Now that Halloween has come and gone, you might have wrongly assumed that candy season is over. Not if the Hershey Company anything to say about it. In fact, the sweets are just getting started.
On its first-annual holiday virtual preview this week, the confectionary company revealed four exciting new products and explained how the company is stocked and ready to make the hectic holiday season even sweeter.
Here’s what to know:
What new items does Hershey have up its sleeve?
Hershey announced four new treats that will hit shelves this holiday season:
Hersheys Kisses Snickerdoodle Cookie Candy
Kit Kat Peppermint Stick
Reese’s Mini Trees
Hersheys Grinch Milk Chocolate Bar
[Photos: Hershey]
After extensive market research, Hershey discovered that a resounding 76% of people stated they would purchase a snickerdoodle-flavored option, and Hersey is obliging with new snickerdoodle Kisses. Its the perfect topping for a cookie and theres even a recipe right on the packaging. The gold wrapper also looks delightful in a candy dish.
Research also showed that mint is a popular flavor during the winter months. To capitalize on that trend, Kit Kat bars now have a peppermint version. These come in snack size, normal size, and king size to appease all hunger magnitudes.
Meanwhile, the classic Hersheys Milk Chocolate Bars are continuing their partnership with the Grinch, Dr. Seuss’s iconic Christmas hater. Popular characters such as Cindy Lou Who, Max, and the big-hearted green guy himself are molding into the chocolate making it extra festive.
Cheerful shapes are also here to stay. Reeses Peanut Butter Trees, now available in a mini version, are a perfect tree trimming snack.
How Hershey became a confectionary powerhouse
These days, the name Hershey is almost synonymous with chocolate bars but the company actually started with caramel.
In 1886, Milton S. Hershey founded the Lancaster Caramel Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After attending the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893, Hershey fell in love with chocolate and created the Hershey Chocolate Company as a subsidiary of his original company.
In 1900, he would sell the Lancaster Caramel Company but retain the chocolate side of the business. That same year, the first Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bars were sold in an effort to make the confection affordable to the average person. Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses would make their debut seven years later.
In 1925, the Goodbar was introduced, and in 1963 Hershey acquired H.B. Reese Candy Company.
The Hershey Company today is the parent company for over 100 brands, including Jolly Rancher, Rolos, and SkinnyPop.
With a market cap of roughly $34 billion, the company reported net sales of $11.2 billion last year. And it’s not just about sweet treats. Hershey’s salty snacks unit in North America grew 10% in the third quarter of this year, generating $321 million.
It’s never too early
Hersheys is ready for the big holiday shopping rush. In the preview event, the company explained that customers shop early because they are planning ahead, want a little treat for themselves, and dont want to miss out on limited-edition items.
So if you were worried about missing the Halloween season, consider holiday sweets as just as satisfying. And as an added bonus, you get to create traditions around the confections that don’t require anything scary. Savor the sweetness of the season with Hersheys many merry offerings.
Technology stocks fell on Friday, amid fears of an AI bubble, a further drawn out federal government shutdown, and economic data that suggests consumer sentiment has fallen toward record-low levels.
That’s in addition to economic data that showed last month’s layoffs hit their highest level for Octoberin 20 years. That report, from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, also also said hiring slowed to lowest point in 14 years.
Despite strong third-quarter earnings reports, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC) was down once again, for the second consecutive day, about 1% in afternoon trading on Friday, as big Tech Stocks tumbled, closing out the week as the Index heads toward what could be its worst week since April, when the Trump Administration introduced its Liberation Day tariffs.
Chip stock Arm Holdings plc (ARM) was down 4%, while Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) fell 3%, and Al chip designer Nvidia (NVDA) was down 1%, at the time of this writing in afternoon trading, as investors worry about high valuations, and mass layoffs in the name of artificial intelligence (AI). Tesla (TSLA) was also down some 3%.
Among those sounding alarm bells is hedge fund investor Michael Burry, who runs Scion Asset Management, and is betting against both betting against both Nvidia and Palantir. According to his Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Scion bought an estimated $187.6 million in puts on Nvidia, and another $912 million on Palantir, as CNN reported. Burry has warned both companies are overvalued. (Burry famously predicted the 2008 housing market collapse, and was made famous by the 2015 film The Big Short.)
Last week Burry posted on X, “Sometimes, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play,” in what some think is his way of saying there is an AI bubble.
With Black Friday just about three weeks away, retailers and shoppers have one thing on their mindChristmas, the busiest and most profitable time of the year.
And now, with Halloween behind us, Spirit Halloween has pivoted to holiday-themed Spirit Christmas, featuring festive decor, gifts, holiday apparel, and interactive displaysincluding nutcrackers, inflatable lawn Santas, and ugly Christmas sweaters.
The retail chain, owned by Spencer Gifts, launched nearly a dozen Spirit Christmas stores throughout the Northeast in 2024.
This year, Spirit Christmas is opening 30 store locations in 12 states in the Northeast and Great Lakes area, including its flagship store in Mays Landing, New Jersey.
Those stores are in: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (see below for a full list of locations).
As for the Spirit Halloween locations, some are making the transition to Christmas themes, while others are closing down till next year.
Here are all 30 Spirit Christmas locations, according the store locator:
CONNECTICUT
Manchester, CT
Milford, CT
DELAWARE
Christiana, DE
ILLINOIS
Bloomingdale, IL
Joliet, IL
Naperville, IL
INDIANA
Fort Wayne, IN
Merrillville, IN
KENTUCKY
Lexington, KY
MARYLAND
Waldorf, MD
MASSACHUSETTS
North Attleborough, MA
Dartmouth, MA
MICHIGAN
Grand Rapids, MI
Novi, MI
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Salem, NH
NEW JERSEY
Cherry Hill, NJ
Lawrenceville, NJ
Mays Landing, NJ
Paramus, NJ
Rockaway, NJ
Toms River, NJ
NEW YORK
Amherst, NY
Bohemia, NY
Poughkeepsie, NY
OHIO
Mentor, OH
North Canton, OH
PENNSYLVANIA
Bethel Park, PA
Erie, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Whitehall, PA
On November 6, Sweetgreen announced that it was selling Spyce, its division that developed and made its Infinite Kitchen technology to automate the assembly of its bowls and salads. The acquirer is Wonder, the restaurant and mealtime superapp, as Fast Company dubbed it earlier this year.
With that, its time to eulogize Sweetgreens star-crossed life as a tech company. No more dreams of AI, blockchain, or robots.
Sweetgreen receives $100 million in cash and $86.4 million in Wonder stock, a positive return given that it acquired Spyce in 2021 for a total cost of $70 million. Wonder, which is privately held, was valued north of $7 billion in May after it raised another $600 million. Sweetgreen, which went public four years ago, has a market cap under $750 million.
After Sweetgreens disastrous Q2 2025 earnings report, I wrote that Infinite Kitchen represented the first effort by the company to use technology to solve its biggest problemoperationsrather than mere magic dust sprinkles to make the company look like something its not.
Now the companys latest earnings are worse, and it doesnt own what had felt like a competitive advantage.
A lot of other companies are trying to figure out how to add automation to their experience and are not willing to start over, Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 while showing off his first restaurant equipped with an Infinite Kitchen. Im willing to blow the whole thing up.
The question, though, is when did Neman light the fuse thats blown up Sweetgreen? Was it two years ago? Was it just November 6? Or was the bomb planted in the companys earliest days and it finally detonated? Sweetgreens stock is down another 12.5% as of Friday afternoon. (In response to queries, Sweetgreen directed me to Nemans public statements.)
In this piece, well explore:
What we still dont know about the sale of Infinite Kitchen
Whether Neman could have taken a page from Pixar or Tesla to alter Sweetgreens course
Why Neman has even harder decisions ahead to make Sweetgreen profitable
How Sweetgreens positioning as a tech company ultimately failed it
Infinite Kitchen has been working
Sweetgreen remains committed to deploying Infinite Kitchen; it opened eight restaurants in Q3 and six included the tech. More are planned for 2026.
Rather than be responsible for developing and making the systems, Sweetgreen will buy them from Wonder at cost plus 5%, which Neman said was about $25,000, putting the Infinite Kitchens cost at $500,000.
In turn, Sweetgreen promised investors that the sale will shave $8 million annually from its general and administrative expenses. Those G&A costs are high. As the veteran restaurant operator and consultant Rick Vanzura noted on LinkedIn, Sweetgreens overhead was 17.9% of sales compared with Cavas 10.8%.
But $8 million is just over 1% of expected 2025 revenues, meager savings for proprietary technology that Neman lauded again this week as having:
consistently proven its ability to deliver faster throughput, improved accuracy and consistency, and elevated food quality.
In Q3, restaurants with an Infinite Kitchen continue to realize approximately 700 basis points of labor savings and nearly 100 basis points of [cost of goods sold] improvement compared to restaurants of similar age and volume.
Why give up control of the tech driving 7% labor savings per quarter and 1% in food costs, while its improving the product itself?
Why Sweetgreen sold its big tech bet
The Occams Razor explanation appears to be that Sweetgreen really needed the money. Look at its cash on hand:
Q3 2025: $130M
Q2 2025: $168M
Q4 2021: $472M
In August, I anticipated that Sweetgreen would soon require fresh capital. I wondered whether the parties providing it would demand company control from Neman and his two co-founders in exchange.
This move cleverly sidestepped that possibility (for now) by selling the most valuable thing Sweetgreen owned that it could part with to a private company, buying Neman and company time to turn things around.
Neman still likely needs to do a more wrenching corporate restructuring that vastly reduces its overhead (read: major layoffs). The company’s new CFO reported that she’s launched a full review of the company’s restaurant expenses as well as its G&A. Well see if Neman can make some hard decisions to reinvent Sweetgreen.
The logic underpinning the Spyce sale may be irrefutable, but theres still a lot we dont know. To wit:
Whether Wonder can also license the Infinite Kitchen tech
How long Sweetgreens cost-plus deal lasts
Whether those terms also apply to future Spyce innovations
I don’t expect we’ll get direct answers but this is what investors in particular should be thinking about and monitoring.
Sweetgreens Sliding Doors moment No. 1: The Pixar path
In 1989, Pixar, six years before the debut of Toy Story, decided to sell its RenderMan technology to other companies. Pixar needed cash, especially if it was going to fulfill its vision of making feature-length computer-generated animated movies. The gambit worked. Pixar retained control of the tech, has enhanced it repeatedly over the years, and major motion pictures from other studios still rely on RenderMan.
Could Sweetgreen have decided to license the Infinite Kitchen tech to competitors rather than selling it to one and being the licensee? Doing so could have helped bring down the costs of Infinite Kitchen and spurred further innovation, as Wonder now hopes to do.
Given how hot the private markets are for robotics tech, could Sweetgreen have engineered some complex financial deal to get funding for Spyce to scale it without having to sell it? I don’t think that’s too outlandish an idea.
Alas, public market investors havent been patient with Neman (the stock is down almost 90% since it went public).
This would have been bold and visionary in 2021 after Sweetgreen acquired Spyce, r in 2023 when Neman talked of his willingness to blow the whole thing up and energized investors with the Infinite Kitchens potential.
Making that call in late 2025 when consumers appear to be cooling to bowl-based meals (the “slopcession,” or “slopapocalypse,” as it were) would have been risky. But the siren call of those labor and cost savings could have won it some customers and allowed it to control its destiny.
Sweetgreens Sliding Doors moment No. 2: The Tesla way
In 2014, Elon Musk open sourced Teslas electric vehicle patents. This, too, was a bold move for a still shaky, unprofitable company. Musk did it to accelerate the auto industrys adoption of EVs, which it did.
At the time, Teslas market cap was approximately $28 billion.
Today its $1.4 trillion.
What if Sweetgreen had open sourced Spyces patents? Would it have sparked a wave of innovation in automated restaurant tech? This is less likely than if it merely licensed systems to rivals, as the restaurant industry is far more atomized than the car business.
But the move would have been a bravura stroke that at the least would have bolstered Nemans narrative that Sweetgreen is a different kind of company.
Live by the tech narrative, die by the tech narrative
Not long after Sweetgreen went public in November 2021, Kristen Hawley, a Fast Company contributor, wrote in her food and tech newsletter, Expedite, the uncomfortable truth that salad doesnt scale like software.
Now we can confirm that restaurant automation hardware to make salads and bowls doesnt scale like software either.
Companies need a story, a vision to sell investors, media, and customers. Its why Tesla backers voted to give Elon Musk his potential $1 trillion pay package this past week. For Sweetgreen, its story has long been that this was a tech companyno, a platformthat sold healthy salads and bowls rather than a restaurant company that used tech like, um, every other restaurant chain.
I wanted to find the first instance of Sweetgreen publicly presenting itself as a tech company, and I believe it initially did so on the occasion of its 2011 Sweetlife festival thanks to a planned integration with a then buzzy social app:
We look at ourselves less as a restaurant group than a think tank, co-founder Nathaniel Ru told Mashable. Were more of tech startup than a restaurant business.
Fourteen years later, Sweetgreen is a restaurant business. Its future success will be determined by continuing to improve its operations, developing new menu items, and marketing itself as a lifestyle brand, as Neman told investors, focused on creating culture through distinct brand moments. Again, like every other restaurant chain. As I understand it, the company still has a tech team, but so does everyone else. The tech dream may die hard at Sweetgreen HQ but die it should.
In other words, the troubled companys tech Cinderella story is over. Sweetgreens enchanted digital coach has become a garden variety analog pumpkin.
Since 1818, loyal readers of the Farmers Almanac have turned to the publication for weather predictions, gardening tips, astronomy calendars, and more. But, on November 6, the Farmers Almanac announced that the 2026 edition of the magazine will be its last.
The news came through a post to the Farmers Almanac website by editor Sandi Duncan and editor emeritus Peter Geiger. It is with a great appreciation and heartfelt emotions that we write to share some sad news, the note reads. After more than 200 years of sharing a unique blend of weather, wit, and wisdom, weve made the very difficult decision to write the final chapter of this historical publication.
Per the post, readers will be able to access the Farmers Almanac website until December, and they can find the last edition of the magazine on its website, Amazon, and in certain local stores. The shuttering of this legacy publication is yet another blow to a beleaguered print media landscape.
“Tell your kids how grandad always swore by the ‘Almanac'”
The Farmers Almanac was founded by Jacob Young, a poet, astronomer, and teacher who ran the publication for 34 years. Its long-range weather predictions, which have been trusted by some American farmers over other forecasts for decades (despite the publication being notoriously cagey about how it devises said predictions), predate the creation of the National Weather Service by more than 50 years.
During its 207-year run, the Farmers Almanac has had just seven editors. Its become particularly known for its Best Days section, which offers readers suggestions on the ideal timing to garden, go fishing, kill plant pests, or even cut hair and quit smoking.
Farmers Almanac did not immediately respond to Fast Company‘s request for further details on the reasoning behind its closure, but the writing has likely been on the wall for some time now. Over the past several years, print media has become a notoriously difficult business as readers turn to digital publications and social media for their news. Print publications that have either gone fully digital or shut down entirely include O: The Oprah Magazine, Life Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, and, most recently, Teen Vogue.
Print magazines have seen something of a revival as a luxury good among young consumers in recent months, but theyre unlikely to see a return to the heyday of publications like the Farmers Almanac. Already, dedicated fans are taking to the comments of the Farmers Almanac announcement, as well as social media, to mourn the loss of the annual publication.
Oh no, I buy this every year & my friends & family call to ask if we have any storms coming! one person commented under the publications post. The Almanac is so accurate, Ill be lost without it. Another follower on Instagram wrote: This is so sad! I just got land to start growing herbs and food, and planned to get a membership just as my dad always had.
In their note to readers, Duncan and Geiger expressed their gratitude for supporters, contributors, and partners, adding that though the Almanac will no longer be available in print or online, it lives on within you.
So go aheadplant your peas when the daffodils bloom, Duncan and Geiger wrote. Watch for a red sky at night. Tell the kids how granddad always swore by the Almanac. Thats how our story stays alive.
The Trump administration isnt backing down from its refusal to fully fund the SNAP program even after being ordered to by a judge on Thursday.
The federal government asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a judges order directing the Trump administration to fully distribute Novembers SNAP benefits by the end of the day. In the U.S., 42 million people 12% of Americans rely on food stamps to buy groceries and afford food. Nearly 40% of SNAP recipients are children and another 20% are over the age of 60.
On Thursday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the government to release the full amount of federal funds for food stamps set to be distributed in November. People have gone without for too long, U.S. District Judge John McConnell said during the Thursday hearing. Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable.
On November 3, the Trump administration said in a court filing that it would pay out half of Novembers benefits to SNAP recipients, tapping into a USDA contingency fund, after being ordered to distribute funds by two federal judges.
A day later, Trump declared that SNAP benefits will only be restored after the shutdown. SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Bidens disastrous term in office will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before! Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP program on the federal level, said that it would not deploy a $6 billion contingency fund to cover the cost of food stamps, in contrast with a version of a shutdown funding plan that was later removed from its website.
SNAP contingency funds are only available to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover, benefits, a USDA memo stated in late October. The contingency fund is not available to support FY 2026 regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists.
Picking up the SNAP slack
The SNAP program has found itself on the chopping block as the federal shutdown drags on, but the Trump administration has found ways to keep other programs funded without court intervention.
In the shutdowns early days, Trump ordered the Pentagon and the White House to use all available funds to pay active-duty members of the military, avoiding the fallout of service members going unpaid. In contrast to the fight over SNAP, the White House also chose to fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, using money collected from tariffs.
The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry because of the Democrats political games, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios.
In many cities, food banks and restaurants are scrambling to pick up the slack from the lapsed food program. In Portland, one coffee shop raised over $300,000 to provide free meals to people who have seen their SNAP benefits dry up. Many other local businesses followed suit, offering free special meals for residents in need.
The USDA has warned grocery stores offering special deals for SNAP recipients that they might be breaking the law. You must offer eligible foods at the same prices and on the same terms and conditions to SNAP-EBT customers as other customers, a USDA notice confirmed by Fast Company reads. You cannot treat SNAP-EBT customers differently than any other customers.
Wendys announced plans to close a “mid-single-digit percentage” of its underperforming U.S. store locations, or 200 to 350 of some 6,000 locations, during its quarterly earnings call on Friday.
The news comes as the fast-food giant reports third-quarter profits of $44.3 million and $549.5 million in revenue, beating analyst expectations by 2.71%. The company’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at 24 cents, versus expectations of 20 cents. International business delivered strong system-wide sales growth, with international net unit growth expected to come in over 9% in 2025.
Shares in Wendy’s Co. (NASDAQ: WEN) were up about 2% in midday trading on Friday, after Wendys stock surged 11.66% in pre-market trading.
On the earnings call, Interim CEO and CFO Ken Cook said the shutterings will begin this year and continue through 2026, but did not give a list of specific locations. (Reached by Fast Company, Wendy’s declined to provide a specific number or list of locations.)
Cook said Wendy’s will approach underperforming restaurants on a case-by-case basis. He explained some current restaurants “do not elevate the brand” and are “a drag from a franchisee financial performance perspective.” The goal is to address and fix those restaurants by improving operations, through additional technology or equipment.
In other cases, closing the restaurant “will put money back in franchisees pockets and enable them to reinvest both capital and resources in their remaining restaurants.”
The bottom line: “Closures of underperforming units are expected to boost sales and profitability at nearby locations,” Cook said.
One year ago, in November 2024, Wendy’s also announced it was closing 140 “outdated” restaurants.
As artificial intelligence enters its dating era, it has taken on an increasing number of roles: cupid, wingman, even romantic interest.
Where once peoples biggest concern was being unfortunately catfished by old photos and flattering filters, now if a person seems too good to be true, well, they might not even be human at all.
Hily’s Dating App T.R.U.T.H. report surveyed 1,559 U.S. daters and found 82% of Gen Z and 87% of Millennials are already turning to AI in their dating lives. Up to 95% also plan to use it in the future.
Just as in traditional dating, there are some double standards at play. For Gen Z, 62% say they’d be turned off if they discovered their match was using AI during the talking stage, despite being happy to use it themselves. This number increased to 70% for Millennials.
As one Gen Z dater on Hily said: Id be less attracted. Its lazy and unnecessary. Demonstrates a lack of creativity and care. Another added: It feels less authenticand also a lot less fun. Isnt dating supposed to be fun, not an imitation of the weird arms race we see in work?
The ick is understandable. It brings up questions like, if someone needs the help of AI to carry a conversation, are they even that interested? If they arent willing to put in the work, why should you? And ultimately, if you hit it off, are you falling for the person or the algorithm?
The most common uses of AI are to generate a dating app bio based on information provided and to offer suggestions for conversations. If it generated their bio, thats fineif its accurate, one Millennial dater on Hily said. But not if it made things up or used misleading photos.
Daters are burnt out from endless swiping, ghosting and a transactional dating culture. Chatfishing is one way to optimize and outsource some of the emotional labor of finding love (who said romance was dead?). After all, most have enlisted the help of the group chat in crafting a risky text or handed over full control to a friend to spice up a conversation.
Some chatfishers take things a step further, having ChatGPT conduct entire conversations. A 2025 study from Norton found six in 10 people who use dating apps believe theyve encountered at least one conversation written by AI.
Its also getting harder and harder to tell if the person youre messaging is human or bot. A 2025 preprint paper showed that human judges who spoke with both OpenAIs model GPT-4.5 and a human simultaneously, mistook the AI for a human 73% of the time.
While AI can be an effective wingman when it comes to clinching a first date, when its finally time to meet face-to-face, problems arise. Of the daters Hily surveyed, 53% of Gen Z and 66% of Millennials say theyd feel less confident on a real-life date after using AI to communicate with a match.
People tend to turn towards AI due to the fear that theyre not good enough and need to outsource to be better liked and well received, Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, relationship expert at Hily Dating App and Harvard-trained clinical psychologist, told Fast Company. This has a paradoxical effect as AI often white washes over the personality traits, uniqueness, and small touches that make them special.
And if your AI persona is smarter, wittier, and funnier than you, you are only setting yourself up for failure.
Hello again, and thank you for reading Fast Companys Plugged In.
In 2013, David Min came to Disney CEO Bob Iger with a big idea. Min, a founding partner at Disneys investment arm, Steamboat Ventures, was now head of innovation for the entire company. He had concluded that something fundamental needed to be done about Disneys relationship with the tech industry.
Wemeaning The Walt Disney Companydidn’t really have a very good reputation at the time for working with startups, he remembers. Tech accelerators such as Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars were changing how high-potential concepts got their shot at becoming thriving businesses. Min thought Disney might learn something by investing in such an accelerator.
Igers take: That idea wasnt big enough. His response to me was like, Why would we do that?we should just do it ourselves, remembers Min.
So Disney did. The entertainment and media behemoth launched its own accelerator, partnered with Techstars to get it rolling, and gave it the most logical possible name: Disney Accelerator. In 2014, it unveiled its first cohort of 11 startups.
Eleven years later, corporate accelerators within large companies are no longer such a daring notion. Actually, theyre quite common. But Disneys take on the idea has had time to grow well beyond its origin as an exercise in reputational repair.
On Wednesday, Disney Accelerator held its 2025 demo day on the Disney studio lot. The event served to introduce this years cohort of four startups: animation studio Animaj, microdrama producer DramaBox, 3D printer Haddy, and 3D projection company Liminal Space.
Bonnie Rosen and David Min [Photo: Courtesy of Disney]
The Disney employees who gathered at the studios Main Theater to watch a video presentation about this years cohort and then mingle with this years startups and alumni companies in person came from across the companys myriad enterprises, including movies, broadcasting, theme parks, cruise ships, consumer products, and beyond. They represented a fraction of the almost 600 staffers who now engage with the accelerator program year-round.
We had people all the way from facilities and maintenance to the chairman of that division coming in for this one particular company, says Disney Accelerator general manager Bonnie Rosen, whose résumé includes time at Techstars as well as a startup that was part of Disneys 2015 cohort. Those types of vertical conversations happen within each division.
More than any other long-lived Hollywood titan, Disney prides itself on being innovative to its core. Its an understandable badge of honor given that Walt Disney himself embraced advances such as the talkies, Technicolor, and TV as they came along, making each fundamental to the way his namesake company entertained the world. Today, its usually no mystery why Disney was intrigued by any given company among the 60-plus that have been through its accelerator program.
At demo day, for example, Liminal Space showed off its technology in the studios Stage One building, where the original Mouseketeers filmed The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. It projects particularly crisp, vivid 3D video that can be viewed using simple polarized glasses. It can also be interactive: One of the demos involved The Guardians of the Galaxys Rocket Raccoon bantering with attendees. Liminals system isnt currently in use at Disneys parks, but it seems like a natural.
Liminal Space’s 3D projection technology is far more impressive in person than in a flat image like this. [Photo: Harry McCracken]
As for Animaj, its what Disney itself was in the beginning: a small but ambitious animation studio. Like Toonstar, which I recently profiled, the Paris-based company has built its own software platform that uses AI to help creators figure out which stories will resonate with audiences and then expedite the process of turning them into animation. In this case, theyre stories for little kids.
Paris-based Animaj produces kid-friendly animation using its own software platform. [Photo: Courtesy of Animaj]
The vision that we have with all of our properties is to turn them into global franchises with all the different layers, Antoine Lhermitte, the companys CTO, told me. So we start on YouTube. Then we create a premium production [version] to sell to linear platforms, digital platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc. Then we layer in consumer products, and then, if the traction continues, the idea is to go to theaters. Lhermitte says hes hopeful the accelerator might lead to Animaj and Disney creating content together; the startup doesnt want to be a service provider that just licenses its software to other studios.
Then theres Haddy. At first blush, it might seem a bit of an outlier in the Disney Accelerator portfolio. The Florida-based company counts military, maritime, and furniture among the verticals its pursuing for its 3D printing technology, which tariffs have made newly enticing as a way to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. But the same factory that can crank out a 3D printed boat can also produce a full-size, real-world replica of King Louies throne from The Jungle Bookand has, as an experiment for Disneys Imagineering theme-park designers. (It took about 20 hours to print.)
Furniture 3D-printed in Haddys factory [Photo: Courtesy of Haddy]
Haddy was already working with Disney when it was invited to join this years accelerator program. The company has networked with around 200 Disney executives as a result of this association, and has found that the experience redounds to the benefit of its other businesses, and vice versa. You’re always learning, says head of sales Erin Smith. A boat that we print for Brunswick boats, for example, makes us more experienced and smarter when we print a boat for the Disney Jungle Cruise.
The fact that Haddy is well down the path of applying its technology to fields not at all tied to its Disney association reflects the accelerators investment strategy, which has evolved over time. At first, it focused on early-stage startups and offered each one a standard $120,000 investment (the same figure once offered by Y Combinator). Eventually, however, Disney concluded that it was better off striking bespoke deals with growth-stage startupsones whose future wouldnt be overly skewed by Disneys stake and the potential to sign up the company as a customer.
These further-along businesses arent reliant on Disney for the health of their business development pipelines, says Min. Disney is a pillar of what they’re trying to accomplish, but it’s one of many things, and we encourage that.
Which is not to say that even startups that are already booming cant benefit from being well-connected at Disney. ElevenLabs is best known for its ability to turn real peoples voices into uncannily accurate synthesized speech. When it joined the accelerators 2024 program, it had fewer than 100 employees but was already a unicorn. Now its at 350 people and is still hiring, and the contacts its made within Disney remain valuable. Sports, film, TVwe’re talking to all of them, because each of those divisions could use our product in so many different ways, says head of partnerships Dustin Blank. The conversations are always super interesting.
In one case, the accelerator welcomed a company was already a venerated institution, an unorthodox arrangement that seemed to have worked out well for all involved. When Epic Gamesthe creator of Unreal and the game development platform based on itjoined the 2017 Disney Accelerator program, it was more than 25 years old and on the cusp of releasing something called Fortnite. The massive multiplayer game went on to truly epic success. In 2024, the two companies announced a partnership involving Disney taking a $1.5 billion stake in Epic and collaborating with it on new games based on Disney franchises.
Like anyone investing in startups, Disney aims to see a financial return from its accelerators portfolio. It also clearly sees the potential to apply some of the technologies it learns about to keep its many businesses growing. (CFO Hugh Johnston spoke as part of the demo days video, during a presentation that name-checked the companys cofounder and original bean counter, Roy O. Disney, almost as often as his younger brother.) Mins original goal of bolstering the companys perception among techies remains crucial as well.
Yet another goal is allowing Disney to help shape the future of technology. Consider robotics, a hot topic at the moment that Rosen mentions when I ask her about emerging technologies that Disney Accelerator cares about (besides AI, of course). She notes the challenges a free-range Disney bot faces, such as safely weaving its way around theme-park visitors and food carts. But she also says the company might make a contribution to figuring out how to make robots more personable.
It’s that personality part where Disney creatives are uniquely positioned to [initiate] a real momentum shift in how robotics are thought about, she says. Those are areas that are very exciting, and we wouldn’t look at them in the same way that the broader market is.
Given that the company happens to have more than 60 years of eperience in getting humans to bond with robotsdating to when Disneyland got its Enchanted Tiki Room and Mr. Lincoln first read the Gettysburg Address at the 1964 New York Worlds Fairits not an idle claim. And its one no mere stripling of a startup can match.
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When fewer people belong to unions and unions have less power, the impact goes beyond wages and job security. Those changes can hurt public health and make people more unhappy.
Were economists who research labor and health issues. Those are two of the main findings of studies that we have conducted.
More unionization, more happiness
In the first study on this topic that we published in 2023, we found that increasing levels of union membership tends to make working-class people happier.
We zeroed in on a question in the General Social Survey, which the University of Chicago makes available. It asks respondents to choose whether they are very happy, somewhat happy or not at all happy with their life.
We found that, from 1993 to 2018, when the share of workers in counties along the borders of states with and without right-to-work laws who belong to unions rose by 1 percentage point, the average level of happiness for low-income residents moved 15% closer toward being very happya seemingly modest but noticeable change.
Right-to-work laws let workers skip paying union dues when theyre employed by a company that has negotiated a contract with a labor union. In states without right-to-work laws, those dues are mandatory. As a result, right-to-work laws weaken unions ability to negotiate better working conditions and reduce the share of workers who belong to unions.
But a higher rate of union membership didnt significantly affect the happiness of higher-income people.
Right-to-work laws
The first right-to-work laws were adopted by states in the 1940s. After a long lull, the pace picked up around 2000. These laws were in force in 26 states as of late 2025.
Four of those states made the switch between 2001 and 2015: Oklahoma in 2001, Indiana in 2012, Michigan in 2012 and Wisconsin in 2015. We used data collected in these four states to conduct what is known in economics as an event studya research method that provides before-and-after pictures of a significant change that affects large numbers of people.
Michigan repealed its right-to-work law in 2024, but our data is from 2001-2015, and Michigan became a right-to-work state during that period and remained one for the rest of that time.
Less unionization, more opioid overdoses
In a related working paper that we plan to publish in an upcoming edition of an academic journal, we looked into other effects of right-to-work laws. Specifically, we investigated whether, as more states adopted those laws, the gradual decline in union strength those statutes produce was contributing to an increase in opioid overdoses.
We used a research technique called the synthetic control method to assess whether declining union power has affected the number of opioid overdoses.
We drew our data from a variety of sources, including the Treatment Episode Data Set, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Multiple Cause of Death database, the Census Bureaus Current Population Survey, the union membership and coverage database, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illness and Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries.
We found that both fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses increased within six years of the enactment of right-to-work laws in all four of the states we studied.
We primarily found a connection between opioid overdoses and right-to-work laws among men and male teens between ages 16 and 64making them of working agewith dangerous jobs, such as roofing or freight moving, and little job security. They were people who tend to feel more job stress because they dont have control over their work tasks and schedules.
We didnt observe those same results for women or deaths from non-opioid drugs, such as cocaine.
Lower levels of unionization are linked to weaker job security and reduced workplace protections, previous research has shown. Our work suggests these factors may play a role in increasing demand for opioids.
Declining union membership
The share of U.S. workers who belong to unions has fallen by half in the past four decades, declining from just over 20% in 1983 to a little under 10% in 2024.
Because unions advocate for better and safer working conditions, they can raise wages and living standards for their members. Interestingly, some of these benefits can also extend to people who dont belong to unions.
An opioid use disorder crisis has devastated communities across the U.S. for more than 25 years. The death toll from drug overdoses soared from 17,500 in 2000 to 105,000 in 2023. The number of overdose deaths did fall in 2024, to about 81,000, but it remains historically high. Most fatal drug overdoses since te crisis began have been caused by opioids.
Throughout this crisis, government policies have focused largely on reducing the supply of prescription opioids, such as OxyContin, and illegal opioids, especially fentanyl, distributed outside the health care system.
Causes of despair
Despite successful interventions to shut down pill millsclinics that prescribe opioids without a valid medical reasonand expand access to prevention and treatment, drug overdoses remain a leading cause of death.
And we believe that our findings support results from earlier studies that determined despair is not just an emotional or biological reactionit can also be a response to social and economic conditions.
We are continuing to research the connections between union membership and public health. The next question we are working on is whether a decline in union membership can have a multigenerational impact, going beyond the workers employed today and affecting the lives of their children and grandchildren.
Samia Islam is a professor of economics at Boise State University and Kelly Chen is an associate professor of economics at Boise State University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
