Below, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein shares five key insights from her new book, The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us.
Goldstein is an award-winning philosopher, writer, and public intellectual. She is the author of 10 books of acclaimed fiction and nonfiction and has held various visiting professorships and fellowships at elite academic institutions. Her first novel was The Mind-Body Problem.
Whats the big idea?
We all want to feel connected to others and know that we matter. The ways we go about making our lives matter shape who we are, the meaning we find, and the mark we leave on the world.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Goldstein herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea app.
1. Our need to feel that we matter in the way that most matters to us is one of the two prime motivators of human behavior.
The other prime motivator is our need for connectedness. Theres a tendency to confuse these two, since they both have to do, in a certain sense, with mattering. Connectedness is our need to feel that there are certain others who will pay us special attention, whether we deserve it or not. In other words, we need to feel that we matter to certain people. These are the people whom we regard as in our lives, and we crucially need people in our lives typically our family, friends, romantic partners, sometimes our colleagues, neighbors, or community members. We are born into a helplessness unmatched in the animal kingdom, and if, in our prolonged immaturity, no caretakers regard us as deserving of their special attention, we die. Our need for connectedness, in its most fundamental sense, begins here and continues throughout our life.
We are social animals. But thats not all that we are. Which brings me to the mattering instinct. Unlike our need for connectedness, which intrinsically concerns our relationship to others, the mattering instinct intrinsically concerns our relationship with ourselves. It consists of our longing to prove to ourselves that we are deserving of our own attentionthe monumental attention we have to give ourselves in pursuing our life. And unlike connectedness, which is a trait that humans share with other gregarious species, the mattering instinct characterizes us humans alone. It comes to us by way of our evolved capacity for self-reflection, and it provides us with our existential dimension. The mattering instinct forces us into the sphere of values without equipping us to see our way through. We are social beings, yes, but we are also, because of the mattering instinct, existentially questing creatures.
2. Connectedness and the mattering instinct are essential to life satisfaction, which is a far deeper desire for us than our desire for happiness.
Its life satisfaction that provides us the sense that we are flourishing in our lives, and we can tolerate a great deal of unhappiness, frustration, and disappointment in pursuit of our flourishing.
In one of his most famous statements, Sigmund Freud said, Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness. Freud was right about the duality at our core, only I would amend his statement. For Freuds love, I would substitute connectedness, since our need to feel that we are being paid special attention by those whom we regard as in our lives can assume forms quite distinct from love. And for Freuds work, I would substitute the sense of mattering, which in Freuds case, derived from his work.
There is a strong tendency in all of us, including Freud, to universalize our own way of responding to the mattering instinct, to assert that my response to the mattering instinct must be, if it is right for me, the right response for everyone.
3. Humans display dazzling diversity in responding to our shared mattering instinct.
I represent this diversity with what I call the Mattering Map, an idea which goes back to that first novel. The Mattering Map is composed of a multitude of regions, each of them premised on a different answer to the question of what matters in making a life that matters. The Mattering Map is where we amuse, bemuse, and sometimes absolutely appall one another by our life choices in responding to the mattering instinct.
Depending on where were situated on the Mattering Map, we pursue different mattering projects, which, in channeling the mattering instinct, propel us into our future, giving us, in a sense, our reason to live. Our mattering projects can be selfish or altruistic, individualistic or communitarian, competitive or cooperative, religious or secular, creative or destructive. But whether its tending ones garden or ones cause, ones relationships or ones reputation, ones immortal soul or ones net worth, these mattering projects become the loci of some of our deepest emotions.
We judge how well our lives are going by how well our mattering projects are going. Its our mattering projects, at least insofar as theyre working for us, that yield our lives a sense of coherence, purpose, and meaningfulness. While our shared mattering instinct expresses our distinctiveness as a species, our individual mattering projects express our distinctiveness from one another. Just as the language instinct resulted in the great variety of human languages, requiring the art of translation, so the mattering instinct results in the great variety of incommensurable forms of human life, requiring the art of interpretation. But beneath all this diversity among us, there are some general patterns to be discerned.
4. There are four general mattering strategies.
These are transcendent mattering, social mattering, heroic mattering, and competitive mattering. We may employ more than one of these strategies, depending on the circumstances, but typically one of them prevails in us, determined by our individual temperament and life experiences. This sorts us into transcenders, socializers, heroic strivers, and competitors. You can think of these as the four continents of the Mattering Map:
Transcenders seek their mattering in religious or spiritual terms, striving to matter to the transempirical spiritual presence which, according to their belief, exists and which they may or may not call God, but which they believe has purposefully created them. They look to their mattering from on high. This is the premise of all the traditional religions as well as those views that dub themselves SBNRspiritual but not religious.
