Sean Everett, a technologist and investor, discusses incentive design as a way to shape human behavior, compares Web3 to new incentive layers, and imagines humanoid robots at $200 a month. He shares losing his service dog and reflects on grief, fascination, and extracting meaning from tragedy.
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There we go. Welcome to the Humanist Podcast. I'm your host, Ken Stearns. Join us on a journey where we unravel the intricacies of workplace dynamics. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Another lovely, uh, another lovely episode planned. Uh, great guest, Sean Everett. Uh, we've just been having a kind of a pre-chat and It's always a, it's always a mixed bag for me. I never really— it's like a, it's like a Halloween bag at the end of the, at the end of Halloween. I never know when, if I reach my, my hand in, you know, what the guest is going to be like and, and the kind of the backstory and what they're going to add to the, to the fabric of, of The Humanist. And Sean, you're definitely going to be, uh, it's going to be a fun conversation. People are going to learn a lot. And I think it's, it's rare to meet somebody that's behind the scenes. Who's really part of the design and part of the evolution of stuff we play with. So welcome to the show. Really appreciate having you on.
Yeah, thanks for having me, Ken. Appreciate the invite and looking forward to the chat. And hello to everybody out there on the internet.
Yeah, it is funny. You never— and we never know where this is going to end up and, you know, who's going to end up listening. So it's permanent. And I love that. I love that part of these conversations that they're there for a long time. See where they go.
Great. Looking forward to it.
Why don't you, I mean, Sean, why don't you give us a little, a little background? I think you shared with me some pretty interesting stuff. You know, I, I'm looking at your, when I'm, how do you say it, when I'm stalking your profile is the right word, right? When I'm stalking your profile, I come across, you know, it's not often on LinkedIn, it's a guy with a couple of experiences, right? Just a couple of of roles, but a lot of different experiences inside that one role. Maybe you give us a little, you know, what is Everett Advisors and what have you kind of crafted? Yeah, sure.
I think, you know, Steve Jobs said the dots only connect looking backwards. I think as I sit here in my 4th decade of life, or however you count it, you know, you look back And you sort of say, like, you know, what was there in the beginning when you were younger just kind of evolves and tends to be there as you age and get older as well. And I grew up in an interesting place. It was Sioux City, Iowa, which, you know, cornfield, probably 80,000 people. And the one thing that was there, though, aside from what you might expect in the middle of Iowa, is we were about an hour north of Omaha, which is where Berkshire Hathaway Oh yeah. That's where Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger had their firm for many, many years. Still do to this day. And it's also where a company called Gateway 2000 was founded. It was a computer company that was formed in the '90s. And it was, if people remember, it was the box that had the cow spots on the outside of it.
I remember that. I think I've seen a few of those. Yep.
And so around the year '98 or something, I think they changed their name to Gateway because, I mean, Obviously, it gets dated around Y2K. So that, I got involved with computing, I guess I had an Apple IIe in my kindergarten class, but for some reason, like high-end computers were happening right in my backyard in the middle of a cornfield, right? And so as I realized what happened over the course of my career, I've always been at the intersection of capital and computing. And I started tinkering around with the internet and technology and software when I was 13 years old. hacking the Windows operating system to free up space so I could play Wolfenstein 3D by the venerable John Carmack, who's now leading VR efforts at Meta and Oculus. So, you know, over time I ended up like plotting stock prices on graph paper and investing in tech mutual funds in the mid-'90s when I was in middle school and really sort of studying that because it was fun. Like, I was an only child and, you know, I had a pretty calm childhood, so it gave me and afforded me the opportunity to, um, really kind of just think about things and tinker with things.
Yeah.
And so I realized looking back, you know, I went to business school at a really well-known finance and economics school, and I've been tinkering around with my own startups, running, operating other startups Spent 5 or 6 years at a large management consulting firm doing incentive design for executives in the boards of Fortune 1000, Fortune 500, Fortune 1 companies. And so it just feels like it's kept spiraling and spiraling closer and closer to like what— I know you've had some Asian background, but ikigai, which is, you know, the sense that what you like doing, what the world values.
Mm-hmm.
You know, that whole thing, what you can get paid for. And so it's always been at the intersection of that, you know, capital allocation, like money, business, computers, technology, internet.
Hmm.
It's taken me all over the place. And I think, you know, before the show started here, you were talking about stories in the podcast you did where you went around to almost one person per year And heard people's stories and recorded them. Well, we, uh, this was back in 2011, 2012, we founded a company called Adam and Luna, but the product we created was called StoryApp, and it was the precursor to the stories media format that you now see on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook.
Wow, that's a wow.
Yeah, yeah. So we, we co-invented that, and then, you know, we open sourced it and It was like decentralized movement, open source, back before, you know, Web3 became this big thing. Um, and so we had— we would basically— we created that media format where you would have multiple images with voice or sound recording over the top.
Yeah.
Create a little movie. And the whole point was to tell your story. So our tagline was, you have a story. And so as big tech picked it up, they kind of lost some of the soul of the media format and just kept the Fast Tap media format. And we had some other stuff in there like AI and Memojis and all of that. But that was really the point, which is if you can create a safe place for real talk, you know, signed up—
Yes.
And you were on this pathway as well, which is the very human stories and how we connect with one another, then that can literally open up doors as you share more about your past and your background and what you've been through.
So good stuff.
Yeah. And then, you know, you can— as most things in the world, you need to find a business model so it's self-sustaining. And, um, yeah, so that's, you know, worked with a number of other founders, have my own firm, um, allocate my own capital into our things, into projects. And, um, yeah, it's, it's fun. It's a labor of love and I think it's one of those things that I'll end up doing until I kick the bucket because I just love it. I find it fascinating. It's that intersection of humans and technology.
Yeah, it's a fascinating parallel on our stories, you know, searching out for that platform to give people a chance to tell their story. Yeah. I mean, everybody has a story.
Exactly. And what we found through a lot of our customer development and research was people with the craziest stories didn't think they had a story worth sharing, which was—
Yes.
