Artificial intelligence. AI agents. Job replacement. The future of work.

Yes.

Many jobs will disappear.

Entire organizations will become virtual.

Agents will run processes.

Well-paid, stable roles will evaporate.

This is not hype.

It is happening.

But here is what I teach my students about innovation:

The winners in technological revolutions are not the best technologists.

They are the people who know what they love.

AI will commoditize tasks.

It will not commoditize obsession.

The next 10 years will be wild.

Bigger than the internet shift.

Faster than most people expect.

And many people will freeze.

They will focus on fear.

On job loss.

On what disappears.

But history shows something consistent:

51% of people build.

49% complain.

Over time, the builders win.

The real question is not:

“Will AI take my job?”

The real question is:

“What rabbit hole am I willing to go down so deeply that AI becomes my tool?”

If you love design, go deeper.

If you love science, go deeper.

If you love lasagna, build the largest lasagna knowledge resource in the world.

Yes, lasagna.

Because value is not created by technology alone.

It is created by humans who care about something irrationally.

The future will reward:

Clarity.

Hope.

Strategic positioning.

And courage to look a little crazy.

AI will replace average effort.

It will not replace conviction.

The future is going to happen anyway.

You can fear it.

Or you can build inside it.

I built the R3ciprocity platform. And I did not expect what it did to my students.

Last semester I offered it as an optional bonus project. Two students took me up on it. One built an advertising portfolio from scratch. Another built a real working app, a parking app. Legit.

That blew my mind.

So this semester I mandated it in my classes. I was honestly nervous about conflict of interest. I have taught for almost 20 years and I have always been careful.

But I did it anyway.

And it is fundamentally changing how my students learn. I have never seen improvements like this. They are actually building things. They are not quitting after two days.

Here is the core problem this fixes. Most big projects fail because there is no feedback. Real life is harsh. You try for two days, it gets hard, and you stop. That is normal. That is the trap.

R3ciprocity gives fast feedback, every day, from three places: scientific ideas, your own daily streak work, and other people on the platform. That steady feedback is what keeps people moving. It also creates visible proof of progress. You can download a streak file of what you did and turn it into a clean report later.

The platform is still improving. I know where the warts are. But even this version is working. I use it every day now.

So here is my ask. If you teach, lead a group, or run a team that wants people to actually innovate, bring your class or group onto it. You can join anytime. The next big shared session will likely be in the fall, and I want more groups involved.

Right now it is free. Later I will charge, not for greed, but because paying changes commitment. I saw that first hand with my son.

If you want your people to stop quitting on day two, and actually build, come join me.

There’s a whole industry built around one thing in academia:

How to get published.

Courses. Consultants. Threads. Whisper networks.

Even journals that make it “easy.”

We pretend publications are proof of truth.

They’re not.

They’re currency.

And like money, currency only works because we all agree it works.

Why is it the FT 50?

Why not 40? Why not 75?

Because we agreed.

And once we agree, we build careers around the agreement.

Here’s the uncomfortable part:

Most people try to game it.

Network angles. Strategic positioning. Statistical tricks. Safer topics.

Call it optimization if that feels better.

And every reform proposal misses the point.

Change the p-value threshold?

People will game the new number.

Add transparency rules?

People will optimize those too.

The system doesn’t behave this way because it is broken.

It behaves this way because people are people.

So what do you do?

You accept that if you refuse to play the game aggressively,

you may not “win.”

You may not be the star.

You may not look impressive by external metrics.

And then you decide:

Do I want applause?

Or do I want a joyful life?

You can’t control the cottage industry.

You can control whether you join it.

Define your own version of good research.

Build your own small circle.

Detach from the noise.

You might get penalized.

But you might also sleep well.

Why Do People Not Get That PhD Life Is About Motivation?

The first time a senior researcher discredits your work without even reading it will shock you.

You will want to defend yourself.

You will want to explain.

You will think it means something about your ability.

It doesn’t.

This is the default.

Most people will not read your work.

Most people will not try to understand what you’re doing.

Most people are focused on themselves and what helps them move forward.

That includes senior researchers.

That includes colleagues.

That includes people you thought would care.

You can run into thousands of people in your career and almost all of them will dismiss what you are doing without looking closely. Not because you are bad. Not because your work has no value. But because attention is scarce and status is the only signal most people use.

Until you have a large number of publications, you will be dismissed.

After you have many publications, you will still be dismissed.

Everything blends together and very little is actually read.

That is the game.

The only thing you can control is how you interpret it.

You cannot force people to care.

You cannot make them read.

You cannot make them understand.

You can only decide how much of your self-worth you attach to their reaction.

If you are thoughtful, conscientious, and actually paying attention to ideas, you are unusual.

And unusual people get discounted.

So you learn to walk forward anyway.

Be kind. Be generous. Do your work.

And stop expecting most people to notice.

If your PhD feels easy, something is wrong.

When I hear people say their PhD was easy, I almost cringe.

Because that tells me they’re not getting pushed.

The process itself is not terribly difficult.

What’s difficult is dealing with people that are very smart, internalizing what they have to say, processing it, and still moving forward in a healthy way.

If you’re in a halfway decent program, working with people that are sharp, it will be very tough.

It will be rigorous.

You will feel challenged all of the time.

It’s like training with a coach.

Hours. Constant push. Sometimes people get upset. Sometimes you get upset.

You propose an idea.

It gets torn apart in moments.

You rebuild it.

It gets torn apart again.

That’s the work.

And if you’re doing it right, there’s doubt.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I always feel like I’m behind.”

That’s not a failure signal.

That’s development.

The real red flag?

No pushback.

“It’s fine.”

Silence.

No sharpening.

Good work is slow. Painstaking. Question every word. Think about every line.

If nobody is pushing back, it’s often because they don’t care.

Pushback means someone is investing in you.

Easy often means nobody is.

If you want to succeed in academia, stop doing most of the things you think matter.

Let me say the quiet part out loud.

There are only two indicators.

In the sciences: grants.

In most other fields: publications.

Maybe citations.

That’s it.

Teaching? Doesn’t matter.

Entrepreneurship? Doesn’t matter.

Committee work? Doesn’t matter.

Community service? Doesn’t matter.

Being athletic? Doesn’t matter.

Learning languages? Doesn’t matter.

Being a good teammate? Doesn’t matter.

Being kind? Doesn’t matter.

If it does not translate directly into grants or papers, it does not count.

In fact, it may even hurt you. It signals you are not focused.

I know this sounds ruthless.

But if you are tenured, you know I’m not wrong.

If you are a PhD student, this is the game you signed up for.

Here’s the problem.

Almost everything that makes you a whole human being is bad for your career.

Time with family.

Going to the gym.

Preparing deeply for class.

Helping a student.

Being part of a real community.

All of it slows the machine.

So you have a choice.

You can optimize for grants and papers.

Or you can love yourself enough to live a life.

I go swimming.

I spend time with my family.

I prepare for class even when it “doesn’t matter.”

Bad for my career.

Good for my life.

At some point, you have to decide:

Do you want to win the metrics?

Or do you want to remain whole?

You are already remarkable.

Don’t let the scoreboard tell you otherwise.

The most controversial thing I say about scientific culture is often the most obvious:

It has warts.

Not because science is bad.

Not because research is hopeless.

But because any human system that pushes success at all costs will eventually hurt people.

What still shocks me is not that scientific culture has trade-offs.

It is that so many people struggle to even admit there are trade-offs.

That, to me, is the real warning sign.

When you cannot openly talk about the costs, the tensions, the pain, the weird incentives, or the simple fact that some parts work and some parts do not, you have already gone off the rails.

I study this.

I think about this all the time.

And as I get more senior, the warts are easier to see.

The harder part is realizing how many people cannot bear to look at them.

Not because they are “stupid.”

But because admitting there are problems would shake their whole worldview.

And people rarely want their worldview shaken.

So they defend the system.

They flatten the conversation.

They paint a unified picture.

They act as if even mentioning the trade-offs is the problem.

But the truth is the opposite.

If we cannot talk openly about scientific culture, we cannot improve it.

If we cannot admit there are challenges, we cannot balance them.

If we cannot tolerate different perspectives, we will keep repeating the same damage while pretending everything is fine.

That is why I keep talking about this.

Not because I hate research.

Not because I am negative.

But because I care enough to say that something can be beautiful and still need repair.

And if you are one of the people who sees the warts too, here is the hard truth:

You probably cannot fix the people who refuse to see them.

But you can fix yourself.

You can become more forgiving of yourself.

You can stop expecting the system to validate every hard thing you feel.

You can recognize when somebody is not ready to engage honestly.

You can get back up.

You can keep going.

You can protect your heart without giving up your mind.

Scientific culture will not change soon.

Not until we can admit there are problems.

But you can still change how you move through it.

And sometimes that is where real change begins.

The Greatest Privilege I Ever Had Wasn’t Money. It Was Parents Who Cared.

People often ask me whether I feel fortunate to be a professor.

The truth is…

The greatest privilege in my life had nothing to do with my career.

It wasn’t my education.

It wasn’t becoming a professor.

It wasn’t publishing papers.

It wasn’t even being born during one of the most peaceful and prosperous periods in history.

It was something much simpler.

I had parents who cared.

Were they perfect?

Absolutely not.

We had struggles.

We had disagreements.

There were plenty of mistakes.

But I never doubted that they were trying.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized what an extraordinary privilege that actually was.

Not parents who had all the answers.

Not parents who never made mistakes.

Just parents who showed up.

Parents who worried.

Parents who sacrificed.

Parents who cared.

As a professor, I spend a surprising amount of time feeling like I’m never quite enough.

Another paper.

Another grant.

Another rejection.

Another revision.

Academia has a strange way of convincing you that you’ve almost arrived…

…but never quite.

Then I think about my parents.

I don’t remember whether they always had the perfect answer.

I don’t remember every mistake they made.

I remember something much more important.

I remember feeling cared for.

That changes a child.

If you’re raising children today, here’s something I’ve learned.

They don’t need perfect parents.

They don’t need parents who never lose their patience.

They don’t need parents who have everything figured out.

They need parents who keep showing up.

Who care.

Who love them enough to keep trying.

One day, your children won’t remember every decision you made.

They’ll remember how safe they felt with you.

They’ll remember whether they believed someone was in their corner.

Looking back, I realize that may have been the greatest gift my parents ever gave me.

Not perfection.

Just the certainty that someone cared.

And, honestly…

That’s more than many people ever receive.

I fell in love with researching business strategy and innovation because it felt serious. It felt rational. It felt like it mattered.

But when I entered the profession, I realized something uncomfortable. The conversation is almost always about how to get ahead. How to get the next publication. How to rationalize performance. How to land the mythical job.

That seriousness becomes problematic. We become fixated. We lose sight of what it means to live a good life.

Over the last five years, I have become convinced that we need more play. Less seriousness in a healthy way. Not less rigor, but less fixation.

There are two ways to escape the cycle. You can get angry and leave. Or you can make fun of it in a healthy way. Laugh at the farcical nature of the front stage. Recognize the backstage. Add play.

When I do that, research becomes sustainable. It becomes joyful. And suddenly, I see the world differently.