We’ve Been Here Before

In this episode of The Friday Reporter, I sit down with Bruce Mehlman — partner at Mehlman Consulting and the mind behind The Age of Disruption. Bruce has spent decades operating at the crossroads of technology, politics, public policy and business, and he brings a rare, genuinely bipartisan lens to how power and change actually work in Washington and beyond.

We talk about why this moment feels so chaotic — and why it isn’t as unprecedented as it seems. Bruce makes the case that much of today’s tension comes from a simple problem: 20th-century institutions trying (and failing) to govern 21st-century realities. From AI and automation to geopolitical risk, culture wars and supply-chain vulnerability, he explains how history offers a surprisingly useful guide for navigating what comes next.

In this conversation, we dig into:

* Why today’s disruption echoes moments like the Gilded Age, the New Deal and the Reagan era

* How AI, automation and social media are reshaping work, governance and risk

* The difference between performative corporate politics and leadership that actually matters

* How companies can think about political risk without turning themselves into partisan actors

* What young professionals really need to understand about AI and the future of work

Bruce also shares how his once-quarterly strategy decks evolved into a must-read weekly Substack (Bruce Mehlman)— now shaping how policymakers, executives and journalists think about disruption in Washington and Silicon Valley.

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