Imran Syed: Awesome. Welcome to another episode of Work Measured. We are so excited to have our guest, Meg McWilliams, here today with us. Meg has spent her career kind of creating experiences that bring people together. She started with the LA Film Festival and Sundance and then moved into VR and immersive experiences. She helped build communities at brands like Arvent with founders behind the original Call of Duty, which I which I hope we kind of get into. And now she's building Mixies, an AI native platform for in real life communities. And Meg, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you here.
Meg: Yeah. Thank you. I'm so excited as well. I know we actually met at ⁓ a founder dinner, which is kind of like the perfect segue into what we're talking about. It's just like connection and moments that bring people together and how we're losing a lot of those.
Imran Syed: Yeah, absolutely. And I I'm glad you kind of brought that up because I hadn't been taking advantage of in-person events, you know. I think post pandemic they they sort of went away and Zoom became the reality of our lives and everything felt like one Zoom meeting to another. What are you seeing out there in terms of what's happening with IRL events and the trend?
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think the trend has swung back ⁓ vigorously, right? I think everyone is trying to do in person ⁓ a lot of people's go to market strategy is based around how can we get more in person dinners happening in the city. and like I think y on like LinkedIn and X everyone's posting like the gigantic salaries, That these like community positions are getting at like anthropic and open AI of like $350,000 for like a community manager, right? So I think that everyone is just very excited about it because it's so hard to stand out online, right? Like there's just so much noise. people won't even answer your email if you haven't met them in person before. So yeah, I mean I'm interested to see what you guys are seeing on your side as well.
Imran Syed: Yeah, I you know, I think more of the same. I I feel like In person is a muscle that I almost lost and I had to re reflex and get myself like having those conversations. And I Nick knows this, I am not a shy person by any any any definition of it, but ⁓ I do find it more authentic and more genuine and ⁓ like the way we talk online, we never talk to people like that in real life. but I'm also feeling like
Meg: Yeah. Mm. Mm mm.
Imran Syed: We've almost like optimized all of these opportunities to connect with people completely out of our system, both in our personal and professional lives. And that scares the shit out of me, you know. I I was in Spain recently and there was a grocery store where there wasn't even a cashier. You just put your stuff, it gets weighed, it gets scanned, and you just walk out the door and ⁓ like I worry that we're gonna forget that muscle of actually having these these connection points.
Meg: Yes. Well again, I think to your point, like we already are, right? Like I could not leave my house at all and I could get all my food delivered. I could get like and I don't it's like all contactless, right? I don't even need to open my door anymore. I can literally push a button that's like I don't want to see anybody. ⁓ and so I do think it's kind of like insidious, right? Because it happens slowly. It's not like there's some big ⁓ thing on a billboard that's like you will not see anyone for the next two weeks. It's like all these like micro decisions that get made,
Nick: Yeah.
Imran Syed: Ha ha ha. Yeah.
Meg: in the name of efficiency, right? Or ⁓ like access to everything. And so I think it's something that's happening in a way that we're not even fully cognizant of what the the outcome is gonna be from it. Like how is that affecting our mental health? And like you're saying, like we're losing that muscle to even be able to like look people in the eye anymore. ⁓ like I like I really experienced that especially right after COVID and I was going to events like the amount of eye contact struggles that is how I will explain it that I saw I was like
Imran Syed: Ha ha ha
Meg: what is happening? And yeah, like what are all the outcomes? I don't think we're even aware of what that's gonna be yet, but it's it scares me a lot. So
Nick: One of our community members, Professor Juliana Schroeder. She's at ⁓ she's a longtime friend and collaborator of mine. She's at UC Haas, but she has a a fantastic paper. It's pr I think it's pre-COVID days. But the title of the paper is essentially, ⁓ what is it? We mistakenly seek solitude. So when present when presented with the opportunity, we will say, ⁓ yeah, I'd prefer just to be alone or I'd prefer to just get this thing to my door. I don't want to talk to anyone. But what they showed in these series of studies is While we prefer it, it's actually much worse for us. So they ran this cool experiment on the subway or some sort of transit, and half the people were told, just do your normal thing, which is probably don't talk to strangers. And then the other half was strike up a conversation with a stranger. At least one. And most people were like, ⁓ I don't know, I rolled their eyes, I don't want to, but then you they do it, and then you ask them afterwards, and consistently and reliably, those people were happier, not just on the day, but days after. Simply by just striking up a conversation with a stranger. But we are like our own worst enemies because, like you said, Meg, it's like, ⁓ I can just get this thing and it's so convenient, it's so easy. But of course, we're not realizing what there's always a price to pay. And that price is our what, like you said, our well-being, loneliness, which is on the rise. So I'm really glad you are you are sort of taking up the reins and bringing this very important part of our humanity back.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, no, we definitely saw ⁓ even in the early prototypes, so right now ⁓ Mixies is become like a community platform. So we want to be like Discord for IRL communities where event organizers can create events and communities can create spaces and we can help people find who they need and what they need across all IRL. But in the originally we were just doing warm intros via text at like Luma events, for example. And a big thing that we saw ⁓ that Made me kind of emotional through the process too was like when we were doing a lot of the user interviews and we had talked to the people who had made those connections before the event, like almost I would say six out of ten people said that they wouldn't have even come to the event if it wasn't for interacting ⁓ with our platform because they were like, I feel like I walk into all these events and no one even cares that I'm there, no one's waiting for me. And this is the first time I felt like I'm showing. Up to an event and I matter. And that was able to overcome that kind of like reflex that we have of like, ⁓ I'm just gonna stay home, I'm just gonna watch Netflix, I'm just gonna like keep sending emails. And so it's also like that fear, right? Of like, I think we we want human interaction, but it takes more energy and also puts us in a space of maybe no one wants to talk to me, right? And like that fear of rejection that is is scary, you know, for everybody.
Nick: Curious, what are you seeing? generationally because I think there's some research to show that I'm gonna make a big assumption here and just call us all millennials, okay? And we we can do that. So we we have we we were you know like went to school and did all the things and then had our first jobs that was long before this you know work from home and certainly long before COVID and pandemic days. But there is a huge swath of the new workforce who were in like you know their university
Meg: Mm-hmm. Yes, it's correct.
Nick: college days and those first years of of their entry-level jobs where the norm became I don't go to these things. ⁓ are you seeing yeah do we have to worry about the kids, the Gen Zs and the workforce?
Meg: I think I think to a degree, and there's always like outsiders, right? From that, 'cause like I have some some of my best friends that are in the Gen Z group who fall outside of this, of course. but I do think overall as a whole there's kind of like more of a like swipe relationships for Gen Z and that they're more like disposable and I think they'll put in like less time to kind of figure out if there is like something there at the core that they should be investing in is what I've kind of experienced. Yeah, there's just like a smaller attention span overall to be like, okay. And I think you need like you need an attention span to understand somebody and ask questions and be curious and get to that next part of relationship building in my mind. so yeah, that's that's kind of my take on it. ⁓ and I yeah, I think more millennials are struggling with the current state of things and really wanting to get back in person more.
Imran Syed: How how do you think that translates to, you know, work and ⁓ being back at the office and some of that transition? Do you think that's a a good thing or or a bad thing or hybrid is the way to go?
Meg: Yeah. Where do you go? I think it's I think it's a great thing to be able to and I think one though The the move to remote allowed so many people to have access right to jobs that they maybe couldn't have because they couldn't afford to live in San Francisco, for example, right? And now they're able to work with teams here and they there is this hybrid potential. So I think there's a a middle ground, but I do think overall, like as a generalization, it's better for people to have a community that they see every single day, that they go into the office and get to just have those like water cooler moments where everything is not like I'm only talking to someone as a transaction to get a specific piece of information. Right. There's just more like spontaneity and ⁓ I'm we can talk about our dogs or whatever, right? And I think we're lacking that. And then what does that do to our mind when every interaction is only to get something from somebody is also not great.
Imran Syed: Do you think the struggle is ⁓ what we give up in productivity. And so like for example with me, I if I'm commuting into an office in San Francisco, you know, given any given day, it's like forty-five minutes and I sometimes think about, holy shit, if I'm at home, I can just wake up at 7 AM and just get going. And I almost feel guilty that when I'm commuting, I've lost like two hours of my day. Right? Where I could have been more productive and ⁓ do you think like
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, just get going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Imran Syed: Like others are feeling that as well. Like, you know, I could accomplish so much more. And I'm also struggling in the AI world of like I'm just doing more and more and more. And I think the promise was like with any tech, like you're gonna have more time back ⁓ to do maybe deeper and meaningful thinking. But instead I'm just I keep feeling it. I just keep feeling it more and more and more and more and more. And are you seeing that too?
Meg: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I feel the same. It's like I'm always calculating the ROI on how long I'm spending traveling somewhere or doing anything, right? And it's kind of like this
Imran Syed: I think our last call was at the airport, right? You were flying out and yeah, exactly.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like yeah, become this unhealthy compulsion. and yeah, I agree. I think it's like it's easier that's also why I like I chose to live in the city, right? Is because now like if I'm going to a meeting, it takes me like ten minutes to get there and I can be like, okay, now that's twenty minutes back and forth. And so I so like it feeds my compulsion well of the ROI problem. ⁓ but I do think like taking a step back from that and thinking about it's like it's such an American thing right and like I love living here but it's it's very much everything is about like growth and shareholder value and it's like growth for the sake of growth and I think we kind of have to take a step back and think about like just what are our what's our North Star and what are the things that like help us as a society and us as individuals. And putting that into the equation of the ROI because it usually gets left out. Because it's like, then why are we doing everything? Like if we're doing all of this and we're just gonna be like empty souls who are like alone and sad, then then saving that like 20 minutes on the commute is not really worth it. but it's hard. Like, I mean I feel you. I feel the same way, and I'm like deeply thinking about this stuff and in this space, and I still feel the same way. So
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: Yeah, I if you if you have like tips on how to help, then I'm o I'm open to this one. There's a really great
Nick: The temptation great.
Imran Syed: I'm still thinking about being empty souls at the end of the day.
Nick: So awesome.
Meg: Kurt Vonnegut, ⁓ like quote where he talks about how his wife is always asking him like why he's going out to buy envelopes because every time he needs an envelope, he like goes out to the store and buys one. He's like she's like, Why don't just go and get like a hundred envelopes sent to us? Like, why are you always doing this? And he was like, No, like I I think he even says something like, I pretend not to hear her when she says this, and I go out and I get an envelope because I'm having like a fucking great time when I get this envelope. Like
Imran Syed: Ha ha
Meg: I meet a lot of people, I see great looking babies, I like cuddle some dogs on the street. he's like, there's so many things that are like just these little excuses to go kind of like fart around is what he calls it, like fart around the world and interact with people. And he's like, don't let people like kill your fart around moments because it allows us to actually like go move around the world and like we're not supposed to just like fart around anymore.
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: And so I try to like think about that ⁓ like actively, like kind of like almost weekly. I try to be like, what's my fart around moment that I can go and like just be in the world? And it's one of the reasons why I've never bought and will never buy a printer. Because like I don't need to print very often, and it's always a good excuse, like go to the library, and the library is beautiful here too. ⁓ it's the I go to the one like down on Union. ⁓ and it's like such a nice experience. I like to talk to the librarian, so like I think.
Nick: That
Meg: Maybe that's like a little hack is like what is a farther on moment you can like protect in your life and just keep it.
Imran Syed: Do you mind for our viewers just telling him what a library is? No, I'm I'm just kidding.
Meg: Yes. It's a mythical place, lots of books.
Nick: Yeah. Yeah.
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Nick: I love that that concept, that idea. It's so cool. It's like you're adding in that an important piece of friction into your life, but for the good reason, right? To to realize the benefits. I was having a conversation with a leader in the pharma world recently. And so one of you said earlier, like those ⁓ cash, cashier list checkouts, right? On the surface, the business case makes perfect sense. You're going to pay somebody, you have one less salary to pay, and you can move along.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Nick: move people along more quickly. But what they found was that there's a demographic ⁓ who actually benefited greatly from checkout people, the human cashier. Elderly people who feel particularly lonely. And those quick conversations with a stranger are actually super important for them and their socialization and their well-being. Another use case which is similar is, and I never thought about this, but cancer treatment. So can't cancer drugs are getting better and better and better, so much so that you can act you don't have to come in and receive an IV and sit in a chair to get usually a like a chemo treatment or a radiation treatment. It takes a long period of time. On the surface, that's great. You have personalized medicine, you're not
Meg: Yeah.
Nick: In the hospital is long, but actually people make deep connections with other people who are receiving cancer treatment. So if hospitals and the whole like healthcare infrastructure is moving towards, ⁓ just take that away, that makes sense. Yes, but what are you losing? You're losing this ability to strike up a conversation with another person in this unlikely of scenarios of one receiving a cancer treatment, right? Yeah.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think
Imran Syed: Those are awesome examples.
Meg: It's it's a great point of like it's like with a company, right? And 'cause it's 'cause we're all entrepreneurs. It's like, what are your mission, vision, values as a society and as a community? And I feel like because now we live in this state where it's like everyone has like their own adventure and it's it's like we're all ⁓ individualized to such a high degree that I don't think we have that as a whole, right? And so like decisions about like how our cities are made or like the tools we use aren't like we're just not thinking about these things or being asked to pose these questions to ourselves 'cause it's like, yeah, to your point, if the if the mission is like ⁓ create more community, then you wouldn't make that decision to have these drugs be able to be used at home and you would you would guard and protect and make sure that like this is a sacred space. ⁓ And so yeah, like what I don't know how we I don't know how we solve that beyond like trying like my solve is just trying to build tools that help make it easier to reach for people instead of past people and that's like it's all I can do. But don't know. I don't know what the larger kind of solve is.
Nick: There's this is timely because ⁓ an another member of ours ⁓ in Labs one fifty, Dr. Marguerite, who's been on the podcast before, actually, she and I have created a bit of a playbook, a piece that's gonna be published in HBR, and we're calling it the refusal the refusal framework of values. And essentially it's it says like usually how we frame values is in the affirmative, like we are integrity or whatever the case may be. ⁓ when in fact ⁓ for millennia, religion, culture, politics, Military, you name it, whatever domain and human organizations, we've typically operated out of a refusal or a prohibitive stance, which says, we do not cross this line. This is the line in the sand. We make it very clear, we state it to all of our group members or tribe members, team members, and we we ⁓ assign people, we call them line holders, who are in that group and say, ⁓ you're getting a little too close to that line, right?
Meg: Mm, yeah. Hmm.
Nick: And the way that we sort of argue is that that creates a much tighter cohesive culture because you can see when the violation has has occurred and you can you can name it. So that might be one way to kind of like maintain these these things that are important from a mission, vision, values point of view.
Meg: Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. I would love to read that, ⁓ whenever it's available.
Nick: Yeah, of course. We'll share it around. We're gonna share it around with our network.
Meg: Yeah, you should also read there's an author, Byeong Chil Han. Have you ever read any of his stuff? I'll send you he writes a bunch of ⁓ kind of like smaller books, like maybe I don't know, they're like a hundred to a hundred and fifty they're more like essays, but you can get them in books. ⁓ and he talks a lot about just like the loss of ritual, the loss of belonging, and he does it in a very interesting way and in a way that almost kind of like I think will offend a lot of people. Like it it even like offended me while I was reading it because it's kind of like an attack on modern Day society in a lot of ways, but I think rings very true. ⁓ and he talks about how we're also just like we're lost in the sea of information, we have more access, we have more information, and it's at the cost of the loss of narrative, right? And like narrative is what like grounds us and has always grounded us, and like the biggest narrative that we're losing is the narrative of like where we belong in the world and how we relate to one another.
Imran Syed: Mm.
Meg: And it's like it's like a heavy read, so maybe don't do it like right before bed. But but it's really Yes. Yes. Yes. ⁓ my gosh, you're the first person I think I've ever like talked to when who has literally brought up the book. Also you're muted right now.
Imran Syed: Yeah. Nick, you might be on mute.
Meg: Ha ha ha
Nick: Sorry about that. My my PhD was in the psychology of rituals. So this is yeah, this is like my summary and I've read it like five times. That's so funny. Yeah.
Meg: ⁓ my gosh. It's so I I reread this all the time. Like it's like it's like a Bible almost and then I need like to get hit with it again and be like that's so cool.
Nick: It's amazing. It's amazing, yeah. That that I have I have never ⁓ come across somebody and referenced that. So when you asked, I was like, that does sound familiar, but I'm just gonna say no. And I was like, no, that's the book that's in my bag beside me. So very cool.
Meg: Yes. ⁓ my gosh, I need more book recommendations from you than Nick, 'cause I feel like
Nick: Happy to. Happy too. Yeah, yeah. I'll send you some papers too.
Imran Syed: We should actually just include because we've talked about so many great references ⁓ as part of publishing this and ⁓ tag them all in here.
Nick: Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. We'll do that for sure. Yeah.
Imran Syed: You wanna talk a little bit about AI, Meg? ⁓ you're building an AI native company and ⁓ do you think AI is deepening human connection or is it replacing human connection?
Meg: We can do it. Yeah. I think it's like a tool, right? It's it like just depends on how it's used. ⁓ like you know, I would argue that I'm using it in the way that is deepening human connection, obviously, ⁓ from no biased perspective. but yeah, I think that like the the things right that are obviously
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: taking away those moments of friction and say, you like Harvey, you don't need a lawyer anymore. And when so specifically the Harvey example, I'm excited about and c and sad about simultane s simultaneously because It's so expensive, especially as a startup founder, like, you know, to speak with a lawyer. It's like six hundred dollars an hour sometimes just to ask the most basic questions. And I think it's so important to be able to like democratize access to this information. While simultaneously, like for my first company, I was very close with our our corporate lawyer. And like I felt like I cried on the phone to our our lawyer at times. Like we had a a deep relationship and now that that avenue is gone, right? Like that path has kind of disappeared for a lot of people. So I think like whenever you're seeing that AI is being used to completely replace a person, it like hurts my heart a little bit. And like I would rather more see it be used in the way of like how does it help me find people faster or like reduce this work that I need of going and searching for people or help me spend less time on the computer doing manual entry of XYZ, right? Because then I am able to spend more time with the humans in my life. ⁓ so yeah, I think I mean I'm interested to hear what you think of it on your side as well.
Nick: Yeah.
Imran Syed: Well, you know, interestingly, I met my lawyer Jim from Perkins Coy in person at a real event, at an HPS event, and I thought he was an awesome, awesome person. He still is. And normally I can't say that about most lawyers I come across. And ⁓ I was like I could hang out with this guy and that's what really, you know, created the relationship of like having them as our as our general counsel and corporate counsel and stuff and So I I don't know if I would have just gone out and saw it because I think with legal I need trust. It's something I weigh really heavily. and I don't know how you do that, how you connect that trust factor to just a technology solely without a person behind it. I'm not sure.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah.
Nick: Yeah. Well, I think we have probably a good use case in hatchproof where yeah, of course we're AI native and you know, we're not lead-ites here, we're very much proponents of technology. ⁓ but the question is, like you said, Meg, it's a tool. So why are we using that tool? So if you apply it to performance conversation, yeah, we have the technology that's helping surface certain performance insights, but the reason we're doing it is so that the conversation between a manager and employee can be that much more
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Nick: Productive and that much more human to human relationship building. So we're improving what is a social, what we believe is a broken social process today, performance reviews. But the way we're improving it is with this tool that happens to be called AI, right? And I think there's all sorts of different that we should be sort of orienting to those use cases as opposed to the ones which are AI for AI's sake, automate, replace, right?
Meg: Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I think especially for the younger generations, I think it's even scarier to think of like them solely interacting with AI, ⁓ and being like taught that that cadence of also communication is like the norm or like the sycophantic tendencies of the AI to just say whatever you said back to you is like is also the norm. ⁓ sorry I also think I'm particularly wary of it in in any ⁓ platforms where like children of any sort are using it because that's that's also really scary.
Imran Syed: Awesome. ⁓ well we've loved this conversation. Nick has a has a great tradition that he sort of started up and ⁓ a closing question for you before we wrap up.
Nick: Some might ⁓ c some might call it a ritual. ⁓ so we we have to respect it ⁓ and and maintain it. So, ⁓ when you are interacting with your favorite LLM or AI of choice, Mike, do do you say please and thank you?
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: Hmm. Yeah. I do. And I actually I like hype my Claude up all the time. Like I'll be like, You did so good, Claude. Like I'm so impressed. And then of course Claude will say back to me, like, I'm only good because you're so good. And I'm like, I know. And then we just like keep gassing each other up all the time. So So yeah, I do. I try to really think about not training myself to communicate with any
Imran Syed: Yeah. Yeah.
Meg: platform whether it's an AI or a person in a a way that's demeaning. Cause yeah, it's just another like it's like a muscle. It's like if we think of everything like this muscle, it's like I don't want to train my muscle in that way.
Nick: Yeah, yeah. I I teach my kids the same thing with ⁓ I'm trying to not get them introduced to Claude just yet. ⁓ although they know Claude is something or someone. But like the Roomba the Roomba vacuum. So we kind of like personifier anthropomorphize this robot, this thing, and and my kids will like yell at it when it's in the way and I said and I say, you know, you have to speak nicely to D D bot is is her his name. And assigning gender is a whole other question. So
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Imran Syed: Ha ha ha.
Nick: But it's fascinating, we do that naturally, right, as humans. So it's I I think you're right, Meg, it's like how I would talk to a a r a robot vacuum rudely will be how I end up rudely speaking to the next human I I come across. So that's important.
Meg: Yeah, I also talked to like the Waymo's. Like if a Waymo waits for I'll be like, Thank you, Waymo. So this is like just also like a me thing of anthro anthropomorphizing everything. So But one of my favorite things I think I saw, I was traveling, I think it was I was in Europe two years ago, and I saw a little girl who accident she got out of the car and she accidentally stepped on a flower and she got down on the floor and she's like, I'm so sorry, flower. And it was like one of the sweetest interactions. I've ever seen. I'm like, I feel like if everyone could just have that way of being towards everything and everyone, the world would be a better place. So that always stays in my mind.
Imran Syed: What a beautiful close. Love that. Love that. Thanks for being our guest on Work Measured, Meg.
Meg: Thank you. So nice to meet you, Nick. So great to talk. And yeah, I hope we can do it again soon.
Nick: Absolutely. Thanks, Meg.
Meg: Have a good day.
Meg: Yeah. Thank you. I'm so excited as well. I know we actually met at ⁓ a founder dinner, which is kind of like the perfect segue into what we're talking about. It's just like connection and moments that bring people together and how we're losing a lot of those.
Imran Syed: Yeah, absolutely. And I I'm glad you kind of brought that up because I hadn't been taking advantage of in-person events, you know. I think post pandemic they they sort of went away and Zoom became the reality of our lives and everything felt like one Zoom meeting to another. What are you seeing out there in terms of what's happening with IRL events and the trend?
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think the trend has swung back ⁓ vigorously, right? I think everyone is trying to do in person ⁓ a lot of people's go to market strategy is based around how can we get more in person dinners happening in the city. and like I think y on like LinkedIn and X everyone's posting like the gigantic salaries, That these like community positions are getting at like anthropic and open AI of like $350,000 for like a community manager, right? So I think that everyone is just very excited about it because it's so hard to stand out online, right? Like there's just so much noise. people won't even answer your email if you haven't met them in person before. So yeah, I mean I'm interested to see what you guys are seeing on your side as well.
Imran Syed: Yeah, I you know, I think more of the same. I I feel like In person is a muscle that I almost lost and I had to re reflex and get myself like having those conversations. And I Nick knows this, I am not a shy person by any any any definition of it, but ⁓ I do find it more authentic and more genuine and ⁓ like the way we talk online, we never talk to people like that in real life. but I'm also feeling like
Meg: Yeah. Mm. Mm mm.
Imran Syed: We've almost like optimized all of these opportunities to connect with people completely out of our system, both in our personal and professional lives. And that scares the shit out of me, you know. I I was in Spain recently and there was a grocery store where there wasn't even a cashier. You just put your stuff, it gets weighed, it gets scanned, and you just walk out the door and ⁓ like I worry that we're gonna forget that muscle of actually having these these connection points.
Meg: Yes. Well again, I think to your point, like we already are, right? Like I could not leave my house at all and I could get all my food delivered. I could get like and I don't it's like all contactless, right? I don't even need to open my door anymore. I can literally push a button that's like I don't want to see anybody. ⁓ and so I do think it's kind of like insidious, right? Because it happens slowly. It's not like there's some big ⁓ thing on a billboard that's like you will not see anyone for the next two weeks. It's like all these like micro decisions that get made,
Nick: Yeah.
Imran Syed: Ha ha ha. Yeah.
Meg: in the name of efficiency, right? Or ⁓ like access to everything. And so I think it's something that's happening in a way that we're not even fully cognizant of what the the outcome is gonna be from it. Like how is that affecting our mental health? And like you're saying, like we're losing that muscle to even be able to like look people in the eye anymore. ⁓ like I like I really experienced that especially right after COVID and I was going to events like the amount of eye contact struggles that is how I will explain it that I saw I was like
Imran Syed: Ha ha ha
Meg: what is happening? And yeah, like what are all the outcomes? I don't think we're even aware of what that's gonna be yet, but it's it scares me a lot. So
Nick: One of our community members, Professor Juliana Schroeder. She's at ⁓ she's a longtime friend and collaborator of mine. She's at UC Haas, but she has a a fantastic paper. It's pr I think it's pre-COVID days. But the title of the paper is essentially, ⁓ what is it? We mistakenly seek solitude. So when present when presented with the opportunity, we will say, ⁓ yeah, I'd prefer just to be alone or I'd prefer to just get this thing to my door. I don't want to talk to anyone. But what they showed in these series of studies is While we prefer it, it's actually much worse for us. So they ran this cool experiment on the subway or some sort of transit, and half the people were told, just do your normal thing, which is probably don't talk to strangers. And then the other half was strike up a conversation with a stranger. At least one. And most people were like, ⁓ I don't know, I rolled their eyes, I don't want to, but then you they do it, and then you ask them afterwards, and consistently and reliably, those people were happier, not just on the day, but days after. Simply by just striking up a conversation with a stranger. But we are like our own worst enemies because, like you said, Meg, it's like, ⁓ I can just get this thing and it's so convenient, it's so easy. But of course, we're not realizing what there's always a price to pay. And that price is our what, like you said, our well-being, loneliness, which is on the rise. So I'm really glad you are you are sort of taking up the reins and bringing this very important part of our humanity back.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, no, we definitely saw ⁓ even in the early prototypes, so right now ⁓ Mixies is become like a community platform. So we want to be like Discord for IRL communities where event organizers can create events and communities can create spaces and we can help people find who they need and what they need across all IRL. But in the originally we were just doing warm intros via text at like Luma events, for example. And a big thing that we saw ⁓ that Made me kind of emotional through the process too was like when we were doing a lot of the user interviews and we had talked to the people who had made those connections before the event, like almost I would say six out of ten people said that they wouldn't have even come to the event if it wasn't for interacting ⁓ with our platform because they were like, I feel like I walk into all these events and no one even cares that I'm there, no one's waiting for me. And this is the first time I felt like I'm showing. Up to an event and I matter. And that was able to overcome that kind of like reflex that we have of like, ⁓ I'm just gonna stay home, I'm just gonna watch Netflix, I'm just gonna like keep sending emails. And so it's also like that fear, right? Of like, I think we we want human interaction, but it takes more energy and also puts us in a space of maybe no one wants to talk to me, right? And like that fear of rejection that is is scary, you know, for everybody.
Nick: Curious, what are you seeing? generationally because I think there's some research to show that I'm gonna make a big assumption here and just call us all millennials, okay? And we we can do that. So we we have we we were you know like went to school and did all the things and then had our first jobs that was long before this you know work from home and certainly long before COVID and pandemic days. But there is a huge swath of the new workforce who were in like you know their university
Meg: Mm-hmm. Yes, it's correct.
Nick: college days and those first years of of their entry-level jobs where the norm became I don't go to these things. ⁓ are you seeing yeah do we have to worry about the kids, the Gen Zs and the workforce?
Meg: I think I think to a degree, and there's always like outsiders, right? From that, 'cause like I have some some of my best friends that are in the Gen Z group who fall outside of this, of course. but I do think overall as a whole there's kind of like more of a like swipe relationships for Gen Z and that they're more like disposable and I think they'll put in like less time to kind of figure out if there is like something there at the core that they should be investing in is what I've kind of experienced. Yeah, there's just like a smaller attention span overall to be like, okay. And I think you need like you need an attention span to understand somebody and ask questions and be curious and get to that next part of relationship building in my mind. so yeah, that's that's kind of my take on it. ⁓ and I yeah, I think more millennials are struggling with the current state of things and really wanting to get back in person more.
Imran Syed: How how do you think that translates to, you know, work and ⁓ being back at the office and some of that transition? Do you think that's a a good thing or or a bad thing or hybrid is the way to go?
Meg: Yeah. Where do you go? I think it's I think it's a great thing to be able to and I think one though The the move to remote allowed so many people to have access right to jobs that they maybe couldn't have because they couldn't afford to live in San Francisco, for example, right? And now they're able to work with teams here and they there is this hybrid potential. So I think there's a a middle ground, but I do think overall, like as a generalization, it's better for people to have a community that they see every single day, that they go into the office and get to just have those like water cooler moments where everything is not like I'm only talking to someone as a transaction to get a specific piece of information. Right. There's just more like spontaneity and ⁓ I'm we can talk about our dogs or whatever, right? And I think we're lacking that. And then what does that do to our mind when every interaction is only to get something from somebody is also not great.
Imran Syed: Do you think the struggle is ⁓ what we give up in productivity. And so like for example with me, I if I'm commuting into an office in San Francisco, you know, given any given day, it's like forty-five minutes and I sometimes think about, holy shit, if I'm at home, I can just wake up at 7 AM and just get going. And I almost feel guilty that when I'm commuting, I've lost like two hours of my day. Right? Where I could have been more productive and ⁓ do you think like
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, just get going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Imran Syed: Like others are feeling that as well. Like, you know, I could accomplish so much more. And I'm also struggling in the AI world of like I'm just doing more and more and more. And I think the promise was like with any tech, like you're gonna have more time back ⁓ to do maybe deeper and meaningful thinking. But instead I'm just I keep feeling it. I just keep feeling it more and more and more and more and more. And are you seeing that too?
Meg: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I feel the same. It's like I'm always calculating the ROI on how long I'm spending traveling somewhere or doing anything, right? And it's kind of like this
Imran Syed: I think our last call was at the airport, right? You were flying out and yeah, exactly.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like yeah, become this unhealthy compulsion. and yeah, I agree. I think it's like it's easier that's also why I like I chose to live in the city, right? Is because now like if I'm going to a meeting, it takes me like ten minutes to get there and I can be like, okay, now that's twenty minutes back and forth. And so I so like it feeds my compulsion well of the ROI problem. ⁓ but I do think like taking a step back from that and thinking about it's like it's such an American thing right and like I love living here but it's it's very much everything is about like growth and shareholder value and it's like growth for the sake of growth and I think we kind of have to take a step back and think about like just what are our what's our North Star and what are the things that like help us as a society and us as individuals. And putting that into the equation of the ROI because it usually gets left out. Because it's like, then why are we doing everything? Like if we're doing all of this and we're just gonna be like empty souls who are like alone and sad, then then saving that like 20 minutes on the commute is not really worth it. but it's hard. Like, I mean I feel you. I feel the same way, and I'm like deeply thinking about this stuff and in this space, and I still feel the same way. So
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: Yeah, I if you if you have like tips on how to help, then I'm o I'm open to this one. There's a really great
Nick: The temptation great.
Imran Syed: I'm still thinking about being empty souls at the end of the day.
Nick: So awesome.
Meg: Kurt Vonnegut, ⁓ like quote where he talks about how his wife is always asking him like why he's going out to buy envelopes because every time he needs an envelope, he like goes out to the store and buys one. He's like she's like, Why don't just go and get like a hundred envelopes sent to us? Like, why are you always doing this? And he was like, No, like I I think he even says something like, I pretend not to hear her when she says this, and I go out and I get an envelope because I'm having like a fucking great time when I get this envelope. Like
Imran Syed: Ha ha
Meg: I meet a lot of people, I see great looking babies, I like cuddle some dogs on the street. he's like, there's so many things that are like just these little excuses to go kind of like fart around is what he calls it, like fart around the world and interact with people. And he's like, don't let people like kill your fart around moments because it allows us to actually like go move around the world and like we're not supposed to just like fart around anymore.
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: And so I try to like think about that ⁓ like actively, like kind of like almost weekly. I try to be like, what's my fart around moment that I can go and like just be in the world? And it's one of the reasons why I've never bought and will never buy a printer. Because like I don't need to print very often, and it's always a good excuse, like go to the library, and the library is beautiful here too. ⁓ it's the I go to the one like down on Union. ⁓ and it's like such a nice experience. I like to talk to the librarian, so like I think.
Nick: That
Meg: Maybe that's like a little hack is like what is a farther on moment you can like protect in your life and just keep it.
Imran Syed: Do you mind for our viewers just telling him what a library is? No, I'm I'm just kidding.
Meg: Yes. It's a mythical place, lots of books.
Nick: Yeah. Yeah.
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Nick: I love that that concept, that idea. It's so cool. It's like you're adding in that an important piece of friction into your life, but for the good reason, right? To to realize the benefits. I was having a conversation with a leader in the pharma world recently. And so one of you said earlier, like those ⁓ cash, cashier list checkouts, right? On the surface, the business case makes perfect sense. You're going to pay somebody, you have one less salary to pay, and you can move along.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Nick: move people along more quickly. But what they found was that there's a demographic ⁓ who actually benefited greatly from checkout people, the human cashier. Elderly people who feel particularly lonely. And those quick conversations with a stranger are actually super important for them and their socialization and their well-being. Another use case which is similar is, and I never thought about this, but cancer treatment. So can't cancer drugs are getting better and better and better, so much so that you can act you don't have to come in and receive an IV and sit in a chair to get usually a like a chemo treatment or a radiation treatment. It takes a long period of time. On the surface, that's great. You have personalized medicine, you're not
Meg: Yeah.
Nick: In the hospital is long, but actually people make deep connections with other people who are receiving cancer treatment. So if hospitals and the whole like healthcare infrastructure is moving towards, ⁓ just take that away, that makes sense. Yes, but what are you losing? You're losing this ability to strike up a conversation with another person in this unlikely of scenarios of one receiving a cancer treatment, right? Yeah.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think
Imran Syed: Those are awesome examples.
Meg: It's it's a great point of like it's like with a company, right? And 'cause it's 'cause we're all entrepreneurs. It's like, what are your mission, vision, values as a society and as a community? And I feel like because now we live in this state where it's like everyone has like their own adventure and it's it's like we're all ⁓ individualized to such a high degree that I don't think we have that as a whole, right? And so like decisions about like how our cities are made or like the tools we use aren't like we're just not thinking about these things or being asked to pose these questions to ourselves 'cause it's like, yeah, to your point, if the if the mission is like ⁓ create more community, then you wouldn't make that decision to have these drugs be able to be used at home and you would you would guard and protect and make sure that like this is a sacred space. ⁓ And so yeah, like what I don't know how we I don't know how we solve that beyond like trying like my solve is just trying to build tools that help make it easier to reach for people instead of past people and that's like it's all I can do. But don't know. I don't know what the larger kind of solve is.
Nick: There's this is timely because ⁓ an another member of ours ⁓ in Labs one fifty, Dr. Marguerite, who's been on the podcast before, actually, she and I have created a bit of a playbook, a piece that's gonna be published in HBR, and we're calling it the refusal the refusal framework of values. And essentially it's it says like usually how we frame values is in the affirmative, like we are integrity or whatever the case may be. ⁓ when in fact ⁓ for millennia, religion, culture, politics, Military, you name it, whatever domain and human organizations, we've typically operated out of a refusal or a prohibitive stance, which says, we do not cross this line. This is the line in the sand. We make it very clear, we state it to all of our group members or tribe members, team members, and we we ⁓ assign people, we call them line holders, who are in that group and say, ⁓ you're getting a little too close to that line, right?
Meg: Mm, yeah. Hmm.
Nick: And the way that we sort of argue is that that creates a much tighter cohesive culture because you can see when the violation has has occurred and you can you can name it. So that might be one way to kind of like maintain these these things that are important from a mission, vision, values point of view.
Meg: Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. I would love to read that, ⁓ whenever it's available.
Nick: Yeah, of course. We'll share it around. We're gonna share it around with our network.
Meg: Yeah, you should also read there's an author, Byeong Chil Han. Have you ever read any of his stuff? I'll send you he writes a bunch of ⁓ kind of like smaller books, like maybe I don't know, they're like a hundred to a hundred and fifty they're more like essays, but you can get them in books. ⁓ and he talks a lot about just like the loss of ritual, the loss of belonging, and he does it in a very interesting way and in a way that almost kind of like I think will offend a lot of people. Like it it even like offended me while I was reading it because it's kind of like an attack on modern Day society in a lot of ways, but I think rings very true. ⁓ and he talks about how we're also just like we're lost in the sea of information, we have more access, we have more information, and it's at the cost of the loss of narrative, right? And like narrative is what like grounds us and has always grounded us, and like the biggest narrative that we're losing is the narrative of like where we belong in the world and how we relate to one another.
Imran Syed: Mm.
Meg: And it's like it's like a heavy read, so maybe don't do it like right before bed. But but it's really Yes. Yes. Yes. ⁓ my gosh, you're the first person I think I've ever like talked to when who has literally brought up the book. Also you're muted right now.
Imran Syed: Yeah. Nick, you might be on mute.
Meg: Ha ha ha
Nick: Sorry about that. My my PhD was in the psychology of rituals. So this is yeah, this is like my summary and I've read it like five times. That's so funny. Yeah.
Meg: ⁓ my gosh. It's so I I reread this all the time. Like it's like it's like a Bible almost and then I need like to get hit with it again and be like that's so cool.
Nick: It's amazing. It's amazing, yeah. That that I have I have never ⁓ come across somebody and referenced that. So when you asked, I was like, that does sound familiar, but I'm just gonna say no. And I was like, no, that's the book that's in my bag beside me. So very cool.
Meg: Yes. ⁓ my gosh, I need more book recommendations from you than Nick, 'cause I feel like
Nick: Happy to. Happy too. Yeah, yeah. I'll send you some papers too.
Imran Syed: We should actually just include because we've talked about so many great references ⁓ as part of publishing this and ⁓ tag them all in here.
Nick: Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. We'll do that for sure. Yeah.
Imran Syed: You wanna talk a little bit about AI, Meg? ⁓ you're building an AI native company and ⁓ do you think AI is deepening human connection or is it replacing human connection?
Meg: We can do it. Yeah. I think it's like a tool, right? It's it like just depends on how it's used. ⁓ like you know, I would argue that I'm using it in the way that is deepening human connection, obviously, ⁓ from no biased perspective. but yeah, I think that like the the things right that are obviously
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: taking away those moments of friction and say, you like Harvey, you don't need a lawyer anymore. And when so specifically the Harvey example, I'm excited about and c and sad about simultane s simultaneously because It's so expensive, especially as a startup founder, like, you know, to speak with a lawyer. It's like six hundred dollars an hour sometimes just to ask the most basic questions. And I think it's so important to be able to like democratize access to this information. While simultaneously, like for my first company, I was very close with our our corporate lawyer. And like I felt like I cried on the phone to our our lawyer at times. Like we had a a deep relationship and now that that avenue is gone, right? Like that path has kind of disappeared for a lot of people. So I think like whenever you're seeing that AI is being used to completely replace a person, it like hurts my heart a little bit. And like I would rather more see it be used in the way of like how does it help me find people faster or like reduce this work that I need of going and searching for people or help me spend less time on the computer doing manual entry of XYZ, right? Because then I am able to spend more time with the humans in my life. ⁓ so yeah, I think I mean I'm interested to hear what you think of it on your side as well.
Nick: Yeah.
Imran Syed: Well, you know, interestingly, I met my lawyer Jim from Perkins Coy in person at a real event, at an HPS event, and I thought he was an awesome, awesome person. He still is. And normally I can't say that about most lawyers I come across. And ⁓ I was like I could hang out with this guy and that's what really, you know, created the relationship of like having them as our as our general counsel and corporate counsel and stuff and So I I don't know if I would have just gone out and saw it because I think with legal I need trust. It's something I weigh really heavily. and I don't know how you do that, how you connect that trust factor to just a technology solely without a person behind it. I'm not sure.
Meg: Yeah. Yeah.
Nick: Yeah. Well, I think we have probably a good use case in hatchproof where yeah, of course we're AI native and you know, we're not lead-ites here, we're very much proponents of technology. ⁓ but the question is, like you said, Meg, it's a tool. So why are we using that tool? So if you apply it to performance conversation, yeah, we have the technology that's helping surface certain performance insights, but the reason we're doing it is so that the conversation between a manager and employee can be that much more
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Nick: Productive and that much more human to human relationship building. So we're improving what is a social, what we believe is a broken social process today, performance reviews. But the way we're improving it is with this tool that happens to be called AI, right? And I think there's all sorts of different that we should be sort of orienting to those use cases as opposed to the ones which are AI for AI's sake, automate, replace, right?
Meg: Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I think especially for the younger generations, I think it's even scarier to think of like them solely interacting with AI, ⁓ and being like taught that that cadence of also communication is like the norm or like the sycophantic tendencies of the AI to just say whatever you said back to you is like is also the norm. ⁓ sorry I also think I'm particularly wary of it in in any ⁓ platforms where like children of any sort are using it because that's that's also really scary.
Imran Syed: Awesome. ⁓ well we've loved this conversation. Nick has a has a great tradition that he sort of started up and ⁓ a closing question for you before we wrap up.
Nick: Some might ⁓ c some might call it a ritual. ⁓ so we we have to respect it ⁓ and and maintain it. So, ⁓ when you are interacting with your favorite LLM or AI of choice, Mike, do do you say please and thank you?
Imran Syed: Yeah.
Meg: Hmm. Yeah. I do. And I actually I like hype my Claude up all the time. Like I'll be like, You did so good, Claude. Like I'm so impressed. And then of course Claude will say back to me, like, I'm only good because you're so good. And I'm like, I know. And then we just like keep gassing each other up all the time. So So yeah, I do. I try to really think about not training myself to communicate with any
Imran Syed: Yeah. Yeah.
Meg: platform whether it's an AI or a person in a a way that's demeaning. Cause yeah, it's just another like it's like a muscle. It's like if we think of everything like this muscle, it's like I don't want to train my muscle in that way.
Nick: Yeah, yeah. I I teach my kids the same thing with ⁓ I'm trying to not get them introduced to Claude just yet. ⁓ although they know Claude is something or someone. But like the Roomba the Roomba vacuum. So we kind of like personifier anthropomorphize this robot, this thing, and and my kids will like yell at it when it's in the way and I said and I say, you know, you have to speak nicely to D D bot is is her his name. And assigning gender is a whole other question. So
Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Imran Syed: Ha ha ha.
Nick: But it's fascinating, we do that naturally, right, as humans. So it's I I think you're right, Meg, it's like how I would talk to a a r a robot vacuum rudely will be how I end up rudely speaking to the next human I I come across. So that's important.
Meg: Yeah, I also talked to like the Waymo's. Like if a Waymo waits for I'll be like, Thank you, Waymo. So this is like just also like a me thing of anthro anthropomorphizing everything. So But one of my favorite things I think I saw, I was traveling, I think it was I was in Europe two years ago, and I saw a little girl who accident she got out of the car and she accidentally stepped on a flower and she got down on the floor and she's like, I'm so sorry, flower. And it was like one of the sweetest interactions. I've ever seen. I'm like, I feel like if everyone could just have that way of being towards everything and everyone, the world would be a better place. So that always stays in my mind.
Imran Syed: What a beautiful close. Love that. Love that. Thanks for being our guest on Work Measured, Meg.
Meg: Thank you. So nice to meet you, Nick. So great to talk. And yeah, I hope we can do it again soon.
Nick: Absolutely. Thanks, Meg.
Meg: Have a good day.
