Latest news with #FastCompany
Fast Company
21 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Staying hands on made scaling to $1B+ fun for Cloudflare's founder
On this week's Most Innovative Companies podcast, Cloudflare COO Michelle Zatlyn talks with Fast Company staff writer David Salazar about hitting $1B in revenue and going global, as well as why defending businesses of all sizes online is more necessary than ever.
Fast Company
a day ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Trader Joe's new store openings: Full updated list of new locations coming soon across 17 states
If you're a fan of Trader Joe's, there is some good news: The company says it will open 30 new locations across America soon. Here's what you need to know about the beloved (but controversial) grocery store chain's latest openings. 30 new Trader Joe's locations to open soon Back in April, Fast Company reported that Trader Joe's was set to open 22 new stores soon. Now the retailer has expanded that list. As of today, the chain's store locator tool shows that it has 30 new locations listed as 'coming soon.' Those locations span 17 states and the District of Columbia. (Some of this list was reported earlier by USA Today.) The states with the most new openings are California, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas, all with three new stores listed as coming soon. Louisiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Utah all have two store openings each. According to an announcement on the company's website, the next Trader Joe's location to open will be its Northridge, California, store at 9224 Reseda Blvd. That store will open on Monday, July 21, at 9 a.m. according to the company's store locator tool. Arizona N Bullard Ave & McDowell Rd, Goodyear, AZ 85395 California 9224 Reseda Blvd, Northridge, CA 91325 2330 Foothill Blvd, La Verne, CA 91750 31545 Yucaipa Boulevard, Yucaipa, CA 92399 Colorado 9350 Sheridan Blvd, Westminster, CO 80031 Connecticut 801 Bridgeport Ave, Shelton, CT 06484 District of Columbia 5335 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20015 Florida 1511 Cornerstone Blvd, Daytona Beach, FL 32117 Georgia 258 City Circle, Peachtree City, GA 30269 Louisiana 2428 Napoleon Ave, New Orleans, LA 70115 2501 Tulane Ave, New Orleans, LA 70119 Massachusetts 1999 Centre St, Boston, MA 02132 1165 Needham St, Newton, MA 02464 Missouri 201 N Stadium Blvd, Columbia, MO 65203 New Jersey 675 US-1, Iselin, NJ 08830 New York 6400 Amboy Rd, Staten Island, NY 10309 388 Feura Bush Rd, Glenmont, NY 12077 302 NY-25A Miller Place, Miller Place, NY 11764 Oklahoma 1451 E Hillside Dr, Broken Arrow, OK 74012 6920 Northwest Expy, Oklahoma City, OK 73132 2083 NE Burnside Rd, Gresham, OR 97030 Pennsylvania 125 West Lincoln Hwy, Exton, PA 73132 550 Lancaster Ave, Berwyn, PA 19312 South Carolina 115 SayeBrook Pkwy, Myrtle Beach, SC 29588 Texas 12812 Shops Pkwy, Bee Cave, Bee Cave, TX 78738 8101 Eldorado Pkwy, McKinney, TX 75070 11745 I-10 W, San Antonio, TX 78230 Utah 1895 East Rodeo Walk Dr, Holladay, UT 84117 4060 Riverdale Rd, Suite B, Riverdale, UT 84405 Virginia 220 Constitution Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23462 Trader Joe's will soon cross the 600-store threshold Trader Joe's opened its first store in 1967 in Pasadena, California. In the nearly sixty years since, the company has expanded across America. As of April 2025, the company had 581 stores across 42 states and the District of Columbia. Once the company opens the stores on this list, it will cross the 600 store threshold. Yet despite being an increasingly popular national grocery store chain in America, not much is known about Trader Joe's financials, which does not publicly disclose its earnings. Trader Joe's is privately owned and so not traded on any stock exchange.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Are office dress codes still a thing? Gen Z doesn't think so
While there is an intention to blend into the workforce, Gen Z also values self-expression. María José Gutierrez Chavez explains more. The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Fast Company
The simple pleasures of computing in 1995
This is an edition of Plugged In, a weekly newsletter by Fast Company global technology editor Harry McCracken. You can sign up to receive it each Friday and read all issues here. Hello and welcome back to Plugged In. We at Fast Company are uncommonly fond of the year 1995. After all, it's the year we officially began ongoing publication, after putting out a test issue in 1993. But there's a more straightforward reason why we decided to publish a series of stories this week about some of 1995's most significant products and developments. Last year, we produced a package paying tribute to 1994, and it turned out so well we decided to continue the tradition of 30-year-old flashbacks. Here are the seven stories that make up our 1995 Week: Until we began work on these stories, I'd forgotten that in 2015 we published a similar roundup of articles timed to 20 years post-1995 (I told you it's a special year to us.) The topics were entirely different from what we picked this time, so what the heck—here are those pieces, too: Submerged as we are in a never-ending deluge of news about AI and other pressing subjects, it's always nice to have an excuse to briefly press pause on concerns of the day and look back. At the same time I get nervous about growing too nostalgic. Any objective assessment of tech circa 1995 should acknowledge that in many ways it was terrible. For starters, the PCs were disastrously crash-prone and prone to eating your work in a way that's far less common today. Sans modern conveniences such as USB and Wi-Fi, they made tasks as fundamental as adding a printer into a bit of a science project. Online search tools were rudimentary, digital photography wasn't yet capable of competing with film, and downloading software such as Netscape Navigator over a dial-up connection took so long that it was borderline impractical. In short, I don't want to go back. Yet thinking about the period as we worked on our new series, I also developed a new appreciation for what we've lost. Many of the ways technology has changed everyday life for the better were yet to come—but so were most of its downsides. In case you've forgotten the state of computing in 1995—or weren't around to experience it—a study from October of that year provides some helpful context. Conducted by the Times Mirror Center, it reported that only 32% of Americans used computers. Of them, only a subset went online—typically a few times a week. They typically sent three email messages per day and received five. Just 32% of those online said they would miss it 'a lot' if they couldn't do it anymore, a far lower percentage than the newspaper readers and cable TV subscribers who deemed those media essential. In other words, the digital world didn't matter all that much, even to most of the relatively few Americans who were online. It's tough to have an unhealthy relationship with a technology if you use it only occasionally and can easily see yourself living without it. Nobody checked their smartphone a jillion times a day in 1995: Smartphones barely existed and weren't yet connected to the internet. Even laptops were a rarity, owned by only 18% of people who had a PC, according to the Times Mirror study. Instead, computing was still nearly synonymous with desktop PCs, and going online was a conscious decision involving a dial-up modem and a phone line. Unless you had two lines, you couldn't even check your email if someone else in the house was making a call. Compared to a modern computer or phone with a persistent internet connection, a 1995 PC on dial-up was a Fortress of Solitude. Hackers were already wreaking havoc when they could—read Alex Pasternack's story on 'AOHell' for proof—but with e-commerce and online banking still rare, there was a limit to how much damage they could do. Being overrun in notifications was unknown, because there was no practical way to deliver them to a computing device. (Even Pointcast, the famously bandwidth-sucking alert system that pioneered 'push' technology, didn't arrive until 1996.) The business models that powered access to technology in 1995 also feel healthier than those of 2025. Online advertising was already getting rolling— ran the web's first banner ad in October 1994—but the days of tech giants collecting vast amounts of personal data and using it to target advertising were still in the future. People paid for tech products with money, not by sacrificing some of their privacy. In retrospect, it all seems downright Edenesque. But the consumers of 1995—including me—didn't look at it that way, because we didn't know what was to come. The Times Mirror survey says that 50% of respondents were already concerned about computers being used to invade privacy. Some 24% considered themselves 'overloaded with information,' though perhaps they were more stressed out by an excess of cable channels than anything they were doing on a computer. The Times Mirror Center later changed its name to the Pew Research Center and continues to survey Americans about their attitude toward technology. In April, it reported that twice as many adults thought that AI's impact over the next 20 years would be negative than those who expected it to be positive. I can't help but think that the past three decades have left us more jaded than we were in the 1990s—and that it's a fair reaction to what the tech industry has given us. Will the tech of 2045 or 2055 prompt reveries for the simpler times of 2025? It's a scary thought. I repeat: I have no desire to return to the tech of 1995. But understanding it better can help gird us for what's next. That was among our goals for 1995 Week, and I hope it shows in our stories.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
How a legacy theater organization in Massachusetts is using a startup mentality to reinvent itself
Known for launching Broadway hits and hosting celebrity casts, the storied Williamstown Theatre Festival is writing its next chapter, both onstage and behind the scenes. With a new creative director, expanded programming, and what it describes as a startup mentality, the festival aims to become the 'Coachella of theater,' bringing the legacy institution to newfound cultural relevancy. The festival kicked off its 71st iteration on Thursday, July 17, on the picturesque campus of Williams College in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. While not necessarily a household name to non-theater fans, it has been a major springboard for talent for decades, helping to launch the careers of renowned actors Christopher Walken, Bradley Cooper, and Viola Davis, and playwrights Dominique Morisseau, Terrence McNally, and Michael R. Jackson, among many others. Yet despite its storied legacy, the festival is facing similar struggles as its peers. Nonprofit theaters across the country have been hurting since the pandemic, struggling to regain their pre-COVID audiences, leading to a number of closures, fewer shows, and scaled-back programming. 'The traditional nonprofit theater model isn't sustainable anymore, and our choice in this moment was really innovation over inertia,' Raphael Picciarelli, managing director of strategy and transformation at Williamstown, told Fast Company. While before, programming centered on single theater productions, with around seven plays spread out over 12 weeks, the new model condenses the festival's timeline, offers experiences beyond sit-down shows, and brings big names like Jeremy O. Harris and Kaia Gerber to the mix. 'We're really reimagining our entire operating and business model,' Picciarelli says. With big risk comes big investment: The festival is increasing its budget for this summer to $8 million, up from $4.7 million last year. The increase is made possible with help from a number of large anonymous donors, the festival says, while the organization is actively pursuing new revenue streams. Staging transformation Picciarelli first joined Williamstown at a 'point of reflection,' he says, following a series of work culture concerns and rising costs in the industry, and with many live theater organizations still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. With a background in consulting (he advised C-suite executives on how to change organizations from the inside out) in addition to live theater, Picciarelli began consulting for the festival during the summer of 2023. 'The leadership and board made a very sound, responsible decision to pull back in terms of programming and to take a second to really think about the future,' he says, referencing a more limited 2023 repertoire. Early on, Picciarelli identified the organization's strongest traits, its small 14-person full-time team and renowned legacy, which combined with the festival's yearn for change proved to be a perfect opportunity for transformation. 'There was a real desire for innovation, which you don't always see at legacy institutions,' he says. 'Innovation requires the space to try and fail and try again.' For instance, last year the festival held a weekend event with 16 shows to test how many shows could be staged simultaneously. It turns out '16 was too much,' says Antonello Di Benedetto, assistant managing director and a staff member of nine years. 'That's how we settled on eight for this year. We're going to see if that is the right cadence, or if we need to increase it or decrease it next year. But it's totally a prototype.' Serving as an experiment for the future of the festival, and theater industry as a whole, Williamstown is spearheading change with cues from the private sector, and startups in particular. 'Adopting a startup mindset, as opposed to a more institutional mindset, is about testing new formats, rethinking how people access the work, and creating this more flexible, nimble infrastructure to really support that right,' Picciarelli says. New strategies, big names Operationally, one of the biggest additions to the festival is the creation of its ' creative collective,' a group of multidisciplinary guest curators set to rotate every year, led by Harris, who rose to fame as the writer of Broadway's Tony-nominated Slave Play. 'A key part of this innovation in terms of bringing new voices into the artistic process [is] really breaking open the curation model,' Picciarelli says. The collective includes Gerber with Alyssa Reeder; Christopher Rudd; and Alex Stoclet, who are leading the literary, dance, and music curation, respectively. The introduction of musical elements and dance as alternative forms to experience storytelling is also a part of the festival's transformative push. Additionally, the festival is adopting a multiday ticketing approach. 'Its like the Coachella or Sundance of theater, where you're bringing people together over an extended period of time to just immerse themselves,' Di Benedetto says. In terms of onstage programing, organizers are also taking risks and attracting known talent—for instance, by staging the first opera in the festival's history, or bringing actresses like Pamela Anderson and Amber Heard to this year's productions. Visitors can also enjoy visual and audio installations, nature walks, comedy shows, and even a show in an ice rink. 'Building the right guardrails' Beyond what visitors can expect to see while at the festival, a lot of the transformation has taken place behind the curtain to build a new work culture. As is common in the theater industry, labor at the festival had been unregulated and oftentimes unpaid. In 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported on an eight-page letter sent to the Williamstown Theatre Festival's organizers and board of trustees outlining a toxic work culture and pattern of safety hazards in the organization. 'People overworked themselves because they were doing it for the love of the art. But we have to be honest—it's also a profession,' Di Benedetto says. 'If any other industry behaved in the same way, it would never hold water.' He adds that the theater industry 'is now finally catching up to the idea that this is also a job.' Organizers are trying to prove there can be a business model in theater that is not reliant on exploitation. Since 2021, all seasonal workers at the festival are paid regardless of their position, including apprentices and interns. Additionally, while seasonal workers could previously be staffed to do various things, from electrical to costume work, positions are now structured with clear expectations. Written guidelines are also enforced to keep workers and the organization accountable, and to ensure that all team members are treated equitably and respectfully. For instance, daily and weekly hour caps and mandatory breaks throughout the day are now in practice. A list of culture values and statements was also developed ahead of this year's festival, and will be available on the newly launched 'company hub,' which centralizes information for staff. 'As we are in this startup phase and as much as we're really pushing forward in inventive ways, we also know where we've been,' Picciarelli says. 'Part of this work is also continuing to be cognizant and review and be careful with our internal practices to really ensure that this is a healthy, respectful, and sustainable place to be—and to work with that, building the right guardrails, investing in our people in the right way.'
