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Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Do Managers Actually Understand AI? (I’m Not So Sure.) | AI Reality Check

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Self-improvement, Technology, Education

4.81.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Cal Newport takes a critical look at recent AI News. Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia (0:00) Does business actually understand AI? (2:52) Quote #2 (6:20) Taking a step back (7:06) Quote #3 (11:39) Quote #4 (17:02) Idea for journalists Links: Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/02/world/europe/germany-sap-ai-jobs-skilled-workers.html https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-ceo-begs-execs-stop-fired-ai https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/marc-andreessen-says-every-large-033008122.html https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/sam-altman-says-initially-wrong-132000485.html Thanks to Jesse Miller for production and mastering and Nate Mechler for research and newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Do you ever get that sense when you're hearing business executives talk about AI, that they seem to be living in a completely different world than the rest of us?

0:11.0

I mean, I get that feeling a lot. I want to give you a recent example. Last week, I came across an article from the New York Times business sector that interviewed multiple executives from the German

0:22.0

software company SAP, as well as several European business and economics analysts.

0:29.2

Now, what struck me was how confident everyone was that AI had already started massively

0:35.0

disrupting the economy and would continue to do so at an accelerating

0:38.6

rate in the near future. Here, let me load the article on the screen here. Look, the title was,

0:45.6

can you embrace AI without layoffs? This company says it's trying. And look at the subhead here.

0:51.3

The German software giant SAP says it's betting that employees can reinvent

0:56.0

jobs instead of eliminating them. Experts are divided on whether it will work. All right.

1:04.4

So let's think about that wording for a moment. That article, this interview with the SAP

1:09.6

executives, takes for granted, right?

1:12.1

The people they talk to take for granted that AI, if left unchecked, is poised to eliminate large number of jobs.

1:18.1

So the only question is whether or not there is something we can come up with to stop that by having maybe new jobs to replace all those that we are for sure about to lose.

1:29.2

Now, these are incredibly bold claims, and yet they're made so confidently and so casually

1:33.8

when you hear business executives talk.

1:35.5

And to me, this raises some key questions, such as, why is the business community so

1:40.1

confident that AI will definitely eliminate lots of existing jobs?

1:45.9

What is it that executives and SAP are seeing about their own employees and their clients that makes them think that

1:49.7

these massive changes are imminent? And most importantly, are they right? Well, it's Thursday,

1:56.4

which means it's time for an AI reality check episode of this podcast, which is the perfect opportunity

2:01.4

to go seeking some measured answers.

2:04.3

All right.

...

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