DisrupTV

What separates the companies that will define the AI era from those that will be displaced by it? In this episode of DisrupTV, hosts R "Ray" Wang and Vala Afshar bring together two guests with very different vantage points on the same question — one from the front lines of AI-first transformation, and one from the deeply human side of leadership development.

Alejandro Laplana, CEO of Shokworks — the AI-first digital transformation consultancy behind work for HBO, FC Barcelona, and the United Nations — makes the case that the traditional services model is being fundamentally disrupted. The billable hour is giving way to gain-share arrangements where vendors win only when clients win. Middle-market companies ($50M–$500M) are using AI to achieve leverage that once required billions in investment. And the real efficiency gains aren’t in headline automation — they’re in eliminating the coordination tax buried in middle management layers and compliance workflows. He also draws a crucial distinction between operational AI, which improves today’s business, and innovation AI, which builds tomorrow’s competitive moat.

Claire Díaz-Ortiz, who co-authored Why Can’t They Be Like Me? with legendary executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, explores the leadership trap that quietly caps most organizations’ potential: the assumption that what made you successful should work for everyone around you. She explains why homogeneity is innovation’s enemy, where AI genuinely helps in leadership development and where it falls short, and why the strengths that build careers can become the blind spots that limit leadership — if they go unexamined.

Together, they trace a through-line from business model disruption to the human transformation required to lead through it: outcome-obsessed strategy on one side, and the perspective-rich, deliberately curious leadership needed to execute on the other.

What does it actually take to win with AI at the enterprise level — and what does it mean for society as AI becomes inseparable from how we live, work, and relate to one another? In Episode 444 of DisrupTV, hosts R Ray Wang and Vala Afshar bring together two leaders at the front lines of those questions from very different vantage points.

TVN Reddy, CEO of Aptean — a vertical enterprise software company serving more than 10,000 customers — shares what AI adoption actually looks like at the front line of business. He explains why most organizations are caught in the action trap, burning tokens without creating outcomes, and why the shift from selling tools to selling results is fundamentally rewriting the enterprise software model. He introduces the 90/10 rule for competitive differentiation, makes the case for hiring AI-native engineers whose job is to feed agents work rather than do work themselves, and explains how ecosystems of agents — not single agents — are how you get from 60% accuracy to 99%.

Lee Rainie, who spent nearly 25 years leading Pew Research’s internet and technology work and now directs the Imagining the Digital Future Center at Elon University, brings a societal lens to the same transformation. His research asks how humans will cope with the disruptions AI brings — and his answer may surprise you: resilience must start with institutions, not individuals. He introduces the concept of existential literacy, explains why AI may consume our solitude, and makes the case that deliberate friction — pause points built into AI-augmented workflows — may be essential to preserving human judgment, creativity, and agency.

Together, they trace a through-line from enterprise outcomes to civilizational resilience, and close with a line that reframes the entire conversation: we are the last generation that will know what human capability felt like before it became inseparable from AI.

Charlene Li makes the case that AI is a leadership and strategy test, not a tech rollout — and that most organizations stall because they hand AI to IT instead of owning it as a CEO-level priority. She explains why leaders should kill their pilots, why speed has become the real competitive moat, and why the smartest companies are using AI for value reclamation — building new capabilities and services — instead of just cutting headcount. She also lays out the four building blocks of AI fluency: mindset, skill set, tool set, and decision set, and makes the case for a dedicated AI value owner who keeps the whole organization moving at the same tempo.

Sebastian Wernicke shifts the conversation to the foundation underneath all of this: data. He argues that most data initiatives fail not because of bad tools, but because organizations misunderstand data’s actual purpose — which is change, not dashboards. He debunks three persistent myths — that data is objective, that it speaks for itself, and that it provides clean, definitive answers — and explains why psychological safety, not better software, is what actually lets data change minds inside an organization.

Together, Li and Wernicke offer a practical, unified roadmap: clarify your strategy, empower real ownership, invest in fluency, and build a culture where data — and leaders — can be wrong in public without consequence.

Patricia Martin introduces the concept of persona fog — a civilizational malady born from a decade of curating ourselves for algorithms, where our online persona becomes load-bearing and our true self becomes hard to access. She explains why AI may become the most colossal persona fog machine we’ve ever encountered, capable of getting you, amplifying you, and optimizing you until it authors versions of you that you never intended. And she offers a counter-move: self-determination, integration, and becoming the editor-in-chief of your own identity.

Tom Rath challenges the conventional wisdom of follow your passion, arguing it centers the self instead of contribution and relies on a tiny pinhole of life exposure. Drawing on his new book, he reframes purpose as something manufactured daily — in the lab of our daily choices — and shares a simple, practical heuristic, what’s the point?, that he uses multiple times a day to reorder his life around what matters. He also opens up about living with cancer for over 30 years, post-traumatic growth, and why you should never fully retire from contributing.

