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

This week's guest deserves credit for helping transform Intuit into an iconic technology brand with a reputation for great company culture and values-driven leadership.We get a unique look into the secrets that have made Cassie and Intuit successful and, more important, what Cassie's doing to define the post-pandemic future of work for self-employed entrepreneurs. Listen and learn...Why Scott Cook, Intuit founder, advised employees to "love the problem not the solution."How Cassie has changed her leadership style to support remote teams.What "customer obsession" means at Intuit.Why Cassie says "there's no prosperity without equality."What Intuit is doing to narrow the pay gap.What Cassie learned from Clay Christensen.Episodes mentioned:Charlene Li shares lessons for disruptors.Deborah Hanus shares how Sparrow is fixing company leave policies.

Special guest Gareth Rushgrove, editor of the popular DevOps Weekly newsletter (since its inception ten years ago!) and former product lead at Docker and Puppet, joined the podcast this week for a wide-ranging discussion about the culture of IT operations, security and software development, and the future of application monitoring.Listen and learn:Why Gareth thinks teaching developers to write secure code is a "socio-technical" problemWhy the perceived "go fast vs. be secure" perceived tradeoff is wrongWhat Gareth has been doing to support the Open Policy Agent and accelerate adoption of infrastructure as codeWhat's ahead for Kubernetes and container managementWhat advice Gareth "newsletter iron man" has for listeners... and the one mistake he made when launching DevOps Weekly

Ever wonder what "knocker-uppers" did in Britain when alarm clocks were invented? Curious what scribes did after the printing press? Loom operators after the cotton gin? Throughout history, those on the right side of innovation thrive.In this crossover episode, host Dan Turchin is interviewed by Service Desk Institute Chief Value and Innovation Officer David Wright. Hear how technology is changing customer service... and improving the lives of customer service agents while forcing them to upskill and re-skill.Listen and learn:What skills won't be replaced by AIHow the service desk is being transformed by automationWhy "augmented intelligence" is improving employee serviceWhat's happening now to mitigate the impact of bias in training data

Greg Poirier understands what it’s like to carry the pager. He started as a systems engineer and has since spent a career developing products that help systems engineers sleep at night. In this episode, Greg explains the past, present, and future of IT operations. He also shares techniques for surviving the quarantine as a geek and an artist.Hear from the master… What is observability and why is it more important during the pandemic? What do great product teams do better than everyone else? Will we ever achieve NoOps? Is that even the right vision? Pets? Cattle? Discuss. Is monitoring dead? 

Brent Knipfer started from humble beginnings having taken an oath of poverty in the Peace Corps. He's now one of the leading authorities in the IT community on the topic of designing AI-first, data-driven strategies.Listen and learn...Why the secret to great AI is having great humans first clean your dataHow to optimize your CMDB for AIWhy service agents that accept recommendations from AI have the lowest MTTRWhy Brent's mantra is "leap to the future"How Brent has made it through the quarantine... including a preview of outrageous outfits he's been designing for his debut on the runway post-COVID

Barclay Rae, co-author of the ITIL v4 guides and ITSM consultant, and Sanjeev NC, AI enthusiast and former Product Marketing lead at Freshworks, join host Dan Turchin to discuss where AI is helping organizations and why fears of job elimination are unfounded.Listen and learn...Why "artificial" is a better description of today's AI technology than "intelligent"How AI is helping reduce training time for help desk agentsKey metrics you should be using to make sure your AI project is successfulThe skills you need to lead your organization's first AI projectWhat gamification has in common with AI

Deborah Hanus, Sparrow founder and CEO, joins Dan Turchin to discuss how improving the complicated maternity, paternity, and medical leave process makes life better for employees. Deborah shares her vision for the company, why the problem exists, and what it was like raising two rounds of funding as a solo founder.Listen and learn:What inspired Deborah to start SparrowWhy leave policies are so complicated and how COVID-19 has made the situation worseHow leave policies create gender bias and how Deborah recommends companies fix the problemWhy leave is tightly connected to job satisfaction and quality of lifeThe world Deborah hopes exists when Sparrow is wildly successful

Tiernan Ray has published articles in every major tech and business publication over his 25-year career. This week, he joined Dan Turchin on the podcast to discuss what it means to practice responsible journalism at a time when audiences and advertisers are fickle and we're contending with a pandemic, social unrest, political turmoil, and backlash against social media for promoting hate.Listen and learn...Why journalistic integrity matters even as fact-checking departments at organizations like Barron's are being eliminated.How the pandemic has created opportunities to tell stories about scientific topics that weren't previously exposed to mainstream audiences.Why it's important for writers to not allow their social media brands to influence their presentation of facts.How leaders like former Cisco CEO John Chambers, Applied Materials CEO Gary Dickerson, and Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope are managing company culture as "serendipitous moments for collaboration" go away.Follow Tiernan on Twitter.

This week, we discuss the future of smart homes with Alex Capecelatro, CEO of Josh.ai. Working from home has made smart home assistants business essential. They save us time researching, play mood-appropriate music, and help us meditate when quarantine life has an off day. Alex and Josh.ai are navigating the new world of work like all of us. But unlike most of us, they’re doing it while being scrutinized for collecting personal data, trying to maintain international supply chains, and competing with pandemic stalwarts Amazon and Google. Listen and learn why Josh.ai just had its best quarter ever and raised a new round of funding. Hear how Alex is creating a culture well-suited for growth in uncertain times. Topics discussed… What is the future of the smart home? How is Josh.ai addressing the problem of data privacy? Why did his team develop a “Snapchat” feature? What is Alex’s leadership style and how has it changed as the company has grown? What would Alex do differently if he started over today? How was Alex able to close a round of funding in the middle of a pandemic? What is it like being David slinging stones at Goliaths Amazon and Google? 

Kenn So is on the investment team at Shasta Ventures, one of the most respected enterprise software investors in Silicon Valley. He evaluates AI-first companies every day and has a few opinions about what's working and how to get your AI company funded.On this week's episode, Ken shares his perspective on venture capital, AI, and what the best pitches have in common.Listen and learn...   How the best SaaS companies are evolving their operating plans in lean times.Why AI explainability matters. What is AI bias and what are innovative companies doing to address it.Why it's ok that AI innovation is slowing down while AI accountability is catching up.The biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when managing in a crisis.How diversity in the VC community directly impacts innovation.The pitch that made Kenn say "wow!"What Kenn learned backpacking around the U.S. before starting his venture career.