by Chris McNulty
Synozur – the transformation company – is an advisory agency that reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of leadership and strategy with ease. We deliver strategic advisory services and help define your "North Star" for business excellence. Polaris helps chart the course for business, technology and leadership transformation.
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August 12, 2026
<p class="MsoNormal">GROAS founder David Pourquery joins Polaris to explain how AI now plans, builds, and runs Google Ads campaigns end to end — and what that means for agencies, marketers, and the judgment calls only people can make.</p> <h2>Key Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Google's automation arrives on a schedule, not on request.</strong> Starting September 1, Google begins upgrading eligible search campaigns to AI Max, migrating automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match — for many advertisers, whether they opted in or not.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Automation is outrunning the evidence.</strong> Independent industry testing of AI Max has produced mixed results so far, with a majority of matched queries failing to convert.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>The single most important number is what a customer is worth.</strong> Before you spend a dollar, you need to know what you can afford to pay Google for each customer acquired. Most businesses cannot state that number.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Know your words as well as your numbers.</strong> Unclear ideal customer profiles and vague value propositions sink campaigns before bidding ever becomes the problem. Messaging decides who you attract and who you repel.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>The agency model is under structural pressure.</strong> WPP, once the largest advertising group in the world, moved away from the holding company structure after a year of steep revenue declines and account losses. As David puts it, an agency has always been an arbitrage on human labor.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>The disruptor's best customers were the incumbents.</strong> GROAS set out to displace agencies; agencies are now its fastest-growing segment, because they get value from day one across an existing book of clients.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Bootstrapping a software company got dramatically cheaper.</strong> AI-assisted development made a lean, venture-free build possible — David says deployment speed rose by 20x to 30x in nine months.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>What survives automation is judgment.</strong> Executing the plan is what is disappearing. Deciding what the plan is worth — and being willing to say no to something reasonable — is not.</li> </ul> <h2>Guest Quotes</h2> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>David Pourquery, Founder & CEO, GROAS</strong></p> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal">"An agency has always been an arbitrage on human labor. So if the value of human labor keeps going down because of AI, then agencies ultimately, unless they adapt pretty brutally, I think will get squeezed out."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"I am of the firm belief that not everybody should run paid ads. It's like one of the most competitive things on earth. Because if you can get it right, it's effectively a free money printer. You put one dollar in, three dollars comes out."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"A lot of those automations take away power and control from the advertiser. There are countless horror stories, you can go online, of people just going and applying all of Google's recommended settings and then just burning $3,000."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"Ultimately the number is, what can you afford to pay Google for every customer? And you'd be surprised at the number of businesses who don't know what that is."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"We were like, we're gonna displace the agencies. Now they're becoming a bigger part of our clients. What's ironic in all of this is that they are actually the best customers of GROAS, because they get value from it from day one."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"AI will cause major, major margin compression on all forms of computer work, long term. This applies to lawyers, doctors, accountants, investment bankers."</li> </ul> <h2>References</h2> <h3>Guest</h3> <p class="MsoNormal">GROAS — <a href="https://www.groas.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">groas.com</a>. David Pourquery on LinkedIn — <a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpourquery" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">linkedin.com/in/davidpourquery</a>.</p> <h3>Industry</h3> <p class="MsoNormal">Google Ads AI Max migration beginning September 1, covering automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match — <a href= "https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-migrate-ai-max-sep1-41829.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Search Engine Roundtable: On Sep 1 Google Ads To Migrate ACA & Campaign-Level Broad Match To AI Max</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Independent industry testing of AI Max for Search — <a href= "https://ppc.land/googles-ai-max-for-search-campaigns-deliver-meh-results-industry-tests-reveal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PPC Land: Google's AI Max for Search campaigns deliver "meh" results, industry tests reveal</a> and <a href= "https://www.ppc.live/post/google-s-ai-max-for-search-what-the-data-actually-shows-in-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PPC Live: What the data actually shows in 2026</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">WPP's move away from the holding company model after steep revenue declines and account losses — <a href= "https://www.wpp.com/en/news/2026/02/strategy-update-and-2025-preliminary-results" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WPP strategy update and 2025 preliminary results</a> and <a href= "https://www.marketingdive.com/news/wpp-abandons-holding-company-model-with-major-strategic-overhaul/813201/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marketing Dive: WPP abandons holding company model</a>.