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The prices of memory chip stocks are once again on the rise as a global shortage in random access memory (RAM) continues. Over the past five days alone, the share prices of the four largest memory makers traded on U.S. markets have risen significantly. And today, those same stocks are off to another good start. Heres what you need to know. Why is there a memory shortage? Since the latter half of 2025, analysts and industry insiders have warned of a looming memory chip shortage coming in 2026and its one of the few tech predictions that have been right. This year, the world is in a full-blown memory crisis. There isnt enough computer memory to go around, and that scarcity is leading to surging demandand surging RAM prices. The driving force behind the memory chip shortage is artificial intelligence. But not the AI itself. Rather, the hardware companies need to run their AI systems. An artificial intelligence system like ChatGPT or Googles Gemini requires massive data centers to run on and compute the billions of requests these chatbots get every day. Those data centers, in turn, need servers, and those servers need memory to carry out the AI tasks. The world is currently in the middle of an AI data center build-out boom, and that massive data center expansion is leading to a surge in memory demand the likes of which the industry has never seen. When memory makers are unable to keep up with demand, a shortage arises, which is exactly where we are today. Micron and Sandisk stocks are skyrocketing There are four major memory makers traded on the U.S. markets: Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX) Of those four, Micron and Sandisk are the two firms that primarily make short-term computer memory, which is designed to temporarily store information and help carry out tasks at lightning speed. This kind of memory is seeing the worst shortages. Western Digital and Seagate primarily make long-term computer memory, such as for SSDs, used to retain your documents and photos for a long time. Given that all four of these companies are seeing demand for their memory products soar, its little surprise their stock prices have been soaring as of late, too. In the past five days alone, as of Fridays closing bell, the share prices of all four companies have risen significantly. Over the previous five-day period: Micron stock has risen 15% Sandisk stock has soared 25% Western Digital is up 11% Seagate is up nearly 9% And today, those memory makers are seeing their share prices rise even further. As of this writing, in premarket trading, MU shares are up 4.3%, SNDK shares are up nearly 3%, WDC shares are up 3.3%, and STX shares are up over 2.5%. These continued stock price gains can primarily be attributed to the global memory shortage. How will skyrocketing memory prices affect me? Of course, while investors in the four big memory companies may be quietly cheering on the global memory shortage that is driving their stock prices higher, that shortage is bad for anyone else planning to buy a computer or smartphone this year. While the memory used in AI data centers and that used in laptops and smartphones are different, many memory makers are diverting production resources away from making the consumer type of memory bound for smartphones and laptops to making the higher-end memory that AI giants need (because that type of memory is more profitable). This, in turn, means less consumer memory is being made that is suitable for personal devices, so the makers of those devices have to pay more to get their hands on whatever they can. When smartphone and laptop makers pay more for components, they usually dont just absorb the increased costs; instead, they pass them on to consumers. If youve recently shopped for memory or even SSD hard drives online, youll probably have seen that prices are much higher than they were last year. And as 2026 progresses, those higher prices will also translate into higher prices for laptops and smartphones, and the memory shortage worsens. Most industry analysts do not expect the memory shortage to get better until sometime in 2027 at the earliest. What to look for next When it comes to the global memory shortage and memory chip maker stocks, the next big thing to look for is Micron Technologys second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings results, which will take place this Wednesday, March 18. Analysts will closely dissect the language used by Micron executives to glean insights into how memory demand is changing and whether production capacity is increasing. After Microns earnings on Wednesday, the next event to keep an eye on will happen in early May, which is when Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate are expected to announce their next results. Memory chip stocks are far outperforming the Nasdaq Whats especially remarkable about Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagates run lately is that their stock prices have not been significantly impacted by the broader pullback of the Nasdaq on which they trade. While the four memory companies have seen their stock prices rise by nearly 9% to 25% over the prior five trading days, the Nasdaq Composite has declined 1.6% over the same period, largely due to uncertainties about the war in Iran. Year-to-date, the gap between the four memory makers and the Nasdaq Composite is even starker. Since the year began, the Nasdaq Composite is down 4.2%. But in the same timeframe, Micron is up 49%, Western Digital is up 58%, Seagate is up 39%, and Sandisk is up a staggering 178%.
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E-Commerce
Metrics can tell you if youre going the right direction or not. They can also be a waste of time if the metrics are noise instead of strong signals. There is no one right answer to which metrics to use, but understanding how others use them can turn on a light bulb for new ideas. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members what metrics they track obsessivelyand why and the answers we share may have you rethinking your own tracking. 1. CONVERSION AND RETENTION I track a lot of metrics and it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of the business, but as a subscription business the metrics of conversion and retention are my twin North Stars. What percentage of visitors in trial are going to become paid subscribers, and what percentage of them will remain paid subscribers in three months? Really these metrics are a reflection of the benefit customers get from our products showing they are valuable enough for someone to pay us and that they are valuable enough for them to stick around. Nearly all of the other metrics that I obsessively check flow from these two. Tony Grimminck, Scribd, Inc. 2. ORGANIC GOOGLE SEARCH I track organic Google search above almost everything. You can buy impressions, but you cant buy someone typing your brand name unprompted. Its the cleanest signal of real demand. I also monitor inbound pullwhich partners, retailers, or creators are reaching out to us. When serious brands want proximity, it means youre culturally relevant. If search and inbound drop when spend drops, youre renting attention, not building equity. And then theres the quiet test: What happens when we ease off spend? Do we disappear or are we building something worthy of the space weve been given? Emily Kortlang, Yerba Madre 3. EBITDA I track EBITDA because it tells me, without any spin, whether our core business is creating the level of profitability that powers reinvestment and growth for our employee owners. I track labor as a percentage of net revenue, staff churn, and our employee culture index scores because they tell me how efficiently were deploying our talent and how engaged our people are in building a career here. Steven McKay, DLR Group 4. HOW CLIENTS RANK IN AI PROMPTS Right now, were obsessively tracking how our clients rank in prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Its a new metric for us, but an important one. We want to see how clients show up next to competitors and what narratives or keywords are driving visibility. We layer that with media coverage and domain authority to understand how those stories are performing in the real world. Kalie Moore, High Vibe PR 5. CONTENT AND PRODUCTS We measure content and products to see how they drive behavior change, build confidence, and turn users into advocates for themselves. Engagement matters, but for us the real signal of success is when people feel empowered to act. As we build for people with real, timely needs, we track both quantitative and qualitative insights to ensure were solving the right problems, not guessing. That requires constant testing, learning, and refining. Across industries, leaders have to stay close to the people they serve to ensure theyre truly advancing the mission they set out to achieve. Nathan Friedman, Understood.org 6. INTERNAL ALIGNMENT AND EXTERNAL TRACTION I track two buckets: internal alignment and external traction. Internally, we run on objectives and key results because it forces clarity. Everyone knows what they’re responsible for and how it ties to business impact. When that breaks, you feel it. When it works, things move fast. Externally, I watch streaming and radio. Streaming shows what’s happening right now, which cities are reacting, whether a record is moving culturally. Radio signals longevity. It’s slower, but it shows real staying power. Together, they tell me if we’re seeing noise or building something durable. You need both. Logan Mulvey, GoDigital Music 7. CUSTOMER METRICS As CEO, I obsess over daily and weekly metrics like monthly recurring revenue growth, subscription churn, data-plan attach rate, NPS, transmission success rate, and early field reliability (battery life, zero-transmission failures), because recurring revenue powers the business. Any drop in trust kills referrals fast. If customer metrics are healthy so is our business. Jeff Peel, Tactacam 8. RETENTION AND SAVINGS We track retention of our members, as we offer a lifelong commitment to our C-suite women leaders to provide them with one-on-one peer mentoring for life. This commitment increases our retention to 99%. We also track the mentor/mentee relationship. Lastly, we track our savings, which annually exceed $500,000. Larraine Segil, Exceptional Women Alliance 9. ENGAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION We track engagement and customer satisfaction obsessively. For us, engagement isnt just a usage metric, its a signal of trust. When someone actively redeems and returns to our platform, that tells us the experience is resonating. Customer satisfaction is even more important. If people feel valued rather than marketed to, long-term relationships followand so does durable revenue for our partners. Elery Pfeffer, Nift 10. WHERE OUR BUSINESS IS GOING When reviewing metrics, Im looking for information about where our business is going, not lagging indicators of where weve been, and early warning signs of issues that may be developing. For growth, I look at pipeline coverage and conversion. For execution, I review forecast accuracy and time to revenue. For customer value, its our net retention rate and advocacy score. Looking at these numbers gives me a good idea of not only how were performing, but how efficiently were executing and what areas need extra attention. Steve Holdridge, Dayforce 11. JOBS AND ECONOMICS REPORTS I obsessively track LinkedIns Jobs on the Rise reports and LinkedIs Economic Graph workforce data and research; they are great reads and provide ongoing snapshots on where the labor market, productivity and future of work are moving broadly. I also track the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Productivity and Costs report, to understand where workplace productivity is heading. Its an excellent dashboard across key indicators and in recent years can be a strong signal on how technology, automation, and operatingmodel changes are actually changing worker productivity at scale. Alice Mann, Mann Partners 12. PROGRESS Progress against the big rocks we established. Setting broad, strategic yet outcome-based goals align the entire organization and drive results. Michael Tannenbaum, Figure 13. ENGAGEMENT, FRICTION, AND CLIENT IMPACT I think about performance in three pillars: people, process, and product. Some of it is measurable. Some of it you feel. Both matter. On people, I track engagement, retention of top talent, and how often we promote from within. If the bench isn’t deep, nothing scales. On process, I look at friction. How fast do we decide? Is delivery predictable? The best strategy collapses without operational clarity. On product, I focus on client impact, repeat business, and quality. We have a Slack channel devoted to verbatim client praise. Data matters. But when you’re the first call a client makes on their hardest day, that’s the clearest signal of all. Peter Smart, Fantasy 14. THE FUNNEL For Scribbly, my D2C business, I use every tiny tracking pixel in my funnel. I built a custom dashboard for myself and trained an AI agent to analyze the data just the way I want itway better than those messy SaaS analytics dashboards that are impossible to decipher. Lindsey Witmer Collins, WLCM Studio 15. NON-CUMULATIVE DATA Cumulative data is meaningful, but only non-cumulative data holds you accountable. For us, one such metric is how many of the Solvers selected over the past five years are still operational. Were at 96%. That tells me our selection methods and support programs have a real impact, given that industry averages hover around 70-80%. Something else a company can track is instead of asking where are you now? ask how far have you come? That’s harder to quantify than dollars raised or media hits, but it’s the only number that tells me whether we’re doing our job. Revenue, employees, money raisedthose keep the lights on. But the distance traveled keeps us honest about the mission. Hala Hanna, MIT Solve 16. BOOMERANGS AND EMPLOYEE DEPARTURES Weve been focused on people-centric workplace data since we started building a center of gravity for brilliant minds almost three decades ago. We regard the percentage of boomerangs in a company as a leading indicator of having a positive, thriving culture that people value and want to be part of. At the other end of the spectrum, the rate of regrettable departures usually signals when there are culture issues that must be addressed. Leerom Segal, Klick Health 17. ENGAGEMENT QUALITY, AUDIENCE SENTIMENT, AND BRAND LIFT We prioritize engagement quality, audience sentiment, and brand lift because they tie directly to real business outcomes, not vanity metrics. We trademarked true human influence to make influencer marketing more measurable, backing it with proprietary technology and trusted measurement partners to ensure we deliver against brand KPIs. And with AI driving the convergence of creator and affiliate marketing, we can now connect authentic storytelling to commerce at scale. Ben Jeffries, Influencer
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E-Commerce
Gorin explains Expedias three-part AI strategy, from improving travel products to giving employees superpowers.
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E-Commerce
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