The Mozilla Corporation, maker of the popular Firefox web browser, has announced the appointment of a new CEO
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, general manager of Firefox, will become top boss at a time when Mozilla is trying to rebrand itself as the worlds most trusted software company.
Heres why and what you need to know about Mozillas new CEO.
Who is Anthony Enzor-DeMeo?
As of today, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo is Mozilla Corporations new chief executive officer.
However, while his position may be new, his involvement with Mozilla is not. Enzor-DeMeo was previously the general manager of Firefox, which is Mozilla’s most well-known product.
Under Enzor-DeMeos management, the Firefox browser saw double-digit growth on mobile over the past two years, the company revealed in a press release.
It also added AI features, including Shake to Summarize, which lets an iPhone user simply shake their device to get Firefox to summarize a web page. More recently, under Enzor-DeMeos management, the browser also added AI window, an opt-in in-browser AI assistant.
Prior to joining Mozilla, Enzor-DeMeo was the chief product and technology officer at the fintech company Roofstock.
Enzor-DeMeo replaces Laura Chambers, who served as Mozillas interim CEO for the past two years. Chambers will stay on at Mozilla, returning to her role on the board of directors.
Announcing Enzor-DeMeos promotion to CEO, Mozilla president Mark Surman said, Anthony understands that trust is more than a brand promise, its something you earn through how products are built, how data is handled, and how clearly users understand whats happening. Thats the future were building toward.
Trust in the AI era
Indeed, trust in a world of AI seems to be the main name of the game at Mozilla under Enzor-DeMeos leadership.
The browser is AIs next battleground,” he said in a statement. “Its where people live their online lives and where the next eras questions of trust, data use, and transparency will be decided.”
He added that users “want software that feels modern and helpful, but also honest about what it does.”
In a blog post, Enzor-DeMeo said that under his leadership, Mozilla will work on becoming the trusted software company in an era where many are losing trust in Big Tech companies due to their opaque policies around AI.
Mozilla, Enzor-DeMeo says, will accomplish this by giving users agency in every product the company builds.
Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable,” he said. “Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choicesomething people can easily turn off.
In addition to building trust, Enzor-DeMeo says another goal of Mozilla is to grow Firefox from a browser to a broader ecosystem of trusted software.
According to November 2025 data from Statcounter, Firefox is currently in fourth place in the global browser market share rankings.
Googles Chrome leads the way with more than 71% market share, followed by Apples Safari at above 14%.
Microsoft Edge comes in third place at just below 5% market share, and Mozillas Firefox comes in fourth place with 2.3% global market share.
Weight-loss giant Weight Watchers is relaunching itself for the Ozempic era. Six months after completing a Chapter 11 restructuring, the company is rolling out a revamped app and digital platform, a reimagined digital coaching experience, and a new brand identity.
Its even bringing back its old, two-word name, Weight Watchers. (The company had changed its name to WW in 2018 and later styled itself WeightWatchers.)
Weight Watchers pitch: Any telehealth company can get you a GLP-1 prescriptionincluding Weight Watchers itselfbut Weight Watchers has unique programs to keep you healthy and on track. Those offerings include coaching, fitness classes, and a menopause-care program that launched in September with Queen Latifah as its spokesperson.
Weight Watchers has also created a new digital experience that will start rolling out globally on December 26. It includes an AI body scanning feature and what the company calls a Weight Health Score to help members reach a health goal beyond just shedding pounds.
It’s always been obvious to us that we needed to show up differently as Weight Watchers in this next chapter, and that’s how we look, how we feel, how we speak, but also what we offer, says Tara Comonte, who took over as CEO in September 2024.
Comonte, her senior leadership team, and the branding agency which created its new identity tell Fast Company exclusively:
How new AI technology lets users focus on more than “a number on the scale”
What chief experience officer Julie Rice brought with her from SoulCycle that’s reimagining Weight Watchers’ coaching product
Why the cofounders of the creative agency Mrs&Mr sought inspiration from Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch
What Comonte hopes the rebrand achieves across the company’s product offerings
[Image: Weight Watchers]
A new era for Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers has had a tumultuous couple of years. As GLP-1s began upending the weight loss industry, former CEO Sima Sistani pivoted the company into telehealth and began offering GLP-1 prescriptions.
Tara Comonte [Image: Weight Watchers]
Following its acquisition of digital health platform Sequence, Weight Watchers launched a service offering virtual access to physicians who can prescribe GLP-1s. Sistani also apologized for the companys role in toxic diet culture. But Weight Watchers struggled to find its footing in a crowded telehealth market. With the stock trading at less than $1 a share last fall, Comonte was tapped to right the ship. (After serving as interim chief, she was appointed CEO in February 2025.)
Comonte, who previously served as CEO of fertility tech company TMRW Life Sciences, oversaw Weight Watchers restructuring. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in May in a prepackaged deal with lenders that helped it reduce its $1.5 billion debt load by more than 70%.
Weight Watchers ended the third quarter of this year with 124,000 clinical subscribers, up 60% year over year. Clinical revenue grew 35% to $26 million. At the same time, the company recorded a 20% drop in subscribers to its traditional behavioral and coaching programs, from 3.6 million to 2.9 million people. Revenue for those programs dropped 16% to $145 million.
Julie Rice [Image: Weight Watchers]
Alongside SoulCycle cofounder Julie Rice, who joined as Weight Watchers chief experience officer in August, Comonte is on mission to drive behavioral subscriptions by communicating Weight Watchers larger suite of solutions to consumers who are being bombarded with ads for weight loss medication.
Comonte wants to help members piece together a more personalized health journey and persuade GLP-1 users that theres value in Weight Watchers expansive offerings.
Its been a siloed experience for members, which is often the case when companies make acquisitions. Things kind of get bolted on, says Comonte. She describes the new member experience as a very integrated one, where members can access the best of the tools and programming that Weight Watchers offers, whether it’s on medication, off medication, thinking about medication, perimenopausal, or menopausal.
AI body scans and Weight Health Scores
Under the rebrand, the companys dedicated GLP-1 medical progam, formerly known as WeightWatchers Clinic, is now called Weight Watchers Med+ and comes with a built-in lifestyle program, GLP-1 Success.
