Sunday night’s Super Bowl and Bad Bunny fell short of setting records for most watched U.S. broadcast and halftime show.Seattle’s 29-13 victory over New England averaged 124.9 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel rating system.That fell short of the 127.7 million U.S. viewers that tuned in for Philadelphia’s 40-22 victory over Kansas City last year on Fox.However, Super Bowl 60 is the most-watched program in NBC history. The network is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.Bad Bunny’s halftime show averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15-8:30 p.m. Eastern. That would make it the fourth-most watched halftime behind Kendrick Lamar (133.5 million, 2025), Michael Jackson (133.4 million, 1993) and Usher (129.3 million, 2024).
Peak audience sets U.S. record
The audience for the game peaked at 137.8 million viewers during the second quarter (7:45-8 p.m. Eastern), which is a record. That surpassed the previous mark of 137.7 million during the second quarter of last year’s Super Bowl.This year’s audience ended a streak where the last four Super Bowls had experienced audience increases. It is the fifth straight year the game has averaged over 100 million viewers.After three straight years of Super Bowls that came down to the final minute, the last two have lacked excitement.Sunday’s game was the second in Super Bowl history in which a touchdown had not been scored in the first three quarters. Seattle was up 12-0 going into the final 15 minutes.Last year’s game was decided in the first half as Philadelphia built a 24-0 lead en route to a 40-22 victory.
Bad Bunny versus Kid Rock
The Turning Point USA halftime show featuring Kid Rock peaked at 5 million at one point on YouTube.Nielsen did not measure any of the YouTube live stream viewership. Of the linear networks that carried it, the only one Nielsen measures is broadcast network Charge! Full Nielsen ratings for the prior week will be released on Wednesday.According to YouTube figures though, there have been 21,208,583 views of the alternate halftime show through Tuesday night, according to the conservative organization’s page. Bad Bunny’s show has already had 61,311,972 views.
Halftime show on social media
Total social media consumption of Bad Bunny’s halftime show set a record of 4 billion views after the first 24 hours, according to the NFL and Ripple Analytics. That is a 137% increase over last year.The social media figures include fans, owned platforms, broadcast partners and influencers.The NFL said over 55% of all social views came from international markets.Full global viewership for the halftime show is expected to be available early next week.
Spanish audience record
Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl Spanish-language broadcast in the United States. The Super Bowl has been televised in Spanish in the U.S. since 2014.The audience peaked during the halftime show, averaging 4.8 million viewersalso making it the most-watched Super Bowl halftime in Spanish-language history.
Olympics benefit from Super Bowl
NBC’s “Primetime in Milan” Olympic show, which featured the women’s downhill and team figure skating events, averaged 42 million viewers, the network’s largest Winter Olympics audience since Day 2 of the 2014 Sochi Games.It also was a 73% increase from the Olympics show after Super Bowl 56 (24.3 million).“The Super Bowl and the NFL once again delivered a blockbuster audience across the NBC broadcast network, Peacock, and Telemundo, and provided an unprecedented lead-in to our Primetime in Milan coverage,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said in a statement. “The Super Bowl and the Olympics are the two most powerful events in the world, and we salute our talented production, tech, and announce teams who delivered best-in-class presentations for our viewers, stations and partners.”
Other NFL figures
The NFL playoffs averaged 37 million viewers the first three weekends, up 5% from last year and the second-most watched in the last 10 years.That followed a regular season that averaged 18.7 million, the second-highest since audience averages began being kept in 1988. It was a 10% increase from last season.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Joe Reedy, AP Sports Writer
For the past few weeks, political ads attacking Alex Bores have been running in New Yorks 12th Congressional District. The ads are funded by a pro-AI political action committee that supports the expansion of artificial intelligence, yet they aim to weaken Boress candidacy by tying him to his past work in tech. They accuse Bores, who has recently called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of hypocrisy because he previously worked at Palantir, a data analytics company whose contracts with ICE have made it a frequent target of activists.
The ads allege that Bores made hundreds of thousands of dollars building and selling technology for the agency. Now hes running from his past, while ICE is in our communities, one ad warns. ICE is powered by Boress tech . . . he should never, ever be in Congress.
Inside Palantir, the ads are starting to irk some employees. Two current employees and three former employees tell Fast Company that they view the campaign as opportunistic. Some believe the ads misrepresent Boress record at the company. Others say Palantirs approach to its work with ICE has changed since Bores left the company many years ago.
Several employees said they see the ads as less about immigration enforcement and more about politics within the tech industry. They point to the PAC funding the campaign, Leading the Future, as evidence that the effort is primarily about countering Boress support for AI regulation. That view is shared by one former Biden administration staffer who, speaking on condition of anonymity, emphasized that the ad campaign was almost certainly a response to Boress role as a lead sponsor of an AI safety bill in New York.
If Boress campaign is one that would restrict the tech industrys growth, and his base is one that is already primed to be critical of Palantir, people (like me!) who watch this ad wouldnt suspect that its people with significant interests in Palantir and the broader industry that are funding the ads, too, one former employee tells Fast Company in a message.
