On the frontlines of America’s labor market, millions of jobs sit empty while workers ready to clock in are stalled by bureaucracy. Sophie Singletary and Violet Barnett sit down with Vardhan Kapoor—co-founder and CEO of FirstWork—for a conversation about how AI can cut through the friction holding back American workers.

From nursing homes in need of care staff to factories ramping up production, Vardhan explains how AI is collapsing months of paperwork into days, getting paychecks into workers’ hands faster and shielding families from predatory lending. He makes the case that reindustrializing America is impossible without empowering its workers, and shows how smarter tools can restore agency, speed, and dignity to blue-collar jobs.

This is a story of AI optimism in practice: unlocking the American advantage by putting technology to work for those who built this country.