David Lidsky's Blog, page 36

Starbucks to add ‘hundreds of thousands of seats’ back to its stores

At the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol shared his plan to bring the coffee chain back to its glory days.

There was a time, back in the mid-2010s, when Starbucks was in its prime. It was an era characterized by handwritten notes on cups, signature purple chairs, and coffee houses teeming with people sitting down to enjoy a morning pick-me-up. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol wants to revive that era—starting by adding hundreds of thousands of chairs back into its stores.

This refinery is turning cattle into ‘green’ jet fuel—but it’s destroying the Amazon

Diamond Green Diesel is a major player in the U.S. sustainable fuels market.

A Texas refinery that supplies green fuel to U.S. airlines has been purchasing animal fat from cattle raised on illegally cleared lands in the Amazon rainforest, according to a Reuters review of government tracking data, interviews and eyewitness accounts.

ChatGPT gets a teen-only version with safety guardrails

The new offering restricts explicit content and lets parents monitor and shape how their teens use AI.

On Tuesday, AI startup OpenAI announced it would launch a new ChatGPT experience just for kids. The announcement explained that the latest ChatGPT was created as part of an effort to protect children’ s privacy. 

Far-right groups are doxxing people who criticize Charlie Kirk’s death

A now-removed site published names and comments of dozens of people, opening them up to harassment, threats, and even job loss.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is widening the political divide in America—and some people who have made critical remarks about the conservative icon are finding their personal information being posted online, opening them up to harassment and threats.

The Fed is expected to cut rates: here’s how it might impact jobs

This week the Federal Reserve is expected to announce interest rate cuts in hopes of stimulating job growth.

How wearing many hats can be a founder superpower

Here’s the journey I went on as a founder and what I learned at each stage.

Most founder advice tells you to delegate fast and focus on your strengths. After six years of building Percent, a private credit marketplace, from $80,000 in credit card debt to a Series B, I believe the opposite: The founders who win are the ones who do wear every hat as they go through their journey.

Corporate social impact is experiencing a market correction

Five lessons for leaders during this correction, which is not a depression.

The past few years in corporate social impact have felt like a bull market. After 2020, companies raced to make commitments on racial justice, climate, mental health, and equity. Budgets grew. New executives were hired. “Purpose” became central to investor pitches and employee branding. Optimism and momentum were everywhere.

Make hard things look easy

Advice from a female manufacturing CEO

At the Exceptional Women Alliance, we enable high-level women to mentor each other to achieve personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organization’s founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring.

AI agents are breaking bad and CISOs aren’t ready

What companies need to do to bolster security in the agentic AI era.

AI agents going rogue isn’t just a theoretical scenario anymore. Recent incidents show AI agents making errors in a variety of situations, from legal problems and technical malfunctions, to actually deleting entire production databases. These incidents will not be one-offs; we can expect more AI agents to go awry. Security leaders need to be prepared to contain the damage when that happens.

5 questions to ask before a brand refresh

Marketers shouldn’t do a thing before thinking through these key issues.

We just completed a brand refresh and I keep getting asked the same question: “How do you know when it’s time?”