Workestration

Season 3 opens with Marcus Sawyerr, founder and CEO of EQ.app and former head of innovation at The Adecco Group, on what staffing sells when AI workers can do an hour of admin for about a dollar.

Donna Scarola and Stela Lupushor get into:

• Why Marcus calls EQ an evolution rather than a pivot, from an inclusion-first talent community to a platform for AI workers
• What PwC's analysis of over a billion job ads says about work being repriced, not replaced
• Where the next generation of recruiters comes from if agents take the entry-level work
• Systems thinking and the case for working hard so you can be lazy
• Trust as the scarce resource when candidates and recruiters both use AI, and why your network becomes the premium channel
• EQ as an orchestration layer over the ATS and CRM, and "human in the lead" rather than in the loop
• Agentic process outsourcing (APO), $1-an-hour pricing, and no setup fees
• The salesperson doing payroll who became an agent supervisor
• Who should own agent lifecycle management, HR or IT
• Why he hasn't cracked bias in AI hiring, and where inclusion goes next
• His advice to HR leaders: become the chief AI officer before you're asked

References from the episode:

Workestration: https://workestration.ai

EQ.app: https://www.eq.app

Marcus Sawyerr on LinkedIn:

Marcus's Substack

PwC 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer

Stanford Digital Economy Lab, "Canaries in the Coal Mine?"

Imperva 2025 Bad Bot Report

Emily Goligoski, qualitative researcher and audience strategist (The Atlantic, Charter, the Membership Puzzle Project at NYU, Columbia Journalism School), on why most of what companies know about AI adoption is what people think they are supposed to say.

Donna Scarola and Stela Lupushor get into:

• The chocolate croissant script: how Emily opens every focus group to get the actual answer instead of the impressive one
• Why the employee personas guiding AI rollouts are closer to fiction than research, and "personas plus" as the fix
• User needs and jobs to be done as the lightest-lift replacement
• The no surprises policy: show people what you did with their feedback
• Her Charter x IRC4HR finding that women, workers of color, and workers over 55 are at higher risk of being disadvantaged by workplace AI, and why that has continued
• The caregiving burden as the hidden variable in who gets time to experiment with AI
• Cloudflare's AI-washed layoffs, Bolt deleting HR, and who is making these decisions
• Measuring AI impact with diary studies and longitudinal research instead of time saved
• Questions worth stealing: the most embarrassing prompt, manager questions applied to AI, "when did AI last do a great job by you?"
• Executives failing out loud, vibe coding at Columbia, and the disclosure rule
• What leaders will regret three years from now: believing AI intelligence lives at the senior levels

References from the episode:

• "Kick out your personas" by Emily Goligoski (Medium)
• "Using AI in Ways That Enhance Worker Dignity and Inclusion" (Charter x IRC4HR, 2023)
• "AI in the Workplace: How Companies and Workers Are Getting It Right" (Charter, 2024)
• Cal Newport, "Deep Work"
• Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"

Guest: Arthur Matuszewski, Managing Partner, Carrara

Hosts: Stela Lupushor and Donna Scarola

Category: Builder

Episode summary

Arthur Matuszewski runs Carrara, an operating firm that embeds inside companies and does the work across talent, finance, go-to-market, and ops. He is not there to advise. As he puts it, “critics don’t get statues.”

He scaled Better.com’s talent function from 400 to 4,400 people in just over a year, led strategic talent sourcing at Wayfair from 7,000 to 14,000 in under two years, and built predictive hiring assessments at Bridgewater. He is also a venture partner at Shine Capital.

In this conversation he makes the case that the comfortable HR illusion of the last fifteen years (focus on people and the work takes care of itself) is ending. When every contribution is tracked on Slack, Google Docs, and Git commits, productivity has nowhere to hide. Orgs flatten from pyramids into diamonds. The manager-only career ladder stops being the only way up. And the job shifts from collecting the right people to giving people context, momentum, judgment, and a good experience.

Along the way: Bridgewater’s hiring “anti-portfolio,” resumes as “Victorian calling cards,” a four-layer “pyramid of value” for where AI actually does work, two anonymized Carrara turnarounds, and a closing argument about meaning, identity, and why a meaningless job is worse than the struggle to find a meaningful one.

Chapters

00:00  Cold open and intro

01:52  Welcome: Arthur joins

02:01  Operator, not advisor: why Carrara does the work (“critics don’t get statues”)

03:50  Talent as top-line, not overhead: managing people like a portfolio

06:10  Focus on the work: the end of the people-first illusion

07:53  From pyramid to diamond: flattening orgs and the exponential individual

09:25  Leadership as a “cascade of absence”

11:46  Hold the spear: why the manager-only ladder was a momentary illusion

12:11  The Bridgewater anti-portfolio: hiring on upside, not false positives

15:24  Talent density as a moving target; hire the person vs. the role

17:33  Spiky people and “coding in a closet”: Palantir vs. the kombucha cage

18:31  Resumes as “Victorian calling cards”: pedigree out, exception in

21:04  Inside the Carrara playbook: the $2.5B social platform after 70% RTO attrition

25:03  The healthcare marketplace: a math problem and a new horizontal role

27:51  The pyramid of value: where AI is doing the most work

30:37  Defining value, and the “golden age of private equity and human equity”

33:48  Work, meaning, and identity beyond the job

36:38  Signals: the K-shaped workforce and what won’t fade (experience + judgment)

39:51  Rapid fire: Team Human, doing the work, and what we’ll get wrong

42:02  Where to find Arthur; close

Mentioned in this episode

Focus on the Work, Arthur’s essay for Carrara, the thesis behind the conversation.

Carrara, Arthur’s operating firm.

The Mythical Man-Month (Fred Brooks): the classic on why adding people to a late project makes it later, which Arthur revisits in an age of 2x to 4x engineering productivity at lower headcount.

Bridgewater Associates: where Arthur built predictive hiring assessments and tracked the anti-portfolio.

Apple Podcasts  ·  Spotify  ·  YouTube

About the guest

Arthur Matuszewski is Managing Partner at Carrara, an operating firm that embeds inside companies to do the work across talent, finance, go-to-market, and ops. He was previously VP of Talent & People at Better.com, led strategic talent sourcing at Wayfair, and built predictive hiring assessments at Bridgewater. He is a venture partner at Shine Capital. Reach him at [email protected].

About Workestration

Workestration is a podcast for the doers, builders, and shapers of the world of work. Practitioner-first, jargon-light, allergic to AI hype. Hosted by Stela Lupushor and Donna Scarola.

Michaela Schoberova, SVP HR for Global Commercial Transformation at Colgate-Palmolive, on what 20+ years inside one company taught her about running AI experiments without breaking the culture.

Stela Lupushor (Donna is off this week) gets into:

• Colgate's proprietary digital consumer twins and how they compress early-stage product innovation
• Whether you can, or should, build synthetic employees the same way
• The AI Hub, mandated short training, and broad access behind a firewall
• "Super You" peer cohorts: why voluntary, role-specific learning beats top-down training
• Where AI grows the business vs. where it just cuts cost
• Coaching at scale, knowledge management, learning velocity
• The positive psychology lens on AI: character strengths, human relationships, and what we risk losing
• Leadership for a BANI world (brittle, anxious, non-linear, incomprehensible): empathy, clarity, agency
• What HR will regret in three years if we don't act now

References from the episode:

• "The GenAI Focus Shifts to Innovation at Colgate-Palmolive" (MIT Sloan Management Review, Davenport & Bean)
• "Navigating the Age of Chaos" by Jamais Cascio, Bob Johansen, and Angela F. Williams (2025)
• Anna Gallotti, MCC, Chair, ICF Task Force on AI in Coaching

More at workestration.ai.

On the Workestration podcast, hosts Stela Lupushor and Donnas Scarola speak with Jeff Schwartz (VP at Gloat, author of “Work Disrupted” and “Workforce Ecosystems,” and Columbia Business School professor) about navigating the future of work in 2026 as AI accelerates. Schwartz argues leaders need “new maps” to move beyond old either/or frames (human vs. machine, employee vs. contractor) and focus on integrated automation and augmentation, super teams, and work orchestration. The conversation explores the shift from pilots to enterprise AI, the need to redesign work around outcomes rather than optimize existing processes, and the idea of “renaissance” roles enabled by AI (illustrated with radiology). Schwartz highlights Deloitte data that 84% of companies haven’t started redesigning work, emphasizes workforce ecosystems that include employees, contractors, and technology, and discusses evolving expectations for HR and managers as designers, coaches, and navigators, alongside concerns about individual adaptation, organizational speed, and public policy transition nets.

00:00 Welcome to Workestration

00:39 Meet Jeff Schwartz

02:10 New Maps for Work

06:23 Beyond AI vs Human

09:34 From Pilots to Redesign

14:35 Rethinking Jobs and Careers

24:08 Beyond Work Disrupted

29:28 Renaissance Work Example

33:14 Reimagining HR for 2030

42:55 Workforce Ecosystems Shift

45:03 What Keeps Jeff Up

47:58 HR as Navigators

50:08 Closing and Part Two

You can contact Jeff at:

Email:  [email protected]; [email protected]

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-schwartz-future-of-work-disrupted/

Websites: gloat.com; https://www.fowdisrupted.com/; https://business.columbia.edu/faculty/people/jeffrey-schwartz

On the Workestration podcast, hosts Donna Scarola and Stela Lupushor speak with Yelena Mammadova Ed.D, fresh from Davos, about three themes shaping the 2026 AI trajectory: more grounded, pragmatic AI discussions (constraints like energy and ROI, plus societal impact), leadership in “radical uncertainty,” and the widening gap between technology advancement and people readiness. Yelena argues AI value must be judged by society, not just tech companies, and emphasizes that adoption requires workflow redesign, transparency, explainability, and safe space to experiment and fail forward. She describes her role at Microsoft at the intersection of product strategy and workforce transformation, building “people products” that interpret talent using observed, declared, and increasingly powerful inferred skills from work activity signals. The conversation covers intentional talent mobility, challenges of becoming truly skills-based, and Yelena’s personal AI use via a Researcher agent while writing a book.

00:00 Introduction to the Workestration Podcast

01:25 Insights from Davos: AI and Leadership

04:53 The Role of HR in AI Transformation

08:52 Yelena's Career Journey and Role

10:37 Building AI-Powered Tools for the Workforce

18:19 AI and Skills Data: Observations and Challenges

31:40 The Future of Skills-Based Organizations

34:21 Personal Use of AI and Final Thoughts

40:10 Conclusion and Forward-Looking Statements

In this episode of the Workestration podcast, hosts Donna and Stela welcome Steve Garguilo, CEO and Founder of Cultivate, a boutique consultancy that helps science-led companies build thriving cultures. Steve draws on 15 years of experience at global giants like Johnson & Johnson, Chevron, and Mars to discuss how organizations can navigate the intersection of human behavior and emerging technology. The conversation dives deep into why culture is the prerequisite for successful AI integration and how leadership must shift from a "scarcity" to an "abundance" mindset.

In this episode of the Workestration podcast, hosts Donna and Stela welcome Douglas Rushkoff and Amar Bakshi, co-founders of Andus Labs. The conversation explores the evolving nature of work in the AI era, touching on themes such as the historical control over labor, the future of meaningful work, and the societal implications of artificial intelligence. Douglas and Amar discuss the potential for AI to restore human-centric, value-based work environments and the importance of collective action. They also reflect on how HR leaders can navigate these changes and the innovative approaches of Andus Labs in fostering a generative mindset within organizations. The discussion emphasizes the need for authenticity, human connection, and the re-imagination of value in the workplace.00:00 Team Human? Team Machine? And Us (p2) w/Douglas Rushkoff & Amar Bakshi co-founders of Andus Labs02:28 Introduction and Welcome02:38 The Changing Meaning of Work03:45 Reconnecting Work with Human Needs05:34 The Role of AI in the Future of Work06:30 Shared Studios and the Importance of Purpose10:05 The Impact of Automation on Jobs16:16 The Future of AI and Human Collaboration27:02 Building a Generative Mindset37:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Mentioned in the episode is Civic: A system for public data, built on public collaboration; Technics and Civilization book by Lewis Mumford 

Douglas' Books: Team Human, Survival of the Richest, Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus and his Team Human podcast.

Amar's other ventures: Shared Studios, Noro, MIT center for constructive communication.

And their joint venture - Andus Labs.

In this episode of the Workestration podcast, Donna and Stela chat with Jennifer McTiernan and Chris Perry of Andus Labs, a generative AI strategy and leadership advisory firm.

Throughout the episode, the co-founders discuss their backgrounds and the personal and professional experiences that led them to establish Andus Labs. They share insights on the importance of human agency and creativity in integrating AI into the workplace, the necessity of a proactive approach to AI deployment, and the concept of generative thinking as essential for the modern work environment.

Emphasizing change management, equity, and the creation of safe spaces for innovation, this episode offers a comprehensive exploration of how to thoughtfully implement AI technologies in organizations.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:31 Meet the Co-Founders of Andus Labs

03:21 The Genesis of Andus Labs

06:25 The Role of AI in Business Transformation

12:42 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Adoption

31:18 The Importance of Generative Thinking

36:54 HR's Role in the AI Era

43:16 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

In this episode of the new season of the Workestration podcast, hosts Stela and Donna interview David Evans, founder of ArcSyne. David discusses his extensive background in B2B information services, including stints at the Corporate Executive Board, CoStar, and the White House. He details the origin of ArcSyne, a native AI-based forecasting tool designed to help strategists, planners, and analysts handle the increasing macro uncertainty facing businesses today. The conversation spans topics such as the transformative impact of AI, the changing nature of strategic planning, and the critical importance of understanding and preparing for near-horizon futures. David highlights the need for leaders to take advantage of AI for better decision-making and not discounting the need to maintain human judgment - a critical component for the unpredictable world we live in.