When James Walker was last on the show, back in January, he’d just been given a guitar for Christmas and promised to practise every day. Nine months on, he has learned one and a half ZZ Top songs and the easy bit of Back in Black, walked 100 miles of Menorca’s wild north coast with his wife, and finished at DXC, walking away from the top of corporate life after 40 years.
At 60, he has just founded an AI research lab, Scorpion Labs, so I had to get him back.
The life pivot
What he left: his role as Chief Administrative Officer at DXC, a business of around 130,000 people, which he finished at the end of September, along with the budget meetings, risk meetings and performance appraisals that came with it.
What he moved to: Scorpion Labs, his own AI lab, working on two problems he has chased for most of his career. The first is sending each question to the AI model that gives the best answer for the price. The second, which he has worked on since the 1990s, is turning laws and regulations into rules that machines can follow in a provable way, so banks, lawyers and doctors can use AI safely.
What made him move: friends starting to retire, and realising “that time isn’t unlimited.” James has enough money not to work, so this move is about the tools. Things that once needed expertise and weeks of work now take a morning. Or as he puts it: “Execution is cheap and ideas are getting scarce.”
What stood out
I’ve known James a long time, so I expected him to wind me up, and he obliged within minutes.
James has AI agents running his diary and writing his code, yet the thing that worries him most is people. With entry-level jobs disappearing and so much work done remotely, he asks: “Where do people get coaching, mentoring, help, people to bounce ideas off?”
About James Walker
James Walker is the founder of Scorpion Labs, an AI research lab. He spent 40 years in corporate life, most recently as Chief Administrative Officer at DXC.
In this episode
- Walking 100 miles of Menorca, and the guitar progress report
- Why James left DXC, and why time isn’t unlimited
- Fixing an old Post-it Note printer in a morning with AI
- Scorpion Labs: smarter AI routing and machine-readable rules
- The personal operating system and the one-person unicorn
- Execution is cheap, ideas are scarce: his advice for anyone feeling stuck
- Who mentors the next generation?
- Quickfire: 130,000 people or a startup, guitar or code, and the fate of the cheese
Find James
Scorpion Labs: scorpion-labs.com
X: @jxwalker
His first conversation on The Third Half: TTH Blueprint Episode 13
Listen to the full conversation here:
https://player.captivate.fm/episode/50109f63-0034-44bf-a0e6-d8eaa10bf469/
#lifepivots