When Obvious Ventures launched 12 years ago with a focus on world positive companies, the idea was a contrarian bet: that startups tackling climate, health, and economic resilience could deliver big returns, not just feel-good impact. Founded by Twitter cofounder Ev Williams and others, the firm backed companies like Beyond Meat, the AI drug discovery company Recursion Pharmaceuticals, and Diamond Foundry, which makes sustainable lab-grown diamonds. By 2020, other VC firms had gotten into the climate investing space, and overall investment in climate tech surged. Now, as the Trump administration rolls out anti-climate policy and some investors retreat, Obvious is leaning in. Fresh off closing its fifth fundat the precise figure of $360,360,360the firm remains bullish. We talked to managing director Andrew Beebe about how Obvious has grownand the current state of climate investing in the age of Trump.
World positive investing went mainstream
In the beginning, Obviouss approach was unusual. We started with this basic idea that the biggest companies of our time are going to be those that solve the worlds biggest problems, Beebe says. Some people misunderstood it as impact investing that would only have concessionary returns. But Obvious was thinking differently: the thesis was that solving global challenges could drive financial success. Over time, as Obvious Ventures had early successes with companies like Beyond Meat, a growing number of investors moved in the same direction. (Beyond Meat has since struggled, but had the best-performing IPO in the U.S. in 2019.)
Twelve years forward, weve had many venture firms copy, or lets say lift, some of our language, Beebe says. But we appreciate that. We definitely consider imitation a sincere form of flattery. And because of that, but also because of the successes of these early companies, its been easier to explain what world positive means. Thats important with limited partners. But its also really important with founders, so that we are not just getting, you know, sort of a yoga mat cleaning service or something, but instead getting these extraordinary ideas like radically reducing the cost of geothermal energy or AI for drug discovery. The big change is that I think more people can more easily digest what we do and why we do it. And the movement of world positive companies is stronger than ever.
Smart climate investors arent pulling back
As the federal government pivoted on climate policypulling back billions of dollars in funding for clean energy projects, tax credits for EVs and other incentives, and pouring more support into the fossil fuel industryclimate investing dropped. But the fundamentals havent changed, and Beebe says that climate investing still makes sense.
Venture firms outlast presidential cycles by definition, he says. And in this case, easily, because we only have two more years. But more importantly, with regard to climate, I love climate investing because its the macro of all macros. Unfortunately, we can very predictably see where things are going. And thats just not always true. In health care, its hard to predict where things are going. But climate, the problem literally gets worse by the day, even if the government chooses to ignore itoftentimes, because they choose to ignore it. And yet there are a lot of investors in the US who say, Well, the government supports gone. And look, people arent buying EVs anymore. So, lets move on. And I love that. Those tourists should go home. And, I guess, go back to enterprise SaaS or whatever. Meanwhile, both on the founder side and on the investor side, the people who really understand the science and really understand the macro are not going anywhere.
As climate investing grew over the past several years, Obvious Ventures had focused more of its last fund in other areas like health and robotics. Climate got really frothy and overpriced, he says. But its a better investment now. Its only over the last year, and this year, where Im much more comfortable going really hard into climate.
The One Big Beautiful Big Act slashed support for a wide swath of climate startups. Still, Beebe argues that some of what was in the original Inflation Reduction Act wasnt necessary. I was very supportive of the climate bill as an American, as an Earthling, he says. But from an investment standpoint, there was too much hype because of it, and it threw a lot of money at things that I did not think were going to work. We sort of stepped back and we only had one company out of maybe 25 that was really impacted by all of that being yanked. Now, because of that, a lot of those things that I didnt think deserved investment are not going to get more investment. I would say an example of that is direct air capturea lot of people are really into it as an investment category, I just dont believe it. So, I think a lot of those things are going to die on the vine.
He believes that other technology, from tech to help the electric grid to electric aviation, can grow now. All of these things are not getting as much attention and are better priced, but are awesome, better solutions than whats out there today, he says. Its hard to say were doubling down on climate because weve always been in it, but, for sure, I am more bullish on the investment landscape and climate that Ive been in probably five years.
Theres still room for optimism on climate
In its latest annual report, Obvious includes some predictions from Beebe on what could come in the next decadelike the idea that well have energy thats too cheap to meter, and well stop selling gas-powered cars. Despite the headwinds, Beebe is optimistic. I love that Gates quote that we overestimate what we can do in two years and underestimate what we can do in 10, he says. Decade-long predictions I find pretty easy, but the near term is a different bucket. You know, Im a professional optimist, Im a venture capitalist, we have to do that. But I do think that graded on a curve, Im much more optimistic than a lot of folks out there.
Even with the unfortunate rhetoric from the federal government, he says, states, utility companies, and startups are still moving forward with solutions. American car companies risk falling behind on EVs, but globally, theyre still booming. The rest of the world has also figured out that solar plus storage, wind plus storage, is much cheaper than natural gas, he says. Most U.S. utilities have figured that out, too. Unfortunately, there are some people in the administration who I actually think know that as well, but have decided to just take a very head in the sand approach. That wont last. This is going to be our biggest solar year of installations yet, and I think well probably see something of the same size next year. Itll dip without changes after that. But I think well see some changes. Im pretty optimistic.
MacKenzie Scott helped build one of the most recognizable companies in modern historyall while writing her first novel. As Amazon scaled from a fledging startup to a global force, Scott was simultaneously cultivating a literary life.
Long before Amazon, Scott launched her literary career. While studying creative writing at Princeton University, Scott landed herself a highly coveted spot as one of Toni Morrisons advisees, a relationship that would shape her literary pursuits.
This writer that I admired so much also turned out to be such a gifted and devoted teacher, Scott said at the dedication for Princetons Morrison Hall. She has given me a real example of a life of passionate devotion to more than one calling.
For some time, those callings competed. In Amazons early years, Scotts writing necessarily receded as she supported the companys founding and expansion. But by 1996, she stepped into a less involved role, carving out space for her literary ambitions and for her family.
She consequently forged a slow, deliberate writing life. And after a decade of workbalanced alongside raising her children and supporting Amazons growthScott published her debut novel, The Testing of Luther Albright.
Morrison continued to mentor her through the process, offering advice and encouragement. Your hand is sure, your technical ability sophisticated, Morrison said, according to Howard University. Dont worry about overdoing it at this point. It is so much easier to cut back than to write up.
Morrisons mentorship proved pivotal, as Scott went on to win the American Book Award for her novel, cementing her literary career.
Morrison, however, was not the only writer to leave a lasting imprint. In her Giving Pledge letter years later, Scott returned to The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, a slim meditation on the discipline and solitude of writing with no promise of success.
Scott rediscovered the book on a shelf of college-era favorites, its pages underlined and started. One passage, in particular, stuck with her.
For Scott, the advice was no longer just about writing. It became a framework for philanthropy. I have no doubt that tremendous value comes when people act quickly on the impulse to give, she wrote in her pledge letter.
The same philosophy that propelled Scotts literary success also undergirds her philanthropic pursuits, treating wealth not as something to preserve, but as something meant to be spent with intention.
By Leila Sheridan
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister site, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Time could be up for TikToks metronomic For You feed, which pushes videos to users with clock-like accuracy. The endless scroll that defines the TikTok experience has been flagged as part of a broader set of features that make the app addictive by design, according to the European Commission. The regulator has issued a preliminary decision under the Digital Services Act, a sweeping piece of tech regulation, arguing that TikTok has not done enough to mitigate the risk of user addiction tied to those features.
European regulators have asked TikTok to tweak the offending system, along with others, to make the app less addictive or face fines of up to 6% of parent company ByteDances total annual turnover, reportedly forecast at $186 billion in 2025.
Under the terms of the Digital Services Act, TikTok has the right to respond to the European Commissions preliminary decision and to contest it. A TikTok spokesperson tells Fast Company that the company will take whatever steps are necessary to challenge these findings through every means available to us.
If TikTok does push back and the two sides remain at odds, the result could be a prolonged standoff. I am fearing that this will become a game of cat and mouse, but we will see I am interested and watching and grabbing the popcorn, says Carolina Are, a social media researcher at the London School of Economics.
Still, some observers believe there is a real chance TikTok ultimately bends to the EUs demands. This is the future of enforcement action in the EU, says Lilian Edwards, director of Pangloss Consulting and a law professor at Newcastle University.
Edwards notes that EU legislation such as the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act is not designed primarily to generate fines that companies can shrug off. Instead, the goal is to force actual design changes to become less addictive and less toxic especially to children, she says. She also points out that companies have made changes for EU markets in the past though never at such fundamental design levels.
There is precedent for TikTok accommodating political pressure to alter how its app operates, including in the very recent past. In the United States, TikTok moved toward partial U.S. ownership to satisfy a law enforced by the Trump administration, a reminder that compromise for continued operation is already part of the companys playbook.
What we saw with TikTok and the United States deal, recently, is that the app will change to continue operations, says Jess Maddox, a social media expert at the University of Georgia. This EU ruling is not an exception, so this could mark the end of the endless scroll, at least for minors. I could see TikTok then going the way of YouTube, with YouTube Kids, or even teen accounts with Instagram.
Such changes could also extend to region-specific versions of the app, depending on where users live. Tama Leaver, a professor of social media at Curtin University in Australia, argues that this has already happened to some degree under the U.S. compromise deal.
That alone would represent a significant shift. But the ripple effects could go further if TikTok concedes ground under the Digital Services Act. It’s an interesting moment for the architecture, considering that every other platform has to [potentially] redesign and tweak as well, says Leaver. If TikToks endless scrolling feed is deemed addictive by law, other platforms could soon face similar scrutiny.
That prospect marks a turning point, says social media analyst Matt Navarra. If this holds, infinite scroll, auto-play, frictionless feeds could become legally risky for the platforms, and not just ethically dubious, he says. I think the EU’s [] pretty much saying, If your design patterns override self-regulation in young users, we’re going to consider that systemic harm.
The consequences could extend far beyond TikTok alone. They could end up reshaping social media norms entirely. And I think, Navarra adds, that’s quite a bold and some might argue long overdue statement.
Informing people about political deepfakes through text-based information and interactive games both improve peoples ability to spot AI-generated video and audio that falsely depict politicians, according to a study my colleagues and I conducted.
Although researchers have focused primarily on advancing technologies for detecting deepfakes, there is also a need for approaches that address the potential audiences for political deepfakes. Deepfakes are becoming increasingly difficult to identify, verify, and combat as artificial intelligence technology improves.
Is it possible to inoculate the public to detect deepfakes, thereby increasing their awareness before exposure? My recent research with fellow media studies researchers Sang Jung Kim and Alex Scott at the Visual Media Lab at the University of Iowa has found that inoculation messages can help people recognize deepfakes and even make people more willing to debunk them.
Inoculation theory proposes that psychological inoculationanalogous to getting a medical vaccinationcan immunize people against persuasive attacks. The idea is that by explaining to people how deepfakes work, they become primed to recognize them when they encounter them.
In our experiment, we exposed one-third of participants to passive inoculation: traditional text-based warning messages about the threat and the characteristics of deepfakes. We exposed another third to active inoculation: an interactive game that challenged participants to identify deepfakes. The remaining third were given no inoculation.
Participants were then randomly shown either a deepfake video featuring Joe Biden making pro-abortion rights statements or a deepfake video featuring Donald Trump making anti-abortion rights statements. We found that both types of inoculation were effective in reducing the credibility participants gave to the deepfakes, while also increasing peoples awareness and intention to learn more about them.
Why it matters
Deepfakes are a serious threat to democracy because they use AI to create very realistic fake audio and video. These deepfakes can make politicians appear to say things they never actually said, which can damage public trust and cause people to believe false information. For example, some voters in New Hampshire received a phone call that sounded like Joe Biden, telling them not to vote in the states primary election.
This deepfake video of President Donald Trump, from a dataset of deepfake videos collected by the MIT Media Lab, was used in this study about helping people spot such AI-generated fakes.
Because AI technology is becoming more common, it is especially important to find ways to reduce the harmful effects of deepfakes. Recent research shows that labeling deepfakes with fact-checking statements is often not very effective, especially in political contexts. People tend to accept or reject fact-checks based on their existing political beliefs. In addition, false information often spreads faster than accurate information, making fact-checking too slow to fully stop the impact of false information.
As a result, researchers are increasingly calling for new ways to prepare people to resist misinformation in advance. Our research contributes to developing more effective strategies to help people resist AI-generated misinformation.
What other research is being done
Most research on inoculation against misinformation relies on passive media literacy approaches that mainly provide text-based messages. However, more recent studies show that active inoculation can be more effective. For example, online games that involve active participation have been shown to help people resist violent extremist messages.
In addition, most previous research has focused on protecting people from text-based misinformation. Our study instead examines inoculation against multimodal misinformation, such as deepfakes that combine video, audio and images. Although we expected active inoculation to work better for this type of misinformation, our findings show that both passive and active inoculation can help people cope with the threat of deepfakes.
Whats next
Our research shows that inoculation messages can help people recognize and resist deepfakes, but it is still unclear whether these effects last over time. In future studies, we plan to examine the long-term effect of inoculation messages.
We also aim to explore whether inoculation works in other areas beyond politics, including health. For example, how would people respond if a deepfake showed a fake doctor spreading health misinformation? Would earlier inoculation messages help people question and resist such content?
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Bingbing Zhang is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Iowa.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Below, Kate Murphy shares five key insights from her new book, Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony.
Murphy is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Texas Monthly, among other publications.
Whats the big idea?
Humans are instinctively wired to sync with one another, and this invisible alignment of bodies, brains, and emotions shapes attraction, trust, and belonging. It can deepen connection and fuel cooperation, but it also makes feelings and behaviors contagious, giving each of us more influence over others than we realize.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Murphy herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea app.
1. Human beings have an instinct to sync.
Bring two or more people together and they will immediately begin to synchronize or fall into rhythm with one another. Not only do we tend to subconsciously mimic one anothers movements, postures, facial expressions, and gestures, but recent breakthroughs in technology have revealed we also sync up our heart rates, blood pressure, brain waves, pupil dilation, and hormonal activity.
This phenomenon is known as interpersonal synchrony, and it is possibly the most consequential social dynamic most people have never heard of. Interpersonal synchrony is significant because, by subconsciously mimicking even the subtlest twitches of expression and biological rhythms of other people, we can channel their thoughts and feelings. When we reflexively smile upon observing someone elses joy, we feel their happiness. When we flinch at the sight of someone being hit, we intuit their pain. Syncing with their racing heart gives us a read on their anxiety.
Moreover, the synchronization of brain waves during conversations or during shared experiences aligns beliefs and attitudes. You and the other person, at that moment, are of like minds. The result is that emotions, moods, attitudes, and subsequent behaviors can be as contagious as any disease and can have just as profound an influence on our health and well-being.
2. Sustained synchrony signals attraction and attachment.
Scientists have conducted numerous speed-dating and speed-networking experiments since the early 2000s to find out why some people immediately click while others rub each other the wrong way. Researchers discovered that couples who reported a feeling of connection and wanted to see each other again were literally on the same wavelength. Their bodily movements and internal rhythms were coordinated, and the wavelike neural firing patterns in their brains coupled, or coincidedoften in less than 30 seconds.
Moreover, the synchrony occurred even when the other person violated previously expressed parameters of what an ideal partner should be or look like, such as must share the same faith, have a good income, be college-educated, or tall, or blonde, or whatever.
This might explain the growing dissatisfaction and widespread deletions of dating apps. Someone can check all the boxes of what you or a dating apps algorithm thinks is a perfect match, and yet, when you meet that person face-to-face, all you can think about is what youd rather be binge-watching on Netflix.
Conversely, you can be instantly drawn to someone you meet in person whose online dating profile might have made you immediately swipe left. Syncing is a multisensory phenomenon and, as a result, you cant experience it online in its truest, most exquisite form.
3. Synchronized activity promotes bonding.
Not only do you sync with people you like, but you also tend to like people with whom you are in sync. When people do the same thing at the same time, such as marching, dancing, singing, rowing, and even finger tapping, it tends to build feelings of rapport and trust. They disclose more personal information and are more cooperative, kind, and helpful. Even infants strapped into face-forward carriers and bounced in time to music were significantly more likely to favor experimenters who were likewise bouncing in time, compared to experimenters who bounced out of sync or did not move at all.
People engaged in synchronized activities also report feeling a sense of transcendence or oneness with those around them. Think of soldiers marching, religious congregants singing and reciting prayers, protesters chanting, and any kind of dancing. Aristotle was probably onto something when he lectured his students, the Peripatetics, while walking the grounds of the Lyceum. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was likewise known for inviting people he wished to influence to take long walks with him.
4. The downside of interpersonal synchrony.
Our instinct to sync can make us susceptible to getting mired in other peoples psychosocial muck. There is something called the bad apple effect, where one persons negative or erratic energy can infect an entire group. This is especially true in work situations where you cant necessarily choose the people with whom you interact. Its not like speed dating, where you can do a quick sample sync and move on if you dont like what you feel.
An emergency room nurse told me that the difficulty of her job has less to do with the number of patients who arrive or the severity of their injuries than with who else is on her shift. There are definitely people who, when you walk in, you see them and youre like, This will be a good day no matter what gets thrown down, she told me. And there are other days when you walk in and youre like, Okay, this is going to be a struggle. Weve probably all had the experience where one person coming into or leaving a group totally transformed the vibe for better or worse.
At scale, interpersonal synchrony can tip into social contagion, which is responsible for the best and worst aspects of humanityfrom functioning governments, coordinated market economies, cohesive cultures, and scientific advancement to wars, riots, persecutions, and mass hysteria.
This is not to say humans are indistinct from schools of fish or murmurations of starlings. On the contrary, individuals potentially have as much power to influence as be influenced. Various techniques can help you recognize and encourage interpersonal synchrony when its beneficial, and disengage and reclaim yourself when it is not. A big part is noticing your feelings and questioning where they come from. Are you feeling anxious about something happening to you directly or are you upset because of something someone else is feeling or doing on- or offline? Awareness is key to breaking free of synchronies that are not working for you.
5. Be what you want replicated.
Synchronized phenomena occur throughout the natural and life sciences, but research has only recently revealed the extent to which human beings synchronize and its significance. Synchrony between humans is nothing short of a superpower. Compared to other species, we are not particularly imposing, and our senses are pretty feeble. While capable of astounding feats of cognition and imagination, our brains are nevertheless limited and subject to all kinds of processing errors. But thanks to interpersonal synchrony, we can marshal and coordinate our bodies and brains to communicate, innovate, create, and succeed in ways far exceeding what we could accomplish alone.
We are all tuning forks roaming the planet, picking up vibes, and finding resonance with those we encounte. Its a truth known on some level since antiquity. Plato wrote that we are all born seeking to reunite with our missing other half, but what we are really seeking are those whose internal rhythms harmonize with our ownthe people with whom we effortlessly click. And certainly, turns of phrase like being in sync, ;in tune, in step, and on the same wavelength have been part of our vernacular long before recent advances in technology revealed that they were true.
Interpersonal synchrony, above all, reminds us that we are not unto ourselves in this world. We internalize one another, even those we may not know well or know at all. We can literally warm peoples hearts and get on their nerves. And we carry others vibes and rhythms around with us like catchy tunes that, once heard, continue to play in our heads. The instinct to sync confers a responsibility to try to be what you want replicated. Your thoughts, feelings, demeanor, and behavior do not begin, nor end, with you.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Across the country, solopreneurship is taking off. People are starting their own, one-person businesses in droves. But when it comes to who is doing all of this solopreneuring (yes, it’s a word), one-woman businesses are gaining more traction.
More women are starting their own businesses than everwhether solo or with employees. According to May 2025 data from small business platform Gusto, in the last five years, there’s been a huge leap in just how many women left their jobs to start their own business. In 2019, just 29% of new businesses were started by women. By 2024, that number was 49%. Moreover, over half (52%) of solopreneurs in the U.S. are now women.
So, why are women so interested in steering their own ships? According to the May 2025 Gusto report, women crave a sense of autonomy. Almost three-quarters of women who started businesses in 2024 said they did so to have control over their own schedules. Likewise, 71% said they wanted to be their own boss. Meanwhile, men were more likely to cite earning more money as an incentive than women, with 35% pointing to increasing their income as a driving force compared to 29% of women.
Female solopreneurs aren’t uninterested in money, but they do seem to deeply value making their own decisions at work. That’s true for Ana Beig, a mix-media artist and retreat host based in Austin, Texas. She tells Fast Company that autonomy isn’t just important. It’s “a condition for doing meaningful work.” For starters, she says that’s because her environment is deeply impactful when it comes to how she’s able to show up to create every day.
She adds that while financial incentives do matter, they are far from what drives her to stay committed to her solo work. “I was drawn to solopreneurship because it lets me integrate work with life rather than constantly negotiating between the two. I can choose how I structure my time, how I engage emotionally, and what kinds of relationships I build through my work,” she explains.
For Gigi Robison, a solopreneur with a chronic illness, who helps creators and thought leaders build brands, and was recently named one of Gen Z’s leading voices in the creator economy, becoming a solopreneur was all about having autonomy. She says having control over her work schedule enables to put her energy exactly where she needs to and to structure her day in a way that works for her life. It also enables her to redefine “success beyond someone elses version of productivity.”
Before she started her own ventures, she says she didn’t feel as if her time was nearly as well-spent. “In a traditional job, I often felt like I was spending more time proving my value than actually creating value,” she explains. “In solopreneurship, I get to focus on outcomes, impact, and building something that lasts.”
There are plenty of good reasons why so many people are starting their own businessesand doing it solo. But for women, who may be more heavily impacted by power dynamics at work, running your own operation may be a reprieve from office dynamics. According to one recent study from the University of Georgia, even women who were leaders felt constrained by gender dynamics at work. That means that womeneven those who successfully climbed the corporate laddermay still not feel a sense of autonomy.
For womenwho earn less on the dollar than men, are promoted less often than men, and, according to new research, less interested in promotionssolopreneurship may offer a way to build a future without having to deal with the thorny gender dynamics of corporate life. For women solopreneurs, freedom is the real draw. And it’s one that’s catching on.
There is a type of business story that has become nearly cliché: A legacy brand is facing stagnating growth. Loyal customers are aging out, and new customers arent taking their place. So the brand reinvents itself to pull in a younger segment of the market, often by borrowing ideas from cooler competitors to seem more on-trend.
But instead of younger and cooler, the rebrand comes off as insincere, stilted, or cringey. Worse, the brands older, core customers, who liked the brand as it was, are irritated by the changes. Instead of spurring new growth, the effort drives off some of the existing customers, leaving the brand worse off than when it started.
This is the recent story of The Bachelor television franchise. After a two-year hiatus, ABCs dating show returned this summer, having made changes that were designed to appeal to a younger audience. The updated Bachelor in Paradise cribbed from Love Island, its primary rival in the competitive-dating-in-bathing-suits genre, and a show beloved by the younger audiences The Bachelor wanted to attract.
The changes included an aggressive, quick-cut editing style and the introduction of a cash prize for the winners. Younger consumers werent drawn to the new format, but previously loyal fans panned the changes in online forums, suggesting the show should have included a seizure warning. Both the ratings and viewership numbers for this season hit historic lows.
Cracker Barrels recent woes also fit this pattern. Its traditionalist segment of 65-plus diners was dwindling, leading the brand to try attracting new, younger customers by updating the interiors and changing the logo. It is not clear that the changes brought in those younger diners in significant numbers. But the changes did produce an exhaustively dissected backlash from its loyal customer base, for whom, it turned out, nostalgia was a significant part of the Cracker Barrel appeal.
Meanwhile, JCPs major reinvention more than a decade ago was also driven, in part, by trying to attract younger customers with its elimination of deep discounts in favor of everyday low pricing. But the move was far more successful in driving away its older loyalists, who loved hunting for those deals. Lands’ End tried to lure in younger customers when it introduced a high-fashion line and edgier branding. Instead, they went from profits of $9M to losses of nearly $8M within a year.
The desire to attract younger customers made sense for all these brands. But they each fell into the same trap: They assumed they could make changes to their offerings and branding to attract new customers without having to worry about how their current customers might react to those changes. The stewards of these brands forgot that different people want different things from the brands that serve them.
While there are times when young and old consumers both want the same things from their brands, the fact is, younger customers and older customers also frequently want different things. Changing a brand to make it more appealing to younger customers may (or may not) draw in those younger customersbut it may also accidentally displease the older customers who like the brand just the way it is.
In our book, The Growth Dilemma, Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025), we identify a few key strategies brands can use to manage the risk of conflict between customer segments as they grow. Here are three:
1. Create different spaces for different audiences
One strategy involves carving out separate spaces within a brandeither conceptual or physicalfor different customer segments. For example, many brands use multiple social media handles to communicate to different segments. Timberland has different Instagram channels for its blue-collar worker segment and its fashion segment. Starbucks has different store formats catering to those who value Starbucks as a place to get a quick and convenient coffee on-the-go (kiosk and drive-through locations), and those who value Starbucks as a place to work and socialize (its third place lounge locations).
Some brands diffuse potential conflict between customers by creating separate gated communities within the brand that cater to different customer segments. Historically, Nike was great at creating sport-specific communities that were each distinct within the Nike brand. Nike basketball customers had different products, apps, advertising, and experiences than Nike runners, tennis players, or sneakerheads.
Some brands create a hierarchy among their customer base, allowing a status separation among customers. This is a common path for many fashion brands that serve segments with different price sensitivities and design demands. For example, Armani serves different segments under the Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, and Armani Exchange sub-brands.
Credit card and financial services brands often create a hierarchy of customers based on net worth and spend to tailor products and services. Escalating levels of service and benefits allow a company like American Express to simultaneously serve mass markets and elite customers without causing tension between groups with very different expectations.
2. Focus on one audience
Sometimes two segments are so divergent in their preferences or identities that they simply cannot be served well under the same brand. In these cases, brands may opt to fire a customer segmentas Burberry did in the early 2000s after it inadvertently became popular among soccer hooligans, by discontinuing products popular among chavs and reducing the prominence of its iconic check pattern.
In other cases, they may develop a new brand to serve a new segment. Toyota is able to successfully serve a diverse set of customers under a single brand. But management wisely realized that there were limits to how far they could stretch the Toyota brand and so introduced Lexus to serve a set of customers with a fundamentally different set of preferences.
Especially in the cases of ideological conflict between customer segments (e.g., Bud Lights attempts to be an apparent ally of the transgender community), the gulfs between customer groups may simply be too vast to span with a single brand. Some segments are best served by different brands.
3. Find common ground
Perhaps the best strategy for brands looking to grow into younger segments is in looking for convergence in values and preferences across segments before the brand starts making changes. Instead of reorienting the brand to appeal to the new, hoped-for customers, brands should first look for the Venn diagram intersection among 1) preferences of existing customers, 2) preferences of the new customers, and 3) the brands image and history. Growth strategies that dont satisfy all three criteria tend to fail.
Consider the remarkable recent resurgence of another legacy TV franchise. Despite being around for 20 years, Dancing with the Stars has been growing in recent easons, and attracting younger viewers in the process. DWTS didnt pull this off by fundamentally changing what its longtime fans love about the show, but instead by innovating in areas around its successful formula.
These tangential improvements have increased the draw for new, younger fans without stepping on the toes of loyalists. For its stars, DWTS has been increasingly turning to celebrities relevant to younger audiences, including recent Olympians, TikTok influencers, and reality TV stars. It has also created additional, meme-worthy social media content, including footage of the dancers training or goofing around backstage. This content serves as a supplemental draw to younger segments, without messing with the on-stage magic that loyal watchers love.
Just like the relationships in Bachelor in Paradise, the relationships among customer segments can be nuanced and difficult to manage. Unlike the relationships in Bachelor in Paradise, the goal is not maximum drama. Knowing the rules of customer relationship management can allow brands to attract customers across generations without experiencing the backlash.
Look, we all know the drill by now: You type a question into the magic AI box, and the magic AI box spits out an answer that is usually pretty good, occasionally mind-blowing, and every once in a blue moon mind-blowingly bizarre.
But if youre just treating Google Gemini like a glorified search bar, youre leaving a lot of utility on the table. Its sort of like buying a Swiss Army knife and only ever using the toothpick.
If you want to move past the beginner phase and actually make Gemini work for you, here are four tricks that might not be immediately obvious but are surprisingly handy.
Stop copy-pasting your own emails
If youre trying to summarize a long email thread or find a specific document to pull data from, your first instinct is probably to open a new tab, find the email, copy the text, go back to Gemini, paste it in, and then ask your question.
No need: Gemini has “Extensions” built right in. If you want to know when your flight is or summarize a Doc, just type @ in the prompt box. Youll see a menu pop up for Google Docs, Gmail, Drive, Maps, and other Google services.
Select one, and say something like, “@Gmail find the email from Bob about the Q3 budget and summarize the main points.” It goes and finds the info, saving you from tab fatigue. If you need to turn on these extensions, heres how.
The trust but verify button
Use AI long enough and youll eventually come across “hallucinations,” which is a polite way of saying the AI just made something up because it sounded good.
If youre using Gemini for important research, make sure to use the Double-check response feature, which can be found by clicking the three-dot icon at the bottom of a response.
When you click it, Google runs a search to see if theres content on the web to substantiate what the AI just told you. A green highlight means Google found a search result that supports the statement, while an orange highlight means Google either found content that might contradict it, or it couldn’t find a match.
Its not foolproof, but its a helpful extra step to take in order to make sure Googles info isnt too far off base.
Tables and spreadsheets
Were used to chatbots just . . . chatting. But if youre trying to make a decision, like comparing three different project management tools or deciding among five hotels for that Nashville trip, paragraphs of text are actually pretty annoying to parse.
You can force Gemini to make information more digestible by telling it, for example: “Output this as a table comparing [Option A] and [Option B] based on price, reviews, and features.”
Itll organize the messy data into a clean grid. And if youre feeling especially ambitious, youll notice an “Export to Sheets” icon underneath the table.
One click creates a brand-new Google Sheet with all that data populated, formatted, and saved to your Google Drive. It turns cumbersome manual data entry into a single button press.
Audio uploads
Most people know Gemini can read text and look at pictures. But it also has ears.
If you have a recording of a chaotic 45-minute meeting, a rambling lecture, or an interview you recorded on your phone, dont waste your time listening to it at 2x speed.
You can upload audio files directly into the prompt bar. Just click the plus (+) icon, select Upload files, and drop in your audio clip.
Then ask for what you need: “Summarize this meeting and extract the three action items assigned to me” or “Find the timestamp where they discuss the Q3 budget, for example.
It doesnt just transcribe; Gemini “listens” to the context and turns an hour of audio into a 30-second read.
Its been called the AI Super Bowl, thanks to Anthropic and OpenAI launching what (hopefully) might become AIs very own Cola Wars.
Its been called the MAHA Bowl, thanks to brands like Novo Nordisk promoting Wegovy pills, while Ro and hims & hers are pitching telehealth services, Novartis got NFL tight ends to relax for prostate cancer checks, and pharma company Boehringer Ingelheim hypes kidney health.
But we know it was the Super Bowl because mixed in amongst the trends were Sabrina Carpenters FrankenPringles man, both T-Mobile and Coinbase hit play on the Backstreet Boys, Oakley Meta made connected glasses look pretty good, and Manscaped somehow turned shaved body hair into emotionally-resonant characters.
Another distinct sign this was as Super Bowl-y an ad game as any other Super Bowl? Celebrity directors. Taika Waititi took on Pepsi, Spike Jonze went full Italian variety show with Ben Stiller for Instacart, and Joseph Kosinski took all the innovation from his experiences at the helm of last years blockbuster F1 to get Kurt Russell to teach a guy how to ski. Oh, and somehow the award-winning director with the least commercial films had two spots in the gameYorgos Lathimos directed both Squarespace and Grubhub.
Apple continued its complete reinvention of the halftime show, turning Bad Bunnys electric performance into a global event.
We also saw a respectable number of hit songs get classically commercial reinterpretations. The aforementioned Backstreet Boys were joined by Andy Samberg becoming Meal Diamond for Hellmanns, Danny McBride and Keegan-Michael Key butchering Bon Jovi for State Farm, and both the NFL and Rocket crafting emotional gut punch moments by reinterpreting two songs from the Mr. Rogers catalog.
Advertising!
It was a feast for the sensesa cornucopia of commercial extravaganza. All with enough choices that everyone watching the game has their own favorites Including me!
Here are my picks for the best ads from the 2026 Super Bowl. But first, the worst!
Svedka Vodka Shake Your Bots Off
Its apparently the first Super Bowl ad known to be produced primarily with AI. I never wouldve guessed
This ad so bad Im not sure its fair to make fun of it, even if its somehow purposely awful. This is the kind of bad that should be taught in schools. It looks like it was made by Advertising 101 students in a rush. The AI angle is a gimmick for gimmicks sake, obviously, and doesn’t add anything to the ad at all except the robots’ nightmare fuel faces.
What is so disappointing is that vodka has historically been a pretty great place for advertising. For anyone curious about the kind of creativity is possible in the vodka category, just watch Belvedere Vodkas 2022 spot Daniel Craig, directed by Waititi. Or Absoluts Vodka Movie from 2008, made by Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and Zach Galifianakis. Glorious.
Svedka, conversely, serves up the advertising equivalent to the most vapid, superficial people youve ever seen in a club. A robot apocalypse as imagined by the Butabi brothers.
OK, now lets get to the good stuff. Here are my Top 5 ads from this year…
Budweiser “American Icons”
As I said in my pregame brand power rankings, Bud was here for the crown.
Created by BBDO New York, this takes Budweisers penchant for animal buddies to a new, non-partisan patriotic level. What could possibly be cuter than a horse and a yellow lab becoming best friends? Well, when its Buds 150th anniversary and Americas 250th, the answer, of course, is EAGLET.
These are divisive times, with many states feeling less and less united with every news cycle. But here, just for a moment, Bud has served up something that we can all agree on.
When that bald eagle spread its big grown wings for the first time from behind that leaping horse, red states, blue states, MAGA, Democratic Socialists, coastal elites, flyover rednecks, and everyone in between were able to say, Oh HELLS yeah.
And in 2026, thats something to raise a glass to.
Jeep Billy Bass Goes to the River
What initially appears to be a pretty run-of-the-mill car ad takes a decidedly epic turn that transforms ths spot into a classic.
If you listen to the Super Bowl episode of Fast Companys Brand New World podcast (do it!), youll know I spoke to the folks who made it, Mark Gross and Chad Broude, who are co-founders and co-chief creative officers of Chicago-based independent ad agency Highdive. They have hundreds of Super Bowl ads between them, and this latest piece of work shows the benefit of that experience.
Highdive has become synonymous with great Super Bowl work since the 2020 Super Bowl and their fantastic Jeep commercial starring Bill Murray, reliving the classic 1993 comedy Groundhog Day.
The level of difficulty here is highno nostalgic soundtrack, no celebrity, no gimmick. Just a straight shot of good ol fashioned copywriting, perfect casting and comedic timing straight into the veins.
Rocket x Redfin America Needs Neighbors Like You
With the amount of money required just for Super Bowl air timea reported $8 million, plus a required additional matching ad buy across other NBC sports brands need to ensure they get your attention.
This year, Rocket and Redfin did that by combining three things that would create a large Venn diagram of interest: Lady Gaga singing Mr. Rogerss Wont You Be My Neighbor?; a heartwarming commercial airing during the game; and, most crucially, giving viewers the chance to win a million-dollar house.
But everything revolves around the spot, which was a well-crafted, heartwarming vibe shift from all the comedy and celebrities.
I spoke to CMO Jonathan Mildenhall about this triple threat approach.
“The only way to win at the Super Bowl is to win a disproportionate share of conversation pregame, as well as during game, and, increasingly, the progressive brands are talking about postgame conversation, Mildenhall says. For us the pregame was Lady Gaga behind the scenes, then during the game there is the spot, and were announcing the Great American home search for people to participate in over the days after the game.
Hellmanns Meal Diamond
The Boston Red Sox, and every karaoke bar on the planet, utilize Neil Diamonds Sweet Caroline effectively to bring a crowd together, put an arm around one another and scream SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD! in unison.
Here we get that 1969 hit remixed for mayo thanks to Andy Samberg as Meal Diamond. Of course this looks and sounds ridiculous. But it actually continues a strategy Hellmanns started in 2024.
Mayo Cat starred Kate McKinnon and was able to put one word into the mouth of every cat: Mayyo. Its ambition to embed itself in our brains in such an insidious way that we hear it every time a cat meows was commendable. Clearly, that ambition remains.
Now when youre making lunch, you may find yourself humming a familiar tune and whisper-crooning to yourself, Haaaam, touching ham.. until it hits a crescendo, Sweet Sandwich Time! Bah-bah-baaaaah.
Bud Light Keg
Bud Light was in a dark place not that long ago. It was unfairly punished for its one-off partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, which turned into an unlikely lightning rod for anti-trans weirdos and fans of Kid Rock.
Thankfully, with Shane Gillis, the brand has been building back its beer advertising pedigree by making commercials that are funny as hell. His impressive run includes Confessions, Wrong Commercial, and last years big game ad BMOC.
Now Gillis, Post Malone, and Peyton Manning return, this time at a wedding. When the keg gets knocked over and rolls down a hill, the entire wedding party does its best Princess Bride As you wish impression. Dumb, fun, and exactly what you want from a Bud Light ad.
In Southwest Airlines new Super Bowl ad, boarding looks more like the Hunger Games than an orderly process. Set in an airport thats been reimagined as a dense jungle, passengers rush to secure their preferred seats before its too late: a woman swings on a giant vine to cut her fellow travelers; a grandma shoulder-checks a passerby; and a man creates a dummy seatmate out of twigs to convince other fliers that his aisle seat has already been snagged.
The ad is a parody of Southwests former open boarding policy, which, since the airlines official founding in 1971, allowed passengers to choose their own seats in a system that aimed to reduce the hierarchy of tiered seating. In January 2024, Southwest announced that it would be nixing open seating in favor of a more standard assigned seating system, citing the time pressure involved in the open seating process and a new focus on premium seating options as the main reasons for the change. Assigned seating officially rolled out across the airlines operations on January 27.
Southwest describes its new spot, Boarding Royale, as a self-aware clap-back at its former boarding policy. And, at surface value, the ad is funny, well-executed, and accurate for anyone whos ever traveled with a nervous flier (or is one). But, taken alongside Southwests brand moves over the past two years, the ad feels less like a light-hearted self-own, and more like the hypocritical creative output of a brand thats seriously lost the plot.
“Boarding Royale” pokes fun at open seating
Boarding Royale was directed by the creative agency GSD&M, Southwests longtime agency of record. According to Julia Melle, director of brand and content at Southwest, the ad is designed to introduce assigned seating in a way that recognizes we understand its a category norm” and “feels authentic to our brand.
[Photo: Southwest Airlines]
Within the spot, there are nods to the various traveler behaviors associated with Southwest’s open seating, such as the traveler who checked in too late, the one who creatively saves seats, and the young families with children who will do anything to ensure they sit together, Melle says. Our most loyal customers have probably witnessed these behaviors more than anyone, so we believe the exaggeration will give them a chuckle.
Indeed, the ad does a good job at poking lighthearted fun at the kinds of exasperating, head-scratching behaviors one tends to encounter at the airport. This strategy mightve worked perfectly well if it was, say, making a silly joke at the expense of a rival airline. But it falls flat when its directly making fun of a feature that was a pillar of Southwests brand for decadesand was, until recently, a system that the company touted again and again in its own marketing materials.
Southwest’s boarding about-face
From its inception, Southwest cultivated a reputation as a quirky, low-cost airline for the everyman. Three key features sat at the heart of that brand positioning: open seating, a staunch stance against hidden fees, and an iconic Bags Fly Free policy. Over the past several years, the company has shaved away all of those commitments.
Some of Southwests earliest ads tout the airlines unique boarding process, which it promised at the time would take less than 10 minutes total. In the 80s, a series of print advertisements promised, Unlike assigned seating, youre free to sit next to someone just like you. For years, the brands unofficial slogan, oft repeated by flight attendants, was You can sit anywhere you wantjust like at church. In 2007, backlash to the concept of Southwest eliminating open seating was so strong that the company published a blog titled, You Spoke and We ListenedSouthwest Says Open Seating is Here to Stay!
Southwests marketing often used its open seating modelwhich meant no ticketed class divisions in the cabinto tout its lack of hidden fees compared to competitors. In the early 2000s, many of the brands ads parodied other airlines by showing passengers getting charged additional fees for small luxuries like using the overheard compartments, reclining their seats, or enjoying a snack. In one 2015 campaign titled Transfarency, the company promised, Transfarency means we dont dream up ways we can trick you into paying more.
A brand that’s lost the plot
To say that these spots have aged poorly would be an understatement. When it announced its new assigned seating policy in 2024, Southwest also introduced a category of premium seats which come with extra legroom, faster Wi-Fi, and larger overhead binsfor an added cost. Its currently in the process of renovating its cabins to make room for these seats, which will take up one third of each aircrats total seating. In August 2025, it also announced a new policy that requires travelers who dont fit within the armrests of their seat to pay for an extra one in advance.
[Photo: Southwest Airlines]
The brands most egregious move by far, though, came in March 2025, when it announced that it would kill its Bags Fly Free policy, which allowed travelers to check two bags without added costs. Bags Fly Free was a mantra that Southwest repeated in its marketing for decades, including spots in 2009, 2011, and one in 2023 that has since been made private by the company on YouTube.
As recently as September 2025, the company said on an earnings call that ending the signature program would be a destructive step too far. Southwest has also removed a 2024 study from its website which found that eliminating Bags Fly Free would destroy value.
This isnt to say that brands arent allowed to change their minds or their business strategies. But Southwest hasnt just evolved with the times; its sacrificed some of its most closely held brand attributes values in pursuit of profit. With just a bit of context on Southwests repeated capitulations to market pressure, Boarding Royale starts to feel less like a silly ad, and more like a betrayal of the companys purpose.
