AI and the Future of Work: Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace, Business, Ethics, HR, and IT for AI Enthusiasts, Leaders and Academics

Anyone who has ever hired a new employee knows how important and broken the background check process is. The experience is awful for candidates and employers. Plus, it's inherently unfair for under-represented and non-traditional candidates. Imagine a world where hiring the best people is easier and faster and all forms of verification data are provided automatically from trusted sources.Today's guest is making that vision a reality. Denise Hemke is the Chief Product Officer at Checkr, the amazing company making employee screening more fair for everyone. Checkr has raised nearly $700M since its founding in 2014. Denise heads up product management, design, and program management after having served in various leadership roles at Workday including most recently GM for Analytics. Denise is also the San Francisco chapter lead for the excellent organization Products That Count started by friend of the podcast SC Moatti.Listen and learn...How to fix the broken background check processHow to give candidates with non-traditional backgrounds access to the labor forceHow technology is making the hiring process more fair and helping workers get paid fasterHow to use AI to reduce bias in hiring decisionsHow AI used for background checks should be regulatedWhat Denise learned about building customer communities as a General Manager at WorkdayReferences in this episode...Mustafa Suleyman's new Turing testKamal Ahluwalia, former President of Eightfold, on AI and the Future of WorkGiselle Mota from ADP on AI and the Future of Work

AI is here to accelerate the world's creativity. In fact, it's one of the things generative AI does best. Imagine a world where personalized campaigns help products you love find you. Today's guest did just that and he created Evolv AI to help brands connect with customers across all digital channels. Tyler Foster is the CTO of Evolv AI, a platform that helps brands improve conversion and experiment faster. He started the company with CEO Michael Scharff in 2019 and together they've grown it into an early leader in AI-first digital experimentation having helped brands like Safelite, DirectTV, and Verizon. Prior to Evolv AI, Tyler was the founding CEO and Chief Architect of Senient Systems and an early Software Engineer at Cloudera.Listen and learn...How a farmhand and SCUBA diver became an AI developerHow AI is helping brands target consumersThe tradeoff between personalization and data collectionHow to eliminate bias in automated decisionsWill AI eliminate creative jobs?How society needs to adapt to new definitions of work imposed by AIWhy we need to disconnect ideas from tools and processesWhat does it mean that we're entering a "post-truth" era?Why AI is more fair than humansReferences in this episode...Meredith Broussard on AI and the Future of WorkDiane Keng from Breinify on AI and the Future of WorkAre AI-generated ads more or less effective?Evolv.ai

Tim Guleri has had a remarkable run at Sierra Ventures since 2001. He has invested in transcendent companies including Sourcefire and MakeMyTrip which both went public. Before that, Tim had a successful career as an entrepreneur and exec at companies like Scopus and Octane which was acquired by Epiphany in 2000.Sierra has one of the strongest future of work and AI portfolios that includes companies like Paro, Krisp, and SupportLogic which acquired Emtropy Labs which was founded by great former guest Harish Batlapenamurthy. In full disclosure, Sierra and I are both investors in ArmorCode.Listen and learn...Why the most successful venture investors were previously entrepreneursTim's thesis for investing in gen AI customer journey company SimulateHow Tim identifies "gen AI whitewashing" when hearing pitchesWhy gen AI is more than just another platform shiftHow gen AI startups can beat Big Tech incumbentsWhy all companies are ultimately "financial products"Sierra's primary data from CIOs: "...they're spending money on use cases that unlock employee productivity"What Tim means by "build horizontally but execute vertically"Which jobs AI will eliminate vs. augmentTim's "one that got away" pitch from his early days at SierraReferences in this episode...According to CNBC, 69% of U.S. adults are uncomfortable with AI that can mimic human thinkingAshu Garg from Foundation Capital on AI and the Future of WorkRory O'Driscoll from Scale Venture Partners on AI and the Future of WorkSierra Ventures

We've had interesting conversations about remote-first work with leaders like Jordan Husney, Parabol CEO, and Darren Murph who at the time was the global head of remote work at GitLab (thank you Darren for the intro to Adam). Today's guest has been building a platform to make distributed teams productive since long before it was fashionable. Adam Nathan founded Almanac in January of 2019 to challenge incumbents like Microsoft Office and Google's GSuite. Since then, he and the team have enabled organizations like Cisco, Credit Karma, and ByteDance to collaborate in shared workspaces.Adam has raised more than $40M to date across two rounds from a legendary group of investors that includes Floodgate, Tiger Global, and General Catalyst. Prior to Almanac, Adam did his undergrad at Duke and he received his MBA from Harvard. He's also an active volunteer for The Salvation Army.Listen and learn...How being a product manager at Apple and Lyft inspired Adam to start a company to avoid wasting time at workWhat's unique about remote-first workWhy remote teams need structure and transparency to be productiveHow to eliminate time wasted in meetings without losing opportunities to build trusted relationshipsHow to charge for new LLM features in SaaS productsWhy we tolerate LLM hallucinationsWhere there's a gap in the market for a better collaboration experienceWhat Adam has learned from his entrepreneurial journey References in this episode...Jordan Husney from Parabol  on AI and the Future of WorkDarren Murph from GitLab on AI and the Future of WorkWhy we need to shut down AI development to prevent AGIAlmanac.io

Durga Malladi, Qualcomm SVP and GM and 'Godfather of 5G', discusses Qualcomm's history in wireless technology and AI roadmap, the future of LLMs running locally on phones, improving consumer trust in LLMs, and the transformative potential of generative AI in mobile tech.

In 2020 when today's guest founded her company the transformer architecture was relatively new and OpenAI was a science experiment funded by Elon Musk to ensure that AGI benefits all humanity. She and her team commercialized an early version of a co-pilot for writing content long before we appreciated the value of next-word prediction.Since then, May Habib and the team have raised $21M from an exceptional group of investors including Insight Partners and Gradient Ventures. Today, Writer helps company authors comply with style and brand guidelines and also ensure grammatical accuracy. It's used by an amazing list or organizations including Spotify, Intuit, and Uber.Prior to Writer, May co-founded Qordoba and was a Global Shaper for the World Economic Forum after graduating from Harvard with a BA in Economics.Listen and learn...How May got her start in NLPWhat enterprise leaders don't understand about the current state of generative AIHow to speak to your data using LLMs Why Writer uses graph databases instead of vector databases for generative AIHow Writer mitigates the impact of bias, copyright infringement, and halluciations when using LLMsHow AI is being used to replace tasks people hate... without eliminating jobsHow AI helps users with neurodiversity issues like ADHDHow May navigated a tough company pivotReferences in this episode...Mona Akmal, Falkon CEO, on AI and the Future of WorkAlex Capecelatro, Josh.ai CEO, on AI and the Future of WorkMaking the web more accessible with AI for those with disabilities

Today's guest created one of the largest communities for conversational AI and generative AI enthusiasts. Pete Erickson is the founder of Modev which hosts the popular VOICE & AI conference and also others including the GovAI Summit. Pete started the company back in 2009 and has since produced over 150 events across 89 countries that have connected more than 125,000 people. Pete and the team have created communities for tech companies like Samsung and Amazon. Today, we get a glimpse into the mind of a great entrepreneur who is focused on making AI education accessible to everyone.Listen and learn...How Modev went from a few people in a pizza shop... to a conversational AI event with more than  1,000 attendeesHow Modev trained developers to build Alexa skills... in 2009How new AI regulation is impacting the generative AI developer communityHow Pete would regulate generative AIAbout Sam Altman's request to Congress for OpenAI to be regulatedShould we expect AI vendors to regulate themselves?What we can learn from GDPR in Europe about forthcoming AI regulationHow AI will transform the entertainment industryWhich jobs will be replaced by AI... and which ones are future-proofWhat big news Pete will be announcing at the Voice & AI conferenceReferences in this episode...The Voice & AI conferenceHow Goldman Sachs says AI will increase global GDPBradley Metrock, CEO of Project Voice, on AI and the Future of WorkDaniel Davila, movie producer and Hollywood consultant, on AI and the Future of Work

Entrepreneurs wonder what it’s like to be a VC. And VCs without an operating background often don’t understand the grit required to turn an idea into a successful business. The best investors have been successful operators first.Today’s guest is one of those. Nick Adams founded Differential Ventures in 2017 to invest in B2B, data-first seed-stage companies. Since then, Nick and the team have invested in an impressive group of companies including Private AI, Ocrolus, and Agnostiq.Before Differential, Nick helped grow companies like OPower and RAGE Frameworks in sales, marketing, and product leadership roles. Today we get to learn about how to innovate and grow a startup when the product is a venture fund.Listen and learn...How being an investor and entrepreneur are similarThe most outrageous pitch Nick has heard... and how it involved pornHow being a baseball player trained Nick to be a venture capitalistNick's advice for what to do after closing a big sales dealWhere there are opportunities for generative AI entrepreneurs to get fundedHow AI is being used to design circuit boardsNick's most recent investment... and what made him decide to write the checkWhat Nick is telling Congress we need to do to regulate AIReferences in this episode...Why generative AI is desperately in need of regulationMetafold, new Differential investmentDan Grunfeld from Lightspeed on AI and the Future of Work

Vijay Tella, CEO of Workato and author of 'The New Automation Mindset', discusses his background in enterprise software, the importance of automation and AI, and the power of embracing change with a growth mindset. He explores the concept of the new automation mindset and how it can transform organizations. The podcast also highlights the role of generative AI in Workato's products and provides career advice for recent graduates.

Christopher Penn writes one of the few newsletters I read weekly. I have no idea how I ended up on his mailing list but I’ll never opt out despite the rainbow “Unsubscribe here” buttons he prominently displays.Christopher provides well-researched, thought-provoking commentary on all topics related to generative AI. Like recent guests Pradeep Menon and Ken Wenger Christopher doesn’t settle for soundbite-level commentary and he often shares unpopular opinions backed up with data.Christopher is the Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist at TrustInsights.ai. He’s a six-time IBM Champion in IBM Data and AI, a Brand24 Top 100 Digital Marketer, an Onalytica Top 100 AI in Marketing influencer, and co-host of the award-winning Marketing Over Coffee marketing podcast. He is also the author of two dozen marketing books. His list of accolades and accomplishments goes on for days.Listen and learn...The number one question Christopher asks data-driven marketersWhat has surprised Christopher most about the capabilities of LLMsWhy the letter to pause AI was "dumb"The right way to remove bias and hate speech from LLMsOpen source vs. closed source AI... and how it's related to making pizzaAre we ready for AI vendors to censor content?Christopher's predictions for how all enterprise software will incorporate generative AIWhy Christopher continues to hone his bow and arrow skillsReferences in this episode...Pradeep Menon on AI and the Future of WorkKen Wenger on AI and the Future of WorkTiernan Ray on AI and the Future of WorkChristopher's (entertaining and informative!) newsletterDreamGPT... to glorify LLM hallucinationsThe bots aren't sentient!