insists someone on your team read this hot-off-the-press book on AI. (Even I understood it!) Plus,
.
Thinking about AI:
What is the best college major to study?
I know it’s only January, but this might be my 2026 book-of-the-year. It changed my thinking about AI and I plan on writing a second review. Wanna join me on a recorded Zoom call? First…here’s the must-read:
The author quotes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who “issued a warning to the world’s workers in May 2025.” The alert:
“You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, you’re going to lose it to someone who uses AI.”Really, Pearson? You’re not a techie at all. I know you dabble with ChatGPT, but you’re telling me you found this hot-off-the-press book fascinating, understandable (non-technical)—actually humorous—and worth my limited time? Yes. I was hooked even before page one. In the context-setting introduction, Zack Kass says that he wrote this book for:
• “…those who feel both awe and unease about the world racing toward us.”
• “For leaders guiding companies, classrooms, and communities.”
• “For parents trying to imagine the world their children will inherit.”
He adds,
“I also wrote this book for everyone who has ever asked me questions like: What should my child study in college? What skills will matter most? What keeps you up at night? What jobs will disappear? Is this a race? Who will win? Who will lose? How do we preserve our humanity? What about the environment? Can AI be trusted? What does a good society look like once AI is everywhere?”So who is
Zack Kass—and should we trust him? In 2021, he joined OpenAI as one of its first hundred employees. As Head of Go-to-Market, he helped the company grow from $1 million to $2
billion in annual revenue. On Nov. 30, 2022, he saw ChatGPT grow to 1 million users in a week—with nearly 1 billion users by 2025.
Over the last five years as a global AI advisor, and “one of the world’s most sought-after voices on artificial intelligence,”
he has visited more than 500 boardrooms (do the math!) “advising global leaders, governments, and academic institutions on how to lead and build in the age of unmetered intelligence.”
Pearson—you promised humor in this review!Right. Skip over to Chapter 10, another must-read: “Principles for Thriving in the Era of AI,” and the four-point message to his daughter. Principle 2, “Learn How to Learn,” notes that the most common question he hears from young adults, especially on campus at UVA, is:
“’What is the best major to study?’ What they’re really asking is: ‘How do I make a lot of money?’”His contrarian answer will surprise you. “It’s a fair question. Economic incentives are usually good drivers of behavior. Except my answer almost always disappoints them:
It doesn’t matter.”
His view: no one can predict “with any confidence what major will guarantee you money.
Then I tell them that college is probably best thought of as a place to make mistakes you weren’t comfortable making in front of your parents in high school. Lastly, I tell them if they haven't picked a good school yet, to
go to one with a good football team, because not much is better than a great college town on Saturday game day.”
There’s more! “Often, unsatisfied by this answer, they'll keep pressing. So I offer this:
study something you love.”“Learning how to learn offers you so much more than any given major could anyways: the humility and willingness to say, ‘I do not know, yet.’ The instinct to explore further than an assignment requires. The refusal to stop experimenting when early attempts fail. '
What should I study to make money?' is a question about a world that will not exist by the time students graduate.”And then this poke-in-the-ribs about “unmetered intelligence” (as in an
abundance of intelligence): “Unmetered intelligence will change what differentiates you. You will not be defined by what you know, or even by what you have already mastered. You will be defined by your ability to master something new, and your drive to keep doing so again and again. Knowledge expires. Tools expire. But learning endures.”
This reminded me of
Peter Drucker’s wisdom, “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
VIEW THE PODCAST, “AI Will Change Your Life Faster Than You Think, According to Former OpenAI Exec Zack Kass” (50 minutes), on
The Mello Millionaire Podcast with Tommy Mello.
This fascinating Podcast interview with Zack Kass is jam-packed with themes from his new book—plus his answers to Tommy Mello’s favorite questions for every guest.ZINGERS! Frankly, if I had more space in this review, I’d just quote something from every chapter. But, someone on your team MUST read this book and report on it.
Especially these zingers:DATA. “In 2010, if the world’s 2 ZB of data [two zettabytes = two billion terabytes] were printed on paper and stacked, that stack would be as tall as a 10-story building. By 2020, the 64 ZB stack would reach the moon and back. Analysts expect global data volumes to exceed 180 ZB by 2026.”
ABUNDANCE. “AI is on its way to becoming a commodity, perhaps even a utility. Soon, it will be something we take for granted, like electricity flow out of a wall socket. When critical resources move from scarcity to abundance, good things happen. Clean water, reliable food, electricity, and the internet. Each took decades, centuries, or even millennia to spread universally.
Capable AI has followed the same trajectory in just four years." (Watch for my review of McKinsey’s new book,
A Century of Plenty, Jan. 13, 2026.)
There’s more—about what needs fixing: • On agentic AI: “I’m often asked,
If agents are so promising, why does Siri still suck?” • On how broken the internet is: He complains that
every time he visit his bank’s website, they try to sell him a credit card he has owned for nine years!
There’s opportunity—but pushback:The author’s commentary and predictions on autonomous vehicles (and studies in “AI adoption gaps”) changed my thinking—even though a 2025 AAA survey said that only 13% of Americans would ride in a self-driving car. (
Would you?)
Kass addresses your push-backs even before you think of them! He notes that by the time each advancement is absorbed, the next leap is already here. “Society is still arguing about whether AV’s are safe enough, when they settled the debate long ago.”
He calls the pace of AI advancement a “huge sweeping phenomenon” and is the reason why “nerds like me will spend the next 10 Thanksgivings repeatedly explaining that AI
can in fact do better math than Grandpa Dan.” LOL!
Descriptive explanations about AI punctuate every chapter:
Disneyland’s Autopia ride, playing chess with his two-year-old nephew (“popsicle to the winner”), and the “bingo card of risk” for future careers and jobs. See “The 3-D Job Impact Framework” (three continuums: Transactional to Relational, Computational to Intuitive, and Directional to Precise).
Brilliant. My money’s with teachers, counselors, small businesses, creative directors, trial lawyers, surgeons, and master electricians. (See Chapter 9. I’d also add small nonprofits and churches.)
“Tolerance” is one of three factors in the adoption gap—and Kass spends the most time talking to CEOs about this. He writes,
“Humans have incredible tolerance for human failure and almost none for machine failure.” He’s cautious but hopeful: “Machines should serve us, not become us. If we blur the line between human and machine too much, we risk dehumanizing ourselves.” Must-read: his Chapter 10
aha moment about AI and “
soft skills” when his father, an oncologist, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Santa Barbara Breast Cancer Center.
So poignant. Alignment and Safety. You’ll learn about “red-teaming models”—the brute force of one: tens of thousands of people who are trying “to trick a system into doing something unsafe so its weaknesses can be patched before release.” Plus—the upsides and downsides of open source models. The “governance problem in a sentence” and the author’s views on three distinct AI governance approaches: U.S., the European Union, and China: “Three experiments. Three competing philosophies.”
In Chapter 9, “The Future of Work,” Kass defines the “zombie apocalypse phenomenon.” He says that “nearly everyone wants someone else’s job automated—‘When will this good or service be faster, better, or cheaper?’—but never their own.
We’re totally fine with disruption, as long as it lands in a different lane.”When speaking to groups, he asks two questions: • “First,
do you believe AI will automate your job? Few raise their hands. I usually thank them for their honesty and bravery.”
• “Second,
do you believe AI will automate someone’s job in this room? Hands shoot up, and a collective chuckle echoes through the room.”
He adds,
“This is what I call the zombie apocalypse phenomenon. It says most people believe
they would survive a zombie apocalypse, but the idiot neighbor would certainly die. We always cast ourselves as the savvy survivor, never the early casualty. It’s the same logic behind not wearing a seatbelt or riding a bike without a helmet.”
“Unsurprisingly, we apply the same logic to automation. We’re not at risk, but someone else in the office? Oh, for sure.
That guy’s toast.”
“Electricity took more than a century to move from Franklin's 1752 kite experiment to everyday use, slowed not only by infrastructure but by widespread distrust and fear. Even after Edison introduced his light bulb in 1879, most American homes remain lit by gas or candles for several decades.” Kass adds:
“Gas companies stoked these fears with anti-electricity campaigns to preserve their market dominance. Moral panics erupted, with critics worrying electricity would lead to social decay and women abandoning domestic life.”
