May/June 2021

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 Company2 min readPolitics
Workers Mean Business
Even before the pandemic brought to a head the challenges faced by essential employees (low wages, inadequate safety gear, nonexistent sick leave), a diverse set of workers started to rebel against decades of management policies that expand profits a
Fast Company5 min read
Devil’s Bargain? Not Anymore
Maya Angelou walked so that Amanda Gorman could run so that I... could do burpees. In late January, I listened to the disembodied voice of 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman reciting her inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb,” as I sweat
Fast Company5 min read
Amber On Air
THE SEGMENTS AMBER RUFFIN performs on NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers “Amber’s Minute of Fury,” “Amber Says What,” and “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell”-showcase her infectious energy and ability to satirize hot-button issues. They also earned the 42-year-ol
Fast Company2 min readMedical
Innovating Their Way To A Timely Solution
When you get down to it, Labcorp, a global life sciences company based in Burlington, North Carolina, does one thing: it helps patients and healthcare providers make informed decisions. It achieves this through its combined diagnostics and drug devel
Fast Company1 min readInternet & Web
Success Stories
Data visualization by Chelsea Schiff • RELEASED/ DEVELOPED ° IN DEVELOPMENT In the world of Wattpad, no genre is too niche. The user-generated publishing platform, boasting more than 90 million monthly readers, now has both a film and TV arm and a pr
Fast Company1 min read
Amber Does What
Begins performing improv at venues including Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, iO Theater in Chicago, and Second City in Denver (with Jenny Hagel). Becomes a regular on Derek Waters’s Comedy Central show, Drunk History, retelling such major events as the in
Fast Company2 min readBiology
Addition By Reduction
Want to make DNA from scratch? Just take drops of each of the four bases of a DNA molecule, mix them up in the lab-standard 96-well plate, and voilá! Okay, the process isn’t quite that simple. But scientists have been stitching DNA together from thes
Fast Company2 min read
The Drive-In Renaissance
New York City-based Rooftop Films has specialized in outdoor pop-up screenings of independent and foreign movies since 1996, but as the pandemic began, Rooftop president Dan Nuxoll realized drive-ins might be the only safe way to show films. He teame
Fast Company4 min read
Dance Dance Revolution
American Ballet Theatre principal dancer James Whiteside has built a career playing romantic leads onstage, from Romeo to Swan Lake’s Prince Siegfried. Offstage, he creates experimental music, choreography, and more through bombastic online alter ego
Fast Company2 min readTechnology & Engineering
Back to Work, Differently
Months of working from the couch might have erased them from people’s minds, but despite the headlines about companies breaking leases and the rise of global nomads, offices are still central to the way many companies plan to do business going forwar
Fast Company1 min read
The Recommender.
Cotopaxi’s latest windbreaker is made from repurposed fabrics. Created by Salt Lake City-based outdoor gear company Cotopaxi, the waterresistant Teca Half-Zip Windbreaker is constructed from leftover polyester from other companies’ production runs-wh
Fast Company1 min read
Music For A Road Trip
Alyssa Ravasio, founder and CEO, Hipcamp (FROM $345, SEASONTHREE.COM) Footwear maker Season Three launched in 2020 with an all-weather, retro-inspired boot called the Ansel. The “Extreme Conditions” model is made with a fuzzy blue suede that’s both r
Fast Company1 min read
My Daily Media Diet
Jules Miller, founder and CEO, The Nue Co. ($30, REI.COM) The eight-piece MealKit Bio, from the design-forward Swedish camping specialist Light My Fire, includes bioplastic plates, bowls, and cutlery. This site offers relief from the regular news cyc
Fast Company2 min readTechnology & Engineering
Solving The Puzzle Of Efficient Shipping
Transportation is a wildly complex industry. For the companies shipping their products and the carriers hauling that freight, there are an endless number of variables to consider, with each affecting delivery times and costs. Where are the carrier’s
Fast Company3 min readMedical
Building A More Equitable Healthcare System
When it comes to healthcare, access and delivery are often divided along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. Consider that members of Hispanic and Black communities were hospitalized for COVID-19 at a rate nearly three times higher than those in
