This week at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced a ton of features across its various upcoming operating systems, including the all-new visual design aesthetic known as Liquid Glass, which is coming to iOS 26, iPadOS 28, and macOS 26 this fall.
But the company also spent the first few minutes of its 90-minute keynote presentation focusing not on software, but on the new Brad Pitt film F1: The Movie, which is being co-distributed by its film production arm, Apple Original Films.
And now Apple is further promoting the film with what is a first for the film industry: a haptic trailer.
What is a haptic trailer?
The unique thing about Apples latest F1: The Movie trailer is that it literally vibrates as you watch it. Well, as long as you watch it on a compatible iPhone.
Apple calls this latest trailer a haptic trailer.
In the two-minute trailer, whenever an F1 car is in motion on the screen, your iPhone will vibrate with an intensity proportional to the on-screen action. So when a cars tires are being changed in a pit stop, youll feel a small vibration in your handand when the car continues racing down the track, youll feel an even more intense vibration.
These vibration feedbacks in the gadget world are known as hapticsa technology that simulates physical touch. Apple can make your phone vibrate like thisand at certain points in the trailer, thanks to the iPhones Taptic Engine, a piece of hardware inside the iPhone that is essentially a motor that can vibrate on command.
Haptic feedback has been used for years in the iPhone. For example, when you press and hold an icon on the homescreen to rearrange its layout, youll feel haptic feedback produced by the Taptic Engine. You can feel haptic feedback in plenty of other places on the iPhone, such as when adjusting the volume or pressing a widget in Control Center.
But Apples application of haptic feedback to a movie trailer is the first time that the technology has been used to promote a film. Given the vibrations and forces an F1 car undergoes while racing down the track, a trailer for F1: The Movie is a natural fit for such technology.
How to watch the ‘F1: The Movie’ haptic trailer
To watch the F1: The Movie haptic trailer, youll need an iPhone running the latest version of iOS 18. You can find the haptic trailer in the TV app on your iPhone by doing the following:
Launch the TV app on your iPhone.
On the Home screen of the TV app, you should see the F1 haptic trailer poster image show in the top carousel. If not, you can scroll down and find a poster image for the haptic trailer lower in the Home Screen feed. Tap the poster image.
Now, the F1: The Movie haptic trailer will play on your iPhone. As the trailer plays, youll feel various intensities of vibrations in your hand, depending on the action being performed on the screen.
Apple has high hopes for ‘F1: The Movie’
F1: The Movie is the most high-profile movie that Apple Original Pictures has ever released. The movie stars one of Hollywoods last big-name drawsBrad Pitt. Its also directed by Top Gun: Maverick‘s director, Joseph Kosinski.
Combine the star and directing power with one of Americas most popular sportsF1 racingand you have, Apple hopes, one of the biggest hits of the summer on its hands. If the film is successful, it could help propel Apples film division to new heights, not to mention attract subscribers to its Apple TV Plus streaming service.
However, it should be noted that F1: The Movie isnt debuting immediately on Apple TV Plus. Instead, the film will be shown exclusively in theaters starting on June 27. The film will stream on Apple TV Plus later in the year.
You can check out the non-haptic trailer for F1 The Move below.
WhistlePig Whiskey has found a new CEO in Charles Gibb, a nearly 40-year veteran of the spirits industry, as the brand explores new avenues for growth ahead. The Shoreham, Vermont-based distillery exclusively shared the news with Fast Company, nearly four months after announcing that its previous CEO had stepped down.
WhistlePig made a splash in the spirits scene by debuting its first rye whiskey in the 2010shelping to reintroduce drinkers to this once-popular style of whiskey. The company quickly started racking up fans and one award after another, even landing coveted closeups on TV shows like Breaking Bad that werent arranged as product placements.
Fast-forward to today, and WhistlePig spirits are sold in more than 140,000 bars, restaurants, hotels, and retail locations around the world and the brand commands a 34% market share of the ultra-premium rye whiskey category, according to 2024 figures from IWSR shared by WhistlePig.
But for a period, many headlines about WhistlePig had less to do with its drinks and more to do with the drama unfolding behind its distillery doors. Founder Raj Bhakta was forced out in 2016, resulting in a messy legal dispute that saw him ultimately sell his stake and fully exit WhistlePig in 2019. Jeff Kozak, who became CEO in 2017, left in January to pursue other opportunities. Former master distiller Dave Pickerell, who helped shape WhistlePigs early days, died unexpectedly in 2018.
Now, Gibb joins as the company seeks to become a total American whiskey business and expand beyond its rye roots. Gibb most recently led Fever-Trees North American division until earlier this year, when Molson Coors acquired a stake in the mixers business. He also spent several years as president and CEO at Belvedere Vodka and in various roles at Moët Hennessy and Diageo.
While there are fun things about moving into whiskeythe Scotsman has a newfound appreciation for the American spelling of the spirit, for exampleGibb says hes really excited to come to WhistlePig when the industrys in a state of flux. And, he says, he wants to make the brand truly famous.
Recent years have seen WhistlePig evolve in various ways, something Gibb intends to build upon. The brand sold minority-stake investments to LVMH and an investment firm run by Byron D. Trott, exclusively partnered with Southern Glazers as its national distributor, expanded into single malt and bourbon, hired a woman as chief blender, and later this year, will open a tasting room in downtown Louisville.
Gibb sat down with Fast Company to talk about whats next for WhistlePig. (The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.)
Charles Gibb [Photo: WhistlePig Whiskey]
What are some of your goals for the first few months in your new roledo you have a checklist of things that you’d like to accomplish?
This is a beautiful brand. It’s still in a position that fits all the things that I love about a great brandits dynamic, it’s entrepreneurial, it’s very innovative, it plays in the high-end and luxury space, and I think the danger is that you can come in and [say], “Lets make lots of changes.”
The most important thing for me in the first three to four months is learn, learn, learn.
Really getting myself up to speedI think that’s the biggest thing, and ensuring that we don’t lose the momentum. The business has had great momentum over the years. It’s got some solid momentum now despite the challenges in the industry, which are well-documented. But we’re in a good place to address some major opportunities.
What was so compelling about coming to WhistlePig, and especially right now?
Loads of things.
Number one, I love the premium-branded spirit space. Every time I mentioned the brand to people, people have got this love for the brand. They’ve got a real respect for it. So it’s loved and it’s respectedI think those are two different things.
It’s really well respected for the quality of the liquid; it’s really well respected for the innovation. It’s admired and respected for the way in which they revolutionized the rye whiskey category in North America. And those things are really important to me.
I suppose, as a Scotsman who likes to disrupt things, it was quite fun, the idea of working on an American whiskey business.
I love this aspect of the brand, as well, this whole idea of zero generations of tradition. I think that allows you to innovate, it allows you to change the rules of the game.
What will define this next era of WhistlePig?
We were famous initially for our rye whiskeys, and I think we’re looking now to explore and expand further. We’ve launched recently the 10-year-old bourbon and so I think there’s an opportunity to become a total American whiskey business.
I think the other big opportunity, it’s really in and around this beautiful, iconic brandand how do we make it truly famous in the U.S and international markets? But let’s be famous at home first.
We’re loved, but we’re not yet famouswell, were famous in certain circles, but not more broadly famous, as yet.
How do you approach leading an alcoholic beverages company at a time when people are drinking less alcohol?
It’s certainly an interesting time to be in the industry.
There’s still this whole idea of drinking less, but better. It’s still really fundamental in the consumers minds: I may be going to drink less, but every time I have a drink, I’m going to make sure I’m drinking the best, and I’m going to enjoy it.
I’m really excited to be able to come into a brand in an industry in a state of flux and actually finding our niche, finding our spot and being able to push that really hard.
These times engender greater levels of creativity and as a small brand with zero generations of tradition, I think it enables us to be more fast moving, flexible, and dothings that are innovative and differentiated.
Do you see any challenges of leading a whiskey company versus a vodka company?
A lot more age on the product, that’s for sure.
It’s funny because we all play in the same industry, and we all play with similar consumers. You’re talking to the same consumer on a different occasion, and I can see a Belvedere martini drinker being a WhistlePig drinker and it depends on the occasion, depends on the people that theyre with, time of year, time of day, and different things.
There have been some big changes at WhistlePig in recent years. In the wake of some of these changes, how will you approach leading the company?
The first and the most important thing is the brand and the business have done very, very well. So I’m about celebrating the people who started itthe founderscelebrating the achievements. And now, how do we grow from here? I think that’s the most important thing.
What’s great is there’s a great team of people assembled, they’ve got phenomenal knowledge of the brand and the business, as I’ve seen in the first week onboard, they’re extraordinarily passionate, and they’ve delivered some amazing new products, innovations, growth, etcetera.
My job at the moment is very much to learn from them and then well sit down collectively, as a leadership team and then as a broader company, and take all of that to the next level.
Need help sparking conversation on Hinge? Esther Perel has some questions for you.
The renowned psychotherapist and relationship expert is celebrated for opening up vibrant, vulnerable conversations between couples. Now, shes helping Hinge bring that same energy to new matches. Users can answer Hinges My World promptsa collection of 10 recently added questions designed to help daters share more of themselves on their profiles.
[The prompts] are intended to help someone reading them have a bit more imagination about how your world and their world might connect, says Jackie Jantos, Hinges president and chief marketing officer. Esther contributed what she knows about getting into deeper, more intimate conversation.
How Esther Perel is fueling Hinge connections
Hinges “My World prompts encourage daters to open up about their lives and relationships. They touch on friendships (In my friend group, Im the one who . . .), family (An award my family would give me . . .), and even petsone prompt asks what your pet might think of you.
That sense of play is central to Perels philosophy, which deepens connection through storytelling. Hinge spent a number of years in conversation with Perel, Jantos says. Prompts were the right area to collaborate, as they are where users are already sharing personal insights.
Esther is a deep practitioner in the relationship space with decades of experience, and we also have a deep learning and insight around how people engage in relationships, Jantos says. It was a nice opportunity to finally do something together.
The new prompts wont feature Perels name or any special branding. Theyre meant to blend in seamlessly with Hinges existing prompts and will replace 10 underperforming ones. (Jantos isnt concerned about losing those; Hinges data showed they were the least likely to spark conversation.) The My World prompts are expected to remain on the app indefinitely.
Who likes prompts, anyways?
These new prompts reinforce Hinges focus on written conversation. Unlike Tinder and Bumble, where writing is optional, Hinge requires users to answer three prompts in full. That built-in friction is intentional.
Our onboarding experience is long, it takes a while, but that is by design, Jantos says. We are asking people to put in a level of effort, because the community on Hinge is intended to be high-intention daters.
Jantos frequently refers to the idea of romantic momentum. One good conversation can spark another, which can eventually lead to meeting in person. Prompts help ensure those conversations arent dull. The numbers back that up: In 2024, likes on prompt responses were 47% more likely to lead to a date than likes on photos.
