0:10
Psychedelic Nation? Psilocybin Treatments Offer New Hope for People Prozac Hasn’t Helped
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, once a “very anxious, unhappy person,” credits a psychedelic experience at a weekend-long retreat with helping him become a new man.
He’s not unique among Silicon Valley luminaries: Some of the 21st century’s most famous tech innovators, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk and Sergey Brin, have reportedly sought out such experiences, too (on the record, or otherwise).
In fact, using psychedelics is increasingly en vogue among C-suite types, even serving as the basis for new age corporate retreats. While medical professionals warn that psychedelics, once the villains in horror stories about the dangers of drug abuse, still carry risks, decades of academic research grant substantial scientific weight to claims that they possess healing properties.
Now, the pharmaceutical industry, and, more importantly, its regulators, appear ready to bring psychedelic drugs into the mainstream of Western medicine. In April, the White House issued an executive order directing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to fast-track the review process for psychedelic drugs, which research suggests could be highly potent for treating mental health disorders, particularly for the large swaths of patients who haven’t benefited from existing medications and therapies. By most estimates, as many as 30% of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder have proven treatment-resistant.
“A sitting president giving psychedelics-as-medications prioritized attention in the Oval Office is essentially without precedent,” Sabune Winkler, a lawyer and founding member of the Psychedelic Bar Association, told The Daily Upside.
In the months since Trump’s order, the industry has turned a corner, with a recent pair of promising late-stage clinical trial results propelling it further toward legitimacy. Investors have taken notice. The AdvisorShares Psychedelics ETF, which tracks companies exposed to psychedelic drugs, has surged more than 35% in 2026 and more than 60% in the past 12 months.
In other words, to use the parlance of mental health experts, the psychedelic drug industry may be on the verge of a “breakthrough.” The pharmaceutical industry and its investors simply label it an opportunity. Still, experts told The Daily Upside, the burgeoning industry faces barriers to both commercialization and widespread patient access.
While psychedelic treatments are perhaps most commonly associated with psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychoactive compound in so-called “magic mushrooms,” they now harness an array of substances, both naturally occurring and otherwise. For instance, ibogaine, an alkaloid found in an African root shrub, was shown in a landmark Stanford University study in 2024 to have been an effective treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Peyote-sourced mescaline is also a commonly used naturally occurring compound, while drugs built off of synthetic compounds such as methylone, MDMA and LSD are working their way through the pipelines, too.
The science behind the various psychedelic substances tends to be similar, with the various compounds interacting with the human brain in a notably different way than the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft that dominate the antidepressant market today. While SSRIs require daily doses to regulate serotonin levels in the brain, psychedelics engage the brain’s serotonin receptors more directly, creating new brain cells and new brain wave connections in a process called neuroplasticity.
“[Psychedelic drugs] give both the psychedelic experience, which is huge for many individuals, but it’s also causing these new brain connections to change,” Dr. Andrew Coop, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, told The Daily Upside. “There’s a physiological change as well as the psychological aspect.”
The difference in how the treatments interact with the brain aligns increasingly with shifting scientific consensus on the causes of mental health disorders, long attributed to chemical imbalances.
Proving the effectiveness of psychedelics to treat mental health conditions in clinical settings has proven somewhat difficult, however. For starters, maintaining an effective placebo group is inherently difficult with a drug expected to deliver an observable psychoactive experience. Meanwhile, psychedelic drugs are typically designed for therapy-assisted use, a framework that experts said the FDA’s modern approval process is not necessarily designed for.
“A key component of the success of these medications is that therapy side of things,” Dr. Coop said. “The FDA approves drugs; they don’t approve therapy.”
Trump’s April executive order is a sign that the system might be ready to change to accommodate the emerging field.
5:22
3 metrics to help you measure AI’s impact
Artificial intelligence in software development has moved rapidly from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment. Coding assistants, automated documentation, AI-powered testing, and intelligent development tools are now embedded in the daily workflows of many engineering teams. At the same time, organizations are expanding AI initiatives far beyond traditional IT functions while also raising expectations from business leaders who want faster delivery, greater automation, broader adoption, and real business outcomes.
For CFOs, the question is no longer whether AI is entering the enterprise, but whether the growing investment behind it is translating into measurable business value.
This surge in demand is placing substantial pressure on AI development teams. Rather than supporting a handful of pilot projects, developers are now expected to deliver and maintain AI capabilities across multiple business functions simultaneously. AI can significantly increase activity and output, but more projects, more code, and more automation do not automatically translate into better business results. As AI demand spreads across functions, leaders need a clearer way to separate useful acceleration from activity that simply adds complexity.
The most useful place to start is with three questions. Are teams delivering customer-visible improvements more quickly? Is quality holding steady or improving? And is AI freeing up capacity for higher-value work and improved decision making?
The metrics you choose need to be owned at the leadership level. Measurement that doesn’t connect to a business outcome is noise. While the right mix will vary by organization, most metrics fall into three categories that matter regardless of industry or scale.
The first metric to consider is speed. How quickly are teams delivering valuable enhancements? It’s not just about moving faster for the sake of speed, but about accelerating the journey from concept to deployment in a way that provides real benefits to users. When AI empowers engineers to turn ideas into releases more efficiently, it enables earlier feedback, faster learning cycles, and a more direct route from investment to tangible business outcomes.
The second metric to focus on is quality. Faster output is only valuable if the results maintain high standards. Leaders should watch for signs that reliability is stable or improving, such as a reduction in defects reaching customers, fewer preventable incidents, and decreased need for engineering rework. If AI increases speed but leads to more downstream issues, the supposed benefits will quickly be overwhelmed by costly setbacks.
The third metric to evaluate is capacity. AI handles tasks such as drafting, summarizing, triaging, and other repetitive engineering work—but how are skilled teams using this newly freed time? The greatest benefits come from creating space for innovation, implementing customer-facing enhancements, and pursuing initiatives that drive true competitive advantage. In many organizations, these opportunities for higher-value work are the most significant return on AI investment.
These three metrics of speed, quality, and capacity give leaders a practical way to judge whether AI is changing outcomes rather than just increasing activity. They are simple enough to use in business conversations and strong enough to support better investment decisions.
Trust is essential for success, making it critical that AI be governed by well-defined guardrails for data usage, review, and validation. As agents enter production, the criticality rises, so leaders should establish usage policies before they’re needed, not after an incident forces the issue. That means four things:
Governance: Agents operate within defined policy boundaries that include controls over model access, permitted actions, and audit trails. This is what gives leaders the confidence to expand adoption without losing control.
Reviewable: Agent activity is visible and surfaced into the workflows where developers already work. When a developer can see, understand, and override what an agent has done, the system has integrity.
Accountable: Human judgment is the check at every critical junction. Agents write the code, open the pull request, run the tests—a human approves the merge.
Aligned to outcomes: Governance and measurement must be connected. The audit trail only has value tied to the business objectives you defined at the outset. Together, these four principles turn governance from a blocker into the foundation that makes scaling AI possible.
For leadership teams, measuring the impact of AI in software development isn’t about throwing around numbers and technical details. It’s about gaining clear insight into whether the organization is becoming more efficient, dependable, and capable of focusing employees on high-value activities.
10:36
Working through menopause symptoms? Try these tips
More than half of women say they’re “not prepared at all” for perimenopause or menopause—yet most are already feeling the effects at work.
According to recent data from InHerSight, a careers platform for women, 76% say hormonal shift symptoms affect their work regularly—multiple days per month or more.
The list of symptoms is long and disruptive: brain fog, exhaustion, joint pain, hot flashes, memory loss, poor concentration, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and so on. But many say these symptoms remain unaccommodated by their workplaces.
“A big misconception is that hormonal symptoms are ‘personal issues’ rather than workplace-relevant performance factors,” says Dr. Diana Hoppe, a board-certified ob-gyn who has spent three decades helping women navigate perimenopause and menopause. “Brain fog, poor sleep, and fatigue directly impact focus, decision-making, and productivity. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away; it reduces performance and retention.”
The costs are significant, too—to companies’ bottom line and to women’s careers. Symptoms often result in an uptick in sick and personal days, contributing to an estimated $1.8 billion in lost work time annually. And because perimenopause typically begins at a peak influence age—the mid-to-late 40s—women experiencing symptoms can lose ground during the years when they’re in positions they’ve worked hard to reach.
Still, there’s hope. While there is no universal solution to make working through hormonal shifts easier—every body is different— a combination of daily habits and workplace support can make a significant difference in women’s lives.
You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through the workday. With the right habits, you can work with your body instead of against it. Let’s tackle your main distractors, symptom by symptom.
Symptoms: brain fog and poor concentration
“One of the biggest mindset shifts I teach women is this: Your symptoms are not random. They are signals,” Hoppe says. Brain fog, for example, is a physiological response to fluctuating estrogen, not a sign of declining competence. Learn to work with your brain’s capacity instead of fighting against it.
- Build an external memory system. Record meetings, use voice memos to capture ideas in real time, and keep a running “brain dump” doc open during your workday.
- Keep notes visible if you’re presenting or leading a meeting and ask for things in writing: “Can you send me a quick summary?”
- Drink more water than you think you need. Even mild dehydration can measurably impact cognition. Aim for at least half your body weight in ounces per day.
Symptoms: fatigue and sleep disruption
“If you wake up between 2 a.m.–4 a.m., that’s often tied to cortisol shifts or blood sugar dips,” Hoppe says. “In perimenopause, hormonal fluctuations in estradiol and progesterone can lead to sleep disruption, which then can lead to a cascade effect of fatigue and irritability.” Structure your day around your energy to stop the cycle.
- Get outside within the first hour of waking. Morning light exposure resets your circadian rhythm and signals to your brain that the day has started.
- Cut caffeine earlier than you think. Caffeine has a half-life of five to seven hours, meaning an afternoon cup at 3 p.m. is still partially active in your system at 8 p.m. Try cutting off caffeine by 1 p.m. and see if sleep quality improves within a few days.
- Take a real break every 90–120 minutes. A 10-minute walk, especially outdoors, can improve energy and mood by regulating cortisol and boosting circulation.
- Batch your work. Identify your highest-focus window of two to three hours and protect it for deep work. Batch meetings, emails, and administrative tasks into lower-energy periods rather than letting them bleed into your peak hours.
Symptoms: cramps, migraines, and chronic pain
When asked in the survey what the most difficult part of managing hormonal symptoms at work is, one woman told InHerSight: “Feeling like I have to hide it since it’s not ‘appropriate’ to talk about. It is hard to grin and bear when I am struggling with cramps and PMS.” You can’t always predict a bad day, but you can prepare for one.
- Have a work-from-home fallback plan ready. If your workplace offers flexibility, decide which tasks might be better done remotely or asynchronously on high-symptom days.
- Keep a migraine kit at your desk. Darkness, cold, and quiet are the three things most migraine sufferers need quickly. Keep a small cold pack, noise-cancelling headphones, and pain relief you’ve already cleared with your doctor within reach.
- Communicate without overexplaining. A simple “I’m managing a health issue today and working with limited screen time” is enough. If you have a trusted manager, a brief heads-up, “I have a condition that occasionally causes severe headaches—here’s my plan for today,” can build understanding without sacrificing privacy.
- Talk to your doctor about cycle-related pain.
15:56
Trump's God, guns and anticommunist Fourth of July
President Trump championed American military might, a Christian U.S. and his top legislative goal in a delayed Fourth of July speech from the National Mall, wrapping just minutes before the calendar switched to Sunday morning.
The big picture: The speech caps a holiday interrupted by weather-related holdups and months of semiquincentennial commemorations — many of which centered on the president and his vision of the nation at 250 years old.
Driving the news: Throughout the speech, Trump nodded to a modern-day battle against communism, a frequent element of his midterm messaging.
- "We don't want communists in our country," he said. "Never worked, and it never will work."
- Trump later added, "Communism is a loser, and it always will be."
Zoom out: The president's language was also markedly religious — in line with the tone from the White House and its allies that has steered America's 250th birthday toward prayer and divine guidance, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.
- "All over the world, they try and be like us, nobody can be like us, and with God's help, we will always be this, or even better," he said.
- "As our Declaration of Independence tells us, we are all made in the image of one almighty God, and a communist will never say that, that's for sure," he added.
Several military veterans and the Artemis II crew joined the stage to cheers as the president touted America's history of military achievements, sacrifice and innovation.
- But he also diverted to push for passage of the SAVE America Act voter ID bill, a fixation of the president's that has become a source of friction for his congressional allies.
- "There will be no mail-in ballots, except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel, and you won't have cheating on the elections anymore," said the president, who often circulates unfounded claims of mass election fraud.
Catch up quick: Trump took the stage after storms forced throngs of event-goers to evacuate, seek temporary shelter, and then be re-screened through security checkpoints when gates reopened.
