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Twenty years ago, not too long after Youtube itself launched, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla started uploading videos to the platform. What started as two teenagers trying to make each other laugh turned into the biggest channel on YouTube. It was the first ever to reach 10 million subscribers. Eventually Smosh was acquired by a company called Defy Media. The company would expand rapidlymore videos, more cast members, even a moviebut then came turmoil and uncertainty for Smosh. Padilla left the company in 2017, largely due to creative differences with Smoshs parent company. He returned to the business in 2023, when he and Hecox purchased Smosh from YouTuber-led media company Mythical (which acquired the brand in 2019 following Defy Medias abrupt collapse). From left: Ian Hecox, Anthony Padilla, Ale Catanese [Photos: Brennan Iketani (Catanese)/courtesy Smosh] Alongside the purchase, Hecox and Padilla hired Alessandra Catanesean executive with over a decade’s experience in digital mediaas CEO. In the ensuing two years, the company has steadily expanded its content offering while picking up new subscribers across five YouTube channels. With more content in development than ever, and more than twice as many employees as it had in 2023, Smosh is moving into a 32,000-sq.-ft. Los Angeles studio thats roughly twice the size of its current headquarters. [Rendering: courtesy Smosh] Hecox, Padilla and Catanese joined me on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about the companys growth, its new space, and how they approached designing a space for the next generation of the company. This interview has been edited and condensed. Smosh is making a big move in 2026. Can you tell me why now is the right time to expand? Alessandra Catanese: We physically just could not launch another show or take on a new project, no matter how much we loved it. So in this new building, it’s both going to allow us to expand what we’re doing, and more appropriately house the employees that we have and create a little bit more of a structured environment. Its really important to us to balance the structure with the startup vibe that we still feel we have today. We don’t feel this need to elevate ourselves to this corporate structure where there’s a lot more red tape and there’s a lot more rules. We do have a lot of guidelines, but we love that a lot of the things we have and processes we have in place here are very fluid. They have a sandbox in which they play in. And on the business side, I stay out of the creative decisions they do know to bring me things. So yeah, so we want to honor that. And then this building allows us to create more space and communal areas where we can celebrate what we do, but also be professional and feel a little bit more polished. [Image: courtesy Smosh] What will the new space help achieve for Smosh? Ian Hecox: I think one of the major focuses for this is just working out a better flow for production and talent, getting talent to the stages, production knowing exactly where the talent is. I mean, we love our cast, but sometimes it is herding cats. Creating a space for them to feel comfortable in and to congregate in I think was really important. And then we have, we’ll have a private room. If there’s maybe a celebrity coming in that wants a little more privacy, we can have a room specifically for AC: A proper green room with a closing door. Anthony Padilla: Not a weird little makeshift curtain. We wanted to level up the space and bring a level of professionality, but also we want it to feel fun and embody that element of creativity and working together as a team. Right now, a lot of our lights are big, fluorescent overhead lights and we wanted a lot more soft lighting and stuff that feels more comfortable. You’re hanging out with your friends, not at someone’s house, but you’re hanging out with your friends in a professional environment. [Rendering: courtesy Smosh Studios] Since the pandemic,office design has been moving towards a more living room, or lounge, feel. It sounds like you are embracing that as well. IH: I think we want it to be somewhere comfortable, but I also don’t want people falling asleep because I’ve seen some of these production companies and everything looks very calm. So I think it was striking a balance between comfortable, but also you’re going to stay awake, but also not hitting people with Nickelodeon greens. AC: We want it to feel grown up and mature, but in a way that still honors the comedy, the internet of it all. So I think we brought color in very intentionally. And Studio Keya obviously did an excellent job. [Rendering: courtesy Smosh] It’s amazing to be able to intentionally design a space for where you are now. Its been two and a half years since buying back Smosh, does this move feel like a completion of that transition or like you are officially making a home in the newest iteration of the company? IH: I don’t think we would’ve expected to be here this quickly. I think this was more of a five-year plan or a 10-year plan. We feel very grateful. We’re still doing this within our scope. We don’t have a giant backer. We’re trying to do everything in a sustainable way. AP: I think it’s really about continuing to hone in on what we do best. The comedy rooted in friendship element. You’ll probably start to see more faces on camera. There’ll be more people working behind the scenes. Really, we want to create an environment where people either in front of camera or behind camera get to live out some of those dreams that Ian and I got to experience in the early days. Smosh at VidCon 2024 [Photo: Smosh]
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E-Commerce
Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) rose on Thursday after Bloomberg reported the technology company was planning to cut spending across its division by 10%, with as much as 30% cuts to its virtual reality group, which includes the so-called metaverse. These cuts could potentially include layoffs, which could come as early as January, and are part of the company’s 2026 budget, according to the article. Metathe owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsAppdevelops metaverse technologies, such as the Horizon Worlds platform, its flagship virtual-reality game. Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment. Meta stock rose 5.7% in early trading Thursday, before settling up a few percentage points. At the time of this writing on Thursday afternoon, Meta’s stock price was up by about just under 4%. Bloomberg cited anonymous sources and said Wall Street investors reportedly sees the division “as a drain on resources,” while internet watchers have concerns about VR’s ability to safeguard children. The news is significant because the metaverse is widely considered a pet project of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had previously identified it as the future of Meta, even changing Facebook’s name to Meta for that very reason. Zuckerberg has also reportedly spent billions and employed thousands to make this dream come to fruition, according to The New York Times. Ultimately, however, it seems critics and young consumers have not embraced the metaverse and Horizon Worlds as the company had hoped. Meta financials Meta’s third-quarter earnings for 2025 beat analyst sales estimates, but it also reported a one-time $15.93 billion tax charge. The company’s revenue grew 26.2% year-over-year to $51.24 billion, beating the estimated $49.41 billion, with earnings per share coming in at $7.25 adjusted, beating analyst expectations of $6.69. In the earnings report, Meta said the company plans to spend up to $72 billion on artificial intelligence in 2025.
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E-Commerce
U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in more than three years during Thanksgiving week, potentially complicating the Federal Reserves upcoming decision on interest rates. The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 29 fell to 191,000 from the previous weeks 218,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Thats the lowest level since September 24, 2022, when claims came in at 189,000. Analysts surveyed by the data provider FactSet had forecast initial claims of 221,000. Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, said that unemployment benefit filings are often distorted by the Thanksgiving holiday, which can cause some people who may have lost jobs to delay filing claims. Still, the low claims figure also suggests that overall layoffs remain muted, despite the high-profile announcements. Hiring is also sluggish, which makes finding a job for those out of work challenging. The labor market is kind of frozen, Bostjancic said. Companies are in wait-and-see mode. Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The job cuts announced recently by large companies such as UPS, General Motors, Amazon, and Verizon typically take weeks or months to fully implement and may not be reflected in Thursdays data. For now, the U.S. job market appears stuck in a low-hire, low-fire state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low. On Wednesday, private payroll data firm ADP estimated U.S. job losses of 32,000 in November. The surprisingly weak report may be discouraging for people looking for jobs, but it bolstered expectations that the Fed will cut its main interest rate next week. Its not clear how much weight this weeks layoff figures will carry with the Fed as the numbers can be volatile and prone to revisions. Complicating the Feds upcoming decision is inflation, which remains above the central banks 2% target. The Feds preferred measure of inflation will be released in a government report on Friday and will also be factored into its rate call on Wednesday. Two weeks ago, the government said that hiring picked up a bit in September, when employers added 119,000 new jobs. That mixed report, which also showed employers had shed jobs in August, was delayed due to the government shutdown. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, its highest level in four years. Novembers comprehensive jobs data has been delayed for release until later this month, after the Feds meeting, also due to the government shutdown. The government also recently reported that retail sales slowed in September after three months of healthy increases. Consumer confidence has plunged to its second-lowest level in five years, while wholesale inflation eased a bit. The data suggests that both the economy and inflation are slowing, which has boosted financial markets expectations that the Federal Reserve will reduce its key interest rate at its meeting next week. If the Fed does reduce its benchmark rate next week, it would be the third cut of the year as it attempts to support a job market that has been slowing for months. Thursday’s report from Labor also showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 9,500 to 214,750. The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Nov. 22 dipped by 4,000 to 1.94 million, the government said. Matt Ott, AP business writer AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
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E-Commerce
The numbers are in for Spotify Wrapped: After the streaming music app dropped its popular year-in-review recap for 2025, the company said it has already seen a huge increase in user engagement, hitting 200 million users just 24 hours after the recap’s release, a 19% increase year-over-year (YOY). Compare that with last year, when it took 62 hours to hit that same number. Why the uptick in user engagement? One reason could be because the platform is growing. A look at the numbers shows Spotify’s monthly active users grew 11% YOY to 713 million in Q3 of 2025, according to the company’s third quarter earnings report. Spotify Wrapped is for sharing Sharing is caring, and this year’s Spotify Wrapped sharing features seem to be working. According to the company, 500 million users shared their stories all over social media in the first 24 hours, an overall increase of 41% YOY from 2024 (I was, of course, one of them). Those shares included screenshots of different features, such as top songs (for me, it was “Promises, Promises”), top artist (“The Psychedelic Furs”), top albums (“The Life of a Showgirl”), top genres (“New Wave”), and listening minutes (“11,721”). While the numbers increased across the board globally, India, Indonesia, Japan, Colombia, Thailand and the U.S. saw the most growth. This year, we pushed to make Wrapped bigger, bolder, and rooted in human creativity and connection,” Marc Hazan, senior vice president of marketing and partnerships at Spotify said. “That spirit drove the record numbers were celebrating. Spotify is where people proudly express who they are through the music, podcasts and books they love most.” Age is just a number One complaint, albeit a funny one, is that Spotify Wrapped’s “listening age” feature, which predicts your age based on your listening data, is making people older than they are. On Bluesky, people are posting screenshots of their Spotify “age,” which for some millennials and Gen Xers, is hitting upwards of 82. (At 61, it looks like I am in good company!)
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump plans to travel to Pennsylvania on Tuesday to highlight his efforts to reduce inflation even as fears mount about a worsening job market and amid signs that Americans are still feeling squeezed by high prices. A White House official said Trump would be making the trip to discuss ending the inflation crisis that he says was inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the trip has not been formally announced. It was not immediately clear where in Pennsylvania Trump would be visiting. Last month’s off-year elections showed a shift away from Republicans as public concerns about affordability persist. White House officials said afterward that Trump who has done relatively few events domestically would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies. The president has said that any affordability worries are part of a Democratic hoax and that people simply need to hear his perspective to change their minds an approach also embraced by Biden, who in early 2024 went to the Pennsylvania borough of Emmaus to take credit for economic improvements after inflation spiked in 2022. The trip hints at the dilemma faced by Trump. He wants to take credit for rewiring the U.S. economy with his large tariff hikes and extension of income tax cuts, but he also continues to blame Biden for the increase nationwide in inflation rates that occurred this year during his own presidency. Overall, inflation is tracking at 3% annually, up from 2.3% in April when Trump rolled out a sweeping set of import taxes. We fixed inflation, and we fixed almost everything, Trump said at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. He called affordability a hoax that was started by the Democrats who caused the problem of pricing. Trump won Pennsylvania narrowly last year with 50.4%, besting Democrat Kamala Harris by roughly 120,000 votes. The win was part of a broader sweep in battleground states that helped return him to the White House after his 2020 loss. AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of voters in the 2024 election, found that 7 in 10 Pennsylvania voters were very concerned about the cost of food and groceries. Roughly half expressed the same degree of worry over health care costs and the price of gasoline. While Trump can point to a decline in gasoline prices, hes now facing inflationary pressures on utilities and a massive increase in insurance premiums for people who get their health care through the Affordable Care Act. Pennsylvanians who buy their own health insurance coverage are likely to see their costs increase on average by 21.5% because of the expiration of tax credits tied to the Affordable Care Act, the state said in October. Pennsylvania has yet to see the boom that Trump promised would instantly happen with his return to the White House. The state has largely preserved its Biden era job growth under Trump, but its unemployment rate has risen to 4% from 3.6% over the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There has been an increase of roughly 24,000 people who say theyre unemployed. Annual inflation in the Philadelphia area is 3.3%, roughly the same as last year. The Philadelphia Federal Reserves Beige Book in November documented an economy in decline, saying that hiring has flattened, warehouse workers are getting fewer hours on the job, inflationary pressures are coming from tariffs and sales of existing homes are decreasing. Separately, the regional Fed branchs manufacturing survey last month showed that factory activity weakened. The news outlet Axios first reported Trump’s plans to travel to Pennsylvania. Josh Boak, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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