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Nick Lichtenberg

Nick Lichtenberg

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Welcome to the summer of ‘Butter Yellow,’ the shade of consumer anxiety

Soft palettes, nostalgic spending, and what America's newest aesthetic obsession reveals about the economy underneath.

yesterday 0

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘Work hard, stay loyal, and the system will reward you’: the Boomer credo is a Gen X betrayal and a Millennial pipe dream

Four generations have four different "generational contracts," research from O.C. Tanner found. It comes down to a question of belief in the system.

yesterday 1

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

College students are voting with their feet on AI. Goldman has the receipts

If you were a student right now, what major would you choose?

yesterday 0

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Basketball vs. the Beautiful Game: the fight for America’s summer sports attention

Two mega-events, record ratings, and billions in broadcast rights: the collision that will reshape sports media for a generation.

previous day 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

The $18 expense report and the defunded intern programs: symbols of corporate America’s dysfunction

Exec from Okta, IBM, FedEx Freight and BCG on the issue with flawed systems and their flawed designers still being around: "We just don't think that...

previous day 2

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Silicon Valley legend Vinod Khosla tears into ‘idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish’ Gen Z Stanford protests of Google CEO: ‘the stupidity’

When hundreds of Stanford graduates walked out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Vinod Khosla didn't hold back about the students at his alma mater.

previous day 2

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Boomers actually do hold most of the wealth and power. So why do they call it ‘whiny’ to point that out?

My inbox called Millennials whiny. The Federal Reserve, a field of social scientists and Aristotle disagree.

sunday 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

The head of Claude Code hasn’t ‘written a line of code by hand’ in 8 months

Boris Cherny was asked at Brainstorm Tech if he was concerned about the rapid progress of AI: "Yes."

11.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Brazil’s biggest soccer broadcaster Is now a guy who started on Twitch. He beat Globo

In Brazil, home of soccer-mad fans and the five-time world champions, the only way to watch all 104 games of the World Cup will be through a streaming...

11.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘The circulatory system isn’t working.’ Goldman on what’s really wrong with private markets

Goldman Sachs' top private markets executives say the industry is at a structural inflection point — not a crisis. Not everyone agrees.

10.06.2026 6

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

America’s grid is reeling. General Motors offers itself as a distributed utility in disguise

As AI data centers strain the grid, GM wants to turn its EVs and batteries into a solution. Ford has a simpler plan—and the two Detroit rivals are...

09.06.2026 2

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

A $200 million Boomer estate, millennial heir Nick Reiner, and the dark side of the Great Wealth Transfer

The fight over a trust is a grim preview of what happens when the largest inheritance in history runs into a family at war.

09.06.2026 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘We are rapidly running out of time’ Watchdog sounds Social Security alarm after 22% cut confirmed for 2032

Trustees now project the retirement fund will be depleted in 2032 and the combined system in 2034, putting pressure on the 2026 Senate class to act.

09.06.2026 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

This CEO keeps going viral for thirst-trapping journalists with $200,000 jobs to be head of content. Yes, he’s trying to prove a point

Stacker CEO Noah Greenberg helps "brand journalists" distribute their content into newsrooms and platforms across the media. But is it journalism?

09.06.2026 2

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘We may be flying blind’: AWS wants to fix the problem of AI agents straying off task

A paper from Amazon Web Services warns that unsupervised agents tend to reason themselves into trouble.

08.06.2026 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Exclusive: Goldman Sachs intern acceptance rate falls below 1% for third straight year

It's harder to get a Goldman Sachs internship than to get accepted into Harvard, MIT or Stanford.

08.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘Yet another way in which 2026 is looking like 1999’: Top analyst fears bubble popping with investors and Wall Street out over their skis

The Nasdaq's sudden lurch lower on Friday looked like a crack in a story that had seemed, until recently, almost bulletproof.

08.06.2026 30

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘The golden years are not golden’: Boomers are hoarding most of America’s wealth and power because they’re terrified of outliving their money

They followed the script—work hard, buy a house, save for retirement. Now millions of boomers feel trapped

07.06.2026 20

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

MAGA hates AI, but Trump agrees with Bernie it might be time for partial government ownership

"You make them a partnership in this revolution," Trump told reporters Friday. "It would be a beautiful thing."

05.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

3 warnings from analysts on the truth lurking beneath the ‘barnburner’ jobs report — and why America’s AI hiring crisis is far from over

There's no doubt that 172,000 payrolls added in May blew past expectations. But you have to look closely at where they were added.

05.06.2026 9

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘At some point you’ve got to make money’: Goldman’s top AI skeptic warns the clock is running out ahead of OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs

Jim Covello has been Wall Street's most consistent voice of AI doubt. Two years on, he asks:"when does the short term become the long term?"

05.06.2026 8

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Social Security faces a 24% cut in 2032—that’s a $345 billion hit to retirees nationwide, watchdog says

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent once called Trump Accounts a "back door for privatizing Social Security," but now insists retirees will face no loss...

05.06.2026 20

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Taylor Swift, the economics of hype, and what the World Cup gets wrong

Swift's fans pay with wallets. World Cup hosts pay with budgets.

05.06.2026 10

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

BofA on the ‘fundamental disconnect’ in the housing market: You’re blaming the wrong person for why you can’t afford a home

"Affordability is a key voter issue, but proposals to fix structural supply shortages are politically unpopular and lack short-term payoffs."

04.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

10,000 Boomers a day, $39 trillion in debt, and no benefit cuts: Bessent stakes Social Security on the Trump economy

Bessent vowed, "the senior citizen does not not pay more taxes and the senior citizen does not get less benefits." Meanwhile the trust fund is going...

04.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Scott Bessent says America’s in a ‘manufacturing renaissance,’ so where are the jobs?

He's not alone. Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok thinks we're living through an "industrial renaissance."

04.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Ray Dalio warns the stock market is approaching 1929 and 2000 bubble levels—but another crisis is ‘past the point of no return’

The Bridgewater Associates founder compared the situation to "plaque in the circulatory system, squeezing out the flow of blood."

04.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Jamie Dimon sees ‘gung-ho’ attitude and ‘exuberance’ in markets—just like 1972, 1986, 2000 and 2007. Uh Oh.

The JPMorgan CEO sees something funny going on with borrowed money: "Corporations, it's just not all automatically, they're all geniuses all of a...

04.06.2026 6

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘Will I still matter?’ The ‘Optimism Doctor’ says people can tolerate uncertainty—the AI angst is about something else

"I am not the most optimistic person," Dr. Deepika Chopra told Fortune. But that's different from understanding how optimism works.

03.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

This CEO has had 6 major jobs in Silicon Valley: How Dennis Woodside built a career on saying yes to hard problems

Dennis Woodside sold Motorola to Lenovo—and accidentally sold himself out of a job. Now he runs a $2.65 billion software company.

03.06.2026 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

From ‘reinvention exhaustion’ to ‘friction absorption’: the e-commerce elves who make your groceries and clothes appear are worn out

The execs behind your seamless online orders have survived COVID, mass reorgs and years of nonstop disruption. Now AI wants them to reinvent...

03.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘One thing after the next’: Axon and Schneider Electric supply chain chiefs talk life in permanent disruption

For the operators running America's most complex supply chains, disruption isn't a problem to solve anymore. It's a condition to survive.

03.06.2026 6

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

The IBM executive tasked with retraining 30 million workers is changing how she thinks about the AI finish line

Justina Nixon-Saintil has reached 22 million learners. With three years left on her mission, she says the real challenge is only now coming into...

03.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘Stop building silos of excellence’: Peloton’s COO has a Navy playbook for the new era of supply chain chaos

Peloton COO Charles Kirol spent decades commanding nuclear submarines. Now he's using that same playbook to rebuild from the ground up.

03.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

The CEO who loves AI autodidacts — and desperately needs his experts

Bob Bradway bet on AI before almost anyone else in biotech. Now Amgen is reaping the rewards — and wrestling with what it means for its scientists.

03.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Should you treat AI agents as colleagues? Fortune 500 executives can’t settle the debate

Okta's COO named his agents and put them in business reviews. Lattice's CEO says that's exactly the wrong move — and new research backs her up.

02.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Anthropic’s office launched an AI-run vending machine. It evolved into AI-run stores and cafes within a year

"One year later," Andon Labs co-founder Lukas Petersson told Fortune about Vendo, "it's just like, I don't actually think humans can do much better."

02.06.2026 6

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

U.S. Soccer is using AI to scout 70 million teenagers. The former consulting CEO running the federation calls it a ‘paradigm shift’ for the sport

For 30 years, soccer has been "the sport of the future." Could a World Cup on home soil and an AI-powered talent revolution make it the sport of now?

02.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

‘Where we are today is frightening’: a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt

Liaquat Ahamed, whose "Lords of Finance" redefined the Great Depression, says America's debt crisis has a clear historical precedent.

02.06.2026 10

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Meet America’s ‘Disillusioned’ 32%: They’re not who you think

They work full-time, play by the rules and they still raid their retirement savings. The Roosevelt Institute looks at America's economically betrayed.

02.06.2026 20

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

It’s not a recession. But Goldman says your paycheck is acting like it

Real income growth has slowed to a pace "rarely seen outside of recession," Goldman Sachs warns — and Americans are only beginning to feel the...

02.06.2026 20

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Okta’s COO says companies are in denial about the hardest part of the AI revolution: redesigning work itself

The transition from workforce to work planning — budgeting for both "human workers and digital workers," is breaking people's brains, Eric Kelleher...

01.06.2026 6

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

The ‘godfather of AI’ says we’re not just creating new beings — they’ll be much smarter than us, and soon

The race to make the smartest possible AI that can do the most things will "lead to things that aren't nice beings towards us," Geofrey Hinton said.

01.06.2026 6

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Grey rhinos, black swans, and the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie: What Corporate America still gets wrong about risk

Crisis24 President Sid Kosaraju said hackers at his firm were able to pinpoint his daughter's activity. "They could get into the school website."

01.06.2026 3

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

The automation illusion: Why AI is making COOs’ jobs harder, not easier

The executives responsible for keeping the world's biggest companies running thought AI would simplify their jobs. They were wrong.

01.06.2026 2

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Gen Z is losing the most in the AI economy—and Goldman warns it’s about to get worse

Goldman has good news on the AI job-killing story, until you look closely at the numbers.

01.06.2026 4

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

As loyal Boomers win and job-switching Gen Zers lose, the labor market of 2026 reveals a decade of bad career advice

For years, the playbook was clear: don't stay too long, always negotiate your next move, loyalty is for suckers. It hits different in "low-hire,...

01.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Exclusive: Economists have been teaching a broken proof for 50 years. AI just found it

Axiom Math, a $1.6B AI unicorn, is building a formally verified library of economic theorems — and already found gaps in the foundations of...

01.06.2026 5

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

Billionaires already couldn’t talk to their grandchildren. Now they’re on opposite sides of the AI divide

Citi finds AI use jumped to 22% from 13% in a year, even as principals warn data privacy is “non-negotiable” and fear back-door exposure via SaaS...

01.06.2026 20

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg

I wrote that Boomers were choking America’s economy. Their responses to me were revealing

"I apologize for not dying soon enough for you," one boomer wrote to me, "so your generation can pick over my financial bones."

31.05.2026 10

Fortune

Nick Lichtenberg