Theresa and Anthony take on a full news cycle of AI security breaches, the wave of layoffs tied to AI bets at Disney, Amazon, and Block, and the pressure HR leaders are facing from every direction. They talk about what it means when companies announce layoffs in the name of AI and then quietly start rehiring, whether employees are "keeping receipts" on employer behavior, and why the people function has to grow its own AI fluency to lead through this moment. Plus a detour into Disney's knockout video, Danny Meyer's employee-first playbook, and why intentional culture still separates the companies that scale from the ones that stall.

Theresa Fesinstine and Anthony Onesto kick off their new podcast the only way that makes sense: by pulling a headline straight from LinkedIn and ripping into it.

The conversation starts with the class action lawsuit filed against EightfoldAI in California, alleging the company scraped social media and public data to build candidate profiles without consent. But instead of piling onto the fear cycle, Theresa and Anthony dig into what's actually worth paying attention to and what's just noise. They unpack the media hype machine around AI, the predictable rotation of panic topics (safety, environment, water usage), and why HR leaders keep getting caught between "adopt everything" pressure from the C-suite and "trust nothing" instincts from a career spent managing risk.

The real thread running through this episode: HR's relationship with permission. Why are so many CHROs still asking IT if they can have the tools they need instead of directing what their function requires? Anthony shares the story of being Workday's 61st customer because he refused to wait for approval, and Theresa breaks down the difference between requesting technology and presenting a business case with ROI expectations attached. It's a distinction that changes the entire dynamic.

They also get into the parallels between AI hype and every previous tech wave (dot-com, mobile, social), why lawsuits can actually be a good thing for the industry, and how tools like Gemini and ChatGPT's Pulse feature are shaping how they stay sharp day to day.