REI has long enjoyed a reputation as a progressive company that promises strong benefits and promotes a culture of inclusion and sustainability. As a consumer cooperative, the outdoor retailer has also eschewed a typical corporate structure.
But in recent years, against the backdrop of a union drive, some workers have described a culture at odds with REI’s purported values. Despite successful union efforts at 11 of its 180 total stores, REI workers have not managed to successfully negotiate a contract with the company. The National Labor Relations Board is also currently looking into dozens of unfair labor practice charges brought by workers. Last week, REI members voted against the company’s slate of board candidates, following a union campaign urging them to protest that REI did not allow labor-backed candidates on the ballot.
A new report from the National Employment Law Project finds that many REI workers say they have encountered discrimination on the job. In a survey of 219 workers across 10 unionized stores, nearly half47%said they had witnessed or experienced some kind of racial discrimination. Among workers of color, one in five said they had personally faced discrimination at the company.
In a statement to Fast Company, REI said the following: “Discrimination has no place at REI. The safety, well-being, and inclusion of our 15,000 employees are non-negotiable priorities for our co-op. We take any concerns about our work environment seriously, including those expressed by the 219 survey respondents. REI has strong policies, procedures and resources in place to help prevent bias and foster a workplace where all individuals are treated with dignity and respect.”
REI’s own accounting of its demographics indicates the company has struggled to attract and retain Black and Latino workers. In its 2023 Impact Report, the company said 3.3% of its retail workforce was Black, while 9.6% identified as Hispanic and 6% as multiracial. REI acknowledged that the company was “not as racially diverse as the communities we serve.”
Many workers surveyed by NELP also claimed that the company’s DEI strategy had been noticeably pared back since 2021, and that REI’s commitment to conducting racial equity trainings and investing in other initiatives to promote inclusion had wavered. (The company had brought on a chief diversity and social impact officer in 2021 but reportedly eliminated her position when she departed in 2023.)
“Diversity, equity and inclusion are foundational to who we are as a co-op, and we recognize that building a truly inclusive business is an ongoing journey,” REI added in its statement to Fast Company. “We remain committed to learning, improving, and driving meaningful progress. Our goal is to ensure that every employee feels valued, respected, and able to bring their whole self to workevery single day.”
The workers surveyed by NELP suggested that one reason REI has struggled to maintain a more diverse workforce is because people of color were more likely to be disciplined or pushed out of their jobs. Over 30% of workers of color alleged they had witnessed or experienced racial discrimination in layoffsand REI’s own data on termination rates in 2022 showed higher rates of termination among employees of color and especially Black workers. Many workers of color (29%) also claimed to have seen or personally faced discrimination in the company’s promotion practices.
While employees have reported decreased staffing across the company following a reorganization in 2023, workers of color were much more likely to be scheduled for shorter shifts or fewer hours per week. According to the NELP report, 64% of REI’s workers of color logged fewer than 20 hours a week on average, as compared to 38% of their white counterparts. Over half of workers of color also said they want to work more hours, while only 41% of white workers said the same.
Workers also expressed concerns over other types of workplace discrimination: They recounted instances of alleged gender bias, discrimination against transgender workers, and issues with accommodations for workers with disabilities.
Fewer than one in 10 workers told NELP they believed REI took adequate action in response to discrimination, whether racial in nature or otherwise. Amid ongoing negotiations over a union contract, some employees also allege they have faced retaliation for speaking out about their working conditions and taking protected actions like walking out on the jobclaims that are in line with reports that the company has taken a strong position against unionizing efforts.
Perhaps most notably, however, a majority of workers surveyed believe that REI is no longer living up to its reputation as a progressive employerwith 64% of them saying it is becoming a worse place to work.
Its feeling like the end of an era. On May 8, Bill Gates announced plans to sunset the Gates Foundation, the standard-bearing charitable organization he started with his now ex-wife Melinda French Gates 25 years ago. The foundation is set to give away more than $200 billion over the next 20 years, including virtually all of Gatess $112 billion fortune, before winding down in 2045. Gates revealed the plans shortly after longtime Foundation ally Warren Buffett announced hell be retiring from Berkshire Hathaway this year, leaving his own $160 billion fortune to a charitable trust, which his children are to disburse within a decade of his death. Now everythings about to change.
The announcements from both Gates and Buffett mark a dramatic shift in the world of philanthropy. They point toward a near-future when the two most visible benevolent billionaires of the 21st century will have put their last-ever dollars toward humanitarian causes. Considering that 2025 is a volatile, transitional time for the billionaire class and humanitarian efforts in general, its unclear whether a new wave of ultrawealthy philanthropists will emerge to continue their work.
The idea of billionaires giving back has been part of American lore since Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller started donating from their massive industrialist fortunes in the late 1800s. The Gates Foundation took it to a new level, however. With a cumulative $43 billion in assistance from Buffett since 2006, the foundation has spent $100 billion in 25 years to bring vaccination and other treatments to some of the worlds poorest areas, preventing the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and malaria. Beyond their own contributions, though, the foundations leaders hoped to spur a sense of moral obligation in their fellow billionaires.
The Giving Pledge era
In 2010, inspired by Carnegies essay, The Gospel of Wealth, Buffett, Gates, and French Gates introduced the Giving Pledge, whose signatories publicly promised to donate more than half their total wealth to charitable causes. It was more than just a way to shame some of the worlds richest people into stepping up their generosity; by getting 240 titans of tech and other industries to sign on, the founders helped promote and normalize the idea that giving away a huge fortune is more impressive than building one.
By 2015, when signees Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan committed $45 billion to their own charity, philanthropy appeared to be in fashion.
