How New Things Get Done. The 1%ers
How New Things Get Done. The 1%ers is a weekly podcast hosted by Shana and Darrell that dissects real business cases. The show explores how certain people consistently achieve seemingly impossible goals, often through counterintuitive strategies. Each episode offers practical insights into innovation and execution.
Episodes
Episode 38: Al Alignment
This week, Darrell and Shana discuss alignment for AI. Alignment not only between the frontier models and government but also for businesses and humans trying to new things.
Episode 37: The Creative Act
This week Darrell and Shana talk about how the creative act belongs to every human. Everyone can do new things. It begins with trusting in our own creativity and being open to disrupting old patterns.
Episode 36: The 57 Steps
Darrell says we are 57 moves away from AGI as he defines it. Shana says, so what does that mean for humans?
Episode 35: Aligning & Orchestrating Autonomous Entities
AI needs us to coordinate for them in order for a new thing to get done!
Formalizing Fermat's Last Theorem
A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics
Episode 34: New Day, New Desire. Take Heart.
Darrell and Shana talk about their hearts' desire, a clearer picture for every human trying to do a new thing.
Episode 33: In the Lost and Found Today: Meaning
What was lost and what comes back in the Age of Meaning?
Episode 32: Finding Meaning when Hope is in Short Supply
What was lost and what comes back, in the Age of Meaning.
Episode 31: The Action Threshold: When to Do Something
Feeling smarter and getting less done. Darrell and Shana talk about the certainty trap
Episode 30: Water Vs Tradition w. Tim Selders
Special Guest Episode with Tim Selders. The wicked problem of the Peatlands in the Netherlands.
Episode 29: FOMO The Grief of Choosing
Choosing is the hardest part. Ideas are easy and everyone has one. Converging on the one to get done and taking many small steps toward it is the path to getting a new thing done.
Episode 28: Is AI Ready to Balance Logic with Emotion?
Sentience, Sapience, Consciousness: Oh my!
Darrell and Shana discuss the possibility of AI being alive.
Episode 27: Hearing the Difference: Cogniware vs Wetware
Darrell does a keynote and in the research finds that 97% of humans can't tell the difference between AI generated music and human created music.
Can a musician make money creating music in the future? And if not, what does that mean for other jobs?
Episode 26: Philosphic Exploration
In this episode, Shana and Darrell start with a simple provocation: tech companies are hiring philosophers. They end up somewhere nobody expected, which is exactly the point.
Episode 25: Is it Wise to Outsourcing Thinking?
How AI creates less intelligence instead of more. Shana and Darrell dig into why wisdom is the most important skill for humans in the age of AI, how to define wisdom, and how to increase your wisdom capability.
Episode 24: The Multi-Agent Muddle
Does Agentic AI deliver the hugh promises that have been made on its behalf. If not, why not?
Episode 23: What Stops Countries Innovating
After Darrell misses out on his favourite treat due to road congestion. He joins Shana to ponder why things can't get done faster.
Episode 22: Your Data. An Asset or a Burden?
Much ado about Data. Is the data you have worth anything? Should you try to protect it? The difference between information and wisdom.
Episode 21: System Boundaries
Darrell and Shana talk about lies, damn lies and system boundaries. System boundaries: the sneaky culprits preventing organizations from an AI deployment aligned purpose.
Episode 20: Moonshot or Scattershot?
Darrell and Shana talk about the Moonshots EXO model for businesses.
Eipsode 19: Thinking Holistically
In this pod, Darrell and Shana talk about how the future will require more holistic thinkers.
Episode 18: Seeing in Systems
Shana and Darrell unravel the meaning and importance of seeing systems when attempting to do a new thing. Systems are everywhere! It's time to spot them and put you in charge of what to do about it.
Episode 17: Unknown Unknowns
The gap between what we see and what is true is often the culprit preventing us from getting a new thing done. Wisdom has nothing to do with age. It is recognizing when you don't know what you don't know, and the old rules are no longer useful. In the age of AI, that is the only thing that is going to matter.
Episode 16: Leadership - Is Elevate and Delegate a good idea?
Is elevate and delegate actually good advice? In this leadership episode, Shana and Darrell challenge one of management's most repeated principles and ask the harder question underneath it. Better decisions require something most organizations don't have: leaders who can think horizontally across functions, not just vertically within them. They dig into why hiring for systems thinking is nearly i
Episode15: NEPTUNE Banking
Shana and Darrell use NEPTUNE to think about how traditional banking could be reimagined for someone wanting to do a new thing.
Episode 14: AI Mission Drift: Inevitable but is it beneficial?
As Open AI opens up for advertising revenue, what are the implications.
It's a question of trust . What is the direction?
Shana and Darrell examine the good and the bad.
Episode 13: Beating the AI Blues
Darrell and Shana assess the size of the AI iceberg and consider how to survive in a regime when none of the usual rules apply.
Episode 12: Beyond the Comfort Zone: Reinventing Yourself in the Age of AI
This episode of How New Things Get Done uses Oracle's layoff of 30,000 employees as a launching point for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens when the "invisible contracts" of the industrial age collapse and what individuals and organizations can do about it.
The core argument is that we are entering a world where AI will handle the majority of routine left-brain work meaning the old pl
Episode 11:Route to Market: Benches, Hugs and Fashion
In this episode, Darrell and Shana tackle the part of getting a new thing done that trips up almost everyone: route to market. Using real stories, an entrepreneur who sat outside a Walmart buyer's office for a day and a half with no appointment, a small automotive company whose breakthrough technology got bought and shelved by an incumbent, and Shana's own bruising experience of manufacturing in H
Episode 10: Running Towards the Hard Things
In this episode, Shanna and Darrell explore the "1%er" mindset of running toward the difficult bits, the high impact, high discomfort challenges that define true breakthroughs. Using a 2x2 framework of impact versus comfort zones, the duo discuss how industry giants like Coca-Cola and Starbucks face existential disruption from GLP-1 medications, and how the "ideal final result" (such as self-clean
Episode 9:Reimagining Education for the AI Transformation Economy
Shana and Darrell dismantle the "locked-in" Prussian education system, rebuilding it for a future where AI renders rote answers obsolete. They identify that schools have historically functioned as a complex web of childcare and labor-market stabilizers rather than true centers of learning, creating a "sinkhole" where billions in EdTech have failed. The breakthrough comes from recognizing that the
Episode 8:Shadow Leadership
Darrell and Shana discuss shadow leadership systems. How AI can help you see the system and what to do about it.
Episode 7: From Jobless to Industry Disruptor: A Real-Time Strategy Session on Building Win-Win Ecosystems
Shana and Darrell build a viable business model from scratch in real-time, starting with just three unemployed people and a simple goal: feed people healthy food. What emerges is a illustration of systems thinking, contradiction-solving, and ecosystem design that could scale to challenge billion-dollar incumbents. Watch out for the moment they identify the true compass that transforms charity into
Episode 6: Is Your Business Headed for Chaos? A CEO's Guide to the AI Inflection Point
AI is collapsing traditional work timelines from months to days. This conversation explores how CEOs can use AI to identify organizational contradictions, measure what truly matters, and iterate faster than competitors. The key isn't replacing humans with AI, 's asking better questions and developing the creativity skills that will define future success.
Episode 5:What Makes You Valuable in the Age of AI and How Leaders Can Spot It!
In this episode Darrell and Shana talk about 1%ers as rare birds to spot in your organization. We dismantle innovation theater, explain why brainstorming sessions fail, and use SaaS and pharmacy cases to show what actual AI innovation does or doesn't look like.
Episode 4: The Managed Decline Trap: Why AI Cost-Cutting Won't Save Your Business
The Clawbot craze exposes a critical question: Is your AI strategy innovating or just managing decline? Discover how to identify true step-change opportunities and find the 1%ers hiding in your organization before it's too late.
From Clawdbot to Moltbook: Inside tech's new AI obsessions
Episode 3: Next Steps in the Age of AI
Calling all lonely leaders: What do you do when it's impossible to know what is going to happen next in the age of AI?
In this POD, Darrell gets practical with "next steps" and how to get some direction in these turbulent times. This week's case is for all companies of all types!
Episode 1: The Art of Doing Less - How One Company Cut Its Way Back to Explosive Growth
Disruption in the market often kills legendary companies.
In today's case study we see how experts urged a compelling and logical path. Instead, the company made the counter intuitive move against all recommendations and thrived.
It shows how progress often comes not from trend-following, but from confronting the reality that each business is unique in where it is at, what it is facing and what it
Episode 2: Trapped in the Ice - What Shackleton's Survival Story Reveals About Winning in AI Disruption
In 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship was crushed by Antarctic ice. Nine months of impossible odds. Every crew member survived.
Right now, you might be feeling a crushing imperative with AI disruption. Your team's morale is waning, and you're trying initiative after initiative without clear ROI. There is genuine uncertainty about what can and cannot be done and what comes next.
This conversation giv
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