# Navigating Flux: AI, Media, and Leadership

**Podcast:** Masters of Scale
**Published:** 2026-03-03

## Transcript

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I'm Alix Morris, the lead producer here at Rapid Response, and I'm joined today by your host of Rapid Response, the voice of the show, Bob Safium.
Bob, how are you doing?
I'm good, Alex.
Thanks.
It's fun to be doing this uh a little differently this time.
Absolutely.
We are gonna be doing something that we're calling the rapid recap.
This is where we go through the fuzziest stories, trends, key indicators from the business world recently.
Hit me with what you got.
Well, unfortunately, we do have to start with the news over the weekend.
We saw uh the US and Israel launch joint attacks on Iran, sparking a wider conflict throughout the Middle East.
Are there any indications about what impact this could have on the business world?
Yeah, so as I'm sure everybody listening realizes, it's hard to know what the implications from this are gonna be in the long run at this point.
What I'd say is the the one clear lesson for all of us is that disruption isn't slowing down anywhere, right?
I mean, we saw this with tariffs recently, right?
With the Supreme Court denial, not to mention, you know, advances in AI.
Uh for listeners, we recently had Corey Debraua on the show, the Burson CEO, former comms chief at Google and Starbucks and Salesforce.
And he he started listing all the things that are moving around us these days, you know, all the uncertainties and the ambiguities, and and it can make your head spin, right?
And the question sort of becomes, right, like how do we act in a world seemingly without rules?
And and I think that's the question that that a lot of us are asking ourselves and trying to get to get comfortable with.
How much of that do you think, though, is acting in a world without rules versus the rules are just gonna be changed?
Well, I I guess when you when you think back to, you know, several months ago where President Trump made it sound like there wasn't going to be any US involvement in overseas, you know, activities.
And now we we see action in Venezuela and we see action in in Iran.
And, you know, that's where I sort of say rules, expectations, um, you know, on all kinds of fronts are are hard to are hard to anchor on.
So I I caution folks about making, you know, making quick judgments about what the impact of this is going to be on politics, on the economy.
You know, this is one of these times where we have to learn to be um flexible about it and be on our toes.
Mm-hmm.
When you were back at First Company, you wrote about this idea of generation flux.
Is this kind of what you're referring to here as well?
Yeah, so this is going back, you know, more than a decade.
I I started writing about this idea of generation flux, about sort of a group of people and businesses that were defined not by sort of their their chronological age, this generation, but more by their ability to deal in a time of chaotic change.
Um, I I didn't realize how quite pressioned I that was being, you know, but today we're all in sort of generation flux 2.0.
And so we have to learn to live inside it, right?
To be open to more fluid situations and structures and systems and open to learning new skills with AI and new different kinds of career paths.
And and I and I think about this as sort of we all need to be entrepreneurial, whether we're entrepreneurs or not, right?
We have to have that kind of agility.
And as I as I've talked about this idea of generation flux over the years, one of the questions I get is like you talk about chaos so much, like what do you like about chaos?
And my response is it's not that I like chaos, it's just that it's a reality of the environment, right?
And and we we have to learn to live in that in that reality.
I want to move on to the news that we saw come through on Friday.
Talks fell through over Anthropic's contract with the government to use their tech.
They were concerned about their technology being used for mass surveillance for autonomous drones.
Umce they pulled out very quick from Sam Altman and OpenAI to pull in and say, Well, we can do that.
Um, I'm curious what you think about this story.
What does it indicate about Anthropic's brand?
Is it good for their brand but bad for their business?
What's going on here?
In a lot of ways, we were talking about the idea of generation flux.
I mean, in a lot of ways, this is a sort of quintessential example of flux and what I call flux leadership.
Because in an environment of chaos and change, what anchors us is our principles.
It makes me think of when Ken Frazier was on our show.
He said, and I still honestly think about this every week.
He said, a value isn't a value until you're willing to lose something for it.
Otherwise, it's just a preference.
Yeah.
And so eloquent, right?
And I think that's the perspective.
That's the step that Anthropic took with the Pentagon, right?
It it was in service of their business that the choice they made.
And it had a cost, right?
Um, and I think it it helps define their brand even more strongly than before.
OpenAI made a different choice, reflecting different kinds of principles.
Um, that will have different implications for their brand and their business over time.
They may have more of a business with the federal government going forward.
Again, these things, none of these things are secure.
The upshot to me is that leaders will face more of these kinds of moments in this environment of chaos and and in the future, right?
And so, as a leader, the the lesson to me is be clear about what your own principles are for yourself and for your business, so that when events like this come up, you you are more comfortable recognizing this is a principal decision, and here are my principles, and here's how I act on it.
Does it concern you about open AI, the fact that they were so quick to be like, whatever anthropic has a problem with, we're cool with, or is that too simplistic?
I I mean, I think, you know, Sam Altman is more comfortable being more um fluid uh around certain kinds of things and having certain kinds of business arrangements that he can move to his advantage, which is not always bad for business.
Um, you know, his and open AI's contention is that they have the same philosophy about about autonomous, you know, killing machines and whatnot as anthropic does, and that they are protected on their agreement with uh the Pentagon.
It's it's hard to know what about this as just sort of two groups getting crossways, which is some of the ways it's being described now as almost personality driven, was what the the breakdown was with uh with anthropic.
Um, but you know, clearly uh Sam is more willing to play ball, and uh and that was more palatable to to the Department of Defense, Department of War.
My fear is that in a world right now where everything is being so politicized and polarized.
Do you think we'll reach a point where the left are fans of Claude, the right use open AI, and insane people use Grok.
You know, where are we?
I I don't think people are gonna make their uh tech tools decisions based on politics.
I think they're gonna make them based on which of the tools they helped them get the job done that they need done best.
Again, it's more about branding, who's gonna come work for your organization, um, maybe what kind of sponsors you have if you have that kind of an ad business as OpenAI has.
But um, but I think it's more about talent and and maybe about, you know, once these companies become public, sort of what kind of multiples they get for their brand.
But we're really early in all those days in figuring that out.
There's so many things that go into feeding that.
And this is just this is just one data point that we're obsessing about now and with good reason, um, but uh, but it may not be the definitive one.
I want to stay in the world of AI.
Last week, FinTech uh firm Block, run by Jack Dorsey, formerly of Twitter, um, let go of 4,000 staff members out of their 10,000 person workforce.
Jack Dorsey in a statement uh cited the reason being because of gains from AI.
Um is this a sign of things to come, do you think?
Well, you and I have talked before about whether layoffs attributed to AI are actually one to one-to-one, right?
Because AI is doing those jobs as opposed to the result of disruption, of which AI is a part, but this disruption sort of demands a new structure.
And I'm not saying that Jack is lying when he points to AI.
I'm just not sure that applying this situation to every other business, as some news reports worry about, is necessarily apples to apples.
It may be that these are one-to-one jobs at block, but that doesn't mean that everyone's gonna have, you know, uh a huge layoffs because of AI.
I I would say that in my conversations, I think there are a bunch of tech leaders that ultimately just don't care if jobs go away from AI.
I mean, some of them rationalize that like this always happens with tech waves, but but many of them are really driven by what's good for them, right?
There is a race for billions for for building and owning the next railroads.
And if there's collateral damage in that as they're growing, I don't know that they really ultimately make that a priority.
We've seen this kind of thing from Silicon Valley before, even recently, sort of not taking responsibility for the societal impact of tech while enjoying the fruits of it.
I I remember talking to Mark Zuckerberg in probably 2017, and I asked him about whether, you know, as beneficiaries of tech, we have a responsibility to help those being left behind.
And he said, yes, that there was, but he certainly didn't commit resources to that the way he did to say developing the metaverse, right?
So and we've seen the impact of social media fueled polarization and societal anger and frustration, fear about changes that that have driven us apart.
It's hard not to feel like we're on a similar track with AI, perhaps even on a larger scale for all the billions being invested in AI systems and data centers.
How much is being committed to reskilling?
You know, do tech leaders really feel a responsibility to help the overall population win in an AI race, or are they just battling each other to win?
And my suspicion is it's more the latter.
I want to move into the media business.
Last week we saw uh Netflix bow out of the race for Warner Brothers.
If we go back a month, Netflix looked like a sure thing to land the Dale.
Uh, were you surprised by the outcome?
Uh I I was, I was a bit.
I mean, it has been a fascinating game to watch.
I will say that as it comes to Netflix, I sort of applaud them not getting drawn into bidding too much.
It's it's kind of a rare discipline in corporate acquisitions like this for uh an uh a bidder to just say, you know what, too rich for my blood.
Um Paramount Skydance, like they needed the deal more.
This is something we had a uh discussion a a while back with uh Janice Minn at The Anchler, who was explaining like that that Skydance needs the deal.
They need the scale to be competitive.
Um that that doesn't mean that you know buying Warner Brothers Discovery will turn out to be worth what they're paying for it, you know.
And I could see that part of Netflix's calculation is that uh David Ellison won't be able to make it work, and they'll be able to buy what they want later at a better price, right?
The wild cord of course is that uh the Ellison family has so much money, courtesy of Larry Ellison's Oracle fortune.
And so anything might happen.
Has this made David Ellison the most powerful person in media?
It's made him a player.
I I don't know that I would say he's the most powerful person in media.
I think that will depend on how they execute, on whether, you know, this combination of assets that they've brought together really is an effective, you know, uh accumulation and not just, you know, a house of brands and a lot of those brands being troubled in different ways.
I'm seeing a lot of people fearful of the fact that part of the deal comes with CNN.
You know, we've seen how they've run CBS News and what's happened over at 60 minutes.
Um the very small silver lining that I'm holding on to is so I'm 28.
Very few people I know or younger than me watch TV news.
And so the power of CNN and the power of CBS news, I'm trying to just hold on to the fact that maybe that's a relic of media at a different time.
And that's not where people might get our news oh I I mean do I think a lot of people are are watching TV news and that it's going to be a growing area.
No.
But I do think that um professional journalism environments drive the news cycle in so many ways.
So that so many of the folks that you're seeing in the channels that you're looking at, they're getting their starting point, their basis from established news channels.
Is CNN at risk?
I mean CNN has a devoted audience of a certain kind to disrupt that unless they felt like there was a better audience that they could find in a different way.
I don't think they're gonna disrupt that just for the purposes of keeping one political party happy or not.
I I I just don't think that will work on on a business front.
I think they, you know, that that's what's gonna end up driving ultimately the dis decisions they make.
Now, it may be that they decide we don't want to be in the news business as much and pull back resources, and that would certainly be, you know, disappointing.
Um and I know it makes sense for journalists to worry and lament and push back over those things because that's the only way to stay protected in this area.
Um, but I I tend to believe that at the end of the day, quality journalism will be valued, um, will be around, and it may not be as big in the buckets as TV news once was, but I still think it will be among the more dominant places that people go to this is Mike Nicholas, Capital One Business Customer and co-founder of Anset Uncles, a plant-based restaurant and community space in Brooklyn, New York.
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Shrinking uh local and foreign coverage.
Um, what does this indicate to you about the media business?
Well, I I'll I'll say that I I've been, you know, disappointed by the Jeff Bezos era at the Washington Post.
I I sort of thought that having you know one of the richest people in the world by the Washington Post meant that um that there would be that much more investment and resources behind uh a great journalism organization.
I mean, what when I worked at at Fast Company, I was fortunate enough to work for, you know, a successful business person, one owner, a guy named Joe Mansueto, who was incredibly supportive of our investments in journalism.
And you know, Jeff Bezos has way more money than Joe does.
And so I I was really hoping that he was going to bring that along.
Um, you know, he he hasn't.
It's kind of interesting because uh when Bezos bought the post, I sort of thought like this was his, you know, a way to marry his uh his tech influence with influence through media, which is something that you know Elon Musk did by buying Twitter, which seemed crazy at the time, but actually probably has worked out more influential for him in some ways than the post has been for Bezos.
And now, in this discussion, I guess you could sort of have to include the Ellisons who we talked about, right, as a media influencer alongside tech.
I'm not sure who the James Bond villain is in all this, uh, but there is some you know dystopic quality to it.
I I hope for the best owners with the best intentions in safeguarding our news stories.
That was my experience at Fast Company.
It's not at all clear that that's what we're getting from these sort of these these mega owners in this way.
Before we move on from Jeff Bezos, you know, Blue Origin last year he sent up uh Katie Perry and a few other famous people um into the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.
I was at a party a few weeks ago, and I was speaking to somebody who works as a costume designer here in um Hollywood, and she said that she'd worked on the Blue Origin flight.
I was asking her, oh wow, so like were you having to work with, I don't know, just like the science of spacesuits?
And she says to me, like, no, it was just like any other like film costume, which I think was kind of telling in a way.
Blue Origin is not winning in the battle with SpaceX right now, right?
They're they're just not, and they need all of the buzz that they can generate.
But there's a lot of money that's floating around and will float towards space-related initiatives, and Blue Origin may, you know, maybe one of those players in the long run.
One thing that we've uh learned is that rich billionaires love space.
They love the idea of being the guy to go to space.
So, one last story in media that I want us to hear is Changeover at Disney.
Bob Iger finally uh picked his replacement.
Um, Josh DeMarrow, who was running the Theme Parks and Consumer Products Division.
Um, you know, we had seen so many rumors about who could fill this position.
Uh even friends of the show, Brian Chesky at Airbnb, Andrew Wilson at EA, Jimmy Pitaro at ESPN.
Um, were you surprised by the decision?
You can't be surprised that you know, a leader at that level inside would be would be the choice.
Granted, the previous, you know, time they tried to succeed uh Iger with someone from inside, it didn't work out quite the way they they wanted.
I I assume their um, you know, their due diligence this time round was more intense or had different parameters around it.
Uh you know, what I what I really think of with the this changeover at Disney, it makes me think about the the changeover that we're seeing across CEOs more broadly, the number of CEOs being replaced in the last year, going way up.
The strains that CEOs have had to manage through over the last five or six years have been so intense that you know it's not surprising that certain folks are saying, I'm out of here, or that other folks are saying, like, we need someone newer, younger, fresher with more energy to take on, you know, the nonsense and the craziness that that is that is in the future.
There is a new generation of leadership that is coming across corporate America.
That I'm going to be keeping my eye on that because I I'm not sure who the you know the Bob Iger of the future is going to be.
And, you know, Bob Iger is a tremendous leader.
Is his successor going to be that person, or is it going to be someone from somewhere else?
That's the sort of the um, you know, the parlor game that uh that I'm engaged in out of all of this.
So much of the mission of the show has been about trying to cut through the noise.
Um, and you know, it's so hard nowadays to know what's noise versus what is worth paying attention to.
Yeah.
Which is why I wanted to end on a really quick rapid fire game with you, if that's okay.
Ah, okay, great.
Um, I'm calling it noise or legit.
I will throw out some fun, buzzy stories um of late, and I want you to tell me whether it's noise or whether it's legit meaning.
Uh, there's more of an indication about something that we should be paying attention to for the world ahead.
Okay.
All right, great.
Let's do it.
The first one, uh, the viral Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise AI video.
So that was produced by this Chinese, enabled by this Chinese uh resource seed dance.
I I think it's probably noise for now.
You know, Hollywood is clamping down on that sort of stuff, guardrails will come in.
I mean, what's legit is the long-term transformation that AI will enable in, you know, creating compelling content, um, costs down and and broadening creator impact and all of that.
But we're not there yet.
It's a scare at this point, but it but it's not legit yet.
All right.
Elon Musk merging XAI and SpaceX.
Noise or legit.
Oh, well, that is noise, but a lot of noise, what I say.
Like this this is financial engineering.
It's gonna have an impact on how other companies act.
It'll give Musk more leeway and flexibility, potentially help him hit some of his enormous personal compensation targets.
But like, does it make Tesla a better car?
Does it make Starlink a better server service, right?
Like those are the things that are gonna matter in the long run.
Um, and you know, just merging the companies doesn't necessarily do that.
The next one, the vibe coding wave.
I think vibe coding is totally legit.
I mean, especially with the ongoing advances, even the last few months.
As you know, Alex, the the company that that uh that runs uh rapid response in master scale, wait what?
We recently did a three-day AI sprint, right?
And folks with no technical background were able to create prototypes in days and hours.
Um, now what does it take to make those prototypes ready to deploy, especially on mid mission critical work?
Like, I'm not sure vibe coding is yet up to that task, you know, without bringing in a quality human engineer, human designer to make it feel effective and distinctive, but the tools are getting better much, much faster.
And um, so it's it's totally legit.
Social media on trial.
Well, alas, I think I have to say this is noise.
I I know I I mean, I'm not saying that the social media companies are gonna win at trial.
They may lose, but they they have enough money to pay off what's required.
And in the big picture, I kind of think the social media genie is out of the bottle.
You know, it would require more aggressive government-backed action to really turn things around.
I know there are analogies made to cigarette smoking and you know how the courts help businesses make businesses more accountable, but I I this is more nuanced territory and and even cigarette companies, if you notice, they're still around.
People are still smoking.
I I I wish I I didn't think it was noise, but um, but I I suspect that in the long run it may end up being.
Next one, the introduction of the GLP1 pill.
Oh, uh I so here in New York City, there are these subway ads that a row has up with uh with Charles Barclay and Serena Williams.
They're they're everywhere, they're great.
They're not about the pill, but GLP ones are legit.
The pills will make them more legit.
Um, you know, we we had uh New York Times writer, Sarah Cliff on the show earlier this year, and we talked about the new food pyramid and new vaccine rules and the Maha movement, and you know, there are all these things that seem like they're questionable that some people raise about what it's doing to to our health, new surgeon general.
But like the GLP one pills reinforce that science keeps moving forward, and um, and that that that's really gonna be the impact.
And you can't, you know, look at Charles Barclay on uh on you know, inside the NBA and not say, wow, these things really really have an impact.
All right, and finally, MOLTBOOC, the social network for AI agents, noise are legit.
Oh gosh, I I love this story.
Um because it's noise, right?
I mean, there was this great uh Nick Thompson post, uh CEO of The Atlantic, who does, you know, his most important thing in tech, and he did this great video debunking, basically explaining why Maltbook wasn't the uh the big event that everyone was afraid it was.
Um, and so on that end, Maltbook is noise.
The legit part is really Nick's post, which is that AI is susceptible to hype, you know.
You know, is there gonna be a SaaSpocalypse?
Software as a service is not going away.
The businesses may change, but it it's not gonna go away.
Um, so I I feel like finding the hype that is definitely legit.
You know, Moldbook itself, yeah, it was noise.
Well, Bob, as always, thank you so much for going through all this with me.
Uh happy March and here's to another month of the show.
Well, thanks, Alex.
Always fun, always fun.
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Rapid Response is a Wait What original.
I'm Bob Safian.
Our executive producer is Eve Tro.
Our producer is Alex Morris.
Associate producer is Mashumaku Tonina.
Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli.
Our theme music is by Ryan Holliday.
Our head of podcast is Lital Malad.
For more, visit Rapid ResponseShow.com.