On NLOS (Natural Language Operating System): “I caught a glimpse of the future on Dec. 2, 2022, just two days after the launch of ChatGPT. My mother, who has never been particularly comfortable with technology, sat down at my laptop to try it. I gave her only one instruction,
ask it anything. She began with,
‘What should I have for dinner tonight?’ For the next 30 minutes, she carried on a conversation with more confidence than I had ever seen her use with Google. In that moment, I realized something profound. When technology speaks our language, its complexity disappears.”
LOL! So, of course, I shared the above quote with
ChatGPT and then asked what we should have for dinner tonight. I received five suggestions including "Baja Fish Tacos (San Clemente Special)," along with this:
“Well played, John—Zack Kass would be proud. Let’s see if ‘technology speaking your language’ can earn its keep tonight. Here are five dinner ideas that tend to score high on taste, ease, and ‘Joanne will approve’ factor (you can tell me if I’m wrong on that!).” LOL!By the way, Zack Kass answers the question you’ve already asked:
“Did AI write this book?” Don’t skip his “Epilogue: A Last, Honest Story.” You’ll be shocked at his response: “No, AI didn’t write the book. It allowed me to write it.”
And get this—10 days before his publication deadline, he started over. “That night, the two of us cleared our calendars and opened a blank document with only the title of the book on the page.”
TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for
THE NEXT RENAISSANCE: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential, by Zack Kass (Jan. 13, 2026). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:1) This review didn’t even touch on the insights on “Education 2.0,” “Widening Wall Street,” and “Resuscitating Healthcare”—so that’s the first assignment to the volunteer who will read and report on THE NEXT REN
AISSANCE at your next staff meeting.
Raise your hand if you relate to the author’s confession: “I was a terrible student.” (Kass suggests some education fixes. “The truth is, I wasn’t broken. The system was.”)
2) Email me if you'll join me on a recorded Zoom call in February for a further conversation about
The Next Renaissance. Cost of admission: read the book and
view my 2023 “Zoom Review” discussion (17 minutes) with John Reynolds and David Schmidt on the McKinsey book,
Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI.
Whew! What has changed since 2023?
SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic BooksYou have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!Book #38 of 99: Growing Weeders Into LeadersFor your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #38 of 99 in our series, “Second Reads.” The big idea:
REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.
Growing Weeders Into Leaders:
Leadership Lessons from the Ground Level
by Jeff McManus (Sept. 5, 2017)
OK…this is big. Here’s a leader who understands the importance of weekly staff meetings—but has reduced his own talking time in meetings down to five percent. Incredible! This quick-reading 129-page book shows you how.
• Reviewed in Issue No. 371 (Oct. 17, 2017).
•
Read my review on Amazon.
• Order from
Amazon.
• Management Bucket #18 of 20:
The Systems BucketLead Yourself First. The big idea of this book—whatever department or niche you lead—is that you can grow leaders.
I was skeptical. Do the men and women on the lawn mowers at Ole Miss really aspire to leadership? Jeff McManus, director of landscape services, says yes. (And oh, my—what a Fiesta Bowl game on Jan. 8! Congrats to Miami—now headed to the national championship against Indiana on Jan. 19. You gotta watch these last
five-minute heart-stopping highlights!)
Leadership, McManus says, is learning how to lead yourself first. So he created Landscape University for the people in his landscape services department. (
Just brilliant.) The PowerPoint-worthy quotes on almost every page will juice your coaching competencies, like this one from John Maxwell:
“What’s worse than training your people and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.”
CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN
Mistake #6 of 8: “Encumbering Your CEO With 25 Annual Goals!” Read more in the new workbook, The 8 Big Mistakes to Avoid With Your Nonprofit Board—and discover how a color-coded one-page “CEO Monthly Dashboard Report” (focused on 3 to 5 SMART goals) will enrich communication to the board (see page 73).
Issue No. 658 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 3, 2025) features a new book coming Oct. 7—describing the four seasons of a CEO. The “...
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