JoAnn Garbin, Designing AI for the Forest, Not the Factory [003]

Episode Description

JoAnn Garbin turned down Microsoft three times. When she finally said yes, it was to remagine what a data center could be, and she designed one that worked. Then, during the checkups she scheduled while planning her exit, doctors found breast cancer. Three minutes into her first round of chemo she went into anaphylactic shock, and the decision she'd been circling made itself. We talk about the second voice she's built over decades as an entrepreneur, the one that answers fear with "calm down, give it six months." We get into why most of what senior people do can be systemized so they can spend their time on the 20 percent only they can do, why cutting junior roles is a design choice and not an inevitability, and how a values scorecard told her to join Microsoft and, years later, why to leave.

JoAnn has spent 25 years where sustainability and technology meet. She co-wrote The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft largely during treatment, using the work as cognitive therapy, and she now runs Regenerous Labs. She thinks in forests, not flowcharts, and she's an optimist who has earned it. If you're running so hard you don't have time to think, start here.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube.

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