Thinking With Mitch Joel

Welcome to episode #1045 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Chris Bradley has spent more than twenty-five years helping organizations navigate strategy, growth, and long-term transformation as a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. He also serves as a Director of the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm's independent research arm, where he explores some of the biggest economic, technological, and societal questions shaping our future. His latest book, A Century of Plenty - A Story of Progress for Generations to Come, challenges one of today's most pervasive narratives: that humanity's best days are behind us...

Welcome to episode #1044 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Steve Brown has spent more than twenty-five years helping organizations prepare for the future of technology. A former Senior Director and in-house futurist at Google DeepMind during the launch of AlphaFold, former Chief Evangelist and Futurist at Intel, entrepreneur and advisor, Steve has worked with global brands including Nike, JPMorgan Chase, Samsung, Disney and more to navigate digital transformation and the rapidly evolving AI landscape. His latest book, The AI Ultimatum - Preparing For A World Of Intelligent Machines And Radical Transformation, argues that...

Welcome to episode #1043 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Nicolas Darveau-Garneau has spent his career helping organizations understand where technology creates lasting competitive advantage. A serial entrepreneur, former General Manager of Google in Canada, and then off to the Valley (where he still resides) as Google's former Chief Evangelist, Nicolas has advised more than a thousand executives on digital transformation, AI, marketing, and growth strategy. His latest book, Be A Sequoia, Not A Bonsai - The Seven Growth Secrets of the World's Most Successful Companies, challenges one of business's most common assumptions: that...

Welcome to episode #1042 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Marcus Buckingham has spent more than three decades changing how organizations think about people, performance, and leadership. As one of the pioneers of the strengths movement, his research has influenced millions of managers around the world and helped reshape the way companies approach employee engagement and organizational culture. After beginning his career as a researcher at Gallup, Marcus became one of the driving forces behind some of the most influential ideas in modern management. His books include First, Break All the Rules, Now, Discover...

Welcome to episode #1041 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when every leadership team is being told that artificial intelligence will change everything, Charlene Li has spent her career helping organizations separate signal from noise. A New York Times bestselling author and trusted advisor to CEOs and boards, Charlene first became widely known for helping leaders understand transformative shifts through books like Groundswell, Open Leadership and The Disruption Mindset. Her latest book, Winning With AI - The 90-Day Blueprint For Success, co-authored with Dr. Katia Walsh, tackles one of the most...

Welcome to episode #1040 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Long before artificial intelligence became the dominant business conversation, Sangeet Paul Choudary was helping leaders understand another profound shift in economic power: the rise of platforms. As the co-author of Platform Revolution, founder of Platform Thinking Labs, advisor to global corporations and governments, and a respected thinkers on digital business models, Sangeet has spent years studying how technology changes the sources of competitive advantage and reshapes entire industries. His latest book, Reshuffle - Who Wins When AI Restacks The Knowledge Economy, extends that work...

Welcome to episode #1039 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

I believe that communication has always been one of the most valuable skills in business. But in an era of AI-generated content, algorithmic feeds, podcasts, newsletters, keynote stages, short-form video and endless digital noise, it may be becoming even more important. Few people have spent more time studying what makes ideas resonate than Carmine Gallo. A communication coach, author, and instructor in executive education at Harvard, Carmine is best known for bestselling books including Talk Like TED, The Storyteller's Secret, The Presentation Secrets of...

Welcome to episode #1038 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when technology feels simultaneously more powerful and more opaque than ever, Marcus Fontoura is making a case for something many people feel they've lost: agency. A Technical Fellow and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, Marcus has spent decades helping build the infrastructure that powers the modern internet, including leadership roles at Microsoft Azure, Google and IBM. His new book, Human Agency In A Digital World, is both a guide to understanding the technologies shaping our lives and a reminder that we...

Welcome to episode #1037 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when certainty has become both a cultural obsession and a commercial product, Simone Stolzoff is asking a far more uncomfortable question: what if the real skill is learning how to live without it? A journalist whose work has appeared in publications like The Atlantic and author of the bestselling book The Good Enough Job, Simo has built his work around examining the hidden psychological contracts shaping modern life… especially our increasingly tangled relationship with work, ambition and identity. His new book, Ho...

Welcome to episode #1036 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Ashley Herd did not set out to become a management expert. Trained as an employment lawyer and later serving in senior HR and leadership roles supporting organizations including McKinsey & Company, Ashley built her career at the intersection of people, performance and workplace culture. What began as practical leadership advice shared through short-form social media videos evolved into a massive online following, with hundreds of thousands of managers turning to her for direct, actionable guidance on how to lead teams without burning people out. Her...

Welcome to episode #1035 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when marketers have more data, more technology and more precision than ever before… consumer trust, attention and loyalty somehow feel more fragile than ever. Few people are exploring that paradox more deeply than MichaelAaron Flicker. An entrepreneur who started his company at just fourteen years old, Michael has spent years studying the intersection of marketing, behavioral science and human decision-making (he runs an agency, vventure capital firm and leads several other businesses). His book, Hacking The Human Mind - The Behavioral Sc...

Welcome to episode #1034 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when the lines between culture, commerce and identity feel increasingly blurred, few people understand how value is actually constructed… and reconstructed… better than Douglas Woodham. A former President of the Americas at Christie's and a longtime advisor through his firm Art Fiduciary Advisors, Doug brings a rare dual lens to the conversation… equal parts economist and art obsessive. With a PhD in economics and decades spent inside the machinery of the global art market, he has seen firsthand how artists move from o...

Welcome to episode #1033 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

We spent the last twenty-five years calling software "technology," which was convenient, profitable and just a little bit delusional. Apps got smarter. Feeds got stickier. Ads got creepier. Dashboards got dashboards. Meanwhile, the real world kept asking harder questions. How do we produce enough clean energy for eight billion people? How do we build things again? How do we manufacture without waste? How do we use AI for science, not just better chatbots and faster slop? Pablos Holman has spent his career living inside...

Welcome to episode #1032 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when productivity is still measured in speed, output and constant motion, few voices are pushing for a more human… and ultimately more effective… way of working than Natalie Nixon. A creativity strategist, keynote speaker and founder of Figure 8 Thinking, Natalie has built her career helping leaders unlock the business value of imagination… not as a soft skill, but as a strategic capability. Her work sits at the intersection of design thinking, anthropology and business innovation, and her previous book, The Creativity Leap...

Welcome to episode #1031 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when businesses are still trying to wrap their heads around "customer experience," few thinkers have shaped that conversation… and pushed it forward… as much as B. Joseph Pine II. As cofounder of Strategic Horizons, Joe has spent decades helping organizations understand how economic value evolves… from commodities to goods, to services, to experiences… and now, to something far more ambitious. Best known for The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre And Every Business A Stage, Joe didn't just introduce a concept… he gave leade...

Welcome to episode #1030 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when marketing (and AI) feels both hyper-measurable and strangely uncertain, few voices bring as much clarity… and lived perspective… as Avinash Kaushik. A longtime friend (and he's also available for your next meeting at ThinkersOne) of the show and one of the most influential thinkers in marketing and technology, Avinash first rose to prominence as the analytics evangelist at Google, where he helped bring web analytics into the mainstream and reshape how businesses think about measurement and decision-making. He is also the...

Welcome to episode #1029 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

These days, technology feels both familiar… and completely unrecognizable. Few voices bring the kind of clarity and grounded perspective that David Armano does. A longtime digital strategist, advisor, self-proclaimed futurist and friend, David has spent decades at the front lines of transformation… helping organizations navigate everything from the rise of social media to the mobile-first revolution, and now the seismic shift of artificial intelligence. In his current role at Launch by NTT Data, he works directly with enterprises trying to make sense of AI not...

Welcome to episode #1028 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

In a world increasingly defined by information overload and ideological certainty, the ability to change one's mind may be the most undervalued skill of all… and few thinkers have explored that terrain as deeply as my friend, Nir Eyal. A bestselling author, behavioral design expert and former Stanford lecturer, Nir has built a career examining how habits are formed, how attention is controlled and how human behavior can be shaped both externally and from within. His previous works, Hooked - How To Build Habit-Forming Pr...

Welcome to episode #1027 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Will Storr is an award-winning author, journalist and storytelling researcher whose work explores one of the most powerful forces shaping human behavior… the stories we tell ourselves about the world. Over the course of a career that blends psychology, neuroscience, investigative journalism and narrative craft, Will has become one of the most compelling voices examining how stories shape identity, belief and culture. His bestselling books include The Science of Storytelling, Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed And What It's Doing To Us, and The St...

Welcome to episode #1026 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when strategy has become a kind of corporate theater… carefully crafted presentations, ambitious roadmaps and bold declarations that rarely survive first contact with reality… Kevin Ertell has spent a career focused on the harder question: why execution so often fails. Kevin is the Founder and CEO of Mistere Advisory and a veteran operator whose three decades of experience include leading large-scale retail and e-commerce operations at global brands like Nike, Sur La Table, Borders, and Tower Records. Over the years he has...

Welcome to episode #1025 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when panic travels faster than proof, few marketers are as clear-eyed… and as human… as Ann Handley. A pioneering digital marketing strategist (MarketingProfs), bestselling author (Everybody Writes and Content Rules), longtime champion of writing that actually means something and dear friend (also, if you're not susbscribed to her newsletter, Total Annarchy, you really should be), Ann has built a career reminding businesses that the point of content isn't velocity… it's connection. In her recent essay, Something Messy Is Happening: On AI, Panic...

Welcome to episode #1024 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when the digital infrastructure that underpins modern life feels increasingly hostile, few voices have been as prescient... or as relentless... as Cory Doctorow. A science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist, Cory serves as Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has long stood at the intersection of storytelling, policy and power. Over the course of a prolific career (one that includes bestselling fiction, influential tech policy books like Chokepoint Capitalism and The Internet Con, and his widely read Pluralistic...

Welcome to episode #1023 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

In an era where outrage travels faster than reflection, few accusations carry as much moral force as the charge of hypocrisy… and yet few concepts are as misunderstood. Michael Hallsworth is Chief Behavioral Scientist at the Behavioral Insights Team and a leading voice in behavioral economics, with academic appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and a career devoted to understanding how real people actually think and act in complex systems. His research spans public policy, organizational behavior and social judgment, examining how incentives, norms, an...

Welcome to episode #1022 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when organizational change is too often treated as a mandate rather than an experience people choose to embrace, Phil Gilbert has spent his career proving that transformation only sticks when it earns genuine buy-in. Phil is a design executive, transformation leader and former General Manager of Design at IBM, where he architected one of the largest cultural and operational shifts in corporate history, helping nearly 400,000 employees across 180 countries become more entrepreneurial, agile and customer-centered. Trained as both a designer and systems thinker, Phil...

Welcome to episode #1021 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when strategy is often confused with forecasting and certainty is mistaken for rigor, the work of Roger Martininsists on a more demanding discipline: making clear, integrated choices under uncertainty. Named the world's #1 management thinker by Thinkers50 in 2017, Roger is a writer, strategy advisor, and the former Dean at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where he served for fifteen years and reshaped how management education engages with real-world complexity. Over decades, he has advised CEOs at companies...

Welcome to episode #1020 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when technology listens more closely than people realize and advertising feels less predictive than presumptive, understanding how culture, data and human behavior collide has become essential. David "Shingy" Shing has spent his career at that intersection, shaping how global brands think about creativity, relevance and the emotional consequences of digital systems. Know as the Digital Prophet at AOL (and then Verizon) and a very influential voice in modern branding and innovation, Shingy has advised companies, leaders and creatives on how emerging...

Welcome to episode #1019 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when leadership is being tested less by strategy and more by inner capacity, clarity of judgment and emotional steadiness, the work of Muriel Wilkins stands out for its insistence that progress begins from the inside out. Muriel is an executive coach, CEO of Paravis Partners, and a trusted advisor to senior leaders navigating complexity at the highest levels of organizations, drawing on more than two decades of experience working with C-suite executives and high-potential leaders. A Harvard Business School graduate with...

Welcome to episode #1018 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when burnout is normalized and productivity is still measured by hours rather than impact, the five-day workweek is starting to look less like a foundation of modern life and more like an outdated design choice. Joe O'Connoris the CEO of Work Time Revolution and one of the world's leading architects of the four-day workweek, having designed and led large-scale pilots across multiple countries, industries and organizational types. His work sits at the intersection of labor economics, organizational culture and performance design...

Welcome to episode #1017 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when technology promises limitless capability yet leaves so many people mentally depleted, the question is no longer whether digital tools are powerful, but whether we know how to live with them. Paul Leonardi is a leading expert on digital transformation, the future of work, and organizational networks, with more than two decades of research and advisory work focused on how technology reshapes collaboration, innovation, and human behavior. A professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he holds the Duca...

Welcome to episode #1016 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when artificial intelligence is reshaping not just how markets operate but how people think, feel, decide and connect, understanding the human consequences of that shift has become essential. Mark Schaefer is a keynote speaker, educator, strategist, and a voice in modern marketing, with more than three decades of experience spanning global sales, public relations and brand strategy. He is a faculty member at Rutgers University. Mark's latest book, How AI Changes Your Customers - The Marketing Guide To Humanity's Next Chapter...

Welcome to episode #1015 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when scarcity shapes everything from opportunity to attention, understanding who gets what (and why) has become one of the most consequential questions in modern life. Judd Kessler is the inaugural Howard Marks Endowed Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an award-winning economist, and one of the leading thinkers in market design, public policy and behavioral economics. His research examines how rules, incentives, and institutional structures shape outcomes in environments where price alone cannot (or should not) decide...

Welcome to episode #1014 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when careers feel increasingly precarious and algorithms quietly dictate how value is created and captured, it's worth learning from someone who has spent more than two decades helping creators and entrepreneurs reclaim ownership of their work and their futures. Joe Pulizzi is the founder of multiple influential startups, including Content Marketing Institute, The Tilt, the Content Entrepreneur Expo and is widely recognized as the person who first coined the term "content marketing" in 2001, long before it became an industry unto itself...

Welcome to episode #1013 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when organizations are wrestling with fractured cultures, hybrid work, and teams struggling to stay connected, it helps to learn from someone who has spent three decades proving that collaboration is not a personality trait but a designed environment, which is why this episode turns to the work of Vanessa Druskat, an award-winning researcher, educator at the University of New Hampshire, and one of the world's leading experts on team emotional intelligence. Vanessa has devoted her career to understanding how teams actually...

Welcome to episode #1012 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Amid a moment when uncertainty defines every industry and leaders everywhere are confronting fear disguised as strategy, it is worth turning to someone who has spent his career decoding how individuals and organizations find the courage to act, which is why this week's guest, Ranjay Gulati, offers such rare authority. Ranjay is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor at Harvard Business School, a globally recognized organizational sociologist, bestselling author, and one of the world's most cited scholars on leadership, strategy, and culture...

Welcome to episode #1011 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

We tend to romanticize leadership as an act of personal brilliance, but the deeper story is often about the people who understand what truly moves human beings toward one another. Jon Levy has built a career around that question. A renowned human behavioral scientist, consultant and creator of the long-running Influencers Dinner - a global, invitation-only experiment where guests cook together anonymously to dissolve status cues and foster authentic connection - Jon has spent over fifteen years studying why people bond, collaborate and trust...

Welcome to episode #1010 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

What if the search for our "true selves" has been leading us away from who we actually need to become? That's the tension at the heart of Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic's work, a globally respected authority on people analytics, talent, leadership, and the Human–AI interface whose career spans ManpowerGroup, Deeper Signals, Meta Profiling, Columbia University, UCL, and decades of research that have shaped how organizations understand human behavior. His latest book, Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (And What To Do Instead), challenges on...

Welcome to episode #1009 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

The future isn't something to predict... it's something to practice. Few people embody that idea more completely than Nick Foster, a designer, futurist and author whose work has quietly influenced some of the most innovative companies on the planet - from Sony, Nokia, and Dyson to Google X, where he served as head of design. In his new book, Could Should Might Don't - How We Think About The Future, Nick challenges the way we imagine what comes next. Rather than offering forecasts, he...

Welcome to episode #1008 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

What if artificial intelligence didn't just build faster startups... but redefined what it means to be an entrepreneur? Henrik Werdelin has been exploring that question for years. As the co-founder of Bark (the company behind BarkBox and the new Bark Air) and Prehype (the startup studio that helped launch ventures like AndCo, Ro, and ManagedByQ), Henrik (who also has a great podcast called, Beyond The Prompt) has spent his career creating businesses that live at the intersection of creativity, community and technology. Now, with...

Welcome to episode #1007 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

The debate over hybrid work has become one of the most emotionally charged topics in business... but few people have studied it as deeply as Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and Director of its Center for Human Resources. In his latest book, In Praise Of The Office - The Limits To Hybrid And Remote Work, co-authored with Ranya Nehmeh, Peter challenges the idea that remote work is the inevitable future of knowledge work. Drawing from decades...

Welcome to episode #1006 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

Disruption isn't always loud. It's often quiet, slow and deeply human. That's one of the lessons Scott Anthony has spent his career unpacking. As a leading voice on innovation and the managing partner emeritus at Innosight (the consultancy founded by the late Clayton Christensen), Scott has helped global companies navigate the uncertainty that comes with change. He si currently a Clinical Professor of Strategy at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. His latest book, Epic Disruptions – 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World, reframes how we th...