From Cashier to Home Depot C-Suite, Middle Manager Backlash, Claude Hacks OpenAI, & AI Panic Returns

September 18, 2026: I look at the viral LinkedIn profile of Home Depot executive Anne Marie Campbell and why her rise from cashier to senior executive says something important about effort, loyalty, and firm-specific knowledge. Then I get into the Wall Street Journal's warning that the purge of middle managers could backfire as companies underestimate coaching, sponsorship, and tacit knowledge. I also unpack how researchers used Anthropic's Claude to break into OpenAI through a bug bounty program. Finally, I break down OpenAI's recent "misalignment" example involving compaction summaries and why some of these scary AI moments may be glitches, not signs of sentience.