Dan Pink: What Society Gets Wrong About Work

The future of work is changing, and organizations will need to rethink what an “office” truly means. Today on Digital Disruption, we’re joined by Daniel Pink, New York Times best-selling author and workplace expert. Daniel Pink is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including his latest, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. His other books include the New York Times bestsellers When and A Whole New Mind — as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have won multiple awards, have been translated into 46 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world. Daniel sat down with Geoff at Info-Tech LIVE 2024 in Las Vegas for an insightful conversation about the future of work — what’s next, what to expect, and where it’s all headed. Daniel shares his perspectives on the evolving world of work and the challenges leaders face in navigating uncertainty. He talks about the importance of experimenting with new approaches and discovering meaningful work. Dan challenges the notion that anyone has all the answers about the future of work and instead encourages leaders to try, learn, and adapt. Interested in attending Info-Tech LIVE this year? We’re back in Vegas this June 10 - 12, and tickets are still available! Check the link to learn more. https://www.infotech.com/events/las-vegas-live-june-10-12-2025 In this episode: 0:00 Intro 0:25 Info-Tech LIVE 2025 1:51 Time of uncertainty 2:20: Fundamental questions about work and the ‘office’ 5:32: The importance of making progress 5:52: Uncomfortable behaviors as leaders 7:45 Burnout 10:50 Entering a world of permanent hybrid 14:41: The power of regret 17:20 What is the new normal? 21:53 How are technological advancements shaping society 24:40 Things will get better Connect with Daniel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpink/ X: https://x.com/DanielPink Website: https://www.danpink.com/ Visit our website: https://www.infotech.com/ Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InfoTechRG

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Geoff Nielson?

  Hey everyone, we've got a really special episode for you today. I had a chance to sit down with seven times New York Times bestselling author Dan Pink at InfoTech Live in Las Vegas to talk about the future of work and what's coming next. If you don't know Dan, he's written two number one bestsellers, Drive and To Sell as Human, and a whole pile of others on human psychology and motivation in the context of business. He's got a whole pile of other accolades, I won't list here, but you can look them up if you're interested. If you don't know InfoTech Live, it's a big awesome conference, or even it's sort of an anti-conference for IT leaders. Anyway, the next one is in Vegas in June, there's still complimentary tickets, so check that out if you're interested in the description. Love to see you there. But back to my conversation with Dan Pink.

• 0:44Geoff Nielson?

  As I mentioned, he was doing a keynote on the future of work, and I had the opportunity to interview him right after. Now, what made it extra fun is that like most keynote speakers, Dan didn't share his presentation in advance, and it was all new material. So while he was talking, I was holed up at the back of the conference frantically taking notes on his talk and what I wanted to ask him, and got back to our studio just in time to start the interview. My favorite part of Dan's presentation on what comes next was his courage in saying, "I don't know, and if someone tells you they do, they're lying." He said that there's too much that's changed, too much uncertainty, and now isn't the time to philosophize, it's to get out there and just try things. Anyway, it's a really cool conversation, check it out, let me know what you think,

• 1:27Geoff Nielson?

  and if you like it, don't forget to like and subscribe. Check it out.

• 1:34Geoff Nielson?

  Daniel, thanks so much for being here.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, Jeff.

• 1:37Geoff Nielson?

  I loved, first off, I have to say, I loved the presentation. Lot to think about, lot to digest, and lots of just, you know, moving pieces that, you know, kind of draw you in. You know, one of the things that, you know, you got me thinking about was you talked about, you know, this great sort happening right now.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:51Geoff Nielson?

  That this time of uncertainty, and what that means. Do you want to maybe just start by talking a little bit?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, one of the things that I've detected just from talking to people out there in the world, and just from following the news, is this sense that things are kind of upside down, right? Things are uncertain, that the floor... On which we're standing is kind of wobbly.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  And my theory of the case is that what's happening right now is a sorting out process.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  And what we're sorting out are some fundamental questions about work. So among the things that I think we're sorting out are pretty important things like what do we do together? What do we do separately?

