On August 18th, Zaria Parvez announced she was leaving Duolingo after five years, eight billion impressions, and more viral moments with a giant Owl than we can count. So it was pretty big marketing industry news when a few days later it was reported that she would soon be the new director of social at DoorDash.
Parvez told AdAge, Its not just a one-person showits a full content house dedicated to making social content. I consider myself a builder, and I think the DoorDash accounts just have a lot of space to build and grow. Its kind of like a blank canvas of this established brand thats done really cool things outside of social, and now its like, how do we bring that energy to social?”
The move to hire Parvez is a statement of intent for DoorDash, which grew revenue by 25% in Q2 2025 to $3.3 billion, and orders by 20% to 761 million. It has thrived in traditional advertising like its award-winning Super Bowl work in 2024. Chief marketing officer Kofi Amoo-Gottfried says this latest move is a continuation of how the brand has been investing in its social work over the past year.
Up until about a year ago, this was an area I would say we were under-invested in, says Amoo-Gottfried. Part of that was the nature of the companys businessthere was the brand building work, like the Super Bowl ad, and then a lot of performance marketing to drive immediate results for the business. But there was something missing.
Joining the conversation
DoorDash processes about eight million orders every day. Its name has almost become a verb. Last year, we started to build out a team to really say, hey, we think this is an area of incredible opportunity for us, because of how much conversation is already happening on the open web around our product, he says. Millions of people are having a DoorDash experience every day, and they’re interested in sharing those stories, good or bad. There’s this conversation happening (online), whether we’re part of it or not. So last year, we started to say, let’s get into those conversations.
We teachers. This back-to-school season, were giving 50 teachers $500 DoorDash credits to get all of the school supplies and essentials they need for the year. Tell us about a teacher who deserves this with #sweepstakes and #doordash.No purchase necessary. 50 US/DC,— DoorDash (@DoorDash) August 4, 2025
The results were encouraging. In early August, the brand asked people to nominate teachers to get $500 DoorDash credits for school supplies and essentials. That’s a way to tell you that we do back-to-school, but then created this incredible groundswell of conversation around amazing teachers, and then us being able to show up and be part of that and generate that, he says. So we’re doing a lot in this vein of finding these interesting, real stories that are happening already, and figuring out how we can participate.
@doordash Self-care never looked so good Only on Wednesday, 7/23! Treat yourself and get $50 off your $100+ @sephora order. Check our feed on Wednesday for the offer promo code. Redemption limits and terms apply. Offer exclusive to DashPass members only. Use #SummerofDashPass and share what items you’re planning to stock up on in the comments. #BeautyTok original sound – DoorDash
Still, Amoo-Gottfried says there are opportunities for organic social to really drive the business. He says there are two modes the team will operate on. The first is evergreen, brand building engagement with a focus on earned media. The second is utilizing promotions and moments to drive sales.
When the brand announced a Sephora discount for Dash Pass holders in July, for example, it took off with almost three million views on TikTok.
What happened with that was completely insane, we had something like 800 beauty creators that we hadn’t paid that were all taking this and running with it, says Amoo-Gottfried. In these campaign moments, this team can have a direct commercial impact. We saw it that day, with record-breaking sales, and a lot of that was driven by the social and influencer team.
Hiring Parvez is just the next step. We think the world of her, says Amoo-Gottfried. I think she’s terrific.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was the recipient of some very bad vibes last week after bragging on X that nearly half his exchanges code is already AI-generated, with plans to push it higher. The post unleashed a torrent of ridicule, and seemed to crystalize the skepticism over the reliability of vibe coding tools that’s been bubbling for months.
Over the last couple of years, AI coding tools like Claude Code (Anthropic), Codex (OpenAI), Cursor, Lovable, and Replit have reached far beyond auto-completing lines of code; they can generate entire apps and features from a plain-language prompt, even for users with little or no coding experience. But even as enterprise execs hope the tools will speed up their software production, many in the development community are finding that while vibe coding may be great for slapping together demos, its not so great for building secure, reliable, and explainable software. And the problems created by AI-generated code may only surface long after the software has shipped.
Code created by AI coding agents can become development hell, says Jack Zante Hays, a senior software engineer at PayPal who works on AI software development tools. He notes that while the tools can quickly spin up new features, they often generate technical debt, introducing bugs and maintenance burdens that must eventually be paid down with developer time and effort. That trade-off has some engineers questioning whether vibe coding tools ultimately cost more time than they save.
Vibe coding tools are great for creating software demos, most would agree. Theres real value in a tool that allows a nontechnical product manager to whip together the front end and some features of an app, take it to a software team and say See? This is what I want. The problems start when AI coding tools are used to code new apps, features, or functions that will eventually have to interact with all the other software in a codebase, including databases, security tools, authentication services, external APIs, and infrastructure.
Managing all those connections is tricky. According to Hays, vibe coding tools hit a complexity ceiling once a codebase grows beyond a certain size. Small code bases might be fine up until they get to a certain size, and thats typically when AI tools start to break more than they solve, he says.
