Business

  • The Gravity Problem: Why Defense AI Companies Drift Toward Offense

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    The Secretary of Defense has pressured Anthropic to permit military use of its AI for “all lawful purposes,” threatening to invoke the Defense Production Act. Anthropic refuses to enable mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, highlighting the industry’s shift from defensive to offensive applications. The situation reflects broader challenges in maintaining ethical AI boundaries amidst government…

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  • Gratitude

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    Another leader once encouraged managers to express gratitude to their teams through hand-written thank you notes. This has evolved into an annual tradition for me. Sharing gratitude with your team is a way to show leadership, even outside of a management role.

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  • Burnout Prevention Through Strategic Reassignment

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    Corporate burnout prevention programs often miss the point entirely. Instead of addressing workload, unrealistic expectations, or systemic issues, they treat burned-out employees as the problem to be managed or removed from the equation entirely.

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  • When it rains …

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    Planning for an AWS outage might seem like overkill until you need to evacuate vacation rental guests during a tropical storm and your entire infrastructure goes dark. Sometimes the improbable becomes critical, and understanding your business continuity options can mean the difference between frustration and tragedy.

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  • Simplify, simplify, simplify

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    Recently, I’ve been diving into Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, which offers insights into his approach to business. Musk’s approach to process improvement isn’t dissimilar from my own. He suggests that if you’re not reintegrating at least 10% of what you cut, you’re not being aggressive enough in your simplification. In my experience managing…

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  • WordPress Drama: Crossfire

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    Automattic faces a cease-and-desist letter over alleged trademark violations concerning WP Fusion Lite. But it really does look like their use could be classified as “fair use.” If not, any WordPress site using the .org repo is also in violation …

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  • WordPress: The Drama Continues

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    The WordPress.org team has forked the Advanced Custom Fields plugin amidst a legal dispute with WP Engine, raising concerns about user awareness and security updates. Were they right to do so? It’s complicated, but likely yes.

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