Skilled-Trades Crisis, Musk's Trillion-Dollar Targets, 2026 Workplace Trends, and the Return of College Degrees
November 13, 2025: Ford's CEO warns that the U.S. is entering a skilled-trades crisis as thousands of high-paying technical jobs sit vacant. Elon Musk's unprecedented trillion-dollar compensation package reveals the extreme performance targets Tesla must hit—ranging from 20 million vehicles a year to the deployment of a million robots. Glassdoor releases its top workplace trends for 2026, highlighting the rise of transparency, internal mobility, and human-centric leadership. And new reporting from The Wall Street Journal shows that skills-based hiring is fading as companies quietly return to college-degree requirements.
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PwC's Workforce Divide, AI Agents at Work, and Amazon's $2.5B Skills Bet
November 12, 2025: PwC's 2025 Global Workforce Survey exposes a growing gap between empowered and excluded workers. Across Australia, employees are already facing the reality of AI-driven job disruption. A WIRED feature explores a startup run entirely by AI agents—including executives—raising new questions about what leadership looks like when teammates aren't human. Amazon announces a massive $2.5 billion investment to upskill 50 million people worldwide. New research from Yahoo UK and Modern Sciences shows AI is reshaping pay and opportunity, rewarding those who work with technology instead of against it. And Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur tells Fortune why AI isn't just a tool—it's a complete redesign of how business operates.
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Why 600 Quit Paramount, Palantir Rejects College, and IT Joins HR to Manage AI
November 11, 2025: IT and HR are joining forces to manage the chaos AI is creating inside companies. A new white-collar gig economy is emerging as professionals get paid to train algorithms. Paramount's return-to-office mandate backfires, with 600 employees choosing severance instead. In India, workers are turning to AI as a career ally, redefining ambition around adaptability. Irish parents are split over whether creativity or coding will prepare kids for the future. And Palantir is skipping universities altogether, hiring high-school grads through its Meritocracy Fellowship. ________________ Looking for what actually moves the needle on performance and retention? It's in The 8 Laws of Employee Experience. Preorder here: 8EXLaws.com
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Uber's Chief Technology Officer Reveals The Secrets To Staying Human Through The AI Change
Uber moves more than 36 million trips a day, a scale that would overwhelm most systems. But as AI reshapes every corner of business, even a tech giant like Uber must evolve faster than ever. The real question is, how do you lead an organization this massive through an AI revolution without losing reliability, human connection, or trust? In this episode, I sit down with Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber's Chief Technology Officer for Mobility and Delivery, to explore the leadership blueprint driving Uber's AI-powered transformation. He shares how Uber is transforming its software engineering systems using tools like Cursor and agentic AI workflows, integrating machine learning into real-time marketplace technology, and balancing automation with human oversight to avoid what he calls "AI slop." We also dive into how his teams are preparing for autonomous vehicles, managing global scale across 36 million daily trips, and rethinking the engineering culture to adopt AI responsibly and sustainably. For CHROs, this episode reveals how to lead large-scale transformation by aligning people, technology, and purpose, and how to build a culture where AI doesn't replace human capability, but amplifies it. ________________ Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: https://greatleadership.substack.com/ Future-ready organizations are built, not hoped for. My latest book, -The 8 Laws of Employee Experience shows how. Preorder here: 8EXLaws.com
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AI Layoffs Surge, Italy Regulates Algorithms, and the Real Threat Isn't Job Loss — It's Leadership Loss
November 7, 2025: AI is rewriting the world of work. This episode covers the major shifts making headlines today: Elon Musk's warning of a "supersonic tsunami" of job losses, record-breaking layoffs across U.S. companies, and Italy's landmark move to regulate how employers use AI. Microsoft's mass cuts are testing the myth of job security, while Airbus redefines HR as the architects of the future. Meanwhile, the New York Times argues the AI apocalypse isn't here yet—it's just reshaping how companies restructure—and Bloomberg reports the worst October for job cuts in over two decades. Together, these stories reveal a deeper trend: AI isn't simply automating work, it's exposing whether leaders can adapt fast enough to build trust, design new roles, and keep the human experience at the center of progress. Looking for what actually moves the needle on performance and retention? It's in The 8 Laws of Employee Experience. Preorder here: https://bit.ly/8exlaws
Are you ready to lead in the future of work? Most leaders aren't! Join 5x best-selling author & futurist Jacob Morgan as he interviews the world's top CEOs, best-selling authors, and leading thinkers to bring you the insights, strategies, and tools you need to become a future ready leader. Guests include CEOs from Best Buy, Netflix, Hyatt, and GE as well as leading thinkers like Seth Godin, Dan Pink, Yuval Harari, and Marshall Goldsmith. This is the world's #1 podcast to lead in the future of work!
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