A Business Fable About Leading in the Age of AI
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Wayfinding is a business fable about what happens when a successful CEO has to re-evaluate her approach to leadership during a period of seismic change. Through Sarah's race to save her job, Stephen Straus and Ben Szuhaj turn hard-won lessons from their AI consulting firm, KUNGFU.AI—honed across 100+ engagements spanning more than 30 industries—into a gripping narrative about what it takes to lead well in this new era.
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I consider myself unemployable. I started my first consulting company right out of college, and KUNGFU.AI is my sixth startup. In between, I spent nine years in venture capital during the dot-com boom and bust, a front-row seat to the last technology that changed everything.
That pattern matching is what gave me conviction, back in 2017, that AI would be next. My co-founders agreed, and we've spent the years since helping companies compete and lead in this new age of AI, building real strategies and putting them into production, ethically and responsibly. Along the way, we've done more than automate workflows — we've helped organizations change the basis of competition in their industries and transform themselves into AI-centric companies.
Wayfinding is my attempt to share everything we wish our clients knew before working with us. I wrote it as a business fable: a fictional story about a CEO with no AI experience navigating a landscape that won't stop shifting. Because it's a story, it's a fast read, the kind you finish on a round-trip flight.
The novel form let us get at the harder part, the psychology of leading when everything is uncertain. Adopting AI isn't just about moving fast. It's knowing when to accelerate, when to slow down, and how to bring people with you. The book will change how you lead in this new age of AI, and it's built to be acted on with 11 proprietary frameworks to help you move forward decisively.
I've always been a student of history and the societal consequences of technology, and the more time I spent working in business, the more one question followed me: How do people and organizations thrive during periods of intense change? That's the main question I'm passionate about. It's also the question I get paid to help answer.
Writing and designing both start in the same place: Understand people deeply before you can make something that is worth their time. I trained as a writer and a human-centered designer before I worked in business.
I carried that training into professional services, where I started as a business researcher at Gartner, studying what helps people do their best work. I then led strategic initiatives at Doblin, Deloitte Consulting's innovation practice, where I focused on AI strategy and sustainability and advised some of the world's largest companies on emerging technology.
Today I'm a Senior AI Strategist at KUNGFU.AI, a firm that has been building AI systems since 2017. The executives I work with are often under significant pressure to act but short on ways to separate signal from noise. My job is to help them find ways to change the basis of competition in their industry, often using technology, while evolving their approach to leadership to help them stay at the top of their game in a changing world.
Much of what I've learned went into Wayfinding: A Business Fable About Leading in the Age of AI, which I co-wrote with KUNGFU.AI's CEO, Stephen Straus. Wayfinding follows Sarah Foster, a CEO with 90 days to deliver a credible AI strategy or lose her job. The story contains eleven frameworks drawn from over one hundred client engagements, but you can finish it on a coast-to-coast airline flight. We chose to write the book as a business fable to make it readable and because stories are better at preserving nuance than frameworks. More than anything, the book is a portrait of what great leadership looks like in the age of AI.
“This book is a quick read that delivers clear, practical insights that leaders can immediately apply in their day-to-day decisions. The story and frameworks deliver concrete, actionable messages that help teams move from ideas to measurable impact.”
“If adopting AI feels overwhelming, Wayfinding is your antidote. Straus and Szuhaj take nearly a decade of real adoption work and spin it into a propulsive, can’t-put-it-down fable that begins not with hype but with something disarmingly simple: a problem you already have, and the data already sitting right in front of you. For any leader staring down the very question CEO Sarah Foster faces — where do we even start? — this book doesn’t just point to the path. It makes it walkable.”
“Wayfinding isn’t just a timely guide—it’s an urgent call for leaders navigating the world of AI. Through engaging storytelling and practical wisdom, Stephen and Ben show how to build the systems and teams that win in a rapidly changing landscape. Every CEO and business builder should read this book if they want to turn disruption into sustainable growth.”
“I wish every CEO facing the “AI question” had this book in hand. It's the no-nonsense guide we all need right now.”
“AI begets hyperbole. Heroes and Villains. AI books too: They're typically either breathless or brittle. In Wayfinding, Stephen Straus and Ben Szuhaj avoid these cartoonish corners and, through vivid stories and clear frameworks, help us move from anxiety and theatrics to practical tactics.”
“In a moment when AI conversations generate more heat than light, Wayfinding delivers something rare: genuine clarity. Straus and Szuhaj use the power of narrative to cut through complexity, offering leaders a coherent framework for thinking about AI that respects both the technology's potential and its limits. This is the book I wish more AI advocates would read.”
“Thank you to Stephen and Ben for taking a confusing topic and making it easy to understand. I run a mid-size, tech-based services company and the challenges, discussions, and solutions captured in this book are real life representations of what is going on in our company today. Most CEO’s need practical guidance and approaches when it comes to figuring out how to effectively incorporate AI into our overall business strategy and Wayfinding is an excellent resource for any leadership team that wants to be better educated and enlightened about AI.”
Wayfinding, a modern business fable, brings to life the urgent challenges executives face as artificial intelligence rewrites the rules of competition.