Nvidia CEO Says ‘100% of Everybody’s Jobs Will Be Changed’ Due to AI

In a new interview, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says AI is “the greatest technology equalizer” the world has ever seen — and that “100% of everybody’s jobs will be changed” as a result.

Huang told CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that AI was an “equalizer,” meaning that it “lifts” people who aren’t well-versed in technology to be able to use it. Huang said ChatGPT, an AI chatbot with over 500 million global weekly users, was an example of how people can easily use AI with little to no formal training in interacting with it.

“Look at how many people are using ChatGPT for the very first time,” Huang told Zakaria. “And the first time you use it, you’re getting something out of it… AI empowers people; it lifts people.”

Related: Here Are the 10 Highest-Paying Jobs with the Lowest Risk of Being Replaced By AI: ‘Safest Jobs Right Now’

AI results in people being able to do more with the technology than they would have without it, Huang said. He elaborated that he was “certain” that the “work that we do in our jobs” would be dramatically transformed due to AI.

Huang, who has been leading Nvidia as CEO since co-founding it in 1993, said his own work has changed because of AI.

“The work will change,” Huang said in the interview. “My job has already changed. The work that I do has changed, but I’m still doing my job.”

Huang said that “some” jobs would be lost because of AI, but “many” jobs would be created thanks to the technology. He predicted that AI would result in productivity gains across industries, lifting society as a whole.

Huang’s predictions are less dire than those of Dario Amodei, the CEO of $61.5 billion AI startup Anthropic. In May, Amodei told Axios that within the next five years, AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to rise to 10% to 20%. In March, he stated that AI would write “all of the code” for companies within a year.

Adam Dorr, research director at the think tank RethinkX, stated that by 2045, AI and robotics could make human jobs obsolete.

“We don’t have that long to get ready for this,” Dorr told The Guardian last week. “We know it’s going to be tumultuous.”

Related: ‘Fully Replacing People’: A Tech Investor Says These Two Professions Should Be the Most Wary of AI Taking Their Jobs

“I Never Managed a Bar, Let Alone Opened a Place’: How This Musician Created His Dream Venue and Built a Thriving Nightlife Business

David Handler embodies the classic line: “If you build it, they will come.”

After graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, the violinist and composer wasn’t happy with the spaces available for audiences to experience live classical music. “The costs were prohibitive, and the concert rituals were confusing — when am I allowed to cough?” he told Entrepreneur. “I realized there was a problem of packaging that was disassociating younger listeners from the music I had an almost religious devotion to. Not just classical music, but really ambitious deep listening kind of music.”

In 2008, he and classmate Justin Kantor founded (Le) Poisson Rouge, a music and multimedia art venue, in the spot that was once home to the legendary New York City jazz club The Village Gate. Since opening its doors, LPR has become known for hosting performances by boundary-pushing artists, as well as intimate shows from icons like Thom Yorke, Yo-Yo Ma, Lady Gaga, Iggy Pop, Lorde, Beck and Philip Glass.

Handler spoke with Entrepreneur about how he turned his passion into a thriving business and offered his best advice for those who dream of bringing their artistic vision to life. (Answers have been edited for length and clarity.)

New York City has so many music venues. What did you feel was missing when you launched LPR?
The music that we now hear in concert halls used to be played in chambers that much more closely resembled a jazz club. The music was a living, breathing thing, and people were interacting with it in a different way. There was less pretension. At the time we decided to open LPR, it seemed like there was this reciprocal interest — art institutions needing more spontaneity and nightlife needing a little bit more substance. So I wrote a business plan to try and revive the arts and deepen late-night culture in New York City.

Singer-songwriter Julian Velard performs at LPR. (Photo Credit: LPR)

How did you get started writing your business plan?
I was 27 years old, and it was a tall order. I had never managed a bar, let alone opened a place. So in my pitch, I told would-be investors who were already donors to uptown institutions and said, “Look, I am a conservatory graduate, I have a finger on the pulse of what is also cool as a young person. If you give me a fraction of what you’re donating to Carnegie Hall or the Metropolitan Opera House, I will expand listenership and audience, and you might even see a return, which you will certainly never see from a donation.”

Related: This Band Has Millions of Streams on Spotify. The Only Problem — the Music and the Band Members Were Generated by AI.

How did you end up where the Village Gate once stood?
The Village Gate has a really illustrious cultural history. But in between the Gate and LPR, it was a nightclub called Life. And that caused a lot of problems. I basically had to bust out my violin at community board meetings to prove that I was not just a punk wanting to ruin the neighborhood. And along the way, we picked up a relationship with John Storyk, who designed Electric Lady Studios for Jimi Hendricks. When I told him I was going to do everything from metal to string quartets to drag bingo nights, he was down and decided to help create this space that we now know as LPR.

You were trained as a musician. What do you think gave you the confidence to pursue entrepreneurship?
I saw a gap. You hear people talk about sort of stumbling onto success or leading with your heart. That’s me. It was a mission that I was really passionate about, and it was very dear to me. I almost didn’t think of it as a business as much as a method of delivery or a way of spreading the gospel of the music and art I believed in. Before algorithms and recommendation engines, I made bespoke music mixes for friends. I had friends who listened to metal and they didn’t know Stravinsky. So I’d be like, “You can hear the same dissonance in the music you know in some of this new stuff.” That was exciting to me. A purely business-minded idea wouldn’t work for me because it exists only for that business end. This works because there’s so much passion behind it.

Related: As Gen Z Embraces Physical Media, This Entrepreneur Launched a New CD Music Service: ‘I’m Packaging All These Orders Nonstop’

Any moments that stand out to you as feeling like your plan was working?
I remember going down the line one night and speaking with someone who flew here from South America to see a show. And then right next to them was somebody who had no idea what they were in line to see. But because it was at LPR, and we earned their trust through some other night, they were like, “I don’t know this genre, but I’m going to give it a shot at LPR because I know that the standard is high.”

What would you advise to someone reading this who dreams of opening their own music or art venue?
There are a lot of location-specific logistics. In New York, for instance, some of the toughest stuff was getting a liquor license. And there’s this weird triangle of getting a liquor license and funding and signing a lease. You can’t sign a lease or get funding until you can sell liquor. And let’s face it, that’s where you’re going to make your money. If you don’t think you’re in the bar business by opening a music venue, you’re kidding yourself. And you can’t get a liquor license before you have a place to sell it. So there’s a lot of chicken-and-egg going on. But aside from logistics, I think it’s about having a clear, distilled-down vision of what the market needs and delivering it in an uncompromised way. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t evolve. We just partnered with KYD Labs to become one of the first major US venues to move all ticketing fully to blockchain technology. And always keep in mind what success means to you. I have to look at numbers for the business, but honestly, that’s not what guides me. It’s the deeper stuff in my life, in my family, in my own art and the artists we work with — those are the metrics that I want to live by.

Related: Best-Selling Author and Cartoonist Stephan Pastis on His Creative Process: ‘I Often Look Down to Make Sure I Have Pants On’

I Burned Down My House — and Learned a Leadership Lesson I’ll Never Forget

Among the milestones of childhood — your first lost tooth, first bike ride, first day of school — burning down the family home doesn’t usually make the list. But growing up on a farm in Idaho, my childhood wasn’t exactly typical.

I was eight. I hadn’t done anything intentionally reckless — just left a lampshade-less reading lamp resting on a pillow. On my way downstairs to breakfast, I left the light on. A little while later, my dad smelled smoke. By the time help arrived, the fire had consumed everything. Our home was gone.