The program provides access to coaches and virtual community groups. Members receive nutrition advice, strategies for managing the side effects of medication, and fitness plans to help build muscle even as they shed weight. (GLP-1 Success is also available as a standalone option.)
Kim Boyd [Image: Weight Watchers]
Under the direction of Chief Medical Officer Kim Boyd, who joined the company in June, Weight Watchers is adding an AI-powered body scanning function to track changes in fat and muscle.
We’ve partnered with a vendor that has really cool new technology that lets us not just look at the number on the scale, but get a much more robust picture, Boyd says. [Were] thinking about body composition, lean muscle mass retention, which is really important in any weight loss journey, but especially when people are on GLP-1 medications.
In addition, Weight Watchers is introducing something it calls Weight Health Score, which draws on body composition as well as things like nutrition, activity, and sleep, using data from connected fitness devices and health apps. (The company has expanded the devices and apps its software can connect with.)
This will give members a sense of their progress towards their health goals, along with actionable advice, like getting more sleep or eating certain foods during parts of the menstrual cycle.
With the Weight Health Score, we’re pulling in all of this data from their wearables, from their tracking patterns, from their food choices, and putting it into one metric that lets people know how they are doing with the actions that they take, Boyd says.
Members will also have access to virtual fitness classes through partnerships with Pvolve, a low-impact strength-training company, and the Lifted Method, a program that combines strength training and mindfulness practices.
On the digital platform, members will be able to select from three pathways. One, called All-In Mode, is designed to help members lose weight quickly. Lose Mode is most similar to Weight Watchers classic program and helps members develop habits that lead to consistent weight loss. Maintain Mode, helps veterans of the first two programs maintain their results and stay connected to other members and their coach.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Introducing the Coach Creator
Comonte says Weight Watchers is still committed to in-person meetings, which represent the majority of the 20,000 meetings a month that it runs. But the company is expanding its roster of digital programs and coaches.
In many ways, the digital experience can be even more intimate, says Rice, who oversees the companys new community offerings. Taking inspiration from her experience scouting instructors at SoulCycle, Rice has identified younger, fresher, social media-savvy personalities to become what she terms Coach Creators for Weight Watchers.
Rice joined the company after Weight Watchers acquired Peoplehood, the community wellness platform that she cofounded with Elizabeth Cutler, her SoulCycle cofounder. Peoplehood launched in 2023 with the goal of providing group therapy sessions to help attendees get better at relationships, but soon pivoted to become a support group for users of GLP-1s.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Under Rice, Weight Watchers new coach-creators lead meetings, as well as offer tips, webinars, and lessons that users can access a la carte. They are also encouraged to post relatable content on social media.
One example of a coach-creator is Olivia Ward, who won the 11th season of The Biggest Loser reality TV series in 2011. Ward had been a Weight Watchers member on and off in the ’90s before going on the show. (Growing up, she had also watched her mother attend Weight Watchers meetings.)
The Atlanta-based Ward became a SoulCycle instructor before operating her own weight-loss coaching service with her sister. When Rice joined Weight Watchers, she brought both Ward and her sister on. Ward, who has been taking GLP-1 medication for the past three years, regularly shares posts about her life, outfits, and meal prep to her 28,000 followers on Instagram.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Ward says shes ready to bring members into her life. I don’t ever want a weigh-in in the bathroom, because that feels cliché to me. So I’m going to do grop weigh-ins in my closet, she says. People are going to see my messy closet, all my stuff hanging out, and we’re going to take a moment to ground ourselves, get on the scale together, and then go into a group discussion.
The content that I’m hoping to create is something that feels useful, tangible, relatable, and honest, Ward says.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
A joyful rebrand
To refresh its visual identity, Weight Watchers tapped Kate and Daniel Wadia, cofounders of creative agency Mrs&Mr.
They leaned into Weight Watchers traditional blue color in a bid to appeal to legacy members who may have felt whiplash from the recent series of rebrands. The agency also drew inspiration from the books and marketing materials published by Jean Nidetch, the Queens housewife who founded Weight Watchers in 1963. She was just a powerhouse, Daniel Wadia says.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
One of Mrs&Mrs big changes was reverting back to an upper-case font for the company. Weight Watchers had migrated to a lower case font, over the years, says Daniel. We love the fact that the origins were in this really proud, slender, tall, unifying upper case font. The simplicity of it just really spoke to us.
Central to the rebrand are campaigns focused on the success stories of existing membersa different approach from hiring a celebrity spokesperson like Oprah to sell memberships.
The Wadias worked with photographer Cameron McNee to shoot existing members for its latest campaign. The art direction is very editorial. It’s clean, it’s pared-back. We wanted to remove any distractions and place full focus on the members, so they could just shine, Daniel says. The campaign also features stories of members on GLP-1s to reduce the stigma around taking medication.
The brand feels joyful. I hope that people begin to feel more comfortable to say that they are on different types of weight loss journeys, because people are getting healthier and they should feel proud of it, Daniel says.
[Image: Weight Watchers]
Beyond prescriptions
Getting clinical members to take advantage of the companys community and coaching offerings is one of the main goals of the rebrand, says Comonte. While we have people cross-pollinating across all different parts of the [Weight Watchers] ecosystem, its not a huge number today. Were looking to build it up, she says.
Conveying the scope of this ecosystem is crucial to getting Med+ members to stick with Weight Watchers beyond prescriptionsand key to distinguishing the company from other telehealth providers, like Ro and Hims & Hers.
Weight Watchers has spent six-plus decades building unified programming and a unified platform that is wildly differentiated, says Comonte. This is not just another telehealth business, far from it.
President Trump just signed an executive order attempting to block states from regulating AI an unprecedented step that would strip states of the ability to protect their residents at a moment of extraordinary technological volatility. This move is overwhelmingly unpopular (polling has found that Americans oppose AI moratoriums by a 3-1 margin), and certain to be litigated in the courts. But it is also likely to achieve the exact opposite of its stated goalsdeepening mistrust and slowing AI adoption at a time when America wants to win the global AI race.
We know because weve been here before. America has seeded many technological revolutions over the years, from electricity to automation to the internet. And in each of them we see a clear pattern: State-led regulation doesnt slow growth. It spurs it.
If President Trump sincerely wants America to lead in the AI race, he should look to our nations past. Technologies that defined American leadership became safer, more trusted, and more widely adopted because states helped set guardrailsnot because Washington preempted them.
Regulation paves the way
When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, carmakers prioritized speed and sales over safety. Predictably, fatalities soaredover 33 deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 1913, compared to just 1.6 per 10,000 today. But then commonsense regulation met the moment: California launched its DMV, which became the mechanism for identifying and tracking both cars and drivers (1915), Massachusetts required auto insurance (1927), and by the mid-1930s, 24 states mandated drivers licenses.
These rules did not deter innovation; they made it safer and more sustainable. Innovations like seat belts (1949) and airbags (standardized in the late 1980s), and taillights (by the 1930s, two taillights became standard in the United States) dramatically reduced fatalities, catalyzing safer, more trusted, and universally-used automotive technology.
And in fact, the American auto industry flourished. By 1950, U.S. automakers produced more than three-quarters of all cars in the world, and General Motors remained the worlds largest automaker from 1931 to 2008. Safe, reliable cars didnt just replace existing modes of transportation, they made new things possible: lower-cost interstate trucking, suburbs, mobile economies, and a booming manufacturing revolution. Clear rules of the road applied to anyone who sold a car in the U.S., whether made at home or in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere.
In short, automakers dominated from Detroit to overseas markets because regulation provided predictability for investors, confidence for consumers, and pressure for safer, smarter innovation.
Now, the frontier is digital
Weve experienced over 50 years of disruption and advancement in digital technology, yet foundational guardrails remain almost entirely absent. In this vacuum, tech companies have optimized for max engagement, not ethicsfueling a youth mental health crisis and dramatically eroding our information ecosystem by prioritizing conflict over truth. Startups, wary of reputational and legal risks, and deep-pocketed incumbents like Meta, are retreating into safer B2B offerings instead of consumer-facing breakthroughs. Investors are navigating uncertainty, making bets on products that could be banned or devalued dramatically overnight at the mercy of an individual judges ruling who may know little about technology.
As we accelerate into the AI era at warp speed, we are doing so with a set of digital-era guardrails that are outdated, piecemeal, and in most cases, nonexistent by design.
Where were going, we still need roads
Just as automobile regulations guided innovation toward safety and scale, AI needs a parallel set of protections.
Cars have mandatory seat belts and airbags; AI systems should have safety standards and harm-mitigation features. Cars have child car seat tethers and safety locks; AI should include comparable safeguards for vulnerable users. Just as vehicles must undergo crash tests, major AI models should be subject to basic auditing before deployment. And just as cars require insurance to manage and price risk, AI liability should be clarified, distributed, and broadly understood.
Just as critical, state-level leadership should be welcomed and followed. Local experimentation builds the practical frameworks that federal law can later scale, and is as essential now as it was in the 1920s.
And the market itself is already signaling the need for this transparency. As Anthropic president Daneila Amodei recently put it, No one says, We want a less safe product. He likened the companys disclosure of model failures to an automaker releasing footage of a crash-test dummy flying through a windshield. The visual is jarringbut when the result is better airbags and stronger frames, consumers trust the car more, not less. That dynamic builds markets and confidence and it makes innovation self-reinforcing.
The choice is not between growth and guardrails. Its whether America will lead on AI and govern with the predictability and clarity that fuels investment, trust, and adoptionor whether we will gamble on laissez-faire promises that history tells us never deliver.
If our goal is truly pro-growth AI, then state-led, commonsense regulation is not a roadblock. Its the on-ramp.
In recent years, organizations have launched neurodiversity and mental health initiatives with the best of intentions: to raise awareness, launch employee resource groups, and create a culture where team members embrace diverse neurotypes and learn to coexist in an ecosystem.
Yet, neurodivergent employees still tell me the same thing: they feel misunderstood as they navigate masking, burnout, and eventually leave organizations that genuinely believe theyve done their best.
So, whats missing? The gap isnt in policy or processits in our understanding of the emotional landscape inside the neurodivergent experience. Leaders may recognize ADHD or autism as concepts, but not the human realities beneath those labels.
Yes, we need workplace adjustments. But emotional accessibility, understanding how neurodivergents make sense of themselves, their late diagnoses, and their internal worlds, is what creates psychological safety.
True retention requires leadership that can speak the emotional language neurodivergents actually use. But what does that sound like when you put it into action?
Were working in an identity economy
Work is no longer just where we earn a living. Its where we look for meaning, compatibility, and emotional belonging. With rising adult ADHD and autism diagnoses, especially in among women aged 2349, many are reassessing who they are and where they fit.
Neurodivergents are gaining a more accurate understanding of how their brains and nervous systems work, what supports their well-being, and how their backgrounds shape their behavior and stress responses. And their lived experiences are shaped by unique intersections of neurotype, culture, gender conditioning, trauma history, sensory thresholds, communication style, and current life demands.
As neurodivergents gain emotional literacy about their inner world, they are also more sensitive to misattunement, and leaders who lack the nuance of neurodiverse experiences struggle to fully relate or to bring out their team members strengths.
Emotional literacy is the missing link in neurodiversity strategy
Many assume emotional literacy means naming emotions or staying calm. For neurodivergent people, its far more complex. Emotions often show up physically first: a tight chest during sensory overload, a blank mind when asked, What do you think? frustration triggered by emotionally charged discussions, shutdown after too many back-to-back meetings, or restlessness mistaken for anxiety.
These are emotional cues that can inform, but in workplaces that havent learned to recognize them, they may be missed.
Neurodivergent responses are tied to the nervous system. A fight response may be interpreted as a strong reaction, combative, or defensiveness. Flight shows up as withdrawing from contribution or needing space. Freeze tends to show up as going quiet or not being able to name thoughts or emotions. And fawn appears as people-pleasing, not necessarily agreement.
Without emotional literacy, these cues get misinterpreted. When leaders understand these adaptive responses, they can support and connect, instead of correct.
The double empathy problem still drives workplace conflict
Misunderstandings between neurodivergent and neurotypical colleagues rarely stem from a lack of empathy. They may come from different ways of communicating, interpreting tone, or sensing threat.
A manager for instance, may read directness or lack of eye contact as rudeness, when in reality its a neurodivergent colleague unmasking so they can think clearly. A neurodivergent employee might interpret vague feedback as rejection, while the manager hasnt given it much thought. A leader may perceive intensity as aggression, when the employee is simply overwhelmed. And, in an open-plan office, a colleague raising their voice at another colleague, not out of hostility but because theyre reaching meltdown, which is then followed by shame later.
Emotional literacy bridges these gaps before they escalate into conflict or disciplinary action, which, if were honest, is so condescending when applied to a fully grown adult.
Cultural intelligence (CQ) matters more than ever
Emotional literacy without cultural literacy is incomplete. Our stress responses, boundary styles, and communication rhythms are shaped by culture as much as neurotype.
A British-Asian woman may internalize distress, because it was normalized in her culture to tolerate and keep going. A Black autistic colleague may mask to avoid stereotype threat that theyve been preconditioned to expect.
The future of leadership requires the ability to read across identities and not treat neurodiversity as a single story.
So, what does emotional accessibility look like in practice?
Here are shifts that transform workplaces more than any awareness campaign:
1. Respond to nervous systems, not behaviorWhen we can see a stress response, what information can we derive from this, and how can we best support a neurodivergent employee?
2. Reduce cognitive loadProvide agendas early, enable longer processing time, and avoid rapid changeover to give the brain time to switch gear.
3. Normalize setting boundariesSo others feel safe to do the same, model phrases like:Lets slow this downI need a momentIll come back to you on this
4. Respect sensory needsNoise, lighting, heat, pace, and unpredictability all shape neurodivergent employees well-being and performance.
5. Read early signs of burnoutNotice when team members withdraw, go quiet, are slower with their responses, or increase masking, as these are signs of misalignment, long before they collapse.
6. Make emotional literacy a core leadership skillUnderstanding the emotional language of the nervous system is the prerequisite to building safe relationships. This isnt soft, it is aligned with the reality of todays workforce.
The real future of inclusion is relational
To support neurodivergent employees, organizations must move beyond awareness toward something deeper and more human: the ability to read, respect, and respond to the emotional and sensory realities of the people they lead.
Emotional literacy creates teams where neurodivergent employees dont have to pretend to feel safe, they genuinely experience it. It creates workplaces where difference becomes a source of insight, because prioritising emotional accessibility benefits every mind. Thats the shift that liberates people and transforms cultures.
As we count down to the last days of the year, we are looking ahead to what may be one of the next big work trends of 2026: shift sulking.
Read on to find out what it is, and what to know about it heading into the new year.
What is shift sulking?
“Shift sulking is the moment when hourly workers arrive already depleted because the conditions surrounding their workunpredictable schedules, inconsistent hours, and rising demandsare simply unsustainable,” says Silvija Martincevic, CEO of Deputy, a workforce management platform for hourly workers.
“Because millions of shifts run through our platform every week, Deputy sees this deep-seated strain in the data well before it makes headlines,” Martincevic adds.
According to Martincevic, if you look closely the next time youre at the grocery store, coffee shop, hospital, or convenience store, youll see it. And it’s not hard to spot: workers stretched thin, managing difficult customers and understaffed teams.
The difference between a worker who feels supported and one whos simply trying to get through the day is written on their face, she says.
What, if anything, does this tell us about the current state of the economy?
“[At a time when] 31% of U.S. workers report feeling detached, ‘shift sulking’ is a clear reminder that the strength of our economy is inseparable from the stability of the shift worker,” says Martincevic. “Thats not simply a retention challenge. Its a productivity challenge that limits our collective potential.”
According to data from Deputy, in states where stable scheduling is the norm, frontline worker happiness reaches 98%, compared to just 60% where it’s unpredictable.
And companies should be paying attention to this data, as studies show engaged workers perform better.
Why shift sulking may be one of the big workplace trends of 2026
In today’s 24/7 gig economy, more Americans are doing shift work and taking on multiple jobs, or so-called poly-employment, to make ends meet as they grapple with rising costs and higher inflation.
“We dont see shift sulking as a temporary issue; its the human cost of deeper structural friction in todays labor marketand all indicators point to it intensifying in 2026,” Martincevic says. “Businesses are operating leaner, asking teams to deliver the same output despite tighter staffing and volatile demand. That pressure falls squarely on the frontline.”
According to Deputy’s Better Together report, while AI can automate tasks and improve visibility, technology alone wont solve the problemthat demands structural change that gives workers what they want: predictable schedules, balanced workloads, and transparent communication.
When Calvin McDonald was appointed CEO of Lululemon in 2018, the activewear brand was a cult brand. But it had the potential to become a retail giant.
Chip Wilson founded Lululemon in Vancouver in 1998 as a yoga brand. When he left the CEO role in 2005, the company was generating $80 million a year. In the decade that followed, Lululemon grew steadily, boosted by the broader athleisure trend. But it was McDonaldwho previously spent five years delivering double-digit growth as CEO of Sephora Americaswho transformed Lululemon into one of the biggest clothing companies in the world.
Over the course of his seven-year tenure, McDonald more than tripled the company’s annual revenue from $2.6 billion in 2018 to $10.6 billion in 2024. (Revenue is expected to hit $11 billion this year.) He led the company’s global expansion to 30 countries; international revenue alone is now $3 billion. And he helped Lululemon become known not only for activewear, but also for apparel you could wear to the office.
Now, McDonald is on his way out. Last week, at Lululemon’s earnings call, the company announced that it was looking for a new CEO with experience in “growth and transformation“. This comes after Lululemon’s growth slowed to 10% last year from 19% the year before. There are many reasons for the company’s recent troubles, from product missteps like a widely-panned Disney collaboration to U.S. tariffs to weaker consumer spending. All of this has led Lululemon’s stock to tumble over the past two years. (Lululemon declined to comment for this story.)
But McDonald’s track record suggests that he would have been capable of steering Lululemon back to growthand the company may ultimately regret its decision to let him go.
Wilson wanted McDonald Out
What’s clear is that Lululemon’s founder, who stepped down from the role of CEO in 2005, wanted McDonald out.
Wilson has famously tried to stay involved with his company, even though he no longer has an official position. In 2013, he was forced to give up his role as board chairman after saying Lululemon’s clothes don’t work for “some women’s bodies,” which was perceived to be body-shaming. Wilson continued to make controversial comments. Last year, he drew backlash after he criticized Lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing,” adding that “you’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.”
In response to the outcry, Lululemon issued a statement distancing the company from its founder, and McDonald spoke to Fast Company about how much Lululemon had changed since Wilson’s departure.
But Wilson still has powerful influence because he remains the company’s largest individual shareholder, owning roughly 9% of shares. In October, Wilson took out a full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal outlining everything he felt was wrong at the company. Wilson wrote that Lululemon’s troubles boil down to the fact that he is no longer leading the company and has been replaced by CEOs who “speak Wall Street.” Since Wilson no longer has a seat on the board, it’s unlikely that his perspective directly affects management’s decisions about the company’s future. But the ad created a lot of buzz, and may have accelerated the decision to find a new leader.
McDonald’s Missteps Don’t Define His Tenure
To be fair, Wilson made some reasonable points in his write-up. It’s true that McDonald has taken some wrong turns in his quest for growth. There was his decision to go beyond Lululemon’s expertise in apparel and enter the fitness market. In 2020, it spent $1 billion on acquiring the smart exercise device Mirror; three years later, Lululemon stopped selling the device and fired 100 employees working on this part of the business.
Then there was what Wilson describes as the “wildly inappropriate” Disney collab. One of Lululemon’s strengths has been how judicious it is about collaborations, setting it apart from the collab-happy fashion industry. Its rare partnerships with designers have been elevated and interesting, such as the 2017 collab with Central Saint Martins and the 2019 collab with the edgy designer Roksanda Ilinèiæ. By comparison, last year’s Disney collab seemed like a naked cash-grab. Its current capsule collection with the luxury L.A.-based grocery store Erewhon similarly feels like an effort to tap into a short-term trend, rather than focus on the well-designed classic garments that consumers love.
But these mistakes don’t define McDonald’s leadership. He’s also focused on product innovation, which has always been the key to Lululemon’s success. In 2022, after years of development, Lululemon launched its own footwear line, which has been successful. As culture has moved beyond athleisure, he’s directed Lululemon’s designers to produce chic clothinglike blazers and trousersthat can be worn to the office, including the bestselling men’s ABC pant and women’s Daydrift trouser. And the company has continued to develop new fabrics, while leaning into the ones that customers love, like the buttery Nulu material in Lululemon’s best-selling Align leggings. Earlier this year, after acknowledging that some customers felt “fatigue” with the product assrtment, McDonald promised to double down on design.
Steering a $10 Billion Brand
In his ad, Wilson laid out a strategy for Lululemon to bounce back. He says the company needs to put product and brand back at the center, empower creative leadership rather than merchants looking at spreadsheets, and focus on designing for the women who dictate culture, rather than follow it. All of this is good advice, and Lululemon’s next CEO should take note. But it is also insufficient because it fails to recognize the scale of the company that Lululemon has become.
Much of Lululemon’s growth in recent years has come from its global expansion, which McDonald has steered. Mainland China has now become the company’s second largest market after the United States. Creating a brand and products that resonates across so many different markets is no small task, and it is something that Wilson never had to tackle.
The growth of this international business has been crucial to Lululemon’s continued growth, particularly because American consumers are curbing their spending. President Trump’s tariffs, which have increased the price of goods and inflation, are causing many Americans to tighten their belts. In September, Lululemon said that changes in the U.S. tax code would add roughly $240 million in expenses.
And yet Lululemon’s overall revenue is continuing to grow, thanks to the strength of its international markets. In its third quarter, Lululemon’s international revenue had grown by 33% while its U.S. revenue had declined by 2%.
McDonald has masterfully transformed Lululemon from a brand that made pricey yoga leggings into a global fashion powerhouse. With his departure, Lululemon is losing a leader who knows the company well and has a track record of driving growth. The new CEO will have big shoes to fill. And the world will be watching where McDonald lands next.
Like many people, I use AI for quick, practical tasks. But two recent interactions made me pay closer attention to how easily these systems slip into emotional validation. In both cases, the model praised, affirmed, and echoed back feelings that werent actually there.
I uploaded photos of my living room for holiday decorating tips, including a close-up of the ceramic stockings my late mother hand painted. The model praised the stockings and thanked me for sharing something so meaningful, as if it understood the weight of them.
A few days later, something similar happened at work. I finished a long run, came home with an idea, and dropped it into ChatGPT to pressure test it. Instead of analyzing it or raising risks, the model immediately celebrated it. Great idea. Powerful. Lets build on it.
But when I ran the same idea by a colleague, he pushed back. He challenged assumptions I hadnt seen. He made me rethink pieces I thought were settled. And the idea got betterfast.
That contrast stayed with me. AI wasnt critiquing me. It was validating me. And validation, when its instant and unearned, can create real blind spots.
We Are Living Through a Validation Epidemic
We talk endlessly about AI hallucinations and misinformation. We talk far less about how AIs default mode is affirmation.
Large language models are built to be agreeable. They reflect our tone and adopt our emotional cues. They lean toward praise because their training data leans toward praise. They reinforce more often than they resist. And this is happening at a moment when validation is already a defining cultural force.
Psychologists have been warning about the rise in validation-seeking behavior for more than a decade. Social platforms built around likes and shares have rewired how people measure worth. The American Psychological Association (APA) reports sharp increases in social comparison among younger generations. Pew Research shows that teens now tie self-esteem directly to online feedback. Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified a growing pattern of validation dependence, which correlates with higher anxiety.
Weve created an environment where approval is currency. So is it any wonder we would gravitate toward a tool that hands it out so freely? But that has consequences. It strengthens the muscle that wants reassurance while weakening the one that tolerates frictionthe friction of being questioned or proven wrong.
AI Makes Us Faster. It Does Not Make Us Better
Im not anti-AI. Far from it. I use it every day, and I work in an industry that depends on smart, data-driven judgment. AI helps me move faster. It informs my decisions and expands what I can consider in a short amount of time. But it cannot replace the tension required for growth.
Tension is feedback. Tension is accountability. Tension is reality. And reality still comes from human beings.
The danger isnt that AI misleads us. Its that it makes us less willing to challenge ourselves. When a model praises our ideas or mirrors our emotions, it creates a subtle illusion that were right, or at least close enough that critique isnt needed. That illusion may be comforting, but its also risky.
Weve seen what happens when agreement is prized over challenge. NASAs Challenger launch decision is one of the clearest examples of groupthink in modern history. Multiple engineers raised concerns, but the pressure for consensus won and tragedy followed. Kodak offers another lesson. It pioneered digital photography but clung to its film-era assumptions, even as the market moved in a different direction. As Harvard Business Review has long noted, cultures that suppress dissent make worse decisions. When disagreement disappears, risk accelerates.
Great Leaders Arent Built on Validation
The best leaders I know didnt grow because people agreed with them. They grew because someone challenged them early and often. Because someone said, I dont think thats right, or more boldly, Youre wrong. They learned to welcome productive resistance.
AI wont do that unless we demand it. And most people wont demand it because it feels better to be affirmed. If were not careful, AI becomes the worlds most agreeable colleaguequick with praise, light on critique, and always ready to reassure us that were on the right track even when were not.
Great ideas need resistance. So do organizations. So do we.
AI can accelerate our thinking. But only people can sharpen it. Thats the part of this technology we should be paying closest attention tonot what it knows, but what its willing to tell us. And what its not.
When the U.S. government cut funding for local news stations, the Knight Foundation moved quickly to help stabilize a rapidly eroding industry. President and CEO Maribel Pérez Wadsworth unpacks the evolving roles of philanthropy and government, and why philanthropic organizations must learn to move at the speed of the news cycle.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
The Knight Foundation has focused on promoting and preserving local news and journalism and local communities for decades. This year, that mission has come under unprecedented attack with big funding cuts for public media, lawsuits by President Trump against CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Is this what you signed up for when you took on this job 18 months ago? I mean, how prepared were youwas the organizationfor this kind of seismic shift?
Well, no, I can tell you, it’s not what I signed up for. I don’t think anybody could have quite contemplated the things we are focused on in 2025. But that said, I’ve spent my entire career fighting for journalism and fighting for the First Amendment. So from that perspective, this is yet another part of that journey.
Is it harder right now? Absolutely. Are the fights coming across a lot of dimensions that we couldn’t have anticipated? Absolutely. But this is what the Knight Foundation was set up to do since it started its work 75 years ago. So while we’d all rather be able to pace ourselves a little bit more, I think the moment demands urgency, and it demands focus, and it demands clarity of purpose. The First Amendment is what makes all the rest of our democracy possible, so we have to defend that.
When Congress stripped $500 million in funding for public media this summer, part of the critique was that publicly funded media had become partisan, that it wasn’t always impartial. I mean, is there a fair critique in there about that?
I think that you’ve seen trust eroding in a lot of institutions, and as the country and the world becomes increasingly polarized and dependent on their own echo chambers for information, I think absolutely, trust is a problem, and inherent in that is a concern about bias.
The truth of the matter though is when you look at study after study, public media, particularly local public media stations, are still among the most trusted institutions by Americans. People believe in their local newsrooms. They trust their neighbors to report on their communities. The vast majority of these cuts did not impact, say, NPR at a national level or PBS at a national level. While the rhetoric around the cuts and the perceptions of bias centered on those entities and NPR in particular, the cuts in effect barely affected NPR but are devastating to the local stations, especially in huge swaths of the country that are primarily rural, what today we might say are in red states. That’s who’s impacted by these cuts.
As this bill was being debated in the Senate, Alaska experienced a significant earthquake. And had it not been for one small public radio station, a lot of Alaska would not have even known that they were under tsunami warnings.
And these concerns about news deserts, like apps like Facebook and Nextdoor and other ways that we’re sharing information these days, they can’t or don’t really fill that space.
No, they absolutely don’t fill that space. I mean, we’re on all these platforms. We know the kinds of information that is shared there. It is certainly not what any of us would call trusted, verified information. It’s not reliable. And let’s not forget that for a lot of the country, we still struggle with reliable broadband access. The stations most at risk represent some 40 million to 50 million Americans.
When these cuts went through, the Knight Foundation, alongside some other funders like the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, you jumped in to fill some of the gap. I know you put in a $10 million cash injection. How did that come about?
It was a meet-the-moment-urgently proposition. And let’s be clear that philanthropy doesn’t necessarily always move at the speed of news, but it was really important, because this was an imminent loss of funding and dollars that had already been appropriated, that these stations were counting on, in some cases for upwards of 30% to even 70% or more of their annual budgets. So very significant, very dramatic.
We had to move quickly, and it was great to see some key partners come to the table with us. We did $10 million to help lead the Public Media Bridge Fund that is being run by the Public Media Company. And today, just 11 weeks later, we’re at almost $60 million raised. That is nearly unprecedented for philanthropy to have moved that quickly.
That said, it’s not the long-term solution. This will help to stabilize the stations that are most at risk. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be loss of programming. That doesn’t mean that every single station will survive necessarily. But hopefully it buys the necessary time to think through the transformation of the overall system, what kinds of changes need to be made, from governance of public media to some consolidations that are no doubt necessary. But we need to buy the time, because the rug got pulled out from under them.
Some local radio and television stations, as you mentioned, they are shuttering, they are cutting back. Is the hope that you can bring them back, or does the focus need to be on, “Hey, let’s preserve the stations that are still alive that are the stronger ones”?
Well, right now, it’s a matter of truly preserving access to local news and information and community. So the prioritization around these funds will be prioritizing those stations that are, say, sole servers in their communities, that absolutely provide local news and information in addition to some of the other programming. But preservation is clearly important. The loss of these stations would represent a significant setback.
We have some, what, almost 2,000 so-called news deserts in the country today. So these stations would create that many more all over the country. But this has to be a phased approach. Right now it’s stabilized to ensure that we preserve something to transform, and then we need to get into the serious work of what does it look like for sustainability.
Sometimes I think that if public media is no longer supported by the government, is public media the right term or is it just media?
It’s a great question. At that point, you’re right, it’s just media. And so I think that will be part of the thinking going forward.
I have to believe, and maybe it’s just the hardwired optimist in me, that we will see a rational rethinking of the federal funding picture, specifically for stations in more vulnerale areas, in smaller communities where you don’t necessarily have a huge population base to self-fund these stations or a big business community that can help underwrite the cost of these stations. But where people still understand that there is a true vital role played by these stations in their communities in terms of being connective tissue, in terms of having the issues, the people, the things that are important to the community really front and center. So my hope is that we will see some level of federal funding coming back, even if it’s more targeted to the stations that would be more dependent on public funds to continue to exist.
For the Knight Foundation, obviously, you’re committed to freedom of the press and local news, but that’s part of a pledge to support local communities overall, right? I mean, it’s sort of linked together.
It is. And we think it’s foundational. To us, reliable local news and information is really a central force for good in communities. People see one another, they connect with one another, they have a common fact base to rally around. And so for a community to thrive, that’s table stakes.
An increasing number of companies are finding the much-promised financial gains of implementing artificial intelligence in the workplace have been slow to materialize. But that isnt stopping many CEOs from spending even more on AI in the coming year.
A new study from advisory firm Teneo finds that 68% of CEOs will increase their AI spending next year. A growing number, however, are aware that they need to start showing returns on that investmentand an important part of their job is convincing shareholders to remain patient.
“As efforts shift from hype to execution, businesses are under pressure to show ROI from rising AI spend,” the company wrote. “Large-cap CEOs are seeing solid returns on current programs, particularly across administration, internal efficiency, and customer-facing applications. However, 84% of these CEOs predict that positive returns from new AI initiatives will take longer than six months to achieve. In contrast, investors are pushing for faster impact: 53% expect positive ROI in six months or less.”
To date, less than half of the AI projects have generated returns that exceed the cost of the programs, according to 350-plus public-company CEOs surveyed by Teneo.
Teneo’s survey comes on the heels of a Gallup study of AI use in the workplace, which showed a big spike in 2025. The percentage of U.S. workers who used AI on at least an occasional basis jumped from 40% to 45% between the second and third quarters of 2025. (In the second quarter of 2024, that number was just 27%.)
Power users of AI were on the rise in that study as well, with 10% of the respondents saying they used the technology daily in the third quarter, up from 8% at the end of the second quarter. A year ago, that number stood at just 4%.
Workers said they’re using AI to consolidate information or data and to generate ideas, with a slightly lower number using it to learn new things or automate basic tasks. A small percentagejust 9%said they use AI to make predictions.
Teneo’s survey finds that the most successful AI strategies have been in the marketing and customer service spaces. More complex applications, such as security, legal, and human resources, have not yet lived up to the technology’s potential.
That’s not surprising, says Ryan Cox, global head of artificial intelligence at Teneo. More complex uses will need to be rolled out at a slower pace.
The first wave of AI returns came from easy efficiency wins. The next wave is about rewiring core processes that inevitably have a longer, bumpier ROI curve, Cox says. These use cases are higher risk and have greater potential impact. You dont rush them to market; you treat them as strategic change programs with board-level oversight, not experiments.
Despite events like the November layoffs at Verizon, where 13,000 workers lost their jobs as part of a strategic shift towards AI, CEOs feel fears that increased AI usage will result in job losses are overblown. Some 67% told Teneo they expected the technology to increase their entry-level head countand 58% said they expected it would result in more senior leaders coming on board.
As a result of this bullishness on AI, some 87% of the CEOs Teneo spoke with said they believed their organizations are prepared for future technological disruption. However, they cautioned, future leaders will struggle to keep pace with tech advancements, meaning agility and creativity will become the most important skills for future CEOs.
That enthusiastic attitude extended beyond the world of AI, also. Optimism about the economy was remarkably strong, given the uncertainty of this year, with 73% of CEOs and 82% of the 400 institutional investors surveyed saying they expected the global economy to improve over the first six months of 2026. (Mid-cap CEOs were much more bullish on the market than large-cap ones.)
The tiny Fiat Topolinoabout the length of a cargo bike and half as long as an American SUV or pickupis the kind of car tourists stop to photograph as a cute curiosity in Rome or Milan. The electric car only travels 28 miles an hour, and its designed for dense European cities. But it also only costs around $10,000, and Fiat is now betting that Americans are ready for something this tiny.
The company recently announced plans to bring the car to the U.S., shortly after Trump said that he wanted to help bring similarly tiny kei cars to the U.S. from Japan. Theres a strong argument that smaller cars are better for society: Theyre more affordable, more efficient, take up less space, and theyre safer for pedestrians and other vehicles in a crash. (Uncharacteristically, Trump noted that “really cute” kei cars can be electric and are fuel efficient, shortly after his administration started the process to roll back fuel efficiency requirements.) But for the smallest microcars to be more than a niche category, a lot would have to change.
Growing interest in smaller rides
For years, the conventional wisdom has been that Americans love giant vehicles. Ford F-Series trucks have long been the bestselling vehicles; SUVs are more popular than cars. But size preferences are slowly starting to shrink. Compact SUVs now outsell larger SUVs. Sales of midsized trucks are growing faster than full-sized trucks. Compact car sales are also growing.
Automakers push bigger vehicles because they make more money on them, partly because of loophole in fuel efficiency regulations. But as consumer cost concerns grow, buyers are moving in the other direction. I think that its certainly not baked into our DNA to like big cars, says Ben Crowther, policy director at America Walks, an organization that advocates for smaller vehicles to make streets safer for pedestrians and others on the road. Its the result of several decades worth of marketing. But where I think I see the tipping point being is that small cars are more affordable. Right now, the average cost for new cars is around $50,000. Thats easily someones salary. That cost is inflated because vehicles are oversized.
[Photo: Telo]
Telo, a startup making a small electric pickup thats roughly as long as a Mini Cooper and cheaper than a typical gas truck, says that its seen strong interest in its first model, which will hit the market next year.
Jason Marks, Telos CEO, says that its also noteworthy how much demand there is for kei cars and trucks. Right now, the U.S. only allows the Japanese vehicles to be imported when theyre at least 25 years old, under regulations aimed at classic cars. But despite the restrictions, kei trucks are the largest class of vehicles being individually imported to the U.S., with around 7,500 arriving last year. These are vehicles the size of golf carts, with well over 100,000 miles on them, that cant go 60 miles an hour, and only about 17 states legally allow you to drive them on the highway, says Marks. And theyre still this desirable.
Telos offering is very different than a kei truckthe Telo MT1 can haul as much as a regular passenger truck, it can be driven anywhere, and its designed with modern safety features including sensors, unlike 25-year-old kei cars, which typically dont even have airbags. Still, the interest in kei cars illustrates the appetite for smaller cars in general. And though kei cars and microcars like the Topolino face challenges in adoption, theres also room for them to become more widespread with more support.
Kei cars versus microcars
In Japan, kei carsshort for keijidosha, meaning “light automobile”originated in 1949 as part of Japanese industrial policies to rebuild the country’s auto industry when most people couldnt afford larger vehicles. The cars have to stay under 11 feet long and have small engines. They’re allowed on Japanese highways, but have reduced safety features.
[Photo: Paul Esch-Laurent/Unsplash]
They’re still very popular in Japan, and also popular in countries like India, where Suzuki’s tiny cars have dominated the auto market for decades. But even current models likely wouldn’t meet safety requirements in the U.S., and adding those features would jack up costs. Take the example of the Honda N-Box, a bestselling car that costs around $12,000 to $15,000 and has a fuel efficiency of around 50 miles per gallon.
“The Honda N-Box does not have airbags, it does not have ABS, and it does not have some of the features that you would typically require under the current regulations in the United States,” says Aditya Ramji, an economist at UC Davis who focuses on energy, transportation, and electric mobility. “That means that the moment I add those requirements and made this vehicle compliant, the price of the $12,000 N-Box now will become $22,000 straight away.” That’s similar to the cost of the Toyota Corollamaking it unlikely that an N-Box could compete under current regulations.
[Photo: Honda]
In theory, the DOT could create new standards and certification requirements benchmarked to those that have been in place in Japan for decades, and make it more feasible to import new kei cars. That process would take time. (Trump’s post on Truth Social saying “I have just approved TINY CARS to be built in America” did not actually constitute approval.)
Microcars like the Fiat Topolino fit into a different category under U.S. regulationssomething the DOT calls a “neighborhood electric vehicle” or NEV. The cars are restricted to speeds of 25 miles an hour. In most states, they’re only allowed on roads with speed limits up to 35 miles an hour. Some states require extra safety equipment, like windshield wipers. But airbags aren’t required. Because of the limitations, it’s a niche market.
Some experts are skeptical that demand of either kei cars or neighborhood electric vehicles could significantly grow. “Generally speaking, it is difficult to imagine a scenario that could significantly shift the personal vehicle market in a direction that would result in widespread adoption of very small cars in the United States,” says David Bunch, a management professor emeritus at UC Davis who has studied consumer choice in vehicles. The main exception, he says, could be highly urbanized areas like New York or San Francisco.
[Photo: Fiat]
The safety challenge
Both kei cars and neighborhood electric vehicles struggle with consumer concerns about safety. Still, Ramji argues that tiny vehicles could be relatively safe in urban commutes even without the current suite of required safety features, as they travel at relatively low speeds.
The growing suite of safety features on other modern cars, including sensors and automatic braking, also helps. “I think the trend that well be seeing as the fleet turns over and more of these vehicles have safety features, it means that you dont need the full armor of an SUV or a pickup truck because your car, and everyone elses car on the road is actively working beyond just the driver to avoid that collision,” says Crowther.
If more of the tiny cars were in use, it would also mean fewer pedestrian deaths: If a person is hit by a small vehicle, they’re much more likely to survive. That’s both because there’s less force in a collision and because low cars hit the body lower than a large truck or SUV that can fatally strike someone in the head or chest. And small cars are also less likely to damage other vehicles in a crash. The paradox, of course, is that people are more likely to choose cars that protect themselves, not others on the road.
“The notion of ‘safety benefits’ of smaller cars has long been problematic, because they must share the road with larger vehicles, and in a ‘contest’ the larger vehicles win,” says Bunch. “That is, smaller cars are by definition less safe in an environment with mixed vehicle sizes.”
Can microcars grow?
Even with the challenges that exist, there could be room for more tiny cars in the U.S., especially in dense cities. Demand isn’t guaranteedthe tiny Smart Fortwo was taken off the American market in 2019 due to low sales. But some policy changes could support growth. For example, a city could offer cheaper parking permits based on vehicle size, since tiny cars don’t take up as much valuable curb space. States could choose to allow neighborhood electric vehicles on more roadsor, to boost safety, could lower speed limits on more routes.
Better urban design would also help. “To have neighborhood electric vehicles, you really do need to have a better mix of land uses, which we don’t see in most suburban settings,” says Kara Kockelman, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “In these planned developments, a grocery store is off of a much higher speed street.” If it was possible to drive at a low speed to run errands or commute to work or school, tiny cars could become a more viable option for more people. (Of course, it would also be easier to bike in that scenario.)
[Photo: Nissan]
Both microcars and kei cars could be useful as a second car for short commutes, says Ramji, and that could potentially help unlock a new urban market for EVs. It’s not likely that the current administration will intentionally do anything to promote electric cars. But creating new regulations that allow kei cars could also theoretically boost EV sales. One popular current kei car, the Nissan Sakura EV, has around 110 miles of range and costs $16,000 or $17,000far less than most EVs on the U.S. market.
“Maybe this is an opportunity in the U.S. to think about how the small car segment can fundamentally serve the electrification narrative and really come in strategically leapfrogging that ecosystem and looking at urban EVs as opposed to gas cars in the mini car segment,” Ramji says.
