When the Human Backup Disappears
The more automation handles normal operations, the fewer humans remain who deeply understand the underlying process when something unusual occurs.
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Most Systems Don’t Break All at Once
Most financial problems do not arrive with sirens and explosions. They arrive quietly. Usually in spreadsheets. A raise here. Better benefits there. A pension adjustment. A staffing increase because the city is growing. Another negotiated contract because inflation went up or hiring became difficult. None of it necessarily looks unreasonable at the time. Then eventually someone publishes the numbers all in one place. A recent compensation breakdown involving City of Reno employees caught my attention for exactly that reason. Not because a few people are highly paid — large organizations always have some executives and specialists making substantial salaries — but because of how large the overall compensation structure has become over time. According to reporting by This Is Reno Investigations, more than 100 city…
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Peak, Trough, or Turning Point?
Why AI Feels Overhyped Now— and How It Still Reshapes the Next Decade I’ve watched a few revolutions roll through: mainframes to PCs, dial-up to broadband, brick-and-mortar to dot-com. The pattern isn’t mysterious anymore. New tech shows up, excitement explodes, money rushes in, and for a while it looks like the future is arriving on Thursday. Then reality intrudes: real use cases, real costs, real risk. Doubts surge. Half the projects get shelved. And yet—the ideas with imagination + discipline survive, grow up, and quietly (sometimes not so quietly) change the world. Call that arc whatever you like—the Hype Cycle (coined in the ’90s) is a handy shorthand. It has five phases that often overlap: Spark: A new capability appears; imaginations light up and expectations…
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How Many Empires Can One Man Run?
The Musk Model Under Stress In business school and boardrooms alike, we learn that vision is the spark. There have been a lot of sparks over the years that have not resulted in thriving businesses. That’s because it takes systems, structure, and sustained attention to turn that spark into a thriving enterprise. And while few have sparked as many transformative ideas into billion-dollar entities as Elon Musk, we’re now seeing the strain of stretching that vision too thin. Tesla’s recent Q2 delivery numbers—down 13.5% year-over-year—don’t spell collapse. But they signal something important: not all leadership gaps show up as crises. Some show up quietly, in misaligned teams, slowed innovation, and confused customers. And when similar signs appear across multiple Musk-led companies, it’s time to ask…
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The Debt We Don’t Want to Talk About
Why Our National Blind Spot Could Rewrite the Future There are a lot of things I don’t worry about anymore. Getting promoted. Buying the latest phone. Finding the right tie. But one thing I still worry about—probably more than I should—is the national debt. Not because I think it’s going to collapse the country tomorrow. Not because I have some macroeconomic theory to push. I worry because I’ve been around long enough to know that when something looks too big to fail, it usually means no one’s planning for when it does. Right now, the U.S. debt sits above $35 trillion. That’s a number we toss around like confetti at a budget hearing—vague, distant, and someone else’s problem. And adding another $3.5 billion is just…
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a Hype-Filled Marketplace
Building Online Still Takes Work (No Matter What the Ads Say) There was a time — not so long ago — when building an online business took real work. You needed a real product, a serviceable understanding of the tools, and the discipline to learn, test, revise, and persist. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t fast or instantaneous. But, you set a goal and measured progress toward achieving it. When I launched my own online cookware business, I leaned heavily on the tools and coaching provided through StomperNet, a conglomeration of like-minded Internet business developers. The guidance was detailed, often technical, and unashamedly difficult. There were no shortcuts, just systems. Success came, when it came, through effort, planning, and the slow build of…
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Where has economic thinking gone?
Economics has been a topic of conversation over the last few months b ut from my warped perspective a great many of the people talking about economic have never studied the topic, have forgotten most of what they read or are just ignoring some of the basic principles. And this, I believe could lead to some very unfortunate decision over the next few years, In my post on Megathreats, financial instability and the growing US debt was the number one issue. No one is paying attention to this that I can see. Bank in the day when I was getting my MBA, Milton Friedman was the foundation for studying economics and was essential in forming policies for several presidents including Ronald Regan who leaned on…
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Features of WordPress
WordPress, a widely used content management system (CMS), offers a variety of powerful editing features that make it an ideal platform for both novice and experienced users to create and manage websites. The following overview highlights key editing features in WordPress that enhance the user experience and streamline content creation. The Block Editor (Gutenberg) The introduction of the Block Editor, also known as Gutenberg, revolutionized the way users create and edit content in WordPress. This editor uses a block-based approach, allowing users to build their pages and posts by adding different types of content blocks. These blocks can be anything from paragraphs, headings, and images to more complex elements like galleries, columns, and buttons. Each block can be customized individually, giving users granular control over…
