At first glance, the pairing of Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson and Colossal Biosciences founder and CEO Ben Lamm is a bit odd. When its onstage at the worlds largest gathering of brands and marketers, it gets even more confusing.
But Jackson has been a major investor in Colossal since last year, and he and Lamm were at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to talk to Chaka Sobhani, president and global chief creative officer at ad agency DDB Worldwide, for a conversation that aimed to find common ground in the creative challenge between Middle Earth and IRL.
Colossal, of course, made headlines in April for revealing its first de-extinction project, reintroducing the worlds first dire wolf in 10,000 years. After the stage presentation, Jackson told Fast Company that Colossal has significant storytelling potential, particularly in sparking interest and engagement on issues like environmental conservation.
It’s stimulating curiosity, that’s the most important thing, says Jackson. I grew up imagining all sorts of things, imagining flying cars, imagining a woolly mammoth. And the phones, social media, and everything else have the danger of deadening imagination. And so I think that this is an opportunity.
Jackson has had some significant input in how Colossal tells its stories. Lamm says that just before the dire wolf announcement, Jackson had a suggestion: He told me, When you announce this, you need to show the world the dire wolf howls, because it’s the first time in 10,000 years anyone’s ever heard that. That just made it so much better.
Lamm says Jackson is an active investor. The director and his wife Fran Walsh invested $10 million into the company in October 2024. Peter gives us a lot of advice, says Lamm. Peter connects us to a lot of people in the world, including George RR Martin. Even though he didn’t make dire wolves, he made them famous. Peter actually wants to be involved. Its not about writing a check and then move on to the next deal. Theyre true partners.
Jackson believes the real power is in the companys potential impact on conservation. It’s not just de-extinction, which is obviously exciting, but it’s also conservation, says Jackson. It’s saving species that are really endangered now, and using the technology that these guys have developed to create a larger gene pool, for example, the white rhino. There’s only two left.”
The most common criticism Jackson hears about Colossal is that it should be spending its time and research on currently endangered species instead of de-extinction. Well, you can actually do both, he says.
Both Lamm and Jackson say the de-extinction projects are what get people excited and interested in everything else the company does. Come for the dire wolf, stay for the red wolf. In April, Lamm told the Most Innovative Companies podcast that Colossal had cloned four red wolves that will be able to join the 15 left on earth. The red wolf project, to me, is as magical as the dire wolf, he said.
Though sometimes even Jackson gets nervous.
I was nervous about the woolly mouse, he says. The company spent 2.5 years editing mammoth genes, then applied its work to mice rather than trying to create a creature that has been extinct for thousands of years. It’s an important part of their research on the way to a mammoth, but I was saying, Do you really want to release it to the public? Because it could play to people’s idea of genetic engineering. Its like your Frankenstein. I was nervous about that.
Lamm says the point of the woolly mice was to transparently show the process toward a full woolly mammoth. Its not taking woolly mammoth genes with 200 million years of genetic divergence and ramming it into a mouse. This is part of a gradual road map.
Peter brought his concerns to me, but we just feel that if we’re doing radical things, we still need to be radically transparent, says Lamm. To Peter’s point, while some people could be like, Oh, why are they making woolly mice? We thought it was important to educate the public on this is the process of science, and this is also how we ethically get to a mammoth.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a stunning setback to transgender rights.
The justices’ 63 decision in a case from Tennessee effectively protects from legal challenges many efforts by President Donald Trump’s Republican administration and state governments to roll back protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to the one in Tennessee.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a conservative majority that the law does not violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.
This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound, Roberts wrote. The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best.
In a dissent for the court’s three liberal justices that she summarized aloud in the courtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.”
Efforts to regulate transgender people’s lives
The decision comes amid other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. In April, Trumps administration sued Maine for not complying with the governments push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports.
The Republican president also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming medical care for those under age 19instead promoting talk therapy only to treat young transgender people. And the Supreme Court has allowed him to kick transgender service members out of the military, even as court fights continue. The president signed another order to define the sexes as only male and female.
