Fast Company November 2022

A Americans have always loved to gamble, and not just at the blackjack table. The analogy between Wall Street and a casino is nearly as old and durable as Wall Street itself: Just a few months ago, Warren Buffett blasted the Street as a “gambling parlor.” But in recent years, our appetite for risk has taken more quotidian and pervasive forms: the ubiquity of sports-betting apps, meme-stock mayhem, the peak/valley cycles of crypto. Main Street has become a casino too. The theme of risk permeates this issue of Fast Company. I’d be lying if I told you this was intentional. But as I read through this month’s features, I found the thread undeniable. In a sense, the fact that it was an editorial accident makes the point. Our attraction to risk…

When Nespresso announced, at the end of April, that it had received B Corp certification, it was a milestone. The Nestlé-owned coffee company was joining the ranks of legendarily progressive brands like Ben & Jerry’s and Patagonia, along with 5,000 other companies around the globe whose social and environmental practices have met the standards set by the nonprofit B Lab, which issues the certification in its mission to make businesses “a force for good.” Nespresso soon began adding the increasingly familiar B Corp logo—an encircled B—to its website, products, and even the windows of its global headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland. But a backlash was brewing. In June, 30 certified B Corps signed an open letter to B Lab protesting the coffee maker’s certification, pointing to a history of child labor and…

2006 The Truth Comes Out The same year that An Inconvenient Truth pre mieres, B Lab is founded by three friends interested in creating criteria for companies that “benefit” society. 2008 The Bubble Bursts The economic crisis lays the foundation for the rise of social entrepreneurs as icons of a new kind of capitalism—and 2011’s Occupy movement. 2012 Facebook “Joins” the Movement With “mission-driven” companies in vogue, Mark Zuckerberg declares in a letter to investors ahead of Facebook’s IPO that the company “was built to accomplish a social mission” rather than to make money. 2015 CSR Hits a Tipping Point Eighty-one percent of S&P 500 companies now publish annual corporate social responsibility reports—up from 20% in 2011. Worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, meanwhile, are nearly 47 billion metric tons— up 43% since 1990. 2018 Impact Investing Takes Off BlackRock founder Larry Fink declares in his…

DIRECTOR DARREN ARONOFSKY has a reputation for making audiences squirm. His audacious visual style and knack for pushing psychological buttons have allowed viewers to experience what it’s like to be a perfectionist ballerina trying to retain her sanity (Black Swan), drug users whose lives descend into hallucinatory chaos (Requiem for a Dream), an aging fighter unable to quit the ring (The Wrestler), and more. Lately, he’s been pushing himself—into new genres like National Geographic documentaries and YA literature. Aronofsky spoke from a shoot in Africa about balancing organization with improvisation, his upcoming film, The Whale, and the beauty of the internal monologue. You’re in Zambia right now. What brought you there? I’m in the Lower Zambezi National Park for a show I’m doing for Nat Geo [called Sentient]. We’re filming a pack…

2022 Monster Club HARPERCOLLINS The first book in a young adult series, cowritten with Ari Handel, Monster Club is inspired by Aronofsky’s own experiences as a sixth grader in Brooklyn. 2022 Limitless With Chris Hemsworth NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Directed and produced by Aronofsky, this documentary series explores what it’s like to push the limits of human potential, both physically and mentally. 2022 The Whale A24 FILMS Brendan Fraser stars in this adaptation of a play by Samuel D. Hunter as a very obese man trying to reconnect with his daughter, played by Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink. 2023 Adrift BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS Aronofsky is writing and directing this horror film, based on a short story by the writer of The Ring, about the discovery of a mysterious abandoned yacht. Jared Leto will star. Protozoa Productions Aronofsky’s company has numerous projects in the works, including Nat Geo’s Sentient and an adaptation…

Hudson Rowan was trolling. When the ninth grader’s mother insisted last spring that he enter a contest in upstate New York to redesign the “I Voted” sticker, he scribbled a bleeding-eye “spider robot creature,” as he calls it, in the app Procreate, as an act of teenage protest. Months later, that creature not only won the Ulster County competition but spurred global headlines. Rowan has come to understand why. “The world is a crazy place, with everything going on, and the sticker has that same feel,” he says. We asked major design and branding firms to follow his lead and reimagine the “I Voted” motif with a single goal: to get people to vote. TANDEM Use It or Lose It A healthy democracy requires a strong voter turnout, which is why Maria Arenas—a…