The Future of Work: Navigating AI, Growth, and Human Connection with Lorrissa Horton

Speaker A: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Psychology of why People do what they Do. A podcast exploring the science and stories behind high cohesion, high performing teams. My name is Dr. Bobby Wegner. I'm a lecturer at Harvard in organizational psychology and the founder of Groups. In each episode, we dive into the minds of industry experts to uncover what drives team and individual dynamics, tackle real world challenges together, and share actionable insights to help teams feel and function their best. Thanks so much for joining and let's get started. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Psychology of Work. I'm super excited to be here today. So Larissa Horton is with me today. She's the CEO of Sumer Sports, a platform bringing data driven insights powered by real world NFL expertise in AI. Before joining Sumer Sports, she spent over a decade at Microsoft and six years at WebEx, Cisco where she served as SVP, GM and Chief Product Officer for collaboration. With 18 plus years building and leading large teams through major technology transformation from cloud collaboration to AI, Larissa brings a rare combination of operator experience and big picture systems thinking to future of work. So Larissa and I have just had a number of chats at this point around kind of like, what are you building? What are you working on? How do you pull all this stuff together? Every time I leave our conversation, I feel like I've learned something, my mind's firing and we both move very quickly it seems, and just like lots of ideas kind of flying in there at all moments. But who are you, Larissa? Like, what's your story? What's, you know, what is Sumer? Tell us a bit about who you are.

Speaker B: Uh, first off, thank you for having me a little bit about myself. I'm a mom of three, I say a wife of one, and I'm born out of an immigrant family. I actually was born in Canada. And I say these things because it turns out a lot of these things shape who I am every day and how I think about how I address challenges, how I lead as a leader. I've had a history of technology because my mom, who was an accountant, uh, in the Philippines, came to Canada and realized I have to go back to school and restart all over again. And instead of restarting down that path, she saw computers and became a software developer in the 80s and went through this whole re education in the 80s while she was pregnant with us and became a software engineer. And you know, she retired as a software engineer. And so this growth mindset, this constant adopting yourself to the changes in the market. And then, you know, as I was growing up, she Always said, at some point you're going to have to pick as a woman, either you're going to be a mom or you're going to be a professional. And this is something you're going to fight with every single day. And it was my, my goal in life to prove her wrong, that you don't have to pick one or the other. And I've been so, so fortunate to be able to have both and create the village around me that supports me to have both. Uh, and I think that's where, when I look at how I deal with my company or our company, the leadership, the employees like you have, I just, I was so fortunate, fortunate to have all this experience that she had and take that as, as empathy into these kind of changing environments. And so taking that into transformation and into what I've been lucky enough to do throughout my career. I've seen so many transformations that can be very scary. And I've had the opportunity to have that. The cup is half full, not half empty. Point of view. And Sumer in particular, being able to look at an industry that we all love, that we all spend Sundays watching TV and sports teams and stories of players we love, and being able to bring the technology I got to build the last nearly two decades into this industry is another one of those. You know, you can look at it as a disruption, you can look at it as a transformation. I definitely look at it as an opportunity. And it's just so aligned with all the things happening in the world.

Speaker A: Amazing. And what is Sumer Sports?

Speaker B: Uh, so we are a sports AI company. We build an entire tech stack. We take film or sensor data that is living in jerseys and we turn that into information. So we turn that into understanding where are you on the field, how are you in relative to everyone else, what play are you running, what coverage, what personnel package? And then we look at, well, what's the probabilities of field things happening based on learning from history and hence how well are you doing your job? Whether you're a receiver or a quarterback or an O lineman or a D lineman, we're constantly creating predictions at the frame level to understand what the likeliness of an outcome is. So we do that and then we pipe all of this into user experiences. One of the things that when building software, we think a lot about is how do we make it easy to do this change? How do we take into account what you're used to using, but also bring you into the future to something that you couldn't do before that creates the efficiency the time savings. So we do also own the experience layer on top of the data. So that's the iPhone app. The working from your desktop, your iPad, all the way through the stack is the solution that we build.

Speaker A: Amazing. That's super cool. I mean, you've seen transformation, you've seen these evolutions in a number of different ways. And you know, last time we were chatting, we got off the call, I was like, wow, you know, what really struck me was you have this perspective, you're able to zoom out and look at this at a macro level where I think a lot of people are stuck in the right now, like, you know, of fear and scared and we don't know where we're going. And you know, as a psychologist, I tend to be able to like zoom out too. I think of a helicopter going down really low, get granular and go really high and like look to be like, where, where are we? And that, that, um, you know, I noticed that in the way you were thinking and talking last time we chatted. But you've watched multiple technology transformations really up close, such as cloud collaboration, now AI. What feels different this time?