Trump’s administration has also called for using only therapy, not broader health measures, to treat transgender youths.
Some providers have stopped treatment already
Several of the states where gender-affirming care has not been banned for minors have adopted laws or state executive orders seeking to protect it. But since Trumps executive order calling for blocking federal funding for the treatment for those under 19, some providers have ceased some treatments. For instance, Penn Medicine in Philadelphia announced last month it would not provide surgeries for patients under 19.
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Susan Kressly, said in a statement the organization is unwavering in its support of gender-affirming care and stands with pediatricians and families making health care decisions together and free from political interference.
Five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled transgender, gay and lesbian people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. That decision is unaffected by Wednesdays ruling.
But the justices Wednesday declined to apply the same sort of analysis the court used in 2020 when it found sex plays an unmistakable role in employers decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. Roberts joined that opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was part of Wednesday’s majority.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also fully joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize that laws classifying people based on transgender status should not receive any special review by courts. Barrett, also writing for justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that courts must give legislatures flexibility to make policy in this area.
A devastating loss’ or a ‘Landmark VICTORY
Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case for transgender minors and their families, said in a statement that the ruling “is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution.
Mo Jenkins, a 26-year-old trans woman who began taking hormone therapy at 16, said she was disheartened but not surprised by the ruling. My transition was out of survival, said Jenkins, a Texas native and legislative staffer at the state capitol in Austin.
Texas outlawed puberty blockers and hormone treatment for minors in 2023. The legislature in May also passed a bill that tightly defines a man and a woman by their sex characteristics.
Trans people are not going to disappear, Jenkins said.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on social media called the ruling a Landmark VICTORY for Tennessee at SCOTUS in defense of Americas children!
There are about 300,000 people between the ages of 13 and 17 and 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute, at think tank at the UCLA School of Law that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics.
When the case was argued in December, then-President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and families of transgender adolescents called on the high court to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
They argued the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Tennesses law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors but allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes.
Soon after Trump took office, the Justice Department told the court its position had changed.
A major issue in the case was the appropriate level of scrutiny courts should apply to such laws.
The lowest level is known as rational basis review, and almost every law looked at that way is upheld. Indeed, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that allowed the Tennessee law to be enforced held that lawmakers acted rationally to regulate medical procedures.
The appeals court reversed a trial court that employed a higher level of review, heightened scrutiny, which applies in cases of sex discrimination. Under this more searching examination, the state must identify an important objective and show the law helps accomplish it.
Roberts’ 24-page majority opinion was devoted almost entirely to explaining why the Tennessee law, called SB1, should be evaluated under the lower standard of review. The law’s restrictions on treating minors for gender dysphoria turn on age and medical use, not sex, Roberts wrote.
Doctors may prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors of any sex to treat some disorders, but not those relating to transgender status, he wrote.
But in her courtroom statement, Sotomayor asserted that similar arguments were made to defend the Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage that the Supreme Court struck down in 1967.
A ban on interracial marriage could be described in the same way as the majority described SB1, she said.
Roberts rejected the comparison.
Mark Sherman, Associated Press
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order this week to extend a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest the popular video sharing app, the White House announced Tuesday.
Trump had signed an order in early April to keep TikTok running for an additional 75 days after a potential deal to sell the app to American owners was put on ice.
As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.
Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington early Tuesday from the Group of Seven summit in Canada that he probably would extend the deadline again.
Trump also said he thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping will “ultimately approve a deal to divest TikTok’s business in the United States.
It will be the third time Trump has extended the deadline.
The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when the ban approved by Congressand upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courttook effect.
The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trumps tariff announcement.
It is not clear how many times Trump canor willkeep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by Chinas ByteDance. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a warm spot for TikTok.
Aamer Madhani, Associated Press
Its been almost 400 years since the leaders of New Amsterdam (now New York City) confronted a growing threat on their streets: people moving too fast. In 1652, the colonial council passed what may be North Americas first speed limit: No wagons, carts or sleighs shall be run, rode or driven at a gallop within this city of New Amsterdam, with Broadway (then a commercial corridor) as the lone exception.
Violators were fined the equivalent of $150 to $200 in todays dollars, and repeat offenders could face corporal punishment. European settlers understood that speed in a dense environment is a recipe for disaster.
In the 1780s, engineer James Watt used spinning flyweights to automatically regulate his steam engines to keep them from running too fast. This low-tech speed limiter became the blueprint for other automotive safety mechanisms.
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In 1901, the British Wilson-Pilcher car came equipped with a mechanical governor, limiting how fast the engine could rev. It was one of the first consumer automobiles to feature speed-limiting technology, and almost a century before modern cruise control.
In 1923, Cincinnati nearly became the first U.S. city to require speed governors on all vehicles, but the proposal to cap speeds at 25 MPH failed. Auto industry lobbyists warned that mechanical limiters would reduce car sales and infringe on driver freedom. So-called Motordom still holds to that defensive position, but theyve expanded their propaganda to dismiss speed as a problem, or as you see in many car commercials, embrace speed as something their product delivers.
Drivers are forcing the government to put its foot down
When modern Americans are faced with a conversation about taking a foot off the gas, they tend to react by pressing their hands against their ears and giving a la-la-la-la-la, I cannot hear you, speeding is fine. The problem is, most people dont understand the dangers of driving fast in populated areas like cities and suburbs. Because they dont understand the connection between speed and safety, its only natural that theyll claim speed limiting devices are just another case of an authoritative government, elitist central planning, nanny state overreach, etc.
The comments below followed a March 27, 2025 Washington Post article, and theyre hardly outliers on this topic:
Another step to enslavement.
The nanny state rides yet again.
Big brotherism at its worst.
So anyone late to an appointment has no way to get the car moving a little faster. That sounds like a grim future, particularly since so many speed limits are set pathetically low!
Technology thats used to change driver behavior comes down to this fundamental issue: licensed drivers routinely choose not to govern themselves, demonstrating a need to be governed by an outside force.
I dont like that we find ourselves in a situation where doors are opened for government authorities to force companies how to make a product. But we dont have to invite or even demand action by state and federal agencies if we (anyone who ever drives a motor vehicle) would simply behave better behind the wheel.
Speed ruins far more lives than well ever know
It’s widely known among transportation professionals that police reports focus on issues other than speed even when speed causes a calamity. For example, if someone is driving 40 MPH on a city street, and a driver who was texting says the pedestrian “came out of nowhere,” this is not classified by police as speed being a factor. But speed was a fundamental factor if the driver didn’t see or react in time to stop for the pedestrian.
In the US, about 16 million people smashed their cars into each other last year, sending roughly 40,000 people to the morgue and another 2.5 million to emergency rooms. Speed is a fundamental factor in severe traffic crashes, regardless of what the police report says.
Speed matters because it amplifies mistakes
People will always make mistakes, but the most consequential driving errors are amplified with increased speed. Mistakes like being distracted by a child in the backseat and drifting into another lane quickly elevate the risk to the driver, passengers, and anyone else nearby when going fast. Three important things are much safer on city streets at 25 MPH than 40 MPH:
What you see. Your field of view (what engineers call the cone of vision) shrinks as you accelerate, meaning you no longer clearly see the sidewalks, pedestrians, dogs, drivers about to leave a parked car, someone about to run a red light on a cross-street, etc.
When you react. You dont have as much time to react to any of the events listed above. In one second, you travel about 2 car lengths at 25 MPH, but 4 car lengths at 40 MPH. Thats just one second. Think about how often drivers fiddle with their phone for one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
Where you stop. Even under ideal weather and pavement conditions, the moment you spot a potential danger and hit the brakes, it takes a lot more distance to stop from 40 MPH than 25 MPH. The difference between 165 feet and 85 feet can be the difference between a dead pedestrian and a close call.
Speed matters because it makes crashes more severe
In addition to making crashes more likely to occur, high-speed driving also increases the amount of carnage in crashes. Physics explains: [crash energy = () × (mass) × (speed)].
That squared value is everything. When you double your driving speed, the crash energy quadruples. Even a small speed increase like 5 or 10 MPH greatly magnifies the force of impact. Despite decades of signage and PSAs, people keep driving too fast in the exact places where caution matters most: neighborhoods, school zones, commercial districts, and crosswalks.
Technology exists to govern people who refuse to govern themselves. But Im hoping you dont force the hands of lawmakers. Instead, I hope you (and everyone else operating a motor vehicle) will slow down in populated areas.
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On Wednesday morning, the cancer diagnostics biotech firm Caris Life Sciences rang Nasdaq’s opening bell in New York, marking the company’s awaited initial public offering.
The diagnostics company’s IPO follows the successful debut of fintech companies like Chime Financial and Circle Internet Group, and will test whether investors are ready to embrace biotech companies despite declines in the sector for the last six months. Here’s what to know about the listing.
What is Caris Life Sciences?
Founded in 2008 by David Dean Halbert, the healthcare company utilizes next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for precision medicine. Through molecular analysis, Caris specializes in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
According to a recent filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Irving, Texas-based company currently has over 1,700 employees and over 100 biopharmaceutical partners.
The company incurred net losses of $281.9 million and $341.4 million in 2024 and 2023, respectively, on revenue of $412.3 million and $306.1 million. It is expecting additional losses in the future.
When is Caris Life Sciences’s IPO?
Caris Life Sciences shares are expected to begin trading on Wednesday, June 18, with the offering expected to run through June 20.
What is Caris Life Sciences’s stock ticker?
Caris Life Sciences will trade its stock under the ticker CAI.
What is the IPO price for CAI?
CAI shares were priced at $21, above their previously planned range. The IPO price was planned between the $19 and $20 range, up from the previous $16 and $18 planned price.
The current pricing would value Caris Life Sciences at around $5.9 billion.
What exchange will the stock trade in?
CAI will trade its shared on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
How many shares are available?
Caris Life Sciences’s IPO will offer 23,529,412 shares. Founder and CEO Halbert is also set to retain 41.7% of ownership following the IPO.
The world’s three best-selling makers of bitcoin mining machinesall of Chinese originare setting up manufacturing footholds in the United States as President Donald Trump’s tariff war reshapes the cryptocurrency supply chain.
Bitmain, Canaan, and MicroBT build over 90% of global mining rigsessentially computers dedicated to number-crunching that produces bitcoin. Establishing U.S. bases could shield them from tariffs but risks stoking security concerns the U.S. has with China in areas as varied as chip making and energy security.
“The U.S.-China trade war is triggering structural, not superficial, changes in bitcoin’s supply chains,” said Guang Yang, chief technology officer at crypto tech provider Conflux Network.
Moreover, for U.S. firms, “this goes beyond tariffs. It’s a strategic pivot toward ‘politically acceptable’ hardware sources,” Yang said.
Bitmain, the biggest of the three by sales, started U.S. production of mining rigs in December in a “strategic move” following Trump’s presidential electoral win a month earlier.
Canaan started trial production in the U.S. with the aim of avoiding tariffs after Trump on April 2 announced his so-called Liberation Day levies, senior executive Leo Wang told Reuters. The initiative is exploratory as the volatile tariff situation precludes heavy investment, he said.
Third-ranked MicroBT in a statement said it is “actively implementing a localisation strategy in the U.S.” to “avoid the impact of tariffs”.
The trio dominate a sector analysts estimated to be worth $12 billion by 2028. It is the upstream of a business chain that extends through the energy-intensive process of mining bitcoin, the supporting IT infrastructure and the trading platforms.
U.S. rival Auradinebacked by top bitcoin miner by market value, MARA Holdingshas been lobbying to restrict Chinese supplies to stimulate competition in hardware.
“While over 30% of global bitcoin mining occurs in North America, more than 90% of mining hardware originates from China representing a major imbalance of geographic demand and supply,” said Auradine’s chief strategy officer, Sanjay Gupta.
Consultancy Frost & Sullivan estimated the top three held 95.4% of the hardware market in terms of computing power sold as of December 2023.
When it comes to Chinese mining rigs, “hundreds of thousands of them connected to the U.S. electrical grid” is a security risk, Gupta said.
Canaan’s Wang said mining rigs do not threaten security because “they are useless if not applied to bitcoin mining”. Still, manufacturers could suffer “collateral damage” from U.S. restrictions on high-tech sales to Chinese firms, he said.
Underscoring the risk, Bitmain’s AI affiliate, Sophgo, has been blacklisted by the U.S. government on security grounds.
Bitmain did not reply to a request for comment.
FIRST-MOVER
China once dominated the entire bitcoin value chainfrom rig-making through mining to tradinguntil its government banned cryptocurrency activity on the Chinese mainland in 2021 citing risk to financial stability.
Miners, traders and exchanges moved abroad. Shielded by their role as technology manufacturers, however, Bitmain, Canaan and MicroBT continued to dominate in hardware. They fended off Western rivals partly due to first-mover advantage in developing high-performance chips tailor-made for mining.
Canaan has since moved its headquarters to Singapore from Chinathough it still has Chinese operationsand set up a pilot production line in the U.S., a market that contributed 40% of revenue last year.
“The rationale is to try to reduce the cost for both us and our customers,” said Wang, Canaan’s vice president of corporate development and capital markets. The prospect of tariffs means “we have to explore all alternatives”.
The U.S. this year imposed a 10% baseline tariff on imports from many countries plus an extra 20% on imports from China. It has also said it could increase tariffs for Southeast Asian countries where Chinese rig makers have set up assembly plants.
CHOKE POINT
Trump has promised to be the “crypto president” who popularises cryptocurriencies’ mainstream use in the United States. Son Eric Trump together with energy and technology firm Hut 8 launched miner American Bitcoin with the goal of building a strategic bitcoin reserve.
The president’s crypto-friendly policies, however, can only highlight China’s outsized role in bitcoin infrastructure, potentially putting rig makers in the crosshairs.
China’s hardware dominance “creates a choke point for U.S. miners,” said John Deaton, a U.S. crypto-law attorney.
“If China restricts exports or manipulates supply . . . it could disrupt bitcoin’s network stability and affect U.S. users and investors,” Deaton said.
The biggest miners by market valueMARA, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, and Riot Platformsare all U.S.-based, so over-reliance on hardware of Chinese origin “is potentially problematic”, said Ryan M. Yonk, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research.
Chinese rig makers might be setting up shop in the U.S. but in the short term, U.S. miners will still buy rigs from China and be stung by higher import costs, said Kadan Stadlemann, chief technology officer at crypto platform Komodo.
“But this isn’t about hurting the industry. It’s about forcing a long-overdue shift,” he said.
Samuel Shen and Vidya Ranganathan, Reuters
Malaysia is expected to add 68 gigawatts of gas-fired power by 2030 to address growing electricity consumption driven by demand from data centres, an industry official said.
The country is expected to see the fastest surge in data centre power demand in southeast Asia, with its share of electricity consumed by data centres in the region to triple to 21% by 2027 from 7% in 2022, a joint report in May by Bain & Co with others including Google and Temasek showed.
Rising gas demand could see Malaysia, the fifth-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), start importing the super-chilled fuel in four to five years, the head of state energy firm Petronas told the Energy Asia conference this week.
Megat Jalaluddin, CEO of state utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad, said he expects Malaysia to add 68 gigawatts of gas-fired power by building new plants and extending the life of existing ones as it looks to cut dependence on coal.
That represents a 4054% increase from the current 15 GW of gas-fired capacity. Total power consumption in Malaysia is on track to increase 30% by 2030, and Malaysia has already invited industry proposals for supply, he said.
“We want to phase out coal responsibly. Then the next best option that can basically take the place of coal is gas,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Energy Asia event.
Malaysia could also add as much as 10 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, more than doubling the 9 GW currently, as data centres push for access to cleaner sources of power, he said.
In the last two years, Malaysia has turned to its coal-fired power plants to address surging demand which grew at the fastest pace in 14 years in 2024, according to energy think-tank Ember.
Data centres are expected to require 19.5 GW of power generation capacity by 2035, accounting for 52% of Peninsular Malaysia’s electricity use, from about 2% now, Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof told Reuters.
Technology giants including Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet’s Google and ByteDance have announced billions of dollars in investments in Malaysia since the beginning of last year, powering an infrastructure boom.
Malaysia’s southern state of Johor has emerged as Southeast Asia’s hottest data centre hub due to its proximity to Singapore, relatively cheap land and power and faster approvals, real estate consultancy Knight Frank said in a report.
Sudarshan Varadhan and Ashley Tang, Reuters
Before you hit send on your next email, pause for a minute. If youre like the average employee, you draft 112 emails a week, spending about five and a half minutes writing each one, according to this survey by Slack. If your messages go ignored or if the recipient requests clarification, you might want to consider how youre showing up in their inbox.
Professionalism in email communication is important, says Dr. Laurie Cure, CEO of Innovative Connections, an executive coaching and HR consultant. Ultimately, we want our communication to reflect who we are, but more importantly, we want people to hear what we are saying, she says. When they are lost in poor text, grammar errors, emojis that they do not understand, or a confusing message, we are left with misunderstandings that damage our reputation and credibility. It also requires more time to unravel and clarify messages that were not received as intended.
Whether you realize it or not, youre going to be judged by how you communicateincluding your emails. Here are seven common mistakes that can make you look unprofessional.
1. You Get the Recipient’s Name Wrong
While it sounds basic, you start off on the wrong foot if you get the recipients name wrong. Unfortunately, it happens all the time, says Alexa Rome, director of PR and Communications at Omnus Technologies, provider of IT support.
I’ve lost count of how often someone calls me Alex, even though my email address and signature say Alexa, she says. It signals you didn’t take two seconds to double-check the name of the person you’re contacting. It feels impersonal, like you couldn’t be bothered to take the time to learn my name. Trust drops instantly.
Even if you enter someones name right, autocorrect might step in and change it, especially if the name is unique. Before hitting send, take a second to be sure the name is right.
2. You Use Unprofessional Language
If you regularly start business emails with Hey or end them with Thx, you could be inadvertently sending a signal that youre casual about work, says communication coach Judnefera Rasayon.
If youre seen as someone who doesnt take the job seriously, that could damage your reputation and hurt your prospects for advancement, she says. It could potentially cost you and your company clients and revenue.
Elise Powers, CEO of Eleview Consulting, a communications training firm, agrees. Don’t start with Hey, she says. It’s too informal for email and reads like a text message. Hi, Hello, or Good Morning are more professional.
Also, skip the emojis in email, even if you’re emailing a peer or work best friend, adds Powers. You never know if your email will be forwarded on down the line and a senior leader might see the emojis and think, This person is immature or too casual in their correspondence, she says.
3. You Ramble
Every email should be skimmable, synthesized, and concise, says Powers. She recommends using bullet points, bolding, and brief paragraphs to make it easy for the recipient to quickly read your message.
There shouldn’t be long blocks of text, she says. It takes more time to write a skimmable, concise email, and it’s a simple way to add value to someone else.
Rasayon suggests having a clear point in mind before you start writing your email instead of rambling off the top of your head. Unclear requests, deadlines, or instructions could result in people not reading or replying.
4. You Reply All
Before you hit reply all on an email that includes a lot of people, make sure everyone on the thread really needs to read what you have to say. Otherwise, youre adding to the dozens of emails filling up their inboxes.
I’m shocked by how many people don’t get this, says Rome. You should almost never ‘reply all,’ unless every person on the thread truly needs your response. (Spoiler: they usually don’t.) It makes you seem unaware and oblivious of how communication actually works.
5. You Over-Apologize
If you started your email by saying, Sorry for the delay” or “Sorry for the long email,” go back and delete those phrases. While saying sorry in and of itself is not unprofessional, its unnecessary, says Rome.
Not [saying sorry] does make you more professional, she says. Instead, say, Thanks for your patience, or say what you need to say. Period.
Apologizing is more common with women, adds Rome. If a man wouldn’t apologize for it, you probably don’t need to either, she says. You’re allowed to communicate without disclaimers.
6. You Take Too Long to Respond
No one likes to wait for days to get a response to an email, says Rasayon.
A response doesnt have to be a complete response, she says. It could be an interim reply that doesnt provide a complete answer, but acknowledges that youve seen their message, started the process of getting them an answer, and will follow up once you have one.
Not responding in a timely way can send a message that youre not on top of your work, that you ignored the email, or that you dont view the contents of the email as important, says Rasayon.
7. You Respond Too Quickly
On the flip side of responding too slowly is responding too quickly. Were all busy, and you likely work in a fast-paced environment. That isnt an excuse to fire off quick messages.
One of the challenges with the written word is its lack of nonverbal cues, says Cure. Ambiguous language and reader assumptions make email communicaton particularly challenging, she says.
Drafting an important email should take time, and Cure recommends creating a first draft, and then going back to reread them with fresh eyes to ensure they communicate what you desire.
Just today, I met with a leader who was voice texting and did not turn off the speaker, she says. They ended up sending an entire second conversation to the recipient.
While AI can help you tighten your message, it can make you sound like a robot, says Rome. We’re still humans emailing humans, she says. If your email doesn’t sound like something you’d say out loud, revise it.
Microsoft has been one of OpenAIs biggest backers over the past three years, as OpenAIs flagship product, ChatGPT, has steadily embedded itself into our lives. But the multibillion-dollar relationship now appears to be on shaky ground, with rumors that OpenAI might file an antitrust complaint against the Windows-maker in an attempt to wriggle out of a longstanding agreement between the two companies.
The relationship, which began with Microsofts $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019and has since grown to include more than $10 billion in total fundingis built on Microsofts entitlement to 49% of OpenAI Global LLCs profits, capped at roughly 10 times its investment.
For years, the partnership has remained stable. When Sam Altman was briefly ousted as OpenAI CEO in November 2023, Microsoft remained steadfast in its support of the company. But recent events appear to have strained the relationshipspecifically, a new deal OpenAI has made.
Whats happening?
OpenAIs pending acquisition of AI coding startup Windsurfvalued at $3 billionhas pushed its partnership with Microsoft to the brink. Reports suggest that OpenAI executives have threatened an antitrust complaint if Microsoft insists on full access to Windsurfs intellectual property after the deal closes. At the same time, Microsoft is reportedly uneasy about the prospect of OpenAI developing a competing Copilot product.
The two companies did issue a joint statement that conveyed a sense of harmony, though it acknowledged no agreement had been reached regarding Windsurf. We have a long-term, productive partnership that has delivered amazing AI tools for everyone, the companies said. Talks are ongoing and we are optimistic we will continue to build together for years to come.
Experts warn that OpenAI should think twice before following through on its reported threats. Siccing the antitrust cops on your rivals may feel very satisfying, but that strategy usually boomerangs back on the complaining company when they themselves get big and successful, says Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, a tech industry coalition.
Kovacevich argues that such internal disputes may grab headlines but ultimately distract from the broader goals. OpenAI and Microsoft are locked in a pretty intense AI competition with Google, Anthropic, and Meta, and these kind of governance disputes are ultimately a huge distraction from trying to win on the technology front, he says.
Which Side Has More Leverage?
An internal OpenAI strategy document, recently surfaced in a court case, reveals the companys bold plan to evolve ChatGPT from a popular chatbot into an all-encompassing AI super assistant, positioning it as both a crucial partner and a potential competitor to Microsoft. The document implicitly acknowledges OpenAIs reliance on partners to achieve massive scale, noting the infrastructure required to serve an enormous user base. Until January 2025, Microsoft was OpenAIs exclusive data center provider, in exchange for integrating OpenAIs models into Microsofts products, including Copilot.
Since then, the landscape has shifted. OpenAI has signed deals with CoreWeave and Oracle for additional computing capacity, and is reportedly close to an agreement with Googledespite Google offering a competing AI modelfor cloud hosting.
Meanwhile, Microsoft still holds a significant share in OpenAIs future profits. There are reports that OpenAI has proposed a deal to exchange Microsofts entitlement to future profits for a 33% stake in a restructured OpenAI. But Microsoft currently retains significant control over whether OpenAI can restructure and, under a 2023 agreement, is also believed to be entitled to access any OpenAI technology, including that acquired through acquisitionspotentially giving Microsoft access to Windsurfs technology for its Copilot coding tools.
Whats the best-case scenario for both companies?
For Microsoft, maintaining the status quo would likely be ideal. They would continue to access OpenAIs core technology, and benefit from Windsurfs specialist expertise to strengthen Copilots coding capabilities.
For OpenAI, the best-case outcome would involve restructuring into a for-profit entity with Microsofts consent, while establishing boundaries to prevent Microsoft from encroaching on areas where OpenAI might eventually compete. OpenAI would also like to diversify its infrastructure partnershaving admitted in legal documents that our current infrastructure isnt equipped to handle [redacted] users.
And, perhaps most importantly, OpenAI wants its product to stand on its ownrather than being buried within a Microsoft-branded ecosystem. Real choice drives competition and benefits everyone, the confidential strategy document states. Users should be able to pick their AI assistant. If youre on iOS, Android, or Windows, you should be able to set ChatGPT as your default. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta shouldnt push their own AIs without giving users fair alternatives.
Whether OpenAI will achieve that goal remains an open question.
An Illinois toy company challenged President Donald Trump’s tariffs in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a long shot bid to press the justices to quickly decide whether they are legal.Learning Resources Inc. filed an appeal asking the Supreme Court to take up the case soon rather than let it continue to play out in lower courts. The company argues the Republican president illegally imposed tariffs under an emergency powers law rather than getting approval from Congress.While the company won an early victory in a lower court, the order is on hold as an appeals court considers a similar ruling putting a broader block on Trump’s tariffs. The appeals court has allowed Trump to continue collecting tariffs under the emergency powers law ahead of arguments set for late July.The company argued in court documents the case can’t wait that long, “in light of the tariffs’ massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the Nation, and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the President claims.”The Supreme Court is typically reluctant to take up cases before appeals courts have decided them, lowering the odds that the justices will agree to hear it as quickly as the company is asking.Still, Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said tariffs and uncertainty are taking a major toll now. He’s looking ahead to the back-to-school and holiday seasons, when the company usually makes most of its sales for the year.“All the people that are raising their prices are doing it with a sense of dread,” Woldenberg told The Associated Press. But, “we do not have a choice. We absolutely do not have a choice.”Attorneys for Learning Resources and sister company hand2mind, suggested the court could consider whether to take up the case before the end of the term in June and hear arguments when their next term begins in the fall, a relatively quick timetable.The Trump administration has defended the tariffs by arguing that the emergency powers law gives the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies and that the country’s longtime trade deficit qualifies as a national emergency.Trump has framed tariffs as a tool to lure factories back to America, raise money for the Treasury Department and strike more favorable trade agreements with other countries.“The Trump administration is legally using the powers granted to the executive branch by the Constitution and Congress to address our country’s national emergencies of persistent goods trade deficits and drug trafficking. If the Supreme Court decides to hear this unfounded legal challenge, we look forward to ultimately prevailing,” said White House spokesperson Kush Desai.Woldenberg said he’s putting “enormous resources” into shifting his company’s supply base but the process is time-consuming and uncertain.“I think that our case raises uniquely important questions that this administration won’t accept unless the Supreme Court rules on them,” he said.Based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, the family-owned company’s products include the Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register for $43.99 and Botley the Coding Robot for $57.99.__Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
