With the first family actively engaged in memecoin ventures, speculation about the future of cryptocurrency has never been hotter. Laura Shin, crypto expert and host of the podcast Unchained, reveals the sectors emerging economic, political, and geopolitical implications. Shin also provides context for why stablecoins are growing so fast and how the current administration is shaping the conversation.This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
You call yourself a no-hype crypto journalist, so can you give us a short, no-hype overview of where we are right now in cryptos evolution?
Yeah, I would say we’re probably on the cusp of more widespread adoption. The number-one biggest reason is simply that the Trump administration is really embracing crypto. That has not been true of previous administrations. In fact, the Biden administration was probably, I want to say, actively hostile. I don’t know if people will love that term, but that’s probably a pretty accurate description.
For a long time, there were a lot of entrepreneurs who were cautious about doing things in the U.S. This administration is more, not only open-minded, but even in some regards almost a little bit too embracing of crypto, you could say.
I think there’s going to be probably a decent number of crypto IPOs this year, but then on top of it, stablecoins are probably the first major application that has really found what the industry likes to call product-market fit. We’re seeing that stablecoins have a huge amount of uptake, especially in so many other jurisdictions where they don’t trust their local currency. It could be Argentina or Venezuela or Turkey or Nigeria. There are just a lot of places where people don’t actually have a great way to save their money, and they maybe don’t also have really great ways to send money across borders. So, stablecoins are fulfilling that role and Congress is probably on the cusp of finally passing legislation here in the U.S. around stablecoins.
For a layperson, someone not engaged in the crypto world, can you just explain what a stablecoin is relative to a memecoin, relative to whatever the portfolio might look like?
Yeah, so a stablecoin is any blockchain-based asset that is pegged to the value of some other asset99% of all stablecoins are pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. The way that stablecoins really took off initially was that on a number of crypto exchanges, people wanted to be able to buy and trade using dollars. I wrote this book called The Cryptopians, and it covers 2013 until 2018. Even at that time, people would recite back to me the price of Bitcoin or the price of Ether in dollars. No matter whether they were European or Asian or just wherever they were in the world, they always knew the price in dollars. . . .
Here’s a really simple example: Theres a serial entrepreneur in Afghanistan. Her name is Roya Mahboob, and she had this microblogging platform, and I think a lot of the people writing for it were women. They had a hard time paying them, because a lot of women in Afghanistan, they don’t have bank accounts, or if they do, then their male relatives might actually take the money that they earned from them. So [the platform] set them up with Bitcoin wallets and then taught them how to use them.
One of the women was in an abusive marriage and saved up the Bitcoin and then used that to eventually divorce her husband, so that gives you some kind of agency. I have some close Turkish friends, and I think it was in 2018, the value of the lira was just going down and down. So it’s like people in those places I think grasp these kinds of things a lot more quickly, like the value of crypto. Having a form of money that isn’t influenced by a central bank, that’s stablecoins.
Because the stablecoins are generally linked to the U.S. dollar, it’s a way to sort of have dollars without having dollars, right?
Exactly.
I mean, you’re getting the stability of that U.S. market, which there’s some irony in that, because of course one of the philosophical ideas around crypto is that it’s not linked to a government, that it’s separate.
Now we’re going to get really deep into this. So you’re correct that this is people wanting U.S. dollars, which is a form of currency linked to a specific government, but of course the people who want those dollars are people who don’t otherwise have the privilege of easily accessing them. Bitcoin, of course, existed before stablecoins ever existed. There have been times when the Bitcoin price would go up, and then it would crash for a little while, and then it would go up again and then it would crash, and so that’s kind of when you started to see stablecoins also take off.
A lot of people view Bitcoin as a good long-term investment, but on any short-term timescale, you don’t really know where the price is going to be, so if you need the money on a shorter-term timescale, then you would probably rather have something more stable, and so that’s where the interest in stablecoins came about. There’s a reason why 99% of the stablecoins are denominated or pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar, and it’s of course because we’re the global reserve currency, so there’s a lot of safety there.
Trump seems like he’s done a full 180 on crypto. I mean, he said it was a scam during his first term and then supported it very strongly in his campaign. He’s launched his own Trump coin three days before the inauguration. Do we know how much of Trump’s crypto position is about political opportunity or financial opportunity, or some larger philosophy about markets?
I don’t think there’s a larger philosophy. I think most people probably know what Trump’s MO is. But let’s just say he’s president and he took a luxury jetliner from the Qataris, so whatever it is that you think that says about him, it applies to his activities in the crypto world. What I will say though, aside from his personal dealings, which by and large in my opinion, they’re business dealings, things that would help his family or him. He launches this memecoin, which by the way, to make one of these things costs almost no money, so I just want to make that clear, and you’re basically printing money out of thin air, right? But then on top of that, the people who got in very early, they just had some agreement where they had to hold their coins until whatever it was, 90 days or I forget what the number of days was.
Now, fortuitously, when that deadline came, [Trump] announced that he was going to have a dinner, and in order to participate in the dinner, you had to be one of the top holders of this coin, so f course the price shot up right at that time when this unlock was happening for those insiders. Just note the timing there and put those two facts together and you can make your own conclusions, but, well, let me put it this way: Trump saw that the Biden administration alienated the crypto community. He realized these people have money and they hate the Democrats. . . . He said, “I’m the crypto candidate,” and he even went to the Bitcoin conference last year. He made all these promises to the crypto community and Bitcoin communities.
