Amid polarization, AI disruption, and eroding trust in institutions, retired four-star General Stanley McChrystal argues that what leaders need now more than ever is character. Head of the business consulting firm McChrystal Group, he has written a new book on character, drawing from his decades of experience. From AI ethics and modern warfare to hot-button issues like Signalgate and transgender service in the military, McChrystal explains why character is the foundation of lasting leadership.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
I wanted to ask you about the changes that are afoot in the military and the Department of Defense. Some folks champion the idea of change. Some folks make dire predictions. For you, who have worked with military and military leaders for a long time, what’s your perspective about what’s being attempted?
I would say first, if I go to 30,000 feet and look at it from a big distance, change is needed, change is appropriate. And I think it’s going to mean significant change, adoption of new technologies, changing of force structures, all of those kinds of things. All of that is correct. Even firing generals, if it’s necessary, is a good thingif you are firing generals because they don’t have the skills or they don’t have the right personalities. So all of those things, I completely sign up for, and I wouldn’t recognize a lot of sacred cows that would be exempt from hard scrutiny.
Now, having said that, I am not aligned with where the current secretary of defense, how he defines some of the current issues and the direction. He talks about the warrior ethos. But the reality is, what we are trying to do is get the best military we can, and that’s not necessarily the strict warrior ethos, because soldiers are a little different. Soldiers are disciplined. They follow the rule of law. When you think about warrior, it’s got a little bit of a looser definition or interpretation usually.
So that I think is probably a mistake if you start to say, “You can’t have transgender soldiers.” My response would be: One, there aren’t many. And two, if a transgender soldier is really good, we need them. We don’t have that many extra people that are really good that we can afford [to lose]. So I have a much different definition of what a really effective service member might be. I think I do.
And then I also think that if you are judging military leaders on a political ideology, you’re playing with fire. And here’s why. We’ve had this extraordinary couple of centuries of the U.S. military being pretty apolitical, not always perfectly, but generally very apolitical. And although there’s friction between civilian leadership and uniforms, it’s one of the healthiest relationships that you’ve seen on the globe for 200 years.
Once you start to hire and fire senior leaders based upon their political alignment with any particular ideology, you are going to affect younger military leaders. They are going to shape their behavior. They’re smart people. They’ll look up, and they’ll say, “This is what it takes to succeed in this business,” and they will start to represent that behavior. And a decade from now, or two decades from now, we’ll have a very different kind of military, and we won’t like it. It will not be the apolitical, very professional force that I knew and that I think is largely the case today. So I think it’s understanding the danger of that dynamic that is really critical.
The issues around securitythis Signalgate scandal using publicly available tools to communicateis that really a big deal or is that sensationalized?
One, I do think it’s a big deal. I think using Signal, even though it’s encrypted, it’s not secure. And so you are transmitting future plans on an unsecured device, which is extraordinarily dangerous for the men and women who are going to go execute that operation. So I do think that was a big deal. It was almost a reflection of amateurism.
Now, the other side of it bothers me far more. We had the mistake. It comes out. Everybody knows it’s a mistake. They know that the information is extraordinarily sensitive, and they get up in front of cameras, and they say the information was not classified. Now they know that that’s not true. They know that’s a lie. It is classified, and yet they look at the camera, and they say something that maybe most Americans can’t parse the difference. But anybody who’s involved knows that people whose salaries you and I are paying in positions of great responsibility consciously and intentionally don’t tell the truth to you and I. That’s a big problem, and that’s the far greater issue here. We can minimize the event that occurred as a mistake, but we can’t minimize the lack of integrity.
I’m curious how you look at AI’s potential impact on the military, and how do we know if we’re ahead or behind, especially in that competition with China?
Yeah, we’ve never had anything quite like this. The closest analogy in my mind would be nuclear power, atomic weapons, and we got them first during World War II; we won the race to produce nuclear weapons and then used them first. And when other countries followed us and developed their own nuclear weapons, we got this sort of balance.
The problem with artificial intelligence, and I’ve had the opportunity to do some work and a big war game on it, is that if somebody achieves artificial general intelligence before their competitors, theoretically they could then sprint ahead in a way that their competitors almost couldn’t catch up. And you could have a dominant superiority, and we’re not even a hundred percent sure what AI will do on the battlefield. We know it will make a lot of things simpler, faster, easierlogistics, planning, all those thingswhich will make an army more efficient. But as AI starts to do target discernment, autonomous engagement with weapons systems and robotics, we have an incomplete picture. Ukraine’s like a glimpse of the future. We have an incomplete picture of how dominant that will be.
So I don’t think there’s any time except the pursuit of nuclear weapons where this idea of losing the race could mean losing the war. And when you think of AI, you have to blur the lines we had for many years of military power and separate from diplomatic or commercial power. Those things are now so interwoven, because the ability to leverage AI in production and things like that could give a country a decisive advantage that immediately shows itself in the military sphere.
