Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages ofInc.andFast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you cansign up to get it yourselfevery Monday morning.
When Wendy Cai-Lee launched Piermont Bank in 2019, she says she didnt set out to build a board of directors ledand dominatedby women. I was so focused on finding the best board to help me, she says. Initially, her board consisted of seven directors, five of whom are women, including chairwoman Julia Gouw. In early February, Piermont added two more female directors, bringing its percentage of women occupying board seats to 78%. In comparison, women occupy about 30% of seats on Russell 3000 corporate boards, according to research from 50/50 Women on Boards.
Steady as she goes
Piermonts commitment to board diversitymany directors are also multiculturalcomes as many corporations and institutions are rethinking or scrapping initiatives aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in workplaces and leadership roles, including corporate boards, amid a changing legal landscape. The U.S. Supreme Courts 2023 ruling striking down affirmative action in college admissions has had a chilling effect on workplace inclusion efforts. Late last year, a federal court struck down a Nasdaq rule that required listed firms to include at least one woman, person of color, or LGBTQ director on their boards, or explain the absence of a diverse director.
Research suggests diversity can improve board effectiveness, and Cai-Lee says that her female directors have helped steer the company in positive ways. The board has supported a permanent hybrid schedule even as other financial institutions are demanding that employees return to the office full time. We understand people have family lives, they need to buy their bus or train tickets, they need to make childcare arrangements, Cai-Lee says. Because we have female representation, the board was supportive from day one to have that commitment [to hybrid schedules] regardless of what happens at other banks.
The governance gauntlet
To be sure, Cai-Lee is in a unique position to shape her board. Because Piermont is a new bank, Cai-Lee says she had a blank slate rather than inheriting legacy directors who might have fit an outmoded definition of board representation. Piermont, a digital-only bank with about $550 million in assets under management, is also a Minority Depository Institution (MDI), which means it is a federally insured institution where 51% or more of the voting stock is owned by minority individuals or which serves a minority community.
And while the bank is privately held, it is also a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) bank and has to meet key governance standards. Last year, the FDIC issued a consent order instructing Piermont to review two years of transactions and strengthen its compliance and internal controls. In the last 18 months, we invested more resources in enhancing risk oversight programs and process improvements that align with regulatory needs, she says. We believe the fixes are behind us, and we are ready to serve our clients in a safe and sound way.
So far, Cai-Lee says Piermont hasnt faced questions about its unabashed embrace of gender parity on its board. We have not received any pushback from clients or customers or investorsand these are my key stakeholdersand certainly not from employees because they joined Piermont mostly because of who we are, she says.
Banking on women
While Piermonts female board representation is impressive, it is worth noting that other banks have also achieved gender parity. Eight of Citigroups 14 directors are women, including CEO Jane Fraser, and half of Amalgamated Banks directors are women, including CEO Priscilla Sims Brown and board chair Lynne Fox.
Elevating more women to board chair or lead director roleslike were seeing at Piermont and Amalgamated Bankmay be the next frontier in board diversification. Chairs and lead directors wield an incredible amount of influence. They create agendas, prioritize topics, and make sure all voices on the board are heard, says Alicia Syrett, who heads up Madam Chair, a group of more than 300 women who serve as chairs or lead directors at publicly traded companies. Encouraging more women to pursue these board leadership roles results in new perspectives on leadership, risk management, and team dynamics. Board members continuously share learnings of best practices across organizations, and increasing the numberof women in board leadership roles gives us even more options and knowledge on how we can make companies and boards more successful.”
What’s your board ratio?
Has your company achieved gender parity on your board of directors? What difference, if any, has it made to the effectiveness of your company or board? Please send your ideas and examples to stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Your responses may form the basis of a future newsletter.
Read more: women in leadership
Women who play sports are more likely to be business leaders
The surge in women CEOs is no coincidence
Women make up 43% of Britains top board rooms
Meet Maggie Lena Walker, the first Black woman to charter a bank in the U.S.
YouTube celebrated its 20th birthday last month. Currently, users watch more than a billion hours of content on the Google-owned video platform every day. And increasingly, that content is streamed on TVs rather than smartphones. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan recently announced that YouTubes TV viewership surpassed smartphone viewership in the United States for the first time. To understand why, we turned to Kurt Wilms, a senior director of product management who oversees the companys living room strategy. In a recent interview on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies podcast, he talked about how content creators can optimize for the big screen and why so many people watch the same videos on their TV and on their phonessimultaneously.
YouTube viewers now watch more hours of video on TV screens rather than their phones. What prompted that shift?
When YouTube started 20 years ago, everyone said that it was going to take over TV. Then, after it launched, smartphones got really big and YouTube kind of became synonymous with mobile phone [viewing]. We’re seeing that shift back to TV now. TVs are getting more technically capable, they’re getting cheaper, and more people are cutting the cord. And YouTube, with our vast array of content creators, makes every type of content you’d want to watch.
You lead the team responsible for the living room effort. What does that mean?
Living room is this word we use internally at YouTube: It means the version of YouTube that you would watch on a smart tv. We design and develop the entire experience from when you first land on the homepage and you get video recommendations to searching to the player. We developed the whole experience.
How do you adapt mobile-first content for a bigger screen?
One of the beautiful things about YouTube for a creator is that you film and then, once you upload it to YouTube, we handle the rest for you. That being said though, some of the things we’ve been seeing are creators investing in higher technical quality of video. The portion of [videos] uploaded to YouTube in 4K is up 35% year over year. I think that’s creators noticing that their viewership is shifting to TV. The other thing I’ve heard from a lot of creators is that half a decade ago, when they were making their video and they were doing their edits, they would think, Someone’s going to watch this on a phone, so it can’t be longer than 10 minutes. Now they dont have to worry about that anymore. Viewers love watching longer content on the TV.
I read that people often play the same content on their screen and their phone simultaneously. Why is that?
There’s third-party studies that basically say 80 to 90% of viewers are on their phone while theyre watching TV. YouTube’s a little unique in the TV space. Our service is interactive. You’re interacting with the creators, youre interacting with other viewers. We have features like the YouTube comments section. One of the things that we found is that it’s quite difficult to use some of these features with a remote control. Imagine typing out a comment with your remote, for example. We invest a lot in features where you can open YouTube on your phone and it connects automatically with the content you’re watching on TV, and you can do things like share the video to your friends and read the comments at the same time.
Does that change the way people consume content? Are viewers more engaged?
Viewers give us two themes. One is: I want to just lean back and watch their content and chill out. The other thing we hear is that because YouTube is so interactive, we call it lean in, where people want to read the comments, like the video, and subscribe to creators or channels. So we try to make it super seamless.
What is the Watch With feature youre piloting?
