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The Star
21-07-2025
- Business
- The Star
How do you brag in Silicon Valley? By declaring yourself 'best of breed'.
Companies use the term 'best of breed' to frame themselves as the slayers of big players, with a niche product that appeals to the savvy customer. — JACKSON GIBBS/The New York Times In February, a Giant Schnauzer known as Monty beat out more than 2,500 other dogs to win the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, the first Giant Schnauzer to win. Not only was he best in breed, he was also best in show. For a certain slice of tech startup, cultivating a reputation as the 'best of breed' – a term that's been around for at least a couple of decades – is the goal. Such companies, in their early days, focus on dominating a niche. Think: Zoom, Dropbox, Slack and other product leaders that created software meant to be used alongside other specialized applications. These companies exist in contrast to the Googles and Microsofts and Adobes of the world, which sell product bundles. Best-of-breed companies often make bold attempts to grab market share from a dominant incumbent in an established industry, according to Andy Wu, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who focuses on strategy. Positioning oneself as best of breed, he explained, is 'an entry strategy' that can serve startups. But because it can be tough for such focused companies to sustain long-term growth, the marker is almost by definition temporary. Eventually, if a company integrates with a larger platform, or matures into a sprawling software firm, it will lose its best-of-breed bragging rights. (That happened with Slack, for example, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2021.) Declaring oneself best of breed is a boast – a way for companies to frame themselves as the slayers of big players, with a niche product that appeals to a certain type of savvy customer. Such firms are often creative about how they attract and expand their business. While enterprise companies generally pitch their wares to chief technology officers and other executives with the power to buy expensive packages, best-of-breed companies employ savvy marketing techniques to get in with the workers, partly by making their tools easy to find and download. 'They are selling by first appealing to front-line employees, who then put pressure on an organization,' Wu said. If the people demand a cool new work app they've found, for example, the chief technology officer might give them that app – even if they could do fine with tools from an existing, perhaps less glamorous, enterprise vendor. Best-of-breed companies generally offer an excellent user experience, but sometimes at the expense of excellent security, Wu said. Brand-new startups may be more inclined to play fast and loose with things like password security and authentication as they try to make their products frictionless. The approach can delight users but worry executives. Chief technology officers, especially at more traditional companies, prioritize security, Wu said. Executives also embrace ease of buying. And negotiating one big contract with an enterprise software firm can be less taxing than arranging for a bespoke suite of apps from a slew of different firms. 'Any large enterprise,' Wu added, 'has a culture of avoiding getting in trouble.' Choosing established, unflashy vendors is one tried-and-true way to avoid trouble. Those crowned (or self-appointed) as best of breed, whether in the world of applications or dog shows, are 'very good at narrowly doing one thing,' Wu said, which can work well in a certain context. 'But if you need a general dog that can survive anything in the wild,' he added, a variety of different strengths can help. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Straits Times
06-05-2025
- Health
- Straits Times
The lowdown on cooling down after a workout
For some, ramping down can be useful. But most people can skip straight to the shower. ILLUSTRATION: JACKSON GIBBS/NYTIMES NEW YORK – The standard workout arc, whether it is a yoga class or Peloton session, is usually bookended by two easier parts – the warm-up and the cooldown. Personal trainers insist on them, physiology textbooks tout them and most video workouts include them. But for many people, just fitting in a 30-minute run or 25-minute strength session can feel impossible. Do you really need another five minutes to cool down? The answer is, not really. A cooldown is typically some form of easier movement that acts like an off-ramp from a workout, allowing the heart rate and blood pressure to slowly recover to pre-exercise levels. For most people, that means jogging slowly after a hard run or stretching after weightlifting. But it could be as simple as a few slow breathing exercises. While research has shown that as little as nine minutes of dynamic movement before exercise can reduce injury and make a workout more effective, there has been far less data supporting the cooldown, said Dr Andy Galpin, director of the Human Performance Centre at Parker University in Dallas. If you rush from your spin bike to your morning commute, you likely will not sabotage your workout gains or recovery. But you could be missing out on other benefits. What constitutes a cooldown? 'As a general rule,' said Dr Erica Spatz, a cardiologist at Yale School of Medicine, a cooled-down state is 'when the heart rate comes down below 100 beats per minute and breathing returns to normal.' But there is no specific protocol or definition of how to get there after exercise. Any activity that brings the body to a resting state could count, said Dr Monika Fleshner, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. A cooldown can be passive, like foam-rolling or breathing exercises in the shower. But more often, it is active, such as continuing an exercise at an easier pace or going to a lower resistance on a spin bike. If you were lifting weights, you might perform a few mobility exercises after. For the average person, a cooldown should take about five to 10 minutes, depending on the intensity of the workout, Dr Spatz said. Do cooldowns work? When it comes to performance or injury prevention, the short answer is no. But that does not mean they have no value. For decades, experts prescribed an active cooldown to help alleviate muscle soreness by allowing built-up lactic acid to dissipate. But the lactic acid theory was debunked as early as the 1980s, and people now know the chemical has nothing to do with muscle soreness, though many still buy into the concept, Dr Galpin said. A 2018 review found that active cooldowns are largely ineffective at improving same- or next-day performance and do not significantly reduce muscle soreness or damage. But that does not mean you should skip cooldowns if you enjoy them, said the review's co-author Bas Van Hooren, a sports scientist and assistant professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. 'Our review didn't find any downsides to doing a cooldown,' he said. Some people reported that it felt good or that they used it as a time to socialise, he added. However, exercise can trigger a stress response and activate a fight-or-flight reaction in the body, Dr Fleshner sai d. And while the body will return to a resting state on its own, a passive cooldown that focuses on slow, controlled breathing can activate a rest-and-digest response in some people, facilitating a quicker return to normal breathing levels, heart rate and blood pressure, she said. When do you need a cooldown? There are three scenarios where cooldowns are useful, if you enjoy them. First, ramping down can be helpful for especially intense exercise. If you suddenly stop after a hard workout, your blood pressure may drop while your blood vessels are still dilated, causing you to feel dizzy, even faint, Dr Spatz said. This is especially true among people aged 60 or older or those with heart disease. Second, people experiencing chronic stress may also have a more sluggish return to a resting state, Dr Fleshner said . 'A cooldown that includes controlled breathing, like yoga or meditative stretching, might help them activate their parasympathetic nervous system to calm the body,' she said. Lastly, if you exercise vigorously in the evening, especially at high intensity, a cooldown may lead to a better night's sleep, Dr Galpin said. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol naturally increase in the morning and decrease at night, and moderate to intense exercise can elevate them, causing increased heart rates. 'Exercise is essentially a form of arousal, just like watching a thriller or playing a video game,' he said. In addition to helping the body shift to a resting state, a cooldown can also be a time when you reflect on the work you have done, Dr Fleshner said. The last thing it should be is an added stress. 'Is it essential? No,' she said. 'Can it be nice? Yes.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
