#innovation

Can someone please explain to me the Horizon Challenge? Is this a new concept or a fancy name for an old problem? Thanks for any insights.

If we had products people wanted to buy would we be in this situation? If we were selling products hands over fists, a lot of the issues we see today would be swept under the rug.

Placing the state of Nike right now solely on the whole innovation team for not creating or bringing to market anything that customers remotely want for the last I don’t know how many years. The last wave of Nike innovation was arguably 2017-2019 when we dropped zoomx/vaporfly/react?

I’d just wipe out that whole org, anyone a part of product design, product innovation, etc and start from scratch. Poach people from our competitors who are actually growing. Genuinely curious what people in product design/innovation have been doing the last 5+ years.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if VA eventually replaces EH as CEO. A lot of people senior leaders are frustrated that we still haven’t seen the turnaround everyone was promised.

EH is unable to get the business moving again, especially around innovation, product, and brand momentum, the board is going to have to seriously consider a change. VA could be a logical next choice given his experience and understanding of the company. Sad part is that we don’t have any good replacement options with our stock teetering in the 30’s.

Anyone notice this trend increasing? ES leading supply chain planning innovation is a good example. She consistently represents work she knows nothing of as her own. Weird, because she does it mostly on the topics/project she knows the least about. She also does it a lot externally to non-Nike folks.

https://www.forbes.com/lists/innovative-large-companies/

https://x.com/RamMNK/status/2092642709416837126

Nike never misses an opportunity to tell everyone it is the world’s most innovative company—a fearless champion of creativity, self-expression, and the rebellious spirit of sport.

Apparently, the latest expression of that innovative spirit is turning a $169 stock into a $39 stock.

That is a 78% collapse from its 2021 peak, roughly $200 billion in market value erased, a 12-year low, eight consecutive quarters of declining sales in China, Nike Direct revenue down 7%, digital sales down 12%, and the stock heading toward its worst annual performance since 1993.

But please, tell us more about “Win Now.”

Only Nike’s leadership could lose approximately $200 billion, fall behind younger and more innovative competitors, watch Jordan and Sportswear lose momentum, and still walk into the next all-hands meeting congratulating themselves for being courageous disruptors.

The company celebrates self-expression—as long as employees express exactly what leadership wants to hear. It celebrates risk-taking—as long as executives never risk their own jobs. It celebrates innovation—then eliminates experienced innovators, reorganizes the survivors, and expects a new corporate slogan to design the products consumers no longer see coming from Nike.

This isn’t innovation. It’s institutional arrogance wearing expensive sneakers and carrying a PowerPoint deck.

Nike’s greatest recent innovation may be discovering how to turn “Just Do It” into “Just Keep Saying Innovation Until Investors Stop Looking at the Numbers.”

They haven’t.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_oIQ-tA6M

IBM features prominently in Sabine's new video.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4636198-ibm-unveils-first-dual-architecture-mainframe-processor-with-arm-tech

Nike used to lead trends. Now it feels like Nike is chasing them because it fell behind after years of bad product, uninspired colors, and questionable fashion decisions (lead by a mass wave of DEI initiatives).

And look at New Balance and Adidas. There’s nothing particularly flashy or revolutionary about what they’re doing, yet they’re eating Nike’s lunch because they’re executing better and giving consumers products they actually want.

Nike doesn’t need more discounts. It needs better product and a clear point of view. Lower the prices, stop training consumers to wait for sales, overhaul the board, and bring in a CEO who understands product, innovation, and the brand, not just sales.

Look at Apple. Steve Jobs was pushed out and replaced by a Pepsi executive focused on selling more product. Apple lost its way. When Jobs returned, he rebuilt the leadership team and focused on innovation, creating products people didn’t even know they wanted.

Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

That’s the problem with Nike right now. Nike shouldn’t be asking what consumers want from Nike’s competitors. Nike should be creating what comes next.

Nike needs real leaders. Smart leaders. Forward thinking innovators who understand that the answer isn’t selling more of what isn’t working. The answer is creating something people can’t wait to buy.

Phil built a company that changed the world. Nike needs to find its next generation of leaders before that legacy gets lost.

Perfectly said, @fe+1m0mxdc30.

Old colleagues who have left have told me they're developing AI agents at their new company that can assess inspection reports and output recommendations that are spot on in minutes. A small team of engineers doing the work that took our BTC months, without all the errors.
Anyone else hearing similar things?

Let’s be clear: this is not a criticism of women broadly and certainly not of the many women of color at Nike who consistently kick a-s, deliver exceptional work, challenge broken systems, and make the company better.

This is about a specific corporate archetype: privileged, entitled "leaders" who we-ponize victimhood whenever their competence or conduct is questioned. They demand accountability from everyone beneath them while treating accountability for themselves as persecution.

They turned personal insecurity into “leadership,” favoritism into “talent strategy,” and organizational politics into a substitute for results. They promoted one another, protected mediocrity, punished candid dissent, and surrounded themselves with people unlikely to challenge them. Competence became threatening. PowerPoint replaced product.

Meanwhile, the people who genuinely understood athletes, footwear, design, engineering, and innovation were sidelined while professional meeting-attenders accumulated titles and congratulated themselves for “transforming” the company.

Now, after helping dismantle a culture built by generations of talented people, they will undoubtedly insist that none of it was their fault.

That may be their most enduring Nike innovation: failing upward while presenting themselves as the victims.

The idea we can return Nike to glory or even growth just selling more to Wholesale has never been right. Sounds like an easy fix because it is too simple. On and Hoka didn't eat our lunch because of shelf space. Their products were innovative, comfortable and looked cool or different and our running products were not any of that - until at least the Vom18 which is a pretty good Hoka knock off. New Balance brought back retro running and got cooler and deeper in culture through athletes. Adi sparked a low pro trend as were overheating on chunky high pro Air Force, AJ1 and Dunks. They did sell those in wholesale. We now have lost all of the people who get all of this. If or when we ever get those types of people or a new visionary and our mojo back, Nike digital stores and wholesale will all grow. It's not complicated - innovative or cool/style right product and inspiring brand marketing and also being part of shaping culture have always been the answer. When that happens, our products sell everywhere. This is not a turnaround taking longer - what drives Nike's growth just isn't happening here any more - not now nor over the past 2 to 3 years. Even still, that's all easy to say, hard to do. Need visionaries who can also hire talent and inspire everyone. Layoffs are not the answer either.

DDAT locking down claude code and cutting off use by business teams that have already been using and have built substantial workflows of value at a fraction of the cost or that DDAT probably previously told them they couldn’t do right now…or they didn’t know how to do it… the AI revolution… it’s beginning…

New carts are just another way to push in more and more product!!

Is Wells Fargo going to start allowing customers to purchase cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and some sort of stable coin? If this is real when will this happen and how?

Copy architectire from one project put it to ai give specifications for this project, ask it to generate architecture. Architecture ready! that's architect DINOSAURS work in fidelity paid $200k+ shamelessly.

A German company with a Colorado presence is utilizing satellite technology to improve wildfire detection and tracking. OroraTech provides satellite imagery to fire departments, supplementing existing ground-based camera networks. This space-based monitoring allows for earlier identification of fires, even when traditional cameras are obscured by smoke. The company's constellation of satellites offers more frequent updates than existing systems, focusing on the critical afternoon hours when fires are most active. By combining satellite data with other sensors, OroraTech also generates fire simulations to aid in response strategies.

Colorado Springs, Colorado

https://gazette.com/2026/08/17/german-company-in-colorado-providing-wildfire-detection-and-tracking-from-space-2/

It will be $25 by end of year based on insight.

Leadership wants to cancel Investor Day scheduled for Nov. Weak innovation pipeline and Win Now strategy has no substance. We are in serious trouble with EH ousted in 2027.

The LeBron James Innovation Center was built to represent the future. Instead, it increasingly feels like an extraordinarily expensive monument to executive vanity, an architectural masterpiece filled with empty desks, empty language, and far too many empty suits.

Walk through the building on an average day and the most impressive innovation may be how successfully leadership has made actual leadership disappear. There is hardly anyone there, accountability is even harder to find, and yet the people in charge continue performing their roles as though everything is working perfectly.

From facilities leadership to the executives supposedly responsible for product design, development, and engineering, the operating model appears remarkably consistent: protect the narrative, protect the hierarchy, and never acknowledge the widening gap between what is presented in meetings and what is actually happening.

The building is world-class. The leadership seems better suited to a corporate costume department.

These leaders speak endlessly about innovation, collaboration, courage, transparency, and psychological safety. Nike has apparently perfected all five, as presentation slides. In practice, when someone raises a legitimate concern, challenges a failing process, or points to a red flag, leadership rarely addresses the issue. It simply begins treating the person who identified it as the issue.

Nothing says “innovative culture” quite like punishing the people who notice what leadership would prefer not to see.

Real leaders confront uncomfortable information. Empty suits manage the optics. Real leaders create clarity, accept responsibility, and protect their teams. Empty suits schedule another meeting, repeat the approved vocabulary, and wait for someone more disposable to absorb the consequences.

At the LeBron James Innovation Center, there is no shortage of impressive titles, carefully staged presentations, executive theater, or self-congratulation. What appears to be in critically short supply is ownership.

The irony could not be sharper: a building dedicated to innovation operating within a culture that can discourage honesty, punish dissent, and reward people for maintaining the fiction that everything is fine.

Innovation does not come from dramatic architecture, expensive equipment, slogans painted on walls, or executives pointing at presentations about “the future.” It comes from capable people being trusted to challenge assumptions, expose weaknesses, and solve difficult problems without fearing professional retaliation.

When leadership treats critical thinkers as disposable while protecting those who preserve the status quo, the organization is not engineering the future. It is engineering its own decline, apparently with executive approval.

Nike still has extraordinary talent. What the LeBron James Innovation Center appears to lack is leadership worthy of that talent.

But perhaps that is the building’s greatest innovation: proving that you can spend a fortune creating a monument to the future, fill it with empty suits, and still expect everyone else to pretend the emperor is fully dressed.

Nike Innovation Leadership: World-Class Excellence in Strategic Seat-Warming

Please join me in recognizing the extraordinary contributions of certain Nike Innovation directors—the courageous executives who collect enormous salaries while bravely enduring back-to-back meetings about meetings.

Their impact is difficult to measure, primarily because there isn’t any.

These visionary leaders have perfected a revolutionary management model:

• Protect your title.
• Protect your salary.
• Protect your friends.
• Protect the appearance of importance.
• Under no circumstances protect, develop, or advocate for the employees doing the actual work.

When talented people ask for support, mentorship, career development, or basic accountability, leadership suddenly becomes powerless. But when someone posts an uncomfortable truth online? Incredible. Immediate alignment. Urgent conversations. Executive escalation. A flawless demonstration of speed, collaboration, and decisive action.

Apparently, deleting criticism is the only deliverable this leadership team can complete on schedule.

Imagine if they invested that same energy in developing employees, removing barriers, making decisions, or producing something more valuable than corporate theater and expensive calendar invitations.

But let’s be fair: warming a premium office chair all day while protecting a six-figure salary is demanding work. Sometimes you barely have enough energy left to say “people first” before doing absolutely nothing for those people.

Innovation isn’t dead. It’s just trapped in a meeting, waiting for approval from someone whose primary contribution is occupying a director-level seat.

Just delete it.™

This is a company stuck in amber. Old school processes, old school thinking, old school resistance to anything new. Propose a fresh idea and watch it get crushed. Try to work differently and see how fast you get shut down. Individual contribution isn't rewarded, compliance is. And we're all slowly suffocating under the weight of "this is how we've always done it."

The office is like old folks home it’s an aging firm where nobody has the drive to push for innovation because of long service. Everyone is slacked any new projects or ideas quickly get throw out the window. Network / Data firm but it’s very outdated .
Need new blood transfusion of workforce before too late.

Nike Innovation has perfected a remarkable process: take an exciting idea, overcomplicate it, poorly position it, leave it half-finished, and then ceremoniously dump it on Inline’s doorstep.

“Here you go, team. Innovation!”

Except it isn’t innovation. It’s a tu-d wearing a futuristic PowerPoint deck.

The concept is incomplete. The consumer story is vague. The business case is missing. The execution is barely house-trained. Yet somehow, everyone stands around admiring the bowl and congratulating themselves on the flush.

Then Inline gets handed the plunger.

They have to clean it up, make it manufacturable, explain why anyone should buy it, and somehow turn the whole steaming pile into an actual product. When it struggles, Innovation can conveniently claim that Inline “didn’t protect the vision.”

What vision? The one circling the drain?

Nike Innovation doesn’t deliver finished solutions. It delivers Innovation tu-ds™: expensive, poorly positioned droppings packaged with buzzwords, dramatic renderings, and absolutely no toilet paper.

Just Flush It

What have you guys released in the past year? Not trolling, just wanted to get the list of new major releases.

No need to respond if only maintenance releases or new hardware configurations. Looking for new major releases.

Anyone else think all these use cases and showcases for AI use are simplistic, remedial or just lame?
Absolutly nothing being done today is inspiring, the same workstream only someone branded AI on top of it.

JfC i cant wait for the ai bubble to blow.

It seems like a lot of managers and executives are taking their time.

I'm not sure if people really know what AI is and how it can help

We have it but are limited to how much we can use it for.

Look what do we have in the Gartner MQ leader. Well yeah switching and wireless, but what else?

Not SASE, and his you want to drink some water and what pipe BS.

How long has he been in charge of product with no innovation leadership??

Just promoting himself sadly

Ignore the 25% loss in market value of the company. Look over here at this shiny bauble.

https://www.wsj.com/cio-journal/ibm-claims-new-era-of-quantum-advantage-92e3d5d4

Big Blue is racing to show that its quantum computing business can be profitable following a historic stock tumble

By: Belle Lin | July 30, 2026 6:00 am ET

International Business Machines said Thursday its research shows “quantum advantage”—a point at which quantum computers perform computations beyond conventional ones—and that these results can be rigorously validated.

The findings, which mark a step toward practical application of the nascent technology, were published in a trio of papers by IBM and its research partners. These include the University of Chicago, Japan’s RIKEN national research institute, and the quantum computing software firms Qedma, BlueQubit and Algorithmiq.

“We’re in the quantum advantage era,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research. “Scientists can trust it. Now it’s moving from people benchmarking the systems to using these for science to look at applications.”

The news comes as Big Blue races to show that its quantum computing business can be profitable.

Earlier this month, the company suffered its biggest share drop in history after it issued a profit warning citing a shift in customer spending from software to AI hardware and memory chips. IBM said the performance of its software and infrastructure business fell short of expectations in the second quarter.

Since then, IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna has offered an optimistic take on the company’s future, arguing quantum computing will begin to power its growth in a matter of years. The company’s first-mover advantage in quantum could boost its fortunes the way being a first mover in GPUs did for Nvidia, he recently told The Wall Street Journal.

IBM is going up against tech giants like Microsoft and Google, but also a host of startups in the quantum space.

While IBM is hardly the first to claim quantum advantage—the quantum computing company D-Wave made the claim last year, and Google said it showed “verifiable quantum advantage” in October—Gambetta said IBM’s latest papers are notable for demonstrating that its results are provable.

“They have methods that make sure that what is running on the quantum computer is giving you correct results,” he said.

In the Qedma and IBM paper, for instance, the companies said they showed how quantum computers can be used to explore the physics of materials, and that the results were confirmed using various methods, including on a Quantinuum quantum computer. “Think of this as a new physics that is being demonstrated on a quantum computer where classical methods fail,” Gambetta said.

Unlike traditional computers, where outputs can be validated by running the same problem on other computers, some quantum computer outputs push beyond the limits of what classical computers can verify.

That’s partly why IBM’s latest announcement is significant: The ability to replicate a quantum computer’s results shows that the systems are becoming more reliable and consistent, according to Heather West, an analyst focused on quantum computing at research firm International Data Corp.

Thursday’s news also helps put IBM further along the path to a fault-tolerant quantum computer, a milestone it has promised to achieve by 2029.

For businesses, though, the most significant takeaway is whether practical applications—from solving optimization problems to making breakthroughs in areas like materials science and medicine—will be possible with quantum computers.

Gambetta says IBM’s latest findings are a step in that direction.

“Having a trusted foundation allows you to start to do the application research, and as we inject more capable machines, it will allow us to scale those applications to ones that matter for business,” he said.

IDC’s West described IBM’s results as “another milestone in the way towards being able to use quantum systems to solve complex problems that are beyond the limits of classical compute,” and help solidify the company’s position as a strong player in the quantum market.

But reaching quantum advantage won’t be a singular moment—and certainly not in the way that the release of ChatGPT set off the artificial-intelligence bo-m, West said.

“We’re going to see future announcements that build on top of these,” she added. “Maybe in a month from now, or six months or a year, these particular findings will be overcome by findings that are a little bit more advanced, and that’s the way it should be.”

IBM said it encourages debate over quantum advantage, and Gambetta said he anticipates scientists will come up with newer classical methods and compare them against IBM’s findings. “I’m not going to say they’re bulletproof,” he said.

“What has changed is that we’re in a point where we can get trusted outcomes so that scientific debate can happen,” he added. “Over the next couple years, it will predominantly be a scientific debate, exactly like AI was debated in the universities using GPUs to look at neural networks.”

This entire argument reads like it was written by someone who still thinks the internet is a fad. It’s not 1997 anymore. Knowledge workers don’t collaborate by walking over to a cubicle. They collaborate across states, countries, and time zones every single day.

It’s fascinating how some leaders still talk about remote work like we’re trying to connect through dial-up and fax machines. We’ve spent years proving that distributed teams can deliver complex work, and somehow we’re still pretending physical proximity is the secret ingredient.

Apparently we’re expected to believe that sitting 20 feet apart magically produces innovation, while sitting 200 miles apart somehow destroys it. Funny…the technology industry seems to have missed that memo.

By this logic, Microsoft Teams has apparently been a very expensive mistake. Someone should probably let Microsoft know their entire business model only works if everyone sits in the same building. 🙃

The Kuga is coming back—but this time with Geely technology. Here's what to expect from the new model that will replace the Kuga. In a move that surprised many, the crossover will be built on a Geely platform. What does this mean for buyers, what changes could it bring to the European auto industry, and why might it affect pricing? Here's what you need to know.

News that Ford has chosen a Geely platform for its future crossover has become a major talking point among car enthusiasts. The decision could reshape the competitive landscape and influence how accessible modern technology becomes for buyers. As Western automakers look for new paths forward, partnerships like this are becoming increasingly important.

Ford has officially begun work on the successor to the popular Kuga. The biggest surprise is the use of a platform developed by China's Geely. According to the head of Ford's European division, the new model will feature a completely American design and will not resemble any existing vehicle. The interior is expected to offer generous space and comfort, particularly for families and drivers who value convenience on long trips.

I learnt from my friend that there are certain teams(like his in CLM) who have been allocated a Claude Code subcription. Do you if this is only certain location/teams or is it being pilotted?

Let’s talk innovation. Will these move the needle?

Whats this all about? How will it bring the stock back up and how serious is ravi about it?
https://investors.cognizant.com/news-and-events/news/news-details/2026/Cognizant-Launches-Sovereign-Physical-AI-Platform-as-a-Service/default.aspx

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/27/openai-chatgpt-work-specialists
.

Healthcare technology firm Innovaccer has reduced its global workforce by 340 employees. This significant layoff is part of a strategic shift towards an AI-native operating model. The company is realigning its teams to prioritize speed, efficiency, and measurable customer outcomes. Founder and CEO Abhinav Shashank cited AI automation of previously team-handled workflows as the primary driver for this organizational change. This move follows a previous reduction of approximately 15 percent of its workforce in January 2023.

San Francisco, California

https://ascendants.in/industry_events/innovaccer-layoffs-2026-ai-native-operations-340-employees/

There was a thread here saying they were going to give everyone a ridiculous low budget.
At least 1 org was put under it and they had to put in for an exemption.
But I've seen mgmt recently asking for how we are innovating with AI again.
Which way is the wind blowing this week?
Are they capping or not?

Confirmed layoffs are expected by the second week of September, ahead of the earnings call at the end of the month.

It’s going to be a wild few weeks. Enjoy your summer, don’t overextend yourself, and wait to see where the dust settles after September.

If the rumors are accurate, Innovation is in for a rough ride.