Podcasts about metrics

The shift from traditional television to connected TV has accelerated rapidly, requiring publishers to offer both massive culture-shifting scale and ultra-precise targeting capabilities. In this deep dive, Netflix Advertising VP Nicolle Pangis pulls back the curtain on how the platform built an independent, proprietary ad server to give global brands the exact mix of automated programmatic buying and high-impact live events they need to drive measurable ROI. Key Highlights

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses metrics.Email Jeffrey with any questions or feedback (jtefertiller@servicemanagement.us)Each week, Jeffrey will be sharing his knowledge on Service Delivery (Mondays) and Service Management (Thursdays). Jeffrey is the founder of Service Management Leadership, an IT consulting firm specializing in Service Management, Asset Management, CIO Advisory, and Business Continuity services.  The firm's website is www.servicemanagement.us.  Jeffrey has been in the industry for 30 years and brings a practical perspective to the discussions. He is an accomplished author with seven acclaimed books in the subject area and a popular YouTube channel with approximately 1,800 videos on various topics.  Also, please follow the Service Management Leadership LinkedIn page.

In today's Tech3 from Moneycontrol, we decode the gaps in Zepto's IPO filing and the key metrics investors are still looking for. We also look at why UPI growth is slowing despite rising transaction volumes, how Cognizant's removal from the Nasdaq-100 reflects the AI-driven shift in global tech markets, and why investors are betting on consumer AI startup Equal AI with a fresh $30 million funding round.

If YOU'RE ready to make real, sustainable change in your life, jump on a free call with us - https://physiquedevelopment.typeform.com/to/ToP9TYLEThe scale might be the most common way to measure progress, but it's often the most misleading. In this episode, Coach Lexi breaks down one of the biggest mistakes she sees women make: giving the scale far too much power over how they feel about their progress.She explains the many factors that can influence your weight from day to day, why your "ideal weight" doesn't necessarily match your ideal physique, and the importance of looking at multiple indicators of progress instead of relying on a single number.Because real progress is about more than what the scale says—it's about how you look, feel, perform, and show up in your life.As always, it is our goal not only to supply you, the listener, with valuable insights on the topics or questions but also to plant some seeds for further research and thought. Be sure to like and subscribe and leave us a review if you loved this episode!Connect with Coach Lexi & Team PD:Coach Lexi: https://www.instagram.com/lexiahlers24Physique Development: https://www.instagram.com/physiquedevelopment_Physique Development Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/physiquedevelopmentpodcastInquire to work with Team PD: https://physiquedevelopment.typeform.com/to/ToP9TYLEHave questions or comments for us? Submit them here - https://forms.gle/AEu5vMKNLDfmc24M7Interested in competition prep? Apply here - https://physiquedevelopment.typeform.com/to/Ii2UNAFor more videos, articles, and information, head to - https://physiquedevelopment.comIf you would like to support Physique Development and this podcast, please head over to your favorite podcast app and leave us a rating and review! This goes a long way in supporting this podcast and helps us continue to bring high-quality, honest content to you in the form of a podcast. Thank you for listening and we will see you all next time!----Produced by: David Margittai | In Post MediaWebsite: https://www.inpostmedia.comEmail: david@inpostmedia.com© 2026, Physique Development LLC. All rights reserved.

Kevin McLaughlin is a Google Analytics and Tag Manager expert specializing in building custom Google Analytics implementations that give you consistent, accurate, and easy to use results that actually help you make better business and product decisions.  Because of his years of experience in product development and management, he knows how to implement your marketing analytics tools so you can derive new insights from your data. As a developer and engineer, Kevin can deal with any level of technical-detail, from quick audits to in-depth, custom javascript setups and maintenance.  He has worked at both large companies and small startups and have setup analytics for both as well as many blogs, small businesses, and non-profits.  Kevin is currently developing several web-applications myself, which keeps me up to date on the latest web technologies and how to implement analytics effectively with them. In This Conversation We Discuss:  [00:30] Intro [01:30] Solving messy data gaps in business [03:33] Building tools to fix your own pain [04:50] Rebuilding analytics for a new internet era [06:20] Adapting to a more privacy-first internet [06:56] Moving beyond session-centric measurement [08:15] Aligning analytics with real shopping sessions [09:24] Shifting from plug-and-play to custom reporting [10:25] Callout [10:36] Overcoming the GA4 learning curve shock [12:37] Unlocking power in custom GA4 explorations [13:13] Fixing tracking before analyzing performance [14:37] Breaking down how GA4 actually receives data [16:53] Understanding why GA4 misses real orders [18:23] Fixing missing orders with server-side tracking [20:44] Choosing build vs buy analytics tools [21:31] Keeping analytics simple for early-stage stores [22:37] Avoiding over-optimization too early [25:01] Staying grounded in real customer acquisition [25:47] Combining clean data with real interpretation [26:49] Making GA4 implementation simple for merchants Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube The leading GA4 integration for Shopify slideruleanalytics.com/ Follow Kevin McLaughlin https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-mclaughlin-1900/ If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Most founders are on one of two extremes when it comes to AI: either completely overwhelmed and frozen, or trying to bolt AI onto everything at once. Neither works. In this episode, Jeff Mains sits down with Jenna Nelson, nationally recognized AI strategist and founder of Her AI Agency, to explore what intentional AI adoption actually looks like — and why getting it right starts long before you ever open a single tool.Jenna introduces her Align, Automate, Appear framework, a practical three-step system for implementing AI in a way that actually creates leverage instead of chaos. She breaks down why broken processes shouldn't be handed to AI (they'll just break faster), why tool-hopping is costing founders more than they realize, and why the businesses that implement AI strategically right now will leave everyone else behind in the next two years.If you're trying to figure out where AI actually fits inside your business without wasting money, time, or your sanity, this episode delivers a grounded, practical roadmap.Key Takeaways4:23 — **Most founders are at one of two extremes:** Completely afraid to start, or trying to AI-everything at once. The real strategy lives in between — choosing specific, appropriate use cases rather than avoiding AI or using it indiscriminately.5:33 — **A broken process is not the right fit for AI.** AI is great for repeatable, well-ironed-out tasks. If your process is already broken, AI will just accelerate how quickly it breaks. Fix the process first, then automate it. 11:19 — **There's a two-sided responsibility model with AI.** The AI is responsible for execution — but you are responsible for giving it context, parameters, guardrails, and training. Garbage in, garbage out. The quality of your inputs determines the quality of your outcomes. 6:53 — **The barriers facing female founders in AI:** Three compounding factors — cultural isolation from the "tech bro" ecosystem, less discretionary time per week, and only ~5% of funding going to women-led businesses — create a meaningful gap in AI adoption that Jenna is working to close. 14:13 — **One well-trained tool beats eight half-used ones.** Shiny object syndrome — jumping from ChatGPT to Claude to Gemini when results disappoint — almost always means the problem isn't the tool. It's the lack of training, context, and consistency. Pick your workhorse and go deep. 20:17 — **Voice AI for small law firms: a real-world example.** Small law firms were getting destroyed on social media for not calling people back — not because they didn't care, but because case volume was overwhelming. Voice AI now handles intake, lead filtering, and appointment setting, freeing attorneys to do attorney work. 39:21 — **Start with one workflow.** Don't try to automate everything at once. Find the one repetitive task — especially anything you're doing yourself at 2 AM — and start there. Once you see the improvement, compound it to the next step and the next department. 41:12 — **Jenna's Align, Automate, Appear framework:** Align first — get your brand, SOPs, and processes documented before touching any AI tool. Then automate the repeatable tasks. Then use the time you've freed up to Appear: show up as the face of your brand, network, be on stages, talk to customers. 42:35 — **The "Appear" stage is about visibility in a changed world.** Ranking on Google is no longer enough. Your audience is now searching Perplexity, TikTok, YouTube, and AI assistants. Content needs to be built in a query-and-answer format to stay discoverable as the search landscape shifts away from keyword dominance. 43:54 — **Google's dominance is ending.** Search behavior is fragmenting across AI platforms and social media. Founders who align their content strategy now for this new reality will maintain visibility; those who don't will quietly disappear from discoverability.Tweetable Quotes"A broken process is not the right fit for AI. AI is great for a repeatable, well-ironed-out process — something boring that you're doing repetitively. If it's already broken, AI will just make it a more broken process, faster." — Jenna Nelson"There's a two-sided responsibility model with AI. There's what the AI is responsible for, and there's what YOU are responsible for. Those pieces are just as important as what the AI is doing." — Jenna Nelson"One tool that you train really well — even if it's not the most powerful tool — will serve you far better than eight different tools you're hopping between without carrying over context." — Jenna Nelson"It may feel okay right now to not have AI in your business. But think about two years from now. Your competitors are going to leave you behind if you don't start adapting." — Jenna Nelson"The goal of Align, Automate, Appear is to move you through a process that creates space and creates time — so you can go be the face of your brand and do the things only humans can do." — Jenna Nelson"Everything lives in the founder's brain, which is great. But I need it on paper and documented to train AI to do what you do." — Jenna Nelson"AI is going to help us develop better human relationships in some cases — purely because we're removing the places where it just doesn't need a human touch." — Jenna NelsonSaaS Leadership Lessons1. Strategy first, tools second. The most common AI mistake isn't choosing the wrong tool — it's skipping strategy altogether. Before you implement anything, document your brand, your processes, and your SOPs. AI can only be as good as the context you give it. Alignment must come before automation.2. Fix before you automate. Handing a broken process to AI doesn't fix it — it amplifies the dysfunction at scale. The work of identifying where leads fall through the cracks, where workflows are undefined, and where knowledge lives only in someone's head is not busywork. It is the prerequisite to any meaningful AI adoption.3. Depth beats breadth with AI tools. Switching platforms every time results disappoint is one of the costliest habits founders have. The context, training, and institutional knowledge built inside a well-used AI tool is genuinely hard to replicate. Commit to your workhorse, go deep, and resist the urge to chase the next release.4. Human judgment isn't optional — it's the product. AI handles volume; humans handle nuance. The leaders who win with AI aren't the ones who automate everything — they're the ones who identify precisely where human judgment, relationship, and trust are irreplaceable, and then protect that space fiercely while letting AI handle everything else.5. Your incentive structures must evolve with AI. If your team's performance metrics reward call volume and AI is handling the simple calls, your best people will look like they're underperforming. AI adoption requires a review of how you measure success. Metrics built for a manual world will misrepresent and demotivate a team working in an AI-enabled one.6. Visibility has new rules. Google-first content strategy is no longer sufficient. Your customers are searching Perplexity, asking ChatGPT, browsing TikTok, and watching YouTube. Build your content in a query-and-answer format, show up across the platforms where your audience actually spends time, and treat discoverability as a multi-channel leadership responsibility — not just an SEO checkbox.Guest Resourcesjenna@heraigency.comheraigency.comhttps://www.facebook.com/herAIgencyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jennalnelson/Episode SponsorThe Futureproof Series - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfkXKUPZ5xuOqMPR7_gzGybncTtavyR1NThe Captain's KeysSmall Fish, Big Pond – https://smallfishbigpond.com/ Use the promo code ‘SaaSFuel'Champion Leadership Group – https://championleadership.com/SaaS Fuel ResourcesWebsite - https://championleadership.com/Jeff Mains on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkmains/Twitter - https://twitter.com/jeffkmainsFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/thesaasguy/Instagram - https://instagram.com/jeffkmains

Episode Summary: In this episode of Legal Marketing Happy Hour, host Sean O'Connor sits down with Miles Kestran, a digital paid media strategist at Above-the-Bar Marketing, to dissect the common pitfalls law firms face with paid advertising. They explore the journey from click to conversion, emphasizing the importance of the creative, copy, and conversion process. Miles highlights the significance of negative keywords and the role of landing pages in boosting conversion rates. The discussion also covers the critical role of intake personnel in ensuring leads turn into clients and the use of tools like CallRail for tracking and improving ad performance. This episode is essential for law firms looking to optimize their advertising strategies and improve their return on investment. Key Timestamps: 00:01 – Introduction 00:22 – Challenges with Law Firm Paid Ads 01:06 – The Three Cs of Advertising 01:54 – Identifying Conversion Gaps 03:08 – Importance of Negative Keywords 04:03 – Structuring Campaigns for Lead Quality 06:17 – Case Study: Misdiagnosed Ad Performance 07:38 – Role of Call Tracking in Ad Success 09:20 – Impact of Landing Pages on Conversions 11:38 – Pressure Testing Ad Campaigns 12:39 – Metrics to Monitor for Ad Success 14:27 – Mobile Optimization and Future Trends About the Show: Legal Marketing Happy Hour serves up tactical marketing insights to help law firms grow smarter, faster, and more profitably. Each episode features industry experts who share their knowledge on various aspects of legal marketing, from digital advertising to client intake processes. The show is designed for legal professionals looking to enhance their marketing strategies and achieve better results. With a focus on practical advice and real-world examples, Legal Marketing Happy Hour is your go-to resource for staying ahead in the competitive legal market.

Digital content creator for MASN Annie Klaff joined the show to discuss some Orioles that have turned it on of late.

In this episode of CRO Spotlight, Warren Zenna sits down with MK Marsden, CEO of Sales-Sleuth, to diagnose the root causes of the modern B2B sales crisis. They explore how the shift toward cheap, automated mass communication has eroded buyer trust and forced buyers to rely on independent research. As buyers become increasingly overwhelmed by digital noise, revenue leaders must fundamentally rethink their outbound approaches.The conversation tackles the systemic issues created by misaligned software solutions and arbitrary key performance indicators. MK argues that treating complex sales relationships as a series of isolated events—measured by clicks, opens, and call volumes—has detached sellers from true relationship building. When finance teams and software engineers dictate sales metrics, organizations lose sight of genuine buyer satisfaction.To counteract this dysfunction, leaders need to empower their teams with deep insights before a conversation ever occurs. The discussion shifts toward leveraging advanced sales intelligence platforms that analyze public buyer signals, eliminating the need for cold discovery calls. By equipping sellers with accurate data regarding a prospect's technical environment and immediate needs, companies can level the playing field.Ultimately, restoring effectiveness in sales requires a commitment to long-term value over instant gratification. Warren and MK highlight the challenges newly appointed revenue leaders face when balancing immediate expectations against the time required to genuinely turn a strategy around. They conclude by discussing how measuring long-term impact and sustained trust is the only sustainable path forward for modern businesses.

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large For the shopping public, Coles’ ‘Down Down’ has stuck like super glue for more than a decade – while loathed by adland’s elite. They’ll be mostly thrilled on what Horton – Down Down’s creator – figures is likely now in a rare and wide-ranging interview and podcast. Think rest and hibernation, not a Down Down burial. Horton ran four winning election campaigns for former Prime Minister John Howard and is characteristically frank on the effect the Down Down campaign had on him and his Big Red agency – it spawned a new shop BRX with co-founders Bridget Cleary and Marty Hungerford - to snap the straightjacket it created for him and Big Red. BRX is now being circled by potential suitors. Horton is the last old adman standing – at 74 he’s seen-off John Singleton and Mojo’s Mo and Jo. And while very uncool today, he remains adamant good jingles etch into consumer memory encoding faster than fancy, award- winning creative. It’s why he still warns on the warping dangers of advertising awards in the lead-up to the international Cannes gongfest in two weeks, proffering an ego-busting encounter with his then boss, Mojo’s Alan “Mo” Morris on why. "While you and all your mates are sitting around in a circle telling each other how good you are, your mum and dad are sitting at home singing my ads,” Horton’s recounts with a dense injection of Mo expletives. He’s never been the same since. But Horton casts wider than jingles and Down Down, to the “pseudo science” of attention metrics, “insecure” creatives and a pause-for-thought observation that the uncool craft of catalogue copywriting in the 80s and 90s has striking parallels to what works in social media today. It’s those craft skills, which BRX has captured, templated and automated, that is now partly why global holding companies and others are said to be circling. Here’s the thoughts - and confessions - of adland’s oldest creative.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adam Hurrey is joined on the Adjudication Panel by Nick Miller and James Maw. On the agenda: the BBC's co-commentators show some pre-tournament rustiness, FIFA's new plan for pre-kick-off team lineups, the greatest PDF in World Cup history, footballers' names in scathing reviews of West End musicals, the pathetic carry-on of the Real Madrid presidential election, a potentially terrible "4D World Cup viewing experience", a superbly mangled cliche by a hurling pundit and some provisional thoughts on Piers Morgan's World Cup YouTube show. Meanwhile, the panel imagine the football existences of the incorrectly-named England stars of the Florida stadium scoreboard. Play the Happy Hunting Grounds daily quiz at games.footballcliches.com Sign up for Dreamland, the members-only Football Clichés experience, to access our exclusive show and much more: https://dreamland.footballcliches.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Key Sales Metrics To Look For Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. In reviewing startups, here are the key metrics investors should look for: Annual contract value -- the value the customer spends on the product in one year. This needs to be a meaningful amount of money in order to grow a startup. Customer lifetime value -- the total amount of money the customer spends on the product. This indicates how well the product meets the customer's needs. Sales pipeline -- the number and revenue value of sales prospects. This shows ongoing demand for the product from new customers. Conversion rate -- this shows how many leads turn into sales. This needs to be a known figure so as to calculate how many leads to generate to meet a sales goal. Sales team turnover -- this shows how long sales reps stay with a company. This shows how many salespeople need to be recruited and trained. Referrals -- shows how many leads come from partner channels. This shows how many partners need to be recruited and trained. Customer retention -- this shows how long customers use the product. This determines how many new customers need to be recruited. The goal of metrics is to define the current business model so it can be tuned to operate efficiently. Look to see how well defined these metrics are for a potential startup investment. Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding. Let's go startup something today. _______________________________________________________ For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/ For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/ For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/ For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/ For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/ For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group Please follow, share, and leave a review. Music courtesy of Bensound.

Do you spend your weekends visiting cliffs with your child to find out which ones would be deadliest? Well, that’s something Fiona Hardy did in researching her new ‘cosy crime’ novel, Old Games! In this episode, Fiona joins us to discuss the inspiration for this latest book, her own writing process and how she went from kids to adult fiction! 00:00 Welcome06:31 Writers in the wild11:06 Writing tip: Metrics of success14:31 WIN!: The Clueless Guide to Solving a Mystery by Samera Kamaleddine & Hykie Breeze16:10 Word of the week: ’Obstreperous’16:57 Writer in residence: Fiona Hardy17:50 What is her new book ‘Old Games’ all about?20:09 Plotting and pitching this second novel23:25 Cosy crime without a murder26:19 Writing fight scenes27:41 Realistic consequences28:28 Setting the story in Victoria30:23 Researching crime and cliffs32:42 Balancing bookselling and writing34:11 Daily writing process and goals35:31 Publicity, creating socials and anxiety39:17 How Fiona moved from kids to adult books40:34 Future projects43:39 Writing tip45:10 Final thoughts Read the show notes Connect with Valerie and listeners in the podcast community on Facebook Visit WritersCentre.com.au | ValerieKhoo.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Want a quick estimate of how much your business is worth? With our free valuation calculator, answer a few questions about your business, and you'll get an immediate estimate of the value of your business. You might be surprised by how much you can get for it: https://flippa.com/exit -- In this episode of The Exit, host Steve McGarry sits down with sales growth expert Mike Huey, President of Scalable Sales Solutions, to unpack one of the biggest hidden risks that can derail a business sale: founder-led sales. After spending 30 years in sales, scaling companies, and helping owners prepare for successful exits, Mike explains why buyers hesitate when revenue depends entirely on the owner and what founders can do to build a sales organization that actually transfers. Mike shares tactical advice on when business owners should finally take off the “sales hat,” how to build a repeatable sales system, and the common mistakes entrepreneurs make when scaling their teams. From compensation plans and accountability metrics to CRM systems, AI automation, and relationship handoffs, this episode is packed with practical strategies for founders looking to increase enterprise value and make their business more attractive to buyers. Whether you are preparing for an exit or trying to scale smarter, this conversation offers a roadmap to building a company that can thrive without you. -- Mike Huey is the President of Scalable Sales Solutions and a sales growth strategist with more than 30 years of experience in sales, sales leadership, and business scaling. After helping companies prepare for acquisition, Mike became SIPA certified in exit planning and now works with founders to remove themselves from founder-led sales, build scalable systems, and increase business value ahead of an exit. He is also the author of Make Your Company Scalable and Saleable. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehueysales/ Website: https://www.scalablesalessolutions.com/ -- Key Timestamps: [00:01] Steve Introduces Mike Huey [03:05] Mike Huey's Sales and Business Background [04:16] The Importance of Transferable Sales Systems [04:51] Steps to Make a Sales Org Transferable [06:25] When to Transition Sales Responsibilities [07:36] Implementing Effective Sales Systems and Playbooks [08:44] The Role of Relationships in Business Transfer [09:40] Gradual Handoff of Sales Accounts [11:13] Common Mistakes in Sales Transition [11:53] Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make in Sales Transition [12:47] The Ego Trap in Sales Management [13:45] Importance of Compensation Plans and Structure [15:12] Restructuring Sales Teams for Growth [16:23] Buy Side: Key Factors When Acquiring a Business [17:35] Assessing Sales Team Accountability and Metrics [18:45] Organizational Structure and Industry Fit [21:31] Using CRM and AI to Increase Sales Efficiency [25:16] Leveraging Data and Knowledge Sharing in Sales Teams [25:44] Increasing Business Value Through Sales Systems [27:52] Advice to Future Entrepreneurs and Business Owners [29:46] About Mike Huey and Scalable Sales Solutions -- The Exit — Presented By Flippa A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You'll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates: flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

We sit down with Bridget Winston to unpack what separates a real Chief Revenue Officer from a bookings-focused sales leader, and why the org chart tells you the truth faster than the job title. We get practical about SaaS metrics, AI-driven go-to-market, and the leadership habits that keep teams performing as the playbook keeps changing.• Evaluating a CRO remit by reporting lines and revenue accountability• Using GRR and NRR to diagnose product-market fit and ICP clarity• Treating revenue as a lagging indicator of customer centricity• Preparing for LLM-driven discovery with brand, PR, and earned media• Testing AI tools that shrink territory and quota planning cycles• Shifting budget from paid ads to community-led growth and local events• Turning customer testimonials into repeatable social proof loops• Managing humans and AI agents with specific, camera-ready feedback• Fixing incentives and systems before blaming the team• Creating urgency with day-five impact expectations instead of tired 30-60-90 plansYour org chart can tell you whether you're hiring a true Chief Revenue Officer or just renaming a VP of Sales. We sit down with Bridget Winston, CRO at Patient Now and a three-time CRO, to get brutally clear on what revenue ownership actually means and why “bookings” is a dangerous north star when retention and expansion are what compound.We dig into the SaaS metrics that expose reality fast: GRR, NRR, LTV to CAC, and how boards interpret dashboards when product-market fit and ideal customer profile are still shaky. Bridget shares a sharp reframing that stuck with us: revenue is a lagging indicator of customer centricity. From there, we zoom out to the “SaaS-pocalypse” conversation and what happens to pricing, planning cycles, and revenue per employee as AI turns some companies into dinosaurs and others into cheetahs.Then we get tactical about the LLM era of B2B discovery. If buyers are finding software through ChatGPT-style answers, Reddit threads, G2-style reviews, and YouTube, we need consumer-grade brand building, PR, and community-led growth that creates earned media AI can't ignore. Bridget also breaks down AI tools she's used to compress territory planning and quota work from months to weeks, plus AI coaching that improves call quality and handoffs without blowing up day-to-day operations.We even take a fun detour into Spark Tank wine trivia, then bring it back to leadership: how to give feedback with real specificity, fix systems before blaming people, and set expectations for day-one impact. Subscribe, share this with a revenue leader, and leave a review so more builders can find the show.Bridget Winston:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetwinston/Bridget Winston is the Chief Revenue Officer at PatientNow, leading go-to-market and customer-facing teams across a rapidly growing vertical SaaS platform in the fast-expanding $20 billion aesthetics and wellness industry.  A three-time CRO with over 20 years of experience, Bridget was formerly the CRO at Chief, where she led membership growth and helped the company reach a $1.1 billion valuation. During her tenure, Chief was recognized by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential Companies and by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies. Before that, Bridget served as the CRO at Shutterstock, growing revenue to $300 million.Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/Email us with any feedback for the show: sparkofages.podcast@position2.com

Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I'm Marty and today I want to talk about something a listener brought up recently. They asked me, “Why don't you just stick to explaining warehouse positions instead of all the other stuff that doesn't make us more money?” Well, I guess that is a fair question.  As We've discussed many times, and I believe this is more than just my opinion. Here's the thing about warehousing, transportation, distribution, manufacturing, and the whole supply chain.  Nothing stands alone. Every movement touches another movement. Every position affects another position. Every delay or error cost somebody time. And in my experience, every shortcut creates a problem somewhere else. And, not only do I believe, but I think I can show that the people who grow the farthest in this industry are usually the people who understand more than just their own task. That's why we talk about everything, and why I try and get as many questions answered as possible. We can all learn something from all the experiences shared.   On another note, kind of keeping with the theme of the day, I had a long time mentor, just this week say that the associate who learns the language of the operation becomes more valuable to the operation.  So today, I thought we'd have some fun with that idea by talking about something every warehouse, dispatcher, inventory clerk, transportation coordinator, recruiter, manager, and forklift operator and a couple of hundred other positions hear every day.  Acronyms. Being honest. The supply chain world LOVES acronyms. Sometimes it feels like people are speaking another language. A dispatcher says I Need POD on that LTL before DET hits, or customer's asking for an ETA, and OS&D says there's one QTR short. And the new employee standing there is thinking What in the world just happened? But once you understand the language, you start understanding the business. And understanding the business creates opportunity. So let's break a few of them down today.  POD. This one's huge. POD simply means Proof of Delivery. It's the signature, paperwork, photo, or electronic confirmation showing freight arrived where it was supposed to arrive. Without a POD, customers may refuse payment. Billing can stop. Claims can happen. That little signature? That's money. It's like a check. One missing POD can turn into hours of emails, phone calls, and frustration.  The BOL or Bill of Laden. The BOL is basically the birth certificate of the shipment. It tells us what the freight is, where it's going , who shipped it, who receives it , and how many pallets or cartons there are. Drivers carry it. Receivers check it. And dispatch tracks it. If the BOL is wrong, everything downstream can become wrong too. Again, everything touches everything.  On to the ETA or the estimated time of arrival.  Everybody wants the ETA. An inaccurate ETA affects staffing, dock schedules, unloaders, production planning, and customer satisfaction. One late truck can ripple through an entire building.  PU and DEL. PU means Pickup. DEL means Delivery. Simple terms, but they move the entire transportation world. You'll hear the PU is at 1400.  And maybe read or hear DEL scheduled for tomorrow.  And you don't want to read or hear Missed PU. Or Late DEL. Those two tiny acronyms control millions of dollars in freight every single day.  Oh, these are common ones. FTL, TL and LTL. Now we're getting into freight classifications. FTL or TL means Full Truckload or Truckload. That means one shipment basically fills the trailer. LTL means Less Than Truckload. That means multiple customers share trailer space. Why does this matter? Because of the freight handling changes. LTL freight gets touched more. More touches means more chances for damages. More planning, terminals being crossed and more scheduling. Understanding freight flow helps associates understand WHY all those processes we have to follow exist.  STL or Spot Trailer Load. Now depending on the company, STL can mean different things, but many operations use it to describe a spotted trailer load or staged trailer movement. Spotters, yard dogs, dispatch, and shipping clerks all coordinate trailer movement to keep freight flowing. One missed trailer move can shut down a shipping lane.  Then OS&D. This acronym can ruin everybody's day. OS&D means, over, short, and damaged. To a receiver that’ll mean too much product. Missing product. Or Broken product! This affects inventory, customer service, claims, transportation, receivers, selectors and loaders. One crushed pallet may not seem important on the dock floor until you realize it can cost thousands of dollars.  Lets see, TONU or Truck Ordered Not Used. Transportation people cringe hearing this one. TONU means a truck was scheduled, showed up, and wasn't needed. But the carrier is still going to expect his or her payment. Why? Remember all we've learned about transportation. A truck sitting parked still costs money.  One we're all getting used to is FSC, the fuel surcharge. Fuel affects everything. When diesel prices rise, FSC charges often rise too. That means transportation costs increase. And when transportation costs increase, product prices eventually increase. Again, everything touches everything.  Two more biggies, DET and D&H. DET means Detention. D&H means Detention and Handling. This happens when drivers sit too long waiting to load or unload. And let me tell you, drivers will charge you and they remember facilities that waste their time. A poorly managed dock damages relationships fast. And we as warehouse people probably know these next two. APPT and FCFS. APPT means Appointment. FCFS means First Come, First Serve. Many warehouses, especially the larger ones run by appointments. Others unload trailers in the order in which they arrive. Understanding which system a facility uses affects scheduling, staffing, and transportation planning.  And here are 3 system ones. TMS, WMS, and YMS. Now we're talking technology. TMS is the Transportation Management System, and I'm sure us warehouse folks know WMS, the Warehouse Management System, and a little lesser known system is the YMS, Yard Management System. You'll see these in high traffic operations. These three systems track freight, our inventory, trailer locations, our productivity, shipping schedules, receiving , even our labor hours and cost. Really pretty much what ever information we feed into them! Years ago, many warehouses used clipboards and paper. Today? Data drives our operations. And the associate willing to learn systems becomes extremely valuable. A forklift operator that understands WMS screens and RF scanners may eventually move into inventory control or leadership. Knowledge adds up.  ASN and EDI. ASN means Advanced Shipping Notice. That's electronic information sent before freight arrives and EDI means Electronic Data Interchange. Computers talking to computers. Purchase orders, invoices, shipment notifications, receiving confirmations, all moving electronically behind the scenes. Most associates never see it. But it's happening constantly.  OK, this one most of us know. A PO or Purchase Order. A PO is permission to buy product. Without a PO, many companies won't even receive the freight or their order. That one document controls inventory flow, accounting, receiving, and purchasing.  Here's another on us production people know. KPI or Key Performance Indicator. KPIs are measurements. Cases per hour. Pallets per hour. On-time shipping. Inventory accuracy. Dock turn times. You've heard me say What gets measured gets managed. Warehouses or operations survive on measurements. And associates that understand KPIs understand how and why businesses make decisions.  Next we have RDC, DC, and MC. These are facility types. RDC is for Regional Distribution Center. DC is Distribution Center. MC is Manufacturing Center. Different responsibilities. Different workflows. But all connected together in the supply chain.  Now here's a few for the transportation folks. ELD, GPS, DOT, and HOS. As we know, transportation runs on compliance. The ELD is an Electronic Logging Device. Remember keeping our paper logs? GPS, Global Positioning System. DOT or Department of Transportation, and HOS stands for Hours of Service. These systems and regulations track Driver hours. Safety, Speed, Routes, and Compliance. Transportation isn't just driving a truck anymore. It's technology, planning, regulation, and accountability.  Keeping things on the road. We have NMFC and SCAC.  Now we're getting deep into freight language. NMFC means National Motor Freight Classification. SCAC means Standard Carrier Alpha Code. These help identify carriers and classify freight for shipping and pricing purposes. Again, Stuff most people never think about. But somebody in the operation has to understand it.  And BCO, FOB, and CFR. BCO often means Beneficial Cargo Owner. FOB means Free On Board. CFR means Cost and Freight. These terms matter heavily in international and large-scale shipping. They determine responsibility. Who pays for freight. Who owns the risk and where liability transfers. And one misunderstanding here can become extremely expensive.  Now some people may hear all these acronyms and think “Well, I don't need to know all that. I just drive a forklift.” Maybe today you do. But tomorrow? You might have an opportunity train new hires. Lead a shift. Help coordinate the outbound shift. Move into the inventory side of op's, maybe even become a dispatcher, or running transportation or supervise operations. Remember how we're always talking about learning and growing? The people who grow in this industry usually become students of the industry. Not just students of their task. And, that's why we talk about “all this other stuff.” I believe every term, every process, every department, every movement is another piece of understanding as to how the machine works. And once you understand the machine, you become more valuable to the machine.  Warehousing and transportation are not simple jobs anymore. They've grown. Technology. People. Safety. Metrics. Compliance. Movement. Communication. And that growth is a good thing. Every one of us touches another part of the process. And I feel, that's why knowledge matters. Not because every acronym instantly puts money in your pocket. But because understanding creates opportunities that eventually do. The more of the language you understand the more rooms you can walk into confidently. And confidence backed by knowledge? That's where careers begin separating themselves. The people who understand the whole operation eventually outgrow the people who only understand one task. And that, my friends is why we talk about all of it.  Well, there’s two more cents worth of my opinions. We do talk about a lot more than warehouse positions, but, I feel, and can pretty much attest that, if we learn it all, hang out with those from other departments, learn that task before ours and after ours, we will earn more and in many different ways.   Thanks for stopping in again today, and above all, remember safety is our number 1 priority. We want to be doing this a long time!

