Business

Starbucks Introduces a Strict New Dress Code for Baristas

Starbucks wants the green apron to be the star of the show.

Starting May 12, Starbucks is “evolving” its dress code in all stores that will allow its “iconic green apron to shine,” the company announced on its blog.

The new “simplified color options” will “create a sense of familiarity for our customers, no matter which store they visit across North America,” the company wrote.

Since taking over as CEO in September 2024, Chief Executive Brian Niccol has implemented a slew of changes to improve lagging sales. This includes cutting 30% of its menu, adding new directives like making coffee in under four minutes, and writing customers’ names down with Sharpies on their cups.

What Is the New Starbucks Barista Dress Code?

Starbucks is calling the new dress code a “more defined color palette,” which means a solid black (only) crewneck, collared, or button-up shirt in either short and long-sleeves.

For bottoms, crewmembers can wear “any shade” of khaki, black, or blue denim. The company said it is also making a new line of company-branded T-shirts that will be “available to partners, who will receive two at no cost.”

The AP notes that in 2019, Starbucks began allowing one facial piercing for its front-facing employees, and that still stands with the new dress code.

Starbucks has more than 40,000 stores worldwide, with 16,941 in the U.S. The company has used the green apron as its symbol since 1987.

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Business

AI Is Replacing Jobs in These Two Fields, Benchmark VC Says

1744749133 AI Job GettyImages 1649757762

Big Tech companies may not say outright that AI is replacing people, but one tech investor is — and he says two professions, in particular, should watch out.

“Big companies talk about, like, ‘AI isn’t replacing people, it’s augmenting them,'” said Victor Lazarte, general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, on a recent episode of the podcast “The Twenty Minute VC.”

“It’s bulls—t,” Lazarte said. “It’s fully replacing people.”

Lazarte said that two professions should be especially wary of AI: lawyers and recruiters.

He explained that within the next three years, AI will be able to take over the busy work in law, which often falls to recent law school graduates. On the recruiting side, Lazarte predicted that AI would take over interviewing candidates.

“There’s not going to be that many things” that AI can’t do, Lazarte said.

The legal industry is already using AI tools. Earlier this week, legal tech startup Libra, which supports more than 3,000 lawyers and 150 law firms, updated its AI to help with every step of daily legal work, from research to review. Last July, the American Bar Association listed Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot as its top four tools for AI professionals.

AI has noticeably improved the quality of legal work, too. A March study from researchers at the University of Michigan Law School discovered that AI can improve how well law students put together legal analyses. Study participants found that the quality of their legal work improved by up to 28% with AI.

Meanwhile, law firms are racing to adopt AI. A Thomson Reuters study from July 2024 surveyed 2,200 professionals and C-Suite executives globally and found that law firms listed AI as their top strategic priority.

On the recruiting side, firms are using AI to automate hiring. While Jobscan research notes that 99% of the Fortune 500 companies use AI to filter applicants, its influence reaches farther than just the initial stage of applications. A Resume Builder survey found that in 2024, over 40% of companies used AI to conduct interviews and “talk” to candidates. The AI screenings have taken some candidates by surprise.

Meanwhile, startups are busy exploring the AI recruiting market. OptimHire, an AI recruiting startup that finds candidates, conducts interviews, and schedules calls, raised $5 million in seed funding last month.

Another small AI recruiting startup, ConverzAI, raised $16 million in a Series A round in January to create virtual recruiters. Bigger startup Mercor, which uses AI to screen resumes and match candidates, raised $100 million in a Series B round in February. Mercor counts OpenAI as part of its client base.

Lazarte said that AI might replace jobs, but it also has the potential to help start new companies.

“You’re going to have these trillion-dollar companies being done by very small teams,” he predicted.

Benchmark has backed companies including Asana, Snap, and Uber.

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Business

Master Management or Watch Your Business Struggle

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In my experience mentoring entrepreneurs and building Coworking Smart, I’ve noticed something consistent: Many founders love starting things, but very few enjoy managing them. It’s easy to get excited about launching a business. It’s harder to wake up every day and manage it well.

Management doesn’t sound sexy. It doesn’t get you likes on social media. But as I share in my book O Empreendedor Smart, if you don’t master management, you’ll always be stuck reacting instead of leading.

Table of Contents

What management really means

Management isn’t bureaucracy. It’s not just systems, meetings and spreadsheets. Management is decision-making. It’s knowing what matters, who’s responsible and how to track progress.

Peter Drucker defined it simply: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” In The Essential Drucker, he also reminds us that the job of management is to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things, as highlighted in this Harvard Business Review article.

To do that, you need clear priorities, numbers you trust and rituals that sustain performance.

An effective management formula

Entrepreneurs need to simplify how they manage. You don’t need an MBA. You need a rhythm. Here’s the three-part formula I use:

1. Numbers tell the truth

If you’re not looking at the right numbers weekly, you’re guessing.

I always ask:

What are your three most important metrics?
Are they visible to the team?
Are you reviewing them weekly?

For us at Coworking Smart, these numbers were:

Numbers create alignment. They end opinions. They allow for faster, smarter decisions.

A McKinsey report shows that teams with clarity on performance metrics are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers. Similarly, a Gartner study emphasizes that companies that align team metrics with strategic goals see a significant boost in employee engagement and overall results.

2. People drive the numbers

The second principle: Metrics are the output. People are the input.

You can’t separate culture from results. If your team doesn’t feel safe, focused and equipped — they won’t deliver.

That’s why we implemented weekly 1:1s, regular feedback loops and team dashboards that show progress visually. These practices create ownership.

As Simon Sinek explains in his book Leaders Eat Last, people don’t work hard because you pay them. They work hard because they feel seen and supported.

Culture is the hidden engine of performance. And management is how you build that engine.

In Drive, Daniel Pink explains that motivation comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose — and it’s management’s role to cultivate those elements (source).

3. Rhythm beats speed

Speed alone doesn’t scale. Rhythm does.

That’s why management needs cadence. At Coworking Smart, we follow a basic weekly cycle:

Monday: team sync with KPIs
Wednesday: deep work/no meeting day
Friday: short retrospective on what worked and what didn’t

This rhythm helps us avoid firefighting and stay focused on what matters.

You don’t need complex tools. You need consistency. As James Clear wrote in Atomic Habits, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Tools to get started without spending more

One of the biggest myths in entrepreneurship is: “I’ll focus on management once I grow.”

No. You grow because you manage. You scale what’s organized. You repeat what’s documented.

You can start with:

A shared KPI board using Trello, Notion or Google Sheets
Weekly check-ins with your team
Monthly reviews of your main business levers

You can even use Slack channels for automated daily updates. What matters isn’t the tool, but the discipline behind it.

According to a study by the Project Management Institute, companies with mature project and management practices waste 28 times less money than those with poor practices.

From chaos to control: Our experience

Early on, we ran Coworking Smart with hustle and instinct. It worked — until it didn’t. Once we opened multiple units, chaos set in.

That’s when we shifted to this simplified management system. The results were immediate:

Productivity up by 35%
Team turnover cut in half
Faster, more confident decision-making

Today, we run eight units across Brazil, in cities like Brasília, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro. We serve thousands of entrepreneurs through a low-cost, highly automated model that wouldn’t be possible without operational discipline.

And it’s not just about scale. It’s about sustainability. When you manage well, you don’t burn out. You build.

Manage with intention, not just reaction

Entrepreneurship will always have uncertainty. That’s part of the game. But management is how you create stability inside that uncertainty.

Peter Drucker said, “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” That’s what management is: the hard work of turning intention into structure.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not exciting. But it’s the reason smart businesses survive and thrive.

As Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons wrote in Seven Strategy Questions, great managers don’t just execute — they challenge assumptions, clarify priorities and create accountability.

So, if you’re overwhelmed, unclear or stuck — it’s probably not your idea. It’s your management. Fix that, and everything else gets easier.

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Business

Palantir Launches Recruiting Campaign Saying Skip College

Palantir Technologies has a market capitalization of more than $200 billion. According to its website, the company has extensive defense contracts, building “AI-powered solutions” that “protect soldiers on battlefields, manufacture high-quality products, power hospitals’ operations, and safely deliver aid to refugees.”

But if you want to work there, and apply for one of the dozens of software engineer roles on its website, a degree from a fancy university might not send you to the top of the pack.

Palantir launched a “Meritocracy Fellowship” this week aimed at high schoolers or recent graduates who want to “get the Palantir Degree” and “skip the debt” and “indoctrination.” The role(s) will be earned “solely on merit and academic excellence.”

On LinkedIn, the company wrote “chaos has ensued on university campuses,” and “admissions are based on flawed criteria.” The four-month (Fall 2025) fellowship is “in response to the shortcomings of university admissions” and pays $5,400 a month.

The job description says the role is in New York, New York, and the company “encourages employees to work from our offices,” though its CEO reportedly often works from a barn in New Hampshire.

“Opaque admissions standards at many American universities have displaced meritocracy and excellence,” the job post reads. “As a result, qualified students are being denied an education based on subjective and shallow criteria. Absent meritocracy, campuses have become breeding grounds for extremism and chaos.”

Those who land the fellowship (it’s unclear how many positions would be open) will work alongside a team solving “technical problems that contribute to Palantir products and customer outcomes.”

Dropping at select colleges today. pic.twitter.com/tz62o1A5ql

— Palantir (@PalantirTech) April 14, 2025

Applicants must be high school grads at the start of the internship with an SAT score of at least 1460 or an ACT score of at least 33. Hopeful fellows can not be enrolled in a university at the time of the fellowship, and experience with programming, scripting, or statistical packages (eg. Python, R, Matlab, SQL) “is a plus,” according to the job post.

It’s not the first AI company with defense contracts to launch a unique recruiting campaign. Last month, a defense startup with billions in government contracts, Andruil, plastered cities rich in tech talent in recruiting ads that said: “Don’t Work at Andruil.”