Dry messaging is a common pain point on dating apps, particularly for Gen Zers, who often report fatigue with online dating. Some apps, including Tinderalso owned by Match Grouphave seen user declines among younger generations.
Match Groups new CEO Spencer Rascoff addressed the shift, saying Gen Z is different: Its not a hookup generation. They dont drink as much alcohol, they dont have as much sex. Match Group’s year-over-year revenue was down 3% in Q1 of 2025, Rascoff’s first full quarter.
Despite this generational shift, Hinge has grown with Gen Z, which now makes up 56% of its user base. Jantos highlights the companys work to meet Gen Zers’ needsfrom pandemic-era social setbacks to evolving views on gender and relationships. Strong prompts are part of that mission.
Hinge was initially designed for a millennial audience, and weve had to continually iterate to bring the app closer to Gen Zs mentality, Jantos says. Gen Z is looking for intentioned relationships. I do think they need some support in product experiences that are guiding them toward that.
Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys workplace advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer your biggest and most pressing workplace questions.
How can I delegate more?Warning: Clichés abound with my answer to this problem.
You may feel that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself, or that passing your work off to someone else means that it wont be done to the same standard. Or you might feel threatened that if someone else does a good job at your work you will be seen as expendable. Or maybe you’re worried that teaching someone how to do some of your work will be more time-consuming than just doing it yourself.But another cliché is true too: If you teach someone to fish, they eat for a lifetime. Delegating tasks may have more upfront time costs than doing it yourself, but once that person learns the skills and takes over the task, not only is it off of your to-do list forever, but they now have gained a valuable skill.If you delegate the right tasks, you can also help in your own career growth. Heres where another cliche comes in: Time is money. As Fast Company contributor Elizabeth Grace Saunders pointed out in a recent article, If your time is worth about $60 an hour and a task takes five hours, thats $300 of time. But if youre paying an entry-level employee $15 per hour, that same task ends up only costing $75. For you to do the task might not make sense.
But its not just that creating a PowerPoint costs you $300; its what other things you can be doing with those five hoursor as Saunders puts it, the opportunity cost of spending your time in different ways. With those five hours freed up you could focus on the types of projects that are more likely to get you promoted, for example.Okay, so now that Ive convinced you why you need to delegate, heres how to go about it:
Write it down clearly
The worst way to delegate is to just throw a bunch of information at someone and hope for the best. Your best first step when handing over a task is to make a written guide. The clearer and more step-by-step, the better. Include screenshots or record a video if relevant. Yes, its more up-front work for you, but then if the person you are delegating the task to doesnt remember something you told them, they have a reference. And if that person ends up leaving, you have a guide to pass on to the next person.
Walk them through the task and ask them to repeat it back to you
Putting together a written guide is your first step. The next is walking them through the task. Share your screen if you’re in a virtual meeting or sit next to them and complete the task together. Watching you build the presentation, for example, will help form the memory of how to do it.
Make sure to stop for questions along the way. And, after you walk them through the task, its a good idea to have them repeat back the most important points to make sure that information sticks. This might feel condescending at first blush but its a common practice in lots of critical jobs. An air traffic controller gives a pilot instructions, and the pilot has to repeat it back to ensure they got it correctly, says Dana Brownlee, author of The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up. You can use the same thing in the workplace.
To avoid appearing untrusting, you can say something like, I know I threw a lot at you, and this has a lot of moving parts. To ensure I didnt confuse you, would you mind repeating the information about the slides and the day they’re due?
Check back in, then step back
Finally, once youve given them the written guide and walked them through how to do it, check back in around the time its due to make sure everything is going smoothly. You dont have to go full-on micromanager and look over their shoulder. Just a simple, Hey, wanted to see if everything is going okay with the PowerPoint and my instructions were clear.
This can be helpful if they hit a snag but were too embarrassed to speak up. Then, after they successfully complete the task, you can let them own it and reclaim you freed-up time!
Want more advice on delegating? Here you go:
How to master the art of task delegation
These are the 5 mistakes you make when you delegate
3 ways to delegate without forfeiting your power
Having trouble delegating? These 3 questions can help
How to delegate when youre a die-hard perfectionist
4 questions to ask to decide if you should delegate or do it yourself
Why delegating tasks is so hardand how to get better at it
From Shopify and Duolingo to Google and OpenAI, AI-first companies are now defining our era. And just about every designer Fast Company has talked to for the past three years has shifted from a deep-seated fear of AI to a steady adoption of these AI tools in some part of their workflow.
But when analyzing 176,000 design job listings for our upcoming “Where the Design Jobs Are” report (out June 16), we were struck by a most surprising finding. Only 0.4% of design jobs asked for experience in specific AI tools, including ChatGPT, Dall-E, Midjourney, and Runway. In fact, only 8% of all listings made any mention of AI at all. And even then the term was generally used in marketing speak, the kind that positions a company as being AI-powered.”
After reaching out to a dozen major companies across industries to figure out why, we heard a somewhat unsatisfying, but also common, refrain:
We arent asking for specific proficiencies with AI tools explicitly as part of the hiring process at the moment, wrote a Figma spokesperson in response to our request. That said, we tend to hire people who are curiously exploring and studying new tools that help improve their work . . . [and] it can be helpful to see how candidates get creative with AI, whether via side projects or for their core work.
In other words, even when companies arent asking that designers have AI experience, theyre often preferring, or even expecting, that they do.
Embracing AI tools is essential in the design world. Our designers use both internal and external AI tools in their workflows, said Joshua To, VP of product design, AR, AI, and wearables at Meta. The best designers naturally adopt these technologies, so we don’t feel the need to explicitly highlight them in our job listings.
Why not just ask for experience with AI?
However, if companies are bullish on the future of AI in design, we still find ourselves scratching our heads. Why not just ask that a designer is comfortable using Midjourney or writing prompts? Why not make it clear that you expect designers to work with AI?
Figma says that one reason it isn’t more specific about the AI tools a candidate must know is that there are still few standards across the industry to even ground the question. We rarely mention tools in our [applications] unless they are specific tools/languages for specific roles (SQL for data science, languages like Python, platforms like Netsuite, etc.), a company spokesperson said. I could imagine if there are specific AI tools that could change. But I think saying ‘know how to use AI for xyz’ is a bit too generic to mention.
We heard an almost identical take from Mattel, which isnt asking for AI experience but expects fluency in the evolving toolkit of the roleincluding AI, according to a spokesperson. We care more about how candidates think, adapt, and solve, rather than implicating AI tools, specifically.”
Visa shares the same perspective. Its still early days to ask for experience in any specific AI tool, but we have the expectation that creative minds are leaning in and experimenting with the various tools coming online. Designers, researchers, and creative professionals should be exploring ways to move from requirements to prototypes faster, unlocking speed in the creative process, said Robb Nielsen, SVP of global design at Visa.
He continued: What we care about is whether someone is learning by doing, using AI in their workflow in thoughtful, creative, even scrappy ways. Did they prototype something faster using GPT or Claude? Are they iterating concepts with Midjourney or Firefly? Great, tell us more! All being said, Im not looking for a certificate; Im looking for signs that candidates have been experimenting and show evidence of adaptability, curiosity, innovativeness, and a growth mindset.
SharkNinja’s rationale for not listing AI proficiency in job descriptions is a bit different. The company worries that pushing too hard for AI fluency would overshadow the need for core design fluency, especially because the company is not using AI that deeply in the design process yet. We use AI as a tool for things like mood boards and imagery, but were not relying on it to actually design our products, a SharkNinja spokesperson said. Thats why it typically doesnt show up as a required skill in our design job descriptions. Its generally assumed that most designers have some experience with AI, but were cautious about attracting talent that might rely on it at the expense of strong foundational design skills.
Navigating a lack of standards
If theres any consensus among companies, it seems to be that AI experimentation is important for designers, but not so codified as a practice yet that AI proficiency should limit the applicant pool. Even the companies that are asking that designers have experience with LLMs and other AI tools are less interested in the platforms candidates know than in a more generalized comfort and experience with delving head-first into these nascent technologies.
Dropbox, one of the few companies that does publicize that it wants all designers to have experience with AI tools, uses reasoning that actually mirrors that of the companies that dont. It explains that it cares about the way designers think, and that designers are open and flexible to evolving techniques. Because AI technologies are shifting so fast, being overly specific is a detriment to finding the right talent.
We believe that AI-first companies need to do more than build AI technology into the products they sell. Every team at Dropbox leverages AI to accelerate and amplify their work, from engineering to design to finance, the company wrote. For example, each of our open design roles has a requirement, Success leading the thoughtful integration of generative design tools, LLMs, and computational design methodologies into creative workflows while preserving team autonomy and elevating overall design quality.
So even if the next design job you apply for doesn’t ask for expertise in AI, the bottom line is that the skill is key to getting hired anyway. No need to master one particular piece of AI software. Just be comfortable, and even eager, to use the technology. And its not a bad idea to formalize AI samples into your portfolio, either.
As the administration of President Donald Trump dismantles reforms enacted under Joe Biden, workers and management at a Fort Valley, Georgia, school bus plant are thriving because of the same policies.
On Trumps first day in office, he signed an executive order
that would freeze future spending under two Biden-era laws: The Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized funding of more than $2 trillion. Under Biden, those grants often went to companies that supported worker unions, according to the Center for American Progress.
Several workers at Blue Bird Corp., a school bus manufacturer with 1,500 union employees at its plant in Fort Valley, said that support transformed their workplace. They pointed to better job conditions under a union contract and said that the company has thrived under a grant and contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to federal support for electric buses.
Observers, including former acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, said that Trumps actions could mean an abrupt end to successful government programs that have already improved the lives of workers across the country and added to companies bottom lines.
Were making them school buses. Theyre making a lot of money.
At first glance, Blue Birds story looks like its solely about the power of unions to improve a workplace.
Like many workers in the Deep South, workers at Blue Bird had tried to organize a union without success since the 1960s. In 2019, they began to gain traction. The majority-Black workforce was fed up with starting wages as low as $13 an hour, no official pay scale, and the resulting unpredictabilityand rarityof raises.
The factory roof leaked, and some parts of the job, like working with hazardous pressure systems, felt unsafe, they said. Whats more, the policy for time off was opaque: The company would give personal leave to who they want to, not when people might really need it, said Dee Thomas, a 12-year veteran of Blue Bird who serves as USW Local 697s executive vice president.
Blue Bird officials declined repeated requests by Capital & Main for comment.
Workers began talking among themselves about a union. One member knew someone who was in the United Steelworkers union, and soon employees were talking to union organizers, meeting in parks, local churches and public libraries.
