Work is changing faster than most companies can understand it. But behind every new technology, performance metric, and management trend is something far more complicated: people.
On Work, Measured, Silicon Valley operator and exited CEO Imran Syed sits down with founders, researchers, and unconventional thinkers to explore how work really works.
Imran led the turnaround of a technology company through a massive exit. At the heart of that journey were people, and some of the hardest decisions a leader can make about them. Now, as he builds AI for human performance, he digs into the questions most organizations avoid.
Why do talented people disengage? What separates exceptional teams from average ones? Where will AI make us better, and where will human judgment matter more than ever?
Candid conversations. Unexpected ideas. Practical insights for anyone building a company, leading a team, or trying to understand what comes next.
Guests have included Gary A. Bolles, Dr. Daniel Hulme (Chief AI Officer at WPP), Stefano Puntoni of Wharton, Dr. Margie Warrell, and Victoria Tomlinson. New episodes on Fridays.
We Measure Completion, Not Learning | nSpire AI's Sumanta Chakraborty on the Broken Career Ladder
A Fortune 50 salesperson told Sumanta he only used his company's AI training tool to hit the required score. He'll never touch it again. That's what companies buy when they measure completion instead of learning. Sumanta Chakraborty spent 30 years building technology at NVIDIA, Nuance, Siemens, Sony and LG before founding nSpire AI, a flight simulator for the critical conversations careers are built on. We get into why nobody trains interviewers to interview or managers to manage, why performance reviews are a once-a-year joke, where AI coaching stops helping and starts surveilling, and what HR could learn from how engineers ship products. His numbers: 15,000 users, 100,000 AI interactions, 30,000 hours of practice conversations.
30 Oct 2026
AI Agents Are Like Intoxicated Graduates | WPP's Daniel Hulme on AI at Enterprise Scale
Would you hire an intoxicated graduate to do this job? If not, don't build an agent for it. Daniel Hulme has spent two decades deploying AI, now as Chief AI Officer at WPP, the world's largest advertising group, and before that as founder and CEO of Satalia, where algorithms allocated work and peers set salaries. We get into what AI actually changes inside a company of 100,000 people versus what vendors claim, why vibe-coded software is 5% of the problem, why objective setting is nonsense built for the 5% of bad actors, the 50 to 500 frictions every organization has, why measuring AI adoption misses the point, and what really happens to middle management. His number: 500 months.
23 Oct 2026
After 4 Interviews You Learn Almost Nothing | Ex-Google's Todd Carlisle on the Science of Hiring
Google tested roughly 150 signals to find what actually predicts job performance. Almost none of them worked.
Imran sits down with Todd Carlisle, Chief People Officer at Bessemer Venture Partners. Todd spent a decade at Google running some of the most famous people analytics experiments in corporate history, including Project Cerebro, and holds a PhD in organizational psychology. He went on to HR leadership roles at Twitter and Bay Area startups.
They get into the interview study: four interviews gets you to 86% accuracy on a hire, and every interview after that adds about one percent. None of 5,000 interviewers could beat the wisdom of the crowd. Google's banned interview questions, including how many golf balls fit in a 747. Why NPS is the people metric that drives Todd crazy. The first 50 hires as company DNA, when to actually hire your first people leader, the 70-20-10 finding that flipped how he thinks about L&D, and how Bessemer is collapsing 26 HR tools into one with AI.
Work, Measured is hosted by Imran Syed, founder and CEO of Hatchproof, where he's building Moneyball for companies. New episodes every Friday.
16 Oct 2026
95% of Your Life Is Run by Your Subconscious | Robin Banks on Mind Power at Work
Only 3% of a 3,000-person audience could say they had written goals for the year. Robin Banks has spent three decades on why that number stays so low, and what it costs people at work.
Imran sits down with Robin Banks, one of the world's leading authorities on Mind Power and personal mastery. Hand-picked and mentored by John Kehoe to teach the internationally renowned Mind Power course, Robin has reached more than 500,000 people across corporate, government, and education audiences worldwide.
