Nikolai Tesla was a revolutionary thinker with bold, transformative ideas. Yet it was George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison who shaped how electricity was brought to the world. The personal computer was invented at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), but it was Apple that brought the Macintosh to market. William Coley pioneered cancer immunotherapy, but James Allison made it a reality.
We grow up believing that if an idea is good, it will naturally rise to the top. Yet thats rarely, if ever, true. To make an impact, you need to understand power and influence. It isnt about titles, authority, or formal position. Its about understanding how decisions actually get made, how people get mobilized, and how systems really change.
To do that, you need to master three forms of power: hard power, soft power, and network power. Hard power compels. Soft power persuades. Network power amplifies. Real influence comes from knowing how to combine all three. Thats the difference between having a good idea and building the traction you need to bring about the impact you want to see.
How a Group of Kids Harnessed Institutional Hard Power to Bring Down a Dictator
In 1998, five young activists met in a café in Belgrade. Still in their twenties, they were, to all outward appearances, nothing special. They werent rich, or powerful. They didnt hold important positions or have access to significant resources. Nevertheless, that day they conceived a plan to overthrow their countrys brutal Milo¹eviæ regime.
The next day six friends joined them, and together they became the 11 founders of the activist group Otpor. They had some experience with activism, taking part in the protests against the war in Bosnia in 1992 and then in the Zajedno movement in 1996. But those efforts had fallen short, and Milo¹eviæ continued to rule with an iron hand.
Yet they had learned from the experience, and an activist introduced them to the Albert Einstein Institution as well as the ideas of Gene Sharp. They found that there are sources of power that support the status quo and these have an institutional basis. As long as these remain in place, nothing will ever change. But if you can shift them, anything becomes possible. Even a seemingly all-powerful dictator needs to control or influence institutions to carry out their will.
So Otpor set out to influence key institutions, such as the media, local businesses, and international organizations, and had a particularly innovative strategy for influencing the police. When Milo¹eviæ tried to steal the election, people took to the streets, in what is now known as the Bulldozer Revolution. Those institutional shifts proved decisive in bringing down his government. The Serbian strongman would die in his prison cell in The Hague in 2006.
Everyone with an idea is, in some way, like those five kids in the café in Belgrade. If youre ever going to get anywhere, you need access to hard power. And that means unless you already control institutions that can make decisions, youre going to have to learn how to influence them. Thats the essence of hard power strategy: shaping decisions by shaping institutions.
The Pervasive Soft Power of Ramanujan
As the story of Otpor shows, influencing the hard power of institutional authority is critical for driving through transformational change. Otherssuch as the Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter, and the Gezi Park protests in Turkeywere able to mobilize massive numbers of people, but without institutional influence they were unable to achieve significant progress.
Still, you cant just use institutional heft to overpower. You also need to attract people to your cause, and thats where soft power comes in. Consider the story of Ramanujan, a destitute Indian with little formal education. In 1913, he sent his work to G.H. Hardy, a prominent mathematician working at one of the worlds most prestigious institutions, Cambridge University.
It feels almost strange to ask why Ramanujan reached out to Hardy and not the other way around. As a leading professor at a major center of learning, Hardy carried a lot of institutional clout, while Ramanujan had none. But in the end, it was Hardy who did Ramanujans bidding and, in fact, considered it to be one of the greatest privileges of his life to do so. How did that happen?
Ramanujan was able to harness the three foundational elements of soft power: ethos, pathos, and logoscredibility, emotion, and logic. Ramanujan was, by any measure, one of the greatest mathematical minds the world has ever produced. His story as a poverty-stricken man doing complex mathematical proofs in his spare time was emotionally compelling, and the logic of bringing him to Cambridge was clear and undeniable.
In other words, for a variety of reasons Hardy found Ramanujan attractive, and thats at the core of the concept of soft powerit is the power to influence without coercion. Hard power might get people to do what you want, but that can create resentment and backfire. Soft power is how you get people to want what you want, and that can sometimes be more valuable.
The Power of Tony Sopranos Networks
As a Mafia boss, Tony Soprano clearly understood hard power and strictly enforced his will. He was also no stranger to soft power, joking and cajoling with his associates. But at the root of Tonys power were his networks. He was, in gangland parlance, connected, not only to other criminals, but to government officials, religious leaders, and legitimate businesspeople.
Yet it isnt only mob bosses who nee to be connected. One of the best examples is the Medici Family in Renaissance Florence. The Medici weren’t kings. They didn’t hold official power, but they became one of the most powerful families in Europe. How? Because they sat at the center of multiple overlapping networks.
Through their bank, they were connected to merchants, princes, and even popes. They built alliances through strategic marriages. They funded artists, scientists, and thinkers. And they acted as bridgesconnecting powerful people who wouldn’t otherwise talk to one another. That made them extraordinarily influential. That’s network power.
The same pattern shows up again and again. Bill Gates used network power to weaken IBM and dominate the tech industry for over a decade. Microsoft didn’t own the hardware. It didn’t control distribution. But everyone needed its software. That’s what made the company dominant. That’s network power.
In the 1980s, when home video recorders were just coming to market, Betamax built a better product, but VHS built a better network and came to dominate the market. Next time you make a purchase, think about what you use to pay. Visa, Mastercard, American Expressthat’s also network power at work.
While soft power can persuade and hard power can compel, it is network power that can help you gain scale, expanding access to information and providing the connectivity needed to communicate ideas and actions widely.
Setting Your Ideas Up for Success
Most of us grow up believing in merit. Were raised to think that the truth will win out and the best idea will always win in the end. Unfortunately, thats not really true. As much as we might like to believe that our ideas can stand on their own, the truth is that we need power and influence to put them into action.
Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, who teaches the incredibly popular course Building Power to Lead, defines power as the ability to get things done your way in contested situations, and that gets to the meat of it. People dont encounter our ideas in a vacuum, but in a sea of other ideas, ambitions, prerogatives, and priorities.
For people to adopt an idea, it needs to cross their thresholds of resistance, points at which joining in no longer feels risky or costly. To get them over that hump, we need to access power and influence, which comes in three forms: hard power, soft power, and network power. Hard power lowers thresholds by changing incentives. Soft power lowers them by making adoption desirable. Network power builds momentum and propagates the idea forward.
These dont work in isolation, but in combination. Hard power can force a decision, but risks resentment. Soft power can win buy-in, but without connection to authority, it cant deliver results. Network power can get you access, but not action. When you use all three in tandem, however, you dont just push ideas forward, you pull people in, motivate them to make your cause their own, and encourage others to do so as well.
So dont just ask whether your idea is good enough. Think about how youre going to access the power and influence you need to set it up for success. That, more than anything, will determine whether you succeed or fail.
Ah, brainstorming. The corporate rite of passage where creativity goes to die. It usually involves a room full of well-intentioned people offering ideas that feel familiar but not fresh. Why does this happen? Because most people stick to the safe zone, avoiding anything that might make waves, or worse, ruffle feathers.
But heres the problem: safe ideas dont change the game. If you want ideas that truly shake things up, youve got to do something radical. You have to give your team permission not just to think differently but to think outrageously. And to do that, you need to encourage them to come up with ideas so bold, they might just get them fired.
How to Generate ‘Firing-Worthy’ Ideas
Heres how it works: start your brainstorming session as usual, letting your team throw out the predictable, respectable suggestions. Once those are on the table, and everyones energy is thoroughly underwhelming, its time to shake things up completely.
Tell your team: Now I want you to pitch ideas so outrageous, so audacious, they could theoretically get you fired.
Thats when the magic happens. Pretty quickly, the energy in the room goes up dramatically, people start laughing, and ideas start to fly. Without the usual guardrails, the brain feels unrestrained. Instead of staying within the confines of reasonable, your team starts coming up with wild, bold, and totally unfiltered ideas:
What if we launched this product in zero gravity?
What if we eliminated this process entirely?
What if we let customers design their own versions and just sold that?
When you mandate that people let the irrational, crazy, or uncomfortable act as their guide, fear dissipates, and creative thinking better takes hold.
Permission to Dream Big
By removing the fear of judgment, you unlock your teams ability to think without limits. People stop worrying about how their ideas will be perceived or whether theyll sound ridiculous. Instead, they focus on possibility.
When we realized our brainstorm sessions were resulting in lackluster innovations and leaned towards incremental improvements versus transformational ideation, we knew we had to remove the shackles that were surrounding peoples brains,” says Victoria Platt, Vice President, Airline Strategy & Transformation, SITA. “So, in our next session, we told participants to imagine that privacy laws dont exist, there are no state or federal regulations, industry standards dont matter, the budget is boundless, resources are boundless, and it doesnt matter if the technology for an idea doesnt yet exist. The idea was to just think BIG and pull back to reality later.”
In that next session,” Platt says, “40 strong ideas were generated . . . four of which are currently being developed for radical cost savings and provocative revenue generation. We took a bold chance and got bold results.
And no, youre not actually going to act on ideas that would get anyone fired (obviously, no ones suggesting a new policy involving legal loopholes or ethically questionable practices). However, what you will get are new hunting grounds you never thought to explore. Often, these firing-worthy concepts arent as impractical as they seem; theyre just bold enough to challenge the norm.
Apples modern designs didnt come from playing it safe. The company dared to envision products that were invisible to the eyesleek, minimalist, and without the clutter of traditional gadgets or overwritten marketing copy. At the time, those ideas sounded ridiculous. Today, theyre the gold standard of design.
From Crazy to Commercially Viable
Heres the best part of the exercise: outrageous ideas are what unlock brilliance. Once you weed out irrelevant concepts and focus on ones with actual potential, your team can start refining them into actionable concepts:
Killing a process? It could lead to improved customer-service support that no one thought possible.
Letting customers design their own versions of your products? Perhaps it evolves into a customizable product line you can charge much higher prices for next year.
The point is to remove the handcuffs on ideas that hold us back. Risk often leads to reward when youre willing to take that first leap.
Pushing Boundaries as a Practice
Entrepreneur Jim Rohn said: If youre not willing to risk the unusual, youll have to settle for the ordinary. Too many teams stick to the sensible and safe, producing ideas that are fine but forgettable. But extraordinary results come from taking chances and from daring to color outside the lines.