On top of that, people in his personal orbit, his family, realized this industry is going to get bigger, this industry’s all about money, and so they have been taking advantage. So you will see, and this is very interesting, there were a number of people who were very passionately pro-Trump during the campaign, and then once the memecoin thing happened, because not only Trump, but also Melania launched a memecoin, and they were not happy about what he was doing.
It was reported that their company, World Liberty Financial, was doing deals with different token teams where basically they were just exchanging money. “I’ll give you this amount of money if you buy the World Liberty Financial token, and we’ll buy this amount of your token. I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine.” But people in the industry also kind of look down on that, because it’s not organic.
Liz Shuler has a tough job. It’s not just tough to do. It’s tough even to define. As the president of the AFL-CIO, a 70-year-old federation of 63 national and international unions representing more than 15 million workers, she is the leader of the American labor movement.
But labor is not a monolith. She represents NFL players, government workers, Hollywood writers, hotel janitors. Shuler, who became the first woman to run the AFL-CIO when she was elected in 2021, doesnt negotiate pay rates or mediate disputes between workers and management.
Her mandate is much broader: Grow the ranks of unionized workers across industries, lobby policymakers to pass pro-worker guidelines and remove barriers to unionizing, make the labor movement more inclusive to all people, and stand up to powerful anti-union forces at the highest levels of business and government.
Shes been busy lately. On January 20, one of the most labor-friendly presidents in U.S. history moved out of the Oval Office and one of the most anti-labor presidents moved back in. Two months later, Trump signed an executive order (EO) that amounted to the bombing of Pearl Harbor against the labor movement, in the words of the labor activist and author Hamilton Nolan. Under the guise of national security, the EO stripped the collective bargaining rights of workers at more than 30 federal agencies. Shuler does not think Nolan was being hyperbolic.
Even before Trumps return to power, Shuler and the movement faced an uphill battle. While support in the U.S. for organized labor has never been higher, especially among young people, the percentage of the workforce that actually belongs to a union has been stuck at 10% for years.
Shuler has taken some heat for not doing more to grow that number. Nolan, for one, mocked her 2022 announcement that the federation would add at least 1 million members over the next decade as an almost comically unambitious goal, likening it to Austin Powerss pinky-fingered ransom demand for 1 million dollars!
Shuler discussed these criticisms, and much more, in a wide-ranging conversation in early April at the AFL-CIOs offices in Washington, D.C., less than two blocks from the White House.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Joe Biden did a lot of things to help workers who were already unionized. Still, only about one in 10 Americans holds a union card today, and those numbers didnt move much during his presidency. Why didnt labor make more gains under Biden?I dont think people understand how broken the labor laws are. When [workers] try to form a union, they are universally harassed, discriminated against, and usually fired. That has quite a chilling effect on people. Its very risky for people to stand up for their rights.
When you try to form a union, you have to go through a process that then is recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. You have a vote. Usually, if the process goes well, without union busting by the company, it takes a period of time and it takes stamina. [But] in most union elections now, the companies fight you tooth and nail.
Ill take Amazon as one example. We had warehouse workers who came together, wanting better conditions. They wanted to form a union, but they were surveilled. They were followed into the bathrooms to make sure they werent talking to each other. They were monitored at traffic lights leaving the facility if a union organizer was trying to talk to them on their way out of work. It was a big intimidation campaign. You can imagine how exhausting that is, how scary that is. And that happens at workplace after workplace throughout this country. It takes an act of heroism to form a union these days.
How much of your job do you see as growing the total number of unionized workers versus taking care of the people that are already in your membership?
Theres a notion of balance, right? We have the base membership, the industries that have long been part of our movement, which we want to preserve and maintain and continue to grow. But we also have these emerging industries that are largely not unionized. We have our eye on the future. We know technology is affecting work. The needs of the workplace are going to be different, and youre going to have a different demographic in the workforce.
We think that the labor movement can be the place to help people figure out whats next. Perhaps youre afraid that youre going to be replaced by artificial intelligence. The labor movement is there to help you not only fight for respect and dignity and a voice but also to plan for whatever transition might come next. We have been the largest provider of training and upskilling, second only to the U.S. military, throughout history. If you add up all the capacity of the labor movement, were like the third-largest university system in the country.
The majority of union members backed Kamala Harris in 2024. But blue-collar America is shifting significantly toward Trump. Do you know the number of Trump supporters in your membership?
We definitely have membership across the political spectrum. In the last election, union members voted nearly plus-20 for Kamala Harris, as an overall number. Now, within the labor movement, there are unions [across] different industries, and we had our share of membership who voted for Trump.
But I would say that our message was an economic message. When we were able to really appeal to our members based on the things they cared about, their ears opened and they heard us and they listened. The problem is we werent reaching enough working people writ large, outside the membership of the unions. If the labor movement was larger, if we had a bigger footprint and were able to talk to more working people, the result [of the presidential election] might have been different.
In late March, Trump signed an executive order that effectively stripped the union rights of 700,000 federal workers across 30 agencies. [The EO prompted legal challenges, including from the AFL-CIO, and has been blocked by federal courts as the suits proceed.] What was your personal reaction to this news?
