Podcasts about glean

“Recently I (Rachel) had the honor of speaking at the National Widows Conference where more than 550 expectant (and some reluctant) women showed up to experience what so many women in our community have experienced first hand. The room was tender and strong all at once. We took time to name what we're tired of carrying and made the decision to lay it down.My message, Glean. Stay. Plant., came from Genesis 26, and I didn't preach it from theory — I've lived the famine. I know the fear, the scrambling, the ache of wondering how you'll make it. But I also know this: God's economy still works, and the law of harvest is more trustworthy than the noise of scarcity. If you can stay. If you can plant. If you can abide in what He's already given you — there is provision there. And there is life in abundance.Learn more about There is More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thereismorecollective.com/Check Out Our Resources, including the Father's House Study, Go to Girls, and the Spiritual Warfare Workshop: https://thereismorecollective.com/resourcesGet 10% discount on Father's House Study with code: FH10Follow There is More Podcast on Instagram: @thereismorepodcastPartner With Us: ⁠⁠https://neveralonewidows.kindful.com/?campaign=1284937⁠

Rebecca Hinds: Your Best Meeting Ever Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. She founded and led the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean, where she partners with leading experts to help organizations transform their work with AI. She is the author of Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done (Amazon, Bookshop)*. Considering the amount of time we all spend in meetings, it's odd that most organizations do so little to measure meeting results. If that's sounding familiar, this conversation between Rebecca and me will show you exactly how to get started. Key Points Metrics that only measure the costs of meetings (dollars and time) can be useful, but rarely capture the full picture. Use Return on Time Invested (ROTI) anonymously to survey attendees to determine if a meeting was a good use of time. Also ask, “What would it take for you to improve your rating by one point?” Survey sparingly to avoid survey fatigue. Bringing in a survey 10% of the time is a benchmark to start from. If the amount of time in meetings vastly exceeds 10 hours a week, there's likely an opportunity to scale back or redefine the work before or after meetings to use time better. Equal speaking time in meetings is a key indicator of team performance. Be transparent with employees about any technology you use to capture data. Punctuality and attendance rate are indicators of how valued meetings are for people. Resources Mentioned Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done by Rebecca Hinds (Amazon, Bookshop)* Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How to Lead Meetings That Get Results, with Mamie Kanfer Stewart (episode 358) Moving Towards Meetings of Significance, with Seth Godin (episode 632) How to Lead Engaging Meetings, with Jess Britt (episode 721) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

