In order to power Metas massive AI data center being built in northeastern Louisiana, the local utility company has proposed building three new natural gas power plants. Its a move that flies in the face of Metas climate commitments, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, wrote in a letter sent to Meta on Wednesday and shared exclusively with Fast Company.
The Senate committee is launching an inquiry into Facebook and Instagram’s parent company over this fossil fuel expansion, seeking information about how the move squares with Metas claims that it is currently net zero across its global operations, and its aim to reach net zero emissions across its value chain by 2030.
“Metas decision to power its data centers with fossil fuels while claiming net zero status is deeply troubling. This isnt leadershipits greenwashing. Families are already paying the price for climate inaction through higher insurance costs,” Whitehouse said in a statement to Fast Company. “Metas backslide from its own climate pledges risks triggering broader economic harm at a time when we urgently need corporate responsibility.
Metas mega AI data center
Metas forthcoming data center will be the companys largest, a $10 billion, four million square foot facility in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Meta expects construction to be complete in 2030, and has said it will play a vital role in accelerating our AI progress.
Meta is working on the project with the local utility provider, New Orleans-based Entergywhich has requested expedited state approval to build three combustion-turbine gas plants in order to generate 2,300 megawatts of electricity.
In a statement to Fast Company, Entergy said natural gas is the lowest reasonable cost option available that can support the 24/7 electrical demands of a large data center like Meta, and that neither solar or wind would provide enough reliable, around-the-clock energy. The site is also near Haynesville Shale, one of the most abundant natural gas shale plays in the United States. The Louisiana Public Service Commission is still reviewing Entergys proposal for the new gas plants.
Metas data center climate promises
As part of Metas climate commitments, the company has invested in both carbon removal and clean energy projects. It says it will continue this work amid the Louisiana data center project and its need for three new natural gas plants.
Entergys new natural gas generators are expected to come online between 2028 and 2029. Entergy says future upgrades to those generators could incorporate carbon capture. Meta says it’s exploring carbon capture technology at an Entergy power plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and that its working with Entergy to bring at least 1,500 megawatts of new renewables to the grid.
In 2024, Meta announced a solar farm project in Louisiana with electricity company RWE that will provide 374 megawatts of power. The company says that since 2020, it has offset its global electricity use by buying renewable energy portfolios to “match” its own electricity consumption, and that it will do the same with the new Louisiana data center.
The EPW Committees concerns
The Environment and Public Works (EPW) committees inquiry says these moves are vague and offer little reassurance about the data centers climate impact.
Meta has not shown that the planned generation from its solar plant will match its data center electricity load and displace equivalent fossil fuel generation. Neither Entergy nor Meta have disclosed details about the carbon capture project or the amount of Metas financial contribution, raising doubt as to whether Meta is meaningfully offsetting its emissions, Whitehouses letter reads. And Metas construction of new gas plants risks locking in future fossil fuel assets; a responsible corporate actor would show how these plants will be soon phased out or equipped with carbon capture.
These gaps, he adds, raise concerns that Metas commitment to achieving net zero emissions is not genuine.
Through its inquiry, the EPW is requesting various documents from Meta, including analyses and calculations about the data centers expected energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; Metas intended carbon capture funding (and whether it’s contributing to a new carbon capture project or an existing one); details on how much carbon the company will remove from the atmosphere; and if Meta will install carbon capture at these new gas-fired plants.
Its also seeking data to support Entergys assertion that natural gas is the only power option, and justifications for why renewables with battery storage weren’t a feasible alternative. The inquiry also asks for analysis to show whether all of Metas actionsthe new gas plants, solar capacity, and carbon capturealign with the companys net zero goals.
Whitehouse has requested responses by May 28, and though Meta is not legally required to reply, the inquiry puts added public pressure on the data center projectwhich has already received scrutiny from environmental and consumer protection advocates.
The broad impact of AI data centers
Though coal is considered the dirtiest fossil fuel, natural gas comes with its own environmental harms. Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide, and, when it leaks out of pipes before it’s burned, it emits methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas. In 2022, burning natural gas for energy accounted for 35% of the countrys total energy-related CO2 emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Scientists and environmental experts have urged the U.S. to reduce its reliance on natural gas, even as demand for it has grown in recent years. The increasing use of AI, which will require new energy sources, is only adding to that demand.
The surge in AI also poses a risk to the energy grid, and could raise Americans’ energy bills. Entergys planned fossil fuel expansion for Meta’s Louisiana data center could put local utility customers at risk of absorbing hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, of additional costs, one energy consultant told Business Insider.
AI requires massive amounts of energy to operate, and if those energy demands outstrip what the grid can provide, residents will likely see both higher energy costs and more risks of outages. Utility customers across the country have already seen these impacts, as well as increased demands on the grid. In Oregon, residential rates have increased 50% in the past five years in part because the state is the fifth largest market for data centers in the nation.
Some say the lack of renewable energy exacerbates this issue. Entergy Louisiana has almost no renewable power in its system, per a recent Floodlight article; at the same time, financial consulting firms have projected a 90% increase on electricity prices for Entergy customers between 2018 and 2030.
The Trump administration has also hampered renewable energy by slashing funding and shutting down projects under development, even though experts say wind and solar are the cheapest and fastest sources of new energy to deploy. (Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugurationpart of a wave of Big Tech companies appealing to the administrationand Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted an inauguration party for the president.)
Senator Whitehouse recently introduced legislation, called the Clean Cloud Act, that would set emissions performance standards for data centers, and also use their revenue to help consumers save on utility bills.
Like other famous structures of similar dimensions, the 48-story Transamerica Pyramid, a revolutionary 70s modernist skyscraper and San Francisco icon, has a bit of history buried beneath its ground floor.
[Photo: Nils Huenerfuerst/Unsplash]
A recently unearthed time capsule, buried in 1974 and discovered during a recent round of renovations, offers a picture of San Francisco’s past. The site of the structurethen a parking lotwas initially part of the original shoreline of the city that reeked of historical significance, from the citys growth as a shipping and banking capital. The capsule even contains a recipe for Pisco Punch, a cocktail that was invented at the nearby Bank Exchange Saloon, site of the citys original stock exchange.
[Photo: courtesy SHVO]
Part of an exhibit in the building lobby opening May 18, the time capsules contents are timeless: pictures of the buildings steel frame beginning to stretch skyward, or vintage news clippings and images of the city after its last 60s flowering. But within the cylindrical steel capsule, which looks a bit like a large propane tank, theres also a narrative about building in America, and how thats radically changed in the last 50 years.
[Photo: courtesy SHVO]
The battle over the permitting and construction of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco from 1969 to 1972 offers a flashback to a different time in development, real estate, and construction. The tower was proposed and built in just three years, a sprint compared to the time it takes today to build a signature part of a city skyline. Construction alone for the One World Trade in New York City took eight years; the Comcast Tech Center in Philadelphia, which had issues with cracks in some of the steel frame, took five years; and the St. Regis in Chicago took four years. An analysis of high-rise buildings by Construction Physics found building speeds decreased significantly over the past century, in many cases extending the time it takes to finish by roughly 50%.
[Photo: courtesy SHVO]
Buildings are more complex and require more permitting today, including complicated environmental review processes. This time-consuming process of development has led to backlash against what opponents call stifling building regulations. It has also led to more engagement from architects around code reform issues including elevator rules and exit stairs, and the formation of the abundance agenda, a center-left push by pundits like Ezra Klein to get the nation building fast again.
The pace of the approval and the construction here is unbelievable, says developer Michael Shvo, who paid $650 million to acquire the Transamerica Pyramid in 2020, at the depths of the COVID office freeze.. The Mayor was very determined to get this thing approved, and Transamerica was very determined to get a building built, and with all the controversy, once they got the green light, they ran as fast as possible. They built it in two years, we couldnt do that today.
[Photo: courtesy SHVO]
A more humane debate
Transaerica was then a massive business conglomerate with interests in banking, financial services, and insurance. According to former public relations staffer John Krizek, who worked for Transamerica during the pyramids construction and ultimately created the time capsule, the back-and-forth between protestors and developers at the time was more humane, more respectable, and more amusing.
The conversation around the Transamerica Pyramid was, at the time, a larger debate about images, architecture, and aesthetics. The tower was not just a unique shape, but would tower above the skyline. It was to be the citys tallest building, and wouldnt be surpassed until 2018s Salesforce Tower.
[Photo: courtesy SHVO]
Artists and community members protested the building for aesthetic reasons, and general distrust of large corporations. Posters passed around the city at the time proclaimed San Francisco Gets the Shaft or Artists Against the Icicle. The citys then planning director called the pyramid, designed by architect William Pereira, inhumane.
[Photo: courtesy SHVO]
During early street protests in front of the companys office, Transamerica execs sent secretaries to bring ice tea to the protestors lining up outside. During another protest, Krizek and his colleagues printed up fake fortune cookies at a nearby Chinatown bakery, frantically stuffing messages like TransamericaNot a square outfit or People who protest pyramid seek Che-ops publicity.
Krizek recalled that the company was determined to break ground in December 1969. The building plan was announced in January of that year, and there was a tax break worth approximately $750,000 expiring at the end of December. Since Krizek and his coworkers knew that as soon as the company was given approval to build, there would be an appeal, they planned to move fast and break ground before paperwork was filed. To head off any challenges, they staged a tractor and truck near the site and sent someone to pick up the approval during the midday lunch break; they were able to get a time-stamped photo of someone digging at site while those opposing the project saw their appeal delayed as staffer enjoyed their lunch.
The emotions around this building, Ive never seen this for any other building in the world, says Shvo. The debates today are more practical; this structure will block my view or cast a shadow. You cant say that about this building, it was a pyramid designed to let the light down to the street level. It didnt block views, the only thing people could complain about was this idea of the Manhattanization of San Francisco.
Originally, Pereiras design was meant for a new building for ABC in New York City. The network passed on the project, deeming the design too futuristic, and went with another architects vision. Today, the Transamerica Pyramid stands as an icon in San Francisco, with 80% of the space leased in a challenging office market. The building ABC picked instead? Its since been demolished.
Students are still setting fire to their Chromebooks for TikTokand now they’re facing the consequences.
Fast Company first reported on the #ChromebookChallenge trend last week, following a series of school evacuations caused by students igniting laptop fires. The fires are started by inserting items such as pencils, paper clips, and pushpins into the charging ports of school-issued Chromebooks. This can cause the battery to overheat, potentially sparking a fire or explosion that releases toxic fumes.
The #ChromebookChallenge reportedly began in Connecticut and has since spread rapidly.
Newington High School was the first to evacuate students on May 1 after a laptop caught fire and the fire department was called. Since then, two students at Southington High School were arrested in connection with a separate laptop fire on May 7. The teens were charged with reckless burning, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, and second-degree breach of peace.
On May 8, a Plainville middle school student was hospitalized for smoke inhalation and is now facing criminal charges for deliberately causing the incident. That same day, Belleville High School in New Jersey was evacuated after a laptop fire started outside a classroom. Responding officers and firefighters found a charred Chromebook just outside the building. A 15-year-old student has since been charged with arson and criminal mischief.
The trend has spread westward: As of late last week, Denver Public Schools had received 30 reports of students attempting to ignite their laptops, according to Axios. The Colorado Springs Fire Department has reported at least 16 similar incidents.
With no sign of the trend slowing, schools across the countryincluding in California, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Washingtonhave issued warnings about the reckless challenge.
Parents and guardians are also being urged to talk to their children about fire safety and the dangers of blindly following social media trends.
A TikTok spokesperson tells Fast Company that it takes down content that violates the platforms Dangerous Activities and Challenges policy. The company is currently working closely with the National PTA to fund programs in high schools about online safety and civility.
In addition, searching for the term Chromebook challenge on TikTok brings up a safety warning: “Some online challenges can be dangerous, disturbing, or even fabricated,” it reads. “Learn how to recognize harmful challenges so you can protect your health and well-being.”
However, the trend is still circulating under other hashtags, such as #ChromebookDurabilityTest and #FStudent. Many of these videos go viral, garnering thousands of views and comments from fellow students and baffled adults. The clips often feature a sound bite from fitness podcaster Ben Azoulay: The F students are inventors, Azoulay says. Theyre so creative that they couldnt sit in class.
Now theyre sitting in jail cells.
Want to enjoy your job a little more? Maybe you need a BFF at work. According to Gallup, having a best friend at work increases job satisfaction, innovation, engagement, and productivity, and it decreases your chances of leaving the company. But can that friend ever be your boss?
You may think, If Im going to have a friend at work, shouldn’t it be the CEO? Why not go for the top and get the most benefits from the friendship? says Steve McClatchy, author of Leading Relationships: Build Meaningful Connections, Eliminate Conflict, and Radically Improve Engagement. Gallup is telling us that we should have a best friend at work, but it doesn’t say that best friend should be your boss.
Being friends with the boss is more complex than being buddies with a colleague. To understand the difference, McClatchy says you need to understand the definition of friendship.
Friendship is always working in each other’s best interest, he says. In that case, I would not ask my boss for an extra weekend vacation, because that wouldn’t be in the boss’s best interest. No matter how they walk that thin line with an employee who reports to them, they can always be accused of playing favorites, whether it’s true or not.
Being friends with an employee is a slippery slope for the boss, too. McClatchy compares it to the best player on the sports team being the coach’s favorite. The benefit of that friendship is a commitment to excellence, never letting that person down, and always having their back, he explains. But how do the rest of the teammates perform when one player is the favorite? You get extreme output from that one player, but if the output from the other players goes down, does it warrant that?
To determine the type of relationship you can have with your boss, McClatchy says its important to understand the levels of maturity within friendships.
Level 1: Acknowledging Each Other
The first level of friendship is acknowledging each other. This is the most basic stage of friendship, where we recognize being in the presence of someone we know. Its about making eye contact, greeting each other in an appropriate way, and responding to communication as expected.
While level one seems easy, McClatchy says your ego can get in the way. When you’re competing, your ego is your greatest asset, he says. It’s your greatest liability in relationships. If you’ve ever won or lost in a relationship, you don’t have one. The ego loves power, because it ensures survival.
When the ego feels bruised, microaggressions can get in the way at this level, such as withholding recognition, being passive-aggressive, or ignoring someone. If you cant achieve level one, the friendship has ended before it even began.
Level 2: Exchanging Facts and Honoring Agreements
The second level of maturity involves exchanging facts and honoring agreements. To be successful, you need to share information without twisting it to fit your agenda. You also need to do what you say you are going to do.
In an employee-employer relationship, the employee needs to live up to their agreements, which is their job description. If you fail to follow through, you need to acknowledge it and apologize. McClatchy calls this level trust in action, and it can get tricky with boss friendships.
In addition, bosses sometimes need to break agreements, and they may not feel a need to apologize because theyre used to having power. Before you call somebody a friend, make sure they follow through on what they say they’re going to do. And if they break their commitments, they should be able to swallow their ego and apologize. If the relationship fails at level two, McClatchy says it is not an essential relationship, and you should revert to having only level-one interactions.
Level 3: Sharing Opinions
The third level is where you can lose a relationship if you or the other person are not mature enough to see the world from a different perspective, says McClatchy.
Maturity is understanding that other people don’t see the world the same way you do, he says. Its understanding that opinions come from information and experience. I have opinions today that I didn’t have 10 years ago.
Friendships at this level mean you can disagree with someone and still respect them as a person. It also means you can seek to understand their opinion, explain your own opinion, and discuss how the difference could impact your relationship. This can be problematic if your boss has a my-way-or-the-highway approach to leading.
If the relationship fails at level three, McClatchy recommends keeping interactions to level two: sticking to small talk and avoiding triggering topics.
Level 4: Strengths and Weaknesses
People like to play to their strengths and work around their weaknesses. In friendship, that means being willing to do that for another person, says McClatchy.
No one likes to be criticized or have their weaknesses pointed out, he says. Admitting mistakes is uncomfortable and puts the ego on high alert. The egos job is to meet your needs. The problem is when someone cant admit when they need help or input. If you cant learn from the people around you, you will not achieve the fourth level of friendship maturity.
Failure at level four includes denying or blaming someone else for your mistakes, not apologizing when you should, or withholding positive feedback. If level four cannot be achieved, McClatchy says youll need to stick to the previous levels.
Level 5: Understanding Motivations
The fifth level of interaction is when you understand what motivates and demotivates another personand you use this information in their best interest.
I understand your goals, your aspirations, your values, and I use that information to help you to benefit from you, says McClatchy. This is what a best friend is all about. This is somebody who’s going out of their way, and they care as much about your success as they do their own.
You cannot get to level five with somebody and not consider them a friend; it’ll happen by default, says McClatchy. However, its difficult to get to level-five maturity with your boss because you have to navigate a direct-reporting relationship.
The power structure can’t be ignored, says McClatchy. When I’m the boss, I determine your raise and pay promotions. Right now, when I say something funny, you laugh a little harder. You’re getting a paycheck. I don’t know where the friendship begins and where the power structure ends.
If you somehow get to level five and a strong friendship emerges with your boss, McClatchy says its best to figure out a way to get rid of the power structure so you can enjoy your friendship and the business benefits from you not reporting to each other.
We rarely get to 100% trust, confidence, and maturity at work, says McClatchy. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know what it is. As you explore your relationships, think about acknowledgment and recognition, facts and agreements, opinions, strengths and weaknesses, and motivation. The key is that they’re all about treating others with respect and dignity, whether youre best friends or not.
Around a decade ago, Chad Dale watched as some of his friends started to leave Seattle. They wanted to stay in an urban environment, but the city was too expensive for them to have all the things that they wanted to have, Dale says.
His friends who were beginning to have kids wanted backyards and guest rooms for visiting in-laws; they looked for single-family houses in the suburbs. But Dale, a developer, wondered whether there could be a different solution. What if he and several friends joined together to build their own apartment buildingand all lived in the same place?
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
Some friends had already bought a vacation home together on nearby Whidbey Island, and they liked the sense of community there. That house, with a single bathroom used by eight people, wasnt designed for communal living. But Dale realized that it would be possible to construct a new building based on the values that they shared.
He and his wife, along with 10 other familiesincluding two from the Whidbey Island projectstarted plotting what the development could look like. They decided to build apartments in a range of sizes, from 500 square feet to 2,000 square feet, based on what each family needed. They also wanted to include 24 units that could be rented out to others. And the development would be filled with shared space.
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
When they found a lot for sale in Seattles Phinney Ridge neighborhood, they also bought a full-size lot next door to use as a huge yard for all of their children. Everybody shares in the cost of that through rents, Dale says. But more importantly, theres a betterment that happens because there are other kids there. Youre not bummed that youre sharing, youre happythe experience is improved.
The building, completed in 2023, has several other shared spaces that go beyond what a typical apartment building offers. A huge rooftop deck includes a large greenhouse with dining tables inside and a firepit outside. (The building, appropriately, is named Shared Roof.) Theres a guest suite that residents can use for visitors. A soundproof room is designed for kids to practice drums or play in bands. An on-site gym goes beyond a standard shared fitness room to include the best equipment; the building financed that effort by renting the space to personal trainers, so its used by the outside community as well as residents.
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
Residents also share resources like tools. The goal is to live together and then determine what else we want to share, says Dale. Weve talked about everything from electric bikes to a pickup truck. If you use the pickup truck three times a year, it’s not worth it. And it’s annoying when you have to go rent from U-Haul. But if you have 35 groups using it three times a year, then maybe it makes sense.
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
The friends wanted to make the building as sustainable as possible, and its now on track to get LEED Platinum certification, the highest rating from the green building platform. Solar panels mounted over the roof double as a canopy for the deck space. The building has heat pumps and ventilation systems that recover energy, along with energy-saving electric heat pump dryers.
On the ground floor, Dale worked to find new businesses that would add to the neighborhooda bakery, a tap room for a brewery, a wine shop, and an Italian restaurant. The retail space surrounds a courtyard thats open to the public.
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
From the outside, it looks like a fairly standard apartment building. Inside, its clearly different: The friends who invested in the project each made their own choices about how they wanted their own apartment to look. None of theunits stack, says David Fuchs, principal at Johnston Architects, which designed the building. They’re all different shapes and sizes. Inside, everyone got to choose from several different finishes, so the apartments are unique.
The financial arrangement is also unique. “We realized very early that if youre going to ask people who could otherwise be purchasing their own piece of property to live in an environment like this, then you also need to provide a way for them to be an investor, because oftentimes thats a significant component of their retirement income or of their nest egg, Dale says. So we came up with the solution to allow folks to be investors as well as tenants.
They calculated that the return from the investment could potentially be similar to the return from owning and selling a single-family home. Three outside investors also joined the project without planning to live on-site.
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
Each of the original families had the option to invest as much as they wanted in the project; the final investments ranged from $50,000 to millions. Because of that, it made sense to have the families pay market-rate rent and then separately earn investment income from the building. (Twenty percent of the other units are offered at a more affordable rate to moderate-income tenants, through a city program that offers a tax break to developers who include affordable apartments.)
Initially, the concept was a tough sell to banks. “When we started, I was so excited about the idea that I’d go out and tell everybody, Look, we’ve got this crazy idea where we’re going to have tenants who are also owners, Dale says. “And for the most part, I just got blank stares from the groups that I was trying to get financing from, like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?'”
[Photo: Andrew Storey/courtesy Johnston Architects]
He realized that he needed to explain it differently: An LLC owns the building, and the LLC has members, as in most apartment buildings. The difference is that some of the members are also tenants.
Starting with a core group of longtime friends as tenants transformed the feeling of the building. “The people who live here now treat each other wildly differently than in a typical apartment building,” he says. “They treat the building differently. And then that all rubs off to the people who aren’t [investors] as well. Walking around in this space, people are happier. They’re engaged with each other.”
Apartment living is underrated, Dale says. If someone wants social interaction, it’s immediately available. If something breaks, the building manager can deal with it instead of the tenant. “In the U.S., we’ve got a funny way of idolizing single-family homeownership,” he says. “Apartment living is pretty incredible. In terms of function and livability, it’s actually maybe the best way to live, particularly when you’re in an environment where there are other people that you enjoy being around.”
Knowing the calorie content of foods does not help people understand which foods are healthier, according to a study I recently coauthored in the Journal of Retailing. When study participants considered calorie information, they rated unhealthy food as less unhealthy and healthy food as less healthy. They were also less sure in their judgments.
In other words, calorie labeling didnt help participants judge foods more accurately. It made them second-guess themselves.
Across nine experiments with more than 2,000 participants, my colleague and I tested how people use calorie information to evaluate food. For example, participants viewed food items that are generally deemed healthier, such as a salad, or ones that tend to be less healthy, such as a cheeseburger, and were asked to rate how healthy each item was. When people did not consider calorie information, participants correctly saw a big gap between the healthy and unhealthy foods. But when they considered calorie information, those judgments became more moderate.
In another experiment in the study, we found that asking people to estimate the calorie content of food items reduced self-reported confidence in their ability to judge how healthy those foods wereand that drop in confidence is what led them to rate these food items more moderately. We observed this effect for calories but not for other nutrition metrics such as fat or carbohydrates, which consumers tend to view as less familiar.
This pattern repeated across our experiments. Instead of helping people sharpen their evaluations, calorie information seemed to create what researchers call metacognitive uncertainty, or a feeling of I thought I understood this, but now Im not so sure. When people arent confident in their understanding, they tend to avoid extreme judgments.
Because people see calorie information so often, they believe they know how to use it effectively. But these findings suggest that the very familiarity of calorie counts can backfire, creating a false sense of understanding that leads to more confusion, not less. My coauthor and I call this the illusion of calorie fluency. When people are asked to judge how healthy a food item is based on calorie data, that confidence quickly unravels and their healthiness judgments become less accurate.
Why it matters
These findings have important implications for public health and for the businesses that are investing in calorie transparency. Public health policies assume that providing calorie information will drive more informed choices. But our research suggests that visibility isnt enough, and that calorie information alone may not help. In some cases, it might even lead people to make less-healthy choices.
This does not mean that calorie information should be removed. Rather, it needs to be supported with more context and clarity. One possible approach is pairing calorie numbers with decision aids such as a traffic light indicator or an overall nutrition score, which both exist in some European countries. Alternatively, calorie information about an item could be accompanied by clear reference points explaining how much of a persons recommended daily calories it contains (though this may be challenging because of how widely daily calorie needs vary).
Our study highlights a broader issue in health communication: Just because information is available doesnt mean its useful. Realizing that calorie information can seem easier to understand than it actually is can help consumers make more informed, confident decisions about what they eat.
What still isnt known
In our studies, we found that calorie information is especially prone to creating an illusion of understanding. But key questions remain.
For example, researchers dont yet know how this illusion interacts with the growing use of health and wellness apps, personalized nutrition tools, or AI-based food recommendations. Future research could look at whether these tools actually help people feel more sure of their choicesor just make them feel confident without truly understanding the information.
Deidre Popovich is an associate professor of marketing at Texas Tech University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Graduate students interested in an academic career after graduation day have often been told they need to be open to moving somewhere they may not want to live. This advice is because of how hard it is to get a tenure-track professor position.
These days, this advice may be less relevant as graduate students are increasingly pursuing and ending up in careers outside of academia.
Where graduate students want to settle post-graduation has potential consequences for communities and states across the country that depend more and more on a steady stream of skilled workers to power their economies. Locations seen as undesirable may struggle to attract and retain the next generation of scientists, engineers, professors, and other professions filled by todays graduate students.
We are sociologists who are examining some of the factors that influence graduate students educational and career paths as part of a research project supported by the National Science Foundation. In March 2025 we distributed a survey to a sample of U.S.-based graduate students in five natural and social science disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and sociology.
As part of our survey, we asked students to identify states they would prefer to live in and places where they would be unwilling to go. To some extent, our findings match some past anecdotes and evidence about the varying number of applications received for academic positions across different states or regions.
But little data has directly assessed students preferences, and our survey also provides some evidence that some states policies are having a negative impact on their ability to attract highly educated people.
Most preferred, most unwilling
For our study, we built our sample from the top 60 graduate programs for each of the five disciplines based on rankings from U.S. News & World Report. We received responses from nearly 2,000 students. Almost all of these students98%, specificallyare pursuing PhDs in their respective fields.
As part of our survey, we asked students to identify locations where they would prefer to live and also those where they would be unwilling to live after finishing their graduate program. For each of these questions, we presented students with a list of all states along with the option of outside of the United States.
Just looking at the overall percentages, California tops the list of preferred places, with 49% of all survey-takers stating a preference to live there, followed by New York at 45% and Massachusetts with 41%.
On the other hand, Alabama was selected most often as a state students said theyd be unwilling to move to, with 58% declaring they wouldnt want to live there. This was followed by Mississippi and Arkansas, both with just above 50% saying theyd be unwilling to move to either state.
Clusters of preference
While the two lists in many respects appear like inversions of one another, there are some exceptions to that. Looking beyond the overall percentages for each survey question, we used statistical analysis to identify underlying groups or clusters of states that are more similar to each other across both the prefer and unwilling questions.
One cluster, represented by California, New York, and Massachusetts, is characterized by a very high level of preference and a low level of unwillingness. About 35% to 50% of students expressed a preference for living in these places, while only 5% to 10% said they would be unwilling to live in them. The response of outside of the United States is also in this category, which is noteworthy given recent concerns about the current generation of PhD students looking to leave the country and efforts by other nations to recruit them.
A second cluster represents states where the preference levels are a bit lower, 20% to 30%, and the unwillingness levels are a bit higher, 7% to 15%. Still, these are states for which graduate students hold generally favorable opinions about living in after finishing their programs. This cluster includes states such as Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.
A third group of states represents locations for which the rate of preference is similar to the rate of unwillingness, in the range of 10% to 20%. This cluster includes states such as Minnesota, Delaware, and Virginia.
The fourth and fifth clusters consist of states where the rate of unwillingness exceeds the rate of preference, with the size of the gap distinguishing the two clusters. In the fourth cluster, at least some students5% to 10%express a preference for living in them, while around 30% to 40% say they are unwilling to live in them. This cluster includes Florida, Montana, South Carolina, and Utah.
Almost no students express a preference for living in the states contained in the fifth cluster, while the highest percentages40% to 60%express an unwillingness to live in them. This cluster includes Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.
Signs of current politics
Many factors influence our preferences for where we want to live, including family, weather, and how urban, rural, or suburban it is. The politics of a community can also influence our perceptions of a places desirability.
Indeed, political factors may be of particular concern to graduate students. In recent years, some states have taken a more hostile stance toward specific academic disciplines, institutions of higher education in general, or professions that are of interest to graduate students. While states such as Florida and Texas have been leading such efforts, many others have followed.
Interestingly, our statistical grouping of states finds that students unwillingness to live in states such as Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio is higher than we would expect given those states corresponding preference levels. For example, about 10% of students selected Texas as a place they would prefer to live in after graduation. Looking at other states with similar preference levels, we would expect bout 10% to 20% of students to say they are unwilling to live in Texas. Instead, this percentage is actually 37%. Similarly, 5% of students say they would prefer to live in Florida. Other states with this preference rate have an unwillingness rate of around 35%, but Floridas is 45%.
Although our data does not tell us for sure, these gaps could be a function of these states own policies or alignment with federal policies seen as hostile to graduate students and their future employers.
These findings suggest that communities and employers in some states might continue to face particularly steep hurdles in recruiting graduate students for employment once they finish their degrees.
Christopher P. Scheitle is an associate professor of sociology at West Virginia University.
Katie Corcoran is a professor of sociology at West Virginia University.
Taylor Remsburg is a graduate research assistant in sociology at West Virginia University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
An often-overlooked competitive advantage in business isn’t your technology stack, market share, or even your talent pipelineit’s your leadership team’s customer obsession.
As someone who recently merged marketing, customer success, and renewals under one umbrella, I’ve experienced how customer obsession can transform an organization.
However, from the C-suite to entry-level roles, were all navigating complex responsibilities, deadlines and metrics. These competing priorities make it easy to lose sight of what truly matters to the business: the customers who make our work possible. By putting customers at the heart of every decision, regardless of the role, you establish a foundation that naturally delivers results. This is why it is so important for executive teams to champion this customer obsession perspectiveit empowers everyone else to do the same!
Customer-focused leadership leads to customer-centric goals which leads to a truly customer-obsessed company culture.
What customer-focused executive leadership teams do differently
What does customer obsession look like in practice? The processes vary based on role as leaders address their own areas of focus, but here are a few examples to get the wheels turning. Customer-focused executive leaders:
Spend significant time with customersnot just with friendly references or during sales calls, but with frustrated users and lost accounts
Create direct feedback channels that bypass typical corporate filters
Measure what matters to customers, not just what’s easy to track internally
Reward employees who advocate for customer needs, even when those needs create short-term challenges
These behaviors signal unmistakably to everyonefrom frontline employees to fellow executive leadersthat the customer experience isn’t just another corporate initiative, but the foundation of company culture.
That all-important ripple effect
When the entire executive leadership team models customer focus, it spreads throughout the organization. Marketing develops messaging that resonates with actual pain points versus staying laser-focused on internal product features. Product development prioritizes improvements that deliver meaningful value. Support teams receive the resources needed to resolve issues effectively.
As I mentioned, I’ve experienced this transformation myself. After integrating customer success with marketing and renewals, we gained truly mind-blowing insight into the complete customer journey. This unified view enabled us to identify friction points that were all but invisible when these functions operated in silos.
Organizations with customer-centric leadership consistently outperform peers in customer satisfaction, retention and lifetime value. Executive leaders who prioritize customer needs create an environment where employees feel empowered to advocate for those same needsthey set the tone for the entire company culture.
Practical steps on the way to customer centricity
Becoming truly customer-focused requires more than good intentions. Ill admit it, this is a big shift. It could even mean making serious changes in how the company gathers, analyzes and acts on customer feedback. So, yes, it can feel daunting but take it from me, its very doable and very worth it.
Here are some practical steps to consider:
Revise executive meeting agendas to start with customer insights
Implement cross-functional customer journey mapping with executive participation
Create direct feedback mechanisms between customers and leadership
Redesign incentive structures to reward customer-centric behaviors
In my experience, customer-focused companies take steps to ensure these practices are part of their leadership approach. They understand that competitive advantage flows from this orientationnot as a happy accident but as a direct consequence.
The ultimate competitive moat
Right now, products and services are undergoing rapid commoditization. Thats hard to keep up with, but I believe customer experience is the most defensible competitive advantage. An executive leadership team that understands this can make a massive difference in the companys competitive positioning.
Again, this shift extends way beyond the executive team. When employees see that customer satisfaction genuinely matters to company leadership, their engagement and motivation increase dramatically. This alignment creates a (very rewarding!) cycle where employee experience and customer experience reinforce each other, building a competitive moat that rivals will struggle to cross.
So, let your rivals keep focusing on internal metrics. That moat will keep getting wider as you build something stronger.
Melissa Puls is the chief marketing officer and SVP of customer success and renewals at Ivanti.
Figma prototypes have been the go-to for years. For digital product designers crafting clickable mockups of apps, this powerhouse design platform hasn’t just gained popularityit’s become the indispensable tool of choice.
Nearly every app, website, or digital experience that didn’t make you rage-quit was likely prototyped and rigorously tested in Figma before a single pixel was coded. The platform’s dominance is no accident.
Figma prototypes help product teams communicate direction, test early ideas, and align stakeholders around what’s being built. At design consultancies like ours, they’ve played a critical role in due diligence where we stress-test client concepts before writing a single line of codesaving countless development hours and budget dollars.
All of that is important, because the first version of any design is usually wrong. It’s based on assumptions about what users want or how they’ll behave. And if you ship based on those assumptions, you risk launching a broken experience that tanks in the market. That’s why prototyping for validation has been industry standard. And Figma has been the undisputed champion in the game the past 5+ years.
But with the blistering pace of AI, we may be approaching the end of the clickable prototype era as we know it.
AI can do more
Until now, prototypes were the fastest way to go from idea to experience. But new AI tools are starting to change that because they can:
Generate user interface (UI) from a single prompt. UI is what you see and interact with on a screen, like buttons, menus, and layouts.
Simulate logic, state, and user paths. This shows how a digital product would workhow it reacts to choices, keeps track of information, and guides users through different steps.
Auto-populate realistic data and content. This instantly fills in a design with lifelike text, names, images, or numbers to show how it would look and feel in context.
Create testable product flows. AI tools can do this without manually connecting screens, letting you quickly explore how a user would move through the product. Were not talking about wireframes anymore. Were talking about high-fidelity simulations that look and feel like real software. Tiny testbeds for behavior. And theyre being spun up in actual seconds.
Instead of designing screens, were starting to describe outcomes. Were shaping intentand AI is helping us fill in the rest.
This is not just a faster way to prototype. It is a leap forward in how we go from an idea to something you can touch, click, and test. But make no mistake, its not replacing designers. Instead, its shifting their rolefreeing them from repetitive tasks so they can focus on what really matters: understanding users, shaping strategy, and making sure the experience is not just functional, but human.
Communicate a vibe, not visuals
Theres a new term floating around in product circles: vibe coding. Its the idea that instead of specifying exactly how something should look or function, we start by telling the AI the feeling we want a product to evoke. For example:
Make it feel luxurious and calm, like checking into a boutique hotel. Should feel fast, responsive, and trustworthylike booking a ride on Uber.
And the AI? It generates an interface, interactions, even tone of voicebased on that emotional brief.
Its not perfect (yet). But it gets scarily close.
For designers and product leaders, this unlocks a wild new dimension: communicating vibe, not just visuals. You become a creative director of experience, not just a user experience lead pushing pixels.
Its a shift from mechanics to meaning. From layout to language.
But lets be real: The tools arent quite there yet.
Theyre close. But not close enough to fully replace the fidelity, intentionality, and nuance that a designer brings to a clickable prototype.
AI misses the thoughtful transitions. The user context. The subtle decisions that are often the difference between something that works and something that clicks.
That saidit wont be long before thats possible.
Designers will evolve
We think well see a hybrid approach emerge where designers dont disappear, they evolve. Our predictions include:
AI-generated prototypes to quickly test concepts and assumptions
Clickable flows to align teams and create confidence
High-fidelity design systems built after AI confirms demand
AI copilots supporting live ideation, usability testing, and iteration
Well move from building UI blocks to shaping systems and behaviors. Well direct the choreography of an experience, rather than drawing every step.
Still, its time to lean in.
At Crema, our designers are still using Figma, and were still building prototypes. But were also exploring whats nextbecause we believe in the power of using the right fidelity at the right time to move ideas forward.
If youre leading a product team, this shift matters. Because the tools we use to test the viability of our ideas are about to get a serious upgrade.
George Brooks is CEO and founder of Crema.
The world of work is being dominated by the transformative power of artificial intelligence. We see it reshaping processes, driving efficiencies, and promising new levels of productivity across every business. And while AIs technical capabilities are undeniable, we must also recognize the enduringand even amplifiedimportance of uniquely human skills, particularly our ability to connect with one another. In this age of algorithms, fostering genuine human connection is not a soft skill; it’s becoming a core driver of innovation and progress.
More than ever, employees want stronger relationships, a sense of connection, and to be seen and valued. In fact, according to McKinsey & Company research, the top reasons for quitting, as cited by former employees, were that they didnt feel valued by their organizations (54%) or their managers (52%), or didnt feel a sense of belonging at work (51%).
Moreover, extensive research has found that workplace loneliness is associated with lower job performance, reduced job satisfaction, poorer employee-boss relationships, and higher burnout.
Its vital for organizations to understand how human connection can benefit their businesses.
AI and the human element
The promise of AI is vast, analyzing data in seconds and automating complex tasks. Yet, this very power presents a potential paradox. If we are not intentional, AI risks creating intellectual silos, limiting our exposure to diverse viewpoints, and stifling innovation. The human capacity to connect, to truly understand and appreciate different ways of thinking stemming from various life experiences and backgrounds, is essential to spark innovation and tackle shared problems.
The capacity and desire for connection is already causing a shift in AI usage. According to Harvard Business Review findings, the top usage of GenAI right now is for therapy/companionship, whereas just last year, it was for generating ideas.
The power of understanding: Insights on connection
Insightful research about connection is being done by academic researchers and nonprofit organizations like More in Common, a Workday Foundation grantee. Their two-year study, The Connection Opportunity, underscores a fundamental human truth: We are wired for connection. They found that 66% of Americans across all demographic groups feel they can learn something valuable from others who are differentand 70% of those surveyed also feel that responsibility. In a separate poll, they found that 82% of Americans either somewhat or strongly agree that our success as a nation depends on our ability to work across differences and a majority express an interest in better understanding one another.
When we are working toward a shared goal, there are core values and shared aspirations that bind us. By actively seeking out this common ground and fostering positive interactions, we can all bridge divides, both in our personal lives and within our organizations.
Feeling connection is not just good for our own wellbeing, it is also crucial for business outcomes. According to research, 94% of employees say that feeling connected to their colleagues makes them more productive at work, and over four times as likely to feel job satisfaction and half as likely to leave their jobs within the next year.
More in Common has identified key “connectors”shared values and experiences that have the power to bring seemingly disparate groups together. These can range from a shared commitment to community well-being to ensuring participants feel confident they would have something in common with one anotherlike shared identities or interests.
This emphasis on shared values and the active pursuit of connection resonates deeply with the principles we strive for at Workday and underscores why supporting nonprofit organizations and funder collaboratives like More in Common, the U.S. Chamber of Connection, One America, New Pluralists, and many more, is so vital for business and society to thrive.
The elevated human: Skills for an AI-driven era
Workdays recent global study, Elevating Human Potential: The AI Skills Revolution, delves into the evolving impact of AI on the workplace. Strikingly, our research found that while AI will undoubtedly transform how we work, it is simultaneously elevating the importance of uniquely human skills, like empathy, ethical decision making, conflict resolution, and relationship building.
Our findings also confirm that employees are feeling a need for increased human connection as AI adoption grows, with 82% employees recognizing a greater demand for it.
Lead with connection
These studies all underscore a vital leadership imperative. As we integrate AI deeper into our workflows, we should be deliberate in cultivating environments that prioritize genuine human connection and the development of these essential human skills.
This means creating intentional spacesboth physical and virtualthat encourage open dialogue, active listening, and the respectful exchange of diverse perspectives. Leaders should champion empathy and relationship-building skill development within their teams, actively working to promote thoughtful opportunities for human connection in our AI-driven environment.
Ultimately, the future of innovation and progress will be shaped by our ability to harness the power of AI in a way that amplifies our uniquely human capacities, especially our innate drive to connect with one another. By prioritizing human connection and cultivating these essential skills, we can ensure that AI empowers a more collaborative, innovative, and ultimately, more human-centered future of work.
Carrie Varoquiers is the chief philanthropy officer at Workday.
