All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 20 of 26 in total
Stop Hiring The Person Who Wins The Room
A candidate lights up the room in the debrief, and a year later the company is searching again. Here's why. I open this episode with a scene that will feel familiar to...
What Wildfires Can Teach Executives About Leadership
Why does experience in one crisis so often fail a leader in the next one? I open this episode with the story of the 1949 Mann Gulch wildfire, where foreman Wagner Dodg...
What AI Is Doing To Leadership with Liat Ben-Zur
A leader who looks safe on paper might be the riskiest hire you make in the AI era. That's the paradox at the center of this conversation. I sit down with Liat Ben-Zur...
No One Works Here: What AI Actually Changes About Work
MIT built a job title from scratch because Paul Cheek didn't fit any that existed. Now he's ranking the S&P 500 on AI maturity, and the results may surprise you. We ge...
Why Nobody Tells the CEO the Truth
Seventy-three seconds after launch, the warning that could have stopped the Challenger disaster had already been softened beyond recognition. In this solo episode, I b...
He Left Silicon Valley to Run a Retreat in the Andes
He traded Silicon Valley for the Andes and built a life around a completely different definition of leadership. In this episode, I talk with Terry Cumes, CEO of Wilkat...
Why Six Months Can Turn You Into a Better CEO Candidate
Boards rarely hire the most capable person. They hire the one who feels the safest to defend. In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten breaks down signaling theory and w...
Why Krishna Iyer Left Big Tech for a 170-Year-Old Railroad
He spent two decades at the frontier of tech. Then he chose a 177-year-old railroad instead. In this episode, I talk with Krishna Iyer, head of software engineering at...
The 100 Day Plan Is a Lie. Here's What Actually Works for new CEOs
A new CEO's hundred day plan sounds smart. The research says it's mostly fiction. In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten traces the hundred day myth back to its real o...
Group Intelligence Beats Individual Genius with Lexy Franklin
Loneliness and bad fit can feel identical, but they are not the same thing at all. Lexy Franklin, founder of Sidebar and former Facebook product leader behind Messenge...
Don't Cast a Halo: Why Great CEOs Get Blamed for Bad Luck
One stock price swing can turn the same leader from visionary genius to reckless failure overnight. In this solo episode, I break down the halo effect, the century-old...
Why Your Best Salesperson Makes Your Worst Manager
Your best salesperson just got promoted to manager. Here's why that's often a mistake. In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten unpacks the Peter Principle, the half-cen...
Why Busy Leaders Still Don't Control Their Own Calendar
If time is your most valuable asset, who's actually deciding how yours gets spent? In this solo episode, I unpack a paradox I see constantly in the leaders I work with...
Why the Obvious CEO Hire Is So Often the Wrong One
What if the same leader, running the same playbook, could fail in one place and win big in another? That's the question at the heart of my conversation with Jim Citrin...
Beyond Employee Engagement: How Mattering Transforms Leadership and Executive Search
What if the thing quietly undermining your team's performance isn't strategy, compensation, or culture decks, but whether people feel like they matter? Jennifer Wallac...
The Boardroom Is Broken: How AI Changes Executive Leadership Forever
The boardroom is the last line of defense for AI governance — and most directors aren't ready. Steven Wolfe Pereira has spent 30 years at the intersection of technolog...
Your Schedule Is Your Job — How AI Affects Job Fit
What if the job you have today quietly becomes the job you never agreed to take? In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten breaks down one of the most underestimated ris...
The Spikiness Principle: What Executive Search Gets Wrong About Talent and Fit
The investors closest to the best founders have a front-row seat to what great fit really looks like. In this episode of Fit Happens, I sit down with Laela Sturdy, Ma...
Is Your Job Worth It? The Hidden Cost of Being in the Wrong Role Too Long
You have roughly 4,000 weeks. Are you spending them on work that actually deserves them? In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten — senior partner and executive search ...
From Google to the Grill: Dan Gertsacov on Career Fit and Leading Big Green Egg
Dan Gertsacov, CEO of Big Green Egg, has built a career by saying no to money and yes to fit — four times over. In this episode, we dig into his non-linear path from s...