So I think first, two things have to happen. We need to be pursuing those kinds of regulations and understanding around the world that give us some opportunity to put rules and norms in place for AI. But we’re not close to it. But parallel to that, we need to be at breakneck pace trying to develop AI. And those seem i tension, in contradiction, that here we are trying to develop new nuclear weapons and at the same time, we’re trying to set up rules to limit their use. But if we lose, if we don’t get parity with AI, then we’re going to be in a position that’s extraordinarily dangerous. And that’s, again, not going to be the military; it’s going to be this broader national effort.
And the topic of character that you’re so focused and compelled about. Today that applies to AI, too, and how we talk about it, whether it’s commercial uses or military.
Well, I would argue character becomes more important, because the power of the individual is dramatically more than it was even 200 years ago. When we think of the old saying about Samuel Colt, who created the six gun, we say: “God made man; Sam Colt made them equal”and he leveled the playing field for people who weren’t as big and strong, as they could have an effective weapon.
AI is going to do that and give extraordinary power not just to nation states, but to individuals. And so those people who have that extraordinary power, and almost all of us will have some form of it, have the ability to do great good or great evil. And so character, I think, is going to become more essential than ever.
Dr. Drew Ramsey is a board-certified psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He is a leading voice in nutritional psychiatry and integrative mental health. He is a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the founder of the Brain Food Clinic and Spruce Mental Health. For 20 years, he was an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. His book Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety was an international bestseller, and his work has been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Today show, NPR, and other outlets.
Whats the big idea?
The time to start working on positive mental health outcomes should not be when a mental health crisis begins. In a country that has an epidemic of loneliness and rising depression, anxiety, and suicide rates, our society cant afford to put off healthy brain habits until they are part of a treatment plan. Modern ways of life dont naturally promote a happy, healthy mind, so its important to take initiative and proactively nurture your own brain health every day.
Below, Ramsey shares five key insights from his new book, Healing the Modern Brain: Nine Tenets to Build Mental Fitness and Revitalize Your Mind. Listen to the audio versionread by Ramsey himselfin the Next Big Idea app.
1. Seeing mental health as mental fitness
Mental fitness is the habits, knowledge, and patterns that support overall mental health and sound well-being. Shifting from a mental health stance to one of mental fitness is key to healing the modern brain.
Our mental health epidemic is rife with concerning statistics. The rate of teenage depression has increased from 8% to 20%. There is a rise in suicide and overdose. Sixty-one million Americans are diagnosed with depression and anxiety alone.
Getting into a stance of mental fitness asks us to think about mental health differently. Instead of waiting and hoping to never see someone like mewaiting until you have a mental health crisis to addressmental fitness asks us to be proactive. The human brain requires some basics regarding care and feeding, and the modern world is taking a toll on those things. Being active is great for mental health, but 80% of jobs are now sedentary. Quality sleep is absolutely essential for mental health.
Shifting into a mental fitness stance asks us to be preventive about the tenets of a healthy brain. Mental fitness is different from many other programs and ideas because these tenets are very simple. If you look at heavily evidence-backed, agreed-upon healthy practices, youll find things like spending more time in nature. Grounding is one of the tenets, and, in a stance of mental fitness, you try your best to get more nature in your life, from week to week. Many great studies show that getting into nature, for even a little bit, improves and activates the immune system in wonderful ways. Research confirms that nature shifts our brains and calms us down. Change your stance into one of mental fitness by striving to build brain-healthy habits before problems arise.
2. Upgrades to brain science
The latest science in mental and brain health is really hopeful. One major new concept is neuroplasticity, the idea that the brain grows and repairs itself into adult life. I finished medical school in the year 2000. We didnt know about neuroplasticity, but now it is coming to light that there is a molecule that your genes code for called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), and certain activities and foods help you make more BDNF. Its like a brain growth agent. When our brain weakens or declines, its not necessarily permanent. We can turn on and off genes that promote brain growth and repair. We may not have complete control, but we can do much in our everyday choices to improve brain health.
Inflammation is now understood to be at the heart of some depression and anxiety cases.
Another part of upgrading brain science is thinking about inflammation in relation to the brain. Inflammation is a buzzword in science. It is part of our bodys natural and important protection and alarm systems. It is how we defend ourselves from viruses, bacteria, and all sorts of invaders. Inflammation is now understood to be at the heart of some depression and anxiety cases. Its important to start thinking about modern mental health in modern ways.
The last major upgrade to brain science is about the microbiome. Many people never thought that the organisms living in your colon relate to mental health. As it turns out, the gut is the biggest part of our immune system. Eating more plants and fermented foods shifts your microbiome into a healthier state that regulates inflammation. Never before in my career has there been so much great science to support recommending fermented foods to my patients.
3. The first tenet of mental fitness is self-awareness.
I start the nine tenets with self-awareness. In the book, I tell the story of a woman who started drinking a little more during the pandemic. I worked with her and came to appreciate her self-awareness. She started counting drinks, checking in with me about alcohol, and thinking more about the risks of alcohol in her life. That put her on the path to getting control of her drinking.
Self-awareness allows you to better understand how your activities shape the self. It doesnt have to be therapy. Im a big fan of journaling. By writing down thoughts and feelings, putting labels on what were experiencing, research has shown an associated increase in frontal lobe activity. These parts of our brain are involved in executive functioning, decision-making, and getting stuff done. There is brain health value in taking more time and a little more effort to focus on the self. Getting to know and care for yourself in new and different ways is at the heart of healing the modern brain.
4. Feeding mental health
Mental fitness as a concept really hit home for me through my work in nutritional psychiatry. When I was a young doctor training as a psychiatrist at Columbia, it was striking to me as a farm boy that we didnt talk at all about nutrition. We werent trained or encouraged to ask patients what they were eating, but it seemed like a big opportunity. If you have depression and eat a vegetarian diet versus a keto diet versus a junk food diet, all of those dietary patterns impact treatment and provide different opportunities. The SMILES Trial of 2017 showed that when individuals who were in mental health treatments for depression were counseled on a Mediterranean diet, they saved a lot of money and their depression got a lot better. A third of them went into complete remission from their clinical depression. This study is an example of an augmentation strategy with foods, meaning a Mediterranean diet is added on top of treatment.
There is brain health value in taking more time and a little more effort to focus on the self.
Feeding mental health well is a daily opportunity for everyone, not only patients. It can feel overwhelming. There is a lot of fearmongering and misinformation about nutrition; my work helps you cutthrough the noise to simple things like lentils, pesto, wild salmon, anchovies, and white beans. Those are some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, meaning they have more nutrients per calorie than other foods, and they also have specific nutrients that we know the brain needsan easy place to get started.
5. Boosting mental fitness
In my time with patients during classic 45-minute sessions, I see how important connections are. The recent surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, noted that we have an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in America. We increasingly see people losing friends, and spending less time socializing and less time going out. Young folks, especially, are growing more isolated. This awareness needs to be turned into action.
In my chapter about connection, I share the story of a middle-aged man I worked with who was post-divorce. He was very connected to his kids, so it was hard for him when they left for college. He enjoyed fantasy football, but was struggling to connect with the real-life elements surrounding the sport. Helping him to engage with other fans and attend games in person was a significant part of his healing.
A web of connections is not just friends and loved ones. It is important to map out all our different types of connections. Its not just the ride-or-die folks in your life: connections to institutions, mentors, mentees, or to meaningful places matter too. This process (great journal entry) can help a person feel connected to themselves and see pathways that can expand their life. You could end up going to the farmers market regularly to connect more with the people who grow your food, or attend a town hall meeting to feel part of your community. The best time to start caring for your brain is before something goes wrong.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Lately, Ive felt weighed down by the constant churn of chaos and uncertaintylike Im carrying a low-grade tension in my body that never fully lets up. The news is dizzying. The pace of change is relentless. Some days it feels like were lurching from one crisis to the next with no time to process, no moment to exhale. I find myself waking up already bracing for what the day might bring. Its like the ground is constantly shifting, and were all being asked to find our footing in real time.
And then there are the quieter, internal questions I carry with methe ones that tug at me in the middle of the night or when Im trying to make sense of the day: Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things? What happens nextin my work, my community, this fragile world were raising our kids in? How do I protect what I love in a world that feels so unpredictable?
The truth is, uncertainty makes me anxious. I like a plan. A path. A sense of direction. Ive always found comfort in being the one who has it together, who can anticipate needs, offer advice, solve the problem. I used to believe that being preparedbeing in controlwas the answer. That if I could just think far enough ahead, work hard enough, care enough, I could stay one step ahead of the chaos. But that illusion has cracked open. The world is too complex for neat plans.
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1% more curious
The one (only?) good thing about being addicted to reading the headlines is that I get more exposure to other articles as well. A few weeks ago, I read a beautiful essay by Suleika Jaouad about her cancer diagnosis (gift link here). In it, she explores the evolution of her relationship with fearbeginning with an overwhelming unease around mice and culminating in a deeper confrontation with mortality and uncertainty following her leukemia diagnosis and relapse. But what really struck me was the final line:Thats what I found on the other side of fear: the knowledge that I can handle it, whatever it isas long as Im one percent more curious than afraid.”
Asking better questions
Yes! Yes. Curiosity.
Of course.
One of the first things I learned in coach training is that coaching isnt about having the answers. Its about asking better questions. Its about holding space for exploration instead of rushing to resolution. Its about trusting that people have wisdom inside themnot because you give it to them, but because you help them uncover it.
Needless to say, what we can seamlessly apply in other parts of our lives can be hard to internalize ourselves. We might be masters at holding space for others questions, but when it comes to our own, we often default to urgency, control, and the desperate hunt for answers.
But what I continue to learn and relearn is that certainty is often a false promise. It quiets anxiety in the short term, but it doesnt foster growth. Curiosity does. When I stop demanding answers from the world, I create a little more space to breathe, to move, to imagine.
That shift doesnt come easily. Its much more natural to grip tightly than to open up. But embracing curiosity is a practice, not a personality trait or a fixed mindset. And when I can extend to myself the same spacious, open-ended wondering I offer others, something inside softens. I dont need to have it all figured out. I just need to be willing to stay in the unknown a little longer.
