Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

June 24, 2026: Meta's employee surveillance program, which tracked keystrokes, mouse activity, and screenshots before a data exposure forced the company to pause it. Then I get into Legion's lawsuit against the U.S. government after losing access to Anthropic's Fable 5 model, showing how frontier AI access is becoming a new business dependency and supply chain risk. I also look at software engineers facing workplace paralysis as AI models keep changing faster than people can master them, and why AI rollouts may be burning out the very high performers companies need most.

June 23, 2026: Companies are drowning in AI pilots, prototypes, and scattered use cases that make teams busier without necessarily making the business better. I talk about why the real advantage may come from finishing the few AI initiatives that matter instead of starting 300 that don't. Then I get into Adam Grant's new research linking return-to-office mandates with CEO narcissism, what the study actually found, where the methodology gets complicated, and why the better question for leaders is not "office or remote," but what arrangement produces the best outcomes for the team, the business, and the work being done

I talk with Greg Matson, Senior Vice President and Head of Marketing and Products at Solidigm, about the storage infrastructure powering the AI boom. We get into why AI training and inference require massive amounts of data, how GPUs, SSDs, and data centers work together, and why storage can't be an afterthought for companies building enterprise AI.

We also discuss the scale of today's AI data center buildout, how Solidigm is using AI internally, and what this means for the future of work, education, and the skills people will need in an AI-first world.

June 19, 2026: Anthropic's Fable 5 shutdown appears to be tied to SK Telecom, Project Glasswing, Amazon researchers, the White House, David Sacks, and a dispute over whether Anthropic should fix or de-deploy the model. Fortune 500 companies just hit record revenue, profit, revenue per employee, and profit per employee while shrinking headcount for the second year in a row, raising a bigger question about productivity gains without job growth. New data from LV8 founder Griffin Hadrill shows AI-generated creative ads are underperforming human-made ads by 3 to 5 times, which is a reminder that originality, emotional connection, and human judgment still matter.

Greg Matson, Senior Vice President and Head of Marketing and Products at Solidigm, joins me to explain why storage is one of the most important and overlooked parts of the AI infrastructure boom. We talk about what actually happens when you use tools like ChatGPT or Claude, why AI training and inference require massive amounts of data, and how GPUs, SSDs, and data centers work together behind the scenes.

Greg also breaks down why AI data centers are being built at such a massive scale, how much storage a single GPU can require, why enterprise AI depends on modern data infrastructure, and how Solidigm is using AI internally to improve forecasting, engineering, software testing, and product development. We also get into what this means for the future of work, education, and the skills people will need in an AI-first world.

This episode is sponsored by Solidigm.

June 18, 2026: Companies are starting to count the real cost of AI after two years of broad experimentation, from rising token bills to the higher wage premiums commanded by AI-skilled workers. Then I look at Senator Ruben Gallego's push to investigate ghost jobs and whether AI-powered hiring platforms are distorting the labor data policymakers rely on. Finally, I break down Wall Street's hiring dilemma: AI can automate junior-level work, but it cannot replace the apprenticeship that develops future rainmakers, dealmakers, and senior leaders.

June 17, 2026: Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos models were pulled after a government directive raised concerns about jailbreak risks, creating a wake-up call for companies building critical workflows on frontier AI models they don't actually control. Then I get into Meta's AI transformation struggles, including layoffs, employee reassignments, low morale, surveillance concerns, and what leaders can learn from one of the most visible AI change-management failures so far. Finally, I break down PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, which shows that AI isn't collapsing the labor market but splitting it into two tracks: roles where AI increases the value of human judgment, and roles where AI makes work easier for non-experts to perform.

Kelle Fontenot, Chief Digital Officer at KPMG, joins me to talk about how one of the world's largest professional services firms is embedding AI into the way work gets done. Kelle shares how KPMG is approaching enterprise AI adoption through its AIQ program, why AI requires close partnership between digital, HR, technology, and the business, and what it takes to drive change across 250,000 people globally.

We also get into the realities of AI adoption inside a large, highly regulated organization: digital teammates, AI agents, tool overload, trust, security, and why traditional training alone doesn't change behavior. Kelle offers a practical look at how leaders can move beyond experimenting with AI and start making it part of the everyday flow of work without losing human judgment along the way.

June 12, 2026: SpaceX made history with the largest IPO ever recorded, raising $75 billion in its NASDAQ debut and instantly becoming one of the most valuable companies in the United States. But under the hood, this isn't just a rocket company anymore. It's a bet on Starlink, reusable rockets, and xAI's massive AI infrastructure. Then I get into the first-ever appearance of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind leaders at the G7 Summit, and what it means when the most powerful AI companies in the world are now part of global policy conversations. Finally, I break down Jeff Bezos' $12 billion raise for Prometheus, a new company building an "artificial general engineer" that could reshape manufacturing, aerospace, pharma, defense, and the future of high-skill knowledge work.

June 10, 2026: Palantir CEO Alex Karp is warning tech leaders that bragging about AI-driven layoffs is a major political mistake and could fuel backlash against the entire industry. Then I get into a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showing that 53% of Americans fear AI could put them or someone in their household out of work, which means AI job anxiety is no longer a fringe concern. Finally, I break down the "great flattening," with new data showing that 41% of employees say their companies trimmed management layers last year, and why eliminating too much middle management could create a serious leadership pipeline problem for the future.