There’s this huge ecosystem of YouTube creators who basically make videos talking about live events while [theyre] happening. We’ve done studies where we talk to viewersand 50% of them would rather listen to a creator talk about a live event than watch the event itself. Watch With is a feature that is going to be rolling out more broadly over the course of this year. [It makes it] so you don’t have to pull up a YouTube video on one screen with a creator and then pull up the actual video on the side or on another device. Watch With will be an experience where you can see the event and also have the commentary from your favorite creator side by side.
How did you select the creators to partner with on this?
There’s so many creators who make a certain content format on YouTube, but they have a side passion they want to explore. Michelle Khare, who makes challenge content on YouTube. It turns out she’s an avid road biker and now she does Tour de France commentary. I think it’s a win-win for both the creators and the content owners because it’ll bring a lot of new viewers to this content, and maybe they’re not interested in watching [the Tour de France, for example], but they’re so tied to a creator that they’ll tune in just to see what the creator’s going to say about it.
Are creators prioritizing long-form content as more viewers tune in on their TV?
In general, every type of content is watched on the TV. The stuff that does really well on traditional TV also does really well on YouTube on TV, like Sports. I believe the watch time on TV for sports content has grown 30% year over year. Viewers are [also] watching over 400 million hours of podcast monthly on TV. There’s a huge transition in the podcast world happening, moving from audio-only to video.
Even on TV, we have our Shorts product. You might think it’s a mobile-first format. We built a Shorts experience on the TV, and we had in mind that it would do okay. But when we turned it on, the usage skyrocketed. So we started talking to the viewers who were watching Shorts on TV, and these same concepts came up. If you want to watch short-form videos with friends and family, do you crowd around a smartphone? No. You put it on your TV, you sit on your couch, and you watch it together.
How do you think about incorporating ads into the TV experience?
We try really hard to make it as seamless as we can. One of the things we realized is when you’re watching longer-form content, when you’re watching a 20-minute video, you don’t want to get hit all the time with interruptions. That’s annoying. So we try to do what traditional television does, which is to, as much as possible, pod the ads together so you’re interrupted less frequentlyand when you are, it’s [for] a little bit longer. That change on TV resulted in more viewership as well as more revenue.
We’re also trying to do TV-first ad formats where we don’t need to interrupt you all the time. An example would be direct-response ads, where we can put an adsomewhere, and if you’re interested in it, you can scan a QR code. We launched an ad format recently called pause ads, [so after] you pause the video, when you come back, [there’s an ad for you to watch], and if you’re into it, you can scan the QR code.
Who are your favorite content creators?
I love watching chess. There’s this guy in New York, Gotham Chess, who does a lot of commentary. l watch a lot of soccer; I follow this team, AC Milan, and it has this U.S. player, Christian Pulisic. There’s this creator named Kush who does a lot of commentary after the games.
Gallup recently released new data on employee engagement, and the results are dismal. Just 3 out of every 10 employees are actively engagedwhich is the lowest percentage in a decade. But despite decades of effort and investment in tackling disengagement, this persistent issue endures.
If you conduct an Amazon search for books on employee engagement, youll get thousands of results. There are also dozens of apps and platforms that promise to unleash human potential and help people transform, not to mention countless, self-described coaches offering services related to re-engaging the workforce.
Weve seen the rise and fall of perks culture, added opportunities for hybrid and flexible work, and wage increases averaging 39% over the last 10 yearsall in an attempt to fix this seemingly systemic issue.
And yet, nothings moved the needle on engagement. Why?
Despite all these efforts, weve missed something fundamental: Engagement doesnt come from where or when we work or what we get for doing it. It comes from what we experience while working.
Work is relationships
We construct our work experience through our interpersonal relationships. The psychologist David Blustein captured this reality when he wrote the following in the Journal Of Vocational Behavior, . . . each decision, experience, and interaction with the working world is understood, influenced, and shaped by relationships.
Gallups latest data reveals that only 39% of employees think someone cares about them as people at work. Less than half say that their bosses and colleagues treat them with respect, and just 30% say their place of work encourages potential and development. Other studies from the last five years show that 30% of people feel invisible at work, 65% feel underappreciated, and close to 82% of workers say theyve felt lonely, as reported by SHRM.
This paints a clear picture: Were not facing a disengagement crisiswere facing a mattering deficit, and more apps, surveys, perks, or pay increases won’t fix this. Only people can.
People wont care if they dont feel cared for
Mattering is the experience of feeling significant that comes from being seen, heard, and valued. Its also a prerequisite for engagement. And engagement is when employees care about what theyre doing, how theyre doing it, and who theyre doing it with. It is the experience of feeling significant that comes from being seen, heard, and valued.
But we cant expect people to care if they dont first feel cared for. According to the Journal of Organizational Psychology, there are three psychological states that predict engagement: psychological meaningfulness (I and what I do matter), psychological safety (I can show my true self without fear of consequences), and psychological availability (I have the physical and psychological resources I need to do my work).
You can cultivate relationships to make people feel seen, supported, and valued. This is why organizations need to shift their focus from merely measuring engagement to equipping leaders with the skills to cultivate its leading indicator: mattering.
Re-skill leaders so that they care
Building on almost a half-decade of research on what creates a sense of mattering, psychologist Isaac Prilleltensky distinguished two ingredients necessary to feel significant. When we feel that others value us and we know how we add value to their lives. Feeling valued and adding value have a reinforcing relationship. The more we feel valued, the more we add value.
When leaders value the people they lead, those people can contribute, create, and innovate, because they know someone sees them, hears them, and has their back. Relationships in which we feel cared for reinforce our worth and ability, forging our confidence to add value.
When people feel like they matter to someone, they act like they matter, they engage. A mistake many leaders subconsciously make is to assume that people only deserve value once they add value, but the opposite is true: People need to feel valued to add value.
Money, perks, programs, awards, and platforms cant value someone. Theyre inanimate objects. They can be symbols of value, but only people can value people. Thats why re-engagement begins with re-skilling leaders to care, truly see and hear others, and help them understand the difference they make every day.
The essential skills to create a culture of significance
So, where do we start? In research for my new book, The Power of Mattering, my team and I uncovered three critical skill sets of leaders that cultivate a sense of mattering:
Noticing: This is the skill of truly seeing and hearing others. Seeing others requires you to acknowledge them and paying attention to the details, ebbs, and flows of their lives and work while offering actions to show them youre paying attention. Hearing someone means demonstrating a real interest in the meaning and feeling behind someones words and inviting out their experiences and perspectives within a climate of psychological safety.
Affirming: The skills of knowing, naming, and nurturing peoples gifts, showing how they and their work make a difference, giving meaningful gratitude, and providing affirming critical feedback.
Needing: The skills of showing people how they and their work are indispensable and non-disposable.
The good news is that mattering happens in small interactions, not grand initiatives. Addressing disengagement requires a commitment to re-learning and scaling these essential human skills. Leaders can start by making sure that they take the time to make the next person they interact with feel noticed, affirmed, and needed.