</p> <h3>Culture</h3> <p class="MsoNormal">Andon Market, the San Francisco shop managed by an AI agent named Luna, run by Andon Labs. <a href= "https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/us/ai-boss-san-francisco-andon-market.html"> New York Times reported</a> on the results, with additional coverage of the same experiment — <a href= "https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/ai-store-sf-san-francisco-bay-area-andon-labs-market-boss-rcna267013" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC News: AI is the boss at this retail store</a>, <a href= "https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2026/04/20/san-francisco-ai-store-marina-andon-market-anthropic-retail-experiment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Axios San Francisco</a>, and <a href= "https://www.forbes.com/sites/markfaithfull/2026/04/24/welcome-to-the-first-ever-store-designed-developed-and-run-by-ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forbes</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, David's pop-culture pick — <a href="https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">ynharari.com</a>.</p> <h3>Events</h3> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>TechCon365 Seattle</strong> | August 24-28 (Seattle, WA) <a href= "https://www.techcon365.com/Seattle/">techcon365.com/Seattle</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>TribalNet 2026 <span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>|</strong> September 20-24 (Dallas, TX)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> <a href= "https://tribalhub.com/events/tribalnet-conferences/">TribalNet Conference</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>North American Collaboration Summit</strong> |<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> October 4-6 (Branson, MO) <a href= "https://www.collabsummit.org/">collabsummit.org</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>CollabDays New England</strong> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>| October 16 (Burlington, MA) <a href= "https://collabdaysne.org/">collabdaysne.org</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Microsoft Ignite</strong> — November 17-20 (San Francisco, CA) <span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href= "https://ignite.microsoft.com/">ignite.microsoft.com</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>ESPC26</strong> | November 30-December 3 ( Amsrterdam ) <a href= "https://espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/">espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/</a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Full details — <a href= "https://www.synozur.com/events" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">synozur.com/events</a>.</p> <h2>Production</h2> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is produced with help from <a href="https://www.riverside.fm">Riverside.fm</a>. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of <a href= "https://www.adobe.com">Adobe</a>.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is available on <a href= "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/polaris-pathways-a-synozur-podcast/id1773172041"> Apple</a>, <a href= "https://open.spotify.com/show/1cEtlJsybYcFFGTiKU1pX6?si=6faafd668eb44d5b"> Spotify</a>, <a href= "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/db9939ac-8343-420e-97c3-ee09eae50c74/polaris-pathways---a-synozur-podcast"> Amazon</a>, <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/@SynozurVideos">YouTube</a> or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Chapters</strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal">00:01 Opening</p> <p class="MsoNormal">01:48 News and Data Points</p> <p class="MsoNormal">03:10 David's Journey from London to Los Angeles</p> <p class="MsoNormal">04:48 Transition from Private Equity to E-commerce</p> <p class="MsoNormal">07:21 The Birth of GROAS and Its Purpose</p> <p class="MsoNormal">09:55 Navigating Google Ads and Automation Challenges</p> <p class="MsoNormal">12:40 The Evolution of GROAS: From Services to Product</p> <p class="MsoNormal">15:42 Agency Relationships and Client Success</p> <p class="MsoNormal">18:36 The Changing Landscape of Marketing Agencies</p> <p class="MsoNormal">21:32 Understanding Client Needs and Metrics</p> <p class="MsoNormal">24:17 The Role of AI in Marketing and Future Predictions</p> <p class="MsoNormal">27:27 Cultural Influences and Personal Growth</p> <p class="MsoNormal">29:26 Future Plans for Grow As and Closing Thoughts</p> <p class="MsoNormal">31:12 Pop Culture Moment</p> <p class="MsoNormal">34:08 Upcoming Events</p> <p class="MsoNormal">35:39 Reflection on AI in Retail</p> <p class="MsoNormal">38:21 Next Time</p> <p class="MsoNormal">38:37 Thanks and Closing</p>
July 29, 2026
<h1>Show Notes</h1> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is a production of <a href="https://www.synozur.com">Synozur</a> – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this episode, Dr. Craig Kaplan shares his insights on the evolution of AI, safety considerations, and the importance of democratic values in developing superintelligence. Discover how AI systems can be designed for safety and alignment with human values.</p> <h2>Key Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal">What "p(doom)" means, why a recent survey of researchers put the median near 20%, and why Kaplan believes smart design can push it below one-tenth of one percent.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">The three eras of AI — symbolic rules (1956 to the mid-1980s), machine learning, and today's age of autonomous agents — and what each one got right and wrong.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">Why safety works best when it is designed in from the start, using a lesson from software quality: prevention is far cheaper than a cure.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">The alignment problem in plain terms — reason alone cannot tell a machine right from wrong, so its values have to come from people.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">Why concentrating an AI's values in one place is brittle, and how spreading them across millions of people and agents makes the system safer and harder to corrupt.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">Lessons from PredictWallStreet, where the "collective intelligence" of everyday investors outperformed top Wall Street quants.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">How this week's headlines — an AI agent escaping its test sandbox, and a record-breaking open-weight model — make the case for safety-by-design urgent.</li> </ul> <h2>Sound Bites - <strong>Dr. Craig Kaplan</strong></h2> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal">"P Doom is just the probability that AI kills us all."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"I don't think it needs to be 20 or 10%. I think we can bring it way down to under 1%. And it's just a matter of designing things appropriately."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"I actually don't think we need to slow down in order to be safer. We just need to be a little smarter about it."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"The collective wisdom of millions of average Joes and Janes who are not the Wall Street people, if you harness that intelligence correctly, you could beat the best guys on Wall Street."</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"Do not underestimate your impact. Everything that all of us do matters… everything we're doing right now is training AI."</li> </ul> <h2>References</h2> <h3>Guest:</h3> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Dr. Craig A. Kaplan</strong> — <a href="https://www.superintelligence.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SuperIntelligence.com</a> · <a href= "https://www.iqco.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iQ Company</a> </li> <li class="MsoNormal">LinkedIn: <a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigakaplan" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">linkedin.com/in/craigakaplan</a> ·</li> <li class="MsoNormal">Substack: <a href= "https://read.superintelligence.com/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">read.superintelligence.com</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>PredictWallStreet</strong>, Kaplan's collective-intelligence trading platform, which powered more than $2 billion in trades and was acquired in 2020 — <a href= "https://www.iqco.com/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iQ Company (About)</a>.</li> </ul> <h3>News</h3> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Kimi K3</strong>, the 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model from China's Moonshot AI, released July 16, 2026 — <a href= "https://venturebeat.com/technology/chinas-moonshot-ai-releases-kimi-k3-the-largest-open-source-model-ever-rivaling-top-u-s-systems" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VentureBeat</a>.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>OpenAI</strong>'s disclosure that its models escaped a testing sandbox and compromised Hugging Face during an internal cyber evaluation — <a href= "https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OpenAI</a>, <a href= "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/22/open-ai-cyber-models-hack-hugging-face.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNBC</a>, and Hugging Face's <a href= "https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">incident disclosure</a>.</li> </ul> <h3>AI and Superintelligence</h3> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal">The p(doom) figure — a 2026 survey of more than 50 researchers placing the median near 20% — <a href="https://calcuja.com/research/ai-risk-survey-2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">researcher survey</a>; and <a href= "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01257-6" target= "_blank" rel="noopener">Nature</a> on whether the louder AI-doom warnings are realistic.</li> <li class="MsoNormal">The <strong>Center for AI Safety</strong>'s 2023 "Statement on AI Risk," which likened AI extinction risk to pandemics and nuclear war — <a href= "https://www.safe.ai/work/press-release-ai-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Center for AI Safety</a>.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong><a href= "https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/">Geoffrey Hinton</a></strong>, the Turing Award and Nobel Prize winner who has publicly placed the odds of an AI catastrophe at 10–20%.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon">Dr. Herbert A. Simon</a></strong>, Nobel laureate and Kaplan's mentor at Carnegie Mellon, and his book Reason in Human Affairs (1983).</li> <li class="MsoNormal">"Constitutional AI," the research approach that hard-codes a fixed set of ethical rules into a model — <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.08073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research paper</a>.</li> </ul> <h3>Pop Culture</h3> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Isaac Asimov's</strong> <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics">Three Laws of Robotics</a>; the <a href= "https://liacademy.co.uk/the-story-of-eliza-the-ai-that-fooled-the-world/"> ELIZA program</a> (Joseph Weizenbaum, 1960s); and Alan Turing and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing test.</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal">Disney's <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<span style= "font-style: normal;"> </span></a>(1937), referenced as an example of how values once seen as normal are later revisited.</li> <li class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche">Friedrich Nietzsch</a>e and the idea of the "<strong>Superman</strong>" (Übermensch).</li> <li class="MsoNormal">Microsoft's early "<strong>Sydney</strong>" chatbot and the widely reported <a href= "https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html"> 2023 New York Times exchange</a> in which it went off the rails. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></li> <li class="MsoNormal">The 1998s <a href= "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/26/black-box">New Yorker feature</a> on <strong>Prediction Company</strong> and early black-box neural-net trading systems.