They get into the 95/5 split between the subconscious and conscious mind, why manifestation fails for most people (it's wishful thinking, not training), the magnifying glass rule of focus, what 20 minutes of daily mental training actually changes, the goals-on-paper test that only 3% of a live audience passed, and whether AI is a blessing or a curse for a generation that struggles to sit still.
Robin's challenge to every leader: your life reflects the state of your consciousness. Measure that.
Find Robin at robinbanksmindpower.com and @robinbankslive on socials.
Work, Measured is hosted by Imran Syed, founder and CEO of Hatchproof, where he's building Moneyball for companies. New episodes every Friday.
9 Oct 2026
Why the Jerk at Work Keeps Winning | NYU's Tessa West on Bad Bosses and Toxic Coworkers
The kiss-up kick-downer. The credit stealer. The gaslighter. You know exactly who they are, and your company keeps promoting them anyway. NYU psychology professor Tessa West explains why.
Tessa is one of the leading researchers on how people actually interact at work and the author of Jerks at Work and Job Therapy. In this episode she breaks down why toxic performers survive so long (they're usually good at their jobs, and the damage they cause doesn't hit the P&L fast enough to get noticed), why startup culture practically worships jerk behavior in founders, and why "I have a bad boss" is the most common and most misleading complaint in the working world.
We also get into the mess AI is making of workplace trust, nobody knows who actually did the work anymore, why you can't outsource taste, judgment, or team building to an agent, and what happens to a generation that removed all friction from daily life and stopped learning social norms. Her line that stuck with me: people start weird and they stay weird.
And her most useful finding of all: if you want anyone at work to change, appealing to fairness never works. Appeal to their self-interest. It's cynical, it's dark, and it's true.
Work, Measured is hosted by Imran Syed, Silicon Valley operator, exited CEO, and founder of Hatchproof, where he's building AI for human performance.
6 Oct 2026
Robin Banks cleaned cut test - do not publish
Internal test of the cleaned edit as episode source. Will be removed.
3 Oct 2026
Half of Employees Don't Know What's Expected of Them | Malvika Jethmalani on People Debt
Only 49% of employees agree with the statement "I know what is expected of me at work." That's a coin toss. Malvika Jethmalani has built her career fixing that number.
Malvika is the founder of Atvis Group, where she works as a fractional Chief People Officer for venture-backed, high-growth companies. She sees more people problems in a quarter than most CHROs see in a year, and in this episode she opens her playbook: the three-part diagnostic she runs on every new company, why technical debt gets all the attention while "people and culture debt" quietly compounds, and the two-by-two framework that separates empowering leaders from enforcers, nurturers, and absent bosses.
We get into why every finance decision is a people decision, why founders hire their first people leader too late and then set them up to fail, why CEOs who don't hold their leaders accountable turn HR into the cleaning-up-the-messes department, and why the Chief People Officer role should evolve into Chief People and Performance Officer for the AI era. Plus the number that stunned us both: only 5.5% of US knowledge workers are actually proficient in AI.
If you run a company, manage a team, or work inside one that's scaling, this is 30 minutes of operating knowledge you'd normally pay a retainer for.
Work, Measured is hosted by Imran Syed, Silicon Valley operator, exited CEO, and founder of Hatchproof, where he's building AI for human performance.
8 Sept 2026
Performance Is the Wrong Word | Gary A. Bolles on the Next Rules of Work
Gary A. Bolles has spent his career studying how work actually works. Author of The Next Rules of Work, Global Fellow of Transformation at Singularity University, and an educator whose courses have reached over two million learners. And he thinks "performance" is the wrong word entirely.
In this episode, Gary makes the case for effectiveness over performance, and explains why the difference matters. Why efficiency belongs on the factory floor but has zero place in ideation. Why performance reviews are a myth we tell ourselves. And why rewards should work like modern cybersecurity: personalized to one, not averaged across thousands.
He also breaks down the real choice every company now faces between people, tech, and assets, from Walmart's 2.2 million employees to two guys running a billion-dollar business on AI agents. And he explains why he thinks young workers aren't a new generation, but a new species, with two thirds already looking for their next job the day they start one.
Work, Measured is hosted by Imran Syed, founder and CEO of Hatchproof. 25 minutes on performance, culture, and the future of work. New episodes on Fridays.
1 Sept 2026
Why It's Time to Retire Retirement
At 70, Victoria Tomlinson is planning her next act, not her exit. Former EY leader, BBC commentator, and founder of Next-Up, she has spent years helping senior professionals figure out what comes after the big job. Her answer is not golf.
Victoria and Imran get into why we still run careers on a model built 100 years ago. Why 91% of over-50s want to progress, not wind down. Why businesses started by people over 50 outlast those started by younger founders. What happens to your identity when the title disappears, and why Imran's dad, still working at 80, says he wants to die standing up.
They also get into AI, and Victoria's case that hallucinating models have made experienced judgment more valuable, not less.
Victoria's new book, Expiry Date Never: Age Is the New Superpower, is out now.
Work, Measured is hosted by Imran Syed, founder and CEO of Hatchproof, and behavioral scientist Dr. Nick Hobson. 25 minutes on performance, culture, and the future of work.
21 Aug 2026
What Military Intelligence Taught Us About Finding Great Talent
What can military intelligence teach us about finding great talent?
Oliver Armstrong joins Work, Measured to share how his time in Marine Corps intelligence shaped the way he thinks about people, information, leadership, and decision making.
We talk about why more experience does not always mean better talent, how to find the “diamonds in the rough” when you cannot compete on compensation, and why having more data and AI does not automatically lead to better decisions.
We also get into the talent opportunity created by today’s tech layoffs, what founders should look for when building 0 to 1 teams, and how to balance experienced leaders with people who simply have the potential to be exceptional.
At its core, this is a conversation about finding signal in the noise and recognizing great people before everyone else does.
9 Aug 2026
We Optimized Away the Human Part of Work
We’ve spent years using technology to make work faster, easier, and more efficient. But what did we lose along the way?
Meg McWilliams joins Work, Measured to explore why people are craving in-person connection again, what happens when we remove the small moments of friction that build trust and belonging, and why AI might actually help us become more human, not less.
From film and immersive experiences to gaming communities and now Mixies, Meg has spent her career thinking about what brings people together. We talk about the resurgence of IRL experiences, the social cost of an increasingly digital world, generational shifts in how we connect, and what leaders should be thinking about as AI reshapes work.
And yes, we get into why you should never let anyone kill your “fart around” moments.
22 Jul 2026
The First CRO Hire: Why Most Founders Get It Wrong | Ryan Spillane on Building Elite Revenue Teams
Ryan Spillane, former Chief Commercial Officer at Techstars and one of the early leaders behind HubSpot's enterprise sales motion, shares why the first CRO hire is one of the most important decisions a founder will make. We explore the commercial archetypes that fit each stage of growth, the common mistakes founders make as they transition from selling themselves to building a sales organization, and how AI is reshaping product feedback loops, forcing startups to balance pattern recognition with the speed of modern product development.
15 May 2026
We Win by Being Human: Paul Hamilton & Dr. Tatijana Busic on Fear, AI, and the Case for People
In this episode, Imran & Nick sit down with Paul Hamilton — KPMG Canada's Director of National Talent Attraction Strategy who spent over two decades in HR at Microsoft, LCBO, and KPMG — and Dr. Tatijana Busic — a clinical and organizational psychologist who co-created "The Inner Edge" leadership program — for a conversation about why 93% of organizations have adopted AI but are seeing almost no return. Using a treadmill metaphor that runs through the entire episode, they unpack why dropping a powerful new tool into a workplace doesn't mean anyone will use it — and why 31% of employees are actively sabotaging AI strategies from the inside. Paul shares a story from his time with Frank Clegg at Microsoft that reframes what leadership actually looks like at 5:30 in the evening, and introduces his concept of the "automation ceiling" — the point where human judgment, empathy, and relational intelligence become irreplaceable.
Dr. Tatijana Busic breaks down why resistance to change isn't a character flaw — it's brain biology. Our fear centers aren't designed for chronic activation, and the speed of AI-era change is pushing people into reactive survival mode. She reveals why she turns down resilience training engagements when the executive team isn't doing the work themselves, and why humans succeed not because we're the smartest species, but because we're the best copycats. Together, they make the case that the organizations who win won't be the ones with the best AI — they'll be the ones who remember that people are still the greatest thing they'll ever build.
17 Feb 2026
Closing the Courage Gap with Dr. Margie Warrell
In this episode, Imran & Nick sit down with Dr. Margie Warrell — bestselling author of The Courage Gap, leadership coach, and advisor to NASA, Microsoft, and Visa — for a conversation about why the gap between what leaders are doing and what they're capable of almost always comes down to fear. Margie shares the principle that's guided her life since childhood on an Australian dairy farm: growth and comfort can't ride the same horse. From there, they dig into why we overestimate risk, underestimate ourselves, and pay what she calls a "timidity tax" every time we choose safety over action.
Margie breaks down why courage isn't a personality trait but a learnable skill, how the most successful founders she's met — including Richard Branson — didn't avoid failure but changed their relationship with it, and what it takes to scale a courage mindset across teams and organizations.
17 Feb 2026
Own Your Voice: Kim Rittberg on Fear and Confidence
In this episode, Imran & Nick sit down with Kim Rittberg — former Netflix and Us Weekly executive who built a video unit into a $100 million sale — for a candid conversation about why even the most accomplished people hold themselves back. Kim was an award-winning executive producer who still took two years to start her business and a full year to greenlight her own podcast. The culprit every time was fear.
Now a communications and confidence coach, Kim breaks down how to identify what's really holding you back — imposter syndrome, fear of judgment, or fear of failure — and why desire has to outweigh the fear for anything to change. They also dig into why your boss matters more than your job, how companies keep losing parents from the workforce, and why in an AI-saturated world, your humanity is the only real differentiator left.
3 Dec 2025
The Truth About Staying, Thriving & Getting Promoted
In this episode, Imran & Nick sits down with Howie Konopko, Executive Vice President at Publicis and former Oracle colleague, for an honest conversation about what really makes people stay at companies- and what drives them away.
Howie breaks down the framework every employee should use to evaluate their role: fair compensation, interesting work, trust in your team, and opportunities for growth. He shares practical advice on how to thrive in your organization by going above and beyond (without burning out), the traits that separate high performers from everyone else, and why having a bad manager might actually be one of the best learning experiences of your career.
We also dive into the realities of modern work culture—from the distorted expectations social media creates for Gen Z employees to the ongoing tension between remote work and in-person collaboration. Howie reveals what he really looks for when hiring, how to differentiate yourself in interviews, and why dressing the part and embodying the role before you get promoted is crucial.
Whether you're navigating your current job, considering a move, or trying to figure out how to advance your career, this episode is packed with actionable insights from someone who's managed hundreds of people across Citi, Oracle, and Publicis.
13 Nov 2025
Why 'Transform NOW' Culture Drives Talent Away (with Mark Cruth)
Most companies think they're losing talent because of salary or remote work policies. They're wrong.
Mark Cruth, Atlassian's Head of Team Anywhere, has coached teams at Boeing, Nordstrom, and now one of the world's most distributed companies. In this episode, he reveals why the real culprits are transformation theater, lack of psychological safety, and unsustainable work cultures that push your best people toward the exit.
We discuss:
Why "we need to transform NOW" mindsets actually drive talent away
The early warning signs that your company's way of working has become unsustainable
How lack of clear storytelling causes teams to wander in different directions (and eventually leave)
What happens to retention when psychological safety disappears
The biggest shift in how we work that will determine who keeps talent over the next 3-5 years
If you're wondering why your top performers are quietly job searching, this conversation will give you the answers your exit interviews won't.
16 Oct 2025
The AI Psychology Trap: What Smart Companies Miss That Costs Them Their Best People
This interview with Stefano Puntoni explores the psychological impact of AI in the workplace — how its implementation affects employee well-being, motivation, and retention. It covers the hidden psychological disruptions AI creates, why people feel less threatened by AI than by human replacement, and how cost-cutting narratives harm morale.
The discussion examines how AI influences employees’ sense of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, and offers practical guidance on implementing AI in a psychologically supportive way. It also explores how companies can build “AI-proof” skills like creativity and ethics — and what they must do now to avoid losing top talent in the AI-driven future.
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