Not all of the worlds billionaires had signed on, though. Notable absences included Mark Cuban, Jeff Bezos, and Googles Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Of those who did sign the pledge, some seemed to take advantage of its lack of accountability. Elon Musk stayed quiet about his philanthropic activity after signing, before donating $5.7 billion to his own foundation in 2021. Other signees signaled that they were waiting to leave huge donations in their wills eventuallya move that is easy to back out of and ignores all near-term humanitarian needs.
Of course, many of those who signed the pledge ultimately ended up lumped together with those who didnt. As wealth inequality became an increasingly hotter topic in the late-2010s, the concept of billionaire benevolence came under closer scrutiny.
No trust in charitable trusts
While some billionaires sincerely strive to help as many people as possible with their philanthropy, its no secret that others seem to merely use their philanthropy to help themselves. Some treat their foundations as tax shelters, either to avoid paying estate taxes on an inheritance or to claim deductions immediately and then slowly dole out funds over decades. Others use it as a mechanism to launder their reputations. The Sackler family, for instance, donates enormously from its vast pharmaceutical fortune, perhaps in the hope that more people will remember what they gave to museums, rather than their contributions to the opioid epidemic.
As the decade ended with Donald Trump, still in his first term as president, becoming legally barred from operating a charitable organization in New York over his misuse of funds, many Americans could be forgiven for entering the 2020s with a more cynical view of billionaire philanthropy.
Whatever shred of Giving Pledge goodwill still clings to the collective reputation of billionaires in 2025 is now hanging on by a thread. Trump has stocked his second administration with billionairesand put Musk, the worlds richest man, in charge of rooting out government waste. One of Musks first moves after Trumps inauguration was to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides humanitarian aid for millions around the globe.
If ever there were a moment for benevolent billionaires to demonstrate a commitment to doing tangible good with their philanthropy, its right now. A Harris poll from last August indicates Americans would love to see it, too, with 68% agreeing that billionaires have an ethical responsibility to address humanitarian crises happening around the world.
The path forward
So, what will the next era of billionaire benevolence look like? As much as the Gates Foundation has performed life-saving, landmark work over the past quarter century, the organization has not been without its issus. Gates and Buffett reportedly disagreed on how the foundation should be managed toward the end, with Buffett warning about the dangers of arrogance, bureaucracy, and complacency in any large organization, while French Gates exited the foundation to pursue philanthropy in her own way in 2024, three years after her divorce from Gates. Since then, French Gates has joined MacKenzie Scott in charting a new path forward for philanthropy.
Scott, who dissolved her marriage to Jeff Bezos in 2019, has given over $19 billion to nonprofit organizations in recent years. The red-tape-shedding speed of her donation spree has dramatically outpaced traditional foundations, underscoring the urgency of philanthropic work. Going the decentralized route has freed up Scott from all the business of keeping a foundation running in perpetuity, and French Gates has followed her example, donating funds through her investment company, Pivotal Ventures, rather than launching a new foundation.
Although critics argue that this approach fails to provide long-term stability to the organizations the donor assists, it avoids getting bogged down in the board-approved details that can forestall or derail a donation. (By charting an end date for the foundation that bears his name, Gates himself now seems to acknowledge that actually applying funds is more important than keeping the coffers filled forever.)
The new way forward for benevolent billionaires might also involve a no-strings-attached approach. While some foundations tend to get bogged down in micromanaging how their funds are disbursed, Scott has given the organizations she donates to free rein. According to her website, Yield Giving, Scotts donations have gone to more than 2,450 nonprofit teams to use as they see fit for the benefit of others. Critics contend this laissez-faire approach leaves nonprofits ill-equipped to handle Scotts donations, but a three-year study from the Center for Effective Philanthropy suggests otherwise. French Gates seems similarly engaged in trust-based philanthropy, reportedly asking some donation recipients to make their own decisions on how best to allocate her funding.
As for which kinds of organizations they donate to, Scott and French Gates are unapologetically driven by and focused on their own values. In a moment when all causes related to gender and equality have been demonized, they remain steadfast in their commitment to advancing womens power at home and abroad. Similarly, Laurene Powell Jobs balances marquee philanthropy, like her recent $3.5 billion pledge toward climate action, with smaller values-based acts like giving grants to local leaders for community projects. Meanwhile, some organizations, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, have scrubbed their charitable works of seemingly anything that could be categorized as DEI.
The Giving Pledge movement wasn’t perfect, but it set a humanitarian benchmark and challenged the ultrawealthy to meet it. The culture of heavyweight charity it fostered created high expectations for billionaires, even if it failed to hold them to account upon not meeting them. A performative donation is still a donation, after all.
There are now more billionaires than ever, with nearly four new ones minted per week in 2024. Perhaps some of them will go on to forge the next iteration of the Giving Pledge, kicking off a new era of high-profile philanthropy and inspiring more MacKenzie Scotts. Considering the state of things in 2025, it sure looks like were going to need it.
Over the past few weeks, Ive traveled across the U.S. and Europe, attending back-to-back leadership conferences. These werent your average networking events; they were filled with C-suite executives asking difficult questions in a particularly charged moment: Whats next for DEI? How do we adapt and innovate when it comes to AI? How do we steer employees in a politically divided country? On stage, speakers repeated polished points, but to me, the most important part of what these gatherings offered wasnt the panel talksit was the smaller, informal meetings taking place, the standing around high-tops, and the walks to the various meals.
In these candid conversations, leaders spoke with a level of candor and vulnerability that there isnt always room for at the office. Some asked questions, others gave answers. What unified us all was a strong desire for connection, a resolve to make sense of the world together. Todays leaders are seeing the status quo rapidly dissolve and are looking for support and guidance. As often as not, theyre finding it in one another, not in town halls or board meetings.
At one conference I attended, an impromptu group debate over what it means for a brand to have a literal voice in the age of AI prompted a CMO to leave that session committed to developing a sonic identity for their brandnot because of extensive market research, but because of a single peer-driven conversation. More and more frequently, I see firsthand the necessity for executives to have a trusted community to turn to for advice.
No Longer Just a Nice-To-Have
Todays leaders need more than strategy decks. As we face political uncertainty, technological advancements, and cultural shifts, in this landscape, no leader can afford to try to go it alone. Yet, unfortunately, many leaders are, in fact, just thatalone.
Im no stranger to navigating executive circles, but even after years, walking into rooms with industry leaders can still be intimidating. No matter how confident you are, it still takes genuine vulnerability to approach someone, introduce yourself, and initiate a meaningful conversation. This discomfort isnt unusual: many executives Ive spoken to, regardless of their tenure, have expressed feeling awkward or isolated. A recent survey found that over 70% of CEOs experience work-related loneliness, and according to former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, feeling lonely at work reduces task performance, limits creativity, and impairs other aspects of executive function such as reasoning and decision making.
In a time where clarity and creativity are crucial, building connections is now more necessary than ever. But the reality is, building connections takes work, and it can often be uncomfortable. The benefits are worth it, however, and for lonely or struggling executives, theres cause to be hopeful. Ive personally seen how many leaders openly embrace community and look out for one another, and Ive also seen how quickly things can change for the positive when leaders get themselves into the right rooms. The ability to speak openly, share notes and experiences, and weigh pros and cons with peers before making decisions is a lifeline.
The real value
The true value of these communities is deeper than getting access to prestigious circles or hitting a flashy number of followers or connections on LinkedIn. Rather, they help leaders grow and thrive by providing:
Space for vulnerability: Real conversations happen away from external pressures to perform. These communities invite leaders to be authentic, honest, and ask the hard questions.
Shared experiences: A group that can relate to your experiences and open opportunities for growth. Whether youre looking for new marketing strategies or ways to optimize your product pipeline, it helps to speak with those who get it.
Fresh perspective: Cross-industry conversations can spark new ideas and remove tunnel vision. A first-time fintech founder might have something to learn from a seasoned executive at a legacy brand, and vice versa.
Strength in numbers: Community provides the collective courage to act together, especially during difficult moments. Youll also get the comfort of knowing others around you are also trying to figure things out, and are willing to help you on your journey.
Even though the benefits of community are clear, it can be challenging to know how to find one for yourself. The types of trusting, deep relationships Im talking about arent fostered overnight or over Slack. It takes intentionality to grow your village. If youre wondering how to begin, Id start with the below.
Six Ways to Build Peer-to-Peer Connection
Be curious. Make a concerted effort to learn about others. Ask better questions, listen more deeply, and follow up in a way that shows you paid attention.
Prioritize depth over breadth. Its not all about the numbers. Five deep contacts who truly care about you and your success are better than 100 surface-level connections who dont.
Attend curated events. Not every conference is worth your time. Carefully select rooms where the guest list and topics align with your interests and where you have the most to contribute.
Give first, give often. Generosity builds trust, so focus on what you can do for others, not the other way around. From advice to introductions, share whatevers in your tool kit.
DIY. Its not always about receiving an invite. Sometimes, its better to send one. Whether its a monthly dinner, biweekly Zoom call, or simply a private group chat, consistency is key. Remember: you can always build your own table.
Lean into vulnerability. You cant earn trust without taking a risk. Be open and honest, and others will follow.
A Call to Lead Together
Often, leaders only prioritize communities in times of crisis and have to scramble to find the support they need. But the most important relationships arent built overnight, and its even more difficult to forge them when the pressure is already mounting.
Thats why the time to invest in community is now. Leaders should prioritize building connections just as intentionally as they do other aspects of their work. The future of business will be determined by those who connect and collaborate, and those who have built the trust required to make an emergency call at an odd hour.
If youre a leader, ask yourself today: Do you have a circle you can turn to when the stakes are high? If not, start creating one now. Start with just one conversation, and keep the momentum from there. Trust is built over timedont waste any more of it.
Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys workplace advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.Q: How do I make a good first impression?A: Since this is a work-life advice column Ill focus mostly on how you can make a good impression at work, but many of these tips work for other situations in life.
Be interested: Ask questions
Its a simple truism of most conversations and human interactions: People like to feel like they’re interesting and important. If you know whom youll be meeting, you can go one step further and do a little research in advance. Job candidates who ask questions about the interviewers own time at the company show that they are interested in both the company and the person they hope to work with. The same goes for meeting potential clients, networking connections, etc.Regardless of if you have the chance to prep or not, you can listen to little conversational doors and jumping-off points to be curious and dig further. Most people casually give little details as they talk. Be a good listener and you can ask a follow-up question that shows you’re engaged. In a world where most people are distracted, overwhelmed, or self-absorbed, paying attention goes a long way.
Be interesting: Say something memorable
While you should be a good listener and ask questions, you wont make a good impression if you don’t say anything of interest. Sharing an interesting did you know fact related to what you are talking about goes a long way.
Its a little harder to plan for this, and you certainly dont want to throw in a random non sequitur. But if you’re generally well-read and well-informed, hopefully a natural opportunity to mention something relevant will present itself.
Be helpful
People like others who help them. Fast Company contributor and psychologist Art Markman says starting your time with a new team by helping others reinforces a favorable first impression and also generates a sense of support from people you can rely on when you need help in the future.