Putting it into practice
Here are a few tangible strategies that help me when I feel myself bracing against the unknown:
Ask better questions
When I catch myself spiraling into fear, I try to interrupt the loop with questions that open space instead of closing it. Instead of, “What if this all goes wrong?,” I ask, “What might I learn from this? or Whats one small thing I can act on today? These questions dont have neat answers, but they remind me that I have agency, even in uncertainty.
Name whats true now
Fear tends to time-travel, pulling us into imagined futures. Curiosity helps bring us back to the present. I try to ask myself, What do I know for sure right now? Whats actually happening, and what am I projecting?
Be curious about your fear itself
Sometimes I sit with my fear and ask it questions: What are you trying to protect? Whats underneath this for you? Usually, I find something tendera deeply held value, a longing, a hope. And suddenly, the fear feels less like a threat and more like a signal.
Present in the mess
None of this removes the chaos or quiets the headlines. It doesnt give me a five-year plan or a tidy sense of control. But it does give me a way to stay present in the mess. A way to keep moving, even when the path ahead isnt clear. Curiosity doesnt promise certaintybut it offers something better: connection. To ourselves. To what matters. To each other.
So, these days, when the ground feels unsteady and I start to brace against the unknown, I tryimperfectly, but intentionallyto choose curiosity over control. To soften instead of grip. To ask, instead of answer. Its not always comfortable, but it helps me stay rooted in whats real and responsive to whats next.
And for now, that feels like a good place to begin.
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Social media was mankind’s first run-in with AI, and we failed that test horribly, according to tech ethicist Tristan Harris, whom The Atlantic called “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience.” A recent survey found nearly half of Gen Z respondents wished social media had never been invented. Yet, 60% still spend at least four hours daily on these platforms.
Bullying, social anxiety, addiction, polarization, and misinformationsocial media has become a cocktail of disturbing discourse. With GenAI, we have a second chance to ensure technology is used responsibly.
But this is proving difficult. Major AI companies are now adopting collaborative approaches to address governance challenges. Recently, OpenAI announced it would implement Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, a standard for connecting AI models to data sources that’s rapidly becoming an industry norm with Google following suit.
With any new technology, there are unexpected benefits and consequences. As Harris put it, “whatever our power is as a species, AI amplifies it to an exponential degree.”
While GenAI helps us accomplish more than ever before, dangers exist. A seemingly safe large language model (LLM) can be manipulated by bad actors to create harmful content or be jailbroken to write malicious code. How do we avoid these harmful use cases while benefiting from this powerful technology? Three approaches are possible, each with its own merits and drawbacks.
3 ways to benefit from AI while avoiding harm
Option #1: Government regulation
The automobile brought both convenience and tragedy. We responded with speed limits, seatbelts, and regulationsa process spanning over a century.
Legislators worldwide are attempting similar safeguards with AI. The European Union leads with its AI Act, which entered into force in August 2024. Implementation is phased, with some provisions active since February 2025, banning systems posing “unacceptable risk” like social scoring and untargeted scraping of facial recognition data.
However, these regulations present challenges. European tech leaders worry that punitive EU measures could trigger backlash from the Trump administration. Meanwhile, U.S. regulation develops as a patchwork of state and federal initiatives, with states like Colorado enacting their own comprehensive AI laws.
The EU AI Act’s implementation timeline illustrates this complexity: Some bans started in February 2025, codes of practice follow nine months after entry into force, rules on general-purpose AI at the 12-month mark, while high-risk systems have 36 months to comply.
A real concern exists: Excessive regulation might simply shift development elsewhere. Building a functional LLM model costs only hundreds of millions of dollarswithin reach for many countries.
While regulation has its place, the process is too flawed for developing good rules currently. AI evolves too quickly, and the industry attracts too much investment. Resulting regulations risk either stifling innovation or lacking meaningful impact.
So, if government regulation isnt the panacea for AIs dangers, what will help?
Option #2: Social discourse
Educators are struggling with GenAI and academic honesty. Some want to block AI entirely, while others see opportunities to empower students who struggle with traditional pedagogy.
Imagine having a perpetually available tutor answering any questionbut one that can also complete your assignments. As Satya Nadella put it recently on the Dwarkesh Podcast, his new workflow is to “think with AI and work with my colleagues.” This collaborative approach to AI usage could be a model for educational settings, where AI serves as a thinking partner rather than a replacement for learning.
In homes, schools, online forums, and government, society must reckon with this technology and decide what’s acceptable. Everyone deserves a voice in these conversations. Unfortunately, internet discussions often devolve into trading sound bites without context or nuance.
For meaningful conversations, we must educate ourselves. We need effective channels for public input, perhaps through grassroots movements guiding people toward safe and effective AI usage.
Option #3: Third-party evaluators
Before the 2008 financial crisis, credit rating agencies assigned AAA ratings to subprime mortgages, contributing to economic disaster. The problem? Industry-wide self-interest.