In this episode, I'm joined by Rebecca Hinds — organizational behavior expert and founder of the Work AI Institute at Glean — for a practical conversation about why meetings deteriorate over time and how to redesign them. Rebecca argues that bad meetings aren't a people problem — they're a systems problem. Without intentional design, meetings default to ego, status signaling, conflict avoidance, and performative participation. Over time, low-value meetings become normalized instead of fixed. Drawing on her research at Stanford University and her leadership of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, she shares frameworks from her new book, Your Best Meeting Ever, including: The four legitimate purposes of a meeting: decide, discuss, debate, or develop The CEO test for when synchronous time is truly required How to codify shared meeting standards Why leaders must explicitly give permission to leave low-value meetings We also explore leadership, motivation, and the myth that kindness and high standards are opposites. Rebecca explains why effective leaders diagnose what drives each individual — encouragement for some, direct challenge for others — and design environments that support both performance and belonging. Finally, we talk about AI and the future of work. Tools amplify existing culture: strong systems improve, broken systems break faster. Organizations that redesign how work happens — not just what tools they use — will have the advantage. If you want to run better meetings, lead with more clarity, and rethink how collaboration actually happens, this episode is for you. You can find Your Best Meeting Ever at major bookstores and learn more at rebeccahinds.com.  00:00 Start 00:27 Why Meetings Get Worse Over Time Robin references Good Omens and the character Crowley, who designs the M25 freeway to intentionally create frustration and misery. They use this metaphor to illustrate how systems can be designed in ways that amplify dysfunction, whether intentionally or accidentally. The idea is that once dysfunctional systems become normalized, people stop questioning them. They also discuss Cory Doctorow's concept of enshittification, where platforms and systems gradually decline as organizational priorities override user experience. Rebecca connects this pattern directly to meetings, arguing that without intentional design, meetings default to chaos and energy drain. Over time, poorly designed meetings become accepted as inevitable rather than treated as solvable design problems. Rebecca references the Simple Sabotage Field Manual created by the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The manual advised citizens in occupied territories on how to subtly undermine organizations from within. Many of the suggested tactics involved meetings, including encouraging long speeches, focusing on irrelevant details, and sending decisions to unnecessary committees. The irony is that these sabotage techniques closely resemble common behaviors in modern corporate meetings. Rebecca argues that if meetings were designed from scratch today, without legacy habits and inherited norms, they would likely look radically different. She explains that meetings persist in their dysfunctional form because they amplify deeply human tendencies like ego, status signaling, and conflict avoidance. Rebecca traces her interest in teamwork back to her experience as a competitive swimmer in Toronto. Although swimming appears to be an individual sport, she explains that success is heavily dependent on team structure and shared preparation. Being recruited to swim at Stanford exposed her to an elite, team-first environment that reshaped how she thought about performance. She became fascinated by how a group can become greater than the sum of its parts when the right cultural conditions are present. This experience sparked her long-term curiosity about why organizations struggle to replicate the kind of cohesion often seen in sports. At Stanford, Coach Lee Mauer emphasized that emotional wellbeing and performance were deeply connected. The team included world record holders and Olympians, and the performance standards were extremely high. Despite the intensity, the culture prioritized connection and belonging. Rituals like informal story time around the hot tub helped teammates build relationships beyond performance metrics. Rebecca internalized the lesson that elite performance and strong culture are not opposing forces. She saw firsthand that intensity and warmth can coexist, and that psychological safety can actually reinforce high standards rather than weaken them. Later in her career at Asana, Rebecca encountered the company value of rejecting false trade-offs. This reinforced a lesson she had first learned in swimming, which is that many perceived either-or tensions are not actually unavoidable. She argues that organizations often assume they must choose between performance and happiness, or between kindness and accountability. In her experience, these are false binaries that can be resolved through better design and clearer expectations. She emphasizes that motivated and engaged employees tend to produce higher quality work, making culture a strategic advantage rather than a distraction. Kindness versus ruthlessness in leadership Robin raises the contrast between harsh, fear-based leadership styles and more relational, positive leadership approaches. Both styles have produced winning teams, which raises the question of whether success comes because of the leadership style or despite it. Rebecca argues that resilience and accountability are essential, regardless of tone. She stresses that kindness alone is not sufficient for high performance, but neither is harshness inherently superior. Effective leadership requires understanding what motivates each individual, since some people thrive on encouragement while others crave direct challenge. Rebecca personally identifies with wanting to be pushed and appreciates clarity when her work falls short of expectations. She concludes that the most effective leaders diagnose motivation carefully and design environments that maximize both growth and performance. 08:51 Building the Book-Launch Team: Mentors, Agents, and Choosing the Right Publisher Robin asks Rebecca about the size and structure of the team she assembled to execute the launch successfully. He is especially curious about what the team actually looked like in practice and how coordinated the effort needed to be. He also asks about the meeting cadence and work cadence required to bring a book launch to life at that level. The framing highlights that writing the book is only one phase, while launching it is an entirely different operational challenge. Rebecca explains that the process felt much more organic than it might appear from the outside. She admits that at the beginning, she underestimated the full scope of what a book launch entails. Her original motivation was simple: she believed she had a valuable perspective, wanted to help people, and loved writing. As she progressed deeper into the publishing process, she realized that writing the manuscript was only one piece of a much larger system. The operational and promotional dimensions gradually revealed themselves as a second job layered on top of authorship. Robin emphasizes that writing a book and publishing a book are fundamentally different jobs. Rebecca agrees and acknowledges that the publishing side requires a completely different skill set and infrastructure. The conversation underscores that authorship is creative work, while publishing and launching require strategy, coordination, and business acumen. Rebecca credits her Stanford mentor, Bob Sutton, as a life changing influence throughout the process. He guided her step by step, including decisions around selecting a publisher and choosing an agent. She initially did not plan to work with an agent, but through guidance and reflection, she shifted her perspective. His mentorship helped her ask better questions and approach the process more strategically rather than reactively. Rebecca reflects on an important mindset shift in her career. Earlier in life, she was comfortable being the big fish in a small pond. Over time, she came to believe that she performs better when surrounded by people who are smarter and more experienced than she is. She describes her superpower as working extremely hard and having confidence in that effort. Because of that, she prefers environments where others elevate her thinking and push her further. This philosophy became central to how she built her book launch team. As Rebecca learned more about the moving pieces required for a successful campaign, she became more intentional about who she wanted involved. She sought the best not in terms of prestige alone, but in terms of belief and commitment. She wanted people who would go to bat for her and advocate for the book with genuine enthusiasm. She noticed that some organizations that looked impressive on paper were not necessarily the right fit for her specific campaign. This led her to have extensive conversations with potential editors and publicists before making decisions. Rebecca developed a personal benchmark for evaluating partners. She paid attention to whether they were willing to apply the book's ideas within their own organizations. For her, that signaled authentic belief rather than surface level marketing support. When Simon and Schuster demonstrated early interest in implementing the book's learnings internally, it stood out as meaningful alignment. That commitment suggested they cared about the substance of the work, not just the promotional campaign. As the process unfolded, Rebecca realized that part of her job was learning what questions to ask. Each conversation with potential partners refined her understanding of what she needed. She became more deliberate about building the right bench of people around her. The team was not assembled all at once, but rather shaped through iterative learning and discernment. The launch ultimately reflected both her evolving standards and her commitment to surrounding herself with people who elevated the work. 12:12 Asking Better Questions & Going Asynchronous Robin highlights the tension between the voice of the book and the posture of a first time author entering a major publishing house. He notes that Best Meeting Ever encourages people to assert authority in meetings by asking about agendas, ownership, and structure. At the same time, Rebecca was entering conversations with an established publisher as a new author seeking partnership. The question becomes how to balance clarity and conviction with humility and openness. Robin frames it as showing up with operational authority while still saying you publish books and I want to work with you. Rebecca calls the question insightful and explains that tactically she relied heavily on asking questions. She describes herself as intentionally curious and even nosy because she did not yet know what she did not know. Rather than pretending to have answers, she used inquiry as a way to build authority through understanding. She asked questions asynchronously almost daily, emailing her agent and editor with anything that came to mind. This allowed her to learn the system while also signaling engagement and seriousness. Rebecca explains that most of the heavy lifting happened outside of meetings. By asking questions over email, she clarified information before stepping into synchronous time. Meetings were then reserved for ambiguity, decision making, and issues that required real time collaboration. As a result, the campaign involved very few meetings overall. She had a biweekly meeting with her core team and roughly monthly conversations with her editor. The rest of the coordination happened asynchronously, which aligned with her philosophy about effective meeting design. Rebecca jokes that one hidden benefit of writing a book on meetings is that everyone shows up more prepared and on time. She also felt internal pressure to model the behaviors she was advocating. The campaign therefore became a real world test of her ideas. She emphasizes that she is glad the launch was not meeting heavy and that it reflected the principles in the book. Robin shares a story about their initial connection through David Shackleford. During a short introductory call, he casually offered to spend time discussing book marketing strategies. Rebecca followed up, scheduled time, and took extensive notes during their conversation. After thanking him, she did not continue unnecessary follow up or prolonged discussion. Instead, she quietly implemented many of the practical strategies discussed. Robin later observed bulk sales, bundled speaking engagements, and structured purchase incentives that reflected disciplined execution. Robin emphasizes that generating ideas is relatively easy compared to implementing them. He connects this to Seth Godin's praise that the book is for people willing to do the work. The real difficulty lies not in brainstorming strategies but in consistently executing them. He describes watching Rebecca implement the plan as evidence that she practices what she preaches. Her hard work and disciplined follow through reinforced his confidence in the book before even reading it. Rebecca responds with gratitude and acknowledges that she took his advice seriously. She affirms that several actions she implemented were directly inspired by their conversation. At the same time, the tone remains grounded and collaborative rather than performative. The exchange illustrates her pattern of seeking input, synthesizing it, and then executing independently. Robin transitions toward the theme of self knowledge and its role in leadership and meetings. He connects Rebecca's disciplined execution to her awareness of her own strengths. The earlier theme resurfaces that she sees hard work and follow through as her superpower. The implication is that effective meetings and effective leadership both begin with understanding how you operate best. 17:48 Self-Knowledge at Work Robin shares that he knows he is motivated by carrots rather than sticks. He explains that praise energizes him and improves his performance more than criticism ever could. As a performer and athlete, he appreciates detailed notes and feedback, but encouragement is what unlocks his best work. He contrasts that with experiences like old school ballet training, where harsh discipline did not bring out his strengths. His point is that understanding how you are wired takes experience and reflection. Rebecca agrees that self knowledge is essential and ties it directly to motivation. She argues that the better you understand yourself, the more clearly you can articulate what drives you. Many people, especially early in their careers, do not pause to examine what truly motivates them. She notes that motivation is often intangible and not primarily monetary. For some people it is praise, for others criticism, learning, mastery, collaboration, or autonomy. She also emphasizes that motivation changes over time and shifts depending on organizational context. One of Rebecca's biggest lessons as a manager and contributor is the importance of codifying self knowledge. Writing down what motivates you and how you work best makes it easier to communicate those needs to others. She believes this explicitness is especially critical during times of change. When work is evolving quickly, assumptions about motivation can lead to disengagement. Making preferences visible reduces friction and prevents misalignment. Rebecca references a recent presentation she gave on the dangers of automating the soul of work. She and her mentor Bob Sutton have discussed how organizations risk stripping meaning from roles if they automate without discernment. She points to research showing that many AI startups are automating tasks people would prefer to keep human. The warning is that just because something can be automated does not mean it should be. Without understanding what makes work meaningful for employees, leaders can unintentionally remove the very elements that motivate people. Rebecca believes managers should create explicit user manuals for their team members. These documents outline how individuals prefer to communicate, what motivates them, and what their career aspirations are. She sees this as a practical leadership tool rather than a symbolic exercise. Referring back to these documents helps leaders guide their teams through uncertainty and change. When asked directly, she confirms that she has implemented this practice in previous roles and intends to do so again. When asked about the future of AI, Rebecca avoids making long term predictions. She observes that the most confident forecasters are often those with something to sell. Her shorter term view is that AI amplifies whatever already exists inside an organization. Strong workflows and cultures may improve, while broken systems may become more efficiently broken. She sees organizations over investing in technology while under investing in people and change management. As a result, productivity gains are appearing at the individual level but not consistently at the team or organizational level. Rebecca acknowledges that there is a possible future where AI creates abundance and healthier work life balance. However, she does not believe current evidence strongly supports that outcome in the near term. She does see promising examples of organizations using AI to amplify collaboration and cross functional work. These examples remain rare but signal that a more human centered future is possible. She is cautiously hopeful but not convinced that the most optimistic scenario will unfold automatically. Robin notes that time horizons for prediction have shortened dramatically. Rebecca agrees and says that six months feels like a reasonable forecasting window in the current environment. She observes that the best leaders are setting thresholds for experimentation and failure. Pilots and proofs of concept should fail at a meaningful rate if organizations are truly exploring. Shorter feedback loops allow organizations to learn quickly rather than over commit to fragile long term assumptions. Robin shares a formative story from growing up in his father's small engineering firm, where he was exposed early to office systems and processes. Later, studying in a Quaker community in Costa Rica, he experienced full consensus decision making. He recalls sitting through extended debates, including one about single versus double ply toilet paper. As a fourteen year old who would rather have been climbing trees in the rainforest, the meeting felt painfully misaligned with his energy. That experience contributed to his lifelong desire to make work and collaboration feel less draining and more intentional. The story reinforces the broader theme that poorly designed meetings can disconnect people from purpose and engagement. 28:31 Leadership vs. Tribal Instincts Rebecca explains that much of dysfunctional meeting behavior is rooted in tribal human instincts. People feel loyalty to the group and show up to meetings simply to signal belonging, even when the meeting is not meaningful. This instinct to attend regardless of value reinforces bloated calendars and performative participation. She argues that effective meeting design must actively counteract these deeply human tendencies. Without intentional structure, meetings default to social signaling rather than productive collaboration. Rebecca emphasizes that leadership plays a critical role in changing meeting culture Leaders must explicitly give employees permission to leave meetings when they are not contributing. They must also normalize asynchronous work as a legitimate and often superior alternative. Without that top down permission, employees will continue attending out of fear or habit. Meeting reform requires visible endorsement from those with authority. Power dynamics and pushing back without positional authority Robin reflects on the power of writing a book on meetings while still operating within a hierarchy. He asks how individuals without formal authority can challenge broken systems. Rebecca responds that there is no universal solution because outcomes depend heavily on psychological safety. In organizations with high trust, there is often broad recognition that meetings are ineffective and a desire to fix them. In lower trust environments, change must be approached more strategically and indirectly. Rebecca advises employees to lead with curiosity rather than confrontation. Instead of calling out a bad meeting, one might ask whether their presence is truly necessary. Framing the question around contribution rather than judgment reduces defensiveness. This approach lowers the emotional temperature and keeps the conversation constructive. Curiosity shifts the tone from personal critique to shared problem solving. In psychologically unsafe environments, Rebecca suggests shifting enforcement to systems rather than individuals. Automated rules such as canceling meetings without agendas or without sufficient confirmations can reduce personal friction. When technology enforces standards, it feels less like a personal attack. Codified rules provide employees with shared language and objective criteria. This reduces the perception that opting out is a rejection of the person rather than a rejection of the structure. Rebecca argues that every organization should have a clear and shared definition of what deserves to be a meeting. If five employees are asked what qualifies as a meeting, they should give the same answer. Without explicit criteria, decisions default to habit and hierarchy. Clear rules give employees confidence to push back constructively. Shared standards transform meeting participation from a personal negotiation into a procedural one. Rebecca outlines a two part test to determine whether a meeting should exist. First, the meeting must serve one of four purposes which are to decide, discuss, debate, or develop people. If it does not satisfy one of those four categories, it likely should not be a meeting. Even if it passes that test, it must also satisfy one of the CEO criteria. C refers to complexity and whether the issue contains enough ambiguity to require synchronous dialogue. E refers to emotional intensity and whether reading emotions or managing reactions is important. O refers to one way door decisions, meaning choices that are difficult or costly to reverse. Many organizational decisions are reversible and therefore do not justify synchronous time. Robin asks how small teams without advanced tech stacks can automate meeting discipline. Rebecca explains that many safeguards can be implemented with existing tools such as Google Calendar or simple scripts. Basic rules like requiring an agenda or minimum confirmations can be enforced through standard workflows. Not all solutions require advanced AI tools. The key is introducing friction intentionally to prevent low value meetings from forming. Rebecca notes that more advanced AI tools can measure engagement, multitasking, or participation. Some platforms now provide indicators of attention or involvement during meetings. While these tools are promising, they are not required to implement foundational meeting discipline. She cautions against over investing in shiny tools without first clarifying principles. Metrics are useful when they reinforce intentional design rather than replace it. Rebecca highlights a subtle risk of automation, particularly in scheduling. Tools can be optimized for the sender while increasing friction for recipients. Leaders should consider the system level impact rather than only individual efficiency. Productivity gains at the individual level can create hidden coordination costs for the team. Meeting automation should be evaluated through a collective lens. Rebecca distinguishes between intrusive AI bots that join meetings and simple transcription tools. She is cautious about bots that visibly attend meetings and distract participants. However, she supports consensual transcription when it enhances asynchronous follow up. Effective transcription can reduce cognitive load and free participants to engage more deeply. Used thoughtfully, these tools can strengthen collaboration rather than dilute it. 41:35 Maker vs. Manager: Balancing a Day Job with a Book Launch Robin shares an example from a webinar where attendees were asked for feedback via a short Bitly link before the session closed. He contrasts this with the ineffectiveness of "smiley face/frowny face" buttons in hotel bathrooms—easy to ignore and lacking context. The key is embedding feedback into the process in a way that's natural, timely, and comfortable for participants. Feedback mechanisms should be integrated, low-friction, and provide enough context for meaningful responses. Rebecca recommends a method inspired by Elise Keith called Roti—rating meetings on a zero-to-five scale based on whether they were worth attendees' time. She suggests asking this for roughly 10% of meetings to gather actionable insight. Follow-up question: "What could the organizer do to increase the rating by one point?" This approach removes bias, focuses on attendee experience, and identifies meetings that need restructuring. Splits in ratings reveal misaligned agendas or attendee lists and guide optimization. Robin imagines automating feedback requests via email or tools like Superhuman for convenience. Rebecca agrees and adds that simple forms (Google Forms, paper, or other methods) are effective, especially when anonymous. The goal is simplicity and consistency—given how costly meetings are, there's no excuse to skip feedback. Robin references Paul Graham's essay on maker vs. manager schedules and asks about Rebecca's approach to balancing writing, team coordination, and book marketing. Rebecca shares that 95% of her effort on the book launch was "making"—writing and outreach—thanks to a strong team handling management. She devoted time to writing, scrappy outreach, and building relationships, emphasizing giving without expecting reciprocation. The main coordination challenge was balancing her book work with her full-time job at Asana, requiring careful prioritization. Rebecca created a strict writing schedule inspired by her swimming discipline: early mornings, evenings, and weekends dedicated to writing. She prioritized her book and full-time work while maintaining family commitments. Discipline and clear prioritization were essential to manage competing but synergistic priorities. Robin asks about written vs. spoken communication, referencing Amazon's six-page memos and Zandr Media's phone-friendly quick syncs. Rebecca emphasizes that the answer depends on context but a strong written communication culture is essential in all organizations. Written communication supports clarity, asynchronous work, and complements verbal communication. It's especially important for distributed teams or virtual work. With AI, clear documentation allows better insights, reduces unnecessary content generation, and reinforces disciplined communication. 48:29 AI and the Craft of Writing Rebecca highlights that employees have varying learning preferences—introverted vs. extroverted, verbal vs. written. Effective communication systems should support both verbal and written channels to accommodate these differences. Rebecca's philosophy: writing is a deeply human craft. AI was not used for drafting or creative writing. AI supported research, coordination, tracking trends, and other auxiliary tasks—areas where efficiency is key. Human-led drafting, revising, and word choice remained central to the book. Robin praises Rebecca's use of language, noting it feels human and vivid—something AI cannot replicate in nuance or delight. Rebecca emphasizes that crafting every word, experimenting with phrasing, and tinkering with language is uniquely human. This joy and precision in writing is not replicable by AI and is part of what makes written communication stand out. Rebecca hopes human creativity in writing and oral communication remains valued despite AI advances. Strong written communication is increasingly differentiating for executive communicators and storytellers in organizations. AI can polish or mass-produce text, but human insight, nuance, and storytelling remain essential and career-relevant. Robin emphasizes the importance of reading, writing, and physical activities (like swimming) to reclaim attention from screens. These practices support deep human thinking and creativity, which are harder to replace with AI. Rebecca uses standard tools strategically: email (chunked and batched), Google Docs, Asana, Doodle, and Zoom. Writing is enhanced by switching platforms, fonts, colors, and physical locations—stimulating creativity and perspective. Physical context (plane, café, city) is strongly linked to breakthroughs and memory during writing. Emphasis is on how tools are enacted rather than which tools are used—behavior and discipline matter more than tech. Rebecca primarily recommends business books with personal relevance: Adam Grant's Give and Take – for relational insights beyond work. Bob Sutton's books – for broader lessons on organizational and personal effectiveness. Robert Cialdini's Influence – for understanding human behavior in both professional and personal contexts. Her selections highlight that business literature often offers universal lessons applicable beyond work. 59:48 Where to Find Rebecca The book is available at all major bookstores. Website: rebeccahinds.com LinkedIn: Rebecca Hinds  

Today's guest, Diane Lawbaugh, shares about her newest book, Don't Let Misunderstanding Win. Glean great nuggets of teaching from Diane's best-selling book about how to better navigate relationships through improved communication and understanding.   

Too many meetings. Too little impact. In this episode of Inspirational Leadership, Kristen Harcourt is joined by Rebecca Hinds, organizational behavior expert and author of Your Best Meeting Ever, to unpack why meetings feel broken — and how leaders can fix them. Rebecca shares a practical framework for deciding which meetings should exist, how to design meetings that actually drive decisions and alignment, and why collaboration — not busyness — is the real driver of performance. This conversation is a must-listen for leaders, managers, and professionals who want fewer meetings, better collaboration, and more meaningful work. In this episode, you'll learn: Why most meetings fail before they even start The 4D + CEO Test to decide if a meeting is necessary When meetings should be async instead How collaboration culture impacts performance Why one-on-one meetings matter more than ever Practical ways to reclaim your calendar About the guest: Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. She holds a PhD from Stanford, founded Asana's Work Innovation Lab, and leads the Work AI Institute at Glean.

This week I sit down with Evan Daly, who speaks with such love and honesty about losing his dad Iggy to an extremely aggressive cancer, Cholangiocarcinoma. Evan's dad died just one month to the day after his diagnosis, and Evan reflects on the courage and calm acceptance his dad showed from the very beginning and how that strength carried their family through the hardest weeks of their lives.Beyond the loss itself, this conversation gently opens into something many people experience after grief, loosing your way, feeling disconnected from your body, your routine, and yourself. Evan shares his perspective as an online coach, speaking about compassion, empathy, and meeting yourself where you are, especially after loss, when motivation and structure can feel impossible.We also talk about Evan's coaching platform app Glean and how movement, routine, and self-kindness can become supports rather than pressures during grief.For anyone looking for additional support you'll find my membership space After the Flowers here https://after-the-flowers.circle.so/checkout/after-the-flowers-membershipFor upcoming Grief Workshops - visit https://www.griefireland.com/For more information about the incredible work Evan is doing visit: https://www.gleanapp.com

Glean wisdom and perspective as Pastor Eric Curtis and Wife Allison lead the Marriage Q&A Panel, posing challenging marriage-related questions to 3 couples: Pastor Gary Jane and Wife Cindy (married 43 years), Elder Matthew Bellingham and Wife April (married 21 years), and Deacon Sam Scrabeck and Wife Romana (married 6 years).

Glean wisdom and perspective as Pastor Eric Curtis and Wife Allison lead the Marriage Q&A Panel, posing challenging marriage-related questions to 3 couples: Pastor Gary Jane and Wife Cindy (married 43 years), Elder Matthew Bellingham and Wife April (married 21 years), and Deacon Sam Scrabeck and Wife Romana (married 6 years).

Send us a textAbout This EpisodeThis episode rethinks meetings from the ground up with organizational behavior expert Dr. Rebecca Hinds. Instead of accepting packed calendars as productive, the conversation reframes meetings as products that should be intentionally designed to create decisions, healthy debate, development, and real progress. Using product design principles, you'll learn how to cut meeting overload, move status updates to async tools, and use simple structures and signals to measure whether a meeting is truly worth the time. The result is a bold new way to collaborate: fewer, shorter, sharper meetings that improve focus, decision quality, and human connection at work. About Rebecca HindsRebecca Hinds is the author of Your Best Meeting Ever. She is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. She holds a BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University. Rebecca founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean, first-of-their-kind corporate think tanks dedicated to conducting cutting-edge research on the future of work. Additional ResourcesWebsite: rebeccahinds.comLinkedIn: @RebeccaHindsSupport the show-------- Stay Connected www.leighburgess.com Watch the episodes on YouTube Follow Leigh on Instagram: @theleighaburgess Follow Leigh on LinkedIn: @LeighBurgess Sign up for Leigh's bold newsletter

How to design meetings with purpose so they actually move work forward.Meetings are a necessary part of work. But for many people, they're also a major source of frustration. According to Rebecca Hinds, meetings don't have to feel like a drain—better meetings start when we stop treating them as a default and start designing them with intention.Hinds is the author of Your Best Meeting Ever: Seven Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done, and a future-of-work expert who founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean. She argues that the problem isn't meetings themselves, but the sheer number of poorly designed ones, and by being more thoughtful about what actually deserves synchronous time, teams can redesign how they communicate in the workplace “Meetings are the most important product in our entire organization, and yet they're also the least optimized,” she says. “The first step is recognizing we need to be much more intentional about how we're designing meetings.”In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Hinds and host Matt Abrahams discuss why meetings so often go wrong—and what it takes to make them work. Whether you're leading a team, trying to protect focus time, or simply hoping to spend less of your week in calendar invites, Hinds offers practical frameworks for designing meetings with purpose so they become a tool people actually value.To listen to the extended Deep Thinks version of this episode, please visit FasterSmarter.io/premium.Episode Reference Links:Rebecca HindsRebecca's Book: Your Best Meeting EverEp.124 Making Meetings Meaningful Pt. 1: How to Structure and Organize More Effective Gatherings Ep.125 Making Meetings Meaningful Pt. 2: Key Ingredients for Effective Meetings Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (01:42) - Why Meetings Feel Broken (02:57) - The Default-To-Meeting Problem (03:50) - Treat Meetings Like A Product (05:10) - Meeting Doomsday Reset (06:40) - The 4-DCEO Test (08:43) - Designing Better Meetings (10:05) - Creating a Meeting Agenda (12:58) - Context And Meeting Fatigue (14:06) - Memo-First Meetings (16:11) - The Final Three Questions (21:02) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.This episode is sponsored by Strawberry.me. Get 50% off your first coaching session today at Strawberry.me/tftsJoin our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community and become the communicator you want to be.

IN EPISODE 260:We have too many meetings and not enough clarity. In Episode 260, Rebecca Hinds is here to make meetings more intentional and effective. Using Rebecca's powerful meetings model, you'll learn what to cut, what to keep, and how to right-size your internal communications. From the rise of "digital twins" to measuring meeting ROI, this episode is packed with no-nonsense tips that will make your next meeting time well spent. ABOUT REBECCA HINDS:Rebecca Hinds founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean, first-of-their-kind corporate think tanks dedicated to conducting cutting-edgeresearch on the future of work. Her research is consistently featured in top-tier publications and has appeared all across the popular press. She is the author of Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done.

There is a great opportunity to lead more effective and engaging team meetings. Jason is joined by author and organizational behavior specialist, Rebecca Hinds, for a profound conversation about elevating meeting culture. Jason is joined by leading expert on organizational behavior, Rebecca Hinds, PhD, for a tactical conversation on how to transform meetings from a reactive default into your most valuable organizational product. Please rate and review the podcast to help amplify these messages to others! Summary: In an era of chronic calendar bloat, how do high-performing teams regain their focus and drive results? In this episode of The Thermostat, Jason V. Barger sits down with Rebecca Hinds, PhD—founder of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean—to discuss the "epidemic" of unproductive meetings. Rebecca challenges leaders to stop "spending" time and start "investing" it by treating every meeting as a carefully designed product intended to build culture and drive decision-making. Moving beyond typical time-management advice, Jason and Rebecca explore the psychology of the "meeting suck reflex" and the social pressures that keep dysfunctional meetings on the calendar. They introduce actionable frameworks like the "4D CEO Test" to determine if a meeting deserves to exist and the "Meeting Doomsday" strategy for resetting organizational habits. From the science of equal airtime to the strategic use of AI and analytics, this episode provides a blueprint for executives to optimize collaboration. Essential listening for C-suite leaders, managers, and anyone navigating the future of work, this conversation offers a fresh perspective on intentionality, corporate culture, and the art of the "Best Meeting Ever". Episode Notes & Timestamps: Intro: Jason introduces the core concept: meetings are the most important, yet least optimized, product in any organization. Meet Rebecca Hinds: An introduction to Rebecca's background at Stanford, Asana, and Glean, and how her career as a competitive swimmer shaped her view of high-performing teams. Meetings as a Product: Rebecca explains why we must apply product development principles—like user-centric design—to our internal communication. The "Meeting Doomsday" Reset: A deep look at the radical strategy of deleting all recurring meetings to rebuild a more intentional and productive calendar. The Jolt of Intentionality: Why changing a meeting from 30 minutes to 27 minutes can shift a team's mindset from the status quo to active engagement. Minimalist Design: Rebecca outlines four dimensions for leaner meetings: length, attendee list (the "stakeholders vs. spectators" rule), agenda items, and frequency. Measuring Effectiveness: How to use return on time investment (ROTI) and AI analytics to track speaking balance and multitasking. The 4D CEO Test: A two-part filter to determine if a meeting is necessary: Does it Decide, Debate, Discuss, or Develop? Is it Complex, Emotional, or a "One-Way Door"? The Future of Work: Jason and Rebecca discuss the importance of intentionality and "fresh starts" when designing corporate culture for 2026. Key Takeaways for Leaders: User-Centric Meetings: Design meetings for the attendees' needs, not just for the organizer's convenience or for those who talk the most. The Power of the Reset: Periodically "cleanse" your communication stack to eliminate outdated social contracts and unproductive habits. Strategic Communication: Use synchronous meetings for complex, high-stakes, or emotionally intense topics; use digital tools for everything else. Listen to the full episode and access show notes at: https://jasonvbarger.com/podcast/best-meeting-ever-rebecca-hinds/ Bio: Jason Barger is a husband, father, speaker, and author who is passionate about business leadership and corporate culture. He believes that corporate culture is the "thermostat" of an organization and that it can be used to drive performance, innovation, and engagement. The show features interviews with business leaders from a variety of industries, as well as solo episodes where Barger shares his own insights and advice. Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonVBarger Make Your 2026 Effective!  Book Jason with your team at https://www.jasonvbarger.com Like or Follow Jason

Rebecca Hinds, Ph.D., is one of the clearest voices I've seen on organizational behavior and the future of work, and this conversation is going to help a lot of leaders. Her brand-new book, Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done, is a research-backed blueprint for fixing the meetings that are draining your calendar, your energy, and your team's momentum. Rebecca earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Stanford University, where her research focused on how emerging technologies, including collaboration tools and AI, are reshaping the way we work. From 2022 to 2025, she founded and led the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, exploring practical, research-driven solutions to modern workplace challenges. In 2025, she launched the Work AI Institute at Glean, partnering with leading experts to help organizations translate AI into better collaboration and real execution. If you have ever left a meeting thinking, “That could've been an email,” or “We just lost an hour and gained nothing,” this episode is for you. Rebecca challenges outdated playbooks and gives you a better way to meet, lead, and get things done. Plus, grab your FREE Launch Your Dare Planning System at idareyoupod.com—the worksheets based on Dr. Benjamin Hardy's Future Self framework. Connect with Rebecca: Website: www.rebeccahinds.com

Rebecca Hinds is the Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean. In this episode of The Edge of Work, Rebecca joins Al Dea to unpack why meetings have become one of the biggest barriers to effective collaboration and how leaders can redesign them to actually get work done. Drawing from her research at Stanford, her experience leading innovation labs, and insights from her book Your Best Meeting Ever, Rebecca explains why meetings are often a symptom of broken collaboration systems. The conversation explores meeting overload, calendar “doomsdays,” asynchronous work, and the growing role of AI in meetings and leadership. Rebecca also shares lessons from the Work AI Institute on how organizations can navigate AI transformation with more intention and evidence-based leadership.LinksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-hinds/Website: https://www.rebeccahinds.com/Book: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Best-Meeting-Ever-Principles/dp/166806748X

Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. She earned her BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University, and founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana as well as the Work AI Institute at Glean, first-of-their-kind corporate think tanks dedicated to cutting-edge research on the future of work. Her research is consistently featured in top-tier publications and has appeared in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, Wired, TIME, CNBC, Bloomberg, and the Washington Post, among others. And most recently, Rebecca is the author of the book, Your Best Meeting Ever. In this episode we discuss the following: At a time when our calendars are packed with meetings, Rebecca reminds us that meetings shouldn't just happen—they should be designed. Her "Meeting Doomsday" experiment was interesting: a simple 48-hour calendar purge saved employees an average of 11 hours per month by forcing them to rebuild their schedules with intentionality. A few simple strategies can go a long way: treat our meetings like a product. Fight our instinct to add, and instead use the "Rule of Halves" to cut the duration and/or attendees by 50%. Measure our "Return on Time Investment" (ROTI) with simple post-meeting pulse checks. If we want to overcome organizational inertia and Parkinson's Law—where work expands to fill the time allotted—we have to stop using meetings as a knee-jerk default and start seeing them as our most expensive, yet least optimized, business asset. And then design them carefully.

AI pilots are not the story anymore. The real story is who can turn AI into everyday, reliable work. Here at AWS re:Invent, I had the chance to sit down with Arvind Jain, Founder and CEO of Glean, for a conversation I have wanted to do for a long time!!!!We spoke about why so many enterprises are stuck in pilot mode and what actually has to change for AI to move from experiments to real impact on how people work. Arvind went deep on why enterprise context is still missing in most AI projects and what it looks like in practice when you finally get that piece right.We also talked about what CIOs and CTOs are really worried about this week at re:Invent. Not the buzzwords, but the hard problems around adoption, scale, and the misconceptions that keep slowing teams down!Since so many organizations here already run on AWS, I asked Arvind how the Glean and AWS partnership shows up in the real world. He shared how customers are thinking about reliability, security, and scale, and what a simple, low-risk starting point looks like if you want to see value fast.To close it out, Arvind shared one clear prediction for where AI is heading by 2026 and how it will change the way organizations think about work.Thanks Arvind Jain for always sharing amazing insights!!!!#data #ai #awsreinvent #aws #agents #awscompetencypartners #agenticai #theravitshow

Episode 764: Neal and Toby recap the latest from the World Economic Forum as it heads into its last day, ending with Elon Musk making his debut after publicly criticizing the conference. Then, ‘Sinners' shatters the record for most Oscar nominations. Plus, the hit show ‘Heated Rivalry' has jolted interest from newcomers into hockey. Meanwhile, Japanese toilet maker Toto has its best performance thanks to an AI upgrade. Finally, a roundup of the biggest headlines from the day.  Get your tickets for the Morning Brew Variety Show! https://tinyurl.com/MBvariety  Explore Indeed's full findings at https://www.indeed.com/2026hiringtrends Learn more about Lightspeed at https://www.lsvp.com Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ This special episode is produced in partnership with Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed holds the largest early-stage AI portfolio in the world both number of companies and capital deployed, investing in 165 AI companies and deploying over $5.5 billion in AI investments. Lightspeed's invested in some of the most valuable AI companies globally, including Anthropic, Mistral AI, Glean, Reflection AI and more. Learn more about Lightspeed's recent investments in Skild AI here, and stay tuned for more exciting AI coverage on the show this week: https://www.skild.ai/blogs/series-c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 763: Neal and Toby dive into the markets' reaction to Trump walking back his threats of European tariffs over Greenland during his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Then, Ryanair's spat with Elon Musk over Starlink has actually been good for Ryanair. Also, Amazon is building its largest physical retail store as it flirts with the big box. Meanwhile, Neal shares his favorite numbers (from Davos) on chimney sweeping, the Golden Gate bridge, and how to market time.  Grab your desktop calendar with games now! https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/2026-daily-games-desk-calendar  Explore Indeed's full findings at https://www.indeed.com/2026hiringtrends Learn more about Lightspeed at https://www.lsvp.com Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ This special episode is produced in partnership with Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed holds the largest early-stage AI portfolio in the world both number of companies and capital deployed, investing in 165 AI companies and deploying over $5.5 billion in AI investments. Lightspeed's invested in some of the most valuable AI companies globally, including Anthropic, Mistral AI, Glean, Reflection AI and more. Learn more about Lightspeed's recent investments in Skild AI here, and stay tuned for more exciting AI coverage on the show this week: https://www.skild.ai/blogs/series-c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 762: Neal and Toby chat about the revived sentiments of “sell America” amid Trump's beef with European countries, threatening tariffs over his pursuit for Greenland. Then, the biggest names in business are in Davos and are already making headliner statements. Also, Netflix reported earnings that just squeaked by expectations, citing the toughest competition for viewers in recent years. Meanwhile, liquor sales are waning and some major alcohol companies are sitting with a glut of spirits. Finally, a wrap up of the biggest headlines from the day.  Grab your desktop calendar with games now! https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/2026-daily-games-desk-calendar  Explore Indeed's full findings at https://www.indeed.com/2026hiringtrends Learn more about Lightspeed at https://www.lsvp.com Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ This special episode is produced in partnership with Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed holds the largest early-stage AI portfolio in the world both number of companies and capital deployed, investing in 165 AI companies and deploying over $5.5 billion in AI investments. Lightspeed's invested in some of the most valuable AI companies globally, including Anthropic, Mistral AI, Glean, Reflection AI and more. Learn more about Lightspeed's recent investments in Skild AI here, and stay tuned for more exciting AI coverage on the show this week: https://www.skild.ai/blogs/series-c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 761: Neal and Toby discuss the trade war brewing over in Europe as Trump indicates he wants Greenland because he was snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize. Then, OpenAI thinks it can revolutionize the advertising space by playing ads within ChatGPT. Also, a new ‘mini-sphere' is landing in DC. Meanwhile, Toby dives into the trend of over-stated plots in Netflix content because they're thinking everyone is watching while on their phones. They're…not wrong? Finally, a wrap of headlines as we're recording from Davos!  Explore Indeed's full findings at https://www.indeed.com/2026hiringtrends Learn more about Lightspeed at https://www.lsvp.com Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ This special episode is produced in partnership with Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed holds the largest early-stage AI portfolio in the world both number of companies and capital deployed, investing in 165 AI companies and deploying over $5.5 billion in AI investments. Lightspeed's invested in some of the most valuable AI companies globally, including Anthropic, Mistral AI, Glean, Reflection AI and more. Learn more about Lightspeed's recent investments in Skild AI here, and stay tuned for more exciting AI coverage on the show this week: https://www.skild.ai/blogs/series-c Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parable is building an end-to-end intelligence platform that quantifies how organizations spend their collective time—the foundation for measuring real AI impact. With a thousand data connectors ingesting activity and log data across the enterprise software stack, Parable constructs proprietary knowledge graphs that size opportunities and measure outcomes in hard dollars, not adoption metrics. In this episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Adam Schwartz, Co-Founder & CEO of Parable, to explore why 95% of CFOs see no AI ROI, how his decade running profitable businesses under resource constraints shaped his focus on inputs over outcomes, and why 2026 requires moving AI from CapEx experimentation to measured OpEx. Topics Discussed: Why the 95% CFO stat on AI ROI matters as an arbiter of truth, despite backlash Building knowledge graphs from activity data to quantify collective time allocation across hundreds of people The fundamental problem: enterprises lack quantitative frameworks for operational efficiency pre-AI Running parallel ICP experiments to achieve sales-market fit before product-market fit Why Parable has never lost a POC once leaders see quantitative baselines Market dynamics creating false signals—unprecedented curiosity without buying intent The demarcation between companies treating AI as product work versus those waiting for vendor solutions Why AI transformation demands century-old management structures to be questioned GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Engineer disqualification in momentum markets: Market-wide AI enthusiasm creates pipeline illusion. Prospects will engage indefinitely for education without purchase intent. Adam's framework: "How do we get people to say no to us and not drag us along... They want to keep talking because they want to learn and they want to know what's going on and they are genuinely interested." In enterprise sales during category shifts, build explicit qualification gates that force prospects to reveal resource commitment or disqualify. Extended evaluation cycles feel like traction but destroy unit economics. Use go-to-market as ICP discovery mechanism: Adam intentionally pursued multiple customer segments simultaneously—different company sizes and AI maturity stages—to let data reveal fit rather than rely on hypothesis. His memo to the team: "We're going to go after these three, you know, many different sizes of companies in order for us to decide like, who we like best." The key insight: get to problem-market fit and sales-market fit validation before optimizing product-market fit. This inverts conventional wisdom but works when TAM is massive and the bottleneck is identifying who feels pain acutely enough to buy now. Qualify on organizational structure, not verbal commitment: Every enterprise claims AI is strategic. Adam's hard filter: "Who in the organization is responsible for AI transformation? And if you don't have a one person answer to that question, you're not serious." Serious buyers have a named owner reporting to C-suite with dedicated budget and team. Buying Gemini, Glean, or other point solutions isn't a seriousness KPI—it's often passive consumption of AI as a byproduct of existing software relationships. Look for companies doing five-year work-backs on industry transformation and cascading effects on their operating model. Target post-experimentation, pre-scale buyers: Adam discovered the sweet spot isn't companies beginning their AI journey—it's those who've deployed initial programs and now need to prove value. "The market of people that have started to build AI into their operating model or into their strategy in like a coherent way, there's a team, there's an owner, there's budget... those are the people that we really want to be talking to." These buyers understand the problem viscerally because they're living it. They do product work daily—talking to stakeholders, generating use cases, building briefs, triaging roadmaps. They need your solution to professionalize what they're already attempting manually. Build measurement into your category narrative: The AI tooling market has over-indexed on soft efficiency claims that won't survive renewal cycles. Adam's warning: "There is too much hand waving around soft efficiency gains... you're going to have to renew and you need NRR and I don't think it's going to be that usage of the tool internally by employees and adoption is going to be enough." The last decade over-rotated to "everything drives revenue" due to VC pressure. This decade requires precision: does your product save time, reduce headcount needs, or accelerate revenue? Quantify it. Partner with measurement platforms if needed. Adam's insight on Calendly is instructive—it clearly saves time, but most buyers can't quantify how much, which weakens renewal economics. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

When are meetings the best way to coordinate and make decisions and when do they make things worse?? How do you use the two-pizza rule to hold effective meetings and what happens when you start including too many people in a process?Rebecca Hinds is the head of the Work AI Institute at Glean and the author of Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done, a book outlining the way to address one of the ways productivity is lost in organizations.Greg and Rebecca discuss the importance of intentionality in information flow within organizations, the common pitfalls of meeting culture, and practical strategies to improve meeting efficiency. Rebecca emphasizes the use of data and AI to measure meeting effectiveness and reduce 'meeting bloat', while sharing insights from her experiences at Asana and her studies on organizational collaboration. They also explore the evolving collaboration between HR and IT departments in the era of AI and the necessity for both tech and HR professionals to exchange and enhance their skills.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How ‘visibIlity bias' fuels endless meetings[07:28] We know that humans have a bias to associate presence with productivity. And so what I find to be often the case is people start to associate more meetings with more importance and status within the organization, and so when you're stuck and not sure how to make progress or you're worried about productivity, a meeting becomes a knee-jerk solution to solve that. You might not accomplish anything meaningful in the meeting, but at least you've sat together and shown that some progress or perceived progress was made. And so I think at the core of this, is this pervasive productivity theater that goes on in organizations, this visibility bias where we associate meetings with importance within the organization. There are a host of other problems, but at the core, I think that's the fundamental problem that we're dealing with.The pressure ingrained in our calendars and meeting cultures[09:37]  As soon as someone extends a meeting invite. They're establishing this social contract where you feel like you have to reciprocate. Even when we think about terminology around, it's a meeting invite. You either accept or you reject. You start to feel like you're not just rejecting the meeting, but rejecting the person. And it's taken very personally. AI tools can help reveal participation imbalances in meetings[22:59] If you're seeing that leaders are consuming 70%, 80% of the airtime, that's an opportunity to course correct and improve your meeting effectiveness. And often when it comes from an AI tool or an objective analytic tool, it's much more effectively received than a less powerful person trying to voice that takeaway in the meeting and try to veer influence that way.Are we socially conditioned to hate meetings?[28:48] Humans have what I call a meeting suck reflex, right? For a multitude of different reasons.When we hear the word "meeting," we have this negative, visceral reaction. So much so that you know when you're asked to evaluate your meetings in public versus private, you tend to rate your meetings much more negatively when you're around people in public as compared to privately, because we think that we should hate meetings. We've been socially conditioned to feel such, and there's few things that bond coworkers more quickly than bonding over a bad meeting that could have been a five-line email, right? And so to avoid that, assessing whether a meeting was worth your time helps to level set. Everyone has an intuitive sense of whether a meeting was worth their time. Is there something more productive they could have done with that time or not? And so that tends to be a good gauge for you as an organizer.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Asana, Inc.Parkinson's lawSteven RogelbergLaw of TrivialityAmazon's Two-Pizza TeamsROTIRobert I. SuttonGuest Profile:RebeccaHinds.comThe Work AI Institute at GleanLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on X for GleanGuest Work:Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Glean has grown into a $7.2B company by giving employees AI assistants and agents that extend their capabilities.CEO Arvind Jain is back on Grit alongside Joubin Mirzadegan. Here's what stood out:“My mindset by default is that if you build something last year, that it's got to be obsolete. There has to be a new way to do that thing better today. If not, then it's just lack of imagination.”“I have no doubts that AI capabilities are just going to increase more and more over the next few years. But even more important is this concept of how much are we even leveraging what AI can do today? I would say that we've not even used 1% of current capabilities of these models”“If you're trying to be everything to everyone, then you just cannot compete with somebody who's focused on a smaller problem and going deep into that.”You can also listen to Arvind's earlier episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIH0Qp6d6bg&list=PLRiWZFltuYPF8A6UGm74K2q29UwU-Kk9k&index=96Guest: Arvind Jain, founder and CEO, Glean​Connect with Arvind JainX: https://x.com/jainarvindLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jain-arvind/Connect with JoubinX: https://x.com/JoubinmirLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/Email: grit@kleinerperkins.comFollow on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/kpgritFollow on X:https://x.com/KPGrit​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins:https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

Pundits are screaming about the so-called “AI bubble.” But historically slow-to-adopt industries like medicine and law are actually embracing AI at an unprecedented speed. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil look ahead to 2026, breaking down the major trends that will define the next era of AI technologies. They explore the future of AI foundational models, predicting breakthroughs in solving complex scientific problems. They share competing views on the timeline for robotics and self-driving cars, debating whether startups have a chance for survival or if incumbents will dominate. Elad and Sarah also discuss the return of tech IPOs and M&As, forecast a new wave of AI consumer agent software, and explore why consumer product innovation has been slower than expected. Finally, the two offer bold non-AI predictions for the new year, including the acceleration of defense tech startups and the second-order underrated impacts of GLP-1 drugs on biohacking. Plus, stick around to hear predictions on what's next for AI in 2026 from some of tech's biggest names and industry leaders. We hear from Jensen Huang (Founder/CEO NVIDIA), Arvind Jain (Founder/CEO, Glean), Winston Weinberg (Founder/CEO, Harvey), Scott Wu (Founder/CEO, Cognition), Raiza Martin (Founder/CEO Huxe), Zach Ziegler (Founder/CTO, Open Evidence), Aaron Levie (Founder/CEO, Box), Misha Laskin (Founder/CEO, ReflectionAI), Noam Brown (Research Scientist, OpenAI), Joshua Meier (Founder/CEO Chai Discovery), Bryan Johnson (Living Man, Don't Die), Sholto Douglas (Member of the Technical Staff, Anthropic), Ben & Asher Spector (Stanford PhDs) and Dylan Patel (Founder/CEO SemiAnalysis). Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:43 – AI Predictions for 2026 04:40 – Adoption of AI in Professional Fields 07:17 – Robotics and Self-Driving Cars 08:25 – Robotics: Incumbents vs. Startups 13:59 – Future of IPOs and M&A in AI 16:42 – Challenges in Consumer AI Innovation 21:08 – Funding of Neo Labs, RL Research 26:28 – Predictions for 2026 Beyond AI 26:44 – The Future of Defense and Technology 28:23 – Biohacking and Peptide Therapies 30:37 – 2026 Prediction from AI Industry Leaders 40:46 – Conclusion

Trigger warning: This episode covers grief and cancer. Please take care of yourself if these topics are difficult for you right now.In this episode, I open up about how 2025 unfolded - from moving home from Australia early in the year, to Dad being diagnosed with cancer in the summer and unfortunately passing away.I talk about the year as a whole, how I've been navigating grief over the last six months, and what it's looked like to keep building Glean and living life while processing loss.

AI is failing most companies, trapping employees in digital exhaustion. The real problem isn't the technology, but the organization itself. Forget fixing your models—the path to true transformation is redesigning your workflows, structure, and human collaboration to finally work with AI. In this episode, Rebecca Hinds, Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean, unpacks insights from the Work Transformation 100 study, revealing what 100+ leaders, technologists, and researchers are doing differently to make AI actually work. You'll learn how AI needs to be embedded in the flow of work, why organizational structure eats AI for breakfast, how centralization and decentralization must coexist, and how leaders can avoid automating the soul of work by preserving ownership, creativity, and accountability. Rebecca breaks down the emerging collaboration between HR and IT, the rise of agentic workflows, the role of telemetry data in measuring AI adoption, and why flattening org charts for the sake of AI often backfires. She also shares real examples of bottom-up and top-down AI change, the impact of digital exhaustion, and the critical importance of redesigning processes and incentives before redesigning technology. This episode is every CHRO's playbook to lead AI transformation with human insight, organizational clarity, and people-first strategy, not hype.   ________________ This Episode is sponsored by Glean: The AI Transformation 100 is here — Glean's Work AI Institute reveals what's really working with AI at work The AI Transformation 100, authored by Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean and Stanford's Bob Sutton surfaces 100 hard-won lessons from leaders actually deploying AI at scale. It's not about what AI could do — it's about what works, what fails, and what companies have to get right to make AI real. One takeaway: AI doesn't fix broken systems. It amplifies them. ________________ Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/   Future-ready organizations are built, not hoped for. My latest book, -The 8 Laws of Employee Experience shows how. Preorder here: 8EXLaws.com

Glean started as a Kleiner Perkins incubation and is now a $7B, $200m ARR Enterprise AI leader. Now KP has tapped its own podcaster to lead it's next big swing.From building go-to-market the hard way in startups (and scaling Palo Alto Networks' public cloud business) to joining Kleiner Perkins to help technical founders turn product edge into repeatable revenue, Joubin Mirzadegan has spent the last decade obsessing over one thing: distribution and how ideas actually spread, sell, and compound. That obsession took him from launching the CRO-only podcast Grit (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRiWZFltuYPF8A6UGm74K2q29UwU-Kk9k) as a hiring wedge, to working alongside breakout companies like Glean and Windsurf, to now incubating Roadrunner which is an AI-native rethink of CPQ and quoting workflows as pricing models collapse from “seats” into consumption, bundles, renewals, and SKU sprawl.We sat down with Joubin to dig into the real mechanics of making conversations feel human (rolling early, never sending questions, temperature + lighting hacks), what Windsurf got right about “Google-class product and Salesforce-class distribution,” how to hire early sales leaders without getting fooled by shiny logos, why CPQ is quietly breaking the back of modern revenue teams, and his thesis for his new company and KP incubation Roadrunner (https://www.roadrunner.ai/): rebuild the data model from the ground up, co-develop with the hairiest design partners, and eventually use LLMs to recommend deal structures the way the best reps do without the Slack-channel chaos of deal desk.We discuss:* How to make guests instantly comfortable: rolling early, no “are you ready?”, temperature, lighting, and room dynamics* Why Joubin refuses to send questions in advance (and when you might have to anyway)* The origin of the CRO-only podcast: using media as a hiring wedge and relationship engine* The “commit to 100 episodes” mindset: why most shows die before they find their voice* Founder vs exec interviews: why CEOs can speak more freely (and what it unlocks in conversation)* What Glean taught him about enterprise AI: permissions, trust, and overcoming “category is dead” skepticism* Design partners as the real unlock: why early believers matter and how co-development actually works* Windsurf's breakout: what it means to be serious about “Google-class product + Salesforce-class distribution”* Why technical founders struggle with GTM and how KP built a team around sales, customer access, and demand gen* Hiring early sales leaders: anti-patterns (logos), what to screen for (motivation), and why stage-fit is everything* The CPQ problem & Roadrunner's thesis: rebuilding CPQ/quoting from the data model up for modern complexity* How “rules + SKUs + approvals” create a brittle graph and what it takes to model it without tipping over* The two-year window: incumbents rebuilding slowly vs startups out-sprinting with AI-native architecture* Where AI actually helps: quote generation, policy enforcement, approval routing, and deal recommendation loops—Joubin* X: https://x.com/Joubinmir* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/Where to find Latent Space* X: https://x.com/latentspacepodFull Video EpisodeTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction and the Zuck Interview Experience00:03:26 The Genesis of the Grit Podcast: Hiring CROs Through Content00:13:20 Podcast Philosophy: Creating Authentic Conversations00:15:44 Working with Arvind at Glean: The Enterprise Search Breakthrough00:26:20 Windsurf's Sales Machine: Google-Class Product Meets Salesforce-Class Distribution00:30:28 Hiring Sales Leaders: Anti-Patterns and First Principles00:39:02 The CPQ Problem: Why Salesforce and Legacy Tools Are Breaking00:43:40 Introducing Roadrunner: Solving Enterprise Pricing with AI00:49:19 Building Roadrunner: Team, Design Partners, and Data Model Challenges00:59:35 High Performance Philosophy: Working Out Every Day and Reducing Friction01:06:28 Defining Grit: Passion Plus Perseverance Get full access to Latent.Space at www.latent.space/subscribe

Glean started as a Kleiner Perkins incubation and is now a $7B, $200m ARR Enterprise AI leader. Now KP has tapped its own podcaster to lead it's next big swing. From building go-to-market the hard way in startups (and scaling Palo Alto Networks' public cloud business) to joining Kleiner Perkins to help technical founders turn product edge into repeatable revenue, Joubin Mirzadegan has spent the last decade obsessing over one thing: distribution and how ideas actually spread, sell, and compound. That obsession took him from launching the CRO-only podcast Grit (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRiWZFltuYPF8A6UGm74K2q29UwU-Kk9k) as a hiring wedge, to working alongside breakout companies like Glean and Windsurf, to now incubating Roadrunner which is an AI-native rethink of CPQ and quoting workflows as pricing models collapse from “seats” into consumption, bundles, renewals, and SKU sprawl. We sat down with Joubin to dig into the real mechanics of making conversations feel human (rolling early, never sending questions, temperature + lighting hacks), what Windsurf got right about “Google-class product and Salesforce-class distribution,” how to hire early sales leaders without getting fooled by shiny logos, why CPQ is quietly breaking the back of modern revenue teams, and his thesis for his new company and KP incubation Roadrunner (https://www.roadrunner.ai/): rebuild the data model from the ground up, co-develop with the hairiest design partners, and eventually use LLMs to recommend deal structures the way the best reps do without the Slack-channel chaos of deal desk. We discuss: How to make guests instantly comfortable: rolling early, no “are you ready?”, temperature, lighting, and room dynamics Why Joubin refuses to send questions in advance (and when you might have to anyway) The origin of the CRO-only podcast: using media as a hiring wedge and relationship engine The “commit to 100 episodes” mindset: why most shows die before they find their voice Founder vs exec interviews: why CEOs can speak more freely (and what it unlocks in conversation) What Glean taught him about enterprise AI: permissions, trust, and overcoming “category is dead” skepticism Design partners as the real unlock: why early believers matter and how co-development actually works Windsurf's breakout: what it means to be serious about “Google-class product + Salesforce-class distribution” Why technical founders struggle with GTM and how KP built a team around sales, customer access, and demand gen Hiring early sales leaders: anti-patterns (logos), what to screen for (motivation), and why stage-fit is everything The CPQ problem & Roadrunner's thesis: rebuilding CPQ/quoting from the data model up for modern complexity How “rules + SKUs + approvals” create a brittle graph and what it takes to model it without tipping over The two-year window: incumbents rebuilding slowly vs startups out-sprinting with AI-native architecture Where AI actually helps: quote generation, policy enforcement, approval routing, and deal recommendation loops — Joubin X: https://x.com/Joubinmir LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/ Where to find Latent Space X: https://x.com/latentspacepod Substack: https://www.latent.space/ Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction and the Zuck Interview Experience 00:03:26 The Genesis of the Grit Podcast: Hiring CROs Through Content 00:13:20 Podcast Philosophy: Creating Authentic Conversations 00:15:44 Working with Arvind at Glean: The Enterprise Search Breakthrough 00:26:20 Windsurf's Sales Machine: Google-Class Product Meets Salesforce-Class Distribution 00:30:28 Hiring Sales Leaders: Anti-Patterns and First Principles 00:39:02 The CPQ Problem: Why Salesforce and Legacy Tools Are Breaking 00:43:40 Introducing Roadrunner: Solving Enterprise Pricing with AI 00:49:19 Building Roadrunner: Team, Design Partners, and Data Model Challenges 00:59:35 High Performance Philosophy: Working Out Every Day and Reducing Friction 01:06:28 Defining Grit: Passion Plus Perseverance

What happens when construction projects go wrong? In this episode, dispute resolution expert Steve Nelson of Markel Surety shares proactive strategies to avoid, manage, and resolve conflicts before they derail a job or result in costly claims, from structuring stronger contracts to deploying standing neutrals before tensions boil over. Discover how surety professionals can spot trouble early, drive better outcomes for clients, and help clients prevent disputes from jeopardizing projects. Glean information with the aim of protecting profitability, preserving relationships, and staying ahead of the risk curve. With special guest: Steve Nelson, Executive Vice President/Senior Director, ADR Services, Markel Surety Hosted by: Kat Shamapande, Director, Professional Development, NASBP and Mark McCallum, CEO, NASBP Sponsored by Liberty Mutual Surety!

What does it take to go from advising founders to becoming one?On this week's special Reverse Grit episode, we flip the script and put our Grit podcast host Joubin Mirzadegan in the guest seat.Joubin recently founded Roadrunner, where he is now co-founder & CEO. Roadrunner is building an AI‑native CPQ to modernize the quote‑to‑cash stack, drawing on years of conversations he's had with enterprise revenue leaders.Stepping into the host role, Mamoon Hamid joins Joubin to talk about his transition from sales leader to founder, how Roadrunner came together, and why it became our first incubation since Glean.Roadrunner is hiring! Check them out: https://www.roadrunner.ai/Guest: Joubin Mirzadegan, Partner, Kleiner Perkins​Connect with MamoonXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Search is shifting to intelligent, context-rich answers from static links. You.com CEO Richard Socher joins Bloomberg Intelligence senior software analyst Sunil Rajgopal on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss how You.com powers AI search for companies such as DuckDuckGo, while differentiating from enterprise peers like Glean and Exa through its web indexing, real-time accuracy and privacy-first design. “The biggest factor to get LLMs to give accurate, non-hallucinated answers is the search infrastructure layer,” Socher says. The discussion also covers the market opportunity, competitive landscape and future initiatives.

130 IPOs from over 400 startups. IVP is now in its 18th fund, with companies like Perplexity, Glean, Slack, Figma, Twitter, Uber, and Abridge in its portfolio. Somesh Dash, general partner at the 45-year-old firm, has been part of IVP for more than 20 years.We start with something we are both passionate about, building in the US-India corridor. Somesh talks about the group of people who put the silicon in Silicon Valley, the immigrants. From Andy Grove to Elon Musk to Chennai-born Aravind Srinivas.He recalls the first time he met Aravind at a WeWork, when Perplexity had just 20 employees and a beta product or how Dylan (Founder of Figma) had the vision nobody else had on the future of design, way before ai. The early signals Somesh saw in these founders, long before any signs of massive success were visible. He also talks about the companies they missed, giants like DoorDash, OpenAI, and Anthropic.Though this seasoned investor truly believes in AI, he says the sector is due for a correction. The bubble will burst. Most Gen 1.0 AI companies are unlikely to reach billion-dollar valuations or go public. But as always in tech, the lessons from this first wave will shape Gen 2.0 companies. And the teams that understand and adapt from this early wave will build the next generation of successful AI companies. Also, when the bubble bursts, that's the time to invest. Why?Somesh Dash shares in this episode.0:00 – Trailer1:12 – Immigrants who built Silicon Valley4:27 – India's incredible contribution to the Valley5:30 – How the India–US friction will actually help6:29 – What's at stake for both countries10:42 – Where India stands in AI11:45 – First meeting with Aravind Srinivas13:47 – Why IVP invested in Perplexity two years ago17:11 – In AI, don't take product–market fit for granted18:43 – Courage to fail & double down on early wins19:36 – Why multiple investors on a cap table isn't bad22:14 – How IVP invested in Figma24:28 – IPO is a milestone, not the end25:56 – Why US public markets are not overvalued27:50 – How a VC defines startup success31:08 – The best thing about failed startups32:12 – Why IVP missed DoorDash34:54 – How IVP decides to invest or pass38:27 – The doctor who builds tech45:05 – Future of Content is honesty and vulnerability47:11 – Meeting OpenAI & Anthropic in the early days48:52 – AI “startups” with capex the size of nations49:53 – The power law in venture capital50:45 – Why we're close to an AI correction54:11 – Gen 2.0 startups are built on Gen 1.0 foundations56:45 – Will the AI bubble burst?1:01:32 – Do high valuations during peaks still make sense?1:05:04 – What keeps IVP strong for five decades1:08:11 – The Co's making IVP more bullish on India–US corridor-------------India's talent has built the world's tech—now it's time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It's about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that's done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we're doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------Send us a text

Deedy Das, Partner at Menlo Ventures, returns to Latent Space to discuss his journey from Glean to venture capital, the explosive rise of Anthropic, and how AI is reshaping enterprise software and coding. From investing in Anthropic early on when they had no revenue to managing the $100M Ontology Fund, Das shares insider perspectives on the fastest-growing software company in history and what's next for AI infrastructure, research investing, and the future of engineering.We cover Glean's rise from “boring” enterprise search to a $7B AI-native company, Anthropic's meteoric rise, the strategic decisions behind products like Claude Code, and why market share in enterprise AI is shifting dramatically. Das explains his investment thesis on research companies like Goodfire, Prime Intellect, and OpenRouter and how the Anthology Fund is quietly seeding the next wave of AI infra, research, and devtools.Full Video EpisodeTimestamps* 00:00:00 Introduction and Deedy's Return to Latent Space* 00:01:20 Glean's Journey: From Boring Enterprise Search to Valuation* 00:15:37 Anthropic's Meteoric Rise and Market Share Dynamics* 00:17:50 Claude Artifacts and Product Innovation* 00:41:20 The Anthology Fund: Investing in the Anthropic Ecosystem* 00:48:01 Goodfire and Mechanistic Interpretability* 00:51:25 Prime Intellect and Distributed AI Training* 00:53:40 OpenRouter: Building the AI Model Gateway* 01:13:36 The Stargate Project and Infrastructure Arms Race* 01:18:14 The Future of Software Engineering and AI Coding Get full access to Latent.Space at www.latent.space/subscribe

Deedy Das, Partner at Menlo Ventures, returns to Latent Space to discuss his journey from Glean to venture capital, the explosive rise of Anthropic, and how AI is reshaping enterprise software and coding. From investing in Anthropic early on when they had no revenue to managing the $100M Ontology Fund, Das shares insider perspectives on the fastest-growing software company in history and what's next for AI infrastructure, research investing, and the future of engineering. We cover Glean's rise from “boring” enterprise search to a $7B AI-native company, Anthropic's meteoric rise, the strategic decisions behind products like Claude Code, and why market share in enterprise AI is shifting dramatically. Das explains his investment thesis on research companies like Goodfire, Prime Intellect, and OpenRouter and how the Anthology Fund is quietly seeding the next wave of AI infra, research, and devtools.

Register for Founder University Japan's kickoff! https://luma.com/cm0x90mkToday's show:*On TWiST, Jason welcomes an all-star VC panel — Deedy Das of Menlo Partners and Jay Eum of GFT Ventures — for a deep dive into the shocking scale of early-stage AI raises, a transitional moment for investors, the growing importance of the “prosumer” market, ChatGPT's insane smile curves, and much much more.IN THIS EPISODEWhat the panelists make of Roelof Botha's exit from Sequoia… and is he really going anywhere…Why Jason says VC is no longer the best way to get rich…Why so many private companies are growing SO HUGE before going public…And much more!Timestamps:(00:03:37) Jason is fresh from surviving Riyadh traffic but he's here and introducing our all star panel(00:04:03) Why Jason compares Riyadh to Silicon Valley in the 1960s(00:05:21) Friend of the Pod Roelof Botha is stepping down at Sequoia… our insiders try to guess what might have happened…(10:00) Crusoe - Crusoe is the AI factory company. Reliable infrastructure and expert support. Visit crusoe.ai/startup to reserve your capacity for the latest GPUs today.(00:13:11) Deedy moved up at Menlo without being a venture native… he shares the secrets behind his rise.(00:19:09) Was Roelof wrong about “return-free risk”? Does more capital always = more great companies?(20:00) Northwest Registered Agent - Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today!(00:26:54) With so many private companies growing SO HUGE… when is the right time to go public? Considering the case of Glean and Stripe…(30:00) AWS Marketplace - If you're ready to really accelerate your sales cycle, AWS Marketplace is your next stop. Head to https://aws.com/startups to learn more.(00:30:07) Why Jason says venture capital is no longer the best way to get rich(00:32:34) Why AI apps are so appealing to enterprises after years of paying for SaaS(00:36:32) The growing importance of “prosumers”(00:37:31) Why Deedy says a smile curve is the most beautiful depiction of “Product Market Fit”(00:44:36) Why it's still tough to raise pre-seed money, even during an AI “boom”!(00:46:08) Why Jason says the hardest job in the tech ecosystem is being an investor(00:55:52) “Time is one of the primary drivers of venture capital return.” - Jay Eun(00:57:42) Deedy on the shocking amounts being raised by early-stage AI companies(01:00:21) Just how much DO VCs work compared to founders? The panel compares notes.(01:02:53) Are some investors not doing diligence? Deedy on the speed of some AI deals.(01:16:51) The panel picks their fav portfolio company of the moment (or one of their faves)Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisThank you to our partners:Crusoe - Crusoe is the AI factory company. Reliable infrastructure and expert support. Visit crusoe.ai/startup to reserve your capacity for the latest GPUs today.Northwest Registered Agent - Form your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Get more privacy, more options, and more done—visitAWS Marketplace - If you're ready to really accelerate your sales cycle, AWS Marketplace is your next stop. Head to https://aws.com/startups to learn more.Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.comSubscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Post-Gazette/Daily Collegian Penn State insider Lyle Alenstein is joined by Joel Haas to break down the Nittany Lions' 38-14 loss to Ohio State on Saturday afternoon in Columbus, Ohio. Did this game go about as we should've expected it to? Are there any positives to glean from the first half, when the free-falling Nittany Lions went into the intermission only down three points? How has Terry Smith done with the team since becoming interim head coach? Has Ethan Grunkemeyer shown he can be the quarterback of the future? And where does Penn State go from here with offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki? Our duo answers those questions and more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Join our host Lisa in a crucial conversation with Ashley and Brice Hales regarding the beauty of co-laboring in ministry as a married couple. Ashley holds a PhD in English literature and is the Editorial Director for Print at Christianity Today. With her husband, she is the co-founder of The Willowbrae Institute. Bryce is the Pastor at Trinity Church San Luis Obispo. Glean wisdom from their examples of lessons learned regarding the crossing of their marriage and ministry life. Additionally, the Hales share about their new Bible Study, A Fruitful Life, exploring Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount and our life with Christ. The Cartographers Podcast-https://www.willowbrae.org/media A Fruitful Life Bible Study-https://www.willowbrae.org/publications

This week on Sustainability Now!, your host, Justin Mog, gets caught up with the great work of Glean Kentucky to rescue excess produce from our broken food system and get it onto the tables of those in need. Our guest today is Jennifer Palmer, the new Executive Director of Glean Kentucky. Jennifer holds a BA in Fine Art and Political Science from Cedar Crest College, an MFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and a BA in Sustainable Agriculture from the Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College. She has over 20 years of experience teaching fine art at various universities and previously served as the Executive Director of a nonprofit organization dedicated to land conservation. Having transitioned to become an Extension Agent in Jefferson County, Jennifer resides on her farm in Shelby County, where she grows vegetables and flowers and rescues animals in her free time. Passionate about community engagement and fostering resilient local food systems, she brings a unique blend of artistic insight, nonprofit leadership, and sustainable agriculture expertise to her work with communities. Glean Kentucky rescues fresh excess fruits and vegetables to nourish Kentuckians facing food insecurity. Since its founding in 2010, Glean Kentucky has redirected nearly 3,000,000 pounds of fresh produce through dozens of programs in Central, South Central, and North Central Kentucky. Learn more at https://gleanky.org/ As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW! Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at https://forwardradio.org The music in this podcast is courtesy of the local band Appalatin and is used by permission. Explore their delightful music at https://appalatin.com

What is it that makes a home? Interior design may not seem the first port of call to consider when we think about our gardens, but Michelle Ogundehin's approach to how our environments affect us shows just how important the outside world can be on our wellbeing. Michelle, who is a series judge on Interior Design Masters, describes herself as a homes therapist. After training as an architect, she was the Editor in Chief of Elle Decoration for over a decade. Now, through books such as Happy Inside, Michelle's approach encourages a holistic and thoughtful way to live that shrugs off trends for emotional insight. At Bedgebury Pinetum, where Michelle comes to walk, we speak about the life changes that helped her reassess how to live - and how bringing the outside in can change how we do, too. Glean more of Michelle's wisdom through her book, Happy Inside or her subscription service, the Happy Insiders Club. Michelle is also on Instagram and Substack, @michelleogundehin. This podcast is inspired by my book, Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival, which is available in all good bookshops. We've also been photographing our guests and their gardens and you can see the beautiful images captured by India Hobson on my website and instagram account @⁠⁠alicevincentwrites⁠⁠. Use code WWGAUTUMN at ⁠⁠Crocus.co.uk⁠⁠'s checkout to save 20% on full priced plants. It is valid when you spend a minimum of £50 on full priced plants and / or bulbs. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other codes or offers.

What happens when the entire software industry gets repriced on the cost basis of AI? When AI procurement agents are pitting your product against five competitors in real-time speed trials? And when every project management tool builds the exact same agent platform? Welcome to Unsolicited Feedback, where we dig into the messy realities of building in the age of AI. Brian Balfour (Founder and CEO of Reforge) and Aaron White (Founder of Appy.ai, Former CTO at Vendr) are in the thick of building AI tools and their companies for the AI era. In this episode, they pull back the curtain on a massive shift happening right now: The entire industry is scrambling to shift from "all you can eat subscription" pricing to credit-based models that few consumers understand and the secondary effects. Brian and Aaron also tackle the launch of Notion's Agent platform and how it feels like every project management tool from Jira to Glean to Notion to Monday has the exact same strategy.

Glean from this life-changing message from Dr. Harold B. Sightler, "Can God."

On today's episode, cohosts Yasmin Gagne and Josh Christensen are at Fast Company's 2025 Innovation Festival to discuss the latest business news and the event's festivities. Topics include the TikTok deal “framework” with new investors, California lawmakers passing an AI safety bill, Apollo Global Management considering the sale of AOL, and the top takeaways from the Emmys.   Next, senior editor Max Ufberg talks with Glean's founder and CEO, Arvind Jain, about the future of agentic AI. They discuss his thoughts on improving workplace knowledge for enterprise clients and staying ahead of major competitors as this market continues to evolve competitively. For more of the latest business and innovation news, go to https://www.fastcompany.com/newsTo follow the latest on Innovation Festival:https://events.fastcompany.com/innovationfestival25

New music is coming fast and furious - is it too fast? We know it's not too furious. So Vin Diesel through the weekend with us and tracks by WEIGHT CLASS, GLEAN, NEGATIVE CHARGE, LURK, BRAINWASHED, SECRET WORLD, RETIREMENT and more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover how Glean AI is transforming enterprise productivity with AI-powered search and intelligent agents.About the episode:Join Nataraj as he explores the evolution of enterprise AI with Arvind Jain, CEO of Glean. From its roots as an AI-powered search solution, Glean has transformed into a comprehensive AI agent platform, helping companies like Zapier, Carta, and Grammarly boost productivity. Arvind shares his journey, the challenges of building a universal AI assistant, and his vision for the future of AI at work. Discover how Glean is helping enterprises leverage AI to streamline workflows and enhance employee efficiency. Learn how Glean ensures AI delivers value safely and securely.What you'll learnUnderstand the evolution of Glean from an AI-powered search tool to a comprehensive AI agent platform.Discover how Glean helps enterprises address productivity challenges by providing quick access to internal knowledge.Learn about the techniques Glean employs to reduce hallucinations and ensure accurate, reliable AI-driven insights.Explore the diverse use cases of AI agents in sales, customer service, engineering, and legal departments.Gain insights into Arvind Jain's vision for the future of work, where AI proactively assists employees in their daily tasks.About the Guest and Host:Arvind Jain: CEO of Glean, work AI platform, and co-founder of Rubrik.Connect with Guest:→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jain-arvind→ Website: glean.comNataraj: Host of the Startup Project podcast, Senior PM at Azure & Investor.→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natarajsindam/→ Substack: ⁠https://startupproject.substack.com/⁠In this episode, we cover(00:01) Introduction to Arvind Jain and Glean AI(01:13) What Glean does: AI-powered search and conversational AI assistant(03:43) The origin story of Glean: Solving productivity challenges in fast-growing companies(06:46) The evolution from search to an AI assistant(09:45) The advantages of tackling hard problems in startups(12:37) Techniques to reduce AI hallucinations and ensure accuracy(17:31) Model Hub: The different models Glean uses(20:16) Use cases for AI agent platforms across various departments(24:42) Workflow agents and the importance of integrations(31:59) The future of work: Proactive AI companions(37:14) Glean's cross-platform vision(39:07) How AI is changing the business of fast-growing startups(43:39) How Glean is becoming more AI-first internally(47:04) Ideas Arvind would explore if starting over with AI(49:49) Key metrics Arvind watches at Glean AIDon't forget to subscribe and leave us a review/comment on YouTube Apple Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.#GleanAI #EnterpriseAI #AISearch #AIAgents #FutureofWork #Productivity #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #SaaS #Startups #BusinessInsights #Technology #AIPlatform #WorkflowAutomation #MachineLearning #DeepLearning #AIStrategy #DigitalTransformation #AIinBusiness #TechPodcast

Soham spent 6 months building AI that would auto-generate integrations between any software. He locked down Glean as an early customer because he had friends there. And it failed completely.So he pivoted. This time, he refused to work with friendly customers who knew him. Instead, he did 10-20 calls per day with strangers who would tell him his product sucked. He posted on Discord communities at 3am, wrote technical blogs that went viral on Reddit, and created fake landing pages to see what integrations people actually wanted. In one year, Composio grew to 100,000 developers and raised $30M from Lightspeed in just 3 weeks. His contrarian take: in AI, asking users what they want will just get you faster horses. Built it instead, and watch their eyes light up.Why You Should Listen:Why friendly customers will kill your startup.The 20  calls per day strategy that scaled Composio to 100,000 users.Why you can't validate AI products by asking.The exact Discord and SEO tactics that got their first thousand users without spending on adsKeywords (comma-separated):The PMF Show is a startup podcast. The Product Market Fit Show is a startup podcast. Startup Podcast, Composio, Soham Ganatra, AI agents, developer tools, pivot, Series A, Lightspeed, integrations, API, tool calling00:00:00 Intro00:06:44 Playing with GPT-2 before ChatGPT00:12:37 Leaving his job to start Composio00:21:16 Pivoting to integrations for AI agents00:28:42 Why friendly customers are dangerous00:31:01 Getting first users through viral content00:36:01 Taking 10-20 customer calls per day00:40:58 Scaling from 1,000 to 100,000 developers00:43:58 MCP and the explosion of growth00:48:59 Raising $30M from Lightspeed in 3 weeksSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Arvind Jain is the founder and CEO of Glean, the Work AI platform that connects to all your company's data so you can find, create, and automate anything. In this episode, Arvind shares his journey as a second-time founder and first-time CEO, reflecting on the challenges of moving from a deeply technical role into leading an organization.He talks about why selling is one of the most important skills for founders, the importance of hiring for desire and cultural fit, and how company culture and values shape everything from attracting talent to making tough decisions. Arvind also shares how persistence helps founders push through moments of market indifference, and why self-reflection is one of the most powerful tools for becoming an effective leader.Whether you're a first-time founder, a seasoned operator, or simply curious about the human side of leadership, this episode offers a grounded look at what it takes to grow both a company and yourself along the way.Where to find Naveen:GleanXLinkedInIn this episode, you'll learn:How a CEO needs to adapt The crucial skill for founders. The most important traits to look for when hiring. How company culture leads to attracting talent.Self-reflection is vital for effective leadership.Timestamps:(00:00) Introduction and Context Setting(01:32) Transitioning from Founder to CEO(05:47) Learning to Sell and Collaborate(10:08) Hiring for Growth and Culture(18:18) The Vision Behind Glean and AI Integration(25:19) The Importance of Company Culture(26:40) The Challenges of the Startup Journey(31:02) Building a Strong Company Culture(37:51) Navigating Early Struggles and Market Challenges(44:43) Self-Reflection and Leadership Growth(53:26) Lessons Learned and Advice for FoundersConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

In this episode of This New Way, Aydin sits down with Maddie Engelmeier, AI leader at Motive, to dive deep into how her team is transforming employee productivity with AI. Motive has set an ambitious company-wide goal: boost productivity by 50%. Maddie shares the three-tier strategy behind this initiative, showcases real AI agents in action—from self-assessment tools to executive account summaries—and explains how Motive fosters an AI-native culture across 100,000 customers and 1.3 million drivers.From using Glean to power performance reviews, to leveraging Notebook LM for instant enablement videos, Maddie gives a behind-the-scenes look at how AI is not just saving time but elevating effectiveness across the company.Timestamps0:00 – Setting the stage: Motive's ambitious 50% productivity goal1:04 – Maddie introduces Motive and her role leading AI initiatives3:12 – The three-tier AI adoption framework (democratization, automation, transformation)6:51 – Why Motive adopted Glean and how it evolved from search to an agentic platform8:08 – Demo: Self-assessment agent for performance reviews13:06 – How Glean pulls from Slack, Drive, Gmail & more to save recall time15:19 – Probing reflection questions vs. copy-paste AI output19:02 – Over 1,000 unique runs: thousands of hours saved in one cycle19:27 – Stakeholder feedback agent explained21:21 – Shifting from recall to reflection and effectiveness23:50 – Demo: Executive account summary agent for customer insights27:55 – Scaling AI internally: AI labs, Genius Bars & Slack communities31:00 – Why AI is enhancing—not killing—creativity32:07 – Notebook LM demo: from docs to enablement videos in seconds35:27 – How weekly “snippets” create accountability and unblock teams36:00 – Agents growing faster than employees—future of work projections38:05 – Scaling adoption with big, relevant use cases39:09 – Maddie's outlook: building comfort with experimentation and collaborationTools & Technologies MentionedGlean – AI-powered enterprise search and agentic workflow builder, securely connected to company data sources.Notebook LM – Google's AI notebook that now generates enablement videos instantly from documents.Salesforce, Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Confluence – Data sources integrated into Motive's AI agents for recall and analysis.Subscribe at⁠ thisnewway.com⁠ to get the step-by-step playbooks, tools, and workflows.

In this episode of Reboot IT, host Dave Coriale sits down with Rob Wenger, CEO and Chief Product Officer at Higher Logic, to discuss the evolving landscape of association technology, the impact of AI and automation, and strategies for enhancing member engagement.Summary:AI and Automation:Rob emphasizes the importance of AI and automation in the association world, highlighting how these technologies can streamline tasks and improve efficiency. He discusses the use of various AI tools, including ChatGPT, Cursor, and Glean, to enhance productivity and decision-making. Rob shares insights on the balance between using AI for personal and professional tasks, and the importance of data security and compliance.Member Engagement:The conversation delves into the significance of member engagement in associations and how technology can facilitate this. Rob explains the concept of member journeys and how predictive analytics can help identify and support members at different stages of their engagement. He highlights the role of community platforms and marketing tools in fostering meaningful interactions and delivering personalized content.Ethical Considerations and Future Outlook:Rob and Dave discuss the ethical implications of AI, including concerns about data privacy and the potential for job displacement. They explore the role of associations in creating valuable, forward-thinking content and the importance of maintaining high standards in content creation. Rob shares his vision for the future, emphasizing the need for associations to adapt to technological advancements while safeguarding their core values. 

In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald sits down with Arvind Jain, CEO and founder of Glean. They discuss Glean's evolution from solving enterprise search to building agentic AI tools that understand internal knowledge and workflows. Arvind shares how his early use of transformer models in 2019 laid the foundation for Glean's success, well before the term "generative AI" was mainstream.They explore the technical and organizational challenges behind enterprise LLMs—including security, hallucination suppression—and when it makes sense to fine-tune models. Arvind also reflects on his previous startup Rubrik and explains how Glean's AI platform aims to reshape how teams operate, from personalized agents to ever-fresh internal documentation.Follow Arvind Jain: https://x.com/jainarvindFollow Weights & Biases: https://x.com/weights_biasesTimestamps: [00:01:00] What Glean is and how it works [00:02:39] Starting Glean before the LLM boom [00:04:10] Using transformers early in enterprise search [00:06:48] Semantic search vs. generative answers [00:08:13] When to fine-tune vs. use out-of-box models [00:12:38] The value of small, purpose-trained models [00:13:04] Enterprise security and embedding risks[00:16:31] Lessons from Rubrik and starting Glean [00:19:31] The contrarian bet on enterprise search [00:22:57] Culture and lessons learned from Google [00:25:13] Everyone will have their own AI-powered "team" [00:28:43] Using AI to keep documentation evergreen [00:31:22] AI-generated churn and risk analysis [00:33:55] Measuring model improvement with golden sets[00:36:05] Suppressing hallucinations with citations [00:39:22] Agents that can ping humans for help [00:40:41] AI as a force multiplier, not a replacement [00:42:26] The enduring value of hard work

Episode 729: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talks to Zapier founder Wade Foster ( https://x.com/wadefoster ) about how to build AI Agents. — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (5:57) DEMO: Instant Dossier (10:49) Model Context Protocol (19:30) DEMO: Read Strategy memos like a Harvard MBA (29:13) DEMO: Inbox Zero Agent (36:00) Getting your team to use AI (40:00) DEMO: Employee fraud detector — Links: • Zapier - zapier.com • Claude - Claude.ai • Glean - https://www.glean.com/ • Databricks - https://www.databricks.com/ • Superwhisper - https://superwhisper.com/ • Wisprflow - https://wisprflow.ai/ • N8n - https://n8n.io/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam's List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano