For much of the modern corporate era, brand has been treated as surface area. A story told outward. A set of signals designed to persuade, attract, and differentiate. When companies spoke about brand, they were usually talking about perception: how they looked in the market, how they sounded, how they were received.
That framing made sense in a world where markets moved a little more slowly, organizations were stable, and leadership could afford to separate strategy from culture, product from meaning, execution from belief.
That world no longer exists.
Todays organizations operate in a state of near-constant volatility. Strategy shifts quarterly. Teams scale overnight. Culture is tested publicly, in real time. And leadership is no longer judged solely by results, but by coherence and meaning. Do the choices make sense? Do the values hold under pressure? Does the organization know how to behave when the playbook runs out?
In this environment, brand cannot remain a visual wrapper. It must become something more fundamental.
It must become an operating system.
When Brand Stops Being a Story and Starts Being Structure
An operating system doesnt exist to impress. It exists to coordinate behavior, allocate resources, and make complex systems usable. It governs whats possible, whats prioritized, and what happens when things break.
This is the shift now underway in the most forward-thinking organizationsbrand moving from expression to infrastructure.
In this new paradigm, brand is no longer just what the company says. Its how the company defines itself. It shows up in how leaders frame trade-offs, how teams resolve tension, how products evolve, and how culture responds to stress.
The question is no longer Is the brand consistent? but Is the brand functional? Does it help people make better decisions faster? Does it reduce friction? Does it offer clarity when data runs out and vision or judgment takes over?
If it cant be used under intense pressure and scrutiny, it isnt an operating system at all.
The End of the Brand Deck Era and What Comes Next
This evolution didnt happen because brand teams failed. It happened because organizations asked brand to do the wrong job.
For years, brand was tasked with alignment theater: values posters, messaging frameworks, tone-of-voice documents. Useful artifacts, yes, but largely disconnected from how power, priorities, and incentives actually worked inside the business.
Meanwhile, leadership teams struggled with a different problem entirelyfragmentation. Smart people pulling in different directions. Strategy decks multiplying ideas while conviction thinned. Culture initiatives proliferating without changing behavior.
The gap between what the brand claimed and how the organization actually operated grew wider.
In that gap, trust eroded, employees disengaged, decision-making slowed. And companies found themselves saying the right things while doing the wrong ones.
Brand-as-operating-system emerges as a response to that gap. Not as a creative flourish, but as a leadership correction.
Brand as a Shared Logic System
What does this look like in practice? When brand functions as an operating system, it becomes a shared logic layer across the organization. It provides a common mental model that helps teams answer questions like:
What kind of decisions do we make here?
What do we prioritize when values collide?
How do we act when theres no precedent?
What does good actually look like for us?
This is where brand moves beyond language and into behavior.
Hiring becomes more precise. Not just about skills, but about belief alignment. Innovation becomes more focused. Not just novel, but meaningful.
Culture becomes less performative. Not whats celebrated on slides, but whats rewarded in practice.
The organization stops asking people to remember the brand and starts enabling them to use it.
Why This Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Marketing One
Brand-as-OS doesnt install itself. It has to be architected, and that responsibility starts at the top.
Brand-as-OS only works when leadership owns it, models it, and enforces it. This is where many organizations stall. Its easier to approve a campaign than to commit to a worldview. Easier to delegate brand than to live inside it.
But brand is not neutral. Every organization already has an operating system. The only question is whether its intentional or accidental.
Our Future of Brand Report 2026 reveals a clear pattern: companies that treat brand as infrastructure, embedded in systems, rituals, and strategic choices, outperform peers who treat it as a job left to the marketing department.
What sets these companies apart isnt better branding. Its leadership that understands brand is the connective tissue between culture, vision, and execution.
At Motto, weve seen this firsthand. In companies led by visionaries who treat brand not as a communications tool, but as a cultural code. Leaders who hold brand in the same regard as financial health or product strategy, because they understand its tied to both. And when that code is clear, everything else becomes faster, sharper, and more aligned.
What emerges isnt language for the website or a better logo. Its a set of convictions that govern how the company behaves, especially when the answers arent obvious.
The company doesnt just look different; it is different.
The Cost of Not Making the Shift
Organizations that fail to treat brand as infrastructure will continue to suffer from the same symptoms, no matter how many initiatives they launch.
Theyll hire exceptional talent only to frustrate it. Theyll produce beautiful work that lacks cohesion. Theyll talk about alignment while reinforcing ambiguity.
Most dangerously, theyll confuse activity with progress.
In contrast, companies that build brand as an operating system gain something far more valuable than consistency. They gain velocity. Because when people share a belief system, they dont need permission for every move. They can act with confidence, even in uncertainty.
The Next Frontier of Leadership
Leadership in the coming decade will not be defined by charisma or control but by coherence. The ability to create systems that make sense to the humans inside them.
Bran-as-operating-system is not a trend. Its a response to complexity. A way of giving organizations a spine when everything else is in flux.
The leaders who understand this wont hand off brand to marketing and hope it holds. They wont treat vision, culture, and brand as separate lines of effort, but as one integrated system of belief, behavior, and direction. Theyll design for alignment from the inside out, not just to look good but to operate better.
Because the future of brand leadership belongs to those who do more than tell the story. They architect the system. They run the code. They build companies where vision is felt, culture is lived, and brand is the connective tissue in it all.
Not just brands with something to say. Brands built to lead.
Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In.
On January 16, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniakknown to all as Wozreceived the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award, an honor bestowed each year by the Tech Interactive, a science museum in San Jose, California. The ceremony and a conversation between Wozniak and comedian Drew Carey capped a gala event in which several organizations were named laureates for using technology to improve the world.
Their creations include a brain-computer interface (BCI) that helps people with disabilities communicate, a forum that lets patients who have received BCI implants shape the technologys best practices and ethics, a headset that uses ultrasound therapy to treat mental conditions, and a device that provides people with Parkinsons disease the ability to walk more confidently. Until he took the stage himself, Wozniak sat in the audience with his wife, Janet, watching presentations about each honoree with rapt attention.
In a conversation after the event, Wozniak marveled at what hed seen. They were creating something to solve a problem they had with the world, and that’s where you get the best products, he said. He likened the honorees ingenuity to his own implementation of color graphics on 1977s Apple II, a killer feature at a time when other microcomputers could barely draw pictures in black and white. Rather than adding to the machines cost and complexity, he explained, his approach took no chips at all. I mean, it was just so far out of the box. It violated all the rules of mathematics on color TV.
From left: Tech for Global Good Celebration honorees Jay Sanguinetti of Sanmai Technologies, Sidney Collin of NexStride, Steve Wozniak, Andreas Forsland of Cognixion, and Ian Burkhart of BCI Pioneers Coalition in San Jose, California, on January 16, 2026. [Photo: Don Feria]
Wozniak has spent close to half a century being celebrated for his technical brilliance and irreplaceable role in bringing computing to the masses. Just three years after starting Apple with Steve Jobs (and, briefly, Ron Wayne), he received the Association for Computing Machinerys Grace Murray Hopper Award. Six years after that, he and Jobs won the National Medal of Technology, resulting in a memorable photo opp with President Ronald Reagan. He said last weeks award was particularly meaningful to him because it reflected his efforts as a humanitarian rather than solely as a technologist.
Those efforts have often focused on culture and education in Silicon Valley. A native of San Jose, Wozniak provided funding that was instrumental to bootstrapping the 27-year-old Tech Interactive as well as the citys Childrens Discovery Museum. (The latter is located on a street named Woz Wayyet another of Wozniaks many tributes.) In his memoir, iWoz, he writes about paying for computer labs in local schools and fulfilling a cherished dream by teaching computing skills to fifth graders. Even earlier, he donated the very first Apple computer to a teacher named Liza Loop.
After Apple employees dating to its days as a garage startup werent cut in on its 1980 initial public offering, Wozniak gave them a meaningful percentage of his personal stock, purely because it felt like the right thing to do. He was also a principal founding donor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an essential advocate for civil rights in the digital age. The list of his good deeds goes on, and is not thoroughly documented: In conversations with people who have known him for decades, Ive heard multiple stories about his unpublicized support for other worthy causes.
All along, Wozniak has remained on Apples payroll. (One of the best things about attending product launches at Apple Park is observing him mingling with the preshow crowd, otherwise made up of journalists, creators, influencers, and Apple PR people.) But its been more than 40 years since he wound down active work at the company. Though hes since been involved in several startupsin areas ranging from remote controls to space junkhis post-Apple life has mattered in ways that have nothing to do with money or power. His desire to leave society better than he found it is one big reason why.
Its not tough to connect the dots between the Woz who engineered the Apple-1 and Apple II when he was in his mid-twenties and Woz the 75-year-old humanitarian. He does so himself, arguing your personality settles down between 18 and 23 years old. From then on, youre the same person. (Having reassessed his priorities after surviving a small plane crash in 1981, he does allow that something like a horrible shock or near-death [experience] might have an impact.) His interest in inventing stuff, he told me, began as a form of self-expression that helped him overcome being painfully shy: The only way I could do anything to communicate was to design something cool. And people, other geeks, would talk to me about it.
Steve Wozniak accepts the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award from presenter Katie Ferrick. [Photo: Don Feria]
Apples first machines grew out of Wozniaks desire to own a computer himself, at a time when no computer was built or priced for consumers. That led to him wanting to help other people own them, an early sign of his fundamental generosity of spirit. At first, that meant sharing the Apple-1 schematics so that other hobbyists could assemble their ownin part because he couldnt convince his pre-Apple employer, HP, that PCs might become a pretty decent business.
I proposed it five times, he remembers. I got turned down. No computer company really felt it was going to go anywhere.
Fortunately for Wozniak, and us, others showed more foresight. Essential support came from Paul Terrell, whose Byte Shop computer store became Apples first dealer, and Mike Markkula, the companys first angel investor and, later, its CEO. It took a couple of people like that to really give us a chance, Wozniak says.
(What about Steve Jobs? Discussing their time together at AppleJobs resigned after a board fight in 1985, the same year Wozniak moved onWozniak calls him a good talker, a good promoter, a good marketer of the Apple II but also points out the failure of the companys third and fourth computers, the Apple III and Lisa. As Jobss Mac got off to a sluggish start, he notes, the Apple IIs continuing popularity provided the company with a lifeline. Wozniak waxes more enthusiastic about the iPod, a crucial element of Apples comeback after Jobs returned: It wasn’t a computer, but he knew what people wantedhe knew people.)
In this century, the Apple II has remained admired and loved in equal measurewhen I helped assemble a list of the greatest PCs of all time, we ranked it No. 1. Even so, the world may underappreciate the degree to which it reflected Wozniaks outlook on life. It certainly delivered on his life philosophy, which he calls the secret of being a good person: Happiness equals smiles minus frowns. Im not sure if a single offering from todays Silicon Valley outperforms the 49-year-old Apple II on that score, and AI is only making matters more fraught. Maybe thats a lesson for todays product designers: Be more like Woz.
One other trait sets Wozniak apart. In an industry brimming with self-serious workaholics, he is a lifelong prankster, a pastime he discussed onstage with Carey last week. (My takeaway: Never, ever let Woz talk to Siri on your iPhone.) I asked him if theres a link between his mischievous streak and his philanthropic one. He wasnt sure. But he stressed that humor and creativity are deeply intertwined.
If you can make jokes, you can look at the world in different ways, he told me. They just come together naturally. His own life proves his point, and were all richer for it.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard.
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I like to say that my job as a charity auctioneer is the ultimate sales role. I stand onstage night after night encouraging people to give money, playing off the audience to push them to bid higher, in the name of charity. If theres one thing the stage has taught me, its that flexibility is everything. The faster you can adapt and offer a solution, the more successful youll be whether youre selling a product or an idea. Here are three of my favorite sales secrets.
1. THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
One of the quickest ways to lose someones attention is to tell them how you think your product should work for them. If a donor has offered their mountain house as the ultimate ski vacation house and I walk onstage and announce that Im selling a ski house, Ive immediately eliminated half the room as potential buyers of this lot simply because half of the room probably doesnt ski. Add to that, if you dont like to ski, what is the appeal of renting a house where you sit around in a cold climate with nothing else to do. If I get onstage and position it as a mountain house for all seasons, I open it up to the entire audience again. A mountain house has countless uses, and skiing is just one of them.
When you give people multiple ways to imagine using something, you invite them into the story. You expand the possibilities rather than narrowing them. In sales, and leadership, suggestion opens minds. Assumptions shut them down.
2. THERES MORE THAN ONE WAY TO GET FROM LONDON TO PARIS
Be open to different paths to agreement. Before a sales pitch, or before stepping onstage, I like to play a simple game: How else could this be used? Ill ask friends, colleagues, or clients how they see value in the same item.
Take a piece of jewelry, for example. It could be a gift to yourself, a gift for a friend, or something to pass down to your daughter. Or, for the men in the audience, an opportunity to be the guy who brings home a surprise gift just because, or a future birthday, anniversary, and Valentines Day gift. For those who are single, an opportunity to have something when you meet the girl of your dreams. When I understand all the ways someone might emotionally connect to an item, I can meet them where they are instead of forcing them down a single path.
3. BEFRIEND YOUR UNDERBIDDER
Every auction has a winner and a runner-up. Its one of the few places where not everyone gets a trophy, but that doesnt mean anyone has to walk away feeling like they lost. The same is true in sales. No matter how prepared or enthusiastic you are, a deal wont always close. What will be remembered is how the other person felt in the process.
As Im about to drop the gavel, I keep eye contact with the underbidder until the very last second, watching for any sign they might reengage. If its clear theyre done, I acknowledge them publicly, often asking for a round of applause for a strong underbidder.
