March 14, 2024 • 49 mins
This episode is a conversation between a.m. bhatt and Ben Heller about the importance of ownership and belonging in a rapidly evolving environment, particularly in the context of technology and the workplace. The discussion delves into the significance of ownership, pride, and the need for individuals to feel that they belong to a place, group, or lineage. It also explores the growing uneasiness about the changing dynamics in the tech industry and the potential impact on individuals' sense of self-worth and identity.
You can find a.m. on Instagram and TikTok at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors.
You can contact us at daepresents@mydae.org.
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Episode Transcript
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a.m. (01:34):
I'm a.m bhatt Welcome to Absurd Wisdom.
And for today's conversation, weare continuing the ongoing
series with Ben Heller, CTO ofDriver Technologies.
Let's jump right in.
So you had a topic you wanted tojump into?
Yeah,
Ben (01:48):
well just, I think the sense of the sense of ownership.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's How itapplies to.
In my case, a startupenvironment.
It is the ideal for everybody tofeel kind of this equal sense.
Of ownership.
But how do you actually functionwithout gridlock?
When everybody has a sense ofownership, right?
(02:08):
If you have ownership withoutrespecting the other owners,
then it leads to people.
You bulldoze, you go rightahead.
You implement your ideas.
Other folks don't feelrespected.
If you survey everyone all thetime.
Then you're just going to becomparing notes and you're very
seldom going to actually resultin action.
Yep.
And so a sense of ownership, buta indifferent or adjacent, but
(02:34):
interlocking spheres ofresponsibility.
Is ideally the place that youwant to end up in.
And, you know, we, we did apodcast episode, I think a
little while ago, I was talkingabout the reduction in force
that we did, which brought usfrom, I think it was at the
time, like 35 people down tosomething like 15.
And we signed that just.
Massive expansion in ownership,right?
(02:57):
Because people had to balloon,you know, here's what I'm
working on.
Here's what I have aresponsibility over.
And it wasn't just one littlecorner of the product.
It became, you know, entireproducts.
You know, we have multipleproducts that we offer multiple
platforms and someone just said,I just own iOS.
Now I own Android now.
Or I'm, I'm the entire serverproduct.
(03:18):
And Hey, I have an idea forsomething I want to roll out.
Guess what?
I did it on Saturday night andMonday morning, here it is.
And, you know, people have askedme since then and said, oh, I
think that, that must've beenreally hard for you having to
scale the team down and yeah.
It was from a human perspective.
You know, we spent a lot of timetrying to make people, make sure
(03:39):
that people landed comfortablythat their lives and their
families and livelihoods weren'timpacted.
And to that extent you.
We feel very responsible foreveryone, but the, the guilty
joy.
Behind it all is.
I am loving the sense ofownership and co-ownership
because suddenly, instead offeeling like.
(04:01):
There were a small number ofowners at the top of a food
chain, trying to pilot thiscompany that granted we've
always run fairlycollaboratively.
And I think respectfully, as faras.
Yep.
Tech forward startups go.
But suddenly now.
Every single person left is anowner.
Yeah.
There's few enough people thatis just owners interacting with
(04:22):
one another.
And we're in different enoughspaces.
That we can all own those spacesand move forward.
Which means that effectivelyinstead of having, you know, 35
cars on a four-lane road.
Now it's as though you've gotfour cars on a four lane road,
right.
You just each go as fast as youwant to go.
Eventually you're all going toturn the same corner when things
(04:44):
align, something is pushed outand it's, it's a It's a feeling
of.
Moving.
Incredibly rapidly.
Right?
But not hurriedly.
Which really ties.
I think that the earlierconversation we were having
about just how saturated are youin terms of your movement?
There is so much saturation inan environment.
(05:04):
With a low ownership and.
We'd have these conversationswith each other often say, you
know what I need, I really needfrom you.
It was more ownership.
Step up and own this product.
And it turns out the reason.
People weren't owning theirproducts is because ownership
was hard.
Ownership was stressful.
(05:26):
And if ownership wasn'trequired, why would you, why
would you take on that burden?
Why would you ever choose to ownsomething?
Other than the fact that was, isdeeply gratifying.
And I like it, but if it meanscoordinating with 20 other
people getting buy-in goingthrough the process of actually
kind of birthing something,which is difficult.
Why would you really elect?
(05:48):
Into that.
And so then when you, when youfilter a company down to only
the people who've really kind ofare self selected owners.
Because if I look at who we'releft with at the end of the day,
That that was who remained wasthe owners and critical spaces.
And so it's sort of this weirdexperiment.
(06:10):
And a microcosm for society.
If you're talking about, well,what, what would happen if we
took the city and we got rid ofeverybody who wasn't an owner,
let's only keep the people whoare sweeping their stoops.
Right.
And maybe we don't really knowwho owns what stupid, the
literal property sense, butmaybe we're just all of the
responsible people.
It's not quite utopian, but itis very much It's probably the
(06:35):
most day today.
Just pure joy.
I've seen in a, in a group ofpeople working together to build
something.
That that's shared technology.
Even though.
We're probably not We're notgrowing in the way that we were
growing previously.
We're not succeeding in themarket the way we were
(06:55):
succeeding previously, there'sbeen a bit of a dip.
Fine.
We'll get through it, but justthe act of building.
Together.
With other owners isfrictionless.
And I'm seeing it from the otherside where I've never really
reached this, the state beforeI've worked at many, many
startups in various ways.
(07:15):
And It's not something thatwe've ever really achieved.
So the question is, I think iswhy don't we do this all the
time.
You know, why, why do people notfeel comfortable stepping up?
To be in a position ofownership.
And, you know, why don't weactually, why do, why do we then
ignore it?
Right?
Why is there anybody at acertain level of, you know, I'll
(07:38):
say like white collar tech job.
Who is allowed to engage in thisspace without ownership.
I think we, you know, I know.
I'm going to mention Elon Musk,which will give you a minute to,
you can jump right in on it.
But you know, when, when Elancame onto Twitter is that we got
way too many engineers and, youknow, the way he went about
downsizing, Twitter was.
(07:59):
The terrifying.
And, and didn't make a whole lotof sense.
He asked people to print outtheir code on eight and a half
by 11, like physical paper.
And it was measuringproductivity by number of pages
of code, something insane likethat.
But I do think we've got a lotor we have a lot more people.
Sitting in positions.
Of that don't involve ownership.
(08:21):
That probably are not spendingtheir time.
Well, we're not doing I'm aservice.
In a way by allowing people.
Two.
Dedicate their days, all day,every day.
To, to work, to win like theirlivelihood, their main endeavor.
You know, the sitting at a deskeight hours a day and avoiding a
(08:41):
sense of ownership.
And so from now on, for me, thisis like, The only thing I care
about.
When I'm collecting peoplearound the us.
Is there something that you carefor and you want to tend, like
why, where is your garden?
Point me to it.
Show me what it is.
And show me how you care for it.
Yeah.
a.m. (08:59):
So I, I, I would I would look at ownership.
I do look at ownership.
In, in, in three domains.
In the context of work, right.
And consequent workplace.
So there's what, how and why.
At a sort of disease andorganization that that's, that's
gotten acute among othersrecently.
Right?
We go through cycles on this ispurpose and meaning.
And the assumption that we canhave a collective, why.
(09:21):
There've been some quote,unquote thought leaders shells.
That have pushed that.
That, that ideology and it'ssilly.
It's still in my own littleorganization of 16 people.
I have no delusion.
That everyone is here for thesame reason.
Right there, there, there arefolks who are here because they,
they value and love, but theirpriority.
The core, why right now is Ineed.
(09:43):
A place that provides arespectable income.
And the kind of schedule thatallows me to take care of, you
know, my kids or my elderlyparent or whatever it might be.
Right.
Like, Like.
Great.
You know, The organizations, Ydoesn't have to be there.
Why?
But.
The organization has anobligation.
And his self-interest in notonly inviting, but really
pushing the individuals clarifywhy the fuck are you here?
(10:07):
Right.
And so do you have ownership ofwhy you are working here?
Hmm.
The what.
Have a job.
Is not grounded on theindividuals, you know, sort of
what moves them.
Right.
What their attention is, whattheir purpose is, what their,
you know, Or worked theresituational purposes.
It's its market.
Right.
Like the, what you're workingon.
Should matter to the people whoeventually will get served by
(10:29):
this.
And if it doesn't.
Why are you doing that job?
Yeah, right.
And so the.
There's ownership there.
But that ownership isunderstanding that this is
whatever I'm doing.
It is a service to someconstituent.
And that's where I need to placeownership.
Right.
The thing that's collective forme at least is the, how.
(10:50):
There's a share.
When I say shared ownership, Imean, shared OSHA, how.
Oh, are we going to live here?
How do we talk to each other?
How do we take breaks?
How do we communicate verballywritten in this place?
I would hope.
But you know, that everyonefeels comfortable.
Like if they see somebody elseworking too hard, And say, Hey,
you got to take a day off.
That's not how we work.
(11:12):
Right.
But that's only that to me,that's ownership or somebody
sees that You know, somethingabout walking in is not inviting
is not have a sense ofbelonging.
That's not how we work.
And they just change it.
All right.
And so that's what, and so thegoing back to the, our last
podcast and last week, When Iwas talking about tea and
(11:33):
Starbucks and that, you knowWhen I was pointing to ownership
there it's, it's, it's anabsence of ownership of the,
how, how do we want to live onthis block?
All right.
Why were living on the block aseach individuals concerned?
And the society or theorganization, if we go back to
work.
Should not only invite in acertain way, should gently
demand that you clarify whyyou're living on the block or
working in the organization.
(11:54):
For your own.
A sense of satisfaction, butalso you're going to be much
more reliable in theneighborhood or in the
organization.
Right.
And then the want is acollective agreement that, that.
W w w if we are not engaged inthings that have meaningful
transactional value, We can'tserve the individual.
Why?
And live in the context of thecollective, how.
And so we have to keep.
(12:15):
Calibrating the what to whateverthe market is, marketed air
quotes, right?
So you have a very loose boneand you're using that term.
And have ownership of, of, ofcommitment to that marketplace
and constantly changing thosewhats based on.
The needs of, yeah.
And so that, that's how I wouldthink about ownership, but, but,
but to distill down.
In the previous conversationwe're having the, the, the
ownership that was missing forme was this collective sense of
(12:37):
how, how do we want to livetogether?
And then we're all owners in howwe want to live.
Hmm.
And that's absent.
Right.
It's all transaction.
Ben (12:45):
Yeah.
I mean, that's, that's what Ithink gets to me as, as sort of
an engineer where I sense that alot of the.
A lot of the output of anengineer is capacity.
And I see a lot of engineersallowing themselves.
To be represented in units ofcapacity.
And a unit of capacity.
(13:06):
In a world where we, we havethings like AI generated code.
The value of that is rapidlychanging.
And so I worry a little bitwhere there's going to be this
bottoming out of self-worth.
