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Burn The Map: White Collar Hunger Games with Gabi Barragan

Burn The Map

Release Date: 08/14/2025

Burn The Map: Herding AIs, Dodging Doom, and the New Ethics of Intelligence w/ Dr. Craig Kaplan show art Burn The Map: Herding AIs, Dodging Doom, and the New Ethics of Intelligence w/ Dr. Craig Kaplan

Burn The Map

In This Episode:  We sit down with Dr. Craig Kaplan—the guy who was building AI before your favorite “disruptor” learned to tie their shoes. Dr. Kaplan takes us on a wild ride from the OG days of artificial intelligence (when data lived on floppy disks and having a “machine learning” project meant you had actual machines to move) to his current crusade: making sure superintelligence doesn’t wreck the joint for the rest of us. Kaplan lays out what everyone’s too scared—or too clueless—to admit: if you wouldn’t leave your wallet with a random LLM, why are you ready to...

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Burn The Map

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Burn The Map

In This Episode:  We talk to Brenda Novak, co-founder of the Connecticut Amputee Network and champion for anyone told they're “too expensive to fix.” Brenda breaks down her wild ride from business school grad to accidental activist, gives us the unvarnished scoop on the cutthroat world of prosthetic coverage (hint: it’s more ‘Shark Tank’ than ‘Grey’s Anatomy’), and shows us that sometimes, you’ve got to pass whole new laws just to get back on your feet—literally. What We Cover: How Brenda and her fellow “pirates” rallied lawmakers to pass legislation making...

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“If you’re worried your kid hates reading, maybe start by showing them you can sit down with a damn book. Kids do what we do, not what we say.” —Rae Foote In This Episode: We talk to Rae Foote, the unicorn who went from running logistics in military manufacturing (yes, actual missiles) to wrangling the chaos of marketing tech at Hachette Book Group in NYC—all while moonlighting as a champion for children’s literacy. Rae's journey is less “lifelong calling” and more “epic faceplant after faceplant, but make it fashion”—falling into publishing, falling for NYC, and now...

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In This Episode: We talk to Joel McKay Smith—a guy whose “Rolodex” literally stress-tested the Wrench platform—about why real power isn’t in the LinkedIn follower count, but in the relationships you actually maintain. From rural Utah dairy farms to industrial parks, Joel’s journey is a hilarious, head-spinning tour straight through the heart of economic disruption and small-town resurrection. You think you’re a “super-connector”? Please. Joel remembers your name, your birthday, and probably your lactose intolerance from a conversation in 1997, all while masterminding a...

info_outline Burn The Map: Ask Me Anything with Dan & Gabi show art Burn The Map: Ask Me Anything with Dan & Gabi

Burn The Map

In This Episode: We sit down with Gabi Barragan—strategic advisor, organizational change whisperer, and the go-to for real talk about taming the AI beast in business. Gabi ditches the ‘thought leader’ theatrics and gets honest about what it really takes for companies to stop talking about AI adoption and actually get their hands dirty—without blowing the lunch budget on useless software. She walks us through the mess and magic of wrangling data chaos, the power of fierce internal experimenters (yes, she thinks your employees are already using ChatGPT behind your back), and how a little...

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Burn The Map

In This Episode:  We talk to Timber Barker, founder/CEO of BOOM Interactive, about turning flat floor plans into living, AI-powered digital twins—and the not-so-glamorous reality of building the company that does it. From selling his truck to keep the lights on to landing partnerships with NVIDIA and projects with the NBA, Timber breaks down how CoreSpec3D makes the built world actually usable: chat with your floor plan, drop “sticky notes” that act like tasks, render photorealistic options in seconds, and hand first responders a real-time 3D view when things go sideways....

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Burn The Map

“Don’t tell me about your fancy martech stack if you can’t tell me where your own customer data lives. Spoiler: if your dashboards are a mess, your personalization is, too.” —Drew Phillips In This Episode: We talk to Drew Phillips—part globe-trotting data wrangler, part content whisperer—about what actually moves the needle in enterprise content, data integration, and personalization (hint: it’s not a magic vendor pitch or an AI buzzword bingo). Drew reveals the truth behind making content less painful for brands that have more SKUs than most people have socks—and how chaos...

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Burn The Map

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info_outline Burn The Map: White Collar Hunger Games with Gabi Barragan show art Burn The Map: White Collar Hunger Games with Gabi Barragan

Burn The Map

In This Episode:  We sit down with Gabi Barragan, Wrench.AI’s Co-Founder and CMO (and, let’s be real, the original “Gabi Filter” for anyone who couldn’t write their way out of a Slack thread). Gabi gets brutally honest about the future of work, why most people are totally unprepared for the AI tidal wave, and the one skillset robots still can’t fake—being a decent human. She and Dan swap war stories about flattening orgs, surviving existential tech dread, and why soft skills are the new power tools. Plus: why your lawyer’s job is toast, how to future-proof your career...

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In This Episode: 

We sit down with Gabi Barragan, Wrench.AI’s Co-Founder and CMO (and, let’s be real, the original “Gabi Filter” for anyone who couldn’t write their way out of a Slack thread). Gabi gets brutally honest about the future of work, why most people are totally unprepared for the AI tidal wave, and the one skillset robots still can’t fake—being a decent human. She and Dan swap war stories about flattening orgs, surviving existential tech dread, and why soft skills are the new power tools. Plus: why your lawyer’s job is toast, how to future-proof your career (hint: meditation and MMA?), and what happens when your kid can assemble IKEA furniture better than you.

What We Cover:

  • How AI is eating jobs from the bottom and the top—no one’s safe, darling.

  • The not-so-secret power of empathy, adaptability, and problem solving (yes, you still need people skills, even if your boss is a bot).

  • Why “the grind” is overrated, and how the next wave of work might finally let you catch a damn baseball game.

  • The Gabi Filter origin story, and how personalized AI is changing the game for everyone (even the grammar-challenged among us).

  • Real talk on burnout, resilience, and why “sitting is the new smoking”—so get up, walk your dog, and try not to panic.

Guest Bio:Gabi Barragan is Co-Founder and CMO at Wrench.AI, where she’s made a career out of translating chaos into strategy—and occasionally rescuing colleagues from their own bad grammar. With a background in marketing, startups, and the fine art of not losing your mind in a tech tsunami, Gabi is the go-to voice on surviving (and thriving) as AI rewrites the rules of business. When she’s not building the next big thing in personalization, she’s lurking on TikTok, plotting the future of work, and reminding everyone that soft skills aren’t going out of style.

Enjoy! This show was brought to you by Wrench.ai

Follow Dan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danbaird/
X: https://x.com/mrdanbaird

Follow Gabi:

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

Follow the Pod:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@burnthemappodcast
Twitter/X: https://x.com/BurnTheMapPod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burnthemappodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@burnthemappodcast
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/burnthemappodcast.bsky.social

Selected Links From This Episode

People and Organizations Mentioned

  • Dan Baird

  • Gabi Barragan

  • Wrench.AI

  • Random mutual associate with existential dread (don’t worry, Dan won’t out you on air)

  • The “Gabi Filter” (RIP, but not forgotten)

Show Notes

  • Why your job might be toast (and why that’s not the end of the world)

  • The real value of soft skills in an AI-soaked workplace

  • How to avoid burnout when the grind is a myth

  • The future of work: lean, mean, and a little bit weird

  • Lurking, lurking, and more lurking: why sometimes it’s okay to just watch