You're not going to lose your job to AI. You'll lose it to somebody who understands it.
Chris Sowa has been inside the boardrooms where the AI conversation is theater. Senior tech executive at Accenture, IBM, and Oracle. Co-founder of Redacture, an AI security startup. He's also a Wim Hof Method instructor who walks into the Atlantic Ocean before most men are awake. He's a father of two sons. He buried a daughter almost five years ago.
In this conversation, Chris and Ted walk through the gap between how AI gets talked about publicly and what actually happens inside enterprise — why most executives are clueless, why 75% of AI tools are wide open to prompt injection, why most enterprise AI pilots are million-dollar resume builders that never scale, and why this is a golden window for the small-to-mid business owner that won't last.
Then it goes deeper — into the operating philosophy Chris carries from his ice swims and his loss: if you can't lead yourself under pressure, you won't lead anything else.
If you're a man between 25 and 55 carrying a business, a family, and a quiet sense that you're about to get left behind — this one's for you.
Key insights from this episode:
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The gap between AI talk and AI reality inside enterprise
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Why 75% of AI tools are open to prompt injection (what Meta admitted)
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The $1M AI pilot to "save" two offshore employees earning $10K (and why it never scaled)
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Why 70% of medium-sized companies are still clueless about AI
"You won't lose your job to AI. You'll lose it to someone who understands AI."
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The golden window: months, not years
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How Chris's daughter's death rewired his sense of urgency
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The Wim Hof method as leadership training
Chapters:
00:00 You won't lose your job to AI
01:00 Welcome brother — Ted's intro
01:55 The ice swim and Wim Hof method
03:49 The gap between AI talk and enterprise reality
04:30 "Officially we don't" — what executives say vs. what employees do
05:55 The democratization of strategy intel
07:07 Two reactions to AI: dread vs. hog-wild
09:30 The 75% prompt injection stat
12:25 The $20 million data layer most companies don't need
13:24 Settings, deletion, and what to do about open Comet
16:13 One programmer doing the work of ten
18:20 Should employees use the same LLM? Frameworks vs. tools
20:50 Why Chris tells ChatGPT to be skeptical
23:12 Why less than 30% of enterprise AI initiatives scale
24:46 The $1M pilot to save $20K in offshore wages
27:04 The plumber analogy — fixing a clogged pipe before adding pressure
28:32 What leaders three levels away from the work don't see
30:50 "You won't lose your job to AI. You'll lose it to someone who understands AI."
32:01 The internet boom comparison
33:50 Why this is a golden window (and won't last)
35:55 Why the data center economics will change
39:29 The conversation Chris has with his sons about AI
42:46 Redacture and the AI safety play
46:27 Where to find Chris and Redacture
48:15 The day Chris's daughter died
49:40 Outro and Ted's recap
Sowa's Links:
Website: https://www.redacture.com
Instagram: @so_wa_cold
Email: chris.sowa@redacture.com
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