The Innovation Show

"AI doesn't have judgment in it — it produces judgment-shaped artifacts."
Usman Sheikh, founder of High Output Ventures and author of the Framebreak newsletter, has spent years writing about how AI will reshape professional services — and the world has now caught up with the puck. In this conversation with Aidan McCullen, he explains why the consulting pyramid — the structure behind every major firm — is coming apart, and what replaces it.
In this conversation, Usman reveals:
Why firms became pyramids: leverage, margin, and a talent academy paid for by the client's billable hours
How AI pulls all three apart at once
What "judgment-shaped artifacts" are — and why AI is fundamentally different from offshoring and RPA
"Fluent but substitutable": why leaning on an LLM turns your career into a slot machine
The digital twin trap — why a frozen snapshot of a senior partner decays fast
The Concentrix vs Sierra story: AI voice agents in regulated industries growing from $100M to $200M in revenue in four months
The "AI discount": why KPMG asked its own auditor for a price cut — and how the surplus drains to clients and platforms
Why Palantir and Microsoft are suddenly preaching sovereignty over your data and models
The intelligence core: the feedback loop that turns pyramids into rings
How firms build tomorrow's bench — simulators, shadowing, apprenticeships — and why partners near retirement have no incentive to bother
Chapters:
00:00 Sponsor Message
00:31 Guest Introduction
03:10 Why Firms Became Pyramids
05:13 AI Breaks The Model
05:53 Digital Twins And Hiring
07:38 Training Juniors With AI
11:50 Fluent But Substitutable
15:19 Offshoring To AI Shift
20:18 Macro Jobs And Demand
23:14 Who Captures The Gains
28:04 Learning In The AI Era
34:33 Intelligence Core And Rings
40:49 AI Discount And Value Drain
45:21 Building The Future Bench
50:11 Wrap Up And Where To Find
51:16 Final Thanks And Outro
About Usman Sheikh Usman Sheikh is the founder and managing director of High Output Ventures, a venture studio building and backing technology-augmented service firms, and the author of Framebreak, a weekly newsletter on strategy, consulting and the knowledge-work economy.
Read his work at https://framebreak.com and connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/usmans
About the Host Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, a keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Innovation isn't a gift. It's a simple, repeatable five-step process that anyone, at any level, can learn — with nothing more than a stack of Post-it notes."
Carla Johnson, author of RE:Think Innovation, is on a mission to teach one million people to consistently come up with new, great and reliable ideas. In this anniversary-edition conversation, she takes Aidan McCullen through her updated Wheel of Innovation — observe, distill, relate, generate, pitch — and the cautionary tales that show why so many good ideas die in the boardroom.
In this conversation, Carla reveals:
Why a pet-flavoured water startup failed — and the warning signs it ignored
The "CF-uh-O" who killed a Disney-inspired pitch, and what it teaches about how ideas are packaged
What brand detachment disorder is — and why "that would never work here" is your most expensive excuse
How Big Ass Fans transplanted the customer experience of Zingerman's Deli into an industrial fan company
How the CDC's zombie apocalypse campaign got 60,000 hits in an hour and put Dr. Ali Khan on stage at Comic-Con
Why Great Ormond Street Hospital brought in Ferrari's Formula 1 pit crew to cut surgical handover errors
How Tim Washer turned the Cisco ASR 9000 router launch into a Valentine's Day love story
Why real creativity only starts after your first 200 ideas
The "how might we" language shift that stops your brain killing ideas before they're born
How to give feedback that builds perpetual innovators instead of silencing them
Chapters: 
00:00 Innovation Is A Process
00:49 Why RE Think Matters
02:10 Thirsty Pet Cautionary Tale
05:01 Defining Innovation Clearly
07:29 New Great Reliable Ideas
09:54 Perpetual Innovators Explained
11:03 Mentorina Pitch Gone Wrong
15:10 Brand Detachment Disorder
18:29 Complexity Bias In Innovation
22:07 Brand Transplant Big Ass Fans
25:38 Constraints And If Onlys
28:23 CDC Zombie Preparedness Win
33:18 Wheel Of Innovation Update
33:53 Constraints Spark Creativity
34:27 Cisco Router Love Story
39:32 Observation Drives Innovation
45:01 Distill Dots Into Patterns
48:05 Relate Ideas To Brand
53:00 Generate 200 Ideas
55:50 Pitch The Idea Journey
59:32 Feedback That Builds
01:04:19 Where To Find Carla
Find Carla Johnson at https://carlajohnson.co — take the innovation archetype assessment and sign up for her fortnightly newsletter.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack  https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"The act of modularizing your product is the very act of inviting your future competitors into existence."
Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark, authors of the landmark Design Rules: The Power of Modularity, join Aidan McCullen for an Innovation Show exclusive. Their book is the Rosetta Stone of platform strategy — the mechanic underneath the Innovator's Dilemma — and it has never been more relevant than in this age of AI.
In this conversation, Carliss and Kim reveal:
Why the power of modularity underpins Moore's Law — and everything digital around us
How IBM engineers, locked in a Connecticut motel before Christmas, invented the first conscious modular platform strategy
How the System/360 turned IBM from a competitor into "the environment"
Why the engineers who walked out of IBM's San Jose plant spawned the entire disk-drive industry
How IBM owned 30% of Intel and contracted Microsoft — yet failed to own the only two sources of profit in the PC ecosystem
Why "the game is never incontestably won"
Why Sears couldn't become Walmart, and Walmart couldn't become Amazon
The Chevy Vega that shook itself apart on the test track — and the cost of losing tacit knowledge
Why AI agents are forcing companies to map their workflows for the first time
How Haier replaced twelve layers of management with 4,000 entrepreneurial teams
Why leadership is the operating system of the organisation
00:00 Why This Book Matters
00:33 Modularity For Founders Investors
01:39 Meet The Authors
02:25 What Are Design Rules
03:43 Design Rules Everywhere
06:50 Digital Tech Meets Software
10:52 IBM System 360 Breakthrough
14:22 Artifacts And Interfaces
20:55 Ecosystem Value Migration
26:10 Capturing Value In Platforms
30:23 AI And Measuring Modularity
34:08 Architectural Change And Retail
37:37 Why Incumbents Survive Or Die
43:28 Modularity Creates Options
44:48 Incumbents Miss Nuances
47:09 AI Needs Workflow Maps
52:18 Tacit Knowledge Lost
54:13 Small Car Hood Failures
59:00 Why Ideas Bomb
01:01:28 History Constrains Firms
01:05:52 Modular Organisations Rise
01:08:58 Haier Team Ecosystems
01:17:41 Leadership As Operating System
01:21:55 Spandrels And Tech Reality
01:27:53 Closing Reflections
About the Guests
Carliss Y. Baldwin is the William L. White Professor of Business Administration, Emerita, at Harvard Business School and author of Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations (MIT Press). Kim B. Clark is a former Dean of Harvard Business School, NAC Distinguished Professor of Management at BYU Marriott School of Business, co-author of Leading Through, and co-founder of the Leading Through Institute. Together they wrote Design Rules, Volume 1: The Power of Modularity (MIT Press).
Design Rules, Volume 2: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049337/design-rules-volume-2/
Leading Through Institute: https://leadingthrough.co
About the Host
Aidan McCullen is a 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). More at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen
About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Connect:
https://theinnovationshow.io
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Narcissists do draw people in. They start with really appealing visions — and then the wheels come off."
About 2% of people are narcissists. Among CEOs, it's roughly 16%. Jennifer Chatman — Dean of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and one of the world's leading scholars of organisational culture — joins Aidan McCullen to explain why narcissistic leadership is so often mistaken for visionary leadership, and how to tell the two apart before one wrecks your company.
Drawing on her widely cited article with Stanford's Charles O'Reilly, "Transformational Leader or Narcissist?", and her new book Making Organizational Culture Great, Jennifer separates the grandiose vision we admire from the exploitation that comes attached to it. This episode follows directly on from the two-part Geoffrey Cain series on Steve Jobs in exile — because Jobs is one of the case studies.
In this conversation, Jennifer reveals:
Why a narcissistic CEO's pay quietly pulls away from their team's over time — and what that gap really measures
The single interview question that exposes a narcissist: "Who did you bring along with you?"
Why Steve Jobs ended his career with 13 senior leaders who'd stayed 13 years — and what that says about him
How "grandiose vision" and "narcissism" overlap on a Venn diagram — and where they split
The "dark triad" that turns confidence into damage: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism
Why narcissistic CEOs file far more lawsuits — yet win no more of them
The counter-intuitive team move: group your narcissists together
Why narcissism's damage to a culture is "sticky" — it lingers long after the leader leaves
How to shield yourself when you can't leave — and when to look for the exit
Why chaos and uncertainty are a narcissist's favourite weather
Chapters
00:00 Cold open: how narcissist CEOs pull away from their teams
02:00 Welcome Jennifer Chatman, and the Steve Jobs connection
04:00 Kalanick, Holmes, Trump: the quotes that give a narcissist away
05:00 Why 16% of CEOs are narcissists — and how they draw you in
07:00 The delayed damage: pay, credit, and the dark triad
16:00 The one question that exposes a narcissist
19:00 Risk, lawsuits, and the denial of failure
24:00 Ethics, collaboration, and the sticky cost to culture
27:00 How to protect yourself, and Making Organizational Culture Great
(Timestamps follow the transcript markers — shift after the final edit.)
About the Host
Aidan McCullen, 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI/disruption/innovation/change, host of The Innovation Show, author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Links: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen 
About the Guest
Jennifer A. Chatman is the Bank of America Dean of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a leading scholar of organisational culture and narcissistic leadership. She co-created the Organizational Culture Profile and co-hosts the podcast The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer. With Stanford's Charles O'Reilly she wrote the widely cited article "Transformational Leader or Narcissist? How Grandiose Narcissists Can Create and Destroy Organizations and Institutions," and with Glenn Carroll she is the author of Making Organizational Culture Great: Moving Beyond Popular Beliefs (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2026). Link: https://www.jenniferachatman.com
About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Host Aidan McCullen sits down with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Making Organizational Culture Great, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Connect:
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Substack (Thursday Thought): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

Steve Jobs sold barely 100 computers a month at NeXT — and told his team they'd sell 100,000. This is the decade everyone skips.
Author Geoffrey Cain joins Aidan McCullen for part two on Steve Jobs in Exile, the story of the wilderness years between Jobs' 1985 ousting from Apple and his return. Cain reframes the NeXT era not as a triumphant hero's journey but as a cascade of failure, ego and self-sabotage that quietly forged the leader Jobs became.
In this conversation, Geoffrey reveals:
Why the "reality distortion field" stopped working the moment the $6,500 NeXTcube shipped
How Jobs sabotaged an IBM deal that could have made NeXTSTEP, not Windows, the world's operating system
The airport moment he abandoned his own salesman in front of 800 IBM engineers
Why he killed Ross Perot's pipeline to the CIA, NSA and Pentagon with five words: "I don't like the feds"
How a Daffy Duck demo blew up a Disney deal worth thousands of computers
Why Tim Berners-Lee built the entire World Wide Web on a single NeXTcube in 1990
How the creators of Doom were turned away because Jobs "didn't like games"
The advisor's warning Jobs ignored for a decade: "your assets have feet"
Why putting on a grey suit to sell enterprise software was the moment he finally grew up
The random mid-level phone call — not Jobs' idea — that put him back on the road to Apple
Chapters:
00:00 Think beyond use cases
00:38 Sponsor message
01:03 Part two begins
01:54 NeXT revenge era
03:48 Reality distorts back
04:56 Cube launch hype
05:59 Sales reality check
06:48 Founder market lesson
08:04 The hero–shithead rollercoaster
12:09 Carrot and stick leadership
13:25 Assets have feet
14:57 Co-founders depart
17:50 Buggy cube problems
18:53 Writing the donut hole
19:57 Canon investment drama
21:33 IBM deal sabotage
25:40 Ross Perot fallout
28:13 No feds market
28:48 Disney deal blow-up
31:03 NeXT powers the web
32:32 Doom and missed gaming
33:28 Lesson for AI builders
35:32 Motorola dumps NeXT
38:40 Rock bottom pivot
40:07 Enterprise sales Jobs
43:34 WebObjects breakthrough
48:06 Pixar vindication
51:05 Phone call to Apple
54:47 Wrap up and sponsor
About Geoffrey Cain:
Geoffrey Cain is an author and investigative journalist. His book Steve Jobs in Exile chronicles the NeXT and Pixar years, and he also wrote Samsung Rising.
Website: https://geoffreycain.net
Substack (The Burner Files): https://geoffreycain.substack.com
X: https://x.com/Geoffrey_Cain
About The Innovation Show:
The Innovation Show is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Host Aidan McCullen sits down with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for extra content and webinars.
Connect:
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Substack: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
About the Author
Geoffrey Cain is an author and investigative journalist, and the author of Steve Jobs in Exile and Samsung Rising.
https://geoffreycain.net — https://geoffreycain.substack.com
About the Host
Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation, and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley).
https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen