This morning, shares of two of the largest computer memory companies that trade on U.S. markets are up yet again.
The stock prices of Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) and Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) rose after a Japanese memory firm issued a surprising outlook. Heres what you need to know.
Stock prices jump as demand continues
Shares in several memory chip makers traded on U.S. markets are currently up in premarket trading this morning.
The companies include Micron and Sandisk, as well as Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) and Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX).
As of this writing, Micron shares are currently up 2.9%, Sandisk shares are up 6.2%, Western Digital shares are up 3%, and Seagate shares are up 2.5%.
While all four companies make memory chips, Western Digital and Seagate primarily focus on computer storage, leaving Micron and Sandisk as the two primary memory chip makers traded on U.S. exchanges.
And those two companies are getting a lot of attention, not just today, but as of late, due to the memory chip shortage that global supply chains are currently dealing with.
As Fast Company previously reported, there is a global memory chip shortage in 2026. Computer memory, also known as RAM, is the component inside a computer that saves and processes short-term memory (as opposed to long-term memory, which is what hard drives and SSDs store).
Demand from artificial intelligence (AI) companies is fueling the shortage as they race to get as much RAM as they can get their hands on. These AI companies are currently building many AI data centers, which need powerful servers to run the AI, and those servers require memory to handle instructions.
As a result, demand for memory chips is off the charts.
And while that is bad for consumers, who are likely to see higher costs for smartphones and laptops this year due to rising memory prices, its very good for the companies that make memory, like Micron and SanDisk.
Why are memory chip companies seeing their prices rise today?
Todays rise in memory company stock prices isnt something totally out of the blue. The stock prices of memory companies have been rising for months as news of a memory chip shortage in 2026 spread.
However, the stock price jumps in MU and SNDK today seem to be primarily due to a Japanese company called Kioxia.
Kioxia is a Japanese flash memory supplier, and today, it reported fiscal third-quarter results. Those results, as noted by Investing.com, slightly exceeded expectations. Q4 guidance, on the other hand, blew past expectations.
Most analysts had expected Kioxia to issue Q4 revenue guidance of 648.2 billion (about $4.2 billion). Instead, the company said its Q4 guidance is 890 billion at the midpoint (about $5.8 billion).
That is a massive difference and one that many investors see as evidence that demand for memory chips isnt going to slow anytime soon. And when demand is high, prices rise, and memory chip companies make more money.
And investors seem to believe that if Kioxia is guiding much higher on revenue than analysts expected, that signals good news for memory chip companies on this side of the Pacific, too.
Memory chip stocks have had a great 2026 so far
Even before todays Kioxia boost, U.S. memory chip stocks have had a pretty stellar run since the year began.
As of yesterdays market close, Micron was up more than 43% year to date, Sandisk was up 152%, Western Digital was up 58%, and Seagate was up 47%.
To put those figures into greater context, the stock market they all trade on, the Nasdaq, has actually declined during the same period.
As of yesterdays close, the Nasdaq Composite was down about 0.7% for the year so far, according to data from Yahoo Finance.
Looking back even furtherover the past 12 monthsthe returns on these same four memory chip companies have been even more eye-popping.
In the last year, Seagate has risen 316%, Micron has jumped 336%, Western Digital is up 425%, and Sandisk has risen a staggering 1,609%. During the same period, the NASDAQ Composite has risen 17.4%
An Idaho-based beef processing facility is recalling about 22,912 pounds of raw ground beef over concerns that the products might be contaminated with E. coli O145.
The company, CS Beef Packers in Kuna, issued the recall following testing by the U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), according to a recall notice published late Wednesday.
An FSIS test at a downstream customer showed E. coli O415. This strand of the bacteria is a variation of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC).
The USDA has labeled the recalled products as high risk, with the potential to cause adverse health consequences or even death. Heres what you need to know about the recalled CS Beef Packers items.
What products are affected?
The recalled products come in cardboard cases and were produced on January 14, 2026.
Each case has a time stamp between 7:03 and 8:32 printed on them and a use-by or freeze-by by date of February 4, 2026.
Plus, they bear the establishment number Est. 630 inside the USDAs inspection mark (available on the outside of the case and the clear packaging of each chub).
As that expiration date has passed, the FSIS is worried that some products may be in food service freezers. Think you might have some in a freezer? The below cardboard cases of products are included in the recall:
Eight 10-pound chubs of Beef, Coarse Ground, 73 L, case code 18601
Four 10-pound chubs of Fire River Farms Classic Beef Fine Ground 73 L, case code 19583
Four 10-pound chubs of Fire River Farms Classic Beef Fine Ground 81 L, case code 19563
You can view images of the product labels here.
Where and when was the product sold?
According to the FSIS, CS Beef Packers shipped the impacted products to distributors in California, Idaho, and Oregon.
However, they were likely then sent to food service locations for further distribution. The recall notice does not include a list of potentially impacted restaurants or food-service establishments.
Fast Company has reached out to CS Beef Packers for information on where else the recalled products might have gone. We will update this post if we hear back.
What should I do if I have this product?
The FSIS states that Foodservice locations are urged not to serve these products. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.
What E. coli symptoms should I look out for?
As of Wednesday, there have been no reported illnesses from consuming the beef.
However, people can become sick between two and eight days after exposure to E. coli O145. According to the USDA, symptoms include diarrhea (typically bloody) and vomiting. Diagnosis occurs through a stool sample.
In most cases, people feel better within a week through treatments like vigorous rehydration, the USDA states.
In rare cases, a person might develop a kidney infection known as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).
This condition is most likely to occur in children under five-years-old, individuals with weakened immune systems, and older adults. Symptoms of HUS include easy bruising, pallor, and reduced urine output. Get medical help immediately if you experience any of these symptoms.
It looks like ordinary paint, but a new coating called Lilypad Paint has a hidden ability to pull moisture out of the air. It works like a dehumidifier, without the energy use.
If its on the wall in your bathroom, it can suck water vapor out of the air after youve taken a shower. The paint holds the humidity in nano-size pores, and then slowly releases it as humidity levels fall in the room. Under the paint, a layer of custom primer acts like a smart gatekeeper ensuring that vapor doesnt end up accumulating in the wall, says Derek Stein, founder and CEO of Adept Materials, the startup behind the product.
A passive fix for moisture in modern buildings
The tech spun out of Steins research as a physics professor at Brown University. While working with students on the design of a solar-powered house, he learned about a growing problem: As buildings become more energy-efficient, air quality can get worse.
As were making buildings really, really tight thermally, they tend to trap in moisture and trap in air, Stein says. A new house might use less energy for heating and cooling but more for ventilationand if the system doesnt work perfectly, the home could end up with mold. Older houses that dont have mechanical ventilation also often have mold problems.
[Photo: Adept Materials]
Stein iterated on new materials that could passively regulate humidity inside a building and landed on the idea of a simple two-layer structure. Its like a material machine that can regulate humidity in a space while also teaching direction to the wall, he says. The design moves moisture out of the wall while preventing it from getting in.
In conversations with the construction industry, Stein realized there was a clear demand for a product like this. In 2018, he left Brown and launched the startup to bring it to market. It became clear to me that to make this happen on any realistic time scale, I had to leave the ivory tower and go out into the proverbial real world to do this, he says.
Scaling up outside the lab
The basic tech, which the company calls Vaporwisp, could be incorporated in many different building materialsdrywall, for example, would benefit from humidity management. Adept Materials is also developing a new building wrap for construction that can keep moisture out without trapping it inside. In a seed round of funding a little over a year ago, investors included large home builders like D.R. Horton.
Why are home builders investing in this? Its not just because of the paint. A lot of their problems, operationally, are related to moisture, says Stein. (The technology can also have broader applications, including packaging to keep food fresh longer, or moisture-wicking clothing.)
Paint was a logical place to start in part because its used both by builders and by consumers working on DIY projects. And unlike drywalla low-margin, unbranded productpaint is something consumers can seek out by brand.
[Photo: Adept Materials]
In hundreds of lab tests on the paint, the team showed that the system worked as expected to absorb and release moisture. In two identical rooms filled with humidity sensors, testers painted one with Lilypad and one with ordinary paint, and ran a series of humidity assessments. The new paint kept moisture out of the walls.
The process works as long as the paint is on the walls. In other words, the performance is tied to its physical properties, not to chemical additives that can wear out. Lilypad works because it gives moisture a place to go, and a way back out, Stein explains. When humidity rises, water temporarily clings to tiny surfaces inside the paint. When the air dries, that moisture naturally releases back into the room. Its the same everyday process that makes a bathroom mirror fog up and then clear again. The difference is scale: Inside a gallon of Lilypad, those invisible surfaces add up to about a million times the area of a mirror.
After ensuring that the coating worked as expected on humidity, the company optimized it as a paint. The finish had to be perfect. It was engineered to flow onto walls as smoothly as top paint brands.
We’ve really been engineering this to be a no-compromise paint, Stein says. The other thing, as a startup company, without the economies of scale that Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore will have, we’re not going to be able to compete on price. And so we’re necessarily going to be competing with higher-end products. . . . We cannot be deficient in any of that.
Because its being sold not just as a paint, but as a coating to control moisture, its sold at a premium: A kit with a gallon of primer and a gallon of paint goes for $175.
[Photo: Adept Materials]
At launch, the coating is available only in white. There’s a a kind of poorly kept secret within the paint industry that about 80% of paint sales are whites, Stein says. So people go into the paint store, they bring the pillows and a sample of the drapes and the whatever and they’re checking all the colors, and after an hour they go up to the front and they say, ‘A gallon of double white.’ We wanted to free people of the decision paralysis and free ourselves of the operational headaches of having to offer every color under the rainbow. He notes that the company can easily add colors later.
