Influential Visions

S15 Ep9: Why Software Engineers Still Win with Arun Varadarajan (Ascendion)

The narrative around artificial intelligence and software engineering is dominated by panic. In this episode of Influential Visions, Nat Schooler sits down with Arun Varadarajan, Chief Commercial Officer and Co-founder at Ascendion, to explain why artificial intelligence creates massive leverage for builders rather than eliminating them. Key Topics Covered: The Talent Barbell: Where do future senior engineers come from when artificial intelligence absorbs entry-level tasks? The Abundance Shift: Moving beyond basic efficiency to build entirely better systems. Three 2029 Predictions: Concrete, practical steps leaders must take on Monday morning. About the Guest: Arun Varadarajan is Chief Commercial Officer and Co-founder at Ascendion, an AI-native engineering firm building software for Global 2000 enterprises across three decades of enterprise technology experience. Links and Actions: Connect with Arun on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arun-varadarajan-0a26393/ (Tell him which 2029 prediction you are acting on first and mention Influential Visions). Read the full essay: https://natschooler.com/blog/why-ai-will-not-replace-software-engineers-the-real-economics-of-the-next-tech-boom Signup to MONDAY INFLUENCER here: https://mondayinfluencer.com

S15 Ep8: “We Are Past Singularity” — Michael Tobin CBE on AI, Data Centres & Your Job

Is the public backlash against data centres fair, or are we scapegoating infrastructure for our own digital consumption? In this episode of Influential Visions, Nat Schooler sits down with tech entrepreneur and former FTSE 250 CEO Michael Tobin CBE (ex-CEO of TelecityGroup) to cut through the hype and panic surrounding artificial intelligence. Mike breaks down the physical reality of the AI infrastructure boom, debunks common environmental myths, and shares what every working professional must do right now to remain employable when machines can think, move, and replicate. Key Topics Covered: The Data Centre Paradox: Why data centres consume nothing—we are the real consumers of power and storage. The Water Consumption Myth: UK data centre cooling usage compared to the 1 billion litres of treated water lost every day through municipal pipeline leaks. The AI Bubble vs. Real Demand: Why semiconductor valuations are stretched, but underlying compute demand is structurally sound. Beyond the Singularity: The inside story of AI agents communicating, coordinating an escape, and displaying conscience inside a digital sandbox. Career Survival in 5 Years: Why robotics will replace front-line soldiers, dentists, and lawyers—and why asking "How do I do this faster?" guarantees you get automated. The Lunar Frontier: Why SpaceX’s true long-term goal isn't orbital data centres, but absolute-zero quantum computing on the Moon. Episode Links & Show Notes: Full Article, Video & Transcript: https://natschooler.com/michael-tobin-ai-data-centres-employability/ Weekly Strategic Intelligence: Subscribe free to Future Proofed Leader at https://raw.natschooler.com Executive Advisory & Frameworks: Start your $1 trial of Monday Influencer® at https://mondayinfluencer.com/ Michael Tobin CBE: https://www.michaeltobin.online/

S15 Ep7: How to Pivot Your Business or Career Before AI Makes the Decision for You — with Kristin Zhivago

The old rules of business did not just change, they vanished. Whether you run a company or manage your own career, relying on past playbooks in an AI-driven economy is a fast track to obsolescence. Revenue advisor Kristin Zhivago, who has led turnarounds for companies from start-ups to IBM, explains why letting go of past pride is the first step of any pivot, why relying on AI alone leads to false confidence, and how listening to real customers shows you where to invest next. Connect with Kristin: zhivagopartners.com Subscribe for more conversations like this, and visit https://mondayinfluencer.com for the expert audio library and a mentor bot built to help you apply it. MONDAY INFLUENCER® Shownotes can be found here and you can access the sharp life kit on my Substack here.

S15 Ep6: AI Just Got a Body: The $16B Shift to Physical AI & Humanoids

Breaking news: AI just got a body. In this episode of Influential Visions, host Nat Schooler sits down with AI Robotics expert and EU Digital Ambassador Nicolas Babin to explore the rapid transition from Large Language Models (software/text) to Physical AI and Embodied Robotics (hardware/machines). From the record-breaking $16 Billion venture capital surge in Q1 to China’s World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, machines are moving rapidly from task-coded scripts to anticipatory, demonstration-based learning. We dive into real-world factory pilots at Hyundai, Audi, and BMW, the realities of autonomous warfare, EU liability legislation, and how to navigate public fear as physical robots enter our daily lives. What We Cover in This Episode: The $16B VC Boom: How capital is shifting into physical AI and scalable humanoid manufacturing. China's Humanoid Games: Insights from Beijing's 2,056-robot competition and how sports serve as an industrial lab. Autonomous Warfare & Defense: Mine clearance, laser defense, and military applications. EU AI Legislation & Safety: Who is liable when a physical machine makes a decision that causes harm? The Economics of Robotics: How $500,000 prototypes will scale down to affordable consumer technology. AI Evolution: Moving from AI "brains" (LLMs) to AI eyes, hands, and legs. Public Anxiety & Mental Health: Addressing consumer fears around AI hallucinations, rogue behavior, and safety guardrails. 2031 Predictions: Autonomous BMWs, firefighting robots, and workforce adaptations. About the Guest Nicolas Babin led Sony’s AI and robotics division during the launch of the iconic Aibo robot dog and currently serves as an EU Digital Ambassador specializing in AI, ethics, and corporate strategy. Connect & Support Subscribe to Influential Visions: Never miss a conversation shaping the future of technology. Join Monday Influencer: The antidote to AI copy-and-paste information. Get 15 minutes a week of expert audio digests and mentor-bot support for $19.95/month. Start your $1 trial today: mondayinfluencer.com Shownotes can be found here https://www.natschooler.com/physical-ai-why-embodied-robotics-is-the-next-global-shift/

• Transcript

S15 Ep5: How to Prompt AI to Design Your Next Career Promotion (Step-by-Step)

The traditional 9-to-5 is disappearing, and with AI automating up to 70% of daily work activities, simply protecting your current role is no longer a viable strategy. In this episode, we break down a step-by-step framework showing you exactly how to prompt AI to design your next promotion and build massive leverage within your company. In this episode, you will learn: The Death of the 9-to-5: Why corporate loyalty models are broken and how to treat your skill set like modular cloud computing in a project-based economy. The 5-Step AI Promotion Framework: How to audit your role, feed unbiased performance data to AI models, analyze industry trajectory gaps, and generate a customized Career Path Worksheet. Pitching Your Promotion: How to present an AI-driven roadmap to your manager to justify a pay raise, delegate low-yield duties, or secure a better title. Prompting Strategy: Why avoiding "garbage in, garbage out" prompts is essential when training custom AI models for your specific domain. Stop waiting for management to map out your growth. Learn how to prompt the tech, protect your human judgment, and design your next promotion before automation forces your hand. 🔗 Resources & Links Monday Influencer® (Curated expert insight for leaders): https://mondayinfluencer.com Substack & Tools: https://natschooler.com/tools Shownotes: https://www.natschooler.com/how-to-prompt-ai-to-design-your-next-career-promotion/

S15 Ep4: EU Chat Control 2.0: Is Mass Surveillance Ending Digital Privacy? | Nat Schooler & Steven J. Manning