For any class of technologiststhat sees themselves as
represented by the value oftheir capacity, which is never
(13:28):
going to be equal to what abunch of GPU's.
Can you crank out simultaneouslyand 10 minutes.
Relative to what you can do in aweek of human capacity, the only
value is going to be in thesense of ownership or, or
becoming a steward of the codeand injecting something
(13:49):
essential of yourself.
Into the work and putting thatout there.
In a way that's an indicationof, of its human origins of the
uniqueness of the person thatcreated it.
Even if it's in small decisions.
You know, I, I tend to be on theside of, I'm not automating
(14:10):
things like code style.
But leaving that up to theindividual engineers with the
idea of being that I should beable to look at a block of code
and see who wrote it.
Not that it should be normalizedto the point of becoming
anonymous.
And, and ownership.
In the technical space.
I think is the way to fight thedevaluation of, of your unit of
(14:32):
worth.
And, and I really, really, I seethe engineers that I've worked
with, who I love and I respectand who are brilliant.
I think becoming somewhatdisillusioned with the industry
as a whole.
When they see themselves asbeing Not owners, but just
capacity for a company.
And they're actually having ahard time finding jobs.
(14:56):
When they see themselves ascapacity and not owners, because
companies are more and morelooking for someone who is going
to be.
A shared steward of that space.
Who's going to look around them.
You know, Treat it like the NewYork subway.
If you see something, saysomething.
Then someone who wants to bekind of fed pellets from the
pellet machine, right.
You know, I care, I care themost about that sense of, of
(15:19):
self-worth.
But that's not that that to meis, is I think what I really
mean by, by ownership is, isthe, the injection of that U
unique spirit into what we do,because it has to matter.
Yup.
You know, if it, if it doesn'tmatter, we should stop doing it
entirely and just let bots doour jobs.
Yeah.
a.m. (15:39):
My family is at that big.
Oh, pretty good.
Pretty large.
Yeah, I'm with you.
And, and, and Yeah, there's ascale issue, right?
So an organization of 16 or 26,maybe, you know, maybe 56,
although I think it breaks downbefore fit before that size.
That, that sense of ownershipyou can do at a wholesale level,
maybe.
But we get these organizationsof any size 500, 5,050,000.
(16:01):
You know, kind of laboring underthe delusion that we can have a
collective singular.
Y a singular sense of purpose, asignal, a sensor.
If you had a singular sense ofpurpose in your 50,000 person
organization, I will tell you,let's say you achieved it.
I will tell you, you don't havean organization.
You have a cult.
Yeah.
That is the definition of acult.
Like everybody believes theexact same thing about why.
(16:24):
It's it's hubris.
Right.
And we invite people out ofactually being owners.
By abstracting themselves intothis singular.
You know, vision of the thing,right.
Again, maybe if you've got sixor eight or 10 or 12 people and
you can, you can, you know, kindof curate it in such a way that
everybody is, you know but Ithink ownership starts to look
different as you scale.
I think.
(16:44):
Ownership looks the same as youscale, but the kind of
precursors or.
And the, and the conditions forstart to look different.
Scott (16:51):
Do you see that like, Working for startups and stuff,
do you feel like the culture ischanging now that AI is
becoming.
Not a threat, but more of a,some, you know, something you
have to think about in yourproductivity and your capacity,
like you were talking about.
And do you feel like you know,the, the same motivations are
there, like build a unicorn, getan exit, get a payout, like
(17:11):
let's do this and do it againsomewhere else.
Somehow.
Ben (17:14):
That cycle has been broken a little bit which I'm actually
glad for, because I think it'sflushed out a lot of the people
who saw startups as a get rich,quick scheme.
So I'm sort of happy.
That that's, that's taken aturn.
But at the same time, I seeengineers have a and everyone at
the company.
I have a sense of productivity.
(17:36):
I think that there is a.
This drive to feel productive.
And to not acknowledgeactivities that can be
nebulously productive.
That might have a chance atbeing extraordinarily fruitful
or it's a total bust, but thatover time, average out people
will choose the like 70%productive activity almost all
(17:58):
the time, just to have thisconsistent kind of creep.
And that drives a lot of peopleto use tools, to either code for
them, to write for them, tothink for them.
And I really don't have anyknock against using AI tools as
an extension of a calculator oran editing tool.
But when it's because you can'tengage your brain or won't
(18:20):
engage your brain, or are afraidthat the result of engaging your
brain will take longer.
Therefore, you're turning tothese tools out of fear that you
won't meet some productivitygoal that you yourself have
defined.
That's where the culture isstarting to kind of change where
I think that.
There is a sense of a little bitof a sense of panic.
And I don't know where it'scoming from, but I, I start more
(18:44):
meetings by telling people.
Let's take a beat.
Than I used to.
And I think that's becauseproductivity or the feeling of
productivity is acceleratingbecause of the use of these
tools.
The allowing us to get by gapsin our knowledge, by asking chat
GPT, to write a config file forus, instead of learning what
(19:05):
the, what the options are.
Then the next time you getstuck.
You got to go back to chat GBTbecause you didn't learn the
prerequisite of what the configfile looked like.
So you still can't bug it.
So that means you got to go backto the same tool.
So it kind of compounds.
And, you know, you have to bereally, really aware of.
When you're capitulating tothat, that sense.
(19:28):
But.
You know, the, the sense of.
Ownership, I think is differentin a startup than it is in a
large corporation.
I think large corporations dowant to have a singular vision
that they can put on themotivation poster in the lobby.
That says we're all unified.
Like to me, that's actually theopposite of ownership.
Yeah, to me, you know, ownerownership is like, ah, I've got
(19:49):
a fork in my hand, but each ofthe times, you know, these are
strong, fixed points that areoperating together, but also
individually, each one isstabbing a piece of lettuce on
its own.
And there just happened to be afixed to the same base.
That that to me is, is whatownership means and why, you
know, I have this kind of.
Guilty pleasure of, of revelingin it.
(20:13):
EMS startup environment.
And that I think is why a lot ofpeople.
Are attracted to a smallcompanies, small initiatives,
because it's the same dynamic asa rock band, you know, or each
playing this essential role.
And if one of us leaves, then itall falls apart and, you know,
There's someone's going to becontributing in different ways.
(20:34):
Someone gets to be John Lennon.
Someone gets to be PaulMcCartney.
Those are.
You know, different roles.
But the band isn't the bandwithout Ringo.
So, you know, it's gotta bethere.
Scott (20:44):
I find that a collapses into an acoustic set.
a.m. (20:47):
Just flip, flip, flip.
Let's just flip this.
Let's just take a moment andjust acknowledge that Ringo is a
radically.
Under acknowledged drummer.
Okay.
We can go back to.
Ben (20:56):
We can do a whole session.
a.m. (20:57):
How much.
People missed out what a gooddrama Ringo was sort.
But have a bunch of jokes.
I do go back to the topic.
It's it's Yeah.
I teach grad psychology.
Right?
And then the.
At some point in every classthat comes up there, there are
two things that we've been doingfor as long as I've been working
in, in large organizations.
That are complete and utterbullshit and they will never get
achieved.
(21:17):
And we still, every successivegeneration of HR goes to work on
it.
One is this issue of sharedpurpose?
It's nonsense.
It's insane.
You're not going to get acompany of 30,000 people or a
thousand people to do anythingbut simulate.
Shared purpose.
It's toxic.
It's counterproductive.
It's stupid.
Right.
And it blocks.
The path you could have toactually getting people really
(21:39):
engaged, which is individual,you know a sense of individual
purpose that can be at work in asystem.
Right.
But, but we don't know how tocontrol that.
And so therefore we keep tryingto go to, you know, And then the
second thing is employeeengagement in a related.
Work is not designed or.
Beyond engagement satisfaction.
Work is not designed for humansatisfaction.
Work is designed for humanproductivity until, until,
(22:00):
until, and unless you dismantleeconomic system.
Satisfaction is a temporarything you'll achieve before you
need to work on it again, it'sjust not designed for that.
Ben (22:08):
Well, it says finish, responding to one of the things
that that's Scott teed up.
Yeah.
You know, I think there's,there's a sense of startups in
particular.
That.
You have this model, which haseverything that you like about
what we sort of described here.
You're all unique.
You're all owners.
You're the band, but the pointof it is to grow to the point
where the whole thing fallsapart and becomes this larger
(22:31):
corporate entity that eithergets slurped up into an even
bigger corporate entity or exitsor somehow succeeds.
But.
Effectively stops being thething that you.
That you opted in for.
After one of our very firstconversations you had
recommended a Small IsBeautiful.
Which is sort of an interesting.
(22:51):
You know, mid century economictreatise.
And it is like, He touches on abit of this aspect of like, why
would you ever sign up for athing where the early stage
attracts you, but its purpose isto evolve into something that is
the opposite of what attractedyou to it in the first place.
And so, you know, I, I've kindof experienced this in, in
(23:14):
reverse where I, and this hasbeen the first time I've been
part of a company that's takenthis trajectory and it's just
been interesting to see where Icame in just before the massive
growth spurt.
Grew hugely, and then reducedsize back down to the size that
I, it turns out just reallylove.
(23:34):
Right.
And so have kind of fallen inlove with the experience in the
opposite order.
And have done this kind ofreverse, reverse sizing of the
startup journey.
And I've come into feeling likewhy, why does this so great?
All of a sudden, oh, oh, Oh,it's this.
And, you know, we, we There isno model for Orwell.
(23:56):
There is no financial model.
For a company that does thething that I think most people
would actually love.
Which is most people who I'llput a caveat, most people who
prioritize ownership.
In this way, really love.
Which is to start small and tostay small.
And to continue along thatgrowth trajectory, allowing the
(24:19):
product to grow the users, togrow the impact, to grow.
But not necessarily the team inthe apparatus.
a.m. (24:26):
There's a precedent for it.
I used to use this in early twothousands.
When I was speculating on whereI was hoping organization was
going.
And of course it didn't, itstayed the big, horrible machine
at it's always been in.
It actually has gotten morecalcified.
Not the only example.
An example is a film company.
The whole thing is, is peoplecommitted in a lane?
That come together.
(24:46):
You know, really committed way.
For six to nine months and thenbreak apart.
And then some of them come backtogether and some of them.
I'm going to be going to workfor another film production
company, right.
But, but the entire thing is abusiness.
It is.
An intact long-term business.
Take like an a24, right.
Where, where there's a real highcommitment to a certain kind of
(25:07):
quality.
And it's authentic.
And, and producers, and evensome, you know, a lot of
directors and some talent.
Certainly, you know, technicaltalent cinematographers
lighting, et cetera.
But then actors as well.
They're in this thing andthey'll work in this project,
this, this, this, and that sincemini company within the company.
Right.
Which is a film for six monthsand then break apart.
(25:30):
And then come back together insome other configuration for
another mini company as it wereright.
