The quality of our decisions defines our legacy as leaders. We make around 35,000 decisions a day and close to 800,000,000 in a lifetime. Not all decisions are equal. Many are default, some are reversible, but the consequential ones leave us with no U-turn. Decision-making is inescapable. So, lets delve deeper into the anatomy of good decisions.
What drives good vs. bad?
Our decisions are deeply rooted in our values, competence, courage, and compassion. The psychological context from which decisions flow includes our emotional intelligence, comfort zone, values, moods, needs, decision-making style, and crucially, our self-awareness. Good decisions matter, but what drives the chemistry of good versus bad?
Emotionally intelligent leaders have mastered the skill of responding rather than reacting. They understand the interplay between their comfort zone and their fears and the limitations this imposes. They have identified their nonnegotiable values. They understand that moods are biochemical responses to be tamed before making consequential decisions. They know their basic human needs can generate significant blind spots and patterns of decision-making of which they must become aware. Finally, leaders have preferred decision-making styles that determine both the quality and speed of their decisions. This is the chemistry of decision-making.
Its clear, then, that the thoughts and emotions of a leader have the greatest impact on the quality of their decisions. So what are the safeguards for good decisions? Competence, courage, and compassion boosted by self-awareness and supported by values.
The foundation
Self-awareness is foundational. It enables us to see ourselves similarly to how others see us. We can stand outside ourselves and observe our behavior and the effect it has on our personal and professional relationships and the results we achieve. Self-awareness includes consciousness of our internal dialogue, the words we use, and the impact these words have on our emotions and behaviors. I have conducted thousands of Business Emotional Intelligence psychometric profiles and seen that on a standard deviation scale of one to ten, over 65% of leaders score between 4 and 7 on the self-awareness scale.
Without self-awareness, we look outward for the causes of failure, blame others, and cast ourselves in the role of a victim instead of a responsible leader. With deep self-awareness, we are better positioned to apply the three Cs of good decisions: competence, courage, and compassion.
The three Cs
Competence means that we are capable of transforming our knowledge and experience into practical and coherent actions. We have sufficient objectivity to recognize that we do not know everything and that in this complex world with unparalleled depth and breadth of knowledge, we are not the ultimate reference for anything. We surround ourselves with competent, multidisciplinary teams who bring complementary capabilities into our circle of influence. We welcome those who ask uncomfortable questions, scrutinize the details, point out the risks, and have respectful adult-to-adult conversations with us. Most important of all, we do not want to be the “Emperor” in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Courage. The willingness to make unpopular decisions, admit that we were wrong or that we made a mistake, is what courage looks like in decision-making. It takes courage to look in the mirror and objectively (as is humanly possible) examine the facts from multiple perspectives, scrutinize the logic, face our biases, and strip away the vanity of our egos in order to make the hard decisions. Here are three questions and their shadow questions that can help us make decisions based on principle instead of popularity:
What did you focus on?
But what did you miss?
What did it mean?
How was your interpretation distorted by your assumptions?
What did you do?
What action did you not take?
Compassion. Awakening our humanity by looking at our fellow humans and recognizing that they too have feelings, needs, and perspectives is what empathy is about. We do not have to agree or disagree with them. Understanding others enriches and expands our range and depth of experience. It does not threaten our existence. Compassion is not pity. It is a recognition of what makes us human. If we close our eyes to what is happening around us, we miss the most critical component of all. Decisions are not driven by facts. Decisions are driven by emotion and justified by facts. By ignoring emotions we omit one of the most critical components of good decisions.
Fear of the unknown
According to the Center for Creative Leadership and Harvard Business School, the greatest fear of the CEOs of the 200 top companies in the U.S. is not knowing what they dont knowfor example, what the next disruptive technology will be and where it will come from. Emotion is what drives action, not logic. Recognizing this will improve the quality of our decisions and ensure that good decisions are acted upon.
Good decisions are actionable, aligned, and sustainable through clarity of purpose based on values. Values are what matters most to us. However, we are often unaware of our values because values drive our default behaviors, habits, and unconscious biases. The good news is that we can become conscious of what our values really are by analyzing our most difficult and life-changing decisions. Embedded in our subconscious programming, once consciously identified, values enable us to find our purpose and make decisions that are not only attainable but also sustainable. Life-changing decisions like leaving your medical practice to become a bestselling author or volunteering to do unpaid work because you want to contribute are good examples. Our values drive and support our decisions.
In conclusion, self-awareness boosts good decisions because it enables leaders to look inward and outward and objectively separate their assumptions from the true causes of problems. The three Cscompetence, courage, and compassionform a powerful triad upon which great leaders can make better decisions. Looking for the facts through multidisciplinary perspectives, separating ego from objectives, and understanding the human impact of decisions are safeguards. Finally, when good values are aligned with purpose, decisions become more actionable. These are the foundations of good decisions.
