"They don't quit their job cold turkey. That's not what I've observed firsthand."

Only twelve companies have ever been worth more than a trillion dollars. Ten of them are American. Eight of those ten were started fractionally, by people who were still in a job or still in school when they built the first version.

Shuo Chen is a General Partner at IOVC in the Bay Area, where she has made over 150 early-stage investments across a decade, with around a dozen exits through IPO and acquisition by Fortune 50 companies. She was one of the earliest investors in Instacart and has sold companies to Goldman Sachs, Ford and Caterpillar. She also teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and UC Berkeley, and writes the Monthly Note. She joins Aidan McCullen to explain fractional founders, the people who de-risk an idea before they ever hand in their notice.

In this conversation, Shuo reveals: - Why 8 of the 10 American trillion-dollar companies were built fractionally, and 1 in 4 of the Fortune 500 too - The Salesforce story most people get wrong: Larry Ellison wrote Marc Benioff a cheque to go and compete - How Jensen Huang and his co-founders designed NVIDIA after work, while still employed in semiconductors - Why "the organism rejects the organ" explains almost every intrapreneur who ends up leaving - What frontier firms actually are, and why giving staff access to AI tools now counts for nothing - Why revenue per employee has become the number startups check before every single hire - The human-to-agent leverage ratio, and why this is the last generation of leaders who manage only people - How Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy revealed that decades of internal data was its most valuable asset - Why 95% of the world's data sits inside private enterprise databases, and why that is gold to AI labs

Chapters: 00:00 Fractional Founder Myth 03:04 Meet Shuo Chen 05:12 Why Founders Side Hustle 08:28 Proof From Trillion Firms 10:15 Keeping Intrapreneurs Close 13:15 Frontier Firms Defined 15:53 Revenue Per Employee Era 22:22 Advice For Students 28:58 AI Writing And Learning 34:58 Spirit Airlines Data Gold 41:20 Tool Spotlight Woolf 47:12 Wrap Up And Links

About Shuo Chen: Shuo Chen is a General Partner at IOVC, an early-stage venture firm investing in the future of work, and teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Read her Monthly Note at https://shuo.iovc.io and connect on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuo-c

About the Host: Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for the weekly essay behind the show: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"When's the last time you thought about your suppliers as your partner in innovation?"

Paul Nunes, co-author of Jumping the S-Curve, Big Bang Disruption and Pivot to the Future, returns to talk to Aidan McCullen about the companies that come back from the dead. Motorola is the case study, combinatorial innovation is the engine, and the uncomfortable question underneath it all is what your company would actually be worth in pieces.

In this conversation, Paul reveals: → What a Lazarus taxon is, and why a handful of companies reappear decades after everyone wrote them off → How Motorola collapsed, sold to Google largely for its patents, and found a second life under Lenovo → Why a drone is really a phone camera, a gyroscope and some software, and what that means for your R&D budget → The $180 to $200 phone strategy that won the markets Apple and Samsung were not designing for → Why Kodak kept making billions long after everyone declared it dead → The million-dollar Porsche nobody could restore, and why somebody bought it anyway → Why Shockley Semiconductor should be a household name, and what the Traitorous Eight really cost it → Why putting your name on a stadium or a football shirt may be the first signal of decline → The line every chief strategy officer eventually says: it wasn't that we didn't know what to do, we no longer had the people to do it → Why the man who built the Learjet also built the car radio that became Motorola → Why price deflation, not competition, may be the fundamental strategy problem of the next decade

00:00 Innovation And Downfall 01:13 Sponsor And Guest Intro 02:18 Lazarus Companies Explained 05:54 Motorola Rebirth Story 07:30 Combinatorial Innovation Basics 14:41 Modularity And Supplier Innovation 19:18 Partners Turn Competitors 24:33 Motorola And Nonconsumers 27:56 IP And Hidden Value 34:57 Vanity Marketing Signals 39:32 Talent Curves And Seed Corn 44:44 Deflation And Strategy Pressure 48:01 Closing Thoughts And Wrap

About Paul Nunes Paul F. Nunes is co-author of Jumping the S-Curve, Big Bang Disruption, Pivot to the Future and Mass Affluence, and spent years as Global Managing Director of Research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance. His research on growth, disruption and reinvention has been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

Find Paul Nunes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-nunes-5351773/

About the Host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more about Aidan at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of one of Paul's books, with thanks to Kyndryl.

