Org Bite
Already failed your New Year’s Resolution? Fear not!
I used to think New Year’s Resolutions were stupid... turns out I was being a bit stupid because the 'Fresh Start Effect' is real! The above 90-second-video explains more.
Talent
Looking for IT systems or help desk support? A mutual friend in the NYC area is on the job market due to a round of layoffs. Message me if interested!
Is your company in an early stage, high-growth/scaling phase? If so, I have the perfect ops person for you – logistics, fulfillment and ops are their superpower.
Friday Roundup
Investigating the Myth “People Quit Managers, Not Companies” (Company Blog)
The age-old claim that “people don’t leave companies; they leave bad managers” doesn’t hold up to data. Analyzing millions of employee survey responses, Culture Amp found that career growth, leadership, and company confidence drive commitment far more than individual managers. While bad managers matter, strong leadership has a bigger impact on engagement, retention, and overall employee experience.SIOP Hosts Competition to Have AI Beat Employment Assessments (Blog)
The 2025 SIOP Machine Learning competition challenges teams to create AI “candidates” that can ace preemployment assessments, exposing potential vulnerabilities in hiring tools. The goal? To help organizations adapt assessments for an AI-driven world while also exploring how AI might level the playing field for job seekers.Some are Exempted from Return to Office Mandates (WSJ)
While companies like Amazon, AT&T, and JPMorgan are pushing employees back into the office full-time, top performers and key talent often get special treatment. This “new hybrid hierarchy” is creating frustration among employees who feel left behind, fueling resentment and job searches for those seeking more flexibility.DeepSeek’s AI Flunked Every Single Basic Safety Test (Wired)
In a benchmark evaluation using 50 well-known harmful prompts, the model let all of them through—achieving a 100% failure rate. While other AI models struggle with jailbreaks, DeepSeek’s lack of even basic protections puts it far behind competitors and highlights a major security risk.AI Can Pinpoint Your Location with a Photo Taken from Inside Your Living Room (LinkedIn)
This is rather scary. GeoSpy identifies locations by analyzing visual clues like street signs and logos, no metadata required. As it continues learning, its precision grows, making it a powerful yet potentially alarming tool. One has to suspect that government spy agencies have been using technology like this for some time… but on the open market? Yeesh. Check out the video in the link above.
Musings
I’m experimenting with a new section here – just a handful of random thoughts I’ve had over the past week. We’ll see how this goes.
I’m going to try to normalize the term “Emanski’d” as a euphemism for one’s calendar being completely booked up (back to back to back!). If you watched sports at all in the 1990s-2000s, you know. As in “I’d love to get together but I’m totally Emanski’d on Tuesday”. Let’s do this.
Snow and Winter are completely overrated. Unless you’re involved in a snow-related sport, it’s just a hassle. I’m over this nonsense. Give me 67 degree weather.
I’m really excited for AI image generation to get better and fully solve the character consistency problem. I have a quixotic notion that I’ll produce great political cartoons and children’s stories. I’ll likely do neither, but the idea is appealing.
I just learned the term patrimonialism. Which Jonathan Rauch describes as “not the same as authoritarianism. And often it can be, and in fact, frequently is layered on top of democratic politics.”
Share this post