Ron Miller

MetLife has been around since 1868. That means the company was operating when electricity was transforming business . Today, the company finds itself in the midst of an analogous shift, this time to AI. Insurance companies are famous for legacy software stacks. The question is how does the CIO push the company into the new era.

Since its earliest days, Cisco has been known as an acquisitive company . Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer, joined the company six years ago and he wanted to move the company from being reactive when deciding which companies to buy to being much more strategic and aligned with his own personal build versus buy philosophy.

Hi everyone. Hard to believe that the summer is winding down already. I'm working from San Diego this week, hence the later newsletter delivery. If you like what you see, please share this week's edition with a friend, and encourage them to subscribe. It really helps.💌

Like so many technologies that came before it, it turns out that AI is more complex to implement than we first thought (or at least were led to believe). Survey after survey finds all but a few notable exceptions are stuck in proofs of concept, unable to scale to the broader organization.

Cisco acquires a lot of startups as part of its overall acquisition strategy. One of the issues any large company faces when buying younger companies is how to preserve the core innovation that makes that company worth buying in the first place. During our interview on

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I had my first appointment with a new dentist this week and I noticed the shiny new modern equipment my previous dentist lacked. There was X-ray film that fit better in my mouth and a portable machine so the technician didn't have to move the heavy, awkward arm. There was a sonic cleaner that pumped air and water through as the hygienist cleaned my teeth.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in FastForward #78 in the News of the week section. It is presented here in its entirety with light editing.

In 2020, IBM announced it was spinning out its managed infrastructure services division as an entirely independent business. It would require essentially building a company from the ground up with everything from a new network to a new security posture to physical badges to get into the building.

Two of NASA's flagship observatories examined the same patch of sky at the same time, and part of what came back was a surprise. Researchers using the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes together on distant solar system bodies found fewer small objects than some planet formation models had predicted, and found that the colors of the smallest objects follow the same patterns as those of their larger relatives.