Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - What Microsoft’s Culture Shift Can Teach You in 2026 | Kathleen Hogan

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

What if the future of work isn’t about technology at all — but about unlocking more humanity in each other?On today’s episode, we sit down with Kathleen Hogan, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Microsoft, and one of the key architects behind the company’s cultural reinvention. Kathleen helped lead Microsoft’s shift from a “know-it-all” to a “learn-it-all” culture — embedding empathy, curiosity, and growth mindset across a global workforce of more than 220,000 people.In this conversation, Kathleen and Dr. Michael Gervais explore what it really means to lead with humanity. She shares the moments that shaped her leadership — from facing cancer twice, to redefining success through purpose and connection — and the inner work required to help others unlock their potential.In this conversation, we explore:How Kathleen helped Microsoft reimagine its culture from the inside outWhy purpose and empathy are the foundation of effective leadershipHow to build psychological safety and courage in high-performing teamsWhat it means to lead with curiosity instead of certaintyThe role AI can play in empowering — not replacing — human potentialAt its heart, this episode is a reminder that leadership isn’t about knowing more — it’s about caring more._______________________________________________________Links & ResourcesSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And I was sitting there playfully saying to James, do you like mommy with or without hair? And this is probably one of those profound moments in my life. James looked me straight in the eye, didn't hesitate, and said, Mommy, I love you just the way you are. And in that moment, it just healed me because my core worth is being his mom, being seen by him. It's been a while, and it's shaped who I am.

What if the future of work is not about technology? but about unlocking more humanity in each other. I remember having one meeting with a boss at the time. The essence was I didn't like how we were treating people in a meeting. And I remember being told, you're too emotional. It's just business. I remember going home and thinking, it may be business, but it's not how I want to do business. Welcome back.

Or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Jervay. by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. Now, the idea behind these conversations is simple. It's to sit with the extraordinarily and to learn, to really learn how they work from the inside out. Today's episode is with Kathleen Hogan, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Microsoft. And one of the key architects behind the company's cultural transformation. We together decided to ground our culture in a growth mindset and really create a culture where the how mattered as much as the what.

Kathleen traces the early days of working with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. And if you haven't listened to the Finding Mastery episode with Satya and I, it's episode 120. And I highly recommend it. He's amazing. I was super excited to be on that journey with him. And very early in the beginning, we brought you in, which was like one of the most consequential meetings of my life, honestly. In this conversation, Kathleen and I talked about the deep psychological footing required

to lead through disruption. and what she believes the future of human work requires from each of us. I think with AI, we've caught lightning in a bottle where our ability to empower others is going to be accelerated. I think there's something for anyone navigating change in this conversation, whether it's personally or organizationally. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with my friend Kathleen Hogan.

Kathleen, this feels like this. like it was a 10 years in the making conversation. And before we get into like our journey together and and all of that, I want to start in a way that I can better understand who you are and what led you to this incredible, incredible body work that you've had over your professional career. So deep breath. Yeah, here it is. No, you and I were joking about watching the other, some of the other podcasts, which, by the way, I've just loved. The breadth of people, like Howie Mandel, of course, I watched him on America's Got Talent, Derek Hoff, Dancing with the Stars, Deb Cut, my own colleague here at Microsoft, who's amazing, Ben, the CEO of Alaska, who I get to work with.

It was so much fun to hear their stories and hear the why behind what they do. But it definitely had me thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm going to have to really go back in time and think about what shaped me. That's exactly it. That's the hope of these conversations is that I'm way more interested in what led you to your brilliant insights and the body of work.

I'm way more interested in the way you've navigated those things based on your unique history. So if we thought about it in that way, like people and events help shape us. And I'd love to understand some of the people and some of the events that were material for you to better understand who you are. Definitely my parents.

and my three sisters and my, you know, my core family absolutely shaped who I am. What birth order? I'm number two. It's Caroline, Kathleen, Christine Colleen. Yeah. So I'm number two. Yeah. And how did that influence you growing up with those siblings?

You know, I, it's interesting. I just met with, you know, my dad turned 89. But one of the things I did is I read to him his eulogy that I wrote for him. Oh, my goodness. When did you do this? Like literally maybe a month ago. What an honor. Yeah.

And because he had given me, you know, it's not like, oh, dad, here you go. Like, here's your eulogy. But he had given me everything he wanted to make sure that we knew about what mattered for him to be communicated, right? including, you know, he wanted to be buried, you know, as a common fisherman, right? Humble, ready to meet his maker with a plumber shirt on and khaki pants and, you know, so told me a lot of things. And that was back in February. And so then, and that night I went and I wrote the eulogy and everything that he wanted me

to capture about his life and his legacy. And so then I was sitting with him like a month ago, and he said, do you remember where that blue folder is and all that information? I'm like, Dad, yes. I said, not only that, I wrote what I want to say that night. And I said, do you want me to read it to you? And he said, yes, surprisingly. And I said, by the way, I'm reading this to you now. I plan to read this like maybe in 12 years.

Like, I want you to get to 100. I don't want you to think that this means anything but that. But the point of me even mentioning that was one of the things I said to him in that is that, you know, he and my mom stitched together all these amazing memories with my sisters. And the fact that I have three really, really good friends, you know, for life that we care about each other, that we love each other, you know, that's one of the biggest gifts he's given me, among many other things. Like, I don't want to make this about my dad's eulogy. Why would you maybe not want it, or? Well, because it feels like it's not sufficient to really acknowledge what I really wrote about my dad. It's a very small piece of a broader tapestry of what I want to convey about my father to really honor his legacy.

But that comes to mind as one thing. And so if I go back to like what really shaped me, you know, certainly my parents and the fact that I was so fortunate to have a wonderful family where I really felt loved. I felt supported. I felt like my three sisters were my friends. I remember when my one sister, she tried out for something, didn't make it. And I cried, you know, because I was so sad for her. So empathy was a big part of your family ethos?

I think so. I figure. I think my mother in particular, you know, I just talked about my dad, but my mother in particular, you know, she would always say there, but for the grace of God, go I. And definitely that ability to put yourself in somebody else's shoes was really, really important to my mother. So, you know, oftentimes we learn so much from our family of origin. And there's also complications that don't go the way that, you know, they planned or you planned. And because of those scars and scar tissue, we come through it and we've learned something. So this question is really about, like, what were the things that were bumps and bruises along the way in the family of origin that you had to navigate?

