Author: wildgreenquest@gmail.com
Election after election, Democratic strategist James Carville’s maxim, “It’s the economy, stupid!” has held true. But in coming political campaigns, candidates will encounter an especially virulent strain of economic anxiety—driven by artificial intelligence—that is proliferating among lower-wage, working Americans. AI’s advances are directly intersecting with Americans’ economic security. Candidates across parties, states, and offices will have to adapt to this new reality, quickly. New data show why. As AI reshapes the labor market and impacts individual economic prospects, these voters view it in increasingly dire terms. Merit America, the workforce development nonprofit that we co-lead, recently commissioned a national survey of more than 3,000 low-income Americans. The goal was to gauge their feelings about economic mobility, affordability,…
Key Takeaways Rema Serafi, the Vice Chair of Tax at KPMG, joined the Big Four accounting firm 30 years ago in an entry-level position. In her current role, she leads a team of more than 10,000 professionals across all tax disciplines. Serafi is the first woman to serve as KPMG’s Vice Chair of Tax, a milestone she doesn’t take lightly. About 30 years ago, Rema Serafi decided to travel to KPMG’s Boston office to interview for a job she didn’t expect to get. KPMG is one of the “Big Four” accounting firms alongside Deloitte, EY and PwC. It has more…
As tech’s titans sprint to build a sprawling web of data centers to power the AI boom, some cities and states are racing to stop them. Maine just became the first state to pass a ban on large data centers, sending a strong signal that many communities aren’t on board with an AI-powered future arriving quite so suddenly. Lawmakers in Maine passed a bill this week to block the construction of large data centers in the state until November 2027. In the meantime, the state plans to use the breathing room to evaluate how the massive, power-guzzling tech complexes might…
Key Takeaways Linda Clemons parlayed her innate communication talents into a successful business career. Her Clemons Method focuses on what goes unsaid — and the necessary context to understand it. She reveals why you should forget the ‘fake it till you make it’ approach and prioritize other tools. From a young age, nonverbal communication expert Linda Clemons had a high level of emotional intelligence. As a firstborn daughter (research suggests they often act as mediators in family dynamics), Clemons was eager to please and grew to understand body language intuitively. She could tell if someone’s words didn’t align with their…
The challenges with AI adoption have little to do with the technology itself. In the work environment, the hardest part is bringing together a new orchestration model that fully integrates AI tools while ensuring teams both adopt and master new behaviors to deliver tangible results. As Steve Lucas recently wrote in Fast Company, we have entered the era of the “AI natives and the AI nots.” This delta will become vividly apparent this year. At the center of the AI revolution: a fundamental reevaluation of organizational design. Roles are evolving because the skills, intelligence, and processes we have relied on…
Key Takeaways Vibe coding is the practice of using AI to write code on a user’s behalf using prompts in plain language. Affirm CEO Max Levchin said vibe coding is rapidly raising the bar for software quality, making it easier to replace clunky, generic tools and potentially putting some companies out of business. Meanwhile, he said businesses like DoorDash are “safe” because they depend on real-world logistics, integrations and relationships — not just an app. Max Levchin, PayPal cofounder and CEO of Affirm, isn’t worried about companies like DoorDash. In his view, businesses rooted in complex logistics and real-world operations are…
Over the past few years, words that once had no place in workplace conversations have slowly entered HR agendas: menstruation, endometriosis, perimenopause, menopause, breast cancer and—more slowly—male andropause or prostate cancer. These are not passing trends. They signal a deeper shift in how we understand work and the people who do it. For decades, work was designed around a fiction, that of the “neutral” worker, an abstract individual assumed to be fully available, consistent, rational, and unaffected by bodily constraints. But this neutrality was never real. As Caroline Criado Perez has shown in her brilliant book Invisible Women, many systems…
Published April 16, 2026 09:34AMThe biggest cycling tech story of 2026 is not a new electronic drivetrain, lighter carbon frames, or another tweak to geometry. It’s a wheel—specifically, a much bigger one. After years of quiet prototyping, rumors, and one-off customs, 32-inch wheels are arriving in public view in multiple places all at once. They’re showing up on prototype cross-country race bikes, on production-ready gravel grinders, and in the product plans of tire and suspension companies that usually don’t make a move unless they believe a new category has real legs.Why 32” Wheels Are a Big Deal Over the past…
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. Is the Altman firebomb just the start of extreme doomer violence? On April 10, someone threw a molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s house in San Francisco. The alleged assailant, 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama, didn’t stop there. He then went to OpenAI’s headquarters and told the security guards there that he intended to burn down the building and everyone inside. Two days later, someone allegedly fired two shots from a car driving past Altman’s…
Ready to get more from your e-bike? This full-powered eMTB delivers a premium ride at an accessible price.The Norco Sight VLT Bosch A. (Photo: Cam Mackenzie)Published April 16, 2026 09:53AMAmid a sea of e-bikes at widely varying costs and features, there’s a sweet spot where accessible pricing meets high-quality riding, and at the heart of that sweet spot is Norco’s new Sight VLT Bosch A. It’s a full-powered all-mountain e-bike ready to take on any singletrack you want to tackle. It has all the power and torque for grueling climbs, without sacrificing the confident handling and maneuverability you need for…