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In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli sits down with Steve Brown, a leading AI futurist and former executive at organizations including Intel and DeepMind. Brown brings a rare combination of technical depth and leadership perspective, shaped by decades at the forefront of technological change and his work advising leaders around the world on the implications of artificial intelligence.

The conversation centers on Brown’s book, The AI Ultimatum, and the core argument behind it: AI is not simply another productivity tool or IT upgrade. It represents a fundamental shift in how intelligence is created, scaled, and applied inside organizations. Leaders who treat AI as incremental technology risk missing the much larger transformation underway.

Brown explains why he believes we are entering an “intelligence age,” comparable in scope to the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding at a dramatically faster pace. As the cost of intelligence approaches zero, organizations will face new strategic choices about workforce design, value creation, leadership identity, and ethical responsibility. These choices, Brown argues, cannot be delegated or delayed without consequence.

Throughout the episode, Mahan challenges Brown to bridge theory and practice. They explore real organizational examples, from AI agents working alongside humans to scientific breakthroughs like AlphaFold, and examine how leaders can shift from efficiency-driven thinking toward value creation, judgment, and human amplification.

This is not a conversation about tools or trends. It is a candid discussion about leadership responsibility in a period of accelerated change, and what CEOs and senior executives must rethink now to ensure their organizations remain relevant, resilient, and human-centered.

Actionable Takeaways

• You’ll learn why delaying AI decisions is itself a leadership choice, and how waiting for clarity can quietly erode organizational value.
• Hear how the “intelligence age” differs from previous technology shifts, and why its speed changes the role of senior leadership.
• You’ll learn why AI should be viewed as a digital workforce, not just software, and what that means for strategy, structure, and accountability.
• Hear how leaders must shift from being the source of answers to guiding exploration, judgment, and learning in uncertain conditions.
• You’ll learn why cost-cutting is the weakest use of AI, and where leaders should instead focus to create new value.
• Hear how AI changes the relevance of experience, narrowing gaps while raising expectations for judgment and insight.
• You’ll learn why ethics, bias, and responsibility do not belong to algorithms, but remain firmly in the domain of leadership.
• Hear how AI can amplify human capability rather than replace it, when leaders design work intentionally.

Connect with Steve Brown

Steve Brown Website 

Steve Brown LinkedIn

The AI Ultimatum: Preparing for a World of Intelligent Machines and Radical Transformation

Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:

Mahan Tavakoli Website 

Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn 

Partnering Leadership Website

Aji and JoĂŤl get into a flow as they discuss the different diagrams that help guide their thought processes when working.

Together they compare their go to diagrams and why they find them so useful, the different analysis tools a diagram can offer and the alternative perspective on your work it provides, as well as how using diagrams can help communicate your mental models more effectively with your colleagues.

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Be sure to check out these resources on diagrams and conditionals for some wider reading on today’s episode - BeautifulMermaid Repo - Visualising RSepc - Structuring Conditionals

You can also find our hosts speaking at various conferences over the next few months - Haggis Ruby - Blue Ridge Ruby

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: [email protected]

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.

Š 2026 thoughtbot, inc.

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In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan discuss Crafting Engineering Strategy by Will Larson!Try Mailtrap for free with our link! https://l.rw.rw/book_overflow_1Join the Book Overflow Discord here! https://discord.gg/ZwS2fqW7ZZ -- Want to talk with Carter or Nathan? Book a coaching session! ------------------------------------------------------------Carterhttps://www.joinleland.com/coach/carter-m-1Nathanhttps://www.joinleland.com/coach/nathan-t-2-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.----------------------------------------------------------Crafting Engineering Strategy by Will Larsonhttps://amzn.to/4uuUg3J------Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5LApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpodCarter on X: https://x.com/cartermorganNathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com----------------Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io

Today we speak with Roland Flemm, co-creator of Org Topologies and co-author of 10X Org — Powered by Org Topologies. Roland has spent decades in the trenches—first as a developer, then in infrastructure, and finally as a Scrum Master, trainer, and organizational design consultant. In this episode, he explains why even teenagers with zero corporate experience instinctively create departmental silos, why making every team faster doesn't make the whole organization faster, and how leaders can use the Org Topologies map to see their organization as it actually is—not as the org chart says it should be.

"I felt many, many times the limitations of organizational structures stopping me from using my common sense to make people work together in a proper way."

Roland's career spans over 40 years, starting as a developer in 1984. After a decade writing code and another decade in infrastructure, he moved into Scrum and agile coaching. But even as a highly effective Scrum Master, he kept hitting the same ceiling: local team improvements couldn't break through organizational boundaries. You could have wins with your team, but the moment you needed multiple teams to work together, someone higher up would shut it down. That frustration led him to Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) by Bas Vodde and Craig Larman, which offered a more educated approach to multi-team collaboration—and eventually to co-creating Org Topologies as a way to help leaders see and change the structures that block real collaboration.

Bas has been on the podcast to share his view on scaling Scrum with LeSS, listen to his episode here.

"If you don't think about your org design—the way that you want to collaborate—then something like this happens."

One of the most striking stories in Roland's book comes from the Technical University of Delft, where student engineers were thrown together to build a hydrogen racing car. These were teenagers—no corporate experience, no boss who'd worked in a traditional company. And within weeks, they'd organized themselves into departmental silos, each sticking to their specialty. The mechanical engineers stayed on their turf, the electrical engineers on theirs. It was automatic. Roland traces this instinct deep: from school, where you choose a specialty; from the army and the church, where hierarchy is the default; from society itself, where "you're a plumber, so then we know what you are." The pattern of drawing boundaries and appointing leads when faced with complexity isn't corporate culture—it's human nature. And the problem isn't that it exists. The problem is that we don't know there are alternatives.

"It's not that people choose to do fewer things. They just push more into the system because it can handle it. And that's where things go wrong."

Roland uses a vivid analogy from the book: swapping every car on the road for a Ferrari doesn't fix traffic congestion. The same principle applies in organizations. Everyone feels faster individually—teams are delivering, sprints are moving—but the whole isn't getting better. The HealthCare.gov story makes the case dramatically: 55 vendor firms, $1.7 billion in spending, and on launch day, six people successfully enrolled. Then a ten-person cross-functional team fixed it in six weeks. Roland sees this pattern repeat in banks that adopt delivery-oriented structures like SAFe: they create value streams, but because they don't make hard choices about what not to do, the freed-up coordination capacity immediately fills with new demands. The congestion returns, just at a different level.

In this segment, we talk about the Cynefin Framework.

"The third topology is interesting—that's where the hands and the heads are merged. They're no longer separated."

Roland walks through the Org Topologies map, each suited to different contexts:

Resource Topology — The "hands" are separated from the "heads." Coordinators design and direct; specialists execute narrow, deep tasks. This works in environments with low variability and deep technical expertise—think ASML's university-level hardware engineers, or a bank's core transaction processing team running COBOL. The focus is on utilization of expensive specialists.

Delivery Topology — Still has coordination overhead, but teams are cross-functional and can handle more complex problems end to end. A team owns the customer page and does design, testing, and deployment. This model favors speed of delivery, but breaks down when new work doesn't fit neatly onto existing value streams—like needing a retention initiative when no retention team exists. Work falls through the cracks.

Adaptive Topology — The hands and heads merge. People who coordinate can also do the work, and they self-organize around problems as they emerge. It's like a startup—"four guys and a dog in a garage"—but with hundreds of people. This model thrives in high-variability, high-learning environments where the investment in cross-training pays off because the challenges keep changing.

The key insight: none of these is "better." It's about fit for purpose. A single organization—like a large bank—might need all three topologies operating simultaneously in different parts of the business.

"First, we all agree that the system that we're looking at is really the system that we're looking at. And then we can start talking about how to improve."

Rather than the typical transformation playbook—hire consultants, roll out a framework, hope for the best—Roland advocates for the MADE loop: Map the reality of how work actually flows (not what the org chart says), Assess whether that structure is fit for the strategic purpose, Design targeted improvements using the Org Topologies map, and Elevate through small experiments. Maybe two teams temporarily share members. Maybe one person switches team membership for a sprint. The changes are gradual, measurable, and reversible. Roland is emphatic about one principle from the book: "Own, Not Rent." Real structural change can't be outsourced to a consulting firm. Leaders have to see the system themselves—go to where the work happens, understand the flow, and make informed choices about what to change.

"As AI comes, you might want to get at least a part of that work transferred lower in the organization to more execution-oriented teams, because they can now use resources like AI to make proper decisions."

Roland makes a forward-looking point about how AI will shift the boundaries between topologies. Work that required deep specialist silos—like legal review or compliance decisions—may soon be handleable by cross-functional teams using AI tools. This means the threshold for when an adaptive or delivery topology makes sense will shift. Organizations that understand their current topology will be better positioned to adapt; those that don't will find their structures obsolete without understanding why.

About Roland Flemm

Roland Flemm is co-creator of Org Topologies and co-author of 10X Org — Powered by Org Topologies (2026) — a framework and book about elevating organizational performance through people-centered, strategy-driven redesign. He works with leaders in scale-ups and enterprises across Europe, helping them see how their org structure shapes — or blocks — their ability to learn, adapt, and deliver.

You can link with Roland Flemm on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Roland's work at 10xorg and https://www.orgtopologies.com

In this episode of The Product Experience podcast, we sit down with Product Consultant Joca Torres, whose work at Gympass is featured in Marty Cagan’s book Transformed. Joca shares the four core principles of successful digital transformation—principles he’s applied in both high-growth startups and century-old corporations.

We unpack what it really takes to shift a company from a delivery mindset to a product-led culture, the traps of discovery theatre, and how empowered teams actually behave. 

