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Kevin Delaney shared thisAs the US turns 250, polls show that fewer Americans than in the past have faith in the American Dream. What would it take to change that? I spoke with David Leonhardt of The New York Times about that question and among his suggestions are: - Employers invest in their communities as many US biz leaders did post WW2. - Policymakers invest in future-focused areas, such as R&D or reducing national debt future generations will otherwise have to deal with. You can read more at the link in the comments.
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Kevin Delaney shared thisThis new piece by Emily Shugerman in The San Francisco Standard gets inside the Signal chats of tech billionaires and includes a trove of original reporting about their madcap efforts to head off a CA wealth tax. Among the juicy tidbits: one of the moguls floated in the chat the idea of buying the group collecting signatures to get the tax on the November ballot in order to shut down its efforts. It's worth reading to understand how the tech billionaires are now even more mobilized to try to influence politics and where their efforts are focused. https://lnkd.in/ggjyCuepThe 5% freakout: Inside tech elites’ madcap war against the California billionaire taxThe 5% freakout: Inside tech elites’ madcap war against the California billionaire tax
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Kevin Delaney shared thisIt was super fun to speak with Nikki Waller and Jamie Heller today at the Charter Summit about their perspectives on corporate brand efforts as business journalists and what they have learned leading their own newsroom teams.Kevin Delaney shared this"If you’re up front about expectations, it might work out – they might really want it, and they might like it, and maybe it’s what they’re up for in their life right now." Jamie Heller, EIC at Business Insider along with Nikki Waller, Managing Editor at Bloomberg talking with Charter EIC Kevin Delaney on the massive variety in work cultures today. There's a huge gulf between those who are willing to do the 996 (or the 10 10 7...) and people who can't or for whom that's not a risk / reward / work tradeoff they want to make. It's definitely not all hustle, and not all replacement. As Nikki Waller noted, Bloomberg is "seeing a divide in how CEOs are talking about this." Yes, there's the Finance CEOs talking “lower value human capital / human assembly line,” as Matthew Boyle has deeply covered. But others are talking about how they're using AI to grow their company, not to shrink the staff. Telling their own people that and “we think are going to start telling the public as well.” We need more of those stories, because peer pressure within the CEO community itself is a real factor. Also, Matthew Boyle's inbox is full of jargon-packed pitches for stuff that isn't at all unique. So knock it off, ya'll.
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Kevin Delaney shared thisThe quit rate quickly goes down 30% when employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are successful, according to Peter Stavros of KKR at the Charter New Employer Brand Summit.
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Kevin Delaney shared thisWhen hiring, Sarah Jones Simmer of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) thinks about the "penalty kick principle," prioritizing people who have a "hands-up" mentality, the sort of people who raise their hands to take the penalty kick in soccer. Those are the sorts of people who thrive in the companies Sarah has been at, she said at the Charter New Employer Brand Summit.
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Kevin Delaney shared this“Don’t be bold — think like a banker.” A counterintuitive take from Andrew Robertson of BBDO Worldwide at the Charter New Employer Brand Summit. His view is bankers assess risk, which once you understand it, leaves room for creativity.
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Kevin Delaney shared this“If you don’t think someone has a slice of genius, you should let them go work somewhere else.” — Linda Hill of Harvard Business School at the Charter New Employer Brand Summit
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Kevin Delaney shared this"With great growth comes great responsibility...and 10 more problems," said Katie Burke of Harvey at the Charter New Employer Brand Summit today....
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Kevin Delaney shared thisThe Charter team just published a 70-page research playbook on the skills leaders need for the AI era and how organizations can prepare new generations of leaders for such responsibilities. As we heard in our interviews with executives and experts, the old leadership training approaches are failing and they're concerned. Companies are starting to adopt new models of the sort the Charter playbook outlines, based on reporting, research, and case studies. The playbook, published in partnership with Council Advisors, provides a simple new framework and is full of practical advice you might find useful.
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SF has been missing your important reporting and perspective Adam Lashinsky. Couldn't be more excited to have you back in the mix!
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked this$10 million for AI fellowships in journalism. Lenfest Institute for Journalism and OpenAI today announced $10 million in new support-$5 million new cash commitment plus $5 million in software and compute credits- for independent AI development throughout major American news enterprises. This work builds upon an earlier $10 million commitment from Microsoft and OpenAI supporting the Lenfest AI Collaborative & Fellowship program, now among the largest AI engineering fellowships in journalism. Thank you as well to Andrew Deck and Nieman Journalism Lab for comprehensive coverage of today’s announcement and the fellowship activities of the previous two years. See Nieman article link in comments. Please contact us if you or your news organization would like to get involved. Thanks to our growing group of partners: Lenfest Institute for Journalism The Philadelphia Inquirer Boston Globe Media Baltimore Banner Chicago Public Media Hearst NEWSWELL at Arizona State University ProPublica The San Francisco Standard Newsday Media Group The Seattle Times Tom Rubin Varun Shetty Evan Hirsch Christina Lim Emily Brown Ginny Badanes
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked thisAfter nearly eight years at Message Lab at Orchestra, I've decided to call it quits. When Ben Worthen first pitched me on the tiny content agency he had founded, I thought, "This is definitely not my jam, but sure, I'll do some freelance editing for you." We were just a handful of people working around a table, and I was immediately impressed by the talent we had and the quality of the work we produced — not to mention the caring and fun culture Ben created. Over time, we grew and grew and grew, snagging marquee clients (ServiceNow, Google, SoftBank, the Gates Foundation, Airbnb and many more), mostly through word of mouth. We created a ton of award-winning work and got recognized as the best in the business when we were named Agency of the Year by the Content Marketing Institute — two years in a row. Along the way, I wrote, edited, brought in new clients, helped grow the agency, scaled and ran the editorial team, decided I didn't like running a team, and went back to client work full time. It became my jam. Then came the acquisition by Orchestra, a much larger agency with stellar people and a great culture. It opened us up to new clients not only in business, but also in academia (Cornell, SUNY, Dartmouth, the New School), nonprofits, philanthropy and politics, which helped keep the work meaningful and exciting. I never expected this would be my longest tenure at any job. That I stayed this long is a testament to the fun and fulfilling work I got to do, and to the relationships I was lucky to forge. Now I'm ready to try something new. I don't yet know what that will be, but given the various things in the hopper, it's likely to be more projects and consulting than a full-time job (though never say never). I also expect it will be a mix of journalism and "content" work (creation/marketing/strategy). Hit me up if you've got interesting projects. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the many people (colleagues, bosses, clients) who gave me the opportunity and made this chapter so fun and rewarding. I am grateful to each and everyone of you. You know who you are.
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked thisToday The San Francisco Standard launches a satire publication called San Francisco Currently building on Patrick H.’s often-viral Marin Lately. https://lnkd.in/gQ3y8MwkSan Francisco Is Making News on Many Fronts. It’s Also Ripe for Mocking.San Francisco Is Making News on Many Fronts. It’s Also Ripe for Mocking.
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked thisEarlier this week we co-hosted a private dinner for people leaders with our friends from Atlassian. As always, this was off the record, so I can't quote folks, but a lot of the takeaways are worth sharing: - 89% of individuals feel more productive. About 6% of executives can point to transformation. Avani Solanki Prabhakar, Atlassian's CPO cited this data from their recently released Leading With Context playbook. So obviously there is enormous AI adoption out there, but very little AI transformation yet. - Stop trying to upskill everyone. Seed instead. You will never get a whole population to AI-native. But drop one super user into a team and that team’s fluency jumps about 56%. The definition of a super user is usefully strict: the most advanced features, 40+ times a week, tied to an actual outcome. - Speed is objective. Judgment isn’t. One person at the table ships faster and at higher craft quality by every measure they track, and has no idea whether the company is making better subjective calls. Their observation: people with genuinely good taste have stopped trusting their own internal voice. - Bolt learning onto rituals that already exist. Fifteen minutes inside a standing meeting beats a program nobody has time for. - Write a disclosure norm now. Say when AI was used; make clear the human who vetted it owns it. - Leaders who visibly use the tools are 4x more likely to get their teams using them. It's important to show you're using it, in public, badly at first. The most effective thing one HR leader said to their team was: “I need to know — where do I even click?” There was far too much rich discussion to capture it all in a post like this, but I thought these were worth sharing. Thanks very much to Avani Solanki Prabhakar, Alicia Lenart, and Josh Miller for co-hosting and to my colleague Kevin Delaney for his expert moderation!
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked thisQuick shop talk for all my aspiring and current freelance friends: if you live in New York State, you qualify for 12 weeks of paid parental leave coverage, even if you're self-employed. BUT — and here's the big but — you must apply within the first six months of working for yourself, or else pay into it for two years before you can access the benefit. It won't match your income, but it's enough to make a difference when you sit down to answer the "how do we do this" question. It covered my mortgage, HOA, and student loan payments for three of the past four months. If you're interested or have questions, DM me. Letting your brain turn fully to mashed potatoes as your sleeping newborn lounges atop you (pictured) should be a right, not a privilege, no matter your employment status. Shout out to the inimitable Alex Daly, always unafraid to be just a little out of pocket. The first time we hung out, she asked me point-blank if I was thinking about having kids (I was still a maybe) and told me to apply for the benefit, now. It didn't matter that I was only two weeks into full-time freelance work and still telling myself I was just doing it for the summer. (She was, of course, absolutely right.) Thanks also to the other freelancer moms who shared the nitty-gritty of how they made pregnancy, mat leave, and early motherhood work: Lindsay Ratowsky, Maggee Dorsey Thomasch, Aimee Keane, Marni Blake Ellis, and Chantelle Darby. Thank you to Erin Grau for designing a New York Times benefits package that has been nothing short of life-changing for our family. And thank you to Elisa Schreiber, for being both the least and most chill person ever, depending on what the circumstances call for.
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Kevin Delaney liked thisThis op-ed pulled a lot from a conversation Adam and I had earlier this year about the value of the Youth Commission. Thank you for encouraging me to write this.Kevin Delaney liked thisAs someone who believes we should have fewer voluntary commissions in San Francisco, I am proud to share an essay by my colleague Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, a former member of the San Francisco Youth Commission. In Jesse's eloquent description, the Youth Commission is a good example of San Francisco's culture of democratic involvement. I still think there needs to be a limit to these things and that the democratically elected Board of Supervisors, not politician-appointed commissions, is the right way to provide oversight of San Francisco government. But Jesse make a pretty damn good case for the value of this commission. https://lnkd.in/gWG6g7dWOpinion: Lurie stacked SF’s Youth Commission with private school kids. That’s a problemOpinion: Lurie stacked SF’s Youth Commission with private school kids. That’s a problem
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked thisI never expected when I embarked on what I thought would be a career in magazines that I’d end up working at three of the most storied newspapers in the world. But even for a magazine-coded person like myself, newsrooms are intoxicating. All the stories and reporting and voice and creativity of the very best magazines, but at a supercharged speed and scale. It’s an incredible and daunting thing to behold and be a part of. Sorry, I’m burying the lede: I’m honored to have joined The Wall Street Journal, which has been absolute ��� under Emma Tucker's leadership. I’ll be running audio and video for the newsroom, which means working with the talented teams behind podcasts like The Journal (a Pulitzer finalist this year for its fabulous Camp Swamp Road series) and videos like the recent documentary on North Korean operatives infiltrating U.S. companies. As audiences increasingly turn to podcasts and video for their information and struggle to know who to trust, there's no better time to be working on how best to reach them in those forms, and no better newsroom from which to operate. I'm eager to dig in! And if any of you knows who runs membership to the Triumvirate Newsroom Club, please tell them I’m ready for my induction. Actually, who needs a secret club — I have a stipple now! https://lnkd.in/g2CWHq9a
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Kevin Delaney liked thisKevin Delaney liked thisI’m incredibly honoured to share that I have been elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering - an accolade I’d dreamed of, yet never fully dared to imagine receiving. To have this happen during the Academy’s 50th-anniversary year makes it feel even more surreal. When the news came through, my mind went to the first engineer I ever knew - my late father, Shawki Ibrahim. He was orphaned in Lebanon, and then immigrated to the US with very little, aside from the dream of becoming an engineer. A core childhood memory of mine is him sitting at his drawing table late into the evening, completely absorbed, sketching away with a set of colored pencils. As a kid, I just thought he was making art. It took me a long time to understand that those drawings were patent-worthy designs for heart pacemakers, and critical safety devices for cars & airplanes. Engineering gave him both social & economic mobility, while having a pioneering impact in the world. It gave us our foundation as a family, and it made it feel entirely natural for both my brother and me to follow his footsteps into the semiconductor world. Going through the nomination forced me to sit down and map out my career all the way back to my first engineering job in 1990! Seeing 35+ years laid out in front of you is a strange exercise. You realize very quickly how little of it was a master plan. The honest truth is that much of my path was built on raising my hand for the unknown, unclear, tough jobs nobody else wanted - simply because they seemed interesting to me (& maybe because I’ve never been very good at walking away from a problem that needs to be solved)! None of it felt like "pioneering" at the time. It was just a curiosity to solve hard problems to benefit the world, and alongside people who were generous enough to mentor and sponsor me. From Purdue, to Intel where I dove into Pentium processor and computer architecture, wrangled global DVD standards, spun up (multiple!) developer programs, and built computers for classrooms - to my VC time at Kleiner Perkins, co-founding the non-profit Team4Tech, leading engineering teams through Coursera and DeepMind, and being at the frontier of AI for the past 8+ years. It was always just about trying to build responsibly & make technology useful for real people. I carry my dad with me every single day, & today I feel his presence especially close. This Fellowship means the world to me, and at its heart, it’s a tribute to him at that drawing table. It’s a reminder of what engineering can do for a human life, and a commitment to what comes next. As a Fellow, I’m committed to continue bridging the gap between AI breakthroughs and real-world societal impact, and helping the next generation of curious builders find their own way in the world. https://lnkd.in/ef_6tMpB
Volunteer Experience
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Chair of the Board of Directors
Internews Network
- Present 6 years 10 months
Internews is a media support nonprofit working in 100+ countries. It trains journalists, advances internet freedom, and helps media outlets become financially sustainable – so that everyone has trustworthy information to make informed decisions and hold power to account. I'm chair since Nov. 2024, having been a board member since January 2020 and a former member of the Internews Europe board.
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Venkat Raman
https://lnkd.in/eDRkxUU9 Local news is under strain as shrinking resources and expanding news deserts weaken democratic accountability. AI poses new risks by diverting audiences and generating generic content, yet it can also help journalists process civic information and improve efficiency. Experts warn that AI must support, not replace, human reporting, and call for collaboration and government support to protect local journalism’s quality and diversity.
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