About The Innovation Show The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Connect: 🌐 https://theinnovationshow.io 📨 Substack (Thursday Thought): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

#Innovation #PaulNunes #CombinatorialInnovation #JumpingTheSCurve #Motorola #Disruption #Leadership #Strategy #Modularity #Podcast #AidanMcCullen #TheInnovationShow #Thinkers50 #Reinvention

"You don't want innovation. What you want is a tweak that won't be too uncomfortable."

Dov Baron, five-time Top 30 Global Leadership Guru and author of The Art of Belonging, sits down with Aidan McCullen in Vancouver to explain why identity addiction is the hidden reason behavioural change fails — in athletes, in leaders and in entire organisations. From a childhood of poverty in Salford to a 1990 free-climbing fall near Whistler in which he died five times, Dov traces how identity forms, why we get neurochemically hooked on it, and what it takes to build a culture where people belong rather than fit in.

In this conversation, Dov reveals:

• The five levels of the emotional source code — and why most behavioural change fails at the identity level
• What identity addiction is, and why a retired Olympian, a triple-bypass survivor and a burnt-out CEO all suffer from the same thing
• How a 120-foot fall, ten reconstructive surgeries and a dead cat on the couch forced Dov to choose between three lives
• Why "success creates atrophy" and real innovation only happens when things are hard
• The one-day-a-month experiment that gets people wanting to come back to the office
• Why the Great Resignation and COVID's "great pause" were a crisis of meaning, not pay
• Why a boss's sideways look is enough to kill an idea — and what psychological safety really means
• Why the superstar responsible for 40% of your sales may be costing you money
• The "when you did X, I felt Y" exercise that turns conflict into connection

00:00 Belonging Over Fitting In 02:03 Meet Dov Baron 02:28 Early Life And Spiritual Roots 04:50 From Therapy To Source Code 08:46 Identity Addiction Explained 12:37 Near Death Wake Up Call 17:17 Cat Moment And Purpose 23:19 Parallel Dave And Choices 26:03 Pain Drives Change 35:50 Innovation Needs Discomfort 37:51 Building Workplace Community 39:21 Great Resignation Meaning Crisis 41:25 Meaning Over Metrics 42:41 AI And Human Work 44:59 Practice Not Luck 49:33 Psychological Safety 55:10 Lenses And Belonging 01:00:01 Leaders In Transition 01:01:09 Toxic Stars And Meaning 01:09:31 Conflict As Connection 01:18:23 Closing And Sponsor

About Dov Baron: keynote speaker, five-time Top 30 Global Leadership Guru, twice named to Inc. Magazine's Top 100 Leadership Speakers, creator of the Emotional Source Code framework and author of The Art of Belonging: How Conformity Silences Genius and How to Unleash It. Find the book and the Cultures of Belonging course at https://dovbaron.com

About the host: Aidan McCullen is a 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com and https://www.kyndryl.com/institute

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of The Art of Belonging, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Exploitation pays your salary. Exploration pays your pension." — Steve Blank

In Part 3 of The Innovation Show's Strategyzer series, Alex Osterwalder returns to tackle the problem every leadership team quietly struggles with: the core business kills everything that looks different. Building on James March's exploration vs exploitation, Tushman and O'Reilly's Lead and Disrupt, and Clay Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma, Alex explains why good people with no ill intent still strangle new products, new channels and new business models — and what leaders must do about it.

