The Breaking Views

About The Breaking Views

Two seasoned HR leaders sit down twice a month to talk about what's actually happening at the intersection of HR, AI, and business. No scripted intros. No 10-minute bios. Just Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto pulling headlines, reacting to what's real, and breaking down what it means for people leaders trying to keep up. Theresa is a 25-year HR Executive, and the founder of peoplepower.ai, an MIT-certified AI Strategist, and author of People Powered by AI. She spends her days training HR teams to build real fluency with AI tools and stop waiting for permission to lead. Anthony is the creator of AI in HR Today, VP of Platform and Product Marketing at 15Five, and author of The New Employee Contract: How to Find, Keep, and Elevate Gen Z Talent. He's been a CPO, scaled teams from 40 to 3,000, founded an HR AI company before ChatGPT existed, and has lived through every major tech wave from dot-com to mobile to social. Together, they bring a combined perspective that's hard to find anywhere else: deep HR experience, real fluency in AI and technology, and zero interest in sugarcoating the hard parts. Each episode starts with what's in the feed - LinkedIn, the news, the latest lawsuit or product launch - and turns it into the kind of conversation HR leaders actually need. When the topic calls for it, they'll bring in specialists. But mostly, it's the two of them doing what they do best: making sense of the chaos, calling out the hype, and figuring out what actually works. For CHROs, CPOs, HR leaders, and anyone in the people space who's tired of being told AI will change everything without anyone explaining what to do on Monday morning.

Publisher

Theresa

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Apr 2026

Latest episode

23 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

13 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Episode 13: Sip it or Skip it: This Week's Big Debate

   A recruiter's post asking whether it's unprofessional to bring iced coffee into an interview set off a full-blown internet debate, and it turns out Theresa and Anthony land on opposite sides. Anthony says drink it before, drink it after, and stay focused in the room. Theresa says people need beverages, whether it's a dry mouth, nerves, or just needing some energy, and she wouldn't dream of presenting to 3,000 people without one. From News Corp suits and stockings to a hiring manager who vaped...

2. 

   10 Sept 2026

   Episode 12: When the AI Panic Becomes the Story

   In this conversation, Anthony Onesto and Theresa Fesinstine discuss various aspects of HR, including its role in supporting both employees and companies, the challenges faced by HR professionals, and the perception of HR within organizations. They explore the impact of AI on the workplace, the importance of creative professionals, and the need for HR to evolve in its branding and operational procedures. In this conversation, Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto explore the evolving perceptio...

3. 

   4 Sept 2026

   Episode 11: Leaders Who Didn't Get the Trust Memo

   This week on Breaking Views, Anthony and Theresa talk about a law firm owner who lost 23 employees overnight after issuing a return-to-office ultimatum, and what that says about how differently leaders and employees experience "work harder" when the leader actually owns the business. They get into New York City's new ban on AI tools in schools through eighth grade, and whether banning something ever actually works or just sends people looking for a workaround. Meta's $8 billion lawsuit tied t...

4. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Episode 10 - Workday's $43 Billion Wake-Up Call

   Theresa and Anthony kick things off with a running joke about Breaking Views' generous bereavement policy before getting into something they've both been sitting with: change doesn't feel like a series of moments anymore, it feels constant. That leads into the week's biggest HR tech story, reports that Silver Lake is circling Workday with a $43 billion offer. Anthony, an early Workday customer going back to his Zeta Global days, walks through why the deal matters. It's not just about one comp...

5. 

   21 Aug 2026

   Episode 9 - The AI Jailbreak Story Nobody's Talking About

   Theresa and Anthony are back after a few weeks off, and they're catching up like it's been longer than it has. Anthony's relocated to the Jersey Shore (canal included, Snooki jokes mandatory), and he shares the news that his newsletter, AI and HR Today, has officially been acquired by LivingHR, where he now serves as Principal of AI and People Solutions. Theresa opens up about losing her father after a difficult six months, and why she's chosen to talk about it publicly instead of treating gr...

6. 

   17 Jul 2026

   Episode 8: The Last Car in the Parking Lot

   California is ordering state workers back to the office four days a week, and Theresa and Anthony use the news as a jumping-off point for a bigger question: what were those years of mandatory presence actually measuring? Anthony makes the case that the technology finally caught up to distributed work, and that the real shift ahead is output over optics, skills-based hiring, fewer traditional W2 roles, and more fractional and project-based talent. Theresa brings the other side of the ledger, r...

7. 

   10 Jul 2026

   Episode 7: Hold My Beer, Says the Economy

   The economists called a jobs apocalypse. Then May added 172,000 jobs and doubled Wall Street's estimate. Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto unpack what that number really means, and why "AI is coming for your job" is the wrong story. This one runs from the hiring bias nobody intended to build (the scorecard that quietly follows you across every job you apply to for a year) to the guy in a Utah workshop itching to spin up his own servers while 90% of the room had no idea where to start. Alo...

8. 

   26 Jun 2026

   Episode 6: The Truth About Measuring AI at Work

   Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto discuss the critical difference between tracking AI usage as a metric and using it to unlock new, billion-dollar human-led opportunities. From Anthony's major career move into an AI-focused role at Living HR to Theresa's new community for upskilling HR leaders, we tackle the "competence vs. confidence" gap. We're breaking down why gamified AI leaderboards at companies like Amazon are destined to fail by looking at the "Cobra Effect," and contrastin...

9. 

   19 Jun 2026

   Episode 5: Who's Driving the Bus?

   Coinbase did it. So did Snap, Dorsey, and a New York HR leader who fired every manager by text. Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto take on the "kill the managers" trend sweeping AI-era companies, and ask the question nobody seems to: if the managers are gone, who's actually steering? The pitch is that everyone becomes a "player coach." Anthony's response: when were these managers ever coaches? From there the two get into why coaching is genuinely hard, what fresh assessment data says about...

10. 

    21 May 2026

    Episode 4: HR's Identity Crisis: Are We Business Leaders or Not?

    In this episode of Breaking Views, Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto explore the intersection of HR, business strategy, and the evolving role of human capital. The conversation begins with reflections from the Troop HR Retreat, highlighting the importance of connection, intentional design, and creating space for meaningful dialogue beyond traditional conference formats. From there, the discussion expands into a broader critique of today’s HR landscape. They examine the gap between HR-focu...

11. 

    8 May 2026

    Episode 3: Fired by Text, Hired by AI

    Theresa and Anthony unpack why every HR conversation right now seems to be either 100% AI or nothing, and what that leaves out. They dig into the wave of AI-justified layoffs at Snap, Oracle, Block, and Allbirds, the Gen Z backlash showing up as employees refuse to train their own replacements, and where the unions are in all of it. Theresa makes the case for a workforce that's part W2, part 1099, part agent, and what that means for benefits, loyalty, and accountability. Anthony shares the AI...

12. 

    24 Apr 2026

    Episode 2: AI Security, Layoffs, and the HR Leader's Dilemma

    Theresa and Anthony take on a full news cycle of AI security breaches, the wave of layoffs tied to AI bets at Disney, Amazon, and Block, and the pressure HR leaders are facing from every direction. They talk about what it means when companies announce layoffs in the name of AI and then quietly start rehiring, whether employees are "keeping receipts" on employer behavior, and why the people function has to grow its own AI fluency to lead through this moment. Plus a detour into Disney's knockou...

13. 

    2 Apr 2026

    Episode 1: The Break Out!

    Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto kick off their new podcast the only way that makes sense: by pulling a headline straight from LinkedIn and ripping into it. The conversation starts with the class action lawsuit filed against EightfoldAI in California, alleging the company scraped social media and public data to build candidate profiles without consent. But instead of piling onto the fear cycle, Theresa and Anthony dig into what's actually worth paying attention to and what's just noise. ...

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.7 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.