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What if the most common point of failure in your digital customer experience: the 'no results found' page, could become your greatest opportunity for conversion and discovery?Agility requires not just adopting new technologies, but fundamentally rethinking core customer interactions, like search, that have remained static for far too long. It demands a shift from rigid rules to responsive, intelligent systems that learn from and adapt to customer intent in real time.Today, we're going to talk about the evolution of on-site search. For years, it's been a functional, yet often frustrating, utility for customers. But with advancements in AI, it's transforming from a simple keyword-matching tool into a conversational discovery engine that can anticipate intent and drive a more intelligent customer experience.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nitin Mangtani, GM and EVP of Agentforce Commerce at Salesforce.About Nitin MangtaniAbout Nitin MangtaniI am EVP & GM at Salesforce leading the Commerce Cloud and Retail Cloud team. Joined Salesforce executive team with the acquisition of PredictSpring in Sep 2024.I was Founder & CEO at PredictSpring, a leader in the Modern POS space. I led the company as CEO from the founding in my garage to raising $32M from top tier VC's. Acquired amazing customers and delivered high value to global brands from Crate & Barrel, CB2, Under Armour, Janie & Jack, Bouclair, SuitSupply, Orvis, Steve Madden, Deciem (Estee Lauder), LoveSac and others. Maintained highest capital efficiency and delivered top quartile returns to employee's and investors. Salesforce acquired PredictSpring in Sep 2024.Prior to founding PredictSpring, I was a Group Product Manager at Google. During my 7 years at Google, I led strategic initiatives including Google Shopping and scaling the product to hundreds of thousands of merchants in 40 countries. I also Co-led the Google Adwords - Offer Extensions team and Founded Google Apps Search product.Nitin Mangtani on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitinmangtani/Nitin Mangtani on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitinmangtani/---------- Resources ----------Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fDon't miss We Make Future - the International Festival of Innovation in AI, Tech, and Digital Marketing, June 24-26 in Bologna. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/c80991afff416bb2The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back — I'm Jaime, an ERP therapist specializing in CBT and EMDR. This is video 7 in our ongoing series on OCD treatment, and today we're diving deeper into the cycle that keeps OCD going — and how you can begin to shift it with compassion, clarity, and courage.OCD isn't just about intrusive thoughts. It's about how we interpret those thoughts, the meaning we assign to them, and the responses we use to feel better — responses that often bring short-term relief and long-term reinforcement.

(6) Michael Toth explains how Texas created specialized business courts and maintained a light regulatory touch to attract major corporations. The state is successfully challenging Delaware's dominance as the primary legal domicile for prominent American companies.

S5E17 - How Empires Maintained Power with Ethan and Leila

(7) Josiah Osgood describes the Civil War's onset as Caesar crossed the Rubicon, prompting Pompey and Cato to evacuate Italy for the East. Caesar utilized a strategy of clemency and maintained iron discipline, even executing mutineers in the Ninth Legion. After Pompey was defeated at Pharsalus and murdered in Egypt, Cato led the Republican remnant to Utica. Following Caesar's final victory in Africa, Cato refused to beg for mercy, choosing a graphic suicide to deny Caesar a political triumph. His death transformed him into a martyr, marring Caesar's victory and the future imperial regime.CLAUDIS BEGS FOR HIS LIFE

It's all wild talk and audacious moves in this episode as Diddy makes an appeal while a young lady makes a wild relationship claim. Diddy's lawyers are claiming that his "Freak Offs" were 'choreographed' examples of amateur adult content, so they're appealing his conviction. A little closer to home though,  a young lady claims that relationships survive for as long as the woman is willing to forgive... Is this true? >Give your feedback here

Josh Ireland recounts how Ramon Mercader used a mountaineer's ice pick to fatally wound Trotsky inside his study. Captured by guards, Ramon maintained a web of lies to conceal his true role as a Soviet operative. (7/16)1917

The study you should read this weekA new paper from Christensen and colleagues asks one of the most practical training questions there is. When you add a block of high-intensity work, what should happen to your easy volume? Cut it back to recover better, or protect it? They tested both. The results change how to think about the volume vs intensity tradeoff for serious amateur cyclists.Both groups got fitter. But what they got fitter at was different. The group that kept their volume up improved the foundations. The group that cut their volume improved the sharp end. Volume isn't the cost of intensity. It's the thing that decides what your intensity becomes.Study: Christensen, P.M. et al. (2024). Importance of training volume during intensified training in elite cyclists: Maintained vs. reduced volume at moderate intensity. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 34(5), e14362.This week's video: How 3 Hours of Cycling Completely Transforms Your BodyCoaching: Learn more about SEMIPRO coachingNewsletter: Sign up freeDaily cycling intelligence from SEMIPRO CYCLING, produced with AI-assisted research, scripting, and synthetic voice.

I don't stay young by trying to preserve it. I stay young by maintaining it through what I do every day. Age will keep moving no matter what, but decline only happens when I stop putting in the work. In this episode, I explain why youth is built through habits, not protected by avoiding life. If I remove structure, I start to regress faster, especially as I get older. But when I keep my standards high and stay consistent, I can extend my prime and keep my edge. Show Notes: [04:34]#1 Physical Youth Is the product of load and restraint. [10:16]#2 Mental Youth requires challenge of the mind, friction, not comfort. [14:56]#3 Identity determines your trajectory after the age of 40. [17:47] Recap Episodes Mentioned: 2099: How To Extend Your "Prime" Years In Anything 2174: There Are No Perfect Scenarios – Only Trade-Offs Next Steps: --- Execution is not a talent. It is a measurable standard. If your results don't match your ability, you are not lacking information—you are lacking execution reliability. The Execution Reliability Index (ERI) identifies exactly where your discipline breaks, where your standards drop, and where your results are leaking. This is not theory. This is a system. Get your ERI score here: → http://www.WorkOnYourGame.com/ERI   This show is the public record of standards. Measurement and enforcement happen elsewhere. All episodes and the complete archive: → WorkOnYourGamePodcast.com 

James Lasdun investigates the years of embezzlement enabled by Murdaugh's status. By siphoning millions from clients and his law firm, he maintained a lifestyle of privilege through a doomed, long-term Ponzi scheme. (14/16)1920 WALHALLA SC

So excited to talk you through one of my GBP gals progress today. Steph has managed to do what so many people find so challenging - maintain her fat loss. But not only that, because of her committment to the process, improve her physique skillset, putting her in prime position for another fat loss push later in the year to get to her ultimate physique goal. If you can lose weight, but you always struggle with re-gaining, this is the episode you need to listen to. Next steps... Apply for 1:1 online coaching inside the Glam Body Program: https://thefemalephysiquehub.mykajabi.com/Glam%20Body%20Program Find me on Instagram or ask me a question: https://www.instagram.com/the_femalephysiquehub/

While the price of 100-pound LPG cylinders and bulk gas saw an increase on May 11, the Government of Saint Lucia continues to subsidize smaller cooking gas cylinders and gasoline to cushion the impact of global price volatility.

PREVIEW for Later Today: Dr. Ken Croswell discusses the discovery of Trojan stars within the Milky Way. These stars parallel Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, maintained in equilibrium by gravity and centrifugal forces over immense distances across the barred galaxy.

rWotD Episode 3289: Title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations Welcome to random Wiki of the Day, your journey through Wikipedia's vast and varied content, one random article at a time.The random article for Wednesday, 6 May 2026, is Title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations.CFR Title 50 - Wildlife and Fisheries is one of fifty titles comprising the United States Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Title 50 is the principal set of rules and regulations issued by federal agencies of the United States regarding wildlife and fisheries. Maintained by the Office of the Federal Register, it is available in digital and printed form, and can be referenced online the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR).This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:04 UTC on Wednesday, 6 May 2026.For the full current version of the article, see Title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Bluesky at @wikioftheday.com.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Russell.

Podcast 288 Voices of the Caribbean Dr. William Anderson Gittens, D.D. Episode Title: Has Barbados Maintained Its Postcolonial Heritage from 1966 to 2026? Copyright2026ISBN 979-8-90452-194-3Introduction Hi, and welcome to this special episode of Voices of the Caribbean, where we'll take a deep dive into an intriguing question: Has Barbados Maintained Its Postcolonial Heritage from 1966 to 2026? Copyright2026 ISBN 979-8-90452-194-3I'm your host, Dr. William Anderson Gittens, D.D., a scholar with a unique multidisciplinary approach to understanding the evolution of Barbados. As a cultural theorist, photojournalist podcaster, publisher, and doctor of divinity, I will guide you through the complex layers of Barbadian identity as it has shifted and evolved over the past sixty years. It's a pleasure, as a proud Barbadian citizen, to be part of this important conversation about the preservation and transformation of Barbadian heritage. It's a topic that's very close to my heart. I am broadcasting from the beautiful island of Barbados. In this episode, we'll explore how Barbados—known as the "Gem of the Caribbean"—has navigated its postcolonial journey and what this means for its national identity today.Dr. William Anderson Gittens, D.DPodcast 288 Voices of the Caribbean Dr. William Anderson Gittens, D.D. Episode Title: Has Barbados Maintained Its Postcolonial Heritage from 1966 to 2026? filmed by Dr. William Anderson Gittens,D.D. of Devgro Media Arts Services®2015Bridgetown Barbadosto the Creator for guiding mI wish to express gratitude e and my late parents, Charles and Ira Gittens, for their guidance and creative expression.  Thanks to those who assisted me along this journey namely my Beloved wife Magnola Gittens, my Brothers Shurland, Charles, Ricardo, Arnott, Stephen, Sisters Emerald, Marcella, Cheryl, Cousins Joy Mayers, Kevin and Ernest Mayers, Donna Archer, Avis Dyer, Jackie Clarke, Uncles Clifford, Leonard Mayers, David Bruce, and Collin Rock. My children Laron and Lisa.  Well-wishers Mr.and Mrs. Andrew Platizky, Mr. Matthew Sutton, Mr.& Mrs. Gordon Alleyne, Mr. Juan Arroyo, Mr. and Mrs. David Lavine, Mrs. Ellen Gordon, Dr.Nicholas Gordon, the late Dr.Joseph Drew, Merline Mayers, Mr. and Mrs. Trevor Millington, Rev. Dr. Scoffield Eversley and Rev. Dr. Margaret Eversley, Rev. & Mrs. Donavon Shoemaker, Rev. & Mrs. Clayton Springer, Ms. Geraldine Davis, Rev.Carl and Rev Angie Dixon, Mr. David Brathwaite,Mrs. Zenda Phillips,Mrs. Gloria Rock, Rev.Pauline Harewood, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Russell, Mrs. Shirley Smith, Mr.and Mr. David Trotman, Mr. and Mrs. Felton Ince, Mr. and Mrs. David Brathwaite, Mr.and Mrs. Ryan Miller Mr.and Mrs. Neilo Mascoll, Mrs.ZenSupport the showCultural Factors Influence Academic Achievements© 2024 ISBN978-976-97385-7-7 A_MEMOIR_OF_Dr_William_Anderson_Gittens_D_D_2024_ISBNISBN978_976_97385_0_8Academic.edu. Chief of Audio Visual Aids Officer Mr. Michael Owen Chief of Audio Visual Aids Officer Mr. Selwyn Belle Commissioner of Police Mr. Orville Durant Dr. William Anderson Gittens, D.D En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning Hackett Philip Media Resource Development Officer Holder, B,Anthony Episcopal Priest,https://brainly.com/question/36353773https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning#cite_note-19https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning#cite_note-:2-18https://independent.academia.edu/WilliamGittens/Bookshttps://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=william+anderson+gittens+barbados&oq=william+anderson+gittenshttps://www.academia.edu/123754463/https://www.buzzsprout.com/429292/episodes. https://www.youtube.com/@williamandersongittens1714. Mr.Greene, Rupert

