Happy New Year! Looking forward to an even more successful and impactful year in our thriving ecosystem!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Jan 13
Tech Stroll for Founders + Investors | American Dream - East Rutherford
NJBIA: The Future of AI: How to Compete and Win (online)
Jan 17
NJ Code & Coffee meetup | Newark
7 Levels of a Web Performance Journey | Newark
Data Science Meetup — AI & LLMs | Edison
Jan 18: TiE NJ Charter Members New Year Lunch | Plainsboro
Jan 19
DEADLINE: NJ AI Innovation Challenge
NJSBDC: Crowdfunding Strategies to Raise Capital (online)
Jan 20: JC Tech Meetup: 2026 Kickoff Happy Hour | Jersey City
Hope to see you soon! Onward!
Two new thought-provoking pieces courtesy of AXIOS worth sharing:
U.S. not them
Axios’ Jim VandeHei & Mike Allen write: We’re taking a break from the chaos of news and life in January of 2026, and stepping back — way back — to think about where America stands on the 250th anniversaries of both Thomas Paine’s Common Sense manifesto (Jan 10) and the signing of our Declaration of Independence (July 4).
Doom and gloom often light up our screens. But that shouldn’t - and doesn’t - define us. Never forget: This is a great country with exceptional promise.
Why it matters: We’re the most perfect, imperfect experiment in self-governance, freedom and progress in the history of humanity.
Our founders fled royalty, fought wars, formed a republic and a democracy, against all odds, all logic, all hope. They built the most powerful, prosperous, promising nation known to man.
This should be a bipartisan, no-brainer consensus view, despite our flaws and screwups. Too often, we get lost in only what’s wrong with America, forgetting all that’s right.
Most people don’t want power but freedom — the freedom to live free without constant judgment and drama, to work hard and make money, to feel safe, and to serve a cause greater than self. That’s most people, despite what lights up your social media feed.
So take three minutes to simply savor what’s special about this country, 250 years into its revolution.
There’s something special about democracy — American democracy — and its ability to evolve and meet the craziest of challenges. We free people, protect people, empower people and enrich people.
… something special about capitalism — American capitalism. There’s no better place to start a business, take a risk, or dream big. Here, you can build something out of nothing and rise to unimaginable heights doing what you choose to do — where you choose to do it.
… something special about ingenuity — American ingenuity. It’s not an accident that the world’s greatest advancements and thinkers are here in the USA. It’s in our collective DNA to explore, build, innovate.
… something special about land — American land. Two big oceans on our shoulders and friendly neighbors to our north and south. In between, a bounty of natural resources and energy sources to power all our ambitions. Others literally die for the mere chance to live where we live.
… something special about you — Americans. You’re hardworking, courageous, generous and creative. We built a democracy from dust. We willed U.S. capitalism into the most powerful economic force in history. We held the world together at its most breakable points. And we deliver daily miracles with our inventions, our wealth, our generosity.
⏱️ But the clock is ticking. China is rising. AI spreading. Reality fading. Politics polarizing. Threats to our way of life are metastasizing. Our minds, our happiness, our freedoms are slipping.
Nowhere is it hammered in stone that America gets to be great forever.
We’re strong but not unbreakable. We crumble if we’re divided, distracted, or deceived too deeply or too durably.
Our history points the way. It was ordinary people doing extraordinary things to flee kings and tyranny, birth a democracy, build a great nation, overcome division and adversity, and allow 50 states to form and prosper as one majestic union.
It was students, workers, farmers, teachers, doctors, truckers, businessmen and women, leaders of all stripes who restored sanity, valor, wisdom, hard work and common sense. They did, not duped; worked, not whined; built, not berated; restored, not ridiculed.
They focused on U.S., not them.
Just for today, tune out the screams on screens and imagine …
Imagine working together, drawing on our shared patriotism and duty, to instantly and dramatically improve an already great nation to benefit you and your neighbors.
Imagine spending more time fixing stuff smartly than getting sucked into silly, small fights unwittingly.
Imagine an army of competent people storming politics and business and communities to retool things so workers, the middle class and the well-to-do all prosper. Imagine no longer condemning “the rich,” but giving everyone a fair shake at becoming it.
Imagine turning the AI revolution into a winner for America AND workers, not just the creators and investors. Peer into the world five years from now: it will be dominated by AI, quantum computing, robotics, and space-based weapons of war.
Imagine America training and recruiting the scientists, engineers and builders of these great technologies. And America winning on the defining industries of the next generation — and creating great jobs for U.S. workers.
Imagine everyone making more money, living more freely, prospering more peacefully because we won the AI race and smartly spread the spoils.
Imagine more Americans recapturing the lust to invent, build, and grow. One nation united in recapturing the magic of inventions and unfathomable progress.
Imagine other nations flocking to our side to build a global alliance built around American ideals, American AI, American trade and American products.
Imagine tapping every energy source around us to power our ambitions, using American workers and American land to lower your costs and protect your air.
Imagine rural communities revitalized … suburbs soaring … cities sparkling and safe. Imagine the explosive growth to follow and the benefits finally flowing to you with better schools, better health care, affordable houses and high-paying jobs.
This is the inspiring thing: This is all achievable now — not in some distant future or galaxy. America has all the ingredients: the talent, the ideas, the drive, the power. And it has you, the very people who prop up this nation, in good times and bad.
… like it or not, AI will change your world in radical ways. We could crush the next five years — or get crushed by them. We can fixate on what was done — or what’s ahead. We get to choose. That’s what politics and policy and life are — choices. A series of big choices. Do we do smart, practical, wise things to benefit all? Or do we let people dog and divide us so they can benefit while you lose and stagnate?
Imagine giving the middle finger to that old, tired way. Imagine saying: Enough is enough. Imagine sharing facts and smart solutions in conversations and on social media. Imagine fighting insanity with calm confidence and piercing truths.
The bottom line: Imagine saying Jim and Mike aren’t moronic for saying all or parts of this fairy tale are truly doable.
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A journalist’s view of AI
AI is making my life more convenient and my job more efficient. But it’s also tempting me to think less — and sparking new frustrations, Axios’ Amy Harder writes.
Why it matters: AI is infiltrating daily life faster and more aggressively than any modern technology. We’re all living experiments in its effects: the good, the bad and the unknown.
Early research, and plenty of anecdotes, suggest AI is already reshaping our brains.
A recent MIT Media Lab study found students who used ChatGPT to write essays showed significantly lower cognitive engagement.
One of the researchers put it bluntly: evolution pushes us to adopt tools that make life easier, “but your brain needs friction to learn.”
Catch up quick: When I rejoined Axios in September and jumped into the AI-and-energy beat, it felt like AI immersion therapy.
Axios itself is integrating AI tools into our newsroom workflow. Our journalists can use them to take a first stab at alt text for photos and charts (descriptive text to aid accessibility), to research new topics, to sort through huge datasets for trends, and to get suggestions for smoother language.
The effect: I’m covering AI while also depending on it.
Flashback: History shows a long list of technologies that’ve made our lives easier while compelling us to let go of certain skills.
We ceded handwriting to computers.
We ceded math to calculators.
We ceded direction to GPS.
We ceded our attention to social media.
I worry we are ceding our thinking to AI.
You know the saying, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” With AI, I worry the opposite might be true — that the sum of what we’re offloading is starting to add up to something … that’s the opposite of great.
I don’t need good handwriting, I never liked math, and I don’t mind following the blue dot around the world.
But AI goes after our thinking itself, the foundation beneath all the other skills we’ve offloaded over time.
How it works: Early on in this job, I could feel AI making a difference to my mind, so I started taking notes:
It’s tempting me toward intellectual laziness. I could ask ChatGPT to do big pieces of my job. I resist it, but the temptation exists — and humans are efficiency-maximizing creatures, as one researcher said.
Learning feels heavier. Diving into a new topic — traditionally the joy and oxygen of journalism — now sometimes makes my brain groan like it’s heading to the gym.
I’m retaining less. Reading, listening, interviewing, prepping for talks — it all feels less “sticky.”
AI’s “magic” leaks into real life. When my jacket zipper jammed the other day, I caught myself frustratingly thinking: Why can’t this just work? AI always just works. The feeling of AI’s magic in the digital world is setting impossible expectations for the physical one.
The intrigue: Late October was my peak use of AI, when I ceded my thinking to it more — driven by both temptation and experimentation.
Since then, I’ve intentionally pulled back, putting guardrails around when and how I use it.
Between the lines: I never let ChatGPT write drafts. And I use it sparingly for public speaking, since the success of a live interview or talk depends so much on the written prep process itself.
To be sure, I do use AI for a lot of things (still).
Professionally, I ask it to help refine interview questions (originally created by me), and use it for initial research (specifying that it should mine only legitimate sources).
Personally, it’s been a lifesaver simplifying complex finance and tax guidance (which I then run by human professionals). And I enjoy asking it to write satirical versions of songs and speeches.
Reality check: This is just one person’s snapshot of a few months inside a fast-evolving technology.
A bestselling self-help author wrote recently that “the more I use it, the more I think, ‘I should be finding more ways to use this.’ And that is something I’ve never experienced in my life.”
He just launched an app that offers AI coaching.
Zoom out: AI could help cure cancer or commercialize fusion. It could also trigger mass layoffs. It’ll likely do things we can’t imagine today.
Its impact on the human brain is just one thread in a sprawling tapestry — but considering we each only get one brain, it’s a pretty important one.
The bottom line: Despite my unease, I don’t think AI is inherently bad — or that we shouldn’t use it. After all, I ran this story through ChatGPT to make it better. It did. Of course it did.
