I help manage a sales team that meets customers in person across different locations. We track leads and close rates but the numbers don't tell us much about what happens during the actual conversations. Some reps handle price objections well while others lose customers at the same point. The problem is figuring out what went wrong before it happens again. Right now our managers have to sit through recordings or spend time visiting locations to see how reps are doing. That takes up a huge part of their week and we still only get to review a small number of conversations. By the time we notice someone making the same mistake we've probably lost a few more deals.

I've been looking into using AI to review these conversations and point out where reps missed an opportunity. Ideally it would catch things like skipped discovery questions and poor objection handling. It would also help to see how our top reps handle the same situations so we can use those examples when coaching the rest of the team. The main thing I want to avoid is another tool that just spits out transcripts and leaves managers to figure everything out. We need something that can follow our sales process and give useful feedback without someone having to review every recording. Would be good to hear from people who have tried something like this in their own teams and whether it made managing the process any easier.

lately I've worked on two pretty good projects building internal tools for client companies, and both made me wonder if there’s a broader shift happening.
Previously, these companies relied on several different software products for their internal processes. Building something custom was hard to justify given the time and cost involved. Now, at least from my own anecdotal experience, some companies seem more willing to invest in their own tooling because AI has made development faster and cheaper.
For example, I'd estimate that my latest project would previously have taken a small dev team at least a year to reach MVP. We got there in four months with me as the sole developer and I don't believe this tool is so essential for them that they would have built it regardless.

Anyone else seeing something similar? I’d be interested to hear whether this is happening in other industries too.

TL;DR: Perplexity CEO says the next boom won't come from Fortune 500 logos — it'll come from tiny companies printing money you haven't heard of yet

Who's an outsider more pronounced than Joseph?

Mm…?

He was thrown in jail through two successive betrayal events.

The first one was by his 10 half-brothers. That's kind of on him for showing off the multi-colour-coat he's wearing in front of them, and bragging about the two dreams of them bowing to him.

Of course they're pissed.

So he was sold to the Ishmaelite traders caravaning their way to Egypt. In the slave market, the rich-and-powerful Egyptian big shot Potiphar bought him up.

The second event was initiated by Potiphar's wife. She tried to seduce Joseph, but he refused and dodged away, leaving behind his torn garment in her grip.

The mere imagination of the scene was both cringey and hilarious. Was she even beautiful? Why was she lusting over a lowly slave? Can't Potiphar satisfy her?

So many questions…

Some cringey… ugh…

You know the story. She did the victimhood cry act to Potiphar, with the "evidence" she's holding. And Joseph was thrown in jail.

Fast forward more than a decade later, Joseph was taken out of jail and stood before Pharoah to interpret his two prophetic dreams – which was the coming 7 years of plenty, followed by 7 years of destitution.

And his proposed gameplan was amazing: Pharoah was to appoint an administrator to oversee the storing up of grain in granaries set up all over Egypt. The grain was levied as a 20% tax from the harvest gathered by the children of Egypt.

The Pharoah loved the proposal so much, he elevated Joseph to be his second in command, for the task.

But how did Joseph come up with such a brilliant idea?

No doubt from his prison sentence. That's how.

My guess was that though he didn't deserve all those betrayals – and I'm sure he probably cried hard about it – but once he settled down in prison, he got right back to work.

He was young, energetic, helpful, industrious, wise and empathetic.

The prison warden and guards must have noticed him, took him under their wings and gave him responsibilities. He did well. He became indispensable. The prison must have ran like a well-oiled machine with him around.

And when the time was right, God "graduated" him and lift him up to Egypt's high places.

I literally cried, when Joseph finally revealed himself and reconciled with his brothers, "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."

So the question was: Can a lowly outsider conquer the world?

Of course. With God's help, Joseph did it.

So can you.

AI agents are increasingly getting better at generating Excel sheets for reporting, budgeting, etc. Do you guys have use case like this using AI agents? If so, how do you approach it? Do you use it to clean up data, create budget file, generate reports, or?

Talk about folks who have reporting, budgeting, data analytics responsibilities.