After 122 episodes covering SaaS metrics, GTM analytics, and the evolving world of AI-native software, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike announce that The Metrics Brothers podcast is going on hiatus.In this abbreviated special episode, Ray and Dave reflect on what made the show work, what made it hard, and why now is the right time to take a pause. They share their top-performing episodes across 122 weeks, including the all-time most-listened episode on NRR, a breakout episode on pipeline generation, and the Intercom AI transformation episode that set a record for first-week downloads.They also explain the primary driver behind the break: AI changed the subject matter faster than their accumulated operator experience could keep up. What started as two veterans trading war stories about metrics they had lived with for decades became something that required more prep, more research, and more time to do with the quality they demanded. Both hosts decided they would rather spend more time inside AI from an operator's perspective to gain real-life AI experience, then return with better stories to tell.Ray shares his plans to accelerate the AI to ROI podcast and newsletter, expand AI benchmarking initiatives with partners including Scale Ventures, and build out advisory services for companies trying to measure and justify AI business impact. Dave will be putting more time into Kellblog, deepening his work with the Balderton Capital portfolio and his advisory clients.The Metrics Brothers consistently ranked in the Top 25-50 on Apple Podcasts in the Business Management category. All 122 episodes remain available in the archive.Listeners with feedback or ideas for what comes next can reach the Metrics Brothers at metricsbros@benchmarkit.ai.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most private practice owners think they understand their numbers. But when you actually ask them? They don't.In this episode of the Private Practice Owners Club podcast, Adam Robin introduces a powerful new series that will completely change how you run your clinic.This is not theory. This is not motivation. This is a step-by-step breakdown of the exact metrics that drive profitability, efficiency, and long-term survival in private practice.Because here's the truth:

After briefly de-emphasizing targeted TV ads during the Discovery merger, Warner Bros. Discovery has rapidly rebuilt its infrastructure to offer clients unprecedented transparency and accountability. In this live recording from the GoAddressable upfront breakfast, learn how premium IP content is joining forces with sophisticated data waterfalls to challenge the dominance of walled gardens. Key Highlights

What if the real reason your Airbnb isn't booking has nothing to do with your decor, your rate, or your “perfect guest,” and everything to do with numbers you've never even looked at? Most hosts guess, tweak, and stress when bookings drop. In this solo episode of the STR Sisterhood podcast, I'm pulling back the curtain on the exact data you need to stop guessing and start diagnosing your listing like a CEO.Inside the episode, I dive into:A recent wake-up call in my own business when my data vanished, and why turning on the Professional Hosting Tools toggle is a non-negotiable for every single host.How to understand your first-page search impression rate and your search-to-listing conversion (click rate) to ensure guests choose your door over the competition.Spotting the hidden deterrents like surprise checkout fees, incomplete photos, or aggressive house rules—that make guests click away without booking.Why cleanliness, check-in, and communication are the three category scores that can quietly drag down your performance if left unchecked.A simple, step-by-step practice to establish your baseline numbers today, choose one lever to pull this month, and review the results in 30 days.But this isn't just about staring at charts and graphs. It's about moving out of the drama and into leadership. I walk through how to audit each of your properties individually so you can see the exact story the data is trying to tell you. You'll hear how small, intentional adjustments to your hero photo, headline, or booking rules can radically alter your inbound demand and shift your business from a stressful side-hustle into a high-performing asset.If you're ready to stop playing guessing games with the algorithm and start making decisions based on cold, hard facts, this framework is your playbook. Get ready to log into your dashboard and step fully into leading your business with data.HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY POINTS:[00:00] Welcome to a data-driven STR Sisterhood podcast episode, where I open up about the frustration of empty calendars and the shift away from reactive hosting[02:21] I share a recent experience of losing access to my Airbnb insights and the urgent setting every host needs to check [03:53] How mixed property data can mislead STR hosts and why individual listing insights matter [04:43] The first Airbnb metric hosts should track: listing views and why they matter most [05:26] The importance of first page search impression rate and how it impacts Airbnb visibility and bookings[07:14] I break down click rate as a key Airbnb metric and how it reflects how often guests choose your listing over competitors[08:17] How listing-to-booking conversion rate helps Airbnb hosts diagnose what's stopping guests from booking [09:23] Why reviews are a performance metric and how Airbnb category scores directly impact visibility and bookings[11:09] How consistent Airbnb metric tracking and community accountability turn data into clarity, confidence, and scalable growthGolden Nuggets:“You cannot improve what you don't measure.”“If nobody is seeing your property on Airbnb, nobody is booking it, that's the top of the funnel, and if it's tiny, nothing else matters.”“That's how CEOs operate. We test, we measure, we adjust.”“Knowing the numbers is one thing, sitting in a room with other women who are looking at the same levers and watching what works, that's the part that changes everything.”“You don't build this business to be buried by it. You built it to be free in it. Lead with data, not drama.”Let's Connect:STR Success Accelerator :https://strsuccessaccelerator.com/Proudly sponsored by Futurestay: cleanconnection.futurestay.com Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, Rate, Review, Like, and Share!

A tree survives storms because of its roots, not because it fights every gust of wind.Think about it. If you understand you are the observer of your life, you will then realize you aren't just reacting to reality.You're are participating in reality.You can question it.You can refuse it.You can change your relationship to it.It's obvious we are waking up to overlords and institution that wants control, in which they project “power over and power under” realities that create the opposite:That you are small.That you are late.That you are powerless.That you are merely a consumer of outcomes.They try to pull attention away from creation and into reaction.Your business grows through creation.Anxiety grows through reaction.The power struggle (and how to opt out)If you can get people to outsource their perception, then you can guide their choices.So the first battlefield is attention.If you can keep attention fragmented, then self-observation becomes difficult.If you can keep people overstimulated, then inner clarity feels impossible.If you can keep them exhausted, then reflection looks like “luxury.”And when reflection becomes rare, then the observer in neutrality goes missing.The invisible rule: “Top Down vs Bottom Up.” If you can convince someone that only approved narratives are valid, then their own direct experiences are doubted and suspect.Intuition becomes “irrational.”Pattern recognition becomes “paranoia.”Spiritual insight becomes “cringe.”Even emotional truth becomes “overreacting.”So one stops trusting what they see.And when you no longer trusts your perception, you become governable.Divide-and-conflict: turn observation into freedomIf the old global elite force us to compare identities instead of examining systems, then the system stays invisible.So attention is pushed into constant social struggle:Who's right.Who's safe.Who's winning.Who's to blame.And if the crowd is busy fighting horizontally, then power can operate vertically without being noticed.The “OBJECTIVE” is a resultIf you slip out of being conscious as a (first) observer from the equation, then you can be managed like a object.If you are managed like objects, then you'll accept being spoken to like a object.And if that becomes normal, then the cornerstone remains “rejected”—not because it lacks power, but because its power threatens the architecture.The reversal (reclaiming the cornerstone)If you bring the observer back online, then the spell weakens.If you practice noticing—without immediately obeying what you notice—then you regain inner space.If you regain inner space, then you regain choice.And if you regain choice, then the cornerstone is no longer rejected.It becomes what it always was:The point of observation.The point of creation.The point from which the whole structure can be rebuilt.REAL LIFE EXAMPLES | Are you at risk? Again, if you recognize you are the observer, then you notice how your attention, beliefs, and choices shape life. 1) Attention capture: keep you too distracted to notice Real-world examples:* Infinite scroll + autoplay: designed to keep you consuming without a natural stopping point.* Push notifications: training you to respond on cue rather than choose intentionally.* Outrage algorithms: content that spikes anger/fear travels further, so platforms reward it.* 24/7 “breaking news”: a constant urgency loop that makes reflection feel irresponsible.If your nervous system is constantly activated, then your ability to step back and witness your own mind gets weaker.2) Information overload: drown the observer in noise Real-world examples:* Conflicting headlines on the same event, each claiming certainty.* Endless expert takes, threads, podcasts, hot takes—more input than one person can metabolize.* “Context collapse” on social media: complex issues forced into simplistic posts.If everything feels equally urgent, then you stop trusting your own judgment.Then you look for someone to tell you what to think.3) Narrative gating: only “approved reality” is treated as valid Real-world examples:* Workplace cultures where disagreement quietly harms your career.* Social environments where asking basic questions is treated as moral failure.* Public shaming dynamics: one wrong phrase becomes proof you're unsafe.* Media incentives that reward conformity to a storyline more than nuance.If you can punish curiosity, then you can prevent observation.If you can prevent observation, then you can maintain control.4) Status worship: replace inner authority with external permission Real-world examples:* People deferring to “experts” even for personal decisions that require self-knowledge (relationships, values, meaning).* “Citation culture” used as a weapon: not to improve truth, but to end conversation.* Institutional language that makes ordinary people feel unqualified to speak.Experts matter.But if expertise becomes a tool to silence lived experience, then people become dependent.5) Economic pressure: keep people too tired to thinkReal-world examples:* Multiple jobs, gig work, unpredictable schedules.* Debt-driven life decisions.* Burnout normalized as “ambition.”* Healthcare and childcare stress that drains long-term planning.If you're exhausted, then you'll accept whatever reduces friction today—even if it costs you tomorrow.That's not a personal failure.That's a predictable outcome of stress.6) Identity conflict: horizontal fighting keeps vertical power invisibleReal-world examples:* Culture wars that keep attention on symbols and tribes instead of incentives and policy.* Online discourse that rewards dunking over understanding.* Workplace politics where coworkers compete for scarcity instead of questioning the system.If people argue about who's “good,” then fewer people ask who benefits.7) Metrics and performance: turn humans into dashboards Real-world examples:* Social media likes/follows as a proxy for truth or value.* Productivity tools used to squeeze output rather than support wellbeing.* Corporate KPIs that encourage short-term wins and punish long-term thinking.* Schools and testing that reward compliance and memorization more than insight.If your identity becomes performance, then observation becomes threatening.Because observation might reveal you're not living your life—just managing a score. In the end….If observation returns, then choice returns.And when choice returns, the power struggle shifts.Because the observer is no longer missing.KassandraThe Light Between is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelightbetween.substack.com/subscribe

The pricing model that built the SaaS industry is being replaced in real time. Is your finance team ready for what it does to your core metrics? In episode #374, Ben Murray breaks down the four SaaS P&L metrics that break when per-seat pricing dies. Public tech leaders are already shifting fast. ServiceNow now drives 50% of net new business from non-seat-based pricing, Workday is reporting hundreds of millions in AI ARR, and GitHub is moving Copilot to usage-based billing. If you are a SaaS CFO or finance leader still modeling on a single blended gross margin, your benchmarks are about to stop working. Why the AI product gross margin sits around 52% and how a 30% revenue mix shift can compress your blended margin by 10 to 15 points How AI COGS scale directly with product usage, breaking the near-zero incremental cost assumption traditional SaaS finance was built on Why one blended LTV no longer works once you have heavy, medium, and light AI usage cohorts, and how to rebuild LTV to CAC by cohort How CAC payback period shifts when gross margin is no longer a single number across the customer base The new frameworks finance teams need to model hybrid subscription plus usage and outcome-based pricing before the board notices the margin compression Tune in to get ahead of the pricing shift before your next forecast and board deck go out. Resources Mentioned Ben's blog post on the SaaS pricing revolution: https://www.thesaascfo.com/saas-per-seat-pricing/ Ben's AI course for SaaS finance leaders: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/ai-finance-metrics-saas

In the third hour, Mac & Bone are joined by Panthers long snapper JJ Jansen, as JJ helps recap ongoing OTAs for the team, they react to Greg Sankey's defiance that the SEC is still the best conference in college football, before a special Friday edition of Random Crap See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is wholesale distribution entering its most disruptive era yet?In this episode of Around the Horn in Wholesale Distribution, Kevin Brown, Tom Burton, and Mark  Gilham of Enable unpack the forces reshaping the B2B supply chain: inflation measurement debates, Federal Reserve strategy, tariff refund accounting risks, buying group consolidation, maritime trade choke points, and the growing influence of AI on distributor–manufacturer relationships. This episode explores how data-driven decision making is shifting the industry from relationship-based instinct to AI-powered commercial intelligence, and what that means for distributors, manufacturers, CFOs, and industry leaders.What You'll Learn:The difference between core inflation vs trimmed average inflation, and why the metric matters for CFO planning, pricing strategy, and capital investment decisionsHow a more flexible Federal Reserve approach impacts interest rate modeling, debt refinancing, and working capital strategy in wholesale distributionWhy tariff refunds create accounting, tax, and downstream pricing pressure, and how distributors and manufacturers should prepareThe real impact of global maritime choke points like the Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, Panama Canal, and South China Sea on supply chain resilienceWhy buying groups like Evergreen are consolidating, and how rebate economics drive churn and competitive pressureHow AI could disrupt traditional distributor–manufacturer relationships by prioritizing margin analytics, pricing optimization, and product substitution models over loyaltyEpisode Highlights:03:22 – Mark  Gilham explains how Enable connects manufacturers and distributors through rebate and pricing intelligence11:45 – Core inflation vs trimmed average inflation: what's the difference and why does it matter for distributors?24:41 – A Greenspan-style Fed strategy: how rate uncertainty changes business forecasting42:30 – Tariff refund accounting risks and downstream pricing pressure across the supply chain57:45 – The six global maritime choke points and why “just-in-time” models increase fragility1:00:41 – Why Evergreen shut down and what buying group consolidation means for distributors1:14:42 – Manufacturers' growing concern: will AI override decades of channel relationships?1:23:48 – “It all depends on the brief the AI has.” How AI configuration shapes profitability and channel outcomesMeet the Guest:Mark  Gilham is a former distributor CFO and now a leader at Enable, a pricing and rebate management platform focused on helping manufacturers and distributors trade more intelligently in the B2B ecosystem. His expertise bridges finance, pricing strategy, rebate optimization, and AI-driven commercial execution.Tools, Frameworks, and Strategies Mentioned:Enable Rebate Management and Pricing IntelligenceLeadSmart Enterprise Growth PlatformRevenue Expander white space analyticsPrediction market data modeling for interest rate forecastingAI-driven commercial optimization and margin normalization modelsClosing Insight:“Future decisions are not going to be made based on a relationship. They're going to be made based on what the AI model tells the distributor.”As wholesale distribution evolves, the competitive edge will belong to organizations that combine trusted relationships with structured data, commercial intelligence, and AI-ready infrastructure.Leave a Review: Help us grow by sharing your thoughts on the show.Learn more about the LeadSmart AI B2B Sales Platform: https://www.leadsmarttech.com/Join the conversation each week on LinkedIn Live.Want even more insight to the stories we discuss each week? Subscribe to the Around The Horn Newsletter.You can also hear the podcast and other excellent content on our YouTube Channel.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok.

There's a quiet ache most of us carry. Not loud. Not dramatic.But persistent. It shows up in small moments…When someone doesn't text back.When a conversation feels slightly off.When you walk away wondering, “Are we good?” It's subtle—but it's powerful. It's the ache of wanting to be lovedand the fear that the love we have could disappear. The reason is—most of the love we experience in this world feels… conditional.A parent only shows pride when a child achieves (grades, sports, behavior)  Friends who are present when life is fun, but disappear when things get hard. Feeling valued only when you're productive or successful. A spouse or partner withholding emotional closeness after conflict, instead of working through it. “I affirm you… as long as we agree.” “I celebrate you… as long as you don't disrupt things.”No one has to say it out loud. You just feel it. You feel it in your job. You feel it in friendships. You feel it on social media.Unfortunately… sometimes even in church. And slowly, something begins to form in us. A low-grade anxiety. A subtle striving. A quiet voice that says: “If I'm not enough… I might be left.”So we adjust. We perform. We manage perception. We shape-shift depending on the room.  Not because we're fake…but because we're trying to be loved.We live in a culture built on performance and perception and we are formed by this. Likes. Followers. Reviews. Metrics. Yu are constantly being evaluated. And here's what that does to the soul: It teaches you that your worth is earned… and fragile.The sociologist Charles Taylor talks about the “buffered self”—Taylor's point isn't just philosophical—it's deeply human. A person who looks secure on the outside, but underneath is deeply anxious about identity. Because if your identity is built on approval…then your life will be controlled by the fear of losing it. You start reading into everything. “Did they mean that?” “Why did they say it like that?” “Are they pulling away?”And you become emotionally exhausted—because your soul has no anchor.

You hit every number: top grades, top test scores, top patients-per-hour. So why does practicing medicine feel hollow? Ben Reinking, a board-certified pediatric cardiologist, medical educator, and certified physician development coach, argues that the same metric-driven mindset that carries pre-meds into medical school is the one leaving attendings disconnected from why they practice. This episode is based on his article "How competency-based education is driving medical education reform," published on KevinMD. You will hear why a 15-minute billing slot frustrates both patient and physician, how competency-based education and entrustable professional activities shift the question from "did you meet the number" to "do we trust you in the system," and why admitting "I don't know, but let me figure it out" gets discouraged when learners are judged only by scores. If you have ever sensed the gap between your scorecard and your purpose, this conversation names what you have been feeling. Partner with me on the KevinMD platform. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story. PARTNER WITH KEVINMD → https://kevinmd.com/influencer SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://www.kevinmd.com/recommended

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Aurélien Nolf, CFO of Navan, to unpack how to pre-align before budgeting, how to think about portfolio construction inside a company, when to fund or kill internal bets, how IR is becoming more connected to FP&A, and where AI actually works inside finance teams.—SPONSORS:Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJ—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aureliennolf5b716412/Company: https://navan.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro1:21 Welcome and guest intro3:06 100-mile ultramarathon at Lake Tahoe4:47 Resource allocation lessons from EA6:41 Bucketing bets: proven, intuition, moonshots7:43 Pre-alignment before budgeting9:58 The 70/20/10 framework10:35 Sponsors — Rillet | EY | SpendHound13:51 The common trap: chasing everything16:16 Lyft: $1B burning to $1B profitable18:11 Killing projects without crushing morale19:24 TAM as the planning foundation20:57 Navan's TAM: managed vs. unmanaged22:15 Sponsors — Brex | Aleph | RightRev25:48 Why go after the unmanaged segment28:24 Not all TAM dollars are equal29:26 How IR is evolving30:45 Why FP&A and IR belong together31:54 Metrics: disclose vs. guide34:04 Use internal metrics externally35:12 Communicating bad news to the market39:22 Earnings prep: the black book40:04 AI in finance: can't vibe code compliance41:31 Ava handles 55% of interactions43:08 AI ROI: same framework as anything else44:02 Why finance hasn't had its AI moment44:46 Lightning round44:56 Screwed up: wrong investor meeting45:23 Sunday planning ritual46:42 Advice to younger self47:29 Finance software stack48:34 Craziest expense: curtains at the hotel laundry49:17 Credits

Most people quit their podcast right before it starts working. Not because the content was bad… because they couldn't see the compounding happening under the surface. Today we break down the one thing that has shaped everything BIZBROS has built... endurance. From three seasons of the 45 Live challenge to 700+ episodes of Content Is Profit, to $1M+ in services sold through relationships that started with a single conversation. But here's what took too long to learn: patience alone isn't the strategy. Content builds trust. Outreach closes deals. Run both engines at the same time… and your content becomes a real business tool, not just a brand builder. You'll hear real stories from this week: a studio referral that became a meeting, a cold Google call that became a closed deal, and a doctor on X who attracted the attention of Mark Cuban just by staying authentic and consistent. Don't quit at episode 50. The door opens! you just have to still be standing when it does.

 key  topics   2027 draft class expectations Quarterback prospects and evaluation Tight end prospects and potential first-rounders Wide receiver depth and top players Running back prospects and draft strategies   Chapters   00:00 Introduction to the 2027 Class Discussion 03:19 Analyzing the 2027 Class Potential 07:44 Identifying NFL Talent in College QBs 11:38 Metrics for Evaluating Quarterbacks 18:50 Projecting First Round Quarterbacks 32:04 Tight End Prospects for 2027 38:07 Wide Receiver Prospects Overview 38:28 Wide Receiver Class Predictions 47:26 Running Back Class Insights 01:05:56 Final Thoughts on the 2027 Draft Class   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if the metrics making you feel the best about your business are actually the ones you should be most concerned about? In this episode you'll discover the three specific metrics most established solopreneurs are watching closely that are actually masking serious gaps in their business growth. If your engagement looks healthy but your revenue doesn't match, this episode is going to give you the clearest explanation you've ever heard for why.

Safety Metrics with Sheri Jones Oguh, MD

✨ Become a founding member to access my online courses, including Jurassic Worlding and How To Live In The Future✨ Browse and buy all of the books we discuss on the show at Bookshop.org✨ Stream and download my music at artist-owned Subvert.fm✨ Learn about Atlas Research Group, my new team on a mission to build sovereign infrastructure for social coherence and collective intelligenceAbout This EpisodeThis week's guest is C. Thi Nguyen (Website | Wikipedia | X), associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah and a specialist in the philosophy of games, the philosophy of technology, and the theory of value. In our first conversation on Future Fossils, we explored his writing on games as an art form in which agency is the medium. His new book, The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, takes that logic further and reveals the games that bind society together with institutional metrics — one of the most powerful, pervasive, and invisible technologies of all time.Thi's thesis hinges on the observation that a metric is never just a number. It's a value judgment dressed up in the costume of objectivity, a down-sampling of our richly multidimensional world into proxies that can travel efficiently between strangers. And with every subsequent compression of meaning into portable, scalable, decontextualized form, our metrics progressively displace place itself — the nuance of our singular, non-fungible lives — and define what we can even aspire to be.Thi calls this kind of cognitive enclosure “value capture”: when an institution uses metrics to coordinate across distance and difference, it engineers a context-invariant kernel that can travel between strangers without requiring shared background, history, or care. The power of these abstractions is real. So is their violence.We can use metrics instrumentally, holding them lightly as useful fictions. But more often than not we forget things like GPA, GDP, or KPIs started life as somebody else's choices — that someone, somewhere, decided what to count and what to ignore — and we begin to inhabit the metric as if it were reality itself: optimizing our lives, desires, and identities for a scoring system we didn't author and may never have consciously accepted.Games show us another way. By Thi's account, games are a medium for the transmission of different kinds of agency, a technology for practicing the very awareness that metrics erode: that metrics are cultural constructs, and we still have some choice in what to value. When you're playing, you know you're playing. The magic circle of the game space is a low-stakes laboratory for inhabiting a different set of values, and therefore different selves. Therein lies a whole philosophy of freedom, and in a moment when the infrastructure of meaning-making is being rebuilt from the ground up, recovering our capacity to see the game of modern life as a game may be the most important skill we have.But there's a twist that takes us beyond the scope of Thi's book and into the question that's been keeping me up at night for the last two years. With AI, we've tunneled so far into abstraction that we may have come out the other side. Large language models now allow us to translate between different perspectives, to ground insights from our aggregate intelligence in personal detail. If you've ever used a chatbot to explain physics to you as a specific human being, based on your own data vault, and in the style of a specific author, you know what I mean. Socrates' critique of written language in Phaedrus — that it couldn't “read the room” or know its audience — feels somewhat less relevant in an age when the generation of text is powered by systems with such a high-dimensional and granular view of things that we are no longer bound to one canonical version of anything. Is AI the apotheosis of our enclosure by institutional metrics, or is it the medium through which we are finally able to take a post-ironic stance on the constraints of modern life?It's starting to look like a world in which everything is a metric and everything is a game. And just maybe, that means we can renegotiate these tradeoffs…as long as we don't take ourselves too seriously.And with this, we circle back around to the core question of this project: As we approach the horizon where anything is possible, what should be? Who do you want to be, and what games will make you that person?Chapters00:00 Episode Teaser03:50 Intro Monologue09:11 Meet C. Thi Nguyen17:43 Value Capture Explained23:48 The Gap between Measured & Valued35:29 Recognition vs. Perception42:48 Games vs. Institutions46:43 Is Meaning Control an Interface Problem?49:09 How Rules Became Algorithms54:17 Fungibility & Monocropping56:38 Is Coordination at Scale a Red Herring?01:03:14 Art Provides Hope01:16:17 AI Futures & Values01:32:27 Thanks & AnnouncementsMentioned ResourcesAre humans destined to evolve into crabs? by Michael GarfieldCoarse-graining as a downward causation mechanism by Jessica FlackThe Computer as a Communication Device by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert TaylorPaul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems with Value Metrics & Governance at Scale (EPE 06) for Complexity PodcastThe natural selection of bad science by Paul Smaldino & Richard McElreathSlowed canonical progress in large fields of science by Johan Chu & James EvansJargon is a Moat by Second VoiceTrust in Numbers by Theodore PorterRules by Lorraine DastinSeeing Like A State by James C. ScottThe Power of Maps by Dennis WoodsDilla Time by Dan CharmasMetaphors We Live By by George Lakoff & Mark JohnsonMarshall McLuhanReiner KniziaLangdon WinnerSamantha MatherneIain McGilchristKevin Kelly

Compensation is one of the hardest operational systems to get right in a med spa. If the structure feels unclear or unfair, it quickly creates tension between providers, leadership, and the overall goals of the business. In this episode, I break down how to design compensation in a way that supports profitability, collaboration, and long-term practice growth—not just short-term production.  The goal isn't simply to pay providers more. It's to build systems that reward the right behaviors while keeping the business financially healthy.  Why Most Compensation Problems Start with the Wrong Incentives  One of the biggest mistakes I see is compensation structures that reward activity without measuring whether that activity is actually helping the practice grow profitably. Straight salary models often reduce motivation, while poorly structured commission systems can create competition, entitlement, and resentment between providers.  Even hourly pay can become problematic if the only focus is keeping schedules full. A provider being "busy" does not necessarily mean the business is healthy. Revenue per hour, utilization rates, treatment mix, rebooking behavior, and profitability matter much more than simply filling appointment slots.  The practices that perform best financially are usually measuring the quality of production—not just the quantity of appointments.  The Compensation Framework I Recommend Most Often  The most sustainable compensation systems usually combine several layers instead of relying on a single model.  • Hourly base pay creates stability and predictable income • Revenue-sharing structures reward measurable growth above baseline performance • Tiered commission thresholds incentivize stronger production and utilization • Team-based commission structures encourage collaboration instead of competition • Department KPIs help align providers around operational goals • Scorecard bonuses create accountability around both financial and behavioral performance  The key is making expectations measurable, transparent, and tied directly to the outcomes the practice is trying to create.  Why Compensation Needs to Be Supported by Clear Operational Data  Compensation conversations become much easier when they're grounded in objective reporting instead of emotion or perception.  Monthly scorecards, shared KPIs, and regular performance reviews help providers understand exactly how compensation decisions are being made. Metrics like utilization, revenue per hour, rebooking rates, and departmental performance create a much clearer picture of what's contributing to practice growth—and what isn't.  That level of transparency also helps reduce HR conflict because expectations become consistent, visible, and easier to communicate across the team.  As You Expand, Compensation Becomes Part of Your Infrastructure  The larger your practice becomes, the more important compensation design becomes operationally. Weak systems create friction, inconsistent performance, and retention problems. Strong systems create alignment, accountability, and a healthier team culture over time.  The med spas that scale successfully are usually the ones where compensation reinforces the business model instead of constantly working against it. When providers understand how their performance impacts practice growth—and feel rewarded fairly for contributing to it—you create a much stronger foundation for sustainable expansion.  Follow Shannon & Keep What You Earn:   Shannon Weinstein is the founder of a fractional CFO firm specializing in helping 7-figure aesthetics and wellness practices scale with clarity, cash flow, and confidence.  Shannon is committed to helping med spa owners understand, fix, and maximize their business's enterprise value, offering actionable advice and resources, including a popular free video series specifically for aesthetics practice owners.   Fractional CFO Services and Executive Financial Review: https://www.keepwhatyouearn.com/  Connect with Shannon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonweinstein  Watch full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@KeepWhatYouEarn  Listen on your favorite podcast app: https://pod.link/1580071347  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shannonkweinstein/  The information shared is for educational purposes only and is not individualized financial advice. Aesthetics practice owners should consult a qualified professional before implementing financial strategies discussed here. 

Chris Hughen sat down with Benji Dutaillis to discuss his recent publication on jump testing during ACL rehab. We dive into the similarities and differences between different jump tests and jump metrics, minimizing redundancies, and much more. Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/-nqZHYYF6CQ  Episode Resources: Dutaillis, 2026 --- Membership: https://e3rehab.com/premium/  Mentoring: https://e3rehab.com/mentoring/ Coaching & Consultations: https://e3rehab.com/coaching/  Rehab & Performance Programs: https://e3rehab.com/programs/  Resource Guides: https://e3rehab.com/resource-guides  Newsletter: https://e3rehab.ck.page/19eae53ac1  --- Follow Us: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/e3rehab  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/e3rehab/ X: https://x.com/E3Rehab  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/e3rehab/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/e3rehab  --- Podcast Sponsor: Vivo Barefoot: Get 20% off all shoes! - https://www.vivobarefoot.com/e3rehab --- @dr.surdykapt @tony.comella @dr.nicolept @chrishughen @nateh_24 --- This episode was produced by Kody Hughes

This podcast shows you how to fully recover from OCD.Each episode breaks down the exact techniques and nuances that stop rumination, reduce compulsions, and help you retrain your brain out of the OCD cycle. We cover every major OCD theme, including:Pure-O OCDRelationship OCDHarm OCDReal Event OCDSO-OCD / Sexuality OCDReligious / Scrupulosity OCDCleaning & Contamination OCDPhysical CompulsionsAll other OCD subtypesMy goal is simple: clear guidance that actually works, explained in a way that is calm, direct, and easy to apply immediately.You can fully recover from OCD. Don't give up — you're not stuck, and your brain can change.

In this episode, we dive into the challenge of rising customer acquisition costs and how smart online brands use first-party data to stay competitive. Tiago Costa, CEO of clustie.ai, shares how his platform uses artificial intelligence to predict high-value buyers and automatically improve ad results on Facebook and Meta channels. He is joined by brand owner Raphael Tomé, who explains how he used this tech to cut his ad costs, boost his profits, and quickly scale his e-commerce business. Topics discussed in this episode:  How AI simplifies building and launching online stores today. What metrics to fix before you try to scale ad spend.Why single-product shops are growing quickly in the US.Why traditional marketing agencies fail to scale ad results.How audience intelligence tools lower customer acquisition costs.What problems occur when running too many active ad campaigns.How syncing Shopify data with Meta improves targeting precision.Why human support remains critical alongside AI software tools.What product-audience matching does for specific item sales.How to scale products internationally using predictive data models.Links & ResourcesWebsite: https://clustie.ai/Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/clustie-ai-marketing-segmentsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fullvenueai/Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at https://tinyurl.com/56sr2z44I'd love your feedback. Tap the the link to send me a text. ______________________________________________________LOVE THE SHOW? HERE ARE THE NEXT STEPS!Follow the podcast to get every bonus episode. Tap follow now and don't miss out!   Rate & Review: Help others discover the show by rating the show on Apple Podcasts at https://tinyurl.com/ecb-apple-podcasts   Join our Free Newsletter: https://newsletter.ecommercecoffeebreak.com/   Support The Show On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EcommerceCoffeeBreak   Partner with us: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/partner-with-us/

In this episode of the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, Lindsey Busfield, vice-president and partner at Optimize My Firm, joins Evan Mack to discuss the critical differences between website traffic and actual case acquisition for law firms. They delve into the common misconceptions attorneys have about traffic metrics and how these numbers often fail to translate into signed cases. Lindsey explains why understanding the intent behind website visits is crucial and how content quality can significantly impact a firm’s ability to convert traffic into clients. The conversation also covers the importance of focusing on relevant, transactional pages and the role of AI in shaping informational searches. Listeners will gain insights into aligning their marketing strategies with the types of cases they desire, ultimately enhancing their firm’s growth and client acquisition. Key Timestamps: 00:01 – Introduction 00:18 – Traffic vs. Cases: What Matters 01:44 – Misleading Marketing Metrics 03:56 – Analyzing Traffic Sources 04:58 – Intent Behind Traffic 06:08 – Role of AI in Informational Searches 07:08 – Importance of Quality Content 08:15 – Common Website Issues 09:12 – Measuring Marketing Success 10:20 – Shifting Focus from Traffic to Results 11:15 – Aligning Marketing with Desired Cases See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/. How Often Does Website Traffic Translate Into Signed Cases? Website traffic does not always directly translate into signed cases. While high traffic numbers can seem impressive as a key performance indicator, they don’t necessarily mean more cases. Often, traffic may come from pages with general information that attract visitors seeking answers rather than legal services. For instance, a page about sinkholes may generate interest but not lead to personal injury cases. Therefore, it’s crucial to distinguish between general traffic and visits to transactional pages that are more likely to convert into clients. What Marketing Metrics Mislead Law Firms About Business Growth? Metrics like website traffic and keyword rankings can be misleading if not analyzed correctly. High traffic or an increase in keyword rankings from page seven to page four doesn’t guarantee more business. These numbers can create a false sense of success if they don’t target relevant pages that lead to client conversions. Firms should focus on metrics that track traffic to essential pages like contact and case-type pages to ensure meaningful growth. Where Should Firms Look First If High Traffic Doesn’t Lead To Growth? The first step is to examine which pages are driving traffic. If they aren’t relevant to the firm’s services, the focus should shift to optimizing pages that convert visitors into clients. If the essential pages are getting traffic but not converting, the page design and flow should be assessed to ensure they facilitate lead conversion. Additionally, if leads are coming in but not converting to cases, it may be necessary to evaluate the intake team’s effectiveness in closing leads. How Does Intent Behind Traffic Influence Hiring Decisions? Traffic intent is crucial in distinguishing between casual browsers and potential clients. Information seekers look for answers to questions like filing claims or legal limitations, while those ready to hire search for the best attorney in their area. AI’s role in providing quick answers has reduced traffic for purely informational searches, emphasizing the need for robust content that caters to both information seekers and those ready to engage legal services. What Role Does Content Play In Attracting The Right Cases? Content is pivotal for SEO and establishing a law firm’s presence on Google. It must be detailed and tailored to answer questions potential clients have, formatted in a way that Google recognizes as authoritative. With AI affecting search dynamics, high-quality, unique, and well-structured content becomes even more crucial to stand out and attract visitors ready to take legal action. What Common Issues On Law Firm Websites Hurt Conversions Despite Strong Traffic? Issues like thin content that lacks depth or fails to answer prospective clients’ questions can hinder conversions. Law firms need content that not only informs but also empathizes with clients’ pain points and concerns. Poorly structured information that doesn’t address clients’ needs can result in missed opportunities, even with high traffic volumes. How Can Firms Measure The Effectiveness Of Their Marketing Beyond Traffic Numbers? A critical measure of marketing success is whether the phone is ringing with relevant cases. Firms should focus on the performance of key pages, ensuring they rank well and receive the expected traffic. The ultimate goal is to be easily found by prospective clients searching for legal services, ensuring that the firm is chosen over competitors. What Shift Should Firms Make If They Want Better Results Than Just Traffic Numbers? Firms need to understand the origin and destination of their traffic to diagnose any issues. A decline in traffic might stem from AI capturing informational searches, requiring a focus on transactional pages. Developing a content strategy that addresses these changes can help attract more relevant visitors who are likely to convert into clients. How Should Firms Align Their Marketing With The Types Of Cases They Want? To grow strategically, firms should create content that reflects the cases they aim to attract. This includes detailed, localized content around high-value cases like car and truck accidents, wrongful deaths, and severe injury cases. By focusing on these areas, firms can attract the cases that align with their business goals. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How Often Does Website Traffic Translate Into Signed Cases?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Website traffic does not always directly translate into signed cases. While high traffic numbers can seem impressive as a key performance indicator, they don't necessarily mean more cases. Often, traffic may come from pages with general information that attract visitors seeking answers rather than legal services. For instance, a page about sinkholes may generate interest but not lead to personal injury cases. 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Firms should focus on the performance of key pages, ensuring they rank well and receive the expected traffic. The ultimate goal is to be easily found by prospective clients searching for legal services, ensuring that the firm is chosen over competitors." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What Shift Should Firms Make If They Want Better Results Than Just Traffic Numbers?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Firms need to understand the origin and destination of their traffic to diagnose any issues. A decline in traffic might stem from AI capturing informational searches, requiring a focus on transactional pages. 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This the Safety Culture Excellence® podcast, hosted by Shawn Galloway, CEO of ProAct Safety.    This week's podcast discusses "Accountability vs. Management Metrics." Does your organization use more than lagging indicators? https://proactsafety.com/blog-posts/accountability-vs-management-metrics     Enjoy the podcast! Shawn M. Galloway   The balanced-scorecard approach helps organizations to measure safety three other ways and build the association between these metrics and accident data. 

In this episode of the AdTechGod Pod, Simon Powell, CEO of HELI-D, shares how his company is redefining out-of-home advertising with flying digital billboards attached to helicopters. From launching campaigns for MTV, Disney, Pepsi, Xbox, and VaynerX to creating immersive aerial activations that generate massive earned media, Simon breaks down the future of flying digital media and why emotional, high-impact advertising still matters. The conversation explores the evolution of aerial advertising, the technology powering HELI-D's LED helicopter screens, QR code engagement at massive live events, and what comes next for digital out-of-home, including drones and integrated media experiences. Takeaways - HELI-D evolved from traditional helicopter banners into fully digital flying LED billboards. - Simon Powell transitioned from investment banking into aviation and advertising entrepreneurship. - Early innovation included projection technology that turned helicopter banners into flying cinema screens. - HELI-D's breakthrough campaign debuted at the MTV VMAs with Viacom in 2016. - Disney partnered with HELI-D for large-scale experiential aerial activations. - The company has executed campaigns for Pepsi, Star Trek, Catch-22, Xbox, and VaynerX. - COVID accelerated the development of HELI-D's scalable LED screen technology. - The aerial ads create strong emotional reactions because of their size, movement, sound, and visibility. - HELI-D campaigns generate significant earned media through social sharing and inbound audience engagement. - QR code campaigns achieved massive interaction rates at live sporting events like the Melbourne Cup. - HELI-D partnered with Blue Bite for mobile retargeting and shadow fencing at Possible. - Xbox used Heli-D to create a flying live gaming experience with zero-latency gameplay. - Simon believes flying digital media will eventually include drones as lift and battery technology improves. - HELI-D sees itself as a premium “wow factor” integrated into broader DOOH campaigns rather than a standalone medium. Chapters 00:00 – Introduction to HELI-D and the POSSIBLE event activation 00:46 – Simon Powell's background in investment banking and aviation 01:34 – The origin of helicopter banner advertising 02:12 – Creating the first digital aerial projection system 03:26 – Pitching Viacom and launching at the MTV VMAs 04:18 – Disney partnership and major aerial campaigns 04:47 – Pepsi Super Bowl activations and entertainment stunts 05:01 – Star Trek, Catch-22, and large-scale aerial experiences 05:54 – COVID's impact and developing HELI-D's LED technology 06:51 – AdTechGod's firsthand experience with the helicopter billboard 08:22 – Emotional impact and audience reactions to aerial advertising 09:06 – QR code engagement success at the Melbourne Cup 10:33 – Earned media and viral audience response 12:22 – Metrics, retargeting, and campaign measurement 13:16 – Xbox Ninja Gaiden activation and live gameplay in the sky 14:53 – The future of DOOH, drones, and flying digital media 16:39 – Cannes plans and future expansion for HELI-D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with ParkerGale Operating Partner Paul Stansik to break down five ways CFOs can help build a better sales engine: making the budget mean something, improving forecasting, sharpening metrics, getting involved in key RevOps moments, and building real trust with sales.—SPONSORS:Aleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and billing tool workarounds. It handles high-volume subscriptions, usage-based contracts, and mid-cycle upgrades, so you can scale without scrambling at month-end. For RevRec that keeps your books clean, visit https://www.rightrev.com/CJRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjEY works with high-growth tech companies to navigate the messy realities of scaling—from regulatory requirements to IPO readiness. By helping teams get it right early and often, EY lets founders stay focused on building while reducing risk as they grow. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartupsSpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com/cjBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metrics—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulstansik/Company: https://www.parkergale.com/Hello Operator: https://hellooperator.substack.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Is a weekly martini ARR? | with Dave Kellogghttps://youtu.be/Yb1lUQLJ6qw—TIMESTAMPS:All verified. Here are the timestamps:0:00 Preview and intro2:27 Parker Gale and Paul's role3:52 Topic: how CFOs build a better sales engine6:21 1: Make the budget mean something8:11 Budget segmentation and cleaving the business10:54 Sponsors — Aleph | RightRev | Rillet14:08 2: Help emphasize forecasting17:23 Forecasting as non-threatening co-construction19:37 Sponsors — EY | SpendHound | Brex23:06 3: Lend a hand with data and metrics25:32 Walking sales through NDR levers27:16 Metrics tied to exit readiness28:00 4: Get involved in a few RevOps spots29:04 Pricing, proposals, and quoting31:22 Kill your SKUs32:51 Selling with certainty: quote formatting34:26 CFO letter for enterprise deals37:37 5: Build a great relationship with sales37:59 You can't fix a secret39:23 EQ over IQ for finance leaders40:41 Recap: all five tips42:11 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #SalesStrategy #FinanceLeadership #RevenueOperations

Are Your Incentives Creating the Customer Experience You Actually Want? Summary: John DiJulius explains how the behaviors your company rewards, measures, and recognizes become the customer experience your customers actually receive. Every company has incentives. Some are obvious: bonuses, commissions, contests, scorecards, performance reviews, and promotions. Others are quieter: praise, attention, flexibility, and who gets celebrated in meetings. But here is the real question: are your incentives creating the customer experience you actually want? In this episode, Denise Thompson and John DiJulius unpack how incentives drive service behaviors, why companies often reward the wrong things, and how customers ultimately feel whatever the organization values internally. John shares examples from Starbucks, Spirit Airlines, Blockbuster, Charles Schwab, Amazon, John Roberts Spa, Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, and The DiJulius Group's own methodology. You will learn why speed, efficiency, sales, and profit are not bad metrics, but they become dangerous when they are the only metrics that matter. John also explains how leaders can recognize and reward the right behaviors, including ownership, personalization, follow-through, referrals, retention, service recovery, and Above and Beyond moments. Key Takeaways Your incentives reveal what your company truly values. Leaders may say customer experience is a priority, but employees follow what gets measured, rewarded, promoted, and recognized. Customers feel your internal reward system. They may never see your incentive plan, but they feel it when employees rush, enforce policy over empathy, or focus on transactions over relationships. Efficiency metrics can create unintended consequences. Metrics like average call time, speed, and volume are not bad, but they become dangerous when they are the only things that matter. Not all profits are good profits. Hidden fees, late fees, rigid policies, and short-term revenue plays can damage trust and exhaust frontline employees. Recognition is a powerful teaching tool. Culture is shaped by what leaders notice, celebrate, repeat, and turn into stories. Great service must be behaviorally defined. "Deliver great service" is too vague. Leaders need to define and reward specific behaviors such as ownership, empathy, personalization, follow-through, teamwork, problem prevention, and service recovery. The best service incentives align with retention and referrals. Repeat business, referrals, renewals, and earned sales growth are strong indicators that the experience is working. Stories make culture scalable. Recognition systems like the Milkshake Award and Bear Claw Award help employees understand what Above and Beyond service looks like in real life. Quotes "Customers do not experience your mission statement. They experience what your company rewards." "What gets recognized gets repeated." "If you reward speed, you get speed. If you reward shortcuts, you get shortcuts." "Not all profits are good profits." "Recognition does not always have to be financial. Sometimes culture is built by what gets noticed." "Great service is too vague unless leaders define the behaviors behind it." "The customer is the benefactor of what the company rewards internally." "Your incentives should be aligned with the experience you want delivered." "Profit is the byproduct of the experience you deliver." "Employees will do what you tell them is important." Chapters List 00:00 — Introduction Denise and John open the conversation and preview the topic of incentives that drive service behaviors. 02:51 — Why Incentives Matter to Customer and Employee Experience Denise frames the episode around formal and informal incentives and asks whether companies are rewarding the experience they actually want. 04:52 — What Gets Recognized Gets Repeated John explains why incentives shape employee behavior and how policies communicate what a company values. 07:59 — Incentives Reveal What Companies Truly Believe Denise and John discuss how incentive systems expose a company's real priorities. 09:13 — Starbucks and Customer Service Targets The conversation explores what it signals when a company connects employee rewards to customer service, operations, and performance. 12:24 — The Risk of Unintended Consequences John explains how incentives can unintentionally create the wrong behaviors, using average call time and rigid policy enforcement as examples. 14:01 — Not All Profits Are Good Profits John shares examples from The Employee Experience Revolution, including Blockbuster and Charles Schwab, to show how bad profit policies damage customer trust. 18:01 — How Incentives Show Up in the Customer Experience John explains how retention, referrals, and repeat business reveal whether the experience is actually working. 20:12 — Where Companies Accidentally Reward the Wrong Behaviors John shares the example of gift cards, expiration dates, and the difference between short-term profit and lifetime customer value. 23:42 — Lessons from Low-Cost Business Models Denise and John discuss Spirit Airlines, price competition, and what happens when low cost becomes high friction. 26:31 — Warning Signs Your Incentives Are Creating Bad Behaviors John explains how complaints, employee frustrations, contact centers, and customer sentiment can reveal service breakdowns. 31:45 — What Leaders Should Recognize and Reward John discusses service behaviors, FORD, earned sales growth, referrals, retention, and recognition systems. 38:39 — Mid-Episode CTA Denise explains how The DiJulius Group helps organizations define, teach, measure, and reinforce world-class service. 39:59 — Recognition Without Big Incentive Budgets John shares the Milkshake Award from Cameron Mitchell Restaurants and explains how symbols and storytelling reinforce culture. 43:45 — How to Collect and Share Service Stories John explains how companies can build databases of Above and Beyond stories and use them in meetings, training, and onboarding. 49:40 — Avoiding Forced or Manipulated Recognition Denise and John discuss how to seek customer feedback without creating survey-chasing behavior. 53:23 — Peer-to-Peer Recognition John shares the importance of employees recognizing other employees, including the "caught you doing something right" example. 55:53 — The Simplest Truth About Incentives and Service Culture John closes with the core message: incentives and recognition should be based on the experience you want employees to deliver. 57:26 — Denise's Closing Challenge Denise challenges leaders to examine what their company rewards, praises, promotes, tolerates, and repeats. Links: The DiJulius Group Methdology: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/x-commandment-methodology/ Company Service Aptitude Test:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/c-sat-forms/individual-c-sat/ Schedule a Complimentary Call with one of our advisors:  tdg.click/claudia Ask John!  Submit your questions for John, to be aired on future episode:  tdg.click/ask Customer Experience Executive Academy: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/project/cx-executive-academy/ Experience Revolution Membership:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/membership/ Books:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/shop/ Contacts:  Lindsey@thedijuliusgroup.com , Claudia@thedijuliusgroup.com If you want to learn how world-class organizations build cultures customers cannot live without, explore The Experience Revolution Membership. Inside the membership you'll gain access to livestream workshops, practical frameworks, and proven strategies used by organizations around the world. Learn more at https://thedijuliusgroup.com/membership/ Learn More If your organization is working to improve customer experience but struggling to connect it to measurable business outcomes, The DiJulius Group can help. Visit: https://thedijuliusgroup.com Listen to more episodes: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/the-customer-service-revolution-podcast/ Subscribe We talk about topics like this each week; be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss an episode.

The Great Talent Redistribution: Where is Talent Actually Going in 2026 and beyond?  Is the start-up compensation model broken? How about big Big Tech? How about non-tech small & medium businesses? What is happening to talent, going forward? This and many other topics in this episode of Tech Deciphered. Navigation: Intro The Broken Contract? The Great Unbundling The Three (?) Destinations Alternative Cap Tables, Alternative Compensation Models Investor Landscape Fragmentation Operator Playbook and Predictions Conclusion Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Nuno Goncalves Pedro Introduction Welcome to episode 77 of Tech Deciphered. This episode will focus on the great talent redistribution. Where’s talent actually going in 2026 and beyond? The Silicon Valley deal of the last 30 years, very low salary, stock options, you will either sell for a ton of money or IPO, and everyone gets rich, is seemingly broken. Or is it really? The dominant narrative says the tech middle class is dying. We disagree. There is obviously a lot of stuff going on whereby big tech is partially barbelling. There’s a superstar concentration on the top. There’s a bit of a seemingly allowing of the belly. We’ll come back to that. We don’t quite believe that is totally true. There’s a collapse at entry level. The belly is migrating into three, potentially even more, very different destinations: AI native startups, human-verified premium businesses, and the read the industrialized middle of the S&P 500 and SMB world. Each has its own cap table, each will have its own compensation model, and each will have its own investor profile. In some ways, this is the third episode in our Reset trilogy. We started with episode 75 on the SaaS-apocalypse. We talked about the great private capital reset in episode 76, and now we talk about talent redistributions. Bertrand, exciting times, not always positive times.   Bertrand Schmitt Yeah, it’s exciting times because it’s a time of change. Of course, we have the doomsayers. If you listen to Dario Amodei of Anthropic, every white-collar job on Earth is going to disappear. I think I strongly disagree, and I suppose you too as well, we strongly disagree. It’s going to be more of a redistribution. If you look at the history of technology, this is what always happened. We forget how many jobs have disappeared over the past 150 years. We move from a time of 150 years ago. People were mostly in agriculture. Then you had a lot of weird jobs that disappeared from people transporting water to people bringing ice from the pools to people doing the job of computers. People forget that computer was a title given to human beings. We’re doing calculations. Then, of course, secretory jobs in the ’80s, ’90s, where suddenly anyone can type using a word processor, the rise of Excel, that sort of stuff. Many things have changed. Some jobs have indeed disappeared. Some jobs have totally transformed. Where you do these jobs have changed. I think we are at a similar stage where, thanks to AI, and I would say for now, or at least the rise of AI coding, there is a dramatic change happening. I don’t think it means that people will be without a job. It just means, from my perspective, that jobs are changing. You are not just doing a lowly coding level task that actually indeed could be replaced, but you are going to have more of builder type of mindset, a product manager type of mindset going forward. We also expect that the distribution of jobs, depending on the type of business, will be quite different.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro The Broken Contract? Maybe let’s reset a little bit to the broken contract, or if it’s really a broken contract. There’s been this image in technology and tech that basically you get paid very little to work in tech. You get a bunch of stock options. The earlier you are in the company, the higher the level of stock option grants you get. Then you make a ton of money at some point because the company will either sell or IPO, and that’s heard of it. Obviously, there’s a lot of movements happening right now that are changing how these dynamics work. The first part is obviously AI, and in some ways, AI is shrinking companies. It’s not unheard of that companies with as little as four or five people reach 50 million in ARR. There’s companies with one person that have gotten bought for hundreds of millions of dollars or billion of dollars. Obviously, things are moving very, very fast, and therefore, there isn’t a large employee cap table. How would you share the upside? Would you actually give a couple of percentage points to an early employee rather than your 0.2-0.5% kind of thing for early employees? The second part is a little bit the other side of the table, which is the IPO market is seemingly in a drought. There’s not much happening in IPOs. Maybe 2026, at some point, there will be an unlock, but right now, it’s seemingly difficult to get your upside. Even if you’re an employee, you have to wait a long time. The median time of IPO has climbed over 10, 11 years, the longest in over a decade. Basically, not only you have to wait a long time as if there is an IPO drought, like we might be going through right now, when do I actually get my cash back? Unless the company gets bought, maybe there are secondary transactions along the way, maybe there’s something else. But obviously there’s a little bit of a reduction and lowering of the upside seemingly for this contract and for this place. The easy conclusion that I think many are taking is, because of all of this and all the layoffs that are happening, even in big tech, that serve the tech middle class is dying, that basically AI screwing the workers, et cetera, there’s also a lot of discussion that even it might be affecting the entry-level jobs as well. Everyone coming out of undergrad right now can’t get a job, et cetera. There’s this doomsday scenario that you’re alluding to that everything is changing. We have a slightly different perspective. We think there’s a realignment of market. In layoffs, there was a lot of layoffs that were warranted. Big tech, in particular, had actually hoarded a lot of engineering capacity over the last decade or so. There’s a little bit of a realignment that needed to happen in any case. When everyone’s saying, “Well, AI is compressing everything,” well, it’s compressing right now, but we don’t think actually it’s going to compress over time. You’ll still need engineering and science talent to come on board for you to be able to scale up. It’s not like AI is going to take care of everything and teams are going to be five people for companies that are worth a trillion dollars. That’s not happening. Today’s thesis, I think a little bit of this doomsday scenario needs to be seen with a more nuanced lens. I think that’s how we’re framing today’s episode, that there’s a bit of a nuance, there are some extremes happening. We’re going to talk about those extremes, but ultimately, it’s not quite as simple as saying that the tech middle class is disappearing in early jobs are going to be a thing of the past.   Bertrand Schmitt At the same time, what you started with is true. I mean, that 50 million ARR company, just five people. At a bigger scale, that’s exactly the matrix for Anthropic. They have reached a stage where they are at a range of 12 million ARR per staff per employee. It’s metrics that are definitely never seen before. I don’t think any company raised to this level. Best in class, best run companies, one, two million per employees. I mean, that was your target if you can make it. We are definitely in a different game. But I think what matters at the end of the day, and that’s what we’re arguing, is that you have to see the big pictures. Yes, some positions might disappear inside some companies, but some other positions will be created in other companies. Usually, what people do is keep talking about the jobs who disappear and not looking at the bigger picture of jobs that are being created as well. What is true, and I think you alluded to that, is that the big tech the past 10, 15 years had some strategy of hoarding talent in a war where having the best talented people will make the difference in numbers, will make the difference between winning or losing. The Google of the world, the Microsoft of the world, the Amazon of the world, they were hoarding talent. They would try to make sure that they might not have such needs in talented number of people. But if they have the talent, it means their competitors didn’t have the talent. It means that the startup trying to reach scale couldn’t pay the giant salaries that the Google of the world were paying. There was definitely some hoarding. But it went so far in the 2020, 2021, that I think since then there has been a coming back to normal. There is also now in 2026, the recognition that it’s not true anymore. Yes, talent can be very valuable, but there is now a bigger and bigger gap between the extremely talented versus the rest that are merely talented because of AI. AI is able to replace at scale your software engineers, your software managers. I would say it’s quite new. I don’t think it was true a year ago. We’re really talking about a recent dramatic change in what can be achieved thanks to AI. We can see most of the big AI companies are moving to coding. It was started by Anthropic as a trend, OpenAI has followed through. Obviously, the Cursor of the world existed before, but they were not as successful. All the Chinese open-source models are moving very fast to coding optimization the past few weeks. It’s quite an incredible change. I think there is that dramatic change, recognition that coding can be done differently. As a result, we are going to see change in the distribution of jobs. I think it will start from the top because we see the news of the big Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others who used to hold talented software developers to a change in realization that no, we actually need to invest in AI. We need to invest in compute because compute is going to do the job of most of these people. Therefore, we can’t pay for both at the same time, even us with all our money, we cannot. Wall Street is not going to let us do that. They start by removing a lot of position. I think we see that accelerating, quite frankly. We have only seen the beginning, but in the next 2 years, we see a dramatic shift. But I think my position, I guess yours, and you know as well, is that there will be a lot more opportunities created as well, probably by also entities.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro The Great Unbundling Yeah, there will be more opportunities created. The hoarding is just taken also a little bit of a different view. To your point, there’s hoarding of resources, compute, et cetera. But there’s also hoarding of top talent. We are seeing people getting paid, packages all in that could run up to 100 million, in some cases even over 100 million over several years. This is unheard of. I mean, an officer of Meta would make, I don’t know, maybe 20, 25 million a year. It’s like now there are people that are on the top end of AI researchers that are getting paid around that amount just to join some of these companies. There’s a little bit of a different hoarding. It’s very selective hoarding of certain talent. We’ve seen some acqui-hires. We’ve talked about it in previous episodes that are just literally about getting one or two people specifically to come on board. Alexander Wang, again, going to Meta to lead their intelligence labs there. I feel, I don’t know what you feel, but I feel this is a transition moment where there is overpaying for certain talent on the top of the market. At some point, this will stabilize. You can’t keep paying people 100 million over 4 years or something like that across the board. To your point, a lot of this is actually going to scale up quickly also on the AI side. There’s a little bit of a different hoarding happening on the top end, not just the resources, but also of people, which seems to give further this notion of barbell, that there’s two extremes, the haves and have-nots, the super-duper talented people that get paid a ton of money, tens of millions of dollars a year at the very least. Then the emptying of the middle where there’s a ton of tech layoffs going on in some ways, the belly, as they would call it, is being expelled. The middle market, the managers are being fired because there’s nothing to manage. There’s a lot of positions going away. In some cases, you might keep some of the more junior talent, but with a little bit of experience. But even the talent coming out of colleges is not getting hired either. It’s a little bit of a weird thing where there’s hoarding at the top, there’s an emptying of the belly, the middle, and then the early, early, early is also not getting recruited. It’s like what gives? How is this going to look in the future? I agree fully with you, Bertrand, that there’s a migration of this talent, not only to other companies, but also to other jobs. There will be new jobs that will emerge out of this. The DevOps, dev tools market didn’t exist until maybe 20 years ago at scale, and it got created. In some ways, we’re seeing there will be new markets, there will be new roles and new jobs that will be created around engineering teams going forward. We can’t anticipate all of them. But basically, the emptying of the belly is true as it’s happening right now. The low hiring on the early and the top end, getting tons of money. We think this is a transition to something else. There’s the hoarding of engineering in general is coming to an end at momentum. Now it’s time to rightsize teams, to get the right at the table, et cetera, and start figuring out what works and what doesn’t work. We’ve already had some horror stories coming out even from Amazon where they were breaking systems with their use of AI tools, and I’m sure it’s happening across the board. I’m on a board of a company and been tremendously affected by Meta and its algorithms, where basically because of advertising, there have been people served with ads for this specific company where the ad doesn’t match the company, so basic stuff like that. It’s been actually very, very difficult because in some ways, the company goes back to Meta. It’s like, “Hey, dudes, you guys are serving ads that are not even our ads with our copyright and stuff. How does this work?” They’re like, “Oh, it’s AI.” It’s like, “Well, it’s AI but can you give me my money back?” They’re like, “No, we won’t give you money back.” This creates huge issues for companies, for example, that are very dependent on advertising, which obviously there’s a lot of industries that are. They’re actually in production systems at scale. Meta is, I think now, the largest digital advertising in the world. I think they outgrew Google in one of the last quarters. Basically, this has a tremendous effect that systems that are in production at scale are getting inputs and changes driven by AI tooling, and somehow nobody can say what the hell is happening. Again, there will be a reckoning, there will be a redistribution, there will be a rightsizing of teams and an adequacy of teams going forward. I personally think this is a transition period.   Bertrand Schmitt I think we are moving from hoarding or software engineering to hoarding the top of the top scientists in AI and hoarding of GPUs, GPUs/data center. For me, it was quite interesting to see the deal of Cursor with xAI, where basically they couldn’t get access to computing resources to run their model. But xAI had, I forgot the exact numbers, but close to half a million GPUs that no one, I mean, “no one was using” because their services are not so successful yet in terms of AI chatbot and the like. Basically, suddenly they are like, “You know what? We control access to resource.” But the new resource is, again, a mix of extremely talented AI engineering or AI scientists versus GPUs/data center. There is this race of controlling boss and everything else is going to be collateral damage. Some examples, I think, are quite interesting. You talk about some example of Amazon, even some production issues. I remember reading a quick post-mortem of one of the issues, and the conclusion was it was AI, definitely part of the issue. But the other part of the issue was AI used by junior engineers. For me, it’s interesting. It shows that actually junior plus AI is actually a danger zone. That’s why many companies are going to be way more careful. “Why do we need the junior people if they are just playing with fire?” I think we go back to that situation of barbell, as you call it. The top talents are extremely valuable because they know how a production system works. They are here to develop better AI systems. But the junior guys playing with fires, yeah, maybe it’s cute in startups, but in a big time production environment, a different story.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro There will be a barbell with top-end talent super-mega paid and then mid-level talent that is individual contributors still doing a lot of great work, et cetera. Along the way, a lot of emptying of entry, a lot of emptying of the middle. Where does the talent go? The Three (?) Destinations I think we could say there’s three destinations for this talent. Maybe there’s four, maybe there’s more. Three that we can immediately identify. One is the AI native startup piece, where we have smaller teams that potentially get to a lot of revenue or top line over time, and where the Series Seed is the primary round, where we’re seeing Series Seed being raised of tens of millions of dollars, actually even hundreds of millions of dollars in Series Seed. In some ways, the stars there can get incredible compensations in terms of stock. They will stay for private and selling in secondaries later down the road because there’s so much capital at the table. Actually, in some ways, salaries are very high as well in some of these companies. It’s not like you’re trading off anything. You can get paid a lot of money. If your company at Series Seed for 10 or 15 employees has raised 50-$100 million, you can pay great salaries. In some ways, this is the extreme destination. The AI native startups that can make it is the extreme destination. Now, there aren’t a ton of AI native startups that can raise 50-100 million to 400 million in Series Seed, just to be clear. There’s a handful of hot deals in that space, but that’s one clear destination for top-end talent going through that. In that market, I think that’s one of the destinations. The second one is more what we would call the human-verified premium. It’s more of a play of companies that has still the need of human in the loop, either in terms of development, also in terms of activity, either because go-to markets are very intensive, and so therefore you need to have sales forces, partnership teams, et cetera. Or on the engineering side, it needs to have a lot of customization, integration. Companies are not just going to the, “Oh, you can come in and just apply your AI tooling and somehow magically the systems all work.” there needs to be quite a lot of and work and high touch work in getting stuff done. A significant part of that market, I’m not sure, is super VC investible. Maybe it’s a hybrid of private equity in VC, more PE style in many cases. It’s a PE-hold, sell to someone else market. As we’ve discussed in a previous episode on the SaaS-apocalypse, that hasn’t quite worked out for PEs. Question marks on how that human-verified premium market is going to evolve. But obviously, there’s a lot of work still to be done there, even on the engineering and science side. That’s the second potential destination. Then the third more aggressive destination is the reindustrialized middle companies that have a lot of specificity in going after small and medium businesses, local or regional affectations like ERPs or CRMs for specific markets, et cetera. Those are the three natural destinations. I would add the fourth, which is big tech. I mean, big tech doesn’t magically disappear, and I don’t think it fits neatly into any of these three markets. In some ways, big tech is now looking at the extreme for top talent a little bit like the AI native startup because they can pay. They can pay the 100 million every four years, et cetera. I do think it will typify taxonomically into a fourth type emerging, where, as we discussed, you’ll have top-end individual contributor talent. You’ll have the absolute top-end of the market because they can get paid. Then you’ll start having the emergence of earlier talent that is highly capable, et cetera. That will go back to a bit of a normal distribution in terms of talent on big tech. For me, those are the four destinations that I would put at the table.   Bertrand Schmitt For me, big tech moving to big tech, I’m not sure if it’s really a destination. I mean, yes, in some ways it’s a reshuffle between the big tech companies. They are definitely all fighting in some ways for some of the same people. I can see that dramatic shift where big tech has to remove a lot of positions in order to replace by AI. Again, I think at this stage, it’s mostly driven by AI coding. We are still at the beginning because this is brand-new phenomenon that AI coding is so successful at its task. I don’t think it was true even 6 months ago. Some companies, take Anthropic, take OpenAI, are definitely there or close to be there in terms of no more writing of a single line of code by a human, zero. This is, again, 6, 12 months ago. Not true. But now it’s true in a few top companies. Take OpenClaw as well, most successful GitHub project of all time, not a single line written by its author. It would have been impossible. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of line of code in a few months. It’s impossible to achieve that manually. If you look at the other big tech companies, the Google of the world, the Meta of the world, the Microsoft of the world, they are absolutely not there yet. They are going to be there because they have no choice. It’s you either go fast there or you die. You are not going to be able to survive competitors that are shipping 10, 50, 100 times faster than you are shipping. It’s a life and death situation. All the big tech companies are going to move, and mark my word, in the next 2 years from 10, 20% of AI-written code to 100%. During that transition, the next 2 years max, if you don’t do it in 2 years, you are going to die. Your stock price is going to crash. Then, of course, you will have to make changes. You will have to invest more in GPUs. You will have to invest less in your standard typical software engineer employees. Like you, I’m very optimistic that there are new buckets. AI-native startups definitely will be there. It will be transformational. Human-verified premium, very interesting category. In a way, it will be businesses that are inevitably less scalable through AI, and there is definitely a spot from there. I think the biggest would be the reindustrialized middle SMBs. Most of S&P 500 type of business are going to dramatically offer new software opportunities, new opportunity story to talented software employees because they will need to implement AI in everything they do. They will do it. They will need people who have software engineering knowledge in order to implement these systems. For them, what’s changing dramatically really is that thanks to much cheaper cost as thanks to AI coding, a lot of software projects that they couldn’t afford to do, that they couldn’t imagine doing by themselves, they are able to do it. They will invest in a lot more software capabilities than ever before. That will be a big game changer. And software, very tuned to their business model. There might be less buying of your traditional off-the-shelf SAF software and a lot more investment in a highly custom software by their own team, assisted with AI. I think that would be the part that is most transformed by all of this in a positive way.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Alternative Cap Tables, Alternative Compensation Models This will lead to a very fundamental shift, right back to the broken contract. What does the new contract look like? It looks like alternative cap tables depending on which bucket are you transitioning into. If you’re going into your AI-native bucket, and you’re a top-end talent, you’re like, “Dude, I’m worth 100 million over 4 years, so just compensate me accordingly with a mix of options in the company plus my salary.” If you’re top 1%, you can probably get away with salaries that you’d get anyway at mid-level from 300K, 400K and above, and you can get actually a lot of options already in the company. A lot of this is happening right now. There’s a premium for AI, we know that. There’s a premium for AI at the top end of AI researching, in particular on companies that are doing hardcore research on staff AI engineers, so companies that require actual AI engineering. There is a premium that is significant. It could be as high as 18% over non-AI peers, and it widens actually with seniority, shockingly enough. This is more of an average than anything else. Now, for me, and it’s for debate, but the perspective is this extreme comp will need to compress at some point. There will still be the haves and have-nots paid much better than the have-nots, so to speak, but there will be a compression. The variance can’t be the variance we’re seeing today for absolute top-end talent. That said, there will be variants. We know that big tech for over a decade, decade and a half, for example, in the Bay Area, has been paying a lot of money for director and above levels that used to be the VPs, so a million, a million and a half a year, all in compensations. It’s not unheard of that this will actually increase after this stage. That said, I do think that the compensation extreme that we’re in will get diluted down the middle. It will actually come down at some point. It’s part of where we are today. As we know, it is still a bubble.   Bertrand Schmitt Yeah, it’s an interesting point. I think it’s possible. At the same time, that compression coming 2, 3, 5 years. At the same time, we have examples where there is no such compression. Take the top sports players in the world, golfing, basketball, NBA players. There has not really been any compression at all. For me, it’s interesting. If you look at the big tech companies, each being one of this top NBA team, why would such compression happen? As long as they are competing against each other and generating plenty of cash, I think there will be some fair question. We will see. I don’t have a strong opinion, but for me, it’s not a total given.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro For me, the shocking thing is the faster AI becomes better, the more that compression will happen, because at some point, it’s like, why do you need the top talent as well? I don’t know. It feels like you’re trying to evolve a system that’s there to replace you. It’s like, “Okay, I’m getting paid 100 million over the next 4 years”, and then you develop something that’s so good that replaces you. Thank you. That’s cool.   Bertrand Schmitt That’s a total possibility, yes, because we are in that very unusual market where the game is to only replace yourself and people like yourself. At some point, it is a possibility, I guess this one. Right now, we’re talking about replacing your “average software talent”. In 2 years, could we absolutely replace the absolute best top experts in the world? Probably. I think it’s just that at some point we’ll be reaching the stage where we strictly have no control anymore on our AI systems because no human is able to challenge and understand what’s produced. It’s not just a question of scale anymore. We’re talking about a gap in IQ, basically.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Exactly. It will happen at some point in history. We don’t know exactly when. For the second bucket, the human-verified premium bucket, it’s difficult to see how an HVAC company or an HVAC roll-up of scale or a regional health care platform or high touch go-to-market, B2B, SaaS play, et cetera, for a vertical will compete. At the same end, they have to compete and they will compete. There will be more and more jobs, we believe, for engineering talent in these companies. They’ll have to be more and more AI-enabled themselves. The cash salaries will have to be competitive within the local markets, not necessarily with Silicon Valley. There will be potentially profit sharing and revenue sharing and actual dividends played at the table. The model there on the cap table needs to change a little bit, needs to be probably propped up more on salary and on some way of doing profit sharing or actually having dividends paid to employees and figuring out employee to equity in a more aggressive manner. This is the market that probably was already very attacked, so to speak, or let’s say, occupied by private equity firms. There are still obviously part of that model that would work well. There needs to be a fundamental shift, certainly on the quantum of salary compensation, dividend compensation, profit sharing, and all of that. Then last but not the least, obviously, we had the bucket around basically the reindustrialization of the middle, so everything else, which will take most of the belly that we were talking about. This is probably a poor analogy, the belly fat. It’s not belly fat, it’s people that were doing their jobs that now are getting disrupted. In some ways, that bucket will absorb a lot of that belly, will absorb a lot of talent. The small and medium businesses that Bertrand was saying will need to crucially become more AI, software-enabled by themselves, even with some core stuff and underpinnings that actually might not even require AI in terms of infrastructure platforms. There, you need to get properly paid. Again, how many people do you need in your engineering team if you’re a small business? Probably not a lot. It’s maybe you need one or two people and that’s it. They’ll need to be very nicely paid because they’re running the stuff in the rails. This is probably a market that over time, as AI gets more and more competent, will also be disrupted, but let’s not talk about the disruption to the disruption because otherwise, we’ll stay here the whole day, but certainly a market that has a lot of potential to shift and to absorb a lot of the moments that we’re seeing in terms of layoffs happening in the US in particular.   Bertrand Schmitt This category was a category that historically could not compete with Silicon Valley salaries, could not attract the most talented engineers. It’s not a category that didn’t want to bring these people on board. It’s a category that just couldn’t afford to bring this talent on board, typically. I think it would be a dramatic shift for them when suddenly there are opportunities to hire these people. There is an opportunity to hire them at maybe more reasonable prices from this company’s perspective. You talk about small companies, the great thing is that there are millions of small companies at some point. I think things could be truly transformational. Of course, some of these engineers, software engineers, might decide to become entrepreneurs on their own. Solo entrepreneurs, small businesses, build their own, easier to build their own product to market so to serve other companies. I think there will be quite dramatic changes because not all companies will be disrupted by AI as much, but not every company will benefit from improving processes, improving software through AI. At least early on, you will need this human touch to make it work inside a business. Interestingly enough, I was hearing that some companies like IBM were hiring more younger people to do the work of going to the client, understand their needs, propose implementation plans. That forward deployed engineer, those positions, I think there will be more and more available.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Investor Landscape Fragmentation What happens to investor into the landscape? We already had an episode, the previous one, Episode 76, where we talked quite a lot about the big capital reset on the private equity and private reset, including venture capital. Just maybe to summarize, how does it align with the buckets that we’ve just been discussing? I think the AI-native bucket clearly is going to be the key bucket. There, we’re going to see two movements. One movement, which is the mega funds, as we discussed in the last episode, are no longer just VC funds. They’re really mostly multi-asset private equity funds, maybe even private equity hedge funds in some cases. Those funds will be all over the high-growth AI-native companies and will be pouring money into companies that are scaling really, really quickly. The early stage, so to speak, VCs, the actual VCs that will stay in the market will be the guys probably identifying the next big wave of AI-native companies. We’ve discussed that as well in the last episode, some research that we did at Chamaeleon that I shared in episode 76. We’ll see that as emerging. What happens to the second bucket, the bucket around human premium, human in the loop? Likely we’ll have more and more private equity capital going into it and the large-scale VC guys, the Thrives of the world, they’ve just announced Thrive Holdings, and others going after those markets as well. It’s trying to converge into the private equity market, which aligns with the point we made in the previous episode that the VC mega funds are no longer VC, that they are private equity, multi-asset class. They’re going after a bunch of things. There’s a conversion happening from VC into private equity. It was going to happen anyway because the private equity guys were coming into VC as well and the hedge funds were coming to VC as well. There’s a convergence in the middle of very, very large funds and large assets under management happening to go after some of these opportunities, certainly in Bucket B. Then this Bucket C, so to speak, the bucket of reindustrialization, as Bertrand was saying, very well, likely will be self-funded for a significant period of time. Will self-fund with their own cash flow. Doesn’t need to have a ton of capital intensity. Maybe you need one or two engineers to do stuff, but that’s it. You don’t need tons of capital. You didn’t need in the past, you won’t need it today. Not sure there’s going to be a fundamental shift to that market.   Bertrand Schmitt Yes, I certainly, overall, agree with you. That last pocket, probably little change to the capital and capital structure. Again, I see that as the biggest opportunity for a lot of people who might be less needed by big tech and also top tech companies. What is sure for the first category, the high native startups? I would say more overall in the VC ecosystem, there is no space left for SaaS anymore. I think SaaS, as we used to know it, is dead in some ways in the sense that new pure SaaS software startup are definitely out. Existing ones that are critical to run your infrastructure, the Salesforce of the world, I think they’re in a decent spot. Actually, interestingly, they changed their pricing model to now sell to AI agents, not just per seat. There is a change in pricing there. But this day and age of funding a pure SaaS software startup through VC money, no way. VC money going to AI-native startups, AI-focused startups, to biotech, to deep tech, to defense tech, yes. SaaS as a fundable category early on, I think it’s over.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro I’m a bit more nuanced as we shared in The SaaS Apocalypse episode. We can call it whatever we call. It’s applied AI is the new SaaS thing. Horizontal applied AI is the new horizontal SaaS or vertical applied AI is the new vertical SaaS. I agree in common with your point that very specific point solutions around SaaS will be disrupted by nature with all the easy stuff you can do today with AI. It will take a while. This is not something that’s going to happen this year. It’s going to happen over the next years. Maybe interesting to also talk about the exit markets. I think the IPO market, as we’ve also discussed in the past, there is, in my view, going to be a reopening of the IPO market, I think this year, probably later in the year, third or fourth quarter. The median time to IPO actually is going to be really weird because there’s going to be potentially some companies in the current landscape, bubble or no bubble, that are going to IPO, the OpenAIs of the world, Anthropics of the world, et cetera. There will be more and more aggression, I think, on M&A. Big tech has already shown it, that they want to buy into markets. Large non-tech companies have also started doing acquisitions in space. To prop up their IT teams, their engineering teams with this world that we’ve also discussed in previous episodes that I’m going to own my own engineering stack for now. As we see, that normally doesn’t withstand the test of time. At some point it will get unbundled and served by someone else. Then finally, the secondary market is very hot right now. Obviously, there’s heavy discounting on some areas, high premiums on others. The exit market, strangely enough, is going to be propped up, in my opinion, over the next year to 2 years, dramatically. Then we’ll see if there’s a big reckoning around the bubble that we are clearly in or not, if it’s a soft landing or hard landing. Definitely, there’s going to be a lot of exit paths over the next year to 2 years.   Bertrand Schmitt Concerning the “bubble”, I have two perspectives on this. One is it’s a bubble in the sense that money is going to a lot of players and some players are going to blow it up. There will be a concentration of players at the end, like it usually happens. If you look at, for instance, long time ago, the railway revolution, there was that intense influx of capital. At the end of the day, there was a dramatic change in transportation in the US and a complete railway system put in place. Yes, some investors lost money, some companies went bankrupt, but the transformation was fully real. There were a lot of top leaders at the end of this revolution. The change after that only happened, we guess, post-World War II, with the construction of the highway system and the rise of airlines and plane transportation overall. Here I feel it’s similar in the sense that, yes, there is a lot of money going in. Some players are going to blow it. They will misuse the money in different ways, but that’s part of dynamic allocation of capital. Of course, you make mistakes. That’s what happens. At the same time, I feel it’s a similar level in the sense of this is a dramatic change in the US infrastructure. This buildup of AI data centers filled with GPUs, integrated at scale with some of the best software in the world and running it, supported by a dramatic shift in energy infrastructure. This is for me similar to the Railroad Revolution. Some players might not own the data center they build because they didn’t manage well their debt, they didn’t manage to run proper software. You know what? They will get acquired by somebody else. I think we are at this level of fundamental transformation. The fact that in a matter of maybe 2 years, the move from 0% of code written by AI to 100 % written by AI is an insane dramatic shift. Just to be clear, when you move from manually coded to AI coded, we’re talking about a 100X difference in terms of speed at similar, if not better level of quality. The shift is dramatic, and on top of it, you don’t pay salaries anymore to achieve that. You pay CapEx, and with GPUs and OpEx with electricity. It’s a very big shift, positive shift in business model. New unions, no management over it, AI working 24/7. Personally, I think for me, bubble has a bad connotation in the sense of it was all for a waste. I don’t think it’s all for a waste. I think we are witnessing a dramatic revolution of our lifetimes, quite frankly, bigger than SaaS, bigger than mobile. From my perspective, it’s exciting times.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Operator Playbook and Predictions Let’s move to if you are this person, what would you do in the future? Let’s start with two extremes and go from there. One is you’re non-tech, so you’re not an engineer, et cetera. You’re trying to figure out, how do I scale my activity? Maybe physical labor is where I want to go. It’s not, “Go west” anymore. Definitely not necessarily go west. You should go to, I guess, the states that have no sales tax with very cheap energy because that’s where the data centers are being built if you want to be in that market. Obviously, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done: HVAC, electricity work, et cetera. Don’t go west. Go low sales taxes, low cost of energy. That’s likely where the data centers are being built. You probably can just follow. There’s, I’m sure, some way for you to follow where the data centers are being built, but that’s next, I think on that extreme of the table. The other extreme of the table, let’s say you are super ambitious, maybe you’re no longer an engineer, but you’re a product manager in your prompt engineering. You could do prompt engineering all day long. You’re 28, 29-year-old superstar. What do you go and do? Likely either you start your own thing, start your own company because you’re so good at prompt engineering, you probably can do a lot of the code yourself, particularly if you have an engineering background, or you go and join very early an AI-native startup that you think has the chance of going through the roof, and you take a pretty good salary early on, a ton of upside on the company because guess what? Companies like that need product managers. They need people to figure out UX, UI. It’s not going to be, at least for now, yet AI figuring that out for you. Those are two extremes, just to give two of the extremes, like engineering, product management persona, and physical labor at the other extreme, non-tech, et cetera.   Bertrand Schmitt In some ways, every software engineering job is going to become the equivalent of a software engineering manager or a product manager, because suddenly you don’t have to do the coding anymore. You’re managing AI that is coding for you. Either you start to have some manager hat, but we saw the humans, so it’s a very different type of manager, obviously, or you are going to be really an empowered product manager. You’re skipping the middleman. You’re skipping the traditional engineering organization because your engineering organization is AI running and doing the work for you. I still believe that it requires some serious skills. I don’t believe in the vibe coder type of value proposition. I don’t believe in the prompt engineer becoming suddenly super incredible, able to manage that. I still think it requires some serious chops to do the best from all of this and to do it in a safe and sane way. It’s very easy to have poor taste, make mistakes. I don’t know you, but keep reading these stories on the heads of companies who lost everything because of the AI agents. That deleted stuff in production, and they had no backups or the backups weren’t deleted as well. Crazy situation. You cannot run companies like this if you let your agents running wild. You could argue it’s the early days. I would argue it that that issues would be there for a while. You need to have some engineering discipline at core in the company running the business to make sure things don’t go sideways because it would be easy for things to go sideways.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro I totally agree. If you’re thinking, Oh, should my kid go into science and engineering and computer science, et cetera? Absolutely, still, because of everything that Bertrand just said. You need to understand actually what code does and what technology does and what all of that does. That’s still a skill of the future. It’s not a skill of the past. In some ways, it’s still a skill of the future very much. Maybe let’s try two more extremes. Around the same level, the person that decided to do an AI native company bootstrapped initially, having difficulty raising a mega round, but could probably get away with raising a 2-3 million seed round, et cetera. Is that still viable? The answer is yes. There’s tremendous capital efficiency right now happening in the market still, 10 plus higher than if you were doing a SaaS company, and you were a founder in 2019 or something like that. That capital efficiency is going to reverberate. You can run a tighter team, smaller team. Actually, you don’t need that many salaries. If you’re a decent engineer as a founder or if you understand enough as a product manager to just generate that code, you can do a lot of stuff yourself, can bring in maybe one or two technical elements to the team early on as you would have done if you were bootstrapped anyway. There’s obviously a path for that. The other extreme is you’re in big tech, you’re level five, individual contributor, making a ton of money, or you were a manager, and you’re now out of a job, where do you go? You can go to a big company that is non-tech, S&P 500 company that’s non-tech, something like that. You join the company, you’ll probably get paid pretty well, maybe not as high as you were paid in big tech. There’s some stock at the table, but guess what? You’ll have probably more work-life balance than you ever did. That’s the trade-off. You’ll have a better job. On the upside, you can transform the company. You can help and be part of transforming a company from non-AI to AI-first or AI-enabled in the future, whatever BS that will look like in terms of the argumentation to the board. You can actually create tremendous productivity enhancements in a big non-tech company if you come with that background. Again, you’ll have certainly a better work-life balance, so not a bad deal, to be honest.   Bertrand Schmitt Also, to be clear, I talk a lot about AI coding because it’s truly transformational. You could argue that it’s going to be self-improving. We are in the situation of a self-improving AI that keeps improving itself thanks to automated coding. It’s a dramatic, virtuous loop. Obviously, AI is also going to improve everything else. It’s going to improve your marketing, it’s going to improve your search process, it’s going to improve your DNA. Improvements will be everywhere. It’s just that right now we are at a point in the quote-unquote revolution where there is one clear piece of the puzzle that is moving faster than the rest.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Bertrand, the senior executives at non-tech don’t know anything about that. It could be just a great prompt engineer. That’s the only job you do. “I’m the chief marketing officer. I have someone below me that’s doing the whole work.” Nobody knows. Nobody’s the wiser, I guess. I’m being facetious, but not fully.   Bertrand Schmitt Yeah. There would be a transition period where what you described happen. I want to say, going back to AI coding, I think that the part of AI that as of today has reached a stage of limited AGI. We have reached, from my perspective, a limited type of AGI for coding. If you take coding as a discipline today, I think we reach AGI. If you go beyond coding, that’s true. If we are talking about coding, leveraging the latest LLMs: OPUS 4.7, ChatGPT 5.5, combined with Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode for harness, I think we’ve reached AGI in the context of coding. I’m not sure everyone fully realize that and the consequence of that. I think the rest is going to come as well. We are going to see that category by category, usually categories that are more scientific in nature, where you can replicate, where you can test easily, where you can create clear success. Metrics will be the “easiest” to follow in that direction of self-improvement. I just want to highlight that this part is truly transformational, the root cause of everything we’re talking about today. At the same time, it’s coming beyond coding.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro I think it is true. There are a couple of markets where that might not hold true, which is maybe the final path. If you’re thinking of starting your own business in plumbing and in HVAC maintenance and installation, this is a pretty good time for the reasons we already said before. There’s a lot of buildup of data centers and all that stuff, but also for other reasons, because it’s an activity that won’t be disrupted by AI yet. You need them embodied AI. You need physicality to AI to do stuff like actually fixing pipes.   Bertrand Schmitt Until Optimus replace you.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Yeah, but if we’re 3, 4 years out in terms of a lot of these optimizations that we’re talking about at the software layer, we’re 10 years plus out on embodied AI, right?   Bertrand Schmitt Oh, yeah, it’s 10 years.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro We’ll probably be optimistic as we speak. That’s a nice business. I’m thinking of starting to go into that market. If you guys are interested in listening to this, just reach out to me. What’s the angle? I think there’s a lot of stuff you can do in the buildup of some of these businesses, plumbing, HVAC, all sorts of maintenance. There are markets that are just totally messed up. Handyman market in the US is totally messed up. There’s a bunch of companies out there that try to go after it with marketplaces and stuff. I honestly just start something from scratch, a small business, and go from there.   Bertrand Schmitt Yes. They’re an interesting middle. Think about accounting firms, consulting firms. I think they are not as easy to replace, but at the same time, there is no way on what they do is not going to be dramatically changed with AI. I don’t know if it’s 50, 80, 90% of the job, but this is changing quite dramatically, would be my expectation in the coming few years. Conclusion Thanks for listening episode 77 of Tech Deciphered about that great talent redistribution. As you heard it from us, we believe there is a dramatic change in play, enabled by AI coding, and that ultimately a lot of the big tech companies are changing their employee distribution, way more focused on the top talents and bringing more GPUs. As a result, we will see a change in their staffing. Some of this change will benefit AI-focused startups, but probably more likely will benefit the bigger SMBs, the S&P 500 companies of the world that will finally be able to bring inside and afford some of the talent that were in some ways trapped by the top 5, 10, 20 software companies of the world. Thank you, Nuno.   Nuno Goncalves Pedro Thank you, Bertrand

In this episode Ed interviews Dr. José González-Acuña, recent Ph.D. graduate at Iowa State University. They discuss José's Thesis work on frogeye leaf spot and efforts to expand the ever growing library of plant disease predictive models. Additional Resources https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-46975-z#Sec14 https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/horttech/27/5/article-p710.xml https://cropprotectionnetwork.org/news/new-crop-risk-tool-enhances-disease-management-decisions Time Stamps 00:00 Understanding Machine Learning Models 03:23 Choosing the Right Model for the Project 06:13 Metrics for Model Evaluation 08:48 Challenges in Data Collection and Standardization 11:38 Insights on Frog Eye Leaf Spot Modeling 13:44 Future Directions and Improvements 17:40 Understanding Weather Data's Role in Disease Modeling 19:42 Data Collection and Analysis for Disease Severity 21:29 Introduction to Decision Support Systems (DSS) 22:27 The Importance of Decision Support in Agriculture 24:09 Future of Predictive Modeling and Decision Support Systems 28:44 The Role of Farmers in Utilizing Predictive Models 32:14 Economic Benefits of Decision Support Systems 34:29 Elevator Pitch: Explaining Predictive Modeling to the Public 37:58 outro with logo.mp4 Zaworski, E. (Host) and González-Acuña, J. (Interviewee). S5:E8 (Podcast). Frog Eye-PM: Predictive Modeling Part 2. 5/20/2026. In I See Dead Plants. Crop Protection Network.   Transcript

Check out the fuel tracking app here! FuelFlowRunning metrics, wearables, and training data get a reality check this week as Zoë and Kylee Van Horn cut through the noise of HRV scores, readiness ratings, and AI coaches to name the five numbers that actually move the needle in 2026. The episode opens with a familiar character: the athlete double-fisting a Whoop and a Garmin who hasn't strung four consistent weeks of training together in six months. From there, the conversation breaks down what makes a metric genuinely useful, is it actionable, is the signal strong enough to act on, can you verify the underlying measurement, and does it tell you something your body isn't already saying? Then comes the countdown of the five that earn a spot on your watch: rate of perceived exertion (the master metric), consecutive weeks of consistent training, your 14-day sleep average, your long run as a percentage of your 30-day max, and carbohydrate intake per hour on long runs. Along the way: why one bad night of sleep won't break you, the 2025 research linking a single oversized long run to a 128% jump in injury risk, and why most runners fuel with far fewer carbs than they think they do. Evidence-based, occasionally unhinged, and a genuinely useful nudge to audit what you're actually tracking. Questions or hot takes? microcosmcoaching@gmail.com

Christian Thordal: How "Fake Kanban" Fooled the Metrics, And What This Agile Coach Did to Fix It Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "The team was like birds in a nest waiting to get fed — completely dependent on the PO for every piece of work." - Christian Thordal   Christian tells us about a team that always appeared busy but was hiding serious dysfunction behind a single healthy metric. When he rated the system across his domain, he found the team scored low in process maturity, effectiveness, and learning — yet their cycle time looked good. The team claimed to practice Kanban, but in reality it meant "we can do whatever we want." Daily standups had become social check-ins. The backlog held over 100 items to do and 50+ in progress, most of them just headlines with no descriptions. Real work assignments happened through 30-minute Slack huddles between the PO and individual developers — pure push, no prioritization. Despite having OKRs, the team could only plan a week ahead. Christian's fix was radical: he restarted the backlog entirely, cutting 150 items down to roughly 30, established WIP limits to create a pull-based system, and brought the team into the process as active participants rather than passive recipients.   In this segment, we refer to Kanban and OKRs.   Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you looked beyond a single "green" metric to understand what was really happening in your team's workflow? Featured Book of the Week: Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet Christian recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander who transformed his crew's performance by replacing permission-seeking with intent-based leadership. Instead of waiting for orders, crew members were expected to say "I intend to..." — transferring ownership and making people accountable for their decisions. Christian says this deeply resonated with his own military background in the Danish Army, where leadership operated on similar principles. The book's core message — stop creating dependency and start building leaders at every level — connects directly to the team story in this episode, where passive dependency on the PO was the root of the dysfunction. You can also listen to previous episodes with David Marquet and explore more on intent-based leadership.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Gen Alpha has completely fragmented away from traditional TV, leaving advertisers scrambling to connect with kids and parents across YouTube, FAST channels, and gaming platforms.  This week, Mike sits down with Emma Witkowski, VP of Media Solutions at WildBrain, to unpack the massive market disconnect in children's media, the power of nostalgia in family co-viewing, and how upcoming privacy regulations like COPPA 2.0 are rewriting the rules of digital targeting. Key Highlights:

What's on your mind? Let CX Passport know...What does your team actually mean when they say "world class"? Melissa Bardsley has spent her career across banking, manufacturing, and SaaS ... and she keeps arriving at the same answer. Communication isn't a soft skill. It's the infrastructure.What you'll learn in this episode:Why transactional and SaaS support require completely different hiring profilesHow one interview question about a chicken coop reveals more than a resume ever willWhy leaders avoid difficult conversations ... and what it costs when they doHow average handle time can turn your support team into clock watchersWhy a fresh set of eyes on a broken process is one of the most underrated leadership toolsCHAPTERS00:00 Support across banking, manufacturing, and SaaS02:01 Transactional vs. complex support environments04:41 Hiring for curiosity and learning agility07:42 Rebuilding confidence after hiring mistakes09:02 Difficult conversations and why timeliness matters10:40 Defining "world class" so your whole team means the same thing12:59 Common language as the North Star for metrics and culture15:18 First Class Lounge19:32 Metrics as weapons vs. metrics as coaching tools22:54 Starting with data when you walk into a broken situation24:34 Low-hanging fruit and the power of a fresh set of eyes25:47 Navigating sacred processes that need to changeMelissa Bardsley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissabardsleync/Listen: https://www.cxpassport.comWatch: https://www.youtube.com/@cxpassportNewsletter: https://cxpassport.kit.com/signupI'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and should not be taken as legal, financial, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified attorney, financial advisor, or other professional regarding your specific situation. The opinions expressed by guests are solely theirs and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of the host(s).

Want to know if you are actually winning your high-conflict case? In this video, Rebecca reveals the only three measurable metrics that consistently predict case outcomes: consistency index, response latency, and record depth. Learn how judges, mediators, and attorneys evaluate credibility, strategy, and organization so you can build real leverage in your divorce, custody, or litigation matter.

Want to learn more about Remote Therapeutic Monitoring in neuro? In this episode, host Erin Gallardo, PT, DPT, NCS speaks with physical therapist and former clinic owner turned digital health leader Sarah Anestam, PT, MSPT and practice owner Katie Wadland, PT, DPT, GCS about how the OneStep app and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) are transforming outpatient and home-based rehab. Sarah explains how OneStep uses smartphone sensors to turn everyday walking into objective gait and fall risk data, giving clinicians "gait lab in a pocket" insight into how patients move in real-world environments without extra hardware. Katie shares how her practice, Healthy Aging Physical Therapy, an outpatient-at-home practice has integrated OneStep to better serve older adults and people with neurologic conditions like Parkinson's disease, using the platform to track progress between visits, support home programs, and even synthesize large datasets for documentation and clinical decision-making. In the episode we'll break down the challenges and opportunities with different RTM systems, discuss the evolving RTM billing rules, give practical workflow tips, and demonstrate how RTM has created a meaningful new revenue stream while enhancing patient engagement, long-term monitoring, and community-based wellness initiatives such as fall prevention events. If you've wondered if RTM would work for your neuro clients and be worth your while, this is the episode for you! Healthy Aging is on FB, IG and Youtube @HealthyAgingPT HealthyAgingPT.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-anestam/ OneStep www.onestep.co

In this episode of the Healthy Wealthy & Smart Podcast, Dr. Karen Litzy, PT, DPT welcomes Dr. Lance Knaub. They explore the journey from humble beginnings in physical therapy to building a thriving, self-managing practice. The discussion covers strategic partnerships, mindset shifts, and the creation of generational wealth, providing a comprehensive look at how practice owners can scale, create balance, and align their business with personal life goals.   Key Topics The origin story of Breakthrough Physical Therapy and lessons in entrepreneurial resilience How to recognize and navigate burnout, with practical steps to prevent it The 4% Breakthrough framework: introspection, fundamentals, lifestyle, and growth strategies The path from owner-operator to self-managing business, including partnership models and leadership development The importance of mentorship, personal development, and strategic planning for sustainable success Building a business that aligns with your life goals rather than just scaling for scale's sake Practical advice on creating your life design and maintaining it amid challenges The role of private equity and partnerships in business growth and wealth creation   Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction to Dr. Lance Knaub and his background 01:22 - Building Breakthrough PT from the ground up: early stages and lessons 03:29 - Overcoming burnout: a personal story of health and recovery 05:39 - Practical steps physical therapists can take now to handle stress 08:16 - Breakdown of The 4% Breakthrough framework: steps and timelines 09:35 - Fundamentals of building a resilient business like a pro athlete 12:16 - Strategies for breaking through plateaus and personal development 17:26 - What does a self-managing practice really look like? Pathways to independence 20:25 - Metrics and signs that your business is truly moving toward self-management 22:16 - How to approach partnerships and private equity as growth tools 23:45 - Aligning team goals with business vision for retention and growth 28:49 - Designing and holding onto the life you love amidst business success 30:36 - The importance of regular strategic review and adjusting your plan 33:16 - Practical insights into effective goal setting and weekly planning 37:01 - Why living more, not just working less, is the essence of a self-managing business 38:04 - Advice to your 20-year-old self for accelerating growth and enjoyment 39:02 - Connecting with Dr. Lance Knaub and available resources for entrepreneurs   Resources & Links The 4% Breakthrough by Dr. Lance Knaub Michael Gerber's E-Myth Ben Hardy's Science of Scaling   Connect with Dr. Lance Knaub LinkedIn Website TikTok Free Gift from Dr. Knaub     More About Dr. Knaub: Dr. Lance Knaub, keynote speaker and best-selling author of The 4% Break-Thru and The Drive to Success Vol 2, is the founder of Denali Consulting. He helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses, avoid burnout, and build self-managing companies that become valuable assets—so they can live a life they truly love.  He and his wife founded Breakthru Physical Therapy & Fitness and developed a fearless leadership team who took over operating the company in 2018. Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month   Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio