Welcome back. In this episode, Drew sits down with Christina Goldschmidt, VP of Product Design at Warner Music Group and adjunct professor at NYU. Christina traces a 25-year path from early web design at Discovery Channel to leadership roles at AmEx, Morgan Stanley, Accenture, Etsy, and now Warner where she’s helping legacy organizations navigate the AI wave by blending anthropology, business, and design.
They dig into the parallels between mobile and AI, how to cut through the hype, and what it takes to get transformation funded and delivered inside massive incumbents.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- Why the “AI wave” isn’t new and how the mobile era shows us what to expect
- Where legacy orgs can skip steps and jump straight to customer value with AI
- How Warner is centralizing data/processes to enable rapid AI experimentation
- Tactics for building real team AI skills: prompting practice, critique culture, and hackathons
- The stakeholder playbook: use risk, cyber, and end-of-life systems to unlock budget and momentum
Chapters
[00:00] Christina’s path: from anthropology to Warner Music Group
[10:00] Lessons from the mobile era & why AI feels different
[20:00] How incumbents can leapfrog with AI (and what to skip)
[30:00] Building AI muscle: team culture, experiments, and critiques
[40:00] Getting greenlights: risk, cyber, and end-of-life tech as levers
Connect w/ Drew & StealthX
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewhburdick/Website: stealthx.co
Connect w/ Christina &
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinagoldschmidt/
Website: https://www.cgoldschmidt.com/