Bores, a member of the New York State Assembly who successfully pushed for AI regulation at the state level, is currently running for the Democratic nomination for New Yorks 12th Congressional District. The district represents the very liberal and very wealthy neighborhoods of Manhattans Upper West and Upper East Sides, meaning the winner of the Democratic primary is all but guaranteed to win the general election.
Bores has leaned into his tech background on the campaign trail. He says he is proud of his work at Palantir but left the company seven years ago in response to its work for ICE, a project he says he never worked on or participated in. Since then, however, he has been the subject of an extended ad campaign branding him an expert in hypocrisy and alleging that he profited from Palantirs work with the Department of Homeland Security.
The ads seek to capitalize on widespread anger over ICE, particularly following a massive escalation of raids and deportations and the killing of two American citizens. Boress campaign has since sent Leading the Future a cease-and-desist, Semafor recently reported.
Joe Lonsdales role in the anti-Bores effort
The ads are being released by Think Big, a group that describes itself as supporting pro-AI Democratic leaders. Think Big is funded by the Super PAC Leading the Future, according to Federal Election Commission documents.
Leading the Futures founding supporters, according to its own press release, include Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and the AI company Perplexity. Multiple donors associated with the groupsuch as Lonsdale and Andreessenhave also been major contributors to Republican candidates and causes. Campaign finance records show that Lonsdale Enterprises is the only donor, aside from Leading the Future itself, listed on filings associated with American Mission, a separate PAC affiliated with the same network. (Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums but are prohibited from donating directly to candidates. Traditional PACs face strict contribution limits but are allowed to donate to campaigns, leading many political networks to operate both.)
The co-founder of Palantir started a Super PAC that is lying to New Yorkers about my work and the fact that I quit seven years ago over the ICE contract they continue to profit off of to this day, Bores tells Fast Company.
The real issue, Bores argues, is his work on AI regulation. He co-sponsored a New York state law known as the Raise Act, which was signed last year by Governor Kathy Hochul and imposes safety requirements on frontier AI developers. He has said he plans to pursue similar legislation in Congress.
John Vlasto, a leader at Leading the Future, said in an emailed statement: Leading the Future will aggressively oppose policymakers and candidates in states across the country who play political games with the future of American leadership and jeopardize American workers, families, and communities ability to benefit from AI innovation and growth. Palantir did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.
Now Palantir employees are grappling with the growing public scrutiny of the companys work with ICE and the way that criticism is being deployed politically. One current employee said Bores was always upfront internally about his background and found it jarring that a PAC backed by tech funders would attack someone for having worked in the technology industry.
Another current employee said the ads and campaign materials highlighting Palantirs ICE contracts feel disingenuous, adding that the work remains controversial inside the company. (Indeed, Wired reported on Tuesday that Palantir employees have spent weeks pressing company leadership for answers about its work with ICE, prompting CEO Alex Karp to address the issue in a prerecorded internal video.) That tension has fueled anger among some employees that Lonsdale, a Palantir co-founder, appears to be amplifying criticism of the company based on its federal contracts. Theres even a Slack thread where people have flagged the ads and other campaign materials theyve received, one employee tells Fast Company.
Nothing says principled stance like a founder denouncing their own companys employees for their own companys choices, Varoon Mathur, who worked on AI at the Biden White House, tells Fast Company. Another former Biden administration official similarly emphasized that the campaign was almost certainly because Bores sponsored AI safety legislation in New York.
Controversy over ICE and Palantir
The ads targeting Bores come amid growing criticism of Palantirs work with ICE. The company has worked with the Department of Homeland Security for more than a decade, but its current relationship with the federal government primarily centers on ICE.
That work includes a product called ImmigrationOS, which assists the agency with deportation operations, as well as support for an ICE tip line that was recently disclosed in the agencys AI inventory. Work on the tip line began years ago but was shifted to Palantir during the second Trump administration, a former DHS employee tells Fast Company. (Palantir has also faced criticism for its contracts with the Israeli military during the war in Gaza.)
The companys growing political baggage has made it a liability for some elected officials. In New York City, finance officials are pressing for an inquiry into the citys pension fund, which is invested in Palantir. In Colorado, Sen. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Jason Crow announced this week that they would offset campaign contributions from current and former Palantir employees by donating to immigrant rights groups. In Florida, far-right candidate James Fishback has called for banning the company from the state.
For Bores, that scrutiny has extended to his own tenure at Palantir. He previously told Fast Company that he left the company when, or soon after, Palantir renewed an ICE contract that expanded the scope of its work with the Department of Homeland Security. However, City & State reported last month that Bores remained at Palantir after controversy over the ICE contract first emerged. (Boress spokesperson told the outlet that he left before the contract was renewed, and he believed the contracts renewal was likely.)
Two Palantir employees who spoke to Fast Company said they had no reason to believe Bores worked on the ICE contract specifically, and one said they remembered him opposing the companys work with ICE internally. Some Palantir employees have also donated to his campaign, Bores has said.
