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You Don't Need to Be Techy to Be Powerful with AI with Deb Haas
In this week's episode, Nick sits down with Deb Haas, founder of AI Confidential (https://aiconfidential.net/). A former Accenture consultant who built an AI coaching and consulting business from scratch, Deb brings a refreshingly unfiltered perspective on AI fluency, who actually has the advantage in the AI era, and what companies are getting dangerously wrong about adoption.
Key Takeaways
A PwC survey of nearly 50,000 workers found more than half feel they are falling behind on AI, but Deb argues most people dramatically overestimate how advanced their peers actually are, and that nobody is truly behind in a technology this new
PwC's four AI fluency tiers show the Engine Room (workers who don’t have specialized skills and who are also “not far along” in AI learning) makes up 56% of the workforce, creating a structural problem for any organization trying to become AI-forward while simultaneously cutting training budgets
Deb considers AI a language tool, not a tech tool, arguing that if you can write or speak plain English, you have everything you need to use it effectively
Older workers and women may have a genuine advantage in the AI era because soft skills (e.g., judgment, empathy, reading the room) are exactly what is needed to evaluate AI output and catch what the machine gets wrong
AI slop is a judgment problem, not a technology problem: AI generates the statistical middle of everything it was trained on, and without experienced human review, the result is generic, unreliable output that creates real legal and reputational risk
30 Sept 2026
Why the Death of Middle Management Is Greatly Exaggerated with Chris Williams
In this week's episode, Nick sits down with Chris Williams, former VP of HR at Microsoft and leadership advisor to senior executives worldwide. Chris joined Microsoft through the acquisition of FoxPro and eventually oversaw HR for 32,000 employees under Steve Ballmer before branching off into leadership coaching and development. The conversation covers why cutting middle management creates problems companies won't feel for years, how AI can genuinely augment managers without replacing them, why most companies handle layoffs badly, and his prediction that we are currently in an AI bubble.
Key Takeaways
Flattening organizations by eliminating middle management creates hidden career traps, including employees having little room to develop management skills incrementally, which can result in some leaving for organizations that offer a path to grow
Chris predicts a retention crisis in three to five years for companies making extreme cuts to create flat orgs today
AI cannot replace the interpersonal nuances of management (e.g., writing performance reviews, handling personnel conflicts, recognizing when someone shuts down after a certain type of feedback) but can help managers track communication patterns and manage more people effectively, making 8 to 12 direct reports realistic instead of the traditional 4 to 6
Companies are terrible at communicating layoffs: they focus entirely on the 1% being let go while ignoring the 99% who remain and are left anxious, uncertain, and quietly polishing their resumes without any clear communication about what the layoff means for them
Much of what is being attributed to AI-driven layoffs is post-COVID hiring correction: companies that massively over-hired in 2020 through 2022 are now right-sizing, and the AI narrative is a convenient frame for what is also a structural adjustment
Chris's prediction: we are in an AI bubble that will correct, similar to the dotcom era—AI is a genuinely powerful tool, but companies making reckless decisions about management layers and headcount will walk many of those back within three to five years
23 Sept 2026
Why Bereavement Leave Policies Are Stuck in the 1950s with Alex Seiler
In this week's episode, Nick sits down with Alex Seiler, Chief People Officer and HR expert with 20 years of experience across companies from Blue Shield of California to WeWork. The conversation focuses on two of the most under addressed topics in HR: bereavement leave and caregiving. Alex shares why the standard three-day policy for bereavement leave is a relic of decades-old union contracts, why employees almost never raise caregiving needs with HR, how to build a business case for better policies, and two bold predictions about where workplace grief policies and human-centered culture are heading.
Key Takeaways
The standard three-day bereavement policy traces back to union contracts from the 1950s (one day for travel, one day for the funeral, one day to drive back) with no input from grief experts or consideration of the actual mourning process
The average US company today offers approximately 5.6 days of bereavement leave, while grief experts now recommend a minimum of 20 days for the loss of someone close—a gap that most employers have not meaningfully addressed in decades
Only 8% of employees feel comfortable raising caregiving needs with HR, creating a self-sealing cycle: employees don't disclose, data shows no demand, policies don't change, and that outcome confirms to employees that did speak up that it was pointless to do so
Alex's prediction: three-day bereavement policies will come to sound as dated as no maternity leave within five to ten years, driven by accumulating state mandates that will force multi-state employers to standardize well above the current floor
In an AI world where technology equalizes output, the remaining differentiator between employers will be how they behave when something goes wrong in someone's life—what you do when someone's mother actually passes away is the test of whether human-centered culture is real or just a recruitment talking point
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4.2 / 5
10 ratings
Spotify
4.8 / 5
19 ratings
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