Beleaguered pharmacy chain Rite Aid has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after weeks of media reports suggesting that it was on the cusp of doing so.
The bankruptcy is Rite Aid’s second in two years, and it leaves a lot of questions for both customers and employees, including whether stores will be closing, if there will be layoffs, and what happens to customers prescriptions.
Heres what you need to know about Rite Aids second bankruptcy.
Why did Rite Aid file bankruptcy the first time?
Rite Aid originally filed for bankruptcy in 2023. It emerged from the process less than a year ago, in 2024, with the hopes of being in a better financial position and on more resilient footing. But with its second bankruptcy filing yesterday, those hopes seem to have been dashed.
To understand why Rite Aid is once again filing for bankruptcy, it helps to understand why the company originally filed for bankruptcy in 2023something Rite Aid has laid out in detail in documents it filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court in the District of New Jersey today.
Rite Aid cited multiple factors that necessitated its 2023 bankruptcy filing, including:
suboptimal lease portfolio of underperforming stores
elevated labor costs
increased costs from “shrink” (theft)
lower credit limits
more restrictive payment terms from vendors
reduced demand for its non-medication front end products
The lack of such inventory, Rite Aid said, gave rise to a vicious cycle: high-margin front-end sales declined due to insufficient inventory, and lagging sales depleted liquidity and caused vendors to tighten trade terms even further.
The companys 2023 bankruptcy was meant to help the struggling pharmacy chain address the financial issues caused by these problems. But thats not the way things have played out since, which has led to the company filing its second bankruptcy this week.
Why is Rite Aid filing for bankruptcy again?
In a court document, Rite Aid said that its post-emergence business plan was based on data-driven projections (and extensive discussions with vendors) that Rite Aids front-end vendors would return to their less restrictive prepetition payment terms as well as assurances from select capital providers that the company would be provided with the needed letter of credit facilitiesall of which the company said was crucial to Rite Aids recovery.
But the filing goes on to say that Those assurances were broken.
Rite Aid said that the letters of credit it did obtain were materially less than expected and that many vendors didnt end up relaxing the more restrictive payment terms to the anticipated levels.
Pile on macroeconomic pressures to this and Rite Aid said that The combined effect of lower-than-expected liquidity from the letter of credit facilities, inventory challenges, strained vendor relations, lower consumer spending, and competitive pressures has ultimately left the Company with insufficient liquidity to operate its business and service its debt obligations in the ordinary course.
Thus, its second bankruptcy filing this month.
Whats happening with Rite Aid prescriptions?
Of course, many customers will be concerned about what will happen to their prescriptions during the bankruptcy process.
In a letter to customers dated May 5, Rite Aid said that one of its paramount priorities during the bankruptcy process is to ensure that customers pharmacy needs are not interrupted.
Rite Aid says that a majority of its stores will remain open for the next few months and that during that time pharmacy services including prescriptions and immunizations will remain available.
In other words, for a few months at least, most customers should be able to still get their prescriptions filled at their local Rite Aid store.
However, the company also stated that it’s working to facilitate a smooth transfer of customer prescriptions to other pharmacies. This is most likely in preparation for inevitable Rite Aid store closures or sales.
Are Rite Aid stores closing?
Some already have, and more closures in the months ahead are almost a certainty. According to documents Rite Aid that filed with the court, these 11 locations have already closed or will close soon:
Poughkeepsie, NY
Redmond, WA
Sunnyside, WA
Craigsville, VA
Costa Mesa, CA
Harrisburg, PA
Keene, NH
Ridgewood, NY
Kutztown, PA
Neptune, NJ
Halifax, PA
Rite Aid also says that customers can keep an eye on which stores are open using its online store locator tool. The locator currently states that Rite Aid has 1,240 locations in the United States across 15 states.
Whats happening to Rite Aid employees?
It is thought that Rite Aids bankruptcy will see some store locations closed, while other stores will be sold to other entities that may seek to keep the stores running in some fashion.
Indeed, in a press release confirming its bankruptcy plans, Rite Aid CEO Matt Schroeder said that he was encouraged by meaningful interest from a number of potential national and regional strategic acquirors.
But inevitably, layoffs are to be expected, as Schroeder said that one of the companys priorities was preserving jobs for as many associates as possible.
Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that an internal letter was sent by Schroeder to employees that the company will begin cutting jobs at its corporate offices in Pennsylvania.
What will shopping at Rite Aid be like while this is happening?
Although the company says most stores will remain open for the next few months, expect to notice changes before then. In a letter to vendors, the pharmacy chain said, “At this time, Rite Aid has generally stopped purchasing goods and services, except for those that it believes are essential to supporting this process.”
Customers should also be aware that Rite Aid has posted a banner on its website stating that as of June 5, the company will no longer honor Rite Aid gift cards and wll no longer accept returns or exchanges.
Pinterest fans are nothing if not loyal. Many have spent yearssometimes decadescarefully curating boards filled with wedding inspiration, home decor ideas, fashion, and more. Now users are logging in only to find themselves locked out of their accounts without warning, with all their pins gone.
Frustrated users have taken to platforms like X and r/Pinterest to vent. The comment sections on Pinterests official Instagram and TikTok pages are flooded with pleas from angry users demanding answers.
I had a beautiful Pinterest board with over 26,000 of the most beautiful images and my account was just permanently banned, one user posted on X. Pinterest you will be dealt with. Another, who reportedly lost an account they had maintained for seven years, wrote, I feel like my library of Alexandria has been burned down.
For creatives, Pinterest isnt just for funits also a professional tool. “Its the industry standard to present a moodboard before any project goes into action, and the sheer amount of valuable references Ive lost out on since being banned is hard to describe,” wrote one Reddit user. “Ive had to postpone shoots and scramble to reassemble projects. Years and years of curating down the drain and multiple projects stuck in limbo.”
Those whove lost accounts claim theyve done nothing wrong. I made a new account, didn’t even add anything yet. Get an email saying I’m banned/suspended, one user posted on X. I try to dispute it and your typical bot responds saying there’s nothing it can do. Others are now afraid to even open their accounts for fear of what they might find.
Many are pointing the finger at AI. Pinterest’s Help Center states that it uses AI in “improving content moderation,” a system it has relied on for years to enforce its Community Guidelines. Like many platforms, Pinterest uses a mix of AI and human review.
A Pinterest spokesperson tells Fast Company: Pinterest has long-established public Community Guidelines that clearly outline what is and isnt allowed on the platform. Were committed to building a safer and more positive platform, and enforce these policies rigorously and continuously. Users who believe their account may have been deactivated mistakenly may submit an appeal.
For some, that response doesnt cut it. Instead, theyre exploring legal action, seeking recovery for the damages users have suffered, which may include financial compensation. These damages include direct financial losses from Pinterest ad campaigns or traffic, as well as emotional distress.
There we were: two experienced professionals, each standing on the iconic red dot of our own TEDx stages, ready to deliver what we hoped would be the most impactful talks of our careers.
For Jamie, her meticulously rehearsed opening linethe one she practiced 327 times in the shower, in the mirror, and in front of a very patient partnerevaporated the moment the spotlight hit. Hundreds of expectant eyes waited as the silence stretched . . . and stretched.
Oh @*#%, she whisperedinto the mic. What was meant to be a private moment of panic turned into a public announcement. But instead of recoiling, the audience leaned in.
Scott was one minute and fifty seconds into his carefully choreographed talk when he realized the slide clickerhis lifelinewasnt in his hand. It was backstage. As his partner began to talk, he edged off the red dot, sliding sideways like what he now calls a nervous crab doing the walk of shame under a spotlight. What could have been a disaster became an unexpected moment of relatability.
What should have been our most cringeworthy professional moments instead became our most powerful points of connection.
Who gets to make mistakes
After Jamies talk, someone approached her saying, “That moment when you paused made your message so human. I was rooting for you!
“When you had to edge off the stage,” an executive told Scott afterward, “I immediately felt I could relate to you. It was like watching a high-stakes version of that dream where you show up to work without pants.”
The revelation hit us both like a thunderbolt: Our supposed failures weren’t failures at all. They were our strongest connection points. All those hours spent practicing perfect delivery? Not wasted time at all, because we were able to recover.
But the unplanned human moments? Pure gold.
It’s worth acknowledging, however, that our positive experiences with vulnerability came from positions of established credibility. As seasoned professionals with certain privileges, we could afford these momentary lapses without severe consequences. But we also know that vulnerability’s impact varies dramatically depending on who you are and the context in which you’re operating.
The Paradox of Leadership
We’re often taught that leadership means projecting flawless competence, credibility, and charisma. However, what social psychologists call the pratfall effecta phenomenon documented by Elliot Aronson in 1966shows that competent people become more likable when they make small mistakes.
In other words, the occasional face-plant makes you more relatable.
But there’s a critical caveat that Aronson himself emphasized: This effect primarily works for those already perceived as highly competent. For those still establishing credibilityparticularly women, people of color, and others from underrepresented groupsthe same “charming” mistake can reinforce negative stereotypes and undermine authority.
As TED speakers, we had the freedom to make mistakes, which actually increased our likability and connection with the audience without compromising our credibility.
In our work with executives, weve seen this paradox play out repeatedly. We’ve seen repeatedly that established leaders who initially resist showing any vulnerability find their influence dramatically increases after sharing natural imperfections. Yet for emerging leaders or those from marginalized backgrounds, the calculus is far more complex.
It’s essential to acknowledge that the luxury of vulnerability isn’t equally distributed. For women in male-dominated fields, research shows that displays of emotion or uncertainty can trigger harsher judgment than for their male counterparts. For people of color, vulnerability can collide with pernicious stereotypes, reinforcing biases rather than building connection. And for those earlier in their careers or from less privileged backgrounds, the margin for error is often vanishingly small.
Alison Fragale’s recent research in her book Likable Badass reveals that leaders face a fundamental paradox: They need to be both respected for competence and liked for warmth. The most effective leaderswhom she calls likable badassesstrategically reveal vulnerabilities while maintaining clear boundaries, creating what she terms “approachable authority.”
Yet Fragale also acknowledges that women and people of color often face a much narrower band of acceptable behavior, where too much warmth can undermine perceptions of competence, and too much assertiveness can trigger backlash.
The path to becoming a “likable badass” is riddled with structural inequities that demand recognition. Which is why we believe vulnerabilitytailored to contexthas the potential to be a leadership superpower.
The Vulnerability Sweet Spot: A Framework for the Perfectly Imperfect Leader
Through trial, error, and sometimes painfully awkward experience, we’ve developed a framework for authentic, courageous leadership that we now share with executives who are tired of the exhausting perfectionism treadmill. But we emphasize that this framework must be applied with careful attention to context, power dynamics, and the unique challenges faced by those with marginalized identities:
1. Create intentional vulnerability loops
Ed Catmull, Jamies former boss and cofounder and former president of Pixar Animation, would often say in meetings “I’m wrong more than half the time. That simple phrase created what Harvard professor Jeff Polzer calls a “vulnerability loopinviting reciprocal openness that builds trust faster than a box of free donuts in the break room. By modeling approachable authority, he cultivated psychological safety that fueled Pixar’s creative engine.
But we’ve observed that this same approach can backfire for leaders without Catmull’s established positional power and reputation. For a woman leading a male-dominated team or a person of color in a predominantly white organization, admitting uncertainty might inadvertently reinforce harmful stereotypes about competence. The lesson? Sometimes the most powerful thing a well-established leader can say is “I have no idea what I’m doing right now.” But for others, strategic vulnerability requires careful calibration.
2. Transform mistakes into growth narratives
Scott had prepared meticulously for his courage workshop with a large government leadership teambut within minutes, he realized hed misread the room. His agenda assumed participants would willingly engage, but the energy was brittle. The stress was high, morale was low, and the silence hung heavy.
Then something unexpectedand unscriptedhappened.
The chief elected official chose to speak first. But instead of safe, ceremonial words, he paused, and shared a specific fear he was facing in that moment as a leader.
The room shifted. ilence held for a beat. Then, one by one, others began to speaknaming real fears, deeper commitments, and the tensions theyd been carrying alone. That moment of unrehearsed vulnerability didnt fix everything. But it disrupted the silence, reset the tone of leadership, and sparked the psychological safety needed for meaningful change to begin.
3. Create structural support for imperfection
Pixar holds rigorous postproduction reviews that deliberately focus on uncovering mistakesdespite the very human tendency to celebrate victories and immediately start stressing about the next project. The process norms prevent individual blame, instead promoting shared responsibility for both successes and improvements. At its heart, the process embraces the principle that imperfection, continuous learning, and growth form the foundation of great filmmaking.
By creating formal structures to examine what didn’t work, the studio transforms potential failures into catalysts for innovation. When failure analysis becomes collective rather than personal, it creates safer spaces for those who might otherwise face disproportionate consequences for acknowledging mistakes.
4. Create equitable spaces for vulnerability
At Pixar, Jamie codesigned a Mutual Mentorship Program specifically designed to address power imbalances. Over six months, senior mentors and junior mentees built relationships by exchanging responses to questions like, “Share a pivotal time that created anxiety but informs who you are today.”
This structured approach produced two remarkable outcomes. First, mentors gained genuine insight into the dramatically different experiences of those with less organizational power. Many left the program as vocal advocates for their mentees, having seen firsthand the additional barriers they navigated.
Second, mentees formed a powerful coalition where they could practice speaking up authentically. Through monthly discussions about power dynamics and calculated risk-taking, they developed both individual confidence and collective strengthtransforming vulnerability from a personal liability into a shared asset.
5. Know your audience
Before revealing vulnerability, assess the terrain carefully. Do your colleagues and superiors already view you as competent? Do they genuinely care about your success? While it’s ultimately leaders’ responsibility to make workplaces safe for authenticity, we must acknowledge that not all environments offer this security.
For those still establishing credibilityespecially individuals from underrepresented backgroundsthe most courageous act might be a carefully timed truth or a question that invites others in. Even micro-moments, like asking a powerful question for honest feedback in a team setting or naming a challenge with curiosity rather than certainty, can plant the seeds of strategic vulnerability. These moments may not be headline-worthy, but over time, they build trust, credibility, and voice.
If you determine that sharing vulnerably carries too much risk in your current position, remember that choosing to strategically present yourself isn’t “fakeit’s a legitimate form of self-protection. The calculation is intensely personal: What are the costs of being real versus the costs of maintaining a more guarded professional persona? There’s no universal right answer, only the one that serves your well-being and advancement in your specific context.
The Real Leadership Superpower
Our TED experiences taught us that leadership impact doesn’t come from flawless performance, but from authentic human connection. The moments that feel most vulnerablewhen your mind goes blank during a presentation or when you have to admit you have no idea how to solve a problemare precisely where your most meaningful leadership happens.
The next time you feel that urge to appear perfect, remember: Your most authentic moment might be waiting on the other side of what feels like failure. In a world increasingly dominated by curated personas and polished images, authentic vulnerability can be a powerful differentiator, but also a risk that varies dramatically depending on who you are.
After all, nobody roots for the superhero who never breaks a sweat. We root for the one who gets knocked down, mutters something slightly inappropriate, and then gets back up again with a knowing smile.
But we must also work toward a world where all leaders, regardless of their identity, have the freedom to be imperfectly human without disproportionate penalties.
Across the United States, there is a long history of communities of color being underservedif not outright oppressedby the dominant modes of urban planning and development. But for the past 10 years, a collective of architects, designers, artists, and urban planners called BlackSpace has been rethinking how communities of color get designed and built. Now, the group is trying to build up the ranks of practitioners working alongside communities of color in the built environment to make sure their needs are no longer overlooked or ignored.
To spread this work through young and emerging firms, BlackSpace has launched Studio KIN (Kinfolx Imagining Neighborhoods), a business accelerator focused on bringing resources, funding, and community to Black-founded ventures that produce services and products focused on the built environment. The incubator’s first cohort has just been announced.
“When we think about spatial justice, we think a lot about how it’s realized through having the folks that are planning, designing, and building neighborhoods that reflect the places that they’re serving,” says Kenyatta McLean, co-managing director of BlackSpace. “We developed Studio KIN to be a home for those urbanists that are working to meet communities where they’re at.”
Members of BlackSpace’s Studio KIN cohort include an urban planning studio in Indianapolis, a community design firm in Oklahoma City, and a bookstore and community space in Brooklyn.
The focus of the accelerator is “interdisciplinary urbanist solutions that strengthen majority Black and majority multiracial neighborhoods,” says Emma Osore, co-managing director of BlackSpace.
The hole to fill is wide. There are roughly 1,000 zip codes across the U.S. that have majority Black populations, but fewer than 2% of them are considered prosperous. Osore says the goal of the accelerator is to help support the growth of locally based organizations that use place-based practices to increase prosperity for Black communities, particularly within Oklahoma City, Chicago, Indianapolis, and New York City.
“There’s rapid change in Black places in all of these cities, and there are very few people locally who understand urbanism from this people-centered, culturally rooted, and ethical point of view,” Osore says.
Having locally based design firms, for example, can help ensure projects are developed in ways that serve their communities over the long term. McLean notes that it’s not uncommon for a big national firm to come in to work on a well-meaning project in a Black neighborhood, only to leave once the contract is over. “What does that mean for the sustainability of that project? What does it mean for the communities that surround that neighborhood?” she says. “That’s another reason why we’re so interested and continue to be interested in folks that are locally rooted, because they will stay through the storms and also be there for the moments of sunshine that are happening.”
BlackSpace’s Studio KIN will operate like a typical business incubator, offering support and resources to organizations as they grow and mature. The first cohort is made up of small firms that are between three and five years old, and the accelerator will help them do things like build capacity for new work or help raise capital, as well as more mundane things like assisting with bookkeeping.
Members of Studio KIN’s cohort reflect the need for this kind of hyper-specific business incubator. For example, Open Design Collective is the first and only Black woman-led nonprofit design firm in Oklahoma, with a focus on architecture, planning, and cultural preservation. In Indianapolis, Rokh Research & Design Studio focuses on cultural equity by partnering with researchers, practitioners, and community members to understand lived experiences and introduce new policies and strategies for urban design.
The accelerator will run for 12 months, and BlackSpace’s program director Gabriella Malavé says the collective plans to have at least three cohorts over the next few years. The shape of the accelerator may shift as the organization gets to understand what members of its first cohort really need to grow and thrive. But the overall goal of the program is to help Black communities by establishing a wider network of urbanist practitioners focused specifically on their unique needs.
“Our mission has always been to have opportunities for urbanists to co-create spatial change in partnership with Black communities and to strengthen Black communities,” Osore says. “So this is really a sort of a renaissance for BlackSpace.”
At a recent academic conference, I noticed a familiar unease ripple through conversations about soft skills. Many participants winced at the term. They recognized the inadequacy of the term, yet struggled to agree on a better alternative. People floated around suggestions like human skills, essential skills, or power skills, but none seemed to stick.
This persistent terminology problem reflects a deeper tension in our educational system. Theres a long-standing bias that elevates hard technical competencies over the nuanced, deeply human capabilities that actually define long-term professional success.
Historically, hard skills emerged from the natural sciencesquantitative, measurable, and increasingly automatable. Soft skills, on the other hand, draw from the liberal arts, humanities, and social sciences. These disciplines help us understand human behavior, expression, and interaction. These qualities are notoriously difficult to quantify and even harder to teach.
In business analytics, the field I teach, technical fluency is the price of entry. But what propels careers isnt just knowing which model to run. Its being able to explain it to a client, manage a team under pressure, adapt when the data shifts, and negotiate conflicting priorities. The multiplier is the human element.
If we want studentsand professionalsto thrive in the age of artificial intelligence, we need to stop treating soft skills like fluff. Theyre complex, teachable, and foundational to success. And they need a better framework.
Reframing the spectrum of soft skills
The term soft skills has served as a catchall for too long. It flattens a vast range of human capabilities into a vague, undervalued category. Lets unpack what it typically refers to:
Character traits: These are innate or deeply ingrained qualitiescuriosity, empathy, resilience, integrity. They are difficult to measure and even harder to teach, but they can be reinforced through self-awareness and mentorship.
Behavioral habits: This includes punctuality, follow-through, and active listening. These are habits that form the scaffolding of daily effectiveness. Unlike traits, habits are trainable through repetition, reflection, and reinforcement.
Teachable skills: Think negotiation, critical thinking, presentation, and conflict resolution. These are skills that we can structure, improve, and break down.
Contextual competencies
Some soft skills shift with the situation, like cross-cultural communication, executive presence, or stakeholder management. Mastering these skills requires knowledge, as well as adaptability and emotional intelligence.
This structure isnt just an academic exercise. It provides a road map for how higher education can teach, assess, and elevate these skills with the rigor they deserve.
Why the liberal arts are more relevant than ever
This entire frameworktraits, habits, teachable skills, and contextual competenciesrests on a liberal arts foundation. Yet many continue to undervalue liberal arts education in the race to produce technically skilled graduates.
Thats a mistake. The liberal arts cultivate intellectual agility, ethical reasoning, and cultural literacy. Rhetoric and composition shape communication. Philosophy and history sharpen critical thinking. Literature and anthropology nurture empathy and emotional intelligence. Ethics and moral philosophy develop character. These are not extrasthey are essential human capabilities, which humans have forged across centuries of thought and reflection.
Even in the case of STEM education depends on these soft capacities for its practitioners to thrive in real-world scenarios. The traditional liberal arts saw this clearly. To build capable and thoughtful citizens, you need people who understand science and the humanities. The two disciplines complement one another.
The technology paradox
Enter artificial intelligence. As AI grows capable of executing routine cognitive tasks and even mimicking creative ones, the gap between human and machine narrows in some areasbut not in others.
AI can analyze data, but it cant coach a team through a moral crisis. It can summarize a policy, but it cant build consensus across ideologically opposed stakeholders. It can write a headline, but it cant lead a classroom, negotiate a truce, or inspire trust.
The more technical our world becomes, the more vital our human capabilities become. The paradox of progress is that it puts a premium on precisely those soft skills many continue to dismiss.
Reclaiming the term
Perhaps the answer isnt to replace the term soft skills, but reclaim it. Lets reframe soft not as easy or secondary, but as sophisticated, subtle, and distinctively human. These are the skills that make teams functional, leaders inspiring, and organizations resilient. Theyre not antithetical to technical skill, theyre actually the multiplier.
We do our students a disservice when we teach them how to code but not how to communicate, or how to calculate but not how to collaborate. We handicap their potential when we separate technical and human education into silos. And we shortchange society when we undervalue the disciplines that teach us how to be human together.
The future doesnt belong to those who can merely execute technical tasks. It belongs to those who bring the full spectrum of human capability to our most complex challenges.
So yes, soft skills may be the hardest to master. But theyre also the ones that matter most.
On farms off the coast of Alaska and in Mexico, a company called Blue Evolution grows seaweed used in food and skincare products. But five years ago, while studying the potential for seaweed to be used in bioenergy, the company discovered something else: The algae also contains critical minerals.
The research, conducted with Pacific Northwest National Labs, identified the presence of scandium, an expensive rare earth element thats produced in tiny volumes globally. The seaweed also contains other rare earth elements and platinum group metals that can be used to make products ranging from EV batteries to motors for wind turbines. That generated a lot of excitement, says Beau Perry, CEO of Blue Evolution. Everyone was like, Can you mine with seaweed?
The company undertook more research into the area, and today it launched a new initiative, Orca Minerals, thats focused on the new form of mining. Instead of blasting rocks or the seabed, the process makes use of the fact that seaweed naturally absorbs minerals from seawater as it grows.
[Photo: Rachelle Hacmac/Blue Evolution]
At its lab in San Jose, the company is analyzing samples of seaweed that it grows in seawater tanks on the Mexican coast and in the ocean in Alaska. With the right location, and the right strain of seaweed, Perry says, it’s possible to harvest meaningful amounts of certain minerals. The team identifies and selectively breeds seaweed strains, and is currently analyzing one of those proprietary strains. “We’re starting to select the characteristics that should yield more, with faster growth, but also more solid content and more mineral content,” Perry says.
The content of critical minerals like cobalt or palladium is small, but that’s also true in traditional mining. “When you’re mining rare earths, it’s just mostly wasted material. You need a huge amount of rock,” he says. “Rare earth elements are not that much more concentrated in those deposits than in some of the seaweed samples we’ve seen.”
Some other startups are working on processes to extract minerals from land using plants, like a company called Metalplant thats mining nickel with crops grown in Albania. Seaweed has some advantages: It grows much more quickly and can concentrate minerals at a higher proportion, so the yield can be greater. And while there’s a fixed stock of minerals in soil, currents in the ocean continually replenish supply.
[Photo: Rachelle Hacmac/Blue Evolution]
The rest of the seaweed also has valueas nutrients, pigments, or carbon that can be used to make seaweed-based textiles, plastic, and other materials; critical minerals are a side benefit. As the biomaterials market grows, that would simultaneously mean more potential to displace traditional mining on land. If the company grows seven-figure tons of dry seaweed in Alaska to meet demand for biomaterials, for example, Perry says it could also produce enough scandium to be a major player in the global market. (For some other minerals and elements that are produced at bigger scales, it would contribute a much smaller percentage.)
Mining from seaweed, rather than rocks, could help avoid some of the environmental impact of getting components that are necessary in things like electronics and EV batteries. Traditional mining destroys wildlife habitats; pollutes water, soil, and the air; uses large amounts of energy; and creates piles of waste. The Trump administration also wants to fast-track deep-sea miningextracting minerals from the ocean floorsomething scientists say could cause irreparable harm to marine ecosystems.
Growing and harvesting seaweed doesn’t cause those problems. Refining minerals from seaweed also takes less energy and is a cleaner process than traditional refining, Perry says. The company is working on its own green-chemistry-based extraction techniques that could potentially bypass the need to use a secondary refinery.
The work is still in progress, and the company wants to ensure it can predictably harvest a certain volume of critical minerals from its seaweed. But it expects to have an operational prototype by 2027. Commercial production could begin in 2028.
Getting older can be a time when declining vision, hearing, and cognitive abilities may mean it’s no longer safe to drive. It may even lead to giving up your driver’s license. In theory, those who age out of driving should be perfect new customers for ride-sharing apps. And yet, Lyft says only 5.6% of its U.S. riders are older than 65. The company sensed a disconnect. The app wasn’t meeting older riders needs, and it needed a redesign.
Lyft Silver, now available nationwide, is designed specifically for older users, with a font that’s 1.4 times bigger than the standard app, and a simple interface.
[Image: Lyft]
“Developing Lyft Silver was truly a labor of care and intention,” Audrey Liu, Lyft’s EVP of rider experience, tells Fast Company via email. “We started by listeningreally listeningto the experiences and needs of older adults. We spoke with riders, caregivers, and organizations that serve this community to understand the specific challenges they face with transportation. Things like navigating complex apps, feeling unsure about who their driver will be, or needing a little extra time and assistance.”
The new design represents a collaboration among experts on aging, as well as partners like AltaMed, Urban League, Self Help for the Elderly, and others. The specialized app leans on Lyft’s findings about how its older customers actually use the service, like matching riders with more accessible vehicles that are easier to get in and out of since Lyft data showed older adults were twice as likely to cancel rides when they got matched with a pickup truck. And because Lyft found older adults are 57% more likely to not show up for their rides, the app has a “Get Help” button that connects riders to a live agent during work hours. Lyft Silver profiles also have trusted contacts, so ride details can be shared with family and caregivers.
[Image: Lyft]
“Personally, thinking about my own mom and aunt, and the desire I have for them to move through their day with ease and independence, was a huge motivator,” Liu says. “We focused on building features that directly address those paint points: things like a simpler app interface with larger buttons and clearer instructions, the option for drivers who have indicated a preference for assisting older riders, and a longer wait time to enter and exit the vehicle without feeling rushed. It was about creating a service that feels less transactional and more supportive, fostering a sense of comfort and trust.”
It’s simple by design, and by basing the app on the needs and experiences of its actual users, Lyft Silver shows how tech companies can better adapt their services to an aging population.
Chances are, if youre not an Italian grandma or a skilled home chef from Rome, youve probably messed up while trying to make cacio e pepe. At least, thats the thesis underpinning the scientific study Phase behavior of Cacio e Pepe sauce, published on April 29 in the journal Physics of Fluids.
The studyconducted by a group of scientists from the University of Barcelona, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany, the University of Padova in Italy, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austriais pretty much what its title suggests: a full-on scientific investigation into the most optimized recipe for the creamy, peppery pasta dish.
Were Italians living abroad, and we often get together for dinner to enjoy traditional recipes from home, says Ivan Di Terlizzi, the studys lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute. Among the dishes weve cooked, cacio e pepe came up several times, and every time, we were struck by how hard it is to get the sauce right. Thats when we realized it might actually be an interesting physical system to study. And of course, there was also the very practical motivation of avoiding the heartbreak of wasting good pecorino!
A very brief history of pasta-based physics experiments
This isnt the first time that pasta has been used as inspiration for physicists. Probably the most famous example of “pasta as experiment,” Di Terlizzi says, is the observation that spaghetti almost never breaks cleanly in half, tending to snap into three or more fragments instead. This fact originally puzzled renowned physicist Richard Feynman (who died in 1988) and wasnt fully explained until 2005, when a team of French physicists showed that its caused by cascading cracks traveling along the pasta.
Another example, Di Terlizzi adds, is the physics of ring-shaped polymers, which are notoriously hard to understand. A study in 2014 used a type of circular pasta, which the researchers called anelloni, to explain why these looped polymers behave so strangely in experiments. With cacio e pepe, the physics question of interest has to do with the sauces unusual behavior under heat.
The main goal of our work wasnt just culinary; it was to explore the physics of this system, Di Terlizzi says. The sauces behavior under heat shares features with many physical and biological phenomena, like phase transitions or the formation of membrane-less organelles inside cells. The recipe is, in a sense, the practical byproduct of everything we learned.
The most optimal cacio e pepe recipe, according to scientists
Cacio e pepe traditionally only includes three ingredients: pasta, pecorino Romano cheese, and black pepper. While it seems like a simple enough concoction, the sauces creamy smoothness (the backbone of the dish) can be quite finicky to achieve. When the temperature gets too high or the mixing of cheese and pasta water isnt done carefully, the cheese proteins will denatureessentially unfolding and losing their normal 3D structure.
In the unfolded state, the proteins then stick together and the emulsion breaks. Instead of a creamy consistency, you get a gooey mess, which we call salsa impazzita . . . that is, crazy sauce, Di Terlizzi says. The physics-based solution to crazy sauce? Its all about starch.
It turns out that, by perfecting the ratio of starch in the pasta water to cheese mass, the cacio e pepe sauce becomes far more resistant to heat, which stabilizes the emulsion and prevents clumping.
[Chart: AIP Publishing]
Without starch, the so-called mozzarella phase kicks in at around 65°C, where the proteins start forming large aggregates, Di Terlizzi says. But if the starch concentration is above 1% relative to the cheese mass, the clumps stay small, and temperature becomes much less critical, making it much easier to get a good result. This is similar to using polymers to stabilize emulsions in soft matter physics, he adds.
Phase behavior of cacio e pepe sauce contains ultra-detailed steps to a foolproof cacio e pepe, but here are the instructions in condensed terms:
Step 1: For a pasta dish for two hungry people, start with 300 grams of the preferred tonnarelli pastaor opt for spaghetti or rigatoni, if you must. From there, youll need 200 grams of cheese. Traditionalists would insist on using only pecorino Romano DOP [protected designation of origin], but some argue that up to 30% parmigiano Reggiano DOP is acceptable; though this remains a point of debate, the recipe notes. Proceed based on your own personally held cheese preferences.
Step 2: To prepare the sauce, dissolve 5 grams of starchlike potato or corn starchin 50 grams of water. Heat this mixture gently until it thickens and turns from cloudy to nearly clear. This is your starch gel.
Step 3: Add 100 grams of water to the starch gel. Instead of manually grating the cheese into the resulting liquid, blend the two together to achieve a homogeneous sauce. Finish the sauce by adding black pepper to taste (for best results, toast the pepper in a pan before adding).
Step 4: To prepare the pasta, cook in slightly salted water until it is al dente. Save some of the pasta cooking water before draining. Once the pasta has been drained, let it cool down for up to a minute to prevent the excessive heat from destabilizing the sauce. Finally, mix the pasta with the sauce, ensuring even coating, and adjust the consistency by gradually adding reserved pasta water as needed.
Step 5: Garnish with grated cheese and pepper, and serve.
Just two years ago, prompt engineering was hailed as a hot new job in tech. Now, it has all but disappeared.
At the beginning of the corporate AI boom, some companies sought out large language model (LLM) translatorsprompt engineers who specialized in crafting the most effective questions to ask internal AIs, ensuring optimal and efficient outputs. Today, strong AI prompting is simply an expected skill, not a stand-alone role. Some companies are even using AI to generate the best prompts for their own AI systems.
The decline of prompt engineering serves as a cautionary tale for the AI job market. The flashy, niche roles that emerged with ChatGPTs rise may prove to be short-lived. While AI is reshaping roles across industries, it may not be creating entirely new ones.
AI is already eating its own, says Malcolm Frank, CEO of TalentGenius. Prompt engineering has become something thats embedded in almost every role, and people know how to do it. Also, now AI can help you write the perfect prompts that you need. Its turned from a job into a task very, very quickly.
AI jobs are just jobs now
Part of the prompt engineers appeal was its low barrier to entry. The role required little technical expertise, making it an accessible path for those eager to join a booming market. But because the position was so generalized, it was also easily replaced.
Frank compares prompt engineering to roles like Excel wizard and PowerPoint expertall valuable skills, but not ones companies typically hire for individually. And prompt engineers may not be the only roles fading away. Frank envisions a world where AI agentsalready taking shapereplace many lower-level tasks. Its almost like Pac-Man just moving along and eating different tasks and different skills, he says.
AI has the potential to displace thousands of workers. Its advocates have long argued that it will create as many jobs as it destroys. Prompt engineering once seemed to support that claima brand-new job title born from AI. But that optimism may be misplaced. Rather than inventing entirely new roles, AI is largely reshaping existing ones.
Tim Tully wasnt surprised to see prompt engineering decline. As a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, hes witnessed the AI boom firsthand, especially through the firms investment in Anthropic. He also works closely with software developersa profession already transformed by tools like Cursor. His view is clear: The real impact of AI lies not in boutique job creation, but in widespread productivity gains.
I wouldn’t say that [there are] new jobs, necessarily; it’s more so that it’s changing how people work, Tully says. Youre using AI all the time now, whether you like it or not, and its accelerating what you do.
Did prompt engineers ever exist?
It remains unclear whether companies were ever truly hiring for individually titled prompt engineers. They certainly arent now, says Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab.
It looks to me like prompt engineering is more being combined with, say, a machine learning engineering title or an automation architect title, Shrivastava tells Fast Company. Its probably a part of more job titles, but Im not necessarily seeing it as a job title in and of itself.
But thats always been the caseeven in 2023, when LinkedIn was filled with self-described prompt engineers. Asked whether there was any change over time in the number of prompt engineer job postings, Shrivastava notes that it was never a large enough title to track mathematically.
Which raises a larger question: Did prompt engineering roles ever truly exist?
All experts interviewed for this piece were skeptical. The market itself was real enough: The North American prompt engineering market was valued at $75.5 million in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 32.8%. But whether that translated into formally titled roles is another matter.
I think the discussion online of [prompt engineering] was probably much bigger than the head count, says Aline Lerner, CEO of Interviewing.io. It was such an appealing thing, precisely because it was this on-ramp for nontechnical people into this sexy, lucrative field.
Where are the AI jobs, then?
Lerner has observed a clear trend. While Interviewing.io has never offered mock interviews specifically for prompt engineering, it has offered them for machine learning engineering. The distinction is important: Prompt engineers focus on crafting questions for LLMs, while machine learning engineers build the models themselves. And while demand for the former has declined, demand for the latter is surging.
Demand for mock interviews for machine learning engineers was flat for a while, and then in the last two months, it has hockey-sticked up and grown more than three times, Lerner says. The future is working on the LLM itself and continuing to make it better and better, rather than needing somebody to interpret it.
Those easy-access AI jobs may no longer exist. Machine learning engineering roles demand deep technical expertiseskills that take years to develop, unlike the relatively shallow learning curve for prompt engineering. Even basic coding skills are no longer sufficient. Indeeds Shrivastava notes that while demand for developers is declining, engineering roles more broadly are on the rise.
For those without a coding background, becoming a founder is often the most lucrativethough riskyroute. Management consulting has also seen a boom. As of February, consulting roles made up 12.4% of AI job titles on Indeed.
As time goes on, we might see [AI] in more variety of sectors overall, Shrivastava says. They need someone tasked with really implementing that technology into that company.”
Design-minded home goods brand Simplehuman recently released a product that’s a little out of its wheelhousea limited-edition tequila with distillery Nosotros. It may be the company’s first foray into spirits, but the brand already knows how to work with the Weber blue agave that made the tequila.
The agave fibers on Simplehumans Soapwell sponge begin their life cycle by being pressed into Nosotros tequila at the companys distillery in Tequila, Mexico. Nosotros then supplies its leftover agave fibers to Simplehuman. The $100 Nosotros x Simplehuman Blanco tequila is made out of that same agave, and was released to mark a year that Simplehuman has been spinning the fibers into sponges.
[Photo: Simplehuman]
Simplehuman CEO Frank Yang says the company approached the tequila the same way it does any productand notes that the agave-sourcing partnership shows off the “less is more” approach that guides both brands.
We’re trying to create cool things that exist in the world that people would miss if we weren’t doing this, Yang says.
[Photo: Simplehuman]
High proof, high performance
The story of how tequila ingredients became a kitchen product isnt too complicated. It starts with Yangs fondness for tequila. While on vacation in Mexico in 2022, he joined a tequila-making class and learned how agave is used to make the spirit. They were telling me how the fiber is really tough, he says, noting that after the juice was extracted, it seemed like they were throwing the [pulp] away.
The Simplehuman R&D team was both skeptical and excited. It was a tricky process, working with jimadores (farmers who harvest agave plants in Mexico) to handpick specific fibers amid the gunky pulp. But after about eight months, they realized it was a solution that could help create a soft sponge that could also scrub without scratching pots and pans. High performance is the most important, he says.
Besides the agave fibers, the sponge’s differentiator is a round reservoirthe sponges eponymous soap well. [The soap] seeps down to the sponge so it doesn’t just wash away, Yang says.
The circular well is positioned to match where soap comes out of a Simplehuman soap dispenser, and also has a hard outer ring that can offer a deeper scrub for stubborn residue.
[Photo: Simplehuman]
A tequila influenced by terrain
Nosotros approaches tequila like wineeach spirit taking on unique characteristics based on the land where its agave grows. The Nosotros x Simplehuman bottle of additive-free Blanco tequila is not made differently than Nosotross other bottles of Blanco, but is a particular vintage.
Nosotros cofounder Carlos Soto describes this specific Simplehuman vintage as mineral-forward. A lot of times with our Blanco, we’ve had the highlands carry a lot of itmore fruity notes and that cooked agave sweetness, he says. Hes referring to the Mexican highlands of Arasco, Jalisco, where 50% of the agave for Nosotros tequila comes from. The other 50% comes from the city of Tequila, located in the lowlands of Jalisco, and comes across as more dominant in this vintage.
Lowlands usually have a lot more shade. . . . They tend to have soil that is very rich, Soto says. They become a little bit more peppery, more earthy.
The approach that Nosotros takes of utilizing these two agaves not only provides a more balanced taste across its line of additive-free products, but also reduces stress on the environment. The farms that we work with are able to rotate crops a little bit more just because we’re only using 50% from each, Soto says. It really protects the soil, which keeps the quality of the agave.
The amount of agave required to yield one bottle of tequila produces enough fibers to make more than 2,000 sponges.
Giving agave fibers a second life
Soto says he thinks of Nosotros as an agave company, and he is always searching for ways to utilize agave fibers. Even before the Simplehuman partnership, Nosotros used fibers to create the labels on all of its bottles, and often recycles the fibers as fertilizer. But the company still regularly has a surplus. We struggle to allocate [the remaining fibers] sometimes, Soto says. We don’t want to just throw it in a landfill.
Simplehuman is Nosotross first agave brand partner, and it sees more opportunity to work with other brands to give agave a second life. There’s so much tequila being produced right now, Soto says. There are more fibers than people who are taking it. The company is in the early stages of creating a bigger market for products that can be made out of agave fibers like bricks, single-use cups, plates, and even glassware.
Other tequila brands are also finding creative ways to eliminate the waste of agave fibers. Cazadores uses them, among other ingredients, as fuel to power its distillation process. Jose Cuervo has upcycled agave fibers to manufacture some out-of-the-box products including guitars and surfbards.
Though the Simplehuman x Nosotros blanco tequila will only be available until the vintage is sold out, it’s a way to underscore how Simplehuman approaches its product development. Yang notes: If it’s not functional, why is it there?