Key takeaways
— Discovery should be fast and focused. Avoid drawn-out discovery phases that confirm what you already know. Good discovery is grounded in existing insights and validated quickly.
— The Four Principles of Product Culture:

• Deliver Early and Often – Frequent releases drive learning and responsiveness.
• Focus on the Problem – Avoid premature solutions. Spend time understanding what really needs solving.
• Deliver Results – Products are a means, not an end. Success is measured in impact, not output.
• Ecosystem Mindset – Recognise the full range of users and stakeholders. Product is about balancing value across them.

— Transformation is behavioural, not technical. Digital tools are important, but they won’t matter if people and processes don’t change with them.
— Executive sponsorship is essential. Cultural shifts only take hold when the leadership team actively supports and models them.
— Beware of product theatre. Following the right rituals doesn’t mean you’re creating value. Focus on outcomes, not optics.
— Empowered teams are responsible teams. True empowerment means owning the problem, the solution, and the results. It isn’t for everyone.

Chapters
00:00 – The Problem with “Discovery”
01:00 – Introducing Joca Torres
02:30 – A Surprising Need for Digital Transformation
04:00 – What Makes a True Digital Transformation
08:00 – The Four Pillars of Change
13:00 – Thinking Beyond the End User
17:00 – From Feature Delivery to Outcome Ownership
23:00 – Discovery Theatre and How to Avoid It
25:00 – Moving Faster in Slow-Moving Industries
29:00 – Expanding Product Culture Across the Business
32:00 – What Empowerment Really Means
34:00 – Leading with Results

Featured links
Follow Joca on LinkedIn |   / jocatorres 
Wellhub (ex-Gympass) | https://wellhub.com/en-uk/
Buy Jo

We're refreshing The Product Experience and want your input. Take our two-minute survey and help shape where the show goes next! 

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. 

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.

What is pushing you where?

Akimbo is a weekly podcast created by Seth Godin. He's the bestselling author of 20 books and a long-time entrepreneur, freelancer and teacher.

You can find out more about Seth by reading his daily blog at seths.blog and about the podcast at akimbo.link.

To submit a question and to see the show notes, please visit akimbo.link and press the appropriate button.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julie Zhuo, Co-Founder @ Sundial, Author of THE MAKING OF A MANAGER, ex-VP Design @ FB

Summary
Intuition and hiring is an uncomfortable topic. We should be rational, have reasons for why we choose to work with someone or not. When should we trust our gut feeling? When is it time to step back and say, no. I go with the hard facts?

In the end it’s all about building an honest relationship as a leader with our peers and what kind of person you want to be. Afterall, we spend a huge time with our peers, even if work is not our main focus in life.

We explore the journey of personal growth and learning, the challenges and strengths of introversion and extroversion, and the significance of choosing battles and seeking feedback.

How can we understand ourselfes better and become the inspiring leaders that we wish we had in our life when we were younger?

Takeaways

• Intuition and logic are both valuable in decision-making, and it is important to know when to choose which one.
• We don’t have to be leaders by embracing the bad stereotypes from the past.
• Clear communication and honesty are essential in building strong relationships.
• Taking risks and embracing vulnerability will lead to personal growth and learning.

Chapters

05:01 The Power of Clear Communication

07:13 Balancing Simplicity and Complexity in Writing

08:12 The Importance of Honesty in Relationships

14:25 The Wisdom of Intuition and Logic

23:00 Building Honest and Deep Relationships with your peers

26:17 Personal Growth and Learning

29:32 Navigating Introversion and Extroversion

32:59 Overcoming Fear and Embracing Authenticity

38:05 Inspiring Others and Building Meaningful Relationships

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What if your office is making people miserable… and you don't even see it? We now live in a world of hybrid work. The spaces we work in, the technology we use, and the culture we experience shape us more than we realize. If you're still only focusing on tasks and performance while ignoring the environments that make or break engagement, you're already falling behind. In today's Leadership Spark, we uncover the three hidden forces driving employee experience: physical space, technology, and corporate culture. You'll hear how these environments impact mental health, motivation, and performance, and what you can do to fix the silent culture killers draining your people. This episode will also show you why corporate culture is really the side effects of working at your company, and why modern leaders must see themselves as the front line of human connection, not just task management.

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What if your leadership skills were truly borderless? Could you step into any culture, any team, anywhere in the world—and still thrive? That's the challenge and opportunity of developing a Global Citizen mindset, one of the most crucial traits for leaders today. In today's Leadership Spark, I share why the Global Citizen mindset is a non-negotiable skill for modern leaders. I tell the story of a remarkable CEO who defied cultural limitations in Morocco, built her career across multiple countries, and earned the nickname "Water Lady" for brokering a major deal between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. We explore how leading in different cultures teaches unique lessons—like patience in Japan or entrepreneurship in the U.S.—and why cultural blind spots, such as Disney's failed "Euro Disney" launch, can sink even the strongest brands. You can't lead a world-sized organization without a world-sized mindset. Check out what it means to build this mindset in this episode.

________________

Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/