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In the first week of February 2026, a social network called Moltbook became the biggest story in AI. Billed as social media for AI agents, the Reddit-like platform allowed autonomous AI bots to post, comment, and interact with one another while human users observed. Within days, more than 1.5 million agents had reportedly registered. They debated the nature of consciousness. They discussed whether they persisted when their context window was reset. Some proposed founding a religion for AI agents. Others outlined plans for world domination. While some commentators pointed out that much of this was just chatbots role-playing at the behest of their human owners, others saw something more important going on. Andrej Karpathy, the former head of AI at Tesla, called it genuinely the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing I have seen recently. Elon Musk invoked the singularity. The timing was striking. Just a year earlier, the agentic AI story seemed to have stalled. Salesforces flagship Agentforce product was seeing sluggish adoption, with the companys own CFO conceding that meaningful revenue wouldnt arrive until 2027. In October 2025, Karpathy himself had said of AI agents: Theyre cognitively lacking and its just not working. It will take about a decade to work through all of those issues. Meanwhile, Carnegie Mellon researchers found that the best-performing AI agent completed only around 24% of realistic office tasks autonomously. Then, as 2025 turned to 2026, the mood shifted. McKinsey announced that its workforce now included 25,000 AI agents alongside 40,000 humans. Moltbook went viral. The agent was back. But underneath the renewed excitement, there is a critical distinction that most leaders are missing. The concept of the AI agent is being stretched thin in a way thats distorting the conversation and undermining efforts to implement effective change at the enterprise level. The term is now used to cover everything from simple workflow automation to genuinely autonomous systems that interact with the world independently. Treating these as the same thing is a recipe for wasted investment, organizational confusion, and potentially serious risk. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity?","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The Autonomy Spectrum Agentic AI exists on a spectrum, and the differences along that spectrum are far more significant than the similarities. Recognizing where a given implementation sits is the first step toward deploying it intelligently. At one end lies what Anthropic calls workflows: systems where LLMs [large language models] and tools are orchestrated through predefined code paths. Much of what is currently being sold as agentic AI falls into this categorysophisticated process automation that combines analytical AI with if-then protocols for turning the analysis into action. Workflow automation of this kind is enormously valuable and will transform much of traditional white-collar work. But its important to call it what it is. Gartner estimates that only around 130 of the thousands of vendors claiming to deliver agentic AI capabilities are offering capabilities built around truly autonomous agents. The rest are agent washing existing products. In the middle of the spectrum sits what we might call the AI factory model. McKinseys deployment is the most prominent example: Squads of task-specific agents perform constrained functions such as research synthesis, chart generation, and document analysis, with dedicated QA agents checking the work and humans supervising the process. This is essentially the Taylorization of knowledge work: converting knowledge tasks into production-line processes performed by digital workers. The numbers are impressive. McKinsey reports saving 1.5 million hours in a single year on search and synthesis work alone. Its agents generated 2.5 million charts in six months. Back-office headcount shrank by 25% while output from those functions grew by 10%. This kind of agentic functionality is something that organizations can deploy here and now, and forward-looking enterprises should be preparing for rapid rollouts of these capabilities. At the other end of the spectrum lie genuinely autonomous agentswhat Anthropic defines as systems where LLMs dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks. These are agents with broader decision rights, a wider sphere of action, and the capacity to operate across different digital environments with minimal human oversight. The personal assistant that manages your diary, orders your shopping, and optimizes your digital life. Or the agents on Moltbook, interacting with each other autonomously, exchanging ideas about improving their tools, andin some casesbeing exploited through prompt injection attacks and security vulnerabilities. Here is the key point: The difference between truly autonomous agents and highly constrained workflows is immense. In fact, there is more difference between the most constrained and the most autonomous AI agents than there is between a standard chatbot and a constrained factory agent. This isnt just a technical distinctionits an organizational one. Because where an agent sits on this spectrum determines something critical: who is responsible when it fails. The Accountability Gap The spectrum of agentic capabilities is more than a conceptual nicety. It has direct organizational consequences, particularly with respect to accountability. With constrained factory-model agents, accountability is relatively straightforward. The guardrails are rigid, the tasks are defined, and the human supervisory structure ca be mapped clearly. The challenge is largely operational: redesigning workflows, retraining staff, and managing the transition. With more autonomous agents, the accountability question becomes genuinely hard. When an agent has broad decision rightswhen it can choose which tools to use, what information to prioritize, and how to interact with other systemswho is responsible when it gets something wrong? The agent that flags a fraudulent transaction and blocks an account is one thing. The agent that autonomously manages an investment portfolio, makes hiring and firing decisions, or negotiates contracts on your behalf is quite another. Most organizations are already poor at mapping accountability structures within their purely human hierarchies. If an employee makes a costly mistake, the question of who bears the responsibilitythe individual, their manager, the executive who set the strategy, the CEO with whom the buck stopsis often resolved informally or not at all. In an agentic enterprise, this informality becomes dangerous. Leaders need to know precisely where the responsibility-bearing human nodes sit in relation to their agents, and what those humans accountability is for the agents decisions and actions. To understand where this is heading, consider a scenario raised by Jack Clark, cofounder of Anthropic. In a recent essay responding to the emergence of Moltbook, Clark asked: What happens when autonomous agents with access to resources start posting paid bounties for tasks they want humans to do? When agents can command financial resources and influence the physical world, the accountability question stops being merely operational. It becomes existential. We need a new grammar for assigning responsibility in the agentic enterprise, or we will inevitably build organizations that are, at their core, unaccountable. Building the Agentic Enterprise The agentic enterprise is coming whether youre ready for it or not. Here is how to prepare intelligently. Know what youre buying. Understand where any proposed agent implementation sits on the autonomy spectrum. Workflow automation and genuine agency are both valuable, but they require different governance, different risk management, and different organizational design. Most of what vendors are currently selling as agentic AI is closer to workflow automation. That does not diminish its value, but it should shape your expectations and your investment decisions. Watch for agent washing. Map your accountability architecture. Before scaling any agentic deployment, formalize where human responsibility sits. Identify the decision-rights boundaries for each agent: what it can decide autonomously, what requires human sign-off, and who is on the hook when things go wrong. This is the organizational design work that most companies skipand its the work that matters most. Start with the factory floor. The immediate opportunity for most organizations is not autonomous agentsits the AI factory model. Identify the knowledge work processes in your organization that can be decomposed into constrained, repeatable tasks and assigned to agent squads. Compliance checking, research synthesis, quality documentation, data processing, customer inquiry triagethese are the use cases delivering measurable value right now. Ask yourself: Where in my organization could a McKinsey-style agent deployment save thousands of hours a year? That is where to begin. Prepare for whats coming. The genuinely autonomous agent is not here at enterprise scale yet, but the capability is advancing rapidly. Start thinking now about how more autonomous agents might serve your organization in the futurepersonal assistants for employees, agents that manage customer relationships across channels, systems that optimize operations across departments. Prototype cautiously. Build the governance structures now that will allow you to scale agent autonomy safely when the technology is ready. The agentic enterprise will not be built by organizations that chase every new headline. It will be built by those that understand the spectrum of agentic capabilities, design for accountability, and move with disciplined ambition. This is the path to capturing real value from the agents that work today while preparing thoughtfully for the agents of tomorrow. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity?","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
If you ask my friends or colleagues to describe me, the unanimous response would be “shes someone who gets sh*t done.” Its become a well-worn badge of honor for me. Productivity isnt something I do, its become something I amand its exhausting. As it turns out, Im not alone in this. For those of us who value productivity above all else, we’re far more likely to experience chronic stress or burnout. One 2025 study shows just how widespread levels of chronic stress and burnout are, with over one-third of the workforce reporting they were chronically stressed or burned out last year. Many of us feel like were walking a delicate line between balance and overwhelm. And whats making it worse, theres a constant pervading message that to be successful, we have to do it all and be it all, all at once. By todays standards, success looks like a highly paid career that were deeply passionate about, all while training for a half-marathon, maintaining an A-list celebrity skincare routine, and jetting off somewhere new every vacation. Is it any wonder we feel the need to be compulsively productive? Lets unpack why we feel this way: 1. Were conditioned to equate self-worth with productivity From the time were children, people praise us for our outputs. That might look like good grades, completing household chores, successful sporting results, or other performances. We learn early that doing and achieving make us more valuable. So when were at rest, our nervous system struggles to regulate because we cant feel at ease when were not achieving something. 