We played with the, the onlyplace we played, where, where I
thought we got, like had somesemblance of traction was Roche
diagnostics of all places.
And this idea of, of creatingkind of cellular pockets that
could kind of form and unformed.
But any publicly traded companythat kind of pressures it has it
just, it just, that vision willnever happen.
(25:52):
Because the primary thing isalways grow, grow, grow.
So it becomes tough, but anyway,there are, there are some
precedents for it and they allcome from, from artistic sort of
reference points
Scott (26:01):
during the Like pandemic coming out of the pandemic.
I was still home taking care ofmy dad and stuff.
The company I was working forone of those major, you.
Huge companies.
That tries to unify them arounda vision and a credo.
Sure.
So they often have been toasty.
The Hey, they offered us aCoursera, you know, subscription
for free as part of developing,you know, that kind of thing.
So I started taking Certificateprograms in worker.
(26:25):
Owned companies and thedifferent case model.
You know, case studies of onesthat have happened, ones that
are successful.
And that was the thing thatreally said, oh, maybe this, you
know, with, with the properincentives.
Both financially andlegislatively.
To can be a way to sort of takethe pride that people have in
their work and give it back tothem.
(26:46):
In a meaningful sense instead ofjust like, you know, here's
your, here's your 3% cost ofliving increase in here's your
benefit change or whatever itmight be over time.
And some of the case studieswere taking closely held
companies, family companies,like they made widgets.
I made whatever windshields or,you know, whatever it was across
the country and converting themwhen the owners of those
(27:07):
companies didn't have anychildren that wanted to take
over the company as ownership.
Going through the process ofcreating a trust that owns the
company and then the owners ofthe trust are the employees who
work there at that time andacross the board every case
study that was given to me fromboth American companies,
Canadian companies and Europeancompanies, productivity went up
(27:28):
like 10 to 20% the first year,and then continued to grow at a
rapid rate after that, withoutnecessarily expanding the
company itself.
Okay.
So it's not like they werehiring more people, but the
incentives to fill.
Positions that might've beengone through attrition.
Are there because, oh, I knowsomebody, my nephew is looking
for a job and you know, theycome in, they learn their skill
(27:50):
and, you know, might be workingon a factory floor or an
assembly line.
But.
The pride in what they're makingchanges, as opposed to like I'm
working for company X and Idon't care where it ends up, you
know, I'm just going to collectmy thing and go home.
So I think worker ownershipmight be a model to think about
it.
I don't know how it applies totech.
I feel like it applies.
(28:11):
If you're creating a productvery easily, but less likely
when you're doing a service oridea generation.
Ben (28:17):
I feel like this is like the virtuous coupling between
the two definitions of ownershipthat we've talked about in this
conversation.
And, and also our previous one.
Where, you know, literalcorporate ownership can lead to
ownership.
And in terms of the product orthe idea, or the general
progress and vision of a place.
I think what I'm trying to chipaway at generally is like, do
(28:39):
we, do we have an industry,which is the industry that
you're sending some of yourstudents potentially out into,
into the world.
Where something is about tobottom out in terms of the value
and morale of a certain type ofcontribution.
And how do you convince?
Cause I don't actually believethat the value is going to
(28:59):
bottom out.
Yeah, but I do believe thatpeople's perception of their own
value is going to bottom outthat there's going to be a
crisis of confidence in what, orwhat have I been doing?
What if I, how am I actuallyjust been generating code?
Four models to be trained onthat can now do my job.
(29:21):
Have I, has this been actually,what I've done for the last two
decades is just create atraining set.
And now I have to re-imaginemyself as, as something
different.
Or can I still feel like thereis something integral and in
what I bring to the table?
I mean, it's sort of.
I think comes down to thedifference between like a plate.
(29:41):
That's created and massproduced.
And you can get one of athousand identical plates at
Ikea.
Versus a plate that somebodymade.
And fired and glazed themselves,and it has their own perspective
and personality and character.
Do most people.
buy the Ikea plates.
(30:03):
Yeah, it's fine.
It's affordable.
You can eat off of it.
To some people have a few niceplates that are handmade, that
they really liked, that they gotfrom her friend that are their
favorite ones and that, youknow, if they always kind of
hand wash, so that's available.
Yeah, they, they probably stilldo.
Right.
But that's something that inconsumer goods, we've reconciled
(30:23):
that these two things can exist.
Side-by-side.
The Ikea plate hasn't completelyreplaced the kind of handmade.
Silverware or whatever dishware.
But we're about.
To reach this inflection pointin, in software and technology
where we're going to have tomake that distinction of maybe
there is a luxury good.
(30:45):
That is the kind of humancrafted homespun project.
And I'm starting to see wholeplatforms that are being done
entirely.
By AI.
I mean, this is you're talkinglike really like soup to nuts
web application, right?
The type of thing that yourstudents could put together.
(31:07):
In.
A weekend of hacking.
That would actually be a really,really great validation of an
idea of a product.
It would be the perfect way tosay, Hey, this is the thing that
you want to use.
Let me get some feedback.
Let's make some tweaks.
Okay.
I'm going to ask it to tweakthis part.
Now it's going to regenerate thecode.
Let's go.
But then there's a momentafterwards where you say.
Great.
(31:27):
You did it.
Now go build it.
And now learn what decisionsyou're going to make
differently.
Why it's going to force you toreevaluate all of the decisions
that were baked into theassumptions that were made about
how this product was going to bebuilt.
Can you find efficiencies?
That weren't obvious from thevery beginning.
Is it going to make youreconsider what it is that you
(31:49):
wanted to build in the firstplace as you go through and come
through this line by line andrebuild it?
So I think the process and thevalue.
It's going to change radicallyand everybody needs to be
prepared to take.
This leap together.
Regardless of what it ends up,meaning for the value of the
thing you've spent your time onfor however long.
(32:12):
And I, if you're in theownership camp, if you're the
person who's like, yeah, I justwant to get in there.
I want to get my hands dirty.
I'm curious.
I'm the CFO.
You're going to be fine.
If you're not in the ownershipcamp, if you're like, this is a
thing I do.
To exchange for money so I canbuy goods and services.
You're gonna have a much hardertime.
I think feeling like this isactually the most effective way
(32:36):
for you to make thattransaction.
For a livelihood and it's goingto be, it's going to be a real
sea change.
I think in the types of peoplewho are attracted to technology
and the reasons why they'reattracted to technology.
No.
a.m. (32:48):
There's so many.
Ways they're different.
The aspects of that I want torespond to, let me just I'll
I'll stick to the educationthing.
Yes.
And it's it's, it's not the solereason, but, but, but it's,
it's, it's one of the currentsthat has us focus.
I get.
I can only get funded.
Because of the cool technicalshit.
And it's only after they've beenwith us for awhile, as far as I
(33:10):
can tell them, that's notactually what we're doing You
know, Like that's just acontainer if it were plumbing or
if it were like, it doesn'tmatter what we're building, what
we're developing, not buildingand building implies machine,
but we're developing, you know,what's growing in this garden is
human beings who give a shit.
Right.
Yeah.
You don't get to decide whatthey give a shit about, but what
I can promise you is that theyall give a shit.
(33:31):
And so that means they're goingto be reliable.
If you, if you're willing to putthem into a space that aligns
with their, give a shitness.
They're going to be reliable.
Right.
And so the idea is to make themBulletproof from in part, you
know what you're speaking toalso to try to make them
Bulletproof from the traditionalcorporate deadening, you know,
fit in this slot.
And you know what, for as longas that goes on, In the
(33:54):
workplace, right.
As it's transitioning to whatyou're pointing to, where the
hell we got an AI to fill thatslot, you know Yeah.
And that for me, that is theonly purpose of education
actually.
The other stuff is training.
Yeah.
The only purpose of education isto, you know, allow human beings
to develop in this way, in theirown skin, in their own sense of
what do I give a shit about?
(34:14):
What do I want to give life to?
What do I.
You know, all of this, this,this, this, this kind of sense
of, of ownership of, I mean,ultimately again, walking around
on the planet.
As I own this.
Not, I have the deed to it.
I own it legally.
I own it financially, but I ownwhen I take a step, I own this.
Hmm, right.
(34:35):
Like that's actually what we'redeveloping.
I can't tell anybody that upfront because they're like, oh,
that's cool.
Move on to my next meeting, youknow?
We could fund something real.
You know,
Ben (34:44):
well, I'm an impartial third party.
If then if your investors are.
Our listening.
I think the people who give ashit are going to be the only
ones left.
I think that.
That's really what I'm saying.
They're going to be the onlyones who are still here.
I mean, this is like being inlike finance after a major,
major financial crisis, youknow, it's like, you're only
going to be still doing it ifyou really love it.
And you have something unique tobring to the table.
(35:07):
And there's a reason, right.
You know, giving a shit is, isownership.
At the end of the day, the endof the day.
And it's, but it's, it's, youknow, it's your personal version
of that, right.
And I wonder, I mean, there'sthis always be the Googles, the
Facebooks.
There, and that's fine, but I'mnot sure where they're going to
find the talent pool like that.
(35:28):
I do kind of have a questionabout, which is like, those
places really do function on alot of very intelligent people
who are fine, kind of, you know,taking their tail and plugging
it into the wall.
And I sit there for as.
And they unplug it.
I think there there's creativework being done in lots of
little pockets, but I wonder, Iwonder what's going to happen to
(35:49):
the workforce.
And most, mostly I think it'skind of exciting.
You know, We've had a fewconversations about the doomsday
scenario and my feeling remainsjust like.
Hell.
Yeah.
Let's tear it all down.
I just want to make sure thatthe people I love don't get hurt
in the process and don't devaluethemselves because, you know,
They're they're losing somethingthey've been clinging to.
(36:10):
Yeah.
I was speaking at a panel.
So yeah, Hardy yes to that thatI speaking at a panel A couple
of weeks ago.
And, and we were the last panelup there only two panels, but
then there were some speakersbefore that and Yeah.
Good people all, you know, kindof go down the line and, and.
You know, After the first, thefirst question is just, yeah.
Tell us about what you do inyour organization.
Whatever.
The first real question was Youknow, kind of what message do
(36:31):
you think you have that youthink your organization has kind
of working on?
What's the.
I said, you know, throughoutthis thing I've heard.
And so they're like, you know,business leaders, they're people
look senior HR, people, somegovernment people, some people
funding, more forceddevelopment, like is that kind
of conference?
As I do.
I I've heard, I don't know howmany people talk about the
criticality of soft skills.
For for, for, for, you know,people entering the workforce
(36:52):
and how, how important softskills are.
And I said, I've been around theorganization 30 years.
Let me translate for you.
Like nobody here is trying to doa bad thing.
Let me translate for you whatthey mean by soft skills.
They mean, will you please befucking compliant?
I mean, I didn't say fucking.
Right.
But will you please becompliant?
Should have yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Will you please be nice.
Will you please be pleasant.
Will you please beinterpersonally comfortable?
(37:15):
While you're being compliant.
Yeah through the thing we tellyou is your job.
As I said, we don't needcompliance.
You organizations, don't belike, you need.
Highly highly empathetic.
Highly highly humanistic andhighly, highly creative
defiance.
All right.
Mm, what you keep asking for?
When you say soft skills, as youwant compliant, human beings
(37:37):
will be nice to you.
You don't need that for whatyou're facing.
You need outright defiance.
That's humanistic empathetic,emotionally mature, et cetera.
Yeah.
If you're going to navigatewhat's what's already here.
It's no longer what's coming.
What's already here in terms ofthe tech waves and the, you.
And that's another way you.
You know, I'd characterize whatwe try to do here.
So, you know, we try to developkids who are gonna, you know, go
(37:58):
off into college and thenthere's the workforce.
Defiant, empathetically definedcreatively defiant.
Art.
All it all boils down to ahandful of things like just
fucking artists.
Right.
Like that go to healthy, matureartists.
Is this what we're developing?
We're going to look at theprevious, you know, body work.
I'd say cool.
Give me a blank canvas, please.
You know,
Scott (38:17):
you should've saw the faces of the people on the
panel.
I have it on video.
a.m. (38:21):
Where they were, they.
I think so.
Scott (38:23):
Manufacturing and biomed and they're just kind of like,
a.m. (38:25):
I wasn't I was looking cause I was looking out at the
audience.
I got.
I'd love to see that video at
Scott (38:29):
Rolling their eyes on.
That's great.
Ben (38:31):
Use that as a promo for this place.
a.m. (38:33):
Like an HR person.
Again, all of this.
I wound up saying this all thetime.
Like I have never met.
The evil corporate personsitting there.
I can't wait to screw up.
Is that they don't exist.
This is all everybody'soperating out of habituation.
Everybody's operating.
Yeah.
In the dream or in, in, in thehallucination, really?
It's not even a dream.
So nobody trying to do anythingbad.
We just keep perpetuating thisshit.
(38:54):
Right.
Yeah.
And, and good, healthy.
It's.
What has.
Art move forward.
Every generation, every wave ofthe movement, whether it's music
or painting or whatever it is isat some point, the thing as it
stands is so jelled and soperfect.
But the next group comes alongand says, fuck that.
And does something totallydifferent with it.
(39:15):
And everybody says, oh, And theysay, oh, that's interesting.
And then that thing gets jelledin right.
An organization is so goddamnjelled.
And they're living in thecontext of this world that is
just, just falling apart aroundthem and they keep trying to get
more and more and more jelled,more and more solid, more and
more predictable.
And it's just, it's.
It's insane.
And to get back on the topichere.
(39:37):
It's further and further andfurther removing any, any
possibility of a sense ofownership.
Right.
Where, when you were in an eraof this sort of madness, but you
did in fact stay at the sameplace for 20 years as a worker,
30 years.
You know, the IBM man, the oldkind of right.
Yeah.
You could get away with thisartificial ownership.
(39:57):
Because the design of the thingmasked.
The consequences of theownership or the lack of
ownership.
That's gone.
And so you got somebody youyou're renting people for, you
know, nine months to 36 monthsat a time.
And if you can't figure out howto tap into their ownership in
that period of time, you're justconstantly cycling through
widgets and yeah.
Ben (40:15):
Yeah, no, I mean, this isn't, this is all sort of spot
on.
It feels to me like we're righton the cusp of one of these.
pivotal transitional.
moments.
And it's weird now becausetechnology touches everything.
You know, it's not, it's notlike this is one industry that's
kind of isolated and off to theside, like it's in all of our
pockets, you know, it's going tobe in our eyewear soon.
(40:37):
It's in our cars.
It's it's, it's this totallyubiquitous.
And, you know, there's a wholegeneration of people who are
kind of finding themselves in.
As recently as like five or 10years ago where it's like, you
know, fear like someone with amixed background, you don't have
a traditional education.
You know, you can go and you canwork in software and no one's
(40:58):
going to hold it against you.
That you don't have a highschool diploma.
No, one's going to care.
You go, you build you.
You can be yourself.
You can be an artist.
You need to be kind of punk rockand it's like, it's great.
You know, it, it was just enoughof the wild west.
And just enough of this self,actualization kind of aspect,
that it was a way for a lot ofpeople just to find a home that
felt very comfortable.
(41:19):
And I think that suddenly it'slike the, the ground underneath
that.
Shifting a little bit.
And there has been a lot offolks who I just, I sense this,
this uneasiness, thisnervousness around it.
And, you know, I guess.
Before we kind of tie a bow onthis.
Yeah.
You know, we've been touching onthe concept of ownership, but
without really talking aboutlike, why ownership matters, why
(41:41):
we've been treating it as anabsolute good, but without
picking at it at all.
That's great.
And I think that there is asense of, of.
Ownership.
And pride.
There's something, there'ssomething that has kicked off
there in terms of.
I really wish I had like a brainscan of somebody when they felt
pride for some, in something,you know The last time I felt
(42:04):
like really, really proud not ofsomething that I did was my, my
wife submitted some vegetablesto the Guilford fair and she,
she walked away with like threeblue ribbons and three red
ribbons.
And.
I'm standing there sobbing.
It's like so proud of thesetomatoes.
And is this physiological,right?
It's, it's something that weshould all feel and, and it's,
(42:26):
it just takes over.
And for me, that's, it's almostlike the simplest reason of why
ownership matters is because youneed to take ownership in
something and it brings somebodyelse joy or it's acknowledged,
and it brings you joy.
It's just a really easy virtuousfeedback loop.
And, you know, that's goodenough for me.
Like I don't, I don't, you'rewelcome to pull it, pull it
(42:47):
apart even more, but there hasto be a reason why it's good and
why we're treating it as good.
And it's, it's very, it's almostlike it's it's a lifeline.
You know, you can be at a sortof absolute zero.
If you have ownership insomething.
And that feedback loop starts togenerate is generating
positivity for you.
(43:08):
It can pull you back from awhole lot, very quickly into a
positive state.
And so it's easier as a I'drather have Like mechanisms for
survival and happiness, then.
Already accrued means.
And sort of the materialsrather, like I really want the,
the means to do it rather thanthe materials and a.
(43:30):
Ownership seems like the way todo that.
Professionally and cognitivelyin a way that joins, like who
you are with what you spent yourtime doing.
The, you know, VI the idea ofjust kind of being a desk jockey
in engineering.
Or almost anything for me.
My, my reaction is like, That'sgreat for now.
(43:51):
Do what you need to do to feedyourself.
To be well cared for.
But there's gotta be anotherway.
Like, there's gotta be a way foryou to join who you are with
what you do and what youdedicate your time.
To, and, and I think that there.
We're as we come to this crisisof that in engineering, where
people are wondering.
Have I really have, have youbeen doing something?
(44:13):
Realizes that value.
The way out is going to be.
Teaching people to haveownership to create that
positive feedback loop back to asense of, of self-worth.
I don't know at what scale it'sgoing to work though.
You know, I like your, your theevery time I think about your
corporate America.
A thousand person company.
(44:33):
It kind of falls apart a littlebit for me.
a.m. (44:36):
Scale is not human.
Man.
Scale is not human.
And you cannot scale humanthings.
There's a whole different frameof reference.
You've got to bring, if you'regoing to try to engage with
these things in a, in acollective of 30,000, it does
not scale.
I just, I want to, I want tojust underline everything you
just said about, about, youknow, why ownership matters and,
and, and I would.
I don't think he would add toit.
(44:56):
I think, just say what you'resaying, but maybe in, in, in
more, you know, words that Iwould use, but I think it's
actually the exact samesentiment.
For me, the criticality of,yeah, we are home.
Like to get philosophical andexistential about it.
Like we are all strangers.
Like you land on this fuckingrock and like what, you know,
And again, we used to havenarratives and cultures, and
(45:17):
that were like, like you ownthis legacy, you own this thing.
And what's what that's connectedto is you belonged.
You belong?
You were part of this.
Not like it belong in the senseof you have a deed that you own
in that way.
But part of what you own, thisis you are owned.
Again, not in a product way, butyou belong.
(45:39):
Right.
And, and like that story I toldabout my grandfather, you know,
our last podcast.
You know that seed, like I walkaround, it sounds, I don't know.
It sounds however, it sounds,but, but my experience walking
around the planet after, youknow, A lot of personal work
and, and, and, you know,Fortunately, I think healthy
processing of early trauma ofbeing an immigrant, all that I
was like, yeah.
(45:59):
Wherever I step I belong.
That is my experience.
Like I belong here.
Like not in a transactional way.
And that's connected to own.
And I own here.
Right.
Like I own this block and Ibelong on this block.
And I own that.
And I think beyond any issues ofproductivity, if we're going to,
you know, Sort of just survivewithout just continue to devolve
(46:20):
into.
Unhealthy tribalism.
Right?
Is it the sense of ownership isconnected to something that is
really, really, really missingand has been missing for a
couple of centuries as we'vemoved along this industrial
path, really missing lollies.
A sense of, I belong.
I belong to the planet.
I belong to these people.
I belong to this lineage.
I belong to whatever it is.
I belong.
(46:40):
Like actually, but not, I've gotthe t-shirt.
Not, you know, it's not, it'snot turf.
You know, America.
The Yankees.
You know, Well, my religion,right.
Yeah.
People take that on as that, butthat's not, I belong.
That's, I'm enrolled insomething.
That's a different, a whollydifferent phenomenon.
Yeah.
But it's a, it's a placebo forthe thing that, that I think is
(47:02):
really, really critical.
Sort of a psychological,spiritual nutrient that is
really absent.
We have a massive vitamin Ddeficiency.
People walking around and wehave a really strong belonging
deficiency.
And I, paradoxically I thinkownership is, is a pathway to
that, you know, like actualownership, not again, deeded
ownership of this thing.
We've been playing with all, allconversation.
Is a pathway to a sense ofbelonging.
(47:24):
Again, I love that I was withyour kids or with a spouse where
I go, it's like, I own these, Iown these kids, but it's not
like I don't want it.
Like.
Like a car.
But connected to as belonging.
This is my place on the planet.
This is like, I belong to thesepeople.
They belong to me.
It's like that kind of thing,you know?
Ben (47:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Those are, there's areciprocation that you get from
ownership where.
Yeah, whatever, whatever youtake ownership of, kind of gives
back to you and in this way.
Yeah.
a.m. (47:49):
So that's the work kids is figuring out just how you belong
to the world.
Ben (47:53):
Do that.
And you'll be happy andgratified and all things.
And hopefully someone will hireyou.
Who doesn't hang motivationalposters in the office.
a.m. (48:16):
Thank you for listening to Absurd Wisdom.
This is a.m.
bhatt and you know,conversation, real human
conversation never actuallyends, but episodes of podcasts
need to.
So we're going to end here.
You can connect with me onInstagram and TikTok at, at
Absurd Wisdom.
You can find DAE on Instagram atdae.
(48:36):
community or online at mydae.
org.
Absurd Wisdom is produced anddistributed by DAE Presents, the
production arm of DAE, and we'llbe back with more Conversation
Beyond Understanding nextThursday.
I'm a.m bhatt Welcome to Absurd Wisdom.
And for today's conversation, weare continuing the ongoing
series with Ben Heller, CTO ofDriver Technologies.
Let's jump right in.
So you had a topic you wanted tojump into?
Yeah,
Ben (01:48):
well just, I think the sense of the sense of ownership.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's How itapplies to.
In my case, a startupenvironment.
It is the ideal for everybody tofeel kind of this equal sense.
Of ownership.
But how do you actually functionwithout gridlock?
When everybody has a sense ofownership, right?
(02:08):
If you have ownership withoutrespecting the other owners,
then it leads to people.
You bulldoze, you go rightahead.
You implement your ideas.
Other folks don't feelrespected.
If you survey everyone all thetime.
Then you're just going to becomparing notes and you're very
seldom going to actually resultin action.
Yep.
And so a sense of ownership, buta indifferent or adjacent, but
(02:34):
interlocking spheres ofresponsibility.
Is ideally the place that youwant to end up in.
And, you know, we, we did apodcast episode, I think a
little while ago, I was talkingabout the reduction in force
that we did, which brought usfrom, I think it was at the
time, like 35 people down tosomething like 15.
And we signed that just.
Massive expansion in ownership,right?
(02:57):
Because people had to balloon,you know, here's what I'm
working on.
Here's what I have aresponsibility over.
And it wasn't just one littlecorner of the product.
It became, you know, entireproducts.
You know, we have multipleproducts that we offer multiple
platforms and someone just said,I just own iOS.
Now I own Android now.
Or I'm, I'm the entire serverproduct.
(03:18):
And Hey, I have an idea forsomething I want to roll out.
Guess what?
I did it on Saturday night andMonday morning, here it is.
And, you know, people have askedme since then and said, oh, I
think that, that must've beenreally hard for you having to
scale the team down and yeah.
It was from a human perspective.
You know, we spent a lot of timetrying to make people, make sure
(03:39):
that people landed comfortablythat their lives and their
families and livelihoods weren'timpacted.
And to that extent you.
We feel very responsible foreveryone, but the, the guilty
joy.
Behind it all is.
I am loving the sense ofownership and co-ownership
because suddenly, instead offeeling like.
(04:01):
There were a small number ofowners at the top of a food
chain, trying to pilot thiscompany that granted we've
always run fairlycollaboratively.
And I think respectfully, as faras.
Yep.
Tech forward startups go.
But suddenly now.
Every single person left is anowner.
Yeah.
There's few enough people thatis just owners interacting with
(04:22):
one another.
And we're in different enoughspaces.
That we can all own those spacesand move forward.
Which means that effectivelyinstead of having, you know, 35
cars on a four-lane road.
Now it's as though you've gotfour cars on a four lane road,
right.
You just each go as fast as youwant to go.
Eventually you're all going toturn the same corner when things
(04:44):
align, something is pushed outand it's, it's a It's a feeling
of.
Moving.
Incredibly rapidly.
Right?
But not hurriedly.
Which really ties.
I think that the earlierconversation we were having
about just how saturated are youin terms of your movement?
There is so much saturation inan environment.
(05:04):
With a low ownership and.
We'd have these conversationswith each other often say, you
know what I need, I really needfrom you.
It was more ownership.
Step up and own this product.
And it turns out the reason.
People weren't owning theirproducts is because ownership
was hard.
Ownership was stressful.
(05:26):
And if ownership wasn'trequired, why would you, why
would you take on that burden?
Why would you ever choose to ownsomething?
Other than the fact that was, isdeeply gratifying.
And I like it, but if it meanscoordinating with 20 other
people getting buy-in goingthrough the process of actually
kind of birthing something,which is difficult.
Why would you really elect?
(05:48):
Into that.
And so then when you, when youfilter a company down to only
the people who've really kind ofare self selected owners.
Because if I look at who we'releft with at the end of the day,
That that was who remained wasthe owners and critical spaces.
And so it's sort of this weirdexperiment.
(06:10):
And a microcosm for society.
If you're talking about, well,what, what would happen if we
took the city and we got rid ofeverybody who wasn't an owner,
let's only keep the people whoare sweeping their stoops.
Right.
And maybe we don't really knowwho owns what stupid, the
literal property sense, butmaybe we're just all of the
responsible people.
It's not quite utopian, but itis very much It's probably the
(06:35):
most day today.
Just pure joy.
I've seen in a, in a group ofpeople working together to build
something.
That that's shared technology.
Even though.
We're probably not We're notgrowing in the way that we were
growing previously.
We're not succeeding in themarket the way we were
(06:55):
succeeding previously, there'sbeen a bit of a dip.
Fine.
We'll get through it, but justthe act of building.
Together.
With other owners isfrictionless.
And I'm seeing it from the otherside where I've never really
reached this, the state beforeI've worked at many, many
startups in various ways.
(07:15):
And It's not something thatwe've ever really achieved.
So the question is, I think iswhy don't we do this all the
time.
You know, why, why do people notfeel comfortable stepping up?
To be in a position ofownership.
And, you know, why don't weactually, why do, why do we then
ignore it?
Right?
Why is there anybody at acertain level of, you know, I'll
(07:38):
say like white collar tech job.
Who is allowed to engage in thisspace without ownership.
I think we, you know, I know.
I'm going to mention Elon Musk,which will give you a minute to,
you can jump right in on it.
But you know, when, when Elancame onto Twitter is that we got
way too many engineers and, youknow, the way he went about
downsizing, Twitter was.
(07:59):
The terrifying.
And, and didn't make a whole lotof sense.
He asked people to print outtheir code on eight and a half
by 11, like physical paper.
And it was measuringproductivity by number of pages
of code, something insane likethat.
But I do think we've got a lotor we have a lot more people.
Sitting in positions.
Of that don't involve ownership.
(08:21):
That probably are not spendingtheir time.
Well, we're not doing I'm aservice.
In a way by allowing people.
Two.
Dedicate their days, all day,every day.
To, to work, to win like theirlivelihood, their main endeavor.
You know, the sitting at a deskeight hours a day and avoiding a
(08:41):
sense of ownership.
And so from now on, for me, thisis like, The only thing I care
about.
When I'm collecting peoplearound the us.
Is there something that you carefor and you want to tend, like
why, where is your garden?
Point me to it.
Show me what it is.
And show me how you care for it.
Yeah.
a.m. (08:59):
So I, I, I would I would look at ownership.
I do look at ownership.
In, in, in three domains.
In the context of work, right.
And consequent workplace.
So there's what, how and why.
At a sort of disease andorganization that that's, that's
gotten acute among othersrecently.
Right?
We go through cycles on this ispurpose and meaning.
And the assumption that we canhave a collective, why.
(09:21):
There've been some quote,unquote thought leaders shells.
That have pushed that.
That, that ideology and it'ssilly.
It's still in my own littleorganization of 16 people.
I have no delusion.
That everyone is here for thesame reason.
Right there, there, there arefolks who are here because they,
they value and love, but theirpriority.
The core, why right now is Ineed.
(09:43):
A place that provides arespectable income.
And the kind of schedule thatallows me to take care of, you
know, my kids or my elderlyparent or whatever it might be.
Right.
Like, Like.
Great.
You know, The organizations, Ydoesn't have to be there.
Why?
But.
The organization has anobligation.
And his self-interest in notonly inviting, but really
pushing the individuals clarifywhy the fuck are you here?
(10:07):
Right.
And so do you have ownership ofwhy you are working here?
Hmm.
The what.
Have a job.
Is not grounded on theindividuals, you know, sort of
what moves them.
Right.
What their attention is, whattheir purpose is, what their,
you know, Or worked theresituational purposes.
It's its market.
Right.
Like the, what you're workingon.
Should matter to the people whoeventually will get served by
(10:29):
this.
And if it doesn't.
Why are you doing that job?
Yeah, right.
And so the.
There's ownership there.
But that ownership isunderstanding that this is
whatever I'm doing.
It is a service to someconstituent.
And that's where I need to placeownership.
Right.
The thing that's collective forme at least is the, how.
(10:50):
There's a share.
When I say shared ownership, Imean, shared OSHA, how.
Oh, are we going to live here?
How do we talk to each other?
How do we take breaks?
How do we communicate verballywritten in this place?
I would hope.
But you know, that everyonefeels comfortable.
Like if they see somebody elseworking too hard, And say, Hey,
you got to take a day off.
That's not how we work.
(11:12):
Right.
But that's only that to me,that's ownership or somebody
sees that You know, somethingabout walking in is not inviting
is not have a sense ofbelonging.
That's not how we work.
And they just change it.
All right.
And so that's what, and so thegoing back to the, our last
podcast and last week, When Iwas talking about tea and
(11:33):
Starbucks and that, you knowWhen I was pointing to ownership
there it's, it's, it's anabsence of ownership of the,
how, how do we want to live onthis block?
All right.
Why were living on the block aseach individuals concerned?
And the society or theorganization, if we go back to
work.
Should not only invite in acertain way, should gently
demand that you clarify whyyou're living on the block or
working in the organization.
(11:54):
For your own.
A sense of satisfaction, butalso you're going to be much
more reliable in theneighborhood or in the
organization.
Right.
And then the want is acollective agreement that, that.
W w w if we are not engaged inthings that have meaningful
transactional value, We can'tserve the individual.
Why?
And live in the context of thecollective, how.
And so we have to keep.
(12:15):
Calibrating the what to whateverthe market is, marketed air
quotes, right?
So you have a very loose boneand you're using that term.
And have ownership of, of, ofcommitment to that marketplace
and constantly changing thosewhats based on.
The needs of, yeah.
And so that, that's how I wouldthink about ownership, but, but,
but to distill down.
In the previous conversationwe're having the, the, the
ownership that was missing forme was this collective sense of
(12:37):
how, how do we want to livetogether?
And then we're all owners in howwe want to live.
Hmm.
And that's absent.
Right.
It's all transaction.
Ben (12:45):
Yeah.
I mean, that's, that's what Ithink gets to me as, as sort of
an engineer where I sense that alot of the.
A lot of the output of anengineer is capacity.
And I see a lot of engineersallowing themselves.
To be represented in units ofcapacity.
And a unit of capacity.
(13:06):
In a world where we, we havethings like AI generated code.
The value of that is rapidlychanging.
And so I worry a little bitwhere there's going to be this
bottoming out of self-worth.
For any class of technologiststhat sees themselves as
represented by the value oftheir capacity, which is never
(13:28):
going to be equal to what abunch of GPU's.
Can you crank out simultaneouslyand 10 minutes.
Relative to what you can do in aweek of human capacity, the only
value is going to be in thesense of ownership or, or
becoming a steward of the codeand injecting something
(13:49):
essential of yourself.
Into the work and putting thatout there.
In a way that's an indicationof, of its human origins of the
uniqueness of the person thatcreated it.
Even if it's in small decisions.
You know, I, I tend to be on theside of, I'm not automating
(14:10):
things like code style.
But leaving that up to theindividual engineers with the
idea of being that I should beable to look at a block of code
and see who wrote it.
Not that it should be normalizedto the point of becoming
anonymous.
And, and ownership.
In the technical space.
I think is the way to fight thedevaluation of, of your unit of
(14:32):
worth.
And, and I really, really, I seethe engineers that I've worked
with, who I love and I respectand who are brilliant.
I think becoming somewhatdisillusioned with the industry
as a whole.
When they see themselves asbeing Not owners, but just
capacity for a company.
And they're actually having ahard time finding jobs.
(14:56):
When they see themselves ascapacity and not owners, because
companies are more and morelooking for someone who is going
to be.
A shared steward of that space.
Who's going to look around them.
You know, Treat it like the NewYork subway.
If you see something, saysomething.
Then someone who wants to bekind of fed pellets from the
pellet machine, right.
You know, I care, I care themost about that sense of, of
(15:19):
self-worth.
But that's not that that to meis, is I think what I really
mean by, by ownership is, isthe, the injection of that U
unique spirit into what we do,because it has to matter.
Yup.
You know, if it, if it doesn'tmatter, we should stop doing it
entirely and just let bots doour jobs.
Yeah.
a.m. (15:39):
My family is at that big.
Oh, pretty good.
Pretty large.
Yeah, I'm with you.
And, and, and Yeah, there's ascale issue, right?
So an organization of 16 or 26,maybe, you know, maybe 56,
although I think it breaks downbefore fit before that size.
That, that sense of ownershipyou can do at a wholesale level,
maybe.
But we get these organizationsof any size 500, 5,050,000.
(16:01):
You know, kind of laboring underthe delusion that we can have a
collective singular.
Y a singular sense of purpose, asignal, a sensor.
If you had a singular sense ofpurpose in your 50,000 person
organization, I will tell you,let's say you achieved it.
I will tell you, you don't havean organization.
You have a cult.
Yeah.
That is the definition of acult.
Like everybody believes theexact same thing about why.
(16:24):
It's it's hubris.
Right.
And we invite people out ofactually being owners.
By abstracting themselves intothis singular.
You know, vision of the thing,right.
Again, maybe if you've got sixor eight or 10 or 12 people and
you can, you can, you know, kindof curate it in such a way that
everybody is, you know but Ithink ownership starts to look
different as you scale.
I think.
(16:44):
Ownership looks the same as youscale, but the kind of
precursors or.
And the, and the conditions forstart to look different.
Scott (16:51):
Do you see that like, Working for startups and stuff,
do you feel like the culture ischanging now that AI is
becoming.
Not a threat, but more of a,some, you know, something you
have to think about in yourproductivity and your capacity,
like you were talking about.
And do you feel like you know,the, the same motivations are
there, like build a unicorn, getan exit, get a payout, like
(17:11):
let's do this and do it againsomewhere else.
Somehow.
Ben (17:14):
That cycle has been broken a little bit which I'm actually
glad for, because I think it'sflushed out a lot of the people
who saw startups as a get rich,quick scheme.
So I'm sort of happy.
That that's, that's taken aturn.
But at the same time, I seeengineers have a and everyone at
the company.
I have a sense of productivity.
(17:36):
I think that there is a.
This drive to feel productive.
And to not acknowledgeactivities that can be
nebulously productive.
That might have a chance atbeing extraordinarily fruitful
or it's a total bust, but thatover time, average out people
will choose the like 70%productive activity almost all
(17:58):
the time, just to have thisconsistent kind of creep.
And that drives a lot of peopleto use tools, to either code for
them, to write for them, tothink for them.
And I really don't have anyknock against using AI tools as
an extension of a calculator oran editing tool.
But when it's because you can'tengage your brain or won't
(18:20):
engage your brain, or are afraidthat the result of engaging your
brain will take longer.
Therefore, you're turning tothese tools out of fear that you
won't meet some productivitygoal that you yourself have
defined.
That's where the culture isstarting to kind of change where
I think that.
There is a sense of a little bitof a sense of panic.
And I don't know where it'scoming from, but I, I start more
(18:44):
meetings by telling people.
Let's take a beat.
Than I used to.
And I think that's becauseproductivity or the feeling of
productivity is acceleratingbecause of the use of these
tools.
The allowing us to get by gapsin our knowledge, by asking chat
GPT, to write a config file forus, instead of learning what
(19:05):
the, what the options are.
Then the next time you getstuck.
You got to go back to chat GBTbecause you didn't learn the
prerequisite of what the configfile looked like.
So you still can't bug it.
So that means you got to go backto the same tool.
So it kind of compounds.
And, you know, you have to bereally, really aware of.
When you're capitulating tothat, that sense.
(19:28):
But.
You know, the, the sense of.
Ownership, I think is differentin a startup than it is in a
large corporation.
I think large corporations dowant to have a singular vision
that they can put on themotivation poster in the lobby.
That says we're all unified.
Like to me, that's actually theopposite of ownership.
Yeah, to me, you know, ownerownership is like, ah, I've got
(19:49):
a fork in my hand, but each ofthe times, you know, these are
strong, fixed points that areoperating together, but also
individually, each one isstabbing a piece of lettuce on
its own.
And there just happened to be afixed to the same base.
That that to me is, is whatownership means and why, you
know, I have this kind of.
Guilty pleasure of, of revelingin it.
(20:13):
EMS startup environment.
And that I think is why a lot ofpeople.
Are attracted to a smallcompanies, small initiatives,
because it's the same dynamic asa rock band, you know, or each
playing this essential role.
And if one of us leaves, then itall falls apart and, you know,
There's someone's going to becontributing in different ways.
(20:34):
Someone gets to be John Lennon.
Someone gets to be PaulMcCartney.
Those are.
You know, different roles.
But the band isn't the bandwithout Ringo.
So, you know, it's gotta bethere.
Scott (20:44):
I find that a collapses into an acoustic set.
a.m. (20:47):
Just flip, flip, flip.
Let's just flip this.
Let's just take a moment andjust acknowledge that Ringo is a
radically.
Under acknowledged drummer.
Okay.
We can go back to.
Ben (20:56):
We can do a whole session.
a.m. (20:57):
How much.
People missed out what a gooddrama Ringo was sort.
But have a bunch of jokes.
I do go back to the topic.
It's it's Yeah.
I teach grad psychology.
Right?
And then the.
At some point in every classthat comes up there, there are
two things that we've been doingfor as long as I've been working
in, in large organizations.
That are complete and utterbullshit and they will never get
achieved.
(21:17):
And we still, every successivegeneration of HR goes to work on
it.
One is this issue of sharedpurpose?
It's nonsense.
It's insane.
You're not going to get acompany of 30,000 people or a
thousand people to do anythingbut simulate.
Shared purpose.
It's toxic.
It's counterproductive.
It's stupid.
Right.
And it blocks.
The path you could have toactually getting people really
(21:39):
engaged, which is individual,you know a sense of individual
purpose that can be at work in asystem.
Right.
But, but we don't know how tocontrol that.
And so therefore we keep tryingto go to, you know, And then the
second thing is employeeengagement in a related.
Work is not designed or.
Beyond engagement satisfaction.
Work is not designed for humansatisfaction.
Work is designed for humanproductivity until, until,
(22:00):
until, and unless you dismantleeconomic system.
Satisfaction is a temporarything you'll achieve before you
need to work on it again, it'sjust not designed for that.
Ben (22:08):
Well, it says finish, responding to one of the things
that that's Scott teed up.
Yeah.
You know, I think there's,there's a sense of startups in
particular.
That.
You have this model, which haseverything that you like about
what we sort of described here.
You're all unique.
You're all owners.
You're the band, but the pointof it is to grow to the point
where the whole thing fallsapart and becomes this larger
(22:31):
corporate entity that eithergets slurped up into an even
bigger corporate entity or exitsor somehow succeeds.
But.
Effectively stops being thething that you.
That you opted in for.
After one of our very firstconversations you had
recommended a Small IsBeautiful.
Which is sort of an interesting.
(22:51):
You know, mid century economictreatise.
And it is like, He touches on abit of this aspect of like, why
would you ever sign up for athing where the early stage
attracts you, but its purpose isto evolve into something that is
the opposite of what attractedyou to it in the first place.
And so, you know, I, I've kindof experienced this in, in
(23:14):
reverse where I, and this hasbeen the first time I've been
part of a company that's takenthis trajectory and it's just
been interesting to see where Icame in just before the massive
growth spurt.
Grew hugely, and then reducedsize back down to the size that
I, it turns out just reallylove.
(23:34):
Right.
And so have kind of fallen inlove with the experience in the
opposite order.
And have done this kind ofreverse, reverse sizing of the
startup journey.
And I've come into feeling likewhy, why does this so great?
All of a sudden, oh, oh, Oh,it's this.
And, you know, we, we There isno model for Orwell.
(23:56):
There is no financial model.
For a company that does thething that I think most people
would actually love.
Which is most people who I'llput a caveat, most people who
prioritize ownership.
In this way, really love.
Which is to start small and tostay small.
And to continue along thatgrowth trajectory, allowing the
(24:19):
product to grow the users, togrow the impact, to grow.
But not necessarily the team inthe apparatus.
a.m. (24:26):
There's a precedent for it.
I used to use this in early twothousands.
When I was speculating on whereI was hoping organization was
going.
And of course it didn't, itstayed the big, horrible machine
at it's always been in.
It actually has gotten morecalcified.
Not the only example.
An example is a film company.
The whole thing is, is peoplecommitted in a lane?
That come together.
(24:46):
You know, really committed way.
For six to nine months and thenbreak apart.
And then some of them come backtogether and some of them.
I'm going to be going to workfor another film production
company, right.
But, but the entire thing is abusiness.
It is.
An intact long-term business.
Take like an a24, right.
Where, where there's a real highcommitment to a certain kind of
(25:07):
quality.
And it's authentic.
And, and producers, and evensome, you know, a lot of
directors and some talent.
Certainly, you know, technicaltalent cinematographers
lighting, et cetera.
But then actors as well.
They're in this thing andthey'll work in this project,
this, this, this, and that sincemini company within the company.
Right.
Which is a film for six monthsand then break apart.
(25:30):
And then come back together insome other configuration for
another mini company as it wereright.
We played with the, the onlyplace we played, where, where I
thought we got, like had somesemblance of traction was Roche
diagnostics of all places.
And this idea of, of creatingkind of cellular pockets that
could kind of form and unformed.
But any publicly traded companythat kind of pressures it has it
just, it just, that vision willnever happen.
(25:52):
Because the primary thing isalways grow, grow, grow.
So it becomes tough, but anyway,there are, there are some
precedents for it and they allcome from, from artistic sort of
reference points
Scott (26:01):
during the Like pandemic coming out of the pandemic.
I was still home taking care ofmy dad and stuff.
The company I was working forone of those major, you.
Huge companies.
That tries to unify them arounda vision and a credo.
Sure.
So they often have been toasty.
The Hey, they offered us aCoursera, you know, subscription
for free as part of developing,you know, that kind of thing.
So I started taking Certificateprograms in worker.
(26:25):
Owned companies and thedifferent case model.
You know, case studies of onesthat have happened, ones that
are successful.
And that was the thing thatreally said, oh, maybe this, you
know, with, with the properincentives.
Both financially andlegislatively.
To can be a way to sort of takethe pride that people have in
their work and give it back tothem.
(26:46):
In a meaningful sense instead ofjust like, you know, here's
your, here's your 3% cost ofliving increase in here's your
benefit change or whatever itmight be over time.
And some of the case studieswere taking closely held
companies, family companies,like they made widgets.
I made whatever windshields or,you know, whatever it was across
the country and converting themwhen the owners of those
(27:07):
companies didn't have anychildren that wanted to take
over the company as ownership.
Going through the process ofcreating a trust that owns the
company and then the owners ofthe trust are the employees who
work there at that time andacross the board every case
study that was given to me fromboth American companies,
Canadian companies and Europeancompanies, productivity went up
(27:28):
like 10 to 20% the first year,and then continued to grow at a
rapid rate after that, withoutnecessarily expanding the
company itself.
Okay.
So it's not like they werehiring more people, but the
incentives to fill.
Positions that might've beengone through attrition.
Are there because, oh, I knowsomebody, my nephew is looking
for a job and you know, theycome in, they learn their skill
(27:50):
and, you know, might be workingon a factory floor or an
assembly line.
But.
The pride in what they're makingchanges, as opposed to like I'm
working for company X and Idon't care where it ends up, you
know, I'm just going to collectmy thing and go home.
So I think worker ownershipmight be a model to think about
it.
I don't know how it applies totech.
I feel like it applies.
(28:11):
If you're creating a productvery easily, but less likely
when you're doing a service oridea generation.
Ben (28:17):
I feel like this is like the virtuous coupling between
the two definitions of ownershipthat we've talked about in this
conversation.
And, and also our previous one.
Where, you know, literalcorporate ownership can lead to
ownership.
And in terms of the product orthe idea, or the general
progress and vision of a place.
I think what I'm trying to chipaway at generally is like, do
(28:39):
we, do we have an industry,which is the industry that
you're sending some of yourstudents potentially out into,
into the world.
Where something is about tobottom out in terms of the value
and morale of a certain type ofcontribution.
And how do you convince?
Cause I don't actually believethat the value is going to
(28:59):
bottom out.
Yeah, but I do believe thatpeople's perception of their own
value is going to bottom outthat there's going to be a
crisis of confidence in what, orwhat have I been doing?
What if I, how am I actuallyjust been generating code?
Four models to be trained onthat can now do my job.
(29:21):
Have I, has this been actually,what I've done for the last two
decades is just create atraining set.
And now I have to re-imaginemyself as, as something
different.
Or can I still feel like thereis something integral and in
what I bring to the table?
I mean, it's sort of.
I think comes down to thedifference between like a plate.
(29:41):
That's created and massproduced.
And you can get one of athousand identical plates at
Ikea.
Versus a plate that somebodymade.
And fired and glazed themselves,and it has their own perspective
and personality and character.
Do most people.
buy the Ikea plates.
(30:03):
Yeah, it's fine.
It's affordable.
You can eat off of it.
To some people have a few niceplates that are handmade, that
they really liked, that they gotfrom her friend that are their
favorite ones and that, youknow, if they always kind of
hand wash, so that's available.
Yeah, they, they probably stilldo.
Right.
But that's something that inconsumer goods, we've reconciled
(30:23):
that these two things can exist.
Side-by-side.
The Ikea plate hasn't completelyreplaced the kind of handmade.
Silverware or whatever dishware.
But we're about.
To reach this inflection pointin, in software and technology
where we're going to have tomake that distinction of maybe
there is a luxury good.
(30:45):
That is the kind of humancrafted homespun project.
And I'm starting to see wholeplatforms that are being done
entirely.
By AI.
I mean, this is you're talkinglike really like soup to nuts
web application, right?
The type of thing that yourstudents could put together.
(31:07):
In.
A weekend of hacking.
That would actually be a really,really great validation of an
idea of a product.
It would be the perfect way tosay, Hey, this is the thing that
you want to use.
Let me get some feedback.
Let's make some tweaks.
Okay.
I'm going to ask it to tweakthis part.
Now it's going to regenerate thecode.
Let's go.
But then there's a momentafterwards where you say.
Great.
(31:27):
You did it.
Now go build it.
And now learn what decisionsyou're going to make
differently.
Why it's going to force you toreevaluate all of the decisions
that were baked into theassumptions that were made about
how this product was going to bebuilt.
Can you find efficiencies?
That weren't obvious from thevery beginning.
Is it going to make youreconsider what it is that you
(31:49):
wanted to build in the firstplace as you go through and come
through this line by line andrebuild it?
So I think the process and thevalue.
It's going to change radicallyand everybody needs to be
prepared to take.
This leap together.
Regardless of what it ends up,meaning for the value of the
thing you've spent your time onfor however long.
(32:12):
And I, if you're in theownership camp, if you're the
person who's like, yeah, I justwant to get in there.
I want to get my hands dirty.
I'm curious.
I'm the CFO.
You're going to be fine.
If you're not in the ownershipcamp, if you're like, this is a
thing I do.
To exchange for money so I canbuy goods and services.
You're gonna have a much hardertime.
I think feeling like this isactually the most effective way
(32:36):
for you to make thattransaction.
For a livelihood and it's goingto be, it's going to be a real
sea change.
I think in the types of peoplewho are attracted to technology
and the reasons why they'reattracted to technology.
No.
a.m. (32:48):
There's so many.
Ways they're different.
The aspects of that I want torespond to, let me just I'll
I'll stick to the educationthing.
Yes.
And it's it's, it's not the solereason, but, but, but it's,
it's, it's one of the currentsthat has us focus.
I get.
I can only get funded.
Because of the cool technicalshit.
And it's only after they've beenwith us for awhile, as far as I
(33:10):
can tell them, that's notactually what we're doing You
know, Like that's just acontainer if it were plumbing or
if it were like, it doesn'tmatter what we're building, what
we're developing, not buildingand building implies machine,
but we're developing, you know,what's growing in this garden is
human beings who give a shit.
Right.
Yeah.
You don't get to decide whatthey give a shit about, but what
I can promise you is that theyall give a shit.
(33:31):
And so that means they're goingto be reliable.
If you, if you're willing to putthem into a space that aligns
with their, give a shitness.
They're going to be reliable.
Right.
And so the idea is to make themBulletproof from in part, you
know what you're speaking toalso to try to make them
Bulletproof from the traditionalcorporate deadening, you know,
fit in this slot.
And you know what, for as longas that goes on, In the
(33:54):
workplace, right.
As it's transitioning to whatyou're pointing to, where the
hell we got an AI to fill thatslot, you know Yeah.
And that for me, that is theonly purpose of education
actually.
The other stuff is training.
Yeah.
The only purpose of education isto, you know, allow human beings
to develop in this way, in theirown skin, in their own sense of
what do I give a shit about?
(34:14):
What do I want to give life to?
What do I.
You know, all of this, this,this, this, this kind of sense
of, of ownership of, I mean,ultimately again, walking around
on the planet.
As I own this.
Not, I have the deed to it.
I own it legally.
I own it financially, but I ownwhen I take a step, I own this.
Hmm, right.
(34:35):
Like that's actually what we'redeveloping.
I can't tell anybody that upfront because they're like, oh,
that's cool.
Move on to my next meeting, youknow?
We could fund something real.
You know,
Ben (34:44):
well, I'm an impartial third party.
If then if your investors are.
Our listening.
I think the people who give ashit are going to be the only
ones left.
I think that.
That's really what I'm saying.
They're going to be the onlyones who are still here.
I mean, this is like being inlike finance after a major,
major financial crisis, youknow, it's like, you're only
going to be still doing it ifyou really love it.
And you have something unique tobring to the table.
(35:07):
And there's a reason, right.
You know, giving a shit is, isownership.
At the end of the day, the endof the day.
And it's, but it's, it's, youknow, it's your personal version
of that, right.
And I wonder, I mean, there'sthis always be the Googles, the
Facebooks.
There, and that's fine, but I'mnot sure where they're going to
find the talent pool like that.
(35:28):
I do kind of have a questionabout, which is like, those
places really do function on alot of very intelligent people
who are fine, kind of, you know,taking their tail and plugging
it into the wall.
And I sit there for as.
And they unplug it.
I think there there's creativework being done in lots of
little pockets, but I wonder, Iwonder what's going to happen to
(35:49):
the workforce.
And most, mostly I think it'skind of exciting.
You know, We've had a fewconversations about the doomsday
scenario and my feeling remainsjust like.
Hell.
Yeah.
Let's tear it all down.
I just want to make sure thatthe people I love don't get hurt
in the process and don't devaluethemselves because, you know,
They're they're losing somethingthey've been clinging to.
(36:10):
Yeah.
I was speaking at a panel.
So yeah, Hardy yes to that thatI speaking at a panel A couple
of weeks ago.
And, and we were the last panelup there only two panels, but
then there were some speakersbefore that and Yeah.
Good people all, you know, kindof go down the line and, and.
You know, After the first, thefirst question is just, yeah.
Tell us about what you do inyour organization.
Whatever.
The first real question was Youknow, kind of what message do
(36:31):
you think you have that youthink your organization has kind
of working on?
What's the.
I said, you know, throughoutthis thing I've heard.
And so they're like, you know,business leaders, they're people
look senior HR, people, somegovernment people, some people
funding, more forceddevelopment, like is that kind
of conference?
As I do.
I I've heard, I don't know howmany people talk about the
criticality of soft skills.
For for, for, for, you know,people entering the workforce
(36:52):
and how, how important softskills are.
And I said, I've been around theorganization 30 years.
Let me translate for you.
Like nobody here is trying to doa bad thing.
Let me translate for you whatthey mean by soft skills.
They mean, will you please befucking compliant?
I mean, I didn't say fucking.
Right.
But will you please becompliant?
Should have yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Will you please be nice.
Will you please be pleasant.
Will you please beinterpersonally comfortable?
(37:15):
While you're being compliant.
Yeah through the thing we tellyou is your job.
As I said, we don't needcompliance.
You organizations, don't belike, you need.
Highly highly empathetic.
Highly highly humanistic andhighly, highly creative
defiance.
All right.
Mm, what you keep asking for?
When you say soft skills, as youwant compliant, human beings
(37:37):
will be nice to you.
You don't need that for whatyou're facing.
You need outright defiance.
That's humanistic empathetic,emotionally mature, et cetera.
Yeah.
If you're going to navigatewhat's what's already here.
It's no longer what's coming.
What's already here in terms ofthe tech waves and the, you.
And that's another way you.
You know, I'd characterize whatwe try to do here.
So, you know, we try to developkids who are gonna, you know, go
(37:58):
off into college and thenthere's the workforce.
Defiant, empathetically definedcreatively defiant.
Art.
All it all boils down to ahandful of things like just
fucking artists.
Right.
Like that go to healthy, matureartists.
Is this what we're developing?
We're going to look at theprevious, you know, body work.
I'd say cool.
Give me a blank canvas, please.
You know,
Scott (38:17):
you should've saw the faces of the people on the
panel.
I have it on video.
a.m. (38:21):
Where they were, they.
I think so.
Scott (38:23):
Manufacturing and biomed and they're just kind of like,
a.m. (38:25):
I wasn't I was looking cause I was looking out at the
audience.
I got.
I'd love to see that video at
Scott (38:29):
Rolling their eyes on.
That's great.
Ben (38:31):
Use that as a promo for this place.
a.m. (38:33):
Like an HR person.
Again, all of this.
I wound up saying this all thetime.
Like I have never met.
The evil corporate personsitting there.
I can't wait to screw up.
Is that they don't exist.
This is all everybody'soperating out of habituation.
Everybody's operating.
Yeah.
In the dream or in, in, in thehallucination, really?
It's not even a dream.
So nobody trying to do anythingbad.
We just keep perpetuating thisshit.
(38:54):
Right.
Yeah.
And, and good, healthy.
It's.
What has.
Art move forward.
Every generation, every wave ofthe movement, whether it's music
or painting or whatever it is isat some point, the thing as it
stands is so jelled and soperfect.
But the next group comes alongand says, fuck that.
And does something totallydifferent with it.
(39:15):
And everybody says, oh, And theysay, oh, that's interesting.
And then that thing gets jelledin right.
An organization is so goddamnjelled.
And they're living in thecontext of this world that is
just, just falling apart aroundthem and they keep trying to get
more and more and more jelled,more and more solid, more and
more predictable.
And it's just, it's.
It's insane.
And to get back on the topichere.
(39:37):
It's further and further andfurther removing any, any
possibility of a sense ofownership.
Right.
Where, when you were in an eraof this sort of madness, but you
did in fact stay at the sameplace for 20 years as a worker,
30 years.
You know, the IBM man, the oldkind of right.
Yeah.
You could get away with thisartificial ownership.
(39:57):
Because the design of the thingmasked.
The consequences of theownership or the lack of
ownership.
That's gone.
And so you got somebody youyou're renting people for, you
know, nine months to 36 monthsat a time.
And if you can't figure out howto tap into their ownership in
that period of time, you're justconstantly cycling through
widgets and yeah.
Ben (40:15):
Yeah, no, I mean, this isn't, this is all sort of spot
on.
It feels to me like we're righton the cusp of one of these.
pivotal transitional.
moments.
And it's weird now becausetechnology touches everything.
You know, it's not, it's notlike this is one industry that's
kind of isolated and off to theside, like it's in all of our
pockets, you know, it's going tobe in our eyewear soon.
(40:37):
It's in our cars.
It's it's, it's this totallyubiquitous.
And, you know, there's a wholegeneration of people who are
kind of finding themselves in.
As recently as like five or 10years ago where it's like, you
know, fear like someone with amixed background, you don't have
a traditional education.
You know, you can go and you canwork in software and no one's
(40:58):
going to hold it against you.
That you don't have a highschool diploma.
No, one's going to care.
You go, you build you.
You can be yourself.
You can be an artist.
You need to be kind of punk rockand it's like, it's great.
You know, it, it was just enoughof the wild west.
And just enough of this self,actualization kind of aspect,
that it was a way for a lot ofpeople just to find a home that
felt very comfortable.
(41:19):
And I think that suddenly it'slike the, the ground underneath
that.
Shifting a little bit.
And there has been a lot offolks who I just, I sense this,
this uneasiness, thisnervousness around it.
And, you know, I guess.
Before we kind of tie a bow onthis.
Yeah.
You know, we've been touching onthe concept of ownership, but
without really talking aboutlike, why ownership matters, why
(41:41):
we've been treating it as anabsolute good, but without
picking at it at all.
That's great.
And I think that there is asense of, of.
Ownership.
And pride.
There's something, there'ssomething that has kicked off
there in terms of.
I really wish I had like a brainscan of somebody when they felt
pride for some, in something,you know The last time I felt
(42:04):
like really, really proud not ofsomething that I did was my, my
wife submitted some vegetablesto the Guilford fair and she,
she walked away with like threeblue ribbons and three red
ribbons.
And.
I'm standing there sobbing.
It's like so proud of thesetomatoes.
And is this physiological,right?
It's, it's something that weshould all feel and, and it's,
(42:26):
it just takes over.
And for me, that's, it's almostlike the simplest reason of why
ownership matters is because youneed to take ownership in
something and it brings somebodyelse joy or it's acknowledged,
and it brings you joy.
It's just a really easy virtuousfeedback loop.
And, you know, that's goodenough for me.
Like I don't, I don't, you'rewelcome to pull it, pull it
(42:47):
apart even more, but there hasto be a reason why it's good and
why we're treating it as good.
And it's, it's very, it's almostlike it's it's a lifeline.
You know, you can be at a sortof absolute zero.
If you have ownership insomething.
And that feedback loop starts togenerate is generating
positivity for you.
(43:08):
It can pull you back from awhole lot, very quickly into a
positive state.
And so it's easier as a I'drather have Like mechanisms for
survival and happiness, then.
Already accrued means.
And sort of the materialsrather, like I really want the,
the means to do it rather thanthe materials and a.
(43:30):
Ownership seems like the way todo that.
Professionally and cognitivelyin a way that joins, like who
you are with what you spent yourtime doing.
The, you know, VI the idea ofjust kind of being a desk jockey
in engineering.
Or almost anything for me.
My, my reaction is like, That'sgreat for now.
(43:51):
Do what you need to do to feedyourself.
To be well cared for.
But there's gotta be anotherway.
Like, there's gotta be a way foryou to join who you are with
what you do and what youdedicate your time.
To, and, and I think that there.
We're as we come to this crisisof that in engineering, where
people are wondering.
Have I really have, have youbeen doing something?
(44:13):
Realizes that value.
The way out is going to be.
Teaching people to haveownership to create that
positive feedback loop back to asense of, of self-worth.
I don't know at what scale it'sgoing to work though.
You know, I like your, your theevery time I think about your
corporate America.
A thousand person company.
(44:33):
It kind of falls apart a littlebit for me.
a.m. (44:36):
Scale is not human.
Man.
Scale is not human.
And you cannot scale humanthings.
There's a whole different frameof reference.
You've got to bring, if you'regoing to try to engage with
these things in a, in acollective of 30,000, it does
not scale.
I just, I want to, I want tojust underline everything you
just said about, about, youknow, why ownership matters and,
and, and I would.
I don't think he would add toit.
(44:56):
I think, just say what you'resaying, but maybe in, in, in
more, you know, words that Iwould use, but I think it's
actually the exact samesentiment.
For me, the criticality of,yeah, we are home.
Like to get philosophical andexistential about it.
Like we are all strangers.
Like you land on this fuckingrock and like what, you know,
And again, we used to havenarratives and cultures, and
(45:17):
that were like, like you ownthis legacy, you own this thing.
And what's what that's connectedto is you belonged.
You belong?
You were part of this.
Not like it belong in the senseof you have a deed that you own
in that way.
But part of what you own, thisis you are owned.
Again, not in a product way, butyou belong.
(45:39):
Right.
And, and like that story I toldabout my grandfather, you know,
our last podcast.
You know that seed, like I walkaround, it sounds, I don't know.
It sounds however, it sounds,but, but my experience walking
around the planet after, youknow, A lot of personal work
and, and, and, you know,Fortunately, I think healthy
processing of early trauma ofbeing an immigrant, all that I
was like, yeah.
(45:59):
Wherever I step I belong.
That is my experience.
Like I belong here.
Like not in a transactional way.
And that's connected to own.
And I own here.
Right.
Like I own this block and Ibelong on this block.
And I own that.
And I think beyond any issues ofproductivity, if we're going to,
you know, Sort of just survivewithout just continue to devolve
(46:20):
into.
Unhealthy tribalism.
Right?
Is it the sense of ownership isconnected to something that is
really, really, really missingand has been missing for a
couple of centuries as we'vemoved along this industrial
path, really missing lollies.
A sense of, I belong.
I belong to the planet.
I belong to these people.
I belong to this lineage.
I belong to whatever it is.
I belong.
(46:40):
Like actually, but not, I've gotthe t-shirt.
Not, you know, it's not, it'snot turf.
You know, America.
The Yankees.
You know, Well, my religion,right.
Yeah.
People take that on as that, butthat's not, I belong.
That's, I'm enrolled insomething.
That's a different, a whollydifferent phenomenon.
Yeah.
But it's a, it's a placebo forthe thing that, that I think is
(47:02):
really, really critical.
Sort of a psychological,spiritual nutrient that is
really absent.
We have a massive vitamin Ddeficiency.
People walking around and wehave a really strong belonging
deficiency.
And I, paradoxically I thinkownership is, is a pathway to
that, you know, like actualownership, not again, deeded
ownership of this thing.
We've been playing with all, allconversation.
Is a pathway to a sense ofbelonging.
(47:24):
Again, I love that I was withyour kids or with a spouse where
I go, it's like, I own these, Iown these kids, but it's not
like I don't want it.
Like.
Like a car.
But connected to as belonging.
This is my place on the planet.
This is like, I belong to thesepeople.
They belong to me.
It's like that kind of thing,you know?
Ben (47:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Those are, there's areciprocation that you get from
ownership where.
Yeah, whatever, whatever youtake ownership of, kind of gives
back to you and in this way.
Yeah.
a.m. (47:49):
So that's the work kids is figuring out just how you belong
to the world.
Ben (47:53):
Do that.
And you'll be happy andgratified and all things.
And hopefully someone will hireyou.
Who doesn't hang motivationalposters in the office.
a.m. (48:16):
Thank you for listening to Absurd Wisdom.
This is a.m.
bhatt and you know,conversation, real human
conversation never actuallyends, but episodes of podcasts
need to.
So we're going to end here.
You can connect with me onInstagram and TikTok at, at
Absurd Wisdom.
You can find DAE on Instagram atdae.
(48:36):
community or online at mydae.
org.
Absurd Wisdom is produced anddistributed by DAE Presents, the
production arm of DAE, and we'llbe back with more Conversation
Beyond Understanding nextThursday.
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