When it comes to AI regulators, of course, we run the risk of an incestuous revolving door that does more harm than good. That doesnt have to be the case.
Meaningful and thoughtful research is going into AI certifications and third-party evaluators. In the paper AI Certification: Advancing Ethical Practice by Reducing, Peter Cihon et al. propose several notions.
First, because AI technology is advancing so quickly, AI certification should emphasize evergreen principles, such as ethics for AI developers.
Second, AI certification today lacks nuance for particular circumstances, geographies, or industries. Not only is certification homogenous, but many programs treat AI as a monolithic technology rather than acknowledging the diverse types, such as facial recognition, LLMs, and anomaly detection.
Finally, to see good results, customers must demand high-quality certifications. They have to be educated about the technology and the associated ethics and safety concerns.
The path forward
The way forward requires multistakeholder, multifaceted conversations about societal goals and preventing AI dangers. If government becomes the default regulator, we risk an uninvestable marketplace or meaningless rubber-stamping.
Independent third-party evaluators combined with informed social discourse offers the best path forward. But we must educate ourselves about this poweful technology’s dangers and realities, or we’ll repeat social media’s errors on a grander scale.
Peter Wang is chief AI and innovation officer at Anaconda.
Navigating the nexus between design innovation and practical application reveals a stark truth: Constraints, not freedoms, often spur the most creative solutions. Our journey into accessible furniture and product design is less about overcoming limitations and more about embracing the profound potential of human-centric design.
Imagine designers not just as creators but as researchers, delving deep into the daily lives of older individuals and people with disabilities through intensive ethnographic research. This approach involves hundreds of hours spent observing diverse populations in their most familiar environmentstheir homes. Here, every interaction and every struggle vividly illuminates the real needs and opportunities for innovation.
Empathy and Design With
In October 2023, our consumer preference testing for the recent Pottery Barn collection marked a pivotal moment. Picture this: Dozens of users, each facing unique challenges, interacting with our prototypes. We observed intently, listened carefully, and learned from every gesturewhether reaching out, hesitating, or expressing relief. Each moment provided invaluable insights, directly shaping the evolution of our designs, from initial feedback to final concepts.
What does it truly mean to design with someone? Collaboration is key. Its a dynamic interplay of give and take, where users lead with their experiences, and designers follow with their skills. This approach isnt just about making do; its about making things better. By transforming our design process into a dialogue rather than a monologue, we ensure our creations are not just useful, but transformative. We call this approach Design With, which means were designing with our target consumers.
Empathy isnt just a buzzword; its our blueprint. Inspired by the real challenges faced by our late founder, Michael Graves, and the broader community, we have embraced immersive empathyspending days in wheelchairs and navigating with canes for extended periodsnot just to imagine but to truly understand the barriers our users face. During the past 20 years, weve also faced our own disabilities, temporary and permanent, which have brought the issues to our own lives. This isn’t about sympathy; it’s about strategy. By actively putting ourselves in the shoes of those we design with, we transform empathy into action. Our commitment to Design With rather than Design For not only meets but anticipates users needs, creating solutions that are as innovative as they are inclusive.
Each solution should mirror human complexity
The future of accessible design is inspiring, and we look forward with purposeinviting designers, brands, and companies to join us. With each project, we edge closer to breaking down barriers, not just in physical spaces, but in perceptions. Our goal is to always craft designs that go beyond accommodation. We strive for solutions that are anticipatory, functional, and beautifulcelebrating the diversity of ability and preference.
In accessible design, the true challenge isnt simply balancing creativity with practicality. Its ensuring every solution reflects the complexity of real human lives. Thats why, for decades, weve grounded our work in ethnographic research and consumer preference testing: spending time in peoples homes, observing daily routines, and turning feedback into meaningful, inclusive products. This isnt theoryits design shaped by lived experience.
Weve seen firsthand how listening deeply and designing with, not for, leads to better outcomes for everyone. The opportunity now is for more designers, brands, and businesses to take part. Ask deeper questions. Watch how people really live. Invite feedback early and often. The more of us who commit to designing with empathy and real-world insight, the more inclusiveand innovativeour shared future will be.
Ben Wintner is CEO of Michael Graves Design.
Ask almost any pediatrician or child expert, and they will tell you: Good nutrition is the foundation for healthy development, especially during the first 1,000 days of a childs life. When children are well-nourished, they are better able to grow, learn, and engage with their communities, and to be resilient in the face of illness.
Undernutrition is linked to nearly half of all deaths in children under five. Today, an estimated 148 million young children are affected by stuntingbeing too short for their age as a result of chronic undernutrition, often starting in the womb. Stunting isnt just about height; it reflects lasting setbacks in brain development, immune strength, and overall healthconsequences that can limit a childs potential for life. Another 45 million children suffer from wasting, a life-threatening condition where they are dangerously thin for their height. There is enough food in the world to feed all children everywhere, and yet, we are still not on track to achieve global nutrition targets by 2030.
We are facing a pivotal moment for the worlds children. Poverty, climate change, and humanitarian crises pose critical challenges to feeding children sustainably. The sheer magnitude of the obstacles can seem overwhelming, but there is incredible news: The child nutrition crisis is completely solvable, if we come together to scale up sustainable solutions.
A core part of UNICEFs work is preventing malnutrition by improving childrens and womens access to nutritious, safe, affordable, and sustainable diets. We know what to do, but we need financing, at the right time, directed at the right places.
A solution aimed at ending child undernutrition
The Child Nutrition Fund (CNF), led by UNICEF, is changing how we tackle child undernutritionby making funding smarter, more coordinated, and built to scale. The CNF unlocks government investment by pooling global resources and expanding access to proven solutions. The ambition is bold: Reach 320 million women and children every year by 2030. To make that happen, the CNF is working to mobilize $2 billion over the next five yearsinviting partners to help drive lasting, system-level change for the worlds most vulnerable children.
The CNF is a massive undertaking that has the potential to change the lives of millions of children and women. With reductions in foreign aid putting more children at risk than ever, innovative partnershipslike the one driving the CNFare even more urgent.
A partnership effort to realize impact
Achieving goals at this scale means involving some of the worlds most influential people and organizations. The support of founding partners such as the Gates Foundation, the Childrens Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FDCO) of the UK government has been critical. For example, the Gates Foundations initial $70 million contribution supported CNFs development and launch, opened conversations for initial deals on scaling up maternal nutrition services,and helped local therapeutic food manufacturers expand production to meet unprecedented demand. Likewise, the respective $79 million and 21 million investments from the CIFF and FDCO to date demonstrate the catalytic nature of the fund and the necessity of partnership to meet its goals.
Momentum for the CNF continued at the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in Paris in March, where Kirk Humanitarian committed the first pledge of$125 millionto accelerate adoption of prenatal supplements in high burden countries that have demonstrated readiness and political commitment for long-term, sustainable scale up. Kirk Humanitarian has already deployed over $34 million for 16 million bottles of prenatal supplements to the CNF in support of UNICEFs Improving Maternal Nutrition Acceleration Plan. At the same time, the Gates Foundation announced an additional $50 million commitment to the CNF to continue and expand on its work through 2028.
Also at the N4G, Jackie and Mike Bezos committed up to $500 million to the CNF in a landmark effort to end child undernutrition. This historic investment is poised to save millions of livesnot just today, but for generations to come. The matching component of their commitment is intended to inspire others to step up and multiply the impact.
The Womens Tennis Association Foundation has also joined the effort, supporting the CNF through UNICEFs Improving Maternal Nutrition Acceleration Plan to prevent anemia and malnutrition in pregnant women.
These partnerships support the CNFs ability to build robust and sustainable systems and strong infrastructure to create a future where no child suffers from undernutrition.
Promising early results show that it is possible to end undernutrition
These investments are already delivering results. In Pakistan, UNICEF, backed by the CNF, launched a program to bring essential nutrition and health services to the countrys most vulnerable communities.Through the CNF Match Windowwhich enables governments to double their investments in essential nutrition suppliesmore than 150,000 women received nutritional supplements leading to healthier pregnancies and stronger birth outcomes. The results were so compelling that Pakistans Ministry of Health partnered with UNICEF to scale up the program to reach 2 million women.
Weve known for a long time the devastating toll malnutrition has on a childs ability to live a healthy, full life. But with the CNF, what once felt insurmountable now has a clear path forward. By reimagining how we finance solutionsblending public and private investment, sustaining long-term support, and incentivizing government actionwere not just responding to a crisis, were building a system designed to end it. The tools are in place. The momentum is real. And now, theres an opportunity for bold partners to come together and change the future. With the right investments, we will end child undernutritionfor good.
Michele Walsh is executive vice president and chief philanthropy officer of UNICEF USA.
The 2025 WNBA season is upon us, and its already making waves. From Caitlin Clark draining logo threes to Paige Bueckers debuting for the Dallas Wings, and the Golden State Valkyries hitting the court for the first time, pre-season coverage has been electric. For those of us whove spent years advocating for womens sports, the buzz surrounding this season isnt just exciting, its a powerful reflection of the leagues progress and promise.
Rising viewership. New sponsorships. Sold-out arenas. Long-overdue increases in minimum salaries making their way into collective bargaining agreements. These are signs that the tide is turning. But lets not mistake momentum for a final destination. The truth is, were still playing catch-up inside systems that were never built with equity in mind.
Earlier this year, I sat on a panel during NBA All-Star Weekend titled, Its Not Womens Sports, Its Sports, Stupid. I loved the sentiment of this framing. If youre into professional sports, it doesn’t matter whether you’re watching men or women playthe competition has the same power to captivate and inspire. It’s why some of us dare to dream of a future where the label “women’s sports” is no longer needed. But while we may aspire to treat all sports equally, pretending the playing field is already level overlooks decades of systemic inequity built into the longer-running, more prominent sports structures.
Build equity into the foundation
Take the WNBA. While the league continues to break new ground, it operates within a framework borrowed from a time before it existed. Revenue sharing, salary caps, travel accommodations, facilities, and even All-Star Game bonusesnone were designed with parity in mind. Even the most groundbreaking updates to collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) represent incremental fixes within outdated architecture.
A stark example: The NBAs salary cap is orders of magnitude higher than the WNBAs, despite surging fan engagement with the womens game. These legacy constraints hamper growth, no matter how bold the vision.
But what if it didnt have to be this way?
At Parity, we work with a community of 1,100+ professional women athletes across 85 sports, from alpine skiing to American football, wheelchair basketball to windsurfing. From our broad vantage point we see what happens when emerging sports properties reimagine structures, athlete resources, and rewards to build equity into the foundation from day one.
Consider Grand Slam Track. Born from the minds of Olympians, it offers equal prize money and visibility for men and women in every meet. Or CrossFit Games, which has featured equal prize money since its earliest days. Premier Rugby Sevens goes even further, with mens and womens teams competing for the same club, their scores aggregated to decide the championship, and all athletes paid equally. Then theres TST (The Soccer Tournament), where both mens and womens brackets offer a $1 million winner-take-all prize. When the womens tournament launched, organizers didnt scale the prize downthey matched it.
These arent just feel-good stories. Theyre working models.
Transparency as a baseline
Many up-and-coming leagues didnt inherit inequity; they sidestepped it. They launched with transparent pay, athlete revenue shares, integrated maternity leave policies, and athlete ownership stakes. Sponsorship and content rights are structured to empower players, not just teams. Media distribution is increasingly direct-to-consumer, giving fans deeper access and athletes greater control.
And guess what? Brands are noticing. These properties are fast becoming hidden gems of sports marketing, attracting culturally relevant sponsors and a younger, values-driven fan base hungry for authenticity.
Now imagine if all sports leagues had started this way.
Picture revenue-sharing models that prioritize athletes. Governance that centers the athlete voice. Pay transparency as a baseline. Media rights split equitably. Built-in support for mental health, parenting, and career transition. Fan experiences designed for an inclusive, digitally native audience. This isnt wishful thinking. Its a blueprint for sustainable growth.
The opportunity is clear
For brands and media companies, the opportunity is clear. The next generation of sports fans is demanding more than entertainment. They want alignment with their values. They want to invest in systems that elevate, not exclude. The organizations that recognize this shift and act now will be the ones who define the future of sports marketing.
Of course, we should celebrate the WNBA and NWSL for pushing forward. Their recent CBAs matter. And yes, tennis has made strides too, with equal prize money at Grand Slams, even as disparities persist in smaller tournaments. But we cant limit our ambitions to what can be retrofitted into the past.
The real question is: What could we create if we built it right from the start?
Lets stop thinking about womens sports as the undercard. Lets stop asking athletes to work twice as hard for half as much. Instead, lets imagineand builda future where equity isnt an afterthought. Its the foundation.
To the investors, brands, and media companies: The future of sports wont wait. The blueprint is here. The audience is ready. The question is, are you bold enough to build it?
Leela Srinivasan is CEO of Parity.
Since its last major redesign in 2022, Airbnb has been all about the destination: staying in homes so unique or glamorousfrom McMansions with amazing pools to surrealist homes in a shoethat they might be worth a trip unto itself.
But starting today, Airbnb is expanding its purview beyond homes . . . again. Its launching a new product called Airbnb Services, and redoubling on Airbnb Experiences (first launched in 2016).
[Photo: Damien Maloney/courtesy Airbnb]
What is Airbnb Services?
Services considers everything that you might want to accompany that home youre renting. Photography. A manicure. A massage or spa treatment. A personal trainer. A private chef or fully catered experience. Its basically everything you could imagine around a wedding, weekend get-together with friends, or even a corporate retreat.
Meanwhile, Experiences falls under the greater umbrella of stuff for tourists. These outings hosted by locals include walking tours of local landmarks, cooking classes, and shopping experiences. (They can also include something Airbnb is dubbing Airbnb Originals, which are higher-profile events like getting glammed up with Sabrina Carpenter for a day.)
[Photo: Karla Ximena Ceron/courtesy Airbnb]
Redesigning an app to do more stuff
To offer these new features, Services and Experiences will both get their own tab right on top of the app, alongside Homes. For anyone who has booked a home on Airbnb, the biggest update will be a complete trip timeline that includes both your rental and anything else youve signed up to do. (Airbnb also intends to sell you on services and experiences after youve booked a place to stay.)
Summarized, these updates might seem pretty smalland in line with Airbnbs own experimentation for the past decade. The company has hit a mature era of its business, growing 6% year over year. Rental prices have been flat for Airbnb recently, but a bright spot pushing those earnings has been Experiences.
By pushing Experiences to a more front-and-center position in the app, and accompanying them with Services, Airbnb is pushing the pedal down on all the stuff they can make money on thats not housing. And in doing so, it becomes as much an event planner as a vacation tool, arguably capable of upping what it can charge by tenfold.
Consider that the average vacation costs Americans about $2,800, but the average wedding costs Americans $33,000. Before this update, it would have been inconceivable to book a wedding (complete with hair, food, and entertainment) on Airbnb. After this update, it seems downright simple.
Time will tell how deeply Airbnb can seep into our major events and, in turn, the deepest crevices of our wallets. But with a few tweaks to its existing formula, Airbnb is banking on being a lot more than another vacation app.
Everyone has their individual bad memories of the pandemic, but one collective nightmare of the early days of that miserable period is the struggle to find toilet paper at your local store. Now, tariffs are bringing concerns about a toilet paper shortage back to the forefront.
Suzano SA is the world’s largest exporter of pulp, the raw material used for making products like toilet paper. And the company tells Bloomberg it has seen shipments decline from Brazil to the U.S. due to tariffs, and worries that the shipping disruptions could get worse.
It is, to be clear, much too early to know what the impact of pulp shipping disruptions will be. The company said shipments were down 20% in April and that stores, at present, are well stocked.
But tariffs could result in higher prices for consumers, which could lead to a rush by some people to stock up. A similar scenario happened last October when a strike by dockworkers on the East Coast sent shoppers flocking to stores, emptying shelves of necessities, including toilet paper.
Toilet paper and paper towels are largely produced in the U.S. (just 10% of the countrys toilet paper is imported). But the pulp used to make them is imported from countries like Brazil and Canada (which sends northern bleached softwood kraft pulp our way).
It doesn’t take an actual shortage to empty store shelves. Just growing talk of one can cause short-term disruptions to the supply chain. Put another way: Theres a snowball effect. If a small number of people panic-shop, that drives others to do so as well. So if shoppers notice there is less toilet paper on the shelves than usual, they’re more likely to stock up just in case, due to recent talk of empty ports and looming product shortages.
Suzano is still shipping products to the U.S.but not only is it shipping less; it’s charging more. The company says it is passing on the cost of tariffs to U.S. buyers, which could be part of the reason for the smaller orders.
“Since customers are still struggling to forecast how tariffs can affect their production plants, either directly or indirectly, both pulp buyers and sellers are on a price discovery mode as we speak,” Leo Grimaldi, executive vice president at Suzano, said on a recent call with analysts. “There is not clarity yet of what is this price point needed for a full establishment of market confidence and dynamics.”
Like the dockworkers’ strike last year, the trade war was something that was clearly telegraphed by the White House. That gave manufacturers like Kimberly-Clark and Georgia-Pacific time to stockpile pulp in order to keep retail prices level. Should a herd mentality lead to product shortages, however, that could lead to store managers putting buying limits on popular items. (The danger is that by limiting what you can buy, it could drive people who were not planning on buying any to join in on the hoarding.)
Americans certainly love their toilet paper (which is somewhat ironic, as it didn’t become a household staple until the 1940s). At the start of the pandemic, when panic-buying was in full effect, Americans spent $1.4 billion on toilet paper over a four-week period in March and April of 2020, according to retail sales tracker IRI. That was a 102% increase from the same period a year before, which led to a widespread toilet paper shortage.
We’re not alone. After the pandemic got underway, armed robbers in Hong Kong held up a supermarket. They weren’t interested in the cash registers. They did, however, take 600 rolls of toilet paper.
On Tuesday, Microsoft said it is cutting less than 3% of its global workforce, including LinkedIn. The company which an estimated 228,000 employees as of last June, meaning the layoffs will affect approximately 6,000 employees. The tech giant, which makes popular software products Windows and Word, will make cuts across various locations, teams, and roles.
We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace, a Microsoft spokesperson told Fast Company.
The news comes less than two weeks after the Redmond, Washington-based company beat first quarter earnings expectations, driven by its Azure cloud business. It also issued strong guidance going forward, despite President’s Trump’s tariffs and overall economic uncertainty. Microsoft also said it invested heavily in AI infrastructure during the first quarter of 2025.
Microsoft said that it regularly adjusts its workforce to meet the strategic demands of the business, and that by reducing layers with fewer managers, the company hopes to increase agility and enhance efficiency by minimizing redundancy and streamlining processes, procedures, and roles. It also said the cuts will let employees spend more time leveraging new technologies and capabilities.
On Tuesday, a number of LinkedIn employees posted about the reported layoffs on LinkedIn. The layoffs would be the largest at the company since 2023, when Microsoft eliminated 10,000 jobs, and follows a small round of performance-based layoffs at the beginning of 2025. However, a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC the upcoming layoffs are not performance based.
CEO Satya Nadella previously said Microsoft planned to spend $80 billion on data centers for artificial intelligence workloads in 2025, which could be even more costly with tariffs.
Microsoft isn’t the only tech company to make cuts since the beginning of this year. A number of high-profile technology giants have been trimming their ranks, including Amazon, Meta, and Salesforce. Facebook parent company Meta Platforms cut about 5% of its workforceroughly 3,600 employeesin February, and Amazon announced it was laying off dozens at the end of January.
