Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2022 i Fast Company

In 2006 when Taylor Francis was 14 years old, he saw Al Gore’s climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Inspired, he wrote to Gore’s organization and soon joined its Climate Reality campaign, spending his high school years traveling the world and giving his own version of Gore’s slideshow presentation. Today, he’s still leveraging data to try to mitigate climate change, as the cofounder of Watershed, a startup whose software helps companies such as Airbnb, DoorDash, and Sweetgreen assess their impact on the environment and develop aggressive net-zero carbon plans. “I’m not having a lot of bleeding-heart conversations,” Francis says. “Carbon disclosure and reduction is part of corporate governance now.” The first seven firms on our 2022 list of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies (page 28), including Watershed at No.…

The compact Small Speaker from Stockholm-based audio company Transparent has polished glass panels and emits a clear sound. Inspired by modernist architecture, the speakers—which have wireless capabilities-are designed to be future-proof: Users can integrate new technologies, including voice control capabilities, via a compartment at the back. (from $550, verishop.com)…

HEAD OF CULTURAL PARTNERSHIPS, SPOTIFY STUDIOS What’s your best habit, and what’s your worst one? I love long showers and I have a meticulous oral care routine, but I take forever in the bathroom and it drives my family and friends crazy! Is there a businessperson you admire? [Former American Express CEO] Ken Chenault. I admire the way he navigated through a complex organization to the very top as a Black man. What’s the buzzword you never want to hear again? “You’re muted.” All right already What’s the best mistake you ever made? I was P. Diddy’s personal assistant, and I didn’t like the direction the job was moving in. The hours and environment were unhealthy. I needed to make an immediate change, so I quit without a backup plan.…

WITH 59 TRILLION BYTES OF DATA from more than 300 satellites and 11,000 sensors, Climate Trace, a coalition of organizations formed in 2020, updates and maintains green house gas emissions estimates to give countries the insight to direct climate mitigation efforts more effectively. It released its comprehensive data sets last September, including these stats. CLIMATE TRACE BRINGS CARBON REPORTING UP TO DATE Official emissions estimates submitted to the UN trail reality, even in countries that are required to report every year like the United States. UN 2014: 11,129.3 CT 2020: 13,687.9 (In million tonnes of carbon equivalent, or CO2e) UN 2019: 5,703.8 CT 2020: 6,858.4 IDENTIFYING EMISSIONS BY SECTOR DIRECTS ATTENTION Climate Trace’s intelligence on where a country such as India creates the most CO2 means that it can assist…

The luxury fashion marketplace, which works with high-end boutiques and labels, helped small businesses weather the pandemic by giving them tools to list their products online and manage orders and shipping, propelling Farfetch’s sales to grow by more than 30% in 2021. The company also began mining its customer data for its own women’s wear line, There Was One, which offers staples like organic cotton T-shirts and biker jackets made from traceable leather. José Neves, Farfetch’s founder and CEO, says the company uses data to inform design and predict demand: “The idea is that we don’t ever overproduce.” There Was One will be the first of several Farfetch brands, he says, all addressing “specific niches.”…

No brand has rolled social media savvy into its marketing mix—and thrived by embracing new platforms—like Chipotle. Chipotle turned its Discord server into a virtual job fair because burritos are gamer fuel—and its $15-an-hour base wage appealed to the young audience. It created a Halloween-themed corn maze in Roblox, offering $1 million worth of free burritos to users who succeeded. The game was so popular—attracting 5 million players—that it was (incorrectly!) blamed for a days-long Roblox outage. Even when Chipotle isn’t breaking the internet, it’s giving its fans something to talk about, such as its apparel collaboration with Carhartt that sold out in minutes. “You need to be thinking about this stuff every day, about being first, being new, and being on the right platform at the right time,” says…

Ramp’s 3,600 enterprise customers use its corporate card to manage expenses and more in one Slack-integrated platform. Businesses can build custom parameters: Last July, for example, Ramp enabled companies to program cards at the merchant level, to either restrict their use with specific vendors or create an approved list. In a volatile economy, saving money has gone from a “nice to have,” says Ramp CEO Eric Glyman, to being key to a company’s prospects. Ramp earns a fractional fee off of every transaction, and when you’re talking about a card that hit $1 billion in annualized spending less than 15 months after launch, those tiny fees add up.…

FOOD52 MAY HAVE started by bridging the gap between aspirational gourmet magazines and intimate food blogs, but its menu has grown alongside the expanding interests of its community, which is focused on the entire home. Last year, Food52 spun its robust content arm into an even more powerful—and broad—commerce platform by acquiring both the cookware brand Dansk and the lighting and home goods company Schoolhouse. “Our goal is for people to see [Food52] as a source of not just beautiful, incredibly well-made home products,” says cofounder and CEO Amanda Hesser, “but also a source for inspiration and information around home design.” With 2021 revenue exceeding $100 million—and most of it coming from e-commerce—Food52 continues to build content and experiences around its products. The company has launched a video-streaming app with…

More than 35 years of research at GlaxoSmithKline came to fruition last fall when the World Health Organization recommended a wide rollout in sub-Saharan Africa of the pharma company’s Mosquirix, the world’s first malaria vaccine and the first vaccine for a parasitic disease. It has been shown, alongside seasonal antimalaria efforts, to be 70% effective at reducing severe malaria and hospitalization of children, who accounted for 460,000 malaria deaths in 2020. “The WHO was looking for another tool in the toolbox to combine with use of bed nets, spray, and antimalarials,” says Thomas Breuer, the company’s chief global health officer. GSK has shipped more than 4 million doses of the vaccine for the pilot program—with roughly 2.7 million already administered—and will supply as many as 15 million doses that it…

USED BY COMPANIES IN CHEMICAL production, construction, and mining, Guardhat’s Communicator hard hat facilitates voice and video calls. It also tracks the wearer’s location and monitors temperature, humidity, pressure, and noise levels. 01 GEOFENCING Paired with Guardhat’s platform, the hat allows for real-time worker safety monitoring. Sites can create virtual boundaries that alert even offline wearers to avoid areas with, say, chemical spills or active cranes. 02 SITE AWARENESS Facilities can set a standard range for ambient temperature and noise levels, with the hard hat sending an alert if it detects anomalies, improving worker wellbeing and site efficiency. 03 A WATCHFUL EYE The built-in camera can be used for video calls to a central command post or support teams, as well as for documentation, with photos stored securely in Guardhat’s…

It’s satisfying to pull up to the curb the moment an order is ready. Location-tech startup Bluedot helps restaurants hit that mark using only software, explains cofounder and CEO Emil Davityan. Bluedot’s product suite, Tempo, which launched last year, tracks a customer’s location, alerting staff to prepare food at the optimal time. If restaurants don’t quite nail the timing perfectly, Bluedot—whose clients include Dunkin’, McDonald’s, and KFC—also offers an augmented reality experience akin to Pokémon Go to entertain customers while they wait.…

CARROT FERTILITY’S PROPOSITION is twofold: Fertility benefits should be available for all and go well beyond egg freezing and in vitro fertilization. Fertility is “a core part of human healthcare,” says Tammy Sun, cofounder and CEO. Used by more than 400 companies with employees in more than 60 countries, the fertility-benefits provider offers myriad services, including ones for adoption and surrogacy. Carrot reports that its total reimbursements have more than tripled in the past year, and it has processed more than $16 million through the flexible spending debit card it launched in 2019. Carrot debuted an online pharmacy (with a clinician always on call to advise on things like IVF hormone injections), a first-of-its-kind at-home fertility test, and an expanded telehealth program that includes mental health experts, doulas, and midwives.…

