 |
|
|
|||||
December is a month that many look forward to as holiday festivities kick into full gear and extended R&R with our loved ones nears. But for cryptocurrency investors, the month is off to anything but a good start. As of the time of this writing, cryptocurrency prices are down across the board on the first day of December trading. This encompasses significant price drops of major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana. Heres what you need to know. Cryptocurrencies begin December with steep declines Nearly every major cryptocurrency is seeing significant declines on the first trading day of December. As of the time of this writing, most major coins are down over the past 24 hours, including: Bitcoin: down 5% Ethereum: down 5.5% XRP: down 6.8% BNB: down 5.9% Solana: down 6.8% Additionally, meme coins have also declined, with Dogecoin down 8%. Unfortunately, these drops aren’t outliers for cryptocurrencies as of late. Over the past month, big-name cryptocurrencies have been hit hard as investors sold off the digital tokens amid declining risk appetites. Over the last 30 days, Bitcoin has now declined 21%, dropping from around $111,000 per token to todays current price of just over $86,600. During the same period, Ethereum fell by more than 26%, XRP by more than 18%, BNB by more than 24%, and Solana by more than 31%. Dogecoin is down more than 26% over the past month. Why are Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies dropping today? There isnt a single event weighing on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies today, just like there has not been one single event weighing on the digital token markets over the past month. Instead, the first trading day of December drops in cryptocurrencies across the board are likely being spurred by multiple factors. Perhaps the most significant factor behind the December 1 crypto drop is ongoing uncertainty about whether the Federal Reserve will vote to cut interest rates when the central bank meets to vote on the matter on December 9-10. A drop in interest rates is generally seen as a good thing for cryptocurrencies as rate drops increase liquidity in the markets, which typically spurs investors to take more risk. As cryptocurrencies are among the most volatile assets, increased risk-taking can stimulate investment in the coins, sending their prices higher. Yet if the Fed does not reduce rates, that increase in liquidity will not materialize, which could impact risk asset investments. Barchart reports that the markets are discounting an 83% chance that the Federal Reserves monetary policymaking group, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), will cut interest rates by 25 basis points. However, rate drops aren’t the only reason Bitcoin and other cryptos are starting December on the wrong foot. As Fast Company previously reported, in November, investors increasingly turned sour on artificial intelligence stocks, including on AI heavyweights like Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) and major OpenAI investor Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT). Over the past month, NVDA shares have declined nearly 12% and MSFT shares are down more than 9%. The share prices of AI and AI-adjacent companies have been highly volatile this year amid growing fears of an AI bubble. Many investors who invest in those companies have high-risk appetites, which is why many AI investors are also cryptocurrency investors. And when one high-risk asset declines, investors tend to sell off their other high-risk assets to lock in any gains and prevent further losses. Continuing fears of an AI bubble, then, could be influencing declines in cryptocurrency prices. Aside from these two ongoing factors that have been weighing on crypto markets for a while now, there are a few more recent events that may be contributing to crypto losses on the first trading day of December. According to a report from CNBC, Peoples Bank of China issued a warning on Saturday about illegal activities involving digital tokens. That warning sent shares of companies in the digital asset sector lower on the Hong Kong market. Additionally, CoinDesk reports that early Monday saw notable forced liquidations in crypto markets as traders failed to meet margin requirements for leveraged positions, putting pressure on cryptocurrency prices. 2025 turns negative for crypto When the year began, many investors and industry watchers expressed optimism that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were in for a tremendous year of growth in 2025, largely thanks to the incoming Trump administration and its crypto-friendly policies. But while tokens like Bitcoin did reach an all-time high of more than $126,000 this year, the crypto king has declined well below its 2025 starting price. As of this writing, Bitcoin has lost about 7.24% of its 2025 opening value. Ethereum has lost 14.6% of its value, and Solana has lost 32%. BNB is a rare bright spot for major cryptocurrencies this year. The coin has seen growth of nearly 18% so far this year. Of course, given the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, it’s always possible that things could reverse quickly. There is still one month left in the year, and if there is a late bull run on the tokens, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could still come out green for the year. Whether or not that happens likely depends a lot on the Feds rate cut decision next weekand, of course, the greed and fear that investors feel in the run-up to the new year.
