What if, instead of working toward an exit strategy, we built companies for longevity?
Thats the question at the heart of employee ownership. Its not just a perk to lure talent. Its a fundamentally different way of building a business, and one that might just be the key to long-term resilience.
Ive spent nearly my entire career inside a 100% employee-owned architecture, engineering, planning, and interiors design firm. Today as CEO, I lead its 1,800 employee-owners. Ive seen firsthand how this model changes everything, from how team members treat clients to how the organization is able to weather change. But this isn’t a story about just one company. It’s about a mindset shift that could help more companies build lasting value instead of just quick wins.
RETHINK OWNERSHIP: BEYOND THE CAP TABLE
When most people think of ownership, they picture equity grants or stock options. But real employee ownership is more than a line item. Its a structure that changes incentives, yes, but also culture, leadership, and accountability.
Being 100% employee-owned has shaped how we make decisions, collaborate, and deliver work. When you know your colleagues have skin in the game, you trust them differently. You lead differently. You take responsibility in a way that doesnt hinge on hierarchyit stems from care rooted in real ownership.
And when your clients know theyre dealing with employee-owners, not just employees, that builds trust in return. Clients can feel the difference. Its not always easy to define, but its palpablein the commitment, the deep sense of shared responsibility, the pride people take in the outcome.
WHY IT’S SUSTAINABLEAND SCALABLE
One of the most compelling reasons to explore employee ownership is its long-term viability. When a company is built around shared responsibility instead of individual power, it becomes more resilient to leadership changes. I once spoke to a CEO who said he wasnt sure his company would survive without him and his fellow majority owners. I cant imagine building something without knowing that it would endure for future generations.
The companys legacy shouldnt rest on any single person. Our founding partners built the company on the idea that if you invest in the company, the company should invest in you. That spirit helped guide our transition to full employee ownership decades ago.
Shared ownership encourages leaders to think beyond the present moment. In my experience, it also invites more people into that conversation. When ownership is broad-based, strategic planning becomes a collective effort, not just a top-down mandate. Teams are more likely to align on long-term goals, and more willing to adapt when circumstances change, because theyve helped shape the direction.
Ownership changes the timeline youre working on. You stop optimizing for the quarter and start asking bigger questions: What will serve our team, our clients, and our communities for the next 5, 10, 15, or even 50 years?
INNOVATION THROUGH INCLUSION
One possibly unexpected benefit of employee ownership is what it unlocks creatively. When people feel a genuine sense of agency, they collaborate differently. Our firm uses a matrix leadership model that gives different types of experts the chance to lead depending on the problem at hand. That level of collaboration always brings its own challenges, but more importantly, it creates room for new ideas and cross-disciplinary solutions to emerge.
Ownership doesnt just empower decision making; it encourages experimentation. We support things like personal development grants that allow employee-owners to pursue research projects outside their day-to-day work. One grant led to a neuroinclusive design exhibit featured at a major international architectural showcase. These kinds of initiatives dont just enrich culturethey advance innovation.
WHAT LEADERS SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES
Employee ownership isnt right for every company. But its a model worth serious consideration, especially for leaders thinking about employee engagement, long-term value creation, or succession.
If you’re a founder or executive, ask yourself: What will happen to your company when you step away? Will the culture, vision, and value you’ve built live on? Or does everything rest on the shoulders of a few people at the top?
Ownership changes that equation. It puts real sustainability at the core of how a business operates.
Ive seen what happens when people arent just asked to think like owners, but actually are owners. It creates a different kind of business: one thats more resilient and more invested in the long term. In a world full of companies built for the exit, we need more that are built to last.
Steven McKay is the chief executive officer of DLR Group.
In business, theres one skill no leader would dare neglect: the financials. Financial literacy, like understanding a balance sheet, cash flow, or P&L, is one of the foundations for decision making. As climate change rewrites supply chains, consumer demand, and regulation, another fluency is becoming just as essential.
Climate literacy will protect business growth and resilience, while leaders who ignore it are being left behind. But mastering it means more than knowing that emissions are a problem. Its about being able to read, question, and apply environmental data the way a CFO interprets financials. Leaders must be able to ask, and know the answer to, questions like:
Where are our biggest emissions risks?
Which investments deliver real impact reductions versus a marketing spin alone?
How do we balance short-term targets with long-term resilience?
Are we measuring the ROI of ongoing sustainability initiatives?