An analysis from USAFacts finds that many of the government's most important public datasets are no longer being updated or maintained as expected. The findings underscore how staffing, continuity and organizational attention shape whether federal data remains usable at all. Here to break down what's changing and why is Richard Coffin, chief of research and advocacy at USAFacts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Carole Gagnon fractured her ankle after stepping into a pothole while crossing at the corner of Viger and Saint-Laurent Boulevard late Saturday night after attending a concert. She’s now wearing a boot and has filed a claim with the city. She spoke to Andrew Carter. Photo Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

ABOUT SILVERDALE BAPTIST CHURCH Silverdale exists to lead people into an authentic relationship with Christ so they will worship God, grow in their faith, and serve the Lord in our community and world. Silverdale's Lead Pastor is Tony Walliser. FIND US ONLINE Website http://silverdalebc.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/silverdalebcInstagram https://www.instagram.com/silverdalebcFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/silverdalebc

Chinese President Xi Jinping says the normal passage through the Strait of Hormuz should be maintained. He made the remarks during a phone call with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Discover the Spanish Infanta who reshaped Renaissance power from behind the throne.Step into the glittering courts of 16th-century Europe as historian Professor Magdalena Sánchez joins host Paul Bavill to rage against a stubborn myth: that women only matter in history when they command political power. Catalina Micaela — daughter of Philip II of Spain and Duchess of Savoy — has long been treated as a political footnote. But across 3,000 intimate letters, a forceful, devoted, and highly capable woman emerges: one who shaped diplomacy, managed wars, and commanded a court… while enduring ten pregnancies in thirteen years. Professor Sánchez reveals how Catalina: • Asserted her authority as Infanta of Spain, not merely “a duchess” • Governed Savoy during her husband's campaigns, acting as his lieutenant • Challenged ministers, criticised generals, and organised court life with precision • Maintained deep emotional connection through constant letter-writing and gift-giving • Balanced political influence with religious devotion and motherhood as central duties This episode uncovers Catalina's love story, her leadership, and the invisible labour of royal women — all of which historians have too often ignored. If you think only queens and rulers shape history, Catalina will change your mind.Further Listening from the History Rage ArchiveFor more on powerful and underestimated women of Renaissance Europe: • Episode 199 — Catherine de' Medici with Una McElvenna • Episode 232 — Ruling Queens with Elizabeth Norton About Our Guest – Professor Magdalena SánchezProfessor of History at Gettysburg College and author of: Infanta: The Short Remarkable Life of Catalina Michaela (Yale University Press) — the first major biography to spotlight Catalina's voice and legacy.

A look at Deut. 22

French fries are one of the world's most beloved comfort foods, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and hard to resist. But there's a catch, they're also packed with oil, which adds extra calories and is linked to health issues like obesity and high blood pressure. New research published in the Journal of Food Science has found a way to enjoy fries with less guilt, without sacrificing the taste and texture people love. To make the perfect - and healthy - French fry, hybrid cooking which combined traditional frying with microwave heating was used. The result was fries that absorb less oil, cook faster, and still come out crispy. The key science lies in what's happening inside the potato while it cooks. When potatoes are dropped into hot oil, something interesting happens beneath the surface. At first, the potato is full of water, leaving no room for oil to get in. But as the heat builds, that water starts to evaporate, creating tiny empty spaces inside the fry. These spaces act like little tunnels that pull oil in. Think of it like using a straw: Blow air into it, and liquid is pushed out, suck on it, and liquid is pulled in. During frying, the potato often ends up in that 'sucking' state, drawing oil inward. This is where microwaves come in. Unlike conventional frying, which heats food from the outside in, microwaves heat from the inside out. They energize water molecules throughout the potato, causing them to rapidly turn into vapor. This creates positive pressure inside the fry, which helps push oil out rather than letting it seep in. In simple terms: microwaves help the potato resist soaking up oil. Faster Cooking, Less Grease The research showed several benefits to this combined method: Lower oil absorption → fewer calories and less fat Faster cooking times → more efficient preparation Maintained texture → still crispy and satisfying Microwaves alone make fries soggy which is why the combination works so well: Microwaves reduce oil and cook the inside Traditional frying delivers the crispy exterior Instead of reinventing the entire cooking process, food manufacturers could simply upgrade existing fryers by adding microwave technology. Since microwave generators are relatively affordable and widely available, this could be an easy change for large-scale food production. Let's be honest, most people want to eat healthier, but cravings often win in the moment. Foods like French fries are hard to give up because they taste so good. This new approach could offer a middle ground: enjoying the same indulgent foods, but with less fat and fewer health risks. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Summary Retirement is often framed as a personal milestone—a moment when we step away from work and into freedom. But what if retirement isn't just about leaving a job? What if it's about navigating the deep relationships, identity shifts, and responsibilities we carry with us into what comes next? In this episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, Andi speaks with Katherine Crewe, a Tech/Vistage chair in Canada, whose thoughtful approach to retirement reveals a powerful truth: transitions are not events—they are processes. The Myth of the Clean Exit: Leaving Work Isn't Leaving Relationships  Katherine's story challenges the idea that retirement is a simple, clean break. After decades in biomedical engineering and leadership, she moved into a role guiding CEOs and executives. Now, in her late sixties, she is not "done"—she is reflecting, recalibrating, and carefully designing her transition. What makes her journey so compelling is this: she is not just leaving a role—she is stepping away from a community. As a chair, Katherine has built deep, trusted relationships with the leaders she supports. When she began discussing retirement with them, the reactions were emotional and varied. Some encouraged her to stay. Others supported her decision. Many wanted one thing above all—a thoughtful, gradual transition. This wasn't about replacing a position. It was about preserving relationships, continuity, and trust. Retirement Is a Social Transition, Not Just a Personal One One of the most important insights from this conversation is that retirement impacts more than the individual. Katherine realized that stepping away from her role felt less like leaving a job—and more like leaving a network of meaningful human connections. The responsibility she feels is not just to herself, but to those who depend on her leadership. This is a critical lesson for organizations as well. As Andi notes, companies are facing a "senior tsunami"—a wave of experienced employees approaching retirement. Yet many organizations still treat retirement as an administrative process rather than a cultural transition. What Katherine is modeling is something different: Thoughtful succession planning Gradual transitions Honoring relationships and institutional knowledge This is where anthropology becomes powerful. It helps us see what is really happening beneath the surface. The Paradox of Choice in Retirement Unlike traditional roles, Katherine's position has no fixed retirement age. She could continue indefinitely. And that creates a new kind of challenge—the paradox of choice. If you can keep working… should you? Rather than choosing between "all or nothing," Katherine is exploring a more nuanced path: Reducing from three groups to one Staying engaged in meaningful work Creating more space for personal life and exploration This is a powerful reframe. Retirement doesn't have to be binary. It can be designed. Preparing Before You Retire Perhaps the most valuable insight Katherine offers is that she has already been preparing for retirement—without calling it that. She has: Structured her own time for years Built her identity around relationships, not titles Prioritized wellness as a daily practice Maintained independence in how she works and lives As a result, she does not fear the four common retirement pain points: Loss of identity Lack of daily structure Unclear purpose Disconnection from community Why? Because she has already built a life that isn't dependent on a job to provide those things. This is the real lesson: Retirement is not something you enter. It is something you prepare for—while you are still working. Couples, Conversations, and "Confetti Moments" Another powerful theme in this episode is how retirement impacts relationships at home. Katherine and her husband are both still active, both thinking about the future—but not always in structured ways. Instead, they have what she calls "confetti moments"—brief, scattered conversations about what retirement might look like. This is deeply relatable. Many couples don't sit down and design their future together. They talk in fragments. And yet, retirement will require alignment: How will we spend our time? Will we keep working? What does "being together" actually look like? Without intentional conversations, these differences can become points of tension. What This Means for You Katherine's journey reminds us that retirement is not an ending—it is a transition into a new stage of life that deserves as much thought and care as any career move. It is not about stopping. It is about redesigning. Key Takeaways Retirement is not a single event—it is a gradual, human transition. Leaving work often means leaving relationships, not just responsibilities. Organizations must treat retirement as a cultural and strategic issue, not just HR process. The best retirement transitions are designed, not abrupt. Preparing early—by building identity, structure, purpose, and community—makes all the difference. Couples need intentional conversations about what retirement will look like together. You don't have to stop working—you can redefine how you work. Learn more about Katherine Crewe: Katherine's profile: linkedin.com/in/katherinecrewe Connect with me: Join my Substack Newsletter Rethink Retirement Website: www.simonassociates.net Book Website: www.andisimon.com Email: info@simonassociates.net Learn more about our books here: Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights Now--it is time to share our new book with you! Rethink Retirement: It's Not The End--It's the Beginning of What's Next Out on Amazon and WalMart, and in your local bookseller and Rethink Retirement: The Workbook                 

—Jacob Siegel, the Information State, excerpts from audiobook, which can be found here.Totalitarianism came to America slowly at first and then all at once. It began as a utopia, one I helped build. It seemed like a perfect new America and gave all of us godless creatures, who'd been chewed up and spit out by the Boomers' counterculture revolution, a collective sense of purpose. It was all going so great until it wasn't.A Virtual UtopiaI got online 30 years ago. I never planned on living half of my life on the internet. It just turned out that way. I had motive, means, and opportunity to kill off my real-life self and be reborn in the virtual world. Why wouldn't I escape a life that had become a full-spectrum failure at everything I tried to do? A relationship that blew up when the man I thought loved me went back to his wife, the Graduate Film Program at Columbia I'd targeted as my life's dream ended in one semester as I chased that loser guy back to LA. There are things about that moment that are too painful to write about, at least for now, but I will someday. The result was me staring at the wall with nothing achieved and nowhere to go. I had just turned 30.The internet allowed me to remake myself as someone else. I could be strong. I could be confident. I could be beautiful because who knew what you looked like? I could just use words, and I was good at words. So I dove into a life online full of excitement and wonder, a dreamscape of endless possibilities. There was no Amazon, no eBay, no Google. There was barely a web browser.I fell in love with an Italian I met online and came back from Italy pregnant. He didn't want to be a father, but I wanted to be a mother, so I had my baby, and then I built a website so I could stay home with her and support us. I was the success story for every progressive female: a single mom and a business owner. A daughter of feminism en route to helping launch the Great Feminization and the Great Awokening.I was in Italy when I sent my first Tweet from my Treo. When Barack Obama signed on, I followed him, and he followed me. Then I became part of his army of clicktivists, shaping the new rules and building our desired narratives. We felt omnipotent. This was the internet, after all, and you could be anything you wanted to be - an activist for moral good? Check. An outspoken exhibitist? Check. West Wing-like politicos acting like experts in politics? Check. Remaking a new America one social media post at a time? Check. Virtue signaling with images blasted out to followers displaying our goodness? Check.For all the ways we used the internet, it shouldn't be that surprising that we built a virtual America - a fantasy utopia - that we forgot wasn't real. We were riding high with our media stars like Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. We were the new, the progressive, the forward thinkers, the early adopters. We colonized the internet in our image. Utopias only have two paths forward. They either collapse or they must become more totalitarian out of necessity, to quote Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.Our utopia was opt-in at first, and who wouldn't want to be a part of it? For a time, it felt like the best thing ever, all of our problems solved. It was everything, everywhere, all at once. A “whole of society” effort. It was # OscarsSoWhite. It was Critical Race Theory. It was every institution, corporation, legacy media outlet, and movie studio. But it was also dull. Movies became infused with dogma. The rules became stifling. Sooner or later, people like me were going to shake the tree.Says Siegel:Maintaining utopia, let alone defining it, meant that there would eventually be people like me who asked too many questions, who would be hurled before the almighty panopticon — an army of puritanical scolds policing thought and speech — and eventually destroyed and purged as the mob cheered. The BreakdownI'd been a good liberal, a loyal and devoted Democrat all of my adult life. I'd never thought about conspiracy theories. I didn't really challenge the system. I never doubted the intent of our government. I was all in for Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. I was so loyal a supporter that I was invited to an early Biden fundraiser in May of 2019. I watched him speak with tears in my eyes. He will save us, I thought. One year later, however, COVID hit. My daughter had to leave her senior year of college and have her graduation on my balcony. We were sewing our own masks and making our own hand sanitizer. It was a whole-of-society effort to deal with this once-in-a-generation pandemic. But by the end of May, the George Floyd video whipped around the world, and before long, the whole of society's effort had to shift to racial injustice as millions poured into the streets. What I saw unfold that year, the lies that were told, the gaslighting, the lurching from one narrative to the other, and all of the obedient robots going along with it, in full mass formation, was too much, even for me. We watched them lie - the experts, the journalists, the celebrities, the Democrats. I kept trying to scream from the rooftops that we would lose the 2020 election if the violent protests didn't stop. What I didn't know, what I would find out by the end of the election, was that it didn't matter. They would bend the media narrative to pretend there were no violent protests. It all worked cleanly and smoothly. No one was even allowed to question it. Trump was campaigning hard, doing multiple rallies a day, and it seemed to me he was making headway and changing minds. We know this because he won Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. Only once in history has anyone won those three states and still lost: The 1960 election.The difference in votes between Kennedy and Nixon proves how close the election was. But it never made sense to me that Biden would win by such a large margin and also lose Ohio, Iowa, and Florida. Unless, of course, they'd built a system that was too big to fail and had collected enough ballots long before Election Day.The FBI, still working under Trump, had helped the Democrats by suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop via social media. COVID gave Biden the excuse to hide in the basement and not campaign. A “whole of society” effort to purge a once-in-a-generation threat seemed to justify everything they did, as we know from the confession in TIME Magazine. Our elections, it seemed, were too risky to leave up to the people. This system, this utopia we built, believed itself to be more powerful than our democracy, more powerful than our elections. I couldn't go along with that, just as I couldn't go along with everything that came after, as our utopia devolved into a totalitarian dystopia. The Information StateSometimes, during those dark nights of the soul, I wonder, did I do the right thing? Did what I thought happened really happen? No one in the mainstream media or culture has ever acknowledged any of it. They don't want to admit it or talk about it. Their war on Trump simply rages on, and they hope all of us will one day get with the program.But for me, there is still that untold story, a story I need to be told so that everyone on the Left - my friends and family and all of Hollywood and much of our legacy media understands what happened in the last ten years. Why are we living like this, with one half of the country marching by the millions to protest a president who defeated them not once but twice? Their hatred and shunning of half the country is still justified and accepted. Why?Now, thanks to Jacob Siegel, we don't have to wonder. He's written it all down, the whole ugly tale, in this essential text, The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control. There is nothing they can do about it now. It will set the record straight, at long last. The Information State starts with Woodrow Wilson's Great War crackdown on speech, and moves through World War II, Harry Truman and the Cold War, up to 9/11 and the expansion of the surveillance state. But it was the Obama administration that took it much further, beyond mere surveillance. He used information to change hearts and minds and to create a utopian society, not unlike those of the Soviet Union or China. As Siegel writes:How the protests and riots over the Summer in 2020, versus those on January 6th, were treated so differently by our government remains one of the clearest examples of the kind of two-tiered society we were living under before Elon Musk bought Twitter and Donald Trump won again. The BLM riots attacked working-class people, so they didn't matter, but January 6th attacked the powerful, and that, to them, meant war. Siegel writes:“Truth Held Forth and Maintained.”The scandal of how 20 people were hanged as witches in Salem would have been long forgotten, were it not for a cantankerous Quaker named Thomas Maule, who made the brave choice to expose the scandal in a pamphlet he called Truth Held Forth and Maintained. In cool and cutting sarcasm, he wrote that God would condemn the witch trial judges. He famously stated, “[F]or it were better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a Witch, which is not a Witch.”Maule's pamphlet was banned, and he was thrown in jail for “blasphemy and slander.” He would eventually get a trial, and the jury, exhausted and demoralized by the events of that winter, ruled in his favor, handing him a landmark win that would be among the cases that inspired the First Amendment. Jacob Siegel won't be jailed for blasphemy. Those named in the book will either ignore it outright or attempt to discredit it. As of today, there are no reviews in the New York Times or the Washington Post. As if out of a chapter in his own book, Renée DiResta objected to how she was portrayed and wrote a letter of complaint to the website Baffler, which then pulled the review. Siegel and DiResta publicly debated whether it counted as censorship. But who needs censorship when you have total societal control? At least among the university-educated ruling class. DiResta's bio on Twitter reads:DiResta and the machine she works for have rigged the game in their favor. No major media outlets will ever call them out. Hollywood won't write any controversial screenplays about them. Late night comediens will never mock them, and they will always be treated gently, with soft cotton gloves, lest anyone leave a mark.Into the UnknownJacob Siegel's The Information State does not paint an optimistic vision for the future. It ends with a question mark. Who will control this vast leviathan of data and human behavior, that now includes unstoppable AI? And how will we survive it?What will these same people who took complete control of society, of thought and speech, do if they take back power? I think we can probably guess. If they've never admitted it, never atoned for any of it, then we can expect it will come roaring back, and this time, they won't bother trying to hide it. My advice? Log off. Migrate back to the real world. Look at the sky at twilight. Dig your toes into the sand. Build a fire in the woods. Look people in the eye. Attend a poetry reading. Go to a coffee shop. Meet people in the real world and leave the internet and the Information State far behind.It's probably too late for me. I'm a lifer. I know that. But I'm also a cautionary tale. This is what happens when you spend 30 years of your life in the virtual world. But if I can find my way out, then anyone can. // This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Jeffrey Epstein cultivated relationships within segments of France's political and cultural elite, using wealth, connections, and social access to move comfortably among influential figures. Central to the scrutiny is Jack Lang, a longtime French political figure whose ties to Epstein are detailed in newly surfaced materials showing years of communication, meetings, and requests for assistance. The interactions suggest a relationship built on access and mutual benefit, raising questions about how someone with Epstein's known criminal history was able to maintain such proximity to prominent individuals. Lang has maintained that he was unaware of Epstein's past offenses, though that claim has been increasingly questioned given how widely known those issues had become.The situation has drawn attention from French authorities, who have opened financial inquiries examining potential irregularities connected to Lang and his family. More broadly, the episode highlights how Epstein operated internationally—not necessarily through overt criminal activity in every location, but by leveraging influence, funding, and personal connections to embed himself within elite circles. It underscores a recurring pattern seen across multiple countries: individuals in positions of power maintaining relationships with Epstein despite warning signs, contributing to a wider failure of scrutiny and accountability that extended far beyond the United States.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Epstein in Paris: How a Sex Offender Hustled for Access to France's Elite - The New York Times

Jeffrey Epstein cultivated relationships within segments of France's political and cultural elite, using wealth, connections, and social access to move comfortably among influential figures. Central to the scrutiny is Jack Lang, a longtime French political figure whose ties to Epstein are detailed in newly surfaced materials showing years of communication, meetings, and requests for assistance. The interactions suggest a relationship built on access and mutual benefit, raising questions about how someone with Epstein's known criminal history was able to maintain such proximity to prominent individuals. Lang has maintained that he was unaware of Epstein's past offenses, though that claim has been increasingly questioned given how widely known those issues had become.The situation has drawn attention from French authorities, who have opened financial inquiries examining potential irregularities connected to Lang and his family. More broadly, the episode highlights how Epstein operated internationally—not necessarily through overt criminal activity in every location, but by leveraging influence, funding, and personal connections to embed himself within elite circles. It underscores a recurring pattern seen across multiple countries: individuals in positions of power maintaining relationships with Epstein despite warning signs, contributing to a wider failure of scrutiny and accountability that extended far beyond the United States.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Epstein in Paris: How a Sex Offender Hustled for Access to France's Elite - The New York TimesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

 4-Week Fat Loss Challenge: https://projectprogressacademy.co.za/pages/challenges If you want to support this podcast, you can Buy Me A Coffee, maybe. 

The federal government is extending the higher interest-free portion on cash advances for 2026. Coinciding with the start of the government's new fiscal year on April 1, Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald announced the interest-free limit under the Advance Payments Program (APP) for 2026 will be maintained at $250 thousand for non-canola advances. By default in... Read More

     3. Following the Pleistocene, bison filled vacant ecological niches while hunter-gatherers maintained biological diversity for millennia. These cultures viewed animals as spiritual kin, keeping human populations low to ensure environmental stability. (3)1908

4. Mercenaries, War Elephants, and the Seeds of Dynastic Decay The Ptolemies maintained their vast empire through wealth-funded mercenary armies and a unique arms race involving battle elephants. While their rivals, the Seleucids, used Indian elephants, the Ptolemies relied on harder-to-train African species. Despite military successes like the Battle of Raphia, the dynasty eventually began to decline due to the staggering costs of constant warfare and high taxation on Egyptian farmers. This economic strain, coupled with the rise of child kings and internal court factionalism, destabilized the government and left the kingdom vulnerable to its rivals and the emerging power of Rome. (4)CRETE

