Author: wildgreenquest@gmail.com

Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup changed how a generation of entrepreneurs build companies. In his new book, Incorruptible, Ries takes aim at some of the most sacred business assumptions and explores why he believes the current system is failing the very people it’s supposed to serve. Plus, Ries shares what he witnessed firsthand in the clash between Anthropic and the U.S. government. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders…

Published May 27, 2026 05:00AMIn 2019, Todd Poquette, the founder of a youth biking program called the 906 Adventure Team, started working with an 11-year-old boy named Will. Unlike his peers, Will had never been taught how to ride a bicycle. He lacked the skills of the other kids his age in the program, which helps kids and adults build confidence through outdoor adventure.Other coaches wanted Will to join a group of six-year-olds, because the younger kids had the same biking abilities. But Poquette balked at it. “That ain’t gonna work,” Poquette, 52, told Outside. “It’s demoralizing.” Instead, Poquette worked…

Michael George is CEO of Syncro, a SaaS company specializing in PSA and RMM software for managed service providers (MSPs) and IT teams.Forty-four thousand security professionals, 650 exhibitors and a floor full of solutions built to answer the same question: Once an attacker is inside, how do we stop them faster?That framing—detect and respond, react and remediate—has defined security investment for the better part of a decade. Walking through the RSAC Conference in San Francisco this year, I kept hearing the same acknowledgment underneath the vendor noise: It isn’t working well enough. Additionally, a major AI announcement that landed days…

As the United States’s big birthday approaches, meet the people and forces redrawing its outdoor future. (Photo: Kathleen Fu)Published May 27, 2026 04:01AMThis July 4, the United States will celebrate 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Across the nation, this semiquincentennial milestone provides a moment for reflection on where we’ve been, where we’re going—and what we dream of achieving. What will the next 250 years hold for our nation? (Will we still be a nation in 250 years?)On the eve of this big birthday, we look at the people, places, and forces reshaping our outdoors, from…

Curiosity is one of the most consequential forces in human history. Every scientific breakthrough, technological leap, and cultural advance begins not with knowledge, but the desire to know. At its core, curiosity drives us to close the gap between what we know and what we want to know, a cognitive itch triggered by uncertainty and resolved through learning and the pursuit of meaning. Curiosity as an evolutionary advantage Early humans who explored their environments, experimented with tools, and learned from novel stimuli were more likely to secure resources, avoid threats, and pass on their genes. As a result, curiosity became…

Published May 27, 2026 03:05AMThe Mother Road celebrates her 100th birthday in 2026. For its centennial, America’s most iconic highway gets a glow-up with fresh bicycle paths, revived retro hotels, and payment that sings (for real).View from the Handlebars: Cycling Route 66 Bike trail sign in route 66 in Illinois. (Photo: Getty) It might be road-trip blasphemy to suggest ditching the car for a Route 66 adventure—after all, the Mother Road was designed for motor touring—but with excellent established cycling routes and new bike initiatives, we’ll just say it: Why drive when you can bike? First, there’s Adventure Cycling Association’s…

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the keynote address at an Apple special event in Cupertino, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)Getty ImagesIn a 2015 commencement address at George Washington University, Apple CEO Tim Cook told graduates that their values should serve as their “North Star.” Work, he said, takes on new meaning when people feel pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, “it’s just a job, and life is too short for that.” For generations, American medicine was built on a similar idea: that being a doctor was not just a job, but a calling rooted in service.Not long…

At Google, AI is reshaping employees’ titles and how they work. Last month, Google Cloud’s senior director and chief evangelist, Richard Seroter, told Fast Company that software engineers have turned into product engineers, or architects, as they move away from manual coding to directing teams of AI agents. It seems that AI has changed how Google CEO Sundar Pichai works, too.  “I just think the CEO job is not that complicated,” Pichai said when asked how close AI is to replacing him as a CEO during a recent interview with The Verge. “There are aspects of it where I think…

AI (Artificial Intelligence) concept. 3D rendering.gettyOn a very basic level, many of us understand that artificial intelligence is helping scientists to better understand the workings of the human brain itself – but how?An interesting insight comes from a presentation by Allison Hamilos called: The Neuroscience of Spontaneity & Decision-Making. Hamilos has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from right here at MIT, and a PhD from Harvard. She’s also a member of the Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology Program.In her presentation, which she gave at a recent Science Dinner here in Boston, Hamilos presents some striking findings about human…

As 7.4 million Americans sit unemployed, the path to employment has completely changed. Amid fake listings, AI filtering of candidates and widening talent pools, job seekers believe that they’re competing against a hiring ecosystem that penalizes honesty and rewards perception. The result? A hiring environment where the signals employers have traditionally relied on to evaluate candidates have become deeply unreliable. Now, both sides are operating with diminishing trust in each other. What’s Driving the Deception? Hiring today is not facing a character problem, but a structural one. When candidates believe that presenting themselves accurately will cost them a job offer,…