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F. Scott Fitzgeralds masterpiece The Great Gatsby conjures up images of gilded Art Deco opulence: cloche hats and shimmering flapper dresses; a freeflow of French 75s and festivities. And thats thanks, in part, to kaleidoscopic films like Baz Lurhmanns 2013 adaptation of the novel. But when you read Gatsby, you discover a less glamorous narrative that has perhaps been overshadowed by contemporary Jazz Age visual clichésone that is essentially a dark portrait of its times with a bit of rot at its core, thanks to the titular swindling bootlegger Jay Gatsby. And thats what luxe publisher The Folio Society sought to reflect in its brilliant limited-edition illustrated edition of the novel, which is out today on the centennial of the books initial publication. [Photo: courtesy The Folio Society] [We] wanted to move away from the sort of prescribed images that have been cemented in our consciousness, Folio Head of Editorial James Rose says. 100 years on, I think it’s Fitzgeralds look at the American Dreamand the abandonment of the American Dream. NEW ILLUSTRATIONS CAPTURE THE BOOK’S DUALITY Folio is known for its embrace of art, design, and high-end production, and for this edition they commissioned New Yorkbased Japanese artist Yuko Shimizu to bring the book to visual life. Rose says the publisher has worked with Shimizu before, and she has an innate ability to interpret a text and make it her own, as well as suss out hidden meanings and take an unconventional approach. Given that unconventional is exactly what Folio was going for with its interpretation of one of the most famous and well-trodden novels of all time, Shimizu was an ideal fit. [Illustration: Yuko Shimizu 2025, from The Great Gatsby/courtesy The Folio Society] Yuko got that instantly, Rose says. She didnt view the novel through the lens of the glamorous, glitzy jazz parties and flapper girls the period is known for, according to Rose. Once you peel back those layers, underneath it’s really quite horrid. [] She wanted to bring that out and actually show that behind all of this surface veneer of money and success, there’s actually a very dark undercurrent. As the gilded first impressions fade, readers discover that the mysterious millionaire Gatsby is in fact a charlatan. The antagonist Tom Buchanan breaks his mistress nose. Then there’s the fatal car crash and the climactic murder. Rose says Folio gives its artists a large degree of autonomy, and Shimizu came up with a list of scenes to illustrateultimately bringing all of those above and more to life across 13 pieces. When they came in, I think we were all stunned by them, Rose says. In her style theyre gorgeous yet tragicwhich strikes at the heart of the book at large. [Illustration: Yuko Shimizu 2025, from The Great Gatsby/courtesy The Folio Society] GAZING UPON THE AMERICAN DREAM The Great Gatsby in the most literal sense of the cliché needs no introduction. So, Folio elected to commission an afterword instead of a foreword, especially since analysis of the novel could end up spoiling its biggest moments. Who could you bring in to deliver an unexpected take on an unexpected edition?Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. Though theres more connective tissue there than you might think. Chuck’s one of the foremost American novelists at the moment, and his books deal with that undercurrent of violence, Rose says. Particularly if you look at Fight Club, it is essentially about the male gaze on the American Dream. And this is just a continuation of exactly what F. Scott Fitzgerald was doing 100 years before. [Illustration: Yuko Shimizu 2025, from The Great Gatsby/courtesy The Folio Society] Rose says he wasnt sure what exactly Palahniuk would turn inbut he hoped it would offer a look at the book from a fresh angle, and thats exactly what the author did, exploring it almost as a morality tale, and (humorously, naturally) drawing parallels to everything from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to Rosemarys Baby. We shoul all be able to lament as beautifully as [Fitzgerald] did, Palahniuk writes in the afterword. Regardless of shaping the future, we should all be able to revisit our past with such skill and humility. [Illustration: Yuko Shimizu 2025, from The Great Gatsby/courtesy The Folio Society] BOTH TIMELY AND TIMELESS True to Folios output and its fan-favorite limited editions, the production is appropriately opulent. Shimizu illustrated the exterior, as well, which features the green light at the end of Daisys dock, a signature thematic element of the novel. The book is bound in goatskin leather, with green foil and gilded edges. Its printed on Dolce Vita Ivory paper, with Sirio Pearl Cocktail Blue Moon endpapers (which is just the best name for any paperand I dont know why, it makes me think of Jazz Age cocktails, Rose notes.) Each book is signed by Shimizu and Palahniuk, and housed in a custom cloth box that is screenprinted with a design by Shimizu in gold foil, featuring custom lettering by Atelier Olschnsky Grafik und Design OG in Vienna. The project was also printed and bound by Graphicom in Italy, which is renowned for its sheer craft and eye for detail. [Photo: courtesy The Folio Society] To keep things truly limited, Folio is only producing 500 of the books, which sell for $500 each. We will never do a 100th anniversary, centenary edition of Great Gatsby ever again, Rose says. So for us, we need to be very forensic about the materials that we use and get them just right. We’ve got one chance to get it absolutely perfect. Its a remarkably gorgeous objectand yet indeed contains illustrated horror right there on the case itself (those headlights . . . ), bringing the concept full circle. A century on, why are we still so entranced by Gatsby? Rose says the class and social divides at the heart of the book persist to this day. These are timeless themes . . . so I think Gatsby has an unlimited ability to find its way into a new generation, he says. It’s not just relevantI think it’s slightly prescient for America today. Alarmingly so, perhaps.
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The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is getting nationwide pickup. While cutting government has long been a goal on the right, DOGE has given that impulse a stickier, meme-inspired, brand name it hasn’t had in the past. Now, copycat efforts named after billionaire Elon Musk’s initiative to cut the federal government’s workforce and spending for President Donald Trump have appeared in more than a dozen states, according to a CNN tally. Republican governors in Iowa and Florida both created task forces named after DOGE in February to cut government, while other elected officials adopted the term to describe their agenda, like Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor who described the state’s “Red Tape Rollback Act of 2025” as “Georgia does DOGE.” The Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency (GOAT) held its first meeting in March. While it’s not “DOGE,” its goal is similar and its name is also inspired by a meme. BRAND BUILDING VOLATILITY Drawing comparisons between state efforts to shrink government and DOGE might help Republicans at a local level nationalize state issues, but it also ties their efforts to a volatile national political brand. A March NBC News poll found registered voters like DOGE more in theory than in practice. A 46% plurality think DOGE is “a good idea,” compared to 40% who think it’s a bad idea and 14% who aren’t sure, and there’s not a clear consensus among respondents about whether it’s doing a good job. The poll found 33% of registered voters believe Musk and DOGE have been “reckless and should stop now before more damage is done” and 28% believe they should “slow down to assess the impact,” compared to just a third who think DOGE should continue as is. A March Quinnipiac poll found 60% disapproved of how Musk and DOGE dealt with federal workers. Politicians in majority-Republican states that franchise the DOGE brand for themselves could find the affinity politically useful. For those in competitive states or that represent communities especially affected by DOGE cuts, though, hitching their wagon to Musk’s efforts could be a decision they come to regret. If attitudes toward DOGE deteriorate, the political capital associated with the phrase could fall faster than the aftermarket value of a Cybertruck or the stock market after Trump’s tariffs.
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Camb.ai is on a mission to disrupt the dominance of English in global media. Founded in 2022, the AI-powered platform specializes in real-time translation that retains a speakers emotional resonanceprocessing content up to 20 times faster than traditional dubbing services. Major League Soccer now uses Camb.ais technology for live broadcasts. But the company has also found unexpected demand in markets like video advertising and the localization of interactive smart toys. To power its growth, Camb.ai has raised $15.5 million to date. The platform now supports translations in more than 150 languagesincluding Maleku, spoken by just 500 people. CEO Avneesh Prakash, who previously helped build Indias Aadhaar biometric ID system used by more than a billion people, cofounded the company with his son, Akshat Prakash. The younger Prakash, Camb.ais CTO, is a computer scientist and former AI/ML engineer on Apples Siri team. Avneesh Prakash envisions a future where English is no longer the default language for media productionand where global audiences can access any content, in any language, on demand. Fast Company spoke with Prakash about AIs potential to reshape global media, the complexities of preserving emotional nuance across languages, and why rare languages remain central to Camb.ais mission. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What misconceptions do people have about AI voice technology, and how do you address those concerns? People are concerned about inaccuracies when using AI, but they often overlook that even human translators have flaws. When evaluating AI, people try to find that moment of Oh, it went wrong there. Often these are subjective opinions, and such analyses do not use a comparative benchmark of how human translators would do on the same piece. The best approach is to enable human translators with AI like ours so they can be 50 times more productive and help cover a large body of work that today remains locked up in one to two languages, like English. What metrics do you use to measure success beyond traditional business growth indicators? One way we measure success is the number of languages we can translate into. Our mission is to redesign the internet for speakers of every language. Thats why weve also put a lot of effort into our capability to translate rare or endangered languages like Icelandic or Indigenous languages like Maleku. We already support more than 150 languages for speech-to-speech translation and our goal is to grow this number three to four times over the next two years. What advantages do you have in competing against large tech players and giant AI companies, and what are the biggest hurdles for you to overcome? Compared to the household names in AI, we can make models that are hyperfocused on being the best at translation and dubbing. We are also focused on the open-source community and can use its feedback to iterate and develop faster. The biggest challenge we face is one plaguing the entire AI industry: access to the computing power necessary to continue innovating. To remain competitive, we have prioritized building smaller models capable of being run on a users device, rather than the race to the biggest model in Big Tech. Your recent partnership with Legible focuses on books. What other content types present the most compelling opportunities? One unexpected opportunity were capitalizing on is translating advertisements (both picture and video). With traditional translation tools, its very difficult to translate ads in a way that makes sense culturally. A lot of advertising relies on metaphors, analogies, and cultural references. In the past, if you were to translate ads directly, a lot of the context would get lost in translation. Our models can overcome that hurdle. What do you envision happening to translators as AI dubbing technology advances? I envision a future where content creators and translators work alongside AI rather than work against it. AI will be able to provide a first draft translation, but there will always be scenarios (especially in literature and poetry) where a human touch is needed. What’s a common assumption about the future of global content that might be flawed? Most people assume content will continue to be English-first. While a majority of the global content is currently produced in the U.S., in English, with demographic and technology shifts, I see a future where a majority of the worlds media is originally produced in languages other than English. Which unexpected industries or sectors have shown the most interest in your technology? One interesting use case has been in the smart toy industry, where more and more toys are becoming interactive and AI-enabled. Localization in this context has the incredible potential of teaching children their own culture and language; this gets increasingly lost in the modern world. Looking ahead five years, what do you expect to be the most significant change in how we consume cross-language content? We will see all content available in all languages. If you go on Netflix or YouTube right now, youll see some content being translated or captioned into a limited number of languages. In less than five years, I expect we will be able to view that same content in tens or hundreds of languages on demand. How does AI-powered dubbing/live translation fundamentally change the economics of global content distribution compared to traditional methods? With AI translation, markets and audiences that were previously considered financially unviable now become accessible. AI translation rapidly increases the speed at which content can be spread around the world. Weve seen our technology dub content up to 20 times faster than traditional dubbing agencies, so content can be released worldwide simultaneously. Beyond cost savings, what unexpected benefits do you see for AI live translations? Certain cultures have populations greater than that of the U.S. For example, the number of Bengali speakers is larger than the populations of many countries combined. In many such cultures, sports/content/media has the opportunity to reach everybody and unlock a new generation of accessibility and viewership for businesses. Critics argue AI-dubbed content lacks the soul of human performance. How do you address this perception, technically and philosophically? With our models, preserving emotion and soul has been the number-one priority. By training our models on both text and raw audio, the model learns how different words, punctuation, and context relate to various emotions and expressions. For us, translation is a way to share human expression across cultural boundaries, and ensuring that we maintain the emotional meaning of speech is the essence of what we do. Camb.ais mission is to let “every story be told in every language.” How might this reshape cultural power dynamics? Could a Gambian filmmaker compete more effectively against someone benefiting from Hollywoods global influence? Exactly. Thats our vision. As technology like ours becomes more pervasive, I expect to see content that breaks the internet coming from all corners of the globe. Major League Soccer used Camb.ai to live-dub commentary into four languages simultaneously. Is sports broadcasting reaching a linguisic tipping point? Prior to MLS using our technology, there was very little appetite for using AI in a livestream context. This milestone has led to AI being considered a viable alternative for commentary and dubbing, and were now seeing more and more global sports organizations adopt the technology. Whats your mission in competing in this ultra-competitive AI arena? The internet was made for English speakers, and we decided to redesign it for the world. While language is a tool of diversity and hence evolution, it is also a tool of exclusion. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have the good fortune of going through an English-language education. I’m grateful for that, but I also see the unfairness of that. We created a company to disrupt that disparity. As noted in the film Ratatouille, Not everyone can be a great artist. But a great artist can come from anywhere. We are trying to create a world where a great artist born anywhere, creating anywhere, is able to take their content to any other part of the world.
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