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HR's Biggest Moment is Right Now: The Only Question is Who is Going to Take It ft/ Hacking HR's Enrique Rubio

• Francesca Ranieri • Season 3

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HR’s Biggest Moment Is Right Now. Who’s Going to Take It?

AI isn’t just another HR tech tool.
It’s becoming infrastructure.

In this episode of Your Work Friends, Mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri sit down with Enrique Rubio, Founder & CEO of Hacking HR (a 2M+ global HR community), to unpack the biggest signals reshaping HR, People Operations, and leadership right now.

The stakes?
HR can either shape how work changes — or watch it get shaped for them.

The Signals We’re Tracking

  • AI is moving from tool → infrastructure
  • The cost-of-labor equation is getting colder
  • Companies are making decisions faster than humans can emotionally process
  • AI can now mimic many “human” skills HR once relied on
  • Governance, regulation, and political shifts are accelerating uncertainty

This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now.

What We Cover

  • Why “just be more human” isn’t a strategy in the age of AI
  • The capabilities that will define effective HR leaders in the next 3 years
  • Why HR must think beyond HR (finance, tech, operations fluency matters)
  • What HR might look like by 2030 — and why it will likely be smaller, more strategic, and more orchestration-focused
  • Why community is a competitive advantage — especially when most companies have only 1–2 HR leaders
  • What HR should stop doing immediately
  • A practical 12-month playbook for CHROs, People Ops leaders, and HR teams

If HR doesn’t step into technology leadership, someone else will.


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Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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Opening Stakes: HR’s Urgency

SPEAKER_02

This to me creates a massive sense of urgency because I come from technology and I don't want the IT person to be the chief people officer. I want the chief people officer to be the chief people officer and technology officer. I just don't think that most extra leaders are there yet.

Hosts, Guest, And Why Now

SPEAKER_00

Hey, welcome to your work, friends, where we break down the now and next of work. So you stay ahead. I'm Mel Platt and I'm Francesca Rineri. And we had the opportunity to meet with Enrique Rubio, who is the founder and CEO of Hacking HR.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. If you don't know HackingHR, it is a 2 million plus community that is all aimed to make HR better and better each year. And the reason why we wanted to talk to Enrique is you and I are really noticing a very strong signal that HR's biggest moment is actually right now, but there's a big question about who's going to take it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the signals are super loud. You and I track this every week. We talk about it in New Week New

AI, Labor Math, And Power Shifts

SPEAKER_00

Headlines. AI is no longer just a tool, but infrastructure in most organizations. The cost of labor math is getting a lot colder, and companies are making decisions faster than people can actually emotionally process them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And what that means for HR is that HR can't just react anymore. It's either going to shape power changes or watch it get shaped for them. Hashtag probably from the IT department. So we are going to get into what you should stop doing, what is start building now in the 12-month playbook for HR leaders to want to be early. But the moment is now.

Community As HR’s Force Multiplier

SPEAKER_01

Why is this aspect of community so critical to evolving HR out of the horse and into maybe not a Ferrari just yet, but at least a solid Honda Accord?

SPEAKER_02

This is more philosophical than operational, but the truth is that some of the problems that we deal with in the world are so complex that I know that it's impossible for us to solve alone. We gotta bring heads together, brains together, and think about them together to see what the best way to solve those problems is. And in the case of HR, this is particularly true because in most companies that are not super large companies, which are like something like 98% of companies in the US have less than 500 employees, right? And they probably have like one HR person, maybe two. The head of people and the recruiter. So even the knowledge club may be very large in between them to even have a strategic conversation about what to do for HR for that company. What better way to try to solve problems than bringing these people together and say, hey, you are an HR person in a 500 person company and you are the only HR leader there? So there's another HR leader here who is also in the same situation as you looking for somebody like you to talk with. So that's why community is so important because it is the way for you to come together with other people, some of whom are ahead of you and you can learn from, some of whom are on a similar level in their journey and you can collaborate with them, or others that are behind you that you can pull out or bring in with you and share your insights and knowledge with them. That is philosophically why I think community is so powerful in HR, but across the world, across the across the board, you know, in any function.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It's so interesting too because you have such a wide range of industries, to your point, people that are sitting at a one-person HR firm to people that are in strategic HR where there's like 40, 50, 60 people, maybe 200

What Actually Unites HR

SPEAKER_01

people in HR. But are there things that unite everyone around HR, like a philosophical view around what people believe HR is?

SPEAKER_02

Or gosh, that is a very good question. Thank you. Thank you. I wish I could say yes, but the answer is no. Let's find the anchors, right? I'm in HR because I love working with people. Yes, that is true for some, but not for all. I've heard this too. I'm in HR because I didn't want to pursue a more technical career, which is ridiculous, by the way, because HR should be very technical and evidence-based and databased, but it's not that reasonable. Somebody would be in HR is not common. Even when I think about which I think about very often, HR being the leader with, I call this kind of leader trailblazers. For those who are tuning in, a trail runner, and when you go to a trail race, uh, there's always generally people organize the race. They are trail blazing. And what they are doing is they are marking the trail so that you know where to race and you don't get lost. That's how I see HR. HR is not the only one running the race, but they are they should be marking the trail for others to follow. And that trail goes into

Admin HR Vs Trailblazers

SPEAKER_02

this thing that we call the future of work. But even saying that doesn't unite everybody in HR. Because some people in HR think that what they do is back off is gonna work, their administration, I hire, I fire, I pay, and that's the end for me. That's all I do. And sadly, by the way, the majority of people in NHR still are there in that big thick layer of HR people who are uh, whether because they have been trained to do that, they have been conditioned to do that, whether because they believe that's what they should be doing, but the biggest layer, the thickest layer in HR are people who operate in a very administrative, very uh compliance, policy-oriented, yeah, back office kind of work. So even saying I want you to be Detroit Blazed is not a message that sells to everybody in HR. But there are groups of people. There's a critical mass that is growing. I don't know how many of them there are, but there's a critical mass of people that are growing that are starting to say, it's not just because I believe that we can be Detroit Blazer, it's because if I am not, I'm gonna lose my job. Because the admin work can now be done by a machine. And if the admin work can be done by a machine and I don't have anything else to offer, what's going to happen with my job? You're not going to kill it. That's

Human Skills, AI, And Value Erosion

SPEAKER_02

for sure. Going back to this idea of companies sometimes doing things in the not human way. If you cost them $100,000 per year and they can do 80% of what you do with a machine that costs them $20 a month, guess what they're gonna choose? They're not going to choose the $100,000 investment a year when 80% of that can be replaced with technology.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'd love to just follow up on that, given all of the different places people are in their HR careers, thinking of HR in the future, what capabilities are gonna define the most effective HR leaders in the next three years?

SPEAKER_02

Given the eclectic taste for books, and I start connecting dots in my head, right? And I connect dots between what's happening right now with other times of technological transition and what's happened during those times and how painful that transition may have been, and how long it took us to get out of that transition into a state of, okay, we're now stable again. So when I hear people in general, not just to HR, but when I hear people saying, Oh, in the age of AI, you have to double down on the things that make us uniquely human, I'm gonna get us a bullshit. Because right now, you can go to talk to an AI tool that behaves 75% like a therapist. And if you can have an AI tool that behaves 75% like a therapist, but it costs you 20 bucks a month whenever you want, versus a one-hour therapy that costs you $200 an hour, guess what you are going to choose? They are going to choose the empathetic tool that is telling them what to do, what not to do, recommendations, et cetera, because that's what they get access to. So this idea of you gotta be more empathetic, you gotta be more this, you gotta be more that, because those are the uniquely human skills, AI doesn't feel them because AI doesn't have any feelings, but it can mimic them really well. We need something that is more than just having human skills, that some of which can now be mimicked by technology. This is true for everybody, particularly obviously for HR.

Think Horizontally: Beyond HR

SPEAKER_02

If there was maybe one thing, you gotta stop thinking like an extra person. I know it's what the heck? When you're talking to HR people, you're telling them not to think like an extra person, that's exactly what I'm saying. There are multiple verticals of knowledge, right? You can be a great engineer, marketer, salesperson, HR, blah, blah, blah. So if you only invest in getting better in your own vertical, which is what most HR people have done traditionally, parts of the value that you bring as a specialist are going to be eaten away by technology. For example, if you are the most expert of all the experts because you knew the law by memory in the state of California, now I can ask AI and I get the same thing in one second. I don't have to call you on the phone to get that answer that only you knew about. So part of your value is being stripped away from you. So the question is what happens when all some of the value gets stripped away because of technology? If you only invested in that vertical, you are going to be a loser in this time. So you gotta think more horizontally. So for HR, that message is you have to learn all the things that are beyond HR. To be a great HR person in this new era of work, you have to think of yourself as a business leader who is wearing today people, operations, a people leadership, an HR hat. But being just a great HR person is just not enough. That's one of the reasons, by the way, why every time, and I have many of my friends who do this, by the way, so I love them very much, but they always say, Oh, I want to create an HR for HR community. Now McCarthy's out of your mind. Just you gotta build a community where you bring HR in contact with finance, sales, marketing. Because maybe while those functions are getting better in their own vertical, we are still getting better at ours, but learning about theirs. And then we can connect the dots in the back end. I think it is going to be more the capacity to think holistically, to foresight, to connect the dots where other people are incapable of connecting those dots because they don't even know that those dots exist. So that to me is the future of all of us individually, but particularly HR as a trade laser.

2030: Smaller HR, New Orchestrators

SPEAKER_00

What do you think HR might look like by 2030 that might surprise people today?

SPEAKER_02

First of all, I think it's gonna be a much smaller function in most departments. I think what's gonna happen across the board, by the way, this is not just for HR. I'm sorry that I'm not responding questions just about HR, but more in general. I think there's going to be a cadre of people that are so brilliant, so talented in what they do today, but also in their capacity to connect dots, including the dots of technology, that they will be, they will be pushed up the corporate ladder, if you will, or the talent ladder, and they will be the orchestrators of humans and technology. Uh so right now, when you look at the makeup of a company, you have a managerial layer, you have a very thick layer in the middle of direct managers and individual contributors, and there will be another cadre of people that will lose their jobs, and maybe some of the ones that remain that are not capable of connecting those, but they still have to do something that AI can't do, they will be perhaps pushed down to a more, I don't want to call it an admin kind of work, not that far from that concept of being an admin kind of work in the age of AI. So I think this is going to be true for HR too. If you have a department of HR people, there would be the one that right now works in HR. Maybe it is the junior person or maybe it is the more senior person, they are doing their job and simultaneously they are playing with AI and they are thinking, oh, let me play with this thing. Let me connect dots here, let me invent something, let me create something. I bet that even if that person doesn't have a formal uh authority title today, they will down the road if the rest of the team, including that person's managers, are not catching up with this new era of work. They will be pushed up to be the orchestrator, and the rest, some of them will lose their jobs, and some others will be pushed down to all right, AI will not do like this menial thing that still requires human touch. So you will be doing that. I think that's that's going to be the trend across the board, and it will be for HR as

Treat AI As Infrastructure

SPEAKER_02

well.

SPEAKER_01

We've heard you say that AI isn't just a tool, it's actually infrastructure. When you look at HR, and that makes sense, especially if people are going to be orchestrating more, right? Yes. If that is the case, and we know that's where this is going. It's in orchestration, it's smaller, it's more strategic. If that's the case, what should HR leaders stop doing immediately if that's where this train is headed?

SPEAKER_02

Particularly about AI, I would say stop thinking about AI as if it was just a tool that you just bring in and you ask it a couple of questions, and then you get a couple of fast answers to your question. You have to think about it as the infrastructure now powering your business. The same way that steam power powered and the first industrial revolution, the same way, or the mechanized work, the same way that factories and electricity power the second industrial revolution, the same way that computing power and the internet power, the third industrial revolution, these are not just tools that you're using, right? These are layers of infrastructure that are powering a significant leap forward. Using a tool, using if you go from one smartphone to the next, and then now it looks a little bit more pretty, then it's just a tool, right? But if you are looking at the features that next iPhone or whatever tool you use has, and you start building your operations based on that that you didn't have in the previous smartphone, right, that is that significant leap forward versus just seeing that as a tool. Steam power, electricity, computing power, and the internet, and now AI, these are layers of infrastructure powering and new ways of operating. And when you embrace that idea, it's a significant leap forward versus just using them as a tool. So it's completely different. And I was looking at this data, saying something like 60% or something like that of the AI of business leaders are saying, yes, we're using AI. Okay, but what's the return? Oh, we're only like 20%, we're seeing the return on these investments. And that may be because of

The 12‑Month Playbook For HR

SPEAKER_02

it's been very recent, but at the same time, it makes me think that you're bringing an AI tool to power something that was not designed to be powered by AI, then it's like not having the tool at all. You're missing out on 99% of the power of that specific uh thing that you're bringing to the table, in this case, AI. So the one thing that would love people to stop thinking about is AI just as a tool that you use every now and then, and more as the infrastructure that can power the leap of progress of your business, whether it is a company that you work for, your function within that company, or yourself, whatever you do at an individual level.

SPEAKER_00

Give us the playbook here. Your individual HR leader, CHRO, or an organization, what should each be doing in the next 12 months?

SPEAKER_02

So two things at an individual level and then at an organizational level. At an individual level, get ready for the wild ride that we're about to experience. It's going to be really wild. Particularly this year is going to be really difficult. We have midterm elections, and there's a lot on the table right now, including the AI conversation, by the way. Because we are about to choose between people who want to legislate to protect us from AI and people who don't. So even in that sense, the ride will be wild. So get ready for that. Second, just start opening the dam, the floodgates, to listen to what your people are saying, to what they are learning, and how that can contribute to your company, to what they are to what to their fears. To there currently there are people sabotaging AI because they fear that if they don't, they will lose their jobs. That's not going to stop them losing their jobs, by the way. But having the conversations has deep a meaning to number one, help them prepare for potentially losing their jobs or for whatever it is that they can do to get ready for transitioning into other roles. So to me, it is get ready for that wild rider that we are about to experience. But number two, it is just bring your organization together. Be a coalest your people around an idea of how do we take advantage of this while remaining a human company, a company that cares for the people, but knowing that we are a company anyway and we have to make decisions, just bring your people together. I just think that's going to be so powerful, especially if you do it, if you do it now, if you do it early.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. One thing that strikes me is human resources called human resources, i.e., human resources. And we are in these big evolutionary modes, industrial revolution, automation, computer. Now

Rename HR Or Redesign HR

SPEAKER_01

we're in AI and a genetic, but it feels like the time of HR as we know it has passed. And I'm curious about you don't think so?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, of course I think so.

SPEAKER_01

Um here's my question for you. I feel like we need to give up the name human resources and completely just start a new org for it, because I feel like that's gonna be internally one of the biggest issues of people being able to personally get on the bandwagon around where this group needs to go to add value for the organization. And quite frankly, for the organization to feel like there's value in this work as well. Your thoughts.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, this answer could be so freaking long. I'm gonna try not to. I'm gonna try not to. So let me begin by getting this out the door. Um, because HR was not HR always, it was personal management before. And actually, by now, we are about celebrating 100 years of the rise of HR as a function being called personal management. It came out to be in the 1920s with the rise of factory work in urban areas uh in developed countries. So it already has had name changes in the past. Most recently, it changed from human resources to people operations. But then when you dig a little deeper and you explore the behind the scenes, you're like, oh, you're you are like the house falling apart and the only color paint on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a different day.

SPEAKER_02

It's like the same shadow, different name. It's like the different color, right? So it's it's the same thing falling apart, all broken, with broken systems, broken processes, only with a different color outside. And that's what I am not down to do anymore. If we are going to be doing the same thing even after changing the name, then don't change the name at all. Have the same

Tech Vs People: Who Leads Whom

SPEAKER_02

bad reputation that you currently have by being called where you're called right now. I just want to say that because yes, I do believe that we need a little bit of a different, maybe they can rebranding, but the rebranding can't be just changing the logo. It has to be changing the essence, right, of what we do. Now, the the second thing that you mentioned about more HR as a function, there are multiple companies right now where I think they are doing it by the way, because of the sake of branding and all of that, where they are taking the HR leader and they are giving them the title of now HR and AI leader or HR and technology leader. And all I am thinking about is, and I love HR by the way, all I am thinking about is I believe that in most companies it will be exactly the opposite. I believe that in most companies it is the IT or technology person who will be called technology and people, and not somebody who is in HR being called people and technology. And the reason for that is because IT already underwent a period of deep transformation, and it is going through that right now again, where part of their work became not just managing systems, but managing customer support and customer attention and part of the employee experience as well. So they are closer to understanding how people work and technology than people are to understanding how people work and technology. This to me creates a massive sense of urgency because I come from technology and I don't want the IT person to be the Chief People officer. I want the Chief People officer to be the Chief People officer and technology officer. I just don't think that most Asia leaders are there yet. So to me, this idea of HR being just for HR, that won't deliver any more value. But the rebranding has to be we need to be able to do our work very well, but to think as a business leader. And only then can we be the Chipotle and AI officer, the Chippy Poland technology officer. And we gotta do this pretty quickly,

Policy, Risk, And AI Governance

SPEAKER_02

by the way, because otherwise they will do it and they will become their boss. And I don't know if I want that.

SPEAKER_01

What's the time horizon on that? Are we at one year out from that, two years out from that, where they have to do it quickly?

SPEAKER_02

It's hard to say. Like every time that I hear one of these guys from one of these. Moderna and stuff like that. Yeah, or one of these guys from this AI company saying in the next 12 months, like all developers will not be needed anymore. Or in the next two years, 50% of all entry-level jobs will disappear. The timing starts that crunched, because we have already said the same thing about other technology, by the way. But it's not the first time that we say something like this. I don't think AI is fad as blockchain or virtual reality or augmented reality were for the time frame that they were giving us. I just do think that again, companies, when they have the choice between paying somebody, like I said, for $100,000 a year to do something, and they can pay $20 a month for a technology to do 80% of that something, then which is for the technology, even if the something is not perfect, quote unquote, the person was doing. So the time frame is a little weird. I just don't think it's gonna be in 2030. I think we are in a more crunched timeline.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we've gotta keep an eye on that cost of labor. Got it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, which there was the AI summit in India.

SPEAKER_01

They were did not hold hands.

SPEAKER_02

That was they didn't hold hands, but the most important thing was actually this the envoy for the United States, meaning representing the Trump vote. Government had

Rapid Round: 2030, Culture, Opportunity

SPEAKER_02

the guts to say that we should not provide any governance on AI like European countries are doing, like some Asian countries are doing, that that was wrong. I think this guy is completely out of his mind. I think this guy is, I I posted on my LinkedIn recently, I said something like, I don't care if you're a liberal or a conservative, but if you're not worried about this, if you go to one of those townholds where you find the most maga-maga in the world or the most liberal in the world, and you're not asking them how you are going to protect us from these AI companies, then you have no clue what's in store for us. Because this is scary stuff. At least I feel a little bit of hope because countries like countries in the European Union are quickly moving in the direction of saying we want to take advantage of AI companies, we want to remain competitive, but not without any checks, any checks and balances. You have to respond to society. You can't just do whatever you want to do. Like in America.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's insane. It's insane. We were just talking about this. Yeah, we regulate lunch break more than we regulate AI.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. And you have companies like Palantir, which is probably the worst company in the universe, just doing whatever they want with AI now recognizing people from their phones, too. But there's no legislation. And by the way, it's not just there's no legislation, it's that we are so distracted by the day-to-day insanity that we're losing track of things that will be so incredibly dangerous for society in the long term if we don't do anything about them. So that to me is concerning. So one message for HR, by the way, but for every citizen of any country, particularly this country where we live, is you know, if you go to a town hall, if you're friends with your representative, your senator, whatever it is, you gotta ask them what is it that you're doing to protect us from AI? That's the question that you have to ask. Just be ready for the answer.

SPEAKER_00

All right, Enrique, we'd like to wrap it around just to get your initial responses on thoughts about a couple of different topics. How does that sound?

SPEAKER_02

My answers for everything last half an hour eight once, I'm hoping that I can meet the requirements of the wrap it round.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we are also long talkers. It's quite all right. If you're passionate about something, feel free to expound about it. All right. It's 2030. What do you think work's going to look like?

SPEAKER_02

Very different from now. And even before 2030. AI, demographic shift. We're probably gonna be seeing some of the effects of all this political, economic, global instability happening in so many countries. It seems that many countries are going, they are trying to protect themselves from being isolated. And I think some countries will go in that direction and they will lose in a marketplace that is more competitive and global than ever. So we're gonna see some countries going that way, other groups of countries becoming more globalized and trying to contribute with each other and collaborating with each other even more. A more, I think, uh plural country as well. You know, I think the US is uh probably losing a little bit of the that stand in the world as a trusted partner. So for companies, this means in some countries, getting access to new markets and new talent. For other companies, it means limited access to talent that they need or limited access to markets that they were once looking for. Obviously, AI will change the entire makeup of the workforce. So now we're gonna be working humans alongside with AI machines, agents that we're gonna have for co-workers or direct reports or managers. So I think we're gonna be seeing a lot of things in 2030.

SPEAKER_00

What's what's one thing about corporate culture you'd like to see just die already?

SPEAKER_02

I think we're gonna stop the bullshit of saying something that you're not, just to mislead people, get them inside for where you need them, and then throw them out if they are tissue, right? That's what we see from a lot of companies. Oh, come here, we're the best company in the world, you have all this flexibility, and then another president wins the election, which happened for us in 2025, and then those companies are like, oh, we don't care anymore about DEI, we don't care anymore about working from home, because because we want to align ourselves with a new federal policy, right? Or federal mandate, even if it doesn't apply to them. So I think we gotta stop the bullshit of saying something that we're not. If you are a company and you want to have your people working from an office, and that's who you are, say it. You will attract the right people, but you won't harm the people that

Personal Tastes: Music And Books

SPEAKER_02

you are misleading right now, telling them something that is not true, or something that you know will change down the road. You have a guy like Elon Musk. I'm not a fan, I don't like the guy. But he's very clear. He says if you come to work for me, you're gonna work 120 hours per week. So you can decide if you come or not. But he's being very clear. Some people like that, and that's phenomenal because he's attracting the people who are seeking that. We gotta stop just the bullshit about saying something that is not really who those companies are. So that's the one thing that I want companies to start supporting.

SPEAKER_00

We are with you, and yeah, stop the bullshit. No more bait and switch.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, which is what it is. Which is what it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, it totally is. Okay, but what do you think is the greatest opportunity organizations are missing out on right now?

SPEAKER_02

Tapping into their talent. I'm seeing a it because of different reasons, by the way, but I'm seeing a repeat of 2020. In 2020, when the pandemic emerged, a lot of companies didn't had no idea what to do. And what many of them did was they tap into their challenge and they asked around how do we make this work? How do we do to stay in business while not having to make you know hard choices that would affect us all? What do we do? Not all companies went down that way, by the way, but many did. And some of them did so very successfully, right? So because people have ideas about what to do. Now we're seeing the same as because of AI, right? So we're seeing another side of this conundrum, which is what do we do to remain competitive, to be an AI-powered company, to keep our people employed, to keep our reputation high, to do what's right. And what's going to happen is that most leaders don't have the answers to this. And so they just have to tap into their challenge, to ask the questions, to prepare them for what may be happening down the road. And I think it's such a wasted opportunity that we're not doing that. That we are imposing a way of doing things, this way of things being imposed by a bunch of bureaucrats in high levels in their companies who have no idea that was the blip in there. Like they don't have any freaking idea about what to do. They are just following a playbook that has never worked. And that playbook is let's fire 15,000 people tomorrow because we think AI is gonna do great. That playbook is obsolete, that playbook doesn't work anymore, and that's the playbook that they continue to use, only to have to undo it later on, right? So if we can't tap into the power of our people, into their ideas, their talents, their brilliance, to just ask the question or just transparently say, you know what, yeah, it's going to impact us. What do we do about this? Just find out if anybody has an idea about what to do. So I think that's a great opportunity that has been missed for so long. I don't think we have the luxury to miss it again.

SPEAKER_00

Man, you're speaking our language. All right. We're gonna get a little more personal if that's okay. Nothing too sassy. What music are you listening to right

Inequality, Capitalism, And Work

SPEAKER_00

now? What's on your your playlist?

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, my my wife is sitting next to me, by the way. And I listen to the same songs all the time. Songs from the 70s, Billy Joel. I have James Brown, obviously. I have obviously Bob Barley, and then like some different things here, pop music. And I like what's her name, Dualiba. I gotta say more and more, but yeah, that that's what's in my playbook right now. Some salsa, obviously. So that's what's in my playbook.

SPEAKER_00

Oh in my playlist.

SPEAKER_02

I'm sorry, no playbook in my playlist.

SPEAKER_00

So we're gonna start a Hacking HR playlist and get all the good stuff together. It would be a good playlist. What are you reading right now? Audiobooks count, by the way. So what are you reading or listening to?

SPEAKER_02

I have a very eclectic taste for reading. And I like to read multiple books at the same time. It takes me a long time to finish them all. So right now I have on my night desk, I have Carl Sagan at Even Hollywood World. It's just I'm just reminded of you were telling me about what's gonna happen in 2030, and I am reminded of how some governments, particularly our government here in the US, there are war on science and technology, their war on reason. And I have to remind myself that through time, this has not only happened before, but there were pioneers like Carl Sagan who really put the word forward about the importance of science and technology. So I have that book, I've read the biography of Marie Antoinette. I love reading biographies. I'm a history book, so I love reading the French Revolution. My wife and I were just in France a couple of months ago. So I go to all the places, like I tell her, like, here they beheaded Louis XVI. And over there, Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, but very eclectic taste on reading. I think all of it gives me a little nugget of novelty that not only do I find interesting, but also it allows me to think differently about the work that I do. So I'm not saying that I'm learning anything to apply to work about the biography of Marie Antoinette, but there's always something there that is interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So no revolutions, no French revolution in the world.

SPEAKER_02

We are we have gone through this before in the history of humanity, right? It's not the only time when we have insanity taking over government. It's happened before. The life of waste and luxury when so many people are in need. Because of history, we know how that ends. Yeah. And it doesn't end well. The overall effect is more positive, but the transition is not. And I think we are we are in for a wild ride over the next few months and years.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think there's a lot of parallels between the Bezos wedding and let them eat cake. I really do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it's just to me, it is talking about trends and what's happening with work. You can't have a society where the CEO of a company that is about to go bankrupt like the waste, making 10,000 times more than their average worker. It doesn't matter how capitalist you are. That's not capitalism anymore. Adam Smith would be, it's probably flipping out in his coffin, thinking that his concept of capitalism was taken into this. This is not capitalism. So you can't have a society like that. It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00

Like a snake eating its own tail right now. That's what it's like.

SPEAKER_02

I have my own company. I told you before I joined our recording a couple of minutes later because I was, you know, finalizing my taxes. I'm a big believer in we have to pay our taxes. We have to do what's right for society. What bothers me is that I look at my account and I say, all right, we have to pay this amount in taxes, and then I look at Tesla, and then I look at SpaceX, and these people are paying nothing when their honor is now worth almost a trillion dollars. How is that possible? No matter how you see it, you can be the most capitalist in the world. That is not capitalism. And anybody can discuss this with me and I'm gonna win. That is not capitalism. You can call that whatever you want to call it. I call it a system of greed. And it's just unsustainable. Back to your first question about what's going to what what this world of business is going to look like in 2030. If we continue down this path, I don't think it's gonna look that great. I want to be optimistic, but hey, we are

Live With Uncertainty

SPEAKER_02

doing borrowing right now. We're making the bad choices.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's a lot of choices right now to make, so I'm hopeful that people are.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Who do you really admire?

SPEAKER_02

I am a big fan of so many people. Carl Sagan, always, but now that I'm reading back some of his books, big fan of his. More contemporaneous people, big fan of McKinsey Scott, the former wife of Jeff Bezos, all she's doing is she's phenomenal, phenomenal. Um, I adore Michelle Obama. I'm Barack Obama too, by the way, but Michelle Obama is in another category of people that you can adore. Like this woman is so awesome. So I get a little bit of like a little bit of inspiration from everybody, like a little bit of inspiration around science. Neil the Grass Tyson is such a he likes talking about science in a way that people can understand and is relatable. So what I love about him is not just his um his scientific knowledge, but his communication skills. He's just a phenomenal storyteller. So I got a little bit of attraction to different qualities of phenomenal people like this.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. What's one piece of advice that you would give to someone today?

SPEAKER_02

Um you know, just know that nothing is certain anymore about anything. Nothing. The morning to your bank account, your job, your retirement plan, the house where you live, like nothing is certain anymore. And I don't think it ever was. It's just that now it seems that everything is uncertain. Maybe before it was there were less things that were uncertain and some that were more certain. Like people, every time that I listen to people in certain political parties saying, we want to go back to the time when America was great. Oh, you mean when companies paid 90% in taxes when in a family of with three kids, two people, only one worked, and you were still able to buy a car every two, three years to have a big house. That's the time that you want to go back to, well, let's do it. Then, but I don't think that's what you're referring to. But back then, there was certainty, for example, in your job. Yeah, people did get fired, but you look around and also people stayed four years in their jobs. Whether they were bored or not, that's a different conversation, but there was certainty, there was stability, there was growth. Um, and that that's not happening anymore. The more conventional anchors of life, your family, your home, the place where you live, not just your home, but the physical location, your city, your town, your job, all of these things are just on shaky ground now all the time. The piece of advice is just embrace this idea that uncertainty is the rule of the game right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Gotta be like uh water and go with the flow, as I like to say.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, very, very nimble, very nimble. Very like, all right, it is sometimes you can control things and sometimes it is what it is.

Closing And Newsletter CTA

SPEAKER_00

All right. Enrique, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00

If you haven't been listening for a while or you're catching up, or you're new here, we launched a newsletter. If you want one meaty insight-driven email a month where we share frameworks that you can implement for yourself, for your team, for your org, sign up over on your workfriends.com. And you can listen to the pod every Tuesday. We drop new episodes. So check it out, subscribe, leave us your feedback, and reach out to us at friend at your workfriends.com. Bye, friends.

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Francesca Ranieri

Co-host
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Mel Plett

Co-host