What amazes me most now isn’t the fire — it’s what my father chose to do afterward.

The weight of a mistake and the wisdom of timing

I didn’t find out it was my fault until I was 16.

Apparently, the fire chief had advised my father not to tell me right away. The emotional weight of responsibility at that age could’ve been damaging. I’m grateful my dad waited. His decision wasn’t just kind — it was strategic. It allowed me to grow up without carrying a burden I wasn’t ready to process.

Looking back, I see this now as a masterclass in leadership. Not the kind they teach in business school — but the kind that matters most when you’re running a company, managing people and deciding how to handle failure.

Related: From Pain to Power — How to Understand the Link Between Childhood Trauma and Entrepreneurship

How you handle mistakes shapes your culture

As a small business owner, your team is smaller, your margin for error thinner and your influence bigger. That means every misstep can feel amplified. But it also means that how you respond to mistakes doesn’t just fix a problem — it defines your culture.

The best leaders don’t respond to every mistake the same way. They know when to be firm and when to give someone the grace to grow.

Here’s what I’ve learned about finding that balance:

1. Not all mistakes are created equal

Some errors are innocent, caused by inexperience, unclear instructions or bad luck. Others are rooted in carelessness, repeated oversight or a disregard for values. Learn to spot the difference before you react.

For example, a new employee sends a wrong invoice once? That’s a teaching moment. An experienced team member sends wrong invoices every month? That’s a pattern.

2. Grace builds loyalty

When people feel safe owning their mistakes, they grow faster and become more loyal. Correct gently. Ask questions. Share how you’ve screwed up in the past. Turning a mistake into a learning opportunity builds stronger teams and better humans.

You might say, “Let’s walk through what happened and figure out how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

3. Consistency builds accountability

If someone keeps making the same mistake, or it’s something that could hurt your business or brand, be direct. Set clear expectations. Communicate consequences. Your team needs to know that while you’re kind, you’re also serious about standards.

You could say, “We’ve talked about this before. I need to know you’re taking it seriously — and what you’ll do differently next time.”

4. Correct the behavior, not the person

You can be tough without being cruel. Focus on the behavior, not the character of the person. Never shame. When employees feel respected, even hard feedback is easier to receive and more likely to be applied.

5. Set the tone from the top

How you handle mistakes teaches your team how to handle their own. If you hide failures, blame others or explode under pressure, you create fear. If you own your mistakes and respond with clarity, you model what growth looks like.

Your people will copy you, for better or worse.

Related: Resentment Has No Place in Business. Here’s Why Leaders Must Learn to Forgive and Forget.

The takeaway

The fire I accidentally started taught me a lesson I never forgot: some truths are better delivered with wisdom than with speed. The same goes for leadership.

Every mistake is a crossroads. Handle it wrong, and you create fear or resentment. Handle it right, and you build loyalty, maturity and trust. That’s not just better leadership — it’s a better business.

Ready to break through your revenue ceiling? Join us at Level Up, a conference for ambitious business leaders to unlock new growth opportunities.

Google Swoops in to Make a $2.4 Billion Deal With a Startup Previously Promised to OpenAI

OpenAI’s $3 billion deal to acquire the AI coding startup Windsurf fell apart — so Windsurf turned to OpenAI competitor Google instead.

Bloomberg reported last week that after Windsurf’s deal with OpenAI crumbled, Google stepped in and struck a deal with the AI coding startup to pay around $2.4 billion for talent and licensing rights.

Google is not investing in Windsurf, but is rather paying to hire the startup’s CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and a small group of other senior Windsurf staffers to work on Google’s DeepMind AI team. Most of Windsurf’s 250 employees will stay with the startup and focus on creating innovations for its business clients.

“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” Google said in a statement, per Reuters.

Related: How a Love of Chess Led the CEO of Google’s DeepMind to a Career in AI — and a Nobel Prize

Google will also have a nonexclusive license to use Windsurf’s technology, meaning that Windsurf can license its platform to other companies.

Windsurf’s deal with Google arrives months after the AI coding startup was reported to be in talks with Google rival OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition. Bloomberg reported that the deal collapsed because Windsurf wanted to prohibit major OpenAI investor Microsoft from accessing its intellectual property.

Windsurf and OpenAI had entered into an exclusivity period for the acquisition offer, which ended as of Friday, OpenAI told Bloomberg. Windsurf is now able to consider other bids.

Windsurf, previously known as Codeium, offers AI coding tools like Cascade, an AI agent that codes, corrects, and thinks multiple steps ahead. According to PitchBook data, the startup was founded in 2021 and is based in Mountain View, California. Windsurf announced in April 2024 that it had over 500,000 active users and over 500 paying enterprise clients.

OpenAI, meanwhile, was founded in 2015 and came out with ChatGPT in November 2022. The startup closed a $40 billion fundraising round in March at a $300 billion valuation, the biggest tech funding round on record from a private company. ChatGPT now has 500 million global weekly users, OpenAI disclosed in March.

Related: Saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ to ChatGPT Costs OpenAI ‘Tens of Millions of Dollars’

Google’s decision to hire new AI talent arrives as Meta poaches former staff members for its superintelligence team. Former Google DeepMind researchers Jack Rae and Pei Sun joined Meta last month to help the company work towards superintelligence, or AI that surpasses human capabilities.

Meta isn’t just poaching from Google. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, 40, stated last month that Meta was trying to poach OpenAI staff with “giant” $100 million signing bonuses and “more than that” in compensation per year, a statement that Meta executives later refuted.

Shares of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, were down about 5% year-to-date. Alphabet is the fifth-largest company in the world, with a market value of $2.2 trillion.

Why Ethical Luxury Is the Post-COVID Gold — And What That Means for Your Business

Luxury isn’t about more anymore. It’s about meaning.

I’ve walked red carpets draped in elegance. I’ve stood on the aspirational side of the velvet ropes once seen as symbols of success. But over time, I’ve learned: if luxury comes at the cost of our conscience, it’s not luxury…it’s illusion.

Today’s luxury consumer isn’t dazzled by shine alone. They’re asking deeper questions: “Where did this come from?” “What’s the real story behind it?” “Does this reflect who I am?”

I’ve studied the diamond industry extensively. It’s a clear case study in how legacy models are being challenged. Traditional mining comes with a staggering environmental price. A single carat can displace 250 tons of earth, consume four cubic meters of water and release 109 kg of CO₂ into the atmosphere. In contrast, most lab-grown diamonds are now being produced using clean, renewable energy, either having already transitioned or are actively shifting toward more sustainable sources.

That’s not a footprint. That’s a crater. And people are waking up to it.

The new standard is no longer just craftsmanship. It’s consciousness. Until recently, luxury brands relied on opacity: unclear sourcing, inflated markups and hidden impacts. But the pandemic did more than disrupt supply chains. It rewired desire.

We’ve hit an inflection point. And the brands leading the next chapter? They’ve already stopped pretending business as usual will work.

Related: What Is Sustainable Fashion? Everything You Need To Know.

The market shift

When the world doubted, I said with conviction that diamonds were old school, and lab-grown was the future. But even I didn’t realize how fast that future would arrive.

What we’re seeing now is a full-blown shift. In India, where heritage is prized, and in Europe, where tradition defines value, the next generation is buying with both eyes open. When we started Solitario, a jewelry brand specializing in lab-grown diamonds, we knew we were doing more than launching a product. We were challenging a legacy industry to evolve.

In countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where diamond mining is rampant, the downstream effects are devastating: Deforestation, water contamination and loss of biodiversity. On top of that, illegal trafficking in these regions funds armed conflict, destabilizing entire communities.

This is what luxury used to hide behind price tags. But that mask has slipped.

We didn’t polish the narrative. We cleaned it up until only the truth remained. We engineered traceability into our model. No exploitation, no greenwashing, no fluff. Just a product that stands on the merits of both ethics and aesthetics.

In Europe, 70% of luxury shoppers consider sustainability adoption by luxury brands important, while the U.S. market is catching up. Research shows that a quarter of American consumers in this bracket consider ethics as very important in their purchasing decisions, and we expect that trend to accelerate.

If your product’s story can’t be told with pride, then it’s time to rewrite it.

Related: Why Having A Strong Brand Isn’t a Luxury — But a Necessity

The business case for sustainable luxury

The lab-grown diamond market is projected to grow in financial value at nearly 10% annually, reaching $55.6 billion by 2031. So, from our perspective, our main challenge is how to scale sustainably in a strictly business sense whilst maintaining environmental consciousness.

The old luxury playbook of over-capitalized, high-margin, limited distribution is being outpaced. Today, brands that lead with values are drawing real traction through lean, franchise-driven models.

We’ve had 70+ franchise requests land in our inbox. Not through paid intermediaries. Just brand conviction alone.

In my experience, vertical integration through direct lab relationships also provides better control over quality and costs. Governments are taking notice. India now offers zero import duties on lab-grown diamond seeds and machinery, positioning the sector as a strategic national industry.

Meanwhile, institutional capital is getting pickier. ESG regulations are tightening. And Millennials and Gen Z, now the dominant consumer base for diamonds in the U.S. and China, don’t chase labels. We didn’t scale because we shouted louder. We scaled because we listened better. These generations are value-aligned rather than brand-loyal and demand traceability.

The question isn’t whether traditional luxury brands can evolve. It’s whether they can do it fast enough to stay relevant in a world that now expects receipts: ethical, operational and financial.

Rewriting the rulebook

What’s happening in luxury jewelry is part of a larger trend and even cultural movement. The next decade of business will belong to those who can hold profit and purpose in the same breath.

From carbon fiber in wristwear to ethical innovations in edtech and agritech, disruption now means more than invention. It means intention.

For every venture I back, I ask two questions:

• Is it good for business?
• Is it good for the world?

If the answer isn’t yes to both, it’s a pass. Moral conviction and market clarity are not mutually exclusive. It’s more than OK to have a clear conscience and make your model scalable and profitable.

If we can make luxury cleaner, fairer and still perform at an IPO level, then we have rewritten the rulebook. Our upcoming IPO, for example, is grounded in unit economics and capital-efficient expansion. Our growth has come without heavy debt or marketing bloat, simply because the underlying business model works. Put another way, values scale better than virality.

Redefining luxury

This approach is attracting institutional attention precisely because it is designed for scrutiny. That is the real disruptive factor. What we are really witnessing is luxury itself being redefined.

As leaders, it’s our duty not to simply reflect culture, but to help shape it. So I suggest using what I call “weaponized curiosity” to build better systems. Instead of asking, “What will sell?”, a better angle is, “What will serve?” That is how we will build a new legacy for the generations to come.

Most Entrepreneurs Approach Culture the Wrong Way. Here’s What They’re Missing.

Entrepreneurship is not simply a matter of innovation or capital investment. It is the act of entering a domain — an economic spacetime — defined by its own norms, expectations and conduct. Entrepreneurs often refer to these contextual forces as “culture,” but they rarely unpack what this term truly means. In practice, culture is not an abstract or academic concern; it is the very infrastructure that governs business behavior in a given domain.

A business domain is not just a market opportunity. It is a new geography or a different industry that an entrepreneur steps into to venture a business or to initiate a new transaction. Each domain is embedded in a specific spacetime, and each spacetime inherits a living, breathing culture. Entrepreneurs who fail to understand this culture face constraints not because of written laws, but because of unwritten norms — what people expect, how they interact, what they value and how they trust.

The interdependency between law and culture

Culture is not separate from the law. It is the foundation of it. Contemporary legal systems are not engineered in a vacuum; they are legislated through the lens of prevailing socio-economic customs. These customs form the invisible boundary of what is acceptable or expected. Thus, culture is the primary source of legal context, not merely its reflection. Laws are written with assumptions about how people behave. They are structured around what society permits and prohibits, which is itself a derivative of culture.

Understanding this interdependency between law and culture is not optional for entrepreneurs — it is foundational. The governing rules of any spacetime, be they legal or commercial, reflect the conduct of the people within it. They mirror the accepted norms, the unwritten etiquette of interaction and the systemic trust or distrust that fuels the economy. In simpler terms, the rules of the game are set by how the society functions. And society functions according to the culture that shapes it.

Yet most entrepreneurs approach culture as a peripheral topic, something to be managed through branding, communication or internal HR. That is a mistake. Culture is not an add-on to business. It is the context in which the business exists. Studying regulations without studying culture is like learning the words of a language without understanding their meaning. You may comply on paper but fail in practice.

Business culture must not be generalized or imported. It must be adaptive and contextual. Every entrepreneurial venture is embedded in a local spacetime, and the organization’s culture must reflect that. A business operating in Tokyo cannot assume the cultural rules of Seattle. A startup in fintech must not adopt the same cultural principles as a legacy manufacturing firm. Organizational culture, in this sense, is not a choice — it is a necessity. It must reflect the spacetime in which the business operates.

This is why cultural studies are more essential than regulatory studies for entrepreneurs. Legal compliance is procedural. Cultural alignment is strategic. Councils and legal advisors may provide interpretations of existing regulations, but it is the entrepreneur — who architects the enterprise — who must understand the deeper context that surrounds those laws. Without this understanding, legal compliance becomes shallow, and the organization remains culturally incompatible with the domain it seeks to serve.

Entrepreneurs must become anthropologists of their target spacetime. They must study the living patterns of behavior, the symbolic codes, the assumptions and the embedded logics that people carry in their daily economic transactions. These are not just soft insights. They are the operating system of the domain. The more an entrepreneur understands these codes, the better positioned they are to design a business model that fits, rather than disrupts, the flow of that spacetime.

Cultural alignment is not only about market entry. It defines internal operations as well. How people work, how they communicate, how they evaluate risk and how they define leadership — these are all cultural constructs. An organization built without reference to the culture in which it operates will struggle with internal coherence. It may recruit the right talent, develop the right products and access the right capital, but it will suffer from persistent misalignment with its environment. That misalignment is what causes business models to fail — not the lack of innovation, but the lack of resonance.

Furthermore, understanding culture allows the entrepreneur to decode the “why” behind every regulation. When you grasp the cultural foundations of a society, you no longer see laws as arbitrary rules to follow. You see them as social contracts emerging from a collective understanding of order, fairness and risk. This is crucial because it transforms the entrepreneur’s relationship with the legal environment — from external compliance to internal coherence.

The mindset shift you need to make

What does this mean in practical terms? It means the entrepreneur must shift from a legalistic mindset to a contextual one. Instead of asking, “What are the rules?” they must ask, “Why do these rules exist in this form, at this time, in this place?” That question leads to a deeper appreciation of the spacetime context and informs better decision-making — not only for legal and operational planning but also for brand positioning, partnership formation and long-term scaling.

The entrepreneur’s role is to synthesize. Not just to bring together capital, labor and technology, but to fuse their venture with the cultural DNA of the domain they enter. This synthesis is what makes a business not just viable but sustainable. It allows the business to evolve with its spacetime rather than against it.

In the end, entrepreneurship is a contextual act. It does not exist in a vacuum. It is always situated, always embedded, always bound by the spacetime it occupies. Success does not come from disrupting blindly; it comes from aligning wisely. Entrepreneurs must, therefore, treat culture not as a variable but as a constant — one that defines the possibilities and limits of their business domain.

‘Consumers Deserve Better’: How Superstar QB Patrick Mahomes Is Brewing a Better Future for Coffee Drinkers

Whether you’re a three-time Super Bowl champion or an aspiring entrepreneur, most Americans share one thing: a love of (and borderline addiction to) coffee. Those ground, roasted beans are arguably the backbone of the American workforce, fueling star quarterbacks to office workers — and everyone in between.

Unfortunately for health-conscious consumers, options can be limited. You’re often stuck choosing between a sugar-packed latte or a bitter cup of black coffee. Throne SPORT COFFEE is here to change that.

Backed by lead investor and Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes, Throne SPORT COFFEE is a healthy, ready-to-drink coffee option designed to give you the boost you need to compete at a high level, whether on the field or in the office.

“Consumers are more informed about what they put into their bodies,” CEO and founder Michael Fedele tells Entrepreneur. “And the reality is, especially with some of the leading products out there, they deserve better.”

Related: Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes Are Opening a Restaurant in Homage to Their Football Careers

Brewing the next big brand

Fedele is no stranger to the beverage industry. Before founding Throne, he worked at Coca-Cola, managing major brands such as Powerade and Vitaminwater. His success there caught the attention of Vitaminwater’s co-founder, who brought him on to a new startup: Bodyarmor.

Fedele took the leap, leaving his comfortable role at Coca-Cola to become Bodyarmor’s Director of Marketing. It proved to be the right move. He spent over nine years at the company, leading all marketing efforts from 2012 to 2021, when Bodyarmor was, fittingly, acquired by Coca-Cola.

“In 2012, I was basically a one-person marketing team,” Fedele says. “By the time I left in 2021, I was leading a team of over 35 people, overseeing everything from brand management and product innovation to packaging, creative, athlete partnerships, media, digital and social.”

After the 2021 sale of Bodyarmor, Fedele wore several hats — consultant, advisor, investor — until the idea for Throne Coffee struck.

Reflecting on his time at Bodyarmor, Fedele realized nearly every athlete he worked with had one thing in common: they always had coffee in hand during meetings.

“I started asking, why coffee?” he recalls. “They said it’s clean caffeine, low in sugar and cream, and gives them the energy to power through the day.”

That prompted a follow-up question: What brand do they reach for?

“They were like, ‘we don’t have one,'” Fedele says.

So he seized the opportunity.

Related: How You Brew Your Coffee Could Be Harming Your Health

MVP caliber ingredients

What sets the company apart, aside from having a three-time Super Bowl champion as its lead investor, is its focus on clean, natural ingredients. According to Fedele, the top-selling ready-to-drink coffee has roughly 300 calories and 47 grams of sugar.

“For anyone mindful of what they put into their body, it’s frustrating to settle for low-quality caffeine options,” he says.

Throne SPORT COFFEE products, by contrast, are independently tested and NSF Certified for Sport. Its Premium Charged Cold Brew Line is dairy-free with 150mg of natural caffeine, and 40% less sugar and calories than some well-known competitors, while the Premium Charged Lattes contain 10 grams of protein.

“There’s growing awareness around ingredients and the impact they can have on your body,” Fedele says. “We’re intentional about everything we include. We use natural caffeine, flavors and sweeteners.”

For Mahomes, it’s a game-changer.

“I didn’t use to drink coffee before working out, because I didn’t like how it made me feel,” Mahomes tells Entrepreneur. “I was only drinking black coffee at the end of the day because I didn’t want the sugar.”

Now, he can’t get enough of it, knocking back Throne SPORT COFFEE daily.

“I drink probably too much,” the quarterback laughs. “Usually before my early morning workouts, but I also use it throughout meetings and even in the evenings while putting my kids to bed.”

Making a versatile beverage was central to Fedele’s strategy. He didn’t just want to serve pro athletes; he wanted something that fit into anyone’s routine.

“We wanted to create a product that keeps you going, whether you’re throwing touchdowns like Patrick or gearing up for a day of Zoom meetings like me,” Fedele says.

Related: A ‘Higher’ Purpose: NBA Legend Carmelo Anthony is Entering a New Industry — and Breaking Barriers for Black Entrepreneurs

Mahomes takes the throne

Mahomes has dozens of endorsement deals, with brands like State Farm, Adidas and Oakley in his portfolio. But his relationship with Throne is different. He’s not just a spokesperson for the brand — he’s its second-largest shareholder behind founder Michael Fedele, having invested a substantial amount of his own money.

His involvement began in 2023 when Fedele personally pitched him the idea.

“As someone who loves coffee and truly cares about what I put into my body, it felt like the perfect match,” Mahomes says. “It was really cool to be involved from the start — talking about ingredients and finding something that was both healthy and tasted great. I’m grateful to Michael for letting me be part of the process.”

Despite his demanding schedule, Mahomes stays actively engaged with the company.

“Michael sends out updates in a group message every day to keep us in the loop,” he says. “Whenever I have free time, I try to give input.” He’s also a regular presence in offseason meetings, helping shape the brand’s growth strategy from the inside.

Externally, Mahomes is the face of the brand, most recently spearheading its new ad campaign, ‘This. Not That.’

“Consumers work hard to stay healthy, so it’s crazy they have to compromise just to grab a ready-to-drink coffee,” Fedele says of the new campaign. “They deserve better. Throne SPORT COFFEE offers a clean alternative, and when you compare the ingredients and nutrition panel, the difference is clear.”

Just two years in, Throne has already secured a major investment from one of the world’s premier athletes, bringing both visibility and credibility to its nutritional claims. And with Mahomes still in his prime at 29, the brand’s potential is only beginning to take shape.

“Our vision is to disrupt the coffee category and bring something truly new to the table,” Fedele says. “Ready-to-drink coffee has become a stale, predictable space. It’s time for something bold.”

Value-Based Pricing Has Gotten Popular — But It Doesn’t Always Work. Here’s How It Could Derail Your Business.

Value-based pricing has become something of a holy grail in the world of service businesses. The theory is seductive: Instead of charging by the hour or offering rigid packages, you price your services based on the value they deliver to the client. If your support helps someone generate $100k in revenue, why shouldn’t you charge $10k instead of $2k?

This approach can lead to higher margins and more premium clients, but it comes with downsides. When it doesn’t work, it can quietly eat away at your profitability, create client resentment and hold up your growth.

Related: The Price Is Right: How to Price Your Product for Long-Term Success

Why everyone’s talking about value-based pricing

Value-based pricing has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years. In short, value-based pricing is the idea that you can charge for your services based on the value it adds to the business purchasing them, rather than based on the cost of delivery for you as the service provider.

There are real reasons why this makes sense. Research shows that higher prices can increase the perceived value of your services. By undercutting your price, you may actually be devaluing your services — so there is good reason to keep your prices above rock bottom. Lower prices can attract clients looking for the cheapest option on the market, which are often the most difficult to service.

There is also compelling evidence that women tend to underprice their services in order to try to secure business, which can be exacerbated in industries historically dominated by men. The value-based pricing movement has helped to empower women to price their services closer to market or even above market standard.

If pricing is too high, customers can feel resentful after they’ve made the purchasing decision. Too often, a business owner purchases out of emotion, pays too much and later realizes they overpaid. That immediately strains the client relationship with the service provider and sometimes even results in a more difficult journey between the two parties.

Value-based pricing can work, especially when the value you provide is clear, measurable and ideally tied to revenue, like a sales consultant who increases close rates or an ad strategist who drops cost-per-lead. However, there are downsides to both the business and the market for service delivery to small businesses, especially.

Related: Did You Price Your Product Right? How to Know.

When value-based pricing doesn’t work

On the other hand, value-based pricing has often gotten out of hand. Entrepreneurs are being encouraged to continue to increase their pricing based on the maximum potential impact their services could have. More than 50% of businesses fail in their first year, and overpricing the market standard or the amount you can reasonably expect to be paid if you’re early in your business evolution can put you on a difficult path as a business owner.

It’s increasingly common to meet founders who are struggling to sell and yet are priced above market. Just because services can provide value doesn’t mean you are in a position to charge those premium prices from early on. If you aren’t selling, your pricing might just be too high, too soon in your business’s growth.

Value-based also compromises the purchasers in a way that has become detrimental to the small business market at large. As service providers continue to raise their prices much faster than their costs increase, the potential customers of these businesses are put in a difficult position.

For example, if, as a brand-new founder, you are being asked to pay $10k for a website when it only costs the provider $1k, that creates a predatory pricing situation for the customer.

It’s time for this race to the bottom to stop to protect both the customers and the service providers.

Related: 6 Strategies for Avoiding the ‘Race to the Bottom’ Price War You Don’t Want to Win

What to do instead

There are quite a few other options to integrate value-based principles while keeping things fair.

Milestone-based pricing or incentive pricing is a way for service providers to share in the benefits that their services provide, without locking customers into a high price upfront. For example, an ads specialist can charge a base price plus a per-lead or per-signing fee. This incentivizes the specialist to do their best work while enabling them to share the upside and protecting the customer from potential downside.

Modular pricing is another option for right-sizing pricing. Offering an à la carte pricing menu allows clients to choose the services they truly need, instead of being locked into choosing from one or two fixed packages.

Regardless of your pricing strategy, consider where you are in the market and where that puts your margin. If you are priced in line with your market, and your margin is in a reasonable range for your industry, you are likely fairly priced. If you’re significantly above market, making above-average margin, or if you aren’t selling as much as you want to, try one of the strategies above and observe how it impacts your sales.

It’s time that we find a middle ground, where service providers are paid fairly for their time, and customers are paying a fair markup on the cost.

No More ‘Press 1 for Service’ — Here’s How to Bring Phone Systems into the Age of Personalization

For over 50 years, automated phone systems have been a mainstay of customer interaction. Early Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems freed employees from repetitive tasks, yet left customers navigating frustrating menus with impersonal, robotic responses.

In an era where personalization drives customer satisfaction and loyalty, these outdated systems are no longer enough. While well-designed IVR systems today achieve a first call resolution rate between 70-75%, the cold and impersonal experience remains, constantly testing callers’ patience with the labyrinth of keypad-navigated menus and limited options.

This is particularly evident in industries like healthcare, insurance and local services, where every call carries weight and customers often face the frustrating prospect of repeating their details over and over to an automated voice or navigating endless, irrelevant options. Phone systems remain a significant touchpoint between businesses and customers, but have yet to evolve to meet the demands of the personalization era.

This potential is already being realized through AI phone agents, which are turning this vision into reality. Unlike legacy systems, these agents use advanced voice recognition and adaptive AI to engage customers in dynamic, human-like conversations.

They remember previous interactions, answer with localized nuance and respond to inquiries with warmth and intelligence. This capability makes it possible to deliver personalized experiences that strengthen customer relationships while maintaining operational efficiency.

For example, imagine if your phone system could recall past conversations: When John calls again, it could ask how his daughter’s birthday party went, adding a personalized touch that deepens the connection. These subtle, tailored gestures could shift customer perceptions from purely transactional to genuinely relational, setting your brand apart in a competitive marketplace. It’s no surprise that businesses embracing AI for personalization are projected to reach $2 trillion in revenue over the next five years, underscoring the transformative potential of these technologies.

AI agents can even be fine-tuned to reflect brand tone and values, whether that’s efficiency, empathy or a sense of humor. Voice agents are designed to resolve issues and help customers feel heard and understood, delivering a more natural and ‘human’ experience than traditional phone systems ever could.

Related: Stop Losing $500+ a Month — The Mistake Starts With a Missed Call

More than personalization: Elevating customer service

AI phone agents do more than personalize interactions; they redefine what phone systems can achieve. From scheduling appointments and processing orders to troubleshooting technical issues and qualifying inbound sales leads, AI agents extend far beyond the limited scope of traditional IVRs.

They can provide instant answers to frequently asked questions, guide users through complex product setups and even process secure payments, effectively transforming a basic phone system into a streamlined customer service center.

This functionality results in higher first-call resolution rates and a seamless experience for customers.

Moreover, AI agents can dynamically scale to handle call surges, eliminating hold times and ensuring 24/7 availability. Businesses can now offer consistent, high-quality service after hours, avoiding the cultural and language barriers often encountered with outsourced support.

For a small business, this means no more missed sales opportunities because a call came in after 6 PM, or frustrated customers waiting until morning for a simple answer. By replacing outdated systems, AI agents reduce costs while delivering a superior customer experience.

Related: 2 Major Career Companies Are Laying Off 1,300 Employees: ‘AI Is Changing the World’

Integrating AI agents into your workflow

Adopting AI phone agents doesn’t have to be a full-scale transformation. Businesses should start small by assigning these agents to handle routine inquiries. As their capabilities grow, they can take on more complex tasks.

Key steps for successful integration include:

• Starting with small, well-defined tasks such as appointment scheduling or taking notes. This allows businesses to quickly see the value of AI without overwhelming their existing operations.
• Training employees to collaborate with AI agents as part of the team. Successful AI implementation is about augmentation, not replacement. Human oversight and collaboration are key to refining the AI’s performance and ensuring a cohesive customer journey.
• Measuring AI agent performance against human agents. Quantifying key metrics like resolution rates, customer satisfaction scores and time savings helps demonstrate ROI and identifies areas for further optimization.
• Continuously identifying new tasks AI can automate
• Ensuring seamless CRM and other system integrations. Integrating AI with existing tools ensures data flows smoothly, providing the AI with necessary context and updating records in real-time, making it truly intelligent and valuable.
• Defining escalation protocols. Knowing when to pass calls from AI to human agents is also important and ensures a safety net for complex issues.

AI phone agents represent a profound leap forward for customer service, leaving behind the outdated era of keypad navigation and rudimentary voice prompts. By leveraging these tools, businesses can not only create deeper, more personalized connections with customers but also transform phone systems from impersonal necessities into strategic assets, positioning themselves for success in a rapidly evolving environment.

‘Beyond Our Wildest Dreams’: This Founder’s Scrappy Startup Has Raised More Than $39 Million — and Counting — for Small Businesses ‘Facing an Extinction Event’

When Andy Hunter, founder and CEO of Bookshop.org, followed his lifelong passion for books into the publishing industry in 2009, he noticed an unsettling shift: The bookstores that had defined his childhood and communities were going out of business — rapidly losing market share to Amazon.

The number of U.S. bookstores decreased more than 50% in the span of about two decades, falling from 12,151 in 1998 to 6,045 in 2019, according to data from the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, which initially focused on selling books online, in July 1995. Today, book sales make up roughly 10% of Amazon’s profit at an estimated $28 billion; in 2020, the House Judiciary Committee found that the ecommerce giant controlled over 50% of the total print book market and more than 80% of the ebook market.

Related: Why Purpose-Driven Marketplaces Are the Antidote to Amazon

“Bookstores are advocates and activists for the importance of reading in all their communities.”

Amid Amazon and ecommerce’s quick, concurrent growth, Hunter realized that bookstores were “facing an extinction event.”

“It is really like the environment, where you can have coral reefs, and when the coral reefs die, then everything is hosed,” Hunter explains. “Bookstores are advocates and activists for the importance of reading in all their communities. As those start to die out, the importance of books in our culture also starts to recede.”

Hunter built his career in publishing for more than a decade, during which he co-founded literary websites Electric Literature and Literary Hub and the independent publisher Catapult.

Related: 5 Books Every Small Business Owner Should Read

Over the years, Hunter waited for someone to acknowledge what was happening to the nation’s bookstores, for “some champion to come along” and save them. Then, at a dinner in 2018, Hunter sat next to a member of the American Booksellers Association’s board of directors who pointed out that Hunter had internet expertise — could he help with the organization’s online sales strategy?

That’s when Hunter came up with the idea for Bookshop, the online book seller that funnels profits back to independent bookstores across the country. If shoppers choose a specific local store to support, that small business receives 100% of the sales profit; otherwise, 33% of the profit is distributed among all of the bookstores on the platform.

“Fortunately, it did succeed — and it actually succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

“ It was kind of a Hail Mary,” Hunter recalls. “At the time, I was like, Well, this almost certainly won’t succeed because I’ve never done anything like this before, and the odds are completely against us. Nobody wanted to invest in it. But nothing is going to get better if you don’t do anything about it, so at least [we were] going to try to do something about it. And, fortunately, it did succeed — and it actually succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Bookshop launched in January 2020, and in the early days, the “very small, very scrappy” startup didn’t have a customer service team and saw modest sales. That changed when the pandemic hit about eight weeks later. Hunter says that Bookshop’s daily sales grew from $10,000 to $50,000 to $150,000 in short order. In the same period, the number of bookstores on the platform increased from 250 to more than 1,500.

Related: Why Your Business Should Be a Benefit Corporation, or B Corp

Now, Bookshop is a certified B Corp that has raised more than $39 million for independent bookstores to date.

“Our profit is not huge because if our profit is huge, then it’s off of our mission.”

The startup’s explosive growth began to wane in 2022, as customers returned to buy in-person at their local bookstores, Hunter says. Bookshop was profitable in 2020 and 2021, then lost money every year through 2024.

 ”This year, we’re profitable again,” Hunter says, “but we’re really lean. Our expenses are less than 13% of our total sales. We have something like $1.5 million of revenue per employee. We stay super lean because we are trying to always give the maximum amount to the bookstores. Even when we are profitable, our profit is not huge because if our profit is huge, then it’s off of our mission [to] support local bookstores.”

Earlier this year, Bookshop tackled its next frontier: ebooks. The goal was to build a “really easy to use” application that would function across devices in the U.S. and other countries, Hunter says. The initiative, launched in January, has been a challenge for the small company, which lacks the substantial financial backing of competitors. Digital reading subscription service Scribd has raised more than $100 million; Bookshop raised $2.3 million to support its ebook platform.

Related: Why (and How) Amazon Created the Kindle and Changed the Book Industry Forever

“ So we’re talking about a platform that has competitors that are 50 times better funded,” Hunter says, “and that doesn’t even go into Amazon and how much money Amazon has spent on the Kindle. So we are a scrappy, ragtag band of hopefully talented enough people to be able to pull us off.”

Additionally, because Bookshop gives so much of its profit to independent bookstores, it doesn’t have a large digital marketing budget. Bookshop spends about 2% of its revenue on advertisements and marketing. In contrast to the direct-to-consumer brands that saw major growth during the pandemic and spend 15% to 30% of their topline revenue on digital marketing, Bookshop relies heavily on word-of-mouth and referrals, Hunter says.

So far, Bookshop’s word-of-mouth marketing strategy is paying off: The company is about a year ahead of its projections for ebook sales, which already make up 5% of total sales.

“For us, winning is, we got 5% of Amazon customers to switch to independent bookstores.”

Of course, getting Bookshop’s ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle devices could bring even more significant growth. Although the Kindle supports some third-party applications like the library reading app Libby, ebooks from other platforms, including Scribd, aren’t available on the device. Access requires Amazon’s permission, and the request letter that Hunter sent to the company about four months ago has yet to receive a reply.

Bookshop is doing roughly three times the total independent online bookstore sales in 2019, Hunter says — and he’s determined to grow that number.

“ Amazon is really powerful and has tons of resources,” Hunter says. “They’ve got Prime and a lot of ways to lock in customers. So we try to be realistic, but for us, winning is not beating Amazon. For us, winning is, we got 5% of Amazon customers to switch to independent bookstores — that would be a huge lifeline for independent bookstores.”

Related: A Beloved 130-Year-Old Small Business in California Is Seeking a New Owner — and It Won’t Sell to the Highest Bidder: ‘Everybody’s Talking About It’

The good news is that independent bookstores appear to be making a comeback.

“ For the past five years, every single year, more bookstores have opened than closed,” Hunter says. “And there are now, from a low of about 1,900 independent bookstores in the American Booksellers Association in 2019, about 2,800 independent bookstores in the American Booksellers Association.”

The American Booksellers Association, which advocates for independent bookstores, reported 2,433 bookstore companies in 2,844 store locations in 2024, an 11% increase in membership year over year. Bookshop currently hosts more than 2,200 independent stores on its platform.

“The cost is ultimately what kind of society we’re creating.”

Hunter encourages everyone to consider the future they want for themselves and the next generation — and how the small decisions we make every day will shape it.

“Convenience has a cost that isn’t apparent to everybody at the face, and the cost is ultimately what kind of society we’re creating,” Hunter says. “[People should] make the effort of making good choices because they’re going to be living in the world that those choices created.”

This Band Has Millions of Streams on Spotify. The Only Problem — the Music and the Band Members Were Generated by AI.

If you are one of Velvet Sundown’s adoring fans, seeing them perform in a city near you is going to be problematic.

After releasing two albums, Floating On Echoes and Dust And Silence, that have earned the group 1.2 million listeners on Spotify, the folk-country music “band” revealed itself to be an AI creation — everything from their music to their images and backstory.

In a post on X from Velvet Sundown’s official account, the poster wrote, “The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence. This isn’t a trick – it’s a mirror. An ongoing artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI.”

Related: Is AI Worth the Layoffs? Inside a CEO’s Ethical Nightmare

The post went on to state, “All characters, stories, music, voices and lyrics are original creations generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools employed as creative instruments. Any resemblance to actual places, events or persons – living or deceased – is purely coincidental and unintentional. Not quite human. Not quite machine.”

The Velvet Sundown is a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence.

This isn’t a trick – it’s a mirror. An ongoing artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of… pic.twitter.com/8qwoFFOPNx

— The Velvet Sundown (@tvs_music) July 5, 2025

As The Guardian points out, Spotify and other streaming services are under no legal obligation to identify AI-generated work. This raises concerns over consumer transparency and infringing on the works of the human bands that the AI was trained on, say experts the paper spoke to. Sophie Jones, the chief strategy officer of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), told The Guardian that the organizaion was calling on law makers to “protect copyright and introduce new transparency obligations for AI companies so that music rights can be licensed and enforced, as well as calling for the clear labelling of content solely generated by AI.”

Related: 10 AI-Proof Jobs With Highest Pay, Fastest Growth

Jones added, “The rise of AI-generated bands and music entering the market points to the fact that tech companies have been training AI models using creative works – largely without authorisation or payment to creators and rights-holders – in order to directly compete with human artistry.”

Velvet Sundown isn’t the first AI-generated music act to gain traction. The 2023 track “Heart on My Sleeve” was created using AI-generated voices that mimicked The Weeknd and Drake, and Variety reports that the human behind the song submitted it for Grammy consideration.

Meta Acquires AI Startup That Generates Human-Sounding Voices: ‘Great Match for Our Work’

In the latest chapter in Meta’s AI buying and hiring spree, Meta has acquired AI voice cloning startup PlayAI.

Meta confirmed the acquisition to Bloomberg, but didn’t state the deal’s value. According to an internal memo leaked to Bloomberg, the “entire PlayAI team,” around 35 people, will join Meta this week. They will report to Johan Schalkwyk, a former speech AI researcher at Google who recently joined Meta from another AI voice startup called Sesame AI.

PlayAI’s core product is a voice cloning tool that can generate human-sounding voices. The startup has partnered with companies like Walgreens and Salesforce to create voice agents for businesses that are available to answer questions, handle transactions, and schedule appointments.

Related: ‘The Market Is Hot’: Here’s How Much a Typical Meta Employee Makes in a Year

PlayAI’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and road map, across AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables, and audio content creation,” Meta wrote in the leaked memo.

Meta has been hiring and acquiring AI talent aggressively in recent months. In June, the company made one of its biggest investments yet, pouring $14.3 billion into AI data training startup Scale AI in exchange for a 49% stake in the startup and access to new talent.

The deal brought Scale AI’s former CEO, Alexandr Wang, to Meta as its new Chief AI Officer and head of a new team focused on developing superintelligence, or AI that surpasses human intelligence. Meta is paying top dollar to assemble a group of about 50 experts who will work to develop superintelligence with the aim of one day bringing it to Meta’s products, including its AI smart glasses and chatbot. Scale AI’s valuation more than doubled after the investment, rising from $14 billion to $29 billion.

Meta has also been poaching AI researchers and engineers from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic for its new superintelligence team with competitive compensation, which can go up to nine figures. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 41, announced last month that former Google DeepMind researchers Jack Rae and Pei Sun and former OpenAI staff Trapit Bansal and Hongyu Ren would be joining the superintelligence team.

Additionally, new details emerged last week that Meta is reportedly compensating former Apple engineer Ruoming Pang more than $200 million across several years to join its superintelligence effort — more than double the $74.6 million Apple CEO Tim Cook made last year.

Related: Meta Invests Billions in World’s Largest Eyewear Company After Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Success

Meta stock was up over 19% year-to-date at the time of writing. The company has a market value of $1.81 trillion, making it the sixth largest in the world by market capitalization.

I Rewrote the Boomer Script — Here’s How I Learned, Adapted and Grew as a Millennial Entrepreneur

I’ll let you in on a secret that will be unpopular with my fellow millennials: I learned a lot from my Baby Boomer dad.

I watched him — like so many people of my generation watching their Baby Boomer parents — work hard. Sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week working on growing his business.

So when I started my first business, I followed the script that many Baby Boomers follow — life as a three-act play. The first act is developing who you are and figuring out what you want to do. The second act: build a successful business. The third act: living a life of significance with aspirations outside of your business.

But I’m still a millennial. So, when I sold my first business at a young age, I was hungry for more. I regretted selling my business almost immediately, and months turned into a year as I searched for my next stage in life. I had broken the script and was in search of personal purpose. My phone had stopped ringing, my name wasn’t on the side of a truck anymore and I had no one to work with.

That’s when my dad gave me a piece of advice that would get me back in line with my fellow millennials — a generation of entrepreneurs who are more likely to start or buy businesses than exit from them over and over throughout their lives.

“Don’t fall in love with your business,” he told me. “Fall in love with business.”

RELATED: The Millennial Takeover: How the Generation is Shaking up the Workplace

What millennial entrepreneurs value

Millennials have big plans for their lives, but those plans are unlikely to follow a straight trajectory. We value meaningful work, and that meaning will change throughout our lives. Our first act was defined by the dawn of the new millennium and significant technological evolution. We adapt. It’s also why we’ve earned the reputation of having many jobs over our lifetime — in 2024, according to Gallup, 21% of Millennials changed jobs.

We’re ambitious. Exit Planning Institute — where I serve as President — conducted a nationwide survey of business owners in 2023, the National State of Owner Readiness Report. No generation among the surveyed owners had a higher percentage of companies with annual revenue over $100 million: 20%.

The survey also showed that Millennial owners were more likely to regularly measure and formally track business value, with 65% of Millennial owners doing so compared to 47% of Generation X owners and 33% of Baby Boomer owners.

Millennials also tend to earn to spend. According to a report from Boston Consulting Group, of consumers with an annual household income of over $250,000, Millennials were the most likely generation to spend on luxury goods. Growing the value of their company is also important to Millennials, not just to harvest the wealth for themselves but to complete what we call a “boomerang exit,” purchasing or investing in another company after the sale of their existing business. Eighty-five percent of Millennials plan to buy or invest in another company post-exit, significantly higher than other generations, including their Gen Z counterparts.

So, lots of big dreams, ambition and a preference for personal spending. That’s our Millennial generation. Where should we focus our attention when it comes to exit planning?

RELATED: How to Succeed as a Millennial Entrepreneur

Focal point 1: Drive value, with framework

Here’s the good news: no generation focuses more on exit planning education than Millennials. The 2023 National State of Owner Readiness Report showed our generation is most likely to believe that having a transition strategy is important for the future. Moreover, we are best at giving attention to an exit and are more likely to be familiar with all of our exit options — and, as a result, seeking outside advice at a higher rate. We like feedback, and we’re more likely to have a formal transition advisory team and an outside board of advisors.

What we’re not often good at — because we struggle to hone in on one thing — is trusting a framework for driving value in our business.

Here’s where a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) can help. The Value Acceleration Methodology that every CEPA uses calls for a three-year strategy, followed by a one-year plan, which is actioned through 90-day sprints to achieve that plan.

Driving value is a process, and by implementing this three-tiered approach, you can be ready for that boomerang exit — and build a significant company that will be attractive to a potential buyer.

Focal Point 2: Focus on financial planning

Good exit planning seeks to balance what the Exit Planning Institute calls the “Three Legs of the Stool.” Business planning isn’t enough: it must be done in harmony with personal planning and personal financial planning. Millennials typically have personal planning down in spades: we know all the ambitious dreams we want to accomplish.

However, since we earn to spend, we need to focus more on personal financial planning, as it aligns with our business and personal goals.

Our 2023 National State of Owner Readiness Report asked business owners to identify their most trusted advisor. Of the three most active business-owning generations — Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers — the wealth or financial advisor ranked lowest among Millennials. 40% of Millennials named their personal financial advisor as their most trusted advisor, lagging behind Gen X (50%) and Baby Boomers (52%).

Don’t think of your financial advisor as your retirement advisor. Since Millennials are likely to boomerang exit, having a diversified portfolio will help you navigate your business exit and re-entry nimbly, while still meeting your current personal financial goals.

RELATED: 7 Interesting Financial Facts About Millennials

Focal Point 3: Decentralize

As a generation, we’re less likely to want the 60-80 hour work week that Baby Boomer entrepreneurs prized. We want more work/life balance because we’ve seen our parents regret not having it.

Even when our generation is less likely to hold on to a business for a long time — 48% of Millennial owners plan to transition within the next five years, more than Gen X (39%) and less than Baby Boomers (58%) reaching a traditional retirement age — it’s important to achieve your personal goals alongside your business goals.

Focusing on driving value in your people, your systems, your customers and your culture can help your business hum along as you spend more time focusing on the things that matter to you outside of your business.

Related: Why Nearly 3 in 4 Young Workers Are Ready to Quit

Lean into what makes you great

Generational differences aren’t about deficiencies — they’re about what defines us. Knowing your strengths just as much as you know your weaknesses can help you identify your goals as you work to get help on the things that you are not generationally predisposed to care about.

Finding a diverse team of advisors can help you achieve your goals and live the life — both at work and at home — that you want. Ideally, that team should be led by a Certified Exit Planning Advisor, someone who can assess your business, personal and financial goals and lead a team of advisors to set you up for success and significance.

Windows 11 Pro Is a Must-Have Upgrade for Busy Entrepreneurs

Are you among the majority of entrepreneurs using a Windows device? A survey by Get Support IT Services discovered that 70% of small-business owners use PCs. To stay productive, it’s essential to run an up-to-date operating system. Right now, you can score a Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license for just $14.97 (reg. $199).

Upgrade your PC with Windows 11 Pro before support ends for Windows 10

If you’re using Windows 10, consider it a ticking time bomb. Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in October 2025, so now is the time to upgrade. This license to Windows 11 Pro gives your old PC a major upgrade for just $15.

Windows 11 Pro was made for the modern professional, so you can take advantage of an modern, user-friendly interface with new helpful features like snap layouts, improved voice typing, and a better search experience.

This license gives you access to Copilot, your built-in AI-powered assistant that is available right on your desktop. You’ll also unlock powerful tools like Microsoft Teams, Azure HD, Hyper-V, and Windows Sandbox, which can help you manage your workload.

Windows 11 Pro also steps up your security. Enjoy features like biometric logins, encrypted authentication, and advanced antivirus protection to help keep your data safe and your devices secure.

Before you purchase, make sure you have the 4GB RAM and 40GB hard drive space required to run this operating system. You’ll receive an email immediately after purchase that includes a redemption code and instructions to redeem it for your license.

Upgrade your computer with this Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license for just $14.97 (reg. $199).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Is AI Worth the Layoffs? Inside a CEO’s Ethical Nightmare

The alarm bells are ringing in corporate boardrooms across America. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy delivered a stark message to employees last month: the company’s workforce will shrink as it adopts more generative AI tools.

If one of the world’s largest employers is openly discussing AI-driven workforce reductions, the conversation has moved from theoretical to inevitable. But for many CEOs, especially those running smaller businesses, Jassy’s announcement represents more than a strategic shift — it’s a preview of the ethical nightmare they’re about to face.

Recent research confirms what many leaders are experiencing — job displacement has emerged as one of the primary ethical concerns hindering AI adoption in business. This isn’t just a business decision. For leaders who built their companies on trust and loyalty, it’s a deeply personal dilemma that tests the very core of their leadership.

Related: Avoid AI Disasters and Earn Trust — 8 Strategies for Ethical and Responsible AI

Between a rock and a hard place

AI promises incredible benefits: faster operations, lower costs, better insights. When Amazon and others are restructuring around AI, the message to other CEOs is clear: adapt or get left behind.

Many boards of directors are now pushing CEOs to cut 20% of workforce costs, and major corporations are already acting. Microsoft, IBM and Walmart have all announced layoffs, with companies specifically replacing HR workers and tech teams with AI systems. The result is a climate of fear that’s slowly spreading through workplaces. Employees who once felt secure in their roles are now questioning their value, their skills and their future. They’re watching colleagues disappear and wondering when their turn might come.

Adding to this pressure is growing public backlash. Duolingo’s CEO recently faced unexpected criticism after announcing the company would become “AI-first.” This puts leaders in a difficult position — they must balance board demands for AI adoption with potential damage to their brand reputation and customer relationships.

When employees aren’t just numbers

Amazon’s announcement might seem straightforward — a large corporation making strategic adjustments. But for CEOs of small and medium businesses like me, the reality is completely different. I know my employees personally — their families, their financial situations, their career aspirations.

This personal connection transforms business strategy into personal agony. When AI could automate roles held by people I have known and worked alongside for years, it’s not just eliminating a position — it’s potentially devastating someone that I genuinely care about.

Research shows that ethical challenges around AI adoption vary significantly across organization types and sizes. While Amazon can manage workforce transitions through HR departments, smaller companies face unique burdens because relationships are more personal and decisions carry greater emotional weight. These include:

• Personal accountability: Business owners must personally deliver difficult news to employees they consider friends, not delegate to HR.
• Loyalty guilt: CEOs remember when employees made personal sacrifices during tough times to help build the company.
• Identity crisis: Company culture is often an extension of the owner’s personal values, making workforce cuts feel like self-betrayal.
• Immediate visibility: Owners witness the human cost in real-time and live with daily reminders of their choices.

Related: How to Implement Ethical AI Practices in Your Company

The meaningful work paradox

The pain runs deeper for CEOs who built their companies on strong relationships. Many founders deliberately created family-like cultures, championing loyalty and long-term commitment.

What they’ve created is what researchers call “meaningful work” — work that has “worth, significance or a higher purpose”. This type of work is ethically important as a basis for human wellbeing and flourishing.

Now AI challenges everything they stand for. When AI solutions promise significant cost reductions but require workforce reductions, these leaders face a profound identity crisis. The question that haunts them: “Am I betraying everything I built?

The conversation you’re avoiding

The hardest part isn’t making the decision about AI — it’s looking your employees in the eye and talking about it honestly.

How do you tell someone who’s been with you for five years that their role might change dramatically? How do you balance transparency with compassion? How do you discuss the future when you’re not even sure what it looks like?

The conversation many CEOs are avoiding is the one their employees need most. Not the sanitized corporate communication about “digital transformation” and “exciting opportunities.” The real conversation about what AI means for them personally.

Employees aren’t asking for guarantees — they’re asking for honesty. They want to know:

1. What you’re really thinking about AI
2. How it might affect their specific role
3. What timeline you’re considering
4. How they can prepare or adapt
5. Whether their years of loyalty and contribution matter

The irony is that avoiding this conversation often creates more anxiety than having it. Employees can sense when something is changing. The uncertainty of not knowing is often worse than the reality of what’s coming.

But here’s what makes it an ethical nightmare: These conversations require a level of vulnerability and honesty that most business relationships aren’t built for. You’re asking people to trust you with their livelihood while you’re considering changes that might eliminate their position.

The employees who built your company deserve more than corporate speak. They deserve the truth, delivered with the same care and respect you’d want if the roles were reversed.

Related: I Teach AI and Entrepreneurship. Here’s How Entrepreneurs Can Use AI to Better Understand Their Target Customers.

The real test of leadership

Amazon’s announcement adds momentum to a workforce transformation already underway. The question isn’t whether AI will change how we work, but how leaders will navigate that change.

The easy path is to chase efficiency at any cost. The harder path is to embrace technology while preserving meaningful work that gives people purpose and dignity.

The most successful leaders won’t be those who implement AI fastest or cut costs deepest. They’ll be the ones who navigate this challenge with integrity, finding ways to innovate while staying true to their values.

This is the real test: Can we lead with both intelligence and heart? How we respond will define not just our companies, but our legacy as leaders.