Oil Prices, the Strait of Hormuz, and What It Means for Your Retirement Portfolio When a geopolitical crisis sends oil prices surging, the effects ripple through nearly every corner of the economy — and that includes your retirement savings. On this week’s episode of The Financial Hour of the Tom Dupree Show, Tom Dupree Jr. and Mike Johnson broke down exactly what’s driving elevated oil and gasoline prices right now, what history tells us about these moments, and — most importantly — how Dupree Financial Group is actively managing client portfolios in response. If you’re thinking about retirement or already in retirement, this conversation is one you’ll want to understand. Why Oil Prices Are Surging Right Now The immediate cause is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which roughly 20–25% of the world’s daily oil traffic passes — approximately 8 to 9 million barrels per day. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, 89% of that oil is ultimately destined for Asia, with China receiving around 38% and India approximately 14–15%. This isn’t primarily a U.S. supply problem — but it is absolutely a U.S. pricing problem. As Tom Dupree Jr. explained on the show, American oil — West Texas Intermediate — is priced in a global market. When global supply is disrupted, domestic prices rise regardless of whether the U.S. is importing that oil. “When the world oil market goes up, our oil goes up regardless of whether we are buying it from anywhere else. So it even affects us here in the U.S., even though we are energy independent.” — Tom Dupree Jr. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: A Band-Aid, Not a Fix A natural question is whether the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) can ease the pressure. The short answer: not meaningfully. According to the EIA’s SPR data, the reserve holds oil in 60 salt caverns along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, with a maximum capacity of 714 million barrels. As of early March, the SPR held approximately 415 million barrels — representing roughly 125 days of supply — but its maximum release rate is only about 4.5 million barrels per day, a fraction of the daily volume bottlenecked through the strait. It also takes around 13 days for released oil to reach the market. Mike Johnson put it plainly: this is a supply chain bottleneck, not a shortage of oil. “Think about what happened during COVID with supply chain issues. This is the same scenario, maybe worse. It just happens to be with oil.” — Mike Johnson Short-Term Inflation, Long-Term Uncertainty High oil prices touch virtually everything — plastics, fertilizer, transportation, heating, cooling, and even the energy demands of AI computing infrastructure. Fertilizer inputs, including urea and ammonia, also pass through the strait, creating additional upward pressure on food costs that could affect companies like Caterpillar and John Deere further down the supply chain. In the short term, elevated oil prices are inflationary. But if the disruption causes a broader economic slowdown, deflationary forces could eventually follow. The FINRA investor education resources regularly caution that geopolitical shocks create exactly this kind of dual-directional uncertainty — and that reacting impulsively can do more harm than the event itself. The bond market is already reflecting this tension. As Tom noted on the show, the 30-year government bond appears to be heading back toward 5%, as fixed income investors price in the possibility that inflation may not be fully contained — and that the Fed may hold rates steady for the remainder of the year. What History Tells Us About War and Market Volatility Mike Johnson reviewed the historical record during the episode, and the findings may surprise you. Historically, market volatility spikes at the onset of a conflict but tends to recover relatively quickly. More instructive is what happens during extreme volatility clusters — periods when large moves, both up and down, happen on back-to-back days. The 2008–2009 financial crisis is the clearest example. Following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, the market experienced a sequence of 4–8% swings — up and down — within the same week. As Mike pointed out, those kinds of moves translated to 3,000-point Dow swings, similar to what investors saw on “Liberation Day” earlier this year. “When you have these clusters of volatility, it shakes all investors to their core. It’s ultimate fear and ultimate greed, literally back-to-back days.” — Mike Johnson Trying to trade through that kind of volatility is, in practice, nearly impossible. The window to act is measured in hours, not days — and you don’t know which direction the next move will be. How Dupree Financial Is Managing Portfolios Right Now This is where personalized portfolio management matters most. Rather than riding out the volatility passively or reacting emotionally, the Dupree Financial team made deliberate, research-driven moves this week. Trimmed energy positions: The team took partial profits on two energy holdings — one exploration and production company and one large integrated oil company — that had appreciated 15–25% due to the current bottleneck. They did not sell entirely, recognizing that the situation could persist, but reduced exposure to a scenario they cannot predict. Preserved cash and optionality: The proceeds were partially redeployed into a shorter-term bond position at approximately 3.71% yield, while keeping some in cash to maintain flexibility for future opportunities. Maintained dividend-paying positions: Most holdings in client portfolios continue to pay dividends, providing income regardless of short-term price swings. Positioned for potential buying opportunities: If markets experience a capitulation event — a sharp sell-off where stocks become “stupidly cheap,” as Tom described it — having cash on hand means the ability to act rather than watch. Tom framed the profit-taking this way: trimming energy stocks that had appreciated 15–25% in roughly two and a half months was equivalent to capturing three to four years of dividend income in a single move — a perspective that reframes “selling high” as disciplined income harvesting. “You let the market tell you when it’s time to sell. We’ve had several positions that we bought at reasonable prices, and over time the market got very, very happy about those particular stocks. And finally it became a compelling thing to let the market have it.” — Tom Dupree Jr. This approach — owning things at reasonable valuations, monitoring current yield as a measure of risk, and acting when the market offers the opportunity — reflects the investment philosophy Dupree Financial has built its practice around. It stands in contrast to a set-it-and-forget-it mutual fund approach or the kind of mass-market allocation model offered by large national firms that assign clients to counselors rather than connecting them directly to the people managing their money. Key Takeaways for Investors Thinking About or In Retirement The Strait of Hormuz closure is a supply bottleneck, not a shortage — oil prices are high because delivery is disrupted, not because oil has become scarce. Duration is the key variable. The longer the blockade lasts, the deeper the economic impact. The market is pricing in uncertainty because nobody knows the timeline. Oil companies are not a one-way bet. When the strait reopens, prices could fall sharply — possibly to the $50 range, according to at least one analyst — meaning energy stocks could give back gains quickly. Volatility clusters. During high-uncertainty periods, large market moves — up and down — tend to happen in rapid succession. Trying to trade them is a losing game for most investors. Cash has strategic value. Having liquidity during volatile markets means having the ability to buy quality assets at depressed prices — an advantage a fully-invested, static portfolio doesn’t have. Income-focused investing provides an anchor. When you’re in or approaching retirement, dividends and bond coupons keep cash flowing even when prices are moving unpredictably. For more perspective on how global markets are moving, visit the Market Commentary archive on the Dupree Financial website. Frequently Asked Questions How do rising oil prices affect my retirement portfolio? Higher oil prices can be inflationary in the short term, which may pressure the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates higher for longer. That can create headwinds for both stocks and bonds. For retirees drawing income from their portfolios, sustained inflation also erodes purchasing power. A portfolio built around dividend income, short-duration bonds, and carefully valued equities is generally better positioned to navigate this environment than one relying purely on price appreciation. Should I sell my energy stocks during the Strait of Hormuz crisis? Not necessarily — but taking partial profits after a 15–25% run may be prudent, especially in a retirement portfolio. The uncertainty around how long the blockade lasts cuts both ways: prices could go higher, or the situation could resolve and oil could fall sharply. Trimming rather than selling entirely allows you to capture gains while keeping some exposure to a continued rally. Is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve enough to stabilize oil prices? No. While the SPR currently holds approximately 415 million barrels, it can only release around 4.5 million barrels per day and takes roughly two weeks to reach the market. That’s a fraction of the volume being bottlenecked through the Strait of Hormuz. The SPR is useful as a short-term pressure valve but cannot replace the full flow of international oil traffic. What should retirees do when markets are extremely volatile? Avoid making large moves based on short-term headlines. Volatility tends to cluster — meaning big down days are often followed by big up days, and vice versa. Investors who sell in panic often miss the recovery. Maintaining a clear plan, holding dividend-paying positions for income, and preserving some cash to deploy on attractive opportunities is a more disciplined approach for long-term retirement investors. Why does the price of oil affect Americans even if the U.S. is energy independent? Because oil is priced in a global market. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, trades based on worldwide supply and demand dynamics. When global supply is disrupted — regardless of where that oil was originally headed — U.S. prices rise in tandem with international prices. Is Your Portfolio Ready for What Comes Next? Moments like this one — oil supply shocks, bond market volatility, uncertain Fed policy — are exactly when the difference between a personalized investment strategy and a generic one becomes most visible. At Dupree Financial Group, our team does our own in-house research and manages client portfolios directly. You’ll always have access to the people making decisions about your money — not an assigned counselor at a call center. If you’re not certain what you own in your portfolio or why, now is a good time to find out. We offer a complimentary portfolio review with no obligation. Schedule your review online or call us directly at (859) 233-0400. → Request Your Personalized Portfolio Analysis Dupree Financial Group is an SEC-registered investment advisor. The information presented in this podcast and blog post is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Please consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. To learn more, visit SEC.gov/investor. The post Oil Prices, War, and Your Retirement Portfolio appeared first on Dupree Financial.

7. In January 1933, President Hindenburg dismissed Schleicherafter the latter requested martial law to stabilize the country. Despite rumors of a military coup, Hindenburg maintained control by appointing Werner von Blomberg as Minister of Defense. Hindenburg is depicted as a stubborn, manipulative figure managing Germany's collapse. (7)1933 BERLIN. HITLER DEPARTS HINDENBERG.

In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Executive Editor Hannah Hammond talks to Kevin Smartt, the CEO of Spicewood, Texas-based TXB. The two spoke on Wednesday during CSP's Convenience Retailing University event in Austin, Texas. Smartt talked about how Kwik Chek transformed to TXB, or Texas Born, in 2020, how the chain maintains its brand, how it has expanded its foodservice over the years and more.  

Watch this episode on YouTube HERE: https://youtu.be/oEB41S4Vyew In Episode 734 of the Half Size Me Show, Heather talks to Brett, who maintained over 100 pounds of weight loss for years, until grief, a medical diagnosis, and a new chronic condition sent her into a spiral of emotional eating and self-defeating thoughts They also chat about:  How she finally tackled her nightly chocolate habit. How her weight has begun trending down again. And more! Subscribe to Half Size Me Podcast Premium for access to our library of HUNDREDS of hours of past episodes! As a subscriber to Half Size Me Podcast Premium, you will get: --Access to the entire 650+ episode archive --Access weekly episodes a day EARLY --Access to EXCLUSIVE, subscriber-only episodes including the Coaching Karolina and Coaching Sarah series --Access to subscriber-only audio responses to “Ask Me Anything” questions Become a podcast premium subscriber today and make Heather and the Half Size Me show a part of your weight loss journey! Do you want to get support and connection at a price you can afford? Then check out the Half Size Me Academy here: https://www.halfsizeme.com/hsm-academy/ About Half Size Me The Half Size Me™ Show is a weekly podcast. It will inspire and motivate you no matter where you are in your weight loss journey. Whether you're just getting started losing weight or having worked on your health and wellness for years, this show is for you! The Half Size Me Show is hosted by Heather Robertson, who lost 170 pounds over a period of 5 years and has maintained since 2012. Heather did it by learning new eating habits, getting regular exercise, and changing her mindset. On her popular weekly podcast, The Half Size Me Show, Heather shares her own lessons and struggles with you, and she shows you how to handle the real challenge of any weight loss journey... weight maintenance. Be sure to subscribe to The Half Size Me Show and join Heather every week as she shares information, inspiration, coaching, and conversations with REAL people who've learned weight loss isn't only about losing pounds, it's about finding yourself. Disclaimer: Heather is not a doctor, nurse, or certified health professional. What worked for her or her guests may not work for you. Please talk with your doctor, dietician, or other certified health professionals when seeking advice about your own weight loss or weight maintenance plan. All information included in The Half Size Me™ Podcast and on HalfSizeMe.com is for informational and inspirational purposes only. For additional disclaimer information, please visit HalfSizeMe.com.

Sonia Pernell examines Pamela's post-war relationship with Gianni Agnelli, her role in rehabilitating his reputation, and the strained maternal relationship she maintained with her son. 4.

Katy Hornaday is the CEO of BarkleyOKRP, one of the largest independent full-service advertising agencies in the US. She joined the company as a Creative Director and helped facilitate the 2024 merger of Barkley and OKRP.   In this episode… In an industry crowded with holding companies and boutique shops, building something that stands apart requires difficult choices, clear values, and a long-term vision. What does it take to grow a modern agency without losing its unique culture? CEO of BarkleyOKRP, Katy Hornaday, discusses building an independent agency with both scale and soul. With host Todd Taskey, Katy explains her path from creative to CEO, how BarkleyOKRP approaches private equity partnerships, and how a clear strategic thesis guides growth, culture, and acquisitions.

Guest: Dan Flores. For 10,000 years, indigenous hunter-gatherers maintained ecological balance through low populations and spiritual kinship with animals, viewing species like Coyote and Raven as deities.1908 ZOO

Chicago is frozen right now.❄️☕ Chicago is frozen right now. Negative digits over the weekend, snow on the ground, and one of those mornings where everything feels a little slower. The kind of day where you wrap your hands around your mug and sit with your cafecito instead of rushing through it.That kind of morning invites reflection.Because in this episode, we talk about trust. Not the buzzword version. The lived version. The kind that shows up in small moments at work. In who you confide in. In who shows up consistently. In who feels safe and who quietly doesn't.In this conversation, we explore ☕ How trust is built over time ☕ What erodes trust in the workplace ☕ Why predictability matters more than proximity ☕ Boundaries, feedback, and trust without oversharingLa confianza se construye despacio. Con acciones. Con coherencia. Con respeto.If you've ever thought, I need to be more intentional about who I trust at work, this conversation will feel familiar.☕ Where to Find the Corporate Cafecito Podcast

MCNAMARA'S PRIVATE TURN AGAINST THE WAR Colleague William Taubman. By 1966, McNamara had privately turned against the war, confessing to aide John McNaughton his desperate desire to "bring the boys home," yet he maintained public support for the conflict out of loyalty to the presidency. He faced intense anti-war hostility, including a confrontation at Harvard where he was trapped by students, and was deeply shaken by the self-immolation of Norman Morrison outside his Pentagon window. Although he organized the military defense of the Pentagon against protesters, he later admitted that he sympathized with their views and would have shut the building down had he been leading the demonstration. NUMBER 7 1968

The Personal Battle (How I Combat It) You might look at my frameworks or my career and think I've got it all figured out. But let me take you back to 2020. I was sitting in a doctor's office, looking at an MRI of my brain showing 40 lesions. In that moment, the ultimate 'Imposter' voice spoke up. It said: 'Winston, you are a fifty-plus-year-old man, an immigrant, and now a patient with progressive MS. You are broken. You can't lead. You can't be productive.' If I had accepted that role as a 'character' in my story, I would have retreated. But I used the concept of Narrative Identity. I realized I wasn't the character; I was the Author. And the Author gets to decide that the diagnosis wasn't the end—it was just a 'line of demarcation'. I combat Imposter Syndrome by looking at the evidence rather than the emotion. When I feel like a fraud, I open my 'Second Brain'. I look at the logs. I look at the history of what I have Created, Attacked, and Maintained. Facts are the antidote to feelings.

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. AI agents are your next customers. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ https://youtu.be/vEdq8rpBM3I In this data-rich keynote, Jay McBain deconstructs the tectonic shifts reshaping the $5.3 trillion global technology industry, arguing that we are entering a new 20-year cycle where traditional direct sales models are obsolete. McBain explains why 96% of the industry is now surrounded by partners and how successful companies must pivot from “flywheels and theory” to a granular strategy focused on the seven specific partners present in every deal. From the explosion of agentic AI and the $163 billion marketplace revolution to the specific mechanics of multiplier economics, this discussion provides a roadmap for navigating the “decade of the ecosystem” where influence, trust, and integration—not just product—determine winners and losers. Key Takeaways Half of today's Fortune 500 companies will likely vanish in the next 20 years due to the shift toward AI and ecosystem-led models. Every B2B deal now involves an average of seven trusted partners who influence the decision before a vendor even knows a deal exists. Microsoft has outpaced AWS growth for 26 consecutive quarters largely because of a superior partner-led geographic strategy. Marketplaces are projected to grow to $163 billion by 2030, with nearly 60% of deals involving partner funding or private offers. The “Multiplier Effect” is the new ROI, where partners can make up to $8.45 for every dollar of vendor product sold. Future dominance relies on five key pillars: Platform, Service Partnerships, Channel Partnerships, Alliances, and Go-to-Market orchestration. 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. Keywords: Jay McBain, Canalys, partner ecosystem, channel chief, agentic AI, marketplace growth, multiplier economics, B2B sales trends, tech industry forecast, service partnerships, strategic alliances, Microsoft vs AWS, distribution transformation, managed services growth, SaaS platforms, customer journey mapping, 28 moments of truth, future of reselling, technology spending 2025, ecosystem orchestration, partner multipliers. T Transcript: Jay McBain WORKFILE FOR TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: Just up from, did you Puerto Rico last night? Puerto Rico, yes. Puerto Rico. He dodged the hurricane. Um, you all know him. Uh, let him introduce himself for those of you who don’t, but just thrilled to have on the stage, again, somebody who knows more about what’s going on in, in the, and has the pulse on this industry probably than just about anybody I know personally. [00:00:21] Vince Menzione: J Jay McBain. Jay, great to see you my friend. Alright, thank you. We have to come all the way. We live, we live uh, about 20 minutes from each other. We have to come all the way to Reston, Virginia to see each other, right? That’s right. Very good. Well, uh, that’s all over to you, sir. Thank you. [00:00:35] Jay McBain: Alright, well thank you so much. [00:00:36] Jay McBain: I went from 85 degrees yesterday to 45 today, but I was able to dodge that, uh, that hurricane, uh, that we kind of had to fly through the northern edge of, uh, wanna talk today about our industry, about the ultimate partner. I’m gonna try to frame up the ultimate partner as I walk through the data and the latest research that, uh, that we’ve been doing in the market. [00:00:56] Jay McBain: But I wanted to start here ’cause our industry moves in 20 year cycles, and if you look at the Fortune 500 and dial back 20 years from today, 52% of them no longer exist. As we step into the next 20 year AI era, half of the companies that we know and love today are not gonna exist. So we look at this, and by the way, if you’re not in the Fortune 500 and you don’t have deep pockets to buy your way outta problems, 71% of tech companies fail over the course of 10 years. [00:01:30] Jay McBain: Those are statistics from the US government. So I start to look at our industry and you know, you may look at the, you know, mainframe era from the sixties and seventies, mini computers, August the 12th, 1981, that first IBM, PC with Microsoft dos, version one, you know, triggered. A new 20 year era of client server. [00:01:51] Jay McBain: It was the time and I worked at IBM for 17 years, but there was a time where Bill Gates flew into Boca Raton, Florida and met with the IBM team and did that, you know, fancy licensing agreement. But after, you know, 20 years of being the most valuable company in the world and 13 years of antitrust and getting broken up, almost like at and TIBM almost didn’t make payroll. [00:02:14] Jay McBain: 13 years after meeting Bill Gates. Yeah, that’s how quickly things change in these eras. In 1999, a small company outta San Francisco called salesforce.com got its start. About 10 years later, Jeff Bezos asked a question in a boardroom, could we rent out our excess capacity and would other companies buy it? [00:02:35] Jay McBain: Which, you know, most people in the room laughed at ’em at the time. But it created a 20 year cloud era when our friends, our neighbors, our family. Saw Chachi PT for the first time in March of 2023. They saw the deep fakes, they saw the poetry, they saw the music. They came to us as tech people and said, did we just light up Skynet? [00:02:58] Jay McBain: And that consumer trend has triggered this next 20 years. I could walk through the richest people in the world through those trends. I could walk through the most valuable companies. It all aligns. ’cause by the way, Apple’s no longer at the top. Nvidia is at the top, Microsoft. Second, things change really quickly. [00:03:17] Jay McBain: So in that course of time, you start to look at our industry and as people are talking about a six and a half or $7 trillion build out of ai, that’s open AI and Microsoft numbers, that is bigger than our industry that’s taken over 50 years to build. This year, we’re gonna finish the year at $5.3 trillion. [00:03:36] Jay McBain: That’s from the smallest flower shop to the biggest bank. Biggest governments that Caresoft would, uh, serve biggest customer in the world is actually the federal government of the us. But you look at this pie chart and you look at the changes that we’re gonna go through over the next 20 years, there’s about a trillion dollars in hardware. [00:03:54] Jay McBain: There’s about a trillion dollars in software. If you look forward through all of the merging trends, quantum computing, humanoid robots, all the things that are coming that dollar to dollar software to hardware will continue to exist all the way through. We see services making up almost two thirds of this pie. [00:04:13] Jay McBain: Yesterday I was in a telco conference with at and t and Verizon and T-Mobile and some of the biggest wireless players and IT services, which happen to be growing faster than products. At the moment, there is more work to be done wrapping around the deal than the actual products that the customer is buying. [00:04:32] Jay McBain: So in an industry that’s growing at 7%. On top of the world economy that’s grown at 2.2. This is the fastest growing industry, and it will be at least for the next 10 years, if not 2070 0.1% of this entire $5 trillion gets transacted through partners. While what we’re talking to today about the ultimate partner, 96% of this industry is surrounded by partners in one way or another. [00:05:01] Jay McBain: They’re there before the deal. They’re there at the deal. They’re there after the deal. Two thirds of our industry is now subscription consumption based. So every 30 days forever, and a customer for life becomes everything. So if every deal in medium, mid-market, and higher has seven partners, according to McKinsey, who are those seven people trying to get into the deal? [00:05:25] Jay McBain: While there’s millions of companies that have come into tech over the last 10 to 20 years. Digital agencies, accountants, legal firms, everybody’s come in. The 250,000 SaaS companies, a million emerging tech companies, there’s a big fight to be one of those seven trusted people at the table. So millions of companies and tens of millions of people our competing for these slots. [00:05:49] Jay McBain: So one of the pieces of research I’m most proud of, uh, in my analyst career is this. And this took over two years to build. It’s a lot of logos. Not this PowerPoint slide, but the actual data. Thousands of people hours. Because guess what? When you look at partners from the top down, the top 1000 partners, by capability and capacity, not by resale. [00:06:15] Jay McBain: It’s not a ranking of CDW and insight and resale numbers. It is the surrounding. Consulting, design, architecture, implementations, integrations, managed services, all the pieces that’s gonna make the next 20 years run. So when you start to look at this, 98% of these companies are private, so very difficult to get to those numbers and, uh, a ton of research and help from AI and other things to get this. [00:06:41] Jay McBain: But this is it. And if you look at this list, there’s a thousand logos out of the million companies. There’s a thousand logos that drive two thirds of all tech services in the world. $1.07 trillion gets delivered by a thousand companies, but here’s where it gets fun. Those companies in the middle, in blue, the 30 of them deliver more tech services than the next 970. [00:07:08] Jay McBain: Combined the 970 combined in white deliver more tech services. Then the next million combined. So if you think we live in an 80 20 rule or maybe a 99, a 95 5 rule, or a 99 1 rule, we actually live in a 99.9 0.1 parallel principle. These companies spread around the world evenly split across the uh, different regions. [00:07:35] Jay McBain: South Africa, Latin America, they’re all over. They split. They split among types. All of the Venn diagram I just showed from GSIs to VARs to MSPs, to agencies and other types of companies. But this is a really rich list and it’s public. So every company in the world now, if you’re looking at Transactable data, if you’re looking at quantifiable data that you can go put your revenue numbers against, it represents 70 to 80% of every company in this room’s Tam. [00:08:08] Jay McBain: In one piece of research. So what do you do below that? How do you cover a million companies that you can’t afford to put a channel account manager? You can’t afford to write programs directly for well after the top down analysis and all the wallet share and you know exactly where the lowest hanging fruit is for most of your tam. [00:08:28] Jay McBain: The available markets. The obtainable markets. You gotta start from the community level grassroots up. So you need to ask the question for the million companies and the maybe a hundred thousand companies out there, partner companies that are surrounding your customer. These are the seven partners that surround your customer. [00:08:48] Jay McBain: What do they read, where do they go, and who do they follow? Interestingly enough, our industry globally equates to only a thousand watering holes, a thousand companies at the top, a thousand places at the bottom. 35% of this audience we’re talking. Millions of people here love events and there’s 352 of them like this one that they love to go to. [00:09:13] Jay McBain: They love the hallway chats, they love the hotel lobby bar, you know, in a time reminded by the pandemic. They love to be in person. It’s the number one way they’re influenced. So if you don’t have a solid event strategy and you don’t have a community team out giving out socks every week, your competitors might beat you. [00:09:31] Jay McBain: 12% of this audience loves podcasts. It’s the Joe Rogan effect of our industry. And while you know, you may not think the 121 podcasts out there are important, well, you’re missing 12% of your audience. It’s over a million people. If you’re not on a weekly podcast in one of these podcasts in the world, there’s still people that read one of the 106 magazines in the world. [00:09:55] Jay McBain: There are people that love peer groups, associations, they wanna be part of this. There’s 15 different ways people are influenced. And a solid grassroots strategy is how you make this happen. In the last 10 years, we’ve created a number of billionaires. Bottom up. They never had to go talk to la large enterprise. [00:10:15] Jay McBain: They never had to go build out a mid-market strategy. They just went and give away socks and new community marketing. And this has created, I could rip through a bunch of names that became unicorns just in the last couple of years, bottoms up. You go back to your board walking into next year, top down, bottom up. [00:10:34] Jay McBain: You’ve covered a hundred percent of your tam, and now you’ve covered it with names, faces, and places. You haven’t covered it with a flywheel or a theory. And for 44 years, we have gone to our board every fourth quarter with flywheels and theory. Trust me, partners are important. The channel is key to us. [00:10:57] Jay McBain: Well, let’s talk at the point of this granularity, and now we’re getting supported by technology 261 entrepreneurs. Many of them in the room actually here that are driving this ability to succeed with seven partners in every deal to exchange data to be able to exchange telemetry of these prospects to be able to see twice or three times in terms of pipeline of your target addressable market. [00:11:26] Jay McBain: All these ai, um, technologies, agentic technologies are coming into this. It’s all about data. It’s all about quantifiable names, faces, and places. Now none of us should be walking around with flywheels, so let’s flip the flywheels. No. Uh, so we also look at, and I sold PCs for 17 years and that was in the high times of 40% margins for partners. [00:11:55] Jay McBain: But one interesting thing when you study the p and l for broad base of partners around the world, it’s changed pretty significantly in this last 20 year era. What the cloud era did is dropped hardware from what used to be 84% plus the break fix and things that wrap around it of the p and l to now 16% of every partner in the world. [00:12:16] Jay McBain: 84% of their p and l is now software and services. And if you look at profitability, it’s worse. It’s actually 87% is profitability wise. They’ve completely shifted in terms of where they go. Now we look at other parts of our market. I could go through every part of the pie of the slide, but we’re watching each of the companies, and if you can see here, this is what we want to talk about in terms of ultimate partner. [00:12:43] Jay McBain: Microsoft has outgrown AWS for 26 straight quarters. They don’t have a better product. They don’t have a better price, they don’t have better promotion. It’s all place. And I’ll explain why you guess here in the light green line. Exactly. The day that Google went a hundred percent all in partner, every deal, even if a deal didn’t have a partner, one of the 4% of deals that didn’t have a partner, they injected a partner. [00:13:09] Jay McBain: You can see on the left side exactly where they did it. They got to the point of a hundred percent partner driven. Rebuilt their programs, rebuilt their marketplace. Their marketplace is actually larger than Microsoft’s, and they grew faster than Microsoft. A couple of those quarters. It is a partner driven future, and now I have Oracle, which I just walked by as I walked from the hotel. [00:13:31] Jay McBain: Oracle with their RPOs will start to join. Maybe the list of three hyperscalers becomes the list of four in future slides, but that’s a growth slide. Market share is different. AWS early and commanding lead. And it plays out, uh, plays out this way. But we’re at an interesting moment and I stood up six years ago talking about the decade of the ecosystem after we went through a decade of sales starting in 1999 when we all thought we were born to be salespeople. [00:14:02] Jay McBain: We managed territories with our gut. The sales tech stack would have it different, that sales was a science, and we ended the decade 2009, looking at sales very differently in 2009. I remember being at cocktail parties where CMOs would be joking around that 50% of their marketing dollars were wasted. They just didn’t know which 50%. [00:14:23] Jay McBain: And I’ll tell you, that was really funny. In 2009 till every 58-year-old CMO got replaced by a 38-year-old growth hacker who walked in with 15,348 SaaS companies in their MarTech and ad tech stack to solve the problem, every nickel of marketing by 2019 was tracked. Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, HubSpot, driving this industry. [00:14:50] Jay McBain: Now, we stood up and said the 28 moments that come before a sale are pretty much all partner driven. In the best case scenario, a vendor might see four of the moments. They might come to your website, maybe they read an ebook, maybe they have a salesperson or a demo that comes in. That’s four outta 28 moments. [00:15:10] Jay McBain: The other 24 are done by partners. Yeah, in the worst case scenario and the majority scenario, you don’t see any of the moments. All 28 happen and you lose a deal without knowing there ever was a deal. So this is it. We need to partner in these moments and we need to inject partners into sales and marketing, like no time before, and this was the time to do it. [00:15:33] Jay McBain: And we got some feedback in the Salesforce state of sales report, which doesn’t involve any partnerships or, or. Channel Chiefs or anything else. This is 5,500 of the biggest CROs in the world that obviously use Salesforce. 89% of salespeople today use partners every day. For the 11% who don’t, 58% plan two within a year. [00:15:57] Jay McBain: If you add those two numbers together, that’s magically the 96% number. They recognize that every deal has partners in it. In 2024, last year, half of the salespeople in the world, every industry, every country. Miss their numbers. For the minority who made their numbers, 84 point percent pointed to partners as the reason why they made their numbers. [00:16:21] Jay McBain: It was the cheat code for sales, so that modern salesperson that knows how to orchestrate a deal, orchestrate the 28 moments with the seven partners and get to that final spot is the winning formula. HubSpot’s number in separate research was 84% in marketing. So we’re starting to see partners in here. We don’t have to shout from the mountaintops. [00:16:44] Jay McBain: These communities like ultimate Partner are working and we’re getting this to the highest levels in the board. And I’ll say that, you know, when 20 years from now half of the companies we know and love fail after we’re done writing the book and blaming the CEO for inventing the thing that ended up killing them, blaming the board for fiduciary responsibility and letting it happen. [00:17:06] Jay McBain: What are the other chapters of the book? And I think it’s all in one slide. We are in this platform economy and the. [00:17:31] Jay McBain: So your battery’s fine. Check, check, check, check. Alright, I’ll, I’ll just hold this in case, but the companies that execute on all five of these areas, well. Not only today become the trillion dollar valued companies, but they become the companies of tomorrow. These will be the fastest growing companies at every level. [00:17:50] Jay McBain: Not only running a platform business, but participating in other platforms. So this is how it breaks out, and there are people at very senior levels, at very big companies that have this now posted in the office of the CEO winning on integrations is everything. We just went through a demographic shift this year where 51% of our buyers are born after 1982. [00:18:15] Jay McBain: Millennials are the number one buyer of the $5 trillion. Their number one buying criteria is not service. Support your price, your brand reputation, it’s integrations. The buy a product, 80% is good as the next one if it works better in their environment. 79% of us won’t buy a car unless it has CarPlay or Android Auto. [00:18:34] Jay McBain: This is an integration world. The company with the most integrations win. Second, there are seven partners that surround the customer. Highly trusted partners. We’re talking, coaching the customer’s, kids soccer team, having a cottage together up at the lake. You know, best men, bate of honors at weddings type of relationships. [00:18:57] Jay McBain: You can’t maybe have all seven, but how does Microsoft beat AWS? They might have had two, three, or four of them saying nice things about them instead of the competition. Winning in service partnerships and channel partnerships changes by category. If you’re selling MarTech, only 10% of it today is resold, so you build more on service partnerships. [00:19:18] Jay McBain: If you’re in cybersecurity today, 91.6% of it is resold. Transacted through partners. So you build a lot of channel partnerships, plus the service partnerships, whatever the mix is in your category, you have to have two or three of those seven people. Saying nice things about you at every stage of the customer journey. [00:19:38] Jay McBain: Now move over to alliances. We have already built the platforms at the hyperscale level. We’ve built the platforms within SaaS, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, Marketo, NetSuite, HubSpot. Every buyer has a set of platforms that they buy. We’ve now built them in cybersecurity this year out of 6,500 as high as cyber companies, the top five are starting to separate. [00:20:02] Jay McBain: We built it in distribution, which I’ll show in a minute. We’re building it in Telco. This is a platform economy and alliances win and you have alliances with your competitors ’cause you compete in the morning, but you’re best friends by the afternoon. Winning in other platforms is just as important as driving your own. [00:20:20] Jay McBain: And probably the most important part of this is go to market. That sales, that marketing, the 28 moments, the every 30 days forever become all a partner strategy. So there’s still CEOs out there that believe platform is a UI or UX on a bunch of disparate products and things you’ve acquired. There’s still CFOs out there that Think platform is a pricing model, a bundle model of just getting everything under one, you know, subscription price or consumption price. [00:20:51] Jay McBain: And it’s not, platforms are synonymous with partnerships. This is the way forward and there’s no conversation around ai. That doesn’t involve Nvidia over there, an open AI over here and a hyperscaler over there and a SaaS company over here. The seven layer stack wins every single time, and the companies that get this will be the ones that survive this cycle. [00:21:16] Jay McBain: Now, flipping over to marketplaces. So we had written research that, um, about five years ago that marketplaces were going to grow at 82% compounded. Yeah, probably one of the most accurate predictions we ever made, because it happened, we, we predicted that, uh, we were gonna get up to about $85 billion. Well, now we’ve extended that to 2030, so we’re gonna get up to $163 billion, and the thing that we’re watching is in green. [00:21:46] Jay McBain: If 96% of these deals are partner assisted in some way, how is the economics of partnering going to work? We predicted that 50% of deals by 2027. Would be partner funded in some way. Private offers multi-partner offers distributor sellers of record, and now that extends to 59% by 2030, the most senior leader of the biggest marketplace AWS, just said to us they’re gonna probably make these numbers on their own. [00:22:14] Jay McBain: And he asked what their two competitors are doing. So he’s telling us that we under called this. Now when you look at each of the press releases, and this is the AWS Billion Dollar Club. Every one of the companies on the left have issued a press release that they’re in the billion dollar club. Some of them are in the multi-billions, but I want you to double click on this press release. [00:22:35] Jay McBain: I’m quoted in here somewhere, but as CrowdStrike is building the marketplace at 91% compounded, they’re almost doubling their revenue every single year. They’re growing the partner funding, in this case, distributor funding by 3548%. Almost triple digit growth in marketplace is translating into almost quadruple digit growth in funding. [00:23:01] Jay McBain: And you see that over and over again as, as Splunk hit three, uh, billion dollars. The same. Salesforce hit $2 billion on AWS in Ulti, 18 months. They joined in October 20, 23, and 18 months later, they’re already at $2 billion. But now you’re seeing at Salesforce, which by the way. Grew up to $40 billion in revenue direct, almost not a nickel in resell. [00:23:28] Jay McBain: Made it really difficult for VARs and managed service providers to work with Salesforce because they couldn’t understand how to add services to something they didn’t book the revenue for. While $40 billion companies now seeing 70% of their deals come through partners. So this is just the world that we’re in. [00:23:44] Jay McBain: It doesn’t matter who you are and what industry you’re in, this takes place. But now we’re starting to see for the first time. Partners join the billion dollar club. So you wonder about partnering and all this funding and everything that’s working through Now you’re seeing press releases and companies that are redoing their LinkedIn branding about joining this illustrious club without a product to sell and all the services that wrap around it. [00:24:10] Jay McBain: So the opening session on Microsoft was interesting because there’s been a number of changes that Microsoft has done just in the last 30 days. One is they cut distribution by two thirds going from 180 distributors to 62. They cut out any small partner lower than a thousand dollars, and that doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s over a hundred thousand partners that get deed tightening the long tail. [00:24:38] Jay McBain: They we’re the first to really put a global point system in place three years ago. They went to the new commerce experience. If you remember, all kinds of changes being led by. The biggest company for the channel. And so when we’re studying marketplaces, we’re not just studying the three hyperscalers, we’re studying what TD Cynic is doing with Stream One Ingram’s doing with Advant Advantage Aerosphere. [00:25:01] Jay McBain: Also, we’re watching what PAX eight, who by the way, is the 365 bestseller for Microsoft in the world. They are the cybersecurity leader for Microsoft in the world and the copilot. Leader in the world for Microsoft and Partner of the Year for Microsoft. So we’re watching what the cloud platforms are doing, watching what the Telco are doing, which is 25 cents out of every dollar, if you remember that pie chart, watching what the biggest resellers are converting themselves into. [00:25:30] Jay McBain: Vince just mentioned, you know, SHI in the changes there watching the managed services market and the leaders there, what they’re doing in terms of how this industry’s moving forward. By the way, managed services at $608 billion this year. Is one and a half times larger than the SaaS industry overall. [00:25:48] Jay McBain: It’s also one and a half times larger than all the hyperscalers combined. Oracle, Alibaba, IBM, all the way down. This is a massive market and it makes up 15 to 20 cents of every dollar the customer spend. We’re watching that industry hit a trillion dollars by the end of the decade, and we’re watching 150 different marketplace development platforms, the distribution of our industry, which today is 70.1% indirect. [00:26:13] Jay McBain: We’re starting to see that number, uh, solidify in terms of marketplaces as well. Watching distributors go from that linear warehouse in a bank to this orchestration model, watching some of the biggest players as the world comes around, platforms, it tightens around the place. So Caresoft, uh, from from here is the sixth biggest distributor in the world. [00:26:40] Jay McBain: Just shows you how big the. You know, biggest client in the world is that they serve. But understand that we’re publishing the distributor 500 list, but it’ll be the same thing. That little group in blue in the middle today, you