While working on a PhD in astrophysics, Chris Moody used supercomputers to simulate how galaxies crash into each other. For his first nonacademic job, he joined Square as a data scientist in 2013. About a year later, he started talking with some data

If the idea of a smart coffee cup sounds silly to you, you probably haven’t tried the Ember Ceramic Mug. Envisioned by the San Francisco design studio Ammunition, it has a built-in heater to keep coffee warm for hours, but otherwise looks and feels l

An estimated 15% of all clothes and shoes churned out daily in the $3 trillion global fashion industry go unsold and are dumped in landfills or—worse—incinerated. “Fashion is driven by guess-work months before something is sold in a store,” says Hal

For his first game as an L.A. Laker last October, Kyle Kuzma entered the Staples Center in a pair of vintage 2003 Nike Zoom Flights. It was partially to honor teammate LeBron James, who had worn the style for his NBA debut, but also to build awarenes

One room is full of sequins and kids’ clothes. Another has lamps and tables, and yet another houses beakers of various dishwashing detergents. This is Target’s Minneapolis-based design lab, where Julie Guggemos, the company’s senior VP of product des

With 91 restaurants in eight states and a network of 150 farmers across the country, Sweetgreen has created a fast-casual, farm-to-table empire that’s poised to expand by (at least) another 15 outposts this year. Here’s how the company has embraced i

Early one morning in April 2017, a series of horrific photos and videos began hitting Facebook and YouTube showing civilians in a rebel-held area of northern Syria writhing on the ground and gasping for oxygen as deadly sarin-based gas—which witnesse

In the first half of 2018, Meituan Dianping—a Chinese tech platform that expedites the booking and delivery of services such as food, hotel stays, and movie tickets— facilitated 27.7 billion transactions (worth $33.8 billion) for more than 350 millio

FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, AND OTHER MASTERS OF THE SURVEILLANCE ECONOMY HAVE BRED A VIRULENT MUTATION OF CAPITALISM.

Chinese commerce giant Alibaba’s Hema Xiansheng stores are the showpiece of what it calls “New Retail,” the seamless blending of the digital and physical experience. “Consumers don’t think about the world online versus offline,” says Alibaba Group pr

Pro sports teams can now create merchandise that responds to fan demand near instantaneously, thanks to online retailer Fanatics. The company offers a new low-bandwidth shopping site that works in stadiums with poor cell service, and a platform for p

One of the first things you notice in the new Calgary Central Library, which opened in November, is what isn’t there: a reference desk. Instead, librarians roam the soaring, four-story building, approaching patrons the way salespeople greet customers

With 50% of its population under the age of 19, Africa will be home to the world’s largest workforce by 2035: a billion-plus people who will transform the continent. Statistics like these inspired Ghanaian entrepreneur Fred Swaniker, who opened the A

FOUNDATION MEDICINE For matching cancer patients to breakthrough treatments The promise of precision medicine is becoming a reality in cancer treatment, where patients now routinely have tumors genomically tested before deciding on how to respond.

WITH RECREATIONAL CANNABIS NOW LEGAL ACROSS CANADA, AN $11 BILLION MARIJUANA COMPANY CALLED CANOPY GROWTH—THE COUNTRY’S TOP PLAYER—IS SUDDENLY GETTING PERSONAL WITH MILLIONS OF NEW CUSTOMERS. IF ONLY RETAIL WERE AN EASY BUSINESS TO CULTIVATE.

An online resource for recipes, restaurant reviews, and discussion threads on culinary minutiae (such as how to store sourdough starter or fresh galangal), Food52 has grown over the past decade to reach more than 13 million monthly visitors across pl

Last summer, Netflix offered Hollywood something unexpected: a rare peek inside the highly secretive streaming service. The company rented out a huge L.A. sound-stage and invited each of the major talent agencies to come one by one and watch presenta

WHAT DOES INNOVATION LOOK LIKE IN 2019 AND BEYOND? THE SPEAKERS AT THE FOURTH ANNUAL FAST COMPANY INNOVATION FESTIVAL WEIGH IN.

Wieden+Kennedy leverages its independence to make advertising that transcends branding and drives the pop-culture conversation.