It was an absolute gut punch. I think we all knew that attacks would be coming, but the speed and the scale of it was absolutely stunning.
When I got the news, it was around 8 oclock at night on that Thursday. The president of AFGE [the American Federation of Government Employees] called me, saying, The ultimate attack has just happened. We went into rapid response mode that very night until the wee hours, standing up calls with our leaders and our lawyers and trying to make sense of what was in the EO and what the impact would be. The next day [we held an] emergency call with all of our union leaders to say, An attack on one is an attack against all.
We did a press conference on Capitol Hill. We filed lawsuits. Weve been standing up actions in the streets. Were utilizing all the tools in the toolbox because this is the largest attack against the labor movement in our history.
Liz Shuler outside the AFL-CIO offices in Washington, D.C. [Photo: Kyna Uwaeme]
A lot of people point back to the air traffic controller strike [when thenPresident Ronald Reagan fired many of its 12,000 members and then decertified the union]. This dwarfs that. It affects everybody. Its not just, Oh, you work for the federal government, too bad for you. No. This will ripple out across the public sector, across the private sector.
Were not going to be, you know, revealing our playbook in public [laughs]. Thats probably not wise. But we are working strategically to continue to escalate and ramp up our actions. If you know anything about unions, you know that we go on strike. That is our most powerful tool. We do not deploy it at the drop of a hat, and we dont start there. We work up to it.
Theres a lot of Elon Musk on your website. This suggests that you see him as a valuable bogeyman. Do you think that hes generating more energy among your membership than there would have been if it was Trump only who kind of represented a lot of these moves?
Absolutely, because nobody elected Elon Musk. He is an unelected billionaire wreaking havoc on our federal government. And this DOGE [she pronounces the name in an elongated and disdainful way]you know, the Department of Government Efficiency.
[Laughs.] I like the way you say that.
Theres a lot of other ways of pronouncing it [laughs]. We have said that no one disagrees that we can find efficiencies in government, but the way theyre going about it is absolutely irresponsible. It is a fake department that got stood up and has been given free rein to basically go in and cut government services that people rely on, and steal our data, with absolutely no guardrails. And we said, Wait a second. If you can stand up your fake department, were going to stand up our own department, the Department of People Who Work for a Living. Weve been using that platform, DPWL, as a place to really interpret and decode what is going on, because most people are working 12-hour days and two and three jobs and arent necessarily sure how this affects them.
When you look out at the legal playing field, what do you see? How confident are you that the courts will have your back?
I mean, we still are a country of laws. Common sense dictates we cannot have a lawless society and let this administration just run roughshod over the rule of law. So we still have trust and faith in the legal system, and we do believe the law will catch up to these illegal actions. Weve had some early successes, thank goodness. We filed a lawsuit the day after those probationary workers were fired. Twenty-five thousand [workers] got their rights restored. That was a big victory. Well celebrate that.
We also filed a lawsuit when DOGE came after the Department of Labor and tried to access private worker data. These are whistleblowers who have taken risks. These are people who have filed workplace complaints when you have a safety hazard. Its a very vulnerable place to be. So we sued and said, No, we need guardrails. We need to know what youre asking for and have more transparency. We won that lawsuit.
Gwynne Wilcox, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board, who is the ultimate traffic cop when it comes to workers who want to form a union and their company fires themwe were able to get Gwynne restored [after the Trump administration fired her]. Now thats been under appeal, of course, and theres some uncertainty there. [As of press time, all three of these cases remain ongoing.]
Lets talk about the tech industry, labor, and AI. Theres been a smattering of organizing at some big tech companies, but really, not much. Why do you think the labor movement hasnt gotten more traction there?
I still think theres a stereotype of what a union is and who a union represents, and were working really hard to demystify that. Unions are about the workers themselves deciding what their union looks like and what they prioritize. So if you think a union is just for someone who works in a steel mill, think again. We know that some of the developers that weve talked to, especially in the video game industry, work insane hours with little breaks. These are like the modern-day sweatshop in some ways.
I think people inherently fear speaking out, especially in an industry where they know there are people lined up behind them to take their job. I think its on us, frankly, to continue to modernize how people see unions and [understand] what we are capable of, particularly in industries that work differently and are evolving and changing and innovating.
A year ago or so, you were pretty focused on AI and how it would disrupt labor. A lot of things have changed, namely the administration that weve been talking about.
[Laughs.] Exactly.
Where is your head on this now? How much time are you able to spend on this question of how AI might replace human labor?
AI and technology is the new frontier for the labor movement. AI absolutely is something that we think about every day we wake up. We established our technology institute within the AFL-CIO a few years back because we saw what was on the horizon. We saw things like algorithmic management [of workers], worker privacy, and data security, not to mention just how work is done. When you check into a hotel and you see those kiosks [for checking in] and you look at the desk agents, you can see whats on the horizon. We need to be responsive and bring workers voices and perspectives upstream in the process, not wait until a job is displaced or its too late. We know were not going to stop technology from changing the way we do work. We just think that it shouldnt dehumanize us, it shouldnt make us poor, and we should share in the benefits of all these productivity gains that were going to see in the future.
Im a little skeptical that the tech industry is going to really give you a seat at the table. The financial incentives that companies have to lower their overhead and reduce their workforce are just too great. But you struck a deal with Microsoft in 2023 to do just that: give workers a seat at the table as AI evolves. What are your expectations for that partnership?
You think you were skeptical! [Laughs.] I absolutely never wouldve dreamed that Id be standing on a stage with [Microsoft vice chair and president] Brad Smith announcing that partnership in 2023. We have a partnership on AI specifically, where we meet with labor leaders twice a year. [Microsoft workers provide the AFL-CIO with feedback on new technologies being developed in the companys labs.]
In between those meetings, were working at a staff level to actually get workers who are on the front lines of the healthcare industry, for example, to help inform what tech can or should look like in a hospital. In the transportation industry, bus drivers who are using automated buses[were ensuring that] their voices are being heard and that their expertise is actually being tapped into to make it a responsible use, an informed use that doesnt just land haphazard in a workplace without it being thought through [to assess] how it can best benefit working people.
During your time as head of the AFL-CIO, and even before you became president, you prioritized diversifying unions. What do you see as the benefits of a diverse workforce, specifically from an organized labor perspective. How do you react to and contend with the DEI backlash that weve seen in recent years, not just since Trump was elected?
In the labor movement, we believe that diversifying our workforce is a strength and we need the perspectives and contributions of all working people to make us strong. Little-known fact: The labor movement is the largest organization of working women in the country. And a lot of people dont see us that way. But weve been fighting for pay equity since our inception. And the best way to get an equal paycheck if youre a woman is to join a union.
But now I think its our responsibility to continue to fight back and protect the gains that weve made. It is alarming to see whats happening with these companies who are folding and just canceling their DEI policies without batting an eyelash. Were going to continue to work with allies and partners in the civil and human rights space, allies who are saying, Lets do a buy-in or as I call it, a buy-cott, where were actually giving business to companies that are respecting policies and standing by them so we can leverage our consumer behavior and come together and have a stronger voice.
Your first term is up in about a year [June 2026]. What is most important for you to accomplish before that term is up?
I think were in a unified moment. The best organizer is a bad boss, and thats the moment were in with this administration. It has brought such solidarity to our movement. We are coming together, supporting each other, fighting together, strategizing together more than ever before.
There are very few institutions in this country left standing that can mobilize real working people in every city, in every state, in every workplace, in every industry. And thats the labor movement. My hope is that next year will be an all-of-movement moment, where we are fighting back in unison and deploying strategies that ultimately prevail, and we win for workers. And [that] the country sees us and wakes up, and says, You know what? Their fight is our fight.
Oh, and I will be running for reelection in 2026, just to be clear [laughs].
In just the first week of his administration, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders prioritizing domestic oil and gas and (once again) withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for climate change mitigation.
Since then, additional attacks on existing environmental policies have included the administration’s cuts to sustainability research funding and its defunding and dismantling environmental agencies like NOAA and FEMA. Most recently, House Republicans voted to pass a budget reconciliation bill that will gut Bidens Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in climate change mitigation and adaptation in U.S. history.
This comes at a time when young people really want to get involved and take action against climate change: A 2024 LinkedIn survey found that 61% of Gen Z workers say they want to get a green job within the next five years.
But while sustainability fields like environmental justice, nonprofit work, climate policy, and climate research are under very significant threats right now, sustainability experts say that young people pursuing corporate sustainability jobs will likely have more luck.
Why are corporate sustainability jobs better protected?
Some major companies have dropped their sustainability goals: For example, Walmart says it will likely miss its 2025 and 2030 emissions reduction goals, and companies such as Kraft Heinz and Coca-Cola have dropped some sustainability goals.
Banking giants such as Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo all dropped out of the United Nations-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which aims to reduce the carbon footprints of banks around the world.
But according to PwCs 2025 State of Decarbonization report, only 16% of companies are reducing climate commitments, while 37% are strengthening them. Additionally, the number of companies making commitments continues to grow, with nine times the number of companies reporting targets compared with five years ago.
In 2023, 93% of Russell 1000 Index companies published a sustainability report, displaying a public commitment to keeping sustainability goals. According to Steven Cohen, program director of Columbia Universitys master of science in sustainability management program, these commitments arent just going to disappear.
Investors are driving the sustainability field first, because they want to know about the environmental risks incurred by corporations, he says. Additionally, even though the U.S. reporting requirements are being reduced, [requirements from the EU or states like California] are not being significantly reduced.
However, even without pressures from the EU and states like California that have stricter climate regulations compared with the rest of the country, Cohen says that public sentiment against climate change is enough to drive companies to stick to their goals. People know that the planet is getting hotter. They know that environmental damage is being done, and they want to figure out ways of maintaining the economy without destroying the planet, he says. Lots of people are interested in it, so there’s lots of employment.
Cohen says that since around 80% of the students in Columbias sustainability management masters program go into the private sector, they are not particularly worried about factors like the Trump administrations repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act having an impact on their employment. The job market for graduates is holding up pretty nicely, I’d say, he says.
For those interested in entering the sustainability world after graduation, Cohen recommends developing any skills that will help you with management and understanding the impacts of climate change. He particularly recommends learning how to measure the impacts of environmental pollution and remediation. Those are objective conditions, and well continue to be focusing on that.
When it comes to energy policy, the One Big Beautiful Bill Actthe official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025risks raising Americans energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars, and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.
The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.
As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.
Renewable energy
Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing more than 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power.
However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.
It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal, and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.
In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions unworkable, since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.
Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar, and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. Thats why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a nightmare scenario for clean energy proponents.
However, one persons nightmare may be another mans dream. Were constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good, said Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry.
Efficiency and electric cars
Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows, and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.
For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks, and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.
Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University.
Nuclear power
Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.
For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.
Biofuels
While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.
Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting, and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use.
Hydrogen
The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called hydrogen hubs that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.
The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.
However its made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the worlds smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen.
Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.
Summing it up
The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Acts clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles, and less clean power on the grid, Princetons Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bills provisions were not enacted. If the bills provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.
No one expected former President Joe Bidens Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.
Daniel Cohan is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
When our son was 2 years old, our twins were born. That meant that for a while, we had three kids under 3 years old (and then three kids under 4, and then three under 5). At the time, I was also working at a high-stress job as a Justice Department attorney, with not enough support at home or at work.
Perhaps I began to get depressed, but it would be more accurate to say I was moving too fast even to know how I felt. Mostly, I was like a hamster on a wheel: sprinting as fast as I could just to stay in place. My days blurred together in an endless loop of emails, laundry, preschool drop-offs, spit-up, 2 a.m. feedings, and briefing political appointees.
I knew something had to change, but the entire concept of self-care seemed completely inaccessible. A spin class? A pedicure? Even a massage? You might as well have told me to hike to the moon. Fortunately, I hit upon a quick, free, low-effort practice that helped me begin to find my way back to myself: I started to count my wins.
Every night before I went to sleep, I would list three things I did well that day. They werent huge accomplishments, I promise. Sometimes, they were things like, I got Henry to eat a green bean today.
But over time, something pretty incredible started to happen. Instead of feeling like a hamster on a wheel, running so fast and getting nowhere, I began to notice that I was actually getting somewhere. That email I spent two weeks on actually did go out, and it was pretty good if I do say so myself. I remembered to call my friend on her birthday. I made the vacation rental reservation. My life wasnt just an endless to-do list. There were lots and lots of things I was accomplishing all the time.
The power of small wins
Heres what I know: we are excellent at identifying what we havent done. I bet you could list 10 unfinished tasks right now off the top of your head. But what about something you accomplished this week? Can you name even one?
Our constant cataloguing of tasks and reminders of where weve fallen short starts to chip away at us. Merely thinking about our to-do lists creates anticipatory stress and fatigue, depleting our energy and creating overwhelm. When I forced myself to list the things I had accomplished, I was able to shift my focus away from all the things I was failing to achieve, and instead to notice all that I was.
How to Start Counting Your Wins
Make it a habit. Each night before bed, Id name three things I did well that day. Its helpful to connect it to something that youre already doing, so you might try it on your commute, or while brushing your teeth. Daily is ideal, but weekly works, too.
Be specific. I was a good manager is fine. I supported Alex through a tough client call is better. Specificity helps your brain register and remember the success.
Define your own wins. Wins dont have to be big. They just have to matter to you. A win could be leading a meeting well or setting a boundary with a relative or remembering to bring your lunch. You get to define what counts.
Check in with yourself. Set a calendar notice for three weeks after youve started counting your wins to ask yourself if youre seeing any difference in your patience or energy level. Are you a little easier on yourself? Are you finding it easier to identify wins? That reflection can motivate you to keep up the practice.
Its so easy to lose sight of our progress. Counting your wins is a simple but powerful tool to reclaim that perspective. It doesnt require a lot of time or a major life overhaul, just a brief pause to recognize all that you are accomplishing. That moment of reflection can help you sustain momentum, rebuild resilience, and reconnect with a sense of purpose. In a world that often measures us by whats next, this practice reminds us: what youve already done counts, too.
Ever given someone the cold shoulder at work because you felt they slighted you in a meeting? Or maybe you daydream about ways to retaliate on the person who got the promotion instead of you? Whether its carried out or not, the desire for revenge is hardwired into our brains, says James Kimmel Jr., author of The Science of Revenge: Understanding the Worlds Deadliest Addictionand How to Overcome It and founder of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Control Studies.
Evolutionary psychologists have a leading theory that humans began finding revenge pleasurable as part of the ice age, he explains. Its part of an adaptive strategy to cause people to comply with or obey with social norms of the community.
During that time, missteps included stealing food or spousesthings that threatened the ability to survive and procreate. In modern times, though, revenge seeking is not based on survival. Instead, its triggered when someone wrongs us, initiating a fight-or-flight, self-defense mechanism.
This once adaptive strategy of revenge seeking has now become often a pathological strategy, says Kimmel. Slights, insults, humiliation, shame, betrayalthose are the types of things we’re willing to punish or even kill each other for. It’s more like a disease because we’re not using it to probate. We’re using it to destroy relationships without regard to the original reasons we have this behavior in our repertoire as part of human evolution.
Revenge in the Workplace
Kimmel says we move through life with a mental courtroom inside our heads, endlessly putting people on trial who insult, wrong, humiliate, shame, or betray us. Often the people who caused that sense of victimization don’t know about it, he says. Sometimes it’s intended, but sometimes its not.
Intention, however, doesnt matter. At a biological level, the brains pain network is activated, and the response is to equalize itself. It activates the reward and pleasure circuitry, triggering a desire for revenge.
At work, revenge often comes in a form of social rejection, such as excluding someone or giving them the cold shoulder, says Kimmel. Im going to withdraw my attention, he says. I’m no longer going to gratify your need to feel part of my group. Its a retaliatory strategy.
Social isolation can be painful and effective, but Kimmel says its a passive-aggressive strategy that can bring about a retaliation response from the other person where behaviors can escalate. For example, it can eventually become the direct sabotage of company projects or another person’s work or anonymous online attacks a coworker or a superior you feel that has harmed you. It can even turn into workplace violence.
The Risks of Revenge-Seeking
Revenge is not best thought of as an emotion. Its a motivational drive, says Kimmel. In our brains we have the prefrontal cortex that is our executive function and self-control circuitry, he says. Its there to prevent you from doing things that harm yourself or others. If you move into that point where you can’t control ityou can’t resist that urgeyou can start engaging in retaliatory behavior in the workplace.
While a revengeful action may feel good in the moment, it comes with risks, says Kimmel. First, you’re harming a relationship that is probably still valuable to you.
Its a double-edged sword, he says. As you’re trying to hurt the other person, you’re almost invariably hurting yourself. Revenge seeking delivers pleasurable dopamine, but its short lived. Youre often left in greater pain than when you started, which can lead to wanting to seek more revenge.
The risks can also become bigger, such as losing your job, losing valuable contacts in the company, and losing your reputation. Those types of experiences can bleed over to your personal life, says Kimmel. All of a sudden, everything you worked for is slowly being undermined or destroyed by an inability to control these revenge desires.
A revengeful person in the workplace is often thought of as a hot head. It’s not about somebody who’s evil, says Kimmel. It’s somebody who’s dealing with powerful revenge desires that are actually an addiction.
Circumventing the Revenge Response
One of the best ways to tamp down the urge for revenge is something else humans are wired for: forgiveness.
Neuroscience shows that when you just imagine forgiving a grievance, it reverses the entire grievance-revenge-seeking process and shuts down the pain network, says Kimmel. It takes away the fantasies you’re having about how to get back at the person.
Forgiveness is often considered a sign of weakness, but Kimmel says its a sign of self-healing. It reactivates your prefrontal cortex executive function and self-control strategy, allowing you to regain control over your behaviors so you don’t do things to hurt yourself or others.
You can use it anytime and as often as you want, says Kimmel. Close your eyes and imagine what it would feel like to forgive. Most people say they would feel better, lighter, and like a weight came off their shoulders. They can leave it in the past and go forward.
If you’re in a toxic workplace, youll need to remove yourself to be happy and healthy. Once the present threat is in the past, its a memory you can no longer experience. Punishing someone or seeking revenge for it, brings the memory into your present and future, day after day.
If one of your goals in life is to have a successful career and workplace experience, you’re going to want to forgive, says Kimmel. A Harvard study showed that winners don’t tally; they don’t seek revenge. People who choose not to punish but to forgive and move on almost invariably win the game. People who are given the opportunity to punish and take it lose the game. We’re always losers when we seek revenge.
If Gen Z is known as the side hustle generation, Gen Alpha may soon take the crown.
A survey of 2,002 U.S. Gen Alpha and Gen Z individuals (ages 12 to 28) by social commerce platform Whop found that more than half are using the internet not simply for brain rot and catching up with friends, but also for earning cash.
The iPad kid generationthe oldest of whom are just 15are already putting their screen time to good use. Nearly half (47.1%) are actively earning online through digital side hustles like selling vintage clothing, streaming video games, and posting on social media. Thats a 15% increase from last year. When it comes to knowing someone who makes money online, that number jumps to 72.3%.
Instead of relying on pocket money, Gen Alpha members are earning an average of $13.92 per hour from their digital pursuitsnearly double the U.S. federal minimum wage of $7.25. Based on those hourly earnings, theyre pulling in the equivalent of a $28,000 full-time annual salary, all before turning 16. At the high end, 1.7% of Gen Alpha and Gen Z hustlers earned more than $40,000 last year.
Social media platforms have opened new doors for work, and young people raised online are best equipped to step through them. The most common side hustle is reselling new or vintage clothes, with one in five (20.1%) of Gen Aers and Gen Zers earning income this way. Others bring in money from streaming video games (14.1%) or competing in esports tournaments (13.1%).
About one in 10 (10.5%) are monetizing content by posting on social media or “clipping”repurposing YouTube videos, podcasts, or livestreams into short, shareable clips with viral potential. Only 9.1% are currently earning through brand sponsorships, though many still dream of becoming full-time creators.
Social media raised this generation, so making money on the internet is now the norm. When you grow up watching YouTube creators and Twitch streamers living lavish lifestyles, its only natural to want to be part of that, Brett Malinowski, the marketing director at Whop, tells Fast Company. Many of todays biggest creators started posting content when they were teenagersand now they realize that this is a way for them to make real money.
So, what are these young hustlers saving for? While many are investing in cryptocurrency or stocks, or putting money aside for college, a house, or a big purchase, their main goal is a familiar one: gaining financial independence from the Bank of Mom and Dad.
These side hustles are also reshaping how they use screen time. Gen Alpha now spends 3.5 fewer hours per week on screens for entertainment or relaxation compared with Gen Z. Instead, theyre dedicating about a fifth (20.3%) of their screen time to their hustles, slightly more than Gen Z, at 19.5%.
With the rising cost of living driving more people to seek extra income, the youngest cohort of workers are leading the chargeand they dont plan to slow down. Over half of Gen Aers (51.5%) say they intend to turn their side hustle into a full-fledged career.
As these generations enter the workforce in greater numbers, theyre ditching the traditional path and forging their own. Theyre not just getting the bagtheyre redefining how its earned.
Theres no shortage of big promises about AI in healthcare. The U.S. government announced a $500 billion Stargate initiative to fund AI infrastructure, while the UK government announced 82.6 million in research funding for three projects, two of which are using AI to tackle cancer and Alzheimers disease.
But ask any patient waiting for a diagnosis, or a clinician searching for certainty, and the real question cuts through all the noise: When will all the innovation deliver real impact where it matters most?
Weve entered an era where healthcare data is measured in exabytesgenomes, images, clinical notes, labs, and signals from every continent. At SOPHiA GENETICS, weve just achieved the milestone of analyzing 2 million patient profiles. Its a number that was unimaginable a decade ago.
Yet the value of data isnt in volume. Its what you do with it. Insight matters only if it changes an outcome, shortens a diagnostic odyssey, or opens up a new chance for a patient.
Its time to move from conversation to action. Too often, insights get trapped in institutional silos or left in endless pilot projects, just out of reach of the people who need them.
3 ways AI is already transforming medicine
Today, technology can connect, for example, a patient in So Paulo with expertise in Seoul, uncovering patterns invisible to the human eye. Here are several ways AI is helping now.
1. Improving diagnostic accuracy: AI algorithms, particularly those based on deep learning, have demonstrated remarkable accuracy in diagnosing diseases from medical images and test results. These systems are trained on vast datasets, allowing them to recognize patterns and anomalies that might be missed by the human eye. For example, in dermatology, AI systems trained on images of skin lesions have shown the ability to detect skin cancers, such as melanoma, with high levels of precision.
2. Enhancing cancer prevention: AI techniques can be used to screen individuals for genomic markers and develop personalized cancer risk prediction scores. This proactive approach can help screen younger patients for genomic predispositions, empowering them to make informed prevention decisions and proactively monitor their health.
3. Tailoring treatments to genomic profiles: One of the most significant applications of AI is in the field of genomics. AI can analyze vast genomic datasets to identify mutations and variations that might influence an individuals response to certain treatments. For example, our SOPHiA DDM product can identify specific genomic markers that are susceptible to targeted cancer therapies, increasing the efficacy of the treatment and minimizing the risk of adverse reactions, for a more effective and safer treatment plan for patients.
To scale up these AI applications there are many regulatory and compliance barriers to overcome. This requires investment in data security, creating clear guidelines, data security measures, and ensuring clinicians are fully trained.
Our goal should be to create a regulatory environment that fosters innovation while safeguarding patient data and promoting public trust. We must democratize this powerful data to enable more physicians, practices, and hospitals to incorporate AI into daily clinical use so that a greater number of patients can access data-driven medicine, not just a select few.
My message for governments investing in AI is clear: Balance investing in future AI tools with validating existing solutions that have already been proven to improve patient outcomes. Build the bridges that turn breakthroughs into benefits, so that data-driven medicine becomes a reality for every patient.
Jurgi Camblong is cofounder and CEO of SOPHiA GENETICS.
Walk through any trendy shopping area and you’ll notice something. A familiar grouping of brands. Entryways into hospitable, curated spaces inviting you in for a hang. The music is right. The lighting is low. Brand-approved candles are lit. The mood is unmistakable.
Youre stepping into a worldview.
Theres a tempo to it. A shared language. A subtle but clear sense that youve crossed a threshold; one where youre more than a customer, youre a part of something.
That feeling isnt accidental and it isnt just marketing. Its anthropology.
The best retail experiences optimize beyond conversion. Theyre engineered for belonging. On pieces themselves, garment branding may be subtle or even invisible. It becomes an IYKYK (if you know, you know) situation, and that may be the most powerful (and most overlooked) advantage in modern commerce: Brands that create community intentionally, intelligently and culturally are building moats no discount can breach.
Retail is becoming ritual
Humans are wired for tribes. Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar proposed that we maintain meaningful relationships in nested social groups, with the most stable number being around 150. Its now known as Dunbars Number. When a brand creates the conditions for that kind of familiarity through design, cadence, tone, and storytelling, awareness starts to feel an awful lot like identity.
This isnt just theory:
Kantar research notes that millennials, in particular, value brands that foster community and shared identity, suggesting that belonging is a purchase driver.
GWIs trend data shows that even Gen Z (the most digitally native generation) prefers in-store shopping for apparel as long as it delivers something meaningful.
Social Identity Theory shows we become like the groups we join. The more a brand helps someone say, This is who I am, the more likely they are to return, advocate, and embed themselves in the ecosystem.
Were clearly seeing this shift play out across retail.
Café Leon Dore offers coffee and sets a scene. The space blends Aimé Leon Dores boutique retail with the mood of an old-world social club: polished wood, curated reading material, and an unspoken dress code you can feel.
Lacostes country clubthemed concept stores evoke the quiet prestige and ritual of tennis clubs and exclusive enclaves. Think crests, clay courts, locker rooms.
Genesis House in New Yorks Meatpacking District, Hyundais luxury showroom, is a restaurant, library, and event space. You literally cant even buy a car there.
These arent nostalgic flourishes. They are signals built using visual language that says: This space is for you. Settle in and stay a while.
Modern retailers have embraced the third place, the essential social space outside home and work where people gather, connect, and express identity. Its the role barbershops and jazz clubs once played. Now were seeing it in stores by Kith, Tecovas, Alo, Vuori, Todd Snyder, Lululemon, Buck Mason, and others.
From transaction to tribe
Contrary to how it seems on the surface, this shift is all about structure.
Its a move from customer relationship management (CRM) to community, from footfall to familiarity, from stores as destinations to stores as social signals.
Brand strategists call this concept brand citizenship: a framework where people effectively join the brands they shop. That shift changes everything about how you design space, train staff, listen, and measure.
Heres the tension: You cant spreadsheet your way into a community. You have to observe, and design for soft signals. Data plays a critical role, but the output is mood, energy, attention, flow. Its about sense-making.
Belonging is the differentiator
In a world of endless options, the scarcest resource is meaning. Thats what the best retail brands are offering. Beyond products, they offer places to align, express, and belong.
So no, the store isnt dying and we never stopped going to the mall.
The mall just splintered, reborn as a network of third-place brands with better lighting and better coffee.
The next wave of retail isnt about traffic. Its about tribes.
The brands that understand this will win.
The store is no longer the finish line: Its the invitation.
James Chester is cofounder and CEO of WVN.
Boring is expensive. The first time I saw those words was the summer of 2023. Our head of strategy in New York had them on a slide during a meeting, and it stopped me cold.
Since then, its become something of a mantra around here, not because it was a new idea, but because it captured something Ive felt in my bones since the beginning of our agency.
It put a price tag on the thing weve been fighting all along: sameness.
Ive always believed that distinctive work wins. It wins creatively, emotionally, and commercially. That the best advertising doesnt blend in with the category. It stands out from it. Sometimes it even does the exact opposite of what the rest of the category is doing.
And now, more than ever, that matters.
The age of sameness
Were living in an age of sameness. Average is everywhere. The gravitational pull to fit in is strong. And Im not just talking about advertising.
Fitting in, after all, is a good thing for us humans.
We want to belong. We want to blend in with the group.
We want our kids to be accepted at school.
We even want our dogs to fit in with their furry friends at the dog park.
But if youre a brand, fitting in is the fast track to irrelevance.
When everything looks and feels the same, what are people supposed to base their choice on? Usually, its price.
The cost of boring
At our company, we talk a lot about fighting sameness.” Because while comfort might feel like safer bet (especially in turbulent times), safe can be forgettable. And it can be costly.
Thats what research from Binet & Field, System1, and the IPA has shown us:
Emotional ads that drive fame are 29% more likely to deliver major profit growth
Roughly 50% of ads are neutral, meaning they make people feel nothing
Dull ads require 7.3 more share of voice pointsor around 9.8M more in spendjust to compete with a strong emotional campaign
Thats the cost of boring.
And weve seen the upside of doing the opposite when brands are brave enough to stand out, the results follow.
Like when Extra Gum launched their now-famous comeback ad in 2021, set to Celine Dions Its All Coming Back to Me Now. While most brands were preaching caution and isolation, Extra leaned into humor, joy, and pent-up human connection. Sales spiked. Brand metrics jumped. It won the Global Grand Effie, the top recognition for advertising effectiveness.
Make people feel something
Weve seen it firsthand in our own work, too.
At the height of inflation, we launched The Fixed-Rate Pizza for Pizza Pizza, a tongue-in-cheek campaign that treated pizza like a financial asset. People could lock in their price for a full year, complete with pre-approvals. It cut through the noise and immediately drove increases to store, web traffic, and sales growth.
With Harrys, our brand platform Man, that feels good challenged the overpromising masculinity tropes of the grooming category. And it’s paying off. Honesty has always been part of the brands DNA and leaning back into it has drove lifts in awareness, consideration, and perceived quality across the board.
When the work dares to be different and it makes people feel something, it works better. Full stop.
So yes, boring is expensive might be a clever turn of phrase. But to all of us in the marketing community, its more than that.
Its a reminder. A challenge.
And maybe even a little warning.
So if you’re in a position to shape the work, as a marketer, as a CEO, as a CFO, this is your moment.
Push for the bold
The next time you brief your agency, ask for something you havent seen before. Something that makes you feel something. Resist the comfort of category conventions. Dont reach for the familiar. Reach for the stuff that scares you a little. The stuff that gets talked about, remembered, and passed around.
Fight for the work that doesnt blend in.
Back your creative teams when they bring you bold, emotional, human ideas. No, actually push them further. Challenge them to surprise you.
Because safe might get approved, but it rarely moves the needle.
So push for bold. Ask for different. Fight sameness.
Mike Sutton is president and CEO of Zulu Alpha Kilo.