He calls this a service mindset and says its particularly valuable for people taking on management roles. A leader who finds ways to help their team achieve their goals can develop loyalty from the people who report to them, which pays significant dividends down the line, he explains.
If youre not a manager, you can make a good impression at a new job by being proactive and developing your own plan for your first 90 days. It will help you to have goals laid out so you dont feel as lost and will make a great impression on your new boss and colleagues.Being helpful works in other areas to make a good first impression, too. If someone you are talking to mentions a problem they are having, following up with a recommendation will make a lasting impression.Want more advice on how to make a good impression? Here you go:
Four easy ways to make a memorable first impression
How to make a good first impression when starting a new job
3 ways to create a good first impression at your new job
2 surprising science-backed ways to make a great first impression (even virtually)
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
As Ive been closely tracking in ResiClub’s monthly metro- and county-level housing inventory analysis, over the past year the supply-demand equilibriummeasured by shifts and levels in active housing inventory and months of supplyhas shifted directionally in favor of homebuyers. That doesnt mean buyers have all the leverage, or that the picture is the same in every market. Directionally, however, homebuyers in most markets have gained leverage compared to the 2024 spring housing market.
This shift is also showing up in the pricing dataspecifically the rate of change. Indeed, 49 of the nation’s 50 largest metro-area housing markets have a weaker year-over-year home price shift this spring than a year ago.
This widespread softening doesnt mean home prices are falling in every marketthey arent. Rather, in this context it means home price growth has decelerated across almost every market over the past 12 months, and more markets are seeing price declines compared to a year ago.
In March 2024, 47 of the nations 50 largest housing markets were experiencing rising year-over-year home prices, and just three of them saw falling year-over-year home prices.
In March 2025, 34 of the 50 largest housing markets saw rising year-over-year home prices and 16 were falling.
ResiClub expects to see the number of major housing markets with falling year-over-year home prices rise further in the coming months. (Full-month April data publishes later this week.)
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As ResiClub has closely documented, the recent softening and weakening have been more pronounced in the Sun Belt, particularly in Gulf housing markets. The greatest weakness is evident in parts of Texas (especially Austin and San Antonio) and Florida (notably its condo market and Southwest Florida).
Click here to view an interactive version of the chart below.
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Zooming out, the chart above shows what the ongoing price softening looks like in a recent historical context. The yellow line represents the national aggregate, which has decelerated in the Zillow Home Value Index. U.S. home prices went from rising 4.6% from March 2023 to March 2024 to rising just 1.2% from March 2024 to March 2025.
The deceleration in home price growth is welcomed by many homebuyers who saw prices overheat during the pandemic. In more markets than last year, homebuyers will see their incomes rise faster than local home prices.
Disability is often framed as something to accommodate instead of celebrate. But Visible Voices, a new digital platform launching today on Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2025, is challenging that mindset.
The platform is part magazine, part gallery, and part curated e-shop. As a whole, its repositioning disability as a source of culture, creativity, and style, fueled by the belief that accessibility and aesthetics should not be at odds.
Cofounded by journalist Bérénice Magistretti and creative entrepreneur Reuben Selby, both of whom live with invisible disabilities, Visible Voices is the platform they wish existed when they were first navigating those identities, with a Vogue-meets-MoMA editorial approach that leaves traditional disability resources in the past. The result is a cultural rebrand and design manifesto, as visually compelling as it is radically inclusive.
[Screenshot: Visible Voices]
Why is disability still something we tiptoe around? Selby asks. Why are we reluctant to claim it with pride? We realized there was a space missing. A space where people could feel proud of who they are, not despite their disabilities, but because of everything it taught them. A space that didnt feel clinical or heavy, but vibrant, creative, and human.
Bérénice Magistretti and Reuben Selby [Photo: Inez & Vinoodh (Magistretti)/courtesy Visible Voices]
Built over the course of a year, the Visible Voices platform is as considered in form as it is in content. The site, which they designed in collaboration with design firm Droga5, integrates accessibility from the ground up, without sacrificing visual impact. Embedded accessibility features on the website include a toggle button to shift between light and dark mode and clickable Text-to-Speech audio versions of each article. Rather than default to conventional accessibility plug-ins or overlays, every design choice was made with both beauty and usability in mind.
Foundry studio Modern Type also developed a bespoke, hyper-legible typeface to improve readability across the site. And sound designers at Lucky & Bamba created a sonic logo by translating the braille version of the brands name into a musical scale.
The result is a sensory-rich digital experience that invites users to engage with content on multiple levels. Were all used to visual logos, Magistretti says. But what if you cant see a logo? You should be able to hear it, feel it. Thats what weve created, and we hope it inspires other brands to think differently.
At the heart of Visible Voices are the three editorial pillars designed to reframe disability through a cultural lens: a magazine, digital gallery, and curated e-shop. The magazine features stories at the intersection of disability and aesthetics, including hairstylist Anna Cofones mission to make fashion more accessible, textile artist Caterina Frongias use of braille in her tapestries, and activist Nadya Okamotos reflections on living with Borderline Personality Disorder.
Florence Burns, Desert, 2022 [Image: courtesy Visible Voices]
The creative voices gallery highlights artists who are either disabled themselves or are reshaping how disability is represented in contemporary art. Among them are Florence Burns, a Manchester-based illustrator whose clients include Nike and Channel 4; award-winning photographer Anna Neubauer; and American painter, writer, and disability rights advocate Riva Lehrer.
Aliteia, The Ballad of Human Mutations [Image: courtesy Visible Voices]
Meanwhile, the e-shop takes a bold stance that says disabled consumers deserve products that are not only functional but beautiful. We didnt want to take the health-related route of selling medtech devices because we want to go beyond this patient-focused narrative and offer disabled people a beautiful, creative, and aspirational hub, Magistretti explains.
Anna Neubauer, Megan [Image: courtesy Visible Voices]
While many charities, foundations, and grassroots organizations continue to do vital work supporting disabled communities and advocating for systemic change, Magistretti and Selby intentionally structured Visible Voices as a for-profit business.
Commerce plays a huge role in pushing culture forward. People buy what brands tell them to buy, so diverse representation is crucial, Magistretti explains. If you only see nondisabled people in campaigns and runway shows, the assumption will be that the market for disabled people is niche, because its invisible. By increasing representation across fashion and beauty, that visibility generates awareness, and awareness creates demand.
Blind Beauty [Photo: courtesy Visible Voices]
At launch, the store features six brands across three categories, including clothing, accessories, and beauty. Each brand offers a tightly curated selection of 5 to 10 items. Standouts include Neo-Walks vibrant, sculptural canes; Auzis luxury hearing-aid jewelry; beauty brand Human Beautys inclusive makeup; and Liberares adaptive intimates. A visible voices merch line is also in the works, and the team plans to continue growing the store through exclusive collaborations and new brand partnerships that align with their mission.
Hearing Aid by Auzi [Photo: courtesy Visible Voices]
The bottom line, Magistretti says, is that disabled people arent just patients who need to buy functional medical items. They are consumers who want to buy what they desire, what makes them look good and feel great. The disabled demographic is a huge untapped market with massive spending power. We want to offer them what they want to buy, and show that disability is the next frontier in fashion and beauty.
In recent months, the drama around Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), President Trump’s efforts to defund federal agencies, and the court cases challenging these moves have consumed the news. Its understandable that an announcement last month about a small office lease on the Upper West Side of Manhattan being canceled didn’t get much attention.
But that 43,000-square-foot space near Columbia University is home to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, or GISS, a NASA research outfit, think tank, and pioneer in climate change research that will see its lease terminated by the end of the month, per a NASA spokesperson. Currently, the institute has no permanent home to move into.
Its likely youve seen the building, even if youre not aware of the monumental achievements that have taken place there. The exterior shot of the diner in Seinfeld features that exact building; for decades, scientists working inside have dealt with an occasional fan taking selfies outside.
[Photo: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket/Getty Images]
Youre also probably more aware of the ideas hatched inside than you think. During the 60s, when the institute was founded, the terms black hole and quasar were coined inside its walls. In the late 80s, NASA scientist James Hansen became famous for his warnings about the dangers posed by climate change. He was then the head of GISS, and the climate modeling that he and his colleagues did there proved the case.
This is the place we came finally to understand the threat to the Earth that global warming representedthe biggest threat in the history of our species, climate advocate and author Bill McKibben told Fast Company. Nothing less than that. Their datasets were what allowed Hansen to go before Congress and speak with authority. He had the numbers and no one else did.
The end of GISS as we know it represents many things, including the damage the Trump administration’s cost-cutting is doing to American scientific preeminence. Current head Gavin Schmidt said without funds for a new lease, hes racing to find a new home. (Though staffers haven’t been told where they’re moving to, as of yet, none have been terminated; a NASA spokesperson said, Over the next several months, employees will be placed on temporary remote work agreements while NASA seeks and evaluates options for a new space for the GISS team.) The move comes as the federal government has decried climate science, cut jobs at NASA, and proposed curtailing its mission.
But even the existence of GISS showcases the power of a small group of curious, driven people who, if given resources and freedom, can accomplish incredible things.
There is something that is quite distinct to working for NASA, said Schmidt. Because, literally the whole universe is your subject.
A postcard for the Oxford Hotel, circa 1930-1945 [Image: Digital Commonwealth]
A Small Office With Expansive Freedoms
Located across a few floors in a former apartment building, GISS has never been a well-outfitted office.
Until recently, it was a shithole, said Schmidt, who noted that even though a long-overdue renovation was just finished, the air-conditioning system is still pretty much nonfunctional.
But the office decor was never the attraction. It was the people you could bump into. Named after rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard, the institute was established in 1961, and initially called the Institute for Space Studies. It was led by Robert Jastrow, a celebrated researcher and public figure who would help millions of Americans learn about space via prolific writings and TV appearances. Locating in New York City helped attract the leading lights of academia from surrounding universities.
Jastrow said the institutes goal was to arouse the interest and enlist the participation of this rich scientific community. It became a hotbed for debate and ideas, hosting seminars and talks that are credited with birthing the concepts behind black holes, quasars, and plate tectonics. A sidewalk bookseller who specialized in sci-fi books positioned himself nearby to pick up business from the high concentration of astrophysicists. Jastrow could be a competitive and energetic bosshe would push researchers to pull all-nighters and even get them to run laps with him around Central Parkbut academic freedom remained paramount.
GISS, from the very beginning, was set up as a place with a light federal presence, said Schmidt, who took the reins at the institute in 2014. There would be civil servants, but most of the people there would be postdocs early in their caeer. The idea was to have this kind of fervent, enthusiastic, free from programmatic responsibilities [space]. It wasnt an operational center. We had a lot of workshops.
In the 70s, Hansen and others helped work on projects that sent probes to other planets, including Venus and Jupiter. By the early 80s, NASA changed its focus to what was called mission Earth; the agency realized it knew more about the polar ice caps on Mars than it did the polar ice caps on Earth, and sought to rectify that.
In analyzing Earths climate, the previous GISS work on other-planetary atmospheres came in handy. Those frameworks could be applied to Earths climate, and its change over time. In addition to that deep bench of multifaceted scientific talent, GISS also had the gear. At the time, it had one of the most powerful computers in operation. While it still used punch cards and spinning disks, it enabled researchers to create the most sophisticated models of climate change that had been done thus far.
McKibben remembers spending time by this machine, as Hansen explained what was being computed.
I would have been there in the late 80s, right before or after Hansen’s testimony [before Congress], he said. I went a bunch of times, and he showed me around the mainframes and interpreted for me what they were spitting out. It was classic big science of that eraspinning disks and all.
Circa 1985
Why Its Climate Models Remain So Valuable
Having that technology, steady support, and a revolving cast of experts made it a perfect place to perfect climate modeling. According to Schmidt, as the task of analyzing the climate became more and more complicated, there basically ceased to be university-based climate modeling to predict future temperature shifts a few decades ago. Everything globally is done at labs like GISS, and it offers a substantial benefit to research around the world. The institutes famous temperature series, which it has maintained since the 1980s and provides monthly surface temperature data back to 1880, is provided free. Its not even a line-item in the GISS budget; Schmidt says it comes out of general operating expenses.
And GISS continues to be one of, if not the most, influential organizations in the field, Schmidt argues, because it’s cutting edge without being rigid. Its a small, nimble group of roughly 130 researchers without a strict hierarchy, so new ideas and research can quickly be vetted, tested, and applied to the model to improve its accuracy.
Circa 2023 [Photo: Robert Schmunk/GISS/NASA]
GISS continues to refine and improve its model. Earlier this year, NASA launched a long-delayed satellite project called PACE that will explore phytoplankton growth on the ocean surface, algal blooms and aerosols, and other factors impacting temperature shifts. The institute also remains at the forefront of using machine learning to create models that chart the possible course of climate change.
What happens to this work when GISS leaves the only home its ever known remains to be seen. Obviously, it is not our idea, Schmidt said, adding that he doesnt think itll save money or lead to increased efficiency. The lease termination notice does say the work will continue in a new home.
Is this going to impact our mission? Yes, of course, he said.
Schmidt has made some progress in his search for a new location, but hes far from finished. Hes essentially begging for desks in the neighborhood, looking to find a home at Columbia University, New York University, or the Natural History Museum. He doesnt have any budget, so he cant pay rent and he fears theres a limit to how generous people will be.
If you want to bring in people who are going to have interesting ideas and who are going to pursue those ideas, they have to have freedom to do so, he said. They can’t be so drowned with proposal writing or doing operational stuff or having to do some bullshit thing for somebody else. If you want to keep the smart people and creative people, you have to give them autonomy.
Donald Trump said on the campaign trail ahead of his election that he intended to be the crypto president. But his vision and reality have collided in a way that could ultimately do more harm than good to cryptos broader adoption in the years ahead.
Last week, the U.S. Senate dealt the cryptocurrency industry a significant setback, voting to block further advancement of the GENIUS Act, a bill aimed at establishing regulatory guardrails for dollar-pegged stablecoins by classifying them as securities under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The surprise collapse of the actwhich had passed through the Senate Banking Committee with Democratic supportstems from several factors, says Timothy Massad, a former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. One major issue, according to Massad, is the bills quality. It didnt address some key concerns, he tells Fast Company. Bipartisan negotiations to refine the bills language were ongoing, he adds, but a larger obstacle loomed: the president of the United States.
Trump is a vocal supporter of crypto, so much so that some view him as too deeply involved in the industry and too likely to benefit financially from any policy decisions he makes to be a neutral actor in shaping crypto adoption. First, World Liberty Financiala crypto firm run by Trumps sonsannounced that its new USD1 stablecoin would serve as the conduit for a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabis MGX fund into Binance, the worlds largest exchange. At the same time, the presidents $TRUMP meme coin, launched in January and already responsible for $320 million in trading fees, stands to gain from favorable crypto regulation. In March, Trump also named five tokens that the U.S. would begin stockpiling as part of a new crypto strategic reserve.
Critics argue that these ventures blur the line between policymaker and market participant. Trump has been so brazenly self-dealing and corrupt that it has given some Democrats pause, says Corey Frayer, a former Senate Banking Committee aide. Massad agrees. Both the activities of the president that many people feel are corrupt and entirely inappropriate, coupled with the weaknesses in the bill, led Democrats to say, We cant support this, he says.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has stated that the president is abiding by all conflict of interest laws. But the perception of personal benefit has already derailed what many saw as cryptos best chance at mainstream legitimacy. Its a source of incredible conflict and potential bribery, Massad says.
Trumps involvementand the potential for him to profit from crypto-related policy decisionshas forced lawmakers to scrutinize their choices more carefully, including whether to legitimize stablecoins. Stablecoins dont do anything that we dont already do more efficiently in the financial system, Frayer says.
That doesnt necessarily mean the bill is dead, or that Trump will get a pass for what critics see as self-serving actions. Theres been this basic agreement that it is bad when politicians use their position to benefit themselves, Frayer says, referencing support for legislation to ban lawmakers from trading stocks based on insider knowledge.
This is the exact same type of issue, he continues. It crosses party lines. At least up until now, there has been a bright line at corruption. But the key phrase, as Trump knows all too well, is up until now.
As automakers look to get more people in electric vehicles, they continue to make advancements in EV batteriesdevelopments that add range, speed up charging times, or lower costs, all of which entice customer adoption. Now, General Motors says it has developed a new kind of EV battery that provides a higher range at a more affordable price, and that it aims to become the first carmaker to deploy the technology.
Called lithium manganese-rich (LMR) prismatic battery cells, these batteries use a higher amount of less-expensive minerals, like magnesium, rather than more of the most expensive minerals like cobalt and nickel. Most EVs in the U.S. use lithium-ion batteries, which contain cobalt and nickel, minerals that have seen price increases as EV battery demand soars. GM and LG Energy Solution plan to start commercial production of these batteries in the U.S. by 2028.
[Photo: Steve Fecht/General Motors]
In addition to cutting costs, LMR batteries also offer more power. Engineers at GM and LG Energy Solution say their LMR prismatic battery cell has a 33% higher energy density than lithium iron phosphate based cells.
This means GM could offer an electric truck with more than 400 miles of range at a more affordable price. In 2024, GM said lithium iron phosphate batteries could cut $6,000 from the cost of battery packs in its electric trucks and full-size SUVs. With this new LMR battery technology, the company expects to achieve even more savings. Its not exactly clear yet what that will translate to for a vehicles sticker price. (GMs Chevrolet Silverado electric truck, with a max range of 492 miles, currently starts around $73,000 but can go above $87,000.)
GMs work to develop LMR prismatic battery cells began in 2015, but researchers were studying LMR technology long before that. Though they promised high range for a lower price, historically LMR batteries have been marred by shorter life spans. GM says it has solved this issue, and that its new LMR battery cells match the life span of current high-nickel batteries.
The LMR batteries contain virtually no cobalt, per GM, but do still contain nickel, just at a lower percentage than typical battery cells. GM prototyped these LMR batteries at its Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center in Warren, Michigan.
The batteries are called LMR prismatic cells because theyre rectangular, whereas most EV lithium-ion batteries are cylindrical or, increasingly, pouch-shaped. (GM has been using pouch cells for years in the U.S., while using cylindric cells in China.) With a rectangular design, GM says the cells can be more efficiently packaged into trucks and SUVs.
These battery cells also use fewer components; with LMR batteries, GM says it can reduce the number of parts in its battery packs by 50%, which can cut weight from notoriously heavy EVs. GM expects to save hundreds of pounds in battery mass with LMR batteries.
GMs announcement comes weeks after Ford announced its own LMR battery breakthrough. Charles Poon, Fords director of electrified propulsion engineering, announced at the end of April that the automaker is currently producing LMR cells at its pilot production line, and is working to scale LMR battery cell development and include these batteries in future vehicles within this decade.
A new art exhibition in Chicago uses more than 300 works of art to trace the historical origins of the word homosexual, mapping how its shaped our modern perception of queer identity. According to its lead curator, museums around the world have refused to show the exhibition due to the current political climateeven when its offered to them for free.
The exhibition, titled The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939, is currently on view at the Wrightwood 659 museum in Chicago through July 26. Its the first time that the exhibitiona passion project of over eight years for lead curator Jonathan D. Katzhas been shown in its entirety.
Installation view of The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939, at Wrightwood 659, 2025. [Photo:Daniel Eggert/@DesigningDan]
Through sculptures, paintings, prints, and other media from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it explores early, oft-overlooked expressions of queer culture. Further, it examines how the coining of the term homosexual created a binary understanding of sexuality that were still grappling with today.
The First Homosexuals sold more advance tickets than any other show since the Wrightwood 659 opened in 2018. But Katz says that after pitching the exhibition to many other museums, hes been faced with one rejection after another.
Marie Laurencin, Le bal élégant or La danse la campagne (The Elegant Ball, or The Country Dance), 1913, Oil on canvas, 112 x 144 cm, Musée Marie Laurencin, Tokyo. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
A career in queer studies
Katz, who is a professor of queer art history at the University of Pennsylvania, began his career in queer studies during the Reagan administration.
When I started, my field was just being born, Katz wrote in a biography for Northwestern University, where he received his PhD. Reagan was in office, AIDS was being instrumentalized by the Right to justify the most odious forms of discrimination, and I had been kicked out of the University of Chicago (among other universities) for pursuing the relationship between art and sexuality.
In the decades since, Katz has gone on to teach queer studies at several different universities, including Yale, and cocurated a queer exhibition called Hide/Seek Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Katzs new exhibition is inspired by a question thats followed him throughout his years of research.
The minute you go outside of Europe and its colonies, questions of sexual difference assume a completely different meaningwhich is to say that, very often, there’s absolutely no issue associated with same-sex sexuality, and it’s often understood as part of a continuum of sexualities, Katz says. I was interested, therefore, in trying to decenter the assumptions that we have about sexuality by reference to other cultural norms. That’s what motivated this exhibition, as well as a careful investigation of what, literally, the earliest representations look like.
The first use of the word homosexual
Katzs curiosity led him back to whats believed to be the first-ever use of the word homosexual, found in a letter exchange between two queer activists, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Karl-Maria Kertbeny, in 1868.
1868 Letter. National Szechenyi Library, Manuscript Collection. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
In the letters, Kertbeny takes issue with Ulrichss relegation of queer individuals to its own class of people (or a third sex.). Instead, Kertbeny argued, everyone has the capacity for both homosexual and heterosexual desire.
What’s striking is that we use Kertbenys language [today], but we have unfortunately held fast to Ulrichs deeply minoritizing identity category, Katz says.
Andreas Andersen, Interior with Hendrik Andersen and John Briggs Potter in Florence,, 1894, Oil on canvas, 128.5 x 160 cm. Under licence from MiC – Direzione Musei Statali della Citt di Roma – Photographic Archive; by kind permission of the National Museums Directorate of the City of Rome ̵ Hendrik Christian Andersen Museum. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
Both before and after Kertbeny and Ulrichss debate, queer sexuality existed on a spectrumand it was captured by countless artists. The First Homosexuals includes works by 125 of them, from well-known artists like Jean Cocteau and the Lumire Brothers to lesser-known creatives like Jacques-Émile Blanche. They were pulled from an extensive list of sources, including both private collectors and institutions like MOMA.
Works include an 1820s depiction of men dressed as women on the streets of Lima, Peru; a series of scrolls from Japan in 1850 exploring the sexual education of a young man, whos shown sleeping with both men and women in a variety of positions; and an 1891 photograph showing four women in a romantic embrace. The exhibition is divided into eight sections, each dedicated to peeling back a layer of a story thats largely gone untold in the mainstream.
Alice Austen, The Darned Club, 1891, Original glass plate negative, 4 x 5 in, Collection of Historic Richmond Town. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
The final portion of the exhibition is an archway wallpapered with photos of Nazis burning books at the Institute for Sexual Research, the worlds first queer rights organization. Its a dark closing note that reminds viewers of the many archives of queer history that have been purposefully and violently hidden.
The idea that everything that flowers over the course of the exhibition can so quickly be destroyed, is, of course, a metaphor for where we are now, Katz says.
Since the exhibition opened on May 2, audience reactions have been striking.
Its been profound, Katz says. Lots of emotion, tears, real delight, and a sense of a robbed history that’s being restored.
Elisr von Kupffer, La danza, 1918, Oil on canvas with painted frame, 197 x 99 cm (framed). [Image: Municipality of Minusio/Centro Elisarion, Claudio Berger (photo)/courtesy Wrightwood 659]
A terrible sign for museums
For now, though, that history might only be available to a select few.
When Katz first began outreach for collecting the art to be included in The First Homosexuals six years ago, he says 80 to 90% of his requests to museums and collectors were rejectedthe highest rate of rejection he’s ever encountered.
There were a number of pieces that didn’t come because when you mount an exhibition about the first homosexuals, you know right going in that there are going to be places that just will not want to play with you, Katz says. And that was indeed the case.
Ida Matton, La Confidence (The Secret), 1902, Plaster, 65 x 56 cm, Photo: Joel Bergroth/Hälsinglands Museum. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
Since then, rejections have continued to plague the exhibition. Katz has been pitching the finished show to museums around the world for nearly four years, in some cases even offering the exhibition for free despite its multimillion-dollar valuation, he told the Chicago Sun-Times. So far, hes received near-universal rejections, with the exception of the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland, which is currently in talks with Katz to display part of the exhibition at Art Basel 2026. Time and time again, Katz has received the same standard rejection notices from over 100 museums, including the Tate Britain. (The Tate did not respond to a request for comment by publication)
Saturnino Herrán, Nuestros dioses antiguos, 1916, Oil on canvas, 101 x 112 cm, Colección Andrés Blaisten, México. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
I wish I knew moreI just get the rejection letters, Katz says. What I hear is, generally, It doesn’t fit our programming, or Were fully scheduled, or some typical excuse. But one director of a major museum, whose name Katz declined to share, did choose to elaborate further. They said to me, It’s exactly the kind of exhibition I want to show, and therefore its the exhibition I can’t show.” In several cases, Katz adds, the initial reception of the proposal was very promising, but it was ultimately turned down, leading him to wonder whether the museums’ boards were issuing the final “no.”
In part, Katz attributes this reaction to ahangover from photographer Robert Mapplethorpes 1988 exhibition The Perfect Moment, which was cancelled by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., after conservative leaders heavily criticized the exhibition for containing homoerotic content. In the midst of the Reagan presidency, federal funding for the arts had become a hot-button issue, especially as it pertained to work that right-wing pundits labeled indecent.
Its a period in history that feels like an uneasy echo of the arts scene today, as the Trump administration has moved to dismantle funding for local museums and libraries, canceled National Endowment for the Humanities grants, and blocked federal arts funding from going to artists who promote so-called gender ideology, a vague term that the government appears to be using as a dog whistle for any kind of gender expression outside of the binary.
While Katz sent out most of his art loan requests and exhibition pitches before Trump’s election, he says this pattern of rejection is a familiar narrative that’s plagued the museum world for years.
Tomioka Eisen, kuchi-e (frontispiece) with artist’s seal Shisen, c. 1906, Woodblock print, 23.2 x 31.6 cm, Tirey-van Lohuizen Collection. [Image: courtesy Wrightwood 659]
“It may not be Trump’s horrific politics, but it is still horrific politics,” Katz says. “It’s the age old prejudicial politics that animates the museum world.”
More generally, as a queer studies expert who faced repeated instances of institutional homophobia during the Reagan years, Katz feels that the current political attitude toward the queer community is worse than a regression.
Tamara de Lempicka, Nu assis de profil, 1923, Oil on canvas, 81.2 x 54 cm, Döpfner Collection, Germany. [Image: Sothebys/courtesy Wrightwood 659]
Homophobia was actually bizarrely less naked under Reagan than it is under Trump, Katz says. They still hated us, but they talked about the idea of an inclusive culture. There’s no discourse of an inclusive culture now. There are clearly drawn borders and boundary lines in every sense of the word, and a profound sense of us against them.
For museums that are brave enough to speak out, Katz believes there could be an opportunity to build trust with new audiences by choosing to platform queer stories instead of silencing them.
I think that museums actually have a remarkable opportunity to build their audience and relevance if they seize it, Katz says. There is a large population that is not a veteran museum-going population that can become a veteran museum-going population by speaking to the social and political issues that haunt this country. That many museums try to avoid that desperately is a terrible sign. What museums need to do is frankly engage with it.
