Governance Matters: Don’t Overlook Board Oversight

Most conversations around proxy voting focus on shareholder proposals and executive compensation. Meanwhile, the most significant votes tend to fly under the radar: director elections. Boards of directors play a vital role in representing shareholder interests by overseeing a company’s strategic direction, monitoring management and ensuring accountability for the creation of long-term value.

Director-election votes can be a powerful tool for weighing in on material governance issues. Increasingly, investors are doing just that. In the 2024 proxy season, directors who chaired their board’s nominating and governance committees received 5% more dissenting votes on average, reflecting investors’ willingness to hold specific directors accountable for board composition and broad governance concerns. READ MORE

In defense of managers: Why good managers are essential to great leadership

All too often, good leadership is viewed as a more enticing and important topic than good management. People aspire to be leaders; they are trained to be managers. Many don’t even want to be referred to as a manager because the word itself has a bit of a PR problem.

And who can blame them? After all, leaders cast vision and point to the future. Managers review performance and point out problems. Leaders inspire. Managers inspect. Leaders throw great parties. Managers throw out non-reimbursable charges from an expense account. READ MORE

How to reclaim the strategic altitude your company needs

In my work advising high-growth companies, I often see founders hit an invisible wall, typically around the $25 million ARR mark, where the very instincts that made them successful begin to stifle their company’s growth. 

A recent example illustrates this “Operator’s Trap”: the CEO, a brilliant leader, was still approving every proposal and personally reviewing customer tickets. While from the outside the business looked strong, the problem crystallized when a competitor made a strategic move no one on his team saw coming. And the reason became painfully clear—the leader responsible for scanning the horizon was buried so deep in the day-to-day that he could no longer see beyond it. READ MORE

Stanford researchers tracked millions of jobs. Here’s who is losing to AI

The debate over AI’s impact on the workplace has moved from speculation to reality, as evidence of jobs lost to AI emerges. New research from Stanford University analyzing millions of payroll records through July 2025 reveals that generative AI is already creating significant employment disruptions. 

This research represents one of the first large-scale, real-time analyses of AI’s impact on employment, according to report co-author Erik Brynjolfsson. Titled Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence, the study used comprehensive payroll data from ADP, covering millions of workers across tens of thousands of firms. READ MORE

Fed primed for rate cut as hiring slumps, unemployment inches up to 4.3%

The newest data showing labor market weakness puts at loggerheads both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate to maintain stable prices and ensure maximum employment.

The U.S. has expanded payrolls by just 598,000 in 2025, the slowest increase of any year since the pandemic. Meanwhile, inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index minus food and energy prices, edged up in July to 2.9%, well above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. READ MORE

Streaming and texting on the Moon: Nokia and NASA are taking 4G into space

Texting on the Moon? Streaming on Mars? It may not be as far away as you think.

That’s the shared vision of NASA and Nokia, who have partnered to set up a cellular network on the Moon to help lay the building blocks for long-term human presence on other planets.

A SpaceX rocket is due to launch this year — the exact date has yet to be confirmed — carrying a simple 4G network to the Moon. The lander will install the system at the Moon’s south pole and then it will be remotely controlled from Earth. READ MORE

Most economists see inflation persisting above 2% through 2026

Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, while voicing concern about tariff-induced inflation, flagged signs of job market weakness and signaled that the central bank at its next policy meeting on Sept. 16-17 may need to trim the main interest rate for the first time this year.

“Downside risks to employment are rising,” Powell said in a speech. “If those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.” READ MORE

Hate your job? How to have more fun at work - from ‘thin-slicing’ your joy to expressing your personality

Who would say work was fun? Your job might be rewarding (some of the time). You may get on with your colleagues (some of them). But fun? It seems simultaneously too grand an ambition and too small.

After the work-centric “hustle culture” of the 2010s, then the backlash and widespread burnout brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the general feeling around work right now could be described as ambivalent at best. At worst, it’s openly combative, as evinced by frequent references to the “battle” over working from home. Managers want employees back in the office; employees want flexibility, and to limit work’s impact on their lives. READ MORE

What the strange bedfellows in the return-to-office debate say about the future of work

My book with Ranya Nehmeh, In Praise of the Office, about the benefits of face-to-face interactions is being released this month. Along with the attention that generates, I am learning about who advocates for remote work and who advocates for returning to the office.

For the record, we argue that it is possible to have the benefits of in-person working with a hybrid schedule, but it requires management to be much more purposeful with how it uses that in-person time than what we are seeing now. READ MORE

New Research Says Being an Exceptional Manager Boils Down to 1 Simple Hack

You can’t be a great manager without gratitude. At least, that’s according to 3,600 employees from across the globe in the fifth iteration of Achievers Workforce Institute’s (AWI) State of Recognition report. Despite this, only 15% of employees say their manager regularly recognizes them, which should stop every leader in their tracks.  

In my world coaching leaders for a living, employee recognition is gradually becoming less fluff and more fuel for driving engagement, performance and results. According to the report, employees who receive weekly, meaningful recognition are nine times more likely to feel a strong sense of belonging, six times more likely to see a long-term career, and 2.6 times more likely to be at peak productivity. Even monthly, meaningful recognition from a manager drives major gains in engagement and trust — as long as it’s indeed meaningful…that is personal, specific, and tied to impact. READ MORE

Elon Musk tried to court Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance xAI’s attempted $97 billion OpenAI takeover

There’s apparently some truth to the saying, “The enemy of your enemy is your friend.”

Elon Musk approached Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year, asking him to help finance xAI’s bid to buy Sam Altman’s OpenAI, according to a court filing released Thursday. The call for help came after a long history of tension between the tech superstars. READ MORE

Fed Chair Warns the Economy Is Even Worse Than We Realized

The combination of tariff-driven inflation and a downturn in hiring has posed a “challenging situation” for the U.S. economy, according to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Delivering an annual address in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Friday morning, Powell underscored that the economy was engaged in a “curious kind of balance” from a slowdown in both the supply and demand for workers. READ MORE

Microsoft and NFL announce multiyear partnership to use AI to enhance game day analysis

Microsoft and the NFL announced on Wednesday that they’re extending their partnership to bring real-time game data and analysis to coaches and players using Microsoft Copilot and Azure artificial intelligence.

The multiyear partnership will upgrade the NFL’s sideline viewing system by equipping 32 teams with more than 2,500 custom-built Microsoft Surface Copilot tablets to enhance data collection during game days. Microsoft and the NFL said the deal will also support operations by helping managers track factors such as weather delays or technical equipment issues. READ MORE

Ex-Google exec says degrees in law and medicine are a waste of time because they take so long to complete that AI will catch up by graduation

Gen Z grads are struggling to land jobs. But pursuing a doctoral degree to stand out is not the answer, warns Jad Tarifi, the founder of Google’s first generative-AI team. Students could end up “throwing away” years of their lives, as technology is moving so quickly. This comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says ChatGPT can already perform on par with PhD-level experts, and Bill Gates admits that AI is accelerating at a pace that surprises even him. READ MORE