The Business of Alignment · 2026-07-02 · 8 min
Back on the morning drive, AJ opens up about what's changing for the show, including more video and visual content that shows the different facets of who he is. Then he gets into the work he's most excited about for the next decade: turning "alignment" from a buzzword into a set of best practices you can actually set goals, guardrails, and KPIs around. His core argument is that any relationship built on fear, anxiety, and clunky process will always lose to one built on trust, open communication, and healthy, productive tension. He's candid about his own downfall as a leader (looping, over-explaining the same idea 94 different ways) and about his growth toward building clear structure from day one. This is part one of a series, and step one is pointed straight at the top: the founder or most influential person in the company owes it a 20 to 30 hour deep dive to check the org's temperature and to get honest about how they themselves see and shape everything.
The One Law No Leader Can Cheat47 / 100AI Isn't the Threat. Poor Leadership Is.38 / 100Why Most Companies Are Optimizing Hiring the Wrong Way w/ - Kristen Habacht: CEO of Elly66 / 100Why Don't We Tell Each Other What We Know?30 / 100Trust Is the Real Reason You Can't See the Problems