Speaker B: I think AI is different in a couple of ways. Number one, it's impacting every single industry. You know, when we looked at cloud, it was mostly the companies, the organizations who are having to transform how they operate to then create, let's call it margin or efficiency as an organization. It's a very business centric thing. It did impact the end user or the consumer as well. Since, you know, my music was no longer sitting on a physical device, it was in the cloud. It can go anywhere with me and we became comfortable with, I can access my stuff absolutely anywhere. That was part of that transformation. But the adoption definitely started with the businesses first. When we look at collaboration, it changed the way you can build a team, right? Whether that is a global team, whether it's time zones, whether it's the need for budget for a physical space, all of that changed. And I think Covid and the pandemic really pushed us to be much more open and try this out. Where like, traditional ways of operating and communicating were very hard to change. And yet this pandemic showed all of us like, wait, telehealth isn't bad. This is actually a great way to reach patients who are not in the vicinity of a physical, um, a physical, physical care. Um, so that was, that was big. But AI, every part of our life is going to get impacted, from education to, you know, our consumer lives, to all of the jobs that are available. And I think there's a lot more fear around it because the pace of change is faster than anything anyone has seen. The impact of that change is felt every single day from folks who are losing their jobs due to restructuring. And there is such a big, um, unknown and ambiguity in what the end state would look like. I think for some of these other changes, we all could picture and understand what that end state could look like with some help with people who describe that future. But in this case, there are so many voices, so many futurists, and the stories feel very extreme and diverse, and so it's harder to know what is the next five years going to look like, what are the next 10 years going to look like? So it's bringing in a much larger set of fear, especially when it impacts your potential. You know, personal finances and as a household. Right. I talk to parents who are like, I don't even know how to guide my children. I don't know what jobs will exist. I talk to families who are like, what if both of us lose our jobs? How will we continue to pay for our mortgage? I mean, these are very real challenges in very real situations that impact everyone in the world.

Speaker A: Mm, yeah. It's so true. It's like we don't know the endpoint. Right. And it's like you fast forward and you see these robots, like, building stuff, and you're like, what is our, like, humanity becoming? And even to the smallest detail of like, does your kid use AI in school? And how do I advise on that? How do I not? Like, I have my own sort of thoughts around that, but just sort of, you know, these are thoughts around sort of an individual level. What do I think is a parent versus, like, at a society level. Right. Or an organizational level, there's decisions to be made, like, across the span. But we've talked, you know, in the past, really, about holding kind of two truths at once, because there's no absolute here, really. Right. We're all figuring this out as we go together at a very fast pace. We can't really slow down AI. There's no going back here where we're in it. You know, the. The wave is like here, and real people are being very much impacted by this. And so how do leaders hold both without defaulting, really, to either, like, fear or false optimism?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, like you said, these are two realities that are coexisting. But I think it's easier for most of us to default to a simplified model of what this would be like.

Speaker A: You.

Speaker B: You mentioned, you know, Children and AI you know, I hear parents all the time say all or nothing. Either I let them have it or they're not allowed to have it at all because I'm scared of all the things that are there. And I actually think that black and white thinking is the same challenge that I'm seeing as a leader. Um, it's. I want to hold on to everything as it exists today. I'm going to try my best to minimize the impact, minimize adoption, um, which I think is very dangerous because I think you'll find yourself as a company so far behind without even knowing it. You will blink and, and then the gap is too big that it's harder to catch up. Um, but the other side of it is also very dangerous where I'm trying to be that first mover without fully understanding, uh, how I. Bringing my entire company with me, how I make decisions that are well thought out and don't have the huge negative implications because nobody's done it yet before. Right. So you're, you're on this spectrum. So like you said, we cannot slow down. I think globally, there's a lot of defense conversations around. What does it mean if a country slows down? You know, what's the risks, um, for you as a country? And because of that, I think you'll continue to see the push of innovation in AI on the other hand, how do we deal with the real impact, the real fear and the real ambiguity as an organization, I talk to people all the time about, as a business leader, you have fiduciary responsibilities, like you have to make decisions that are for the best of your company to continue to exist. And I say continue to exist because it is a very much a reality that some companies aren't existing. And we've seen this now in the last couple of months, whole companies exiting the stock market, having to just shut down. And it's not something they saw happening even two years ago. Right. And so that is a reality. And so while layoffs and restructuring is hard, if you think about that as preventing whole company shutdown, I think that's one view that is, is a different perspective. Right. I think how you decide to do a restructuring, how you think about bringing talent forward, retooling them to be ready for that next world, but also thinking about your business strategy and how do you operate differently with AI there, um, you need to have both of those hand in hand. Otherwise, you know, your employees will not be ready for the new jobs created and your organization will not be able to absorb that change. Meaning they need to generate more revenue as you are retooling people and, and going through a transformation. So those are all these like everything I said in my mind are all truths that coexist. And I think that's the difficulty, right? It's, it's the human side of uh, real people have to go and address the fact that real change is happening. Real um, growth is necessary, new skills are required. And I think the hardest part is when you've already become established as a company, as an employee, you know, you are at the top of your game, you've learned all of these things and now all of a sudden some someone's telling you well these might not be as important anymore in the next decade. Like I think that's a hard challenge emotionally for the ego. You know, like all of those things are really hard, but unfortunately very necessary. And so more people have to have honest conversations with themselves with the amount they're willing to grow and change as well as, as a leader and saying what I did before may not be the things I have to be doing moving forward and how I look at growth and change and bringing people along is going to look different as well. There's a lot of hard decisions along the way.

