One developer. Six months. An $80 million sale to Wix. That's not the future of work — it's already here.
In this special panel from the Kyndryl Institute and The Innovation Show, host Aidan McCullen brings together four of the world's sharpest minds on strategy, innovation and disruption to explain why most leaders are using AI completely wrong — and what to do instead. Rita McGrath (Columbia, author of The Entrepreneurial Mindset and originator of "transient advantage"), Alexander Osterwalder (creator of the Business Model Canvas, CEO of Strategyzer), Ismail Amla (SVP at Kyndryl, author of From Incremental to Exponential) and Usman Sheikh (author of Frame Break, MD of High Output Ventures) map how work, value and power are being redrawn.
In this conversation, the panel reveals:
- Why painting over a rusty gate explains how most companies are misusing AI
- How a single developer sold an $80 million company to Wix after six months of solo work
- What Jensen Huang does every Sunday night to stay connected to NVIDIA's front line
- Why Bayer put its whole workforce on 90-day cycles — and how it kills office politics
- The "verification bottleneck" that quietly cancels out every speed gain from AI
- Why one firm tracking staff AI logins for promotions missed the point entirely
- How the billable hour is dying — and what replaces it
- Why labour arbitrage flipped from advantage to liability in just twelve months
- What a Korean fintech founded by a dentist (Toss) teaches us about permissionless teams
- Where incumbents still hold a moat that AI-native startups can't touch
Chapters: 00:00 AI Moment Opens
00:35 Meet The Panel
02:20 Rewiring Organisations
03:36 Rusty Gate Lesson
04:25 Entrepreneurial CEO Return
06:28 Permissionless Transition
08:39 One-Person Unicorns
10:13 Power Redefined
13:17 Verification Bottleneck
15:46 Agents In The Enterprise
20:22 Gaming AI Metrics
22:54 Death Of The Billable Hour
24:23 Electricity Era Analogy
26:18 Business Model Fundamentals
28:04 Rethinking Business Models
29:04 AI Native vs Legacy
29:49 Services Industry Upended
33:40 First Steps For Incumbents
37:51 Toss And Team Autonomy
41:17 Incentives And Accountability
45:42 Incumbent Data Moats
47:50 Elevator Pitches And Wrap-Up
The panel: Rita McGrath — https://www.ritamcgrath.com
Alexander Osterwalder / Strategyzer — https://www.strategyzer.com
Ismail Amla, From Incremental to Exponential — https://www.kyndryl.com
Usman Sheikh, Frame Break — https://highoutputventures.com
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.
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About The Innovation Show: The Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Each week, Aidan McCullen sits down with world-class authors, scientists and practitioners to explore disruption, innovation, change, leadership, AI and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
About the host: Aidan McCullen — 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). https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen
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