WRITER's Chief People Officer: Companies Aren't Failing at AI, They're Failing at Change

Most companies aren't failing at AI. They're failing at change. That's the argument from Jevan Soo Lenox, Chief People Officer at WRITER, who says the technology is rarely the problem. The culture around it is. Jevan is a five-time chief people officer who has scaled teams at Square, Stitch Fix, Blue Bottle Coffee, and AI drug discovery company insitro, and he's been working at the intersection of technology and people for over two decades. In this episode, Jevan and Joelle Emerson dig into why AI amplifies whatever your organization already is, for better or worse. Jevan shares findings from WRITER's recent adoption survey, including the surprising number of employees actively sabotaging AI initiatives at their companies, and explains why bottoms-up experimentation alone almost never produces business results. They also get into why he predicted years ago that the chief people officer would need to become the chief change officer, what he learned about humans and algorithms working together at Stitch Fix a decade before it was fashionable, the return of the generalist, and the difference between an efficiency culture and a resilience culture. Below the Surface is a podcast from Paradigm about how the best companies build their teams, hosted by Joelle Emerson, co-founder and CEO of Paradigm.