The Innovation Show

"They don't quit their job cold turkey. That's not what I've observed firsthand."
Only twelve companies have ever been worth more than a trillion dollars. Ten of them are American. Eight of those ten were started fractionally, by people who were still in a job or still in school when they built the first version.
Shuo Chen is a General Partner at IOVC in the Bay Area, where she has made over 150 early-stage investments across a decade, with around a dozen exits through IPO and acquisition by Fortune 50 companies. She was one of the earliest investors in Instacart and has sold companies to Goldman Sachs, Ford and Caterpillar. She also teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and UC Berkeley, and writes the Monthly Note. She joins Aidan McCullen to explain fractional founders, the people who de-risk an idea before they ever hand in their notice.
In this conversation, Shuo reveals:
- Why 8 of the 10 American trillion-dollar companies were built fractionally, and 1 in 4 of the Fortune 500 too
- The Salesforce story most people get wrong: Larry Ellison wrote Marc Benioff a cheque to go and compete
- How Jensen Huang and his co-founders designed NVIDIA after work, while still employed in semiconductors
- Why "the organism rejects the organ" explains almost every intrapreneur who ends up leaving
- What frontier firms actually are, and why giving staff access to AI tools now counts for nothing
- Why revenue per employee has become the number startups check before every single hire
- The human-to-agent leverage ratio, and why this is the last generation of leaders who manage only people
- How Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy revealed that decades of internal data was its most valuable asset
- Why 95% of the world's data sits inside private enterprise databases, and why that is gold to AI labs
Chapters:
00:00 Fractional Founder Myth
03:04 Meet Shuo Chen
05:12 Why Founders Side Hustle
08:28 Proof From Trillion Firms
10:15 Keeping Intrapreneurs Close
13:15 Frontier Firms Defined
15:53 Revenue Per Employee Era
22:22 Advice For Students
28:58 AI Writing And Learning
34:58 Spirit Airlines Data Gold
41:20 Tool Spotlight Woolf
47:12 Wrap Up And Links
About Shuo Chen: Shuo Chen is a General Partner at IOVC, an early-stage venture firm investing in the future of work, and teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Read her Monthly Note at https://shuo.iovc.io and connect on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuo-c
About the Host: Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen
About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for the weekly essay behind the show: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"When's the last time you thought about your suppliers as your partner in innovation?"
Paul Nunes, co-author of Jumping the S-Curve, Big Bang Disruption and Pivot to the Future, returns to talk to Aidan McCullen about the companies that come back from the dead. Motorola is the case study, combinatorial innovation is the engine, and the uncomfortable question underneath it all is what your company would actually be worth in pieces.
In this conversation, Paul reveals:
→ What a Lazarus taxon is, and why a handful of companies reappear decades after everyone wrote them off
→ How Motorola collapsed, sold to Google largely for its patents, and found a second life under Lenovo
→ Why a drone is really a phone camera, a gyroscope and some software, and what that means for your R&D budget
→ The $180 to $200 phone strategy that won the markets Apple and Samsung were not designing for
→ Why Kodak kept making billions long after everyone declared it dead
→ The million-dollar Porsche nobody could restore, and why somebody bought it anyway
→ Why Shockley Semiconductor should be a household name, and what the Traitorous Eight really cost it
→ Why putting your name on a stadium or a football shirt may be the first signal of decline
→ The line every chief strategy officer eventually says: it wasn't that we didn't know what to do, we no longer had the people to do it
→ Why the man who built the Learjet also built the car radio that became Motorola
→ Why price deflation, not competition, may be the fundamental strategy problem of the next decade
00:00 Innovation And Downfall
01:13 Sponsor And Guest Intro
02:18 Lazarus Companies Explained
05:54 Motorola Rebirth Story
07:30 Combinatorial Innovation Basics
14:41 Modularity And Supplier Innovation
19:18 Partners Turn Competitors
24:33 Motorola And Nonconsumers
27:56 IP And Hidden Value
34:57 Vanity Marketing Signals
39:32 Talent Curves And Seed Corn
44:44 Deflation And Strategy Pressure
48:01 Closing Thoughts And Wrap
About Paul Nunes
Paul F. Nunes is co-author of Jumping the S-Curve, Big Bang Disruption, Pivot to the Future and Mass Affluence, and spent years as Global Managing Director of Research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance. His research on growth, disruption and reinvention has been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. 
Find Paul Nunes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-nunes-5351773/
About the Host
Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more about Aidan at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of one of Paul's books, with thanks to Kyndryl.
About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
Connect:
🌐 https://theinnovationshow.io
📨 Substack (Thursday Thought): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
#Innovation #PaulNunes #CombinatorialInnovation #JumpingTheSCurve #Motorola #Disruption #Leadership #Strategy #Modularity #Podcast #AidanMcCullen #TheInnovationShow #Thinkers50 #Reinvention

"You don't want innovation. What you want is a tweak that won't be too uncomfortable."
Dov Baron, five-time Top 30 Global Leadership Guru and author of The Art of Belonging, sits down with Aidan McCullen in Vancouver to explain why identity addiction is the hidden reason behavioural change fails — in athletes, in leaders and in entire organisations. From a childhood of poverty in Salford to a 1990 free-climbing fall near Whistler in which he died five times, Dov traces how identity forms, why we get neurochemically hooked on it, and what it takes to build a culture where people belong rather than fit in.
In this conversation, Dov reveals:
The five levels of the emotional source code — and why most behavioural change fails at the identity level
What identity addiction is, and why a retired Olympian, a triple-bypass survivor and a burnt-out CEO all suffer from the same thing
How a 120-foot fall, ten reconstructive surgeries and a dead cat on the couch forced Dov to choose between three lives
Why "success creates atrophy" and real innovation only happens when things are hard
The one-day-a-month experiment that gets people wanting to come back to the office
Why the Great Resignation and COVID's "great pause" were a crisis of meaning, not pay
Why a boss's sideways look is enough to kill an idea — and what psychological safety really means
Why the superstar responsible for 40% of your sales may be costing you money
The "when you did X, I felt Y" exercise that turns conflict into connection
00:00 Belonging Over Fitting In
02:03 Meet Dov Baron
02:28 Early Life And Spiritual Roots
04:50 From Therapy To Source Code
08:46 Identity Addiction Explained
12:37 Near Death Wake Up Call
17:17 Cat Moment And Purpose
23:19 Parallel Dave And Choices
26:03 Pain Drives Change
35:50 Innovation Needs Discomfort
37:51 Building Workplace Community
39:21 Great Resignation Meaning Crisis
41:25 Meaning Over Metrics
42:41 AI And Human Work
44:59 Practice Not Luck
49:33 Psychological Safety
55:10 Lenses And Belonging
01:00:01 Leaders In Transition
01:01:09 Toxic Stars And Meaning
01:09:31 Conflict As Connection
01:18:23 Closing And Sponsor
About Dov Baron: keynote speaker, five-time Top 30 Global Leadership Guru, twice named to Inc. Magazine's Top 100 Leadership Speakers, creator of the Emotional Source Code framework and author of The Art of Belonging: How Conformity Silences Genius and How to Unleash It. Find the book and the Cultures of Belonging course at https://dovbaron.com
About the host: Aidan McCullen is a 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker on AI, disruption, innovation and change, host of The Innovation Show and author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention (Wiley). Learn more at https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com and https://www.kyndryl.com/institute
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of The Art of Belonging, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Exploitation pays your salary. Exploration pays your pension." — Steve Blank
In Part 3 of The Innovation Show's Strategyzer series, Alex Osterwalder returns to tackle the problem every leadership team quietly struggles with: the core business kills everything that looks different. Building on James March's exploration vs exploitation, Tushman and O'Reilly's Lead and Disrupt, and Clay Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma, Alex explains why good people with no ill intent still strangle new products, new channels and new business models — and what leaders must do about it.
In this conversation, Alex reveals:

→ Why the core business kills everything that looks different — and why nobody involved is acting in bad faith
→ The SonoSite story: why a CEO sat in a sales meeting and watched his top salesperson never take out the product customers were asking for
→ Why exploration is a top-down challenge — and why bottom-up passion isn't enough without the right governance
→ How Logitech's Bracken Darrell used "trees, plants and seeds" to proactively shift 70% of resources out of the core
→ Why Jeff Bezos was obsessed with Amazon dying while it was at the very top — and what Day One culture really protects
→ The "Rita McGrath test": what a CEO's agenda reveals about what a company actually values
→ What Alex told a bank CEO about exploration: "I don't even care what you do, as long as people think you're working on it"
→ Inside the workshop Alex is designing for a luxury hotel chain — mapping city hotels, beach resorts, island retreats, yachts and private jets on a business model portfolio
→ Why luxury hospitality's shift from lodging to experiences is an exploration problem, not an operations problem
→ Hubert Joly on Best Buy: when a turnaround must come before exploration — and why everyone else should start exploring today
00:00 Why Innovation Stalls
00:47 Sponsor Message
01:19 Explore Versus Exploit
02:46 Osterwalder Law Returns
05:52 Sales Incentives Trap
09:15 Seeds Plants Trees
12:23 Governance In Practice
15:29 Luxury Hotel Workshop
18:29 Portfolio Map Exercise
24:46 Tools And Playbooks
26:11 Wrap Up And Sponsor
Find the business model portfolio map and many more free tools at https://www.strategyzer.com — Innovation Show listeners get 20% off the paid playbook library with code INNOVATIONSHOW20.
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com/institute.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win one of Alex Osterwalder's books, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"You're gonna run up a hundred wrong hills, and you're still not gonna get a good understanding of the map."
Alexander Osterwalder, co-author of Value Proposition Design and founder of Strategyzer, returns for Part 2 of our series. Last week: which projects to retire. This week: value proposition design in the age of AI — why generative AI can formulate a brilliant value proposition, but only if you've done the homework it cannot do for you.
In this conversation, Alex reveals:
Why building fast with AI without validated customer jobs, pains and gains is "running up a hundred wrong hills"
The four foundations of an irresistible value proposition — and why even world-class brands can't show quantitative evidence for the first one
Why teams differentiate against competitors instead of through the customer's eyes
The Value Stack, Strategyzer's new tool for prioritising the benefits customers actually care about
Should you feed your secret formula into enterprise AI? Alex's two answers to the data-privacy dilemma
Why the fear of AI handing your value proposition to competitors is — for now — irrational
Why marketing teams "shouldn't be writing a word" — and how to turn Gen AI into rocket fuel instead of a shortcut
The B2B trap: designing for users when decision-makers sign the cheque
How a solo inventor should ABC-test differentiators and pricing with three landing pages
The Roger Federer analogy: why e-learning alone will never make you world-class
Why growth is a profession you learn, not a creative gift
00:00 Building Fast Up the Wrong Hill
00:25 Validate Customers with Evidence
01:07 A Word from Our Sponsor, Kyndryl
01:45 How Teams Misuse AI in Value Proposition Design 
02:59 Why a Value Proposition Is Not a Writing Exercise
03:55 The Four Ingredients of an Irresistible Value Proposition 
05:59 Benefits Backed by Proof
06:50 Differentiate Through the Customer's Eyes
07:58 The Process and the Playbook
10:06 AI Only Works After the Homework 
11:55 The Data Privacy Dilemma
13:04 Safe Models and Why Your Value Proposition Is Unique
16:41 Stop Wordsmithing, Start Iterating
17:05 The Gen AI Playbook, Step by Step 
18:58 Inside the Playbook Library
19:52 B2B: Users vs Decision-Makers
22:05 Listener Discount and Webinar Details
23:07 Advice for Builders and Entrepreneurs
26:11 Discipline Beats Creativity
27:02 The Roger Federer Coach Analogy
30:07 The Party Trick: Evaluating Business Ideas
31:51 Wrap Up and Thanks to Kyndryl
Explore the Strategyzer playbook library at https://www.strategyzer.com — Innovation Show listeners get 20% off with the code INNOVATIONSHOW20.
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation, and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Sign up for the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com/institute and send us a screenshot for a chance to win a copy of Value Proposition Design, with thanks to Kyndryl.
About The Innovation Show: the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Hosted by Aidan McCullen, author of Undisruptable, it brings you conversations with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation and leadership.
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io Substack (Thursday Thought): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen