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Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions. Q: I think my manager is burned out. What can I do?A: Its tough out there for managers, especially middle mangers who are often caught in thewellmiddle and may find themselves enforcing unpopular policies that they didnt create. Its not explicitly your job to fix your bosss problems (and you dont have the power or authority to do so if you arent in a leadership role). But, a manager sets the tone for their team and if they are burned out, their entire team will likely follow suit. It may feel unfair, but giving a bit of thought to this question will make your (and your coworkers’) lives much better. This is a super-charged opportunity to practice your managing up (aka managing your manager) skills.Fast Company contributor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic outlined several signs that your manager might be experiencing burnout and how to address them. Here are a few. They don’t seem to care how everyone else is doing Chamorro-Premuzic says that a burned-out boss might start to be less open to feedback, be suddenly uninterested in team morale, or no longer receptive to concerns. If your boss is acting like this, you can normalize small breaks and occasional team check-ins, where theres more opportunity for casual interactions. Chamorro-Premuzic also says you can be supportive in subtle ways, like offering to help with tasks or expressing appreciation for their work. Being a manager can feel thankless. If your manager feels like no one cares about them or notices their work, they’re less likely to offer you and your coworkers the same appreciation. If you show them you care about them, hopefully that care will trickle down. Their energy is all over the place Scientific studies on burnout show that energy and motivation can wax and wane when someone is facing chronic stress. What this might look like in your manager is that you are being micromanaged on some days when they are overly worried about how your work reflects on them, and then completely ignored on other days, as they feel overwhelmed by their own workload. If your boss is acting like this, Chamorro-Premuzic advises that you can help them by providing structure and consistency in your work so they know what to expect. Institute routines like regular project updates or weekly recaps, and suggest ways they can delegate so their workload is more distributed. (Bonus: Taking on work above your level might set you up for a future promotion.) Longer hours and blurred boundaries If your manager is emailing late at night, working weekends, not taking time off, those are all pretty clear signs that they are habitually overextending themselves, and on the fast track to burn out. If your boss is acting like this, it probably feels tricky to push back but its another place that you can lead by example by setting clear boundaries. You can also gently remind them that you and your colleagues can take on their tasks when they arent there. (In other words: The world wont fall apart if they take a vacation and it might help them reset.)Yes, your managers job satisfaction isnt explicitly your job, but if we truly want to work in a more humane workplace it means we should care about everyones well-being, no matter where they are on the org chart.Want more advice on helping burned out managers? Here you go: Managers are not okay. Why were headed to a manager crash in 2025 Its time to check on your middle managers 5 red flags of your bosss behavior you should not ignore
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E-Commerce
In our current political and media environment the loudest voices are the ones that are farthest from the center. Tech hasnt been spared, with some Silicon Valley leaders drifting rightnot only out of ideology, but also pragmatism. Box CEO Aaron Levie sits somewhere in the middle: not a MAGA-touting accelerationist like Marc Andreessen, nor a traditional progressive like Reid Hoffman. But he is clear-eyed about one thing: Donald Trump will likely preside over some of the most pivotal years in AI and innovation. And Levie sees reason for optimism. Fast Company spoke to him about AI policy, AI and crypto czar David Sacks, Elon Musks DOGE, and AI safety concerns. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. I know you came out in support of Harris before the election, but now I’d like to find out what your assessment of Trump is so far, where technology is concerned. During the Harris campaign, I felt like there was an opportunity, and there really needed to be a very strong kind of pro-technology, progress-type of push in the Democratic party. So I was trying to ensure that they saw key policy issues around AI and deregulation and how to drive more growth. And so that was my interest in the topic during the campaign cycle. But I just want America to succeed, and I want our tech position to be as strong as possible. And I think there’s a number of topics that kind of relate to that. There’s high-skill immigration, there’s AI policy, there are regulatory issues and topics that face the tech industry, especially more of the harder tech, more manufacturing-leaning parts of tech. And I think we have an opportunity as a country to ensure that we are building for not just the next couple of years, but the next couple of decades, and there’s a lot of key things that are going to happen right now around AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, advanced manufacturing, new forms of energy; all of these things will intersect with either federal or state and local policy, and it’s critical to make sure that we’re heading in the right direction on those topics. As it relates to Trump, I think there have been a number of things that have been signaled that I think are actually extremely positive to those topics. I think we’re really early in seeing how they will manifest. Some of them were on the campaign trail, some of them are kind of being in office, that have been signaled, and to some extent, a little bit in a wait-and-see mode on how they all manifest and evolve. And you know, my views on them are extremely clear, and I’m hoping we lean in the right direction on a large number of those topics. Lets talk about AI first. I think you saw JD Vance give his Paris speech, and he did talk a bit about striking a balance between regulation and innovation, but he also seemed to scold Europe for what it has done with the AI Act. He accuses them of going too far. Do you agree with him on that? My rhetoric would probably be different, but I am worried that when it comes to policy conversations, in the U.S. and even globally, we have tilted more toward the precautionary views of AI as opposed to the productive and pro-progress-oriented views of AI. I thought that it was compelling that the vice president talked about how AI is going to actually createI’m going to now probably change some of the wordsbut create more of an abundance environment where we can actually use it to help jobs and create jobs, and we can use it to improve healthcare, and we can use it to drive manufacturing. And if you just take a word content in the speech and compare it to maybe a speech that would have come from a U.S. politician a year or two ago, it leaned 80% more positive than negative, with the appropriate levels of calling out that there are things that we do need to pay attention to. Do you have thoughts about David Sacks and his appointment to “AI and Crypto Tsar”? I am much closer to the AI side and the AI Tsar. I don’t think about crypto that much. David’s a strong choice for that. David knows his way around Silicon Valley. He knows all the people doing all the important work at the leadership levels of AI labs and big tech. And so to have a conduit that can help marry what’s happening in Silicon Valley with the policy decisions happening in the government, I think he’s in a great position. I’m also very happy about Michael Katzios on OSTP (Trump nominated Kratsios as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy). I think he’s a very strong pick for that job. And so I think the administration has brought in sophisticated, thoughtful technologists or business leaders into the administration to help drive policy in the right direction. You were also upbeat about Elon Musk and what he’s doing with DOGE, at least around the time of the election. Do you have any thoughts about that now? At a philosophical level, I think that the thing I get more excited about in the DOGE remit is how do we modernize the approach that many of these agencies are taking to regulation? How do we ensure that we’re driving more efficiency so we can have just better productivity in the government? I think that’s a very good thing. I think there’s an ability to modernize a lot of the technology as well in the government to get more efficiency and be able to drive just overall better results. When you have better data feeds coming in, when you have better ways of collaborating, when you get better insights, we can make better policy decisions, we can run the government better. As a big-name tech CEO, do you feel an obligation to express your views and let people know where you stand on these things? For me, it’s a natural thing. But I do think we’re in an era right now where there’s almost no industry, and especially in tech, there’s no subindustry in tech that will not be impacted by policy decisions from the federal government. And so I do think we’re in an environment where you have to lean in to some extent on the policy conversation if you want any chance that it ends up going in a productive direction. I have some things that to me personally, from a business perspective, rise to higher or lower levelslike one of my biggest areas is high-skill immigration. And so thats an area that I unequivocally and emphatically view as mission-critical to get right because it will lead to the next generation of companies for us to go build in the futurethe next Apple, the next Google, the next OpenAI. You want the odds to be that that’s going to get created in America, and high-skill immigration is one of your ways of increasing those odds. AI policy raises very high because getting AI policy right or wrong could mean that either the U.S. is the home of AI or China is the home of AI. And as a U.S. company, I think it would be a disaster if we miss the window where we could have complete AI leadership. On the high-skilled labor part of this, are there specific changes to that that you are in favor of or that you think might have a chance of happening in the next four years? We do need a fster way for people to get into the country that is more of a merit-oriented approach. On the campaign trail, Trump very clearly stated that he wants to stamp a green card to every diploma for individuals that are coming from outside the country to study here. And so I think there’s been some acknowledgment that we have an inefficient system. It’s a little bit too random at times, and it’s probably not serving us in the best way possible of getting just clearly getting the best talent in the world to always come here, and that’s what we need. I will keep fighting and shouting from the rooftops that that’s a critical policy, whether it’s in the Trump administration or whatever administration comes next. I know that your business depends on AI, and you’re probably looking down the road and thinking about how Boxs product can evolve as AI progresses. Do you have concerns about the safety risks of future AI models? The labs need to operate responsibly. They need to test these models and ensure the safety and protection of how these models operate and ensure that we are in a situation where AI can’t go rogue and complete actions on their own without the right kind of guardrails being built into these systems. So, I’m in favor of everything that the market is currently doing. The part that I’m less in favor of is a situation where there would be just an incredibly extreme liability for the model providers to be able to release new AI model updates without major government involvement. Because what that will do is dramatically slow down the pace of the industry, and the pace of the industry will move at the rate at which the government can evaluate and understand how AI works. And we see in any industry where that is happening, we see less competition, we see higher prices, we see less innovation. Maybe there’s a time and a place for that to happen in AI, but we’re not there yet. AI right now is really early. And so, what we need is an environment where the AI innovation is accelerating, where the models are getting better, where they’re getting cheaper, where they’re getting more capable. And what we need is a shared industry-oriented way of establishing that we do need safe AI. These teams should be testing their models. We should have more best practices, more research, more red teaming of these technologies. But to me, I have not been compelled yet that we need the government to overwhelm the system with those reviews and those procedures. And I may get to that point where I do believe that, and I’m actually glad that there are lots of people that say we need that. I think it should be a really healthy debate and dialogue.
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E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Mortgage giant Rocket Companiesthe parent company of Rocket Mortgage, formerly known as Quicken Loansannounced on Monday it has entered into an agreement to buy Redfin in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.75 billion equity, or $12.50 per share. If completed, the move would integrate Redfins real estate search platform, which attracts nearly 50 million monthly visitors, with Rockets mortgage services. Redfin is known for its beautiful product but is also [a] data powerhouse in an AI-driven world100 million properties, 50 million engaged monthly users, thousands of the amazing real estate agents and 4 petabytes of data,” Rocket Companies CEO Varun Krishna wrote on LinkedIn on Monday. “Rocket has developed a platform that spans 40 years of mortgage expertise and a digital nationwide lending platform, across 3,000 counties and parishes. Redfin and Rocket are an amazing match for each other. According to the press release, there are four benefits Rocket Companies sees from the Redfin acquisition: First, it will introduce more consumers to the Rocket ecosystem. “Rocket Companies will benefit from Redfin’s nearly 50 million monthly visitors, 1 million active purchase and rental listings and staff of 2,200+ real estate agents across 42 states, the company writes. Secondly, it expects that will drive growth in the purchase of its mortgages. Third, the companies 14 petabytes of combined data will help drive its AI and personalization technology. “This data will strengthen Rocket’s AI models enabling easier and more personalized and automated consumer experiences,” Rocket writes. Lastly, the company expects to achieve “more than $200 million in run-rate synergies by 2027, including approximately $140 million in cost synergies from rationalization of duplicative operations and other costs.” And it expects “more than $60 million in revenue synergies from pairing the company’s financing clients with Redfin real estate agents, and from driving clients working with Redfin agents to Rocket’s mortgage, title, and servicing offerings.” In other words, Rocket Companies appears to be making a strategic move to expand its market share by integrating Redfins customer funnel with its mortgage business and build a powerhouse in residential real estate, creating a one-stop shop for homebuyers. While Rocket Mortgage increased its purchase loan market share by 8% from 2023 to 2024, it still pales in comparison to crosstown rival UWM [United Wholesale Mortgage],” Colin Robertson, the founder of The Truth About Mortgage, tells ResiClub. “Their tie-up with Redfin gives them the potential to capture 1 in 6 purchase loans going forward, which could see their market share quadruple from 4% to 16%+. The Rocket Companies’ proposed acquisition of Redfin comes during a prolonged housing transaction downturnmarked by a sharp drop in existing home sales and refinancingtriggered by the 2022 mortgage rate shock and strained affordability. The slump has led to industry upheaval, business failures, and a wave of mergers. While both of these firms have been affected by the slump, Redfin, in particular, has taken it on the chin. At its peak during the Pandemic Housing Boom, Rocket Companies had a $55.6 billion market capitalizationcompared to its $26.6 billion market capitalization at business close today. While at its peak during the Pandemic Housing Boom, Redfin had a $10 billion market capitalizationwell above its $1.2 billion market capitalization today. Since mortgage rates spiked in 2022, Redfin has faced a continuous wave of layoffs, with 1,362 layoffs in 2022, 201 in 2023, 82 in 2024, and nearly 500 already announced in 2025. Back in October 2022, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told me that shuttering their iBuyer unit amid a then correcting market out West was causing Redfin to sell at big losses. Kelman explained it like this: Were sitting on $350 million worth of homes for sale that we bought with our own money, or worse bought with borrowed money. And what we always told investors is that we would protect our balance sheet by acting quickly. We dont have hope as a strategy. We immediately started marking down things When the shiitake mushrooms hit the fan, [investors] want to get out first. The way to do that is to figure out where the lowest sale is, and be 2% below that. And if it doesnt sell in the first weekend, move it down [again]. In November 2023, Kelman told me that things were still slumped for the business, adding that existing home sales were mostly dead as a doornail, so it couldn’t be worse. In August 2024, Kelman put Redfins situation bluntly, telling analysts that the Plan B if mortgage rates didn’t come down was to “drink our own urine or our competitors’ blood, stay in the foxhole.” Click here to view an interactive version of the chart below. When I took a look something like 50% of Homes.com’s traffic is paid,” Amanda Orson, CEO and founder of Galleon, tells ResiClub. “And that paid demo does not count their extraordinary ad spend on TV ads. It’s just not a sticky site. Redfin on the other hnd spends very little and generates an absolute truckload of organic traffic. For now. That advantage is not permanent, of course. I can’t think of another company for whom the acquisition of Redfin would get a better yield for its highest and best use than Rocket. Big picture: If the benefits of the Redfin acquisition come to fruition, it could not only cement Rocket Companies as the top player in the mortgage space (currently No. 2 by total dollar loan volume) but also further lay the groundwork for the company to pursue its broader real estate ambitionsand perhaps even challenge Zillow, which is working to build a housing Super App.
Category:
E-Commerce
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