Dave’s Hot Chicken, which began in 2017, announced on Monday that it was acquired by private equity firm (and Subway owner) Roark Capital in a $1 billion deal.

The chicken shop, which specializes in a hot, Nashville-style of the bird, expects to open 155 locations this year and end 2025 with 400 restaurants worldwide, according to a press release.

Not bad for a company that began with a group of childhood friends in an East Hollywood, California, parking lot.

Related: ‘It Was Like a Drug’: How Dave’s Hot Chicken Grew a Cult Following From a Parking Lot

“This is one of the great entrepreneurial journeys of our time, and now we begin the next chapter in the story,” said Bill Phelps, Dave’s Hot Chicken’s CEO, in a press release. “Our entire organization is excited about the fit between Dave’s Hot Chicken and Roark, and we’re looking forward to continuing to blow our guests’ minds and unlocking growth and value for our franchise partners.”

According to data from Placer.ai, “Big Chicken” is on the up, and Dave’s Hot Chicken was the leader of the flock, with the “most significant” year-over-year visit growth (67.2% in Q4 2024 and 60.0% in Q1 2025) of all the chicken chains, including Huey Magoo’s, Super Chix, and Raising Cane’s.

Dave Kopushyan, the “Dave” in the name, is one of the founders and the chef who began slinging the now-famous hot chicken using portable fryers and folding tables. He told Entrepreneur in 2022 that the company’s fast success is making them work even harder.

“You just have to be present for all of it,” Kopushyan said. “And you have to believe in your product and use that motivation to keep going.”

Related: Private Equity Giant Blackstone Acquires Jersey Mike’s Subs for $8 Billion

In 2019, Dave’s began franchising, and the company says it has sold the rights to more than 1,000 locations in the U.S., the Middle East, and Canada.

Roark is based in Atlanta and specializes in franchised businesses, per the AP. It purchased Subway sandwiches in 2023 and backs a slew of restaurant chains, from Jimmy John’s to Jamba Juice.

^{Dave’s Hot Chicken Sliders – Courtesy of Dave’s Hot Chicken}

Morgan Stanley built its in-house AI tool to tackle a difficult coding problem: reworking old legacy code into more updated coding languages.

Morgan Stanley introduced the AI tool, which is based on OpenAI’s GPT models, in January, per The Wall Street Journal. The tool, called DevGen.AI, translates code in older languages, such as Perl (released in 1987), into plain English, which developers can then use as a basis for rewriting the code into newer languages like Python.

Related: Amazon Cloud CEO Predicts a Future Where Most Software Engineers Don’t Code — and AI Does It Instead

Mike Pizzi, Morgan Stanley’s global head of technology and operations, told WSJ that in the five months since its launch, DevGen.AI has worked through nine million lines of code, saving the firm’s 15,000 developers roughly 280,000 hours of work.

Pizzi said that Morgan Stanley opted to build the tool itself because tech companies didn’t have any solutions that could fit Morgan Stanley’s exact specifications. Commercial tools lacked expertise in deciphering older coding languages, especially those specific to a company.

“We found that building it ourselves gave us certain capabilities that we’re not really seeing in some of the commercial products,” Pizzi told WSJ. “We saw the opportunity to get the jump early.”

Related: Morgan Stanley Plans to Lay Off 2,000 Workers, Replacing Some with AI

Morgan Stanley trained DevGen.AI on languages within its own code base, including languages customized for the company. However, the AI tool still has growing to do when it comes to full translation. Though the tool can, in theory, rewrite code from an older language to a newer one, it doesn’t know how to write the new code efficiently or as well as a human developer, Pizzi said.

That’s why Morgan Stanley is keeping human developers involved in the process of translating old or legacy code to new languages. Pizzi disclosed that the firm will not be reducing its software engineering workforce as a result of the AI tool, though the company did lay off 2,000 of its 80,000-person workforce in March.

Morgan Stanley has released several AI apps for employees, including one that helps them summarize video meetings and another that quickly finds information for them from the company’s body of research.

Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick told investors last year that the AI tools could save employees up to 15 hours per week and be “potentially really game-changing,” per Reuters.

I recently came across a job ad from a boutique U.S. agency that read:

“If you prefer a clock-in, clock-out mentality, we’re not a good fit,” and
“Specific work hours don’t matter when you’re hungry to grow.”

I’ve been around the block enough to know what that really means: long hours, weekend emails and a blurred line between work and everything else.

We like to believe we’ve moved past hustle culture and into the era of workplace wellness. But job postings like this prove many employers are still selling burnout, just wrapped in the language of “ambition.”

I’ve lived both versions of the founder journey: the always-on grind and the wellness-first rebuild. I know exactly what the hustle takes from you — and how small, intentional changes can help you feel better, lead better and build a business that doesn’t burn you out.

Related: Don’t Underestimate The Importance of Employee Well-being. Your Business Will Suffer The Most

When hustle becomes your identity

And why is that a problem?

Startup culture glorifies the idea that more hours equals more achievement. And sure, early wins feel good — that dopamine hit keeps us grinding. Until one day, the hustle is your identity.

In the early days of my company, I lived by this mantra: “If you’re heading home and your competitor’s lights are still on — turn around.” It worked. We scaled from three scrappy founders to a global team of 500. But eventually, I realized: if I didn’t put my team’s wellbeing first, we wouldn’t last. Playing the long game takes more than stamina — it takes sustainability.

The data backs this up. In a recent survey of 138 startup founders, over half reported experiencing burnout in the past year. Two-thirds had seriously considered walking away from the very companies they built. That’s not grit — it’s a system failure.

Even high-profile success stories aren’t immune. Take Loom co-founder Vinay Hiremath. After helping scale the company to a near-billion-dollar exit, he admitted: “I am rich and I have no idea what to do with my life.” His solution? Jump back into hustle culture — because it’s the only thing he knows.

Burnout is a silent epidemic. The World Health Organization formally recognized it as an “occupational phenomenon” in 2019. It rarely makes headlines, but it robs us of focus, clear decisions, and, ultimately, the longevity of the businesses we’re building.

Related: 5 Leadership Strategies That Actually Prevent Employee Burnout

What I did to break the cycle

Health fuels performance — and it starts with you.

When leaders are well-rested and engaged, everything works better: decision-making, team morale, product velocity. And it’s not just a feel-good theory. A 2024 Gallup study of 183,000 businesses across 90 countries found that prioritizing employee wellbeing is a business advantage. Here’s what they found:

• 78% less absenteeism
• Up to 51% lower employee turnover
• 32% fewer errors and defects
• Up to 20% higher productivity
• 23% greater profitability

These results aren’t magic — they’re the compounding effect of cultural choices. And those choices start at the top.

For me, the turning point was simple: I got tired of being tired. I shifted from obsessing over hustle to building a rhythm that supported performance and wellbeing.

Here’s how that looked:

• I set hard boundaries on work hours. I used to wear 14–16 hour days like a badge of honor. But after 8 p.m., I’d spend twice as long on basic tasks. Now, I aim to wrap by 6:30 p.m., which forces better focus— and leaves energy for life outside work.
• I prioritized consistency over hacks. No detoxes or cold plunges. Just a steady rhythm of short breaks between meetings to stretch, breathe, and reset. It keeps mental fatigue from building.
• I moved my body instead of chugging coffee. Short workouts replaced endless caffeine. Even a five-minute break helps reset my energy and cognition. Trying new sports also improved my mental flexibility in surprising ways.
• I let my mind wander on purpose. Some of my best ideas show up when I’m doing nothing—walking, meditating, or scribbling thoughts in a notebook.
• I protected my attention like it was my most valuable resource. Two hours of deep focus every day—no meetings, no multitasking — lets me explore ideas, shape strategy, and think long-term without working late.

And it wasn’t just about me. I brought wellness into our team culture with walking meetings, breathwork breaks and light-hearted wellness challenges. Because a business is only as healthy as the people building it — not just the founder.

Related: Why Being ‘Always On’ Is Killing Your Innovation, and How to Truly Disconnect

If you do just one thing — do this

Give yourself permission to fully disconnect. When you log off, really log off.

No weekend emails. No late-night Slack messages. Don’t say you have “limited access” in your out-of-office message. Say you’re offline — and mean it. That’s how you build a culture where rest is respected, not resented.

The truth is, I still struggle to fully clock out sometimes. When you’re building something you care about, it’s hard to let go. But if you want what you’re building to last, you have to protect the person building it — you. Wellness isn’t a retreat. It’s not a reward. It’s your foundation.

And if we want a new era of work, it starts with building companies where people thrive, not just survive.

It’s a natural instinct for woodpeckers to drill holes in trees primarily to search for food, create nesting cavities and communicate with others through drumming. Just like our feathered woodland friend, having that innate ability to peck away often against the odds is an ability that sets billionaires apart from regular entrepreneurs — and of course being okay with taking risks.

The “Inner Woodpecker” is like having a constant drive to achieve and never being satisfied with a one-off success. It’s that restless feeling that keeps you going, combined with emotional intelligence. The latter is super important for motivating others and handling complex relationships in business. It’s not just about being smart; it’s about understanding and managing your own and other people’s emotions. Like the woodpecker again, the overall endeavor is the development of a persuasive communication capability.

Related: 5 Ways to Master the Persistence That Makes a Great Entrepreneur

Criteria for a successful entrepreneur

I used to believe that anyone could gear themselves to become a successful entrepreneur who could manage large projects, even on a global scale. I later realized this is not the case. Those who possess the “Inner Woodpecker” have the distinct advantage of being consistent in their actions, having a persistent drive to achieve goals and exuding a constant restlessness where each success is merely a step toward the next. Now, it may emerge early or late, influenced by people, circumstances or even arise spontaneously — but without it, sustained success is impossible.

I also used to think that a high IQ was the primary distinguishing feature of successful people. Now, I would rank it third or fourth. You see, there are individuals with average analytical intelligence who achieve quite remarkable results. IQ is a characteristic that can be, well, hired. Charisma, communication skills and leadership qualities — these things that define emotional intelligence — can’t be easily brought or even bought in. It has to exist in the first place.

Large-scale projects necessarily involve a host of colleagues, and often, such individuals are complex beings, frequently demanding, and with their own interests and agendas. How good they are depends on just how motivated they are. Now, creating this motivation is a large part of one’s emotional intelligence.

Harness that emotional power

If things are structured in such a way that those involved feel content and upbeat, each in their own unique way, then valuable results will follow. In life in general, emotions are the most powerful drivers. They make humanity what it is.

There are those naturally gifted with emotional intelligence, while others have only the potential. If that potential exists, it can be developed, though to what extent depends on the person — which is why coaching is the most dependable and perhaps the only effective way to achieve it. And the best way to develop real skills is to learn them in real time, ideally with a guru-come-mentor.

So, what else makes successful entrepreneurs? Well, fortune favors those who can also combine analytical intelligence with creativity, as well as ingenuity and the ability to think outside of the box to solve matters and produce ideas. There is a common thread that runs through the career successes of many billionaires in that they all did well-known things, just much better than their competitors. In fact, very few invented something that was fundamentally new.

Related: Why Emotional Intelligence Is Crucial for Success (Infographic)

Taking risks

You can’t be an entrepreneur without a tolerance for risk. Business decisions involve taking risks, often many times a day. Playing it too safe can hold you back from big breakthroughs.

If you’re not a risk taker in business, instead always hedging against possible loss, you won’t achieve anything remarkable. Risk drives evolution. Business, as in sport, the sciences, creative fields and exploration, is one big contest with nature, fate, oneself and the revolving world around you. So, remember, there’s no competition without the risk of losing. It’s therefore not surprising that running a business is often compared to gambling, the odds often being completely unpredictable.

Stay patient and always keep your cool

Patience is crucial in emotional intelligence — that ability to build relationships step by step and guide your way through complex processes. Be prepared to wait. Getting worked up about things you can’t avoid or change gets you nowhere and only serves to drain your energy. If you are agitated, you see the world in a distorted way and when in that state, it becomes nearly impossible to fight effectively, let alone win.

It’s the same with handling losses. Losses are inevitable in business. It might be a small market fluctuation, a turn of weak management or maybe extra pressure from competitors and wham — suddenly you’re facing possible bankruptcy, and this can happen regardless of your knowledge or skills.

On the other hand, there are those who gain great riches by sheer luck but then fail to keep it because they don’t have the wherewithal to manage such situations. Money, wealth and runaway success invariably impact human nature. Having large sums of money increases psychological pressure and requires enormous willpower, which leads to more complex decision-making.

Related: How to Harness the Power of Patience to Be a Better Leader

Remember, sometimes you have to go down to come up again. There are valuable lessons to be learned from hitting rock bottom. That is, if you have a reasonable level of emotional and analytical intelligence and if that “Inner Woodpecker” in you keeps pounding away.

Personally, I never get upset over losses. I dismiss it as counterproductive and, instead, I analyze what went wrong, put the mental switch in the “on” position and move ahead. I even manage to source energy from failures, becoming angry at myself, and immediately start fighting for revanche.

When you take on the CEO role, you expect to face challenges, strategic pivots, competitive pressures, maybe even a recession or two. But nothing quite prepares you for your first real crisis. That moment came early in my tenure and centered around a well-defined, heavily populated market. What unfolded there was a lesson in resilience, strategic decision-making and the importance of protecting the people who count on you most.

At the time, one of our largest geographic territories was struggling. Once a solid and reliable region, it began showing signs of serious distress. We started hearing concerns from franchisees. Clients weren’t renewing contracts. Revenue was in decline. And behind the scenes, we uncovered signs of operational disarray, financial mismanagement and other issues that could impact our entire brand.

It was a deeply difficult situation. The individual leading the market had built strong relationships and had been a part of our system for many years. But the market was in crisis, and it became clear that we had to step in – not just to stabilize the business, but to protect the franchisees who were left without proper support and the clients who depended on consistent service.

Related: Considering franchise ownership? Get started now to find your personalized list of franchises that match your lifestyle, interests and budget.

No playbook

After extensive discussions with legal counsel, our executive team and trusted advisors, we made the difficult but necessary decision to step in and assume control of the market to preserve the brand, our clients and the long-term interests of the system. We absorbed operations and started over without existing contracts or revenue streams.

That meant accepting a 50% loss of business in the short term. But it was the only way to re-establish trust, clean up the financial wreckage, and provide a stable foundation for our franchisees to rebuild. We initiated an all-hands-on-deck client outreach campaign, personally visiting accounts, listening to grievances and assuring them of a renewed commitment to service. Internally, we worked closely with franchisees, many of whom felt betrayed and blindsided. Restoring their confidence was as critical, if not more so, than restoring revenue. We didn’t just ask for their trust, we earned it, day by day, through transparency, reliability and responsiveness.

Related: Big Government Changes Are Coming for Small Businesses — What You Need to Know

One year felt like a decade

There were moments when it seemed like the weight of the situation might tip us over. But leadership means staying grounded when the ground feels shifting beneath your feet. It means balancing compassion with accountability and not being afraid to make hard decisions when they’re the right ones.

Eventually, a new opportunity emerged. We signed a new Master Franchise owner who was a driven, entrepreneurial leader with a passion for excellence and a deep respect for franchise operations. After a year of stabilizing the market, we entrusted it to him, and that moment marked the beginning of something extraordinary.

Under new leadership, that territory became a powerhouse within our franchise system. The turnaround didn’t just prove the model works — it raised the bar for what’s possible. The new owner turned adversity into acceleration and helped write a new chapter in Anago’s story of resilience and reinvention.

Looking back, that crisis taught me more about leadership than any business school case study ever could. It forced me to grow — and fast. It showed me the importance of empathy in decision-making, the value of acting decisively in moments of uncertainty and the power of a strong team rallying behind a shared mission.

Every CEO has their moment, the one that tests your resolve and defines your leadership. This moment was mine.

Related: I’m CEO of an International Commercial Cleaning Franchise. Here’s How I’ve Turned My Failures Into Fuel for Success.

Lessons learned

Navigating a franchise crisis requires more than quick decisions — it demands thoughtful, values-driven leadership. These are the core lessons I took away from one of the most difficult chapters of my career, each of which helped guide our brand from instability to strength.

1. Compassion and Accountability Must Coexist – Crisis leadership demands empathy and action. Acknowledging the former owner’s personal issues did not excuse the need for swift corrective measures to protect franchisees and the brand.

2. Sometimes You Have to Start Over to Move Forward – Rebuilding without the weight of bad contracts or legacy baggage (despite a 50% business loss) created space to restore stability.

3. Transparency Rebuilds Trust – Open, honest communication with clients and franchisees proved essential to weathering the storm and regaining confidence in the brand.

4. Invest in Your Franchisees – By working side-by-side with franchisees, we retained its local presence and built a stronger, more resilient regional network.

5. The Right Leadership Changes Everything – Placing the right person in charge — someone with drive, discipline, and vision — can transform a troubled market into a model of success.

Related: This College Student Pitched His Parents a Business Idea. Now, He Runs a $7 Million Ice Cream Brand.

Disney is laying off several hundred workers, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Deadline. It’s the fourth and largest batch of cuts from the company in the last 10 months.

Deadline reports that the majority of the cuts are from the company’s corporate financial operations and Disney Entertainment’s various divisions, including film and television marketing, publicity, development, and casting.

Related: Here’s How Much 8 CEOs Made in 2024, From JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon to Disney’s Bob Iger

The Wall Street Journal notes that entire teams were not being eliminated, but the cuts span divisions globally.

Disney, which is headquartered in Burbank, California, would not disclose the exact number of layoffs this week, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In March, the company cut around 200 jobs, about 6% of the news workforce, mostly affecting the ABC News division in New York.

According to a filing with the SEC, Disney had around 233,000 employees at the end of September 2024. The company has cut more than 8,000 roles since 2023, per Bloomberg.

Disney reported better-than-expected Q2 earnings last month.

Related: Disney Announces Major Executive Changes, Including When CEO Bob Iger Is Leaving. Here’s What We Know.

McKinsey consultants are using the firm’s proprietary AI platform to take over tasks that have traditionally been handled by junior employees.

Kate Smaje, McKinsey’s global leader of technology and AI, told Bloomberg on Monday that McKinsey employees are increasingly tapping into Lilli, the internal AI platform the firm launched in 2023. While employees are permitted to use ChatGPT internally, Lilli is the only platform that allows them to input confidential client data safely.

Related: Salesforce Has Used AI to Reduce Personnel Costs By $50 Million This Year. Here’s Which Roles Are Affected.

Over 75% of McKinsey’s 43,000 employees are now using Lilli monthly, Smaje disclosed. Lilli was named after Lillian Dombrowski, the first woman hired by McKinsey in 1945.

Through Lilli, McKinsey consultants can create a PowerPoint slideshow through a prompt and modify the tone of the presentation with a tool called “Tone of Voice” to ensure that the text aligns with the firm’s writing style. They can also draft proposals for client projects while maintaining the firm’s standards, find internal subject matter experts, and research industry trends.

Lilli has advanced enough to take over tasks typically assigned to junior employees, but Smaje says that doesn’t mean McKinsey is going to hire fewer junior analysts.

“Do we need armies of business analysts creating PowerPoints? No, the technology could do that,” Smaje told Bloomberg. “It’s not necessarily that I’m going to have fewer of them [analysts], but they’re going to be doing the things that are more valuable to our clients.”

McKinsey told Business Insider that Lilli was trained on the firm’s entire intellectual property, encompassing over 100,000 documents and interviews across the firm’s nearly 100-year history. McKinsey employees who use Lilli turn to it 17 times per week on average, a McKinsey senior partner told BI.

A case study published on McKinsey’s website shows that Lilli answers over half a million prompts every month, saving workers 30% of the time they would have spent on gathering and synthesizing information.

Related: The CEO of $61 Billion Anthropic Says AI Will Take Over a Crucial Part of Software Engineers’ Jobs Within a Year

Consulting firms have been tapping into AI for years. Bain consultants have access to Sage, an AI chatbot powered by OpenAI. At Boston Consulting Group, employees use an AI tool called Deckster to fine-tune their PowerPoint presentations.

Meanwhile, at other companies, AI is taking over tasks once completed by human workers. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said last month that the company replaced hundreds of human resources staff with AI, then used the freed-up resources to hire more programmers and salespeople.

A report from SignalFire, a venture capital firm that tracks over 650 million employees on LinkedIn, found that new graduates accounted for just 7% of new hires in 2024 at big tech companies, down 25% from 2023, as AI takes over entry-level tasks.

It is natural to scale up quickly once your business is on track. Orders have increased, investors have shown interest, and markets have opened significantly. This moment feels like validation for many founders. However, if the speed of growth is not on track, it can damage the growth of the business that has built up through hard times.

This article draws from real-world insights shared by experienced entrepreneurs and highlights six key hidden costs founders need to be aware of when scaling quickly.

Related: Avoid the ‘Too Fast, Too Furious’ Approach to Scaling a Startup

Scaling is not just a bigger version of what you already do

One of the most common misconceptions about business growth is that it’s simply a matter of doing more: more sales, more hiring, more locations. However, increasing the scale will change the business operation structure itself. If the company size doubles, the job will not double. It often needs entirely new systems, new decision-making frameworks and a different leadership approach.

Hidden cost #1: Operational overload

Businesses that scale without preparing for operations lead to burned-out teams. The system is overwhelmed, communication stops, and errors increase. As a result, the founder manages the crisis instead of demonstrating strategic leadership.

Case in point: According to a 2024 study by Startup Genome, 70% of startups fail due to premature scaling, which increases staff and expends large sums before achieving product-market compatibility.

Hiring too quickly can hurt culture

When a company grows, the need is to hire as quickly as possible to meet its demand. However, rapid recruitment often involves the introduction of human resources that do not fit the company’s values and work ethics. The effects are difficult to measure at first, but eventually appear in productivity, confidence and turnover rates.

Hidden cost #2: Cultural drift

Culture is not a tennis table or a free snack. It is about shared understanding, accountability and clarity in how things are done. Welcoming many newcomers in a short period without onboarding or integration can reduce this clarity and cause division.

Insight: According to Gallup, companies with high employee engagement exceed other companies by 21% in profitability, but when employees feel separated from leadership and mission, engagement decreases.

More revenue doesn’t always mean more profit

Misunderstanding top-line growth as financial health is a trap that many high-growth companies fall into. Orders may increase, but the cost of new employment, software licensing, warehouse management, shipping, etc, will also increase. The rapid expansion consumes the cash at a speed that exceeds the company’s revenue.

Hidden cost #3: Cash burn

Lack of funds is not a result of poor sales. In many cases, companies proactively spend on the assumption that profits will catch up, but in many cases, they will not keep up with the expected schedule.

Real-world example: A tech startup has built three customer service teams after the rapid expansion of marketing. Within six months, the company had to lay off 30% of its employees to survive.

Customer experience often suffers

When growth overtakes internal capacity, the customer is usually the first to notice. No support ticket reply. Quality control is delayed.

Hidden cost #4: Brand reputation

When service drops, even loyal customers may lose trust. In the world of social reviews and instant feedback, bad experiences quickly spread. Restoring trust can take time, and it costs more than the initial cost to maintain service quality.

Stat to consider: According to PwC, 32% of customers say they will leave a brand they love if they have a bad experience even once.

Related: Don’t Get Slowed Down by Growing Too Fast

Founder burnout is real and underestimated

Running a business is demanding, but growing one at high speed multiplies the pressure. Founders are often forced to work long hours, make serious decisions under stress and continue to move their hands in all departments.

Hidden cost #5: Leadership fatigue

The mental and emotional burden of expanding rapidly is not discussed enough. Decision-making fatigue, anxiety and burnout lead to improper selection, team inconsistency and in some cases, complete withdrawal from the business.

Fact: According to a report by Startup Snapshot, 54% of founders are stressed about their businesses, and 72% report mental health impacts, which include anxiety, burnout and depression. Rapid expansion can amplify these challenges.

Growth without strategy creates fragile structures

Not all growth is strategic. Each new opportunity, such as new product lines, new markets and partnerships, comes without strategy.

Hidden cost #6: Lack of focus

As a result, the brand identity becomes scarce, the team with poor performance becomes thinner, the priority conflicts increase, the execution is slower, and the consistency decreases.

Quote from experience: One health brand founder says, “Less than a year later, I was afflicted by returns and chargebacks, and the margin was reduced to zero by half the transaction. We are not able to do that.”

Indicators you’re scaling too fast

If your business shows more than two of these signs, it might be time to pause and re-evaluate:

• Team delivery delays are increasing

• Customer claims are increasing

• Staff turnover is rising

• Leadership is getting weaker

• Cash position deteriorating despite increased sales

Related: Don’t Ignore These 3 Principles When Your Company Is Growing Fast

What successful founders recommend

Smartly scaled entrepreneurs often share several repeated themes:

1. Build systems early: Build order without waiting for confusion

2. Track real margins: Understand each new order or customer cost honestly

3. Grow headcount slowly: Focus on the right people rather than just increasing the number of people

4. Know when to say no: Not all growth opportunities meet the burden of the company

5. Keep culture visible: Enable new employees to understand company values and how to make decisions

Growth is not the enemy — but unmanaged, unchecked or misaligned growth can undo years of progress. Scale expansion should not be reactive, but deliberate. It should support the core strengths of the business and not be separated. This is the true lesson from experienced entrepreneurs. Sometimes saying “no” today means preserving the chance to say “yes” tomorrow. Business should grow, but not sacrifice the soul.

For the past 26 years, JPMorgan has released a summer book list that caters to the interests of its high-wealth clientele. This year, a special committee looked at more than 1,000 reading suggestions from JPMorgan’s client advisors and came up with their 16-book list.

Darin Oduyoye, chief communications officer for JPMorgan Asset and Wealth Management, who also oversees the list, told CNBC that this year’s selections were focused “around the power of curiosity.”

“You can think of it from a reflection standpoint or transformation standpoint,” Oduyoye said.

Related: 5 Books Every Small Business Owner Should Read

Oduyoye said that they took input from family offices and looked at titles that aimed to prepare the next generation of leaders. Family office respondents were concerned with finding a balance between growing wealth and doing things that positively impact communities.

The list includes Shigehiro Oishi’s “Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life,” which explores happiness and finding meaning in life (the Wall Street Journal called the author’s enthusiasm “infectious”), and Suzy Welch’s “Becoming You: The Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career” and its related 13-step plan.

The list also includes “Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Future” by De Kai, which explores AI’s impact on how we live now (and will live in the future).

Here are seven more titles from the list. For the complete summer syllabus, click here.

Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working by Dan Heath

Iron Hope: Lessons Learned from Conquering the Impossible by James Lawrence

The Tell: A Memoir by Amy Griffin

Coming of Age: How Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing the Face of MENA by Noor Sweid

The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West by Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska

Inevitable: Inside the Messy, Unstoppable Transition to Electric Vehicles by Mike Colias

MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art by Michael Petry

Related: Four Books Recommended For Current and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

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