- The timing of the celebration's finale fireworks was already in flux, with Trump pledging he'd give a "really long speech" despite the heat wave bringing triple-digit temperatures to D.C.
Go deeper: Trump declares D.C.'s July 4 celebration a "TRUMP RALLY"
18:29
Psychedelic Nation? Psilocybin Treatments Offer New Hope for People Prozac Hasn’t Helped
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, once a “very anxious, unhappy person,” credits a psychedelic experience at a weekend-long retreat with helping him become a new man.
He’s not unique among Silicon Valley luminaries: Some of the 21st century’s most famous tech innovators, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk and Sergey Brin, have reportedly sought out such experiences, too (on the record, or otherwise).
In fact, using psychedelics is increasingly en vogue among C-suite types, even serving as the basis for new age corporate retreats. While medical professionals warn that psychedelics, once the villains in horror stories about the dangers of drug abuse, still carry risks, decades of academic research grant substantial scientific weight to claims that they possess healing properties.
Now, the pharmaceutical industry, and, more importantly, its regulators, appear ready to bring psychedelic drugs into the mainstream of Western medicine. In April, the White House issued an executive order directing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to fast-track the review process for psychedelic drugs, which research suggests could be highly potent for treating mental health disorders, particularly for the large swaths of patients who haven’t benefited from existing medications and therapies. By most estimates, as many as 30% of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder have proven treatment-resistant.
“A sitting president giving psychedelics-as-medications prioritized attention in the Oval Office is essentially without precedent,” Sabune Winkler, a lawyer and founding member of the Psychedelic Bar Association, told The Daily Upside.
In the months since Trump’s order, the industry has turned a corner, with a recent pair of promising late-stage clinical trial results propelling it further toward legitimacy. Investors have taken notice. The AdvisorShares Psychedelics ETF, which tracks companies exposed to psychedelic drugs, has surged more than 35% in 2026 and more than 60% in the past 12 months.
In other words, to use the parlance of mental health experts, the psychedelic drug industry may be on the verge of a “breakthrough.” The pharmaceutical industry and its investors simply label it an opportunity. Still, experts told The Daily Upside, the burgeoning industry faces barriers to both commercialization and widespread patient access.
While psychedelic treatments are perhaps most commonly associated with psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychoactive compound in so-called “magic mushrooms,” they now harness an array of substances, both naturally occurring and otherwise. For instance, ibogaine, an alkaloid found in an African root shrub, was shown in a landmark Stanford University study in 2024 to have been an effective treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Peyote-sourced mescaline is also a commonly used naturally occurring compound, while drugs built off of synthetic compounds such as methylone, MDMA and LSD are working their way through the pipelines, too.
The science behind the various psychedelic substances tends to be similar, with the various compounds interacting with the human brain in a notably different way than the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft that dominate the antidepressant market today. While SSRIs require daily doses to regulate serotonin levels in the brain, psychedelics engage the brain’s serotonin receptors more directly, creating new brain cells and new brain wave connections in a process called neuroplasticity.
“[Psychedelic drugs] give both the psychedelic experience, which is huge for many individuals, but it’s also causing these new brain connections to change,” Dr. Andrew Coop, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, told The Daily Upside. “There’s a physiological change as well as the psychological aspect.”
The difference in how the treatments interact with the brain aligns increasingly with shifting scientific consensus on the causes of mental health disorders, long attributed to chemical imbalances.
Proving the effectiveness of psychedelics to treat mental health conditions in clinical settings has proven somewhat difficult, however. For starters, maintaining an effective placebo group is inherently difficult with a drug expected to deliver an observable psychoactive experience. Meanwhile, psychedelic drugs are typically designed for therapy-assisted use, a framework that experts said the FDA’s modern approval process is not necessarily designed for.
“A key component of the success of these medications is that therapy side of things,” Dr. Coop said. “The FDA approves drugs; they don’t approve therapy.”
Trump’s April executive order is a sign that the system might be ready to change to accommodate the emerging field.
23:41
I spent years building a life in New York. Losing my job meant leaving my cats, my apartment, and the US.
- Vivienne Yang moved from Taiwan to New York City in 2018 to chase the American dream.
- After she was laid off in 2024, she had to leave her Brooklyn apartment and her two cats behind.
- Now she's found peace in Taiwan, where she no longer has to worry about visas or her personal safety.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Vivienne Yang, a 31-year-old Taiwanese national who lost her job and had to leave the US because of her visa status, leaving behind her apartment and two cats. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I started falling for the American dream when I was in third grade.
It was a mix of realizing that the Taiwanese education system wasn't really designed for me and becoming hooked on American pop culture like Taylor Swift, "Twilight," and "America's Next Top Model."
In 2018, at 23, I moved to New York for a master's in applied analytics at Columbia University, then landed a job in Manhattan's ad-tech industry.
Over the next five years, I worked two full-time jobs, one after the other, each paying about $100,000, until I was laid off in 2024.
It was October, and I was on the second day of a 10-day trip to Japan with my partner when I learned I'd been laid off.
I was watching Japanese TV shows in our Airbnb after a day of sightseeing in Osaka, when my colleague called me on Instagram to say he couldn't find my Slack or email and that it looked like my account had been deactivated.
I didn't receive any calls from HR because my US SIM card wasn't working.
I tried to have fun on the trip while struggling with immigration issues. I spent my mornings talking to immigration and labor lawyers and emailing HR.
And then in the afternoons, we would go sightseeing. The emotions came two days after I heard the news, and I cried at a shrine in Kyoto. I was praying that I could go back to the US.
The company agreed to prolong my employment for a few weeks so that I could return to the US.
I had built a life in the US. My entire friend circle and my two cats were there, and I'd spent years saving so I could buy a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.
During my grace period, I changed from an H-1B to a B-2 tourist visa so I could stay in the US a little longer, and I later renewed my B-2 so I could stay for a full year. My lawyer told me not to mention that I was a homeowner, because it could make it look like I intended to immigrate.
Job searching was difficult. I spent a few months on the hunt, with more than 20 unsuccessful interviews.
Then, in September last year, the Trump administration rolled out the $100,000 fee for new H-1B applicants. Although that wouldn't have applied to me, I feel like it affected employers' willingness to hire foreign workers.
After a few months, I stopped focusing on corporate jobs. I couldn't see myself in corporate America anymore. I'd always loved acting and got accepted into an acting program in New York, and was supposed to start in March this year.
In December 2025, I traveled back to Taiwan to apply for a student visa. I cried the whole way to JFK airport and on the plane. It felt like I was leaving for good.
My gut was right. My student visa was rejected because I demonstrated immigration intent. I asked my American partner to move into my apartment to take care of the cats — Dexter and Deborah — while I figured out how to get back.
I told him not to ship my stuff because I was set on going back.
Then I realized that, given the current political climate and the state of the economy, it doesn't make sense to return to America anytime soon.
In Taiwan, I don't need to worry about my personal safety all the time.
It's also so weird not having to worry about a visa. Now I can get any random gig without worrying: "Oh, if I want to do this, what kind of visa do I need to get?"
One of my biggest worries over the past year in New York was not having health insurance and not knowing if I could afford to see a doctor.
In Taiwan, especially the northeastern town of Yilan, where I live, I can just pop into a clinic and spend less than $10.
It has been a bit strange getting used to living with my family again.
Now I live in a three-bedroom apartment with my mom, dad, sister, and grandma, and there are rules in this house, like where things should be placed and how many layers to wear during colder months.
I sleep on a portable bed in the storage room without air conditioning, because there's not enough space in the house. It felt like my life got downgraded.
I don't want to deal with visa issues anytime soon, so I don't have plans to move.
My partner plans to bring the cats in October.
I've been focusing on content creation here, while also teaching public speaking in English.
28:49
The state of ‘Made in the USA’ products
Levi’s jeans. Rawlings baseballs. Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
These are just a few products synonymous with America that are manufactured in other countries. That’s because the only thing more American than jeans, baseballs, and motorcycles is maximizing profits and undercutting competitors by using cheaper foreign labor and materials.
The FTC requires a product advertised as “Made in USA” to be “all or virtually all” produced in the US, although companies can list caveats (e.g., “Couch assembled in USA from Italian leather and Mexican frame”). There are significant obstacles for products to get made 100% in the only country that has Waffle House:
- The US abides by 14 free trade agreements with 20 countries that either reduce or eliminate tariffs and shorten supply chains, making production abroad significantly cheaper.
- Per the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 11% of the value of US exports in 2021 came from inputs from other countries.
Have tariffs helped? President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff plan in April 2025 was designed to reinvigorate American production. The US did strike some trade deals in which other countries committed to investing in the US—but any impact could take years to materialize. In the meantime, the US Congress Joint Economic Committee found in February that the US lost 108,000 manufacturing jobs during the first year of Trump’s second term.—DL
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30:27
US companies that will define the next 250 years
In 1776, no one could have predicted that in 250 years, Nvidia, a graphics processing unit manufacturer, would be the world’s most valuable company by market cap (okay, Benjamin Franklin probably did). So, take that under advisement as we try predicting the companies that will shape the United States over the next 250 years.
AI 4 life: It’s hard to know where AI will eventually take us, but companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are poised to dominate. Also, keep an eye on Amazon’s massive cloud business, which shows no signs of slowing down as it accommodates multiple companies’ computing and storage needs.
A safe ’bet: Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is especially well positioned for the future. Aside from its search, cloud, and smartphone businesses:
- The company’s Gemini AI models have been holding their own against competition.
- It has a ~14% stake in AI giant Anthropic and a 6.1% stake in SpaceX.
- It’s a major player in quantum computing.
- Its self-driving unit, Waymo, is rapidly expanding.
Power struggle: Between data centers and Europeans returning home from the World Cup and deciding they need air conditioning, energy demand is surging. Exxon Mobil and Chevron are on top right now, but the future could belong to atomic-fusion startups like Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Helion Energy, and Zap Energy.
Future-proof: Death will probably still be around in 250 years, so healthcare businesses likely aren’t going anywhere. According to the Wall Street Journal, Johnson & Johnson is the one best positioned for the future.—BC
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32:16
The most iconic US brands of the last 250 years
Over two-and-a-half centuries, the US has created a lot of companies. Here are some that changed business and culture, churned out legendary logos, and made commercials that will flash before our eyes on our deathbeds:
Coca-Cola. The company that made those epic Freestyle machines at the movies (and the Federal Reserve) was officially incorporated in Atlanta in 1892 to sell the syrupy concoction created six years earlier by John S. Pemberton, a morphine-addicted chemist and former Confederate soldier. Today, Coke controls about 40% of the nonalcoholic beverage market.
McDonald’s. Ray Kroc is credited with opening the first Mickey D’s in 1955. If you’re going off of the company’s corporate website, Kroc acquired the rights to the business from the McDonald brothers in 1961, but if you’re going off of the 2016 Michael Keaton film, Kroc ripped that burger empire right out from under them. It now spans 36,000 locations worldwide.
Ford and GM. Ford Motor Company gave us the assembly line, eight-hour workdays, and, of course, the Mustang. Ford’s factories, along with those of its chief competitor, General Motors (GM), were ground zero for some of the most defining moments in labor union history. The 1936 Flint sit-down strike at GM saw 136,000 workers participate over 44 days and led to the recognition of the United Auto Workers at the company.
General Electric. Tracing its origins back to Thomas Edison in 1892, GE ushered in a new era of consumerism with electric appliances like dishwashers and home refrigerators. Perhaps the company’s most iconic CEO, Jack Welch, introduced something even more integral to the business world: increasing shareholder value.
Big Tech companies. Microsoft was the first company to hit a $500 billion market cap in 1999, a milestone Apple later surpassed, logging a $1 trillion market cap in 2018. Other Big Tech companies, like Amazon and Facebook (now Meta), kick-started the era of celebrity CEOs.
The others: You’ve probably heard of Walmart, Disney, and Nike—all American. And don’t forget Chick-fil-A and Starbucks. Also, whatever brand Sam Elliott got hired to do a gravely voiceover for.—MM
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34:42
Majority Believes They Will Achieve The American Dream
69 percent of Americans say they’ll achieve their own American Dream, according to a Gallup poll earlier this year. That optimism sits next to a more cautious view: 54 percent think the Dream isn’t within reach for everyone these days.
When asked about others, people get soberer, but personal confidence stays high. Still, 58 percent feel the Dream is unfinished, hinting at a lingering sense of disillusion‑discontent in the current climate.
The split isn’t partisan—Republicans and Democrats show similar numbers, though Republicans are a touch more likely to say the Dream has succeeded for them.
In open‑ended responses, a third cite freedom and individual rights, while 28 percent point to financial stability or homeownership, and only 18 percent mention upward mobility outright.