OUT OF THE SILO AND INTO THE BOARDROOM
Sustainability data is not just for sustainability teams. Instead of climate data living in a silo, it must become embedded in decision making across the business, reflecting how financial data is key to core business decisions and has many applications beyond the finance team.
Were already seeing the shift in action. Retail teams are not only generating science-based impact data with Vaayu, but actively using it across functions. Their product design teams are testing and adjusting materials, logistics teams are optimizing deliveries, and marketing teams are building carbon data into how they communicate.
One example is the intimate apparel brand Triumph, which carried out nearly 1,500 product-level analyses. The footprints revealed clear hotspots across categories, from suncare (which averaged just 2.18 kg COe per item), to make-up, where end-of-life impacts were highest. They pointed to the urgent need for stronger circular solutions and better disposal practices.
Taking a different approach to applying impact data, Vestiaire Collective assessed its avoided emissions through its resale platform, enabling them to show customers that second-hand luxury can actually outperform fast fashion on cost. The unique cost-per-wear metric found that buying pre-loved luxury items was around one-third more affordable over time than purchasing new fast fashion, challenging the assumption that luxury must always come at a higher price.
Far from being only about sustainability, these insights ultimately help leaders drive decisions that lead to reduced costs and risks while also enhancing brand credibility, trust, and even ROI among key audiences. Companies that fail to act arent just missing an opportunity; they are falling behind competitors who are already speaking the language of sustainability and turning climate action into business advantage.
CROSS-INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
The cross-industry lesson is simple. Every sector, from finance to healthcare, will need to treat carbon literacy like financial literacy. Just as leaders once learned to parse revenue streams and liabilities, they must now understand emission scopes, avoided versus created impact, and the trade-offs between compliance and innovation.
The companies that invest early in building this fluency will be the ones prepared for investor scrutiny, regulatory shifts, and, perhaps most importantly, customer trust.
TURN COMPLIANCE RISKS INTO REWARDS
Implications extend into mandates, too. Regulatory momentum remains. Even with delays, climate disclosure frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive are still on the horizon. Leaders need to act now to build internal processes and data systems ahead of when rules kick in, making carbon illiteracy a genuine liability in addition to being a blind spot.
And regardless of policy shifts, market expectations persist. Investors, customers, and talent continue to demand a credible climate response. The workforce itself is becoming a change driver. Younger generations increasingly choose employers that align with their values, and companies that fail to embed carbon literacy risk losing talent to more forward-looking competitors. In this sense, climate fluency is growing into a defining marker of resilience, credibility, and long-term growth.
Carbon literacy is fast becoming a source of risk mitigation and competitive edge. Companies that understand their products true impact can redesign them with lower footprints, communicate that data with transparency, and stand apart in crowded markets. This not only appeals to climate-conscious customers but also builds loyalty and trust at a time when greenwashing is under greater scrutiny.
Now, climate data is not a specialists job but a leadership skill. No CEO would admit to not understanding a balance sheet, but soon, no leader will get away with not understanding their companys climate impact, either.
Namrata Sandhu is founder and CEO of Vaayu.
As OpenAI rolls out its new social media app Sorawhich allows users to prompt the companys Sora 2 model to produce fantastical videos of almost anythingthere are obvious concerns that the platform could be used to generate deepfakes and otherwise misleading content.
To combat this problem, the company says it adjusted its systems to prevent users from manipulating images of other people, including political leaders like Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, or Emmanuel Macron. If you try to generate an image of a public figure, the Sora appwhich is still invitation-onlywill generally tell you your prompt violates the platforms guidelines.
But OpenAI is also using a more analog method of preventing celebrity impersonation: blocking users from even signing up for the platform with certain usernames.
The company appears to have blocked users from signing up with usernames that reference major political figures and other celebrities, including Trump, Katy Perry, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Kim Jong Un. While some account names are flagged as already taken, these usernames trigger a specific notice: This username is not allowed. The company did not directly answer Fast Companys questions about how it determines which public figure usernames should be blocked.
OpenAI is already selling its ChatGPT technology to U.S. federal agencies, but the company wouldnt say much about whether it might eventually welcome government officials, or the government more broadly, to the Sora app.
We don’t have anything else to share right now on future plans, an OpenAI spokesperson told Fast Company. Public figures cant be generated in Sora unless theyve uploaded a cameo themselves and given consent for it to be used. Whether youre a public figure or not, Cameo puts you in control of your likeness, with options to decide who can use it and how. (Cameo is the Sora feature that allows you to upload recordings of yourself to the app and create a highly realistic avatar, and then use that likeness in a variety of AI-generated scenarios.)
OpenAI is relatively new to the social media business, but the battle over username ownership is nothing new. Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter have long dealt with the challenge of social media users claiming to be celebrities online, as well as the question of how to grant coveted handles. Control over accounts that appear to belong to government officials is particularly sensitive, and social media companies often tout steps they take to prevent their platforms from misuse during campaign season.
But the challenge becomes far more complicated with generative artificial intelligence and generated AI videos, which are premised on inviting people to create doctored content.
While President Trump doesnt seem to have an active Sora account right now, he is a devoted social media poster with a growing penchant for AI-generated video memes that mock his political opponents. Soras technology has also gotten significantly better, which means its far more likely that people might get dupedand that they might need to rely on a username to verify the source of a particular piece of generated content.
The levels of realism and the number of visible artifacts have both been improved over the previous version and other state-of-the-art video generation apps, Siwei Lyu, a computer science professor at the University of Buffalo, whose team studied the latest Sora model, told Fast Company. Despite visible watermarks on generated videos and other invisible watermarks deployed by the company, to ordinary viewers the generated videos are very challenging to tell apart from real ones, Lyu said. Its still possible for people to circumvent or manipulate the technology, he warned, noting that he wasnt sure how OpenAI developed the list of people whose likenesses cant be generated on the app.
OpenAI has released general usage policies on what people arent allowed to do with its models. That includes depicting real people without their consent and producing content thats designed to mislead others. But while the username not allowed message seems to imply that OpenAI wants to specifically limit the ability of people to represent themselves as public figures, its not clear how exhaustive that policy actually is or who its designed to cover.
For instance, the username JD Vance is already deployed. And theres a barely followed account that represents itself as Education Secretary Linda McMahon, with her face as the profile picture, as well as one for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, also with a profile picture. Neither has verified check marks, which some influencers on the app now display. Its theoretically possible these accounts actually belong to those individuals, but unlikely.
Right now, the Sora app is only available to users in North America, but the names of some public figures outside the U.S. and Canada seem to have been proactively protected by the company. The name Sara Duterte, the name of the Philippines current vice president, produces a not allowed notice, as does Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Palestinian politician Mahmoud Abbas, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Netanyahu. The names Maha Vajiralongkorn, the king of Thailand, and Anutin Charnvirakul, the countrys prime minister, were both blocked. William Ruto, the name of the president of Kenya, is also blocked.
But not every head of state is automatically protected from any common user using their name. Fast Company was able to successfully edit a Sora account username to the names of leaders of Guyana, Niger, and Angola: Irfaan Ali, Abdourahamane Tchiani, and Joo Lourenço, respectively. An account has already taken the name Ibrahim Traoré, the interim president of Burkina Faso. The username for Prabowo Subianto, the name of the president of Indonesia, has also been nabbed. The name of Peter Pellegrinithe leader of Slovakia, a nation that saw a deepfake video of a candidate spur confusion during an election just last yearis now being used, too.
A former State Department official told Fast Company that, on its own, blocking certain usernames is not even a barely acceptable minimum. For now, the username function doesn’t seem to recognize at least some Cyrillic characters, but its possible that someone could try to take advantage of those to make it appear like they already have blocked usernames, the person added.
As for leaders in some non-Western countries not having their names reserved, the person said: These companies never care about the Global South until someone gets hurt.
On Thursday October 16, New Yorkers and people across the country who have been watching the city’s mayoral race will tune in as Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa face off in the first of two mayoral debates, ahead of New York City’s upcoming election on November 4.
The debate is set to take place in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center starting at 7:00 p.m. ET this evening. NBC 4 New York/WNBC, Telemundo 47/WNJU, and POLITICO New York are partnering to host the debate.
The hotly contested three-way race is between Mamdani, a state assemblyman; Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary; and 71-year-old Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, a group that patrols the city for crime. Mayor Eric Adams, a former independent candidate, ended his bid for re-election at the end of last month.
A win for Mamdani could offer insight into how Democrats will fare in upcoming national elections and next year’s midterms.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic socialist, was able to clinch the nomination back in June over Cuomo, a household name in New York, and currently maintains a double-digit lead in polls. (Both Cuomo and Sliwa are hoping to gain back some of that ground tonight and connect with voters.)
Mamdani is running on a platform that addresses some of the key economic problems plaguing Trump’s second term: high inflation, the soaring cost of living, and high housing prices. Mamdani wants to lower housing costs in New York City by freezing rent, building more affordable housing, and holding bad landlords accountable. He also wants to tackle rising food prices with a network of city-owned grocery stores.
How can I watch the NYC mayoral debate?
Traditional television subscribers can catch the debate, which will take place at WNBCs studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, on WNBC-TV and across WNBC’s and WNJU-TV’s streaming and digital platforms, including the NBC 4 New York and Telemundo Noreste streaming channels.
Only the first of the two hours will air live on WNBC and WNJU. The debate will be streamed in its entirety on NBC 4 New York and Telemundos streaming platforms.
Each broadcast will be translated into Spanish for WNJU audiences, and will also include a sign-language interpreter and closed captioning access for the hearing impaired, for both WNBC and WNJU audiences.
Many news outlet websites will also livestream the debate, including POLITICO and the New York Times, which will also provide real-time commentary and analysis from its reporters.
As we scroll through our feeds, its not unusual to stumble upon AI-generated slopthe kind of empty, nonsensical content thats unmistakably artificial. You click on one, and before you know it, your feeds flooded with more of the same. Its left users craving the authenticity they once savoreda pervasive frustration spreading across social media
Pinterest has not been immune to the phenomenon. Described by Futurism as strangled by AI slop, the platform has been “engulfed in a torrent of uncanny AI-generated content, drowning out the human-made inspiration that once thrived there.”
Amid a surge of complaints, the platform has rolled out new generative AI controls that let users dial downor uphow much artificial intelligence-produced content appears in their feeds.
Accounts can now manage their preferences in Pinterest’s settings under Refine Your Recommendations or tweak individual Pins on the fly. The feature allows users to adjust settings for “eligible” image Pins a variety of categories, including entertainment, beauty, health, and fashion.
Matt Madrigal, Pinterest’s chief technology officer, said in a statement that the feature strikes the right balance “between human creativity and AI innovation” and ensures that “every feed truly reflects what inspires them most.
“AI is not inspirational”
The move is an apparent response to the undercurrent of bitterness that has been pouring in across social media.
And Pinterest is hardly alone. AI slop is everywhere online, competing for clicks and views. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok were quick to introduce ways to reset feeds and filter out unwanted content.
Yet the frustration with the “Pin giant” has reverberated loudly and clearly.
In one viral post on X, a user complained, I hate how Pinterest is just AI and ads now. Its just unusable. The beauty of seeing an outfit on a real person . . . AI is not aspirational at all. Another chimed in, The amount of AI thats on Pinterest now is depressing.”
Reddit users have echoed the sentiment: AI is ruining Pinterest. Im about to delete the app! and Is there a good alternative to Pinterest? AI & ads are driving me nuts.
In an effort to humanize the experience, the newly released updates build on Pinterests earlier GenAI tools, including labels that identify image Pins likely generated or modified with AI. These labels will become more prominent in the coming weeks as detection improves, and the platform has committed to ongoing iteration to grant its audience greater control over feeds.
Social media companies have had a mixed year
While Pinterest is making moves to win back its users trust, the business itself is showing growth, but the company posted mixed results for its most recent earnings in August.
It reported adjusted earnings per share of 33 cents, below consensus estimates of 35 cents. Revenue came in above expectations at $998 million versus the expected $975 million.
At the same time, it hit a new milestone with 578 million global monthly active users, an 11% increase over the same period last year.
Pinterest stock (NYSE: PINS) has seen middling growth this year, with shares up roughly 7.26% year to date.
That’s not as quite as high as its larger competitor Meta Platforms, whose stock is up 18.83% this year, but it’s better than Snapchat owner Snap Inc., whose shares have tumbled 31% over the same period.
One of the most vital drugs with a high price tag will get dramatically more affordable next year if you live in California.
California will start selling insulin next year after striking out on its own in a bold deal to lower the cost of prescription drugs, making it the first state in the nation to do so. The state will offer low-cost insulin through CalRx, a state program designed to provide affordable life-saving drugs in California.
California didnt wait for the pharmaceutical industry to do the right thing we took matters into our own hands, California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a press release. … No Californian should ever have to ration insulin or go into debt to stay alive and I wont stop until health care costs are crushed for everyone.
Through the California program, insulin will be available starting in 2026 to state pharmacies for $45 for a five pack of insulin pens, with a suggested retail price of $55. The drug will be available to everyone at the set price, regardless of their insurance plan.
Production of the drug will be handled by nonprofit pharmaceutical company Civica Rx through a $50 million deal the state struck in 2023. The partnership will eventually produce three forms of insulin, equivalent to namebrands Lantus, Humalog, and Novolog. The program is starting with glargine, a generic version of the drug Lantus, which will be available in January. The CalRx insulin will be produced at Civicas manufacturing plant in Virginia.
CalRx was first announced in 2019 as an executive order and later signed into law as the California Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act of 2020. Prior to the insulin news, CalRx successfully drove down the cost of Naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses, selling twin packs of the drug for $22.50 over the counter.
Cost of insulin as a political issue
The price of insulin comes frequently in politics, whether as a political bargaining chip or a campaign promise. Thats because in the U.S., the life-saving drug is astronomically expensive compared to how much it costs diabetes patients in other countries around the world. While insulin is cheap to manufacture, costing only around $4 per vial, it can wind up costing consumers hundreds of dollars every time they fill their prescription. That high cost can lead people with diabetes to skip and ration their doses, putting their health at serious risk in the process.
After hitting historic highs, the price of insulin in the U.S. is finally coming down. Legislation and executive action over the past five years have put a cap on the cost of insulin for Medicare enrollees. The big three manufacturers have also made their own price cuts, extracting less profit from the life-saving drugs as national frustration and regulation targeting high insulin costs became impossible to ignore.
States band together on health policy
Blue states are going their own way more during the second Trump administration, pooling their economic power and shared vision to set policies. Californias good news on insulin pricing comes one day after the state announced that it would join a first-of-its-kind coalition bringing together blue states on public health policy. The initiative, known as the Governors Public Health Alliance, aims to provide science-backed alternative public health policies to those set by the federal government under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. California will join Washington, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina and Guam.
California is proud to help launch this new alliance because the American people deserve a public health system that puts science before politics, Newsom said in the announcement. As extremists try to weaponize the CDC and spread misinformation, were stepping up to coordinate across states, protect communities, and ensure decisions are driven by data, facts, and the health of the American people.
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Speaking Tuesday at the National Association for Business Economics meeting in Philadelphia, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered his clearest reflection yet on the Feds pandemic-era mortgage bond buying.
He acknowledged that the central bank may have kept purchasing mortgage-backed securities (MBS) for too longbut he also suggested that those purchases may have had a smaller effect on the housing markets trajectory than some assume.
Regarding the composition of our purchases, some have questioned the inclusion of agency MBS purchases given the strong housing market during the pandemic recovery,” Powell said. “The extent to which these MBS purchases disproportionately affected housing market conditions during this period is challenging to determine. Many factors affect the mortgage market, and many factors beyond the mortgage market affect supply and demand in the broader housing market.
With the clarity of hindsight, we could haveand perhaps should havestopped asset purchases sooner,” Powell continued. “Our real-time decisions [in 2020-2021] were intended to serve as insurance against downside [economic] risks [following the pandemic].
From 2020 through 2021, the Fed was purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Treasuries and MBS. Those actionspart of its quantitative easing (QE) programwere designed, in theory, to lower long-term borrowing costs and support financial stability at a time when the policy short-term rate was also pinned near 0%.
When the Fed buys long-term bonds like Treasuries or MBS, it creates extra demand for those securities. When bond prices risesay for MBSthen the yieldsor mortgage rates for MBSfall. They move inversely.
Critics have argued that those MBS purchases added unnecessary fuel to a housing market already running red-hot during the Pandemic Housing Boom. They contend that by continuing to buy MBS deep into 2021, the Fed artificially suppressed mortgage rateswith the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hitting an all-time low of 2.65% in January 2021and helped intensify competition among buyers, worsening affordability.
Powells comments on Tuesday acknowledged, to a small degree, an element of that critique, but also suggested that the actual impact may have been smaller than many assume. He appeared to imply that other powerful factorssuch as the pandemic-era surge in demand for more space, the unlocked WFH arbitrage (including the domestic migration wave it triggered), and pandemic-era savingswere also at play. Of course, Powell has repeatedly stated that he simply believes there arent enough homes in the country.
While the Fed cant undo its 2021 asset purchases, Powell acknowledged that, going forward, the central bank could be more nimble in adjusting its balance sheethinting that future QE programs might be shorter or more targeted.
Stopping [QE asset purchases, including MBS] sooner could have made some difference, but not likely enough to fundamentally alter the trajectory of the economy,” Powell said on Tuesday. “Nonetheless, our experience since 2020 does suggest that we can be more nimble in our use of the balance sheet, and more confident that our communications will foster appropriate expectations among market participants given their growing experience with these tools.
No appetite for using MBS to address the current housing strain
Some online observerslets be honest, mostly those tied to the mortgage and housing industrieshave floated the idea that the Fed could start buying MBS again to help bring down todays elevated mortgage rates.
But when asked on Tuesday whether renewed MBS purchases might be used to improve housing affordability, Powell firmly rejected the notion.
“We look at overall inflation, we don’t target housing prices. And we’d certainly not engage in mortgage-backed security purchases as a way of addressing mortgage rates or housing directly,” said Powell. “That’s not what we do.
Uber’s U.S. drivers and couriers have a new way to earn extra money.
The ride-hail app announced on Thursday a new pilot program that will offer gig workers the opportunity to train artificial intelligence (AI) through so-called “digital tasks.”
They include simple, quick tasks for workers such as uploading photos, recording themselves speaking in their native language, and submitting documents written in different languageswhich are then fed into AI models. Uber already offers this for gig workers in India.
“A lot of these tasks are digital, meaning you can do them from your phone . . . from anywhere, and at the same time create earnings opportunities,” Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, said at the company’s “Only on Uber” event in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
“Drivers have asked for more ways to earn, even when they’re not on the road,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement to Business Insider. “[We’re] giving drivers more ways to earn during downtime.”
[Image: Uber]
The pilot, which allows gig workers to complete quick digital tasks in the Driver app, is powered by Ubers AI Solutions Group.
How Uber’s “digital tasks” work
The digital tasks are only available to drivers and couriers whove opted in. Once they’ve signed up, they will occasionally see invitations to complete the tasks in the Opportunity Center.
Once available, users can view the full list before they begin (each task is optional)including an estimate of how much time it will take and how much they will earn. After the tasks are completed, payment is added within 24 hours.
Uber Financials
Uber Technologies, Inc (UBER) was trading down nearly 3% in afternoon trading on Thursday.
Uber’s reported second quarter earnings, for the period ending June 30, beat estimates with revenue of $12.65 billion (versus estimates of $12.46 billion). Earnings per share (EPS) came in at 63 cents. At the time, the company also announced the authorization of a $20 billion stock buyback.
After months of uncertainty, some federal student loan borrowers will soon have their debt canceled. But theres a hook: You must be enrolled in a very specific program and have made sufficient payments to qualify.
Some borrowers have been receiving notices in recent weeks that read: You are now eligible to have some or all of your federal student loan(s) discharged because you have reached the necessary number of payments under your Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan.
The IBR plan, first introduced in 2007, offers debt cancellation after 20 or 25 years of repayment, depending on the age of the loans. Nearly 2 million borrowers were enrolled in this program as of the second quarter, according to Federal Student Aid figures.
Notices emailed to borrowers go on to inform them that the U.S. Department of Education will work with their loan servicer to process the discharge over the next several months. If for some reason borrowers want to opt out of IBR forgiveness, they must contact their loan servicer by Oct. 21.
While advocates for debt relief may cheer the news, these notices indicate that IBR forgiveness has resumed after about three months. In July, the Federal Student Aid quietly announced that forgiveness had been paused so its systems could be updated to accurately the number of months paid, blaming litigation related to a forgiveness plan instituted during former President Joe Bidens administration.
As a result, the debt forgiveness notices are simply the resumption of the IBR program, rather than a new forgiveness plan. On the campaign trail last year, President Donald Trump called student loan forgiveness vile and not even legal. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has vowed that a mass forgiveness program won’t happen during her tenure.
These notices have gone out even amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment from Fast Company.
While a formal notice is the best way to confirm that your federal student loan debt will be cancelled, here’s how to know if you may qualify.
BORROWERS MUST BE ENROLLED IN IBR PLAN
The forgiveness notices sent out in recent weeks are only going to student loan borrowers who are enrolled in the income-based repayment plan, which capped monthly payments at a certain percentage of borrowers discretionary income .
Borrowers enrolled in other repayment plans, even other income-driven repayment plans, may not see relief soonif ever. That’s because other plans have been phased out or are held up by litigation in courts.
CHECK NUMBER OF LOAN PAYMENTS
Only those borrowers enrolled in an IBR plan who have made a sufficient number of loan payments are eligible for forgiveness.
If you took out your federal student loans before July 1, 2014, then you must have made consistent monthly payments300 in totalfor 25 years. If you took out loans after that date, the threshold drops to 240 payments over a 20-year period.
Many borrowers switch repayment plans over timeand you may still be eligible for IBR forgiveness for payments made while you were enrolled under other plans.
It may be tempting to assume you’ve qualified for debt forgiveness based on your records of payments, but you should continue making payments as normal until you receive official notice.
EXPECT MORE SHOWDOWNS ON STUDENT LOANS
As the notices to borrowers indicate, full forgiveness may take several months. What’s more, the government shutdown may further delay loan forgivenessand it has snarled other forgiveness efforts, including a legal challenge brought by the American Federation of Teachers regarding the Department of Educations denial of rights to federal student loan borrowers for forgiveness opportunities that were mandated in their loan terms.
Finally, expect more showdowns related to federal student loan debt to come.
Last week, Politico reported that the Trump administration is considering selling parts of the federal governments $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to private investors. Such a move might change current repayment safeguards, along with the potential for loan forgiveness in the future.
Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have sharply increased their use of artificial intelligence to deceive people online and mount cyberattacks against the United States, according to new research from Microsoft.
This July, the company identified more than 200 instances of foreign adversaries using AI to create fake content online, more than double the number from July 2024 and more than ten times the number seen in 2023.
The findings, published Thursday in Microsoft’s annual digital threats report, show how foreign adversaries are adopting new and innovative tactics in their efforts to weaponize the internet as a tool for espionage and deception.
AI’s potential said to be exploited by US foes
America’s adversaries, as well as criminal gangs and hacking companies, have exploited AI’s potential, using it to automate and improve cyberattacks, to spread inflammatory disinformation and to penetrate sensitive systems. AI can translate poorly worded phishing emails into fluent English, for example, as well as generate digital clones of senior government officials.
Government cyber operations often aim to obtain classified information, undermine supply chains, disrupt critical public services, or spread disinformation. Cyber criminals on the other hand work for profit by stealing corporate secrets or using ransomware to extort payments from their victims. These gangs are responsible for the wide majority of cyberattacks in the world and in some cases have built partnerships with countries like Russia.
Increasingly, these attackers are using AI to target governments, businesses, and critical systems like hospitals and transportation networks, according to Amy Hogan-Burney, Microsoft’s vice president for customer security and trust, who oversaw the report. Many U.S. companies and organizations, meanwhile, are getting by with outdated cyber defenses, even as Americans expand their networks with new digital connections.
Companies, governments, organizations and individuals must take the threat seriously if they are to protect themselves amid escalating digital threats, she said.
We see this as a pivotal moment where innovation is going so fast,” Hogan-Burney said. “This is the year when you absolutely must invest in your cybersecurity basics,
US is a popular target
The U.S. is the top target for cyberattacks, with criminals and foreign adversaries targeting companies, governments and organizations in the U.S. more than any other country. Israel and Ukraine were the second and third most popular targets, showing how military conflicts involving those two nations have spilled over into the digital realm.
Russia, China, and Iran have denied that they use cyber operations for espionage, disruption, and disinformation. China, for instance, says the U.S. is trying to smear Beijing while conducting its own cyberattacks.
North Korea has pioneered a scheme in which it uses AI personas to create American identities, allowing them to apply for remote tech jobs. North Korea’s authoritarian government pockets the salaries, while the hackers use their access to steal secrets or install malware.
It’s the kind of digital threat that will face more American organizations in the years to come as sophisticated AI programs make it easier for bad actors to deceive, according to Nicole Jiang, CEO of Fable, a San Francisco-based security company that uses AI to sniff out fake employees. AI is not only a tool for hackers, but also a critical defense against digital attackers, Jiang said.
Cyber is a cat-and-mouse game, she said. Access, data, information, money: That’s what they’re after.
David Klepper, Associated Press