In today’s high-stakes business environment, stress isn’t just an individual challengeit’s a force that shapes careers and organizations. The U.S. Department of Labor finds that 83% of workers suffer from work-related stress, and 54% say that work stress affects their home lives.
In my coaching work with hundreds of professionals annually, I’ve witnessed firsthand how impossible it is to separate stress from career trajectories; they are intertwined, each influencing and shaping the other. Stress can derail even the most carefully planned career paths, yet we often treat career decisions as purely rational, despite the fact that our psychological state profoundly influences the choices we make. I’ve practically tested these insights with individuals and leadership teams.
Here are five key theories that can help us make better decisions at workand how leaders can set up their teams for success:
1. Cognitive Load Theory
It’s well known that when stress increases, it causes our mental bandwidth to shrink dramatically, and it’s harder to weigh risks and rewards objectively. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2024 Work in America survey, 77% of U.S. workers experience work-related stress, with 36% reporting cognitive fatigue. I’ve seen that cognitive overload can be a recurrent theme in high-stakes professions like healthcare, finance, and emergency services.
Muscle memory can’t necessarily be depended on, as each case demands fresh analysis rather than routine responses. That results in errors with vast consequences, including profound ones like death. It can also be a trend with early-career professionals who must juggle skill acquisition with performance expectations and show higher rates of burnout and worsened mental health.
Example: A high-performing individual contributor, overwhelmed by multiple deadlines and an unexpected project, starts working longer hours, missing crucial meetings, and making uncharacteristic errors in financial reports, as their mental resources are depleted.
What leaders can do: Think of managing cognitive load like tending a garden by creating space for growth, pruning unnecessary meetings, and protecting blocks of time for deep work. Task prioritization tools can also reduce decision fatigue and encourage breaks, allowing minds to refresh and ideas to flourish. Remember, a well-rested team will outperform an exhausted one every time.
2. Dual-Process Theory
Cognitive psychologists Peter Wason and Jonathan St. B. T. Evans suggested the dual-process theory in 1974. The theory identifies two distinct thinking systems: fast, intuitive reactions and slower, analytical reasoning. Under stress, we are more likely to default to the quick-response system, bypassing careful analysis and consideration. Being mindful of stress levels helps prevent impulsive career decisions that may not align with long-term goals.
Example: After receiving tough feedback during a performance review, a team leader immediately volunteers for three high-visibility projects and begins working weekends, making reactive decisions that further compound their stress.
What leaders can do: If you work in a fast-growing startup with demanding client relationships or a company in volatile markets, your cultural environment may be problematic for dual-process thinking. When characterized by rapid decision cycles and high-stakes outcomes, these environments can push professionals into reactive thinking patterns.
In our rush to make decisions, we often forget the power of pause. Take a look at the past quarter’s major decisions to see if you can spot patterns of reactive thinking. It can also be a good idea to help foster mentor relationships that offer fresh perspectives and openly share your journey from reactive to responsive decision-making. If teams see thoughtful choices modeled, it helps them trust their analytical minds over their impulses.
3. Affect Heuristic
This psychological principle demonstrates how emotional states act as mental shortcuts in decision-making. Under stress, our emotional filters become increasingly dominant, often distorting our professional judgment.
I frequently observe how bias impacts how we make decisions when fatigued and how it manifests in the daily activities of leaders. For instance, one tech leader admitted to me that they had recently realized they had been hiring people who reminded them of themselves. Tired brains naturally gravitate toward what is familiar and comfortable, yet stress-induced emotional decisions often amplify biases, leading to overlooked talent and missed opportunities.
Example: A product manager, experiencing pressure from stakeholders, makes sweeping product changes based on a single negative customer review, disrupting the product roadmap and team morale.
What leaders can do: Start each week with a gentle emotional temperature check of your team. Ask each person to share one word that captures their current mindset. When doing so, watch for red flags like short, clipped responses, unusual irritability, or typically vocal team members falling silent.
You can also use open-ended simple questions that reveal hidden work-related stress, such as “What’s taking up the most space in your mind right now?” or “Is there anywhere that you feel stuck?” When team members default to “fine” or “okay,” go beyond surface-level responses and gently probe deeper with questions like “What does fine look like for you today?”
If you notice patterns of responses hinting at exhaustion or hear words like “overwhelmed” or “drained” from multiple team members, be mindful of making major decisions. This quick emotional weather report allows you to read your team’s emotional state, meaning you get better at spotting when someone is frustrated, overwhelmed, or excitedeven when it’s not explicitly stated, preventing teams from making unsound choices.
4. Self-Determination Theory
The self-determination theory includes three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When stress compromises these core needs, decision-making becomes reactive and short-sighted. I’ve witnessed this being especially critical in modern hybrid and remote work environments, where traditional support structures take on virtual forms.
Example: Feeling isolated and disconnected, a remote worker begins to disengage from team projects, miss key deadlines, and secretly apply to competitors without making an attempt to resolve their frustrations about their current job.
What leaders can do: While building a rewarding career requires self-motivation on behalf of the employee, as a leader, picture yourself as an architect of autonomy, designing spaces where people shape their work while staying connected to the larger mission. If you’re not already creating opportunities for meaningful connection in both virtual and physical realms, now is the time t do so. When people feel genuinely supported, they thrive.
5. Career Construction Theory
An employees professional identity is the story they tell about themselves at work, whether they’re the Excel wizard or the one who always gets things done. When organizations undergo significant changes, like switching to entirely new software systems, reorganizations, or new management, these identities can suddenly feel shaky or irrelevant to your team members.
Stress can also fragment these personal narratives, making maintaining a coherent career vision challenging. When you’re stressed, it’s harder to articulate your thoughts and “sell” yourself, a product, or an idea. Couple that with productivity anxiety, and you can see why there’s an organizational need to support the skill of building a personal brand.
Example: During organizational restructuring, an early-career professional becomes fixated on worst-case scenarios, exhibits less diverse thinking, and finds it hard to articulate the impact of their work.
What leaders can do: Research from Deloitte indicates that 40% of Gen Z employees report feeling stressed most of the time, which impacts decision-making, confidence in their career narratives, and the time and energy to upskill in their career. Yet, every career tells a story, and helping shape the narratives of those at high risk of burnout is perhaps leadership’s most subtle art.
Suppose your team isn’t surpassing its potential, engagement is dipping, and you can’t name two to three of your employees’ “non-work-related” strengths. Bring in support to holistically bolster employee brands (and the companies, too).
By understanding these frameworks and taking action, you can help create environments that support rational decision-making and emotional well-being. The future belongs to organizations that recognize stress management isn’t just about individual coping mechanismsit’s about building systems that help people think clearly and choose wisely.
Sharing personal hardships like divorce, health issues, and family emergencies can make workplace conversations emotionally difficult and professionally complex. But given that our working lives are not getting shorter anytime soon, its not a question of if individuals will need to have these conversations, but when. And navigating these conversations professionally while managing emotions and privacy requires careful thought and preparation.