“Creators are the professors of the future,” says Gagan Biyani, cofounder and CEO of the online learning platform Maven. His year-old service lets digital experts turn the knowledge they have been giving away for free via Twitter, YouTube, and elsewhere into cohort-based classes, where students learn by doing and from one another. Maven—which takes 10% of the course fees—is focused mostly on live instruction in trending topics such as crypto and how to thrive in the creator economy. Of the 100 classes that Maven hosted in 2021, dozens have brought in more than $10,000 apiece.…

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Be the Band Wooden Music Table ($199, CRATEANDBARREL.CA) The perfect toy to usher in the next generation of music stars with drums, cymbals, maracas, and a xylophone. Its all-wood construction makes it easy on the eyes—if not on the ears. Newsletter PRIYA’S KITTY PARTY Priya Arora’s newsletter covers Bollywood, but doesn’t forget to also highlight all the new South Asian American content coming out. Podcast STUFF YOU MISSED IN HISTORY CLASS I didn’t have to take history after eighth grade since I was on a mathscience track, so I like Stuff You Missed in History Class. Website YESSTYLE.COM It’s a fun, trendy Asian fashion shop that sells everything from Korean skincare to comfy jumpsuits. Playlist JHANAK JHANAK–UTTAM & SUCHITRA When I’m home, I watch Bengali movies featuring couple Uttam and…

01 Rocket Fuel GINO WICKMAN AND MARK C. WINTERS [It taught me that] the delineation of roles and responsibilities is important from day one in a partnership. 02 Mrs. Dalloway VIRGINIA WOOLF A classic. The novel takes place over the course of a single day and explores the topic of mental health and PTSD in a way that feels ahead of its time. 03 Lyrics: 1962-2001 BOB DYLAN I’d turn to a random page and use Dylan’s lyrics as a song starter, a jumping-off point for my own song idea that day. 04 Urs Fischer URS FISCHER, JESSICA MORGAN, AND ULRICH LEHMANN I rediscovered Urs in an exhibition in Paris. His sculptures in here–that explore visual decay–are out of this world. MH40 Wireless Over-Ear Headphones ($299, MASTERDYNAMIC.COM) These cover all…

Inside Twelve’s Bay Area lab, a tank of carbon dioxide captured from a nearby refinery sits next to a dishwasher-size machine that converts the pollution into ingredients for products that are currently made from fossil fuels—from plastic to jet fuel. “In theory, it can become anything that you can make from petroleum,” says chief science officer Etosha Cave. The startup’s carbon-transformation process uses a metal catalyst and renewable energy to break CO2 and water molecules into smaller atomic bits, and then re-forms them into new chemicals that can be used in manufacturing. Twelve has already partnered with the Air Force to make jet fuel from CO2, and it’s worked with Daimler and Procter & Gamble to demonstrate that it can re-create ingredients needed to make car parts and Tide, respectively.…

ONLY A FRACTION OF COMPAnies calculate the full CO2 effects of what they produce. The startup Watershed, which launched in February 2021, uses software to help companies like Airbnb and Shopify assess all their emissions, develop a reduction strategy, and connect to carbon-removal solutions. THE EMISSIONS MOST COMPANIES DON’T MEASURE The production of a product and its use is 80% of a business’s true carbon footprint, yet less than one-fifth calculate it. WATERSHED HELPS COMPANIES DEVELOP A CLIMATE ACTION PLAN Square (now Block) used Watershed’s software to identify its full carbon footprint—and path to net zero by 2030. WATERSHED IS MAKING AN EARLY IMPACT By the end of Watershed’s first year, it was helping customers manage more than four times San Francisco’s carbon footprint.…

WITH A DATABASE OF more than 80 million fans globally buying its licensed team merch, Fanatics has conquered sports apparel. Now the online retailer is remaking sports fandom. In August, it secured trading card rights for Major League Baseball, the NFL Players Association, and the NBA—gaining a foothold in the $13 billion trading card industry. It then kicked off 2022 by acquiring leading card brand Topps. Fanatics is poised to further transform sports memorabilia via its new NFT business unit, Candy Digital. After signing an exclusive partnership with the MLB in June, it launched several collections, including a Lou Gehrig NFT that reportedly sold (to Tyler Winklevoss) for more than $70,000. Fanatics is also moving into sports betting: It applied for a license in New York last year and hired…

THE PENINSULA HOTEL IN BEVERLY Hills has long been a luxurious hot spot for Hollywood machers, who hash out movie deals over single-malt whiskeys. On a chilly-for-L.A. January afternoon (65 degrees), most of the people in the hotel’s rooftop café are bundled up in puffy jackets under heat lamps. But not Roham Gharegozlou, cofounder and CEO of Dapper Labs, the company behind the NFT phenomena Crypto Kitties and NBA Top Shot, who’s in a light pastel hoodie and jeans. The Iranian-born Vancouver resident is here—amid a COVID surge—for the same reason as everyone else: He’s scouting for talent, anyone who’s interested in creating new and exciting blockchain applications for the masses. “In Silicon Valley, everyone’s working for these large Web 2.0 platforms [e.g., Facebook], whereas here, nobody’s really satisfied with…

While others talk up the concept of the metaverse, Roblox has been busy adding new layers to its already robust one. Brands have played a seminal role in enhancing the experience: Nike debuted products, games, and social spaces; Ralph Lauren fashioned a winter wonderland landscape with ice skating; and Vans built a virtual skate park. These digital happenings, says Christina Wootton, Roblox’s VP of global brand partnerships, shift brands’ relationships from advertising and virtual goods to “creating memorable moments” for users. Roblox has almost 50 million daily active users (almost half of whom are older than 13), who spent more than 3.6 billion hours exploring last year.…

When Lilac Bar David cofounded neobank Lili in 2018, the former payments and banking executive wanted to create a brand that would be friendly to freelancers, a market that comprises 60 million U.S. workers, and especially women. Taking greater control of their finances is an important step for many women who freelance; studies show that they are paid less for the same work and are also less likely to be paid on time. David built Lili’s core features to reflect freelancers’ banking priorities, like tax planning. Then she crafted a brand that would make women feel welcome. “The financial industry [uses] dominant names and a lot of black and blue colors,” she says. We wanted something more smooth.” Lili, with its cursive logo, has since attracted 500,000 users, 60% of…

Age Companies are more mature before going public… Proceeds …and are raising more money at IPO time, as shown by median company proceeds (in millions, weighted for inflation)… Revenue …and have higher revenue when going public… Profitability …but a smaller portion of them have achieved profitability, as shown by the percentage of tech companies with positive net income at their IPOs.…

01 Abusadora WISIN Y YANDEL Produced by my [business] partner Tainy–this sound took Latin music to another level. 02 4 Minutes MADONNA FT. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE AND TIMBALAND I love the feeling this song gives you. This dream collab of legends delivered. 03 My Time FABOLOUS FT. JEREMIH An anthem for car rides and flights to meetings early in my career when I felt like it was my time, and nobody could tell me otherwise. 04 F*ckwithmeyou-knowIgotit JAY-Z FT. RICK ROSS A song for the daily hustle and grind that is the music industry; work hard, play hard. 05 Blessings BIG SEAN FT. DRAKE Hard work pays off; at times you have to take a second to realize how blessed you are to live the life you’re living. Pro-Ject Debut Carbon…

THERE MAY BE NO BETter signal that a corporate initiative has potential than when customers reach out and beg: “Take my money.” After Stripe, the online payments company, committed to spending at least $1 million on carbon-removal technologies a few years ago, two things happened. One, “we got a surprisingly positive reaction from the carbon-removal community,” says Nan Ransohoff, Stripe’s head of climate. And two, businesses that use Stripe began calling. According to Ransohoff, they were “basically saying, ‘Hey, we wanted to do something in climate for a while but we haven’t, because it’s hard to figure out what to do. Could we wire you some money, and you figure out what to do with it?’ ” Tackling climate change is going to require more than cutting greenhouse gas emissions.…

ON AN ICY GRAY MORNing in December that held the promise of snow, BlocPower co-founder and CEO Donnel Baird arrived at City Hall in Ithaca, New York, to face one of the biggest tests yet in his effort to help American cities decarbonize their neighborhoods. For years, Baird, a former community organizer, had been pitching venture capitalists on his vision to electrify buildings by installing technologies like heat pumps and solar panels. BlocPower would play a dual role, acting as an implementation partner for local governments and utilities sponsoring decarbonization initiatives, and as a lender and project manager for homeowners and landlords looking to eliminate emissions through electrification. Though Baird had raised more than $20 million in venture funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Kapor Capital, he’d also met…

SWEDISH CONSULTING FIRM Doconomy quantifies environmental impact with such tools as its Lifestyle Calculator, released last September. Users complete a detailed survey, and Doconomy estimates an individual’s annual emissions in categories such as transport, home, shopping, and diet. TRANSPORTATION IS A PERSON’S LARGEST SOURCE OF EMISSIONS This is the average composition of an individual’s results using the Lifestyle Calculator (in tonnes of CO2e). SMALL CHANGES CAN CREATE BIG IMPACT Doconomy suggests behavioral changes, such as driving an electric car, as effective ways for users to take action. BRANDS USE DOCONOMY’S 2030 CALCULATOR TO DOCUMENT AND SHARE EMISSIONS Doconomy calculators reach approximately half a billion individuals through corporate partners such as Mastercard. Its 2030 Calculator, released last year, lets businesses quantify a product’s emissions, show customers, and change processes.…

The planet’s largest brewer spent 2021 focusing on local impact. In Latin America, AB InBev debuted Tienda Cerca, an app that lets people check product stock (not just AB InBev’s) in nearby stores, and used area crops for regional beers (a yucca microbrew in Colombia, a rice and corn lager in Ecuador). AB InBev’s innovation arm launched EverGrain, which upcycles spent barley into a nutrient-rich ingredient for use in foods like pot pies and pizza dough. The company is also using barley straw to make six-pack boxes for Corona, paying farmers for a formerly unused byproduct. “We can influence other brands to follow our path,” says Felipe Ambra, Corona’s global VP.…

With more than 200 million Snapchat users playing with over 6 billion augmented reality lenses each day, Snap is using its tech to let users dress up. In 2021 the company made advancements in body tracking, cloth simulation, and object recognition—“technologies that are critical in order for fashion to look and feel realistic,” says Carolina Arguelles Navas, who runs Snap’s global AR product strategy. Whether they’re slipping on Gucci sneakers just by pointing the Snapchat camera at their feet or testing a Target Halloween costume on their dog, users are 2.4 times more likely to buy with Snap’s AR try-on.…

Deduce stops fraudulent logons by recognizing when they’re happening. The three-year-old security startup provides sites of all sizes sophisticated fraud protection by harnessing its network of more than 150,000 sites and 300 million user profiles to identify new fraud techniques. It also stops coordinated hacks targeting a user across multiple companies. “It takes a network to beat a network,” says CEO Ari Jacoby. In 2021, Deduce launched Identity Insights, giving companies early warnings about fraudulent behavior, and Customer Alerts, providing notifications of suspicious activity. Deduce now protects over 200 million accounts.…

WHEN WHAT YOU’RE REALLY selling is personal taste, there’s Faire. Founded in 2017 by a quartet of Square veterans, Faire is a wholesale marketplace that connects independent retailers with independent brands. During the pandemic, Faire introduced first-of-their-kind virtual trade shows, to link the two sides of its market, and it now offers exhibitions on specific themes, such as fashion. The company went global last year, pushing into Europe. “U.S. brands are desperate to crack the European market,” says cofounder and CEO Max Rhodes, “and European brands are desperate to crack the North American market.” Faire’s technology streamlined crossborder costs and complexities, saving customers time and hassle. Even with strangled supply chains, the company’s European retailers generated more than $150 million in annualized sales volume last year, a healthy portion of…

For climate-conscious homeowners, solar panels are just the first step. There’s also battery storage, resilient roofing, heat pumps, and electrical panel upgrades. GoodLeap has quickly established itself as the technology bridge between good intentions and the installers, manufacturers, and banks who can fulfill them, thanks to its underwriting engine and payment plans. Plus, having “just one single monthly payment for all these things,” as founder and CEO Hayes Barnard notes, is speeding adoption of these products. Last year, GoodLeap originated more than $5 billion in loans for over 140,000 homeowners. These installations are on track to offset the carbon-emission equivalent of 545,000 cars, while saving homeowners billions in utility bills.…

WALGREENS ADMINISTERED 56 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine over the past year. It’s now preparing to make primary care an even bigger part of its overall healthcare strategy. In October, CEO Roz Brewer—who took the helm of parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) in March 2021 after serving as COO of Starbucks for four years—unveiled the new Walgreens Health unit. At the center of the initiative is an expanded partnership with primary care clinic company VillageMD to open Village Medical at Walgreens clinics. The companies have already opened 80 clinics across 10 markets since their initial 2019 pilot. They’re now planning 200 clinics by the end of 2022—and 600 by the end of 2025. (WBA invested $1 billion in VillageMD in 2020 and an additional $5.2 billion in 2021,…

Last December, nearly 30,000 people spent $91 million to buy pieces of The Merge, a work created by the artist Pak and sold as a nonfungible token (NFT). The haul capped off a big year for NFTs and for Otoy, which makes cloud-based distributed graphics computing arrays that help digital artists render imagery that can be put on the blockchain in mere hours. In March 2021, Otoy’s creation tools debuted in the Mac App Store. “We have a good shot at putting out all the tools that will be fundamental to the infrastructure of the metaverse,” says founder and CEO Jules Urbach, who’s working on bringing Otoy to iOS next. Last year, NFT sales by artists using Otoy generated more than $800 million, with the company taking a 5% cut…

Local governments rely on archaic systems and outmoded websites to collect payments for everything from water bills to child support, leading to late and missed payments. Promise, however, is infusing government sites with mobile-friendly interfaces, adjustable payment dates, reminders, and interest-free plans. “People want to pay their bills,” says CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins. In 2021, Promise helped utilities in Cincinnati, Miami, and Milwaukee collect millions in past-due debt; more than 90% of its plans have been repaid (the typical rate is 20% to 50%). Promise also relieved debt loads by crediting qualifying customer accounts with CARES Act funds.…

Grove Collaborative is building the next-generation consumer packaged goods conglomerate. The eco-products maker and marketplace, which had planned revenue of $385 million in 2021 and has more than 1.5 million customers, was already carbon-neutral. Now Grove has pledged to be 100% plastic-free by 2025, taking the environmental burden off the consumer. After launching a plastic-free body and haircare line called Peach in late 2020 and a pet care one in 2021, Grove debuted hand soap and laundry detergent in dissolvable sheets, alternatives to what cofounder and CEO Stuart Landesberg calls basically just water in a plastic bottle.” Grove’s products can now be found in Target’s 1,900-plus stores in the U.S.…

AMID A GROWING MENTAL HEALTH crisis among young children and teens, teletherapy startup Brightline offers kids and their families vital support. CEO Naomi Allen founded the company in 2019 to make children’s behavioral health care accessible via virtual therapy sessions with licensed clinicians who can treat anxiety, depression, ADHD, disruptive behavior, and speech disorders, as well as prescribe medication. The platform, which now serves 15,000 families, expanded in 2021 to include nationwide behavioral coaching: private, 30-minute-long sessions, when trained professionals talk to kids about handling stress, managing schoolwork, and increasing their confidence. “We [also] have digital interventions where families practice the skills between sessions,” Allen says. “That makes each clinical session more effective.” The company has additional resources for children and teenagers who identify as LGBTQ and is preparing to…