199: "How Do We Actually Get ROI From AI?" (reflections on Lauren Cappell)

🧠 Erik’s Take After speaking with Lauren Cappell, Erik walked away with a realization that extends far beyond the legal profession: the biggest barriers to successful AI adoption aren’t technical—they’re human. While most organizations are focused on finding the right tool, Lauren challenged a deeper question: Do leaders actually understand the work they’re trying to automate? The conversation highlighted how AI is exposing weaknesses that have existed inside organizations for years—unclear pr

Lauren Cappell and Erik unpack why realizing ROI from AI adoption in law is harder than it sounds, especially under legacy business models. Lauren argues the real shift is not just efficiency, but value creation: new kinds of work, faster cycles, better workflows, and better pricing that aligns incentives. They also dig into the training and QA demands required to ensure AI outputs are trusted. 👤 About the Guest Lauren Cappell is a strategist at the intersection of enterprise, law, and artifici

Jason Robinovitz explores what education needs to become in an AI-saturated world. He argues that AI will increase opportunities, but only if schools keep teaching students to think for themselves. He shares practical classroom tactics to reduce cheating, why incentives in education often fail learning, and which human skills, like critical thinking and soft skills, will matter most as hiring shifts. 👤 About the Guest Jason Robinovitz is CEO, COO, and General Counsel at Score at the Top Learnin

Erik and Justin talk through why AI agents get stuck when teams cannot articulate how work is done, and why the answer is iterative agent deployment with guardrails, sandbox testing, and ongoing process refinement. 🧭 Conversation Highlights Most professionals struggle to explain the steps of their work, which blocks automation and agent adoption. Agents feel hard to hand off to because people fear losing control, making mistakes, or looking foolish. A practical path forward is iterative proce

Rocky Batzel, inventor and CEO of Snapslide, shares how a decade of tinkering became a child-resistant pill bottle closure designed for one hand and for people with arthritis or other limitations. From the original “aha” at a liquor store to prototyping, patents, and certification testing, Rocky explains the path to commercial viability and what scaling manufacturing for over a million units per month means next. 👤 About the Guest Rocky Batzel is the inventor and CEO of Snapslide. He left medic

Quinn Rose challenges the idea of objective journalism and reframes “good writing” as from-the-heart and based in story. She shares how ten years in the news industry destroyed her hope, and how she now uses those storytelling instincts to support brands she believes in. The conversation turns to AI’s flattening effect on voice, whether or not true “facts” exist, and how poker applies to life. 👤 About the Guest Quinn Rose is a journalist-turned-creative strategist and storyteller for mission-d