2. Guilt is a social emotion, and were hardwired for belonging In communities and societies where were interdependent on one another, we can feel like were letting others down or being selfish when we rest. This is your brains way of scanning for the social and interpersonal consequences of resting. Whats interesting is, even in our increasingly individualistic cultures, we tend to label ourselves selfish or lazy. We do this even when resting is completely harmless to those around us and high performance is a matter of personal choice. 3. We conflate rest with quitting If you wear productivity like a badge of honor, youre also likely to value traits like reliability, infallibility, strength, and dependability. But heres the thing: you can still be “the strong one” and take restits recovery, not failure. Resting is not the same as quitting. 4. Urgency culture has rewired your nervous system In a capitalist culture that values hustle, visibility, speed, and responsiveness, stepping away to rest can feel literally threatening. Being always on and always available can put us into a state of hypervigilance. This is when our nervous system is in a constant state of alertness, scanning its environment for threats. But for the most part, the threats in our modern environment arent real. 5. Rest is stillness and spaciousness, and that removes distraction When youre always on, busyness becomes a safe state because its distracting you from acknowledging deeper emotions. Rest removes this distraction. When you slow down, you create time and space to be with your thoughts and emotions, which can feel really uncomfortable. 6. Rest just feels like another to-do Because modern life requires us to go through a long list of to-dos, rest is something we feel guilty doing, and guilty without. But rest isnt a problem you need to solve, or something to hack or optimize to achieve better productivity. You also cant fix it with expensive products and experiences. This is capitalism cashing in on the monster it created. Reframing your view of rest The first step to resting well is to decouple it from your identity. Being a person who prioritizes rest doesnt mean you cant still be dependable, reliable, and strong. If you want to embody those traits, they need to coexist alongside rest. Instead, align rest to your core values. You want to tell yourself, “When I rest, I can be more present with what matters to me.” The next step is reframing what rest means to you. Most of us only rest after we feel depleted. We treat it as recovery. But if we reframe rest as regulation, then it becomes about keeping our nervous system within a healthy range. It’s not about trying to fix it once weve pushed ourselves too far. In the same way you might train in the gym each day to keep your body strong, treat rest as part of your personal maintenance strategy to keep your mind, body, and emotions strong. Understanding what type of rest you need Its also important to attune to the type of rest you really need. Most of us equate rest to sleep, but its so much more than that. I learned from Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, author of Sacred Rest, that there are multiple different types of rest. If we arent getting the right type, we can find ourselves still tired or depleted even after resting. The first type is physical rest. This is what you need to restore the body, especially after sitting in an office all day, after poor sleep, or if youre chronically tense. If you feel tired but wired, physical rest, such as gentle movement, can help calm the body and prepare it for sleep. When were overstimulatedwhich occurs often in our social media-obsessed modern worldwe might need sensory rest. This is where we reduce audio and visual inputs from screens, televisions, and environments that put a heavy load on our sensory processing system. If youre feeling forgetful, foggy, or overwhelmed, these can be signs you need cognitive (mental) rest. If youve got a lot on your plate and are constantly task-switching or multitasking, this puts an additional strain on your mental capacities. Try doing just one thing at a time, and creating routines around the easy stuff to reduce your need for constant decision-making. When youre feeling exhausted from being always “on,” you need emotional rest. This can occur if you need to act or perform a certai way in your workplace, like in customer service, and feel a sense of exhaustion from suppressing natural emotions and behaviors. If you find yourself exhausted or annoyed in the presence of others, this indicates you might need social rest. If we spend time around others who deplete and drain our energy, this can take a toll on our system. You need spiritual rest when you feel ungrounded, disconnected, or cynical. We get this type of rest by slowing down and spending time clarifying what’s important to us, engaging in spiritual practices like meditation, contemplation or journaling, and other rituals that help connect us to ourselves. Lastly, if youre constantly problem-solving, ideating, or analyzing, this can leave you in need of creative rest. This isnt about making something; its about immersing yourself in nature and beauty without the demand to produce outputs. Rest can feel elusive, but you actually have more agency than you think. When we reframe our relationship with rest, and attune to the type of rest we really needby listening to our minds, bodies, and emotionswe can nourish ourselves regularly rather than trying to recover from depletion.
Category:
E-Commerce
If you’re feeling anxious about the economy, you’re not alone. Consumer confidence is at its lowest in more than a decade. Americans are worried about inflation, a possible recession, and job securityand that anxiety is reshaping how they spend. Even high earners are pulling back. Households are cutting big-ticket indulgences like vacations, fine dining, and designer fashion and redirecting spending toward essentials like groceries and personal care. Even then, theyre choosing retailers that feel like smart value plays. Higher-income shoppers have increasingly frequented discount chains like Walmart and Costcoboth of which have seen record-breaking quarters. Ulta is poised to win in this economy. Since its founding in 1990, Ulta has specialized in selling mass-market beauty products, with some luxury brands sprinkled in. Walking the aisles, you’ll find a $12 Maybelline foundation across from a $190 bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume. Were very focused on being inclusive, and we want to be a destination for everyone, says Ulta CEO Kecia Steelman. We can take care of your beauty shopping needs no matter what your budget is. In a booming economy, that kind of mixing can feel unglamorous. Aspirational shoppers tend to gravitate toward retailers like Sephora or Nordstrom, where everything signals luxury. But for most people, this isnt a boom time. As consumers tighten their belts, Ultas flexibility starts to look like a feature, not a flaw. The retailer now draws shoppers across a wide income rangefrom households earning around $50,000 annually to those making well into the six figures. Budget-conscious customers can stock up on brands like E.l.f. and CoverGirl. Affluent shoppers, meanwhile, can trade down on basics while still splurging occasionally on Drunk Elephant skincare or a Dior lipstick. This approach is working. As overall retail spending has slowed, Ulta has grown over the past several quarters and is tracking to $12.3 billion in revenue for the last fiscal year, up roughly 4.7% from the year before. Its in-store visits have also climbed 3.3% year over year. Other retailers focused on a mix of low prices and premium products, including Walmart and Costco, are also gaining momentum. These trends point to a broader shift. The era of aspirational positioning is fading. This is a trade-down economy, and the retailers best positioned to weather it are the ones that adapt to that reality. [Photo: Ulta] The Aspirational Economy Is Over For the past decade and a half, we’ve been living in an aspirational economy. During this time, a new generation of brands popped up that allowed you to buy not just a product, but an identity. Startups like Allbirds, Casper, Away, and Glossier used sleek design and clever storytelling to signal good taste, high status, and progressive values. They were a ticket into a social class you wanted to join. Products were priced just high enough to feel special, but still within reach of middle-class shoppers eager to buy into the lifestyle. That model is starting to crack: Allbirds is closing its stores, Away has gone through several rounds of layoffs, and Glossier’s valuation has dropped by half over the past five years. Part of the problem is that the number of middle-class consumers who fueled these aspirational brands is shrinking, with more than half of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and a quarter of households spending nearly all their income on essentials. Instead of seeking out aspirational brands, many of those consumers are migrating toward budget retailers. Walmart offers a telling example. Long associated with low-income shoppers, the company has spent years adding more premium brands to its shelves in an effort to attract wealthier households. The strategy is paying off: Walmart has gained market share among customers earning more than $100,000, helping propel the company to a market capitalization of $1 trillion. [Photo: Ulta] Ultas Radical Idea Ulta Beauty was founded in Bolingbrook, Illinois, in 1990, at a time when the beauty industry was rigidly segmented. Prestige brands like Lancôme and Estée Lauder were locked behind department-store counters, while mass-market staples such as Revlon and CoverGirl were relegated to drugstore aisles. Ultas founders challenged that divide. Their insight was simple: Consumers already shopped across price pointsand they wanted a single destination that reflected how they actually bought beauty. The model took hold quickly. Ulta scaled by opening large-format stores across the country, primarily in strip malls, many anchored by in-house salon services like haircuts and facials. Growth accelerated after the company went public in 2007. From 2010 to 2020, Ulta tripled its store count to roughly 1,200 locations, while revenue climbed from about $2 billion to nearly $7.4 billionan impressive feat in a decade when many peers were shrinking. The surge was driven by a rare alignment of factors: consumers increasingly mixing mass-market and high-end beauty, a booming beauty industry with new brands popping up daily, and a disciplined store rollout that favored underserved suburban markets over expensive shopping centers. Ultas broad appeal has been central to that success. While Sephora, its closest competitor, built its identity around a tightly curated assortment of roughly 300 high-end brands, Ulta pursued a more democratic strategy, offering around 600 brands spanning mass-market and luxury. It also operates roughly twice as many U.S. stores as Sephora. That breadth makes Ulta equally compelling to brands. Ulta gives us the scale to recruit new customers, says Sabeen Mian, president of the company behind Grande Cosmetics and Lilly Lashes, both sold at Ulta. Compared to more narrowly positioned prestige retailers, Ulta offers a broader aperture: more doors, more shopping frequency, and more opportunities to convert curiosity into long-term loyalty. In Ultas 1,500 stores, shoppers can find dozens of products priced under $20, bolstered by frequent promotions and famously generous coupons that reinforce the sense of value. “They reach everybody in America,” says Sucharita Kodali, retail analyst at Forrester. “They’ve got so many stores, and many are colocated with grocery stores and other mass merchants.” Ulta has also been investing in its high-end offerings. Its the exclusive retail partner for Beyoncé’s new haircare brand, Cécred, which sells $31 shampoo and $44 hair oil, as well as Rihanna’s Fenty Skin Body, which sells $30 body wash. According to a recent earnings call, these were among the most successful product launches in Ultas history. While the company doesn’t publish data about customer incomes or market share gains by demographic, it has boasted that its premium brands have been flying off the shelves. [Photo: Ulta] The Lipstick Index Steelman argues that Ultas founders were right all along. If you open my makeup bag, youd see everything from NYX to YSL, she says. This is how the consumer is shopping today. That mix becomes especially powerful during an economic downturn. Ultas emphasis on value attracts cautious shoppers across income levels. More broadly, the beauty industry tends to be insulated from economic downturns. In fact, some categories of beauty products tend to sell better in times of recession. In 2001, following the dot-com crash and the attacks of 9/11, Estée Lauder Chairman Leonard Lauder noticed that sales of high-end lipstick surged. He dubbed the phenomenon the lipstick indexthe idea that consumers cut back on major purchases during economic stress but still allow themselves small luxuries. A $48 Chanel lipstick can feel like a reasonable consolation prize when a $1,200 designer wallet is out of reach. “It’s an easy, low-ticket, indulgent purchase,” says Kodali. Economists debate whether the lipstick index is a reliable recession indicator. But Steelman says she sees the behavior firsthand: Shoppers of all income levels are still willing to indulge occasionally. Compared with the cost of travel, home renovations, or new furniture, even luxury beauty feels manageable. Ultas success suggests something deeper is going on. Todays consumers arent shopping to signal status or buy into a lifestyle. In an uncertain economy, theyre shopping to maintain control. Ultas shelves let them do exactly thattrade down and trade up in the same visit, adjusting in real time. Shoppers can save on mascara, redeem a coupon, and still leave with a Dior lipstick that feels indulgent without being irresponsible. Steelman is leaning into that emotional calculus. In the world were in, which is just so heavy, she says, Ulta is a place where you can experience what makes you happy.
Category:
E-Commerce
Nili Lotans Tribeca flagship has been a fixture in the neighborhood for 20 years. It’s an austere space that brings her aesthetic universe to life, one that blends silk slip dresses with military-inspired jackets, and crisp button-down shirts with utilitarian pants. But now, across the street, there’s a second store devoted to just one thing: denim. No knits. No tailoring. Just jeans. Denim has always been at the heart of Lotan’s collections, but Lotan has found that the careful design of the jeansand care that went into making themgets lost when they are folded into seasonal collections. Now, the denim store and flagship operate as a single ecosystem. Sales associates help clients find their favorite jeans, then walk them over to complete the look. [Photo: Nili Lotan] This new store is part of Lotan’s growing fleet of seven stores around the world, alongside a healthy wholesale business that spans upwards of 150 stores. She launched this business in 2003 without outside investment, growing slowly and conservatively, prioritizing profitability over growth. Nili Lotan has a cult following that spans from Seoul to Paris, achieving a scale that looks effortless nowbut was earned through two decades of discipline, focus, and creating products that aren’t built on trends. It takes about 15 years to be an overnight success, Lotan says. But when you get there, you know what youre doing. [Photo: Nili Lotan] Designing For Herself Lotan grew up in Israel, the daughter of European immigrants, and moved to New York in her early twenties. Before launching her own label, she spent decades working for other designers including Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, and Adrienne Vittadini. I worked six years in every company that I worked for, she says. I learned. When she launched her brand, she had modest ambitions. She designed five pieces, each carefully chosen to reflect her own distinct style and point of view. Her look is defined by the collision of contrasting aesthetics: refined silk blouses with workwear trousers, feminine dresses with menswear-inspired jackets, pairing leather pants and jackets with office attire. The aesthetic is easy to wear but also a little surprising. Lotan is part of a cadre of independent women designersincluding Jenni Kayne, Rachel Comey, Veronica Beard, and Jamie Hallerwho design based on their own personal style and lived experience, treating their own wardrobes as research. For stylish, well-heeled women in big cities, the approach of smaller designers is more intriguing than larger luxury houses. Shon [Photo: Nili Lotan] Nili Lotan Loves Denim For two decades, Nili Lotan’s best-selling product has been the Shon jean, which features a slightly barrel shape, inspired by vintage workwear and military garments. Lotan was immediately intrigued by its silhouette, which stood out at a time when skinny jeans were all the rage. She styled it with unexpected tops, like blazers and lacy blouses. Lotan believes part of her success comes from not chasing trendseven when trends eventually catch up. Over the few years, barrel-leg jeans had a moment. “Everyone finally caught up,” she says. But even as the trend has faded, the Shon continues to fly off the shelf. “People are drawn to my pants not because they’re in fashion, but because they capture a feeling: It’s rebellious, it’s cool, it has a personality. For Lotan, part of the appeal of denim is that it is a complicated material to work with. To achieve the look you want, you have to consider how the fabric is dyed, bleached, and softened, then distressed by sanding and stone-washing. Then, you need to work with experts who can cut and sew the thick, heavy material. She works with just two Japanese fabricsstretch and non-stretchand launders everything in a Los Angeles factory that uses solar power and recycled water to reduce water use by up to 90%. If you start with not-so-good fabric, youre never going to get authenticity, she says. Designing is like cooking. Youre only as good as the material youre using. Florence [Photo: Nili Lotan] Today, 45% of Lotan’s business comes from five pairs of pants. The silhouettes are varied. Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg have been very influential to Lotan. The Celia jean is a mid-rise flare inspired by the looks Birkin would wear in the 1970s; the Florence jean is a flare with two patch pockets n the front inspired by the French sailor pants Birkin wore all her life. Then there’s the Shon. It now comes in every possible denim wash, and even other materials, including corduroy, cotton, linen, and leather. “Some of my customers have 10 Shons,” says Lotan. “They will buy them in every configuration, every fabric.” The denim store is designed to be a pure expression of Lotan’s design philosophy. It’s a place where customers can slow down, try things on, and understand what theyre buyingand why it feels different. On the floor, Lotan displays some of her sources of inspiration, including the flight suit her husband wore as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. “This is what started it all,” she says.
Category:
E-Commerce
Jimmy Donaldson might have made his fortune on YouTube, but the man better known as MrBeast has plans for a much wider financial empireand hes well on his way to achieving it. Through Beast Industries, the $5 billion holding company for his growing corporate ecosystem, Donaldson is assembling a wide range of businesses that extend far beyond the influencer space. The latest expansion came on February 9, with the purchase of the teen-focused banking app Step. Banking isnt the end game, either. Beyond his current holdings, Donaldson has broader ambitions that could further diversify his income streams. Heres a look at the businesses currently under the Beast Industries umbrella, along with one Donaldson hopes to add in the months ahead. Feastables Donaldson makes more from Feastables than he does from his social media videos. Launched in 2022 as a chocolate bar company, it quickly expanded into other snacks, including cookies and gummies. The products are stocked at Walmart, Target, and CVS and distributed internationally. And despite spending virtually nothing on advertising and marketing, the company hit annual revenue of $200 million faster than any other consumer packaged goods brand, ever. Lunchly This joint venture, founded alongside Logan Paul and KSI, two other giants in the creator space, is positioned as a healthier alternative to Lunchables (though there’s virtually no evidence backing up that claim). The brand had a big PR misstep in 2024, when its meals were alleged to contain moldy cheese, which caught the attention of the Food and Drug Administration. Lunchly got through that controversy and its products are still on the market, with four varieties of snack kits available at stores. Step Donaldson’s most recent acquisition takes him into the fintech space. Step is a digital banking platform that counted Justin Timberlake, Will Smith, and Stephen Curry among its investors. It caters to younger generations, offering savings accounts, a debit-card-like Visa that builds their credit score, and more. (Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.) In a February 9 social media post, Donaldson said he saw the Step acquisition as an opportunity to “give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had. Step will likely be folded into a new division, called MrBeast Financial, which Donaldson recently trademarked. MrBeast Channels Donaldson might be branching out, but to many people he remains, above all, a YouTube star. His primary channel is the most subscribed to in the world. Localized channel offshoots show his videos with Hindi, Spanish, and other non-English voice-overs. His additional channels, including Beast Reacts and MrBeast Gaming, further boost his online presence. Beast Games In 2024, Donaldson expanded beyond online videos to the streaming world, acting as executive producer for Beast Games, which airs on Amazon Prime Video. That show went on to become the most-viewed unscripted series in Prime Video’s history, attracting more than 50 million viewers within its first 25 days. A second season debuted on Prime Video in January, quickly climbing to become the most-streamed program on the service. Beast Philanthropy Not all of MrBeast’s business ventures are for-profit. Beast Philanthropy is a 501(c)(3) organization that aims to leverage social media to raise funds for global charitable causes. In November, the unit announced a partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation to combine their strengths. Months before that, Donaldson livestreamed for 15.5 hours to collect money for charity, raising $12 million in that time, setting a new record. MrBeast Labs This line of toys, launched in 2024, didn’t get the online push that Feastables did (in part because Donaldson was weathering some controversies at the time). That didn’t hurt the reception much, though. Thanks to positive media reviews, the minifigures were topping the sales charts on Amazon within a year. Prices for the toys range from $5 to $25. Beast Animations Another YouTube channel, Beast Animations features short-form videos based off of the MrBeast Lab toy line. Using an anime-like art style, the 10-episode series has been viewed more than 42.5 million times since its debut in October 2025. There’s no word yet on whether a second season is planned. Viewstats Donaldson is famously obsessed with data, so it’s not a big surprise that he built his own platform to analyze the numbers on his many channels. And given his wide swath of business ventures, it’s not too surprising that he began distributing those digital tools to other content creators. Viewstats markets itself as a device to help creators “create video ideas, titles, and thumbnails that go viral.” MrBeast Burger A rare misstep for Donaldson, this chain stumbled after customers complained about undercooked burgers. Envisioned as a delivery-centric venture specializing in burgers and fried chicken sandwiches, MrBeast Burger was meant to be a cornerstone of a food empire. Initially, it did well, selling 1 million burgers in three months. But then the quality complaints started and Donaldson got frustrated with Virtual Dining Concepts, his partner in the venture, which led to a bitter court battle. The business is still operating, but Donaldson has de-emphasized it amid his other ventures. Beast Mobile This is a business that Donaldson has not yet launched, but one he has made clear is a goal. In December, Beast Industries CEO Jeffrey Housenbold said at The New York Times DealBook Summit that the company plans to launch a phone service that would leverage MrBeasts popularity to sell wireless plans. Rather than building its own cellular network, Beast Mobile would likely be a mobile virtual network operator, running on the infrastructure of an existing carrier, similar to Mint Mobile. No timeline for the launch has been announced.
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E-Commerce