know, drives almost two thirds of the market. So what happens in all this next stage in terms of where the dollars change hands. [00:27:07] Jay McBain: And the economics of partnering themselves are going through the most radical shift that we’ve seen ever. So back to the nineties, and, and for those of you that have been channel chiefs and running programs, we went to work every day. You know, everything’s on fire. We’re trying to check hundred boxes, trying to make our program 10% better than our competitors. [00:27:30] Jay McBain: Hey, we gotta fix our deal registration program today, and our incentives are outta whack or training programs or. You know, not where they need to be. Our certification, you know, this was the life of, uh, of a channel chief. Everybody thought we were just out drinking in the Caribbean with our best partners, but we were under the weight of this. [00:27:49] Jay McBain: But something interesting has happened is that we turned around and put the customer at the middle of our programs to say that those 28 moments in green before the sale are really, really important. And the seven partners who participate are really important. Understanding. The customer’s gonna buy a seven layer stack. [00:28:09] Jay McBain: They’re gonna buy it With these seven partners, the procurement stage is much different. The growth of marketplaces, the growth of direct in some of these areas, and then long term every 30 days forever in a managed service, implementations, integrations, how you upsell, cross-sell, enrich a deal changes. So how would you build a program that’s wrapped around the customer instead of the vendor? [00:28:35] Jay McBain: And we’re starting to hear our partners shout back to us. These are global surveys, big numbers, but over half of our partners, regardless of type, are selling consulting to their customer. Over half are designing architecting deals. A third of them are trying to be system integrators showing up at those implementation integration moments. [00:28:55] Jay McBain: Two thirds of them are doing managed services, but the shocking one here is 44% of our partners, regardless of type, are coding. They’re building agents and they’re out helping their customer at that level. So this is the modern partner that says, don’t typecast me. You may have thought of me in your program. [00:29:14] Jay McBain: You might have me slotted as a var. Well, I do 3.2 things, and if I don’t get access to those resources, if you don’t walk me to that room, I’m not gonna do them with you. You may have me as a managed service provider that’s only in the morning. By the afternoon I’m coding, and by the next morning I’m implementing and consulting. [00:29:33] Jay McBain: So again, a partner’s not a partner. That Venn diagram is a very loose one now, as every partner on there is doing 3.2 different business models. And again, they’re telling us for 43 years, they said, I want more leads this year it changed. For the first time, I want to be recognized and incentivized as more than just a cash register for you. [00:29:57] Jay McBain: I want you to recognize when I’m consulting, when I’m designing, when you’re winning deals, because of my wonderful services, by the way, we asked the follow up question, well, where should we spend our money with you? And they overwhelmingly say, in the consulting stage, you win and lose deals. Not at moment 28. [00:30:18] Jay McBain: We’re not buying a pack of gum at the gas station. This is a considered purchase. You win deals from moment 12 through 16 and I’m gonna show you a picture of that later, and they say, you better be spending your money there, or you’re not gonna win your fair share or more than your fair share of deals. [00:30:36] Jay McBain: The shocking thing about this is that Microsoft, when they went to the point system, lifted two thirds of all the money, tens of billions of dollars, and put it post-sale, and we were all scratching our heads going. Well, if the partners are asking for it there, and it seems like to beat your biggest competitors, you want to win there. [00:30:54] Jay McBain: Why would you spend the money on renewal? Well, they went to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs and the people who lift trillions of dollars of pension funds and said, if we renew deals at 108%, we become a cash machine for you. And we think that’s more valuable than a company coming out with a new cell phone in September and selling a lot of them by Christmas every year. [00:31:18] Jay McBain: The industry. And by the way, wall Street responded, Microsoft has been more valuable than Apple since. So we talk in this now multiplier language, and these are reports that we write, uh, at AMIA at canals. But talking about the partner opportunity in that customer cycle, the $6 and 40 cents you can make for every dollar of consumption, or the $7 and 5 cents you can make the $8 and 45 cents you can make. [00:31:46] Jay McBain: There’s over 24 companies speaking at this level now, and guess what? It’s not just cloud or software companies. Hardware companies are starting to speak in this language, and on January 25th, Cisco, you know, probably second to Microsoft in terms of trust built with the channel globally is moving to a full point system. [00:32:09] Jay McBain: So these are the changes that happen fast. But your QBR with your partners now less about drinking beers at the hotel lobby bar and talking dollar by dollar where these opportunities are. So if you’re doing 3.2 of these things, let’s build out a, uh, a play where you can make $3 for every dollar that we make. [00:32:28] Jay McBain: And you make that profitably. You make it in sticky, highly retained business, and that’s the model. ’cause if you make $3 for every dollar. We make, you’re gonna win Partner of the year, and if you win partner of the year, that piece of glass that you win on stage, by the time you get back to your table, you’re gonna have three offers to buy your business. [00:32:51] Jay McBain: CDW just bought a w. S’s Partner of the Year. Insight bought Google’s eight time partner of the year. Presidio bought ServiceNow’s, partner of the year over and over and over again. So I’m at Octane, I’m at CrowdStrike, I’m at all these events in Vegas every week. I’m watching these partners of the year. [00:33:05] Jay McBain: And I’m watching as the big resellers. I’m watching as the GSIs and the m and a folks are surrounding their table after, and they’re selling their businesses for SaaS level valuations. Not the one-to-one service valuation. They’re getting multiples because this is the new future of our industry. This is platform economics. [00:33:25] Jay McBain: This is winning and platforms for partners. Now, like Vince, I spent 20 minutes without talking about ai, but we have to talk about ai. So the next 20 years as it plays out is gonna play out in phases. And the first thing you know to get it out of the way. The first two years since that March of 23, has been underwhelming, to say the least. [00:33:47] Jay McBain: It’s been disappointing. All the companies that should have won the biggest in AI have been the most disappointing. It’s underperformed the s and p by a considerable amount in terms of where we are. And it goes back to this. We always overestimate the first two years, but we underestimate the first 10. [00:34:07] Jay McBain: If you wanna be the point in time person and go look at that 1983 PC or the 1995 internet or that 2007 iPhone or that whatever point in time you wanna look at, or if you want to talk about hallucinations or where chat chip ET version five is version, as opposed to where it’s going to be as it improves every six months here on in. [00:34:30] Jay McBain: But the fact of the matter is, it’s been a consumer trend. Nvidia got to be the most valuable company in the world. OpenAI was the first company to 2 billion users, uh, in that amount of speed. It’s the fastest growing product ever in history, and it’s been a consumer win this trillions of dollars to get it thrown around in the press releases. [00:34:49] Jay McBain: They’re going out every day, you know, open ai, signing up somebody new or Nvidia, investing in somebody new almost every single day in hundreds of billions of dollars. It is all happening really on the consumer side. So we got a little bit worried and said, is that 96% of surround gonna work in ag agentic ai? [00:35:10] Jay McBain: So we went and asked, and the good news is 88% of end customers are using partners to work through their ag agentic strategy. Even though they’re moving slow, they’re actually using partners. But what’s interesting from a partner perspective, and this is new research that out till 2030. This is the number one services opportunity in the entire tech or telco industry. [00:35:34] Jay McBain: 35.3% compounded growth ending at $267 billion in services. Companies are rebuilding themselves, building out practices, and getting on this train and figuring out which vendors they should hook their caboose to as those trains leave the station. But it kind of plays out like this. So in the next three to five years, we’re in this generative, moving into agentic phase. [00:36:01] Jay McBain: Every partner thinks internally first, the sales and marketing. They’re thinking about their invoicing and billing. They’re thinking about their service tickets. They’re thinking about creating a business that’s 10% better than their competitors, taking that knowledge into their customers and drive in business. [00:36:17] Jay McBain: But we understand that ag agentic AI, as it’s going to play out is not a product. A couple of years ago, we thought maybe a copilot or an agent force or something was going to be the product that everybody needed to buy, and it’s not a product, it’s gonna show up as a feature. So you go back in the history of feature ads and it’s gonna show up in software. [00:36:38] Jay McBain: So if you’re calling in SMB, maybe you’re calling on a restaurant. The restaurant isn’t gonna call OpenAI or call Microsoft or call Nvidia directly. They’re running their restaurant. And they may have chosen a platform like Toast Square, Clover, whatever iPads people are running around with, runs on a platform that does everything in their business, does staffing, does food ordering, works with Uber Eats, does everything end to end? [00:37:08] Jay McBain: They’re gonna wait to one of those platforms, dries out agent AI for them, and can run the restaurant more effectively, less human capital and more consistently, but they wait for the SaaS platform as you get larger. A hundred, 150 people. You have vice presidents. Each of those vice presidents already have a SaaS stack. [00:37:28] Jay McBain: I talked about Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, et cetera. They’ve already built that seven layer model and in some cases it’s 70 layers. But the fact is, is they’re gonna wait for those SaaS layers to deliver ag agentic to them. So this is how it’s gonna play out for the next three and a half, three to five years. [00:37:45] Jay McBain: And partners are realizing that many of them were slow to pick up SaaS ’cause they didn’t resell it. Well now to win in this next three to half, three to five years, you’re gonna have to play in this environment. When you start looking out from here, the next generation, you know, kind of five through 15 years gets interesting in more of a physical sense. [00:38:06] Jay McBain: Where I was yesterday talking about every IOT device that now is internet access, starts to get access to large language models. Every little sensor, every camera, everything that’s out there starts to get smart. But there’s a point. The first trillionaire, I believe, will be created here. Elon’s already halfway there. [00:38:24] Jay McBain: Um, but when Bill Gates thought there was gonna be a PC in every home, and IBM thought they were gonna sell 10,000 to hobbyists, that created the richest person in the world for 20 years, there will be a humanoid in every home. There’s gonna be a point in time that you’re out having drinks with your friends, and somebody’s gonna say, the early adopter of your friends is gonna say. [00:38:46] Jay McBain: I haven’t done the dishes in six weeks. I haven’t done the laundry. I haven’t made my bed. I haven’t mowed the lawn. When they say that, you’re gonna say, well, how? And they’re gonna say, well, this year I didn’t buy a new car, but I went to the car dealership and I bought this. So we’re very close to the dexterity needed. [00:39:05] Jay McBain: We’ve got the large language models. Now. The chat, GPT version 10 by then is going to make an insane, and every house is gonna have one of the. [00:39:17] Jay McBain: This is the promise of ai. It’s not humanoid robots, it’s not agents. It’s this. 99% of the world’s business data has not been trained or tuned into models yet. Again, this is the slow moving business. If you want to think about the 99% of business data, every flight we’ve all taken in this room sits on a saber system that was put in place in 1964. [00:39:43] Jay McBain: Every banking transaction, we’ve all made, every withdrawal, every deposit sits on an IBM mainframe put in place in the sixties or seventies. 83% of this data sits in cold storage at the edge. It’s not ready to be moved. It’s not cleansed, it’s not, um, indexed. It’s not in any format or sitting on any infrastructure that a large language model will be able to gobble up the data. [00:40:10] Jay McBain: None of the workflows, none of the programming on top of that data is yet ready. So this is your 10 to 20 year arc of this era that chat bot today when they cancel your flight is cute. It’s empathetic, it feels bad for you, or at least it seems to, but it can’t do anything. It can’t book you the Marriott and get you an Uber and then a 5:00 AM flight the next morning. [00:40:34] Jay McBain: It can’t do any of that. But more importantly, it doesn’t know who you are. I’ve got 53 years of flights under my belt and they, I’m the person that get me within six hours of my kids and get me a one-way Hertz rental. You know, if there’s bad weather in Miami, get me to Tampa, get me a Hertz, I’m driving home, I’m gonna make it home. [00:40:56] Jay McBain: I’m not the 5:00 AM get me a hotel person. They would know that if they picked up the flights that I’ve taken in the past. Each of us are different. When you get access to the business data and you become ag agentic, everything changes. Every industry changes because of this around the customers. When you ask about this 35% growth, working on that data, working in traditional consulting and design and implementation, working in the $7 trillion of infrastructure, storage, compute, networking, that’s gonna be around, this is a massive opportunity. [00:41:30] Jay McBain: Services are gonna continue to outgrow products. Probably for the next five to 10 years because of this, and I’m gonna finish here. So we talked a lot about quantifying names, faces, places, and I think where we failed the most as ultimate partners is underneath the tam, which every one of our CEOs knows to the decimal point underneath the TAM that our board thinks they’re chasing. [00:41:59] Jay McBain: We’ve done a very poor job. Of talking about the available markets and obtainable markets underneath it, we, we’ve shown them theory. We’ve shown them a bunch of, you know, really smart stuff, and PowerPoint slides up the wazoo, but we’ve never quantified it for them. If they wanna win, if they want to get access, if they want to double their pipeline, triple their pipeline, if they wanna start winning more deals, if they wanna win deals that are three times larger, they close two times faster. [00:42:31] Jay McBain: And they renew 15% larger. They have to get into the available and obtainable markets. So just in the last couple weeks I spoke at Cribble, I spoke at Octane, I spoke at CrowdStrike Falcon. All three of those companies at the CEO level, main stage use those exact three numbers, three x, two x, 15%. That’s the language of platforms, and they’re investing millions and millions and millions of dollars on teams. [00:42:59] Jay McBain: To go build out the Sam Andal in name spaces and places. So you’ve heard me talk about these 28 moments a lot. They’re the ones that you spend when you buy a car. Some people spend one moment and they drive to the Cadillac dealership. ’cause Larry’s been, you know, taking care of the family for 50 years. [00:43:18] Jay McBain: Some people spend 50 moments like I do, watching every YouTube video and every, you know, thing on the internet. I clear the internet cover to cover. But the fact is, is every deal averages around these 28 moments. Your customer, there’s 13 members of the buying committee today. There’s seven partners and they’re buying seven things. [00:43:37] Jay McBain: There’s 27 things orchestrating inside these 28 moments. And where and how they all take place is a story of partnering. So a couple of years ago, canals. Latin for channel was acquired by amia, which is a part of Informa Tech Target, which is majority owned by Informa. All that being said, there’s hundreds of magazines that we have. [00:44:00] Jay McBain: There’s hundreds of events that we run. If somebody’s buying cybersecurity, they probably went to Black Hat or they probably went to GI Tech. One of these events we run, or one of the magazines. So we pick up these signals, these buyer intent signals as a company. Why did they wanna, um, buy a, uh, a Canals, which was a, you know, a small analyst firm around channels? [00:44:22] Jay McBain: They understood this as well. The 28 moments look a lot like this when marketers and salespeople are busy filling in the spots of every deal. And by the way, this is a real deal. AstraZeneca came in to spend millions of dollars on ASAP transformation, and you can start to see as the customer got smart. [00:44:45] Jay McBain: The eBooks, they read the podcasts, they listened to the events they went to. You start to see how this played out over the long term. But the thing we’ve never had in our industry is the light blue boxes. This deal was won and lost in December. In this particular case, NTT software won and Yash came in and sold the customer five projects. [00:45:07] Jay McBain: The millions of dollars that were going to be spent were solved here. The design and architecture work was all done here. A couple of ISVs You see in light blue came in right at the end, deal was closed in April. You see the six month cycle. But what if you could fill in every one of the 28 boxes in every single customer prospect that your sales and marketing team have? [00:45:30] Jay McBain: But here’s the brilliance of this. Those light blue boxes didn’t win the deals there. They won the deals months before that. So when NTT and Software one walked into this deal. They probably won the deal back in October and they had to go through the redlining. They had to go through the contracting, they had to go through all the stuff and the Gantt chart to get started. [00:45:54] Jay McBain: But while your CMO is getting all excited about somebody reading an ebook and triggering an MQL that the sales team doesn’t want, ’cause it’s not qualified, it’s not sales qualified, you walk in and say, no, no. This is a multimillion deal, dollar deal. It’s AstraZeneca. I know the five partners that are coming in in December to solidify the seven layers, and you’re walking in at the same time as the CMOs bragging about an ebook. [00:46:21] Jay McBain: This changes everything. If we could get to this level of data about every dollar of our tam, we not only outgrow our competitors, we become the platforms of the next generation. Partnering and ultimate partnering is all here. And this is what we’re doing in this room. This is what we’re doing over these couple of days, and this is what, uh, the mission that Vince is leading. [00:46:43] Jay McBain: Thank you so much. [00:46:47] Vince Menzione: Woo. Day in the house. Good to see you my friend. Good to see you. Oh, we’re gonna spend a couple minutes. Um, I’m put you in the second seat. We’re gonna put, we’re gonna make it sit fireside for a minute. Uh, that was intense. It was pretty incredible actually, Jay. And so I’m, I think I wanna open it up ’cause we only have a few minutes just to, any questions? [00:47:06] Vince Menzione: I’m sure people are just digesting. We already have one up here. See, [00:47:09] Question: Jay knows I’m [00:47:10] Vince Menzione: a question. I love it. We, I don’t think we have any I can grab a mic, a roving mic. I could be a roving mic person. Hold on. We can do this. This is not on. [00:47:25] Vince Menzione: Test, test. Yes it is. Yeah. [00:47:26] Question: Theresa Carriol dared me to ask a question and I say, you don’t have to dare me. You know, I’m going to Anyway. Um, so Jay, of the point of view that with all of the new AI players that strategic alliances is again having a moment, and I was curious your point of view on what you’re seeing around this emergence and trend of strategic alliances and strategic alliance management. [00:47:52] Question: As compared to channel management. And what are you seeing in terms of large vendors like AWS investing in that strategic alliance role versus that channel role training, enablement, measurement, all that good stuff? [00:48:06] Jay McBain: Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. So when I told the story about toast at the restaurant or Square or Clover, they’re not call, they’re not gonna call open AI or Nvidia themselves either. [00:48:17] Jay McBain: When you look out at the 250,000 ISVs. That make up this AI stack, there is the layers that happen there. So the Alliance with AWS, the alliance they have with Microsoft or Google is going to be how they generate agent AI in their platforms. So when I talk about a seven layer stack, the average deal being seven layers, AI is gonna drive this to nine, and then 11, then probably 13. [00:48:44] Jay McBain: So in terms of how alliances work, I had it up there as one of the five core strategies, and I think it’s pretty even. You can have the best alliances in the world, but if the seven partners trusted by the customer don’t know what that alliance is and the benefits to the customer and never mention it, it’s all for Naugh. [00:49:00] Jay McBain: If you’re go-to market, you’re co-selling, your co-marketing strategies are not built around that alliance. It’s all for naught. If the integration and the co-innovation, the co-development, the all the co-creation work that’s done inside these alliances isn’t translated to customer outcomes, it’s all for naugh. [00:49:17] Jay McBain: These are all five parallel swim lanes. All five are absolutely critically needed. And I think they’re all five pretty equally weighted in terms of needing each other. Yes. To be successful in the era of platforms. Yeah. [00:49:32] Vince Menzione: And the problem is they’re all stove pipe today. If, if at all. Yeah. Maintained, right. [00:49:36] Vince Menzione: Alliances is an example. Channels and other example. They don’t talk to one another. Judge any, we’ve got a mic up here if anybody else has. Yep. We have some questions here, Jacqueline. [00:49:51] Question: So when we’re developing our channel programs, any advice on, you know, what’s the shift that we should make six months from now, a year from now? The historical has been bronze, silver, gold, right? And you’ve got your deal registration, but what’s the future look like? [00:50:05] Jay McBain: Yeah, so I mean, the programs are, are changing to, to the point where the customer should be in the middle and realizing the seven partners you need to win the deal. [00:50:15] Jay McBain: And depending on what category of product you’re in, security, how much you rely on resell, 91.6%. You know, the channel partners are gonna be critical where the customer spends the money. And if you’re adding friction to that process, you’re adding friction in terms of your growth. So you know, if you’re in cybersecurity, you have to have a pretty wide open reseller model. [00:50:39] Jay McBain: You have to have a wide open distribution model, and you have to make sure you’re there at that point of sale. While at the same time, considering the other six partners at moment 12 who are in either saying nice things about you or not, the customer might even be starting with you. ’cause there is actually one thing that I didn’t mention when I showed the 28 moments filled in. [00:51:00] Jay McBain: You’ll notice that the customer went to AWS twice direct. AWS lost the deal. Microsoft won the deal software. One is Microsoft’s biggest reseller in the world. They just acquired crayon. NTT who, who loves both had their Microsoft team go in. [00:51:18] Question: Mm. [00:51:19] Jay McBain: So I think that they went to AWS thinking it was A-W-S-S-A-P, you know, kind of starting this seven layer stack. [00:51:25] Jay McBain: I think they finished those, you know, critical moments in the middle looking at it. And then they went back to AWS kind of going probably WWTF. Yeah. What we thought was happening isn’t actually the outcome that was painted by our most trusted people. So, you know, to answer your question, listen to your partners. [00:51:43] Jay McBain: They want to be recognized for the other things they’re doing. You can’t be spending a hundred percent of the dollars at the point of sale. You gotta have a point of system that recognizes the point of sale, maybe even gold, silver, bronze, but recognizing that you’re paying for these other moments as well. [00:51:57] Jay McBain: Paying for alliances, paying for integrations and everything else, uh, in the cyber stack. And, um, you know, recognizing also the top 1000. So if I took your tam. And I overlaid those thousand logos. I would be walking into 2026 the best I could of showing my company logo by logo, where 80% of our TAM sits as wallet share, not by revenue. [00:52:25] Jay McBain: Remember, a million dollar partner is not a million dollar partner. One of them sells 1.2 million in our category. We should buy them a baseball cap and have ’em sit in the front row of our event. One of them sells $10 million and only sells our stuff if the customer asks. So my company should be looking at that $9 million opportunity and making sure my programs are writing the checks and my coverage. [00:52:48] Jay McBain: My capacity and capability planning is getting obsessed over that $9 million. My farmers can go over there, my hunters can go over here, and I should be submitting a list of a thousand sorted in descending order of opportunity. Of where my company can write program dollars into. [00:53:07] Vince Menzione: Great answer. All right. I, I do wanna be cognizant of time and the, all the other sessions we have. [00:53:14] Vince Menzione: So we’ll just take one other question if there are any here and if not, we’ll let I know. Jay, you’re gonna be mingling around for a little while before your flight. I’m [00:53:21] Jay McBain: here the whole day. [00:53:22] Vince Menzione: You, you’re the whole day. I see that Jay’s here the whole day. So if you have any other questions and, and, uh, sharing the deck is that. [00:53:29] Vince Menzione: Yep. Alright. We have permission to share the deck with the each of you as well. [00:53:34] Jay McBain: Alright, well thank you very much everyone. Jay. Great to have you.

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Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Cedric Walker. Founder of the UniverSoul Circus, shares his journey from producing gospel plays to creating a globally recognized, culturally rich circus experience. He discusses the inspiration behind the circus, the challenges he faced, the importance of representation, and the evolution of the show. The conversation emphasizes family entertainment, cultural authenticity, and global talent development.

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Cedric Walker. Founder of the UniverSoul Circus, shares his journey from producing gospel plays to creating a globally recognized, culturally rich circus experience. He discusses the inspiration behind the circus, the challenges he faced, the importance of representation, and the evolution of the show. The conversation emphasizes family entertainment, cultural authenticity, and global talent development.