March 31, 2025 • 30 mins
What if improving company profits and creating a more diverse workforce weren't competing goals but complementary ones? Paolo Gaudiano, founder of DEI tech company Aleria, flips conventional wisdom on its head with his revolutionary approach to workplace inclusion.
With advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and neuroscience, Paolo brings a unique analytical perspective to diversity challenges. "I like to joke that I'm the white elephant in the room," he shares, acknowledging his unusual position as a white, cisgender, heterosexual man working in DEI. Yet this perspective, combined with his computational expertise, has allowed him to develop groundbreaking methodologies for measuring inclusion and its financial impact.
Paolo's mantra—"inclusion is what you do and diversity is what you get"—perfectly encapsulates his philosophy. Rather than focusing primarily on diversity metrics, which can create zero-sum game perceptions and fuel backlash, his approach prioritizes building inclusive environments where everyone can succeed. This subtle shift produces dramatic results: companies naturally become more diverse while avoiding the perception of discrimination or favoritism.
The financial stakes couldn't be higher. Through Aleria's innovative calculator, Paolo has demonstrated that companies typically lose 20-30% of their net profits through poor inclusion practices. By measuring how different identity groups experience the workplace and quantifying the productivity and turnover costs associated with exclusionary behaviors, organizations can make data-driven decisions about inclusion initiatives with clear ROI.
Paolo's book, "Measuring Inclusion: Higher Profits and Happier People Without Guesswork or Backlash," provides a blueprint for this revolutionary approach. In an era where DEI efforts face political scrutiny and corporate hesitation, his methodology offers a path forward that transcends political divides by focusing on universal business goals and human needs.
Ready to transform your approach to workplace inclusion while boosting your bottom line? Discover how treating all employees equally isn't just the right thing to do—it's also the profitable thing to do.
www.aleria.com
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with
Curveball, if you believe youcan achieve.
Welcome to the Living the Dreamwith Curveball Podcast, a show
where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
(00:23):
I interview guests that teach,motivate and inspire.
Today, we're going to betalking about DEI, as I am
joined by the founder of Illyria, paolo Gardiano.
Paolo founded this companybecause he wants to help
business owners realize thatthey can make more money by
(00:46):
including, you know, being moreinclusive and having more
happier and diverse employees.
Elyria is a DEI tech company.
Paolo has advanced degrees inaerospace engineering as well as
neuroscience, and he says hejokes.
(01:07):
You know that he has alreadywent through rocket science and,
you know, performed that beforecoming to the complex problem
of helping these businessleaders realize that they can
make money by, you know, beinginclusive and including
diversity in their workforce.
(01:28):
So we're going to be talking toPaolo about everything that
he's up to.
So, paolo, thank you so muchfor joining me today.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you, Curtis.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Why don't you start off by telling everybody a
little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So I like to joke with people and you know in all
you can't see me, but I'm awhite guy, cisgender,
heterosexual, born and raised inItaly, but I came here as a
teenager.
So I feel like I'm very much amember of the privileged
majority of this country, if youwill, and so I always joke with
people.
I'm the white elephant in theroom because I'm not.
There are not a lot of peoplelike me who work in diversity,
(02:03):
equity and inclusion.
I mean, there are some.
I come at it from a veryunusual angle in that I
developed an interest indiversity and inclusion from my
first arrival to this countrywhen I saw some of the very what
I considered initially to bevery strange and very upsetting
ways in which people weretreated differently because of
their race primarily, and thenlater also realized, because of
(02:23):
gender and disabilities.
But I always felt that, as awhite guy, what can I possibly
do?
So I went on and created acareer.
I was a professor, as Imentioned in my bio.
I actually started out doingaerospace engineering for my
advanced degree, my master'sdegree.
Then my PhD was in neuroscience, but with a really strong
computational angle, and Ibecame fascinated with the idea
(02:45):
of how do you understand the waythat lots of neurons in the
brain can help you to do thingslike see or speak, or move your
hands and things of that sort?
And then eventually I moved toa different realm where I
thought well, maybe I can usethe same ideas to help figure
out how people, when you putthem together, they can do some
pretty amazing things.
And that's how, eventually,about 10 years ago, after
(03:07):
working in the space as aconsultant entrepreneur for
about 15 years or so, after Iwas a professor for 10 years, I
saw an opportunity to apply mywork to diversity, equity and
inclusion and, in particular, Ithought that there was a way to
provide a quantitativedemonstration for business
leaders that it is in factpossible for them to treat their
(03:28):
employees better and make moremoney in the process.
Because one of the things that Irealized about diversity,
equity and inclusion or backthen, 10 years ago, it was just
diversity and inclusion andbefore that it was just
diversity.
But in that space a lot of thework focuses on fairness and
justice and kind of aspirationalgoals.
But often what we need toacknowledge is the fact that
(03:50):
most business leaders care aboutone thing primarily and that is
making money for othercompanies, and I feel that a lot
of the discrimination that I'velearned about in this country
is driven by motivation, ismotivated by economic motivators
, and so I felt that if I couldcome up with a good economic
motivator to make people behavebetter, that might actually have
an impact, and so that's kindof a long-winded way of
(04:11):
explaining how I got into doingwhat I'm doing.
Both you know, my geographicalbackground as well as my
identity have really shaped thekind of work that I do.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, how do you feel like due to the current
political climate?
How does it affect your workwhen it comes to DEI?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, it turns out, it's impacting my work in a very
interesting way.
On the one hand, anybody thatis working in DEI is clearly
being impacted negatively by theexecutive orders and, more
generally, by this negativeclimate that has been created
during the backlash in the lastcouple of years.
However, because of the uniquenature of my work and because of
(04:52):
the fact that I approach itfrom a point of view of really
making things happen in amaterial, tangible, measurable
way, and I focus first andforemost on inclusion, I have a
way of saying this, that I saythat inclusion is what you do
and diversity is what you get.
Because of that, what I'mfinding is that, although some
companies are retreating,putting projects on hold, at the
(05:15):
same time, I'm gettingtremendous demand for both for
the work that we do at L'Area,but, more importantly, I'm
getting a ton of invitations tospeak at conferences, events,
corporate gatherings, someuniversities.
I've been doing quite a numberof podcasts recently, and part
of that is also due to the factthat I published a book about
(05:36):
six months ago.
It was in September of last yearand one of the things that I
discussed in the book aside fromhow you actually can manage
diversity, equity and inclusionin a more effective way.