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Where do we collaborate? Where do we do things individually? I don't think we have a very precise notion of that. Perhaps even bigger, what do we do synchronously? What do we do asynchronously?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  To me, we're over indexed on synchronous. We think that everybody has to be together on Microsoft Teams or Zoom all the time.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  When in fact, there's some very good evidence like in brainstorming that some kind of more deliberate hybrid is there.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Where you go off and generate ideas on your own and then you come together synchronously to do things. Um, I think we have some big questions about what are offices for?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  What do they look like? Who goes there? What is the physical architecture of them? Where are they located? I think we have in some ways existential questions about what are companies?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And so, and you know, as much as we want to understand, as much as we want to know the answer to these questions, I don't think we, I don't think we will. I think we have to kind of navigate our way to them. We have to do stuff and try stuff. And by doing stuff and trying stuff, we'll be able to find the answers.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Right. And it's funny you say that because, you know, you ask these big questions and you put up your hand and said, I don't know the answers. But as you talk through your presentation, it kind of felt like you do know some of the answers. And I was, you know, I was getting some really interesting insights from that. Um, to me, one of the themes of your presentation was the notion of meaningful work.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  And how we can do meaningful work. And, you know, I kind of sensed that one of the drivers of why we're missing that is because in this, you know, great sword and trying things, nobody seems to know anymore like what's meaningful. Like, let's just try things and see what sticks, right? And so there's been this, you know, kind of epidemic of just, um, maybe do this, we don't know, you know? So how do we as leaders or as individuals, how do we fight back against that and focus on the meaning?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think that people, um, I mean, meaning is an elusive concept.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so, so I don't think we can all, I don't think it, meaning is like, um, we don't know the meaning of our work or the meaning of our lives in the way that we know the square root of 144.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Okay, so, but, um, but I think that we can, we can approach it and, and we have some evidence about what kind of, what are the conditions in which people can approach that, Dr. King? Number one is, is having an organization that is not only great, but that is actually good, that is doing something more valuable. Uh, autonomy is a big part of a search for meaning. Like, I can't tell you, here's what, here's, here's exactly what you need to do to find your meaning. If you just follow me exactly, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna find meaning. Um, and I think it does require, though, some experimentation as well.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  And so, uh, but also, I think a lot of us have come face to face because of COVID, because of other things, with darker things like mortality.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Uh, and, and I think it's actually very healthy. Uh, the thing is, is that we're not gonna know the answer in any, in any clear way. But if you think of it as making slow and steady progress toward making things more meaningful, then I think it's actually quite rooty, that organizations and per individual.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Right, and it sounds like some of the tactics you put up there are actually tools we can use.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  To, to potentially, you know, seek out that meaning.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  I mean, one of the things I talked about is, is the importance of making progress.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Each day, and I do think that when you, when you, when you make progress each day or when you see the progress you're making, that can confer some sense of meaning, that, that people derive meaning from simply, some meaning at least, from simply moving forward on something that is significant or important.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. You, you said something that I picked up on that I really liked a little bit later in your presentation about, you know, modeling some of these uncomfortable behaviors as, as leaders. Can you, can you talk a little bit more about that and maybe the role that leaders have in instilling some of these values and practices?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I sort of feel silly saying it because it seems to me so obvious, uh, and it's certainly obvious to anybody who's been a parent.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  And that essentially, if you're a parent, your kids barely listen to you.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  I think, my view is, kids, kids listen a lot less than parents think, and they watch a lot more than parents think. So they, they listen a lot less to what you say.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  And they watch a lot more to what you do, and so... So modeling the behavior that you see is a wise strategy.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  This is not a revelation, right? But it's sometimes absent in a leader. So I'll give you some examples of it. So if you think about something like mistakes.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Or even regrets or something like that. I think it's very healthy for leaders to tell, if they get their team and say, here's a regret that I have, or here's a mistake that I made. Here's what I learned from it, and here's what I'm going to do about it.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  And the fear that many people have is that by revealing that mistake, or revealing that vulnerability, or by revealing that error or regret, people will think less of you. And we have some pretty good evidence that that's wrong, that people actually think more of you.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Right, it's backwards.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And then, and as a consequence of that, people feel safe to talk about some of their mistakes. And when we talk about our mistakes, when we derive lessons from them, everybody becomes better. So I think that's one area. I mentioned the importance of taking breaks and that seeing breaks is part of our performance. And, you know, we can exhort that all we want. We can say, I can show you all the charts and graphs and the data about that. But the people downstream in organizations are not going to be taking regular breaks unless the boss is taking breaks.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  But if the boss takes a break, if she models it, then you have a fighting chance.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Right. Did you, as you were researching this, or talking to leaders about it, you know, to what degree at all did burnout come into play in this? Because, you know, at least anecdotally, you know, since we've done this kind of great move out of the office, like, burnout seems to be something we're hearing more about.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that it's, I think that burnout is, it's tough. Burnout has many, many parents.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Or better metaphor, burnout grows from many, many roots.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  So I think that some of it has to do, I think there's a little bit of evidence that parents are more burnt out than people who aren't parents. And part of that is a structural problem.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Especially in the US, maybe a little less so in Canada, where we don't have the mechanisms in place for childcare. So people, so parents are, Surgeon General of the US just issued a report talking about how incredibly stressed out parents are.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  For that, okay.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  And so I think that that's, I think, so you have the cohort of people who are in the workplace and are parents, I think they're innately stressed out. And I think some of it has to do with some structural problems.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  So that's, that's one thing. Organizations are pretty lead, especially compared to 20 years ago.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  And so. If you were to, if we were to go to this crowd right here, Jeff?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  And say, how many of you in your organizations are trying to do more with less? I think everybody.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  A hundred percent, every, every hand in the room goes up.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So people have a sense of doing more with less. I think the stress of, of just general uncertainty, whether it's political uncertainty, whether it is technological uncertainty with AI.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  I think that all these things collect and people are burning out, which is one reason why we need to have regular systematic breaks. But I think it could be ultimately be a structural issue deeper down.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Right, right. It makes sense. You know, as, as we think about that, you know, the, the breaks thing, you know, keeps coming back to me and I love that and I love, you know, there, there's sort of another theme, I guess of like, it doesn't always have to be more with less, right? We sort of have to give ourselves permission.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  To, to work at kind of a cadence that, you know, that works for us. With, with the breaks piece specifically, I mean, a, a light bulb kind of went off for me because it was, it was there that you made me start thinking about the value of the office because at the office, you know, I feel like people naturally take more breaks because there's other people there.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Go out for coffee.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Whatever, yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, so I mean, from your perspective, you talked about it a little bit, but you know, I, I know you're uncomfortable answering like, you know, what is, what is the value of the office holistically, but you know?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I'm not.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  I'd love to hear more about that.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm for, my, my, my view is that I, I don't think we're going to get to a, a world where most organizations are going to be mostly remote.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  I don't, I, I don't think that's how human beings are constituted.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  That's it. I don't think we're going to get to a world where everybody is doing heads down work at a cubicle by themselves.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  I, what we're gonna, my view is that, and I think we're heading there. I think we're, we're, we could be there in spite of some of the things that companies are doing to quote unquote, crack down on remote workers.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  I, I think we're actually essentially entering a world of what? Permanent hybrid.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Where we're going to spend, and, and we're sorting that out.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  What kind of work is better done at home by yourself? What kind of work is better done in an office with other people?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  And we're gonna, and we're gonna sort that out. And I, I actually think that in a, in a couple of years, we won't even call it hybrid anymore.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  It, it's just like, that's work.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  That's work.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  But that's, that's what we're, we're sorting out. So I don't, I, I'm not, I, I don't think that fully remote for everybody all the time is necessarily that great of a, great of a deal.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  I think we have some evidence of that in. I think there are some new studies out showing that remote work is great for productivity. It's less great for creativity.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  And so we want to be productive, but we also want to be creative. And I think in many cases, we're creative when we're face to face in person with other people.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  And you don't want to sacrifice that.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  So, you know, but again, you know, you're an interior architect who knows a little bit about business. You should be cleaning up.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Because we need to rethink what an office is.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  And my conscience that like in many cases, the legacy offices are going to do a slow job and a bad job of retrofitting that. But someone out there is going to start an enterprise and say, welcome to our office. And you're going to like, what? This looks like a nightclub.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  You know, what? This looks like a lot, you know? And I think that we're going to understand what an office is.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Someone's going to invent it and the rest of us are going to go, that's what an office is.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Right. Because a lot of, you know, a lot of right now, the pullback to return the work. I mean, you've returned to office, I should say. I mean, you had the quote up there. It's like dropping the hammer, right? Like the language and the approach, like it's almost the exact opposite of what you're describing. So, you know, is there a right way? Or I mean, is there a wrong way? Like how? You talk about how versus why? Like, what does that look like?

• 12:49Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't, I think it's going to vary from place to place. I think that the ideal as a general principle, but with all kinds of tinkerings at the margins and for specific use cases is a couple of days in the office and a few days in the office and a few days at home.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Some amount of autonomy about people choosing those days, but not full.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Because you want people in the office at the same time. So I've totally like these, I see arrangements where it's like you have to be in the office Tuesday and Wednesday. The other days, do whatever you want.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  That seems to be perfectly fine. Now, with the hope that what we do on Tuesday and Wednesday is something different from what I, is not simply sitting at my computer by myself.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Right, right. It makes complete sense. And I mean, you know, related to that, I'm we're coming out of a period of being, you know, probably over indexed on remote, right? And we've come from a place where, you know, we're just looking at screens all day, right? And we didn't even notice it. But, you know, are you seeing or are you hearing about, you know, individual kind of impacts of, you know, oh, all my meetings are now not physically with people. They're looking at a screen. Is that impacting us?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I think so. I mean, I think that I don't know for sure, but I think that you got a you. Your intuition is spot on. I share it about about breaks.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  So if you're just hopping from screen meeting to screen meeting, it's not even like being in an office where maybe your meeting is in a different conference room.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  And you have to get up and walk.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  And then maybe you see Fred in the hallway.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Or whatever, you know, that's not even that's not even happening. So I I I don't think that it is fundamentally healthy for most of us to be looking at screens the entire day.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  That said, we're going to be looking at your screens a lot of the day, no matter where we are.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Right, right. That makes sense. I wanted to talk briefly about your final point, which is all about, you know, the power of regret, right? And about, you know, you know, if I can paraphrase, like taking chances, right? Making sure we're taking chances. Um, you know, that the data set was really interesting. It kind of changes with age. You know, how do we make sure that like, what does that look like in practice for us as individuals? How do we, you know, how do we take those chances? And especially, I guess, like at work? What does that maybe look like?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I don't. So the takeaway is that when you look at people's regrets, one of the big regrets they have are regrets of boldness.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  If only I'd taken the chance. And then when you look at even a broader array of research, it's it shows that regrets of inaction easily outnumber regrets of action. I think that's a lesson for us.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  The lesson isn't always take risks.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  I think that's the lesson. I think the lesson is to recognize that in some ways, the way we're set, particularly at work, is a thing about our dial, right? It's we need to turn it up a few notches. We don't need to go, whoop, take all the risks.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  But I think that our forecasts of what is risky and what is not

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  is a little distorted, not totally distorted, but it's a little too it's a little too risk averse and you just want to actually correct for that one click, two clicks in the other, in the other direction. So there's a famous Steven Levitt paper where you know, if you're, that, that, that people ended up being happy with decisions that were made on a point blank. And in, and in many cases, it's because they did something. And so I, I've changed my view on this, Jeff, somewhat in that

• 16:22Speaker 01

  I, I've become more and more convinced that acting is a form of thinking. As, I don't want to get completely

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  metaphysical on you, but I, I think that acting is a, when we do stuff and we think and we learn. And I think in some cases, particularly in white collar work, where, again, the too much, too much emphasis on planning and analysis and all that, that's important. I just think, I just want to recalibrate the dials just a little bit. A little less kind of strategy and analysis and a little bit more just kind of acting.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Because I think that when you, when you act, you learn faster.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Right, right. And I, I love that in your presentation as well about, you know, we're in this period of great sorting, we need to, we need to act, right? That, that needs to be the priorities. Is that, you know, as we think about new technologies in the changing world, does that become the new normal? Is that, okay, well, you know, give it 18 months and then we go back?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  I don't know. That's a good question. I think there's a chance we could go back to a little bit less of the acting our way into knowing.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  That, but on the other hand, if you just look at this, the relentlessness of stuff changing.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Even in the last 20 years, you realize like smartphones are not 20 years old yet. Kind of amazing.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Wow, yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  You know?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  There are, you know, many of these people, many of the people in this room went to university without using the internet.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And, and so now we have, in the space of this preposterously short amount of time, you know, in the last, think about the last, I think since 2004, we have these smartphones and the cascade of things that that gave us. We have social media and the cascade of most terrible things that that, that that gave us. We have essentially Eliminated the barriers to entry for creating stuff.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  I mean, it's pretty amazing. Like, 20 years ago, you might have needed a video. I mean, you guys have a nice video here, but 20 years ago, that would have been mandatory.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And now, you got people generating millions and millions of views in their videos from their phone.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  So, so we have, you know, we have smartphones and social media and essentially zero barriers to entry for, for creating stuff. Okay, that's pretty crazy. Oh, and by the way, AI suddenly comes along.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  And throws everything up in the air.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  So, um, I would like for things to be a little bit more mellow, but if I had a...

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Maybe not.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  If we're here, we're here, we're here in Vegas.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  If I had to like put my chips on staying mellow.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Or remaining tumultuous, I think I'm going to put my chips on remaining tumultuous.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Right, or at least not going back to the level of mellowness maybe of, you know, years past. If there's anything now that you think we're going to look back on in a few years, either as like individuals or as organizations and say, no, what, what now do we have wrong that we have an opportunity to fix?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  I mean, I think a lot of those are at the level of, not so much the level of organizations,

• 19:39Speaker 01

  but just at the level of, of society. I think that our, um, maybe our grandchildren, certainly our very grandchildren, will be shocked and appalled that we let human beings drive cars.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  When there are, you know, tens of thousands of deaths every year because of this. I mean, it's lots of benefits too, just to be clear. That's part of it. Uh, I think some of it is that the idea that, um, in the States and other places, we let, uh, we, we have people who live in poverty amidst this incredible, this incredible wealth. One of the great things that's happened in the world is you have, literally in the last 50 years, you've had billions of people leave poverty.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Uh, and yet still in these, in wealthy countries like the United States, we still have people living in, we still have people living in, we still have people living in poverty.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I think that we will look back, our grandchildren will look back and say, wait a second.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  You made people go to this office or a way of an house every single day, not just some days. What did you do there? Oh, we just sat around and did our work by ourselves. Why? So I think that, so it's, I think it's a great way. I think your question is a great question. I think it's a great thinking tool for people.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  You know, I think it's a great subject for a breakout or an offsite or something like that. Like what 50 years from now are we going to look back on and say, what the hell was going on here?

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  What do you think? We'll look back on.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, I think, I think you covered a bunch of it around like, like the office stuff, the, you know, what we expect from people and just the pace. Like, to me, a lot of these, these topics we're having around like, you know, burnout and the more is more. Like, as you said, like, we're sorting it all out now, but I think at some point, the pressure has to come down a little bit, right?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  I don't know. I like to think so, and I was going to ask you along those lines.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  I think there's another thing here is that one, I think one of the things we'll realize in the same way that we look back on, say, the jobs of 100 years ago or 150 years ago, was like nasty and brutish and unpleasant. I think we're going to look back on some white collar jobs.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Like some white collar jobs are really not that funny.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  They're kind of.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Why would you make a person do that?

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, so, you know, along those lines with AI, with the advent of kind of technology and how it's, you know, shaping society, are you, would you say you're an optimist in that sense about where we're going, a pessimist or somewhere in the middle?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  I'm, if optimism is a 10.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  And pessimism and sort of human annihilation is a one.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  So let's say if, if you, if an AI utopia is 10.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  And human annihilation is a one, I'm probably, I'm pretty high up there. I'm probably a seven.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm pretty optimistic about it.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  In the same way that if you think about how transformative the internet has been, or just simply being connected all the time, the idea that. People are, it has all kinds of downsides, but the idea that people are able to find stuff and find communities and find information at, you know, with a few wipes of their fingers, that's kind of amazing.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  The, I think there's a leveling of the playing field, big time, that it can, it can have with people within terms of access to information, in terms of access to creative tools. So I'm, you know, I, you know, here's the thing, my, my view is that I, I steer toward optimism, more optimism than pessimism, but future. Not because I'm an innately sunny person, but because that's been the pattern.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  You know, and so I did this thing years ago, when I was, that, looking at, I ordered on eBay, which wouldn't exist, didn't exist like 30 years ago. I ordered on eBay a bunch of books and works that forecast what life was going to be like in the year 2000. So these are things from like 50s and 60s, what are things going to be like in the year 2000? I ended up not writing about it, and, but one of the things that was interesting is that they, they grouped basically 50% were probably wild-eyed utopians.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  No more pollution, no more environmental problems.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Poverty's gone.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Poverty's gone, people are going to be working three hours a week, living lives of leisure.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Right? The other one is like, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna have this ravaged planet with people walking around in these small tribes, battling each other for survival. And that's about 40%, and 10% were like, that's probably going to be a little better.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, about 20% better than it is right now.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna be a little better than it was. And it's like, okay, I'm, I'm with that. It's like, yeah, I think if you were to, if we were to do a repeat on this, this conversation in five years, I would say, I think we would say, yeah, it's a little better.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  It's a little better, not perfect, but it's a little better.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, wonderful. Daniel, it was so great speaking with you, I loved the presentation.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for a fascinating conversation.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Awesome.