Listen : Watch : Read #21
Originally Posted: May 4, 2025 here
🎙️Listen 🎙️
Another great episode with Aria Finger and Reid Hoffman with Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic on abundance. Or the flip side, explore how a scarcity mindset is holding American society back. They cover how AI can revolutionize scientific discovery; what Operation Warp Speed got right; and why real progress depends on bold policy, not just better technology Reminds me again of frugal innovation which I’ve talked about before!
📺 Watch 📺
I'm a big WHOOP fan and have been a user for almost 5 years, Dr Kristen Holmes PhD (WHOOP's Principal Scientist and Global Head of Human Performance) along with Stacy T. Sims, PhD was a fascinating discussion on Gender Data Gaps Are Real. The Truth About Periods, Exercise, Menopause & Nutrition and how Stacy has fought to break the male-dominated mindset in health and fitness.
📚 Read 📚
Well this trumps all other news for Insurance Nerds world over, Warren Buffet - The Oracle of Omaha himself to step down at the end of the Year. At 94, that's one hell of an innings and career, but don't worry - he's going to stick around to help out where needed. He is passing the role on to Greg Abel, currently Vice Chair of non-insurance operations at Berkshire Hathaway.
Whether it's the the regular McDonald's, the house he's lived in since 1958 that he bought for $31,500 or this pilgrimage that is the Annual General Meeting, in which just yesterday he answered questions for 4 hours or of course his lifetime partnership with the late Charlie Munger.
Of the entire board, only his two children knew ahead of the announcement. Not even Abel was aware. A great write up here from CNBC. Adrian Jones over at Acrisure also has a great write up here.
This story got a lot of press this week, Johnson & Johnson pivots their AI strategy to focus on only the highest-value GenAI use cases and shut down pilots that were redundant or underdelivering. Jim Swanson, CIO shared that they are allocating resources accordingly. I think this will be true for many industries, first we had exploration and curiosity, now we want value return and that means not all POC's / Use Cases will make it!
Just like J&J, JPMorganChase CISO, Pat Opet, penned an open letter to third party supplies that calls out the modern ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) delivery model is quietly enabling cyber attackers and – as its adoption grows – is creating a substantial vulnerability that is weakening the global economic system. A fascinating read and subsequent reaction all round!
Speaking of Cyber, the UK's darling of the high street - Marks and Spencer has been going through its paces with a cyber attack that has crippled stores, online orders and much more. This from Insurance Business questions Did remote work cause this nearly £700 million hack? What I did notice were continued updates on socials from the company on whats happening and their progress! They are not the only ones, the UK's Co-op is also going through a cyber event, more form the BBC here.
With all this talk of risk, Sam Jones shared a good article here on the new frontier for IRM following an interview with Patrick Moorhead on CNBC Overtime. This wasn’t a segment about governance or compliance. It was a segment about strategic positioning, enterprise integration, and the future of platform value. And in that sense, it validated what IRM has been quietly establishing for years. For me this is one of the most exciting and surpsiing things things that Im leaning into here. Or as he says:
ServiceNow isn’t selling silos. It’s selling integration. It’s not marketing static reports. It’s building platforms that help organizations navigate uncertainty in real-time.
Thanks to my colleague Anna Mazzone for sharing this earlier this week!
👀 Quick bites 👀
The Corporate Paradox: RTO Mandates While Training AI Replacements an interesting perspective from Alexander Ford
Agentic AI presents a sink or swim moment for insurance sector - with insights from Quentin Colmant of Quover with Yiannis Kotoulas at the Insurance Times
And thats It! See you next week (from Las Vegas!)