Fast Company2 min readComputers
Imagining A New Digital Workspace
There’s no question how drastically our work lives have transformed over the past year. But in many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic only hammered the final nail in the coffin of the traditional office environment. For many workers, it’s been a not-so-fon
Fast Company2 min read
Bearing Fruit With Groundbreaking Marketing
Why have U.S. imports of Mexican avocados almost doubled in just seven years? Just look to Avocados From Mexico, an innovative nonprofit marketing organization that has reinvented the way produce is marketed here. In recent years, avocados have gaine
Fast Company1 min read
What to Read
01 The Celestine Prophecy JAMES REDFIELD A great combination of adventure, mysticism, and spirituality. 02 The Autobiography of Malcolm X MALCOLM X AND ALEX HALEY A direct account of the life of one of the most controversial yet impactful people in A
Fast Company4 min read
Hiring Heroes: Why Veterans Make Great Tech Employees
Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. unemployment rate was at a 50-year low. Competition for talent was intense, nowhere more so than in the technology sector. Even after the pandemic hit, more than half of businesses polled for the
Fast Company2 min readRobotics
Using Robots To Make Smarter Warehouses
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world in early 2020, global supply chains came under the spotlight. Warehouses, essential to the functioning of the global economy, became potentially unsafe workplaces virtually overnight. With vast numbers
Fast Company2 min readPolitics
Power In The Hand Of A Worker
After Republicans in Wisconsin passed a law attacking public-sector unions by cutting their pay and limiting their collective bargaining rights, workers occupied the statehouse and led months of creative protests. Although they did not succeed in ove
Fast Company2 min readEnvironmental Science
Forging A Path To Carbon Transparency
The signing of the United Nations’ Paris Agreement in 2015 marked a historic moment when nations agreed to combat climate change, setting actions and investment toward a low-carbon future. But for Logitech, an award-winning design company with a well
Fast Company14 min readAmerican Government
The Ascent Of Sara Nelson
SARA NELSON WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ACCEPTING A LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FROM THE AFL-CIO, THE NATION’S LARGEST FEDERATION OF UNIONS. AFTER A BRIEF VIDEO PLAYED OF HER SPEAKING OUT AGAINST SEXISM AND HARASSMENT IN THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY, NELSON, THE PRESI
Fast Company7 min read
6 Creative Ways Workers Are Taking Back Power
WHEN WORKERS ALIGN WITH LOCAL CONSTITUENTS TO FIGHT FOR SHARED GOALS, IT STRENGTHENS THEIR CAMPAIGN. What if unions could help not only their members but also the broader communities where they work? That’s the concept of Bargaining for the Common Go
Fast Company2 min read
My Operating System.
YVONNE ORJI ACTOR, STAND-UP COMEDIAN, AUTHOR What’s your best habit, and what’s your worst? Connecting people, and acting like the cupcakes I eat are fat-free. What do you do when you’re creatively stuck? I take a nap. How do you unplug? I take a vac
Fast Company2 min readComputers
Making Investing Accessible For Everyone
It used to be that buying stock shares required a phone call to a broker—and a fat commission paid for every trade. That’s changed in recent years as a flurry of financial services and fintech companies entered the scene offering automated, commissio
Fast Company2 min readEconomics
Portrait Of The American Worker
BESSEMER, ALABAMA, A TOWN OF 27,000 located 15 miles southwest of Birmingham, drew international attention earlier this year when 5,800 workers at its recently opened Amazon fulfillment center voted on whether to unionize (they preliminarily lost). A
Fast Company14 min read
Planet Airbnb
The home-rental giant was already at a crossroads—both financially and spiritually—when COVID-19 brought travel to a halt. Now it’s looking for new purpose (and profitability) in a post-pandemic world. mask-clad photographers gathered in front of the
Fast Company1 min readTechnology & Engineering
Around The World
In response to COVID-19, the company offers virtual Experiences. They prove popular, with some hosts booking up to $100,000 within two months. Airbnb begins courting boutique hotels to list their properties on the platform. A year later, it acquires
Fast Company3 min read
A World-Changing Year
For five years, Fast Company’s World-Changing Ideas Awards have recognized companies and organizations addressing the world’s most intractable problems through technology, science, design, finance, education, and philanthropy. Our WCI coverage is an
