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Companies are struggling with the rise of AI, high levels of employee burnout, and managing hybrid teams. Now, theres a new challenge: no one wants to be a leader. According to DDI’s 2025 HR Insights report, based on a survey of 2,185 HR professionals and 10,796 leaders, 75% of companies prioritize promoting employees to leadership roles from within. However, less than 20% of Chief Human Resource Officers say they actually have employees who are ready to fill critical leadership roles. On average, there are only enough internal candidates to fill less than half (49%) of open leadership positions. Going forward, it looks like the leadership vacuum is likely to get worse. According to the report, Gen Z is 1.4 times more likely than other generations to reject a leadership role. At the same time, Gen Z is also 2.8 times more likely to quit a job because of subpar leadership. However, as Fast Company contributor Tracey Brower points out, the dearth of qualified candidates creates an opportunity for anyone who wants to be a leader. What can companies do to create more leaders? Historically, leadership roles have been desirable but as navigating the business landscape becomes more complicated, leadership roles have become less attractive. Leadership is becoming a tougher job every day, said Tacy M. Byham, Ph.D., CEO of DDI, in a press release. While organizations cant control the deluge of external challenges they face this year, strategic HR executives can build resilience by using trusted people analytics to forecast needs, build their bench, and reinvigorate the next generation of leaders. Essentially, companies need to create a strong leadership pipeline. Promotions are six times more likely when employees receive adequate coaching from managers. Likewise, companies should always be thinking about their strongest employees’ potential, even before leadership positions become available. Tara Rasmussen, a hiring manager for Hapi, a hospitality tech company, points out that employee expectations have evolved. While she says older professionals cling to habits like “micromanagement” and “habits of overworking,” young employees are pushing backeven those who want to be leaders are setting firm boundaries around their personal time. “Elder millennials and Gen Z employees are more inclined to say ‘No thanks’ to giving up personal time even with decent salary increases,” she explains. In the past while future leaders stood out by working long hours, today selection committees need to understand that even leaders want time off. What can employees looking for leadership roles do to stand out? Cultivate soft skills Strong leadership is built on a solid foundation of soft skills. Rasmussen, notes that when it comes to new leadership, “soft skills,” like communication and interpersonal skills, are more important than ever before. She notes that soft skills are the ability to navigate nuance while communicating with others and doing work. Its not a one way lane,” Rasmussen explains. “Leaders in the current climate cannot expect to step into a role and communicate one way to all team members and be successful because everyone is different.” Humility Given the current environment where leaders face all kinds of challenges from technological changes to a turbulent economy, Rasmussen also points out “humility” is a key attribute modern leaders must have. “The ability to say, ‘I dont know but Ill find out,’ is absolutely critical,” she explains. “Leaders we look for now are not just ‘bosses’ that micromanage and order employees around. They must be able to be, well, human. Admit when wrong and grow alongside their teams.” Embracing AI and adaptability Jeffrey Pole, CEO and cofounder of Warden AI, tells Fast Company that, in 2025, leaders have to be innovative, adaptable, and knowledgeable about how to work alongside AI. There is much fear in the workforce today, with economic uncertainty, technology disruption, and a constant need for new skills and new career paths,” Pole explains. “The best leaders of this generation will be the ones who can adapt to change, embrace new opportunities, and motivate people to explore and experiment with the technologies and markets that are opening up.
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E-Commerce
The Velvet Sundown is the most-talked-about band of the moment, but not for the reason you might expect. The “indie rock band,” which has gained more than 634,000 Spotify listeners in just a few weeks, has spoken out in response to accusations that the group is AI-generated. The suspicions first surfaced on Reddit last week, where users discussed the band’s sudden appearance in their Discovery Weekly playlists on Spotify. The Velvet Sundown exhibits several common indicators of AI involvement: eerie, uncanny-valley-style images, a now-deleted fabricated Billboard quote in its Spotify bio, and virtually no internet presence prior to last month. As the speculation picked up media attention, an X account claiming to represent the band responded to the rumors: Absolutely crazy that so-called journalists keep pushing the lazy, baseless theory that The Velvet Sundown is AI-generated with zero evidence. The post went on to read: This is not a joke. This is our music, written in long, sweaty nights in a cramped bungalow in California with real instruments, real minds, and real soul. Every chord, every lyric, every mistake HUMAN. Adding to the confusion, the X account that posted the denial is not the one linked from the band’s official Spotify page. In other words, multiple social media profiles appear to be representing the band, all of them claiming to be official. When Fast Company reached out to the X account that first posted last week, an apparent spokesperson for the band tried to clarify the situation. There are a couple Twitter accounts floating around because different members have been responding in different ways, the spokesperson wrote in an email to Fast Company. Were a collective, and not everyone agrees on how to handle the attention. They added that the ambiguity is part of the story and is helping to get people curious about diving down the rabbit hole. They also admitted to having used some AI tools in the process, mostly for press visuals and experimenting with aesthetic ideas. Still, they insisted, the core of this has always been about human musicianship. According to its Spotify bio, the Velvet Sundown is a four-piece consisting of singer and mellotron player Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, Milo Rains, who crafts the bands textured synth sounds, and free-spirited percussionist Orion ‘Rio’ Del Mar. The band maintains that its two full-length albums are written, played, and produced by real people, adding, No generative audio tools. The textures and glitches that people point to as proof are just from lo-fi gear, weird mic setups, tape loops, that sort of thing. Whether AI is involved or not, the controversy highlights the growing conversation around generative AI in the music industry. Deezer, a streaming service that flags AI-generated music, recently reported receiving more than 20,000 fully AI-created tracks per day. The Velvet Sundown, for its part, defends the artistic freedom to experiment. For us, this has always been about making strange, emotional music and exploring how to present it in interesting ways. It might not fit neatly into anyones expectations, but its honest to what were trying to do.
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E-Commerce
How the Boomer wealth transfer could reshape global finance. Born too late to ride the wave of postwar prosperity, but just early enough to watch the 2008 financial crisis decimate some of their first paychecks. Old enough to remember dial-up. Young enough to buy Bitcoin on their phones. Theyve lived through tech booms, housing busts, meme stocks, student debt, and five different definitions of “retirement planning.” Now, as trillions in wealth begin to change hands, this generation stands to serve as a bridge between old capital and new code, traditional finance and the blockchain future. If handled wisely, this moment wont just shape the portfolios of younger investorsit could reshape the architecture of global finance itself. The $46 Trillion Handoff Roughly $124 trillion in wealth is expected to pass from baby boomers to younger generations by 2048, with millennials set to inherit the largest share: approximately $46 trillion over the next two decades. While Gen X is expected to inherit slightly more than millennials in the next 10 years, by the 2040s, millennials will take over as the dominant inheritorsand primary stewards of global capital. This isnt just a generational milestone. Its a once-in-history opportunity to redefine how capital is allocated, what assets are prioritized, and what financial frameworks endure. Millennials arent inheriting a set playbooktheyre writing a new one. Digital Assets Have Grown Up The timing couldnt be more significant. After years of growing pains, the digital asset space is undergoing a profound transformation. Following the collapse of FTX in 2022, the ecosystem began maturing rapidly. By 2024, a major inflection point arrived: The Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), marking a formal bridge between traditional finance and crypto. The ETFs shattered recordsunderscoring just how much pent-up demand existed among retail investors, registered investment advisers (RIAs), and institutions that had previously been locked out of the asset class. So far, nearly $41 billion has flowed into these products, a staggering figure for any ETF, let alone one tied to an asset recently dismissed as fringe. Additionally, North Americas crypto market is now dominated by large transfers over $1 millionabout 70% of transaction volumereflecting deep institutional involvement. And its not just about ETFs. Major institutions are integrating crypto into their offerings in tangible ways: Mastercard and Visa are experimenting with stablecoin settlements. Lyft is leveraging Hivemapper for road data. AT&T is offloading traffic onto the Heliu network. This isnt the Wild West anymore. Regulation is clarifying. Infrastructure is stabilizing. And serious capital is arriving. The Bridge Generation So, which generation is most naturally situated to carry digital assets into the financial mainstream? Not Gen Z (at least, not yet). While 42% of these young investors own cryptocurrency, only 11% have a retirement account, indicating a preference for immediate, high-risk investments over long-term financial planning. Not boomers, either, who have largely opted outjust 8% hold digital assets, while 64% have more traditional retirement accounts. Millennials, however, are fluent in both financial worlds. Theyre almost equally likely to invest in crypto as they are in retirement accounts36% own cryptocurrency, and 34% have retirement plans. They understand ETFs and decentralized finance, spreadsheets and stablecoins. They grew up with the internet and came of age during the 2008 crisis. Theyre old enough to remember the dot-com bust, young enough to see blockchains promise. In short: Millennials have a tech-native mindset and a healthy respect for risk. That balance matters. Surveys show that millennials are more comfortable investing in crypto than any older cohort. In fact, 62% of millennial ETF investors say they plan to allocate to crypto ETFs, making it the No. 1 asset class for that age group. And theyre not just speculating12% believe crypto is the best place to invest for long-term goals, compared to just 5% of boomers. This makes millennials uniquely qualified to shepherd digital assets out of their adolescence and into legitimacy. Market-Wide Impact As nearly $85 trillion moves into the hands of Gen X and millennials combined, every asset manager, RIA, and financial institution will be forced to adapt. Catering to these investors wont just mean better digital UX or TikTok explainers. Itll mean rethinking allocations, product offerings, and frameworks that may have, until recently, assumed digital assets are fringe. They are not. Not anymore. The generation that straddled Web2 and Web3 is about to call the shots. They speak the language of blockchain and the cadence of capital markets. That dual fluency will define the next phase of global investingand determine whether crypto becomes a credible pillar of the financial system or stalls as a misunderstood asset class, never realizing its broader potential. The opportunity isnt in betting on crypto. Its in building the institutions, tools, and strategies for a world where digital assets are simply part of the portfolio. And that world? Its coming faster than most expect.
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E-Commerce
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