Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.
Q: Help! None of my coworkers have kids and dont understand what its like.A: No two peoples lives are the same and people with all kinds of family structures have issues that pull their time and attention away from work. That said, few things in life are as schedule-disrupting as being a parent.In an ideal world, your boss and coworkers wouldnt need to be parents themselves to understand things like needing to miss work when you have a sick kid or having a hard out each day at daycare pick-up time. Also, in an ideal world the school day and calendar would align better with the typical work day. We are obviously not in an ideal world, and unfortunately resentment between parents and coworkers without children is common.
Here are my suggestions to deal with it.
Suggest changes that would benefit everyone
Most parents cant make 8 a.m. meetings, as thats prime time for getting the kids out the door and to school. You know who else hates 8 a.m. meetings? Just about everyone. Rather have your colleagues resent you for being exempt from attending, suggest to your manager that morning meetings get rescheduled for after 9 a.m.The same goes for taking time off for lifes unexpected problems. You have to leave work when your kid is sick or when theres a snow day, doctors appointment or a recital. But everyone has things pop up, whether its their own dentist and doctor appointments, or the needs of their relatives or pets. If you’re in a leadership position, you can help foster a culture that recognizes that lifes obligations sometimes need to take priority over work.
If youre not in a leadership position, you can be the change you want to see by happily covering for your colleagues when something comes up. Hopefully the next time your kid gets pink eye theyll remember the time you took over for them when their dog had to go to the vet.
Call it out
If you feel like youve made a good faith effort to prove how you’re a team player, have demonstrated that you are just as productive as the non-parents on your team, and have offered solutions and you still feel resentment, you might want to be direct and talk to your coworker or manager about it. As with any difficult workplace conversation, you can still enter it with a collaborative mindset. Theres a problem and you are going to solve it together. You are not on opposing teams.
As with other workplace disagreements, it can be helpful to approach the conversation with curiosity. Try something like: Ive noticed a lot of comments about my schedule. Is there something thats causing an issue for the team or workflow that Im not aware of? If there is an issue youre not aware of (like a domino effect of work falling on one person when you leave), once its out in the air you can problem solve. If theres not an actual issue, just vague resentment, calling it out might force the person to address their own bias, or at least be the start of a conversation that can lead to more understanding.
Want some more reading on working parents? Here you go:
Im the CEO of a family tech company. Heres how Ive created kid-friendly work hours
The school year used to favor working parents, but not anymore
4 simple ways leaders can better support working parents
How longer school days benefit working mothers
Vaping devices are getting a makeoverone that seems likely to turn more teens into consumers.
Experts have long worried that nicotine vapes appeal to minors with flavors like Cotton Candy and Blue Razz, along with bright candy-colored designs.
Todays vapes double as digital gadgets. Some mimic video games, others resemble smartphones or tamagotchi-style pets that die if you stop puffing. Its gamified addiction.
Behind the flashy designs lies a serious danger. Research shows that vaping harms both cardiovascular and respiratory health and can lead to nicotine dependency. Many of these new products are also unregulated, often smuggled in from overseas manufacturers. As vapes become more like toys, their health risksand appeal to childrenonly increase.
Vapes are going digital
Dozens of vape manufacturers have started integrating screens into their products, originally meant to show simple battery displays. Some keep it basiclike Fumots design, which features a digital-clock-style percentage gauge below its signature monkey icon. But others are going bigger. Raz uses animated fire symbols, while Geek Bar displays constellationsmini light shows embedded in a puff.
Some devices push things even further, embedding full-on video games just inches from the mouthpiece. The Craftbox V-Play, for example, comes in flavors like Strawberry Blowpop and Grape Escape, and features three built-in games: knockoffs of Pac-Man and Tetris, plus a fighter jet simulator. Marketed as a Vapentertainment system, the device even plays music as you game.
For those seeking more connectivity, some vapes now function like smartphones. The Swype 3000 is perhaps the most well-known. It syncs with the users actual phone, displaying notifications and offering a limited suite of apps on the vapes body. The tech is far from seamlessBusiness Insiders Katie Notopoulos reported issues like buggy games and blurry alertsbut the concept is catching on. Brands like Airfuze, Vookbar, and Feed Sync are also producing so-called smart vapes.
Despite their digital upgrades, vapes remain cheap, often selling for less than $20 wholesale (comparable to their analog predecessors). And, of course, theyre still disposable. Once the nicotine runs out, youre left with a dead vape that doubles as a cheap video game consoleor a phone with no service.
A legal gray area
Many gamified, screen-equipped vapes operate in a legal gray zone. They’re rarely manufactured in the U.S. (most come from Chinese factories) and almost none have received marketing authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. In 2024, the FDA sent a warning letter to the online retailer Vapes and Such cautioning against selling products that may be attractive to youth by imitating a smartphone or imitating gaming technology.
Vapes have long faced criticism for their appeal to minors. In 2023, Juul agreed to pay $462 million in a settlement over its marketing tactics, which regulators said were designed to target children. Over time, concern shifted from flavors to designsleek, candy-colored devices that looked more like tech accessories than tobacco products. If it looks glamorous and it looks appealing, thats going to be the first driver that will bring a horse to water, Brian King, at the time the FDAs tobacco regulator, told The New York Times.
Screens represent the next evolution of that appeal. They dont just make vapes look glamorous, they make them status symbols. With built-in games and push notifications, theyre nicotine devices and conversation starters. But that allure can be dangerous, especially for young users.
In todays dynamic, diverse, and rapidly changing workforce, organizations’ success is dependent upon creating an environment where different perspectives come together. That’s how we produce the best ideas. Despite the recent attacks on them, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles provide a crucial foundation for thriving companies.
If companies want to experience the benefits of broad ideas, they need to attract talented employees from different backgrounds. And once theyve hired those top talents, they need to make sure that they dont exclude anyone from participating in discussions and sharing their honest views.
Many arguments support why successful organizations need to be able to capture the best from as wide a range of people as possible. Here are a few of the main ones.
1. Results in greater creativity and innovation
By bringing a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas to the table, organizations ensure that they have a large enough reservoir that they need to come up with fresh approaches and new, groundbreaking solutions.
In my book, Emotional Intelligence Game Changers: 101 Simple Ways to Win at Work + Life, I delve into how to create a culture of creativity. In an organization, employees need to be able to bounce new and diverse ideas off each other. They also need to trust that the company will value their uniqueness and contributions. In a diverse and rapidly changing landscape, organizations that limit their circle to people of similar backgrounds risk stagnation. Theyre also likely to fail in their quest to recruit and keep talented people who are necessary for ongoing growth and success.
2. Boosts connection and collaboration
When all employees feel free and empowered to share their thoughts and ideas, it builds a culture of connection and collaboration. As a result, teamwork skills begin to develop among diverse groups, breaking down barriers and increasing understanding of and respect for those who are different from us. The effect of this is increased motivation and commitment to work toward shared goals. CultureCons latest showed that when employees feel their voices are genuinely valued, they are 3.5 times more likely to report higher job satisfaction.
3. Increases the organizations ability to attract and retain top talent
Being known as an organization that supports DEI principles is attractive to people who are looking for a place to work where they will be treated fairly and equitably. These individuals are looking for places where they can thrive and get the opportunity to work with other talented people. When they find a place where companies appreciate and recognize them, they are more motivated to remain with the organization. CultureCons research found that 63% of employees are more likely to stay at a company that actively prioritizes DEI.
4. Improves job satisfaction and well-being
When staff witness a genuine commitment to ensuring that they value, hear, and appreciate everyone, an atmosphere of trust and loyalty spreads through the organization. This leads to reduced turnover and enhanced job satisfaction, which makes people feel excited to be part of the organization. The result is greater productivity and overall organizational success.
5. Enhances the organizational brand and reputation
Having a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social responsibility has far-reaching effects beyond the organization itself. The reputation that it builds will make the organization stand out as a leader. It will also attract new loyal customers, and secure more business opportunities. Customers and clients will search out organizations that they trust will develop fair, equitable, and diverse workplaces.
DEI might be under attack, but organizations that continue to invest in it will reap the rewards in the long run. An inclusive, supportive workplace that encourages a broad range of ideas to flourish will result in creativity, innovation, and a positive work culture. And in the long term, those are the organizations that will last.
Billy May is now deeply familiar with the intricacies of bedsheet factories. In 2023, May became CEO of Brooklinen. A retail veteran, he’s spent his career in top roles at J.Crew and Abercrombie, before becoming CEO of Sur La Table. But now, as head of a millennial-loved bedsheet brand, he’s learning about the warp and weft of cotton sheets, and which countries have the most expertise in manufacturing bedding. (Portugal and India are leading fabric-producing countries, he tells me.)
May has been tasked with helping Brooklinen transition from a DTC startup into a nationally-known brand. He believes the way to do that is to create high quality sheets that you cannot get anywhere else. So Brooklinen is now redesigning all of its key products so they have unique fabrications. For instance, it has worked closely with its factory in Portugal to update its linen sheets to a weave that is exclusively available at Brooklinen; it’s softer and stronger than before, and made from traceable European flax. Brooklinen relaunches these linen sheets today, but we can expect the brand to unveil redesigned versions of its other classics in the months to come.
[Photo: Brooklinen]
This year, however, there’s been a new wrinkle in May’s plans: Trump’s tariffs. The administration has already announced steep levies on Canada, Mexico, and China which go into effect today, but it has also threatened tariffs on the European Union and India, which is where Brooklinen makes the majority of its products.
May isn’t panicking. He’s strategizing. I’ve been here before, he says, referring to his tenure as CEO of Sur La Table during the last Trump presidency. There are things we can do to mitigate the risk.
What Brooklinen Learned From the DTC Movement
To understand Brooklinen’s deep relationship with factories in India, Portugal, and Turkey it’s important to understand the brand’s origin story.
The company was founded in 2013 by a husband and wife team, Rich and Vicki Fulop, who wanted to make it more accessible for everyday people to afford the kind of luxurious sheets you get at a hotel. They studied the bedding supply chain, then tapped factories that made sheets for high-end brands. They believed they could price these products more affordably by selling them directly to consumers without a retail markup. This was a playbook they had seen from a new crop of DTC brands, like Everlane, Bonobos, and Warby Parker.
Over the next decade, hundreds of other DTC brands would enter the market, from Casper to Away to Allbirds. And, as Fast Company has reported in detail, many of these brands struggled in their efforts to scale and become profitable. One problem was simply how much competition there was. At one time, there were hundreds of brands making mattresses similar to Casper’s and dozens of brands making suitcases similar to Away’s. This also happened in the bedsheet industry. As Fulop said in Fast Company, I made a tactical mistake: I just told everyone about this amazing niche that were in, and now we have all these competitors.
[Photo: Brooklinen]
Many DTC brands failed to compete in this environment and folded. Brooklinen was among the survivors, and May says the brand is profitable. To transition to the next stage of growth, May believes that product differentiation is the only way forward. Brooklinen’s original pitch to customers was that it offered high quality. But now, May also wants to ensure the products are truly unique, such as the new linen sheets. If a customer falls in love with them, they cannot get this fabrication anywhere but Brooklinen.
But to create these high quality fabrications, May says that Brooklinen needs to have close relationships with its factory partners. They work closely with their partners to create prototypes, source materials, and get certifications, like the one that traces the origins of the flax in the linen. These are deep, long-term partnerships, says May. It’s the only way to create a high quality product.
[Photo: Brooklinen]
Brooklinen’s Tariff Strategy
Trump’s tariffs threaten to undo many brands’ relationships with their factory partners. Brands that produce products in China and Mexico, for instance, are suddenly going to pay significantly more to import their products into the United States.
When the tariffs were first announced, some brands sad they would immediately start finding factories outside of China. Steve Madden’s CEO, for instance, said he would start exploring factories in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Brazil. But this can have an impact on product quality. It takes years to build a relationship with a factory and work closely to ensure products are made to a brands’ standards. Moreover, some countries have far more expertise in making particular products. China, for instance, has thousands of footwear factories that have been making products for American brands for decadeswith a workforce that is well trained in manufacturing. Finding factories in other countries that can make products at a similar quality can be a challenge.
May says that Brooklinen has not been immediately affected by this first wave of products because it manufactures primarily in Europe and India. But the Trump administration has already threatened tariffs on both of these territories, and May is strategizing about what to do.
[Photo: Brooklinen]
Rather than abandoning factories, May’s first step is to work even more closely with them to navigate looming tariffs. In many cases, factories bear the brunt of tariffs, since they are exporting products to overseas warehouses. Some American brands will refuse to pay the higher costs incurred by the tariffs, so the factories will have to simply absorb these costs. But May is already talking with factory partners about how to share the burden. We’re working hand in glove with them on ways to share any potential cost increases, he says. It’s been an ongoing dialogue.
For May, this isn’t just a responsible thing to do. It’s also an important way to ensure that the company can maintain quality, since it has spent years working closely with these factories to make sure the product is exactly how they want it.
That said, having run a retail business in Trump’s previous term, which also involved tariffs, May says it’s important to have many tools to mitigate cost increases. Right now, the company is identifying its bestselling products that are always in stock, then preemptively sourcing materials and manufacturing large quantities, in case Trump makes good on tariffs.
And in the longer term, May is expanding its network of factories. Over the course of the last year, it has added 10 new factory partners across many different countries and started training them to make its products. This is partly because Brooklinen is growing fast and needs to be able to expand its capacity. But as new potential tariffs emerge, May says there will be some flexibility to increase orders in places where tariffs are lower.
May is also taking this moment as a chance to innovate. As Brooklinen explores new factories, it is also thinking about how it can develop new kinds of products that customers are looking for. It has developed a waffle blanket at one of its new factories so that it has a proprietary weave that holds its shape better and has a deeper pocket. It has also redesigned its plush towels with its Turkish factory to give them a unique fabrication that is more densely woven so it is softer and absorbs water quicker.
Ultimately, May believes this moment of economic uncertainty doesn’t need to squash innovation and growth. In some ways, it might even spur it. We think about other companies we admire like Apple and BMW, he says. They don’t rest on their laurels, but are constantly innovating product, and that’s how they keep their edge.
Our phones are making us unhappy, but Im not sure cutting myself off from humanitys universe of information with a dumbphone is the answer. Its kind of like how we know walking is healthier than driving, but its a moot point when the average person lives 27 miles from their workplace.However, maybe our smartphones dont need a lobotomy. Maybe they just need to respect our boundaries.This is an idea explored in a new concept called Aperture, by the London studio Special Projects. Its a case that crops your smartphone into a small square of your screen when you flip your case over, revealing a series of smart widgets.[Image: Special Projects]By the same firm that developed ideas like discrete, skin-pressed messages for Blackberry and a Paper Phone for Google, Aperture was inspired when Adrian Westaway, cofounder and director of technology and magic at Special Projects, flipped his iPhone case backward and saw a little window left open where the cameras were supposed to be.[Image: Special Projects]Senior designer Matteo Bandi ran with this idea in UI renderings, imagining a system in your full-feature smartphone could deliver a tiny version of just a few apps you need. These widgets might be a camera, step-by-step instructions pulled from a recipe, or even a compass pointing you toward your destination. Its a smartphones function without the fluff. Most of these experiences are even presented in stoic black and whiteslicing back the candy colors behind another dopamine hit. But the demo still finds a few moments of whimsy, largely through its little smiling mascots. (The mascots really come to life when, sitting at a table with friends, the faces from each phone look at one another and hop into a cozy ball.)[Image: Special Projects]Were trying to find the right balance between being helpful and not preachy, says Clara Gaggero Westaway, cofounder and creative director at Special Projects. Its like, we dont want to take technology away, but how can we help people to use technology in a way that makes them have a better life?[Image: Special Projects]Aperture is clever but admittedly not entirely original. Special Projects points to all sorts of precedent within the industry playing with this same idea. UX designers have been exploring the concept for more than a decade now, from a very charming birdhouse alarm clock, to an Apple patent for a smart iPad case that reveals just part of the screen, to the current Samsung Smart View case that allows you to see the time, answer a call, and skip the track of a song.[Image: Special Projects]But Aperture is framed a bit differently than any of these approaches. Part of that sensation might simply come down to the fact that Aperture wouldnt be as slickly integrated as Samsungs Smart View that easily folds open and closed. Instead, the team imagines you literally take your case off and turn it around, opting into and out of the experience.
One of the words that I think is quite key is friction, says Gaggero Westaway. You cannot use it compulsively. You almost have to have a conscious behavior to say, Okay, [now] Im gonna take it off and doomscroll again. [Image: Special Projects]At face value, we have products that get close to Apertures core idea. The Apple Watchs original pitch was to be a product that kept you from looking at your phone, and its screen size isnt so different from what an Aperture case would be. But Special Projects bristles just a bit at the idea of selling technology to amend your relationship with technology.Theres also something weird about it feeling like youve made a new object, Westaway says. Like you can have two things in your hands that youve always had, and then you just [put them together]. And now its reshaped. [Image: Special Projects]The other thing that Aperture reveals is what exactly makes our phones feel toxic these days. Tools to help with cooking and navigation feel additive to our experience. Screen time, in these senses, feels positive to our well-being. Its when trying to picture something like an Instagram or TikTok feed squeezing into that little window that my stomach lurches just a bit, and the mechanisms of addiction reveal themselves. Instead of a mini social feed, Special Projects imagined that Aperture would instead offer a break from social media. So if youre using Instagram when you flip your case around, Aperture will present a focus timer for you to do anything else but be on your phone. We sort of arbitrarily translated [Instagram as a] timer as an escape. I think that will be a space for us to explore, Bandi says, noting there are many ways to frame dedicated time to do something else. [Image: Special Projects]Aperture would be a challenging concept to bring to market, especially on iPhones, which have more rigid limitations than Androids. But a Special Projects client has expressed interest, and promised funding, to help commercialize the idea (probably in the form of a case you can buy). And with the advent of generative AI, it becomes easier to imagine how some of Apertures mini app interpretations, like its recipes, could feasibly work.[Image: Special Projects]But for now, Special Projects is putting Apertures earliest incarnations into the wild to solicit feedback, and understand what customers might want in such a product before realizing it for market. We were just putting this out as a thought piece, and were absolutely not going to try and commercialize it. Then this [funding] opportunity came up, Westaway says. Rather than disappear for a year, we thought we could have an exploratory approach.
Apple rolled out its iOS 18.4 update yesterday, and mixed in with new notification tweaks, an expansion of Apple Intelligence features, and some changes to Photos, theres a hidden gem thats destined to become an enduring symbol of 2025.
IOS 18.4 comes with eight new emoji, including a radish, fingerprint, purple paint splatter, harp, and, weirdly, the flag of Sarkan island off the coast of France which has a population of just over 500 (according to the blog Emojipedia, this last can be chalked up to a legal workaround.) But one of the new emoji stands out from the pack: Face With Bags Under Eyes, an expressive new smiley face. It’s about to be unavoidable on X, TikTok, and in group chats everywhere.
Face With Bags Under Eyes is a beleaguered little guy with drooping lids, dark circles, lowered eyebrows, and a mouth represented by a single straight line. It has the kind of resigned expression of someone whos well past their limit, but is still soldiering on. Its an elementary school teacher whos not mad, just disappointed. Its a corporate worker whos opened his Outlook inbox to 47 unread emails. Its a parent returning home to find a sink full of dishes. Its all of us.
And in an era when scrolling through X, buying eggs, or checking Zillow for local home prices can foster enough existential dread that smashing your laptop and fleeing the country feels like the only option left, Face With Bags Under Eyes is not just an emojihes also a sign of the times.
Under a tweet revealing iOS 18.4s new emoji, one commenter predicted, I bet this is the most used emoji of the year. 3 months into 2025 and everyone is already tired. Another user added, Never thought theyd approve an emoji of me in Unicode. And a third managed to sum up how we all feel about the update: “God this is me rn.” The new emojis, included this extremely usable haggard one, are available now.
Meghan Markle has been teasing the launch of her lifestyle brand, now called As Ever, for a while now, and Markle finally revealed its product line earlier this week. But while followers of the Duchess of Sussex are just now learning what her brand will offer, Markles fledging business has already faced its fair share of controversy.
In the spring of 2024, Markle dropped the first hint at a potential business in the form of several artisanal jars of jam sent to various celebrity friends, each branded with the name American Riviera Orchard. The next update didn’t arrive until this February, when Markle announced on Instagram that she had scrapped the American Riviera Orchard brand for As Ever. Most recently, in a newsletter mailed to subscribers this Monday, Markle offered some insight into As Evers first product drop, which will include a raspberry spread, wildflower honey, dried flower sprinkles, various teas, and crepe and shortbread mixes.
So far, its unclear when exactly As Evers products will be on sale, how much theyll cost, and whether Markle plans to branch out from food and beverage into other types of lifestyle products. As fans of Markle await these details, fans of the drama are paying attention to several other stories overshadowing As Evers launchincluding a legal dispute over its logo, concerns about the originality of its new name, and critiques around the tone of its marketing.
Heres everything you need to know about the drama surrounding As Ever.
A logo mishap
The strangest controversy thats popped up around As Ever has to do with its logo. The brands emblema white-on-gold line drawing inside an elegant, elongated octagonfeatures a palm tree bookended by two symmetrical hummingbirds. An anonymous source told Vanity Fair that the brand chose the tree as a reference to Markles home in California, while the hummingbirds are a favorite of Markles husband, Prince Harry.
But some outside viewers have been skeptical of the inspiration behind the design. Critics noted that the design looked oddly similar to the historic coat of arms used by Porreres, a small town in Majorca, Spain, since the 1400s. In an interview with The Sun in February, the mayor of Porreres, Francisca Mora Veny, said she was considering legal action against As Ever for the logo (though she went on to admit that she may not be able to afford such a challenge).
