Reed Hastings built one of the most disruptive companies in history, and he didn't do it by focusing solely on technical skills. In a recent conversation on the Possible podcast, the Netflix cofounder and chairman made a case that's worth sitting with: as AI takes over more of what computers used to require humans to do, the skills that will matter most are the ones machines can't replicate. Emotional intelligence. self-awareness, and the ability to understand people, context, and consequence.

Hastings put it plainly, “If I had a 3-year-old today, I would be doubling down on the emotional skills.” He's backed that belief with $50 million to his alma mater Bowdoin College to establish an initiative at the intersection of AI and the humanities.

For anyone in the business of developing people, this is a meaningful signal: the mindset advantage isn't going away. If anything, it's becoming the only durable advantage left.

Entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant has a counterintuitive take on sales: the best sellers don't sell at all.

In this episode of the Naval podcast, he argues that the most powerful thing you can do, whether you're recruiting talent, raising money, or closing a deal, is to be credible. That means being honest about what you believe, knowledgeable enough to explain it simply, and genuinely excited about what you're offering. If you feel like you're selling, he says, you're probably selling the wrong thing.

Naval also gets into the mechanics of dealmaking: why he walks away from suboptimal deals even under pressure, why he focuses on expanding the upside rather than "splitting the pie," and why the people most worth impressing are the ones who can see straight through a pitch.

Running underneath all of it is a mindset rooted in self-awareness and authenticity: know what you believe, find the people it resonates with, and move on from the ones it doesn't. That's not a sales strategy. It's a way of operating, in any context.