Podcasts about mckinsey

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Abhijit Sunil, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, where he leads flagship research programs on IT sustainability, sustainability management, and climate risk. Abhijit traces his remarkable journey from designing robotics labs at IIT Bombay to consulting at Ericsson and McKinsey, before landing at Forrester where a flood of client questions about data center efficiency set him on the path to sustainability research. He shares how volunteering as a teacher in Mumbai's slums profoundly shaped his worldview—giving him a lens for seeing optimization and sustainability as deeply human issues, not just technical ones. Tammy and Abhijit also dig into the double-edged nature of AI, from its staggering energy demands to its extraordinary potential to democratize access, and why the answer to almost every big question in sustainability lives somewhere in the Goldilocks zone between extremes.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATA.Links: Abhijit Sunil Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The world is shifting from asset light and infinitely scalable to asset heavy. Across the globe, trillions of dollars are going into assets. Capital expenditure is on the rise. What is driving this? What sectors are we seeing it in? What are the challenges and bottlenecks companies face in delivering on CapEx programs? And how do new technologies and approaches to talent overcome this? Our guest is Erikans Kok, Senior Partner at McKinsey where he leads their Capital Excellence Practice globally. For related content and to find out more about HC Group, a search firm dedicated to the energy & commodities sector, visit https://www.hcgroup.global

Chat_UP is Unofficial Partner's AI series created in collaboration with TFG Labs.The brief: cut through the AI firehose, work out what matters, and bring it back to the business of sport. Three stories this week.Story One — Google I/O 2026Google used its developer conference to reposition from "a search company that does AI" to an AI infrastructure company. Headlines: Gemini 3.5, Gemini Omni (real-time processing) and Gemini Spark, a proactive always-on agent that brings agents to search. Plus "Ask YouTube" — pulling answers out of videos rather than watching them.Why it matters for sport: if fans send agents to fetch scores and highlights rather than searching themselves, the SEO-built internet shifts under everyone's feet. It raises hard questions for the sponsorship measurement economy (it's an agent engaging, not a fan) and for anyone building on someone else's land — Google can devote a team to your idea and eat your company. Andy's takeaway: get your house in order, own and structure your own data so you can switch foundation models at will.Story Two — The End of the AI Subsidy Era?A cluster of cost stories: Microsoft cancelled internal Claude Code licenses over token-based billing, Uber reportedly burned through its 2026 AI budget in four months, and US AI software prices jumped 20–37% in six months. Is the bill finally landing?Why it matters: SaaS-era seat pricing is breaking down as agentic systems do the work of many. The in-housing dream — replacing agencies with "two smart people and a model" — looks shakier once you absorb the price volatility the vendor used to carry. For low-margin, high-volume businesses (betting being the obvious one), a few percentage points on cost-per-inference is existential, not a line-item. Andy's counter: much of this can run locally on open-source models, and Chinese models are catching up fast at a tenth of the price.Story Three — Bryson DeChambeau & the Athlete CreatorThe golfer-turned-YouTuber, in contract talks with LIV, is a proxy for the athlete-creator question. He's been on the AI train for years — using and then leading an eight-figure acquisition of AI coaching start-up Sportsbox AI.Why it matters: the collapse of production cost liberates the wannabe Brysons, but the real change is top-line — launching clothing lines, apps and realistic content without occupying an athlete's training time. The deeper thread is disintermediation: leagues being routed around by their own star athletes, and the old rights-holder puzzle of making space for personalities while selling exclusive TV deals.About the co-hostAndy Shora leads TFG Labs. His background is QuantumBlack, McKinsey and BCG Gamma — a wealth of experience from outside sport, brought to bear on the sector.About TFG LabsTFG Labs is the innovation engine of TFG (formerly 21st Group), a business evolving from data-and-insights into an "augmented intelligence" company serving sports organisations. Labs was set up to get ahead of AI and build practical agentic systems that solve real problems in sport — deliberately not chasing the hype cycle.Got questions or voice notes? Send them to Richard via the Unofficial Partner Substack newsletter.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner' on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you're interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Kate Lowry was fresh out of college and working at McKinsey when she saw a colleague do something she believed was seriously wrong -- something that could constitute blackmail, with another employee's ability to stay in the country hanging in the balance. Her instinct was immediate and absolute: this is wrong, and I'm going to tell everyone. She reported it and criticized the person sharply in reviews. Episode page for video, links, and more It backfired. She got marked down for not being a "team player" and carried that mark on her record for the rest of her time at the firm. The lesson Kate draws isn't that she should have stayed silent. It's that good intentions and zeal are not the same as effective action. The best ways to help people, she found, are often more sophisticated -- and when you're up against sophisticated actors who hold power over you, you need to bring equal sophistication. Kate is a CEO coach, venture capitalist, and author of Unbreakable: How to Thrive Under Fear-Based Leaders. In this episode, she and host Mark Graban get into the difference between high standards and fear-based leadership, why psychological safety is about mutual trust rather than comfort, and how the quiet, "West Coast nice" version of fear-based leadership is harder to spot than the cartoonish yelling kind. Kate also explains her concept of reading a leader's "emotional age" to predict their behavior, and offers practical tactics for anyone stuck under a leader who rules through fear.

A conversation from years earlier still stands out to Bruno Annicq. While working at AOL, he was supporting business leaders and helping tell the story of the business through data and analytics. Then a senior executive, Holly Hess, approached him with an unexpected suggestion: Why not become the CFO of AOL's platforms business?Annicq's reaction was immediate. “Wait, me? Are you sure?” he recalls. Until that moment, he had never envisioned himself as a finance leader. Hess, however, saw something different—a broad skill set developed through engineering studies, consulting at McKinsey, and operational leadership roles inside AOL.That willingness to build capabilities outside a traditional finance path has shaped Annicq's career. He studied engineering not because he intended to become an engineer, but because he believed the skills would prove useful later. After McKinsey, he deliberately sought operational experience, joining AOL during a period of significant change that included Verizon's acquisition of the company and AOL's involvement in the Yahoo acquisition.Those experiences reinforced lessons about adaptability and uncertainty. They also sharpened a principle he continues to emphasize today: distinguishing the “important” from the “urgent.”As CFO of WellHub, Annicq applies that mindset to forecasting and capital allocation. Seeking greater precision, his team reimagined its forecasting process using multiple models inspired by the Windy weather application. The effort improved forecasting accuracy from roughly 10% error to 2%, Annicq tells us. More recently, the team expanded those capabilities with AI-powered tools, enabling greater forecasting depth across markets and customer segments.For Annicq, finance's strategic value is clear: better information creates the confidence to invest, move faster, and help the business grow.

Women Leaders Overcome Self-Doubt: The Power Quotient Framework That Changes Everything (2026) Executive Summary: 68% of women in tech experience imposter syndrome, yet most have never been taught to fight it strategically. Former IBM VP Shelmina Babai Abji shares her Power Quotient (PQ) framework — a proven system for silencing the inner critic, amplifying your voice of courage, and advancing your leadership career. Quick Takeaways: 68% of women in tech report imposter syndrome — tech is the most affected industry (Hays, 2025). Your "Power Quotient" (PQ) is the ability to intentionally choose an empowering response over a disempowering one. The voice of fear is doing its job — your job is to feed your voice of courage louder reasons to act. For every 100 men promoted to first manager, only 81 women make the same leap (McKinsey, 2025) — PQ is a competitive differentiator. Showing your worth is a continuous journey of competence, confidence, relationships, and personal branding — not a one-time event. Sixty-eight percent of women in tech experience imposter syndrome. Let that number land. That means more than two out of every three talented, qualified women sitting in engineering meetings, VP offices, and C-suite strategy sessions are secretly wondering if they belong there. And according to a KPMG survey of 750 female executives, 75% of senior women leaders have experienced imposter syndrome at some point in their careers — with 85% saying they believe it's widespread in corporate America. Yet almost no one teaches women what to do about it — strategically, systematically, and permanently. I'm Sabrina Braham, MA, MFT, PCC — executive leadership coach with over 30 years of experience, and host of the Women's Leadership Success Podcast, now with over 950,000 downloads and ranked in the top 1.5% of podcasts globally. In Episode 162, I sit down with Shelmina Babai Abji — TEDx speaker, former IBM Vice President, angel investor, and author of Show Your Worth — for one of the most powerful and practical conversations I've ever had on this podcast. Shelmina grew up in poverty in Tanzania, put herself through school across three countries, walked into a room of 2,000 engineers where no one looked like her, and still became one of the highest-ranking women of color in IBM's history — overseeing teams that generated over $1 billion in annual revenue. Her secret? A framework she calls the Power Quotient. If you're a woman leader in tech or any competitive industry who is battling negative mental chatter, fear of speaking up, or the relentless whisper that says you're not qualified enough — this episode is for you. Why Self-Doubt Is Hitting Women Leaders Harder Than Ever in 2026 The data tells a story that is urgent and personal. A 2025 Hays survey of more than 8,000 professionals found that 68% of women in tech experience imposter syndrome — and that approximately one-third say these feelings grow more intense as their careers advance, not less. Tech is now the single most-affected industry in the entire workforce. This is not a personal failing. It is a structural reality. As Shelmina describes it, when you look around a room and see no one who looks like you, no one who sounds like you, no one who grew up like you — your brain does exactly what it is designed to do: it searches for evidence that you belong, finds little, and generates doubt. "I walked into a room of 2,000 engineers," Shelmina recalls, "and I realized there was not one person that looked like me. Not one person that spoke like me. And I started undermining my own capabilities, underestimating my own worth." The compounding problem is this: according to the McKinsey Women in the Workplace 2025 report, women represent 49% of entry-level employees — yet by the time you reach the C-suite, fewer than 29% of those seats belong to women. For every 100 men promoted to their first manager role, only 81 women make the same leap. The "broken rung" is real, and self-doubt is one of the forces that keeps it broken. The cost of unchecked self-doubt is not just personal — it is organizational. Women who silence themselves in meetings, decline stretch assignments, or step back from promotions because they do not feel "ready" are costing their companies their most strategic asset: authentic, experienced, high-EQ leadership. The good news? Shelmina's own career is proof that the cycle can be broken — and the tool she used is available to every woman listening right now. Introducing the Power Quotient (PQ): Your Most Underused Leadership Asset Most leaders are familiar with IQ (intellectual intelligence) and EQ (emotional intelligence). Shelmina introduces a third: PQ — Power Quotient. "We own the power to intentionally pick an empowering response to a disempowering stimulus, whether that stimulus is internal or external. That's your PQ. And the internal stimulus must be taken care of first, before we can fight the external." This is not a motivational concept. It is a cognitive framework with three operating principles: PQ Principle 1: Recognize the Voice of Fear — Without Obeying It The voice of fear is not your enemy. It is doing exactly what it evolved to do: keep you in your comfort zone. The moment you recognize that the whisper saying "they'll find out you don't belong" is just a voice — not a fact — you reclaim agency over it. Shelmina's turning point came during her first year at a major tech employer. She was sitting in a meeting, holding back an idea. Then she watched someone else state her exact idea — and receive praise for it. "That was the first time I recognized that my ideas do matter," she says. "And once I had that inner victory, everything changed." Try This Now: The next time you catch yourself editing an idea before you say it, ask: "Is this my voice of fear or my voice of courage speaking?" Name it. That naming alone is the beginning of PQ. PQ Principle 2: Feed Your Voice of Courage With Reasons Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting despite fear — and it grows when you actively give it ammunition. Shelmina calls this "feeding your voice of courage," and it is a deliberate, intentional practice. In her case, the reason was visceral: "If I didn't speak up, they would not extend my visa. My dream of lifting my family out of poverty would be over." That reason was more powerful than her fear. Your reason does not need to be that dramatic — but it does need to be real to you. Effective reasons to feed your voice of courage include: The impact your idea could have on your team or clients The career advancement that depends on your visibility The women who will follow in your footsteps if you blaze this trail The competencies you will build only by speaking up and stretching PQ Principle 3: Make Your Voice of Courage Louder Than Your Voice of Fear This is the practice. Not silencing fear — but systematically amplifying courage until it drowns fear out. "I made my voice of courage louder than my voice of fear," Shelmina says, "by feeding it reasons why I should do something, as opposed to reasons why I shouldn't." This maps directly to what 2026 executive presence research identifies as the core of leadership gravitas: decisiveness under pressure and emotional self-regulation. Leaders who can redirect internal narratives in high-stakes moments are the ones who get promoted, trusted, and retained. How to Show Your Worth Without Waiting to Be Noticed One of the most actionable insights from Shelmina's work is this: showing your worth is not self-promotion. It is a strategic practice of continuously positioning yourself to contribute higher and higher value — and then ensuring the right people have a front-row seat to that contribution. "Show your worth, in the context of my book, is the value you contribute towards the success of your organization," Shelmina explains. "The recognition that I have something to contribute is the beginning of understanding your worth. And then the journey is: how do I continuously position myself to contribute more?" This has four dimensions that mirror 2026's most sought-after leadership competencies: Competencies — continuously building the skills that drive organizational outcomes Confidence — the deep-seated self-trust that comes from doing hard things and surviving them Relationships — intentionally building the four key relationships (boss, peers, mentors, sponsors — covered in Part II) Personal branding — ensuring your value is visible, not just felt Worth is not static. It is not something you either have or you don't. "The more competent you become," Shelmina says, "the higher the value you create." It is a compounding cycle — and it begins the moment you decide your ideas matter. Overcoming Negative Mental Chatter: A Framework for Women in Tech Negative mental chatter — the constant inner voice of "I'm not smart enough, I'll sound stupid, they'll find out" — is the presenting symptom of an unchecked voice of fear. Shelmina identifies it as the single biggest barrier she sees in her work with women leaders, and she is specific about how to address it. Step 1: Externalize It Treat negative mental chatter the way you would treat a notification on your phone: notice it, acknowledge it, then decide whether to engage. The chatter loses power the moment you observe it rather than inhabit it. Step 2: Name the Fear Underneath Is it fear of failure? Fear of judgment? Fear of stepping outside your comfort zone? Fear of being seen as someone who doesn't belong? Naming the specific fear collapses it from a fog into a manageable object. You can work with a named fear. You cannot work with a fog. Step 3: Reframe the Outcome "There is no such thing as failure," Shelmina says. "There are only various degrees of success." Every stretch assignment, every meeting where you spoke up and it didn't land perfectly, every project that didn't go as planned — these are data....

AI is blowing up McKinsey's old billable-hours model and forcing elite consultancies to charge for real outcomes, not 300-page decks. We break down why clients want results-based fees, how JPMorgan and Goldman are using AI to cut “gatekeeper” roles, and why true operators now have the leverage.

Send us Fan MailBCG interviews typically start 3–4 weeks after the application deadline – and deadlines are here. Tauseef Charanya spent 10 years at BCG – half consulting, half building AI products globally. He's done 300+ interviews and has seen strong candidates miss offers for the same reasons, over and over.In this episode, he breaks down the 3 mistakes that hurt otherwise solid BCG candidates, why doing more cases without feedback makes you worse, and the 4-step system that gets you BCG-ready.You'll learn:Why memorizing frameworks won't cut it – and what BCG interviewers are actually looking forHow BCG's candidate-led format differs from McKinsey and how to prep for itThe skill sequence that gets candidates offer-ready in 22 cases, not 100+Why the BCG internship deserves the same urgency as full-time recruitingResources:Ready to close the gap before deadlines? Book a free 15-minute consult with KatieWant the structured system Tauseef describes? Explore Black BeltBook a 1:1 session with TauseefFree Consulting Prep Just Got a Whole Lot BetterCreate a free MC account for access to step-by-step learning pathways, a brand new case prep course, and more. Download the MC app to prep anywhere.Connect With Management ConsultedCreate a free MC account or download the MC app (Apple, Android) to start your prep todaySchedule a free 15min consultation with the MC TeamWatch the video version of the podcast on YouTubeFollow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTokJoin an upcoming live event – case interviews demos, expert panels, and more

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!Just released, ICSC and McKinsey do a deep dive in a new report, “Shopping in the age of AI: Redefining stores for a new era.” Spoiler alert: Agentic AI could drive up to $1 trillion in U.S. retail revenue by 2030.  Join Shelley and Stephanie Cegielski, Vice President of Public Relations and Industry Education at ICSC as they dig into the findings. Find out how speed of agentic adoption is outpacing most retail roadmaps and what happens when consumer expectations and spending behavior converge in an agentic powered marketplace. Meeting the expectations of highly informed consumers will rely on AI for everything from convenience to discovery. The big question? Are your retail operations ready? Listen and learn how to catch up to the future. Special Guest: Stephanie Cegielski, Vice President, Public Relations & Industry Education of ICSCFor more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from Robin Lewis and other retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

How to navigate friendship at work without losing the relationship, with Brooke TaylorShe's your lunch buddy, your Slack confidante, your person at work. But what happens when boundaries get blurry, or you start sensing competition where there used to be camaraderie? Workplace friendships between women are some of the most meaningful connections we form as adults, and some of the most complicated to maintain.In this episode, Danielle sits down with executive career coach and former Google marketing lead Brooke Taylor to tackle three of the most common questions women ask about navigating friendship at work. They dig into why mismatched expectations between "colleagues first" and "friends first" cause so much friction, how the success wound fuels jealousy and comparison with the women closest to you, and what happens when entrepreneur friendships blur the line between support and strategy-sharing.

Jörgen Wigh, CEO of Lagercrantz Group Jörgen Wigh has been CEO of Lagercrantz Group (STO: LAGR-B) for over 20 years. In that time he completed 90+ acquisitions, built a portfolio of 85 niche B2B companies, and delivered 15 consecutive years of record earnings per share. No capital raises. No forced integration. No exits. The Nordic compounder model has quietly outperformed global markets for decades, and Lagercrantz is one of the longest-running, most disciplined examples of it in operation. In Part 1 of 2, Jörgen walks through the deal model behind that track record.   What You'll Learn How Lagercrantz finds companies that are not for sale, and why the first call almost never closes a deal How Jörgen pushes for exclusivity in weeks when most sellers are running a banker-led process The earnout structure Jörgen uses to keep founders motivated for three years after signing What he says when PE shows up at 11x and the seller is tempted to take the bigger check Why founders walk away from more money for legacy preservation, and the conversation that earns it How to close 8 to 12 deals a year without breaking pricing discipline If you are holding pricing discipline against private equity and want to know whether your team would do the same, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, runs the M&A Competency Assessment so you can benchmark deal judgment before the next term sheet. ____________________ This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom. DealRoom just automated Pipeline Management with AI so you can spend less time updating deals, and more time working them.  Automatically push deal context from Outlook to DealRoom Pipeline and use AI to keep deal target data and tasks updated, so follow-ups never slip through the cracks. No manual logging. No stale pipeline data. See for yourself at dealroom.net/pipelineai ____________________ Episode Chapters [00:00] Introduction [05:48] Jörgen's path: analyst, McKinsey, and the Bergman & Beving spinout [07:00] Coming back as CEO in 2006 and rebuilding from scratch [09:21] Buy and hold, forever: how the model actually works [11:21] What makes a company worth buying (and what kills it) [12:28] A real deal: helicopter deck safety systems [13:52] Who sells to Lagercrantz, and why [15:44] The only two things Lagercrantz adds: energy and structure [20:17] Finding companies that are not for sale [22:36] When the banker shows up: getting exclusivity early [23:55] Holding the line at 4-8x EBITDA when PE bids 11x [25:09] The legacy preservation pitch that wins without matching price [33:38] Earnouts that keep founders motivated for three years [36:17] Running 85 companies with 22 people at HQ [36:46] The only three functions Lagercrantz centralizes [37:57] The annual MD conference and the peer network behind it [40:13] 8 to 12 deals a year, one a month

Kevin Hettrich walked into a conference room with a whiteboard full of numbers and a problem no one had fully articulated. QuantumScape's leadership team was discussing how to scale an expensive R&D tool used to produce early battery materials. Hettrich had spent two weeks gathering data, talking with engineers, and analyzing manufacturing economics. Then he laid out the comparison: QuantumScape's current performance, the best anyone had achieved in any industry, and what would ultimately be required to succeed in automotive production. There were “six orders of magnitude” separating the industry benchmark from what the company would eventually need, Hettrich tells us.That moment became an early proving ground for a finance leader who had entered QuantumScape from a background shaped by McKinsey & Company, Bain Capital, and Stanford's joint business and engineering program. Rather than staying confined to finance, Hettrich immersed himself in the company's technical environment. He tells us he would contribute to at least one patent application each year and spent time “changing targets out of that tool” and mixing chemicals alongside engineers.The broader strategy behind QuantumScape has remained equally ambitious. The company's goal is not incremental improvement, but batteries that are “smaller and lighter,” “faster charging,” “longer lived,” “safer,” and “lower cost at the same time,” Hettrich tells us. Today, the company has commercial partnerships with Volkswagen and collaborations with Corning and Murata Manufacturing as it works to commercialize its solid-state battery platform.