Current and former employees describe a company long divided over its government contracts, particularly those tied to immigration enforcement. One former employee said the ads were frustrating but predictable, given Palantirs history of pursuing government work across administrations. Another said they left the company after its approach to ICE shifted away from earlier guardrails, adding that the advertisements felt like retribution. A third former employee recalled internal conversations that look pretty different from at least what Im seeing publicly about Palantir now.
Bores, for his part, has tried to turn the PACs focus on him into a political asset, framing it as validation of his push for AI regulation. Judge me by my enemies, he wrote in a recent tweet, referring directly to Lonsdale.
A canine health startup called Loyal has now raised more than $250 million to develop drugs that could help dogsand perhaps one day humanslive longer, healthier lives.
The company on February 11 announced it had raised $100 million in Series C funding as it pursues FDA approval of LOY-002, a beef-flavored daily prescription pill designed to extend the healthy lifespan of senior dogs. The drug mimics some of the effects of a calorie-restricted diet in addressing age-related metabolic issues without requiring pet owners to cut their dogs food supply or curbing canine appetites.
People do not want their dogs to not have food motivation, because that’s how you train dogs, says Loyal founder and CEO Celine Halioua. How we domesticated dogs was sharing meals with them; losing that can actually really impact the dog-human bond.
But, of course, people do want to share that bond longer than the typical canine lifespan allows. Halioua started Loyal in late 2019 after a stint as chief of staff at The Longevity Fund, a lifespan-focused investment fund founded by Laura Deming and an early backer of Loyal. She says she realized that dog longevity drugs could one day lead to similar treatments for humans, since the species are similar in many ways, and are easier to test, since dogs short lives mean tests of lifespan extension can be run in a shorter amount of time. And as a dog lovera recent interview with Fast Company also included Haliouas freshly adopted Rottweiler, Wilmashe also saw the potential market among owners and pets.
Celine Halioua [Photo: Loyal]
It felt like a really tractable way to work on a problem that everyone cares about, which is having too little time with the dogs you love, she says.
LOY-002 is one of three canine longevity medications under development by the company, and Halioua says shes hoping Loyal can submit the final requirement for the FDAs expanded conditional approval of the drug this year. That would likely start a roughly six-month review process of what would be the first FDA-approved lifespan extension drug for any species. And its progress comes as interest rises overall in the potential of developing medical treatments that can help humans as well experience longer and healthier lives.
When I started pitching The Longevity Fund in 2013, it was a niche concept and people laughed me out of their offices, Deming tells Fast Company in an email. Now it’s a legitimate category of investment.
Loyals Series C backers include Age1, a new longevity-focused VC firm cofounded by Deming and Alex Colville, as well as Baillie Gifford and other existing investors in the company, which had previously raised more than $150 million in investments.
LOY-002 is Loyal’s lead drug program, developed to extend lifespan in senior dogs. It is currently in clinical trials and is advancing through the regulatory pathway towards FDA Expanded Conditional Approval (XCA) [Photo: Loyal]
Aging is something that really affects everybodyevery human and every dog on the planet experiences aging, Colville says. And I think that’s something that’s really unique about it as an opportunity and a space to work in.
Already, LOY-002 has met two of three milestones for FDA approval, known as the target animal safety and reasonable expectation of effectiveness sections of its conditional approval application. The final milestone involves demonstrating that the drug can be consistently manufactured at scale, Halioua says. The drug will likely be labeled for use by dogs at least 10 years old weighing at least 14 pounds, she says. Dosing, and thus costs, will depend on animal size, but Halioua says shes optimistic the average dog will be able to take the drug for less than $100 per month.
The company announced last July that it had completed enrolling dogs in a study it calls STAY, designed to test the effectiveness of LOY-002, which Halioua says is the largest-ever animal health clinical trial. Loyal has enrolled roughly 1,300 dogs in the study through 72 veterinary clinics, and Halioua says shes hoping theyll find that the drug confers at least one healthy to participants.
Loyal also has two other dog drugs, a vet-administered injection called LOY-001 and a daily pill called LOY-003, in the works. Though Halioua says the company hasnt publicized the exact biological mechanisms beyond the drugs, she says would look to extend lifespans of larger dogs by targeting a growth hormone thats correlated with a shorter life, with big dogs usually living a shorter time than their smaller counterparts.
[Photo: Loyal]
Once the dog is fully grown, you can then reduce the levels of growth hormone to hopefully extend their healthy lifespan and kind of compensate for the historical genetic issue that we gave them when we selectively bred for size, says Halioua.
If all goes well, those drugs could launch a year or two after LOY-002, she says. And if Loyals drugs prove helpful to dogs, they could one day lead to similar treatments for humans.
If we’re able to do something helpful for dogs, I think we’re going to learn a lot about how to do something helpful for humans, too, says Halioua.
In the wake of a January Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing from Saks Global, owner of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, the luxury retailer has begun to close a number of stores across its portfolio of brands. Last month, for instance, the company announced the shuttering of many of its outlet stores.
But now, the Saks Global has announced the closure of some of its high-end department stores, for which the company is famous. Heres what you need to know.
Whats happened?
According to a court document filed this week with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, Saks Global has decided to close nine of its luxury department stores.
These announced closures come just weeks after the company announced it was shuttering many of its outlet stores, including many Last Call and Saks Off 5th locations.
The reason Saks Global has given for the shuttering of some of its flagship department stores is that the store closures will allow the companys global debtors to better serve their luxury customers, strengthen brand partner relationships and drive full-price selling to enable sustainable, profitable growth.
When are the department stores closing?
According to court documents, the department stores marked for closure will close their doors for good on approximately April 30, 2026, less than three months from now.
The company expects the store closing sales at the affected locations to begin around February 20.
The store closures are subject to approval from the judge presiding over the bankruptcy case. A ruling is expected to be made on Friday.
After the closure of these locations, Saks Global will have 35 Neiman Marcus stores and 25 Saks Fifth Avenue stores in operation.
Which Neiman Marcus stores are closing?
According to the court documents, only one Neiman Marcus store is closing:
Massachusetts: 5 Copley Place, Boston, MA
Which Saks Fifth Avenue stores are closing?
Unfortunately, Saks Global has decided to close significantly more Saks Fifth Avenue stores. The list includes eight locations in eight different states:
Alabama: 129 Summit Blvd, Birmingham, AL
Arizona: 2446 East Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ
Louisiana: 301 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA
New Jersey: Meadowlands Sports Complex, East Rutherford, NJ
Oklahoma: 1780 Utica Square, Tulsa, OK
Ohio: 1350 Polaris Pkwy, Columbus, OH
Pennsylvania: 2 Bala Plaza Bala, Cynwyd, PA
Virginia: 9214 Stony Point Parkway, Richmond, VA
Why is Saks Global filing for bankruptcy?
As Fast Company previously reported, the luxury department store owner has faced extreme financial difficulty in recent years. Like many brick-and-mortar retailers, the companys stores have seen declining foot traffic, especially after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, inflationary costs, tariffs, and increased online competition have all cut into the companys bottom line.
However, the major financial blow to Saks Global came when Hudsons Bay, Sakss previous parent company, acquired competitor Neiman Marcus in 2024 for around $2.7 billion. That move left the new company, Saks Global, saddled with debt.
Announcing last month that its bankruptcy process was underway, Saks Global CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck said the move presents a meaningful opportunity to strengthen the foundation of our business and position it for the future.
Job insecurity is real: More than half of American workers (54%) say insecurity about their job is causing significant stress at work, while more than a third (39%) say they worry they about losing their job due to changes in government policies, according to the American Psychological Associations 2025 Work in America survey. Layoffs are reportedly at an all-time high since 2009, along with the lowest hiring on record in the U.S. since that time. And many of those layoffs have been in white collar professionslike technology, government, journalism, and high education.
All of this could pave the way for the rise of a new kind of role: the “new-collar” job. Here’s what to know about the category that’s not quite white collar, or blue collar.
What are ‘new-collar’ jobs?
Falling somewhere between white and blue collar, “new-collar” jobs require more technical or specialized skills, but not a college degree. They can be learned on the job; at community college, vocational schools, or cybersecurity boot camps; and through a professional certification program, for roles in engineering, tech, or even healthcare.
The term was coined by former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in 2016 (offering yet another example of how 2026 is the new 2016).
10 high-income ‘new-collar’ jobs
A new report from Resume Genius, a platform for job seekers, lists 10 roles that often dont require a four-year diploma, but still offer high pay and flexible work options.
They are:
Marketing manager ($159,660 median annual salary)
Human resource manager ($140,000 median annual salary)
Sales manager ($138,060 median annual salary)
Computer network architect ($130,390 median annual salary)
General and operations manager ($129,330 median annual salary)
Information security analyst ($124,910 median annual salary)
Sales engineer ($121,520 median annual salary)
Health services manager ($117,960 median annual salary)
Art director ($111,040 median annual salary)
Construction manager ($106,980 median annual salary)
Lawyers for social media companies will be working overtime in the coming weeks as several major trials get underway addressing the potential harms to children caused by popular sites and apps.
At the same time, efforts to deflect at least one major future case have fallen short, increasing pressure on tech giants to agree to an independent assessment of how they protect teen users. The convergence of these developments creates a potential perfect storm for the industry, one that could result in both financial damages and changes to the algorithms that encourage users to keep scrolling for longer and longer periods of time.
Much of the focus is on a bellwether trial in Los Angeles that seeks to hold Meta and Google responsible for harms suffered by children who use their products. Plaintiffs allege that services like Instagram and YouTube are designed to keep users, especially kids, engaged. Opening statements were held Monday, with the plaintiffs lawyer arguing that Meta and Google have engineered addiction in childrens brains. The case is widely seen as a test for future lawsuits with similar claims, of which there are approximately 1,500.
Meta and Google deny the charges. TikTok and Snap were also named as defendants but settled before the case went to trial.
As that suit began in Los Angeles, opening arguments were also heard in Santa Fe in a case brought against Meta by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez in December 2023. The lawsuit accuses the companys platforms of being a breeding ground for sexual predators, a claim Meta denies.
That trial, expected to last seven weeks, will determine whether Meta violated the state’s consumer protection laws. If we can win in this action and force them to make their product safer in this state, it changes the narrative completely about what they say is possible for everyone else, Torrez said.
