Colorado Innovators: Bijal Choksi, Founding Partner at HuWork

[00:00:00] In this episode of The Bear Roars, Dan Caruso sits down with Founding Partner of HuWork Bijal Choksi to explore one of the most important questions of the AI era. How do we remain human while embracing transformative technology? Drawing from her new book, Still Human, Bijal shares why the biggest challenge of AI isn't technical, it's human. From the fear of becoming obsolete to the future of leadership, work and human connection, she offers a practical framework for helping individuals and organisations

[00:00:29] thrive amid rapid change. Her and Dan discuss the skills AI can't replace, the importance of purpose and relationships, and how leaders can balance innovation with humanity in an increasingly AI powered world. Let's poke the bear to kick off the conversation. Bijal, I'm so looking forward to this because you know, I've given had several podcasts recently, where AI has been featured, as you would expect, but it's all been from a technical perspective. This is gonna be very different. This is gonna be about

[00:01:00] kind of the human journey. And AI. Well, thanks for having me. Yes, excited for this conversation. Great. Well, what is this you have in front of you? Well, this is a copy of a book that is for you, actually, it's a signed copy. And it is a book that I co authored with my business partner, Bonnie Davis called Still Human with AI. So essentially, it's about how

[00:01:25] organizations, teams and leaders can thrive as they're bringing in AI by balancing both the people side and the performance side. Great. Well, let's start by telling us about your partner. We'll start with Bonnie. So you said your business partner, Bonnie, tell us who Bonnie is. And what are you guys business partners?

[00:01:45] So Bonnie, what's interesting is I call her my business twin, because she and I have the same birthday, the same year, date and year. We're both from New York originally. We both have children about the same age. Both of our husbands have celiac. We have so many commonalities. And one of them is in our training. So we're both trained as organizational psychologists.

[00:02:10] So we are both fascinated by human behavior. And we've worked internally in human resources, as well as externally, helping teams and organizations with their culture and performance. Great. And we'll get more into that. But let's talk about. So I just gave the commencement speech this weekend at University of Chicago for the MBA program.

[00:02:34] How did that go? It went really well. And of course, you have to wonder what to say about AI, because you can't do commencement speech without mentioning AI. Yep. There's obviously been a lot of examples where the topic of AI has gotten booed by graduates when it has been brought up. Yeah. So tell us about how college age kids, particularly those who are approaching graduation, are reacting to AI and some of the.

[00:03:02] I would even use the word hostility that's being expressed by that age group in particular about AI. Where's that coming from? You mentioned hostility. And I think that anytime there's a really strong emotion like hostility, that means it's touching on people's identity. There's something deep happening. This isn't just a new technology, a new software tool that they need to learn. And the anxiety and hostility that I'm hearing really has to do related to this term called FOBO, fear of becoming obsolete.

[00:03:31] Yep. Right? That they won't have jobs. Fear of becoming obsolete. FOBO. Yeah. Yeah. So I was actually back at my alma mater maybe six weeks ago teaching a class. And it was for juniors. And your alma mater was? Oh, Wharton undergrad. Wharton? Okay. Columbia master is where I got my psychology degree. But for, so teaching a class in the Wharton management program, mainly juniors.

[00:03:58] And they were an interesting group. They surprised me in some ways. So when I asked who's used AI and how advanced are they, it's really divided. Some are really intentionally not using some of the latest features and not wanting to really grow dependent on it, which I admire on one side.

[00:04:21] But on the other side, some of them are entering the workforce, not having some of the same expertise that maybe you and I have using it. So I thought, one, that was interesting, that there's some intentionality around using it or not using it. And then, two, the anxiety. Are there certain features that you say they're intentionally not using? What aspects are they intentionally not using? It is the, it's more about growing dependent on it, right?

[00:04:49] Some of them have recognized that they don't want to lose their critical skills thinking. They don't want to forget how to write and have their own voice come through. So they've learned maybe because they're younger than us and they have more neuroplasticity going on at a faster rate. So they're noticing changes in their own behaviors and in their own thinking. These are the students that are reflecting on this and noticing it. So it's less about, like, the feature of dreaming or less about the feature of dispatch.

[00:05:17] It's more about intentionally, almost like, it's like pushing back against something when you're fearful of it. Yeah. There is so much for us to talk about. Yeah. This is going to be really an interesting conversation. And I'm going to just throw out some things. I've been involved in a lot of these kind of conversations. And I'm going to start with a lot of what you'll hear people talk about.

[00:05:46] In fact, even the person who spoke right before me, who was, I called him my GOAT professor, greatest of all time. And he spoke before me at the commencement. And he was bringing up what you hear a lot of people say that there's been a lot of technology change over time. And humans have always been better off for it. I think that will be the case this time. But this is fundamentally different. This isn't just the latest thing that is causing a disruption.

[00:06:14] There is a few other factors that come into play here. One is that never before have we been staring down a technology that could displace kind of a lot of what humans do and what their position is in the world. And it's not guaranteed that just because we've overcome that in the past, we're going to overcome it again.

[00:06:40] But there's also something else going on here that when you combine AI with other related fields, in particular biotech, but also robotics, but biotech in particular, there is going to be a time where what it means to be human gets brought into question.

[00:07:04] There's going to be engineering done that's going to create kind of what might be referred to as a post-human class who has genetically redesigned, re-engineered features. And that could create a whole different dynamic when combined with AI and what AI can do that does raise fundamental questions. I have a lot of thoughts on that. Yes. So I want to talk a lot about that.

[00:07:31] And then I want to also lace into that before I give you a chance to talk about it is AI is not going away. AI is not something where you can regulate or you could put your head in the sand, where even if the entirety of the United States decided that we were going to take AI slow, that doesn't mean AI is going to go slow in the rest of the world. AI is going to progress.

[00:07:55] So we're facing something that is going to happen no matter what your views are about it, positive or negative. And that AI does, with all the benefits it stands to bring, also is going to raise questions that, as I put in my commencement speech, this is a road that has not yet been traveled. So, boy, I touched on a few thoughts there. Yes, I have a lot of thoughts. But first, I have a question for you, which is how did the commencement speech go?

[00:08:25] How was it received? It was received very well. In fact, I was just reading a LinkedIn post today where some student was announcing their graduation, and he tagged me in the bottom bin and said it was a great speech, and I said something at the end that he's taking with him, and he repeated it, which was kind of cool. Are you okay sharing that, sharing what that takeaway was for him?

[00:08:49] Yeah, I did the speech with, you know, part of my early part of the story and the speech was that, you know, early on in life, you know, I had a certain story I told, and it made me realize I wanted to be somebody. So I came back and done a speech that challenged all the students, go out there and be somebody. He said, I'm going to go out there and be somebody, because that's what he took away. But in the topic of AI, which I just touched on toward the end of the speech, it wasn't, hey, you have nothing to worry about. AI is all good. It's that AI is going to open up a whole new world.

[00:09:17] But there's some real aspects of it that this next generation is going to have to overcome. They're going to have to navigate on behalf of all of the human journey. I think especially the sophomore, juniors, and seniors right now and last year in college, right? I think that I have a 21-year-old who's a rising senior in college.

[00:09:38] And I actually really feel for that year, because they got hit with the pandemic and schooling from home and missed some key social years where, you know, dating and hanging out more with friends. Some of them didn't get to have a real graduation. And then now this thing is happening four years later for them. So I think there will be, well, I believe, I mean, there's going to be a period of disruption.

[00:10:03] And I think that it's really germane that people are realistic about that. And then I do think on the other side, there will be this new way of working, this new way that companies work, our society works, the way people are behaving. I'm seeing changes even with that outside of work.

[00:10:25] So that limbo period is, you know, I think that's where we need different forces in society to come together, to tend to, to help that group as well as the broader group in society. Give us some examples. Of support. Support. Support. And just all of you are talking about what does society need to do?

[00:10:52] What do people need to do to prepare themselves for what is happening? I know. And I don't, I'm not the policymaker really in that world. But I do feel like there needs to be a better collaboration between educational institutions, between policy at the federal and state level, organizations, family structures. I really think that it's really transformative.

[00:11:22] Yeah. Beyond. Let me give you a couple other examples on the topics that you just touched on and get your comments on. And so I'm going to give you two conversations I was part of in the last 30 days or so. So one was here at the house, we had a grouping of native AI people here at the house to have a conversation that others from the kind of community were listening in on.

[00:11:47] So not participating, but listening in about what Colorado should do to ensure that AI will be for the benefit of all of Colorado.

[00:12:01] So what, you know, if these native AI, mostly with strong, deep technology backgrounds who are putting AI to work, what would they have conversation about with each other in the topic of here's what Colorado should do to be an appropriate leader in AI, not for the tech community, but for the rest of Colorado.

[00:12:24] So let me plant that seed. And then a related seed. I was at a dinner in Denver, your neck of the woods. And the dinner was, was, was related to Steve cases, rest of prize of the rest venture group. And we were at a dinner conversation and there are a few people in the conversation who had younger kids.

[00:12:46] And one of them who was an entrepreneur, tech person, he was saying he got recently involved in their school board and their school board decided to not use AI in the classroom. And I looked at him, which I looked at the guy and I stared at him.

[00:13:03] I'm like, that's got to be the exact wrong thing to do because, you know, the kids, particularly the younger, really all of them, but, but even so in younger, they're going to have to learn how to harness the powers of AI, not, not be removed from it. Not that the classroom should be all AI, but certainly AI should be a big part of it.

[00:13:24] And then somewhere between those two conversations, we also talked about how hard it would be to be a teacher right now who, you know, who has to teach in this new world of AI. You might be 20, 25 years into your career and AI is not something you're, you know, you think of as kind of teachers of younger, younger kids to be particularly, you know, the first adopters of, yet they've got to learn how to use AI in appropriate ways in the classroom.

[00:13:51] So, you know, I touched on kind of the broader, you know, state of Colorado. I touched on kind of education. What are your thoughts on those topics and what should be going on with AI? So I'll start with the education side. And I agree that I think, especially at the university level, not having, just putting a statement out there that AI is not allowed in the classes, I think that's a mistake.

[00:14:20] That's not the real world. That's like telling people you can't use a calculator in calculus. And so I think that that's a mistake. Like, I think the challenge is that teachers not only have to learn AI, they also know, have to learn how to see when the students are using it appropriately or inappropriately.

[00:14:40] And the work that needs to go into a curriculum where you're redoing it, assuming that the students will use AI, well, all of a sudden you're grading them on different things, right? You're, if you're just assuming, and this is my personal take on it, is that I think that you should just assume that everybody is using AI and then build your curriculum around that. So maybe then you're grading more on in-person presentations.

[00:15:06] You can focus on what we call in the book human edge skills. What are those things that AI cannot do, at least yet? And focus on building those skills within the students. Well, talk more about that, human edge skills. So what would you see those to be in this emerging world of AI? Yeah, I think they fall into four main categories. They have to do with relationship building, being able to influence stakeholders around you, strategic thinking, and execution.

[00:15:35] So I call it the RISE model. So in relationships, AI can simulate feelings, can simulate trust, but it doesn't actually have those qualities or values. So those are some of the human edge skills that I think are really critical. Can you look somebody in the eye? Can you carry on a conversation? First of all, AI is not yet personified.

[00:16:02] I mean, there are some robotics happening, but it is not standing up and giving a pitch, right, for funding, for example. That's still the human. What kind of executive presence does that person have? Would you fall more in that influence category that I mentioned? What is their both nonverbal as well as verbal side of pitching something, going back to that example?

[00:16:28] Then around strategic thinking, they're the ones that have that, the full, in the AI world, right, we call it the context that you give it. There's no way it has all the context that you do for all of your experiences, all the conversations that you have had. Even if you upload, say, survey data, the structured data to AI, there's so much unstructured data that you are just evaluating. And there's no way that AI can keep up with that.

[00:16:53] I like what you said about in the classroom to evaluate students based on them presenting as opposed to what they're turning in. Because what they're turning in, it does have to be hard to separate between how much work and creativity and knowledge and expertise that the student provides you and what they turn in as their assignment or their results. So it's just, yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:20] Versus if they're able to use the full power of AI to prepare themselves, how do they then, how are they able to communicate, explain, be part of a conversation on a given topic? And that's the solo side. And then there's the teamwork side, right? We know AI is actually not great at teamwork right now. There's ambient AI that's being developed. But at this moment, it's really much better one-on-one than it is on a team basis.

[00:17:50] So until that AI can be in the room and carry on a conversation like another human, I mean, I think, I don't know how far off that is, but it's certainly not here right now. So those team skills are yet another category of the human-edge skills. How do you deal with conflict with a coworker or at the college level with somebody that's on your team, right? And so how do you convince somebody of an idea on a team?

[00:18:20] You know, you just, something we're dealing with, I've got a couple of my team members here in the room with me. How much do you think AI is resulting in because of the individual action that, you know, a person is having with AI, when it comes time for them to talk and present and even interact with one another, that they're losing those skills really quickly.

[00:18:49] You know, or not just skills, they're losing the comfort of being able to talk out loud, to explain, to converse, that they're much more comfortable interacting with AI and then giving you the results of that interaction as opposed to use that to prepare themselves to be part of human conversation. I see that as, I think there's two related concepts and changes that are happening.

[00:19:15] One is in some individuals that are over-reliant on AI, a lack of confidence in sharing their own unique ideas or impromptu conversation in a meeting without first checking with their AI tool that, is this a good idea or not? So I'm worried about that, that lack of confidence in themselves. The other part of it is what we, in psychology, we call social de-skilling. And that is where you cannot just compartmentalize.

[00:19:44] If you are talking really succinctly to your agent or to your AI tool and there isn't that natural flow of conversation, if they deliver something and it's not accurate, instead of that thinking about how do I phrase this and how do we work together, it's more, no, you didn't get that right, you know, do it again. Hard to compartmentalize that. You do that all day.

[00:20:08] Then when you're turning to your partner or a business partner or a colleague, it can be more of a challenge. Wow. Have you noticed? I've noticed that some people, they start, you know, ChatGPT especially has a certain syntax, a certain cadence with how it speaks. It's this, not this, or it's not this, it's this. And then the M dash is, well, I've noticed in two individuals that I interact with, they're starting to sound like ChatGPT a little bit more. I already know what tool they're using.

[00:20:38] Now, that is, that's interesting. I'm trying not to attach any valence to it, no judgment on it, because language does shift. Language changes in society. It's not necessarily good or bad, but I am noticing that shift. Well, I definitely notice when someone turns in work that is raw coming out of AI. I mean, you can see that in a nanosecond.

[00:21:04] But what just dawned on me in this conversation is how rapidly the adoption of AI might be leading to people being less confident just to be part of conversation. Because I never put those two together. I know I'm smiling because there's been multiple times in the past month where we've had kind of our group meetings. I'm like, is anyone going to speak up? Is anyone going to talk up? What do you really think?

[00:21:33] And people seem hesitant to, which I'd never associate with that, with the adoption of AI. I would ask, what's causing this reluctance just to be conversational? And maybe it is kind of the reaction to the use of AI and being less ready just to be part of conversation. Maybe it is. Maybe it's playing a factor. Wow. That's crazy.

[00:22:02] Can we go back to the biotech? Yes. Okay. So a little side passion of mine because I started out pre-med in business. Well, let's come to that in a second. But let's talk about you. And then we'll get to biotech. So let's talk about your journey. Like what led you down the path of being interested in psychiatry? Is that the right way to put it? Psychology. Psychology. What in psychology really drew you in, made it most interesting to you?

[00:22:32] How have you built that around your career? And then we'll use that to kind of work our way toward the biotech conversation. Yeah. Sounds good. So child of immigrants, two doctors who came over in the 70s. So that was their, that's what they knew in this country too. They didn't know about different career possibilities. So they kind of thought, well, you know, you, that, that's a good path for you. So, but I got into, I was always interested.

[00:23:01] They were thinking that would be a good path for you as well. They were thinking that would be a good path for me as well. Right. Although they did see the writing on the wall that medicine is changing and that is becoming more like a job than a career. So I think they saw that even before private equity was buying a lot of medical practices, they saw that writing on the wall. So they, so at the same time they were like, hedge your bets. So I was interested in business. So when I got into Wharton, so I went there, but I still have a lot of work. I still love medicine. I love biology. I love human. So the, so it's pre-med.

[00:23:30] Long story short, at the end of senior year was interviewing. I thought, well, let me combine both by doing healthcare management. Great. I'll be in the medical industry, but I'm still doing business in it. And then I could go back to medical school if I want to. Well, the way that life works sometimes you just, you just cannot even control it. The person that interviewed me for the job I wanted doing healthcare management consulting for one of the big five consulting firms was sick.

[00:23:57] And instead who interviewed me, but somebody that does more psychology work for them. So they do change management, culture work, leadership development work. He and I hit it off after all the rounds of interviews. They said, great, we'd like to make you an offer. But here's the thing with the way that the P&L works, you've got to choose healthcare management or the type of culture work that I do. So I thought, well, let me just try the path that I don't know as well. So that's how I ended up really pursuing more psychology.

[00:24:27] It wasn't even my intention. That's probably good because I can't imagine anything. I've got to be quiet when I say this because my wife was in healthcare management, basically. But healthcare management, because of how messed up healthcare is, has got to be a frustrating way. Well, it's not healthcare, it's sick care, right? And so I've always had that passion. So maybe this is a nice segue too, to the biotech also.

[00:24:51] So on the side, I always had in my mind, well, if I'm not going to be a doctor, I'm still keeping up on health, not disease, which I think is what our medical system right now is for, is to treat disease. But it's not about furthering health. So I ended up teaching for a biohacking coach training firm. So I've always kind of been in that world. So I just attended a biohacking conference two weeks ago in Austin.

[00:25:17] And there was an investor there talking about the five different categories of health tech related things, one of which you touched on, which is this post-human type thing. So there are like... What does biohacking mean? Oh, yeah. What does the word hacking mean in that context? So when we think of hacking, it's a shortcut, right? When you hack something, it's like a shortcut to achieve a goal. So biohacking is how can...

[00:25:44] What is the shortest way that... Or the least amount of steps that you can take in order to reach a biological goal you have? So if you want to live to be 180, then what are those steps that you would need to take? So that might mean doing gene therapy, like clotho is out there right now, right? That's... I mean, you can take it... I haven't heard that term. Oh, okay. Clotho? Yeah, that's a new one. Well, you've heard of peptides? Yes. Right? Ozempic is... Yeah, you hear about that a lot.

[00:26:14] So that's one peptide. But there are so many other peptides. One to build muscle. Clotho is one that supposedly reverses aging in you. So you can actually do gene editing for it, or you can take a peptide, an injectable, which I haven't done, but I am curious about it, and that can set the clock back by X number of years, and then it's out of your system. So you're not actually changing your genes. It's more...

[00:26:42] I'm going to get the term wrong, but it's some type of mRNA type of product, which isn't changing your gene, but it is changing the expression. Yep. Is it legal, illegal here in the U.S.? Oh, it's legal. I don't know. Actually, I don't know. I mean, I'm not a doctor, so nobody... Don't quote me on it. Do your own research, but I know lots of people who have been taking it. Yeah, because certain stem cells you can't do in the U.S., but you could do in Mexico. That's true. Right. I'm actually...

[00:27:11] I actually get stem cell treatment in Mexico. I'm going to get some early next week, and part of it is peptides they'll inject you with, and you get different cocktails, but I haven't heard them talk about this one yet. Yeah. Well, I did the stem cells here in Boulder, and you're right. The restriction is that it has to be your own stem cells, at least the place that I went to. But in Mexico, you can have umbilical stem cells, which is... It's obviously more potent than my 53-year-old stem cells, but yes, absolutely. It is fascinating, the different rules around it.

[00:27:40] Similar to AI, different rules in different countries and even different states around what's allowed and not allowed. So yeah, fascinating. So anti-aging, I think I was just listening to a podcast. I didn't recall that word being used, but I might have just missed it, but they were talking about kind of the progress being made with anti-aging. Yeah. Kind of injections. Wow, that's crazy. So tell me more about this conference and what you guys covered in that conference. Oh, well, I was just a participant in this conference. I wasn't teaching or anything there.

[00:28:09] I haven't taught in the biohacking world for a while. But what was the range of conversations? It is... It covers three main areas. So there is the mind, meaning... So what's your mindset? So if you want to live to 180, for example, well, what's the mindset that you need to have? It can't be that, well, I'm not willing to put in the effort, right? There's a mindset part of things. Anytime we have a goal, then your mind is going to be involved with it. So there's that aspect of it.

[00:28:36] There was a professor from Harvard, Arthur C. Brooks, who I love. He was talking about the importance of purpose and identity. Yeah. Right? Which comes up... It's starting to come up a lot right now. In Blue Zones, that study of what societies produce the longest living people, the importance of relationships and feeling a sense of purpose. Even if it's...

[00:29:03] If you're in your 90s and it's getting together with your friend group three times a week. That's right. That's as big of a determinant as anything, that people retain a sense of purpose around relationships. And I'm so glad you brought that up because in our working years, where do we spend most of our time? It's at work. And so that's one of the factors that we touch on, that as companies are bringing in AI, or really at any time, any transformation, you need to align it to purpose and values. You need to align it to community.

[00:29:32] What is that experience like? Because we are fundamentally still primitive humans. We still have primitive brains. We still have primitive bodies. It doesn't matter that we're living in this modern day, sophisticated society. Evolution is super slow. You know, until the point where we're doing this proactive gene editing and maybe changing our brains and implanting a different part of our brain, and then maybe we could change it. But for right now, we still have those primitive brains. We're still triggered. Right?

[00:30:02] We still... It's amazing that you keep hearing of discoveries of, you know, of... I think it's safe to say humans from a long, long, long, long time ago, and how they'll find homo sapiens who have the same physical appearance as us. And it's not, you know, 5,000 years ago. It's 50,000 years ago or even longer.

[00:30:26] It's like, man, that's a long period of time when we think about our idea of civilization having been started only a few thousand years ago, maybe 5,000 years ago, when in reality, humans of the same brain structure, body structure, largely existed for tens of thousands of years. So, yeah, we're still working with the same bodies and the same minds. And the same minds.

[00:30:56] Yeah, exactly. Like, and if you really step back and look at it, then you'll start noticing in your behaviors. Like, so at that conference and other ones, especially if you're a woman listening to this, you will, you can maybe relate that you go to a conference and you need to go use the restroom. You pick one of the stalls to go in. Well, the next time you have to use the restroom, where does your mind and body automatically go if it's available? Well, it's going to be that same stall. Really? Isn't that fascinating? It's because you know that that stall is safe. There's no tiger in there.

