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Jamie Dimon  recently warned that society should begin preparing for AI-driven job disruption before it fully arrives. He’s right. Not because artificial intelligence might  reshape the workforce, but because it already is. Companies across nearly every industry are deploying AI tools to automate tasks, improve productivity, and reduce costs. JPMorgan alone now has more than 150,000 employees using internal AI tools weekly, according to Dimon. While the benefits are significa

Earlier this year, Don Smith from GrayCollar.com recruited me to help with something he cares deeply about — elevating Gray Collar work as a serious, respected, and necessary path in this country. Don’s conviction is straightforward: we’ve undervalued the people who build and maintain the physical systems that make everything else possible. He believes we need to correct that. I agreed. A few days ago, I was catching up with Ben Van Bunkirk. We were talking about what we’d b

Pre-seed isn’t dead. But it has  changed.   Carta just published their Q3 2025 State of Pre-Seed, based on data from 10,000+ companies, and it explains why so many founders feel fundraising is harder and what to do about it. What this report is (credibility + caveat). This is aggregated, anonymized Carta dataSAFEs and convertible notes covering Q1 2021 through Q3 2025, with a snapshot date of Nov 12, 2025. Not advice, but it’s a useful market thermometer. Trend #1 — Pre-seed

Joel Stevens National Managing Director - Bernstein “More Than Money: A Family Office Built for Business Owners”  outlines how Bernstein Private Wealth Management  positions itself as a long-term partner to founders—aiming to support decisions before, during, and after  a liquidity event, not just manage investments once cash arrives. The paper emphasizes three core ideas: A modern “family office” model built around the realities of ownership. Bernstein describes integra

Today I want to share something a little more personal. Not a highlight reel. Not a polished announcement. Just the honest truth about what it feels like to build Silicon Beach — and what it really means to create something from nothing. Because building an innovative startup… building a venture studio… building a community… is not easy. It’s exciting, yes. It’s meaningful, yes. But it’s also hard. When people hear the words “startup ecosystem”  or “venture studio,”  they oft

I didn’t coin the phrase, but I believe it’s one of the best ways to describe what’s coming: Gray Collar Roles These are careers that blend: ✅ hands-on skills ✅ technical knowledge ✅ problem-solving ✅ practical intelligence ✅ and often… AI-assisted tools This is the middle group of workers who don’t just sit behind a desk — but also don’t do purely manual labor. They operate in the real world, using both brains and hands. And here’s the key point: Gray collar jobs are the har

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