Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

Jacob Morgan
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The future of work isn't coming. It's already here — and it's moving fast. Future Ready is the podcast for leaders who want to stay ahead of AI, workplace transformation, and the forces reshaping how organizations operate and compete. Hosted by Jacob Morgan, futurist and bestselling author, this is where strategy meets reality. Every week, two formats in one feed: honest, unfiltered conversations with the CEOs, CHROs, and senior executives actually building the future of work — and sharp, no-fluff daily briefings that take the most important developments in artificial intelligence, AI agents, leadership, hybrid work, and organizational strategy and tell you exactly what they mean for your business. No hype. No filler. Just the insights, frameworks, and real-world playbooks that help you lead smarter, build resilient teams, and make better decisions in a world that won't slow down. If you're serious about leading what's next — this is your podcast. Subscribe to Future Ready wherever you listen.

  1. 18H AGO

    Solving the $2 Trillion Student Debt Crisis with U.S. News & World Report CEO Eric Gertler

    Many parents and leaders are wondering if a college degree is still worth the high educational costs. With student debt reaching nearly $2 trillion and the AI impact changing the future of work, the traditional path to success is facing a major disruption. In this episode, Eric Gertler, Executive Chairman and CEO of US News and World Report, joins us to talk about the "broken compact" in higher education and how college rankings are changing as consumer trust falls. We explore how university leadership must move away from focusing on real estate growth and instead prioritize critical thinking, internships, and lifelong learning. We also cover the growing demand for high-paying trades like electrical work over four-year degrees and a story from Eric's time in government where a hospital leader identified the need for data analysts years before it became a trend. This episode helps CHROs build better talent strategies by showing how to find and train workers based on their actual skill development in a job market where actual skills matter more than a diploma. Watch on Youtube ---------- Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/ Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—order a copy here: 8EXlaws.com

    48 min
  2. Jack Dorsey Just Fired 40% of His Company. Stock Soared 24%. He Says You're Next

    3D AGO

    Jack Dorsey Just Fired 40% of His Company. Stock Soared 24%. He Says You're Next

    February 27, 2026: Jack Dorsey cuts 40% of Block's workforce — 4,000 jobs — credits AI, and predicts most companies will follow within a year. We do a deep dive on whether this is genuine AI transformation or a compelling narrative layered on top of a management mistake, and why the answer might be both. Plus: Anthropic draws a hard line against the Pentagon, refusing to allow Claude to be used in autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance — and faces threats of being labeled a national security risk. OpenAI closes the largest private funding round in tech history at $110 billion and an $840 billion post-money valuation. And despite all the doom headlines, computer science graduates are on track to earn $81,500 starting salaries in 2026 — up 7% from last year.   Watch on YouTube. ---------- Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/ Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—Order a copy here: 8EXlaws.com

    39 min
  3. Engineers Are Burning Out, Young Workers Are Shut Out, and Trade Schools Are Suddenly Elite

    4D AGO

    Engineers Are Burning Out, Young Workers Are Shut Out, and Trade Schools Are Suddenly Elite

    February 26, 2026: Engineers are facing a productivity panic as coding agents accelerate output — and pressure — at the same time. Nvidia just posted a staggering quarter, underscoring how fast the infrastructure buildout is moving compared to the human transition. Reuters reports nearly one million young people in the UK are now "NEET" (not in employment, education, or training), a flashing warning light for the entry-level pipeline. Burger King is rolling out an AI assistant that listens in, coaches, and scores worker performance in real time. And Rolex's ultra-competitive trade school is producing graduates positioned for $95,000 jobs — a counter-narrative to the idea that all opportunity lives in knowledge work. Watch the full episode on Youtube ---------- Looking for what actually moves the needle on performance and retention? It's in The 8 Laws of Employee Experience. Order here: 8EXlaws.com

    37 min
  4. Anthropic Abandons Safety Promise, JPMorgan Replacing Workers, & The Top Skills for 2026

    5D AGO

    Anthropic Abandons Safety Promise, JPMorgan Replacing Workers, & The Top Skills for 2026

    February 25, 2026: This week Anthropic — one of the companies most associated with responsible AI — gutted the safety commitment it made in 2023. The same week the Pentagon gave its CEO a Friday ultimatum: allow military use of your AI or lose a $200 million contract. Meanwhile Jamie Dimon went on record at a JPMorgan investor meeting and confirmed something most CEOs won't say out loud: AI is already displacing his workers, their redeployment infrastructure can't keep up with the pace of it, and society needs to start thinking seriously about what comes next. I also cover why Big Tech is paying up to $1.2 million for communications talent — and what that says about which human skills are becoming most valuable — plus Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank deploying AI to surveil their own traders in real time, and LinkedIn's 2026 Skills on the Rise report, which tracks which skills are actually converting to job offers.

    37 min
  5. Anthropic Moved Into Your Office, the Fed Admitted It Can't Help, and Goldman Said It Was All for Nothing

    5D AGO

    Anthropic Moved Into Your Office, the Fed Admitted It Can't Help, and Goldman Said It Was All for Nothing

    February 24, 2026: Five major stories broke in the last 24 hours at the intersection of AI and the future of work — and they're all in conversation with each other. Anthropic launched Claude directly inside Excel, PowerPoint, and Slack, making its biggest move yet into everyday knowledge work. A Federal Reserve governor said on the record that if AI drives unemployment, interest rate cuts — the government's go-to economic tool — may not be able to fix it. Goldman Sachs revealed that despite hundreds of billions in AI investment, it may have contributed almost nothing to U.S. economic growth last year. Yale's Budget Lab pushed back on the AI productivity revolution narrative, saying the data simply doesn't support it yet. And a financial research firm's fictional scenario set in 2028 went so viral it triggered a major market selloff. Watch the full episode on YouTube

    48 min

  6. FEB 23

    Why the Frontline Workforce Is the Future of Work (And How Spectrum Is Proving It)

    Many companies try to solve low morale with simple perks like wellness apps, but workers often care more about real pay and career growth. The big challenge today is keeping frontline employees happy while the world worries about AI impact and high turnover. What could be the most substantial, meaningful investments leaders can make that truly build real loyalty? In this episode, Paul Marchand, EVP and CHRO of Charter Communications, more popularly known as Spectrum, discusses how to invest in people to create a better customer experience. He explains the strategy behind helping a 95,000-person workforce through absorbing rising benefit costs and programs like frictionless, prepaid tuition reimbursement and a unique employee stock purchase plan designed to build an owner mindset. Paul shares how "open mic" sessions at Charter improve their employee retention, and the way Spectrum GPT is being used to make HR more efficient. We also explore the 'high school pathways' initiative, upcoming M&A integration with Cox Communications, and how HR role evolution is turning leaders into Chief Future of Work Officers, going far beyond traditional employee management. This episode shows CHROs how to use a people-first strategy to build a resilient and competitive workforce. 🎧 Watch on YouTube ---------- Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/ Quick heads-up: my new book, The 8 Laws of Employee Experience, is a practical playbook for building an environment where people do their best work—order a copy here: 8EXlaws.com

    51 min
  7. The Robot Is Already Your Boss. Here Are the Rules It Should Follow

    FEB 20

    The Robot Is Already Your Boss. Here Are the Rules It Should Follow

    Feb 20, 2026: AI is already deciding who gets hired, promoted, and fired — and there are almost no rules governing how it does any of that. In this episode, I'm building those rules. I call them the Five Laws of AI in the Workplace, constructed in the spirit of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics — rigorous enough to pressure-test, honest enough to admit where they fall short. We cover the Law of Transparency — why 30 million job applicants in 2024 were evaluated by algorithms they never knew existed. The Law of Human Primacy — why a human rubber-stamping an AI decision isn't the same as a human making one. The Law of Honest Attribution — why AI washing is one of the most underreported forms of corporate dishonesty happening right now. The Law of True Cost Accounting — why the real costs of workforce cuts don't disappear, they just move to taxpayers and communities. And the Law of Reversibility — the full Klarna story, and why 31% of companies that made AI-driven layoffs ended up worse off than if they'd never done it.

    1h 1m
  8. AI Job Risk Map Revealed, Accenture Ties Promotions to AI, & Only 5% Are AI Fluent

    FEB 19

    AI Job Risk Map Revealed, Accenture Ties Promotions to AI, & Only 5% Are AI Fluent

    February 19, 2026: AI is rapidly becoming a career requirement and the workforce is splitting into those who can adapt and those who get squeezed. In today's episode, I cover 5 stories that reveal what's changing right now: The best AI job risk analysis I've seen: who's exposed, who can adapt, and which roles are most vulnerable Accenture reportedly tying promotions to AI tool adoption—what this signals and why it can backfire Why the "AI will replace you" narrative is dangerous—and how fear distorts leadership decisions Walmart's approach: training 1.6 million workers on AI instead of using AI as a reason to cut headcount Google + Ipsos data: only 5% of workers are AI fluent—and the gap is already linked to raises and promotions I also share the bigger takeaway: the future isn't just "learn AI." It's building adaptive capacity, creating real mobility pathways, and upgrading people at scale while keeping human judgment and accountability at the center. If you lead people, culture, or strategy, this episode will help you see what's happening—and what to do next.

    38 min
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About

The future of work isn't coming. It's already here — and it's moving fast. Future Ready is the podcast for leaders who want to stay ahead of AI, workplace transformation, and the forces reshaping how organizations operate and compete. Hosted by Jacob Morgan, futurist and bestselling author, this is where strategy meets reality. Every week, two formats in one feed: honest, unfiltered conversations with the CEOs, CHROs, and senior executives actually building the future of work — and sharp, no-fluff daily briefings that take the most important developments in artificial intelligence, AI agents, leadership, hybrid work, and organizational strategy and tell you exactly what they mean for your business. No hype. No filler. Just the insights, frameworks, and real-world playbooks that help you lead smarter, build resilient teams, and make better decisions in a world that won't slow down. If you're serious about leading what's next — this is your podcast. Subscribe to Future Ready wherever you listen.

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