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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.
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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
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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.
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