Chipotle Mexican Grill announced its second-quarter financial results on Wednesday, July 23, and the news isnt great.
The fast casual restaurant chain failed to reach its quarterly sales estimates and reduced its targeted annual sales growth. Chipotle reported net income of $436.1 million (32 cents per diluted share), a decrease from $455.7 million (33 cents per diluted share) year-over-year (YOY).
In premarket trading, Chipotles stock price (NYSE:CMG) has plummeted over 12% since the market closed Wednesday night.
While Chipotle reported a 3% increase YOY in total revenue, it credited the $3.1 billion sum to the opening of 61 new restaurants. In reality, restaurants saw comparable sales drop 4%, thanks to smaller bills. Wall Street had predicted a 2.9% decrease, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC.
What’s eating American diners?
In a post-earnings investors meeting, Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright blamed ongoing volatility in consumer environment trends.
Much of what were experiencing right now is due to macro and the consumer. The low-income consumer is looking for value as a price point at present, Boatwright stated.
Tariffs are also a factor, with Chipotle estimating a 0.5% rise in cost of sales.
Chipotles decline is part of a broader trend. Fast food restaurants saw a 0.9% decrease in traffic YOY during quarter two, according to a report published this month by Revenue Management Solutions (RMS).
At the same time, prices at these quick-service restaurants increased by 1.3% YOYthough this is less than quarter ones 3.1% increase. Meanwhile, the average bill at Chipotle increased by 0.9%.
Investors in Tesla cant seem to catch a break. Yesterday, Elon Musks electric vehicle company reported its Q2 2025 resultsand they werent good. Today, the stock (Nasdaq: TSLA) is down significantly because of it. Heres what you need to know about TSLAs latest movement.
TSLA shares hit in early trading
As of the time of this writing, TSLA shares are currently down over 6%, or $20 per share, to $312.56 in premarket trading. That drop comes after the company reported its second-quarter results for its fiscal 2025 yesterday.
The company reported that it produced 410,244 vehicles during the quarter, over 396,000 of which were its popular models 3 and Y. During the same period, Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles, its models 3 and Y accounting for over 373,000 of those deliveries.
But what seems to have concerned investors the most about the companys Q2 results is its revenue number.
For the quarter, Tesla reported revenue of $22.5 billion. That was a 12% decline from the $25.5 billion that the company posted in the same quarter a year earlier. It was also worse than the $22.74 billion in revenue that many analysts were expecting.
Even worse was that this revenue decline was the second quarterly revenue drop in a row, and it came after Tesla launched refreshed versions of its popular Model Y SUV.
3 factors weighing Tesla down
Tesla is facing several problems, which are both impacting its revenue and making investors nervous for the future.
The main problem is that Teslas revenues are declining. This decline can be attributed to multiple factors, the first being Musk himself.
Ever since CEO Elon Musk leapt headfirst into politics earlier this year, Teslas brand has taken a popularity hit.
Musks leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)and the extreme cuts it implemented after President Trumps inaugurationwas deeply unpopular with progressives, who have historically been the ones attracted to Teslas electric vehicles. This alienation of a large part of Teslas customer base hasnt done the company any favors as far as sales are concerned.
But Musk isnt directly to blame for all of the problems Tesla is facing. The second factor hurting the company is increased competition from electric vehicles produced by competitors around the world. Car manufacturers of all stripes, from America to Europe to Asia, are releasing EVs that are often much more affordable than Teslas, giving customers cheaper options to choose from.
A third factor that is likely weighing on investors minds is the upcoming expiration of the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit in the United States. This EV credit was killed in Trumps Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Elon Musk vehemently opposed. The credit expires on September 30, and investors are nervous about how the loss of the credit will impact sales of Teslas pricy EVs.
TSLA shares have had a rough 2025
After Teslas disappointing Q2 2025 earnings yesterday, the stock is down over 6% in premarket trading this morning as of the time of this writing. However, thats not the worst news when it comes to Teslas stock price.
After hitting an all-time high of $488.54 per share in December 2024, TSLA shares have declined sharply. As of yesterdays close at $332 per share, Teslas shares have declined 17.6% this year.
Teslas additional 6% decline is only compounding those losses and shows that investors are still jittery about where the companys sales go from here.
Chris Guillebeau spent years racing against time, visiting all 193 countries before he turned 35, hosting annual gatherings of thousands, and writing bestsellers like The $100 Startup. But his latest book, Time Anxiety, tackles something different: our collective panic about never having enough hours in the day.
The book challenges productivity culture’s relentless optimization, offering counterintuitive solutions like embracing “granny hobbies” and creating reverse bucket lists. For Guillebeau, who admits he’s “very forward-minded” and constantly asking What’s next? these insights emerged from his own struggles with time pressure.
Fast Company spoke with Guillebeau about why excellence isn’t always the goal, what he learned from visiting every country, and how to find meaning when you can’t control your legacy.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You introduce this concept of the reverse bucket list. Why is looking backward as important as looking forward?
I am a very forward-minded person. Im always like, What’s next? It’s like, Oh, the book is out. What’s the next book? And its like, well, I just spent two years writing this book. Maybe I should live in that zone for a little bit.
The reverse bucket list is just like it soundswhat have I done that is interesting or notable, whether to other people or not? I think its helpful to just celebrate or even observe some of those things. You can do it as a big picture, like a life bucket list, or you can just be like, whats your list of things that youve gotten done today?
For those of us who tend to be thinking more about the future, perhaps reflecting on what we’ve been able to do thus far can actually bring us to a centering point.
You visited every country in the world before age 35. What surprised you about that experience?
I first got into that idea because Im kind of compulsive, and I am a list maker. I was an aid worker in West Africa in my early twenties, and Id been to maybe 70 countries. I was like, how many are there, and what would it take to do that?
Some of my favorite discoveries were the Baltics and the Balkans. Places like Lithuania and Montenegro ended up being really peaceful spots where I had great experiences and met interesting people. I definitely wouldn’t have gone to either of those places if it wasn’t for having this objective. There was something about combining a love of travel with a love of goal setting and list making that made it really work for me.
The book mentions someone who flew to different European cities every Wednesday, only to fly right back without visiting. What’s the lesson there?
This Dutch guy would go to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam every Wednesday for 20 years and fly somewhere within EuropeStockholm or Barcelonaspend a couple of hours in the terminal, then fly back. That was his happy place, his Zen.
A lot of people are gonna say, Oh, that’s so dumb. He’s doing all this travel without ever traveling anywhere. But the point is, that’s something that made him feel alive. It gave him a little milestone to anchor the rest of his life with. There’s some weird thing like that for everybody. The whole point is to figure out what that looks like to you.
You advocate for granny hobbies and tactile breaks. Why are these important in our digital age?
There’s actually research behind having a hobby that’s hands-on but thumbs-downmeaning not digital, not scrolling. It could be knitting, baking, gardening. These are things that are really easy to pick up, and you can leave them for a while and come back.
The research shows this actually can reduce anxiety and contribute to peace of mind. And its low pressure. If your knitting project goes awry, oh well. Its not like you forgot to use BCC and emailed a hundred people by mistake. These hobbies get us operating on a different time scheduleyou’re not racing against a digital deadline, but working more slowly to hand-make something.
Your three-quarter-ass rule seems to challenge conventional wisdom about aiming for consistent excellence. Why do we need permission to not do our best?
I used to run an event series, and the team would spend forever talking about tiny details. Someone finally said, We don’t want to half-ass it, but do we really need to put our full ass behind this thing? Can we just three-quarter-ass it?
You cant actually do your best at everything. Its not possible. Life is about choice and selection. You want to maybe pick a couple of things to be excellent at, and for everything else, there are ways of not doing things or doing them adequately. Excellence is not always the standard. Sometimes done is better than perfect, especially for those of us who get stuck because we want things to be perfect and don’t even know where to begin.
How has writing this book changed your own relationship with time?
I used to think a lot about legacy: What do we leave behind? But I’ve distanced myself from that because legacy is something we can’t really control. Most things we do are forgotten. People who leave legacies aren’t on some 60-year strategic plan. They’re just doing things that ultimately have a positive impact.
So I’ve shifted to focusing more on living well. What does it mean to live well? Hopefully that involves contribution and service. I want to make some part of the world a little better, and thats achievable. Its measurable for those who want to measure it, and even if you dont, its intuitively knowable.
A company that has name recognition among both students and their parents is going public today. McGraw Hill, the education publisher, has priced its initial public offering of shares and is expected to make its market debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Heres what you need to know about McGraw Hills IPO
What is McGraw Hill?
If youve ever been a student, youve likely come across the name McGraw Hill. The company is one of the largest educational publishers in the world. It produces myriad educational materials, from the textbooks used in classrooms across the country to digital learning platform software for teachers.
McGraw Hill is one of the oldest education companies operating in America. It was founded over 137 years ago in 1888 and is currently headquartered in New York City. Though the company is American, it provides educational solutions for countries across the world. Currently, its educational products are available in more than 80 languages.
The brand has been in the hands of private equity for more than a decade. It was purchased from its former parent company by Apollo Global Management in 2013 and later sold to Platinum Equity for $4.5 billion.
From textbooks to digital
While McGraw Hill has historically been one of the biggest publishers of school textbooks, in recent years, the company has gone all-in on digital education solutions as the worlds learning moves online.
According to its Form S-1 registration statement, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), McGraw Hill serves 60 million digital learners each year. Twenty-six million of those learners are paid digital users.
For its fiscal year that ended March 31, McGraw Hill says it had an adjusted EBITDA of $727 million, with $1.4 billion in digital revenue.
It is the most recent company to go public this year, which has seen renewed interest from investors in initial public offerings. Other recent notable IPOs include listings from Chime, Circle, MNTN, and Hinge Health.
When is McGraw Hills IPO?
McGraw Hill priced its shares yesterday and is expected to list today: Thursday, July 24, 2025. The offering was led by Goldman Sachs & Co., along with BMO Capital Markets, J.P. Morgan, Macquarie Capital, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank Securities, and UBS Investment Bank.
What is McGraw Hills stock ticker?
McGraw Hills stock ticker is MH.
What exchange will McGraw Hill shares trade on?
McGraw Hill shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
What is the IPO share price of MH?
McGraw Hills IPO price is $17 per share. That was below its earlier estimated IPO price range of between $19 and $22 per share.
How many MH shares are available in its IPO?
According to a company press release, McGraw Hill offered 24,390,000 shares of its common stock in its IPO.
How much did McGraw Hill raise in its IPO?
McGraw Hill says it received approximately $385,697,545 million from the sale of its shares in its IPO.
How much is McGraw Hill worth?
At its $17 IPO price, McGraw Hills market cap is now valued at $3.25 billion, according to Reuters.
Tequila, the Mexican hard liquor that’s become a bar staple, has its very own holiday to celebrate its crisp, earthy flavors.
Today (Thursday, July 24) is National Tequila Day. Lets take a look at the history of the adult beverage so you can wow your coworkers at happy hour. Then we can explore some fun offers to celebrate the day.
A shot or two of tequila history
A forerunner to the modern hard liquor dates back to the Aztecs (and possibilty even earlier civilizations) in Mexico, as noted by Liquor.com. They fermented the sap of the agave plant to create a milky beverage called pulque and worshipped the husband-and-wife god duo behind this act, Mayahuel and Patecatl.
The Spanish arrived in Mexico in 1517 and two years later began their conquest to take over. The soldiers missed brandy and began to experiment with mud stills and agave to replace it.
Eventually the Marquis of Altamira took things a step further. He opened the first major distillery in the early 1600s in present-day Tequila, Jalisco.
The Cuervo family took things commercial in 1758 with their own distillery. The Sauza family followed suit in 1873.
It is believed that Don Cenobio Sauza first imported tequila to the United States in 1873. The alcohol was present at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The spirit also grew in popularity during Prohibition as it was easily smuggled into the country.
The invention of the margarita in the 1940s further strengthened tequilas public relations.
In 1974 Mexico declared tequila its intellectual property meaning it had to be made and aged in certain regions of the country. The Tequila Regulatory Council was formed 20 years later in part for quality control.
What truly cemented tequilas legacy was when imported tequila shifted from mixto, a combination of a tequila from agave plants and other sugars, to a 100% agave tequila.
Bartenders loved using these pure liquids to create even more yummy cocktails.
Additionally, these smaller batched craft creations helped elevate the liquor, while the celebrity endorsements didnt hurt either. (Were looking at you, George Clooney and Casamigos.)
These days, the United States is tequilas best customer. In 2024, almost 32.2 million 9-liter cases were sold, making it the best year ever for the spirit, according to Statista.
How to celebrate National Tequila Day
After that lengthy history lesson, you probably worked up a thirst and want to help the 2025 statistics. Below are a few deals to be had for National Tequila Day:
Chili’s: Restaurant chain Chilis is here to help. It is offering $5 Tequila Trifectas. This cocktail contains three kinds of tequila: El Jimador Blanco, 1800 Reposado, and Jose Cuervo Gold.
Chuy’s: Your local Chuy’s features Grande ‘Rita specials and $5 tequila shots.
Margaritas Mexican Restaurant: The chain boasts $5 Don Julio Blanco shots and $7 Cadillac Margaritas made with Don JulioReposado. You can even get a $19.42 Don Julio1942 Margaritas that comes with a free Don Julio hat while supplies last.
Hooters: Participating Hooters locations like the one in Brunswick, New Jersey, have $5 margaritas.
Red Robin: If you are looking for something more family friendly, Red Robin always offers $4 margaritas during Happy Hour Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
However you choose to celebrate, cheers!
Tesla is speeding toward a head-on collision with the realities of the auto industry. Amid protests over CEO Elon Musks involvement with President Donald Trumps administration, not to mention Teslas stagnant model line and obsolete technology, the companys revenue for the first quarter of 2025 slid 9% year over year to $19.34 billion while global deliveries shrank 13%. The second quarter was equally dire: Tesla delivered just 384,122 cars, down 13% year over year, and took in $22.5 billion in revenue, 12% lower than the same period last year. Tesla sales have now been eclipsed by Chinas BYD for three consecutive quarters.
But Musk wants Tesla fanboys not to worry. Instead of focusing on the companys declining sales figures, Musk spent most of his opening remarks on his recent earnings call talking about the enormous potential of the companys Robotaxi service and Optimus humanoid robots to make Teslaand its investorsvery, very rich.
Those promises are still rather hollow. Teslas Robotaxi service, which arrived in Austin in June, is still an invite-only test limited to a small geofenced area. Competitor Waymo has more than 100 fully autonomous vehicles operating on the Uber platform in that city, covering a 90-square-mile area. Tesla covers a fraction of that in a zone shaped like a penis because Musk is a comedy genius. (“It’s going to get bigger and longer,” he told investors on his recent earnings call.) Its also full of dangerous glitches that reveal the limitations of Musks self-driving solution, which currently relies heavily on tele-operators to avoid fatal accidents.
Weeks after the Tesla service launched, the city of Austin says the test remains limited to 10 to 20 Model Y cars, which look nothing like the actual Robotaxi design Musk originally presented to investors. Meanwhile, Google’s Waymo and Baidu’s Apollo Go autonomous cab services continue to expand across the planet, with thousands of cars already on the streets thanks to designs that combine AI brains with multiple optical, radar, and laser sensors.
The other promisethe really big oneis Optimus, the humanoid robot that Musk has said could one day transform his company into a $25 trillion market-cap, world-dominating empire. In Musks vision, legions of 5-foot-8 electric androids running Teslas vehicle-grade AI will ferry battery cells, haul parts carts, and stack sheet-metal blanks across the companys gigafactories, taking on the dull, injury-prone chores no human wants.
These bots, he has said, will be working on Tesla assembly lines by the end of 2025. Next year, theyll roam third-party warehouses and logistics hubs across North America. Within five years, Musk promises, Tesla will be making 1 million units per year. Within a decade, there could be 100 million of them in the wild as companies worldwide deploy them for stockroom restocking, parcel delivery, elder-care assistance, and other services. Conveniently, their sales would buoy Teslas share price just as its core EV lineup shows its vulnerabilities.
Optimus has the potential to be north of $10 trillion in revenue, like its really bananas, Musk told investors in April. “It will be the biggest product ever,” he reiterated on the July 22 earnings call.
Except, just like with Robotaxi, it doesnt look like thats working out as promised. At this point, it’s extremely hard to believe that Optimus will materialize in any meaningful way within the timeframe Musk anticipates. Its even harder to believe that the program can get off the ground quickly enough to compete with companies that appear to be further ahead in developing and deploying humanoid robotsespecially in China, where competitors have the advantage of fully dominating the supply chain to manufacture bots at scale.
[Image: Tesla]
Market analysts predict the entire humanoid robot market could reach $13 billion to $38 billion between 2030 and 2035 (making Musk’s claims of $10 trillion in annual revenue mathematically impossible, at least for the next decade). Meanwhile, the industry is still in its Macintosh era, according to Jeff Cardenas, CEO of Apptronik, which makes the Apollo 1 humanoid robot.
This is like the early 1980s for personal computers, Cardenas told me recently. We’re in the early days. That means theres a chance for Tesla to catch up. But it also means theres a Mars-size gap between Musks $25 trillion robot revolution and the hard work of actually engineering it.
ROBOT DREAMS MEET HARD REALITY
Here is the Optimus reality today: Production reportedly froze in mid-June when the bots overheating joints, limp wrists, and batteries that croaked before lunchtime forced a complete procurement pause. By then, only about 1,000 bots had rolled off the Fremont, California, pilot line, costing around $60,000 apiece to make. According to videos of the bots working, they were moving at less than half the speed of the humans they are meant to replace.
Optimuss problems have prompted a redesign to improve the robots performance. Tesla, according to reports, is evaluating new providers of all its key failing components, a process that will further delay an already delayed schedule. According to AInvest, two soures in the Optimus supply chain claim that “Tesla had procured enough parts to produce 1,200 Optimus units and had manufactured close to 1,000. Though Musk had claimed the company would produce 5,000 units in 2025, according to these sources, With the suspension of parts procurement, this target is now largely unattainable. (The Information confirmed the report.)
On his Q2 earnings call, Musk said that Tesla is now working on an Optimus 3 prototype. We are gonna retool a bunch of things, so its gonna probably be prototypes of Optimus 3 [at the] end of this year and then scale production next year, he said.
The rosary of failures may explain why Optimus’s program chief, Milan Kovac, bolted in June. Kovac left Tesla abruptly, citing family reasons (“I want to make it clear that this is the only reason,” he insisted on social media). The project is now in the hands of Tesla’s Autopilot boss, Ashok Elluswamy.
Some old-design Optimus robots are currently in Tesla factories doing limited jobs. The company has shown the robots performing specific tasks, like folding a T-shirt and moving batteries at glacial speeds. Musk also recently reposted a video of an Optimus serving popcorn at the new Tesla Diner in Hollywood, though the clip is speeded up, giving the impression that the robot functions at a normal pace.
The Jetsons-esque diner, which houses a Supercharger station, is a smokescreen, detonated the day before the company’s Q2 results and meant to distract from yet another empty promise: Musk hasnt yet delivered batteries that load as fast as gas pumps, so hes now inviting drivers to fill up on pancakes and burgers while waiting for their cars to charge. The popcorn-serving Optimus, meanwhile, is a prop used by the company to distract fans and investors.
A MAGNET-SIZE PROBLEM
Optimuss problems run deep, starting with the rare-earth magnets it needs to power its motors. Without the magnets, theres no way to make robots that can move with the speed and precision of real humans. While Tesla hasnt disclosed the number of magnets the Optimus requires, analyst Luke Lango says it may use up to 8 pounds of magnets. (A typical humanoid robot needs more than 40 servo motors, and each of those requires up to 3.5 ounces of magnets.)
Back in March, Musk blamed Optimuss manufacturing problems on the lack of rare-earth magnets. Beijing had canceled exports when Musk’s former best buddy declared a trade war against China. In June, Chinas Ministry of Commerce resumed issuing permits for rare-earth magnet exports, putting them on a short leash while cracking down on smuggling. But this is a problem that is not going to be solved anytime soon, if ever. As long as geopolitical tensions exist, no Western company can fully rely on Chinese magnets.
[Image: Tesla]
The U.S. government is trying to stop Chinese dominance by investing in MP Materials, an American company that just built a small magnet supply chain thats still in its embryonic state. To make the millions of magnets that Musk needs for Optimus to succeed at scale, Tesla would have to put itself at the front of the line, ahead of everyone from carmakers to gadget peddlers, including Apple (which itself bought into the MP Materials pipe dream this month). Such a supply chain will be very hard to build and could disintegrate at any time.
DESIGNED TO FAIL?
Even ifand that is a Starship-size ifTesla manages to secure a steady supply chain to scale up production to the levels that Musk needs, Optimus’s design may be doomed from the start.
Tesla is chasing the hardest form factor in robotics, humanoids, without lidar, which means its robots will encounter the same issues that plague the company’s Full Self-Driving mode and Robotaxi. While Musk claims that lidar is for losers, the exclusive use of regular cameras has proven insufficient to understand the world around cars, leading to accidents. (From 2019 to 2023, Tesla’s Autopilot was involved in 736 crashes, including 17 fatal ones. And thats without counting the near-misses and car bumper accidents.) It will be the same with robots, which is why many of Tesla’s rivals, including startups like Unitree and AgiBot, are leaning on proven sensor stacks.
And even then, the humanoid form factor may not be right in some settings. Chris Walti, Tesla’s first Optimus lead, who left in 2022 to found the non-humanoid robotics startup Mytra, recently argued that human-shaped robots are “the wrong option for factory work” because the human form “evolved to escape wolves and bears, rather than perform repetitive industrial tasks, making it a suboptimal system.
A Tesla Optimus robot scoops popcorn and gestures at customers during the opening of the Tesla Diner in Hollywood on July 21, 2025. [Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images]
The reality today is that specialized, purpose-built automation consistently outperforms general-purpose humanoid robots in cost, reliability, and efficiency for industrial tasks. That makes Tesla’s approach both an expensive engineering exercise and one that may lack a viable business strategy. Unless Optimus mutates into something tougher, easier to make, and a lot cheaper (Unitrees model has a $16,000 price tag), its destined to remain a showroom tease for a long time.
Apptroniks Cardenas is still bullish on humanoids, which he argues can one day be deployed to perform a multitude of tasks. (Most bots today are created for single purposes.) “My view is that the key thing for robotics to scale is versatility, he says, noting his belief that we will someday see humanoids everywhere in the world, both legged and wheeled. Investors seem to agree. Financing for the sector has been growing wildly, especially in China, where the humanoid robot industry is most advanced. There, total funding reached $4.4 billion as of July 2025, doubling the previous years high-water mark, according to data from ITjuzi, which tracks Chinas venture-capital market.
On July 21, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com unveiled investments in three Chinese robotics startups: Engine AI, LimX Dynamics, and Spirit AI. Meanwhile, Hangzhou-based Unitree reached unicorn status in June with a new funding round that valued it at more than $1.3 billion. Investors included Alibaba Group Holding and affiliate Ant Group; Tencent Holdings; China Mobile; carmaker Geely; and Jinqiu Capital, an investment firm founded by former ByteDance employees.
Many of these Chinese companies are already lining up customers. Hong Kong-listed UBTech secured a $12.6 million purchase from state-owned car exporter MiEE (Shanghai) Automotive Technology, by far the largest deal in the humanoid industry. Unitree and AgiBot also struck deals with telecoms operator China Mobile, worth $6.4 million and $10.9 million, respectively. Unitree founder and CEO Wang Xingxing said the company’s annual revenue had surpassed $139.4 million.
These deals are far from the trillions that Musk covets, but they are a clear signal that his company is behind. Three months ago, Musk promised an army of Optimus robots marching through Tesla factories by the end of the year. Looking at the current state of the project, his 100-million robot party is turning into the Fyre Festival of robotics.
A leader recently told me about her dilemma: Her top performer of four years was asking about advancement opportunities, but with frozen budgets and no open positions, she felt powerless to help. Sound familiar?
This scenario plays out everywhere. High performers hit their stride, ask “What’s next?” and managers default to the same answer: promotion. When that’s not possible, both sides feel stuck.
But here’s what most leaders miss: When employees ask about advancement, they’re often asking for something deeperto be seen, valued, and recognized for their contributions.
For decades, organizations have made promotion the primary symbol of professional success. It’s become our go-to way of saying “your work matters.” But this creates problems when budgets freeze: managers feel powerless, and employees feel invisible.
The solution isn’t finding more money for promotions. It’s separating recognition from title changes.
The S Curve of Growth Framework
Instead of thinking about career development as a ladder (up or nothing), I encourage leaders to think about it as a learning curvespecifically, what I call the S Curve of Growth. Every skill, project, or responsibility follows this predictable S-shaped pattern:
Launch Point: You’re at the base of the S, where learning feels slow but you’re building crucial foundations.
Sweet Spot: The steep middle of the S, where you gain confidence and competence. Progress feels exponential.
Mastery: The top plateau of the S, where you’ve reached high performance but growth levels off.
The S Curve of Growth gives you and your employees a shared language for career conversations. Instead of “I need a promotion,” the conversation becomes “I’m reaching mastery on my project management S Curvewhat new curve should I start climbing?”
Making This Work in Practice
The most effective leaders using this approach:
Make development ongoing, not annual. Replace yearly reviews with regular check-ins. Ask employees where they see themselves on different learning curves and what support they need to progress.
Let employees drive their growth. Using the S Curve framework, stop dictating development paths. Ask: “Which of your S Curves do you want to accelerate? What new curve interests you?” Then create opportunities around their answers.
Recognize progress publicly. Acknowledge when someone moves from struggling with a new system to training others on it. Call out when they take on a challenging project. Make their growth visible.
The Bottom Line
Growth doesn’t require promotions. A software developer can master new programming languages, mentor junior colleagues, or lead cross-functional projectsall without a title change. A marketing manager can expand into data analytics, build vendor relationships, or develop content strategy expertise.
When you help employees map their growth across multiple S Curves, you solve two problems: they feel recognized and engaged, and you build a more versatile, capable team. Everyone wins, even when the org chart stays frozen.
The question isn’t whether you can afford to promote everyone. It’s whether you can afford to not help them grow.
When Lisa opened the resignation email from one of her top performers, she froze.
As a regional sales VP at a fast-growing tech company, she prided herself on building a loyal, high-performing team. Shed recently adopted AI to streamline workflows and free up time for more strategic work. But in the exit interview, the employee shared something she hadnt expected: he felt unseen, disconnected, and undervalued.
Some of her managers went even furtherusing AI-generated scripts for everything from difficult feedback to performance check-ins, and even praise. The messages felt impersonal, disconnected, and inauthentic. Employees took note. Even if productivity increased, effectiveness took a dive. One top performer began to disengage and soon gave notice.
For busy leaders, automating conversations with team members can bring a sense of relief. Plug in a prompt. Let the machine guide the 1:1. However, when we offload the emotional labor of leadership, we risk eroding trust and connection, the very foundations that make teams thrive.
AI can be a game changer for managers, but only when its used to amplify the human side of leadership. Too often, tools designed to save time end up weakening connection and culture. The opportunity isnt just to use AI. Its to use it well.
Leading Effectively with AI
With the proper guardrails, AI can expand a managers capacity, freeing them up to lead with more empathy, presence, and purpose. Think of AI as your backstage partner, not your stand-in.
This risk is especially real for Gen Z professionals, many of whom launched their careers remotely and hadnt, for a time, seen relational leadership modeled in person. Todays managers play a critical role in helping them build the emotional fluency and resilience theyll need to lead. If we let AI handle the hard parts for them, like navigating conflict, building trust, or making tough calls, we miss the chance to develop the very capabilities theyll need when AI inevitably falls short or fails in a crisis.
Through our work advising dozens of companies facing these dynamics, Kathryn, as an executive coach and keynote speaker, and Jenny, as an executive adviser and learning & development expert, have identified four strategies to help managers embrace AI in ways to make them more strategic, effective, and human-centered.
1. Know What to Automateand What Needs You
As generative AI becomes more embedded in day-to-day workflows, leaders must guide their managers in determining which tasks should be automated and which demand human judgment and emotional intelligence.
AI is well-suited for structured, repeatable tasks: generating first drafts of reports, summarizing meeting notes, preparing talking points, or reviewing written communication for tone and clarity. These applications reduce cognitive load and free up time for more meaningful work.
But AI falls short in moments that require discernment, empathy, or trust-building. It cannot read between the lines of disengagement, coach a direct report whos questioning their fit on the team, or navigate a high-stakes conversation that touches on identity, like feeling excluded, overlooked, or underestimated. Delegating these responsibilities to a tool, even one that appears well-crafted, risks eroding a teams psychological safety and your leadership credibility.
Use AI to clear space, not to take your place. We helped Lisas team draft a simple guide to distinguish what to automate and what to lead directly.
What to Automate vs. Where to Show Up
Use AI forShow up as a leader when..Summarizing reports or meeting notesDelivering difficult feedback or navigating emotionally charged conversationsReviewing written communication or organizing check-in agendasCoaching someone through a new role, challenge, or career inflection pointPreparing performance review draftsCelebrating wins or recognizing great workAnalyzing team feedback or surfacing key themes from engagement dataDiscussing concerns openly and cocreating solutions with the team
Pro tip: Ask yourself: Am I using AI to enhance my leadership, or to avoid the parts that feel uncomfortable?
2. Show Your Team What Good AI Use Looks Like
If you want AI to be used well, your team has to see what well looks like. That starts at the top.
Managers take their cues from what leaders say and what they do. When Lisa began introducing AI into her teams workflows, she focused on implementation, but hadnt yet modeled how to use it thoughtfully. Her managers saw the tools being used for speed and scale, but not as an enabler for coaching, collaboration, or deeper thinking.
In a recent coaching session, Lisa reflected that she had unintentionally created a culture of quiet experimentationwithout guidance, feedback, or clarity about what effective AI use looked like. We encouraged her to share her learning process with her direct reports: where she was experimenting, where shed made mistakes, and where she saw potential.
She began demoing use cases with her team, inviting feedback, and normalizing discomfort. That shift, from quiet adoption to visible shared learning, sparked more thoughtful, responsible AI use across her team.
Here are three ways you can do the same with your team:
Share your learning journey. Be open about where youre experimenting and what youre still figuring out.
Frame AI as an enabler. Position it as a way to work smarter and lead with greater focus and presence.
Create psychological safety. Encourage your team to try, fail, and learn without fear of judgment.
Even with great modeling, boundaries matter. Without clear guardrails, AI can quietly start doing the parts of leadership that should never be outsourced.
3. Draw the Line Between Support and Substitution
When expectations are vague, AI can slowly shift from a helpful assistant to a leadership shortcut. Weve seen managers start by using it to draft talking points, only to lean on it later for delivering feedback or handling conflict. The tone may be polished, but the message often lacks the personalization and presence. People notice, and over time, trust erodes.
Leaders must help their teams set clear boundaries. AI can help structure a message, but it shouldnt deliver it for you, especially when the moment calls for empathy, vulnerability, or moral courage.
Research from MIT Sloan reinforces this distinction: while AI excels at structured, transactional tasks, its significantly less effective in emotionally nuanced situations, such as coaching, conflict resolution, or performance feedback.
This is especially important for middle managers, who play a critical role in developing Gen Z professionals. Many early-career employees are still building confidence through live, relational interactions and will take their cues from what is modeled. When managers default to AI prompts, they not only weaken their own impact, but also risk sending the message that presence is optional.
A useful rule of thumb: If a conversation could shape how someone feels about their value, performance, or belonging; it needs to be human-led.
As AI tools become more capable, drawing the line between support and substitution will become one of the defining responsibilities of modern leadership.
4. Help Managers Use Saved Time Strategically
One of AIs biggest benefits is time. But without a clear plan, that reclaimed time is often consumed by low-value meetings, inbox clutter, or busywork. The risk isnt just wasted hours. Its wasted opportunity.
Help managers use their freed-up capacity with intention. Encourage them to reinvest it in what matters most: mentoring team members, building culture, thinking strategically, or developing their own leadership skills. These are the high-leverage activities that often fall by the wayside, but make the biggest difference over time.
Ask yourself:
Where is your time most valuable, and how are you protecting it?
What high-impact conversations are you putting off, and why?
In what ways could you invest this time to grow your team, or yourself?
Pro tip: Use time by design, not by default. When time is freed, leaders have a choice: fill it by default, or use it by design.
A Better Way to Lead with AI
Lisa began modeling her own learning, setting clearer boundaries, and making space for reflection. She stopped simply asking what her managers were automating, and started asking why. That shift helped her to rebuild trust, reconnect with her team, and lead with focus. Ultimately, the most significant impact of AI wasnt speed. It was presence.
AI will continue to shape how we lead, communicate, and make decisions. But leadership has never been just about efficiency. Its about discernment, trust, and showing up fully for the moments that matter. The best leaders wont only ask, How can I use AI? Theyll ask, How is my use of AI impacting the people I lead? The future of leadership isnt a choice between human or machine. Its humanyou bringing yourself to the job, with AI as your copilot.
More than a decade ago, Pramod Sharma set out to make learning more engaging. Through AI and computer vision, his startup Osmo transformed iPad apps into hands-on experiences, letting kids use puzzle pieces and other physical objects to solve spelling and math problems on screen.
It was a lot of fununtil Osmo grew, and Sharmas role shifted from inventing to managing. Meetings, PowerPoint decks, endless email threads took over. At some point, you become a manager, and you spend a lot of time in communication, Sharma tells Fast Company. We realized a lot of our communication wasnt fun.
When Sharma and a few colleagues left Osmo four years ago, they decided to tackle that problem. The result is Napkin, a web app that uses generative AI to turn text and numbers into flow charts, diagrams, and other visuals. You dont need to be a graphic designer, you dont need to be a visual thinker, Sharma says. Our vision is to democratize visuals for everyone.
One year into its open beta, Napkin has surpassed five million registered users. Now, the company is preparing to monetize while staying true to the lessons learned from Osmochief among them: keep things light and approachable.
Our users really love the fact that its playful, Sharma says.
From Text to Visuals, with the Help of AI
Napkins experience starts with a screen that resembles a page from a school notebook. Users paste or write text, highlight the key parts, hit a magic button, and the app generates several draft visuals to help communicate the core ideas and numbers.
These visuals can be edited to highlight specific phrases or match a companys branding. When we started, we had this mindset that we wanted to push for a certain style, Sharma says. Now, we think of Napkin as a tool. Editing is a big part of that.
Just as important is keeping the interface fun. Traditionally, business products dont tend to be fun, Sharma says. I used to think [thats] because the boring stuff sells.
With Napkin, Sharma wanted to try something different, starting with a frictionless onboarding experience. Its a lesson drawn directly from Osmo. Kids, Sharma points out, wont tolerate complexity. If they dont intuitively get it, they dont want to play, he says.
Like Osmo, Napkin encourages learning by doing. We have no tutorial, Sharma says. That thinking comes from games.
This hands-on approach also supports global adoption. Sixty percent of Napkins users dont speak English, and the service supports dozens of languages. South Korea is a big market for us, Sharma says. Japan is a huge market for us.
Until now, Napkin has been free to use during its open beta. Soon, the company will introduce two paid subscription tiers, alongside a free plan. It has also started previewing API access for developers and companies looking to integrate the tool.
More Than Just a PowerPoint Replacement
The rise of generative AI has been a major advantage for Napkin. Sharma calls large language models a huge accelerator. But with that comes higher expectations, especially for visuals.
Users have a high bar for AI, Sharma says. You cant get away with 70 percent. People may settle for rough graphics when making them on their own, but expect professional-grade output from AI. An Apple keynote, or a TED talk: They want AI to get to that level, he says.
Sharma doesnt see Napkin as just a better slide tool. Its not just to build a better slide deck, he says. He wants marketers, executives, and creators to tap into their visual creativitysomething he compares to learning a new language.
Before I went to college, I did not speak English at all, says Sharma, who was born in India. My family didnt speak. I was in a small town. But once I went to college and started learning English, it opened my world in a very significant way.
The same, he argues, can happen with visual communication. What you think about new ideas changes, he says.
Ten years ago, just months after announcing his presidential campaign, Donald Trump called sky-high CEO pay disgraceful, telling CBSs Face the Nation in 2015: You see these guys making enormous amounts of money, and it’s a total and complete joke.
Since then, average CEO payand the gap between it and median worker payhas grown even more. And as president, Trump’s policies are making that inequality even worse.
The average CEO-to-worker-pay ratio for S&P 500 Index companies in 2024 was 285 to 1, according to the AFL-CIOs annual Executive Paywatch reportan increase from 268 to 1 in 2023.
In 2024, as Americans fretted about the rising costs of eggs and housing, and the way they felt the countrys economy was leaving them behind, the average CEO of an S&P 500 company saw an average pay increase of $1.24 million. In 2024, the CEOs at those companies received $18.9 million in total compensation, up 7% from the year prior.
The tax cuts in Trumps big beautiful bill are set to increase CEO take-home pay even more. Each CEO is set to get about $500,000 back from those tax cuts; all together, the CEOs of the publicly traded companies in the AFL-CIOs Executive Paywatch database will see a combined $738 million in income tax savings. Meanwhile, that bill has severely cut funds for government services like Medicare health coverage, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and school lunches.
The AFL-CIO is a 70-year-old federation of more than 60 unions, representing 15 million-plus workers. It is highlighting CEO pay through this report to note how the system is obviously broken, Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, said in a press conference. Workers really have one concern in mind: They just want to share in the benefits and profits that they help to create every day. And the 285-to-1 ratio is not fair compensation to the workers.
Skyrocketing CEO pay isnt a recent issue; the gap between what a CEO takes home and what an average worker earns has been widening for years. Looking at the S&P Index specifically, the average CEO compensation package increased $6.5 million in the past decade alone, the report notes. In 1965, the pay ratio between CEOs and average workers was 20 to 1.
The median annual wage for workers in the U.S. across all industries was just $49,500 in 2024. At that wage, a worker would need to have been working since 1740 to earn what the average S&P 500 CEO took home in 2024.
Of course, CEO-to-worker-pay ratios also vary by individual company. In 2024, Starbuckss new CEO, Brian Niccol, received upwards of $95 million in total compensation. That puts Starbuckss CEO-to-median-worker-pay ratio at 6,666 to 1. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earned $79 million in 2024, for a ratio of 408 to 1.
Along with cutting taxes for high earners, the Trump administration is considering no longer requiring this information be publicly disclosed to investors. In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule requiring CEO-to-worker-pay ratio disclosures (that requirement didnt go into effect until 2017).
But Trumps SEC chair, Paul Atkins, has said that rules around executive compensation disclosure have grown increasingly complex and lengthy, and is reportedly considering loosening disclosure requirements, including around executive perks like the personal use of corporate jets.
The AFL-CIO is advocating for those disclosure requirements to remain as they are. In our view, sunlight is the best disinfectant to prevent CEO pay, waste, fraud, and abuse, Redmond said, and we are urging visitors to the Executive Paywatch website to tell the SEC the importance of CEO pay disclosure.