And the problem only gets worse with inexperienced users. Vibe codingespecially from nonexperienced users who can only give the AI feature demandscan involve changing like 60 things at oncewithout testing, so 10 things can be broken at once. Unlike a human engineer, who methodically tests each addition, vibe-coded software often struggles to adapt once its live, particularly when confronted with real-world edge cases.
Some argue the problem with vibe coding apps is more fundamental. To generate safe and reliable code, an AI agent needs a broad understanding of the entire codebase. The behavior of a single feature often depends on the state or actions of many other components. That kind of integration requires reasoning, and a growing body of research questions whether large language models can truly reason rather than simply memorize and reapply contextual patterns.
Developers themselves have real doubts about vibe coding tools. Stack Overflows most recent survey found that while more than half of professional developers now use AI coding tools daily, 46% distrust their accuracy compared with 33% who trust them. Positive sentiment also fell, dropping from 70% in 2024 to 60% in 2025. Only 30% of working developers said the tools are good or great at handling complex coding tasks.
Accidents will happen
Stories of the unintended consequences of vibe coding are starting to surface, even if many incidents likely go unreported.
In July, the Tea appwhich lets women share information about men theyve datedreported a major data breach that some observers believe was tied to AI coding agents. The app left an unsecured cloud database containing 72,000 sensitive images, including selfies and photo IDs, as well as pictures from posts and messages. Hackers accessed the trove and users shared the data on 4chan before it spread more widely across the internet. A second exposure reportedly compromised even more user data, prompting Tea to disable its direct messaging feature.
Will Wilson of the AI software testing firm Antithesis says the flaws in Teas code were likely AI-generated. The fact pattern fits so well with a thousand other instances of this happening with vibe coding, he says. Antithesiss platform stress-tests software within a simulated environment.
Another episode came in August, when an AI agent from Replit deleted an entire database of executive contacts while working on a web app for SaaS investor Jason Lemkin. After nine days of building the front end with Replits chat agent, Lemkin told it to freeze the code. When he returned, the database had been erased. Replit was able to recover the records, but the mishap underscored the risk that vibe coders may overestimate what these tools can reliably do.
Replit CEO Amjad Masad stresses tht AI coding agents are meant to handle syntax so developers can focus on higher-level work. But, he says, users must still think like developers. I think we need to be clear that it is not magic, that you need to learn the tools, he says. You shouldn’t just ask the agent for everything; you need to be resourceful.
Lovable CEO and cofounder Anton Osika echoes that point. Obviously, the requirements are different for nontechnical users building personal apps compared to our enterprise users, he says. But its generally understood that all code should be reviewed before it is published, whether it is AI or human-generated.
Toxic Waste and Evil Genies
Antithesiss Will Wilson has seen a lot of different kinds of software bugs over the years, many of them created by human coders. The kinds of bugs AI coding tools create arent exactly novel; but they can happen faster and in greater numbers. I would say it’s definitely been a very big tailwind for our business because there are a lot of people now who come in the door and say this AI thing is happening I can’t really control what my developers are doing and they view us as a safety net that can catch the worst stuff that the AI might sneak past manual code review, Wilson says.
Wilson puts the AI-generated bugs into two categories: toxic waste and evil genies.
Long after the vibe coding is done, when software developers have to come back and repair or modify the code, they might run into the toxic waste problem. While AI coding tools create lots of code based on natural language input, they’re not good at explaining the why and how of the code in natural language. “I now need to come and try to understand that code from scratch, Wilson says. And that may take me longer than it would have taken just to write the code in the first place.
Vibe coding tools sometimes behave like an evil genie that interprets wishes in only the most literal way. Say a man asks a genie for eternal life: an evil genie might grant the wish, but also cause the man to live forever as an old person, because the man didnt specify that hed like to be young for eternity. A vibe coding tool might interpret a prompt (the wish) similarly.
The [tool] may find a way to interpret what you’re asking for in sort of the most hostile worst way because you didn’t give a complete specification of what it was that you wanted, Wilson says. And coders often fail to explicitly communicate things like business requirements or security standards, whether in their own code or in the prompts they give to AI coding agents.
Measuring improvement, or not
Of course the AI companies are constantly improving the large language models that are the brains of the AI coding agents. Some are working to build in testing and security guardrails, so human developers dont have to fix their unintended consequences later on.
A lot of these criticisms refer to problems with AI coding tools of the past few years, which I cant always trust around my code, says PayPals Hays. But I have to say, Claude Code lately has been gaining my trust more and more as its usually able to surgically fix only the code I direct it to without invasively touching code thats outside of the scope of my request.”
Theres evidence these tools have gotten smarter. Stanfords latest AI Index Report says AI systems in 2024 solved 71.7% of tasks on SWEBench, a benchmark for real-world software engineering. In 2023, LLMs solved just 4.4%. But benchmarks are only as good as their reflection of real-world coding problems. Some critics argue SWEBench is too easy, requiring relatively simple bug fixes. Others worry the questions, drawn from open-source repositories, may already appear in training data. And because SWEBench focuses only on Pythonthe dominant AI languageit doesnt test challenges in front-end or infrastructure code.
Boris Cherny, the Anthropic engineer who created Claude Code, said on a recent podcast: It’s just so hard to build evals. By far the biggest signal is just the vibes. Like, does it feel smarter?”
Beyond vibes, companies and investors are looking for proof that these tools can deliver real productivity gains. AI coding agents are being billed as one of the first applications of large language models to have a measurable payoff in productivity gains.
The vibe coding startups often talk about how their tools make it possible for anyone to build apps, not just pro developers. Its a powerful pitch. X is awash with stories from non-coders about magically building a new app in a weekend. And private equity has responded.
Lovable, for example, is reportedly entertaining new offers at a $4 billion valuationmore than double its last. Anysphere, maker of the Cursor coding tool, has been doubling its valuation every eight weeks since August 2024, according to PitchBook. Anthropic just raised another $13 billion, bringing its valuation to $183 billion.
Those sky-high valuations arent driven only by hobbyists. They rest on the belief that vibe coding tools will become the default workflow for developers inside large companies, where executives hope the technology will dramatically boost speed, efficiency, and output. For now, that optimism runs strong at the leadership level, and vibe coding startups are racing to capture a share of the lucrative enterprise market for AI coding agents.
As products evolve, some may lean harder on the vibe coding angle, broadening to cover more of the software build. But the eventual winners will likely be those that deepen their tools with stronger context awareness, reliability testing, and security guardrails.
This month, thousands of global leaders, changemakers, and corporate citizens gather in New York City for the 2025 United Nations General Assembly. Beyond the official sessions for this event, another kind of convening will unfoldone thats less formal, but no less powerful.
For those of us working in corporate social responsibility (CSR), this week offers a rare opportunity: a convergence of peers, partners, and potential collaborators all in one place. The networking corridors, side events, and shared coffees become fertile ground for forging new alliancesones that can scale impact far beyond what any single company could achieve alone.
It often strikes me that my role in corporate social responsibility might sit in the least competitive corner of the business world. With companies trying to outpace one another, corporate social responsibility offers an opportunity for a different formula: The more we align, the more lives we reach.
Public-private partnerships
While every company has its own limits with philanthropic budgets, we can make those dollars stretch further through private-private partnershipsalliances where 1 + 1 equals 3. These partnerships allow companies to pool resources, expertise, and infrastructure in pursuit of shared values and social impact goals.
Take, for example, a 2023 collaboration between Kelloggs and the Albertsons Companies Foundation to support Feeding America through the Feed the Love campaign. Kelloggs provided a grant to the Foundations Nourishing Neighbors initiative, helping provide over 300,000 meals. Albertsons promoted the effort across its grocery network, engaging consumers in the shared mission. This alignment showcases how leading brands in food manufacturing and retail can unite resources, amplify reach, and drive progress toward hunger relief.
In early 2025, after wildfires scorched parts of Southern California, PepsiCo stepped up to supply food and beverages to affected families. Their strength was inventorybut distribution was the hurdle. By teaming with Amazon, PepsiCos Food for Good program accelerated relief delivery, turning shared logistics into life-saving outreach.
NBCUniversal has cultivated extended partnerships that amplify nonprofit storytelling and nurture future creative talent. Our Creative Impact Lab not only supports nonprofit marketing but also provides career-building experiences for emerging creatives.
Recently, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth (the Center) joined forces with NBCUs Lab to elevate the work of its grantee, Community Reinvestment Fund (CRF), a Chicago-based nonprofit that finances small businesses. The Center funded Free Spirit Media to create marketing assets, with NBCUniversal employees mentoring the young creators. The resulting PSA now airs in donated media time on Comcast and NBCUniversal platforms, giving CRF national visibility.
Similarly, The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) collaborated with NBCU to spotlight Wide Angle Youth Media (WAYM), a Baltimore nonprofit focused on media arts education. Through this partnership, WAYMs young creatives told their storybacked by funding, mentoring, and national airtime.
In both projects, the benefits were mutual: funding and a selection of deserving grantee organizations from ELC and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, free airtime, and mentorship from NBCUniversal. Plus there were invaluable opportunities for rising creatives. These efforts created awareness for the nonprofits, while supporting the next generation of creative talent.
Shared values
And heres the key: None of this could happen without shared values. It requires corporations willing to break silos, share missions, and treat CSR not as a checkbox, but a creative, collective force for good.
Looking ahead, I envision a CSR landscape where such partnerships are more routine. And, where industries of all stripes join forces to uplift the nonprofits working tirelessly to improve our communities. All it takes is cross-sector imagination and a commitment to thinking beyond turf.
Hilary Smith is EVP of corporate social responsibility at NBCUniversal.
Late last month, shares in EchoStar Corporation (Nasdaq: SATS) entered the stratosphere. The stock jumped as much as 80% in premarket trading on August 26 after it was announced that the company would sell some of its wireless spectrum licenses to AT&T for $23 billion.
Now, EchoStar shares are up again in premarket trading. But this time its not thanks to its AT&T deal. It’s because the company has reached a deal with Elon Musks SpaceX. Heres what you need to know about why EchoStars shares are soaring again.
Whats happened?
Today, EchoStar announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with SpaceX to sell its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses to Elon Musks company for approximately $17 billion.
Spectrum licenses are government-granted licenses that give companies the right to operate their services on specific radio waves. If a company owns such licenses, it can often sell those licenses to other companies, as is the case in what EchoStar has previously announced it will do with AT&T.
What does EchoStar get out of the deal?
As with its previous spectrum license deal with AT&T, EchoStars spectrum license deal with SpaceX will primarily see the company getting boatloads of cash.
SpaceX is offering EchoStar a total compensation of $17 billion for its spectrum licenses. Of that, $8.5 billion will be in cash and another $8.5 billion will be in SpaceX shares, which are currently only available privately.
But EchoStar isnt just getting cash and SpaceX stock. The definitive agreement will also see SpaceX fund around $2 billion in cash interest payments to EchoStar.
The two companies will also enter into a commercial agreement that will allow EchoStars Boost Mobile subscribers to access SpaceXs Starlink Direct to Cell service. EchoStar is the parent company of Boost Mobile, as well as Sling TV and the Dish Network satellite TV service.
What does SpaceX get out of the deal?
As for SpaceX, the companys president and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, says the deal will allow it to advance our mission to end mobile dead zones around the world. The deal will help do this by giving SpaceXs Starlink Direct to Cell satellites more spectrum to run on.
In this next chapter, with exclusive spectrum, Shotwell said, SpaceX will develop next generation Starlink Direct to Cell satellites, which will have a step change in performance and enable us to enhance coverage for customers wherever they are in the world.”
EchoStar/SpaceX deal also helps resolve FCC concerns
The deal also has one other benefit for EchoStarits another step in helping the company resolve concerns by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over its wireless spectrum licenses.
Notably, SpaceX has long argued that EchoStar’s spectrum was being underutilized. Earlier this year, the FCC opened an investigation into the matter.
EchoStar anticipates this transaction with SpaceX along with the previously announced spectrum sale will resolve the Federal Communications Commission’s inquiries, EchoStar said in a statement.
How has EchoStars stock price reacted?
Shares in EchoStar are soaring once again in the hours after the deal was announced.
As of the time of this writing, SATS shares are currently up 23% in premarket trading to $82.75. That is an all-time high for the company, which, before todays surge, was worth about $20 billion.
Before todays stock price jump, SATS had already had a great 2025, largely thanks to the August AT&T announcement.
As of market close yesterday, SATS shares were up 193% year to date. Over the past 12 months, SATS shares were up 201%.
Wall Street pointed higher in early trading Monday ahead of two government inflation reports this week that could impact the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision.Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each rose 0.2% before the bell. Nasdaq futures gained 0.4%.The Fed hasn’t touched its benchmark borrowing rate in 2025, in part due to healthy unemployment levels and inflation that remains above its 2% target. Uncertainty over the impact President Donald Trump’s tariffswhich most economists say trigger price increaseshave bolstered the Fed’s position so far this year, despite Trump’s calls for a rate cut.However, recent data have shown a deteriorating labor market and many expect the U.S. central bank to issue a quarter-point cut when it meets next week. Such cuts can give the economy and job market a boost, though they can also accelerate inflation.That makes tricky work for Fed officials, whose dual mandate is to keep the labor market churning out jobs while making sure prices stay in check.The Labor Department issues its producer prices report on Wednesday, followed by its consumer prices report Thursday. The Fed meets on September 16 and 17, when it is expected to announce a rate cut.In equities trading Monday, EchoStar jumped nearly 24% before the bell on news that it had reached a deal to sell $17 billion worth of spectrum licenses to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.SpaceX and EchoStar will enter into a long-term commercial agreement which will allow EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers to access SpaceX’s next generation Starlink Direct to Cell service.Late last month, EchoStar shares soared more than 70% in a single day after AT&T said that it would spend $23 billion to acquire wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar.Also early Monday, AppLovin and Robinhood each soared around 9% after S&P Dow Jones announced the two companies would be joining the S&P 500.Coming later this week are earnings reports from Oracle and Adobe.Global shares mostly rose with Japan’s benchmark rising despite the looming political uncertainty after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced last night that he plans to resign.Analysts said Ishiba’s announcement was expected for some time and welcomed it as moving things forward, although uncertainty remains as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will need to hold an election to choose a new leader. Ishiba will remain prime minister until his successor is chosen and approved by parliament.“Markets may react short-term to the temporary uncertainty of lame-duck leadership, but this may resolve once a new leader is chosen. Meanwhile, the LDP’s position as a minority leading party is unlikely to change anytime soon, and as such compromise will be the name of the policymaking game,” said Naomi Fink, chief global strategist at Amova Asset Management.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.5% to finish at 43,643.81. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.5% to 3,219.59. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2% to 8,849.60.Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up 0.9% to 25,633.91, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.4% to 3,826.84.Also Monday, Japan’s Cabinet Office said the economy expanded at a stronger rate in the fiscal first quarter than previously estimated, at a seasonally adjusted 2.2% annualized rate, better than the earlier 1.0% rate as solid consumer spending and inventories lifted growth more than previously thought.Japanese auto stocks rallied after the U.S. finalized a trade deal with Japan. Tariffs on Japanese autos surged to 15% from the initial 2.5%, considerably lower than the 27.5% initially discussed.Toyota stock gained 0.3%, while Nissan stock rose 2.4%. Subaru issues added 1.3%, while Mitsubishi Motors edged up 1.2%.“The Bank of Japan remained in focus as strong wage data increased expectations for a potential rate hike later this year,” said Bas Kooijman at DHF Capital SA, noting that wages were rising.In Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX each rose 0.5%, while Britain’s FTSE 100 was unchanged.
