Recent Posts
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Burn The Map: Governance Gap, Identity Gap, & Accountability or Bust w/ Allen Martinez
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.
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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 […]
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Burn the Map: Clone Your Genius, Survive AI Change, and Middle Management Beware w/ Monica Marquez
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.
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Burn The Map: Holograms, Flat Squirrels, & Why You Really Need Cake on Tuesday w/ Elizabeth Bieniek
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)?
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Burn The Map: Outfoxing Wall Street with Dr. Craig Kaplan Pt.2
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.
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Burn The Map: Herding AIs, Dodging Doom, and the New Ethics of Intelligence w/ Dr. Craig Kaplan
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.
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Second Brains, Biometric Socks, and the AI Classroom: Lisa Dieker on the Future of Learning
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?
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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.
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Burn The Map: Book People, Broken Systems, and Why Kids Are Getting Dumber w/ Rae Foote
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.
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Burn The Map: Joel McKay Smith — Networking Maestro, Rural Champion, and Master of Community Capital
We talk to Joel McKay Smith—a guy whose “Rolodex” literally stress-tested the Wrench platform—about why real power isn’t in the LinkedIn follower count, but in the relationships you actually maintain. From rural Utah dairy farms to industrial parks, Joel’s journey is a hilarious, head-spinning tour straight through the heart of economic disruption and small-town resurrection. You think you’re a “super-connector”? Please. Joel remembers your name, your birthday, and probably your lactose intolerance from a conversation in 1997, all while masterminding a carbon-neutral Olympics bid and hustling for tech that lets seniors outsmart scammers.