For the past decade, quantum computing has struggled to balance promise and practicality. While the worlds most advanced systems remain engineering marvels, theyre bedeviled by the same flaw: the fragility of qubitsthe fundamental units of quantum dataand the delicate hardware required to control them. A single fluctuation, for example, can collapse a quantum state, invalidating a computation.
Most quantum systems also depend on large-scale refrigeration colder than deep space, with cryogenic racks that often occupy multiple rooms. Scaling quantum systems demands exponential increases in cost, energy, and environmental stability. So while the U.N. has designated 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, for all its scientific significance, quantums commercial trajectory remains narrow.
But Japanese conglomerate Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) is attempting to rewrite that equation. In partnership with Japan-based quantum technology developer OptQC, NTT is attempting to break current orthodoxy through what is known as optical quantum computing, which uses photons instead of electrical currents to perform calculations. Since photons generate less heat compared to electron-based systems and can travel without resistance, these systems consume far less power.
NTT argues that optical systems can be faster and more energy-efficient, forming the basis for greener, more sustainable computing. This combination not only accelerates computational capability but also reduces environmental impact, positioning quantum technology as a foundation for a sustainable digital future, says Shingo Kinoshita, SVP and head of R&D planning at NTT.
Rather than relying on cooling systems, NTTs design utilizes light sources and error-correction technologies developed under its Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) initiative.
Japans broader industrial strategy sits just beneath the surface of this partnership. With the U.S. and China locked in geopolitical competition over quantum supremacy, Japans photonic-first model is being positioned as an alternative: one that favors energy efficiency and manufacturability over extreme-environment engineering.
Today, the energy footprint of AI is emerging as a global challenge. Optical quantum computing processes information with light, enabling dramatically lower power consumption and scalable qubit growth through optical multiplexing, Kinoshita says.
A million-qubit road map
The approach builds on a series of rapid scientific breakthroughs across Japans quantum ecosystem. Over the past year, NTTalongside RIKEN, Fixstars Amplify, the University of Tokyo, and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technologydemonstrated the worlds first general-purpose optical quantum computing platform capable of running calculations without any external cooling.
The upcoming platform fits inside a single room, a feat that many leading quantum systems developers cant claim.
NTT and OptQC outlined a five-year plan leading to the 2030 milestone. During the first year, the companies will conduct technical studies and begin codesigning while identifying early use cases with external partners. In the second year, they plan to build complete development environments for hardware and software.
In year three, they expect to begin verifying enterprise use cases such as drug development, financial optimization, materials science, and climate modeling. The final phase will focus on scaling the system to reach millions of qubits and making it reliable enough to handle real-world use cases, thereby preparing the technology for adoption among companies, governments, and industries.
Qubits must scale into the thousands for quantum computing to surpass the current capabilities of AI. Unlike classical bits used in general-purpose computing systems, which exist as 0 or 1, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously, enabling exponentially faster processing of complex calculations.
The 2030 vision of 1 million qubits is not just about performance, its about redefining how we align advanced computing with planetary limits, Kinoshita says. In the near term, as we aim for 10,000 qubits by 2027, the first impact will be within NTTs own communications infrastructure.
Japans photonic bet to power AI
As AI models grow in size and complexity, the demand for simulation, optimization, and high-dimensional problem-solving has also increased exponentially. NTT asserts that photonic quantum systems will become essential accelerators for next-generation AI and telecom networks such as 6G.
In classical systems, electrical signals travel through semiconductor processors. Photonic systems replace those electrons with light, transmitting information through properties such as photon number, polarization, and amplitude.
However, practical commercial quantum computing requires a scale of 1 million logical qubits, along with reliable quantum error correction, a mechanism that detects and corrects the subtle errors qubits constantly make. Todays machineseven the most advanced systems by IBM, Google, and otherssit orders of magnitude below that mark and remain extremely sensitive to environmental disturbances.
NTT claims that photonics changes the math. Scaling to 1 million qubits by 2030 and then moving into mass deployment will demand a robust supply chain. Achieving high-performance quantum light sources and improving yield in precision fabrication will be critical steps, Kinoshita explains. In essence, this means NTT must be able to reliably manufacture the key components, such as high-quality light sources, and improve production yields so the hardware can be built at scale.
By 2030, with 1 million qubits, the scope expands beyond telecom,” he adds. “NTT plans to explore these opportunities through partnerships with leaders in chemistry, finance, and industrial sectors.
The global stakes of a photonic strategy
This is not the first attempt at room-temperature quantum hardware, as companies like Sydney-based Quantum Brilliance are also pursuing cryogenics-free architectures. Quantum Brilliance is targeting edge and data-center deployments with compact photonic-inspired diamond devices, while Atom Computing, headquartered in Berkeley, Calfornia, is building large-scale, room-temperature systems that use neutral atoms.
We truly believe that optically controllable neutral atom qubits allow a level of flexibility and practicality to the challenge of controlling millions of qubits with high-fidelity, low-crosstalk signals at room temperature, says Ben Bloom, founder and CEO of Atom Computing.
But NTT argues that photons, not electrons or atoms, offer an architecture capable of reaching true commercial scale. Its thesis is simple: Light is inherently more stable, generates less heat, and is ultimately more manufacturable than any matter-based system. This shift transforms quantum computing from a niche technology into a broadly available resource,” Kinoshita says.
Still, experts caution that the light-based computation path comes with its own unresolved challenges.
Photonics faces significant challenges that often get glossed over in the roomtemperature narrative, says Yuval Boger, chief commercial officer at Boston-based QuEra Computing. You need near-perfect sources and detectors at scale, plus efficient photon-photon interactions, which don’t occur naturally and require complex optical elements. The engineering complexity of building a fault-tolerant photonic quantum computer with thousands of high-fidelity qubits is immense.
If NTT stays on track, the worlds first million-qubit system may come from a room-temperature optical platform in Tokyo, engineered for real-world use cases including molecular simulation for drug discovery and materials science, financial risk modeling, and manufacturing optimization.
Beyond technology, global coordination for specialized materials and resilience against geopolitical risks remains essential, Kinoshita says. When these systems can run in standard IT environments with ultra-low power consumption and rack-scale integration, enterprises will see cost-effective performance, governments will recognize strategic advantage, and the public will experience tangible benefits like greener networks and faster innovation. That moment will mark quantums shift from experimental to essential.
In case you havent been deluged with enough day-themed holiday shopping sales yet, the travel industry will try to tempt you with some seemingly tantalizing travel offers on December 2, aka Travel Tuesday, traditionally the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
But whether the travel deals are actually steals may require you to do some research in advance and read the fine print so you dont face some unexpected fees once youre on vacation. If you regularly book through a specific travel provider and have a sense of what you normally pay, that will help you to better suss out whether youre actually saving money.
Knowing what a specific trip or ticket would normally cost is important because travel providers may have artificially inflated the price just to offer a discount this week, Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet, cautioned to the Associated Press. Theres a sense of urgency with deals like these, she said, but its also important to make sure a trip that youre booking actually works for you and is something you genuinely want.
That said, there may be some discounts that are worth taking advantage of. Here are some highlights.
Blanket discounts with specific companies
For seasoned travelers, some of the most attractive offers this week will likely come from companies you already book with regularly. Even then, however, there are some asterisks to each of these deals. Perhaps they can be used only on select dates or for specific locations, for example, which may put a damper on your wanderlust.
Amtrak may not seem like the most exciting place to begin, but if you regularly travel by trainor have a trip in mindyou may be able score up to 25% off regularly priced fares if you book a ticket by December 3 for travel anytime from January 5 to March 15, 2026. That said, there are four blackout dates that coincide with holidays in January and February, while some routes arent eligible for the discount.
If you do have your eye on something a bit more exciting, then insiders (aka people who have supplied their information) could score up to 20% off a stay at one of the boutique hotels in the Proper Hotels collection, along with a $175 dining credit. And Marriott is offering discounts ranging from 15% to 25% off stays at participating locations for reservations made through December 2, depending on whether or not youre a Bonvoy member and book through its app.
Many major airlines are also advertising discounted fares for flights booked on Travel Tuesday; however, deals are primarily focused on specific routes.
Deals on booking sites
Aggregators in the travel world are also getting in on the action with some specials. Discounts range widely in terms of whats being discounted and the amount, but its worth checking the various sites if you have a trip in mind.
You may be able to score up to 40% off by booking accommodations through Booking.com, while Hotels.com is promising up to 50% off on reservations for eligible hotels and resorts. Not to be outdone, Priceline is offering up to 60% off select travel packages, and some people may even be able to score up to 75% off at a curated list of 24 hotels by booking through Expedia.
Some property owners are running their own promotions for bookings on Airbnb and VRBO, though youll have to have some dates and locations in mind to find those deals. More broadly, Airbnb is offering up to 50% off a single experience or service in Los Angeles, New York, or Paris if you book through Thursday, December 4.
Discounts for cruises, resorts
The most tantalizing, but trickiest, deals to navigate are often at resorts or for cruises. Thats because the discounts offered this week may not tell the full story of how much youll pay once you arrive, as fees and on-site activities can be quite expensive.
This is the area of Travel Tuesday where you may want to proceed with caution lest you sign up for a trip that turns out to be far more expensive than you realized. Its also fair to wonder why specific locations are so heavily discounted when others are not.
You can score up to 65% off reservations and potentially get some other money-saving perks at select Sandals Resorts locations for travel booked through December 2. And Club Med has extended a sale through December 2, offering up to 50% off at some of its all-inclusive resorts.
The major cruise operators are seemingly always running some sort of sale, but the discounts may be bigger this week. Princess is offering up to $800 off fares, while Royal Caribbean is advertising up to $1,000 off its fares. And you can save up to 75% off the booking for a second guest with Celebrity Cruises.
But if all these deals feel dizzying, travel experts say dont book just for the sake of booking. The decline in international visitors to the U.S. has seen many travel companies discount rates to ensure they are booked, and that trend will likely continue.
As French told the AP, rest assured: If you dont buy on Travel Tuesday, you havent missed your moment.
On November 14, hotel and short-term apartment rental chain Sonder Holdings filed for bankruptcy, just days after suddenly announcing it would be winding down operations immediately, abruptly kicking guests to the curb and sending employees scrambling for answers. The company had faced major, unforeseen costs from a deal signed in August 2024 to integrate reservation systems with Marriott International and promote Sonder listings through the hotel giant, according to a statement issued four days earlier.
Sonder had long been an outlier in the short-term rental space, which was a big part of its appeal to investors. Most of its competitorsshort-term rental companies like Kasa and AvantStay, the big hotel chains, and individual hotels and bed-and-breakfastseither own and operate their own properties or manage them on behalf of owners for a cut of revenue and profits. Sonder, by contrast, took out long-term leases on apartment units so it could rent them out for short-term stays, a business model similar to that of WeWork, the once high-flying chain of coworking spaces.
But that model wound up saddling Sonder with fixed costs from long-term leases, especially rent payments. That held true even when competition or low demand limited how much it could make from guests, or other unexpected costs from factors like post-pandemic inflation or the Marriott integration added up, analysts and others in the industry tell Fast Company.
We call it rental arbitrage, where you take out a long-term lease on an apartment building, and then you try to make more than that in short-term leases, says Jamie Lane, chief economist at short-term rental analytics firm AirDNA. Lane also raises the comparison to WeWork, which famously filed for bankruptcy protection in 2023, entering a court-approved restructuring plan the following year. (Sonder didnt reply to an inquiry from Fast Company.)
Experts say Sonder’s failure isn’t an indictment of the short-term rental model or the larger hospitality sector writ large, but rather the result of mixing high fixed costs with variable income in a competitive marketplace. Still, other companies applying that approach to hospitality largely failed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemicand Sonders abrupt shutdown suggests investors are unlikely to back such a model again anytime soon.
The broader story here is that the lease-arbitrage model has proven economically destructive across real estate cycles, says Roman Pedan, founder and CEO of hotel and apartment-rental operator Kasa, which runs more than 70 properties across the country. It’s sort of a weapona toxic weapon of financial destruction.
The rental-arbitrage model
In the heyday of coworking-space businesses like WeWork and before the pandemic disrupted the travel industry, the rental-arbitrage approach made sense to investors.
Sonder essentially applied the WeWork model to travel lodging, replacing the traditional front desk with a tech-forward approach to check-in and guest services (made popular through Airbnb and Vrbo). Other companies with a similar model, including Stay Alfred, Domio, and Lyric, shuttered in 2020 amid pandemic travel disruptions.
Many hospitality chains make money through management agreements in which they share revenue with building owners or other hotel and short-term rental operators that both own and operate their own real estate. Sonder, by contrast, leased the majority of its listings from building owners at a fixed rate, according to the companys annual report.
For a time, that model made Sonder into an investor darling. Just over six years ago, the company achieved unicorn status, raising a $225 million Series D round at a $1.1 billion valuation. In 2022, the company went public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger that valued the company at $2.2 billion.
Sonder closed out 2024 with more than 9,900 hotel rooms and furnished apartments available for rent across 41 cities in nine countries, according to its annual report to investors. And the contract with Marriott brought in an additional $15 million in startup key money payments to Sonder since its signing last year.
Sonder had gotten lucky,” Lane says. “They had raised money just before the onset of the pandemic, so they had a good war chest to sort of get them through it. And the company later got subsequent boosts from the SPAC deal (which included an additional $310 million in investments) and the Marriott arrangement.
Though the industry has long faced criticism for converting long-term rentals into vacation lodging, constraining the housing supply and at times introducing disruptive travelers into quiet neighborhoods and apartment buildings, occupancy is up overall from before the pandemic, Lane adds, though numbers havent yet recovered in some major cities where Sonder offered rentals.
In short, others in the industry say, the problem is with the lease-arbitrage model, not the concept of renting whole homes or apartments to tech-savvy travelers.
Significant capital commitment
Sonders business model may have also seemed like a boon to property developers, especially when the company would lease out entire buildings to effectively convert into apartment-style hotels, says Emir Dukic, founder and CEO of Rabbu, a real estate marketplace for short-term rental owners.
The practice, though often criticized by housing advocates for taking entire buildings off the traditional rental market, saved landlords the trouble of finding individual long-term tenants.
Something that usually, as a landlord, would take you a year to lease up in a building, Sonder came in and did it overnight, and made a significant capital commitment to get those leases, Dukic says. So it was a win-win situation at the time for both parties, and they were able to scale it quickly.
Those apartment-style units, often larger than traditional hotel rooms, were likely appealing to Marriott for effectively expanding the chains portfolio, Dukic explains. But they were also commonly clustered in competitive urban markets with other hotel and apartent rental options nearby. Even with self-check-in and other tech features, hospitality remains a labor-intensive business, he adds. Rooms still need to be cleaned, and someone still needs to be on call around the clock to help guests with lockouts, clogged toilets, or flaky Wi-Fi.
Most of Sonders inventory was subject to fixed leases, whereby we agree to a fixed periodic fee per unit that may be subject to negotiated rent escalations, according to the companys annual report. In other words, unless landlords were willing to renegotiate, those payments would remain due regardless of what room rates the company could demand, rising costs due to inflation, or the apparent failure of the Marriott agreement to significantly boost occupancy.
What about the landlords?
Lane and others emphasize that the short-term rental industry, which includes a mix of chain businesses and smaller operations renting houses and apartments to travelers, is still generally faring well.
But what Sonders bankruptcy will mean for building owners, essentially its landlords, remains unclear. The company had already exited some 3,300 units across 85 buildings as of June 30, 2025, according to the company report, and Pedan says Kasa has taken over management of more than a dozen former Sonder properties.
Kasa, which announced a $40 million investment round in August, citing more than $100 million in annual booking revenue, typically operates with a more standard hotel management contract. Kasa is responsible for day-to-day operations, including marketing, housekeeping, and pricing, while building owners are responsible for capital improvements, which can include things like HVAC and roofing upgrades. The companys agreements ensure both parties benefit when properties do well, keeping interests aligned, Pedan says.
When I say aligned, I mean we want to win when the owner wins and make less when the owner is making less, he says. So we make money as a percentage of their profit and their revenue. Another short-term rental management company, AvantStay, also issued a statement on November 10 urging landlords affected by the Sonder shutdown to consider adding their buildings to AvantStays portfolio of more than 2,500 properties. The company has already connected with a big fraction of affected property owners, says founder and CEO Sean Breuner, who like others remains optimistic about the industry as a whole.
I think the industry is very healthy, Breuner says. Its alive and well, and demand in aggregate is the highest its ever been since we started 10 years ago.
Sonders shutdown came shortly after Marriott announced the termination of the companies deal due to Sonders default. (Marriott didnt respond to an inquiry from Fast Company.)
But in a filing in the bankruptcy case, the company said it ended the agreement and reached out to guests after concerns that Sonder would abruptly lock paying customers out of their rooms. Guests who were occupying Sonder-managed properties might be prevented from retrieving their personal belongings, including medication, passports, personal effects, or other essentials, according to Marriott.
Just before the bankruptcy filing, Janice Sears, interim CEO of Sonder, declared in a statement that the company had reached a point where a liquidation is the only viable path forward, with guests and employees alike abruptly given notice that operations would shut down. At least two lawsuits have been filed by Sonder employees alleging the company violated federal and state laws requiring warning periods before mass layoffs.
Brian Nettle, an attorney who represents a Sonder employee seeking class-action status in one of the cases, says, It’s just an unfortunate situation for plaintiffs in the class to have just lost a job suddenly.
Panera Bread is spending millions to overhaul its menu in an attempt to lure back the customers its lost in recent years. In a downward fast-food spiral, Panera hasnt significantly increased its revenue since 2023. Now, the company says its putting money back into better ingredients, staff, and its cafés.
The St. Louis-based chain, known for its sandwiches, soups, and salads, hasnt been delivering on its signatures. Panera last year started using the cheaper iceberg lettuce in its salads, for example, and customers werent happy.
You know what guests told us? said Paul Carbone, CEO of Panera Brands, the parent company of Panera Bread, Einstein Bros. Bagels, and Caribou Coffee. No one likes iceberg, and no one gets that and says, Oh, my god, that white salad, it looks so appetizing.
Now, full romaine salads are making a comeback.
In 2023, Paneras sales reached $6.5 billion, which is still about the highest it has been. The company said today that its goal is to clinch $7 billion in annual sales by 2028 from the roughly $6 billion it brings in currently.
After surveying its customers, Panera found that they wanted better portions and improved cafés. The chain plans to increase portions and food variety.
Its introducing drinks like frescas (fruit drinks) and energy refreshers (lower-caffeine beverages), and increasing salad toppings to eight ingredients from the regular five. Guests will notice that avocado halves and cherry tomatoes will be sliced, not whole, starting early next year.
We make the guest chase the cherry tomato around the bowl, said Carbone, who assumed his role in March.
Panera is also vowing to update its cafés, an important effort as around 25% of meals are eaten within restaurant walls.
It had invested in kiosks for ordering, but it got to the point that customers couldnt find human employees, said Carbone. Now, the restaurant is pouring money back into labor and renovating the older café locations.
What does the café of the future look like? Carbone said. Were doing a lot of work around that, were going to test different things.
JAB Holding Company, the investment firm that owns Panera Brands, had planned to take the company public in 2021. The deal was broken the next year, and Carbone said its off the table until Paneras sales increase.
Ava Levinson
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Apparently any place looks better if you just say its Japan.
Thats according to a TikTok trend, dubbed the Japan effect. First reported in Casey Lewiss youth trends newsletter After School, the trend has users making slideshows of two images. For all intents and purposes they are the same, except one is labelled with the original location and the second is labelled Tokyo, Japan.
The idea being that the Japan effect is so strong, just the location tag can filter how we perceive an ordinary street or an average American neighborhood. Scrolling through the comments, those watching these TikTok videos genuinely believe the second image looks better than the first.
Ive seen so many of these videos and its made me realise my own huge Japan bias, one comment read. Why is it so real. (Some do play around with the saturation or add soft pink filters which somewhat undermines the theory).
Others suggest the Japan effect has little actually to do with Japan. Instead, its an example of the grass always being greener or the shift in perspective when we take a moment to romanticize the mundane parts of life, they say.
America is actually pretty beautiful, it’s just a psychological barrier to being able to appreciate things you see on a daily basis, one user commented.
I sometimes do that in my own house, another wrote. If this was an Airbnb, Id be having a blast. Really makes you appreciate what you have.
And yet the America effect doesnt have quite the same charm to it. Japan simply has a reputation for making everything that bit cooler. Even 7-Eleven is better in Japan.
Japanese culture also appears to yet again be having a moment. From the explosion in popularity of anime on streaming giants like Netflixthe company says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the past five yearsto the rise of matcha. In the U.S., retail sales of matcha are up 86% from three years ago, according to NIQ, a market research firm, so much so the bright green drink has become a bona-fide accessory.
Its no surprise, then, that Japan has become a top destination for young travelers. Gen Z and millennial visits to the country are up 1,300% since 2019. Japan is now the most popular country on social media, according to a 2025 Titan Travel study. The country has experienced a 50% increase in search volume over the past three years, with 184 million Instagram posts, and 15.6 million TikTok hashtags for #Japan, according to the report.
Of course, the temptation to romanticize and exoticize foreign countries is a large part of the reason people travel in the first place. Simply put, the Japan effect exists, as one TikTok user noted, because we associate this country with pain suffering and heartbreak.
Inside a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology late last year, scientists gave an AI system a new task: designing entirely new molecules for potential antibiotics from scratch. Within a day or twofollowing a few months of trainingthe algorithms had generated more than 29 million new molecules, unlike any that existed before.
Traditional drug discovery is a slow, painstaking process. But AI is beginning to transform it. At MIT, the research is aimed at the growing challenge of antibiotic-resistant infections, which kill more than a million people globally each year. Existing antibiotics haven’t kept up with the threat.
The number of resistant bacterial pathogens has been growing, decade upon decade,” says James Collins, a professor of medical engineering at MIT. “And the number of new antibiotics being developed has been dropping, decade upon decade.” The research, recently published in the journal Cell, is part of his labs Antibiotics-AI Project and offers one example of AI’s potential in medicine.
The team tried making a small number of the compounds, and then used one to clear a drug-resistant infection in a mouse. In another part of the study, the researchers used a different approach to generate additional molecules, leading to another successful test in miceand the possibility that novel, fully AI-designed drugs may eventually be available for the most dangerous infections.
[Source Image: Walter_D/Adobe Stock]
The current challenge
The standard approach to creating new antibiotics involves screening an existing library of compounds, one by one, or sifting through samples of soil to find promising new candidates.
Since the 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a few dozen new antibiotics, but most of them are minor variations on drugs that already exist.
What’s happened in the last couple decades is, it’s largely been a discovery gap where folks are discovering antibiotics, but they’re more or less very similarand they are analogs to existing antibiotics, Collins says.
The challenge is compounded by poor economics for drug companies. It costs effectively just as much to develop an antibiotic as it does a cancer drug or blood pressure drug, for example, he says. With an antibiotic, you might only take it once or only over a few days, whereas with a cancer drug or a blood pressure drug, you could take it for many months, years, or even for the rest of your life. With each use, an antibiotic also only makes a fraction of the profit.”
All of this means that if youre infected with bacteria thats hard to treatlike methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which also resists many other drugsthere are fewer options available. In the U.S., MRSA kills an estimated 9,000 people each year.
[Source Image: Walter_D/Adobe Stock]
Evolving uses for AI
The Collins Lab has been studying antibiotics for around 20 years. Initially, the team used machine learning to better understand how antibiotics work and to look for ways to make existing antibiotics more effective. Around six years ago, they started using artificial intelligence as a platform for antibiotic discovery.
They used AI to screen existing libraries of compounds to look for new antibiotics, leading to the discovery of new molecules that worked against infections in new ways. A spin-off nonprofit, Phare Bio, is now working to move promising candidates toward the market. The biotech company hopes to launch a trial of halicin, a drug initially developed for diabetes treatment in 2009 that was discovered to have powerful antibiotic properties by Collins’s research team a decade later.
The latest research goes a step furthernot just screening through existing compounds, but creating new ones. The scientists used two different approaches. First, they used a library of millions of chemical fragments known to have antimicrobial activity, and used the algorithms to turn those fragments into complete molecules.
In the second approach, they used the AI to freely design new molecules, without starting from existing fragments. As the computer churned through new designs, the researchers were free to work on other tasks until the AI was done.
After the molecules were generated, “we applied a series of down-selection filters to prioritize which ones to synthesize and test,” says Aarti Krishnan, a senior postdoctoral fellow in the lab. “Those steps took a few days and involved human feedback, where medicinal chemists manually inspected over 5,000 candidate molecules and selected them for synthesizability.”
Actually making the molecules was challengingsome of the AI’s ideas were so wild that they would either be impossible or impractical to manufacture. (This will improve as the AI evolves.) But the team was able to make a small number. From the part of the study that worked from fragments of existing molecules, the scientists were able to make two candidates, one of which was very effective at killing drug-resistant gonorrhea bacteria.
From the part of the study that let AI freely design new molecules, they synthesized and tested 22 samples, ultimately advancing one candidate in a successful test that treated drug-resistant MRSA in mice. Now, the lab’s nonprofit partner is continuing to work on both molecules so they can undergo more testing.
[Source Image: Walter_D/Adobe Stock]
A new use for generative AI
While the use of AI in drug development isn’t new, this particular application of generative AI is. “To our knowledge, this is the first generative-AI approach that’s designed completely novel antibiotic candidates whose structures do not exist in any commercial vendor space,” Krishnan says.
Drug development is still a slow process, and moving through human trials will continue to take time. But AI can clearly help in the early discovery phase, reducing cost and increasing the chances of success. “AI allowed us to explore much larger chemical spaces than are currently available from screening libraries. And in doing so, it opened up these new molecules for our consideration,” Collins says.
The approach could also be useful for other types of medicine. “All of the AI methods that we use could be readily extended to other indications,” he says.
AI image generators used to be terrible at handling text. Even once the models mastered hands with five fingers, the presence of mangled, nonsensical, vaguely Cyrillic-looking text was a dead giveaway that an image was generated by AI.
Not anymore.
Todays most advanced image generators have slowly improved their text generation. OpenAIs image generator within ChatGPT handles basic text tasks fairly well. And design-centered models like Ideogram are great for simple, practical text tasks like creating video thumbnails.
This week, though, Google has released Nano Banana Pro, an updated version of its wildly popular AI image editing tool.
Nano Banana Pro, like its predecessor, is middling when it comes to generating realistic AI photographs. But its absolutely amazing at creating beautiful, informative, accurate infographics.
In fact, the model is so good that it can turn literally anything into a professional quality infographic in a matter of seconds.
Dont Read To Me
Personally, I absorb very little of what I hear. Im a visual learner, so if I listen to a presentation without taking physical notes or seeing some kind of visual aid, most of the information dissipates into the ether before my brain has any shot at absorbing it.
Add background noise or a presenter who mumbles, and Im totally screwed.
I love infographics because they take complex information and lay it out in a way my brain can grok. I can glance at a graphic and absorb more information than Id get in a two-hour lecture.
In my testing, I was therefore thrilled to see Nano Banana Pros remarkable ability to take pretty much anything I threw at it, and turn the data into a bespoke visual aid.
First, I started with some practical use cases. I fed Nano Banana Pro data on the recent performance of a YouTube channel Ive been developing called California Dad Reviews.
Based on my analytics data, Nano Banana spun up an infographic showing whats doing well on my channel, several standout videos from the last month, and its recommendations for what to shoot next.
In this case, I gave the model unique data from my channel. But because Nano Banana Pro is integrated within Googles Gemini 3 chatbot, it can also perform background research on its own.
In another test, I asked the model to research the best times to cross the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and then present its results visually.
Its impressively comprehensive and useful.
Graphics Get Personal
These kinds of informative graphics are helpful. Im sure that bloggers will be tripping over themselves to integrate Nano Banana Pros infographics into their SEO optimized posts.
But in my testing, I found that the best uses for the tools new visual capabilities are more personal.
I recently took my senior dog, Lance, to the vet for his annual checkup. He got some routine bloodwork, and his vets report was laden with medical terms and specifics. I fed the whole thing into Nano Banana Pro, and got a clean infographic summarizing the findings.
Spoiler alert: hes doing great!
The model is especially powerful because its able to process nearly any kind of input data. In planning a day trip for a large group in downtown San Francisco, I copied and pasted a long WhatsApp chat with lots of logistics into the model.
It spat out a pretty graphic summarizing the days plans, complete with a bespoke map of the city. I shared it to the group, and people loved it.
Show me the Visuals
Again, as a visual learner, the ability to conjure up an infographic in a few seconds (and for free) from essentially any input data is incredibly valuable.
Its also easy to do. You open the Gemini app, paste in the data you want to process, select the Create Image option, and let Nano Banana Pro plug away.
Beyond dg health visualizations, though, Googles new model says a lot about where visual AI is going.
In the early days of image generators, creating fun, bizarre images (Ballerina Cappuccina, anyone?) was enough to hold users attention.
You can only generate so many AI cat photos or Hunky Jesus memes before the tech gets old, though.
In response, AI companies are increasingly specializingcreating image generators that solve bounded, real-world tasks.
Again, tools like Ideogram are tailored to designers. Adobe has a whole suit of generative tools built into its iconic Photoshop and Premiere products for photographers and videographers. And ChatGPTs models are perfect for things like making event posters.
For Google, though, the endgame has always been about processing tons of information and summarizing it for users. We saw that in the companys classical 10 blue links, and more recently in its wildly popular AI Overviews.
Now, Google appears to be using its AI image generation prowess to summarize and present information visually.
That evolution means were almost certain to see Nano Banana generated infographic images appear within other Google toolsfirst AI ones like NotebookLLM, and later within live search results presented to everyday users.
With my brains preference for visuals, Im thrilled to see this new direction play out. To get the ball rolling, I fed this entire article into Nano Banana Pro.
True to form, the infographic is beautiful:
Below, Tim Elmore shares five key insights from his new book, The Future Begins with Z: Nine Strategies to Lead Generation Z as They Disrupt the Workplace.
Elmore is the founder and CEO of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit dedicated to developing emerging leaders. As a speaker and coach, he has helped organizations from universities to Fortune 500 companies connect more effectively across generations.
Whats the big idea?
Many leaders are scratching their heads over Gen Z. The old playbook doesnt work anymorebut figuring out how to engage and collaborate with this generation is what turns good leaders into great ones.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Elmore himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Turn frustration with Gen Z into hope
According to a survey by Resume Builder, three in four managers agree that todays young employees, from Generation Z, are the toughest generation to lead. I believe Gen Z is frustrating to us because they seem so very different, and often unexplainable.
I think its because of a phenomenon I call the Peter Pan Paradox. Peter Pan could mysteriously fly into London and sprinkle Pixie dust everywhere to make magical things happen. On the other side of the coin, Peter Pan wanted to live in Neverland, where boys never have to grow up. Over the last decade, Ive noticed something magical and tragic happening in culture.
The Age of Authority is decreasing. Gen Zers often come in with an authority that doesnt require a title. They are intuitive about using AI. They see where culture is going. They know how to monetize social media, and they have visibility on future customers.
At the same time, the Age of Maturity is increasing. They often come in behaving unprofessionally. The pandemic delayed their growth. Their social and emotional skills are delayed in development. Employers are saying 26 is the new 18. Almost one in three employers fire them in the first month. So, how should leaders respond?
We must listen more than we used to listen to young staff.
We must coach more than we used to coach young staff.
Maya was hired right out of collegeand immediately her team could tell shed never had a full-time job before. She wore flip flops to work and often arrived at the office 10 minutes late. Maya spent most team meetings quietly, glancing at her phone from time to time. Her manager spent extra time coaching her on the fundamentals, hoping shed catch up.
Then, one day, the payoff happened. Maya burst into her managers office with a big smile on her face. She told him shed been thinking about a problem their team had been discussing for months. Maya had an idea on how they could use AI to solve that problem. It ended up being an incredible solution. No one had known what was going on inside her head. You might say, Maya became her own version of Peter Pan.
2. Gen Z ROI is well worth it
In 2018, Colin Webb graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, he served four terms as class council president and now serves his alma mater as a member of the MIT corporation, the schools board of trustees. Upon graduation, he was offered a job by General Motors. Colin was asked to serve as a design, release, and development engineer for their Cruise autonomous vehicle program. He helped make smart cars. He quickly realized he was part of an old industry with a traditional style of getting things done. Obviously, he and his young teammates brought some new ideas, but when he bounced them off his supervisor, he was told to keep his head down and his nose to the grindstone. Soon after, however, Collin did something audacious. He emailed Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, and shared his ideas for improving the company. Mary replied and agreed that his ideas were good and that shed take them to her executive team. They, too, agreed his ideas were good.
But when those ideas made their way down the organizational chart, they died on the vine. Again, Collin was told to keep his head down and nose to the grindstone. In fact, he was told it would take about eight years before hed get the chance to lead anything. They might as well have told Collin to leave. Within a year, Collin had left the company, even though he is not a quitter. Since then, he has started three companies and sold one of them. Hes doing very well, working hard and living his dreamworking with AI. Sadly, similar stories happen all the time. Too often, supervisors miss what Gen Zers bring to the team for three reasons:
When were comfortable, we default to: Thats not the way we do it here.
When were scared, we become more concerned with procedures than with progress.
When were experienced, we assume theyre young and dont know much.
In 2017, a woman walked into a New Hampshire thrift store looking for a picture frame she could restore. She found one for four dollars and thought, Even if I cant use it, the price is inexpensive. She bought it. When she got home, her family examined it and said, The frame is nice enough, but the painting inside looks like its from a famous artist. You should have it evaluated. When the woman did, she discovered it was an N.C. Wyeth painting that later sold for $191,000. Not a bad trade-off.
In many ways, this is an analogy for Gen Z. We usually dont spend a lot on them right away since all we can see is their frame. Later, we realize its whats inside of them thats so valuable. Lets stop treating them like expendable commodities and begin treating them like currency worthy of investment. Lets find a way to connect with and get curious about them. This may be key to thriving in the future.
3. Relationship and trust mean everything to Gen Z
Many Gen Z team members enter their careers directly after college, without having had a full-time job before. Parents encouraged them to focus on academics, but we all know that the classroom rarely resembles the office. Four in five Gen Z job candidates go so far as to bring their parents with them to the interview.
At the same time, they also bring with them a new perspective on authority. Much like Generation X some 35 years ago, they are suspicious of corporate leaders, political leaders, educational leaders, and even religious leaders due to stories of corruption. This has fostered a significantly different view of authority than that held by seasoned business veterans.
OLDER GENERATIONS
Position gives you right to influence.
Older folks have wisdom.
Systems offer order to chaos.
We must listen to the man at the top.
The top dog wins the debate.
The leader is a gatekeeper.
YOUNGER GENERATIONS
Connection gives you right to influence.
Older folks may be irrelevant.
Systems must be disrupted or grow.
Top people should be listening to us.
The best idea wins the debate.
The leader is a guide.
Relationships and trust mean everything to most members of Generation Z. While research confirms they dont trust most traditional institutions, they do trust peopleeven people from older generationswhom they get to know. So, here are the shifts we should make:
Dont think control, think connect.
Dont think inform, think interpret.
Dont think what, think why.
Dont think inputs, think outcomes.
Dont think tell, think ask.
Dont think manage, think mentor.
We dont know much about the future, but we do know that Generation Z will be there. Lets build bridges of relationship that can bear the weight of honest disclosure. Everyone will win.
4. How to hire Gen Z
Thousands of companies are struggling with the diminishing number of job candidates. I describe what lies ahead in a metaphor I call A New Kind of Storm:
We are facing a blizzard. Young people often wont take traditional entry-level jobs as they did in the past.
This blizzard is part of a new winter season. A smaller population, plus issues with addiction and incarceration, reduces the employment pool.
This may be part of a larger new ice age. Within a decade, there will be more 65-year-olds than 16-year-olds in the U.S.
So, what can we do?
Make your organizations offering more attractive.
Make their job the best first job to launch their career.
Approach your role as a mentor, not a manager.
Gen Z seems to know its a buyers market when it comes to getting a job. Sally hosted an interview with a Gen Zer (well call him Owen). In the interview, she asked Owen to describe a time when he faced a challenge and was proud of how he made it through. She was pleased with his response and, three days later, asked HR to extend an offer to Owen. His response? He said, Are you kidding me? Theres no way I will work for that woman. She triggered my PTSD when she asked me to talk about a challenge of mine. It didnt feel psychologically safe.
We need a new approach to job interviews, especially with Gen Z candidates. For many, its a new experience, and employers can use this acronym to get acquainted:
PPreferences: What do you wish to be true about the job?EExpectations: What are your assumptions about the work?RRequirements: Any demands or deal breakers?KKeys to their heart: Get to know them beyond their role as a worker.SSalary: Clarify, and possibly negotiate.
This is your chance to build a bridge. Dont miss the opportunity to do so.
5. Not all Gen Z myths are true
Many bosses (or people over 45) see Gen Z behave in certain ways, dont understand it, and then stereotype them. During my research for this book, I shared some of these stereotypes with Gen Z focus groups. I will never forget meeting with one group and communicating that many leaders believe that Gen Zers dont really want to work. After all, they leave right at 5 p.m., and dont stay a minute longer. They often leave a task halfway done and head out. It feels like they dont like to be there. One 21-year-old, full-time team member replied, Dr. Tim, do you know why I leave right at 5? I rush out because I need to get to another job. I dont make enough to pay the bills at this first job. Then, I go take care of my mom, who has stage 4 cancer. Suddenly, I realized this Gen Zers work ethic is just fine.
There is, however, one stereotype thats not a myth. Millions of Gen Zers can be fragile, especially when receiving feedback. It seems that hard is the new harsh. Some have never had to hear firm feedback face-to-face with a boss. One of the most challenging situations leaders must face is hosting difficult conversations. Many supervisors avoid them.
I created another acronym for sitting down with and correcting a teammate:
AAsk: Asking questions makes them feel valued.LListen: Listening makes them feel heard. Gen Zers want to have a voice.EEmpathize: Empathizing makes them feel understood.GGuide: This is when you can provide the necessary feedback.
The correction was communicated using a bridge, not a badge.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Many of us have heard of boomerang employeessomeone who leaves a company and later returnsbut theres a newer version showing up in the workplace: the layoff boomerang.
Maybe youve seen it yourself. A coworker disappears after a round of cuts, only to show up again a few months later. Same desk. Same job. Sometimes even a bigger paycheck.
According to research done by Dr. Andrea Derler at workforce analytics firm Visier, 5.3% of laid-off employees now get rehired by the same organization after a layoff.
But the most surprising part isnt the numberits that its been happening for years.
We just didn’t know.
What surprised me the most was that this has been happening for the last several years. The 5.3% isnt just a recent figure; consistently, organizations seem to be rehiring after layoffs, she says.
While it might feel more prevalent now, with AI adding confusion and uncertainty for business leaders, it was happening during the pandemic as welland maybe even before then.
Change has always happened, Derler said. “We’ve always had those crisis moments, but things just come out into the open more nowadays. We have the data.
So why is this happening? Are companies realizing they let valuable talent go too quickly? And is the rise of AI making this more common?
To find out, Fast Company spoke with Derler about her research, as well as several employees who shared their boomerang experiences anonymously to avoid potential retaliation.
Why layoff boomerangs happen
Many employees who return after a layoff come back within six to 10 months. Derler says that window isnt randomit lines up with how long it often takes organizations to realize they still need the skills of the people they let go.
Part of the issue is that most companies only plan six to 12 months ahead, which leaves little room for long-term strategy. Which is not long enough, Derler says. With such a limited horizon, companies may not fully understand which skills theyre losing during layoffs.
There’s a lot that gets lost in that time because they don’t have a really good sense of what skills these employees have, that theyre about to let go, Derler said. You may be losing employees only because you don’t know what else they could be doing for the company in the meantime.
By the time companies realize they still need certain skills, six to 12 months may have passedwhich coincides with the window in which layoff boomerangs typically occur. That time window makes sense, because strategic changes and restructuring of a department or a whole business unit takes that long, Derler says.
In other words, by the time the dust settles, companies often realize they never shouldve let those employees go in the first place.
Then, they want them back.
The disruption for the employee
Beyond the emotional toll, layoffs disrupt not only the person being let go but entire teams. And according to Derler, layoff boomerangs are often high performers.
That means you’ve done your best, you’ve performed highly on the scale of performance ratings, and you still got let go. So that’s tremendously traumatic, Derler says.
But the ripple effect doesnt stop there.
Imagine the people on the other end suddenly get this call back and are asked or offered a job back at the company. It’s tremendously disrupting for the teams who are losing colleagues . . . [and] for the person who is actually losing the job, Derler says.
Even for those who do return, the move isnt always a long-term solutionits often just the next step in navigating an unpredictable job market: If the person hasn’t found a new job in the meantime, they may come back, but they may not stay long, because they’re really still traumatized for what you did to them a year ago, Derler says.
One worker described her experience as a layoff boomerang: “When I was first laid off from this company in March 2018, I was completely blindsidedit was my first time ever facing a layoff. The website I was writing for shuttered entirely, so we were all out of a job, the worker says.
After the site was purchased and relaunched by another company, several of the original employees were rehired. The former employee reached out to a rehire to see if there were opportunities available.
They werebut on a contractor basis. I was underemployed, freelance is not for the weak, and needed the money. So I agreed to sign on. My pay as a contractor was close to what I was paid when I first worked at the site, but I didnt have any benefits, she explains.
After several months working there as a writer and editor, she was brought on officially as a staff member. But a few months later, another round of layoffs hit, and she was let go for the second time.
I wasnt intending to stay there longer than I had toI was applying for other jobs almost the entire time. When I was laid off the second time, I had actually been in the process of interviewing for another job. Thankfully, I got that one, so after a month break in between jobs, I started the new one, she says.
One Reddit user details their experience as a layoff boomerang. They were let go from a company where they had worked for over six years.
I was very loyal, but also know when you work for a company with 350k+ employees that layoffs happen. I left in very good standing and had a stellar reputation there. But head counts get reduced, they explain.
Months later, they received an offer to return. Fast forward to [receiving] an offer from the very company that laid me off in October. Different boss, different department, more pay, they say.
Another worker has boomeranged back to her old companykind of, and hopefully.
I was laid off quite unexpectedly in February. I had been there for 3.5 years and survived at least two other layoffs. As a technical writer, layoffs seldom surprise me. We’re always some of the first cut, she explains.
The employee did not expect to ever hear from the company again, but a new opportunity emerged unexpectedly, much like the layoff itself. She agreed to join for a three-month contract while the company worked on approval for a permanent headcount in the 2026 budget.
To be perfectly honest, I’d been out of work for almost 10 months. I was out of unemployment, my savings were gone, and I was borrowing money to pay my rent. That was the real driver for taking the role, she explains.
Still, she loved the job and the team, and embraced the chance to contribute. I poured my soul into building that help center, enabling a chatbot for the help center. It was a real passion project for me. I actually accepted a cut in pay to get my foot in the door with the contract, she says.
Her teams positive reaction to her return convinced her that she had made the right choice, and bolstered her confidence that a full-time, permanent position was in her future.
Before considering being a boomerang yourself, Derler advises asking for a reentry interview, or at least considering one. This is where youcan have a proper interview with the hiring manager to find out the details of the role.
Here, you can ask yourself: How solidly sure is my employer that they need this role filled, that I’m the right person for the role?
And that another layoff isn’t on the horizon?
The disruption for the employer
By laying off employees without expecting to bring them back, there are unintended consequences that organizations may or may not be aware of, Derler says. If companies understood this, she argues, they could use data to reduce the unnecessary disruption. If we already know we’re going to rehire some of them, why cause all that disruptionthat additional uncertainty?
The first disruption after the layoff itself is the turnover contagion. This happens when one employee is laid off and others leave because they perceive the environment as unstable. Employees often notice that if one team member is let go, it could signal uncertainty for themselves. This is becoming an uncertain role for me; Id better look elsewhere, she explains.
This ripple effect can disrupt teams, hurt productivity, and further increase the financial and operational costs of layoffs.
The second disruption comes in hiring them back. It’s actually a lot more expensive to rehire people. They earn 3% more than those who have stayed at the company, and they earn 5% more than when they’ve been let go. So the financial implications of the rehiring of previously laid off employees is also not nothing, Derler says.
When an employer realizes they need to bring someone back, they may have to pay a premium. It’s possible that these employees have found another role. We don’t know what happens in those six to 10 months before the rehiring, she explains.
Layoffs are not collateral damageand they shouldnt be viewed that way, Derler says.
We’re talking about humans and people and career-minded individuals. It’s a clear failure of workforce planning. It is a failure of leadership strategy setting. It’s a failure to be more long term-minded. It’s a failure to understand the employee skills, she said.
At the end of the day, layoff boomerangs show just how tricky workforce decisions can be.
For employees, coming back can feel like a second chancebut it also brings questions about trust, commitment, and whether the role is really solid. For employers, theres the costboth money and disruptionto think about.
Paying attention to skills, data, and planning ahead can help make sure everyone comes out ahead when the workforce shifts.
One of the most pervasive rules of business is compete-to-win or perish. But as more organizations struggle to navigate an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous landscape, some innovative leaders are choosing to collaborate over compete.
This is particularly necessary within the organization, where collaboration may be considered beneficial in theory, but in practice, the rules of engagement still revolve around competition: colleagues become rivals over promotion opportunities, recognition, and advancement. The competition within the organization makes it harder to navigate the disruption and certainty on the outside.
How do leaders banish in-house competition? They create and model a culture that uncompetes. To uncompete is to intentionally choose to reject competition and actively design for collaboration.
Heres how.
Harness two types of envy
Team collaboration increases when we feel psychological safetylike our team has our back. Competition and envy among colleagues can reduce psychological safety and create a hostile environment if not managed well by leaders. Managing envy to motivate teamsnot sabotage each otheris a skill.
Organizational psychologists broadly characterize envy as falling under two categories: benign and malicious envy. Benign envy motivates us to work harder toward a goal when we see someone else achieving it, malicious envy can be destructive and often results in us wanting to sabotage or undermine a colleagues success.
A powerful way to cultivate benign envy is to focus on the hard work a team member did to achieve a goal, rather than just focus on the achievement itself. Leaders can harness benign envy to create a culture of motivation and collaboration by highlighting the effort it took over outcomes, particularly team-based efforts.
Implement rewards for collaboration
Many workplace cultures are individualistic, where only individual wins are celebrated. This makes it more attractive for employees to prioritize gaining individual success over collaborative ones. Instead, leaders must implement recognition and reward systems that emphasize collaboration and teamwork. Leaders can verbally name collaboration as an organizational value. Collaboration must also be defined explicitly as a metric for rewarding career development, advancement, and recognition.
For promotion and other career development conversations, list “examples of collaboration” as one of the metrics being considered. In addition, group incentive programs are another way to operationalize collaboration, when rewards are pegged to team performance and meted out among the group rather than just individually.
Incentivized teams increased their performance by 45%, compared to a 27% increase for individual incentives, according to a study by the International Society for Performance Improvement. Organizations that implement a peer-to-peer recognition program also benefit from creating a culture of shared success.
Set reasonable work boundaries
In the race to beat competitors, more organizations are normalizing always on work cultures. Silicon Valley, in particular, is popularizing a 996 work expectation of working 12-hour shifts six days a week in the race to innovate on AI. When leaders model that workers must be always-on, it creates and exacerbates a scarcity mindsetthat theres never enough time or resources in a day to complete tasks, so we have to keep working more.
It also often fosters the belief that employees must compete against their colleagues to demonstrate dedication and competence. When leaders model reasonable work hours and expectations, the message gets communicated that employees dont have to hustle for rewards.
This looks like visibly and vocally taking time off, working reasonable hours, and not penalizing employees when they dont respond immediately. Hustle culture often leads to burnout, another side effect of competitive environments. By comparison, in collaborative work cultures, employees feel supported to work reasonable hours without fear.
Consider job-sharing and other collaboration models
Nobel prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin discovered a surprising way to reduce the gender wage gapjob-sharing. A lack of flexibility (also a challenge in always-on cultures) impacts womens earning potential. But when theyre able to work part-time and trade off their shiftsparticulary common for pharmaciststhe wage gap almost disappears.
What if more leaders could explore some roles at the organization being set up for job-sharingsuch as two colleagues who work closely together and could substitute for each other easily when the other is out? This can help foster team ownership and collaboration versus individual priorities.
One company, Jotform, moved to create small, cross-functional teams when their leaders noticed the company was growing but output wasnt. These cross-functional teams of 35 people each would focus on a single product instead of bouncing between priorities. Each group was paired with its own designer and given ownership.
Almost overnight, the quality of our work improved. The teams moved faster, communicated better, and felt more motivated. Since then, cross-functional teams have become a core part of our cultureand one of our biggest competitive advantages, writes CEO Aytekin Tank, reflecting on the past decade since the company moved to this model. Of course, establishing a number of collaboration norms, particularly around communication, was key to making it a success.
Co-leadership models
A compelling case for co-leadership, particularly organization co-CEOs, is emerging. One study of 87 public companies led by co-CEOS between 1996 and 2020 found they had better shareholder returns (9.5%) compared with similar companies who only didnt.
Co-CEOs are not common nor without controversy, but done right, theres evidence that collaboration at the highest levels can truly drive innovation. Take Netflix, where Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings were able to leverage complementary skills to grow the company. Management professor Michael D. Watkins lays out seven norms of how a successful co-CEO partnership could operate, including designing clear conflict-resolution mechanisms, creating a leadership charter, and dividing responsibilities by expertise, not convenience. This is even more necessary as AI continues to disrupt many industries.
A nonprofit organization I was involved with in the past, Upaya Social Ventures, also transitioned to a co-CEO model last year. Collaborating with their complementary skills has been necssary to serve the organizations mission of creating dignified jobs for people living in some of the poorest regions of India.
Left to chance, many organizations default to competitive norms, where collaboration is often stalled because of internal rivalries. Thats why its necessary to uncompetefor leaders to intentionally prioritize and design norms that make collaboration supported, rewarded, and institutionalized. Only then can we reduce inter-organization competition and move towards true collaboration.