Speaker A: How do you think about this? Like within Sumer or just this, your own decision making? Like I'm just. Because I'm literally curious from um, you know, just thinking about our own company, you know, because we're in sort of at ah, different places in terms of comfort with AI from either an emotional perspective or just like exposure to you know, kind of being out there doing different things. And so it's always toggling where all we have so many conversations around like what really needs to be the human part of this and what do we, or what are we just sort of defaulting to using an AI. But do you have any like calibration in your mind around like what that looks like in terms of teams and connection and collaboration and all that stuff?

Speaker B: Yeah. So we do a lot of knowledge sharing. We leave a lot of room for experimentation and then as we find patterns at work, we reshare that back out. Every part of the company, from marketing to sales to engineering, product research, user research is using AI. Across the board, everyone uses AI. There was uh, a designer that was working in our company who said, you know, I was hesitant at first because my IP is my creativity and my design and I was concerned that AI would just take all of that over. And then I started using it and I realized, yeah, it was like having My own team, it could produce exactly what I wanted, the way that I wanted it. Which actually left me more room for more creative thinking instead of what would be the administrative work of converting my creative ideas into actual pixels that people can use and test and play around with. Um, she ended up leaning in so much that she was able to build all of the front end code as a designer with AI tools that minimize the workload than our developers who now need the front end work. Right. So this is one of those where it was really interesting to watch. She was uncomfortable with am I taking away jobs from engineers because I'm now writing the front end code as a designer? Am I giving up my IP as a creative because I'm sharing all my ideas with AI? Like where does this end and how much is this change going to happen? And we openly talked about that as an organization. Right. I think it was fair to have that concern of am I taking away someone's job and what does that look like? What does that mean? Um, why do you feel that way? Especially as a mom? She was like, how many jobs are going to change if I keep doing this? Like, should I slow down? At the same time, the excitement of I've just made my value as a mom and as an employee so much higher because I actually can deliver all the way to the last pixel that someone is clicking on and using in an application. And she saw the excitement in that and the value in that. And again, these are two truths, right? It was scary to think of the impact of society and it was exciting to see the growth and impact you can grow yourself. And just being able to hold those two truths together was, was very concerning. 80% of our code is now written with AI. We were only at, ah, probably 50% a couple months ago. And if I look back six to nine months, it was probably a smaller percentage. So we have had to continuously evolve. But where engineers spend their time is in a very different place. You know, AI can write code and it can even write high quality code, but how all those pieces come together, how do you ensure that people even understand what code AI is writing? What, what's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad? Like it's a. You spend your time in a different set of places. I always use the writing an essay as a sixth grader as the example. You know, when I was in sixth grade, we would go to the library and find the Encyclopedia Britannica, of which there was one, and we all had to share, take time. But I never Questioned whether the facts I was getting out of that book to incorporate into my essay were good or bad lot into high school, um, or looked at the next generation who had Google and Wikipedia. There was a ton of content, but now you had to worry about plagiarism and you had to make sure the source was a real source. Like, you spent your time in a very different place. You still had to learn how to write an essay, but the sourcing was very different and the points of views could be more broad. Now I look at ChatGPT, which I hear a lot of schools or students incorporating it can generate an entire essay for you with the backing of what the sources were. But do you understand what you just wrote in your essay? Can you defend that point of view and is it original thought? Or is everyone going to come into the classroom with the same ChatGPT generated essay about World War II or whatever the topic is right now? This, like, uniqueness of point of view and deeper understanding of why that point of view is important, um, is a very different skill and it's a different level of, I would say, ah, assessment of that particular student. It's still going to take time to write this essay. It's the presentation of the essay might look different, where you spend your time and skills might look different. But an essay is an essay is an essay. A point of view, an argument is still needed as we develop critical thinking and skills in a sixth grade, uh, student. Right. So, but each of these, all of us spend our time in different places based on what the quality of tooling was. So we talk about that as an organization. What were the tools that you used before? What are the outcomes and how is that tooling, change, changing the set of outcomes or the quality of outcomes, or the differentiation in our human capital value as all of these things are happening and it's different in every discipline, in every department, in every industry, all of those things are different. But I think talking about that change, talking about the biggest fears, is critical to, to be able to then create that transformation.