 Y si el mayor enemigo de tu éxito no es la competencia — eres tú mismo?Rafael "Rafy" Irizarry Rodríguez lleva 20 años transformando organizaciones en cuatro industrias distintas — energía, aeroespacial, dispositivos médicos y salud. Ingeniero, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Caribbean Business 40 Under 40, certificado por McKinsey — y el hombre que me enseñó a liderar sin saberlo cuando trabajamos juntos en GE Energy¿Quieres ser parte de la Ruta Ganadora? Agenda tu llamada GRATIS con Carlos para que veas de qué se trata y cómo puede cambiar el rumbo de tu vida.

This week on the podcast, we welcome Heather Stefanski, Chief Learning and Development Officer at McKinsey & Company. We explore how organizations like McKinsey are reimagining employee development for the age of AI, shifting learning into the flow of work, focusing on systems and purposeful apprenticeships, and embedding L&D directly into workflow design. You'll also hear all about the evolving skill sets for L&D teams and the importance of updating how we measure development. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...00:00 Integrating development into AI assistants04:49 Heather's role at McKinsey08:32 Developing skills in the workplace16:08 Designing developmental workflows with AI24:56 Understanding skill proficiency levels26:25 Building agentic development solutions30:53 Assessing AI proficiency levels33:18 Future skills focus at McKinsey42:55 AI in performance evaluations53:13 Using AI for feedback and reviewRethinking Language: Why Development Surpasses TrainingOne of the first shifts Heather Stefanski identifies is a deliberate move away from talking about “training” or even just “learning.” Instead, McKinsey centers its L&D strategy on development, a more holistic approach that encompasses formal programs, feedback mechanisms, leadership modeling, and real-time experiences in the flow of work.For McKinsey, development is inseparable from business outcomes, and employee development is critical to the firm's value proposition. This means McKinsey designs work intentionally to be developmental, combining upskilling, leadership building, and project experiences into a seamless ecosystem.Purposeful ApprenticeshipHeather discusses embedding rituals, such as performance check-ins and feedback sessions, directly into core workflows to build a system grounded in purposeful practices. By standardizing these rituals, McKinsey can even quantify the impact of great teachers on advancement, and L&D becomes part of organizational culture rather than a siloed function.The New Learning Tech StackOne of the most exciting transformations is McKinsey's ongoing work to blend learning seamlessly into technology-enabled workflows. Rather than relying solely on traditional LMS platforms, McKinsey is embedding learning designers into business teams that are building agentic workflows—AI-powered systems that guide, prompt, and provide real-time feedback as employees work.AI agents are being designed to do more than just increase productivity. Heather emphasizes that agents should also foster professional development by challenging users, prompting reflective questions, and offering immediate coaching. This shift pushes L&D professionals to evolve their skills, requiring fluency not just in instructional design but in data analysis and collaborative workflow engineering.What Skills Do Employees Still Need?As AI tools automate routine tasks, think aligning PowerPoint columns or data cleanup, McKinsey is strategically deciding what to stop teaching, redirecting focus to what keeps the firm distinctive: problem solving, judgment, metacognition, systems thinking, and authentic leadership. Purposeful abandonment of now-obsolete skills is as vital as doubling down on those that matter, ensuring development keeps pace with the shifting demands of knowledge work. Resources & People MentionedLisa Christensen on LinkedIn mckinsey.comCursorCLO Lift Group Connect with Heather StefanskiHeather Stefanski at McKinsey & Company Heather Stefanski on LinkedIn Connect With RedThread ResearchWebsite: RedThread ResearchOn LinkedInSubscribe to WORKPLACE STORIES

Early in my time as an Executive Pastor, we were about halfway through what felt like a defining campaign for our church. And I was frustrated. Every time we met with our campaign consultant, they showed up with a binder (this was back in the 1900s) and we would turn pages to whatever was next. Cookie-cutter strategy. No real interest in who we were or what God was doing in our community. We fired them halfway through. Cost us real money and time. A decade or so later, I was part of another campaign. Completely different experience. That consultant is still a friend today. We started as workmates and became something more because we drew swords together through the whole thing. Reflecting on those two experiences over the years, across three fast-growing churches (two of which grew from under 1,000 to 4,000 or 5,000 people) and through multiple campaigns of various sizes, one thing has become clear: what makes the difference isn’t the firm you hire. It’s what you and I bring to the table. That first campaign? I was looking to the consultant for too much. I hadn’t thought carefully enough about what we needed to bring. These firms are coaches. Coaches can only do so much when the athletes aren’t doing the reps. Here are 10 things your church must bring to the table in your next capital campaign, whether you call it a generosity initiative, a spiritual growth season, or a building program. 1. Clarity of Vision Before You Talk About Money Research consistently confirms what experienced fundraisers already know: people give to impact, not to organizational need. Penelope Burk’s Cygnus Applied Research donor surveys, conducted annually with up to 25,000 active U.S. donors, found that 67% of donors increasingly favor organizations that provide measurable results, and roughly half report they’re not giving at their full potential simply because they lack information about where the impact actually lands. [ref] Yale’s Center for Customer Insights confirmed in 2024 that aspirational, vision-driven framing significantly outperforms need-based asks in generating donor response. [ref] For churches, the translation is practical: “We need a new roof” raises less money than “We’re building a home for the next generation of faith in our city.” The question worth sitting with is whether the average person in your congregation can explain your vision in a single sentence, and whether that vision is genuinely bigger than the campaign itself. If your church is fuzzy on what God is uniquely calling you toward, you are not ready. The campaign is just the next step out of a clear vision. Without that clarity established first, the campaign will underperform regardless of the firm you bring in. 2. Leadership Alignment at the Top When campaigns underperform, the culprit is almost never the economy, the giving culture of your congregation, or the consultant. In my experience, it’s misalignment at the senior leadership level, and the research on this is hard to argue with. Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management research, now in its 12th edition and spanning 25 years across more than 10,800 professionals globally, has found that active and visible executive sponsorship is the single #1 contributor to initiative success in every benchmarking study since 1998. Campaigns with effective senior sponsors succeed 79% of the time; those without that alignment drop to 27%. [ref] McKinsey’s global survey data found that transformations are 12.4 times more likely to succeed when senior leaders communicate continually, and 47% of executives who had been through a major transformation wished they had spent more time aligning their top team before the launch. [ref] Your campaign consultant cannot create unity. That work belongs to you. Senior leadership team members and elders who are privately skeptical before the campaign goes public will erode trust once the pressure arrives, and the pressure always arrives. Getting that alignment sorted before you move is one of the most important things you can do, and it’s entirely on your shoulders. 3. A Willingness to Actually Do the Work Here’s something worth saying plainly: most capital campaign firms follow a nearly identical strategy. There’s a leadership phase, a core donor phase, a volunteer phase, a public phase, a pledge weekend, and follow-up. You could ask an AI to outline any firm’s likely approach and have a reasonable answer in about 10 minutes. The strategy isn’t what separates campaigns that transform churches from campaigns that disappoint them. Execution is. McKinsey’s global transformation data tells a similar story: only 26% of major organizational transformations actually succeed. [ref] Think about it like my Peloton. The instructor can give me a plan, show me the gauges, compare my output to other riders, and tell me exactly what to do. She cannot make me get on the bike and push hard. That part is entirely on me. A campaign running in parallel with normal ministry operations is essentially asking your team to do two full-time jobs simultaneously. Budget your team’s capacity honestly before you start, and make structural space for your people to actually execute the work the campaign requires. 4. A Culture of Repetition Behavioral science is consistent on this: people need to hear a message many times before it moves them to action. The old “rule of 7” from marketing turns out to be folklore with no traceable original source, and research suggests the real threshold is higher. Schmidt and Eisend’s 2015 meta-analysis in the Journal of Advertising found that peak attitude change happens at around 10 exposures. [ref] In a world of increasing distraction, that number is almost certainly climbing. At one church I was part of, I counted how many times the lead pastor repeated the core campaign message before the first public Sunday. The answer was 23. That’s not overkill. That’s how transformation actually works. Leaders get tired of the message long before the congregation does. Your congregation is always further behind than you think they are. The leaders who succeed in this season are the ones who lock in their messaging early and walk it out consistently, without flinching when it starts to feel repetitive to them personally. 5. Strong Engagement with Key Donors Before the Campaign Launches I don’t know your church, but I can predict with reasonable confidence that close to 50% of your church’s donations come from roughly 10% of your people. The AFP Fundraising Effectiveness Project, covering 12,000+ nonprofits and 6.7 million donors, found that just 3.1% of donors contributed 77.7% of all fundraising dollars in 2024. [ref] Industry benchmarks suggest 80 to 90% of a campaign goal comes from the top 10 to 20 gifts. The biggest checks come from the smallest rooms. If you have done little or no relational investment with your top-tier donors before you start thinking about a campaign, you are already behind. Early donor conversations are not about pressure; they are about invitation. These are your most generous people. Giving them the privilege of early connection, of being brought into what God is doing before the rest of the congregation hears about it, is not a fundraising tactic. It’s honoring a relationship. Start building that now, well before you need anything from them. 6. A Real Follow-Up Plan Here is something that can quietly sink a campaign before it ever goes public: pledges that never get followed up on. Well-managed capital campaigns actually have strong fulfillment rates. The follow-up process is what converts a signed pledge card into a fulfilled gift over time. Before you go public, map out your entire follow-up phase: regular donor communications, pledge reminders, giving statements, and a clear plan for when someone falls behind. One practical contract note worth flagging: make sure your agreement with your campaign consultant keeps them engaged through the follow-up phase, not just through Pledge Sunday. Campaigns that struggle with fulfillment almost always lose their way in exactly this stretch. 7. Financial and Operational Readiness Plan to spend somewhere in the range of 3 to 5% of your total campaign goal on the campaign itself, covering communications, events, materials, and video production. Most churches underbudget this category significantly. Running a campaign well requires real financial investment. The operational issue that almost took us down was different, though: our giving infrastructure wasn’t ready for a surge. In one campaign I was leading, I had a conversation with our finance team the morning of our public launch. “Are we ready?” I asked. “Yeah, yeah, we’re ready,” they said. I think part of them didn’t genuinely believe we’d see what we were hoping for. We were targeting over a million dollars in a single day. We hit it. And then our payment processor shut us down because we hadn’t prepared for a transaction volume that size. The friction in your systems is costing you generosity that’s already there, from people who were ready to give. Test your systems with your processor before launch day, and know your transaction limits before you run into them at the worst possible moment. 8. Emotional and Spiritual Resilience Leaders who have been through campaigns almost universally surface the same surprise: the internal relational strain was harder than they expected. When resources get focused on specific ministry areas, other leaders can feel overlooked or left out. Add the extra workload, the high stakes, and the spiritual opposition that tends to accompany anything of real Kingdom significance, and you have a reliable recipe for team fracture if you’re not paying attention. A campaign doesn’t create those pressures; it amplifies whatever is already present. Building in regular rhythms of prayer, celebration, and genuine rest throughout the entire season matters more than most leaders plan for. A friend of mine who recently finished a significant campaign took a real vacation between the core donor phase and the public phase. He went to Mexico and unplugged completely. Looking back, he said he doesn’t think he could have led the public phase well without it. That kind of intentional recovery isn’t optional; it’s what makes the second half of the campaign possible. 9. A Plan for the Dip Moments Many churches experience a drop in weekend attendance during a campaign season, and too many leaders take it personally or treat it as a sign that the campaign is going sideways. It’s predictable. Research on organizational transitions documents a well-established pattern: performance and engagement typically dip during major change before recovering and eventually surpassing prior levels. Researchers call this the Productivity J-Curve. [ref] When you’re in a big campaign, some people feel the weight of a vision Sunday and take a step back for a few weeks. Most of them come back. Some won’t. Rather than spiraling when the dip arrives, focus your energy on what comes after: a strong re-engagement plan for the weeks following your public ask. Also worth planning for financially: total operational giving can dip slightly during a campaign season, even in a one-fund model. Some operational giving temporarily redirects. It doesn’t always happen, but building a budget that accounts for it protects you from making reactive decisions mid-campaign based on a short-term fluctuation that was always predictable. 10. Full Ownership of the Outcome No consultant, regardless of how experienced or gifted, can deliver this for you. The churches that see campaigns change their trajectory are the ones whose leaders own the outcome completely. They don’t engage a firm and hand off the responsibility. They understand the consultant’s role clearly: someone who comes alongside to coach them through a process they are running themselves. Research on coaching outcomes gives this some weight. Olivero, Bane, and Kopelman found that training alone increased productivity by 22.4%, but training combined with coaching increased it by 88%, nearly four times the gain. [ref] The difference between those two numbers comes down to ownership and active application. Coaching works because the person being coached has to do the work themselves. You are not paying someone to run your campaign. You are paying someone to coach you while you run it. Feel that difference before you sign anything. The campaigns I’ve seen genuinely transform churches had one thing in common: the senior leader and the Executive Pastor were fully in. They treated the outcome as theirs. That posture, more than any strategy or any firm, is what makes the difference. One last thing before you start calling firms: walk through these 10 areas honestly with your senior leader and your key staff. Figure out where you’re strong and where you have real work to do before a consultant ever walks in the door. The campaigns that go well aren’t ones where the consultant was exceptional. They’re the ones where the church was ready.

What if the same symptoms we see in combat veterans — the broken sleep, the irritability, the brain fog — were already quietly spreading through the healthiest, highest-performing people you know?In this episode of Health Longevity Secrets, Robert Lufkin MD sits down with Neil Markey — a former US Army Special Operations captain from the 75th Ranger Regiment turned McKinsey consultant, now the co-founder and CEO of Beckley Retreats and a Harvard Chan School student researching psychedelic-assisted integrated health. Neil walks us through his own journey out of post-combat trauma, the neuroscience of why psilocybin opens a rare window of neuroplasticity in the adult brain, and why he believes this work belongs upstream as preventative medicine for the well.CHAPTERS:00:00 — Introduction02:34 — From Mathlete to 75th Ranger Regiment02:50 — Iraq, WMDs, and the Pretense of War03:16 — Two Afghanistan Tours as a Ranger Captain07:14 — How Meditation Reached Him First11:49 — The Peer Group Where Everyone Was Secretly Breaking12:25 — Why the Environment Always Wins15:15 — The Neuroplasticity Window Psychedelics Open17:18 — Amanda Feilding and the Beckley Foundation18:20 — Why Set and Setting Decide the Outcome20:58 — The Fresh Snowfall Metaphor for the Brain24:09 — Preventative Medicine for the Well, Not Just the Broken32:18 — The Real Safety Profile of Psilocybin33:27 — Beckley as a Public Benefit Corporation39:38 — Bringing Rigor at Harvard Chan40:12 — Jamaica, the Netherlands, and the US Legal Path45:04 — A Green Beret's Son Finally Came to Him46:34 — Why Awe Beats BurnoutKEY TAKEAWAYS:• Psilocybin opens a measurable window of neuroplasticity in the adult brain• Set, setting, and integration determine outcomes far more than the compound itself• Psilocybin is non-toxic with low incident rates when used in controlled environments• The "betterment of the well" use case may be as transformative as clinical treatment• Oregon and Colorado have legalized supervised use; New Mexico and Massachusetts are next• Chronic stress in high-performers replicates many PTSD-like symptoms• Awe, empathy, and connection are measurable outcomes — and they beat burnoutSTUDIES & SOURCES MENTIONED:• Neil Markey — Beckley Retreats (use code LUFKIN for 10% off)• Beckley Foundation — Amanda Feilding's psychedelic research institute• Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris — UCSF Psychedelics Division• Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research• Oregon Psilocybin Services — first US regulated program• JAMA Psychiatry meta-analysis on psilocybin for depression (2023)• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health⭐ Enjoying the show? Please leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts — it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the science of health and longevity. Thank you!New episodes every Tuesday & Thursday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.Continue this conversation on Substack: https://robertlufkinmd.substack.comLies I Taught In Medical School — Free sample chapter: https://www.robertlufkinmd.com/lies/Web: https://www.robertlufkinmd.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/robertlufkinmdX: https://x.com/robertlufkinmdInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertlufkinmd/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@robertlufkinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertlufkinmd/

In this episode, Kimberly Snyder and Brooke Taylor explore the deep roots of success related struggles, sharing insights on how cultural and intergenerational beliefs shape our worth. Brooke's practical-spiritual approach offers tools to align your ambitions with your authentic self, ending the cycle of never feeling enough.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Success Wound02:54 Cultural Influences on Self-Worth05:58 The Archetypes of Success Wound09:02 The Grinder and the Pleaser12:04 The Hider and the Impact of Motherhood15:06 Navigating Ambition and Personal Power18:08 Finding Your North Star19:32 The Journey of Writing and Self-Discovery22:05 Navigating Vulnerability and Intentions in Publishing25:49 The Archetypes of Success and Their Impact29:30 Healing the Success Wound: Emotional and Behavioral Strategies34:41 Finding Wholeness Through Connection and AbundanceSponsors: LMNTOFFER: Right now, for my listeners LMNT is offering a free sample pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD. That's 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT any LMNT drink mix purchase. This deal is only available through my link so. Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water.USE LINK: DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOODBrooke Taylor Resources: Book: Healing the Success Wound: Align Your Ambition, Find Lasting Career Fulfillment, and End the Cycle of Never-Enough Website: www.brooketaylorcoaching.comBio: Brooke Taylor is a globally recognized transformational career coach, keynote speaker, and the leading authority on a phenomenon she pioneered known as the “Success Wound™.” With a career that began in the high-pressure hallways of Silicon Valley, Brooke spent years as a Marketing Lead at Google, where she was honored with the Google Global Sales Award. Despite her outward accolades, she experienced firsthand the "manic ambition" and burnout that often plague high achievers, leading her to a profound personal transformation and the eventual founding of her coaching practice.Brooke's highly anticipated first book, "Healing the Success Wound" (published by Hachette, May 2026), which serves as a definitive guide for women to reclaim their identities from the "Success Wound". Today, Brooke is the secret weapon for executive women at the world's most influential firms, including Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Uber, Salesforce, Coinbase, and Meta. She has helped over 5,000 leaders decouple their self-worth from their achievements, allowing them to trade chronic burnout and workplace anxiety for a career rooted in deep fulfillment and sustainable power.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Show Notes: Lilly Minkove shares her background in brand and strategy consulting, focusing on retail, beauty, and wellness. She discusses her time at McKinsey, Tapestry, and Louis Vuitton, emphasizing her work in the luxury sector. Lilly explains her transition from the corporate world to running ArtLogica Group, a boutique consulting practice focused on customer insights. Introduction to HeraSphere Lilly talks about her interest in health and wellness, which eclipsed her work in retail and luxury. She recounts attending a longevity talk by Dr. Darshan Shah, which sparked her interest in tracking biomarkers and consumer insights. Lilly describes the inception of HeraSphere, a women's health newsletter translating healthcare innovations into plain English. She highlights the importance of women's health, especially for those in perimenopause or menopause, and how her consulting experience translates to this new focus. The Five Pillars of Health Lilly outlines the five pillars of health: exercise and muscle, sleep, nutrition, brain health, and connection. She emphasizes the importance of strength training, noting that muscle is an anti-aging metabolic organ. She discusses the benefits of muscle, including anti-inflammatory proteins, insulin resistance, and bone density protection. The Critical Role of Sleep Lilly explains the critical role of sleep in brain function, immune system, and overall health. She discusses the importance of regularity and quality of sleep, noting that even one night of sleep deprivation can significantly impact natural killer cell activity. Lilly shares tips for improving sleep quality, such as maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, avoiding alcohol, and using a sleep tracker. The conversation turns to the impact of stress and anxiety on sleep and the importance of winding down before bed. The Impact of Sugar on the Body Lilly highlights the negative effects of sugar on the body, including inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. She explains the concept of glucose spikes and how eating fiber, protein, and fat before carbohydrates can reduce their impact. Lilly emphasizes the importance of a diverse diet, recommending consuming 30 different types of plants and vegetables weekly and highlights the challenges of hidden sugars in processed foods. Maintaining Brain Health Lilly discusses the significance of brain health, noting that the brain consumes 20% of daily calories and requires continuous stimulation. She shares her experience with learning a new skill, cardio dance, and how it improves muscle memory and cognitive function. Lilly explains the link between midlife decisions and cognitive outcomes, emphasizing the importance of lifestyle measures in preventing Alzheimer's. Lilly elaborates on the benefits of keeping the brain active through learning and new skills. Community and Health Connection Lilly highlights the importance of social connections for overall health, citing a Harvard study on the mortality risk of social isolation. She discusses the decline of extended family households and the need for intentional efforts to maintain social connections. Lilly emphasizes the role of small interactions with people in the community in reducing loneliness and improving well-being. Lilly discusses the benefits of having a support system and the impact of feeling less isolated on health outcomes. The Complexity of the Wellness Industry Lilly explains her dual objectives: sharing knowledge with consumers and using consumer insights to inform her consulting practice. She offers services to help brands distill what their customers want and convey value effectively. Lilly highlights the complexity of the wellness industry and her expertise in understanding the female consumer. Measuring Health KPIs Lilly outlines key health metrics, starting with blood pressure and hemoglobin A1C, which measure metabolic efficiency and cardiovascular risk. She discusses C-reactive protein (CRP) as an indicator of systemic inflammation and its association with various diseases. Lilly explains fasting insulin and LDL cholesterol, noting their importance in measuring insulin resistance and cardiovascular health. She highlights the importance of bone density and body composition, recommending DEXA scans for accurate measurement. A Focus on Longevity Lilly discusses VO2 max, a measure of cardiovascular capacity and longevity, and the challenges of obtaining accurate measurements. She mentions the use of fitness trackers to estimate VO2 max and the benefits of regular monitoring. Lilly shares her personal practice of conducting twice-yearly health panels to track biomarkers and ensure overall well-being. Timestamps: 02:47: Transition to Women's Health and HeraSphere  06:48: Key Health Pillars: Exercise and Muscle  13:57: Sleep and Its Importance  23:57: Nutrition and Sugar Impact  29:53: Brain Health and Lifelong Learning  36:20: Connection and Social Support  38:32: Lilly's Services and Consumer Insights  41:08: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Health  47:04: Advanced Health Metrics and Longevity  Links:  HeraSphere newsletter: https://herasphere.beehiiv.com/ HeraSphere website: https://herasphere.beehiiv.com/p/herasphere-24-become-the-ceo-of-your-health Consulting practice website: https://artlogicagroup.com/ This episode on Umbrex:    Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com. *AI generated timestamps and show notes.  

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when a 33-year McKinsey career ends on Friday — and you're on an ice wall by Saturday afternoon?Tom French, author of The Gap Years: Climbing, Skiing, and the Journey Back, joins us to talk about trading his corporate corner office for crampons, summiting Everest under a full moon at 2:15 AM, and why it's never too late to reclaim the passions of your younger years.Tom's story begins with a childhood shaped by legendary mountaineer Willi Unsoeld — the first man to climb Everest's West Ridge — who literally taught Tom to climb at age eight. Decades later, after raising a family and building an elite business career, Tom didn't quietly retire. He launched a gap year that stretched into three and a half extraordinary years of ice climbing, cross-country ski marathons, and two Everest expeditions.We dig into his gripping turnaround at 26,000 feet on his first summit attempt, the remote Makalu Barun approach he took on his second, and what the emotional release at base camp — not the summit — truly taught him about achievement.If you've ever felt too busy, too old, or too settled to chase a dream, this episode is for you.Episode Links:Tom on InstagramTom's WebsiteBuy a copy of The Gap YearsThis episode was Produced by Jordyn Smith, follow her on Instagram @jordyn.journeysFollow us on Instagram, @HikesandmicsThis episode's music was created by Ketsa, follow him on Instagram @Ketsamusic AllTrails+I'm excited to share that I'm now a Trailheads Ambassador for AllTrails+! If you love exploring the outdoors, AllTrails+ is your ultimate adventure companion. Get offline maps, real-time wrong-turn alerts, and trail previews to help you hike smarter and safer. Plus, with 3D maps and deeper trail insights, planning your next trek has never been easier.Try AllTrails+ free for 7 days, and when you sign up using my referral link, you'll get 30% off your AllTrails+ membership!Sign up here: AllTrails+ (promo is only redeemable via web and not the app)Ursa Minor Outfitters - Inspired by the outdoors, Created by local artists Go check them at www.ursaminoroutfitters.com and don't forget to enter the promo code HikesMics10 at checkout to receive 10% off your order. 

The studies and articles aren't new. In fact, the first workplace gender research started in the 1960s and 1970s. Men and Women in the Corporation by Rosabeth Moss Kanter was considered one of the first academic studies on gender differences in work behavior and opportunity, and this was in 1977. This conversation is as old as me, but I would like to remind you that women at work is not a construct of the early world wars and industrial revolutions as you may have been taught. Women and men working together started with creation in Genesis 1. Men and women were created to work together. In Genesis 1:26-27, we see the beautiful work of unity in creation. Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every other creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. When we read the verses about creating man, he created both male and female in his own image. Not men exalted above women or women above men, but creation in his image, in unity. If we don't look to the beginning, it is easy to look at the ways that culture and society have created norms about work. The reality is these are not God's norms for men and women. The next verses in Genesis 1: 28-29 further frame God's plans for man and woman: And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' God gave man and woman an equal command to work in unity. You already know that once sin crept in, this unity was forever broken. Sin impacts this sacred creation in every way, and our cultural norms which have been forming since the 70s continue to impact how men and women work together. What does this sin look like within the context of work? What is causing the continued gender bias issues for women? The answer doesn't start with work; it really begins outside of the office and is part of the cultural and societal brokenness between men and women that has systematically and year after year found its way into our work. With my aim being unity between men and women as advocates to solve this issue, I wondered, who were the leading male voices for gender equality at work. One name that came up was Tony Porter. Tony is the founder and CEO of A Call to Men. He seeks to teach systemic change for between men and women in society. In an article published on his website, “Is your Organization Unintentionally Reinforcing Gender Bias at Work,” Tony states this, “…the workplace is a microcosm of society—a society where men and boys are collectively socialized to view women as objects, as property and as having less value than men.”[1] This blanket statement is not felt by all women, of course, but as a whole, it sums up that sin and the brokenness of not seeing men and women created equally in the image of God is at the root of the issues still facing women today. Fortunately and unfortunately, the Bible is full of cultural examples of both unity and brokenness between men and women. If we look at the Word of God, we will all struggle to understand some of the terrible injustices women faced including being taken by force into marriage, raped, and being cast out of society. Again, at the moment of the fall, the unity and sacred relationship between men and women fell, and it fell hard. But, for every hard-to-read passage of Scripture about injustices for women, there are beautiful examples of how God used women and work for the glory of his kingdom. Women played an important role in the formation of the early church where they not only served the disciples with hospitality but also provided money for the ministry and teaching of the good news to their families. The grandmother and mother of the disciple, Timothy, are mentioned by Paul. 2 Timothy 1:5 reads, I am reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, now lives in you also. Today we live in a culture not so different than biblical times. Women around the world still face terrible injustices, not only at work, but in society. Harassment, gender pay gaps, interviews and promotion biases all still exist, but there are people trying to drive change. Another name that came up as an advocate for women at work is the former CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman. He spoke about visiting a tea plantation where female workers were being abused or sexually harassed. When policies failed, he put female supervisors in place so that the women no longer needed to go to an unsafe work environment. This was within the last 5 years. What are some of the more nuanced impacts women face at work? In a Forbes Women article from May 15, 2025, by Eva Epker the continued gaps between men and women at work are highlighted. With parenting and caregiving still being a primary responsibility of the mother, a study found that three years after childbirth, 90% of fathers were in full-time work, versus only 27.8% of new moms. Another study noted 41% of female participants experience discrimination in a hiring process including gender-biased and inappropriate questions. Mental health and the lack of mentorship opportunities for women, continue to be part of this conversation.[2] These examples remind me of some data from the 2023 McKinsey study on “Women in the Workplace” that discussed the large impact microaggressions can have on women at work.[3] Microaggressions are defined as demeaning or dismissing comments or actions rooted in bias, directed at a person because of their gender, race, or other aspects of their identity. Women experience these more than men. For example, a woman is two times more likely to be interrupted in a meeting and spoken over than a male counterpart. We keep having the same conversations, and the results of the studies improve but not in a significant enough way to truly make change. One of my observations is that both secular and faith-based organizations often take a one-gender approach to gender biases. More specifically, women are talking to women about the lasting issues and implications about gender bias at work, and men are rarely part of this conversation. Working women, and more narrowly, Christian working women aren't having the conversations needed to redeem this sacred unity at work, and they aren't having them at church either. I have been to women's leadership conferences, both secular and faith based, and at only one was there a focus on women in the workplace where men were part of the discussion and workshops. This was a faith-based conference. I was able to find one opinion article in Time from July 18, 2023, titled “Modern Gender Equality Must Include Men.” The lead heading “Gender equality can only happen when women and men are advancing toward that goal together.”[4] Shelley Zalis conducted online research about men's attitudes and the results showed that 53% of men believe that workplaces in the US should be doing more to eliminate bias in the workplace. I agree that we need unity between men and women that lead to solutions. As Christian leaders, how do we work on this unity while at the same time navigate the current brokenness in the workplace for women, Christian or not? First, we need to remember we are called to address the issues of the poor and oppressed; we should not turn a blind eye to this matter. Isaiah 58:6-7 exhorts: Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Are you hiding yourself by simply being unaware? We are called to care. What are some of the ways we can continue this conversation? Perhaps shining a light on the benefits of women at work can be a start. Companies with gender-diverse leadership show an increase in average revenue. The McKinsey study notes that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams are 25 percent more likely to have above average profitability. Women have always been wise, and, as Christian leaders, we should tell these Bible stories about the working women God used for his kingdom. Perhaps these examples can inspire and show God's plans for women and work to others. And we can see how women and men worked together through their examples. Deborah was a judge and a leader. She worked in unity with Barak to go into war for Israel (Judges 4 & 5). Miriam was a leader of worship and worked in unity with Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel during the Exodus (Exodus 15). The Proverbs 31 woman embodies a long list of attributes that benefit her husband including: rising while it is still night to provide for her family, investing wisely, dressing well, being confident in her merchandise, caring for the poor, and being strong and wise. Mary was the first to see the resurrected Jesus and bring word to the male disciples (John 20). Lydia, in Acts chapter 16, was a seller of purple cloth and worked in unity with Paul to help the early church. This is not an exhaustive list! Women have always worked, and they have done so alongside men. I know most of you may not be in a place to share these examples of Bible stories as inspiration at work, but you can start this change within Christian spaces. Men and women can lead by sharing these examples of unity in God's plan with other Christians. We need to start having more conversations about how God used men and women in our faith-based spaces. We can explore these issues together to find ways to lean into and lead the change in our workplaces. Even if we cannot share the stories, we can share facts, and choose to engage: First, pay attention to the data and actually care about the data! All these studies include a what can we do about it section, and the advice centers around providing women resources to engage with including development, mentoring, counseling for stress, benefits that support caregiving, and more. Next, think about how you may be contributing to this issue as a man or a woman. Are you engaging in behavior that may be considered microaggression? Did you know that simply commenting on what another woman is wearing to work can impact her? Or assuming a female colleague's mental state or home situation? If we are honest, as women, we have absolutely contributed to our own issues with gender equality at work simply by tearing each other down. Most importantly, lead with love! As a believer in Jesus Christ, we are called to love our neighbors, and an easy love checklist is found in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Both women and men can act on this! For the women, engage in a conversation with men about this topic. For men, engage in a conversation with a woman on this topic. Let's lead by the biblical examples of unity! — [1] Kay, M. (2020, August 17). Is Your Organization Unintentionally Reinforcing Gender Bias at Work? A Call to Men. https://www.acalltomen.org/is-your-organization-unintentionally-reinforcing-gender-bias-at-work/ [2] Epker, E. (2025, May 14). What's Holding Back Working Women In 2025? Same Obstacles, More Anxiety. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/evaepker/2025/05/14/whats-holding-back-working-women-same-obstacles-more-anxiety/ [3] Mckinsey & Company. (2024). Women in the Workplace. McKinsey; McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace [4] Zalis, S. (2023, July 18). Modern Gender Equality Must Include Men. Time. https://time.com/6295453/modern-gender-equality-must-include-men/

“Our values are also meant to be adjectives.” – Brent RempeWelcome to episode 234 of The CUInsight Experience podcast with your hosts, Randy Smith, co-founder of CUInsight, and Jill Nowacki, President and CEO of Humanidei.This episode is sponsored by Trellance. Trellance is a leading technology partner for credit unions, delivering innovative technology solutions to help credit unions achieve more. With a comprehensive suite of analytics, cloud and talent solutions, the Trellance team ensures credit unions increase efficiency, manage risk, and improve member experience. Learn more here!In this new 2026 season, Jill and I will have conversations centered around leadership, credit unions, and living our best lives. We will have some of the most respected leaders from around credit unions who we are grateful to call friends join us in the discussion from time to time too.This week on the podcast, we are happy to welcome back Brent W. Rempe, President and CEO of First Alliance Credit Union. He joins us to discuss the importance of having and modeling values as a leader. Together, we talk about how values are often easy to name but much harder to put into operation, especially when leaders are faced with difficult decisions such as having to have accountability conversations, enact organizational change, and/or balance mission with financial realities.Listen in as Brent shares how his own values were shaped through early life experiences, Catholic social teaching, and years in the credit union movement, and how those influences continue to guide his leadership today as something that must be actively put into practice rather than just documented and/or stated. We also reflect on how values show up in real organizational work—how they are tested in moments of conflict, how they can be clarified via simple grounding questions, and how important it is to separate technical mistakes from deeper values misalignment.Throughout our conversation, we also challenge the idea that values belong solely on a wall or in a strategic plan and instead explore how they become real via consistent behavior, honest reflection, and accountability at every level of leadership—with Brent also walking us through how First Alliance redefined its mission, vision, and values via a collaborative, employee-driven process.Later, we talk about the very real tension between mission and margin, the importance of keeping things simple enough to remember, and why service must be more than a slogan if it's going to be at all meaningful. By the end of our conversation, we land on a shared truth: values are not what an organization claims but are what it does when no one is watching and when decisions get hard. Enjoy our conversation with Brent Rempe! Find the full show notes on cuinsight.com.Connect with Brent:Brent W. Rempe, C.E.O. & President of First Alliance Credit Unionfirstalliancecu.com Brent: LinkedInFirst Alliance Credit Union: LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTokSubscribe on: Apple Podcasts and SpotifyBooks mentioned on The CUInsight Experience podcast: Book ListShow notes from this episode:Sponsor: TrellanceTV series mentioned: The Lion GuardArticle mentioned: Harvard Business Review - “Building Your Company's Vision”Book mentioned: Good to Great by Jim CollinsShout-out: Jerry I. PorrasShout-out: Sam PlesterShout-out: Mission Brands ConsultingShout-out: Kristina KovacevicShout-out: Callahan & AssociatesBook mentioned: CEO Excellence by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, & Vikram MalhotraShout-out: McKinsey & CompanyShout-out: WEOKIE Federal Credit UnionBook mentioned: Callahan's Strategic Growth Framework by Jon JeffreysPrevious guests mentioned in this episode: Brent Rempe (#182); Oscar Porras (#23 & CUInsight Network episode)In This Episode:[2:30] - Brent reflects on how his values have been shaped by his mother's servant leadership, resilience, and community commitment.[4:32] - Formative experiences in Catholic social teaching and cooperative principles also guide how Brent applies his values as C.E.O.[6:46] - Brent believes that difficult offboarding decisions require balancing values and accountability despite personal emotional strain.[8:07] - Hear how, when challenges arise, Brent focuses on collective outcomes and addressing problems directly.[9:32] - Jill argues that alignment creates clarity, peace, and better self-awareness.[12:57] - Brent asserts that leadership is action demonstrated via accountability, humility, and choosing others' interests over your own.[16:28] - Jill argues that values only count when actually put into action and not just on paper.[18:16] - Collaborative, staff-driven renewal of values strengthens alignment with purpose and direction.[21:16] - Simple, employee-created values can build ownership, alignment, and stronger organizational performance.[23:25] - Hear how having too many values can actually do more harm than good.[25:07] - Brent agrees and adds that values must be few, memorable, and clearly structured so that employees can consistently recall and apply them.[27:04] - Brent treats people with grace and multiple chances but also has to make hard decisions when growth stops.[31:04] - It's important for community service to prioritize underserved members and not just meet basic expectations or performance metrics.[34:52] - Hear how Brent has aligned leadership evaluation with mission-driven excellence.[37:56] - Discover how Jill models consistency.[40:01] - Brent regards C.E.O. leadership as constantly reinforcing values while encouraging progress and connection and avoiding complacency.[41:47] - Brent and Jill believe that authenticity, consistency, and passion are components of great leadership.[42:19] - Brent reveals that routinely spending time with his son helps him stay grounded.Send us Fan Mail

Dylan is the founder of arcMacro, where he analyses macro and private markets. His previous roles include serving as an economist at Goldman Sachs and Rosenberg Research, and later as a private market consultant at McKinsey.  In this podcast, we discuss: The Hormuz Supply Shock Stagflation as the New Base Case AI Capex vs. Energy Headwinds A Hawkish Fed Outlook Canada's Productivity Pivot The USMCA Trade Cloud Private Market Maturation Normalizing Credit Defaults AI's Private Market Future

Take the 2026 AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and AIE WF tickets!On the product side, everyone is getting Computer - Perplexity, Manus, Cursor, and so on. Meanwhile on the research side, agentic evals like TerminalBench and GDPVal are also assuming computer (Harbor). On both ends, the consolidating LLM OS stack has become a standard toolkit, and Daytona is one of a small set of AI Infra companies that are booming because of it.“The end of localhost” has been Ivan Burazin's obsession for more than a decade.Something that is all too familiar…Long before agents became the default way people talked about software development, Ivan was already chasing the idea that development should not depend on a fragile local machine. CodeAnywhere, one of the first browser-based IDEs, was an early attempt at that future: move the development environment into the cloud, make setup reproducible, and free developers from the endless “works on my machine” tax.The thesis was directionally right, but the market wasn't ready yet.However, agents changed that. They do not care about a laptop, desk setup, or favorite editor. They need a computer they can access through an API: something stateful enough to keep working, fast enough to spin up instantly, flexible enough to resize, isolated enough to be safe, and composable enough to run the messy real-world workflows that real software engineering actually requires.Daytona isn't just selling “sandboxes” in the narrow code-execution sense. It is the latest version of Ivan's original localhost thesis.In this episode, Daytona's CEO joins swyx to explain why AI agents need more than code execution boxes: they need composable computers, stateful sandboxes, instant startup, dynamic resources, and infrastructure that can survive workloads going from zero to 100,000 CPUs.We go deep on the new agent compute market: Daytona's hard pivot from human dev environments to AI sandboxes, the New Year's Eve MVP that customers begged for, why Daytona runs on bare metal with its own scheduler, how one customer runs almost 850,000 sandboxes a day, and why RL/eval workloads went from 0% to roughly 50% of usage in just months. Ivan also explains why agents need Windows and macOS machines, why CLI may matter more than MCP, why Kubernetes is painful for this workload, and why the future AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWS.We discuss:* How Daytona grew out of CodeAnywhere, Shift, and the “end of localhost” thesis* Why Daytona pivoted from human dev environments to AI sandboxes* Why agents need composable computers instead of disposable code execution boxes* The New Year's Eve MVP that customers chased API keys for* Why Daytona chose bare metal, stateful snapshots, and its own scheduler* How Daytona spins up one sandbox in ~60ms and 50,000 sandboxes in ~75 seconds* Why Daytona's biggest customer runs ~850,000 sandboxes a day* How RL/eval workloads create zero-to-100,000 CPU spikes* Why RL workloads went from 0% to roughly 50% of Daytona usage* Why customers compare Daytona against EKS/GKS and say they're “never going back”* Why every AI agent may need a computer, including Windows and macOS environments* The Apple licensing constraints that make macOS sandboxes hard* Why CLI gives agents more power than MCP* How open source helps agents integrate Daytona* Why agent-generated PRs may break today's CI/CD assumptions* Why AI SaaS companies reselling tokens may face a cold shower* Why the AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWSIvan Burazin* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanburazin* X: https://x.com/ivanburazinDaytona* Website: https://www.daytona.io* X: https://x.com/daytonaioTimestamps* 00:00:00 Hook* 00:01:12 Introduction* 00:03:15 CodeAnywhere, Shift, and the end of localhost* 00:05:58 What Daytona is: composable computers for AI agents* 00:08:07 The pivot from dev environments to AI sandboxes* 00:10:17 The New Year's Eve MVP and customers begging for API keys* 00:12:56 Bare metal, stateful sandboxes, and Daytona's scheduler* 00:17:28 60ms startup, 50,000 sandboxes, and 850K daily runs* 00:21:53 Spiky RL/eval workloads and the new agent infra problem* 00:28:12 RL workloads, Kubernetes pain, and dynamic resizing* 00:33:31 Why every AI agent needs a computer* 00:38:48 macOS sandboxes and Apple's licensing problem* 00:44:28 Why CLI may matter more than MCP* 00:48:11 Open source, GitHub stars, and agent integration* 00:53:11 Git, CI/CD, and agent collaboration bottlenecks* 00:58:15 Founder life and building a 25-person infra company* 01:02:44 AI SaaS, token resale, and API-first business models* 01:06:10 GPU sandboxes, data centers, and compute growth* 01:09:48 Why the AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWS* 01:11:26 Closing thoughtsTranscriptIntroduction: Daytona, CodeAnywhere, and the End of LocalhostSwyx [00:00:02]: Okay, we're in the studio with Ivan Burazin, CEO of Daytona. Welcome.Ivan [00:00:07]: Thanks for having me, man.Swyx [00:00:08]: Ivan, you and I go back.Ivan [00:00:10]: Way back.Swyx [00:00:11]: How I don't even know how, you found, did you reach out or, for Shift.Ivan [00:00:17]: I reached out to you. The reason was you - we were just - we were thinking about I was one of the co-founders of CodeAnywhere, the first browser-based IDE, and so we were thinking a long time of, localhost should die. And you had this article.Swyx [00:00:29]: End of localhost.Ivan [00:00:30]: Then I reached out to you because of that, and then we talked, and I was actually at a different job and learning about I was the head of, developer experience, and you were quite well-versed in that, and I actually reached out to you, among other people, how do we go about that? What are the key things and whatnot at this point in time? And you were nice enough to take the call, and I remember I was late on your call with you.Swyx [00:00:51]: I don't remember.Ivan [00:00:52]: I remember because I was with my then I'm thinking of a girlfriend or wife at that point in time, I'm not sure. It's the same person, so that's great, and I was late ‘cause we were, in, Italy on, vacation, and then I was late for something. I felt so bad, and you were so nice to be, good about.Swyx [00:01:10]: The reason I'm nice is because I'm also late to other people, so it's like, who's, who's without sin here, yeah, so I have to, for those who don't know, InfoBip Shift, there's this whole thing that, you did in the past, and, and that was basically one of the inspirations for me starting AI Engineer, which is like, I have to thank you for giving me that push to be like, “Oh, you can, you can build and sell conferences?”Ivan [00:01:34]: I remember you asked you asked me at the beginning to give me advisory shares, and I was so focused on what we were doing, I said no, and I should've took the advisory shares. So I'm sorry, dude. But anyway.Swyx [00:01:43]: We're not, we're not venture backed.Ivan [00:01:44]: No, it doesn't matter.Swyx [00:01:45]: It's Yeah, anyway, so I think what's impressive about you is that CodeAnywhere is the thing that you've been trying to build, and, you kind of put it on hold and then came back after InfoBip. Just give us the story, do you - the story and the origin story, going into Daytona.From CodeAnywhere and Shift to DaytonaIvan [00:02:05]: Sure. Like, really way back, me and my co-founder have been together. I say this, I've said this multiple times, it's like we were married and divorced and married. Some people actually ask me is my co-founder my partner. they thought it literally. It's not literally, but we have done multiple companies together, and to your point, we had this shift where we went from the CodeAnywhere to the conference called Shift, and then back to, Daytona. We originally started stacking servers, doing like virtualization in the early 2000s and, routers and doing basically all these things, at a foundational level, and that was a services company which we sold to focus on what my co-founder actually invented, which was the very first browser-based IDE, right, I say the first. Before us was actually Heroku. They did it for a very short time until they became Heroku. But outside of them, we were the only one, and it was called.Swyx [00:02:55]: There was Cloud9.Ivan [00:02:57]: Cloud9 came out slightly after us. There was Replit, which came out when we stopped doing it, Replit came out, and they have been successful since then, which is great. There was Nitrous.io. There was quite a few that existed at the time, but it was like too early. But the interesting part is that we, at that point in time, because there was no VS Code, there was no Kubernetes, and Docker had just started when we Or I'm not sure if it was even public at that point in time. And so we had to build everything to the whole stack ourselves and that was the key learning that we brought into and that we've been using in Daytona today. So it was super early. There's about 3 million people used CodeAnywhere. It was slightly, it was angel-backed more than venture-backed. We ended up paying everyone back because it didn't have that sort of scale. But, three years ago, we started something similar with Daytona, which is not what we are today, but it was automating dev environments for human engineers, the basically the underlying stack of CodeAnywhere. And then we did a hard pivot last January to sandboxes. And so here we are.Swyx [00:04:01]: Historic pivot, yeah, and, it's one of those things where, I had independently invested in CodeAnywhere, but also in E2B, and then both of you pivoted into the same thing, and I'm like, “F**k.”Ivan [00:04:12]: You invested, you invested in Daytona. You invested in Daytona. But you were the first If we had not got your check, we wouldn't have done it.Swyx [00:04:18]: No way.Ivan [00:04:19]: No, it was like, “We have to get him on board first,” and you were that kicker that we, that got us off the ground.Swyx [00:04:23]: No, because you were putting me on your pitch deck, man. I was like, “Man, this is like a good trip if I don't invest.”Ivan [00:04:29]: That's because it was your quote. It's like we.Swyx [00:04:30]: Yeah. It's the end of localhost.Ivan [00:04:31]: Did a bunch of research about end of localhost and who was interested in that,.Swyx [00:04:34]: No, that's like, I put, I wrote that blog post, and every single company in that field reached out to me, and then every VC who was receiving those pitches then also had to call me and, talk it, talk through it with me.Ivan [00:04:47]: It's finally happening though.Swyx [00:04:48]: It was really super interesting.Ivan [00:04:48]: It's finally happening.Swyx [00:04:49]: It's finally happening.Ivan [00:04:49]: Yeah, it's finally.Swyx [00:04:49]: It's finally happening, with maybe sort of non-human users. Yeah, so what is Daytona today? Let's get like a quick description. I'm wearing the shirt.What Daytona Is Today: Composable Computers for AI AgentsIvan [00:04:58]: You're wearing the shirt. Yes,.Swyx [00:04:59]: It says, I think your branding is very good. Like, it's very consistent. It runs AI code. Like, it cannot be simpler.Ivan [00:05:05]: Exactly, but we're gonna probably have to change that.Swyx [00:05:07]: Oh, s**t.Ivan [00:05:07]: It's also a subset of what we do. Unfortunately, we really love this, Run AI Code is super simple. People interpret it different ways. I think we've given out 5,000, 6,000 of these shirts. People wear them with pride because it doesn't really market about us.Swyx [00:05:21]: Yeah, Daytona's on the back.Ivan [00:05:22]: It markets the back. It markets to the person itself, so I think we did a really good job on that one. But it is also a subset of what we do, because people, when they think about Run AI Code, they just think about these small, let's call it isolates, code execution boxes that, you send some code, you get an output. Whereas what Daytona is today is essentially composable computers for AI agents. It is, the market calls them sandboxes which can be misleading.Swyx [00:05:44]: All these things. All these things on.Ivan [00:05:45]: Yeah, exactly, ‘cause it can be misleading ‘cause people usually think about sandboxes as a demo or a test environment versus a production-grade environment. But what Daytona does, if you think of the laptop that you have in front of you or the computer that's over there, or, my wife is an architect, so she has like a Windows with a 3D graphics card inside to do 3D rendering. Like, as humans, we have different computers or different compositions of computers. And our belief is strongly that agents today and going forward will need all these different compositions of computers to do different types of tasks. And so we offer that basically through an API.Swyx [00:06:19]: Yeah, to give people - I'm trying to sort of front-load all the aha moments or the wow moments so that people can, stay engaged and click like and subscribe. the market is exploding, right? Like, you have been reporting 74% month-on-month growth, and it also, it's just been growing for a while. Like, it's been going like this. And every single - It's not just you guys. It's every single.Ivan [00:06:41]: Everyone, yeah.Swyx [00:06:42]: Sort of, compute provider. I don't know if you agree with me saying compute provider or not.Ivan [00:06:48]: It's fine.Swyx [00:06:48]: Yeah. So like organically PLG-driven growth, but also enterprise is doing super well, I think I wanna rewind to January of last year when you did the pivot. Like, so you obviously called this market early, and you were positioned for it, and you are now one of the market leaders. But what was the insight that made you do the pivot?The Pivot: From Human Dev Environments to Agent SandboxesIvan [00:07:06]: The insight that made us do this pivot is the quarter before that, so end of 2024, when we had - Basically, we did a demo with - I don't I think we discussed this as well, Devin was not public. You actually gave me access to Devin at that time. So Devin.Swyx [00:07:25]: I did?Ivan [00:07:26]: Yeah, you gave me access.Swyx [00:07:26]: I don't think I was supposed.Ivan [00:07:27]: Yeah, exactly.Swyx [00:07:28]: Yeah, I.Ivan [00:07:28]: So it doesn't matter. You.Swyx [00:07:29]: Yeah. I gave like three friends access.Ivan [00:07:31]: Yeah, or it was a call and you showed it to me. It doesn't matter. but OpenDevin was available, which is now called OpenHands. And so we're like, “Oh, this seems to be a thing. This is not public. Let's take our for human automation of dev environments and take, OpenDevin and launch that as a SaaS.” And we did that. Not very many people signed up and used it, but a lot of people reached out that were building agents, and they were like, “Hey, my agent needs a compute sandbox runtime,” whatever you wanna call it. I forgot what it was called at that point. And then we were like, “Oh, amazing. This is a new market. Here is our infrastructure. Here's our product, and go.” And what we found really fast, soon, was that people did not like what we had built. It didn't work. And I remember talking to people at the beginning when we're doing this, the sandbox we're building for agents. People were like, “Oh, why is it different? It's the same thing. We have like EC2, we have VMs, we have all these things.” But we saw that everyone we gave it to, it was like 20, 30 people, they all said, “No.” Like, “This is not what we need. This sort of breaks.” And basically, me and my co-founder not knowing a lot about - ‘cause we're infra people. We're not AI people. So I basically took it upon myself to like watch every single podcast that exists, including all of, all of these and all that, and sort of get up to date, read all the blogs, like get, understand what's going on.Swyx [00:08:45]: Do you wanna shout out who else was useful, just in case people are also looking.Ivan [00:08:49]: Generally we -, I looked at There's a few of podcast, different segments and different types. So there's you guys, No Priors, Bill Gurley's was great while.Swyx [00:09:04]: VG2, yeah.Ivan [00:09:05]: Yeah, while it was around. So there's a few. 20VC is interesting from a different dynamic, and some are different dynamic. But there was, also Red Points.Swyx [00:09:14]: We're not really about the compute market.Ivan [00:09:15]: It was also already - Sorry?Swyx [00:09:16]: You're, you want - You're looking at the agent infra market.Ivan [00:09:19]: I was looking at the agent market and the AI market in general and sort of understanding who are the players, what the perception, and how that goes. And like obviously you complement this with like going to conferences, going to events, going to meetups, reading white papers, like doing all the things that you have to do to understand what's happening. And so when we figured, when we sort of had an idea of what we had to build, literally over the New Year's Eve, literally on New Year's Eve, I half vibe coded the first MVP, first minimal viable product of what Daytona is today. And I went to sleep at like 3:00 AM or something like that. I was doing - I just put my like baby daughter and wife to sleep and, Happy New Year's, and go back to just, doing this. And I sent it to my co-founder, my CTO, and he saw it in the morning. He's like, “This is absolute garbage.” “Do not show this to anybody at all, but the idea is good.” And so he took two weeks, and he rebuilt it.Swyx [00:10:09]: Did it like look like that? Listen, I - It was rough idea.Ivan [00:10:12]: Oh, not even, not even close. Like it was it was way worse. But it was like a very - It was a simplistic view of what it should be. Like, it worked, but it was not ideal. And so he went, we went down the whole, which is his job as CTO, to go, and he came back with this version. We then called all the people that had said like, “This is garbage,” a quarter ago. And we set up these calls, and we gave it to - We just demoed it to everyone. And all the calls went long, every single one. They were 15-minute calls, and they all went to like 25, 30 minutes or whatnot. And everyone said, “We need, we want access.” There was no login, just an API key, ‘cause it was just a beta or an alpha. And they said, “Oh, we want access.” And we're like, “Sure, yeah. Okay, thank you very much.” But after like the next day, if we'd not send it, every single one, like every call that we did, everyone came back, “Where is my API key?” Like everyone wanted it. We're like, “S**t.” Like this is it. Like I've never felt So one, the understanding to your point was like most people thought it was the same infrastructure for humans and agents. We understood a quarter ago it's not. We just didn't know what was the right primitive. And then when we came, and we can talk about what that is, and we gave it to these people, I've never seen, I've never experienced - I've done multiple companies in my life. I've never experienced this, that people literally call you if you do not give them access. Like they want access right now. And so it's like, okay, they don't want this. the thing that they want doesn't seem to exist, or they have not found it, and they really want what we want. And then when we understood that we're onto something, and then when you think about the size of the market, like the market for human engineers and enterprise is a very large market, so think GitLab or whatnot. But the market for every single agent that will exist ever in the future is just like, what is that market? How big is that? And we're like, “We are all in on this.” And so that is where we made sort of the cut between the old product and the new one.Bare Metal, Stateful Sandboxes, and the Lambda + EC2 ModelSwyx [00:12:02]: Yeah. But it wasn't composable at the time?Ivan [00:12:05]: It was very - It was basically just a Linux box that you could change, that you could define number of CPUs, disk, and RAM. Like that is what you could do, but you couldn't have multiple operating systems, you couldn't resize it on the fly, you couldn't add a GPU, you couldn't do like all the things. It was just the, just the first sort of variation of that, yeah.Swyx [00:12:22]: Was it bare metal from the start?Ivan [00:12:24]: It was bare metal from the start. And so the interesting thing that we thought about right away, so our.Swyx [00:12:29]: Which, give people the background, what is the normal path?Ivan [00:12:32]: Yeah, so, basically most providers run this on top of VMs. And also.Swyx [00:12:37]: Firecracker.Ivan [00:12:38]: Yeah, they run on Firecracker and VM. And so we also fire - We can get - We have multiple isolation layers and we can do that. But the common way to do it is that they, one, that the state of the machine, or the hard disk is not part of the sandbox itself. And the other thing is they're not meant to last forever. So most of them are preemptible, like they can There's a time that they can live. And so our thought was when we were going into this is, agents will be like humans in the sense of you don't want your laptop to be shut down until you're done with work. Like, and you want to close the lid and open the lid, it's the same state. So you - Agents would want that, like the pause and come back. They want those two things. But also agents really want speed, right? Can they get it? So when we thought about it's like we need something insanely fast, how to make it fast, how to make it long-running, and stateful. And so those two things, it's like combining a Lambda and an EC2, right? Those two things together. And so we didn't have an idea how others did it, ‘cause we didn't know too that there was a market around this. It was more like, okay, this is what we need, what they need. And we looked at Kubernetes, it wasn't wasn't good enough for that. We looked at Nomad, it didn't enable that. And so our history in rewriting our own scheduler at CodeAnywhere is basically what my CTO came up with. Like, he's like, “Oh, the learnings from there,” and he brought it. And the funny thing is, our third co-founder, when he saw it, he's like, “Dude, what is this? This is like 2008.” Like, we went back in time, and he's like, “Exactly.” And so the reason why Daytona is like super fast, and you see this on benchmarks, is we essentially, we run on bare metal. We have our own scheduler, we use the underlying, disk, CPU, and RAM of the underlying machine, which means your IOPS are insanely fast because there's no, there's no network between an EBS or something like that. But also the snapshot, the point in time, the templates, are also preloaded on the bare metal machines. So when you fire off a sandbox from a template or a snapshot, you're essentially directed to the bare metal machine where that snapshot is based on that NVMe drive, and then it literally just turns on that machine, and it's local. There's no network latency, anything on there. And so that is sort of the specificities that we, when we're thinking from first principles, what a computer would look like for an agent, that is what we came up with, and that's what we created.Benchmarks, 60ms Startup, and 50,000 SandboxesSwyx [00:15:02]: Yeah. I should maybe, I don't know if you endorse this, but there's someone that does compute SDK, you guys do very well on there, with like the TTI, right? I. is this a, is this a is this a relevant benchmark for you guys? I don't know.Ivan [00:15:16]: I don't know, and it changes every day. So today RKL is.Swyx [00:15:18]: I don't know what RKL is. Never heard of it.Ivan [00:15:20]: Yeah. RK, yeah, so it is there.Swyx [00:15:22]: You are, at least a third of the next tier of performance, and then, there's a lot of other better-known names that are very slow to start.Ivan [00:15:31]: Yeah. We've been the number one by far for a long time, and now there's different, there's different definitions also of sandboxes, different isolation patterns, different other things. So RKL runs it literally on the S3, the data, so it's very different, and they spin up a sandbox, spin up a container for that, so it's a different type of thing. So the definition of a sandbox is something that we can all, we all need to get along with. But yeah, we're insanely fast on getting these things, up and running. And so you can see even there that it's a zero point 0.10 to 0.11, so.Swyx [00:16:03]: Close enough. Yeah. what else do you need, right?Ivan [00:16:05]: Yeah. So the benchmarks itself, so, in this, in I don't think the benchmarks equate to market ownership or revenue or anything like that. and I've seen this with multiple benchmarks, not just in sandboxes, but in general benchmarks around.Swyx [00:16:20]: It's table stakes. It's just like.Ivan [00:16:21]: Exactly. But it doesn't hurt.Swyx [00:16:22]: Just roughly check.Ivan [00:16:22]: Like you definitely have to be up there and you have to be competing so that people know that, oh, this is definitely one of the top. Because this is only one dimension of what customers look for. There's other things like how many can you spin up consecutively? There's a feature set, there's support, there's like all different things that people look at, but you definitely have to be there, on the benchmarks.Swyx [00:16:40]: How many people do people spin up consecutively?Ivan [00:16:43]: So we have.Swyx [00:16:43]: Or concurrently, is the Concurrency, right?Ivan [00:16:45]: There's three metrics that we look at. And so one is like time to spin up one, and so our time to spin up one is 60 milliseconds with network latency. So request, spin up, reply, 60, the whole thing, 60 milliseconds. That is one. But if you wanna spin up 50,000 at once, we are now at about 75 seconds. So it takes about 75 seconds to spin up concurrently 50,000. Some others, there's public data around this, like take 2,000 seconds, which is 30 minutes. Like there's different variations of that. And then there is the so it is speed of one, speed of like multiple, and then how many can you consistently have up and running. And so we basically have right now no limit to how much we can add because we basically own our own metal. But the biggest customer of ours does like about 850,000 every single day is sort of where they're, where they're just shy of a million every single day that they're running, we do have a request for half a million concurrent, which is literally half a million CPUs somewhere running. So that's an interesting.Swyx [00:17:44]: They pay by like vCPU seconds.Ivan [00:17:47]: By seconds, yeah.Swyx [00:17:47]: Or whatever. Yeah. Okay, and so and then, and the other thing is, the sleeping and the resuming, ‘cause it's all the stateful resumption of all these things, how, what kind of workload are people putting through this, right? Like how is it Do we measure by gigabytes in memory, gigabytes in storage? I don't In like network attached storage. I, what are the costly ones of, out of all these features?Workload Economics: CPU, RAM, Network, and StorageIvan [00:18:15]: The most expensive thing are CPU.Swyx [00:18:18]: Okay. Yeah, of course.Ivan [00:18:18]: The second one, yeah Then it's RAM, then it's disk. We actually don't charge.Swyx [00:18:22]: Which is snapshotting, right?Ivan [00:18:23]: No, it's actually the, snapshotting's part of it, but basically the size of your hard disk, of your machine. So do you have 10 gigabytes, do you have 20, do you have 50, do you have whatever? And then the transference of that. Right now, currently we don't charge for, network at all at Polychron.Swyx [00:18:37]: Oh, you gotta, yeah, you gotta fix.Ivan [00:18:38]: Yeah. It is very much a it's a larger and larger part of our bill, so we're working around, that part there. Obviously, that is the least, expensive, so the hard disk is the least expensive, so it's basically CPU, RAM, for us network, ‘cause we don't charge the customer, and then hard disk, is how it's split up. But there's also different types of workloads, so we basically split it up into two types of workloads in Daytona. One is what we call background agents or long-running agents. and the other is, basically RLs and evals, which I put sort of together. And so they have very different patterns of usage, and if you look at the usage of a background And I'll just name names of companies, not specifically.Background Agents vs. RL/Evals: Two Usage ShapesSwyx [00:19:21]: Yeah, open, all hands.Ivan [00:19:23]: Yeah. So like a background agent's a Cognition, a Lovable, a like all these things are Harvey. These are all long-running, background agents. And so if you look at their usage patterns, their usage patterns are similar to human, which is like follow the sun. Basically, the usage patterns of that is like noon is probably the highest, and the midnight is the lowest, and then weekends are lower. weekday is higher.Swyx [00:19:42]: Yeah, that's a fun question. How global is it? Is it very US-centric or?Ivan [00:19:46]: The US is a large part, but we have currently, we have Asia, Europe, and the US regions.Swyx [00:19:52]: So it's quite global.Ivan [00:19:53]: Yeah, it's quite global. We have it all over. It's interesting that our I talked to you a bit about this. Our number one city by user.Swyx [00:20:01]: Hmm.Ivan [00:20:02]: Is Singapore.Swyx [00:20:04]: Oh, wow. Amazing.Ivan [00:20:05]: Which is an interesting one, right? Not by revenue, just by just like by individual head count.Swyx [00:20:09]: Really?Ivan [00:20:09]: Just like an interesting thing.Swyx [00:20:10]: Singapore is, Singapore is weirdly high in the adoption charts of AI for the population. It's like an, seven, eight million population. And it's like keeps showing up.Ivan [00:20:20]: No, it's quite interesting. We were quite shocked, and I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.” And also one that's up there.Swyx [00:20:24]: There's a reason I'm doing AI using Singapore. it's because I'm from there.Ivan [00:20:27]: We're there. We're gonna, we're gonna be there as well. and it's interesting that Japan is in the top or like Tokyo's in the top, which is in all the tech cycles it has never been. It has never been, so it's quite interesting that they're.Swyx [00:20:39]: I think the Japanese just love AI. Yeah. It's that, and then it's Brazil. That's it.Ivan [00:20:44]: Brazil has always been in.Swyx [00:20:45]: I think.Ivan [00:20:46]: Even when I look, if you look at like GitHub's data and ask historically with CodeAnywhere, it was always like US, Western Europe, and then you'd have like India, Brazil, China, like that would be there. But like Singapore was not in, specifically Japan was never in sort of that top, that top.Swyx [00:21:01]: Yeah. Weird pockets.Ivan [00:21:01]: Weird. Yeah, so it's very global.Swyx [00:21:02]: Okay, so actually that, but that's helps you to distribute your load through, all time?Ivan [00:21:08]: The interesting thing is like we have those kind of loads, but if you look at the researcher loads, they're quite different. So what they are is like if you give them concurrency of 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 CPUs at ARMb, when they fire off a run, it's just 100%. And then it just runs, and then it stops. So it's very, the usage pattern is squares basically, right? And it's also not follow the sun, because people will fire it off at midnight before they go to sleep but then wake up and so it's very unpredictable, so you don't know where that is. So the shapes of the usage are quite different than we have had before. And also what's interesting is when it's sort of a follow the sun, even if you have a high growth company, you can sort of predict your usage patterns and have enough capacity for that, because it's sort of, it grows in a, in a way you can project. When you have companies doing sort of like evals and RL, they're super spiky. So they're gonna come in, it's like, “We're gonna use nothing, then can we have 100,000?” Right? And then go back down. And then 100,000, go back down. So it's very different, right? And.Swyx [00:22:09]: Do you want to lock them into commits so.Ivan [00:22:11]: Yeah, we do.Swyx [00:22:12]: Yeah, okay.Ivan [00:22:12]: We so we have to lock them into some sort of commits to have that capacity, because we have to have, basically we have to have the capacity for peak. Right? And so right now, Daytona's mean utilization is 15%, 1-5.Swyx [00:22:25]: Oh my God.Ivan [00:22:26]: So it's very low.Swyx [00:22:27]: Because it's very spiky.Ivan [00:22:27]: It's very spiky, but we get up to 90%. so we have these things. And so what we're, what we're looking at right now as a company is similar to Cloudflare where you can like geo move things around, but that works really well for basically the background agent where it's follow the sun. But this, it's not. Like it's a very different shape. Obviously with scale you figure these things out, but that's an interesting new problem that we have, as a compute provider in the agent space. And when we were doing the conference recently, and so we talked to like Nikita from Neon and.Swyx [00:22:57]: I should bring it up.Ivan [00:22:58]: Parag from Parallel and whatnot, everyone has the same problem. Whereas the usage is super spiky, and this is something that has not happened before, that you have these types of like it was always, it the amplitudes were not this high, right? So it's quite interesting use case and problem solve.Compute Conference and Spiky Agent InfrastructureSwyx [00:23:12]: Yeah, I don't know if we're gonna bring this up again, but let's just talk about the conference, you had like 1,000 something people at the Warriors game, at the Sorry, where is it? What's.Ivan [00:23:22]: Chase Center.Swyx [00:23:23]: Chase Center.Ivan [00:23:23]: Chase Center.Swyx [00:23:24]: I went. It was, it was very impressive. Obviously, you can, how to throw a conference, what did you learn? you put, you pulled together all these impressive names.Ivan [00:23:33]: What I.Swyx [00:23:34]: What were you looking for?Ivan [00:23:35]: My thesis behind the Compute Conference was let's bring together people that are building infrastructure for AI agents. Because when I think of what we're building, it is the agent is the primary user, what are the ergonomics and usage patterns of agents, and so we can do that. And what I found, this was a theory, it wasn't proven, is that we all have these problems, as I touched onto. And I was, as I was talking on stage, it was like we all have the same underlying infra problems, which is this spiky workloads, unpredictable workloads that we've never had before, in human, compute or human infrastructure. And it's, again, it's the same when I was talking to Parag or when I was talking.Swyx [00:24:20]: Lynn. Nikita.Ivan [00:24:21]: Lynn, Nikita. Lynn especially, I was talking to her the other day as well. Like the It is a very interesting type of problem to solve because I can touch on Cloudflare because there's a lot of like talk about that recently as to how they solve that, which is they have a bunch of geos, and basically, as users work in different places, and depending on your tier, they can move you around the geos. And so that how, that's how they get the higher utilization. But you can sort of predict these, and it's If it's something in You'll rarely get a spike that is 10 orders of magnitude. Like you'll get a like let's say one of your customers has some like an exponential curve. What is that to I'm using Cloudflare as an example. 10%, 20%, whatever it is. I don't, I don't have this data, I'm just assessing. It's surely not 10x, right? It's surely not something there. And so how do you go out and solve this problem? And we're all solving this in different ways. So we have.Swyx [00:25:11]: She also has the same thing.Ivan [00:25:12]: Yeah, I know specifically that like Neon had that issue as well. Like how are we solving these spiky loads and things like that ‘cause we talked about it. And so the interesting thing for me to actually internalize was, yes, everyone that's building for agents first is going through this, and we're all solving similar problems, which is quite.Swyx [00:25:28]: Let me let me double-click on this. Okay. So for example, Neon, I happen to know that they're very sort of S3 oriented, right? so they're just like fully bet on S3. And you get to benefit from S3's distribution and infrastructure. So I would imagine that Neon doesn't have to care, whereas Lynn maybe has to care a bit more because obviously she's doing GPU inference. And, for listeners, we did an episode with her, one and a half years ago. And you have to care. But like, right?Ivan [00:25:54]: Parag cares for sure, and Nikita.Swyx [00:25:58]: And Parag is C of, Parallel.Ivan [00:25:59]: Parallel, yeah.Swyx [00:26:00]: Former CTO of Twitter.Ivan [00:26:01]: Twitter, yeah.Swyx [00:26:02]: They are the search.Ivan [00:26:03]: Yeah, they're search, yeah.Swyx [00:26:03]: I You and I know but the listeners don't know.Ivan [00:26:08]: Yeah, we can put it down in the screen, and so ‘cause we, when we were talking.Swyx [00:26:11]: I'll put it up on the, on the screen.Ivan [00:26:12]: Yeah, right.Swyx [00:26:12]: People can look it up if they need.Ivan [00:26:14]: Look it up. And, yes, but they still have CPU and RAM, allocation that you have to have up and running. And so CPU and RAM, you have to allocate that and have that ready. And so there's basically two ways to do it. One is you either over-provision and you can handle the bursts, or two, you basically have, I don't know if this is a term, just-in-time compute, which is like as your load becomes, as your usage comes in, you can fire off requests for VMs or bare metals at other cloud providers and then get them up and running.Swyx [00:26:43]: This is if you go above 100%, right?Ivan [00:26:45]: Yeah, this is.Swyx [00:26:46]: Like your overflow.Ivan [00:26:46]: If your overflow, like spillage or whatever you do.Swyx [00:26:48]: You probably lose money on it, but it doesn't matter, right?Ivan [00:26:50]: It, not Well, you might, you might not That is a more cost-effective way to do it but it's a slower way to do it. Because basically what you have to do is you have to like queue your requests, spin up these just-in-time compute, get it all ready, provision it, and then get your workload there. And so if the time isn't important that much, that's fine, and you can do that. But if your customer, and especially for, let's say, the RL training runs, the reason why a lot of people come to us is because GPUs are more expensive than CPUs, right? So you want your GPU running at, what, 100% the entire time. And so when you're running runs on CPUs, when the when the CPU cycle is like down and spinning up the next one, you want that to be instantaneous so that your GPU doesn't go down, right? And if you then have to like go out and provision machines, you're essentially telling the GPU that it has to wait, and that's incurring our cost. So there's things that you have to try to solve for there.RL Workloads, Declarative Images, and Kubernetes ReplacementSwyx [00:27:43]: Yeah, let's talk about the different workload, right? You said that, what was it? A few months ago, you had zero RL workload and now it's 50%.Ivan [00:27:52]: It will be this one, 50%, yeah.Swyx [00:27:54]: Let's talk about how different it is, right? Like I imagine, for example, a lot less dynamic code generation of like arbitrary code. Like here, it's probably all the same code. You're just doing parallel runs or something, I don't know.Ivan [00:28:05]: Yeah. So you'll have multiple Depends on the like for each run, you'll have a snapshot. And they, for the most part, they actually do use our declarative image builder, which is like, “Oh, we, the agent wants these dependencies, these env vars.”Swyx [00:28:17]: These ones, yeah.Ivan [00:28:18]: Yeah, the declarative image builder, it.Swyx [00:28:20]: Which is a very modal like thing that they.Ivan [00:28:22]: Yeah. And so we build it on the fly and then we propagate that snapshot, and you can spin up as many sandboxes as you want against that snapshot. And then if you have to do changes, the model can, or like it could be also be automated. It's like, “Oh, now for the next run, we need to install these things or remove these things or whatever to get, a task done,” and then it goes off and runs that. So yes, that is something that it seems that they prefer. The number one reason I found, or should I say, let's take a step back. What we are competing against in that environment is essentially managed Kubernetes. So EKS, GKE, whatever. That is what the vast majority run on. And anyone that has tried Daytona versus GKE, EKS is like, “I'm never going back.” That has always been. There's a few reasons. One is the ergonomics. So if you have, if you're using Kubernetes to spin that up, you have to essentially manage the interface interactions with that. Daytona, although as a compute provider, it's more akin to a Twilio and Stripe from a consumption perspective than it is an AWS. Like you have an API, an SDK, it's quite like easy and seamless to get these things up and running, that's one. The other is the speed to which we spin up, which we mentioned earlier, which is much faster, and the scale to which we can go to. We haven't got into features, but an interesting feature is that it's very hard to OOM, or out of memory, our sandboxes, because we can dynamically on the fly.Swyx [00:29:48]: Resize.Ivan [00:29:49]: Resize, which is like impossible on almost any other thing. There are some technologies that enable you to do that, but it's like a very hard thing. And so we actually saw this when, the Terminal Revenge team is, brought us actually. So thank you, Alex and the team, that brought us into this whole space.Swyx [00:30:05]: It's just very rare that, a framework would just say, “Guys, just use Daytona.”Ivan [00:30:11]: Yeah, I think it says it somewhere. Yeah.Swyx [00:30:13]: Yeah. I was like, “What is this?”Ivan [00:30:15]: There's all, there's multiple there, but they also mention a few other places. and so Daytona specifically-We have, the, just jumping on themes here We, I don't know where it says Data Center.Swyx [00:30:27]: I, there.Ivan [00:30:27]: Doesn't matter.Swyx [00:30:28]: There's a very strong recommendation, which is, very unusual. Which is, it's.Ivan [00:30:33]: We do not pay them for this, just.Swyx [00:30:34]: I know, yeah. They just like you.Ivan [00:30:35]: Yeah, they like us. yeah, and also a thing, so, Data Center has multiple isolation sets underneath. The customer doesn't have to know what they are. But basically we have Docker, which is a container, that's hardened with Sysbox. So it's Docker's, isolation that is a security equivalent to a VM, but it's still a container. And that is the default, and they, especially in these training workloads, really like that as an interface to be able to use just a basic Docker container, and we enable Docker and Docker. Which for these RL runs, if you need to do a Docker compose or Kubernetes, you can spin up a K3S inside of these things, which unlocks a huge amount of workloads that you can do that you cannot do on other providers. So just on that part is much more interesting. And so we went that, through that. We showed them that we could do that, and they enjoyed that quite a bit. They being the general venture people.Swyx [00:31:28]: Those people, yeah.Ivan [00:31:29]: And Harbor people.Swyx [00:31:29]: Harbor people, do are they, are they a company yet?Ivan [00:31:33]: As far, I do not know.Customer Pull, Slack Connect, and the Computer Use BetSwyx [00:31:35]: Okay. All right. Yeah. It's like super obvious that like, there's a lot of excitement and success around these things, okay, so yeah, tell us more, right? Like, this is an exploding workload, Harbor adopted you, which helped speed things along. But what are you learning as this new workload comes online?Ivan [00:31:53]: There's a couple things that we learned, which we chat about in the beginning. We, and this has led our story, as we mentioned, we like talked to a lot of customers along the way, and we add more features and more tool sets as we talk to customers. And it's interesting that And I think it's that the ecosystem is so small and/or the models get smarter, where when we see one user come with a request, we know it goes on a roadmap if like three to five customers come with the same request in that week. It's like very bizarre. It happens so many times, which is.Swyx [00:32:27]: Because they're all friends.Ivan [00:32:28]: Sorry?Swyx [00:32:28]: They all, they're all friends. They're all in the same group chat.Ivan [00:32:30]: Yeah, probably, yeah. ‘Cause and they're like, “Oh, can you do this?” And I'm like, “Okay, this is interesting. We'll put it on a feature request.” And then the next one's like, “Oh, can you do this?” “Okay.” It's all the same, right? It's always the same. And so what we try to do, and I personally try to do, I try to be on as many call, quote-unquote “sales calls” I can. I'm in every Slack channel. We literally have about 1,000 Slack Connect channels, something like that. It's an interesting, there's so many interesting things you find out when you have all the Slack channels. You can also see where people, transfer between companies. You see leave Slack channel, enter Slack channel. It's an interesting thing. Also, just I digress, I feel that Slack Connect is literally LinkedIn what it should be. You have a list.Swyx [00:33:08]: LinkedIn charges you to, use your own connections, but Slack doesn't, right? Slack is like, do it for free. It's more lock-in. It's great.Ivan [00:33:15]: Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. It's one of the reasons.Swyx [00:33:17]: You're gonna pay Slack for life.Ivan [00:33:18]: Exactly. You're there for life. So that's interesting. And so one of the things, the newer things we were talking about earlier is we made a big bet and put a lot of investment on computer use. that is not seen publicly the light of day. We haven't GA'd that yet, but we have.Swyx [00:33:32]: Is there a thing I can pull up?Ivan [00:33:33]: There is computer use there. It's right up a bit.Swyx [00:33:36]: Oh, yeah. Okay.Ivan [00:33:38]: What we have, what we talked about and what we've seen publicly is there's this theme now about, the human emulator where And Elon from XAI has talked about this publicly, and if you think about the models today, they're actually quite sophisticated and they can do a lot of work, but they still don't have access to all the tools. Like, I'm a strong believer that the most efficient way for an agent to work is essentially headless or through, terminal or whatnot. But if we, if we look at knowledge work in general, there's about 100 million knowledge workers in the US, about a billion in the world, and knowledge workers, and the salaries of them aggregate to 10 trillion in the US 50 trillion worldwide.Swyx [00:34:24]: Wow.Ivan [00:34:25]: Something like that. And if we look at, the five most important sectors of that, so like healthcare and government and financial services and whatnot, that's about 56% of that. So let's say it's about half of that. So in the US it's about 25 trillion, and most of them, most of that work is actually still locked into legacy apps inside of Windows, which is not going anywhere for a very long time. Like, people just won't invest in that. How much of it? our assumption is the following: if, in the RPA market, which is similar market, well, not the same 25% of, these white collar, workers', work is automated. If an agent is more sophisticated, can go through more runs, figure stuff out, let's say it's, 40%, right? And so if you take 40% of that, you get to essentially, $10 trillion a year.Swyx [00:35:17]: That's a TAM.Ivan [00:35:18]: That is a that is a TAM. So that's the TAM of the models, right? That's not our, essentially ours. But you get to that size, and to be able to do that, you essentially have to give agents these computers with the legacy. So computer use, either Mac or Windows or Linux. Linux we also obviously have and others have. But Windows specifically is something very new, and the only option right now is an EC2 with, Windows or on Azure. Both of them take anywhere from three to five minutes to spin up. We've created an actual sandbox, so it's a second instead of milliseconds, but you have, point in time snapshots, you have, forking, you have all the things that you have from a sandbox, but essentially enables you to hopefully unlock all this value. And so that's been our big push and bet, but we've sort of, kept our ear to the ground. What is sort of the next things in the market?RPA Returns: Why Agents Still Need ComputersSwyx [00:36:06]: Yeah, knowledge work, and building, and sort of RPA, the next wave of RPA. I got very excited about RPA kind of during COVID times. The UI path was IPO-ing. And it was, a very hot Isn't it, Eastern European?Ivan [00:36:20]: It is, Romanian.Swyx [00:36:21]: Romanian?Yeah, it might be the only Romanian, big unicorn okay, yeah. This I don't I don't, I don't have like a I think there's, I think there's a stage being set for the resurgence of RPA, ‘cause everyone understands that, yeah, no one wants to deal with these shitty apps and no one's gonna rewrite them. Like, you just have to do, a remote operation and programmatic operation of them.Ivan [00:36:45]: If you wanna unlock it, my own setup was basically the following. So I was doing a board deck recently, last month, whatever, and I'm like, “Okay, let's just, let's just do automated.” So, all our data's in, ClickHouse and PostHog and QuickBooks, where everyone else's is, and I'm basically, connected that all to, my Cloud code, like go off and go Cloud code whatever. Go off and, here's the integrations, go do that. It pulled out the first report, which was great. It connected to Brex and all these things, pulled it, which was great, and then I say, “Okay, now pull out this, and this,” and I kept getting, really well McKinsey-style design reports, but the data said partial data. all the missing data, partial data. Like, it can't access all the things, and I got so frustrated, and so I got, I got, my Mac Mini virtual sandbox with OpenClaw. I gave it its own account in our company, and then I went to all these services and created a read-only account, so literally like an intern in your company. And so I would say, “Now go and do this report,” and it would get the same, or like, “I can't via the MCP or the API or whatever. I can't get all the information.” I'm like, “Go log in.” And it will log into the website, then go in, export the data. It'll export the data and do the thing end to end. So even for things that have today APIs, not all of it is exposed, and I to get value, I get immense value right now, but it has to be a computer usage, unfortunately, and so I spend a bunch of tokens just on that, but I get the job done. And so if even a startup like ours, and using all the hottest tools, still needs a computer agent what hope does, Goldman have to have a headless, right?Swyx [00:38:22]: Yeah, what a - Why isn't Microsoft doing this?Ivan [00:38:27]: I'm pretty sure, Satya had a post yesterday.Swyx [00:38:29]: Oh, okay. I see.Ivan [00:38:29]: Which was like, “Every agent needs a computer.”Swyx [00:38:31]: I see, I see.Ivan [00:38:32]: So they have launched something recently.Swyx [00:38:34]: Yeah, they have Microsoft Power Automate, I'm sure, I'm sure, they're gonna have their version.macOS Sandboxes, Apple Constraints, and the Windows OpportunityIvan [00:38:39]: Version of that, yeah.Swyx [00:38:39]: You're gonna try to do yours, and it - I always know there's always demand for Mac, but I know it's, tricky to host, macOS sandboxes.Ivan [00:38:49]: We will have macOS sandboxes fairly soon. The problem with macOS, OS sandboxes is, I'm deep in this, I don't know how much interesting is.Swyx [00:38:55]: No, it's.Ivan [00:38:56]: MacOS has this problem.Swyx [00:38:57]: It's a licensing thing, right?Ivan [00:38:58]: Licensing thing. So one, you're allowed to run only two parallel VMs per machine, so that's one. Two, you can only license to a different user every 24 hours. So if you come in and theoretically, if I wanna charge you per second and I charge you one second, I have to have it idle for the rest of the day. I can't have anyone else doing that. So the pricing will be different in the sense that I will have to - we would have to charge for 24 hours, and that's not even, that's not even the most difficult thing. But the, thing above that is, from a security perspective, they enable you to do memory snapshot, pause, resume, but only on the same physical drive, physical machine. And so what you can do in, Windows world or Linux world is that I can move in the background, your snapshot from one to the other and manage load, right? Here, if you wanna do that, you essentially have to have your.Swyx [00:39:49]: Yeah, snapshots. Yeah.Ivan [00:39:50]: Your.Swyx [00:39:51]: It's like.Ivan [00:39:51]: Physical machine.Swyx [00:39:52]: You can't break it up.Ivan [00:39:53]: You can't, you can't move things around that, and all of that is, that part is, from a security standpoint, if it is written. Like, I understand the security aspect of that, but it disables you from doing these agentic, like really scalable agentic workloads.Swyx [00:40:08]: You need to do a vibe-coded, clean room implementation on macOS that you can then - That's like Clean OS or something. I don't know.Ivan [00:40:17]: So. We have.Swyx [00:40:18]: ‘cause like Linux was originally like a clean room rewrite of Unix.Ivan [00:40:21]: Okay. Yeah.Swyx [00:40:21]: Or something like that, right? Like same thing to macOS. Someone needs to do it.Ivan [00:40:25]: Someone will do that, and someone will have some long-running agents for a few days to figure this stuff out. But yeah. So definitely we - we're really close to offering something ‘cause people do want it, but the pricing will be different, and the feature set will be sort of stringent.Swyx [00:40:38]: Yeah, nobody's gonna use this. like, the labs, the labs will because they want to automate macOS.Ivan [00:40:42]: They have to do RL. They have to do RL again. But even if you The - So the point is with the RL part, if you, if you do RL on macOS, then the next iteration of the model comes out, it will be able to use these tools significantly. Then you actually need to run those, that somewhere. So you're gonna have to have that, later on. And from, if anyone at Apple is listening, I very much feel that they are shooting themselves in the foot of the scale of the revenue of compute or licensing they could get if they would just enable a concurrency model similar to what you can get on a Windows and a, and Linux.Swyx [00:41:17]: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure they've heard this before. They just don't care. Yeah, it's And maybe they will change their mind with the new CEO.Ivan [00:41:24]: Yeah. We'll see.Swyx [00:41:25]: We'll see.Ivan [00:41:25]: High hopes.Swyx [00:41:26]: High hopes.Ivan [00:41:26]: High hopes.Swyx [00:41:27]: Okay. But I, it's very clear the market opportunity is huge in Windows, and you can go for a long time on just Windows, but your customers are gonna want both. and I think, it is interesting to me that, this is the sort of God application of agents, right? Like, I don't It was - How big was OpenClaw for you guys? Like, was it, was there, a significant bump.OpenClaw, Agent Labs, and the B2B2C Sandbox MarketIvan [00:41:54]: Not for us because we.Swyx [00:41:54]: Because you already.Ivan [00:41:55]: We're kind of positioned differently. Whereas although it's completely PLG and we have individual developers that use it, most of the users that use Daytona are sort of a B2B2C. Sort of it's either B2B or B2B2C. So, in the researcher world, it's B2B, so you're selling to, labs and neo labs and things like that. But on the long-running agents, it's mostly, from a scale revenue perspective, it's mostly B2B2C, where you have a app layer agent that uses you at a big scale.Swyx [00:42:26]: Like a Manus. Yeah.Ivan [00:42:28]: Like a Manus Lovable type of thing.Swyx [00:42:31]: Yeah. I think that's the question of, well how, um-Uh, yeah, B2B to C is basically to me what I've been calling an agent lab, which is kind of like you're not in a model lab, but you're making a very good wrapper that is a platform that other people can sign up so they don't have to code those things. Yeah, it sound, it sounds like a much better market than the direct OpenClaw market.Ivan [00:42:56]: I've like - We I've done multiple things. So the CodeAnywhere's part of our career path R in the calendar, was very much an end user developer product. And so that is great. It You can get a lot of developer love, and I feel that we do as a company have a bunch of developer love. But it's a different type, where it's people building these things. Again, it's more akin to a Twilio because you don't really run - As a person, you wouldn't run Twilio. I don't know how many people remember. It was like ask your developer billboard and whatnot. And people really love Twilio, but they only used it inside of like, “Oh, I'm building this app or service for thing.” And so we're very much directly to that. And you also know that I used to work for a competitor for Twilio, so it's kind of ingrained, in my DNA.Swyx [00:43:35]: People don't know InfoBip is that big.Ivan [00:43:38]: Yeah, it's.Swyx [00:43:39]: Because.Ivan [00:43:40]: It's a billion euro.Swyx [00:43:40]: They're all American. They're like, “Whatever's in Europe doesn't matter to me.” But like it's the, it's the same size or bigger? Same size?Ivan [00:43:46]: It's about half the size.Swyx [00:43:47]: Half the size?Ivan [00:43:48]: Yeah, about half the size.Swyx [00:43:48]: It's like, yeah.Ivan [00:43:48]: Still huge. Multiple billions a year. Yes.Swyx [00:43:51]: That's crazy.Ivan [00:43:51]: Exactly, and so that - These are like really interesting and large revenue-generating, very sticky businesses. Whereas when you're selling to the - When your focus is the end developer, it is a very hard sell because they're very price sensitive, very price conscious, very around that. And there's very It's very hard to scale. Your cap is the number of people that are willing to spin up - First of all, wanna spin that up, and then spin up multiple of these. Whereas if you're in the enterprise one, like we know everyone's talking about like how many tokens they're spending, I'm spending. Like a lot of companies today are like, “If this is our company, spend as much as you can.” Like basically that is where we're going. And so if you think about that paradigm, where you're selling to companies that say, “Spend as much as you can to generate, productivity,” versus, “Oh, I'm a single person. I have this much budget, and I'm doing this thing because it's fun or it's helping me out or whatever.” Like it is a different, it's a different go-to-market, I think, strategy.MCP, CLIs, and Sandboxes as the Agent RuntimeSwyx [00:44:50]: Yeah, there's a lot of discussion. I'm just kind of going through like the mental list of things that are in your favor, which is, for example, MCP versus CLI. Like obviously you want CLI. It's been very good for you. I feel like it's maybe a drop in the bucket or maybe it's huge. I'm just checking whether it's like these are big trends.Ivan [00:45:10]: Those things you - work well in our favor, to your point just because every.Swyx [00:45:13]: They're kind of drop in the bucket, right?Ivan [00:45:15]: I think it's like sort of all the things come together. And so there's so many things that impact that. To your point, like OpenClaw wasn't huge for us, but like having the agent SDK, from Anthropic, so or Cloud Claude Code was very interesting. The reason why it was interesting is that a lot of, let's call them app I don't know what to call them, app layer agent companies, essentially they are like, “Oh, I can create this new app, this new agent. All I need, I just use Claude Code, and I throw it into a sandbox, and then I have my interface to the human to that.” And so that enabled so many more companies to actually offer this, and then they would pull on sandbox. So that was, that was interesting. And to your point, like MCP, versus the CLI, the MCP is an interface against an API, whereas the CLI is like you can actually go do things. Like this is it. The difference between integrations and actually running scripts or data or analysis against a thing. So being able to use a CLI very well enables the agent to do more things, and it's because that people will invoke a sandbox, they'll run it in the CLI, and but it'll do anal-analysis on that data and then give you an actual result versus just, pulling data from an API source.Swyx [00:46:29]: Yeah, it's a layer of indirection basically, it's the same thing as agentic search versus RAG, which where you're.Ivan [00:46:34]: Exactly, yeah.Swyx [00:46:34]: Just like you just win whenever people put more agents into their workflow. And so like it doesn't really matter, but I'm just kinda teasing out like what else have people heard about that like it's sort of, “Oh yeah, this is another sandbox use case. Oh yeah, that's another one.” Am I, am I missing any big ones?Ivan [00:46:51]: The thing, the thing that people, which is the computer use stuff, which I think is probably the most interesting one, is, and to your point, we've talked to so many people over the last year. It's like, “Oh, like why do you need a sandbox? Why do you need this? Why this?” And to your point, it's like, “Oh, I need sandbox for this. I need sandbox for that. I need sandbox-” It's like, “Oh, I need it for every single thing.” And so basically what I, what I - and it sounds like a broken record, it's like you use a laptop every single day, right? And you are n of one. It's just you. But now imagine how And by the way, the laptop, the computer PC market, the PC market is about equal to the cloud market in total. So it's about 150, 180 billion a year. Something like that. It's about roughly the three cloud hyperscalers is about equal to like Apple, HP, Lenovo, whatever, It's a little bit less, but it's sort of like that. And now imagine And that's just like, so how big is the addressable market? What, how many people are there in the world now? What's the last data?Swyx [00:47:45]: Let's call it eight billion.Ivan [00:47:46]: Eight billion. And so let's say you can have two computer, like you have one personal and one business, whatever. Like so it's double that, right? and so that's 16 billion, right? How many agents are gonna be running in two years, in 10 years, in 100 years? Like And for every single task, they will need one of these. And so how big is that? That market is essentially quote unquote “infinite”. You will get to the point, and Dylan Patel was at the conference talking about, from SemiAnalysis, that talks usually about GPUs, was also talking about how CPUs will now be a bottleneck because it will be the constraint. You won't be able to grow, or we won't be able to have enough of these because there won't be enough CPUs to basically do.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. Well, I actually had a really good podcast with Doug Oliphant, who, which was his president at SemiAnalysis, where they've basically been like, yeah, it's been a GPU shortage first, but then it's cascaded down to memory and now to CPUs.Ivan [00:48:35]: CPU, yeah.Swyx [00:48:35]: It-What's next? So networking. So, networking actually has been in shortage for a while if you're looking at, just GPU networking. But, yeah, it's really crazy the amount of computer use that's going on, yeah, cool. I, other questions are, just the one very big part is the open sourceness which you didn't have to do, your competitors don't do, like it's not, a lot of people are worried about keeping their projects open source because some competitor can just slot fork it. I don't know if there's any reflections on just being an open source company.Open Source, Trust, and Enterprise ProcurementIvan [00:49:15]: Yeah. There's a bunch. So we the original product that we did was open source.Swyx [00:49:19]: Yeah. CodeAnywhere.Ivan [00:49:20]: So doing that was actually very good for us. There's basically a saying of, What's the saying? Like, companies that are, that are doing really well, measure themselves against, free cashflow, that are kinda okay, it's EBITDA, then, it's, it goes all the way down.Swyx [00:49:36]: The worst is like GitHub stars.Ivan [00:49:37]: GitHub stars. GitHub stars are the worst, yeah. So you go all the way down to GitHub stars. And so our original one was GitHub stars. That's what we talked about, we're at the point we're talking about revenue, so we're we've gone up the stack on that. And so we started.Swyx [00:49:47]: No, profit.Ivan [00:49:48]: Yeah. We haven't, we're, we'll get there. We'll get there. But basically at that point we did stars and GitHub and it was useful, and the original variation that we did, it we split the core into its own repo and it was Apache 2.0, so very, permissive. And then we basically would bundl

Moc výrobních firem, které McKinsey označí za globální benchmark, v Česku není. Výjimkou je Panasonic Automotive Systems, do kterého se jezdí učit lidé ze sesterských továren. Pardubický závod dnes ukazuje, jak může vypadat moderní automotive výroba, když se spojí silná firemní kultura, technologická vyspělost a odvaha měnit zaběhnuté fungování. Právě změna je přitom klíčové slovo. Panasonic prochází zásadní transformací, jejímž jádrem je nový systém od SAP. Nejde ale pouze o „upgrade IT“. Jde o přestavbu nervového systému celé firmy, od výroby přes logistiku až po rozhodování managementu.„Najednou máte data na jednom místě a vidíte věci, které jste dřív vidět nemohli,“ popisuje Martin Srdínko, šéf výrobního inženýringu. Právě práce s daty byla jedním z hlavníchimpulzů ke změně. Panasonic sice generoval obrovské množství informací, ale kvůli několika odděleným systémům je nedokázal efektivně propojovat, číst v nich souvislosti areagovat v reálném čase.

Chan Ahn is the founder of Tessera and a 17-year veteran of Wall Street. He joins Alex Perny to explain how blockchain tokenization is opening private markets to retail investors. This episode covers pre-IPO investing, atomic settlement, counterparty risk, on-chain proof of reserve, stablecoins, and the regulatory outlook for tokenized assets.Key Points:- Private markets are restricted due to settlement risk and information asymmetry, not just regulation- Blockchain enables atomic settlement: buyer and seller transact simultaneously with no delay and no counterparty trust required- Tessera houses assets in a Cayman segregated portfolio and uses Chainlink for 24/7 on-chain verification- SpaceX tokens trade on-chain at $1.5 to $1.66 trillion, a discount to the $1.75 to $2 trillion institutional target- Tokenized assets total roughly $30 billion today and are growing at 200% year over year- McKinsey projects the tokenized asset market reaches $2 trillion by 2030 out of a $300 trillion addressable market- Blockchain will compress a decade of TradFi market evolution into one to two years- Dollar-denominated stablecoins serve as the primary liquidity layer for tokenized private market assetsChapters:0:00 Introduction2:12 Chan's background: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and founding Tesera6:37 Why private markets exist: settlement risk and information asymmetry13:16 How atomic settlement works on blockchain20:19 Converting off-chain private equity into on-chain tokens26:53 Liquidity, price discovery, and trading tokenized assets32:10 Do private companies benefit from blockchain valuation transparency?34:31 The disclosure challenge blockchain cannot solve alone42:01 Derivatives, lending, and the next phase of tokenized markets47:39 Stablecoins, FX risk, and liquidity standards51:09 The $300T addressable market and the path to $2T by 203055:15 Why tokenization is a win for both companies and investorsSubscribe to our YouTube channel and join our growing community for new videos every week.If you are interested in being a podcast guest speaker or have questions, contact us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Podcast@AdvantaIRA.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Learn more about our guest, Chan Ahn:https://www.tessera.pe/Learn more about Advanta IRA: https://www.AdvantaIRA.com/ https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/advanta-irahttps://www.linkedin.com/company/Advanta-IRA/https://twitter.com/AdvantaIRA https://www.facebook.com/AdvantaIRA/ https://www.instagram.com/AdvantaIRA/#BlockchainInvesting #PreIPO #Tokenization #DeFi #PrivateMarkets #RWA #AlternativeInvesting #Tesera #ChanAhn #CryptoFinance

This week on Truth Works, my co-host Jeff Markowitz and I sit down with Judy Gilbert, the Chief People Officer of Oura, the company behind the Oura Ring.Judy is not a typical HR leader.She started her career at McKinsey, moved into executive search at Egon Zehnder, and then spent 12 years inside Google's People Operations team, helping scale the company from roughly 3,000 employees to 70,000.Along the way she ran learning and development, ran performance management, and served as head of HR for both YouTube and Google's moonshot factory, Google X.After Google, she became Chief People Officer at the biomanufacturing company Zymergen, where she helped build the team, took the company public, and then navigated its sale and wind-down.She tried to retire. It didn't last. The pull of being on a team trying to do hard things brought her to Oura.In this episode, we get into the difference between HR as an order-taker and HR as a genuine strategic partner, and why so many chief people officers get "organ rejected" within a year of joining.We talk about the danger of arriving with a fixed playbook, the chemistry that has to exist between a founder and their people leader, and why the job is really about being the one person willing to tell the emperor he has no clothes.Judy also shares the exact questions she asks before taking any role, how she pressure-tested Oura's CEO Tom Hale by sparring with him over compensation philosophy, and why a company's soul has to already exist before anyone can help it grow.In this conversation, we discuss:- The "I don't want to know" fear that stops people tracking their health- Whoop vs Oura, and how much data is actually useful- Why strategic HR is a competitive advantage most companies waste- The three questions Judy asks before joining any company- Why chief people officer turnover is so brutally high- The "toolkit" mistake that gets HR leaders fired- Being the person who has to tell the CEO he has no clothes- Glass balls vs rubber balls, and what to drop when you're building- How to protect a company's soul while running a hard business- Why clear cultures keep people and confused ones lose them- Why every CHRO is now the company's AI strategistThis is a candid look at the work behind the work, from someone who has built the people function at three very different companies and seen what separates the ones that scale from the ones that stall.If this conversation changed how you think about culture, leadership, or the people who quietly hold a company together, share it with someone who needs to hear it.Full episode of Truth Works with Judy Gilbert out now.

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Gigi Elbert, CEO of SASE, sits down with Karen Horting, executive director and CEO of SWE, to explore the experiences of Asian American and Pacific Islander engineers in STEM and what it will take to build stronger pathways into leadership. Gigi and Karen unpack why Asian Americans are represented in the workforce but remain underrepresented at the highest levels — with Asian women making up less than 1% of promotions from senior vice president to the C-suite, according to research from McKinsey & Company. They also discuss the growing gap between being “career ready” and navigating the workplace, including understanding unspoken professional norms. Plus, hear how SASE and SWE are helping students move from the classroom to the boardroom through mentorship, leadership opportunities, and community building. — The Society of Women Engineers is a powerful, global force uniting nearly 45,000 members of all genders spanning 90+ countries. We are the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. To join and access all the exclusive benefits to elevate your professional journey, visit membership.swe.org.

Audrey AI, a Dublin startup building AI for financial auditors recently announced a $1.8m pre-seed. The round was backed by Sure Valley Ventures, Delta Partners and Enterprise Ireland, with Donnchadh Casey (ex-CEO of Calypso) and Conor Jones (ex-CBO of Wayflyer) also investing.To find out more I caught up with Ryan Laughran the CEO and Co-Founder of Audrey AI.More about Ryan Loughran:Ryan has a BSc Accounting, from Queen's University Belfast and an MBA from Stanford. With 5+ years in professional services at McKinsey & Co he also has 5 years helping audit firms adopt technology at Qualtrics.

Episode 179: Julian Lighton & his book, Navigating Your Next: Discover the Career You Want and the Path to Get ThereABOUT JULIANJulian Lighton is one of Silicon Valley's leading strategy practitioners and business coaches, helping individuals and organisations navigate what's next. He has more than 30 years' experience advising, hiring and developing talent as a senior operating executive, general manager, consultant and coach. Julian was a Chief Strategy Officer at four, billion-dollar revenue, public companies, a board director, and associate partner for McKinsey and a senior global sales and marketing executive at Fortune 100 companies Hitachi and Cisco. He holds a BA and MA in Law from Oxford University, a Masters-level in Negotiation from Harvard University, and is a Chartered Director by the Royal Institute of Directors. Julian is one of only four hundred coaches worldwide to be recognized as a senior professional coach at the individual and team level by both the ICF and EMCC.CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS• Julian's diverse career journey from law to tech to private equity• The role of curiosity in innovation and leadership• How resilience and failure have shaped Julian's career• The importance of focus, discipline, and storytelling in achieving goals• Leadership principles: responsibility, relationship, and service• The shift in corporate culture and leadership in the modern era• Practical advice for career navigation and self-actualization• Self-care, self-awareness, and balancing work with healthKey characteristics of effective leaders and collaboratorsThe MAIN QUESTION for you that comes out of my conversation with Julian is, What do you really take into account and consider when it's time to decide what comes next for you? FIND JULIAN• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianlighton1/• Website: https://www.julianlighton.com• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julian.lighton/• LinkedIn - Full Podcast Article:CHAPTERS00:00 - The Book Leads Podcast - Julian Lighton00:58 - Introduction & Bio05:15 - Who are you today? Can you provide more information about your work?08:24 - How did your path into your career look like, and what did it look like up until now?56:03 - How does the work you're doing today reconcile to who you were as a child?58:18 - What do you consider your superpower?01:01:06 - What does leadership mean to you?01:19:09 - Can you introduce us to the book we're discussing?01:39:35 - What's changed in you in the process of writing this book?01:42:25 - What book has inspired you?01:45:48 - What are you up to these days? (A way for guests to share and market their projects and work.)This series has become my Masterclass In Humanity. I'd love for you to join me and see what you take away from these conversations.Learn more about The Book Leads and listen to past episodes:Watch on YouTubeListen on SpotifyListen on Apple PodcastsRead About The Book Leads – Blog PostFor more great content, check out the catalog for my newsletter Last Week's Leadership Lessons, if you haven't already!

Marcel Genet, Independent Steel & Metals Consultant and Founder & Managing Director, Laplace Conseil in Neuilly, France. Marcel has been a consultant in the steel industry for 47 years, first with McKinsey & Company, where he built and led the Firm's Global Steel Practice. 1995, he founded Laplace Conseil, a boutique strategy firm, where he has predominantly worked with the scrap recycling and EAF minimill sectors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trump and the CEOs go to China NVIDIA CEO joins Trump in China despite 'awkward' politics US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers The Class of 2026 is cooked Chinese AI groups pull ahead of US rivals in video generation race Google Weighs Using SpaceX to Launch Orbital Data Centers What smart people are saying about OpenAI's new $10 billion company to help businesses deploy AI Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit scribe.how/twit shopify.com/twit box.com/AI NetSuite.com/TWIT

Trump and the CEOs go to China NVIDIA CEO joins Trump in China despite 'awkward' politics US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers The Class of 2026 is cooked Chinese AI groups pull ahead of US rivals in video generation race Google Weighs Using SpaceX to Launch Orbital Data Centers What smart people are saying about OpenAI's new $10 billion company to help businesses deploy AI Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit scribe.how/twit shopify.com/twit box.com/AI NetSuite.com/TWIT

Is the era of American tech dominance ending? Get an inside look at how China's pragmatic approach to AI, robotics, and hardware is shifting the global balance, and why the US might need a new playbook to keep up. Trump and the CEOs go to China NVIDIA CEO joins Trump in China despite 'awkward' politics US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers The Class of 2026 is cooked Chinese AI groups pull ahead of US rivals in video generation race Google Weighs Using SpaceX to Launch Orbital Data Centers What smart people are saying about OpenAI's new $10 billion company to help businesses deploy AI Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit scribe.how/twit shopify.com/twit box.com/AI NetSuite.com/TWIT

Show Notes: Andrew Persh, co-founder of Oria, an AI-based tool for creating PowerPoint slides demonstrates Oria. Andrew provides a brief history of his experience at McKinsey and the challenges he faced with existing AI tools for creating slides. He explains the idea behind Oria: to create complex slides that do not look like they were generated by AI. Oria Demonstration Andrew demonstrates Oria as an extension for PowerPoint, focusing on the text-to-slide feature.  Converting text into design suggestions He explains the process of converting text into multiple design suggestions for slides. Andrew highlights that each design option is custom-built and fits within the user's existing PowerPoint template. Complex slides with data He shows how Oria can handle complex slides with data and create visually compelling designs. Data heavy slides 3D visualizations Andrew discusses the ability of Oria to handle data-heavy slides and create 3D visualizations.   Framework with icons He demonstrates how Oria can convert text descriptions into detailed slides with icons and text. Improve design Andrew explains the "improve design" feature, which allows users to specify detailed instructions for slide design. He shows how Oria can format slides and add visual elements based on user instructions. Andrew explains the ability of Oria to handle long content and extract key points for slides. He demonstrates how Oria can create a roadmap slide from a detailed text description. Roadmap slide He explains the process of using Oria with large amounts of text and how it can synthesize the content into a slide. Oria can build slides from normal human language meaning users do not need to know how to use prompts. Andrew shows how Oria can handle non-standard elements like chevrons and create fully editable slides. Screenshots to Slides Function Andrew demonstrates how Oria can handle screenshots and convert them into editable PowerPoint elements. He explains the limitations of other AI tools in handling charts and how Oria excels in this area. Sketch to slide feature Andrew introduces the "sketch to slide" feature, which converts handwritten notes into editable slides. He shows how Oria can switch between different templates for different clients and maintain consistency in slide design. Subscription Plans Andrew discusses the installation process of Oria and the availability of a free trial. Andrew explains the different subscription plans: $20 per month for basic use and $60 per month for heavy users. He mentions the option to purchase additional tokens for more complex slides. Promo code: UMBREX - 20% for 12 months.  Timestamps: 03:20: Demo of Oria's Text-to-Slide Feature  06:30: Advanced Features of Oria  11:07: Handling Long Content and Complex Slides  15:29: Additional Use Cases and Features  21:41: Subscription and Pricing Details  Links:  https://www.oria.one/ https://marketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA200009750?tab=Overview This episode on Umbrex: https://umbrex.com/unleashed/episode-645-andrew-persh-founder-of-oria-an-ai-powerpoint-plug-in-for-management-consulting/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com. *AI generated timestamps and show notes.  

Is the era of American tech dominance ending? Get an inside look at how China's pragmatic approach to AI, robotics, and hardware is shifting the global balance, and why the US might need a new playbook to keep up. Trump and the CEOs go to China NVIDIA CEO joins Trump in China despite 'awkward' politics US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers The Class of 2026 is cooked Chinese AI groups pull ahead of US rivals in video generation race Google Weighs Using SpaceX to Launch Orbital Data Centers What smart people are saying about OpenAI's new $10 billion company to help businesses deploy AI Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit scribe.how/twit shopify.com/twit box.com/AI NetSuite.com/TWIT

The Watson Weekly for May 18, 2026. Amazon launched a 30-minute delivery to take on DoorDash. eBay shuts down GameStop's bid. OpenAI puts $14 billion behind an enterprise AI play. The Watson Weekly is sponsored by Avalara. For ecommerce brands, tax compliance gets more complicated with every new channel, state, product, and market. Avalara Agentic Tax and Compliance helps automate the work behind the scenes, so merchants can deliver a smoother customer experience — with accurate tax calculation at checkout, clearer visibility into tariffs and duties, and fewer surprises for customers when their order arrives.Avalara works with ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and more, helping teams manage compliance faster and scale with more confidence. To learn more about Avalara's ecommerce compliance solutions, and explore resources built for growing ecommerce brands go to avalara.watsonweekly.com for more details.Amazon Now is live. Thirty-minute delivery for groceries and household essentials, starting in Atlanta, Dallas, Fort Worth, Philadelphia, and Seattle, with seven more cities queued up. Prime members pay $3.99 an order. Non-Prime pays $13.99. The strategy is direct. Smaller fulfillment centers in residential zones, aimed straight at DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart.eBay's board said no to GameStop. Chairman Paul Pressler called the unsolicited bid "neither credible nor attractive." The rejection wasn't really about price. OpenAI launched the OpenAI Deployment Company, valued at $14 billion, with $4 billion freshly raised under TPG's lead. The investor list reads like a consulting roster: McKinsey, Bain, Capgemini. The mission is forward-deployed engineers embedded inside enterprises to rebuild workflows. We also break down the Watson Weekly's Shopify three-part June webinar series, The Big Green Bag of Promise, with operators from Stanley 1913, Reitmans, and Marine Layer talking honest numbers on enterprise migration. The webinars are not sponsored by Shopify but by Avalara, Domaine, and Pattern, Register here: https://streamyard.com/watch/ibqNx46Z88BfAnd the Investor Minute: Co-pilot Kit ($27M for an AGUI protocol), Cognizant's roughly $600M Australian acquisition, District's $14.7M seed for community marketplaces, Recharge buying Skio for $105M, and PayPal splitting into three new business units.

Is the era of American tech dominance ending? Get an inside look at how China's pragmatic approach to AI, robotics, and hardware is shifting the global balance, and why the US might need a new playbook to keep up. Trump and the CEOs go to China NVIDIA CEO joins Trump in China despite 'awkward' politics US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers The Class of 2026 is cooked Chinese AI groups pull ahead of US rivals in video generation race Google Weighs Using SpaceX to Launch Orbital Data Centers What smart people are saying about OpenAI's new $10 billion company to help businesses deploy AI Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose Host: Leo Laporte Guests: Harper Reed and Amy Webb Download or subscribe to This Week in Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit scribe.how/twit shopify.com/twit box.com/AI NetSuite.com/TWIT

This latest PRmoment podcast with Grayling's Tom Symondson explores AI integration in public relations.Tom simplifies the process into 3 themes:AI Integration and StrategyAgencies will implement AI by prioritizing internal efficiency and service innovation. Implementation success requires depth over breadth to maximize impact.Human Augmentation and RisksAI should serve as an augmentation tool to support experts rather than replacing critical thinking. Teams must guard against efficiency-focused work becoming low quality.Operationalizing AI ImplementationAgencies should decentralize AI expertise by embedding champions within teams instead of separate hubs. Prioritizing repetitive tasks allows firms to scale high-value client services.If you want to learn more about how the future of PR will be impacted by AI, don't miss PRmoment's PR Masterclass: AI in PR.DetailsIntroduction and Optimistic Outlook on AI in PR: Ben Smith welcomed Tom Symondson, who co-leads Accordience's AI team, to discuss the impact of AI on the PR agency model.Tom Symondson expressed extreme optimism about AI's impact, asserting that core PR skills like relationships, experience, creativity, bravery, and judgment are irreplaceable. They suggested that AI will automate tasks that are not highly valued by clients or consultants, such as general research and formatting of monitoring reports, allowing consultants to focus on high-value analysis and strategic input.Emerging Opportunities and UK Investment: Tom Symondson identified that AI will generate new mandates, clients, and revenue streams, particularly around technology-focused businesses, crises, and regulation issues stemming from AI. They expressed optimism about the UK industry's potential benefit from significant investments in large language models (LLMs) by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI in London and the UK. Three Approaches for AI Implementation in PR: Agencies are anticipated to approach AI integration in three primary ways: improving internal efficiency, changing how client work is currently delivered, and creating entirely new tools and service lines that become new revenue streams. The internal efficiency focus involves automating or augmenting repeatable, client-invisible backend functions such as transcribing meetings, building action lists, and reporting processes. Tom Symondson noted that businesses should focus on depth over breadth, selecting one area for the biggest impact before moving on to the next.Understanding AI Augmentation: AI augmentation, distinct from replacement, refers to the technology supporting human experts rather than substituting them, particularly because much of the PR industry's work requires nuance. Tom Symondson gave the example of using an enterprise LLM system for new business research, where the tool supports initial framing but does not replace the consultant's own deep research process. They emphasized that the challenge for agencies is mapping out where this augmentation will have the greatest impact and providing training to take advantage of the tools.Obstacles to Successfully Embedding AI: The three main obstacles to integrating AI into an organization are cost, data and readiness risk, and time. Cost arises because enterprise-level access to AI tools is often high, and data readiness requires extensive security and system sign-off. Tom Symondson identified time as the biggest obstacle, as consultants need more time to experiment with different prompts and processes to understand the full range of AI's impact on their work.The Risk of Efficiency Over Effectiveness: Ben Smith cautioned that the "race to efficiency" can be a "race to the bottom" if not carefully managed. Tom Symondson agreed, noting the risk that increased automation could lead to less expert consultants if technology performs more research than people. The opportunity lies in using the time saved by AI to allow consultants to specialize further, for example, spending more time networking, attending events, or researching clients.The Role of Human Judgment and Criticality: Ben Smith highlighted the necessity of retaining a critical mind because LLMs, while able to generate answers quickly, still produce errors.Tom Symondson added that LLMs are excellent with structured data; therefore, agencies must connect their LLMs to accurate data tools, in addition to training colleagues on drafting effective prompts and knowing when to use the technology. They cited the doubling of AI's ability to complete long tasks every seven months, projecting that in 14 months, AI could complete a 40-hour human task.Importance of Openness and Ownership in AI Use: Tom Symondson stressed the need for consultants and agencies to use AI appropriately, ensuring it augments and supports work, rather than replacing critical thinking. A crucial element is fostering a culture of transparency where people are open about how they used AI for research, including what worked well, what struggled, and what human work was needed to finalize the product. This transparency ensures that people maintain ownership of the work product, balancing efficiency with quality.Innovation and Use Case Clarity: Ben Smith noted increased innovation in PR firms over the last 18 months, which Tom Symondson attributed to the significantly reduced ease and cost of experimentation, allowing someone to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in a weekend. However, Tom Symondson suggested that there might be less innovation this year as the industry moves toward a "substance phase," focusing on embedding existing AI use cases across the organization.Creative Quality and the Need for Uniquely Human Work: Tom Symondson identified the risk of "AI slop" or ideas that look and feel similar due to over-reliance on AI-generated content (e.g., AI writing, image, or PowerPoint generation). Great creative agencies will continue to succeed because their ideas are expected to feel "uniquely human" and grounded in culture, emotional intelligence (EQ), and personality.Operationalizing AI Implementation Across Agencies: Recognizing that time is a major barrier for busy teams, Tom Symondson emphasized the McKinsey principle that depth is more critical than breadth when implementing AI.Identifying and Managing Repetitive Tasks: In the internal productivity bucket, agencies focus on automating repeatable tasks, such as templating monitoring reports from spreadsheets into client emails, which Tom Symondson estimated could number in the thousands.Structure for AI Implementation and Expert Teams: The practical implementation of AI is highly decentralized, residing within the agencies themselves. Instead of a separate AI hub, teams have AI champions who are client-facing staff who integrate AI into their normal day jobs. Tom Symondson stressed the importance of having people work on AI who are connected to the day-to-day client work.The Opportunity for PR Compared to Other Marcom Sectors: Tom Symondson suggested that because PR is less structured and repeatable than sectors like production or media buying, the impact of AI is different, offering more opportunity for PR. AI will improve PR's ability to measure and articulate the value of its work by making it easier to structure and analyze diverse data sources. The discussion concluded that in the long term, AI will not replace talent, but rather reduce the fee earned from less-valued tasks, while increasing revenue from high-value services that require judgment, advice, and impactful results.

As organizations race to adopt AI and navigate rapid digital transformation, a troubling paradox is emerging. According to LinkedIn, 93% of IT leaders say they're confident in their AI governance—yet 29% admit AI has already exposed sensitive, unauthorized data. At the same time, nearly half of finance leaders (48%) are being asked to adopt new technologies under tight headcount constraints, forcing a sharper focus on cost-effective, secure solutions. So, what's really driving competitive advantage in 2026? It's no longer just the technology. It's the people. Research continues to reinforce this shift. A recent study by Deloitte found that while 59% of organizations are still taking a technology-first approach to AI, those companies are 1.6x more likely to fall short of expected returns compared to those that prioritize a human-centered strategy. Meanwhile, insights from McKinsey & Company show that 48% of CFOs are focused on navigating inflation and regulatory pressure while adopting new technology, and 44% are prioritizing cost reduction—making clarity, not complexity, the true currency of leadership. In this episode, we sit down with Noah Landow, CEO of Macktez, who has spent nearly 30 years helping founders and executives “tame the tech beast.” Noah doesn't just solve technical problems—he redesigns how organizations think about technology. With a background rooted in architecture and design, his philosophy is simple but powerful: Technology should have structural integrity—it should support both the people and the mission it serves. Through his work, Noah helps leaders: But what makes this conversation truly unique is how Noah connects technology leadership to seemingly unrelated disciplines: Because in a world where AI is rapidly becoming ubiquitous and replicable, the real differentiator isn't the tools—it's how humans use them. This episode challenges a critical assumption: What if the organizations winning with AI aren't the most advanced technically, but the most aligned culturally?   For more information: https://macktez.com/ Discover More: https://noahlandow.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we dive into the provocative assertion by W. Warner Burke that much of today's change management work is not truly Organizational Development. That may sound surprising. After all, many OD practitioners spend much of their time helping organizations navigate change. So how could change management not be OD? As we explore Burke's perspective, we find ourselves agreeing that his argument has more merit than many might initially think. At the center of the debate is the idea that much of modern change management — particularly as practiced by large consulting firms such as Deloitte and McKinsey & Company — tends to focus heavily on implementation, project plans, communications strategies, training rollouts, and adoption metrics. While these approaches may improve execution, Burke argues they often lack the deeper human and systemic foundations that have traditionally defined OD. Joyce and Bob reflect on examples from their own consulting work where change efforts were grounded in core OD principles. Rather than rushing to implementation, they describe the importance of first diagnosing what is really happening in the organization — understanding the culture, relationships, dynamics, and underlying patterns driving behavior. They also explore how effective OD-based change relies on collaboration, co-creation, participation, and leveraging an understanding of human behavior to build solutions with people rather than imposing solutions on them. In their experience, sustainable change happens not simply through execution discipline, but through engaging the organization in meaningful ways that create ownership, trust, learning, and commitment. Whether you are an OD practitioner, consultant, leader, or someone trying to help organizations change effectively, this episode challenges us to rethink what meaningful organizational change really requires.

In this podcast, Greg Voisen sits down with Dr. Sheila Gujrathi, a powerhouse physician and biotech entrepreneur who reached the top of the corporate ladder only to find an "inner glass ceiling" made of fear. Despite an elite career at McKinsey and Genentech, Sheila realized her greatest battles were internal. In this episode, she breaks down the roadmap from her book, The Mirror Effect: A Transformative Approach to Growth for the Next Generation of Female Leaders, revealing how high-achievers can dismantle the hidden fears that sabotage their success. If you've ever felt like an impostor while winning, this conversation will show you how to finally flip the script.

Christopher Carter is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Approyo, a Wisconsin-based managed services company that was one of the first to put SAP systems into the cloud (back in 2002). He founded Approyo in December 2013 to provide full SAP technology services with extensive capabilities in hosting, managing, upgrading, and migrating.Summary of PodcastKey TakeawaysData Quality is the AI Blocker: AI's value is limited by the "crap in, crap out" problem. Carter advises a mandatory data cleansing project before any AI initiative, as AI tools alone are insufficient and require human oversight.Human-in-the-Loop Governance: Carter advocates for a human-in-the-loop for all critical AI processes to prevent compounding errors. He criticized McKinsey's reported plan for 30,000 autonomous bots, arguing they should be tools to augment human employees, not replacements.Mugatu AI Prevents Data Leaks: Mugatu AI is an AI security tool that uses predictive analytics and homomorphic encryption to prevent accidental data leaks. It flags risky emails (e.g., with sensitive spreadsheets) and suggests secure alternatives like shared links.Early Cloud Adoption: Carter was an early pioneer in virtualising SAP systems on VMware and Azure, which initially met with corporate resistance but ultimately proved to be a cost-saving, flexible innovation for the SAP ecosystem.The "Crap In, Crap Out" ProblemCarter's core message: AI's effectiveness is directly tied to data quality.Problem: Legacy systems contain decades of "dirty data" from acquisitions, stagnant records, and inconsistent formats.Example: One client had 27 years of uncleansed EDI data.Example: Another client's acquisitions created duplicate part numbers (e.g., 7 different codes for the same part).Solution: A mandatory data cleansing project before any AI initiative.AI tools can assist with scraping and matching, but human oversight is essential for validation.The goal is a human-AI partnership to ensure data accuracy.Human-in-the-Loop GovernanceCarter advocates for a human-in-the-loop for all critical AI processes to prevent compounding errors.Critique of McKinsey's Bot Strategy: Carter questioned McKinsey's reported plan for 30,000 autonomous bots, arguing they should be tools to augment human employees, not replacements.Relevance to Finance (FP&A): Clean data and human-AI collaboration enable rapid scenario planning (e.g., 4 forecasts instead of 1), a major game-changer for finance teams.Mugatu AI: Preventing Accidental Data LeaksMugatu AI is an AI security tool named after the villain in the movie Zoolander.Function: Prevents accidental data leaks by flagging risky outbound emails.Mechanism: Uses predictive analytics and homomorphic encryption to analyse content in milliseconds.User Feedback: Provides a "security score" (0-100) and suggests secure alternatives (e.g., a shared link instead of an attachment).Status: 14,794 end-users across 3 major corporations; acquisition interest from companies like NVIDIA.Career as a Tech InnovatorCarter's career is marked by early adoption of disruptive tech, often ahead of corporate policy.SAP & Cloud Virtualisation:Pioneered virtualising SAP systems on VMware and later on Azure.This innovation initially met with resistance from SAP executives, who had not yet formalised a partnership with VMware.Re-engagement with SAP:After a negative client experience, Carter left the SAP ecosystem.A conversation with a friend (SAP's VP of Oil & Gas) over a bottle of Macallan scotch introduced him to SAP HANA, reigniting his interest.Carrick Rangers FC:A minority owner of the Northern Ireland Premier League football club.His involvement stems from a lifelong passion for soccer, including a past role as VP of Sales/Marketing for a professional team. The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-HostsGraham ArrowsmithGraham founded Finely Fettled in 2014 to provide data from The UK High Net Worth Database to marketers targeting affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, creating lead generation AI Agents & Workflows and introducing the MeclabsAI Platform. Graham also provides an Answer Engine Optimisation solution to get your website in shape to be found by LLMs.Kevin ApplebyKevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He's the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com

What happens when the biggest innovation in housing isn't a luxury tower or another short-term rental app, but a platform built specifically for everyone caught in between? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sat down with Ezra Gershanok, co-founder of Ohana, to unpack how his team is quietly reshaping the overlooked middle-term housing market. For years, people relocating for internships, new jobs, temporary projects, or extended travel have faced two bad choices. Either pay eye-watering hotel and Airbnb rates for months at a time or lock themselves into inflexible long-term leases they never really wanted. Ezra experienced this firsthand while relocating during his time at McKinsey, while his co-founder faced similar frustrations at Apple. Instead of accepting the problem as unavoidable, they built a marketplace around trust, flexibility, and human connection. What struck me throughout our conversation was how Ohana sits at the crossroads of technology, real-world problem solving, and changing work culture. The company has already processed more than $37 million in payments over the past year, with average booking values around $8,000 and average stays approaching 80 nights. Those numbers completely change the economics and psychology of online marketplaces. These are no longer casual weekend bookings. These are high-trust decisions involving real money, real relocation stress, and real human relationships. We explored how Ohana uses AI behind the scenes while deliberately keeping the customer experience deeply human. Hosts and guests are introduced on live match calls. Security deposits are held in escrow. Support teams actively facilitate trust between both sides. Ezra shared how the company uses AI to scale communication and operational workflows without replacing human interaction, something that feels increasingly rare in today's race toward automation. The conversation also touched on how employer partnerships with companies like OpenAI, Palantir Technologies, and Oracle are creating predictable housing demand for interns and new hires moving into expensive cities like New York City and London. Ezra explained why the platform initially gained traction among Chinese international students and how those same network effects are now accelerating growth in London. We also discussed the practical side of building a startup with no-code tools like Bubble, scaling globally with a tiny core team, balancing community standards with rapid growth, and why execution still matters more than ideas. Ezra offered refreshingly honest insights about persistence, operational discipline, and why solving an underserved problem often matters far more than building flashy technology. This episode is a fascinating look at how AI can actually support more meaningful human experiences instead of replacing them. It is also a conversation about trust, housing, modern mobility, and the growing realization that the way we live and work no longer fits neatly into old systems. So how will platforms like Ohana shape the future of temporary living as work becomes increasingly global, flexible, and distributed?   Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network Learn more about the NordLayer Browser Visit Denodo.com

What does it really mean to live well in a world dominated by convenience and processed foods? In this episode, we explore the growing tension between America's rising wellness awareness and its continued reliance on ultra-processed diets. While 82% of U.S. consumers say they prioritize wellness, more than 60% of the average American's calorie intake still comes from ultra-processed foods—a striking disconnect highlighted by McKinsey & Company. At the same time, the U.S. wellness market has surged to an estimated $480 billion, growing at 5–10% annually, fueled largely by Millennials and Gen Z. Enter UpWellness—a company built around the idea of nutrient-rich living. Born out of a naturopathic doctor's office, UpWellness was created to bridge the gap between the demand for natural healthcare and the limited access to it. After 15 years of clinical practice, long waitlists, and a desire to reach more people, co-founder Dr. Joshua Levitt set out to scale the principles of naturopathic medicine beyond the walls of his clinic. Dr. Josh, a naturopathic physician, educator, and former clinical preceptor at Yale School of Medicine, brings over two decades of hands-on experience to this conversation. He shares how UpWellness combines high-quality, science-backed herbal and nutritional supplements with a mission to empower individuals to take control of their health. This conversation  unpacks the realities of modern wellness, the rise of preventative health, and how companies like UpWellness are reshaping what it means to get well—and stay well.   For more information: https://www.upwellness.com/ Instagram: @drjoshlevitt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

El programa destaca la polémica rueda de prensa de Florentino Pérez, quien convoca elecciones en el Real Madrid y arremete contra la prensa, generando un intenso debate sobre su estrategia. Se analiza la desastrosa campaña del PSOE en Andalucía, liderada por María Jesús Montero, marcada por declaraciones controvertidas y la apelación a figuras del pasado, lo que anticipa un mal resultado y refleja la desnaturalización del partido a nivel nacional. Además, se informa sobre nuevas investigaciones judiciales que acorralan a José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero por presunto blanqueo de capitales a gran escala. Finalmente, se aborda un informe de McKinsey que revela la automatización del 60% de las horas de trabajo en España, con un gran potencial económico, pero subraya la falta de una estrategia nacional para afrontar este desafío tecnológico.

Are your meetings creating alignment… or quietly wasting everyone's time?   Leaders often believe their teams are on the same page because they've already communicated the goals and expectations. But as companies grow, unclear accountability and poor communication habits can quickly lead to confusion, stalled execution, and frustrated teams.   In this episode, Joe DeMarie shares practical leadership lessons from McKinsey, business consulting, and elite athletics to help leaders improve alignment, accountability, and performance.   In this episode you will Learn how the "Replay the Movie" framework creates stronger communication and better meetings Discover why stakeholder management and organizational alignment are critical for scaling teams Understand the management fundamentals that drive long-term business performance and employee engagement   Listen now to learn the practical management habits and leadership frameworks that help high-performing organizations scale with clarity, accountability, and resilience.   If you enjoyed this conversation, episode 529 is a great companion episode that further explores leadership alignment and management effectiveness.   At Bradley Hartmann & Company, we help construction teams improve sales, leadership,  and communication by reducing miscommunication, strengthening teamwork, and bridging language gaps between English and Spanish speakers. To learn more about our product offerings, visit bradleyhartmannandco.com. The Construction Leadership Podcast dives into essential leadership topics in construction, including strategy, emotional intelligence, communication skills, confidence, innovation, and effective decision-making. You'll also gain insights into delegation, cultural intelligence, goal setting, team building, employee engagement, and how to overcome common culture problems—whether you're leading a crew or managing an entire organization. Have topic ideas or guest recommendations? Contact us at info@bradleyhartmannandco.com. New podcasts are dropped every Tuesday and Thursday.   This episode is brought to you by The Construction Spanish Toolbox —the most practical way for construction teams to learn jobsite-ready Spanish in just minutes a day over 6 months.        

In this special compilation episode of Making Risk Flow, we bring together five standout conversations exploring how agentic AI, digital transformation, and organizational culture are reshaping the insurance industry. Featuring insights from leaders including Antonio Grimaldi of McKinsey & Company, Sam Lewis, Nicolas Zerbib, Richard Hartley, Bill Harris & Drake Slaikeu-Lawhead, the episode examines why AI leaders are generating dramatically stronger returns than competitors and how technologies like stateful agents, spatial intelligence, and headless orchestration are changing underwriting and distribution.Beyond technology itself, the discussion highlights the cultural shifts required to unlock transformation at scale. From reducing workflow friction to improving underwriting precision and scaling operations without proportional hiring, this episode offers practical frameworks for carriers, brokers, and tech leaders navigating insurance's next era. Fan Mail: Got a challenge digitizing your intake? Share it with us, and we'll unpack solutions from our experience at Cytora.To receive a custom demo from Cytora, click here and use the code 'Making Risk Flow'.Our previous guests include: Bronek Masojada of PPL, Craig Knightly of Inigo, Andrew Horton of QBE Insurance, Simon McGinn of Allianz, Stephane Flaquet of Hiscox, Matthew Grant of InsTech, Paul Brand of Convex, Paolo Cuomo of Gallagher Re, and Thierry Daucourt of AXA.Check out the three most downloaded episodes:The Five Pillars of Data Analytics Strategy in Insurance | Craig Knightly, Inigo20 Years as CEO of Hiscox: Personal Reflections and the Evolution of PPL | Bronek MasojadaImplementing ESG in the Insurance and Underwriting Space | Simon Tighe, Chaucer, and Paul McCarney, Moody's

In this episode of Medsider Radio, we sat down with Kurt Jacobus, co-founder and CEO of restor3d.restor3d provides patient-specific orthopedic implants using 3D printing and advanced software.Kurt has over two decades of experience in medtech entrepreneurship, including successful exits to Enovis and NuVasive. Prior to his career in medical devices, Kurt was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and is an Adjunct Professor at Georgia Tech. In this interview, Kurt discusses how restor3d used the FDA's 520(b) pathway to generate revenue and regulatory proof simultaneously, why self-regulating beyond FDA requirements makes submissions a competitive barrier, and how to approach investor relationships and board construction with long-term thinking.Before we dive into the discussion, I wanted to mention a few things:First, if you're into learning from medical device founders and CEOs and want to know when new interviews are live, head over to Medsider.com and sign up for our free newsletter.And if you're ready to level up your medtech game, you should check out Medsider Courses — 8-week masterclasses covering topics like fundraising, M&A and exit planning, design and development, clinical and regulatory strategy, and commercialization.These courses, featuring hard-earned lessons from elite medtech CEOs, can be purchased individually or come free with our All-Access Pass.If you'd rather read than listen, here's a link to the full interview with Kurt Jacobus.KEY MOMENTS FROM THE INTERVIEW(03:21) - How Kurt went from wanting to build race cars to 20 years of orthopedic entrepreneurship (06:03) - How restor3d's patient-specific implants challenge the “8 sizes fit 8 billion people” model (15:36) - Why early-stage companies should “ring the cash register” as soon as possible (17:16) - How a 520(b) pathway helped restor3d generate revenue before full FDA clearance (31:48) - How restor3d treats every FDA submission like a PhD thesis and holds itself to standards beyond what regulators ask for (35:24) - What Kurt learned from restor3d's limited market release (40:03) - How Kurt raised is last$100M+ round, and why fundraising is really a networking game (45:13) - What makes a great board, and how the wrong one can quietly derail a company

Derniers jours pour s'inscrire à ma nouvelle formation Mon système pour ne plus manquer de clients. Profitez de -20% avec le code SUCCES20 ! L'IA fait peur. L'IA fascine. Le discours actuel sur l'IA est totalement binaire : soit technophile idolâtre avec 0 recul soit bêtement technophobe. Olivier Sibony, nous aide à naviguer dans cette révolution technologique en répondant à la question profonde : comment décider à l'ère de l'IA ?Olivier est professeur à HEC, ancien Senior Partner de McKinsey & Company où il a passé 25 ans. Ses travaux de recherche se concentrent sur l'effet des biais cognitifs et comportementaux, en particulier sur la décision stratégique, l'innovation et la transformation.Allez écouter le 1er épisode que nous avions fait ensemble sur le thème des biais cognitifs : absolument passionnant ! Mais au-delà d'être brillant, Olivier n'a pas sa langue dans sa poche. J'apprécie son humour pince sans rire assez décapant. Dans cet épisode Olivier répond à des questions qu'on se pose tous : Peut-on faire confiance à l'IA pour notre santé, notre argent, notre couple? Comment éduquer nos enfants à l'ère de l'IA ?Pourquoi l'IA se trompe autant ? Quand lui déléguer une décision ? L'IA comme psy, ça marche ? Les métiers qui vont disparaître et à l'inverse ceux qui vont s'amplifier.Tout le monde devrait écouter cet épisode pour aiguiser son discernement et surtout sa maîtrise de ce nouvel outil qu'est l'IA. Pour ceux qui ne me connaissent pas encore, je suis Pauline Laigneau, et dans ce podcast, je partage sans filtre ce que 15 ans à la tête de Gemmyo m'ont appris. Gemmyo, c'est la maison de joaillerie que j'ai fondée et imposée dans le monde du luxe. Mon objectif est de vous aider à voir grand, à vous affirmer comme leader grâce aux personnalités extraordinaires qui partagent ici leur expertise. Si ce n'est pas encore déjà fait, pensez à vous abonner au podcast sur toutes les plateformes pour soutenir mon travail. Mais je ne vous en dis pas plus et laisse place à ma conversation avec Olivier Sibony. Bonne écoute ✨Chapitrage 00:00 – L'IA, entre fascination et peur : comment garder son discernement01:47 – Pourquoi écrire un livre sur la décision à l'ère de l'IA ?04:26 – Comment Olivier Sibony utilise l'IA au quotidien07:00 – Pourquoi l'IA se trompe autant ?10:10 – Comment ne pas se faire piéger par une IA trop sûre d'elle ?12:00 – Quelles décisions peut-on vraiment déléguer à l'IA ?18:20 – Quelles décisions doivent absolument rester humaines ?22:50 – Comment codécider avec l'IA sans lui obéir aveuglément ?29:10 – Comment éduquer ses enfants à l'ère de l'IA ?34:07 – Quels métiers vont disparaître ou se transformer ?40:32 – Risque-t-on d'atrophier notre intelligence ?42:53 – Créativité, intuition, empathie : ce que l'IA peut vraiment simuler44:56 – Justice, amour, armes autonomes : les limites éthiques de l'IA48:28 – Peut-on tomber amoureux d'une IA ?53:57 – IA, inégalités et retour aux métiers de la relation58:00 – Les deux erreurs à éviter avec l'IA59:58 – Le vrai message du livre : apprendre à décider avec discernementNotes et références de l'épisode ✨ Pour retrouver Olivier Sibony : Sur LinkedIn✨ Pour retrouver le 1er épisode enregistré avec Olivier Sibony : Sur SpotifySur AppleSur YouTube✨ Pour retrouver son site internet : Olivier Sibony✨ Le livre écrit par Olivier Sibony et Éric Hazan : Faut-il encore décider ? La décision humaine à l'ère de l'IA✨ Le livre recommandé par Olivier Sibony : Système 1 / Système 2 Les deux vitesses de la pensée de Daniel Kahneman*Liens affiliés Fnac✨ Le film cité par Olivier Sibony :Her de Spike JonzeHébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Show Notes: Zsigmond Fajth is a McKinsey alum and co-founder of Gridd, a company that provides templates for the AI era, specifically for consultants. Zsigmond explains that Gridd is designed for independent consultants, leveraging his experience at McKinsey where he modernized client communication tools. Introducing Gridd Zsigmond mentions the creation of McKinsey's PowerPoint toolbar and the Pyramid add-in, which helped consultants create interactive presentations. He discusses the transition from traditional templates to AI-driven templates, aiming to serve a broader audience beyond McKinsey. Gridd's AI Templates Zsigmond describes Gridd's AI templates as having flexible layouts that auto-expand as content is added, solving issues with static PowerPoint templates. The templates include embedded AI prompts that can be copied and pasted into various AI tools like ChatGPT or Copilot. He explains that the templates are designed to accommodate content in a format that can be easily integrated into the AI tools.  Gridd's Basic Setup Zsigmond demonstrates both the flexible layouts and the integration with AI tools. He shows the template library, which includes 260 templates covering various use cases like boxes, matrices, process flows, funnels, pyramids, and charts. The templates are designed to look like best practice consulting charts, with 60 charts being traditional Microsoft charts and the rest in a special format. Gridd's Special Formats Zsigmond highlights the special format, which includes elements like tables with blue boxes and sub-headers, typical of consulting slides. Gridd has a variety of templates, including frameworks, text, shapes, and quantitative info charts like column charts, bar charts, and waterfall charts.   Adding Rows Gridd's Flexible Layouts Zsigmond demonstrates how to insert a new page with a Gridd element, add columns or rows, and resize elements to maintain alignment. The flexible layouts allow for quick edits without manual alignment, saving time and effort. He shows how to add additional levels to a pyramid framework and delete levels as needed, making it easy to adjust the structure. The auto-expanding capability saves templates by allowing them to accommodate more content without creating multiple versions. Expanding Copy and Paste  Gridd Integration with AI Tools Zsigmond explains the process of using Gridd's custom prompts with AI tools like ChatGPT to generate content for the templates. The custom prompts include instructions on the layout and content format, ensuring the AI generates content that fits the template. Rearranging Columns Generating and Integrating Prompts Zsigmond demonstrates how to copy the prompt, paste it into ChatGPT, and specify the source of information to generate an executive summary.  Using AI Prompt The generated content is then copied and pasted back into the Gridd template, which formats it automatically.  Paste Prompt in ChatGPT Zsigmond contrasts Gridd's approach with traditional templates, which overdetermine output or require manual edits that are time-consuming. Paste into Gridd Gridd's approach allows for quick algorithmic edits, making it faster and more reliable to add or modify content than always using AI. The built-in prompts ensure consistent output and reduce the need for long and token-intensive layout generation. Zsigmond demonstrates how to modify existing templates to specify dimensions and content, making it easier to generate accurate and detailed pages. Gridd Pricing Packages Zsigmond outlines the pricing packages for Grid templates, including a free trial, an essentials package, and a full template package. The free trial includes the add-in and 23 templates, allowing users to test the tool without commitment. The essentials package, priced at $69, includes 60 layouts and is available with lifetime access. The full package, priced at $269, includes 260 layouts and 60 charts, also with lifetime access. All packages come with a 30 days satisfaction guarantee. Zsigmond mentions a launch promotion offering 33% off for Unleashed listeners, bringing the prices down to $49 for the essentials and $169 for the full package.  Promo code: UNLEASHED Timestamps: 02:42: Overview of Gridd's AI Templates  04:16: Demonstration of Gridd's Template Library 08:02: Editing and Customizing Templates in Gridd  13:02: Integration with AI Tools for Content Generation 22:55: Advantages of Gridd's Approach  23:09: Pricing and Availability of Gridd Templates Links: Gridd website: www.griddtemplates.com This episode on Umbrex: https://umbrex.com/unleashed/episode-644-zsigmond-fajth-gridd-smart-templates-for-the-ai-era/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com. *AI generated timestamps and show notes.