Life events, personal interests, and a host of other factors lead people to step away from work. The key is how to handle reentry. Carol Fishman Cohen, HBS ‘85, draws on her own experience to consult and write about what it means to come back from a career break in today’s economy. She sheds light on who the would-be returners are, what they bring to the workplace, the barriers they face, and how employers can include them in their talent pipelines.

Robots aren’t necessarily primed to take over, but advances in machine learning are readying the mechanical components of the workforce for more complex and autonomous tasks. Startup Osaro specializes in deep reinforcement learning systems, artificial intelligence for industrial robots. CEO Derik Pridmore talks about the adaptive decision-making capabilities working their way into warehouses and factories, and the prospect of machines with a wider, more human range of cognitive capabilities.

Technology is changing financial institutions’ relationships with local businesses and sole proprietors, which account for half of America’s workforce. HBS professor and former head of the Small Business Administration Karen Mills sheds light on the ongoing transformation. Will new technologies expand access to credit for sole proprietors and small businesses on Main Street? How will these new technologies affect community banks? And what are the key challenges to smart Fintech regulation?

The Center for Energy Workforce Development was created in 2006 to help the industry prepare for a generational wave of retirements and to diversify its workforce. Utilities are the proverbial canary in the coalmine, as U.S. organizations across the board struggle with skills gaps and demographic shifts. Southern Company Executive Vice President and CEWD Chair, Beth Reese, discusses the task of replenishing the talent pipeline from the dual perspective of utility exec and consortium head.

CareerWise Colorado is redefining job training and expanding the talent pipeline. The nonprofit apprenticeship program, patterned on the successful Swiss system, places college-track students in businesses from advanced manufacturing to finance. Founder Noel Ginsburg and COO Ashley Carter explain how Careerwise allows students to earn as they learn, become valued employees, and develop career networks and long-term prospects. It’s built to replicate, ramping up in Colorado and expanding nationally.

Western Governors University was founded in 1997 to expand access to affordable higher education and to offer instruction grounded in the requirements of the job market. WGU President and HBS alum Scott Pulsipher tells Bill about the school’s innovative online model, which delivers a proficiency-based curriculum to working adults and members of underserved groups. With over 115,000 full-time students, WGU plans to reach an even wider audience. Is this a model for the future?

More people in the US have criminal records than have graduated from college. Joe DeLoss, founder of restaurant chain Hot Chicken Takeover, argues that people with a range of life experiences that previously kept them out of the workforce, like the formerly incarcerated, homeless, and addicted, defy easy categorization. With appropriate management, including clear expectations, relevant benefits, and frequent feedback, he says they can help create productive, stable, and profitable businesses.

Can a Manhattan Project on steroids revitalize languishing US regions and drive balanced economic growth? In their book Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream MIT economists Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson hearken back to the scientific, technical, and economic juggernaut assembled during the Second World War to make the case that public investment in innovation is the key to stimulating growth and reversing rising inequality across the country.

The phrase “gig worker” often conjures an image of a driver providing a routine service for low pay. But freelancers provide services on a contracted, or “gig,” basis in a wide range of fields from cosmetology to carpentry. In this episode, Joe hosts Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta, whose platform matches hundreds of thousands of professionals with contract jobs across the country. Marco provides a unique view into the shared challenges these varied “pros” face. Will platforms like his provide the solutions?

How should we think about improvements in artificial intelligence? Bill speaks with Joshua Gans, co-author of "Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence," which argues that AI advances can be boiled down to making better predictions. As a component of a vast array of activities, enhanced prediction will have ripple effects throughout the economy. What new functions and business models will it create? What difficult questions will it force society to answer?