Why we were saying you have a story. It was like, no, actually what you've been through matters and matters to other people. And the thing you've been through and how you got through it can help, you know, countless other individuals. There's 5 billion people on the internet now, so You know, share it, post it, and you could help someone without even realizing it.
And sadly, the human ego took over part of that. You know, people just tell their story for their own— for their— so they can get more followers, to make them, you know, to kind of elevate their own personal satisfaction.
Yeah.
Um, and we lost the, the purity of the story, I think.
Yeah, I think it's human nature. It's sort of like what I found is I think we have to judo it and use it to an advantage rather than to a failing. So don't try to fight—
Yeah.
What's already there inside humans. Just try to direct it in a positive way, like the flow of water. And I mean, you know this from some of your, your background spending 20 years outside the Western world, just a different philosophical way of viewing the world. But yeah, it's— I think it would be great if the business world and the world we live in was selfless rather than selfish. And so I think you need an incentive model that is selfish, but the output of that incentive creates selfless things.
Yeah, drive the people.
It's taken a long time for me to integrate those 2 things, but I think that's really the big unlock.
Yeah, it's, uh, we share another parallel, which is, it was interesting you're describing it. I, I spent, you know, a good bit of my, probably my corporate value, uh, at certain roles, certain points, was incentive design. Spent quite a bit of time because, you know, we were running very large sales teams, you know, in, in countries, you know, either in a country or regionally, you know, managing several countries and just looking at uh, the incentive design and how to pay people, you know, with what you've got, the ability, you know, with what you have, what, what's the pie and how do you divide it up and how do you move the pieces or change the berries, uh, to get, you know, you know, we used to say, you know, it's at, at one point I had a, I worked with this Vietnamese guy. He was so, he was so fun. We had it so dialed, we felt we had it so dialed in. Uh, we had 100,000 agents across the whole country and Wow. 200 sales offices. And he said, you know, Ken, it's so good. We just take a little bit of gold coins and we throw them over there in the corner and everybody runs over there. And then we shake the can and we throw them over there and they run over there. You know, because we had these weekly, daily, monthly incentives, quarterly, annual. You know, we had these layers of incentives to just drive the salespeople mad. You know, they'd wake up in the morning and just want to know what were these idiots, you know, what were they going to sell it to tell us to do tomorrow? And, you know, just so much fun. But, you know, the incentives really drive behavior. And so if you want an outcome, you know, you start with the outcome that you want. I think you would have done that at a corporate level, right? Because you're much longer term, you know, for executives.
Yeah.
And it's, you know, how do you design this so the outcome is what you want? And sometimes it looks— you end up with a very strange package sometimes. And people just kind of tilt their head and they're like, why are you paying me? Like, for what? Well, if you, you know, 1 2 3 you know, that gets the board or it gets the customer or it gets the shareholder, you know, the value we're trying to drive.
Yeah, exactly right. I mean, what we learned is a very simple but powerful principle, which is like incentives can turn humans into computer programs.
Yes.
You tell them you do this thing, you get that, they will go and do it, that exact thing. And so the implication is that is the second-order consequences, which is what happens as a result of just doing that.
Yeah.
So what you've found in really great incentive design are almost these balances and checks, which is you, you incentivize like a core action, but then you also have another incentive which works as a guardrail.
Yes, yes.
To keep people in a thing. So when we would design incentives for short-term incentives or long-term, which is like your annual bonus or a 1-year incentive, and then long-term, which is like your stock options, your RSUs, your equity, um, we would have, you know, more than 2 or 3, people can't keep that in their head. And so different industries would have different incentives, like financial services would have maybe return on assets or ROE, but And a lot of cases in public companies, you'd have TSR, total shareholder return.
Yes.
Which is why you see some of the stock buybacks happening.
Yeah.
Right. Instead of like investing that money back into the business because the capital allocators inside the business believe the best way to get a return on their money out of all options in the world, external, internal, is to just buy our own shares back.
Yes.
Which increases the stock price. Listen to Buffett or Munger and Berkshire, they're like, Mr. Market is wild and volatile, and in the long term it's a weighing machine, in the short term it's just like crazy. Um, so, you know, even that as an incentive is— can be dangerous because it can force you to do short-term things that damage the brand.
Yes.
So yeah, incentives. I mean, we could talk about incentives for a long time, but, um, they are a powerful mechanism. And like Web3 with cryptocurrency really is incentive design at its core. People call it payments, you know, payment layers like Stripe Payments, but I actually, when I see payments, I change that word in my mind to incentives.
Interesting.
And then it changes how you approach that thing. So you want somebody to buy something, well, what's their incentive? to spend that money or invest that money into that thing? Well, oftentimes it's so that they can get a return on that money— emotionally, physically, financially, something. If there's no return and they don't understand it, then why would I allocate my capital to that investment?
Right, right.
Humans innately understand this. We just try to complexify everything.
Yeah, sometimes we do add layers. How about a question from the jar? You're at a good spot. I think we kind of— we squeezed a little bit of juice out of that. Let's see where the jar takes us.
Moment of truth here.
Oh yeah, this is a little truth. It's a little deep for an early Monday morning. Good thing it's— good thing it's after 10 for you. A little harder for me at 8 in the morning to face this one. So question from the the jar for Sean: When was the last time you made yourself truly open and vulnerable to someone? When was the last time you you made yourself truly open and vulnerable to someone?
Yeah, you know I like to think I'm a pretty open book, especially as I share and post knowledge and content to the internet. But some of my very, very close people in my very tight circle. Probably name 5 of them. 2, 2 probably are the closest. Um, so I think that— how, how often or how long has it been? Um, I don't know. The fall I definitely did in a pretty deep way. We had lost our, our dog who had been with us, with me for 9 years, with my partner for 15. It was a service animal. It was like losing a son. So that was a very large disruption to, um, your psyche, your life. Makes you rethink a lot of stuff about what you're doing.
Yes.
Um, and, you know, I think, how deep do you go? I mean, I pet therapists over the years to help understand and make sure that I'm thinking clearly and processing inputs and outputs clearly, and then share complete open book with them. And then, yeah, so I think some of my 2 closest people in my life, um, yeah, it's pretty often. I'd say, you know, once a week, once every couple weeks or so. But at the absolute deep, rudest core, I mean, I don't know. The conversations we have sometimes don't often go that deep. So it's probably one area where I could improve more. How about yourself?
