Fast Company is back! If you're already a leader or entrepreneur, or if you're aspiring to be one, this is a remarkably intelligent business magazine filled with great ideas and great people. The edge is back!
I subscribed in the early days and gave up on it after the bust. I've recently picked it up again and am happy to report that the magazine is more vital than ever. A recent issue had a wonderfully inspirational story on an entrepreneur who leads a medical device company called Cyberonics that helps people live with epilepsy. And then there's the recent cover on offshoring. Almost every magazine and newspaper has written on this topic, but no one has captured the pain of the white collar people who are losing their jobs--no one, until Fast Company. The magazine put the faces of 32 people who recently lost their jobs on the cover. That gets the point across. Thanks for bringing back a magazine I love!

Every month, I was like a boy waiting at the mailbox for his Flash Gordon decoder ring. It looks like those days are gone.

When my subscription runs out (unfortunately, I just signed up for 3 years), I do not think I will renew... unless things change at Fast Company.

Last month was Wal-mart, this month its Apple. It looks like Fast Company now has a hit list. Gone are the positive, motivational and inspiring stories that I have been reading since 1997. Webber and Taylor (the founders) are very missed.

Late last year (2003) the editorial content of Fast Company Magazine shifted uncomfortably to the left. For years, Fast Company covered the most remarkable business success stories that could be found in America. Today, it is scattered with subtle attacks on the Bush administration and not so subtle attacks on underperforming CEOs (coming out of a recession).

Unfortunately, it looks like Fast Company has become an active member of the "mainstream" media.

I too was worried about Fast Company, which had followed the internet bubble a little too closely. Thank God somebody had the good sense to hire John Byrne away from Business Week. The new cover story on Wal-Mart is one of the best examples of investigative journalism I've seen this year. And if you love business books, you might want to check out their new feature on books that are being published. This is a magazine to watch, not dismiss.

Fast Company started out strong in 1995 as the first magazine that struck at the heart and soul of the frustrated cubicle dweller. Founding editors (and Harvard Business School professors) Allan Webber and William Taylor hit upon a unique niche at that time. Fortune, Forbes and BusinessWeek were solely dedicated (so it seemed at the time) to senior management; Inc. had the pure entrepreneurship angle covered. Fast Company appeared to speak for the rest of us.

Great stuff.

Unfortunately, Fast Company was also the leader in the pack of magazines that lost its way during the whole internet craze. The Industry Standard, of course, was chartered to follow the bubble and famously imploded. But Fast Company essentially chased the same carrot. Each issue arrived extra-chunky with ads and breathless covers that screamed "Dot Com Yourself!"...even well after the bubble had obviously irretrievably broken.

What happened in the interim is that Time-Life got a hold of Business 2.0 and whipped it into fighting trim - it now seriously outclasses Fast Company. Forbes started adding great sections dedicated to entrepreneurship and small businesses. Fortune has done the same. Meanwhile, a punch drunk Fast Company was reduced earlier this year to simply slapping Po Bronson on the cover and re-printing 10 pages from his latest book, "What Should I Do With My Life?" You call that journalism?

Thank goodness someone at owner Gruner+Jahr realized that this wasn't a survivable model. When supermodel-thin 100-page issues start showing up in your mailbox, something's gotta change.

The great news is that G+J hired John Byrne to come on board as Editor in Chief. For more than 15 years, he'd been one of BusinessWeek's finest journalists, with a couple of great books under his belt as well. The impact can be felt already. Now, we're seeing some real journalism. Take the cover story of this month's (Oct. 2003) issue: "CEOs Who Should Lose Their Job," "Can Microsoft Kill All the Bugs?" and "The Brains Behind Howard Dean."

Yes. Now we're talking. Three hot button issues. Let's hear what Fast Company has to say. How can I make these ideas work for me? That's what FC started out like. Looks like Byrne has got the train headed back in the right direction. I added an extra star for that potential.

While Fortune is still my all-time favorite, Fast Company is a close number two. It's transcended the .com era that gave it birth and has succeeded by focusing on passion and people. The magazine is well-written and has managed to capture the excitement that many people feel about business and striving to be the best.