Richard

Every business decision reflects a value system, even if it’s not named outright. When sales drop, do you cut costs or beef up your sales team once you’ve confirmed your sales strategy still works? That choice reveals where you put your weight, i.e., what you prioritize when resources are constrained but the company still has room to maneuver.

For me, the answer is to invest in the right people. However, some organizations make the choice of never calling out which approach is driving their decision-making.

Instead of making a strategic choice, these companies operate from unnamed assumptions. This leaves their leaders in a precarious situation. When a crisis hits, some choose security while others choose growth, creating confusion and conflict. That is a value killer.

It’s people who create value, however you define it — be it profit, revenue, standards or culture — and the leader’s job is to give them the clarity they need to align their roles with organizational goals. So here is how to bring those values to the surface to create space for principled decisions, even when the right path isn’t easy or perfect.

Related: Why Profits Over People Is Destined to Fail

The cost of unnamed priorities

Decision-making can be a good gauge of how well an organization is aligning its priorities. The bigger the company, the higher the cost of people pulling in different directions. McKinsey found that fewer than half of the 1,200 global business leaders it surveyed described their decisions as timely, and many of their decision-making processes were ineffective.

Decision paralysis does not afflict companies because they lack data like sales, profit and headcount, but because they haven’t named their values or aligned their value within the company as part of their culture. When priorities aren’t explicit, people judge each other’s actions through their own value lens. Then they get frustrated when the other party is doing it differently.

There are exceptions. When survival is at stake due to looming bankruptcy or market crashes, the scope of decision-making narrows and cost-cutting becomes unavoidable. However, in most downturns, I have to align the whole team on what we should do. It’s then that I prioritize people over short-term profit concerns, not because I ignore financial results, but because empowered people build sustainable businesses over time.

When values clash

The tension between people and profit isn’t theoretical — it’s a lived reality on a daily basis. Corporate culture is basically an aligned value system that needs to be called out so everyone follows it to maximize effectiveness.

We need to see value systems not as obstacles, but as guiding forces. They help reveal what matters most when trade-offs feel murky. Think about these clashes of values, which companies of different sizes may face without clear priorities:

• Speed vs. quality: Do you ship fast or perfect the product before going to market?

• Innovation vs. efficiency: Explore new markets or optimize current operations?

• Customer satisfaction vs. margins: Absorb costs to build reputation or protect profitability of the current quarter?

• Centralization vs. autonomy: Head-office control or local decision-making?

Confronted with these kinds of tensions, I don’t aim to impose my values, but I also don’t believe avoiding the conversation serves anyone. Instead of choosing between competing values, the goal is to agree on the structure for how we balance them or prioritize one over the other under what conditions. Forget neutrality. Prioritizing and balancing values is not a 50-50 proposition. Instead, we first have to lean into conflict to create clarity.

Related: Holding True to Your Values Is an Essential Decision-Making Metric

Bringing values to the surface

The best approach to get everyone on the same page is practical, although perhaps sometimes uncomfortable. If I am on the management team and there’s disagreement between whether to cut costs or invest in more people, let that argument surface at the table so everyone can discuss it from their own perspective.

Cost-cutting is not necessarily anti-people. And investing in people is definitely not anti-profit for the long run. But it may feel the wrong way when decisions aren’t grounded in a shared value framework.

The safety versus speed crisis over at OpenAI showed how misaligned values can play out if leaders are divided. The board operated from OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission that put safety first, while CEO Sam Altman valued speed to market. When Altman was briefly fired in 2023, the chaos that followed — employee revolt and investor panic — put the organization at existential risk.

The resolution came only when OpenAI built a frame that let them hold both safety and innovation together. To avoid value killers like OpenAI’s one-time crisis, values need to be named explicitly. If there’s conflict over assumed values, this is your opportunity to build structures that hold them in balance.

Related: How Putting People Before Profit Fueled My Company’s Long-Term Success

Values as navigation tools

The lesson from OpenAI was that every growing organization faces moments when values seem to clash. In mission-driven companies especially, scaling brings tension between staying true to purpose and chasing market opportunities. Rather than avoiding that tension, it must be confronted.

This isn’t about moral superiority or choosing sides in some philosophical debate. The organizations that thrive are the ones that make their priorities explicit and have the agility to balance them when they appear to conflict. That’s what putting people first actually means: giving your team the clarity they need to navigate complex choices and create lasting value together.

In today’s game, our laptops are mission-critical. But here’s the thing: hauling your main device everywhere—flights, coffee shops, meetings—is risky. One drop, one spill, and you’re scrambling.

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Five years ago, I hit rock bottom.

From the outside, my life looked like a highlight reel: scaling social enterprises, writing bestsellers, sharing stages with world-famous leaders. But behind the curtain, I was exhausted, angry, and disconnected. My health was crumbling under chronic pain, brain fog and a complete loss of purpose.

The hard truth about burnout is this: you can look like you’re winning while you’re falling apart. I had pushed so hard, for so long, that I hollowed out from the inside. It wasn’t just overwork. It was a disconnection from what mattered — physically, mentally, spiritually.

That collapse became a turning point. Out of desperation, I started exploring a new path anchored in science and self-awareness. What I discovered was a trifecta: biohacking, longevity medicine and fulfillment. Together, they restored my energy and clarity.

In this article, I’ll focus on biohacking — because it was the gateway that reconnected me at the cellular level and gave me the foundation to rebuild.

Rediscovering energy

Biohacking is often misunderstood as a fringe obsession with gadgets and supplements. But at its core, it’s simple: creating the conditions for your body and mind to function at their best. Think of it as working on the smallest unit of life — your cells and microbiome — so they can repair damage, fight disease and fuel growth.

My journey started with the basics: sleep, nutrition and movement.

Years of neglect had left me with inflammation, lingering injuries and brain fog. Traditional medicine had no answers.

Everything shifted when I met Dave Asprey, the founder of the modern biohacking movement. His philosophy was simple: change your environment — inside and out — and you can change your life.

Dave’s story mirrored my own. At 28, despite outward success, he faced arthritis, prediabetes, cognitive decline and the biochemistry of someone twice his age. Determined to reverse it, he lost over 100 pounds, regained his energy and boosted his IQ. His journey sparked the creation of The Bulletproof Diet and the global biohacking community.

Related: Why Smart Entrepreneurs Are Betting Big on Biohacking

Rebuilding from the ground up

I began experimenting with practices that seemed too simple to be transformative: cold plunges, infrared light, grounding in nature, fasting, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and a complete diet reset. Slowly, my energy returned.

When I sought treatment for an old rugby injury that left me limping for years, I turned to regenerative medicine: stem-cell therapy and plasma exchanges. For the first time in decades, I walked without pain.

But the biggest breakthrough wasn’t physical. With energy came clarity. With clarity came purpose. For the first time in years, I could hear the quiet voice of what mattered most.

Lessons for entrepreneurs

So what does this have to do with building a company? Everything.

Entrepreneurs pride themselves on outworking everyone else. But exhaustion is not a strategy. Your body is your most undervalued asset, and when you neglect it, your business pays the price.

Here are five practices that changed my life — and can change the way you lead:

1. Own your mornings
   I used to wake up and dive into email. Now I guard the first hours of the day for myself: meditation, movement, and cold exposure. These rituals anchor me before the world demands my attention.

2. Treat recovery as fuel, not weakness
   Sleep, downtime, and therapies like hyperbaric oxygen aren’t indulgences. They’re performance multipliers. Recovery is what sustains high output.

3. Align biology with purpose
   Energy without direction accelerates burnout. Energy with purpose drives innovation, collaboration, and fulfillment.

4. Use stress as a tool
   Cold plunges, fasting, and breathwork are forms of “hormetic stress” — controlled challenges that build resilience. When you train your body to handle stress, you lead better under pressure.

5. Build rituals, not resolutions
   Change doesn’t come from hacks you try once. It comes from rituals you repeat daily. My 4:15 a.m. wake-up, morning oxygen sessions, and meditation aren’t experiments — they’re anchors.

Related: I Biohacked My Way to Better Mood, Sleep and Job Performance — and You Can, Too. Here’s How.

From burned out to fueled up

Looking back, burnout was the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to confront the unsustainable way I was living and leading.

It took all three pillars — biohacking, longevity medicine and fulfillment — to rebuild my health. Biohacking gave me a reset at the cellular level. Longevity medicine created a long-term plan. Fulfillment reconnected me to purpose.

Today, I lead with presence and energy. I show up better for my family. And I build from a place of alignment, not exhaustion.

The lesson is simple: when you restore yourself, you don’t just lead better. You live better.

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Friday that he had a “very productive” call with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and that “progress” has been made “on the approval of the TikTok Deal.”

A White House official told CNBC that the call began at 8 a.m. ET. Although the matter does not appear to have been finalized, Trump wrote that he can “appreciate the TikTok approval” and that the two leaders will meet again in November at the APEC Summit in South Korea.

“I just completed a very productive call with President Xi of China. We made progress on many very important issues, including Trade, Fentanyl, the need to bring the War between Russia and Ukraine to an end, and the approval of the TikTok Deal,” Trump wrote. “The call was a very good one. We will be speaking again by phone, appreciate the TikTok approval, and both look forward to meeting at APEC!”

Related: Billionaire Investor Frank McCourt Jr. Wants to Do More Than Buy TikTok — He Wants to Transform the Entire Internet. Here’s How.

Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the “framework” for a TikTok deal had been reached with China. Then, Trump extended the deadline for a TikTok deal for another 90 days, until December 16, with an Executive Order. It is the fourth extension issued since Congress passed a law last year requiring TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, to sell the popular app or face a ban in the U.S.

CNBC’s David Faber reported earlier this week that TikTok’s U.S. owners will consist of new and existing investors. Oracle, which has been TikTok’s U.S. cloud provider since 2022, will keep its agreement with the company, sources told Faber. CBS reports that the private equity firm, Silver Lake, is also involved. Reports noted ByteDance would keep an ownership stake.

Bids to buy the app have been submitted by a slew of notable business leaders, including the team of Kevin O’Leary, billionaire former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in “The People’s Bid.” AI startup Perplexity, Amazon, and Applovin all submitted separate proposals as well.

Related: President Donald Trump Suggests Canceling Quarterly Reporting: ‘This Will Save Money’

Wearing about a dozen hats at once is part of the job for business owners. From sales to payroll to paying vendors, there’s always another number that needs crunching. That’s why many small businesses, freelancers, and accountants swear by QuickBooks® Desktop Pro Plus—and now you can get the 2024 edition with a lifetime license for just $199.97 (MSRP $699), through October 5.

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As a business owner, balancing a 60-hour work week with family time is already hard enough without screens getting in the way. If you’re looking for a meaningful way to connect with your kids, Readmio makes story time feel like something special again.

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Add some magic to story time

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When you ask founders where the vast majority of their money goes, what are they going to say? Typically, they will cite some mix of customer acquisition, product development and office upgrades. One area that often goes unmentioned (and is frequently overlooked during lean times) is how businesses treat and invest in their people.

Benefits, employee development and culture initiatives are often viewed as “nice-to-have” budget add-ons. Still, in reality, they’re some of the most innovative ways a company can optimize its productivity and performance. When strategically applied, perks like peer mentorship, half-day Fridays, and paid conference access can directly boost engagement and retention — not just morale.

Related: I Transformed My Company With Employee Ownership — Here’s Why You Should Too

For example, Adobe’s ‘Kickbox’ program, which provides employees with time and resources to test creative ideas, has led to measurable increases in innovation pipeline contributions. This program essentially provides employees with an entrepreneur’s mindset and resources, allowing them to uniquely transform a company from the inside out.

This isn’t just about perks, it’s about systems. While programs like Adobe’s Kickbox exemplify the power of culture-driven innovation, the real competitive edge comes when culture is treated not as a collection of feel-good initiatives, but as a measurable, strategic system. Culture isn’t effective when it’s aspirational; it’s effective when it’s operational. That’s where many founders miss the mark; they underestimate how much poor culture costs and how much great culture can yield.

Related: Why Smart Entrepreneurs Are Betting Big on Biohacking

How a systematic approach to culture boosts profitability

Before diving into tactics, it’s essential to understand the cost of neglecting culture and how a systematic approach can flip it into a profit center. Labor costs extend far beyond salaries; they are deeply influenced by infrastructure, including benefits, training, leadership development and retention strategies. These components aren’t merely perks mentioned briefly during onboarding; they have a direct impact on your bottom line. In fact, according to SHRM survey data, replacing a single employee can cost anywhere from 50% to 60% of their annual salary.

Related: How Cultural Understanding and Adaptation Drive Business Success

For example, if an employee earns $60,000 a year, it might cost the company $30,000–$36,000 just to replace them. This makes high turnover incredibly expensive for the business in the long run, making it one of the strongest financial arguments for investing in culture, retention and internal development. In short, turnover isn’t just an inconvenience; it poses a significant threat to the company’s bottom line.

Let’s use a concrete example. Chick-fil-A has higher revenues per store than McDonald’s, Starbucks or Subway while maintaining the lowest marketing budget among the three franchises. Business insiders want to know: what is their secret sauce? In all seriousness, Chick-fil-A has shown how a single company can start from the top and systematically redefine its internal culture. This culture consistently demonstrated a high standard of excellence in every step of the process, whether it was training, expectations or leadership development. Culture is not a hidden business trick; it’s a strict, staff-wide policy.

In essence, culture has to be operational to scale. Values that do not materialize into systems (KPIs, performance feedback, advancement process) become noise and nothing else, as their existence is of no benefit to both present and potential employees. In fact, studies show that organizations with strong employee engagement are 21% more profitable.

Relying solely on star leaders is risky; a culture that leans heavily into its internal systems, including and supporting its employees in a way that is clearly intentional, achieves a type of success that is easily repeatable. Research from major companies worldwide indicates that organizations tightly aligned in terms of strategy and culture are 2.2 times more likely to outperform their peers in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) growth.

When companies operationalize culture into measurable, repeatable systems rather than relying solely on charismatic leaders, they create a scalable framework for sustained performance, profitability and growth.

Implementing a sustainable culture

Most founders assess profitability primarily through customer acquisition costs, margins or product-market fit. Yet, intentionally developing a systematic organizational culture can significantly strengthen financial performance by directly reducing employee turnover, improving productivity and ensuring operational consistency. Investing in culture undoubtedly gives businesses a measurable advantage: lower replacement and training expenses, increased productivity from each employee, and predictable processes that enhance long-term scalability and profitability.

David Royce, founder of Aptive Environmental, offers a compelling example of how cultural infrastructure can drive profitability. Before Aptive scaled to become one of the fastest-growing pest control companies in the U.S., Royce bootstrapped his first business with $300,000 earned between college semesters. That early discipline shaped a founder’s playbook he has followed ever since: start lean, prove the model, reinvest profits and stay independent — avoiding outside capital to maintain long-term control.

Related: 7 Easy Habits That Will Make Your Business More Sustainable (And Save You Money)

At Aptive, that playbook included building a culture that could scale. Rather than treating culture as an abstract ideal or motivational add-on, Royce approached it like any other operational system. He invested heavily in elite sales training, gamified performance tracking, and merit-based advancement initiatives that measurably increased productivity and retention. The result: a culture that doesn’t just inspire, it self-replicates. Royce’s insight is clear: like logistics or CRM software, culture must be built, budgeted and operationalized if it’s going to support real growth.

The bottom line

A well-integrated company culture reduces churn, boosts productivity, and safeguards your profitability. Building a clearly defined, marketable workplace culture can significantly impact your long-term success. Here’s how you can start immediately:

1. Quantify your churn costs

Identify exactly how much turnover is costing your business. Once you have a clear number, directly reinvest a percentage of these savings into structured onboarding, continuous training, and robust retention programs explicitly designed to reduce turnover.

2. Develop a culture blueprint

Don’t leave culture to chance or individual management styles. Document your core values, and develop standardized, repeatable processes — including KPIs, recognition frameworks and clear career advancement paths—to ensure your culture is consistently reinforced throughout your organization.

3. Integrate culture into financial planning

Treat leadership development, internal communications, and performance measurement as essential, fixed investments — not optional expenditures. By budgeting consistently for these initiatives, you pave the way for streamlined operations, improved scalability, and sustainable growth.

Remember: Culture compounds when intentionally cultivated. Founders who prioritize culture early set themselves up for sustainable profitability and scalable success.

The leadership at Anthropic, a leading AI startup that raised billions of dollars earlier this month, is cautioning the world that AI is “likely” to take over jobs.

At the Axios AI + DC Summit on Wednesday, Anthropic Cofounders Dario Amodei and Jack Clark, who also serve as CEO and Head of Policy, respectively, said that AI’s potential to cause work displacement is picking up rapidly — and the situation is dire enough to warrant a warning.

“As with most things, when an exponential is moving very quickly, you can’t be sure,” Amodei said at the event. “I think it is likely enough to happen that we felt there was a need to warn the world about it and to speak honestly.”

Related: An AI Company With a Popular Writing Tool Tells Candidates They Can’t Use It on the Job Application

Amodei said that government intervention may be necessary to support individuals whose occupations are displaced by AI, and Clark emphasized that Anthropic predicts a substantial “scale of disruption” in society due to AI within the next five years.

“You need some kind of policy response,” Clark said.

^{Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei. Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images for HubSpot}

Anthropic raised $13 billion earlier this month at a $183 billion valuation. The AI startup released a report earlier this week that suggested that AI has the “potential” to displace workers. The majority of businesses using its chatbot, Claude, were automating tasks instead of helping people accomplish them. Claude had 30 million monthly active users globally as of the second quarter of this year.

“Given clear automation patterns in business deployment, this may also bring disruption in labor markets,” the report stated.

Related: The ‘Godfather of AI’ Says Artificial Intelligence Needs Programming With ‘Maternal Instincts’ or Humans Could End Up Being ‘Controlled’

Amodei, meanwhile, has spoken about AI’s potential to replace human work before. In March, he stated that AI would take over writing code for companies within the next year. In May, he predicted that AI would wipe out half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years, causing unemployment to rise to 20%.

And he’s not alone in issuing warnings. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the Godfather of AI due to his pioneering work in creating the technology, said in June that AI is going to “replace everybody” in white-collar jobs. A person and an AI assistant will take over the work of ten people, he predicted.

Hinton suggested paralegals and call center representatives will be some of the first roles replaced. He added that it would take AI some time to become skilled at physical labor, so “a good bet would be to be a plumber.”

In June, Costco extended its hours at some stores for Executive members, adding an hour in the morning from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on weekdays and Sundays and a half hour from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays. By September, the perk applied to Executive members at all Costco stores.

Now, according to a new report released on Thursday from analytics company Placer.ai, the move has resulted in measurable effects in foot traffic for the wholesale giant, “likely improving the shopping experience for members overall” by creating “a more balanced flow of visitors.”

Costco’s earlier hours have shifted visits to earlier in the day while decreasing foot traffic during peak hours (which are typically weekday evenings from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., according to House Beautiful).

Related: These Luxury Items Are Flying Off the Shelves at Costco, According to the Company’s Longtime Chairman

“By extending special hours to Executive members, Costco not only rewards high-value customers, but also reduces congestion during traditional peaks,” the report reads.

Costco’s latest quarterly report, released in late May for the third quarter ending May 11, showed that sales momentum was strong for the company. Net sales increased 8% to $61.96 billion, up from $57.39 billion the previous year. The warehouse chain reports its fourth quarter earnings on Sept. 25.

An Executive membership at Costco costs $130 per year. The Business and Gold Star memberships are each priced at $65 annually.

Memberships are a prime revenue source for Costco, allowing the company to keep prices low by offsetting operating costs. Costco made about $4.8 billion in membership sales during the 2024 fiscal year ending September 1, 2024, up from $4.6 billion in 2023. In 2024, membership fees comprised close to 65% of Costco’s overall $7.4 billion net income for the year.

Related: Costco’s CEO Says This Product Is the ‘Most Important Item We Sell’

The company had nearly 137 million cardholders in 2024, with a 90% renewal rate, per the company’s 2024 annual report. Close to half of that count (47%) were Executive members.

Costco has 905 warehouses globally, including 624 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, according to the quarterly report.

Related: Here’s How Much a Costco Gold Bar Purchased in 2024 Is Worth Today