Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan

Soren Kaplan

Every week, headlines scroll by. Smart leaders stop and ask: What does this mean for how we lead, compete, and grow? Leapfrogging the Headlines takes one story from the week's news and reframes it through the lens of strategy, innovation, leadership, and business model thinking — in under 10 minutes. Hosted by Soren Kaplan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author who has advised leaders at Disney, Medtronic, Cisco, Visa, and PepsiCo on innovation, AI, and strategy. New episodes weekly. No ads. Subscribe wherever you listen.

  1. 5d ago

    Ozempic Is Rewiring Employee Motivation. Most Culture Systems Weren’t Built for That.

    NBC News and The Washington Post reported on a cluster of side effects from GLP-1 drugs being called “Ozempic personality” — a reduction in drive and motivation to seek activities users once enjoyed. One in eight American adults is currently on a GLP-1 drug, according to a November 2025 KFF Health Tracking Poll. GLP-1 receptors are distributed throughout the brain’s emotional and motivational centers, including the dopamine pathways that drive effort and reward-seeking. Derek Daniels, PhD at the University at Buffalo, says in animal models these drugs “turn down almost any motivated behavior that we can imagine.”  Soren Kaplan breaks down the direct business implications: a meaningful share of the workforce is operating with a neurologically recalibrated motivation system, and the recognition programs, team rituals, and incentive structures most organizations rely on were designed without that in mind. University of Michigan neuroscientist Kent Berridge’s distinction between “liking” and “wanting” explains the mechanism: GLP-1 drugs appear to reduce the wanting signal — the dopamine-driven drive that makes a bonus feel worth competing for and a team celebration feel worth attending. Swiss chocolatier Lindt’s 2025 purchase data from GLP-1 households showed a “less is more” shift already appearing in consumer behavior.  The episode covers three leadership actions: auditing whether recognition programs rely on dopamine triggers or intrinsic motivators, redesigning team rituals to include non-food-centered alternatives that speak to meaning and purpose, and asking employees what actually resonates rather than running the same motivational playbook for everyone.  View original on Inc. Magazine: Ozempic Might Be Making Your Team Less Driven. Here’s the Science    Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d  Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297  Learn more about Soren’s work at sorenkaplan.com.

  2. Aug 11

    French Laundry Is Being Sued Three Times. Every Leader Should Know Why.

    Three Michelin stars. A reservation list stretching months in advance. Thomas Keller built the French Laundry into a Napa Valley landmark over three decades. In March 2026, former dishwasher Elena Flores Beteta sued the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, alleging she and more than 50 coworkers worked off the clock, had hours shaved, were denied breaks, and weren’t paid for all time worked. Two more lawsuits followed — three cases in three months. The restaurant group denied all allegations. But the pattern tells a story every leader should understand.  Soren Kaplan unpacks the leadership lesson hiding inside the French Laundry story: this is the invisible gap between what customers see from the outside and what workers experience to deliver it. Researchers at Northwestern and Rutgers found roughly one in four restaurant workers in Los Angeles was paid below minimum wage in 2024, and most never came forward. The legal filings that surface are the visible edge of something wider. Zuma restaurant paid $1.8 million to settle Massachusetts state wage investigations in 2025. Disney has faced the same pattern. The counter-model is Costco — built on the principle that employee conditions and customer experience are the same management problem, not two separate agendas.  The episode covers three actions to close the gap: conducting unscheduled back-of-house audits with frontline workers directly, building above legal compliance rather than stopping at the floor, and measuring frontline employee sentiment with the same discipline applied to customer Net Promoter Score.  View original on Inc. Magazine: French Laundry: 3 Michelin Stars, 3 Lawsuits, and 1 Leadership Blind Spot    Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d  Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297  Learn more about Soren’s work at sorenkaplan.com.

  3. Aug 10

    California's Largest Lake Shrank 70 Square Miles. The Toxic Dust It Left Behind Is a Warning for Every Balance Sheet.

    California's largest lake, the Salton Sea, has shrunk by seventy square miles as water gets diverted to cities and farms instead. Desert wind now lifts pesticides and heavy metals off the exposed lakebed and carries them into towns across the Imperial Valley, and researchers at USC and UC Irvine found the dust is stunting lung growth in local kids. The state is racing to cover thirty thousand acres of shoreline by 2028.    Soren breaks down why the lake's collapse is really a story about hidden support. The Salton Sea only stayed full because farm runoff poured into it for a hundred years, burying contaminants that were there from the start. He connects that to New York Community Bancorp, whose loan book looked rock solid only because cheap money kept property values climbing, until rising rates exposed the risk that had been sitting there all along.    Soren lays out three moves for leaders: name the outside support propping up your best-looking asset, test how that asset performs without it, and clean up the risk early while you still control the timing.    View original on Inc. Magazine: A Toxic Dust Crisis Is Unfolding in California. The Leadership Lesson Is Hard to Ignore

  4. Aug 9

    Just a Few Months of Commitment Results in a $100,000 Skill

    A Baylor College of Medicine pediatrician told Texas lawmakers this week that high school seniors are legally carrying Vegas in their pockets. She was describing prediction market apps like Kalshi and Polymarket, where 18 year olds bet real money on sports, elections, and pop culture outcomes. The Texas Medical Association wants the minimum age raised to 21.  In this episode, Soren breaks down why an age limit only delays the problem instead of solving it. The real gap is financial literacy. Research shows most teens have never heard of a FICO score, and one semester of personal finance education is worth roughly $100,000 per student over a lifetime. The same gap shows up in how young employees perform at work.  Leaders will walk away with one concrete action: pick one young person you are responsible for, your own teenager or your newest hire, name the single financial skill they need most, and spend twenty minutes this week teaching it.  View original on Inc. Magazine: This One High School Class Is Worth $100,000—And Most Students Still Don’t Take It    Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d  Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297  Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.

  5. Aug 8

    China Built 400 Different Humanoid Robots. Are They About to Invade the World?

    More than 1,100 companies gathered in Shanghai this past July for the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. State media confirmed that Chinese firms have now built more than 400 different humanoid robot models, over half the world's total, with annual output projected to top 100,000 units this year.  Soren Kaplan breaks down why most leaders are watching the wrong scoreboard. China's best AI model may not beat America's best model yet, but DeepSeek trained its R1 model for roughly $6 million against a reported $100 million for comparable U.S. systems, and Unitree already sells a full-size humanoid for under $6,000. You don't lose to a rival's best product. You lose to their good enough product at a price you can't match.  Soren lays out three moves for leaders: change your scoreboard to measure cost and volume, not just flagship performance, put your team physically inside a competitor's market to see the scale firsthand, and track adoption instead of announcements to spot your real rivals.  View original on Inc. Magazine: The FCC Just Banned Chinese Humanoid Robots. That’s Not the Story Business Leaders Should Focus On    Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d  Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297  Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.

  6. Aug 7

    AI 'Slop' Was Supposed to Fail. A Study of 14,419 Books Shows It Reshaped the Market Anyway.

    Researchers at Stony Brook, Columbia, and the University of Michigan tracked 14,419 self-published novels sold on Amazon from 2023 through mid-2026. Books flagged as mostly AI made up 20 percent of the catalog but earned only 11 percent of revenue. Quarterly book sales grew 19-fold while revenue grew less than 9-fold, and titles in Kindle Unlimited lost the most ground of all.  Soren Kaplan breaks down what the data actually proves. This isn't AI replacing better human work, it's a flood of cheap substitutes diluting the return on every product in the market, including the best ones. Revenue per human-only book fell 17 percent even as AI titles kept losing on quality, and the same payment dilution effect is already showing up in music, where Deezer reports more than half its daily uploads are fully AI-generated.  Soren lays out three moves for leaders facing the same dynamic. Own your audience so discovery doesn't run entirely through a pool competitors can flood. Make what's human and verified in your work visible to customers. Audit how cheaply a good-enough version of your product could now be made, and how much of your demand flows through a platform you don't control.  View original on Inc. Magazine: New Research Says the Biggest Risk to the Book Market Isn’t AI, but Dilution    Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d  Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297  Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.

  7. Aug 6

    A Jury Just Found Meta Negligent for Designing Apps That Hook Young Users. Your Growth Metrics Carry the Same Risk.

    A Los Angeles jury found Meta negligent for designing Instagram and Facebook to hook young users, awarding 6 million dollars in damages and assigning Meta 70 percent of the fault. Meta has filed an appeal, and the case is the first verdict in a coordinated proceeding covering thousands of similar claims. Soren Kaplan breaks down why this verdict changes how engagement gets judged. The features product teams celebrate, infinite scroll, autoplay, endless recommendations, are the same features now used as evidence of negligent design, and the same legal theory is already reaching AI chatbots like Character.AI and OpenAI. Soren lays out three moves leaders can make now: audit which metrics are actually driven by compulsion, measure whether customers are genuinely better off rather than just returning, and name the specific engagement mechanics you could defend in front of a jury. View original on Inc. Magazine: https://www.inc.com/soren-kaplan/the-same-legal-theory-used-against-meta-is-now-coming-for-ai/91380693 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297 Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.

  8. Aug 6

    The Corporate Events Market Just Hit $1.3 Trillion. But the Old Keynote Presentation is Dead.

    The corporate events industry hit $1.3 trillion in spending last year, according to Oxford Economics for the Events Industry Council, putting the market back at pre-pandemic highs. Companies are flying teams across the country and booking outside speakers again. But the return of the budget does not guarantee the return on it.  Soren Kaplan breaks down the research behind why most keynotes fail to change behavior, including a study showing only 10 to 15 percent of workplace learning ever translates into changed behavior on the job. He shares how he redesigned his own keynote approach after speaking at Ford's Global Supplier Summit, building tools and structured discussion directly into the session instead of leaving change to chance.  Soren lays out three concrete moves for anyone planning a corporate event: define the exact post-event shift you expect from attendees, find speakers who can also facilitate hands-on application, and build structured exercises into the agenda even if your speaker can't lead them.  Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d  Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leapfrogging-the-headlines-with-soren-kaplan/id1896880297  Learn more about Soren's work at sorenkaplan.com.

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Every week, headlines scroll by. Smart leaders stop and ask: What does this mean for how we lead, compete, and grow? Leapfrogging the Headlines takes one story from the week's news and reframes it through the lens of strategy, innovation, leadership, and business model thinking — in under 10 minutes. Hosted by Soren Kaplan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author who has advised leaders at Disney, Medtronic, Cisco, Visa, and PepsiCo on innovation, AI, and strategy. New episodes weekly. No ads. Subscribe wherever you listen.

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