Fast Company March/April 2024

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT FAST COMPANY IS ITS range. For a publication with a specific focus—business innovation—we roam all over, covering everything from tech to live events, fashion to manufacturing, food to space exploration, and pretty much any other industry you can think of. Never is this more true than with the World's 50 Most Innovative Companies, our largest and most brand-defining franchise. And this year's list is our biggest yet. We're honoring a jaw-dropping 606 companies across 58 categories. The sweeping nature of our reporting is exemplified by the two companies we've chosen to devote the most space to in our coverage of the World's 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2024 (page 8): Nvidia, the chip giant that takes the No. 1 spot, and Taco Bell, which…

When Chief Operating Officer Stephen Tober joined software company Giant Machines in 2018, his first order of business was to move his fast-growing team out of their shared coworking space in midtown Manhattan. The malfunctioning equipment and unstocked restrooms were bad enough, but the bigger issue was the culture. Tober would encounter folks playing ping-pong, drinking beer in the common room, or napping on their desks midafternoon. “ We were bringing in clients from big banks and financial firms, and the environment didn't reflect [our] seriousness and professionalism,” he says. That all changed four years ago, however, when Tober first set foot in Convene, a hospitality company that offers meeting, event, and workspaces in the U.S. and U.K. Tober found the experience to be much more aligned with his needs.…

NVIDIA FOR BRINGING THE CHIPS TO THE AI PARTY “IN THE 1920S, WATER WENT INTO A GENERATOR, AND DC POWER CAME OUT. NOW ELECTRONS GO INTO A GENERATOR, AND INTELLIGENCE COMES OUT.” I'M CHAT TING WITH NVIDIA CEO JENSEN HUANG AT the chip giant's Silicon Valley headquarters, where one of its DGX H100 computing modules sits partially disassembled before us. Stuffed with blazingly fast processors and other cutting-edge components, the box, which can sell for as much as $500,000, is a foundational building block of the supercomputers used by huge companies, startups, and universities alike to power transformative new AI experiences, and Huang has turned to a previous technological revolution to explain its significance. It's an evocative comparison: AI running on Nvidia hardware changing everyday life as profoundly as electricity…

IT'S THE SHOT TAKEN round the world. Novo Nordisk's weight-loss and diabetes medications Wegovy and Ozempic, which are a hit with patients and frequently used off-label, have vaulted the Danish drugmaker into the ranks of the world's most valuable companies, with a market cap hovering at $500 billion and 2023 sales hitting $33.7 billion, up 36% year over year. But Novo's blockbuster drugs, based on a quarter-century of R&D, are more than just a windfall. They're also unlocking therapeutic possibilities beyond stimulating insulin secretion in people with type 2 diabetes and reducing appetite for others. After a study of more than 17,000 people, released last year, indicated Wegovy's ability to reduce heart attacks, strokes, and death from heart disease, the company is seeking expanded FDA approval for cardiovascular conditions. Other…

NO ORGANIZATION HAS done more to promote generative AI in the workplace than Microsoft. After announcing a $10 billion investment in OpenAI in January 2023, Microsoft began incorporating the startup's tech into its most popular platforms. To turn generative AI into a workplace assistant, Microsoft has extended Copilot—the family of AI assistants that began as a coding helper for GitHub members (where it now has more than 1.3 million users)—across its Microsoft 365 productivity tools. Copilot can now help create PowerPoint presentations, analyze Excel data, and summarize Outlook email threads. Early adopters include Accenture, Pfizer, and Visa, and users “are actually del-egating work to Copilot as if it were another colleague and asking it to do multistep tasks,” says Jared Spataro, corporate VP for modern work and business applications. Windows…

EVEN IN A YEAR MARKED BY LABOR activism, the United Auto Workers' 46-day strike of Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis was historic. After years of declining membership and failed organizing drives, workers won four-anda-half-year contracts that codify large wage increases, the reopening of some closed facilities, and the inclusion of battery-plant workers in the union agreements, ensuring the UAW's involvement in the electric future of auto manufacturing. The negotiations—and strike—were orchestrated by UAW president Shawn Fain, who was elected in March 2023 and brought new tactics to what had become a rote process. Instead of bargain-ing with one company at a time, the union forced all three automaker to come to the table simultaneousl Rather than shutting down an entir company, the union held work stop pages at specific factories,…