What Microsoft’s Culture Shift Can Teach You in 2026 | Kathleen Hogan

22:24And so when Satya 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 because we were exploring, as you recall, growth mindset.

23:06We had worked with Dr. Dweck, 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, your mindset, your attitude. That's the one thing, man's 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 Sachin and his leadership team where we really went around and talked about our purpose.

23:44Wasn't that amazing? It was amazing.

23:46Dr. Michael Gervais: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. 12? Yeah. It felt pretty significant. Not that it matters. No, no. But I remember when we started down the idea of personal philosophy, compelling vision, purpose in life, and we got to that self-discovery piece. And Satya says, well, 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.

24:29Dr. Michael Gervais: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 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.

25:05Dr. Michael Gervais:And you did it. How many employees? 200 and... Well, now it's 220 ,000. And we would say we are still – we're closing the gap between everybody's lived experience and our aspire-to culture, right? And there's not perfection. I think we've closed the gap. But on any given day, does somebody experience a leader, a 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?

25:43No. But what was fun about even listening to Deb Kupp's discussion with you is just because I feel like we've been so consistent for so many years, hearing her talk about the growth mindset, hearing her talk about the mission, having that shared sense of how matters and that the mission matters across the company. 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 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 aligned to the company's purpose.

26:26And 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.

26:40Dr. Michael Gervais:The CFO. Yeah, the CFO was brave to raise her hand. And I reflect on being courageous, being brave, and 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 this researcher, the amazing. Yeah, you've loved that. I know, and that was huge. You operationalized that 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 were really rolling up our sleeves to understand the right psychology and the psychological skills for them to be their best.

27:26Dr. Michael Gervais: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, 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 reflected on, wow, why didn't we? What was getting in the way? And 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?

28:10Dr. Michael Gervais:Why didn't 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? 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 if I watch myself back then versus how I feel now, I feel much more like I don't have as much to lose.

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31:18Dr. Michael Gervais:Spring and summer, they are powerful seasons of momentum. It's a great natural time to step into growth, to refocus, to recommit to who you want to become. And this discount will not be around for long. So go to findingmastery.com slash course code renew100 for$100 off today because your future is not shaped by what you intend. It's shaped by what you train. 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 myself this way, and I want them to think the same of me. And if that whole thing is like heavy, then we don't stand up because it's too hard to bring that weight forward.

32:03Dr. Michael Gervais:But if you're light, you're like, I don't care. Look, I'm a learner. I'm trying to figure it out. You stand up and you go for it and you fall on 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 all these things that people worry about. It was interesting in your Deb Kupp 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.

32:37And so, of course, everybody has fear, but it's 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 Deb's case, I do get fired, or I do lose my hair, or I do whatever, that 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.

33:14Dr. Michael Gervais:It's very hard because the truth is other people can fire you. Other people can promote you. Other people can 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, who really gets to judge me? Whose judgment do I give any 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 are super important to you, what do you stand for?

33:56You 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 achieve more. You can say it that way and it sounds like, oh, 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.

34:22Dr. Michael Gervais: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 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? And now he's 23 and he's graduated from college and I'm here.

35:00That was really my core purpose. But then I also said, is it just that? Why keep working? Why not 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 their potential, help empower other people, be in service to other people, then that gives me purpose, whether it's my parents, my sisters, the people that I work with, the world, not to jump ahead to AI. But I think with AI, we've caught lightning in a bottle where our ability to empower others is going to be accelerated in terms of our ability to empower people to educate themselves, Empower people with better access to health care.

35:47Empower people with tools that they never had before. I think about being in college and not having access to a computer 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.

36:07Dr. Michael Gervais: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 if you wanted to use the computer, you had to go to the computer hall and pay for the printer. And 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 retype it, right?

36:45And I think about, gosh, if I had access, you know, that could have empowered me to have achieved more, right? It's a 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 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 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.

37:27This is my sweet dad. And I'm like, dad, unfortunately, when you plug it back in, there's this thing called the cloud, and he was just so disappointed to hear 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 read email, read 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.

38:03Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, it's really cool. And so this ability to empower others with technology is very consistent with, I think, my core purpose of 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, 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, 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.

38:43Dr. Michael Gervais:So there's a harmony there that's really nice. But 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 I don't walk into a room thinking, today I'm going to empower others. You know, it's more going into a room, though, and being aware of, you know, the power of other people, right?

39:32The 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 impact, whether you draw out criticism, where you draw out ideas, or if you come in as that know-it-all, or you shut people down, or people give you feedback that you don't like. All of how you behave in that moment is going to impact the type of input you're going to get.

40:03Dr. Michael Gervais: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 through mindfulness and journaling and conversations with people, the wisdom that we've talked a lot about, that you 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.

40:40Dr. Michael Gervais: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. 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.

41:19The 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, you know, running HR, that was a team sport, a total team sport.

42:00And I was leveraging a lot of people.

42:03Dr. Michael Gervais: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 still, it's a work in progress. So somebody's got to take the reins and drive it. 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, 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 wouldn't be able to do what we do without your trust and support.

42:47Dr. Michael Gervais:So I second nobody does it alone. 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 exec staff. I mean, in many different environments, your ethos is about unlocking the potential in other people. And that's been really inspiring. So it's been great. It's been so great. It's been so fun. No, seriously.

43:26Dr. Michael Gervais: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, they're training optimism across the organization.

44:18Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. So why was that an important motion for you to operationalize? Well, and so coming out of that offsite, one of the promises we made is every Friday when we met as a leadership team that we would have somebody come and be the researcher 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, 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.

45:08It's visceral at that point. I think it signals to the company this is what great looks like. You know, it's symbolic in that way. And it's an opportunity to celebrate excellence, celebrate people who are taking risks, doing things that are changing the world, and say thank you.

45:28Dr. Michael Gervais: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 having somebody, your mother, be optimistic. How did she cultivate that at a young age for you? I think she just role modeled it. It's like whatever the issue was, she practiced gratitude.

46:07She was always, you know, her ability to zoom out and be grateful for what was happening, even amidst what wasn't happening.

46:15Dr. Michael Gervais: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. And so she's 85. Dad's turning 89 in October. There are challenges with getting old. She'll keep it real with me. She's like, Kathleen, I want to make sure at the end 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.

46:50Dr. Michael Gervais:There you go. And why she's, you know, optimistic about the future. And so it's just who she is. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn. Earlier, I mentioned LinkedIn Hiring Pro. And I want to come back to something a little more personal. We talk a lot about the people who make extraordinary things possible. And I want to take a moment to acknowledge some of ours. Janelle, Taylor, Alex, Emma, and our newest teammate, Chelsea. Every single one of them came to us from LinkedIn. And every single one of them has raised the bar of how we operate here at Finding Mastery. Our relationship with LinkedIn, it also runs a lot deeper than just using their tools.

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48:01Dr. Michael Gervais:So if you're thinking about your next hire, I want to strongly encourage you to be intentional about where you look. The right person is out there and LinkedIn Hiring Pro helps you find them faster with a lot more confidence. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash mastery. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's linkedin.com slash mastery. Finding Mastery is brought to you by AG1. Summer is right around the corner, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. You can just feel it though. Days are longer, pace picks up, and there's this sense of momentum that comes with the season.

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49:15Dr. Michael Gervais:It's one habit, one scoop, and it travels easily. The AG1 travel packs are something I genuinely rely on this time of the year. I throw a few in my bag before a trip and the routine stays intact wherever I am. If you haven't tried AG1 yet, or you've been planning to think about getting back into it, now's a great time to start. Visit drinkag1.com slash finding mastery to get an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 free in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription. It's a$72 value. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash finding mastery. So keep mom in the conversation here and she's an emblem for gratitude and optimism.

49:59Dr. Michael Gervais: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. Okay. That was so generous of you to even suggest that I might. 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.

50:41My sister Christine, you know, went to Harvard. My other two sisters went to Notre Dame. 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. 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'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 was in first grade. One time there was a substitute teacher. And so I didn't get my little ribbon even though I had whatever, won the spelling bee or at least achieved whatever you achieved.

51:30And so I went home and I made my own little ribbon.

51:32Dr. Michael Gervais:Yes, you did. Yes, you did. And I put it – because mom put up on the board the ribbons, right? And so I liked seeing 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 budget. 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.

52:07But 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.

52:24Dr. Michael Gervais: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. Right. And then that quickly turns into, oh, I get love and favor and attention when I perform well.

53:02Dr. Michael Gervais:So, oh, that's an easy formula. Let me just work hard, perform well, and 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? And in fact, I remember in 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 using accomplishment as a way to achieve love. And now that has driven him to really try to show love and belonging in everything that he does.

53:43And I found that really made me think.

53:46Dr. Michael Gervais: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 to 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, enough is enough. Or we're sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. And so do you remember when you made that moment where you said, that's no longer going to serve me well?

54:32Dr. Michael Gervais:Was there 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're on this treadmill of, and I love McKinsey. I learned a lot at McKinsey, but it was very challenging to be 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?

55:14You get that kind of mail and you go, wonder what he's, you know, and he had sent me email 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, when I was at business school, 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 in my life?

55:52And 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 the irony is 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.

56:18Dr. Michael Gervais: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 threaded 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 are you achieving this because somebody else thinks you should achieve this? Or is this what you really want?

56:54And is this what you really love? And tapping into doing what you really love with people that you love, with a purpose that really you think matters, that's magic, right? That doesn't always happen. But I've talked about the five Ps. People want pay. They want good perks, of course. But if you're proud with the company, if you have people and a culture and you have a purpose, when you get that right, that's magical. And so I really thank Kevin because that mail made me reflect on the five Ps, really the three Ps.

57:33Dr. Michael Gervais:At that point. And what do I really want? What do I want to do? Say the five Ps 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 Satya's become the CEO.

58:14And I think the secret sauce is, of course, the foundation, but pride in the company, feeling you're part of a company that's ethical, that has values. Also, that's winning. 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 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, people will come for that and people will stay for that.

58:52Dr. Michael Gervais: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.

59:34Dr. Michael Gervais:and thank goodness we caught lightning in a bottle. We doubled down. We were leaders in the industry. Copilot comes out. We need this. And somebody is 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.

1:00:18I remember being a secretary in a law firm, typing, back 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.

1:00:59Here'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 cars, 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.

1:01:33I'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 disadvantaged. 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.

1:02:20Dr. Michael Gervais: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 findingmastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free.

1:02:55Dr. Michael Gervais:Again, head to findingmastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. How is the business model working? I'm confused. You know, I'm a user. Yeah. Be clear. Like, I think it's an amazing tool. It's a thought partner. It is solving things. It is lightening the load. It is creating more expansion of ideas from myself and the full team at Finding Mastery. 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 valuable.

1:03:50Dr. Michael Gervais:Is it always accurate? No. Is it always something that I just kind of swallow and be like, that's exactly it? No. I've got to work at it. Right, yeah. So it's more of a sparring thought partner. Absolutely. And for me, it's not joy like happy fun. One, 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. 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 it will ever have because we've got this other tool called AI and agents.

1:04:33Dr. Michael Gervais: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.

1:05:15Dr. Michael Gervais: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 reshaking 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 shoo 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.

1:05:59Yeah. 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, like, one research, go 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.

1:06:40But, you know, there were two bottlenecks at the time. One was the ability to get the equipment to do the MRIs, et cetera. 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 a 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. I'm not here to say that no job will ever be disrupted. That's happened throughout our history.

1:07:16But the goal is to use AI coupled with human ingenuity, coupled with process excellence to scale impact in ways that were not possible before.

1:07:29Dr. Michael Gervais:That is exactly what I hope you would say. That's exactly it. That North Star feels like if that's true. That's the companies I want to be part of, and that's the side of the equation I want to make sure does happen. Because I'm not about like, hey, let's go back to typewriters. That would be – no one really wants that. 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 this stuff. And then finally, somebody's like, hey, this isn't getting any better. You should go have it looked at.

1:08:11Dr. Michael Gervais: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 chordoma, 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 radiologist, because of all the tech that was sitting underneath of it, I think he survived.

1:08:49Dr. Michael Gervais:And so does he. And so these are real life examples of 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 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.

1:09:27I think it would be inauthentic to not say there is fear. You know, 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 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.

1:10:04We'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.

1:10:44And 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 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.

1:11:31I mean, that's a real fear. But we're really investing within Microsoft, but also helping our customers understand 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.

1:11:55Dr. Michael Gervais: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 deeply. 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-it-alls, 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. 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.

1:12:29And 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, as you talked about, a future where we do believe with AI, a tool that humans use to empower themselves to achieve more, we can tackle healthcare, education, climate in ways that we never could have before.

1:13:11That's the opportunity.

1:13:13Dr. Michael Gervais: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 of 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 diversity drives more innovation.

1:13:55Dr. Michael Gervais:I mean - It outperforms. Full 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 group's 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 believed that this was existential to innovation and building products that people would love that would empower everybody.

1:14:37It was really important to Sasha 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 a 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.

1:14:56Dr. Michael Gervais: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. What an honor 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.

1:15:42Dr. Michael Gervais: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 17th at 9am Pacific. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

1:16:20Dr. Michael Gervais:Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors.

1:16:56Dr. Michael Gervais:And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional.

1:17:32Dr. Michael Gervais:So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.