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New Yorker staff writer and author Evan Osnos spent decades chronicling the social, economic, and political changes in China and currently writes about American politics. To understand the second election of President Trump, though, he realized he needed to understand the vast inequality in American society. According to 2024 data from the Federal Reserve, more than two-thirds of the countrys wealth is held by the top 10% of U.S. households. And the top 1% of U.S. households hold more than one-third of the country’s wealth. Osnos’s new collection of essays, The Haves and Have Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, explores the world of the 1%, from their tax-dodging and yacht-buying techniques to their propensity for building luxury bunkers and employing pop stars to perform at private events. Osnos came on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about his book, whats behind the rising inequality in America, and the danger that inequality poses to democracy. Why did you want to write about the ultrarich? In 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president, I realized that the normal tools of political analysisthe way that I usually write about what’s happening in the worldwere not going to suffice. I couldn’t understand how a guy who declared himself the enemy of the elites could somehow inhabit that role while being the billionaire son of a real estate family in New York. I needed to understand. The answer to that lay, ultimately, in trying to understand the mechanics of the big money world. That was the origins of this. You begin the book by talking about how ubiquitous the ultra wealthy are in the administration and you write that inequality has led to the undoing of many societies. Do you think that is happening in America? We are at a very tenuous moment, and I don’t think I’m unique in that impression. All of us, no matter where we sit on the political spectrum, we look at it and say, this feels really fragile and it feels volatile. The question of course is, why? From my perspective, you can’t understand this period without recognizing that we’re living at a time of really historic, arguably unprecedented inequality in this country. That’s not an abstraction. The richest people in America have a larger share of the nation’s wealth than their predecessors did in the Gilded Age. If you want to really have an honest conversation about what it will take to hold this country together, we have to be honest about the facts. Let’s remind ourselves [that] we’ve been through these moments before and we’ve found our way back to a more stable, productive, democratic future. The first essay is a piece about yachts. What attracted you to the topic, which also provides the title for your collection? The super yacht is the super symbol of our era. There used to be 10 of the largest yachts [available] a generation ago, and now there are 170. They occupy this kind of strange place in our culture. They’re both visible and invisible. I mean, you see them in the New York Post or in the Daily Mail. They’re designed to stay out of reach, but they are the most conspicuous machines that anybody could possibly own. [Osnos photo by Pete Marovich] The yachts are a symbol of a world in which capital is more mobile and more fluid and in which borders are liquified. I had this really interesting interview with a guy who has been in the yachting world for decades. He watched it turn into this ginormous industry with huge amounts of money on the line. And he said every decade or two [the yacht buyers are coming from] a new industry. First it was the Greek shipping fortunes. And so you saw Aristotle Onassis competing against another shipping magnate [for the most ostentatious yacht]. [Then] it was the oil money. All of a sudden, it was people from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and they had different needs. They were sailing their yachts around the Arabian Peninsula and they were inside all the time. They needed good air-conditioning. But what’s really interesting about [yacht buying] is that it tells you something about the global economy. Where is the center of gravity at any moment in our time? You could chart the history of American economics over the last 60 years by looking at the high seas. They also depreciate in value immediately. I remember the Financial Times wrote a great piece that described them as about as financially prudent as buying 10 Van Goghs and then holding them above your head while you’re treading water. [Yachts are] essentially something for people who have limitless resources. You write about how it’s almost easier for a billionaire to live on a luxurious yacht than on land. It might seem uncouth to show how rich you are on land; on water, it’s a different story. A Silicon Valley CEO said to me that the honest fact is that you can’t live in a $500 million house because the optics are weird. Your employees will be enraged at you. But a half billion dollar boat is pretty nice. This same CEO said to me that the yacht is the best place to, as he put it, absorb excess capital. A certain number of businesses have generated so much [money] because of the ownership structure for their founders and for key investors that [these people] are quite literally encountering this problem of having excess capital and having to figure out ways to park it in places that won’t cause blowback socially and culturally and ultimately in business terms. One of the themes that I noticed across this world was that, in a way, this is the natural result of an unthinking cult of scale. t’s not that long ago that we thought scale was an unambiguous good. When I wrote a profile of Mark Zuckerberg a few years ago [for The New Yorker], I was talking to him and to his employees about this period when essentially connecting people was a euphemism for growing. And growing was a self-justifying, self-fulfilling idea. It was an end in itself. The yachts are the symbolic representation of that concept. You grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and decided to write about the towns turn towards Trump. Why did you want to write about it? It’s always been a prosperous place. It was an amazing place to grow up as a kid. It has the only public high school that I know of that has an electron microscope. There was also a point at which I became aware that Greenwich told us something important about what was happening in Republican politics. Greenwich had been traditionally the birthplace of the country club Republican. The Bush family was from there. Prescott Bush, who was the father of George H.W. Bush, was quite literally the country club golf champion in town. He was the senator from Connecticut, and he was an old-school moderate Republicanwhat they used to call a Rockefeller Republican. But in 2016, the Republican Town Committee in Greenwich was led by somebody who came out and said they were not going to vote for Jeb Bush. They were going to vote for Donald Trump. That became a revealing indicator: Republican strongholds that we might’ve thought of being more inclined towards moderate Republicans were lining up with Trump. Part of the explanation is that there had been a decision along the way that we can no longer afford to do the kind of moderate Republican thing that gives a little here and takes a little here, but ultimately believes in working with Democrats. There was an argument to be made that there was a similar thing going on in the Democratic side, in terms of getting more and more extreme. But it was when you had the birthplace of Country Club Republicanism begin to line up with Donald Trump, I said, I’ve got to understand how that happened. And this essay tells that story. What did you learn about how American elites paved the way for Trump’s election? There is a lot of blame to go around for creating the myth of Donald Trump that continued for so long. Around New York City, Donald Trump was a permanent piece of media furniture. He was in the papers all the time, partly because he was pretending to be his own publicist and planting stories. To see him, through The Apprentice, become something else in the eyes of Americans more broadly was a turning point. All of a sudden he [became] known, through the power of this invented persona, as the icon of a big city, successful capitalist. Part of the reason why I think why the word elite has become so fraught is that Trump used his own position in communities of power to say to the American public, Because I am an elite, I can help you pick the lock. I will help you understand why [the government] is corrupt, how it works, and therefore I, dear voter, will give you a piece of the action. After a half a century of him selling the illusion of access to power and fortune, he and his family have now realized that in 2025 the thing people will pay most exorbitantly for is access to the highest reaches of the United States government. His son has created a club called Executive Branch with an initiation fee of up to $500,000. Its funny because at the same time, he hired a lot of elites to his cabinet. He named 13 billionaires to the highest ranks of his administration. You can imagine a scenario in which you say, look, these are people who have succeeded. They understand the market; they understand economics. What becomes a problem is when the administration is so secluded from the experience of regular life that it has a very hard time expressing and enacting the public will. It was quite telling when Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, said that his mother-in-law wouldn’t notice if her social security check didn’t show up. I think there’s a lot of Americans that probably would notice if their social security check didn’t show up. I think this is part of what Elon Musk ran into, when he started talking about empathy as a weakness of Western civilization or social security as a Ponzi scheme. It was a revealing indicator of how much his life had become divorced from the experience of ordinary people. Youve written about elites deriding other elites and saying, I’m different because I understand the common man. Why do you think that is so resonant with voters? Americans at their core want to get rich. We always have and we always will. That is baked into the American idea. Whats happening now is that people in larger numbers are beginning to realize that there are impediments to that process. Part of the reason why Donald Trump was able to win again was that he is able to say to people, even in an unspoken way, that he wants them to prosper and succeed. Part of the process of getting people to understand [our level of inequality] is getting [them to] visualize some of the fault lines in our economy that are making it harder for people to prosper. The key is not saying to people they should give up on the goal of getting rich. The key is giving people the information to understand why they’re not. When you’re talking about the sort of elites who have yachts, are they completely divorced from understanding the common person? I think that the experience of entering into that world is actually farther away from regular life than outsiders imagine. There was a yacht owner who said on a documentary that if the public ever knew what it’s really like on these yachts, they’d bring back the guillotine. It sounds like a joke except that part of what’s happening is that [elites] are aware. There was a really prophetic comment a century ago from [Supreme Court justice] Louis Brandeis. He said, you can either have democracy or you can have money concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, but you can’t have both. That was one of the observations that led to the New Deal and to an effort to try to shift the balance from a concentration of resources into the hands of too few, into a more equitable distribution. [That] led to what was ultimately a period of rising standards of living for more people. That period came to an end in the late 1970s. I think there is a recognition on the part of some in politics that we need to figure out a way to get back to that. What was your favorite essay to write in the book? The piece about pop stars performing at private parties. I embedded with Flo Rida for a bar mitzvah. It was an experience that as you’re doing it, you say to yourself, I think I will be able to die happy when I’ve done this. The reason I got interested in it was [wondering], what are the economics of that? What makes a pop star who could be performing in front of 40,000 screaming fans say, Actually I’m going to go to a sweet 16 in Teaneck. In the end, it’s not that complicated what motivates them to go. The reason why this is an artifact of our time, why it’s like a new thing, is the simple fact that, until recently, people couldn’t afford to have the Foo Fighters in their backyard on a Thursday, and now they can. I sometimes feel like I’m like a historian writing in real time about a world that we need to describe while it exists. In 2015, Uber famously offered Beyonc� $6 million to perform at one of teir corporate events. Instead, she requested an equity stake in the company and ultimately made $300 million from it. If you step back, what’s fascinating about that is that right there is a transaction between billionaire and billionaire. When you can get on board a certain kind of opportunity and experience, then the curve goes vertical, and you get access to all kinds of other things. It can be quite dangerous for a country because it means that those people are then getting further and further from the experience of everybody else. I think it’s perilous for those individuals because they run the risk of suddenly encountering a kind of backlash and realizing they’ve lost touch with the people they were supposed to be in touch with. I quoted Ramsay MacMullen, the great scholar of Rome, in the book. He was once asked if he could summarize the epic history of the fall of Rome as concisely as possible. He said that it took 500 years but it can be distilled into three words: fewer had more.
Category:
E-Commerce
By the time most leaders sit down at their desks, theyve already spent a chunk of their best energy. Theyve triaged emails, squeezed in early meetings, and handled just one quick thing that ballooned into an hour. Its barely 10 a.m. and their attention is already diluted, their decision-making fatigued. In my work as an executive leadership coach, I see every day what the studies have been showing us for years. Our brains capacity to make good decisions depletes as the day progresses.The sheer volume of decisions we have to make each day is leaving us diminished. And our days get hijacked by emailwith us losing almost a full days worth every week. The compounding effect of this is that leaders are less sharp, more reactive, and prone to default decisions rather than breakthroughs. So what if, instead of reacting, we reserved that early window for something more valuable? The first two hours of your workday arent just another block on the calendar. Theyre your cognitive prime. The time when your brain is sharpest and your energy most aligned with creative, focused work. Theyre also the time most leaders give away too easily. Reclaiming it is about making a deliberate leadership move that pays off in clarity, influence, and impact. The cost of default mornings Most of us dont design our mornings: we inherit them. Calendars fill with recurring meetings, habitual inbox checks, and requests from others. We hit the ground running, but often in the wrong direction. This default mode comes at a price. While research shows we have peak cognitive capacity in the morning, that prime time is too often squandered on low-impact tasks. Its like hiring a Michelin-star chef to butter toast. In the end, leaders end up firefighting all day, making decisions from a place of fatigue, and pushing their most strategic thinking to a time when their brain is already checked out. The first two hours as a leadership lever Reclaiming your first two hours isnt about working harder or even smarter, its about working sharper. Working smarter is about efficiency. Its finding faster ways to do familiar things, streamlining systems, and ticking more off your list in less time. Thats helpful, but it still treats all hours of the day as equal. Working sharper is different. It respects the natural rhythm of your body and brain. Its not just about what youre doing, but when youre doing it. Your cognitive capacity peaks in the first few hours after waking. This is when your brain is most alert, creative, and capable of solving complex problems. Sharper work means aligning your most important thinking with your highest mental performance. Leaders who intentionally front-load their day with deep, high-impact work dont just get more done; they make better decisions, model smarter working habits, and lead with more clarity. They create time to think, not just to respondand thats the game changer. When your first hours are spent solving complex problems, crafting strategy, or preparing for high-stakes conversations, youre not just ticking off tasks, but setting the tone for how your team operates and how your business grows. Small changes, outsized impact When leaders begin to guard their early hours, the ripple effect is striking. Teams notice, the culture shifts, and people get braver about protecting their own energy. Ive worked with senior leaders who transformed their teams operating rhythm just by removing early meetings and declaring the first two hours as thinking time. It signalled a new standard: that considered work matters more than constant busyness. That energy is a finite resource worth protecting. And yes, it requires a shift. You may need to renegotiate habits with your team, push back on automatic scheduling tools, or educate others about your new working rhythm. But leadership is, in part, about setting boundaries that enable your best work and empower others to do the same. Rethinking what belongs in the morning To make the most of your best energy, you need to protect it. Heres how: Block, dont hope. Set a recurring two-hour block in the morning for proactive work. Dont leave it to chance. Start with friction. Tackle the task youre most likely to procrastinate; your brain is most equipped to handle it now. Email can wait. Unless youre in customer service, few emails need a response at 8 a.m. Turn off notifications and dont open your inbox until after your deep work is done. Delay the meetings. Push back recurring stand-ups or updates to later in the day where possible. Mornings should be reserved for creation, not coordination. Even reclaiming just one morning a week can create meaningful shifts in how you lead and perform. What your calendar says about your leadership Theres a simple way to tell what you value most as a leader. Look at your calendar. If the first two hours of each day are filled with admin and reactivity, its worth asking: what are you giving away? And what would change if you claimed that space instead? Reclaiming this time is a move toward leading with more foresight and less fatigue. Its a signal to your team that thoughtfulness trumps frenzy. And it starts tomorrow morning. Just two hours for your clearest thinking, and the work that truly matters.
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E-Commerce
Have you ever wondered where the unsold concert merch from decades worth of tours end up? For artists associated with Universal Music Groups merchandise arm, Bravado, it often winds up in a massive Nashville facility, gathering dust. Its like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, says Matt Young, president of Bravado. This stuff predates meI believe it was just forgotten. From an environmental perspective, decades worth of apparel sitting in a warehouse is among the least harmful options. Typically that stuff gets donated to Goodwillbut they dont even want that much, especially if it has a band name, Young says. Some artists may want it destroyed, or you do a sale on a websitewhich is usually the first wave of defense. Like fast-fashion, donated clothes that cant be sold in stores ends up in landfills or the global South, where countries like Pakistan, Kenya, and India import millions of pounds of used clothing every year from the West. Often rather than donate clothes, companies will incinerate them. UMGs head of sustainability Dylan Siegler says the company has so much deadstock in storage partially because it only donates or incinerates unsold merchandise as the very last resort. [Photo: UMG/Bravado] Looking to find a new option for its unsold apparel, Bravado is now sending 400,000 shirts from its Nashville warehouse via cargo ship to Morocco, where Spanish clothing designer and manufacturer Hallotex will turn many of them back into cotton yarn, which it will then spin into new, 100% recycled cotton shirt. It will also shred what cant be recycled, and turn that fabric housing insulation. At the end of the process, Bravado will have some 280,000 new shirts that will debut as artist merch for European fans in the fall, ahead of the holiday season. The effort was spearheaded by one of UMGs most influential artists: Billie Eilish. Eilish and her mother, Maggie Baird, have long focused on making both touring and merch more sustainable, encouraging fans to bring reusable water bottles to shows and eat plant-based, all while working with smaller designers on upcycled merch collections and sourcing organic or recycled cotton for apparel. With the T-shirt recycling effort, theyre helping UMG use recycled fabric on a wider scale. We are drowning in clothes on this planet, much of which is in landfills, much of which is shipped to other countries to pollute their waters and their land, Baird says. I think we have to be extremely thoughtful about what merch gets put out in the worldwhy does it exist, how is it made, and what happens to it in its second life? [Photo: UMG/Bravado] Selling sustainability Merchandisetour shirts, posters, and hats, among other productshas long been central to how artists connect with fans. But in the streaming era, these physical items have become increasingly critical for musicians as the music industry shifts away from relying on album sales for revenue. Entertainment analysis firm Midia Research projects that the global market for artist merchandise, which was roughly $14 billion at the end of 2024, will hit $16.3 billion by 2030. Industry sources say top artists can make in excess of $10 million selling merch annually. For a company the size of Bravado, the challenge is feeding this demand while embracing more sustainable practices. Bravado president Young is no stranger to the merch business. Before he joined Bravado in 2021, he spent 13 years building Warner Music Groups in-house merch arm, Warner Artist Services, which he led from 2016 till his departure. But he admits that he wasnt well-versed in sustainable sourcing until he connected with Eilish and Baird. In the past few years, Eilish has pushed Bravado to use nontoxic clothing dyes and water-based graphic inks in place of synthetic ones, which consume a lot of resources and include toxic chemicals that make them the worlds second-largest polluter of water. Recently, Eilish has been exploring smaller partnerships focused on sustainable merch. In the spring, she worked with designer Iris Alonzo, who overdyed old tour shirts and hand-painted them before adding the tour title in water-based ink. Clothing upcycler Lost Love made unique sweaters and shirts entirely from postconsumer materials. And L.A.-based textile recycler Suay upcycled work shirts into Eilish merch by overdying them and adding an embroidered Billie name tag on the chest. Baird says her daughters focus on sustainability dates back to the start of her career. We asked for [sustainable merch options] even before she was big, Baird says. It was a little bit like pushing a boulder up a hill for a long time. There is one challenge that comes with stocking sustainable merchsticker shock. Sustainable usually means more expensivefor the company and for the fan, Young says.�(Such options can require a premium of as much as 30% more than an all-new product). As a result, artists play a role in educating their fans about why their shirt costs more than another artists might.� Eilish plays a video before her shows explaining how her merchandise is made with an emphasis on sustainability. Her fan base has responded enthusiastically. Young notes that Eilishs stop at Quebec Citys Centre Vid�otron last September broke the venues record for single-day merch sales. Last summer, Bravado worked with Target to sell a limited-edition apparel line that included tees made with a blend of organic and recycled cotton. Young says the Target products sold strongly enough that the retailer placed multiple follow-up orders.� With more UMG artists, including Shawn Mendes, Lorde, and the Rolling Stones, asking for eco-friendly merch, Young says the company is laying the groundwork for a bigger commitment. UMG has been assessing Hallotexs capabilities via several small-scale test runs for the past several years. Now its putting its deadstock on a boat to see if itcan, Young says, unlock the economies of scale that come with mass production of sustainable options. From left: Matt Young, president of Bravado; Susan Mazo, EVP of global communications at Universal Music Group; Eilishs mother, Maggie Baird; and Dylan Siegler, SVP and head of sustainability at Universal Music Group [Photo: R. Weber] Making it scale Hallotex, based in Barcelona, has for years been a go-to manufacturer for brands like Zara, J.Crew, Eileen Fisher, and Mara Hoffman who want sustainable options. Through a partnership with textile fiber maker Lenzing, Hallotex can incorporate the nontoxic, cellulose-based Tencel in products for retailers. Its partnership with Bravado, though, is built on its own process, which it calls the Loop. The company is able to break down garments and other textiles into small pieces that can then be spun into new yarn. The fibers that are made in the process will be 100% cotton regardless of what the constituents of the waste T-shirt were, says UMGs Siegler. Hallotex estimates that its process saves 15 liters of water per shirt createda small portion of the 2,700 liters needed to make a new shirt, from growing cotton, to processing the material, to manufacturing the final product. That adds up to 4.2 million liters of water saved for the shirts that Hallotex will make for Bravado. At first blush, the idea of sending nearly half a million T-shirts across the world by boat to be recycled in Morocco doesnt seem like the most eco-friendly move, but it came down to which company was capable of processing the sheer volume of fabric Bravado had on hand. The technology at that scale is not available in North America, Young says. We know putting it on a boat isnt the best for the world, but having it rot in a warehouse or go to a landfill is way worse, he says, noting that to mitigate the ecological impact of the journey, Bravado is planning to keep the new T-shirts in the nearby European market. For now, UMG hasnt calculated the actual emissions savings of the process for recycling its 400,000 shirts. But Siegler and Young both say the effort is focused on the Hallotex partnership as a better way to utilize deadstock clothing. Young also says that, for now, Bravado will absorb any additional costs associated with the shirts that Hallotex creates. Getting more artists on board is a crucial next step to scaling the capabilities of companies like Hallotex, and even ones closer to home. If we get more participation [from artists], we can figure out how to get companies with the technology in America to scale to where we can do this locally, Young says. Our ultimate goal is to get this to be such a widely accepted practice that the price drops to the point where people won’t even care or notice that a shirt is an extra couple bucks.
