For the season three finale, I'm bringing you something a little different. I have been following Courtney de Vries for a while now and she has this way of breaking down how to put outfits together that felt very true to how we break things down here on patch. She is a stylist and wardrobe consultant based in Toronto and if you are not already following her, you need to be.

You know how every episode we close with the lifestyle segment? Today we are dedicating the whole episode to it. Work style, the foundational pieces, and how to actually get dressed with intention whether you are heading into the office, on a work trip, or logging on from home.

This is the patch:

• Why style is not just about trends and really about getting the foundation right
• Courtney's building blocks: why your coat, your bag, and your shoes are the best pieces to invest in and why consignment and thrift stores are the smartest place to find them
• Work style across the eras, starting out with a tight budget, leveling up when you have a little more to play with, and navigating the new mom chapter when your life and your priorities have shifted
• Quick ways to pull together a great WFH outfit
• Packing for a work trip like a stylist and the rolling trick

Follow Courtney (@cor_style_) on Instagram and TikTok and check out her website.

All views expressed are my own.

Greg Richardson has spent decades where AI and cybersecurity meet, long before they became major headlines. He's a former engineer, former executive, advisory CISO at BlackBerry and Palo Alto Networks. He also founded 6 Levers AI Consulting and Coaching and has spent years translating all of this into language that actual humans can understand and act on.

This week on patch we are getting into both sides of it. The threat and the tool. Why small businesses are the hottest targets in cybersecurity right now and why they are also the ones rushing into AI the fastest without a real plan. The coffee shop, the nonprofit, the boutique. In the crossfire on both fronts and most of them have no idea.

This is the patch:

• Think red, act blue: the attacker mindset framework that changes how you defend everything
• Why your small business has a bigger target on its back than a bank and what to actually do about it
• The difference between an AI tool and an AI agent and why getting that wrong is costing people real money
• One person with AI agents now has the reach of an entire organization. what that means for whoever is on the other side

We close with the lifestyle segment: the truth behind Greg's consistently sharp fits, the style crew keeping him looking good, and a story that had me genuinely laughing.

All views expressed are my own.

This week I'm getting into the woman behind the tool you probably used to make your last pitch deck. Melanie Perkins is the co-founder and CEO of Canva, and her story is one of the most interesting in tech right now. We get into how a frustrating Photoshop class at a Perth university became a design platform used by 170 million people, how democratizing design means that a freelancer in Lagos or a student in São Paulo now has access to the same professional tools as anyone in New York or London, and why she got rejected by over a hundred investors before anyone said yes.

This is the patch:

• from Perth to everywhere: how Melanie built a billion dollar company with no Bay Area network, no fancy connections, and over a hundred no's
• the yearbook company nobody talks about and why it built the foundation for everything Canva became
• 92% of business leaders now expect design skills from every employee, not just creatives. what that means for your career right now
• the grandmaster move: why chess grandmasters are making deliberately imperfect moves to beat AI, and what that means for anyone building a creative career

We close with the lifestyle segment: Melanie used to work seven days a week and has been open about how unsustainable that was. We get into her 100km walking habit, her AI walks with AirPods, and why the most ambitious women in tech are starting to talk about rest as seriously as they talk about results.

All views expressed are my own.

This week I'm breaking down one of the most important conferences in the tech world. RSAC 2026 is happening right now in San Francisco, and even if cybersecurity isn't your world yet, I think this one is worth your attention. We get into how a single room of cryptographers (the people who figured out how to keep your data private using math) in 1991 became a 40,000-person global institution, why AI has completely taken over the conversation this year, and the three trends that are going to be defining headlines for the next decade.

This is the patch:

• why RSAC is the one conference the whole industry actually pays attention to
• agentic AI: who owns it when no one does
• post-quantum cryptography and why the time to prepare is now, not later
• CTEM: the shift away from checking for threats every few weeks to having a live, always-on view of where you are exposed

We close with the lifestyle segment, and this one is for my listeners who are constantly on the move for work. I get into why I stopped bringing a carry-on and never looked back, why this Korean skincare product is my ultimate travel companion, and why a trench over a TNA butter set is the only airport outfit you will ever need.

