Who Wins the AI Race? Probably Not Who You Think – Former Bain Capital Executive Mark Nunnelly

There are two types of hyper successful people. The ones who have an answer for everything, and the ones you actually want to talk to. Mark Nunnelly is squarely in the second camp. He joined Bain Capital in its early years and became one of the most successful investors in the world. Then, in his late fifties, he went to work for the governor of Massachusetts, where he led 5,000 people and started the state's first cybersecurity department from scratch. And he spent his hour with Connor talking about what he doesn't know. About parenting, which he says he got "spectacularly wrong" in places and calls the best thing he ever did. About capitalism, which he still calls the winning model even though "we have not had the shared prosperity that we need." And about AI, where his read is that "we're looking at the movie in its first minutes," and everyone is already describing the final scene. They get into: why the companies we think are winning AI today probably won't be the ones that win why "follow your passion" needs an asterisk, and the evidence to look at instead what he would do with $100 million to do the most good, and why it starts with medicine thirty years of work on American education, and why it left him less hopeful and more determined the eulogy test, and the two decisions he ranks above everything else he did If you're making big calls right now without knowing how any of this ends, this one is for you. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:09 From a preacher's kid to private equity 00:03:46 People can't know how much you know until they know how much you care 00:04:57 Leaving Bain for public service 00:06:43 Luck, and following your passion with an asterisk 00:10:29 Look at the pattern, and get comfortable failing 00:12:04 The eulogy test, marriage and fatherhood 00:15:37 Thirty years of education reform 00:20:45 Choosing possibility over catastrophe on AI 00:29:24 Capitalism and shared prosperity 00:32:11 "Just tell me it's going to be okay" 00:32:45 The $100 million question 00:35:25 Why today's AI winners won't stay the winners 00:38:36 Two handfuls of unelected people 00:39:56 A kid off the turnip truck from Kentucky 00:43:20 A year around the world with a small backpack 00:44:42 Intensely, neurotically calm 00:45:49 The next chapter