Category:
E-Commerce
Perched on a dusty high desert plain about 100 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, the Mojave Air and Space Port looks more like a final destination for aerospace experiments than a stepping stone to the stars. A field with dozens of decommissioned commercial jetliners bakes in the early morning sunitll eventually hit 110 degrees around noonand the small shacks set between dusty roads and cracked pavement look mostly empty. But drive past cracked airstrips and barbed wire gates, andwith the right security clearanceyou may be able to walk up and touch the exterior of the next orbital space station: a 2-ton cylindrical aluminum module built by the startup Vast. Called Haven-1, it currently hangs from a 50-foot-tall steel scaffold while it undergoes extreme pressure testing, one of many complicated engineering milestones it needs to hit before its planned launch in May 2026. Before engineers can install the modules instrumentation, electronics, and life-support systems, they need to repeatedly pressurize the structure to 2.4 times Earths atmosphere to test its workmanship. Massive hoses hooked up to a trio of multistory liquid nitrogen tankers inflate the stationan isogrid metal shell that resembles a waffle conewith nitrogen gas, like a kids birthday balloon. Observers need to stand at least 236 feet away in case bolts or brackets burst. During a visit in May, workers were welding and reinforcing the steel scaffold to make sure the structure can withstand a grueling and aggressive series of stress tests that will see the cabin inflated and deflated 200 times in a row. Fully-built flight-like control moment gyroscope (CMG). [Photo: Spencer Lowell] Vast is racing against the clock to launch the worlds first commercial space stationindependently, in-house, and in record time. Its an audacious effort, made possible by the retirement of an icon: the International Space Station, a fixture of childhood imaginations and of humanitys exploration of space since its first section was launched in 1998. Its now set to be decommissioned in 2030, via a guided crash into the Pacific Ocean, and Vast wants to replace it. Were going from an unknown to a formidable competitor, says Vast CEO Max Haot, a Belgian-American serial entrepreneur. Founded in 2021 by American crypto entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, who served as CEO until Haots arrival in 2023, Vast has grown to a team of nearly 1,000 people intent on building the next generation of human habitation in space. The company is entirely funded by McCaleb, who has invested $1 billion in the startup. NASA launched a competition for its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program five years ago, setting a date of 2026 to choose a team and design to eventually replace the ISS. Vast wasnt even around when the space agency awarded three teams seed funding to develop their visions: Starlab, Northrop Grumman, and a collaboration between Sierra Space and Blue Origin. Thats led Vast to adopt an accelerated approach that it hopes will ultimately prove its efficiency. To lap more established competitors, Haot is pushing his company to launch a prototype model before anybody else even submits their final proposal. Haot refers to other prospects as paper designs. Vast is already in the building phase. At the companys sprawling 190,000-square-foot factory in Long Beach, a three-building complex once meant to be an Amazon warehouse, the deadline is palpable. There are space gadgets around every corner of the bustling workshop floor. In the back, staff are testing a device called a CMG (control moment gyroscope), fast-moving flywheels that will spin and orient the capsule. One set has been spinning for two and a half years to test its durability. A few stations away, massive chunks of raw aluminum are being cut via water jet and plasma welded into gridded exterior panels. Next door, quality control engineers are shooting those panels with a special gun that simulates orbital velocity, to ensure they can withstand the impact of small meteorites or space debris. Visitors can even tour a full-scale model of the white, wood-paneled station interior, dubbed the Haven Experience; weightlessness, sadly, not included. Fully integrated Haven Demo [Photo: Spencer Lowell] Vast is at the forefront of a generational technological shift thats underpinning the next push into space. Vast and its competitors arent radically reinventing the tech that made the original ISS possible. Instead, theyre attempting to launch a space station in a better, faster, and cheaper manner. The ISS, with an estimated $150 billion construction budget, was a custom made Italian sports car. The space stations that Vast and its ilk are trying to build are more an assembly-line luxury sedan, still pricy, but ultimately much more accessible. Mason Peck, a Cornell professor and a former NASA chief technologist, says that while tech billionaires like McCaleb are bankrolling or running many key startups, building out more private, commercial ways to get to space tends to democratize access. From crypto to the moon McCaleb made his estimated $2.9 billion fortune by founding key cryptocurrency projects and following his hunches. He launched the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange in 2010 after becoming interested in Bitcoin. To create the exchange, he repurposed an old website that he had made for trading Magic: The Gathering cards. (The domain name originally stood for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange.) In 2011, he sold the site, which at one point was handling 70% of global bitcoin transactions. It collapsed a few years later after losing nearly $350 million in Bitcoin due to hacks. By then, McCaleb had moved on, founding the cryptocurrency Ripple, which has provided the bulk of his fortune, and then Stellar, an online payment system. McCaleb explains his decision to step away from Stellar and divert