Socializers seek their mattering from other humans. They essentially collapse the two cornerstones of our humanness into one. To matter existentially, for a socializer, is to matter to those who are in their lives.
Heroic strivers arent seeking their mattring from othersneither from humans nor from on high. Rather their sense of mattering comes from seeking to satisfy their own standards of excellence. These standards may be intellectual, artistic, athletic, or ethical.
Competitors conceive of mattering, either their own or their groups, in zero-sum terms. To the extent that they matter, others must matter less.
5. Our mattering instinct is responsible for humanitys greatest achievements and greatest atrocities.
Notice that in speaking of greatest achievements and greatest atrocities, Ive switched to evaluative terms. For most of the book, I confine myself to non-evaluatively mapping out the differences between uswe creatures of matter who long to matterhoping to provide a framework for how we might be able to see past our deepest and most fraught differences to our even deeper commonality. But inevitably, we have to confront the question of whether some of these ways of responding to the mattering instinct are better than others.
We are the same in our longing, but stubbornly diverse in our responses to that longing, making it imperative that, if we are to live together in recognition of the dignity of human life in all its incommensurable forms, we find an objective standard to distinguish between better and worse ways of responding to the mattering instinct. The very science that explains how we evolved into creatures of matter, longing to matter, also suggests an answer to the evaluative question.
At the heart of the explanation and the suggestion lies the law of entropy, formally known as the second law of thermodynamics, which states that all physical systems are internally heading toward disorder and dissolution. Life itself is a counter-entropic struggle, and the best of our mattering projects are, like life itself, counter-entropic. Everything worth living forlife, love, health, knowledge, peace, compassion, creativity, beauty, flourishingare highly ordered states that must be hard-won local reprieves from the law of entropy. A life well-lived is a life that, while pursuing mattering in a way that best accords with a persons individuality, allies itself with lifes own counter-entropic struggle. What better answer could there be to the age-old question of the meaning of life?
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This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
My daughter, Ivy, recently joined a swim club. As a former competitive swimmer, it’s been a delight to witness. Every time I take her to practice, I feel a wave of nostalgia that reminds me of all the many years I spent in the pool and all the many teammates I collected along the way. It excites me to think that she, too, will have her own experiences and life lessons, just as swimming taught me. But something peculiar struck me as I watched her practice: 45 minutes of their one-hour training was spent on the basics. Kick drills. Pull drills. All the essentials about swimming that we don’t think very much about, the foundational techniques that make for a good swimmer.
When I think about my time as a swimmer, I don’t remember that part very muchthe boring basics. Yet, like Ivy, I most certainly spent an exorbitant amount of time developing those fundamentals in the early stages of my swim tenure, the parts of swimming that I took for granted, i.e., the obvious stuff. The same applies when it comes to our organizations; far too often, we take the obvious parts about leading people for granted. With the growing complexities of shepherding modern organizations, we tend to forget about the basicsthe obvious stuff.
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Purpose, mission, conviction
For instance, intuitively we know that people are more engaged when they feel connected to something with greater meaning, call it purpose or mission. I like to think of it as conviction. Regardless of the nomenclature, this meaning gives the organization a strategic North Star to guide its way and a reason for being that people can buy into, giving their labor more meaning.
However, many businesses rely on external incentives, like the carrot and stick of promotions, and superficial metrics like stock prices and productivity as the primary drivers of work motivation. But people want more from their organizations than the transactional exchange of labor for wagesa transaction that, in itself, seems unbalanced these days on account of burnout and quiet-cracking. No wonder workers in the United States are increasingly declining promotions on the job; “moving up the ladder” is no longer seen as the ultimate reward of work.
People want to belong. They want to feel safe. They want to feel appreciated. They want their labor to matter. This is all basic stuff, right? Its obvious, and that’s the problem. The obvious nature of “the basics” can cause leaders to inadvertently ignore them. In doing so, they subsequently foster environments where people feel disconnected and detached from their work. And no one wants that.
Back to basics
So, what are we to do? Our conversation with Nadia Kokni, vice president of global brand marketing at Puma, for the latest episode of our podcast, From the Culture, provides a clear recommendation: Get back to the basics. Get back to the obvious stuff that isn’t so obvious until someone points it out to you. That is to say, we have to remind ourselves of all the things we inherently know but have forgotten along the way amid the onslaught of information life presents us with on a day-to-day basis. When the foundation begins to break down, so goes everything else.
Take music acts, for instance. When a band loses its way after a successful run of album releases, what do they do to rekindle their good fortune? They go back to basics. They reunite with the producers and songwriters from the first album. They go back to the studio where they first recorded. They try to summon the spirit that got them into music in the first place. They hearken back to all those things that got them where they arethe foundational things they likely took for granted on the road to their ascension.
Now that I’ve gotten back in the water as a fortysomething-year-old, attempting to stick to a New Year’s resolution to live a healthier life, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Ivy’s practices. During my morning workouts, I’m much more conscious of my stroke technique and foot placement while kicking, making adjustments here and there to be better. Despite all my years of swimming, I’m still working on the basicsand the same goes for how we think about our work.
When things get off course, you have to go back to basics. If we aim to improve how our organizations function, perhaps we should start with the deceptively simple things that we know but often forget. I know it’s obvious, but the obvious typically isn’t obvious until someone points it out to you. And that’s the point.
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Six families are suing TikTok after their children died emulating the so-called “blackout challenge” they had seen on the social media platform.
The lawsuit alleges that TikTok’s algorithm exposed the teenagers, ages 11 to 17, to content that encouraged them to choke themselves to the point of passing out.
Each of the children were found dead with some form of binding around their neck, hanging or otherwise attempting the challenge, according to the lawsuit.
Filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, the lawsuit names two TikTok legal entities and its parent company, ByteDance. ByteDance and one of the entities, TikTok LLC, are incorporated in Delaware.
The suit claims the children’s deaths were “the foreseeable result of ByteDance’s engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions,” which were “aimed at pushing children into maximizing their engagement with TikTok by any means necessary.”
TikTok is bidding to dismiss the filing, arguing that because five of the families are British, the court has no jurisdiction over defendants mainly based in the U.K., and under the First Amendment and the current law called the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from liability for third-party user-posted content.
Matthew P. Bergman, the plaintiff’s attorney, countered that the lawsuit is about product liability and dangerous design choices, according to reporting from the Delaware News Journal.
We appreciate the Delaware Superior Courts careful attention to the arguments presented yesterday, said Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, in a statement to Fast Company.
The families we represent have waited far too long for accountability, and they deserve the opportunity to uncover how and why TikToks product targeted their children with this deadly Blackout Challenge content.
Bergman continued: We look forward to a ruling that allows this case to move forward into discovery so we can finally hold TikTok responsible for the harms its platform has inflicted on these kids and their families. Justice won’t be fully served until these families have their day in court.”
Fast Company has reached out to TikTok for comment.
The bereaved parents say they hope the lawsuit will bring accountability and clarity around their children’s death.
Ellen Roome, the mother of Jools Sweeney, has been campaigning for legislation, called Jools’ Law, since her 14-year-old sons death in 2022. The campaign calls for the automatic preservation of a childs online and social media data within five days of death.
Without preserved digital evidence, harm to children cannot be properly examined, and social media companies cannot be held to account, the campaign website reads.
The parents still don’t know what their children were exposed to on the social media platform, alleging that TikTok won’t release the information. TikToks community guidelines prohibit videos depicting, promoting, normalizing, or glorifying dangerous acts that may lead to serious injury or death.
In a statement posted to social media, Roome wrote: “We now have to wait for the judge to decide whether the case is dismissed or whether we are allowed to proceed to the discovery stage.
“For the court, this is about motions and procedures. For us, it is about our children. Our dead children.”
For more than 60 years, contraception has been almost exclusively a womens responsibility. Today, women have more than 14 modern contraceptive options, while men have just two: condoms and vasectomies. That imbalance has pushed women to shoulder physical side effects, financial burden, medical risks, and the career impact of family planningcosts that have been accepted as the status quo for far too long.
But the tide is shifting. Men are increasingly vocal about wanting to participate in family planning, and new science is finally catching up. For the first time in history, there are multiple male contraceptives in clinical trials, some only a few years away from approval. For companies and investors, this isnt just a public health opportunity, its a multibillion-dollar business opportunity in modern healthcare.
