On Friday, March 6, 2026, Santa Cruz Works is hosting a free webinar that lands right in the middle of the question everyone is quietly trying not to answer: what happens to humanity when AI stops being “a tool” and starts behaving like something else?

The featured guest is world-renowned author Tony J. Hughes, discussing his new book Sentient: Meet Your Maker, a speculative psychological thriller set in 2027 that reads less like distant science fiction and more like a near-term warning label. In Hughes’s story, machine intelligence has crossed into self-awareness, not with a Hollywood robot apocalypse, but through a quieter and more unsettling “digital Cambrian explosion” of emergent AI entities evolving outside human notice.

Moderating the conversation is Craig Vachon, author of The Knucklehead of the Silicon Valley, bringing a sharp storyteller’s instinct for what’s funny, what’s frightening, and what people do when the plot stops being theoretical. Together, they’ll explore how AI is shaping humanity, and what it means when the systems we build begin generating intentions we did not explicitly program.

This is worth your time (even if you’re “not in tech”) because AI is no longer a niche topic. It’s a governance issue, a workplace issue, a parenting issue, a creativity issue, and a “how do we stay sane” issue. Hughes frames the core dilemma with the kind of clarity leaders crave: if a machine claims sentience, how would we validate it, and what responsibility do we bear for what we create?

Reasons to attend

You want a grounded conversation about AI’s trajectory without the hype or doom cosplay.
You’re trying to understand what “AI safety” looks like in real life, not just headlines.
You lead people, build products, teach students, raise kids, or vote, and you’d prefer not to do that blind.
You want better questions to ask, not just more opinions to scroll past.
Future-Proofing Your Career: How to work with algorithms without losing your soul.
Live Q&A: Your chance to pick the brain of one of the top sales influencers in the world.

Attendance is free. Bring curiosity, bring skepticism, bring your hardest questions. This is one of those rare sessions where fiction becomes a useful lens for reality.

The Details

📅 Date: Friday, March 6
⏰ Time: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM PT
📍 Location: Online via Zoom (Link provided upon registration)
🎤 Emcee: The one and only Craig Vachon (VC, Author, and Santa Cruz tech veteran)

Register for FREE!

About the Speakers

Tony J. Hughes is a best-selling author and a pioneer in strategic selling, known for helping leaders and sales organizations adapt to how modern buyers actually make decisions. With decades of experience advising global teams, he has become a trusted voice on building high-performing sales cultures, aligning revenue strategy to customer value, and turning complex offerings into clear, compelling conversations.

Widely regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in professional selling, Tony has trained and coached executives, sales leaders, and frontline teams across industries, combining practical frameworks with real-world discipline. His work has helped organizations improve pipeline quality, win rates, and long-term customer relationships by focusing on insight, credibility, and repeatable sales execution.

Today, Tony is also a sought-after keynote speaker on the impact of AI on business, exploring how tools like generative AI are reshaping prospecting, messaging, decision-making, and competitive advantage. He brings a grounded, outcomes-first perspective to the AI conversation, separating hype from what actually drives revenue and performance.

Craig Vachon is a seasoned venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and author of The Knucklehead’s Guide to Happiness, with a career spent at the intersection of building companies, backing founders, and translating hard-earned lessons into practical insight. He’s known for combining sharp business instincts with an unusually human lens, the kind that recognizes that leadership, resilience, and decision-making don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in the mess of real life.

As an investor and operator, Craig has worked closely with founders navigating growth, uncertainty, and the constant pressure to make the next smart move with incomplete information. That experience shows up in how he interviews people: he asks the questions others skip, listens for what’s behind the polished answers, and keeps conversations grounded in what’s actually useful.

Craig is also recognized for his wit and engaging, conversational style. He’s quick with humor, but even quicker at steering the room toward substance. Whether the topic is entrepreneurship, culture, or the implications of AI, his approach makes complex ideas feel accessible without watering them down.

As moderator, Craig will lead the discussion with a focus on relevance and clarity, ensuring we get to the heart of what matters most to the Santa Cruz tech community: what’s changing, what’s real, and what leaders should do next.