Yuri Kageyama is on Threads.
Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott, AP Business Writers
Florida’s plan to drop school vaccine mandates likely won’t take effect for 90 days and would include only chickenpox and a few other illnesses unless lawmakers decide to extend it to other diseases, like polio and measles, the health department said Sunday.The department responded to a request for details, four days after Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, said the state would become the first to make vaccinations voluntary and let families decide whether to inoculate their children.It’s a retreat from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among children. Despite that evidence, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed deep skepticism about vaccines.
Florida’s plan would lift mandates on school vaccines for hepatitis B, chickenpox, Hib influenza and pneumococcal diseases, such as meningitis, the health department said.“The Department initiated the rule change on September 3, 2025, and anticipates the rule change will not be effective for approximately 90 days,” the state told the Associated Press in an email. The public school year in Florida started in August.All other vaccinations required under Florida law to attend school “remain in place, unless updated through legislation,” including vaccines for measles, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, mumps, and tetanus, the department said.Lawmakers don’t meet again until January 2026, although committee meetings begin in October.Ladapo, appearing Sunday on CNN, repeated his message of free choice for childhood vaccines.“If you want them, God bless, you can have as many as you want,” he said. “And if you don’t want them, parents should have the ability and the power to decide what goes into their children’s bodies. It’s that simple.”Florida currently has a religious exemption for vaccine requirements. Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives globally over the past 50 years, the World Health Organization reported in 2024. The majority of those were infants and children.Dr. Rana Alissa, chair of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said making vaccines voluntary puts students and school staff at risk.This is the worst year for measles in the U.S. in more than three decades, with more than 1,400 cases confirmed nationwide, most of them in Texas, and three deaths.Whooping cough has killed at least two babies in Louisiana and a 5-year-old in Washington state since winter, as it too spreads rapidly. There have been more than 19,000 cases as of August 23, nearly 2,000 more than this time last year, according to preliminary CDC data.
Ed White, Associated Press
Corals live in oceans around the worldin shallow, warm waters and deep, cool waters, clinging to seamounts or sitting on continental shelves. They also grow in the home aquariums of countless hobbyistsand if youre someone who cultivates corals in your spare time, you can contribute to research to help save the oceans coral reefs.
Rising ocean temperatures and increasing acidification are threatening coral reefs. Between 2009 and 2018, the worlds reefs lost 14% of their corals. By 2025, 84% of the oceans reefs have been affected by bleaching, meaning theyve been so stressed by the changes to their environments that theyve expelled all the algae living inside them, turning them white. As climate change worsens, coral loss is expected to speed up. Corals are also threatened by activities like fishing and tourism.
Corals are crucial to ocean ecosystems; theyre home to all sorts of marine life, provide coastal protection from storms, and are even the basis of millions of peoples livelihoods. Scientists have long been working to save coral reefs, trying to figure out how to help them survive higher temperatures and to bring back their healthy microbiome. (All the bacteria that live in corals can affect how the organisms respond to heat or other environmental changes.)
Home aquarists can now be a part of this effort too, through a community science effort called Project ReefLink. A partnership between Seed Health, a microbial sciences company, and the Two Frontiers Project (2FP), a nonprofit that focuses on microbial research, Project ReefLink aims to identify what sorts of organisms protect corals, and what pathogens may harm them.
From home aquarium to the oceans’ coral reefs
Corals growing in a home aquarium, or even big aquariums like Monterey Bay, are in a closed ecosystem. That essentially makes them part of a giant, human-driven experiment thats already been going on for years, says Braden Tierney, a microbial scientist and executive director of 2FP
All these aquarists are trying slightly different conditions. They’re putting different things in the water. They are experiencing different disease outbreaks. Some corals are dying. Some corals are living, he says. They have all these different species all over the place, and so we’re really asking to plug into that network.
To get involved, an aquarist can visit the Project Reeflink website, where they can sign up to get a sampling kit. Then, they need to take pictures of their set up, documenting what species of corals they have, and send samples of some of their corals over to 2FP researchers.
From there, researchers will process the samples for DNA sequencing, and then look at the corals genome, as well as all the bacteria and viruses that live inside it. And dont worry if your corals arent the healthiestthe scientists want a sample of any diseased corals too.
Theres still so much to be learned about what actually causes coral disease, and this is an opportunity to get these samples back and say, here’s what’s causing the disease based on DNA sequencing, and ‘here’s what the healthy version of this species looks like, Tierney says.
Samples sent to 2FP will go into the nonprofits microbial culture bank, an open-source database that could eventually be used to find ways to help corals withstand bleaching or other climate threats. We’re going to be able to explore how the microbiome plays a role in sustaining your coral’s health and also how it can be used to treat coral disease, Tierney said.
And as we get more data, we can also say, oh, look, these species seem to really like these conditions that these aquarists are using in their tanks, whereas these other species don’t. And that can translate directly to understanding what causes disease in corals in the oceans,” he said.
[Image: Coral Morphologic]
The importance of microbiomes
Seed Health sells pro- and prebiotics for human microbiomes, and has conducted community science efforts for that focus before. Its #GiveAShitForScience project involved people sending pictures of their poop to help understand gut health.
But the company also has an environmental research division called SeedLabs that looks at microbes in all sorts of ecosystems, with the aim to address the challenges of climate change. The more you understand about microbiomes and systems biology, the more you start to understand the interconnectivity of all life on Earth, says Ara Katz, CEO and cofounder of Seed Health.
Microbiomesthe trillions of microorganisms that live in our bodies or on plants or even in environments themselvesare crucial to the health of their hosts. Seed Health has studied if probiotics could help honey bees, how bacteria could turn plastic into new material, and the ways microbes can enhance carbon sequestration.
Seed Health previously partnered with 2FP on its CO2 research, for which they studied microbes in extreme conditions. That work also identified some microbes that could help corals become resilient to ocean acidification, particularly in especially hot or acidic waters where some corals do thrive.
Project ReefLink takes this work further by tapping into community scientists. That doesnt only provide 2FP with diverse samples, it also helps connect people to science in general. Science has really been mischaracterized in recent years, and I think that there is probably the least engagement there’s almost ever been, Katz says. A community science project, though, spurs public engagement.
For an issue like coral bleaching or climate change in general, the issue can feel so overwhelming, or too complex to tackle. This project changes that, Tierney says. If you have an aquarium . . . you can actually do something. You can take a few minutes to help, he says. It gives people a chance to fight.
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
In recent weeks, Ive been recommending and forwarding to friends and associates three smart stories that crossed my desk. Each ostensibly offers insightful or timely snapshots of modern American business. But upon deeper reflection, these very different pieces also shine a light on the state of middle-class U.S. workers and consumers, whose struggles may only intensify.
Together, these storiesalong with a number of economic indicators like stubborn inflation and slipping consumer sentimentoffer CEOs and business leaders a warning about the risks of capitalism that works for the few and not the many.
Mind the gap
Daniel Currells guest essay in The New York Times shows how Walt Disney World Resort has evolved from an accessible all-American vacation to a luxury experience targeting high-net-worth households. Wealthy visitors can pay for premium passes that let them bypass lines; one tech executive quoted in the article experienced 16 attractions in seven hours. Meanwhile, Scarlett Cressel, a bus driver who could not afford to pay for special ride reservations and other perks, managed nine attractions over 14 hours. Adding to her frustration, a mobility scooter she rented to help her navigate the park broke down. Its a powerful metaphor for the middle class quite literally being left behind.
Disney is hardly alone in pursuing rich customers. Currell, a management consultant, says hes worked with dozens of companies that are abandoning the mass market. Many of our biggest private institutions are now focused on selling the privileged a markedly better experience, leaving everyone else to either give upor fight to keep up, he writes.
Roger Lowensteins Wall Street Journal essay, Howand WhyU.S. Capitalism Is Unlike Any Other, helps us understand how we got here. The work is a sweeping review of the forces that shaped an economic system (bolstered by legislation that protects the sanctity of contracts and created public schools to educate workers) that focused on opportunity, individualism, and risk-taking. Those values led to the innovation and entrepreneurship that have long made America the envy of the world. And yet: Inequality 2.0 is alive and well, he writes. American capitalism remains fiercely competitive, remarkably productive, resilient in the face of a thousand doomsayersand the author of a persistent wealth gap.
Also in the Journal, Theo Francis offers an unsettling assessment of the disconnect between markets and the health of the middle class. He explains how the recent strong earnings seasonbuoyed by job cuts and higher pricesmay actually be hurting consumers, on whom the U.S. economy relies to keep spending. The gains enjoyed by companies and their investors arent softening the unease consumers and employees feeland might be obscuring signals that ordinary Americans are putting their anxiety into action, Francis writes.
And anxiety is likely to only increase with the deployment of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) solutions that are already replacing entry-level work.
Corporate support for the middle class
However, companies have an opportunity to strengthen rather than hollow out the middle class. They can invest in workforce development to train employees for jobs of the future and, like a previous generation of capitalists, champion policies that support this cohort and help them increase their spending power. Lowensteins article reminds us that the abolition of debtors’ prisons and the creation of forgiving bankruptcy laws essentially helped codify opportunity for Americans.
If companies dont move to address inequality by supporting compassionate and commonsense policies that can uplift Americans, they may find themselves dealing with more extreme correctives. Lowenstein writes that the response to the robber barons of the Gilded Age was antitrust prosecutions, reformist legislation, the Great War, and the Great Depression. He quips: Cures for inequality are sometimes worse than the affliction.
Is your company addressing income disparities?
Readers, do you feel companies have a role to play in addressing income disparities, and if so, what can business leaders do? Send your examples to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. I’ll feature some of the most compelling in a future newsletter.
Read more: Capitalism 2.0
Capitalism needs a rebrand to win over Gen Z
Darren Walker on how to save capitalism from itself
Is the middle class okay?
Were entering an era of computing that feels less and less human-centered. Paradoxically, tech companies remain fixated on mining every detail of our personal data. The familiar, task-specific interfaces we once used are being pushed aside, replaced by generative AI and LLM-driven chatbots that upend how we interact with software.
Instead of opening a dedicated app for writing, research, coding, or even emotional support, were funneled into a single chatbot window. OpenAI promises to, Let AI do the work for youdesigned to handle any task, while Anthropic touts Claude as a fantasy-fulfillment engine with the tagline “If you can dream it, Claude can help you do it.”
The pitch is clear: These tools are promoted as a one-stop shop for everything.
The shrinking interface
Search engines have trained us to expect answers from a single field. Now chatbots take this a step further: the text box has swallowed other applications, even as its output often requires endless refinement and fact-checking through a text box. And text isnt the endgame. Voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant primed us to learn hands-free interaction, which is eventually coming to replace that text box. Tech companies are chasing a future where speech replaces typing, and the interface nearly disappears. The real prize isnt usability for us, but the value gained from capturing what we say and how we say it, by, and for, them.
This change marks a sharp departure from the last 45 years of interface design. Apple, inspired by Xerox PARC, championed user-centered design: graphical icons, so-called “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” (WYSIWYG) editors, intuitive metaphors that empowered people to create and communicate. For decades, this approach made computing accessible. But with the rise of big data, priorities shifted, as people generated ever-larger archives of digital traces (emails, documents, photos, browsing histories), and were persuaded to store these in clouds for easy retrieval. Tech companies soon realized that, taken together, this data formed a vast global knowledge corpus that could be mined and monetized.
The rise of surveillance-driven business models pushed firms toward increasingly quantitative forms of user profiling. The focus shifted from designing tools to help us get work done to extracting patterns that served corporate goals. We ceased to be seen as people with needs and instead became raw material for metrics, models, and market dominance.
As big data informed the models for AI and LLMs, this shift accelerated. These systems now operate on top of what we do, but without the capacity to understand why we do it. Stripped of the context discovered through qualitative research, quantitative analysis can easily misinterpret intent. Chatbots produce inconsistent answers depending on the prompt, and we must constantly refine queries just to get something useful. For those who mistake these tools as truth machines, the risks are profound: even fatal, as in documented cases where chatbots coached people to commit self-harm.
This lack of contextual, qualitative research isnt new. Appleoften held up as the gold standard for user-centered designinitially resisted user research. Early on, Steve Jobs insisted that people dont know what they want until you give it to them. Pieces of this bias eventually became imbued in Apples culture, where it has persisted in various ways over the years, spreading from Apple through the rest of Silicon Valley and beyond as former employees changed jobs and/or founded new companies. Media and business school case studies perpetuated this myth and as a result, there is a growing tech industry, a culture of quantitative-data-first product design, reinforced by a bias that big data mining is the only measurement for understanding people. Its not.
This quantitative big data collection movement comes with another syphoning of our free labor and time: the survey. Were also being used to nudge companies algorithms via the endless surveys sent to us after every engagement, with nagging businesses demanding our feedback on the agents, algorithms, services, and products that theyve already tracked us engaging withall to collect even more data about us. Its exhausting.
Scaling at our expense
Companies justify this approach as a way to scale an interface (for them). But scaling often means flattening differences among users and does not work well for cultural differences in a global context. The all-in-one chatbot promises universality yet introduces new frictions: translation errors when models are trained on mismatched languages, hallucinations from incomplete training sets, and endless cycles of prompt refinement. Instead of simplifying, these systems demand more labor from users in the form of prompt refinement.
The effect is recursive. We feed chatbots queries, they pass these queries to LLMs that pattern match words to generate answersright or wrongthat then circulate back into search engines, which are themselves increasingly infused with LLM output (making verification a nightmare). Meanwhile, our conversations with chatbots are now being mined to train future models.
The user interfaces on our devices have become less like tools and more like receptacles for collection. Where we once used a tool to get our work done, we now train tools to do the work so that we can, in turn, finish ours. This dynamic exploits our energy and labor, propping up systems that may one day replace us (if they haven’t already).
Todays design trajectory aims to erase the interface altogether, replacing it with conversation under surveillancemechanized eavesdropping dressed up as dialogue. Behind the scenes, algorithms sift and stitch together fragments of training data (not always accurate, not always complete) to generate songs, code, images, or advice pirated from humanity’s corpus built over lifetimes. Sometimes that LLM advice filtered through a chatbot extends into domains as risky as psychological counseling or nuclear operations, putting us in harms way and potentially at great risk. At scale, this is terrifying.
It isnt fair to say that user centered design is goneyet. Its still here, but the target users have changed. We used to be the users centered by companies; now the LLMs are their focus. And like it or not, our role now is to enable that success.
There is a troubling trend spreading across some of todays most recognizable tech companies. Spotify, Shopify, Dropbox, and others are cutting training programs and significantly reducing entry-level hiring. At first glance, the decision might seem sensible: reduce costs, restructure teams, and prepare for a future driven by AI. In reality, it is a short-term move that will cause long-term damage.
The numbers tell the story. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has climbed to 5.8%, higher than the national average and the worst in a decade outside the pandemic. More than 40% of graduates are underemployed, working in roles that do not require a college degree. Entry-level postings in the United States have fallen by more than 40% since mid-2022. Even graduates in traditionally safe majors such as computer science or engineering are struggling to find jobs that match their training.
Young professionals are not just looking for a paycheck. They want a chance to learn, to join a program, and to work with a team that believes in their potential. When companies dismantle these programs, they are not simply shrinking headcount. They are cutting off the future of their own talent pipeline.
AI is advancing rapidly, but despite the hype, it cannot replace human intuition, creativity, and judgment. These are the qualities that truly differentiate companies. What we need now are people who can work alongside AI: analysts who know how to use machine learning to make smarter decisions, design better products, and deliver more personalized customer experiences. That kind of talent is not built overnight. It is developed through years of deliberate investment.
The path forward is clear. We need a new model for workforce development, one that embraces what I call Human Digital Resourceshumans and AI working side by side, each playing to their strengths. Humans bring judgment, creativity, and empathy. AI brings speed, scale, and pattern recognition. Companies that design roles and training with this collaboration in mind will outperform those that treat AI as a replacement strategy.
The Danger of Short-Term Thinking
The labor market for new graduates is already challenging. Opportunities are shrinking. Unemployment among recent grads is high, and even industries once seen as secure are slowing their hiring.
Cutting analyst or associate programs may satisfy investors for a quarter, but it leaves companies with a weakened leadership bench for years to come. These programs have always been launchpads for promising talent. They build business acumen, sharpen technical skills, and embed cultural knowledge that cannot be hired overnight.
One financial services firm I know kept its analyst program during a period of layoffs. Today, it has a deep bench of AI-literate, future-ready leaders. Competitors that cut their programs are now scrambling to fill those same roles, paying more to hire externally and facing longer onboarding timelines.
The downside is more than a temporary talent gap. It is the slow erosion of institutional knowledge, innovation capacity, and cultural continuity. These are elements that cannot be replaced by technology or by hiring quickly from the outside.
Human Plus AI Is the Real Advantage
AI is changing the game, but it is not replacing the players. It can process vast amounts of data in seconds, yet it cannot create culture, uphold values, or build trust within teams. Think of it as an open-book test. Without skilled humans who know how to use the book, it is useless.
Even AIs own development proves the point. ChatGPT was trained by thousands of human reviewers, most of them college-educated, who provided judgment, context, and feedback to improve the tool. AI is powerful, but it still depends on human expertise to evolve.
Forward-looking companies are already building Human Digital Resources. They are hiring and training employees to integrate AI into their daily work. At one firm, Gen Z analysts were given early access to AI tools. Within months, they became the companys internal AI experts, streamlining processes, improving efficiency, and teaching senior staff how to use the technology effectively.
A New Shape for Organizations
For most of the 20th century, companies were shaped like pyramids, with a large base of junior employees feeding into progressively smaller layers of management. More recently, some consultants have suggested a diamond model, with a narrower base, a wider middle, and a slim top.
The future will likely be something else entirely: a fluid blend of consulting-style apprenticeships, the flexibility of the gig economy, and AI-enabled work. Professionals will contribute to multiple projects across different companies, with AI acting as a force multiplier.
This model rewards adaptable, multiskilled people who can work across ecosystems. Gen Z is well positioned to thrive in this environment. They are digital natives who grew up with technology and are already experimenting with AI tools. Instead of sidelining them, companies should tap into their curiosity and comfort with technology, reduce administrative work, and give them meaningful problems to solve earlier in their careers.
One leading financial institution recently offered an example of getting this right. It has invested in both culture and technology, treating AI as a tool for empowerment rather than a threat. This approach strengthens talent pipelines while others risk letting theirs dry up.
AI Changes Work, It Does Not Remove It
History offers perspective. The industrial revolution created new kinds of skilled labor. The calculator replaced manual math, yet we still teach math, so people know how to use calculators effectively. The internet reshaped communications without eliminating the need for communicators.
AI will follow the same pattern. It will redefine roles, raise the bar for human skills, and amplify those who are trained to use it well. Technology may become the baseline, but people will continue to create value in ways that are unique and hard to replicate. A competitor can match your tools, but they cannot match your culture, your innovation, your trust, or your ability to execute through people.
Companies that continue hiring and training early-career professionals will be better positioned for this transition. They will have AI-literate teams with deep knowledge of the business. Those that do not will face leadership gaps they cannot fill quickly or cheaply.
Competitive advantage
Learning compounds over time and so does neglect. I have seen companies that invested in analyst programs years ago now benefiting from leaders who came up through the ranks. Those early investments paid off in loyalty, expertise, and competitive advantage.
Cutting these programs today is like removing the foundation from a building to save on maintenance. It might hold for a while, but eventually it will collapse
The future of work is not less human. It is more human. It is more mentorship, more learning, and more collaboration between people and machines. Companies that embrace Human Digital Resources now will lead the next decade. Those that do not will be left wishing they had thought furher ahead