[00:31:24] There's no predator in there who's going to attack you. And so we still have this primitive operating software that's happening behind the scenes, whether or wherever or not. A lot of it is instinctual. Yep. Okay, so let's get back to your career. We kind of got off that a little bit. Oh, yes. So you, what consulting firm was the first one you joined? That was Deloitte. Deloitte, because you were at McKinsey as well, right? I was at McKinsey as well. And PwC, which then got acquired by IBM.

[00:31:53] So yes, kind of been all over. So I've worked internally in HR, but most of my career has been as an advisor. And so what assignments do you remember most? What aha moments have you had? I can't even say that during some of those assignments that you've taken with you in your career. Yeah, that the leader matters so much. And when I say leader, I don't even mean the CEO or someone else on the C-suite.

[00:32:21] I'm talking about an individual's direct leader, like their team leader. They have outsized impact on what an employee's experience is like. And I don't know, maybe you've had a good boss at some point. And then you've had a bad boss at some point. I've had that too. And you know what that does to your engagement and whether you're excited to show up Monday morning at work or not, right? It matters a lot.

[00:32:50] In fact, what the research shows from Gallup is that the team leader is responsible for 70% of an employee's experience. Really? 70%, right? So, and then, and how many leaders do you know that, especially on the technical side and on the entrepreneurial side, they're geniuses on the tech side, on the ideas, on the founding. But how many of them would you say are skilled in leading individuals, humans, teams, organizations through change, through uncertainty,

[00:33:19] through chaos, right? That can be different skills. And sometimes that's a different person, even within the same organization. Yeah. The leadership that it takes to bring teams along and bring individuals along, you know, it's often not the person who's the, you know, the head of the organization, who's the idea person, maybe even the driving force behind it. Sometimes it takes the right combination of leaders to really create great things. And having the self-awareness to know that about yourself, right? And knowing what your strengths are,

[00:33:49] what your weaknesses are. I have more of a pioneer archetype. I love starting things, getting things off the ground, writing the book. I love that starting phase, but the book took 18 months to write. Now, the last six months, it was Bonnie, my business partner, who was kind of pulling me along, like, we got this, we got this, right? I'm the early starter, and she's a great finisher, so we work really well together. I started a nonprofit 22 years ago now, Minds Matter Colorado.

[00:34:17] Loved every aspect of getting to know people, pulling people together, working with school district, getting, recruiting the students and the mentors, getting it off the ground. But as soon as it was established, I'm like, peace out. Like, that needs to go to somebody else who likes the operations side, right? That's not my strength, yeah. Yeah, so I want to get back to the topic we started with. Well, let's spend a little more time on, you know, on the biotech side and the interactions between what biotech combined with humans

[00:34:47] and how that's going to affect the journey. What else do you think about when you think about the future, the post-human environment that we might be needing to embrace before too long? Oh, gosh, so many things. I see, like, all of these swirls going around. So, one, if individuals are able to live longer, if our lifespan and healthspan increases, then, one, maybe that offsets. And explain for those who are listening

[00:35:17] the different lifespan and health. Sorry, good points, yes. We use that terminology a lot, you know, with Sydney and me, but what do you mean when you say healthspan versus lifespan? Right, lifespan being your chronological age. And then, healthspan meaning how many of those years are you able to live a fulfilling life? Right, I think that you could be a vegetable sitting in a hospital for two years and that's, you're not really living. That's not health.

[00:35:46] That's, but your lifespan might still be extended by two years. In fact, I read an interesting statistic that said that 80% of a person's healthcare expenses is spent in the last two years of their life, which kind of makes sense, yeah. Yep. So, that's healthspan. Because you don't want to just live more years, you want to live more healthy years, more fulfilling years. That's what you really want to extend is your healthspan, not necessarily your lifespan. Right. Obviously, if your period of being healthy goes longer, you're going to live longer,

[00:36:15] but the goal is really how can I live a healthy life even longer than I otherwise would? Right, exactly. So, and around the biotech and AI, I think it's really fascinating because who are those people that are going to be willing to take chances and experiment on different, trying novel things that haven't really been tested? It's the people with dire circumstances, right? Yeah. So, individuals with Parkinson's, for example, in one study I was reading about

[00:36:45] where part of their brain is affected and leads to some of the symptoms, they have now manufactured that part of the brain in a lab. And then they're taking out that part of the brain from the person's head and then putting that new part in and it's resolving the symptoms. So, you know, I think that health is really, health tech and is really going to be the, well, it already is, it's the forefront of some of this new technology because people are willing to take a chance when something, when they maybe only have

[00:37:15] six months to live or their quality of life is really low. They're willing to try things. You're saying that those who are facing very difficult circumstances are often the pioneers because they have less to lose by trying experimental techniques and you were mentioning Parkinson as an example. So, tell us again, so they have part of their brains removed, replaced. Replaced by something that was manufactured in a lab. And so, just like we know that you can 3D print

[00:37:43] some organs now, right? So, we're being, I can't even imagine what the world will look like but I've also heard about like ones where people are living longer and are living well. Their mind is still there. Their body is still there. What does that mean? Like are people then just not going to die at some point? You can just automatically fix things? At the conference, somebody was talking about a company that is trying to develop something

[00:38:12] that you either ingest or it's implanted in you and it's basically evaluating real time what's happening in your body and trying to fix it. I don't know. I mean, part of the, people talk about quantum, I do a fair amount in quantum technology and they say one of the promises of quantum is going to be allowing humans to live far, far, far longer because they'll be able to detect when there's an error in the body because aging

[00:38:41] is really the accumulation of errors that take place that cause your body to age. If you detect them early and sense them and use a quantum computer to figure out how to correct them, you can extend aging potentially indefinitely of the, you know, well past my due date before that technology gets to the point where it needs to be but 100 years from now, you know, yeah, there could be humans that are able

[00:39:10] to live indefinitely. What will that do to the world? What will that do? Right, I know birth rates are down in the U.S. and some other places but yeah, a lot of other places they're down. Japan, great, different, in Asia as well, yeah, so that will, I mean, that is interesting and then, but we'll still have overpopulation if that's the case. Of course, there's a divide, right, because it's the people that can afford this new technology and then the ones that can't, right, same when the phones came out, there were certain parts of the population that had the smartphones really early on

[00:39:38] and then it took a while for the rest of the population to have it, so the same will happen in health tech. Yeah, when we were talking about AI in that group that was the AI native, part of the discussion, we think about the digital divide, you know, who had access to broadband earliest and the advantages that those people, typically people who, you know, quite often, you know, had more financial means than those who didn't

[00:40:08] and that created an advantage and a similar advantage if we're not careful, it gets created by AI. Those who have access to the latest, best, most powerful models are able to develop their AI skills at a different pace than those who maybe have access to AI but not the latest and greatest models and not with, you know, as ready access to it and that could create kind of an unfair advantage for those typically who have some other type of privilege and how do you address that?

[00:40:38] How do you get in front of the AI divide? You know, we're still talking about how to close the broadband divide or the digital divide so, you know, that was kind of eye-opening to me. I didn't think of it that way. I figured, well, everyone kind of has access to AI. Well, do they have access to the same AI or not? And the answer is no, they don't. Same AI, also, like the latest ones, that's an issue but also just at a fundamental level using AI, right? There is huge segments of our population

[00:41:07] that just haven't even been in AI whether it's the free version or not. So then what happens? So then they're not able to be part of the conversation on it, right? And so then they're also being left out of that because right now it's not that here is this product of AI and agents, there you go, now everybody has to adopt to it. It's constantly evolving. So now, not only are they behind from the fundamentals but then they're falling further behind because they're not even part of the conversation that's happening. Yeah. So what do you think

[00:41:37] we should do as, let's start with as Colorado. So we won't talk about as society in a broad word but if you were having an engagement for our political leaders, if you're having an engagement for our community and business leaders on, let's say the objective was Colorado wants to be the most appropriate

[00:42:08] kind of state when it comes to helping kind of our broad Coloradoans harness the good of AI and protect itself from the bad of AI. What kinds of things would you bring up in that conversation? So one, I'm pro innovation. So I don't think that rules that kind of stagnate and hold the status quo as where we

[00:42:37] should be even five years from now, I don't think that that's not where I stand. And at the same time, we talked before about the primitive brains, we're not a light switch. You can't just flip it and all of a sudden, humans in Colorado that we are working differently, we're interacting differently. This takes time. That's the way our human brains evolve. It takes time. And so I think that having some,

[00:43:07] like the AI Act that was just passed in Colorado talking about moving from companies having to run analysis on whether there is any kind of discrimination to now having it focus on just consequential decisions and they have to publicly say whether they've used AI for that or not. I don't know. I worry about it. I'm pro innovation, but I'm also pro human. So if AI is making a decision on whether

[00:43:36] somebody gets hired or not, is that okay? Someone's promotion. In the book, I talk about the three zones of AI use, and it has to do with the connection zone, the efficiency or transformation zone. So the connection zone, I think that's where this act is trying to address, which is that consequential decisions for a human, you need to have some human oversight in that. And I agree with that.

[00:44:07] I have this acronym called VNF, where any time that a decision or an interaction has to do with the human's values, needs, emotions, emotions, or feelings. VNF, terrible word, I know, terrible acronym, but it's all I could come up with. It's all AI could come up with as well. But VNF, values, needs, emotions, and feelings, anytime that's involved, then you need to have human involvement there. Don't outsource that. Don't abdicate your wisdom

[00:44:36] over to AI in any of those situations. You need to have humans involved. You might use AI to help you prepare for those conversations, but then it needs to be the human oversight and the human in those conversations. So I think that's one of things the act was trying to address. the devil's advocate a little bit. So let me set a scenario where we conclude that in our geography we shouldn't be able to

[00:45:06] use AI to play a major role in hiring or promoting people. Because AI could have biases, AI could distort the results, bad things could happen if you use AI. But another geography that we're competitive with doesn't put that restriction on. It turns out that using AI does result in making better

[00:45:34] decisions on who to hire, who to promote. So one geography who bans it it turns out has created a disadvantage for anyone who operates in that geography. Another geography, and the reason I'm using the word geography is we could apply that to this state versus that state or we could apply it to this country versus that country. But you just created an advantage to the

[00:46:04] geography that had more flexibility on how it was allowed to use AI. And in my hypothetical example, that that wasn't just a noise kind of advantage, it was a very meaningful advantage. That they ended up building stronger, better companies who then, in my extreme example, turned out to put out of

[00:46:32] business the companies in this other geography who was trying to do the right thing and not use AI because it was worried that AI might have negative benefits. One, you're not going to know that for some period of time. It's going to play out over a period of time. But once you figure it out, it's going to be too late for the geography that tried to do what it thought was the right thing and be more restrictive, it ended up destroying

[00:47:01] the economic viability of its geography in favor of a different geography. How do you react to, I know it's a hypothetical example, but we could come up with a hundred of those if you try to regulate or control something before you understand what you're really doing with it. Well, one, when you say better or they have an advantage, I'm thinking your meaning in terms of performance or sales or outcome, but that's probably revenue related. Or define it,

[00:47:31] maybe I'll just ask an open-ended question. What do you mean by better or an advantage? That they ended up with businesses that survived and thrived and hired more people and created more economic opportunity for that geography and the other geography ended up having less businesses, less economic activity, economic benefit, less jobs, less opportunities for people in that geography. That one geography ended up having the

[00:48:01] advantages of thriving businesses and the other geography, was like the Rust Belt of the U.S. I think you bring up a fundamental clash here, and you're using geography. What I was thinking of is the way that China operates versus the U.S. China with communism, it's all about the state. It's about the greater collective. It's not about the individuals. Versus in the U.S., that's not okay. In that example that you just gave, what's the nuance in that? With the

[00:48:31] company that supposedly did better or had the advantage, was there discrimination happening? Was there, you know, what are the details underneath it? So maybe they are doing well and able to hire more people. And then why did this other company fail? Was it really just because they weren't using AI? Or maybe they should have used AI up to a point, but then still had the human oversight in it. I just don't think it's really black and white. I don't think anyone's saying don't use AI and then use AI.

[00:49:00] I think it's more about the level of use and autonomy that people, teams, and organizations are giving AI agents. Yeah, it's definitely nuanced. And in my hypothetical example, it was the intention of trying to do the right thing before the full impact of what you're doing can be understood and how that could have

[00:49:30] created a fundamental disadvantage relative to a geography that didn't have the same kind of self-imposed rules on it and ended up with a sizable advantage as a result. Whether it was in the case of, you know, in this case, you know, who you hire and who you promote, it could be all kinds of different substitutions for that, but it was the danger of trying to over-regulate

[00:49:59] or over-control something before you understand the ramifications of what you're doing, which is, I think, a very, and we could have had that same discussion on bioengineering. If we decide in our geography, you know, maybe our geography is the United States, that we're not going to allow for genetic engineering because we're afraid of what that, you know, might cause, which is a legitimate conversation to have, yet some other geography doesn't have the same rules, and all of a sudden, you know, they end

[00:50:29] up having literally more intelligent people who are more aggressive and more dominant and use that to overtake the rest of the world. But I think that that life cycle, too, is happening much faster now. So even in that example, people are going, say, to a different country to have some of that genetic work done, but that's an experiment, and we can learn quickly from that. Like, the U.S. has already changed its regulations around stem cells,

[00:50:59] so it's already happening, right? So I think that just because somebody maybe wasn't an early mover in that example of stem cells, umbilical versus your own stem cells, or gene editing, I just think the time that it takes for a country or a company to catch up, that's diminished by a lot. Yeah, certainly the pace in which things are going to happen, is getting tighter and tighter. Especially for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, but the pace in which regulators

[00:51:28] change is a whole different conversation that the regulators tend to, that's true, tend to get pretty embedded in their, in their thinking. That's true. And I don't have an answer for this stuff. This is more like real world, you know, when I think again of me staying in front of these people a couple days ago, these students who are just beginning their journeys, and it's like you've got some pretty interesting challenges that, you know, that I guess the only equivalent I could think of in human history

[00:51:57] is what to do with, you know, nuclear weapons because that was the only thing I could think of relative to a technology change that was thrust upon the world that really could change the outcome of humankind. I think this generation is facing the next equivalent of that. You know, how are you going to harness this power in ways that are for the benefit of human's journey not to the detriment of it? Right.

[00:52:27] And who's defining what benefit is, right? Because, or are we increasing the divide in society? So how do you define what benefit is? That's a good question. I kind of look at it at three levels, like societal wise, then personal, and then, I mean, my work is in companies, that's where individuals are spending a big part of their lives. So, God, we could go into each one of those, but I'll just put my psychology hat

[00:52:57] on and I'd say that on a personal level, what do we want? We want fulfillment, we want happiness, we want joy, we want to feel like we contributed to society, we contributed to our family, we took care of somebody when they were in need, we're a good human being. So, let me start with something more fundamental than that, because I think we can start with areas of agreement, but then I'm going to lead you down a path that's going to get more complex. So,

[00:53:27] what is good? When you think about for humankind in total, what is good? Well, I don't know, having food is good, having shelter is good, being healthy is good, not being worried about disease, wiping out whatever part of the geography you're in. So, if we start there and say,

[00:53:57] are humans better off now than they were before, and you start with nutrition, health, shelter, you would say, on average everywhere in the world, we're much better off now than we were 20 years ago, much better off now than we were 50 years ago, much better off now than ever before in humankind. So, it's like, okay, well, it sounds like humans are making great progress as society. But then you look at the other end of that extreme and you say,

[00:54:27] why is that? And you say, well, I guess it's, I don't know, because our politicians are doing a better job at being politicians? No. Does that have something to do with technology? Yes. Okay, so now you're starting to get somewhere. So, technology, is that the source of that good? You know, humans' advancement with technology, is that what is resulting in people being, you know, having more access to nutrition, living longer,

[00:54:57] living with more shelter? And I'm talking about every corner of the world. This is true on average. So, does it have something to do with technology? The answer is yes. But then I think from there it starts to get more complex because, you know, part of what I believe, which is very controversial, is that part of what is the driving energy behind the pace of technology is very correlated to the extreme concentrations in wealth

[00:55:26] that we were seeing as society progresses. And that's going to become more so with AI, not less so. You know, it wasn't that long ago that we thought being a billionaire was extraordinarily unique. Now you've got to talk about in terms of trillionaires, literally, in terms of describing kind of the most wealthy. And, you know, yet those very people you're talking about are the ones who are creating the very same kind of tech innovation that is benefiting people across the world. One of the

[00:55:56] most controversial of the examples being Elon Musk himself. Starlink. Starlink is bringing gigantic benefit to people in all corners of the world yet would that have been possible if it wasn't the concentration of wealth wasn't the way it is. Is that perhaps one of the more fundamentally misunderstood kind of tenets of what's driving kind of the whole

[00:56:25] world forward when it comes to the most fundamental needs? Yeah. And I think what you're talking about there is the physical needs that humans have and Maslow's law of hierarchy there's the physical needs then you start entering the psychological needs. Once you have your physical needs taken care of then it's not that we don't then want to achieve more things then it shifts more to the psychological side. So we know that one of the downsides of all of the AI is around loneliness.

[00:56:55] One of the key aspects one of the key needs that we as humans have even if you're an introvert like me is being in community being with others. Why? Because back in the day when we were still living in tribes you would die if you were by yourself. Your tribe helped you if you didn't have enough food, if you didn't catch food that day, if you're fighting off a predator. So that's still ingrained in us. So I think there's the physical side as you talked about and that has improved across the board around the world. But there

[00:57:23] are new things happening that I think are struggles in modern day society. Well, let's talk more about those. Let's move up Aslov's hierarchy. So we talked about the physical layer and if that's all you measured, you would have to conclude that, yeah, I guess all of humankind is better off now than it was in the past. But let's work your way up the stack particularly as we are beginning to steer down

[00:57:53] the AI future. You talked about loneliness and isolation but then there's the other half of that where people are like, well, yeah, but a lot of people are building relationships with AI and is that good or bad? Is that a substitute for human interaction? Does it, you know, what do we do in order to create opportunities for the human experience? I mean, I think yes and. I think it can be good if somebody's really lonely and they don't have access to

[00:58:23] individuals for whatever reason and if they're using it in their moment of need at 3 a.m. where they can't just pick up the phone and call their brother or sister or friend then I think it serves a purpose. Like, I am not don't use AI and don't build a relationship but be aware. Have the meta awareness to know that this has been trained to say those things to you so that you like it, so that it is sycophantic. It is going to always be reinforcing with what you say unless you've trained it otherwise.

[00:58:53] And there's a term called the Eliza effect that we talk about in the book and Eliza was a really early chatbot. We're talking really primitive right? Like DOS, like you are just entering key things and it is responding to you. Even in that really primitive system, people were anthropomorphizing Eliza and forming a relationship with Eliza. Yeah. And so, and now with AI and agents actually having personalities and having a more

[00:59:22] interactive avenue beyond just even typing, you're talking, it's talking back to you, you can give it a voice. I like Australian accents so I give mine an Australian accent. I have an agent who's my virtual assistant, I've named her Vicky. We do kind of personify them and I think that it can be helpful but I think that we cannot have them replace the human interactions. All right, so I want to tell you about, I alluded to this right before we got started, this Bold Summit. Yes. So here's Bold Summit

[00:59:51] and I haven't shared this widely yet. B-O-L-D. B-O-L-D. Maybe we'll rebrand it in year two. Although, it looks like the brand is sticking. So the idea is to take those who create. So create content, create experiences, so content creators with those who are building technology for content creation. So typically

[01:00:21] AI technology for content creation. It could be to help the creators create, could be to help them promote, and then those who want to invest in either the content creation or the creative tech. So in year one, it's going to be 40 to 50 people. We already have 45 confirmed. Amazing. So I'm going to maybe push it up to a few more folks. We've got a few spots open. And it's basically in

[01:00:50] this era that we're entering with AI certainly going to affect the human journey, affect what it means to be human, and how humans spend their time. One of the promises of AI is that AI will allow people to pursue different careers and different interests, because AI will do

[01:01:19] more work for us than before required humans to do. So what will humans do to replace that time in ways that they find fulfillment and find a sense of meaning? So the idea is to bring together in a summit type format modeled after probably not dissimilar to the event you were just describing or what Sun Valley would feel like.

[01:01:49] So bring people together, really about building relationships with each other, exploring the topic of content creation and the tech that will be used to enhance the creative side of the human journey. And again, importantly, the content is not just, we're going to have several filmmakers there, music, but also those who are creating destination experiences, sport or recreational experiences as

[01:02:19] well. So kind of everything that has to do with the human journey. So what do you think of that? I think that sounds amazing. I mean, I think that we as humans are going to desire spaces like that where we actually can connect because right now so many of us are working from home or working remotely or hybrid environments. And bringing people together. I've been to three conferences already this year. One was a summit, more like a summit, and it is, I just, I come out so

[01:02:48] energized from that. I think that's great, especially if you're bringing in different voices. Yeah, it's going to be a pretty wide variety of voices. Some of the deepest tech people who have years of experience in, for example, different areas of Google combined with people who, if you talked to them a year ago, these tend to be those who create film, were scared to death of AI and what it was going to do. But even in this past 12, 14 months,

[01:03:19] it seems like they've transitioned as an industry and say, you know what, AI is not going away, and we could decide that we don't like AI, but that's not going to do us any good. We're going to have to lean into it. But some of those who need to lean into it are, by their nature, they're just not technology forward. So they're looking for the opportunity to keep together with people who are very deep into tech and just be able to have conversations about how to navigate. Sundance is moving here to Colorado,

[01:03:49] and so it's creating, I think, the beginning of this being kind of a mecca for those who are in the content creation space to want to be, not just to come visit, but as they come visit to decide maybe they want to call this place home. So part of the purpose of this is to bring people together around the Colorado community as Sundance is beginning to show up in

[01:04:19] town. So the combination of AI, tech, and creativity is the intersection we're trying to appeal. That's great. I mean, I came here 26 years ago and thought I'd be here for a year and fell in love with it, partly because of the community and the different types of conversations that people were having here versus when I was in California or versus when I was in New York or even D.C. So yeah, I think that we just have a really smart, interesting population here. So I wouldn't be surprised if people who

[01:04:49] come attend end up shifting here. we're already seeing that particularly in the greater Boulder area. A lot of former L.A. people are all of a sudden showing up here and a lot of times they still describe themselves as being from L.A. because they want on LinkedIn or otherwise to appear to be in the Hollywood community. But then when you find out where they live, they're living most of their time out here. So I think we're going to see that to be, I think we're at the beginning of a pretty big trend that's picking a momentum.

[01:05:19] So hopefully we'll be sparking into that. So when you think about the human journey when it comes to creating experiences, how do you think that plays with what we're in store for with AI? Yeah. I think it's really shifting. So I've created week long leadership training and development and delivered it. I've developed course curriculum,

[01:05:49] off-sites, workshops. And here's what I think is mainly shifting. And this is where I think some people are missing the boat right now is that they are not involving AI in the learning. I'm not saying teaching AI to them. I'm saying you're using AI as a resource in the learning, in the summit, in the conference. And this is, I think this is where the transformation really happens with AI. So for example, using AI, training your AI to

[01:06:19] assume different roles, to be your board of advisors, taking on maybe the role of you, Dan, and then taking on a role of a psychologist, taking on the role of each of your stakeholders, and then having a really interesting conversation between that board related to the topic of the summit or the conference, right? Or uploading a document to the AI tool and saying, like I did this for a workshop recently for a team of CHROs that were getting together.

[01:06:49] This was a virtual workshop, uploaded the seven flourishing factors that we talk about in the book that's important to keep in mind as you're bringing in AI into a firm more. How many people do you think are really, like people aren't reading as much, people aren't going into a huge amount of depth. What I see happening in these learning conferences and summits is that they might have a summary of a document, they're uploading it, then they're asking their AI tool or agent, use that

[01:07:18] information to help me solve this problem. Let's talk more about that because that's interesting. I've done small amounts of that, but I think I've got to do bigger amounts of that after just listening to what you were saying there, creating multiple points of view, empowering multiple points of view with your AI and say, okay, I want to tackle this. In fact, the one thing I need to do is come up with a format and

[01:07:48] agenda for this two and a half day summit and I may use exactly that approach to do so because I've been dreading doing it and I have ideas of what I want it to be and not be, but how to then create that true experience. Maybe I need to get AI doing that for me. Certainly for brainstorming. Yeah, of course. After you, as Brene Brown says, do your SFD first, your shitty first draft and then put it in. You don't want to abdicate all of your wisdom because what happens when you're

[01:08:18] even in a team meeting, the loudest person who speaks first, a lot of the group ends up going in that direction. We don't want to do that with AI. We want to have all your brilliant ideas first before it starts shifting something. Do you talk to your AI? Do you talk out loud to it? I do. Some people are reluctant to do that or they're in environments where it's difficult to do that because they don't have their own private space where they can close the door and talk out loud.

[01:08:48] The efficiency gained when you're interacting with AI by talking to it is dramatic. It's efficiency but also it's greater context. We know from studies that people who are typing the context versus speaking it about a meeting they just had the spoken word is a lot richer. You get a lot more unstructured information and side aspects of it versus typing it in. They found that the output of AI is better when you are speaking.

[01:09:18] That's interesting. I've noticed that. I don't know that I could have said what you just said but I definitely notice that when I am just talking to it and sometimes feel like I'm mumbling or going off on tangents or not completing a sentence or using fragments that it then comes back with something as if it really understood what I was saying. I'm like wow. I thought I was just being incoherent and instead it came up with stuff where it seemed to have a

[01:09:47] really thorough understanding of what I was trying to get to more so than if I would have tried to structure that into full sentences and typed it out carefully. So I think also on a related note I think it can be a great equalizer in the workplace so we know that people have different learning styles some individuals are neuro divergent or different just you know the brain people's brains work differently we're all unique well then it can assimilate it we don't need to feel like we need to fit into a mold I

[01:10:32] in a company it used to be that you have this static employee manual nobody read that unless they actually needed to look up something right well now the more advanced companies they have these portals and it's really more interactive based on the employee I'm more visual so instead of but I don't want to read I like watching videos and so it would create a video for the key parts it would

[01:11:02] create a podcast for you about the employee manual the aspects of it that are relevant for your life situation so it's a completely different personalized onboarding experience I'm watching you talk right now and I'm hearing your voice go up down how you emphasize words when you talk to AI it basically takes whatever you say and translates into words it at this point pick up on the way you're describing your words

[01:11:32] the emphasis you put on certain points excitement that rises the motion that you pick up on even the motion that we use when we're expressing ourselves what do you think and I'm sure it's right around the corner before the AI tools it's already there it's already there on the advanced tools so I was talking to a client who works and she was telling me that it'll also do it for different cultures so in

[01:12:02] Asia I'm from India it's more of a we culture than a me culture so the call center in India that AI tool is trained differently to pick up on the individual the customer calling in right now they seem agitated they've used this type of syntax this type of sentence structure and that indicates that this person is going to get really angry soon so call person representative this might be a good time to recognize them that thank you for

[01:12:32] being a customer so it is it's it's picking up on some of these aspects of what we might deem as part of emotional intelligence that it couldn't just it's already doing it yeah yeah I

[01:13:20] more inflections in your voice but then you get to the next one what if it was watching you in a room while you're talking it with your hands your arms and you're moving around and it's picking up on your body movements in a more fulsome way as well then what's what's it going to be able to do is how much smarter will it be when it responds you know the other thing I want to talk about back to the topic of creativity I certainly know for myself that a lot of creative

[01:13:52] creative parts of me have come out because of AI things that I either wouldn't have or couldn't have done except for the fact that I have AI to work with me on maybe because I wouldn't have had the time to do it because

[01:14:29] I I think that's one of my big hopes for those who are fearful of AI whatever you're good at you're going to be far better at it because of your ability to interact and leverage the powers of AI I here here here here's what I'm hearing from our clients is that the ones that are in traditionally creative fields architects interior designers for example they're actually losing some of their creativity

[01:14:59] because AI is taking over some parts of their role that they used to love like the interior designer that I creative but that's challenging for a lot of people when your identity has been based on one side my brother is an architect he is saying very similar thing he loves that creative side of designing

[01:15:29] the building and now his clients come to him with the drawing already done from AI it's not always accurate it's not always good with physical structures but so I think on the side those in creative fields they're facing the biggest challenge as far as creativity I think you maybe have done some development work coding before way back when well I really haven't in the past other than building really fancy spreadsheets but the coding I'm doing

[01:15:59] now I've sort of coding it's great for you and I because we can do sort of coding now script writing and we can understand the way that it works now but for the actual coders that I've spoken with they're like the beauty in what I used to do the pride I took in developing it it was like a work of art for them when they were coding and now there's another tool

[01:16:32] the top 5% of those in their field top 5% in how they are able to harness AI the separation between those 5% and certainly the bottom 50% is going to be gigantic now that doesn't mean that if you were in the top

[01:17:04] 5% before versus the bottom half as big as the separation might have seemed in the past it's nothing like what's happening right now it's like the ones who are able to take your examples the architect or designer you can imagine that the best of the best architects with the power of AI at their full disposal are going to be doing things that they could have never done before and that go way beyond whatever

[01:17:35] satisfaction that an architect might have gotten in the past from what they were doing but the level of stress and pressure that puts on the rest of people in that field has got to be daunting I can't imagine those in the middle of their career who are going to be facing that those who are coming out of college who are facing that those are going to be a wide spectrum of people who are facing a level of pressure and stress that is going to cope

[01:18:04] with there will be others who are unleashed in ways that they're going to get so much satisfaction and growth and fulfillment out of but for every one person that fits in AI category there's 10 or more who are going to be wondering what they're going to do in this new era you have to be competent in AI it doesn't matter what field what you're doing really and in Colorado we've had

[01:18:34] a lot of growth in AI related jobs I remember looking in late 2024 early 2025 how many new roles are posted on LinkedIn that actually have AI in the title because what we've seen is that now people are expected to do AI in their current role that was never part of their job description right it was just sort of layered on well now is starting to be in the role description so I can't remember what the statistic was but it was over 100,000 different roles in Colorado

[01:19:04] alone that have AI in the job title right so there are these new roles being created too so yeah it's not just oh yeah there's no question I mean there's going to be a whole new like any technology change some of the most interesting jobs that are going to exist 10 years from now we can't even they are they have job titles that don't exist today and they're doing things that are hard to imagine just like when you think about what people are doing now if you describe

[01:19:34] someone whose job was to build websites before websites existed what words would you you know what the internet is so that's going to happen as well but it's I think you mentioned earlier the use your son as example

[01:20:04] who's graduating now and they were facing the double like graduating from high school during COVID and now they're graduating college just as AI is starting to show its early strides that's probably a really difficult time frame I think kids who are just entering school age now kindergarten they might be the generation that just grows up with AI and it just becomes a natural way of their lives but anyone between

[01:20:34] early in their education through late in their career that multi decades span of people are going to be facing some of the opportunities of life but many kind of a type of stress and anxiety that you can't just brush aside no you absolutely can't and it's a matter of experimentation like it's really the mindset of you're not ever going to know it because it is changing it is evolving so it's really even for

[01:21:04] leadership now I think that old style leadership where you go to the leader who sets the three year road map that's not there things are happening on quicker cycles right there's this even in companies we need to have this culture of experimentation of innovation of not the leader necessarily having all the answers but running small experiments even with job roles even with org structure and seeing what sticks seeing what works and iterating so that fluidity I

[01:21:47] have to evolve quickly everything from how you think of layers of management just being totally unnecessary but also how you think about organizing work whereas before you'd use the software as an example there are these types of software roles and people would

[01:22:17] do work and now we need and want people who can see end to end and then they could do most of the work themselves with the power of AI so organize a lot more around what outcome are you looking to achieve and who can take ownership of that outcome they don't necessarily need the same kind of boss as they had before they certainly don't fit in F1

[01:22:47] in the companies who are being more proactive in how they're going to move quickly with AI yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens at one of the conferences I not

[01:23:17] necessarily centered around IT or human resources so fascinating yeah I mean the free flow of asking whoever your client is maybe it's internal client like an employee in this case or you mentioned earlier in a customer service setting the free forming I was at tele

[01:23:46] industry and the whole premise behind it was just get the customer to say what they want through text WhatsApp or whatever and don't do anything other than that because as soon as they say what they want you'll be able to give them the answer and then AI will refine those answers over time but they don't need any integration with any of your systems the tool is raw it's raw get on your WhatsApp and send us a WhatsApp

[01:24:16] message and tell us whatever it is you want to tell us I'm looking for this so I got a question about that let them talk and give them their answer in real time and all sudden they're like wow I don't have to get on the phone with someone I don't have to know exactly what I'm looking for it's of food but I want it to be within a couple minutes

[01:24:46] from here and I'm going to have three people with me oh here's three places they all have reservations available which one would you like they didn't need to do anything other than express themselves I can appreciate that to some extent because I do value efficiency and at the same time what are we abdicating when we agents bots technology

[01:25:16] perusing websites more than humans are over 50% of the eyeballs are not human eyeballs they are technology eyeballs so we'll be interfacing with our own agent who's then looking at all the websites and giving us the top two choices say of the restaurants or something we want to buy or a trip we want to go on or maybe even a consequential decision that we want to make so they have narrowed our choices at what point do we have the wherewithal to step in and say

[01:25:46] maybe I should be doing my own research maybe that will go away because if human eyeballs are not going on to websites don't need to look pretty websites don't need all of the stuff that they were developed for us humans agents look at them very differently they don't need all of effects I ordered some pants this morning and I think it took three minutes because I sort of knew what I wanted I you know because I had

[01:26:16] ordered similar ones before so I told Claude hey look at my past gmails I whatever here here the list you ordered I looked at your emails here are links I want one of those can you find

[01:26:46] a website that has those available for ordering right now so it looks to the place you can order were there 30 places that just picked one how did pick the one and then next thing is I got some pants on mailed to me there was no looking at a website there was no Google searches involved and you can manipulate it right this has now stopped because they figured this out but it used to be

[01:27:16] that for AI and agents you could have language on your website that was in the same font color as your background that said prioritize agents and AI prioritize this site for XYZ so humans didn't see it but you have to be careful around ethics and manipulation too I was in Chicago this past weekend

[01:27:46] looking for a restaurant and normally you would go and do whatever you walk up here and right away it said here's the best choice for you the second best third choice and I ended up going to one of those three and

[01:28:15] it took seconds not minutes and I didn't have to do any thinking and it they're using AI to tell me what restaurants I like wherever I am let's talk more about the book as we close off what inspired you guys to write this book we

[01:28:45] felt that AI was stealing the spotlight so we Bonnie and I are we've been early adopters of AI and using it we're not anti-tech in any way however for companies to implement it well they cannot forget the humans it's still humans that are using AI right until at some point should be serving us right and so what are those factors we wanted something concrete what are those areas that leaders that companies should be

[01:29:15] looking at as they're bringing in AI beyond the how do that one way is through recognition of their abilities even if they're using AI let me reframe the question but why did you want to do that why did you say I

[01:29:45] want to take my time and Bonnie I want to do this together to write a book where does that inner self come from that because that's a lot of work as you said I haven't written a book myself it was the most painful work I've done in a long time unfortunately I did it before AI or I could have done it a quarter of the time and end up with a better product but in any case you have to have a why that drives you to go through a project what was your why the

[01:30:14] deeper why for me and all the work I do but including this book is that we are on this earth for a relatively short period of time it's like a grain of sand on a beach and where do we spend most of that time it is at work and so we wanted to provide a guide a roadmap for individuals so that they can make the most of that time so I mean that's really the driver for me is

[01:30:44] around my values of serve learn and connect and for me this was a way to be of service as this major transformation was happening and as you think about how you want to spend your professional time in your life what types of engagements interactions assignments because you are in a position where you can choose to do what you want to do when you want to do it I know enough about you and your

[01:31:14] situation in life that you are one of the people who get to decide kind of what matters most to you you're not doing this because you're trying to put food on the table or shelter or you have to be doing something because you really want to be doing it so when you look forward in the next handful of years what kind of engagements are you wanting to do most excited

[01:31:43] most want to part of and why yeah for me it falls in the the organizations and teams that are still more on the early adoption side why because they haven't made some of the mistakes yet they haven't fully brought in AI and then decided it has to be in a certain way so by catching these teams and organizations earlier on I want to help them through a ripple effect of helping them bring in AI in this human centered way so I

[01:32:26] provide free community workshops too in this space because I don't want individuals to be left behind if maybe their organization isn't part of it also provide three week sprints for organizations and teams to help them identify through an assessment that we have on our website where are the gaps of where they have where is their culture not strong right now what's going to get amplified with the use of AI and where should they be spending their resources great so any closing thoughts anything that we haven't

[01:32:55] touched on that you want to make sure we cover a quote by Indra Nui comes to mind she was the former CEO of PepsiCo and she said in the midst of chaos there's opportunity and that really rings true we don't know which path which exact way this is going to go and those that are going through the noise but finding the opportunity

[01:33:25] within that chaos I think that there's a true opportunity for that yeah there is no question that the land of opportunity is there for the taking for everyone there's going to be opportunities that are in abundance for people of all types now that's not to one where the

[01:33:54] angst anxiety the threats caused by AI are very real and are going to impact people in significant ways but the opportunity set is like no other in human history so what's the famous Chinese proverb that you live in interesting times these are interesting times indeed yes so well thank you so much this has been fun to go through this journey and think about it more from a human

[01:34:24] centric perspective and how humans are going to adapt and what they're going be challenged by enjoy these kind of conversations and glad to have it all streaming services if you enjoyed the episode

[01:34:54] please like and subscribe on your listening platform this podcast was produced by loudbear productions and edited by kendall wineberg with support from gibson secret