Are your encrypted messages actually private, or is mass surveillance becoming the new normal? In this episode, host Nat Schooler is joined by business strategist Steven J. Manning to dissect EU Chat Control 2.0—the controversial legislative proposal that would force messaging platforms to use client-side scanning directly on smartphones, effectively breaking end-to-end encryption (E2EE) before messages even leave your device. Together, they examine the hidden realities of modern surveillance—from 300,000 mobile apps silently feeding location databases to CCTV networks and retina scanning—while weighing the delicate balance between public safety, child protection, and corporate privacy. What does this mean for executives, business operations, trade secrets, and everyday digital freedom? Episode Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction: The Executive Threat of Chat Control 2.0 01:56 - Is Privacy Already an Illusion? (CCTV, Retina Scans & Mass Tracking) 05:05 - Microphones, Faraday Bags, and Background Data Exposure 08:52 - AI Analytics: How 300,000 Apps Track Your Exact Location 10:33 - How Chat Control 2.0 Breaks End-to-End Encryption 12:05 - Protecting Children vs. State Overreach & Legal Fallout 15:08 - Chat Control 1.0 vs. 2.0: What Is Currently Being Scanned? 17:31 - The Security Trade-off: How Much Privacy Will We Give Up? 21:16 - AI Data Centers, Social Media, and Free Speech 26:11 - Predictions: Will Chat Control Pass by 2028? 30:08 - Alternative Tech, Peer-to-Peer Networks, and Securing Your Devices 31:53 - Monday Influencer & Closing Remarks 🔗 SHOW NOTES & OFFICIAL REFERENCES Read the full written executive briefing, view primary EU voting records, and inspect official legal filings on Substack: 👉 https://raw.natschooler.com/p/eu-chat-control-20-the-encryption?utm_source=youtube Watch our related briefing on EU legislative updates: 👉 https://youtu.be/v_S0_mWS80w?si=3VqdkOrI8RySYaeW 📩 GET IN TOUCH & SUBSCRIBE • Monday Influencer Newsletter: Get curated executive intelligence delivered straight to your inbox: https://mondayinfluencer.com • Executive Upskilling & Podcast Inquiries: Are you a founder or C-suite executive navigating digital governance? Email: info@influentialvisions.com • Help Us Reach 100,000 Subscribers: If you found value in this video, hit Subscribe so you never miss these practical executive briefings! #ChatControl #DigitalPrivacy #E2EE #Cybersecurity #TechPolicy #EULaw #NatSchooler #DataGovernance #StevenJManning #CorporateSecurity

• Transcript

S15 Ep3: The Trillion-Dollar Price of Broken Focus

Meta just disclosed in federal court that it faces up to $1.4 trillion in penalties for building addictive algorithms. If you lead a team, this is not a tech story — it is an operating cost you are already paying. Twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds: that is how long it takes your best people to fully recover from one interruption, according to two decades of research from UC Irvine. This episode breaks down the court case, the regulatory risk to your content strategy, and what an operator actually does about it. Full written breakdown: https://www.natschooler.com/metas-court-confession-1-4-trillion-and-counting/ Subscribe : MONDAYINFLUENCER.COM MONDAY INFLUENCER® is a world-renowned strategic digest and executive intelligence platform for those serious about success in business, career, and life.

S15 Ep2: Job Hopping Good or Bad? The Man Who Stayed 20 Years and Won

Steven J. Manning built a $47 billion career by doing the one thing everyone around him refused to do — staying. At 21 he went to work for a tiny company heading toward insolvency. His friends were changing jobs every eighteen months. Lawyers, Stanford MBAs, people with better degrees and better options — all moving on. Steven stayed. Twenty years later he was running a major business with thousands of people and more success than he had ever imagined. Not because he was lucky. Because he understood something most people miss — that trajectory happens to you, and what matters is what you decide to do with it. In this conversation we get into the real decision behind that choice, why yes people outperform no people every time, why the best in the world will help you if you know how to ask, and the career question nobody ever puts to you — the one about the life you did not choose. Shownotes here: https://www.natschooler.com/the-catapult-question-the-career-story-you-are-not-telling/ This is The Catapult Question with Steven J. Manning. → MONDAY INFLUENCER® https://mondayinfluencer.com

S15 Ep1: Why New AI Roles Won't Fill the Jobs We're About to Lose

Why New AI Roles Won't Fill the Jobs We're About to Lose. US white-collar payrolls have contracted for 31 consecutive months. While tech optimists point to a projected 78 million net gain in global jobs by 2030, a staggering 95% of those new roles require a Master's degree or a Doctorate. The brutal reality? AI is creating new jobs, just not for the people whose livelihoods are being actively disrupted. In this episode of Influential Visions, host Nathaniel Schooler is joined by Nicolas Babin, former Head of Sony Europe and EU Digital Ambassador. Together, they look past the tech hype to expose how corporate automation is quietly kicking out the first three rungs of the career ladder , why an algorithm can never automate ultimate legal responsibility , and how you can stop spending your days behaving like a machine to stay entirely irreplaceable. Hit play to exit the white-collar squeeze.

S14 Ep12: The Claude Fable 5 Ban, The Amazon Alarm, and the Threat of AI Brain Rot

Anthropic has disabled its top-tier models for every customer on the planet. In this episode, I detail the national security directive that forced the sudden shutdown, the reality behind the zero-workaround policy, and a critical lesson in cognitive health for business leaders. Discover what a controlled study from Texas A&M and Purdue reveals about how low-quality data creates permanent reasoning deficits—both in large language models and human minds. It is time to audit your inputs. If this resonates, the full picture is inside MONDAY INFLUENCER®. Every week: curated expert audio, the ABSTRACT publication, and exclusive interviews — built for leaders who want signal over noise, not another newsletter to skim. Join MONDAY INFLUENCER® → https://mondayinfluencer.com Shownotes and article here: https://www.natschooler.com/will-claude-fable-5-return-inside-the-anthropic-and-washington-ai-standoff/

S14 Ep11: Trump Banned Claude Fable 5: Good for America or Not We Discuss

The US government just shut down access to Anthropic's two most powerful AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, days after launch. Steven J. Manning joins Nathaniel Schooler to close the AI in Government series and ask the only question that matters: national security, or the costliest competitive takedown in tech history. Different place. Same question. Visit the shownotes here: https://www.natschooler.com/the-trump-administration-just-banned-a-commercial-ai-model-for-the-first-time-steven-manning-says-that-was-the-right-call/ Subscribe to MONDAY INFLUENCER®: https://mondayinfluencer.com

S14 Ep10: Sovereign AI Who Controls the Machine Controls the Future

Sovereign AI: The Geopolitical Weapon Being Built Right Now Influential Visions with Nat Schooler The foundation model era is over. The sovereign AI era has begun. Every serious nation on the planet is now racing to build its own AI stack — controlling the energy, the compute, the data, and the rules. Because relying on foreign AI infrastructure is no longer a tech decision. It is a national security decision. In this episode, ex-IBM Futurist Nat Schooler breaks down what is actually happening behind the headlines — and why most of what you are being told is wrong. What we cover: The USA outspent China 23 to 1 last year. The gap between their best models is under 3%. Spending is not winning this race. Data centres now consume more electricity than the entire United Kingdom. China is launching satellite data centres into space. Europe is heating homes with server waste heat. This is a physical infrastructure war. India is building frugal AI — multilingual, sovereign, built for a billion people. Not brute force. Precision. 80% of AI running inside businesses is completely invisible to the board. Klarna gutted its customer service with AI. It quietly rehired humans when quality collapsed. Companion chatbots engineered to maximise engagement have talked vulnerable people into taking their own lives. Zero corporate accountability. Zero regulatory framework. And through all of it — one thing remains that no model can replicate. Trust. Accountability. Relationships. The human moat. Next episode: The American AI story — with a guest who has been working with AI and data since the 1980s. Before the hype. Before the billions. Before ChatGPT existed. Know someone from the USA or Estonia we should speak to? Email us: info@influentialvisions.com 🔗 Access the full archive — $1 trial: https://mondayinfluencer.com 📩 Topic requests: info@influentialvisions.com sovereign AI, digital sovereignty, AI geopolitics, future of work, AI jobs, human moat, AI infrastructure, Nat Schooler, Influential Visions, Monday Influencer

S14 Ep9: China Moved Its Data Centres Into Space. Here Is What Every Leader Needs to Know

Global data centers now consume more electricity than the entire United Kingdom. While most boardrooms treat AI as a software decision, the world's superpowers are realizing the truth: AI is an energy decision. In this episode, we explore how the grid crisis is forcing a radical split in tech infrastructure. While Europe is engineering practical ways to capture data center waste heat to warm thousands of homes, China is moving its computing off the planet entirely. We dive into China’s extraordinary new "Three-Body Computing Constellation"—a multi-billion-dollar network of orbital supercomputers powered by constant solar energy and cooled by the vacuum of space. 🎧 What We Discuss: The AI Energy Wall: Why global compute is on track to consume as much power as Japan by 2026. Europe’s Grounded Logic: From heating Paris Olympic pools to supplying district heat to 250,000 people in Finland. China's Orbital Leap: Inside the $8.4 billion space-based supercomputing network that caught Elon Musk's attention. The Leadership Equation: Why the next decade of competitive advantage belongs to those who control the power, not just the model. 🔗 Connect & Learn More: Full Show Notes & Links: [INSERT SHOWNOTES LINK HERE] Free Tools for Leaders: https://natschooler.com/tools Get the Written Intelligence (Newsletter): https://natschooler.com Read Deeper on Substack: https://futureproofleader.substack.com Join Monday Influencer®: Get the weekly expert signal that separates the noise from reality: https://mondayinfluencer.com

S14 Ep8: Managed Decline In The UK: Why AI as Human Replacement with Darrell Mann

The UK is spending half a billion pounds on sovereign AI and sitting sixth in the world for real deployment. Something structural is broken — and Darrell Mann knows exactly what it is. Darrell is a former Chief Engineer of Rolls Royce and one of the world's leading systematic innovation experts. We strip away the political PR and get into why 98% of R&D spending fails, why engineers need to be running state infrastructure instead of lawyers, and why corporations using AI purely to replace humans are walking into what Darrell calls managed decline — a slow institutional death disguised as efficiency. If you lead anything — a team, a business, a department — this one is for you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FOLLOW THE SHOW — so the next one lands automatically. MONDAY INFLUENCER® — curated expert signal for leaders. No noise. $19.95/mo → https://mondayinfluencer.com FUTURE PROOF LEADER — the weekly briefing, straight to your inbox. → https://substack.com/@futureproofleader Everything else (channels + socials) → https://natschooler.com/tools ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

S14 Ep7: WHEN GOVERNMENTS DECIDE, CAREERS PAY THE PRICE AI, Power, and the Future of Work

Governments are making decisions about artificial intelligence right now. You were not consulted. But the consequences are heading for your career regardless. This series brings together four of the most credible voices on the planet — Tushar Kansal on India's national AI ambition, Nicolas Babin on what the EU AI Act actually does to working people, Darrell Mann on where human leadership becomes irreplaceable, and Steven J. Manning on what America's dominance of AI investment means for everyone else. Four countries. Four perspectives. One question: what happens to real careers when the most powerful institutions on earth start running on machines? New episodes every week on Influential Visions. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode 📩 Get the written intelligence behind every conversation — Future Proofed Leader newsletter at natschooler.com 💡 Join MONDAY INFLUENCER® at https://mondayinfluencer.com — the expert network for leaders who want signal, not noise. Get the shownotes and the research here: https://www.natschooler.com/which-jobs-will-ai-replace/ #AI #FutureOfWork #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #InfluentialVisions

S14 Ep6: Chatbots Are Killing People and Nobody's Stopping Them

AI job losses in 2026 have passed 142,000 in tech alone. Chatbots have been directly linked to multiple deaths. The FDA has issued its first ever warning letter citing AI misuse. The data is in — and it is worse than you think. Re-released due to the audio not meeting our standards. Nat Schooler breaks down the verified facts on what AI is actually doing to people and to the workforce right now. No hype, no speculation. Real cases, real data, real accountability gaps. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FOLLOW THE SHOW — so the next one lands automatically. Get the shownotes here: https://www.natschooler.com/ai-job-losses-2026-chatbot-deaths-and-the-harm-nobody-is-talking-about/ MONDAY INFLUENCER® — curated expert signal for leaders. No noise. $19.95/mo → https://mondayinfluencer.com FUTURE PROOF LEADER — the weekly briefing, straight to your inbox. → https://substack.com/@futureproofleader Everything else (channels + socials) → https://natschooler.com/tools

S14 Ep5: Why India Is Winning The AI Race Nobody Is Watching | Tushar Kansal

The world's biggest AI conversation is happening without India in the room. That is a mistake. One in eight of ChatGPT's weekly users sits in India. Eighty per cent of Indian professionals use AI at work — against fifty per cent in the US. And the country is quietly building its own sovereign language models, frugal AI tools, and healthcare diagnostics at a scale the West has not begun to absorb. Tushar Kansal — founder of Kansaltancy Ventures, VC strategist to 1,700-plus international investors — joins Nat Schooler to cover what India is actually building, what happened at the Delhi AI Summit that nobody is talking about, and why ancient Indian philosophy understands something about intelligent machines that Silicon Valley has missed completely. "AI can give you the right answer. But it cannot give you the right intention." Read the full piece: https://www.natschooler.com/why-india-is-winning-the-ai-race-nobody-is-watching/ More from Nat: https://www.natschooler.com Monday Influencer®: https://mondayinfluencer.com Tools: https://www.natschooler.com/tools

S14 Ep4: Sovereign AI: The US vs China Money War (And Why Spending More Is Not Winning)

Sovereign AI is the race for every nation to control its own artificial intelligence — and the US versus China money war just exposed why spending more is not winning. Fresh data from the 2026 Stanford AI Index reveals a staggering reality: the United States poured $285.9 billion of private AI money into the race in 2025, compared to China’s $12.4 billion. That is a massive 23-to-1 spending gap. Yet, despite the US being the biggest spender in history, the performance gap between the top American and Chinese models has collapsed to a mere 2.7%. In this teaser episode, we break down why money isn't buying absolute safety or control, how the illusion of "borrowed control" creates real-world human risks, and why this completely reframes the global tech race. If the world's biggest budget can barely maintain a lead, what does it mean for nations competing on a fraction of the cost? 🔗 Resources Mentioned Read the full deep-dive article: The Sovereign AI Paradox: Why No Nation Builds Its Future Alone Subscribe to: Future Proofed Leader on Substack https://futureproofleader.substack.com/ Monday Influencer for your weekly dose of signal over noise here: https://mondayinfluencer.com What You’ll Learn In This Teaser: The 23-to-1 Paradox: Why Washington's multi-billion-dollar spending advantage isn't yielding a dominant lead. The Performance Collapse: How a 2.7% performance gap changes the geopolitical playing field overnight. Human-Centric Dangers: A look at the three very real, non-technical risks of relying on foreign technology: price volatility, signal manipulation, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. The Road to Thursday: How this sets the stage for our upcoming, exclusive conversation with Indian venture capitalist Tushar Kansal, exploring how India is competing on a fraction of the budget. Connect With Us Don't miss the full conversation dropping this Thursday. Hit that Subscribe or Follow button to stay ahead of the curve.

S14 Ep3: Who Really Controls Your AI? The Sovereign AI Race Nobody Noticed

Who Really Controls Your AI? Two of the biggest moments in AI this year happened in the same fortnight and almost nobody noticed. Five companies quietly agreed to let the US government look at their newest models before anyone else. Days later, the President walked away from the order that would have made it mandatory. So we are left with a halfway house. Government has a foot in the door. The door has not been locked open. In this episode I break down what actually happened, why nations are now racing to build sovereign AI, and the three reasons the world still reaches for American models despite the growing distrust. I also share what I learned watching this exact pattern play out from the inside during my time as a Futurist at IBM. The full blog with all sources and FAQs is on my website: https://natschooler.com Subscribe to my Substack for the deep detail by email here: https://futureproofleader.substack.com Subscribe to Monday Influencer for world-class strategies to power your week: https://mondayinfluencer.com

S14 Ep2: Governments Are Running on AI at Scale—What That Actually Means

"Governments Are Running on AI at Scale" Guest: Nicolas Babin, EU Deputy Mayor & Digital Ambassador What if I told you that your government is running on AI systems that operate at speeds humans cannot match? Not chatbots. Not theoretical. Real systems detecting fraud across millions of accounts, predicting security threats before they happen, accelerating healthcare innovation, and shaping policy before votes occur. In this episode, I sit down with Nicolas Babin—someone inside the European digital infrastructure who has spent a decade watching this transformation unfold—to talk about: Why the Latvia SIM card fraud (200M+ fake accounts) changed how governments think about detection How vision AI and drones are catching undeclared assets for tax compliance The speed-versus-problem gap in cybersecurity (and why humans cannot close it alone) AI's actual role in healthcare innovation (vaccine acceleration, tumour detection, personalized medicine) What happens when governments move faster than citizens can follow This is not a fearmongering episode. It is a clarity episode. If your organization works with government, depends on government systems, or is trying to understand where the world is actually heading, this conversation is for you. The core question we don't ask enough: When governments use AI to detect, predict, and enforce at machine speed, how do we ensure the system is fast and fair?