Blue Bird Corp. employee Dee Thomas [Photo: courtesy United Steelworkers]
In 2022, workers heard that Blue Birdone of the countrys only bus manufacturers with electric vehicle expertisetold investors they expected to bring in at least $1 billion in federal incentives encouraging public school districts to switch to electric school buses. They wanted a fair share of the proceeds they were helping the company make.
Were making them school buses, Thomas said. Theyre making a lot of money.
When the union campaign went public in early 2023, Blue Bird fought it, workers said. The United Steelworkers union filed unfair labor practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that managers threatened to close the plant if workers voted for a union, surveilled employees as they talked with union organizers, and urged workers to vote against the union in mandatory employee meetings. (After the union election, the charges were withdrawn.)
Guidelines under a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency helped the union organizing campaign, said Alex Perkins, a USW organizer and current staff representative for the Blue Bird union. The EPAs Clean School Bus Program, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, required union neutrality at companies, banning them from using government funding to support or oppose union organizing activity.
Activists said they reminded Blue Bird executives that the federal money theyd bragged to investors about might not be granted to union busters. In response, the company tempered its opposition, Perkins said.
In early May 2023, Blue Bird workers voted 697 to 435 to authorize the United Steelworkers union to represent them.
A boost from Biden
The victory was only a first step: The union needed to negotiate a contract with the company before workers jobs would actually improve. Some of Blue Birds potential customers, as well as federal grants, gave preference to companies that committed to good faith contract negotiations with workers. Su, who was acting secretary of labor at the time, had made quick contract agreements a priority for the Department of Labor.
Most employers, on the other hand, drag out initial contract talks, and most first contracts take more than 500 daysmore than 16 monthsto be ratified, according to a recent Bloomberg Law study. There is no penalty for employers who drag out negotiations or even fail to sign a contract. Nearly one-third of all unions that win an election do not have a contract within three years, with more than a quarter never getting a contract at all.
Workers werent sure how Blue Bird would respond to negotiations, so they resolved to show the company that treating workers well could help its bottom line.
In August 2023, with contract negotiations at Blue Bird in pocess, Melinda Newhouse, assistant to the United Steelworkers international president, called in to a Los Angeles Unified School District public school board meeting about its pending $80 million contract for 180 electric school buses. When public investment is made, it should be done in a way that takes into account more than just the bottom line, Newhouse told the meeting, referring to Blue Birds new union.
The district, bound by law to accept the lowest responsible bid, chose Blue Bird. The companys then-CEO, Phil Horlock, called it the largest single order ever of EV school buses.
The same summer, the Biden administration threw some weight behind union workplaces. When the Department of Energy issued its call for proposals for Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grants, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, it said that automotive applicants had to describe how their project would benefit their community with high-quality jobs and support for collective bargaining agreements. If Blue Bird wanted to expand production, a union could help it get grants to do so.
As contract negotiations entered their 10th month, Su visited Blue Bird. A longtime labor activist before joining the government, Su had made it her mission to urge companies to adopt contracts within one year.
Too often workers who choose a union face significant delays in getting a first contract, Su told Capital & Main. And that delay is not accidental.
In Fort Valley, Su urged Blue Bird executives and workers alike to ratify a contract before the first anniversary of the successful union vote. To their credit, Blue Bird took it on, Su said. Management checked in with her regularly about the progress of bargaining, which Su saw as a strong sign of their good faith and collaboration, she added.
Workers came to feel that Blue Bird was collaborating with them, too. We worked together, the company and the union, said Perkins, who was also on the bargaining committee.
In May 2024, just shy of the one-year deadline, Blue Bird and the union agreed to a three-year contract that went into effect the following July. The agreement raised the lowest-paid workers wage to around $22 an hour, standardized the retirement plan, established a profit-sharing agreement and created a health and safety committee with trained staff. It also formalized the collaboration that had evolved between Blue Bird and workers over the course of negotiations and established regular meetings among worker representatives, management and the CEO to discuss concerns in the workplace and ideas for improvement.
A union relationship is a partnership, Horlock said at the official signing of the union agreement. [Secretary Su] explained that to me, and Im grateful we listened and we did it. We got it done.
The same month the union contract went into effect, Blue Bird got a Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grant worth nearly $80 million to expand electric bus productionand with it, union jobs. In the companys grant application, Blue Bird highlighted its efforts to work jointly with the United Steelworkers and touted its commitment to good faith negotiations with the union. USW also sent a letter of support with the application outlining how the company and union would work together.
Today, workers say the union has made their jobs better with raises, improved safety and lower turnover. Public records suggested that the unionization effort has continued to pay off for Blue Bird, too. During the first quarter of 2025, Blue Bird reported near record quarterly profits, Horlock said in the companys February earnings call. Horlock attributed the companys performance to its investments to upgrade facilities, develop new products and continu[ing] to enhance the plant working environment for employees. Horlock stepped down as CEO in February but remains on the board of directors.
Blue Birds experience under Biden-era policies provides a prime example of how companies can actually benefit from unions once they stop fighting them, said Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell Universitys School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
There are a lot of common interests between the union and the company, he said. The union can benefit the company by giving management workers insights, gained from firsthand experience on how to solve problems, he added. And, as with the Steelworkers, many unions have connections with elected officials who can shape policy to create additional jobs and more stable employment. It only helps the Steelworkers to have Blue Bird get more funding, Wheaton said.
