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Baby care brand Frida is facing online backlash after screenshots of sexual innuendos in its marketing materials began circulating on social media. Frida, which describes itself as the brand that gets parents, sells a range of baby care, fertility, and postpartum products through major retailers, including Target. Last week, an X user shared images of several products packaging, writing: sexual jokes to market baby products is actually sick and twisted @fridababy this is absolutely appalling and disgusting. The post has since gained almost five million views on X. Among the examples highlighted is a social media graphic promoting the companys 3-in-1 True Temp thermometer. The image shows the device next to a babys bottom, accompanied by the caption: This is the closest your husbands gonna get to a threesome. sexual jokes to market baby products is actually sick and twisted @fridababy this is absolutely appalling and disgusting pic.twitter.com/cXhiksoaY8— stace (@staystaystace) February 12, 2026 Other screenshots highlighted by critics include phrases such as How about a quickie? printed on a thermometer box. An apparent Instagram post from 2020 that has since resurfaced also features a baby with what seems to be snot on its face. The caption reads: What happens when you pull out too early. @pink3424 What do yall think? #fridababy #marketing #babyproducts White blank page Mumford and sons – m a r e k s Parents and critics online have accused the company of sexualizing children in its marketing choices, with posts on parenting forums calling for boycotts of the companys products. A Change.org petition to hold Frida Baby accountable has more than 4,000 verified signatures at the time of writing. Not everyone agrees with the criticism. IMO, this is akin to Disney putting in jokes that only parents will get, one Reddit user wrote. They know who the decision-makers are. Frida is marketing to the parents. Others argue the tone crosses a clear line. A statement from Frida emailed to multiple publications reads in part: Our products are designed for babies, but our voice has always been written for the adults caring for them. Our intention has consistently been to make awkward and difficult experiences feel lighter, more honest, and less isolating for parents. It continued: That said, humor is personal. Whats funny to one parent can feel like too much to another. Fast Company has reached out to Frida Baby for comment. A scroll through Fridas social media shows the brand has long leaned into a deliberately risqué tone, often relying on double entendres and innuendo to target parents. In April, it teased a new product on Instagram with the line, Take your top off. Its current Show us what your boobs can do campaign aims to destigmatize breastfeeding by spotlighting what it calls milk-making boobs. View this post on Instagram As more brands adopt informal, attention-grabbing voices online, the lesson here is clear: context matters.
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E-Commerce
When Sergey Brin spoke at Stanford Universitys school of engineering centennial celebration recently, the Google co-founder was open about his career mistakes. When you have your cool new wearable device idea, really fully bake it before you have a cool stunt involving skydiving and airships, he joked, referring to the infamous Google Glass flop. But one misstep he admitted to might surprise a lot of people who dream of the day they can quit their 9-to-5. I actually retired like a month before COVID hit, and it was the worst decision, Brin said. He was such a failure at retirement that he has since returned to everyday work at Google, spearheading its efforts to catch up in the AI race. Going back to work just for fun might sound like a uniquely billionaire move. But a stack of research suggests that Brins dissatisfaction in retirement and subsequent decision to return to work isnt that uncommon. His story contains an essential but often overlooked lesson that can help anyone better plan their retirement. Why Sergey Brin unretired Like many people, Brin had a relaxing vision for his post-working life. I was gonna sit in cafés and study physics, which was my passion at the time, he told the Stanford audience. Fate intervened in the form of Covid. But Brin wasnt dissatisfied with his retirement just because he was locked in his house all day. I was just kind of stewing and felt myself spiraling, not being sharp, he recalled. After the Google offices partially reopened, he started going in occasionally. Eventually, he started spending more and more time on what later became called Gemini, which is super-exciting. To be able to have that technical creative outlet, I think thats very rewarding, as opposed to if Id stayed retired. I think that wouldve been a big mistake, he added. Retirement struggles arent just for billionaires Brins issues with retirement are his own. More people dream of days on the golf course than pouring over physics textbooks. But Brins feelings of listlessness and intellectual decline are not at all exclusive to billionaires. When researchers from European business school Insead surveyed entrepreneurs who had gone through a big exit and become financially independent, they discovered many decided to retire. And many soon regretted it. It is perfectly normal to discover that life post-financial freedom isnt as happy as one might have expected it to be, the researchers summed up. Its not just restless entrepreneurs. Another recent study of retired Japanese salarymen revealed similar patterns. Having given so much of themselves to their careers, they often felt unmoored and purposeless when they left their jobs. Their retirement was characterized by boredomhaving nowhere to go to or having nothing to do. The sense of boredom led to a sense of isolation and low confidence in old age, explained study author Shiori Shakuto. Adherents of the popular financial independence, retire early (FIRE) movement scrimp and sacrifice to retire early. Only for many of them to discover their dream of post-work life does not match reality. Several have written about the experience. If youve spent decades in a career working 40 hours a week, its hard to suddenly stop working. Many early retirees feel uncomfortable feeling unproductive. As a result, they unretire to work on something meaningful. Its easy to get bored with 40 hours of extra free time a week, wrote ex-FIRE early retiree Sam Dogen in one such blog post. A good retirement isnt all about money All of this evidence, as well as Sergey Brins experience, point in the same direction. We tend to think of a successful retirement as a numbers game. If you save enough to be comfortable and indulge in whatever activities you enjoy, the end of working life should represent the start of the golden years. But all the people involved in these studies were set financially. Brin has a net worth north of $200 billion. Clearly, money is not the issue. The problem is purpose. As Brins fellow billionaire Bill Gates recently wrote: As life expectancies go up, many people are living for years and even decades after they stop working. That sounds like a luxury, and it is in a lot of waysbut it is also a lot of time to fill. Gates fills his time with philanthropy. Brin is back to building AI. The rest of us will probably not spend our post-work years doing anything as grand. But the same truth applies. If you think only about finances and not enough about how to meaningfully fill your days in retirement, youre probably not going to enjoy yourself much. You also might, in Brins words, feel less sharp. Science has shown having purpose helps stave off dementia as well as boosts happiness. Sergey Brins lesson for te rest of us This doesnt mean we should all work until we drop, of course. Instead, experts insist the essential takeaway is the need to plan for meaning as well as money. Its never too early, or too late, to start thinking about what you would want to do after achieving financial freedom. What would you do with your money and time? the Insead researchers ask. So the next time you check the balance of your retirement savings account, take a moment to think not just about how much you will save, but also how you will spend your time. As Sergey Brins unretirement reminds us, even billions of dollars cant guarantee you a good retirement if you dont plan for purpose in your post-work life, too. Inc. This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, Inc.com. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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E-Commerce
They say job hunting is just like dating. Some are taking that advice literally. Job market so bad Im using Hinge to find work, one job seeker posted on TikTok in December. Sharing a look at her dating app profile, in place of a photo of her best angle, she instead uploaded a snapshot of her résumé. Answering the prompt a life goal of mine, she wrote to find work in the creative industries. Since it was posted in December, the video has gained almost a quarter of a million views. In a recent update, the TikTok user shared that Hinge has since taken down her profile for breaking their policies. But she is not the only one. Others are also using this unconventional method to get their profiles in front of hiring managers. One claimed to land a six-figure job from a match on Bumble. Sometimes I use hinge to match with people in my career field and ask if theyre hiring, another posted. Its called being resourceful, innovative and bold, they wrote in the caption. As sites like LinkedIn are overwhelmed with applications and employers rely on AI résumé screeners, applicants are finding creative ways to get their foot in the door. In a recent Glassdoor community pool, 29% of respondents said that they were using or considered using dating apps for career purposes. While networking on dating apps isnt new, it appears to be a growing trend. A ResumeBuilder.com survey of about 2,200 U.S. dating site customers in October also found a third of dating app users had used the platforms for job or career-related purposes in the past year. Nearly one in 10 say it was the primary reason they used dating apps, with the most common platforms being Tinder, Bumble, and Facebook Dating. Its not just those hoping to break into entry-level positions. Almost half of those using dating apps for job-related purposes reported incomes of more than $200,000. For many, the strategy has paid off43% say they gained mentorship or career advice from networking on the apps, while 39% landed an interview, 37% received a referral or lead, and 37% received a job offer. One survey participant called the new job-hunting practice weird but effective, while another said, It worked, but you need the audacity to ask. Of course, the lines quickly become blurred when seeking employment in an environment designed for hookups and romantic pursuits. Especially if theres a power balance at play. But desperate times call for desperate measures. It now takes more than 23 weeks on average for an unemployed person in the U.S. to find a new job. For one in four unemployed people, or 1.8 million Americans, they are still job hunting six months later. Long-term unemployment is now at its highest level in three years. Under these circumstances, its no surprise job seekers are turning to any means necessary to find new connections. And hey, its better than the inverse: anyone using LinkedIn as a personal dating pool.
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E-Commerce
The annual NFL tradition of firing the head coach as the season ends continues. This year, 10 top coaches got the axe, a staggering 31% of all NFL coaches. And they include football legends like John Harbaugh, after 18 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, and Sean McDermott, who took the Buffalo Bills to the playoffs in eight out of nine seasons. Firing the head coachjust like firing the CEO in the business worldis the easy answer, and it looks good in the media: decisive, forward-looking, taking action. But, most times, this act alone falls short of fixing the problems that contributed to an organizations failures. PART OF A SYSTEM In reality, the CEO is part of a system, and its the system that matters. You can have a B player CEO with a great team and board and deliver significant performance and culture gains. Alternatively, you can have an A player CEO with a weak board and team and fail spectacularly. If you only focus on fixing the CEO, youre not focused on the right problem and cant get to the right solution. Yet CEO turnover is at its highest level in more than a decade, according to a 2026 Spencer Stuart study reported in The Wall Street Journal. In fact, approximately one in nine CEOs were replaced in 1,500 large companies in 2025, including the CEOs of Disney, HP, Lululemon, PayPal and Procter & Gamble. Disney illustrates the downside of this. Just ask Bob Chapek. Sure, he had a rough three years as CEO of Walt Disney Co. before the board summarily fired him and brought back his predecessor, Bob Iger. Disney stock, at $125 a share when Chapek took over in February 2020, had fallen almost 40% to $90 by the time he got the axe on November 20, 2022. Iger arguably is one of the best CEOs in decades, and he rebuilt the company with incredibly successful acquisitions (Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Star Wars, the Muppets). But his two years back at the top were less than stellar: Disney shares are up 17% since he took over, while the S&P media and entertainment index rose 99% in the same period. Obviously, Chapek alone wasnt the problem, just as Iger alone wasnt the solution. Rarely is the executive at the very top solely responsible for what went wrong. It owes to a multitude of weaknesses: illogical organization models, conflicting agendas, turf battles, reporting structures that dont align with the company strategy, and communication lapses. There is rarely an objective assessment done ensuring the board is aligned with a new CEO or a new market entry for what success looks like, and the structures and talent required to achieve that success. This is especially true in the unforgiving and bottom-line-obsessed world of private equity (PE). The biggest myth in PE (and pro football) is that if you get the CEO right, and you get the strategy right, you will get the numbers you want on the scoreboard. Every CEO is encumbered by their surroundings. A PE board is possibly 50% of the CEOs success or failure, and in my experience, a lack of alignment between how each part defines success is a root issue. Leaders of PE-funded businesses must also operate under very compressed timeframes that leave little room for exiling and replacing a CEO. By the time the CEO has been exiled, it can be even harderor too lateto drive a successful outcome. A TEAM APPROACH This is why, again, even B player CEOs with strong teams and supportive boards find success, while A-rated commanders often falter with the wrong organization structure and fractured boards. The CEO is but one part of a whole system that must play well together, including the board, key team members, business partners, core customers, and suppliers. Yet highly intelligent and competitive people often miss their biggest and most controllable opportunity to ensure their CEO is positioned for success. That is to better manage their own decision-making, accountability, and communication as board members and teammates and ensure the organization is designed for success. Alice Mann is founder and CEO of Mann Partners.
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E-Commerce
AI is helping teams build software and tools faster than everbut that doesn’t mean we’re building smarter. I’ve seen entire prototypes spin up in a day, thanks to AI coding assistants. But when you ask how they were built, or whether they’re secure, you get a lot of blank stares. That’s the gap emerging now, between what’s possible with AI, and what’s actually ready to scale. What looks like progress can quickly become a liability. Especially when no one’s quite sure how the thing was built in the first place. Before you go all-in on AI-assisted coding, check these five fault lines: 1. You can’t govern what you can’t see. Perhaps the most overlooked risk of AI-assisted coding isn’t technical, its operational. In the rush to deploy AI tools, many companies have unintentionally created a layer of “shadow engineering.” Developers use these tools without official policies or visibility, leaving leaders in the dark about what’s being built and how. As Mark Curphey, cofounder of Crash Override, told me: “AI is accelerating everything. But without insight into what’s being built, by whom, or where it’s going, you’re scaling chaos with no controls.” Thats why visibility cant be an afterthought; its what makes both governance and acceleration possible. Platforms like Crash Override are designed to surface how AI is being used across the engineering org, offering a real-time view into whats being generated, where its going, and whether its introducing risk or value. And that visibility doesnt exist in isolation. Tools like Jellyfish help connect development work to business goals, while Codacy monitors code quality. But none of these tools can do their job well if you dont know whats happening under the hood. Visibility isnt about surveillance, it’s about building on a solid foundation. 2. Productivity is up. So is your risk exposure. A 2025 study Apiiro, an application security firm, found that AI-assisted developers are shipping 3 to 4 times more code with GenAI tools. But they’re also generating 10 times more security risks. These weren’t just syntax errors. The increase included hidden access risks, insecure code patterns, exposed credentials, and deep architectural flawsissues far more complex and costly to resolve over time. 3. AI-generated code is a potential legal risk. Because AI coding tools are trained on vast libraries of public code, they can generate snippets governed by restrictive open-source licenses. That raises important compliance questions, especially with licenses like GPL or AGPL, which could, in theory, require companies to open-source any software built on top of that output. But its worth clarifying: No company has been sued (yet) for using AI-generated code. The lawsuits weve seen (like the GitHub Copilot class action) have targeted the AI toolmakers, not the teams using their output. And the majority of GitHubs claims were ultimately thrown out. Still, this is a fast-evolving area with real implications. Auditboards 2025 study found that 82% of enterprise organizations were already deploying AI tools, but only 25% report having any sort of official governance in place. That disconnect may not be a courtroom issue today, but its a visibility and audit issue that leaders cant afford to ignore. 4. Speed is great, until only one person knows how it works. The “bus factor” has long described a worst-case scenario: What happens if the one person who knows how your software works suddenly disappears? “Powered by AI, an average developer becomes 100 times more productive. A superstar becomes 1,000 times,” Curphey noted. “Now imagine two of them are pushing all of that code into production. If they disappear, the company’s in serious trouble.” But the goal isnt zero riskits coverage. Just like test cases help ensure software is resilient, teams need to ensure knowledge and ownership are distributed. That includes understanding whos building what, where the AI is involved, and how those systems will be maintained over time. Ironically, GenAI can help with this. It can surface patterns, identify gaps, and map ownership in ways traditional tooling cant. More than just a productivity boost, it can be a tool for reducing fragility across your team and your codebase. 5. It’s easy to end up with “software slop.” Good, scalable AI-assisted code starts with the prompt. AI will generate exactly what you ask for. But if you don’t fully understand the technical constraints, or the risks you’re overlooking, it might give you code that looks good but has critical flaws in security or performance under the hood. You certainly don’t have to be a developer to use these tools well. But you do need to know what you don’t know, and how to account for it. As Curphey notes in a company blog post, If you wouldnt accept that level of vagueness from a junior engineer, why would you accept it from yourself when prompting? Otherwise, you’re moving fast and creating a kind of digital brain rot: systems that degrade over time because no one really understands how they were built. FROM VIBE CHECK TO REALITY CHECK The takeaway: AI may accelerate output, but it also accelerates risk. Without rigorous review and governance, you may be shipping code that functions, but isn’t structurally sound. So while AI is changing how software gets built, we need to be sure we’re building on a solid foundation. It’s no longer enough to move fast or ship often. As leaders, we need to understand how AI is being used inside our teams, and whether the things getting built are actually stable, scalable, and secure. Because if you don’t know what your team is using AI to build today, you may not like what you’re shipping tomorrow. Lisa Larson-Kelley is founder and CEO of Quantious.
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E-Commerce
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