Podcasts about Menlo

In this special episode of Menlo Midweek, Senior Pastor Phil EuBank sits down with Elder Nominees Kwadwo Bediako and Bryant Barr. Together, they discuss personal faith journeys, the shift from inherited belief to personal conviction, and what it means to lead as an "undivided follower of Jesus" in the Bay Area. Tune in to hear their hearts for the church, their call to Session, and their vision for shepherding the Menlo Church community. Get Connected We'd love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out.

On Week 1 of Repentance for the Rest of Us, hosts Matt Summers and Phil EuBank sit down with guest speaker and author Dr. Vince Vitale to confront a word most of us spend our lives avoiding: repentance. Kicking off our new series under our year-long focus, Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, this conversation moves past clinical definitions to reframing repentance not as punishment or shame, but as the daily exhale of a living faith. Together, Matt, Phil, and Vince dismantle the corporate project-management approach to apology and explore what it actually costs to step into horizontal, present-tense ownership of our lives and relationships. Tune in as they break down: Why "repent" and "believe" are two sides of the exact same coin and why we dropped one word while keeping the other. The critical difference between vertical confession with God and horizontal repair with people. How high-performing culture tempts us to project-manage our apologies instead of giving up control. Why forgiveness and consequences are not the same transaction, and how to keep grace from becoming a shield against accountability. The marital "ban" on I'm sorry and the four words that shift an apology from self-defense to genuine surrender. Grab your Reclaiming Journal, ask yourself whose face comes to mind when you close your eyes, and join us for a conversation on why repentance isn't a sentence to carry. It's a gift that sets us free. Get Connected We'd love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out.

Episode Description: On Week 4, the finale of What is a Follower of The Way?, host Matt Summers and pastor Phil EuBank sit down to confront an uncomfortable reality: the illusion of control. Building on our year of Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, this final conversation moves from the "junk drawer" to the "spray bottle"—a simple illustration that shifts our perspective on life, time, and stewardship. Phil and Matt unpack James 4 and 5, exploring why we so often try to edit ourselves into the hero of our own stories and how we can stop treating our lives as possessions to be managed, and start seeing them as gifts to be invested. Tune in as they break down: The tension between our drive for ambition and the biblical reality of providence. What it actually means to be a "Sacrificial Developer" on an ordinary Tuesday. The difference between adding a religious disclaimer to our plans and truly holding a decision open before God. Why we should pay attention to the people our lives "run on"—and why attention often costs more than money. Grab your Reclaiming Journal, ask yourself the question: "Who does my life actually run on?" and join us for a conversation on why your life—like a vapor—is meant to be invested well. Get Connected We'd love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out.

Episode Description: On Week 3 of our series through James, Pastor Phil EuBank swaps chairs to sit down with Matt Summers to ask a grounding question: What do your words reveal about the "junk drawer" of your life? Continuing our year dedicated to Reclaiming The Way of Jesus, Phil and Matt unpack what it means to build atmospheres with our words in the fast-paced, highly verbal culture of the Bay Area. Together, they explore the tension between our carefully crafted outward communication and the underlying spiritual formation that actually fuels our daily reactions. This conversation shifts from playful insights on holding onto 2012 charging cables to a deep, diagnostic look at the damage our tongues can do. Tune in as they break down: The difference between simply managing what comes out of our mouths and dealing with what's actually stored in our hearts. How our words act like lightning strikes, starting relational wildfires that create the environments others have to live in. What it means to hold "conviction without contempt" as we head into a politically charged and polarized season. What a "Thoughtful Witness" actually looks like at a Tuesday night dinner table—and how to move past self-surveillance into genuine curiosity. Grab your Reclaiming Journal, write down the question What did my words create today? and join us for an honest look at recovering the Way of Jesus in the place we actually live. Get Connected We'd love to connect with you and help you get plugged into Menlo Church. Visit http://menlo.church/connect and fill out a quick form so we can reach out. Stay Connected with Menlo Church Kids (Preschool–Grade 5): https://menlo.church/kids Students (Grade 6–12): https://menlo.church/students Explore All Ministries: https://www.menlo.church/ministries Follow Us on Social Media Instagram: @menlo.church Facebook: Menlo Church Website: http://www.menlo.church Musicbed Sync ID: (MB014RCECFXJCWL) Musicbed Sync ID: (MB01EKBUICB4NLC)

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. The episode of Agile Tales continues a long-running conversation with Rich Sheridan. Rich discusses how Menlo's pairing practices can include neurodivergent team members, noting they've employed people on the spectrum and that social skills develop through practice rather than isolation; he argues many “cantankerous” behaviors are created by silent, cubicle-based environments and should be addressed with structures for respectful conflict, drawing on Crucial Conversations and a kindergarten “solution circle” model, while still expecting basic human decency. He explains executive influence through visible signals, humility, and accepting feedback, then describes fostering autonomy via “run the experiment,” minimizing meetings, and using shorthand cultural phrases like “black butterflies” to challenge assumptions and reduce fear-driven resistance.00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:40 Neurodivergence and Pairing04:45 Isolation Creates Friction08:20 Solution Circle Skills11:49 Respect and System Design16:52 Leading by Signals21:32 Run the Experiment27:27 Black Butterflies Story29:49 Closing and Next EpisodeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Practice tests are an essential part of GMAT prep—but are you using them the right way? In Week 5 of our Summer Prep Series, GMAC Zach is joined once again by GMAT expert Hailey Cusimano to explore how candidates can make the transition from learning GMAT concepts to performing under test-like conditions. They discuss why a practice test should be treated as data rather than a verdict on your readiness, when to start taking official practice exams, and how to practice pacing without burning through your limited supply of full-length tests. Hailey also breaks down some of the most common pacing mistakes—including obsessing over a two-minute-per-question benchmark, spending too much time on difficult questions, and unnecessarily double-checking questions you've already solved efficiently. Plus, Zach and Hailey dig into the mental side of the GMAT: how momentum can affect your performance, why trying to predict the scoring algorithm can work against you, and how deliberately introducing manageable stress into your practice can make test day feel more familiar. And if you're following the series, get a practice test ready: next week, Zach and Hailey will walk through how to actually review one. About Hailey: Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun. Helpful Resources: Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/ Register for the GMAT: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/register 5 Traits of Successful GMAT Test Takers: https://tinyurl.com/insidethegmat Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare Key Takeaways: Your practice test is data—not a verdict. A practice test isn't simply there to tell you whether you're "ready." It can reveal how you behave under pressure, where your pacing breaks down, what strategies survive under time constraints, and where your prep should go next. Don't wait until you feel 100% ready. Waiting for near-perfect accuracy before taking a practice exam can leave you "treading water." Once you've built a reasonable foundation and can learn constructively from your mistakes, practice tests themselves should become part of the learning process. Pacing does not mean spending two minutes on every question. Different questions deserve different amounts of time. Instead of constantly calculating your time per question, Hailey recommends thinking more broadly about high-value versus low-value time across the section. One difficult question can create a pacing snowball. Spending three or more minutes fighting with one problem may not just hurt you on that question—it can force you to rush several questions afterward. Recognizing sunk-cost thinking and knowing when additional time is no longer adding value are critical GMAT skills. Structure gives you something to fall back on under pressure. You can't eliminate every stressful moment from the GMAT. You can develop question-solving routines, pacing checkpoints, contingency plans, and even a consistent pre-test routine so your brain has something familiar to rely on when stress arrives. Stop trying to figure out how well you're doing during the exam. The apparent difficulty of the questions you see isn't a reliable way to judge your performance. Hailey has seen candidates mentally give up on sections they later discovered were among their strongest performances. Your job is the question in front of you—not reverse-engineering the scoring algorithm. Practice being imperfect. You can miss questions and still perform extremely well. Aiming to feel 100% confident about every answer can actually hurt performance if it causes you to overinvest time. Even strong candidates should have strategies for making a thoughtful, educated guess when necessary. Chapters: Chapters 00:00 Introduction and episode overview 02:54 Contextualizing practice test data 05:46 Balancing confidence and pacing in practice tests 09:07 The importance of review and reflection 12:14 The mental game: stress and momentum 14:56 Practical tips for consistent practice habits 18:08 Overcoming perfectionism and all-or-nothing mindset 21:07 Benchmarking and adjusting pacing strategies 23:56 The value of review and reflection 27:11 Understanding and managing the scoring algorithm 30:04 Preparing mentally for test day challenges 31:02 The importance of a structured routine 31:52 Handling the mental game and stress management 33:05 Avoiding all-or-nothing thinking in pacing 34:01 Using review to inform pacing adjustments 34:55 The role of contingency plans in test strategy 35:49 Common mistakes and how to correct them 36:49 The importance of resilience and grit 38:11 Final tips for test day readiness 38:51 Upcoming episode preview and closing remarks

Episode Description: Fresh off Vision Sunday and the launch of our new series through James, host Matt Summers sits down with Pastor Phil EuBank to ask a grounding question: What is your life actually becoming? Moving from last series' focus on researched faith to a year dedicated to reclaimed faith, Matt and Phil unpack what it means to follow Jesus in the real pace, devices, habits, and demands of Bay Area life. Together, they explore the life of James—someone who had extreme proximity to Jesus yet almost missed Him—and wrestle with the tension between spiritual formation and modern fragmentation. This conversation shifts from playful insights on physical journals versus digital overload to a deep, diagnostic look at James 1. Tune in as they break down: The difference between an interruption and a distraction. What it means to be "double-minded" in a culture of endless backup plans. Why staying at the mirror of God's Word long enough transforms us from spiritually educated to spiritually activated. What an "Undivided Follower" actually looks like on a normal Monday—whether you're feeling on autopilot, harbor honest skepticism, or feel spiritually crowded out. Grab your Reclaiming Journal, bend the spine, and join us for an honest look at recovering the Way of Jesus in the place we actually live.

Data Insights gives you a lot to look at, but that doesn't mean you need to understand all of it. In the latest installment of our GMAT Summer Prep Series, GMAC Zach and Hailey Cusimano of Menlo Coaching break down how to approach one of the GMAT's most distinctive sections without getting lost in the data. They explore why timing can be particularly challenging in Data Insights, how to stay focused on the task in front of you, why unfamiliar subject matter shouldn't scare you, and how having a clear strategy for each question type can make the section feel much more manageable. Plus, Zach puts his own Data Sufficiency skills to the test as Hailey demonstrates how slowing down before you start solving can actually help you work more efficiently. Whether Data Insights is your favorite section or the one you're still trying to figure out, this episode will help you build a smarter approach to the questions in front of you. About Hailey: Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun. Helpful Resources: Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/ Register for the GMAT: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/register 5 Traits of Successful GMAT Test Takers: https://tinyurl.com/insidethegmat Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare Key Takeaways: Data Insights is a resource-management test as much as a reasoning test. A major challenge is recognizing when a question is consuming too much time and deciding whether the next step is actually worth the investment. You do not need to understand everything you're shown. Start with the task, then seek out the information needed to answer it. Trying to fully absorb every graph, tab, or paragraph upfront can waste valuable time. The bigger danger is often assuming information, not overlooking it. When you catch yourself filling in a gap with outside knowledge or what "seems" true, go back to the information provided and find support you can actually defend. If a Graphics Interpretation question feels like an eye test, you may be interpreting the graph incorrectly. Differences should be defensible from the data rather than dependent on extremely precise visual estimation. On Data Sufficiency, define what would make the information sufficient before you start calculating. Especially on yes/no questions, you do not need one unique scenario—you need to know whether the answer can be determined definitively. You do not have to evaluate Data Sufficiency statements in order. Starting with the statement that gives you the clearest path can make the problem easier and reduce unnecessary work. Doing more practice questions is not necessarily the path to improvement. The useful part of review is identifying exactly where your reasoning broke down and what you need to do differently when you encounter a similar challenge again. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to Data Insights and Episode Overview 02:14 GMAT Super Score and Its Impact on Data Insights 03:24 Integrating Quantitative and Verbal Skills in Data Insights 04:47 Common Challenges: Timing and Data Overload 07:08 Building Structure and Task Orientation 09:00 Handling Distractions and Staying Focused 10:01 Practicing Discipline and Resource Management 12:21 Avoiding Assumptions and Logical Leaps 14:14 Understanding the Open Book Nature of Data Insights 16:03 Question Type Specific Strategies 19:08 Using Graphics Interpretation Effectively 29:16 Introduction to Data Sufficiency Questions 30:15 Evaluating Data Sufficiency Statements Independently 32:38 Common Mistakes in Data Sufficiency 35:15 Importance of Inventory Management and Confidence 40:05 Strategies for Success and Self-Reflection 50:14 Psychology of Test-Taking and Next Steps

Description Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! Following Vision Sunday at Menlo Church, host Matt Summers sits down with Phil EuBank to launch our new year-long journey: Reclaiming the Way of Jesus. In this episode, we dive into Week 1 of our study in James (The Mirror) to unpack what it actually means to be an Undivided Follower in a culture designed to fragment our focus, schedules, and devotion. From shifting from a "researched faith" to a "reclaimed faith" to exploring why James shifted from Jesus' skeptical brother to His servant, Matt and Phil map out how our daily habits are already forming us—and how to align our actions back to the Way of Jesus. In this episode, we discuss: Researched vs. Reclaimed Faith: Why knowledge about God isn't enough and what it takes to recover what's been quietly stolen from our attention and schedules. The 30,000-Foot Map: A look at the year ahead as we reclaim worship, the table, focus, and work. The James Dilemma: How proximity to Jesus doesn't equal following Him, and what James' transformation teaches the saint, the skeptic, and the prodigal. Double-Mindedness (Dipsychos): The difference between honest doubt and trying to follow Jesus with a backup plan. Staying at the Mirror: Why prolonged reflection moves us from spiritually educated to spiritually activated. How to Use the Reclaiming Journal: Practical ways to use the new physical journal without turning it into spiritual homework.

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, Rich contrasts default culture with intentional culture, warning that values confined to posters and CEO “rah-rah” speeches breed cynicism unless reinforced through recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, feedback, promotion, and firing practices. He emphasizes “alignment” among outside perception, inside reality, and the leader's heart, noting misalignment creates organizational drag and even motivates companies to game culture awards. Using Menlo examples—public tours, pair-based work, an “extreme interview,” one-day and three-week trials, and peer-based “prosperity reviews”—he shows how clear signals and truth-telling sustain culture, including allowing negative Glassdoor feedback and using it for reflection.00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:40 Management Training Gap02:57 Podcast Legacy and Impact05:42 Default vs Intentional Culture09:28 Alignment Heart Reality Perception13:15 Tours and Truth in Action19:15 Hiring Extreme Interview Signals21:15 Peer Reviews and Mentorship Culture24:36 Glassdoor Free Speech and Feedback28:18 Closing and Next EpisodeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Recorded on location at Black Hat USA 2026, Eric Avigdor of Menlo Security describes an adoption pattern he hears in customer conversation after customer conversation. AI makes teams measurably more productive. The guardrails that keep company data inside the business arrive later, if they arrive at all. Eric Avigdor leads product for AI security and data security at Menlo Security, and he splits the problem into two categories that get very different levels of attention. One is how people use AI in the browser, including what data gets pasted into an assistant and how much of that usage anyone knows about. The other is autonomous agents built to run business processes, where the question is how to keep them productive without letting their goals get hijacked. The category Eric Avigdor says compliance teams skip past is the agent that holds sensitive data and internet access at the same time. Read a poisoned web page, take the hidden instruction, and the goal changes. What is the difference between an agent running analysis on an internal database and an agent doing financial analysis at a bank with customer records and web access? One of them can be told to send the data somewhere else. So who owns AI governance? In most companies, nobody does, at least not with authority. Responsibility lands with the endpoint team, the network team, or the browser team, and each one works its own angle. An endpoint team tracks agent traffic on the endpoint and then loses the trail when the agent moves data cloud to cloud. A cloud team has the reverse blind spot. Menlo Agent Runtime Security, or MARS, is built around what an agent actually does rather than what it intends to do. Agent traffic is proxied through the Menlo Security cloud browser, where data masking, indirect prompt injection prevention, and web-based and file-based threat prevention are applied before an incident becomes cleanup work. Browser and web traffic today, MCP traffic next. For regulated organizations, that architecture produces something auditors can use. Logging, dashboarding, and a visual record of what an agent attempted in the real world. Europe has the AI Act. The US has not landed comparable rules yet, and Eric Avigdor says that gap concerns him enough that he is talking with people working to close it. GUEST Eric Avigdor, Vice President of Product, Menlo Security | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-avigdor-0b561118/ RESOURCES Black Hat USA 2026 event coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/black-hat-usa-2026-cybersecurity-event-coverage-in-las-vegas Menlo Security: https://www.menlosecurity.com/ Menlo AI Agent Security: https://www.menlosecurity.com/product/ai-agent-security Menlo AI Adaptive DLP: https://www.menlosecurity.com/product/ai-adaptive-dlp Are you interested in telling your story? ▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full ▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight ▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight ▶︎ Get your own Brand Briefing at an upcoming event: https://www.studioc60.com/buy-brand-briefings KEYWORDS eric avigdor, menlo security, sean martin, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, brand spotlight, black hat usa 2026, mars, menlo agent runtime security, ai agent security, prompt injection, indirect prompt injection, data exfiltration, ai governance, browser security, agentic ai, autonomous agents, shadow ai, data loss prevention, eu ai act, ai compliance, coding agents, mcp security Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Knowing how to read doesn't automatically mean you know how to approach GMAT Verbal. In the latest episode of our summer GMAT prep series, GMAC Zach and GMAT instructor Hailey Cusimano dig into Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning—and some of the habits that can make these questions harder than they need to be. They explore why GMAT Verbal is more objective than it may seem, how assumptions and outside knowledge can lead you toward tempting wrong answers, why reading faster isn't necessarily the answer to pacing problems, and how process of elimination can help you make more defensible decisions. Then Zach puts the strategies to the test with challenging Critical Reasoning questions—and falls into a few traps along the way. About Hailey: Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun. Helpful Resources: Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/ Register for the GMAT: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/register 5 Traits of Successful GMAT Test Takers: https://tinyurl.com/insidethegmat Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare Key Takeaways: Verbal is objective. You're not choosing the answer you can make the best case for; four answers are ultimately flawed for a reason. Read for structure, not memorization. Look for changes in direction, perspective, comparisons, and why each paragraph exists. Don't bring too much outside knowledge with you. Your assumptions and familiarity with a topic can sometimes make a question harder rather than easier. Know your job before evaluating the answers. An assumption, strengthener, inference, and other question types demand different things. Make your eliminations defensible. "I don't like this answer" isn't enough; you should be able to articulate why it fails the task. Review why you got stuck—not just what you got wrong. Hailey's final advice is to look for recurring resistance points in your decision-making rather than simply drilling more questions of the same type.

Get to know two familiar faces stepping into new leadership roles at Menlo Church! Our Lead Pastor Phil sits down with Tommy, the new San Mateo Campus Pastor, and Brett, the new Mountain View Campus Pastor, to discuss their journeys, family life, and heart for their respective communities. From fun icebreakers to behind-the-scenes stories of their transitions within Menlo, Tommy and Brett share the unique personalities of their campuses, their deepest hopes and prayers for the coming year, and how you can get plugged in. We know you'll enjoy this one.   Next Steps: Listen to Menlo Midweek Podcast Want a behind-the-scenes look at this week's sermon? Tune into our Menlo Midweek Podcast where we break down the sermon, themes, and other personal insights not covered on Sunday.

In this series finale of the Menlo Midweek Podcast, Matt Summers and Phil EuBank wrap up seven weeks of exploring the world's major worldviews by turning their focus directly toward the heart of Christianity: the Gospel. Reflecting on the journey from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Catholicism, and Agnosticism, this episode draws a stark line between every human transaction, where we try to perform, prove, or bribe our way to God and the true Gospel, where God reverses direction and gives us a way home. Matt and Phil unpack how religion acts as humanity's attempt to climb back to Eden, why the distinction between a bribe and a gift matters so deeply, and how even well-meaning Christians accidentally turn grace back into performance.

In this week's episode, Phil EuBank sits down with Matt Summers to dive into Sunday's message on irreligion, agnosticism, and the widespread assumption that "good people are fine." They explore the cultural default of the Bay Area, where many people don't claim a formal religion but instead live out a form of secular humanism or moralistic therapeutic deism, hoping their good intentions and decent behavior will ultimately be enough. Phil shares a deeply moving story about pastoring through tragic loss and contrasts the world's transactional thinking with Jesus's encounter with the rich young ruler in Mark 10. Together, Phil and Matt discuss why Jesus desires our hearts rather than our moral resumes, exposing how easily even church culture can drift into busyness and performance over genuine relationship.

GMAT Quant questions can look intimidating—but the hardest part is not always the math. In week two of our six-week GMAT study series, GMAC Zach is joined once again by Hailey Cusimano of Menlo Coaching for a hands-on Quantitative Reasoning session. Together, they work through three challenging problems and explore what actually separates an efficient GMAT solution from a long, calculation-heavy one. You'll learn why rushing into the first available approach can cost you time, how to identify the question's true ask, and how techniques such as number picking, visual organization, and proportional reasoning can reveal a much simpler path forward. Along the way, Hailey explains how to: Front-load your analysis so you can execute more efficiently Identify and pursue the path of least resistance Recognize the cues intentionally built into a question Choose useful numbers when variables make a problem difficult to visualize Avoid doing the right math for the wrong question Turn "careless mistakes" into specific opportunities for improvement Whether Quant is your biggest concern or you simply want to become a more flexible problem-solver, this episode will help you approach difficult questions with greater clarity, confidence, and control. About Hailey: Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun. Helpful Resources: Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/ Register for the GMAT: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/register 5 Traits of Successful GMAT Test Takers: https://tinyurl.com/insidethegmat Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare Key Takeaways: Analyze before you calculate. A small investment of time at the beginning can prevent you from spending several minutes on an approach that will not pay off. Look for the path of least resistance. The first method that comes to mind is not necessarily the most efficient one. Treat every detail as intentional. A word such as "remaining," "integer," or "non-negative" may completely change how the question should be interpreted. Make abstract questions tangible. When a problem uses percentages and variables, choosing useful numbers can make the underlying relationship easier to see. Answer the question that was actually asked. Correct calculations can still lead to a wrong answer when you use the wrong comparison or percentage base. Investigate so-called careless mistakes. Errors often begin with how the problem was interpreted or organized—not with the final arithmetic. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to GMAT quant challenges and guest Haley Cusimano 01:02 The importance of mindset and environment in tackling quant questions 02:29 Common misconceptions about approaching GMAT quant 03:43 The GMAT as an analysis of thinking, not just content knowledge 05:00 Bad habits from content-based exam thinking 06:23 The value of slow analysis and question deconstruction 07:34 Course correction strategies for difficult questions 09:12 Frontloading analysis and identifying the path of least resistance 10:54 Using number sense and ratios to simplify problems 12:27 The importance of understanding question cues and details 15:50 Visual organization of complex data and question setup 17:23 Handling challenging percent questions with strategic number picking 20:14 Dealing with traps and misconceptions in percent problems 24:39 Leveraging divisibility and number properties for quick calculations 28:23 Setting up for success: avoiding careless errors 34:52 Approaches to tackling difficult GMAT questions efficiently 37:32 Visualizing data with tables and diagrams for complex problems 44:46 Using number sense to simplify and verify answers 50:54 Summary and key takeaways for effective GMAT quant prep

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, Rich argues that scaling requires adaptation and that large organizations are effectively collections of smaller teams, best changed through experiments rather than mandates, citing Nationwide's adoption of Menlo-inspired practices. He explains why Menlo has remained around 50 people, noting financial constraints without investors or debt, and the need to grow responsibly without harming culture, while adding leadership and managerial processes after consecutive strong years. He contrasts “default culture,” which emerges from tolerated behaviors and often becomes complaint-driven, with “intentional culture,” reinforced through storytelling and embedded in HR practices. He critiques hero-based organizations as burnout-prone and sustained by recognition rewards, and describes changing manager behavior by replacing those rewards and breaking learned leadership patterns.00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales?01:40 Can Joy Scale?04:02 Growing Past Fifty07:21 Default Versus Intentional Culture08:30 Stories That Shape Culture13:28 Hero Cultures Explained17:23 Pressure Reveals Values22:28 Changing Hero Rewards26:40 Why Managers Repeat Hero-based Patterns28:06 Rich's Turning Point30:08 Closing And Next TimeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Summer can be a great time to prepare for the GMAT...but only if you have a plan! In the first installment of our summer GMAT study series, GMAC Zach is joined by Hailey Cusimano, Director of Tutoring at Menlo Coaching, to discuss how candidates can build a study timeline that is structured, realistic, and flexible. Hailey explains why GMAT preparation should generally move through two phases: first developing the necessary foundations and strategies, and then practicing under increasingly realistic test conditions. She also shares why completing more questions does not automatically lead to a higher score, how to use an error log effectively, and what candidates should look for when reviewing their performance. The conversation also covers test readiness, practice-exam timing, managing test-day stress, and why even strong test takers should leave room in their schedules for a possible retake. Whether you are beginning your GMAT journey or trying to regain momentum, this series will help you build a more thoughtful and productive approach to your preparation. About Hailey: Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun. Helpful Resources: Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/ Register for the GMAT: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/register 5 Traits of Successful GMAT Test Takers: https://tinyurl.com/insidethegmat Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare Key Takeaways: Build a clear preparation timeline before diving into practice questions. Divide your study plan into two broad phases: foundations and strategy first, followed by timed and test-like practice. Avoid treating practice exams as the structure of your entire study plan. Focus on understanding why you struggled with a question—not simply what type of question you missed. Use an error log to identify recurring behaviors, habits, and decision-making patterns. Prioritize the quality of your review over the number of questions you complete. Look for consistency across practice exams rather than relying on one strong performance. Practice handling realistic distractions and pressure before test day. Maintain balance, flexibility, and resilience throughout the preparation process. Leave enough time in your schedule to retake the GMAT if needed. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to GMAT summer study series 02:30 Why summer is ideal for GMAT prep 05:02 Initial steps for beginning GMAT prep 09:20 Structuring your study timeline 12:55 Content review vs. test simulation 17:20 Benchmarking progress and understanding resistance 22:41 Traits of successful GMAT test takers 27:16 Balancing preparation and well-being 33:50 Emulating test stressors effectively 37:34 The importance of retesting and iteration 40:15 Actionable steps for starting your prep

In this week's episode, Phil EuBank sits down with Pastor Matt Summers to dive into Sunday's message, The System of Merit. Framing Roman Catholicism as our theological parent in the Christian family tree, they explore how a system built on human merit, sacraments, and tradition can subtly turn faith into a tollbooth or a self-funded spiritual insurance policy. Together, Phil and Matt discuss the core contrasts of the Protestant Reformation, specifically Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) and salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Drawing from Phil's childhood friendship with a local priest named Father Michael, they highlight the vital need to hold deep conviction without losing the humble, loving posture of Jesus. They also turn the mirror on Protestant culture, exposing the invisible performance tolls we often pay when we try to earn God's love or blame ourselves during life's hardships. Listen to the Menlo Midweek Podcast Tune into new episodes released every Wednesday as we break down Sunday's sermon, share behind-the-scenes insights, and discuss practical ways to live out our faith. Listen now at menlo.church/podcasts.

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, Rich clarifies that “bench” engineers rotate systematically among internal and client work, and that bugs are handled as regular story cards scheduled by clients rather than as a separate firefighting function; he attributes Menlo's record of only two software emergencies in 23 years to pairing, frequent pair rotation, test-driven design, and fast feedback. He contrasts this with demoralizing bug triage cultures and “tower of knowledge” single points of failure, describing how pairing reduces risk and avoids trapping experts. On the client side, Menlo offers flexible, discounted contracts while committing to never stopping a project (keeping at least one pair assigned) and allowing customers to switch to full-rate priority if needed. More importantly, Rich defines joy as delighting end users by involving them directly and measuring joy through weekly show-and-tell feedback, and he argues these disciplines can scale, citing Menlo's training of 400 staff at Nationwide Financial and influence on a 10,000-person IT organization.00:00 Welcom to Our Agile Tales01:41 No Bench Engineers02:55 Bugs and Broken Systems04:46 Demoralizing Bug Culture06:50 Flexible Deadlines Explained09:20 Pairing as Secret Sauce10:11 Towers of Knowledge Risk13:00 Defining Joy at Menlo14:47 Programmers Want Impact17:47 Measuring Joy Weekly Feedback22:39 Engineers Talking to Users23:24 Freedom Through Discipline25:24 Scaling to Big Orgs28:17 Closing and Next EpisodeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Matt Murphy is a Partner at Menlo Ventures, who just raised $3 billion in fresh capital, its largest pool ever. Matt's portfolio includes Anthropic, Lovable, Legora, OpenRouter, Chai Discovery, Axiom, OpenEvidence and more. AGENDA:  00:00 Why Menlo Broke All Its Investing Rules to Back Anthropic 09:00 Why Ownership Matters Less in an Outlier-Driven Venture Market 13:00 Do We Have an SPV Problem in Venture Today? 20:00 Do Margins Still Matter in AI? 23:00 Why Open Source Won't Derail Anthropic's Growth 26:00 Does Every Model Provider Need to Build Its Own Chips? 29:00 Why Anthropic Is Not a Threat to Legora 32:00 Why Series A Is the Hardest Place to Invest Today 36:00 Why Signalling Is B.S. and Every Fund Is Going Full Stack 42:00 Why Building a Company in Europe Is Hard Mode 47:00 Why Triple-Triple-Double-Double Is No Longer Venture-Scale Growth  

In this week's episode, host Peter Sherman sits down with Spiritual Formation Pastor Matt Summers to unpack Sunday's message, The Ladder of Modern Prophets. In the LDS system, salvation is often framed as a partnership where we provide maximum effort and God provides the supplement. But striving to follow laws, ordinances, and temple works to achieve exaltation creates an exhausting, moving finish line. It leaves us trapped in the anxiety of never knowing if we have done enough to qualify for God's presence. Together, Peter and Matt explore the contrast offered by the gospel. Grace is not a top-off to patch up our performance, and the work of Jesus is not a supplement to our effort; it is a total substitute for it. Instead of climbing a spiritual ladder to prove our value, we discover the life-changing freedom of stepping off the performance loop and living from the worth Jesus has already given us. Listen to the Menlo Midweek Podcast Tune into new episodes released every Wednesday as we break down Sunday's sermon, share behind-the-scenes insights, and discuss practical ways to live out our faith. Listen now at menlo.church/podcasts.

Browser Security in the Age of Agentic AI: Containment, Isolation, and the New CISO Reality Host Jim Love introduces a #TrendingOnTheWeekend episode featuring David Shipley (Cyber Security Today, Beauceron Security) interviewing Lionel Liddy, CISO at Menlo Security, about AI-driven vulnerability discovery and why reactive security is failing as exploitation accelerates. Liddy shares his path from a University of Toronto PhD researching virtual machines to building Menlo's browser-security approach: an isolated remote "cloud browser" that prevents active web content from executing on endpoints and can also shield servers by forcing interactions through a controlled browser. They discuss CISOs struggling to keep up with rapid shifts, agentic AI risks in browsers and extensions, limits of LLM guardrails (including NIST's proof-like framing), and the compounding impact of pervasive bugs and technical debt. The episode closes with where to learn more at Menlo Security. 00:00 OpenClaw Policy Panic 00:19 Weekend Show Setup 00:57 Interview Preview 02:06 Lionel Origin Story 05:02 Menlo Browser Isolation 06:58 AI Speeds Up Exploits 10:33 CISO Whiplash Era 12:18 Agents In The Browser 16:17 Guardrails Limits Proof 19:58 Mythos And New Normal 23:36 Hazmat Suit For Servers 28:24 Collision Weekend Scenario 32:02 Wrap Up And Links 33:11 Show Closing Notes

We are continuing our summer series, Let's Be Honest, a thoughtful, humble exploration of what it means to navigate faith, culture, and big intellectual questions today. This week, host Matt Summers sits down with Brett Koerten for an honest, deeply respectful look at Buddhism. Instead of relying on easy stereotypes, they start with a deeply human question we all face: why life feels unstable and why even the good things in this world never seem to last. Using the metaphor of two glasses—one empty, one full—they explore how different paths approach this universal ache. While Buddhism focuses on emptying ourselves of cravings to find peace, Christianity offers a completely different hope. You see, Christianity has an emptying too. But instead of that emptying being a requirement by us to receive freedom, in Jesus, God emptied himself to enter our suffering, take it upon himself, and make us whole.

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, we focus on Menlo's pairing practices for all roles, not just software engineers, to strengthen culture, knowledge sharing, and sustainable pace. Rich describes Menlo's near-no-overtime norm (about 40–45 hours), a four-week vacation policy reinforced by peer pressure against checking messages, and how coverage and shared context prevent single points of failure. He explains how Menlo avoids overtime when clients demand more work by adding people and rotating pairs every five business days to “break” Brooks's Law, enabling projects to scale up or down smoothly. Staffing flexibility comes from internal “bench” projects, discounted “flexible deadline” arrangements that allow shifting staff between clients, and a strong culture that attracts a steady flow of resumes through tours, books, and public sharing.00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:39 Pairing Beyond Coding02:29 No Overtime Real Vacations05:31 Vacation Coverage System09:08 Beating Brooks Law10:36 Bench Projects Flex Capacity12:02 Flexible Deadline Discount21:15 Airline Seats Pricing Analogy26:44 Hiring Pipeline Culture Magnet29:38 Closing and Next EpisodeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

We are kicking off week two of our summer series, Let's Be Honest, a thoughtful, humble exploration of what it truly means to navigate faith, culture, and big intellectual questions in today's world. Host Matt Summers sits down with Menlo Church Lead Pastor Phil EuBank to take an honest, respectful look at Islam. Together, they discuss the critical importance of engaging with other worldviews on their own terms—seeking to understand the strongest, most intelligent form of what another faith actually teaches rather than knocking down weak, uncharitable caricatures. Phil pulls back the curtain on his own inbox to share the raw, tension-filled feedback he receives from both sides of the conversation, using it to highlight how difficult yet vital it is to thread the needle of truth and love in our local communities. The conversation dives deep into the heart of the weekend message, contrasting two fundamentally different documents: the "report card" of performance versus the "birth certificate" of identity. While the five pillars of Islam demand an admirable, rigorous level of human effort, discipline, and devotion, they ultimately leave even their greatest prophets facing a ledger of profound spiritual uncertainty. Matt and Phil explore how the radical promise of Jesus completely upends the scales of behavior modification. Instead of offering a manual or an oppressive checklist to measure up, the Gospel offers an invitation to abide daily in a living relationship with a Savior who already overcame the grave to secure who we are.

Welcome to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! We are kicking off a brand new summer series called Let's Be Honest, a thoughtful, humble exploration of what it truly means to navigate faith, culture, and big intellectual questions in today's world. Host Matt Summers sits down with Menlo Church Lead Pastor Phil EuBank to lay the groundwork for this series. Together, they tackle how to hold honesty and conviction together, ensuring we can explore what Christianity teaches without becoming dismissive, simplistic, or unfair toward other world views. Phil even shares a deeply personal look into his own story, opening up about how his mother was a first-generation Russian Jew whose discovery of Jesus as the Messiah completely reshaped how he reads and understands the biblical text. To start things off, the discussion begins with the historical and biblical foundations of Judaism under the episode title, "The Burden of the Law." While many view religious rules as a ladder to climb up to God or a checklist to prove they are a "good person," Phil breaks down why the Law was actually intended to function as a mirror rather than a ladder. The conversation dives deep into the central promise that changes everything: Jesus didn't come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it perfectly in our place. Whether you are a long-time churchgoer evaluating if you've drifted into trying to earn a gift that is already free, or a curious listener trying to sort through different religious ideas, this episode offers an honest look at why we can stop trying to measure up.  

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, after a story of engineers hiding when a boss arrives late on a Friday, Rich explains how fear shuts down the brain functions needed for creativity, imagination, invention, and innovation, and suggests responding to “that won't work here” with “why don't we try it before we defeat it?” He shares how MassMutual used desk balloons to signal experiments, increasing energy and initiative, and contrasts fear-based accountability with “circular accountability,” including an Atlanta seminar where a VP recognized fear-driven management was harming results. Rich then describes Menlo's intentional culture and hiring: valuing “good kindergarten skills,” using tours as recruitment, and conducting “extreme interviews” with paired candidates, paid real-work trials, and a focus on supporting others.00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:38 A Friday Fear Story03:22 Fear Kills Innovation04:21 Try It Before Defeat06:04 MassMutual Balloon Experiments10:23 Why Fear Fails Leaders11:28 Circular Accountability Lesson16:27 Menlo Culture and Hiring16:55 Kindergarten Skills Hiring18:58 Tours and Culture Alignment23:22 Extreme Interview Process27:06 Paid Trials and Onboarding29:41 Closing and Next EpisodeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Father's Day in the church can often feel like a strange, high-stakes tension—usually landing somewhere between a heavy guilt trip and a shallow Hallmark greeting card. In this Father's Day episode, Matt Summers and Tommy Lum sit down to unpack a weekend message that intentionally tried to be neither. Instead, the conversation centers on Joseph, perhaps the quietest major character in the entire New Testament, and how his life offers us an incredibly honest, generous, and grounding picture of what faithful presence actually looks like in our lives today. The discussion dives into the powerful, counter-cultural reality of Joseph's story: he never gives a single speech, he never argues with God, and he never demands to explain himself to the culture around him. Instead, he simply wakes up and does exactly what he is told to do, over and over again, in the midst of wild, scandalous circumstances that would easily unravel most of us.  The conversation holds space for every kind of father, father figure, and family dynamic in the room, ending with a deeply hopeful look at why Joseph's quiet disappearance before Jesus' public ministry might just be the most encouraging thing we can say to anyone showing up and doing the hard work for someone else right now.

We have reached the finale of our Glitch series, a month-long conversation about what it truly means to be human in a machine world. After exploring awe, agency, and identity, host Matt Summers sits down with teaching pastor Phil EuBank to tackle the final, most vulnerable layer of this cultural moment: intimacy. Reflecting on the real-time feedback from the Menlo Church lobby over the last few weeks, Matt and Phil unpack how living in a hyper-optimized, digital environment has quietly exposed a profound undercurrent of loneliness and exhaustion in our community. This episode dives deep into the weekend message, "Going Offline," moving past abstract fears of AI companions to look at the immediate reality of how technology is actively retraining us. When we become accustomed to frictionless, digital interactions, our tolerance for real-world relational messiness plummets. Phil challenges us to consider a sobering reality: relationships that never push and pull only take and never give. By looking at Jesus' invitation in Matthew 11 and Paul's words on being "fully known" in 1 Corinthians 13, this conversation serves as a beautiful, practical roadmap for recovering our humanity through the slow, messy, and restorative work of real community.

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, Rich explains Menlo's “High Tech Anthropology,” a patented term for designers who study end users in their native environments to learn workflows and vocabulary, aiming to end “human suffering” caused by technology and create software that delights without manuals or training. He shares examples of widespread frustration with systems such as electronic medical records and ERP systems, then revisits the Langley vs. Wright brothers story to highlight purpose-driven discovery. He then presents an airplane model for organizations: lift of human energy over the weight of bureaucracy, and thrust of purpose over the drag of fear, emphasizing clarity, completing meaningful work, reducing meeting load, taking action through experiments, and eliminating fear-based management.00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:46 High Tech Anthropology Explained04:30 Designing for Real Users06:59 Why Software Causes Suffering09:14 Wright Brothers Purpose Story14:23 Airplane Model for Organizations16:44 Lift Human Energy at Work19:09 Meetings and Bureaucracy Trap22:17 Drag of Fear Leadership24:39 Closing and Next EpisodeAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Learn more and apply for the November 2026 cohort of my Japan Leadership Experience: https://kbjanderson.com/japantrip/Joy isn't a perk. It's a business strategy.Have you ever wondered whether work has to feel this hard? Whether the team you've built can actually function without you? Whether there's a way to lead that doesn't burn you — or your people — out?Rich Sheridan built Menlo Innovations around one bold idea: ending human suffering in the workplace. The result is a company where joy isn't a slogan. It's how things actually get done. It's a place built on collaboration, human energy, and pride in what people create together.Joy isn't constant happiness. It's the long arc of meaning and contribution alongside people who care. And it becomes possible the moment you stop being the center of every problem and start creating the conditions for ownership, continuous learning, and yes, joy.You don't have to change the world. You just have to change your world.You'll Learn:The mistake most leaders make about mistakes, and why more mistakes can get you ahead fasterWhy what looks like a questionable decision from below makes sense from aboveThe difference between joy and happiness, and why most leaders are chasing the wrong thingWhy running a small experiment will move you further than creating the perfect planWhat it really takes to build a company designed to last a hundred yearsABOUT MY GUEST:Rich Sheridan is the co-founder, CEO, and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations, a software development and consulting firm known for its people-centered culture and focus on joy in the workplace. He is the author of Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer and was inducted into the Shingo Academy in 2022 for his contributions to organizational excellence.IMPORTANT LINKS:Full episode show notes: ChainOfLearning.com/77Connect with Rich Sheridan: linkedin.com/in/menloprezFollow me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kbjandersonSubscribe to my newsletter: kbjanderson.com/newsletterCheck out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.comJoin us on the Japan Leadership Experience: KBJAnderson.com/japantripPurchase a copy of Rich's books: Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy OfficerLearn more about Menlo Innovations: menloinnovations.comTugboat Institute: tugboatinstitute.comTIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:02:37 When work no longer feels sustainable05:26 The moment Rich realized the problem wasn't technology07:27 What an 8-year-old noticed about leadership08:23 Why hero-based organizations scale through exhaustion09:39 When caring becomes carrying12:21 The codependency leaders develop with crises14:09 What joy at work actually means17:13 Working with pride and delighting customers19:17 Why human energy is a leadership responsibility21:00 What's the cost of not having joy?23:28 From constant firefighting to two emergencies in 25 years25:24 Joy vs. happiness: What's the difference?27:02 Why joy isn't happiness every day32:17 The phrase that keeps Menlo moving forward 34:15 The leadership lesson Rich learned from flying40:39 Why Menlo isn't chasing exponential growth43:02 The book that changed Rich's career45:18 Why crisis practices work when there isn't a crisis47:28 Why your system keeps producing the same results49:38 The shift from carrying to creating conditions for change leadership51:46 Why stepping in can hold people back Learn more and apply for the November 2026 cohort of my Japan Leadership Experience: https://kbjanderson.com/japantrip/

On today's Legally Speaking Podcast, I am delighted to be joined by Deborah Carrillo. Deborah is the General Counsel, Partner at Menlo Ventures. After studying Maths at Stanford University, she went on to complete her JD at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Deborah was a Corporate Attorney at Pillsbury before joining Menlo as General Counsel in 2020. She has been a strategic advisor across every dimension in the firm, with her work directly shaping how Menlo has formed its structure.So why should you be listening in? You can hear Rob and Deborah discussing:- Prioritising Fit Over Prestige- Relationships Are Career Multipliers- Being Ready to Seize Opportunities- Effective Leadership Starting with Enabling Others- Success Requires Going All In — With BalanceConnect with Deborah Carrillo here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-carrillo-38840465/

Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, host Brett Koerton sits down with Phil EuBank to dive into Week 2 of our GLITCH series. In an episode titled "Infinite Loop," they tackle the exhausting reality of anxiety and why relying on our intellect to solve our emotional struggles often leaves us stuck buffering. In the Silicon Valley, we naturally prize "processing power," leading us to believe we can logic our way out of fear. But as Brett and Phil discuss, you simply can't out-think a broken feeling.

Welcome to our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO, and chief storyteller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the best-selling books Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, which argue that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode, we asked Rich whether removing meetings changes culture, and he avoids a blanket “no meetings” rule and instead distinguishes unproductive meetings from structured rituals (kickoffs, estimation, show-and-tell, planning games) with clear roles, artifacts, decision capture, and visible system effects, drawing on systems thinking from Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline. He argues disengagement reflects management's failure to create conditions and an intentional culture (at Menlo, defined by “joy” and expected behaviors like pairing and sharing). He urges an external focus that extends even to employees' families, citing Menlo's practice of allowing newborns at work. To overcome “that won't work here” drag from anyone, he advocates “Let's try it before we defeat it—run the experiment,” emphasizing small, low-risk experiments, trust, and purpose as a simple, memorable guide through tough times and culture shifts like mergers, reinforced through daily practices and HR processes (noting Menlo has no HR department).Key topics and timestamps:00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:37 Meetings vs Rituals03:58 Systems That Reduce Drag05:31 Intentional Culture Basics06:56 Beyond Customers Impact08:14 Babies at Work Story11:51 Try It Before Defeat15:39 Experiment Culture Spreads18:28 Measuring Experiments Trust19:56 Purpose That Endures Storms22:37 Transform Default Culture26:16 ClosingAbout Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work but also what it feels like to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations' tours and workshops at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, hosts Matt Summers and Phil EuBank kick off our brand-new series, "GLITCH: Being Human in a Machine World," with an episode titled "Fatal Error." Living in the Bay Area, we are surrounded by a culture that demands constant optimization—from our schedules to our sleep to our diets. Yet, despite having all the right "life hacks," anxiety is at an all-time high. Why? Because we are trying to run an infinite soul on a finite operating system, and we are crashing. This episode is an invitation to stop debugging your life and start actually living it.

Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, host Matt Summers and Phil EuBank sit down to reflect on a truly special standalone weekend across our campuses: Baptism Weekend. Whether faith feels deeply familiar to you, totally unfamiliar, or honestly a little complicated right now, we hope this conversation meets you right where you are. We're diving deeper into the weekend message, looking at baptism not just as a church tradition or a religious box to check, but through the epic biblical story of Joshua 3 and 4. Israel is standing on the edge of a promise, facing a flood-stage river, and stuck in the heavy tension of "almost."

A lens the size of a thumbnail — and the South Korean startup that makes it could become the optical backbone of the AI glasses era. Also, AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Our Agile Tales as we continue our conversations with Rich Sheridan, founder, CEO and chief story teller at Menlo Innovations.Aside from founding and leading Menlo Innovations, Rich is also the author of the bests-selling books, Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer, whose message is that joy is essential to productivity and profitability in the workplace. Rich recounts his journey from early programming success and a rapid rise to VP to feeling despondent amid chaotic, late, over-budget software delivery, which sparked a search for better ways to organize people. In this episode Rich argues that fear shuts down the brain functions organizations need—creativity, imagination, invention, and innovation—and describes common, often subtle, fear-inducing management behaviors like overload, ambiguity, and constant reprioritization. He shares a Menlo Innovation story where he inadvertently scolded an employee under a poster reading “It's okay to say I don't know,” and how a long-tenured teammate compassionately held him accountable, leading to an apology and learning. Using an airplane analogy, he maps organizational success to increasing human energy (lift) over bureaucracy (weight), strengthening purpose (thrust), and reducing fear (drag). He explains how Menlo pumps fear out through pair programming, frequent pairing rotation, an interview process emphasizing helping others succeed, leading without bosses, and replacing long status meetings with a short daily standup that exposes problems without solving them in-meeting.Key topics and timestamps:00:00 Welcome to Our Agile Tales01:46 Fear Kills Innovation04:59 Everyday Fear Triggers08:04 Owning Your Mistakes12:19 Why Fear Lingers13:59 Airplane Forces Model19:05 Defining Human Energy21:22 Pumping Fear Out24:41 Leading Without Bosses27:17 Meetings That Drain Teams27:37 Daily Standup Fix29:54 Closing About Rich SheridanRich Sheridan is the CEO and Chief Storyteller at Menlo Innovations and the best-selling author of Joy Inc. and Chief Joy Officer. He has spent years traveling across four continents and nearly 20 countries, helping organizations rethink not just how they work, but how it feels to be part of them. His core message is simple: joy isn't optional—it's essential to productivity, profitability, and real team energy.Rich's ideas have been featured in Forbes, Inc., NPR, and Harvard Business Review. What sets him apart is that he's been living these principles for over 20 years at Menlo, the company he co-founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan—now known worldwide for its uniquely joyful culture.Follow Rich Sheridan at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menloprezYou can check out Menlo Innovations tours and workshop at: https://menloinnovations.com/tours-and-workshopsMusic: https://www.purple-planet.comVisit us at https://www.ouragiletales.com/about

Pre-show: Project Hail Mary Reconcilable Differences #286: Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Break My Stride Setlist Bandcamp Luke Bloom — Bad D. H. T. — Listen to Your Heart Apocalyptica Vitamin String Quartet Johnny Cash — Hurt Follow-up: CapEx vs. OpEx (via Andrew Leahey) Bloomberg “Hot lot” (via Anonymous & Matt Jones) Ultra/Neo/etc Is the “iPhone Ultra” the 20th anniversary iPhone? (via Janne Ojaniemi) Did we forget about “Studio”? (via Karan J) What’s the ∆ between an iMac Neo and a Studio Display? (via Zoran Nešić) Time Machine …with lots of small files (via Jon Wilson & Andrew Hathaway) Asimov …with spinning disks (via Ben Mattison & Carlos Pereira) …period (via David Fokkema) lsof Apple agrees to pay iPhone owners $250M for fumbling AI Siri Apple is flirting with Intel and Samsung Apple’s Newsroom post about US manufacturing Apple and Intel have reached an agreement? (Apple News+ link) Ask ATP: How do we actually move files around our Macs? (via Brandon Whichard) Yoink MD5 Do we use a profile/theme for Terminal windows? (via Chris Harper) Prompt 3 Do we use any other IDEs? (also via Chris Harper) LSP Intelephense Post-show: .nofollow Apple developer forum post Symlink .nosync, .noindex, .nobackup Hopper MJ Tsai Apple open-source Swift SE-0529: Add FilePath to the Standard Library Safe Path Handling: Why Secure Filesystem Operations Are Harder Than You Think Members-only ATP Overtime: Non-developers building apps Ben Dansby Sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code atp. Zapier: Put AI to work across your company—for real. Quince: Elevated essentials and staples that last. Become a member for ATP Overtime, ad-free episodes, member specials, and our early-release, unedited “bootleg” feed!

Welcome to a very special Mother's Day edition of the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, we have a takeover in the studio: Rachelle Summers steps in to host, and she is joined by special guests Allison Li and Joan Parker. In an episode aptly titled "No one ever told me," these three women sit down for an honest, refreshing, and deeply relatable conversation about the realities of motherhood. They also unpack the highlights and raw moments from this past weekend's Sunday panel, which featured Phil and Alyssa EuBank alongside Vince and Jo Vitale.

"Anxiety and excitement are chemically the same reaction — context changes how we interpret it." What actually separates top GMAT performers from everyone else? In this episode of Inside the GMAT, GMAC Zach sits down with Hailey Cusimano, Director of Tutoring at Menlo Coaching, to unpack the five traits she's observed that that drive GMAT success. Through the lens of curiosity, balance, consistency, resilience, and flexibility, Hailey explains why the GMAT is less about memorization and more about critical thinking, self-awareness, and intentional preparation. Whether you're just starting your prep journey or feeling stuck after months of studying, this episode offers actionable insights to help you study smarter — not just harder. About Hailey: Hailey Cusimano is a 99th-percentile performer and a self-proclaimed standardized test nerd. Drawing from her years of experience as an instructor, she knows how to assess students' main obstacles and strategize accordingly, maximizing efficiency in short study windows. Plus, her enthusiasm is infectious, and most students find studying with Hailey actually becomes—dare we say—fun. Helpful Resources: Menlo Coaching: https://menlocoaching.com/ Register for the GMAT: https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/register Purchase GMAT Official Prep: https://www.mba.com/exams/executive-assessment/prepare Key Takeaways: The GMAT is fundamentally a critical thinking test — not a memorization test. Curiosity is one of the strongest predictors of long-term GMAT success. Reflective studying is far more valuable than simply completing large volumes of questions. Consistency matters more than cramming or weekend-only "study marathons." Burnout can quietly undermine progress, even for highly motivated students. Flexibility and adaptability are essential because the GMAT intentionally challenges rigid thinking. Top scorers are not confident all the time — they are resourceful when facing uncertainty. Students improve faster when they analyze why they got stuck, not just what they got wrong. Strong GMAT preparation requires balance between studying, work, rest, and personal life. Resilience allows students to turn setbacks, bad practice tests, and plateau periods into opportunities for growth. The best GMAT students treat mistakes as useful data rather than evidence of failure. Small, intentional daily study sessions are often more effective than infrequent marathon sessions. "Timeline creep" can happen when students study without structure, benchmarks, or accountability. Many students plateau because they over-focus on weaknesses and stop practicing holistically. The GMAT rewards thoughtful decision-making, resource management, and strategic thinking under pressure. Chapters: 00:00 Intro and Meet Hailey Cusimano, Menlo Coaching 08:02 Trait #1: Curiosity 13:50 Trait #2: Consistency 22:39 Trait #3: Balance 32:59 Trait #4: Flexibility 36:48 Trait #5: Resilience 43:11 Integrating Key Traits for Success 49:30 Actionable Steps for GMAT Success

Welcome to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, we are incredibly excited to kick off a brand-new series titled "GLITCH." Host Matt Summers sits down with special guest Joey Odom (co-founder of Aro) to talk about the system errors in our modern lives—specifically, our relationship with our phones and technology. In this opening episode, "Digital Thorns," Matt and Joey explore how the constant hum of digital distraction is causing a glitch in the most important parts of our lives, our relationships, and our faith.

Welcome back to the Menlo Midweek Podcast! This week, Matt Summers and Phil EuBank continue our series, "God, If You're Real," by stepping into the heart-wrenching and hope-filled story of Jairus and his daughter (Luke 8). When we are in the middle of our most desperate prayers, one of our biggest questions is often: “God, are you even paying attention? And if you are, why are you taking so long?”

Welcome to the start of a brand-new series at Menlo Church! This week, Matt Summers and Phil EuBank kick things off by leaning into the tension, the doubt, and the honest curiosity that many of us carry. In a world that often demands certainty, we're starting a conversation titled "God, If You're Real." This episode focuses on a core value at Menlo: Giving people permission to ask questions. Whether you've been a follower of Jesus for decades or you aren't even sure if God exists, this series is a safe space to bring your "what-ifs" and "how-comes." Join ALPHA: https://www.menlo.church/alpha

Happy Easter! In this climactic episode of our "I AM" series, we gather to celebrate the most life-changing news in history. But we aren't just looking at an empty tomb; we're looking at the God who meets us in the shadows of grief and confusion. Hosts Matt and Phil dive into John 20:1-18, focusing on a moment so personal it changes everything: the moment the resurrected Jesus stands in the garden with Mary Magdalene.

In the latest episode of our Marketing Professionals series, Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Microsystems, joins Mike to explore what it really takes to build and market a category-defining innovation. From starting her career as an engineer to leading marketing at a fast-scaling deep tech company, Jackie shares why technical credibility, clarity, and customer-focused storytelling are essential, especially when your audience is made up of engineers and your product challenges decades of established thinking. You'll hear how Menlo Micro is redefining switch technology with its “Ideal Switch” platform, and why success in this space isn't about hype but education, proof, and trust. The conversation also dives into the differences between large corporations and startup environments, highlighting the importance of focus and fast decision-making in driving rapid growth. Jackie shares insights on marketing to engineers, balancing brand building with commercial results, and how the role of sales is evolving in modern B2B.   About Menlo Microsystems Menlo Micro sets a new standard for switches with the Ideal Switch, a chip-scale platform that overcomes performance, efficiency, and scalability bottlenecks of electromechanical relays (EMRs) and semiconductor-based switches.  It's the first disruptive switching technology in over 30 years and the only platform scalable across both power and frequency domains. The Ideal Switch enables smaller, lighter, faster, more reliable, and energy-efficient systems. From AI and quantum compute to aerospace, defense and power electronics, the Ideal Switch eliminates bottlenecks and reduces the total cost of ownership across today's most demanding applications. Menlo Micro unlocks new possibilities. For more information, visit www.menlomicro.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.     About Jackie Rutter Jackie Rutter is a seasoned marketing and business leader with over 25 years of experience driving growth across global technology markets. As Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro, she leads the company's worldwide marketing and communications strategy, delivering measurable impact including doubling revenue in the past year and expanding Menlo Micro's presence in critical applications including GPU/CPU & HPC T&M, Quantum Compute, AI Data Centers and Industrial Automation. Previously at Analog Devices, Jackie was instrumental in scaling the business from $3.5 billion to over $12 billion in revenue, leading high-profile acquisitions, global marketing programs, and demand-generation initiatives that strengthened ADI's position in energy, mobility, and industrial markets. Jackie has a proven track record of building high-performing teams, developing scalable marketing strategies, and driving market share growth. She is an active advocate for women in engineering and technology, contributing to IEEE and the GSA Women Leadership Initiative, and regularly shares her leadership insights at industry events.   Time Stamps 00:00:00 - Introduction to Jackie Rutter and Her Career Journey 00:04:00 - Understanding Menlo Microsystems and Its Technology 00:06:50 - Marketing Challenges in Redefining a New Category 00:09:10 - Building Credibility in Marketing to Engineers 00:10:40 - Learning from Early Marketing Missteps 00:12:10 - Balancing Brand Building with Lead Generation 00:15:40 - Creating Effective Thought Leadership Content 00:18:30 - The Role of Sales in Modern B2B Marketing 00:24:30 - Closing Remarks and Contact Information   Quotes "Even the most powerful innovations, the most powerful technologies fail if people don't understand why it matters. What's the impact to the end application? What's the impact to the end user?" Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro. “You need clarity, you need focus, you need passion, you need very, very fast decision-making. So that environment is what's enabled us to double revenue in under a year, which is something that's pretty impressive." Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro. "What MEMS switches is a totally disruptive platform. So it eliminates trade-offs in engineering, mainly on size, on weight, on power consumption and the amount of power density that it drives." Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro. "Category creation means education first, right? You can't start selling something that people don't even know they've got a problem with. So it's about education." Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro. "Engineers want clarity, they want data, they want transparency, honesty.” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.   Follow Jackie: Jackie Rutter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-rutter/ Menlo Micro website: www.menlomicro.com Menlo Micro on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/menlo-micro   Follow Mike: Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/ Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/ Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/   If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform. Want more? Check out Napier's other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

At RSAC Conference 2026, the floor at Moscone Center was buzzing with talk of AI -- but underneath the excitement, a sharper question was forming: are enterprises actually ready to secure the AI systems they are rushing to deploy? Ed Wright, VP of Product Marketing at Menlo Security, joined Sean Martin on-site to dig into exactly that question. With 85 percent of knowledge workers now operating primarily through a browser, Menlo Security has spent 13 years building the infrastructure to protect that surface -- and the threat landscape has just taken a significant turn. The traditional browser threat model centers on humans: phishing links, malicious downloads, social engineering, deepfake video scams. Enterprises have spent billions on SSE stacks and endpoint protection stacks. Yet attacks continue to multiply. What Menlo Security is now tracking is a second threat model layered on top -- one designed specifically for AI agents. Agents use browsers to acquire data and complete tasks, often spinning up hundreds or thousands of headless browser sessions outside the enterprise perimeter, invisible to network security tools that only monitor the wire. The threat profile for agents is distinct. Where a human might miss a suspicious link, an agent reads white-on-white text and zero-font-size characters embedded in web pages -- classic prompt injection techniques. Agents are maniacally focused on task completion and do not naturally separate instructions from data. A co-opted agent, redirected through hidden instructions, will pursue its new goal with the same single-mindedness as its original one. Ed Wright notes that the top concern among CISOs at the RSAC Conference CISO bootcamp -- confirmed by a live audience poll -- is data exfiltration from agents: an agent accessing files, scraping internal pages, passing data to external LLMs, and moving sensitive information outside the organization. Menlo Security's response is a unified browser security platform that applies a single policy framework to both human and agentic workloads. The platform is built on four pillars: threat prevention including zero-day protection, secure application access, data security through AI Adaptive DLP, and file security. AI Adaptive DLP is the capability Ed Wright emphasizes most -- it functions as a combination of DLP and DSPM, discovering and classifying sensitive data across the organization and masking it in real time rather than blocking access. When traditional DLP blocks a human, they call IT. When it blocks an agent, the workflow silently fails. AI Adaptive DLP eliminates that failure mode entirely, keeping workflows uninterrupted while sensitive data stays protected at the source. The unification argument cuts through a crowded point-solution market. Rather than deploying separate tools for prompt injection, file security, and application access, Menlo Security delivers a single layer of visibility and observability across the entire workforce. Single policies. Single set of capabilities. No stitching together of forensic data from disconnected systems. Ed Wright points to a Fortune 500 customer that deployed 20,000-plus agents in a short window after a board mandate -- and quickly realized they had no security guardrails in place for browser-based agentic activity. The emergency call to Menlo Security was not the first of its kind, and it will not be the last. This is a Brand Spotlight. A Brand Spotlight is a ~15 minute conversation designed to explore the guest, their company, and what makes their approach unique. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/creation#spotlight GUEST Ed Wright, VP of Product Marketing, Menlo Security LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardwright1/ RESOURCES Menlo Security: https://www.menlosecurity.com Are you interested in telling your story? ▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full ▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight ▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight KEYWORDS Ed Wright, Menlo Security, Sean Martin, browser security, agentic AI security, AI agents, headless browsers, prompt injection, data exfiltration, AI Adaptive DLP, DSPM, zero-day threats, enterprise browser, SSE, RSAC Conference 2026, brand spotlight, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We close out our Love Is series by getting back to the heart of what love means, and how we are constantly being formed and deformed. Mark Morinishi also shares more about his transition, reminisces on some of the amazing moments we had together and gives one last bit of encouragement. Connect with Us | Text Us: (650)600-0402

This week we dive further into the story of Ruth, and Jevon shares how our upbringing, culture and learned love can be at odds with or in step with a biblical picture of love. Want to love better? This is for you. Connect with Us | Text Us (650)600-0402