Podcasts

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt coined a name for a belief now widely held inside the big AI labs: the “San Francisco Consensus.” The idea is simple -> AI models keep getting better as they get bigger -> they start helping to build the next version -> which leads to stronger AI -> the loop compounds -> in an accelerated timeline we reach superintelligence (== AI that outperforms the best human experts at virtually every kind of thinking work). This is an outlook, not a forecas

AI leadership is a 3X competitive advantage. BUT not for the reason most people think. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) surveyed +500 executives globally. One finding caught my attention -> BCG reported roughly three times the competitive outperformance associated with well-prepared leaders compared with mature AI deployment alone: 66% versus 20%. And when strong leadership combines with mature AI practices, BCG reports an additional 80% lift in competitive performance. The mess

Will AI eliminate more jobs than it creates? It’s the question I get most. McKinsey Global Institute (MGI)’s new report provides fascinating insights. For the US through 2035, their base case -> -> Automation could reduce demand by ~36M jobs -> Growth could ADD 41M -> Net: about 5M MORE jobs Most of the growth is familiar work getting bigger: 1\ Rising living standards: +18M (services, hospitality, training) 2\ An aging population: +8M (care, health, home support) 3\ Construc

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics is another reminder that some of the biggest breakthroughs often come from learning how to see what we couldn't see before. Every second, around 100 trillion tiny particles called neutrinos pass through your body and yet you don't feel a thing. In fact, most pass through the entire Earth without interacting with anything. They are incredibly hard to detect BUT studying them offers us rich insight. These "ghost particles" carry clues about some

One of my favorite coffee spots in Chicago is Milli by Metric. As someone who works with AI, the words “made by humans” caught my attention. I found myself thinking about the first thing I ever learned to make: music. I started learning the violin at age seven. In Indian classical music, much of what you play is learned by ear (not from a page). Vocalists improvise phrases and as the violinist you have to listen closely, find the notes, and respond in real-time. This is espec

In January 1920 Srinivasa Ramanujan wrote his last letter to G.H. Hardy. In it he described a strange new kind of function. For decades it had no obvious use in the physical world. Today, the mathematics it helped inspire is used by physicists studying black holes. That was one letter with one idea. This week, 722 manuscripts arrived in a single day. 1\ The claim: Yesterday OpenAI released 722 manuscripts, grouped into 372 result families on open math problems, produced by an

AI is widening the gap between workers. That gap is one of the biggest opportunities in business right now. PwC surveyed nearly 50,000 workers across 48 countries and found four groups emerging: 14% = "front-runners", with scarce skills and strong AI capability 18% = "AI insurgents", with less-scarce skills and using AI to deliver more 11% = "indispensables", with scarce skills and early on the AI curve 56% = "engine room", with less-scarce skills and early on the AI curve An

Anthropic flew a Vedanta monk to San Francisco to help think through how Claude should tell right from wrong. That monk is Swami Sarvapriyananda, head of the Vedanta Society of New York. What fascinates me is how naturally this moment fits into a trajectory I’ve been watching for decades. I’ve been interested in the 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗩𝗲𝗱𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮 for many years. In 2024, I explored that intersection in my b

Good brakes are what let you drive fast with AI. That is one of the clearest messages in Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s latest research. Almost half of companies are now generating value from AI. The real story is the growing gap between those that are merely adopting it and those turning it into business impact. Strategic clarity + applied AI = transformative impact. Companies that excel at both generate 5X more AI value than those that do not. A few highlights that caught