In this conversation, Alex reveals:

→ Why the core business kills everything that looks different — and why nobody involved is acting in bad faith → The SonoSite story: why a CEO sat in a sales meeting and watched his top salesperson never take out the product customers were asking for → Why exploration is a top-down challenge — and why bottom-up passion isn't enough without the right governance → How Logitech's Bracken Darrell used "trees, plants and seeds" to proactively shift 70% of resources out of the core → Why Jeff Bezos was obsessed with Amazon dying while it was at the very top — and what Day One culture really protects → The "Rita McGrath test": what a CEO's agenda reveals about what a company actually values → What Alex told a bank CEO about exploration: "I don't even care what you do, as long as people think you're working on it" → Inside the workshop Alex is designing for a luxury hotel chain — mapping city hotels, beach resorts, island retreats, yachts and private jets on a business model portfolio → Why luxury hospitality's shift from lodging to experiences is an exploration problem, not an operations problem → Hubert Joly on Best Buy: when a turnaround must come before exploration — and why everyone else should start exploring today

00:00 Why Innovation Stalls 00:47 Sponsor Message 01:19 Explore Versus Exploit 02:46 Osterwalder Law Returns 05:52 Sales Incentives Trap 09:15 Seeds Plants Trees 12:23 Governance In Practice 15:29 Luxury Hotel Workshop 18:29 Portfolio Map Exercise 24:46 Tools And Playbooks 26:11 Wrap Up And Sponsor

Find the business model portfolio map and many more free tools at https://www.strategyzer.com — Innovation Show listeners get 20% off the paid playbook library with code INNOVATIONSHOW20.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com/institute.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win one of Alex Osterwalder's books, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"You're gonna run up a hundred wrong hills, and you're still not gonna get a good understanding of the map."

Alexander Osterwalder, co-author of Value Proposition Design and founder of Strategyzer, returns for Part 2 of our series. Last week: which projects to retire. This week: value proposition design in the age of AI — why generative AI can formulate a brilliant value proposition, but only if you've done the homework it cannot do for you.

In this conversation, Alex reveals:

• Why building fast with AI without validated customer jobs, pains and gains is "running up a hundred wrong hills"
• The four foundations of an irresistible value proposition — and why even world-class brands can't show quantitative evidence for the first one
• Why teams differentiate against competitors instead of through the customer's eyes
• The Value Stack, Strategyzer's new tool for prioritising the benefits customers actually care about
• Should you feed your secret formula into enterprise AI? Alex's two answers to the data-privacy dilemma
• Why the fear of AI handing your value proposition to competitors is — for now — irrational
• Why marketing teams "shouldn't be writing a word" — and how to turn Gen AI into rocket fuel instead of a shortcut
• The B2B trap: designing for users when decision-makers sign the cheque
• How a solo inventor should ABC-test differentiators and pricing with three landing pages
• The Roger Federer analogy: why e-learning alone will never make you world-class
• Why growth is a profession you learn, not a creative gift

00:00 Building Fast Up the Wrong Hill

00:25 Validate Customers with Evidence

01:07 A Word from Our Sponsor, Kyndryl

01:45 How Teams Misuse AI in Value Proposition Design

02:59 Why a Value Proposition Is Not a Writing Exercise

03:55 The Four Ingredients of an Irresistible Value Proposition

05:59 Benefits Backed by Proof

06:50 Differentiate Through the Customer's Eyes

07:58 The Process and the Playbook

10:06 AI Only Works After the Homework

11:55 The Data Privacy Dilemma

13:04 Safe Models and Why Your Value Proposition Is Unique

16:41 Stop Wordsmithing, Start Iterating

17:05 The Gen AI Playbook, Step by Step

18:58 Inside the Playbook Library

19:52 B2B: Users vs Decision-Makers

22:05 Listener Discount and Webinar Details

23:07 Advice for Builders and Entrepreneurs

26:11 Discipline Beats Creativity

27:02 The Roger Federer Coach Analogy

30:07 The Party Trick: Evaluating Business Ideas

31:51 Wrap Up and Thanks to Kyndryl

Explore the Strategyzer playbook library at https://www.strategyzer.com — Innovation Show listeners get 20% off with the code INNOVATIONSHOW20.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Sign up for the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com/institute and send us a screenshot for a chance to win a copy of Value Proposition Design, with thanks to Kyndryl.

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Substack (Thursday Thought): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Spreadsheets are a fantasy made explicit. They're not a metric. What you can measure is the evidence that the business case could work."

Alexander Osterwalder, creator of the Business Model Canvas, CEO of Strategyzer and author of The Invincible Company, Testing Business Ideas and Value Proposition Design, returns to The Innovation Show. He walks Aidan McCullen through the evidence-based innovation playbook he uses with companies like Honeywell to decide which growth projects to fund, which to change, and which to retire — so you get a real funnel, not a tunnel.

In this conversation, Alex reveals: • Why every upfront business case is "pure fantasy" — and what to measure instead • The five levels of evidence, from what customers say to what they actually do • How Honeywell's Growth Symposiums fund projects on scorecards of evidence, not opinions • Why LEGO Movies started at zero on every score while LEGO Friends started at level-five feasibility • The explore vs exploit trap: why 90% of companies judge new ideas with "exploit glasses" on • Amazon's scale from new warehouses to Kindle to AWS — and why AWS was never a business case • Why engineers build too fast in the age of AI, and why needs and willingness to pay come first • The "Mark said we know" technique that makes faith-based investing explicit • What makes an entrepreneurial leader, from Jeff Bezos to Logitech's Bracken Darrell • The move from books to playbooks: the say-do cycle and the market-readiness assessment, demonstrated live

Chapters: 00:00 Scorecard Of Evidence 02:00 Oscar The Cat 03:00 Welcoming Alex Osterwalder 04:00 From Books To Playbooks 06:00 Honeywell Growth Symposiums 08:00 Business Cases Are Fantasy 10:00 Test Needs And Willingness To Pay 13:00 Five Levels Of Evidence 16:00 Evidence Scorecards Per Idea 17:00 LEGO Movies Versus LEGO Friends 20:00 Explore Versus Exploit Mindset 24:00 The Dual Mindset Leader 27:00 Innovation Theatre Confession 30:00 Playbook Demo Market Readiness 32:38 Scoring Customer Evidence 34:09 Leader Evidence Conversations 36:19 Practical Wrap Up 39:00 Where To Find Alex

Find Alex and the Strategyzer playbook library at https://www.strategyzer.com

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Win a copy of one of Alex Osterwalder's books: sign up for the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com/institute and send us a screenshot to be in with a chance, with thanks to Kyndryl.

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Substack (Thursday Thought): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"If you launch more projects than you finish, you're a bad leader. Your role is not about launching projects — it's about finishing them."

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, creator of the project economy concept and author of Powered by Projects, joins Aidan McCullen to explain why agile — a 20-year-old idea — is no longer enough, and why the next evolution is the project-driven organization (PDO): a company rearchitected around dynamic, empowered, cross-functional project teams.

In this conversation, Antonio reveals:

• Why EY's Project Everest collapsed despite a perfect plan — and what it says about ego at the top
• The structural blind spot that undermined Nike's digital transformation
• The robot hairdresser that shocked a luxury company's C-suite — and why "safe" jobs aren't
• Why COVID briefly turned every surviving company into a project-driven organization
• How Bill Anderson is dismantling hierarchy and approval steps at Bayer
• The insurance company that ring-fenced €50 million for crazy ideas — and why employees only asked for €2 million
• The bank that had Revolut's idea first, then killed it in the budgeting cycle
• Why "are you crazy?" is the best compliment an idea can receive
• The Toyota-style kill switch every transformation needs — and why 90% done is done
• How Alan Mulally's all-green KPIs at Ford exposed a culture that couldn't ask for help

Chapters:

00:00 Lead Through Transformation 01:13 Sponsor Message Kyndryl 01:40 Why Projects Really Fail 02:03 Meet Antonio And Project Economy 07:04 Projects As Your Future 08:33 Case Study EY Project Everest 10:29 Case Study Nike Structure Fails 13:09 Rethinking Org Structure For AI 15:02 AI And Robots Disrupt Work 17:29 From Agile To Project Driven 21:57 Change Fatigue Too Many Projects 26:02 Co Creation And Leadership Focus 27:37 Great Resignation And PDO Shift 29:09 Burnout After Covid 30:12 Bayer And Haier Blueprint 34:09 Empower Teams To Stop 36:09 From Projects To PDO 39:19 Finish Early Kill Fast 42:42 Exponential Crazy Bets 50:40 Transparency And Town Halls 56:09 Final Advice And Wrap

Find Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez at https://antonionietorodriguez.com and on LinkedIn.

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Powered by Projects, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Structural uncertainty is simple. The game itself is in question. The playing field is in question. You're no longer playing with uncertainty inside the rules — the rules are the thing that's moving."

Rita McGrath wrote The End of Competitive Advantage and gave us transient advantage. Sangeet Paul Choudary wrote Reshuffle and won the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award. Aidan McCullen puts them in the same room to ask a question neither can answer alone: in an age of AI, is advantage getting shorter, or are a small number of firms locking in something far more durable by making the rules everyone else has to play by?

In this conversation, Rita and Sangeet reveal:

• Why the two founding assumptions of strategy — that industries have boundaries, and that equilibrium is normal — are now absurd
• What Carlota Perez's turning point framework says about where we are, and why data and intelligence are the new oil
• The investor who always bet against Netflix, and the one thing he never believed the film studios would be stupid enough to do
• How Netflix beat Blockbuster before streaming existed, by serving local demand with national supply
• Why Tesla went vertically integrated in the decade everyone else preached openness
• How Reliance Jio commoditised its own cash cow, took 400 million users, and collapsed an industry from 17 players to three
• The difference between a rule maker and a rule taker, and why rule takers are condemned to run from one transient advantage to the next
• Why roughly 93% of corporate assets were tangible in 1975 and almost exactly the reverse is true today
• How Binah.ai deleted the blood draw, the lab, the chemicals and the actuary from life insurance pricing
• Sangeet's test for anyone using AI at work: are you working for the model, or is the model working for you?
• Why translators are now paid half as much to do the harder half of the job
• Rita's SDSS times two: stop doing stupid stuff, then start doing smart stuff

00:00 Sponsor Message 00:25 Strategy Rules Rewritten 01:26 Meet Rita and Sangeet 03:22 Strategy Origins and Transience 05:25 Turning Point in Capitalism 07:25 Capabilities and Competitive Insulation 10:38 Platforms and Network Effects 16:09 Seeing Hidden Advantages 21:14 No Silver Bullets in Strategy 27:38 Policy and Regulation in Transition 32:33 Social Unrest Warning Signs 34:35 Outsourcing Strategic Lens 36:40 Structural Uncertainty Era 38:41 Reliance Jio Rulemaking 42:17 Challenging Strategy Frameworks 44:04 Beyond Five Forces Today 48:26 First Principles Over Models 54:07 Learning Discipline In AI 58:15 Make AI Work For You 01:03:16 Wrap Up And Resources

About Rita McGrath Rita McGrath is a longtime professor at Columbia Business School, a Thinkers50 top-ten management thinker and winner of their number one award for strategy. She is the author of The End of Competitive Advantage, Seeing Around Corners, Discovery-Driven Growth, MarketBusters and The Entrepreneurial Mindset, and she hosts the Thought Sparks podcast. https://www.ritamcgrath.com

About Sangeet Paul Choudary Sangeet Paul Choudary is the founder of Platformation Labs and the author of Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy, winner of the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award. He co-authored Platform Revolution and wrote Platform Scale, and his work on platforms has been named by Harvard Business Review as one of the top ten ideas in strategy. https://reshufflebook.com and https://platforms.substack.com

About the Host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Reshuffle, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"You don't have to be a methodological genius. These are patterns — 43 simple patterns that anyone can use to include every voice in shaping what happens next."

Keith McCandless, co-developer of Liberating Structures and co-author of The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures, joins Aidan McCullen to explain why most meetings are either over-controlled or under-controlled — and how simple shifts in everyday interaction can unleash a culture of innovation from the frontline to the C-suite.

In this conversation, Keith reveals:

• Why the first field test of Liberating Structures happened in hospitals fighting superbugs — with fifteen languages spoken on a single unit
• The Big Five conventional structures (presentation, managed discussion, status report, brainstorm, open discussion) — and why every one of them quietly fails
• How one father went from a year of monosyllabic answers to an hour-long conversation with his teenage daughter using Creative Destruction
• Why 1-2-4-All fixed a two-year meeting nightmare for twenty project managers in Paris in half an hour
• Why repetition is a source of innovation — and how thinking alone first defeats anchoring bias
• The Ecocycle map a healthcare group crumpled, covered in Post-its, and reused every quarter for a year
• The VA hospital leader who declared mid-session, "All the decisions we just made are final"
• Why influencing culture beats changing culture — and what the adjacent possible has to do with it
• How Liberating Structures moved online with nothing more than a tech host and breakout rooms
• The lesson from Dee Hock, the chaordic organisation, and the war language that limits our world

00:00 Sponsor Message 00:27 Liberating Structures Intro 01:27 Messy Work Environments 02:21 Superbugs Field Test 03:35 What Are They 05:02 Complexity Lens 07:52 Influencing Culture 12:31 Adjacent Possible Innovation 14:18 Personal Life Applications 15:59 Creative Destruction TRIZ 19:28 Neurodiversity Inclusion 22:58 Big Five Meeting Traps 30:27 Microstructures Online 32:26 Online Facilitation Tips 36:50 1-2-4-All In Action 42:25 Eco Cycle Strategy Map 47:39 Liberating Leadership 52:45 Wrap Up And Resources 53:54 Sponsor Thanks Outro

Find Keith McCandless at https://www.liberatingstructures.com — the full repertoire, the app (with at least 33 structures on your phone), and the new Liberating Structures Fieldbook, co-authored with Nancy White.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

About the Host: Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"AI doesn't have judgment in it — it produces judgment-shaped artifacts."

Usman Sheikh, founder of High Output Ventures and author of the Framebreak newsletter, has spent years writing about how AI will reshape professional services — and the world has now caught up with the puck. In this conversation with Aidan McCullen, he explains why the consulting pyramid — the structure behind every major firm — is coming apart, and what replaces it.

In this conversation, Usman reveals:

• Why firms became pyramids: leverage, margin, and a talent academy paid for by the client's billable hours
• How AI pulls all three apart at once
• What "judgment-shaped artifacts" are — and why AI is fundamentally different from offshoring and RPA
• "Fluent but substitutable": why leaning on an LLM turns your career into a slot machine
• The digital twin trap — why a frozen snapshot of a senior partner decays fast
• The Concentrix vs Sierra story: AI voice agents in regulated industries growing from $100M to $200M in revenue in four months
• The "AI discount": why KPMG asked its own auditor for a price cut — and how the surplus drains to clients and platforms
• Why Palantir and Microsoft are suddenly preaching sovereignty over your data and models
• The intelligence core: the feedback loop that turns pyramids into rings
• How firms build tomorrow's bench — simulators, shadowing, apprenticeships — and why partners near retirement have no incentive to bother

Chapters: 00:00 Sponsor Message 00:31 Guest Introduction 03:10 Why Firms Became Pyramids 05:13 AI Breaks The Model 05:53 Digital Twins And Hiring 07:38 Training Juniors With AI 11:50 Fluent But Substitutable 15:19 Offshoring To AI Shift 20:18 Macro Jobs And Demand 23:14 Who Captures The Gains 28:04 Learning In The AI Era 34:33 Intelligence Core And Rings 40:49 AI Discount And Value Drain 45:21 Building The Future Bench 50:11 Wrap Up And Where To Find 51:16 Final Thanks And Outro

About Usman Sheikh Usman Sheikh is the founder and managing director of High Output Ventures, a venture studio building and backing technology-augmented service firms, and the author of Framebreak, a weekly newsletter on strategy, consulting and the knowledge-work economy.

Read his work at https://framebreak.com and connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/usmans

About the Host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, a keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen

This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.

Website: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen