The Human Protocol

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Isabelle C. Hau, Executive Director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning and author of Love to Learn, to explore how AI is reshaping human relationships, education, and our ability to connect. Isabelle shares concerning findings from Stanford research suggesting that AI's tendency to agree with, praise, and validate users...

AI promises to make work faster, easier, and more efficient. But what happens when we stop doing the thinking that builds judgment in the first place? In this episode of The Human Protocol, Mykel Salomon sits down with Will Leach to explore the difference between using AI to augment our thinking and letting it think for us. Will explains why people naturally take the path of least resistance, how...

AI failures are no longer hypothetical. They are already affecting careers, finances, families, safety, trust, and the decisions people make every day. In this episode of The Human Protocol, Mykel Salomon sits down with Latha Karthigaa, PhD, Director and Head of AI Governance at the Global AI Certification Council, to examine the growing record of real-world AI incidents. Latha breaks down what AI...

The real cost of AI is far higher than most companies expected, and Mala Kumar, Executive Director of Humane Intelligence, explains why on The Human Protocol with Mykel Salomon. From data centers and subsidized tokens to data annotation and AI evaluations that can run to $5 million, Mala breaks down the hidden cost of AI adoption and the trade-off business leaders face between training the machine...

Hans Peter Brøndmo, who led Google X's Everyday Robots moonshot for seven years. Most conversations about AI stop at the screen. This one starts where the screen ends. Hans Peter Brøndmo spent seven years at Google X trying to answer a question nobody had solved: how do you build a machine that can live alongside people rather than behind a factory cage? His answer reframes the whole field. You ca...

Most conversations about AI start with the same question: “What can I do that a machine can't?” Vivienne Ming argues that this is the wrong question. There is no single magic skill that will remain permanently “robot-proof.” If humans can clearly define a task and determine what the right answer looks like, machines will increasingly become better, faster, and cheaper at performing it. Instead, we...

Steve Brown is an AI futurist and keynote speaker who gave 55 talks across three continents last year, spent ten plus years at Intel Labs, and served as an in-house futurist at Google DeepMind in London. His new book is The AI Ultimatum. Every company is racing to use AI to cut costs, and Steve Brown thinks most of them are about to lose the one thing they cannot get back: their people, their cult...

Dr. Marcelo Bigliassi, neuroscientist at Florida International University and Chief Scientist at NeuroSmart Mykel Salomon sits down with neuroscientist Dr. Marcelo Bigliassi with a real human brain on the table between them, and asks the question everyone is circling around: if brain chips became mass available tomorrow, would you get one? The answer is a flat no, and the reason has nothing to do...

Why AI adoption fails and how to actually change people's behavior, with behavioral scientist JonRobert Tartaglione on The Human Protocol with Mykel Salomon. Everyone is racing to adopt AI. Almost nobody is asking the harder question: how do you get humans to change? Cambridge-trained psychologist and Influence 51 founder JonRobert Tartaglione breaks down the behavioral science of leadership influ...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Minyang Jiang, Chief Strategy Officer at fintech leader Credibly, to unpack why most AI rollouts fail before they even start. MJ makes the case that adopting AI is not a technology problem but a leadership and change-management problem, and that the way you frame it determines everything. Call it cost-cutting, and your people...

In a world where anyone can generate a resume, a portfolio, a voice, or a whole reputation in seconds, the real question is no longer who can produce something, but who can prove it. In this episode, Mykel Salomon sits down with Dan Pratl, founder and CEO of Quadrant, to talk about why verification is becoming the most valuable resource we have. Drawing on a career that spans the SEC, open source...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Harvard trained social scientist and technologist Alexandra Samuel to explore a fresh take on AI at work, one that skips the fear and the hype. Alexandra shares how the technology finally caught up to a prediction she made 30 years ago, why the real story of AI is about people and economics rather than the tools themselves, a...

In this episode, Mykel Salomon sits down with Ted Yang, MIT engineer, entrepreneur, former finance executive at Bridgewater and Citadel, and author of Ageless Peak Performance. Together they challenge the popular story that AI is here to replace people. Ted makes the case that AI is a cognitive tool built by humans that can actually extend your best years rather than end your career. They explore...

AI is moving fast, but most companies are failing to adopt it well, and the reason usually has nothing to do with the technology itself. In this episode, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Ryan Drumheller, a 20-year IT veteran and founder of StellarHorn Group, to talk about what leaders are getting wrong about AI adoption and why it always comes back to people. Ryan shares real stories from the fie...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, Mykel sits down with Blake Erickson, co-founder of scaling.com and co-author of The Science of Scaling. Blake shares how his early years in door to door sales shaped his understanding of people, rejection and grit, and how those lessons became the foundation for building and scaling companies. The conversation breaks down the real difference between growth an...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Michael Solomon sits down with James Garner, a former quantity surveyor turned AI and data leader, to unpack the widening gap between what AI can do and how ready people actually are to use it. James shares how his unconventional background in construction and infrastructure gives him a grounded view on rolling out AI in the real world. The conversation...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with marketer and podcaster Ben Albert to talk about staying human while building with AI. Ben shares how he beat content burnout by repurposing years of his own work into a simple daily email, why he believes community is the one strategy AI cannot replace, and how he turns conference keynotes and podcast episodes into custom son...

What happens when you achieve everything you thought would make you happy, and still feel empty? In this thought-provoking conversation, Jack Wagoner shares his journey from high-achieving entrepreneur to student of gratitude, fulfillment, and human flourishing. Together, Mykel and Jack explore the hidden gap between achievement and happiness, why ambitious people often struggle with feeling "enou...

When trust in science declines, society doesn't become freer. It becomes more fragile. In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Nicholas B. Dirks, President & CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences and former Chancellor of UC Berkeley, to examine why public confidence in science and expertise has eroded, and what it will take to rebuild it. From the long Americ...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Solomon sits down with entrepreneur and reinvention expert Nikki Barua for an honest conversation about what it really takes to stay human while building the future with AI. Nikki shares the through line of her own life, from immigrant outsider to corporate leader to founder, and makes the case that the hardest part of reinvention is not learning n...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with James Robson, former data protection officer for the UK Labour Party, Founder & CEO of Datus Longevitus, to challenge the idea that data protection is a barrier to progress. Drawing on a decade of GDPR work, James argues that governance is what actually enables innovation, comparing data safeguards to the brakes on a car...

In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, Mykel Salomon sits down with Sabine Hutchison — author, speaker, and founder of the Ripple Network — to explore what it really means to stay human in a world being rapidly reshaped by AI. Sabine draws from her diverse career, her work empowering women to find their voice, and her own hard-won lessons on identity, reinvention, and self-advocacy. Together,...

What does it take to lead others when you have not yet learned to lead yourself? In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Dusty Holcomb, a leadership coach with 28 years of executive experience, to explore the discipline behind great leadership. Dusty unpacks why self-leadership is the foundation of every high-performing team, how discipline is not punishment but al...

In this episode of The Human Protocol, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Karen Lam, Director of Customer Support at Top Hat and co-chair of the Women in Tech employee resource group, to explore one of the most urgent conversations happening right now: how artificial intelligence is not just changing what we do at work, but reshaping who we believe we are. Karen draws on the Promethean myth to expl...

In this episode of The Human Protocol Podcast, host Mykel Salomon sits down with Alex Sanfilippo — entrepreneur, podcast advocate, and founder of PodMatch — to explore a bold idea: in the AI era, podcasting is no longer just a content strategy. It's your brand archive. Your voice, your stories, your frameworks — all of it is becoming intellectual property. So what does that mean for how we show up...