Saving energy and money
In an ultra-tight new building like a passive house, the paint cant replace mechanical ventilation. But it can reduce how much ventilation needs to be used, saving energy. “If you can automatically regulate humidity, it can lighten the load on the HVAC systemand that’s not insignificant,” Stein says. “The fraction of energy that goes to managing humidity in a building is typically . . . about 10% to about 40%.”
In an older building, Lilypad coating can reduce moisture without the need to install expensive new HVAC systems. Adept Materials is now in discussions with the Boston Housing Authority about a pilot that would test the paint inside public housing apartments that don’t have exhaust fans in bathrooms.
“It’s accessible by design,” Stein says. “My hope is that while we are releasing this and people are going to be putting it in fancy remodels, there’s also the opportunity to put it into public housing.”
When the iPhone first introduced apps in 2008, a feverish gold rush followed. New APIs and design standards made it easier to make softwareeven by non-coders.
The question became: Could you create a small experience, perhaps something as simple as a fart button app, that could make you a million dollars in a weekend? (And while some people definitely cashed in, a majority of us did not.)
Nearly two decades later, the rest of us have another opportunity to rethink mobile software. Weve entered the era of vibe codingin which complex software can be generated with nothing but plain language prompts. Now, rather than offer developers the tools to make the next hit app, it seems phone manufacturers may urge everyone to vibe-code their next widget.
The hypebeasty smartphone company Nothing Technology has launched what its calling Essential Apps in beta on its website. What that really means is that, for the first time, you can simply describe the widget youd like to have (maybe the latest scores from your favorite team, or a slideshow of beautiful public domain imagery), and it will become a widget that you can download right to your phone, or even share with the public.
Nothings mantra? One billion apps for one billion people. I still prefer the term widgets for what Nothing is sharing, but Ill admit that its a good line.
Because it seems quite feasible that, for many of us, our first experience with vibe coding will actually be a widget.
The rise of widgets
Full-blown apps have been the main modality of smartphones since the early days of the App Store. But the industry has embraced widgets for nearly as longas lighter-weight, glanceable apps that are always open on your screen.
Desktop computers had used widgets for years before Google introduced them to Android in 2009. Apple held out until 2014. While theyve always represented a strange mortar of our digital lives, widgets have remained an established part of our app lexicon as bite-size vessels for information that can live wherever you want on your phone.
Vibe coding is amazing, but its still involved in building something as complex as a modern app. Widgets, on the other hand, have such a limited scope that they seem perfect for an inexperienced vibe coder. The information you want is the interface, and theres not a lot more to it.
Nothing isnt technically the first company to come up with the idea of vibe-coding widgets on a mobile platform. You may have forgotten that this was also the biggest promise from Rabbit, the early AI hardware company that captured the tech worlds imagination in 2024before turning out to be less capable than promised. (Meanwhile, its founder, Jesse Lyu, is building a new piece of hardware completely dedicated to vibe coding that’s called the Cyberdeck.)
Nothing has sold over 7 million devices to a loyal crowd that appreciates its quirkier, more expressive approach to design. Its phones have touches like its Glyph Button on the back, which can contain cute micrographics that evoke the Atari era.
[Photo: Nothing]
As it turns out, Nothings vibe coding supports new animations for this buttonand people have already generated music visualizers and timers. Other early works you can find from Nothing vibe coderswhich, for now, seem to be Nothings own employeesinclude tic-tac-toe and phases of the moon. Theyre also letting people generate and share custom music equalizers and photo slideshows.
Two different early hands-ons both suggest Nothings vibe coding isnt as perfectly automated as we may imagine, but the modality seems promising all the same. While I dont believe every human on earth is capable of developing the next Uber by vibe coding, its easy to imagine myriad people having a tiny, very specific problem related to their commutes, or a transportation challenge that theyd love to solve. And vibe-coded widgets offer a reasonable container for those solutions.
This is only the beginning
This is all to say that while Nothing was first(ish) out of the gate, I suspect vibe-coded widgets are going to be an extraordinarily popular modality sold by phone manfacturers. And not even necessarily because people need or want them, but because their limited scope seems just right for welcoming the masses into a cutting-edge behavior.
Samsung, for instance, is already trying to distinguish its platform with AI integration of all types. Google, a global leader in all things AI at this moment, is almost certainly working on tools like this. On our December By Design podcast, former Fast Company design editorand current Google senior staff designer working on Android AICliff Kuang suggested vibe coding would be the biggest paradigm for the next decade or even century.
Even Apple, a company I would naturally assume would never touch vibe coding, may come to surprise us. Consider that its already embraced generative AI in Messages and other apps, and it just signed a deal to source its next AI model from Google. I could certainly imagine Apple, working with its collection of internally designed components, creating a widget customizer for its users.
And of course, we cannot count out Chinese companies, which produce around 50% of smartphones globally. Huawei, in particular, already offers a variety of Service Cardsan evolution of the widget that can turn an app into a little card, complete with the apps core functions, right on the home screen. Why couldnt AI make the perfect intermediary here, for a user to customize exactly what they want to surface from an app?
Im not saying that vibe-coded widgets will become the predominant way we interact with our smartphones. As few as 15% of Apple users report actively using them today. But I do believe that a combination of feasible scope and FOMO-driven strategy could drive the entire smartphone industry in this direction over the next year or two.
In other words: If you havent delved into vibe coding yet, dont be surprised if your first project is a widget.
Need some recipe inspo for dinners this week? Look no further than the latest viral food trend on TikTok: boy kibble.
The gym bros answer to girl dinner, which gained traction online in 2023 as an artfully arranged snack plate, boy kibble is consumed mainly by men trying to hit their protein goals while keeping calories low.
Its 8PM and Im rawdogging some 93/7 ground beef, one enthusiast posted on TikTok. Were not the same.
@thequadfather03 #boykibble #girldinner #fyp original sound – thequadfather03
In an era of strange diets (see meatfluencers scarfing down whole sticks of butter and wellness warriors championing E. coliriddled raw milk) a meal that consists largely of rice, minced meat, and perhaps a handful of vegetables isnt particularly shocking.
Minor details like flavor matter less than how quickly and efficiently macros can be consumed. Here, food is simply fuel.
A profile of the typical boy kibble consumer has emerged. Social media suggests these men are often corporate workers, the kind who also order a slop bowl for lunch from Cava or Sweetgreen.
That said, some are pushing back on the stereotype. Making boy kibble in a girl-dinner-trying-to-add-protein-to-my-meal way, not a scary-villainous-bro way, one creator posted.
The viral food trend has also been referred to as human kibble online, with women spotted eating it too. Substitute the ground beef for tofu and I feel horribly seen. Still, scrolling social media, it appears to skew male.
@reginmantuano making boy kibble and i genuinely hit a bro state original sound – sunshinebenzi
The act of cooking and consuming boy kibble is now known as ground beef oclock. One viral video shows two men in stacked apartment windows, both simultaneously pan-frying what we can only assume is ground beef. Boyhood, the caption reads.
@cpla20 Boyhood original sound – NickiMVerses –
Running home for ground beef oclock reads another video’s caption. In the clip, a man maintains a vice grip on his pack of beef while striding purposefully back to his apartment.
@daniellafernandareyes he saw that 93/7 on sale #fypviral #fyp #newyork #nyc #financebro –
Still, many people can relate to the feeling that coming up with a meal that sits within the Venn diagram of healthy, easy, and delicious every night for the rest of our lives can feel overwhelming. It may be part of why a recent viral New York Times article about Americans DoorDash habits struck a nerve.
Genuinely unnerved by the DoorDash discourse, one X user wrote. I am Gods worst and most unwilling cook and yet when I say I dont cook I mean I put $11 worth of pre-marinated meat in the air fryer and serve it with $2 worth of rice.
Genuinely unnerved by the DoorDash discourse I am Gods worst and most unwilling cook and yet when I say I dont cook I mean I put $11 worth of pre-marinated meat in the air fryer and serve it with $2 worth of rice. Youre telling me a large number of people cant even do that pic.twitter.com/mr3H9nTaWW— Charlotte Lee (@cljack) February 2, 2026
In that context, boy kibble isnt a sign of grindset optimization maxxing. Instead, its a simple, nutritious, and affordable way for burned-out workers to take one responsibility off their plates.
On the way to work, you see a TikTok video of the president admitting to a crime. In the elevator, you hear your favorite band, but the song is completely unfamiliar. At your desk, you open an email from an executive in another department. It contains valid sales information and discusses a relevant legal issue, but the wording sounds oddly wooden. After lunch, the CEO sends all managers a link to a new app she had casually proposed just a few days earlier. Later, you interview a job candidate via Zoom, but the person looks different from his LinkedIn picture.
Any or all of these thingsthe video, the song, the email, the CEOs app, the candidatecould have been generated by AI tools or agents. But our epistemic defaults, I’d argue, are still set to assume these things are human-created unless available information proves otherwise. We have not yet entered a zero-trust paradigm where content is generated unless proven authentic.
Instead, we find ourselves in an anxious middle ground. The question now arises whenever we encounter a new image, video, or piece of information: Is this AI-generated? Increasingly, the answer will be yes. We are close enough to that zero-trust reality that we can see it approaching on the horizon.
Beyond deepfakes
Deepfakes were just the beginning. AI-generated video designed to mislead or incite was, not so long ago, seen as a novelty. Now its common in everything from revenge porn to politics. AI-generated music has gone mainstream. Last year, a fully generated country song called Walk My Walk by Breaking Rust reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart in the U.S. An AI-generated TV ad, made with Googles Veo 3, Gemini, and ChatGPT, ran during Game 3 of the NBA Finals last year.
According to a Gallup Q3 2025 report, 45% of U.S. employees now use AI at work. In a similar vein, the email deliverability firm ZeroBounce found in a September 2025 survey that one in four workers use AI daily to draft emails, and that number has likely increased. The same survey found that a quarter of workers suspect their performance review was written using AI.
By most accounts, the use of AI agents in corporate workflows is still in the early innings. But AI companies say were moving toward a future in which agents from different departments collaborate to complete back-office tasks, such as compensating suppliers, or to compile decision-support materials, like a business case for entering a new market or making an acquisition.
Its already likely that AI agents, including deep research or business intelligence tools, play some role in assembling reports managers receive at work. Amazons AWS says its customers have used AI agents to save more than 1 million hours of manual effort. McKinsey predicts that by 2030 the use of agents and robots could create about $2.9 trillion in value in the U.S. if organizations redesign their workflows for people, agents, and robots working together. (Of course, McKinsey wants to help them do that.)
Depending on her technical savvy, the CEO mentioned above may have mocked up a new app using Replit or Bolt. These so-called vibe-coding tools can generate a credible proof of concept in a weekend. She may then have handed it off to software engineering, whose developers might use Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor to turn the idea into a production-ready app that connects to company databases and third-party tools. A late-2025 Stack Overflow study claims that about 84% of developers now use, or plan to use, AI coding tools, with roughly half already using them daily.
When applying for remote jobs, more candidates are trying to improve their odds with AI tools that enhance their face or voice or generate answers in real time during interviews. The voice authentication firm Pindrop says that in its own video interviews it regularly encounters applicants using deepfake software and other generative AI tools to try to land a job. Gartner predicts that by 2028 a quarter of all remote applicants will be AI-generated.
Deepfakes once threatened to distort reality; now the distortion is structural, embedded in the systems that produce culture, manage companies, and decide who gets hired.
AI, weaponized
But the scammer may have a different goal in mind, and this points to scenarios where generative AI tools arent just used as timesavers, but as weapons. AI can help conceal the real identities of job applicants who are trying to extract sensitive company information or, worse, secure a role in order to install ransomware.
Scammers are also increasingly using advanced face- and voice-swapping tools for outright fraud. In 2024, a team of scammers posed as top executives of the engineering firm Arup during a video call using sophisticated AI tools. They tricked a finance employee into sending them $25 million.
We sense that our epistemic defaultsour AI slop detectors, if you willmay lag behind what technology can already do. And that suspicion is correct. The holy-shit moments accompanying new AI breakthroughs now arrive with striking regularity.
Recently, some users and journalists concluded that the OpenClaw agent platform had become sentient after watching agents complete tasks independently, deploy humans to finish assignments, and then gather in their own online forum to discuss it. At the same time, many ChatGPT users are grieving the forthcoming loss of GPT-4o because they developed a personal attachment to the model. New Chinese video generation systems such as ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 and Kling 3.0 are producing highly controllable video thats increasingly difficult to distinguish from footage captured by a camera.
The next tech wave
Social networks, in many ways, act as intermediariesproviding a wide-angle lens through which a person sees the world. To increase engagement and ad views, Facebook distorted that lens, to the detriment of both democracy and children. This week, Facebook-parent Meta is defending itself in a Los Angeles courtroom after years of deploying design features, including endless scroll, that critics say proved harmfuly addictive for younger users.
That was the last tech revolution, and it depended on user-made content. But with AI, the web can generate its own content on demand. This may put an immense amount of power in the hands of a few AI companies, perhaps even more so than was given to social media companies.
With so much money and influence at stake, the question is whether AI companies will do what firms like Meta did not and draw a clear line between human-created and machine-generated content. I seriously doubt it, especially with a billionaire class and a Trump administration doing everything possible to stifle legislation that might protect AI consumers.
If thats the case, then maybe taking a zero-trust approach to everything that appears on our screens is the only rational path forward.
At $600, Jamie Haller loafers arent an impulse buy, but theyve become one of those rare fashion items people evangelize anyway. The shoes, which resemble classic mens leather loafers, have quietly built a cult following thanks to a surprising claim: Fansfrom TikTokers to Wirecuttersay they mold to your feet the moment you step into them.
This didn’t happen by accident. The Los Angeles-based designer spent years seeking out a factory that would be willing to make her loafers using sacchetto construction, a labor-intensive Italian technique more often found in bespoke mens footwear. Take all of the hard bits of the loafer out, she remembers telling the cobbler in her Italian factory. Just make it skin on skin so that it fits your foot like a slipper.
Now Haller is betting that the same philosophycomfort engineered through old-world techniquecan translate into her next hero product. On February 12, Haller is launching sneakers. The new style is made in Italy and uses the same sacchetto construction that turned her loafers into bestsellers.
I wanted to create a beauty-forward everyday sneaker that has the same very, very special construction that the loafers have,” she says. The sneaker, inspired by climbing shoes and ballet slippers, is low-profile, flexible, and subtly sculptural. It feels like a hug, Haller says.
[Photo: courtesy Jamie Haller]
The New Class of Luxury Brands
The sneaker launch comes as Hallers business is accelerating quickly. She spent years designing for other labels, including Guess and Bebe. But in 2020weeks into the pandemicshe decided to launch her own brand. At first, the business was built around a single slipper-like shoe that was a precursor to the loafer. But by early 2023, the Jamie Haller label had grown enough that she felt ready to leave her day job. Since then, the business has taken off. Year-over-year growth was in double-digit multiples early on, and momentum has continued as the business scales.
Today, about 65% of sales are direct-to-consumer through her website and Montecito, California, store, with the rest coming from wholesale. The brand has expanded into ready-to-wear, bags, and now jewelry, and is entering more stores globally. Net-a-Porter picked up the shoe line and is adding ready-to-wear this springa major inflection point for international reach.
Hallers rise places her squarely within a broader shift in luxury, alongside other female designers like Nili Lotan and Trish Wescoat Pound, who design collections focused on quality and construction. Their clothes offer devoted customers a uniform they can wear repeatedly. I’m toeing the line between casual and polished, Haller says.
[Photo: courtesy Jamie Haller]
Making Menswear Work for Women
What makes Haller’s collections stand out is her deep affinity for vintage menswear. As a child, she loved her grandfather’s overcoats, well-worn briefcases, and shoes. She scours vintage markets to find classic men’s garments that might fit her but often doesnt like how they hang on her curves.
So she taught herself how to translate those garments to suit a womans figure, combining the hard edges of menswear with the sensuality of a woman’s body. It is this blending of masculine and feminine that is intriguing to her.
[Photo: courtesy Jamie Haller]
Haller says men’s trousers usually don’t fit her well because she has curvaceous hips. To maintain the straight, slung look of a mens trouser, she pulls seams forward and adds shape only where its needed, often in the back rise. The visual appearance is still very straight, she says, even though the pattern is doing more work underneath.
That same logic applies across categories. Her shirts are cut with straighter armholes and dropped shoulders, often in Japanese yarn-dyed cottons meant to mimic the feel of a perfectly worn vintage Oxford. Its always a balance of small and big, she saysrolling cuffs, opening collars, exposing just enough of the body to create contrast.
Jewelry, too, follows this masculine thread. Hallers debut jewelry collection, launched last fall, centers on chunky signet rings inspired by the rings youd see on an 80-year-old Sicilian man, she says. They arent precious everyday pieces, but styling elementsmeant to add contrast to an outfit built from polished basics. Its the styling layer you put on top of te button-down and the basic trouser, she explains.
[Photo: courtesy Jamie Haller]
At every stage, Haller designs for herself first. She fits everything on her own body and refuses to release pieces she doesnt love. That conviction seems to resonate with customers, many of whom return again and again. Im making clothes they can wear every day very comfortably, she says.
Haller’s success reveals a shift in what women want. Many are eschewing larger, flashier designers for independent labels, brands offering understated clothing that doesn’t overshadow the woman wearing them but rather makes her feel put-together thanks to a relentless focus on quality and fit. Haller’s designs borrow the best of mensweardurability, ease, comfortwithout losing sensuality. Now her customers will be able to swap their loafer for a sneaker to add a casual touch to their outfit.
I design to make myself happy,” Haller says. “If Im wearing something every single day, thats usually a good sign. And I never take these sneakers off.
You might think the most important amenities a hotel could provide would be a comfortable bed and a friendly concierge. For workers looking to shake up their WFH routine, though, a lightning-fast internet connection and electrical outlets aplenty may top that list.
The chicer cousin of the coworking space, a hotel lobby is no longer a place to simply check in or out: Its an often overlooked third space in major cities, where guests and remote workers alike can mingle, relax, and get work done.
Kayla Terzi is a recent convert. The hospitality real estate broker used to bounce around different cafés while working remotely in New York Citythat is, until she discovered the common area of the Soho Grand.
I started noticing hotels offer a quieter, more consistent environment, especially for long calls or focused work sessions, Terzi, 26, told Fast Company. At the same time, an energized, cool, social environment helps me stay inspired.
The concept of using hotels as coworking spaces is far from new, but as many companies increasingly opt for hybrid working arrangements, hotels are filling a growing gap between demand and supply when it comes to workspaces.
Nearly one in three workers say their company has cut office space since 2020, with 43% reporting that no replacement workspace was provided. Thats according to a November 2025 study conducted by Engine, a booking platform for business travel. Additionally, the rise of the gig economy means there are more freelancers and self-employed workers than ever before. According to the MBO Partners State of Independence in America Report, there were an estimated 72.9 million Americans freelancing in some capacity in 2025.
Those workers need space to work, with nearly one in five surveyed by Engine regularly going on space scavenger hunts for a change of scenery from their cramped apartments and desk-next-to-bed setups.
Instead of turning visitors away, hotels are increasingly opening their doors to take in stray workerseven if theyre not guests.
As long as I order a coffee or something to eat, they usually let me work and hang out for as long as I need, Terzi said. Of course, I make sure not to overstay my welcome.
For those who are looking for a little more privacy, services like Engine Spaces make it easy for workers and business travelers to make use of professional workspaces and meeting rooms from the platforms extensive hotel network, 82% of which otherwise sit empty most of the time, a December 2025 Engine survey found. People shouldnt need to call a hotel to get basic information about a meeting space, Elia Wallen, founder and CEO of Engine, told Fast Company. Its 2026, and this is one of the last corners of hospitality that needs to come online, fast.
Theres a gap in the market, apparently. Within the first month of Engines beta launch, more than 1,000 spaces were added to the marketplace by hotels, according to the company.
What Terzi looks for in a hotel lobby is reliable Wi-Fi, accessible power outlets, and comfortable seating. One of my favorite lessons is that nothing extraordinary happens in ordinary spaces, Terzi said.
Remember, even if youre not forking out hundreds or thousands of dollars a night for a room in a five-star hotel, in most cases you can still order a coffee and take advantage of the propertys common spaces.
Then, following a productive day of work, seamlessly make your way to the hotel lobby bar. Because why not?
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One of the clearest messages from KB Homes leadership during its last earnings call was that the homebuilderranked No. 526 on the Fortune 1000is intentionally shifting away from elevated spec inventory and back toward more built-to-order (BTO)which will also help firm up its compressing margins given that BTO has higher margins than spec.
When the supply chain crashed [during the pandemic] and our build times significantly extended, it was very difficult to sell a built-to-order home to a buyer when it was going to take 10 or 11 months to build You cant lock the interest rate for that long, Mezger tells ResiClub. So they did more spec.
Thats over now.
Weve significantly compressed our build times Were back down to four months or less, which is our historical level, Mezger tells ResiClub. With shorter cycle times and shifted conditions, KB Home wants to move to less spec.
For years and years, [built-to-order] was 70% to 80% of our business, Mezger noted. In the fourth quarter, deliveries were around 50% BTO.In late January 2026, ResiClub interviewed KB Home CEO Jeffrey Mezger and COO Rob McGibney. Beginning March 1, 2026, McGibney will assume the CEO role, with Mezgerwho has served as CEO since 2006moving into the newly created position of executive chairman. Below are some main housing market takeaways from our recent conversation with KB Home.
KB Home says its Florida business is showing signs of stabilizationbut the story is hyper-local
Speaking on their September 2025 earnings call, KB Home executives said they had cut home prices across Floridalast years weakest pocket of the housing marketand were beginning to see signs of stabilization in the Sunshine State as a result.
Do they still stand behind that signs of stabilization statement?
Thats still largely accurate But it really remains very market specific, McGibney tells ResiClub. McGibney adds that some Florida communities have improved, allowing KB Home to lift prices a little this spring. Other Florida communities remain sluggish, requiring additional price adjustments even after earlier cuts.
We look at every community as its own business, McGibney explained. It can vary significantly within the same metroTampa, Orlando, Jacksonvilleyou name it.
As for magnitude, KB Home estimates most Florida home price adjustments since peak are modest. Even -10% would be on the extreme side, McGibney said, referring to price moves from peak levels. Most of what were talking about is in a -1% to -10% range.
The new-home supply pipeline is pulling back some in softer markets
Weve seen [housing] starts come down year-over-year in many [weaker] markets, Mezger tells ResiClub. Especially spec starts.
KB Home says the pullback is helping limit further inventory pressure in markets like Florida, Phoenix, and Denver where prices just ran up too much relative to incomes.
It’s good to see that there’s not a lot more inventory being injected into some of the softer markets, and I think that’s going to help places like Florida stabilize, Mezger says.
The new-vs-existing price gap is compressingand thats making new construction more attractive
According to the ResiClub New Home Premium Index, the median sales price of new single-family homes in October 2025 was -1.2% lower than the median sales price of existing single-family homes. This shift reflects how the affordability-strained housing market of the past three years has played out unevenly across segments. Many existing-home sellers have resisted downward price pressure, often at the expense of being able to transact. Homebuilders, by contrast, have been more willing to make affordability adjustmentsmost notably through price cuts, incentives, and a greater mix of smaller homesto avoid a sharper pullback in new-home sales.
While theres no question that the new-construction premium has fallen meaningfully from a few years ago, national median comparisons (i.., ResiClubs index) likely overstate the magnitude of the decline somewhat due to mix-shift effects. KB Home says its premium has compressed; however, it still exists.
There’s a lot of [existing] sellers that have stuck to pricing that’s very high, and they haven’t moved off the pricing so it doesn’t trade. And historically, we’ve always, over time, been able to support a 10% premium to resaleand above 15% when there was no resale inventory. The premiums for the industry gapped well above that [during the Pandemic Housing Boom], and you have seen them compress. But in our case, we try to target our product when we open a community to be within that 10% to 15% range. And when we do that, we’ve [still] seen a buyer that will absolutely take new over used, Mezger tells ResiClub.
For many Black tech founders, raising venture capital is often positioned as the ultimate milestone. It signals that your idea is validated, your business is taken seriously, and opportunities begin to take shape. As the managing partner of an early stage VC firm, and a 3X Black tech founder that speaks and meets with thousands of founders a year, I can tell you the truth is far more nuanced. Venture capital can be powerful, but its not for everyone.
Before chasing your first check, founders need clarity, preparation, and strategy. Fundraising is not just about storytelling or networking; its about understanding the system youre stepping into and deciding whether raising venture capital truly aligns with your long-term vision.
Venture Capital Is a Business Model, Not a Badge of Honor
It’s important for first time founders to understand the venture business model. Investors are not simply backing good ideas”; we are seeking outsized returns within a defined time horizon. That means VCs are looking for companies that can scale rapidly, dominate large markets, and potentially return 10x, 50x, or even 100x their investment.
For founders, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, this distinction matters. Too often, VC is treated as a symbol of success rather than a strategic tool. Before you fundraise, ask yourself these tough questions: Is your business designed to scale quickly? Does it address a large enough market? Can it grow aggressively without breaking what makes it special?
If the answer is no, that doesnt mean your business isnt valuable, it just simply means venture capital may not be the right fuel for it. And thats okay.
VC Readiness Starts Long Before the Pitch Deck
Many first-time founders assume fundraising begins when the pitch deck is finished. In reality, thats often the final step. True VC readiness starts months earlier. It takes time to develop your story. Even at the earliest stages, founders should be able to clearly articulate who their customer is, what problem theyre solving, and why their solution is meaningfully different from competitors who are already in market. Part of that story are performance metrics, why your team, and why is this the right time.
Equally important is team readiness. VCs invest in people as much as products, especially first-time founders. Youre almost betting on the person more than you are the business concept. Founders with complementary skill sets, operational discipline, and the ability to execute consistently tend to inspire confidence with VCs. For solo founders, this often means building a roster of strong advisers, impressive early hires, and/or strategic partners who help de-risk the business. The more prepared you are, the better leverage youll have throughout the fundraising process.
Holding Your Power in VC Rooms
Venture capital, like most industries, doesnt hold Black founders in mind, and that reality shows up in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. From biased pattern matching to lowered expectations, founders will encounter dynamics that challenge their confidence.
Thats why entering investor conversations with the right mindset is critical. You are not lucky to be in the room; you earned your place there. I see founders make this mistake often. Investors are evaluating an opportunity, but you need to remember that youre also evaluating them. Not every VC is the right fit for your business. Alignment, values, and long-term partnership matter just as much as check size and valuation.
Holding your power means controlling the narrative around your business, being clear about your vision. It also means taking a collaborative approach to conversation as opposed to a subordinate one. You are supposed to answer questions to VCs but youre not in a job interview. Confidence (not desperation), when backed by preparation and performance, can shift the entire dynamic of a fundraising conversation.
Knowing When Venture Capital Is Or Isnt The Right Move
Its important to remember that not every successful company needs venture capital. Bootstrapping, revenue-based financing, grants, and strategic partnerships can often provide growth capital without sacrificing equity or control. This is more possible than ever in the era of agentic AI.
Founders need to be sure that they have a massive market, directional customer demand that validates the market, and the right team at the earliest stages. Even better is true confidence in scaling the offering to $100M+ revenue in 57 years, given ideal conditions.
VCs are looking to accelerate something thats already working, not serve as a lifeline. Raising money out of desperation only leads to two possible outcomes: a bad deal from a predatory partner or no deal at all. Extraordinary people with amazing opportunities know their worth in a room.
Its also important to consider, the larger the raise, in most cases the deeper the partnership with your investors. This is why setting up the correct relationships up front is key. You want to be in position to work with your board, not for your board.
Take the time to evaluate whether a VC truly fits your business model, personal goals, and tolerance for risk.
The Real Work Starts After the Check Clears
Fundraising is often glamorized, but the real work begins after the money is in the bank. Scaling a team, managing burn, hitting milestones, and navigating investor expectations can be more challenging than raising the round itself. Post-funding success requires operational maturity, strong communication, and the ability to grow as an individual. Youll quickly find that what you did to get to level one does not work to get you to level two. This is where clarity of values matters. Founders who raise with intention and choose investors who understand and respect their vision are better positioned to grow without losing themselves
Raising venture capital is a strategic decision. Understand how VC works, prepare deeply, know how to manage your power dynamic with investors, and choose the right path to build your company (not theirs).
If you decide that venture capital is the right path for you, the goal isnt just to get funded. Its to build something meaningful, scalable, and sustainable on your own terms.
