JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the U.S. with $3.46 trillion in assets, is now requiring employees to share biometric data if they want to gain access to the investment bank’s newly constructed New York City headquarters.

According to The Financial Times, JPMorgan has emailed staffers already working at the new Manhattan building to notify them that biometric access is “required” instead of voluntary. Biometric authentication means that employees have to scan their fingerprints or eyes at the security checkpoint in the lobby instead of swiping their ID badges.

Some JPMorgan staffers have already been working at the new “supertall” tower, located at 270 Park Avenue in New York, since August, when construction was completed. The 60-story, 2.5 million-square-foot building reportedly cost $3 billion to build and is expected to function as the main headquarters for up to 14,000 JPMorgan employees by the end of the year. As of January, JPMorgan employed over 24,000 workers in New York City.

Related: JPMorgan’s New ‘Supertall’ Office Offers Perks Like High-End Restaurants and a High-Tech Gym. Here’s What Else to Expect.

JPMorgan isn’t the first company to plan to use biometric data as an entry point. In August, Midtown apparel company Isaac Morris aimed to replace its ID badge entry system with facial recognition, but quickly backtracked after employees voiced privacy concerns.

However, biometric data is considered sensitive personally identifiable information, which could result in harm if compromised or disclosed without authorization in a cyberattack. JPMorgan disclosed in January 2024 that it faces 45 billion hacking attempts per day, leading the bank to employ a substantial tech workforce to counter the threat.

As of March, the bank’s tech workforce numbered 63,000 employees, about 21% of its global headcount.

Biometric registration is still optional for employees who are working in other JPMorgan offices, such as the one in London. JPMorgan has implemented voluntary hand biometrics at its Bank Street office in London, which encrypts an employee’s handprint to allow access into the building, per The Financial Times.

Related: ‘Way for Identifying Humans’: Sam Altman’s Startup Is Bringing Eyeball-Scanning Orbs to the U.S.

Earlier this year, JPMorgan pulled the plug on hybrid work and told all 300,000 of its global employees it was time to be back in the office full-time, five days a week, starting in March.

The return-to-office push met with some internal opposition, as more than 1,900 workers signed a petition calling on the bank to stick to a hybrid work schedule.

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JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the U.S. with $3.46 trillion in assets, is now requiring employees to share biometric data if they want to gain access to the investment bank’s newly constructed New York City headquarters.

According to The Financial Times, JPMorgan has emailed staffers already working at the new Manhattan building to notify them that biometric access is “required” instead of voluntary. Biometric authentication means that employees have to scan their fingerprints or eyes at the security checkpoint in the lobby instead of swiping their ID badges.

Some JPMorgan staffers have already been working at the new “supertall” tower, located at 270 Park Avenue in New York, since August, when construction was completed. The 60-story, 2.5 million-square-foot building reportedly cost $3 billion to build and is expected to function as the main headquarters for up to 14,000 JPMorgan employees by the end of the year. As of January, JPMorgan employed over 24,000 workers in New York City.

The US job market has reached a new level in 2025. According to Fortune, more than half of new college graduates — 58% — are still looking for a job. That’s more than double the 25% of Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers looking for work right out of college in previous decades.

But here’s the good news: There’s a whole crop of fresh talent to hire for your open positions. You just have to know how to attract them, tap into their reservoir of knowledge and keep them for the long term.

Young minds bring fresh ideas

Gen Z can often get an askew reputation in the minds of some employers who think they are “lazy” or “unprofessional” because they don’t always want to work in the office five days a week or have a different idea of what work-life balance should be. (Did we forget this generation grew up doing years of remote or hybrid schooling?) But that old-fashioned thinking is a huge disadvantage for companies that don’t consider what these young minds and tech-savvy workers bring to the table.

While many of us have stayed committed to our diehard habits (like emails and paper trails), young workers are at the forefront of advancements and present us with much we can learn from them. However, this dynamic is a two-way street, and employers must also be ready to present Gen Z with a work environment that excites, motivates and values them.

Finding the right culture fit

A large part of this balance really comes down to work culture. So many businesses still adhere to an antiquated model where the employer is always the boss, no matter what, and employees are seen as there to serve and cater to them.

That not only comes across as inequitable but also is a fast track to burnout. When people wonder why so many young workers are job-hopping, this misaligned ecosystem is one of the biggest culprits. On the other hand, the companies performing well have adopted a value-driven work culture with great employee incentives and flexible work structures, and where people like going to work.

When I started BriteCo in 2019, I thought a lot about what our company culture should be. At the time, there were so many conversations around what Silicon Valley was doing. All these tech companies thought the way to attract young people was with ping pong tables. A rec room wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, though having fun and enjoying team camaraderie was, and we achieve that in several ways.

