Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

June 24, 2026: Meta's employee surveillance program, which tracked keystrokes, mouse activity, and screenshots before a data exposure forced the company to pause it. Then I get into Legion's lawsuit against the U.S. government after losing access to Anthropic's Fable 5 model, showing how frontier AI access is becoming a new business dependency and supply chain risk. I also look at software engineers facing workplace paralysis as AI models keep changing faster than people can master them, and why AI rollouts may be burning out the very high performers companies need most.

I talk with Greg Matson, Senior Vice President and Head of Marketing and Products at Solidigm, about the storage infrastructure powering the AI boom. We get into why AI training and inference require massive amounts of data, how GPUs, SSDs, and data centers work together, and why storage can't be an afterthought for companies building enterprise AI. We also discuss the scale of today's AI data center buildout, how Solidigm is using AI internally, and what this means for the future of work, education, and the skills people will need in an AI-first world.

June 18, 2026: Companies are starting to count the real cost of AI after two years of broad experimentation, from rising token bills to the higher wage premiums commanded by AI-skilled workers. Then I look at Senator Ruben Gallego's push to investigate ghost jobs and whether AI-powered hiring platforms are distorting the labor data policymakers rely on. Finally, I break down Wall Street's hiring dilemma: AI can automate junior-level work, but it cannot replace the apprenticeship that develops future rainmakers, dealmakers, and senior leaders.

Kelle Fontenot, Chief Digital Officer at KPMG, joins me to talk about how one of the world's largest professional services firms is embedding AI into the way work gets done. Kelle shares how KPMG is approaching enterprise AI adoption through its AIQ program, why AI requires close partnership between digital, HR, technology, and the business, and what it takes to drive change across 250,000 people globally. We also get into the realities of AI adoption inside a large, highly regulated organization: digital teammates, AI agents, tool overload, trust, security, and why traditional training alone doesn't change behavior. Kelle offers a practical look at how leaders can move beyond experimenting with AI and start making it part of the everyday flow of work without losing human judgment along the way.

June 10, 2026: Palantir CEO Alex Karp is warning tech leaders that bragging about AI-driven layoffs is a major political mistake and could fuel backlash against the entire industry. Then I get into a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showing that 53% of Americans fear AI could put them or someone in their household out of work, which means AI job anxiety is no longer a fringe concern. Finally, I break down the "great flattening," with new data showing that 41% of employees say their companies trimmed management layers last year, and why eliminating too much middle management could create a serious leadership pipeline problem for the future.

We have all worked at a place where we felt like just another number in a spreadsheet. It is incredibly frustrating when you offer feedback that seems to vanish into a black hole of corporate bureaucracy. But what if your company actually treated your voice like a strategic roadmap for the future? In this episode, DJ Casto, the EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer at Synchrony, joins us to explore how his team transformed their culture to become the number one best place to work in 2026. DJ shares the secrets behind their decade-long journey of separation from GE Capital and how they climbed the rankings by anchoring their identity in the concept of trust. We dive deep into their philosophy of co-creation, where active listening through quarterly pulse surveys and roundtables allows employees to directly design the culture they want to inhabit. Discover how Synchrony applies agile software principles to HR by launching minimal viable products for benefits like personalized wellness coaches and on-site therapists to see what truly resonates with the workforce. We also tackle the modern challenge of AI, moving past the doom and gloom to discuss how technology can actually unlock human creativity and fulfill more enriched roles. You'll learn how to foster employee accountability through a focus on critical experiences rather than rigid job paths. This episode unpacks how you can build a high-trust organization where continuous improvement is a lifestyle rather than a one-time goal. Watch the full video on YouTube ---------- Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/ Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—order a copy here: https://bit.ly/8exlaws

June 4, 2026: Microsoft unveiled a wearable AI badge at Build 2026 that can see, hear, and act on your behalf. I break down the real productivity upside, and the chilling effect on human communication that the tech press isn't talking about. Then I take a critical look at Monterey Park's landmark vote to permanently ban data centers — 86% to 14%, the first in America. I understand why communities push back. I also think this particular decision is a mistake, and I'll tell you exactly why.Finally: Uber just cut 23% of its entire HR and recruiting function at record revenue, with 95% AI adoption across engineering — then said AI had nothing to do with it.

June 2, 2026: Senator Bernie Sanders wants the federal government to own half of OpenAI, Anthropic, and every major AI company in America — and he's framing it as reclaiming stolen public knowledge. We break down exactly how his American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would work, why the Norway comparison falls apart, and what would actually happen to valuations, talent, and American competitiveness if it ever got close to passing. Then: Apollo Global Management's chief economist says there is zero evidence AI is killing jobs — and the data may actually back him up. We look at Jevons paradox, the AI washing phenomenon, and why the aggregate labor market story is more encouraging than the doom headlines suggest. And finally: new Federal Reserve research reveals that 64% of the rise in young worker unemployment since the pandemic traces back to remote work, not AI — and why being willing to go to the office five days a week may be the single best career move a worker in their twenties can make right now.

May 29, 2026: Costco's CEO Ron Vachris said it plainly this week: "I don't see AI making choices for Costco" — and with $440 billion in market cap and 17% stock gains this year, the companies doubling down on human judgment are quietly outperforming the ones cutting workers for AI. On today's episode, Jacob Morgan breaks down three stories that together reveal the gap between what companies say about AI and what they're actually doing: why Costco, IBM, and Delta are winning by betting on humans; why corporate America is getting the bill for "tokenmaxxing" — the practice of deploying AI everywhere without measuring whether it works — and what disciplined AI investment actually looks like; and what OpenAI's newly published Frontier Governance Framework, which formally maps its own risk categories including "loss of control," means for every business leader who needs an enterprise AI governance strategy before the regulations have teeth.

May 27, 2026: The two CEOs most responsible for the AI jobs apocalypse narrative are walking it back — and the timing couldn't be more revealing. Sam Altman says he's "delighted to be wrong." Dario Amodei is softening. Both are heading toward trillion-dollar IPOs. In this episode, Jacob Morgan breaks down the financial logic behind the narrative shift, what a chart from Bianco Research reveals about software development jobs that contradicts the doom story, and why Uber just burned its entire 2026 AI budget in four months with nothing to show for it — and why 80% of enterprises are facing the exact same problem.

What happens when you stop focusing on human resources and start focusing on the human experience? Technology is advancing faster than human nature can keep up. If you want to stay relevant, you need a fundamental cultural reset, not just new software. In this interview, Laura Cushing, the Chief People Experience Officer at Pacific Life, discusses the evolving intersection of organizational culture, employee engagement, and artificial intelligence. She emphasizes a strategic shift toward accountability and transparency as the balance of power moves back toward employers in a post-pandemic landscape. To prepare for an AI-driven future, Pacific Life has implemented a Gen AI Academy and Innovation Labs to demystify technology and help staff reimagine their workflows. Cushing highlights the rising importance of "power skills"—human-centric abilities like coaching and visionary leadership—which remain essential as technical tasks become automated. Ultimately, she argues that HR leaders must cultivate deep business acumen and proactive trust-building to successfully guide their workforces through digital transformation. Watch the full video on YouTube ---------- Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/ Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—order a copy here: https://bit.ly/8exlaws

May 21, 2026: Today might be the most consequential single day for the future of work in all of 2026. In a two-hour window yesterday afternoon, OpenAI's AI autonomously solved an 80-year-old math problem, Anthropic announced its first-ever profitable quarter at $10.9 billion in revenue, SpaceX filed a $1.75 trillion IPO, and every major tech CEO was summoned to Washington for an AI executive order signing. We break down what all of it means for leaders and workers. Then: Microsoft and EY just committed $1 billion to deploy AI inside every major enterprise on the planet — finance, tax, HR, supply chain, healthcare. This is the ERP moment for AI, and it's happening now. And finally: California's Governor signed the first executive order by any U.S. governor aimed at protecting workers from AI displacement. We look hard at what it actually does and what it doesn't.

May 19, 2026: Everyone has an opinion about AI and jobs. Today we have actual data — three major studies published this week that, taken together, tell a story that's more nuanced, more surprising, and more actionable than anything you'll hear in the headlines. First: a Wall Street Journal report reveals that the companies going deepest on AI are actually increasing entry-level hiring — nearly three times more than are cutting — and why a 22-year-old with AI fluency may be the most valuable hire in the market right now. Then we get into why nearly half of Gen Z workers say AI is making them cognitively weaker, what London taxi drivers and GPS research tells us about what's actually happening to the human brain, and why the most dangerous AI user isn't the person who refuses to use it. And we close with Gartner's bombshell finding: 80% of companies cutting headcount for AI are seeing zero ROI — and by 2030, the ones that starved their talent pipeline this year will be paying a 15% premium just to catch up. Plus: why commencement speakers keep getting booed.