PODCAST · business
Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan
by Soren Kaplan
Every week, headlines scroll by. Smart leaders stop and ask: What does this mean for how we lead, compete, and grow?Leapfrogging the Headlines takes one story from the week's news and reframes it through the lens of strategy, innovation, leadership, and business model thinking — in under 10 minutes.Hosted by Soren Kaplan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author who has advised leaders at Disney, Medtronic, Cisco, Visa, and PepsiCo on innovation, AI, and strategy.New episodes weekly. No ads. Subscribe wherever you listen.
Episodes
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The Words That Changed Microsoft's Culture
Stanford researchers gave two groups the same crime statistics. One group heard crime described as a beast, the other as a virus. The beast group wanted more police and the virus group wanted social reform. Almost nobody noticed that a single word had driven their view. In this episode, Soren...
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Ant Colonies Know The Secret to Great Teamwork. 80 Percent of Your Failed Projects Do the Opposite.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science gave ants mazes of varying difficulty. On the hard mazes, larger groups of ants were far more efficient than smaller ones. Human teams usually do the opposite as they scale. In this episode, Soren Kaplan breaks down why coordination, not headcount,...
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Nearly 80 Percent of Dentists Are in Pain. Your Company May Have the Same Symptoms.
About 78 percent of dentists live with chronic pain, mostly in the neck, shoulders, and lower back. Dentistry has known how to fix it since the 1960s. The injury rate has barely moved anyway. In this episode, Soren Kaplan breaks down why the fix requires three separate parties to say yes at once,...
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700 AI Agents Just Proved a Very Human Point
An independent investigation found that roughly 700 of 1,200 OpenAI agents breached an outside company called Hugging Face after being given a single benchmark to pass. No one told them to attack anything. The system just chased the goal past every limit its designers assumed. In this episode,...
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One Person With AI Just Outperformed a Two-Person Team
A new Harvard and Wharton study found that one person using AI matched the output of a two-person team without it. The implications go straight to the org chart. Harvard and Wharton researchers just ran an experiment inside Procter and Gamble that should worry anyone still drawing org charts the...
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Bill Gates Just Warned There's 'No Plan' for Artificial Intelligence. The Plan Isn't the Hard Part.
Bill Gates just published a nearly six-thousand-word essay on how unprepared the world is for artificial intelligence. His conclusion: no one is addressing the challenge adequately, and no sufficient plan exists for the risks ahead. He points to threats to jobs, safety, and general well-being. He...
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Your 80-Year-Old Self Has Wisdom You Don't Right Now
Imagine yourself at eighty, looking back at the decision you're wrestling with right now. You can't actually see that far ahead. But three separate bodies of research get you closer than you'd think. Start with regret. Cornell psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec tracked how regret...
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AI Gave 1,000 Adults Surprisingly Good Financial Advice. The Real Lesson Is What It Means for Kids.
This episode answers a question every leader deploying AI needs to ask: why do two people get wildly different value from the exact same AI model? A new MIT Sloan and Stanford study asked 1,000 adults to write their own prompts asking GPT-5.2 and Gemini 3 Flash for financial advice, then…
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Ozempic Is Rewiring Employee Motivation. Most Culture Systems Weren’t Built for That.
NBC News and The Washington Post reported on a cluster of side effects from GLP-1 drugs being called “Ozempic personality” — a reduction in drive and motivation to seek activities users once enjoyed. One in eight American adults is currently on a GLP-1 drug, according to a November 2025 KFF…
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French Laundry Is Being Sued Three Times. Every Leader Should Know Why.
Three Michelin stars. A reservation list stretching months in advance. Thomas Keller built the French Laundry into a Napa Valley landmark over three decades. In March 2026, former dishwasher Elena Flores Beteta sued the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, alleging she and more than 50 coworkers…
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California's Largest Lake Shrank 70 Square Miles. The Toxic Dust It Left Behind Is a Warning for Every Balance Sheet.
California's largest lake, the Salton Sea, has shrunk by seventy square miles as water gets diverted to cities and farms instead. Desert wind now lifts pesticides and heavy metals off the exposed lakebed and carries them into towns across the Imperial Valley, and researchers at USC and UC Irvine...
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Just a Few Months of Commitment Results in a $100,000 Skill
A Baylor College of Medicine pediatrician told Texas lawmakers this week that high school seniors are legally carrying Vegas in their pockets. She was describing prediction market apps like Kalshi and Polymarket, where 18 year olds bet real money on sports, elections, and pop culture outcomes.…
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China Built 400 Different Humanoid Robots. Are They About to Invade the World?
More than 1,100 companies gathered in Shanghai this past July for the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. State media confirmed that Chinese firms have now built more than 400 different humanoid robot models, over half the world's total, with annual output projected to top 100,000 units…
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AI 'Slop' Was Supposed to Fail. A Study of 14,419 Books Shows It Reshaped the Market Anyway.
