Group Intelligence Beats Individual Genius with Lexy Franklin

July 23, 2026 6:00am 1:06

Loneliness and bad fit can feel identical, but they are not the same thing at all. Lexy Franklin, founder of Sidebar and former Facebook product leader behind Messenger Kids, joins Jason to unpack why the best founders f...

Don't Cast a Halo: Why Great Leaders Get Blamed for Bad Luck

July 16, 2026 6:00am 20 min

One stock price swing can turn the same leader from visionary genius to reckless failure overnight. In this solo episode, I break down the halo effect, the century-old psychology finding that one strong impression bleeds...

Why Your Best Salesperson Makes Your Worst Manager

July 09, 2026 6:00am 17 min

Your best salesperson just got promoted to manager. Here's why that's often a mistake.In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten unpacks the Peter Principle, the half-century-old idea that people in a hierarchy rise to their...

Why Busy Leaders Still Don't Control Their Own Calendar

July 02, 2026 6:00am 16 min

If time is your most valuable asset, who's actually deciding how yours gets spent?In this solo episode, I unpack a paradox I see constantly in the leaders I work with: real authority over strategy and budget, almost none...

Why the Obvious CEO Hire Is So Often the Wrong One

June 25, 2026 6:00am 48 min

What if the same leader, running the same playbook, could fail in one place and win big in another?That's the question at the heart of my conversation with Jim Citrin, who has spent three decades at the top of the execut...

Beyond Employee Engagement: How Mattering Transforms Leadership and Executive Search

June 18, 2026 6:00am 41 min

What if the thing quietly undermining your team's performance isn't strategy, compensation, or culture decks, but whether people feel like they matter?Jennifer Wallace is a journalist and award-winning author of Never En...

The Boardroom Is Broken: How AI Changes Executive Leadership Forever

June 11, 2026 6:00am 55 min

The boardroom is the last line of defense for AI governance — and most directors aren't ready.Steven Wolfe Pereira has spent 30 years at the intersection of technology, data, and leadership — from building the early inte...

Your Schedule Is Your Job — How AI Affects Job Fit

June 04, 2026 6:00am 26 min

What if the job you have today quietly becomes the job you never agreed to take?In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten breaks down one of the most underestimated risks facing leaders right now: not job replacement, but j...

The Spikiness Principle: What Executive Search Gets Wrong About Talent and Fit

May 28, 2026 6:00am 51 min

The investors closest to the best founders have a front-row seat to what great fit really looks like.In this episode of Fit Happens, I sit down with Laela Sturdy, Managing Partner at CapitalG — Alphabet's growth investme...

Is Your Job Worth It? The Hidden Cost of Being in the Wrong Role Too Long

May 21, 2026 6:00am 20 min

You have roughly 4,000 weeks. Are you spending them on work that actually deserves them?In this solo episode, Jason Baumgarten — senior partner and executive search specialist — explores one of the most under-examined qu...

From Google to the Grill: Dan Gertsacov on Career Fit and Leading Big Green Egg

May 14, 2026 6:00am 1:04

Dan Gertsacov, CEO of Big Green Egg, has built a career by saying no to money and yes to fit — four times over. In this episode, we dig into his non-linear path from social entrepreneur to Google exec to restaurant indus...

CEO Burnout Is Destroying Your Judgment — Here's How to Stop It

May 07, 2026 6:00am 20 min

Most executives aren't failing loudly — they're quietly eroding from the inside out.Nearly a quarter of CEOs report feeling burned out daily. But burnout isn't just a personal problem — it's an organizational risk that d...

How Scott Pulsipher Found His Fit as CEO of a 200,000-Student University

April 30, 2026 6:00am 53 min

What does it really take to find the role you were built for — and lead it at scale?In this episode of Fit Happens, I sit down with Scott Pulsipher, CEO of Western Governors University, to explore how a former Amazon lea...

The One Sentence Every Executive Should Write Before Day One

April 23, 2026 6:00am 16 min

Most executives fail not because they lack talent — but because they're solving the wrong problem.In this solo episode of Fit Happens, I'm breaking down the single most important sentence any executive can write: "I was ...

Career Fit Beyond VC: Kara Nortman's Path to Women's Sports Leadership

April 16, 2026 6:00am 50 min

She left a dream job at peak success — because she finally discovered what true alignment feels like.In this episode of Fit Happens, Jason Baumgarten sits down with Kara Nortman, managing partner of Monarch Collective — ...

What Is Fit? The Science of Finding Your Place in the Workplace

April 09, 2026 6:00am 20 min

Most people are winging one of the most important decisions of their lives.What's the difference between someone who springs out of bed Monday morning and someone who drags themselves there? It's not salary. It's not tit...

Welcome to Fit Happens

April 02, 2026 4:38pm 1 min