29 of favorite stories of 2022

What happened to Starbucks: How a progressive company lost its way
March 2022
By Clint Rainey
We at Fast Company spent decades writing about the groundbreaking ways that Starbucks put its employees and customers first. So, as fed-up baristas began unionizing and cafés became little more than a coffee-pickup depot, we wondered, What happened? Clint Rainey exposes how Starbucks’s tech-driven push for efficiency made baristas’ jobs difficult and customers’ experiences surreal (biometric data, just to enter?), and how, by abandoning its community-focused cafés in underserved locations, Starbucks has let entire neighborhoods down.
—Jill Bernstein, Editorial Director

How to convince people to become teachers
March 2022
By Stephanie H. Murray
Teaching has never been an easy job, but the pandemic made it even more challenging. As conditions became even more challenging (and pay remained dismal) during the pandemic, the share of teachers quitting their jobs rose, and fewer people are entering the profession in the first place. So what does it take to convince people to want to enter a battle-worn, purpose-driven, crucial career? —Kathleen Davis, Deputy Editor

Ukraine’s railway workers share lessons from the front lines
April 2022
By Sasha Maslov
It’s been almost a year since Russia invaded, and Ukraine continues to hold strong, thanks in large part to Ukraine’s well-developed rail system, which doesn’t run by itself. This is an epic and heroic story of workplace management, told through the voices of rail workers at various levels, who were interviewed and photographed in beautiful, human detail by Sasha Maslov. —Jill Bernstein, Editorial Director

Inside Remilia Corporation, the anti-woke DAO behind the doomed Milady Maker NFT
June 2022
By Ryan Broderick
If there’s one story that conveys the wacky toxicity that can engulf Web3 communities, it’s Ryan Broderick’s investigation into Remilia Corporation, the DAO that created the Milady Maker NFT. I won’t spoil anything, but this story’s got a Gen Z art scene equally obsessed with shitposting and occultism, an attempt to create a fan-authorized adaptation of Dune, and some extremely disturbing behavior. It’s weird, and kind of scary. —Max Ufberg, Senior Staff Editor

Will Banana Republic ever be forced to change its name?
August 2022
By Elizabeth Segran
In an era when problematic brands, from Washington and Cleveland sports teams to a certain anthropomorphized maple syrup, have been blessedly retired, Liz Segran takes a look at Banana Republic, the iconic mall retailer, which is enjoying a wave of resurgent popularity even as it markets a campy vision of safari-themed colonialism that seems completely out of step with the times. —Mike Hofman, Executive Editor 

This is why no one wants to be a middle manager anymore
August 2022
By Julia Herbst
“Have pity on these poor souls. Corporate life has changed irrevocably—and the person at the center of it is the mid-level manager.” The position can feel like both a punch line and a punching bag. As senior editor of our Work Life vertical, Julia covers the changing landscape of our workplaces and how the role of mid-level managers became even more critical and more difficult over the last few years. —Kathleen Davis, Deputy Editor

How Mark Rober became the Willy Wonka of engineering
August 2022
By Devin Gordon
This feature, which appeared in Fast Company’s September issue, is exactly what a print story should be: an entertaining yarn that makes you want to lean back and settle in. In bringing science alive for his YouTube viewers, Mark Rober knows how to conjure worlds and tell a great story. And so does Devin Gordon in this delightful profile. —Amy Farley, Senior Editor

1 million square feet of L.A. roads are being covered with solar-reflective paint
August 2022
By Elissaveta Brandon
I love stories about simple(ish) solutions to huge problems, and Ellie’s story about a solar-reflective paint that can cool urban surfaces by 10 to 12 degrees is a prime example of the genre. The piece was perfectly timed, too—right in the sweltering middle of August, in the wake of a series of heat waves—and I think that’s part of why it resonated so deeply with readers.
 —Brendan Vaughan, Editor-in-Chief

Why everyone in the $127 billion sneaker business wants to work with Salehe Bembury
September 2022
By Mark Wilson
As a non-sneakerhead, I learned so much about the creativity transforming the shoe industry from Mark Wilson’s profile of designer Salehe Bembury. And when it comes to storytelling, it’s hard to beat a scene at the Rose Bowl Flea Market with Bembury, a size 22 high-top made for Shaquille O’Neal, and a chance encounter with three of “the freshest dorks the eye has ever seen.” —Nate Berg, Staff Writer

The secret to recent Ukrainian battlefield success? New ‘artillery for dummies’
September 2022
By Jesus Diaz
During the summer’s successful push by Ukrainian forces, this article helpfully explained that some of the battlefield’s successes were due to solving a UX problem: a new system that made it easier for the soldiers without much training to simply rockets. —Morgan Clendaniel, Deputy Editor

Could a Heineken ad from 2017 actually hold the key to reducing partisan animosity?
September 2022
By Rob Walker
Advertising has always been perceived as having the power to persuade, although even that has been questioned in recent years. So what a surprise then that a megastudy out of Stanford this year found that a 4-and-a-half- minute Heineken video ad turned out to message concepts of social and political empathy more effectively than anything else measured. 
—Mike Hofman, Executive Editor 

Meet the 7 Chief Heat Officers who are making their cities more resilient
October 2022
By Talib Visram
Meet the eight smart women who have been tapped by policymakers in cities across the globe to bring practical solutions to one aspect of climate change. This piece manages to be accessible and focused on the edge of innovation in the climate field, and features gorgeous portrait photography to boot. —Mike Hofman, Executive Editor

Should Election Day be a federal holiday? Maybe not
October 2022
By Talib Visram
Anything that gets more voters to the polls is a good thing. So I always assumed that making Election Day a federal holiday would be a fantastic idea. But it’s not that simple. Talib’s story made me question my assumptions. It’s a must-read for anyone who cares about protecting the vote. —Jill Bernstein, Editorial Director

What all cities can learn from New Jersey 10 years after Hurricane Sandy
October 2022
By Elissaveta Brandon
Waterworld is coming for us. Yet in the decade since Hurricane Sandy flooded the subways of NYC, it doesn’t seem like most of the world is taking the threats of rising waters seriously enough. Cut to: Hoboken, New Jersey, the unassuming Manhattan-adjacent community that’s proving how specially designed parks and drainage systems can do a lot to mitigate problems in dense urban areas. The city is still flooding, albeit much more manageably: During Sandy, Hoboken had 3,000 buildings significantly damaged. During Ida, that number dropped to 300—and no one lost power. —Mark Wilson, Global Design Editor

Inside the rent-to-own startup that’s putting aspiring homeowners in financial jeopardy
October 2022
By Ainsley Harris
It sounds like a noble project: helping people who don’t qualify for a mortgage become homeowners. But for many of Divvy’s customers, this tenet of the American dream remains out of reach. Ainsley looks at how these aspiring homeowners struggle financially, while Divvy benefits.
—Julia Herbst, Senior Editor

Why corporate America broke up with design
October 2022
By Suzanne LaBarre
For starters, the lede: “In 2005, the future of American business was reflected in the spotless tile behind a toilet bowl.” Consider me hooked! The piece then goes on to tightly and smartly trace the entire arc of design’s ascent in the C-suites of America—and failure to become the “undeniably transformative force” that its most ardent believers foretold.  
—Brendan Vaughan, Editor-in-Chief

Planned Parenthood lawsuit: Former employee alleges widespread racism in the workplace
October 2022
By Pavithra Mohan
At a time when reproductive healthcare is under attack, this piece looks at the experiences of Black employees at Planned Parenthood and the organization’s history with white supremacy. —Julia Herbst, Senior Editor

‘Andor’ is a triumph of cinematic world building
November 2022
By Jesus Diaz
As an unabashed fan of this show, this piece gave me a compelling, detailed look into the design and act of world building that made Andor so so good.
—Jeff Beer, Senior Staff Editor

Is regenerative agriculture the future of farming or the next greenwashing fad?
November 2022
By Adele Peters
Regenerative agriculture gets a lot of play in press releases about food companies’ sustainability efforts, but it’s an incredibly new field that’s been embraced quickly—almost suspiciously quickly—by big food and big ag. It’s reasonable to ask if it’s actually accomplishing anything, and the answer in this article is very helpfully nuanced. —Morgan Clendaniel, Deputy Editor

Pirated e-book site Z-Library vanishes—sending college students into a panic
November 2022
By Jude Cramer
The beats of the story are weird and fascinating, it took me into a world I didn’t know about, we jumped on it quickly, and hundreds of thousands of people read it. And it was written by our amazing intern Jude!
 —Brendan Vaughan, Editor-in-Chief

It’s time to ban the electric centaurs from our cities
November 2022
By Jesus Diaz
Anyone who’s ever had to dodge a distracted (or inept or maniacal) e-rider will appreciate Jesus Diaz’s pitch-perfect portrait of toxic—and hazardous—”21st-century indolence.” —Jay Woodruff, Senior Editor