So what do you do when the institution you built your career around decides you’re a line item to be optimized?

In this episode, Alex Randall Kittredge (ARK Strategy) and John Brewton (Operating by John Brewton) unpack John’s latest piece: The Last Employee. The First Founder — a story about the director of strategic operations who followed every rule, got restructured anyway, and ended up building something better.

What they cover:

* Why the traditional employment contract is broken — not bending, broken

* The portfolio career as a hedge against structural displacement

* How the same tools eliminating corporate jobs are empowering solo operators

* Why distribution — not skills — is the new career moat

* SEO vs. AEO: how to get found as AI replaces Google search

* What the February jobs report (-92,000 jobs vs. +55,000 expected) means for knowledge workers right now in February 2026.

Whether you’re a Chief of Staff, a Director of Strategy, a consultant, or a knowledge worker trying to understand what comes next — this conversation is for you.

🔗 ARK Strategy: https://alexrandallkittredge.substack.com/subscribe

🔗 Operating by John Brewton:

Timestamp:

00:00 — Cold open and introductions — Alex Randall Kittredge (ARK Strategy) and John Brewton (Operating by John Brewton)

01:00 — The old playbook: grades → school → corporate → safety. Why a generation believed it.

02:30 — The death of the employment contract — and why it’s structural, not cyclical

04:45 — What a portfolio career actually looks like: W-2, fractional, consulting, Substack paid

07:00 — The compressed Industrial Revolution: Engels’ Pause in a single decade

08:30 — Schumpeter’s creative destruction — we’re in the destruction phase, but creativity is already happening

10:00 — The WEF number: 92M displaced, 78M new roles — and why the new jobs aren’t visible yet

11:00 — Honest skills audit: what AI has already made worthless (Excel macros, PowerPoint craft)

11:45 — Alex’s story from an AI demo night: the agent that vibe-coded a website instead of a deck

14:00 — Breaking down John’s piece — the fictitious director who lost everything and built something better

15:00 — The infrastructure flip: tools built to cut corporate costs now let one person replace a department

16:00 — Why human judgment is still the moat — the AI webinar nobody could log into

17:20 — Alex’s real-life version: solo consulting LLC, S-Corp election, active job search, straddling both worlds

19:00 — Distribution as the true differentiator when everyone has the same tools

20:30 — SEO is dead, AEO is the play: why repetition of your core terms matters for AI indexing

22:00 — The identity barrier: from “I’ll never post a selfie video” to posting without thinking twice

24:00 — What owning your distribution actually requires — consistency, platform risk, and why you can’t stop

27:30 — The NDA insight: your audience list is your customer list

29:00 — Breaking news: February jobs report — economy loses 92K jobs vs. +55K expected

30:30 — The gate is open. The question is who walks through it.

32:00 — Why now may be the right moment to start — capital is flowing even as employment contracts

33:00 — Close and next episode

ARK Strategy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Alex Randall Kittredge helps technical CEOs translate complex organizational challenges into strategic clarity, grounded in data, history, and human insight. With 9+ years leading transformation initiatives across Fortune 100s, PE-backed ventures, and high-growth startups, he specializes in operationalizing strategy, integrating M&A acquisitions, and designing change programs that stick.

He is the founder and Managing Director of APR Strategic Consulting, a strategic advisory firm for technical founders and CEOs. He mentors entrepreneurs through Oxford Entrepreneurs Network, CamEntrepreneurs, and Plug and Play Tech Center.

Kittredge holds degrees from Columbia University and the University of Cambridge, along with executive education in strategy execution and organizational leadership from Harvard Business School.

He is the author of the forthcoming book, How Your Side Hustles Will Save You: Creating a Durable Career that Transcends the Corporate Ladder.

In this episode of Build to Thrive, host Juan Salas-Romero is joined by Alex Randall-Kittredge (ARK Strategy) and Katie Barnes (Systems & Side Eyes) to break down why the old employment contract is broken, why mid-career corporate professionals are most vulnerable to AI displacement, and how to build a portfolio career before you’re forced to.

We cover the rise of fractional work, how to unbundle your professional identity from your employer, the difference between freelance vs. fractional vs. portfolio careers, and why “identity lag” may be the real reason professionals struggle to make the leap.

Whether you’re a corporate employee, founder, or operator considering going fractional, this conversation will help you understand what your experience is actually worth — and how to package it.

