Expert recruiters from Facebook, LinkedIn, and others weigh in on the right approach to following up after an interview.

When Joseph Waites* first applied for a new job in early November, he had no idea it would take over a month before he'd hear from anyone. After six weeks, an email arrived to invite him to his first interview. A second was scheduled within a few days. Waites was hopeful, especially after the employer sent him an assignment so that he could prove he had the right stuff for the job.

Once he completed and submitted it, the hiring manager responded within the hour, saying they would look at it over the weekend. The following week came and went. Then another, and still another passed. Waites was eager to hear either way, so he sent the hiring manager another email—after nearly four weeks had gone by.

"Just checking in on what the results on this test run were. Even if it's negative, just would like an update," he wrote. Waites added another line emphasizing something they'd specifically discussed in their meeting, then signed off. The next day, the hiring manager replied with an apology for the delayed response.

Waites is one of the lucky ones. The hiring process now takes longer than ever, according to Glassdoor, and half of applicants surveyed by Talent Board said they never heard back at all after submitting their resumes. No wonder 39% of respondents to a Robert Half survey said they'd lost interest and pursued other roles, while 18% gave up and stayed in their current jobs.

Is there a better option? Some other way to get hiring managers' attention and earn a fast response—or any response—besides sending email after email, just "following up"? Fast Company went to the pros to find out.

Enthusiasm Versus Desperation

Tey Scott, director of talent acquisition, global programs at LinkedIn, says there are a number of reasons a candidate may not hear back immediately from a prospective employer. "The recruiter may be awaiting details on your status from the hiring manager," she points out, or they may simply have a lot of candidates to sift through. Another (less pleasant possibility) she notes, is that they just might not think you're a fit. In any case, says Scott, "At LinkedIn we believe in proactively following up." So if you haven't heard back, write and email, she advises, "up to three times over a two-week period."

There's no one-size-fits-all approach, though. So Miranda Kalinowski, vice president of global recruiting at Facebook, encourages candidates to think of it as a first date. "You want to be following up with the right balance of enthusiasm and interest," she notes, "but without coming across as desperate."

There's a fine line between persistence and pushiness, cautions Lindsey Dole, VP of people at Updater, a tech company that facilitates home moving. Dole, a veteran of Google who subsequently grew Tumblr's workforce by 300 people, says that in order to stay on the right side of that line, you need a mind-set of "continuing the conversation" rather than "asking for a decision."

The Importance Of A Thank-You Note

After you've completed an interview, sending a killer thank-you note is de rigueur. Kalinowski tells Fast Company that she's got six handwritten thank-you notes on her desk at Facebook right now. "I like them," she admits. But they also serve an additional purpose, Kalinowski says.

"People can feel quite different about an interview thinking back and reflecting on it afterwards than they do leaving the room," she explains. "They can be quite anxious and a little bit shell-shocked." Although she underscores that's not how Facebook wants candidates to feel throughout the interview, nerves are normal. With the benefit of time and hindsight, says Kalinowski, the way a candidate reflects on the interview in their thank-you note is "quite telling."

Related Video: This Is The Most Revealing Question To Ask A Candidate During A Job Interview

Email, Phone Call, Tweet?

After that, Dole says, "It's completely acceptable to follow up once more if you haven't heard back." But what's the best method to use? This is where some of these experts differ, but they agree that candidates should be guided by whatever rapport they've established with the interviewer.

Dole recommends emailing over calling. "You can provide follow-up materials or reference articles and information that pertain to topics you covered in the interview," she points out. On the employer side, Chris Layden, managing director of Experis, which is part of Manpower Group, points out that while a phone call is more personal, you might catch the company off guard. "An email will allow the hiring manager to provide a considered, thoughtful response," he suggests, "though this may take longer to receive."

As for social media, Dole says it's fine if you've already connected through LinkedIn or Twitter and exchanged information there. But "engaging in a new communication platform could send the wrong signal," she says.

Regardless of which vehicle you choose, Layden recommends sticking to that one form of communication, not branching out.

How To Say The Right Thing While You Wait

One thing Waites did right, according to Facebook's Kalinowski, was connect back with the hiring manager on a specific point they'd already discussed. If someone is interviewing at Facebook, she looks for follow-ups to include one of three things they're reflecting on:

• A highlight from the interview discussion
• Something that they learned about Facebook that surprised them
• Something that really resonated with their own values

Emphasizing any of these things while following up "can reinforce their interest and level of engagement," Kalinowski explains. "Those are things that recruiters and companies want to make sure exist with a candidate."

Scott says if you haven't taken the time to identify the company's most pressing issues that you can tackle once on board, don't fret. Use LinkedIn (naturally) and other online resources to research articles or business challenges the company or industry might be facing. "If you have experience or thoughts on how to solve or build these solutions," she says—and this is true, regardless of whether it came up in the interview—you can say: "'I'm not sure if we had a chance to discuss my interest in the new technology I recently read you are exploring, but my experience in X might be of interest.'"

Don't Forget

Waites ultimately wasn't offered the job. However, the hiring manager did send him a thoughtful email outlining exactly why they thought he wasn't the best fit.

This is relatively rare. Many times, hiring managers are careful not to share why they reject certain candidates, out of an abundance of caution against opening themselves up to employment discrimination suits. So Waites at least left with valuable feedback that he could use to position himself for other jobs.

Getting rejected is never fun, but no matter what happens, Layden says it's important to remember that "you're running a career ultramarathon and not a sprint," so it's important to stay positive, even if it doesn't work out. "Your willingness to learn, apply, and adapt is key to staying relevant for the long term and landing the right job for you."

*Name has been changed for privacy

TransferWise is the latest fintech company to see opportunity in Facebook Messenger's nascent bot platform.

Money is surprisingly social. Venmo was one of the first U.S. startups to capitalize on that realization, designing its mobile app around an emoji-ridden social feed. Now messaging apps are seeing the light and welcoming financial services companies onto their platforms.

Today, TransferWise enters the fray with the launch of its Facebook Messenger bot. As with the TransferWise app, the bot provides a lower-cost means for executing cross-border payments. It will compete against a similar offering from Azimo Ltd., which announced its Messenger integration in August.

"We've been eyeing the messengers because it's such a natural place for customers to want to send money," says Scott Miller, TransferWise's head of global partnerships.

For Facebook, any feature that encourages users to spend more time in the Messenger app is a win. Engagement is the goal, rather than directly monetizing payment processing or other banking functions. For fintech startups like TransferWise, the goal is to become ubiquitous across platforms, so that users need just one account and profile for digital transfers.

For TransferWise, that could extend one day to domestic money transfers—putting the company in direct competition with Venmo and Facebook itself, which built peer-to-peer technology for Messenger in-house. "It's something we think about, for sure," Miller says, declining to provide further detail.

Messenger bots for payments are also available from PayPal and Stripe, as well as American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.

London-based TransferWise, which processes approximately $1 billion in volume each month, is also looking to grow by integrating its technology into apps developed by banks and gig-economy marketplaces. Founded in 2010, it has the backing of the "PayPal mafia," including Peter Thiel, through his fund Valar Ventures, and Affirm cofounder and CEO Max Levchin. At the company's most recent financing round, last May, it was worth $1.1 billion.

LinkedIn tripled its rate of positive responses after switching up how it reached out to job prospects.

The top 10 skills U.S. employers are after right now? They're all technical skills, according to our latest data here at LinkedIn. And small wonder—for all the (justifiable) talk of emotional intelligence and other soft skills as hot commodities in the job market, some employers seem willing to skimp on some of those as long as it means staffing up with all the qualified UI designers and network security experts they need.

LinkedIn is no exception in the race for tech talent; like everybody else, our recruiters are also looking for new ways to attract and retain employees with the technical chops to keep us on the cutting edge. But in my experience, the best way to do that isn't by forgoing the human element and just zeroing in on the technical stuff—it isn't an either/or. In fact, pulling in the best tech talent in a competitive job market means doubling down on the things that tech candidates aren't always thought to care about.

Show, Don't Tell

The typical recruiter call goes something like this: "Hi, I'm Brendan from XYZ Company. We're growing like crazy, we have whip-smart people, free food, and the coolest projects ever. Want to hear more about working for us?"

They usually don't. Why? Because that's no way to differentiate your company. By now, loads of companies—from the biggest established players to small startups—already offer Instagram-worthy work cultures, replete with perks and creature comforts designed (with various degrees of success) to appeal to the most in-demand tech workers. By now, your in-office rock wall is a cliché, not a selling point.

Unless, of course, you can tell a powerful story that includes it. Recruiters have a difficult job these days—they need to offer compelling narratives to job seekers that capture all dimensions of the company they represent. Not just facts and figures, but the feeling, spirit, and culture of the employer that they're selling to job candidates (and if that includes an onsite espresso bar, then sure, great). I like to ask recruiters, "Could you walk into your CEO's office or boardroom and grab their attention with how you tell the company's story?" If not, up your game.

The same goes for what you communicate online. Here at LinkedIn, prospects who visit our Company Page can check out videos like this one about "InDay," a special day allocated for employees to invest in themselves and their communities. They can find photos of group activities, like our speaker series or team offsites. Or they can browse social posts by LinkedIn employees themselves, tagged #LinkedInLife.

The goal of all this content is the same: to help people envision not just what it's like to work at LinkedIn, but what it's like to work on the particular team they'd be joining. So when our recruiters speak with tech prospects one-on-one, they might mention the giant backgammon room or Mad Libs wall at our new San Fransisco digs, but they're much more focused on helping them understand our culture, gain a sense of belonging, and get a taste of the technical challenges they're likely to face on a specific team. Speaking of which . . .

Get The Right People To Talk To Candidates

. . . it's not just about how well you tell your story. It's also about who's telling it.

We've found that tech prospects would rather hear from the company's own engineers than from its recruiters. So before reaching out to a prospect, we comb our networks to find first-degree connections with employees, and invite those employees to help make the initial contact. The people who work here at LinkedIn are our best ambassadors.

When they get involved, the message shifts from "we need more people and I heard you might be looking" to the infinitely more appealing, "I would love to have you swing by the office and give me your opinion on our technical architecture and security plans." Not long after we started trying this strategy, it tripled our rate of positive responses by candidates. We've also found that those who start LinkedIn's hiring process this way make it through their interviews more quickly and successfully than those who don't.

Don't Get Hung Up On Degrees And Credentials

These days, we look less at where somebody's gone to school or worked in the past, and more at their ability to adapt and absorb new information. And even though we're hiring for tech skills, we still dig deep into soft skills.

After studying the engineers who've done well here, we found that many don't have a "pedigreed" engineering background, and many came from a different track altogether. Certain roles actually require a variety of skills that an engineering program might not have delivered. Instead, we prefer to hire smart people with strong soft skills who can then "skill up" on the job. To help make it happen, we created a very focused engineering bootcamp for developing specific tech skills and hanging on to our most talented employees.

Since we're fishing in the same pond as other high-tech employers, our recruiting team has had to get creative—and that's meant using LinkedIn data to identify untapped talent pools, including at smaller or lesser-known companies. Not only do great people work in those places, but it's often easier to get their attention.

The same goes for schools and educational background: We do our best to look where others aren't looking, and have built some tools to help. As we add facets into a search on LinkedIn's Recruiter software, for instance, the system runs algorithms across 467 million members and will start making suggestions you might not have considered, like pinpointing graduates of Maharaja University instead of a highly sought-after Stanford grad.

Next year's list of hot job skills might show a totally different top 10, with a less technical focus. But for now, we've found that giving more of a human touch to even the most high-tech recruiting can go a long way. And when you think about it, that's not so surprising after all.

Brendan Browne is VP of global talent acquisition at LinkedIn.

One Medical, Apple, and others are shaking up the ways we interact with primary care, health apps, and more.

The health care industry is transforming rapidly, in large part due to an influx of new technologies and innovative business models. These 10 companies are creating solutions to some of the sector's most pressing problems—and they have the outcomes data to show for it.

Click on a company to learn more about why it made the list.

01. One Medical

For making primary care affordable and convenient

02. Apple

For mining data to build health apps

03. AliveCor

For mobilizing heart monitoring

04. GE Healthcare

For reducing pain points at health care facilities

05. Kaiser Permanente

For investing in virtual office visits

06. Propeller Health

For helping asthma and COPD patients breathe easier

07. Verily

For putting health data to work

08. Omada Health

For using technology to treat diabetes

09. Global Kinetics Corporation

For collecting data from wearables to treat Parkinson's

10. Levita Magnetics

For cutting down on surgical incisions

This article is part of our coverage of the World's Most Innovative Companies of 2017.

Slack and other virtual newsrooms have some reporters concerned about privacy in an era of embattled journalism that relies on discretion.

Last year, then Gawker Media executive editor John Cook found himself in the unsavory position of explaining in front of a jury why he posted a picture of an uncircumcised penis to his colleagues. The picture had been shared on Campfire, the internal messaging software Gawker used at the time. In a videotaped deposition shown in a Florida courtroom, a lawyer asked Cook, "Was it common at Gawker to share pictures of penises with colleagues?"

The image, inserted into a discussion about the Hulk Hogan sex video that Gawker had published, was part of a long-running joke between editors and reporters. Cook couldn't have imagined at the time that three years later, he would have to explain and defend it to a court of law after Hogan filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. The jury ruled in favor of the wrestler, Gawker is over, and Cook is now an editor for a retooled entity under Univision, the Gizmodo Media Group. But Cook's messages did underscore a new reality for anyone who uses digital chatrooms to communicate with their colleagues: Chats that seem to be more ephemeral than email are still being recorded on a server somewhere.

Amid concerns by a battered but determined press about privacy and the Trump administration's quest to stop leaks, a growing number of journalists and editors are being forced to think carefully about how they communicate with each other. Newsrooms still use chatroom apps like Campfire and HipChat, but neither has been embraced by the tech and media industries quite like Slack has. In just a few years, the company has rocketed up to 4 million daily users, with 1.25 million of them paying for extra features. You'd be hard pressed to find a media organization that doesn't have at least some Slack interactions; many companies use it as their primary way of communicating.

"There are several dangers that I think journalists need to be aware of when they're putting so much of their communications on Slack," says Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Slack "has access to all of your chats," he tells me, "[as well as] any internal communication you may not want in public," including private conversations. The reminder extends beyond journalism too, to organizations like Timm's, he notes: Indeed, even Freedom of the Press uses Slack.

Slack's ease of use is great for a busy newsroom. Reporters and staff can post links they've found online, leads they've uncovered, public records they want to request, or edits, in real-time and in one place. (Most of Fast Company's staff relies heavily on Slack.) New chatrooms or "channels"—either public or private ones—can be created on the fly. The app's ease of use also means the virtual newsroom is a sort of digital watercooler, where reporters share the sort of gossip they would never want associated with their bylines. A release of this data—either by a court's subpoena or a hacker's intrusion—wouldn't only require the public explanation of private jokes. It could risk compromising an already delicate trust between journalists and their audiences, and lead to the inadvertent disclosure of the identities of anonymous sources.

This last part is of the utmost importance to reporters. The relationship between a source and an investigative journalist hangs on trust: Sources provide sensitive information under the assumption that writers will protect their identities. Despite the best of intentions, reporters using Slack and other digital platforms may be inadvertently breaking this pact. Sources like John Kiriakou, the first CIA officer to speak openly on waterboarding—and whose disclosure of classified information to investigative journalists helped send him to prison—serve as an example of how high the stakes can be.

The Risk Of Disclosing Information

Beyond Gawker's "penis-gate," another recent incident highlights the risks of seemingly "private" chatrooms. This month, police in Washington, D.C., subpoenaed information from Facebook regarding users in the area who protested President Trump's inauguration. The subpoena, uncovered by CityLab, asks Facebook to appear in court and provide specific user information, including names and addresses of people who use the social network and were recently arrested by the Washington, D.C., police department during the protest.

Facebook and Slack are not the same thing, but as communication and organizing tools, they serve similar functions. Facebook was used as a tool for protesters to share information. Slack serves a similar purpose for journalists who might use it to keep information about sources and material.

Timm emphasizes that reporters' fear of inadvertent disclosure isn't new. In recent years, the Obama administration took steps to either indict journalists for withholding sources and whistleblowers or to have them subpoenaed to give information before a court of law. Timm has written about the groundwork that President Obama laid for Trump in this regard, using the Espionage Act—a World War I-era law intended to target spies—as a means to stem leaks and out sources.

If authorities ask Slack for data about journalists, the company may be forced to comply. In its Data Request Policy, the company says, "Except as expressly permitted by the Contract or in cases of emergency to avoid death or physical harm to individuals, Slack will not disclose Customer Data, unless it is compelled by law to do so or is subject to a valid and binding order of a governmental or regulatory body." It also says it will notify a customer before disclosing any of their data, "unless Slack is prohibited from doing so" or if the data is associated with "illegal conduct" or the risk of harm to people or property.

As of last April, Slack said it had received four requests for user data, one from the government and three from third parties, but had responded to none of them. The company wouldn't offer further information about these requests. Slack does not offer a warrant canary, a web page that some tech firms use to alert users to government data requests that are intended to be kept secret through gag orders.

"A Big Juicy Target"

Part of the problem, as Timm sees it, is the allure of Slack and its slick interface. "Slack does make things so easy and enjoyable," he says. "Often the people who are using Slack let their guard down." Which is to say that they'll assume the digital space is completely secure. "There really needs to be an increased awareness within news organizations," he says, "about when it's appropriate to discuss things on Slack or when you should go to a more secure channel."

To Adrianne Jeffries, senior editor of The Outline, "Slack is best for coordination and brainstorming," she writes in an email. "Using it for editorial conversations can lead to hasty judgments, but sometimes you have to for expediency."

Reporters aren't the only chatroom users who should be concerned about privacy. Anyone using Slack at work—even in private messages and in non-work-related semi-"safe spaces"—can be surveilled by an employer. If the employer is using a "Plus plan" and can demonstrate legal authorization to access employee chats, the company can access archives and conversations from private channels after submitting an application to Slack.

And the risks aren't relegated to Slack alone. Nearly every communication platform can pose a security risk. Gawker, for example, had its Campfire hacked in 2010 (an incident unrelated to the court order it received in 2016).

"I'm not sure the risk is any greater than with email," says Jeffries, who, as an editor at Motherboard, moved her staff off Slack for a week last year as an experiment in productivity. But, she adds, "I do think Slack is a big juicy target for hackers."

Slack says it takes security "very seriously," and has recently made it possible for enterprise employees in health care and financial services to share documents using industry privacy standards HIPAA and FINRA. Still, user data on Slack—as on HipChat and Campfire—is encrypted only at rest and in transit, which to the chagrin of privacy advocates like Timm, is not as secure as end-to-end encryption.

If Slack Were Like Signal And Snapchat

There are a few things newsrooms can do to fortify their chatroom security. First, they can be very intentional about what they say and don't say on platforms like Slack. If an editor and writer are sharing privileged information, it's best to take that to a system where the information is end-to-end encrypted. Privacy-focused chat apps like Signal or Wickr offer that level of security, and for the more technically inclined, rigorous encryption methods and private servers can be used with IRC, the decades-old chat protocol. Timm mentions a Slack alternative made by SpiderOak called Semaphor, which is pretty much a privacy-first solution for workplace communication. Mattermost bills itself as a secure, open-source Slack alternative, and Wickr also offers a group chat app aimed at the Slack crowd.

More important is for organizations to implement policies that will protect them in the long run. For example, organizations can require all users to use two-factor authentication to sign in, and can choose to have their Slack archives deleted at regular intervals. (Fast Company's Slack archives are erased after 30 days.) It's in the media's best interest, says Timm, to "have a very strict data retention policy."

Additionally, there are things Slack can do to make its product better for journalists. For one, it could end-to-end encrypt its messages, better ensuring that the contents won't be intercepted by a nefarious third party. A Slack spokesperson says the company may evaluate end-to-end encryption in the future.

Slack could also offer the option for organizations to host their data on their own servers, something the company says it has no plans to do. (Slack currently hosts data on Amazon Web Services servers.) If it did allow self-hosting, individual organizations could be in charge of their own security and wouldn't be in peril if Slack itself were to receive a subpoena, court order, or warrant—or if the company's security was somehow compromised.

Timm adds that either of these solutions could fit within Slack's business model, provided it was not interested in mining user conversations for data. Slack's rules on customer data are similar to many other digital platforms: It won't share information with third parties unless given explicit consent from the user (this often means the corporate account holder, not the individual user). But the company also keeps track of all metadata, which it calls "other information"—including log data and well as device and geolocation information—to "research and analyze trends." And last month, Slack announced it was using artificial intelligence to help users and managers "analyze content to address information overload."

As groups increasingly rely on software to communicate with each other, it will be up to managers and editors to figure out how best to protect themselves and their sources. As Jeffries wrote, "I think it has to be a mix of things, and staying on top of that balance is the thankless task of the managing editor."

Here's how to get notified only when you want to, master some handy keyboard shortcuts, and turn off that annoying red dot.

Slack is designed to replace your inbox and be the one place where all your communications would happen, keeping you and your team productive and informed at the same time. But like all communication tools, it can also be a distraction. Try to combine every message from everyone on your team—along with notifications from your apps and Slack bots—into one spot, and it's only a matter of time before things get out of control.

If you're part of a distributed team working in different time zones, chances are no matter when you start work for the day, there will be conversations that happened while you were gone. Sometimes there will be a lot of them. It's not that uncommon for me to have 30 mentions or direct messages waiting when I wake up, because I work in the Indochina time zone while most others on the Zapier team don't.

Combine that with the fear of missing out (FOMO), and you'll want to not only read your mentions but also might like to catch up on the chitchat in the "#general" channel. That's fine—but it's highly unlikely that you're being paid just to read Slack all day. So how do you stay up to date on what everyone's talking about, join in on conversations with remote colleagues you'd otherwise miss out on, and stay focused on your real job? Here are five hacks that can help.

1. Catch Up On Unread Messages "Scientifically"

When you first open Slack for the day—or after being away from Slack for a while—the first temptation is to tap each channel and catch up on what's happened. That's a great way to waste the first part of your day without doing anything actionable.

There's a better way. "All Unreads," a Slack feature launched in September 2016, shows all the messages you haven't read from all your channels in one place. The same features are there—you can react to messages with emoji, start a new thread to continue the conversation (more on that in a minute), or star the message to remember it. You can even click on the message's time stamp to jump to that moment in the channel's chat conversation if you want.

The biggest difference is it's fast. Know how when you're trying to scroll up to see unread messages in a long channel and sometimes you go too far? That'll never happen in "All Unreads."

You can browse unread channels alphabetically or by those with the newest or oldest messages. The best way, though, is to use Slack's "Scientific" order. That shows the channels in the order Slack thinks they're most important to you—and it's pretty good at getting it right.

Some channels won't matter that much. To hide them—now and in the future—just tap the channel's name in the list to hide its messages. Then use your left and right arrow keys to jump to the next unread channel in the list, and tap "r" to mark everything as read.

Or just click the "Mark All Messages Read" button at the bottom. Trust me, it feels good.

Now, leave Slack on that All Unread page, and go back to work. When something new comes in, Slack will update the page to show how many messages you have to read. Tap your return key, read the message, press "r" to clear it, and go back to work again.

2. Read All Your Mentions At Once

All Unreads still has the information overload problem: You'll get every random conversation that happened while you were away. For a more actionable unread list, open Slack's "Activity" pane by clicking the @ button in the top right. That'll show all of your mentions, along with emoji reactions from others to things you posted—something you'd miss out on otherwise.

Once you're done with that, and have replied to all of your direct messages, "tap CMD+esc" to clear out all of your unread messages at once. You'll lose the random conversations, but you'll quickly catch up on everything that directly involves you.

3. Learn Slack's Keyboard Shortcuts

Ask the Zapier team for tips on how they manage Slack—and other productivity apps—and keyboard shortcuts come up in almost every reply. They're the quickest way to clear through unread messages, switch between channels, edit your last message, and more.

Here are some of the best time-saving shortcuts—or check Slack's Keyboard Shortcut list for the rest:

• Clear unread messages in a channel: Esc
• Clear all unread messages: Shift+Esc
• Go to previous channel or DM: CMD+[ or Ctrl+[
• Go to next unread channel or DM: Alt+Shift+up arrow
• Open All Unreads: CMD+Shift+A or Ctrl+Shift+A
• Open starred messages: CMD+Shift+S or Ctrl+Shift+S
• Open All Threads: CMD+Shift+T or Ctrl+Shift+T
• See all of Slack's keyboard shortcuts: CMD+/ or Ctrl+/

Then there's the best Slack shortcut: "CMD+T" or "Ctrl+T". That opens the conversation search box, where you can type the name of a channel or DM and jump to it in seconds. To search through messages themselves, "CMD+F" or "Ctrl+F" will take you to the search box just like in most apps. With Slack's advanced search filters, you can use it to find pretty much anything—a bit of insurance that you won't miss out, even if you don't read everything.

4. Get Notified Only When You Want To

FOMO is hard to kick—but it's a valid fear when colleagues are discussing something you're responsible for, and you don't notice the conversation and thus don't join in.

You don't have to read every message in every channel, though. Instead, let Slack help. Whenever someone mentions you in a Slack channel you're in, it'll notify you as normal. If they mention you in a channel you're not in, Slack will tell them you didn't get notified and ask if they want to notify you. That helps.

For everything else, rely on "Highlight Words." Open your Notification settings again, and add a list of words that you want to know whenever they're mentioned. I'm responsible for Zapier's books and reviews and want to know when someone talks about them because often they're mentioning something that needs updated. And I'm a photography, writing apps, and information architecture geek, so I could add those terms to find conversations I'd want to be part of.

You could also add variants of your own name; people might mention Matthew or Matt when they're mentioning something I've worked on, so it'd make sense to include both in my highlight words. Add the terms that make sense for you—just don't make them too broad, or you'll get notified about everything.

5. Turn Off The Red Dot

Once you've emptied your Slack queue and are back to work, there's one thing that's most likely to pull you back in: The red dot. Perhaps the most insidious thing about notifications is that they make you feel like you have to do something about them. That little red notification dot can be useful if you're urgently waiting on a reply. The rest of the time, it's just tempting you to check Slack, reminding you that there's something new you haven't read yet.

So turn it off. Go to "Slack Preferences" > "Notification Settings" and uncheck the "Show [dot] symbol on icon to indicate unread activity." And enjoy the peace. You'll now only see the red dot with a number whenever you get mentions or direct messages.

Taming Slack Your Own Way

There are more drastic solutions too. You could ignore mentions by default, as our platform engineer Bruno does, and only read those from your private messages and starred, most important channels. You could even ignore everything that happens in Slack when you're not around, as our customer champion Paolo does, and rely on search to bring conversations back to life when you need them. Or you could take product marketer Sean's approach, relying on the "Activity" sidebar plus emoji bookmarks to surface the most important info.

Either way, the important thing is finding what works for you—and being honest with yourself when Slack is taking up too much time. Figure out the balance between using Slack to stay in touch with your team when you need each other, and preventing Slack from getting your work done efficiently. And turn off that red dot—it's definitely not helping.

A version of this story originally appeared on Zapier. It is adapted and reprinted with permission.

A guide to manage both a personal and professional presence on social media.

Your social media presence is a crucial part of your post-college job hunt. In fact, 60% of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, according to CareerBuilder's annual social media recruitment survey, and 49% of hiring managers say they've found information that caused them to not hire a candidate.

If you're a new graduate, it's time to give your social media presence a professional makeover, says Lesley Mitler, cofounder of Early Stage Careers, a career guidance firm that works with recent college graduates.

"[In college] you tend to use social media for fun, but you need to use it to brand yourself," she says.

Companies want to see someone who lives the words on their resume in everyday life, says Ryan Smolko, associate director of student transition and engagement at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. "They're looking for students to have a genuine interest in their desired profession, and to see them engaging with other professionals and organizations related to that industry," he says.

College is the time to make these changes, so that you can have a developed, organic, and professional profile when your prospective employers come looking, says Mitler.

Separate Personal And Professional

Start by creating separate personal and business profiles, with the highest privacy settings applied to your personal account, says Mitler. "Having one account makes it easy to update, but some of the posts might not meet your needs in terms of what you want to communicate to a professional population," she says.

Be sure to check your privacy settings once a month to make sure everything is appropriate, adds Smolko. "New updates often bring new features to social media platforms that may affect what the public can see," he says.

How To Use Professional Accounts

Students tend to underutilize social media to market themselves in an internship or job search, says Smolko. "Employers are utilizing platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram more to advertise their organizations and promote the employee experience," he says. "Students are only as visible as they make themselves, which includes social media."

Students should follow industry leaders on Twitter, says Mitler. "Retweet or comment on what they tweet," she says. "Retweet news from companies you're interested in, or tweet articles you find valuable. It's a matter of showing passion and engaging with thought leaders and peers."

Instagram is a great way to build a portfolio if you're studying a creative field, such as graphic design or photography. "Be sure it represents your long-term interest, though," says Mitler. "If your first 400 posts are you at a baseball game and you have one post from fashion week, it doesn't flow. You want to demonstrate your passion."

LinkedIn is already a professional platform, and students should use it to network for a job, says Mitler. "One of the terrific things you can do is search alumni from your school," she says. "Younger alumni are often receptive to conversation, making introductions and advocating your candidacy."

Another way students should use LinkedIn is to research the backgrounds of people who hold positions you wish to get, says Mitler. "Look at the last three people hired and find common threads," she says. "Do they all come from Ivy League schools? What jobs did they hold? This gives you a lens into what the company looks for."

Damage Control

So what about those old inappropriate photos and posts from your personal accounts? Individuals should frequently Google themselves and see what comes up, says Mitler. "Make sure there is nothing unflattering," she says. "Be as self-aware as early as possible, removing photos and tags from anything you can."

If there are posts that you can't remove, create more recent positive posts. "Bad posts can become buried, so try to balance any negativity that may be there," says Mitler. "People don't think about until after social media has gotten ahead of them."

And once you've established new professional accounts, keep them professional. Mitler says she sees people taking liberties on Twitter that they don't do elsewhere. "There's a frequent use of profanity, especially if they're treated poorly by a business," she says. "Don't commingle this with talking about your career and professional life. Have separate accounts or maybe get rid of your personal Twitter account."

Social media should be viewed as the tool that will separate you from the pack, says Smolko. "Students should use it to showcase their skills, interests, and experience," he says. "Maintaining that professional focus will easily allow them to avoid problems."

Two people sharing the top corporate spot works in some cases, but in others, it can hold perilous risks.

No matter how many capable advisers you have around you, being the CEO of a growing company is a big job that requires many skill sets. So why not divide the responsibility and put co-CEOs in charge?

But two heads aren't always better than one. A George Washington University study explored whether co-CEOs were the answer to the high failure rates of second-generation, family-owned businesses. (The answer: sometimes.) But David Martin, founder of leadership consulting firm David Martin & Company, says having two people in a role where there is typically one decision maker "almost never works." When two people are working in a fast-paced environment and need to make decisions quickly, having to check in with another person can make an organization less nimble.

Still, those who do it well find it brings benefits to the organization. In order to give co-CEO roles the best opportunity at success, here are five essentials to keep in mind.

Figure Out The "Why"

Karen Kimsey-House and John Vercelli have shared the leadership of Coaches Training Institute (CTI) since 2015. Since its founding in 1992, CTI has had both singular and co-leadership, so it isn't an unfamiliar dynamic to employees. Still, Kimsey-House and Vercelli were certain that they needed both of their skill sets to grow the organization. "We just find that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," says Kimsey-House.

There has to be a big reason for co-leadership to make sense for a company, says strategy consultant Allan Cohen, a management professor at Babson College. Co-CEOs understand that one person doesn't have all the answers. One leader may bring a particular skill set to the table or can manage a part or region of the company better than the other can. But it has to be clear why co-managing is being done in order for it to be effective, he says. "[It] doesn't work very well if they are overly competitive and do not know how to work to their individual strengths or complement each other appropriately," he adds.

Define Your Lanes—And The Worst-Case Scenario

One of the first things that needs to be done is a division of responsibilities, says management coach Rhett Power, author of The Entrepreneur's Book of Actions. The relationship won't work if toes are regularly being stepped on. Determine the areas in which each has the final say, and put it in writing, which can be referred to if conflict arises.

It's also important to decide how worst-case scenarios will be handled. What will happen if there is a serious disagreement about an important company decision? Will there be a board of advisers or other entity that will help resolve it? Who will have the final say if an agreement can't be made? And what will happen if co-leadership is no longer right for the company?

"That's a really painful discussion," says Power. He's currently working with a company facing just such a crisis, and it's threatening the organization's livelihood. "Basically, they're going to have to close the company, or someone's going to have to get paid to leave."

Pay Attention To Power Divisions

Cohen also warns leaders to be careful about the division of responsibility. Some duties, such as setting a company's strategic direction, making large investment decisions, and choosing key hires, are more powerful by nature. If your power structure has one person consistently making these decisions while the other handles more of a support role, one co-CEO may end up being that in name only. Eventually, that's bound to lead to resentment. So while responsibilities should be divided according to skill sets, also define the decisions that will require both CEOs to weigh in.

Know Your Communication Styles

Miscommunication is bound to happen, so ways of communicating regularly, well, and often need to be established, say co-CEOs Karen Robinovitz and Raina Penchansky, who lead branding agency Digital Brand Architects. They lead their team of 50 from opposite coasts—Robinovitz in New York City and Penchansky in Los Angeles—but they communicate by phone several times a day.

While they say they have similar views on most things, there are still times they have to compromise, says Robinovitz. They've known each other for 20 years, so they understand each other's communication style. Paying attention to those details—how someone reacts when under duress, for example—helps to reduce conflict. "We understand a tone of voice the other one has and what that means, what that person might be feeling. Just like you would in a marriage. And you know when to step away, or when to step close and have certain conversations," she says. Knowing that they both have the company's best interests at heart helps them let go of perceived slights or issues that don't matter.

Be Transparent About Responsibilities

Once roles have been clarified, it needs to be communicated to the team, Martin says. If employees receive mixed signals, some will become disengaged, while others may try to play the co-leaders against each other to get what they want, he says. In addition, Martin says it's critical for co-CEOs to present a united front, even when there is conflict.

Martin recalls a conversation he once had with a client. "I told him, 'When you eat lunch late, or you come to the office early, or whatever, when you're not smiling, people are trying to interpret that all the time,'" he says. So, keeping that in mind, if your employees see conflict at the top, it can cause concern.

Co-CEO roles aren't easy, but they can make a big job more manageable and provide additional skills and insight. Consider this option carefully, says Cohen, and ensure the details—including what to do if it doesn't succeed—are worked out from the start.

The startup's whole-home Wi-Fi system is getting a price cut on its first birthday. Can it stay on top of the market it created?

After jump-starting the whole-home Wi-Fi market last February, Eero is celebrating its first birthday with price cuts.

While conventional routers try to cover an entire home through a single connection point, Eero uses multiple units to create a larger mesh network, employing algorithms to determine the best path to the user's internet modem. Starting at 8 a.m. Pacific today, a three-pack of those units will cost $399, down from $499, and a two-pack will be reduced by $50 to $299. (Individual units will still cost $199.)

Nick Weaver, Eero's CEO and cofounder, says he's surprised by how rapidly the whole home Wi-Fi market has taken off over the last year. According to The NPD Group, these Wi-Fi systems made up one-fifth of all router sales by the end of 2016, and Eero was the leader, with more than 50% of the market, which includes both mesh router systems and hub-and-spoke systems like Netgear's Orbi.

"This time last year, we had zero customers, and basically this category didn't exist," Weaver says. "Now, as we approach our one-year anniversary, it's been pretty incredible to see just how quickly this whole industry has transformed."

Still, plenty of competitors are vying for the business that Eero started, including other startups such as Plume and Luma, and home networking mainstays such as Netgear, Linksys, and D-Link. Google has also launched a whole-home Wi-Fi system, and Comcast is testing a mesh system for Xfinity internet subscribers. With so much competition, much of it from much bigger companies, Eero's long-term success will require more than just a price cut.

Staying Focused

Eero shipped its system last year at just the right time, as consumers were becoming aware that they need more bandwidth and stability for all their phones, tablets, streaming TV devices, and smart-home products. People are spending more than ever to fix their Wi-Fi woes, according to NPD analyst Stephen Baker, who says the average selling price for routers rose above $120 last year, up from around $85 in 2013.

"People don't just spend more money on a commodity piece of infrastructure unless they have recognition that there's some level of benefit they're going to derive from that," says Baker.

But while Eero's early arrival helped it claim the most market share, Baker notes that Wi-Fi giants like Netgear and Linksys didn't release their own systems until late last year. Those companies have better brand recognition among mainstream consumers, plus more experience managing inventory and securing promotions in retail stores. Baker expects 2017 to be a lot tougher for Eero.

"As you try to expand the market, you're getting to people who are less likely to be focused on the technology, and more focused on branding, availability, ease-of-use, comfort, and those kinds of things that a mainstream consumer is more interested in," says Baker. "And at that point, you're starting to compete with guys who've been in that section of the aisle for 10 to 15 years."

How can Eero stay ahead of the bigger brands? Weaver says the key is to focus on a single product and software platform. He notes that over the last year, Eero has pushed more than 20 software updates that have added new features and improved network performance. Meanwhile, Netgear routers recently fell prey to a major security vulnerability, and D-Link faced an FTC complaint over malware risks in its routers. The implication is that Eero can do a better job with security and software than companies that sell an array of networking gear because it isn't spreading itself thin.

"When you don't have a legacy business, and you have one core product to support, you can be much more nimble, and also more focused," Weaver says.

Eero's singular focus creates a marketing advantage as well, Weaver says, because the company can extoll the benefits of mesh networks without worrying about cannibalizing sales of single-point routers, which he believes are more profitable. Traditional router makers "end up having to have two different, multiple marketing messages, and it's hard to be committal," Weaver says.

As for availability, Eero spent much of the last year scaling up its manufacturing, logistics, and operations just to keep up with demand. That work is what allowed the company to cut prices heading into its second year.

Eero's focus isn't without trade-offs. Eero still doesn't sell its product outside the U.S.—though Weaver says routers are online in 125 countries—and the company isn't looking to create special versions of its routers for Internet service providers, even though they control about half of the U.S. router market, according to NPD. And while Eero does integrate with Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant, so far, the company has spurned other device integrations for fear of getting distracted from improving core network performance.

"We have really clear metrics around system reliability and uptime, and you want to make sure the team is focused on those things, because getting those right and continuing to get those right is really hard," says Weaver. "And it's really important in terms of how you're building credibility with your customers and ultimately a really great brand that people trust."

Platform Play

That's not to say Eero plans to focus on network performance and reliability forever. Arguably, it can't, because the market for mesh Wi-Fi alone will likely become commoditized with cheaper competitors over time. Eero's bigger goal—and a reason it's hoping to keep market share up with price cuts—is to turn its routers into a broader services platform.

Eero's routers include more computing muscle and storage than is necessary to provide Wi-Fi. In a previous interview about the future of routers, Weaver hinted at how those resources might be used, noting that a virtual assistant like Amazon's Alexa could respond faster if it had more local processing power. Eero, in theory, could serve as a distributed computing system, providing extra oomph as needed to other smart devices on the network.

Weaver still won't get into specifics about what Eero is planning—the company will reveal more as the year progresses—but he says Wi-Fi connectivity is just one essential building block. He draws a parallel to the iPhone, noting how ubiquitous cellular data and built-in Wi-Fi helped bring forth a powerful web browser and eventually the App Store.

"With connectivity in place, think about what the other building blocks of our system are in general. Each of the units has compute, each of them has storage, it's tied to a really robust cloud and data infrastructure, so you're able to take advantage of that to do even more additional compute," Weaver says. "From there you can see the very, very early beginnings of what a whole home platform needs to look like."

For now, though, Weaver is enjoying the feeling of making a new kind of product that it turns out people want.

"I still can't believe it's been a year. At times it feels like it's been 10," he says. "But it's really cool to basically have created this category from nothing, and to keep pushing everything forward."

The deal represents a disappointing exit for Tilt, which had previously raised over $60 million.

Airbnb has closed on its acquisition of Tilt, a startup for crowdfunding and peer-to-peer payments, in what sources describe as an acquihire. Tilt cofounder and CEO James Beshara will join the Airbnb team, as will Tilt employees with expertise in group payments, an area that Airbnb plans to build out.

Prior reports pegged the purchase price as in the $10-$20 million range, but those estimates reflected just one part of the broader deal. The final price, sources say, including employee retention packages, is closer to the $62.1 million that Tilt had previously raised from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Felicis Ventures.

The deal came together through conversations between Beshara and Joe Zadeh, Airbnb's VP of product, who has been looking to expand the company's capabilities around group travel. The discussions grew more serious as Tilt started running out of cash.

Founded in 2012, Tilt found early success on college campuses, where its app became a popular way to raise money for frat parties or split the expense of late-night pizza. Overseas, in Canada and Europe, user behavior looked closer to that of Venmo. But Tilt opted to focus on user growth instead of revenue and relied on other payments companies, like Stripe, for significant parts of its technology. When user growth slowed in the U.S., the company started to run out of options.

For Airbnb, the deal marks its second acquisition this month. Last week the company acquired Luxury Rentals, a vacation rental company with a portfolio of high-end properties. With Tilt, Airbnb follows the tried-and-true playbook of combining payments and travel, a strategy that has served American Express well.

She says she wants to "dress the world," and she's off to an impressive start. We spoke with Amaka Osakwe about what inspires her Maki Oh clothing line.

Before Amaka Osakwe can design a single piece of clothing, she tells herself a story. She might spend hours imagining the life of a woman rushing to catch a bus after a long day. She'll give her a name and paint a picture of her family, her friends, her boyfriend.

This was, in fact, the inspiration for Osakwe's Fall 2017 collection, which she showed earlier this month at New York Fashion Week. The 30-year-old designer from Nigeria thought about the yellow danfo bus that peppers the urban landscapes of her country, packed to the gills with people trying to get to the market, office, or mall. As she was designing, Osakwe added more and more layers into her tale of a woman leaving work late at night for a rendezvous with her lover, then slowly riding back to the office the next day. This kind of detailed narrative drives Osakwe's creative energy. "It's really the only way I know how to design," she said during a recent interview.

Osakwe's esthetic blends traditional elements from her Nigerian culture with modern Western silhouettes, and her label, Maki Oh, has gained an impressive following in the U.S. and the U.K. since it debuted in 2010. Her star-studded client roster includes Michelle Obama, Lupita Nyong'o, Solange, and Issa Rae.

I sat down with her the morning after she showed her collection to discuss her creative process and her ascent into the global fashion scene.

Fast Company: What are these danfo buses?

Amaka Osakwe: They're government buses, full of too many people. People just jump on and hang on the sides. There's all this art and graffiti on them, and sayings people have scribbled on the side.

In my collection, I included one saying, "No condition is permanent," hand-stitched into the clothing. Everyone in Nigeria believes that if you are poor today, this is not permanent. Tomorrow, you'll be a millionaire. Everyone is so hopeful.

What made you decide to become a designer?

I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do from the time I was 16 or 17, in Lagos, where I had spent my entire life. It's not normal to be a designer in Nigeria: You have to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a banker, because those are the safe professions. It was hard to convince everyone that I wanted to go to fashion school.

I really liked Japanese designers, and I still do—Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake. I like how they've taken their culture and turned it around, made it relevant. I also like couture designers, like Chanel, because I like working with my hands. I like anything that has to do with craft, or any sort of expertise.

I went to fashion school in Bournemouth, in England, and I encourage all Nigerians interested in becoming designers to go to fashion school. As a painter, you can always pick up a brush and paint. But if you're told what color relations are or how paint dries, you have a better grasp of the craft. That makes a good starting point for you to flourish.

How did you convince your family that you weren't going to be a lawyer?

My mom helped me handle telling my dad. We literally came up with a little presentation to show him. From the beginning, he said he was fine with it, but internally, we all knew he was freaking out. Everyone around me, all my aunties and uncles, people at church, would come to me and say, "You're driving your father crazy. Why are you going to fashion school?"

They were ultimately so encouraging. And it was so wonderful to take them to the White House years later. My publicist and I were invited to the White House for an event. We each got a plus one, so we brought my mom and dad along with us. Now, my father tells everyone that they should send their children to fashion school. I'm the favorite child right now. He tells every Tom, Dick, and Harry, "Do you know that my daughter took me to the White House? Michelle Obama wears her clothing."

You're famous for using traditional Nigerian fabric-painting in your work, blending it with modern aesthetics. What made you combine the two?

To me, it's not about modern contrasting with the traditional. They go hand in hand. It's about making sure the traditions in my culture don't die. Take, for instance, adire, the dying process that I use that involves putting wax on the fabric then dipping it in indigo. The craft is dying out because it's so time-consuming and expensive. People were looking for the quickest way to make money. So there are just a few people left who are sitting down to make these fabrics the old way.

Most of the fabric that people think is African—the colorful stuff—is made in China or the Netherlands. I feel my work is about educating people about our culture and celebrating our beauty. I have used a traditional motif that is hundreds of years old that has been passed down from generation to generation. They don't change much and each motif has a meaning behind it. Clothing used to be worn as a form of communication. Cloth would allow you to make an actual statement, like, "I'm happy that you're here," or "I'm sorry about what I did to you earlier." Some people can still understand what each motif means.

Because of the success of the brand, younger designers are catching on to this, and using adire. I'm so happy everyone is joining the party. We're giving more people work. When I first started, there was only one woman in the village I was working in, doing adire, but there are more now.

You like to tell elaborate stories when you're designing. For this new collection, you imagined a woman going on a date. Can you tell us more about her?

A woman is taking a danfo bus to see her lover. But she's going very late at night and because she's lower middle class, so she can't just go in an Uber or a taxi. She has to take three different buses to get to his house.

Nigeria is a conservative place, so she has to be very secretive. In the collection, she's all covered up on the way there, in lots of denim and long sleeves. Then I think about the transformation when she gets to his house and she gets into different types of nightwear and lingerie. At 5 a.m., she has to get back to school or to work. She's not lying in. She can't even afford to lie in. I think about the shower process. I designed one outfit that looked like a bath robe.

I need to tell these elaborate stories with characters. I can't just look at someone and design a shirt or a dress. I just don't know how to design on the surface, or just for aesthetics. I believe that everything has to have a meaning. Life is too confusing on its own. We need to find meaning in what it is that we do. For me, the meaning always comes in very detailed stories.

How do you come up with these elaborate tales?

Day-to-day Nigeria. One of my seamstresses is always itching to leave work because she has a boyfriend. She has to take three different buses, going through potholes, just so she can get to him. The next morning she's back and work, bright and early. She and I talk.

Why do you think that so many prominent black American women have taken to your clothing?

I think because my clothes are a celebration of beauty. They're not focused on the political fight. We certainly haven't gone after women of color in particular. They have just gravitated towards the brand and I think it's because they're looking for something to wear that reflects part of who they are but isn't combative.

I want to dress the world, but I also want to dress Nigeria. Nigerian women understand the clothing without having to do any research. Just looking at it, they understand what the patterns mean.

Amazon, Google, and eight others are driving the future of consumer electronics.

In the old days, every outfit in a list of important consumer electronics companies would have made . . . you know, consumer electronics. Stuff like TVs. But in this era, as more of the products in our lives look like devices, and they're all connected over the internet, a more diverse group of players are setting the agenda.

Click on a company to learn more about why it made the list.

01. Amazon

For priming its consumers for a lifetime of purchases

02. Google

For homing in on the voice-assistant space

03. Apple

For remembering the core of its products: the chips

04. Xiaomi

For expanding its Mi brand into an internet-of-things (IoT) ecosystem

05. Eero

For taking the fight to crappy Wi-Fi

06. Microsoft

For threatening Apple's position as designers' favorite device maker

07. Dolby

For going beyond audio to bring more clarity to screens, too

08. Tile

For fending off the key-finding competition by putting its tech into vehicles and more

09. Kano

For standing out in the coding-for-kids crowd by tapping into the IoT

10. IFTTT

For streamlining its hoard of app recipes

This article is part of our coverage of the World's Most Innovative Companies of 2017.

Personal and family medical issues are prompting some of the Valley's best tech minds to try to fix our broken health care system.

When Stephanie Tilenius, a former senior executive at eBay and Google, decided to start a health-coaching app, many in her network were incredulous. "Everyone thought I was crazy," she recalls. "Some people loved that I wanted to do something to help others, but a lot socially ostracized me."

For many entrepreneurs, the health sector offers an enticing opportunity—with strings attached. It's an estimated $3 trillion market and is still dominated by a cadre of traditional players. But many in the technology sector have shied away from the industry after witnessing many high-profile failures and realizing that change doesn't happen quickly. "Silicon Valley operators and investors see that health care needs better technology," explains veteran health IT consultant Ben Rooks. "But they learn quickly that health care isn't about radical disruption; it's about slow evolution."

Despite the challenges, a small but growing group of former technologists from companies like Google and Twitter are in it for the long haul. In many cases, their motivations are deeply personal: A family member lost to chronic disease, or a brush with the broken health care system. I spoke to four former tech executives about their reasons for moving into health care, the cultural differences between the two sectors, and the challenges they've faced along the way.

"Because patients deserve better than a seven-minute visit."—Stephanie Tilenius, former VP of commerce and payments at Google and former GM and VP at eBay and PayPal

Stephanie Tilenius started her career at e-commerce companies like eBay and PayPal, and eventually ascended the ranks to become a senior vice president at Google. But prior to joining eBay in 2001, she spent a few years at an online drugstore called PlanetRx. That early experience in health care had a lasting impact on Tilenius. When her father got sick, she felt an even stronger pull to quit her steady tech job to make an impact in the sector. "My father had multiple chronic conditions and went from doctor to doctor," she recalls.

These days, she is the CEO of a startup called Vida, which provides virtual care for patients with chronic ailments. Before starting the company, Tilenius reflected on her father's need for "continuous care," which would involve all of his care providers communicating with him and each other between office visits. Tilenius believes his heart attack could have been avoided, or at least delayed, if he had received better care than a "seven-minute visit, in which all his doctors would all just tell him to change his diet."

Unlike many of her peers in health tech, she made a point of working closely with medical centers that were already developing clinically validated programs for treating patients with chronic disease like diabetes, depression, and hypertension. She started Vida to make these programs more accessible by shifting some of the components online, and connecting patients with virtual health coaches to inspire long-term behavioral changes.

At first, many friends and acquaintances in her network couldn't understand why she'd leave a successful career in tech to start a health company that would likely grow and monetize at a slow pace. "People didn't understand why I would leave a senior role and money on the table," she says. "In Silicon Valley, it's about hypergrowth, and if you're not doing that, then there's something wrong." Likewise, many in the health sector were skeptical about technologists moving into their own complex sector. Tilenius believes that she'll ultimately show her detractors on both sides that new platforms will emerge in health care, starting with mobile and cloud, and that companies like Vida will be at the forefront. Ultimately, she asks, "Don't you want us crazy Googlers to help people by building companies and taking risks?"

"It's a quest for purpose."—Katie Jacobs Stanton, former VP of global media for Twitter, and Othman Laraki, former VP of product management at Twitter and former product manager at Google

For Othman Laraki, the CEO of Color Genomics, the migration of technologists to health care is inevitable as the so-called "internet generation" ages and their priorities change. Laraki's company offers a $249 test to screen people for gene mutations associated with various cancers. Laraki says he left a job in product management, in part because he learned that he is a carrier of one of these mutations. He also found through his research that those with an early awareness of their disease risks can take proactive and preventative steps. "Color started with a simple question," he recalls. "Is this test something that could benefit my family as well as other families out there?"

The shift to health care hasn't been easy. One of the key differences between the two sectors, he explains, is the criteria for success. "In tech, [the adage] is kind of true that 'if you build it, they will come'," he says. "In health care, the quality of the product is like No. 10 on the list." Other factors are more important, such as price, privacy, patient safety, relationships with key industry stakeholders, and so on. Laraki is confident, however, that this will slowly start to change with more data flowing in health care and the trend toward consumerization.

In the meantime, he says that Color Genomics has been able to get an edge on its rivals, in part due to the technology background of its founders. As an example, the company started out by pricing its product in a unique way. The founders made the test affordable enough for most patients to pay out of pocket. "It was unusual, but an effective way to reach a lot of people." Most gene-testing companies will instead choose to work with insurance companies to maximize revenue, often at the expense of its patients. By iterating continually on the product, a talent acquired at Google, Laraki says the company was also able to cut the time it took to develop a fully compliant in-house lab from the expected one year to just three months.

The response among those in the tech community to Color has been mixed. "I get a lot of, 'That's interesting,' or, 'Huh?' says Laraki. But he and Chief Marketing Officer Katie Jacobs Stanton say that many of those same people want to get involved when they simply explain the opportunity. For Jacobs Stanton, the decision to join Color came after she watched her brother and father battle cancer. But she also had practical reasons for coming on board: "I follow the three-principal model," she says. "Who are the people? What is the product? Could I help?" Jacobs Stanton, who is also an investor in Color, joined the company only after being convinced on all three.

"I wanted to build something of everlasting value."—David Vivero, former vice president of rentals for Zillow

David Vivero recalls a not-too-distant past prior to the Affordable Care Act in which a person with a chronic medical condition, himself included, could be denied health insurance. Things may have changed on that front, but many people still feel regularly dissatisfied with their experience in health care. That prompted Vivero to start a company geared to consumers and patients (most health companies are business-to-business). "I wouldn't say it hit me like an epiphany," he says. "I started with an image of a single page that could be a window into an important health decision, and then it evolved." For Vivero, another motivator came after he became a parent: "Now, having a child, I wanted to build something of everlasting value."

Vivero's startup Amino Health aims to provide transparency for patients on physician quality and price so they can make more informed decisions. One of the challenges for Vivero has been to convince veteran health technologies that there's a route to make money through consumers, he says. Aware that many companies have tried and failed to improve transparency, some industry experts are skeptical about his chances. "The first movers tend to have arrows in their backs," he explains.

But Vivero is convinced that technologists have a good shot at improving some aspect of the health experience if they stay humble and bring in experienced medical advisers. He says many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of eyeing the multitrillion-dollar opportunity and casting their net too wide without realizing that one sliver of the industry could be worth hundreds of millions. "When you are out there speaking with the bluster of a typical Silicon Valley entrepreneur, try to modulate it," he advises would-be founders. "Start with empathy, and a desire to get it right for each individual user."

With help from investor Morgan Freeman, MOTEV is refashioning stars' rides to Hollywood award shows.

Uber to the Oscars? Not for Hollywood's elite.

In an industry where appearance is (pretty much) everything, one's choice of awards show transportation is not to be taken lightly. It used to be a limo, then a black car and now—it's a Tesla. That's why MOTEV, a boutique car service in Los Angeles, boasts an entire fleet of the carmaker's all-electric vehicles: 7 Tesla Model Xs and 4 Model Ss.

"Most people want a Tesla," MOTEV founder Robert Gaskill tells Fast Company. "They love the idea—it's all electric, zero emissions, and it's terrific for the environment."

For $80 an hour (plus tax and gratuities), anyone can be chauffeured around the city in a Tesla. Passengers, many of them tech executives and actors, are treated to a luxe experience: Cars are outfitted with soft chilled towels, natural aromatherapy oils and bottled water. There are even red carpet "emergency kits," filled with safety pins, boob tape, breath fresheners, and other last-minute red carpet necessities. It's a natural fit for the celebrity lifestyle.

"It makes a statement," says Gaskill. "It makes sure you will be noticed."

Hollywood's A-list have long admired the Tesla, which has gradually usurped the Prius as the chic environmental car of choice. Ben Affleck, Cameron Diaz, Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Steven Spielberg all drive one. The almighty Oprah couldn't contain her enthusiasm and even photographed her purchase of one. Teslas, of course, comes complete with a luxury celebrity price tag: Costs range from $68,000 to $134,500, depending on the package.

"It's the new Apple product, the new in-thing," says Gaskill. "You're part of an exclusive club."

Tesla also symbolizes the new, updated American dream. It's a homegrown entrepreneur story that's easy to get behind: Here's a company that took a fledgling idea, made it work, and then slapped a premium price tag on it.

"They're not coming out of Detroit, they're not coming out of Germany—they're coming out of Silicon Valley, which has its own sexy connotations," explains Josh Condon, deputy editor of The Drive, a site that covers global auto news. "It turned a nerd-mobile into a properly sleek, sexy, incredibly fast sports sedan ... And celebrities also very much like things that show status symbol."

The celebrity factor is a big one for Gaskill, especially since it helped launch his business in a very personal way. The former Teamster met actor Morgan Freeman over two decades ago on the set of the 1995 film Outbreak. A friendship quickly ensued and Gaskill became part of the legendary actor's travel and security detail. A year ago, Gaskill approached Freeman with his idea—a Tesla car service company—and the Oscar winner quickly signed on as the sole investor to help build the largest fleet of Tesla cars in the United States.

"We're here today because of him," says Gaskill of his silent partner. "[Freeman] certainly loves the idea of Tesla and its technology and where it's going, even outside of vehicles."

The actor's interest in MOTEV is unsurprising seeing as he himself owns a Tesla and is quite vocal in his admiration for founder Elon Musk. "I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk," he told CNBC in September 2016. "I think he's got the most incredibly forward thinking ideas about where we can go technologically."

Freeman was instrumental in getting MOTEV off the ground this past September, particularly in terms of connections. MOTEV supplied car services for CBS's Madam Secretary—of which Freeman is an executive producer—to transport stars Tea Leoni and Tim Daly to the New York set.

Since then, the year-old startup has made significant gains within the entertainment industry, providing cars for movie premieres and award shows. During the Grammys, MOTEV's entire fleet was hired by the show's producers to shuttle celebrities back and forth from their respective hotels.

"[Celebrities] love the wow factor of the Model X with its Falcon Wing doors," says Gaskill. "We did that loop for several hours before the show."

It's not just the car. It's also the staff's training that has celebrities feeling at ease—the white glove service that comes with a black car company. MOTEV's chauffeurs all go through background checks, receive Red Cross CPR/AED training, and sign nondisclosure agreements. They are dressed in custom black suits designed by Robeaux Switzerland. MOTEV even partnered with Aecon Global Security Consultants to provide executive protection for clientele that requests the add-on service. It's a different experience than ordering an UberLUX or Lyft.

"Those drivers are not vetted in the same way as limo companies and not insured in the same way," Gaskill says of the vendor-based companies. "If you're hiring transportation to go from point A to point B, then that's exactly what you'll get with Uber and Lyft. But if you want service with transportation, then you don't hire Uber: you hire a limousine service."

Apart from the celebrity factor, MOTEV has also made gains within the upscale, environmentally conscious set of Los Angeles—of which there is no shortage. Luxury-meets-environmental is a key concern for Southern California's wealthy, who want that specific touch for everything from their cosmetics and food to how they power their homes and what kind of cars they drive. (The Model S comes with flashy features such as a "bioweapon defense mode" button which filters air pollution.)

The feel-good aspect of a Tesla is a big part of MOTEV's marketing campaign, which appeals to a wide subset of Southern Californians—both in Hollywood and in Silicon Beach. Beyond industry events, it's advertising itself as an affordable luxury service to and from the airport, an area that's popular with tech executives. And in the coming year, the young company intends to expand to surrounding areas, such as San Diego and Orange and Ventura counties. That's due to the fact that those areas claim upscale communities, as well as the Tesla's extended battery life. "Because it's electric, you want to make sure that for the trips, you're not wasting all your battery power going to and from the client," explains Gaskill.

Looking ahead, Gaskill has his sights set on amping up a fleet in New York City, followed by Atlanta. "It would be so easy to grab at any of the large cities on the East Coast," he says.

But expanding isn't so simple when it comes to acquiring a hard-to-get automobile. Tesla is notoriously famous for its months-long waiting list, with competitor BMW going so far as to mock it in a recent campaign. (A narrator in a recent ad states, "You can put your name on a list, and wait … or you can drive.") In that sense, MOTEV cannot easily add a car per need, but rather, must put in an order for several at a time, with hopes to receive them sooner than later. There are reports, for example, that the Tesla Model 3 is sold out through mid-2018.

"It's kind of backwards the way you have to grow your business with this brand of car," admits Gaskill. "And of course, as the cars have become popular, the delivery dates take longer to get those vehicles. You don't just go to a dealership and purchase this vehicle. You have to purchase all your cars upfront and then market your business and then go after it and grow it that way."

It's a double-edged sword: Teslas are so popular that their short supply inconveniences MOTEV's growth while also ensuring that people desperately want a ride from his current inventory. That doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon: Tesla Model S was voted the "Most Loved Model" in the United States by Consumer Love Index for the second time in three years.

In that sense, expect to see a few of Hollywood's brightest step out of a Tesla at this Sunday's Academy Awards. Gaskill can't name names, but the MOTEV fleet is already booked solid for the red carpet arrivals.

"It's a head-turner when they arrive," says Gaskill. "Everyone knows that it's a Tesla when it shows up."

Try these 60-minute "soft projects" to wrap up every day of the week.

It's 4 p.m. and you're having a hard time focusing. So you stare at your computer and click in and out of lots of tabs. But when you look up, you see it's only 4:03 p.m. Then, you get a glass of water, which takes all of seven minutes. You're not feeling inspired to tackle something important, but ducking out early—or sitting at your desk and twiddling your thumbs for 50 minutes—aren't options either.

Sure, this may sound like a dream problem to someone who's buried in piles of work, but if it's your reality, it absolutely sucks. If you have a smaller-than-usual workload, or are lacking motivation, the feeling of being trapped at work—with time passing agonizingly slowly—can be especially strong.

How can you beat this? The answer is soft projects. They don't demand much attention, investment, or effort, but they'll still get you through that final hour of the workday—and help you make some progress on your to-do list. Bonus: They'll also make you look busy (read: dedicated) to your boss.

But since you just reorganize your workspace one day after the next, here's a list of what you can do to be productive. As a bonus, we paired each task with a certain day to maximize how much you get out of it.

Monday: Organize Your Emails

The average person spends more than three hours a day checking work-related email. And I'll bet that number is even higher on Mondays, when you've let your inbox lie dormant all weekend.

And while you're right to stay away from writing tricky messages when your brain is fried, getting your inbox organized doesn't take a ton of focus, and it can help cut down on wasted time in the long run.

Here are easy ways to get started:

• Unsubscribe from any newsletters you never read.
• Create folders (or labels) for different types of emails, such as ones from different departments, or based on who they're from, or what projects they're related to.
• Delete or archive old messaages that are just cluttering your inbox at this point.
• Mark the emails you still need to take action on.

Tuesday: Think Through Your Next Big Project

Sometimes people avoid starting something new after a certain time of day because they know they won't be able to finish it. If you have a four-hour task, the last thing you want to do is get started only to break your train of thought in the middle when it's time to go home.

In this instance, I suggest you start thinking about how you'll go about it and getting organized. How often have you started that four-hour project to realize you actually don't have everything you need or you have questions? A short burst of proactive research could equip you with better information—and spare you that time when you're more motivated and ready to work on the project itself.

Pull this off early in the week and you'll be more likely to put those plans into practice over the next few days.

Wednesday: Work On Your Thought Leadership

Being a better professional isn't all about executing tasks and planning projects. It often pays to take a step back and work on your knowledge, skills, and reputation—and it doesn't take much effort to do it.

Work on becoming more of a thought leader in your industry by catching up on the latest content in your niche. Get up to speed on any new developments and engage with others by sharing articles on LinkedIn and starting discussions. It's a great way to feel productive during your midweek slump.

Thursday: Declutter Your Desk

There's research that implies that creative, intelligent people tend to be messier. However, there's also a study that shows that clutter distracts you, inhibiting your overall productivity—plus, I doubt it'll go very far in impressing your boss.

So cleaning up your desk is a great task for a day when you're counting down the minutes until Friday and don't want to do much more than straighten up. It's as simple as discarding unnecessary papers, filing away anything urgent, washing out your coffee mug, and giving your desk and keyboard a thorough clean.

Friday: Make A Schedule For Next Week

The most successful people create and adhere to a schedule. Not only will it save you time in the days ahead, it can help you transform a "meh" afternoon into a plan to be productive moving forward. That, in turn, can boost your mood and positively affect your momentum.

So, pull a plan together in three simple steps:

1. Make a task list for everything you'd like to accomplish next week. Include everything that's currently on your radar—big or small. Break any larger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks.
2. Rank everything on your list and assign priorities.
3. Create a realistic timetable for getting everything done.

It's a perfect Friday task, because even you were lacking focus at this week was winding down, you'll be getting a head start for the week ahead.

No matter how optimistic or energetic you are, you're bound to have off days—and that's perfectly okay. Forcing yourself to tackle a complex task (assuming there's no deadline leaving you without a choice) can result in shoddy work and dissatisfaction, so embrace those free hours and do what you can with them.

This article originally appeared on The Muse and is reprinted with permission.

For now, the 5G goodness will flow only to a few hundred homes and businesses—and only to indoor fixed modems, not mobile devices.

Verizon said today it will launch "pre-commercial" 5G wireless service in 11 markets by mid-year.

The new 5G service is supposed to be far faster (up to a gigabit per second) than LTE and earlier wireless standards, and more reliable. It's the technology, we're told, that will catalyze the development of more and better wireless services for cars, "smart" cities, and all manner of internet of things (IoT) applications.

But 5G, like any new generation of wireless service, comes wrapped in a lot of hype. And that's how to read Verizon's announcement today.

This Verizon deployment, for example, will be for fixed wireless only. That is, the 5G radios on the cell towers will beam the new service to modems sitting on desktops in 400 to 500 households and businesses. 5G smartphones and other mobile devices don't really exist yet, and by the looks of things they aren't exactly rushing to the marketplace.

It's likely that 5G service will be largely confined to stationary use for a few years to come, one industry analyst told me. In that form, 5G will be a wireless replacement for cable and fiber optic service. Fiber service is fast, but the networks are costly to build—lots of digging of trenches is required—and most service providers have backed off broad rollout of such service.

Verizon says it hopes to get some 5G deployment experience from the 11-market trial that will be useful once 5G networks are ready for smartphones and other on-the-go gadgets. "The information we collect during this trial will correlate to mobile use going forward," a spokesman told me.

The Slow Road to 5G

Most large U.S. carriers, including Verizon archrival AT&T, are working on 5G technology trials of their own. Verizon's announcement confirms that this trend is continuing.

The larger story is that while the hype is coming fast and furious, actual investment in building 5G on the ground will likely happen slowly. One industry expert told me the big wireless carriers may not be in a financial position to undertake a major reworking of their national LTE wireless networks.

Selling wireless service used to be a sweet business, but these days it faces more challenges. For the most part, wireless service revenues have declined over the past couple of years, and ARPU (average revenue per user) numbers have decreased by 20%. While consumers continue to use more and more wireless data, the market has matured and it's become harder for carriers to find brand-new customers. And competition among the wireless carriers has become more intense, narrowing margins.

Some also question the viability of the 28 GHz "millimeter wave" wireless spectrum Verizon is using for its fixed 5G service. The government made the spectrum available last year to address the scarcity of wireless spectrum. Millimeter wave transmits in small radio frequency waves of between one and 10 millimeters. These small waves are susceptible to getting blocked by trees or buildings—or even absorbed by raindrops—on the way to a device.

"Delivering mmWave broadband connectivity in non-line-of-sight environments, such as suburban and urban areas, is extremely problematic over the last quarter mile," said Mimosa CEO Jaime Fink in an email to Fast Company. "This is because signals can be affected by environmental factors such as foliage and solid constructions, typical in suburban areas, where almost 80% of the U.S. citizens reside." (Mimosa makes wireless network gear that uses a competing spectrum type.)

Advances in antenna design and signal beam-forming are said to have made millimeter wave spectrum more reliable, but questions still remain. Verizon may learn more about the viability of the technology during its 11-market trial. The company says it will be testing its 5G service in Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Bernardsville (N.J.), Brockton (Mass.), Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami, Sacramento, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Consumers can't do business with Shopify directly. But they can target the companies that do—and support employees who want to quit.

Add boycotts to the list of phenomena that have been transformed in the Trump era. In the old days, consumers threatened to stop buying from a company until it changed a specific practice—ending the use of sweatshop labor, for instance. Now activists target companies that do business with other companies, like retailers that carry Ivanka Trump's fashion line or brands that advertise on Breitbart News Network. Case in point: Consumers are going after Shopify, a Canadian company that doesn't even sell to consumers. It's a business-to-business (B2B) platform that provides the backend to over 375,000 online stores—including Breitbart's.

The #DeleteShopify campaign is riding a wave of momentum against Breitbart, a far-right news outlet whose editors espouse white nationalist ideology and whose onetime executive chairman, Steve Bannon, is now Trump's chief strategist. (Breitbart's best-known writer, Milo Yiannopoulos, resigned this week amid charges that he had endorsed pedophilia in a video.) Over 1,100 organizations and firms, including biggies like BMW and Chase, have blacklisted Breitbart from their online ad placement after getting flagged on Twitter by an awareness campaign called Sleeping Giants. Activists are still pressuring other advertisers, especially Amazon, to pull ads; but they are also going after Breitbart's other revenue stream—merchandise sales, particularly of T-shirts, hats, and mugs.

"Not a lot of people had probably heard of Shopify until a few weeks ago," says Emma Pullman, lead campaign strategist with SumOfUs, a Canadian activist organization that sponsors online petitions. "Now Shopify... these days is quite a household name, and not for a good reason."

On February 8, Shopify's CEO, Tobias Lütke, explained his reasons for doing business with Breitbart in an elaborate essay on Medium that drew a link between free commerce and free speech and compared Shopify's policy to the mission of the American Civil Liberties Union. "To kick off a merchant is to censor ideas and interfere with the free exchange of products at the core of commerce," Lütke wrote. "When we kick off a merchant, we're asserting our own moral code as the superior one." When asked to share its view on the comparison, the ACLU declined to comment.

SumOfUs, which describes its mission as "curbing the growing power of corporations," rejects the free speech argument and claims that Shopify is helping fund hate speech. More than 140,000 people have joined the organization's petition urging Shopify to dump Breitbart, and according to SumOfUs, those signatories include 15,597 Shopify-powered store owners, 759 shareholders, and "dozens" of employees. (People can state their affiliation when they sign on.) Unlike almost everyone else who's angry at Shopify right now, these people actually have influence. But will they use it?

Easier Said Than Done

Even the majority of signatories, who have no real economic leverage, can still have an effect. "Most boycotts don't spur consumers to change their behavior at all," says Brayden King, professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. If boycotts succeed—as they do about a quarter of the time—it's usually not because they've convinced consumers to change where they spend their money; it's because they've generated press. King offers an extreme example: the Kentucky Fried Cruelty boycott by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in the early 2000s. "It's not as if any member of PETA is eating at KFC. They have zero consumer power," King says with a chuckle. "And so when they boycott KFC, they're doing it because they're trying to create a show that will appeal to people who can put pressure on KFC."

In the Shopify case, the non-customer activists are trying to get the attention of Shopify's actual clients, many of whom are already concerned about the Breitbart relationship. Glyn Lewis is one of them. "I just don't want to see our resources going to Shopify, which is enabling this kind of hate speech," says Lewis, who owns Kent Street Apparel, another Canadian business. "I just know that right now if I mobilize other companies, especially bigger companies, we'll have a more powerful voice."

Lewis has networked with other merchants and written an open letter to Shopify, but even he is hesitant about jumping ship. "I'm in the process of looking at other options. It's not an easy switch," he says.

Jonathan Schwartz, a Massachusetts developer who specializes in Shopify installations, describes the process in blunter terms. "Migrating a pre-existing store from one platform to another is, candidly, a royal pain in the ass," he says. That's true whichever direction clients are going. "A lot of times, what I'm doing is helping them migrate from somewhere else to Shopify, and that can run them tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars in branding things, development things, data-migration tasks." It's about as far as someone can get from the #DeleteUber campaign, where consumers could simply switch mobile apps and shift to a virtually identical service, Lyft.

The owner of an online yarn and fiber store who's apparently moving off Shopify did not mince words when she tweeted about her situation from her personal account: "shit shit fuck fuck what the hell I can't afford this again goddamnit shit fuck damn #DeleteShopify"

Another outspoken merchant is Michelle Gudz, owner of V Word Market. On February 17, following a call to action she posted on Medium, Gudz closed her vegan online grocery for a day. "We have been on Shopify for nearly two years. We want to be optimistic that they will change their stance, but we are still migrating our store to another provider," she told Fast Company via Twitter. Gudz is still evaluating alternate services.

It's easier for some people to reject Shopify because they haven't gone all in with the service yet. "I've seen a lot of action on the web, of people saying things like, 'I'm about to launch, but I'm not going to now,'" Schwartz says. Lewis adds that the bad feelings around Shopify may be the final motivator for people who were already thinking about changing e-commerce providers for business reasons.

The bad press could also discourage new customers, according to Lewis, who admits to being a big fan of the company, aside from the Breitbart issue. "They've alienated people who were brand ambassadors for them," he says, referring to Shopify. "Not only are they losing customers, but they are turning people off who were out there preaching for them and now have taken a pretty hard stance against [Shopify]." (Fast Company named Shopify one of the Most Innovative Companies in 2012 and 2016.) "I found out about this Breitbart thing, and I was furious," says Schwartz. "I felt that, wow, this company that I've sort of aligned myself with is doing something that I just so unbelievably disagree with."

Full Assault

On February 16, SumOfUs increased the pressure again by recruiting approximately 2,000 Shopify customers to sign an open letter to the company stating, "As users of your platform, we believe you are choosing the wrong side and may decide to take our services elsewhere."

If companies do make good on the threat, activists will be happy to assist them. Shannon Coulter, who created the #GrabYourWallet campaign against Trump-related companies, started an ever-growing Twitter conversation about Shopify competitors.

Shopify employees opposed to the company's Breitbart stance are also making their voices heard, albeit in smaller numbers. Since the controversy erupted, at least two staffers have announced their departure. Both declined to speak with Fast Company beyond confirming that they had left. When one of them, Tessa Thornton, tweeted about quitting, she asked for leads on new jobs. This inspired SumOfUs's Pullman to create a job board for like-minded Shopify employees.

"I put that online and said, 'Can we help this person find a job?'' Pullman says. "And immediately people started piling comments, saying, 'Oh, let me ask around.'" That evolved into an online form on the SumOfUs site where companies can submit job postings and another where potential Shopify defectors can sign up to receive listings. (The job categories are Software Engineer, Project Manager, Designer, Customer Support, and Other.)

It could be a new kind of poaching—not necessarily by offering better pay or more stimulating assignments, but rather a values-aligned work environment. "I think it's a pretty interesting and effective tool, and I wouldn't be surprised if other campaigns picked up on trying tactics like this in the future," Pullman told us in an earlier interview.

These techniques could be applied to other B2B companies. Sleeping Giants is trying to persuade the ad networks that automatically place adverts on websites to blacklist Breitbart. That would pull the ads of companies that haven't joined the Sleeping Giants campaign. Three ad networks—AppNexus, Rocket Fuel, and TubeMogul—have signed on, but the biggest, Google, has not. Taboola, already unpopular for its practice of posting sponsored links to apocryphal news articles, is in the crosshairs as well. Pullman says that SumOfUs may also target SiriusXM for carrying the Breitbart News Daily program on the satellite network.

Both Sleeping Giants and SumOfUs are setting their sights on Disqus, which powers the discussion boards on Breitbart and many other sites. "The comments sections of these sites are where the really, really insidious shit goes down," says a Sleeping Giants organizer who, like all members, declines to provide his name. (In his case, he works in digital marketing and fears causing friction with clients.) "Disqus keeps powering these comments sections that are really insane."

The Shopify campaign is still in its early stages, and efforts against Disqus or Taboola haven't begun yet. It's unclear how effective any of this will be. "I think a lot of the rules of activism are changing right now," says Pullman. "In the current political climate people are finding new and innovative ways to make their voices heard."

How Bad Is It?

Breitbart is known for running such inflammatory headlines as "Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy." In that article, which is not labeled as an editorial, author Milo Yiannopoulos cites scientific studies to make outrageous claims like, "Birth Control Makes You Jiggle Wrong" and "Birth Control Makes You A Slut."

Shopify would argue that it doesn't defend Breitbart's views. "We don't like Breitbart," Tobias Lütke wrote in a postscript to his Medium essay. "If Breitbart calls us tomorrow and tells us that they are going to switch to another platform, we would be delighted."

Shopify has also resisted pressure from right-wing groups against certain clients, like those selling LGBTQ-oriented products. And the company has hosted several left-leaning stores, including those for the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. (It was also a platform for campaign merchandise for Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.) Other liberal stores include Google Ghost (Nasty Woman products), Otherwild, (The Future is Female shirts), Wicked Clothes, and Bobo Academy. The products from these vendors generally have positive messages, such as a sweater that reads, "A Woman's Place is in the House and the Senate'," though Bobo Academy can get a bit raunchy. See: its "Vagitarian" and "Gay As Fuck" T-shirts.

Shopify's position is that it will only drop customers who engage in illegal activity, such as violating copyright. Some Breitbart critics say it can go further, pointing to terms of service that allow Shopify to remove content it deems "offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene, or otherwise objectionable." An argument could be made against Breitbart editorial content, but what of its merchandise? A T-shirt with an image of the U.S. and the words "Get In Line" might offend some people, but so could "Gay As Fuck."

The words on Breitbart's merch are fairly tame compared to the ones in its articles, and Shopify powers the Breitbart store, not the news site. A strong case might be made against Yiannopoulos's online store, which features a banner that reads "Muslims suck, our shirts don't." One T-shirt delivers this unsubtle message: #FEMINISMISCANCER. Shopify does provide the backend to the Yiannopoulos shop, but so far, opposition to it has been relatively limited compared to the concerted anti-Breitbart campaign.

By equating commerce with speech, Shopify has armed both sides in this conflict. Speech—even really hateful speech—has broad legal protection in the U.S. and other countries. But everything that's legal is not necessarily socially permissible. Offensive statements can wreck a company's reputation and cause financial harm. Now perhaps offensive merchandise can as well.

What does your luggage say about you? A lot, according to new companies that sell upscale suitcases for the modern, fashion-conscious traveler.

Do you remember the time when traveling by train or aircraft was romantic and glamorous? Neither do I.

As long as I've been alive, traveling, it seems, has been an uncomfortable experience for the average person. Seats are hard, small, and cramped. The food is usually bland at best. You can barely lift your arms in the joke they call a bathroom. You never know when you might be delayed and forced to wait with other unhappy passengers, with no clue as to when you might get to your destination.

To top it off, there's the issue of luggage. In airports and train stations across the world, passengers drag around ugly, boring suitcases that are often in varying stages of decline. Wheels and handles fall off. Exteriors are easily scratched and dented. Too many cases look identical, which means you have to watch every single one circulate on the baggage carousel until yours comes along.

A few startups want to help make the suitcase side of travel less painful by making durable, good-looking luggage. "The thing about travel now is that it's so unglamorous," says Sara Banks, founder of Steamline Luggage. "Every single thing about it is a slog. A really gorgeous suitcase can add just a smidge of glamour and elegance back into the experience. When you're stuck in that god-awful security line, it can put a little spring back into your step, the way a really beautiful fashion accessory can."

In the early 2000s, when Banks was in her twenties, she owned a textile accessory business and sold scarves and wraps to boutiques in Europe. She would visit fashion trade shows attended by elegantly dressed professionals. "I would see all these women decked out in really nice clothing—beautiful jackets, nice designer handbags—but coming out of the airport carrying around this really ratty luggage," she recalls. "It lets the whole outfit down."

Banks decided to reengineer the suitcase. She wanted to create travel bags that were fashion-forward, but also sturdy enough to withstand the rigors of the road (or air or rail). As an avid traveler who spent every free moment backpacking through Indonesia or flying to Paris on a whim, she understood that durability would be key. Trendy novelty suitcases exist; the problem is that most of them are made of cheap materials and, priced at around $100, don't usually survive more than a few trips.

Banks's idea was to combine the beauty of vintage leather travel trunks with modern technology. She took a year to design a collection of rectangular leather-wrapped cases with contrasting leather straps and elegant metallic accents, as well as stable feet, TSA locks, silent wheels, and retractable trolley handles. The interior is made of high-density fiberboard and aluminum. "The challenge was to make it as lightweight as possible while still making it durable," she says.

In 2015, Banks launched Steamline without any external funding. A carry-on bag starts at $430 and, depending on the materials, can go up to more than $1,000. Until now, quality leather trunks were only available from luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Hermès, which are generally priced at $5,000 to $20,000. Steamline's mid-range price point is much more accessible for the buyer looking for a well-made bag that will last. (The company backs each case up with a flexible return policy, lifetime warranty, and free repairs.)

It took a while for Steamline to take off. The majority of products were sold online, and at first, the cases were seen as niche objects, designed for eccentric travelers who wanted to re-create the mood of Murder on the Orient Express or Out of Africa. But over the last two years, Banks says that the company finally reached a tipping point and began to grow exponentially. "The sales between this year and last year have already tripled," she says.

Banks attributes at least part of the growth to increased awareness of the brand. Steamline cases have been featured in travel magazines and blogs, and high-end retailers like The Line and Neiman Marcus started carrying the bags in stores. Steamline also collaborated with Kate Spade and Reiss on special-edition products.

But Banks thinks the uptick in sales also reflects an increased demand for luggage like Steamline's—products that consumers see as something more than a mere receptacle for their belongings. And as her business was taking off, other suitcase startups entered the market, broadening the discussion about what the ideal modern travel bag might look like. Away and Raden, for instance, both launched in 2015, seeking to create affordable, functional, attractive luggage.

Fashion Doesn't Mean Ephemeral

Much like Banks, Away's cofounders Steph Korey and Jen Rubio had observed that people were passionate about travel, but not their luggage. A broken handle or misbehaving wheel could sour an entire trip. "It was interesting seeing a huge industry that had not been given much attention from a fashion- and brand-experience perspective," says Korey. "It was just an afterthought. We wanted to take on this utilitarian object and turn it into a fashion item."

For Korey and Rubio, this didn't mean creating a suitcase that was sensitive to trends, but rather one with a sleek, timeless aesthetic. They say they had 800 in-depth conversations with travelers about what they needed in a suitcase before landing on the final design: A monochromatic hardshell case that's available in muted colors (gray, dark blue, cream) and is light, maximizes the interior capacity, and scratch-resistant. Carry-on bags, which go for $225, have in-built phone chargers. "Trendy isn't one of the things we were going for," says Korey. "Our real goal was to keep things out of a landfill and make one really amazing suitcase that someone could take on their travels for their entire life."

The cofounders stole a page from the fashion-industry playbook when it came to building a brand personality. Away's Instagram feed is full of aspirational images of young people traveling to chic urban settings, like airy New York lofts, bus stops in Japan, and brick roads in London. These photos are meant to conjure up the excitement of modern travel—as much as Steamline was tapping into the romance of the past—and build a connection with the consumer. Few stalwart luggage brands, such as Samsonite, Delsey, Tumi, or American Tourister, have managed to forge this connection with a millennial audience.

Away also reimagines the experience of purchasing luggage. For many of us, buying a suitcase means going to a department store and making a selection from a wall of functional, if dull, choices. And for many of us, that's just fine—not everyone wants a bag that communicates one's unique identity to the world. But for others who do want to make a statement and hate boring bags, Away's founders have something else in mind.

Having worked at Warby Parker and Casper, Korey and Rubio began with the assumption that today's consumers would be willing to buy almost anything online. So there was no need for traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Away ships bags for free, and there's a 100-day trial period during which customers can return a used case if it doesn't suit their needs.

Away also holds pop-up shops around the world to give people a chance to see the luggage and experience the brand. Bags on display are accented by complementary products from brands with a similar aesthetic: a S'well water bottle in gray, chic travel magazines like Afar, Polaroid cameras, and Aesop toiletries. "All these brands have audiences of their own, whom they will introduce to Away," Rubio says.

Each pop-up incorporates a theme of an individual city and is stocked with local products. The shops also often host yoga classes, concerts, or dumpling-making tutorials. Away want people to leave the shop with a clear understanding of their ethos, which is making the most out of every travel experience.

The Suitcase As Performance Art

Josh Udashkin founded Raden on the belief that consumers are beginning to treat their suitcases like they do other key accessories: as an extension of their personality. He was inspired by the headphone industry (particularly Beats and Frends), which took a utilitarian product, introduced cool design and lifestyle branding, and launched a veritable craze. "Until now, you wouldn't think of luggage as a reflection of the rest of your taste," he says. "There was no delightful, smiling moment when you made your purchase. It was time for young people to take a look at luggage—the way they already have in many other large, arcane industries, like mattresses and razors—and reimagine it for the way we shop today."

But the problem, Udashkin says, is that consumers have been trained to think of suitcases as boring—if they think of them at all. He was actually a bit embarrassed to tell his family and friends he was launching Raden. "It was easier for me to come out of the closet than it was for me to tell people that I was going to sell luggage," he says.

His strategy has been to take drastic, attention-grabbing measures that reposition the suitcase as a work of art. Raden pieces are sleek and minimalist; they come in many colors, ranging from black to blush, and stack neatly. Each one is equipped with a phone charger and GPS so you can keep track of your bag at the airport using a Raden app.

Udashkin launched the company in a 6,000-square-foot space in New York's Soho, with a "massive coliseum" of floating white luggage. People popped into the store thinking it was an art gallery and took selfies with the bags. "For us, it was a little bit of fun, a little bit of a smile," he says.

More stunts followed. Last December, Raden hired performance artist Matt Starr, who stacked up 84 suitcases in various colors outside five different New York hotels, including The Standard and The Plaza. In a sort of absurdist experiment, Starr tried to check into each hotel with all the bags in tow. At Selfridges on Oxford Street in London, the company created a display of suitcases that also served as a phone-charge bar. "I don't think I'm going to convince someone to buy a suitcase when they see it in a pop-up shop," he says. "So we've taken a totally different approach: It's more about spectacle and experience, and not so much about the bag itself."

As the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte might have said: This is not a suitcase.

A new study reveals how people in leadership positions might be more prone to making unethical decisions.

The higher up the corporate ladder you climb, the more likely you might be to engage in unethical behavior.

That's the findings of the latest study from Jessica Kennedy, assistant professor of management at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. Kennedy says she had a hunch that high-ranking executives had more difficulty accurately perceiving ethical problems, even though previous studies suggested that they had the confidence, influence, and control of resources necessary to put a stop to unethical practices.

To find out if this was true, Kennedy studied archival survey data from more than 11,000 U.S. federal government agency employees. Then separate experiments were conducted in which about 300 participants were randomly assigned high- or low-ranking positions.

The experiments revealed that those who were given a position of high rank were 75% more likely to lie for financial gain. This result indicates that those at the top of the hierarchy are less likely to correct bad behavior, a concept referred to as "principled dissent" in the research.

The experiments also revealed the reason why those with higher rank were more likely to excuse and go along with bad behavior: They identified strongly with their group.

Further, the study says that the more strongly high-ranking individuals identified with being a part of the group they were leading, the likelier they were to view their group's decision as more ethical—even if it wasn't. Finally, the research suggests that low-ranking individuals may be better at perceiving and acting against unethical practices.

Most employers will happily tell you they support diversity and inclusion. Your job is to find out how.

Ask any company whether they're diverse and inclusive, and they're probably going to tell you "yes." After all, not many hiring managers would want to admit that they have trouble recruiting or retaining members of diverse backgrounds. If you take that answer at face value, you run the risk of joining a company that talks a big game, but ultimately fails to take action. And in a worst-case scenario, this results in anyone from a non-traditional background feeling isolated and uncomfortable at work.

But you don't have to wait until you've accepted a position to figure out whether or not a company walks the walk when it comes to sexual preference, race, religion or gender. The interview process is an opportunity not only for a company to get to know you, but for you to get to know the company—and there are a number of questions you can ask that will help shed light on their commitment to equality and inclusion.

So, what exactly should you ask? We asked a few HR and recruiting experts to weigh in.

1. What Are Your Most Important Values?

"This question typically highlights many things, including diversity, and provides a glimpse into their culture and helps the candidate get a better feel for whether their values match the company," says Lee-Anne Farley, Global HR operations leader at Glassdoor. While this is admittedly a less direct question, it makes it more likely that you'll get a straight answer about whether or not they value diversity. Because what an interviewer does or doesn't say can speak volumes.

2. How Important Is Diversity To You, And What Value Does It Bring?

"Every organization should have an idea of their business case for diversity and inclusion and should also be able to articulate that," says Sara Taylor, president and founder of deepSEE Consulting. If they don't have a stated business case, Taylor says, ask if they have any knowledge of how diversity has contributed to the bottom line. Companies that are aware of the concrete benefits diversity provides are much more likely to promote it.

3. What Are You Doing To Make Sure Everyone Feels Included?

"While diversity does positively impact the bottom line, inclusion is just as important," Taylor says. "Organizations that are actively creating inclusion strategies have assessed their organization to know both their inclusion strengths and challenges. They've also created plans to address those challenges with best-practice programming."

4. Can You Share Data On The Organization's Diversity?

Diversity stats will give you a clear picture of where the company you're applying to stands, and "most organizations have this data readily available and are clear about certain roles, departments or levels that are lacking," Taylor says. The best companies will also have "talent development programs that ensure an internal pipeline of great talent"—after all, you want to make sure you have room to move upward at your company.

5. How Diverse Is The Executive Team?

Speaking of advancement, noting the diversity of the leadership team says a lot about the upward mobility for diverse candidates and will likely indicate a more inclusive culture for candidates of underrepresented backgrounds.

"Feel free to ask about the team and their career paths to their current role, as this can also kick-start a discussion about how they develop their people and can bring up any programs that embrace diversity and a commitment to a diverse, rounded team," Farley says.

6. Is The Leadership Team Committed To Diversity?

You can add to that, "If so, how do they express that and ensure that commitment cascades down throughout the organization?"

If the leadership team isn't particularly diverse, you can still ask this question to gauge how highly they value diversity. "While candidates can check the organization's website prior to the interview to see what they publicly say about diversity, sometimes the commitment expressed on the website isn't expressed on a regular basis by leaders," Taylor says.

But in order to truly be successful, diversity needs to be a top-down initiative. "Ideally, leaders are regularly communicating about their commitment to diversity and inclusion and have strategies in place to back up that commitment."

7. Are The Company's Recruiting Efforts Supporting A Diverse Culture?

Pay close attention to how your interviewer answers this question—"it shows if they cast a wide net to attract a variety of backgrounds and talents," says Jamie Hichens, senior talent acquisition partner at Glassdoor. This proactive effort is crucial, as achieving diversity more often than not requires a conscious and active effort from a company. And if they communicate that to their recruiters, it's proof that their commitment is serious.

8. What Diversity, Inclusion, And Cultural Competence Training Has My Supervisor Had?

Given how closely you work together, your manager can truly make or break your experience at a company—so it's important to make sure that diversity is both a priority for them and something they have experience in.

"Without cultural competence training, supervisors are likely missing the complexities of diversity and don't have the necessary skills to respond effectively and create an inclusive work environment," Taylor says.

9. Who Holds My Supervisor Accountable To Diversity And Inclusion Measures?

Diversity shouldn't just be a one-and-done training session for your manager, however—it should be an ongoing effort that they are held accountable for. "Obviously, if no one is holding them accountable and no measures are in place, [you] can't be assured that [your] supervisor will be paying attention to diversity," Taylor says.

10. Does The Company Have Any Other Diversity Programs In Place?

Of course, it's ideal if a company already has programs dedicated to supporting and celebrating diverse team members, or bringing them in. But even if they don't just yet, not all is lost. You can also ask if they're planning to implement any in the future.

"This is a good question because even if programs are not already in play, it shows if a company has thought about the future of diversity and is looking to make it a priority," Hichens says. So if a company isn't quite where you'd like them to be at the moment, plans to ramp up diversity programs and initiatives are a good sign that they'll get there in due time.

This article originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission.