 |
|
|
|||||
Leonardo da Vinci is often credited with writing the first resume in 1482, meaning the resume has been with us for more than five centuries. And though its layout has evolved over the years, the premise hasnt: a piece of paper that tells someone where youve worked, what you studied, and maybe a bullet or two about what youve accomplished. Thats the problem. The resume is designed to tell us where someone has beennot what they can actually do. It shows what the last person who hired you needed done in their company that they thought you could handle. It looks backward when the world of work we live in today demands that we look forward. It inflates titles, overvalues brand-name employers, and reduces people to keywords designed to sneak past applicant tracking systems. Too often, the best resume isnt from the most qualified candidateits from the one who figured out how to game the system. And yet resumes persist. Why? Because theyre easy. Theyre free to create. Most people (sort of) know how to make one. Employers ask for them. Entire hiring systems are built around them. Theyre the definition of mehits good enough. But good enough is no longer enough. WHAT BETTER LOOKS LIKE Were in a labor market that is more dynamicand more inequitablethan ever. The resume does nothing to address that. It privileges polish over abilities. It amplifies bias through names, schools, and companies that often serve as proxies for race, gender, age, and class. It fails miserably at consistencyone candidates resume looks like a design portfolio, anothers like a plain-text listand leaves parsing software to guess what counts. No wonder amazing candidates fall through the cracks. So what would better look like? A new standard has to do what resumes cant: Capture actual skills. Not just where youve been, but what you can doand what extras make you uniquely you and uniquely qualified. It has to be structured, so it can travel across technologies. Standardized, so hiring managers can make real comparisons. Accessible, so you dont need expensive software or a design degree to present yourself fairly. And anonymizable, so the three pound caloric monsters in evaluators skulls cant fall back on the same biased shortcuts resumes encourage. Of course, the hard part isnt dreaming up the new standard. Its building the bridge. We cant assume every applicant will suddenly have the time or access to build a digital skills profile. And we certainly cant expect that employers will throw out their applicant tracking systems overnight (even if they might want to). We need technology that can translate existing resumes into skills-based profiles, while slotting neatly into the workflows companies already use. Thats how you shift the system: not by burning it down, but by giving people a clear path to make the switch. I know some will say the resume is too entrenched, too universal to ever disappear. Theyre probably right in the short term. But history is full of standards that seemed permanentlandlines, CDs, even fax machinesuntil they werent. The resume has lasted 543 years not because it was brilliant, but because it was familiar. Familiarity isnt a good enough reason to keep failing candidates and employers alike. If we want hiring to be fairer, faster, and more predictive, we need to blow up the resume and build something better. The future of work isnt about paper credentialsits about the skills that predict how a person will perform in a role. And its past time our hiring systems caught up. Natasha Nuytten is CEO of CLARA.
Category:
E-Commerce
AIs explosive growth depends on a backbone of vast energy-hungry, water intensive data centers, costing hundreds of billions of dollars in resources. The challengeand opportunityof the moment is ensuring this infrastructure scales without hollowing out long-term value. Across the U.S., states are racing to attract data center facilities with lucrative incentives. The promise is economic growth and prestige. The reality is more complicated: hidden costs borne by communities, power grids, and ecosystems. As a venture capitalist focused on hardtech and sustainability, I see this tension as both risk and opportunity. The future of AI will belong to those who reconcile scale with sustainability, building infrastructure that powers innovation without draining the very resources societies depend on. THE ECONOMIC CASEAND THE HIDDEN BURDEN Data centers are capital-intensive projects that can inject billions into local economies. Virginias 300 facilities, for example, contribute more than $9 billion annually. Illinois, with over 180 centers, has positioned itself as a hub thanks to land, fiber, and access to the Great Lakes. At the national level, the market was valued at $302 billion in 2023 and is projected to double by 2030. Its easy to see why elected officials welcome them: construction jobs, tax revenue, and the prestige of being a digital gateway. But beneath the headlines, the numbers tell a different story. Subsidies can exceed $800,000 per job. One Alabama project sought $167 million in tax breaks for just 200 positions. Counties quickly become dependent on the revenue, creating pressure to approve more projects regardless of long-term costs. Meanwhile, resource demands are staggering. A single hyperscale facility can consume a gigawatt of power, enough to supply 750,000 homes. Collectively, U.S. data centers used 17 gigawatts in 2022 and are projected to reach 130 GW by 2030, or about 12% of U.S. electricity demand. That growth is already pushing utility prices higher. In Illinois, residential customers saw rates jump 45% in 2025, while businesses faced nearly 30% year-over-year increases. And with federal rollbacks of clean-energy tax credits slowing renewable development, much of that demand will be met by keeping fossil plants online, which undercuts climate goals. Water use adds another layer. Cooling a single large data center can require 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the needs of a town of 50,000. Over five years, U.S. facilities are projected to consume 150 billion gallons, straining freshwater systems that are already under stress. These burdens are not abstract. They reshape household budgets, increase business costs, and raise profound questions about equity. In Newton County, GA, residents face water shortages, rate hikes, and a possible water deficit by 2030 linked to data centers in the area. In Virginia, an African American cemetery dating to 1863 is now surrounded on three sides by data centers. The social and environmental costs are real and growing. THE INVESTORS LENS: OPPORTUNITY IN THE CRISIS None of this is an argument against data centers. They are indispensable to AI, and AI is indispensable to the future of industry, science, and society. But the current trajectory is unsustainable. Thats why investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers should treat this challenge as a growth opportunity. Four areas stand out: Cooling and heat sinks: With cooling consuming more than 40% of electricity, technologies like immersion cooling, direct-to-chip systems, and advanced heat sinks can dramatically reduce energy and water use. Carbon capture and utilization: Data centers can serve as testbeds for capturing emissions at the source and converting them into usable inputs. Long-duration storage: AIs variable load requires resilience. Hydrogen systems, advanced batteries, and other long-duration storage solutions can stabilize grids. Advanced materials and compute efficiency: The frontier is not just bigger GPUs but better architectures, AI-optimized chips, and neuromorphic computing that deliver more performance per watt. These are not speculative bets. They represent areas where margins are high, corporate demand is urgent, and public capital is increasingly aligned with private investment. They are the technologies that will allow AIs infrastructure to scale responsibly. A SMARTER FRAMEWORK FOR GROWTH Reconciling scale with sustainability requires a new playbook. Policymakers, utilities, and investors can align around four principles: Transparency: Require audited disclosure of energy and water use. Conditional incentives: Tie tax breaks to sustainability metrics, not just square footage. Geographic balance: Encourage siting where renewable energy and resilient water supplies are abundant. Community benefits: Ensure subsidies translate into tangible improvements for households, schools, and infrastructure. This isnt about slowing AIs growthits about ensuring it creates lasting value. Done right, data centers can become engines for innovation rather than liabilities. ALIGN SCALE AND SUSTAINABILITY The paradox is clear: AI demands unprecedented computtional scale, but unchecked growth risks raising bills, draining water, and delaying climate progress. The alternative is equally clear: Align incentives, invest in breakthrough technologies, and embed accountability into every deal. The winners of the AI era wont just be those who scale fastest. Theyll be those who scale responsibly and build the infrastructure of a digital future that is as sustainable as it is transformative. Haven Allen is CEO and cofounder of mHUB and managing partner of mHUB Ventures.
Category:
E-Commerce
Lets be real: No one has a perfect business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan. And thats okay because perfection isnt the goalresilience is. A client once told me they had a mature BCDR plan. Then a hurricane hit. Their primary data center flooded. Admins needed to reach a backup site in another state, but flights were grounded, roads iced over, and their own homes were underwater too. Suddenly, youre asking people to choose between their jobs and their families. Thats not just a logistics problem; its a human one, reminding us that even the best plans can fall apart in practice. But while FEMA estimates that one in four businesses never reopen after a disaster, you can take steps to avoid becoming that statistic. BCDR today isnt just about systems and backups. Its about people, priorities, and preparation. And while no plan is perfect, I still see the same five challenges tripping up organizations. The difference now? The stakes are higher. Cyberattacks can paralyze your entire business. And AI, while promising, isnt a silver bullet. So, lets talk about how to get your BCDR house in order. 1. Identity management: Whos really on call? We used to travel to incident sites, plug in some cables, and run recovery drills. Now, its all remoteopening the door to new threats when your business is most vulnerable. Ive seen attackers sneak into recovery calls using fake identities, with names just one letter off from real employees. Theyll log into calls, listen, disrupt, and make a bad day worse. This is a human vulnerability. Having the right people in place and properly accounted forfrom IT to legalis still critical. Especially when a cyberattack can take down your entire IT infrastructure rather than a single facility. Step to take: Build identity verification into your BCDR runbooks. Dont assume your Teams or Zoom login is enough. 2. Prioritization: Whats your minimum viable company? You cant recover everything at once, so dont try. Nearly half of organizations need more than a week to recover from a cyberattack. In that time, youre not making products, and your stakeholders are losing faith. Ive seen companies try to bring back every system simultaneously. It never works. Focus on what matters most and build from there. Start first with a business impact analysis (BIA) to figure out what keeps the lights on. Thats your minimum viable company and what you need to recover first. Everything else can wait. Step to take: Run a BIA. Use it to define your recovery priorities and align them with your recovery time and point objectives. This helps you understand how quickly you need to be back up and running and how much data you can afford to lose. This is foundational to any serious BCDR strategy. 3. Incomplete recovery: Backups arent a plan Many clients think, Weve got backups, so were good. No, youre not. Backups are just data. If you dont have the configurations and environments to use that data, its useless. Ive seen clients with pristine backups, and no way to run them. Thats not recovery, its a false sense of security. You also need to consider: Systems available to process that data; Where the data is stored because it may be gone; The environment, since moving on-premises data to the cloud is difficult even on a good day. Step to take: Map out your recovery scaffoldingidentity, network, infrastructureand test it. Tools can help automate this, but you need to know what usable recovery looks like for your business. 4. Documentation: Living plans, not dusty binders Ask your team where the BCDR plan is. If they point to a binder, youve got a problem. IT environments change daily, and your plan needs to change with them. That means version control, real-time updates, and integration with your infrastructure workflows, whether in the cloud, a data center, or at the edge. A static document is a liability. Step to take: Treat your BCDR plan like codeversioned, updated, and tested. Use automation where possible, but keep people in the loop. 5. Testing: If you havent tried it, you dont have a plan Because BCDR plans change so often, you need to test them regularly. If you dont, its more theory than plan, and things will invariably go wrong when you need it most. Testing reveals the gaps. Its where you find out if your plan works or cracks under pressure. Think of it like a military exercise. You dont just write the battle plan. You run it. You red-team it. You revise it. Quarterly or semiannually testing is the sweet spot. Any less than that, youre out of date. More than that, youre probably overdoing it or not automating enough. Ask your teams when they last ran a full BCDR test. If its not in the last six months, its time to knock off the rust. The best plans just get more sophisticated along with all the technological advances we implement, and it may be advisable to lean on an outside consultant who can help you troubleshoot without bias. Step to take: Schedule regular tests; quarterly is ideal. Include realistic scenarios, not just happy paths. And bring in your comms, legal, and HR teams. BCDR isnt just an IT exercise. PRESSURE TEST IT NOW At the end of the day, BCDR isnt about checking boxes. Its about protecting people, preserving trust, and proving your business can take a hit and keep going. Ask yourself: If disaster strikes tomorrow, would our plan holdor would it fold? Dont wait to find out. Pressure-test it now, while you still have the luxury of time. Juan Orlandini is CTO of North America at Insight Enterprises.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||