Fast Company

Fast Company is the world’s leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, world changing ideas, and design. Written for, by, and about the most progressive business leaders, Fast Company i

Fast Company5 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
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A woman in leggings and Ugg boots poses for a selfie. A blond millennial strides along a porch in a leopard-print blouse. A leather recliner stretches across a snug living room. The images scroll by under one's thumb, a blur of shoppable scenes. I'm
Fast Company2 min read
From The Editor.
This was my first year overseeing the Most Innovative Companies issue as editor of Fast Company—and what a strange and thrilling time to be going through this process. For years, MIC has been led by deputy editor David Lidsky and senior editor Amy Fa
Fast Company14 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
01 open secrets
IT'S TAKING PLACE IN OPENAI'S San Francisco headquarters, a former factory that's now home to 375 researchers, engineers, and policy specialists—the people responsible for creating the breakthrough technology. Past the building's imposing gate, throu
Fast Company1 min read
02 mcdonald's
WHEN TARIQ HASSAN, U.S. chief marketing officer at McDonald's, joined the Golden Arches in 2021, the company was trying to figure out how to expand on the cultural cachet it gained from its “Famous Orders” campaign, which asked stars such as Travis S
Fast Company1 min read
03 airbnb
SPRING 2020 FELT LIKE A “NEARdeath business experience,” says Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky, as bookings dropped 80% within a few weeks. It was also an opportunity to trim back the company's distracting side projects—tours, hotels, even an ai
Fast Company1 min read
04 holdfast Collective
If its role as a trendsetter in corporate sustainability and purpose holds, Patagonia's plan to use the nonprofit Holdfast Collective to dispense its annual profits for environmental causes is likely to inspire other companies to follow suit. IN SEPT
Fast Company1 min read
05 nubank
WHEN NUBANK CEO DAVID Vélez and his cofounders started the company in 2013, they were fed up with the process of banking in Brazil and wanted to offer more straightforward financial services. A decade later, Nubank has inspired dozens of copycat “neo
Fast Company1 min read
06 microsoft
“IN ORDER FOR FOLKS TO invest more to tackle inaccessibility, they have to understand why,” says Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft's chief accessibility officer. Yet there's very little reliable information about people with disabilities. That insight ins
Fast Company2 min read
08 webtoon
Location: Utah Webtoon: The Kiss Bet (romance), 2018-present Views: 206.4 million Location: Trinidad Webtoon: Ordeol (action), 2021-present Views: 14.6 million (U.S. only) Location: South Korea Webtoon: True Beauty (romance), 2018-2022 Views: 6 billi
Fast Company2 min read
07 roblox
AT ROBLOX, THE metaverse isn't just a futuristic vision dependent on mind-blowing technology that's yet to emerge from the lab. The company has built an immersive 3D universe that's here right now—and attracts more than 60 million daily users on PCs,
Fast Company1 min read
09 ramp
RAMP COFOUNDER and CEO Eric Glyman may lead an enter-prise software company, but he's not the type of guy who relishes the hard sell. Instead, he likes to let Ramp's products, including a corporate card and spend management platform, do the talking.
Fast Company1 min read
10 TIFFANY & CO.
FROM THE MOMENT BE-yoncé dropped her Renaissance dance album in late July, fans started anticipating the music videos. In October, they finally got something approximating one: a scene, set to the song “Summer Renaissance,” of Beyoncé dancing in a St
Fast Company1 min read
11 hoka
EVEN IN AN ERA of candy-colored sneakers and surreal exoskeletal clogs, the cartoonishly bulbous rocker soles of running-shoe brand Hoka manage to stand out. And those signature curved soles became ubiquitous this past year, applied to everything fro
Fast Company1 min read
12 on
AVID RUNNERS CYCLE through multiple pairs of sneakers a year, and these days, many are wearing shoes from the Swiss company On. The brand was cofounded in 2010 by Iron man champion Olivier Bernhard, who partnered with a scientist to incorporate garde
Fast Company1 min read
13 workers United
IN JUST ONE YEAR-FROM December 9, 2021, when baristas in Buffalo cast their first votes, through the end of 2022—Starbucks workers managed to unionize 271 cafés in 36 states, a feat that turned a largely grassroots organizing campaign into the most p
Fast Company1 min readSecurity
14 armis
“MOST COMPANIES DON'T have a clue what lives within their [network] environment,” says Nadir Izrael, cofounder and CTO of Armis, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting clients by guarding their vast array of connected assets. Izrael and his cofou
Fast Company2 min read
15 fromsoftware
WHEN OPEN-WORLD fantasy game Elden Ring hit video-game consoles last February, it landed like a block-buster film. FromSoftware, the game's Japanese developer, sold 12 million units (starting at $60) within two weeks, and the release was heralded wit
Fast Company1 min read
16 purdue University
IN A BID TO BRING CHIP MANufacturing stateside, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act last July, granting generous subsidies to semiconductor companies like Intel and Micron. But even as these companies break ground on new factories, they're up a
Fast Company1 min read
17 nasa
NASA HIT MULTIple big targets this past year—including releasing the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope in July and sending an uncrewed vehicle on a monthlong test trip around the moon in November. It also scored a literal bull's-eye hi
Fast Company1 min read
19 illumination
AFTER A two-year delay due to the pandemic, Minions: The Rise of Gru hit theaters—and theaters onlylast July The film went on to gross $939 million at the global box office, and proved that the appeal of the nonsense-jabbering yellow creatures that m
Fast Company2 min readChemistry
20 lanzatech
FASHION RETAILER ZARA rolled out a collection of little black dresses last winter made from a surprising ingredient: recycled carbon. Their polyester material was developed from ethanol created by the Skokie, Illinois–based startup LanzaTech at a pla
Fast Company2 min read
21 ford
SINCE THE FIRST FORD F-150 rolled off the production line in 1974, customers have been relying on the rugged pickup truck for help in all manner of situations. But one thing it couldn't do, until last year: power your home for up to 10 days during an
Fast Company1 min read
22 canva
A KEY PART OF CANva's appeal is its elegance, and in the decade since launching, the graphic-design platform has retained its simple UI while continuously integrating powerful new technologies. Last year, Canva unveiled an upgrade (Visual Worksuite)
Fast Company1 min readFinance & Money Management
24 chainalysis
IN 2022, A YEAR EPITOmized by crypto's scams, frauds, and hacks, Chainalysis stood apart. Its mission is to trace public blockchain activity and catch the culprits. And though the data it uses is public, what Chainalysis does isn't easy. Criminals of
Fast Company2 min read
25 the Walt Disney Company
REGARDLESS OF THE inner turmoil that resulted in November's news that longtime CEO Bob Iger was returning to unseat his handpicked successor, Disney has managed to do right by Mickey, Iron Man, Luke Skywalker, and all their friends. The company kept
Fast Company1 min readInternet & Web
26 e.l.f.
E.L.F. (WHICH STANDS for “eyes, lips, face”) may sit beside L'Oréal and Revlon on shelves at Walgreens, Ulta, and Target, but its leaders also view it as an entertainment company, servicing a huge audience of followers across its social platforms. “W
Fast Company1 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
27 deepmind
LONDON-BASED ARTIFICIAL intelligence research lab DeepMind—founded in 2010 and acquired by Alphabet in 2014—built its reputation by developing AI that can beat humans across a range of difficult games, including chess, poker, and strategy game Go. Al
Fast Company5 min read
The minding gap
WHEN LIANA DOUILLET GUZMÁN WAS TRYING TO HAVE A BABY IN 2015, she had insurance that would pay for IVF—just not for her. In order to be eligible, Guzmán had to be able to say she'd had more than a year of unsuccessful heterosexual sex. One problem: H
Fast Company1 min read
32 3xn
LAST YEAR, THE SYDNEY SKYLINE GOT a strikingly modern addition: a 49-story office tower, built from a decades-old structure. The Quay Quarter Tower, in the city's historic Circular Quay, stands on the site of a 1976 skyscraper that Danish architectur
Fast Company1 min read
34 sorare
WHILE OTHER NFT PROJECTS HAVE REVEALED THEIR FRAILTY IN RECENT months, Parisian startup Sorare has created a series of hit blockchain-based fantasy sports leagues by prioritizing gameplay above quick profits. Sorare's 3 million users collect digital
Fast Company1 min readSecurity
35 countercraft
WEEKS BEFORE RUSSIA INvaded Ukraine last year, hackers accessed a financial institution's computers and set them up to initiate a cyberattack on Ukrainian government websites. What the hackers didn't know: Their efforts took place in a fake network d
Fast Company1 min read
36 flashfood
EVEN AS PRICES HAVE soared, heightening food insecurity, the average grocery store discards up to $10,000 worth of items every day. “Food waste is such a stupid problem,” saysjosh Domingues, founder and CEO of Flashfood. “We have so many people who a
Fast Company1 min read
37 valve
VALVE'S HANDHELD GAMing system, the Steam Deck, is more than just a beefed-up Nintendo Switch alternative. It's also a counterpoint to the closed platforms that now define consumer electronics. The $399 device, which debuted in February 2022, costs $
Fast Company2 min read
38 learnplatform
AS THE PANDEMIC UNFOLDED, EDUcators grew more and more reliant on a vast array of digital tools. The average school district currently uses more than 1,400 edtech products each month, nearly three times the number they used just five years ago. Betwe
Fast Company1 min read
41 regrow Ag
LAST FEBRUARY, REGROW Ag founder and CEO Anastasia Volkova darted from a meeting with investment firm Galvanize Climate Solutions to the home of Regrow's COO, Manal Elarab. She wanted to share that the firm was planning to underwrite a Series B for R
Fast Company3 min read
42 eventbrite
HALLOWEEN. THAT'S the tell for Eventbrite. If the haunted yacht cruises and cemetery tours are reaching out to the event planning and digital ticketing platform to list and promote their events, then the Thanksgiving Eve bar crawls, holiday light sho
Fast Company1 min read
44 sesame Solar
WHEN HURRIcane Ian left the city of Fort Myers, Florida, in the dark in September 2022, some 300 emergency workers and residents relied on nanogrids, or mobile power units, attached to trailers that contained showers, toilets, and even laundry machin
Fast Company1 min read
45 loom
VIDEO COMMUNICATION has become de rigueur since the pandemic, but rather than just moving a meeting from a conference room to a screen, Loom does something different. It takes the short-form video phenomenon and turns it into an effective way for bus
Fast Company2 min read
46 mrbeast
JIMMY DONALDSON, aka MrBeast, released just 15 videos in 2022 on his main YouTube channel, yet he managed to become the world's most-subscribed-to individual YouTuber. Those videos, in which he wowed viewers by building Willy Wonka's chocolate factor
Fast Company1 min read
47 3dar
AN EGG WENDS ITS WAY THROUGH YOUR HOUSE, WHICH has been transformed into an obstacle course. You're hanging out on a beach with the Latin American pop juggernaut Bad Bunny, listening to his album Un Verano Sin Ti with his friends. These surreal, clev
Fast Company1 min read
49 axiom Space
SINCE NOVEMBER 2000, the International Space Station has provided a unique microgravity platform for research in biology, medicine, materials science, and physics, as well as for observing Earth's atmosphere and deep space. But it's set to close by 2
Fast Company3 min read
50 Mschf
ART ACOLLECTIVE MSCHF HAS A KNACK FOR trolling consumerism while stoking it with its own hypebeast-worthy product drops. The New York–based group was responsible for Lil Nas X's notorious 2021 Satan Shoes, a limited run of 666 pairs of modified Nike
Fast Company5 min read
10 trends
COMPANIES IN COLOR= Top 50 companies PLUS: 540 HONOREES FROM ADVERTISING TO WORKPLACE 1. Giant Spoon 2. TBWA Worldwide 3. Wieden+ Kennedy 4. Majority 5. Ogilvy 6. The Martin Agency 7. Johannes Leonardo 8. Mischief @ No Fixed Address 9. MNTN 10. WPP (
Fast Company2 min read
Beauty's New Scientific Methods
NATURE HAS TYPIcally been the first place that beauty companies turn to for solutions to aging and skin imperfections. Now there's a new source—biotech-and it takes its inspiration from the pharmaceutical industry. The move toward lab-generated ingre
Fast Company2 min readDiet & Nutrition
Planet-friendly Proteins
PLANT-BASED PROTEINS SEEMED UNSTOPPAble not that long ago. Monthly sales of alt meat tripled throughout the pandemic, and expectations were for growth for the foreseeable future. Then, in 2022, inflation hit, supply chain issues deepened, Beyond Meat
Fast Company2 min read
Screens Get Ahead Of The Curve
FLEXIBLE DISPLAYS HAVE CAPTIVATED THE imagination since they were first invented in 1974, in a lab where so many pioneering technologies were born: Xerox PARC in Palo Alto. But the path from lab to mainstream consumer electronics has been famously di
Fast Company2 min read
Fashion Moves The Needle
THE FASHION industry is among the most polluting and carbon intensive in the world, but it hasn't faced the same kind of scrutiny as, say, the oil or automotive sectors. That's poised to change, with a new spate of regulations coming into effect in E
Fast Company1 min read
An Ode To Joy
GAMING IS serious business, with industry leaders investing hundreds of millions of dollars to push the limits of both realism and fantasy in their titles. Yet some of the most interesting games are going back to basics. In 2022, gamers got their han
Fast Company2 min read
Immersion Is The New Encore
HOW DO FOUR SEPTUAGEnarian Swedish pop stars pull off a dazzlingly energetic 20-song set list before thousa nds of fans in a custom-built stadium? Easy: They get their holograms to do it. ABBA Voyage, a stunning marriage of art and technology archite
Fast Company2 min read
Crossing The Last Mile
IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS PHYSICAL retail. Then Bezos said, “Let there be Prime,” and there was two-day delivery. And we saw that it was good. Since that moment almost 20 years ago, customer expectations forgetting orders quickly correctly, and wit
Fast Company2 min read
Selling New Ideas In Iconic Packages
NEVER UNDEREStimate the power of an American brand. “The brand is the most indispensable thing,” says David Aaker, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley's Haas business school and author of more than a dozen books on branding strategy. “If you pull out
Fast Company2 min read
When Content Wins The Game
IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO SCORE A ticket to catch a Savannah Bananas baseball game at the team's 4,000-seat Grayson Stadium—the wait-list for a home game is now half a million people deep—you might see a player step up to home plate wearing 10-foot s
Fast Company2 min readInternet & Web
How LinkedIn Won
WHEN LINKEDIN LAUNCHED ON MAY 5, 2003, it wasn't a given that it would thrive. Born during the doldrums after the original dotcom bust, it arrived at the same time as a flurry of other social networking upstarts, most of which quickly fizzled. Its em
Fast Company2 min read
Feeling Disengaged? Enjoy A Donut
LOOKING TO improve employee satisfaction and intra-team connection isn't a new trend; highachieving businesses have long prioritized worker engagement, says author and workplace development expert Julie Winkle Giulioni. But the combination of a tight
Fast Company4 min read
In the Beginning
2003 81,000 USERS Hoffman: The natural thing, when everyone starts doing social products, is they always go to dating. We did that with SocialNet. We focused on, “How do we build a much better dating engine?” And we added the professional networking
Fast Company3 min read
Getting Big, Changing Perceptions
2006 8M USERS Russell Glass, Linkedln VP of product (2014-2017); CEO, Headspace Health: When Linkedln figured out that you can incentivize people to bring their contacts in and help them join the network, that was kind of a game changer in the growth
Fast Company2 min read
An IPO, A Stock Drop, And An Acquisition
2016 483M USERS Weiner: During the first internet boom, I had seen far too many examples of employees becoming distracted by their company's IPOs, with negative consequences. I wanted to ensure that didn't happen to us. Brayton: We went public at 1 o
Fast Company4 min read
Building A Culture—and A Business
2010 85M USERS Weiner: Like many others, I thought of Linkedln primarily as a Rolodex and networking tool. After the opportunity to become CEO [came up], I started to learn more and was struck by the enormity of the potential of the platform as a mea
Fast Company2 min read
Beyond The “Blue Man In A Suit”
2023 900M USERS Meg Garlinghouse, LinkedIn VP of social impact (2010-present): I don't think that, six or seven years ago, [everyone] thought [LinkedIn] was a place they should be. They weren't sure that they belonged. Melissa Selcher, LinkedIn (2016

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