Fast Company2 min readTechnology & Engineering
A Cleaner Freight Train
● A typical freight train runs only on polluting diesel fuel, but a new locomotive built by Pittsburghbased Wabtec includes 18,000 battery cells, producing roughly as much energy as 24 of the most powerful Teslas. Like those in an electric car, the b
Fast Company1 min read
Backyard Drone Delivery
During quarantine, residents of Grand Forks, North Dakota, didn’t have to rely on a person bringing takeout to their doorstep. Instead, a drone, hovering 80 feet in the air, lowered packages by retractable wire into their backyards. On the horizon fo
Fast Company1 min readAmerican Government
Financial Stability
7 Fi In February 2019, about midway into his term as the youngest (he was elected at the age of 26) and the first African American mayor of Stockton, California, Michael Tubbs launched a two-year guaranteed income pilot program that provided $500 per
Fast Company2 min readRobotics
A Robot Suit
The XO allows a user to lift up to 200 pounds but makes it feel like 5 or 10 (zero is possible, but weightlessness can cause wooziness). Software inside the suit analyzes data collected from 125 biometric sensors, assessing stress points and directin
Fast Company2 min read
Banking On A Better World
Started by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard in 2002, 1% for the Planet is a global organization composed of businesses—including Honest Tea and Klean Kanteen—that donate a hundredth of their sales to “sustainability oriented” nonprofits. Bank of the
Fast Company1 min read
Six Participating Mayors
Source: PQ Systems, “Data in Everyday Life: Are Honeybees on the Decline?” ■
Fast Company1 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Monitoring Carbon in Soil
Farmland offers a benefit beyond food: carbon sequestration. Emerging regenerative agriculture practices have been experimenting with new ways to draw carbon from the air, store it in soil, and help farmers sell this benefit as carbon credits. But un
Fast Company7 min read
Finalists
Aerofarms Color of Change Eat Just HDR IBM Orange 1% for the Planet Account Bank of the West The 2030 Calculator Doconomy Accessible by Design Current Global Air Company Air Company BioFuze Paradise Textiles (Alpine Creations) Black Ambition Black Am
Fast Company2 min read
Fighting Racial Bias In Retail
Nationwide protests calling for racial justice during the summer of 2020 prompted a lot of American companies to rethink their policies around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Sephora, the prestige beauty company, had been thinking about these
Fast Company1 min readBiology
Lab-Grown Meat
At a restaurant in Singapore, you can now order “cultured” chicken that comes from a bioreactor instead of livestock or plant protein. Good Meat, from the U.S.-based food-tech company Eat Just, received the world’s first regulatory approval for cultu
Fast Company1 min read
Automated Bee Hives
Over the past half century, the worldwide bee population has nearly collapsed; annual losses are up to 40% due to a variety of factors, including pesticides and extreme weather events driven by climate change. This decline threatens the 75% of global
Fast Company1 min read
Favorite Instagram Accounts
Elsa Majimbo voices what we’re all thinking, and does so with the shadiest laughter. I can always count on absolute foolery. For when I need uncouth wisdom. I look forward to his Sunday drop of new music-his creativity is next level. Khadija Farah/Th
Fast Company2 min read
The 2021 Winners
Microsoft A system that continuously monitors the environment for potential pathogens and disease-carrying animals before they cause outbreaks A range of entries offering innovative solutions to issues from climate and energy to health and education
Fast Company1 min read
Exit Strategy.
After more than a year of working from home, you may need some practice before transitioning to the office. ■
Fast Company1 min readFashion
Recycling Clothes
● Inside a glass box the size of a shipping container at an H&M store in Stockholm, several technicians in white lab coats press buttons on a counter-height, multistation machine as a customer watches the worn-out T-shirt she’s just dropped off begin
Fast Company1 min readCrime & Violence
Uncensored Library
4 Lb In countries where governments tightly control the media and ban hundreds of news sites, it’s still possible to access Minecraft, a video game owned by Microsoft since 2014. So the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders created a back door within t

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