Meanwhile, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California rejected a request by Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok for summary judgment in a case brought by Kentuckys Breathitt County School District. That case is part of a consolidated multidistrict litigation that seeks to hold social media companies accountable for engineering addictive features that negatively affect student mental health.
Section 230
At the heart of all these cases is how far courts are willing to extend the protections granted by Section 230, the federal law that shields social media companies from liability over content posted by users. The Los Angeles trial, along with the upcoming case in Northern California, argues that jurors should be able to consider whether the algorithms used by these companies are responsible for mental health harms, rather than focusing solely on the content shown on users screens.
Perhaps as a preemptive measure, TikTok, Snap, and Meta have agreed to undergo a series of tests overseen by the National Council for Suicide Prevention to evaluate how effectively they protect the mental health of teen users.
Among the issues that will be examined are whether the platforms force users to take a break and if they offer a way to turn off endless scrolling. Companies that perform well will receive a badge signaling that they offer a pathway to mental health support.
Potential ramifications
This is hardly the first time that social media companies have been taken to court over mental health claims. To date, none of those cases has resulted in any sort of major overhauls, however. At the same time, efforts in Washington and by state governments to regulate the industry have fallen short. Further complicating matters is a lack of consensus in the scientific community on whether social media is harmful for teens and kids on the whole.
Still, successful outcomes in these cases could force companies to change how people interact with their platforms, potentially reshaping the social media landscape. Victories for plaintiffs could also expose companies to significant liability payouts for harms linked to their services.
If the size of your failures isnt growing youre not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle.
Jeff Bezoss wordswritten in a 2019 letter to shareholderssuggest a more clear-eyed view of the innovation process than the paradoxical perspectives of many other senior executives.
Oh sure, CEOs agree that innovation is important. In fact, 92% say its a top priority, according to a recent McKinsey article. But at the same time, more than 90% of CEOs say they do a lousy job at innovation. The reason for this confusing response can be boiled down to one major point, alluded to by Bezos:
Fear of failure.
Yes, fear of failureand wariness of the mixed messages they get from management. You cant expect people to take risks, challenge the status quo, and explore new ways of doing things when you measure them on hitting near-term targets with near-perfect accuracy. Innovation requires curiosity, experimentation, and learningthe trifecta I call, try, fail, learn. Inevitably, projects will fail; people will fail, too. Its normal, and its high time we normalized it in business.
Below are five ways you can put meaningful metrics in place to incentivize healthy risk-taking and smart failure in your organization.
1. Start Small: Create Rituals That Normalize Failure
Changing culture starts with small, visible experiments that make failure feel safe, expected, and even energizing. One of the simplest and most effective practices Ive implemented is what I call Fail-Free Fridays.
These are dedicated 60-minute blocks of time where teams meet weekly to talk about whats not working and share ideas about things they want to try. No PowerPoints. No success criteria. No approvals. The goal isnt to solve the problems or produce a breakthrough; its to openly discuss whats not going well and experiment with new ideas. Without fear.
How to make it measurable:
Track the number of problems discussed
Track the number of ideas generated
Track self-reported psychological safety (before and after)
Track cross-functional collaborations initiated during these sessions
2. Define What a ‘Good Failure’ Looks Like
Not all failure is equal: Experimental failure is necessary for learning and invention, whereas operational failure is due to poor execution, lack of discipline, or not following processes and procedures. Help your team by painting a picture of what good failure looks like. Find a recent example and do a post-mortem analysis by showing how the initiative:
Was aligned with strategic priorities
Was based on a clear hypothesis
Was a controlled experiment with defined parameters
Produced a documented learning
Informed future decisions
The next step is to measure the proportion of failures that meet these criteria.
Sample metrics might include:
% of failed projects with clear hypotheses
% of failed projects that produced specific, documented learnings
Estimated resource savings from ideas invalidated early
Time saved by early no-go decisions compared to traditional project lifecycles
3. Reward Learning Behaviors, Not Just Outcomes
Traditional performance reviews reward outcomes: sales targets met, product launches delivered, efficiency increased. These metrics reinforce predictabilitywhich is essential for operations but corrosive to innovation.
To incentivize smart failure, organizations must introduce behavior-based performance metrics tied to learning and experimentation.
Examples include:
Number of experiments initiated or proposed
Willingness to challenge outdated assumptions or raise contrarian ideas
Speed of testing a new ideahow quickly a team can test, learn, and adapt
Cross-functional collaboration and knowledge-sharing
One technique Ive used is integrating a Learning Objectives section into performance goals. Employees must identify one or two areas where they will experiment, explore, or test new approachesand leaders evaluate how intentionally and transparently they learn from the results.
Behavior-based metrics shift attention from Did you succeed? to How did you learn, and what value did that learning create?
4. Build Transparency Into the System: Share Failures Publicly with Leaders as Role Models
For failure to be normalized, it must be visible and leaders must be role models showing how it leads to learning and growth.