Yeah, yeah, it is. Um, I think I've gotten there pretty good lately, even with family, you know, really, you know, easy to go deeper faster, right, to, to the sensitive spots, right, the stuff you don't always want to talk about or talk through. But having some of those with a couple of friends— I've got a, you know, I'm 62 and I got a couple of buddies, similar life-changing, they're, they're in life change mode, you know, reinventing themselves as well. Um, you know, which I've been doing a couple of times the last few years. And that's, that's a real personal— you have to strip away. There's no BS, man. When you're looking in the mirror And you flipped your life upside down, there's no hiding.
Yeah.
And everybody sees your stuff, you know, like when you're not doing what your core— you know, I was an insurance guy for 30-something years and 20 years in Asia. I was an expert. I was in my field, I was an expert. And, uh, you know, I knew incentive design like in Asia for that, man. Nope, there was probably, you know, there's 4 or 5 people like me. In some of the places. Uh, so when you turn all that to zero, um, you very quickly have to be vulnerable. Otherwise you're gonna— you'll, you'll suffer. I mean, otherwise you'll suffer.
Yeah.
And, uh, yeah, I've had to be pretty vulnerable, uh, the last couple years starting something. I, you know, I'm not an interviewer. I'd never interviewed. I mean, for work, you know, but that's not interviewing, it's work, right? And I'm an expert. I'm a boss. You know, so all of a sudden I wasn't anybody's boss. I was just running— some idiot with a van running around the country with, you know, a jar full of questions. People just looked at me and went, so why are you doing this?
Yeah.
What, what, what are you doing actually? Right. Just a lot of my friends and family just look at me and just, what are you thinking? Oh, and so you have to— you're stripped away. You sometimes you get stripped naked and you have to be vulnerable.
Yeah, I think it's in technology terms, you're in the search algorithm phase versus the optimization phase.
Yeah, yeah.
To take all the sort of human behavior out of it. But, you know, from a product management lens, you're doing customer discovery for the consumer market and you understand what really makes people tick, what really drives human behavior. And, you know, I've been a student of human and consumer behavior for my adult life because I knew it was such a, such a driving force that if you can unlock the code or the equation to that, then you could unlock some of the other things. And they're really— I mean, there's like some core principles, but it's so fluid and changes so often. Just culture. If you think about culture.
Yes.
Yeah. Trends and now trends on TikTok for fashion are happening faster, faster, faster, and even brands can't keep up. So it's like, you know, it's what are the core principles? It's we want to be understood. We have our own ego that we can never escape. We want to be valued. We want to feel good. And but ultimately, I think at the end of the day, It's, it's love me is really, is really what we're searching for is love me. Like, if you look at all of social media and you just look through the lens of love me through all the posts, a lot of times that I think is the fundamental thing that's coming through, not in a negative way, but just in like, it's built into the core of humans, I think, which is this desire for connection.
And so true.
And I think that's why the heart is like the most popular emoji out of all of them by far. It's just— oh yeah, connection and quantum entanglement and attraction forces. And what is it all like? Who knows? But it's a fundamental force in the universe. We just don't— we just don't describe it in physics and mathematical terms.
Yeah, I love that.
You know, it's true, it's powerful, right? Like, you can feel it on the other side of the universe. I love that quote from Interstellar, which is like, for one of the main characters, uh, an astronaut or scientist, but her love was on the other side of the universe through some wormhole, and she still felt that pull. Like, that's stronger than electromechanics, it's stronger than gravity. It's like, it doesn't matter how far away you are, it's still that pull to somebody like your family, which is friends, just crazy animals. It's wild. Like, what is that?
Yeah, how do you— well, it, it's energy, right? I mean, it's somehow, you know, we're, we're definitely energy. You know, we're not— we're in this meat suit, you know, this human meat suit, and, you know, there's some life force inside of it, you know, giving it life and, you know, instructing all these millions and millions and maybe billions of cells to do all these crazy things 24/7. Um, so I think if you do have that connection with somebody, a genetic connection especially, and then a— or a love connection, man, the heart is a powerful— it's got its own brain. I mean, the heart is— we don't really even understand how, how it works, you know. How does that thing just keep knowing to beat? How does that— how does that even work?
Yeah, it's the most studied organ in the human body and the most understood, I think, but Yeah, yeah, it's the human connectome. The whole body is a brain. That's what people forget is there's neural connections. I mean, it's the nervous system is neural connection of electrical signals, and that doesn't even combine the chemical processing aspect of it. So yeah, it's a complex adaptive machine.
It is just an amazing— yeah, and if you think about it and you get that visual of what the nervous system looks like, you know, and then all these ends of the nervous system end up in these kind of tapered little pieces, right? And, and to think that that electrical current stops at the end of that is nonsense, right? You know, you know that, that, that, that current that we have, that electrical field, you know, we can— I think the more— and, you know, the more holistic a person is, the larger the field around them.
Yeah.
Um, you know, and I think the more you, the more you're able to be, to be that kind of human we're supposed to be, you're— the larger the field you can hold. And I think if you're more internal and you're having struggles, you know, you pull it inside you and you'd be, you know, you're less, you're less electric, more meat suit.
Yeah, you shrink inside yourself and you have to— depression and anxiety.
And yeah, yeah, I think that's what depression, anxiety looks like, is when you really, you know, pull that electrical field inside you and you're not able to To share it with other people. You know, yeah, you feel it in your gut, right? Even your heart, you know, gets harder or firmer, you know, a little tighter. Um, and that's what— that's how you end up with a heart attack, right? It's when all that energy gets just constricted into a giant cramp. And I guess that is like a clenched fist, right? That's a heart attack. In a way. Yeah, it's being able to relax the organ.
Yeah, stress and anxiety. And we live in, uh, in, in nature. Like, we are nature, and nature is— we experience all things, and our feelings are like a manifestation of all the inputs, external, internal, and So in some ways, you got to hear them and listen to them and try to protect your feelings and your internal connectome and make sure you're staying healthy.
Who's the next Steve Jobs? Elon Musk is probably the only other— seems like to be the giant creative crazy mind. And even he seems to have run out of ideas. You know, going to Mars is, you know, it seems like a normal talk for him. So now everybody just— that's our base level. Um, but the iPhone, you look at the iPhone and, and how changing, you know, that was.
What's the—
what are you seeing? Anything? Is it a tech piece? Is it a software? It's not going to be a hardware anymore. The next thing that really changes our, our path, if you will.
Yeah.
What's a— what are you seeing? Or what do you— what do you— what are you pontificating as the next big change?
Well, I think, like, if you had to give Steve Jobs a role, what would the name of that job title be aside from like founder, CEO, whatever, creator? I think he's closest to a product manager. And what does a good product manager do? They understand what the market wants. By market, we mean Humans or machines in the current day, and then you create something that matches that need. And then if you can run a good business, you're able to extract some, some bit of profit so you can keep fulfilling that need.
Love that. That's a great, great analogy.
So I think the thing about Steve that was interesting is he did 2 things. One, it created a new product, so invention, Combined with the largest market size, which was every human on the planet.
Yeah.
And, and the thing that he created was— and the team at Apple and all their suppliers and supporters, it's not a one-man show. Um, it was difficult enough that it's not easy to reproduce. And so you only have a few companies that can compete. And so those 3 things taken together, I think—
Magic.
Yeah, why it's— you have like one or two things that have that sort of expansiveness. So you could say any creator on the internet who creates a single piece of content and pushes that out there is in essence a mini Steve Jobs.
Yeah.
They're in some way, they're creating something from themselves. In some way it will connect with someone else. But the problem is that there's 5 billion other people doing the same thing. And so you don't see the expansiveness. So I think to the second half of your question is what will be the thing that has a similar structure?
Yeah.
Mass market consumer appeal. I'm biased because I've been in a certain— I've been looking at through the world through a certain lens over many, many years. And I think A service bot. So, you know, the Robin Williams robotics movie from the '90s?
Oh yeah.
Here, so here, here's the idea, which is you wake up every morning, you do a bunch of stuff, you take care of the family, the bed, you wash dishes, you get breakfast, you clean up the house, you know, you walk the dog, whatever it may be. You do it again at night, you do the laundry, etc., etc. How much time per person is that on a Per day.
Hours. Yes.
Now multiply that, multiply that times your entire life, times an 8 billion human population. And so we've invented things called appliances— microwaves, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers— that do a single task. But if you have a humanoid service robot and it's, it's a do-it-all appliance, Right? It'll make your food, it'll make you coffee, it'll clean up the house, it'll wash the dishes, it'll wash the clothes, it'll walk your dog. It could even, you know, read to your kids. It could entertain you. And so are you willing to pay $200 a month every month for the rest of your life times 8 billion people? And so you're starting to see— I mean, yeah, an idea for— I mean, this isn't a new idea. The problem is the technology hasn't caught up. And the technology is really complex because it requires, requires an intelligence, like a biologic intelligence. It requires robotics, and it requires the software to link up to every single one of those electrical circuits in a humanoid robot, if you will. And the degrees of freedom— I mean, one human has like 100 trillion nervous Connections, neural connections.
Yeah, yeah.
So the compute, the miniaturization, the algorithms, the processing power, the robotics, the mechanics, wetware, software, hardware, the whole thing is like a really interesting challenge. And so if we figure that out, then that makes making rocket ships and exploring other planets and environmentalizing them for humans Much easier because we don't have to be there and do it.
Beautiful.
I think, I think that's going to be the next big thing. It's not a robot that you hold in your hand, it's one that's your friend and hangs out next to you. And the real question in that philosophically is like, at what point is it alive? What are the 3 laws of robotics? And then do we treat them and give them the same rights as other living creatures on the planet, which we have Not the greatest track record of getting that right. Yeah. So, and then obviously the fear thing because Hollywood and everything else, but I think it's— you just got to be very careful about who designs the program that runs in there and who trains these things. And it's like—
Oh, big questions.
Yeah, it's like raising a child, right? Depends on how you raise it. And there's also some inherent stuff in the personality. So I think those are two. I don't know if that gets to what you're looking at, but—
Yeah, yeah. No, that's a fascinating description. And like, I mean, that's a great answer, right? Which is filling a need and something that's such a huge market, which is every human on the planet.
Yeah.
And like, I love that idea. $200 a month, you gotta, you know, probably start out as a laundry robot. You'll have a laundry robot, you'll have a lawn robot.
Right.
And, you know, and eventually those, you know, then you've got a Samsung robot that talks to the Samsung dishwasher and refrigerator and washer dryer. Yeah, I like— I can kind of— you can very quickly do the iterations on how this— what the market, the evolution of the market looks like. And, you know, maybe it is 50 years, you have the unified integrated robot with learning abilities. And then it's a person. Then that those human questions, right? How to treat it as a race or population.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And it's already happening. Like Tesla's working on the bot, Boston Dynamics.
Like sure.
You know, inside big tech. Like everyone knows.
So hey, we'll have this dog that will never pass away.
Yeah. The question is, do you have the same type of back to our love and energy field, does the same type of bond form? And we've seen early experiments with chatbots, and so I, I think it's totally possible.
I, I think it's possible. All right, I think, I think it is possible. Certainly, I think older, older people too, the generations get older, companions. I can—
for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. Even if it's voice, just a voice, you know, for people. Uh, even if it is just a, a Siri type of relationship. Right. Yeah.
Just, I mean, we're social creatures, so.
Yeah. And people are alone. I mean, you look at how alone people are. You look at those charts of how much time you spend around your family and, you know, when you're 60 plus, it just drops off the, you know, like a cliff. Yeah.
I mean, in, in one thought experiment, it makes FaceTime more realistic. Like it just changes to the person standing next to you that you're talking to, and it's like, whoa, that's uncanny valley.
