Episode Description:

🎟️ TIP TOP SUMMIT 2026

If you're serious about scaling your business, join 350+ CEOs, founders, and leadership teams at the Tip Top Metronomics Growth Summit on October 28–29 in Toronto.

Over two days, you'll learn practical growth strategies, leadership frameworks, and execution systems from experienced business leaders and growth experts—all designed to help you scale with greater clarity and accountability.

As a listener of the Tip Top podcast, you can save 15% on your ticket by using code: TIPTOP15.

Learn more and register at:

https://www.metronomics.com/tip-top/home

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In this episode, Salim Ismail, author of Exponential Organizations and The Organizational Singularity, explains why 94% of CEOs implementing AI aren't seeing results at the bottom line, and why the problem isn't the technology but the way their organizations are built.

Salim shares how a hard lesson as head of innovation at Yahoo, watching the corporate "immune system" attack anything disruptive, led him to two decades of research into how the fastest-growing companies scale. He breaks down why most companies are only using AI to speed up old human bottlenecks, the difference between using AI and being AI native, and the acid test every CEO should run on their business today.

The conversation also explores how leaders can make this shift without blowing up the core business. Salim explains why disruptive change belongs at the edge, not in the mothership, how to start with just two workflows, and why AI is actually driving hiring up for most small and mid-sized companies.

Whether you're a founder, CEO, leadership team member, or coach, this episode offers practical insights into rebuilding your company for AI, asking the right questions in your next leadership meeting, and why the leaders who move early will take the advantage.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Salim Ismail and the episode's focus

01:37 Yahoo, the corporate immune system, and why big companies struggle to innovate

05:34 Why the most adaptive companies delivered 40x the shareholder returns

09:51 What the organizational singularity means

11:19 Why building a feature is now cheaper than the meeting about it

12:17 Ronald Coase and the original reason companies exist

15:45 The acid test every CEO should run on their business

16:13 Why 94% of AI projects aren't hitting the bottom line

18:59 The intelligence-centric organization of the future

21:22 Building AI native at the edge, not in the core

26:12 The people side of AI and the end of white-collar drudgery

28:42 The three levels of AI adoption

32:55 Choosing your first two AI-native workflows

34:49 Three questions for your next leadership meeting

36:00 The compounding advantage of starting early

44:11 Closing thoughts and the Tip Top Growth Summit in Toronto

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About Salim Ismail

Salim Ismail is the author of Exponential Organizations and The Organizational Singularity, and the former head of innovation at Yahoo. He has spent two decades advising companies around the world on how to build organizations that adapt as fast as technology changes.

He'll be speaking live at the Tip Top Growth Summit in Toronto this October.

Secure your seat here:

https://www.metronomics.com/tip-top/

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Ever feel like you're working harder than your whole team combined and somehow that's the problem? Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers, joins Shannon to share the exact moment she realized she was the bottleneck in her own organization, and the research that followed: a 2x difference in team output between "multiplier" and "diminisher" leaders.

This conversation covers the nine accidental diminisher tendencies (starting with the one almost every optimistic CEO has), why rescuing struggling employees can be a "failure of leadership," and how to hold both comfort and challenge at once. Liz also previews what she'll unpack live at the Tip Top Growth Summit in Toronto this October.

Key Topics

• Multipliers vs. diminishers in leadership
• How well-meaning leaders unintentionally diminish their teams
• Context-setting and clear vision
• Optimism and challenge as leadership tools
• Building teams that don't need their leader to succeed
• Strategies for fostering autonomy and accountability
• Self-awareness and continuous improvement

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Liz Wiseman and the episode's focus

02:04 The origins of Wiseman's insights from her experience at Oracle

03:59 The management advice to do everything hard and important

07:06 Realizing the impact of overhelping and micromanaging

10:07 Accidental diminishers and common behaviors

12:00 Optimism and high expectations as diminishing traps

14:45 Balancing safety and stretch for optimal performance

19:57 Context setting and clear vision

26:06 Using AI as a metaphor for effective team communication

33:09 Building organizations that don't depend on one leader

40:02 The multiplier effect and leadership legacy

47:55 Key questions CEOs should ask their leadership teams

52:11 Closing thoughts and the Tip Top Growth Summit in Toronto

About Liz Wiseman

Liz Wiseman is a researcher and executive advisor, and author of the New York Times bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. She'll be speaking live at the Tip Top Growth Summit in Toronto this October.

Secure your seat here:

https://www.metronomics.com/tip-top/

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Connect with Liz Wiseman

Instagram: @bylizwiseman

Website: https://thewisemangroup.com/

🎟️ TIP TOP SUMMIT 2026

If you're serious about scaling your business, join 350+ CEOs, founders, and leadership teams at the Tip Top Metronomics Growth Summit on October 28–29 in Toronto.

Over two days, you'll learn practical growth strategies, leadership frameworks, and execution systems from experienced business leaders and growth experts—all designed to help you scale with greater clarity and accountability.

As a listener of the Tip Top podcast, you can save 15% on your ticket by using code: TIPTOP15.

Learn more and register at:

https://www.metronomics.com/tip-top/home

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In this episode, product-led growth expert and bestselling author Wes Bush explains why the traditional sales-led approach is becoming less effective—and why the future belongs to businesses that let customers experience value before asking them to buy.

Wes shares how a failed free trial, a wildly successful freemium launch, and years of researching hundreds of companies led him to develop the Product-Led Growth methodology. He breaks down the core principles behind building products that sell themselves, why trust is earned through experience rather than marketing, and how AI is fundamentally changing customer expectations.

The conversation also explores how product-led growth extends far beyond software. From SaaS and AI to hardware, gyms, and consumer products, Wes explains how any business can create meaningful "try before you buy" experiences that accelerate trust, reduce friction, and drive sustainable growth.

Whether you're a founder, CEO, product leader, or growth executive, this episode offers practical insights into building products customers love, shortening time-to-value, and creating a business that grows through the product itself.

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Chapters

0:38 - Introduction to Wes Bush

1:13 - Wes's journey into product-led growth

3:17 - Why growth is getting harder for CEOs

5:18 - What product-led growth really means

6:37 - Becoming "the Product-Led Growth guy"

8:26 - Why Wes wrote Product-Led Growth

9:41 - What separates successful PLG companies

11:36 - The core principle behind product-led growth

13:07 - Lessons learned from building ProductLed

15:56 - How AI is changing customer expectations

19:40 - Applying product-led growth beyond software

22:42 - What "free" really means

24:18 - Why most free trials fail

25:39 - The five levels of product-led growth

27:27 - Companies that execute PLG successfully

29:03 - Who should own product-led growth?

33:31 - Lightning round

35:18 - Where to learn more from Wes

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Resources & Links

https://productled.com

https://productled.com/book/product-led-growth

https://productled.com/book/playbook

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesbush/

Connect with Wes

https://productled.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesbush/