Fortune October/November 2021

FOR A FATEFUL WEEK in early August, the social media universe was focused breathlessly on daily reports coming out of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. For once, the suspense and fascination had nothing to do with Alabama football coach Nick Saban or his Crimson Tide, though the defending national champions were again picked as the preseason favorites. Rather, the world was captivated by the #BamaRush TikTok craze. In a development that could probably be fully understood only by TikTok’s all-knowing algorithm, videos posted by incoming first-years going through the high-stakes sorority rush process became a national obsession. TikToks in which the young women revealed their #OOTD (“outfit of the day”) garnered millions upon millions of views—and spawned additional videos about the phenomenon that further boosted the hashtag. As a graduate…

THIS EDITED Q&A HAS BEEN CONDENSED FOR SPACE AND CLARITY. “This is 2021. [A Black woman becoming a Fortune 500 CEO] should not be that big of a deal. It’s unfortunate that it is.” GETTING TO YES I’m sure you got a lot of calls about CEO jobs. What was it about WBA that made you say yes? BREWER: This was a tough one because I was at Starbucks 1 and having what felt like the time of my life being in the coffee business. I was about to become an empty nester, thinking about things like, do I want to start painting? Do I want to start doing something creative in my spare time? But I never thought about a career change. Timing is everything, and when this call came in, we were dead…

With its abundance of top-rated restaurants, bustling music scene, and community of young professionals, Austin seemed like an ideal place to relocate for Karyn Lewis. A PR professional currently based in Jackson, Miss., Lewis planned to take advantage of the fact that her New York–based firm had an outpost in Austin and move to the midsize Texas city early next year with her partner. “I think of Austin as kind of a hippie city,” Lewis, 28, tells Fortune. “It seemed like the easiest and the most affordable move.” But the passage of a controversial new law in Texas that effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy has Lewis rethinking those plans. “We are now looking at other options,” Lewis says. “We’re moving from Mississippi, so we are looking for something…

FOR A FATEFUL WEEK in early August, the social media universe was focused breathlessly on daily reports coming out of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. For once, the suspense and fascination had nothing to do with Alabama football coach Nick Saban or his Crimson Tide, though the defending national champions were again picked as the preseason favorites. Rather, the world was captivated by the #BamaRush TikTok craze. In a development that could probably be fully understood only by TikTok’s all-knowing algorithm, videos posted by incoming first-years going through the high-stakes sorority rush process became a national obsession. TikToks in which the young women revealed their #OOTD (“outfit of the day”) garnered millions upon millions of views—and spawned additional videos about the phenomenon that further boosted the hashtag. As a…

BACK IN 2019, a little-known startup called Brex descended on San Francisco. The fintech slathered the city’s billboards and bus stops with the message “This will catch your interest” as it declared itself the “first corporate card for startups.” It spent about $300,000 to snap up over 50% of the ad inventory for three months in the area around the city’s historic business district. “It supercharged our growth,” CEO Henrique Dubugras said of the campaign, noting customers responded more to the company’s sales pitches after billboards went live. “Brands that are real world have more trust than those that are purely online.” And though California is filled with tech startups that are furiously searching for the next big thing, old-fashioned outdoor advertising has proved surprisingly durable. “For a lot of the…

AS THE DIXIE FIRE—California’s second-largest ever—burned through more than 960,000 acres of forest and brush this summer, firefighters mobilized with the same tools they have used for decades: water hoses, chain saws, and airplanes carrying fire retardant. But this year they had an additional weapon in their arsenal: high-tech maps showing where the fire would likely go next. The maps, accessible on computers and tablets, were based on millions of climate and topographic data points, such as weather, wind patterns, and the type of vegetation in the area. The idea is to help commanders leading the battle make better decisions about where to deploy fire crews and whom to evacuate. While this fire season has been unusually long and destructive in the state, the information has helped keep it from spiraling further…