Its a well-known fact that phone time before bed makes it harder to sleep. Studies show that a nighttime scroll keeps your brain active, delays REM sleep, and may even disrupt your circadian rhythm. Now, Ikea has created an unusual solution to this damaging habit: designing a dedicated bed for your phone.
The Ikea Phone Sleep Collection is essentially an ultra-miniaturized version of an Ikea bed frame, made in the perfect dimensions to cradle your smartphone on a bedside table. Embedded in the beds frame is an NFC chip that tracks how long the phone has been tucked in. If the time exceeds seven hours for seven consecutive nights, the user is rewarded with a shopping voucher of around $27. Despite its diminutive size, this five-piece product, like almost all of Ikeas inventory, comes flat-packed and requires self-assembly.
From the masters of sleep comes a new revolution in rest: A complete breakthrough in bedtime that will change the world for good, an ad for the phone bed reads. Its the innovation you didnt know you needed until now, and that you will never not need again.
Unfortunately for doomscrollers in the U.S., the agency Memac Ogilvy made the the Phone Sleep Collection exclusively for Ikea customers in the United Arab Emirates, where its currently available to locals who spend more than $207 on Ikea products. While the phone bed is clearly a marketing ploy, its not exactly an outlandish idea within todays growing market for hacks to reduce screentime.
[Photo: Ikea]
Why tucking your phone into bed makes sense, actually
Around 2017, dumbphones enjoyed a spike in popularity as smartphone users began to realize just how much their phones dictated their daily lives, with brands including Nokia and Consumer Cellular jumping in on the trend. Since then, though, the dumbphone craze has waned slightly as smartphones have become an increasingly integral and unavoidable tool for both work and life. Instead, luddite hopefuls are turning to creative alternatives to cut their screentime.
Recent solutions have included screentime reducing apps, like Hank Greens Focus Friend or the Touch Grass app; a Brick device that blocks distracting apps; and even a phone case thats so heavy its literally hard to pick up. The Ikea phone bed is basically another concept within this realm, except specifically geared toward the nighttime ritual.
“While the Phone Sleep Collection is a limited launch here in the UAE, its underlying principle addresses a universal challenge,” says Carla Klumpenaar, Ikea UAE’s GM of marketing, communications, HF & retail design. “We believe that small, mindful rituals, like tucking your phone into its own bed, can create better routines that can contribute to improved sleep quality and mental clarity. This initiative transforms an everyday challenge into an engaging lifestyle habit, underlining IKEAs commitment to offering meaningful solutions that extend beyond just furniture.”
Is it silly? Of course. But if it works to reclaim even a bit of shut-eye, it might just be genius.
Once upon a time, the big idea was simplework from anywhere! Thanks to technological advances, you didnt need to be tethered to your office desk to collaborate with coworkers (or swap memes with them). As long as you had your laptop and good Wi-Fi you could be by the pool on a tropical island, drink in hand, and a magnificent sunset in the background.
Forward-thinking companies would recognize that talent could be found in the most unexpected places. Employees get to mix and match their work with the life they love. Governments would enable this with offers of special digital nomad visas. The whole world would become one big, friendly workplace.
Hold that thought. Before you swap suits for flip-flops, you should recognize that the future of work might not be what you pictured. An alternate future is taking shape, where geopolitics is shaping who works, the location of work, and the type of work. Driven by national security concerns and a proclivity to support their companies at the expense of others, governments are reshaping the future of work.
YOUR remote work (Can YOU do the work remotely?)
The first promise of remote work was that work could be democratized. More people from around the world could access jobs in a far more distributed model of talent and collaboration. Ideas flow across the world and organizations benefit from a more global intelligence. But that promise collides with geopolitical reality.
Take the case of Apple. As the company started to move some of its manufacturing operations to India, it needed to hire workers at scale. According to an Economic Times report, Apples ecosystem in India was expected to create 600,000 jobs. But who works at these facilities is an increasingly geopolitically fraught question.
There were initially hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians supporting Apples expansion in India. But more than 300 of them were asked to return to China recently. The recall of engineersthe second in recent monthswas seen as a push by China to curb technology transfer to Indian operations and prevent manufacturing exits from the country. To continue operations, Apples suppliers have turned to engineers from Taiwan.
Driven by geopolitical objectives, government restrictions increasingly shape who can work on leading or cutting-edge projects, the individuals a company can hire, and how long they can stay in those roles.
Global companies are taking a close, hard look at their workforce and making difficult choices about who gets to work on different types of projects. Technology companies in Silicon Valley are increasing security vetting of potential recruits to keep commercial information secure. Changing tariff rates could risk millions of jobs in Asia and elsewhere. Thai workers manufacturing solar cells are bearing the brunt of a trade war between China and the U.S. A large-scale study of foreign directors in listed Chinese firms found that as political relations deteriorated, foreign directors were more likely to exit from their roles. On the other hand, scientists at U.S. federal agencies facing layoffsespecially those with expertise in artificial intelligencewere targeted for recruitment to research operations in China.
your REMOTE work (Can you do the work REMOTELY?)
