In this episode, Eric talks with MIT researcher, innovation expert, and author Michael Schrage about why artificial intelligence is forcing leaders to rethink much more than technology.

Michael argues that AI is exposing fundamental questions about purpose, value creation, critical thinking, collaboration, and what organizations are actually trying to optimize. As AI becomes increasingly capable, technical skill alone becomes less differentiating. The real advantage shifts toward asking better questions, making better judgments, and understanding the tradeoffs behind every decision.

The conversation explores why experimentation is replacing traditional R&D, why collaboration creates better outcomes than isolated AI use, how promptathons develop stronger thinking, and why organizations obsessed with efficiency may be missing AI’s greatest opportunity.

Eric and Michael also discuss innovation economics, creative destruction, recommendation engines, philosophy, critical thinking, human capital, experimentation, management, education, prompt engineering, organizational strategy, and the future of work.

One of Michael’s central arguments is simple:

Software ate the world. AI is eating software. Philosophy will increasingly shape AI.

At its core, this episode is about becoming a better thinker in a world where intelligence is becoming abundant but judgment remains scarce.

Questions Answered

 * Why does Michael Schrage say philosophy “eats” AI?
 * Why are so many companies approaching AI incorrectly?
 * How should leaders think about AI beyond automation?
 * What is the difference between efficiency and value creation?
 * Why is experimentation replacing traditional R&D?
 * What are promptathons, and why do they work?
 * How does AI change collaboration?
 * What makes organizations innovative?
 * Why will critical thinking become more valuable in the AI era?
 * How should businesses balance optimization versus exploration?
 * What should young people study as AI advances?
 * How can AI help people become more valuable rather than simply more productive?

Episode Links

 * Michael’s MIT Sloan Management Review article, Philosophy Eats AI: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/philosophy-eats-ai/
 * Michael Schrage’s books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Schrage/author/B001KIV9TW

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Why Philosophy Will Matter More Than AI

In this episode, Eric talks with organizational researcher, entrepreneur, and Primed to Perform co-author Neel Doshi about a question most discussions about artificial intelligence never ask:

What if AI doesn’t replace meaningful work, but makes it possible to redesign work for the better?

Neel argues that organizations are approaching AI from the wrong direction. Rather than treating it primarily as a tool for automation, he believes its greatest potential lies in helping people solve problems, collaborate more effectively, continuously improve their work, and contribute in ways that were previously impossible.

The conversation explores why so many AI initiatives fail, why transformational change almost always gets worse before it gets better, why organizations remain trapped in command-and-control management, and why motivation is becoming a greater competitive advantage than technology itself.

Eric and Neel also discuss organizational culture, burnout, AI augmentation versus automation, leadership, Six Sigma, continuous improvement, collaboration, intrinsic motivation, knowledge work, experimentation, and the future of management.

Rather than asking whether AI will eliminate jobs, Neel asks a different question:

Can AI help create the most empowering workplaces we’ve ever seen?

At its core, this conversation is about designing organizations where technology strengthens human capability instead of replacing it.

Questions Answered

 * Why are so many AI initiatives failing?
 * Why do transformational changes usually get worse before they get better?
 * What is the difference between AI automation and AI augmentation?
 * Why are employees feeling less empowered at work?
 * How should leaders introduce AI without damaging culture?
 * Why do command-and-control organizations struggle with AI?
 * What motivates people to do their best work?
 * How can AI improve collaboration instead of replacing it?
 * What can leaders learn from Six Sigma about AI adoption?
 * Why do most organizations misunderstand productivity?
 * What is “AI native, people first” leadership?
 * Could AI create a new golden age of work?

Episode Links

 * Factor AI: https://www.factor.ai [https://www.factor.ai/]
 * Primed to Perform: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062373986
 * Lindsay McGregor’s previous appearance: https://unfoldingthought.com/lindsay-mcgregor-blame-the-system-not-the-person/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Is AI Slop at Work Inevitable?

In this episode, Eric talks with former fighter pilot, entrepreneur, and Afterburner CEO Boo Boucousis about one practice that separates fighter pilots from nearly every other profession: the debrief.

Every mission, whether successful or unsuccessful, ends with an honest examination of what happened, why it happened, and what should change next time. Boo argues that this simple habit explains why fighter pilots improve so quickly and why so many organizations fail to do the same.

The conversation explores how bias shapes decision making, why perception often matters more than data, how John Boyd’s ideas influenced modern leadership, and why structured reflection may be one of the most overlooked competitive advantages in business.

Eric and Boo also discuss curiosity, intentionality, red teaming, AI, strategy, meetings, organizational culture, and why technology is making disciplined thinking more important rather than less.

At its core, this episode is about replacing assumptions with reality and learning how to improve faster by making reflection part of the work itself.

Questions Answered

 * What is a fighter pilot debrief?
 * Why do fighter pilots debrief every mission?
 * How does debriefing improve leadership?
 * What is the ORCA method?
 * Why do organizations keep repeating the same mistakes?
 * How do biases affect decision making?
 * What is red teaming?
 * How can teams make better decisions?
 * How should leaders use AI?
 * Why are meetings often ineffective?
 * What is the difference between goals and destinations?
 * Why is curiosity more valuable than certainty?

Episode Links

 * Boo’s website: https://callmeboo.com/
 * Boo’s business Afterburner: https://www.afterburner.com/
 * The Just Think study: https://as.virginia.edu/news/doing-something-better-doing-nothing-most-people-study-shows-0

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Why Fighter Pilots Debrief Everything

In this episode, Eric talks with advertising author and former agency CEO Bob Hoffman about the incentives quietly shaping the modern digital world.

The conversation begins with social media and children but quickly expands into a broader discussion of advertising, platform economics, AI, media buying, creativity, and the concentration of power inside a handful of technology companies.

Bob argues that many of the problems people associate with social media are not accidental. They are predictable outcomes of business models designed to maximize attention and advertising revenue. He explains why outrage consistently outperforms nuance, why advertisers continue funding platforms they publicly criticize, and why legislation has struggled to keep pace with technological change.

Eric and Bob also explore the future of advertising agencies, the difference between brand building and performance marketing, the limitations of digital metrics, and why creative thinking is becoming increasingly undervalued inside organizations.

The discussion closes with AI, cyber warfare, and a broader question about modern society: What happens when more power becomes concentrated in fewer hands?

Rather than treating advertising as a narrow business topic, this conversation explores how incentives shape culture, technology, institutions, and the decisions we make every day.

Questions Answered

 * Why is social media so harmful for children?
 * Why do outrage and conspiracy theories spread so effectively online?
 * How do advertising incentives shape social media platforms?
 * Why hasn’t legislation kept pace with digital platforms?
 * What is Section 230 and why does it matter?
 * Why are advertising agencies losing influence?
 * Is performance marketing replacing brand building?
 * Why are digital advertising metrics often misleading?
 * Why is creativity becoming less valued in advertising?
 * How are Meta, Google, and other platforms changing the advertising industry?
 * What risks does AI pose beyond marketing?
 * Why is concentrated technological power a societal concern?

Episode Links

 * Bob Hoffman’s books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Bob-Hoffman/author/B007W8R8H6
 * Bob Hoffman’s website: https://www.bobhoffmanswebsite.com [https://www.bobhoffmanswebsite.com/]

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

When Big Tech Kills the Ad Industry

In this episode, Eric talks with Coach Rory O’Neill about a question that extends far beyond youth soccer: What happens when a system rewards customer satisfaction more than genuine development?

Drawing on experience coaching from recreational leagues to MLS NEXT, Rory argues that many of the problems parents blame on coaches or individual clubs are actually consequences of a deeper structural issue. In the United States, youth soccer exists inside a closed ecosystem where incentives often prioritize retaining paying families over producing elite players.

The conversation explores why American youth sports have become increasingly expensive, why parents and players constantly feel pressure to change clubs, why burnout may be misunderstood, and why many of the world’s best soccer nations approach development in fundamentally different ways.

Eric and Rory also discuss promotion and relegation, college soccer, pay-to-play models, training compensation, player movement, Japanese soccer culture, and the surprising ways incentives shape everything from coaching decisions to parental expectations.

Rather than asking why the United States hasn’t won a men’s World Cup, Rory asks a different question: What if the system is producing exactly the results it was designed to produce?

At its core, this is a conversation about incentives. About development versus marketing. And about how the structures we build quietly shape the people they produce.