All of that reflects the Biden administrations strategic and intentional support of unions, said Ian Elder, national director at Jobs to Move America, an advocacy organization that works to lift labor standards. The previous administration was enacting a form of industrial policy [with] an intention to cultivate industries that create good, sustainable careers while addressing climate change, protecting the environment, and protecting communities from environmental harm, Elder added.
Funding freeze
Today, Blue Bird and its workers enjoy a kind of success thats likely to become rare as the Trump administration ends the kinds of policies that made Blue Birds collaboration possible.
The contract at Blue Bird was a seed of the kind of change that is possible, Su said. That is even more important than ever now, when we have an administration that speaks about being pro-worker, but does things that are horribly anti-worker.
Indeed, Trumps sweeping funding freeze hit the Clean School Bus Program and its provisions rewarding good faith contract negotiations leaving its remaining $2 million in funding unspent. The EPA has made no announcement of new funding, though existing awards are still being paid out.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has issued orders to begin eliminating new emissions standards that favor electric vehicles, consumer subsidies for buying them and federal funding to support their development. In a similar vein, the Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grants that paid off for Blue Bird have been spent, with no additional funding or a program to replace it in sight.
Sus replacement as secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, was initially lauded as a pro-worker Republican, but she has yet to promote policies in support of unions. Although Chavez-DeRemer has posed for multiple photo ops with workers, she has also recanted her support for the PRO Act, the pro-union bill backed by the Biden administration, and declared her support for right-to-work legislation that is widely understood to be anti-union. She also endorsed a Trump agenda that includes effectively canceling project labor agreements with unions for federal construction work; eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; and removing union inputfrom registered apprenticeship programs.
The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and Department of Labor did not return requests for comment.
Meanwhile, the Blue Bird unions officers remain optimistic that their collaboration with the company will survive Trumps changes. There are nearly two years left on their current contractenough time, they think, to prove to Blue Bird that companies and workers do better when they work together.
The culture is changing at Blue Bird, Thomas said, pointing to their ongoing advice to management and other contract wins. Management will be changing as well. . . . They are going to get it right.
Kalena Thomhave, Capital & Main
This piece was originally published by Capital & Main.
It’s become increasingly common for people to devote two to three hours to email per day. Reducing that burden has been a 15-year mission for Aye Moah, cofounder and CEO of Boomerang.
Since Gmails early days, she and her team have helped nearly 1.5 million businesses streamline their inboxes using Boomerangs triage tools, including a popular “pause” button for emailall to the tune of about $8 million in annual revenue. Now, the company is expanding its reach with its acquisition of GQueues, a to-do list and team task manager designed to tackle other forms of digital distraction.
Moah spoke with Fast Company about managing information overload, protecting work-life boundaries as a fully remote team, and why simply processing emails differently can reduce anxiety by 10%. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you structure your week to minimize the context-switching that plagues remote work?
I use a weekly cadence for what I do each day. Monday is all one-on-ones with people I manage and my CEO coaching. Tuesday is for external vendors, managing contractors and marketing agencies. Wednesday has light meetings in the morning, and then the afternoon is maker time for the whole company. We don’t have company meetings then, and everybody is supposed to turn off everything and have a three-to-four-hour block of maker time. That’s where I do a lot of deep thinking, strategy, and planning.
Thursday is our weekly meeting dayall our company meetings happen together. Its kind of exhausting because I go from one weekly meeting to another, making a lot of decisions, but it really helps not having to switch contexts. Friday I have two maker time blocks, and Friday afternoon I leave for entrepreneurs that want to network or want advice.
You created Inbox Pause to free us up from after-hours email. How do you personally manage work-life boundaries?
My inbox is paused at 6 p.m. every night and over the weekend. Only at 8 a.m. on Monday do I get all the email from Friday afternoon through Monday morning.
The first few days, maybe even up to a week, my brain didnt quite recognize that pattern. I would check my work email on my phone. But after three or four days where you don’t see anything new, your brain kind of reprograms itself. It stops looking for that dopamine hit and you stop checking.
Its automated so I don’t have to spend willpower to say Im going to shut it off and step away. It does it for me, and then, when it becomes a habit, I dont even notice anymore.
What if there’s a true emergency? How do you handle that while still protecting your boundaries?
I’m speaking from a position of privilege. I am the CEO. I set the company culture. For people who really need to get to me during server outages or some crisis, we still have exceptions. You can set exceptions like this email is from my boss, put it through. So general nonessential stuff is not bothering you.
Your brain holds onto anything with open loopsthe Zeigarnik Effectwhere anything you didnt put away will give you more anxiety and less good sleep. Your coworker might send you an email Sunday afternoon without meaning for you to get back to them, but just reading it can ruin your Sunday movie night with your kids because its in the back of your mind. By not seeing it until Monday morning, you’re protecting yourself from that Sunday night anxiety.
I put my personal cell phone number in my away message. If its really urgent, you must text me. Or you could set up a separate email address that forwards to your mobile phone for emergencies.
You mentioned your team is fully remote. How do you keep meetings engaging and efficient?
We have one all-team daily meeting. It’s 11 minutes; we set it for 10:40 and it has to end before 11 a.m. Thats the only meeting we require video for. We know video fatigue is real, so for weekly meetings and status meetings, we dont require people to have video on.
We also have very few meetingsan average developer on our team will have three to four meetings a week. If we need to talk live, we just do a quick huddle for a specific topic and get the question answered right away. Those are three to four minute conversations rather than long meetings. We’re also very good about canceling meetings if we don’t think the week requires actually talking through something. We can all just leave feedback and comments on the Google doc.
Scheduling meetings takes a huge amount of time. How has Boomerang approached this problem?
We tried to make the recipient experience as good as the sender experience because there’s a weird power dynamic with scheduling links. I send you a calendar link, and you have to go look on there, look at your calendar, type in your name, type in your email address, book itthat starts everyone on the wrong foot.
To change that we push technology to generate a live image in the message of the schedule of the person proposing to meet. If you’re the recipient and have Boomerang, you don’t even have to leave your email. You can overlay your own schedule and book it. You don’t have to click over and go type in a form like you’re their secretary.
We have a customer who took a list from a conference, split it in halfone side got a standard scheduling link and one side got our image in the email. He booked 120% more meetings when he sent the image.
What keeps you motivated after 15 years with the same company?
We talk to our customers a lot and fill our product road map from their needs. Customer conversations give me a lot of my energy because you see their problems and then when you’re showing something in beta, they say Oh my god, I can’t believe this!
We’re just launching a Doodle alternative for group polling or meeting polling, and during user testing they’re saying I can’t wait to get my hands on this. Hearing about peoples real problems keeps me super motivated and energized.
Adding GQueues has been fun. We haven’t really been in the to-do list and team management space before. It helps that all of us are productivity geeks, so for us, these are the things we want to tinker with. We get to fix things we aren’t happy with in existing tools. We’re solving our own problems while talking to real people whose problems we’re solving. That’s what keeps me motivated.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
During the pandemic housing boom, real estate investors rushed in. With home prices and rents soaringand mortgage rates hovering at historic lowsinvestor purchases surged. But since mortgage rates spiked in 2022, the investor landscape has shifted dramatically. The easy-money days are gone, and investors are now navigating a much tougher market defined by tighter margins, slower rent growth, and fewer cash-flow opportunities.
To better understand how investors are adapting to the housing market, ResiClub recently teamed up with Stessa, an asset management and accounting software for real estate investors, owned by Roofstock.
Investors who own at least one single-family investment property were eligible to respond to the Stessa-ResiClub Real Estate Investor Survey, fielded between May 20 and June 6, 2025. In total, 239 single-family investors/landlords completed the survey.
Here are some of the findings:
45% of U.S. real estate investors say they plan to grow their portfolios in the near term.
Nearly two-thirds of real estate investors (65%) say the most frustrating part of the buying process is finding deals that generate positive cash flow; that share is even higher among landlords based in the West (78%).
Half of surveyed real estate investors (50%) said theyd accept a mortgage rate up to 7% on their next purchase.
58% of real estate investors say they self-manage their properties.
20% say they first look at off-market deal sources.
When it comes to the search, real estate investors say Zillow is the most helpful platform, with more than 70% considering it very helpful or somewhat helpful.
Big picture: Taking into account home prices, decelerated rent growth, and interest rates, many single-family real estate investors are hard-pressed to find new rental properties that generate enough cash flow in todays market. It takes more work now to find the needed returns.
We may be the last generation of CEOs to lead fully human workforces. That isnt a futuristic prediction; its a reality already taking shape inside businesses today. AI agents, once imagined as distant possibilities, are stepping confidently into our organizations. These systems are capable of autonomously handling tasks across departments, making decisions, and learning over time.
By 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously, according to Gartner. And given the current pace of adoption, even that may prove to be a conservative estimate.
This shift isn’t just technologicalit’s operational and cultural
Its not about replacing humans; its about augmenting them. Were entering a new operating model, one where human users and AI agents work together in tandem to drive outcomes with speed, intelligence, and scale. In this model, AI agents become active participants in the workforce, not passive tools.
Already, forward-thinking organizations are hiring digital talent. They are assigning agents to workflows, integrating them into teams, and relying on them to create value alongside their human counterparts.
The implications for leadership are profound. AI agents are not simply software add-ons; they are redefining how we design our business processes and collaborate on our daily work. Theyre collaborators in the broadest sense, and like any collaborator, they benefit from thoughtful integration and clear frameworks.
Rethinking leadership in this new environment
From what weve observed, organizations may benefit from shifting how they think about their workforce. Digital talent, like human talent, performs best when it has structure, support, and clear purpose. Some companies are already considering how to onboard digital agents, define their roles, measure their performance, and create environments where human and artificial intelligence complement one another.
One notable strength of digital talent is its scalability. Once aligned, AI agents can be rapidly deployed across geographies and business functions. They operate continuously, adjust to real-time data, and remain consistent in execution. When deployed intentionally, this can open new doors to agility and resilience.
Another shift weve seen is in how human capacity is being reallocated. As repetitive, manual tasks are passed to AI agents, employees are freed to focus on higher-value work: strategy, creativity, complex problem-solving. This unlocks not just efficiencybut also engagement. In a world where innovation is a differentiator, enabling people to do what only people can do becomes a strategic advantage.
Designing teams for collaboration
As we reimagine our workforces, its helpful to revisit how organizations can structure teamsnot just by department or title, but also by responsibility and collaboration model. Some leadership teams are now exploring how to define where human insight leads and where AI provides leverage. Questions about decision-making rights, accountability, and success metrics are being reframed to reflect the blended nature of todays teams.
Naturally, with new capabilities come new responsibilities. Ethics, transparency, and governance cannot be treated as afterthoughts, but rather embedded from the beginning. Many organizations are exploring how to train digital agents responsibly, define behavioral expectations, and ensure these systems reflect their values.
Setting the tone here, through clear policies and thoughtful design, can help build the kind of trust we aim to foster in any team.
A common mistake
There is, however, one common mistake I see many organizations making. They are applying AI agents to outdated processes, hoping to speed them up. But efficiency is not the same as transformation. If you automate a broken process, you only get broken resultsfaster.
The real opportunity is not in acceleration. Its in reinvention. This moment calls for a process-first mindset. Its advisable to step back and ask ourselves the fundamental question: If we were designing this workflow today, knowing we had AI agents on our team from day one, how would we build it?
That kind of thinking leads to a very different kind of organization.
Sales, customer service, and operations
In sales, AI agents can now qualify leads in real time, orchestrate outreach based on behavioral signals, and surface personalized insights for sales reps at the exact right moment. This creates a rhythm where reps focus less on handoffs and more on outcomes.
In customer service, were seeing companies move beyond bots and into intelligent agent networks that proactively resolve issues, understand sentiment, and escalate complex problems with full context. The experience is faster, more empathetic, and more efficient.
In operations, AI agents are making proactive decisions by managing supply chain variables, predicting demand shifts, and optimizing resources in ways that used to require layers of manual coordination. These arent hypothetical scenarios. Theyre real, and theyre redefining how companies deliver value.
This is where the most exciting breakthroughs will happen. Not because we used AI to do what we already do faster, but because we gave ourselves permission to reimagine how the work could be done better.
It starts with a mindset
As CEOs, we are not just responsible for growth. We are responsible for building organizations that are intelligent by design. That means being intentional about how we integrate digital talent. It means leading the shift from legacy processes to modern, fluid systems that reflect how people and machines work best together. It also means embracing the cultural shift.
The best outcomes will come from teams that are curious, experimental, and empowered. Leaders should encourage their teams to question assumptions, rethink workflows, and explore new possibilities. The organizations that do this well will be the ones that stay ahead.
The blended workforce is already here. AI agents are changing how work gets done. They are reshaping roles, challenging hierarchies, and inviting us to reconsider what leadership looks like. This transformation doesnt start with technology; it starts with mindset. It starts with a CEO who understands that the future of the workforce is collaborative, intelligent, and profoundly human in its ambition.
The future wont be fully human, but it will be more human-centered. It will be defined by those willing to lead with purpose, with courage, and with a commitment to building something better for both people and machines.
The nonprofit world is caught in a perfect storm, and many organizations are fundamentally misreading the moment. For decades, nonprofits ran on a static and reliable playbook: Chase government grants, court institutional donors, send the obligatory newsletter, and host the annual gala with open bars and cover bands. It was a comfortable model that did not require active audience engagement. Organizations could simply rely on the steady flow of federal funding and foundation checks.
Then lightning struck. Twice.
The Trump administration’s DOGE team landed like a wrecking ball on the nonprofit sector, freezing grants and ultimately turning the once-reliable federal funding spigot into a game of Russian roulette. This policy had near instantaneous effects: At least 14,000 nonprofit jobs were lost two months after inauguration day.
Yet the DOGE disruption only amplified a shift that was already underway. As nonprofits were suddenly losing institutional funding, audience behavior underwent its own revolution: People started donating through their phones at unprecedented rates, began engaging with video content at increasing rates, and developed expectations for digital engagement that most nonprofits weren’t remotely prepared to meet.
Combined, these rapid transitions pose an extinction-level event for nonprofits clinging to outdated models. But there’s a counterintuitive opportunity buried in this crisis: The same forces threatening nonprofit existence might actually be liberating them from decades of institutional dependency. The key is knowing how to pivot. Here are three core strategies.
Lean into digital experiences
The 205% surge in mobile donations is a critical signal that audiences want to engage differently. When 51% of your supporters are visiting your website through their phones and your digital presence feels like it was designed for a desktop in 2010, you’re actively driving away support.
It is important to note that the byproduct of this strategy is not simply a mobile-optimized website that delivers static information. Wildlife Insights from WWF demonstrates this strategy well. This platform allows anyone to upload wildlife photos directly from mobile devices, then uses AI to automatically identify species and aggregate data from around the world. By making conservation accessible through smartphones, they’ve created a community where citizen scientists can contribute meaningful data from anywhere, transforming how wildlife monitoring happens at scale. In other words, much more than a brochure.
Use data to drive engagement
The most forward-thinking nonprofits are converting audience insights into growth drivers for online engagement. It is no longer good enough to get traffic to a site. A modern, successful organization follows a different strategy that converts attention into behavior. This process is unleashing a new wave of innovative feature development that is changing the perception of what nonprofits do with and for their audience.
Digital innovation does not require next-generation technology, just an intelligent distribution plan. The Marshall Project Inside delivers criminal justice news to over 223,000 incarcerated individuals through a video series specifically designed for the 60% of prisoners with low literacy levels. By using audience data to shape content format, they became the only major news outlet making this level of investment to reach this underserved community.
Create subscription revenue streams
The final conversion in this process transforms audience engagement into monthly subscription revenue. This matters in the new era when government funding can evaporate with the stroke of a pen. Organizations building these structures are creating immunity against political whiplash. The pioneer of this strategy is Charity: Water, which launched The Spring, an online community of recurring donors, radical transparency, and undeniable impact. This strategy alone has raised over $320 million.
This transformation isn’t just about survival, it’s about discovering what nonprofits become when they’re built on audience relationships instead of institutional approval. The organizations making this pivot now won’t just outlast the current political chaos; they’ll emerge stronger, more sustainable, and more connected to their missions than ever before.