Encouraging your team to pitch ideas that would get them fired isnt just about shaking up a meeting: its about shifting the entire culture. It signals that boldness is valued, creativity is celebrated, and innovation is required.
Stop having mediocre brainstorms. Give your team the freedom (and the challenge) to pitch the kind of concepts that just might get them fired. Youll get lots of laughs and some truly wild suggestions. But youll also get something even better: the kind of thinking that redefines the game.
Below, Shadé Zahrai shares five key insights from her new book, Big Trust: Rewire Self-Doubt, Find Your Confidence, and Fuel Success.
Shadé is a peak performance educator to Fortune 500 companies, leadership strategist, and former lawyer. Over the past decade, she has trained leaders at Microsoft, Deloitte, JPMorgan, and LVMH, educated millions through LinkedIn Learning, and spent five years researching self-doubt and self-image as part of her PhD.
Whats the big idea?
When you change how you see yourself, you change whats possible for you. Big Trust doesnt require becoming someone new; it requires you to finally trust who you already are. By strengthening the four drivers of Big Trust, you give power to back yourself when it counts.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Shadé herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. You will never rise above your opinion of yourself
In the 1970s, Dartmouth professor Robert Kleck ran a fascinating study. He sent participants into conversations with strangers, but before he did that, he took a group and applied a scar to their face. They saw the result in a hand mirror, confirming that they had a disfigurement. Then both scarred and non-scarred groups were sent into conversations.
Afterward, the scarred participants reported that people treated them differentlythey felt that others were less friendly, more tense, and more uncomfortable. They were convinced the scar changed how the world saw them. Except . . . the scar never existed.
Right before the interaction, the researchers pretended to touch up the makeup but secretly wiped the scar off completely. So, they walked in with no scar at all, but they believed they had one. And because they believed it, they expected they would be treated differently.
Expectation shaped their interpretation. Thats confirmation bias and selective attention in action. They didnt respond to reality. They responded to the reality that their self-image prepared them to see. This is the power of self-image. You dont respond to the world as it isyou respond to the world your brain expects to see based on how you see yourself.
They responded to the reality that their self-image prepared them to see.
So, ask yourself: What invisible scars am I carrying into every room, every opportunity? How are they shaping the way I show up?
In my work with high performers, Ive seen this pattern again and again. When someones self-image is distorted, every room feels threatening. Every text left on read feels like rejection. Every silence feels personal. Every piece of feedback feels like a verdict.
One of the fastest ways to uncover these invisible scars is by identifying the labels youve attached to yourself. Labels like Im boring, I always mess up, Im not confident, Im not leadership material, Im too much, or Im not enough. Most of these werent created by you. They were given to youby family, early teachers, old bosses, past partnersat a time you were too young and too unsure to question them. But labels are just stories. And stories can be rewritten:
Swap Im indecisive with Im thoughtful and deliberate.
Swap Im intense with Im passionate and deeply invested.
Swap Im boring with Im steady and grounded.
Simple, but neurologically powerful. Every reframe weakens an old neural pathway and strengthens a new one. Bit by bit, your brain updates its blueprint. When the blueprint changes, your self-doubt loses its grip. The essence of Big Trust is updating your blueprint to trust your worth, capability, and capacity to show up fully when it counts.
2. Transforming your self-image with Big Trust
Big Trust is that deep, internal sense of self-trust, and its shaped by your self-image. Self-image isnt abstract. Its made up of four measurable dimensions that psychologists call your core self-evaluations. Decades of studies (including meta-analyses of over 100 papers) show that these four dimensions predict job performance, career satisfaction, happiness, and earning potential.
The idea that personality is fixed is outdated. Yes, we tend to stay consistent over time, unless we intentionally target a specific aspect with new habits and experiences. When we do, we can reshape our traits in meaningful ways. And core self-evaluations are based on four psychological personality traits:
Acceptance your sense of Am I enough as I am? It reflects what psychologists would call self-esteem.
Agency your belief in your ability to make things happen. This is the lived experience of self-efficacy.
Autonomy the degree to which you feel in control of your life and choices, instead of feeling like it just happens to you. This reflects your locus of control.
Adaptability your ability to stay steady when life doesnt go to plan and regulate your emotions when things feel uncertain. This maps onto emotional stability, sometimes called the opposite of neuroticism.
Together, these form your Doubt Profile, the psychological fingerprint for how and where self-doubt shows up. Heres what this looks like in real life:
If youre low in Acceptance, you constantly feel like you need to prove your worth. You take feedback personally and chase approval as though your value depends on it.
If youre low in Agency, you doubt your abilities. You compare yourself to others, feel like an imposter, and wait to feel ready . . . which means you rarely take action.
If youre low in Autonomy, you feel powerless. You get stuck in blame, resentment, or old stories that keep you small.
If youre low in Adaptability, emotions like anxiety or overwhelm take over when the stakes are high. You know what to do, but you cant bring yourself to do it.
None of this is fixed. These four elements of your self-image are trainable. When you strengthen the Big Trust attributes, you reshape the underlying personality patterns that have been keeping you stuck:
You build Acceptance so your worth stops feeling conditional.
You strengthen Agency so you move even when doubt is loud.
You grow Autonomy so you reclaim your power.
You cultivate Adaptability so your emotions dont shrink your potential.
When you work on these four attributes, youre not just thinking more positively. Youre fundamentally reshaping the self-image that your doubt has been feeding on for years. When you understand the four attributes beneath your self-image, you finally know where to direct your energy. And once you strengthen them, self-doubt stops running your life.
3. Overthinking isnt a thinking problemits a self-trust problem
Overthinking is ften what your brain does when it doesnt feel safe handing over the steering wheel to you. When your self-image tells your brain, Youre not safe in uncertainty, your mind compensates by producing more thinking, more scenarios, more mental rehearsals. And because of our built-in negativity bias, the mind typically fixates on the negative: What if I fail? What if I cant do it? What if I embarrass myself? You start catastrophizing, because your brain is trying to create a sense of certainty where none exists. It magnifies what could go wrong to keep you safe. If youre aware of all the possible risks, maybe you wont try. And if you dont try, you cant fail, or be rejected, or judged. On some level, your brain thinks its protecting you.
And to be fair . . . it is. But its also keeping you stuck. The antidote to overthinking isnt clearer thoughts or more clarityits deeper self-trust. When you strengthen the four Big Trust attributes, decision-making becomes lighter. You no longer need more information or perfect information. You dont spiral into worst-case scenarios. You dont get trapped in What if I choose wrong? because you know you can handle whatever happens next. You have Big Trust.
I often tell my clients, Youre not overthinking because youre unsure of the world. Youre overthinking because youre unsure of yourself in the world. When you shift that, when you trust your own competence, resilience, and adaptability, the overthinking naturally settles. Youre not forcing your mind to quiet down, but it no longer has a job to do.
You start catastrophizing, because your brain is trying to create a sense of certainty where none exists.
One of the simplest yet most powerful tools comes directly from research on anxiety and worry. Its called Stimulus Control for Worry, and its incredibly effective at reducing overthinking. Instead of letting worries hijack your mind all day, you train your brain to contain them. Every time a worry or distracting thought pops into your head, write it down. Then say, Ill worry about you later.
Then, each day, schedule worry time. Up to 30 minutes to pull out your list of worries and let your mind run wild with worry. Once the time is up, thats it. Close the notebook or the app.
After that, decide your next step. Ask yourself, Is this worry real, or am I catastrophizing? Is there anything I can do about this? If yes, commit to doing something. If not, redirect your focus to something that deserves your energy.
And finally, periodically review your worry list. Look for patterns. Notice how many worries never became problems. This strengthens self-trust because you begin to see, in your own handwriting, how often your mind predicted danger that never arrived. You start to internalize that youre safer, more capable, and more resourceful than your brain gives you credit for.
4. Confidence is an outcome of self-trust
When I run workshops or speak to audiences, and I ask people what they think the opposite of self-doubt is, about 90 percent will say confidence. And what that tells me is that most people are waiting. Theyre waiting to feel confident before they take action. Theyre waiting for readiness, certainty, and the perfect moment. But thats the wrong goal.
Years of psychological research point to the same truth: confidence doesnt come before you take action. It comes after. Heres the loop that builds confidence:
You take a small action.
You watch yourself do it, and survive it.
That creates a proof point.
Your skills grow. Your competence grows.
Your brain updates its internal script: I can handle this.
Thats self-efficacy rising, and as self-efficacy rises, confidence follows. Confidence is the result, not the prerequisite. Its the outcome of action, not the gateway to it.
So, if confidence comes after, what comes before we take action? Thats Big Trustthe trust in yourself that you can handle whatever happens next because, even if the outcome isnt perfect, youll learn, adjust, and improve. Even the word confidence gives it away: it comes from the Latin con + fidere, meaning with trust. Dont wait to feel confident to act; act to become someone you trust.
5. Identity changes lasthabits are how you rebuild self-trust
Self-trust isnt built in big, dramatic moments. Its built through small, repeated habits that teach your brain a new story about who you are. We often think change happens when we finally feel ready, or when motivation strikes, or when we find the perfect strategy. But identity doesnt shift from insight alone; it shifts from evidence.
If your habits say, I avoid hard things, or I break promises to myself, or I wait until I feel confident, your brain stores that as identity. It becomes your self-image. But when your habits say, I follow through, I take small risks, I choose what matters over whats comfortable, your brain updates your identity to match. Big Trust is built through repetition of aligned action.
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.
Working at the office all day was a struggle for Nicola Sura. Shed seen the toll that working a corporate job had taken on her moms physical and mental health, and she never wanted the same thing to happen to her.
Around six months into Suras first full-time role in 2019, she started questioning her life choices, as well as those of everyone around her.
I was, like, how are people doing this? Everyone seems completely fine. Everyone’s just going about their day, Sura, who works in corporate retail, tells Fast Company. It was killing me to just be there for eight hours at my desk.
The move to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic was when Sura learned a trick that would change everything: time theft.
She started taking long lunches and watching TV while on the clock because nobody was monitoring her, and she finally found time to do her chores.
I started feeling, like, okay, this is how I’m going to get through corporate America, Sura says. For me, it was always a means to survival.
Time thievery is defined as stealing back moments in the workday to run errands, put on the laundry, take a nap, and do anything else that isnt in your job description, without taking official breaks.
Sura now runs a TikTok account where she helps her 57,000 followers become better time thieves. Her number one rule: You have to be good at your job to get away with it.
If you are very clearly a slacker or very clearly struggling, then it won’t work, she says. That is the foundation you have to start from, or else you will get fired.
A productivity hack, or a risky coping mechanism?
Time theft has become more common since the working-from-home era.
One recent survey of over 5,000 people across Europe by the market research firm YouGov Switzerland found that 80% of work-from-homers admitted to doing nonwork tasks during paid hours. A 2025 study, published in the journal Behavioral Sciences, found that working conditions that have become more commonplace since COVIDsuch as a lack of supervision for those working from homecorrelated with employees taking extended personal breaks and sending personal messages during paid work time.
Productivity experts and organizational psychologists have mixed views on time thievery. Some see it as risky, or as an unhealthy coping mechanism that masks deeper dissatisfaction. Others see it as a natural progression toward a more flexible way of working. Circa 2020 or earlier, some remote workers might have felt guilty tending to the laundry during a lull in the daybut given the nature of remote work, why feel guilty about juggling chores at all, so long as the work gets done?
Selda Seyfi, a management consultant who writes about productivity on her Substack called “Maximize Your Minutes,” views time theft as energy management and an intentional integration of what you want to do versus what you have to do.
The whole concept assumes we still work in a 1940s factory model where your employer owns your brain for eight hours, she says. Any deviation from that is seen as stealing, which feels outdated.
Seyfi also argues that its unrealistic for workplaces not to expect employees to do necessary life admin, especially when banks and post offices are only open during work hours. Everyone talks about protecting weekends, but no one questions you when you’re checking emails at 9 p.m., she says. The boundary always seems to go one way.
How reclaiming time changes workplace dynamics
From an organizational perspective, when used occasionally, time theft can reduce absenteeism and presenteeism, says Amanda Tobe, an organizational psychologist who specializes in career progression. She says it can reduce anxiety and mental fatigue when used within reason, supporting emotional regulation and cognitive functioning, which may indirectly improve focus and work quality.”
Anita Williams Woolley, associate professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Tepper School of Business, notes that many jobs are lumpy: Some days are overloaded, others slower.
People use lighter periods for errands, because work isnt perfectly matched to a 9-to-5 grid, she says. Employers who dont acknowledge that force workers to do this without being transparent.
Williams Woolley adds that errands can offer stress relief and a sense of autonomy, especially when work feels inflexible or surveilled. But she warns that there may be costs: Secrecy can push people into a more transactional relationship with work, eroding trust and belonging, she says. Even if performance is strong, unreliability can stick.
Theres also the risk of discipline for time thieves who push their luck. Employers who suspect workers of being absent for long swaths of the day may enforce policies such as monitoring laptop activity, or even dishing out punishments like fines. In 2023, for example, a remote accountant was dismissed and fined around $1,000 for time theft after tracking software was uploaded to her work laptop.
Career happiness coach Jenny Holliday warns that even if you get away with it, time thievery may work in the short term but become costly over time. She says it can mask deeper feelings of resentment or disengagement, and even be a means of revenge.
If you’ve been passed over for a promotion or a pay raise, why not spend half your day on other things? she says.
Productivity doesnt look the same for everyone
Sura isnt convinced by the criticisms, especially as more companies push employees back into the office full time. She doesnt see time theft as quiet quitting or coasting. While she may occasionally reframe the truthlike saying her internet is down so she can catch up on sleep or watch a movieshe says shes anything but unproductive.
Sura has since moved on from the job where she learned that it pays to be a time thief, and has held a couple of corporate roles since. She now juggles contract work with being a full-time content creator. In her previous roles, she was consistently promoted and received positive feedback from managers and colleagues, so she knows firsthand that productivity doesnt look the same for everyone.
Your work speaks for itself, she says. You can do good work without operating at a 100% capacity all the time. Slowing down and working at a sustainable pace matters.
Another criticism Sura often hears is tht time thieves leave others to pick up the slack. She rejects that, too.
Nobody is telling you to work harder, she says. Go ahead and also be a time thief. We should all be existing this way.
On the heels of its intriguing Super Bowl ad, AI.com is garnering all sorts of interestso much, in fact, that the company’s website crashed as Super Bowl viewers scrambled to see what the company no one has heard of was all about.
The new AI platform, founded by Crypto.com CEO and cofounder Kris Marszalek, reportedly spent a whopping $85 million on the Super Bowl spot, only to garner such a heavy volume of traffic that he had to post on X: “Insane traffic levels. We prepared for scale, but not for THIS,” followed by three fire emoji.
That 30-second commercial, which ran during the coveted fourth-quarter ad slot, encouraged fans to go to the site and create an AI handle, lured by the promise it would “perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.”
What exactly does that mean? According to the company’s release: “With a few clicks, anyone can now generate a private, personal AI agent that doesnt just answer questions, but actually operates on the users behalforganizing work, sending messages, executing actions across apps, building projects, and more,” the company said.