All views expressed are my own.

Lauren Wilson was one of my very first friends in tech. She took me under her wing, showed me the ropes, and now she's doing something I think is genuinely rare: she spent eight years at one of the biggest companies in the world, left it all behind, and went to teach and coach the next generation at the University of Alabama. On top of having an MBA in business analytics, Lauren is also a certified career coach, and one of the most grounded people I know.

This is the kind of career conversation I wish I'd had at 22.

This is the patch:

• how to actually break into tech when your degree has nothing to do with STEM
• imposter syndrome: why it never fully goes away and how to stop letting it run the show
• your personal board of directors and why the people on it need to know they're on it
• being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and why embarrassment is just the price of entry

We close with the lifestyle segment where Lauren talks about the non-negotiables that make her feel like herself: the coffee ritual, the morning walks, the music that carries her through every mood. We take a little country music detour (Nashville will do that to you), and she gives a very heartfelt shoutout to her brother's artist, Logan Mize.

All views expressed are my own.

Chelsea Squires is an AI and data leader at Slalom, a consultancy that believes the best technology outcomes start with people, not the other way around, and one of Forbes' top ranked management consulting firms in 2025. She spends her days helping companies move past the noise and actually implement AI in ways that stick. She also happens to spend her weekends building Claude-powered apps to manage her skincare routine. Both require the same thing: knowing exactly what you're working with.

This episode is about what it actually takes to use AI well.

This is the patch:

• The problem: why adoption is the hardest part of any AI rollout and what most companies are getting wrong
• The method: reframing AI not as a time-saving tool but as something that gives you your mental bandwidth back
• The routine: how Chelsea built a personal Claude-powered skincare app and what it reveals about where this technology is actually headed

In the lifestyle segment we talk about fashion as a form of confidence, dressing with intention, and the shoe that put her foot quite literally in the door.

All views expressed are my own.

The robotics market is already worth over $50 billion and projected to hit $200 billion by 2033. It is one of the fastest growing areas in tech and one of the most exciting spaces to be paying attention to right now.

This week I sit down with Hiten Sonpal, CEO of Rise Robotics, based out of Somerville, Massachusetts. He has spent his entire career in the robotics industry, from iRobot to leading his own companies, and now he's running a startup founded by graduates of MIT and the Rhode Island School of Design that just broke a Guinness World Record for the strongest robotic arm ever built.

This is the patch

• The technology: how Rise's belt technology is replacing hydraulics, the system that has powered heavy machinery for over a century, with something faster, smoother and more efficient

• The record: what it actually took to build the strongest robotic arm prototype ever and why 7,000 pounds matters - check out their celebration here
• The opportunity: how Rise is powering the electrification of heavy machinery and why that makes this one of the most interesting spaces to be watching right now

Rise recently opened their funding round to the public, raised $5.7 million, and came in 15% over their cap. A new round is opening soon so if you're interested in becoming an investor, check out the link!

In the lifestyle segment, Hiten shares how drumming keeps him connected to the creative side of engineering.

All views expressed are my own.

Sabrina Pasterski is a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada. She built a plane at twelve, graduated top of her class at MIT, earned her PhD at Harvard, and is now leading one of the most ambitious research programs in modern physics. Stephen Hawking cited her work. And people are calling her the next Einstein.

This episode is about her. And honestly it is one of my favourite ones I have done.

Here is the thing about physics that I never really understood until I started researching this episode. It has two languages. One describes the very small. One describes the very large. Both work incredibly well on their own. And they fundamentally don't agree with each other. For a hundred years the smartest people on the planet have been trying to fix that. Sabrina is one of the people working closest to cracking it.

This is the patch:

• The problem: why physics has two languages that don't speak to each other and why that tension is at the heart of everything we don't yet understand about the universe
• The work: what celestial holography actually is and why it might be the bridge physicists have been searching for
• The person: a first generation Cuban-American from Chicago public schools who built a plane before she could drive and put the whole thing on YouTube

In the lifestyle segment I get into why this one felt personal, and what it means to have one of the most important scientific minds in the world working in Waterloo.

All views expressed are my own.