Here are some strategies to help you handle sensitive discussions with confidence while maintaining personal boundaries.
1. Determine the purpose of sharing your news
Getting clear on your reasons for sharing will help you think through your message, as well as recipients, timing, and any emotions that surface along the way. Are you sharing because the company protocol requires you to? Do you feel compelled to quell office gossip before it gets out of hand? Are you sharing because you need accommodations, or are you simply seeking understanding and support? Knowing the reason for sharing helps to clarify the following next steps.
2. Decide who needs to know (and how much)
You dont need to tell everyone at work about your situation with the same level of details. Create concentric circles of communication with your respective stakeholders.
Start with primary stakeholders, which include managers and direct supervisors (and sometimes HR). These are the people who are most directly impacted in the workplace and will need to accommodate, shift, or assume responsibility. Prioritize communicating with them first.
Next, you should inform your secondary stakeholders. These are colleagues, team members, and direct reports who may experience some impact.
The last category are tertiary stakeholders. These are co-workers, clients, and people who may notice the shifts and changes, but your circumstances are unlikely to have any impact on their situation.
Its often best to share the information directly and personally with the primary stakeholders. But when it comes to secondary and tertiary stakeholders, you can do this in a group meeting or via a memo. You can also delegate your message to a primary stakeholder when it comes to informing secondary and tertiary stakeholders. This alleviates the stress and discomfort of doing so yourself.
For example, a client on maternity leave experienced a traumatic miscarriage. She alerted her direct leader, requesting additional time off with the privacy to share the information herself when ready. Before she returned from leave, she sent an e-memo to all primary and secondary stakeholders explaining her situation and the emotional impact, while requesting sensitivity, privacy and that colleagues please not ask questions about her experience.
3. Timing and setting
Timing and environment also play crucial roles when sharing sensitive information. Consider these factors:
Location: If meeting others, think about a quiet, private space where youll have little to no interruption or distraction.
Timing: Schedule conversations when both you and your audience will have ample time to discuss and process the situation without rushing.
For example, a client was going through a divorce and shared concerns that the situation might impact his work performance. He had a private face-to-face conversation alerting his direct leader of the situation, which he scheduled for a late Friday afternoon. Together, they crafted a measured statement to share with his secondary stakeholders (his direct team) which his leader shared at the Monday morning team meeting, requesting discretion and privacy. They decided there was no need to loop in tertiary stakeholders unless circumstances change.
4. Prepare your ‘minimum message’
Be as clear and concise as possible when youre sharing details by outlining your conversation points. This way, youll stay focused, maintain professionalism, and maintain privacy boundaries.
A helpful framework includes the following steps:
Identify the high-level situation (such as an illness or death in the family).
Explain how it might impact your work (such as inability to work late, or distraction).
Request any specific support or accommodations you’ll need (such as time off for appointments, lightening workload, extending deadlines). If youre uncertain about what support you need, simply say, I am unclear what my needs are and how anyone could support me right now. I will give it more thought and let you know.
Suggest your proposed plan for managing responsibilities, such as a high-level plan of who might cover needed responsibilities. If youre not ready to devise a plan or need help, ask colleagues or leaders for assistance. In some instances, colleagues may be able to create the plan for you.
Express your preferred level of confidentiality, as well as how open you are to expressions of concern and support. Some find curiosity and condolences to be comforting and supportive, while others need space. Clarifying your support needs enables your colleagues to respect them, and it takes the awkward guesswork out of how they can help.
Its not uncommon to experience sadness, anger, or even grief as a result of an unexpected crisis. Sharing difficult news can be emotionally draining. If you become emotional, allow yourself a moment to collect your thoughts and give yourself a break. Most managers and colleagues will respond with empathy and understanding to your honest emotions. Using the above framework can guide you to stay focused and professional, even if emotions surface during the conversation.
Tough times are inevitable, and personal challenges impact everyone at some point. By approaching these moments with authenticity, a simple framework, and a focus on emotional well-being, you foster a compassionate workplace where support flows both ways. With thoughtful preparation, even the hardest conversations become more effective and less daunting.
Matt Sia is a big fan of eggs. With his daughter, hell make slow scrambles bathed in pricey European butter. And as executive creative director at the design and branding firm Pearlfisher, he brought that same love to an egg carton he designed for the now retired brand Consider Pastures.
The regenerative farming producers created eggs with rich burnt sienna shells, and Sia designed a complementary blue package that celebrated their natural hue. To reach this reveal, the carton unfolded in a dramatic, multi-tiered story much like an Apple product, with messages like care and cultivate highlighted in gold foil. These premium eggs sold for $5. But today, as another New Yorker elbowing for eggs, that feels like a completely different era to Sia.
Now everything has gotten thrown out the window. You stand at the shelf and and everything is $10 to $12. And I’m trying to figure out what the differences are. Being in this business, I am thinking, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I’m not spending that much on these eggs,‘ he says. This is coming from someone who cares a lot about brand. And Im like, fuck it. I want to get free range if I can find them, but I look at the price tag attached and say theres no way I can spend that much. This pack won’t last.
Sia is all of us in the age of egg scarcity. He cares about the eggs his family is eating. But he cannot functionally care when those eggs get too expensive. The pantry staple, consumed by 90% of American households, currently costs 40% more than it did at the start of 2025. And its pushing the very idea of brand and consumer values to a breaking point.
Egg shortages are revealing a simple truth: People never had much brand loyalty to eggs, and as prices are spiking, whatever values previously drove your egg purchasing decisions are likely to be challenged by your wallet.
Consider Pastures
The death of the premium egg brand
Consumers traditionally choose an egg by typeconventional or speciality. Conventional buyers assume all eggs are the same, so whatever is cheap works. Specialty buyers might be coaxed toward animal welfare labels like cage free or pasture raised, or boosted nutritional attributes like omega 3s from hens fed fortified diets.
Theres a guilt. Everyone looks for different principles, different claims and qualities, and sometimes that comes down to, can I afford to buy this? Everyone has a different degree of choice when it comes to that sort of thing, says Sia. The reason it feels eggs are blurred together today is that the delta between your price and principles becomes so large . . . everyone here in NY is just trying to find the cheapest eggs.
Most eggs look more or less the same, and so packaging is the vehicle for signaling a more or less premium egg brand. Ironically, the finest boutique eggsthose sold direct from small farmersare distributed in forgettable, paper pulp cartons, often direct from the farm to the consumer. The store shelf tells a different story. Here you have a mix of cheap protective packagingpaper, styrofoam, and plasticsold by a slew of brands that almost no consumer registers, according to data from Nielson and The American Egg Board.
Instead of brand loyalty, these shoppers hunt and peck for the best ratio of price and their desired attributes like free range. In many cases, styrofoam signals conventional, so consumers are drawn right to those packs. But while the package may attract a purchase, ultimately, consumers do expect to take a peek inside to double check the merchandise. As Sia points out, eggs might be the only item at the grocery store that people regularly open to inspect to ensure they arent broken. (Nobody opens a pack of Tide Pods to check if they’re leaking.)
As for the fate of the premium egg, for now, such an idea seems to ignore that, in an age of scarcity, all eggs have become something of a premium. People never cared that much about the brand of egg they purchased, and they are almost assuredly less concerned now.
Organic Egg Scorecard
The shifting identity of the egg as a brand
Eggs are sold by brands, but in reality, they are a much greater brand unto themselvesone that signals a cheaper, more convenient, more ethical protein than meat. The American Egg Board is a nonprofit funded by farmers to protect and grow that brand, with the primary mission is to increase our demand for this staple.
When Edward Hoffman took over as VP of marketing and communications two years ago, he charted a major strategy forward. He identified new target markets, and launched the organization’s biggest and boldest program ever to re-excite the market about eggs, filled with delectable recipes and information on nutrition.
But into Q4 of last year, the industrys four-year nervousness about bird flu spiked into a true crisis. Me and my team started looking at sort of the landscape ahead, and said, you know, we need to start slow-rolling some of our programming, because we do not want to come across as tone deaf to consumers, Hoffman recounts.
What followed was not just a cessation of The American Egg Boards plan, but a complete shift in strategy as it eyes the big egg holiday, Easter, on the horizon. Instead of positioning eggs as delectable and healthy, they are now positioning eggs as safe and frugal-friendly. The company is even amidst a new website redesign highlighting this new approachaimed at both consumers and retailers hat distribute eggs.
On the safety end, theyre tamping down concerns that you can get bird flu from eggs (when cooked, they are considered safe). And on the frugal end, theyre pushing an approach to eggs that helps maximize the carton. We dont want consumers wasting a single egg during this time, says Hoffman.
The board’s new guidance comes in the form of meal planning tips, recipes, and teaching consumers things like, yes, you can freeze eggs to preserve them longer.
One example: If you really want scrambled eggs, maybe add in some other product with a cottage cheese or something, to sort of extend that carton, says Hoffman. And I’m perfectly comfortable [saying that]. I want to meet our consumers where they’re at because you know what, that’s what they need right now. That they are taken care of and they know that eggs have their back even when the industry is constrained.
Just Egg
A moment for egg alternatives
But while consumers may be settling for the types of eggs they wouldnt have bought a year ago, many believe supply chains may continue to be challenged through 2026 given the logistics of egg production. Sometimes the store shelves are just empty. What then?
For Josh Terick, the CEO of Eat Just (which makes the mung bean-derived egg substitute, Just Egg), this is the opportunity of a lifetime.
Chicken eggs feel particularly uncool and not reliable right now. And it’s not even close: much more so than the launch, this is far and away the most important moment in the last 12 years since I cofounded the company, says Terick. It’s not big, but it’s just a little window open . . . where often around the country right now, were the only egg on the shelf . . . where people are thinking, is there actually another egg other than the chicken egg?
The moment is a payoff for one of Tericks key strategies, who has long insisted Just Egg be offered beside chicken eggs. Just Egg pops off the shelf in its yolky yellow milk carton packaging, with a modernist sans serif font meant to appeal to design-appreciative urbanites and affluent suburbs (which Eat Just considers its base)
For a company thats not suffering but still only doing tens of millions in sales, Terick recognizes the potential inflection point that may not come again. Sales are up 70% YOY, and theyre seeing a 5x increase to growth on one of their core products at a top retailer. To feed new demand, Terick has completely rebuilt his schedule since egg shortages hit, responding to retailers, restaurants, and other entities inquiring about Just Egg at all hours of the day. In the last week, hes spoken to a top three convenience chain, a top ten restaurant chain, and the U.S. military about providing Just Egg. He then reads me an email from a North Carolina mega breakfast restaurant that asked about Just Egg concluding, “sounds weird, but well try it.”
Balancing the tone of Just Egg is key in this moment, and the company will be adopting a new brand slogan soon that gently pokes at the instability of the egg market: Yo, chicken eggs, we got it from here. Theyre providing samples to NPOs, offering discounts to solitary retailers that dont sell Just Egg, and partnering with 50 bodegas across NYC to sell Just Egg sandwiches as part of a bird flu bailout.
Every day, I just keep thinking, what else? What else can we be doing that we’re not doing that ten years from now, I [see when I] look back on this, says Terick, who admits their greatest appeal to most retailers is just that theyre dependable in a time of crisis. If you call them up, they would say, you know what you can do for us, deliver on time.
The other thing keeping Terick up at night is how the company is positioned in pricing. For years, Just Egg sold at a loss, keeping the price around $5/carton to have closer parity with regular eggs. More recently, finding himself sick of raising more money, Terick prioritized the health of his business, and now Just Egg sells at around $7 to $9 a pack, which offers Just Egg a double digit margin. But in two years, Terick believes they have a technological path to reduce the price of producing Just Egg to have parity with eggsand he cant help but wonder, is it worth waiting until then to lower prices, or would more be gained by doing so now?
It’s like these two things are pulling in me: One is, yeah, let’s fing go! Of course, this is a moment! says Terrick. And then the other side is, boy, I like not spending every day trying to raise money. Just Egg will probably reach a compromise, offering discounts like buy one get one free through retailers, before dropping prices in the future.
In any case, Terrick and Sia are in full agreement about the future of eggs on whole. The very idea of the boutique egg seems in jeopardy in an age of scarcity. And the ultimate cost in an uncertain egg market isnt just the price of protein, but our psychological comfort in an era when supply chains of all sorts of goods are unreliable.
Whats next after eggs, are there things we don’t consider? Grains? Bread? Milk, muses Sia. It can spiral. We have access to everything all the time . . . then you realize . . . [we dont].
The coast of Florida is about to be home to the worlds largest-ever artificial reef, and its going to be made out of a 75-year-old, 1,000-foot-long ship.
Its a poetic end for the SS United States, which sailed between 1952 and 1969 and was the fastest ocean liner to ever cross the Atlantic. The ship is currently sailing its last voyage around the coast of Florida (you can see a live tracker here) en route to Mobile, Alabama, where it will spend a year getting cleaned and prepped to be dropped about 20 nautical miles off of Floridas Destin-Fort Walton Beach.
Today, conservationists are increasingly exploring the creation of artificial reefs to combat the damaging impacts of pollution and climate change, using everything from old subway cars and voting boxes to habitats made from human ashes for the structures. And, as it turns out, a decommissioned ship has a few key qualities that make it a prime candidate for reef conversion.
Why we need artificial reefs
Despite covering less than 1% of the total ocean floor, coral reefs support an estimated 25% of all marine life, meaning they’re central to preserving ocean biodiversity. However, record global ocean temperatures have caused a worldwide coral bleaching event (the second in the past 10 years), which occurs when warmer-than-normal conditions disrupt a symbiotic algae relationship that keeps coral alive, causing them to die off over time.
Since 2023, mass bleaching events have been confirmed in 53 countries, territories, and local economies, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rising levels of ocean pollution are similarly threatening the health of global reefs.
While the only long-term solutions to coral die-offs are limiting ocean pollution and climate change, artificial reefs are one way to mitigate the loss in the meantime. Artificial reefs can either be purpose-made, as in the case of NYC’s “Living Breakwaters” or Rotterdam’s Lego-like blocks; or made from repurposed materials, like decommissioned tugboats, ferries, and military tanks.
What makes a giant ship a good artificial reef?
Plenty of structures could theoretically be made into reefs, but there are a number of factors that make some options better than others.
Daniel Sheehy is an environmental consultant whos been studying artificial reefs for more than 50 years. In a 2022 interview with Fast Company, he shared a few considerations that go into their creation.
To start, federal and state regulations determine how conservationists can construct, design, and regulate new artificial reefs in order to ensure that they dont inadvertently harm the surrounding environment. One way that might happen is if an artificial reef is prone to breaking apart and decomposing quicklywhich, Sheehy shared, was the case when many of New Yorks old Brightliner subway cars were retired to the ocean floor but quickly disintegrated when spot-welding caused their steel frames to come apart.
Properly welded steel is generally considered to be safe for reefs, but other materialslike rubber, fiberglass, wood, and plastichave been found to deteriorate quickly in saltwater and are now banned for artificial reefs.
Beyond its material construction, Sheehy shared, a thriving artificial reef also needs a large surface area (to allow for plenty of marine species to make a new habitat) and a sizable weight (to prevent the reef from moving out of its designated site.) Both of these elements make a massive ocean liner a fairly strong choice: The SS United States, specifically, clocks in at 990 feet long and weighs around 50,000 tons. Other ship-turned-reef projects, like the USS Oriskany, which was sunk in 2006 near Pensacola, Florida, have proven successful over time.
Before the SS United States is actually sent to its new permanent residence, it will be thoroughly cleaned of contaminants including any fuels and oils, paint residue, and leftover floatables or debris. According to the official Destin-Fort Walton Beach website, the ship is also slated to receive an immersive land-based museum to document its history.
Five years ago, if you bought a particular pair of shorts from Patagonia, you might have noticed a message sewn into the back of the label: Vote the assholes out.
It was one step in the outdoor retailers fight against the first Trump administration. When the administration announced plans to reduce national monuments, for example, the company temporarily replaced its homepage with the message, The President Stole Your Land. Along with others, it helped mobilize millions of public comments. The company later sued the president over his plans to dramatically shrink the size of Bears Ears National Monument.
Now that Trump is back in office, the company is beginning a new fight. The team started strategizing last month, when the Trump administration announced that it planned to open up more public lands to oil and gas drilling and later started slashing jobs at national parks and in the Forest Service.
[Photo: Patagonia]
For Patagonia, theres an obvious business case for pushing back against the administrations policy, beyond the company’s core mission to protect the planet. The outdoor industry relies on our whole system of public lands as the infrastructure that our community members use to get out and use our products and connect with the outdoors, says Hans Cole, VP of environmental activism at Patagonia. When you attack that infrastructure, that set of protected landscapes, absolutely we could see impacts.
Some of those impacts could happen quickly. Around 1,000 National Park Service employees were fired last month, along with 3,400 Forest Service workers. (After the administration also rescinded the job offers for 5,000 seasonal Park Service employees, it later reversed that decision; its not clear yet how many of those positions will be filled.) Even with some seasonal workers in place, parks might struggle to maintain operations this spring and summer and fewer people might decide to visit. If hikers and campers dont make trips, we see immediate impacts in our business, Cole says. Folks dont want to buy the jacket.
The impacts go beyond the outdoor industry. It’s also the local communities that are adjacent to protected public lands or simply to open public spaces he says. Local communities rely on a lot of tourism and visitation. Small businesses rely on folks coming into town during the summer.
Patagonia has always been unabashedly political, so its unsurprising that the company is stepping back into the fray even as most other businesses hesitate to criticize Trump. Right now, many companies that spoke out against Trump in his first administration are silent; some business leaders, like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, have cozied up to the president after criticizing him in the past. But for companies that want to be more vocal nowbecause they fundamentally disagree with Trump policy and/or because it can directly impact their bottom linePatagonia offers some lessons.
First, companies should choose an issue to focus on. Patagonias team cares broadly about the environment, but strategically focuses on policy that impacts public lands.
We have to make choices about what we go deepest on and where we put the most resources, says Cole. Its something that businesses are really good at doing, because we do it all the time. We make strategic choices about which market to go into or which product to focus on. The business community is uniquely suited to come into a landscape like this, assess, and say, OK, we care about all these things, and well find ways to stay connected to each one of them and stay educated on that. But were going to go deepest on this piece here.
With public lands, we know our community cares about these things, we know this is important to our business, and we know we have an authentic and informed point of view, he says. We can step into that chaotic landscape with a lot of confidence.
Its also helpful for companies to collaborate with peers. We know that voices together can make a difference, and when business voices come together, its a unique voice that often decision-makers will listen to, says Cole. Patagonia is now having daily calls with others across the industry.
Brands can also play a role in keeping customers informed as the administration plows forward in making changes, and nudge citizens to contact representatives. The government hasnt yet outlined the details of its plans for public landsthough the general direction toward weakening protections and opening it up for more exploitation is clear. Patagonia chose to start speaking out early. Public pressure does work, Cole says. It’s urgently important right now for folks to be educating themselves about what’s going on and reaching out to their members of Congress to say what they care about.”
Patagonia is taking a multipronged approach that begins with alerting people to the challenge. A recent Instagram ad, for example, explained that Trump wanted to sell off public lands, and pointed customers to more information. CEO Ryan Gellert published an op-ed in Time. And more creative campaigns will follow, in the spirit of the message that the company hid in its label in 2020.
“It’s always a challenge to cut through the noise,” says Cole “The chaos of the sheer volume of issues, the number of things that people care about in the national political space, not to mention locally or in people’s lives. It’s so noisy right now that the more creative we get and the more we can connect with folks in a way that includes a great story, a really powerful voice, some humor, even in the midst of a lot of dark and challenging momentsit does work.”
Ultimately, he says, the company always connects its messages with action. “We try not to put words or stories out without some paired idea around, ‘What could you do?’ so that people don’t walk away feeling overwhelmed,” he says. “[They’re] empowered, even in some small way: Make that first call to your member of Congress, even if it’s just to say something high level. Reach out and support a local grassroots group through Action Works [a digital platform from Patagonia]. Get out there and volunteer . . . Reaching people with those kinds of messages, I think, can be really poerful.”
