#64 Stop Paying Humans to Act Like Robots (Founder Survival Guide) ft. Jessia Hoffman (Improv Specialist & Founder)

In 2026, "Vibe Coding" and AI copilots can translate any instruction into code. Hard skills are officially a commodity. This has created a terrifying new reality in the workplace: The rise of the "Human Robot."

Jessia Hoffman (Stanford Instructor & Founder of On Deck Workshops) joins us to expose the "Cowardice Epidemic" killing tech teams. Jesse works with Google, Cisco, and Bloomberg to solve the one problem AI can't touch: The fact that your employees are too terrified to be human.

When your team fails, do they lean in, or do they "shield their faces" and hide behind ChatGPT? If your culture is built on "politeness" instead of "play," you aren't leading a team, you’re managing a room full of people waiting to be replaced by an algorithm.

In this episode, we break down:
The Hiding Problem: Why AI saturation is making your team more lonely and less creative.

The "Yes, And" Leverage: Why the only high-value skill left is the ability to improvise under uncertainty.

The Failure Ritual: How to stop your team from "shutting down" when things go wrong (and why it’s costing you millions).

Applied Improv: The "Secret Weapon" used by Stanford’s most successful founders to build fearless cultures.

Stop hiring robots. Start building humans.

To follow Jessia Hoffman,

LinkedIn:

Website:

RESOURCES!
- Want to talk to Jessia or ask her a question? Connect with her at: linkedin.com/in/jessiahoffman/
- Could your team benefit from improv at your next offsite? Check out On Deck Workshops: ondeckworkshops.com
- And for improv magic in your inbox, sign up for their (every-other-month) newsletter:

About the host :

I’m Aishwarya, a product builder obsessed with turning raw ideas into real, working tools, especially with AI in the mix. Over the last 9+ years in SaaS, I’ve shipped zero-to-one products, scaled product marketing & GTM motions, and built across MarTech automation, real-time collaboration tools, and live event tech.

Today, I work hands-on as an AI-first builder & forward-deployed PM/Engineer, working closely with AI models, agents, and orchestration systems to shape next-gen AI products.

You can follow me here,

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