Happy spring! Here’s a story about “Toast Kaizen” that I’ve never told.

In 1998, as general manager at a medium-size manufacturing company, I created the original toast video for my management team. I was trying to get them out of their offices to “go see” not only the factory floor but their own departments. Managers needed this direct observation to understand our continuous…

Jack Welch, the legendary General Electric CEO, was infamous for firing the bottom 10% of his workforce every year, without exception. The company’s market cap rose substantially during Welch’s tenure, but his “rank and yank” ritual was divisive.

If you knew your job was always on the line, the logic went, you’d push harder and generate results. But what did this approach do to…

Software is eating the world, venture capitalist and entrepreneur Marc Andreessen famously declared in 2011. The ensuing 15 years proved him prescient. In February 2026, a Substack article by Citrini Research grabbed headlines and triggered a market sell-off of SaaS (software-as-a-service) firms, wiping out nearly $1 trillion in market value in a matter of days. Citrini’s central thesis? A…