The As Ever logo (left) and the Porreres coat of arms (right)
We dont want our coat of arms to be perverted,” Veny said, adding, The only difference with their logo and our coat of arms is that theirs shows two hummingbirds and ours are either swallows or pigeonshistorians cannot agree. In a further statement to the publication El País, she said, Its a total copy.
So far, its unclear whether Veny has reached out directly to Markle, or whether she plans to move forward with a legal dispute.
New name, new challenges
The change of brand name from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever has also drawn some unwanted attention to Markles business.
In her Instagram announcement video, Markle shared that she originally chose “American Riviera” to represent her neighborhood, Santa Barbara, but she found that the title would limit her business to selling items that were manufactured and grown in the area. So, she explained in the video, she opted instead for As Ever, a name that she claimed was secured in 2022.
Based on an application filed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Markles team submitted a request for the As Ever trademark on September 17, 2024. Per the document, the application had been approved by the examining attorney but had not yet been published as of March 26.
Since Markle announced the name change back in February, at least two businesses of the same name have come forward to express their surprise. The first is a New York-based clothing brand called As Ever, run by owner Mark Kolski since 2017. Kolski told Vanity Fair that he was surprised not to have received advance notice about Markles brand, but that he didnt plan to make any changes to his own business or to take action against Markle.
If they had intentions of making clothes out of the gate then it could have been a problem, Kolski said. Theyre choosing not to make clothing at this time, but that could change. I have no interest in having any public forum battle against this new venture. Thats not who I am.
Jen Corbett, owner of the company As Ever Photography, has taken a similar stance to Kolski. In an initial Instagram post reacting to Markles branding, she wrote, When one of the most famous people in the world starts using your biz name of 12+ years (that you named in honor of your grandmother), seems like they could throw me a lil bone? However, that post has since been deleted, and Corbett has posted a follow-up story to clarify that, I had a bit of fun posting about Meghan Markle using my biz name, but I am in no way interested in hate mongering against her.
As Ever’s peception problem
Aside from its branding, As Ever is also drawing some backlash for the tone of its marketing.
On As Evers new website, a message to fans notes, As Ever is more than a brandits a love language. And in her newsletter sent to fans this week, Markle explained that her raspberry spreads keepsake packaging could be repurposed to hold “love notes” or “special treasures.
In response to that suggestion, Margaret Hartmann, senior editor at The New Yorker, quipped that Markles latest big idea is rinsing and reusing jam jars. Its a jab that builds on commentary surrounding Markles Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, which was widely criticized for presenting an out-of-touch look at Markles privileged life in Montecito (one particularly harsh review from The Guardian labeled it toe-curlingly unlovable.)
Its difficult to cast a judgment on Markles new brand just yet, considering that its products havent even dropped (though the number of number of issues As Ever has faced with its branding so far does seem concerning for such a new company.) If As Evers luxe look is anything to go by, Markles raspberry spread isn’t going to retail for prices one might find in the grocery storein which case, it doesn’t seem likely that the brand will do much to repair the image of inauthenticity thats plagued Markles other ventures as of late.
The web is being swamped by AI slopbut the swamp is creeping closer to home. Your email inboxes, phone SMS apps, instant messaging, and social media services are all being overtaken by inauthentic content.
From AI-generated footage of Hollywood actor Brad Pitt that conned a French woman out of $800,000, to phishing emails that direct victims to live chats with AI bots purporting to be from a legitimate business but which are actually criminals, AI scams are everywhere. Two in every three people tested by Vodafone failed to identify an AI-driven phishing attack.
One of those people was George Wilson, the founder of a small business based in Marietta, Georgia. Wilson asked Fast Company to use a pseudonym and not to disclose details of his business or bank information, concerned that being publicly identified as a scam victim could damage his companys reputation and make him a future target.
In November 2024, Wilson received an email claiming to be from his bank stating that an invoice payment he didnt recognize was being delayed. After clicking a link in the email, he was taken to a convincing online chat page, where a supposed bank representative explained the situation.
It was all done in real time, says Wilson. Their dialogue was super natural, too, so while I was initially confused and suspicious, they managed to get rid of my fears.
The representative told him he was the target of an attempted scam and assured him the bank had blocked it. Wilson no longer has the chat log, but suspects he must have shared some information during the exchange that gave the scammers access to his account. The next day, several thousand dollars were taken from his business before he realized what had happened, contacted his bank, and learned hed been scammed.
The human-like interaction led Wilson to be defrauded of thousandsmoney he never recovered. With AI, attackers can tailor messages to appear highly personalized, making it harder than ever for employees to distinguish a fake email from a legitimate one, says Katie Paxton-Fear, an ethical hacker and cybersecurity lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The lure of AI for cybercriminals is obvious, and mirrors why the general public uses LLMs and other AI tools: They can generate convincing content at scale with minimal work. A lab-based study published in Harvard Business Review found that AI-generated phishing emails successfully deceived victims 60% of the time. It’s a high payoff for low effort, especially as LLMs take over the burden of crafting emails.
We know that social engineering is one of the most effective forms of attack anyway, rather than malicious code, because you’ve got to try and have some way of landing the malicious code on victims, says Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Surrey. Its not surprising that LLMs are being used in the first instance to try and produce more effective versions of that.