Because from the first blush, it sounds like everything was great. Right, right. Supportive dad, supportive mom, best friends at home. I know nothing's that easy. And so what were some of the bumps and bruises along the way? Yeah, but in some level, I do feel like I was very fortunate and that gave me a really great foundation. Certainly one of the big events was when my grandfather died. So my granddad lived, he didn't live with us, but he lived near us our whole life.

Every fishing trip, every dance recital granddad was there. And I have a fun story. It's a sad story, but it's also a fun story because it shaped me on so many different dimensions. So I was home after in my junior year. I was teaching math, and I was making a little bit of money. And granddad said, what are you going to do now that you're, you know, making some money? I said, I don't know. Maybe we should go to Ireland.

And I was honestly joking. And my granddad was like, let's do it. And I was like, wow. And then in January, maybe it was February, he's like, I've got to get a birth certificate and I've got to get my birth certificate in the archives and, you know, Charleroy, Pennsylvania or wherever. And I was like, oh, he's serious. He's like getting a birth certificate to get his. passport. He really is serious. And so we planned. We planned this trip to go to Ireland together

my summer after junior year. Why is this informative to you? One, there are other things that happened that informed me. But one, here's my granddad at 81, you know, still wanting to live, still wanting to have adventure, still wanting to do something, which I just thought was fantastic. And, you know, the sad part of the story is in May he had a stroke. And when I went home to see him, he said, Kathleen, I'm never going to see Ireland, you know, and he knew. And so that was sad, but also that sense of no regret. We were planning something. We were going to do something fun.

Do you remember that moment that he said that? Oh, yes, absolutely. What happened inside of you in that moment? sadness, for sure, but also this profound sense of yet no regret. And I'll tell you why. Besides the fact that we had been planning this and having a lot of fun, I had gone to my professor. I won't name names, but he's actually famous and famous economist. And I went to him because I had one big, huge exam, and I said, I would really love to go home and see my granddad.

And he was not particularly supportive of that. In fact, said, well, you know, I don't really know what he said. It wasn't like we'll see what we can do. It was more, it's more like he didn't believe me. Like he thought, we'll see. Like, if you really leave and you really, if this is real, we'll see, maybe we could do something. And I was like, wow. And I said, well, this is really important.

I can't even remember if I talked to him. I just remember he was not supportive. And I was sitting there in that moment thinking, do I risk my grades? You get a choice. Or do I go home and see my granddad? And, you know, I kind of wanted to graduate summa cum laude. Did you? No.

Yeah, okay, good. My thesis was summa cum laude, but my grades, without getting into this particular example, I missed, right? But I went home, and I thought in that moment, I'm so glad that I'm here, right? That I'm present. Oh, wait. You went home. I did go home. No regrets.

I went home and I saw my granddad and he said, I'm never going to see Ireland and that was the last time I saw him. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, because I went back then. So how did that, okay, I've missed those moments in my life where I didn't go. In particular, it was my best friend growing up. I didn't go to his wedding. I missed it because I made a work decision. And it's still like I, I wish.

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Terms and conditions apply. What led you to be able to capture those moments? And I'm sure you've missed plenty, too. But in that striking, glaring, you know, summa cum laude, and undergrad was at Stanford? Harvard. Harvard. Oh, sorry. Wrong side of the pond.

Okay, good. Did you go to Stanford? I did Stanford Business School. Okay, sorry. Okay, good. We should talk about how you got to Harvard, which is remarkable in and of itself and Stanford, remarkable in itself. But in that moment where you're gunning for, like,

a goal, and you've got this other more important thing that's taking place, which is the relationship with your grandfather, you made the decision to invest in family. How has that shaped you moving forward? I think it's just solidified what really, really matters, right? And at the end of the day, you know, we can jump ahead later to, you know, going through cancer where you really face your own mortality. But like at the end of the day, what really, really matters. And it's family and it's your relationships and it's your faith and you know it's funny to even talk about sumu cum laude or magna cum laude because like really who cares right really like i would trade everything for that moment with my granddad that is awesome yeah and you have and i feel that in

this conversation right now i'm sure you miss your grandfather yeah but you made a decision that freed you from regret right Yeah. And, you know, I know if I fast forward, there was another moment, like we're talking about, like, moments that shape you. Another one is when I went through cancer, and my son was four, you know, and they give you an 85% chance, which is good. The odds are in your favor, but, like, it's not one in a million. And I had to shave my hair because I was going through chemo. I decided I would be in control of that, you know, control what you can control. So I shaved my hair.

I came home, and I remember thinking James is going to be like, what's going on, mom? And instead, James had this little bird cage that he, bird, it's not a cage, bird. feeder, a little ceramic thing that he painted. He wanted me to see that. And so, like, I'm obsessed looking at that. And I'm like, is he even noticing? Now, granted, I was wearing a scarf, okay? So I'm thinking he didn't really notice.

And so then maybe, like, a week later, I'm sitting there. And you're, like, mid stride in your career at this point. Right. Yeah. You were at Microsoft? I was at Microsoft. I was leading customer support at the time. What year?

When was I diagnosed? It was 2007. Yeah, okay. First time I've been diagnosed twice. Right. But first time was 2007. Anyway, the story is I was sitting there playfully saying to James, do you like mommy with or without hair?

This is probably one of those profound moments in my life. James looked me straight in the eye, didn't hesitate, and said, Mommy, I love you just the way you are. and in that moment when you've got scars when you're bald when your job you're like what is my identity right i wasn't sure i would still work you know like all of those things are stripped away you know you say well what is your core worth and in that moment i don't know it just healed me because my core worth is none of that right it's being his mom being seen by him without all of that. I don't know if I'm communicating this. Oh, I think that this would escape

words, but the way that you are putting the words to it, if I was in that, I'm not sure how you're not falling into a thousand pieces right now telling, reliving that moment. Well, it's been a while and it's shaped who I am. It goes back to this like all that stuff at the end of your life is going to go away, right? And, you know, you don't take with you. accolades. When you go meet your maker, what is it really about? You know, and it's your essence. And like, I guess that was it. It was like, it was James helping me see that at the end of this life mom, Kathleen, it's the essence of who you are inside. Like, you talk a lot about confidence comes from the inside as opposed to all these other things, that you could get

confused that define you or are your identity or matter at the end of the day. Yeah, I think this, we'll stay on two pieces here. One is, I've really enjoyed knowing you and knowing what you faced and how you lead. And all of that seems like transactional surface until you really understand the context of where the decisions are coming from. You have led, one of the largest, most successful companies in the world, you have led a human first transformation of this organization. The culture was on your shoulders. Now, nobody does it alone, but you are the one. And so I would say I was not the one.

I would say I was one of many, and that's not false humility. That is really true, right? Like, Sacha was incredible. The leadership team was incredible. Our managers have been incredible. But yes, I also am not having false humility either that. I was part of that, and it's something I'm very proud of that together, we together decided to ground our culture in a growth mindset and really, you know, create a culture where the how

mattered as much as the what, that the mission mattered, what we did mattered, but how we did it mattered as much. And that's something I'm really proud of, you know, collective Microsoft for doing that. Yeah. Under Sach's leadership. Yeah. And the idea going from a know it all to a learn it all, that just that simple hinge idea creates great clarity on how, how we're going to go about this. Like you said, the mission, to help every organization and person on the planet achieve more, clear, ambitious, bold, wonderful, great. How are we going to do it? Well, we're going to do it by being great learners. We're going to do it by making sure that we're in tune with ourselves so that we can be, the aperture can be open, we can stay as a great learner,

and we're not walking around pretending like we know it all. It's exhausting. It's unproductive. Right. It's low performance standards. And so... It was so... freeing. It was so freeing to go from a, gosh, I got to go into this meeting and have memorized the yellow pages effectively and know every answer to, I don't know, but I'll get back to you. And everyone here at Microsoft's really, really, really, really, really smart. Maybe not everybody. I like to think most. Yeah, it's really a very smart organization. And then to express the humanness inside of the very intelligent beings that are here has been really special. So like, Where do you begin? Because I think, as Satya said, and I think you might have said it plenty of times as well, it's like culture is one of the great products.

It's one of the great things here at Microsoft. So how do you begin? How do we begin to transform the culture? Yeah. Oh, boy, that's a long story. And you're part of the origin story. I would say before you even go there, I remember having one meeting with a boss at the time. And the essence was I didn't like how we were treating people in a meeting.

And I remember being told, you're too emotional. It's just business. That was the answer. It's just business. When I said, gosh, do we really need to treat people like this in front of so many people? And I remember going home and thinking, it may be business, but it's not how I want to do business. And so when Sacha became the CEO and asked if I would come and help him transform the culture. And, oh, by the way, he had that vision from the beginning.

I give him all the credit that he had this true north that we need a mission that matters, but we equally need a culture in service to that mission that's going to unlock the potential of our people. That the how mattered. I was super excited to be on that journey with him. And, you know, as you know, very early in the beginning, we brought you in, which was like one of the most consequential meetings of my life, honestly. You know, that's why I'm so grateful to you. we were exploring, as you recall, growth mindset.

We had worked with Dr. Deweck, who was incredible. She was one of our coaches, advisors, learned a ton from her. I could talk a lot about that. But we had also tapped into you, who I think, you know, you should be the one to tell this story, but I think we're focused on the mental aspect of the game, not just the physical aspect of the game, the mindset, that your mindset, your attitude. That's the one thing, you know, man search for meaning. At the end of the day, the one thing you can control in any situation is your

attitude, your mindset. And so you really helped us tap into that when we had that infamous first meeting with Satin's leadership team where we really walked, went around and talked about our purpose. Wasn't that amazing? It was amazing. I'll never forget that meeting where Satya and, I don't know, was there like 17, 16 direct reports. It was a large. I don't think it was that big at the time, actually. Twelve? Yeah. It felt pretty significant. Not that it matters. No, no. And but I remember like when we started down. We started down. the idea of like personal philosophy, compelling vision, purpose and life. And we got to that self-discovery piece and Satya says, whoa, everybody, I want to know your philosophy for life.

I want to know your purpose because we've got a bold ambition and we're going to need to work well together. So we need to know each other. And instantly I said, oh, that's modern leadership. that's exactly somebody that's investing in the underpinnings of the, it's the soil that allows the plant to be beautiful. And he was investing in that. And I thought, oh, that's real. Because so many companies, they say, oh, we need a good culture. Then they come up with the fancy words and they put the words on the wall.

And then they're like, we've got to remind everybody of what those words are. But in your case, growth mindset, to have a growth mindset, you need to have core psychological skills. that you own so that you can be a great learner, so that you can be a great partner to other people to achieve the bold, beautiful ambition. And you did it. How many employees? Well, now it's 220,000. Yeah. And we would say we are still, you know, we're closing the gap between everybody's lived experience and our aspired to culture, right? And there's not perfection. I think we've closed the gap. But on any given day, does somebody experience, you know, a leader, teammate having a fixed mindset, themselves having a fixed mindset? Absolutely. Are we always customer obsessed,

one Microsoft, diverse and inclusive, some of our core principles that go underneath that growth mindset or values of accountability, integrity, and respect? Is there perfection? No. But what was fun about even listening to Deb Cupp's discussion with you is just because I feel like we've been so consistent for so many years, you know, hearing her talk about the growth mindset, hearing her talk about the mission. You know, having that shared sense of how, that the how matters and that the mission matters across the company, you know, I think we've cultivated that over 10 years. I could spend the whole time talking about not one single thing. It's many, many levers over many, many years. One of the things that, you know, came out of that meeting that we had, two things, actually

many things. One is it was amazing to hear everybody's purpose and that their purpose was very much align to the company's purpose. And when you have that connection, right, you feel like you can achieve your personal purpose at the company. I think that's magic, number one. Two, if you remember, there was that awkward exercise where, bless Amy Hood, she stood up and was brave. The CFO. Yeah, the CFO was brave to raise her hand. And I reflect on, you know, being courageous, being brave. And, you know, you pointing that out, because that's what it's going to take to drive this transformation, any transformation, and to have that growth mindset. But the last was, you know, this researcher of the amazing.

Yeah, you've loved that. I know, and that was huge. You operationalized that, you know, in a significant way across the organization. And for the folks that are not maybe aware of that, because I don't talk about it much, is the middle part is that there was all the executives in the room, we're really rolling up our sleeves to understand the right psychology and the psychological skills for them to be their best. And then I presented a challenge. And it was to see how somebody's mind works under pressure in front of their peers. And the room went silent. All of these smart, ambitious, top tier,

you know, frontier pushing executives. And the courageous Amy Hood says, okay, I'll go. I know. Amazing moment for all of us in that room. Amazing moment. And I think we all were on, wow, you know, why, what was, yeah, why didn't we? Yeah. What was getting in the way? And, you know, the answer was fear. Do you remember that moment for you? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. The first time I was exposed to something like that, I didn't have the stuff that Amy had. And so I relate just like you did, like, what am I doing with my life? Why didn't I? I say I'm courageous. I say I'm bold. I say I'm a risk taker. I say that I have nothing to lose. Like, I'm free. Why didn't I? Right. That model that I was working from was total.

BS. And it exposed in that moment. I think it probably exposed maybe you and some other folks in a private way. Like, I got work to do. Yeah. Well, and you say I have nothing to lose. I think that's the hard part. For most people, they do have something to lose or they at least think they have something to lose. And for me, it gets easier the older I get because I feel I have less to lose or less to prove, I don't know if that's fair or unfair, but, you know, if I watched myself back then versus how I feel now, I feel much more like I don't have as much to lose. That's a function of wisdom. And wisdom and age can be correlated, but don't have to be.

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let's square this around to an early part of the conversation about identity that's what we have to lose how will they think of me i think of my way myself this way and i want them to think the same of me right and if that whole thing is like heavy then we don't stand up because it's too hard to bring that weight forward but if you're light you're like i don't care i look i'm a learner i'm trying to figure it out you stand up and you go for it and you fall in your face and you're like Oh, that's interesting. Like, huh, I wonder why you guys didn't do that. It's more that than it is like, oh, my God, they're thinking I don't have what it takes.

Right. Or it's going to impact my career or it's going to impact my financial or, you know, all these things that people worry about. It was interesting in your Deb Cup interview when she said, I'm not afraid of being fired. And I think I double clicked on that. You did because you're like, everybody's afraid. Yeah. And so, and so, of course, everybody has fear, but it's tough. to what degree, and how much do you have that inner sense of, yeah, at the end of the day,

this isn't what defines me. And therefore, I can take the risks. And if this does go away, or in Debs case, I do get fired, you know, or I do lose my hair, or I do, whatever, that, you know, there's that peace knowing that what really matters, what's your core, isn't all that. And then I think that gives you permission to take risks and to be brave and to speak truth to power and all the things that we want for people, but it's so hard. It's very hard because the truth is other people can fire you, other people can promote you,

other people can, you know, give you social access. Like, people have power. Absolutely. It's whether you value that or you value something inside of you more. So let's use this as a- And people can judge you and nobody likes to be judged. You can get better at saying, you know, who really gets to judge me? Whose judgment do I give any?

you know, energy to. That's it. So what do you stand for? What are the core rocks? What's on the tombstone? When it all comes down to a couple ideas that like are super important to you, what do you stand for? You know, this sounds, it may sound trite given our mission, but it is about empowering others.

Our mission is to empower every person, organization on the planet to a tree more. You can say it that way and it sounds like, oh, you know, she's just repeating her mission. But when I went through cancer and I did this program called Living Your Legacy, which I thought was great. And I didn't like the legacy part because it's not about legacy. I'm glad you brought that up because I get a rash with that word. Yeah. It's not about like what's my legacy. So I didn't like that part.

But it was, what is your purpose and are you living authentically with your purpose? Are your actions consistent with your purpose? And you had to go through this exercise to really. say at the end of my life, what is my purpose? And for me, it is about helping at the time, the language I used was, you know, first and foremost, helping my son realize his potential. Like when you're staring at your son at four and you think, am I going to be here, you know, and now he's 23 and he's graduated from college and I'm here, you know, that was really my core purpose. But then I also said, is it just that? You know, why keep working? You know,

why not just like, just focus on James because you might not have been here for James. And it was like, well, if I can do that and help other people realize, you know, their potential, help empower other people, you know, be in service to other people, then that gives me purpose. Whether it's my parents, my sisters, the people that I work with, you know, the world, you know, not to jump ahead to AI. But I think with AI we've caught lightning in a bottle where our ability to empower others, you know, is going to be accelerated in terms of our ability to empower people to educate themselves, empower people with, you know, better access to health care, empower people, you know,

with tools that, you know, they never had before. You know, I think about being a, being in college and not having access to a computer, you know, versus those who had access to a computer. I still managed to get through, but boy, would that have been nice to have access to a computer. Why didn't you have access? I didn't own a personal computer at the time. Now I'm really dating myself, but I showed up at college with a typewriter. Did you?

I had a typewriter. And other people had personal computers? Not many, but some people did. Some people did, yeah. And, you know, if you wanted to use the computer, you had to go to the, you know, you had to go to the computer hall and pay for the printer and, you know, that was costly and all those things. So, I mean, I remember freshman year, if you got like an A-minus on a paper, you could, redo it and get it and improve your grade. But like I'd have a 30-page paper and there'd be like

eight comments and I'd re-type it. And I think about, gosh, if I had access, you know, that could have empowered me to have achieved more, right? It's a simple, simple story. But now I think with AI and really democratizing access to this superpower, copilot in your pocket, it's incredible. Like my dad, we talked about my dad, my dad now at 89 is using copilot. And the five, funny story that I think I was sharing with somebody yesterday. This is my dad, who I adore, obviously, started there, went home and dad said, because he went on, you know, vacation. He said, I've unplugged my computer. And I'm like, why did you unplug your computer? And he said, because I don't want to get email while we're away. This is my sweet dad. And I'm like, dad, unfortunately, when you plug it back in, there's this thing called the cloud and, you know, and he was just so disappointed to hear that. that. But my point is, here's my dad, right, who thinks when he unplugs his computer, he can stop the email from coming in. And just like two weeks ago, I was home, set up his computer, his favorite icon so he could, you know, read email, read, you know, his favorite news outlets

on his computer. And then there's this co-pilot. And I showed him how to use it. And now dad can type in and learn and have access to a lot of things that are fun. Yeah, that's really cool. And so this ability to empower others with technology is very consistent with, like, I think, my core purpose of, you know, just helping other people achieve more, helping my son, first and foremost, my family, but then if you could do that more broadly and scale that impact, like, that gives me joy. You know what I appreciate is that you didn't stay bold, like, I want wells in this part of the world, or I want to feed animals, you know, like this grand ambition, which is fine. It's beautiful.

And you have a grand ambition to empower humans across the planet. Like, huge. And you're in tandem with Microsoft's. So there's a harmony there that's really nice. But you made, you said, yeah, but you know what? The honest truth is to empower humans. Like one to one starts there with my son and then maybe my team and then maybe a room that I inhabit. And so if you think about the intimacy and activation of your.

purpose. How consistent are you when you enter a room? How consistent are you that that purpose is at the surface? I can't say that I am consciously aware of that. Maybe it's just who I am. That sounds non-humble, but like, but I don't walk into a room thinking, today I'm going to empower others. It's more going into a room, though, and being aware of, you know, the power of other people, right? the power of connecting or the power of diversity of thought and if you can unlock other people in the room and if you can make them at ease, especially if you're like the more senior person that there's power in tapping into that and the way you behave can can impact whether you draw out criticism where you draw out ideas or if you come in as that know at all or you shut

people down or people give you know feedback that you don't like you know all of how you behave in that moment is going to impact the type of input you're going to get? How you answered it is that you're aware of you, your internal state, and how your being is impacting other people. And so with that awareness, by the way, we can train awareness. Awareness is something that, you know, through mindfulness and journaling and conversations with people, the wisdom that we've talked a lot about, that you've become more aware of a human. And so when you're more aware of what's happening inside you, you're more aware of what's happening in others around you. And your primary first principle in life is to open the aperture

for other people that you're doing it. You're living it. It's like the broth of the soup. It's the water that you're swimming in. So you don't walk down the hallway like, okay, I'm going to empower these people. It's not that. You've tapped into awareness. You've got a guiding force and it's constantly present for you. Does that sound right? That does sound right. Okay. And it gives me joy, too. Like, when you see somebody that, I mean, I think a lot of people who mentor people or when they see the person they're mentoring or they're helping succeed, it brings you joy, too, right? And so it's not a completely selfless act in the sense that I enjoy seeing other people succeed. Like, that gives me great joy, especially if I've been part of it. The second part of that

would be I also, I think, know that I have some of the answers, but I don't have all of the answers. And so my whole life, tapping into others, being part of a team, has what has allowed me to be successful. Nothing I've done I've done really because of me. It's because of a team and the people that I've been part of and leveraging others, them leveraging me too. But like if I think about, you know, whether it's soccer and playing soccer and being part of that team or building software when I was at Oracle or running HR. That was a team sport, a total team sport. And I was leveraging a lot of people. Yeah, and they trusted you. And they trusted Satya. And you had to execute with credibility against it for a long time. And it's a still, it's a work in progress.

So somebody's got to take the reins and drive it. There's, again, yes, there's lots of people. But I would be remiss to not thank you because your trust in us helped build finding masteries as an agency, you know, to help other firms as well. So you were customer zero, pilot number one. We were making it up as we were going. And you and Sati and team were perfectly fine with like, yeah, this feels right. Keep going. And so we would be able to do what we do without your trust and support.

So I second, nobody does it alone. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for 10 years ago trusting and still trusting. No, but and the reason why I trusted you is your whole ethos was about empowering others, right? And I saw the power when you were empowering in that small room with our leadership team, when you then went and scaled to the sales organization. You know, recently I've seen you with, you know, exact staff.

I mean, in many different environments, your ethos is about a lot of. the potential in other people. And that's been really inspiring. So it's been great. It's been so great. It's so fun. You know what's really cool is that as of today, the time of recording, we're launching here across the sales organization, the Purpose Mindset course.

So it's funny how things come full. The timing of today's conversation is marked. So that's very cool. Okay. Enough of that. That's fun to read this. You also mentioned the researcher of Amazing, and I want to open that up because essentially that is challenging other people to go find what's good in their life and report back. You know, go to the frontier, tell us what berries you tasted that were amazing and, you know, like how you went about it and bring it back to the fold.

And you operationalized it and you put it in a cadence in the business where people started to become researchers of amazing and they would thereby. their training optimism across the organization. Absolutely. Yeah, so why was that an important motion for you to operationalize? Well, and so coming out of that offside, you know, one of the promises we made is, you know, every Friday when we met as a leadership team that we would have somebody come and be the research of the amazing, and it's evolved over time. Is it a team?

Is it an individual? But the essence was be in search of somebody who is living our culture, you know, the how, in service to our mission. And I think what has been powerful about that is it's helped our culture and our mission not be something on the wall where it's just, you know, this Dilbert cartoon. But, you know, as a leadership team, you know, 10 years later, you know, 52 weeks later, you've got a lot of shared understanding of what we think the culture is, what we think achieving our mission looks like.

It's visceral at that point. I think it signals to the company. this is this is what great looks like you know it's symbolic in that way and it's it's an opportunity to celebrate excellence celebrate people who are taking risks doing things that are changing the world and say thank you so and that is a trainable optimism is a trainable capability and I haven't met a world's best that isn't fundamentally optimistic now either they earned it or they kind of had a glide path for it tell me I'm wrong you're fundamentally optimistic I am Right. And my mother is. My mother is. Okay. So you learned it from mom early on.

Absolutely. Because we will talk about others who maybe wake up more glass half full, but, you know, having somebody, your mother, be optimistic. How did she cultivate that at a young age for you? What did she say? She just role modeled it. It's like whatever the issue was, she practiced gratitude. She was always, you know, her ability to zoom out and be grateful for what was happening. even amidst what wasn't happening. Do you have an example of that? I can't think of something back in my childhood. I would say she practiced it literally two weeks ago when I went home for her 85th birthday, you know? And so she's 85, dad's turning 89 in October. You know, there are challenges with getting old.

Like she'll keep it real with me. She's like, Kathleen, I want to make sure at the end, you know, you don't say, well, why didn't you tell me about some of these things? So she keeps it real in terms of some of the challenges of growing old. But, you know, we had that birthday party and she stood up and she just talked about all the things that she's grateful for and why she's, you know, optimistic about the future. And so she, it's just who she is. Finding Master is brought to you by Square. One of my favorite local surf shops here in Southern California, they started really small. Just a few boards, a tight-knit team, and a vision.

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head to square.com slash go slash finding mastery to learn more again that's square sq-u-a-r-e dot com slash go

slash finding mastery the best in the world they do not leave their future up to chance they train their minds to see what's possible and then they organize their lives around it

so here's a good news you can do the same as well for more than two decades I've been fortunate to work with world's top athletes and founders and executives and leaders, helping them to use their imagination, to use their mind to be their very best. So as we close out 2025, I think it's a great time to get clear on your vision for how you want to show up in this world. This is not about resolutions. They don't work.

This is a powerful process to invest in your future, one that you're already working towards every day, but this is just using the best science of psychology to help you in that aim. In our upcoming free live training, we'll show you how to build that vision. how to identify the goals that are fully within your control so you can work that process, and then how to use daily imagery to help you unlock your potential. We're going to talk about how the best in the world use these mental skills to create more clarity, to build momentum, to create real change in their lives. You're going to learn how to do it as well.

If you want 2026 to be a breakthrough year, join me on December 10th at 11 a.m. Pacific for this live training. To save your spot, just go to finding mastery.com slash breakthrough. Again, go to findingmastery.com slash breakthrough. Let's train your mind. Let's build your vision. And let's make 2026 epic together. So keep mom in the conversation here.

And she's an emblem for gratitude and optimism. Yes. So she hundreds, millions of times she modeled that. You also got into Harvard and then Stanford. Did you end at Stanford? Yes. Okay. You mean, did I go another degree?

Yeah. No. Yeah, okay. That was so generous of you to even suggest that I might. You know, there's a lot going on for you. No, no. Okay, so how did she hold the standard for your high school experience to prepare you to, or to support you on your path to get to Harvard? Top university in the world.

Mom is full of gratitude. How did she also hold the standard? You know, it's interesting because my mom did say a lot of people would ask her about that. My sister Christine, you know, went to Harvard. My other two sisters went to Notre Dame. You know, to the extent parents are looking for their kids to get into schools, they would ask her, what did you do? And she always said, I don't know that I actually did anything.

You know, she would say on some level, she believes that I was innately ambitious from an early age. I remember in first grade, we had this spelling bee where, you know, you'd get this little ribbon if you won the spelling bee. And one time, I mean, this is going to make me sound terrible, but this is in first grade. One time, there's a substitute teacher. And so, you know, I didn't get my little ribbon, even though I had, you know, whatever, won the spelling bee, or at least was achieved whatever you achieved. And so I went home and I made my own little ribbon. Yes, you did.

She did. And I put it, because mom put up on the board the ribbons, right? and so I liked seeing, you know, the ribbons up there. And so mom often laughs about that. I look back and I think, oh, my gosh, that was ridiculous, Kathleen. Do you have a picture of that? I do. I actually have that somewhere.

I want to see that picture. And it's so funny because they all look the same. And then there's like, it was like a cutout car. Can you imagine this is a first grade teacher with not a lot of budgets? So she had made a circle, put a number one, and then put little ribbons on it, right? So I went home and made my equivalent. But my mom always said, Kathleen, that was like you, right? That wasn't me.

But maybe it was her because she put that up on the wall and she celebrated my success. Maybe that's the thing. She was celebrating my success and therefore I wanted to succeed. I think that that would have been this jet fuel for you to value the feedback that comes when you do something spectacular when you get an award. And I think it would have been like a beautiful. slide trap into becoming what we would call a performance-based identity, that my identity is wrapped around how well I do something next to other people. Right. And so I think that there's this early ambition that you would have learned because you found favor from your caretaker saying,

nice job, look at this. Oh my God, this is amazing. You're so amazing. You're so amazing. And then that quickly turns into, oh, I get love and favor and attention when I perform well. So, oh, that's an easy formula, let me just work hard and perform well, and every happy days. That at some point, probably when you were diagnosed with cancer, no longer will work. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was it, was it? And in fact, I remember one of your podcasts, I won't say, but it was one of them where you made that connection, and I was watching that. And I was like, wow, that's a powerful connection. I think it was the person in yellow, but who was talking about Jesse Cole from Savannah. Yes, yes, yes. But he was talking about, you.

using accomplishment as a way to achieve love. And now that has driven him to really try to show love and belonging and everything that he does. And I found that really made me think. I think you've well invested in a performance-based identity. You wore the tread of that tire out. And then you've now developed a purpose-based identity, which is like, no, I'm in service of. And that's how I'm designing my life. That from two sounds like it's an easy thing.

to happen. My experience is that most people either got to, like, say, I'm sick and tired of dancing for other people. And sometimes we're given these extraordinary bits of information that whether it's a death or cancer or something, we go, okay, no more. That enough is enough. Or we're sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Right, right. And so do you remember when you made that moment where you said, that's no longer going to serve me well? Was there a, a, a flashbang moment or did it just evolve over time? I don't know that there was one, but I'll tell you one thing that came,

one flash that came to mind when you said that. So it's kind of fun to just see what comes to mind as we have this discussion is I was at McKinsey. I was a partner at McKinsey. I just had my son. And, you know, you're on this treadmill of, and I love McKinsey. I learned a lot at McKinsey,

but it was very challenging to be, you know, with a new baby and, finding the clients and all of that. And Kevin Johnson, who was one of my clients at Microsoft, sent me a mail. And it was, and literally the title was you, Y-O-U, right? You get that kind of mail and you go, wonder what he's, you know, and he had sent me a mail saying, do you want to make a transition? Would you be interested in doing something different? And that was sort of that moment where it was like, okay, what am I doing? What do I want to do? Do I want to continue to feel like I'm achieving something here. And I'll be honest, like, now again, you know, when I was at

business school, you know, everybody, the coveted job was McKinsey or the coveted job was Goldman Sachs. And so you kind of get on that to your, like, are you just on the treadmill versus what do I really want, you know, in my life? And so that was a moment where it's like, I think about that, because I moved from California up to Seattle, left the job as a partner at McKinsey started at Microsoft. And maybe, you know, the irony is, you know, people think Microsoft is not the place you go for work-life balance. And I didn't join for work-life balance, but I did join to have purpose and to have more

control, too, over my life. Yeah, that goes back to when you're really young and you took control to put your own ribbon up. That's going to stick with me. I don't know if that really is. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's probably thread. it in there pretty well. Like, you know, you have high agency. You also have what's called high

efficacy, which is agency is like, I can go do that. And efficacy, yeah, I can do that. And I think I can make an impact with that. You have high efficacy. It's like one step larger than agency. It's also about what, what, are you achieving this because somebody else thinks you should achieve this? Or is this what you really want? And is this what you really love? And, you know, tapping into doing what you really love with people that you love, with the purpose that, you know, really you think matters, that's magic, right? That doesn't always happen. But, you know, I've talked about the five P's, you know, people want pay. They want good perks, of course. But if you're proud with the company, you know, if you have people in a culture and you have a

purpose, you know, when you get that right, that's magical. And so I really thank Kevin because he, that mail made me reflect on, you know, the five P's, really the three P's. At that point. And what do I really want? What I want to do. Say the five P's again? Well, the five P's, this is from Maslow's hierarchy from an HR perspective. But we talk about people come, of course, you want to get paid well, right?

There's a lot of talk about, you know, salaries and tech and stuff. People want to be paid well. They want good benefits. We call that perks. But that may be necessary, but not sufficient. You know, we feel that the reason why over the last 10 years, people have come to Microsoft and we've been able to attract people like never before. The number of people who are applying, et cetera, is off the charts relative to, I'll just

say it's been exponentially growing since Satch has become the CEO. And I think the secret sauce is, you know, of course the foundation, but, you know, pride in the company, feeling you're part of a company that's ethical, that has values. also that's winning, you know, being part of people who you admire, but also the how they do things matters to them. And it's something you want to be a part of. I think this growth mindset, it speaks to everybody. That's why I love it. And then, you know, a purpose, right? At the end of the day, a purpose that ideally your own purpose can align with the purpose of the company. When you can get all of that right, you know, people will come for that and people will stay for that.

Okay, let's shift to AI for a minute. there is a growing fear amongst folks that this thing is going to take over. This thing is going to, maybe there's a doom and gloom that it's going to kind of run humans. There's a less pervasive fear that if you kind of get a little bit more clear and up close to it, which is, wait, is this going to take my job? So there is a growing fear about AI. Of course. You and many millions of others are saying, are you kidding?

this is amazing. We've got some of the world's largest problems that we can't solve. Environmental conditions, fill in the blanks. And we're going to need a great thought partner to solve these things. And thank goodness. We caught lightning in a bottle. We doubled down. We were leaders in the industry. Co-pilot comes out. We need this. And somebody's going to use this tool to solve some of the most intractable, difficult, hard problems in humanity. Okay. So I've created the thing. But can you talk about, the fear. Is AI going to replace jobs? I think that, so if I zoom out, change is hard. Like every person that I'm talking to about transforming, changing. In general, it's hard.

Most people don't like change, right? And yet, if you really look at the arc of the world, the one constant is change. I remember being a secretary in a law firm, typing back to to my typing, and the computer pool came in. And we weren't particularly happy about that because now the computer pool, you could send everything to the computer pools. And they were going to, quote, take our jobs. And I think back on that. And if I had said, well, I'm never going to learn computers, and I'm going to insist that I'm always using my typewriter, then probably at some point that would have impacted my job. And I think back, as I think about transforming now, it would have been so helpful if in that moment they had said, here is what the computer is.

Here's how you all can get trained on that. Here's how you can evolve your skills and participate in this. And I wouldn't have had as much fear. And my colleagues, because I was there for the summer, I knew I was going back, but my colleagues, who that was their full-time job, they had a lot of fear of that. And so I think whenever technology comes in or change comes in, and we talk about the printing press or horse versus car. People have to adopt and pivot and change and learn and figure out how they're going to add value in the new world. So I think that's not different. And so I think that's true with AI too.

I'm not here to say that change will never disrupt anybody's job, right? Because that's been true forever. I think our mission, though, is in general for AI to unlock human capacity and help people achieve more versus displace people. That's our ambition is to help people achieve more in many ways, you know, using the power of this latest technology and try to democratize access to it again. You know, back to my example where I didn't have access and I felt disadvantage. You know, how can with AI people have way more access to the power of, you know, technology that 10 years ago, 50 years ago, you know, very few people had access? body master is brought to you by remarkable as we head into the holidays i'm reminded of the power of presence the family with ourselves with the work that matters and in a world that's built for

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And the difference, it's felt. Go to drinkag1.com slash finding mastery to get started. With your first order, you'll get a free book. bottle of AG1, D3K2, a welcome kit, and five AG1 travel packs. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash finding mastery to get started. How is the business model working? I'm confused, you know, I'm a user. Be clear. Like, I think it's an amazing tool. It's a thought partner. It is solving things. It is lightning the load. It is creating more expansive. expansion of ideas from myself and the full team at Finding Master.

Yeah, like, I'm totally. Like, do you, one of the things we hope is that it's more joy, less toil, it helps you be more creative. Do you find that or? I find that when I'm stuck and I have a conversation and with a tool that, an engineered tool that has some context, that I find that to be value. Is it always accurate? No, is it always something that I just kind of swallow and be like, that's exactly, no, I've got to work at it.

So it's more of a sparring thought partner for me. For me, it's not joy like happy, fun. It's like, oh, I'm unlocking something. And I find joy in unlocking. That's like the internal driver for me is like when I get a moment of insight and I go, oh, that's it. That's the path or that's the. And I like that. That's joyful for me. So, yes, Microsoft from, I don't know who said it, it doesn't matter, but there was a position that Microsoft has the most employees that will ever have because we've got this other tool called AI and agents. And I hear that, and I go, ooh, yeah. Let's say you double your revenue and you stay the same in employee base. Okay, that's a different future.

So was that meant to be just matter of fact, like get your training right? Or is that an accident that was said? Well, we're going to absolutely grow as a company. The goal is to couple our employees with the power of AI, with the power of process and continuous improvement and the ability to reimagine the way we work to figure out how we can do more with the talent and the capacity we have.

I think people are really counting on you guys to show how that can be exemplar. You know, and I'm an outside, inside kind of view here that the position that you and team have is really large in this re-shaking of how humans work. And there's a lot of responsibility, I think, that rests in it. I mean, yeah, keep pushing on the frontier of what the capabilities of the tech could be and keep investing in showing us how humanity needs to be part of the experience from, the foundation, not something you try to shoe in afterwards. And knowing your background, knowing where you come from, I feel safer, knowing that you're part of that decision-making process or influence, I should say.

Yeah. I do think that just like in the past, there'll be certain jobs that do have to morph. Some jobs will go away. We think many more jobs will be able to scale and have impact like never before. We've, like, one research, going back to my days where I was working with my radiologist, and he was trying to help the victim of Sierra Leone, right? And he was trying to get needed equipment. And there's a whole story there where he was using our software, and it helped me make the connection between technology, helping him to scale his mission. Again, it gave me that sense of purpose around empowerment, seeing him what he was using our technology for.

But, you know, there are two bottlenecks at the time. One was, you know, the ability to get the equipment to do the MRIs, etc. The other was the radiologists to actually review and look at the data and that was the other limiting factor. And now you look at what we can do with AI and you say, wow, we now can amplify the power of radiologists. And the recent research said radiologists are not going away. They're just our ability to reach more people is exploding. And so that's what we're goal seeking for. You know, I'm not here to say that no job will ever be disrupted.

That's happened throughout our history. But the goal is to use AI, coupled with human ingenuity, coupled with process excellence, to scale impact in ways that were not possible before. That is exactly what I hope you would say. That's exactly, that North Star feels like if that's true, that's the companies I want to be part. part of, and that's the side of the equation I want to make sure it does happen. Because, like, I'm not about, like, hey, let's go back to typewriters. That would be, no one really wants that. You know, so I'll tell you a fun little story.

Just stay on the radiology. One of my friends complaining about a back pain for a year was working soft tissue in Cairo and doing all the stuff. And then finally, somebody's like, hey, this isn't getting any better. You should go have it looked at. went in MRI, and as he was leaving, because it takes time to read the MRIs and da-da-da, as he's leaving, the technician calls and says, hey, I sent your something over to our doc, and he quickly looked at it, and he said he wants you back in the office, like right now,

turn around. And he had, he's a good friend, he had Cordoma, which is a very rare condition, and survivability is very low. And because of the timing, because of the speed of the technology, because of the speed of the responsiveness of the radiologists, because of all the tech that was sitting underneath of it, I think he survived. And so does he. And so these are real life examples of like where speed and accuracy matter. And that's a promise, I think, that we're going to get a little bit better with AI through that. Right. Even if the job doesn't go away of the radiologist or the person who's reviewing your mammogram, but if AI has,

has helped them identify something that they wouldn't have seen themselves or flag something or help them scale across, you know, the huge amount of images that they're having to look at on any given day and improve their accuracy, you know, that's huge value. So again, we're goal-seeking toward value. I think it would be inauthentic to not say there is fear. Absolutely. Again, change is hard. And if you don't know what this means for you, there is fear. One of the things we're really trying to help our employees with is we may not future-proof your job because your job might evolve. We think most of them will be augmented, but others may not. We don't know where this goes completely. But we can future-proof your career by really helping you, you know, gain the

skills, be willing to, if your job does evolve to the point where that job isn't needed, you've got the skills to move to another job. We're really investing in how we help mix-shift talent from one part of the company to the other, if that's necessary, and then really helping our customers who are dealing with the same thing, recognize that for this to work, it's not just about implementing technology. It's about really change management, bringing people along, being honest with them, but also optimistic. You know, one of the best examples I have is my own team in HR, and I give credit to the team in HR because I said, let's start rolling out this AI. And the team said, let's invite everybody to give us their ideas in HR about how AI could make their life better. And I was like, oh, that's too

much, you know, too many people. But I give credit to the team for saying, no, let's try it. And then I guess I give myself a little credit to say, okay, let's try it. I think that was magical because it was inviting people in. We got lots of ideas. We invested a lot in training people. on, you know, this, what is this co-pilot? What is an agent? HR ended up having the highest usage of our products when they came out. We were very proud of that. And so, you know, bringing people along, showing them how they can be participants in this, I think is really, really key. And so I think that's the antidote to people being fearful of the unknown or fearful that they're going to be irrelevant. I mean, that's a real fear. But we're really

really investing in within Microsoft, but also helping our customers understand, you know, how to drive this transformation where you're addressing all three. It's not just about tech. It's about tech. It's about process excellence, but people. And at the end of the day, this is all about humans being more empowered leveraging a tool called AI, right? It's not the other way around.

That is a very satisfying response. Thank you for the clarity. And thank you for the way that you answer that. I can tell that you have thought deep. You and the team have thought deeply about it. And what a great concrete example of it. And we are just getting started. We, you know, in the spirit of know it all versus learn at all, I don't have all the answers.

But we are very much invested in researching this, looking at the future of work, looking at how jobs are changing. You know, with LinkedIn, what an incredible asset because we can look at how jobs are changing. We're seeing a lot more jobs being more end-to-end. And so if your job's going to require you not to do one thing, but be more of a full-stack builder. We talk about that as a developer or be able to think left to right across a process versus just your piece of the process. Then how do we build that skill? How do we help people have that capability so that they can participate in what is going to be the future? Because

the future is happening. Our goal is to get as many people able to participate in this new future. And then, you know, as you talked about, a future where we do believe with AI, a tool that humans used to empower themselves to achieve more, we can tackle health care, education, climate in ways that we never could have before. That's the opportunity. That's awesome. I mean, great clarity. Shifting gears slightly, how do you think about women in technology? And what would be your hope or what do you see as a compelling future for folks that are not sure if they fit here? I think of it not just about women, men. I think about it of diversity in all its flavors. But I think that's so essential. So yes, I hope we have women. I hope we have

lots of people of all backgrounds helping us build the technology that's going to empower everybody in the future. It's way more interesting to be part of those teams. Well, the data shows, too, that, you know, diversity drives more innovation. I mean... It outperforms. Yeah. And the whole stop. Right. And the Genesis for us was always about the business case, nothing else. It was always a belief that we were missing markets because we weren't relevant in those markets because we didn't have the right people helping us be relevant in those markets or innovating understanding that market or that groups unmet and unarticulated needs. Empathy is understanding their unmet and unarticulated needs. And how do you have empathy

if you don't understand the people that you're building products for? So we always believe that this was existential to innovation and building products that people would love that would empower everybody. It was really important to Sacha that the mission was not just the U.S. It was not just the rich. It was everybody on the planet. And when you have a bold ambition or bold mission like that, then you better be inclusive of everybody on the planet. So you're building for everybody on the planet. It's kind of as simple as that. Sound logic, human first. You are the emblem of modern leadership in all of its form. And so I know there's great debate about what that might be or what it is and what it isn't, but thank you. Thank you for all that you

have provided for us, and I mean finding mastery in the team, but for like the full community of people that you've built. So what a great conversation for me. And thank you for the friendship and the guidance and the support along the way. Thank you. I've been honored. to be here, really. Yeah, very cool. Thank you. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by Dave Asprey,

founder of Bulletproof and one of the most provocative thinkers in health and performance. In this episode, Dave and Mike get into the unexpected. Why he avoids kale, why white rice can sometimes beat brown and the simple science-backed habits

he uses to boost energy, clarity, and long-term health. Join us Wednesday, December 17, at 9 a.m. Pacific. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning. That's always in my control.

That's always in your control, too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. The best part, it only takes about 90 seconds. to do. So just head over to finding mastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to finding mastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine.