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We are in an era of strategic silenceno longer in the age of the activist CEO. Instead, business leaders are being told to lie low and stay in their lane to avoid unwanted attention, including from the White House. In the wake of Jimmy Kimmels removal from ABC, CEOs are reportedly turning down press and speaking opportunities. Today, leaders are faced with the question of when to speak up . . . and when to stay strategically silent in order to protect their constituents. Reverend Mariann Budde is an expert on speaking up. She was thrust into the national spotlight during President Trumps inauguration when she preached a sermon urging him to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. In the weeks that followed, Budde was publicly criticized by President Trump, and received both hate mailas well as an overwhelming amount of gratitude for speaking up. Budde believes bravery can be learned. She is the author of How We Learn to Be Brave, a book about what courage looks like in our lives, and how we can cultivate it. Shell be releasing an adaptation for younger readers, We Can Be Brave, in late October. Reverend Budde sat down with Fast Company to discuss how leaders should think about speaking up in an environment where doing so has very real consequences. In this paid Premium story, youll: Hear how Reverend Buddes decision to speak out against President Trump affected herboth negatively and positively Understand the time and place leaders should speak out Get advice for dealing with the aftermath of speaking up [The following conversation has been edited for clarity.] How can leaders distinguish between when its necessary to speak up, versus when its actually not worth the risk and, in fact, foolhardy? It’s a very important question. And if there were a formula then it would be easy, right? We would all know. And part of the uncertainty and the risk is that we don’t know. Is this an important timeeither for our personal integrity, the well-being of others, or the interests of our community or businessto speak out? Is this a time when we have reputational strength and wherewithal to withstand anticipated blowback? You don’t have to rise to every occasion, if it’s not wise. I think in times like this, these are serious questions to ask, because whole constituencies are at risk. However, there are times when we self-censor or when we step back unnecessarily, out of the anticipation of consequences that may or may not be real. There are dangers when we all take the safe route. It leaves a big gap for really unhealthy dynamics in society to have free reign. I think we are at risk of seeing some of that now, to be honest. Whats the cost to society if we all take the safe route? Unfortunately, in the beginning, you don’t see it unless you are near a vulnerable population, which is why proximity to those who are most impacted by the large societal movements is so important. I live in Washington, D.C., and people ask me: What’s it like in Washington now? It really depends on where you’re standing. For some people, life is just fine, and for other people, it is a living terror. How do you decide when to use your voice? Carefully. I don’t speak up every day. I did not and I don’t speak up on everything. I weigh my very limited public impact potential carefully. I try to stay in my lane, which is where spiritual values that I represent are in alignment with the democratic aspirations of our country. When I speak up, I do so from that foundation, and also from a constituency base that I personally represent. Whats a time when you didnt speak up and wish you had? I wake up almost every day thinking of human inflicted starvation in Gaza. I am asked repeatedly to speak out, and I have done so very rarely, in part because I have very deep ties within the Jewish community here in Washington and in this country. I recognize not only the complexity of the situation, but also the impact that things I might say or do. The Archbishop of the Anglican church in Jerusalem asks us sometimes not to say anything because it just makes things worse for them. But I tell you, it doesn’t feel good to be quiet sometimes. Not that I have any illusions in this particular political environment that I would make a difference, which is another calculation I make: If I have absolutely no chance of affecting change by what I say, I have to decide if it’s worth the cost. You have spoken up in a very public way that has thrust you into the national spotlight. What was the impact on you personally? Well, first of all, it was a very unusual opportunity that was given to me to preach at the post inaugural prayer service. In terms of the upside, that was a privilege. The downside, it was obviously hard. It cost me a lot to think that through. I clearly offended the President and his inner circle, and they took the opportunity to make that known and it set in motion an onslaught of reaction for about three weeks. Our entire church was flooded with some pretty mean-spirited and false accusations. So that was the hard part. The other side to it was also a huge outpouring of gratitude, the likes of which I’ve never experienced. Boxes and boxes of mailso much we couldn’t open it. People wrote me letters that began with, I’m not a religious person, but I wanted to tell you how much what you said meant to me. Thank you for reminding people that my child is a human. What advice do you have for people who do want to use their voice in a very public way, such as the way you have? Maybe people such as other leaders? Its very helpful to be grounded. For three or four days, you’re at the height of all this energy and attention, and then the world goes silent. And it’s time to take out the garbage and remember that you forgot 17 things on your to-do list. Its helpful to remember while theres a response to you, your life is rooted somewhere else. We’re not the first generation of Americans to experience significant pulling back from values that we thought had been well-established. It was no picnic in the early 1920s when resegregation was introduced into this country. What did the people do then, and what can we do now? It’s also good to have a sense of humor, and a couple of children around to keep you grounded. We are at a time of deep disconnection and polarization. What does good leadership look like right now, especially if youre leading people who are deeply divided? We don’t realize how influenced we have become by the contempt thats poisoning our society. We can’t have conversations with people who differ from us in ways that don’t dehumanize and belittle one another. If we can’t figure out how to talk to each other across our differences, we will never, ever solve the problems that we’re facing as a society. You do have to speak up in the face of hatred and intolerance, but how you do it matters. You have to meet that knd of intolerance with firm conviction and persuasionand yet not robbing that person of their inherent dignity as well. What does it mean to be brave? From our earliest days as human beings, we have to and are summoned to do things that we have never done before. Stepping into something that is unfamiliar carries some degree of risk, and yet this is the miracle of our existence. Even though we’re afraid, we know exactly what we’re supposed to do. Sometimes we’re really excited because we feel like we’re in our element and we can do this. Other times, we’re terrified. We don’t know if we can do it. And we learn sometimes that we can’t, in fact, do that thing, and we fail. Then the most important learning is what is the brave moment after failure or disappointment or making a mistake? I find that the brave or the courageous call in those times is to step up, learn, wipe off whatever humiliation or wounding that happens, and persevere.
Category:
E-Commerce
When brands hire illustrators, animators, or other artists, they typically know what theyre paying for: a defined set of creative assets, delivered on deadline, with clear usage rights. But in the age of generative AI, thats no longer the whole picture. Commissioned artwork is increasingly being used not just in finished campaigns, but as training data to power AI modelsmodels that, in turn, generate new, derivative outputs. Often, this use isnt spelled out in contracts. Its not malicious. Its just . . . new. Thats left brands, agencies, and artists in a tricky spottrying to apply old licensing logic to a new generation of tools. The result is a growing disconnect between how creative work is made, how its used, and how its paid for. Whats needed isnt a philosophical debate about machine creativity. Its a practical frameworkone flexible enough for fast-moving teams, but structured enough to protect the humans still at the heart of the process. The Creative Loop Has Changed Traditionally, artists get paid for what they delivera character design, a series of storyboards, a set of icons or illustrations. The license defines where, how long, and in what formats those assets can be used. But as AI workflows become more embedded in creative production, the loop looks different. A brand commissions original artwork. That artwork is used not only in campaigns, but to fine-tune a generative model trained to produce content in the style of the original work. From there, marketing teams or third-party vendors can generate dozens of variations on demandwithout going back to the original artist. Theres nothing inherently unethical about this. In many cases, its efficient and creatively useful. But if the artist who trained the model isnt compensated for that secondary use, a value gap opens up. And that gap becomes a reputational risk for the brandespecially as creative professionals, advocacy groups, and consumers become more AI-literate. A Shift from Ownership to Participation This isnt a question of whether AI should be used. That debate is over. The question now is how to ensure the humans who shape the aesthetic intelligence of these systems are fairly recognized and fairly paid. One path forward is to rethink the licensing structure. Instead of defaulting to flat fees for fixed deliverables, brands can structure creative engagements to reflect how derivative value is created over time. That starts by offering two distinct paths: one built around full ownership, and the other designed for ongoing participation. In the ownership model, brands pay a higher up-front fee that covers the rights to train a model, generate derivative outputs, and use those outputs across campaigns without future royalties. Its clean, comprehensive, and often a fit for fast-scaling companies or complex campaigns with long content tails. In the participation model, brands pay a standard commission fee and then compensate the artist over time, based on how their work is used to generate new content. This might look like a royalty per output, a revenue share, or a pooled licensing structure tied to usage volumeakin to how publishers or music rights organizations operate. Neither option is perfect. But both reflect the realities of modern creative workwhere original contributions can fuel a long arc of generative production. More importantly, they offer artists a choice in how their labor and influence are valued. What a Smarter Licensing Framework Looks Like For brands and agencies ready to adopt more transparent compensation models, the good news is this doesnt require a reinvention of the creative contract. A few key mechanisms, easily added to existing agreements, can bring clarity to how AI-derived work is used and monetized. The first is a Commission-to-Model clause. It makes explicit that commissioned work will be used to train a model, and defines the scope of that use. These clauses can specify what kind of model is being trained, whether third-party partners will have access, and how long the model can be used. Crucially, they establish triggers for expanded usesay, across new business units or global campaignsthat would require a conversation or renewal. Think of it as the AI-era equivalent of a sync license for a song: it clarifies how the source material can be extended and scaled. Next is a Derivative Use Laddera pricing framework that reflects how far an AI-generated asset strays from the original commission. Minor edits or resizes might be included in the base fee. AI-generated variants used within the same campaign could carry a modest uplift. Broader reuse across platforms, regions, or product lines would trigger higher fees or require relicensing. The goal isnt to over-monetize creativity. Its to avoid ambiguity and allow both sides to plan with confidence. For brands building longer-term systems, where a model trained on original artwork might generate thousands of outputs, a royalty-bearing model license may be the most aligned. This could take the form of a flat fee per generated asset, a quarterly revenue share, or a pooled royalty structure when multiple artists contribute to a shared model. The mechanics can vary. What matters is the principle: as the system creates more outputs, more value should flow back to the creative source. Each of these frameworks can integrate into existing production workflows. But together, they offer something more powerful: a shift in mindset from we own what we paid for to we share in what we build together. What Artists Want (and Brands Can Offer) Artists arent looking to halt innovation. Most understand the value of generative tools. Many already use them in their own workflows. What they want is transparency, consent, and a fair share of the value created when their work is used to teach machines. That doesnt mean every output requires a payment. But it does mean brands should be prepared to offer clear termsnot just to protect themselves legally, but to build trust with the creative talent they rely on. A Reputation-Forward Approach to AI As generative AI becomes normalized in creative production, scrutiny is rising: lawsuits over unlicensed training data, open letters from illustrators, AI-generated brand work that backfires online. In this environment, its no longer enough to stay quiet and hope no one asks. Responsible AI use is becoming part of a brands public posture. A clear, fair compensation model for human contributors isnt just ethically soundits reputationally smart. Put simply: compensating the people who make your model smarter is good business. Pay the Source The creative economy is shiftingfrom artifact to algorithm, from fixed deliverables to living systems, from single commissions to ongoing creative loops. In that new reality, we need new rules. Payig the source isnt about holding onto the past. Its about designing a future where artists, technologists, and brands can build together, with clarity and trust. That future is already arriving. The only question is whether we meet it with contracts that reflect the tools we useor keep pretending the old ones are enough.
Category:
E-Commerce
Logan Ivey has tried everything to cut down on his screen time. He bought a modern dumbphone thats designed to be used as little as possible, tried a device called a Brick that removes distracting apps and notifications from a smartphone, and even resorted to a classic flip phone when all else failed. Still, nothing was working. So he turned his iPhone into a 6-pound weight. The 6 Pound Phone Case is a bulky, stainless steel contraption designed to make your smartphone extremely annoying to use. Inspired by the aesthetics of an 80s brick phone, the case transforms a typical, ultra-portable iPhone into a cumbersome eyesoreand thats the whole point. Ivey, who has been using the case for the past two months, says it has helped cut his screen time in half. Currently, the 6 Pound Phone Case is just a prototype, but Ivey is raising money through a Kickstarter page to sell a small batch of the cases for a whopping $210 each (the hefty price tag, he says, is due to the high manufacturing costs and current tariffs on steel). [Photo: Matter Neuroscience] Iveys invention is the latest in a recent series of out-there projects designed to help smartphone users hack their brains into cutting the doomscroll short. In the late 2010s, dumbphones enjoyed a spike in popularitybut since then, many users have met with the unfortunate reality that they need smartphone functions like maps, Google, email, and other services to navigate the day-to-day. Creative minds have thought up all kinds of solutions to this conundrum, including an app that forces you to literally touch grass before you scroll, a phone case that doubles as a tiny screen, and an app that uses an animated bean character to guilt-trip you out of going on social media. The 6 Pound Phone Case is the newest addition to this wacky smartphone detox lineupand it might just be the most effective. [Photo: Matter Neuroscience] Designing a 6-Pound Phone Case Ivey uses social media for a living. Hes both an independent creator and a full-time social media producer for Matter Neuroscience, a company he describes as dedicated to bridging the gap between everyday behavior and molecular science. Part of Matter Neurosciences mission has included building an app that lets users track their emotions every week to understand what kind of behaviors drive happiness. Through this project, Ivey says, he realized just how much his phone was sapping his energy and blocking his feel-good neurotransmitters. After trying dumbphones, a flip phone, and app blockers, Ivey realized that, especially given his job in social media, it was just too inconvenient to try replacing his smartphone. Instead, he needed a way to make his iPhone feel more like a tool than an addictive pastime. [Photo: Matter Neuroscience] I asked myself, How can I keep all the functionality of my phone, but still use it less? Ivey says. Then I thought, like, What if my phone was just really heavy and inconvenient to use? Matter Neuroscience partnered with Ivey to help make the idea reality. He turned to the clunky form factor of an 80s brick phone as inspiration, designing a case with one flat surface and two jutting rectangles on its top and bottom. Cutouts for charging, volume buttons, power, and a tapered camera hole keep every part of the phone functionalbut its stainless steel construction, which can be removed only by unscrewing four screws with an Allen wrench, makes it physically difficult to hold for too long. At 6 pounds, your hands and arms physically get tired while using it, the cases Kickstarter page reads. That fatigue reminds you to put the phone down. Further, it adds, the cases size is inconveniently big, purposefully preventing the user from tucking it in their pocket. You have to carry it in a bag like a laptop, or leave it in another room. That means fewer phantom notifications, fewer sidewalk swipes, and fewer brain rot sessions while pooping (and maybe less hemorrhoids). [Image: courtesy Logan Ivey] In Iveys experience, the 6 Pound Phone Case has cut his screen time from four and a half hours per week to just two. While Ivey does hope to sell some of the cases through his Kickstarter with Matter Neuroscience, he doesnt have plans to patent the design, and sees it as a concept that could have genuine potential for other phone case companies. Those little moments in life where you just instinctively reach for your phone, I don’t do anymore, Ivey says, because I either don’t have it on me or it’s too heavy.
Category:
E-Commerce
If you’ve noticed that the internet feels different latelymore cluttered, harder to navigateyoure not imagining it. The system is breaking down in real time, and by 2026, researchers predict that 90% of web content will be AI-generated. Quality journalism is disappearing behind paywalls while feeds fill with noise designed purely to capture attention. An innovation that was supposed to democratize information is now drowning us in it. I know this intimately because I helped build it. As founder of AppNexus, which sold to AT&T for $1.6 billion, and former CTO of Right Media, I created the technology that became the backbone of digital advertising, a multibillion-dollar industry and the economic engine funding everything from major newsrooms to niche blogs. Now that engine is stalling. You are now the product Heres what happened: instead of paying for what you have actually read or watched, the advertising system turned you into the product. Every click, search, and scroll got auctioned to the highest bidder. You became the currency. And once the dollars followed your data rather than content quality, the value of real information slipped into the background. The effects are everywhere. News organizations are consolidating rapidly or shuttering entirely. AI-generated slop is creeping into YouTube and other online communities, and flooding search results with spam. Trust in the media and the online ecosystem is on the brink of collapse. Shoes chase you around the internet, misinformation spreads faster than facts, and billions vanish to fraud. It feels like the end. But Ive seen this before. A recurring pattern The internet has a pattern: it breaks, people panic, and then it is rebuilt into something much better. Web 1.0 gave us static pages and basic connectivity. Web 2.0 brought user-generated content and social interactionbut not before people warned it would destroy traditional media entirely. Each transition looked catastrophic while it was happening. Remember when mobile first arrived? Mobile websites were impossible to read. Ads covered half your screen. Everything required pinch-to-zoom and patience. Companies spent years trying to shove desktop experiences onto phones before they figured out that mobile needed its own infrastructure. It felt broken and annoying, until it didnt. With phones constantly in hand and the first screen for most people, we barely remember the awkward transition. Another phase Were in that awkward phase again. Our attention is fragmented across more platforms, devices, and channels than ever. We seek information and entertainment everywhere, and we have higher expectations: we want access without annoyance, quality without cost, personalization without intrusion. The current infrastructure wasnt built for this reality. Now, AI has cascaded into everything. Its generating slop thats flooding search results and feeds, yes, but its also the tool were using to rebuild. We are reorganizing our lives around it: how we work, how we find information, how we consume content. What some are calling the “agentic AI economy”where AI is integrated as an intelligent intermediary that reasons, plans, and acts to solve problemsis starting to take shape. The internets infrastructure will be fine once it catches up to that shift and the industry rethinks its fundamental economics. Course correction Licensing deals, revenue sharing, and pay-per-crawl compensation models are taking shape to course correct and ensure publishers start to be paid for their value and those will continue to evolve as the industry sees what sticks. Meanwhile, AI companies themselves, OpenAI being the most recent, are investing in advertising infrastructure, recognizing that if chat and AI engines are here to stay as primary channels, they need sustainable business models beyond subscriptions. New targeting approaches leveraging agentic AI are also on the horizon, offering the promise of eliminating waste and fraud that would otherwise go toward funding made-for-advertising websites or AI slop. Companies like mine, Scope3, offer agentic advertising, using AI agents to match ads to specific content themes and values rather than relying on personal data or demographics. Try this: copy a page youve browsed and paste it into ChatGPT, then ask it to produce an ad and compare the result to whats actually on the page. More likely than not, ChatGPT gave a better ad without even needing your browser history or data. This makes content the product again, not you. Quality publishers get rewarded while content farms and fraudulent sites are starved of revenue. These are proof points that the economic infrastructure is being rebuilt. A turning point The internets promise doesnt have to die with its decline. Were at a turning point where we know AI will shape the webthats inevitable. Now we decide what kind of system we build with it. If the attention economy monetized distraction, the agentic AI economy has the chance to monetize trust. We can use AI to filter noise instead of creating it. We can reward publications that invest in fact-checking and original reporting. We can connect ads based on values and genuine interest rather than demographic profiles. Or we can let the internet collapseeither descending into unusable chaos where AI slop buries everything of value or splitting into a world where quality content exists only behind paywalls most people cant afford. The builders who understand this moment, those championing dynamics that reward quality and trust, are ready to shape whats next. The internet we want is possible. We just have to choose to build it.
Category:
E-Commerce
With more than a decade of experience working as a design and tech analyst, Andrew Hogan is all in on the efficiency and ease that tech brings to our lives. But lately at home with his daughters (ages 4 and 18 months), Hogan is grappling with something unwieldy and undefined: how parents, kids, and technology interact, from smartphones to screen time to AI. We are so eager to remove frictionavoid it and smooth over the rough spots, especially as parents, Hogan says. In fall 2024, Hogan began writing a newsletter called Parent.Tech, designed to help him, and other parents, better understand how to navigate the increasingly complex world of tech and consumer products. Some of the topics covered include parenting apps, parental controls, AIs place (or not) in homework, and how to build a framework for kids tech use. I want to be a better dad, and Parent.Tech was a path to doing that, Hogan says. Its given me some scaffolding and context to make decisions. Hogan is parenting children who are on the back end of the anxious generation, named for a book written by social psychologist and New York University professor Jonathan Haidt. Touted by Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric, the book links the steep decline in adolescent mental health to the increased reliance on screens and technology, calling this period in our culture the great re-wiring of childhood. Haidt advocates for more time steeped in unfettered play and fewer hours tethered to tech. While Haidts messaging isnt entirely new (documentaries Screenagers in 2016 and The Social Dilemma in 2020, and the Wait Until 8th campaign have all introduced similar conversations), its spurred a renewed interest among parents to seek out new ways to manage tech. Entrepreneurs are listening. In the past decade, dozens of products have hit the market with the intention of giving kids and their families (everyone, really) the tools to reclaim attention, relationships, and presence. Businesses like Yondr are making it easier for kids to go phone-free in school; startups like Tin Can ($75) are bringing back the landline; and mobile-phone makers including Light Phone ($699), Pinwheel ($119), and Gabb Wireless (phones starting at $149) are offering phones free of social media and web access. Plus, there are untold numbers of toys that promise to help children enjoy the screen-free fun they deserve. These companies have identified a real needit’s clear by now that willpower alone is not enough to keep humans off their screens. And together they are channeling our techno-anxiety into a new and growing market of products that parents are increasingly willing to shell out for. Determining the size of this market is still tricky because the products dont fit into a neat box, despite their shared mission, says Audrey Chee-Read, principal analyst in Forresters CMO practice. What you have isnt really an established category with specific guardrails [e.g., theres tech like Gabb thats considered kids consumer tech versus Yondr thats not a tech], she says. So there is probably a forecast out there on consumer or family tech products [of which Gabb, Tin Can, and Light Phone would be under] but that will also encapsulate other things like gaming. Still, its clear that these businesses are growing: From 2020 to 2023, Gabb grew 895%, nabbing a spot on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list, while Pinwheel landed in the top 5% of that same list. Jacqueline Nesi, psychologist and assistant professor at Brown University who writes a newsletter called TechnoSapiens and runs a consultancy called Tech Without Stress, says the shift is undeniable: People realize we cant get rid of technology so [theyre asking] How do we learn to live with it in a way that promotes our well-being rather than detracts from it? [Photo: Tin Can] Building protected spaces that mimic the before While most children havent experienced life without screens, for most parents (especially Gen Xers), theres a distinct before and after. An increasing number of adults, says Chee-Read, want to tether back to a time when phones werent in every pocket and we didnt feel the pull to check social feeds at school or work. Distraction wasnt as pervasive in our culture and there was a level of freedom to be in the moment. For Graham Dugoni, grappling with the desire to spend more time in the before made him a founder. His company, Yondr, makes and sells lockable neoprene pouches that allow people to leave their personal tech behind at school, work, concerts, and for other experiences to remove distraction and foster connection. Dugoni refers to the Yondr mission as creating a sort of National Park system of protected spaces. [Photo: Yondr] Its a big exercise in social psychology, he says. What happens in a phone-free space is at some level giving people a sense of freedom that they cant find in other walks of modern life. We view ourselves as part of a counterculture movement. [Photo: Yondr] Inspired by philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, who explored what it means to be in the world, and Marshall McLuhan, who studied the effects media has on society, Dugoni started the business in 2014, hand-making the pouches and selling them out of his Toyota RV. Since then, hes scaled Yondr to reach more than 300% year-over-year growth. Dugoni hopes his product will become a form of infrastructure for a world with less screen time. The company now works with schools in 35 countries and 50 U.S. states, including one-third of all New York City secondary public schools. Los Angeles Public Schools (80% of middle schools and high schools in the district) work with the company, too, and Yondrs neoprene pouches are also used at Madison Square Garden and at comedy clubs throughout the U.S. In fact, one of the first big relationships Dugoni secured was with comedian Dave Chappelle, who asks his audience members to store their phones in Yondr pouches during his shows to protect his act from online leaks and to maintain a distraction-free audience experience. Says Dugoni: Its so wildly traditional, it might be revolutionary. A big piece of being in any emerging market, he says, is buy-in and consumer education. At schools, that takes the form of writing letters to parents, holding community forums, meeting with school administration, and step-by-step, day-by-day guidance for students and adults on what a phone-free school day looks like. We always start with a why, says David Franklin, Yondrs manager of partner programming. We need to change the school culturethat changes attitudes and it pushes this idea forward. At concerts and comedy clubs, Yondr employees cruise the line into the venue, talking to attendees about the pouches, how they work, and why theyre a key part of that nights audience experience. Sometimes, Dugoni says, people resist the idea, wanting to keep their phones available. Other times, folks are happy to try the pouch for a phone-free night. The majority of our work is around experience design, he says. What things have to be true for this thing to work? It’s about how you approach people and make it conducive to their understanding: This is a special experience and what you are stepping into is worth everyone being there for it. [Photo: Light Phone] Seizing gaps in the attention economy Around the same time Dugoni founded Yondr, Kaiwei Tang met his now business partner Joe Hollier at a Google incubator program in 2014. The two founded Light Phone, one of the first dumbphones on the market, a year later. The spark for Light Phone was a desire to sidestep the attention economy and a frustration with the available options. Now on its third iteration, Light Phone III (priced at $699) offers people a chance to leave the house with a way to communicate, check the weather, listen to music, or find directions, all while free of the nagging distractions that often come along with smartphones. And while Tang knew there was a market for his product, he also quickly learned thered be tension around its adoption. Change can be awkward, and as much as Light Phone built something for people who want some space from always-on tech, there would also be some friction around what using Light Phone means on a granular level. [Photo: Light Phone] We got so much feedback from our users; when people used it, the first 15 or 20 minutes were really nerve-racking, Tang says. Everyone had this anxiety. Standing to pay for your groceries and you dont know what to do. After 15 or 20 minutes, you get over the FOMO, you remember whats happening, you pay attention to the details of the buildings or trees you never really noticed. [Photo: Light Phone] Managing that dissonance, Tang says, has been a big part of the companys growth. Askig anyone to change a longtime behavior is going to be hard, he admits. We see it with food. We know were eating too much grease. We cant help ourselves. Were trying to show the benefits of the organic and healthy food brands, but were not asking everyone to become vegan. Its the same thing with Light Phone. Were trying to show the benefits of breaking away from the smartphone. Gabb Wireless is another business aiming to knock off a sliver of this market, selling Samsung phones dressed in the companys proprietary software, built specifically for kids and teens. Gabb phones and watches have no internet and no social media. Parental controls are built in, with safety and developmentally appropriate communication tools tailored for kids. Parents also have access to a Gabb app on their phones, allowing them to tap into location sharing, video calls, and text flagging capabilities on their kids devices. CEO Nate Randle says that while businesses in the category started when the conversation around kids and smartphones wasnt really much of a thing, the market opportunity has been clear from the start. We talk about TAM [total addressable market], he says. There are more than 60 million kids in the U.S. alone between the ages of 5 and 16. There is a wide-open market for an alternative solution to smartphones. And for Gabb, showing up as a solution for families and kids has required an awareness around what it means to be a kids tech brand. Traditionally, when someone thinks of a kids brand, they go to rainbows and stars, says Brad Dowdle, VP of creative at Gabb Wireless. This is Generation Alpha. Theyve grown up around technology. Theyre savvy. It has to be aspirational, and they cant feel were designing down to them. When business opportunity and cultural change collide As these solutions emerge and build a following, its also important to zoom out on attitudes toward technology, privacy, and life online. For instance, says Chee-Read, while 63% of adults say theyre concerned about online behavior being tracked, less than half of youth report feeling similarly. At the same time, grassroots organizations are pushing for legislation in California, New York, Pennsylvania, and other states to ban phones from school. [Photo: Tin Can] A company like Tin Can, which has a mission to make the landline cool again, is showing up on national news and having a viral moment on Instagram. Jerry Chen, the founder of Firewalla, which sells cybersecurity software to homes and businesses to shield everything from baby cameras and laptops to speakers and phones, says in its first five years the business doubled in revenue annually, followed by a slowdown of 100% growth every two years. On top of all of this, of course, is a vanishing amount of institutional knowledge and understanding. As technology progresses, the number of people available to provide relevant support and advice on how to manage itespecially as parentsis disappearing. The factors present five years ago in terms of managing the way technology influences daily life are nearly irrelevant today. And five years from now, well be immersed in entirely new circumstances. Founders who can manage that kind of market speed and the dissonance around technology and its place in our lives stand to create solutions with real staying power. Entrepreneurs and CEOs like Dugoni, Randle, Tang, and Chen are selling products, yes, but theyre also shaping a new version of what it means to grow up and live in our world. This is not a market built to reject tech but rather to redefine how we relate to it. And for now, Hogans hope is that continuing to work on Parent.Tech in his off-hours will help him find the middle path in managing tech tools for himself and his kids. People need to design these tools, and then we need to pay for these tools, Hogan says. We have to figure it out. No one is coming to change it for us.
Category:
E-Commerce
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