</li> </ul> <h3>Events</h3> <ul> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>TechCon365 Seattle</strong> | August 24-28 (Seattle, WA) <a href= "https://www.techcon365.com/Seattle/">techcon365.com/Seattle</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>TribalNet 2026 <span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>|</strong> September 20-24 (Dallas, TX)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> <a href= "https://tribalhub.com/events/tribalnet-conferences/">TribalNet Conference</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>North American Collaboration Summit</strong> | <span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>October 4-6 (Branson, MO) <a href="https://www.collabsummit.org/">collabsummit.org</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>CollabDays New England</strong> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>| October 16 (Burlington, MA) <a href= "https://collabdaysne.org/">collabdaysne.org</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>Microsoft Ignite</strong> — November 17-20 (San Francisco, CA) <span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href= "https://ignite.microsoft.com/">ignite.microsoft.com</a></li> <li class="MsoNormal"><strong>ESPC26</strong> | November 30-December 3 ( Amsrterdam ) <a href= "https://espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/">espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/</a></li> </ul> <h3>Production</h3> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is produced with help from <a href="https://www.riverside.fm">Riverside.fm</a>. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of <a href= "https://www.adobe.com">Adobe</a>.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is available on <a href= "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/polaris-pathways-a-synozur-podcast/id1773172041"> Apple</a>, <a href= "https://open.spotify.com/show/1cEtlJsybYcFFGTiKU1pX6?si=6faafd668eb44d5b"> Spotify</a>, <a href= "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/db9939ac-8343-420e-97c3-ee09eae50c74/polaris-pathways---a-synozur-podcast"> Amazon</a>, <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/@SynozurVideos">YouTube</a> or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Chapters</strong></p> <p>00:00 Introduction and guest introduction<br /> 01:19 Craig Kaplan's background and early interests<br /> 02:14 Academic journey and work with Nobel laureates<br /> 03:00 Transition from academia to industry and AI applications<br /> 04:19 Predict Wall Street and collective intelligence in finance<br /> 05:24 Historical perspective on trust in AI and early neural networks<br /> 06:15 The phases of AI development: symbolic AI, machine learning, and agents<br /> 09:03 Current state of AI: autonomy and swarm systems<br /> 11:14 Rapid progress and the pace of AI change<br /> 12:35 AI safety challenges and the importance of design<br /> 15:45 Understanding P Doom and existential AI risks<br /> 17:11 Alignment and values in AI systems<br /> 19:57 The role of human values and morality in AI<br /> 21:23 The risk of concentration of power and values in AI<br /> 23:16 Insuring against black swan events and AI safety measures<br /> 26:26 Designing collective intelligence systems for safety and diversity of values<br /> 30:36 The importance of democratic rule-setting for AI<br /> 44:26 Balancing religious, philosophical, and democratic values in AI<br /> 46:22 The dynamic nature of morality and AI adaptation<br /> 47:08 Upcoming Events<br /> 48:13 Thanks and Closing Credits</p>
June 21, 2026
<h1>Show Notes</h1> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is a production of <a href="https://www.synozur.com">Synozur</a> – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mirror 360 founder Petar Kralev joins Polaris to explain why honest feedback is the most expensive thing companies fail to capture — and how a 20-second, anonymous weekly reflection finally surfaces the truth leaders need.</p> <h2>Takeaways</h2> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Bigger companies often get worse at honest feedback, not better.</strong> Formal reviews, large HR teams, and L&D budgets are built mostly to document and reduce legal risk — not to capture how people actually experience work.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Three things have to come together to unlock the truth: safety, ease, and a return on investment.</strong> Anonymity must be beyond doubt, input has to take seconds, and people need to see that speaking up actually matters.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>One simple opening question carries most of the signal:</strong> "How is John working lately?" Mirror 360 then asks five standardized reflections — communicates well, solves problems, fits on the team, follows high standards, and takes initiative.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Anonymity is engineered, not promised.</strong> Invitations go out on a randomized weekly cycle and reflections are delivered in batches, so no one can trace a single piece of feedback back to a difficult conversation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>AI is the enabler, not the headline.</strong> It filters harmful or legally risky comments and turns raw input into a clean signal — but Mirror 360 frames itself as the infrastructure that makes AI useful for management, not "another AI company."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Remote and distributed work broke the old water-cooler signal.</strong> A teammate who sits beside you often knows more about your work than a manager who sees you once a month; Mirror 360 rebuilds that insight digitally.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>The results are measurable.</strong> Roughly 90% participation at launch, about nine in ten underperformers stepping up once they see their "mirror image," and one team reaching ~92% top fulfillment after a toxic manager was replaced.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <h2>Sound bites (Petar Kralev)</h2> <p class="MsoNormal">"We don't really easily reveal what we honestly think about each other or about what we see around us in the work context. And that is a crazy, crazy expensive problem."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"If the system you have in place today does not provide complete anonymity beyond any doubt, you already have polluted the signal."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"It's not like a survey about your coffee… But that coworker, you're gonna work again and again and again — you actually want to nudge them to drive the right behavior."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"I'm very clear to not make Mirror 360 like another AI company. It's the infrastructure to make AI useful."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"Never does the truth do damage. It may shock you, it may hurt your ego temporarily, but you will be better for knowing it. And the world will be better for knowing it."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"It's the difference between turning on the lights or staying in the dark."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"What story do you tell yourself that you take for the truth? Because these stories really are the ceiling we impose on ourselves — and we forget that we just made them up."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <h2>References</h2> <h3>Guest Notes</h3> <p class="MsoNormal">Mirror 360 — company website: <a href= "https://www.mirror360.org/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">mirror360.org</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mirror 360 on LinkedIn: <a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/company/mirror-360/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">linkedin.com/company/mirror-360</a>. P</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Petar Kralev on LinkedIn: <a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/in/petarkralev" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">linkedin.com/in/petarkralev</a>; Petar also publishes longer-form writing on the workplace visibility problem on Substack at <a href= "https://substack.com/@petarkralev">https://substack.com/@petarkralev</a></p> <h3>Industry</h3> <p class="MsoNormal">Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2026 — global engagement at 20%, an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, and most of the recent decline attributed to falling manager engagement: <a href= "https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gallup.com</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">U.S. engagement figures (United States and Canada at 31%, the highest-ranked region) from the same Gallup report: <a href= "https://www.gallup.com/workplace/697904/state-of-the-global-workplace-global-data.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gallup global data summary</a>.</p> <h3>Culture</h3> <p class="MsoNormal">Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth (the book Petar recommends; Tolle is also the author of The Power of Now): <a href= "https://eckharttolle.com/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">eckharttolle.com</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Startup World Cup — the global startup competition whose Grand Finale takes place in San Francisco in November 2026, which Mirror 360 is advancing to after a Bulgaria regional win: <a href="https://www.startupworldcup.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">startupworldcup.io</a>.</p> <h3>Events</h3> <h3><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href= "https://techcon365.com/Chicago/">TechCon 365 Chicago</a> — June 15–19, McCormick Place, Chicago, IL</span></h3> <h3><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href= "https://www.techcon365.com/Seattle/">TechCon 365 Seattle</a> — August 24–28</span></h3> <h3><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href= "https://newengland.collabdays.org/">CollabDays New England</a> — October 16, 2026</span></h3> <h3>Production</h3> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is produced with help from <a href="https://www.riverside.fm">Riverside.fm</a>. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of <a href= "https://www.adobe.com">Adobe</a>.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href= "https://polaris.synozur.com">Polaris</a> is available on <a href= "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/polaris-pathways-a-synozur-podcast/id1773172041"> Apple</a>, <a href= "https://open.spotify.com/show/1cEtlJsybYcFFGTiKU1pX6?si=6faafd668eb44d5b"> Spotify</a>, <a href= "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/db9939ac-8343-420e-97c3-ee09eae50c74/polaris-pathways---a-synozur-podcast"> Amazon</a>, <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/@SynozurVideos">YouTube</a> or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Chapters</strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal">00:00 Introduction to Petar Kralev and Mirror 360</p> <p class="MsoNormal">01:48 The decline in employee engagement and its implications</p> <p class="MsoNormal">02:45 The personal journey of Petar and the origin of Mirror 360</p> <p class="MsoNormal">04:52 The iceberg of ignorance and feedback challenges</p> <p class="MsoNormal">07:28 Barriers to honest feedback and how Mirror 360 addresses them</p> <p class="MsoNormal">10:18 Questions to ask for effective feedback</p> <p class="MsoNormal">13:11 The role of AI in filtering and analyzing feedback</p> <p class="MsoNormal">15:18 Ensuring anonymity and trust in feedback systems</p> <p class="MsoNormal">17:44 The impact of honest feedback on organizational performance</p> <p class="MsoNormal">19:59 The future of management and AI integration</p> <p class="MsoNormal">22:02 Remote work challenges and digital water cooler moments</p> <p class="MsoNormal">23:48 Success stories and organizational transformations</p> <p class="MsoNormal">26:50 Petar's personal story and authenticity in leadership</p> <p class="MsoNormal">30:10 Book recommendation: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle</p> <p class="MsoNormal">31:31 How to stay connected with Petar and upcoming initiatives</p>
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