October 22, 2025 • 18 mins
First: AI is now sliding into your performance reviews.
Forbes says it’s here to “remove bias” and “automate feedback.”
We say… careful what you outsource. Because when algorithms start coaching humans, you risk losing the part that actually makes feedback work — connection, trust, and care.
Then: OpenAI’s Sam Altman claimed that if AI wipes out your job, maybe it wasn’t real work to begin with.
Uh, scuzi? We unpack the arrogance behind that take, the history of who decides what “real work” even means, and the danger of rewriting value just because it doesn’t fit into a founder’s business model.
This episode hits the intersection of tech, humanity, and meaning — because it’s not just about AI.
It’s about what makes work worth doing.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Man, what a slap in the face.
This isn't the first time roleshave shifted or things have been
restructured.
It doesn't mean that your workwasn't meaningful.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Yeah.
This is just such a classicfounder move, which is we're
gonna build the system thatbreaks the world and then
philosophize around whether thejob actually deserved to exist.
(00:41):
That's the dream.
I have yet to find one where Ican rent it because I don't want
to buy it and then have it in mycloset.
Although, yeah, maybe I do.
I know.
It could come in handy.
It's a good party favor.
I think you would need a bigbird costume more than you think
you do.
Potentially.
Yeah.
Just show up.
It's the feet.
It's like the big feathery body,and then it's the feet for me
(01:04):
with the rings.
Fun.
You gotta get someone to dressup as Snuffilepagus.
What about you?
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
Are you doing anything for Halloween?
Nah.
Probably just passing out candyif anyone stops by.
Our friends used to hold amassive bash each year, but it
hasn't come back since COVID,which is making me a little sad.
But I love just passing outcandy and like watching all the
kiddos come up and down thestreet.
Like it's just so fun.
Just that like joy of filling upa pillowcase.
(01:30):
You know what I really loved?
Bonkers.
Do you remember bonkers as akid?
Did you have I totally rememberbonkers?
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
Yes.
Yeah.
Or kind of like a chewy now andlater.
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Yeah.
They're delicious.
I know.
Bring back some good ones.
Get rid of the vanilla wafers.
Mel, we're back with New Week,new headlines.
What are you talking about thisweek?
I am talking about a Forbesarticle, The Future of Work Has
Arrived.
Isn't it isn't it alwaysarriving?
Just gonna put that out there.
Oh, Earth Eye is rebuildingworkplace culture.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
So I am talking about what even is real work
last week.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, justsaid that if AI wipes out your
job, maybe it wasn't real workto begin with.
And I really want to break thisdown in terms of what is real
work?
Want to talk about what he said,probably why he said it, and
more importantly, what's thevalue of real work?
(02:20):
Yikes.
All right, let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
So Forbes put out an article recently.
The future of work has arrived,how AI is rebuilding workplace
culture.
And the premise of the articleis good.
AI isn't just changing how wework, it's rebuilding the
foundations of what we considerworkplace culture.
Before you roll your eyes, thisisn't just another robots are
coming for your job story.
(02:47):
It's about how AI might help usfix the human stuff that's
always been hard, like feedback,growth, and trust.
So the contributor here, TarynGaligali.
Galigali, sorry, sorry, Taryn,if I'm mispronouncing that,
argues that for decades,performance management
specifically has been built onfear.
(03:10):
People avoiding feedback becausetheir brains treat feedback like
danger.
He literally compared it in thearticle to being followed down a
dark alley.
And there is neuroscience tosupport some of that.
And what they feel is that AIhas the potential to automate
reviews to take the fear out ofthem.
(03:30):
Leaders from Lattice, Headspace,Bamboo HR, and others told him
the same thing that they feel AIcan process more context than we
as humans ever could, helpingmanagers coach in real time,
removing bias from hardconversations.
But there's a flip side to thattoo.
And I'm sure you're alreadythinking about that flip side as
(03:52):
I go through this.
So are we using AI to get betterat being human or to avoid being
humans altogether?
That's the argument that we'recoming up with here.
SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
That's my biggest issue.
One of the age-old issues withperformance management is that
people wait until a mid-yearconversation or a year-end
conversation to have it.
And by the way, most people arelike, oh shit, I gotta do my
performance reviews.
And so they're just jamming itall in at the last minute.
So the quality of feedback andthe quantity of feedback sucks.
(04:29):
So we already hate doing it.
Now, basically, if we say we'regonna outsource it to AI, is it
ever gonna get done?
SPEAKER_01 (04:36):
If you're doing it the right way where it's
continuous, it's not justfocused on constructive change,
but feedback on the good thingsthat are going really well, then
you don't need an AI tool tosift through a ton of context to
help you provide the feedbackbecause it's happening in real
time in conversations.
And it shouldn't feel like afear that you have like you
(04:58):
would walking down a dark alleyif it's just expected this is
how we work together.
We're constantly having theseconversations and helping each
other grow and improve.
So the arguments were in kind offive areas that I'd love to talk
through.
Their first argument is AI islowering the feedback fear.
Brian Croft at Bamboo HR againsaid, We're wired to panic when
(05:21):
someone says, Can I give youfeedback?
It triggers that fight or flightinstinct for people.
Neuroscience does support this.
There is a threat response.
Research from theNeuroleadership Institute in
Harvard shows that beingevaluated activates your
amygdala, the brain's dangercenter, just like a physical
threat.
But what this is missing is thatculture shapes that reaction as
(05:42):
well.
You and I both know this becausewe've been in both types of
environments, right?
There's like those high trustenvironments where someone says,
Can I give you some feedback?
You don't have that fearresponse because you don't think
it's going to be weaponized.
We've also been in environmentswhere that was not used to be
constructive and it's been usedto be weaponized.
(06:03):
Very different responses happenin those two environments.
So this is this ignoring like AIis not going to solve the
culture problem that'shappening, the like root problem
that might be happening in sometoxic cultures.
Although not wrong necessarily,that's ignoring that.
They think that context is goingto beat the calendar here.
(06:23):
Sarah Franklin at Lattice notedthat AI can absorb so much more
context than a human can, whichis technically true, but more
context doesn't always mean moreconnection for an individual.
The real conversation is goingto have more value than the data
summaries.
There's nothing that can replacethat.
(06:44):
They think that continuousdevelopment is going to replace
performance reviews.
AI-driven tools mean feedbackisn't just once a year.
It's all year.
You and I just noted you don'tneed AI to make feedback all
year long.
But if you're constantly under amicroscope with AI analyzing all
of your outputs day in and dayout, what kind of continuous
(07:07):
development are you reallygetting?
Does it just start to feel likeconstant evaluation because it's
coming from a system versus anauthentic conversation with
somebody that cares about yourdevelopment and growth?
AI doesn't care about yourcareer track.
They're not interacting with youon a personal level.
So the connection there is lost.
The other argument they havethere is that small and
(07:29):
exceptional teams are going tobe winning a little bit more
here.
Linear's Christina Cordover saidthat they're going to keep teams
intentionally small and raise aninsanely high bar, translation,
quality over quantity.
And they think that AI mightmake those lean teams more
powerful, but it's also, as youand I know, with less resources
(07:52):
and higher expectations, goingto put the pressure on that they
need to produce more and morewith less and less.
So I'm not really understandinghow that's a positive
necessarily for folks.
It's just increasing thepressure that they're putting on
them.
And then the last argument wasthat managers are still a
bottleneck.
(08:13):
The conversation was everyoneagrees manager capability is the
real limiting factor here.
And AI can give every manager acoach in their pocket.
But in the article, they saidthis isn't a tech problem, it's
a change management problem.
If we don't teach people how touse AI with empathy, it's not
going to fix the culture.
It's going to speed up thedysfunction, which I
(08:34):
wholeheartedly agree with 100%.
You and I just talk about themanager training.
Sucks everywhere.
No one's getting it.
Thoughts.
What are your thoughts here?
Do you want AI giving all thefeedback?
I see some value in it, but Idon't know.
This feels like a lazy way toaddress what meaningful
(08:54):
performance improvement orperformance coaching can do for
someone.