Questions Answered

 * Why is youth soccer so expensive in the United States?
 * What does “pay to play” actually mean?
 * Why doesn’t the United States use promotion and relegation?
 * How does MLS influence youth player development?
 * Why do so many families switch clubs every year?
 * Why do youth coaches become so protective of players?
 * Is burnout really caused by early specialization?
 * Why do some children seem unable to get enough soccer?
 * How do Japan and Argentina develop elite players differently?
 * Is college soccer a realistic path to professional soccer?
 * Why are American clubs dependent on parent tuition?
 * What incentives actually produce world class players?

Episode Links

 * Coach Rory Soccer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CoachRorySoccer
 * Rory’s previous appearance: https://unfoldingthought.com/rory-oneill-inside-the-matrix-of-american-youth-soccer/
 * The discussion with Dr Ming Ming Chiu: https://unfoldingthought.com/dr-ming-ming-chiu-why-fake-news-works-so-well/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Why Youth Sports Keep Failing Kids

In this episode, Eric talks with energy strategist Peter Kelly-Detwiler about a question that is quickly moving from the engineering world into everyday life:

Will artificial intelligence fundamentally change how we think about electricity?

Peter argues that the AI race is not primarily a software race. It is increasingly a race for electrons. As companies invest trillions of dollars into AI infrastructure, electricity is becoming a strategic resource that shapes economics, geopolitics, national security, and technological innovation.

The conversation explores why AI data centers are unlike previous industrial loads, why a single delayed data center can represent billions of dollars in lost value, and why some companies are willing to pay electricity prices more than one hundred times higher than normal market rates. Peter explains concepts like “compute heat rate,” co-located power generation, battery storage, transmission constraints, and why data centers are beginning to reshape energy markets around the world.

Eric and Peter also discuss the surprising fragility of the modern power grid, how AI changes long-term planning for utilities, why batteries may become the Swiss Army knife of the electrical system, and why cybersecurity has become one of the industry’s greatest concerns. They examine the tension between innovation and regulation, the politics of transmission lines, and the possibility that electricity may become as strategically important in the twenty-first century as oil was in the twentieth.

Perhaps the biggest idea is one that most people rarely consider. We tend to think of AI as software running in the cloud. Peter suggests a different mental model: AI is the conversion of electricity, chips, and data into digital labor. If that is true, then the future economy may be constrained not by algorithms, but by our ability to generate, move, store, and protect electrons.

Episode Links

 * Peter’s article on Compute Heat Rate: https://www.rtoinsider.com/129994-metric-related-data-centers-electricity-that-may-matter/
 * Peter’s book The Energy Switch: https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Switch-Companies-Transforming-Electrical/dp/1633886662
 * The Grid by Gretchen Bakke: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1632865688/
 * Peter’s website: https://www.peterkellydetwiler.com/
 * Connect with Peter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkellydetwiler/
 * Peter’s first appearance on The Unfolding Thought Podcast: https://unfoldingthought.com/42-peter-kelly-detwiler-the-future-of-energy-and-sustainability/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

AI Companies Are Building Their Own Power Plants. Here’s Why.

In this episode, Eric talks with futurist and philosopher Eliot Frick about a question that quietly sits beneath many of today’s biggest debates: what if the anxiety, polarization, institutional distrust, and constant sense of crisis are not isolated problems, but signs that an entire way of thinking has reached its limits?

Drawing from Thomas Kuhn, Nietzsche, complexity theory, developmental psychology, mythology, and futures studies, Eliot argues that paradigms behave like living systems. They emerge, expand into new possibilities, become increasingly rigid, and eventually struggle to solve the very problems they once addressed.

The conversation explores why collapse narratives have become so compelling, why institutions increasingly feel performative rather than generative, why social media rewards outrage over imagination, and why cultures often become obsessed with finding new enemies as they run out of new frontiers.

Rather than asking whether society is getting better or worse, Eliot invites a different question: What if we are living through the end of one worldview and the uncertain birth of another?

At its core, this is a conversation about perception. About the invisible assumptions that shape how we understand progress, identity, institutions, and the future itself.

Questions Answered

 * What is a paradigm shift?
 * What is modernity?
 * Why does everything feel like it’s falling apart?
 * Why are collapse narratives so persuasive?
 * Why do institutions become increasingly performative?
 * What is an egregore and how does it influence society?
 * What is adjacent possibility?
 * Why do cultures stop feeling optimistic?
 * Why do societies become more polarized over time?
 * Is progress itself a kind of hidden religion?
 * How do civilizations transform without completely collapsing?
 * What comes after a dominant cultural paradigm?

Episode Links

 * Eliot’s latest article that we discuss: https://www.subjunctivism.org/p/it-was-always-already-there
 * Eliot Frick on Substack: https://www.subjunctivism.org/
 * Eliot’s previous appearance: https://unfoldingthought.com/16-eliot-frick-pioneering-the-unknown/
 * Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions
 * Jim Dator, Four Images of the Future: https://foresightguide.com/dator-four-futures/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Are We Living at the End of Modernity?

In this episode, Eric talks with researcher Dr Ming Ming Chiu about fake news, AI generated deception, creativity, and the hidden patterns inside human communication. Drawing from decades of work across education, statistics, online behavior, and computational analysis, Dr Chiu explains why misinformation spreads so effectively and why the future of trust may become one of the defining challenges of modern society.

What began as research into how children learn mathematics eventually led Dr Chiu into studying online predators, extremist recruitment, fake news networks, and deceptive communication itself. Along the way, he developed what he calls “Deceptive Writing Theory,” a framework that attempts to identify falsehoods not by checking facts directly, but by analyzing the language patterns people use when they lie.

The conversation explores why fake news works in the first place. Dr Chiu argues that deception succeeds because most people are generally honest and cooperative in daily life. Humans are wired to trust. That trust becomes exploitable when large organizations, political actors, or AI systems learn how to manipulate emotion, identity, fear, and social sharing dynamics at scale.

Eric and Dr Chiu also discuss how different cultures experience misinformation differently, why AI may dramatically increase the scale of manipulation, and what happens when societies retreat into isolated “truth bubbles.” At the same time, the conversation turns toward creativity and scientific discovery itself. Dr Chiu explains why most of his ideas fail, why failure is central to innovation, and how creativity often emerges by connecting patterns across completely unrelated fields.

At its core, this is a conversation about trust. About how humans decide what is real. And about whether societies can maintain shared reality in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms designed to manipulate attention.

Topics Covered

 * Why humans are naturally vulnerable to fake news
 * How “Deceptive Writing Theory” attempts to detect lies
 * The language patterns common in deceptive communication
 * Why fake news spreads through emotion and identity
 * The role of Russia, China, and large scale disinformation campaigns
 * Why AI could dramatically increase manipulation online
 * How scammers intentionally target vulnerable people
 * The relationship between trust and misinformation
 * Why different cultures respond differently to fake news
 * Echo chambers, polarization, and collapsing shared reality
 * Why most scientific ideas fail
 * Creativity through pattern recognition across disciplines
 * How Dr Chiu moved from computer science into education research
 * What children’s conversations revealed about human behavior
 * Why large tech companies may be the only groups capable of addressing fake news at scale
 * The tension between optimism and pessimism about humanity’s future

Episode Links

 * Dr Ming Ming Chiu on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pY0PJVsAAAAJ&hl=en
 * Dr Chiu at The Education University of Hong Kong: https://www.eduhk.hk/en/experts/professor-chiu-ming-ming

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Dr Ming Ming Chiu: Why Fake News Works So Well

In this episode, Eric talks with sociologist Dr Kathryn J Edin, one of America’s leading poverty researchers, about what decades of fieldwork reveal that statistics alone can miss.

Dr Edin’s work began in living rooms, church basements, public housing communities, and long conversations with families trying to survive on too little money and too little stability. Early in her career, she learned something simple but deeply important from welfare recipients in Chicago: no one could actually live on welfare alone. Families had to improvise, hustle, rely on informal support, and sometimes break rules simply to survive.

The conversation explores how poverty has changed over the past several decades. Dr Edin explains why child poverty statistics can hide the deeper problem of instability, how welfare reform created both benefits and serious gaps, and why families can fall into stretches of extreme hardship that are very difficult to climb out of.

Eric and Dr Edin also discuss marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, declining labor opportunities for non-college men, and the changing meaning of family formation in America. Drawing from Promises I Can Keep, Dr Edin explains why many low-income women value marriage highly, but see it as something too important to enter into under unstable conditions.

They also talk about place. Why do some communities recover while others struggle for generations? Dr Edin points to the loss of social infrastructure, the disappearance of places where people build bonds, and the importance of cross-class relationships in creating opportunity.

At its core, this is a conversation about seeing people clearly. About the stories behind the numbers. And about why the explanations we reach for first are often too simple.

Topics Covered

 * How Kathryn Edin was drawn into poverty research
 * Why fieldwork reveals what statistics often miss
 * What welfare recipients taught her early in her career
 * How poverty has changed over the past several decades
 * Why instability matters as much as annual income
 * The rise of extreme poverty and cashless survival
 * What welfare reform got right and wrong
 * Why low-income women often value marriage deeply
 * How the meaning of marriage has changed in America
 * The decline of stable work for non-college men
 * Fatherhood, family instability, and labor market withdrawal
 * The role of place in shaping opportunity
 * Why social infrastructure matters
 * What happens when communities lose gathering places
 * The relationship between narrative, numbers, and policy
 * Why poverty is often misunderstood from a distance

Episode Links

 * Explore Dr Edin’s books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kathryn-J.-Edin/author/B0C4LVDY7P
 * Dr Edin at Princeton: https://sociology.princeton.edu/people/kathryn-edin
 * Dr Edin on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Edin
 * Connect with Dr Edin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-edin-2a534923b/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Dr Kathryn J Edin: We Solved Teen Pregnancy. So Why Aren’t Things Better?

In this episode, Eric talks with growth strategist and former seven-time CMO Rich M. Smith about a problem that quietly undermines many organizations: confusing marketing activity with actual strategy.

Rich argues that most companies do not fail because they lack talent, products, or ideas. They fail because they never solve distribution. In crowded and commoditized industries, the challenge is rarely creating something functional. It is figuring out how to become meaningfully different in the minds of customers and how to consistently reach the right people at the right moment.

The conversation explores why modern marketing often drifts toward tactics before strategy. Companies obsess over channels, platforms, SEO, social media, and performance metrics without first answering deeper questions about positioning, customer behavior, and competitive advantage. Rich explains why many organizations spread themselves too thin, chase “shiny objects,” and mistake activity for progress.

Eric and Rich also discuss commoditized markets, customer experience design, attribution problems, AI-driven consumer behavior, and the growing tension between brand marketing and direct response marketing. They examine how organizations measure success, why data alone can become misleading, and why experience and judgment still matter in a world increasingly driven by analytics and automation.

Throughout the discussion is a larger question: what actually creates durable advantage when products, channels, and tactics can all be copied so quickly?

At its core, this is a conversation about discipline. About understanding customers deeply enough to build meaningful differentiation. And about why great marketing is often less about clever campaigns than about aligning strategy, distribution, and human behavior.

Topics Covered

 * Why many businesses fail because of distribution, not product quality
 * The challenge of differentiation in commoditized industries
 * Why marketing often becomes overly tactical
 * The dangers of “spray and pray” marketing
 * How CMOs translate marketing metrics into business outcomes
 * Why customer experience extends far beyond the product itself
 * The relationship between specialization and modern marketing
 * How organizations chase “shiny object syndrome”
 * The tension between brand marketing and direct response marketing
 * Why attribution is harder than most companies realize
 * The hidden role upper-funnel marketing plays in conversions
 * Why smaller companies should focus closer to demand intent
 * How AI is changing customer behavior and discovery
 * The difference between AI adoption and AI adaptation
 * Why experience and instinct still matter in marketing decisions
 * How gut instinct functions like professional muscle memory
 * The growing importance of strategic discipline in a multi-channel world

Episode Links

 * Rich’s website: https://richmsmith.com/
 * Connect with Rich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smithlink/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com [https://unfoldingthought.com/]

Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com

Rich M. Smith: Why Most Marketing Fails Before the Campaign Starts

The Unfolding Thought Podcast explores how people think—and how that thinking shapes what we do next.



Host Eric Pratum talks with authors, researchers, executives, creators, and unconventional thinkers about leadership, work, technology, strategy, culture, psychology, and human behavior.



Each conversation goes past obvious answers to uncover the assumptions, incentives, systems, narratives, and patterns shaping our choices. The goal is not debate or performance. It is a reflective, practical conversation that produces insight listeners can use.



New episodes every week. Watch, listen, and browse every episode at https://unfoldingthought.com.



The Unfolding Thought Podcast is produced by Inbound & Agile, a marketing strategy firm helping leaders think more clearly and make better decisions about strategy and communications.