Ten years ago, I ended a meeting at WeWork with an offer to grab a free beer on tap. Last week, I ended it with a similar offer, except this time the beverage on offer was kombucha. The seemingly innocuous shift is symbolic of a bigger evolution underway at the coworking giant: less coolness, more functionality.
WeWork is growing up, and its newest location in downtown Manhattan is the most visible proof yet: 250 Broadway, which opened in January, is WeWork’s first outpost in the city since 2019the year WeWork abandoned its initial public offering and ousted cofounder Adam Neumann as CEO. The space adds 60,000 square feet to the company’s New York portfolio, which already exceeds 3 million square feet. And it’s yet another outpost in a global network that now spans 600 locations worldwide.
Except this isn’t WeWork as you might remember it: There are no neon signs, no beer o’clock, and no ping-pong tables. Instead, the walls are hung with paintings sourced through ArtLifting, an art consultancy that works with artists living with homelessness or disabilities. The bar is stocked with kombucha and espresso machines. And the once-labyrinthine corridors you could navigate only by asking for directions are now marked with pristine wayfinding signs.
This is WeWork 2.0, and its already a hit: 250 Broadway is 94% occupied across five floorsincluding one that wont open until spring.
[Photo: WeWork]
The rise and fall (and rise again) of WeWork
WeWork’s story is by now a familiar parable of Silicon Valley excess. Founded in 2010 by Neumann and Miguel McKelvey, the company spent a decade expanding on billions from SoftBank’s Vision Funda Saudi-backed mega-fund that poured tens of billions into high-growth tech startups like WeWorkalong with a cultish faith in Neumann’s vision of community as business model. Then came the botched IPO in 2019, a belated stock market debut that failed to turn the tide, and, in November 2023, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
By the time WeWork reemerged in June 2024, it had shed roughly $4 billion in debt, closed hundreds of locations, and installed global commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield veteran John Santora as its new CEO.
[Photo: WeWork]
WeWork 2.0: From cool to functional
The seeds for WeWork 2.0 were sown in 2019, but according to its chief design officer, Ebbie Wisecarver, the company hadnt reset its design values until last year. Today the goal is for WeWork locations to feel familiar and engaging. But where previous locations stuck to a recognizable WeWork brand (think: industrial loft meets Brooklyn coffee shop), new locations are designed to feel timeless rather than trendy.
“WeWork’s culture and what it stands for has evolved,” Wisecarver told me during a tour of 250 Broadway. “I don’t think it’s diminished this idea of community and connection, I just think we’ve adapted in a lot of ways to providing more spaces that are more suitable for what people are doing there.”
Before 2019, every location had to conform to a prescribed aesthetic, “and I think that actually restricted some locations from really being what they could be,” she said. Now the design team isn’t afraid to go slightly off-brand if the building calls for it.
At 250 Broadway, the team drew from the history of Lower Manhattan itself. The iconic Woolworth Buildingvisible from nearly every office windowis echoed in the spaces stone tile floors and its art deco-style reeded glass dividers. The sconces lighting up the lounge area were sourced from Brooklyn-based lighting design studio In Common With, while much of the furniture was made by New Jersey millwork firm Bestmark.
The upgrades, however, go deeper than aesthetics. Private offices, once outfitted with wooden floors that members complained amplified noise, are now carpeted. The mothers’ roomhistorically a corporate afterthoughthas been given a window with a view of Manhattan. Even the phone booths, supplied by office design company Room, have been rethought and positioned in clusters near lounge areas rather than scattered across the floor. According to Wisecarver, that was a direct response to members asking for quiet spaces adjacent to communal ones.
[Photo: WeWork]
A flexible workspace for the post-COVID era
The 250 Broadway location came about in part by necessity: WeWork’s lease next door, at 222 Broadway, was expiring as the building converted to residential. But the timing of what WeWork has built there speaks to something bigger than a single office move.
Since the pandemic, the way we work has fundamentally changedperhaps permanently. The old WeWork, with its beer taps and open-plan optimism, was a result of working styles before COVID-19. Now hybrid schedules have made flexibility a basline expectation rather than a perk. Workers want spaces that are quiet when they need focus and communal when they need connectionsometimes within the same hour. WeWork’s new design strategy is a response to that shift.
Today WeWork’s numbers suggest the office isn’t as dead as some proclaimed it would be. Across New York City, WeWork’s occupancy sits at 82%, with Midtown running at 90%. Globally, the company has climbed from 70% to 77% occupancy and is targeting 80% this year. Several markets are already well past that threshold: Dublin’s One Central Plaza is at 100%, Barcelona and Milan are both north of 90%, and Toronto has jumped from 73% to 85%. (San Francisco sits at 76%, up from 64%).
The problem is, while WeWork once revolutionized coworking, competition has never been stiffer. Industrious, acquired by CBRE for $400 million in early 2025, has built a premium alternative that competes directly for enterprise clients. IWG, the parent company of Regus and Spaces, has long been profitable where WeWork was not. And in WeWork’s own backyard in New York City’s financial district, WSA has bet that blending coworking with arts programming and cultural events is the next frontier of flexible work.
Which may be exactly why 250 Broadway feels more like a thesis statement. This summer, WeWork is opening a new location at 245 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan’s NoMad neighborhood. A new floor is being added to its 1 University Avenue location in Toronto. Upgraded offices are also coming to 1201 Wilson in Washington, D.C. Underpinning all of it is a commitment to reinvest roughly $80 million annually in modernizing its portfolioa figure the company spent in 2025 and is repeating again in 2026.
Only time will tell if the thesis will prove out across these future locations.
Early drivers steered cars by pushing a lever left and right. That was fine at slow speeds, but disastrous when you accelerated. It took years before the steering wheel arrived. Granola CEO Chris Pedregal says AI interfaces are still in the lever era.
Pedregal, who in 2019 sold the edtech startup Socratic to Google, says were just beginning to figure out how humans should interact with AI. Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, people still associate AI with typing into a chat box.
Granola is betting on a new approach to AI-enhanced note-taking. The London-based startup doesnt record audio or video or send bots into your meetings. Instead, its tool sits on your computer or phone, transcribing in real time while you maintain control.
Chris Pedregal [Photo: Granola]
You can jot notes alongside its transcription, building a personal knowledge base instead of a raw archive of recordings. The viral spread of its tool helped the company raise $43 million last year, bringing its total funding to $67 million at a valuation of $250 million. Its also grown from a team of 4 to 35.
Fast Company spoke with Pedregal about the steering wheel moment still ahead for AI interfaces and the surprising ways people are using Granola to take notes on everything from therapy to vet visits. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Youve described Granola as a steering wheel for large language models. What do you mean by that?
I think its very, very early days in this new wave of AI, particularly on the user interface interaction side of things. The technology developed very quickly, but it takes human time to figure out the right interaction patterns.
I looked it upit was over three years from when the iPhone came out to when Instagram launched. I think we’re in that time period right now. People might be like, ChatGPT has been out for three years, and we’re still just dealing with chatbots. Is that the end of it? I think it’s just early days.
Early cars were driven with a lever, literally a stick that you’d move left and right to steer. It was fine if youre going slowly, but the moment you started going quickly, it was easy to go off the road. It took quite a while for them to develop the steering wheel. Once they figured out the steering wheel, it became very natural and it stuck. AI interfaces are still in their lever era.
Granola deliberately doesn’t record audio. Why make that choice when competitors do?
Granola doesnt record audio by design, which is probably annoying if you ever try to use Granola for interviews. But it makes it less invasive for work conversations, because really what you want are the notes. The goal is not to have an audio recording.
The way I think about it is: What’s the minimum amount of invasiveness for the most value? That’s how you have to thread the needle. AI is here, we’re all going to be using tools like this in the future because they’re so useful. But what are the norms? What’s the thoughtful, ethical design of these tools so that we maximize the gains for the cost?
How is Granola different from Otter, Fathom, and other meeting notetakers?
It all really comes down to this: Granola feels like a tool that lets you be your best self in meetings. The operative word there is tool, and that means you control it. You can write your own notes. When the AI generates notes, you can edit them. The AI is subservient, augmenting your abilities. Its your personal place where you have all this information.
I think a lot of the other toolsOtter is like 9 years old at this pointare really about meeting capture, meeting recording. You log in and heres all your meeting recordings. Thats useful, but it feels very different than when you open Granola. Its like, heres my personal context where I can ask questions. It’s not really about the meetings. It’s about the notes, the knowledge inside of it.
As we look towards the future, Granola and those other tools are going to look more and more different. I see Granola as being much more of a contextual workspace where Granola has all this helpful context about you. Now if I need to go write an article or a blog post, or institute some process changes inside the company, I will go into Granola and write that first draft because it has all that context. I can’t imagine doing that in Otter or Firefliesit just doesn’t feel like the right place for it.
You’ve found that mixing work and personal contexts in Granola is actually more useful. Why?
Right now, I use Granola for all my work meetings, therapy sessions, and logistics conversations about my life. If you had sat me down two years ago and asked if that’s really useful, I would have said noI want those things separate. It turns out when you’re asking Granola questions, it having a 360-degree view of different things that are going on in your life is very useful. When you’re making decisions, you’re weighing all those constraints and prioritiesnot just the ones tied to this specific project at work.
I was just at the vet this morning, and I used Granola because it’s my mom’s cat and I’m not going to remember exactly what the vet says. Moments like going to the doctor, parent-teacher conferences, talking to a construction worker or plumberany situation where there’s sometimes technical language that’s really important to get right, that you’re not familiar withare incredibly valuable to capture accurately.
Theres a different question around data ownership. I dont necessarily want my company to have my therapy notes. But as models get better, the AI having access to the right context makes all the difference in terms of the quality of the response.
What’s appropriate etiquette around recording conversations with Granola?
I think right now, the etiquette is simple: Ask.
I imagine that the norms around this will change quickly, but it will remain very situation-dependent. Inside our company, its expected that meetings are Granola’d unless someone asks not to be. But in social environments the norms will be very different. Ive tried some of these pendants that record everything, and the idea of wearing those at a party just makes me feel a bit icky.
I also think the video conference providers will adapt and make it easy to show meeting participants that you are using something like Granola, so ou won’t have to think about it. I think it really comes down to the social nuances of the situation.
I usually frame it simply: Talk about it in terms of notes and transcription. Is it okay if I take notes? This thing will transcribe so I don’t forget the important stuff you say. That’s basically what I say.
What’s been your biggest mistake as you’ve grown Granola?
The biggest mistake I’ve made so far was that we didn’t grow the team fast enough. We had product-market fit in a fast-moving space, and I didn’t recognize that early enough. By the time I did, we were drowning in user tickets, requests for billingall the kinds of stuff that happens when you grow. There were only four of us on the team when we launched the product.
I was trying to use my playbook from my last startupkeep the team super small, grow slow and steady. [I realized] that’s great, Chris, but actually the world wants this and you have to respond. I thought growing quickly meant sacrificing how thoughtful we could be about product, and I wasn’t reactive enough. We’re 35 people now, and most of that has happened in the last couple of months.
What are some surprising ways people are using Granola?
All the personal stuff was surprising at firsttherapy, vet visits, parent-teacher conferences. Then there were these founders early on who used Granola as their collective brain. They logged in with the same account and would record every conversation they had because they were early in their startupevery brainstorm, every argument. It became a single shared memory between the two of them.
One user followed this famous sales methodology where every conversation falls into one of 14 buckets. He created very specific templates for each bucket, and at the end of the meeting he’d select the right one. Granola would basically spit out all the next steps to win that deal based on that framework. He encoded his entire sales process into itsuper intricate. I didn’t see that coming.
Some bad news for all the mutual fund managers out there: A new study from researchers at Harvard Business School seems to support the fear that artificial intelligence and machine learning could do their jobs. But here’s the catchwith only about 71% accuracy, depending on how predictable their trades are.
The working paper Mimicking Finance from Lauren Cohen, Yiwen Lu, and Quoc H. Nguyen, published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds “that 71% of mutual fund managers trade directions can be predicted in the absence of the agent making a single trade.”
The paper goes on to say, For some managers, this increases to nearly all of their trades in a given quarter. Further, we find that manager behavior is more predictable and replicable for managers who have a longer history of trading and are in less competitive categories.”
What does that mean? Basically, that the trades of more senior managers, especially those who are in less competitive areas, are easier to mimic (and thereby, those jobs might be easier to replace with AI).
The findings are based on data the researchers analyzed from 1990 to 2023 that took into account the size of the fund, the broader economic indicators, and investor flows.
Perhaps what’s most alarming for mutual fund managers, though, is the paper’s conclusion: “For some managers,” AI predicted “nearly all of their trades in a given quarter”which is the equivalent of a mic drop.
However, there are a few big caveats. The paper finds that the larger the ownership stake of the manager in the fund, the less predictable their behavior. It also found less predictable managers strongly outperform their peers, while the most predictable managers significantly underperform.
Even within each manager’s portfolio, the research shows “those stock positions that are more difficult to predict strongly outperform those that are easier to predict” (a bright spot for fund managers who want to keep their jobs).
The study is significant because it explores which tasks could be automated using AI, and how that could affect jobs in the financial sector. It estimates the U.S. asset management industry to be worth about $54 trillion.
Through the end of the 2010s, people were a companys infrastructure. Large workforces provided the scaffold upon which a business could build capacity for complexity: hire more people, take on more work.
Artificial intelligence has upended this relationship, decoupling a companys potential productivity from its headcount and redefining which businesses will fare best.
As a result, Americas mid-sized companies are disappearing: the number of businesses with between 250 and 499 employees has fallen by 22.5% since 2020. Meanwhile, the independent professional economy is quickly growing to take their place: 30.4 million U.S. solopreneurs (businesses with a single employee) now collectively generate over $1.75 trillion in output, rivaling that of larger firms.
As mid-size companies dwindle, their economic role will be replaced by individuals using AI as their infrastructure. The next five years will see the rise of an entirely new model of work, one in which savvy service professionalsfrom lawyers to plumberswill operate at a scale previously possible only for mid-sized or even larger companies.
EXPANDING SOLO WORK
When surveyed, entrepreneurs note that they spend 36% of their working hours on administrative tasks, leaving little capacity to think about business growth or transformation.
Single process automations have historically helped to free up some of this brain space, but AI does this on an entirely different level. Pearls proprietary research shows 50% of white-collar workers believe AI could handle over half of their job responsibilities in the next five years. For a new crop of solopreneurs, AI will completely assume their burdensome administrative work.
But AI wont be just another force multiplier akin to digitizing invoices in QuickBooks or tracking a customers status in Salesforce. For solopreneurs, AI will add entirely new forces, equipping them with super agents to expand their business to the heft of a mid-sized firm while leaving them room to focus on mastering their craft.
Middle-sized companies used to occupy a protected niche, gathering trusted groups of professionals to offer formalized work too specialized for large enterprises and too complicated for solo workers. Now, a solopreneur can harness the power of a 250-person firm, not by replacing hundreds of employees but by using AI to replicate the coordination that previously made this size staff necessary.
THE DIGITAL WORKFORCE
Solopreneurs will match the quantity and quality of work of a mid-sized business by assembling a digital workforce to coordinate across five distinct categories:
Sales and Marketing
The solopreneur already has a distinct advantage over mid-size companies in acquiring customers: their singular voice. AI helps them extend this voice to find new leads far beyond their network and maintain sales relationships at a capacity far higher than what one person can manage alone.
Businesses are currently using AI to make faster marketing decisions and even automate entire workflows, such as sending tailored emails to capture a potential customer who has abandoned their cart and tracking the results. Future sales and marketing will hand off even more of the strategic work to AI, allowing it to lead entire accounts, negotiate pricing, and derive new messaging based on real-time customer signals, all to extend a professionals personal reach.
Research
For client work already secured, solopreneurs are using tools like Perplexitys Deep Research to create expert-level briefs in minutes, earning the company an $18 billion valuation from investors betting on AI-driven knowledge work.
From synthesizing multiple earnings call transcripts to surfacing the latest news on competitors and novel techniques, AI is giving sole proprietors access to an exponentially wider breadth of knowledge and eliminating the fluff so they can absorb only the most consequential information.
As AI matures, it will help solopreneurs continually update a research memory bank, question initial output for factuality, and flag missing data.
Execution
For a legal issue, for example, customers would rather avoid paying for the overhead of a large firm and work solely with the most experienced lawyer. AIs execution power finally enables this, connecting trusted experts directly with customers.
The most advanced sole proprietors today compete with mid-size companies by running multiple specialized agents, automating workplace tasks like drafting informed email responses, summarizing meetings through different expert lenses, and preparing tailored reports. Already, U.K. civil servants have reported that they save an average of two weeks per year with similar AI automations.
In the next five years, AI will evolve from requiring explicit instructions to only needing intent. Instead of requesting email drafts for review, a solo lawyer might ask AI to keep a client warm or move this deal forward and let an agent do the rest. Humans will still play the most important role, consulting on nonnegotiable accuracy checks and strategy decisions.
Compliance
Though famously unsexy, compliance is essential to company growth and what keeps many smaller firms from venturing outside their core pursuits. With AI anticipating compliance issues, solopreneurs can more quickly expand into new areas of business, rivaling larger firms whose governance teams protect them in these pivots.
AI compliance platforms already track and map relevant changing regulations, allowing solopreneurs to keep up with shifting legal obligations without a large compliance team. What will come next is AI-generated audit trails and compliance assessments for real-time operations, shifting the work of keeping a company in line completely into the background.
Management
Coordinating an entire infrastructure of autonomous agents will be essential to scaling a business with only one human employee. The startup period will likely be much more extensive than for a human-staffed company, with the solopreneur needing to define a vision fo the business and reiterate it to management agents to get processes right.
When management agents are finally aligned with the company leader, theyll be able to predictively schedule subordinate agents, balance workloads, and uplevel important considerations before they turn into problems. Today, an AI agent can launch tens of others to complete a complex process. Tomorrow, a network of management agents will continuously reprioritize work to meet the solopreneurs long-term goals.
SCRAMBLING THE PROFESSIONAL FIELD
Rather than a distant vision, the multi-million-dollar solo business is already here. In just six months, Maor Shlomo alone built vibe coding platform Base44. He garnered tens of thousands of customers and sold it to Wix for $80 million. Meanwhile, 50% of global freelancers are already earning more on projects when they use AI tools.
62% of GenZers are interested in starting their own business so America can expect a continuing increase in sole-proprietor firms from the next generation of knowledge workers. However, not every professional will be equipped to immediately become a solopreneur. They will still need training grounds like enterprises, continuing education programs, and peer mentorship to hone the expertise necessary to justify staking out on their own. What AI has changed is that anyone in the professional sphere can now go solo, they just have to choose the right moment in their career.
Even as more Americans consult AI for advice, they will continue to seek out human experts for the best service. Increasingly, however, these professionals will be powered by AI infrastructures complex enough to rival mid-sized firms.
As the Barack Obama Presidential Center takes shape ahead of its June 2026 opening, some observers have pointed feedback about an element of the building’s design.
The Chicago tower features all-caps lettering that wraps around two sides of the building. But for many people, the textan excerpt from the former presidents speech in 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabamais nearly impossible to read.
Its designers say legibility isn’t the onlyor even the primaryfunction of the lettering.
“One of the key questions I asked at the beginning was, are people supposed to read this?” says designer Micheal Bierut, who typeset the lettering with a team at Pentagram, led by designer Britt Cobb. “Is legibility the primary goal here? Do we want people to be able to stand on the ground, look up at this tower, and read those words? And that was discussed on the client end, and the answer came back, ‘No, it should have the promise of meaning, it should be decipherable, everything should be spelled right and it should make sense.
[Rendering: The Obama Foundation]
Letters as texture
Early concepts of the Obama Presidential Center designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA) showed a perforated upper section depicted in drawings as an abstract, irregular pattern. At one point, architects considered filling the space with a bunch of words, like a word cloud, though that idea didn’t feel quite dignified enough for a presidential library. Instead, they decided to use an excerpt from one of Obama’s speeches.
“Just as a million people go to the Lincoln Memorial, some of them will stand and read every word of the second inaugural; some people will just admire the statue in the building and kind of take it in, and a couple of words will jump out, but not the whole thing,” Bierut tells Fast Company. “It’s in that tradition that I think we were operating.”
The function of the feature is to serve as a space on the building that would be illuminated to the outside at night; from the inside, it’s a viewing area. Bierut says it was “never intended to look or feel or communicate as an applied sign stuck on the building.” It’s part of the architecture, not separate from it.
Not everyone is a fan, though.
Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey wrote on X that the text was “tough to read to me, giving off the lorem ipsum vibes,” referring to the Latin dummy text designers use as a placeholder when typesetting, while other X users joked the full quote can only be fully read by a drone as a dual dig against the design and against the Obama administration’s drone warfare program.
[Photo: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images]
Typesetting an architectural feature
The words are load-bearing, which added an element of complexity to the design process.
“We’re moving around typography, adjusting letter sizes and letter spacing, and suddenly you’re typesetting 5-foot letters that are bearing tons of weight,” Cobb says. “It gets to a point where it becomes [more] about structural design. . . . I might say how I wish that letter could be three inches closer, but no, sorry, it’s bearing all this weight. It’s got to be here instead of there.”
The letters are set in an adapted version of Gotham, Obama’s presidential campaign font, and the excerpt comes from one of Obama’s most famous speeches as president. Given at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the National Historic Landmark where police attacked civil rights marchers on Bloody Sunday 1965, Obama tied Selma to the broader American story in his speech.
The excerpt reads: “You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word We. We the People. We Shall Overcome. Yes We Can. That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
The text as it appears on the building wasn’t designed to be a billboard or read as a speech. It’s a pep talk to America. You are America. We the people. Yes we can. Even if glanced only in snippets, these words still hold power.
Say what you will about business and media mogul Kim Kardashian, but if theres one thing she undoubtedly excels at, its building a personal brand so recognizable that all of her ventures scream Kim. Shes done it once again with her new energy drink brand Update, which looks like it couldve organically spawned in the walk-in fridge of her sleek Los Angeles home.Update is a four-year-old energy drink brand founded by CEO Daniel Solomons. On February 24, the brand revealed a full packaging and design overhaul and introduced Kardashian as a cofounder in its new era. In an interview with Fast Company, Solomons said that Kardashian had been a steady customer since 2023 and began offering feedback on the brands formula and packaging, which ultimately led to her formally joining the team. In addition to Kardashians sign-on, Update also announced a 4,000-store distribution deal with Walmart, which will begin on March 1.[Photo: Update]This isnt just a celebrity brand endorsement. Since joining Update, Kardashian has worked closely with the team to completely rethink Updates branding, taking it from what Solomons describes as a masculine tech bro look to a can that feels perfectly natural in Kardashians hand. This shift taps into the refined personal brand that Kardashian has built over the past several yearsone thats perhaps most exemplified by her ultra-successful apparel company Skims, which embraces simple, minimalist shapes; a color palette of neutrals offset by pops of pastels; and a futuristic yet grounded ethos.For Kardashian, Update is essentially Skims in a can: a drinkable version of the aspirational aesthetic thats at the core of all of her business ventures.Onboarding the right agency for the jobDesigning a modern energy drink is no small task. The energy drink aisle is notoriously crowded, and its only getting busier as functional beverages take off among wellness-focused young consumers. According to the agency Grand View Research, the global energy drinks market was estimated at $79.39 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $125.11 billion by 2030. To design a beverage that would actually stand out on shelves, Update turned to an agency with a healthy background in thinking up breakout brands for saturated markets: Day Job, the design wizards behind brands like Fly by Jing, the adaptogen drink Recess, and the viral protein bar brand David, which recently exploded in popularity in no small part due to its ultra-minimalist, refined look. The lesson we take from the success of naming and branding David is that a brand doesnt need to be your friend, says Rion Harmon, Day Jobs executive creative director. It just needs to be very, very good. People want excellent products. And its okay for your branding to reflect that.For Update, that meant leaning into Kardashians tonal, minimalist aesthetic that aspirational shoppers are already familiar with, rather than attempting to design an energy drink for the everyman. [Photo: Update]Designing a drink that “feels like Kim, without saying Kim”Updates original branding included a palette of bright (almost neon) metallic hues, paired with a stenciled wordmark and some highlighted nutrition info. The overall look was akin to a beverage one might expect to see in the Tron universe or in a gamers streamneedless to say, it was far off base from something Kardashian might design.Previous branding for Update. [Photo: Update]“The category of energy drinks is extremely loud,” Harmon says. “Lots of color, lots of neons, lots of overlapping graphics, lots of chaos.”But, according to Harmon, Kardashian had a vision for the brand as soon as she joined the team. She wanted it to express a clean, premium futurism to reflect the innovative approach to energy, he says. (Updates formulation relies on the ingredient paraxanthine, a molecule that the body naturally converts into caffeinewhich the brand says gives its products a less jittery feeling.)Day Job took this concept and spun it into a variety of different cans, all totally different in their approach to logo, layout, type, and color. Kardashian then selected her top cans and provided the team with specific notes for each.She was very involved, from initial vision to minor refinements, creative directing all along the way, Harmon says. She has a very sharp eye, her feedback is always clear, she has real aesthetic vision, but shes collaborative as well.[Image: kimkardashian/Instagram]The final design brings together a palette of muted metallic blue, pink, maroon, and yellow, all of which look like they could star in the next NikeSkims collection. As it did with the packaging for the protein bar David, Day Job minimized any text on the cans to the barest of bones, leaving only subtle notes on flavor, calories, and sugar content. They replaced the techy logo font with a bolded sans serif. Harmon calls it a nearly non-logosomething simple and default, but with a reflective materiality to evoke futurism.In sum, Update is a beverage that would look perfectly natural next to a pair of ballet-core joggersor nestled in Kim Kardashians expertly manicured hand.Kims body of work has a recognizable quality, and thats something we wanted to inform the brand identity, Harmon says. It needed to feel like Kim, without saying Kim. We wanted to find the line between something that fits in her fridge, and the fridges of Walmart.”
When I worked a corporate job, I was often in charge of purchasing decisions. At one company, my team had inherited a lot of homegrown solutions. I saw the limitations of these products and was quick to replace them if the budget allowed.
In corporate settings, “build vs. buy” is a well-known decision framework. Companies weigh the cost of developing something in-house against purchasing an outside solution. Its often simple math: how much time and resources does it take to maintain this internally versus what does it cost to buy or outsource?
Solopreneurs face the same decision constantly. However, the stakes are a lot higher when it’s your own time and own money as decision factors.
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Knowing when to DIY and when to hire out is one of the most important operational decisions a solopreneur makesand one thats hard to figure out until youve been through it a few times.
When to DIY
Not everything needs to be outsourced. Some tasks or projects are worth learning yourself, even if the learning curve is steep at first.
The strongest case for DIY is when you’ll repeat the task often, and it touches a core part of your business. Updating the basics on your own website or maintaining your project management toolthese are things you’ll do over and over. If you outsource them, you’ll either keep paying someone else or find yourself stuck when you need to make a quick change.
There’s also value in the learning itself because figuring something out makes you a better operator. An example of this might be understanding your business’s financials. Even if you pay a bookkeeper to prepare them, you still need baseline knowledge about your numbers. If you outsource and dont take the time to understand the output, youve created a blind spot in your business.
And sometimes, the budget just isn’t there yet. That’s a valid reason to DIY, especially when you’re starting out. But it helps to set a time limit, especially for one-off projects. If you’ve spent a few weeks trying to make something work and you’re no closer to a result you can actually use, that’s a signal to stop and reassess.
When to hire it out
When I first started my solo business, I created all kinds of assets in Canva. Banners, social graphicsyou name it, I made it. But eventually I realized that Id hit the limit of my design abilities. There was no easy way for me to learn those skills, nor were they a core part of my regular business. So I hired someone to do a design overhaul and create everything for me.
Hiring help is a trade. You’re exchanging money to gain back your time (and, quite possibly, your sanity). Often, for a better result than you’d produce on your own.
The clearest case for hiring is one-time, high-skill tasks where quality matters. In addition to design, you might hire for legal contracts or tax setup. These aren’t things most solopreneurs will do repeatedly, and the cost of getting them wrong can be higher than the cost of hiring a professional.
It’s also worth hiring when a poor DIY result could cost you credibility or clients. A clunky website or an amateur-looking proposal might turn away the exact opportunities you’re working to attract.
Here’s a quick filter you can use. Ask yourself:How often will I do this? Does quality matter a lot? Could I earn more in the time it would take me to learn? If the answer to that last question is yes, hiring almost always makes sense.
The real cost of I’ll just figure it out
When you’re solo, your time has a direct dollar value. Every hour you spend learning website design or wrestling with accounting software is an hour you’re not doing client work. That’s a real cost, even if its not reflected in your businesss financials.
Of course, solopreneurs sometimes can’t afford the upfront cost to hire. That’s a very real consideration, especially in the early days. There’s no universal right answer to DIY versus hiring. But being intentional about the decisionrather than defaulting to “I’ll just figure it out”is what separates solopreneurs who stay stuck from those who move their businesses forward.
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Being a freelance designer has its perks, but pay transparency is not one of them. Designers are constantly forced to second-guess themselves:
Should you charge a day rate or a project fee?
Are you earning as much as your peers?
Is AI taking work/jobs away from you?
Today were launching a new, data-driven effort in partnership with the American Institute of Graphic Arts to help you answer those questions and more with confidence. Its called the Design Pricing Transparency Project, and its dedicated to helping freelance designers understand how much they should be charging for their work.
Were asking designers across the industrygraphic designers, UX professionals, art directors, and othersto help us gather information by taking a short survey. We want to know what kind of projects youre working on, how you price that work, and how youre feeling about the general state of freelancing in 2026. If youre a full-time or part-time freelance designer (yes, even if you have a full-time job!) we want to hear from you.
And we know that getting paid is not a one-way street. Thats why were also asking companies that hire freelance designers to tell us what they pay, what theyre projecting for the coming year, and how AI factors into all of it.
Our goal is to create a detailed snapshot of the freelance financial landscape. Well share the results later this year in a special report.
You can take the survey here.
Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and philanthropist Melinda French Gates, has a low-key terrifying question she throws at those interviewing for a role at her startup.
The 23-year-old recently raised a $35 million Series A for Phia, the AI shopping agent she cofounded in April 2025 with her Stanford University roommate Sophia Kianni. The startup, which has since garnered more than 1 million users and grown revenue elevenfold, is currently valued at around $185 million.
Gates recently joined Brian Sozzi, Yahoo Finance executive editor, on the Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast and revealed her go-to interview question for prospective candidates.
I stole this from another founder, she said. How much do you think California state spends on healthcare? And do a bottoms-up approach for how you would build that out.
She told Sozzi, Ill ask that for every single role. Ill ask that for sales, Ill ask that for marketing, Ill ask that for engineering.
Its not because she expects candidates to know the answer off the top of their head. Instead, she said it highlights how someone goes through a logical approach to solving that question.
Curveball interview questions, designed to surprise candidates and test problem-solving ability or performance under pressure, are famously beloved by founders. Microsoft apparently posed the question “Why are manhole covers round?” to interviewees.
Elon Musk asked, “You’re standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk 1 mile south, 1 mile west, and 1 mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?”
Many will relate to the panicked feeling that arises upon being asked to sell a pen or divulge their greatest weakness. As entry-level roles become scarcer and the competition for top talent grows fiercer, hiring managers are increasingly getting creative to single out the cream of the crop.
Still, researchers have questioned the usefulness of trick questions against other evidence-based assessments.
As Phia continues to grow, its not the only question Gates has up her sleeve. When it comes to hiring salespeople, she asks candidates the craziest thing theyve done to close a deal. That teaches you a lot about how far theyll go, how dedicated they are to do something, she said.
While Phia has accepted no money from Gatess parentsI have a chip on my shoulder, she admitted on the podcastshe did share one of the most important lessons shes learned from her parents about entrepreneurship.
“From my dad, I’ve really learned that your team is the core of what you’re building, she said. You can’t do anything without an incredible team.”
The impact of GLP-1 medications on weight loss is undeniable, but emerging research suggests the results may only be temporary. A growing body of evidence shows that when patients stop taking GLP-1 drugs, much of the weight they lost returnsand so do the medical complications that may have prompted treatment in the first place.
The only way that they work is if you keep taking them, Scott Isaacs, an endocrinologist at the Grady Health System in Atlanta, told Market Watch. And when people stop taking them, they have a lot of weight regain, and the medical problems that went away tend to come back.
New research from the University of Oxford found that weight is projected to return to pretreatment levels within about 1.7 years after stopping medications. Improvements in cardio-metabolic markersincluding blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes-related indicatorsalso trend back toward baseline within about 1.4 years after cessation.
The recognition that long-term benefits depend on a patients willingness to remain on the medication has become increasingly widespread, both as patients experience these changes firsthand and as more research emerges. Oprah Winfrey has spoken publicly about regaining weight after stopping treatment, later saying that using a GLP-1 is going to be a lifetime thing, according to an interview with People.
However, not everyone is willingor ableto indefinitely commit to GLP-1s.
In a study published last year, researchers analyzed the health records from 77,310 adults in Denmarkwhere Novo Nordisk, a major developer of GLP-1 drugs, is basedwho used Wegovy for the first time. The researchers found that 52% of people stopped taking the drug within a year, pointing to cost and side effects, which have become growing concerns for users worldwide.
Patients can expect to pay at least $4,200 out of pocket annually for drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy, an unsustainable expense for many. As it becomes clearer that GLP-1s may represent a lifelong financial and medical commitment, researchers and clinicians are increasingly evaluating more permanent weight-loss interventions, like bariatric surgery and endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG), according to Market Watch.
ESG typically costs around $12,000, while bariatric surgery can cost roughly $17,000. Though still expensive, the one-time nature of these procedures may make them a more appealing option for patients seeking lasting results, according to Bariendo, a network of weight-loss surgery clinics.
As evidence continues to surface, patients pursuing weight-loss solutions are facing a central question: whether they are prepared not just to lose weight but to commit to using a medication for life, too.
By Leila Sheridan
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, Inc.com.
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