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Like, how is if you're on Microsoft Teams, is it
collating all of yourconversations with this person
and talking about things they'redoing well, things are not doing
well?
SPEAKER_01 (09:07):
It could work across systems just to pool in all the
data, what's happening and CRMsand all the different platforms
and engagement.
There's plenty of AI tools thatare used in coaching
conversations to help peoplelike, was there an opportunity
miss, things that you can followup on?
I think there's really greattechnology out there to help
make people smarter oninformation that they might miss
(09:29):
from a human standpoint.
But it sounds here like theargument is let's take the human
out of it altogether on thisvery important process.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
This is the thing I would caution everybody about,
especially as organizations arelooking to, and you and I have
talked about this.
We have predicted this, we arealready seeing vestiges of this
happening.
It will continue to happen.
Most organizations, and I knowthis might sound freaky, but
most organizations are planningto be 30 to 40 percent smaller
(10:00):
than they are today.
Yeah.
In the next few years.
Because to your very good point,they're planning on having
smaller teams, they're probablyplanning on having more
adaptable teams, they'replanning on being stocking those
leaders with a genic AI,collaborative AI, some
employees, gig workers.
It's going to be this menage.
(10:21):
Not arguing that.
But what I am arguing is I wouldmuch rather have people focus
not on using AI to offloadcoaching, but thinking about how
do we up-level people'scapability to think about how to
orchestrate that work as awhole.
(10:41):
Maybe AI is a component of it,but my big concern is I don't
hear anyone in theseconversations saying, here's how
we're going to make that humaneven more skilled at expert
coaching, expert leadership.
It feels like it's, I'm going totake this off your plate.
It absolutely feels like that,as opposed to I'm going to level
(11:03):
you up as a coach.
SPEAKER_01 (11:05):
I am all for the equity of AI tools, identifying
gaps and maybe how you'recoaching someone or missed
opportunities, 100% eliminatingbias.
Absolutely.
We've met with experts all thetime.
People want to feel like someonegives a shit about them, like
they matter.
We met with Zach Mercurio.
If you start cutting out thatrelationship between boss and
(11:27):
employee, and it feels likesomeone cares about your career
and you're removing them fromthis ongoing performance
discussion.
I don't know.
I think that's dangerousterritory.
100% love the combination ofhuman AI collaboration on this,
but yeah, I don't know.
I don't think this is somethingwe can outsource to AI.
AI is not going to rebuild yourbad culture.
(11:48):
AI isn't going to fix your trustproblem.
SPEAKER_00 (11:51):
I go back to the tenets of the work we do with
reciprocal work, right?
When you are looking at whatmakes a great boss employee
relationship.
Yes, feedback is a part of thatand coaching is a part of it,
but it's also aligning yourrelationship to make sure you're
on the right page.
It's so that you're getting thedevelopment you need, that
you're getting the feedback thatyou need, that you're getting
the recognition that you need,that you're getting the
(12:13):
development you need.
And it is much more systematicthan AI can give you.
SPEAKER_01 (12:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm an AI optimist, not toconfuse anyone, but I just think
there's a lot of conversationthat I'm seeing that concerns me
around like ripping out humanscompletely from the process.
There's not like a lot ofthoughtfulness happening.
SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
All right.
So I don't know if you saw thisor not, Mel, but Sam Altman, CEO
of OpenAI, just said if AI wipesout your job, maybe it wasn't
real work to begin with.
He says, quote, if you'refarming, you're doing something
people really need.
That's real work.
So apparently, if you're notproducing calories or coding
robots, you're just playingpretend on Zoom.
And I'm curious if you saw thisarticle.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
I did not see that article, but man, what a slap in
the face to people.
This isn't the first time roleshave shifted or things have been
restructured.
It doesn't mean that your workwasn't meaningful.
SPEAKER_00 (13:11):
Yeah.
I think this is just such aclassic founder move, which is
we're going to build the systemthat breaks the world and then
philosophize around whether thejob actually deserved to exist.
The thing that really bothers meabout this is the value judgment
about what really is real work.
He's not just talking about jobloss here or that jobs are going
to be gone.
(13:31):
He's talking about if it evencounts.