more than a third of his crypto fortune to a space startup as an opportunity to follow his passion. Humankind, he believes, needs a frontier, a vision, something to strive for. As a kid, McCaleb told friends that he would mine an asteroid someday. Now he wants to help people to live outside of the solar system. But hes the first to acknowledge that Vast wont work without a viable business model. Vast CEO Max Haot standing by the Haven-1 primary structure. [Photo: Spencer Lowell] It is a little hand-wavy, because this has never been done before, says McCaleb, of creating a working business out of launching and running a commercial space station. [Space is] an emerging market, and were not exactly sure how itll shape up. But Im pretty sure if people want to be a part of it, then we will need habitation. Theoretical as it may be, space startups and industry analysts alike paint the race to replace the ISS as essential for the future of the commercial space industry. Vast and its ilk are seeking to create whats essentially an office in the sky for NASA, which would attract the billions of dollars the agency has traditionally spent on the ISS every year and help develop (very valuable) human habitation tech for moon and Mars missions. We’re not building a space station, we are building an economy, says Brad Henderson, chief commercial officer of Starlab Space, one of Vasts more established competitors. This is a piece of commercial real estate that is continuing on the legacy of what the world has done [with ISS]. But space station competitors also want to create a base for futuristic, low-gravity manufacturing, which has been shown to impactand even optimizecrystalline and molecular growth. Haot calls microgravity manufacturing the holy grail. Startups have already shown that manufacturing in space can lead to more pure fiber-optic cables, called ZBLAN, and pharmaceuticals. Southern California startup Varda has manufactured more pure versions of the HIV drug ritonavir on its satellite. Vast employee looking at Haven-1 flight panel post machining. [Photo: Spencer Lowell] You know that 30-year period when we went from biplanes made of cloth in the 1920s to traditional commercial jets in the 50swhen aircraft went from the domain of reckless people to an experience for everyday business travelers? says Peck, from Cornell. Thats kind of where we are right now with space. The potential of getting the next-gen space station right has some worried about what might go wrong. Starlabs Henderson frames the competition as a battle between companies with competence and experience and newer players that are trying to fast-track the engineering and launch process. His company is a collaboration between Mitsubishi, Airbus, Palantir, and Northrop Grumman. He sees the rightful successor to the ISS as coming from a company that can build international alliances, foster a space economy, and be a methodical, safe builder (Starlab doesnt plan to launch anything until mid-2029). To him, going really fast isnt the answer, and may be a liability. If youre trying to verticalize a brand-new company in a brand-new way, get it 100% right the first time, and go like a bat out of hell, the likelihood something small will go wrong, and you could have catastrophic failures, is high, he says. Minimum viable station Two things led Haot to becoming the CEO of Vast. The first was a tour of Cape Canaveral that he took in 1985 while visiting the U.S. as an 11-year-old. Cape Canaveral is where, if all things go right, the Falcon 9 rocket carrying Vasts Haven-1 station will launch next year. The second was his partial success with a startup he founded and ran, called Launcher, which attempted to build a rocket quickly and cheaply. With just $30 million and an assist from SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket, the firm put a pair of satellites into space in 2023, though they failed shortly after deployment. The company also landed a government contract to develop its rocket technology, though it never launched. The scrappy operation impressed McCaleb when he met Haot in 2022. Haot was seeking funding. McCaleb countered by acquiring Launcher in February 2023 and putting Haot in charge of day-to-day operations at Vast. McCaleb had stepped away from Ripple a few years earlier and, looking for the next chapter, began looking into starting a space company. He talked to friends, and friends of friends, speaking to anybody who knew about the industry, until he found himself in a hotel in Marina Del Rey in the summer of 2021 with a trio of engineers, including Colin Smith, whos still with Vast. They started laying out a strategy to win the NASA contest for an ISS replacement. First, theyd focus on the station module itself and not worry abou creating a launch system; theyd utilize SpaceX and the Falcon 9 to get the capsule into space. Second, theyd look to create a minimum viable product. Initially, the team wanted to build a more elaborate module with artificial gravity (a concept still in Vasts long-term game plan). But the initial launch, Haven-1, will be smaller, with the station set to orbit for just three years, but only have humans on board for separate, 10-day missions. Haven-1 corridor inside the Haven-1 Experience featuring the entry hatch, various consumable storage and systems in addition to the 4-person sleeping berth for the crew. [Photo: Spencer Lowell] Haven-1 will be a leap forward from the cramped, utilitarian quarters of the ISS, with a sizable viewing port, Starlink internet access, interior wood paneling, and white walls that recall a spa. It wont, however, include facilities like a bathroom, or be habitable beyond short stints in space. During crewed missions, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will dock with Haven-1, and, to the relief of astronauts, provide access to a working bathroom and a means of leaving in case of an emergency. These choices allow Vast to build a smaller, lightweight structureand to do most of it in-house. The Vast team is shaping and welding Haven-1s aluminum form, along with designing and manufacturing its own batteries and avionics. Its even sewing the crews uniforms, thanks to a team of seamstresses who sit on the factory floor. Being vertically integrated, argues Haot, means you dont waste time and money outsourcing key components Haven-1 primary structure qualification article on the Vast-built test stand in Mojave, California. [Photo: Courtesy of Vast] Most of the technology underpinning this space is based off of previous ISS tech. As Vast engineers put it, nothing here is zero to one. Haot argues that the biggest challenge, the real zero to one, has been assembling the team and building a new culture within a few years. Thats where he thinks Vast has a huge advantage. He says the best engineers want ownership of their work and the thrill of seeing it launch; signing on for a space firm bankrolled by a billionaire with a plan to hit orbit in a few years is compelling. Haot says that at other companies, founders, and leaders need to sell workers on the mission, and get talent to take a leap of faith. But were putting together a station in space, he added. I dont have to convince anybody here. Growing competition Vast does have to convince NASA, which will not only be evaluating other contestants, but figuring out its own road map. The agency is facing proposed budget cuts of up to 25% under President Donald Trump. The president also scuttled space industry veteran Jared Isaacmans nomination to lead NASA in late May. Even so, in early June, a NASA spokesperson confirmed the agency will finalize its requirements for the ISS successor this year and evaluate teams next year. Competitors include Starlab, Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin, and the Houston-based startup Axiom Space, which plans to attach one of its modules to the ISS in 2027. Each company is taking a slightly different route. Blue Origin said in a statement to Fast Company that its leveraging the substantial investment NASA has made with the firm on the lunar program, arguing that technology in development for lunar missions can also be used for the companys Orbital Reef space station. In December 2024, Blue Origin ran a trial in a full-scale mock-up of the station at a site outside Johnson Space Center in Houston, but that didnt include any working hardware. It declined to disclose how much money has been invested in Orbital Reef. Vast employee inspects a portion of the Haven-1 development primary structure. [Photo: Spencer Lowell] Axiom was cofounded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini, the former program manager of the ISS who sent the first commercial passengers to the station. The company embarked on the AX-4 mission to the ISS in late June, taking an astronaut to the space station via a SpaceX Falcon 9, and plans to launch a module that will connect with the ISS in 2027. It has raised $505 million in venture capital funding. Meanwhile Starlab, which brings together heavy hitters from Airbus and Mitsubishi, continues to build alliances and research collaborations. Former NASA chief technologist Peck believes the challenge for any competitor i being in the right placewith the right tech, strategy, and approachwhen NASA figures out just what it wants to do. He argues theres a good chance it will default towards the team with the most traditional space r�sum�. That perspective favors teams like Starlab and Axiom, which have more experience with the ISS and NASA, and puts relatively inexperienced Vast at a distinct disadvantage. I don’t think it’s enough to build something, Peck says. I think it’s necessary for the successful contractor to have credible experience in space systems that span many years. So my opinion, from a business strategy perspective, is, if they haven’t already got it, they’re not going to get it this way. 1/20 model of Haven-1 with SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked. [Photo: Spencer Lowell] The next six months will likely be a defining time for Vast. Once it finishes testing the current Haven-1 model in the Mojave, it will have to repeat those tests for the flight version of the space station starting this summer. When thats done, the module returns to Long Beach for integration, a process of outfitting the entire structure with electronics and avionics that will see the weight of the capsule go from 4 to 14 tons. Later this year, Vast will also launch a small satellite to test its avionics systems in space. A fully integrated Haven-1 will be transported to the NASA Glenn Research Center in Ohio for a series of vibration, acoustic, and thermal vacuum tests. The FCC also has to approve a reentry plan for the station. If all that goes right, the approved module then gets shipped to Cape Canaveral for a scheduled May 26 launch. The Haven-1 Lab inside the Haven-1 Experience. [Photo: Spencer Lowell] These technical and quality control challenges, substantial as they are, may pale in comparison to the political and bureaucratic hurdles the company faces. McCaleb says that economics of commercial space stations hinge on the success of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, which will be able to carry 10 times the payload of the currently used Falcon rocket. In May, Starship’s ninth test flight ended in yet another explosion. Meanwhile, NASAs pending budget crisis, as well as rumors that the proposed MAGA-friendly head, former U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven Kwast, is more likely to favor viewing space as a battlefield, suggest commercial research in space may be deprioritized. But McCaleband the 900-plus people scrambling to get Haven-1 in orbithave a harder time envisioning a world without a space station circling miles above the globe. I just don’t see a world where the U.S. doesn’t have a station that they can go to, said McCaleb. That seems like a huge step back.
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In 2014, I left a secure job at Goldman Sachs to start a nonprofit. On paper, it looked like a reckless move: no funding, no team, barely any experience. But it was the best decision I ever made because it taught me that adaptability matters more than certainty. While you cant control President Trumps second term, you can control how you respond to it by learning to work with uncertainty. As his policies rock supply chains, jobs, and lives, the best career plan is the one that can bend and flex. Transformation But lets be clear: Its not just Trump driving this uncertainty. AI and automation are transforming entire industries. Generational shifts are changing how people work and what they value in their careers. No matter whos in the White House, uncertainty is constant. The message couldnt be more explicit: Nothing is guaranteed except the importance of adaptability. This is what I call Trump-proofing your career, and its not about being anti-Trump. Whether you support him or not, his leadership brings unpredictability, and your career plan cant hinge on any one leader or policy. It must be built to flex and shift with the world around you. The old idea of climbing a single career ladder no longer holds up. In today’s job market, staying in the same role for too long can hold you back. According to HRreview, workers who change jobs regularly earn, on average, 31% more than those who stick around in the same job for years. The best plan isnt a perfect five-year road map. Its about treating your career like an ongoing experiment, in which trying new roles, taking smart risks, and building transferable skills is more important than following a linear path. This mindset keeps you adaptable and engaged in a world thats changing faster than any one job can keep up with. The ripple effects of this new reality are already apparent. More than 120,000 U.S. federal workers have lost their jobs or been targeted for layoffs in 2025, a stark reminder that even government work, once considered the gold standard for stability, isnt immune to sudden change. THE PLANNING FALLACY According to psychologists, the planning fallacy is how we fool ourselves into thinking the future will follow our plans. Ive seen this firsthand. At 22, I thought I wanted to work in finance. I had spent years pursuing that path, convinced it was the surest way to build a successful career. But once I got there, I realized that the skills I wanted to develop and the goals I cared about didnt match what I was doing. The daily work didnt challenge me in the ways I needed, and it didnt lead me in a meaningful direction. I realized that sticking with a path that didnt fit was actually riskier than stepping into the unknown. So I did it. I moved back to Canada to build something that felt real and important, which pushed me to grow in the right ways. This led me to founding my nonprofit, Venture for Canada, which raised $80 million and empowered more than 10,000 young professionals to launch their careers. Most people thought I was out of my mind. But I learned that real progress in your career and life happens when youre willing to adapt your skills and goals to match what you and the world at large need most. Not everyone can walk away from a steady paycheck. My story is just one example. But adaptability isnt about giant leaps. Its about small experiments that keep you aligned with what matters most. FOCUS ON OBJECTIVES AND KEY RESULTS One tool thats made a real difference for me is using objectives and key results. OKRs are a great way to break down overwhelming goals into small, measurable steps. Instead of mapping out the next 10 years, focus on the next three months. Pick one meaningful short-term objective, like exploring mission-driven work or building skills in a new sector. Then set two or three key resultssmall, specific actions you can track. At the end of three months, look back. What worked? What didnt? Where do you need to pivot? Heres how I explain this in my upcoming book, The Uncertainty Advantage: First, identify your top three personal values. For example, if youre in marketing, your values might be creativity, collaboration, and growth, which inspire you when the world is unpredictable. Second, set one short-term objective that aligns with those values. Dont worry about the next decade. Focus on what you can start todaysomething specific and achievable, like launching a new marketing campaign that pushes your creative skills and brings your team together. Third, define two or three key results to measure your progress. In this marketing example, your key results might be testing three campaign concepts, meeting with two colleagues to brainstorm fresh ideas, and sharing early results with your manager within the month. Theyre small steps that build momentum, keep you learning, and help you stay adaptable. TREAT YOUR CAREER LIKE AN EXPERIMENT For some, adaptability might mean staying the course in a stable job. For others, it might mean pivoting into something entirely new. The key is to treat your career like an experiment. If you treat your next move as a chance to test what you care about and what you can build, you can shift from panic to purpose. I think of a friend who shifted from teaching to technical program management and now wants to work in AI. He didnt have a 10-year plan. He focused on what sparked his curiosity and where he wanted to grow. It wasnt about having all the answers. It was about testing, learning, and staying true to his values. So heres my challenge to you: Treat your career like the most crucial experiment of your life. Stay curious. Stay connected to what matters. Keep testing new ideas. Because in a world that can shift overnightand it willthe only plan that keeps working is the one youre willing to adapt.
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E-Commerce
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