Yeah, that was when you first started doing that stuff. It was just so strange. Um, you saw my grand— my granddaughter earlier, and, uh, I woke up this morning really early, and, uh, and she woke up really early, and we were, we were sitting in the kitchen having a conversation, and I showed her a picture looking through pictures and got onto, you know, showing pictures of her daughter, uh, I mean, I'm sorry, her mom when she was my daughter, when she was younger. And then, you know, got into, well, what does your dad look like? You know, and then, okay, can we FaceTime him? I want to see him. It's a little hard to FaceTime him, you know, he's in heaven. And yeah, so, but just that, you know, she's 4 and it's like, oh, Well, let's FaceTime your dad because I want to see him. I didn't— I haven't met him.
Yeah.
Actually, there might be a time where we could actually FaceTime him and put enough pictures together and enough memories together where we would have a robot that could be grandpa or a personality, if you will, based on enough— we gave AI or chat, you know, enough background, they could create a little bit of a video or personality.
I mean, it already exists. Apple Vision Pro, you know, there's spatial 3D recordings and people have seen it are like, wow, it's kind of uncanny. It feels like they're right in front of me.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I mean, they get it.
I'm sure they've already got, you know, if you get somebody's writings, imagine if you had somebody with prolific writing or at least some reasonable amount of video, AI could just take off with the personality.
Yeah, I may not be here right now with all the content I've put on the internet. This could be totally a deepfake. So how do you— like, what's the fingerprint that you know?
Um, Kate Middleton video is a big Twitter thing right now. Um, you know, it was gone forever when they showed her. Um, now the, the, the Twitter, you know, the Twitter world or the, you know, the internet world is now deciphering whether it was really her or really an AI video. Fascinating to think that, that, you know, we've come that far. Yeah, that we've come this far. And also to have, you know, people also kind of even questioning stuff going, you know, I don't know, this is the royal family. It's a pretty wild thing to think out that would they actually put out an AI video of somebody? Yeah. And fascinating to think that people would think that we're at a place where people would think that that's possible and then actually start spending a lot of time trying to prove themselves right.
Yeah, exactly. That's crazy.
Okay, got another question for you. We're the halfway— a little past halfway-ish. Um, so another question for Sean: has a stranger ever changed your life?
I don't know. I think not in the immediate term, like a complete random person that changed life at the moment, a complete random person. Um, I think over time, like as you get to know people, then that has for me.
Mm-hmm.
I don't think there's been an inciting incident that has Fundamentally changed my life just from like meeting a person, and it changed it at that singular moment.
Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, so I think that's how I'd probably answer that question. How about yourself?
Yeah, I was just, uh, kind of read these questions every time. It's interesting. Um, that's not a question I've gotten a lot. We've pulled like, you know, I've sat with 300 people, same 400 questions. You know, we start fresh every time and It's one that's kind of rare for me. It is, it is kind of a yes, and on a few different occasions. Um, the one, the one for sure I think about is, you know, I tell the story, and even it's going to be a— it's a speech that I'll, I'll have in my repertoire and certainly come up in speeches. But, you know, I was gonna— I was decided at 52 I was gonna play guitar and try— I was gonna play guitar, I was gonna try one more time, pick it up, try guitar one more time. I had a couple other instances when I started, but never— so it was unfinished business for me at 52. I said, I'm gonna get a— I got a bonus check, I'm gonna go buy a guitar. And I got into the Guitar Center store and I was immediately intimidated. You know, it's just— it's a real store. These are gorgeous guitars. There's 200 guitars in a room. And I just got lost in this little kind of just a— it's got the center The center of the room's got guitars on stands, you know, and then the walls filled, and it's intimidating as heck. I've been there about 20 minutes walking around just looking, picking some up. I don't even know how to hold it practically, you know. I was feeling like really I don't belong here at all and starting to regret my whole— my life choices of driving in here with my credit card ready to burn and, you know, thinking I should just— I did— yeah, this is a bad idea. And I just came face to face with this guy And he had been sitting in stools and picking up guitars and playing them. Just looked— he looked as natural. He was in his space, right? He was in the fish— he was a fish in a fish tank that belonged there. I was like, you know, I don't know, I was a guinea pig swimming in a saltwater tank is what it felt like. And I just came boom, face to face with him. And he's sitting on that stool, and I still could just remember, and I'm like, I just blurted out my Dear Abby, you know this is who I am. This is what I'm doing. What what what advice do you have? And he just looks at me, goes, get the red one. I'm like, what the hell does that mean? You know, like okay. And he just he goes, you know the one you see across a crowded room, the one you can't take your eyes off of, the one you want to hold, the one you want to caress.
Get that one.
And it was just like. Okay, boom. I knew instantly. Turned around. Thank you very much. Turned around and went and grabbed the guitar off the wall and then walked out feeling, you know, as good as you could feel about doing something, you know, from, from the— from how far away I was from that feeling to instantly knowing I had the right guitar and this was a great choice. Um, and, and so he— that led to some other stuff, which led to some other stuff, which led, you know, but that was really You know, I pinged off that wall and he really kind of helped send me on another trajectory.
I love that. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's an interesting mechanic.
Like, get the ready—
because, yeah, because it's like, well, if you want to play guitar, then you should have the thing that keeps attracting you back to that, to pick it up. And that's half the battle, is just reaching out, grabbing it, and then putting it in the place where you can begin. Is the getting started for most people. So yeah, yeah, I think it's great. It's great advice. Go for the one of maximum excitement.
Yeah. And, and you just think about that for life, like in so many instances of choice, right? When you're filled with all of these choices and, you know, when you're not sure, you're not confident, maybe you'd even— like for me, I didn't have the experience. There were so many layers to that, to this question. And, you know, so in life, pick the red one. You know, when you're left with— when you're left with a real choice, pick the red one. Yeah, for sure. And you'll never go wrong because, you know, it's like I said, it— whether it's a guitar or it's a job or it's a partner, um, or, you know, something in life that you really idolize and you want to hold it and you don't want to let it go, that's a great choice.
I agree.
That's a great— it's a, it's a really great choice. Um, so one I was going to ask you earlier is about, about people. Your most fascinating— you know, you've worked with some, you know, a lot of different people from different walks, and, you know, super nerdy. I'm sure you've— some people who shouldn't be let out in public, you know, to the people who you only want to push out in public and nowhere else. Um, so what's the most interesting person you're looking back now of the people you've met that's kind of— you look back and just like, yeah, that I didn't know it at the time, perhaps, or maybe you knew it at the time, but just kind of wanted somebody to look back on and go, glad this person crossed my path.
Yeah, yeah, it's actually, um, probably a couple different people that meet that criteria for different reasons. One, I think, is more from a psychological You could call it mental perspective, which is back to our conversation about openness, like safe place for real talk.
Yeah.
And to create a safe place for that, I think that's very interesting. And some people have the ability to make other people feel comfortable without judgment.
Yeah.
Um, without advice, to just listen and understand. And so Um, and to actually support you. And I think that's a very valuable—
Wow.
Very valuable thing in this world because it's very selfless, right? Um, I think that's just the essence of what a good friendship or relationship or whatever will be between 2 humans. That's one. The second one I think is the creative process. And I don't just mean like the design, but creative process can be anything, as you know. I mean, it could be a guitar, it could be software engineering, it could be building a shelf or a boat, or just coming up with something new and unique that excites you that hasn't been created before. Music, whatever it is, piece of writing, just an idea, um, connecting 2 dots, business partnership. I mean, you can see creativity everywhere. I mean, it is the essence of Humanity. I think it's like the opposable thumb, the brain, and then what happens as a result of that. So there's been a couple individuals in my life who have really pushed the limit of that, and they've dedicated their life to it, where they will ingest things from all different genres, walks of life, people, religion, right? The whole thing. And what comes out of that is really, you know, it's pointed in a specific genre, but seeing that done with purity is a remarkable thing to witness, and it's something that is also very attractive. So it's—
Yeah.
In both of those instances, it's the purity. And then in the third piece, I think it's the strength factor, which is, you know, I've been through a lot and hurts me, and I have the courage and the bravery in these situations to continue marching forward when life could have—
Yes.
Pushed me down. I could not get out of bed anymore, but for some reason I found the will inside of me to just go one more time, just keep going, right? And just do it, right? That whole thing. And, um, through like Really nasty negative situations. And so I look at those things as like a triangle almost, and it's a constant reminder to me of like, if you can have that ability to open up safe, shared, supportive spaces, you can approach your life with this mindset of just pure creation, um, which ultimately is like build things that help people. And I think there's value in that. And then the last piece, which is We live in the universe. It's neither good nor bad. Things happen. We interpret it one way or the other, and sometimes that stuff hurts. But what do you do? What's your response to that? Hey, I got a thumbs up here. Um, I don't know what's going on there, but—
Also, I don't know what these— this is the strangest thing. It's something you probably designed and gave away and turned into open source, and someone has turned it into this.
Read the pixels, create more pixels.
Yeah.
So I think it's those, those 3 elements. And there's, you know, probably 5 people that fall into one of those 3 buckets, like to an extreme level where I'm like, when I think of that thing, I think of him or her.
Yes. Yeah.
Um, and they, if they're watching this, they probably know which bucket they fall into. Maybe more than one, which is kind of cool. I know a few of those too. Um, so yeah, that's, uh, it's something that's just kind of— I've always looked up to and valued because I think it's a cool North Star.
Yeah, and those are good people to hold on to in your circle, you know, people that can do that. It's like—
How about you?
Yeah, I mean, same, same feeling, right? Same thing. People that can— I think these people that, that that I love, that fascinate me, are the ones that can reinvent themselves over and over again. I've, I've had a fascination with that. And, and listening to some different, um, different writers, uh, or different thinkers, you know, talking about just humanity and stuff, and I'm diving into this kind of this conver— this topic, and, you know, sometimes it's, it's a bit of a poo-poo on people who haven't changed or don't change, that familiar, right, that, that aren't interested in changing. They seek the familiar and the predictable. And I have a couple friends like that, and I, I admire that, like, like the ability to just embrace the known and the familiarity and the predictability and having a life that is comfortable. And secure, right? And, and, you know, it's warmth. It's like a home. It's like a, you know, it's like a homestead with a, with this, with an earthen kind of fireplace, you know. It's just got— and so sometimes in life, I think we— I've got— I hold both of those people in this just incredible regard. The ability to change and reinvent yourself and be comfortable just in the soupy mess of, of chaos and somehow look Like you're not in the chaos, right? It's chaos around you, but somehow you're, you're, you're calm. And then these people who just are able to perfect this life that's so predictable and, and calm and beautiful. Um, I, I love it. It's fascinating. It's both fascinating me. Both fascinate me. And I'm definitely not the, the stable, calm one. Um, that's definitely I've chosen another path on that somehow. Yeah, but I so admire— maybe it is that admiring. I look at it and I'm like, God, I wish, you know, sometimes like it would be good to be that.
Yeah, seek that low vibration. Well, not low, but just a steady vibration. I agree, it's, it's a good feeling to be in that space. You just have to be ready for when something disrupts that because, yes, it can and will happen. And so how do you respond when— how do you prepare for that? Because we live in that kind of world. So you, you do everything you can to create that safe home.
Yes.
I've certainly found that, um, you can do everything you can, but there's still disruptions that occur. And so it's like, how do you How do you prepare and engage for it in a healthy way and move through it?
Change comes for you.
Yeah, it doesn't escape anybody.
It, it for sure seeks you out in some way. And, and that is one of the things that the change, you know, the change camp, right, and the growth, you know, change and growth, um, camp kind of talks about is that, you know, in that safe place still You know, people have to change eventually because something happens, right? And, and can you, can you still manage the change without, without, you know, freaking out? Because I mean, if you're, if you're seeking that hum because you're afraid of the change and afraid of all the things that come with it, then you're going to have a little tougher time. But I think if you, if you seek that space because, you know, and you're ready for change and you know what's going to come, then you can probably handle a little bit better.
That's right.
How about one more question for the jar, and then I think we're probably at a good spot maybe to get you to kind of give us some philosophical wrap-up.
Yeah, sounds good.
Okay, you're a value guy. This is great. So a question, question for Sean from the jar: how can we create value from a tragedy?
Yeah, that's a tough one. Um, or not so tough depending on your perspective. I think the tough part of it is living through it. Um, and one of my good friends, which we sort of referenced earlier, and this interesting quote which I think helps get through it, it says, no storm has enough energy to last forever. Oh, I like that. And I think it takes something when you're in the middle of chaos to just— it just centers and grounds you because it's like, it's true, it's not going to be this way forever. And so I think that's the first half of that thing. And then I think, I think what you can do either during or after is look back on it and try— this is difficult. I mean, this is why therapy exists.
Yeah.
Try to objectively understand the reason why, what place you played in it, how you responded to it. And then ultimately the key word is learn and grow from it. And is it in your control? Is it out of your control? And I mean, this is all over the place, but the only thing you can truly control is your response to stimulus. That's And it's difficult. It's difficult because we are emotional creatures. And so how does one respond in a healthy way and try to integrate reality of things that you can't control because you just experienced some aspect of reality? It's— yes, it happened. It was real. And so what did you learn from that? And, um, what do we do about it? I mean, tragedy is a tough word. It's inherent in that word is pain and suffering. And, um, reminds me of the Buddhist philosophy that suffering exists in life and there's— it will always exist. And so how do you, how do you respond to it?
To live is to suffer.
Yeah, yeah. I think perspective can help, trying to have a positive perspective and Separate yourself and look at it and take a broader view. And this too shall pass. And, um, try to keep, try to keep moving forward.
Yeah, this too shall pass. Good times and bad times, this too shall pass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the one I— at some point it dawned on me that that actually cuts both ways, right? That this too shall pass, you know, when the good times are rocking. You know, that, that will also have its pause.
Yeah, roller coasters are fun and scary.
Interesting. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny actually. You're screaming on the way down and you're gasping on the way up in anticipation of the drop. You know, it's kind of a— your mind is always playing ahead of the game. For me, on that, you know, on that question, um, what I've kind of— an answer I've kind of come to on some of these Is realizing things don't happen to us, they happen for us.
Mm-hmm.
And, and so it's one way, it's like that storm, right? The storm is not strong enough to, you know, every storm will peter out. There'll be sunshine eventually. So it is that same kind of different version of that, which is also that which you, you would, which you alluded to, uh, which is what can we do with this? You know, now this is our new reality. What do you, what do you do with that? And if you try to, if you try and flip it inside out and, and kind of come down to that, well, what is the lesson here? What's the purpose? You know, what's the opportunity inside here? Because obviously I learned, you know, this is happening and it's part of balance, right? It's part of life. I was, you know, let's just say the, the universe hates an imbalance. So it's a, because it's a giant math equation solving itself. All the time. So if you create, if you create something of value, right, and you add all this value, you somehow the universe is like, whoa, it's got to go and sort that out, right? It's gotta, it's gotta give you something in exchange for this value created. Or if you're, you know, if you're devaluing humans or humanity or, or something else, and you're, you know, you're taken away from the, the net score, uh, somehow, you know, theoretically karma is gonna find you and you'll You'll, you know, it'll balance out. Yeah.
Um, yeah, I, I've been through some, like everybody, through stuff. And there was one, there was one thought that hit me during one instance, and it was like, well, this could either compound in one of two directions. It could compound positively and up, and I can choose actions that compound this way, or I can choose actions that compound this way.
Yes.
And so The question is, where do you want to end up? And each path is possible, and you have the choice to decide. And it's like, I get it, it hurts, but which pathway do you want? Do you want the one that compounds in a positive way for your life or in a negative way? And so you've got to do and say the things that go in that way. And it's easier said than done and easy in hindsight. But much harder in the heat of the battle, so to speak. So, but it's a mindset that I continue to think about as a tool, like— It's a great—
but that's great advice. I mean, that's great, right? When things— because things will happen. You know, we talked about, you know, my friends that, you know, seek the normalcy and the calm. And so when change does find you or tragedy finds you, Maybe in the, in the idea of change, it, you know, tragedy is the— change is the tragedy, you know, quite often, right? And when change finds you, um, where do you— yeah, how do you map your way out of that? And I think if you do take the woe is me, you will, you will circle the drain until you pull yourself up.
Yeah.
But I do like the idea, where do I want to end up with this?
And try to If you focus on woe is me, you will continue to get woe is me.
So it's a weird thing, right? Focus on woe is me, you get a lot more— you get a lot more— you get a lot more woe.
Yeah, I mean, it's like, what do you want? Like, where do you want to end up? And then try to figure out your way to get there. And just be careful about what you want and like what you're putting out there. And the energy thing, back to it.
Yeah.
Because other people will respond to it one way or the other.
Be careful what you think about.
Yeah, yeah. Mind your thoughts.
Mind your thoughts. Yeah, you know, you, you alluded to it earlier, you know, which is the brain, right? The brain and the thumbs. And, you know, everything you see that's not nature, you know, was first conceived in somebody's mind. You know, every— you know, before you can build something, before you build a rocket ship, you have to actually Imagine it. So you build it in your mind, you know, you create with your mind, and your hands are just, you know, your hands are just the execution, right? The hands are nothing.
Yeah.
And, and relative, right? It could be a robot. It could be at some point it might just be we'll be able to physically or mentally design, you know, print something. But the reality is everything is built in the mind, designed in the mind, created, created in the mind. So we are creation. In our own way, we are creators, all of us.
Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I don't—
fascinating.
I would love to think that NASA and SpaceX just grabbed a bunch of scrap metal and like threw it in a pile and then, oops, we accidentally created— built a rocket ship to land humans on the moon. Yeah. But while possible, not probable.
Yeah, there was There were some happy accidents. I'm sure there were a few happy accidents in that process, but, but not throwing scrap together. Yeah.
Yeah. It's, it's, you can call it manifestation or you can call it a product vision spec. They're pretty much the same thing. Yeah. You see it and then you do it.
Well, you see it, you put it on paper, then you put it in the product spec, right? You know, then you make the product spec and somebody looks at it and says, you can't build that. Then we can't build that. Or, or somebody says, yeah, we can.
Yeah, why not break it down? What— figure it out. What's the piece we can't do? Laws of physics. Okay, well, you got me there.
Yeah, okay, if it's laws of physics, you know, okay. But, uh, but it seems in the, you know, in the quantum field here, it does seem like everything— there are infinite possibilities. It's true.
I mean, we don't know. We don't know enough. I mean, it's just probability equations. So yeah, we don't know until you look at it and then it's defined. So be careful what you define. Oh yeah, it's when it's the collapse of the wave function into a particle. Like, this is actual science. Have you seen this one? You know the old slit test where they would shine a light through a slit and then it would—
Yes.
That's how they figured out light was a particle and wave. They did another experiment later which is they didn't look at it or measure it until after the light had passed through the slit. So, okay, once again, prove the fact that, like, anything is possible. Basically, it's— physics is weirder and wilder than reality is weirder than we have any idea.
So this is the best part, is we really haven't figured out a lot. We thought we figured out a lot, but there's a lot we just haven't quite even opened that window.
I think I saw the stat once, which physics only can describe, I think it's 3 or 5% of the universe because dark energy and dark matter, which we can't describe, it's just what's left over to make the equation balance, is something like 95%.
Yeah. We just plugged, I love how we plugged in a number.
Yeah. It's like, oh, well this equation fits. Is it the right equation? I don't know. It's the best we got. It's the best we got. Science though, it's the theorem meets observation. And so until it doesn't, like, it's the best we got.
That's the best we got. Yeah. Yeah. Um, really fascinating conversation, Sean.
Yeah, Ken, this has been great.
We went, we went some wild places.
We're back now. We're back on Earth, I think.
We're back on Earth. We're back on Earth. How about, how about so many kind of closing thoughts? Anything you'd want to leave the audience with? I mean, you're— you got such a fascinating view. Um, you know, maybe in the wrap-up and the— some of the thoughts we had, you know, just take your time.
And— Yeah, there's one, I think, one that's sort of been the guiding light in my life, which is find your fascination. And, and as long as that Fascination doesn't hurt people is the guardrail, you know, um, then I think good things can happen from that, uh, because ultimately that fascination will take you through pain, struggle, difficulty, challenges, opportunities.
Yeah.
And eventually you'll be one of the last humans standing, and then there'll be some value in that. where other people want to understand something or get— buy some product or service on that path. And there's only a handful of people that have had that fascination and gone that far and that deep.
Yes.
And so inherently in that, there is value created out of it. But in the meantime, you've gotten value. And so you've been winning the whole way along. And don't let the rest of the world tell you that that's not your fascination. You know your fascination, like, it's not on them. It's like— and so I think part of life is just trying to figure out what that is if you haven't found it yet. I found mine relatively early and was trying to continue to get closer and closer to it.
Yes.
But yeah, not to say that's not an easy, easy thing to find. Um, so yeah, I think it's, it's find your fascination. Maybe works for some people, worked for me. We'll see how the story unfolds, but, you know, I end up in a cardboard box or whatever working, you know, for $5, which is where I started, $5 an hour. It's taken me on a journey. So as a—
Well, you were a pretty young kid starting out. You definitely found your fascination earlier. I, I love that. It's a, is a great descriptor for people. You know, find your fascination, you know, because you talk about purpose. Purpose is a difference. It's like the same coin, right? It's a different side. Purpose feels almost like you're enslaved. Like, like it's— yeah, it feels like you're— it's what— like when you say fascination, it feels way more liberating to me.
Yeah, purpose feels like work and pressure. It feels like pressure.
Yeah, that's what it is, right? It's the same coin. It's the same coin, but it's a different side of it. I just— I'm gonna borrow that. I wrote it down. I'm definitely gonna spread that. I'll put that on our LinkedIn notes.
Yeah, if it helps people, like, go for it.
Yeah, we're gonna put that one on your gravestone.
I mean, you know, as a mantra, not bad. I'd be okay with that living on. Yeah.
Last thought, did you, did you get a new puppy after losing—
Yeah, we got another rescue. Uh, he's a service animal. Um, he, he was in a cage for about 7 years, and so he's got a lot of fear of humans, as you might imagine. Um, so sort of nursing him back to trust, if you will, and making a lot of great progress. And cool little dude with fun personality. It's just get scared of fingers because fingers were trauma.
Yeah.
And, um, and without words, how do you, how do you, uh, create a safe space for another being to help them understand internally that they can trust you? Yeah. So it's a, it's a good thing that he's a good dude. So we love it.
I love it. Yeah, my daughter was asking, just my daughter lost her dog, um, 10 years, 9, 10 years together. And, uh, you know, since she was, I think maybe 19 or 18 when she got him, her adult life and her dog, her choice, her guy, and also her therapy dog for a long time.
Yeah, it's like losing a son. It's her daughter. Yeah, yeah, it's hard.
I mean, it's hard. Yeah, her best, uh, her best buddy. So it's tough for all those dog lovers out there, man. Go, you know, there's— the great news is they're super happy you gave them a great life and the life that, you know, it's amazing. So go rescue somebody else. There's somebody that's been in the cage for 7 years that needs, needs love. So yeah, that'll saddle back up and go, go, go rescue another soul.
That's right. There's, there's more out there that need our, our love and help and support. So yeah, and you'll get it back. Love to her. Yeah, yeah, send love to her for us, and, um, hopefully she's doing okay.
Yeah, doing— she's doing all right. She's gonna— we'll see where— we'll see where the next puppy comes from. Yeah, Sean, Sean, thanks so much. Thanks again. Um, and, uh, thanks everybody for listening, supporting, uh, The Humanist and our kind of pursuit of flourishing and All the aspects that takes, and you know all these great humans like Sean that are kind of contributing to the to the quilt, if you will. Don't hang around real quick, just ten seconds. I'll see you on the other side.
Great.
Welcome to the Humanist Podcast. I'm your host, Ken Stearns. Join us on a journey where we unravel the.
