Below, Jane Marie Chen shares five key insights from her new book, Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself.
Jane is a leadership coach, public speaker, and cofounder of Embrace Global, a social enterprise that developed a low-cost infant incubator. She has been a TED Fellow, an Echoing Green Fellow, and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Her many honors include being recognized as a Forbes Impact 30 and receiving The Economists Innovation Award.
Whats the big idea?
Like a Wave We Break is a story of self-discovery. When achievements define us or serve as an escape from hidden scars of trauma, we do ourselves and others a disservice. Pushing onward from a fractured foundation can break a person and limit their leadership potential. Self-compassion and self-worth are found not by running ahead, but by looking within. Such a journey is the incubator of lifes biggest breakthroughs.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Jane herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Our wounds can drive us until they break us
I grew up in a home with physical violence. As a little girl, I often felt powerless. That sense of powerlessness became the engine that unknowingly drove much of my life. When I was a graduate school student at Stanford, my team invented a portable infant incubator for premature babies. Unlike traditional incubators, our technology could work without constant electricity. It was designed to be used in remote parts of the world.
We turned the idea into a company called Embrace and set a goal to save a million babies. After graduation, I moved to India, where nearly 40 percent of the worlds premature babies are born. Over the next few years, we did product development, clinical testing, figured out manufacturing, and then we finally launched the product.
It was so rewarding to save lives with our incubators. One of the first babies we saved was in China. We donated a few incubators to an orphanage in Beijing and they rescued a two-pound baby that had been found abandoned on a street. They kept him in our incubator for weeks, and he survived. Seven months later, I visited this orphanage and held this baby in my arms. Stories like his kept me going. Over the next few years, I gave my life to this mission.
Seven months later, I visited this orphanage and held this baby in my arms.
Our work was recognized by President Obama, funded by Beyoncé, and covered by global media. On the outside, it looked like a success story, but what fueled me also eventually broke me. The powerlessness I felt during my childhood had given me purpose, but it also drove me to complete burnout. After a decade of insurmountable setbacks and obstacles, Embrace nearly collapsedand I did too. Through it all, I learned that achievement, even when rooted in purpose, can be a survival strategy or way to outrun our pain. Our wounds can give us extraordinary drive, but if we never face them, those same wounds can consume us.
This is a trap I see many leaders fall into. On the surface, it looks like grit or vision, but beneath, there may be an unconscious attempt to fill an inner void. Leadership can carry shadowsburnout, perfectionism, control, hunger for validationbut when we do the inner work, we stop leading from fear. We begin to lead from wholeness, and that shift makes leadership far more sustainable.
2. Healing starts with feeling
When Embrace nearly collapsed, I didnt just lose my company; I lost my entire identity. Everything I had poured my soul into for a decade was gone. I felt utterly broken, and because I dont know how to do anything halfway, I bought a one-way ticket to Indonesia and launched a healing quest. I tried every healing modality I could find. I did a 10-day silent meditation retreat in the jungle, where I sat cross-legged for 14 hours a day, and no reading, writing, exercise, or even eye contact was allowed. I surfed epic waves, chasing adrenaline in the ocean just as I had once chased it in my work. I tried psychedelic therapy. I even did a frog poison ceremony, burning holes in my leg and vomiting so that there was nothing left inside me.
With each experience, I hoped that maybe this would be the magic elixir that would fix me, but my real breakthroughs didnt come in the jungle, ocean, or during a ceremony. They came when I stopped running and finally turned toward the grief I was avoiding. This was way harder than it sounds, especially given that I trained myself not to feel anything to survive my childhood. As Bessel van der Kolk writes, The body keeps the score. Trauma isnt just in our memories. It lives in our bodies. Healing required me not to do more, but to feel moreto turn toward the pain Id spent a lifetime outrunning and to meet it with compassion.
Our feelings are data. They carry so much wisdom.
We live in an escapist society that offers endless ways to numb, be that through work, achievement, substances, or self-help rituals. You might be listening to this podcast as an escape, but true healing isnt about chasing the next fix. Its about learning to sit with ourselves, and this isnt just personal; it applies to leadership. Our feelings are data. They carry so much wisdom. When we can slow down enough to notice and honor them, we make wiser choices personally and for the people we lead. Leaders who can feel are leaders who can truly connect.
3. Resilience comes from self-compassion
For most of my life, I thought resilience meant powering through. If I was tired, I kept pushing. If I was afraid, I doubled down. I believed grit was strength, but that belief is what led me to burn out. On my healing journey, one of the most transformative frameworks I encountered was Internal Family Systems (IFS), which teaches that we are all made of a multitude of inner parts:
Protector parts that drive us to achieve control or push harder so that we dont have to feel pain.
Exiles are the wounded parts that hold emotions like shame, fear, or loneliness.
The Self, with a capital S, being the calm, compassionate core of who we are.
One of my protectors was the warrior within who was willing to fight every battle. Someone nicknamed this part of me, Janis Khan. Another protector was the overachiever, the part that kept me working to exhaustion. That part had won my life for decades. When I began turning toward my parts with compassion and curiosity, I began asking, What are you protecting me from, and what are you afraid of?
Beneath these protectors, I met the scared little girl who felt like she was never enough. For years, I had abandoned her. Slowly, I turned toward her. I told her, You are enough exactly as you are. For the first time, I met her with love. This practice changed everything.
Real resilience is about cultivating self-compassion so we can meet life with authenticity and courage. When we are kind to ourselves, we are more willing to take risks, stumble, and even fail because we know we will still be okay. As leaders, this matters deeply. If we wan to create psychological safety for others, we first need to create it within ourselves. Only then can we build teams and organizations where people thrive.
4. Our biggest breaking points can become our biggest breakthroughs
When Embrace shut down after 10 years, I reached the lowest point of my life. I was having panic attacks. I was depressed. There was a part of me that didnt want to be doing the work anymore because I was so burned out. Another part of me saw the collapse as a failurethe death of everything I had worked so hard for. But the unraveling of Embrace ended up cracking me open. It forced me onto a healing journey. For the first time, I had to confront the history that lived inside me. I would have never chosen that path if the company hadnt collapsed.
For the first time, I had to confront the history that lived inside me.
One of the teachers I had the opportunity to learn from was Tony Robbins, who often says, Life happens for you, not to you. I really believe these words. The adversity I faced growing up and the powerlessness I felt as a child became the foundation for my purpose, and the collapse of Embrace became the doorway into my healing. We often think of challenges as obstacles to overcome or detours from the life we planned, but sometimes they are the teachers we need. My most painful breaking point turned out to be the catalyst for my deepest breakthrough.
5. We are worth more than the sum of our achievements
For years, I believed that if I just worked harder, achieved more, and saved more lives, then maybe I would finally feel like I was enough. But no award, recognition, or headline ever quieted that inner voice of self-doubt. When Embrace shut down, I had to ask, Who am I without my mission, my work, my title? I think its a question many of us are facing now because of AI that is capable of doing our jobs faster and better than us. We live in a culture that defines us by our output, but we are enough just as we are.
We each carry an innate worth beneath all that noise of titles and social media likes. We each carry an innate worthiness that cannot be taken away. Having an unshakeable inner sense of worthiness gives us the resilience to face whatever life brings. The collapse of Embrace freed me from the prison of equating my worth with my achievements, and as a result, opened me to a life that feels fuller, freer, and more authentic.
In a miraculous and serendipitous turn of events, Embrace was saved. It continues as a nonprofit, and this year we reached a million babies saved with our incubators. That goal we set nearly two decades ago. I am so proud of this milestone, but it no longer defines all of who I am. My worth is not in headlines or metrics. Its in the simple truth that I am enough, just as I am. You too are enough, just as you are.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
A majority of those expecting a holiday bonus this year are planning to check out once the check clears.
According to a recent survey of 2,000 American workers by AI job application assistant JobHire AI, 59% are maybe or definitely expecting a bonus this year. Among them, 48% are already job hunting or planning to quit after their bonus is paid, and another 20% are considering leaving in the new year.
The job market often sees a lot of activity following the holiday lull, as many spend the break reflecting on the previous year and setting goals for the next.
This year, however, may see even more aggressive job -hopping, as many workers have become more financially dependent on their year-end bonusmeaning more are hanging on to a job they dont want until after its been paid out.
From Bonus to Baseline
According to the survey, 27% of workers say their annual bonus is essential for their household finances and another 42% say it helps a lot.
The survey highlighted that something that was previously used as a retention tool became more like a way to delay resignations, says JobHire AIs CEO Artem Zakharov. Workers have come to view the bonus as a financial lifeline, but not a reason to stay.
Overall, 68% of survey respondents admit to having stayed at a job longer than they wanted just to collect their bonus before leaving in the past, and many say theyre planning to do the same this year.
When you expect to receive a huge part of your compensation package in one quarter, once that transaction is complete, there is no more incentive to stay, Zakharov says.
In a survey conducted earlier this year by online job platform Monster, 95% of American workers said their wages havent kept up with rising costs, and 56% were actively searching for a higher-paying job just to keep up. At the same time, 69% struggled to find work in a slow job market.
With a new year usually comes new budgets, explains Monster career expert Vicki Salemi. Companies may have frozen their headcount until year-end, so January opens up new budgets, and they may start posting new opportunities.
Will there be jobs to hop into in 2026?
Workers also demonstrated a lot of interest in changing roles this time last year, but struggled to find work due a slowdown in the market, and the situation hasnt improved much since.
We saw job hugging this year, where people were less likely to leave their full-time job because they were concerned about job security, Salemi says, adding that new hires are often the first to get let go in whats referred to as last-in, first-out. Even if they were unhappy there was trepidation, because if they went to a new job they could be in the first round of layoffs, so that created a holding pattern across the ecosystem.
Though its been a slow year for the job market overall, there are some pockets that are trending in the opposite direction.
It’s been a tale of two markets, says Laura Ullrich, the director of economic research for online job platform Indeed. From a macro point of view, it’s a low-hire, low-fire environment, but if you look under the hood, some sectors like healthcare and leisure and hospitality remain relatively strong.
Outside of those sectors, Ullrich warns, the desire to find a new employer in 2026 might be high, but the opportunities remain limited.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployed job seekers are taking an average of 27 weeks to land a new full time role, up from 25 weeks last year.
People may have the desire to switch jobs, but I doubt were going to see a big increase in quits if hiring isnt increasing at the same time, she says. With the level of uncertainty we have in the economy, its unlikely people will leave their job without another job lined up.
Job-Hoppers Will Need to Get Creative in 2026
Those looking for a new job once their annual bonus arrives may find few opportunities in this market, but there are ways to tilt the odds in their favor.
For example, Ullrich says those desperate for a new gig in 2026 may want to pivot their careers toward one of those booming sectors.
For example, tech firms may not be hiring as many software developers, but there is a need for tech skills in the healthcare sector.
Because some sectors are doing well and others arent hiring as much, think about how the skills that you have can be applied to a wider array of sectors, she says. Applying them in new ways could be very valuable in this labor market.
Those who know they want a new job in the new year might also want to start their search now, even before receiving their year-end bonus.
This is a great time for job seekers to start looking, rather than waiting until the first quarter, because there are significantly less applications so theres less competition, says Monsters Salemi. Some companies also have fiscal year budgets that end in January, and if they don’t fill this job the budget goes away, so there are many companies eager to hire right now.
Though it could mean forgoing the annual bonus, Salemi says it may be worth making the move now, rather than risk getting stuck for another year.
For most leaders these last five years have been ones of great volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Political dynamics, economic shifts, massive layoffs, strategy pivots, technology disruptions, and more are shaping how we lead and what we can accomplish together. Leading through uncertainty is no longer a mere possibility, it’s core to the job description.
Times of uncertainty call for fast executive decision-making with limited information, good enough risk assessment, and repeated pivots. I know this because I led a global philanthropy network while the world shut down in 2020. During those initial months, I relied less on staff input to determine our direction, despite deeply valuing a culture of co-ownership. My choices as an executive during this period had to be fast and decisive to keep us afloat, but also had significant ramifications.
While I was able to effectively pivot to help our organization survive the crisis, I noticed that the staff who previously had driven programs now lacked ownership and motivation to move things forward. They deferred to me when I needed them to own their expertise. They didnt have audacious goals that matched our big North Star. They didnt bring ideas to brainstorms on how we could further innovate.
At the time this frustrated me; I was exhausted and burnt out from managing the crisis without much support and I desperately needed my board and staff team to step up.
What Ive learned since is just how common this is. After a period that requires a more top-down approach to decision-making, organizations and leaders rarely snap back to a high agency and collaborative cultureeven if thats what they value. Why? Because teams have become conditioned to defer to others to make decisions, and we exist in a culture where this is the norm.
What leaders need to do is find a way to reinvigorate that distributed leadership as quickly as possible after the initial crisis management. How we lead during these moments can set us up to become more nimble, adaptable, and creative. Given the continued volatility we are all experiencing, leaders who can embrace uncertainty as the time to share and shift power will find themselves better supported and prepared to navigate ongoing turbulence.
Here are three strategies I have observed and learned to use with boards, staff teams, and leaders as soon as possible after or during periods of uncertainty to help organizations move through the crisis while deepening a culture of shared agency.
1. Disrupt any top-down culture creep
If your crisis management plan or campaign requires a tight-knit group of leaders to make decisions, look for ways to redistribute that power as quickly as possible.
This might mean delegating some of the lower risk decision-making opportunities to team members and fully getting out of their way. You could also try taking yourself out of the picture temporarily to help disrupt the well-grooved habits that people might have in relying on your input. Leaders who step away for a week or two off while putting in place an interim leadership structure often come back to find that their teams have rebuilt more trust and agency.
One executive I worked with faced a strategic crisis at the same time as their pre-planned time off. While some leaders might have cancelled their vacation, I encouraged the leader to take that leave. They put in place an interim leadership team, created a point of contact for the Board to rely on if things escalated further, and quickly distributed power and authority. Now, the interim leadership team continues to be an important brain trust, supporting a more distributed approach to decision-making. The new relationships and capacity built during that crisis moment have helped the organization adapt as circumstances continue to change.
Its important to remember that top-down leadership is the culture were swimming in, and it is the obvious choice. Distributed leadership requires active planning, focus, practice, and a counter-cultural approach. When done well, strategic leadership redundancy allows for organizations and leaders to be more nimble and resilient.
2. Re-orient to story and purpose
Crisis often narrows our point of view to daily or weekly operations. Leaders, however, need to quickly get back to being the chief visionary officer. Teams rely on leaders to provide this perspective, inspire them to connect to each other, and work towards a shared purpose.
Over the years, Ive talked to numerous teams during times of crisis and transition. One thing that I hear is that leaders have to default to being doers during this time, despite the fact that their genius lies in being storytellers, visionaries, strategic dot connectors, and community builders. When I talk with the people around these leaders, a common thread is that people want to feel inspired and connected to the vision that brought them to the work in the first place.
Look for opportunities to remind people of your shared values or help connect them to the bigger picture of where they are going. When you tell the story of what you are building together, you refocus and reenergize people to bring their best selves in working toward your shared North Star.
As leaders, its not always easy to prioritize this kind of vision and value-setting work. It might seem more frivolous than the clear tasks and list of items you can easily check off. But over my 20+ years in social change and public sector roles, Ive seen that executives who lead with this kind of visionary approach first are the ones who are able to build teams of people enthusiastic about navigating uncharted waters.
3. Engage openly in learning and reflection
Uncertainty necessarily moves many leaders into a control-oriented mindset. However, navigating uncertainty and sharing power over a long period of time requires curiosity and a beginners mindset.
Reject your knee-jerk reaction to have all the answers. Instead, model holding uncertainty and curiosity to the people around you. Admit where you have learning edges and acknowledge the questions youre holding.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff, neuroscientist and author of Tiny Experiments, shares this wisdom: Leaders need to optimize for curiosity by creating an environment where its safe to experiment and learn in public. When teams see their leaders openly sharing their learning process, including the missteps and uncertainties, it creates psychological safety, which encourages everyone to embrace their own curiosity. This is how you can create a virtuous cycle of continuous reinvention.
Curiosity is also power-sharing in practice. This shifts leadership from being about I share answers and direct people around me to complete tasks to I identify questions from my perspective and enable people to come together to experiment, learn, and find solutions together. From here organizations get better results and can navigate uncertainty with more relationship and trust.
Together these three practices help break down any unhelpful power dynamics, create trust, and reinvigorate teams to co-own and co-create. Better yet, leaders who implement these practices before a crisis will find themselves well-equipped to navigate uncertainty with creativity, clarity, and courage.
Good leaders can use their power; great leaders know when to give that power back.
If your sofa was made between 1970 and 2014, its foam is likely loaded with flame retardantschemicals that can escape into dust and end up in the air you breathe.
A new study led by the California Department of Public Health shows the payoff of swapping it out: people who replaced their old, chemical-filled sofas or chairs with new, flame-retardant-free models saw levels of one common chemical, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), drop by half in just over a year.
The chemicals became ubiquitous in upholstered furniture thanks to older regulations in California. The state’s large market meant that flame retardants were used in furniture nationwide.
The tobacco industry originally lobbied for the rules in the 1960s, when smoking was a common cause of fires and the industry didnt want to make self-extinguishing cigarettes. But flame retardants didn’t prevent fires effectively. Instead, they were linked to cancer risk, hormone disruption, and reduced IQ levels in children.
By the early 2000s, manufacturers began phasing out one type of flame retardant, and by 2014, California finally revised its flammability rules so that companies could sell furniture without flame retardants.
In the early 2000s, there was a lot of accumulating evidence of the health effects associated with these chemicals, particularly for neurological development for children,” says Robin Dodson, a research scientist at the Silent Spring Institute and one of the authors of the study. “So the industry kind of saw the writing on the wall and opted for a phase out of BDE flame retardants in upholstered furniture.”
Initially, manufacturers switched to organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs). But after California updated its rules, some phased out flame retardants completely, so it became possible to buy furniture without them.
In a previous study, the researchers found a significant reduction in PBDE chemicals in dust after furniture was replaced in a house. The new study is the first to look at what happens biologically. The chemicals dont go away immediatelyPBDEs have half lives in the body ranging from 1.8 to 6.5 years. But when large furniture like a sofa is replaced, they quickly drop. (There was less change in OPFRs, which have a shorter half-life in the body and which are still present in other products, from cars to electronics.)
The scientists also studied a companion group of people who didnt replace furniture. They also saw a drop in PBDEs in their blood and urine, thanks to the fact that more products are being made without the chemicals. But levels dropped two to four times more slowly than in those who got new furniture.
That doesnt mean you need to immediately buy a new couch if your budget is tight. (There’s also currently no safe, environmentally friendly way to dispose of old flame-retardant-filled furniture.) Our number-one tip right now today for flame retardants is to actually keep dust levels low inside of your house, says Dodson. That means, for example, vacuuming with a HEPA filter that can capture dust. Washing hands before making food or eating also makes a significant difference, especially for children.
But when you do get new furniture, Dodson says, look for items that are specifically made without the chemicals. We’ve been generally telling people, don’t run and throw out your couch, she says. But when choosing new furniture, choose without flame retardants.
From return-to-office mandates, anxiety about AI taking (or reshaping) jobs, and a highly competitive atmosphere for recent graduates and other job seekers, 2025 has been a year of change. Its also been a big year of change for women in the workplace, with a record number exiting the workforce. And, according to a new report, women are now also less inclined to seek promotions.
LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. just released their 2025 Women in the Workplace report based on a survey of 124 organizations employing around 3 million people. The survey research found that while companies overwhelmingly say that diversity (67%) and inclusion (84%) are top priorities, just over half (54%) of companies say the same about women’s career advancement. For women of color, only 46% of companies value advancement. And while employers broadly say they value diversity, equity, and inclusion, one in six have reduced DEI budgets.
The survey also revealed another worrisome trend. Across categories, women say they want to be promoted at lower rates than men. Only 69% of entry-level women want a promotion compared with 80% of entry-level men. Likewise, 84% of senior-level women want to be promoted, while 92% of senior-level men do. And overall, 80% of women overall say they want to be promoted to the next level, compared to 86% of men.
Interestingly, it doesn’t start out that way. Young women are extremely ambitious. In fact, women under 30 are more interested in being promoted than young men, but after 40, only 52% of entry-level women want to advance, while 71% of men still do.
According to the report, the statistic seems tied to how much support men and women are receiving, which is far from equal. Only 31% of entry-level women have had a sponsor compared to 45% of men, which the report says can nearly double promotion rates. Likewise, “when entry- and senior-level women and men have sponsors and receive similar levels of support from managers and more senior colleagues, they are equally enthusiastic about getting promoted to the next level,” the report explains.
But there’s another undeniable obstacle that women seem to disproportionately face, which is likely to impact their desire to be promoted: families. Almost 25% of both entry and senior level women who are not interested in promotions say it’s due to their personal obligations which would make more responsibility at work too challenging. However just 15% of men said the same.
Unfortunately, for women, findings follow a bounty of previous research that women still do more housework and child-rearing than men. Per the McKinsey report, “In 2024, women with partners were more than three times as likely as men with partners to be responsible for all or most housework.” Therefore, it’s not all that surprising that women who are disproportionately weighed down at home may not be as hungry for even more obligations on the job, too.
The U.S. workforce is facing a pivotal challenge: A widening skills gap that threatens economic growth and innovation. While demographic trendslike declining birth rates and a shrinking pipeline of young workersare real, the more actionable issue is the growing mismatch between the skills employers need and those available in the labor market.
According to Pearsons recent Lost in Transition research, nearly 90% of U.S. employers report difficulty finding candidates with the right skills, and more than half of workers feel unprepared for the demands of the future workplace.
This problem is decades in the making, and its consequences will be global. Without action, this gap threatens economic stability, public health systems, and critical infrastructure. Projections indicate the U.S. could face skills shortages in 171 occupations by 2032.
But instead of focusing on the inevitability of demographic change, we should zero in on the skills gapa challenge we can address through education, collaboration, and the smart use of technology. The skills gap is not just a statistic; its a call to action for educators, employers, and policymakers to rethink how we prepare people for work.
AI AS A CATALYST FOR WORKFORCE READINESS
Artificial intelligence, when thoughtfully designed and applied, is already helping to close the skills gap. When used as a tool for guided learning rather than a shortcut, AI can help bridge the skills gap and equip the workforce to succeed where human touch is required.
AI-powered learning tools in educational environments are already accelerating pathways into critical professions by enabling learners to demonstrate measurable improvements in critical thinking and adaptability, as well as build durable skills that employers need most and are essential for thriving in a rapidly changing economy.
Employers, too, are leveraging AI to upskill their current workforce, using adaptive platforms to identify and close skills gaps faster than traditional training methods allow. This approach is not about replacing people with technology, but about empowering workers to learn, adapt, and grow alongside digital tools.
THE NEW COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: LEARNING HOW TO LEARN
The ability to learn how to learn is now a core competency for career success. As the shelf life of technical skills shortens, the most valuable workers will be those who can continuously acquire new knowledge and adapt to new roles. AI can support this by personalizing learning experiences, promoting metacognition, and helping people build the confidence to navigate transitions throughout their careers.
Were already seeing data showing that AI can promote the real learning and adaptability skills that are needed in the workforce. High school and college students are improving their academic performance and demonstrating critical thinking skill through the use of science-backed AI tools that align with Blooms Taxonomy of Learning framework. AI in education is doing more than raising test scores; it’s teaching students how to learn, adapt, and thrive in an economy where continuous upskilling is the norm.
Closing the skills gap will require collaboration across education, business, and government. We need to align AI literacy standards, invest in educator training, and ensure responsible use of technology that prioritizes data privacy, bias mitigation, transparency, and measurable learning outcomes.
By focusing on the skills gapand leveraging the best of AI and learning sciencewe can build a workforce that is not only prepared for the future but empowered to shape it.
Tom ap Simon is the President of Pearson Higher Education and Virtual Learning
Each business has its unique challenges, but one commonality today is that AI is poised to disrupt almost every business everywhere. Organizations arent the only ones rapidly shifting to adopt AIattackers are too, and theyre doing it faster. The implications of this AI arms race are alarming for legitimate businesses around the world.
Security teams must rapidly evolve their cyber strategy to meet these new threats, moving away from a reactive posture that detects and then responds after an incident happens. To outpace attackers, organizations will need to be preemptive insteaddeterring, neutralizing, and preventing threats before they happen.
HOW AI IS CHANGING THE GAME
Anthropic recently revealed that a threat actor group was able to use AI (Claude) to perform 80-90% of an espionage campaign, with only sporadic human intervention, to attack 30 enterprises around the globe. The AI made thousands of requests per second, something even a team of highly skilled human attackers couldnt do. Anthropic concluded that less experienced and resourced groups can now potentially perform large-scale attacks of this nature with the help of AI.
That means the barrier to entry for cybercrime has dropped dramatically. Individuals who previously lacked the technical skills to code can now leverage AI tools to create and execute complex attacks. This will inevitability lead to a surge in the number of sophisticated attacks unleashed on business and governments worldwide.
Most enterprises and cybersecurity vendors are responding to this change by taking legacy, reactive security approaches and trying to add AI on top of them. The idea is that you should fight AI-powered attackers with AI-powered defenses. However, this is akin to taking a tank and adding AI to it to battle a fleet of drones. Yes, the AI-enabled tank will get better, but it is fundamentally too slow and too expensive to meet the new threat and win.
As AI makes large-scale attacks accessible to anyone, its not just the volume of threats that will explode, its their uniqueness. Attackers are no longer limited to reusing the same malware, they can now target specific infrastructure vulnerabilities with single-use attacks.
MASS PERSONALIZATION: A NEW FRONTIER FOR ATTACKERS
Before AI, attackers built and then reused malicious software (i.e. malware) to attack as many enterprises as possible, but AI changes that entirely. It enables mass personalization: the ability to generate custom, one-off attacks for each target, at scale.
As more and more attackers use these types of specialized, single-use malware to target their victims, businesses relying on legacy approaches will experience an exponential increase in breaches. They will face a never-ending battle to contain breaches before they can cause millions or even billions of dollars in damage.
The traditional security model, and thus your business, relies on identifying patient zerospotting the first instance of a new threat, then blocking it everywhere else. However, when every attack is unique, there is no patient zero. In a world where even unskilled attackers can use AI to perform thousands of tasks a second, novel threats can be created and evolve faster than legacy, reactive security systems’ ability to observe and respond.
This is not a future problem; this is a problem today. Last year, Infoblox classified over 25 million new domains as malicious. Ninety-five percent of them, or about 24 million, were unique to one enterprise, meaning the domains were made to specifically attack a singular organization. Last year, attackers personalized 24 million attacks for enterprises all over the world, each able to initially evade most legacy, reactive security tools. If your executive team and boardroom are not already discussing this, they need to start now.
THE FUTURE OF YOUR CYBERSECURITY IS PREEMPTIVE
AI has changed the nature of attacks, so now, it must change the nature of our defenses. To combat these threats, its no longer enough to be reactive. Instead, the cybersecurity industry and enterprises must urgently undergo huge changes to become more preemptive in their approaches to security.
Gartner analysts are saying the same, predicting that preemptive cybersecurity will make up 50% of IT security spending by 2030, up from almost 5% in 2024. The firm specifically cites AI-enabled attacks as the force behind this change.
Its time for a mindset shift. Leaders must see the security fight with a higher-level view. Instead of just focusing on using AI to speed up how fast they can detect and respond to individual fires, they must focus more of their energy and investment on using new approaches to stop the fires from ever starting. By developing strategies to preempt threats, teams can beat attackers to the punch, stopping threats before they can wreak havoc on their businesses.
Scott Harrell is CEO of Infoblox.
CIOs are grappling with how to leverage AI, but most are asking the wrong question. Its not about an AI strategy. Its about a business strategy powered by AI.
At Samsara, when we focused AI on clear business problems, we cut support chat volume by 59% with virtual agents, our IT help assistant auto-resolved 27% of tickets during the pilot, and engineers accepted about 40% of suggested code from AI code-assist, freeing teams to ship faster and tackle harder work.
My takeaway is that if you treat AI as a separate initiative, youll chase tools. If you treat it as leverage on a business KPI, youll create impact.
The VC Mindset: Investing in AI
My philosophy on AI investment mirrors how a Venture Capital firm manages its portfolio. While every investment should strive for success, organizations must adopt a portfolio mindset: expecting only 10% of AI pilots to yield a high return. This crucial insight is what drives a VC firm, and what should drive your AI funnel.
This means maintaining an active, well-fed funnel of AI investments. Working diligently to narrow this funnel through rapid pilots and experimentation allows businesses to move fast and fail quickly on small, contained experiments to find the few truly transformative applications.
This approach is crucial given the sheer volume of AI solutions available. The typical vendor evaluation process might involve vetting three or four key solutions. In the AI space, that number can balloon into the thousands. Applying a VC mindset allows us to efficiently triage and prioritize, focusing our resources where the potential business impact is highest.
Scaling AI Through Change Management
Investment is only half the battle. The most sophisticated AI tool is worthless if employees don’t use it effectively. Success demands a robust AI change management program that builds new organizational muscles.
1. Driving Adoption: A Top-Down and Bottom-Up Engine
True organizational change requires synchronized effort from the C-suite to the front lines. This is the top-down and bottom-up mandate for AI adoption.
Top-Down Commitment: This begins with the CEO and C-suite making AI a core business priority. At Samsara, two of our four company priorities are explicitly AI-relatedone focused on internal efficiency, and the other on product innovation. This executive mandate, championed by leaders like our CEO and reinforced through my partnership with our CFO, ensures AI initiatives are treated as strategic imperatives, not discretionary projects.
Bottom-Up Application: While CIO organizations are natural early adopters, the people best positioned to apply AI are those who live with the business problems dailyin supply chain, finance, sales, and operations. These colleagues have a nuanced, first-hand understanding of where AI tools can create the most value. And they can bridge this gap by empowering those teams to identify and lead implementation.
2. Scale Literacy with an AI Champions Network
To connect the top-level vision with bottom-up execution, businesses must actively cultivate AI literacy. At Samsara, weve implemented a two-pronged approach to ensuring that AI skills and uses are being scaled across our business.
AI Champions Network: Our AI Champions are a bridge to realizing our AI ambitions. We identify individuals across every function with a strong understanding of technologythe natural thought leadersand designate them as AI Champions. We give them concrete roadmaps for how to use AI in their specific function, making them evangelists who drive enablement and comfort within their teams.
General Education: We use channels like our daily Slack digest to deliver short, 5-minute to 10-minute lessons to provide general AI education and demystify the technology for all employees.
3. Frame AI as Partnership, Not Replacement
Any companys ethos on AI should be clear: AI wont replace people who embrace it. They should position these tools to their staff as partners that will better their teams and outputs, freeing them up for higher-value work.
As I alluded to above, for our R&D and BizTech teams, weve implemented AI Code Generator tools. Our teams accept, on average, over 40% of the prebuilt code suggested, accelerating development cycles and allowing them to focus on complex, innovative challenges.
On the service side, our use of AI chat agents has driven a 59% reduction in chat ticket volume in customer support, allowing staff to focus on complex issues. Similarly, our internal Generative AI-powered help assistant for the IT Help Desk resolved 27% of tickets with no human touch during the pilot, freeing up IT staff for strategic work.
The CIOs Evolving Role
In this new era, the CIO’s job is to stay intensely agile. They must mirror the companys need for external innovation with a commensurate drive for internal modernization.
The path to AI success is not paved with technology alone, but with strategic discipline and cultural transformation. The new CIO mandate is simple: Stay intensely agile. Mirror the companys need for external innovation with an equivalent drive for internal modernization. The path to AI success is not paved with technology alone, but with strategic discipline and cultural transformation. Stop chasing the latest platform and start asking: What is the core business problem we need to solve? Anchor your investments in quantifiable business value, embrace a venture-style portfolio approach to experimentation, and aggressively equip your employees to be partners of AI, not its victims. This shift from technology buyer to strategic portfolio manager is the key to enduring competitive advantage.
Across America, a new generation of farmers is reimagining what it means to work the land. They are engineers, ecologists, and entrepreneurspeople who see farming not only as a way to grow food, but as a form of innovation. In fields across the country, these farmers are harnessing soil science, biodiversity, and technology to restore what decades of extractive agriculture have depleted.
Their work represents one of the most powerful opportunities of our time: The opportunity to regenerate our planet from the ground up. Yet, the odds they face are immense. Land prices have soared, access to capital is limited, and isolation comes with choosing a career path few understand. Farmland continues to disappear, and for those eager to farm differently, access to resources and mentorship remains limited.
These farmers are proving that the next era of agriculture can be both economically viable and ecologically sound. They are experimenting with cover crops to build soil health, integrating renewable energy into operations, and rethinking distribution through community-based models. Their work underscores a truth we must all recognize: The future of farming depends on our ability to empower the people willing to reinvent it.
THE FUTURE OF REGENERATIVE FARMING
At Rodale Institute, weve seen firsthand how supporting beginning farmers can accelerate this transformation. Through training, mentorship, and research, weve helped growers adopt regenerative organic methods that improve soil biology, reduce chemical dependence, and restore carbon to the earth. But the broader movement must go further, requiring not only scientific innovation but cultural and corporate partnerships.
Thats why Rodale Institute and Davines Group have partnered to launch the second annual U.S. Good Farmer Award, a program recognizing beginning farmers and ranchers who have been in operation for 10 years or less and who embody environmentally responsible, community-focused, and forward-thinking agricultural practices.
The award honors individuals whose work demonstrates a profound respect for nature, fosters biodiversity, and strengthens their local communities. More than an accolade, the award reflects a global mindset shift where innovation is not just about new technology but about regenerating what sustains us.
In 2025, our U.S. inaugural winner, Clarenda Farmer Cee Stanley of Green Heffa Farms in North Carolina, showed us what this vision looks like in practice. Her herb and tea farm blends economic impact, education, and equity into a model of regenerative success. Shes a farmer, but also a mentor, an advocate, and a catalyst for change.
Her story, and those of farmers who will follow, remind us that progress doesnt always come from technology or policy. Often, it grows quietly in the soil, nurtured by people whose courage to plant seeds in uncertain times defines what regeneration really means.
WHY INVESTING IN NEW FARMERS IS ESSENTIAL
Investing in beginning farmers is essential to a more resilient and regenerative future worldwide. At first glance, it may seem unlikely that a beauty, skincare, and haircare company like the Davines Group shares our commitment and passion for supporting new farmers.
However, Davide Bollati, chairman of Davines Group, like us, sees regeneration as the next evolution of sustainability. It is not enough to minimize harm, but we must actively restore it. In a recent conversation, he shared that the protection and preservation of biodiversity are a cornerstone of our environmental strategy, alongside decarbonization, circularity, and water.
Like us, Bollati also sees an energy among young farmers who have the energy and the courage to innovate with an approach that considers the wellbeing of our planet.
Through The Good Farmer Award, in both Italy and the U.S., its about empowering the next generation of farmers to lead with empathy, intelligence, and creativity. The path forward must be multigenerational, inclusive, and rooted in community.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When Bollati and I met to prepare for the upcoming award application, he summarized our shared purpose perfectlyregeneration today is the only possible path to ensure a future for next generations, and for our planet.
It is farmers like our inaugural award winner, Clarenda Farmer Cee Stanley, who are embracing agriculture for a different quality, and a different pace of life where they can grow high-quality crops, use sustainable and regenerative practices to protect the soil, and connect others with limited access to farm-fresh products.
Jeff Tkach is CEO of Rodale Institute.