Examples of transparency-building mechanisms:
Town Hall or All Hands Meetings where the leader dedicates 15 minutes of the agenda to allow an employee to share a story of failure and learning (leaders can share their stories, too)
Monthly Lessons Learned Roundtables where teams briefly share one failed experiment and one insight
A digital Failure Dashboard highlighting experiments run, hypotheses tested, learnings extracted, and next steps
Internal newsletters profiling teams who tried something bold, failed smart, and moved the organization forward
Metrics here can include:
Number of learnings shared across business units
Participation rates in roundtables or learning forums
Cross-team adoption of insights
Repeat failure rate (a powerful metricif it decreases, organizational learning is improving)
5. Make Failure Economically Visible: Track the ROI of Learning
We talk a lot about Return on Investment (ROI) of new projects. Similarly, the most important, and most neglected step is quantifying the Return on Failure (ROF).
Leaders know that invalidating a bad idea quickly is just as valuable as scaling a good idea. In many cases, its more valuable. Early failure prevents wasted resources, prevents misaligned investments, and accelerates strategic focus.
Organizations can track:
Cost savings from early project termination
Time-to-decision (how fast the organization can rule in or rule out an idea)
Increase in pipeline throughput (better quality ideas lead to more opportunities making it to market)
Portfolio health metrics (percentage of projects in exploratory vs. execution mode)
The Cultural Shift: From Fear to Learning and Growth
The goal is not to create a workplace where failure is unbounded or unexamined. The goal is to create a workplace where learning is measured, rewarded, and operationalized.
When failure is treated as datanot deficiencyorganizations accelerate innovation, attract bolder thinkers, and build resilience into their strategy. They become more adaptive, mre opportunistic, and more capable of navigating uncertainty.
Leaders who want sustained growth dont ask, How do we avoid failure? They ask, How do we create more opportunities to learnand how do we measure the value of that learning?
The takeaways? Start small. Measure early. Reward curiosity. Make learning visible. Treat disciplined failure as a strategic asset.
Organizations that do this consistently dont just innovatethey grow, consistently and over time. Thats what successful failure can do for your business.
When COVID-19 hit, our business came to a sudden halt. One moment our calendar was full, the next, meetings and engagements were disappearing. Companies wed worked with for years shifted their focus overnight, pouring their energy into keeping doors open and team members safe. Like so many others, we found ourselves sidelinedand facing some hard conversations.
While uncertainty hung heavy in the air, our small team was unusually open with each other. We talked candidly about the challenges, the personal toll, and what it might all mean for the business. Without setting out to do so, we had built a foundation of psychological safetyone that made navigating a global crisis far less stressful than it might have been otherwise. We questioned our plans, admitted what we didnt know, and challenged each other with care. And in doing so, we learned something thats shaped how I work ever since: Psychological safety isnt a climate to be fostered when things are easy; its an operating condition that must be designed into the teams DNA for when things get hard. The true test isnt harmony, its conflict. Its about making it safe enough for people to be uncomfortableto disagree, to challenge the status quo, and to admit when theyve failed.
Gartner found that highly psychologically safe teams identify and address critical issues 15% faster. And while many people understand the concept, far fewer know how to make it real when trust declines and tension rises. Too often, its treated as a passive state instead of an active practice. The difference between the two is simple: A climate is a vibe, but an operating condition is a blueprint.
So, how do you move from a vague aspiration to a daily practice? It all starts with putting psychological safety first. Whether or not you manage people, each of us influences how safe it feels to speak up. Here are three ways to embed psychological safety into daily work, at any level:
MAKE DISAGREEMENT PART OF NORMAL WORK
Psychological safety has to be embedded into the way work gets done, not just something you hope people embody. That responsibility doesnt sit solely with managers. Anyone can help shape norms around how ideas are challenged, discussed, and improved.
When I start working with someone new, I hold a candid one-on-one conversation to set mutual expectations. I might say, My promise to you is transparency and a willingness to provide proactive feedback. You can also expect me to ask for your ideas and input on every major decision. Then I turn it over to them and ask, What do you need from me to feel successful and able to do your best work? This simple act changes the dynamic, communicating that their voice matters from the outset.
Once expectations are clear, safety can be operationalized through everyday rituals. For example, instead of presenting a plan for approval, introduce a new idea by asking people to poke holes in it. This isnt an invitation to complain, but a specific, constructive task. People are naturally good at identifying risks and blind spots, and this reframes that critical eye as a valuable contribution. Even without formal authority, you can model this by asking better questions in meetings, inviting alternative perspectives, or naming risks others may be hesitant to raise.
SHIFT FROM ANSWERING TO FACILITATING
Even with the best intentions, our behaviors can unintentionally undermine psychological safety. One of the most common mistakes is jumping in too quickly to solve a problem. Many of usespecially those seen as experienced or go-to peopleare conditioned to have the answers. When someone brings a challenge, the impulse is to immediately provide a solution. But doing so can unintentionally signal, My ideas are more valuable than yours.
The fix? Instead of being the problem-solver, become the problem-solving facilitator. Your opportunity, regardless of role, is to create space for dialogue rather than rushing to be the smartest voice in the room. When someone raises a concern, try asking a question instead of offering a solution. It signals curiosity, respect, and trust.
Facilitation also means reading the room: paying attention to whats being said and what isnt. You might say, I can sense this decision is making you uncomfortable. Lets talk about whats behind that. Or, Lets consider this from all angles. What might be missing? These moments of curiosity build trust and surface insights that wouldnt emerge in a more top-down exchange. Over time, this changes the dynamic from quiet compliance to shared ownership.
USE FAILURE TO FUEL LEARNING
One of the fastest ways psychological safety breaks down is when we cant learn from our mistakes. After any project or experimentsuccessful or notI incorporate a simple set of questions into debriefs: Whats working? Whats not working? What did we learn? What would we do differently next time? This shifts the focus from blame to learning and makes reflection a core output, not an afterthought.
Even when youre not running the meeting, you can reinforce this mindset by asking these questions yourself and inviting others into reflection. When failures are treated as data rather than personal shortcomings, people stop hiding missteps and start sharing insights that make everyone better.
When psychological safety becomes a baseline operating condition, new possibilities open up. People take calculated risks because they know their ideas are valued and that missteps wont be punished, but used for learning. The team moves faster, decisions get stronger, and accountability becomes shared instead of feared.
If you live in Seattle and work at Amazon or Meta in nearby Bellevue, you probably drive to work. But by the end of next month there will be another option for commuters: the worlds first light rail line running on a floating bridge.
Right now, drivers cross Lake Washingtonthe long lake between Seattle and eastern suburbs like Bellevueuse one of three floating bridges. Conventional bridges arent feasible because of the depth and width of the lake, which is why the bridges were originally built with pontoons instead. Adding a rail line to one of them meant that designers needed to innovate in multiple ways.
A 4-car train crosses the I-90 floating bridge during the day on December 18, 2025. [Photo: Sound Transit]
First, since the bridge doesnt have columns like a typical bridge, it moves. Its like a ship thats been anchored to the floor of the lake, says Brian Holloway, deputy director of engineering oversight at Sound Transit, the local transit agency. Near each end of the bridge, where the floating section connects to fixed parts of the bridge over land, hinge-like expansion joints let the bridge move as the water level changes or wind and waves slightly shift the structure.
Driving over the bridge in a car, you dont notice the changes as the expansion joints move. But those geometric changes would have a very significant effect on rail, says Matthew Barber, a supervising engineer working on the project at WSP. To make light rail feasible, engineers designed a new solution: track bridges that support a section of rail on a structure with bearings that let the bridge move freely while keeping the rail steady. The rail bends in a very smooth way, Barber says.
Workers prepare forms and pour concrete for the light rail track plinths on the I-90 floating bridge for the 2 Line Link connection to Seattle on September 4, 2024. [Photo: Sound Transit]
The bearings are normally used in seismic retrofits in buildings. Almost all the pieces on the floating bridge are not unique, says Holloway. They’re just being assembled in a different way.
Weight was another challenge, since the pontoons that float the bridge werent designed to hold light rail. To help with that, the design uses thousands of ultra-lightweight concrete blocks to support the rail, using a mix developed and tested in a partnership with the University of Washington. The rail itself is a little shorter and lighter than typical rail to save more weight. When the rail was installedreplacing a former carpool lanethe team also removed a heavy concrete barrier at the edge of the former lane. All of this meant that the bridge could handle the extra weight.
An unpowered LRV is pushed and then towed across the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge (I-90). [Photo: Sound Transit]
On a normal bridge, installing rail would normally involve drilling, but the team didnt want to risk drilling into the pontoons, which have to stay watertight. Instead, they used a special high-strength adhesive to attach the concrete blocks to the bridge. Since the bridge hadnt originally been designed to carry electric light rail, engineers had to also find a way to protect it from stray current that could potentially damage the structure. The design now has multiple redundant solutions to avoid that risk.
The setting is unusual, since floating bridges are only used in specific conditions. (Norway’s fjords, for example, could potentially also use floating bridges.) But it’s possible that the design solutions could eventually be replicated in some other areas, including another bridge across Lake Washington in Seattle.
The Mercer Island 2 Line Station on October 22, 2024. [Photo: Sound Transit]
Even beyond the floating bridge, the new seven-mile stretch of light railfrom downtown Seattle to the southern end of Bellevuerequired several creative new solutions. That included finding a new way to strengthen an overpass for earthquake safety, and reusing part of a former bridge to create access to a new train station in one neighborhood. Every inch of the seven miles has examples of never-been-done-before, creative, resourceful designs, Barber says. (All of this should go unnoticed by users, like any good civil engineering.)
On a recent test ride, he says that going over the bridge was some of the smoothest track Ive ever experienced, as a daily commuter on light rail. The test ride was at night, so there wasnt much traffic on the neighboring highway.
A dead car pull on the East Link Extension between Bellevue and Mercer Island across the East Channel Bridge on October 29, 2024. [Photo: Sound Transit]
But he imagined it at rush hour. Tens of thousands of people are expected to ride the train daily, eliminating an estimated 230,000 vehicle miles traveled per day. It was cool to be cruising along next to the cars, he says. And I can anticipate that when this opens, there will be lots of commuters on the train who will be zooming past folks who are stuck in traffic in a very satisfied way.
Last week, a new piece of public art appeared outside of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) headquarters, located in Romes Piazza Lauro de Bosis. The graffiti centers an image of an Olympic ski jumper sailing through the air, while, from below, an ICE agent in a tactical vest points a gun directly at the jumpers heart. Above the scene, the Olympic Rings are featured, with a twist: the red ring has been reimagined as the bleeding crosshairs of a deadly weapon.
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The art was created by Laika, a self-described activist and graffiti artist based in Rome. In an interview with the publication ANSA English, she explained that the art was an act of protest in the wake of an announcement from U.S. officials that Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officers would be part of the American security detail at the Olympics. The announcement came just weeks after ICE agents shot and killed Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti amidst ongoing protests in that city.
Reports that ICE agents would appear at the Olympics surfaced in late January, and were met with confusion, outrage, and wide-spread protests from Italian citizens. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security clarified in a statement to the AP on January 26 that the agents in question would not be part of ICEs immigration enforcement operations, but rather from its Homeland Security Investigations branch, which frequently travels overseas to events like the Olympics to assist with security. Still, Italian citizens and Olympic attendees are continuing to speak out against ICE in solidarity with both the people of Minnesota and Americans at large.
Laika is one of many Italian citizens who have taken to using artwork as a form of protest against ICEs presence at the Olympics. Here are three examples of the most powerful work so far.
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No ICE in Milano
On January 31, hundreds of protesors gathered in Milans Piazza XXV Aprile (a central square) to voice their dissent against ICE. In the crowd, dozens of people held aloft the same sign: an image of the Olympic Rings, reimagined as colorful handcuffs, captioned with the phrase, No ICE in Milano.
The signs appear to have been designed and distributed by the group I Sentenilli di Milano, an organization dedicated to supporting the queer community and advocating against fascism.
The disturbing images coming from the United States add to the horror of other places in the world where human rights have been trampled on, the organizers wrote in a caption on Instagram, adding, That’s why the Sentinelli with many other democratic realities are waiting for you in the square on Saturday. Come with a whistle.
At the protest, another organizer named Alessandro Capella, head of the Italian Democratic Party’s Milan chapter, told NPR, “It’s not just for the Olympic games, it’s about justice in the world. We don’t want ICE here.
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ICE OUT!
Just a week afer the January 31 protest, hundreds of people once again took to the streets of Milan in an anti-ICE protest on February 6. Among them was Laika, who captioned an Instagram post of her graffiti with a call for followers to attend the gathering.
ICE OUT! the caption begins. With the Trump’s Gestapo at the Milan-Cortina Games, fundamental values of the Olympic Charter are being killed, such as solidarity and the fight against discrimination, values that affirm the principle that sport is at the service of the harmonious development of man, to promote the advent of a peaceful society committed to defending human dignity.
Laika is using her art as a direct call-out to CONI and International Olympic Committee (IOC) for failing to bar ICE agents from attending the Olympics.
“It angers me that the IOC and CONI have not taken a clear position consistent with their values, but have looked the other way, downplaying the issue as the exclusive responsibility of states and governments, she told ANSA English. “Today, the entire world of sport, and beyond, is raising its voice: there is no room for racism, violence, or those who threaten democracy.
ICE Donald Trump mural by artist aleXsandro Palombo. [Courtesy: aleXsandro Palombo]
Donald Trump as an ICE agent
Amidst the recent protests in Milan, another artist has added his own mural to the heart of the city, just minutes away from the Olympic cauldron at the Arco della Pace. The graffiti, created by Italian pop artist aleXsandro Palombo, depicts President Trump in his quintessential blue suit, wearing a red hat with the phrase ICE and a tactical vest reading POLICE ICE. In his hands, hes brandishing the Olympic Rings like a weapon.
The concept for the mural, Palombo says, came from the gap between the Olympics imagined world without barriers and the contemporary reality made of borders, controls, and exclusions.
The Olympic rings represent the last great shared utopia, the idea that humanity can recognize itself as a single community, Palombo says. The ICE uniform instead evokes the mechanisms that decide who may move, who may remain, who may be seen. Bringing these symbols together reveals the contradiction between the ideal and the real.
The physical placement of the mural brings these themes into sharper focus. Palombo chose the Bastioni di Porta Volta as the site of his work, a historic shelter formerly used by public transport staff, which has recently become an improvised refuge for many unhoused migrants. On one side of the building, he explains, is an athletic celebration of universal brotherhood, while on the other are the invisible lives of those without documents, without voice, without recognized rights.
He hopes that the work will bring these inherent contradictions to the surface of discussions around the Olympics, while also paying tribute to the American athletes who have chosen to speak out against ICE.
Within this visual tension there is also an implicit tribute to those, like many American athletes, who have chosen to use their visibility to speak out against what is broken, Palombo says. Their gesture is not only political, it is an act of responsibility toward freedom of expression. It is proof that the America we admire still exists, one willing to show itself, to take risks, to defend what is right. The message of the work is that every image of power carries responsibility, and that every symbol, even the brightest one, casts a shadow.