Under the rally cry of Altadena Is Not for Sale, the people of the multi-racial, middle-class town of Altadena, California, are aiming to take charge of their own recovery and rebuilding from the Los Angeles Eaton fires, which killed 17 people, burned more than 14,000 acres, and destroyed over 9,000 homes and businesses. Three community organizations and the local Native American tribes reflect the various perspectives, and collective unity, on how Altadena might avoid the fate of other communities whose recovery ended up being controlled by big developers.
Altadena: Not For Sale, My Tribe Rise, and Altadena Strong are three community organizations who have cohosted events to bring together the Altadena community for recovery and rebuild. The Fernandeo Tatavian band of Mission Indians, Gabrielino San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, and the San Fernando Band of Mission Indians have been involved in mutual aid, fighting fires, and are working closely with officials to implement Indigenous fire management practices to prevent future fires.
[L to R] Melissa Michelson and other Altadena: Not for Sale members set up a table at the Altadena Strong Event. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]
Altadena: Not For Sale
Altadena: Not For Sale states that its mission is to help the under and non-insured to be able to stay in Altadena and not fall prey to predatory land speculators. Organized by Melissa Michelson, the organization held a protest on January 18th at which they shared their list of seven demands, including the establishing a land trust, zoning regulations to prevent over development, group deals with architects and contractors, and educating residents on their rights. The organization has set up information booths at various local events to have residents order yard signs saying Altadena: Not For Sale to show their solidarity.
This is a project. It’s a very unfortunate situation to be in, says Michelson. But maybe we could build something from it and be a community that doesn’t sell out to developers and that keeps the people in place. It’s not going to be a 100% back to normal, but maybe Altadena can be revived with such strong community effort. That’s my hope.
Alphonso Browne, an Altadena: Not For Sale volunteer and 39 year resident of Altadena, lost his home of 34 years and two close neighbors to the Eaton fire [The Bowne Family Go-Fund Me]. His insurance company canceled his 20-year-old fire insurance policy just one month before the fires.
The opportunity is for us to build a stronger community bond, says Browne. Most of us was middle class, so the money doesn’t move us in our living. We want a very strong tight-knit community and that is what we have the opportunity to now build it.
My Tribe Rise and Altadena: Not For Sale brought community organizations and fire-affected residents together to connect, heal, and organize. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]
My Tribe Rise
My Tribe Rise was started in 2019 by Victor Hodgson and Heavenly Hughes to increase neighborhood peace and reduce the stigma of gang affiliation, especially in West Altadena. They are ensuring that the 18% Black and 30% Hispanic communities, who boasted a 75% home ownership rate, do not get displaced from the fires.
My Tribe Rise is adapting its mutual aid network and community organizing into the cohesive infrastructure by which Altadena can lead its own recovery efforts. When the [COVID-19] Pandemic was here, we led our community through it. And in this catastrophe, we will do the same thing, says Hughes. We focus on food and housing insecurities. We focus on economic development. We focus on ways and solutions to end violence in our community. And personally, I feel like the folks that are trying to steal our property, that is violence. And so, we’re going to address violence in our community.
A community-led recovery is required in Altadena because it is an unincorporated town in Los Angeles County, which means that it does not have a mayor or city hall to represent its recovery and rebuild interests. It does have a voluntary town council, but it is only advisory to Kathryn Barger, the Los Angeles County Supervisor for the 5th District, who has oversight of portions of 20 cities, 63 unincorporated communities, 15 neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles.
The absence of a mayor and others is seen as a positive opportunity. My Tribe Rise and Altadena: Not For Sale cohosted a community event on February 8 to bring together the various organizations, such as Altadena Strong and the LA Fires Survivors Committee, who are also focused on co-building a community-led recovery.
Theres an opportunity to build something long-lasting because it won’t get corrupted or muddied with profit, says Gabriela Garcia of LA Fires Survivors. It’s coming from a place of true care for the community.
[L to R] Tucker Davis, Gabriela Garcia, Sam Taylor, and Christine Rodriguez of LA Fire Survivors gathered at an Altadena community event. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]
Altadena Strong
Altadena Strong was founded by Altadena resident Freddy Sayegh, whose extended family lost seven homes and two businesses in the Eaton fires. Though driven by attachment and emotion, Altadena Strong offers a practical argument for the community to come together to decide how to spend its possible $25 billion in economic resources. On Feb. 5, Sayegh organized a community town hall meeting attended by over 200 residents, government officials, and representatives from the Red Cross, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Small Business Administration.
Only Altadena is going to save Altadena. No one in Los Angeles or Sacramento is thinking about us, he said in the meeting, There are certain things that we can negotiate directly with the manufacturer. Well call Canada and order the wood direct. And we will order enough and have it here. We can have a bunch of architects and contractors on salary. And a team that we organize will lay concrete. Its going to be 20 to 30 cents on the dollar. Its the only way its going to work. We must get together.
Freddy Sayegh of Altadena Strong hosted over 200 Altadena home owners and renters at his community town hall. [Photo: Dori Tunstall]
Collective Unity
To succeed in its community-led recovery and rebuild, Altadena requires the fusion of the various community groups and Tongva tribal leaders into a council who can design and implement the plan for Altadenas recovery and rebuild. On February 13, an virtual community meeting was called by Altadena Strong and others to form the Altadena Coalition with the goal to form community teams, establish the largest non-profit organization dedicated to collective purchasing, negotiations, development, and revitalization, and ensure that Altadenas future is built by its residents.
Community teams identified to be filled included leadership and strategy, volunteer coordination and community support, procurement and rebuilding logistics, fundraising and financial support, communications and public awareness, and legal, policy, and compliance. Several community members volunteered their services during the call.
Community members across the different organizations recognize the challenges in aligning the competing interests within its diverse inhabitants, most of whom have been scattered across Southern California. They understand that the work is a minimum commitment of three years. And they mostly likely will not get paid, as a mayor or city council would, for doing the work. What brings them hope for success is their shared commitment to the deep heritage of the Altadena as a place where intersectionally Indigenous, Black, Hispanic, immigrant, and queer folks could build intergenerational homes for themselves and their families from life to death and life again.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
Typing isn’t always the best way to get your thoughts down. Sometimes talking through an idea leads to better clarity. New AI tools can reliably transform those spoken thoughts into clean, organized text.
I’ve spent months experimenting with voice AI toolsfirst on my phone, and now on my laptop. Theyve been helping me pull ideas from my brain onto paper. The tools below have become crucial to my workflow.
Why voice AI beats traditional transcription
Traditional transcription simply converts speech to text. Modern voice AI does much more:
Instant transformation: Speak naturally and get a polished draft, outline, or summary
Smart cleanup: AI removes filler words and adds proper punctuation
Format flexibility: Convert speech into various formats like bullet lists or structured documents
Context awareness: AI understands context and organizes your thoughts logically. Because its grounded in your own words, it doesnt hallucinate.
5 ways I like using voice AI
Here are some scenarios where voice AI is particularly valuable:
1. Journal entries
Instead of staring at a blank page, I speak my thoughts at day’s end. The AI transforms my stream of consciousness into organized reflections.
2. Meeting follow-ups
After an in-person meeting, I open my voice AI app, hit record, and talk through key points while theyre still fresh. I dont worry about the structure of my sentences or about pausing as I think. The AI waits for me and summarizes my rambling.
3. Presentation planning
Speaking through presentation ideas helps me figure out my narrative flow. The AI helps me organize my thoughts into a structured outline. I can talk through multiple potential versions, then compare them on screen later.
4. Book notes
To preserve insights from something Im reading, I turn on a voice AI app and flip through the pages or scroll through the text to remind myself out loud about intriguing passages or ideas. I then save the structured note the AI creates.
I like being able to look back at the text while dictating the note. And the editing part of my brain interferes less when Im talking than when Im typing.
5. Daily planning
Starting my day by verbally mapping out my priorities helps me think through whats ahead more effectively than typing out a list.
Voice AI apps to try
Letterly
Easy to use: Just press the apps big button. Up to 15 minutes per recording.
Cross-platform: Record or access your past text-from-voice across automatically synchronized desktop, web, and mobile apps.
Smart format detection: The magic transform option can automatically reformat your words, turning lists into bullets or structuring email drafts for quick copy-and-pasting into other apps.
Customizable outputs: Transform recordings into LinkedIn posts, podcast or video scripts, structured documents, or your own custom formats.
Iterative refinement: Try different transformations of the same recording until you get exactly what you need.
Multiple languages: Record in any of 90 languages, or record in one language and have the app translate your text into another.
Offline and screen-off options: Record anywhere, even without Internet access. Try using background mode without your screen on. I often record with my AirPods while walking with my phone in my pocket.
Founders tip: Dont confuse it with dictation, says Letterlys founder and CEO Anton Lebedev. You dont need to pronounce the perfect text you want to write. Instead, think out loud, speak slowly, quickly, or even chaotically. AI will understand you. Think of it like a writing assistant youre telling what to write. The assistant can understand you and figure out how to rewrite the text.
Letterly Pricing: $80/year after a free trial
Oasis
Multi-purpose output: Get your recording transformed simultaneously into various formatsfrom a memo or outline to a blog post or TED talk.
Make custom templates: Create and name short prompts that reflect your preferred styles or formats. Those become part of your personalized prompt library for transforming future recordings. I made one for my journal entries.
Web accessibility: Like Letterly and Audiopen, you can access your recordings and transformed text through a browser on any device.
Oasis pricing: $5/month or $50/year for enough credits for hundreds of monthly uses.
AudioPen
Customize rewrite length: Customize the length setting if youd prefer summaries of your transcribed recordings to be shorter or longer. Create and access them on your phone or on any device through your browser.
Shareable audio notes: Send individual audio note links to colleagues or collaborators. Or send then to other apps with a Zapier integration.
Flexible organization: Combine multiple audio notes or their summaries into larger collections. You can search for old notes or arrange them in folders.
Rich template selection: Choose from various transformation templates.
AudioPen pricing: $99/year or $159/two years after a free trial.
Bottom Line
Start with Letterly if you want simplicity and reliability. Consider Oasis if you want a slightly cheaper option or need to simultaneously access multiple format variations of the same content. AudioPen is useful if you want to customize the length of your voice summaries or if sharing or combining audio notes is important to your workflow.
Where to use voice AI
Voice AI shines when typing isn’t practical or when you want to think freely without your hands on a keyboard. Here are situations where you can try it:
At home
Comy chair: Capture book notes without interrupting your reading rhythm.
Kitchen: Document recipe adjustments or cooking notes while your hands are busy with ingredients.
Bedside: Record late-night musings without disrupting your wind-down routine with a bright screen.
Garden: Log landscaping ideas or random thoughts while your hands are dirty.
On the move
Walking: Capture project ideas and inspiration during your daily stroll.
Commute: Draft emails and plan your day while on the subway or bus.
Car: Record thoughts safely after parking but before you forget an important idea.
At work
Quiet space: Create reflective journal entries while looking out the window.
Conference: Capture insights between sessions to avoid being overwhelmed when you get home.
Doctor’s office: Record appointment details and follow-up steps while the info is fresh.
Active time
Outdoors: Draft journal entries or creative ideas while surrounded by nature
Exercise: Outline presentations or brainstorm on the treadmill
Shopping: Create lists or remind yourself about products
Voice AI on your laptop
I used to rely exclusively on mobile voice AI apps, but lately I’ve been relying on laptop voice AI apps. These are less focused on transforming text and more on putting your spoken text on your clipboard so you can paste into any tool youre using. It works with Google Docs, Word, email, or whatever else youre using. I use these on my laptop because its quicker and easier for me to talk than to type. Here are three worth trying:
Flow
Quick to start: Once youve installed the software, just hold down the function key to start recording in any of 100+ languages. Your recording gets instantly transcribed and the cleaned-up text is copied to your clipboard.
Works anywhere on your computer: Paste transcribed text directly into any applicationemail, documents, or messaging apps.
Reduces screen and hand fatigue: Record while looking away from your screen to reduce eye strain and give your hands a break.
Flow pricing: Free for up to 2,000 words/week; $12/month billed annually for unlimited words and extra features. $8/month for students and educators.
TalkTastic
Simple transcription: Made by the team that created the Oasis mobile app, TalkTastic is designed to be simpler. Instead of transforming your speech into various text types, it just puts a cleaned-up version of what you say onto your clipboard to paste into any app.
Smart text transformation: You can optionally set it to analyze your screen context to offer transformed versions of your text.
Free: While in beta, theres no cost for TalkTastic.
MacWhisper
Advanced transcription: Use this free software to transcribe online meetings, podcasts, or live dictation. You can even upload files to transcribe.
Pay once for pro features: Enable YouTube transcriptions, batch uploads, translation, and top AI model usage with a one-time purchase.
MacWhisper pricing: Free for basic usage; about $60 for pro upgrade; 20% discount with this link. Journalists, students, or non-profits can email support@macwhisper.com for 50% off.
Other ways to use your voice to benefit from AI
ChatGPT has a powerful voice mode in its mobile and desktop apps. Rather than typing out AI queries, you can have a conversation with an AI bot. Heres why thats so useful.
Perplexitys mobile app voice AI mode is terrific. I ask it a series of questions, like an oracle. It beats Google on many of my queries. The AI understands what Im asking, then gathers and summarizes a helpful response. Citations in the app ensure I can check on its info sources.
Googles Gemini and Microsofts Copilot have recently-upgraded mobile voice modes. Converse with human-sounding AI bots without thumb typing.
Open-source options abound.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