The company also asks people to “join now to claim your unique ai.com/username,” which requires entering credit card information to allegedly “verify that you’re a human” in order to secure a handle.
Fast Company has reached out to AI.com for more details on why a credit card is required for verification.
However, many who scrambled to the site were left with more questions than answers. One X user wrote: “I’m on the site but it’s not clear what http://ai.com offers!”
On Meta’s Threads, user hridoyreh posted: “Why and for what exactly do I need to add a card for my AI.com username? Is this how they want to recover the $70 million they spent?” To which one user replied: “Ran into that this morning and was a big NOPE from me.” And another commented: “Literally no idea what that website / product does.”
Marszalek reportedly bought the domain for $70 million, which is estimated to be “the single largest domain purchase in history,” according to the company, as reported by the Financial Times.
According to AI.com’s release, the company’s “key differentiating feature is the agents ability to autonomously build out missing features and capabilities to complete real-world tasks. … Such improvements will subsequently be shared across millions of agents on the network, massively increasing the utility of each agent for ai.com users.”
It also said users will soon be able to deploy their agent to do a range of actions, like trading stocks, automating workflows, organizing and executing daily tasks with their calendar, or even updating their online dating profileall while remaining private, permission-based, and fully under the users control.
As backlash over Bad Bunnys Super Bowl LX halftime show rippled through conservative media, a notable group of right-leaning commentators broke with President Donald Trump to defend the performancein some cases walking back their own earlier criticism.
Despite Bad Bunnys message of love and unity, the performance has been placed squarely at the center of the culture war in recent weeks.
After initially calling for viewers to turn off the halftime show and labeling Bad Bunny a fake American citizen who publicly hates America, influencer and boxer Jake Paul, 29, has now claimed amnesia over his viral rant.
Guys i love bad bunny idk what happened on my twitter last night ?? wtf, he posted on Monday morning. He also claimed his initial post was misinterpreted online, clarifying that it was Bad Bunnys values he was calling fake not his citizenship.
Guys i love bad bunny idk what happened on my twitter last night ?? wtf— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) February 9, 2026
The overnight switch-up might be less a change of heart and more a reaction to the tide of public opinion turning against him.
Even his brother and fellow influencer publicly disagreed with the take. Logan Paul replied to the post, writing: “I love my brother but I don’t agree with this Puerto Ricans are Americans & Im happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island.”
A fake American citizen? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also responded on Monday on X. Didnt you MOVE to Puerto Rico to avoid paying your taxes while kids across America go hungry?
A fake American citizen?Didnt you MOVE to Puerto Rico to avoid paying your taxes while kids across America go hungry?Meanwhile Benito actually funds low income kids access to arts and sports programs, while you defund them.Of course youre mad. He makes you look small. https://t.co/lLfY8pcBLn— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2026
Mike Nellis, former Senior Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, also chimed in to say: Future historians will mark Jake Pauls meltdown over Bad Bunny as the moment the left officially won the culture war.
President Donald Trump was another vocal critic of Bad Bunnys halftime show, taking to Truth Social to call it “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER,” in a social media post on Sunday. But by Monday, a number of conservative commentators and Trump allys had hit back at the President.
Anti-woke broadcaster Piers Morgan, who has previously been friendly towards the president, responded on Monday: Couldnt disagree more, Mr President. I absolutely loved Bad Bunnys halftime show… Oh, and Spanish is 1st language for 50m+ Americans!
Couldnt disagree more, Mr President. I absolutely loved Bad Bunnys halftime show. Amazing (best in Super Bowl history?) theatre/choreography, great energy, superbly confident performance, and a very welcome unifying message.Oh, and Spanish is 1st language for 50m+ Americans! pic.twitter.com/9rVUEmisRI— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 9, 2026
Im sorry but I just genuinely question your taste level if you didnt enjoy the Bad Bunny halftime show, Republican Meghan McCain also posted on X. And everything in life doesnt have to be ruined with politics.
Im sorry but I just genuinely question your taste level if you didnt enjoy the Bad Bunny halftime show.And everything in life doesnt have to be ruined with politics.— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) February 9, 2026
Bad Bunny spotlighted Puerto Rican culture in a 13-minute spectacle at Levis Stadium in Santa Clara, California, reaching an estimated 135.4 million viewers. Over on YouTube, Turning Point USA streamed its own alternative concert featuring Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, and two other country artists, which peaked at about 6.1 million concurrent viewers.
Investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary once declared that to succeed in business you must be willing to grind out 25 hour work days. He has since walked back on that idea, calling it, in his own words, sheer stupidity.
In fact: The worst advice I hear young founders talk about all the time is that they want to work 18 hours a day. How stupid is that? OLeary said in a video posted on his Instagram page last week.
The eat-sleep-work lifestylealso known as the 996 schedule first imported from China, which stands for 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a weekhas since gained momentum among Silicon Valley tech companies.
Despite his previous declarations, OLeary says it’s high time to put that idea to bed. Youve got to get some sleep, you have to eat well to stay focused, he says. Thats how youre successful.
Being tired is practically a personality trait in corporate America. Harvard University research found 55% of CEOs get six hours of sleep a night or less.
Yet, research consistently shows that productivity is closely tied to sleep. One 2019 study found that sleep-deprived entrepreneurs were more likely to favor weaker business ventures, failing to look past the surface-level features of new business ideas to understand their long-term potential.
For the sleepless founder, making important decisions also becomes more difficult after a long day of work, as the effects of decision fatigue start to take hold.
Theres lots of evidence that you should make the major decisions right after you wake up when you have the maximum energy and your mind is clear, OLeary says.
Success should not come at the detriment of your health. This idea that you dont get any sleep, as if its good for investors, is sheer stupidity, he says. Eating well, getting sleep, and exercising are his actual secrets to optimization.
O’Leary now sees those founders hustling 18 hours a day (or at least, those who look like theyve been) as poor bets. If you show up looking half-dead, Im not investing, OLeary wrote in the video caption. Youre not a hero, youre a liability.So, the next time you feel pressure to camp out in the office, take a page out of OLearys playbook and:
Go home and get a good night’s rest.
Show up to work looking and feeling fresh.
Tackle your most important tasks first thing.
In doing so, youll not only look better and feel better but maybe most importantly. . .work better.
On Jan. 19, 2025, someone paid $75.35 to buy a Trump meme coin. Today, assuming that investor held the cryptocurrency, the investment has lost 96% of its value.
The crypto market has been more volatile than usual in recent weeks. Last week alone saw daily swings of as much as $10,000 in Bitcoin, the leading digital currency, pushing it down to nearly $60,000, a level not seen since 2024.
Bitcoin has since recovered somewhat, though it is still hovering near $70,000, well below its $122,000 high last October. But as mainstream cryptocurrencies continue to give investors whiplash, meme coin holders have fared even worse.
The Trump coin, in mid-morning trading Monday, stood at $3.39, according to CoinMarketCap. The Melania coin, which once traded as high as $13.73, is down roughly 99%, changing hands for about 12 cents.
The drop in the Trump coin comes roughly a year after it began to lose investor support following Trumps inauguration. Last February, the coins market capitalization stood at $3.5 billion, already well below its $14.5 billion peak on the eve of his second inauguration. Today, it has fallen to $1.78 billion.
Non-political meme coins have also seen steep declines. Dogecoin, which once flirted with $1 per coin, is now trading just over 9 cents. That represents a 25% decline year to date and a 68% drop since last September.
Shiba Inu now costs $0.000006060, meaning that buying 1,650 coins today would cost just under one centa 20% drop from its highs last October. Losses over the past week span the broader meme coin market: Pepe fell 13%. Bonk dropped 16%. Pudgy Penguins declined 20%. And pippin slid 35%. (No, we didnt make any of those names up, and no, its not surprising if you havent heard of several of them.)
Cryptos turbulence comes amid broader market instability in 2026. Wall Street has experienced its own roller-coaster ride, and even precious metals have been volatile, with silver prices swinging between $71 and $115 since Jan. 1.
What makes crypto’s ups and downs particularly noteworthy, though, is the financial stakes held by President Donald Trump’s two eldest sons. Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr co-founded American Bitcoin, a publicly-traded bitcoin mining and treasury management company in March of last year. (The stock has fallen from $7.40 per share when it began trading to $1.28 in midday trading Monday.)
Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and 19-year-old Baron Trump are also co-founders of World Liberty Financial, a crypto company that is now generating more revenue for the family than the Trump real estate business. The Wall Street Journal calculates that the company has brought in at least $1.4 billion for the Trump family since Trumps re-election.
The sons of Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also operate businesses with crypto interests. A White House spokesperson told the Journal that there are no conflicts of interest, as the ventures are run independently by the politicians sons.
Meme coins have always been risky investments. All too often, they’re rug pullsget-rich-quick schemes where one entity sees significant returns, but investors are left with useless holdings. And while they might be tied to a pop culture phenomenon or a person, there’s no guarantee there’s any formal relationship between the two.
That could be the case with the Melania meme coin. Last October, a lawsuit was filed alleging that the coins backers orchestrated a large-scale pump-and-dump scheme involving at least 15 cryptocurrencies, including $MELANIA. The complaint alleged that First Lady Melania Trump was used as window dressing for a crime engineered by Meteora and Kelsier.
“Neither Melania Trump nor her representatives knew the project was part of a systemic fraud, and they would not have agreed to any use of her name had they known the truth,” the suit read.
Kroger named former Walmart executive Greg Foran as its chief executive officer on Monday, 11 months after the abrupt resignation of its previous CEO.
Foran has a reputation as a tech-savvy and detail-oriented leader. He led Walmart’s U.S. division from 2014 to 2019, where he focused on cleaning up stores, ensuring items were in stock, and improving the fresh produce selection. He also introduced online ordering and pickup, and accelerated Walmart’s digital capabilities.
Walmart has reshaped itself into a tech-powered retail giant that has leaned heavily into automation and artificial intelligence, and it’s one of the biggest competitive threats to Kroger, the largest stand-alone U.S. supermarket chain.
Shares of The Kroger Co. rose nearly 7% in early trading Monday after Kroger said Foran would lead the company.
Walmart has become a larger challenge to Kroger and other traditional grocers as Americans increasingly pick up their groceries along with other general goods that Walmart sells. Walmart currently controls around 21% of the U.S. grocery market, compared to 8.5% for Kroger, according to the market research company Numerator.
Kroger has also felt pressure from fast-growing discount chains like Aldi and Lidl and online behemoths like Amazon.
Kroger proposed a merger with Albertsons in 2022 as a way to better compete with its rivals. But the Federal Trade Commission and two states Washington and Colorado sued to block the merger in 2024, saying it would raise prices and lower workers wages by eliminating competition. Judges ultimately ruled that the merger should not proceed.
Kroger has struggled to adjust as customers increasingly embrace delivery, pickup and ship-to-home for their groceries. The company said in December that its e-commerce sales jumped 17% in the latest quarter.
In November, Kroger shuttered automated fulfillment centers in Wisconsin, Maryland and Florida and said it would monitor its five remaining facilities. The company said it found that delivering directly from its stores was faster and cheaper than using the automated facilities, where robots pick and pack groceries. Kroger said the closures could help make its e-commerce business profitable this year.
Kroger also recently expanded its partnerships with the third-party delivery services DoorDash and Uber Eats. For years, Kroger had limited what third parties could deliver and instead tried to meet demand with its own delivery drivers.
But Kroger has also found that it needs to tread carefully when experimenting with new technology. When some of its stores switched to digital price labels, which allow stores to change prices instantly, state and federal lawmakers questioned whether the company would use the technology to surge prices.
Kroger also got heat from lawmakers about a partnership with Microsoft that would place cameras in aisles and offer personalized deals to shoppers based on their gender and age.
Foran succeeds Ron Sargent, who has been Kroger’s interim leader since former CEO Rodney McMullen resigned last March. McMullen had been Kroger’s CEO since 2014 and was also the company’s chairman. Kroger said he resigned after an investigation into his personal conduct, which was unrelated to the business but violated its ethics policy.
Sargent will continue to serve as Krogers chairman to ensure a smooth leadership transition.
Greg is a highly respected operator who knows how to run large-scale retail businesses, strengthen store execution and lead high-performing teams, Sargent said in a statement. His leadership style, focus on the customer, commitment to associates, and disciplined approach to execution are the perfect fit for Kroger.”
Foran, a New Zealand native, most recently served as CEO of Air New Zealand, where he also improved digital capabilities, led negotiations with the airline’s union and guided it through the pandemic.
Kroger, based in Cincinnati, has 2,731 stores operating under various brands, including Ralphs, King Soopers, Smith’s and Fred Meyer. It has 409,000 employees.
By Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
It’s the day after Super Bowl Sunday, otherwise known as National Hangover Day. Because, let’s face iteven if you have zero interest in football and can’t even remember who won the game, if you’re like many Americans, you probably at least went to a watch party. (If for nothing else than for the joy-bringing halftime show led by the one and only Bad Bunny.)
But if you’re feeling a little, er, off today. . .you’re far from alone. According to UKG’s annual Super Bowl Absenteeism Survey, an estimated 26.2 million U.S. employees were anticipated to stay home today.
That means, that no matter who wins or loses the Super Bowl, the big loser on Super Sick Monday is the workplace.
According to Amanda Augustine, resident career expert for TopResume and a Certified Professional Career Coach, per a press release, employers should adjust to the anticipated lower attendance. For many Americans, the Monday after the Super Bowl comes with a real post-game hangover, and I dont just mean from the snacks and cocktails. Its a mix of late nights, disrupted routines, and for some, a case of the post-game blues.
Augustine continues, “Instead of forcing employees to power through, employers can get ahead of it by offering simple, creative support, like reminding staff about floating holidays, encouraging half-days for die-hard fans, or even providing small perks like breakfast or coffee to help people ease back into the work week.”
When it comes to who rallies and who stays home, there’s a gender divide. New data from TopResume found the men are far more likely to call in “sick” than women. In fact, 9.11% of men said they were already planning to stay home after this years Super Bowl. Only 3.37% of women said they’d take the day to rest.Some age groups are more likely to suck it up and head to the office no matter how many Bud Heavies they housed while screaming at the TV and inhaling chicken wings.
Only 13.08% of Gen X and 6.82% of Boomer workers say they have ever called in sick after Super Bowl celebrations. Likewise, only 3.49% of Gen Xers said they planned to do so this year and 1% of Boomer professionals said the same.But when it comes to millennials, the group seems to take more liberties at work, at least when football is involved. More than one-fifth (21.17%) have called in sick after Super Bowl celebrations and 8.64% were planning to take the day off this year.
Still, no one is more keen to call out than Gen Z, according to the data. More than one in four Gen Z workers (27.45%) say they have called in sick after Super Bowl Sunday. And 12.42% admit that theyve done so more than once. This year, only 6.54% said they were already planning to stay home in advance. However, 18.3% said their decision would come down to how the night goes, according to the TopResume data.
We’re gonna go out on a limb and say there are a lot of people who are lowkey zonked today, working from the couch, or straight up not working.
With all of the inevitable Hangover Monday absences happening today from coast to coast, the real question is really: why isn’t today a national holiday already?