What you’ll learn:

* Why AI is eliminating full-time roles faster than most expect

* The “identity lag” problem holding professionals back

* Fractional vs. freelance vs. portfolio careers — key differences

* How to price and manage multiple fractional clients

* Why building in public before you need to is the real career moat

* The “entrepreneur of the self” framework for career resilience

ARK Strategy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Timestamp:

00:00 Intro & welcome

00:36 Alex introduces ARK Strategy & the post-AI career landscape

01:22 Katie Barnes introduces Systems & Side Eyes

01:50 The AI agent mishap: what went wrong with the webinar

05:08 Why the social contract of employment is broken

07:28 Who’s most at risk from AI? Mid-career knowledge workers

08:14 The identity problem: when your whole self is one employer

09:13 “Identity lag” — when your self-story can’t keep pace with AI

09:45 Katie’s fractional journey: knowing what you do vs. selling it

11:33 How to validate market demand before building your offer

13:02 The 60-second value test: no brand names allowed

16:39 Thinking in five-year career sprints & the 100-year life

18:01 Building outside your job when you’re a parent

20:59 AI lowers the floor to execution — and commodifies generic expertise

22:28 What AI still can’t do: judgment, persuasion, human trust

23:38 AI replacing entire corporate departments (legal, finance, ops)

26:44 The “Rent a Human” trend: AI hiring people

27:38 SHRM AI + Human Intelligence conference takeaways

29:08 Why founders resist fractional workers — and why they shouldn’t

30:00 How fractional ops workers set up systems and hand off to full-timers

33:07 Fractional vs. freelance vs. portfolio careers — key differences

35:11 Treating your career like an investment portfolio

37:20 How to price yourself when demand exceeds your hours

38:23 Building visibility & overcoming the identity barrier

41:14 Foucault’s “entrepreneur of the self” — now just called Tuesday

42:27 Solo founders building $5M agentized businesses

43:18 LLC vs. S-Corp: the practical path to going independent

44:54 Closing thoughts & where to find all three newsletters

Most career advice tells you to fix your mindset OR build a strategy. This conversation goes deeper: because neither one alone gets you out.

Alex Randall Kittredge (ARK Strategy) and Dennis Berry (Elite Leaders) break down the real reasons knowledge workers stay stuck: identity wrapped up in a job title, the collapse of the old corporate social contract, and the dopamine trap of social media that kills productivity before you even start.

In this conversation:

* Why tying your identity to a company is a career liability — and what to replace it with

* The “vision plan” framework Dennis uses with everyone from early-stage entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 CEOs

* Mindset vs. strategy: which comes first, and why it’s the wrong question

* How AI is forcing even non-entrepreneurs to think like entrepreneurs

* The human skills AI still can’t replicate — and how to double down on them

* Why the old “school → job → pension → retire” path is gone and what actually replaces it

* Practical tactics: phone grayscale mode, killing notifications, the 1% daily progress rule

Whether you’re climbing inside a system or building your own, the answer starts with knowing where you’re going.

Subscribe to ARK Strategy on Substack: alexrandallkittredge.substack.com/subscribe

Subscribe to Elite Leaders on Substack:

Tags: career strategy, portfolio career, post-AI economy, career reinvention, knowledge worker, entrepreneur mindset, productivity, focus, Dennis Berry, Elite Leaders, ARK Strategy, Substack, how to leave corporate, career independence, AI and jobs, burnout, career pivot, vision planning, solopreneur

Core Themes:

1. The Identity Trap: Both Alex and Dennis opened on the same diagnosis: too many people build their entire sense of self around a job title or company. When that job disappears — through layoff, burnout, or AI displacement — there’s nothing left to stand on. The fix isn’t just mindset work; it’s building an independent identity through purpose-driven action.

2. Mindset vs. Strategy: Chicken or Egg?: Dennis argues you start with a vision plan — a written North Star that gives you direction before you have confidence. Alex frames it as building the structural conditions (multiple revenue streams, portfolio career) that generate confidence as a byproduct. Both agree: you can’t wait to feel ready. You build, and clarity follows.

3. The Death of the Old Social Contract: The “school → corporate job → 30 years → pension → gold watch” path is functionally gone. Companies lay off quarterly. AI is accelerating displacement. Dennis’s point: not everyone is built to be an entrepreneur, but the economic environment is increasingly forcing entrepreneurial thinking on everyone regardless.

4. The Human Advantage in an AI World: Technical skills are being commoditized by AI. What remains irreplaceable: emotional intelligence, presence, persuasion, and human connection. Dennis’s surgeon client can be surpassed by AI in the OR — but not in the pre-op room with a terrified patient. That’s the moat worth building.

5. AI as Efficiency, Not Apocalypse: Dennis reframes AI through a historical lens: washing machines didn’t destroy labor, they freed time for new creation. AI is the same pattern. Panic is the wrong response. Adaptation — learning what AI enables rather than what it replaces — is the only viable strategy.

6. The Dopamine Trap: Social media platforms are engineered to hijack attention via dopamine hits (notifications, red dots, short-form video). Dennis has had all phone notifications off for 4+ years. Alex runs his devices in grayscale. Both advocate for radical focus: one task, no interruptions, consistent 1% daily progress.

7. The Vision Plan: Dennis’s universal starting framework, used with every client regardless of level: write down your vision. Not because it’s permanent, but because without a North Star, your subconscious defaults to comfort and distraction. The vision can evolve. Not having one guarantees drift.

Key Quotes:

* “The goal is to never retire. The goal is just to not have to work.” — Dennis Berry

* “Short-form video is the death of all productivity.” — Dennis Berry

* “The magic formula: action, consistency, persistence, resilience, patience.” — Dennis Berry

* “I don’t fundamentally believe in the values of the thing I’m doing day in and day out — that’s the most dangerous type of burnout.” — Alex Randall Kittredge

* “Every notification is off on my phone. It’ll keep you stuck exactly where you are.” — Dennis Berry

Actionable Takeaways:

* Write a vision plan — even a rough one. It gives your subconscious a direction to move toward instead of defaulting to distraction.

* Turn off all phone notifications.

* Try grayscale mode on your devices to reduce the dopamine pull of screens.

* Do 1% per day on the thing that moves you toward your goal. That’s it.

* Audit your current activities: does what you’re doing right now actually move you toward your vision? If not, stop.

* Use corporate employment strategically — to learn skills — but don’t build your identity around it.

Timestamp:

00:00 Introductions — ARK Strategy meets Elite Leaders

00:44 Why tying your identity to a job title is a career liability

01:58 Focus, productivity, and following a path not designed for you

02:42 Not everyone is wrong for corporate — knowing the difference

03:35 Mindset vs. strategy: which comes first?

04:13 The death of the "school → job → pension" path

05:28 The vision plan: Dennis's universal starting framework

06:16 Purpose alignment — the surgeon who knew at 17 vs. the ski bum who didn't

07:54 If your job doesn't align with your goal, you have to change

08:04 The most dangerous type of burnout — values misalignment

08:58 Billions are trapped in a system that no longer exists

11:42 Why you should work in corporate — just don't build your identity around it

12:15 AI is forcing entrepreneurial thinking on everyone

13:30 The human advantage AI can't replicate: EQ, presence, persuasion

14:18 Why robots won't replace surgeons in the room with terrified patients

15:27 AI isn't apocalypse — it's efficiency (the washing machine analogy)

17:59 Every technology shift follows the same arc: resistance → adoption → normal

18:40 Amazon laid off 60,000 people. Panic isn't a strategy. What's next?

19:35 The success formula: action, consistency, persistence, resilience, patience

20:34 Short-form video is the death of all productivity

21:08 How Instagram turns a 5-minute search into 4 hours of giraffe videos

22:05 Many valid paths — the only filter is: does this move me toward my vision?

23:56 Alex's 5-year career plan is obsolete because of AI

25:26 The attention economy is engineered to keep you stuck

26:07 Why most people quit at Level 2 (and what to do instead)

27:44 Your subconscious runs 90% of your behavior — and it's working against you

28:04 Dennis spent months learning Substack. He wanted to quit. He didn't.

29:03 Bezos started with a wooden door on four legs

29:41 James Clear's 1% rule — and why it actually works

30:03 Practical steps: grayscale mode, kill notifications, start the vision plan

31:02 Dennis hasn't had a phone notification in 4 years

32:05 Wrap-up and where to find both newsletters

Key topics:

* Fractional executive vs traditional consulting (embedded execution vs advisory)

* How fractional operators build real systems (inventory, receivables, HR, AI ops)

* Why diversification beats the “gold watch” career model

* AI transformation demand from CEOs and operators

* Pricing strategy: undercharge, overdeliver, then scale

* Burnout: exhaustion vs values misalignment

* The psychological shift from employee to sovereign operator

* 4–6 year timeline to real autonomy

If you’re a founder, operator, executive, or corporate professional navigating layoffs, managed attrition, or AI disruption, this is a tactical discussion on how to reposition your career as a portfolio of assets, not a single paycheck.

Subscribe to ARK Strategy for weekly essays on modern work, power, and career strategy.

Alex Randall Kittredge helps technical CEOs translate complex organizational challenges into strategic clarity, grounded in data, history, and human insight. With 9+ years leading transformation initiatives across Fortune 100s, PE-backed ventures, and high-growth startups, he specializes in operationalizing strategy, integrating M&A acquisitions, and designing change programs that stick.

He is the founder and Managing Director of APR Strategic Consulting, a strategic advisory firm for technical founders and CEOs. He mentors entrepreneurs through Oxford Entrepreneurs Network, CamEntrepreneurs, and Plug and Play Tech Center.

Kittredge holds degrees from Columbia University and the University of Cambridge, along with executive education in strategy execution and organizational leadership from Harvard Business School.

He is the author of the forthcoming book, How Your Side Hustles Will Save You: Creating a Durable Career that Transcends the Corporate Ladder.

Timestamp:

00:00 Intro: Why the fractional executive is the new safety net

01:00 The death of the 30-year career — what changed

01:36 Mass layoffs, managed attrition, and the contractorization of work

02:02 John’s path into fractional work: what the transition actually looks like

03:22 Fractional vs. consulting: what’s the real difference?

05:08 Freelance vs. fractional: tasks vs. outcomes, commodity vs. scarce expertise

06:19 Large corporates vs. small business — two different fractional markets

07:30 How the fractional CFO model expanded into COO, CMO, HR, and beyond

08:41 Why senior executives would be bored working full-time at a small company

10:10 Fractional roles are moving down the value chain — what’s next

10:36 Alex’s experience: when clients want to hire you full-time and you have to say no

11:40 The generalist vs. specialist debate in the AI era

13:19 Sovereignty through scarcity: the fractional executive as their own allocator

14:00 Is the generalist the future — or the past? The nonlinear career path

15:01 John’s “Generalist Problem” piece and the case for multi-specialization

16:49 Polymaths: the next evolution beyond generalism?

17:06 The psychological shift required — stop asking permission to have multiple identities

17:55 Treating your career like a portfolio: compounding assets vs. climbing a ladder

18:30 The pricing mistake most fractional executives make

19:03 John’s contrarian take: price low, get reps, build a reputation for over-delivering

20:37 When and how to raise your prices as demand grows

21:32 Two types of burnout: exhaustion vs. values misalignment

22:57 John’s four years of no vacation — what extreme work demands look like in practice

25:57 The economic case: single employer as concentration risk

26:28 Why fractional work makes you anti-fragile

27:10 Pricing power as a function of scarcity and demand

28:03 The hard truths: brand clarity, emotional resilience, and financial runway

29:44 John on growing up entrepreneurial — and why this work is all he’s ever known

30:47 What to actually expect when making the leap: hours, uncertainty, and grace

32:09 Closing: where to find ARK Strategy and Operating by John Bruton

Ilias built a hospitality business from a single bar into a multi-million-dollar operation with 40+ employees in Italy, executed a strategic exit in 2024, and relocated to Costa Rica after a 4-year transition plan designed to test remote leadership, delegation systems, and operational resilience.

This livestream covers:

* The hostile regulatory and cultural environment for entrepreneurs in Italy and the EU

* Why “if you can succeed in Italy, you can succeed anywhere”

* The 3 business growth levers most founders ignore

* Why raising prices is the most powerful scaling strategy

* The mathematics of delegation: “3 people at 60% = 180% output”

* The psychology of entrepreneurial happiness

* The “Costa Rica illusion” vs. reality

* Why “wherever you go, there you are” applies to founders

* How to build a business that supports your life, not consumes it

We also examine the operational difference between strategic work and reactive work, and why many entrepreneurs stay trapped because they refuse to temporarily earn less in order to scale more.

This conversation is for founders, operators, digital nomads, hospitality entrepreneurs, and anyone rethinking work in 2026.

If you’re building a portfolio career or designing location-independent income, this discussion directly aligns with the philosophy behind ARK Strategy.

___

Alex Randall Kittredge helps professionals building careers in a system not designed for them. He is a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Cambridge and began his career as an intelligence analyst before moving into Chief-of-Staff and leadership roles across hedge funds, private equity, and industrials. After leading business transformations and M&A integrations, he now helps founders, CEOs, and investors align people, performance, and culture. He is the founder of APR Strategic Consulting, a strategic advisory firm for technical founders and CEOs. He mentors entrepreneurs and startup founders through Oxford Entrepreneurs Network, CamEntrepreneurs, and Plug and Play Tech Center. He is the author of the forthcoming book, How Your Side Hustles Will Save You: Creating a Durable Career that Transcends the Corporate Ladder.

Timestamp:

00:00 Intro: Startup-grade growth without losing your life

00:41 Ilias’s origin story: from bartender to multi-million dollar business

03:56 Opening his first bar — the accidental path into entrepreneurship

04:19 Scaling to 40+ employees and millions in revenue

04:31 Discovering Costa Rica and deciding to leave it all behind

05:44 The real risk of remote ownership: running a company from the other side of the world

06:30 How he did it: three to four years of testing before fully relocating

07:16 Selling his stake in 2024 and starting over from zero

07:51 Entrepreneurship in Italy vs. America — bureaucracy, stigma, and the social contract

09:47 “If you can make it in Italy, you can make it anywhere”

10:19 Did he sell the business when he moved to Costa Rica? The full answer

11:00 The 12 Strategic Moves framework: what works for solopreneurs vs. funded startups

11:32 Finding the bottleneck — and planning for the future bottleneck

14:21 Testing as honesty: tracking numbers instead of just doing what you like

15:10 The three levers that beat inflation: pricing, frequency, volume

16:19 Lever 1 — Pricing: why raising prices filters out wrong clients and improves results

18:51 Lever 2 — Frequency: growing revenue without adding new customers

19:36 Lever 3 — Volume: why new clients compound on top of better pricing and frequency

20:35 Why 10% + 10% + 10% is not 30% — the math of exponential growth

20:58 Alex on pricing his own advisory work and walking away from wrong-fit clients

21:38 The illusions of moving to paradise — what the “surferpreneur” brand leaves out

22:08 Why Ilias moved to Costa Rica (hint: he wasn’t escaping anything)

24:22 The right way to test a life change: do it incrementally, not impulsively

25:56 “Wherever you go, there you are” — problems that follow you across borders

28:50 Money, happiness, and founder psychology: redefining what “enough” looks like

29:27 Why chasing more money is probably the wrong goal

30:41 Making your first priority in the morning the thing you actually love

32:06 The psychology definition of happiness: the distance between ideal self and actual self

33:18 The dangerous belief about work Ilias held in his 20s — and what it cost him

34:30 Urgent vs. important: the time allocation shift that changed everything

35:57 Time is the only resource money can’t buy more of

36:27 The one uncomfortable decision to make in the next 30 days

37:55 Why delegating at 60% still beats doing it all yourself

39:48 Pura Vida as a management philosophy: letting go of perfection

41:26 Closing: where to find Ilias and ARK Strategy

In this Substack Live, Alex Randall Kittredge and John Bruton unpack the long tail of the Great Resignation — and why the real labor disruption may just be starting.

In 2021, nearly 4 million Americans per month quit their jobs. At the time, it felt like empowerment. Today, it looks more like a structural transition.

In this conversation, we cover:

* Why white-collar corporate jobs are down nearly 3% since 2023

* How payroll revisions suggest employment growth effectively stalled in 2025

* Why healthcare is carrying the job market

* How AI is collapsing 8 roles into 1

* Why Excel, PowerPoint, and analyst-level work are rapidly commoditizing

* The rise of the one- or two-person $80k–$200k business

* Why the “stable job” is becoming a myth

* How to think about portfolio careers in the post-AI economy

John shares a real example of using Claude Opus to replace what once required an entire department’s worth of analytical labor.

The implications are profound: lower costs, higher productivity — and fewer traditional roles.

John and Alex also discuss:

* Underemployment after the 2008 financial crisis

* Burnout among remaining corporate employees

* The psychological aftershock of pandemic isolation

* Creative destruction and what historically follows technological revolutions

* Whether the next five years produce mass displacement… or mass entrepreneurship

The core question:

If the corporate ladder isn’t coming back, what replaces it?

If you’ve been laid off, are stuck in a burnout‑inducing corporate role, or simply sense that the old 35‑years‑at‑one‑company path is gone for good, this episode offers both realism and a roadmap. You’ll hear concrete examples of how to leverage AI as leverage (not a threat), why “creator” is becoming a serious economic category, and how to start building a durable, post‑AI career with online platforms today.

Subscribe to ARK Strategy for weekly analysis on work, power, and durable careers in the post-AI economy.

Timestamp:

00:00 Intro: Unpacking the Great Resignation and what it means today

00:41 The numbers: 3.9M quits per month, 4.5M all-time high in November 2021

01:29 Did the Great Resignation hit John's company? His firsthand experience

02:41 The 2008 financial crisis connection: underemployment and the "lost generation"

03:44 How your first job out of college sets your pay trajectory for a decade

04:12 Graduating in 2020: pandemic commencements, zoom offices, and wanting out

04:50 The soul-searching effect of lockdown isolation — what it changed for people

05:24 The Great Resignation wasn't retirement — it was industry-switching and identity searching

06:44 The technology stack that made self-employment possible: Gmail, Zoom, Substack, and more

07:40 The anxiety is real — but so is the opportunity

08:22 Great Resignation vs. today: from quitting by choice to layoffs by force

09:15 Why lives and in-person conversation matter more as AI deepfakes multiply

10:00 How to prove your expertise when everyone's using AI: do lives about your writing

10:20 A chief of staff recruiter is now filling roles where one person replaces eight

11:00 Goldman Sachs IPO teams: from 11-12 people to AI + one expert

12:02 John's Claude story: 40-minute conversation, 20 minutes of output, better Excel than ever built

13:04 The gut punch realization: entire departments reduced to one manager overseeing agents

13:47 The competitive trap — if your competitor automates first, you have to follow or lose

14:27 "Much of what I've done in my career is completely obsolete now"

15:19 The diminishing marginal returns on Excel, PowerPoint, and technical skills

15:46 Real example: executive board reports that took 10 hours now done in 30 minutes

16:19 White-collar corporate jobs down 2.9% from 2023 to 2026

16:44 The 2025 jobs data: 168,000 total jobs added — and most weren't corporate

17:07 Strip out healthcare, and job growth was basically negative

17:20 The portfolio career as the only logical response

17:34 Forced entrepreneurship: when everyone has to become an entrepreneur of the self

18:09 What does it look like in five years? 1-2 person businesses doing $80K–$200K

18:52 The shift from "grow followers" to "build a business and signal availability"

19:56 Alex's book: How Your Side Hustles Will Save You

20:16 The fluid line between work and non-work — and why side hustles become main hustles

22:53 Hypothetical: if AI tools existed in 2021, would people have gone back to work at all?

23:44 Can AI help us get more accurate economic data? What the Fed economists are hoping for

24:55 The BLS revised employment down by ~1M in 2024 and ~900K in 2025

25:21 The "good jobs" are disappearing — healthcare and hospitality are all that's left

25:36 Why building on Substack right now is the smart career hedge

25:48 Is "content creator" a cringe term? Alex vs. John debate

26:43 Viewing the current moment with empathy — this disruption is real and painful

27:01 Historical perspective: creative destruction eventually creates new jobs and sectors

28:04 The generation that gets caught in the middle — and what they face

28:25 Closing: where to find ARK Strategy and Operating by John Bruton

* Big layoff numbers often mix “newly laid off” with “still unemployed” (so the scary aggregate total isn’t the same thing as fresh cuts hitting this month).

* Challenger, Gray tracks layoff announcements, not confirmed separations — and announcements can be timed around earnings/stock signaling rather than immediate headcount reduction.

* Public-company layoffs dominate the news cycle, but they’re not the whole labor market; the private/small-business economy drives a lot of job creation.

* A major share of job losses can come from one unusual source (we discussed the outsized impact of federal-related cuts in the current numbers).

* Small businesses “stopping hiring” matters more than most people realize because it’s where a lot of net new jobs typically come from.

* Layoffs have been normalized beyond finance — what used to feel sector-specific now shows up as standard operating procedure across more industries.

* Post-COVID taught companies they could run leaner (and some of today’s “efficiency” push is downstream of those lessons).

* AI is compressing the value of certain production skills (e.g., “deck-making”), while raising expectations for output and breadth.

* The career moat is shifting toward human + cross-functional skill: influence, change management, synthesis, and the ability to operate across domains.

* Early internal warning signs: hiring freezes, blocked backfills, leadership language shifting to “runway/efficiency,” and the classic vibe shift—more closed-door meetings, less transparency, quieter leadership rooms.

If you’re employed and uneasy, this video is a practical lens for separating headlines from signals — and if you’re job searching, it reframes where the real opportunities and risks may be into the future.

If you want us to do more of these, reply with topics you’d like us to cover next.

And thank you Farida Khalaf, Anna Levitt, and many others for tuning into the live video with John Brewton! Join me for my next live video in the Substack app.

ARK Strategy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This story starts in a way you’ll recognize: a mid-sized company with roughly 2,000 employees, a healthy revenue line, and a quiet hemorrhage nobody wanted to look at too closely.

Annual voluntary attrition: ~22%.

On paper, that was “in line with market.” Maybe….

ARK Strategy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Chief of Staff posting that recently crossed my desk fit the pattern perfectly.

Each instilled leadership lessons far beyond the racecourse. That year, I led our team to success against Oxford in the annual Varsity Match, and a few months later, led another crew to win the “ITUR” International Top Universities Regatta in Qingdao, China, against over a dozen highly skilled teams from across the world.

Sailing is a strange sport. It’s at once brutally physical and intensely cerebral.

Many of my closest sailing friends are literally physicists, which makes sense, I suppose…

You’re navigating wind shifts, team dynamics, and your own physical and emotional limits, all in real time, often on little sleep. At times you are, quite literally, steering in the dark.

Here’s what I learned while I was strategizing at the stern:

1. Leadership is about clarity, not control.

As the captain, I wasn’t the best sailor on the team. I didn’t need to be. My job was to set the tone, communicate our goals, and make sure every crew member understood their role and felt supported in it.

Before we left for China, we had barely trained together as a full team. Half of us came from different countries, with different styles and strengths. I quickly realized that micromanagement would sink us. Instead, I built the race plan, created shared language, and let each sailor bring their own excellence to the deck.

And guess what… It worked.

In both Portsmouth and Qingdao, it wasn’t the most technically proficient crew who won —although all teams were very technically adept— it was the most cohesive.

2. Pressure reveals the truth.

The Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge is less a regatta than a rite of passage. The rivalry is fierce, the wind and current is shifty in the Solent, and each tack is scrutinized. Needless to say, the nerves run high.

At ITUR, the pressure was different: we were halfway across the world, jet-lagged, adjusting to strange currents and unfamiliar boats we’d never sailed before. We were racing teams from Melbourne, Moscow, Amsterdam, California and China, and each with something to prove. (I mean, who wants to travel 20+ hours, and lose?).

What I found out is that pressure has a funny way of stripping away everything that’s not essential to success. You can’t fake preparation, or discipline, or trust in your team. You either have it, or you don’t. And if you don’t, the wind, water, and waves will show you right away.

3. Victory isn’t always loud

I’ve won and lost races by less than a few seconds. There are no stadium crowds in sailing, no replay cameras, no roaring applause. And sometimes, you finish the race not even knowing whether you’ve won.

Some say there’s no worse spectator sport than sailing…

The victory in Qingdao was announced over a crackling loudspeaker after deliberations in the protest room. Just a quiet nod and a tired smile from my teammates, before being rushed by a Chinese TV crew with many, many questions…

The Varsity win was similar: a handshake, a few pints at the pub with the teams, and back to the library the next day. Oh and a thirty-two pound silver chalice:

What I learned from all this is that real wins don’t need to be loud. The best ones are internal. You feel them deep down in your chest: the satisfaction of having done something hard, together as a team, and having done it well.

4. Legacy isn’t what you win—it’s who you meet along the way.

Looking back, what I’m proudest of isn’t the trophies or the rankings. If leadership is about anything, it’s about forging strong relationships and leaving people better than you found them. The ocean will forget your name, but the people won’t:

Epilogue: Revisiting Qingdao

Sometimes I think back to Qingdao: the neon skyline, the dark-brown “Yellow Sea”, the intense industrial smog just before a heavy August rainstorm, and the salt spray in the air just after. We were nearly all strangers who became a team in just four days. We didn’t all speak the same native language, but yet we understood each other. Time together on the water, however brief, has a way of doing that to you…

And every now and then, when I’m in a corporate boardroom or a job interview or just navigating life in New York City, I think back to those races. How calm can look like chaos. And what looks like chaos externally can be exacting, intentional and entirely deliberate.

And how, if you’re lucky, you realize that leadership isn’t always about being out in front, but rather learning to trust the team that’s standing right beside you, all while never losing touch with the feeling of the wind at your back:

If you liked this post, consider sharing it with your favorite British sailor, or subscribing for even more on leadership development, coaching high-performing teams, modern careers, and the future of work. And the odd sea shanty every now and then…

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Between 2019 and 2021, I served as a Senior Risk & Intelligence Analyst embedded in the venture arm of a multibillion-dollar family office. My job was simple, but not easy: quietly and surgically vet early- to growth-stage companies across Series A through E. Over the course of two years, I supported diligence on over 15+ venture capital investments across AI, manufacturing, climate tech, and media.

These weren’t consumer fluff plays or copycat apps. They were frontier tech companies: climate modeling platforms, linear generators for distributed energy, on-demand digital manufacturing systems, batteryless sensors, and industrial IoT security. The kind of businesses where a mistake isn’t just costly, it’s existential:

The Truth About Diligence

Most diligence decks are performance theater. They’re packed with models, charts, and five-year plans that no founder believes will unfold as written. My work was different. I was tasked with answering three uncomfortable questions:

* Can this founder be trusted?

* Is this business what it claims to be?

* Is there any latent risk we’re going to wish we found sooner?

This meant deep background checks, political exposure screenings, and reputational analysis that went far beyond LinkedIn and Crunchbase. I reviewed litigation histories in the U.S. and abroad. I validated incorporation documents, traced IP ownership, and cross-referenced supplier relationships in regions with less-than-transparent governance standards, among other sources and methods.

Sometimes we found red flags. Other times, we found a smoking gun…

Lessons from the Edge:

1. The best founders leave breadcrumbs.

The most trustworthy Founders and CEOs didn’t just have clean records, they had reputational infrastructure. A track record of co-founders rejoining them, board members who vouched without prompting, vendors who spoke off the record with respect. It’s hard to fake consistency across stakeholders. Trust, like credit, builds over time, and it compounds.

2. Markets move fast, but risk moves faster.

One company in the tech space was impressive on paper, but its co-founder’s prior startups had all declared bankruptcy and left investors holding the bag. It never made the mainstream news, but it changed our risk calculus completely. If you’re not reading between the lines, you’re already behind.

3. Due diligence is asymmetric warfare.

Founders pitch at full volume. Risk analysts work in silence. The job wasn’t to “win” the meeting, it was to keep the fund from losing its credibility or making a bad venture bet. That required rigor, detachment, and often saying “no” when everyone else wanted to say “yes.”

4. It’s not the risk you see. It’s the risk you explain away.

The most dangerous investments weren’t the ones with obvious problems, they were the ones with subtle issues investors talked themselves out of investigating. A disputed patent. A strategic partner with opaque ownership. A founder’s past role at a defunct entity with lingering liabilities. Each one is easy to dismiss. Until it isn’t.

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The Real Work of Venture

Today, the word “diligence” gets thrown around like a formality. But in practice, it’s the last true lever of control investors have before the money leaves the building.

Good diligence isn’t just about finding what’s wrong. It’s about articulating what might go wrong, and equipping the investment committee with eyes wide open. It’s risk storytelling. Strategic paranoia. A final act of fiduciary fidelity in a world chasing exponential upside.

I walked away from those 15+ deals more cautious, but also more convinced: Venture is not a gamble when the diligence is honest, the work is thorough, and the team trusts its analysts to tell the truth, even when it stings. Especially when it sinks the deal.

Have a diligence war story of your own? Or want a playbook for startup red flag detection? Hit reply or leave a comment—I’m offering a venture diligence checklist for those interested in learning more.

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Before I led M&A integrations, built strategic workforce plans for Fortune 100s, or advised CEOs on board-level initiatives… I worked as an executive assistant.

Not the glamorous kind. Think: inbox triage, answering the phone, deck formatting at 1 a.m., coordinating calendars with six time zones and three executives, and the not un-often run to the kitchen to “get me a banana.” And yet, in hindsight, it was the most foundational role I’ve ever held.

Back in the day (or so I'm told) this used to be a prime entry point to a successful career in many industries.

* Bob Iger, current CEO of The Walt Disney Company: started as an assistant.

* David Zaslav, current CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery: started as an assistant.

* Ursula Burns, former CEO of Xerox: started as an assistant.

* Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group (yes that Corcoran): started as an assistant.

* Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO of Netflix: started as an assistant.

* Dara Khosrowshahi, current CEO of Uber: started as an assistant.

* Anne Finucane, Vice-Chair of Bank of America: started as an assistant.

* The list goes on....

Here’s why assistant is still a fast track to the C-Suite:

* Assistants Have a Front Row Seat to Power

As an assistant, you learn who really runs the room. You see how decisions are made, not just the polished announcement after the fact. You learn that influence isn’t about title: it’s about trust, timing, and clarity. Proximity to value creation accelerates your own, and assistant roles offer unparalleled visibility into executive-level decision-making.

* You Learn to Manage Up, Down, and Sideways

Being an effective assistant means sensing what your executive needs before they know it. It means aligning stakeholders who don’t talk to each other. And it means delivering when the stakes are high and the brief is vague.These skills translate directly into boardroom-level effectiveness, and early trust and access allow assistants to build strong internal networks.

* It Teaches You to Translate Strategy into Execution

You start to intuit the unspoken priorities. You see how a 2-minute hallway conversation reshapes a billion-dollar strategy, and how that shows up in a calendar, a slide, a phone call. Execution is influence. And assistants are often the first to translate vision into motion, and demonstrating strategic insight and initiative in these roles often leads to accelerated promotion.

* You Stop Confusing Activity with Impact

You learn quickly that effort doesn’t equal effectiveness. What matters is leverage: what can you uniquely do that unlocks results for others? And focus on the work that makes you vital, not just functional.

* And Finally, You Understand the Real Meaning of Service

Not servitude, but service. Being in service of an outcome that is bigger than yourself. Supporting someone else’s vision so effectively that you become indispensable to them. Some people say ego is the enemy… and that’s how most indispensable people earn their seat at the table. They deliver value first, and gain visibility second.

So to anyone early in their career, or pivoting into a new arena, don’t underestimate the assistant role, or those assistants in your life. It might just be the fastest way to build judgment, influence, and access in your org.

And to those already at the top: remember where real leverage starts. It’s not always in the boardroom. Sometimes, it’s the person who fixed your calendar while you closed that deal, and delivered your salad during a last minute lunch call, all with a brilliantly white smile and a quick flip of the wrist. 

If you've been an assistant as a launchpad for your career, I want to hear from you. Drop a comment below!

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Should I post about my husband this year?

The hesitation surprised me. I’ve been out for years. My identity isn’t a secret… but LinkedIn is different. It’s not a social network; it’s a professional broadcast channel. My audience includes private equity partners, startup founders, Fortune 100 execs. People who trust me with multi-million-dollar transformations. People who expect polish, control, discretion.

But here’s the truth: If we’re going to talk about authenticity, leadership, and culture, then queerness belongs in that conversation too. If I can help a founder navigate their company through M&A chaos, I can also help them build a world where no one feels they have to hide their truth to succeed.

So yes, I posted about my husband this year. Not just because it’s Pride, but because visibility is leadership. And in rooms where silence is often the default, sometimes the most strategic move is to speak calmly and plainly.

I know some will see it as “too personal” for LinkedIn. But I also know that someone else, maybe a rising star, or maybe a future CEO, is watching. And maybe they’ll feel a little more seen, a little more possible, because someone like them didn’t edit himself out of his own professional narrative.

In the end, influence is not just what you say.

It’s also what you’re willing to stand for.

Happy Pride folks.

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A day before the program began, we got an unexpected email: our start date was delayed by 24 hours. No explanation.

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When we finally arrived, HR and Internal Comms sat us down in a nice conference room, usually used for clients, and got straight to the point:

“There will be no return offers. But you’ll get great experience.”

The division we'd just joined as interns was being sold off. Not exactly the onboarding speech I'd had in mind.

By the end of that first week, I’d been quietly reassigned to the Wind-Down Office: the team managing the divestiture of Barclays’ U.S. wealth division to Stifel Financial. What I stepped into wasn’t an internship; it was a corporate postmortem.

Think of it like the FDIC team in windbreakers sent to wind down Silicon Valley Bank in 2023: less strategy, more cleanup.

Because Barclays Wealth hadn’t always been Barclays. It had once been Lehman Brothers. And many of the people around me had lived through that 2008 collapse and the Great Recession.

They didn’t speak in abstractions. They spoke of watching their company’s stock go to zero. Of colleagues crying in glass offices. Of reeling clients.

And, most vividly, of the summer picnic.

Every year, or so I was told, Lehman Brothers held a family day in Central Park. One year it poured, and the MDs grilled hot dogs in ponchos for interns and analysts.

It wasn’t just an event, it was a ritual. A signal that the firm saw itself not just as a business, but as a family.

That made the collapse all the more personal.

Here’s what I learned during my first summer internship:

1) Strategy is fragile: Your five-year plan can vanish in five days. Institutions are only as durable as the trust and clarity that sustain them. And yes... the stock can always go to zero.

2) Culture is memory: Org charts change. What endures are the stories, the rituals, the informal systems people carry with them after the logos are gone.

3) Risk is human: Spreadsheets don’t panic. People do. No model can predict the emotional tipping points that define crisis leadership.

I didn’t know it then, but that summer shaped how I'd approach my career—and why I’m comfortable in crisis, ambiguity, complexity, and leading business transformation.

The only constant in business is change: Suit up. Show up. Act with urgency, humility, and respect for institutional memory.

Collapse always feels distant... until you’ve lived through one.

In today’s high-growth, high-burn world, that lesson feels more urgent than ever.

That’s what “Lehman Legacy” means to me.

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