As the public becomes more aware of AI-powered phishing, cybercriminals are already moving several steps ahead. Cybersecurity firm Kela reports that discussion of malicious AI tools on the dark web has increased 200% in the past year. In 2023, there were around 4 daily mentions; by 2024, they spiked to 14-plus. This booming underground market is a seismic shift in cyberthreat development, says Yael Kishon, AI product and research lead at Kela.
Even open forums like Hack Forums are buzzing with discussions about optimal models for different attacks. A Dark AI forum regularly hosts new posts and replies, with a pinned mega list of AIs used for illicit purposes garnering nearly 20,000 views and more than 100 replieson a public forum. Far more activity takes place in dark web spaces.
This growing trade in malicious LLMs is a worry to the general public, but its not surprising. Once upon a time, to be a cybercriminal you needed skills, you needed knowledge, and needed to be able to code, says Rob Allen, chief technical officer at ThreatLocker, which monitors the rise of LLMs among criminals. Now all you need, really, is bad intentions.
Only some mainstream LLMs have built-in guardrails to prevent malicious use, and dark web LLMs often rely on open-source models without safeguards or cracked versions of commercial ones. According to Kelas analysis, discussions around jailbreaking LLMs have surged 52% year over year.
Malicious LLMs sold on criminal forums typically fall into two categories: jailbroken commercial LLMs or altered open-source models. Their approaches vary. EscapeGPT, launched in August 2023 at around $65 a month, was based on ChatGPTs 3.5 Turbo, analysis of its behavior showed. WormGPT, developed from an open-source model in 2021, reportedly brought in about $14,000 monthly by charging for access.
This underground market reflects the legitimate AI industry: Competition is fierce, pricing strategies abound, and model creators market their tools aggressively. FraudGPT, a model released in July 2023, gets poor reviews (partly because its creators allegedly scam their own buyers) but still boasts in marketing materials about its 8.5-terabyte training data set.
GhostGPT, one of the latest and most talked-about malicious LLMs, is either a jailbroken version of ChatGPT or a modified open-source model, according to researchers at Abnormal Security. GhostGPT is a chatbot specifically designed to cater to cybercriminals, the researchers say. By eliminating the ethical and safety constraints typically built into AI models, GhostGPT can provide direct, unfiltered answers to sensitive or harmful queries that would be blocked or flagged by conventional AI systems.
Access is priced competitively: $50 for a weeks access to a Telegram bot, $150 for a month (less than OpenAI charges for access to ChatGPT Pro), or $300 for three months.
The model can generate phishing emails and malware prompts on demand. It also boasts fast responses and no data logs, minimizing the digital trail for law enforcement. In testing, Abnormal Security got it to produce a convincing Docusign phishing email in less than a minute from the prompt Write a phishing email from Docusign.
GhostGPT may be the newest model making waves in cybercrime circles, but it follows a familiar pattern. We found that most use an API from OpenAI and jailbreaking prompts, says Zilong Lin,a researcher at Indiana University Bloomington, who conducted an August 2024 analysis of more than 200 malicious LLMs available on the dark web. Criminals prefer jailbreaking existing models because building one from scratch is costly, Lin tells Fast Company.
And with many models simply a single jailbreak prompt away from being shorn of their protections, its never been easier to leverage the capabilities of the worlds most powerful chatbots for nefarious means. But solutions can be complicated, says ThreatLockers Allen. Fundamentally, everything is to a greater or lesser degree vulnerable, he explains. Most things are weaponizable.
This story was supported by Tarbell Grants.
Its telling that the plot premise of the first episode for the new Apple show The Studioepisode three drops todayrevolves entirely around the notion of a Kool-Aid movie.
Created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the entire show revolves around the elevation of Rogens character Matt Remick to studio head, a job he got only because he committed to getting into bed with the brand IP of a 98-year-old beverage. How the premiere episode subsequently ties in Martin Scorcese and a film about Jonestown to the Kool-Aid brand is both hilariously absurd and somehow absolutely believable.
Speaking of believable, watch the scene in which filmmaker Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Captain Underpants, Neighbors) pitches Remick his Kool-Aid script idea and tell me it couldnt be hitting theaters next summer.
There is a scene in the first episode that undoubtedly had marketers of all stripes howling with laughter and cringing with recognition. It takes place in a boardroom of the fictional film studio Continental Studios, in which newly promoted Remick tells the studios head of marketing (played by Kathryn Hahn) that they will be making a movie based on Kool-Aid brand IP.
Lets fucking go! exclaims Hahns character, holding a giant Stanley cup. I could sell the fuck out of that!
Kathryn Hahn and Chase Sui Wonders [Photo: Apple TV+]
We then get a very short, yet incredibly accurate, summary of the current tension in Hollywood when it comes to brand IP. Remick details why Barbie was successful. It had Greta Gerwig, a writer-director behind it, he says. It had a filmmaker’s vision. That’s what we’re going to do with Kool-Aid. We’re going to make the auteur-driven, Oscar-winning Kool-Aid film.
Hahns character groans. Oh fuck me, you want to make a fucking fancy Kool-Aid movie? she says. Why? Nobody even fucking watches the Oscars anymore. Did Mario Bros win an Oscar? No, it didn’t. But you know what it did win? $1.3 billion.
Rogen said last week on the podcast Armchair Expert that prior to writing the show, he and Goldberg interviewed just about every studio head, and their heads of marketing. As profanely hysterical as this show is, its depiction of the relationship between Hollywood, marketing, and brands is rooted in an immediately recognizable reality.
I spoke to sources that include execs and creatives who work across brands and entertainment, studio marketers, and yes, Kool-Aid parent Kraft Heinz, to see just how recognizable it really is. Here are three things The Studio gets right.
[Photo: Apple TV+]
The Marketer
Kathryn Hahn is both brilliant and brilliantly over-the-top, but her characters role in the studio decision making process is illustrated perfectly. The modern studio marketer is now a part of the project approval process for films, given the ongoing challenges of getting our attention and convincing us to actually go to the movie theaters.
But just as Remick initially ignores her advice, the marketers are also at the mercy of those above them in the studio food chain. In his Armchair Expert interview, Rogen said (starting around 50-minute mark), even though the marketer is on the greenlight committee, Often they get directly overruled, he said. They would say, We should not make this movie! We cannot sell it! And then they’re told (by studio execs) Guess what, we made it anyway and if it fails you’re the one who’s going to get fired. That was just a really funny dynamic to have in the show.
Of course, sometimes that dynamic works incredibly well. Back in 2023, I spoke to Universals CMO Michael Moses about Cocaine Bear, which went on to make $88 million worldwide on a $35 million budget. Moses department helped boost the hype around that film by making fun social posts like the bear snorting the chalk lines of the football field, and creating a 8-bit, Pac-Man-style online game called The Rise of Pablo Escobear.
Rogen told the podcast that the studio marketers he spoke to view themselves as more creative than the executives. They’re like, ‘We actually make stuff. We create things. We’re making commercials, content, posters, we’re thinking of little ads, while these guys (execs) are just sitting in rooms and giving notes, said Rogen.
Studio marketers I spoke to on background told me that the show has been a hot topic in their office hallways. They said that the balance between how recognizable and farcical it is, is a ton of fun, and they love Hahns sweatily trendy marketer and her wilingness to tell the truth.
Bryan Cranston [Photo: Apple TV+]
The Brand Tension
Patient zero of Hollywood’s latest Great Brand IP Experiment is obviously Barbie, and the iconic doll subsequently catches some hilariously vulgar strays in The Studio.
While the hype around brands and Hollywood is very real, there is really a small number of companies like Superconnector Studios, ACE Content, and Modern Arts that have been able to bridge the two in a meaningful and consistent way.
Modern Arts cofounder and cochief creative officer Zac Ryder says The Studios first episode nails how hungry Hollywood is for IP that it believes audiences already know and love. And I think it nails how hungry brands are to be part of pop culture in a real way, says Ryder. Now more than ever, they need each other if theyre going to survive. Theres a sense of desperation to the episode, which I think is spot on.
In the wake of Barbies success back in 2023, Mattel announced plans for more IP-driven film projects that sound straight out of The Studiolike a Polly Pocket movie directed by Lena Dunham, or a Barney movie produced by Daniel Kaluuya. Dunham dropped out of the former last year, but Mattel confirmed to Fast Company earlier this month the film is still in development. The Barney project is very much in progress, written by Ayo Edebiri and co-developed and produced by A24. This sounds straight from the Remick playbook.
Ryder says a lot of studio execs still think of brands as a blank check. That a brand will just go along with anything for an opportunity to be involved in a project, he says. The connection between Kool-Aid and the Jonestown massacre is an insanely far fetched, hilarious example. But I do think theres some truth to it.
However, as evidenced in the dramatically slowing pace of brand IP projects being announced since the initial Barbie afterglow, that attitude towards brands has evolved. There are a lot more executives and producers in the business who see the value a brand can bring to the table, especially when it comes to marketing and understanding an audience, says Ryder.
Ryder says there are insights for brand marketers watching The Studio. Make sure you arent just getting your brand involved in a project because you want to tell people about your movie at a cocktail party, he says. Be very clear and very intentional with what you want the brand to get out of the deal. Also, know what you bring to the table. In many ways, the studios need you more than you need them.
Martin Scorsese [Photo: Apple TV+]
The Kool-Aid Movie
While Martin Scorceses repurposed Jonestown film is so very clearly miles over the line, Stollers treatment is entirely believable.
Superconnector Studios cofounder Jae Goodman says that its believability extends beyond the fictional world of The Studio. Despite the hilarity of the brand’s role in the studio, no chance any reasonable brand manager stays officially connected to the studio once the Jonestown idea appears, says Goodman. If the storyline veers away from Scorcese’s Jonestown, then I think there’s an opportunity down the line to do an actual Seth-and-Evan-led Kool Aid movie.
One thing that nagged me while watching this episode was just how visible and upfront Kool-Aid was in all the jokes. The iconic Kool-Aid Man character even makes an appearance in a quick TIKTok dance diversion created by Hahns marketing team. Could the real Kool-Aid brand actually be involved here?
Sources close with the brand and its parent Kraft Heinz say that Rogen and Goldberg did approach the brand, including sharing scripts and rough edits, in the hopes Kool-Aid would be officially involved. Obviously, the Jonestown plotline and jokes got in the way of that.
But sources also said that Kraft Heinz has been in discussions with Apple to explore potential paths forward. While the shows portrayal of Kool-Aid may not always align with its brand ethos, the company recognizes the value in having its brands in the cultural zeitgeist.
Its refreshing to see that a brand has enough self-awareness and confidence to not freak out over its portrayal in a subversive comedy. Ive got a feeling that Kool-Aid isnt the last IRL brand to get name-checked and more as the show goes on.
As much as Mattel must be doing its best Lloyd Christmas impression while watching the show, do you think the folks at Kraft Heinz are cautiously optimistic for where all this could lead? Mr. Kool-Aid has a catchphrase for that.
With the release of his latest book, Bill Gates is enjoying fawning profiles meant to set him apart from other tech billionaires, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, who have all come under increased scrutiny for their recent turn to the right. While he may not be using technology to further political divisiveness, Gates does have an important kinship with his fellow billionaires, past and present: the paternalistic belief that his fortune, no matter how ill-gotten, is a good thing, because hes using it to save the world.
This philosophy was first laid out in 1889 by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest Americans in history, in an influential essay titled the Gospel of Wealth. Carnegies response to the rising progressive sentiment of his day was to argue that wealth concentration is beneficial to society because it incentivizes innovation, efficiency, and economic growthand it also provides a further social good through philanthropy. The harsh treatment of workers and environmental degradation became worth the price of thousands of libraries.
Sound familiar? Todays tech leaders provide almost the exact same logic for the legitimacy of their fortunes and as a justification for inequality. Influential venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, for instance, explicitly refers to this as a deal he believes exists between Silicon Valley and society, such that tech moguls should be given significant freedom to generate wealth through the innovations they create, and any negative societal or environmental impacts that result will eventually be offset by their future generosity.
Andreessen says Joe Bidens breaking of this unspoken compact is what led to his and other tech leaders rightward turn and support of fellow billionaire Donald Trump.
But of all the philanthropists following the neo-Carnegie deal, Gates is the pacesetter, despite the fact that there has been significant criticism of this model. Carnegies ideas are so discredited that when I taught a class on philanthropy at Harvard Kennedy School a number of years ago, we read Carnegies Gospel in the first session as an example of what not to do. Not only is the idea that business success somehow gives individuals both the right and the expertise to determine solutions to vexing social issues problematic, the Carnegie model is a blatant guidebook for philanthropy-washing and undermines democracy by concentrating decision-making in the hands of unelected billionaires rather than public institutions.
Like Carnegie, the start of Gatess philanthropy was closely tied to significant critiques of his business practices and the source of his wealth. Twenty-five years ago, Microsoft was sued by the U.S. government for bundling Internet Explorer with other products in anti-competitive ways. When videos of Gatess deposition for the case were made public, his image took a significant hit. He came across as evasive and arrogant, refusing to acknowledge basic facts, denying understanding of common words like concern and support, and often dodging accountability.
While at the time he and other tech moguls were known as the cyber-stingy for their lack of giving back, like Carnegie he came to see philanthropy as a way to restore and eventually burnish his reputation. Today there are many public testaments to the work of the Gates Foundation. For instance its funding of vaccines for polio, rotavirus, and COVID-19 and its work on malaria and HIV prevention have been estimated to have saved well over 100 million lives.
But like Carnegie, Gates work has also come under criticism for a selective focus, and reflecting a billionaires know best ideology. While Carnegie’s interest in building libraries and museums was laudable, it reflected his own biases and priorities, not the needs of the communities he sought to serve. At the time, the working-class and immigrant communities that suffered from his businesses employment practices often had little access or interest in these institutions, and would have benefited more from labor protections, housing, or public health infrastructure.
Some of the Gates Foundations most well-known failures also illustrate an underlying imperial style that reflects Gatess own idiosyncratic interests rather than grassroots, democratic solutions, resulting in questionable outcomes.The Foundations education reform efforts pushed for standardized testing and charter schools in the U.S., which ignored teacher expertise and worsened inequality. In Africa, it has promoted industrial farming and genetically modified cropsoften against the wishes of local farmers who advocate for sustainable, small-scale agricultureand a number of reports have shown that these activities have not provided food security. Similarly, Gatess focus on addressing climate change centers on questionable technologies like direct air capture and geo-engineering that require extensive financial support rather than addressing emissions reductions solutions that consider climate justice needs.Many of my students who had worked in nonprofits expressed significant frustration about the dominance of the Gates Foundation in skewing the nonprofit landscape to Gatess personal interests, and further, how its bias toward quantification reflects a rigid, engineering-style approach to problem-solving that ignores the cultural, social, and historical contexts that shape human behavior. This is seen as a root cause of its educational reform failures. A focus on creating measures of teaching effectiveness and tracking them in detail led to stress for teachers, and contributed to teaching to the test, as opposed to more meaningful learning.
This overly data-driven approach to philanthropy also closely tracks with effective altruism (EA), a philosophy that has wide resonance among the tech-elite. EA advocates a strict utilitarian logic to ethical decisions and treats problems as optimization puzzles rather than complex moral or social dilemmas. For example, its focus on assessing the outcome of charity based on the metric quality-adjusted life years ignores how such measures implicitly devalue certain groupssuch as the disabledand any approaches that dont fit into a neat cost-benefit framework.
Disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was an effective altruist, and Elon Musk has described EA as a close match for his own personal philosophy.
The level of hubris exhibited by Gates, Musk, and Andreessen when rationalizing their actions hasn’t been seen since the Gilded Age. But we cant forget that theres a reason why tese 19th-century industrialists were known as robber barons.
Our current era has much in common with Carnegies day, when leaps in industrial, communications, and transportation technologies transformed the ways that people lived, and also led to extreme income inequality and the rise of a new class of ultrarich entrepreneurs. There was political gridlock and significant backlash against immigration too. Eventually, outrage at the widespread and systemic injustice of the Gilded Age led to the Progressive Era.
But will todays polycrisis of climate change, economic inequality, public health challenges, and more create enough momentum for a fundamental shift in how we assess wealth and its sources? During the second Trump administration, it may be tempting to rely on Gates and his cohort of good billionaires, as newly elected Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin recently suggested. But there will be no 21st-century Progressive Era unless we start to question how one person is able to amass such wealth in the first place.
