Inflation is up, wars are dragging on, and most of the stock market's gains are locked inside a handful of AI giants... so what happens to everyone else? In this episode, Michelle Loret de Mola and Dev Patnaik go hunting for the exceptions: companies thriving inside industries that are supposedly dying. They dig into how A24 built a movie studio empire on twenty-million-dollar bets instead of billion-dollar franchises, why Chili's is stealing customers from McDonald's by refusing to discount, how Taco Bell treats product launches like a live focus group, and why Barnes & Noble is opening new stores by giving up the very efficiencies that used to make retail chains powerful. Michelle and Dev unpack the pattern underneath all four: creativity over benchmarking, insights over risk-taking, and playing to strengths instead of chasing someone else's playbook. Plus, headlines from the future: burglars using robotaxis as getaway cars, a dictator's quest for immortality, and a country trying to out-Socrates ChatGPT. Because the winning move isn't following the rules of a dying industry. It's realizing the rules were never worth following in the first place.

#SuccessStories #AI #Leadership #Humanity #HowToWin #Creativity #FutureFocused

Links

Subscribe to receive Dev’s weekly future focused letters:

https://www.jumpassociates.com/podcastandnewsletter/

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jump-associates

Start a conversation:

inquiries@jumpassociates.com

The Jump Podcast

The Jump Podcast features Dev Patnaik in dialogue with Michelle Loret de Mola. This is the conversation for future-focused leaders thinking about strategy, culture and leadership. The world is crazy. Everything seems to be changing, and not always in a good way. Today, business leaders are struggling to figure out how to avoid becoming the next Kodak, Blackberry or Blockbuster. But fear not, dear listener. Things can get better. People can do better. And the world can be better.

Jump Associates

Jump is the world’s leading independent strategy and innovation firm. We work with the world’s more admired companies on their most important growth challenges. Using a future focused approach to strategy, we’ve helped these firms to grow their businesses in times of change.

AI is no longer just a tool to learn, it’s becoming an existential question about work, education, and what it means to be human. In this episode, Michelle Loret de Mola and Dev Patnaik unpack the growing anxiety around AI, from students booing commencement speakers to workers wondering what kind of future they’re preparing for. They explore why “prompt engineering” isn’t enough, how AI may be exposing the limits of today’s so-called knowledge work, and why deep focus, creativity, ambiguity, and even human frailty might become our greatest strengths. From the Pope’s reflections on safeguarding the “human person” to the lessons of photography’s impact on painting, Michelle and Dev ask a bigger question: as AI reshapes work, what parts of humanity are we willing to fight to preserve?

#FutureOfWork #AI #Leadership #Humanity #DeepWork #Creativity #FutureFocused

Links

Subscribe to receive Dev’s weekly future focused letters:

https://www.jumpassociates.com/podcastandnewsletter/

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jump-associates

Start a conversation:

inquiries@jumpassociates.com

The Jump Podcast

The Jump Podcast features Dev Patnaik in dialogue with Michelle Loret de Mola. This is the conversation for future-focused leaders thinking about strategy, culture and leadership. The world is crazy. Everything seems to be changing, and not always in a good way. Today, business leaders are struggling to figure out how to avoid becoming the next Kodak, Blackberry or Blockbuster. But fear not, dear listener. Things can get better. People can do better. And the world can be better.

Jump Associates

Jump is the world’s leading independent strategy and innovation firm. We work with the world’s more admired companies on their most important growth challenges. Using a future focused approach to strategy, we’ve helped these firms to grow their businesses in times of change.

If you’ve ever tried to push a new idea through a large organization, you probably know the feeling: the strategy is solid, the data is there, and somehow the idea still goes nowhere. In this episode, Michelle Loret de Mola and Dev Patnaik sit down with cultural anthropologist and MotivBase co-founder Ujwal Arkalgud to unpack the “invisible rules” that shape how organizations make decisions, assign credibility, and resist change. From the hidden power of pedigree and language to the unspoken consensus culture inside innovation teams, Ujwal explains how successful leaders learn to see invisible rules, navigate them, and slowly reshape them from within. The trio explores how to find “power pockets” inside organizations, why Steve Jobs may have been more anthropologist than rebel, and how leaders can build legitimacy without losing their edge. Plus: why the most important skill in leadership might simply be learning to notice what everyone else ignores. Some invisible rules are hidden. Others are obvious, like staying out of a restaurant kitchen.

#InvisibleRules #Innovation #Anthropology #Leadership

Links

Subscribe to receive Dev’s weekly future focused letters:

https://www.jumpassociates.com/podcastandnewsletter/

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jump-associates

Start a conversation:

inquiries@jumpassociates.com

Read Invisible Rules:

US (https://www.amazon.com/dp/177458686X)

Canada (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/177458686X)

The Jump Podcast

The Jump Podcast features Dev Patnaik in dialogue with Michelle Loret de Mola. This is the conversation for future-focused leaders thinking about strategy, culture and leadership. The world is crazy. Everything seems to be changing, and not always in a good way. Today, business leaders are struggling to figure out how to avoid becoming the next Kodak, Blackberry or Blockbuster. But fear not, dear listener. Things can get better. People can do better. And the world can be better.

Jump Associates

Jump is the world’s leading independent strategy and innovation firm. We work with the world’s more admired companies on their most important growth challenges. Using a future focused approach to strategy, we’ve helped these firms to grow their businesses in times of change.