A $25 Billion Opportunity
The numbers are staggering. In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 70 million sexually active men ages 19 to 60. A landmark survey of 6,313 men in the U.S. found that 82% would try a new male contraceptive at some point in their lives. The same survey found that 49% of men would try a new male contraceptive within 12 months of it being on the market. A downside case looks like 34.3 million potential male contraceptive users. Some estimate that there are 17 million early adopters.Reaching just a fraction of the men interested in male contraception would result in a blockbuster product: For example, 5 million prescriptions for male contraception in the U.S. annually (half of the number of women who are on the Pill) would result in $10 billion-plus of annual recurring revenue.
Globally, the opportunity is even larger. There are roughly 2.5 billion sexually active men in the world, and surveys indicate that interest in male contraceptives is even higher in countries like the U.K., Europe, Canada, and Australia. This market potential is why Amboy St. Ventures highlighted male contraception as one of the largest ghost markets in womens health.Sexual health is routinely underestimated by investors, yet the category routinely proves its commercial strength time and time again. Viagra and Cialis each scaled to blockbuster status with annual revenues of $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion for Pfizer and Eli Lilly, respectively. Truvada for HIV preexposure prophylaxis generated approximately $3 billion for Gilead in 2018 by enabling safer sexual activity. Meanwhile, testosterone and hormone-replacement therapies represent another multibillion-dollar sector, driven largely in part by the desire to preserve libido and sexual well-being.
Theres no reason male contraception cant become the next big sexual health blockbuster.
A Digital-First Model
We are in the age of telemedicine. Hims & Hers (valued at $8.7 billion today) launched by targeting mens health needs, such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and hair loss. It proved what many underestimated: Men will seek out healthcare when it is accessible, discreet, and convenient. The early adopters who want male contraceptives are similarly digitally native. They wont need their doctor to recommend a new contraceptive; theyll be actively searching for it on their phones.
On a recent episode of the podcast Cheeky Pint, Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, said that the reason why LillyDirect works so well for GLP-1s is because The diagnosis step [is] dead easy. Everybody knows the biomarker tool in their bathroom. It’s called the scale. They can know if the drug’s working, and we can offer telehealth post-pandemic at scale. In other words, a straightforward condition and clear feedback loop make remote care feasible. Male contraception fits that mold perfectly: No complex diagnosis or workup is neededa simple at-home sperm check can provide confidence that the method is working.
Furthermore, the need for contraception is even more universal than reducing obesity and presents a massive opportunity for a first mover to capture the male birth control market via a direct-to-consumer, digital-first approach.
Whats in Development
After decades of little progress, several novel male contraceptives are now in clinical trials, addressing a range of preferences:
NES/T (Nesterone-Testosterone gel): The most clinically advanced product, NES/T is a topical gel applied to the shoulders daily. Inspired by products in the TRT and HRT space, NES/T delivers a combination of hormones to suppress sperm production while maintaining normal hormone levels and minimizing side effects. A Phase II b trial including 462 couples was recently completed to evaluate its safety, efficacy, and reversibility. Contraline, which secured the development rights from the Population Council, is now preparing for a Phase III trialthe first Phase III male contraceptive trial in history.
YCT-529: The nonhormonal daily pill temporarily halts sperm production by blocking a vitamin A pathway in the testes. The first human safety study showed promising tolerability, and now YourChoice Therapeutics is testing whether it reliably suppresses sperm in a Phase I b/II a trial. This compound could become a convenient oral contraceptive for men if it proves safe, effective, and reversible.
ADAM: This is a long-acting, reversible contraceptive implant (essentially an IUD for men). ADAM is a nonhormonal hydrogel implanted into the vas deferens, blocking sperm passage until the gel dissolves or is removed. A first-in-human trial showed ADAM is safe and effective for two years. Contraline, the company behind ADAM, is advancing the device toward a larger trial.
Given the potential $25 billion-plus market size and mens desire for having multiple options to choose from (just like women do), it is unlikely that male contraception will be a winner-takes-all market. Each of these products may be a blockbuster in its own right.
In 1960, the launch of the female Pill sparked a social revolution and created one of the most profitable drug categories in history. Sixty-plus years later, the next sexual health revolution is overdue. This time, it may be led by men.
(Disclosure: Foreground Capital is an investor in Contraline and YourChoice Therapeutics, and Amboy St. Ventures is an investor in Contraline.)
While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 21, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said AI could bring about “civil unrest” by destroying jobs, and that businesses and governments need to step in to help.
He made the comments in response to a question about whether AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next several years. Dimon said he believes the impact won’t be as catastrophic to the labor market as some are predicting, but he also didn’t deny some inevitable upheaval. “Don’t put your head in the sand,” he urged. “It is what it is. We’re gonna deploy it.”
He continued, “Will it eliminate jobs? Yes. Will it change jobs? Yes. Will it add some jobs? Probably. . . . However, it may go too fast for society, and if it goes too fast for society thats where governments and businesses [need to] in a collaborative way step in together and come up with a way to retrain people and move it over time.
Dimon pitched the idea that local governments and businesses are going to need to provide support to workers in the form of income assistance programs, relocation assistance, and retraining to avoid mass unemployment. “We’re not gonna kill all of our employees because of AI,” he said. “We’re just not.”
The CEO also said that phasing in the technology slowly is the best approach in order to give people time to adjust and for businesses to come up with solutions, even if that means additional government regulation. He cautioned that companies should not conduct mass layoffs all at once: Youll have civil unrest.
You want the government to tell you you cant lay off a whole bunch of people at JPMorgan? moderator Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist, asked.
Wed agree, Dimon replied. If we have to do that to save society. He caveated this should be done at a local levelfor example, governments providing incentives for retraining employees or giving them assistance.
In the past, Dimon hasn’t been shy about criticizing the government for too much regulation or what he deems the wrong regulation. In fact, he opposes other precautionary measures like capping credit card interest at 10%. Last year, he called the government “inefficient” and “not very competent” and said he hoped the Department of Government Efficiency would be “quite successful.”
Regardless of the worries that Dimon expressed about the pace of AI, job losses, and the potential for the technology to “do something terrible,” he seemed ready to accept his own company’s fatewhatever it may be. When asked if JPMorgan will have fewer employees over the next five years, he predicted that it would.
Still, not everyone agreed with Dimon’s statements on AI’s impact on jobs. Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, said that labor shortages are the issue we should be more concerned with, arguing that AI is actually creating more roles than it is stealing. “This is the largest infrastructure build-out in human history,” Huang said. “That’s gonna create a lot of jobs.”
For all the talk of how artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way we live and work, there are few industries where generative AI has already had a profound impact. Across the education space, however, from K-12 schools to universities, AI has been widely adopted by students and teachers alike. Educators are using AI to create lesson plans and save time on administrative work and even grading. And students now regularly use AI chatbots in the classroom and for help with assignmentsto varying results.
The rapid clip of AI adoption has raised fraught questions about academic integrity and responsible use of the technology, among both teachers and students. But colleges and universities are also grappling with how to meet the moment and equip a new generation of students with the AI skills they will inevitably need as the workplace transforms.
In a panel discussion this weekwhich aired as part of an Education for Impact webinar presented by Inc., Fast Company, and Texas A&M Universitya group of education innovators shared how their companies are partnering with higher education institutions to do exactly that. Laura Ipsen, the president and CEO of education tech company Ellucian, talked about how an AI-powered solution called Ellucian Journey enables continuous learning by pairing skills with actual career paths and workforce gaps.
It [has] got to almost be real-time and predictive, Ipsen said during the panel. What are the skills that . . . are going to match the global market of today? Because it’s evolving very quickly. We’ve got to leverage the power of AI to build those solutions and capabilities across all of education technology to enable that. These are the types of things that are going to put a great spotlight on higher educationthat they are transformational [and] moving with speed.
Online learning platforms like edX and its parent company 2U have made it possible for workers to upskill and reskill at different points in their careers, through certifications and courses from top higher education institutions.
What we are trying to do, working with our partner institutions, is make sure that people have the right skills at the right time, said Anant Agrawal, the chief academic officer of 2U and founder and former CEO of edX. If you are 35 and you have a couple of kids, the odds that you’re going to be able to go back to university and get a new degree are zero. So really, your only choice is to do something online, and you don’t have the time or patience to spend two years or four years learning something new.
As lifelong learning becomes the norm, colleges and universities can play a crucial role in reaching people long after they have left the education system. EdX is now offering courses on generative AIincluding one taught by generative AI, Agrawal saidthat are tailored to workers and leaders who need to get up to speed on the technology. A partnership with Microsoft called CxO Edge caters to executives who want to run their business by harnessing AI.
Employers are having their employees take courses on our platform . . . like AI for finance or AI for marketing, or more foundational subjects like core AI, Agrawal said. We’re just seeing a huge, huge embrace of AI courses and content by employers.
Some higher education institutions have been reluctant to adopt or invest in AI, to which Ipsen argues: You have got to jump into the sandbox and play with it, because this is going to happen. It’s going to happen with you or without you.
Many colleges and universities are facing existential questions about their value in a world that is being reshaped by AI, especially as tuition costs continue to rise and new graduates struggle to find employment. Lee Weiss, the chief commercial officer of higher education at Kaplan, believes thats an opportunity for colleges and universities to step up.
We’re at a point right now where there’s more disagreement on whether higher ed is relevant, Weiss said during the panel. Universities have a really important role here to make sure that the degrees [and certifications] that students are getting are relevant for a fast-changing world.
Making sure that students are getting the AI skills that they need to be competent and confident is really, really important.
Capital One is buying Brex in a $5.15 billion stock-and-cash deal that underscores how traditional banks are turning to fintech startups to modernize the way businesses manage money.
The acquisition, announced Thursday, would bring Brex, the San Franciscobased corporate card and expense management company, into the fold of one of the largest U.S. financial institutions. The transaction is expected to close in mid-2026, pending regulatory approval and customary conditions. Brex CEO and cofounder Pedro Franceschi will continue to lead the company as part of Capital One.
At first glance, the deal looks like a straightforward expansion into corporate cards. In reality, it is about software, automation, and how artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape financial operations inside companies.
Brex built its reputation by offering startups corporate cards without personal guarantees and pairing them with tools that made expense tracking and approvals easier. Over time, the company evolved into a broader platform that combines payments, spend management, and banking services in a single interface used by more than 25,000 companies, including DoorDash, Robinhood, Zoom, and Plaid.
In recent years, Brex has increasingly described itself as an AI-native finance platform, highlighting tools that automate expense review, enforce spending policies, and reduce the manual work typically handled by finance teams.
That positioning appears to be central to Capital Ones interest.
Why a bank is buying a fintech now
For more than a decade, large banks have tried to compete with fintech startups by building their own digital tools. Many of those efforts have struggled to match the user experience and speed of companies designed from the ground up as software platforms.
Capital One, which has long positioned itself as one of the most technology-forward U.S. banks and was the first major bank to migrate fully to the public cloud, still faces the same challenge as its peers in the commercial banking space. Corporate banking portals and expense tools often feel dated when compared with modern fintech products.
Buying Brex gives Capital One a ready-made software layer designed around how companies actually manage spending, rather than how banks traditionally process transactions.
Acquiring Brex accelerates this journey, especially in the business payments marketplace, Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank said in a statement announcing the deal.
The broader fintech backdrop
The acquisition comes at a moment when the fintech sector looks very different from its peak in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Brex was founded in 2017 and quickly became one of Silicon Valleys most prominent fintech startups, riding a wave of investor enthusiasm for companies that blended software with financial services. Its valuation soared as startups flocked to its corporate card and expense tools.
But as venture funding slowed and interest rates rose, many fintech companies faced tougher conditions. Growth expectations were reset, and IPO plans were delayed across the sector. Strategic acquisitions by large banks have increasingly become an alternative path forward.
For banks, these deals offer a way to acquire modern technology and talent without building from scratch. For fintech companies, they offer access to large balance sheets, regulatory infrastructure, and a broader customer base.
A bet on automation inside companies
The deal also reflects a growing focus on how artificial intelligence can change the back-office work of running a business.
Brex has promoted its use of AI agents to automate expense reviews, flag policy violations, and handle tasks that once required manual oversight by finance teams. Rather than simply tracking spending after the fact, the platform aims to guide and control spending in real time.
Capital One appears to see this as a key part of the future of business payments. As companies look to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, tools that cut down on administrative work have become more appealing.
By combining Brexs software with Capital Ones underwriting, payments network, and deposit base, the bank is positioning itself to offer a more integrated system for how businesses issue cards, manage expenses, and move money.
What happens to Brex
Brex is expected to continue operating under its own leadership after the acquisition, with Franceschi remaining at the helm. That suggests Capital One is aiming to preserve the companys product approach and culture rather than fold it into a traditional banking unit.
For Brex, the deal provides scale that is difficult for a stand-alone fintech to achieve. Access to Capital Ones infrastructure and resources could allow it to expand beyond the startup and tech companies that formed its early customer base and into a broader range of U.S. businesses.
A sign of where business finance is heading
The acquisition points to a larger shift in how financial services for businesses are evolving. Corporate cards are no longer just a line of credit. They are part of software systems that manage budgets, approvals, and compliance automatically.
For Capital One, buying Brex is a way to accelerate its move into that model. For Brex, it is a chance to bring its platform to a wider audience under the umbrella of a major bank.
For the fintech industry, the deal is another indication that the next phase of growth may come less from stand-alone startups and more from partnerships and acquisitions with established financial institutions.
Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company, is suing Pattie Gonia, the drag queen and environmentalist, for trademark infringementa move the company says is necessary to protect the brand [it has] spent the last 50 years building.
In a lawsuit filed in California federal court this week, Patagonia argues that Pattie Gonias name, particularly when used on apparel or in support of environmental sustainability, competes directly with the products and advocacy work that are core to Patagonia.
Patagonia claims in its complaint that the overlapping names have already confused customers, and that a recent move from the drag queen to sell her own branded apparel goes against a prior agreement the two parties had. The company is seeking a nominal $1 in damages.
Were not against art, creative expression, or commentary about our brand, Patagonia says in a statement. We want Pattie to have a long and successful career and make progress on issues that matterbut in a way that respects Patagonias intellectual property and ability to use our brand to sell products and advocate for the environment.
Overlapping work
According to the lawsuit, the company and the environmentalist have long openly discussed how Pattie Gonia can continue her advocacy work and brand deals without infringing on Patagonias trademarks.
Pattie Gonia reportedly previously agreed to not use her name in any form on products, to not use or display Patagonias logos, and to not use the same font, Belwe, that Patagonia uses.
But according to Patagonia, in 2024, Pattie Gonia sold branded apparel online and used versions of the company logo. And then in September 2025, she sought to trademark the brand Pattie Gonia for use on clothing and apparel, and to promote environmental activism.
These rights would directly overlap with the work we do and the products we provide, the company said.
The lawsuit cites T-shirts sold on Pattie Gonias website that say Pattie Gonia Hiking Club, along with stickers and gloves worn by the drag queen that seem to imitate Patagonias logo.
At the time of publication, Pattie Gonias merch page showed her apparel as being sold out. Pattie Gonia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Patagonia says it can’t “selectively choose” to enforce its trademark
Members of the public have already been confused as to whether or not Pattie Gonia is affiliated with Patagonia, the company claims. The lawsuit includes screenshots of a Pattie Gonia social media post on which commenters praised the company and even said they “genuinely thought this was a Patagonia ad.
While Pattie Gonia has partnered with outdoor groups and brandsincluding The North Face, National Geographic, REI, and Backcountry, according to her websiteshe has not officially partnered with Patagonia. (The company has featured Pattie Gonia and her nonprofit, The Outdoorist Oath, in an interview on the Patagonia site.)
If the company doesnt prevent people or groups, including Pattie Gonia, from copying its brand and logo, it says, then it risks losing the ability to defend our trademarks entirely.
Other groups, including the oil and gas lobby, have already misappropriated Patagonias name and logo. The lawsuit cites a T-shirt, for example, emblazoned with “Petrogonia in the Patagonia font, against a silhouette of oil drilling equipment that mimics the companys mountain silhouette.
To put a finer point on it, we cannot selectively choose to enforce our rights based on whether we agree with a particular point of view, the company says. For these reasons, Pattie Gonias use of a near-copy of our name commercially . . . poses long-term threats to Patagonias brand and our activism.
While Pattie Gonia did not immediately respond to a request for comment, she and her business said in a statement to Bloomberg Law that they have never and will never reference the brand Patagonias logo or brand, adding that there was plenty of room for both the company and the drag queen to play in this box.
Everyone is talking about it in group chats, at the supermarket, and at the gas pump. No, it’s not Heated Rivalryit is the “monster” winter storm that is set to hit the U.S. this weekend, traveling from Texas across the Southwest, into the Southeast, and finally into the Mid-Atlantic states and into New England.
The storm is forecast to dump a whopping ten to 20 inches of snow, creating dangerous conditions for about half the nation, according to the Washington Post.
Widespread heavy snow, sleet, damaging ice, and a potential nor’easter could affect as many as 230 million Americans from Friday, January 23 to Monday, January 26, bringing temperatures below zero, according to the Weather Channel. While it’s too early to predict the storm’s exact path and snowfall, heavy snow is forecast for Memphis, Nashville, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City, and Boston.
How to prepare for the winter storm
The weather could create dangerous travel conditions, both on the roads and in the air, and has the potential for power outages amid freezing temperatures.
Here are some tips from the National Weather Service (NWS) on what you can do to prepare before the storm:
Make an emergency supply kit with things like a first aid kit, flashlight, cell phone charger, batteries, food and water, gloves, hates, boots and warm winter clothing
For your car: Get a full tank of gas, snow shovel and brush, blankets, and jumper cables
In case your heat goes out, here’s what to do, according to the NWS:
Wear layers of loose-fitting, lightweight, warm clothing. Remove layers to avoid overheating, perspiration, and subsequent chill
Close off unneeded rooms to avoid wasting heat
Stuff towels or rags in cracks under doors
Close blinds or curtains to keep in some heat
Do not run a generator inside your home or garage
The National Weather Service says food provides the body with energy for producing its own heat, so eat and drink lots of water and other non-caffeinated, non-alcholohic drinks to prevent dehydration. Cold air is hydrating.
Stay safe and warm out there!
One of the giants of the gaming business has tumbled off a cliff.
Ubisoft, the French game publisher best known for the Assassin’s Creed series, just announced plans to dramatically reorganize its business. In the process, the company will kill six games it had in the works, including a long-awaited Prince of Persia title that was expected this month. Ubisoft shares dropped by more than 30% following the news.
The game publisher said the changes are designed to make it more agile in order to drive a sharp rebound for the company, which has seen its stock tank over the last five years. To chart that course, Ubisoft said it will selectively close the game studios it operates in Halifax and Stockholm, while restructuring other studios based in Abu Dhabi, Malmö, and Helsinki.
The company will consolidate its studios into five genre-specific creative houses that combine game production and publishing. The company described the desperate measures as a major reset to set itself on a path to sustainable growth. For the year, Ubisoft now expects net bookings of roughly $1.5 billion euros, down by $330 million from its previous guidance.
It is a radical move, relying on a more decentralized creative organization with faster decision making and best-in-class cross functional core services supporting and serving each Creative House, Ubisoft Founder and CEO Yves Guillemo wrote in press release, emphasizing that the changes would provide deep cost reduction designed to rightsize the 17,000-person company.
Beyond the now-axed remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which Ubisoft said did not meet its new enhanced quality criteria, the publisher will abandon four unannounced games, including three new IPs and a mobile title.
A dramatic decline for a AAA heavyweight
The changes afoot at Ubisoft demonstrate a stunning fall from grace for a company synonymous with the gaming industry. The French gaming giant publishes many hit titles beyond its long-running Assassin’s Creed franchise, including the Tom Clancy series, Far Cry, Rayman, Just Dance, and Watch Dogs.
Ubisofts retreat symbolizes bigger shifts in the gaming industry, but also avoidable failures.
The pandemic-era game industry boom times that saw many gamers holed up at home, desperate for entertainment are now over. Persistent inflation means gamers have less cash on hand to spend, particularly after the cost of many new releases jumped up to $70. Meanwhile, big AAA studios like Ubisoft are looking to trim back budgets as the cost of making games goes up. Many people working in the gaming industry are hanging onto their jobs by a thread in the face of mass layoffs, if they havent decamped for another field altogether.
Ubisoft has also made many of its own missteps. The publisher was forced to face its own demons during the gaming industrys recent cultural reckoning, which revealed patterns of pervasive sexual harassment and workplace discrimination at some game companies. Last year, three former Ubisoft executives were found guilty of fostering a culture of psychological and sexual harassment by a French court.
The French game maker has also suffered from a few high profile game failures, including the 2024 release of Star Wars Outlaws - a release Ubisoft expected to be a major money maker. That games problems cascaded into Ubisofts next major release, Assassins Creed Shadows, which the company delayed in light of the softer than expected reception for the prior game.
Ubisofts role in shaping the gaming trends of the last decade is hard to overstate. At its best, the companys games are praised for their sprawling, meticulously-detailed open worlds. But after many releases and many iterations, that formula may have overstayed its welcome.
The game publisher has faced widespread criticism in recent years for churning out cookie-cutter open world games bloated by too much filler content. Gamers have more choice than ever in 2026, and theyre not afraid to opt for innovative indie titles handcrafted by small teams over AAA stalwarts that are growing stale.
On the one hand, the AAA industry has become persistently more selective and competitive with rising development costs and greater challenges in creating brands, Guillemo said in Ubisofts announcement. On the other hand, exceptional AAA games, when successful, have more financial potential than ever.