Why? Because people who feel respected and appreciated are far more likely to come back. In auctions, in sales, and in leadership, making someone feel good, regardless of the outcome, keeps the door open long after the deal is done.
Sports are entering a new era and it could be powered by artificial intelligence. Jeremy Bloom, CEO of the X Games, is placing a bold bet on AI to revolutionize how competitions are judged and scored. From reducing human error to enhancing fairness and accuracy, AI judges could redefine the future of professional sports. But can machines truly replace human judgment on the worlds biggest stages?
Consistent with the general trend of incorporating artificial intelligence into nearly every field, researchers and politicians are increasingly using AI models trained on scientific data to infer answers to scientific questions. But can AI ultimately replace scientists?
The Trump administration signed an executive order on November 24, 2025, that announced the Genesis Mission, an initiative to build and train a series of AI agents on federal scientific datasets to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.
So far, the accomplishments of these so-called AI scientists have been mixed. On the one hand, AI systems can process vast datasets and detect subtle correlations that humans are unable to detect. On the other hand, their lack of commonsense reasoning can result in unrealistic or irrelevant experimental recommendations.
While AI can assist in tasks that are part of the scientific process, it is still far away from automating scienceand may never be able to. As a philosopher who studies both the history and the conceptual foundations of science, I see several problems with the idea that AI systems can do science without or even better than humans.
AI models can learn only from human scientists
AI models do not learn directly from the real world: They have to be told what the world is like by their human designers. Without human scientists overseeing the construction of the digital world in which the model operatesthat is, the datasets used for training and testing its algorithmsthe breakthroughs that AI facilitates wouldnt be possible.
Consider the AI model AlphaFold. Its developers were awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the models ability to infer the structure of proteins in human cells. Because so many biological functions depend on proteins, the ability to quickly generate protein structures to test via simulations has the potential to accelerate drug design, trace how diseases develop and advance other areas of biomedical research.
As practical as it may be, however, an AI system like AlphaFold does not provide new knowledge about proteins, diseases, or more effective drugs on its own. It simply makes it possible to analyze existing information more efficiently.
AlphaFold draws upon vast databases of existing protein structures.
As philosopher Emily Sullivan put it, to be successful as scientific tools, AI models must retain a strong empirical link to already established knowledge. That is, the predictions a model makes must be grounded in what researchers already know about the natural world. The strength of this link depends on how much knowledge is already available about a certain subject and on how well the models programmers translate highly technical scientific concepts and logical principles into code.
AlphaFold would not have been successful if it werent for the existing body of human-generated knowledge about protein structures that developers used to train the model. And without human scientists to provide a foundation of theoretical and methodological knowledge, nothing AlphaFold creates would amount to scientific progress.
Science is a uniquely human enterprise
But the role of human scientists in the process of scientific discovery and experimentation goes beyond ensuring that AI models are properly designed and anchored to existing scientific knowledge. In a sense, science as a creative achievement derives its legitimacy from human abilities, values, and ways of living. These, in turn, are grounded in the unique ways in which humans think, feel and act.
Scientific discoveries are more than just theories supported by evidence: They are the product of generations of scientists with a variety of interests and perspectives, working together through a common commitment to their craft and intellectual honesty. Scientific discoveries are never the products of a single visionary genius.
For example, when researchers first proposed the double-helix structure of DNA, there were no empirical tests able to verify this hypothesisit was based on the reasoning skills of highly trained experts. It took nearly a century of technological advancements and several generations of scientists to go from what looked like pure speculation in the late 1800s to a discovery honored by a 1953 Nobel Prize.
Science, in other words, is a distinctly social enterprise, in which ideas get discussed, interpretations are offered, and disagreements are not always overcome. As other philosophers of science have remarked, scientists are more similar to a tribe than passive recipients of scientific information. Researchers do not accumulate scientific knowledge by recording factsthey create scientific knowledge through skilled practice, debate and agreed-upon standards informed by social and political values.
AI is not a scientist
I believe the computing power of AI systems can be used to accelerate scientific progress, but only if done with care.
With the active participation of the scientific community, ambitious projects like the Genesis Mission could prove beneficial for scientists. Well-designed and rigorously trained AI tools would make the more mechanical parts of scientific inquiry smoother and maybe even faster. These tools would compile information about what has been done in the past so that it can more easily inform how to design future experiments, collect measurements and formulate theories.
But if the guiding vision for deploying AI models in science is to replace human scientists or to fully automate the scientific process, I believe the project would only turn science into a caricature of itself. The very existence of science as a source of authoritative knowledge about the natural world fundaentally depends on human life: shared goals, experiences, and aspirations.
Alessandra Buccella is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University at Albany, State University of New York.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
If one of your New Years resolutions was to spend less time on devices and get more “cultured,” the Metropolitan Opera is here to helpeven if you dont find yourself in New York City.
On Saturday, January 24, 2026, at 1 p.m. ET in select theaters, it will premiere a special “Live in HD” presentation of its recent production, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Lets take a look at the plot and the artists involved, before we get into more details on the logistics of how to see it.
What is ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’ about?
Although this work is considered a modern opera, the action in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay takes place during World War II. Two Jewish cousins work together to create an anti-fascist superhero, the “Escapist.” They hope the comic book adventures they write inspire others to fight against Nazism.
The three distinct settings where the plot unfolds allow the audience to experience New York City, Prague, and a comic book reality.
Who wrote ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’?
The opera The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is based on a book of the same name, written by Michael Chabon. This critically acclaimed historical fiction novel was a New York Times bestseller and a 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner. That means if you made a reading goal for 2026, seeing this opera almost counts toward it.
Adapting it for the stage was no easy feat, but Gene Scheer tackled the libretto while Mason Bates composed the score. It is not your grandmas opera, as one of the genres Bates works in is electronic dance music.
Bartlett Sher helmed the production, with sets designed by 59 Studio. The costumes were designed by Jennifer Moeller and choreography was created by Mandy Moore.
[Photo: Evan Zimmerman/Met Opera]
What did critics think of ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’?
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clays original run took place from September 21 through October 11, 2025. The performance that will be presented on January 24 was actually recorded on October 2, 2025.
The opera received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised the strong set design, visuals, and performances. However, some reviewers believed the libretto and compositions were lacking in depth.
TheatreManias David Gordon mused: Kavalier & Clay feels unlike anything Ive ever seen at this storied old palace. Cinematic in scope, fast paced in its delivery, and propelled by a digestibility that you dont often get in the world of opera, its a perfect introduction for new audiences who are looking to test the waters of opera or want an interesting date night.
Opera Wires David Salazar called the production Shers finest opera production to date. He goes on to say that the use of new technology has never been more polished or enticing in any opera the Met has produced thus far.
[Photo: Evan Zimmerman/Met Opera]
Some other critics were not afraid to give notes, such as Edward Sava-Segal from Bachtrack. To him, it was a production of extraordinary visual invention strapped to a score that seldom ventures beyond the predictable. As an event it impresses; as a new cornerstone for the repertory, it falls short. In other words, he enjoyed the production but not the new work itself.
Vultures Justin Davidson agreed with Sava-Segal’s statement. Additionally, he praised mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierces work as Rosa and baritone Andrzej Filończyks turn as Joe Kavalier.
How to catch ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay’ in theaters
To form your own opinion on the production, all you have to do is buy a ticket and enjoy the show.
The Met has created a handy “find a theater” tool here, available on its website, to see where this event is happening.
We hear a lot about self-discipline in todays productivity-obsessed culture. And the message is usually that its the cure for economic insecurity and a pathway to self-actualization. At first glance, this appears to make sense. But it can be a double-edged sword in our modern work lives and always-on culture.
Self-discipline enables focus and is key to achievement. However, over-indexing on it can easily erode our own values and boundaries. In turn, this can cause burnout, isolation, and existential despair.
What does discipline really mean?
Discipline has historically been associated with punishment and religious correction. Think physical punishment, including self-flagellation. I grew up at a time when well-meaning parents dispensed discipline, thinking thats what it would take to raise virtuous children. The payoff that came with being praised for hard work at school and excelling in sports meant discipline became a core aspect of my early self-identity.
Contemporary examples of personal discipline tap into the human capacity to regulate impulses and persist toward long-term goals. We see many influencers create vast content parading their self-discipline, whether thats adhering to a complex, three-hour morning routine, or proselytizing an extremely restrictive diet. As a result, self-discipline has taken on a moralistic, “holier-than-thou” tone, with the inference being that doing anything less means you are weak, lazy, and unworthy.
The overt benefits of discipline at work
Amid extreme uncertainty, self-discipline can serve as a powerful protective asset. Longitudinal research on self-control shows that those who can delay gratification and regulate impulses tend to achieve better educational outcomes, higher income, and improved health indicators.
Another research paper suggests that self-discipline can reduce procrastination by boosting autonomous motivation rather than relying on willpower. When people experience their discipline as self-chosen and values-aligned, they report greater feelings of competence and autonomy. In the current work landscape, disciplined routines can help us create a sense of control and continuity amid relentless structural volatility.
When discipline becomes addictive and isolating
However, the same traits that fuel achievement can become compulsive and harmful. Eventually, excessive discipline can lead to ego depletion, where subsequent acts of self-control become harder and more draining. In cultures that moralize productivity, this depletion can be misconstrued as personal failure. As a result, many end up doubling down on discipline rather than questioning the demands theyve been subjected to.
This was my experience as a corporate finance lawyer. At first, the self-discipline Id learned early in life translated perfectly into the “magic circle” law firm culture. Eventually, the constant, intense workload wore me down. Finally, I collapsed at an airport in a state of exhaustion and emotional despair. As uncomfortable as this was, it also gave rise to deep relief: I no longer had to punish myself.
Discipline can become addictive when it produces rewards, but eventually, discipline can become an identity in itself. You might start holding beliefs like having needs is weak, I need to override my bodily urge to rest, or if I falter, I am a failure.
This can lead to anxiety around rest, spontaneity, or deviation from a meticulous schedule. Proponents may begin to choose habits and work patterns that reinforce their disciplined self-image. They stay at the desk until deep in the night, or fasting for an extra day just to prove they can, even when these conflict with relational needs, leisure, or health.
This kind of self-discipline can foster isolation in three ways:
Time-intensive routines (early mornings, extended work hours, strict fitness or side-hustle regimes) crowd out social life and community participation.
They avoid relationships or spaces that “threaten” routine, and they end up narrowing social worlds to similarly disciplined peers, or online productivity subcultures.
They believe that we have sole responsibility for our station in life, rather than seeing the broader, systemic issues. This can cause us to internalize blame, which leads to shame, loneliness, and low self-worth.
Discipline as a modern-day comfort blanket
The definition of our current moment is a paradox: intensified individual responsibility amid abject structural insecurity. Theres an expectation for us to optimize every facet of our lives: our skills, our bodies, and our relationships.
This has two major implications. First, we engage the language of discipline to obscure the structural causes of success and failure. We see unemployment, underemployment, and burnout as deficits of willpower rather than outcomes of policy, corporate practice, or macroeconomic conditions. Second, self-care industries, while at times genuinely beneficial, individualize the management of systemic stress. As a result, this capitalizes on widespread alienation to the detriment of most for the benefit of a few.
We see this dynamic play out for knowledge workers and founders in particular. Hustle culture normalizes permanent availability, constant upskilling, and the erosion of boundaries between work and non-work, all in the name of disciplined ambition. The result is another paradox: The very discipline that enables career advancement may also entrench the conditionsoverwork, anxiety, weakened social tiesthat undermine our long-term wellbeing and creativity.
Toward a more humane discipline
Tempting as it feels to jettison self-discipline altogether, we have a powerful opportunity to reclaim the term. A more humane approach would treat discipline less as an austerity project and more as a tool for protecting your time, energy, and attention for what genuinely matters to you. A good name for this term is mindful self-discipline.
Practically, adopting mindful self-discipline means taking a few steps:
Self-Knowledge: Get really clear on who you are and what matters to you. Not to your parents, peers, society, colleagues, or rndom influencers. For many, this requires peeling back the layers of values and ideas weve taken on, often subconsciously, and identifying our own core values, needs, and priorities.
Self-Awareness: Use discernment to employ disciplined behavior around boundaries, rather than endless productivity. Limit work hours, design your downtime as nonnegotiable, and actively resist the pressure to optimize every waking moment.
Self-Compassion: Ensure that your motivation for pursuing your work, hobbies, and other activities in life doesnt come from the belief that youre lazy, unworthy, or weak. Foster strong self-beliefs around your own intrinsic value as a human being to protect yourself from any harmful self-discipline narrative.
Mindful self-discipline can be used as a strategic resource to carve out autonomy and dignity. The task for all of us is to ensure that human discipline serves our individual and collective flourishingrather than diminishing the very same.
Most factories still run on fossil fuels, whether theyre making potato chips or steel. But a new “thermal battery” could make it cheaper to do the same work with clean energy.
Electrified Thermal Solutions, a startup spun out from MIT research in 2021, just fired up a demo battery that can hit 1,800degrees Celsiushot enough to make steel, cement, or chemicals. The battery uses power from the grid to heat its custom bricks when electricity is cheap. When a factory needs hot air later, it’s provided by the superheated bricks.
[Photo: Electrified Thermal]
Its also cheaper to use than natural gas, so factories dont need a climate goal to be convinced to make the switch.
[Image: Electrified Thermal]
“This is a cheaper approach to heat that today isn’t being taken advantage of, says Daniel Stack, cofounder and CEO of Electrified Thermal Solutions. Electricity is already a cheaper heat source than natural gas, but in the past factories haven’t been able to feasibly use it with their equipment.
Some other startups are making similar thermal batteries, but cant reach the highest temperatures needed by certain industries. Electrified Thermals tech, called the Joule Hive Thermal Battery, uses a unique conductive brick that electricity can flow straight through, enabling ultra-high temperatures.
[Photo: Electrified Thermal]
Backers include ArcelorMittal, the worlds largest steelmaker, which could eventually use the technology to heat up equipment like blast furnaces.
The savings for industrial customers could be substantial. We can charge up with the cheapest electricity during hours of low prices, and this can save you 15%, 20%, 30% on your heating bill, Stack says. These commodity industries live and die by the price they pay for their heating inputs.
Both in the U.S. and Europe, wholesale electricity prices drop close to zeroor even negative pricesat certain times when renewable energy is abundant. The startup is focused first on Europe, where policy makes it easier to access that cheap electricity. (Even as electricity demand grows from data centers, Stack says that there will still be plenty of surplus electricity available at particular hours at a lower price.)
[Photo: Electrified Thermal]
The tech is designed to be easily added to existing factories, with pipes connecting hot air from the batteries into existing kilns, boilers, or furnaces. Customers have the option to pay for heat as a service or buy the batteries directly.
The new demonstration system, at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, will let potential customers see the equipment in action. Commercial units will begin rolling out to some customers later this year.
The batteries can easily scale up, Stack says, and are made from off-the-shelf materials. The bricks are similar to those used in glassmaking, and a large manufacturer, HWI, is beginning to mass manufacture them.
If industry at large makes the switch, the climate benefits would be huge. By one estimate, industrial process heat uses around 20% of the world’s energy. “We’re talking about massive emissions reductionsto the tune of several gigatons per year of CO2reduced through this transition,” Stack says.
The announcement earlier this week that the Minnesota National Guard was standing by to assist local law enforcement and public safety agencies in and around Minneapolis-St. Paul included a surprising detail. If our members are activated, it read, they will be wearing reflective vests to help distinguish them from other agencies in similar uniforms.
From a design perspective, the whole point of uniforms is to provide an instant visual signal. But that mission has been thwarted in the ongoing besiegement of the Twin Cities by thousands of officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies. Most notably, many sport camouflage and gear that civilians tend to associate with the military. The upshot is that its become harder for the average person to understand at a glance who is there to do what.
A Minnesota Army National Guard Captain walks past demonstrators in Minneapolis, Minnesota. January 17, 2026. [Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images]
Certainly the presence of uniformed members of multiple agencies seems out of hand when the National Guard has to start wearing crossing guard vests to distinguish themselves. The situation would be comical if it werent so bleak, as if its apparently become necessary for members of the U.S. military to visually announce, hey were here to help, not an occupying army or a threat.
In a way, this throws into sharp relief how effective the ICE aesthetic has been in projecting a quasi-militaristic version of federal law enforcement. The agencys look has been attracting attention for months as it has pursued undocumented immigrants (or just people it suspects might be) in crackdowns in Chicago, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and elsewhere, often showing up at work sites or public spaces in what resembles military tactical gear, body armor, weapons, and masks.
As a GQ assessment of the ICE look pointed out, the agency does not have a single mandatory uniform, just a set of guidelines that give agents latitude to mix street clothes with military-pattern gear, fitted with patches or plate carriers labeled ICE. Most notoriously, many choose to wear gaiter-style masks, to protect their identity and avoid being doxed or otherwise retaliated against. To critics, the upshot of this aesthetic is a lack of transparency and a sense of intimidation: Intentionally or not, the look signals a disruptive, occupying force. You’ve got cops geared up like they’re ready to go fight in Fallujah, one Redditor commented, in order to arrest some cooks and landscapers.
At the very least, the overlapping uniform styles can be a source of confusion. If military veterans have to look very hard at images and footage to figure out individual affiliations, then the average citizen is going to easily confuse what they see as a militarized response rather than a law enforcement one, retired Marine Col. David Lapan, a former spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Homeland Security, told military news site Task & Purpose. Worst case scenario, Lapan added: It creates the perception that the U.S. military is being used to suppress the American people.
Minnesota Army National Guard soldiers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. January 17, 2026. [Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images]
So far the Guard has not been deployed to city streets in Minneapolis; in a press statement, the Minnesota National Guard said they remain on alert could be called on for traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.
Underlying the potential visual confusion is the question of whether camouflage serves any particular function for federal agents operating on city streets in the first place. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, best known for his blunt-talking style while overseeing the National Guard deployment to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, pointed out to Task & Purpose: Theres nothing that a camouflage uniform can do for you in an urban operation other than [to] portray a sense of authority. His suggestion to non-military agencies currently using camo: Go get your own goddamned uniforms.
If youre a typical American, you get home from work and start flipping switches and turning knobsdoing laundry, cooking dinner, watching TV. With so many other folks doing the same, the strain on the electrical grid in residential areas is highest at this time. That demand will only grow as the world moves away from fossil fuels, with more people buying induction stoves, heat pumps, and electric vehicles.
Thats a challenge for utilities, which are already managing creaky grids across the United States, all while trying to meet a growing demand for power. So theyre now trying to turn EVs from a burden into a boon. More and more models, for instance, feature vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, capabilities, meaning they can send power to the grid as needed. Others are experimenting with whats called active managed charging, in which algorithms stagger when EVs charge, instead of them all drawing energy as soon as their owners plug in. The idea is for some people to charge later, but still have a full battery when they leave for work in the morning.
A new report from the Brattle Group, an economic and energy consultancy, done for EnergyHub, which develops such technology, has used real-world data from EV owners in Washington state to demonstrate the potential of this approach, both for utilities and drivers. They found that an active managed charging program saves up to $400 per EV each year, and the vehicles were still always fully charged in the morning. Utilities, too, seem to benefit, as the redistributed demand results in less of a spike in the early evening. That, in turn, would mean that a utility can delay costly upgradeswhich they need in order to accommodate increased electrificationsaving ratepayers money.
Active managed charging works in conjunction with something called time of use, in which a utility charges different rates depending on the time of day. Between 4 and 9 p.m., when demand is high, rates are also high. But after 9 p.m., they fall. EV owners who wait until later in the evening to charge pay less for the same electricity.
Time-of-use pricing discourages energy use when demand is highest, lightening the load and reducing how much electricity utilities need to generate. But theres nothing stopping everyone from plugging in as soon as cheaper rates kick in at 9 p.m. As EV adoption grows, that coordination problem can create a new spike in demand. An EV can be on its own twice the peak load of a typical home, said Akhilesh Ramakrishnan, managing energy associate at the Brattle Group. You get to the point where they start needing to be managed differently.
Thats where active managed charging comes in. Using an app, an EV owner indicates when they need their car to be charged, and how much charge their battery needs for the day. (The app also learns over time to predict when a vehicle will unplug.) When they get home at 6 p.m., the owner can plug in, but the car wont begin to charge. Instead, the system waits until some point in the night to turn on the juice, leaving enough time to fully charge the vehicle by the indicated hour. If customers dont believe that were going to get them there, then theyre not going to allow us to control their vehicle effectively, said Freddie Hall, a data scientist at EnergyHub.
The typical driver only goes 30 miles in a day, Hall added, requiring about two hours of charging each night. By actively managing many cars across neighborhoods, the system can more evenly distribute demand throughout the night: Folks will leave for work earlier or later than their neighbors, vehicles with bigger batteries will need more time to charge, and some will be almost empty while others may need to top up.
Theyre all still getting the lower prices with time-of-use rates, but theyre not taxing the grid by all charging at 9 p.m. The results are actually very, very promising in terms of reducing the peak loads, said Jan Kleissl, director of the Center for Energy Research at the University of California, San Diego, who wasnt involved in the report. It shows big potential for reducing costs of EV charging in general.
Active managed charging would allow the grid to accommodate twice the number of EVs before a utility has to start upgrading the system to handle the added load, according to the report. (And consider all the additional demand for energy from things like data centers.) Those costs inevitably get passed down to all ratepayers. But, the report notes, active managed charging could delay those upgrades by up to a decade. As EVs grow, if you dont implement these solutions, theres going to be a lot more upgrades, and thats going to lead to rate impacts for everyone, Ramakrishnan said.
At the same time, EVs could help reduce those rates in the long term, thanks to V2G, a separate emerging technology. It allows a utility to call on EVs sitting in garages as a vast network of backup power. So when demand surges, those vehicles can send power to the grid for others to use, or just power the house theyre sitting in, essentially removing the structure from the grid and lowering demand. (And think of all the fleets of electric vehicles, like school buses, with huge batteries to use as additional power.) With all that backup energy, utilities might not need to build as many costly battery facilities of their own, projects that ratepayers wouldnt need to foot the bill for.
Active managed charging and V2G could work in concert, with some batteries draining at 6 p.m. as they provide energy, then recharging later at night. But that ballet will require more large-scale experimentation. How are we going to fit in discharging a battery, as well as charging it overnight? Hall said. Because you do want it available the next day.
To cut greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible, the world needs more EVs. Now its just a matter of making them benefit the grid instead of taxing it.
This article originally appeared in Grist.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org
