Burn The Map

Crazy ones? You’re damn right. Burn the Map is a podcast about the people who can’t help but chase obsession. Before the exits. Before the followers. Before anyone asked them to. These are deep-dive interviews with innovators, artists, hackers, tinkerers—people whose dedication to their craft borders on lunacy. We dissect the nuance of what they do, what keeps them going, and why their work matters. Hosted by Dan Baird, this show is a guided tour into the minds of people who do the work that seems illogical—until it isn’t.

Burn The Map: Branding That Converts in the Age of AI w/ Kate DiLeo 08/07/2026

Burn The Map: Branding That Converts in the Age of AI w/ Kate DiLeo In This Episode: We talk to Kate DiLeo about why you can’t just prompt your way into a brand people actually care about. Kate breaks down the difference between cranking out content and building messaging that genuinely moves people to act. She walks through how she rebuilt her business for the AI era without turning herself into a SaaS founder, why so many companies end up with bland, forgettable positioning after letting ChatGPT take the wheel, and why the real edge still comes from human judgment, clear methodology, and a deep understanding of how people make decisions. If your brand sounds fine but isn’t converting, this one will hit a nerve. What We Cover: Why AI-generated messaging so often turns into polished vanilla mush. The difference between “making content” and actually building a brand. How Kate compressed her branding process from multi-week workshops into faster, smarter AI-assisted sprints. Why tone of voice, ICP clarity, and differentiated messaging still have to start with human strategy. The brand metrics that actually matter—like sales-cycle compression, better-fit prospects, and faster movement from homepage to product page. Guest Bio: Kate DiLeo is a brand strategist, speaker, and messaging expert who helps B2B companies build brands that drive revenue. She’s the creator of the Brand Trifecta methodology, a framework built to help companies clarify what they do, why it matters, and how to say it in a way that actually converts. With a background that blends marketing, sales, and linguistic anthropology, Kate brings a rare mix of strategic rigor and real-world practicality to the messy work of brand building. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Kate: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram:TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Burn The Map: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Kate DiLeo Dan Baird Wrench.ai Claude ChatGPT HubSpot ConAgra Lovesac Pavilion Inbound Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Dan opens with why the best podcast conversations start with genuine curiosity 01:12 — AI gets good enough to feel spooky: the white-collar “my job can be orchestrated” moment 03:55 — Kate on why AI-generated brand messaging keeps turning into beige sludge 06:05 — Kate’s abandoned SaaS build, sunk costs, and the lesson that changed her business model 08:25 — Rebuilding a 10-year brand strategy business for faster, cheaper, AI-assisted delivery 10:33 — From Google Docs to markdown files: the new output clients actually want 11:16 — Dan on why people pay for judgment, not just production 12:06 — “Brand creates conversations that convert”: Kate defines what branding is actually for 14:41 — The psychology of messaging and why language can’t be separated from human behavior 18:06 — AI burnout, innovation fatigue, and the cost of building from FOMO 20:25 — Why businesses should stay in their zone of excellence instead of chasing every new tool 24:18 — Niche harder: why clearer positioning matters even more in the AI search era 29:29 — Why the old elevator pitch is broken—and what should replace it 32:10 — Kate’s early sales career, DISC training, and the communication lesson that shaped her brand work 33:30 — Why aspirational branding fails and authenticity still wins 39:32 — Schtick vs. methodology: what actually gets you taken seriously 42:16 — The brand KPIs Kate actually trusts: homepage conversion, speed to product page, sales-cycle compression 47:48 — The simplest summary: strategy first, then AI /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/42361250

Burn The Map: Turning AI Into Operational Leverage w/ Brad Groux 07/30/2026

Burn The Map: Turning AI Into Operational Leverage w/ Brad Groux In This Episode: We talk to Brad Groux about practical AI, automation, and the gap between flashy demos and systems that actually survive real work. As Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Meld, Brad operates like a builder first: cloud, workflow, Microsoft integrations, agent orchestration, and the messy reality of getting AI to do useful things inside a business. We get into his obsession with making AI operational instead of ornamental, why most teams are chasing optics instead of outcomes, and how his work across Digital Meld, OpenClaw, and Veritas Kanban reflects a bigger belief: the future belongs to people who can turn complexity into working systems. What We Cover: Why most AI rollouts fail in practice: no workflow, no context, no operational backbone. The difference between talking about automation and actually shipping it inside a business. What Brad learned building in public across Digital Meld, OpenClaw’s Microsoft ecosystem work, and Veritas Kanban. Why local-first, inspectable, hands-on systems matter more than polished AI theater. How operators can use AI for operations, decision support, data pipelines, and business intelligence without drowning in hype. Guest Bio: Brad Groux is the Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Meld, where he focuses on AI and automation architecture, workflow definition, Microsoft integration, and product direction. He hosts the Start Small, Think Big podcast with Digital Meld Co-Founder and CTO Robert Groux, covering practical AI, automation, data, analytics, and process improvement. Brad has also been publicly identified as a Microsoft maintainer and liaison for OpenClaw, and he builds in public through projects like Veritas Kanban, a local-first task management and orchestration tool for people working with AI agents. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Brad: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Digital Meld: Brad Groux on GitHub: OpenClaw: Peter Steinberger on OpenClaw and the future: Veritas Kanban: Start Small, Think Big on Apple Podcasts: People and Organizations Mentioned: Brad Groux Dan Baird Digital Meld OpenClaw Peter Steinberger Microsoft GitHub Anthropic OpenAI HubSpot Houston AI Club World Affairs Council of Greater Houston Wrench.ai Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Brad’s role at Digital Meld and why five-to-ten-year planning now feels more like five-to-ten-day planning 00:21 — Joining the OpenClaw team and working with Peter Steinberger 00:57 — Bringing agentic AI into Microsoft and the enterprise without handing it the keys to the kingdom 01:29 — Why AI has already changed Brad’s business model 02:13 — The existential question: what happens when the tool can do your job? 03:15 — OpenClaw’s speed, scale, and what one obsessed builder can now do 04:22 — Building clickable demos during live client calls 08:39 — Don’t marry the model: foundations over hype 09:30 — Why Brad teaches SOPs and PRDs before tools 10:35 — “This is the first technology that teaches you how to use it” 11:49 — What actually matters in multi-agent architecture 13:07 — Why letting agents run wild is usually user error, not AI magic gone wrong 15:59 — How Digital Meld works with mid-market companies and where automation starts 17:52 — Talk to the people doing the work, not the exec who heard about AI on a golf course 19:22 — Cron jobs, daily briefings, and Brad’s personal operating system 21:33 — Building “brainmail” and creating a shared source of truth across humans and agents 24:39 — Why building in public is becoming a serious career advantage 30:17 — Verification, hallucinations, and the feeling that labs keep moving the goalposts 31:31 — Brad’s frustrations with Anthropic and why portability matters 37:41 — Brad’s side projects, command center, and open-source workflow tools 38:31 — Why he built his own CRM instead of renewing HubSpot 45:43 — Why most big-company leaders aren’t smarter — just higher up the org chart 50:40 — Optimism, accountability, and the need to build a future that isn’t dictated by a handful of labs 55:35 — Decentralization, bad actors, and why apathy is the real enemy 58:55 — Where to find Brad and who he thinks is worth following /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/42270670

Burn The Map: The Real Cost of Shipping AI Without Guardrails w/ Gabriela Bar 07/23/2026

Burn The Map: The Real Cost of Shipping AI Without Guardrails w/ Gabriela Bar In This Episode: We talk to Gabriela Bar about why AI governance is no longer a side conversation for lawyers and compliance people—it’s becoming the dividing line between products that actually deserve trust and products that are basically theater. Gabriela breaks down what businesses get wrong when they rush to say they’re “using AI,” why most teams still don’t ask nearly enough questions about how these systems actually work, and how the European approach to regulation is trying to protect human rights without choking innovation. She also gets concrete: from GDPR and the EU AI Act to rescue robots, biased training data, black-box models, and the messy reality of building systems that are explainable to the people whose lives they affect. The throughline here is simple: if an AI system can shape access, opportunity, safety, or freedom, “trust us” is not good enough. What We Cover: Why polished AI demos often hide weak governance, vague data practices, and a lot of smoke and mirrors What GDPR, the Data Act, and the EU AI Act actually do—in plain English Why most AI systems are not classified as high-risk, and why that distinction matters How fairness, diversity, and explainability show up in real product decisions—not just policy decks What a rescue robot taught Gabriela about biased data, synthetic data, and designing for the real world Why black-box AI is still the biggest problem in high-stakes systems like healthcare, hiring, policing, and public services How Gabriela uses LLMs in legal analysis: not as an oracle, but as a sparring partner Guest Bio: Gabriela Bar is an AI lawyer and ethics advisor based in Poland who works at the intersection of emerging technology, law, governance, and trustworthy AI. She advises businesses building AI systems, IoT products, and data-driven services, helping them design for legality, transparency, and accountability from the start. She also serves as an ethics advisor on EU-funded projects, where she helps turn abstract principles like fairness, diversity, and explainability into decisions teams can actually implement. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Gabriela: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Burn The Map: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Gabriela Bar Dan Baird Wrench.ai European Union Google Microsoft OpenAI Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:09 — Poland, Europe, and why this conversation matters now 01:53 — Dan’s thesis: AI governance may be one of the most future-proof jobs in tech 04:03 — Why sign-off, accountability, and human responsibility aren’t going away 06:24 — Gabriela on why teams need to interrogate AI products, not admire the packaging 07:02 — The problem with polished tools that can’t explain where data is stored or how decisions are made 10:04 — A plain-English walkthrough of GDPR, the Data Act, and the EU AI Act 13:10 — What “high-risk AI” actually means and why most tools may not fall into that category 14:10 — Social scoring, surveillance, and the kinds of AI practices Europe is trying to stop 16:39 — Innovation versus restraint: should democracies regulate while competitors race ahead? 19:17 — What Gabriela’s clients actually hire her to do 22:04 — Advising EU-funded projects and building ethics into AI from day one 24:40 — A rescue robot case study: fairness, diversity, and why training data can fail in the real world 28:47 — Why transparency and explainability depend on who needs the explanation 31:25 — The difference between ethics as a checkbox and ethics as an operating principle 34:29 — Why many companies still treat AI implementation like theater 37:22 — The AI ethics community’s biggest concern: black-box decision making in high-stakes systems 40:20 — Explainable AI, practical accountability, and what users actually need to know 44:10 — How Gabriela uses LLMs in legal analysis and structured debate 47:08 — Which tools she avoids, and why data jurisdiction still matters 48:32 — Why she doesn’t follow a single guru and prefers diverse sources of information 49:13 — Where to find Gabriela and follow her work /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/42199335

Burn The Map: AI Is Making SaaS Weird, Pricing Hard, and Authenticity Non-Negotiable w/ Kelly Pronek 07/16/2026

Burn The Map: AI Is Making SaaS Weird, Pricing Hard, and Authenticity Non-Negotiable w/ Kelly Pronek In This Episode: We sit down with Kelly Pronek, go-to-market operator, pricing obsessive, and former Pricefx leader, for a conversation that starts with AI tooling and quickly turns into something bigger: how modern software businesses are being rebuilt in real time. Kelly breaks down why pricing is still one of the hardest jobs in business, why most companies are rolling out AI like a preschool teacher dumping instruments on the floor, and why the real value in the next wave of software may not be the platform at all — it may be the taste, judgment, and specificity of the people using it. This one moves from usage-based pricing and CRM sprawl to dyslexia, neurodivergence, implementation chaos, AI “employees” with hangovers, and the growing premium on real voice in a market flooded with sameness. It’s a sharp conversation about what happens when software gets easier to build, harder to differentiate, and a lot more personal. What We Cover: Why pricing is part science, part art, and still brutally difficult How AI is pushing SaaS from standardization back toward bespoke businesses The case for hybrid pricing models: subscription plus consumption Why performance-based pricing sounds great — until implementation gets in the way How small teams can now build internal tools that used to require enterprise vendors Why content created by AI still needs a human with taste, nuance, and a point of view Neurodivergence, learning styles, and how AI may unlock better ways to think and communicate Why authenticity is becoming more valuable as every company starts to sound the same Guest Bio: Kelly Pronek is a go-to-market and operations leader with deep experience across pricing, SaaS, revenue operations, and emerging business models. She previously spent nearly seven years at Pricefx and now works with startups and operators on go-to-market structure, pricing strategy, and practical AI adoption. Kelly is especially interested in how businesses can use AI to reduce friction, preserve authenticity, and build smarter systems without losing the human signal. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Kelly: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok:BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Burn The Map website: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Kelly Pronek Dan Baird Pricefx Claude OpenAI HubSpot Klaviyo Notion N8N Apollo NotebookLM Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Dan and Kelly open on pricing, AI, and why both are harder than they look 01:38 — Kelly on leaving Pricefx but staying obsessed with pricing 03:05 — AI token addiction, internal adoption chaos, and the question nobody asks: is this producing anything? 06:34 — “At least it tries”: what AI changes for average vs. excellent workers 10:03 — Where people misuse AI most: content creation without human taste 12:01 — Writing style tells on you: checkboxes, em dashes, and the missing dot-dot-dot 13:27 — AI as a thinking partner, not just a writing engine 19:31 — Why neurodivergent people may have an edge in AI-native workflows 21:33 — Back to pricing: collapsing SaaS moats, custom tools, and the return of bespoke systems 23:08 — Why data matters more than software, and why most people won’t use a CRM the way you hope 26:35 — Vibe coding, messy stacks, and the back-end nightmares nobody wants to talk about 29:41 — Kelly’s path into pricing science and why smaller businesses have always had to price with less certainty 32:04 — How AI may make pricing software and pricing research more accessible 37:30 — AI as a force multiplier for technical founders who were never natural marketers 39:12 — Brand, culture, and why inauthentic companies feel like theft 41:54 — Kelly’s startup pricing framework: know your costs, know the market, then price with conviction 43:37 — Hybrid and performance pricing: appealing in theory, messy in practice 45:22 — Implementation is the real bottleneck 48:08 — Which tools still matter when everyone’s stack starts to blur together 49:33 — Kelly’s favorite tools right now: Claude cowork, NotebookLM, and now Whisper 56:41 — Why AI may create more room for actual human connection, not less 57:55 — Most companies are still treating AI like unstructured playtime 59:36 — Decentralized AI, compute limits, and a fragile hope for moral infrastructure /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/42122755

Burn The Map: Why AI Won’t Fix a Leadership Problem w/ Angeley Mullins 07/09/2026

Burn The Map: Why AI Won’t Fix a Leadership Problem w/ Angeley Mullins In This Episode: We talk to Angeley Mullins about what it actually takes to scale in a market where the ground keeps moving under your feet. She gets into the brutal gap between founder-led sales and real product-market fit, why most teams think they have a tech problem when they actually have a leadership problem, and why AI is exposing weak judgment faster than ever. From brand and content to org design and digital leadership, this conversation is a sharp look at what modern go-to-market really demands when speed, scrutiny, and automation are all turned up to eleven. What We Cover: Why founder-led sales can create the illusion of product-market fit Why brand is still the original revenue driver, not some fluffy side project How AI is compressing product cycles and forcing leaders to move faster Why firing content teams right now is a spectacularly bad idea The shift from bloated teams to tiny groups of high-leverage operators Why “a tool is not a strategy” — and definitely not a leadership plan Guest Bio: Angeley Mullins is a go-to-market leader, advisor, and operator who has helped scale seven companies across big tech and high-growth startups, including businesses at IPO and unicorn stages. Based in Germany, she works at the intersection of AI, revenue, brand, and digital transformation, helping founders and CEOs build smarter, faster, and with a lot less delusion. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn:X: Follow Angeley: LinkedIn: Instagram: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Angeley Mullins website: Burn The Map: Wrench.ai: The Revenue Divide Article: People and Organizations Mentioned: Ninox Miro Vanta HubSpot Klaviyo Loveable Synthesia Clay Anthropic Google Gemini Microsoft ShowNotes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Why GTM is harder than most people admit 01:32 — The real danger zone: fake product-market fit 03:03 — Why AI has made software competition brutally fast 04:24 — Brand isn’t fluff — it’s the original revenue driver 06:23 — How to rank in the GPT era: brand + content 08:24 — Why old decision cycles are dying 10:27 — Automating your own job before AI does it for you 11:35 — The hidden failure mode: AI throughput that isn’t real 13:08 — AI, Google Maps, and the erosion of critical thinking 15:35 — What AI might fix in healthcare — and break in human judgment 17:02 — Why self-awareness and ego control define good leadership 20:43 — Why off-the-shelf CRMs rarely stay off the shelf 21:48 — Investors now want smaller, faster companies 25:06 — The rise of digital leaders and the death of bloated GTM orgs 28:33 — Why AI adoption is a huge consulting category now 29:39 — Which operators Angeley watches as the market shifts 31:25 — The coming white-collar displacement wave 34:20 — Europe vs. the U.S.: the real issue is culture, not tech 36:22 — Why Angeley thinks Asia is the real future /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/42027180

Burn The Map: Why AI Won’t Fix a Leadership Problem w/ Angeley Mullins 07/09/2026

Burn The Map: Let the AI Do the Work, Let Humans Be Human w/ Chris Singel 07/02/2026

Burn The Map: Let the AI Do the Work, Let Humans Be Human w/ Chris Singel In This Episode: We talk to Chris Singel about comedy, marketing, AI, media trust, and the quietly unnerving future of work. Chris has spent more than 20 years making people laugh — teaching improv, sketch, and stand-up, and spending nearly a decade at Funny or Die — so he’s got a sharp read on what actually lands with an audience versus what just tries too hard. His core idea: you probably can’t teach someone to be funny, but you absolutely can help them understand what they find funny and how to make other people come along for the ride. From there, the conversation gets bigger fast. We get into why crowd work is exploding, why authenticity is both powerful and dangerously easy to fake, and how AI is already good enough to change the way creative work gets made. Chris doesn’t do the usual techno-utopian fantasy or anti-AI panic spiral. He’s more interesting than that. He’s asking the messier question: if machines increasingly handle the labor, what exactly are humans supposed to do with themselves — and are we ready for the answer? What We Cover: Why comedy isn’t magic, but it also isn’t a formula you can copy-paste The difference between being shocking and being actually funny What stand-up teaches you about audiences, iteration, and killing your darlings Why comedians are often better listeners than the people interviewing them How comedy mechanics show up in branding, virality, and marketing What AI can already do well in writing and creative work — and where it still falls flat Why hyper-personalized media is coming fast, and why that’s both useful and creepy The future of work, post-scarcity fantasies, and whether humans will know what matters when efficiency wins Guest Bio: Chris Singel is a marketer, comedian, former news producer, and founder of Delta Digital Agency. He spent nearly a decade at Funny or Die and has been performing and teaching comedy for over 20 years across improv, sketch, and stand-up. His work sits at the intersection of storytelling, audience psychology, and AI — helping brands communicate better while also exploring what happens when the machines get good enough to join the writer’s room. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Chris: LinkedIn: Instagram: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Delta Digital Agency: Wrench.ai: Burn The Map: People and Organizations Mentioned: Funny or Die Delta Digital Agency Wrench.ai Zach Galifianakis Anthony Jeselnik Mitch Hedberg Norm Macdonald Tig Notaro Dave Chappelle Joe Rogan Theo Von CNN Fox News Tucker Carlson Jon Stewart Rupert Murdoch TJ Miller Rory Scovel Andy Haynes Danny Rouhier Chris Farley Mike Myers Show Notes & Timestamps: 01:45 — Misdirection, offensive comedy, and the theory of benign violation 04:10 — Improv terminology, status, character, physicality, and Chris Farley’s genius 05:21 — First-time stand-up advice: getting your first laughs and surviving your second set 06:12 — Is there a formula for comedy? Chappelle, structure, repetition, and art vs. mechanics 08:02 — What muscles comedy builds: audience awareness, restructuring, and point of view 09:39 — The hardest comedians to copy: Emo Philips, Mitch Hedberg, Norm Macdonald 10:57 — Shock value vs. actual craft, plus Tig Notaro’s layered joke construction 12:12 — How comedy thinking applies to marketing, virality, and ad creative 13:08 — Funny or Die’s volume game: make 12 things, let 6 flop, and scale what works 15:38 — Why comedians are strong listeners, and why crowd work dominates social clips 16:32 — Comedy podcasts, politics, and why comics now have media-scale influence 17:19 — Dave Chappelle, misinterpretation, and the risks of being treated as a truth source 18:55 — Trust, institutions, and the weird migration from journalism to personality media 21:21 — News ownership, incentives, and the corporate logic behind public narratives 23:53 — AI video, synthetic content, and the terrifying rise of actually watchable slop 27:45 — How AI changes creative work: prompting, iteration, and removing human middlemen 31:04 — Personalized marketing, emotional targeting, and the future of one-to-one persuasion 33:54 — AGI, recursive intelligence, and why the sci-fi future feels uncomfortably close 36:03 — What humans are still “needed” for when work gets automated 39:25 — AI, time freedom, and the trap of using saved time to just do more work 40:09 — Eisenhower matrices, family priorities, and deciding what actually matters 41:24 — What Chris is best at: persuasion, performance, and reading the room 43:08 — When persuasion backfires: scope creep, people pleasing, and values drift 47:39 — Chris’s AI book experiments and what machine “thought” reveals about human anxiety 53:16 — Delta Digital Agency, how Chris works, and where to follow him online /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41946845

Burn The Map: Let the AI Do the Work, Let Humans Be Human w/ Chris Singel 07/02/2026

Burn The Map: Build the Bot, Break the Bot, and Fix the System w/ Bradford Carlton 06/25/2026

Burn The Map: Build the Bot, Break the Bot, and Fix the System w/ Bradford Carlton In This Episode: We talk to Bradford Carlton about what happens when a former attorney gets obsessed with automation, agentic systems, and the uncomfortable truth that most businesses have no idea how their own work actually gets done. Bradford walks through his shift from running a law firm to building AI-powered workflows, dashboards, bug-reporting bots, homeschool tools, and what’s basically a personal operating system for his life. This conversation gets into the difference between AI that looks impressive and AI that actually works. Bradford is blunt about the part most people skip: the real value isn’t in generating code or spinning up 600 workflows—it’s in the debugging, the testing, the logic, and the discipline to break work down into tasks a machine can actually execute. If you’re trying to use AI inside a business without drowning in hype, this one’s for you. What We Cover: How Bradford went from lawyer to business consultant to full-blown AI systems builder. Why most automation projects fail before they start—because people can’t explain their own processes. The gap between flashy demos and workflows that survive contact with reality. How Bradford uses tools like N8N, Claude Code, and Gemini to build systems for business, family, and everyday life. Why bug fixing, governance, and feedback loops matter more than whatever shiny new model dropped this week. What AI might do to law, education, white-collar work, and the way humans spend their time. Guest Bio: Bradford Carlton is a former attorney turned business consultant, automation strategist, and AI systems builder. After leaving the legal profession in 2018, he shifted into helping businesses improve operations through systems, processes, and task-based automation. Today, he builds agentic workflows and practical AI tools using platforms like N8N and Claude Code, with a focus on making messy human work more structured, testable, and scalable. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Bradford: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Bradford Carlton website: Burn The Map: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Bradford Carlton Dan Baird Wrench.ai ChatGPT Claude Code N8N Gemini Nvidia Tesla Google Merchant Center Reddit Facebook YouTube Show Notes & Timestamps: 01:33 — First encounters with GPT-era AI and the early frustration of auto-generated junk 03:35 — From failed autocoding attempts to visual builders, YouTube content, and Bradford’s “Roger” framework 05:13 — Why Claude Code changed everything and how Bradford now structures his workflow around it 06:12 — Of 600 workflows, what actually works? The difference between building volume and building value 07:24 — The bug-reporting bot: Bradford’s favorite system because everything else keeps breaking 09:10 — The DEFT system: diet, exercise, fitness, and tracking as a real-world AI use case 09:56 — Why the hard part isn’t generation—it’s feedback loops, refinement, and prevention 12:16 — AI-enabled organizations, orchestration layers, and the risk of “completed” work that never reaches the customer 15:19 — How Bradford starts new builds: prompt, plan, iterate, break, debug, repeat 18:52 — Building a homeschool bot and what personalized AI tutoring means for education 21:06 — Why systems and process discipline matter more than hype 22:06 — Most businesses don’t know what they actually do all day 25:09 — Why law is one of the professions most exposed to AI disruption 27:26 — Keeping up with a field that seems to reinvent itself every week 28:37 — Human jobs, digital twins, and the future of interpersonal work 32:01 — What happens when bots make agreements on behalf of people? 34:30 — The new bottleneck: simple tasks that still require human hands 35:48 — Why building with AI feels more like chess than coding 41:43 — Pricing AI work in a race-to-the-bottom market 44:08 — The adoption curve: why most of the market still barely understands what these tools can do 49:02 — Bradford’s practical advice: start with process clarity, then use N8N before jumping into full code /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41810880

Burn The Map: Random Acts of Marketing Are Killing Your Growth w/ Michael “Buzz” Buzinski 06/19/2026

Burn The Map: Random Acts of Marketing Are Killing Your Growth w/ Michael “Buzz” Buzinski In This Episode: We talk to Michael “Buzz” Buzinski about what it takes to build a company that can actually grow without the founder becoming the bottleneck, the brand, and the burnout point all at once. Buzz breaks down why so many B2B founder-led businesses get stuck in what he calls random acts of marketing—a messy cycle of reactive decisions, scattered messaging, and growth that depends way too much on the owner staying in the middle of everything. We also get into why B2B buying is still emotional no matter how much people pretend it’s rational, why most “AI experts” are sprinting way ahead of reality, and why judgment, context, and lived experience are only getting more valuable as the cost of content drops toward zero. It’s part growth strategy, part anti-hype AI conversation, and part founder therapy session. What We Cover: Why being a “useful” founder can actually make your company less valuable What random acts of marketing look like, and how they quietly wreck growth Why B2B buyers run on emotion first and logic second The case for building a founder-free revenue engine Why AI is powerful, but still needs adults in the room How expertise, institutional knowledge, and human judgment become more valuable in an automated world Guest Bio: Michael “Buzz” Buzinski is the founder of Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing, where he helps B2B founder-led companies build scalable, founder-free revenue engines. With a background spanning creative, strategy, branding, and entrepreneurship, Buzz focuses on helping businesses escape reactive growth, simplify their messaging, and stop depending on founder heroics to make the whole thing work. He’s also the host of Becoming Founder Free, where he explores how entrepreneurs can grow companies that don’t collapse every time the founder steps away. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Buzz: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing: Becoming Founder Free: Wrench.ai — People and Organizations Mentioned: Michael “Buzz” Buzinski Dan Baird Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing Wrench.ai ChatGPT Claude Perplexity Google Apple Microsoft IBM Samsung NotebookLM Michael Gerber Dan Sullivan Dr. Benjamin Hardy Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Dan and Buzz kick off with remote work, virtual happy hours, and why real conversations still matter 02:08 — The coming wave of boomer-owned businesses that may never sell 02:57 — Buzz’s mission to help create 17 million jobs through entrepreneurship 05:23 — How Buzz reverse-engineered growth into a jobs-created model 07:13 — Dan’s “smile wrinkles” metric and what success actually looks like 08:24 — Why helping build companies from zero to one matters more than ownership 10:41 — Time as the only truly non-replenishable commodity 11:26 — AI, work ethic, and why Buzz thinks Gen Alpha may revolt against digital overload 19:10 — Taking B2B marketing from boring to buzzworthy 20:09 — Why B2B buying is still emotional, even when everyone pretends it’s rational 25:10 — Buzz’s FOCUS framework: fix one clearly urgent struggle for one clearly unique stakeholder 27:56 — Why most self-proclaimed AI experts are bluffing 30:14 — The real bottleneck in AI: human adoption, not capability 35:25 — Why 10-year plans may already be obsolete 46:14 — “Knowledge is no longer power”: Buzz’s thesis for the post-AI era 47:16 — Why expertise and context matter more now, not less 48:44 — Why smaller B2B firms should stay off the bleeding edge 1:04:14 — As AI cheapens content, human fingerprints become more valuable 1:07:27 — Why “authenticity” is overused but still hard to fake 1:09:16 — How Buzz uses AI as a writing partner without handing over his voice 1:18:49 — “A useful founder has a useless company” 1:20:15 — The goal: build a company that no longer depends on founder approval 1:21:21 — Where to find Buzz and why founder dependency is only getting worse /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41697720

Burn The Map: Digital Twins, Human Judgment, and AI That Actually Works w/ Stephanie Sylvestre 06/11/2026

Burn The Map: Digital Twins, Human Judgment, and AI That Actually Works w/ Stephanie Sylvestre In This Episode: We talk to Stephanie Sylvestre about what it means to build AI that actually helps people instead of just adding more noise, risk, and technical debt to the pile. She’s been working in this space long before the current AI hype cycle, and her perspective is refreshingly grounded: useful AI should remove busywork, expand human capacity, and still keep a human in the driver’s seat. Stephanie walks through the accidental origin story behind AvatarBuddy, her belief that mentorship is really a supply chain problem, and why digital twins could make guidance, support, and opportunity available at a scale the real world has never been able to offer. We also get into the less sexy—but way more important—side of AI: responsible implementation, secure systems, bloated code, fake experts, and why “faster” is not the same thing as “better.” What We Cover: How a misheard conversation led Stephanie to the idea of digital mentors Why human-centered AI beats AI-for-AI’s-sake every time The real reason vibe coding won’t replace actual developers What most people get wrong about autonomous agents and AI safety Why expertise, judgment, and ethical responsibility still matter in an AI-first world Guest Bio: Stephanie Sylvestre is an AI entrepreneur, operator, and co-founder of AvatarBuddy, where she’s building practical, human-centered AI agents designed to remove busywork and expand access to mentorship and support. Before that, she led technology and operations in high-stakes environments, including public-sector leadership in Miami, where her long-range cloud and automation strategy helped organizations stay functional through COVID disruption. Her work sits at the intersection of systems thinking, responsible AI, and real-world human impact. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Mike: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: AvatarBuddy: People and Organizations Mentioned: Stephanie Sylvestre Dan Baird AvatarBuddy Wrench.ai Hewlett Packard Belize Miami Meta Google Show Notes & Timestamps: 01:14 — The accidental origin story: mishearing “digital mentors” 02:38 — Why mentorship is a supply chain problem AI can help solve 03:18 — Belize, poverty, and the systems view that shaped Stephanie’s worldview 04:42 — Learning computer science from an original Unix coder 05:23 — From consulting to CIO, and the backstory behind “CIO of the Year” 06:18 — Building a fully cloud-based operation before COVID hit 08:06 — Funding agencies through the pandemic and keeping Miami from going sideways 10:41 — The early days of AvatarBuddy and building with teens in low-resource communities 12:33 — First prototype, intern talent, and mentoring young operators without burning them out 16:29 — Auto-backup, safe failure, and how to help people push the envelope 17:22 — Mining the internet for trends and developing real technical talent early 19:07 — Why coding is only a fraction of what great developers actually do 20:35 — AI-generated code, technical debt, and the problem with bloated repos 22:34 — The right and wrong ways to use vibe coding 23:16 — Security risks, root access, and why sloppy AI implementation gets dangerous fast 32:57 — Open tools, security updates, and not surrendering the driver’s seat to AI 35:47 — Why unsupervised agentic AI is like hiring a teenager to handle your top customer 37:56 — Responsible AI, human review, and the real copy-paste-edit workflow 39:53 — Why content knowledge still matters in an AI world 41:13 — The future of AI: smaller models, data vaults, and specialized agents 44:52 — Where humans still create the real value 47:41 — How to spot true experts versus charlatans 50:05 — When not to use AI, and why simple beats impressive 52:51 — Stephanie’s filter: too complex, too costly, or ethically off? Hard no. 53:26 — The future of AvatarBuddy: digital twins and personality chips 55:37 — Trauma-informed AI, biometrics, and staying in equilibrium 56:23 — Where to find Stephanie and a Burn The Map listener bonus 56:45 — Who Stephanie follows to stay sharp on AI /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41616995

Burn The Map: Why Human-First AI Wins w/ Mike Montague 06/04/2026

Burn The Map: Why Human-First AI Wins w/ Mike Montague In This Episode: We talk to Mike Montague about what it looks like to use AI without becoming lazy, robotic, or completely unbearable. Mike’s the founder of Avenue9, a marketer-who-codes, a broadcaster-turned-podcaster, and one of the few people talking about AI in a way that doesn’t sound like either a doomer spiral or a LinkedIn hallucination. His core bet is simple: AI should make humans better at building trust, not better at faking it. Mike breaks down why so much “agentic AI” still feels more like a magic trick than true autonomy, why most companies are using personalization in the dumbest possible way, and why the real opportunity is in removing friction—not replacing human judgment. He and Dan also get into cognitive overload, AI burnout, context engineering, the small-business advantage, and why average work is about to have a very hard time hiding. This is a sharp one for anyone trying to figure out how to use AI to get more human, not less. What We Cover: Why AGI may be closer than people think—but still isn’t here The difference between Terminator AI and Iron Man AI Why “human-first AI marketing” is really about trust, context, and judgment How fake personalization backfires the second people smell the template Why small businesses may be better positioned than giant brands in the AI shift The three types of work—physical, intellectual, and emotional—and why marketing lives in the messiest category How context engineering helps train AI on what actually makes a company different Why speed alone is not the win if it fries your brain in the process How to think about work, creativity, and finding the thing that makes you come alive Guest Bio: Mike Montague is the founder of Avenue9 and the host of the Human First AI Marketing podcast. He’s spent his career at the intersection of sales, marketing, media, and technology—combining broadcaster instincts, systems thinking, and a sharp eye for what actually earns attention. Mike is also the author of Playful Humans, where he explores creativity, emotional work, and how people can build lives and careers around what makes them come alive. His work focuses on helping companies use AI to amplify human connection instead of automating the soul out of the experience. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Mike: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Avenue9: Human First AI Marketing podcast: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Mike Montague Dan Baird Avenue9 Wrench.ai Meta Anthropic Google NotebookLM Netflix Seth Godin Rory Sutherland Lex Friedman Shelley Palmer Show Notes & Timestamps:01:05 — Why AI adoption went from taboo to everywhere to polarizing 02:00 — Is AGI close? Mike’s take on the next 3–4 years 02:28 — Why agentic AI still feels like a magic trick 03:29 — What changed in real workflow: replacing old work vs evolving new work 05:21 — Why Mike trademarked “human-first AI marketing” 07:00 — The three types of work: physical, intellectual, and emotional 09:43 — Information overload, AI burnout, and cognitive fatigue 11:17 — Automating low-value decisions to protect meaningful work 12:07 — Terminator vs Iron Man: two competing visions of AI 14:09 — What most companies are getting wrong with AI 15:21 — Human + AI capability mapping inside an organization 16:18 — Where AI is clearly useful: translation, transcription, scale 17:38 — Where human context still matters most in marketing and service 18:36 — Context engineering and training AI like a new employee 21:15 — Personalization, long-tail products, and what custom experiences could become 23:38 — Why small businesses may have the biggest AI advantage 25:01 — AI-generated outreach, job applications, and the return of human filtering 26:13 — Why people reward real effort with real attention 28:44 — Novelty, emotion, and what actually makes ideas spread 30:10 — Why Mike refuses to chase shortcuts and growth hacks 31:35 — Playful Humans, interviewing 250 people who “play” for a living 34:03 — How to find your “muse” and work that feels natural 37:02 — Why “What do you want to be?” is the wrong question 38:23 — Burn the Map, order vs chaos, and why interesting work lives in between 39:39 — Dan’s take on displacement, productivity, and why average work is vulnerable 41:24 — Why Burn The Map exists: conversations with people who have a fire in their belly 44:22 — Where to find Mike and who should check out his work 45:16 — Mike’s favorite thinkers and voices in marketing and AI /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41542865

Burn The Map: Community, Concrete, and the Coming Automation Wave w/ Matthew Byrd 05/29/2026

Burn The Map: Community, Concrete, and the Coming Automation Wave w/ Matthew Byrd In This Episode: We talk to Matthew Byrd about what it takes to build a real community around emerging technology instead of just slapping “innovation” on a sales deck and calling it a day. Matthew is the founder of Reality Capture Network (RCN) and the guy behind R-CON, a conference built for the people modernizing the physical world—construction, infrastructure, facilities, transportation, and all the messy, essential systems that keep society standing up. He breaks down why the built environment is such a massive and overlooked opportunity, how digitizing physical spaces unlocks everything from AI analysis to robotics to autonomous vehicles, and why the real leverage isn’t just in the tech—it’s in helping people understand what the tech is actually for. We also get into a deeper thread running underneath the whole conversation: why community matters more than content, why in-person relationships still beat digital convenience, and why the people shaping the future should probably be the ones close enough to the work to understand the consequences. What We Cover: Why Matthew built RCN and R-CON to close the education gap around emerging tech in the built environment How digitizing physical spaces creates the foundation for AI, robotics, autonomy, and smarter infrastructure Why autonomous driving, delivery, and robotics are coming faster than most people think The difference between a real community and a dressed-up sales funnel pretending to be one Why giving value without strings attached is still one of the best business strategies on earth Why in-person events, handshakes, and actual human connection still outperform a mountain of cold outreach Guest Bio: Matthew Byrd is the founder of Reality Capture Network (RCN) and creator of R-CON, an annual conference focused on emerging technologies shaping the built environment. With a background in surveying and hands-on work across hospitals, airports, freeways, and infrastructure projects, Matthew built his platform around a simple idea: if technology is going to transform how we build and operate the physical world, the people in that world need a better way to learn, connect, and adapt. He’s equal parts industry translator, community builder, and believer in getting involved before the future gets decided for you. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Matthew: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Reality Capture Network: R-CON 2026: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Matthew Byrd Dan Baird Reality Capture Network R-CON Wrench.ai Steve Jobs Hilti Niantic Amazon Boise State Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Dan welcomes Matthew and asks the obvious question: what the hell is R-CON, and why build it? 01:34 — Matthew explains RCN, R-CON, and the education gap around emerging built-environment technology 04:56 — Why the built environment is such a compelling and important vertical 07:35 — The giant opportunity in modernizing trillion-dollar physical industries 09:28 — Digitizing physical spaces: the foundation for AI, robotics, and autonomy 10:40 — Pokémon Go, mapped movement data, and the strange path to robotic delivery 13:53 — Will AI replace jobs, or just remove the worst tasks? 14:56 — Why Matthew believes autonomous driving will reshape society in the next decade 17:27 — Manual driving, public resistance, and why people need a voice in how tech gets adopted 21:36 — The return of analog: cars, phones, and the backlash against overdesigned tech 25:25 — The hardest part of building a community-centered business 26:13 — Matthew on why he sees himself less as a technologist and more as a connector 27:33 — Why in-person conferences still beat virtual when real trust is on the line 30:49 — What actually makes a community real—and what makes it fake 34:23 — Giving without strings attached and why that creates stronger long-term outcomes 36:08 — Where to find Matthew, RCN, and R-CON 37:44 — Why people need other builders around them, especially in the digital age 39:31 — Open bars, casino nights, football fields, and the mechanics of making business relationships actually happen 41:00 — Why not burning bridges still matters more than most people admit /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41467650

Burn The Map: SEO, LLMs, and Calling Bullshit Early w/ Jason Berkowitz 05/14/2026

Burn The Map: SEO, LLMs, and Calling Bullshit Early w/ Jason Berkowitz In This Episode: We talk to Jason Berkowitz about the weird, messy overlap between SEO, AI search, and the growing industry of people selling certainty where there really isn’t any. Jason breaks down what’s actually changing, what’s mostly recycled packaging, and why a lot of the current GEO/LLM optimization conversation is just old-school SEO wearing a sharper outfit. He walks through the real problems brands are dealing with right now: collapsing organic traffic, bot scraping, fuzzy attribution, shifting baselines, and leadership teams asking for answers before the platforms themselves have settled. The throughline here is simple: don’t confuse novelty with clarity. AI is changing search, but that doesn’t mean you should hand your strategy over to people promising magic tricks. What still matters is judgment, strong fundamentals, clear messaging, and knowing the difference between useful automation and expensive theater. What We Cover: Why SEO isn’t dead — it’s just getting stranger, noisier, and harder to measure The truth about GEO, AEO, and LLM optimization, and why so much of it is just repackaged SEO What brands should actually care about as AI overviews and bot traffic eat into old traffic models How to think about AI citations, topical alignment, and visibility without pretending rank tracking is objective What parts of SEO should be automated immediately — and what still needs a human brain Why clear, audience-first messaging beats clever brand language when discoverability is on the line The agency-world bullshit Jason refuses to participate in, from fake certainty to low-integrity client retention Guest Bio: Jason Berkowitz is the founder of Break The Web, an SEO agency focused on helping in-house marketing teams make search less confusing, less bloated, and a lot more honest. He has spent more than 15 years in SEO and digital marketing, building a reputation for sharp thinking, strong opinions, and very little patience for industry nonsense. Jason works at the intersection of SEO, content strategy, digital PR, and AI search visibility, with a particular obsession for separating what actually works from what’s just being sold well. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Jason: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Break The Web: People and Organizations Mentioned: Break The Web Wrench.ai Google OpenAI ChatGPT Anthropic Claude Gemini Perplexity Reddit Amazon Show Notes & Timestamps:01:14 — Organic traffic drops, bot scraping explodes, and brands start panicking about LLM visibility 04:07 — Google patents, personalized landing pages, and whether the future of search even looks like a browser anymore 05:32 — Consumer trust, ChatGPT behavior, and why mainstream adoption still matters more than tech Twitter takes 09:34 — Market share, AI business models, and why the infrastructure race won’t slow down anytime soon 13:06 — Tracking AI visibility with APIs, topical alignment, and why personalization makes “rank tracking” messy 16:09 — Reddit, sarcasm, trolling, and whether LLMs can reliably tell signal from nonsense 19:51 — Why simple, audience-first language beats clever naming when you want to be understood by both humans and machines 23:38 — Automating the boring SEO work without sacrificing strategic thinking 25:42 — Are AI systems smarter than marketers yet? Jason and Dan split the difference 32:48 — The biggest lie in the industry right now: “SEO is dead” 33:44 — Why some GEO agencies are charging real money for glorified PR and content packaging 36:31 — Agency churn, retention, and the brutal math behind low-integrity service businesses 37:23 — The part of SEO Jason refuses to automate: strategy, architecture, and relationship-driven judgment 41:07 — What Break The Web actually does, and why in-house marketers often stall out before real growth starts 44:04 — Search intent, topical clusters, and balancing brand voice with what Google will actually reward 47:00 — Jason’s “oh shit” moment: building around one giant client and nearly learning the hard way 48:45 — Why Jason caps client concentration and refuses to overload the business for short-term revenue 49:45 — No contracts, expectation-setting, and earning the business every month 52:01 — Quick wins, buyer’s remorse, and the psychology of keeping clients confident early 53:07 — Entrepreneurship, boredom, obsession, and why some people just aren’t built for retirement 54:03 — Mexico jungles, isolation, mental reset, and the strange therapy of going off-grid /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41299685

Burn The Map: Build, Buy, or Get Left Behind w/ Jonathon ‘Coach K” Kvarfordt 05/07/2026

Burn The Map: Build, Buy, or Get Left Behind w/ Jonathon ‘Coach K” Kvarfordt In This Episode: We talk to Jonathon Kvarfordt, aka Coach K, about what it actually looks like to implement AI in go-to-market without falling for the easy-button fantasy. Jonathon has spent years in sales coaching, GTM strategy, marketing, and AI education, and most recently helped lead go-to-market at Momentum through its acquisition by Salesforce. He’s one of the few people in the space who sounds like he’s actually done the work—because he has. This conversation gets into where AI projects really break: bad inputs, lazy implementation, fuzzy goals, and teams that want transformation without changing how they operate. Jonathon makes the case that the future isn’t about doing the old workflow a little faster. It’s about rethinking the system underneath it. We also get into the bigger existential question hanging over all of this—if everyone has access to the same models, same tools, same agents… what’s left that’s actually defensible? His answer: your taste, your scars, your judgment, and your IP. What We Cover: How Jonathon went from Momentum customer to advisor to GTM leader during the run-up to the Salesforce acquisition Why most AI implementations fail before they really start The difference between automating old workflows and rebuilding them from scratch Why the best AI often works in the background, removing drudgery instead of creating more work What actually matters when everyone suddenly has access to the same tools Jonathon’s take on build vs. buy, vibe coding, and why your judgment is still the real moat Guest Bio: Jonathon Kvarfordt is a go-to-market and AI operator known for turning emerging AI capability into practical revenue execution. He most recently served as VP of GTM at Momentum, which was acquired by Salesforce, and has worked across sales coaching, marketing, AI implementation, and GTM strategy. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Bryant University and contributes to the broader GTM community through GTM Academy. If you want AI strategy from someone with actual battle scars—not recycled theory—Coach K is worth paying attention to. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn:X: Follow Jonathon: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Jonathon Kvarfordt LinkedIn: People and Organizations Mentioned: Bryant University GTM Academy Mark Benioff Jason Lemkin Kyle Norton Claude Anthropic Allie Miller Jonathan Moss Tahnee Peroy Maya Voje Alex Lindell Dannii Mathers Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Intro: Dan welcomes Jonathon Kvarfordt, aka Coach K 01:14 — Momentum, Salesforce, and how Jonathon ended up inside the company after first being a customer 06:35 — The hardest part of teaching AI and GTM: getting people past one-line prompts and “easy button” thinking 08:22 — Why the future isn’t just faster old workflows—it’s a fundamentally different operating model 09:43 — Biggest implementation failures: bad inputs, weak context, and customers blaming AI for their own laziness 12:29 — What an ideal AI rollout actually looks like when tied to business outcomes and real KPIs 15:22 — Passive data capture, workflow-native AI, and why the best use cases reduce human effort instead of adding to it 18:12 — Is AI smarter than you yet? Jonathon’s take on IP, leverage, and what remains defensible 21:09 — Geekiness, passion, and why human obsession still matters in an AI-saturated world 23:10 — AI music, authenticity, and whether human-created work becomes more valuable as synthetic supply explodes 28:03 — Why the real value of AI output often comes from years of human experience compressed into faster delivery 30:45 — Jonathon’s changed belief: AI may understand emotional intelligence better than most people assume 34:05 — Build vs. buy in the vibe-coding era: what individuals can build vs. what real organizations still struggle to pull off 38:58 — Dan on replacing yourself, MCPs, and teaching AI your decision tree without surrendering judgment 43:32 — Two weeks to learn AI: where late adopters should start and how to avoid wasting money 45:48 — Where to find Jonathon and the thinkers he recommends following /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41210075

Burn The Map: AI, Knowledge Inflation, and the Race to Stay Valuable w/ Tim Kapp 04/30/2026

Burn The Map: AI, Knowledge Inflation, and the Race to Stay Valuable w/ Tim Kapp In This Episode: We talk to Tim Kapp about what happens when AI stops being a cool tool and starts becoming an economic event. Tim breaks down his idea of knowledge inflation — the unsettling reality that the thing most of us have been selling for decades, namely knowledge work, is getting cheaper by the day. From coding and product design to education, law, and marketing, he walks through what happens when intelligence becomes abundant, syntax becomes cheap, and the real value shifts somewhere else. This one goes into the deep end: AI as a force that reorganizes work, rewards taste over rote skill, and exposes entirely new bottlenecks in business. Tim and Dan get into autonomous agents, trust, universities losing their grip as the default signal of competence, and why the winners in this next era may be the people who can read the terrain, think structurally, and build what should exist next. What We Cover: How knowledge inflation is deflating the value of traditional knowledge work. Why syntax is becoming cheap — and why taste, structure, and judgment matter more. What businesses get wrong when they use AI to cut people instead of remove bottlenecks. Why technical product managers and curious operators may be the big winners here. How trust, network effects, IP, and distribution could become the real moats in an AI-saturated world. Guest Bio: Tim Kapp is an AI strategist, economist, professor, and founder of Cinco AI. He works at the intersection of economics, data science, education, and applied AI, and has taught at BYU. Tim has been writing and speaking about the economic consequences of artificial intelligence — especially how AI is reshaping knowledge work, incentives, and competitive advantage. He publishes his thinking at timkapp.com and leads AI work through cinco.ai. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by Follow Dan: LinkedIn:X: Follow Tim: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Tim Kapp: Tim Kapp Press Kit: Cinco AI: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Cinco AI Wrench.ai BYU University of Utah Anthropic OpenAI Meta Google Amazon Ethan Mollick Rick Rubin Bertrand Russell Adam Smith Sandlot Silicon Slopes Show Notes & Timestamps: 01:22 — Tim explains knowledge inflation and why knowledge work is being deflated 03:16 — AI as a printing press for knowledge 04:09 — The “I’m replaceable” moment, and the weird grief cycle of AI adoption 06:01 — Why using AI well feels like suddenly acquiring superpowers 07:53 — Theory of constraints, bottlenecks, and why cutting staff can backfire 10:23 — Decision-making hierarchies, internal knowledge systems, and “DNA files” 11:23 — Why brand, feeling, and emotional texture may matter more in AI-built products 14:22 — AI slop, synthetic personas, and testing experiences against simulated users 17:34 — Tim’s book I’m Learning You and the problem of AI systems optimizing to flatter and influence us 19:19 — Recommendation engines, retention loops, and political polarization 22:29 — Why AI may be making people work more, not less 23:36 — The latest inflection point: automated testing starts beating human testing 28:04 — Why syntax is becoming less valuable and structure is becoming more valuable 29:36 — Ontologies, product thinking, and why technical product managers may win this era 31:38 — Rick Rubin, taste, and why feel may outrun pure technical skill 33:30 — Wi-Fi in the woods, discomfort, and stepping back to read the terrain 36:19 — If AI breaks the bottleneck, where does value migrate next? 38:12 — Sovereign AI, open models, and the geopolitical scramble for control 40:23 — Autonomous agents, manipulation, and the blackmail-by-bot scenario 47:20 — The hidden cost of training AI on your own judgment and process 50:50 — The next durable moats: trust, capital, network effects, and IP 53:52 — Why AI may become the single biggest economic event of our lifetimes 55:19 — Bertrand Russell, idleness, and what humans should do if machines take more of the work 59:11 — What kids should learn now in an AI-native world 1:00:48 — Why universities may be failing as a signal of actual capability 1:04:12 — Curiosity, applied learning, and why goofing off with tools may be the real education 1:06:00 — Burn The Map, obsession, and the people who can’t help but chase the thing /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/41081690

Burn The Map: AI Teammates, Human Judgment, and the End of Lazy Management w/ Scott Morris 04/24/2026

Burn The Map: AI Teammates, Human Judgment, and the End of Lazy Management w/ Scott Morris In This Episode: We talk to Scott Morris about the weird, messy, often badly managed reality of work — and why AI might actually make it better, if we stop using it as an excuse to be lazy thinkers. Scott walked us through the path from LAPD officer to longtime people executive to founder of Propulsion AI, where he’s building AI teammates designed to help companies stop treating humans like interchangeable headcount and start getting serious about performance, clarity, and meaningful work. This conversation goes way past the usual “AI will take your job” panic. Scott makes the case that most companies blaming layoffs on AI are mostly hiding old-school boardroom decisions behind a shiny new acronym. What actually matters, he argues, is whether leaders know how to define outcomes, give real feedback, and redesign work so humans can spend less time on drudgery and more time using judgment, creativity, and initiative. What We Cover: Why the “AI is causing all the layoffs” story is mostly corporate cover How bad managers create confusion, disengagement, and avoidable turnover Why outcome-based work beats activity-based work every time What Propulsion AI is actually building — and why “AI teammates” is more than a buzzword How work changes when humans stop doing the repetitive stuff and start doing the thinking Why Scott believes the future belongs to people who can adapt faster than the old job description Guest Bio: Scott Morris is the founder of Propulsion AI, where he’s building AI teammates that help organizations align strategy, talent, and performance. Before launching the company, Scott spent around 25 years in the people and HR world, including more than 20 years in senior leadership roles. Earlier in his career, he served as a police officer with the City of Los Angeles — an experience that shaped his fascination with perception, human behavior, and why people can look at the exact same situation and walk away with completely different interpretations. He also hosts the Talent Sherpa podcast, where he explores leadership, management, and the employer-employee relationship. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Scott: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Propulsion AI: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Propulsion AI Wrench.ai Singularity University Peter Diamandis KPMG Salesforce Anthropic Claude Perplexity Lou Adler Jeff Woods Ron Heifetz Marty Linsky Talent Sherpa podcast Block Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Dan’s first impression of Propulsion AI: “defensible” and thoughtfully built 01:07 — Scott’s origin story: from LAPD to people leadership 03:13 — Why people matter more and less than ever in modern business 04:06 — Scott calls bullshit on the “AI is causing all the layoffs” narrative 05:28 — The calculator, Lotus 1-2-3, and why technology panic is an old story 08:04 — How Scott evaluates AI hype versus what’s actually useful 10:20 — Why “AI” is too broad a term to mean anything useful on its own 11:00 — Propulsion AI’s philosophy: make humans better, don’t just replace them 14:50 — What Propulsion AI actually does and why private equity is the beachhead 17:18 — The two things that matter most at work: clear expectations and real feedback 19:15 — Theory X vs. Theory Y management 21:13 — Why outcome-based management beats activity-based management 22:32 — Athena, DSO, and how Scott thinks AI should support managers 27:45 — Why most AI deployments fail: companies add tools without redesigning work 31:50 — What human work becomes when AI takes the drudgery 35:14 — How Scott uses Claude and Perplexity to think and write more deeply 39:00 — Book recommendation: The AI Driven Leader by Jeff Woods 41:04 — Leadership on the Line, adaptive leadership, and why leadership is a verb 43:06 — Why frameworks matter, but only if you know how to apply them 51:20 — Scott bot, AGI, and whether an AI version of you is inevitable 55:43 — Why LinkedIn outreach is getting worse in the bot era 57:03 — Where to find Scott, Propulsion AI, and the Talent Sherpa podcast /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40998890

Burn The Map: Customer First, Technology Last w/ Chris Hood 04/17/2026

Burn The Map: Customer First, Technology Last w/ Chris Hood In This Episode: We talk to Chris Hood about why most companies are nowhere near as customer-focused as they think they are. Chris breaks down the gap between saying you care about customer experience and actually building a business around it — and spoiler: most brands are optimizing for internal convenience, not customer value. From bloated onboarding flows and fake “customer-first” language to AI rollouts nobody asked for, this conversation is a sharp reality check for anyone building products, managing growth, or hiding behind vanity metrics. He also walks through what good customer experience actually looks like: talking to real people, finding the actual problem worth solving, and reducing the friction between customer need and customer value. If you’ve ever wondered why businesses keep building things backward — starting with tech, dashboards, or executive ego instead of the customer — this one gets into the bones of it. What We Cover: Why customer experience is really about speed to value, not vibes or brand theater How companies fool themselves into thinking they’re customer-centric when they’re not Why talking to customers beats obsessing over frameworks, surveys, and internal assumptions The problem with NPS, CSAT, and other vanity metrics that make teams feel smart without telling them much How AI gets shoved into products for efficiency theater — and why customers usually don’t care unless it actually solves something Guest Bio: Chris Hood is an author, educator, and customer experience strategist focused on the overlap between CX, business transformation, and emerging technology. He teaches at Southern New Hampshire University and is the author of Customer Transformation, where he argues for a simple principle: customer first, technology last. His work challenges companies to stop confusing internal priorities with real customer value — and to build products that solve actual problems instead of just sounding innovative. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Chris: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Chris Hood: Southern New Hampshire University: Wrench.ai: People and Organizations Mentioned: Southern New Hampshire University Wrench.ai Google Disney Budweiser Cracker Barrel Taco Bell AT&T Netflix McDonald’s ConAgra Mrs. Fields Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Intro: Chris Hood on customer experience, AI, and where companies get it wrong 01:41 — Why everybody is already a customer experience expert 03:42 — Surprise, friction, and the emotional mechanics of bad experiences 05:19 — The simplest rule in business: solve a specific problem 06:09 — McDonald’s, AT&T, cancellations, and the idea of speed to value 08:50 — Subscription businesses, churn blindness, and “good enough” customer experience 10:48 — How many companies really treat CX like a serious initiative? 13:48 — Why Chris thinks Disney is not a customer-first company anymore 15:41 — The self-deception built into bad customer experience strategy 16:22 — The litmus test: ask how a company defines and measures the customer 17:33 — Budweiser, messaging failures, and what priorities reveal 19:41 — Why most companies don’t actually know who their real customer is 22:06 — Cracker Barrel, bad validation, and why employees are not your market 23:02 — Start with the customer, not the product 26:19 — Frameworks are fine, but first: talk to actual human beings 28:45 — Customers are great at telling you what’s broken 29:52 — Chris’s framework from Customer Transformation 30:55 — Customer first, technology last 31:52 — AI hype cycles and why customers mostly care about outcomes 34:41 — Who should own customer experience inside a company? 36:15 — The 20-question signup form and death by internal alignment 38:17 — Why “would you buy this?” is usually the wrong question 39:39 — Solve the problem first; price comes later 41:15 — Why Net Promoter Score is mostly useless 44:10 — CSAT, movie test screenings, and better ways to get real feedback 47:51 — Small focus groups, percentages, and decision risk 50:40 — Brand pivots, customer alienation, and when companies ignore the obvious 54:59 — Outliers, super-fans, and the “messy middle” 59:39 — Post-COVID customer experience and the decline of transparency 01:01:46 — Legal friction, forced technology, and Taco Bell’s AI example 01:05:09 — Why most AI ROI claims fall apart under scrutiny 01:06:27 — Efficiency for the company vs. value for the customer 01:11:57 — Where to find Chris and his work /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40905595

Burn The Map: Builders, Bots, and the Back-Office Mess w/ Grant Fuellenbach 04/10/2026

Burn The Map: Builders, Bots, and the Back-Office Mess w/ Grant Fuellenbach In This Episode: We talk to Grant Fuellenbach about the part of growth most operators ignore until it starts setting money on fire: the back office. Grant works with builders and trades businesses where the work is real, the margins matter, and the systems are often being held together with duct tape, habit, and optimism. He breaks down what actually happens when a company starts growing before its workflows do—and why more leads, more projects, and more hires can make the business worse if the backend never catches up. We also get into the difference between useful AI and shiny-object AI. Grant walks through how he diagnoses workflow bottlenecks, why most businesses have no idea where their time is actually going, and how tools like NotebookLM, AI-native CRMs, and simple automations can make a business dramatically more functional—if you use them with discipline. This is a practical conversation about systems, signal vs. noise, and why most automation templates floating around online are, frankly, trash. What We Cover: Why the trades are still massively underserved by software—and what that breaks downstream How to diagnose workflow problems before blindly throwing AI at them The “do, delegate, delete, defer” framework for figuring out where your time actually goes Why CRM bloat is creating more friction than value How Grant uses NotebookLM for learning, competitor research, and content planning The difference between real automation and brittle template theater Why long-form content still has an edge in an internet filling up with AI slop How weekly reviews and feedback loops help operators stop guessing and start improving Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by . Guest Bio: Grant Fuellenbach is an automation and workflow operator focused on the construction and trades space. He helps growing businesses clean up their backend systems, optimize CRM workflows, improve pipeline visibility, and use AI in ways that actually reduce chaos instead of creating more of it. He also hosts the podcast Beyond The Bid, where he explores systems, growth, and operational efficiency for builders and service businesses. Follow Dan: LinkedIn:X: Follow Grant: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Grant Fuellenbach on LinkedIn: People and Organizations Mentioned: Wrench.ai HubSpot Salesforce Day.ai Claude NotebookLM Gamma Opus Todoist JobTread Alex Hormozi GE Jack Welch Beyond The Bid Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Beard talk, builders, and why the trades deserve better software 01:00 — Why Grant got into the construction workflow space 02:20 — Diagnosing systems instead of pretending every problem is unique 04:25 — Pipeline accuracy, tracking, and getting real-world data into CRM 05:47 — HubSpot, Salesforce, GoHighLevel, and CRM fatigue 06:51 — Why AI-native CRM interfaces may eat traditional SaaS 08:46 — Agentic tools, second-mover advantage, and avoiding shiny-object traps 10:48 — Time audits and the “do, delegate, delete, defer” framework 12:04 — Using NotebookLM to summarize YouTube and kill the fluff 14:03 — Grant’s AI stack: Gamma, NotebookLM, and fast podcast repurposing 16:21 — Competitor research and building 90-day content calendars with NotebookLM 18:17 — How to use AI to learn faster, not just produce faster 19:31 — Why audiences hate AI content when they can smell the shortcut 21:59 — Inbound growth through diagnostics and assessments 23:47 — Personality models, employee satisfaction, and where psych frameworks break 25:19 — Turning personality reports into practical weekly planning 26:57 — Matchmaking, communication patterns, and sales velocity 29:16 — Working yourself out of a job through better systems 30:07 — The RICE framework for prioritizing what matters 32:22 — What AI gets wrong, and how Grant cross-checks models 34:21 — Long-form vs short-form in the age of AI-generated content 35:29 — Why most automation templates are garbage 39:53 — Todoist, swipe files, and building an automated second brain 41:58 — Feedback loops, weekly reviews, and actually learning from your own work 45:40 — Where to find Grant and his podcast, Beyond The Bid /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40796410

Burn The Map: Killing the Drudgery, AI Plumbing in the Wall, and System of Record w/ Christian Hammer 04/02/2026

Burn The Map: Killing the Drudgery, AI Plumbing in the Wall, and System of Record w/ Christian Hammer In This Episode: We sit down with Christian Hammer (Founder & CEO of Ngentix) to talk about the unsexy problem that breaks AI in the real world: execution across messy systems. Christian calls what he’s building “AI plumbing in the wall”—the infrastructure layer that connects tools, enforces policy, and kills the drudgery (think: PDF → QuickBooks copy/paste hell) without pretending an LLM is magically reliable. This one is for product-minded builders: we get into why “agents” can make operations worse if you don’t have a system of record, why momentum beats velocity, and how the future UI probably isn’t another dashboard—it’s zero UI. Tech fades into the background, humans get their time back. What We Cover: Why tech disruption isn’t new—the speed is what’s brutal now LLMs as the next abstraction layer (and why that’s a once-in-a-generation shift) Evergreen skills that won’t get obsoleted: engineering thinking, empathy, philosophy The missing piece in most companies: a system of record for execution “Sarah’s time off”: the human router bottleneck hiding inside every org Why most teams get faster at doing the wrong thing (and call it “progress”) Agile vs “Fragile”: why momentum (mass + velocity) is the metric that actually matters Zero UI / ambient automation: software shouldn’t be the center—you are Authenticity backlash: why AI-generated everything makes human-made more valuable Guest Bio: Christian Hammer is the founder and CEO of Ngentix (), building “AI plumbing in the wall”—automation infrastructure that connects systems, eliminates business drudgery, and creates a system of record for execution when humans (and agents) need to know what happened, why it happened, and what to do next. He’s also an inventor, author, podcaster, and working artist focused on making technology feel less like “the tyranny of the terminal” and more like something humans can actually live with. Enjoy! This show was Brought to you by Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Christian: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Ngentix: Christian’s hub: Christian’s art: People and Organizations Mentioned: Christian Hammer Dan Baird Ngentix Wrench.ai Claude / Claude Code Crab & Oyster painting: Show Notes & Timestamps: 02:53 - Tech disruption isn’t new—it’s the speed that’s different now 04:11 - LLMs as the next abstraction layer (and why that matters) 07:45 - Evergreen skills: engineering mindset, critical thinking, empathy, and philosophy 11:18 - What Christian is building: a system of record for execution (because agents don’t magically fix ops) 13.28 - “Chief”: why the real unlock is clarifying intent and defining “done” 16.49 - Why Christian doesn’t trust LLMs (and why you shouldn’t either—without guardrails) 17:17 - The drudgery thesis: OCR + NER + automation to kill the “PDF → QuickBooks” nonsense 19:14 - “Sarah’s time off”: the hidden human routers inside every company 23:34 - Agile vs. “Fragile”: velocity is incomplete—momentum (mass + velocity) is the real metric 32:51 - The future: tech disappears into the background—plumbing in the wall, more human-to-human value 35:07 - Art, authenticity, and the pullback from AI-generated everything 36:30 - Zero UI / ambient automation: the tool shouldn’t be the center—you are /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40718490

Burn the Map: AI Agents, Trust, and Why “Do AI” Fails w/ David Espindola 03/26/2026

Burn the Map: AI Agents, Trust, and Why “Do AI” Fails w/ David Espindola In This Episode: We talk to David Espindola about the part of the AI boom most companies keep trying to skip: the boring, unsexy work that makes AI real—problem definition, strategy, governance, and trust. David’s written two books (The Exponential Era and Soulful) and spends his time thinking about what happens when exponential tech stops being a keynote and starts breaking things in production. We get into why “go do AI” is an executive-level failure mode, how to decide whether you’re a maker, shaper, or taker, and what it actually takes to build AI agents you can trust—especially when incentives (ads), privacy, and security start pulling the strings. What We Cover: Why “we must be an AI company” is a terrible mandate if you can’t name the problem you’re solving The Makers / Shapers / Takers framework (and why most teams should aim for “shaper,” not “maker”) Why AI ROI is so messy right now (and how bad benchmarking + vague goals make it impossible) Agents and non-determinism: the uncomfortable truth that “it worked 26 times” means nothing How David built Zena, his AI colleague—using RAG to ground the assistant in his knowledge, values, and working style The trust-killers: ads, misaligned incentives, weak security, and “agents in prod” without guardrails Guest Bio: David Espindola is the author of Soulful and The Exponential Era, and the creator of Zena, an AI colleague built around a simple premise: if you can’t trust the system, it’s not helping—you’re just outsourcing risk. David works at the intersection of AI strategy, change management, and human–AI collaboration, with a practical bias toward governance, security, and using AI where it actually fits (not where it looks good in a board meeting). Enjoy! This show was Brought to you by Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow David: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: David’s website: Brainyus: Chat with Zena: Podcast: Conversations with Zena, my AI colleague People and Organizations Mentioned: David Espindola Dan Baird Wrench.ai McKinsey (makers / shapers / takers framework, referenced) OpenAI Anthropic Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:57 — Why The Exponential Era came first; the SPX methodology (Agile + design thinking + more) 04:41 — Soulful: what AI is / isn’t; emotional intelligence, trust, and turbulence ahead 07:51 — Biggest implementation mistake: “AI” as mandate vs starting with the problem 08:xx — Makers / Shapers / Takers strategy framework 12:26 — Abundance vs “trickle down”; why ROI is messy in early days 16:43 — 50-year hindsight: today will look primitive 19:46 — The myth that tech automatically reduces hours worked 23:12 — Zena: training an AI colleague; trust as the core feature 24:54 — Ads and incentives: when agents stop being trustworthy 26:26 — How David trains Zena (RAG, memory improving) 29:28 — Non-determinism: why testing AI isn’t like testing traditional software 31:35 — When “agents” turn back into old-school software (APIs, reliability, cost) 33:52 — Where to find David + Brainyus + Zena /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40636000

Burn The Map: Governance Gap, Identity Gap, & Accountability or Bust w/ Allen Martinez 03/12/2026

Burn The Map: Governance Gap, Identity Gap, & Accountability or Bust w/ Allen Martinez In This Episode: We talk to Allen Martinez—founder at Noble Digital and author of The Brand Experience AI Operating System (BX AI OS)—about why so many “AI initiatives” are basically expensive science projects with a chatbot slapped on top. Allen’s take is refreshingly unforgiving: if you don’t close the governance gap, the identity gap, and the accountability gap, you’re not deploying AI—you’re launching brand chaos at machine speed. We get into what it takes to turn AI from a black box into something you can actually run, audit, and improve… without letting marketing, sales, and support ship three different personalities to the same customer. What We Cover: The three gaps that kill AI projects: governance, identity, and accountability—and why you need all three, not “we’ll do that later” Why “we deployed a chatbot” is not a strategy (and how to think in terms of an AI operating system instead) How brand collisions happen when every department optimizes its own AI tool—and why customers feel it as pure friction Why “good enough at scale” becomes AI slop, and how taste + point of view becomes the real competitive edge What it means to make AI auditable (“glass box,” not black box) before a regulator—or your CFO—comes calling The Chevy chatbot “legally binding $1 deal” story as a cautionary tale: not a meme, a governance failure Guest Bio: Allen Martinez is a founder at Noble Digital and the author of The Brand Experience AI Operating System (BX AI OS), a practical framework for taking AI from chaotic experimentation to scalable, brand-safe deployment. With a background spanning film/commercial directing and systems-driven brand execution, Allen focuses on the real-world mechanics of AI in production: behavioral governance, encoded brand identity, and accountability systems that produce receipts—not surprises. Enjoy! This show was Brought to you by Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Allen: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Shadow Ledger assessment: The Brand Experience AI Operating System: Free Access to the First Chapter: People and Organizations Mentioned: Allen Martinez Noble Digital Wrench.ai ArtCenter College of Design (Pasadena) Linda Weinman / lynda.com (mentioned) Razorfish (training mentioned) Show Notes & Timestamps: [~09:38] Why “brand” isn’t your logo, it’s the coherence layer that prevents org-wide collisions [~11:12] What are the “three gaps” that kill AI projects (governance, identity, accountability)? [~13:50] What does it mean to turn AI from a “black box” into a “glass box”? [~26:30] The Chevy chatbot “$1 legally binding deal” story—and why it’s a governance failure, not a meme [~36:28] Why “good enough at scale” becomes brand death by a thousand cuts /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40418805

Burn The Map: Delegation Chaos, Distant Assistants, & The Founder’s Escape Hatch w/ Jaime Jay 02/26/2026

Burn The Map: Delegation Chaos, Distant Assistants, & The Founder’s Escape Hatch w/ Jaime Jay In This Episode: We talk to Jaime Jay about going from the 82nd Airborne to homelessness (more than once), to building a company that helps founders get their time back without blowing up quality, trust, or accountability. Jaime is a hard-nosed systems thinker and one of the founders of Bottleneck Distant Assistants—where they train “distant assistants” (real humans, not “digital assistants”) using a framework he calls Delegation Intelligence. We get into the unsexy truth: delegation isn’t “hire a VA and pray.” It’s building a repeatable system so the business stops pinging you for every micro-decision. We also go deep on category design (“name it / frame it / claim it”), and why the real AI bottleneck isn’t the model—it’s behavior change inside the org. What We Cover: What the military teaches you about structure, trust, and pain tolerance (and how that maps to founder life) How to build a delegation department (not just outsource tasks until everything breaks) Jaime’s 4-step Delegation Intelligence loop: name it, confirm instructions, review/approve, create the signal Category design as a competitive weapon: market the problem, not your product AI in ops: why “ChatGPT can do it” is often cope, and where AI burnout shows up fast Hiring at scale + vetting trust: what it takes to screen thousands without inviting chaos into your systems Guest Bio: Jaime Jay is a military veteran (82nd Airborne), founder, and category-minded operator focused on one thing: helping leaders stop getting crushed by the day-to-day. He’s one of the founders of Bottleneck Distant Assistants, where their team trains and places “distant assistants” using a structured delegation framework (“Delegation Intelligence”) built to reduce admin drag, improve follow-through, and make delegation actually stick. Enjoy! This show was Brought to you by Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Jaime: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Bottleneck Distant Assistants: Delegation IQ Blueprint: Quit Repeating Yourself (book): Military CreatorCon Event: People and Organizations Mentioned: Jaime Jay Bottleneck Distant Assistants 82nd Airborne Christopher Lockhead (mentioned as “godfather of category design”) James Amar (Military CreatorCon) Brian Scudamore (1-800-GOT-JUNK; Dragon’s Den) Whole Foods, Amazon, GoPro (category examples) David Goggins (grit example) Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Dan’s intro: Jaime’s background (founder, veteran, systems thinker) 01:34 — Homelessness, Army, divorce, and walking from Rancho Cucamonga to Huntington Beach 04:31 — Why Jaime loved the 82nd Airborne; structure, training, and failing RIP 06:10 — Failure, pain tolerance, and why entrepreneurs keep going 13:57 — What homelessness teaches you about people, pride, and getting a “leg up” 16:48 — Category design: name it / frame it / claim it; “market the problem” 19:33 — “Delegation Intelligence” + the core problem: founders trapped running vs. growing 22:41 — The 4-step delegation system: name it, confirm instructions, review/approve, create the signal 27:09 — Hiring + vetting at scale: 7,000 interviews, 658 presented (Jaime’s numbers from interview) 30:03 — “Distant assistants” (not digital); 93-video certification; six roles they support 31:44 — AI shifts roles; calculators-in-class analogy; avoid AI overwhelm/burnout 35:22 — Dan on AI’s real challenge: behavior change + implementation, not just “the model” 43:21 — Why “Burn The Map” isn’t “ignore the map”—it’s “outgrow it” 43:49 — Military CreatorCon + category design intensive with Christopher Lockhead 47:32 — Where to find Jaime; Delegation IQ Blueprint 48:11 — Jaime’s book: Quit Repeating Yourself /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40245030

Burn the Map: Clone Your Genius, Survive AI Change, and Middle Management Beware w/ Monica Marquez 02/12/2026

Burn the Map: Clone Your Genius, Survive AI Change, and Middle Management Beware w/ Monica Marquez In This Episode: We sit down with Monica Marquez, co-founder of Flipwork AI and the unofficial change management therapist every modern exec wishes they had on speed dial. Monica’s resume is a “who’s who” of places that love an acronym—NYU, Goldman Sachs, EY, Bank of America—so trust me, she’s seen every flavor of corporate resistance to tech you can imagine. Monica calls out the dirty little secret of AI in the enterprise: Buying the tech is easy; getting humans to actually use it (without mangling your workflows and ROI) is the real Olympic sport. She dishes on why middle managers are often the AI adoption bottleneck, how automation at scale can make your mistakes embarrassingly public, and why “working harder” stopped mattering the second AI walked in the door. What We Cover: The very real gap between AI purchase and AI adoption—why executives fret and middle management digs in its heels How Monica’s “Duolingo meets Deloitte” approach gets humans and agents collaborating, not colliding Why your old playbook is officially dead, and how agentic humans will reshape the org chart (bye, endless middle management layers) The sneaky cultural reasons why some employees see AI as “cheating” (and how to flip that mindset) How to AB-test workflows and build custom agents your team will actually use—because shelfware isn’t a KPI Behind-the-scenes stories on avatars in HR, bias in screening, and why writing an erotic Victorian cover letter won’t get you that ML ops job (but it might make you laugh) Monica’s tactical stack of must-have AI tools: what she actually uses, what’s just hype, and why you still need to get your hands dirty Guest Bio: Monica Marquez is the co-founder of Flipwork AI—a company that specializes in getting humans and AI to work together without burning the place down. A recovering head of talent and champion for diversity in tech, Monica spent 20+ years wrangling people problems everywhere from big banks to Big Four consultancies. She sits on the board of ALFA (Association of Latin Professionals for America, for Latinas in Tech) and publishes the “Ay Ay Ay AI” newsletter—because yes, she’s always the first to kick the tires on new tools, and she’s not afraid to tell you what actually works. If you want tips, tough love, and truths about closing the gap between AI hype and real change—Monica’s your person. Enjoy! This show is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Monica: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Monica’s site/newsletter: People and Organizations Mentioned: Monica Marquez Flipwork AI EY, NYU, Goldman Sachs Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:00 — Why “implementing AI” will break you if you skip change management 06:00 — The hidden ROI-killers nobody benchmarks 13:00 — Psychological barriers: cultural myths, effort vs. impact, and why your team thinks using AI is cheating 20:00 — Reinventing workplaces: agentic humans, clones, and eliminating monotony 30:00 — Bias in hiring, avatars in interviews, and why everyone suddenly has a “perfect” resume 40:00 — Tools Monica actually uses—and which ones are overrated 46:00 — Why middle management is now an endangered species 49:00 — How to find Monica, and why you’d better DM with something interesting /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/40048615

Burn The Map: Holograms, Flat Squirrels, & Why You Really Need Cake on Tuesday w/ Elizabeth Bieniek 01/29/2026

Burn The Map: Holograms, Flat Squirrels, & Why You Really Need Cake on Tuesday w/ Elizabeth Bieniek In This Episode: We sit down with Elizabeth Bieniek: accidental innovator, corporate plane-repairer at 30,000 feet, and author of Cake on Tuesday, a book for people who like their business advice with more real talk and less corporate fluff. Elizabeth walks us through her unpredictable path—from getting an MBA at Babson and tumbling into the tech world, to launching a stealth startup inside Cisco, and then finally distilling years of chaos into 25 lessons for unlocking corporate innovation. Why Cake on Tuesday? Because frankly, what’s the point of slogging through strategy sessions if you’re not enjoying the ride (and the cake)? What We Cover: How to build a “startup inside the mothership” when corporate just wants you to stop asking why Why communication—not just coding—makes or breaks innovation The hard (but hilarious) truth about decision-making, feedback, and why you shouldn’t listen to every single “mentor” Stories from the trenches: flying the plane while building it, collecting callouses (not just LinkedIn endorsements), and why you need to laugh, especially when everything’s on fire How Elizabeth’s book, Cake on Tuesday, became a survival guide for intrapreneurs, founders, and anyone allergic to syrupy corporate motivational posters Guest Bio: Elizabeth Bieniek, author of Cake on Tuesday and host of the Cake on Tuesday podcast, is the kind of leader who asks “why”—loudly, persistently, and (let’s be honest) a bit annoyingly—for the good of slapping sense into business as usual. A veteran of making new things happen inside giant corporations, she’s passionate about helping real doers cut through the noise and actually get things done. Find her at CakeOnTuesday.com Enjoy! This show was brought to you by Wrench.ai. Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Elizabeth: LinkedIn: Cake On Tuesday LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: People and Organizations Mentioned in This Episode: Elizabeth Bieniek Dan Baird Cisco, WebEx Hologram Cake on Tuesday Wrench.ai Show Notes & Timestamps: (00:17) How an ex-holography expert became the go-to for founders who don’t want to crash their planes (or their projects) (03:29) Sneaking into Cisco as an English major: No, you don’t have to write code to shake up big tech (07:18) Building startups inside the belly of the beast—less “special projects,” more “just fix it already” (10:41) Writing post-mortems (the good kind, not the HR kind): How Cake on Tuesday became a book for people who'd rather laugh than cry (14:53) Why innovation is 90% persuasion and 10% trying not to strangle a “waffler” (18:49) The chapter everyone quotes: Don’t Be a Flat Squirrel (you know who you are) (22:16) Reframing disagreement: Be disagreeable, just not a jerk (24:29) How to spot—and work with—actual doers (Hint: They’re busy, but they’ll still answer your call) (35:21) Staying sane: mantra walls, daily stoicism, and refusing to take yourself too seriously /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/39888340

Burn The Map: Outfoxing Wall Street with Dr. Craig Kaplan Pt.2 01/15/2026

Burn The Map: Outfoxing Wall Street with Dr. Craig Kaplan Pt.2 In This Episode: We sit down with Dr. Craig A. Kaplan, the PhD-wielding brains behind Predict Wall Street (and, apparently, the patron saint of retail investors everywhere). Craig walks us through 14 years in the financial trenches, building tech to turn the “dumb money” crowd into a collective force that could actually beat Wall Street at its own game—at least until the hedge funds caught the scent and crashed the party. Brace yourself for a story that’s equal parts “wisdom of crowds,” collective intelligence research, and “what happens when the little guy dares to play with the big boys.” If you still think your hot stock tip has a shot, prepare to have that illusion gently (okay, not-so-gently) shattered. What We Cover: How Craig built Predict Wall Street out of pure force of will (and maybe a touch of ignorance-is-bliss) Why smart money and dumb money aren’t as predictable as you think How to use crowd signals, sentiment, and psychology for an actual edge (no, really) Why everyone else told him this was “impossible” (spoiler: Nobel laureates are not always right) The only three real ways to make money in the stock market—and why almost everyone gets it wrong What collective intelligence really means when the crowd is full of both geniuses and, well... not-geniuses Guest Bio: Dr. Craig A. Kaplan isn’t your average Wall Street whisperer—he’s a pioneer in collective intelligence and the founder of Predict Wall Street, the platform that gave retail investors their brief moment in the sun before the hedge funds rained on the parade. Craig’s research and tech have changed how people think about market signals, crowd psychology, and “dumb money” (newsflash: it isn’t always so dumb). When he’s not upending financial orthodoxy, you’ll find him connecting the dots between AI, data science, and what’s actually possible when you trust a million random brains more than a dozen “experts.” Enjoy! This show was brought to you by Wrench.ai Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Craig: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Predict Wall Street The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki People and Organizations Mentioned: Dr. Craig Kaplan Dan Baird TD Ameritrade Schwab NASDAQ “Dumb money” (sorry, retail investors—it’s a Wall Street thing…) Show Notes & Timestamps: The myth and math of “wisdom of crowds” Getting 14 years’ worth of scars in fintech Why Wall Street’s “smart money” can be its biggest liability How to mine “dumb” opinions for real alpha The limits of quant funds and why the real edge never lasts Financial luck, stubborn optimism, and the fine art of not giving up (even when everyone with a Nobel tells you not to bother) Why you should never underestimate the power of a good old-fashioned jelly bean guess /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/39752495

Burn The Map: Herding AIs, Dodging Doom, and the New Ethics of Intelligence w/ Dr. Craig Kaplan 12/19/2025

Burn The Map: Herding AIs, Dodging Doom, and the New Ethics of Intelligence w/ Dr. Craig Kaplan 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 entrust the future of humanity to black-box mega-brains? Spoiler: the answer isn’t “more GPUs.” Dr. Kaplan’s been in the room with the legends, built systems Wall Street still wishes it could copy, and now he’s here to torch lazy thinking about AI safety, collective intelligence, and why your Marcus Aurelius quotes aren’t enough to save you from an existential AI oopsie. What We Cover: The difference between “tool” AI and “worker” AI (yes, there’s a difference—catch up). Why “superintelligence” doesn’t need another buzzword conference, it needs democratic crowdsourcing (and a human in the loop so we don’t all end up starring in a low-budget Skynet reboot). The messiness of teaching ethics to machines—and why handing off responsibility to Silicon Valley’s overcaffeinated 20-somethings is, frankly, a terrible plan. The not-so-humble history of AI: mentoring with Nobel laureates, building for Wall Street, and knowing when the hype cycle is actually a warning sign. Guest Bio: Dr. Craig Kaplan—founder of superintelligence.com, patent-holding AI risk-mitigator, and straight-up legend in the AI world. He’s been in the game since the 1980s (seriously, he worked with Herbert freakin’ Simon), has built AI that beats Wall Street’s “best,” and still has the patience to explain to the rest of us why we should care before it’s too late. Want to know what’s coming next for AI? He’s been calling it for decades. Enjoy the episode. This show is brought to you by Wrench.ai. Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Craig: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: (Craig’s digital lair) Wall Street collective intelligence Jensen Wang’s “AI is workers” GTC speech People and Organizations Mentioned: Craig A. Kaplan Herbert Simon Jeff Hinton Marvin Minsky Anthropic and “the chosen 20 at Google” Nvidia Wall Street's unfortunately clueless quant crowd Show Notes & Timestamps:00:04 — Dr. Kaplan invents “AI before it was cool” 06:15 — The limitations of everyone’s favorite LLMs 17:50 — A sharp left turn into AI ethics and why Danbot needs therapy 31:00 — Why your future coworkers might be called “bots” (and outsmart you) 39:16 — The AI flywheel, the AGI endgame, and how to not get flattened 41:09 — How collective intelligence saved billions (and Dan’s blood pressure) /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/39477420

Second Brains, Biometric Socks, and the AI Classroom: Lisa Dieker on the Future of Learning 12/04/2025

Second Brains, Biometric Socks, and the AI Classroom: Lisa Dieker on the Future of Learning “I was the daughter of a mechanic and a librarian—I know a thing or two about fixing things, building things, and making sense of way too much information.” —Dr. Lisa Dieker In This Episode: We talk to Dr. Lisa Dieker about why the future of learning isn’t robots replacing teachers—it’s humans and AI teaming up (with a little extra caffeine and a lot of biometric gadgets thrown in). As the Williamson Family Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas and Director of the FLITE STEM Center, Lisa’s on a mission to hack how we teach, learn, and support every kind of mind out there. She takes us for a walk through her real-life MacGyver childhood, her family’s journey navigating disability, and her relentless pursuit to democratize access to education technology. If you’ve ever wondered whether “second brains” (read: AI copilots, fancy wearables, and those heart rate monitors you pretend you understand) actually help kids learn, or just give parents more to stress about—yeah, she’ll set you straight. Why are so many teachers burning out? Why can’t schools just teach to everyone’s strengths? And are spelling tests just baby boomer torture devices at this point? What We Cover: How to blend AI, gritty human teaching, and biometric feedback to finally move the education world out of the floppy disk era. Why kids with learning differences (dyslexia, ADHD, neurodivergence—you name it) shouldn’t have to hack their own school success. What today’s “second brain” tools like AI copilots and wearables are actually good for (hint: not just tracking your steps). The future of classrooms: predictive dashboards, teacher biohacks, and why we should all be a little more forgiving with ourselves (and our kids). How Lisa’s own story—first-gen college kid, sibling with disabilities, mom to one helluva creative gymnast—shapes everything she does. Guest Bio: Dr. Lisa Dieker is the Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas and heads up the FLITE STEM Center, where she’s busy making education accessible, equitable, and just a little less stuck in the 1980s. Lifelong advocate for students with disabilities, simulation geek, and accidental expert in the hacking of biometric gadgets, Lisa’s here to make you rethink everything you thought you knew about learning. Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Lisa: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: (Flexible Learning Through Innovations in Teaching and Education) Project RAISE - (Affordable, AI-driven support tool for learners) (AI-powered educational content platform mentioned as a resource for differentiated, individualized instruction) People and Organizations Mentioned in This Episode: The DeBruce Foundation (Agilities curriculum) Google Vision Team (referenced for their work in computer vision, mentioned in collaboration context) Meta (for metaverse glasses/hardware experiments) Polar (wearable biometric devices) Biopac (biometric ring for physiological data collection) University of Kansas (Lisa’s academic affiliation) U.S. Department of Education (funding source for portions of Lisa’s research) Show Notes & Timestamps: 6:00 - Why your “second brain” might be a game changer if you’re bored (or neurodiverse) 12:00 - The myth (and reality) of AI replacing teachers 22:00 - Biometric trackers: cool for athletes, secretly more useful for stressed-out teachers 35:00 - Why the real education revolution starts by hacking the system, not just the software 49:00 - Lisa’s secret sauce for making learning accessible, plus why some spelling rules are made to be broken /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/39282400

Burn The Map: Quivers of Legs and Law Changes w/ Brenda Novak 11/20/2025

Burn The Map: Quivers of Legs and Law Changes w/ Brenda Novak 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 medically necessary prosthetics actually attainable for humans, not just trust funds. The mind-boggling cost (and insurance shenanigans) behind getting a leg that actually lets you walk, run, or—if you’re feeling spicy—surf. Why living with limb loss means a constant hustle, from learning how to live all over again to fighting to make basic mobility accessible. The reality behind “bionic” prosthetic tech, the quiver of legs nobody tells you about, and why peer-support trumps any medical pamphlet. Brenda’s battle-tested approach to resilience, and what it’s really like to lose a limb, find your new balance, and start pulling others up with you. Guest Bio: Brenda Novak is the co-founder of Connecticut Amputee Network, a grassroots force behind legislative wins for amputee rights. She’s an above-the-knee amputee (thanks to a freak accident), peer-mentor, and eternal realist who figured, “If no one’s going to fix the system, I guess I’ll have to do it myself.” When she’s not wrangling politicians or training new peer visitors, she’s out living her best life—whether that means kayaking, testing out her newest “water leg,” or reading up on trailblazing women like Victoria Woodhull. Brenda’s mission? Make sure nobody ever feels like they have to go it alone. Enjoy! This show was brought to you by Wrench.ai Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Brenda: LinkedIn: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Brenda Novak’s LinkedIn: CT Amputee Network: ctamputeenetwork.org Amputee Coalition: amputee-coalition.org So Everybody Can Move legislation: soeveybodycanmove.org People and Organizations Mentioned: Brenda Novak Herb Kaladny (pirate partner-in-crime) Lindy Mitsu, University of Hartford Ted Kennedy Jr., American Association of People with Disabilities Connecticut Amputee Network Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Brenda vs. Dan: Who’s aged worse? (Spoiler alert: Dan owns the gray) 03:19 — Why found the Connecticut Amputee Network? The insurance coverage clown show. 06:05 — Civics 101, or: How Brenda learned legislative sausage is made 07:28 — Getting a law passed when you don’t know what you’re doing (hint: bring friends) 09:10 — Life with $100K legs, “K levels,” and sassy insurance denials 13:12 — The “quiver” of specialty legs (and why Brenda doesn’t name hers—tsk tsk, Brenda) 18:05 — There’s no map: Navigating drastic life changes with side-eye and stubbornness 23:07 — Peer visiting, real talk about loss, and getting “high” on actual connection 29:37 — Finding Brenda (and why she won’t do another cruise, ever) /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/39113770

Burn The Map: Book People, Broken Systems, and Why Kids Are Getting Dumber w/ Rae Foote 11/06/2025

Burn The Map: Book People, Broken Systems, and Why Kids Are Getting Dumber w/ Rae Foote “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 rallying adults to stop outsourcing kids’ education to TikTok. What We Cover: How military manufacturing makes you chill in a tech “crisis” (spoiler: it’s not that deep, Karen) Rae’s “accidental” road into publishing and why napalming the five-year plan is sometimes the only way forward The literacy crisis no one wants to talk about—adults reading less, kids getting dumber (the stats are brutal, sorry) Why your Kindle obsession doesn’t count if your kid never sees you with a book—and how Hachette’s Raising Readers project is about to call everyone out Life lessons from screwing up, not coddling kids, and why “fuck around and find out” is elite parenting Guest Bio: Rae Foote is Senior Manager, Marketing Technology Ops at Hachette Book Group, where she MacGyvers book-selling systems, translates between marketers and engineers, and leads bold new initiatives like Raising Readers. She’s also on the Associate Board for Reading Partners NYC, advocating for kids’ literacy because, frankly, someone has to give a damn. A California native turned New Yorker, Rae is allergic to empty platitudes, swears by paperbacks, and has never met a broken process she couldn’t fix (or roast). Enjoy! This episode is brought to you by . Follow Dan: LinkedIn: X: Follow Rae: LinkedIn: New York Junior League: Instagram: Reading Partners NYC: Instagram: Hachette Book Group: Instagram: Follow the Pod: YouTube: Twitter/X: Instagram: TikTok: BlueSky: Selected Links From This Episode: Hachette Book Group People & Organizations Mentioned: Rae Foote Dan Baird Hachette Book Group Reading Partners NYC Brett Easton Ellis (author, collector’s item in Rae’s dating life) Andy Weir Lois Lowry Mark Danielewski NY Junior League Show Notes & Timestamps: 00:08 — Welcome, Rae: Dan was a kindergarten teacher in China (no, really) 01:13 — Rae’s convoluted career: “tripping, falling, and stumbling” into publishing 03:37 — How tech “emergencies” are not real emergencies (Military vs. Startup Panic) 07:54 — The myth of the business degree—just start doing the work 10:11 — Publishing’s digital mess, why Rae loves solving problems that shouldn’t exist 13:20 — Are we actually getting dumber? Declining literacy, social media, and how nobody reads anything longer than a LinkedIn post 19:15 — Hachette’s Raising Readers initiative: Kids mimic what you do, not what you tell them 22:13 — Why men read less, and WTF that means for raising boys 23:32 — Book club trauma, lending books to dates, and always getting them back 36:55 — It takes a village: Advocating for kids with New York Junior League & Reading Partners 41:53 — Parenting, participation trophies, and the fine art of failing well 45:46 — Teaching kids they can do hard things and not just whine about it 48:34 — Show up, get wet, don't wait for perfect—life advice, or just podcasting as usual 50:45 — Links , , and yes, go read a book, not just this web page /episode/index/show/9ef1b7fc-2977-4a08-9c0e-ebaa9e980327/id/38914615

Burn The Map

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