Summer Reading and the Epic Journey

Summer doesn’t officially start for a few weeks, but I’m already digging into my seasonal reading: revisiting Homer’s The Odyssey to prepare for the Christopher Nolan movie and devouring Inc.’s summer issue, which we started to release online last week. 

Each issue of Inc. offers a mix of discovery, inspiration, practical advice, and a few cautionary tales. In the latest installment, senior editor Rob Verger chronicles Rivian founder RJ Scaringe’s high-stakes quest to build a more affordable EV; contributor David Freedman tells the story of the Databricks-Snowflake rivalry and what it means for AI in enterprise; and senior writer Jennifer Conrad takes readers inside groovy soap brand Dr. Bronner’s disillusionment with the B Corp and its effort to build an alternative model. 

The new issue also features insights and tips from some of the 507 privately held companies in the 2026 Inc. Best Workplaces program. And several staffers contributed to “Welcome to the Experience Economy,” a handy guide to experiential marketing that recognizes that most companies these days are in the business of hosting events—and Mansueto Ventures is no exception.  

On May 19, Fast Company convened its sixth annual Most Innovative Companies (MIC) Summit and Gala, celebrating the individuals and institutions that made the MIC list earlier this year. Sponsored by PwC, Lenovo, and Publicis Sapient, the program featured speakers such as Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, Proximity Media founder Sev Ohanian, and Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Google and Alphabet. More than 700 guests turned up for the cocktail reception and gala. 

The MIC Summit and the upcoming Inc. 5000 Conference and Gala, both examples of what we call our “tentpoles,” started small. We launched MIC as a series of virtual panels in 2021; two decades ago, we hosted a modest dinner for companies on what was then the Inc. 500 list. As our ambitions have grown, our teams have risen to the challenge—securing stronger speakers and programming, creating new sponsorship opportunities, developing ticket packages that let companies celebrate their recognition en masse, and adding red-carpet moments that make honorees feel like stars. New venues, including New York’s Glasshouse for MIC and the Omni Dallas Hotel for the Inc. 5000, elevate the experience even further. 

In many ways, our events, like The Odyssey, are exercises in perseverance, creativity, and resilience—and they reflect the spirit of our colleagues at Inc. and Fast Company. The media industry may be navigating rough seas, but I can’t think of a better group of people to be on this epic journey with.