You may have been hearing this word tossed around over the last year: enshittification. According to Merriam-Webster, it's "when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits." However, it's colloquially come to describe more than just apps, platforms, or sites. It seems like everything these days is declining in quality just so those at the top can make a buck. Even worse, companies often frame it as "innovation" or pretend like the changes are a good thing. READ MORE
The IRS is cracking down on a type of income earned by millions of people. Here's how to prevent a letter from Uncle Sam
The Internal Revenue Service is cracking down on a specific category of income that many Americans are increasingly reliant on: side hustles.
As of 2025, roughly 27% of American workers had some form of side income, according to a Bankrate survey (1). However, for many of these side hustlers the income generated from these gigs is negligible. In 2025, the median hustler earned just $200 a month. READ MORE
Deepfakes in the talent pool: How AI is reshaping hiring
An executive in my professional network recently updated their LinkedIn profile with this message:
“Friends, if you received an email from me about an opportunity with my organization, you didn’t. My corporate email address has been deepfaked.”
Deepfaking involves using AI to generate convincing false communications (such as in the case of my LinkedIn friend)—emails, voice recordings, even videos—that mimic a real individual. These communications appear so authentic that they can bypass human skepticism, fooling even the tech-savviest among us. READ MORE
Amazon’s layoff leak: What went wrong?
After news broke last week that another round of mass layoffs was impending at Amazon, employees were waiting for the hammer to drop. Late Tuesday night, it did—seemingly by accident.
An assistant to the vice president of AWS Solutions reportedly inadvertently sent a calendar invite to a handful of employees for a “Project Dawn” meeting—referencing the name of the company’s stated efforts to enhance efficiency—with an accompanying message about job cuts. The event was quickly cancelled. READ MORE
Musk’s fantasy for a future where work is optional just got more real
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made no secret of his robot-powered fantasies for the future. Within the next couple of decades, work will be optional due to the widespread proliferation of AI and automation, he has predicted. Gone will be the need for retirement savings, as money will be irrelevant. Instead, Musk sees a world of robots outnumbering humans, providing healthcare and other services for their organic counterparts. READ MORE
Elon Musk is betting Tesla’s future isn’t about cars at all
Tesla dominated the electric vehicle industry by the mid-2010s with sleek, fast cars that helped combat the public perception that EVs were severely limited by short ranges.
Now the company – and its controversial CEO, Elon Musk – face stiffer competition and political headwinds. Its EV sales fell by a record 9% in 2025, amid increasing rivalry from China and the expiration of the US EV sales tax credit. READ MORE
Forget the four-day workweek: CEO of the world’s largest workspace provider says it’s not coming, despite what Bill Gates and Elon Musk predict
Billionaire Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Nvidia’s boss Jensen Huang and Elon Musk have all made the same prediction in recent years: The workweek is about to shrink. Automation will take over routine tasks, they argue, freeing workers’ time and pushing a four-day week toward becoming standard. Gates has even floated the idea of a two-day workweek.
But Mark Dixon, CEO and founder of International Workplace Group (IWG) CEO isn’t buying it. From his vantage point, running the world’s largest flexible office provider—with more than 8 million users across 122 countries and 85% of the Fortune 500 among its customers—the math doesn’t add up. READ MORE
Elon Musk drops a surprise curveball on Nvidia
Well, there goes the metaverse!
Meta’s enormous bet on virtual reality ended this week with the company reportedly laying off roughly 1,500 employees from its Reality Labs division — about 10% of the unit’s staff — and shutting down several VR game studios, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s a huge reversal for a company that, just four years ago, staked its entire identity on the concept. READ MORE
Boomers are staying in the job market as Gen Z struggles to break through
Since graduating from Barnard College of Columbia University in 2024, Menasha Thomas has learned to navigate the swirl of networking and referrals, online job-search groups and interview processes. But after 14 months of soldiering through scores of applications, the 23-year-old has yet to put her urban planning degree to use in a full-time job.
In the meantime, she took professional certification and real estate courses to make herself more hireable while working as a nanny and at New York City cafes. It has been challenging but not “entirely isolating,” she said, because she knows many other recent grads also are struggling to get started professionally. She recently landed a paid internship with a real estate company, for which she feels “extremely grateful.” READ MORE
Data center boom powering AI revolution may drain US grids — and wallets
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers is raising alarms over how much power and water they consume — and what that could mean for Americans’ utility bills — as Washington lawmakers clash over whether the boom helps or harms the economy. READ MORE
This Is What Convinced Me OpenAI Will Run Out of Money
Wall Street fears it has an artificial intelligence problem. A.I.-related stocks are up so much that a fall feels inevitable, particularly if A.I. appears unlikely to live up to its hype. This is the wrong worry; A.I.’s promise is real. The big question in 2026 is whether capital markets can adequately finance A.I.’s development. Companies such as OpenAI are likely to run out of cash before their tantalizing new technology produces big profits. READ MORE
Netflix Preparing to Make Warner Bid All-Cash
Netflix is preparing to make its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery’s WBD 1.62%increase; green up pointing triangle studios and HBO Max streaming business all-cash, according to people familiar with the matter.
Netflix struck a $72 billion cash-and-stock deal with Warner in December. Making it all cash would simplify Netflix’s deal and could sway some shareholders who have been weighing the two offers. READ MORE
Job cuts fall 50%, signaling ‘cautious optimism’ for 2026
U.S. employers announced 35,553 job cuts in December, the lowest monthly total in 17 months and a 50% decline from November’s 71,321 cuts, according to outplacement advisory firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The more positive December figure marks a shift after a turbulent 2025 which saw 1.2 million job cuts, with big names like Amazon, Verizon and other key employers enacting layoffs. READ MORE
Google’s Sergey Brin admits he’s hiring ‘tons’ of workers without degrees: ‘They just figure things out on their own in some weird corner’
Whether it’s Nike’s Phil Knight, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, or Google’s Sergey Brin, many of the world’s most influential business founders can trace part of their success back to Stanford University. Nestled in the foothills of Silicon Valley, the school has long functioned as a launchpad for tech’s elite.
But the rise of artificial intelligence is challenging long-held assumptions about the value of higher education. As tech reshapes entry-level work and companies rethink traditional hiring pipelines, the payoff of a four-year degree—especially from elite institutions—is increasingly up for debate. READ MORE
And the 2026 skill of the year is…
Shape-shifter executives: Proof that sideways is the new up
We’re operating in a world where change is no longer a curveball. Over the last five years, we’ve all lived through a global pandemic, supply chain meltdowns, trade wars and tariffs, and now the profound wave of AI reshaping how we work. In this kind of environment, leadership can’t be static. Roles can’t stay rigid. They have to flex, evolve and shape shift to meet what the market demands—not just today, but tomorrow and beyond.
The traditional ladder to the C-suite—one steady rung after another—doesn’t fit this era of constant disruption. What companies need now are what I call Shape-Shifter Executives: leaders who can pivot seamlessly between roles, adjust strategy in real time and guide distributed teams through transformation again and again. And then do it again the following week. READ MORE
This CEO laid off nearly 80% of his staff because they refused to adopt AI fast enough. 2 years later, he says he’d do it again
Eric Vaughan, CEO of enterprise-software powerhouse IgniteTech, was unwavering as he reflected on the most radical decision of his decades-long career. In early 2023, convinced generative AI was an “existential” transformation, Vaughan looked at his team and saw a workforce not fully on board. His ultimate response: He ripped the company down to the studs, replacing nearly 80% of staff within a year, according to headcount figures reviewed by Fortune. READ MORE
Nvidia takes on Tesla with what Jensen Huang calls the 'ChatGPT moment' for self-driving
Why tariffs have hit Americans’ jobs harder than their shopping carts
As President Donald Trump piled on new tariffs last year, many economists quickly warned that prices and unemployment would spike. With most of the 2025 economic results in, it’s looking like those forecasters get partial credit.
While prices for certain imports like beef, coffee and tomatoes increased significantly last year, price hikes overall were little changed. The same can’t be said of the job market. READ MORE