Simon Sinek says his core message hasn't changed since 2009: start with why and keep humanity at the center. He warns that technologists get seduced by new tools and forget people, a pattern from electricity to AI. Business is human-to-human, and leaders who don't understand people don't understand business.
Chapters
So, Simon, I actually, as I was preparing for this conversation, I went back and watched the OG clip of you in 2009, um, where you were, um, you were, um, it was a TED Talk, I believe, and went completely viral. And it struck me when you gave the talk that the iPhone was brand new, Facebook was still mostly for college students, cloud computing was still, was in the early kind of phases of what it was, and, and AI were really just two letters in the alphabet. So, if you were to go back knowing what you know today and talk to that 2009 version of Simon, what would you— what's one thing that you would say to Simon of 2009 knowing what you know now?
I don't think I would change anything. The message that I've been spreading for all these years is a reminder of humanity. And remember, Start With Why is fundamentally about how people think, act, and communicate. It sort of— it— where I came up through the marketing world, where all these trips that— what do you call it— tricks and tips that people were using to get people to do what they wanted. And the way that I came up with Start With Why was looking at the biology of human decision-making. It was fundamentally human. And so with the rise of the internet and people talking about how, you know, online shopping was going to replace bricks and mortar, it happens every single time. Technologists forget about the people because they become enamored with the technology. Don't let engineers run companies, right? Because they always forget the people. No offense to every— I was going to say, if there are any engineers, we love you too. Yeah, but, but it's, it's, it's just funny to me. And this, the conversation about AI now, it's an amazing technology. It's remarkable. We're not 100% sure where it's going to land. Like every technology, you talked about electricity. You know, you could say the same thing about the fax machine, the telex machine, the email. They were all disruptive in their own way. Obviously, this is a much bigger disruption. There's a lot of uncertainty, which causes a lot of stress. But at the end of the day, we are human beings who work with human beings who sell to human beings. And if you don't understand people, you don't understand business.
