Think AI Podcast

🎙️ Why AI Fails Without Clean DataDoug Saunders has spent 28 years running technology in the businesses nobody posts about: waste, ice, coal, cold chain logistics, and now frozen cheesecake. He is CTO at Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, and his position on AI is refreshingly unpopular. You do not throw AI at a business for the sake of it. You find the business problem, you fix the data underneath it, and only then does the technology earn its budget.In this conversation with Dave Goyal, Doug walks through what that actually looked like in production, including a distribution problem solved with LiDAR sensors and predictive routing that took twenty to thirty million dollars of cost out of an ice company, and a customer service bot that absorbed 500,000 interactions a year.In this episode:00:59 A master's in Russian history, then golf course design, then CTO04:09 Walking into food manufacturing and finding the silos07:03 Why data has to come before AI08:49 Building a $180M company off QuickBooks10:25 Your LLM has no idea what your data means14:44 Don't throw AI at a business for business sake16:20 The ice box problem that saved $30 million21:30 Automating 500,000 customer interactions a year23:56 Automating to get rid of people is the wrong approach32:51 Trust versus governance, and the Excel experts who resist36:20 The end of Excel jockeying39:21 Fitting master data governance to your cultureIf you are being asked to "do something with AI" before your data is ready, this one will give you the language to push back. Subscribe, and tell me in the comments what your organization automated too early.🔗 Links & ResourcesDoug Saunders on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dgsaundersDoug Saunders on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SaundersdgSara Lee Frozen Bakery: https://saraleefrozenbakery.com/#DataStrategy #AIinManufacturing #SupplyChain #CTO #PrivateEquity

🎙️ Fix the Process First: Two Founders on Automating for RealMost founders build a business that ends up owning them. Noemi Kis did the opposite. She built a seven-figure industrial water treatment company with a team of two, systemized it until it ran without her, and now spends about one hour a week on it while teaching 200,000+ non-technical founders how to run lean with AI.In this episode, Dave and Noemi compare notes on what AI automation actually looks like in production, where humans still have to stay in the loop, and why refining a process before you automate it is the difference between leverage and expensive chaos.In this episode:00:00 A seven-figure business run by two people02:02 The moment she realized effort had stopped equaling results05:14 Why the business model matters more than the hustle08:05 Running a company on one hour a week with EOS09:40 The "lazy CEO" mindset that protects your energy15:25 Can they do it, and do they want it? Hiring filter17:22 Don't automate chaos: fix the process first20:35 Voice DNA, redlining, and how to avoid AI slop22:34 Creating content for non-followers, not followers26:57 Her live trend-scouting agent stack with human review30:35 The $2,000 lesson in AI cost control37:01 How Dave runs multi-agent memory across Claude, Obsidian and Notion40:49 What happens to a job description when AI takes the taskIf you are sitting on a business that owns your week, this is the one to listen to. Subscribe, drop a comment with the first task you would hand off, and send this to one founder who needs it.🔗 Links & ResourcesGuest website: https://www.fastestgrowingtrends.com/Noemi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noemikis/Noemi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kis_noemi/Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegoyal/#AIAutomation #FounderMode #LeanBusiness #AIAgents #Entrepreneurship

