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ABC has suspended Jimmy Kimmels late-night show indefinitely after comments that he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show. Kimmel, the veteran late-night comic, made several comments about the reaction to Kirk’s assassination on his show on September 15 and 16. He said that many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk. ABC, which has aired Kimmel’s late-night show since 2003, moved swiftly after Nexstar Communications Group said it would pull the show starting Wednesday. Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s death are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division. Nexstar operates 23 ABC affiliates. There was no immediate comment from Kimmel. President Donald Trump celebrated ABC’s move on the social media site Truth Social, writing: Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. He also targeted two other late-night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, and said they should be canceled too, calling them two total losers. Kimmels contract is up at the end of next season, which ends in May 2026. After ABCs announcement, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted on X: Welcome to Consequence Culture. Normal, common sense Americans are no longer taking the b- and companies like ABC are finally willing to do the right and reasonable thing.” In his monologue on September 15, Kimmel said, We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. Kimmel said that Trump’s response to Kirk’s death is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, okay? He also said that FBI chief Kash Patel has handled the investigation into the murder like a kid who didn’t read the book, BS’ing his way through an oral report. He returned to the topic the following night, mocking Vice President JD Vance’s performance as guest host for Kirk’s podcast. He said Trump was fanning the flames by attacking people on the left. Which is it, are they a bunch of sissy pickleball players because they’re too scared to be hit by tennis balls, or a well-organized deadly team of commandos, because they can’t be both of those things. Authorities say Tyler Robinson, 22, who is charged with killing Kirk, grew up in a conservative household in southern Utah but was enmeshed in leftist ideology. His parents told investigators he had turned politically left and pro-LGBTQ rights in the last year. Utah records show he was registered as a voter, but not affiliated with either political party. His voter status is inactive, meaning he did not vote in two regular general elections. He told his transgender partner that he targeted Kirk because he had enough of his hatred. Kimmel, like CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, has consistently been critical of Trump and many of his policies on his ABC show. CBS said this past summer that it was canceling Colbert’s show at the end of this season for financial reasons, although some critics have wondered if his stance on Trump played a role. By David Bauder, AP Media Writer
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E-Commerce
Leadership is not a straight line or a standard model; there are countless paths to the top. From Silicon Valley builders like Reed Hastings to steady hands like Warren Buffett, who had already led Berkshire Hathaway for decades before Netflix mailed its first DVD, the common thread is not a blueprint, but an ability to draw the best out of people. With two decades in the C-suite, Ive collected a handful of lessons that have shaped my leadership philosophy. I certainly dont pretend to have all the answers, and ultimately leadership is a journey, not a destination. But these five observations have helped me along the way. They serve as a useful guide in navigating the unpredictable terrain of leadership, and in my view, often separate tone-deaf leaders from those who really connect. 1. World-class products come from world-class people If there is one piece of wisdom I elevate above all else, it is that people matter most, every time. The flywheel of any successful company spins because of its people: Amazing people build innovative products and platforms; these drive healthy profits; healthy profits are reinvested in more amazing people. Embracing humility over hubris is key. Acknowledge your blind spots and recognize your limitations in knowledge and skill. Doing so gives you a clearer lens to find the right people and build teams that fill those gaps. At Twilio, my leadership has focused on nurturing a culture where teams are empowered to innovate boldly and embrace risk, especially during uncertain times. This approach has deepened my commitment to building teams that complement and challenge one another. 2. Absorb fear, lead the charge Fake it till you make it looks good on a bumper sticker, but it is a hollow mantra in the C-suite. Leadership is not about projecting false confidence; it is about absorbing the fears and insecurities of your team, even when you do not have all the answers. The balance is delicate: Project stability without slipping into manufactured bravado. Customers and employees are astute judges of authenticity, and they will see through a façade. As the late Kobe Bryant said, Confidence comes from preparation. There is no shortcut to the hard work of preparation, whether you are leading a basketball team or a boardroom. My 22 years at GE reinforced this lesson through constant rotation across roles: financial, cyber, legal, go-to-market, R&D. Just when I would get comfortable, I would be thrust into a new, ambiguous environment. That forced me to embrace vulnerability, cultivate curiosity, and build resilience to lead under uncertainty. Great leaders do not pretend to have all the answers, they prepare relentlessly to face the unknown. 3. Work-life balance is a myth The idea of work-life balance is often romanticized, but in my experience, it is a myth for those aiming to lead. Success demands more than a standard 40-hour workweek. It requires an unrelenting commitment to the craft of leadership, driven by curiosity and a willingness to step into discomfort. Effective leaders, whether technical experts or generalists, step beyond their core expertise to understand the full spectrum of their companys needs: customers, employees, and strategy. This agility, rooted in preparation, allows them to navigate uncharted waters and inspire others to do the same. 4. Customer obsession is a tired but true truism Companies may be powered by their people, but they orbit their customers. Customer obsession is a well-worn phrase, tossed around in earnings calls and interviews. Overused or not, its truth is undeniable. A core function of any CEO is to understand and solve customer pain points, not just today but for the future: three, five, 10 years down the line. That requires courage, foresight, and perseverance to weather short-term challenges to serve long-term gains. Last year, I met with the CEO of one of our biggest and longest-tenured customers. He told me we are not just a vendor, but one of three partners they rely on to succeed. That trust, earned through years of relationship-building and a deep understanding of their evolving business, is something we must re-earn every day. It is a reminder that customer obsession is not a buzzword, but a commitment. 5. Embrace failure: It is success that has not happened yet In his Dartmouth College 2024 commencement address, Roger Federer reflected on competition: In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80%…What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%…When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. His point is profound: Failure is inevitable, but success comes from winning just a little more than you lose, and moving forward without dwelling on setbacks. At Twilio, I foster a culture of permissible failure, one that values effort, encourages persistence, and rewards curiosity to push boundaries. Sometimes this leads to wins, other times it yields lessons. Both are invaluable. Leaders must create environments where teams feel safe to take risks, knowing that failure is not the end but a step toward success. THE PATH FORWARD There is no blueprint for great leadership. It is a personal journey shaped by observation, trial, error, and plenty of course corrections along the way. Traits like curiosity, resilience, and empathy, tend to shine through in those who lead well, but even then, no two paths or leaders look the same. Uncertainty has never been greater. That only amplifies the need for thoughtful, human-centered leadership. I encourage every leader, whether aspiring to the C-suite or not, to embrace curiosity, invest in people, obsess over customers, and create space for failure in the pursuit of something better. From my experience, a good CEO focuses on what their people need now to build a resilient company. A great CEO thinks beyond their tenure, laying the groundwork for others to build an even stronger enterprise. Still, I dont see leadership as a formula to master. Its a lifelong process, one that requires humility, openness to change, and, if Im honest, more than a little luck. The company and I are both works in progress, as it should be. Khozema Shipchandler is CEO of Twilio.
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E-Commerce
Six months ago, I wrote about the need for marketing teams to develop computational thinking, data interpretation, and cross-cultural fluency. Today, I’m watching those concepts play out in real time. And Ive been seeing and hearing about which teams are actually making the transition versus those still talking about it. The difference is stark. The marketers who are succeeding arent just learning new skills; theyre fundamentally rewiring how they approach problems, make decisions, and execute campaigns. FROM COMPUTATIONAL THINKING TO SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE Thinking like a programmer was just the beginning. Now, the most effective marketing leaders are thinking like systems architects. Theyre designing entire systems that can adapt, scale, and self-optimize on a recurring basis. Take personalization. A year ago, teams were excited about dynamic email content. Today, sophisticated players are building attribution models that connect a customer’s podcast listening habits to their in-store purchase behavior, then automatically adjusting creative messaging across seven different touchpoints in real time. This isnt about technological sophistication; it’s about systems thinking. It requires that marketing professionals visualize how every customer interaction feeds into a larger decision-making framework. Rather than just mapping customer journeys, theyre designing feedback loops. Its a bigger advancement than it sounds. All of this is playing out most clearly in retail media. The brands that are winning on Amazon, Walmart, and Target are going beyond optimizing individual campaigns. They’re building integrated systems where search performance informs creative testing, which influences inventory decisions, which shapes promotional strategy. And theyre doing it all simultaneously across multiple platforms. THE DEATH OF DASHBOARD MARKETING Marketing teams data interpretation programs have evolved from assumption challenging into something we can call signal detection. This is such an essential skill. The ability to spot meaningful patterns in noise before they become obvious to everyone else is something that has always separated market movers from those just keeping pace. McKinsey & Co. research on AI in the workplace reveals something crucial: While 94% of employees claim familiarity with AI tools, only 1% of companies have reached AI maturity. In marketing, this gap is even more pronounced. Teams are drowning in AI-generated insights but starving for strategic clarity. The solution isn’t better dashboards or more sophisticated analytics. It’s developing what military strategists call “battlefield awareness”the capacity to synthesize disparate information sources into actionable intelligence while conditions are constantly changing. CULTURAL FLUENCY AS COMPETITIVE MOAT Cross-cultural communication has become a differentiating capability. This is something that was once considered a nice-to-have. But here’s what’s changed: Its no longer about understanding different markets, its about understanding different information ecosystems. Gen Z consumers in Texas get their product information from TikTok and Discord. Gen X consumers in the same ZIP code rely on Google reviews and local Facebook groups. Millennials in New York City trust Instagram influencers. Meanwhile, their counterparts in Minneapolis might prefer podcast recommendations. The varying values of those media channels reflect the need to be more than culturally fluent. Marketing teams need to be informationally fluent. They understand not just what different audiences want to hear, but where they go to hear it, how they process it, and what formats they trust. THE INTEGRATION IMPERATIVE Here’s what I didn’t anticipate six months ago: how quickly these skills would need to work together. The best campaigns I’m seeing integrate computational thinking, signal detection, and cultural fluency into single execution frameworks. It matters that teams arent just good at one thing, but that theyre building hybrid capabilities that combine all three. Heres how I imagine a campaign that uses systems thinking to design a multi-platform attribution model by bringing all these disparate elements together. Signal detection can identify microtrends in consumer behavior, while cultural fluency can adapt messaging for over a dozen different audience segments. Its all managed through a single creative brief that gets updated in real-time based on performance data. This kind of integration is becoming table stakes. All clients are actively demanding less fragmentation within their agency setup. This demand is especially intense from mid-sized brands with tighter and tighter budgets over the last two years. They expect agencies to deliver fully-integrated and data-informed campaign creative as well as activation. Agencies like ours are winning these accounts for three simple reasons. One, a combined offering is now possible. Two, clients are calling out for greater efficiency on vendor cost. Lastly, better cross-trade data is here. And AI helps to decipher it more and more quickly every day. In the end, flexibility is the premium here. Specialized marketing teams are a luxury no one can afford. You need people who can toggle between strategic thinking and tactical execution, between data analysis and cultural interpretation, between human insight and technological optimization. THE NEW MARKETING OPERATING SYSTEM What were really talking about is the emergence of a new marketing operating system. Its one that treats adaptability as a core competency rather than a response to crisis. The most effective marketing leaders I know have stopped thinking about skills as things you learn once and then apply. Instead, they’ve built learning into their operational rhythm. They’re constantly experimenting with new tools, testing different approaches, and updating their frameworks based on what they discover. This isn’t about being early adopters or technology enthusiasts. It’s about recognizing that the pace of change has accelerated to the point where static expertise becomes obsolete faster than you can develop it. The marketing departments that will thrive in 2025, 2026, and in the years to come are those that have rebuilt themselves around continuous adaptation. Teams that view the reset not as a one-time event but as a permanent feature of how modern marketing works. The fundamentals haven’t just shifted. They’ve become fluid. The question isn’t what skills you need to learn, but how quickly you can learn to learn differenty. Tim Ringel is global CEO of Meet The People
Category:
E-Commerce
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