Podcasts about Foundry

Heather Dunn, Chief People Officer at Brex, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about Brex's rapid acquisition by Capital One and how Heather led through diligence, communication, and integration.----  Sponsor Links:

This is a sneak peek from the members-only edition of Inside Call Me Back. Dan is joined by Jon Polin to answer questions from young Jewish adults and teenagers about how to reconcile personal Zionism with those who commit violence against Palestinians in the name of Zionism. They also discuss the pressures and  social costs faced by American young people who stand up for Israel and how to handle some of those tough conversations. Learn more about Jon's new project, Foundry 515 here. Beyond Dispute by Daniel Taub Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl  ___ Call Me Back is made possible by our subscribers. If these conversations are where you turn to understand Israel and the Jewish world, consider joining them. It's what keeps this show going. For the full episode, subscribe here to - Inside Call me Back ____ You can access the full episode here, where Dan and Jon answer listener questions about: - The social cost for American teens and young adults who stand up for Israel - How to find Jewish joy outside of religious observance - What the hostage crisis broke in Israeli society - Did Hersh have an impact on his captors? - How Jon, Rachel and others are finding a new “why” after Hersh's tragic death - Why Jon chose to make Aliyah More Ark Media: Want to join Ark Media? Check out our careers page for new openings. Explore Israel Votes Listen to Ark News Daily Listen to For Heaven's Sake Listen to What's Your Number? Newsletters | Ark Media | Amit Segal | Nadav Eyal Instagram | Ark Media | Dan X | Dan Dan Senor & Saul Singer's book, The Genius of Israel Get in touch Credits: Ilan Benatar, Beth Pearlman, Brittany Cohen, Ava Weiner, Martin Huergo, Mariangeles Burgos, and Yuval Semo

Malcolm and Mike tackle the latest headlines shaking up the freight and logistics world. From dark realities at the border to major infrastructure debate and college sports sponsorship firsts, the duo breaks down the industry's biggest news before diving into deep-dive interviews with tech and compliance leaders. Nick Dorman, Founder & CEO of Alvys, breaks down "Foundry"—their AI agent layer built natively into an order-to-cash CRM. Nick explains how hybrid architecture, in-house EDI, and guardrailed AI agents streamline complex workflows for frontline logistics operators. Joe Hurst, Co-Founder and President of Veroot Compliance, unpacks how recent White House executive orders are making C-TPAT validation essential for foreign importers of record and customs brokers ⁠Watch on YouTube⁠ ⁠Visit our sponsor - GNOSIS FREIGHT⁠ ⁠Subscribe to the WTT newsletter⁠ ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ ⁠Spotify⁠ ⁠More FreightWaves Podcasts⁠ #WHATTHETRUCK #FreightNews #supplychain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, host Brandon Ashplant talks to The Fund Foundry team, Rebecca Booth, Justin Sykes and Dirk Bischof. The first programme of its kind in the Crown Dependencies, offering support to first-time and emerging fund managers across every asset class, The Fund Foundry will select five managers each year from a competitive global shortlist and give each a £25,000 service voucher redeemable against legal costs, fund administration and audit in year one. Succesful applicants will also have be paired with a mentor from an established fund manager. Dirk, Justin, and Rebecca discuss how the program is helping first-time fund managers turn a strong thesis into a viable launch, and why Guernsey's reputation, regulatory framework, and investor trust make it a jurisdiction of choice for sustainable finance, impact, and climate-focused first-time funds.Visit the The Fund Foundry hereConnect with Brandon on LinkedInConnect wth Rebecca on LinkedInConnect with Justin on LinkedInConnect with Dirk on LinkedInFollow Guernsey Finance on LinkedInFollow Guernsey Finance on Instagram

In this issue of the Major Spoilers Podcast: Marvel Tokon hits some turbulence, Disney Afternoon favorite TaleSpin returns to comics, and the Hellboy universe heads into steampunk territory with The Foundry #1. Then we return to the beautifully rendered world of Blacksad for They All Fall Down, a sprawling noir tale of murder, labor, corruption, ambition, and the uncomfortable realization that this may not really be a detective story at all. RSS Feed Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by becoming a Major Spoilers Patron at http://patreon.com/MajorSpoilers. It will help ensure the Major Spoilers Podcast continues far into the future! Join our Discord server and chat with fellow Spoilerites! (https://discord.gg/jWF9BbF) Thanks for listening to the Major Spoilers Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. REVIEWS THE FOUNDRY #1 Writer: Mike Mignola/Chris Roberson Artist: Christopher Mitten Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Cover Price: $4.99 Release Date: August 12, 2026 Meet the Queen's own secret agency that investigates the paranormal and the mysterious! Characters from Witchfinder and The British Paranormal Society join together in this adventure series where they travel the world over seeking out supernatural-powered technologies and the stories of the civilizations that harnessed them—for good and for evil. TALESPIN #1 Writer: Amanda Deibert Artist: Carlo Lauro Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Cover Price: $4.99 Release Date: August 19, 2026 "WING WALKER"! Higher For Hire is...well, hired...to bring in Cape Suzette's newest resident: Skye Ryder. But the job's interrupted by air pirates led by the dastardly DON KARNAGE! Can BALOO and KIT shake the pirates and get their mysterious passenger to safety, or is it curtains for the pilots of the Sea Duck?! Don't miss the start of this high-flyin' adventure series by writer Amanda Deibert and artist Carlo Lauro, the team behind Darkwing Duck! TRADE DISCUSSION BLACKSAD: THEY ALL FALL DOWN Writer: Juan Diaz Canales Artist: Juanjo Guarmido Translators: Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Feline private eye John Blacksad as he tangles with the unions, the mob, and mid-century construction magnate Lewis Solomon, who plans to pave New York City's green space, come hell or high water. From soaring heights to terrifying depths, Blacksad must steer the right course between the lofty world of Shakespearean theater and the seedy nether regions of the city. Towering above it all is the foreboding figure of Solomon, who will let nothing thwart his dream of power. Join the conversation We'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this week's topics. At Major Spoilers, we strive to create original content that you find interesting and entertaining. Producing, writing, recording, editing, and researching require significant resources. We pay writers, podcast hosts, and other staff members who work tirelessly to provide you with insights into the comic book, gaming, and pop culture industries. Help us keep Major Spoilers strong. Become a Patron (and our superhero) today. If you know someone who loves comics, share this post and episode with them! Share

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, August 2, 2026, tenth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are”series. ​​​   Texts: Romans 15:5-7; Luke 19:1-10​​​​   For days now, I've been ruminating on what it means to say of Foundry: “No outsiders here…” The clear intent of the phrase is to suggest that no one will be turned away, ignored, left out, or treated as less than. It's one of Foundry's corevalues to “make especially sure that people who feel excluded elsewhere are welcomed and invited to be an integral part of our congregation.” As Guy preached so powerfully last week, our biblically-rooted convictions around inclusion, affirmation, equity, and diversity are clear—regardless of the critiques those convictions draw. Our goal is to practice what we preach—to mean it when we say you are welcome here “no matter what.” As I study our texts for today it becomes clear that, to do that, we can't rely on our banners outside or the words of welcome we repeat at the beginning of every service to carry all our welcome water. We can't settle for our core values tucked onto a webpage to be the only communication of our commitment to cultivate a certain kind of community. We can't get so comfortable that we forget what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land, or to forget that souls tend to be shy and that people carry wounds that are often invisible to the eye. To truly advance our goal of radical welcome, we need a more muscular strategy, theologically and biblically grounded, physically embodied, and embedded in the very DNA of our congregation. And our texts provide the guidance we need. The few verses from Romans 15 that were read aloud today are a summary of at least two chapters of Paul's letter to the church in Rome. That community was experiencing deep tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians—driven by disagreements related to Torah observance, holy days, and dietary practices. These issues were flashpoints for deeper questions: Who belongs? Whose interpretation of Torah is correct? What practices are central to our shared life? Paul writes to a diverse people who are all trying to follow Jesus. They have different backgrounds—some began as highly observant Jews and others as pagan Gentiles. But here's the thing they have in common: they have all been welcomed “προσλαμβάνω (proslambanō)” by Christ. And because of that, Paul teaches, they need to welcome one another in the same way. The question then, is how does Christ welcome people? Our familiar text from Luke 19 helps us answer the question. For those who may not be familiar with the story of the “wee little man,” Zacchaeus, here's some context. Just before our story Jesus has welcomed children his disciples tried to send away, taught a rich ruler what it would take for him to enter the kin-dom, and showed mercy to a begger at the roadside who asked Jesus to restore his sight. Then Jesus enters the prosperous city of Jericho where his reputation precedes him. People know he is coming by. And Zacchaeus, a rich, chief tax collector wants to see him. Now to be a tax collector in that time and place was to be associated with the exploitation, violence, and ritual impurity of the Roman empire. A “chief” tax collector was at least in middle management—if not the CEO of collusion. All of that to say, Zacchaeus was not popular or trusted, but rather seen by the general public as an enemy and a threat. The crowds must have been shocked when the CEO climbs a tree— high profile, wealthy men didn't climb trees. Zacchaeus' willingness to do so suggests something in him was already stirring. Jesus picks up on that and proceeds to invite himself over. The text says, Zacchaeus “hurried down and was happy to welcome Jesus.” The crowds were not so happy. Why is Jesus going in to share table fellowship with this sinner? Because Jesus makes it his habit to welcome and befriend those whom others want nothing to do with. Children, beggars, the ill and disabled, women; and with those others judged as sinners—including rich tax collectors. Jesus puts it this way: “I came to seek out and save the lost.” And based on the whole story of Jesus, the “lost” include both those who inflict harm and those who suffer it. So which category of “lost” is Zacchaeus? In one sense, he's the one doing harm as he supports an exploitive and unjust regime. But the crowd has also written him off as unworthy of fellowship with Jesus and beyond the possibility of change. Jesus' action creates an opportunity for transformation—not only for Zacchaeus, but also for those who have decided that he is nothing more than a hopeless sinner. That day salvation comes because everyone is reminded that Zacchaeus is also a son of Abraham, a beloved child of God, worthy of mercy and care, capable of growth and change. Jesus' welcome is fueled by the love of God: love strong enough to receive each of us as we are, and strong enough to call us toward growth, change, and restored relationship. That means Jesus' welcome is not a cheap welcome characterized as indiscriminate acceptance and “anything goes.” Nor is it conditional welcome that requires change as the price of admission. It is welcome offered not simply for comfort, but for transformation through God's embrace and mercy. So back to us, what does it mean for Foundry to say, “no outsiders here?” We rightly celebrate that people who have been excluded elsewhere often discover a home at Foundry. But every church eventually develops its own insiders and outsiders. We instinctively know whom we trust. And, if we're honest, we instinctively know whom we've already decided not to trust. If Jesus were walking through Washington today who would make us grumble if they showed up to see him? Whose house would surprise and disturb us if Jesus said, “That's where I'm going to dinner.”? Part of the invitation for us is to consider if there are those we really want to remain “outsiders”—if there are limits to our welcome. // That question leads us to something Fr. Greg Boyle says. After decades in Los Angeles accompanying gang members through violence, incarceration, and new beginnings, Fr. Boyle writes: “Human beings…settle for a puny, vindictive God when we are being nudged always closer to this wildly inclusive, larger-than-any life God. We allow our sense of God to atrophy. We settle for the illusion of separation when we are endlessly asked to enter into kinship with all.” Our wildly inclusive God asks us to enter into kinship with all. Even when it's hard. Through his journey with those whom others fear, judge, or write off as hopeless cases, Fr. Boyle knows something about that kind of kinship. Paul doesn't ask the diverse members of the church in Rome to agree on every matter of faith and practice, but to learn how to enter into kinship with one another in the manner of Christ. He asks believers to become more committed to welcoming one another than they are to winning every disputed argument. Jesus creates space for people in Jericho to remember that even public enemy #1 is a sibling and a beloved child of God who is not beyond God's capacity to save AND that they are also the “lost”—the recipients of harm, the grumblers, the judgy ones—who Jesus came to seek out—and who need some saving as well. That is the pattern of Christ's welcome. And it is the pattern our welcome is meant to follow. Radical welcome—which is Christ's welcome—is neither cheap welcome nor conditional welcome. At Foundry, everyone is welcome. No matter what. No conditions required. // But no one is welcome to deny someone else's belovedness. No one is welcome to demean another child of God. No one is welcome to make this community unsafe for those Christ has welcomed. And no one is welcome to declare a person beyond God's capacity to save while forgetting that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The boundary, then, is not ideology. The boundary is love. And that means radical welcome asks more of us than hanging banners and opening the doors. It asks us to notice who enters and still feels invisible. It asks us to cross the room, learn a name, make space at the table, and remain curious about a life we do not yet understand. It asks us to confront harm when it occurs—not because we have stopped loving the person doing harm, but because love refuses to abandon either the one being wounded or the one whose soul is being diminished by the wounding. It asks us to believe that transformation is possible, even in people we have given up on. And perhaps most difficult of all, it asks us to remain open to our own transformation—to the possibility that Christ may expose the limits of our welcome, unsettle our assumptions, and lead us into kinship with someone we would never have chosen for ourselves. This is the more muscular welcome to which we are called. Not mere politeness. Not tolerance from a safe distance. Not the pride of believing that we are already the welcoming people and everyone else needs to catch up. It is the patient, courageous, embodied work of becoming a community where strangers become neighbors and neighbors become siblings; where those who have been pushed aside are drawn into the center; where harm is named and interrupted; where repentance is possible; and where grace keeps making more of us than we believed we could become. The measure of our welcome is not whether people like us feel comfortable. The measure is whether people unlike us encounter the welcome of Christ through us. That is a demanding call. But it begins not with what we are able to accomplish. It begins with what Christ has already done. Christ has welcomed us. Christ has come looking for us when we were lost. And Christ has not given up on us. So we do not practice radical welcome in order to prove that we are good people or the right kind of church. We welcome because we have been welcomed. We make room because Christ has made room for us. We enter into kinship because, through grace, Christ has already made us one. “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Amen.   Benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

No amount of tooling makes an organization go faster or do better. AI has made that clearer than anything else I’ve watched in nine years of doing this. What it has produced instead is what people are now calling the human wreckage of AI. How I Met Angela Dugan So one day I’m cruising around LinkedIn, in a market where nobody can get hired and companies swear they can’t find anyone, and here’s someone doing something simple. She posted about a role she wasn’t hiring for. Didn’t have the requisition, and said so right in the post. It felt awkward, it felt vulnerable…and she put it up anyway, Because she wasn’t willing to wait until she desperately needed somebody before she started meeting people. She got dozens of replies in days. Almost every one of them said the same thing. “It’s a relief to talk to a human.” That’s Angela Dugan. She’s VP of Product Delivery at Red Foundry in Chicago, and she went first while everyone else was feeding resumes into a machine. Stop Looking For Your Past Roles You’ll hear about the advice that ended her own job search, which is the part I want you to sit with: stop looking for your past roles. Look for the activities you want to do, the outcomes you want to drive, the impact you want to have. She stopped hunting for anything with “agile” in the title. That’s how she got a director job at Microsoft, and the VP job she has now. She shares the story of her layoff. She was cut from Microsoft when the AI money started moving and the people money stopped. Two days later she left a comment on somebody else’s post. Not an ask, just empathy for someone in the same wave. And her future CEO saw it. Someone she’d consulted for back in 2014 and never stopped talking to. Ten years of keeping one relationship warm. That’s the whole story. The Human Side of Business and Tech This episode is about the human side of tech, AI and Agile. Right now the job market is breaking, but it won’t stay that way. Know why? Because results speak. And what we learn from Angela Dugan is that doing things the right way (which could mean leveraging AI, but not just throwing tasks carelessly over the fence to AI) gets noticed. Because the RIGHT people make impact. They touch the bottom line. And isn’t that what we’ve been talking about here on Badass Agile? Outcomes. Not frameworks, nor conventions. Not fashion or trends or fast money. Find Angela Dugan: LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/andugan/ (Put a note in the request.) She’s also at the local Chicago events and at VS Live. Show Notes **FORGE GENESIS IS HERE** All the skills you need to stop relying on job postings and start enjoying the freedom of an Agile career on YOUR terms. First cohort starts in Q1 2026 https://learning.fusechamber.com/forge-genesis **THE ALL NEW FORGE LIGHTNING** 12 Weeks to elite leadership! https://learning.fusechamber.com/forge-lightning **CHECK OUT ALL MY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES HERE:** https://learning.fusechamber.com We’re also on YouTube! Follow the podcast, enjoy some panel/guest commentary, and get some quick tips and guidance from me: https://www.youtube.com/c/BadassAgilea ****** Follow The LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/badass-agile ****** Our mission is to create an elite tribe of leaders who focus on who they need to become in order to lead and inspire, and to be the best agile podcast and resource for effective mindset and leadership game. Contact us (contact@badassagile.com) for elite-level performance and agile coaching, speaking engagements, team-level and executive mindset/agile training, and licensing options for modern, high-impact, bite-sized learning and educational content.

Worship isn't the songs–it's all of you given in glory to God. Over six weeks, we're tracing what it means to bring your whole self to God: heart, soul, and strength, in private and in a room full of people, when you feel it and when you don't. This is an invitation to stop treating worship as something you attend and start living it as a whole life.Join us for the second week of our Worthy series.Follow @thisisfoundry on social media for updates.Want to learn more about Foundry? Ready to join a Foundry group?

It's a second issue spotlight with your two second favorite hosts talking about Absolute Catwoman by Scott Snyder & Che Grayson, Bengal, and Giovanna Niro; Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's 100 Bullets: the US of Anger; Junk Punch from Mad Cave and Paul Tobin, Carlos Javier Olivares, Francesca Vivaldi, and Lin Visel; Bizarro: Year None; and Paul Chadwick's Concrete: Stars Over Sand! We also mix things up with Feral; The Foundry by Mike Mignola & Chris Roberson, Christopher Mitten, and Michelle Madsen; Odin by James Tynion IV & Marguerite Bennett, Letizia Cadonici, and Jordie Bellaire; M.A.S.K.; Usagi Yojimbo: Kaito '84; and Chachu by Iman Vellani, Marianna Ignazzi, and Jordie Bellaire! Plus, we check in on DAP's Battlestar Galactica journey!

Worship isn't the songs - it's all of you given in glory to God. Over six weeks, we're tracing what it means to bring your whole self to God: heart, soul, and strength, in private and in a room full of people, when you feel it and when you don't. This is an invitation to stop treating worship as something you attend and start living it as a whole life.Join us for the beginning of our new series, Worthy.Follow @thisisfoundry on social media for updates.Want to learn more about Foundry? Ready to join a Foundry group?

The review ran with no star rating. Infinite stars out of five. Four fans who were inside the MTS Centre explain why that was the only honest math.Episode summaryAugust 5th, 2016. A Friday night, show eight of the Man Machine Poem Tour, and the MTS Centre sits smack in the middle of downtown Winnipeg with no room to breathe. The Tragically Hip open with four straight from "Fully Completely", and the second song is 'Pigeon Camera' - a tour debut nobody in the building saw coming. Ten years on, four fans who were there pass the night around the table with jD.Nicole from Winnipeg raised three daughters on this music and lived her whole life in Thunder Bay before Winnipeg claimed her. She loaded two teenagers into the car and drove eight hours west so her girls could finally see the band she had been singing to them since the car seat. Somewhere in the causeway, the opening notes of 'At the Hundredth Meridian' hit, and the cranky seventeen-year-old looked at her mother and got it.Kim from Cambridge has 41 Hip shows on her card, and Winnipeg came with a bonus night. Same hotel as the band, a waiter's tip to come back to the bar later, a hundred-dollar bar tab worth of nerve, and then a gracious Rob Baker outside the bathroom, a sit-down with Gord Downie's bus driver, and a photo with Gord Sinclair. The guitar picks Bernie Breen handed over are framed with her tour poster.Dave from Montreal got the email on a beach in Crete, day two of a vacation that never recovered. He went to seven shows on the final tour, and this one meant the most - August 5th was the one-year anniversary of his mother's passing. He landed from Calgary on a WestJet flight full of Hip fans, caught the band's tweet about seats beside the stage, and cabbed straight from the airport to the box office. In the hotel lobby he told Paul Langlois that 'Three Pistols' had dodged him for 65 shows. "I can promise you you're going to hear it," Paul said.Alicia from Winnipeg heard the news before almost anybody, because breaking news was her job - she was the editor at Metro Winnipeg. She reviewed the show on deadline, one ticket, scribbling in a row of stunned critics, and filed it with no star rating at all. Infinite stars out of five. You can't score a goodbye.They talk about the four-song "Now for Plan A" block and what it asked of the room. About Gord Downie stopping the show to thank the Winnipeg people who built the band an audience, and a local music writer's phone detonating in real time. About the scream at the end of 'New Orleans Is Sinking' that shut an entire arena up, Kim's Periscope stream that died the moment 'Springtime in Vienna' made holding a phone still impossible, and the moment Dave realized the rants were gone - no workshopping, because there was nothing coming next. And about August 20th, which found them in a second row in Kingston, a basement watch party, and a raucous Thunder Bay bar called The Foundry.Nobody at this table claims the full picture. They just know what that room felt like, and ten years has not dulled it. This is the Winnipeg night, told back by the people who lived it.Key takeaways• 'Pigeon Camera' and 'Streets Ahead' were both tour debuts that night, and the setlist held five songs from "Road Apples" and nothing from "Day for Night" - Calgary got that block two nights earlier (source: setlist.fm).• Kim from Cambridge spent the night before the show in the band's hotel bar. Rob Baker was gracious, a bus driver made the introductions, Gord Sinclair posed for photos, and Bernie Breen handed out guitar picks.• Dave from Montreal traded up to seats beside the stage the day of the show off a band tweet, then put his spare pair on StubHub at face value. He did it again in Hamilton and Ottawa. Ten years later, he is finally telling that secret.• Gord stopped the Winnipeg show to thank the local supporters who built the band an audience there - the panel can only remember it happening one other place, Hamilton. One Winnipeg music writer's phone exploded on the spot.• The night before the show, a Winnipeg lawyer fighting the same brain cancer threw a fundraiser - and the man Nicole from Winnipeg would marry years later was onstage in the band that played it.• Alicia from Winnipeg filed her Metro Winnipeg review as infinite stars out of five, and a Winnipeg Free Press reviewer independently refused to put a number on it too. https://web.archive.org/web/20160807202054/http://www.metronews.ca/news/winnipeg/2016/08/06/review-at-the-hundredth-meridian-tragically-hip.htmlQuotes“I always thought we had more time.”Nicole from Winnipeg“I said, infinite stars out of five, because there's no way to do it, whether you're a Hip fan or not.”Alicia from Winnipeg“When he stepped out in that green suit and just commanded that stage, it ended all of that. All of those nerves that I had before the show, they were gone in the first few notes.”Kim from Cambridge“I just had this moment of heartbreak of, oh, he's not workshopping because there's nothing coming next.”Dave from Montreal“If he saw me, I wanted him to know that Dave from Montreal was staring back at him.”Dave from MontrealGuest information• Nicole from Winnipeg - Thunder Bay born and raised, Winnipeg for the last six years. Raised three daughters on The Hip, and two of them made the 2016 drive with her. Her husband plays in Retro Radio, a Winnipeg classic rock band, and their love story runs through this music.• Kim from Cambridge - 41 Hip shows, Kingston included, second row, in a shirt she made herself. Drove out in a new Jeep with her cousin, camping at Pancake Bay and Sleeping Giant on the way. Keeper of feathers, tour-suit leather patches, and a Six String Nation story.• Dave from Montreal - Montreal journalist. Seven shows on the Man Machine Poem Tour, 65 Hip shows deep by that August. Wrote a pre-tour love letter in the National Post and a Rover essay on cover bands. A book is on the way, and that is all he will say for now.• Alicia from Winnipeg - journalist and then-editor at Metro Winnipeg, who reviewed the show that night. On weekends she fronts Whoopsie Daisy, a Winnipeg classic rock cover band, where 'New Orleans Is Sinking' gets the rage out the healthy way.  https://whoopsiedacey.wordpress.com/Resources, links and references• setlist.fm - the full Winnipeg, August 5 2016 setlist, including both tour debuts.• David Bastedo - The Tragically Hip's official concert photographer. His Winnipeg crowd shot is the one Dave found himself inside.• Dave's pre-tour love letter in the National Post. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/music/the-tragically-hip-gord-downie• Dave's Rover essay on cover bands, The Strictly Hip, and letting the music live on. https://therover.ca/searching-for-the-tragically-hip/• The bands keeping the music live, named on mic: Killer Whale Tank (Winnipeg), The Incredibly Hip (Brandon), The Hip Experience (on tour across Canada), The Strictly Hip (Buffalo), and Whoopsie Daisy.• "Secret Path" and The Downie Wenjack Fund - the work Nicole's daughter carries forward from the final tour.Calls to actionMeet us in Kingston. The Gathering runs August 20 to 23 - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a first listen of "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016" the day it drops, a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's on the way out of town. Get on the list. email jd@tthpods.comGEDfest comes to Toronto. October 17th, the anniversary of Gord's passing, at the Horseshoe Tavern with Grace, 2. Nine years running, over $750,000 raised, and this year it is for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. gedfest.caBuy jD a coffee. Editing four loquacious guests is a labour of love. Tips only, no guilt. So there's that. [hyperlink: Buy jD a coffee - buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40Related episodes• Yer Hipstories - Edmonton 2, July 30, 2016 https://kite.link/Edmonton2• Yer Hipstories - Victoria, July 22 2016 https://kite.link/Victoria• Now for Plan A - Redux https://kite.link/nowforplanaClosing paragraphNicole, thank you for the sixteen-hour round trip and for the image of a two-year-old singing 'Boots or Hearts' from a car seat. Kim, thank you for holding your nerve at that hotel bar until it turned into guitar picks. Dave, thank you for bringing your mom into the room with you, and for owning every emotion Gord taught you to own. Alicia, thank you for infinite stars out of five, the only rating system this series recognizes.The band takes an extra day off, then it is Ontario the rest of the way home. Come back on August 8th for London, August 8 2016 - new building, new panel, and the home stretch beginning. If you were in one of these rooms, leave yer Hipstory. This series is stitched together from them.Socials and community• Facebook: facebook.com/groups/tthpods• Instagram: @tthpods]• YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods]• Email: jd@tthpods.com]#TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #FullyCompletely #RoadApples #NowForPlanASupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/tthtop40/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Peter chats with Michael Kratsios on the White House's vision for a new golden age of American science, including the Genesis Mission, AI-driven research, and the push to dramatically accelerate scientific productivity. Get access to metatrends 10+ years before anyone else - https://qr.diamandis.com/metatrends   Peter H. Diamandis, MD, is the Founder of XPRIZE, Singularity University, ZeroG, and A360 Michael Kratsios is the White House Director of Science and Technology Policy and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. He previously served as U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and later as a managing director at Scale AI. – My companies: Get the blueprint for generative media https://goo.gle/startupgenmedia  Apply to Dave's and my new fund: https://qr.diamandis.com/linkventureslanding   Go to Blitzy to book a free demo and start building today: https://qr.diamandis.com/blitzy   Build in the Foundry or get a live demo at: https://voicerun.com Your body is incredibly good at hiding disease. Schedule a call with Fountain Life to add healthy decades to your life, and to learn more about their Memberships: https://www.fountainlife.com/peter  _ Connect with Peter: X Instagram Substack Website Xprize A360 Connect with Micahel: LinkedIn X Instagram Listen to MOONSHOTS: Apple YouTube – *Recorded on July 29, 2026 *The views expressed by me and all guests are personal opinions and do not constitute Financial, Medical, or Legal advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's amazing guest is Lewis Hackney who has just finished a year long challenge to run 12km a day, every single day, a total of 4392km raising awareness of male suicide and raising money for male health and wellbeing charities.Lewis is a trustee of the Association of Male Health and Wellbeing, a Men & Boys Champion and co-leads The Foundry, working with boys aged 12–16 in schools. He also hosts the Truuman podcast and is founder of the Truuman platform.In this episode we talk about Lewis's background in running (or lack of it!), how he conceived the challenge and got through it and his own personal journey that has led him to work in the male wellbeing space.To get in touch with Lewis or donate to the causes he is supporting go to:- Donate: ⁠https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/lewis-hackney⁠- Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/lewishackney⁠- LinkedIn: ⁠linkedin.com/in/lewishackney⁠- Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1uSA5dnxAz9ouQlbM7BUlG- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lewishackney

Palantir reported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street expectations, according to The Guardian on August 3, 2026, with the quarter described as otherworldly. The company's platforms include Gotham for defense and intelligence, Foundry for commercial operations, and AIP for model orchestration against governed data. Public sector demand spans logistics, cyber defense, and emergency response, while commercial buyers in manufacturing, energy, and healthcare focus on predictive maintenance, outage reduction, and supply chain visibility. Competition includes Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Databricks, Snowflake, ServiceNow, Salesforce, and IBM. Palantir has emphasized GAAP profitability since 2023, and analysts will watch remaining performance obligations, customer additions, and revenue mix. Founders should align with buyer checklists by delivering secure, auditable AI with rapid time-to-value and clear metrics.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brad Feld is a co-founder of Foundry and Techstars, and has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur for over 35 years since founding his first company in college. He is a longtime venture capitalist, author, and early blogger on entrepreneurship, and also runs the Anchor Point Foundation with his wife, Amy Batchelor.     Welcome to the Conscious Millionaire Show - Become an Ultra-Performer. Now 3X week M / W / F   Are you an Entrepreneur, Founder, or CEO? Revenues $250K to $5M? Sign up for your Breakout Session...get custom steps to build a fast-growing, highly profitable business that makes an impact.     BREAKOUT SESSION - Book it Now     Join Host JV Crum III, with 2 exits and over 75M revenues in his companies, he is the Ultra-Performer Advisor for Founders, Entrepreneurs and CEOs ready to achieve at your the top 1%.     SUBSCRIBE to Conscious Millionaire Show     Season 12 of the award-winning Conscious Millionaire Show. The World's #1 Ultra-Performance podcast. Millions of Listeners. 190 countries -- Inc Magazine "Top 13 Business Podcasts" with 12 seasons and 3,200+ episodes.

Brad Feld is a co-founder of Foundry and Techstars, and has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur for over 35 years since founding his first company in college. He is a longtime venture capitalist, author, and early blogger on entrepreneurship, and also runs the Anchor Point Foundation with his wife, Amy Batchelor.     Welcome to the Conscious Millionaire Show - Become an Ultra-Performer. Now 3X week M / W / F   Are you an Entrepreneur, Founder, or CEO? Revenues $250K to $5M? Sign up for your Breakout Session...get custom steps to build a fast-growing, highly profitable business that makes an impact.     BREAKOUT SESSION - Book it Now     Join Host JV Crum III, with 2 exits and over 75M revenues in his companies, he is the Ultra-Performer Advisor for Founders, Entrepreneurs and CEOs ready to achieve at your the top 1%.     SUBSCRIBE to Conscious Millionaire Show     Season 12 of the award-winning Conscious Millionaire Show. The World's #1 Ultra-Performance podcast. Millions of Listeners. 190 countries -- Inc Magazine "Top 13 Business Podcasts" with 12 seasons and 3,200+ episodes.

The Foundry Chimes Were Never Meant to SoundBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/dark-mysteries-unsolved-mysteries-forgotten-secrets-unanswered-questions--5684156/support.Darkest Mysteries Online

The Digital Foundation for High-Ticket Contractors: Driving Lead Velocity and Building Unshakeable Authority with Matt DeLongIn a recent episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast, host Josh Elledge sat down with Matt DeLong, the CEO of United Foundry, to unpack the digital marketing mechanics required for home builders, high-end remodelers, and trade contractors to command premium market positioning. Matt, a seasoned agency architect and digital marketing pioneer specializing in the home services sector, details how construction and remodeling businesses can break free from unpredictable word-of-mouth cycles. This conversation delivers an intentional operational roadmap for contractors looking to leverage local AI data, build high-converting digital storefronts, dominate regional Google search rankings, and establish long-term pipeline velocity.The Architectural Advantage: Converting Digital Proof into High-Ticket Client PipelinesRelying solely on organic referrals and unpredictable word-of-mouth client acquisition routinely exposes high-ticket home service businesses to dangerous feast-or-famine revenue cycles. Matt DeLong explains that when a custom builder or luxury remodeling firm presents an outdated, amateurish online footprint, it instantly erodes prospective buyer trust and stalls conversion timelines. To capture high-net-worth homeowners, contractors must treat their digital properties as high-converting storefronts, complete with high-resolution project galleries, detailed case studies, and clear calls-to-action. Elevating basic operational touchpoints—such as replacing generic email domains with professional company email addresses—creates immediate psychological alignment between the contractor's online branding and the multi-million dollar physical projects they deliver.To build a sustainable client acquisition engine, home service companies must combine targeted pay-per-click advertising with hyper-local search engine optimization and automated social proof systems. Securing top-of-page visibility through Google Local Service Ads and localized PPC campaigns ensures a steady flow of high-intent search traffic, while active review management on platforms like Google and Houzz validates contractor credibility in real time. Search algorithms heavily favor local businesses with frequent, positive client feedback, making post-project review collection a non-negotiable component of local SEO. By featuring authentic video testimonials, recent project awards, and before-and-after galleries directly across digital ad landing pages, contractors eliminate buyer hesitation and dramatically shorten high-ticket sales cycles.Furthermore, integrating advanced AI tools with publicly accessible property data enables forward-thinking contractors to execute hyper-personalized, targeted community outreach. By utilizing artificial intelligence software to filter regional property records, trade leaders can map out specific target neighborhoods, isolate ideal homeowner demographics, and remove non-relevant corporate properties. This data-backed approach allows contractors to craft personalized messaging that transforms cold geographic outreach into warm, relationship-driven business opportunities. When custom builders synthesize professional digital design, automated review collection, hyper-local paid search, and targeted data mining into a unified marketing architecture, they eliminate pipeline friction, protect profit margins, and predictably scale enterprise value.About Matt DeLongMatt DeLong is the CEO of United Foundry, a prominent digital marketing strategist, speaker, and expert in contractor lead generation ecosystems. Drawing from years of hands-on experience helping home builders, remodelers, and trade contractors scale their regional operations, Matt specializes in building custom digital infrastructures that convert online traffic into high-value clients. He is a TEDx speaker, author of "Learning to Dream Again," and a recognized industry thought leader focused on helping contractors build resilient, data-driven revenue systems.About United FoundryUnited Foundry is an elite digital marketing agency and lead generation consultancy engineered specifically to help home service professionals, remodelers, and custom builders scale their market presence. The agency specializes in delivering custom website design, Google Local Service Ads management, localized SEO architecture, and automated client review acquisition playbooks. Through tailored digital strategies and data-driven marketing campaigns, United Foundry enables contractors across the home services industry to remove customer acquisition bottlenecks, capture high-value projects, and maximize enterprise valuation.Links Mentioned in This EpisodeUnited Foundry Official Website: unitedfoundry.comMatt DeLong on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matt-delongKey Episode HighlightsThe Digital Storefront Standard: Aligning your website's visual quality and user experience with the high-ticket physical projects your company builds.Hyper-Local Data Mining with AI: Utilizing artificial intelligence and public property records to filter target neighborhoods and personalize homeowner outreach.The Review Verification Engine: Leveraging Google reviews and video testimonials to boost local SEO rankings and build instant buyer trust.Targeted Paid Media Acquisition: Combining Google Local Service Ads with geo-targeted PPC campaigns to stabilize pipeline velocity and eliminate revenue swings.Professional Touchpoint Governance: Standardizing branded domain emails and prompt client communication to reinforce credibility across every touchpoint.ConclusionThe conversation with Matt DeLong reinforces that scaling a successful contracting business requires an intentional balance of high-end craftsmanship, digital authority, and data-driven marketing systems. By standardizing internal web design, deploying targeted local ad strategies, and actively collecting customer reviews, contractors can transform an unpredictable referral stream into a highly structured, self-sustaining corporate growth engine.More from The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

Episode 1127The chip industry has wiped more than $100 billion off its value in a single day while Apple is heading in the opposite direction. We look at what the sell-off really means, why Apple continues to buck the trend and what it could mean for the tech you'll be buying over the next few years.We also look at Ireland's new AI Office, its first CEO and why this could be a significant moment for AI regulation and innovation.Plus, Niall Kitson sits down with Gary Leyden, CEO of InsTech.ie, to talk about building successful start-ups, the value of good mentorship, and what it takes to create a thriving innovation ecosystem.Instech is recruiting for the next cohort of its Foundry programme. Applications will close on August 5th. To learn more and to apply visit Instech.ie—----- Listen to Tech Radio now on Apple, Spotify and YouTubehttps://www.podfollow.com/tech

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! https://preferences.pcmag.com/PCMag/windows-guide Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! https://preferences.pcmag.com/PCMag/windows-guide Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! https://preferences.pcmag.com/PCMag/windows-guide Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

There's been so much drama over what options Microsoft will allow for the Copilot key. But you don't have to wait for a future Windows update; you can remap any key with Microsoft's own Keyboard Manager PowerToy. More people should take advantage of this. Also, Paul just finished his major 2026 rewrite of the Windows 11 Field Guide! Every single chapter was rewritten or consolidated, with several new chapters added. Lastly, the OG Halo remake is a great reminder of how good this series was in the beginning. And it looks and plays terrific. Windows Week D updates arrive on time this month Windows Hello ESS support for external fingerprint readers, many small improvements Experimental (Future Platforms) finally gets an update, but it's just the features we saw elsewhere first Several in-box app updates for July, nothing major Microsoft convinces LG to drop the McAfee ads, but HP's Bing ads are A-OK Chris tested Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM and the experience is not great Paul has a Wildcat-based laptop waiting for him in PA Microsoft is testing a "Do nothing" option for the Copilot key Your Windows 11 PC now has a OneDrive Photos app for some reason Opera One gets vertical tabs, deeper Google Lens integration Earnings Google/Alphabet - net income of $28 billion on $120 billion in revenues, but negative cash flow for the first time in the company's history Intel - net loss of $11 million, no Foundry customers leaves Wall Street swooning for some reason AI Microsoft begins shifting to its own MAI models, but the forward progress is minimal NVIDIA, Microsoft, more team up for AI empire, er, Alliance Anthropic launches Claude Opus 5 Xbox and gaming Halo: Campaign Evolved is here XBOX went down for the count for most of the day on Monday. But disc-based games still worked XBOX begins testing ad-supported Cloud Gaming Ubisoft game purchases on Xbox now carry over to PC for free Luna comes to Prime Video app Tips and picks Tip of the week: Remap keys with PowerToys Keyboard Manager App pick of the week: Halo Campaign Evolved Chris's pick of the week: His new newsletter! https://preferences.pcmag.com/PCMag/windows-guide Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott Guest: Chris Hoffman Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz cirasync.com/Windows canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

"Construction's never had a software problem. They've had an assimilation problem."That line from Joe Patrois stopped us mid-recording.Joe was there on day one when Palantir walked into Thomas Cavanagh Construction. Eighteen months later, the company runs its operations on Foundry, field adoption of their app sits at 97 percent, and Joe now leads product at Cavtera, a new service provider helping other contractors do the same.In this week's episode of Bricks & Bytes, we get past the Palantir hype and into the jobsite reality:* What "ontology" actually means for a contractor* Why they are stripping operations OUT of the ERP* The change management that matters more than the software* Why data should be the byproduct of operations, not the productAs Joe put it: "AI is an output. You don't do AI. It's an output of operations."Full episode now live on YouTube and Spotify. Link in comments.#bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #aec #construction #constructiontech #ai #vcChapters00:00 Intro00:45 Introduction to Palantir in Construction03:29 The Journey of Kavanaugh Construction05:49 Understanding Ontology and Its Importance06:01 Sponsors11:34 Change Management vs. Software Solutions14:15 Replacing Legacy Systems with Palantir16:35 The Value of Custom Solutions19:43 Data as a Byproduct of Operations22:32 Getting Started with Palantir24:56 Common Pitfalls in Digitization29:06 Building Foundations Before Scaling Solutions32:15 Enhancing Communication Across Workflows36:05 Navigating Change in Established Organizations36:51 The Future of Point Solutions in Construction39:08 Simplifying ERP Systems with Foundry41:21 Common Pain Points in Construction Management42:37 Real-World Applications of Foundry at Kavanaugh46:55 Introducing Captera: A New Service Provider48:19 Tailored Solutions for the Construction Industry49:23 Ongoing Support and Implementation Services51:00 The Future of Software in ConstructionOur Sponsors:BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.coAphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.coArchdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com

The Holy Spirit is God, One with the Father and the Son. He dwells within us, convicting, guiding, and empowering us to live the Jesus-shaped life. Only through developing an intimate relationship with Him can we experience the life that God has for us and for those around us.Join us for the final part in our series of learning more about the Holy Spirit!Follow @thisisfoundry on social media for updates.Want to learn more about Foundry? Ready to join a Foundry group?

Don’t miss this massive SMB partner shift! Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this pivotal episode, we sit down with Jose Gomez Cueto, Microsoft’s SMB leader for the Americas, to uncover the monumental shifts happening within the partner ecosystem and the $20 billion cloud opportunity currently on the table. The discussion dives deep into Microsoft’s commitment to the CSP channel, the explosion of AI agents, and why shifting from traditional headcount growth to outcome-based results is critical for survival. From navigating the complexities of the marketplace to the urgency of becoming “Customer Zero” with AI tools, this conversation provides the roadmap every MSP needs to thrive in the new era of technology. https://youtu.be/QE-1w7GeyPM Key Takeaways Microsoft operates a $20 billion cloud revenue business in the Americas alone, with 80% driven by the channel. The Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program is now Microsoft’s primary hero motion for the fourth region. The currency of SMB growth is shifting away from headcount and moving directly toward AI-driven outcomes. MSPs must transition from traditional IT outsourcing to strategic business process consulting to survive. Failing to proactively adopt and secure AI tools creates massive liability and shadow AI risks for organizations. IT providers are urged to become “Customer Zero” by deploying and testing Copilot and autonomous agents internally before selling them. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags CSP, Agent 365, SMB cloud revenue, outcome-based selling, Copilot for business, Defender for business, shadow AI risks, AI agent deployment, Purview data security, Marketplace API integration, autonomous agents, Customer Zero, Microsoft Americas segment Transcript Jose Gomez Cueto AUDIO PODCAST [00:00:00] Jose Gomez Cueto: And, and you know, if I might say something that is confidential, avid Vince, uh, to be quite honest, please, please, uh, by definition, a marketplace is eliminating intermediaries. [00:00:11] Vince Menzione: You can feel it happening. [00:00:13] Vince Menzione: The ecosystem is shifting beneath us. The way Hyperscalers are partnering, how AI is remaking the channel and what it means to win in 2026. [00:00:23] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host. And each week I sit down with leaders at the intersection of technology, partnerships and outcomes. The voices shaping how ecosystems actually work. We talk about what’s real, what’s changing, and what it takes to lead in this era where the partner channel isn’t just part of the strategy. [00:00:45] Vince Menzione: It is the strategy because being in the room changes everything. Let’s start. [00:00:55] Vince Menzione: I am absolutely thrilled for our, our next guest. Um, some of you heard me talk about this maybe earlier or in various pockets of conversation. Um, I believe both the SMB market is an, is an incredible opportunity. We’ve called it the Acre of Diamonds at Ultimate Partner at previous events. And then the MSP community, which I want to thank so many of you to for coming, coming on board now. [00:01:25] Vince Menzione: ’cause we’ve had some MSPs that have come to all our events. And doubled, tripled, quadruple the sizes of their business. From what they’ve learned in these rooms. And so we invited our next guest to come. Oh, Jose, come on up. Jose Gomez Cuerto is the leader of Microsoft’s SMB business for the Americas. Come on. [00:01:43] Vince Menzione: Come on over. Come on over. Sit down with me. And I was so thrilled to get this gentleman to come join us. His team is doing incredible work. I got to meet some of his team actually earlier this year. And we know each other for many years ago. [00:01:56] Jose Gomez Cueto: We do. [00:01:56] Vince Menzione: When I was at Microsoft, right? Yeah. So, so great to see you again. [00:01:59] Jose Gomez Cueto: It’s a pleasure to be here. Uh, thanks for the invitation. I’m thrilled to be here. And thank you all for making time, uh, or traveling here. Uh, this is the best time. To be in the industry. [00:02:10] Vince Menzione: It’s an incredible time. [00:02:11] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, [00:02:11] Vince Menzione: it’s an incredible time. So sit down. Yeah, sit down. Let’s, yeah. So let’s talk about you and your organization. [00:02:17] Vince Menzione: Um, let’s talk, well, I, I, I wanna bring this up because it was like, the noise I heard in the room when I was, I went to Interven earlier this year. Yeah. Is, does Microsoft Care about this market? And, um, I was at Microsoft many years, we worked together when I was a, a gm. And, uh, it was run differently back in the day. [00:02:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And there’s been a lot of changes to what we call the SME and C business now. Mm-hmm. Uh, and the SMB business, which you run. So let’s talk a little bit about your organization, where you sit in the organization, and then I want to kind of dive in a little bit about what’s changed. ’cause a lot has changed for the better. [00:02:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, it’s a great question and I think that that’s what a lot of people think about, uh, SMB and, and who’s SMB and, and who’s at Microsoft and who do I talk to. So, [00:03:02] Vince Menzione: yes. [00:03:02] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, even though I know a lot of, uh, friendly faces in the room, I think it’s a great, uh, starting point. Vince, so. Basically, uh, I am responsible for what we call the small and medium business, uh, segment. [00:03:15] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, we can also call it small and medium enterprises. Uh, I would say that it is not a monolith. Uh, we do have, uh, subsegmentation, I think that our friend Jay was talking about up to 20 subsegmentation. Uh, we think about it for simplifi simplification purposes on three. Uh, so we have, uh, the smaller organizations, the medium-sized organizations. [00:03:36] Jose Gomez Cueto: And then what we call top point manage, which is basically large enterprise that we simply don’t have an account management team, uh, assigned to. And we are the happy recipients of many of those, uh, every year. Uh, so I would say that, uh, a best definition would be also anything that is unmanaged and is primarily driven through the channel. [00:03:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, we run in the Americas approximately more than $20 billion of revenue, uh, on cloud. Uh, that’s [00:04:01] Vince Menzione: crazy. [00:04:01] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, and 80% of that is done. Through companies that are here, [00:04:05] Vince Menzione: $20 billion of business. [00:04:07] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. So, um, the, the Americas region that I’m, uh, representing and under my responsibility includes basically three sales units, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. [00:04:18] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. Latin America is more fragmented because we have multi-country and multi, uh, subsidiary, uh, structure. Just to recap a little bit of what you asked me rewinding on what has happened in the last two or three years. Yeah. We brought basically, uh, probably something that you might remember from you were there. [00:04:36] Jose Gomez Cueto: I, yes. Uh, which is bringing the segment, uh, with the channel together. So, uh, I think that, um, uh. Earlier in the morning, uh, Steven was, uh, talking about it, what we call S-M-U-N-C, which is, uh, this segment with the channel. And the main reason is to drive, uh, that synergy, uh, and making, uh, a very bold statement that many of you might remember in the last two years, uh, Judson and Ralph, uh, heter or, or new, uh, president for this, uh, fourth region. [00:05:05] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, ’cause we call it fourth region. Yeah. ’cause the other one is our enterprises. [00:05:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So Asia, Americas Exactly. And, and EMEA. Then you’re the fourth region. [00:05:13] Jose Gomez Cueto: We’re the fourth region. So, so, um, making CSP, uh, our hero motion, and that is fantastic news. I, I started, uh, part of my journey, uh, in, in the channel, uh, way earlier in distribution in the year 2000. [00:05:30] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:05:30] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, and fast forward, I would say 2011, we were launching the first commercial SaaS offering, which was Office 365. Um, I had the privilege to be, uh, leading the launch globally for that. Uh, but then we, the first thing we did was build a channel, and that was called syndication. And basically the precursor of that, uh, became CSP, basically putting, uh, the partner or customer in the middle, the partner around it for the, not only the, the opportunity, but also the responsibility to serve the customer. [00:06:04] Jose Gomez Cueto: 360 from, uh, presales all the way to, uh, uh. Upsell cross sell, and in between deployment, uh, things, uh, around, um, servicing, bundling offers, uh, troubleshooting and support, et cetera. So, uh, back to your question was, this is a very important thing because we’re basically, uh, making our channel the scale and, and the vision that we have is, is that we are gonna be continuing to scale through the channel. [00:06:33] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, um, one last thing I say, uh, in terms of the organization that I think is important for everyone to understand, and I’m gonna go a little bit into more org structure, is that we, we have these three sales units that are geographic. But, uh, what we’ve done this year is to have, uh, more depth on the solution area. [00:06:50] Jose Gomez Cueto: So you might remember that, uh, we’ve simplified them, uh, same as we used to have 8, 13, 13 areas. Now we have only three Oh yeah, same, same, uh, in the solution area. So we have, uh, the AI business solutions. Uh, cloud and AI platforms. And then, uh, security and my team basically mirrors that structure. And we have, uh, team members, uh, primarily, um, our partner, solutions specialists that are, their job is to work with companies like you. [00:07:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, some few we do, uh, direct in others. What we do is work with, uh, our top distributors, and I think we have, uh, in the room many of those. I think Google is gonna follow up, uh, for PAX eight, and that’s, uh, how we’re going to market now. [00:07:31] Vince Menzione: So just a little bit of context too for me. ’cause I, I, I had heard this at another event. [00:07:36] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And I just wanted to share this. Um, when I was at Microsoft, we, we did not put the right emphasis and energy and resources in the s and b market when I was there, or, or it was fragmented. Every group did it differently. You remember those days too, right? Well, with public sector, we didn’t necessarily have a team focused, and every business did it a little bit differently. [00:08:00] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. And I think one of the contexts you, you mentioned Ralph and being in Ralph’s organization. Yeah. Pulling that all together and creating the fourth region created a lot of focus that didn’t exist. And consistency in terms of execution. I think that’s what you’re talking about here. Right? And then also the fact that like, we didn’t, I don’t think we had a sep, an SMB leader back in, back in the day. [00:08:22] Vince Menzione: Like we didn’t have somebody that we can go to to think about the MSP community the way we do today. Mm-hmm. Right. We were just, they were just almost like unmanaged entities out there. Yeah. Was that, would you, would you agree with that? [00:08:32] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, I, we went through several iterations that, uh, you might argue, uh, were painful or not. [00:08:38] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, ultimately what we’re committed is to simplify the partner experience. And make that the same for the customers. But what we have is now one center of gravity, uh, a global SMB organization. We have three area leaders. And uh, and that helps us, uh, to be quite honest and in confidence. And you and I talked about it, Jose, this is a forum for, uh. [00:08:58] Jose Gomez Cueto: Speaking the truth. Uh, we, we, we have to fight the gravitational force of the managed space. The company has a big enterprise footprint, so, uh, many of us have become, uh, the chief agitators, uh, to fight the good fight, uh, for SMB. Uh, try to under unpack, uh, in every single conversation with senior Execut. [00:09:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: What is an MSP? And no, it’s not data consulting or one of the large, uh, global design. Uh, and then we explain what they do and then what is a two tier channel, how do distributors work? And, uh, and what about this and what about that? So I think that that has been, uh, a great, uh, progress and a lot of that can be reflected, uh, into how we’re, hopefully everyone in the room is seeing it in how we’re going to market. [00:09:40] Jose Gomez Cueto: I’ll give you two examples. [00:09:41] Guest: Yes. [00:09:42] Jose Gomez Cueto: Um, for, for quite some time. We, we have very limited, uh. Product truth. That’s what the lingo that we use internally, uh, related to offer that were targeted to SMB. And I would say that, uh, business premium, uh, for M 365, uh, was the fact to offer. But now we’ve been able to in, uh, increase, uh, the not so not only commitment, uh, but also the investment that we’re doing as a company into launching offers. [00:10:08] Jose Gomez Cueto: So we have a co compiler for business that is. At a lower price point that has, uh, the same capabilities at the enterprise, uh, that we’re, uh, doing that we also have some security, uh, offers, uh, that are now unattached to business premium, which is our hero motion for sub 300 space. So you start to see, uh, an important trend and it’s great to have jobson at a CEO, uh, of the commercial business capacity because, uh, we’re making things happen. [00:10:34] Jose Gomez Cueto: So what I would say is that I love coming here to these forums. A lot of my team members are here. We’re here to learn. We’re the learner. All we, we, we don’t know much. We need to learn more. Uh, and, and just keeping us honest in terms of bringing that, uh, ethos of, of the customer that most of you are serving and, and, and things that we can improve to get better to deliver value. [00:10:58] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And the speed at which you’re moving has been pretty fast. It’s been very nimble. Like I, I, I’ve been watching this progression. It’s really like you, you’re really leaning in. I was actually hoping because I could ask you a bunch of questions. Yeah. But we have such a great audience and for the first time we really have opened it up to a lot of MSPs in the room. [00:11:18] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And I know you, you wanna get some interaction with some of these folks as well. I thought maybe we would open if you’re okay with this. Yeah, absolutely. I’d rather than I go off script a little bit. I’d rather open it up to some of the MSPs in the room. We’re sitting here eager to learn how and, and what Microsoft is going to do to help. [00:11:35] Vince Menzione: Because I think the opportunity, I personally think the opportunity is huge right [00:11:38] Jose Gomez Cueto: now. Yeah. Let’s do that and well, we get, uh, warmed up. I would say that. [00:11:43] Vince Menzione: So we need some mics. Yeah. [00:11:43] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, something that I’m, that I’m seeing, uh, Vince, and, and, and a question that many of you might have is why now? And, and why this an, an exciting, an exciting time. [00:11:54] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:11:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Um, and I would say that, uh. Right now we’re seeing, obviously Jay talked about it and, and the big transformation, but it’s a once in a generation or one in a lifetime. Yeah. Uh, shift of the entire platform. Uh, and, and a lot of the scenarios are even maybe scary, but what we see is huge opportunity. And from an SMB perspective, uh, the biggest thing that excites me is moving from, um, something that was. [00:12:23] Jose Gomez Cueto: More related to size, and now we’re moving to outcomes. So, so think about the future of SMBs, uh, with agents and things being measured on outcomes. And, and what this leads to is, uh, Jay talked about it as well, and sorry Jay, it’s such a good job that I keep quoting you. Um, we do that a lot. Uh. You got it. [00:12:49] Jose Gomez Cueto: So you talked about, uh, I noticed that Bill Gates when he said, you know, uh, uh, a pc, uh, in every desk and what we see is every human empowered with agents. Yeah. Especially in work. And what does that mean, that the currency changes being, because what you’re gonna be able to, to envision. Not in the, in the, in the near future, but now is an agentic explosion where then, uh, the currency is outcomes? [00:13:14] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. So if you think of an SMB growing, it’s not growing on, on, on full-time employees or headcount. It’s growing on the ability to do more through agents. So, so I think that’s an important thing and, and that’s something that we’re working very closely with our all, all our channel and the offerings that we’re launching to market as well. [00:13:32] Vince Menzione: I also think about the MSPs as being perfectly positioned because what you described, the new, the new model, the future customer and the outcomes is gonna require hands on the steering wheel at all times. [00:13:44] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. Yeah. So on that one, and still waiting for some, uh. Someone that is not shy to ask questions, but we’ll, we’ll keep going in the meantime. [00:13:52] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, I, I think that, uh, we are learning, all the [00:13:55] Vince Menzione: MSPs are lined up over here. I’m marching them all. [00:13:57] Jose Gomez Cueto: We, and, and I almost know by name all everyone in the first two rows. Yes. Uh, so, so, uh, I might pick on them. Uh, they’re too shy, but, but we’re learning together. Uh, Vince, uh, the important thing is, is the transformation, uh, and the opportunity, but also the risk of, uh, not acting. [00:14:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, what we were seeing, uh, for the first, uh, year or two was kicking tires, people testing, uh, ai. And now what we’ve seen is basically, uh, a full adoption. Uh, of the agentic technology, not even adoption of the tools, but embracing the technology. So I, I want to give you, uh, two specific, uh, examples or data points we have, uh, just in the Americas, more than almost 9 million, uh, people using copilot chat. [00:14:49] Vince Menzione: Wow, that’s amazing. [00:14:50] Jose Gomez Cueto: So imagine, uh, the, the potential that is there for people that are actively using the tool. Yeah. Uh, to en enable new scenarios of doing things. Uh, another example, and I think I have, uh, someone in my team here, is Amber in the room. Amber Kinney? No, she left. Okay. So Amber runs, uh, cloud and ai, uh, uh, or Azure platform. [00:15:12] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, her team has deployed, uh, more than, uh, 11 agents internally for our partner solution specialist, uh, from. Simple agents that will, uh, tell is if a specific deal is eligible for a pre-sales or post-sales program. And comparing all the complexity of our programs, oh my [00:15:29] Vince Menzione: goodness. [00:15:30] Jose Gomez Cueto: All the way to, to, to managing a pipe more effectively of opportunities. [00:15:34] Jose Gomez Cueto: So what we’re seeing is real. This is not something that people are just kicking the tires. It’s like this is the opportunity. So back to, to the point of m ms. P uh, is, is about learning together on how to transition. To, uh, a model that is gonna be based on outcomes. And, and we were discussing, uh, I was with some of our distributors, uh, many of them in the last two months in, in a specific partner advisory, uh, councils and, and some people were just sharing their experiences. [00:16:04] Jose Gomez Cueto: Oh, I decided to charge X amount for an agent. And how do you come up with that number? I don’t know. We’re just testing. Okay. And what about their current revenue? Uh, and, but what about the tokens? What if, uh, the agents start to consume and they’re gonna do the metering? So, so I think that we’re learning together in this space. [00:16:22] Jose Gomez Cueto: Um, but what it is important is just to think about the important, the, the, the critical role that the MSPs are gonna have in leading. And the biggest challenge that we’re seeing and, and we see it over and over and over is, uh, the part about scaling. [00:16:38] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:16:39] Jose Gomez Cueto: The skilling is not, uh, about learning how to use the copilot tool or to do, uh, some, uh, you know, tuning and that, because thankfully our, at least our, our technology as a platform, uh, pretty much carries the same, uh, security, uh, and compliance configurations that you have in your Microsoft 365 tenant. [00:17:00] Jose Gomez Cueto: But it is more the, the, the skilling about understanding how to do. Customer outcome conversation. What is your AI strategy? What [00:17:08] Vince Menzione: that’s scaling? Yes. [00:17:09] Jose Gomez Cueto: What really matters? Not [00:17:10] Vince Menzione: the technical skill. It’s, it’s really the approach that they’re taking. [00:17:14] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:17:14] Vince Menzione: With the organization. I, it seems that MSPs for many years were down in the weeds. [00:17:20] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:17:20] Vince Menzione: They were turning the, the wrench, so to speak, in the organization, and yet now it seems like this. Kevin Piker, your old boss used to use this term. The, the CIO. The CEO is the new CIO. In other words, you need to be selling upstream. You need, you need to be having the conversations in the organization that are strategic [00:17:40] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:17:40] Vince Menzione: To that organization. [00:17:41] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, two, two twofold on, on that, uh, point, which is very important. One is, uh, not our, a lot of our MSPs are equipped right now. [00:17:49] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:17:49] Jose Gomez Cueto: To have a, a conversation about business strategy. Because traditionally has been more outsource it. [00:17:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:17:56] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, we started with, you know, managing the networks, then adding services, support tickets, et cetera. [00:18:03] Jose Gomez Cueto: So being able to have that conversation is important. Uh, we, we see through a lot of our tooling that, uh, the shadow AI is everywhere. And what I always tell in any MSP conversation that I have is risk security. You’re on the hook if something happens. That’s right. So if you’re not acting. Uh, then it is a liability. [00:18:22] Vince Menzione: You’re letting things take off in your own organization. Yeah. People are using [00:18:25] Jose Gomez Cueto: philanthropic on their own. The company can go, uh, bankrupt or get sued or get, uh, if they’re in a regulated industry, they can be taken out, et cetera. So, so that’s an important point, uh, related to, to that transformation. Uh, and, and the other part of the skilling that you mentioned that is super important is being in the weeds. [00:18:45] Jose Gomez Cueto: That is where the innovation is happening. Yeah. The later research that we have is being in the front line because it’s all about, uh, reinventing those processes. So I think that it’s a, it’s a good combination that if we have the MSPs, um, and we’re working, uh, not only internally but with our distributors to develop the right skilling around those other type of, uh, consulting skills. [00:19:07] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, data skills, uh, business process, uh, redesign and flows. Uh, that is where, where we see the big opportunity. [00:19:14] Vince Menzione: So it’s balancing out the technical skills with the business process skills, the consulting skills. Yeah, exactly. I think we have a question over here. Yeah. [00:19:22] Guest: Good afternoon, Vince. Good. Sorry. Thanks for the great content. [00:19:26] Guest: The question is around small medium businesses and the cost around cybersecurity. So. Basically, as new tools are coming up that are AI based, such as co-pilot for security, defender for AI, are also consumption based, is there a risk that SMEs will be left out under that cybersecurity poverty line? [00:19:52] Jose Gomez Cueto: I don’t think, uh, it is, uh, a risk to being left out, uh, in the country that the, the SMBs, I would say are more help is needed. And, and the way we think about it from a perspective of, of ai and specifically I’m want to talk about agents, uh, it was mentioned by Steven in, uh, in the morning, and I’m gonna talk a little bit high level and then I’m gonna try to bring it down to, to more tangible is this concept of intelligent and trust. [00:20:19] Jose Gomez Cueto: So on the intelligence, what, what we’re, what we’re trying to say here is that your AI is not just generic stuff that you just prompt and you get like anything that is on the web, but there’s contextual. Data, and, and that’s what we do, uh, with what you might be familiar with, which is the iq. Uh, so we have, um, iq, uh, also in Foundry and on our different data products. [00:20:40] Jose Gomez Cueto: So basically bringing the context of your work, of your contacts, of the people you interact, uh, of the meetings of, of the emails, of the SharePoint files, but also important connectors that are in line of business applications that you can bring to copilot. And then. That intelligence, uh, is relevant and that that basically increases innovation. [00:21:01] Jose Gomez Cueto: And the part about trust, uh, uh, not exactly in cybersecurity, but, but related is basically, uh, agent 365. Uh, can I see, show of hands, who’s aware of Agent 365? Maybe like [00:21:14] Vince Menzione: in the front two rows, [00:21:15] Jose Gomez Cueto: 20%? Yeah. So, um, that is basically, uh, an, an amazing opportunity for our MSP channel because it gives you opportunity to. [00:21:25] Jose Gomez Cueto: Basically observe, uh, govern and apply security to the, the agent activity that is happening. So we think in the context of ai, I think that that’s a, a, a super important, uh, aspect to mitigate any risk of, of what can happen if there’s not, uh, the right, uh, posture. Uh, and then, uh, on, on, on the other part of security, I would say that something, I mentioned something about offers. [00:21:51] Jose Gomez Cueto: We brought the capabilities of the enterprise, uh, SKUs and solutions into these add-ons to N 365. So I would say that with, uh, defender for business, uh, plan two, and sorry to go into the SKU language, uh, it, it is important to, to understand that you have those advanced capabilities. And then another one that we’re pushing, uh, hard and, and is had great receptionist, um, uh, purview, uh, and purview. [00:22:15] Jose Gomez Cueto: What allows you is just to really do everything related to data. Data security policies of what data should be prompted by the model, what information to stay or, or, or not stay. Uh, and I think that’s, that’s also a good opportunity that we’re seeing to bring those, uh, advanced capabilities into the SMBs. [00:22:33] Jose Gomez Cueto: The challenge that we have is how do we get them faster, uh, to everyone, especially when there’s, uh, you know, competing, uh, so solutions around it. [00:22:44] Vince Menzione: We have one more question, and I think we’re probably gonna have to break after that. I know we’re over time already and you’ve got a busy rest of your day. I got, well, we got one back there and we’ve got a mic up here, so, so we have two questions. [00:22:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. We’ll do Tim first and then we’ll get the [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: mic up. I’ll go for the first 30 minutes and we’ll go from there. Yes. Long time listener. Great to see you again. Jose. Um, business premium, we did E seven. We talked about getting a voice from the MSP space. To build out a business premium, like additional offering. [00:23:13] Vince Menzione: Is there any context to that you have any vision in your crystal ball for October? [00:23:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, I cannot say or, or deny. Uh, but yeah, I think that what, what you I love it in, in all seriousness team. Uh, thanks for the question. Uh, I think that what you should expect is, uh, I call it product truth, uh, more, uh, SMB built purpose built for solutions. [00:23:35] Jose Gomez Cueto: So an equivalent of, of any seven as well. Yeah. [00:23:40] Vince Menzione: You still have, we have another question in the back? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [00:23:43] Guest: Yeah. Uh, Jeremy here with Integral, um, there’s this kind of idea going around that while CSP has been very successful for many of us as MSPs and, and since the beginning, it’s been a great program that was focused on s and b and it’s come up now. [00:23:57] Guest: There’s this kind of shift saying, and CSPs and you think about being marketplace companies where CSP is, the plumbing and marketplace is, is the lead. If that is true, or maybe you comment on that, that idea. How does marketplace strategy playing into kind of, I guess I’m plugging serials piece now from behind, but how does marketplace strategy then play into the s and b market if CSPs are focused on that marketplace mechanism? [00:24:21] Guest: Where CSPs now are and the, and the modern work and all the things that we’ve been doing really well for a long time become, maybe plumbing is too far down the stack, but really marketplace being a focus, is that a strategy piece that we should be thinking about for CS p strategy overall? [00:24:36] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, it’s a great question and I’ll try to keep it brief. [00:24:39] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, I think you need my v The vision that we have is we’re doing both. Uh, we’re empowering, uh, and customers to find what they need. Uh, in the marketplace. Uh, zero talked about also the opportunity for resellers to get enrolled and start to add services and other things. There’s also, another part of the is, is multifacet, uh, to work with ISVs to make it easier and recruit them to bring the right offers. [00:25:03] Jose Gomez Cueto: For SMBI would say that the feedback that we need is to make sure that the right SA ISVs are the ones that serving SMV are represented. Then from another front, I would accept that yes, we have some, uh, plumbing work to do because right now, uh, some part of the billing is not really that nimble for a two tier model if you’re working through a distributor. [00:25:23] Jose Gomez Cueto: So we made some great progress. Uh, we, we, uh, have, uh, announced something and Ignite, if you missed it, I think we might talk about it, uh, soon. Uh, but we have that, that connection via APIs with, uh, the four largest, uh, global distributors. So we’re making progress towards something that will be seamless. Uh, but I think that the biggest opportunity that we have is, is to crack the code, uh, for marketplace. [00:25:46] Jose Gomez Cueto: And, and, you know, if I might say something that is confidential, avid Vince, uh, to be quite honest, please, uh, by definition a marketplace is eliminating intermediaries. So that’s the dilemma. How do you bring the channel in between to help you expand, [00:26:02] Vince Menzione: right? [00:26:03] Jose Gomez Cueto: That that is really the, the, the, the, the holy grail, if I may use those words. [00:26:07] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, but that’s something that, that we’re working towards. And I think, uh, we have a great opportunity ahead and, and you should expect, uh, more announcements as we head into the summer events on how we’re gonna make that more seamless. [00:26:19] Vince Menzione: And REO really lit up the channel Yeah. In, in a big way. ’cause that a hundred percent, that was a blocker before. [00:26:24] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:26:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah. But CSP is also an incredible opportunity if it, you know, I know, I know there’s other sessions and conversations around it. And it does feel, and I’ve heard this before, like I wanna buy from my MSP because they’re the ones I trust. [00:26:37] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. [00:26:37] Vince Menzione: But yet I go, I have to go around the system in order to transact my Microsoft licenses. [00:26:43] Vince Menzione: Right. Yeah. And that’s, [00:26:45] Jose Gomez Cueto: I think the scenario getting the gentleman was mentioning is related to marketplace. But yeah. Vince, uh, uh, I just wanted to perhaps close, uh, please. Because I think we’re outta time, right? Yeah, we [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: are. [00:26:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. Uh, just in terms of what to expect, uh, we are continuing to be, uh, partner centric. [00:27:01] Jose Gomez Cueto: You should expect as we go into the next fiscal year, uh, more refinement into the customer subsegmentation, we have this concept of above 300 and below 300, uh, working even closer with our distributors to help us scale and amplify the efforts that we do around recruitment, scaling, go to market, uh, co-sell, et cetera. [00:27:22] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, and then, uh, obviously expect, uh, we, we, a call to action that I have for everyone is become customer zero. Vince, I’m gonna put you on the spot here. How many agents did you use today? [00:27:37] Vince Menzione: None. [00:27:37] Jose Gomez Cueto: Okay. [00:27:38] Vince Menzione: I, I’ve been in the room leading the room today, [00:27:41] Jose Gomez Cueto: even with more reason. [00:27:42] Vince Menzione: No, I, in, I need to do [00:27:43] Jose Gomez Cueto: more. Put your autonomous agents. [00:27:44] Vince Menzione: I do. [00:27:45] Jose Gomez Cueto: I’m not kidding you and I didn’t, I need to be [00:27:47] Vince Menzione: more of [00:27:47] Jose Gomez Cueto: a frontier for myself. The answer I get usually is like one hand raiser, by the way. Uh, but, but, uh, jokes aside, uh, I think. Becoming customer zero is critical. We cannot be deploying and selling what we’re not using. Uh, we have, uh, great tooling for low-code scenarios, uh, in, in, in, now, I don’t wanna say like in a few months now we have no one, uh, people that have zero knowledge and coding already developing and deploying agents into a secure environment. [00:28:19] Jose Gomez Cueto: It is happening. [00:28:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:28:20] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, uh, then, uh. Copilot. It is not a competitor charge, GVP or cloud. It is a platform we have both included. [00:28:29] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:28:29] Jose Gomez Cueto: Do we have multimodal, we have iq. That is everything, uh, closed in terms of, uh, your intelligence. It is secure by default. Uh, and then allowing you to, to do, um, agents and then agents 365 to manage it. [00:28:41] Jose Gomez Cueto: So basically those three stages, customer zero. Uh, copilot agents and Agents 365 as your tool to, to manage them [00:28:50] Vince Menzione: and don’t go rogue and start doing your own things with anthropic and setting up your own instances because you’re gonna compromise your, your instance in your environment. [00:28:59] Jose Gomez Cueto: Well, actually, uh, if you do it in the copilot interface [00:29:02] Vince Menzione: Oh, well, I’m saying do it. [00:29:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I’m, I’m at RO going off, off, off, uh, [00:29:06] Jose Gomez Cueto: off. Yeah. Yeah, [00:29:07] Vince Menzione: yeah. Great. Well, thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated, share it with a partner leader in your network. Subscribe where you listen, and head over to the Ultimate partner.com for show notes related content and the resources for this episode. [00:29:29] Vince Menzione: And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live event in Reston, Virginia, October 26th through October 28th. Until next time. Keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything.

Esta semana nos metemos con la empresa más misteriosa y controversial de Silicon Valley: quién la fundó, por qué nació después del 11 de septiembre, y por qué hasta Nike, bancos y hoteles la usan sin que tú te enteres. Hablamos de misiles, de vigilancia ciudadana, de un dato sobre tu peso al nacer que te va a dejar helada, y de si Claude (sí, la IA con la que hablas todos los días) tiene o no las manos tan limpias como dice.¿Tú confiarías en un sistema que sabe más de ti que tu propia mamá? Dale play y cuéntanos.

Kurt Schmidt is a legendary BMX rider and co-founder of Standard Byke Co. Today Kurt wears many hats including a company President and Author. He is currenltly President of Foundry, a company that designs and builds custom software applications for many different applications. His newest book The TEN-TEN-TEN Blueprint: Craft Your Life with Strategic Precision is available now!Kurt's New Book - https://a.co/d/bKoepYpKurt's Previous Book - The Little Book Of Networking - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1634895835BMX Youtube Channel - @kurt.schmidt Podcast Youtube Channel - @SchmidtList Kurt's T-Shirts - https://schmidt-list.creator-spring.com/Thank you for choosing to spend your time watching one of my videos! If you enjoyed it, let me know in the comments below and if you're new, please consider subscribing! - http://bit.ly/Brant_MooreJoin the public Discord - https://discord.gg/NjY5j8ZyA6Just being here is support enough for me, but if you'd like to support the channel directly there are a few ways you can below.MooreBMX Merch - T-Shirts, Stickers, Mugs, & More - www.moorebmx.bigcartel.comMooreBMX Mug Club - 1 Year Long BMX Art Exhibition On Mugs, Shirts, & Prints - Patreon.com/brantmooreBecome a Member - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWGijuL19i21bgv_ow2i2YA/joinPatreon - https://www.patreon.com/brantmooreShout Out & THANK YOU To Platinum Members: Kurinsky FamilyGold Members: Adam Ortiz, Geoff Meade, Brian Lang, Wooder Designs, 1nJimid8tor!!All Discount Codes Below At One Link: https://beacons.ai/brant_mooreSave 10% on Alienation or Nowear BMX Parts or literally ANYTHING else from DANSCOMP with code "BRANT" at checkout! - www.danscomp.comSave 30% on MKS Motokicks shoes with the code "BRANT" at www.mksmoto.comSave 10% on supplements for you brain and body from ONNIT with the code "BRANT" at https://onnit.sjv.io/c/4933475/347302/5155Onnit Free Trials: https://onnit.sjv.io/c/4933475/1621437/5155Sponsors - Park Tool, Alienation BMX, Nowear BMX, MKS MotokicksPodcast Episodes - https://bit.ly/moorebmxpodcastBMX News - http://bit.ly/bmx-newsBMX For Beginners - http://bit.ly/bmx-for-beginnersBMX Tips & Tricks - http://bit.ly/bmxtipsBMX Brake Guide - http://bit.ly/bmx-brake-guideBMX Geometry Explained - http://bit.ly/bmxgeometryTalking BMX - http://bit.ly/talkingbmxBMX Jams & Events - http://bit.ly/bmxeventsBMX Games - http://bit.ly/bmxgamesLip Lords - http://bit.ly/liplordsplaylistMy Equipment - https://www.amazon.com/shop/brant_mooreInstagram - https://instagram.com/brant_moore/#bmx

A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Yongchi Rhie with Foundry United Methodist Church, July 12, 2026. "Sermon Series Part II: The United Methodist Way". Scripture: Exodus 2:15–22; Hebrews 13:1–2   On a hot July day in 2014, I stood in a long line outside the United States Embassy in Seoul. All around me, people were checking their documents, whispering the latest rumors about American immigration policy. Some were praying. Others were quietly rehearsing their lines. When my number was called, I sat down across from a consular officer who read through my papers, jotting notes, pausing on certain pages longer than I would have liked. My pulse rose with every pause. Finally, he looked up and asked, "Ms. Rhie, I see you have just returned home after living in England for quite some time. You already hold a Ph.D. Why do you wish to study theology in the United States?" He had a fair point. What could I say? That after seven years of dissecting the Bible within an inch of its life, I had finally realized what Scripture is for — not an object of intellectual indulgence, but a word meant to be lived out in the lives of people? Should I describe my grief at preaching to empty pews in an increasingly secular Britain, where so many considered the Bible, faith, and God simply no longer relevant? I had to be careful. I had been denied a visa once before, for this very reason. The officer asked about my story, but he seemed to be working from a script of his own, testing whether my story would hold. Every visa interview requires delicate tuning: you must convince them you have real plans for their country while assuring them you have no intention of staying. I truly desire to come to your country! I see abundant opportunity there! Will you let me in? But don't worry — I will never get comfortable enough to call it home. A month later, my passport came back with a visa stamped inside. It declared me a legal alien. That word “alien” always makes me laugh. Ever since I left my home country, I have been a legal alien. And I have learned that it doesn't take green skin, an oversized head, or extraterrestrial powers to be counted an outsider. Sometimes the way I look, the way I speak, or simply the way I carry myself is enough to register as a threat, or at least a discomfort. I could learn the customs of a new land. But would I ever be permitted to call it home? For most of my adult life, I have lived as a stranger in a strange land. A Man With No Country Moses knew that feeling so intimately that he engraved it into his son's name: "She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for he said, 'I have been an alien residing in a foreign land'" (Exodus 2:22). Hey, Moses, did you ask Gershom about this? Did his mother agree? I feel for the boy. Imagine carrying your father's loneliness as your name. Let's step into the story and meet Moses by a well in Midian. His whole life, up to this moment, has been an exercise in not belonging and his very name tells the story. Pharaoh's daughter called him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water" (Exod. 2:10). Drawn out: a Hebrew baby lifted from the Nile, out of a death decree, into a palace that was never quite his. Hebrew by blood, Egyptian by upbringing, Moses grows up belonging to neither world. And when he finally goes out to "his people," as the text pointedly calls them in verse 11, everything unravels. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and strikes the Egyptian down (2:11–12). The next day he tries to reconcile two Hebrews who are fighting, and one of them turns on him: "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Do you hear the wound in that question? Yes, Moses committed a crime the day before; out of anger, perhaps, but also out of compassion for an enslaved kinsman. Today he steps in again, and his own people read his help as a grab for power: the palace insider playing ruler over the enslaved. His act of deliverance is recast as a threat; his sacrifice, as ambition. When word reaches Pharaoh, the king seeks his life. So Moses flees - rejected by Egypt as a criminal, rejected by the Hebrews as a pretender - a man with no country, no people, and a name that only reminds him he was pulled out of one world without ever being planted in another. That is the man who collapses, exhausted, by a well in Midian. What Happens at a Well Now listen closely to how the text tells what happens there, because every detail is doing holy work. Scripture says, "he sat down by a well" (v. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, nothing significant ever happens by accident at a well. Wells are where Abraham's servant found Rebekah, where Jacob met Rachel, where Jesus met a Samaritan woman: places of encounter where God's providence quietly gathers up displaced people and gives them a future. When the original audience heard "Moses sat down by a well," they leaned in. Something is about to begin. Seven daughters of the priest of Midian come to draw water, and rough shepherds drive them away. Hear the Hebrew: the shepherds vayegarshum — they drove them out. It is the very root, garash, from which Moses will later coin the name Gershom, the driven-out one. And here is what astonishes me: Moses inserts himself again. Consider what meddling has already cost this man- his home, his standing, very nearly his life. The prudent thing would be to keep his head down, drink his water, and let Midian's troubles remain Midian's troubles. He owes these women nothing, and no one in this town even knows his name. Yet the one who has been driven out cannot sit still while others are driven out before his eyes. And what does the text say he does? "Moses stood up and saved them" (v. 17) — vayoshian, from yasha, the root that will one day give us the names Joshua and Jesus. Here, at a foreign well, in a single unrewarded act - defending strangers, drawing water for distressed people and their animals - the fugitive rehearses his calling. This is the man through whom God will save a people. Then comes the irony. The daughters run home and report, "An Egyptian delivered us from the shepherds." An Egyptian! Moses is a Hebrew raised in Pharaoh's house, a man belonging fully to neither world, and even his good deed is credited to the wrong identity. Why Bother? And then the young women are gone, and Moses is alone again. No thank-you. No name asked. Not even a drink of fresh water from the well he had just defended. Three times now he has stretched himself for others, and three times his actions went unacknowledged, his words were rebuked, his authority was denied, his very identity was questioned. Sitting in the dust by that well, Moses might well have wondered: Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I just mind my own business? When your act of hospitality is met with silence — or worse, resentment — the temptation whispers: Why bother? I could just live for my own interest, my own comfort, my own happiness. Going the extra mile only makes you tired and pushes you further from your home. Friends, be honest: have you been there? Why do we help others? What is going on inside us when we stretch ourselves for people who may never stretch back? The One Who Noticed But even in the middle of this mess, someone notices Moses. Hearing what happened at the well, Reuel asks his daughters: "Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread." Reuel is a Midianite priest - a foreigner, an outsider to Israel's story —- and yet he is the one who models the hospitality that the daughters, and Egypt, and even Moses' own people had failed to offer. This foreigner does not interrogate the stranger's papers. He sets a table. And at that table, the fugitive becomes family. Moses marries Zipporah and holds a son whose name tells the truth — ger, stranger. It is no accident that the Torah will later command Israel more than thirty times to protect the ger: "You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." We lament the loss of this entire ethic of welcome in today's world. And notice: it all happened around the well. The well was already there. Before Moses arrived - before he had done anything right, and long after he had done something terribly wrong - the water was waiting. This is the heartbeat of our United Methodist way. John Wesley called it prevenient grace: the grace that goes before us. Before we repent, before we believe, before we even know God's name, God's love is already at work ahead of us, digging wells in the deserts of our lives. Moses thought he was a fugitive stumbling upon a random watering hole. In truth, grace had arrived before him; with a family, a vocation, and, on a nearby mountain, the God who says, "I have observed the misery of my people, and I have come down to deliver them." Two Loves, One Gospel Our second reading today, the letter to the Hebrews gathers this whole story into two luminous verses: "Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:1-2). The Greek translation is even better than the English here, because it names two different loves. Mutual love is philadelphia — the love of brothers and sisters. Anyone from Philly here? Did you know your city's name means the love of kinship? Philadelphia is the affection we give people who are already ours: family, friends, fellow members — the ones who look like us, pray like us, vote like us. That love matters. "Let it continue," Hebrews says. But then comes the harder word: philoxenia. Literally, love of the xenos — the stranger, the outsider, the one who shares nothing with you but a common humanity. Philadelphia loves the person already inside the circle; philoxenia widens the circle. Any club can manage philadelphia. Only the gospel produces philoxenia. And we know the opposite word all too well, because it is one of the few Greek words English never bothered to translate: xenophobia — fear of the stranger. We see it whenever an entire people is reduced to a threat: when immigrants are spoken of as terrorists and criminals rather than as mothers, fathers, and children of sacred worth; when a teenager sits in a church pew and learns to hide who they are, because the sanctuary feels less safe than the street; when a synagogue or a mosque must hire armed guards just to gather for prayer; when a job application is quietly set aside because the name at the top sounds too foreign. Xenophobia is the world's oldest sickness. It built Pharaoh's brickyards, and it is still building walls that separate children from their parents today. But friends, I have also seen philoxenia — and so have you. I have seen it in congregations that furnished apartments and stocked refrigerators for refugee families they had never met. I have seen it right here in this city, when buses of migrants arrived at Union Station with nothing, and churches and neighbors showed up with food, coats, and cots — before the cameras did. I have seen it in church basements turned into English classes and legal clinics, and at kitchen tables where someone simply said to the new family on the block, "Come, eat with us." Hospitality, Scripture insists, is not charity flowing downhill from host to guest. It is "entertaining angels without knowing it." It is the doorway through which God's love slips into our lives, often unannounced. Holy Meddling Now, this is the final Sunday of our series on the United Methodist way. Who are we? What defines us? What is our calling — as Christians, as United Methodists, as members of Foundry? I want to name something about Moses that we United Methodists have always claimed as our own: Moses meddles. Three times in one chapter he inserts himself into conflicts that were, strictly speaking, none of his business: an enslaved Hebrew, two quarreling kinsmen, seven harassed women at a well. He refuses to stay in his comfort zone. That holy meddling is our family trait. Our Social Principles declare of our public witness: "The United Methodist Church believes God's love for the world is an active and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty. We cannot just be observers." There is no private faith that hoards grace and calls it piety. As Desmond Tutu warned us: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." Friends, this is who we are. We are the people who refuse to mind our own business when God's children are being driven out — from lunch counters to detention centers, from housing courts to hospital waiting rooms. We wrestle with Scripture, we wrestle with our assumptions, we wrestle with our faith and our calling — and like Moses, we stand up. Because we serve a Lord who said, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me." From Gershom to Eliezer Church, watch what grace does with a meddler. Moses named his first son Gershom: "I have been a stranger in a strange land." But his second son he named Eliezer: "My God is my helper." Between those two names lies an entire conversion. The stranger became a host. The man who once sought water at a well became the one through whom God drew a whole people out of bondage, through mighty waters, into freedom. God still loves to do this. God takes our Gershom — our alienation, our wounds, our wandering — and rewrites it as Eliezer: my God is my helper. Helper: not in advancing my ambitions or protecting my own wealth, family, and safety, but in teaching me to love God and to love my neighbor as myself. People often mistake "with God, all things are possible" for a guarantee of personal fulfillment. No. God helps us toward something far greater: to serve higher purposes, to forgive and to love, to give and to build, to lay down our lives for friends who were once strangers. We can live out the radical, divine, universal love of God — because God is with us, and God helps us. The Invitation So here is my invitation: this week, don't leave the town of Philly just yet. It is good to stay connected to the love of kin — philadelphia. But intentionally seek out and practice philoxenia. Is there a newcomer in the pew near you, or new to your building, your office, your block? Don't wait for the welcome committee - go say hello, learn their name, and remember it. Does someone need prayer? Don't merely promise to pray for them; ask if you may pray with them, right there, for two holy minutes. Is a neighbor navigating a new language, a new diagnosis, a new grief? Set a table, the way Reuel did: "Invite them to break bread." Philadelphia is dinner with your sister; philoxenia is adding a chair for someone whose story you don't yet know. One helpful discipline for the coming week: each evening, ask yourself two questions. Who did I love today who already loves me? That's philadelphia — good, keep it up. And: Who did I welcome today who could give me nothing back? That's philoxenia — the stretch. If the second column stays empty for a few days, that's the invitation talking. And now, before we close, one more invitation, because sermons about wells should end at one. If today you are the one in the wilderness - if you walked in this morning feeling like a stranger in a strange land - hear the good news: the well is already here. Grace arrived before you did. Before you ever learn to love yourself, before you learn to love your neighbor as yourself, you are already loved by the God of living water…not because of anything you have done, but because of whose you are. If you doubt this grace, then as we sing our final hymn, I invite you: come. Come to this altar, and let us pray with you. You don't need the right words; Moses didn't have them either. Just come and stand by the well with us. And perhaps you came in this morning already full. Then I invite you to consider the many ways you can become a living well for others: a place where people come to know and experience the way of philoxenia, the love of the stranger. The name you have yet to forgive. The prayer you will offer on the spot. The table you will set for the weary. The grace you will give without asking anything in return. Whether you come forward or stand still, the invitation is the same: Come to the well, and then go and become one. Amen.

More than 700 firefighters from across the country are working to contain wildfires burning in and near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Storms Monday brought rain to the fire zone, but also lightning and gusty winds. Crews are working to assess and protect structures near two large fires northwest of Ely and are preparing the Echo Trail as a control line. Forest Service officials say crews quickly responded to three new lightning-caused fires reported Sunday.A U.S. District judge has dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuits against state and local governments over what the Justice Department describes as “sanctuary city policies.” The Trump administration argued policies prohibiting local authorities from enforcing federal immigration law are unconstitutional. Chief Judge Eric Tostrud dismissed claims against the state, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt and Attorney General Keith Ellison.The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is seeking public feedback on the social and economic impacts of large-scale dairies in the state. That follows the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's decision not to require an environmental impact statement for a proposed dairy expansion near Morris. The expansion would make it the state's largest dairy. The Department of Agriculture will host two online public meetings Tuesday, July 28, and will accept online comments through Oct. 1.A St. Paul iron foundry is due in court Tuesday as state regulators try to revoke its permit over pollution concerns. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says Northern Iron removed some pollution control equipment in 2023, violating its permit. The agency says that could have led to more pollution in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood. Foundry leaders say a shutdown is unnecessary and that the foundry is not violating its permit.

The Holy Spirit is God, One with the Father and the Son. He dwells within us, convicting, guiding, and empowering us to live the Jesus-shaped life. Only through developing an intimate relationship with Him can we experience the life that God has for us and for those around us.Follow @thisisfoundry on social media for updates.Join us for part 12 of learning more about the Holy Spirit!Want to learn more about Foundry? Ready to join a Foundry group?

Join us for an insightful episode of The Brand Called You as host Ashutosh Garg speaks with Jyothika Raju, Co-Founder and Program Director of ImpactAI Foundry.Discover how Jyothika's journey—from studying engineering in Bengaluru to leading initiatives at the intersection of artificial intelligence, public policy, and social impact—has shaped her vision for responsible AI.In this conversation, she explores:What responsible and accountable AI truly meansThe challenges NGOs and nonprofits face when adopting AIWhy capacity building is more valuable than technology dependencyPractical AI solutions already transforming the social sectorThe importance of collaboration between governments, universities, startups, and nonprofitsActionable advice for young professionals pursuing careers in AI for social good

Join us for an insightful episode of The Brand Called You as host Ashutosh Garg speaks with Jyothika Raju, Co-Founder and Program Director of ImpactAI Foundry.Discover how Jyothika's journey—from studying engineering in Bengaluru to leading initiatives at the intersection of artificial intelligence, public policy, and social impact—has shaped her vision for responsible AI.In this conversation, she explores:What responsible and accountable AI truly meansThe challenges NGOs and nonprofits face when adopting AIWhy capacity building is more valuable than technology dependencyPractical AI solutions already transforming the social sectorThe importance of collaboration between governments, universities, startups, and nonprofitsActionable advice for young professionals pursuing careers in AI for social goodWhether you're passionate about artificial intelligence, nonprofit innovation, public policy, or ethical technology, this episode offers valuable insights into building AI that creates meaningful and lasting impact.

The Holy Spirit is God, One with the Father and the Son. He dwells within us, convicting, guiding, and empowering us to live the Jesus-shaped life. Only through developing an intimate relationship with Him can we experience the life that God has for us and for those around us.Check out thisisfoundry.com for more information about Foundry Church!Follow @thisisfoundry on social media for updates.Join us for part 11 of learning more about the Holy Spirit!Want to learn more about Foundry? Ready to join a Foundry group?

APPLEBLIM, MJ COLE, MR FINGERS + OCTO OCTA lead a packed new music episode of ABSTRACT SCIENCE with hosts JOSHUA P. FERGUSON + HENRY SELF. JOSHUA navigates the edges of modern bass, ambient, dub + downtempo with full set of 2026 selections. HENRY ups the tempo for a far-reaching set of acid, classic house, ambient interludes, techno + a disco send-off. [aired 7 May 2026 on WLUW-Chicago 88.7FM] >JOSHUA P. FERGUSON Placid Angles “Hero” (Canada, Oath, 2026) Appleblim “Solstice Beam” (Neolithic Neon, Sneaker Social Club, 2026) Dharma “Questions” (One Clean Sock EP, R&S, 2026) DHYAN “Swim Up” (Nagoyaka Na Kaze, Wisdom Teeth, 2026) Tristan Arp “Forking Paths” ((re)weave, Kapsela, 2026) Martyn “Heavy Sound” (Music for Existing, 3024, 2026) re:ni & BiggaBush “Heavy Sound” (Bass is the Space, Ilian Tape, 2026) Setting “Ribbon of Moss” (S/T, Thrill Jockey, 2026) Yu Su “Cul De Sac” (Foundry, Short Span, 2026) Appleblim “Warmth” (Liminal Tides, Quiet Details, 2026) Terrain “Barossa Dub” (Scatter EP, Livity Sound, 2026) Mr Fingers “Enceladus 5” (Leev Ur Mynd, Alleviated, 2026) >HENRY SELF MJ Cole & John Glacier “Move Time” (892 Recordings, 2026) Franky Rizardo “Shinjuku” (LTF, 2026) UR “The Final Frontier” (Underground Resistance, 1992) Jam & Spoon “Stella” (Trance Wax Remix) (Trance Wax Five, Trance Wax, 2019) Ana Roxanne “X” (Poem 1, Kranky, 2026) Blarf “Stars Without Light” (Film Scores for Films That Don't Exist, Stones Throw, 2026) Octo Octa “…To the Divinity of Gay Sex” (Sigils for Survival, T4T LUV NRG, 2026) A Certain Ratio “Houses In Motion” (Demo Version 1) (ACR:BOX, Mute, 2019) Robyn “Blow My Mind” (CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso Version) (Konichiwa/Young, 2026) Prospa & Cloonee “Free Your Mind” (CircoLoco, 2026) Laurent Garnier “Crispy Bacon” (Hilit Kolet Edit) (33 Tours Et Puis S’en Vont, COD3 QR, 2023) Y U QT feat. Jem Cooke “Call My Name” (Technicolour, 2026) Hot Streak “Body Work” (Easy Street, 1983) The post absci radio 1420 – joshua p ferguson + henry self appeared first on abstract science >> future music chicago.

Alex Karp went on CNBC to talk about Palantir's new Nvidia initiative, but what came out was much bigger than a partnership announcement. In this episode, Chris and Saied break down what Palantir actually does, why Gotham, Foundry, Apollo, and AIP matter, and why Karp believes the next phase of AI is not consumer chatbots — it is controlled, sovereign, mission-critical AI inside governments, militaries, banks, hospitals, factories, and critical infrastructure. The conversation becomes a larger debate over whether AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic have oversold the dream, whether enterprises are wasting money on token economics, and whether corporate America fears its proprietary data, IP, and “alpha” are being absorbed by model providers. This is not just a Palantir episode. It is a conversation about who controls the future of AI: private labs, public governments, or the companies building the operating layer between them.

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes on a specific topic in craft beer, craft chocolate, or artisan drinks. Today we're talking with David Herrick of Foundry Chocolate in New Zealand. David takes us behind the scenes of the R&D process for developing their esteemed Whisky bars released annually. Enjoy!You can listen to the entire episode this clip is from here.You can learn more about Foundry Chocolate here.Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.

What if one of the most powerful companies on Earth operates largely outside the public spotlight? While names like Google, Apple, and Microsoft dominate headlines, another technology company has quietly become deeply embedded within military operations, intelligence agencies, law enforcement, healthcare, finance, and governments around the world. That company is Palantir Technologies.In Part One of this special investigative series, On the Record examines the origins of Palantir and the extraordinary rise of a company founded in the aftermath of 9/11 with a mission to solve one of America's greatest intelligence failures: connecting massive amounts of fragmented information before disaster strikes again.Host Christian Briggs traces Palantir's story from its founding by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings to its early backing by In-Q-Tel, the venture capital organization created to identify technologies of interest to the U.S. intelligence community. Along the way, the episode explores how PayPal's fraud-detection technology evolved into sophisticated software capable of integrating data across military, intelligence, and government systems.The episode also examines Palantir's flagship platforms—including Gotham, Foundry, Apollo, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform—and how they are used by defense organizations, government agencies, healthcare providers, manufacturers, and major corporations to analyze vast amounts of information. Christian also explores the company's expanding role in modern warfare, its high-profile government contracts, and CEO Alex Karp's unusually candid comments about Palantir's role in supporting military operations.But Palantir's growth has not come without controversy. The documentary investigates the lawsuits, privacy concerns, immigration-enforcement debates, healthcare controversies, congressional scrutiny, and civil-liberties criticisms that have followed the company as its influence has expanded. Viewers will hear both the concerns raised by critics and Palantir's own responses, providing a detailed look at one of the most debated technology companies of the twenty-first century.Part One lays the foundation for an even larger story. In Part Two, Christian follows Palantir's expanding global footprint, exploring digital identity initiatives, biometric verification, artificial intelligence, government data integration, automatic license plate reader networks, and the broader debate over how rapidly advancing technology may reshape the relationship between governments, institutions, and citizens in the years ahead.

In this episode of The Circuit, Ben and Jay break down the recent volatility and AI fatigue hitting semiconductor stocks. They analyze how retail "tourists" and passive index funds might be driving market valuations ahead of actual fundamentals. The hosts also unpack the rumors surrounding Meta reportedly leasing data center capacity to Google, debating whether Mark Zuckerberg's broad AI vision is struggling to align with the company's core advertising model, or if the company is simply bartering excess compute for access to coding tools like Gemini. Finally, the conversation shifts to the evolving foundry landscape, highlighting Infineon's new 300mm fab in Germany and Samsung's strategic use of its memory business to win new logic deals. They conclude with a warning about the unprecedented pricing power and margin expansion currently rippling through the entire semiconductor supply chain

The Holy Spirit is God, One with the Father and the Son. He dwells within us, convicting, guiding, and empowering us to live the Jesus-shaped life. Only through developing an intimate relationship with Him can we experience the life that God has for us and for those around us.Check out thisisfoundry.com for more information about Foundry Church!Follow @thisisfoundry on social media for updates.Join us for part 10 of learning more about the Holy Spirit!Want to learn more about Foundry? Ready to join a Foundry group?

La Palantir Technologies, azienda statunitense che si occupa di analisi di big data e sviluppo di software AI, sta suscitando polemiche perché "potrebbe aiutare i governi ad operare un controllo di massa". Si tratta di una delle imprese tecnologiche più potenti al mondo, ma che il grande pubblico non conosce. Bersaglio di crescenti critiche per la collaborazione con l'ICE americana, Palantir vende ad aziende e governi di molti paesi - Usa e Regno Unito - software in grado di collegare tra loro miliardi di dati diversi - militari, finanziari, personali - con l'intento di individuare in anticipo possibili minacce, come quelle terroristiche. In questo video vedremo cos'è Palantir, cosa fa davvero, qual è l'ideologia dei suoi fondatori e che impatto ha su di noi. Prendi parte alla nostra Membership per supportare il nostro progetto Missione Cultura e diventare mecenate di Geopop: https://geopop.it/ngCbN 00:00 Intro 01:19 Cos'è Palantir e cosa fa l'azienda statunitense 02:28 I prodotti: Gotham, la piattaforma per analisi militari 03:38 Foundry, il software per le imprese private 04:04 Apollo e il super chatbot AIP 05:03 Le origini dell'azienda, fondatori e investitori 07:08 Il fatturato 07:40 Chi sono i clienti di Palantir e perché preoccupa 08:44 Gli stati interessati: Regno Unito, Paesi Bassi e Italia 09:52 Le critiche 11:56 Quando l'analisi dei dati diventa sorveglianza di massa 13:29 I rischi: errori degli algoritmi e privacy 15:54 L'ideologia di Palantir e il nome dal Signore degli Anelli 18:31 La missione di difendere l'Occidente e la soluzione alle guerre I NOSTRI VIDEO CONSIGLIATI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdKbAcGSpjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7ovY0dTMPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89C0jCgtBuk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Industrial Talk is onsite at Penn State and talking to Victor Okhuysen, Professor with Cal Poly Pomona about "Strengthening the future of manufacturing". Overview Scott Mackenzie from Industrial Talk discusses the importance of training the next generation of industrial leaders with Victor Okhuysen from Cal Poly Pomona. The Penn State Erie campus hosts the METAL program, which aims to inspire and educate students in metallurgy and manufacturing. Victor, a principal investigator, highlights the program's hands-on approach, including boot camps and workshops, to expose students to potential careers. The program has conducted four boot camps and ten workshops, using a system called Foundry in a Box. Victor emphasizes the need for skilled workers in an increasingly automated industry and the role of community colleges in providing relevant training. Outline Introduction to Industrial Talk Podcast and IRISS Technologies Scott Mackenzie introduces himself and the Industrial Talk podcast, emphasizing its focus on industry professionals and innovations.Scott highlights IRISS Technologies, a global leader in electrical maintenance safety, and their patented infrared and ultrasonic inspection windows.IRISS Technologies' solutions help in detecting issues early, boosting reliability, and protecting workers from unplanned failures.Scott encourages listeners to learn more about IRISS Technologies at their website. Introduction to the METAL Program and Victor Okhuysen Scott welcomes listeners to the Industrial Talk podcast and highlights the importance of celebrating industry professionals.Scott introduces the METAL program at Penn State Erie, an acronym for Metallurgical Engineering Trade Apprenticeship Learning.Victor Okhuysen from Cal Poly Pomona is introduced as a key figure in the METAL program, focusing on exchanging ideas to improve curriculum and delivery.Victor explains his role as a principal investigator at Cal Poly Pomona, working on a curriculum developed by Penn State. Discussion on the Importance of Training the Next Generation Scott and Victor discuss the critical need for training the next generation of industrial leaders.Victor emphasizes the importance of having a trained workforce despite advancements in automation.Scott shares his personal experience of being inspired by educational films about manufacturing during his childhood.Victor explains the current state of manufacturing, noting the increase in automation and efficiency, and the need for skilled workers. Victor's Background and the METAL Program at Cal Poly Pomona Victor provides a brief overview of his background, including his role as a professor at Cal Poly Pomona and his expertise in metal casting and manufacturing.Scott praises the quality of instructors in the METAL program, noting their extensive experience and passion for their fields.Victor explains the purpose of the METAL program, which is to expose students to potential careers in metallurgy and related fields.The program includes boot camps and workshops, using a system called Foundry in a Box to engage students in hands-on activities. Challenges and Opportunities in Manufacturing Education Scott and Victor discuss the challenges of keeping up with the rapid changes in manufacturing technology.Victor highlights the need for continuous training and education to maintain professional currency.Scott emphasizes the importance of employers investing in their workforce to stay competitive.Victor mentions the issue of skilled workers leaving for better opportunities, which can be a challenge for employers. The Role of Community Colleges and Apprenticeship Programs Scott and Victor discuss the role of community colleges in providing manufacturing education and training.Victor explains that community colleges offer programs in welding, machining, and metallurgical technician, among others.Scott shares his positive experience with an apprenticeship program, which provided hands-on training and real-life education.Victor notes the decline in apprenticeship programs and the need for individuals to be proactive in pursuing their career goals. The Importance of Hands-On Training in Manufacturing Scott and Victor discuss the importance of hands-on training in manufacturing education.Victor shares an example of a boot camp where students were given the opportunity to pour their own molds, providing a valuable hands-on experience.Scott emphasizes the need for students to see and experience the practical aspects of manufacturing to understand its importance.Victor highlights the benefits of hands-on training in making students more knowledgeable and skilled. Future Plans for the METAL Program at Cal Poly Pomona Victor outlines the future plans for the Metal program at Cal Poly Pomona, including expanding the program and reaching more people.The program aims to attract more high school and college students, as well as industry professionals.Victor mentions the potential for the program to include more boot camps and workshops to provide additional exposure to students.The program also aims to strengthen the manufacturing base by educating more people about the industry. Conclusion and Call to Action Scott wraps up the conversation by emphasizing the importance of supporting the next generation of industrial leaders.He encourages listeners to connect with Victor and the METAL program at Cal Poly Pomona for more information.Scott highlights the role of Industrial Talk in promoting industry professionals and their stories.He encourages listeners to support the METAL program and other initiatives aimed at training the next generation of industrial leaders. If interested in being on the Industrial Talk show, simply contact us and let's have a quick conversation. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2026. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy! VICTOR OKHUYSEN'S CONTACT INFORMATION: METAL Website: https://www.metalforamerica.org/ LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-okhuysen-26bb0423/ Company LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/school/cal-poly-pomona/ Company Website: https://www.cpp.edu/ PODCAST VIDEO: https://youtu.be/3qxigN0h18E THE STRATEGIC REASON "WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST": OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES: NEOM: https://www.neom.com/en-us Hexagon: https://hexagon.com/ Arduino: https://www.arduino.cc/ Fictiv: https://www.fictiv.com/ Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/ Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/ Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/ We the 15: https://www.wethe15.org/ YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX: LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/ Active Campaign: Active Campaign Link Social Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/ Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access And One Free License For Future Industrial Leader):

In this episode, Chris Cochrane leads with a $200,000 Star Wars LEGO collection that exploded into lawsuits, arrests, and a YouTube crusade. Additional stories cover Summer Game Fest 2026, the first Enhanced Games where doping is allowed, an AI collar that claims to translate your dog, Microsoft’s new in-house AI coding models, an AI-industry letter urging Congress to screen synthetic DNA, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn exploding on the test stand. – Want to start a podcast? Its easy to get started! Sign-up at Blubrry – Thinking of buying a Starlink? Use my link to support the show. Subscribe to the Newsletter. Email Chris if you want to get in touch! Like and Follow Geek News Central’s Facebook Page. Support my Show Sponsor: Best Godaddy Promo Codes Get 1Password Full Summary Chris Cochrane opens the show, back behind the mic after a long break. First, he previews a packed rundown before digging into the night’s lead story, a consignment deal gone very wrong. From there, the episode runs through gaming, sports, artificial intelligence, and space. Finally, Chris closes with personal updates on recent travel, a new camera, and a media business he is building. The $200,000 Star Wars LEGO Consignment War Chris leads with a sentence he never expected to say on the show. A dispute over a box of Star Wars LEGO has produced a racketeering lawsuit, multiple arrests, and a public statement from the CEO of Patreon. Bryan Mansell and his 83-year-old father, Ed, spent years assembling roughly 780 sealed sets, valued near $200,000. Back in 2023, they consigned the collection to the Keizer, Oregon branch of the franchise chain Bricks and Minifigs, splitting sales 65/35. However, the store changed hands in late 2024, and the new operators allegedly stopped paying and refused to return the unsold sets. From there it escalated fast. Stunt YouTuber Benjamin Schneider, known as “Reckless Ben,” took up the cause and split the claim into about ten small-claims cases, winning default judgments when the store skipped court. Meanwhile, his GoFundMe pushed past $600,000 and his videos drew millions of views. The company fired back with a Utah RICO suit naming Schneider, Mansell, and others, and Schneider was arrested on charges including stalking and trespass. Notably, Patreon CEO Jack Conte refused the company’s demand to pull Schneider’s page, telling Bricks and Minifigs they could “stuff it.” Eventually, the corporate franchisor parted ways with the store owners, cited gross negligence, and invited Mansell to settle. Chris’s own take: had the store simply returned the collection, none of this would have happened, and the owner “kind of deserved” the heat. Sponsor: GoDaddy Economy hosting $6.99/month, WordPress hosting $12.99/month, domains $11.99. Website builder trial available. Use codes at geeknewscentral.com/godaddy to support the show. Summer Game Fest 2026 Unloads a Stacked Lineup Next, Chris turns to Summer Game Fest, which Geoff Keighley hosted June 5 from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Capcom opened with a remake of the 2000 cult classic, now titled Resident Evil Veronica, bringing Claire Redfield back for a 2027 launch. Square Enix then closed the night with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, the remake trilogy’s finale, also targeting 2027. Other reveals included a new Spyro the Dragon, the console debut of Guild Wars 3, and a 2027 window for The Wolf Among Us 2. For the record, Fable and Halo Campaign Evolved appeared at the separate Xbox Games Showcase, not SGF itself. Off script, Chris riffed on the games he is most excited about. He flagged GTA 6, now expected in November at a rumored $100-plus price, alongside new Wolverine, Until Dawn, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin titles. The lineup, he admitted, has him ready to finally buy a PlayStation 5. A World Record Falls at the First Enhanced Games The first Enhanced Games ran May 24 in Las Vegas, openly allowing performance-enhancing drugs and skipping anti-doping tests. Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev swam the 50-meter freestyle in 20.81 seconds, beating the official record and pocketing a $1 million bonus. However, he wore a polyurethane supersuit banned since 2010, so the suit arguably mattered as much as any chemistry. Interestingly, several athletes who said they raced clean still won, including sprinter Fred Kerley and swimmer Hunter Armstrong. Predictably, WADA, World Aquatics, World Athletics, and the IOC all condemned the event and will not recognize the results. Chris, for his part, found the whole spectacle more fun than alarming. An AI Collar Claims It Can Translate Your Dog A startup called PettiChat is selling an AI collar that claims to translate barks and meows in real time at 94.6 percent accuracy. To be fair, it is no obvious scam, with real funding, a working app, and coverage from Forbes and Vice. Still, no peer-reviewed research or independent lab backs that number. Reviewers called the demo footage “undeniably staged,” and the best real science reads broad emotion, not full sentences. Chris agreed from experience, noting that any longtime dog owner already reads their pet’s body language well enough. Microsoft Builds Its Own AI Coding Models At its Build conference in early June, Microsoft unveiled MAI-Code-1-Flash, its first homegrown coding model. The tool turns plain-English prompts into source code and plugs into GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code. Additionally, Microsoft previewed a reasoning model, MAI-Thinking-1, on its Foundry platform. The strategy is clear: Microsoft remains OpenAI’s biggest backer, yet it wants to depend on OpenAI less and cut developer costs. The timing is loud, too, since Anthropic just filed confidentially for an IPO and OpenAI is reportedly readying its own. AI Leaders Ask Congress to Screen Synthetic DNA On a more sobering note, the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft AI signed a joint letter to Congress. Together, they want mandatory screening at the companies that synthesize custom DNA to order. Their argument is blunt: powerful AI is eroding the expertise that once limited who could engineer a biological weapon. Therefore, they urge identity verification, sequence screening, and recordkeeping written into federal law this session. As Chris put it, when the people building the technology sound this worried, it is worth paying attention. Blue Origin’s New Glenn Explodes on the Test Stand Finally, Chris closes the headlines in space. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket erupted in a fireball during a static-fire test at Cape Canaveral on May 28. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and no satellites were aboard, though the first stage and some ground equipment were destroyed. That booster was set to launch Amazon’s first big batch of Leo internet satellites, the constellation formerly known as Project Kuiper. Afterward, CEO Dave Limp vowed to fly again this year, while NASA’s Jared Isaacman pushed to move Blue Origin’s lunar lander onto a backup rocket. Meanwhile, SpaceX flew its next-generation Starship Version 3 for the first time on May 22. Chris’s Travels, a New Camera, and a Media Venture To wrap up, Chris shares what he has been up to away from the mic. First, he recaps a hot, sickness-plagued trip to Disneyland in California, then a far better visit to Portland to see Ray. Proudly, he congratulates his brother on graduating and predicts their dad would be proud too. He also gushes about his new Nikon ZR camera, built on RED technology, which he says rivals a Sony FX3 at half the price. Beyond that, he is building a media business with a friend, taking free shoots to network while leaning on directing as his strength. You can find his work on Instagram at @dis.chris. Chris signs off with the usual ecosystem mentions: GNC Insider at geeknewscentral.com/insider, email at geeknews@gmail.com, the show newsletter, and modern podcast apps at podcastapps.com. He also thanks GoDaddy for over twenty years of support and teases a return to a more regular release schedule. The post The $200k Star Wars LEGO Consignment War #1867 appeared first on Geek News Central.

Master the new Microsoft Marketplace ecosystem. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Discover the tectonic shifts happening within the Microsoft ecosystem as Cyril Belikoff and Jon Yoo dive deep into the unification of the Microsoft Marketplace and the explosive rise of AI-driven commerce. This comprehensive discussion explores how the marketplace is transitioning from an incubation island to the mainland of Microsoft’s go-to-market strategy, allowing partners to tap into massive Azure consumption commitments. Learn how product-led growth, AI agents, and optimized digital flows are replacing traditional sales motions, making cloud marketplaces the default engine for scaling revenue in 2026 and beyond. https://youtu.be/cAeSIEXbnNo Key Takeaways Microsoft unified its various marketplaces into a single digital flywheel for customers to discover, try, and buy applications. Applications, such as Copilot certified agents, are contextually surfaced directly within Microsoft products to meet users in their flow of work. Customers are making massive Azure commitments, and purchasing full software stacks through the marketplace retires those commitments entirely. Cloud marketplaces have evolved from a secondary channel into the default go-to-market engine with triple-digit revenue growth. Partners must shift from deal-led transactions to product-led growth by optimizing their digital marketplace listings for AI and search engines. The future of software procurement will increasingly involve AI agents acting on behalf of organizations to seamlessly integrate multiple smaller applications. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags: Microsoft Marketplace, Azure commitments, AI agents, Frontier transformation, M365 Copilot, Foundry, digital flywheel, co-selling, product-led growth, ecosystem shift, SaaS distribution, REO, resale enabled offer, listing optimization, search engine optimization, agentic commerce, cloud go-to-market, revenue recognition, multi-party private offers, Hyperscalers Transcript: Cyril Belikoff and Jon Yoo Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Cyril Belikoff: Why do you have to outsource this or create this vi? Just edit the video right there yourself. Like why do you have to just go do the, as a marketer you want to create a beautiful piece of content, just go and create it. ’cause it can create it for you. Now [00:00:13] Jon Yoo: you can feel it happening. The ecosystem is shifting beneath us, the way Hyperscalers are partnering. [00:00:19] Jon Yoo: How AI is remaking the channel and what it means to win in 2026. [00:00:25] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Manzione, your host. [00:00:30] Jon Yoo: We just wrapped up two days in Bellevue with some of the sharpest partner leaders in the business, and what we heard wasn’t incremental, it was tectonic. In this series, we’re going deeper into these conversations, the insights, the frameworks, the real movement we’re seeing in this market right now, because being in the room changes everything and we’re bringing that room to you. [00:00:55] Vince Menzione: And I am thrilled actually for this next one. Uh, I’ve had this opportunity to spend a little bit of time with this gentleman before, and welcoming him back is a pleasure and an honor. Cyril Beov, the vice president. I’m gonna botch up your title ’cause I always say marketplaces, but it’s much more than that. [00:01:14] Vince Menzione: So come on up, zero. And we’re gonna have a conversation and Cyril is amongst other things at Microsoft. Good to see you, sir. Yeah, [00:01:24] Cyril Belikoff: you too, [00:01:25] Vince Menzione: uh, is responsible for the, the Microsoft marketplace. [00:01:29] Cyril Belikoff: Are these your notes here? [00:01:30] Vince Menzione: These are, um, what is that? Yeah, these is gonna be our, our questions, so we, yeah, I, I need help sometimes so prompting, but, uh, so great to have you. [00:01:38] Vince Menzione: So just for purposes of title and context, ’cause your role is much bigger than just marketplace. Yeah. And we’re, we’re gonna sit down and John, is this me? Yes. And then John’s gonna join us. [00:01:47] Cyril Belikoff: Okay. Great. [00:01:48] Joe, [00:01:48] Vince Menzione: well, we’re gonna get started and start having a conversation. And we’ve, we’ve done some of these things before. [00:01:53] Vince Menzione: I’ve, I’ve had, you had me on your stage Yes. In your event at Alyssa Taylor’s event. [00:01:57] Cyril Belikoff: Yes. [00:01:58] Vince Menzione: And then, uh, we’ve, we’ve done some nice things together on stage, both at, at our event in Redmond last year. Yes. Then at our big, uh, ignite breakfast back [00:02:07] Cyril Belikoff: and forth, we had Vince come to our wider org and sort of, uh, I got to do the reverse. [00:02:13] Cyril Belikoff: And so interview him in front of a bunch of, uh, 500 marketers on what do we have to think about for partners. And so he gave us sort of the what’s going on in the partner ecosystem, how to think about it as we think about it, our marketing. [00:02:26] Vince Menzione: And I tried to be candid and represent this group. [00:02:28] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, that’s great. [00:02:29] Yeah. [00:02:30] Vince Menzione: Was wonderful. Thank you for doing that. [00:02:31] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. [00:02:32] Vince Menzione: You, you work, you work in an amazing organization. Um, I’ve known Alyssa for many years as well, and you’re an incredible leader. And I just, I wanna frame this maybe with a conversation about, ’cause we’re gonna talk about what’s changed, but, but I think it’s still important for everybody in the room to understand what you did and what your team orchestrated around market. [00:02:52] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, [00:02:52] Vince Menzione: because it was fragmented, it was in different organizations, it felt very dis disorganized, I guess. Yeah. For lack of a better word. [00:02:59] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Thank you. Um, essentially we took it from incubation Island to the mainland Microsoft. I love it. Uh, GTM [00:03:07] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:03:07] Cyril Belikoff: Is the simplest way to think about it. Um, and, uh, come September last year now, uh, we unified the, the, the, the many marketplaces. [00:03:19] Cyril Belikoff: Uh, whether it was an Azure marketplace or AppSource and others, and we created the new Microsoft marketplace. Yeah. So one single place for customers to come, discover, try, buy, and for partners, software companies and other NSIs to put their wares up. And, uh, it was the first step in a vision for us to create this digital flywheel for us to bring our customers and our partners together in a more, you know, automated way. [00:03:47] Vince Menzione: Which it, it sounds crazy when you think about it, right? Microsoft has always been like the partnership leader, the leader in the technology, and to have fragmented marketplaces before, right? Yeah. And so what clarity to bring that all together. [00:04:00] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. It was a big, it was a big step for us and I think what we realized is that customers and partners were saying, Hey, uh, it’s all one place. [00:04:07] Cyril Belikoff: If I’m looking for a SaaS application or an agent or, and plug into teams or whatever it is. I just want to get it all in one spot. Uh, and, uh, and then we need you to connect us to your channel. [00:04:21] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:04:21] Cyril Belikoff: Uh, and your partners and, uh, can you build out, you know, partner capabilities for that Connects channel to software companies, to, to customers in a digital flywheel way. [00:04:30] Cyril Belikoff: Um, one of the things we actually also announced at that time was this concept of what we call. The marketplace framework. So it’s not just the fact that we have this digital experience or web experience, but that, um, applications that go into the marketplace, depending on the type of applications they get contextually surfaced within Microsoft products. [00:04:53] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:04:53] Cyril Belikoff: And so if you’re, [00:04:54] Vince Menzione: explain that for this Yeah. For me and for this crap. [00:04:57] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. So if you are a, um, if you’re a co-pilot certified agent. M 365 copilot agent, you’ll be in the marketplace, but you’ll also be automatically surfaced inside the M 365 copilot, um, product. [00:05:11] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:05:12] Cyril Belikoff: Same for, uh, large language models in foundry, add-ins in teams, those sort of things. [00:05:18] Cyril Belikoff: ’cause it’s one thing to be where people go to discover Tribu, but users also go into these stores, whether it’s a developer user or an end user. They go in the flow of their work and they want to move quickly. Yes. And so, uh, so they have access. We think that’s very attractive. And the feedback was, Hey, that’s quite differentiated. [00:05:35] Cyril Belikoff: ’cause we have, uh, hundreds of millions of customers in these products every day. [00:05:39] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:05:39] Cyril Belikoff: And so giving our customers access, our partners access to it and improving their customer experience, um, has worked out well. [00:05:47] Vince Menzione: And something else you did too, because at one point, you know, we were talking about co-selling and single-threaded. [00:05:53] Vince Menzione: And Microsoft has this incredible ecosystem and channel. [00:05:57] Cyril Belikoff: Yes. [00:05:58] Vince Menzione: And it, it was totally disconnected from the whole marketplace strategy, right? Yes. Yeah. [00:06:03] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. So we, uh, um, we launched, I think in, uh, sorry. At that time in September, we launched five of our largest distributors who were also federating the Microsoft marketplace into their marketplaces. [00:06:16] Cyril Belikoff: And then in the November timeframe at Microsoft Ignite, we launched resale enabled offer [00:06:23] Vince Menzione: RO, [00:06:23] Cyril Belikoff: which is REO, which is a new capability that is proven extremely popular, that connects the software company and the reseller, you know, um, to go and do more deals at scale faster. So [00:06:36] Vince Menzione: we have, we have four of the Es in the room, [00:06:38] Cyril Belikoff: right? [00:06:38] Vince Menzione: Some of the four at the top. Five or six. And then also one of your largest resellers software, one is here as well. [00:06:45] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Great. [00:06:46] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:06:47] Cyril Belikoff: Great. So it’s, uh, we’ve been busy. [00:06:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:06:49] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Like I said, um, uh, much more work to do. But we are moving from like this incubation project to mainland get it integrated into our core customer, go to market, uh, so that our, uh, software companies and partners have access to those customers. [00:07:03] Cyril Belikoff: And then integration, uh, with the channel. So [00:07:06] Vince Menzione: it’s been a lot happening these last 12 months. Uh. Then Frontier, let’s talk about Frontier. That’s another piece of this. [00:07:14] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. I’m sure Steven touched on, uh, frontier Transformational or becoming Frontier or Frontier Firm. So probably not helpful to me rehash that. [00:07:23] Cyril Belikoff: I think in general. If you go to a Microsoft discussion or session and you don’t hear about frontier or Frontier transformation, please like, raise your hand and give feedback because that is, um, [00:07:34] Vince Menzione: I kept away from the word frontier with Steve. We were talking about it, but we weren’t using the term frontier. [00:07:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah. ’cause I feel like it gets overused. It’s, [00:07:40] Cyril Belikoff: yeah, it does. It’s, it’s sort of, um, what we try to do with it is articulate it in a way that it’s not just about AI for AI’s sake. [00:07:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:07:48] Cyril Belikoff: But it’s AI based on what the customer outcome is trying to, what the customer is trying to achieve on their outcome. Um, and so as part of that, of course, you know, agents, AI applications is a big part of what’s driving customers’ capability of, uh, to become frontier. [00:08:05] Cyril Belikoff: And, uh, the marketplace is part of that. ’cause they can either custom build that. Uh, or they can, you know, buy off the shelf, right? Uh, or, and actually in Combin they do mostly they do both, right? And so, um, in order to accelerate their ability to become more frontier, we have these, uh, partners that build, uh, third party solutions through a marketplace. [00:08:27] Cyril Belikoff: And then, uh, uh, those same partners or others that build bespoke solutions around that. So, um, a lot of momentum around, uh, AI apps and agencies, as you can imagine. Um, we have, I think, 5,000 plus AI apps and agents. [00:08:43] Vince Menzione: I was gonna ask you what you’re focused on now, but you, I think you’re tying into this now already. [00:08:47] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Um, so of course that’s important. [00:08:50] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:08:50] Cyril Belikoff: But really for us it’s about doubling down on driving customer, customer demand. How do we merchandise the right things that customers are looking for? How do we, uh, accelerate any of our flows? Like we will spend hours just looking at like the flow of one scenario. [00:09:07] Cyril Belikoff: Where is it getting stuck? How do we improve it? Um, and then how do we connect it to the channel? And, and what, what more things can we do like EO or multi-party private offers and the like, and we have. Probably an announcement a month in the next three or four months. [00:09:24] Vince Menzione: Oh, come on. Let’s, [00:09:24] Cyril Belikoff: that will, [00:09:25] Vince Menzione: I know, I know it’s early. [00:09:26] Vince Menzione: I know it’s early, but you, you’ve got some, I know you’ve got some things. Think [00:09:29] Cyril Belikoff: about the customer experience. Think about the channel integration and dream about [00:09:33] Vince Menzione: what maybe more of a global scale with some of the offerings, maybe, maybe. Um, so, you know, I, so I, the earnings, we talked about the earnings with Steven, but I thought that there was a very compelling number around the commitment number. [00:09:46] Vince Menzione: Yes. You and you run your Azure as part of your remit. We didn’t go through your entire remit. [00:09:50] Cyril Belikoff: Yep. [00:09:51] Vince Menzione: It’s not just marketplace. You also, you also own the Azure number. [00:09:53] Cyril Belikoff: Yep. [00:09:54] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about that. [00:09:55] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Um. You know, it’s, it’s exciting times for customers. They want to do things not only with us, but with everyone in the room. [00:10:04] Cyril Belikoff: Um, and they are making very large commitments, huge commitments over the next two to three years to spend on Azure. Um, and so it’s now our joint jobs to go and help them identify the right business outcome and go and, you know, consume that commitment. It is just a commitment. It’s not actual. Consumption. [00:10:27] Cyril Belikoff: Yes. And so it’s all of our jobs to take advantage of that. The, the customers are saying, Hey, we have line of sight to the types of things we want to go do over the next two to three years. Uh, probably not everything is, you know, i’s dotted and t’s across, but they have line of sight to most of it. Um, and how do we go help them drive that? [00:10:46] Cyril Belikoff: Um, and so from an Azure perspective, obviously that’s very encouraging for us. It, it allows us to. Invest in more data centers and more capacity that we are doing as fast as we can. Um, and then, um, and then of course on marketplace, the marketplace can retire. [00:11:04] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:11:04] Cyril Belikoff: that Azure commitment. That’s, [00:11:05] Vince Menzione: I wanted to make sure [00:11:06] Cyril Belikoff: people understand that the, in fact, not only the Azure component from the marketplace, but the full software stack from the partner, uh, the software company retires the Azure commitment. [00:11:17] Cyril Belikoff: So if it’s. Uh, I’ll make it up if it’s, uh, a hundred bucks and it’s 50 50, it’s not 50 50, but, um, I won’t disclose any percentages, but let’s say it’s 50 50, it’s much more for the software company, by the way. Um, if it’s 50 50, it’s not just like the $50 for Azure that gets retired. It’s the entire a hundred dollars that gets retired on the customer commitment, commitment, which is great for the software company. [00:11:39] Cyril Belikoff: It’s also great for the customer that they can, you know. Bring that through, uh, to, uh, to their Azure commitment. And we do the same thing with our sellers. So the marketplace sales retire our sellers compensation. So we’re like checking every box so that there’s no friction in the system. So that, so the partner, the customer, our sellers, they’re all juiced to go and. [00:12:03] Cyril Belikoff: Deals with marketplace. [00:12:04] Vince Menzione: I, I hope everybody un understand. I mean, I understand this. I hope everybody else understand this too. ’cause I, I was, watch, you know, I, I, I watched LinkedIn and I see people post things and somebody made a comment about how difficult it was to use Microsoft Portal. And I was thinking to myself, do you realize that there’s, I’ll say 150 billion, but it’s probably a bigger number than that. [00:12:22] Vince Menzione: That’s a total addressable market available to you if you’re a Microsoft partner. You can access these customer commitments. [00:12:30] Cyril Belikoff: Oh yes. [00:12:30] Vince Menzione: If you bring your product on Mark over 400 now [00:12:32] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. [00:12:33] Vince Menzione: You bring your product into the marketplace, you have access and the customer can retire that commitment. [00:12:38] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. [00:12:39] Vince Menzione: Without having to justify a new cost justification. [00:12:41] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. They don’t have to go to procurement. They don’t have to. Yeah. [00:12:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I mean, it’s a huge opportunity. [00:12:46] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. [00:12:46] Vince Menzione: So, um, so you’ve been focused on quite a bit. We wanted to invite John on stage. [00:12:53] Cyril Belikoff: Great. [00:12:53] Vince Menzione: John, you from Sugar is here. Where’s John? Is John in the house? Where’s John? [00:12:57] Cyril Belikoff: There he is. [00:12:58] Vince Menzione: Who’s also an expert in Marketplace. [00:13:00] Vince Menzione: A great friend of Ultimate Partner. Great. Hey, how’s it going? He’s a great partner of Ultimate Partner. Great to see you, sir. All the way from San Fran. Oh, actually we’re on your side of the coast, so, uh, it’s long. He looks [00:13:12] Jon Yoo: cooler than us [00:13:12] Vince Menzione: though. He, he always looks cool. I said that about time. [00:13:15] Jon Yoo: You know, I gotta be comfortable. [00:13:16] Jon Yoo: I gotta be comfortable. [00:13:18] Vince Menzione: So John, good to, good to have you. You’re thanks for having us. You guys are like, every time I see a post from you, you’re moving into a new office space ’cause you’ve outgrown your office space. [00:13:26] Jon Yoo: Yeah, we’re, we’re really excited about the new office. We have hvac, which is a, a big, big, uh, it’s a big thing. [00:13:31] Jon Yoo: Improvements, high ceilings, you know, the whole works h help [00:13:36] Cyril Belikoff: sometimes. Yeah, [00:13:37] Jon Yoo: yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we have our, uh, office opening party if anyone’s an SF on Ally first. [00:13:41] Vince Menzione: Nice. Nice. Yeah. May, may, May 21st. May 21st. That’s right. Well, so, so you’ve been, you’ve had like a front row seat to all of this. I would love to get your perspective on what you’re seeing across partners and what’s changed over the last 12 months. [00:13:55] Jon Yoo: Yeah, so, uh, for those that don’t know, um, sugar is a, uh, a revenue platform for cloud marketplaces and co-selling. Um, so we partner very closely with Microsoft as well as either hyperscalers and other marketplaces like Snowflake, Alibaba, et cetera. And what we, what, what I’m seeing is a couple things. One marketplace is becoming a default to go to market engine. [00:14:17] Jon Yoo: So, you know, I think a lot of people see the stats about how the, the GMV, so, you know, the, the throughput through these marketplaces have been doubling. We’re seeing that in our data as well. So we’re seeing triple digit revenue growth from marketplaces. We’re seeing companies who, you know, maybe the earlier end of marketplaces were infra platform layer of software that used to really adopt it. [00:14:37] Jon Yoo: Now you’re seeing. You know, explosion in a business application layer of companies as well. And so that’s super exciting. I’d say the second piece is channel players are getting more and more involved. Um, I think, you know, I’m the Silicon Valley SaaS bubble, uh, or the AI bubble, so to speak. And I didn’t know as much about the channel world and even these big AI companies. [00:14:59] Jon Yoo: I mean, you’re seeing unprecedented, unprecedented demand, uh, for these, you know, LMS or these AI biz apps. And despite that, they are really working with a partner ecosystem because you’re realizing that most of the world do not really know how to adopt ai. Yeah. And they’re really leaning on expertise. [00:15:18] Jon Yoo: And these AI companies, AI native companies, are looking to channel partners who have these. You know, relationships with their end buyers on how to deliver change managements, how to deliver enablement, not just a system integration site. [00:15:32] Vince Menzione: And they’re also looking to the platform or platforms in the case, Microsoft here also. [00:15:36] Vince Menzione: Right. Which, because like what, where am I gonna do just go out and buy philanthropic or Claude or whatever? I need that to be integrated into my enterprise as well. Right, exactly. [00:15:46] Jon Yoo: So we’re definitely seeing like more adoption of Microsoft Foundry, for example, as people think about security and governance and whatnot. [00:15:52] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Very cool. Any comments on, on? [00:15:55] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, that makes absolute sense. It’s, uh, um, you know, lots of layers to AI from data. The a, the AI layer itself, the application layer, uh, and innovations happening at all of those pieces of the stack. Um, and so when a software company is trying to, you know, uh, modernize their thought process or build new. [00:16:19] Cyril Belikoff: They ha they have to think about all of those components. Foundry obviously is the AI layer and it provides them with capability to be agile and move quickly and do compliance and, and snap into an organization’s, um, architecture. But it’s the same applies to data, like how it’s fine to have AI but doesn’t, doesn’t do anything without data. [00:16:40] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:16:40] Cyril Belikoff: And so then how do they get data in the cloud? Um, uh, [00:16:44] Vince Menzione: and then how do you security [00:16:45] Cyril Belikoff: govern and govern, right? And how you secure govern, you know, all those sort of things. So obviously we have first party experiences, but they have partners with, um, their own solutions. They’re built on top of, [00:16:53] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:16:53] Cyril Belikoff: Those Microsoft layers. And, uh, you know, like John says, lots of momentum. [00:16:58] Vince Menzione: So let’s talk about the maturity curve. Like walk us through it. Where do you see partners in this room sitting today? And what does it take to move for them to move to the next stage? Like, what would be your guidance for, for this group? [00:17:11] Jon Yoo: So, you know, we, we work across the entire spectrum of companies. You know, we work with the, the largest enterprises who’ve done billions through these marketplaces like Snowflake, workday, to leading AI companies like Glean or OpenAI, uh, to earlier stage startups who are completely new to marketplaces and really look for, for guidance around what do I do in my first 90 days? [00:17:33] Jon Yoo: How do I get the attention of Microsoft sellers, or how do I. Optimize my marketplace operations so that we can be discovered, uh, really easily on Microsoft Marketplace and others. And the, the way that I think about it is companies first come on, because it is buyer driven oftentimes. So, I mean, that’s just the truth of the nature of you have these big enterprises that want to, you know, burn down their Mac agreements, for example, and that’s how they get started. [00:17:59] Jon Yoo: And or a, a as like this whole space maturing, you’re seeing. A new CRO come in and they’ve done this at X, Y, Z companies and they want to bring that playbook over. But then as they start to do a couple deals through these marketplaces, they think, and this is start of the the flywheel, right? Hey, what do I need for co-selling? [00:18:19] Jon Yoo: And there are systems, you know, integrations and playbooks that need to be done well. Once you do have co-selling figured out, how do I now know which opportunities to co-sell? So we have things like intense signals to be able to. Help them, you know, help overlay a cloud, go to market lens over your existing pipeline. [00:18:36] Jon Yoo: And then now it becomes less of a partnership initiative and actually elevates up to the CRO initiative. And across each of those, um, layers, uh, you have different automation needs because once you actually start to get the flywheel going, it becomes. Holy crap. Now I’m doing 10, 20, 30, 50% of my revenue through these market, you know, through, through marketplace. [00:18:58] Jon Yoo: And it’s creating different data pipelines of work to be done. And now I have to figure out my finance angle of how do I do revenue recognition through these indirect channels. And so that, that, that is kind of the maturity covers. I think about it when you try to retrofit like, uh, all the automation up front, it doesn’t go as well. [00:19:16] Jon Yoo: You have to do a crawl, walk, run approach so that you can also build and bring the rest of the organization with you. So if I look at ’em to the, you know, there’s some familiar faces, some folks that probably are wondering some new faces [00:19:28] Vince Menzione: as well. [00:19:29] Jon Yoo: Yeah. What, what Microsoft marketplace or what marketplace even is. [00:19:33] Jon Yoo: I’d probably say people are in that transformation bucket of, Hey, I’ve done a couple of deals, we’re in this early stages of co-selling. Now I, now I gotta figure out how to supercharge it because this is kind of the future, you know, we can talk more about agenta commerce and whatnot, but, um, I think a lot of people are figuring it out than looking for. [00:19:51] Jon Yoo: For guidance here, [00:19:53] Vince Menzione: zero. [00:19:55] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. You know, I would say, um, I’ll get what I call tactical yet strategic. [00:20:01] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:20:01] Cyril Belikoff: Which just think about product-led growth. Yeah. Just think about, uh, similar to the consumer world, if you wanna sell something, you need search engine optimization. If you are thinking about these marketplaces and Microsoft marketplace being one, how are you optimizing your listing so that when a user goes into like the search bar, it’s optimized to bring back the results that make sense to you? [00:20:29] Cyril Belikoff: I think historically we’ve had scenarios where some partners have used the marketplace primarily as like a transaction thing. They’ve done the deal, but then they’re transacted on the marketplace ’cause they wanna retire the the Azure commitment. And that is changing to be sort of product led and marketplace led, uh, versus deal led. [00:20:49] Cyril Belikoff: Uh, but you cannot have a generic one line sentence in your listing. You will not be surfaced unless the customer literally knows your name and will search for you. You’ll not be surfaced if they search for a particular category healthcare app that does something right. And if that’s your thing, you should have the right keywords, you have the right images, have the right videos, and we believed in it so much. [00:21:14] Cyril Belikoff: We actually built a listing optimization AI tool that will auto look at your listing. And based on our best practices, and we know what our search engine is doing, we will make recommendations to you on how to improve. Listing. And so it’s not like a read a document as a best practice. It actually will be an ai, uh, customized tool for your particular listing. [00:21:37] Cyril Belikoff: So lean into those types of things, you know, to, as John says, says, think about the digital flow. This over time will become much more of your, of your business. So make sure you’re thinking about, you know, if someone’s on the marketplace and they decide to trial something for you, how, how are you following up? [00:21:56] Cyril Belikoff: Like, how do you take the next steps? Um, maybe you, maybe you working with a reseller and you don’t have your own sellers, but how do you wiring that into your resellers so your resellers are following up? Or if you have your own sellers, you know, your own sellers are doing it. So you have to sort of digitize your thinking on sales and marketing in this new market, commercial marketplace world, versus in the same way we would’ve done in like the consumer marketplace on Amazon or, you know, um, as you search something on Google. [00:22:26] Cyril Belikoff: Maybe bing. Um, so, um, yeah, yeah. This [00:22:29] Vince Menzione: size. B Come on, come on. [00:22:31] Cyril Belikoff: I [00:22:31] Vince Menzione: had bing. [00:22:32] Cyril Belikoff: Um, [00:22:33] Jon Yoo: I do wanna double click on that, which is when, when we, you know, I talk about like, hey, a lot of it’s buyer driven. A lot of people think about private offers, but then the marketplace offers. But the reality actually, when we look at the data is that there’s a lot more self-service [00:22:46] Vince Menzione: correct [00:22:47] Jon Yoo: offers than there are what they call private offers. [00:22:50] Jon Yoo: So where there’s deal led and that, that, that, that shift. It’s super exciting to see where now these marketplaces are becoming where buyers or users go to discover new products. Let alone, you know, in the future where let’s say there’s an AI agent that has some reward seeking function, and in order to do its job, it needs to go purchase a tool marketplace might be the channel where this happens, which is all the reason why that your listing does need to be optimized. [00:23:16] Jon Yoo: So that one, the agent knows exactly what your tool does and it can match against. Reward. And then second, you have to win the a EO race, right? Yeah. Of, of how you show up in these AI engines. So just wanted to double click on how important that is. Yeah. [00:23:31] Cyril Belikoff: Makes, makes total sense. And we’re, we’re seeing that shift from private office to having a public listed price and a, a public offer as well. [00:23:39] Cyril Belikoff: And so we’re, we’re ourselves investing in our own marketing demand generation. Just in the last three to four months because we’ve seen that taking off and as soon as we saw the signal, we’re like, oh, we should pour fuel on that fire. Because if, if we see organically customers don’t do it, we should, you know, we should go after that and help them understand that we’re here. [00:23:58] Cyril Belikoff: And, uh, if it’s working for some that are doing it by themselves, it’ll work for others and we’re seeing really, really good results. Um, so yeah, get your listing optimized. Think about your digital flows. As John says, the flows of the future are probably agentic wise, maybe not even a human coming to the Microsoft marketplace. [00:24:17] Cyril Belikoff: So you gotta be thinking, not now, it’s okay. You have time. Um, but in the future, you know, six months from now, that quite easily is a scenario. So you really have to start thinking about those, uh, those, uh, digital flows. [00:24:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah. It’s so insightful. Well, it’s what you call product led growth, basically. Yes. And agent led growth. [00:24:35] Vince Menzione: Yes. Right. In some respects. So this is where like we need to think about that. The future model where the agent comes in and actually does the purchasing. We’re not there yet, are we? [00:24:45] Jon Yoo: No. With some products, you know, um, especially, especially if it’s like developer tools. We’re starting to see some of that, but, uh, no one’s gonna buy a cybersecurity solution. [00:24:55] Jon Yoo: Um, that’s seven figures or an agent’s not gonna do that. Right. But the eng the, the search functions are a little bit changing. [00:25:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So a lot of ai, you know, we had Steven Boyle on earlier, we were talking about ai, AI natives, you know, that’s Jason Grey’s organization does a lot of work in that area. How do these organizations need to think and act and how do they leverage the cloud marketplaces? [00:25:17] Vince Menzione: Or how do le how do marketplaces fit into the equation? ’cause most of them are coming from a different like paradigm or mindset. [00:25:24] Jon Yoo: I mean, uh, it’s like the number one question, you know, I’ll give a little personal story of like, I get a lot of parking tickets, uh, and I don’t know how to pay off my late fees. [00:25:34] Jon Yoo: So we set up a little open claw that will actually go and ask me questions, and it actually pays off my parking tickets on my behalf. Um, so, so, so, you know, on the other hand, like there, there’s layers to it, right? It could be like layer one, I ask ai, Hey, how do I pay off my parking tickets? Layer two could be. [00:25:52] Jon Yoo: Hey, you know, what’s the best way for me to structure my cadence to pay off the parking tickets? And then layer three is like, Hey, AI, proactively check if I have parking tickets and go pay it on my behalf. Here’s my credit card information, you know, stored in a secure vault. So, uh, what, what I mean by a native as a company bring that analogy is, uh, bringing it at its core. [00:26:12] Jon Yoo: So like a little for, for sugar. We’ve spent the past six months optimizing around our entire, like company brain where we are storing all the context. To a singular, singular place that is queryable, that there’s no coordination tax between teams. Our entire product development process actually is automated where we have multiple agents debating one another, PRDs to code generation, code review, uh, you know, security, qa, et cetera, et cetera. [00:26:40] Jon Yoo: And then there’s humans in the loop across the process. So I would actually think about when we, when we fit that into, into marketplaces, it’s not just thinking about who’s going to send the offers or who’s gonna do the co-sell, or who’s gonna X, Y, Z, but how do you bring all that together so that your sales reps and your partnership person and Microsoft all has to share context in a given deal and it’s done automatically without, you know, back office folks having to update what partner led or partner influence means and reporting things in a, in an old way. [00:27:11] Jon Yoo: So it’s almost re-imagining. Entire workflow, given everyone should have open context of what’s going on in a given deal. So let’s say maybe a hand wavy way of answering that question. Yeah. But it does mean that we should be re-imagining, uh, what the job to be done is, uh, very fundamentally [00:27:28] Vince Menzione: cy, how are you thinking about it since you’re building the, the, the toolkit at Microsoft? [00:27:32] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, John says absolutely is right, particularly around marketplace and how that sort of flow and ecosystem will work. Um, in addition to that, it’s. Not only about how marketplace or about developers ’cause the developer, uh, scenario or persona was the first globally to see the value of AI and agents in the flow of their work. [00:27:55] Cyril Belikoff: It was the first to like, oh, one developer can now do much more. I can be empowered, I can build agents to work on my behalf. I can, uh, I can be an architect instead of a hands-on coder. Right. It’s changed the profile of what developers do exactly what. Uh, John mentioned what he’s doing himself. That’s just one profile of a user. [00:28:17] Cyril Belikoff: Th there are many other profiles. A sales person, a marketer, a uh, CFO team, hr. Each of these are literally going through the same transformation. They’re one beat behind developers because developers, you know, was really tech enabled and tech stack driven, and the, and the opportunity was, was obvious quite quickly. [00:28:39] Cyril Belikoff: These are coming really quickly. This is not like the internet adoption cycle that took many multiple years. This is like, we’re talking months. So, and even inside Microsoft, we have our own, what we call, uh, frontier Marketing Internal Initiative to re, um, rewire marketers and how they go about their daily job and stop doing it this way and do it this way. [00:29:04] Cyril Belikoff: Just pick up M 365 copilot with. Coworking Claude, uh, embedded and just go do the work. Why do you have to outsource this or create this? Just edit the video right there yourself. Like, why do you have to just go do the, as a marketer you want to create a beautiful piece of content, just go and create it. [00:29:21] Cyril Belikoff: ’cause it can create it for you now. [00:29:22] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:29:23] Cyril Belikoff: three months ago, literally three months ago, it couldn’t do that. And so what is it gonna be in two months for a marketer or a salesperson or finance person? I mean, just co-pilot in Excel. What that is doing to the financial business is in, like if you, any financial person will tell you they live and breathe through in Excel, like it’s just, it’s their equivalent of, it runs [00:29:44] Vince Menzione: most businesses [00:29:44] Cyril Belikoff: their dev tool, right? [00:29:45] Cyril Belikoff: It’s their thing. It’s really [00:29:46] Vince Menzione: is. [00:29:47] Cyril Belikoff: So this is happening over and over again. Again, if you can package those things up and package a package, that piece of IP on a marketplace is, is not only gonna be a big system, it could be a very, very small piece of. Functionality in a flow for a marketer or a salesperson that is so valuable that can be solved many times on a marketplace. [00:30:08] Cyril Belikoff: And in many cases, everyone’s a software company at this point. Everybody can go and package something up. And so I would be stunned if we don’t see cross pollination from system integrators to channel partners, all just publishing on marketplaces based on, oh, I’ve done this thing four times. I cannot do it 400 times. [00:30:26] Cyril Belikoff: Let me just package it up and put it on a marketplace. So. Yeah, I’m sure you know, John alluded to that. It’s, there’s a lot of exciting times. [00:30:33] Vince Menzione: No, the future [00:30:33] Jon Yoo: is [00:30:33] Vince Menzione: great. What do you [00:30:34] Jon Yoo: totally, I mean, it’s, it’s a case of like, how do, what does being marketplace native also mean? [00:30:38] Cyril Belikoff: Yes. [00:30:38] Jon Yoo: You know, and not, I feel like I’ve seen so many people just use it as a, Hey, we’re opportunistically there and if we get some leads out of it, great. [00:30:45] Jon Yoo: Or if there’s some deals, great, but they’re not really leaning in and being marketplace native the way, you know, and right now there’s, this might be uncomfortable, but there’s no excuses. You know, like creating a partner marketing content with your brand guidelines. It should not take so many time. Or it’s a 10 minute exercise. [00:31:02] Jon Yoo: Exactly. Exactly. Three [00:31:03] Cyril Belikoff: prompts. [00:31:05] Vince Menzione: It used to be that ops used to get involved because, oh, we, we know that they have a commitment. Let’s go run it through the marketplace. Right now, what you both have been suggesting here is it becomes a discoverable process. It becomes part of your normal go to market strategy, and you’re, you’re driving pr, product led growth and SEO and all the things you need to do running a a corporation and modern corporation today. [00:31:26] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, [00:31:26] Vince Menzione: exactly. So, what’s the future like? Where, where do we go in 12 months with this? What do you think? What do you predict? We, we get out a Ouija board or a crystal ball here. What, what, what do we think? [00:31:38] Cyril Belikoff: I think more broadly in the industry, you’re gonna, some of the scenarios that John alluded to, agent to agent interactions, uh, many agents acting on behalf of humans and on behalf of organizations, uh, and doing. [00:31:55] Cyril Belikoff: Simple things and quite complex things. Uh, and those need to be, uh, managed carefully, uh, with, uh, the right, uh, engagements and built carefully. And in, in many cases, customers will look to partners that are quote unquote certified on, uh, uh, HyperCloud platform. Uh, as a way to get going quickly, but also get the, the quality that they need. [00:32:21] Cyril Belikoff: Um, and I think instead of buying this monolithic, massive application, I think we will see lots more of smaller applications being built that have cleaner open, uh, you know, MC, you know, MCP type agent interfaces that can just work together, uh, without, you know. More complicated integration work, [00:32:42] Vince Menzione: cobbled together your own solutions as opposed to big [00:32:45] Cyril Belikoff: monolithic [00:32:45] Vince Menzione: applications. [00:32:46] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, there’ll be a much more agile, [00:32:48] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:32:48] Cyril Belikoff: Uh, personalization. I mean, a lot of people saying SaaS is dead. It’s not quite dead. But I think that SaaS will get significantly more agile, more custom and more personal, uh, for, uh, for customers. [00:33:03] Jon Yoo: I, I would agree with that. Um, I mean, I’m biased, but I think marketplace are gonna be even more relevant than ever. [00:33:08] Jon Yoo: I mean, it’s already highly relevant, but, uh, as you, you know, I think in the past the, the narrative was, well, there’s a new generation of buyers and they’re millennials. They, they wanted, you know, uh, I always talk about consumer experience to B2B sales, you know, and, and now it’s like agents that’s that on steroids. [00:33:24] Jon Yoo: Um, but what I, you know, beyond that, I think, uh, there, there’s a lot of talk of like SAS apocalypse or software companies getting. Destroyed by, you know, the, the, the AI labs or SaaS is dead or whatever. I think SaaS is gonna, I mean, there’s gonna be way more software companies because the cost to build is a lot easier. [00:33:46] Jon Yoo: That means that competition will be. Even more fierce than ever. And you have all these AI native companies that are coming out with a quicker time to market, quicker time to value, and they have some recursive loops that makes the product even that much better. Um, so what that means for everyone is like, one, you gotta go back to the, the core differentiations. [00:34:06] Jon Yoo: Or like in the past, maybe the, the time to build was the differentiation, but today it’s, or you know, there’s some other, obviously the core elements, but then there’s. Distribution. Yeah. So how do you partner with Microsoft, for example? How do you have your own self-improving like distribution model? That makes sense. [00:34:22] Jon Yoo: Marketplace being a huge component of that. Two is obviously there, there’s a piece of like network and data. That’s what we think about of hey, what makes our product better as more, more people use it. Um, because yeah, competition is crazy fierce and it finally goes into times deployment. That’s why you see these companies like. [00:34:41] Jon Yoo: Open AI anthropic that are competing for their enterprise, uh, pie. And instead of doing it themselves, they’re, I mean, I think OpenAI just did a joint venture of like $4.1 billion into the deployment company. Anthropics doing the same, they’re surrounding themselves with the ecosystem and channel is going to be more relevant than than ever, as long as you know how to enable AI services and know how to deliver on this technology to the, to the broader world. [00:35:07] Jon Yoo: And so. Channel awesome. Marketplace, awesome. You know, competition’s gonna be fierce. Success is not going anywhere. [00:35:16] Vince Menzione: Good conversation, gentlemen. [00:35:18] Jon Yoo: Awesome. [00:35:18] Vince Menzione: I’ve been told we’re over time. I wanted to open it up to questions. Um, but I do feel like we, yeah, I’ll get, I’ll get yelled at. But this was incredible. Um, some great, I mean, the, the pa it, it’s terrific to see. [00:35:36] Vince Menzione: How far we’ve come in, so shorter period of time, and it’s only gonna continue to get better. I think the one question I’ll have is like, what, what would hold any of these companies back at this point? It feels like it’s such a compelling reason we need to move forward. Is there, is there anything, like why would, why would we hold back? [00:35:54] Cyril Belikoff: Um, you know, some of the discussions we have, um, is about how to balance today’s world with tomorrow’s world a little bit. [00:36:01] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:36:02] Cyril Belikoff: Today’s business model with tomorrow’s business model, today’s financial results with tomorrow’s financial results. Um, and there are very different approaches to all of this. [00:36:13] Cyril Belikoff: Those AI natives, they’re like, there is no yesterday. There’s only tomorrow. Um, there those companies that realize they’re being threatened by AI natives and so they have to move quickly. Um, and, uh. Figure out a, a, a business model and then someone else who wants to do a bit of both and bridge into it. [00:36:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:36:32] Cyril Belikoff: Um, and just within that frame there are different ways to tackle it, whether it’s create two teams, one’s the future team, one’s the current team, and, you know, may the best team win, um, makes sense with the customer and that, uh, or, uh, give the, give the customer the choice and have the teams going together. [00:36:49] Cyril Belikoff: So there are lots of different approaches. [00:36:51] Vince Menzione: Right. So great to have you. Did you have some, did you have a comment to make on that? [00:36:55] Jon Yoo: Uh, no. Just, uh, unwillingness to lean in and learn something new. Yeah. [00:36:59] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:37:00] Jon Yoo: I’m, I’m, I’m much more in the burn all boats buckets. Yeah, [00:37:03] Vince Menzione: I know. Me too. [00:37:03] Jon Yoo: Of, uh, no, no old team and new team. [00:37:05] Jon Yoo: Just new team and you know, that’s just push forward. [00:37:07] Vince Menzione: Well, great to have two amazing leaders on stage with [00:37:10] Cyril Belikoff: us. Thanks [00:37:10] Vince Menzione: so [00:37:10] Cyril Belikoff: much. [00:37:10] Vince Menzione: So thank you [00:37:11] Jon Yoo: so much. Yeah, thank [00:37:11] Vince Menzione: you [00:37:15] Jon Yoo: so much. [00:37:16] Vince Menzione: Don’t forget. Ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, October 26th through October 28th in Reston, Virginia. I hope to see you there. [00:37:28] I.

Gaurav Agarwal, COO of ClickUp, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman after ClickUp, a company north of $300 million in ARR, parted ways with 22% of its workforce while rolling out pay packages up to $1 million a year for the individual contributors who stay. Gaurav walks through how a central Foundry team builds the tooling while each function's top performers automate their own jobs, why he wants his org to run like a pirate ship before a naval fleet, and how a two-person marketing team now ships 70 to 100 campaigns a week. Topics include which roles get eaten as AI collapses the org chart, why a great seller will never get the AI leverage a great engineer does, the case for working in public so AI has full context, and the mercenary-versus-missionary tension reshaping GTM talent. Plus, a Quiz Pro Quo on the SpaceX IPO and OpenAI's tender offer, and a Bulls and Bears debate on buying applications from foundation model companies versus the pure application layer. Key Takeaways: - Gaurav's mental model moved from treating AI as a sidekick to treating AI as the worker itself. As Gaurav Agarwal, COO of ClickUp, framed it: "AI will do the job, you like it or not... Humans will build AI to do the job and AI will do the job better than an 80th percentile human. And then our jobs become managers and trainers of AI." - ClickUp is rebuilding its compensation bands around the people who create the most leverage with AI. As Gaurav Agarwal put it: "we want our top employees who are using AI to build digital workers... They should be paid higher," and he is blunt that the payoff is uneven by function: "I don't think sales gets the same leverage out of AI the way engineering does." - Standing up an AI-native org early means choosing chaos before structure. Six months into ClickUp's push, Gaurav Agarwal described it plainly: "what I need right now is I need entropy... let's go be a little bit like a pirate ship... then we will bring in someone who can structure those pirates as a naval fleet." - As AI collapses engineering, product, and design into overlapping roles, Gaurav Agarwal made the case for the multi-spike specialist over the generalist: "I think it's an E-shaped specialist... specialists who have more than 2 or 3 spikes eat up those spikes." His rule for who wins the consolidation: "the one with the best taste and the drive to work and learn and improve eats up adjacent departments." Connect with the Hosts & Guests: Host: Sam Jacobs, CEO at Pavilion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno, CEO at QuotaPath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman, CEO at Sales Talent Agency - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/ Guest: Gaurav Agarwal, COO at ClickUp - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gauravragarwal/ Topline is more than a YouTube Channel: Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://toplinemedia.substack.com/ Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Gaurav Agarwal 03:55 ClickUp's 22% AI Layoff 05:30 AI Will Do the Job 07:42 Agentic Workflows at ClickUp 10:43 Pirate Ship or Naval Fleet 15:07 AI's Jagged Edges 17:13 Where Do You Start 24:19 AI Amplifies Talent Gaps 25:50 Should You Record Everything 40:28 Quiz Pro Quo 48:56 Paying for AI Leverage 53:27 Mercenary Versus Missionary 1:01:12 Bulls and Bears 1:09:59 Hiring Salesforce GTM Talent 1:12:25 Collapsing Roles and Specialists

EP330: Nate Robertson (Arcus Foundry) on AI Controversy, Tech, & Phoenix Car SceneIn this episode, Jhae welcomes Nate Robertson of Arcus Foundry / Spark Forge to the studio. They dive into AI's role in business and content creation, a local Phoenix car scene controversy involving aggressive AI use by a known creator, Flock cameras privacy debates in Arizona, NSX projects, and more laid-back conversation.Jhae shares Seattle trip stories celebrating friendship across divides. Nate demos tools like Spark Prompt and discusses streamlining business tech. They explore ethics, legality, and real-world AI impacts.Guest: Nate Robertson – naterobertson.com, @TheN8RobertsonKey Timestamps:00:00 Intro & Seattle Trip Reflections01:40 Coming Up: Nate & AI Controversy02:27 Flock Cameras Deep Dive (Phoenix Privacy vs. Safety)08:05 Nate Robertson Joins – Arcus Foundry & Spark Forge09:14 Studio Chat: NSX Projects & Car Life15:14 Arcus Foundry Overview18:28 Spark Prompt Teleprompter Demo32:13 AI Drama in the Phoenix Car Scene40:00+ AI Tools, Resumes, 01:05:00 Non-Alcoholic Drinks & Wrap-UpLeave a comment or review – what's your take on AI in the car scene?ContactEmail: info@hardparking.comWebsite: www.hardparking.comPatreon: patreon.com/hardparkingpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/hardparkingpod/YouTube: youtube.com/@HardParkingTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hard.parking.jhaeMain Show Sponsors:Right Honda:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://righthonda.com/Right Toyota: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.righttoyota.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Arcus Foundry: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://arcusfoundry.comAutocannon Official Gear: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.autocannon.com/

Foundry Observability empowers developers to take agents from prototype to production with end-to-end observability. We demonstrate how evaluations, tracing, monitoring, and optimization work together to identify issues, measure quality, and improve outcomes over time. Through a live demo spanning the Foundry portal and VS Code, we showcase a practical workflow for building more reliable, production-ready agents. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 01:33 - Foundry portal demo 06:58 - VS Code demo 17:43 - Wrap up Recommended resources Observability in Generative AI - Microsoft Foundry Build 2026 Resources Connect Scott Hanselman | Twitter/X: @SHanselman Azure Friday | Twitter/X: @AzureFriday