 2026, I published a business case study titled Dealing with Change in Kensington, Philadelphia: The Case of Saint Francis Inn.
An interesting business case
The capstone seminar I teach is the second of two strategic management courses that honors business students take in their senior year. Using the Harvard case study method, students identify the critical issues embedded in a variety of cases and find the information needed to evaluate those issues using seminal theories in strategic management.
Students then propose a solutiona hypothesis they believe best addresses the situation. They test whether that solution works by building a plan of actioncalled a proofthat provides logic and evidence that their solution would work.
Part of what I believe makes this case study interesting is that it involves some of the most vulnerable people in Philadelphia. I felt it was important to give students the opportunity to consider important issues of social justice when applying their business decision-making skills.
Morally sound recommendations
Among other material, the course covers two different perspectives that students can use to make informed decisions and propose solutions for St. Francis Inn.
The first is the resource-based view. Using this framework, students identify the unique resources and capabilities that a firmin this case, St. Francis Innhas built over the years. Then they determine how to use those resources and capabilities best to carry out the firms mission.
St. Francis Inns mission is to live among and serve the poor, following the example of St. Francis of Assisi. The organization has built decades-long relationships with food companieswhich share leftover meat, vegetables and other products with the innas well as with members of the community in Kensington. In addition, they have developed a network of hundreds of well-trained and motivated volunteer workers throughout Philadelphia and, indeed, the entire country.
The second framework that students are expected to use is formal moral theory, which provides a set of different theories for determining moral rules. It enables us to make ethical decisions that are structured, rational, and logical.
For example, using utilitarianism, students quantify all of the costs and benefits of a decision and choose the option that provides the largest net benefitor utilityto society. Rights theory requires students to make decisions that respect the intrinsic dignity of all persons. Students can use these theories to make morally sound recommendations on how St. Francis Inn can best serve the stakeholders in its community.
Perhaps the most obvious people affected by St. Francis Inn are the people living in the neighborhood who struggle with homelessness and substance use disorder and receive food and other assistance there. Other groups of concern include longtime neighbors who have homes nearby but still live in poverty, new residents moving into the neighborhood, local property developers who generally want to see fewer homeless people in the neighborhood, and city officials who are responsible for various government functions. These include police and emergency medical services, city council members and social services organizations.
Students must answer a two-dimensional question: Given what St. Francis Inn does best, how can it best address the needs of its most important stakeholders?
Since they are business majors, many quickly gravitate to logical business decisions that St. Francis Inn can make, such as continuing its operation where it is, relocating, or creating a mobile service. Without fail, there are students each semester who argue that regardless of whats best for St. Francis Inn, the interests of the various people of concern in the neighborhood must be respected. To be honest, I enjoy watching them grapple with this problem with sincerity and care.
Here, students must balance an organizations core competencies with the moral impact of its decisions, while prioritizing the rights and needs of diverse, nontraditional groups who have a stake in this decision. Thats a valuable skill for any futureor, for that matter, currentbusiness executive.
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Tim Swift is a professor of management at St. Joseph’s University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
