September 08, 2026

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Tuesday! If you’re feeling like every week in the office should be a short one, you’re not alone: Here’s how one company is faring with a four-day workweek pilot.

In today’s edition:

⌨️ Think big?

💰 Critical negotiations

✅ Audit season

—Brianna Monsanto, Billy Hurley

IT STRATEGY

Startup costs

Photo collage showing a top-down view of feet wearing simple yellow sneakers, with stylized arrows pointing in all different directions.

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

Big Tech may be losing some of the charm that once helped lure fresh engineers in the industry.

For years, Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Meta have served as a stable, often lucrative career option for budding engineers and other IT pros. In addition to top-notch brand recognition and paychecks, these tech giants offer the opportunity to work on projects that could potentially impact billions of people.

But these days, Big Tech has become synonymous with big layoffs. In the past year alone, Amazon and Meta have collectively laid off more than 27,000 employees, according to data from Layoffs.fyi. Tech enterprises like Oracle have cut their workforces by tens of thousands of workers this year alone.

Have startups become more stable than Big Tech?—BM

Sponsored By Gartner

Identity is entering its AI era

It’s time to rethink your IAM strategy. GenAI is evolving faster than we can keep up. AI agents are multiplying. And identity is now the top target for cyberattacks.

On Dec. 7–9, Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit is going down. It’s where cybersecurity leaders will tackle the biggest challenges facing identity and access management today. Register to get access to:

80+ sessions covering Gartner’s latest research on governing AI agents, managing machine identities, and more
1,700+ peers to connect with through receptions, workshops, and roundtables
100+ leading IAM and cybersecurity providers to check out at the Exhibit Showcase

You can even snag a one-on-one meeting with a Gartner IAM analyst for something a little more personalized.

Save your spot before Oct. 9 to save $400 on the standard rate.

IT STRATEGY

Dodging lock-in

Allegra Driscroll

A lot can change in a year.

That’s why Bread Financial EVP and CTO Allegra Driscoll often gravitates toward one-year contracts when working with AI vendor partners.

“So much is happening in the environment. Technology is moving so quickly, and we want to make sure that we continue to create the best technical ecosystem that delivers against our business capabilities, and [are] having more frequent opportunities to pivot and refresh who we partner with,” she said.

Driscoll, who has been negotiating software and now AI contracts as part of her career for the past two decades, told IT Brew that she views partnerships with vendors as a “two-way street.”

Getting your best offer.—BM

WORD OF THE WEEK

Zero trust security models are always skeptical, which makes unauthorized data access less likely and multi-factor authentication the new normal.

Zero trust: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines zero trust as “continuous verification of the operational picture via real-time information from multiple sources to determine access and other system responses.” Learn more.

IT STRATEGY

Shadow play

Getty Images

Kevin Dunnahoo often works with CIOs, CISOs, CFOs, and other healthcare C-suite executives on internal risk assessments.

A quarterly evaluation takes on specific objectives, like identity and access management, cybersecurity evaluation, or, lately, what’s going on with all this AI?

While HIPAA regulations require a continuous risk assessment of how an organization manages its protected health information (PHI), a healthcare organization is more likely to face an audit from its board, according to Dunnahoo, director of healthcare technology, cybersecurity, AI, and IT audit at global consultancy Protiviti.

“Many of the boards are asking flat out, ‘Hey, I want to understand what AI we’re using and how we’re using it, and how are we controlling it,’” Dunnahoo told us. “They want a true AI governance-focused review on the plan, on an annual basis at this point, because they understand that there is so much potential risk.”

Be prepared.—BH

Level up your career with these resources from our sponsors!

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patch notes

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top IT reads.

Stat: 270%. That’s how much one analyst believes the price of server DRAM components will have risen year over year by the end of 2026 thanks to the current memory crunch. (The Register)

Quote: “The number one risk at the minute is hard-coded secrets being uploaded through vibe-coded applications to GitHub, and then providing a route in [to a company].”—Pete Shoard, chief of research for cybersecurity at Gartner, on the risks associated with AI deployments (Computerworld)

Read: Amazon is scanning and destroying massive quantities of books for AI training. (404 Media)

Reshape IAM for AI: Save your spot for Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit on Dec. 7–9. Join other cybersecurity leaders to take on today’s biggest identity challenges. Save $400 when you register before Oct. 9.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

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Written by Brianna Monsanto and Billy Hurley

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