I talk specifically about thebacklash, and I talk about the
fact that, as early as 2018, Iwas writing articles in which I
essentially predicted that thiskind of backlash was going to
(05:57):
happen, and so the work that Ido tends to attract a lot of
attention right now, because Ithink that I'm one of the few
people that comes at it from anangle that avoids the backlash.
It avoids that sense ofdiscrimination that white men
mostly white men are nowcomplaining about.
It avoids some of the legalissues that are being raised by
the Trump administration and, asa result of that, I'm in this
(06:20):
very strange situation where,yes, some work is being delayed
and I'm seeing, unfortunately, alot of my colleagues that are
having to shut down theircompanies or losing their jobs,
but, at the same time, I'mgetting a huge amount of demand
for the specific nature of thework that I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
What do you feel like DEI is a reverse form of
discrimination.
Why not?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So it's.
You know, I've had people someof my colleagues will say that
the term reverse discriminationis a bit of a contradiction in
terms, in the sense that youknow if somebody is being
discriminated against, they'rebeing discriminated and they say
, well, reverse discriminationdoesn't make sense.
But I think, conceptually, mostpeople understand that what
some people are saying.
I think that people that areidentified, as I do, as white
(07:05):
people think of discriminationas something that has been
primarily impacting certaingroups of people and others
saying, well, we've goneoverboard with DEI and it's now
causing discrimination againstwhite people.
I happen to think that a lot ofthat is completely overblown,
but I also understand why, fromthe point of view of even
well-meaning white people, itmay sometimes feel that way, and
(07:27):
one of the things that I saidand I mentioned I wrote this
article in 2018, and the articleI was writing for Forbes quite
regularly, and the article wastitled Companies Need to Stop
Focusing on Diversity Alone isthat taking kind of a diversity
first approach was going tocreate problems.
Because if you go to theemployees of a company and you
say, hey, right now we have 20%women and 80% men and I want to,
(07:52):
you know we see the value ofdiversity.
We want to, you know, achieve30% women.
Well then, clearly, it meansthat you're going to be
eliminating some of the men fromthe equation, and, even though
there are ways of avoiding that,the mathematics is very, very
difficult to avoid and itcreates a sense of a zero-sum
game, what I call, you know, thezero-sum game mindset you win,
I lose, and so when I predictedthat it was because, again, I
(08:20):
saw that the way that we wereapproaching DEI and the fact
that we were putting theemphasis on the diversity first
was likely to create theseproblems.
Unfortunately, what I've seenhappen in the last few years,
after we had this very strongwave of enthusiasm following the
murder of George Floyd in Mayof 2021, sorry, may of 2020,
what ended up happening is thatthere was so much interest in
(08:41):
DEI that a lot of theinitiatives were not thought out
as carefully as they could havebeen, and it led, unfortunately
, to some people experiencingsituations that felt a lot like
discrimination and it felt like,well, I'm being discriminated
against because I'm a white man,and that, unfortunately is.
You know, you can argue thatit's unfair for people to
complain about that.
(09:01):
You can argue that there's beenso much discrimination against
people who are not white forsuch a long time that that's not
fair.
But unfortunately, when you'redealing with the reality of how
people feel, you cannot go andtell them.
Well, you shouldn't be feelingbad just because I used to feel
worse than you feel right now.
And I think that when you couplethat with the fact that a lot
of the work in DEI has been notas clear as it could have been,
(09:25):
I would argue that if you askpeople to define diversity, you
will get pretty much the samedefinition from a lot of people.
If you ask people to defineinclusion or equity, you're
going to get ask 10 people andyou're going to get 10 different
answers.
And so what's happening in thelast couple of years is that the
conservative forces and Ibelieve firmly that there are
(09:45):
some very, very strong forcesthat are purposefully trying to
undermine the progress that hasbeen made They've taken
advantage of this lack ofclarity to insert their own
definitions in a way thatresonated with these people that
were now being confronted withissues like oh you were going to
get promoted, but we have towait six months because we have
to promote a woman before wepromote you.
(10:06):
And so they took advantage ofthat to create these definitions
that are actually, in myopinion, they're wrong.
They really go counter to whatthe AI is actually trying to do,
but unfortunately, that doesn'tmatter.
What matters is that if you havea large population that
believes these definitions andthese definitions align with
their experiences or what theyhear from their friends, then
those definitions become reality, and so that's really, you know
(10:30):
.
So, to go back to your questionis DEI creating reverse
discrimination?
Well, I think that some of thespecific techniques that people
have used to foster inclusionand diversity, and by focusing
primarily on diversity, theyhave inadvertently created a
situation in which people feltlegitimately discriminated
against.
Now, as I said, is that a validcomplaint or not?
(10:53):
That's a different story.
I think the reality is that ithas created the opportunity for
people to feel that way, andthat has led to a lot of the
complaints.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
What is next question is a two-part question.
What is the business case forDEI?
And you know why.
Why, if I was a business owner,why would I want to hire
somebody that's less qualified?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, let me start as far as the business case.
As I said, I believe that, withthe best of intentions, a lot
of people who jumped into DEI,especially after the murder of
George Floyd, did so with a deepunderstanding of the problems,
based on their own experiences,and, unfortunately, not
necessarily as muchunderstanding of how to drive
(11:40):
change within a business.
And when I hear people talkabout the business case for DEI
in the space of DEI supportersor promoters or consultants,
what I hear a lot is referenceto studies, like the famous
studies by McKinsey, thatsuggest that there are
correlations between the degreeof diversity of various aspects
(12:03):
of the company, whether it's theboard or the executive team,
and the financial, or some ofthe financial, kpis.
There are two problems withthat.
One of them is that acorrelation simply means that
two things happen together.
It does not mean that one callsthe other.
If you were a cynic, you mightargue that the fact that there
is a correlation is becausecompanies that have more money
(12:26):
can afford to hire more diversepeople, which I think it's wrong
.
But you can't argue with that,just like you cannot argue that
by being more diverse, you causethe company to perform better.
And then the second problem isthat, even if you believe that
those correlations actuallyrepresented a direct link where
diversity is causing performance, as a CEO you don't ever use
(12:49):
correlations to run your company.
Think about the way that you,you know.
Imagine a CEO saying oh, we dida study and found that, across
every product on the planet, redproducts do better than blue
products, so let's make all ofour products red.
That's just simply not the waythat you run a business, and so
what was happening was adisconnect, where DEI supporters
were arguing about the businesscase in a way that really
(13:12):
didn't make any sense to thepeople that they were trying to
convince.
The way that I discuss businesscase and the way that I prove it
is actually by showing that, asa company, if you have a group
of people that is being treateddifferently than another group
of people such that theirsatisfaction declines, what will
(13:32):
happen to those people is thatthey will be less productive and
it will also be the case thatthey will be more likely to
leave your company.
And if those two thingsmaterialize, you're losing money
because you have a portion ofyour company that is not
producing as much, and whenthese people leave, you're going
to have to pay to rehire them.
And so those kinds ofreasonings are actually much
(13:56):
easier to quantify in a way thatmakes sense to business leaders
, because they actually show thebusiness case for the specific
company, not on average overhundreds of companies, but
specifically how you run yourcompany and how that will impact
the success of yourorganization.
And then that leads me to thesecond part of your question,
which is that you know, would Ihire somebody that is less
(14:18):
qualified?
Well, and again, there I thinkthat what's happened is that it
was a combination of using thewrong wording and, unfortunately
, a few companies that tookmissteps where they literally
did that, where they literallywere unable to find qualified
candidates, but because theywanted to check those boxes,
they would hire people that weremaybe not as qualified, or in
(14:41):
some cases, they hired peoplethat were maybe not as qualified
, or in some cases they hiredpeople that were qualified but
they were not necessarily ableto succeed in the environment
into which they were brought.
And so, as a result of that, wehave a few people that come
into a company that maybeunderperform, and in some cases
it's because they're truly lessqualified.
In many cases it's just becauseof the environment not
(15:02):
welcoming them.
Unfortunately, the way that ourbrains work is that when we see
someone who looks different fromus and they behave in a certain
way, we tend to generalize toeverybody else that looks the
same way.
So if, all of a sudden, youhire a woman and the woman does
not succeed, instead of askingourselves, well, did we maybe
create an environment that madeit difficult for the woman to
succeed?
And instead of saying toourselves, well, have any men
(15:26):
ever failed in this job?
We don't do that, we simply say, oh, this woman failed.
Therefore, women are lessqualified, and so I think that
there's a fallacy in the veryquestion of asking that, and
really, it also points to thefact that focusing on diversity
is a mistake, and what youshould really focus on is on
creating an environment wherepeople are able to succeed,
(15:48):
whether they're new people thatyou're hiring or whether they're
people that are already in yourorganization.
If you make the effort to ensurethat everybody is able to
succeed, your company will makemore money, and so that's how
those two things are related,and that's why, by focusing on
the inclusion and specificallywhat a company is doing to
ensure that everybody is able tosucceed, you're much more
(16:09):
likely to have a company thatperforms better, and the company
will be more diverse, becausenow you will no longer have
these low levels of satisfactionthat causes people to leave.
And if you look at mostcompanies, when you see that
there is a low level ofrepresentation of some group,
you always find that theirretention rates are very low for
(16:30):
those groups.
So it's like a leaky bucket.
You're losing water out of abucket that's full of holes, and
simply pouring more water fromthe top is just going to make a
big mess on the floor.
It's not going to fix theproblem.
You need to figure out whythese people are leaving.
What are the conditions in theworkplace that are causing them
to be less satisfied?
And that's where this wholeidea of inclusion is what you do
(16:51):
and diversity is what you getcomes from in my book.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, speaking of your book, you know just kind of
let listeners know what theycan expect when they read it.
You know the title and wherethey can get it.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Well, the book I mean , you can find it at any typical
online reseller, like you know,of course, amazon or Goodreads
or virtually any onlinebookstore.
The title of the book isMeasuring Inclusion, because
that's ultimately what I talkabout.
But the subtitle, whichactually to me was almost the
more important part, is HigherProfits and Happier People
(17:29):
Without Guesswork or Backlash.
And, as you can see from thesubtitle, I was really trying to
hit four points.
First, higher profits, and Ipurposefully put that first,
because ultimately, I wantbusiness leaders to look at this
book as a guide on how tomaximize their success as a
company.
And how do you do that?
By having happier people, whichis the second part of the title
(17:51):
.
And then I talk about withoutguesswork or backlash.
Without guesswork, because Ipropose a way of measuring
inclusion which has not reallybeen done before, which provides
you an incredible claritythrough not just data, but a
combination of data andexperiences that people share
that can tell you, without anyguesswork, exactly what is
(18:12):
happening in your organization,how much it's costing you and
what you can do about it.
And I said no without backlashbecause I could see already when
I started writing the bookwhich was, you know, I started
writing it almost two years ago,I could see the backlash coming
and I knew that it was going tobe a big problem and I had to
ask myself do I want to write abook about diversity and
inclusion when that particularsector is on fire in a negative
(18:35):
way?
But I wanted to head that on,take that head on and I actually
write in the book about thebacklash, and I talk very
clearly toward the back of thebook.
I have two chapters one in whichI talk about what I believe are
some of the mistakes that wehave made collectively in the
field of DEI, and then the otherone I talk about some of the
mistakes that the kind of DEIopponents make and some of the
(18:58):
flawed arguments that they use,like when they talk about oh, I
don't want to lower the bar, Idon't want to hire somebody
that's unqualified, we are ameritocracy All of those
concepts.
They sound appealing but they'reactually deeply flawed and I
help people to see why and howthey're deeply flawed.
And so the book as a whole.
Really it's a combination oftelling about how I came into
(19:19):
this work, talking about exactlywhat I mean by inclusion, how
you can measure inclusion,showing some case studies with a
variety of companies andorganizations for whom we've
done some of the work ofmeasuring inclusion, then
sharing some of the data thatwe've collected and the stories
that we've heard as part of thedata that we collect, and then
we have again those two chapterswhere I talk about some of the
(19:40):
problems and the flawedassumptions before concluding
the book.
So it's really meant to be acombination of introducing an
entirely new way to do something, but it's also really a very,
very different way to thinkabout diversity, equity and
inclusion.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, tell us about any upcoming projects.
Oh well, before we get to that,you know, tell us about your
company, aleria.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Aleria is a it's a public benefit corporation,
which means that we are afor-profit company, but as part
of our bylaws we have a missionstatement.
That which means that we are afor-profit company, but as part
of our bylaws we have a missionstatement that talks about the
importance of diversity, equityand inclusion.
So you would describe it as amission-driven for-profit.
And when I started the company,my background, as I mentioned,
(20:26):
was a lot of.
It was engineering, computers,neuroscience and I have this
approach of building computersimulations that literally
replicate the day-to-dayexperiences, in this case of
people in the workplace, tounderstand how the people and
their interactions ultimatelylead to what the company is
doing as a whole and, conversely, how the way the company
(20:48):
behaves impacts the peoplewithin it.
And so the company, initially,was supposed to develop software
to help make strategicdecisions for leaders about how
to manage their personnel withan eye to diversity, equity and
inclusion.
But as I started to do thatwork, I realized that I felt
like I was building a spacestation for people still riding
their bicycles down on Earth andthat we were still really far
(21:10):
behind in understanding some ofthese concepts.
And along the way, one of thethings that I realized is that
measuring diversity alone wasnot sufficient, and I needed to
understand not just how manyblack people, how many people
you know, how many LGBTQ pluspeople, how many people with
disabilities, how many women.
That was not enough.
I need to know how are thesepeople experiencing the
workplace as a function of theirthe workplace as a function of
(21:33):
their identity and as a functionof how everybody else is
behaving around them.
And so we came up with this wayof collecting information and
realized very quickly thatessentially that's what we were
doing.
We were measuring inclusionLiterally.
We're actually measuringexclusion, if you will, although
that's not entirely correct,but we're measuring experiences
in the workplace, and then we'reusing the data to tell us where
the company's being more orless inclusive.
(21:54):
And so that's what Aleria doesprimarily, although, as I
mentioned earlier, we are doingthese days a lot of training.
I do a lot of public speaking,we do webinars.
We also offer these what wecall inclusive leadership
training and inclusivemanagement training, and we're
seeing a lot of demand for that,precisely because people are
(22:15):
scrambling and trying to figureout what to do.
But so think of Aleria as acombination of a technology
company that has a platform tocollect and use inclusion data,
but also as an educationalplatform for people to learn
about a new way to think aboutdiversity, equity and inclusion
that really avoids a lot of thebacklash and a lot of the
problems that we've seen in thepast.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you
and your company are working onthat listeners need to be aware
of.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
One of the things that we did about a year ago.
I mentioned this idea that ifyou have people that are less
satisfied, they will produceless and they will cost you
money because you have toreplace them.
And about a year ago, weactually expanded our technology
platform to include acalculator that actually
estimates for any given companythe amount of money that they're
(23:06):
losing right now invisibly,simply because of the fact that
they're not able to treat alltheir employees the same.
And initially we thought, oh,this would be kind of a cool
little sales tool, help to dosales.
And what we realized is thatwhen people saw it, they were
blown away.
First, because it literallyshows the business impact for
their company and it's no longer.
(23:28):
Oh, let's sprinkle some magicdiversity dust and these
wonderful things will happen,which, unfortunately, have not
actually materialized.
Instead, we're saying you arelosing money right now and we're
going to help you figure outwhy and where you're losing
money and what to do to stoplosing that money.
And it turns out that thosenumbers are actually quite
(23:48):
significant.
We see that a typical companywill lose somewhere between 20
and 30% of their net profitsinvisibly, or put a different
way If they were able to treateverybody the same, their net
profits could go up by 20 to 30%, and so now what we're doing is
that we're actually connectingthat to the data itself, so that
(24:08):
we're starting to work withcompanies where they use either
our data, if they measureinclusion the way that we do it,
but if they've alreadycollected data through
engagement surveys orsatisfaction surveys or
inclusion surveys of their own,then we can take their data,
plug it into the calculator togive them significantly more
accurate estimates of whatspecific issues are causing them
(24:30):
to lose money, and that meansthat they can also estimate the
return on investment, or ROI, oftaking steps to fixing the
problems that they identify, andso that is kind of a new thing
that we've been working on.
We're seeing a lot of interestfrom companies that really have
already spent a lot of moneycollecting data, and then, lo
and behold, the data tells themoh look, people of color are
(24:51):
less satisfied than white people, and women are less satisfied
than men, and people withdisabilities are less satisfied
than people without disabilities.
But they don't know what to dowith that information, and so
we're helping to take that samedata they've already collected
and turn it into informationabout their financial success,
which they can then use to makedecisions about what to do.
So that's an exciting new turnand an additional direction that
(25:14):
makes it even clearer how tolink DEI to financial
performance, and we're veryexcited because that's creating
even more interest right now.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
We'll throw out your contact info so people can keep
up with everything that you'reup to.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Thank you.
The best way to get a hold ofme is my company's website, is
aleriatech.
That's A-L-E-R-I-A, dot T-E-C-H, and you can find me on
LinkedIn very, very easily.
Paolo Gaudiano, the spellingwill be in the podcast episode,
but it's P-A-O-L-O, the lastname is G-A-U-D-I-A-N-O, and
(25:56):
there's really only one of me onLinkedIn.
So then, pretty easy to find.
And then, as I said, anybookstore, any online bookstore
if you look up measuringinclusion, you can find my book
quite easily.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Close us out with some final thoughts.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Maybe, if there was something I forgot to talk about
that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have
for the listeners I would saythese are very difficult times
right now, and I think that alot of the political wrangling
around di, in my opinion, is abit of a smokescreen to distract
us from the fact that what ishappening right now is not just
(26:30):
an attack on di, but it's a youknow dismantling our democracy.
Basically, I think that thefact that what is happening
right now is not just an attackon DEI, but it's dismantling our
democracy.
Basically, I think that thefact that they're using DEI as a
wedge to make people hate otherpeople is terrible, and I hope
that those of you that arelistening whether your opinions
are favorable or against DEIrealize that a lot of the
(26:53):
rhetoric is really just used asa political weapon.
But ultimately, we all want thesame thing.
We all want to be able to get ajob for which we're qualified.
We want to be able to have thesame opportunity as everybody
else, once we get into that job,to demonstrate our capabilities
and to advance as a function ofthe work that we're actually
doing.
And so I would really urgepeople to go beyond the rhetoric
(27:16):
, beyond the inflammatoryremarks, and realize that
ultimately, we're all people andwe all want the same things in
life, we all want to be able tosucceed, and that this idea that
somebody's success means thatit's going to be your failure is
just deeply, deeply, deeplyflawed, and so I hope that
(27:36):
people will take that intoaccount and, whether they read
my book or go to my website orjust simply open their minds to
the possibility that there arebetter ways of doing this work,
I would find that to be reallysatisfying if people will do
that.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Go at your website again.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And the website again is aleriatech.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
All right, ladies and gentlemen.
So please be sure to visitaleriatech.
Check out Paulo's book, checkout everything that he's up to.
Keep up with everything thathe's up to.
Follow, rate, review.
Share this episode to as manypeople as possible.
Follow, rate, review.
Share this episode to as manypeople as possible.
Jump on your favorite podcastapp.
Follow the show, share, review,rate us, check us out.
(28:22):
Go to wwwcurveball337.com formore information on the Living
the Dream with Curveball podcastand to keep up with everything.
Living the dream.
Thank you for supporting theshow, paolo, thank you for all
that you do and thank you forjoining me.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Thank you, curtis, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
For more information on the Living the Dream with
Curveball podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
Until next time, keep livingthe dream.
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with
Curveball, if you believe youcan achieve.
Welcome to the Living the Dreamwith Curveball Podcast, a show
where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
(00:23):
I interview guests that teach,motivate and inspire.
Today, we're going to betalking about DEI, as I am
joined by the founder of Illyria, paolo Gardiano.
Paolo founded this companybecause he wants to help
business owners realize thatthey can make more money by
(00:46):
including, you know, being moreinclusive and having more
happier and diverse employees.
Elyria is a DEI tech company.
Paolo has advanced degrees inaerospace engineering as well as
neuroscience, and he says hejokes.
(01:07):
You know that he has alreadywent through rocket science and,
you know, performed that beforecoming to the complex problem
of helping these businessleaders realize that they can
make money by, you know, beinginclusive and including
diversity in their workforce.
(01:28):
So we're going to be talking toPaolo about everything that
he's up to.
So, paolo, thank you so muchfor joining me today.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you, Curtis.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Why don't you start off by telling everybody a
little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So I like to joke with people and you know in all
you can't see me, but I'm awhite guy, cisgender,
heterosexual, born and raised inItaly, but I came here as a
teenager.
So I feel like I'm very much amember of the privileged
majority of this country, if youwill, and so I always joke with
people.
I'm the white elephant in theroom because I'm not.
There are not a lot of peoplelike me who work in diversity,
(02:03):
equity and inclusion.
I mean, there are some.
I come at it from a veryunusual angle in that I
developed an interest indiversity and inclusion from my
first arrival to this countrywhen I saw some of the very what
I considered initially to bevery strange and very upsetting
ways in which people weretreated differently because of
their race primarily, and thenlater also realized, because of
(02:23):
gender and disabilities.
But I always felt that, as awhite guy, what can I possibly
do?
So I went on and created acareer.
I was a professor, as Imentioned in my bio.
I actually started out doingaerospace engineering for my
advanced degree, my master'sdegree.
Then my PhD was in neuroscience, but with a really strong
computational angle, and Ibecame fascinated with the idea
(02:45):
of how do you understand the waythat lots of neurons in the
brain can help you to do thingslike see or speak, or move your
hands and things of that sort?
And then eventually I moved toa different realm where I
thought well, maybe I can usethe same ideas to help figure
out how people, when you putthem together, they can do some
pretty amazing things.
And that's how, eventually,about 10 years ago, after
(03:07):
working in the space as aconsultant entrepreneur for
about 15 years or so, after Iwas a professor for 10 years, I
saw an opportunity to apply mywork to diversity, equity and
inclusion and, in particular, Ithought that there was a way to
provide a quantitativedemonstration for business
leaders that it is in factpossible for them to treat their
(03:28):
employees better and make moremoney in the process.
Because one of the things that Irealized about diversity,
equity and inclusion or backthen, 10 years ago, it was just
diversity and inclusion andbefore that it was just
diversity.
But in that space a lot of thework focuses on fairness and
justice and kind of aspirationalgoals.
But often what we need toacknowledge is the fact that
(03:50):
most business leaders care aboutone thing primarily and that is
making money for othercompanies, and I feel that a lot
of the discrimination that I'velearned about in this country
is driven by motivation, ismotivated by economic motivators
, and so I felt that if I couldcome up with a good economic
motivator to make people behavebetter, that might actually have
an impact, and so that's kindof a long-winded way of
(04:11):
explaining how I got into doingwhat I'm doing.
Both you know, my geographicalbackground as well as my
identity have really shaped thekind of work that I do.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Well, how do you feel like due to the current
political climate?
How does it affect your workwhen it comes to DEI?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, it turns out, it's impacting my work in a very
interesting way.
On the one hand, anybody thatis working in DEI is clearly
being impacted negatively by theexecutive orders and, more
generally, by this negativeclimate that has been created
during the backlash in the lastcouple of years.
However, because of the uniquenature of my work and because of
(04:52):
the fact that I approach itfrom a point of view of really
making things happen in amaterial, tangible, measurable
way, and I focus first andforemost on inclusion, I have a
way of saying this, that I saythat inclusion is what you do
and diversity is what you get.
Because of that, what I'mfinding is that, although some
companies are retreating,putting projects on hold, at the
(05:15):
same time, I'm gettingtremendous demand for both for
the work that we do at L'Area,but, more importantly, I'm
getting a ton of invitations tospeak at conferences, events,
corporate gatherings, someuniversities.
I've been doing quite a numberof podcasts recently, and part
of that is also due to the factthat I published a book about
(05:36):
six months ago.
It was in September of last yearand one of the things that I
discussed in the book aside fromhow you actually can manage
diversity, equity and inclusionin a more effective way.
I talk specifically about thebacklash, and I talk about the
fact that, as early as 2018, Iwas writing articles in which I
essentially predicted that thiskind of backlash was going to
(05:57):
happen, and so the work that Ido tends to attract a lot of
attention right now, because Ithink that I'm one of the few
people that comes at it from anangle that avoids the backlash.
It avoids that sense ofdiscrimination that white men
mostly white men are nowcomplaining about.
It avoids some of the legalissues that are being raised by
the Trump administration and, asa result of that, I'm in this
(06:20):
very strange situation where,yes, some work is being delayed
and I'm seeing, unfortunately, alot of my colleagues that are
having to shut down theircompanies or losing their jobs,
but, at the same time, I'mgetting a huge amount of demand
for the specific nature of thework that I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
What do you feel like DEI is a reverse form of
discrimination.
Why not?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So it's.
You know, I've had people someof my colleagues will say that
the term reverse discriminationis a bit of a contradiction in
terms, in the sense that youknow if somebody is being
discriminated against, they'rebeing discriminated and they say
, well, reverse discriminationdoesn't make sense.
But I think, conceptually, mostpeople understand that what
some people are saying.
I think that people that areidentified, as I do, as white
(07:05):
people think of discriminationas something that has been
primarily impacting certaingroups of people and others
saying, well, we've goneoverboard with DEI and it's now
causing discrimination againstwhite people.
I happen to think that a lot ofthat is completely overblown,
but I also understand why, fromthe point of view of even
well-meaning white people, itmay sometimes feel that way, and
(07:27):
one of the things that I saidand I mentioned I wrote this
article in 2018, and the articleI was writing for Forbes quite
regularly, and the article wastitled Companies Need to Stop
Focusing on Diversity Alone isthat taking kind of a diversity
first approach was going tocreate problems.
Because if you go to theemployees of a company and you
say, hey, right now we have 20%women and 80% men and I want to,
(07:52):
you know we see the value ofdiversity.
We want to, you know, achieve30% women.
Well then, clearly, it meansthat you're going to be
eliminating some of the men fromthe equation, and, even though
there are ways of avoiding that,the mathematics is very, very
difficult to avoid and itcreates a sense of a zero-sum
game, what I call, you know, thezero-sum game mindset you win,
I lose, and so when I predictedthat it was because, again, I
(08:20):
saw that the way that we wereapproaching DEI and the fact
that we were putting theemphasis on the diversity first
was likely to create theseproblems.
Unfortunately, what I've seenhappen in the last few years,
after we had this very strongwave of enthusiasm following the
murder of George Floyd in Mayof 2021, sorry, may of 2020,
what ended up happening is thatthere was so much interest in
(08:41):
DEI that a lot of theinitiatives were not thought out
as carefully as they could havebeen, and it led, unfortunately
, to some people experiencingsituations that felt a lot like
discrimination and it felt like,well, I'm being discriminated
against because I'm a white man,and that, unfortunately is.
You know, you can argue thatit's unfair for people to
complain about that.
(09:01):
You can argue that there's beenso much discrimination against
people who are not white forsuch a long time that that's not
fair.
But unfortunately, when you'redealing with the reality of how
people feel, you cannot go andtell them.
Well, you shouldn't be feelingbad just because I used to feel
worse than you feel right now.
And I think that when you couplethat with the fact that a lot
of the work in DEI has been notas clear as it could have been,
(09:25):
I would argue that if you askpeople to define diversity, you
will get pretty much the samedefinition from a lot of people.
If you ask people to defineinclusion or equity, you're
going to get ask 10 people andyou're going to get 10 different
answers.
And so what's happening in thelast couple of years is that the
conservative forces and Ibelieve firmly that there are
(09:45):
some very, very strong forcesthat are purposefully trying to
undermine the progress that hasbeen made They've taken
advantage of this lack ofclarity to insert their own
definitions in a way thatresonated with these people that
were now being confronted withissues like oh you were going to
get promoted, but we have towait six months because we have
to promote a woman before wepromote you.
(10:06):
And so they took advantage ofthat to create these definitions
that are actually, in myopinion, they're wrong.
They really go counter to whatthe AI is actually trying to do,
but unfortunately, that doesn'tmatter.
What matters is that if you havea large population that
believes these definitions andthese definitions align with
their experiences or what theyhear from their friends, then
those definitions become reality, and so that's really, you know
(10:30):
.
So, to go back to your questionis DEI creating reverse
discrimination?
Well, I think that some of thespecific techniques that people
have used to foster inclusionand diversity, and by focusing
primarily on diversity, theyhave inadvertently created a
situation in which people feltlegitimately discriminated
against.
Now, as I said, is that a validcomplaint or not?
(10:53):
That's a different story.
I think the reality is that ithas created the opportunity for
people to feel that way, andthat has led to a lot of the
complaints.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
What is next question is a two-part question.
What is the business case forDEI?
And you know why.
Why, if I was a business owner,why would I want to hire
somebody that's less qualified?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, let me start as far as the business case.
As I said, I believe that, withthe best of intentions, a lot
of people who jumped into DEI,especially after the murder of
George Floyd, did so with a deepunderstanding of the problems,
based on their own experiences,and, unfortunately, not
necessarily as muchunderstanding of how to drive
(11:40):
change within a business.
And when I hear people talkabout the business case for DEI
in the space of DEI supportersor promoters or consultants,
what I hear a lot is referenceto studies, like the famous
studies by McKinsey, thatsuggest that there are
correlations between the degreeof diversity of various aspects
(12:03):
of the company, whether it's theboard or the executive team,
and the financial, or some ofthe financial, kpis.
There are two problems withthat.
One of them is that acorrelation simply means that
two things happen together.
It does not mean that one callsthe other.
If you were a cynic, you mightargue that the fact that there
is a correlation is becausecompanies that have more money
(12:26):
can afford to hire more diversepeople, which I think it's wrong
.
But you can't argue with that,just like you cannot argue that
by being more diverse, you causethe company to perform better.
And then the second problem isthat, even if you believe that
those correlations actuallyrepresented a direct link where
diversity is causing performance, as a CEO you don't ever use
(12:49):
correlations to run your company.
Think about the way that you,you know.
Imagine a CEO saying oh, we dida study and found that, across
every product on the planet, redproducts do better than blue
products, so let's make all ofour products red.
That's just simply not the waythat you run a business, and so
what was happening was adisconnect, where DEI supporters
were arguing about the businesscase in a way that really
(13:12):
didn't make any sense to thepeople that they were trying to
convince.
The way that I discuss businesscase and the way that I prove it
is actually by showing that, asa company, if you have a group
of people that is being treateddifferently than another group
of people such that theirsatisfaction declines, what will
(13:32):
happen to those people is thatthey will be less productive and
it will also be the case thatthey will be more likely to
leave your company.
And if those two thingsmaterialize, you're losing money
because you have a portion ofyour company that is not
producing as much, and whenthese people leave, you're going
to have to pay to rehire them.
And so those kinds ofreasonings are actually much
(13:56):
easier to quantify in a way thatmakes sense to business leaders
, because they actually show thebusiness case for the specific
company, not on average overhundreds of companies, but
specifically how you run yourcompany and how that will impact
the success of yourorganization.
And then that leads me to thesecond part of your question,
which is that you know, would Ihire somebody that is less
(14:18):
qualified?
Well, and again, there I thinkthat what's happened is that it
was a combination of using thewrong wording and, unfortunately
, a few companies that tookmissteps where they literally
did that, where they literallywere unable to find qualified
candidates, but because theywanted to check those boxes,
they would hire people that weremaybe not as qualified, or in
(14:41):
some cases, they hired peoplethat were maybe not as qualified
, or in some cases they hiredpeople that were qualified but
they were not necessarily ableto succeed in the environment
into which they were brought.
And so, as a result of that, wehave a few people that come
into a company that maybeunderperform, and in some cases
it's because they're truly lessqualified.
In many cases it's just becauseof the environment not
(15:02):
welcoming them.
Unfortunately, the way that ourbrains work is that when we see
someone who looks different fromus and they behave in a certain
way, we tend to generalize toeverybody else that looks the
same way.
So if, all of a sudden, youhire a woman and the woman does
not succeed, instead of askingourselves, well, did we maybe
create an environment that madeit difficult for the woman to
succeed?
And instead of saying toourselves, well, have any men
(15:26):
ever failed in this job?
We don't do that, we simply say, oh, this woman failed.
Therefore, women are lessqualified, and so I think that
there's a fallacy in the veryquestion of asking that, and
really, it also points to thefact that focusing on diversity
is a mistake, and what youshould really focus on is on
creating an environment wherepeople are able to succeed,
(15:48):
whether they're new people thatyou're hiring or whether they're
people that are already in yourorganization.
If you make the effort to ensurethat everybody is able to
succeed, your company will makemore money, and so that's how
those two things are related,and that's why, by focusing on
the inclusion and specificallywhat a company is doing to
ensure that everybody is able tosucceed, you're much more
(16:09):
likely to have a company thatperforms better, and the company
will be more diverse, becausenow you will no longer have
these low levels of satisfactionthat causes people to leave.
And if you look at mostcompanies, when you see that
there is a low level ofrepresentation of some group,
you always find that theirretention rates are very low for
(16:30):
those groups.
So it's like a leaky bucket.
You're losing water out of abucket that's full of holes, and
simply pouring more water fromthe top is just going to make a
big mess on the floor.
It's not going to fix theproblem.
You need to figure out whythese people are leaving.
What are the conditions in theworkplace that are causing them
to be less satisfied?
And that's where this wholeidea of inclusion is what you do
(16:51):
and diversity is what you getcomes from in my book.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, speaking of your book, you know just kind of
let listeners know what theycan expect when they read it.
You know the title and wherethey can get it.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Well, the book I mean , you can find it at any typical
online reseller, like you know,of course, amazon or Goodreads
or virtually any onlinebookstore.
The title of the book isMeasuring Inclusion, because
that's ultimately what I talkabout.
But the subtitle, whichactually to me was almost the
more important part, is HigherProfits and Happier People
(17:29):
Without Guesswork or Backlash.
And, as you can see from thesubtitle, I was really trying to
hit four points.
First, higher profits, and Ipurposefully put that first,
because ultimately, I wantbusiness leaders to look at this
book as a guide on how tomaximize their success as a
company.
And how do you do that?
By having happier people, whichis the second part of the title
(17:51):
.
And then I talk about withoutguesswork or backlash.
Without guesswork, because Ipropose a way of measuring
inclusion which has not reallybeen done before, which provides
you an incredible claritythrough not just data, but a
combination of data andexperiences that people share
that can tell you, without anyguesswork, exactly what is
(18:12):
happening in your organization,how much it's costing you and
what you can do about it.
And I said no without backlashbecause I could see already when
I started writing the bookwhich was, you know, I started
writing it almost two years ago,I could see the backlash coming
and I knew that it was going tobe a big problem and I had to
ask myself do I want to write abook about diversity and
inclusion when that particularsector is on fire in a negative
(18:35):
way?
But I wanted to head that on,take that head on and I actually
write in the book about thebacklash, and I talk very
clearly toward the back of thebook.
I have two chapters one in whichI talk about what I believe are
some of the mistakes that wehave made collectively in the
field of DEI, and then the otherone I talk about some of the
mistakes that the kind of DEIopponents make and some of the
(18:58):
flawed arguments that they use,like when they talk about oh, I
don't want to lower the bar, Idon't want to hire somebody
that's unqualified, we are ameritocracy All of those
concepts.
They sound appealing but they'reactually deeply flawed and I
help people to see why and howthey're deeply flawed.
And so the book as a whole.
Really it's a combination oftelling about how I came into
(19:19):
this work, talking about exactlywhat I mean by inclusion, how
you can measure inclusion,showing some case studies with a
variety of companies andorganizations for whom we've
done some of the work ofmeasuring inclusion, then
sharing some of the data thatwe've collected and the stories
that we've heard as part of thedata that we collect, and then
we have again those two chapterswhere I talk about some of the
(19:40):
problems and the flawedassumptions before concluding
the book.
So it's really meant to be acombination of introducing an
entirely new way to do something, but it's also really a very,
very different way to thinkabout diversity, equity and
inclusion.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, tell us about any upcoming projects.
Oh well, before we get to that,you know, tell us about your
company, aleria.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Aleria is a it's a public benefit corporation,
which means that we are afor-profit company, but as part
of our bylaws we have a missionstatement.
That which means that we are afor-profit company, but as part
of our bylaws we have a missionstatement that talks about the
importance of diversity, equityand inclusion.
So you would describe it as amission-driven for-profit.
And when I started the company,my background, as I mentioned,
(20:26):
was a lot of.
It was engineering, computers,neuroscience and I have this
approach of building computersimulations that literally
replicate the day-to-dayexperiences, in this case of
people in the workplace, tounderstand how the people and
their interactions ultimatelylead to what the company is
doing as a whole and, conversely, how the way the company
(20:48):
behaves impacts the peoplewithin it.
And so the company, initially,was supposed to develop software
to help make strategicdecisions for leaders about how
to manage their personnel withan eye to diversity, equity and
inclusion.
But as I started to do thatwork, I realized that I felt
like I was building a spacestation for people still riding
their bicycles down on Earth andthat we were still really far
(21:10):
behind in understanding some ofthese concepts.
And along the way, one of thethings that I realized is that
measuring diversity alone wasnot sufficient, and I needed to
understand not just how manyblack people, how many people
you know, how many LGBTQ pluspeople, how many people with
disabilities, how many women.
That was not enough.
I need to know how are thesepeople experiencing the
workplace as a function of theirthe workplace as a function of
(21:33):
their identity and as a functionof how everybody else is
behaving around them.
And so we came up with this wayof collecting information and
realized very quickly thatessentially that's what we were
doing.
We were measuring inclusionLiterally.
We're actually measuringexclusion, if you will, although
that's not entirely correct,but we're measuring experiences
in the workplace, and then we'reusing the data to tell us where
the company's being more orless inclusive.
(21:54):
And so that's what Aleria doesprimarily, although, as I
mentioned earlier, we are doingthese days a lot of training.
I do a lot of public speaking,we do webinars.
We also offer these what wecall inclusive leadership
training and inclusivemanagement training, and we're
seeing a lot of demand for that,precisely because people are
(22:15):
scrambling and trying to figureout what to do.
But so think of Aleria as acombination of a technology
company that has a platform tocollect and use inclusion data,
but also as an educationalplatform for people to learn
about a new way to think aboutdiversity, equity and inclusion
that really avoids a lot of thebacklash and a lot of the
problems that we've seen in thepast.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you
and your company are working onthat listeners need to be aware
of.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
One of the things that we did about a year ago.
I mentioned this idea that ifyou have people that are less
satisfied, they will produceless and they will cost you
money because you have toreplace them.
And about a year ago, weactually expanded our technology
platform to include acalculator that actually
estimates for any given companythe amount of money that they're
(23:06):
losing right now invisibly,simply because of the fact that
they're not able to treat alltheir employees the same.
And initially we thought, oh,this would be kind of a cool
little sales tool, help to dosales.
And what we realized is thatwhen people saw it, they were
blown away.
First, because it literallyshows the business impact for
their company and it's no longer.
(23:28):
Oh, let's sprinkle some magicdiversity dust and these
wonderful things will happen,which, unfortunately, have not
actually materialized.
Instead, we're saying you arelosing money right now and we're
going to help you figure outwhy and where you're losing
money and what to do to stoplosing that money.
And it turns out that thosenumbers are actually quite
(23:48):
significant.
We see that a typical companywill lose somewhere between 20
and 30% of their net profitsinvisibly, or put a different
way If they were able to treateverybody the same, their net
profits could go up by 20 to 30%, and so now what we're doing is
that we're actually connectingthat to the data itself, so that
(24:08):
we're starting to work withcompanies where they use either
our data, if they measureinclusion the way that we do it,
but if they've alreadycollected data through
engagement surveys orsatisfaction surveys or
inclusion surveys of their own,then we can take their data,
plug it into the calculator togive them significantly more
accurate estimates of whatspecific issues are causing them
(24:30):
to lose money, and that meansthat they can also estimate the
return on investment, or ROI, oftaking steps to fixing the
problems that they identify, andso that is kind of a new thing
that we've been working on.
We're seeing a lot of interestfrom companies that really have
already spent a lot of moneycollecting data, and then, lo
and behold, the data tells themoh look, people of color are
(24:51):
less satisfied than white people, and women are less satisfied
than men, and people withdisabilities are less satisfied
than people without disabilities.
But they don't know what to dowith that information, and so
we're helping to take that samedata they've already collected
and turn it into informationabout their financial success,
which they can then use to makedecisions about what to do.
So that's an exciting new turnand an additional direction that
(25:14):
makes it even clearer how tolink DEI to financial
performance, and we're veryexcited because that's creating
even more interest right now.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
We'll throw out your contact info so people can keep
up with everything that you'reup to.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Thank you.
The best way to get a hold ofme is my company's website, is
aleriatech.
That's A-L-E-R-I-A, dot T-E-C-H, and you can find me on
LinkedIn very, very easily.
Paolo Gaudiano, the spellingwill be in the podcast episode,
but it's P-A-O-L-O, the lastname is G-A-U-D-I-A-N-O, and
(25:56):
there's really only one of me onLinkedIn.
So then, pretty easy to find.
And then, as I said, anybookstore, any online bookstore
if you look up measuringinclusion, you can find my book
quite easily.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Close us out with some final thoughts.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Maybe, if there was something I forgot to talk about
that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have
for the listeners I would saythese are very difficult times
right now, and I think that alot of the political wrangling
around di, in my opinion, is abit of a smokescreen to distract
us from the fact that what ishappening right now is not just
(26:30):
an attack on di, but it's a youknow dismantling our democracy.
Basically, I think that thefact that what is happening
right now is not just an attackon DEI, but it's dismantling our
democracy.
Basically, I think that thefact that they're using DEI as a
wedge to make people hate otherpeople is terrible, and I hope
that those of you that arelistening whether your opinions
are favorable or against DEIrealize that a lot of the
(26:53):
rhetoric is really just used asa political weapon.
But ultimately, we all want thesame thing.
We all want to be able to get ajob for which we're qualified.
We want to be able to have thesame opportunity as everybody
else, once we get into that job,to demonstrate our capabilities
and to advance as a function ofthe work that we're actually
doing.
And so I would really urgepeople to go beyond the rhetoric
(27:16):
, beyond the inflammatoryremarks, and realize that
ultimately, we're all people andwe all want the same things in
life, we all want to be able tosucceed, and that this idea that
somebody's success means thatit's going to be your failure is
just deeply, deeply, deeplyflawed, and so I hope that
(27:36):
people will take that intoaccount and, whether they read
my book or go to my website orjust simply open their minds to
the possibility that there arebetter ways of doing this work,
I would find that to be reallysatisfying if people will do
that.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Go at your website again.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And the website again is aleriatech.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
All right, ladies and gentlemen.
So please be sure to visitaleriatech.
Check out Paulo's book, checkout everything that he's up to.
Keep up with everything thathe's up to.
Follow, rate, review.
Share this episode to as manypeople as possible.
Follow, rate, review.
Share this episode to as manypeople as possible.
Jump on your favorite podcastapp.
Follow the show, share, review,rate us, check us out.
(28:22):
Go to wwwcurveball337.com formore information on the Living
the Dream with Curveball podcastand to keep up with everything.
Living the dream.
Thank you for supporting theshow, paolo, thank you for all
that you do and thank you forjoining me.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Thank you, curtis, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
For more information on the Living the Dream with
Curveball podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
Until next time, keep livingthe dream.
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