Kris Linney

[Restaurant News @NRNonline]

Olo launches first consumer-facing digital ordering app. The tech platform touts the new app within Olo Network as a zero-commission “second-party” alternative to third-party delivery apps https://t.co/ccwYYS9B5I

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

Team USA just won its first Olympic hockey gold in 46 years.

On February 22. The exact anniversary of the Miracle on Ice.

Forget the storybook narrative for a second.

What happened today is a masterclass in what performance science teaches us about pressure, identity, and legacy.

Consider the pressure this team was under.
They walked into today carrying 46 years of near misses.

The US hadn't won Olympic gold since 1980.

They lost the gold medal game in 2002 and 2010...both times to Canada. Last year at the 4 Nations tournament, Canada beat them in overtime. That loss was still raw.

The 1980 hero, Mike Eruzione, was in the building. He told the players before the game: "It's just a hockey game."

It wasn't. And everyone knew it.

Canada outshot the US 41-26.

They dominated the second and third periods.

Nathan MacKinnon missed an open net. Macklin Celebrini had a breakaway and couldn't convert. Devon Toews had Hellebuyck beaten and somehow the puck stayed out. Then Charlie McAvoy cleared a puck off the goal line with his glove.

This was not a dominant performance. It was a team surviving enormous pressure and refusing to break. That distinction matters.

How does a team perform under that kind of weight? It starts with the environment the coach creates.

Mike Sullivan is now the only American-born coach to win multiple Stanley Cups AND Olympic gold.

When he took over the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2015, the team was loaded with talent — Crosby, Malkin, Letang — and completely broken. His description: "There was a dark cloud over the locker room."

His first move wasn't a new system or a motivational speech. It was a reframe.

He told the team: "There are certain things in life we can control and certain things we can't. We needed to focus on the things that we could control and not dedicate any cognitive resources or worry to things we couldn't control."

The team adopted a two-word motto: "Just play."

Six months later, they won the Stanley Cup. Tonight, he helped USA do it again on the biggest stage in the world.

Sullivan builds what he calls a "safe zone for learning."

His video review sessions are explicitly NOT about blame.

"We don't want a player walking into our video room on eggshells worried about 'Am I going to be in the film? Is Coach going to yell at me?' It's a game of mistakes. Our responsibility is to learn from them."

His guiding principle from his college coach:

"Before players want to know what you know, they want to know that you care."

It's the difference between compliance and buy-in. Buy-in wins championships.

Research backs up Sullivan.

Fear-based environments don't produce peak performance. Especially when pressure is already high...

They produce anxiety, risk-aversion, and choking.

When people feel psychologically safe — when they know mistakes won't be weaponized against them — they take smarter risks, recover faster from errors, and perform better under pressure.

We could see it in how Sullivan framed this moment in the weeks before the game.

"What an incredible opportunity we have in front of us."

Not a burden or expectation...Opportunity.

He took the unusual step for a hockey team and kept the team in the Olympic Village instead of a hotel.

His reasoning: "The Village is part of the experience."

The Hughes brothers roomed together. The Tkachuk brothers roomed together.

He didn't try to ignore or isolate them from the pressure. He was embedding them in it, together.

And then there's the guy who scored the goal.

Jack Hughes came into the Olympics injured, underperforming, slotted on the fourth line.

Sullivan moved him up mid-tournament because, as he put it, "We thought by moving him and getting him more ice time, he could impact the game more."

Hughes's response: "I believe in myself more than anyone. Wherever I was slotted coming into this thing, I knew I was going to play well."

A coach who believed in him when results said otherwise. A player who believed in himself when the lineup said otherwise.

Then two teeth got cracked in half by a high stick in the third period. And he scored the golden goal anyway.

Everyone's going to remember this as the night the US ended a 46-year drought.

On the anniversary. In overtime. Against Canada.

But the real lesson is quieter than that.

The environment you create determines the performance you get. A safe zone for learning. A focus on controllables. Relationships built on care, not fear. Pressure reframed as opportunity.

That's what it looks like when a team is ready, with the right environment and support to tackle the ghosts of history.

They built a culture where a team could survive 41 shots and a kid with two broken teeth could score the biggest goal of his life.

The 1980 Miracle was about belief overcoming talent. Today was different.

Today was talent, preparation, identity, and 46 years of accumulated hunger arriving at the same moment.

-Steve

[Ross Harkness @THEROSSHARKNESS]

Be delusional.

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2026 is 0% complete.

[Noah Glass @nhglass]

20 years ago, $OLO set out with a vision.

Today, as a market leader joining with @thomabravo, we're accelerating toward that vision from a position of strength.
Our Excelsior spirit drives us to move faster to create a world where every restaurant guest feels like a regular 🚀

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2025 is 50% complete.

[Kris Linney @KrisLinney]

It's great to see events like this in the Chicago tech scene, especially when they’re led by people actively building the community ⚒️

[Ezra Galston @EzraMoGee]

Attention Chicago FAM:

Pls check out the Chi Founders Summit on July 21st in the West Loop. We're bringing together 100 of the most ambitious founders + founder-curious operators in the city to learn directly from the CEOs building the best known and fastest growing startups in the city.

No fluff, no boring speeches, just great content and exceptional people.The room is capped at 100 people and applications to join are open now. Zero cost. New speakers will be added every week.

Link BELOW 👇

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2025 is 0% complete.

[Ezra Galston @EzraMoGee]

Investing in Chicago

[Kaz Nejatian @nejatian]

In 2019, a month after I had joined Shopify, I sent this note to my team. I called it "say the thing" and I think it has stood the test of time well.

[Jean-Michel Lemieux @jmwind]

Another common question I’m answering working with scaling tech companies is…

Q. What’s the worst leadership advice you’ve heard?

A. By far the worst is “Hire great people and get out of their way”.

Let me explain… 🧵 (1/32)

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2024 is 50% complete. [183 days remaining]

[Kris Linney @KrisLinney]

A massive win for local makers and communities. Excited for the return of @foxtrotmarket.

[Foxtrot @foxtrotmarket]

A new Foxtrot with some old friends. Coming soon.

[Kris Linney @KrisLinney]

Olo has built a network of 700 brands, 81k restaurants, and 85m guests. @Olo is positioned to provide best-in-class data to revolutionize personalization and boost guest lifetime value. I'm excited about the next phase of what we are building at Olo to support the industry.

[Noah Glass @nhglass]

"The POS has never been the brains of the guest relationship.”

@Olo is positioned to be the brain of the restaurant tech stack, storing guest data, connecting restaurants with guests, and analyzing data for more personalized moments of hospitality.

https://t.co/MmoOvJRgvx

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2024 is 25% complete. [274 days remaining]

[Noah Glass @nhglass]

Borderless is the future

[Kris Linney @KrisLinney]

@harleyf @Shopify I have had a lot of fun using @shop cash offers to discover new brands. Stoked about my new garment duffel from @HalfdayTravel. The GIF usage on their site sold me.

https://t.co/ED8bwEoKp2

[Years Progress @YearsProgress]

2024 is 0% complete. #HappyNewYear

[Kris Linney @KrisLinney]

@ugmonk @harleyf Analog looks an incredible tool. Excited to give it a go. Congratulations on 100,000!