Together, Martin and Rath offer a dual lens on the AI era: how we’re being fragmented and performed, and how we can rebuild our lives around contribution, daily choices, and the people who truly see us.

How do companies create entirely new markets—and why are the best organizations rethinking profit, trust, and corporate purpose?

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Bruce Cleveland, author of Market Engineering, and Eric Ries, author of Incorruptible.

We’ll explore what “Market Engineering” really means and why companies must actively shape markets to stay ahead, why trust has become one of the most valuable assets an organization can build, and how mission-driven companies outperform during times of disruption. We’ll also discuss why the era of shareholder primacy is being challenged, what comes next for corporate leadership, and how AI governance, healthcare, climate markets, and corporate accountability are reshaping the future of business.

If you care about the future of leadership, innovation, and building enduring companies in the AI era, you won’t want to miss this one.

In this episode of DisrupTV, hosts Vala Afshar and R “Ray” Wang are joined by Malcolm Turnbull, Lucy Turnbull, Dr. David Bray, and Sheri Jacobs for a wide-ranging conversation on the future of AI, geopolitics, governance, and leadership.

Together, they explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping global power structures through energy and infrastructure, why disinformation and synthetic media threaten shared reality, and how boards and executives must rethink risk in an interconnected world.

The conversation also dives into a powerful leadership theme: trust and boundaries. From geopolitics to organizational design, the panel reveals why clarity, ethical structure, and defined limits are not constraints — but essential drivers of innovation and resilience in the AI era.

This episode offers a critical roadmap for leaders navigating the intersection of technology, power, and human judgment in a rapidly accelerating world.

What happens when intelligence is no longer exclusively human?

In DisrupTV Episode 439, Vala Afshar and R "Ray" Wang are joined by internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Dr. David Bray, and decision scientist Cheryl Strauss Einhorn for a far-reaching conversation on agentic AI, governance, misinformation, autonomous systems, and the future of human judgment.

Together, they explore:

Why agentic AI changes the rules of accountability and governance

The rise of digital labor and human + agent collaboration

How synthetic media and misinformation are reshaping enterprise risk

Why critical thinking may become the most important skill of the AI era

The role of human judgment, values, and decision-making in a world increasingly shaped by intelligent systems

How organizations must redesign, reskill, redeploy, and restructure for the future of work

From autonomous vehicles and synthetic data to cognitive fitness and decision science, this episode explores what it truly means to lead in an era where AI can act, reason, and scale alongside humans.

The conclusion: AI may accelerate intelligence, but human judgment remains the ultimate competitive edge.

What do values and organizational truth have to do with AI success?

In this episode of DisrupTV, Vala Afshar and R "Ray" Wang are joined by Paul Ingram, Columbia Business School professor and author of What Do You Really Stand For?, along with Jon Reed, co-founder of diginomica, for a deep conversation on leadership, AI, and the critical importance of context.

Topics include:

Why values are a leadership performance advantage

The hidden “verification tax” hurting enterprise AI readiness

Why the context layer may determine AI success or failure

The limits of LLMs without governance and organizational truth

How AI amplifies both clarity and dysfunction inside organizations

This episode explores the intersection of human judgment, enterprise trust, and AI strategy—and why the future belongs to organizations that understand all three.

AI is scaling fast—but can your organization secure it, govern it, and power it responsibly?

In this episode of DisrupTV, Vala Afshar and R "Ray" Wang are joined by Bob Gourley, David Bray, and Andrea Bonime-Blanc to explore the real challenges behind enterprise AI adoption.

From data center vulnerabilities and AI-driven cyber risk to the “messy middle” of security and the rise of exponential governance, this conversation unpacks what leaders must do now to stay resilient.

Tune in to learn:

Why AI infrastructure is becoming a physical and geopolitical risk

How AI is reshaping cybersecurity—for better and worse

What “exponential governance” means for boards and executives

Why innovation and responsibility must be designed together

If you’re leading AI strategy, security, or transformation—this episode is your playbook for what comes next.

AI is ready—but leadership isn’t.

In this episode of DisrupTV, Ray Wang and Vala Afshar are joined by Joe Kim (CEO of DRUID AI) and Paul McCarthy (author of The Fired Leader) to explore the rise of agentic AI and the leadership crisis holding organizations back.

They break down why AI is now a CEO mandate, how agentic systems are changing enterprise architecture, and why modularity, governance, and cost discipline are critical to building AI that lasts.

The conversation goes deeper into the human side of transformation—why most leadership development fails, why disruptive leaders are often pushed out, and what it takes to lead in a non-deterministic, AI-driven world.

If AI is becoming the operating system of business, then leadership is the real competitive edge. This episode explores what it takes to get both right.