And fair question, but it begs avery interesting question around
who decides.
Who decides what is real andwhat is valuable?
And went down a little bit of arabbit hole.
A lot of us think that the valueof work is obvious, but it's
not.
It's actually been veryprescribed.
Like historically, the peoplenot doing the work decide what's
(13:55):
valuable.
In ancient Greece, manual laborwas low class.
In the industrial age, thenoble, in the tech age,
suddenly, if you make slidesinstead of things, you're a
visionary.
You look at like how consulting,for instance, has been
absolutely up-leveled orstrategy consultants or
companies like Apple or Nike,for example, like your ability
(14:16):
to tell a story is above all thegreatest thing you can have in
terms of a capability that hasbeen developed over the last,
especially around knowledgework, over the last 30 years
that Silicon Valley is veryresponsible for.
And now because it doesn't fitinto their metaphor of what's
valuable, all of a sudden, allof the work that these people
(14:37):
are doing that AI is going toimpact, it wasn't real anyway.
So all of us sitting in jobs incustomer service and law and
accounting, like you're notreally doing real work anyway.
It's actually like flat in theface.
Yeah, it's totally arrogant.
SPEAKER_01 (14:52):
It's totally arrogant.
It's interesting timingconsidering the bad press AI is
getting around not being aseffective as it was expected to
be.
Right.
That it's going to have its owncrash, similar to the dot-com
crash, and then to come out inthe forefront and then make a
broad statement that theseweren't real jobs anyway, is
(15:14):
interesting.
You can't claim that you'retrying to do something for good
and build something for good ofhumanity and then come out and
tell a ton of people that theirworth and their work meant
nothing.
SPEAKER_00 (15:29):
It's classic gaslighting.
I think about people that havebeen sitting in roles for 20
years, all of a sudden beatshold because somebody believes
it's not valuable to themanymore because it doesn't fit
in the paradigm of how they'regoing to make money, that you're
not valuable anymore.
It's classic gaslighting.
It's absolutely classicgaslighting.
And there's two dangers here,especially with AI, that we need
(15:50):
to start paying attention to.
One is absolutely the job loss.
And we're already seeing that.
We talked about this a couple ofmonths ago, around a lot of CEOs
being like, AI is not going totake your job.
Somebody that knows how to useAI and then in the same breath,
lay off 4,000 people and have AIreplace it, verbatim, and/or in
the case of, for instance,Accenture, lay people off saying
(16:12):
they're just unable to bereskilled, which is typically
not true.
We will have significant jobloss.
We are having significant jobloss.
It will continue to be there.
But it's also this identityshift that we're not talking
about.
That what happens when peoplelose the identity that's been
(16:33):
attached to not their job, buttheir career, to their life's
work.
You and I have seen people gothrough that.
You are working with peopleevery single week, going through
massive transitions, whetherit's job loss, retirement,
whatever.
That is a huge hitpsychologically.
Oh, yeah.
On top of that, to have CEOslike the CEO of Accenture
(16:54):
saying, you were unable to bereskilled, or Sam Altman come
out and say, it wasn't real workanyway, is a double hit.
And I would love for executivesand leaders in positions to be
much more careful about thelanguage they're using as it
relates to AI.
Because you can plan on whatyou're doing all you want, but
(17:16):
say, listen, the rules of thegame have changed, or hey, we're
not doing well economically.
So we need to lay people off.
Don't put that burden on otherpeople when they're already
going to be going through hell.
Yeah, take accountability.
Stop being lazy with it.
A thousand percent.
Yeah.
What a statement to make.
Oh my God.
My prediction here and my bigconcern here is on people's
(17:38):
well-being and mental health.
Like the long-term unemploymentnumbers, awful.
I think the way we think aboutthis and we talk about this, we
need to do this way moreresponsibly.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
This episode was produced, edited in all things
by us, myself, Mel Platt, andFrancesca Reneri.
Our music is by Pink Zebra.
And if you loved thisconversation and you want to
contribute your thoughts withus, please do.
You can visit us at yourworkfriends.com.
(18:12):
But you can also join us over onLinkedIn.
We have a LinkedIn communitypage, and we have the TikToks
and Instagram.
So please join us in thesocials.
And if you like this and you'vebenefited from this episode and
you think someone else canbenefit from this episode,
please rate and subscribe.
We'd really appreciate it.
That helps keep us going.
(18:33):
Take care, friend.
Bye, friends.
Bye friends.
Man, what a slap in the face.
This isn't the first time roleshave shifted or things have been
restructured.
It doesn't mean that your workwasn't meaningful.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Yeah.
This is just such a classicfounder move, which is we're
gonna build the system thatbreaks the world and then
philosophize around whether thejob actually deserved to exist.
(00:41):
That's the dream.
I have yet to find one where Ican rent it because I don't want
to buy it and then have it in mycloset.
Although, yeah, maybe I do.
I know.
It could come in handy.
It's a good party favor.
I think you would need a bigbird costume more than you think
you do.
Potentially.
Yeah.
Just show up.
It's the feet.
It's like the big feathery body,and then it's the feet for me
(01:04):
with the rings.
Fun.
You gotta get someone to dressup as Snuffilepagus.
What about you?
SPEAKER_01 (01:09):
Are you doing anything for Halloween?
Nah.
Probably just passing out candyif anyone stops by.
Our friends used to hold amassive bash each year, but it
hasn't come back since COVID,which is making me a little sad.
But I love just passing outcandy and like watching all the
kiddos come up and down thestreet.
Like it's just so fun.
Just that like joy of filling upa pillowcase.
(01:30):
You know what I really loved?
Bonkers.
Do you remember bonkers as akid?
Did you have I totally rememberbonkers?
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
Yes.
Yeah.
Or kind of like a chewy now andlater.
SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
Yeah.
They're delicious.
I know.
Bring back some good ones.
Get rid of the vanilla wafers.
Mel, we're back with New Week,new headlines.
What are you talking about thisweek?
I am talking about a Forbesarticle, The Future of Work Has
Arrived.
Isn't it isn't it alwaysarriving?
Just gonna put that out there.
Oh, Earth Eye is rebuildingworkplace culture.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
So I am talking about what even is real work
last week.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, justsaid that if AI wipes out your
job, maybe it wasn't real workto begin with.
And I really want to break thisdown in terms of what is real
work?
Want to talk about what he said,probably why he said it, and
more importantly, what's thevalue of real work?
(02:20):
Yikes.
All right, let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
So Forbes put out an article recently.
The future of work has arrived,how AI is rebuilding workplace
culture.
And the premise of the articleis good.
AI isn't just changing how wework, it's rebuilding the
foundations of what we considerworkplace culture.
Before you roll your eyes, thisisn't just another robots are
coming for your job story.
(02:47):
It's about how AI might help usfix the human stuff that's
always been hard, like feedback,growth, and trust.
So the contributor here, TarynGaligali.
Galigali, sorry, sorry, Taryn,if I'm mispronouncing that,
argues that for decades,performance management
specifically has been built onfear.
(03:10):
People avoiding feedback becausetheir brains treat feedback like
danger.
He literally compared it in thearticle to being followed down a
dark alley.
And there is neuroscience tosupport some of that.
And what they feel is that AIhas the potential to automate
reviews to take the fear out ofthem.
(03:30):
Leaders from Lattice, Headspace,Bamboo HR, and others told him
the same thing that they feel AIcan process more context than we
as humans ever could, helpingmanagers coach in real time,
removing bias from hardconversations.
But there's a flip side to thattoo.
And I'm sure you're alreadythinking about that flip side as
(03:52):
I go through this.
So are we using AI to get betterat being human or to avoid being
humans altogether?
That's the argument that we'recoming up with here.
SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
That's my biggest issue.
One of the age-old issues withperformance management is that
people wait until a mid-yearconversation or a year-end
conversation to have it.
And by the way, most people arelike, oh shit, I gotta do my
performance reviews.
And so they're just jamming itall in at the last minute.
So the quality of feedback andthe quantity of feedback sucks.
(04:29):
So we already hate doing it.
Now, basically, if we say we'regonna outsource it to AI, is it
ever gonna get done?
SPEAKER_01 (04:36):
If you're doing it the right way where it's
continuous, it's not justfocused on constructive change,
but feedback on the good thingsthat are going really well, then
you don't need an AI tool tosift through a ton of context to
help you provide the feedbackbecause it's happening in real
time in conversations.
And it shouldn't feel like afear that you have like you
(04:58):
would walking down a dark alleyif it's just expected this is
how we work together.
We're constantly having theseconversations and helping each
other grow and improve.
So the arguments were in kind offive areas that I'd love to talk
through.
Their first argument is AI islowering the feedback fear.
Brian Croft at Bamboo HR againsaid, We're wired to panic when
(05:21):
someone says, Can I give youfeedback?
It triggers that fight or flightinstinct for people.
Neuroscience does support this.
There is a threat response.
Research from theNeuroleadership Institute in
Harvard shows that beingevaluated activates your
amygdala, the brain's dangercenter, just like a physical
threat.
But what this is missing is thatculture shapes that reaction as
(05:42):
well.
You and I both know this becausewe've been in both types of
environments, right?
There's like those high trustenvironments where someone says,
Can I give you some feedback?
You don't have that fearresponse because you don't think
it's going to be weaponized.
We've also been in environmentswhere that was not used to be
constructive and it's been usedto be weaponized.
(06:03):
Very different responses happenin those two environments.
So this is this ignoring like AIis not going to solve the
culture problem that'shappening, the like root problem
that might be happening in sometoxic cultures.
Although not wrong necessarily,that's ignoring that.
They think that context is goingto beat the calendar here.
(06:23):
Sarah Franklin at Lattice notedthat AI can absorb so much more
context than a human can, whichis technically true, but more
context doesn't always mean moreconnection for an individual.
The real conversation is goingto have more value than the data
summaries.
There's nothing that can replacethat.
(06:44):
They think that continuousdevelopment is going to replace
performance reviews.
AI-driven tools mean feedbackisn't just once a year.
It's all year.
You and I just noted you don'tneed AI to make feedback all
year long.
But if you're constantly under amicroscope with AI analyzing all
of your outputs day in and dayout, what kind of continuous
(07:07):
development are you reallygetting?
Does it just start to feel likeconstant evaluation because it's
coming from a system versus anauthentic conversation with
somebody that cares about yourdevelopment and growth?
AI doesn't care about yourcareer track.
They're not interacting with youon a personal level.
So the connection there is lost.
The other argument they havethere is that small and
(07:29):
exceptional teams are going tobe winning a little bit more
here.
Linear's Christina Cordover saidthat they're going to keep teams
intentionally small and raise aninsanely high bar, translation,
quality over quantity.
And they think that AI mightmake those lean teams more
powerful, but it's also, as youand I know, with less resources
(07:52):
and higher expectations, goingto put the pressure on that they
need to produce more and morewith less and less.
So I'm not really understandinghow that's a positive
necessarily for folks.
It's just increasing thepressure that they're putting on
them.
And then the last argument wasthat managers are still a
bottleneck.
(08:13):
The conversation was everyoneagrees manager capability is the
real limiting factor here.
And AI can give every manager acoach in their pocket.
But in the article, they saidthis isn't a tech problem, it's
a change management problem.
If we don't teach people how touse AI with empathy, it's not
going to fix the culture.
It's going to speed up thedysfunction, which I
(08:34):
wholeheartedly agree with 100%.
You and I just talk about themanager training.
Sucks everywhere.
No one's getting it.
Thoughts.
What are your thoughts here?
Do you want AI giving all thefeedback?
I see some value in it, but Idon't know.
This feels like a lazy way toaddress what meaningful
(08:54):
performance improvement orperformance coaching can do for
someone.
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Like, how is if you're on Microsoft Teams, is it
collating all of yourconversations with this person
and talking about things they'redoing well, things are not doing
well?
SPEAKER_01 (09:07):
It could work across systems just to pool in all the
data, what's happening and CRMsand all the different platforms
and engagement.
There's plenty of AI tools thatare used in coaching
conversations to help peoplelike, was there an opportunity
miss, things that you can followup on?
