Bosses Say No to Office Activists

Good afternoon. Today we're exploring the crackdown on office activists, the professionals dabbling in drugs to amp up their job performance, and the smartest ways to use AI at work.

This is a short version of The Wall Street Journal’s Careers & Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the full edition in your inbox every week.

Business Leaders Lose Patience With Activist Staff

Google’s move to fire more than two dozen workers involved in sit-in protests against a contract with Israel is the most recent and starkest example of companies’ stricter stance on employee dissent. Business leaders are losing patience with staff eager to be the public conscience of their companies, especially as employees pressure them on charged issues such as politics and the war in Gaza.

• Google CEO Pichai calls for a reset after the firings

Business Trips Take on a Whole New Meaning

There's no magic pill for career success, but an increasingly vocal, if tiny, share of professionals swear a capsule of psilocybin or an infusion of ketamine comes pretty close. Psychedelics are beginning to find some adherents beyond Silicon Valley who say the drugs make them better at their jobs by expanding imaginations or taming doubts about their abilities, though supporting research is limited.

• Magic mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The drugs that power Silicon Valley (Watch)

The Smartest Ways to Use AI at Work

Do you respond to all those clients—or let AI do it? Do you attend that meeting—or do you send a bot? Generative AI tools can help you get ahead in the office—if you know how to use them.

• The hot new AI job that’s paying up to $250K (Watch)
• Will AI take your job? I tried using it to replace me (Read)

Best of the Rest

Check out some of the Journal's best-read stories on work life over the past week:

• A day in the life of a Walmart store manager who makes $240,000 a year (Read)
• Diversity goals are disappearing from companies’ annual reports (Read)
• Wait, Caitlin Clark is only getting paid $76,000? (Read)
• Crotonville and the Death of Fun at Work (Read)

This is a condensed version of WSJ’s Careers & Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the WSJ’s comprehensive work coverage in your inbox each week.

This newsletter was curated by Vanessa Fuhrmans, WSJ's Careers and Leadership Deputy Bureau Chief. Reach her on LinkedIn.