Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

After writing more than one article a day for the last 23 years, I’ve accumulated a body of text large enough to train an AI model that could convincingly write “like me.” With today’s technology, it would not be difficult to build a system capable of generating opinions that sound as if they came from Enrique Dans—an algorithmic professor that keeps publishing long after I’m gone. That, apparently, is the next frontier of productivity: the digital twin. Startups such as Viven and tools like Synthesia are building “AI clones” of employees and executives—trained on their voices, writing, decisions, and habits. The idea is seductive. Imagine scaling yourself infinitely…

AI coaches are everywhere. They’re training marathoners and coaching leaders, and even billionaires Ray Dalio created an AI clone to serve as a digital mentor. In the past few months, searches for “AI coaching” have gone through the roof. And it’s easy to see why. AI coaches are available 24/7, cost less than a gym membership, and can recall every word you’ve ever said. Research even shows they can match human coaches in helping people reach their goals. Ironically, people often tell AI things they’d never tell another person. Studies show chatbots reduce our fear of judgment, making them surprisingly effective at uncovering what’s really going on. And with 94% of…

Every organization believes it’s in the productivity business. Every executive thinks faster, longer, more densely packed meetings equal better results. They’re wrong. The meetings that actually work—the ones where breakthroughs happen and teams leave energized rather than depleted—operate on a completely different logic. They’re designed around how human brains actually function, not how we wish they would. By helping organizations transform their cultures through my Move. Think. Rest. (MTR) framework, I’ve watched the same pattern emerge: Companies spend millions on the latest collaboration software and meeting tech, then squander the opportunity by applying the…

Shares of Beyond Meat slumped to a record low on Monday after the maker of plant-based meat launched an exchange offer for convertible bonds to cut more than $800 million in debt. The stock was last down 32.1% at $1.93, after falling as low as $1.23. The company last month posted a revenue drop and a wider-than-expected loss, citing weak U.S. consumer demand. It said it was still facing “an elevated level of uncertainty” and will not provide any full-year estimates. Consumer spending has been affected by economic uncertainty and consumer tastes have been shifting in the plant-based meat market. The company will exchange its $1.15 billion 0% convertible not…

The Real ID requirement goes into effect today (Wednesday May 7, 2025). The deadline has been 20 years in the making, and its implementation today could cause some headaches—or at least some confusion—for those trying to fly domestically. Here’s what you need to know about today’s Real ID deadline and what it means for you. What is Real ID? A Real ID is the name given to an updated form of driver’s licenses and state IDs that have enhanced security measures. The federal government sets these standards, even though Real IDs are issued by individual states. From May 7, a Real ID will be required in most circumstances to board a domestic flight in America, ent…

Walk through almost any manufacturing plant today, whether the frontline professionals crushing oilseeds, processing corn, or producing ingredients, and you’ll notice something subtle but important. The tools that help turn agricultural crops into products that feed and fuel the world are getting smarter, more precise, and more capable. Most conversations about the bioeconomy focus on what farmers grow or what consumers buy. But the real transformation is happening in the middle, in the molecular steps that quietly make modern, low-carbon manufacturing possible. Catalysts and enzymes, the biological and chemical tools that convert agricultural inputs into usable mater…

Today marks a milestone: my 250th “Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights” series post. Back on October 5, 2020, when I published the first piece in this strategy series, “The Role of Management Systems in Strategy,” I was simply responding to a client’s question and trying to provide practical advice on the often-ignored fifth box of the Strategy Choice Cascade. I had no idea that first post would be the launch of a series that reaches 263,000 people (at last count) on a weekly basis. It feels fitting for this 250th post to return to the original topic in Revisiting Management Systems: The Nervous System of Strategy. And as always, you can find all the previous Playing to …

A federal judge on Thursday approved a $1.5 billion settlement between artificial intelligence company Anthropic and authors who allege nearly half a million books had been illegally pirated to train chatbots. U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court Thursday after the two sides worked to address his concerns about the settlement, which will pay authors and publishers about $3,000 for each of the books covered by the agreement. It does not apply to future works. “This is a fair settlement,” Alsup said, though he added that distributing it to all parties will be “complicated.” About 465,000 books are on the list of …

There’s a generational shift happening in workplaces that goes far deeper than debates about RTO or perks and snacks. Gen Z—the cohort that learned to communicate through stories, stickers, and swipe culture—is fundamentally reimagining how work gets done. After analyzing data from 2,475 professionals across our latest research, I’m convinced they’re crafting the future of work. Gen Z intuitively understands something many organizations are still learning. As we live in a world drowning in information, clarity is a competitive advantage. And increasingly, that clarity is offered visually. The Visual-First Expectation Sound familiar? Workplace tools mirror socia…

Large-language models (LLMs) have taken the world by storm, but they’re only one type of underlying AI model. An under-the-radar company, Fundamental, is set to bring a new type of enterprise AI model to the masses: large tabular models, or LTMs—which could have an even bigger impact for businesses. What are LTMs? A major difference between LLMs and LTMs is the type of data they’re able to synthesize and use. LLMs use unstructured data—think text, social media posts, emails, etc. LTMs, on the other hand, can extract information or insights from structured data, which could be contained in tables, for instance. Since many enterprises rely on structured data,…

Reddit is now the fourth most visited social media platform in the U.K., overtaking TikTok. The online discussion platform has seen immense growth over the past two years, reaching 88% more internet users in the U.K., thanks to a combination of shifting search algorithms and social media habits. Three in five Brits now encounter the site while online, according to Ofcom, up from a third in 2023. The U.K. now has the second largest user base behind the U.S., according to company records shared with the Guardian. Reddit has also witnessed a drastic demographic change over the same period. More than half of the platform’s users in the U.K. are now women and one…

It’s 7:45 a.m. in the office. Someone bounces in, already back from the gym, already through their emails. Cheerfully asks if everyone’s “okay” because it’s so quiet and people seem a bit tired. Around the office, people clutch coffee like a life raft, waiting for their brains to come online and cursing the 8 a.m. meeting. And the cheerful colleague. But at least they got in early enough to find parking and grab coffee before it ran out—this time. Now: which person are you? The early riser, or the one watching them, wondering why you can never feel that awake at this hour no matter how hard you try? Those clutching their strong brews are probably not just tire…

A reader asks: Two years ago, I began managing Craig, who had been doing the same tasks day in and day out for a decade. He hadn’t adapted to new technology, best practices, or industry trends. My first order of business was to coach him and challenge him to grow and learn. For more than a year, we built up a great trajectory. People saw how much his work improved and commented on it frequently, and said he seemed revitalized in many ways. His progress gave me a lot of hope that he could become good at the modern demands of his role. Then about six months ago, Craig suddenly reverted to his old patterns. It was as if the prior year of progress got completely wiped…

February 1 was National Change Your Password Day, a well-intentioned reminder that, ironically, highlights everything wrong with how we think about security in 2026. Here’s the truth: if you spent the first day of the month dutifully changing “Summer2025!” to “Winter2026!” across your accounts, you didn’t make yourself safer. In fact, you might have made things worse. Decades of Bad Advice We’ve spent decades teaching people the wrong lessons about password security. Add a number. Throw in a special character. Change it every 90 days. These requirements were etched into our collective consciousness, repeated by IT departments, enforced by login forms, and inter…

There’s no shortage of apocalyptic headlines about the future of work in the era of artificial intelligence. For workers, the technology has inflicted anxiety and uncertainty, provoking questions of when, how many, and which kinds of workers will be replaced. Companies have been propelled into a FOMO fury to integrate AI expediently or miss out on efficiency, cost savings, and competitive advantage. The disruption is inevitable, but from where I sit at the nexus of employee mental health and technology, we’re asking the wrong questions. Enhancing, not replacing, humans As CEO of Calm, I have spent the past year visiting with executives and their teams across the co…

Every year, Audience Audit publishes a study on what agency clients really want—and the 2025 edition revealed a stat that should stop any agency leader in their tracks: 77% of clients say they’re more likely to hire an agency that’s a recognized AI expert (not just self-proclaimed). But only 32% believe their current agency fits that description. Here’s what’s more telling: When asked what they expect from their agency when it comes to AI, clients didn’t say “efficiency” or “cheaper deliverables.” They want new ideas, sharper analysis, and real guidance on how to use AI themselves. In other words, they’re not just looking for agencies that use AI. They want partners w…

OpenAI on Thursday released its answer to Google’s impressive Gemini 3 Pro model–GPT-5.2—and by the looks of some head-to-head benchmark test scores, it looks like a winner. The new model took the highest score on a number of benchmark tests covering coding, math, science, tool use, and vision. (Benchmarks should, of course, be combined with real-world use to tell the whole story. But still . . .) OpenAI says GPT-5.2, which is a reasoning model, achieved expert-level performance scores on its own GDPval benchmark, which evaluates performance on 44 real professional tasks including things like spreadsheet creation, document drafting, presentation building, and more. …

For most of my career at L’Oréal, I sold confidence in a tube: lipstick. But lipstick isn’t just about applying color to your lips. It’s about identity. Ritual. Power. Beauty has never been superficial. It’s always been about self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-expression, knowing that how you’re feeling inside is reflected on the outside. Today, the boldest expression of that confidence comes from beyond the makeup bag: It’s a full night’s sleep working with a skincare routine, balanced hormones supporting a healthy glow, nutrients fueling both energy and radiance, and gut health supporting complexion. The truth is simple: Health is the new lipstick. Healt…

Working in tech, I learned that technology alone doesn’t spark transformation. The people do. And people approach new technologies in wildly different ways. To be successful, companies need to adapt to that line of thinking, just like companies expect their teammates to adapt to transformative technologies, like AI. 3 TYPES OF AI ADOPTERS When we rolled out a custom-built company GPT to our 14,000 teammates several years ago, we saw three clear groups emerge. First, there was the “jump-in-with-both-feet” crowd. These are the early adopters who treat anything new like a shiny toy. Next were the skeptics who wondered how much of an impact AI would have on their d…

We’re still in the earliest days of artificial intelligence. It was just November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT, and the world changed. However, enough time has passed for us to have a sufficient perspective to categorize AI and autonomous agents into three distinct eras. Introduction—2024: In the initial shockwave, there was more novelty and hype than practicality around the possibilities of AI. Businesses and leaders understandably struggled to understand what was barreling toward them. Evaluation—2025: There was a reality check for organizations as they began testing, experimenting with, and piloting AI projects in their search for use cases that created va…

One day after WeightWatchers said that it would file for bankruptcy, weight loss drug giant Novo Nordisk’s outlook is brightening. Novo Nordisk, the Danish company that produces semaglutide drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, saw its shares rise more than 7% Wednesday, in spite of recent headwinds from widely available copycat versions of its signature weight loss drugs. Following its quarterly earnings report, shares of the company rose to $71.53 before leveling off and settling around $67.70, in spite of lowered expectations for the year. Novo Nordisk lowered its sales growth forecast for 2025, now expecting growth between 13% and 21%, down from the 16% to 24% it pro…

Public debate about artificial intelligence in higher education has largely orbited a familiar worry: cheating. Will students use chatbots to write essays? Can instructors tell? Should universities ban the tech? Embrace it? These concerns are understandable. But focusing so much on cheating misses the larger transformation already underway, one that extends far beyond student misconduct and even the classroom. Universities are adopting AI across many areas of institutional life. Some uses are largely invisible, like systems that help allocate resources, flag “at-risk” students, optimize course scheduling, or automate routine administrative decisions. Other uses ar…