The new rules for leading in chaos: How to plan, prioritize, and stay calm | Summit 2026
Bob Safian hosts DJ Patil, Raina Kumra, Hayden Brown, Baratunde Thurston, John Mills, and Dara and William Treseder on leading amid nonstop change, arguing calm, judgment, and clear priorities matter more than keeping up.
The gist
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DJ Patil uses a double pendulum to show that the key question is how much forecast range you have, and that chaos brings opportunity.
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Raina Kumra says there is no keeping up, only keeping calm; she runs 12 AI agents but insists people must keep their own judgment.
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Hayden Brown says CEOs should plan like pioneers heading toward a horizon, and Upwork's internal crystal ball tool turns weeks of analysis into hours.
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Baratunde Thurston asks whether a technology helps or hinders his relationship with himself, other people, and nature, while still happily using Claude.
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Dara and William Treseder sort life into glass balls they won't break and rubber balls they can drop, and track a family NPS.
"And so that allows me to still have fun and still play with my boy Claude, who's not really a boy, but you know, a business model masquerading as a personality, but it's very helpful. It's very helpful."
▶ Play at 14:37250 creators recommend it, including Riley Brown, Chris Koerner, and This Week in Startups.
See all on the Claude page"We think about our life as they're glass balls and they're rubber balls. And the glass balls are the things we don't want to break. So that's like our marriage, our children's well-being, our health, financial stability for our family. They're rubber balls, things that we love..."
▶ Play at 20:10"For us, our overarching, like, what is the big KPI? For us is what we kind of call our family NPS. Yes, I'm a marketer. Yes, we bring it home. And there's two sides of that. One is the marriage NPS... And then we think about our kids NPS."
▶ Play at 22:42What they recommend · 3 picks
"We think about our life as they're glass balls and they're rubber balls. And the glass balls are the things we don't want to break. So that's like our marriage, our children's w..."
"And so that allows me to still have fun and still play with my boy Claude, who's not really a boy, but you know, a business model masquerading as a personality, but it's very he..."
"For us, our overarching, like, what is the big KPI? For us is what we kind of call our family NPS. Yes, I'm a marketer. Yes, we bring it home. And there's two sides of that. One..."
Dara Treseder
2 picks · guest
"We think about our life as they're glass balls and they're rubber balls. And the glass balls are the things we don't want to break. So that's like our marriage, our children's w..."
"For us, our overarching, like, what is the big KPI? For us is what we kind of call our family NPS. Yes, I'm a marketer. Yes, we bring it home. And there's two sides of that. One..."
Baratunde Thurston
1 pick · guest
"And so that allows me to still have fun and still play with my boy Claude, who's not really a boy, but you know, a business model masquerading as a personality, but it's very he..."
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