Speaker A: Yeah, bringing up writing is really interesting because I feel like it introduces a different sort of like, thing to the conversation. Like what is like, um, intellectual, you know, kind of what is your, what is your ip? How do you even grade? We think a lot about this on the teaching front. You know, these classes I teach, it's like, how do we do this? Do we just like ban AI? That doesn't feel right. How do you use it as, you know, kind of a thought partner? But then how do you also like if you're going to put something down on the syllabus, like how do you actually hold people accountable to this? You know, So I think grading and all of that just going to change in general. Like where our classes are really big, they're like up to 250 people. So I think the way this will eventually move is that, you know, you're actually having more conversation around. So what are you thinking? How are you doing? You know, and doing some kind of work that just sort of signals that you're keeping up, but then really having deeper conversations around do you know the material or not? Because just looking at a paper is not going to be enough. But on the other hand, I went to a talk recently on um, it was the editor, the senior editor, executive editor. What's it called when you're like the top dog at a, like publishing house or something? I don't know. His name is Trent Spinner Spiner. He's um, he's like the um, big, the big editor in Psychology Today. He's a great human, super cool, you know, affiliated with Harvard too. And he gave a talk recently at a conference that we were both speaking at and he gave a talk on like Writing in the Age of AI. And so I just assumed walking in that his point was going to be like, put your pen to paper and you know, don't use AI. Just my own assumption here. And he was telling us how he's trained his own agent so well with all of his materials. And you know, AI does sound different and you do have to workshop it a ton. But it's a great jumping off of point to get started when structuring. And there is a bit of a rhythm to write a good article, especially for a place like Psychology Today or any kind of like mass media type outlet. Like there is like a bit of a structure, you know. And I was like, yeah, that's interesting. So just it actually gave me more permission, I think to use AI more in that sort of like intellectual capacity that I was almost giving myself earlier.

Speaker B: Yeah, as you're talking about that, I think even the evolution of writing there is the pen to paper, the penmanship, which obviously change with keyboards and computers and typewriters. At the end of the day, that evolution just continued to evolve with someone writing it for you, almost like a ghostwriter. But it has to still be your thoughts, your ideas, they're just shaping it. You have a built in editor, built in ghostwriter into everyone's lives now. The thing that I constantly worry about or think about for my children is there's still the act of forming thoughts that I want to have. Uh, because in human everyday conversations you need to be able to converse and argument and debate. Um, and I think we need to make sure that even if tools come in with AI, which I agree it's going to show up everywhere, um, especially as a sounding board for your ideas. That doesn't change the fact that as a student you need to learn how to articulate these thoughts, debate these thoughts or present these ideas. So the tool usage is there to ideally extract unique thought as much as possible and refine. But we have to co create in parallel the skills for discussion, debate in person. Right. We can't lose that aspect. Um, because I think that actually is also from a neurological standpoint, like you're creating a bunch of new um, pathways right in these activities. So we can't lose that. Like there's, there's a couple futurists that are like, well, you know, brain activities is going to look different and, and the skills that a human will have in the next generation will look different because they're going to be so reliant on AI. And I think that's where people get really scared and go to this black and white, like all in or all out. Yeah, I think it's, it's so nuanced. I think you should definitely. I talked to some people about like if you were to hire an assistant in today, and let's assume it's someone out of high school or out of college who's never worked before, how would you train them so that they become more useful to you? You have to give them background, you have to give them context, you have to help them understand what you need and how to support you. Um, you will eventually soundboard with them, you'll eventually have them look for blind spots for you. AI can do that for you already today in a very hyper personalized way. At the same time, you are the one that's going to go and do this presentation. You're the one that's going to try and close a deal. You're the one that has to get in front of people and so it doesn't take away from that reality of skill. You know, you're uh, it can send emails for you, but when push comes to shove, there is a truth that happens in the world. Right. Just like when we talk about sports, you still have to get on the field, you still have to go in the game. You can do all these things and all the training and however you want to do it. But the truth ends up happening in the score of the game. Right. So for us, like I think there is that same real test which is the human interaction, when push comes to shove, has to happen. And I think that's where we have to keep thinking about growth of those skills alongside of efficiency gained with AI.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah, you made me think of something but then I got absorbed into what you were saying. There's something about, I don't think you're talking about the futurist sort of thinking like the way our brain works and the neuropsychology of this will be different. You know, I think just thinking about neuroplasticity, like the parts of our brain that we use get sort of like strengthened, right? And the parts that we don't use sort of like weaken. But what it will remain true no matter what. You got me thinking in my head. Then I was like, well will this change? But I don't think so. Which is like we're hardwired for connection, we're social by nature, we're tribal being. So the need to engage and have those touch points is not going away or definitely for sure not going away anytime soon because we're like a ah, pack animal. So we want those relational touch points. Relationships really matter is as important to us as like water or air and so how that needs always going to be there. Therefore the more we get in our own little bubbles and our own little like AI bubbles, we're going to also then have like greater need to connect and then we also have to pay attention. Like I know when I was sort of asking you how does this show up on your team? I was thinking for myself like, like yeah, I'm definitely for sure more optimized because of AI, you know, I can do things a lot, do a lot of content stuff, a lot of decks, a lot of presenting, a lot of public speaking, that kind of thing. My thoughts are my thoughts, but just putting something on a slide. I'm a terrible designer, you know, like I'm bad at that. This just made that so much easier. But what I had to watch and we had conversations on our team was that you know, at times I was like almost defaulting, just going down that route and then sort of losing the collaboration and the talking it through and talking through ideas. So we just had to get very conscious as a team around sending the text, you know, like when it would be easy for me just to turn to Claude and say hey, like help me think through this. But being like, you know what I actually need to turn to our COO or the marketing person or the salesperson to have that conversation to just for the benefit of like all of us feeling connected here and to get new ideas that aren't going to be just my own through AI.

Speaker B: Yeah, I actually think with AI we are going to crave human interaction way more because there's going to be this point in time where there's going to be so much digital content and even that digital content can be done in name and likeness of um, you know, even the soul. Right. Anyone that you almost won't know if anything is real anymore. It could still be entertaining, but it's not like the craft of that person because they could have not done it. It could have been completely AI generated. And so this in person experience I think will actually have a premium. Right. Being able to see something that is a real craft in front of you, a real discussion, a real emotional response and not just curated digitally, I think is going to create that divide and also the need and the desire, like you said, uh, from a human connection standpoint to know that this is all real. Like I'm not just watching a bunch of digital things that AI just created. I mean there's, there's room and value in that because you can have such niche content now, um, because you can auto generate it for every single person to feel seen, included in a certain topic or area. But we still are going to have to have this human side and in person and real life side and I think that's actually going to grow to balance out what feels like so much digital and lack of authenticity. Authenticity. It's a real person behind all of this.

