Provoke.fm Media

In this episode host Brett King and Paolo Sironi, host of Breaking Banks’ sister podcast The Bankers’ Bookshelf, speak with Pal Krogdahl, author of Rip Out the Core—an essential guide for anyone wrestling with the stubborn realities of banking core modernization. Despite massive investments, many institutions still face overruns, delays, and outcomes that leave them no stronger than before.

Sparked by a flooded kitchen that perfectly mirrored the chaos of real-world banking transformation programs, Pal’s book shifts the lens from pure technology to organization, showing that lasting change is impossible without adapting how people work. Pal speaks to banking executives and transformation leaders tired of endless patching, converting hard-won industry experience into precise, actionable steps that finally deliver meaningful business value.

Join as the trio unpack why core modernization so often fails, how organizational design must evolve alongside systems, and the practical path to progress that stops the cycle of frustration once and for all.

In this episode, Paolo Sironi speaks with Pal Krogdahl, author of Rip Out the Core—an essential guide for anyone wrestling with the stubborn realities of banking core modernization. Despite massive investments, many institutions still face overruns, delays, and outcomes that leave them no stronger than before.  Sparked by a flooded kitchen that perfectly mirrored the chaos of real-world banking transformation programs, Pal’s book shifts the lens from pure technology to organization, showing that lasting change is impossible without adapting the way people work. He speaks to banking executives and transformation leaders tired of endless patching, converting hard-won industry experience into precise, actionable steps that finally deliver meaningful business value.  Join us as we unpack why core modernization so often fails, how organizational design must evolve alongside systems, and the practical path to progress that stops the cycle of frustration once and for all.

To understand the future, it’s best to begin by studying the past. Jeff Jarvis returns to the Futurists to share a lively summary of the long arc of mass media, and he unpacks several valuable lessons for our present moment. Jeff’s new book Hot Type provides a compelling account of the long struggle to mechanize typesetting, one invention at a time, including the many failures that led to other mechanical breakthroughs. The invention of the Linotype machine made print cheap, and thereafter society consumed far more printed works, paving a path for modern mass marketing and mass consumption. Rob Tercek and Jeff discuss the direct parallel between the economic impact of mass media 100 years ago and the current advent of AI and the commoditization of human cognition. Topics include Jevon’s paradox, human-mechanical hybrids, unanticipated change versus technological determinism, a dozen parallels to our contemporary media economy, the importance of advertising and the attention economy, the advent of subscription sales of literature, a new definition of literacy.

This week on the futurists host Brett King sits down with Dr Julia Michelin to discuss the future of healthcare and how AI, gene-therapy, robotics, neural interfaces, cybernetics, 3D bio printing and other bio-tech is going to transform human society and culture.

Entrepreneurship is an odyssey with many unexpected stops on the journey. You could find yourself on a loading dock in East LA, freestyle rapping with a man known as DJ Trucker—yes, there is video proof.

In this episode of our special series, Killing It, hosts Jason Henrichs and Alex Johnson talk with Max Farrell. Max started his career in business development at Dwolla and went on to found WorkHound, which is now WorkStep. WorkHound began when Max stumbled upon a problem in an industry he didn’t come from, and he jumped right in.

The trio speaks candidly about the unpredictable nature of the founder journey and the need to deeply understand the customer. This includes Max spending 48 consecutive hours in the cab of a truck, winning a Truck Tank pitch competition, and recognizing when it is time to personally hit the road and move on.

This honest conversation shares the ups and downs of building a business. Max describes the near-failures, the acquisition, and his eventual decision to leave his founder identity behind. It’s an odyssey. 

In November 2025, the global techno-economy shifted subtly, then dramatically, as AI agents became viable additions to the workforce. Mark Pesce has documented these changes, what he refers to as “The Watershed”,  in a remarkable series of articles at https://thewatershed.markpesce.com/.  Pesce joins the Futurists to explain his perspective about how companies and work have changed forever. Pesce and Rob Tercek discuss the future of jobs for humans working alongside AI agents, and what happens when an  AI with compounding capability begins to set its own goals. Topics:  relative super intelligence versus AGI; The Bitter Lesson and what remains durable work for humans; private insurance markets as the mechanism for pricing AI risk, why governments will evade that measurement, and the dissolving boundaries that used to define corporations. 

In this episode, Paolo Sironi speaks with Prof. Dr. Ingird Vasiliu-Feltes, author of the new book The Art of Quantum: Statecraft, Sovereignty, Strategy—a timely strategic manifesto that reimagines classical principles of foresight and power (inspired by The Art of War) for the quantum age.  As demographic shifts concentrate workforce and economic power in emerging economies by 2030, and technology giants increasingly rival nation-states, the very meaning of sovereignty is being rewritten. Ingird makes a compelling dual case: nations must urgently build quantum sovereignty frameworks to safeguard security, economic stability, and strategic autonomy, while enterprises must engineer quantum resilience to stay competitive in a technology-dominated landscape. We unpack Ingird’s call for integrated quantum governance, orchestration across legal, regulatory, diplomatic, and cyber-ethical domains, and the practical steps required to create regenerative, quantum-resilient ecosystems. Listeners will gain frameworks for quantum literacy, leadership recalibration, and the high-stakes race that will define competitive advantage, national power, and enterprise survival in the decades ahead. Those who master the “art of quantum” will shape the future—join us as we examine why this is no longer optional.

In this episode of Breaking Banks Africa, host Matteo Rizzi sits down with Waleed Sadek, Founder and CEO of Fintra Holding and Paysky, to explore how interoperable payment infrastructure is transforming financial ecosystems across Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. Waleed shares the vision behind his group’s four businesses, from national payment systems and cross-border payment networks to digital banking platforms and Banking-as-a-Service. The conversation also examines the future of payments, digital banking, stablecoins, and financial inclusion, highlighting the importance of connecting emerging markets through scalable technology. The episode also previews Waleed’s participation as a speaker at the Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum, taking place in Uzbekistan from 24–26 August, where he will discuss how emerging economies can accelerate financial innovation through interoperable infrastructure, digital banking, and cross-border collaboration, while building stronger bridges between Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

This week on The Futurists we are joined by David Wood from the London Futurists, Rohit Telwar CEO of Fast Future, Andrew Grill the Actionable Futurist, and Dr. Julia Michelin, CEO/Founder and author of The Future of Dentistry. It’s an all star cast as we delve into the forecasts for tomorrow with the impact of AI and longevity treatments being a key focus. We discuss collaborative intelligence, gene therapy, nanobots and AGI. It’s a great discussion in the heart of London.

For years, Banking as a Service (BaaS) was sold as a silver bullet for community banks to solve their deposit problems and grow non-interest income. Through its evolution, the industry has learned that it is not enough for BaaS to simply be programmable. For innovation in banking to flourish, without sacrificing the safety and security of the banking ecosystem, BaaS must also be governable.

With the bankruptcy of Synapse and the resulting consent orders, sponsor banks have been forced to prove their control over outsourced operations.

This week on Breaking Banks, Jason Mikula, who wrote the book on BaaS, literally!, and is publisher of FinTech Business Weekly; Ellen Linardi, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Synctera; and Reid Whiting, President of Lincoln Savings Bank join Jason Henrichs to talk about sponsor banking. Is it growing up or catching up?

Interested in learning more? Check show notes for a link to a paper, a blueprint really, for the choices a bank that wants to play in sponsorship banking will need to make.

White Paper Link: Orchestration, Control, and Observability: A New Framework for Sponsor Banking https://alloylabs.docsend.com/view/gs8925x8yeii5vxg