Our company offers and encourages programs like Brite Shadow (to tag along with an employee in a different department) and Brite Room Spark Sessions, where someone can lead a topic for a lunch or happy hour session, whether it’s learning more about the diamond industry or how to make summer cocktails.

We also have an in-office book club and host regular All Hands functions where everyone — new hires to senior leaders — work together to assemble entertaining presentations. We also offer hybrid work environments and unlimited time off policies that meet young workers where their own needs and desires are for a modern workplace.

Related: Empower Your Young Employees. It’s Crucial for Success.

The job boards of the future

Finding a young workforce also requires meeting Gen Z where they are job searching, properly reviewing résumés, and setting up as many interviews as needed to find the right fit. According to the World Economic Forum, more than 90% of companies are now using AI to filter and rank job applications, which may cut down on the legwork, but there are issues with these automations.

“AI systems still largely rely on self-reported candidate information, making them susceptible to inaccuracies,” says the WEF article. “What’s more, these systems can also filter out highly qualified, high-skill candidates if their profiles don’t match the exact criteria specified in the job description.” If you want to find the best candidates that will be well-matched to the company and stick around, it will take more investment than relying on a third party.

First, it’s best to post openings on job boards that young people like to use, such as LinkedIn, social media, and Handshake (a platform used by many colleges and universities). We also work with many of the higher education schools in our backyard to build a natural pipeline to talent.

I’m happy to report that an overwhelming majority of our team is Gen Z and most have stayed with us for several years, first coming on board as interns and accepting positions when the term was over. This is one of the best options for hiring young talent because both parties get to “test it out.”

They get firsthand experience that lets them evaluate the position and the company, and you’ve already invested time in training and getting to know their capabilities and strengths. At BriteCo, we also move beyond the remedial intern tasks like fetching coffee or printing out reports, instead offering real, tactical work responsibilities like researching, working with customers, and creating content.

And what we’ve found is that when everybody has some level of ownership over what they do, it’s powerful. They feel like an important part of the company that wants to grow right along with us.

The US job market has reached a new level in 2025. According to Fortune, more than half of new college graduates — 58% — are still looking for a job. That’s more than double the 25% of Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers looking for work right out of college in previous decades.

But here’s the good news: There’s a whole crop of fresh talent to hire for your open positions. You just have to know how to attract them, tap into their reservoir of knowledge and keep them for the long term.

Young minds bring fresh ideas

Gen Z can often get an askew reputation in the minds of some employers who think they are “lazy” or “unprofessional” because they don’t always want to work in the office five days a week or have a different idea of what work-life balance should be. (Did we forget this generation grew up doing years of remote or hybrid schooling?) But that old-fashioned thinking is a huge disadvantage for companies that don’t consider what these young minds and tech-savvy workers bring to the table.

When Jenn Saesue and Chat Suansilphong opened Fish Cheeks in New York City in 2015, their aim was to showcase seafood-forward Thai cuisine — dishes they loved from home but rarely saw in New York.

“There were a lot of Thai restaurants with the same kind of menu… noodles, fried rice, curry. Not so much about seafood. So we were like, okay, that’s a huge void right there that we can definitely fill,” Saesue says.

Perfecting the concept meant constant trial and error. “A lot of talking, a lot of eating, a lot of tasting, a lot of going shopping,” Suansilphong says. “The ingredients we have here [are] not the same as in Thailand. What tastes the same? What tastes better?”

Related: She Started a Business That Broke the Mold for NYC Cafés — And Grew It Into a Multi-City Brand

Personal preferences aside, dishes have to resonate with customers at the end of the day. Balancing authenticity with customer taste wasn’t easy, but this skill helped the 55 Hospitality team become successful and expand the brand.

As the business grew, the founders realized they couldn’t do it all. They’d have to hire experts who could take charge of everyday tasks while they oversaw the big picture. “I’d rather put people in place who can excel in that one area, and I can focus on other things for them,” Saesue says.

Bringing in culinary talent, for example, allowed them to pursue expansion and new ideas, like opening Bangkok Supper Club with Iron Chef Thailand‘s Max Wittawat.

Delegating also enabled them to face their most ambitious challenge yet: Bub’s Bakery, inspired by Saesue’s search for baked goods her husband could enjoy despite multiple allergies.

“Trying to find any sort of pastries, baked goods, cake, birthday cakes for my husband [is] impossible,” Saesue says. “Because it’s either vegan or it’s either gluten-free or it’s either dairy-free or it’s nut-free. It’s only one thing or maybe two things. It’s never all of the things across the board.”

Their mission to create pastries free of soy, nuts, eggs, gluten and dairy became a two-year research and development journey, with partners like James Beard Award-nominated baker Melissa Weller, whose chemical engineering expertise proved invaluable.

Related: They Built Their First Restaurant With Their ‘Bare Hands.’ Now They Have 380 Locations.

To put their creations to the ultimate test, Bub’s Bakery launched as a pop-up shop at a New York City elementary school, with many students coming back for seconds.

No matter their audience, Saesue and Suansilphong treat customer reviews — and criticism — as guidance.

“You can fight it, be annoyed, but at the end of the day, it is a tool,” Saesue says, sharing that customer feedback prompted Fish Cheek’s recent menu change.

“Once we put the dinner menu on the lunch [menu], people just ordered the same thing,” Suansilphong says. “I was like, Wow, this works for me!“

As the brand expands and roles change, reviews also help the founders keep tabs on the details, such as food quality and staff morale.

“There’s always gonna be human error,” Saesue says. “My line cook may not be having a great day today, and somehow the dish that he produced is a little bit off and is not exactly how it should be. So we have to take everything in as constructive criticism. If it’s not [constructive], we can spot that too and tell the team, ‘Don’t worry about that one.’”

Proactive employee engagement and support have also been key to 55 Hospitality’s success.

Related: He Grew His Small Business to a $25 Million Operation By Following These 5 Principles

With the launch of Bub’s Bakery, 55 Hospitality’s founders prove that finding your niche, trusting your team and genuinely listening to feedback can turn even the biggest business challenges into success stories.

Key lessons include:

• Hire for strengths, not similarity: Saesue and Suansilphong moved faster once they found chefs, managers and partners who excelled in areas where they weren’t experts.
• Act on feedback (when necessary): When repeated reviews highlight an issue or a pattern, check in with your team or decide if changes should be implemented to improve the customer experience.
• Don’t fear “impossible” problems: The quest for allergen-free baked goods required years of development and the right talent, but unlocked an entirely underserved market. Surmounting obstacles can lead to career-defining moments.
• Support your team as you grow: Ongoing check-ins and proactive engagement can help maintain trust and performance across management and employees as the business grows.
• Stay true to your “why”: Every new business concept from 55 Hospitality started by identifying a customer or community need, anchoring innovation in purpose. Sharing your mission and supporting it relentlessly can help define you in a crowded industry.

Watch the episode above to hear directly from Jenn Saesue and Chat Suansilphong, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Wednesday.

Editorial contributions by Kristi Lindahl and Emily Moon

This article is part of our ongoing America’s Favorite Mom & Pop Shops® series highlighting family-owned and operated businesses.

When Jenn Saesue and Chat Suansilphong opened Fish Cheeks in New York City in 2015, their aim was to showcase seafood-forward Thai cuisine — dishes they loved from home but rarely saw in New York.

“There were a lot of Thai restaurants with the same kind of menu… noodles, fried rice, curry. Not so much about seafood. So we were like, okay, that’s a huge void right there that we can definitely fill,” Saesue says.

Perfecting the concept meant constant trial and error. “A lot of talking, a lot of eating, a lot of tasting, a lot of going shopping,” Suansilphong says. “The ingredients we have here [are] not the same as in Thailand. What tastes the same? What tastes better?”

As an entrepreneur, you likely have very little free time. If you don’t want to spend it researching the stock market, but you still want to invest wisely, there’s now an app for that. Sterling Stock Picker helps you put your money to work, offering AI-powered insights with award-winning stock picking software.

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As an entrepreneur, you likely have very little free time. If you don’t want to spend it researching the stock market, but you still want to invest wisely, there’s now an app for that. Sterling Stock Picker helps you put your money to work, offering AI-powered insights with award-winning stock picking software.

Right now, you can secure a lifetime subscription to Sterling Stock Picker for just $55.19 (reg. $486) with code SAVE20 through November 2.

Invest like a pro without spending hours researching stocks

If you’re totally new to the stock market, or simply don’t have enough spare time to dig into the greatest picks these days, Sterling Stock Picker can be a great way to ensure you’re investing your money wisely. It makes the process easier thanks to AI-powered features that help you make informed decisions.

Working at some of the biggest companies in the world, like Amazon or Microsoft, can come with high salaries — and now, newly released data gives an inside look at how pay stacks up across different departments at Disney, from tech to finance.

According to the filings, obtained by Business Insider, Disney is paying software engineering managers up to $208,000 while software engineering directors take home $230,500. Lead data engineers make around $191,000, while financial services senior managers make $164,300.

For comparison, Meta’s software engineering talent earns between $120,000 and $480,000, Google’s receives about $109,180 to $340,000, and Microsoft’s takes home between $82,971 and $284,000.

Related: Here’s How Much a Typical Nvidia Employee Makes in a Year

The data comes from 55 foreign visa applications Disney filed with the U.S. Department of Labor from October 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. The applications were part of the H-1B visa program, which allows firms to hire skilled foreign workers temporarily. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in September that requires firms to pay $100,000 for each H-1B application. The order went into effect on Sept. 21.

The filings show that Disney pays H-1B roles as follows:

• Associate Ride Control Software Engineer: $134,700
• Decision Scientist, Worldwide Services: $119,028
• Financial Accounting Manager, Hulu: $127,570.79
• Lead Data Engineer, Streaming: $188,875.73
• Senior Data Analyst, Hulu: $139,404.80
• Senior Data Engineer: $177,322.31
• Senior Machine Learning Scientist: $177,436.56
• Senior Master Planner, Parks & Resorts: $113,500
• Senior Product Manager: $170,150 to $172,932.14
• Technology Manager: $162,040.76 to $193,766.26

Another data point reveals that the pay ranges included for these roles are outside the norm for most Disney workers. According to Disney’s 2025 Proxy Statement, filed in January with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the typical Disney employee “works a full-time hourly role in parks and has been with the Company for over seven years.” For fiscal 2024, the median employee earned $55,111.

Disney CEO Bob Iger made just over $41 million — about 746 times as much, per the proxy statement.

Disney employed approximately 233,000 workers in fiscal year 2024, with 82,000 employees located in Florida, where Walt Disney World is situated.

Related: Here’s How Much a Typical Salesforce Employee Makes in a Year

Working at some of the biggest companies in the world, like Amazon or Microsoft, can come with high salaries — and now, newly released data gives an inside look at how pay stacks up across different departments at Disney, from tech to finance.

According to the filings, obtained by Business Insider, Disney is paying software engineering managers up to $208,000 while software engineering directors take home $230,500. Lead data engineers make around $191,000, while financial services senior managers make $164,300.

For comparison, Meta’s software engineering talent earns between $120,000 and $480,000, Google’s receives about $109,180 to $340,000, and Microsoft’s takes home between $82,971 and $284,000.

Launching a business with your fiancé is thrilling — aligning your ambitions and hearts. But marriage adds complexity to business ownership. Without proper planning, a future divorce could put everything you’ve built at risk. A thoughtfully drafted prenuptial agreement offers a crucial safeguard: protecting your business, clarifying each partner’s rights and preserving your shared professional and personal goals.

Why your business needs special protection before you say “I do”

Your business isn’t just a static asset like a car or a house — it’s a living evolving entity. It can generate income, grow in value, incur debt and support employees. Its worth might lie in intellectual property, brand equity or projected earnings rather than liquid cash.

If a divorce happens without a prenup and your business is considered marital property even partially, a court could award a share to your spouse. This might mean selling shares, draining accounts or costly court battles over valuation and division. These outcomes disrupt your company’s future.

A prenup lets you plan for continuity no matter what happens. It clarifies how your business will be treated in divorce, separation or death — before emotions and legal conflicts arise.

Related: Why Smart Entrepreneurs Are Embracing Prenups — Not Out of Fear, But Strategy

What you should include to truly protect your business and your partnership

A prenup does more than say “this business stays mine.” It should clearly lay out plans for ownership structure, valuation methods, income expectations and succession or buyout rights.

For example, you can specify if the business is separate or jointly owned and whether growth during marriage is shared. You can define valuation formulas or methods like book value, discounted cash flow or a mutually agreed appraiser.

It’s also important to decide if business income counts as marital property, how debts and liabilities will be split and how to treat non-monetary contributions like unpaid labor, branding or emotional support. These details often cause disputes if left unclear.

Many business owners also use prenups to protect investors, co-owners and employees. You want to prevent a divorce from forcing unwanted sales or disruption by aligning your prenup with your company’s buy-sell or operating agreements.

Understanding the legal side — and how to avoid common pitfalls

Prenups are enforceable in all 50 states, but rules vary. Courts usually uphold prenups if they’re in writing, voluntarily signed by both parties and based on full financial disclosure. Some states require separate attorneys or specific timing before the wedding.

Challenges arise if one partner feels pressured, if disclosure was incomplete or the terms are unfair. High-stakes divorces involving business assets are especially vulnerable to these problems.

This means your prenup must be drafted carefully and be very specific. Generic clauses like “each keeps their own business” can fail to address shared growth, joint income or ventures started during marriage. Vague prenups invite confusion and costly disputes.

Real-life examples that show why a prenup matters for your business

Picture this: one spouse owns a tech startup before marriage and the other joins later as head of marketing. Without a prenup, growth during marriage might be marital property even if only one is the legal owner. A prenup can clarify whether that growth stays separate or shared and if the non-owner spouse can claim future earnings or equity.

Or imagine you and your partner open a restaurant and split management. If you divorce years later, how do you value the business? How is control divided? Can one buy out the other? A prenup gives you a clear path forward.

Another common example: one spouse owns a business while the other sacrifices their career to support the family and business in non-monetary ways. A prenup can clarify whether the supporting spouse has a claim to income or appreciation earned during marriage. This removes uncertainty and simplifies resolution.

Related: I Got a Prenup to Protect My Business and My Marriage — Here’s Why You Should Too

How to protect what you’ve built — and your relationship — with a thoughtful prenup

If you’re entering marriage with shared business interests or already own a business, a well-crafted prenup is a sign of respect and planning. It protects your company’s stability, keeps divorce proceedings smoother and helps both parties part ways with dignity and financial clarity.

By specifying ownership, valuation, income treatment and succession plans, you can protect your business and relationship against uncertainty. Talk to an experienced family business attorney to create a prenup tailored to your situation for peace of mind and long-term success.

Launching a business with your fiancé is thrilling — aligning your ambitions and hearts. But marriage adds complexity to business ownership. Without proper planning, a future divorce could put everything you’ve built at risk. A thoughtfully drafted prenuptial agreement offers a crucial safeguard: protecting your business, clarifying each partner’s rights and preserving your shared professional and personal goals.

Why your business needs special protection before you say “I do”

Your business isn’t just a static asset like a car or a house — it’s a living evolving entity. It can generate income, grow in value, incur debt and support employees. Its worth might lie in intellectual property, brand equity or projected earnings rather than liquid cash.

If a divorce happens without a prenup and your business is considered marital property even partially, a court could award a share to your spouse. This might mean selling shares, draining accounts or costly court battles over valuation and division. These outcomes disrupt your company’s future.

Google established its “Work from Anywhere” (WFA) policy during the pandemic as a way for employees to work fully remotely from any location for up to four weeks per year.

Now, the tech giant is clarifying that the policy allows staffers to work remotely, but not at home, effectively turning the program into a benefit for significant, distant travel. According to internal documents obtained by CNBC on Wednesday, Google specified that WFA weeks “cannot be used to work from home or nearby.”

Related: Google Cofounder Sergey Brin Thinks Gemini Employees Should Be Working ’60 Hours’ a Week (and Not Remotely), According to a Leaked Internal Memo

Google first set up WFA weeks in May 2021 as a way for Googlers to temporarily work from a location other than their main offices. The perk applies to remote travel, but employees cannot use WFA to work in a different country due to the “legal and financial implications of cross-border work,” according to the documents.

The documents also show that WFA will also be deducted in weekly increments; logging one WFA day means that the entire week counts as part of the four-week total.

“Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” the documents read.

“The goal here is to give everyone more flexibility around summer and holiday travel,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post at the time.

^{Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images}

WFA days operate separately from Google’s current hybrid work setup, also established during the pandemic, which permits employees to work from home two days a week.

Related: Looking for a Remote Job? A New Survey Says It Could Be Harder to Find Than You Think.

In a town hall in September 2024, Google leaders assured employees that the company would stick to its hybrid work policy and not mandate that employees return to the office five days per week. Still, the company has brought back in-person interviews, signaling a shift away from fully remote recruitment.

Pichai told “The Lex Fridman Podcast” in June that Google is reintroducing “at least one round of in-person interviews for people” to ensure that candidates have mastered “the fundamentals.”

A slew of major companies have moved to fully in-person work this year, including Amazon, JPMorgan, and AT&T, despite employee pushback.

Google established its “Work from Anywhere” (WFA) policy during the pandemic as a way for employees to work fully remotely from any location for up to four weeks per year.

Now, the tech giant is clarifying that the policy allows staffers to work remotely, but not at home, effectively turning the program into a benefit for significant, distant travel. According to internal documents obtained by CNBC on Wednesday, Google specified that WFA weeks “cannot be used to work from home or nearby.”

Related: Google Cofounder Sergey Brin Thinks Gemini Employees Should Be Working ’60 Hours’ a Week (and Not Remotely), According to a Leaked Internal Memo

The daily life of an entrepreneur is a relentless stream of decisions. It’s your responsibility to decide on the business strategy, select the right products and services, pick the best talent and clients, and choose the right path when crises arise. Every single one of these choices, no matter how big or small, depletes your store of mental energy. By the end of the week, you’re left with the feeling of being completely drained. It’s not a result simply of hard work; it’s a symptom of a costly condition called decision fatigue.

This cognitive burnout can be a real drag on your business that can lead to costly mistakes. The more decisions you make, the more likely you are to make bad ones. Being overloaded makes it easy to become more impulsive, procrastinate on critical tasks and default to the easiest, not necessarily the best, choice. It’s critical for entrepreneurs to recognize the signs of decision fatigue and learn the right strategies to make fewer, but better decisions.

Related: Decision Fatigue Is Real. Here’s How to Overcome It.

1. Standardize small decisions

Not all decisions are created equal. Some decisions will have major impacts on your business, while others will be inconsequential. The first step to beating decision fatigue is to stop wasting cognitive power on low-impact choices. Many high-profile leaders use this strategy. There is a reason why Mark Zuckerberg always wears the same gray t-shirt or why Warren Buffett eats the same breakfast every day at McDonald’s. They did it to eliminate a daily decision.

As an entrepreneur, you can apply the same principle to your business. For example, you could standardize a weekly meeting agenda so you don’t have to think about the structure every time. Or you could prepare meals for the week so you don’t have to decide what you are going to eat for lunch at the office. By automating these routine choices, you free up your mind for the truly high-stakes challenges that demand your full attention.

2. Batch your routine approvals

There is a lot of research that confirms the damaging effects of constantly switching between different tasks throughout the day. Decision-making is no different. Instead of making decisions as they land on your desk, group them together based on certain criteria.

For example, you can designate a block of time to focus on any decisions related to marketing and social media. After that, you can focus entirely on financial-related decisions such as budgets or expense reports. By batching similar decisions together, you can eliminate the mental friction as a result of context-switching.

3. Establish clear decision criteria

Sometimes entrepreneurs need to make the same or similar decisions over and over. A good way to address this is by creating a simple checklist or set of guiding questions to help you reach a decision more efficiently. For example, you can create a list of criteria or a scorecard that can be applied to your processes, such as talent selection, new product sourcing or vendor selection. Having this criterion handy can act as a mental shortcut and ensure consistent decision-making every time.

Related: 3 Simple Methods To Achieve Work-Life Balance And Combat Decision Fatigue

4. Harness AI decision support

For decisions that require complex data analysis or extensive research, technology can be your greatest ally. With advances in technology, modern entrepreneurs are leveraging AI-powered tools to simplify complex choices. Instead of spending hours digging through market research, you can use an AI assistant to summarize key trends in a matter of minutes.

Traditionally, some processes, such as expanding into a new market, would require weeks or months of reviewing carefully compiled and analyzed research. Today, AI can complete a full competitor analysis, summarize dozens of news articles and identify emerging customer preferences in seconds. Remember, the goal isn’t to passively let AI make decisions for your business. Instead, use it as a tool to enhance your decision-making process by letting AI do the heavy lifting.

5. Schedule deep work and time for rest

When making major decisions, it’s important to give yourself enough time to weigh the options carefully. A good strategy is to block out specific, uninterrupted times in your calendar to make critical decisions, such as setting your quarterly strategy or deciding on the right approach for a funding pitch. During these sessions, remove anything from your environment that can distract you from the task at hand. Take the time to shut off phone notifications, close your office door, put on noise-cancelling headphones or log out of your inbox.

It’s equally important to take a break from decision-making from time to time. A good practice is to carve out time in your schedule for no decision-making. For example, you could select specific times or days of the week when no major decisions are made. These intentional breaks give your brain a chance to rest so you can return to your toughest problems with a fresh perspective and renewed focus.

Related: Decision Fatigue Is Destroying Your Focus, Motivation and Drive

6. Delegate decision-making

True leadership isn’t about making every decision yourself. It’s about empowering your team to share the decision-making load. Instead of shouldering the entire burden, delegate decisions to managers and employees with clear parameters.

For example, a customer service manager can be given the authority to resolve any customer issue as long as the cost is under $500. This ensures that small decisions never reach your desk. When you do need to be involved in a decision, require your team to bring one or two recommendations with clear justifications. This shifts the mental burden from you to your team, while still giving you the final say.

Ultimately, beating decision fatigue isn’t about finding a new productivity hack. It’s about a fundamental shift in mindset. Sustainable leadership isn’t about being the person who does it all. By proactively managing your mental energy and strategically delegating choices, you can alleviate the mental exhaustion and move from a reactive problem-solver to a clear-headed strategist.

The daily life of an entrepreneur is a relentless stream of decisions. It’s your responsibility to decide on the business strategy, select the right products and services, pick the best talent and clients, and choose the right path when crises arise. Every single one of these choices, no matter how big or small, depletes your store of mental energy. By the end of the week, you’re left with the feeling of being completely drained. It’s not a result simply of hard work; it’s a symptom of a costly condition called decision fatigue.

This cognitive burnout can be a real drag on your business that can lead to costly mistakes. The more decisions you make, the more likely you are to make bad ones. Being overloaded makes it easy to become more impulsive, procrastinate on critical tasks and default to the easiest, not necessarily the best, choice. It’s critical for entrepreneurs to recognize the signs of decision fatigue and learn the right strategies to make fewer, but better decisions.

Related: Decision Fatigue Is Real. Here’s How to Overcome It.

After nearly two decades as a healthcare executive and practicing physician — including serving as Tennessee’s Commissioner of Health during the pandemic — I found myself at a professional crossroads.

Like many mid-career leaders, I wanted more autonomy, more impact and the freedom to shape my own path. Naturally, I assumed that meant launching a startup. But when I looked closer, building something from scratch didn’t align with my reality.

I had a family, a mortgage, and a well-established lifestyle. I couldn’t afford years of uncertainty — or negative income. So instead, I took a different route: I acquired an existing business. That decision changed everything.

It gave me the entrepreneurial freedom I was craving without the chaos and risk of starting from zero. And I enjoyed it so much, I went on to acquire more companies — each one deepening my sense of purpose, ownership and growth.

I’m not alone. A growing number of mid-career professionals are skipping the startup grind and choosing acquisition entrepreneurship instead. Here’s why it makes so much sense — especially for leaders like us.

Related: Is Acquiring a Business Right For You? Here’s How to Know If You Should Buy a Business or Start From Scratch

1. You start with a running start

Mid-career professionals are uniquely positioned to succeed as business owners. You’ve already built and led teams, made high-stakes decisions and developed deep industry knowledge. That’s not just experience — it’s a competitive edge.

When I acquired my first healthcare company, I wasn’t learning the basics. I already understood compliance, operations, team dynamics and patient needs. That let me focus on growing the business instead of just trying to survive.

2. You gain freedom and keep stability

The biggest draw of acquisition entrepreneurship? Freedom with stability.

You get to stop building someone else’s dream and start building your own — without throwing away the financial and professional capital you’ve accumulated over the years. That’s a smarter way to step into ownership.

You control the vision. You shape the culture. You define the impact. But you do it on a foundation that already exists.

3. Financing is far more accessible

Startups are notoriously difficult to fund — especially for first-time founders. But when you acquire a business with cash flow and a proven model, banks and investors are far more willing to back you.

In my case, lenders weren’t just investing in an idea. They were betting on a seasoned operator with a clear growth plan and skin in the game. Beyond banks, acquisition financing often includes seller financing, SBA loans, private capital and more.

You’re not begging for a chance — you’re presenting a viable, fundable opportunity.

4. You lower the odds of failure

Startups are exciting — but brutal. Most don’t survive past year two. And for those of us with families or financial obligations, that level of risk just isn’t practical.

Buying a business means you’re starting with paying customers, working systems, and existing revenue. Of course, there’s still risk — but it’s informed, not speculative. You’re not guessing if the model works. You’re optimizing something that already does.

5. Your network becomes a growth engine

By mid-career, your network is one of your most powerful assets. You’ve built relationships with mentors, peers, and industry leaders — and that becomes rocket fuel for your business.

After my first acquisition, my network helped me recruit talent, secure partnerships and expand services. In many ways, the deal closing was just the beginning. The relationships I’d cultivated over the years became the leverage I needed to accelerate growth.

6. You amplify your mission

Ownership lets you align your work with your values. In corporate leadership, I often felt constrained by someone else’s priorities. As an owner, I get to build around the outcomes that matter to me.

Many mid-career professionals are drawn to acquisition not just for financial gain, but for impact — to build jobs, improve industries and better serve communities. Spreadsheets may shape your decisions, but it’s the mission behind them that sustains you.

Related: What You Need to Know to Buy the Right Business and Acquire Your Empire

The smarter pivot for professionals

Buying a business isn’t a shortcut. It’s a strategy — and for many mid-career professionals, it’s the smarter move.

You don’t need to invent the next big thing. There are thousands of profitable, well-run businesses already out there — just waiting for someone with your experience, judgment and drive to take them to the next level.

When you combine your track record, your network and your values, you’re not just buying a company. You’re building your future.

After nearly two decades as a healthcare executive and practicing physician — including serving as Tennessee’s Commissioner of Health during the pandemic — I found myself at a professional crossroads.

Like many mid-career leaders, I wanted more autonomy, more impact and the freedom to shape my own path. Naturally, I assumed that meant launching a startup. But when I looked closer, building something from scratch didn’t align with my reality.

I had a family, a mortgage, and a well-established lifestyle. I couldn’t afford years of uncertainty — or negative income. So instead, I took a different route: I acquired an existing business. That decision changed everything.

Most people associate crypto with financial disruption, like tokens, DeFi and yield strategies. But that’s not the innovation that matters most. What’s truly transformative is how crypto enables trust at scale, through verifiability.

That’s what drew me into the space and where I believe its greatest impact lies. As AI accelerates beyond our ability to audit it, we need a trust layer that isn’t reliant on institutions or assumptions. We need systems that prove they work even when no one’s watching.

From AI inference to offchain computation to sensitive data pipelines, we’re entering a world where software is making more decisions, with fewer ways to challenge or verify them. Crypto infrastructure offers a path forward built on code, math and accountability.

Verifiability makes trust scalable

The internet was built for speed, not trust. Today’s systems rely on patchworks of gatekeepers and ad hoc checks. Increasingly, they rely on black-box outputs we can’t audit.

We won’t solve this by adding more humans. Trust has to scale, and that means automation backed by verifiability. Crypto lets us build systems that prove correctness and self-correct when they don’t.

This matters most in high-stakes environments like financial flows, AI-driven decisions and critical infrastructure. Today, we can sometimes verify inputs or outputs, but not the full pipeline. Verifiable infrastructure closes that gap and makes trust a property of the system.

The real unlock is programmability

Most people evaluate infrastructure based on speed: how many transactions per second, how fast finality is. But performance is only half the story. Programmability, the range of logic a system can express, matters just as much.

Bitcoin lets you store and transfer value. Ethereum lets you write smart contracts. But if you want to run a GPU, train a model or deploy an agent that adapts and reasons, you’re limited. You can’t do that on Ethereum. Today’s tools aren’t expressive enough.

New infrastructure layers are changing this by letting developers run any program on any compute stack and bring results back to any chain with proof. Builders get freedom and auditability. The result of this is systems that are trustworthy and expressive by design.

Autonomous verifiable services are already emerging

We call these systems autonomous verifiable services (AVSs). They run independently, powered by a shared trust network, and produce outputs you can verify.

Think of AVSs as infrastructure primitives: storage, compute, bridging, oracles. But now they’re composable, enforceable and independently governed. More than 60 are already live across our ecosystem, and hundreds more are in development.

What makes them powerful is how they compose. When you start combining AVSs, you’re no longer just building apps. You’re building digital systems that hold themselves accountable, with enforcement built in.

Crypto enables sovereign agents

There’s been a lot of hype around “onchain agents,” but most implementations are superficial. Giving an AI model a wallet doesn’t make it interesting. That’s just a bot with a bank account.

What’s interesting is what happens when you give an AI agent enforceable rights, responsibilities and persistence the same way a smart contract has. Smart contracts today already hold assets, govern treasuries and operate with no human in the loop. They’re programs with property.

Now imagine if those contracts could run richer logic — logic informed by machine learning, connected to external data, able to pursue goals over time. You’d have something new: an autonomous agent with verifiable behavior, economic presence and system-level impact.

This isn’t science fiction. The infrastructure to support it, from verifiable compute to onchain enforcement to staking-based guarantees, is being built now.

AI has a trust problem, but crypto can help solve it

As AI models generate more of the content we consume and increasingly power business logic and decision-making, we run into the same problem again and again: We can’t see how they work.

We don’t know what data they were trained on. We can’t audit their behavior in real time. And we can’t reliably challenge incorrect results.

Crypto infrastructure gives us a pathway to address that. With tools like fraud proofs, challenge protocols and verifiable inference, we can create systems where AI outputs aren’t just taken on faith; instead, they become provable.

This is where crypto can have the greatest impact over the next decade: not in replacing trust with decentralization, but in making trust verifiable and enforceable in AI-native systems.

What founders can do right now

This isn’t just theoretical. If you’re a founder building with AI, infrastructure or data, ask yourself:

• Can users verify the correctness of your system’s outputs?

• Can your software explain what it did, and prove it?

• Can you turn trust into something measurable, enforceable and composable?

Startups that embed these capabilities early will be more robust and defensible. In a crowded field, trust becomes the differentiator.

A blueprint for the next generation of infrastructure

We’re still early, but the foundation is coming together. Staking networks secure shared resources. Verifiable compute makes logic auditable. Programmable interfaces let developers compose powerful new systems.

What’s coming into focus is a new model for software development. One where verification is built into every layer, accountability is part of the design and guarantees are embedded, not assumed.

This is the direction crypto was always meant to take. The next phase won’t be about louder marketing or flashier roadmaps. It will be shaped by systems that earn trust through their operations and by founders who care as much about integrity as they do about innovation.

Most people associate crypto with financial disruption, like tokens, DeFi and yield strategies. But that’s not the innovation that matters most. What’s truly transformative is how crypto enables trust at scale, through verifiability.

That’s what drew me into the space and where I believe its greatest impact lies. As AI accelerates beyond our ability to audit it, we need a trust layer that isn’t reliant on institutions or assumptions. We need systems that prove they work even when no one’s watching.

From AI inference to offchain computation to sensitive data pipelines, we’re entering a world where software is making more decisions, with fewer ways to challenge or verify them. Crypto infrastructure offers a path forward built on code, math and accountability.