Conagra Brands Forecasts Flat Sales as Challenges Continue
The food and snacking-brands company–maker of Vlasic pickles and Snack Pack pudding cups–guided for organic sales, which account for revenues generated from existing operations, in a range of down 1% to up 1% for fiscal 2026.
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Fast Company
15 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Your next direct report might not be human. Are you ready to lead it?
BY We've spent decades building frameworks to help people lead teams: courses, certifications, coaching, culture decks. All aimed at shaping better managers of humans. But that's no longer enough. Because for many workers, their first report won't be a person. It'll be an agent. In June BNY Mellon onboarded 1,000 digital workers while JPMorgan Chase is building AI teams at scale. This isn't theoretical. The new direct reports are already clocked in and they don't need coffee, feedback, or PTO. The problem? Most organizations are still running on legacy management models built for human hierarchies and not set up to manage machines. Leading humans versus governing agents When you manage people, you guide behavior. You motivate, delegate, coach, and course correct. It's a loop built on trust and conversation. When you manage an AI, none of that applies. You don't coach a model. You govern it. You define inputs, monitor outputs, escalate issues, and answer for the consequences. And you do that in real time. In AI-led teams, leadership is less about motivation and more about judgment. The ability to assess, adjust, and act across decision chains is what separates performance from liability. It's knowing what good looks like. It's catching the drift, asking the right question before the system generates the wrong answer, and being accountable for outcomes, even when you didn't directly produce them. The HR model is out of sync HR isn't ready for this shift. Most performance frameworks still assume linear paths, human reports, and long-term role tenure. But digital agents break that logic. They don't climb ladders. They execute tasks. They can outperform junior staff one day and be outpaced by a new model the next. You don't manage their growth. You manage the conditions in which they operate. That shift puts pressure on organizational design itself. Hierarchies built for human oversight don't hold when decision loops involve systems acting faster than approvals can be processed. That means rethinking how we define productivity, collaboration, and leadership. It means building new metrics for how human employees interact with agents, not just what they produce on their own. Are they designing good prompts? Are they escalating ethical concerns? Are they reviewing outputs critically or rubber-stamping them? These are the new leadership signals. Most performance reviews aren't built to detect them. Prompting is a leadership act Prompting isn't a technical skill; it's a management one. The way you frame a prompt shapes what an agent does. Vague prompts lead to vague results. Biased prompts produce biased outcomes. And poor prompting isn't just inefficient. It can become a legal or reputational risk. Yet most companies treat prompting like its keyboard wizardry. Something for the engineers or the 'AI power users.' That's a mistake. Everyone managing agents, from interns to executives, needs to learn how to design clear, intentional instructions. Because prompts are decisions in disguise, shaped by where they sit in the organizational context and why they're being made. The ethics chain is breaking In traditional teams, ethics and escalation follow a chain of command. Something goes wrong, someone flags it, and a manager gets involved. But with agents acting independently and often invisibly, the chain breaks. You can't escalate what you don't notice. And too often, companies haven't defined what ethical escalation looks like when the actor is synthetic. Who's accountable when an AI produces a discriminatory recommendation? Or leaks sensitive information? Or makes a decision a human wouldn't? If your answer is 'the tech team,' you're not ready. Governance can't sit in the back office. It needs to be built into team workflows. The best companies are training their people to pause, question and report, not just accept what the system spits out. Chain of thought and chain of reasoning aren't just cognitive tricks. They're how human teams will spot drift, bias, and breakpoints in the AI value chain. And that skillset is only going to grow in importance. The bottom line AI won't replace all managers, but it will redefine what management means. Leading agents demands flexing a different muscle and most organizations haven't trained for it. This isn't about replacing soft skills with hard skills, but rather it's replacing passive management with active stewardship: less people-pleasing and more decision accountability, fewer status meetings and more escalation pathways. Managing machines still means leading people. But the people you lead need new tools, new rules, and a different playbook. The companies that get this right won't be the ones with the flashiest tech. They'll be the ones that know how to change the game by managing what they've built. The early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, September 5, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Brudenell (DCB) is the executive director of Decidr, Australia's only publicly listed AI company. With 25+ years of experience working across AI infrastructure, model development, and business transformation, David has held senior leadership positions in public, large private and startup companies from Sydney to San Francisco, including Appen (ASX:APX), Pureprofile (ASX:PPL), Eclipx (ASX:FPR), Flare (purchased by MYOB in 2023) and more. More
Washington Post
16 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Deep Reads: Cracks in the dream
The Vitals had settled in Springfield from Haiti during President Donald Trump's first term and saved money through the Biden administration. Business leaders in their reliably red county praised immigrants for reviving the local economy. Americans struggled to pass drug tests, one factory boss told a TV news crew. Not Haitians. Fernande Vital earned $21 an hour at a Japanese automotive plant, monitoring robots forging car parts, while her husband, Rocher, led a strip-mall church. Even as the GOP and some of their neighbors called for mass deportations, the Vitals were sure nobody meant them, immigrants here legally. So inJuly of last year, they made a down payment of $8,000, their entire nest egg. In August, they moved in, installed lace curtains and hung a family portrait in the dining room. One month later came the cracks. This story follows the Vitals after they dealt with the structural woes in their home and their feeling of belonging in this country. Danielle Paquette reported, wrote and narrated the piece. Bishop Sand composed music and produced audio. Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
Forbes
16 minutes ago
- Forbes
Breaking Down Palo Alto Networks' $25B CyberArk Acquisition
Every enterprise's most sensitive data and critical systems are just one stolen password away from catastrophe. With about 88% of cyber breaches now originating from credential theft, the traditional approach to cybersecurity has proven inadequate for protecting modern enterprises. Palo Alto Networks' $25 billion planned acquisition of CyberArk is a fundamental shift in how enterprises approach security architecture in an era where artificial intelligence agents, automated systems, and human users all require sophisticated identity management. For executives overseeing digital transformation initiatives, it's a deal illuminating both the scale of the identity security challenge and the strategic imperative to address it comprehensively. Understanding the Technology Transformation CyberArk brings to Palo Alto a specialized capability that has become mission-critical: privileged access management. Unlike standard identity management systems, which handle everyday user logins, PAM focuses on the highest-risk accounts within an organization. These include administrator credentials, service accounts, and the digital keys that allow applications to communicate with each other. The technical architecture operates on a zero-trust principle, storing all privileged credentials in secure digital vaults and releasing them only momentarily to verified users or systems. Every access attempt undergoes real-time verification, with all activities logged in tamper-proof records. After use, credentials automatically rotate, ensuring that even if intercepted, they become immediately useless to attackers. This capability becomes exponentially more valuable as organizations deploy artificial intelligence agents and autonomous systems. Consider an AI agent tasked with processing financial transactions across multiple systems. Each interaction requires authenticated access, creating a complex web of digital identities that traditional security approaches cannot adequately protect. CyberArk's platform provides the infrastructure to manage these machine identities at scale while maintaining security integrity. The Platformization Imperative This acquisition is the logical evolution of Palo Alto's platformization strategy, which has driven over 14 acquisitions since 2019. The company has systematically consolidated point security solutions into integrated platforms, recognizing that modern threats exploit the gaps between disconnected security tools. Palo Alto's approach mirrors the historical evolution of network security, where standalone firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and VPNs merged into unified next-generation firewalls. Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, articulated this vision clearly in discussing the deal: "Long term, a billion-dollar revenue company should not be public. They should be part of a bigger entity that allows for the leverage and scale required to create large amounts of cash flow and a high market cap." This philosophy has guided Palo Alto's transformation from a firewall vendor to a comprehensive security platform provider. Palo Alto's platformization strategy delivers three critical advantages: CyberArk's addition to the platform fills the last significant capability gap in Palo Alto's portfolio. While the company has successfully integrated cloud security, zero trust access, and threat intelligence capabilities, identity security remained a critical missing piece. This acquisition completes the platform vision, enabling Palo Alto to address the entire attack surface through a unified architecture. Benefits for Enterprise Customers The acquisition addresses several business challenges facing modern enterprises. This includes consolidating security vendors at a time when organizations struggle to manage dozens of disparate security tools. The deal also enables Palo Alto to offer privileged access management at price points previously reserved for standard identity management solutions. Historically, PAM's high cost limited its deployment to only the most critical systems. By integrating PAM capabilities into its broader platform, Palo Alto promises to democratize access to enterprise-grade identity security, allowing organizations to protect all privileged accounts, rather than just a select few. Finally, the combined platform will enable enterprises to secure emerging AI workloads. As organizations deploy autonomous agents for everything from customer service to supply chain optimization, each agent requires secure identity management. This convergence of network security and identity management creates a unified defense against attacks that exploit the seams between different security domains. Competitive Dynamics and Market Reality Palo Alto Networks' acquisition of CyberArk is the latest step in an ongoing transformation of the hyper-competitive cybersecurity market. Following Google's $32 billion acquisition of Wiz, the CyberArk deal confirms that the era of standalone security vendors is coming to an end. The market is consolidating around comprehensive platforms that can address security holistically rather than through point solutions. For Palo Alto, the acquisition transforms its market position from network security leader to comprehensive security platform provider. The combined entity will generate over $8 billion in annual revenue, creating the scale necessary to compete effectively against both established players, such as Microsoft, and emerging cloud-native vendors. The market's initial skepticism, reflected in an immediate 14% decline in Palo Alto's stock price, stems from legitimate concerns about the execution of the deal. Integrating a $1 billion revenue company is a significant departure from Palo Alto's historical pattern of smaller acquisitions. Critics, including competitors like Wiz, have characterized Palo Alto's platform as a "Frankenstein mashup" of acquired technologies that prove difficult to deploy and operate. However, this criticism misses the strategic imperative driving consolidation. Enterprises require unified security platforms that can correlate threats across domains, encompassing network traffic, user behavior, and application interactions. Point solutions, despite their excellence, cannot provide the comprehensive visibility necessary to defend against sophisticated attacks. Palo Alto's platformization approach transforms these individual components into a cohesive defense system that exceeds the sum of its parts. Financial Analysis and Valuation Considerations The $25 billion price tag, representing a 29% premium to CyberArk's pre-announcement value, reflects both the strategic value of identity security and the competitive dynamics of the acquisition market. CyberArk's 46% revenue growth in the most recent quarter, compared to Palo Alto's 15%, highlights a key moment in the identity security market. From a financial engineering perspective, the deal structure, which combines $45 in cash per share with 2.2005 Palo Alto shares, provides CyberArk shareholders with immediate liquidity while maintaining upside exposure to the combined entity's success. For Palo Alto, the acquisition accelerates entry into a high-growth market segment that would have taken years to build organically. The integration costs and revenue disruption during the transition period will pressure near-term financial performance. However, the strategic value of establishing leadership in identity security before competitors can respond justifies the premium valuation. As Nikesh Arora noted, entering markets at their inflection point is central to Palo Alto's strategy. Analyst's Take This acquisition will force a response from across the cybersecurity industry. Standalone identity vendors, like Okta, face immediate pressure to find strategic partners or risk marginalization. Traditional security vendors must accelerate their identity security capabilities or risk losing enterprise customers seeking integrated platforms. For enterprise buyers, the consolidation trend offers both opportunities and risks. Integrated platforms promise simplified vendor management, better security outcomes, and potentially lower total costs. The convergence of network and identity security is just the beginning of a broader transformation. As enterprises deploy increasing numbers of AI agents, IoT devices, and autonomous systems, the definition of identity itself will expand. Organizations that establish comprehensive identity security architectures today will find themselves better positioned to capitalize on AI-driven innovation while managing associated risks. The future belongs to those who can secure every identity, human or machine, across their entire digital estate through unified, intelligent platforms that transform security from a collection of tools into a strategic capability. That's foundational to how Palo Alto views this market, and lies at the heart of its platformization strategy. While Wall Street has some valid short-term anxiety over the move, the acquisition ultimately leaves Palo Alto Networks stronger and well-positioned for long-term growth. It's a strong move for the company. Disclosure: Steve McDowell is an industry analyst, and NAND Research is an industry analyst firm, that engages in, or has engaged in, research, analysis and advisory services with many technology companies, but has no business relationship or financial interest with any company mentioned in this article. No company mentioned was involved in the writing of this article.
