Generative AI may be both the most useful and the most mystifying tool of our modern-tech era.
The problemaside from all the endlessly documented issues around accuracyis that generative AI generally seems to function in a DOS-like blank prompt form. The onus is squarely on you to figure out what to ask and how to put these saucy systems to use.
That black-box feeling is especially apparent when you look at NotebookLM, an “AI-first notebook” launched by Google nearly two years ago. The idea behind NotebookLM is that you upload your own source materials within carefully confined notebooks, and you can then lean on Google’s Gemini AI to interact with that material in all sorts of illuminating ways.
Since each notebook is limited only to whatever source materials you supply, the prevalence of those pesky hallucinations seems to be less of an issue. And since everything within your NotebookLM notebooks is kept completely privatenot even used for any manner of AI model training, according to Googleyou can connect it to all sorts of subjects and use it to gain a level of deep insight that was never before so easily accessible.
But again, theres the black box challenge. When you first pull up NotebookLM, it’s tough to know where to begin and how to interact with the thing in practical, approachable ways. Even as someone who writes about technology for a living and has spent more time than most mortals thinking about this service, I realized I hadn’t entirely figured out how to use it in a way that would genuinely be helpful in my day-to-day life.
So I challenged myself to dig deep, get beyond all the conceptual excitement, and come up with a series of real-world use cases for NotebookLM that any regular human could both appreciate and emulate. I’ve got 15 super-specific scenarios, all tried and tested, in which the artificial intelligence answer machine could be useful for you.
Follow this road map and see which path holds the most promise from your perspective.
1. Your on-demand product answer machine
Up first is a possibility that’s supremely simple yet packed with productivity potential: Create a new NotebookLM notebook called “Product Manuals.” Then, every time you purchase a new appliance or device of some sort, search the web for a PDF version of its manual and add it into the notebook.
If you really want to get wild, include an image of any warranty cards, too.
Then, anytime you need to know anything about those productshow some part of them works, how to fix something that’s gone awry, or if and how you’re eligible for a warranty-related repairjust fire up that same NotebookLM notebook and ask, ask, ask away.
2. Your instant car support system
Next, try using NotebookLM to help wrangle the most expensive gadget you own. Do a similar web search for your current vehicle’s owner manual, then drop it into its own NotebookLM notebook with the vehicle’s name as the title. Repeat for any additional vehicles you own and any new ones you purchase down the road.
After recently trading in our old minivan for a hybrid Honda CR-V, my wife and I wasted far too much time flipping through the vehicle’s paper manual to try to figure out what some random button on the dashboard did.
Later, after downloading a PDF of the manual from Honda’s website and then uploading it into NotebookLM, it took me all of 10 seconds to reach the same answersimply by asking.Lesson learned.
With your car manual in NotebookLM, you can simply ask questions and get instant answers.
3. An interactive car maintenance journal
While we’re thinking about cars, every time you go to the mechanic, snap a photo of the service receipt and upload it into a NotebookLM notebook created specifically for that one vehicle.
You can make it even more useful by uploading the same owner’s manual you found a moment ago into that notebook, too.
Doing so will give you two very practical benefits:
First, anytime a question comes up about what work you’ve had done on the vehicle or when a certain repair took place, you can just pull up that notebook and ask.
Second, with the manual and its instructions there alongside all of your history, you can bring the two sources of info together to ask NotebookLM targeted questions that take the manufacturer’s guidance and your past services into considerationlike, for instance, when you should rotate your tires next or what other possibilities you should be thinking about at your next oil change appointment.
And on a related note . . .
4. An interactive home maintenance journal
Start a NotebookLM notebook for your house, then upload every invoice and estimate you get for a home repair as well as every receipt from a new appliance purchase.
Whenever you next need to know when, exactly, your roof was replaced or in what year you got your current furnaceor even what brand and model it isyou’ll have a single simple place to ask and get answers.
And that’s a heck of a lot easier than having an overflowing folder of assorted old papers to sift through in every such scenario.
5. Your personal company wiki
Does the company you run, or maybe just work for, have more handbook-type info than any reasonably sane human could possibly ingest and remember? If so, use a dedicated NotebookLM notebook to store all of itguides, documents, operating procedures, even lists of contacts for different departments and purposes.
From that moment forward, when a question comes up about how smething is supposed to work or whom you’re supposed to contact for some particular purpose, your answer will never be more than a single quick question away.
6. Your instruction-expert wizard
Why limit yourself to work, maintenance, and appliances? With anything that has an instruction manual involved, dump a digital version of the document into its own NotebookLM notebookeven for board games. The next time any kind of question comes up related to those instructions, you’ve got a fast and effective way to get answers.
7. A contract deposit box
Whether you’re a freelancer juggling new contracts every month, an employee signing a new agreement each year, or an employer asking dozens of workers to sign your ever-evolving documents, creating a centralized repository for all your contracts can be a real time-saver in the future.
Need to remember when you last signed something with a specific person or provider? Not sure what the terms of some agreement requiredor when a particular document expires?
Whatever the case may be, once the info’s all in NotebookLM, you’ve always got an easy place to askand let the system find the answer for you.
NotebookLM is perfect for parsing complex contract terms or analyzing multiple contracts together.
8. Your meeting memory
Provided you’re using something to record important meetingsbe it a general-purpose AI-powered note-taker, a video-call-specific summarizer, or an app designed to take notes during regular audio callsthat history will be much more useful if you bring it over to a NotebookLM notebook.
With such a system in place, you can simply go to NotebookLM and ask targeted questions about any of your past meetings instead of having to dig through the transcripts individually.
9. An interview inquiry station
While we’re thinking about transcripts, if you conduct any kind of interviewswith job candidates, as a journalist, or for any other purposetake each transcript and create a NotebookLM specifically for it. (Or, if you have a group of related interviews, put them all in one notebook.)
Upload either the audio or the text, depending on what’s available, and then take the opportunity to ask NotebookLM questions about your conversationbe they specific (like what the person said about some particular topic) or broad (like asking NotebookLM what interesting quotes came up during the interview that you might have missed).
Upload an interview to NotebookLM and let it act as your guide to the conversation.
You’ll obviously still want to refer to the full transcript at timesand to double-check the accuracy of any quote you’re actually citing anywherebut it can be a helpful way to find something fast when you can’t remember the exact words involved or to stumble onto something you might have otherwise glossed over.
10. An intelligent feedback interpreter
If your business relies on any manner of feedback to guide its operations, do yourself a favor and create a NotebookLM notebook where you can upload those resultsas spreadsheets or in whatever form they take. From reviews to survey responses, you’ll then be able to ask NotebookLM to help summarize the key themes and trends, pick out recurring positive or critical responses, and even find particularly memorable quotes for potential testimonial use.
11. Your performance review reviewer
For anyone managing employee performance, NotebookLM can be a major asset. Create an individual notebook for each employee and place all their performance reviews therethen, when the time comes for the next assessment, you’ll have an easy way to revisit past highlights to identify trends and provide context for comparison.
12. A financial reality checker
Provided you’re comfortable with the notion, NotebookLM can turn up some really interesting insights by analyzing things like your tax returns, bank statements, and credit card statements over the years. (For what it’s worth, Google is explicit about the fact that it doesn’t in any way access, share, or use any data uploaded into NotebookLMeven for AI model training.)
With that type of info in its own dedicated notebook, you can ask NotebookLM to give you an overview of your spending habits, to identify areas where you could cut back or potentially be eligible for additional tax benefits, and to surface other such pointers that you can then investigate more thoroughly on your own or with an accounting professional.
NotebookLM can be incredibly effective at analyzing financial summaries and helping you both find specific answers and spot broader trends.
13. An audio-video reading resource
Ever find yourself running into interesting-looking videos or podcasts and just not having the time or inclination to sit through them in their entirety?
Make yourself a NotebookLM notebook called “Audio-Video,” then drop a link to any YouTube video or audio clip you encounter into that area. You can then ask NotebookLM for the high pointsor for any specific info you’re looking to findfrom any of the clips individually or even collectively.
14. An elevated reading list
NotebookLM can be a fantastic way to collect links you want to read for later revisiting. With a notebook called “Reading List,” you can see the entire text of any article whose URL you add in, right then and there and in a stripped-down and simplified formatand you can ask NotebookLM for information about, or even summaries of, any or all of your saved links, too:
What was that article I saved from New York a while back?
Give me the most important takeaways from that Fast Company piece I saved on privacy the other day.
I’m never going to catch up with everything I saved this week. Show me a summary of all the articles I added over the past seven days.
You get the idea.
And finally . . .
15. Your calendar companion
Get a whole new level of insight into how you’re spending your time and what’s actually gone down on your calendar by exporting your complete calendar history, and then importing it into NotebookLMwhere you can create a custom notebook to interact with it.
In Google Calendar, this is as easy as clicking the gear-shaped icon in the desktop website’s upper-right corner, selecting “Settings,” then clicking “Import & export” in the left-of-screen side menu and clicking the “Export” option.
You’ll then need to take the resulting .ics file and convert it into plain textwhich you can do in a matter of seconds with a free conversion website like this one.
Finally, with the resulting .txt file in a NotebookLM note, try asking questions about anything from how many meetings you attended over a given time period to how many hours you spent at the doctor’s office last year. You can also ask for specific info such as how often, on average, you get haircuts or how long it’s been since you last had a job interview.
~google-notebooklm-calendar.jpgYou might be surprised at the types of insights you uncover with your calendar data in NotebookLM’s metaphorical hands.~
The possibilities are practically endlessand all you’ve gotta do is ask.
For even more practical productivity discoveries, check out my free Cool Tools newslettera single new tech treasure in your inbox every Wednesday.
What are the hallmarks of a luxury brand? Exclusivity, artisan craftsmanship, and a high price tag to match. But iconic fashion house Gucci may have just learned the hard way that advertising can undermine all those qualitiesespecially if its made with AI.
On February 23, Gucci started posting promotional images for its upcoming Primavera Fashion Show, its first show under new creative director Demna. The first few photos were inoffensiveMichelangelos David statue, a pair of leather loafersbut then, things took a turn. The next four pictures Gucci posted came with a disclaimer in their captions: Created with AI.
The AI-generated ads included renderings of a woman in a fur coat in the middle of a restaurant, a pair of legs emerging from a cars backseat, two models framed against the night sky, and a sports car. They were all images that could easily have been created traditionally with models and photography, leaving fashion fans online scratching their heads as to why Gucci would turn to AI.
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CETCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/sNbcFrpTX9— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CETCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/tcmmFRJBFo— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CET#GucciPrimaveraCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/lNyLEMysp3— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CETCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/l7XnsfVGsD— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
AI-generated content often falls flat in advertising. Take Svedka Vodkas now infamous Super Bowl ad, which featured a robotic duo straight from the uncanny valley. Social media users decried the ad as nightmare fuel, with one self-described Svedka fan rationalizing that with how cheap it is they can’t afford a real budget for an ad.
Gucci, of course, doesnt have that same excuse. Its no doubt much less expensive to generate an image with AI than to hire a full crew and book a location for a photo shootbut for a brand whose cheapest handbag sells for $850 (and whose most expensive retails for $10,000), disgruntled consumers are making it clear that cutting corners isnt a good look.
Fashion lovers werent shy to critique Guccis move. Any luxury brands that used AI slop should not be [considered] luxury anymore, one X user wrote in a viral post.
Fastest way for a luxury brand to lose its value, said another.
Any luxury brands that used AI slop should not be consider luxury anymore https://t.co/GfwVPlrOhM— (@musesarchive) February 23, 2026
A "luxury" brand using AI…this is a new low https://t.co/eOSK9uVQPc— honeyariedits seeing ari (@honeyariedits) February 23, 2026
a billion dollar company couldn't shoot this? https://t.co/hGLN2xCVl9— (@mugIerette) February 23, 2026
> billion dollar luxury brand> ai photoshoot You cant call yourself luxury anymore. https://t.co/GZlPh0FRha— kira (@kirawontmiss) February 24, 2026
Is Gucci ok with people stealing clothes from their stores, or is it just artists work it is ok to steal? https://t.co/mYuH7WUDks— Ed Newton-Rex (@ednewtonrex) February 24, 2026
fastest way for a luxury brand to lose its value. https://t.co/4ahkNyInz2— The Notorious J.O.V. (@whotfisjovana) February 24, 2026
Whether Gucci can make up any social ground with its actual products remains to be seen: Its Primavera Fashion Show will stream live on X on February 27 at 8 a.m. But Guccis experiment with AI advertising suggests that if brands ask consumers to spare no expense for luxury products, theyll need to shell out too where it counts.
Gucci did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.
One week ago, a Savannah, Georgia, woman was killed during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pursuit.
It’s not the first time in recent weeks that a bystander has been killed by ICE. However, this storyone involving a Black bystanderhasn’t taken off with the same ferocity as others that have flooded our feeds and torn at our collective heartstrings. In fact, many haven’t even heard about the recent incident.
Dr. Linda Davis, a beloved 52-year-old mother of five, was struck by a truck driven by a man who was fleeing immigration officers. Davis taught kindergarten and first grade at Herman W. Hesse K-8 School in Savannah’s south-side suburbs, less than a half mile from where she was killed.
The school’s principal, Alonna McMullen, mourned her death in a statement to PBS. “It was extremely difficult to tell 5 and 6 year olds that the teacher they loved and cherished will not be returning to see them,” McMullen said. “To see the looks on their faces, it broke my heart.”
Davis’s family also released a statement mourning her tragic and untimely passing, but noting that they would not yet “speculate about the circumstances” that led to it.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was quick to blame Oscar Vasquez Lopez, the suspect who was fleeing ICE when his car collided with Davis’s.
In a statement, DHS described Lopez as “a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala who was issued a final order of removal by a federal judge in 2024.”
Different circumstances, and a very different public response
Davis’s death is far from the only news story we’ve seen recently involving ICE-related deaths.
In January, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the VA, was shot and killed by an ICE agent. That shooting came just weeks after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was also killed by ICE.
In both cases, there was instant outrage across the country, as many Americans took to protesting to voice their concerns around ICE’s protocols. As the national reaction swept the country, the number of stories just seemed to multiply accordingly.
For weeks, these stories dominated the news cycle and social media, as protests erupted nationwide. More than a month later, demonstrations honoring the two slain civilians have continued in some parts of the country.
Importantly, Davis’s death happened under a different set of circumstances than both Pretti’s and Good’s. For starters, the incident did not involve ICE gunfire.
However, the death did occur as a result of an ICE pursuit. And it comes at a time when many violent altercations with ICE are being documented, raising serious questions about the agency’s impact on public safety.
While Chatham County Police have a “no-chase” policy for non-violent felonies, the ICE agents seemed to fail to abide by it. In video footage from school zone cameras, three vehicles can be seen chasing Lopez through the school zone. Local police agencies have denied any involvement with the chase.
Chester Ellis, Chatham County’s board chairman, spoke to WTOC shortly after the incident, noting that local law enforcement agencies in the area have restrictive policies in place that are specifically meant to guard against incidents like this one. [Our] no-chase policy is to help protect our citizens more than it is anything else, Ellis said.
Fast Company reached out to DHS for a comment on the footage but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Different circumstances aside, all of the recent ICE-involved civilian deaths have been troubling. Still, while there have been vigils, a GoFundMe campaign, and some major news stories on Linda Davis, the incident is far from being as visible as that of Pretti’s or Good’s.
That can be observed in the lack of coverage on major broadcasts, like ABC World News.
Likewise, traction gained on the GoFundMe pages for each of the families is notably different according to race. Campaigns for Good and Pretti quickly raised well over $1 million in donations. (At present they have $1.4 million and $1.8 million, respectively.) In the week since Davis’s passing, the GoFundMe for her family has raised just over $16,000 as of Tuesday.
Davis isn’t the first Black person to be killed recently in relation to ICE. Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father of two, was killed by an off-duty ICE officer in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve after he reportedly fired a gun in the air.
According to an autopsy report, Porter was shot by the officer three times. The local community rallied for accountability from ICE while DHS denied any wrongdoing, echoing the organization’s persistent statements that blame the individuals killed by ICE for their own deaths.
The fundraiser has amassed about $300,000 in donations since the incident took place two months ago.
Ingrained racial bias
It’s tough to miss that there has been far less coverage and, subsequently, less moral outrage involving the most recent ICE-related death. Some experts say that’s not due just to the different set of circumstances, but instead reflects racial biases that allow some stories to get less circulation.
Brian C. Stewart is a trial attorney at Parker & McConkie who worked for the family of Gabby Petito, the young traveler who was killed by her fiancé in 2021. That story, which captured global attention, was the subject of countless headlines, dominating the news cycle for months. Eventually, it led to a three-part docuseries, along with other TV movies.
Stewart understads how racial bias impacts how stories travel well. He tells Fast Company there’s even a name for it. It’s called “missing white woman syndrome,” and it “refers to the fact that when a white woman goes missing, her case is much more likely to receive widespread media coverage than when a woman of color goes missing,” Stewart says.
He continues, “The issue isnt that those cases shouldnt get attention; its that many others dont.”
The attorney says that cases involving women of color often don’t get the same kind of attention. However, Stewart adds that it’s not just one system that allows for that bias to continueit’s all of them.
“Media outlets, law enforcement, social media platforms, and even the public all play a role,” the attorney explains. “What gets shared, clicked on, and prioritized shapes which cases receive attention.”
Not only does the lack of attention lead to cases stalling, Stewart says, but it “leaves families feeling forgotten,” too.
Media studies research underscores coverage disparities
Surely, there are always arguments to be made about how different circumstances may lead to different reactions or even detract from widespread national moral outrage.
However, given how many more Black Americans are killed by law enforcement than white Americans (about three times as many fatal shootings), equality in terms of uproar feels extraordinarily far off.
In part, that may be because Americans don’t see as many news stories on Black tragedies. According to a 2020 data analysis published in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, when victims are killed in “predominantly Black neighborhoods,” the stories aren’t covered as often as those that occur in non-Hispanic white neighborhoods.
Likewise, the way those stories are covered is often different. “Those killed in predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods are also less likely to be discussed as multifaceted, complex people,” the report explains.
A 2021 report from the Equal Justice Initiative and Global Strategy Group on disparities in media coverage also found racial bias, with the bias showing up in 20 different areas of media coverage.
For example, mugshots were used in coverage of cases involving Black defendants 45% of the time, compared to just 8% of the time for white defendants. White defendants were called by their names 50% more than Black defendants.
Meanwhile, white victims were shown in photos with friends and familyaimed at drawing sympathetic responsesfour times more than Black victims.
So far, it’s unclear as to whether ICE will be held accountable for any of the deaths that have occurred as a result of the organization’s pursuits. But as a bare minimum, the public deserves to know about each and every one, regardless of circumstance or of skin color.
Spirit Airlines is hanging on by a thread but it is hanging on.
The budget airline announced a plan Tuesday that would put it on track to exit its second bankruptcy in less than two years and stay in operation. The arrangement will keep the company alive while shrinking its expenses and operations down to an even smaller size than what it aimed for during its first bankruptcy, which it filed for in November 2024.
With financial support from its creditors, Spirit says it plans to emerge from bankruptcy in late spring or early summer. The company plans to keep its core identity as a value carrier that can still offer fliers the lowest fares in the sky while bolstering its loyalty program a tough task in the fiercely competitive field of rewards programs.
Spirit reassured customers that its flights and loyalty program will remain operational through the process. “This agreement in principle is the result of months of hard work and allows Spirit to move toward completing its transformation,” Spirit CEO Dave Davis said in a press release. “Spirit will emerge as a strong, leaner competitor that is positioned to profitably deliver the value American consumers expect at a price they want to pay.”
For Spirit, reducing costs is the name of the game. The airline plans to shrink its debt and lease obligations down from $7.4 billion to $2.1 billion as it navigates its second bankruptcy in less than two years.
Coming out of the pandemic, Spirit struggled more than most airlines to stay aloft. The company has been buffeted by rising labor costs and supply chain snarls like its peers, but also found its business threatened by changing preferences among fliers who once opted for cheap seats in the sky and now prefer more perks.
Spirit shrink and shrinks again
In August, Spirit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a second time. Spirit first filed for bankruptcy in November 2024 in the face of a mountain of debt, and aborted merger negotiations.
Following its second bankruptcy, the airline reduced service to a dozen U.S. cities and furloughed a third of its flight attendants in order to stay in the air. We need to shift our focus to a complete rightsizing of the airline, which means volume-based adjustments to our flight attendant group, the airline said in an internal email reported by Reuters.
At the time, the drastic measures werent a surprise. Spirit previously warned in its August quarterly earnings report that the company was desperate for cash, with its business balanced on a razors edge. The dire message came six months after the airline emerged from its first bankruptcy with a plan to trim its business and seek profitability.
Spirit said then that it would pursue liquidity enhancing measures that could include selling some aircraft and offloading extra airport gate capacity. While it is the Companys goal to execute on these initiatives, there can be no assurance that such initiatives will be successful, the company wrote at the time.
In 2024, Spirit sold two dozen planes out of its all-Airbus fleet to generate some emergency cash. Then-Spirit CEO Ted Christie told staffers in an internal memo in early 2025 that the airline faced significant challenges with its business that necessitated further downsizing. The bottom line is, we need to run a smaller airline and get back on better financial footing, Christie wrote.
Spirit turned to a merger with fellow budget carrier JetBlue to give its business a lifeline, but that deal ran into a regulatory wall and Spirits path has been rocky ever since.The Justice Department sued to block the $3.8 billion deal citing antitrust concerns and a federal judge sided with the government, killing the merger.
In light of the airlines ongoing business woes, Spirit (FLYY) was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange late last year.
Unlocking the power of genetics to provide meaningful answers to patients when they matter most is at the crux of precision diagnostics. As technologies advance, costs fall, and evidence builds, genomic sequencing has great potential to transform the trajectory of patient care. It will do so by shortening the diagnostic odyssey. It will guide and speed up more personalized and effective treatment decisions. And it will improve patient outcomes more than ever before. For innovation to truly scale, it will require deep collaboration and seamless integration across the healthcare ecosystem.
BUILD A STRONGER PARTNERSHIP ECOSYSTEM
Making genomic sequencing a standard practice in patient care at scale is not something any organization can accomplish alone. It requires coordinated efforts from providers who identify the clinical need and offer it to patients, as well as health systems integrating testing into care pathways. It also depends on clinical societies broadening their guidelines to include these recommendations, payers expanding access through coverage decisions, and industry partners bringing innovative technologies to the table. These collaborations create the synergies necessary to advance genomics from a specialty tool to a standard-of-care approach. Working together, we can help ensure that patients across diverse populations benefit from advances in precision diagnostics.
This partnership-driven approach also accelerates the translation of genomic findings into clinical action. When clinicians, lab partners, and digital health platforms work together, the pathway from sample collection to diagnosis becomes more streamlined. Patients ultimately see faster, more actionable results. In a rapidly evolving field like genomics, this type of collaboration is key.
APPROACH CARE THROUGH A COMPREHENSIVE MULTIOMIC LENS
Genetic testing has traditionally involved assessing just the DNA for changes that might cause disease. More recently, a multiomic approach to care that involves looking at data from other omics has been pursued. These include transcriptomics, metabolomics, and methylomics. By layering these and other datasets, multiomics can provide a dynamic, functional view that can reveal disease mechanisms beyond a DNA test alone. Incorporating multiomic data can make all the difference in complex rare diseases and inherited conditions where a diagnosis is otherwise elusive.
The powerful impact of a multiomic approach is best illustrated using a real-world case.
Reed was just 18 months old when his parents, Kelly and Chris, began noticing differences in his development, including delays in speech and motor skills, as well as involuntary movements. What followed were years spent navigating waiting rooms, specialist appointments, and numerous tests that offered few clear answers, making it difficult to make informed decisions about his care.
It was not until the family pursued whole genome sequencing (WGS), followed by RNA-seq, that they gained meaningful insight into a possible underlying contributor. WGS identified a variant in the FOXP4 gene, which is known to play a role in regulating other genes involved in brain development, speech, and motor coordination. To better understand the functional impact of this variant, RNA-seq was performed and demonstrated abnormal splicing associated with the FOXP4 variant, supporting its classification as likely pathogenic.
While this finding did not explain all of Reeds medical and developmental challenges, it provided important biological context and helped clarify one significant factor contributing to his clinical picture. The combination of WGS and RNA-seq marked a turning point for the family, enabling more informed discussions with clinicians and supporting a more precise, individualized approach to Reeds ongoing care.
INNOVATION STARTS BEHIND THE SCENES
The true potential of precision diagnostics cant be unlocked without meticulously designed workflows that support each sample from order to result. These behind-the-scenes capabilities are what allow innovation to scale responsibly, and what ensures that patients and providers receive accurate, timely, and clinically actionable answers.
Flexible sample collection options give providers the ability to serve patients where they are, whether in clinics, hospitals, mobile settings, or at home. This flexibility reduces barriers to testing and helps broaden access for patients who may face logistical challenges.
Automated processing and high-throughput systems ensure that every sample moves through the lab with consistent quality and efficiency. This allows organizations to handle increasing test volumes without compromising accuracy or turnaround time. This is an essential capability as more health systems adopt genomic testing at scale.
Finally, seamless electronic health record integration ensures that results flow directly into clinical workflows, making it easier for providers to interpret genomic data and act on it quickly. When clinicians have access to clear, well-structured reports within their existing systems, genomic testing becomes a natural part of patient care.
Together, these operational strengths form the backbone of a world-class customer experience that will make precision diagnostics truly scalable.
Kengo Takishima is chairman and CEO of Baylor Genetics.
Warner Bros. Discovery says it’s reviewing a new takeover offer from Paramount, but it continues to recommend a competing proposal from Netflix to its shareholders in the meantime.
Warner disclosed Tuesday that it had received a revised offer from Paramount after a seven-day window to renew talks with the Skydance-owned company elapsed Monday. Paramount confirmed it had submitted this proposal, but neither provided further details on the bid. The company was widely expected to have raised its offer.
A Warner Bros. Discovery buyout would reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape bringing HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like Harry Potter and, depending on who wins the Netflix v. Paramount tug-of-war, potentially even CNN under a new roof.
Paramount wants to acquire Warner Bros. in its entirety including networks like CNN and Discovery and went straight to shareholders with an all-cash, $77.9 billion hostile offer just days after the Netflix deal was announced in December. Accounting for debt, that bid offered Warner stakeholders $30 per share, amounting to an enterprise value of around $108 billion.
Paramount maintained on Tuesday that its tender offer remains on the table while Warner evaluates its latest proposal.
Netflix only wants to buy Warners studio and streaming business for $72 billion in cash, or about $83 billion including debt. Warners board has repeatedly backed this deal and on Tuesday maintained that its agreement with Netflix still stands.
A press contact for Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Warner shareholders are set to vote on the Netflix proposal on March 20.
If Warner’s board changes course and deems Paramount’s latest offer superior, Netflix would have a chance to match or revise its proposal, potentially setting the stage for a fresh bidding war. It could also choose to walk away.
Paramount, Warner and Netflix have spent the last couple of months in a heated back and forth over who has a stronger deal. But many lawmakers and entertainment trade groups have sounded the alarm along the way, warning that either buyout of all or parts of Warners business would only further consolidate power in an industry already run by just a few major players. Critics say that could result in job losses, less diversity in filmmaking and potentially more headaches for consumers who are facing rising costs of streaming subscriptions as is.
Combined, that raises tremendous antitrust concerns and a Warner sale could come down to who gets the regulatory greenlight. The U.S. Department of Justice has already initiated reviews, and other countries are expected to do so.
Both Paramount and Netflix have argued that their proposals are good for consumers and the wider industry. And the companies have taken aim at each other publicly with regulatory arguments.
Paramount has pointed to Netflix’s much larger market value. And it’s argued that if the streaming giant acquires Warner, it would only give it more dominance in the subscription video on demand space. But Netflix is trying to convince regulators that its up against broader video libraries, particularly Google’s YouTube. Netflix has also said that since it doesnt currently have the same studios and film distribution that Warner does, it would preserve and grow those operations whereas a Warner-Paramount merger would combine two of Hollywoods last five major studios, as well as theatrical channels and news networks.
Politics could also come into play. President Donald Trump previously made unprecedented suggestions about his involvement in seeing a deal through, before walking back those statements and maintaining that regulatory approval will be up to the Justice Department.
Trump has a close relationship with the billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison (the father of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison) who is heavily backing Paramount’s bid to buy Warner. And the push to acquire Warner arrive just months after Skydance closed its own buyout of Paramount in a contentious merger approved just weeks after the company agreed to pay the president $16 million to settle a lawsuit over editing at Paramount’s 60 Minutes program on CBS. Under new ownership, CBS has seen significant editorial shifts, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Critics say similar changes could happen at Warner’s CNN if Paramount’s bid is successful.
But Trump has continued to publicly lash out at Paramount over editorial decisions at CBS 60 Minutes. The president also previously met with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who he called a fantastic man.
Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP business writer
Eight times the output. Same job. Same title. Not 80%. 800%. Thats a lot. And yet, most hiring systems and processes are almost perfectly designed to miss those people. This isnt a talent shortage. Weve normalized a measurement problem for so long that it barely registers as a problem anymore.
Across industries, hiring has been optimized for efficiency and familiarity. We screen for credentials that look impressive, resumes that read cleanly, and career paths that resemble the ones we already trust. It feels rigorous. It feels fair. But it isnt actually predictive of performance. In fact, the more polished a hiring process becomes, the more likely it is to filter for samenessand against the very capabilities that drive outsized performance.
Much of this starts with technology that was designed for process automation and then tried to evolve to deliver objectivity at scale. Keyword-based applicant tracking systems move fast, but speed comes at a cost. These systems reward precise phrasing and conventional formatting, not capability. A candidate who has done the workbut describes it differentlynever makes it through. These systems werent built for filtering talent inthey were built to filter talent out.
Manual review is often held up as the antidote, but it brings its own limitations. Humans are better at nuance, but were also deeply patterned. The 3-pound caloric monsters we carry around in our skulls are designed for pattern recognition and the path of least resistance. By genetics, we gravitate toward what looks familiar and overvalue signals that feel safe. And even when intentions are good, unstructured evaluation consistently misses qualified candidateswhile remaining impossible to scale.
And then, the elephant in the room: Teams are really stretched. Thoughtful, consistent, manual review is less and less feasible, leaving organizations stuck in an uncomfortable middle. Do we settle for technology that is efficient but blind, or humans who are thoughtful but inconsistent? Neither reliably captures what actually predicts performance.
DISTANCE TRAVELED
This isnt a new problem.
Two decades ago, medical schools ran into the same issue. Traditional admissions criteriagrades, test scores, pedigreewere effective at predicting who could pass exams. They were far less effective at predicting who would become exceptional physicians. The metrics were clean. The outcomes were not.
So some institutions started asking different questions. Not just How did this person perform? but How far did they travel to get here? What obstacles did they face? What did they have to figure out without a playbook?
This ideaoften referred to as distance traveledimpacted who was admitted. And it changed outcomes for the better. Students selected under these frameworks didnt just keep upthey set the bar. They demonstrated stronger judgment under pressure, greater adaptability in ambiguous situations, and deeper empathy with patients whose lives looked nothing like their own.
Corporate hiring is now facing a similar time in history, a convergence of inflection points.
In fast-moving business environments, the skills that matter most rarely show up neatly in job titles or degrees: learning quickly; thinking clearly when information is incomplete; staying resourceful when plans fall apart; persisting when theres no obvious path forward. These arent soft skills. Theyre critical performance and leadership skills and theyre largely invisible in traditional screening. And thats bad. Its bad for innovation, its bad for culture, its bad for the bottom line. The cost of getting this wrong shows up everywhere.
Most employers will admit theyve made at least one bad hire in the past year. The financial impact of that is relatively easy to calculate. The less visible damagelost momentum, exhausted teams, opportunities that never materializeis harder to measure, but no less real. Whats even harder to see or measure is the impact of the lost talent that never had a chance to contribute. The career changer who learned fast because they had to. The veteran who led teams under pressure but doesnt speak corporate. The self-taught professional who mastered complex systems without a credential to legitimize it. These candidates have already demonstrated the capabilities companies say they want, but they dont look as shiny on paper.
CHANGE WHAT YOU MEASURE
All is not lost. Some organizations are starting to respondnot by lowering standards, but by changing what they measure. Instead of defaulting to credentials and pedigree, theyre evaluating skills directly. Theyre using assessment questions about real-world scenarios, samples, or actual work, and problem-solving exercises that reflect the actual demands of the role.
The shift is delivering significant organizational impact. Research shows that when hiring is grounded in capability rather than convention, candidate pools widen. Quality improves. Competition for the same narrow band of perfect resumes eases. But the real advantage runs deeper than these metrics.
CAN COMPANIES AFFORD NOT TO EVOLVE?
Traditional hiring was built for a world where careers were linear and jobs changed slowly. In that world, past experience was a reasonable proxy for future performance. That world is gone! Today, the defining advantage isnt what someone already knowsits how quickly they can learn what comes next.
Medical schools recognized this years ago. They stopped over-indexing on metrics that predicted short-term success and started evaluating for the human capabilities that predict excellence over time. The corporate world needs to catch up.
The question for CEOs and CHROs isnt whether hiring should evolve. Its whether organizations can afford not to evolve and to just leave enormous performance upside untouched. Because somewhere in your applicant pool is a candidate who figured things out the hard way or who learned faster because they had fewer options. Someone who developed exactly the capabilities your business needs next.
Your systems may never notice them, but someone elses will.
Natasha Nuytten is CEO of CLARA.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is sounding the alarm bell, warning investors that he is starting to see some similarities between today’s financial landscape and the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, nearly 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, we did see this in ’05, ’06, ’07, almost the same thing,” Dimon said at the firm’s annual investor day in New York on Monday. “The rising tide lifting all boats, everyone was making a lot of money, people leveraging to the hilt. The sky was the limit.”
“I dont know how long its going to be great for everybody,” he explained. “I see a couple of people doing some dumb things . . . they are just doing some dumb things.”
While Dimon didn’t specify which competitors he was calling out, he says he worries about banks taking on risky loans again, and the high price of assets.
Those factors come at a time when technology companies are lavishly spending billions in an AI arms race, much of which they are borrowing, to see who can dominate artificial intelligence in the future.
What happened during the 2008 financial crisis?
In a nutshell: At that time, banks were issuing risky loans to borrowers, and when new homeowners couldn’t make their payments, the effects led to crash of the U.S. housing market. That crash, in turn, created a ripple effect through the global markets that threatened a global financial collapse.
Major U.S. banks teetered on the brink of disasterand notably, investment firm Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. The U.S. government made a decision to bail out some big banks, famously making the calculation they were “too big too fail,” spending some $700 billion to avoid a U.S. economic collapse. The fallout of all this eventually led to what is now known as the “Great Recession.”
The Great Recession officially started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, before a very slow economic recovery in the U.S, according to the Federal Reserve. Sparked by the 2008 financial crisis, it is considered the most severe economic downturn in U.S. history since the Great Depression.
Ford is recalling nearly 413,000 Explorer SUVs in the U.S. The recall comes after federal regulators warned that a faulty rear suspension component called a “toe link” could restrict a driver’s steering control.
According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall report, the recall impacts 2017-2019 Explorer vehicles, with the company estimated around 1% of the selected models are affected. The notice also explained that the recall is an expansion of previous NHTSA recall, number 21V537.
“The root cause has not been fully determined to date,” a Feb. 20 report explained. “Some reports indicate vehicles experienced a seized CABJ”, which “will result in a bending moment on the toe link potentially resulting in fracture.” The report also said that drivers with impacted vehicles may hear a “clunk noise, unusual handling, and/or a misaligned rear wheel” indicating the issue is present.
Ford says, per the recall notice, that it has not been made aware of any injuries associated with the steering issue. However, as of Feb. 20, there have been two accidents potentially related to the issue.
The notice said that Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) associated with the recall will be searchable on NHTSA.gov beginning Feb. 25. It also noted that dealers will correct the issue “free of charge” and explained that owners should wait until they receive notification letters, which are expected to be mailed on March 9. Concerned vehicle owners can contact Ford Customer Service at 1-866-436-7332 with the recall number 26S08.
The recall is far from the first to hit Ford recently. The company also recently opened another recall over a High Voltage Battery issue. “Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2023-2025 Ford Escape and 2023-2026 Lincoln Corsair plug-in hybrid vehicles,” the Feb. 17 recall notice explained. “A manufacturing defect in one or more of the high voltage battery cells may result in an internal short circuit and battery failure.” It also noted that the remedy is “under development.”
Likewise, in 2025, the recalls seemed constant for Ford, with the brand breaking records halfway through the year for the most recalls of any automaker in a full calendar year. The brand has also seen more recalls over the past decade than all other auto brands, with 458 recalls from 2015 through 2024.
The advice you get early in your career can disproportionately shape your future. I can recall two or three conversations from when I was a college kid who liked writing that melted away ambiguity and set my vague ambitions on a path into the fog like a compass.
For the latest release by The Steve Jobs Archive, the group is making the advice of some of the most uniquely impactful people in the world available to everyone.
Given that Jobs did not own many physical objects, the archive has served as more of a repository of ideas for the next generation to think different. Each year, the Archive takes on SJA Fellows. And each year, it gives these fellows a book of letters.
The concept is modeled after one of Jobss favorite books, Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of letters that German poet Maria Rilke wrote to his aspiring mentee Franz Xaver Kappus. The Archive, meanwhile, taps its friends to pen similar inspirational notesauthored by a global network of marquee creatives.
The Steve Jobs Archive has released its first two volumes of Letters to a Young Creator today on its website. Free to read and download to anyone who is curious, they contain advice from so many names you will knowincluding Tim Cook, Dieter Rams, Paola Antonelli, and Norman Foster.
To mark the launch, were featuring the letter from Steve Jobss closest collaborator, Jony Ive. Through the beautiful, short note, Ive shares many of his dearest philosophies, and some of the ideological structure behind the duos unparalleled success.
JONY IVE SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA SEPTEMBER 11, 2024Hello! I thought it may be useful to reflect on my time working with Steve Jobs. His belief that our thinking, and ultimately our ideas, are of critical importance has helped inform my priorities and decision making. Since giving his eulogy I have not spoken publicly about our friendship, our adventures or our collaboration. I never read the flurry of cover stories, obituaries or the bizarre mischaracterizations that have slipped into folklore. We worked together for nearly 15 years. We had lunch together most days and spent our afternoons in the sanctuary of the design studio. Those were some of the happiest, most creative and joyful times of my life. I loved how he saw the world. The way he thought was profoundly beautiful. He was without doubt the most inquisitive human I have ever met. His insatiable curiosity was not limited or distracted by his knowledge or expertise, nor was it casual or passive. It was ferocious, energetic and restless. His curiosity was practiced with intention and rigor. Many of us have an innate predisposition to be curious. I believe that after a traditional education, or working in an environment with many people, curiosity is a decision requiring intent and discipline. In larger groups our conversations gravitate towards the tangible, the measurable. It is more comfortable, far easier and more socially acceptable talking about what is known. Being curious and exploring tentative ideas were far more important to Steve than being socially acceptable. Our curiosity begs that we learn. And for Steve, wanting to learn was far more important than wanting to be right. Our curiosity united us. It formed the basis of our joyful and productive collaboration. I think it also tempered our fear of doing something terrifyingly new. Steve was preoccupied with the nature and quality of his own thinking. He expected so much of himself and worked hard to think with a rare vitality, elegance and discipline. His rigor and tenacity set a dizzyingly high bar. When he could not think satisfactorily he would complain in the same way I would complain about my knees. As thoughts grew into ideas, however tentative, however fragile, he recognized that this was hallowed ground. He had such a deep understanding and reverence for the creative process. He understood creating should be afforded rare respectnot only when the ideas were good or the circumstances convenient. Ideas are fragile. If they were resolved, they would not be ideas, they would be products. It takes determined effort not to be consumed by the problems of a new idea. Problems are easy to articulate and understand, and they take the oxygen. Steve focused on the actual ideas, however partial and unlikely. I had thought that by now there would be reassuring comfort in the memory of my best friend and creative partner, and of his extraordinary vision. But of course not. More than ten years on, he manages to evade a simple place in my memory. My understanding of him refuses to remain cozy or still. It grows and evolves. Perhaps it is a comment on the daily roar of opinion and the ugly rush to judge, but now, above all else, I miss his singular and beautiful clarity. Beyond his ideas and vision, I miss his insight that brought order to chaos. It has nothing to do with his legendary ability to communicate but everything to do with his obsession with simplicity, truth and purity. Ultimately, I believe it speaks to the underlying motivation that drove him. He was not distracted by money or power, but driven to tangibly express his love and appreciation of our species. He truly believed that by making something useful, empowering and beautiful, we express our love for humanity. My sincere hope for you and for me is that we demonstrate our appreciation of our species by making something beautiful. Warmly, Jony Jony Ive Designer, LoveFrom
Read more from Letters to a Young Creator here.
Read more on the professor who shaped Jony Ive here.