Speaker A: M. Yeah. And that's not going to go away because that's like hardwired that, that connection part. Right. And we have. I was just thinking, I was on the road a ton this month. Like I was counting it up. I think it was like 18 days or something in the past, you know. Yeah, it was a lot. The most I've probably ever. Um, but, but you know, I was so excited to get home and just chill for a couple of days. But day three or four yesterday I'm like texting my friends, he wants to go out for a glass of rose. You know, like, it's just like that need comes back, right? Because. And there's so much about that that I think psychology, neuropsychology, you know, kind of science can help us understand, but there's still so much unknown about what drives that that it's going to be Hard to, like, replicate digitally, you know, so, you know, there's so much there. But I know we're kind of getting close to the end. And, you know, what do you wish more leaders understood about the human side of this transition? Or, you know, for the people who feel furthest behind or just what's on your mind as we're having this conversation? Any kind of, like, lingering thoughts or words that come up for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, number one that I talk to leaders about, ah, a lot is understand that people are scared and having to lead them through such a scary time and situation. And I think authenticity now more than ever, including explaining to folks like, I don't know, like, I. I'm doing the best that I can as well. I think that just, it carries a lot of value for a lot of folks. And as much as we want our leaders to know everything and feel confident that they're going in the right direction, there is a level of ambiguity here where if you almost go too far in showing that confidence, people just don't believe you anymore. Because that change is happening so fast that things that you said last week just will prove to be untrue this week. Uh, so I think that's something to just be careful as a leader, uh, and not so confident in a world that's changing much faster than maybe you can control, uh, and adopt to. Um, I think the second part is I urge leaders to really, really talk about growth and in a very different way this time around. Because all of us, including myself, right, every person at every part of the organization has to grow and change with a lot of what's happening in the world. And that's growth in openness, in maybe what I think of myself, my own identity and what I picture myself doing, as well as being in a phase in my life where I have to learn to drive new value. I think some folks who are established are like, I already did that. Like, now's my time to use all the skills that I had. And it's like, no, every single day we have to be open to that and make room for that. I think a lot of people get caught in. I'm doing what I'm doing. It's my job. And I just, I don't even have time to learn. And that could be a very, very dangerous cycle, um, where understand that to be part of this, this future in a way that drives value, we're all going to have to learn or we do end up with folks that are challenged with what is their contribution, um, in this New business landscape because it's changed so drastically. So I think that's uh, another big part of it. And last but not least, it's, I think just having empathy, I mean empathy is going to be so important because there are real lives, real families, real situations going on. And as we look at policies as a company, as we look at um, change management, um, employee growth training, like all of those things have to be part of your strategy. Not a second or an aside or a oh, I have to check the checkbox type of thing.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah. The fear is real, right? And people are not going to open up and engage. You know, you want a behavior change here, which is AI adoption for people to show up like it's like there every day and be fully present, motivated, all those things. And it's really hard to do. You're like putting the pressure on the gas being like do the things while also, you know, society a, all the things are putting the fears, putting pressure on the brakes. It's an impossible situation unless you actually speak to the fear and then help people understand like where they fit in in this. You know, both from a, you know, saying what you know and don't know and then also acknowledging the fear and then seeing like how you can support them and getting the tools they need to actually be competitive and keep up with, with all of this.

Speaker B: You know, there's other part I should have mentioned. There's a resetting of value that is really hard. Those who have been in the industry and I think the tech industry is seeing this, you know, probably the most where you're making some amount and you get laid off and the next job you can get might be at 50% of that amount because that ah, the new market value for those skills and other skills are evolving. That is very, very hard. And it's very hard for your family because of the finances, finances that are tied to the lifestyle you're living. And that being a reality of there is no job I can get anymore at that price point. These are the harder ones I think. And when I talk to employees about like well what do I do? I was like, well like it's a hard reevaluation of what is the quality of life you can afford now because the market which is outside of your control has shifted. Right. That is hard conversation. But I do think it's a reality. I mean we're seeing it intact due to the number of layoffs over the last couple of years and people having to reevaluate what life could look like and should look like and. And what affordability looks like. I don't think anyone imagined, you know, we had a great run.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, like, it is. It is reality that those amounts and those salaries are changing. There's a little bit more of an extreme. You know, single people are now $100 million. We've seen that as well. But that's not everyone. That's not the majority. Right. It's such a small set. And the majority, as an industry, because of the efficiencies hitting, are actually going the other direction. And like that they truth. That is a reality we all have to live with. Um, and it is a. It is an uncomfortable change.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, there's just such a loss. There's identity, there's financial stuff. There's mourning. Right. Of what you thought you were building. It's like almost. I feel like it's almost. What you're describing is like, when people get divorced, you know, a loss of a future that's like, not going to happen anymore, you know, and that. Or maybe it's not going to happen in that way and you're going to have to pivot and create a new path. I think. Yeah, people are really experiencing that on, like, a societal, organizational level or so. It's always so fun to chat with you. I just appreciate you sharing your time with me today and having this conversation. You know, I could just listen to you talk all day long. You're just incredibly smart and thoughtful, and I appreciate you being here.

Speaker B: Uh, thank you so much for having me. It's always great to chat with you. I learn something every time we talk as well. And I think this is actually a great example of reaching out and talking to people that are in such a different, I would say, discipline or focuses on very different things, because I think this is what creates a completely new set of thinking, at least on my side. I think about things very differently after I hear about neuroplasticity from you and think about how. How I lead in my people differently. So thank you so much for your time as well.

Speaker A: Oh, thank you. Of course we'll talk.