Category:
E-Commerce
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Leaders juggle a lot of demands and priorities. However, most CEOs tell me theyre highly attentive to company culture, change management, and workforce transformation in the age of AIall areas that their chief human resources officers (CHROs) or chief people officers (CPOs) are tackling, too, notes Jennifer Wilson, cohead of the global Human Resources Officer practice at leadership advisory firm Heidrick & Struggles. The only other seat besides CEO that has a cross-enterprise view is the chief human resources officer, Wilson says. The best CHROs these days are weighing in and shaping strategy around big corporate issues. Yet CHROs are rarely tapped for the CEO role. Heidrick & Struggless data shows that only 16 CEOs at Americas 1,000 largest companies by revenue have previous HR experience. An overlooked role Most of those executives worked in HR as part of their climb up the corporate ladder. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, for example, was a vice president of global human resources at GM for two years between roles as a vice president of global manufacturing engineering and a promotion to senior vice president of global product development. Joanna Geraghty, CEO of JetBlue Airways, was the CPO of the airline for four years after serving as associate general counsel and before moving to an executive vice president role overseeing customer experience. More unusual is the case of Leena Nair, who was the CHRO at Unilever when Chanel, the privately held luxury brand, recruited her to be its global CEO. At a time when chief financial officers, chief technology officers, and even lawyers are moving to the CEO role, Tami Rosen, chief development officer and a board member at Pagaya, an AI-powered fintech, and former CPO at Atlassian, says overlooking HR executives is a miss. For too long, CHRO and CPO roles have been miscast as operational or administrative when in reality they are the only seats with a true 360-degree view of the company, driving strategy, mission, culture, risk, performance, and people, she says. The CEO’s support system Megan Myungwon Lee was CHRO andvice president of corporate planning and strategic initiatives when she was promoted to chairwoman and CEO of Panasonic North America in 2021. Lee says Osaka, Japanbased Panasonic has a history of viewing HR, finance, and strategy as a three-legged stool supporting the CEO. In Japan, if you hire a person, its a $3 million investment because people usually retire with the company, she notes. Its not a variable cost. Lee says her experiences in HRPanasonic initially hired her as a bilingual secretaryexposed her directly and indirectly to all aspects of the company. It has also shaped her leadership style. Being a leader is like [being] a parent in that you lead with empathyguiding, setting boundaries, and making tough decisionswhile always asking,How would I want someone to treat my own children in this situation? Boards of directors may disregard CHROs in their CEO succession planning for any number of reasons: Some want their chief executive to have client-facing experience; a tech company may prioritize a leader with an engineering background. But Pagayas Rosen says boards ignore HR talent at their peril. More CHROs and CPOs should be elevated to CEO because theirs is the most well-rounded role in the company, connected to the business, the strategy, the culture, and every team, she says. Does your team elevate HR pros to the top? Does your company have a CPO or CHRO who is a candidate to succeed the CEO? If so, what are the reasons why your company may elevate them? Id like to hear your stories. Send them in an email to stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Read more: human resources Meet Beth Galetti, the woman behind Amazons explosive growth Why Tesla and FedEx pay this staffing firm millions of dollars The most innovative HR companies of 2025
Category:
E-Commerce
As the U.S. and China battle over technology, tariffs, and global influence, one question still looms for Europeans: what is Europes edge? That was the question recently posed by 21st Century, a Copenhagen-based think tank that collaborates with policymakers and thought leaders to explore the future of Europe. According to Johanna Fabrin, managing director and partner at 21st Century, the answer lies in the EUs regulatory backbonethink GDPR-level data protection, rigorous environmental standards, and foodsafety rules. From a consumer perspective, knowing that if something is made in Europe, there will not be arsenic in it, there’s that trust that is important, she says. To convey that trust, the team has proposed a Made in Europe label that would signal quality, safety, and adherence to European standards. Similar to the CE label, which signifies that a product meets EU health, safety, and environmental protections, companies could display it on products to help consumers make informed decisions. The ultimate goal? To elevate the European brand as one that is trusted. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] ‘Debrandifying’ the label Made in Europe was developed in collaboration with British studio Dada. But it is more than a labelits a certification. “A symbol of trust,” says Alice Shaughnessy, head of operations at Dada. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] Shaughnessys team worked hard to “debrandify” the design so it reads less like a corporate logo and more like a stamp of approval. They cycled through dozens of proposalsfrom a wordmark spelling out “EUR” to the words “Made in Europe” set into a circlebefore landing on twelve stars arranged in the shape of a lowercase “e”. [Images: courtesy Dada Projects] By referencing the quintessential European symbol found on the EU flag, the design creates a clear association with the European institution. It conveys clout while remaining instantly recognizable. “It was important for us to be able to sit within that hall of great European design in some small way,” says Shaughnessy. Like all initiatives developed by 21st Century, the label is intended as a blueprint that sparks conversation. The team has built a “living ecosystem” of use cases that show how the label could integrate into daily lifefrom a simple logo on a fruit sticker to an embossed mark on the side of a leather chair. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] The label was designed to pair with Digital Product Passportsa QR code the EU will require by 2027 for categories like batteries, textiles, electronics, and furniture. Eventually, it could subsume existing certifications like CE, acting as an umbrella label that is relatable and easy for consumers to understand. Instead of decoding what B-Corp or CE means, you would see ‘Made in Europe’ and immediately associate it with European values like sustainability, ethical production, and consumer protection. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] Building on a momentum This isnt the first time the idea of a European made in label has surfaced. Back in 2014, the European Parliament backed a proposal for source-country labeling, including a voluntary Made in the EU tag. But the proposal stalled due to political resistance and fragmented enforcement. Now, Fabrin and Shaughnessy argue, the conditions are different. For one, Europes leverage on the geopolitical stage is rising: Russias war on Ukraine has renewed interest from candidate countries like Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine; Brexit has made the EU passport all the more desirable; and growing disillusionment with the American brand has made some companies turn to the EU for answers. Fabrin says she is hearing it firsthand as some IT consultants ask for CRMs based in Europe because of GDPR regulations. This kind of momentum usually motivates the European Commission to act quite quickly, she says. [Image: courtesy Dada Projects] The biggest hurdle may be adoption: smaller businesses will need incentives to retrofit supply chains for this label. But 21st Europes vision is not to wait for lawits to catalyze a movement. Countries like Canada and Denmark have already started to take action with their own versions of made in labels. If large corporations like, say, Lego, were to adopt the mark voluntarily, it could inspire smaller companies to think about the label as a positioning exercise. [Were] thinking about the European brand as a long-term investment, says Fabrin, and a Made in Europe label is one contributor to building that brand.
Category:
E-Commerce
Now that AI can control your web browser, the next frontier might be to take over your entire computer. At least that’s what Seattle-based startup Vercept is trying to do with Vy, a currently free Windows and Mac app that can manipulate your mouse and keyboard to automate tedious or repetitive tasks. You just tell it what you’re trying to do, and then it takes control. Vy first launched as a beta for Macs in May, but has now been rebuilt and is available for Windows as well. My experiments with Vy have yielded mixed results. If you’ve ever yelled at ChatGPT for failing to follow instructions, that frustration becomes magnified when AI is piloting your entire computer — tasks you might want to automate might just be done faster manually. Still, I can see some areas where an AI computer agent could be useful, which is why other companies (including Microsoft) are pursuing the same goal. I spent a lot of time waiting Kiana Ehsani, Vercept’s CEO and co-founder, says Vy is more human-like than the agent features in AI web browsers such as Perplexity Comet and ChatGPT Atlas. While those browsers reportedly work by inspecting the underlying structure of web pages, Vy takes frequent screenshots to analyze what’s happening on your screen. It then executes mouse or keyboard commands to mimic the way you’d control the computer yourself. Ehsani says people are using it to automate Excel work, extract data from the web for sharing into apps like Slack, or figure out how to use new software. “We want to have a model that understands your screen and takes action very similarly to how you do it,” Ehsani says. This ends up taking a while, though, as each individual action requires Vy to take a screenshot and upload it to its servers for analysis. Everything from opening an app to clicking a menu button requires another screenshot and more time waiting for a response — so a routine that takes 10 seconds for a human might take Vy five minutes. Vy has a couple ways to mitigate this. One option is to run tasks in “Background” mode, which lets you keep using your computer while Vy does its work in an invisible browser window. Vy’s capabilities are limited in this mode, though, as it can interact with files and web pages but can’t control other apps. (I had some impish fun getting Vy to fulfill various Microsoft Rewards tasks on my behalfperforming daily Bing searches, filling out various quizzesbut felt guilty about how much compute power must’ve been burned along the way.) The other option is to schedule tasks for when you’re not around. For instance, I set up a daily routine for 7 a.m. that minimizes any open windows on my desktop, opens Obsidian, moves it to the center of the screen, and loads my to-do list. Watching Vy do this in real-time is excruciating, but scheduling it to run before I sit down at my computerthereby forcing me to confront my to-do listis pretty helpful. Ehsani hopes that on-device AI will speed things up in the future. Instead of having to constantly upload screenshots and download instructions, the goal is for Vy to process everything directly on the computer, though it’s unclear when that might happen or how powerful a PC you’d need. It needs a lot of hand-holding Getting Vy to perform tasks on your computer can be a bit like bossing a child around, in that it’s liable to ignore or misinterpret your instructions. A quirk of Obsidian, for instance, is that if you load the app while it’s already running, it will load an entirely new instance of Obsidian with a menu for choosing which notebook vault to open. To keep this from happening in my to-do list scenario, I asked Vy to only click the Obsidian icon on the Windows taskbar, which would load any existing instance of Obsidian instead of launching a new one. But every time I tested the routine, Vy kept ignoring my instructions and would try to click the Obsidian icon on the desktop, thereby opening a new window. I would interrupt the assistant and tell it to focus on clicking the taskbar icon, but it had trouble finding it and kept trying to open the app in other ways. At one point it even clicked the Windows Start menu to launch Obsidian from there. Ultimately I had to edit my workflow with clear instructions to never click the desktop icon, never open the Windows Start menu, and avoid using other methods to open Obsidian outside of the taskbar. I also had to lay out explicit guidance to look for a purple crystal icon that appears next to other icons in the taskbar. All told, I spent about 20 minutes troubleshooting this tiny routine that mostly involved minimizing some windows and clicking a button. Vy does have an alternative “Watch and repeat” tool for creating workflows, in which it records your screen while you perform the desired steps. But this was even less reliable in my experience. When I tried setting up my Obsidian automation this way, Vy didn’t minimize any of my open windows and instead just moved its own app to the middle of the screen. It raises some privacy and security concerns Watching Vy take persistent screenshots of my desktop was also a reminder of how much personal info could wind up on Vercept’s servers. Every time Vy takes a screenshot, it captures everything on your screen, even if it’s unrelated to the task. Until I started asking Vercept about its data retention policies, the company did not publish them on its website. Vercept now says it keeps screenshots for six months unless you delete the underlying chat manually. Either way, it keeps data for up to 30 days for safety purposes. Ehsani says it doesn’t capture screenshots when Vy isn’t actively working on a task, and doesn’t perform any post-processing on screenshot contents. Still, a few people at Vercept have full access to users’ data, including their screenshots. “There is a trade-off here,” Ehsani acknowledges. As with any agentic AI system, Vy risks making users vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, in which an attacker hides malicious instructions in web pages, emails, or calendar invites. Vercept says it has some ways to mitigate thisfor instance, by instructing Vy to watch for signs of malicious behaviorbut no AI system has a foolproof answer to this problem yet. It seems inevitable anyway Despite the potential problems and limitations, AI agents that control your devices are coming. Microsoft already has a mode for its Copilot Windows assistant that can scan what’s on your screen and provide guidance, and it’s testing a “Copilot Actions” feature that can perform tasks on your behalf. Other developers are also pursuing this idea. Github is full of experimental AI control projects, and commercial alternatives include NeuralAgent and Screenpipe. Vercept is notable among tese efforts for having raised a $16 million seed round in January, with backers including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean. Ehsani says the goal is to expand beyond just a single computer. An Android app is also in the works, and she hopes that you’ll eventually be able to give Vy instructions on your phone and have it carry the actions out on your computer, or vice versa. “One of our main visions is getting rid of mouse, keyboard, and touchscreens altogether,” Ehsani says. For now, at least, the natural speed at which humans can click around a desktop gives them the edge.
Category:
E-Commerce
When the Los Angeles wildfires swept through the city earlier this year, experts flocked to the internet to dissect the anatomy of a fire-resistant building. Many of them ended up describing bunker-like architecture with boxy buildings, sparse landscape, and lots of concrete. A new building in Malibu offers a more nuanced approach. Malibu High School, which opened in August, is located in an area that Cal Fire (the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) recently designated as a very high fire hazard severity zone. This means that the school, which has replaced a nondescript building from the 1950s, had to comply with stringent fire safety regulations. [Photo: Here and Now Agency] The new school is distributed across two connected buildings. It was constructed entirely of noncombustible materials like concrete shear walls and floors, steel columns and beams, and fire-rated glass. It is surrounded by a newly built fire road to allow easy firetruck access, and drought-resistant landscaping. Still, it looks less like a fortified concrete bunker, and more like the kind of airy, low-lying buildings you might find elsewhere in Malibu. “The messages the building sends about your safety is much more like a community center,” says Nathan Bishop, lead architect and principal at local firm Koning Eizenberg Architecture. “It’s about making it feel like a social place to hang out and just be.” [Photo: Here and Now Agency] A balanced approach to fire-resistant architecture Malibu High School, part of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, is nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. It is located near a ring of coastal shrubs that is notoriously flammable but is also protected by the California Coastal Act as Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area (ESHA.) In 2018, the area was hit by the Woolsey Fire, which destroyed over 1,600 structures, and burned nearly 97,000 acres in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The former high school building, which stood on the same site, narrowly survived, but according to Bishop, the “shared memory” of Woolsey was present in everyone’s mind. “There are still teachers who haven’t replaced their houses because they burned down,” he said. It’s no surprise, then, that fire resiliency was part of the architects’ mandate from the very beginning, when they won an RFP to redesign the school in 2019. The challenge was ensuring the school didn’t look like a bunker. [Photo: Here and Now Agency] To lighten the visible footprint of the building, the architects positioned solar panels over a canopy so they could cast shadows on the building’s glazed facade. This helped reduce solar gain while allowing the building to have more glass to balance the concrete. The panels, which remain quite visible, help the building achieve its net-zero goals, but they also help communicate the value of sustainability to students. The team used textured concrete that makes the building feel like it is part of the hillside, and copper panels that add some color and texture. They also implemented a dedicated air filtration system for wildfire events. “[The school] is fortified and strong, but not in a defensive way,” says Bishop, noting the school can now serve as a community wildfire shelter. The open design ensured the building feels like it belongs on the rugged hillside of Malibu. The surrounding drought-resistant landscape, by San Diego-based Spurlock Landscape Architects, further anchors the school with a coastal landscape that doubles as a fuel modification zone. This is meant to reduce the risk of wildfire by thinning or replacing combustible vegetation. The landscape architects used California-native plants like aloe vera and agave interspersed with locally sourced rock mulch. They laid out the plants so they would grow from low succulents closer to the building to larger canopies on the outer perimeter. Since many buildings catch fire from what is closest to them, the areas nearest to the building are mostly hardscape. (The January 2025 wildfires didn’t reach as far north as the high school, which was therefore spared.) [Photo: Here and Now Agency] Rethinking the American high school By the time Koning Eizenberg Architecture got involved in 2020, Malibu High School had been seeing enrollment issues for years. (The school enrolled about 440 students in 2021, compared to nearly 1,000 in 2017.) To compete with nearby private schools, where enrollment issues haven’t been as stark, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District wanted to rethink not just the building but also the way high schoolers studied inside it. Instead of organizing the school by academic departments, the high school follows a more distributed model where “everything is everywhere,” as Bishop puts it. Science labs abut art studios and teacher rooms are scattered around the campus instead of concentrated in a single building. The distributed model allowed the architects to abolish the archetypal silos that have become high school movie tropesscience geeks hang out here; jocks hang out thereand foster more encounters between different disciplines. [Photo: Here and Now Agency] “There is something about rethinking the story of the American high school, and the social fabric of the American high school,” says Bishop. Before they moved into the new building, high schoolers shared the old building with local middle schoolers, where they studied in nondescript classrooms. Now, each classroom is adjacent to an outdoor space, creating a “fuzzy edge that lets the life of the building spill out,” says Bishop. Students in marine biology class go down to the beach to collect samples. Those in pottery class bring their wheels into the courtyard. Meanwhile, the preserved ESHA acts as a learning lab, where students can learn about ecology. Instead of cutting off the building from its surroundings, the architects carefully integrated it within the landscape, proof that students can learn from nature instead of turning their back on it.
Category:
E-Commerce
Sites : [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] next »