Fast Company Events

Enjoyed this SXSW Fast Company panel with Kc Ifeanyi, Sam Jordan and Peter Smart where I shared my perspective on how leaders can navigate the disruptive landscape of AI based on my own learnings of leading Stack Overflow during a very dynamic period --- and how Stack Overflow has pivoted to become the knowledge intelligence layer inside enterprises. Here are the top 5 takeaways: ⚡ Embrace a 'Refounding' Mentality: When a tectonic shift like AI occurs, don't just patch your existing business. You must be willing to revisit your mission and purpose—effectively "refounding" your company to remain relevant. ⚡ Carve Out Autonomous Teams: To successfully pivot, create an autonomous, purpose-built team that operates outside the pressures of the core business. This unit should have its own incentives, autonomy, and a clear timeline to experiment and disrupt from within. ⚡ Stay in the Trenches: For fundamental technological shifts, leadership cannot fully delegate. For a period of time, I personally led product initiatives during our transition to ensure the company moved with speed and focus. ⚡ Adopt a 'Fast, Focused, and Fearless' Mantra: Fast: Rapidly incorporate daily learnings into your strategy. Focused: Ensure you are solving real customer problems, not just using AI for the sake of it. Fearless: Be ready to change your entire business model if the data demands it. ⚡ Maintain a Growth Mindset: Leaders must be comfortable being wrong. Assumptions about AI capabilities will be proven untrue as technology evolves, so you must remain flexible, hold your points of view "loosely," and keep learning to remain resilient.

Attended SXSW for the first time this year—and yes, this post is coming in a week late… turns out “back from SXSW” is less of a moment and more of a full recovery period. I left feeling energized by how my peers are actually using AI across marketing and communications—not just talking about it. The conversations felt practical, creative, and forward-looking in the best way. Huge shoutout to the teams behind some truly insightful programming, including BBDO Worldwide, ADWEEK, The Female Quotient, Muck Rack, Accenture, and Fast Company. So many smart perspectives on where our industry is headed. But the highlight for me was supporting my brilliant clients at webAI. From David Stout’s insightful keynote on the future of sovereign AI—“People want to own their intelligence, not rent it.”—to the chance to connect with such thoughtful, innovative people on the team, it was a reminder of why this work matters. Already looking forward to next year!

What’s special about the Fast Company Grill at SXSW (beyond a million things) is the way it brings you face-to-face with conversations we don’t often make space for at work. In a single afternoon, you can sit with mental health experts, entrepreneurs, and human rights leaders, and be pushed to confront what’s uncomfortable, but necessary. I’m both an immigrant and someone who runs social media in journalism for a living—in other words, a perfect storm when it comes to the nonstop news cycle and constant exposure to grim, graphic imagery. What helps: hearing from people who actually know how to navigate it. Experts who can speak to managing anxiety without disconnecting from reality, and leaders doing real, on-the-ground work to fight injustice. At “How to Function at Work While the World is Burning,” organizational psychologist Dr. Laura Hambley Lovett, Bennett Porter (Chief of Staff at Calm), and Ruchika T. Malhotra (CEO and author of Candour) shared practical ways to stay grounded amid a constant barrage of bad news, especially when work itself isn’t exactly...calm. (Pro tip: spending time in nature still works.) In “What Happens When America Squeezes Out Its Global Workforce?”, Anu Joshi (ACLU's National Campaigns Director) laid out the harsh reality facing undocumented immigrants and their families, while Yakov Filippenko (CEO of Intch) spoke to what shifting immigration policies mean for global talent, and the impact to innovation in the U.S. Immense gratitude to our speakers for taking the time to share their wisdom, and always grateful to Fast Company for creating space for these conversations. If either topic resonates, you can watch the full panels at fastcompany.com/videos (link in comments). See you next year, Austin. #FCGrill #SXSW

I had a great time at SXSW last week, catching up with some of my favorite folks (looking at you, Nathan Lump and Morra Aarons-Mele), meeting new people (Hi, Chad Janis!), and getting flipped off by a Unitree robot (🙄). I also got to moderate a bunch of incredible panels at the Fast Company Grill, which—once again—had some of the best content in Austin, thanks to my colleague Kc Ifeanyi. 🩰 I sat down with producer and director Vicky Jewson and the stars of her forthcoming movie "Pretty Lethal": Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apatow, Avantika, Lana Condor, and Maddie Ziegler. We talked about how they created a film that subverts stereotypes and centers women as action heroes—and developed a new style of combat they call 'Ballet-Fu.' It’s clever, creative, lethal, and a lots of fun to watch. 📽️ I spoke with Zeam Media founder Jack Perry and the inimitable John Stamos, who serves as chief innovation officer for the company. Zeam’s on a mission to save the hometown TV station and has united some 300 stations into a single livestreaming hub that now covers 80% of U.S. markets. The company is now aiming to bridge the gap between local news and the next generation of creators. 🗞️ And finally, I stared into the media abyss with Steven Rosenbaum, executive director of the Sustainable Media Center, and Chris Licht, former CEO and chairman of CNN and former EP of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, CBS This Morning, and Morning Joe. We talked about the importance of creating a new ‘infrastructure for truth’ in the age of AI-driven disinformation and misinformation and distrust of media. We didn’t quite come up with a solution, but they had some compelling ideas. (Steven's new book, The Future of Truth, has even more.) Also, Chris made it abundantly clear that he would *not* be returning to CNN under new ownership.