Leaders Unplugged - Insights & Anecdotes

Jon Kent and Adam Scorey sit down for a candid conversation about how they met, their career journeys, and what drives them. It's part origin story, part business philosophy.

Jon's career took him from law to software development (via a paralegal stint that convinced him he was firmly on the wrong side of the table), eventually founding intheOffice. Adam's path wound through journalism, editing, management and marketing before landing him at a SaaS startup he couldn't say no to.

The conversation covers imposter syndrome, the joy of hiring people who've never done the job before, why chasing exponential growth can hollow out a business, and where AI is heading in the world of work. Oh, and Jon's a world champion target shooter.

Originally posted: https://www.intheoffice.io/vlog-episode-6

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Show Notes

How they met

• Brief introduction at Flexpo conference
• Jon spotted Adam's "open to work" LinkedIn post months later
• Honest pitch: exciting opportunity, no budget — Adam said yes anyway

Career journeys

• Jon: law degree → paralegal → software development → product management → founder
• Adam: journalist → editor → leadership → marketing → SaaS startup life
• Both drawn to the energy and freedom of being at the ground floor of something

Key themes discussed

• Imposter syndrome 
• Hiring for passion, not just experience, 99% of a job can be taught; enthusiasm can't
• Celebrating small wins, easy to skip past them, dangerous to do so
• Learning never stops, books referenced: Atomic Habits, Diary of a CEO, Be Useful (Schwarzenegger), Lost and Founder (Rand Fishkin)

Biggest challenges facing businesses right now

• Resistance to change and getting stuck in old ways
• The obsession with short-term, exponential growth over sustainable foundations
• Jon's acorn analogy: let a business grow through its natural stages rather than skipping them

AI and the future of work

• Currently most useful for research, scaling content, and image creation
• Still requires too much manual effort to be truly frictionless
• Jon's vision: voice-guided prompts, AI acting more like an employee
• Broader hope: AI reshapes education and government, not just business

Random facts

• Jon is a former England U21 and GB U25 world champion in target riffle shooting
• Jon once studied applied geology with dreams of becoming a palaeontologist
• Adam: happiest at the top of a ski slope he shouldn't be on