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Brian Elliott

@elliottsf.com
601 followers 931 following 297 posts

Advisor, speaker and writer on people, tech and future of work. Co-founded Future Forum, ex-Slack, Google and many others. Dad, dog walker and slow runner. Often wrong.

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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 22h
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out that the CEO who ignored his original Board’s concerns about safety also ignored his employees’ concerns about the same.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 21/09/2026
I knew I went to The Melt for a good reason. It wasn’t really the hangover.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 26/08/2026
Hey @nytimes.com could you please fix this embarrassing crap? Every news alert in gmail now carries this massive mess ahead of the content.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 24/08/2026
Even the WSJ OpEd is taking Trump's trade war from dumb to dumber status: "President Trump took exception last year when we called his tariffs against Canada and Mexico the dumbest trade war in history. It got dumber this weekend" www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...
wsj.com
Opinion | The Dumbest Trade War Revisited
Trump’s decision to escalate a tariff brawl with Canada makes no economic or political sense.
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Reposted by Brian Elliott
dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
the fact that john ossoff can kick off a two-day media cycle by saying that the president is uninterested in doing his job and is sleeping through meetings and traveling around with a young blonde, suggests that not enough of these guys are speaking plainly and effectively about these assholes
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 18/08/2026
Being clear, I know jack sh*t about crypto and how it works, any way in which the NK crypto is turned into liquid assets, nor whether or how they'd be tied to Trump. Whose $1.4b in crypto gains are tied in part to World Liberty, which he's trying to turn into a bank. www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-f...
cbsnews.com
Trump family crypto business World Liberty gets preliminary approval to establish a bank
The plan has sparked criticism from Democrats, who argue that granting bank status to a business affiliated with the Trump family poses a conflict of interest.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 18/08/2026
North Korea is 74% of hacks through April 2026, already over $570M www.trmlabs.com/resources/bl...
trmlabs.com
North Korea Stole 76% of All Crypto Hack Value in 2026 — With Just Two Attacks | TRM Labs
North Korea stole USD 577M in just two crypto hacks in 2026 — Drift Protocol and KelpDAO — accounting for 76% of all hack losses through April.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 18/08/2026
Why would the US President give favorable treatment to N Korea? Is it just that Trump has another of his "special relationships" with KJU? Even given they arm Iran? Maybe follow the money. In 2026, 64% of crypto hacks, over $2b, were done by NK. www.nbcnews.com/tech/crypto/...
nbcnews.com
North Korea stole billions in crypto in 2025, new research says
The report from Chainalysis comes as crypto theft has surged worldwide.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 13/08/2026
Pretty sure that automatically feeding the same post to Twitter and Bluesky failed you here, bud.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 11/08/2026
"Our top performers are trying to outrace irrelevance." The fear of losing your job to AI is far lower than the fear of unrelenting pace, the piling-on of more responsibilities. We can’t operate at machine pace, yet many are trying. Something’s going to break. www.charterworks.com/how-the-mach...
charterworks.com
How the 'machine pace' of work is burning out your best employees
How the heaviest AI users—and best performers—are burning out trying to ‘outrace irrelevance’
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 08/08/2026
What happens when even the modern-day Masters of the Universe think it's all coming apart? theworkforward.substack.com/p/the-winner...
theworkforward.substack.com
The winners lose their nerve
Before dessert with Jamie Dimon, the people who won the economy told me they think it's coming apart
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 30/07/2026
Just freaking horrible.. "Secret Service agents tailed Comey’s car from North Carolina to Virginia.....The agents who were following Comey even lost him briefly. He had turned off the highway to visit the gravesite of his son who died in 1995." nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter...
nl.nytimes.com
Trump Demanded Details of Agents’ Interview of Comey, New Filing Says
The request suggests the intense personal involvement of President Trump in investigating one of his longtime critics, the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 21/07/2026
76% of Fed workers say the Trump admin's return to office demands made them less productive. “I work in what is essentially a supply closet with three other colleagues, making it extremely challenging to take calls” "We’re able to do less of our jobs." federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/20...
federalnewsnetwork.com
After returning to the office, federal employees report low productivity, morale | Federal News Network
In a Federal News Network online survey, over three-quarters of respondents said they are less productive now than they were prior to returning to the office.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 08/07/2026
What day is it? Borrowed, and I don’t remember from whom, but yet again appropriate.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 04/05/2026
Parents this weekend: is this "tokemaxxing" thing really, like, a thing? Me: Sadly, yes. Nice to know they read my newsletter... theworkforward.substack.com/p/the-tokenm...
theworkforward.substack.com
The tokenmaxxing trap
Why mandating AI usage backfires, and who profits when you do it anyway.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 04/05/2026
20-25% of San Franciscans are food insecure. It's ridiculous in a city with this much tech wealth rolling around. Last week, 18 Reasons, Bi-Rite, & Crankstart Foundation announced a step forward that will help: a non-profit grocery store in the Sunnydale neighborhood. sfstandard.com/2026/05/04/s...
sfstandard.com
Bi-Rite is bringing its first non-profit grocery store to the Sunnydale neighborhood
Do not expect subsized Saba jam or Fishwife sardines. In 2027, Bi-Rite, 18 Reasons, and the Crankstart Foundation are teaming up on a non-profit grocery in Sunnydale where day-to-day food will sell at...
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 08/04/2026
CEOs keep whacking layers at lower levels. From 6-8 people to 10-12, but no change in bureaucracy or senior layers. Managers with no time for craft, coaching, or experimentation. Overtaxed, undertrained, wondering when the axe is coming for them. The people that are essential to enabling change.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 08/04/2026
Why should bosses care? After, AI can allow us to replace managers, right? Managers enable AI transformation. Managers who support team’s use of AI are: 8.7X more likely to say AI has transformed how work gets done. 7.4X more likely to say AI gives them more opportunities to do what they do best
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 08/04/2026
Dear managers: the beatings will continue until morale approves. Not surprisingly, Gallup’s 2026 “State of Workplace” found that employee engagement dropped again last year: down to 20% overall. Managers took the biggest swing: down 30% over the course of the last 3 years, from 31% to 22%.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 16/03/2026
7 out of 7 ethicists say my wife is right and I'm wrong: Take the baggie of dog poop to a public trash can, or take it home. No putting it in the neighbor's bin, even out on the sidewalk on trash day. From the @sfstandard.com sfstandard.com/2026/03/15/d...
sfstandard.com
Can you put dog poop bags in other people’s trash cans? An ethical investigation
In a city overrun with dogs and light on public trash cans, this is the question dividing our community.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 04/03/2026
While you’re here, my column yesterday re Jack Dorsey’s attempt to move the goalposts on how aggressive you can get about AI and jobs. time.com/charter/7382...
time.com
Block’s layoffs are an outlier. Their influence might not be.
Four factors to keep in mind in response to Block’s layoffs of 40% of its workforce
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 03/03/2026
If you're falling into the hype cycle but not using the tools, you not only risk getting it wrong, you're telling your team (yet again) "do what I say, not what I do." My column today in TIME: time.com/charter/7382...
time.com
CEOs are betting big on AI while barely using it
New research surveying 6,000 executives finds AI hasn't disrupted jobs yet—but they expect that to change.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 03/03/2026
69% of c-suite leaders are using AI less than an hour a week. 28% of them don't use it at all: zero, zilch, nada. At the same time, 50% of CEOs say they fear for their jobs if they don't make progress on leveraging AI in 2026. All hype, little lived experience.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 02/03/2026
This is a restructuring play, not a universal AI productivity playbook. Shades of Twitter, where when Jack was CEO “absent” was the word most often used to describe him and he took the blame for bloated headcount. Where do you think this goes next? My column in TIME: time.com/charter/7382...
time.com
Block’s layoffs are an outlier. Their influence might not be.
Four factors to keep in mind in response to Block’s layoffs of 40% of its workforce
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 02/03/2026
It’s about shifting the Overton Window. Jack’s also got other motives. He’s selling AI-enabled tech products to businesses. As their web site puts it, “The next era of computing will run itself.” Block also is 2X larger in 2025 than it was in 2020, while the stock had dropped 75% in the same period.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 02/03/2026
Jack Dorsey is trying to move the goal posts on AI and layoffs. Block’s 40% cut in staffing is likely to inspire other leaders to follow suit, just not as extreme. Like Elon’s 80% cut at Twitter inspired 10-20% cuts and Andy Jassy’s demand for 5 days in office led to 3 day demands in most of tech.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 20/02/2026
Not to mention a return to normalcy on trade deals that aren't negotiated based on whims and applied based on who transits the White House with the best golden statue.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 20/02/2026
What happens next with tariff rollbacks and other efforts by Trump to replace them, only time will tell. But given the US economic growth in 2025 was almost entirely dependent on AI-related spending, it would be excellent news to see a boon outside of tech. /3
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 20/02/2026
Tariffs didn’t reduce the trade deficit (~$900b in '25, same as '24). Manufacturing jobs continued to shrink in '25. They put a regressive tax on consumers and created not just challenges but massive uncertainty for businesses, which resulted in a weaker economy and weaker job market. /2
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 20/02/2026
Bad news: US economy only grew 1.4% in Q4. Good news: Supreme Court has (finally) determined that President Trump's tariffs weren't legally imposed That's a win for consumers: the Federal Reserve found that "nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers.” /1
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 16/02/2026
"The bottleneck isn’t tech. It’s everything around it: organizational change, complexity of real-world jobs, new work AI creates, regulatory friction that slows adoption. ..Pace of disruption will be set by the slowest-moving force, not the fastest. Every year counts for workers’ ability to adapt."
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 16/02/2026
Grappling with fear vs hope on AI's impact on jobs? Start with a dose of reality: Jacob Clemente digs into Matt Shumer's essay for the @sfstandard.com sfstandard.com/2026/02/14/a...
sfstandard.com
A tech CEO says AI is about to do to everyone what it is doing to coders. Is he right?
Matt Shumer’s viral essay comparing AI to the early days of Covid has more than 80 million views. The concern is understandable. The timeline is another story.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 09/02/2026
Interested in hearing from more leaders grappling with #AI? Check out Charter’s Leading with AI Summits. → Tuesday Feb 10th, #NYC and online → Tuesday Feb 4th, #SF and online Virtual registration is still open for Feb 10th, and it’s FREE: www.charterworks.com/events/ai-su...
charterworks.com
The 2026 AI Summit
Learn from workplace leaders redesigning how work gets done with AI.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 09/02/2026
Brandon Sammut at Zapier: “We’re at 97% adoption. We might be 10% of the way there” on transformation. Leaders are grappling with the messy middle of AI: usage is not results. More often than not, stress being applied from top to bottom, making change harder: www.charterworks.com/the-ai-chall...
charterworks.com
The AI challenges HR leaders face most
High AI adoption doesn't mean transformation. Here's what HR leaders say is holding their companies back.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 04/02/2026
Do we need managers? Foursquare redesigned to focus on team performance. No more eng manager titles, strong tech leads, team coaching and systems for perf and career dev. Will it work? Will it scale? Let me know what you think. In today’s @sfstandard.com: sfstandard.com/2026/02/03/f...
sfstandard.com
How Foursquare scrapped engineering manager titles
The company eliminated nearly all manager roles in engineering and the results have been dramatic.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 01/02/2026
“Speak out, [and] you are quite likely to get retaliation from the government. If you don’t, you are going to really lose trust with your customers and employees.” The cost of silence is going up. Leaders finally, tentatively, start to find their voices. www.charterworks.com/how-to-respo...
charterworks.com
How to respond amid ICE raids, protests, and violence in Minneapolis
Strategies for deciding on public statements, supporting workers, and preparing managers
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 30/09/2025
Some of both? I think it’s the SF zeitgeist in AI startups at the moment. Personally not a fan…
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 30/09/2025
In the dotcom era, the influx of banker bro types into tech was followed by the bubble bursting. B2B became "Back to Banking," B2C was "Back to Consulting" Will the modern tech bros usher in AGI and the last-ever gold rush, or will we get B2B 2.0? @sfstandard.com sfstandard.com/2025/09/29/t...?
sfstandard.com
Tech Bro 2.0: The new Silicon Valley archetype dominating the AI age
He’s not what he used to be. He’s jacked, cracked, and thinks he might save America.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 30/09/2025
Giving someone a meditation app to help with burnout is like treating a third-degree burn with a bandaid. What works? Learn to recognize the signs, clear priorities, and opportunities to grow -- not just taking breaks. 👉 sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-... Image credit @omarwhatworks.bsky.social
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 05/09/2025
Just a reminder of how hard Trump had to work to mess up this economy.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 05/09/2025
It’s not AI-driven automation that’s killing the job market, it’s tariffs and uncertainty. The big hope of Big Tech is to compound it by cranking up AI-driven losses. Otherwise, an economy propped up by AI investment collapses. We are so screwed. open.substack.com/pub/theworkf...
open.substack.com
The Job Market Squeeze: When Uncertainty Meets AI
Why the employment downturn has more to do with anxiety than technology
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 03/09/2025
Why do women have a far greater preference for remote and hybrid work than men? It’s not just that they’re far more often the primary caregiver. It’s that bias and discrimination are twice as likely to happen to a woman on-site than working remotely. theworkforward.substack.com/p/return-to-...
theworkforward.substack.com
Return to Office, Return to Bias
Why the gender gap in return to office isn't just about caregiving
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 31/07/2025
Stack ranking and removing the bottom XX% is back in vogue, esp in Big Tech. As a reminder, here's the org chart that resulted in at Microsoft in the 2000's: internal competition. Research on why it backfires long term, and alternative paths: theworkforward.substack.com/p/stop-ranki...
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 24/07/2025
The best leaders embrace being uncomfortable. They know that challenges that test us today become our biggest accomplishments tomorrow -- that's how we learn and grow. My interview with Izabella Lorenz: theworkforward.substack.com/p/learning-w...
theworkforward.substack.com
Learning While Leading
How Zoom's Izabella Lorenz Transformed Workplace Strategy Through Customer-Centric Design
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 17/07/2025
Leaders demanding more output (code, emails, content) without understanding how AI actually works or investing in proper implementation. The drive for efficiency squeezing out all time for human connection - leaving users alone with their bot “coworkers.” theworkforward.substack.com/p/when-chatg...
theworkforward.substack.com
When ChatGPT Beats Your Colleagues as a Teammate
False positives on AI gains, the real drivers of adoption and the risk of profound losses of human connection
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 16/07/2025
It's not the tools; leaders must: 1. Invest in training; 5-10 hours brings adoption from 18% to 82% 2. Leaders have to roll up their sleeves. Engaged leaders drive 2X higher adoption. 3. Focus on outcomes, not outputs. Carve out time for connection. theworkforward.substack.com/p/when-chatg...
theworkforward.substack.com
When ChatGPT Beats Your Colleagues as a Teammate
False positives on AI gains, the real drivers of adoption and the risk of profound losses of human connection
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 16/07/2025
Those perceptions of productivity gains might not be real: recent research found developers estimated they were 20% more productive using AI tools, when they were actually 19% slower.
Average percentage of time spent per activity among developer tasks -- shows less time coding, more time on other activities including new ones like prompting, reviewing and waiting on AI
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 16/07/2025
Five major studies on AI adoption recently dropped. The findings are insightful & alarming. The employees getting the biggest productivity gains are also 2X more likely to quit, with 88% higher burnout rates. Even scarier? Heavy AI users say they'd rather chat with ChatGPT than their colleagues.
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 09/07/2025
If we invested half the energy spent debating office attendance into fixing how we spend our time, we'd have higher productivity – and lower burnout. We keep stumbling into packed calendars and ending weeks frustrated. Want to do something about it? theworkforward.substack.com/p/the-meetin...
theworkforward.substack.com
The Meeting Plague: Why Your Calendar Is Killing Productivity
Help us research what's working (and what isn't) by sharing your experience in our 5-minute survey
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Brian Elliott @elliottsf.com · 20/06/2025
The CEOs who are AI arms merchants aren't the only ones telling employees to adopt or else, but they're certainly the loudest. Thanks @emilypeck.bsky.social for talking to me about your latest: www.axios.com/2025/06/20/a...
axios.com
Why CEOs are using AI to scare workers
CEOs warn the new technology could make many workers obsolete, while urging them to start using it right away.
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