🎙️ Skills Are Teachable. Identity Isn't. | Abhijit Bhaduri (Abhijit Bhaduri LLC)The AI conversation is stuck on skills: learn AI or get replaced. Abhijit Bhaduri says that misses the real threat entirely. AI can learn any skill you bring to the table. What it cannot replicate is what you feel when you do the work, and that is where the identity gap opens up.Abhijit is CEO of Abhijit Bhaduri LLC and has led talent strategy inside some of the largest companies in the world: Wipro's first Chief Learning Officer, Global Head of Learning & Development at Microsoft, and HR leadership at PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive and Tata Steel. He is a LinkedIn Top Voice with over a million followers, SHRM's #1 HR influencer on social media, author of six books including Career 3.0, and his seventh, AIdentity, is coming later this year. In this conversation he and Dave land on the same conclusion from opposite ends of the room: the companies winning with AI are not the ones with the best models. They are the ones solving the people problem underneath.In this episode: 00:00 Meet Abhijit: from CLO to a million followers 02:03 The guitarist who plays every genre 04:37 The biggest myth in every company: money motivates 06:59 Dave: judge people by their opportunities, not their limitations 09:36 What the identity gap actually is 11:45 Why AI makes everything average (the Picasso test) 14:11 You bought the piano but skipped the lessons 16:45 The man training AI at the cost of his kid's job 20:12 Keystroke logging kills innovation 25:56 Why sharing knowledge is now a superpower 31:07 The new book: AIdentity 34:43 Introduce yourself without your title or employer 36:50 The 80/20 future: work like water, not ice 41:05 Tokens as currency and identity as the new talent layer 44:44 The one failure Abhijit still carriesIf this conversation changed how you think about AI, your team or your own work identity, subscribe to the Think AI Podcast, drop a like, and tell us in the comments: how would you introduce yourself without your title?🔗 Links & ResourcesAbhijit Bhaduri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhijitbhaduri/Abhijit's website and newsletter: https://abhijitbhaduri.com #ThinkAIPodcast #AIdentity #IdentityGap #FutureOfWork #AIAdoption

🎙️ Healthcare AI: The Hype Ends HereMost hospitals cannot answer one basic question: what AI is running on our network right now? James Green went from Pixar under Steve Jobs, to running the World Series of Video Games, to building the tech behind the NFL first down line, to CEO of Cognome, a healthcare AI company deployed in 20 hospitals including Montefiore and NYU Langone. In this episode, we strip the hype out of healthcare AI and talk about what actually works, what is genuinely dangerous, and the unintended consequence nobody is discussing: a billing system where nurses are expenses and AI is profit.In this episode: 00:00 From Pixar and esports to healthcare AI 01:46 Why healthcare is adopting AI 2.2x faster than other industries 12:15 AI Sniffer: finding every hidden AI on a hospital network 18:08 Ambient dictation and the wrong leg problem 21:55 The judge and jury system that kills hallucinations 26:17 Why missing context is the second most dangerous thing in clinical AI29:36 Silent mode: the right way to deploy AI with physicians 34:44 AI already beats doctors 99.9% of the time, with one catch39:42 Nurses billed like bed linen: the consequence nobody sees coming 43:34 LLMs are now healthcare's fastest growing cyber threat 46:52 The next 3 to 5 years: thousands of AI agents per hospital 49:32 What Steve Jobs was really like: seven reasons in 2.5 secondsIf this conversation made you think differently about AI in your industry, subscribe to the Think AI Podcast, drop a comment with your take on the nurse billing question, and share this with someone in healthcare who needs to hear it.🔗 Links & ResourcesCognome: https://www.cognome.comJames Green on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesangreen/#ThinkAIPodcast #DaveGoyal #HealthcareAI #AIGovernance #ArtificialIntelligence

🎙️ Speed Is No Longer a Moat | Alex Galert, BRNZEveryone in AI is racing to ship faster. Alex Galert, CEO of BRNZ, says that race is already over, and speed was never the real advantage. In this conversation he breaks down why accountability, not velocity, is the new moat, and how his studio builds complete AI-powered companies for equity, with a 67% founder floor in writing and zero investors.In this episode:00:00 The thesis: why speed stopped being a moat 01:31 The Hero Founder and 10,000 hours in one industry 08:55 Business for equity: how BRNZ actually works 14:14 The anti-VC model: no fees, equity only by shipping 18:54 Inside DUDE.AI and the five levels of AI autonomy 26:08 The dirty secret of AI-generated code, and a real data hole 31:48 The failure that changed how Alex builds 45:31 Can a company run with no humans? 55:02 Five moves you can make Monday morningIf you build with AI, this one will change how you think about shipping. Like, subscribe, and drop a comment with the one move you are taking into Monday.🔗 Links & Resources Website: [brnz.com] | [DUDE.AI] Guest LinkedIn: [Alex Galert] (comment BUILD on the pinned post for the BRNZ Playbook)WhatsApp: message DIAGNOSIS to [wa.me/491711254074] for a Startup Loop Diagnosis ▶️ #ThinkAIPodcast #DaveGoyal #AI #AgenticAI #Startups