I think there's really greattechnology out there to help
make people smarter oninformation that they might miss
(09:29):
from a human standpoint.
But it sounds here like theargument is let's take the human
out of it altogether on thisvery important process.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
This is the thing I would caution everybody about,
especially as organizations arelooking to, and you and I have
talked about this.
We have predicted this, we arealready seeing vestiges of this
happening.
It will continue to happen.
Most organizations, and I knowthis might sound freaky, but
most organizations are planningto be 30 to 40 percent smaller
(10:00):
than they are today.
Yeah.
In the next few years.
Because to your very good point,they're planning on having
smaller teams, they're probablyplanning on having more
adaptable teams, they'replanning on being stocking those
leaders with a genic AI,collaborative AI, some
employees, gig workers.
It's going to be this menage.
(10:21):
Not arguing that.
But what I am arguing is I wouldmuch rather have people focus
not on using AI to offloadcoaching, but thinking about how
do we up-level people'scapability to think about how to
orchestrate that work as awhole.
(10:41):
Maybe AI is a component of it,but my big concern is I don't
hear anyone in theseconversations saying, here's how
we're going to make that humaneven more skilled at expert
coaching, expert leadership.
It feels like it's, I'm going totake this off your plate.
It absolutely feels like that,as opposed to I'm going to level
(11:03):
you up as a coach.
SPEAKER_01 (11:05):
I am all for the equity of AI tools, identifying
gaps and maybe how you'recoaching someone or missed
opportunities, 100% eliminatingbias.
Absolutely.
We've met with experts all thetime.
People want to feel like someonegives a shit about them, like
they matter.
We met with Zach Mercurio.
If you start cutting out thatrelationship between boss and
(11:27):
employee, and it feels likesomeone cares about your career
and you're removing them fromthis ongoing performance
discussion.
I don't know.
I think that's dangerousterritory.
100% love the combination ofhuman AI collaboration on this,
but yeah, I don't know.
I don't think this is somethingwe can outsource to AI.
AI is not going to rebuild yourbad culture.
(11:48):
AI isn't going to fix your trustproblem.
SPEAKER_00 (11:51):
I go back to the tenets of the work we do with
reciprocal work, right?
When you are looking at whatmakes a great boss employee
relationship.
Yes, feedback is a part of thatand coaching is a part of it,
but it's also aligning yourrelationship to make sure you're
on the right page.
It's so that you're getting thedevelopment you need, that
you're getting the feedback thatyou need, that you're getting
the recognition that you need,that you're getting the
(12:13):
development you need.
And it is much more systematicthan AI can give you.
SPEAKER_01 (12:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm an AI optimist, not toconfuse anyone, but I just think
there's a lot of conversationthat I'm seeing that concerns me
around like ripping out humanscompletely from the process.
There's not like a lot ofthoughtfulness happening.
SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
All right.
So I don't know if you saw thisor not, Mel, but Sam Altman, CEO
of OpenAI, just said if AI wipesout your job, maybe it wasn't
real work to begin with.
He says, quote, if you'refarming, you're doing something
people really need.
That's real work.
So apparently, if you're notproducing calories or coding
robots, you're just playingpretend on Zoom.
And I'm curious if you saw thisarticle.
SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
I did not see that article, but man, what a slap in
the face to people.
This isn't the first time roleshave shifted or things have been
restructured.
It doesn't mean that your workwasn't meaningful.
SPEAKER_00 (13:11):
Yeah.
I think this is just such aclassic founder move, which is
we're going to build the systemthat breaks the world and then
philosophize around whether thejob actually deserved to exist.
The thing that really bothers meabout this is the value judgment
about what really is real work.
He's not just talking about jobloss here or that jobs are going
to be gone.
(13:31):
He's talking about if it evencounts.
And fair question, but it begs avery interesting question around
who decides.
Who decides what is real andwhat is valuable?
And went down a little bit of arabbit hole.
A lot of us think that the valueof work is obvious, but it's
not.
It's actually been veryprescribed.
Like historically, the peoplenot doing the work decide what's
(13:55):
valuable.
In ancient Greece, manual laborwas low class.
In the industrial age, thenoble, in the tech age,
suddenly, if you make slidesinstead of things, you're a
visionary.
You look at like how consulting,for instance, has been
absolutely up-leveled orstrategy consultants or
companies like Apple or Nike,for example, like your ability
(14:16):
to tell a story is above all thegreatest thing you can have in
terms of a capability that hasbeen developed over the last,
especially around knowledgework, over the last 30 years
that Silicon Valley is veryresponsible for.
And now because it doesn't fitinto their metaphor of what's
valuable, all of a sudden, allof the work that these people
(14:37):
are doing that AI is going toimpact, it wasn't real anyway.
So all of us sitting in jobs incustomer service and law and
accounting, like you're notreally doing real work anyway.
It's actually like flat in theface.
Yeah, it's totally arrogant.
SPEAKER_01 (14:52):
It's totally arrogant.
It's interesting timingconsidering the bad press AI is
getting around not being aseffective as it was expected to
be.
Right.
That it's going to have its owncrash, similar to the dot-com
crash, and then to come out inthe forefront and then make a
broad statement that theseweren't real jobs anyway, is
(15:14):
interesting.
You can't claim that you'retrying to do something for good
and build something for good ofhumanity and then come out and
tell a ton of people that theirworth and their work meant
nothing.
SPEAKER_00 (15:29):
It's classic gaslighting.
I think about people that havebeen sitting in roles for 20
years, all of a sudden beatshold because somebody believes
it's not valuable to themanymore because it doesn't fit
in the paradigm of how they'regoing to make money, that you're
not valuable anymore.
It's classic gaslighting.
It's absolutely classicgaslighting.
And there's two dangers here,especially with AI, that we need
(15:50):
to start paying attention to.
One is absolutely the job loss.
And we're already seeing that.
We talked about this a couple ofmonths ago, around a lot of CEOs
being like, AI is not going totake your job.
Somebody that knows how to useAI and then in the same breath,
lay off 4,000 people and have AIreplace it, verbatim, and/or in
the case of, for instance,Accenture, lay people off saying
(16:12):
they're just unable to bereskilled, which is typically
not true.
We will have significant jobloss.
We are having significant jobloss.
It will continue to be there.
But it's also this identityshift that we're not talking
about.
That what happens when peoplelose the identity that's been
(16:33):
attached to not their job, buttheir career, to their life's
work.
You and I have seen people gothrough that.
You are working with peopleevery single week, going through
massive transitions, whetherit's job loss, retirement,
whatever.
That is a huge hitpsychologically.
Oh, yeah.
On top of that, to have CEOslike the CEO of Accenture
(16:54):
saying, you were unable to bereskilled, or Sam Altman come
out and say, it wasn't real workanyway, is a double hit.
And I would love for executivesand leaders in positions to be
much more careful about thelanguage they're using as it
relates to AI.
Because you can plan on whatyou're doing all you want, but
(17:16):
say, listen, the rules of thegame have changed, or hey, we're
not doing well economically.
So we need to lay people off.
Don't put that burden on otherpeople when they're already
going to be going through hell.
Yeah, take accountability.
Stop being lazy with it.
A thousand percent.
Yeah.
What a statement to make.
Oh my God.
My prediction here and my bigconcern here is on people's
(17:38):
well-being and mental health.
Like the long-term unemploymentnumbers, awful.
I think the way we think aboutthis and we talk about this, we
need to do this way moreresponsibly.
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
This episode was produced, edited in all things
by us, myself, Mel Platt, andFrancesca Reneri.
Our music is by Pink Zebra.
And if you loved thisconversation and you want to
contribute your thoughts withus, please do.
You can visit us at yourworkfriends.com.
(18:12):
But you can also join us over onLinkedIn.
We have a LinkedIn communitypage, and we have the TikToks
and Instagram.
So please join us in thesocials.
And if you like this and you'vebenefited from this episode and
you think someone else canbenefit from this episode,
please rate and subscribe.
We'd really appreciate it.
That helps keep us going.
(18:33):
Take care, friend.
Bye, friends.
Bye friends.
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