Bios, ready to paste
Jon Wolheim designs hybrid human-agent workforces. He calls the job Chief Agent Officer: applying the same organizational design rigor to AI agents that a CHRO applies to people.
He has spent 25 years in executive people leadership, including eight years at Apple and a run leading Amazon's California hiring through the pandemic, at a pace of growth few operators have had to manage. He then built the talent function at SoundHound AI from zero through its NYSE IPO, and spent a year and a half building the people infrastructure inside a Cambridge-based AI unicorn.
In 2019 he asked Jeff Bezos what he would study as a college freshman today. Bezos said machine learning, full stop. Jon went all in.
He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Boston University and founder of Wolheim Group.
Three small things, if you don't mind
Please run whichever bio fits your field word for word rather than rewriting it, and include a link to jonwolheim.com in the show notes. The reason it matters: half the bios floating around online still have Jon at the company he left in May, so anything pulled from a search is very likely out of date. These are the current ones. And if you publish transcripts — even auto-generated ones — please do for Jon's episode. It's the version of the conversation that outlives the feed.
Background
- 25+ years in executive people and organizational leadership
- Partner — Claude Partner Network
- Apple — eight years
- Amazon — led California hiring through the pandemic
- SoundHound AI (NYSE: SOUN) — built the talent function from zero through IPO
- Boston University — Entrepreneur in Residence
- LinkedIn Top Voice — Future of Work, global
- LinkedIn Top Voice — AI & Leadership · 32,000+ followers
- Toastmasters — 2024 California Champion, World Championship of Public Speaking
- MBA — USC Marshall School of Business
- Graduate certificates — Artificial Intelligence (MIT), Business Strategy (Stanford)
What he'll happily talk about
And questions that tend to open him up. Use any, all, or none.
The fresh start
Jon walked away from an audience of 150,000 to restart at zero under his own name. He thinks that trade is now available to everyone, and he is making it in public.
- You walked away from an audience of 150,000 to restart at zero under your own name. Why is now the moment to do that?
- You say AI hands everyone the chance to start over as something brand new. What does that actually look like on a Monday morning?
- You're building yourself in public with AI, one story a day. What's broken so far, and what worked that shouldn't have?
AI24 and the prediction ledger
A daily broadcast with a spine: one story, under three minutes, every claim verified against a named source, and a dated prediction at the end of every episode. The misses stay posted.
- Every episode ends with a dated, falsifiable prediction, and your misses stay public. Why would anyone do that to themselves?
- You call AI the fastest moving target in business. What did you get wrong last month?
- Walk me through how one person plus AI ships a source-verified daily broadcast. What's the actual stack?
Executive AI fluency
The gap between companies isn't the models. It's how fluent the ten most senior people are.
- CEOs and VPs pay you $500 for thirty minutes. What do they all ask — and what should they be asking?
- How should a CEO get AI fluent — actually, not performatively?
- I'm a CEO with 40 people and no AI strategy. What do I do on Monday?
The future of work
Most companies rolled out agents and skipped the question of who owns them. Jon thinks that job belongs to the people function, and he enjoys being argued with about it.
- Will AI replace knowledge workers, or is that the wrong question?
- You say the agent workforce belongs to HR, not IT. Plenty of smart people say the opposite. Make your case.
- What can a 55-year-old do with AI that a 25-year-old can't?
The US/China AI race
Analyst, not cheerleader. Jon reads export controls, talent flows, and open-weight releases the way he used to read org charts: as capacity questions.
- Is China ahead of the US in AI? Answer like I'm holding a portfolio, not a flag.
- Explain the US/China AI race to a smart board that hasn't followed it.
- Are export controls working, leaking, or backfiring?
Positions he's glad to defend on air
"The single biggest constraint on AI progress is human. Not compute, not capital."
"The moat is not the model. Models get replicated. The moat is culture."
"The most expensive hire you'll ever make is the one you didn't need to make."
Studio & setup
- Room
- A dedicated, acoustically soundproofed home studio with full professional lighting by NEEWER, and a Secretlab desk and chair setup.
- Camera
- Panasonic Lumix S5IIX with a 50mm Lumix lens, recording at 1080p / 30fps.
- Audio
- Three options depending on what suits you: a Rode NT1 condenser, a tuned Elgato Wave 3, or a lapel mic if Jon needs to move. Tell us your preference and we'll set it up ahead of time.
- Connection
- 2 Gbps fiber, hardwired, on current-generation Apple silicon. Riverside, StreamYard, Zoom, or any live stream you'd like to run.
- Format
- Evie will ask whether you're recording audio only or capturing video as well. Where you have the option, Jon has a strong preference for video and is set up for it.
- In person
- Jon is glad to come to you in Boston, San Francisco, or Los Angeles with reasonable notice.
Photos
Use whichever suits your layout. Click any one to download it at full resolution.
If you'd prefer a zipped bundle of everything, or you need a photographer credit for any of them, ask Evie and she'll sort it.