The second promise of remote work is that work could be done from anywhere. As the technology continues to improve, employees don’t need to be in the office or even in the country. Digital nomads skipped through cities, countries, or even continents. You could log in to work while also visiting your family in another country. You adopt a more flexible lifestyle. But geopolitical reality strikes again.
As countries emphasize sovereignty, data security, and the protection of strategic interests, the data, models, and technology resources that can be used from other countries becomes more limited. The Financial Times reported that foreign universities and research institutes lost access to Chinas largest academic database. More countries are adopting data localization laws, which require businesses to store certain types of data within the country to protect national security. The U.S. restricts the transfer of citizens data to countries of concern.
Such requirements make it harder to access data and information from another country, even for employees of the same company. American business travelers to China may not, for instance, have access to their work email. Financial analysts working at a fanatic pace to evaluate deal opportunities may find that they need to be on the ground in a given market to access relevant data, not because the technology to transfer those data to another country doesnt exist, but because political interests prevent the transfer of such data overseas. Some companies are asking staff traveling to certain countries to use temporary loaner phones and not bring company laptops. Without your trusty laptop, expect disruptions to work and productivity.
your remote WORK (Can you do the WORK remotely?)
The final promise of remote work is that technology would allow you to do your job; i.e., execute the same tasks as you would have when it was business-as-usual. But geopolitics has changed the job description for many employees.
Focusing on teams, operations, or finances of a business used to be the typical mandate for a manager. With appropriate routines in place, these tasks could even be completed from a remote location. But todays managers have to take on different tasks. Consider Jensen Huang, the CEO of the worlds most valuable company, NVIDIA. For years, Mr. Huang avoided the rough and tumble world of Washington lobbying, preferring the company of the video-gamers.
But when the companys AI chips became enmeshed in global politics, Mr. Huangs work changed. He crisscrossed the world convincing lawmakers to facilitate the sales of his companys chips. He became a geopolitical superstar convincing leaders from the U.S. to China about his companys role in their vision.
Mr. Huang is not alone. Fortune reported on how companies set up teams to track political developments and quickly present leadership with optionsbut that those team members completely dropped their day jobs. With the need to have an ear to the ground and interact with political actors, remote work becomes increasingly challenging.
Protests against President Trumps decision to send the National Guard into American cities have no shortage of whimsy, but the empire struck back against one demonstrator.
A lawsuit filed on October 23 accuses police officers and a National Guard member of violating a protesters constitutional right to play the Imperial March theme from Star Wars.
The D.C. resident, Sam OHara, was tightly handcuffed and detained for 20 minutes after ignoring a warning from a National Guard member to stop playing the song. In the complaint, OHara alleges that four Washington, D.C., police officers, an Ohio National Guard sergeant, and the District of Columbia violated his First Amendment rights.
Government conduct of this sort might have received legal sanction a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit on OHaras behalf, stated. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from restraining individuals from recording law enforcement or peacefully protesting, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the Districts prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures.
OHara began filming the National Guard deployment in D.C. over the summer, often following behind Guard members while playing the song and then posting the videos to a TikTok account that has more than a million likes across 24 videos.
Armed National Guard should not be policing D.C. residents as we walk around our neighborhoods, OHara said. It was important to me not to normalize this dystopian occupation.
The Imperial March theme is associated with the fictional fascist empire from Star Wars; its main villain, Darth Vader; and the empires foot soldiers, the Stormtroopers. The Galactic Empire, long a fixture of pop culture, intentionally echoes the aesthetics and policies of Nazi Germany.
The government doesn’t get to decide if your protest is funny, and government officials cant punish you for making them the punch line, ACLU-DC senior staff attorney Michael Perloff said in a press release. Thats really the whole point of the First Amendment.
Clashes over National Guard deployment
The lawsuit is the latest clash in courts over the Trump administrations decision to deploy National Guard troops to a handful of U.S. cities with Democratic leadership. The National Guard has already been activated in Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and Memphis, though those deployments are the subject of ongoing court battles between state and local leaders and the federal government. Trump has also threatened deployments in New York City, Baltimore, the Bay Area, St. Louis, and New Orleans.
The National Guard is historically called in by state governors to help with emergencies and natural disasters, but guard members can also be mobilized by the federal government for national emergencies. Last year, National Guard members deployed in 17 states conducted search and rescue missions and delivered food and water to victims of Hurricane Helene.
Since first deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles in June against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Trump has escalated his unprecedented use of the state military force in U.S. cities. Trump claims that the National Guard is necessary to quell urban crime, but violent crime has already dropped dramatically in many of the cities targeted for the unusual deployments. Homicide rates dropped by 50% in the first half of 2025 in Portland, Oregon, and in Memphis, robbery, burglary, and larceny hit 25-year lows this year.
As I have said from the beginning, the number of federal troops we need in Portland is zero, Mayor Keith Wilson said of the deployment earlier this month. Not from Oregon. Not from California. Not from Texas. And not from anywhere else.
On October 23, Trump appeared to back down from a threat to send the National Guard to San Francisco after a persuasive phone call with the CEOs of Nvidia and Salesforce. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great, Trump wrote on Truth Social. They want to give it a shot. Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday.
Chicken suits and Star Wars
As the courts decide the legality of Trumps unilateral use of National Guard troops, protesters are weaponizing absurdism and humor against the presence of federal law enforcement. In Portland, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has famously attracted a growing crowd of peaceful protesters wearing inflatable animal costumes. The trend was inspired by the early appearance of a frog-suit-clad activist who has since been pepper sprayed directly into his air-intake vent.
Another Portland protest regular famous for wearing a chicken suit explained the use of humor in a recent interview with the citys alt-weekly: What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it [says] that were actually not that afraid, Jack Dickinson, 26, told the Willamette Week.
When they try to describe this situation as war-torn, it becomes much harder to take them seriously, Dickinson added. Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and its eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.
This week, tech companies were either melting down in real time or promising a future where computers are smarter than we are. Investors panicked, calmed down, panicked again, and then bought T-shirts for sea otters. We saw a giant internet outage that reminded everyone just how dependent the modern world is on one company. We also saw a stock that most people had basically pronounced dead suddenly rip higher like it was 2021 again.
There was drama in Washington, too. The White House leaned even harder into AI content as a political weapon, raising a question that has been building all year, which is: Are we entering the AI misinformation era for real, or are we already in it and pretending we aren’t? At the same time, Meta cut jobs in the name of moving faster on artificial intelligence, and Apple gave Wall Street something to cheer about by proving that, yes, people will still buy a new iPhone if you make it fast, thin, and expensive.
But the biggest optimism play of the week came from someplace totally different. Taylor Swift wore a vintage aquarium T-shirt, and her fans turned that into millions of dollars for sea otter rescue in a matter of hours. There are very few forces on Earth that can move money that fast. Central banks. Oil markets. Taylor Swift.
AWS outage hits much of the internet
An overnight outage at Amazon Web Services took down big parts of the internet, including apps and sites like Reddit, Lyft, and McDonalds. The problem was tied to AWS systems in one U.S. region, but because so many companies run through that same infrastructure, the impact went global. Amazon said the root issue was a DNS problem that it has mostly fixed, but a lot of users still saw slowdowns and random errors long after the first alert. The outage was another reminder that a huge amount of the modern economy sits on top of someone elses server.
Beyond Meat stock suddenly rips higher
Beyond Meats stock shot up more than 60 percent after spending the past few weeks in penny stock territory. The spike does not mean the business is suddenly healthy. Demand for plant-based meat has cooled, sales have dropped, and the company is still deep in trouble. What actually happened is a classic short squeeze in which traders who were betting against the stock got forced to buy shares back fast, which pushed the price higher.
Trump responds to protests with AI video
After the nationwide “No Kings” protests, President Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself in a fighter jet dumping sewage on protesters. He also dismissed the nearly 7 million people who showed up, saying they do not represent the country. Vice President JD Vance boosted a matching AI-style meme of Trump in a crown. Critics say this kind of content is basically making the protesters point for them and also shows how comfortable the administration is with pushing AI-altered media at scale.
Meta cuts 600 jobs from its AI lab
Meta said it is cutting about 600 jobs in the new AI superintelligence lab that it launched this year. Leadership says the smaller team will be able to move faster and make decisions with less internal debate. The company has been pouring tens of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence and high-end infrastructure, including new data centers and ad tools. The layoff news barely moved the stock, which suggests investors see this as normal cost control for a company that is still planning to spend heavily on AI.
Quantum computing stocks pop on takeover rumors
Shares of several U.S. quantum computing companies jumped after reports that the Commerce Department is talking to them about possible government investments. The basic idea is that Washington may want a financial stake in these firms in exchange for federal funding. Traders read that as a sign that quantum is getting treated like strategic tech, similar to chips and rare earth minerals. The result was a fast rebound for names like IonQ and Rigetti after a rough day in the broader market.
Gold and silver prices fall hard
Gold and silver both dropped sharply after hitting record levels earlier in the week. Prices for gold fell back toward the low $4,100 range per ounce, and silver slid under $50. The pullback suggests investors are feeling slightly less panicked about things like tariffs, inflation, and the government shutdown. In plain terms, money moved out of crisis mode and back toward risk.
Iceland finds mosquitoes for the first time
Scientists confirmed that mosquitoes have now shown up in Iceland, a country that’s basically never had them in human history. Warmer average temperatures are making the island friendlier to insects that could not survive there before. The specific species they found is cold-tolerant, which means it might be able to last through Icelandic winters and stick around. It is a small discovery with big implications because mosquitoes carry disease, and climate change is helping them expand north.
Egg recalls keep growing
More than 6 million eggs have now been pulled over salmonella concerns tied to Black Sheep Egg Company and others. The FDA escalated the recall to its highest risk tier and keeps adding new affected lots and brands. Experts say the spike in recalls is not only about farms doing something wrong. It is also about better, faster testing that can spot contamination earlier and force products off shelves before people get sick.
Apple hits a record high on iPhone 17
Apple stock hit an all-time high, at around $264 a share, after early data suggested the iPhone 17 lineup is selling faster than last years iPhone 16 launch. The standout this cycle is the new iPhone Air, which is thinner, lighter, and still priced as a flagship. Strong demand in both the U.S. and China helped fuel the rally and gave investors fresh confidence heading into Apples next earnings report.
Taylor Swift raises millions for sea otters
Taylor Swift wore a vintage Monterey Bay Aquarium T-shirt in her latest concert film, and her fans did the rest. The aquarium brought the shirt back, priced it at $65.13, and raised more than $2.3 million for sea otter rescue and rehab. The campaign ran on Tiltify, which let the aquarium process tens of thousands of orders almost instantly. It was a case study in what happens when fandom, nostalgia, and e-commerce all hit at once.
You dont have to be an avid reader of restaurant industry trade publicationsthough I can attest that they are oddly fascinatingto realize that everythings getting more expensive.
The good news is that theres an easy way to counteract those rising menu prices. By purchasing discounted gift cards, you can defray the cost of fast-food, fast-casual, and sit-down chains, and maybe even some other retailers that have nothing to do with stuffing your face.
All you need is a place to find authentic, cheap gift cards and a little foresight on when to buy them.
This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!
Gift cards for less? Yes, please!
To buy gift cards for less than their actual cash value, head to CardCash.com. It presently only handles orders from within the United States.
CardCash connects people who want to sell their unused gift cards with those who want to buy them.
It takes just a few seconds to see what gift cards are available, though youll need an account to make a purchase.
Most of CardCashs gift cards are digital and arrive via email, so you can start using them instantly.
When you search for a retailer on CardCash, youll see a list of available gift cards, with the biggest percentage discounts appearing at the top. You can also sort the list by value and cost.
The discounts on CardCash range from pennies to several dollarsor sometimes even moreper card.
If youre not looking for anything specific, you can also check out CardCashs Epic 20% Discounts and Deals pages. There youll find cards with greater-than-usual percentage discounts.
You can save yourself time and see only cards with especially significant discounts.
When looking at discount percentages, keep in mind any cash-back offers youd normally get at the store by paying with your credit card. If your card offers 3% back at restaurants, for instance, a gift card with a 3.5% discount probably isnt worth the trouble.
After buying a gift card, youll get a couple of emails from CardCash: One is your order receipt, while the other contains your digital gift card as a PDF attachment. The PDF will show the gift card number, PIN (if necessary), and barcode to scan in-store.
All the info you need for any purchased cards comes to you via email.
Waitis CardCash actually legit?
Ive used CardCash on four occasions over the past few weeks, and on three out of those four occasions, everything went smoothly.
A problem arose, though, after purchasing a Five Guys gift card immediately before eating there. The card, which cost $57.65, had an advertised value of $65.29but when I tried to pay, it only showed a value of $11.57. Using that amount drew the balance down to $0.
After getting home, I contacted CardCashs customer service and did not identify myself as a journalist so as to avoid getting special treatment. I received a response and a refund for the difference in balance the next day.
As CardCash notes on its website, this is an inherent risk with buying gift cards on its platform, which merely serves as a marketplace between buyers and sellers. Theres nothing to inherently stop a seller from using a gift card after selling it, or from selling a stolen gift card that later gets deactivated.
For these kinds of situations, CardCash says it guarantees the value of gift cards for 45 days, so you can contact them and get a refund. But it also suggests confirming gift card balances yourself immediately after the purchase, which Ill absolutely be doing in the future.
Either way, my experience underscores an important caveat with CardCash: Dont spend more on gift cards than you expect to spend in a 45-day period. For one thing, you might end up accruing so many cards that itll be hard to keep track of them allbut more importantly, youll be out of luck if something happens to the cards value.
While Ill keep using CardCash personally, Ill be sure not to stockpile more gift card credit than I need.
CardCash is completely web-based. Itll work in any browser, on any deviceno downloads or installations required.
Its free to use as a buyer, with the only cost being whatever price you pay for a card. The person doing the selling pays the sites fees.
You do have to create an account in order to make a purchase. You can either sign in with your Google account or with any valid email address. The sites privacy policy is clear that no personal info is ever sold or shared in any shady-seeming wa.
Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.
Like many ambitious tech companies before it, OpenAI introduced itself to the culture at large with big claims about how its technology would improve the worldfrom boosting productivity to enabling scientific discovery. Even the caveats and warnings were de facto advertisements for the existential potential of artificial intelligence: We had to be careful with this stuff, or it might literally wipe out humanity.
Fast-forward to the present day, and OpenAI is still driving culture-wide conversations, but its attention-grabbing offerings arent quite so lofty. Its Sora 2 video platformwhich makes it easy to generate and share AI-derived fictionswas greeted as a TikTok for deepfakes. That is, a mash-up of two of the most heavily criticized developments in recent memory: addictive algorithms and misinformation.
As that launch was settling in (and being tweaked to address intellectual property complaints), OpenAI promised a forthcoming change to its flagship ChatGPT product, enabling erotica for verified adults. These products are not exactly curing cancer, as CEO Sam Altman has suggested artificial intelligence may someday do. To the contrary, the moves have struck many as weirdly off-key: Why is a company that took its mission (and itself) so seriously doing . . . this?
An obvious risk here is that OpenAI is watering down a previously high-minded brand. There are multiple major players in AI at this point, including Anthropic, the maker of ChatGPT rival Claude, as well as Meta, Microsoft, Elon Musks Grok, and more. As they seek to attract an audience, they will have to differentiate themselves through how their technologies are deployed and what they make possible, or easy. In short, what the technology stands for. This is why slop, memes, and sex seem like such a comedown from OpenAIs carefully cultivated reputation as an ambitious but responsible pioneer.
To underscore the point, rival Anthropic recently enjoyed a surprising amount of positive attentionan estimated 5,000 visitors and 10 million social media impressionsfor a pop-up event in New Yorks West Village, dubbed a no slop zone, that emphasized analog creativity tools. This is part of a Keep Thinking branding campaign aimed at burnishing the reputation of its Claude chatbot. The company has positioned itself as taking a cautious approach to developing and deploying the technology (one thats attracted some criticism from the Trump administration). It has also made Anthropic stand out in what can be a move-fast-and-break-things competitive field.
AI is a field thats spendingand losingvast sums, and lately casting about for revenue streams in the here and now while working toward that promised lofty future. According to The Information, OpenAI lost $7.8 billion on revenue of $4.5 billion in the first half of 2025, and expects to spend $115 billion by 2029. ChatGPT has 800 million monthly users, but paid accounts are closer to 20 million, and these recent moves suggest that it needs to build and leverage engagement. As Digiday recently noted, OpenAI increasingly seems to be at least considering ad-driven models (once dubbed a last resort by Altman).
Writer and podcaster Cal Newport has made the case that developments like viral-video tools and erotica chat are emblematic of a deeper shift away from grandiose economic impacts and toward betting [the] company on its ability to sell ads against AI slop and computer-generated pornography. Its almost like a sped-up version of Cory Doctorows infamous enshittification process, pivoting from a quality user experience to an increasingly degraded one designed for near-term profit.
This is not entirely fair to OpenAI, whose every move is scrutinized partly because its the best-known brand in a singularly hyped category. All its competitors will also have to deliver real value in exchange for their massive costs to investors and society at large. But precisely because its a leading brand, its particularly susceptible to dilution if its seen as straying from its idealistic promise, and rhetoric. A cutting-edge AI pioneer doesnt want to be perceived as an existential threatbut it also doesnt want to be branded as just another source of crass distraction.
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National home prices rose 0.01% year over year from September 2024 to September 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index reading published on October 16decelerated from the 2.4% year-over-year rate from September 2023 to September 2024.
This year, the number of major metro-area housing markets seeing year-over-year declines has climbed.
> 31 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (10% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading from January 2024 to January 2025.
> 42 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (14%) had a falling year-over-year reading from February 2024 to February 2025.
> 60 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (20%) had a falling year-over-year reading from March 2024 to March 2025.
> 80 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (27%) had a falling year-over-year reading from April 2024 to April 2025.
> 96 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (32%) had a falling year-over-year reading from May 2024 to May 2025.
> 110 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (36%) had a falling year-over-year reading from June 2024 to June 2025.
> 105 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (36%) had a falling year-over-year reading from July 2024 to July 2025.
> 109 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (35%) had a falling year-over-year reading from August 2024 to August 2025.
> 105 of the nations 300 largest housing markets (35%) had a falling year-over-year reading from September 2024 to September 2025.
Earlier this year, an increasing number of housing markets slipped into year-over-year price declines as the supply-demand balance gradually tilted more toward buyers. But in recent months, the list of declining markets has begun to stabilize as inventory growth has stalled.
Home prices are still climbing in many regions where active inventory remains well below pre-pandemic 2019 levels, such as pockets of the Northeast and Midwest. In contrast, some pockets in states like Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Coloradowhere active inventory exceeds pre-pandemic 2019 levelsare seeing modest home price pullbacks.
Many of the housing markets seeing the most softness, where homebuyers have gained the most leverage, are primarily located in Sunbelt regions, particularly the Gulf Coast and Mountain West.
Many of these areas saw major price surges during the Pandemic Housing Boom, with home price growth outpacing local income levels. As pandemic-driven domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices.
This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new-home supply in the Sunbelt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives to maintain sales, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers who would have previously considered existing homes are now opting for new homes with more favorable homebuilder deals.
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Of course, while 105 of the nations 300 largest metro-area housing markets are seeing year-over-year home price declines, another 195 are still seeing year-over-year home price increases.
Where are home prices still up on a year-over-year basis? See the map below.
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Google Flights is one of the most popular flight aggregators on the web. The site lets users search millions of flights to find the best routes and prices that meet their needs. Unsurprisingly, millions of people use Google Flights to find the best deals on holiday tickets. And the search for cheap flights has also led to many nuggets of so-called conventional wisdom that, if followed, will supposedly help you find the cheapest fares.
But with the holidays rapidly approaching and finding the best deals on flights at the top of mind for millions of Americans, I wanted to find out if these bits of conventional wisdom were actually trueparticularly when it comes to Google Flights. So, I went straight to the source and asked James Byers, group product manager at Google Search, who leads the Google Flights team and the development of the companys other travel products in search.
Claim #1: Clearing cookies or using incognito mode will help you find cheaper fares
The idea behind this claim is that airlines and flight aggregators use cookies on your computer to track how many times youve visited a site to search for tickets. Frequent returns by the same user to a site suggest they may be preparing to buy tickets, so airlines or site operators raise prices. To get around this supposed tactic, conventional wisdom says to clear your browser’s cookies or just use incognito mode when shopping for tickets.
But Byers says that, when it comes to Google Flights, this is a myth.
Whether you have cookies set or incognito, it doesn’t make any difference on Google Flights. You see the same results as anyone else, says Byers. But he also understands why people believe this one.
He notes that due to the networked nature of the flight ecosystemthere are trillions (yes, with a T) of possible flight combinations a person could take, and a price change in just one flight, say, departing from Paris, can result in price changes in seemingly unrelated flights.
These price changes can happen stunningly rapidly, Byers sayswithin secondsand the rapid nature of these price changes can make people believe the price changes they see when returning to a ticketing site even a few minutes after their first visit are being done to purposely target them, when, in fact, it isn’t.
Claim #2: Using a VPN will help you find cheaper fares
Another bit of conventional wisdom is that, depending on your actual location, you should use a VPN when shopping for flights. This is because airlines sometimes offer the same flight at different prices depending on where in the world you are located.
If you are in a country with a relatively high GDP, the flight you want may be listed at $1,000. But those in countries with lower GDPs may see cheaper fares for the same flight. In short, airlines think people in wealthier countries will be able to pay more for the same flight than people in developing countries.
Byers says this isnt exactly a mythbut a VPN may do little good in the end. He notes that airlines do tend to offer different prices based on the country youre purchasing the ticket from, so setting your VPN to show youre in a different country may help you see lower fares initially.
However, this tactic often fails because usually, when you go to book that flight, you also need a billing address and a payment instrument, a credit card, or some other means of payment in that country.
If you dont use a payment method native to that country, youre unlikely to get the local fare. In the end, Byers says the VPN hack is not a strategy we recommend.
Claim #3: Book your flight tickets on a Tuesday to get the cheapest fares
This is probably the oldest bit of conventional wisdom. The idea is that airlines generally have the lowest fares on Tuesdays, so if you buy your tickets on that day of the week, they will be cheaper than if you buy them on any of the other six days.
Surprisingly, Byers says Googles data backs this up. But theres a catch.
Tuesdays are a little bit cheaper, Byers says, but it’s 1.3% [less], compared to Sunday, which is the most expensive day.
What that means is that if you find the perfect flight on a Sunday, you can wait until Tuesday to see if the price declinesbut even if it does, expect to see savings of only around 1.3%, at most. Thats less than seven bucks on a $500 ticket. And if you do wait until Tuesday to get that possible discount, the ticket you want could be gone by then.
The difference is so small that we recommend that once you see a price [you like] . . . you should [grab] it regardless of what day you happen to book on, advises Byers.
When you can actually find the best prices on holiday flights, according to Google Flights
Conventional wisdom examined, I asked Byers if he had any tips for finding cheap holiday fares, based on Google Flights rich trove of data. Surprisingly, he told me that despite the holidays being little more than just two months away, now is a good time to buy your tickets.
We’ve got about 40 days until Thanksgiving, Byers noted when I interviewed him on October 17. I think we have about something like 70 days until Christmas. Believe it or not, we’re just about at the point where prices historically are the lowest.
Byers says that, for Thanksgiving, the sweet spot for finding the lowest fares is 35 days before the holiday, which puts the prime buying date at October 24 this year. But he notes that there is some latitude there, which includes between about 24 to 59 days before Thanksgiving. Once you get past that window, prices can go up quickly, he says.
As for Christmas and the end-of-year holidays, Byers says the peak time to buy your tickets is about 50 days before. That’s the lowest, based on our data.
Googles head of flights had two other suggestions for finding great flight prices throughout the year. The first is to set Google Flight price alerts. When we tell you it’s a great price,” he says, grab it. “We have some pretty great data and AI behind that to give you confidence that it’s time to book.
The second: be flexible. The more wiggle room you have with your dates, times, and destinations, the better deals youll likely find. “Flexibility is always the name of the game, if you have it.”
By noon on a recent Tuesday, my calendar had already decided what kind of manager I would be. Back-to-back 1:1 meetings until the end of the day. Nothing was on fire, yet nothing was moving either. That might be fine in a slow cycle. It is not fine when you are releasing new features in real time and your best engineer has three recruiters in her inbox. In this market, teams dont just compete on comp alone. They compete on how much freedom they have to actually create and build.
We ran a simple test at my company. We canceled the standing 1:1. We kept space for new hires and anything sensitive, like a performance review. Everything else moved to an as needed basis.
The first worry was trust. Would people feel like they lost access to their manager? They did not. Access improved because help arrived at the right moment: in the middle of a decision, during a roadblock, or on a draft that needed real feedback. Not next Tuesday at 2:30.
Leaders I admire do this already. Jensen Huang. Marc Andreessen. Doug Leone.
The weekly 1:1 is a relic of calendar-driven management
The weekly check-in is a habit from an office-first, synchronous work environment. In a remote, product-driven organization, the cost of context switching is high, and most collaboration starts in writing. Recurring 1:1s often slide into status updates or meandering chats. This can be useful at times, yes, but its a poor default. I want conversations that are tied to goals, decisions, and growth, within the project timeline.
What replaced the weekly 1:1
We switched to a shared doc and a few well-named Slack channels. Now we use short notes that say what changed, what is blocked, what needs a decision, and tag the right people. Because it is written, we skip the catch-up meeting and we have a record of how and why choices were made.
When we need to make a decision in the moment we jump into a quick huddle. These are small and focused. We leave with one owner and one date. If the topic is fuzzy, we pause and write a brief doc or build a tiny prototype first. Better to spend five minutes getting clear than 30 minutes wandering.
We show work instead of describing it. Rough prototypes carry more information than long explanations. A two-minute screen recording usually gets sharper feedback than a half hour of narration.
I hold open office hours every week for growth, feedback, and sticky problems. People come when they need it instead of me trying to guess who might benefit from the time. It works like a help desk for humans.
Some topics do need group discussion, so we have small group sessions for things like what to prioritize or writing cleaner product requirement documents. We record them so the advice becomes reusable, and people can learn from one another instead of hearing me repeat the same paragraph 10 times.
We also created a simple rubric so everyone knows what kind of communication to use: async for status updates and FYIs, huddle for a decision, office hours for coaching, immediate 1:1 for anything sensitive.
What actually improved
Focus came back first. With fewer standing meetings people had real blocks of time to build. Writing forced clarity and huddles only happened when a live discussion would change the outcome, which meant we got faster at making decisions. Coaching got better. Instead of delivering the same guidance across 10 separate 1:1s I deliver it once at higher quality and make it accessible to all. Documentation improved because conversations start in writing and end with visible decisions.
You can feel these gains. The calendar is lighter. The work moves.
There is a talent angle, too. People choose environments where progress beats ceremony. Protect attention and show up at the right moments, and you keep great teammates. Waste it, and you teach them to take recruiter calls.
Guardrails that keep it human
This only works if its humane. New hires keep a weekly 1:1 for the first month or two, then we taper as they find their footing. Anything personal goes straight to a private conversation: performance, compensation, and hard sensitive feedback.
The cadence is variable because the work is variable. Sometimes I need to meet someone three times in two days. Other times, we are on separate tracks, and a check-in every few months is enough, or we cover it in a larger group.
We rotate huddle times across time zones and publish response expectations so access is not personality-based. And the managers job does not shrink. You still watch for quiet voices, stuck work, and moments to recognize people. If you miss hallway moments, create them on purpose. Light coffee chats. Demo open houses. The occasional in-person day. Serendipity scales better with a little planning.
This isnt about being contrarian or cutting meetings for sport. Its about building a system that gives people time to do meaningful work and gives managers better ways to support them.
Run the 30-day test with your team. Protect the obvious exceptions. Hold yourself to the same standards you set for others. If your calendar feels lighter, your writing is sharper, and decisions arent stalling, keep going. If not, bring the weekly 1:1 back.
The point isnt the ritual. The point is building a way of working where smart people can do their best work and feel supported while they do it.