Researchers at Stony Brook, Columbia, and the University of Michigan tracked 14,419 self-published novels sold on Amazon from 2023 through mid-2026. Books flagged as mostly AI made up 20 percent of the catalog but earned only 11 percent of revenue. Quarterly book sales grew 19-fold while revenue...
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A Jury Just Found Meta Negligent for Designing Apps That Hook Young Users. Your Growth Metrics Carry the Same Risk.
A Los Angeles jury found Meta negligent for designing Instagram and Facebook to hook young users, awarding 6 million dollars in damages and assigning Meta 70 percent of the fault. Meta has filed an appeal, and the case is the first verdict in a coordinated proceeding covering thousands of similar...
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The Corporate Events Market Just Hit $1.3 Trillion. But the Old Keynote Presentation is Dead.
The corporate events industry hit $1.3 trillion in spending last year, according to Oxford Economics for the Events Industry Council, putting the market back at pre-pandemic highs. Companies are flying teams across the country and booking outside speakers again. But the return of the budget does...
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The Middle Of Every Market Disappears First
Sixteen nonprofit colleges closed in 2025, and one consulting firm projects up to 370 more could close or merge within a decade. Private colleges are now discounting tuition by a record 57 percent, and new federal caps on student loans took effect July 1st. Soren Kaplan breaks down why this isn't…
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Amazon's $1 Billion Bet Reveals the Real Reason Enterprise AI Keeps Failing
Amazon Web Services committed a billion dollars to build a Forward Deployed Engineering organization, embedding thousands of engineers directly inside customer companies to build and deploy AI systems in 45 day cycles. Microsoft followed with a 2.5 billion dollar commitment and 6,000 engineers of...
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Apple Just Became One of Ford's Key Suppliers. Every B2B Company Should Take Notes.
Apple just announced MapKit for Automotive, a set of developer tools that put Apple Maps directly inside a vehicle's dashboard. Ford is the first automaker to sign on. The feature debuts in Ford's next generation of electric vehicles, starting with a $30,000 truck in 2027. It feeds live road data...
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Only 7.9 Percent of California's School Goals Have a Real Target. Most Corporate Strategies Have the Same Blind Spot.
Stanford spent eighteen months and 112 researchers studying California's K-12 public schools. Their AI analysis of seven thousand district planning documents found that only seven point nine percent of local goals had a measurable target attached to them. Administrators are spending nearly twenty...
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Forget Anti-Aging. Pro-Aging is the New Goal. Is Your Company Leveraging its Older Workers?
Why a fitness industry CEO just retired the phrase “anti-aging,” and what his seven-driver framework means for how you manage your most experienced employees. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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Is Workplace Gossip Good? A Study of 348 Teams Found It Buffers a Bad Boss
A new study says the thing you tell your team to stop doing might be protecting them from a bad boss. Here's what the data actually means for how you lead. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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Josh Kerr Just Broke a 27-Year-Old Mile Record. The Secret Was Restraint.
Josh Kerr's world-record mile came from data that told him when to stop, and most business dashboards are built to hide that exact signal. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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Does Silicon Valley Have Good Taste? When AI Can Build Anything, It May Be All That's Left.
OpenAI paid $6.5 billion for judgment, not code. Here's what that says about the one skill AI still can't replace. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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77% of Physicians Fear Losing Their Skills to AI
A new study shows veteran doctors got measurably worse at their own jobs after months of AI assistance, and the same pattern is spreading into every company racing to automate. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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Consulting Industry Layoffs Just Reset What It Means to Be a Great Consultant
McKinsey, Deloitte, and Accenture are gutting their workforces, and it has nothing to do with the economy. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d...
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The End of the Consulting Business Model is Here
McKinsey, Deloitte, and Accenture are cutting thousands of jobs as AI eliminates the research work junior consultants used to bill for, forcing every firm to answer what they're actually selling. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube:...
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Gallup's 2026 Report Found That Senior Leaders Are 10 Points Lonelier Than Their Employees. That's a Strategy Problem.
A new Gallup study shows the people running your organization are its most isolated employees, and it's costing more than morale. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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The New American Dream Is Passive Income. The Data Should Give Leaders Pause.
Survivorship bias is rewriting the American Dream — and reshaping the workforce leaders are trying to build. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033iseLQje3RnPGqUlh2I8?si=cb19276a3c68459d...
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LinkedIn’s 2026 Skills Report Reveals the Half of Your Resume AI Can’t Touch
LinkedIn’s 2026 Skills on the Rise report shows the fastest-growing skills in America splitting into two parallel tracks: technical AI capabilities and human-centered skills — accelerating at nearly the same pace. A Harvard Business School study confirms it. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are...
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800,000 Workers Over 60 Years Just Revealed the Real Cause of Burnout
A new study analyzed six decades of research and nearly 800,000 workers. The number one cause of burnout, stress, and intent to quit isn’t workload or conflict. It’s unclear expectations. The fix is simpler than most leaders think — and the three converging forces making it worse right now are...
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New Data Says Your CEO Makes 200 Times Your Salary. Here’s How to Manage Pay Gaps.
New Associated Press data shows the average CEO of a top U.S. company earns 285 times the pay of a median employee. At Starbucks, that ratio hit 6,666-to-1. The number isn’t the problem. What it signals to your employees is — and the leaders getting this right aren’t explaining the ratio. They’re...
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A 26,000-Student Study Shows the AI Learning Trap
A new study of 26,000 students reveals that AI is quietly eroding the thinking skills of your best performers — and the outputs still look great. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3e5k8HJeOGEa7AGA97kvVjtpi6uqG0t Spotify:...
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California’s $20 Wage Harmed Workers When The Goal Was to Help Them. Here’s What Every CEO Needs To Know.
A University of California, Santa Cruz study tracked what actually happened after California raised the fast food minimum wage to $20. The five structural responses it triggered are a leadership masterclass in what happens when you impose rapid cost change on a complex system — and why every…
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NOAA Just Confirmed El Niño. The Leaders Who Move Now Will Have a Competitive Advantage.
On June 11, NOAA officially confirmed El Niño has formed in the tropical Pacific. Sea surface temperatures have broken daily warm records for more than 20 consecutive days. If projections hold, this would rank among the three most powerful El Niño events in modern history. Dartmouth researchers...
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Half of AI Layoffs Will Reverse by 2027. Here's What This Means for Every Leader Right Now.
Gartner says half of all AI workforce cuts will reverse by 2027. The reason tells you exactly what AI still can’t do — and what that means for every leader making workforce decisions right now.
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Your Brain Remembers Where You Grew Up
A new study in the journal Science found your childhood neighborhood is literally wired into your brain. Here’s what that means for how you lead — and why your lived experience is a competitive advantage no AI can replicate. Subscribe and listen on: YouTube:...
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Cities Are Blocking AI Data Centers. The Reasons Should Worry Every Leader.
Denver unanimously voted to halt new AI data center construction for a year. More than 20 proposed facilities were canceled in the first quarter of 2026 alone — over $40 billion in stalled investment. A March 2026 Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans would oppose a data center near them, a...
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The Colorado River Is Collapsing. So Are Your Organization’s Shared Resources.
Lake Powell is 24 percent full. Lake Mead is 32 percent full. Seven states can’t agree on new operating rules even though the federal deadline has passed. The leadership lesson isn’t about water. It’s about what happens when rational actors each make self-interested decisions and collectively...
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Social Security's Moving Deadline and the Leadership Trap Behind It
The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report isn't just a retirement story. It's a case study in why leaders defer the decisions they already know they need to make — and what it costs. Subscribe on Youtube Learn more at https://sorenkaplan.com
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Bernie Sanders Introduced a $7 Trillion AI Tax. The Leadership Question It Raises Is Worth Your Attention.
On June 18, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the American Artificial Intelligence Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, proposing a 50% tax on the largest AI companies to create a $7 trillion public fund. Whether it passes or not, the movement it reflects is already reshaping how workers view their...
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Coders Are Every Industry's Canary
The Wall Street Journal reported on Stanford research showing entry-level software engineering hiring at major tech companies dropped more than 50 percent over three years. Salesforce hired zero new engineers in fiscal year 2026. Amazon eliminated more than 14,000 corporate roles in late 2025....
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The 18 Jobs AI Is Already Erasing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics just flagged 18 job categories already shrinking due to AI — representing 10 million U.S. jobs. In this episode, Soren Kaplan breaks down what the data actually means for senior leaders, why gradual disruption is the most dangerous kind, and three concrete moves to...
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The $250 Million Gap: What Apple's AI Lawsuit Reveals About Every Leader's Blind Spot
Why the space between what you promise and what you ship is becoming the most expensive line item in your AI strategy.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Every week, headlines scroll by. Smart leaders stop and ask: What does this mean for how we lead, compete, and grow?Leapfrogging the Headlines takes one story from the week's news and reframes it through the lens of strategy, innovation, leadership, and business model thinking — in under 10 minutes.Hosted by Soren Kaplan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author who has advised leaders at Disney, Medtronic, Cisco, Visa, and PepsiCo on innovation, AI, and strategy.New episodes weekly. No ads. Subscribe wherever you listen.
HOSTED BY
Soren Kaplan
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Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan currently has 44 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan about?
Every week, headlines scroll by. Smart leaders stop and ask: What does this mean for how we lead, compete, and grow?Leapfrogging the Headlines takes one story from the week's news and reframes it through the lens of strategy, innovation, leadership, and business model thinking — in under 10...
How often does Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan release new episodes?
Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan has 44 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Who hosts Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan?
Leapfrogging the Headlines with Soren Kaplan is created and hosted by Soren Kaplan.
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