Peter Economy
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Wall Street Journal bestselling author/ghostwriter -- more than 3 million copies served. The Leadership Guy on INC. Check out my book Wait, I’m the Boss?!?
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Articles by Peter Economy
McDonald’s Is Using AI for Something More Interesting Than Replacing Workers
Archy could eventually save at least 50 labor hours per week at a typical restaurant. Imagine pulling into a McDonald’s drive-thru and placing your order with an artificial intelligence system that understands you in English or Spanish. Behind the scenes, AI is also helping employees manage inventory, create work schedules, and handle other routine tasks that eat up time every day. Meet Archy.
Starbucks Is Closing Stores to Grow. That Sounds Backward Until You See Why
Sometimes growth starts with a shutdown. Imagine discovering that one of your business locations isn’t making enough money. You could wait another six months and hope things improve. You could spend more money trying to fix it or you could shut it down. Starbucks has decided to take the third option — 250 times. The coffee giant announced it will soon close 250 stores in North America, the second major round of closings under Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol.
McDonald’s Has a New Growth Strategy. Business Leaders Should Pay Attention
McDonald’s has a new recipe for growth: tech, efficiency, and people. Imagine walking into your neighborhood McDonald’s a few years from now. The Big Mac will still be there, of course, but behind the scenes, the restaurant could operate very differently. Artificial intelligence will help employees run the restaurant more efficiently, technology will personalize your experience, and a renewed emphasis on hospitality will make the place feel more welcoming.
A Hyrox Competition Incident Went Viral. Here’s the Business Lesson
Mistakes happen. How you handle them matters more. Sometimes a PR crisis arrives with absolutely no warning. Just ask Australian athlete Joanna Wietrzyk. During a recent Hyrox athletic competition in Beijing, Wietrzyk suffered an embarrassing case of bowel incontinence. Instead of stopping, however, she continued competing — using workout areas and equipment that would also be used by other competitors — and ultimately won the race.
Warren Buffett Just Stepped Down at 96. Here Are 7 Leadership Lessons From Berkshire
The best leaders don’t just build businesses. They build successors. Warren Buffett just did something that’s never easy for highly successful leaders to do. He gave up his chair. At age 96, Buffett stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the company he spent six decades transforming from a struggling textile business into a $1.1 trillion conglomerate. His son Howard Buffett will become chairman, while Buffett remains on the board as chairman emeritus.
The U.S. Open Has a $400 Ticket Problem. Businesses Can Learn 7 Lessons From It
More revenue today could mean fewer customers tomorrow. Imagine deciding to spend the day at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Flushing Meadows, New York. You don’t need a great seat. In fact, you don’t need a seat at all. You just want to walk the grounds, watch some tennis on the smaller courts, and soak up the atmosphere. The listed price for a grounds pass might be $65. There’s just one problem: You may have to pay hundreds of dollars to get one.
LeBron James Just Made a Surprising Business Move. Here Are 7 Lessons You Can Learn From It
A 14-second video, two words, and seven big business lessons. LeBron James recently posted a 14-second video on social media. It showed him walking into a stylized elevator at “Polymarket HQ,” passing buttons for politics, crypto, culture, weather, and other topics before getting off at the sports floor. Then came two words: “Coming soon.” That was about all it took.
Mark Carney Just Gave Leaders a Master Class in How to Negotiate With a Bully
When they push harder, don’t push back. Think smarter. What do you do when you’re sitting across the negotiating table from someone who has more power than you do — and they know it? I’ve dealt with a few people like this during my career. Chances are, you have too. They push, threaten, and make unreasonable demands. Sometimes, they seem to enjoy watching you squirm. The temptation, of course, is to push right back.
Bill Gates Says the AI Era Will Be Turbulent. Here Are 7 Things You Should Do Right Now
His message is both optimistic and unsettling. Imagine showing up for work one morning and discovering that the task you spent years learning to do can suddenly be done by AI — faster, cheaper, and perhaps even better than you can do it. For millions of people, that scenario may no longer be science fiction.
The New Wendy’s CEO Did Something Rare. He Admitted the Company’s Mistakes
Great turnarounds start with an uncomfortable truth. When Bob Wright took over as CEO of Wendy’s in May, he quickly realized that the company he inherited had some big problems. U.S. same-restaurant sales fell 7 percent in the second quarter. Wendy’s had been pushed out of its position as the nation’s second-largest burger chain by archrival Burger King. The company also experienced six consecutive quarters of negative same-store sales.
Tom Brady Just Built Another Superteam. This Time, He’s Not Playing Quarterback
CardVault just announced an unusually impressive group of new strategic investors. I’ve always been fascinated by people who are very good at asking others to join them. Not hiring them. Not selling to them. But getting them to say, “I want to be part of this.” I found myself thinking about that when I read about Tom Brady’s latest business move. Brady is a co-owner of CardVault, the sports card and collectibles retailer that now carries his name: CardVault by Tom Brady.
Flock Safety Says It’s Not Big Brother. That’s Not the Question Customers Should Be Asking
Trust is nice. Guardrails are better. I’m sure you don’t spend much time thinking about all the cameras you pass every day. I certainly don’t. There’s one at the intersection. Another outside the grocery store. Probably several in the parking garage. I even have one mounted next to my front door. After a while, you stop noticing them. Until you discover what they can do.
Kalshi’s CEO Declared Most Business Advice ‘Trash.’ Smart Leaders Know the Better Move
The best advice may be knowing which advice to ignore. I can’t remember the first business book I ever read, I’ve read and written many over the years, but I can remember plenty of ideas from business books that changed the way I thought. The same is true of mentors. I’ve forgotten hundreds of conversations I’ve had with smart people over the years. Every once in a while, someone said something that stayed with me.
The First Sign of Burnout Isn’t Exhaustion. It’s Something More Subtle
Before employees quit, they usually check out. One of the biggest myths about burnout is that it happens suddenly. It doesn’t. Burnout is usually quiet. It builds gradually through hundreds of small moments — another late night, canceled vacation, project that feels urgent, or week without meaningful recognition. By the time someone says, “I’m burned out,” they’ve often been feeling that way for months.
New Research Shows That the Biggest Risk to Your Job Isn’t AI. It’s Refusing to Learn With It
Fear has always been part of technological change. Fear has always been part of technological change. What feels different about artificial intelligence is how personal it has become. AI does not just move boxes, calculate faster, or automate a factory line. It can write, analyze, code, design, and recommend — work many people believed made them valuable. So, when employees ask, “Will AI take my job?” leaders should not dismiss them. That fear contains a signal. But fear is a poor operating model.
Buc-ee’s Sued Over a Smiling Moose. The Customer Response Says Everything About Why Reputation Still Matters
Your brand is built in the moments you never planned for. When I was a kid, our family would sometimes drive south on Interstate 95 to go camping in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. While the vacation was fun, despite the oppressive humidity and the inevitable clouds of mosquitoes, even better was when we would stop at one of the large Stuckey’s convenience store and souvenir shops along the way.
What JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon Understands About Leadership That Most CEOs Miss
Success isn’t staying forever. It’s leaving well. Every entrepreneur and founder I’ve ever met can remember the day the business became real. Maybe it was the first employee, the first customer, or the first month the company actually made money. Those moments stay with you. What you might not remember, however, is the first time you seriously wondered whether someone else might eventually run the company better than you could. That’s a quieter and more uncomfortable moment.
United Airlines’ New Seating Option Reveals a Bigger Lesson About Customer Value
Will customers see it as another irritating fee or the answer to an unmet need? If you’re a frequent flyer, then I’m sure you’ve played the same quiet game that I often have. You find your aisle or window seat, wrestle your carry-on into the overhead bin, and then try not to look too obvious as you glance toward the front of the cabin. The middle seat next to you is empty, and you anxiously hope that no one who’s boarding will sit there.
United Airlines' new seating option reveals a bigger lesson about customer value
Peter Economy Will customers see it as another irritating fee or the answer to an unmet need? If you're a frequent flyer, then I'm sure you've played the same quiet game that I often have. You find your aisle or window seat , wrestle your carry-on into the overhead bin, and then try not to look too obvious as you glance toward the front of the cabin. The middle seat next to you is empty, and you anxiously hope that no one who's boarding will sit there.
After a Language Scandal, Air Canada’s New CEO Choice Carries a Leadership Lesson for Every Executive
Yesterday’s skills won’t win tomorrow’s job. One of the most revealing leadership decisions you’ll see this year happened during a CEO search. When Air Canada announced its next chief executive this week, many people focused on the obvious qualifications. Anko van der Werff has led major international airlines—including SAS, Avianca Group, Aeroméxico, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and Qatar Airways. He has also guided SAS through a difficult restructuring and built an impressive global résumé.
The Leadership Skill That Changes How You See Everything
The real upgrade isn’t intelligence. It’s awareness. Leaders don’t fail because they lack intelligence, vision, or direction. They fail because they are navigating with incomplete, partial maps. That distinction matters. When you’re a leader, you’re making the most consequential decisions inside an organization. You’re smart, experienced, and deeply committed to getting the answer right, but being right is not enough.
68% of LGBTQ+ Employees Would Leave a Company That Stops Supporting Them
Your values don’t mean much when they cost you nothing. It’s easy for a company to talk about its values when it’s popular. The harder test comes when the political climate changes, customers push back, or executives begin worrying that a public position might create controversy. That’s when employees find out whether the company’s values are real or simply part of a marketing campaign. The surprising survey results A new Harris Poll survey suggests many LGBTQ+ employees are paying close attention.
Southwest Airlines Is Copying Its Competitors, and Undermining the Loyalty That Made It Different
Same airline, new fees, fewer quirks. For decades, Southwest Airlines was different. Customers didn’t have to study a chart to understand its fares. They didn’t have to pay extra to check your first bag or your second one. They didn’t need to decide whether seat 14A was worth another $37 before clicking the purchase button. Southwest wasn’t perfect — far from it.
Shaquille O’Neal Says This Simple Business Book Built His Post-NBA Fortune
The latest NBA draft picks can learn something from his second act. When Shaquille O’Neal entered the NBA in the 1992 NBA Draft, he had at least one obvious advantage. He was 7-foot-1, enormously talented, and nearly impossible to stop near the basket. When he entered the business world, however, none of that helped very much. As the 2026 Draft wraps up, new players would do well to take notes on his second act success.
Not a Soccer Fan? Brands Are Betting This World Cup Will Grab Your Attention
You may skip the matches, but you can’t skip the marketing. I’ll admit it. I’m not a soccer fan, but the World Cup mania sweeping the U.S. is hard to miss. And accompanying this soccer mania? Lots of marketing, mostly sponsorships and advertisements, on every possible media channel, officially — and often, unofficially — linking brands and the World Cup in some way.
New Data Shows Purpose Alone Isn’t Enough to Keep Employees Engaged
They also need to feel they are achieving that purpose. You’ve heard it before: Purpose matters. As a leader, your job is to help your people do meaningful work that creates real impact. In other words, help them achieve their purpose. In his 2009 TED Talk — viewed more than 70 million times — renowned author, motivational speaker, and organizational consultant Simon Sinek identified purpose as the secret sauce for how great leaders inspire action. Sinek asked: “Why is Apple so innovative?
The Most Effective Leaders Don’t Start Their Days in Their Inboxes
Your morning email habit might be costing you more focus than you realize. I hear the same story all the time from leaders who start every morning the same way. They grab their smartphone before even getting out of bed. Within minutes, their brain is flooded with investor emails, customer complaints, missed sales targets, hiring problems, and operational fires. If this is you, by 7:00 a.m., you already feel behind. The strange part is that you might think this behavior makes you disciplined.
Companies Are Spending Millions on AI, but Many Still Feel Stuck
Being busy with AI is not the same as getting results. The business environment is changing so fast today that most organizations are becoming busy in every direction. Think about your own business for a moment. Your teams may be testing the latest AI tools. Meanwhile, executives are talking about transformation, and new initiatives are launching across every department.
7 Quiet Signs Your Company Culture Is Falling Apart
A healthy culture is built in everyday moments — not mission statements. A lot of people talk about company culture — what it is, how to improve it, and how to prevent it from becoming toxic. If you’re a typical leader, I’m sure you’ve spent more than a little time thinking about your organization’s culture. You may have even tried to do something to change its trajectory. Collaboration, trust, transparency, shared vision — these are just a few of the things you may have focused on.
8 Communication Mistakes That Make Leaders Lose Credibility Fast
Corporate jargon doesn’t inspire employees. Clear communication does. I once sat through a leadership meeting where an executive spent nearly 20 minutes answering a straightforward employee question without ever actually answering it. As you might imagine, everyone in the room noticed. My co-workers looked at one another, frustrated, and more than a few quietly rolled their eyes. The executive probably believed he was protecting morale by being vague. Instead, he accidentally damaged trust.
Employees Don’t Usually Quit Overnight. Here’s What Pushes Them Away
Sometimes the problem isn’t the workload. It’s the emotional load. I once worked in an organization where we lost three high-performers in less than two months. The company was growing quickly, compensation was competitive, and there weren’t any depressing cubicles under flickering fluorescent lights. On paper, everything looked healthy. However, one departing employee said something that hit me hard. “The job stopped feeling sustainable,” he explained.
What Highly Effective Leaders Do Instead of Hustling 24/7
Smart leaders know a secret most busy people ignore: rest is productive. How often do you proudly refer to yourself as “always on?” You know what that looks like — checking your emails late into the night, responding to work texts and Slack messages whenever or wherever you are, and answering phone calls during dinner. Essentially, you schedule every possible spare moment of your calendar.
Most Companies Suffer From Misalignment, Not a Lack of Speed
The fastest way to fail is to scale confusion. Whether you’re leading people or deploying AI agents, the instinct is the same. Go faster. Automate more. Remove friction. Increase output. There’s one critical thing to consider: Speed without clarity doesn’t create progress. It creates noise. You can have teams working around the clock, or AI systems executing thousands of tasks per minute, and still end up exactly where you started. Even worse, you can end up further away from where you intended to go.
TikTok Was Forced to Change Overnight. Here’s What Every Leader Can Learn From the Shakeup
Pressure didn’t break TikTok. It forced it to evolve. Uncertainty has ended for TikTok’s future in America. Years of Congressional pressure, lawsuits, and extension requests have culminated in ByteDance finally divesting interests in January 2026. ByteDance completed its largest divestment by selling the majority of its TikTok U.S. interests to a newly formed American-led company, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX now collectively hold 45% of the venture.
The AI Boom Caught Everyone Off Guard Except Microsoft
It didn’t look like speed. Instead, it was preparation. In early 2023, as generative AI tools surged into the mainstream, a familiar pattern unfolded across the tech world. Companies scrambled to respond. Press releases appeared overnight, each one racing to attach “AI-powered” to existing products whether or not anything meaningful had actually changed. Inside many organizations, the urgency was palpable. Leadership teams convened emergency meetings. Product roadmaps were reshuffled.
What Applebee’s, IHOP, and Formula 1 Get Right About Branding
Recognition is nice. Preference is profitable. Brand awareness is not the same as brand preference, and the difference can be costly. A company can achieve near-universal name recognition while simultaneously watching its sales figures fall. The paradox is more common than most marketers would like to admit.
People Are Quietly Using AI Instead of Google and It’s Changing Everything
The move away from traditional search engines has been less a conscious decision than a quiet habit change. For many people, the move away from traditional search engines has been less a conscious decision than a quiet habit change — as unremarkable as switching brands or trying a new route to work. There’s a new default behavior when it comes to search: reaching for an AI assistant instead of a search engine when a question arises. Not as an experiment, and not with any particular fanfare.
Forget Apps. This Old-School Tool Actually Boosts Productivity
Productivity doesn’t need software. It just needs a list of items you can cross off. Years ago, I visited my boss’s office. I had just started working for a software development firm that had grown from a small handful of people to more than 100 in just a year’s time. With that many employees and projects, I imagined he used some sort of project management software to stay organized, maybe two computer monitors with a giant schedule spread across them.
Tim Cook’s 50th Anniversary Letter Reveals Apple’s Secret to Innovation
If you take one lesson from Apple after five decades, let it be this: Always look forward, not backward. Five decades ago, two guys — Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak — built computers in a Los Altos garage. It was child’s play compared to the massive research budgets at Xerox and IBM. However, they had passion, vision, and an idea that would spark the personal computing revolution. Technology should be personal. That idea started Apple. It was buried deep in the company’s DNA from the beginning.
Why McDonald’s, BP, Coca-Cola, and Other Major Brands Keep Getting Accused of Greenwashing
There’s often a sizable gap between companies’ environmental claims and their actual practices. Walk down the aisles of any store these days, and you’ll see a similar message. Companies want you to know they’re “saving the planet.” From clothes to cleaning supplies to hand soap bottles, you’ll find slogans boasting that products are “sustainable,” “planet friendly,” or “eco-conscious.” The real question is: Are they really doing that?
Nvidia Didn’t Win the AI Boom by Accident. It Simply Survived Long Enough to Matter
Right now, Nvidia and founder Jensen Huang sit at the center of the AI explosion. Right now, Nvidia and founder Jensen Huang sit at the center of the AI explosion. The company’s chips power the models everyone is talking about. Startups need Nvidia, tech giants need it, governments are watching it, and investors treat it like infrastructure. Here’s the part people forget: For years, Nvidia was best known for gaming graphics cards. That’s right.
Are You a Leader Looking to Get More Done in Less Time? AI Is the Answer
The leaders who thrive will be the ones who use AI — early, imperfectly, and often enough to get good. Walk into any leadership offsite right now, and you’ll hear the same conversation. You want to use AI. You see the potential. Chances are, you’re not actually doing it well yet. That gap — between knowing and leading — is where you’re probably stuck. It’s not a technology problem but an information-flow problem. You surface an insight in one meeting, and it’s gone by the next.
Are You a Leader Looking to Get More Done in Less Time? AI Is the Answer
8 hours ago Apple's iPhone 19e could come with an LTPO OLED display that would bring 120Hz ProMotion technology to its most affordable iPhone for the first time, based on a new report out of Asia. According to , the fourth-generation model in Apple's entry-level e-series – expected to arrive in early 2028 – …
5 Leadership Lessons From Tesla’s Turbulent Growth Strategy
There’s no separating Tesla from Elon Musk. A few months ago, I was talking with one of my clients—an executive who had just lived through his company’s second restructuring in two years. He said something that stuck with me: “It’s not the change that exhausts people. It’s the unpredictability.” That line could easily apply to Tesla.
Southwest’s Reserved Seating Change Is a Powerful Lesson in Leadership and Adaptability
With much fanfare, reserved seating has begun on Southwest Airlines. I’ve flown on Southwest Airlines more than enough times to know the drill. Set an alarm for check-in. Hope for an early boarding group. Mentally calculate how far back you’ll be if you get stuck in group B or C. As you board your flight, pretend you’re not irritated at the person saving two extra seats in the front with a backpack. It was part of the ritual. Now that ritual is going away.
7 Insecurities That Quietly Hold You Back and Drive Your Decisions
The trouble isn’t that insecurity exists—the trouble is how easily it shapes your decisions without asking permission. Most insecurities don’t announce themselves. They don’t show up as dramatic self-doubt or obvious fear. They blend in, sound reasonable — responsible, even. That’s what makes them so limiting. You don’t wake up thinking, “I’m insecure today.” Instead, you hesitate. You edit yourself. You wait a little longer than necessary. The trouble isn’t that insecurity exists.
Apple Didn’t Rush AI and That’s No Accident. Here Are 5 Leadership Takeaways
While other companies sprinted to slap “AI” labels on everything, Apple looked like it was taking its time. Last year, I was in an airport gate area losing 10 minutes of my life trying to get my phone to cooperate. I was searching for the link to my boarding pass so I could bring it up on my phone, scan it, and jump on my flight. The airport Wi-Fi wasn’t cooperating, and I barely had signal. It was time to board.
5 Leadership Lessons from Olympic Gold Medalist Alysa Liu’s Comeback
If you lead long enough, you’ll hit a moment when pushing harder isn’t the answer. Years ago, I worked with a CEO who had just come off the most profitable year in his company’s history. Revenue was up, his board was thrilled, but he looked exhausted. At one point, he quietly confided, “If this is success, why do I feel like I’m losing?” That question has been sitting with me ever since.
Meta Spent Years Chasing the Metaverse but Now It’s Making a Big Pivot. Here Are 5 Leadership Lessons Behind That Shift
After betting heavily on the metaverse—and spending many billions building it—Meta recently pivoted hard. A few years ago, the metaverse was the next big thing. In case you missed the wave, the metaverse is a 3D virtual universe that blends physical and digital realities, allowing users to interact in real-time through avatars.
Wendy’s Is Closing Hundreds of Restaurants. Here Are 5 Leadership Realities Behind That Decision
The fast food mainstay expects flat global systemwide sales in 2026. Translation: No growth. Years ago, Wendy’s was my personal go-to company lunchroom. Every weekday, I walked a few blocks to my local restaurant and ordered the same thing: a baked potato with broccoli, smothered with (what looked like) cheddar cheese. I loved it. The restaurant was always full at lunch — overflowing with people who, like myself, were looking for fast, reasonably healthy food at a good price.
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