Dare to Disrupt

Andrew (00:01.451)
Hello and welcome to this episode of Dare to Disrupt. This is a podcast where we dive deep into the journeys of visionary founders, CEOs, and industry leaders. We explore the pivotal moments that led to their professional or personal disruption, those “aha moments that fueled their passion and how they are revolutionizing industries today. This show is not just about innovation. It’s about the human stories behind those daring enough to defy expectations. Join us as we uncover what it really takes to be a disrupter. Today, I have the wonderful

privilege of hanging out with an amazing human that I’ve worked with before alongside and I’ve been an absolute pleasure just watching her personal and professional journey as she looks to disrupt leadership. And this is Dr. Karin Moore and she is an expert on women and girls in STEM based on her 30 years and working in public and private sector as an engineer and businesswoman. Now she’s a scholar and fellow and it’s her mission to try to bring more women to STEM and make them stay in STEM. So welcome to the show.

So happy to have you here. Welcome.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (01:03.628)
Thank you so much, Andrew. It is great to be collaborating with you. We had a wonderful shared experience of working together and it just goes to show you if you keep your network warm, stay connected with awesome people, six years later, you could still find ways to work together. So it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Andrew (01:24.265)
Absolutely. Yeah, it really is. The importance of networking for me has just been through the ups and downs. You forget about you can go to your network. And that’s been something that’s been super helpful with, you know, the disruption in my life and just going through the different milestones. You know, at the end of the day, your network is always there and the true network shines through. So once again, I mean, we just kind of, I don’t even remember how we randomly linked up again. I know a few months ago we were trying to talk and then we reconnected again on LinkedIn.

in and then it was just like, hey, let’s just talk right now. And we jumped on a call and then the next thing you know, we’re you’re doing a podcast. So really. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (02:00.77)
just like the old days, let’s go for a walk instead, but we’re digitally going for a walk. So yeah, it’s awesome to be here. I’d love that you share my passion for great leadership. I think it’s an important conversation because as the next generation comes up into the workforce, it’s really critical that we as leaders, current and past, help guide them to what to expect and how to behave and what expectations they should have of cultures.

and companies and organizations that they start belonging in.

Andrew (02:35.765)
Mm

Yeah. And with the, I would say the, the rate at which information is exchanged and how quickly we can make impressions, especially on the younger generation. I feel there’s even more onus than there ever has been before. So to me, it’s really a call of arms of like, we really need to check ourselves because we’re moving so much faster with technology. It’s making it that much more important that we ethically use it. And we understand how to adapt, not just like our leadership styles, but really our overall social constructs and how do we apply things like.

AI to learning and what kind of implications that does it have. And then at the day, it all starts with leadership and the decisions and how you empower decisions, how you inform decisions and when to apply transparency and how to do that. So yeah, I’m excited to just dive into it with it. But first, I’d love to first hear you and your kind of personal “aha” moment of what, you know, what was that? How did you get there and how did it change your perspective or approach on life?

Dr. Karin K. Moore (03:21.622)
Let’s do it.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (03:34.25)
I think that’s such an existential question. For me, it began from a belief that I can do anything that was instilled in me by my family of origin. So I really felt unstoppable and I didn’t feel like I needed permission or was, you know, bound by barriers. And I did very well in my career. I’m very blessed.

Andrew (03:38.087)
You

Dr. Karin K. Moore (04:01.94)
Until I reached a point in senior leadership where it just felt hard. And my “aha moment came during COVID, like many people. We had this moment in time where we could pause and reflect on the lives we were living. And I realized that chase, the hustle, the always grasping for the next promotion, the next pay raise, leaving me depleted.

physically and mentally. And after 30 years, was unsustainable. I’ve been working since I was 18, like many people. I’m not a hero here, but after a certain point, if you don’t do it with some reflection, every day looks the same and you’re just putting in a lot of energy. And for me, my physical signs were everything in my body was telling me, if you keep doing this, you are going to be in a world of

hurt physically, like the ancestors who are the photos behind me were looking at me going, what are you doing? You’re on calls from 7 a to 11 at night. To what end? And so my “aha moment was watching zoom after zoom of the, really the essence of myself leaving my body for chasing.

the next promotion, the next, and I loved my team and I loved the work I was doing. So it was really hard to have that conversation with myself because when you’re on the treadmill, it’s really hard to say how fast you’re going. but I, I decided to give myself that grace and say, maybe it’s not enough to just do the same thing year over year over year. As you know, you now know you’re not happy.

And that was really the moment for me. Sometime in March of 2021, I said, huh, this is just not fun anymore. So it was gradual, but then immediate. it’s like a buildup and then a cliff.

Andrew (05:59.381)
Yeah.

Andrew (06:08.671)
Yeah, it’s just not worth the squeeze after a while, right? It’s, you know, the zoom fatigue as it’s been come to known is so real. It really is. And just the business that we get caught up. And that’s to me is something that it just, you don’t, like you said, you’re on the treadmill. You don’t even know until you kind of lose your balance and fall off. You crash, right? I mean, there’s only so much you can give. There’s only so much you can empty of yourself and give to your team, no matter how much you love them, even your family, right? And at a certain point, that emotional capacity, that

Dr. Karin K. Moore (06:10.753)
Mm -mm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (06:14.336)
Yeah.

Andrew (06:38.557)
ability to give yourself when it gets pushed into work, then how does that affect your personal life? And that to me is the scary part that we’ve arrived as we’ve stopped, as you said, reflecting on that. We’ve stopped analyzing this personal impact that extends beyond me and me being tired and burned out. I’m no longer present. I’m no longer there for my own family. And that’s to me, you know, having two kids now, it’s, it’s really changed my perspective of doing everything in my life to prioritize that family time.

What, do I make myself more efficient and work more practical? and to me, that’s an opportunity that we have with AI and automation, right? Is to get rid of the busy work, really concentrate on our creativity, really align with these opportunities to bring true value to our communities. And not just as you said, in the chase, right? Not just to get the next promotion, that next really fiat kind of temporal thing, you know, this lasting generational, said the legacy, like, you know, your, family, the family photos behind you, you’re surrounded to this as someone.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (07:24.034)
Mm

Dr. Karin K. Moore (07:36.706)
Yeah.

Andrew (07:38.349)
like you’re in the matrix of like you’re just watching life kind of happen behind you and you’re stuck in this virtual call and yeah I know that was a really great way for you to break that down and yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (07:47.158)
Yeah. I love the Matrix. I’ve truly, it’s one of my favorite movies. And I’ll tell you, I always say it’s like the last scene where all the zeros and ones, the Matrix 1 all just kind of come together and he really sees beyond it. we all have our timeline. We all get to a point that that revelation happens. Then you have to make a decision. Do you have the courage? Have you done all the work?

Andrew (08:02.923)
Hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (08:16.5)
underneath it financially to support yourself and family to take a risk. I mean, if not now, I don’t know when. for me, I think I set a good example for my children for pausing a very lucrative, decent career, honorable work, but just pausing and saying, I need to go study leadership. I need to understand is what I’m seeing normal in the high tech, especially, or did I just, you know, witness

this line at the senior director level and above, why am I seeing so many bad leaders? And I needed to pause and I always fall back on education. So I needed to go back in and really pour through thousands of articles and books to be able to understand why it’s so difficult for women in STEM and it’s systemic. I didn’t have a full appreciation of the things that are systemic around us.

that are out of my control. I could work as hard as I want. There’s some things that are just barriers that began long ago in kindergarten is my PhD actually begins with a girl in kindergarten and works its way up to senior leadership. So to add that kind of value to what everyone else around you is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. And now you’re like,

I’m going to pause and study and then I’m going to go evangelize so other people can live better lives because it’s really time for me to live in service to my community versus, you know, just hoarding money. Money’s good, but after a certain point, it’s not going to be fulfilling by itself.

Andrew (10:02.518)
Thanks.

Yeah, and you know, it’s such a startling, you know, just fact, right, of just the amount of depression of amongst rich people, you know, it just it’s to a certain extent, yes, you need money to fulfill your basic needs, right? You food, shelter, and all these things, but they can’t replace the connectivity and the fellowship that you get with your community. And that ability to give back outside of yourself, if you don’t find a way to connect, it really is not just demoralizing, but it kind of tears down just your human foundation.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (10:23.042)
That’s right.

Andrew (10:32.929)
because as humans, we’re built to connect, we’re built to interact. And I think that was really a huge wake up call for COVID, right? It really stood out like, wow, we really are in a cold and disconnected world. And I’m happy to see that like there’s ways we’ve reacted to that very positively, as well as negatively, right? There’s pros and cons to everything. So as you’re looking at, this really, you’re kind of like across all industries in terms of what you’re looking at, there’s so much impact to, you know, STEM and education and women’s right, and women’s leadership and, you know, some of the repression that’s

Dr. Karin K. Moore (10:33.399)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (10:46.316)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (11:02.685)
been there for years and sometimes even overcompensation, right? Like it goes in so many different directions. How do you narrow this down in your mind after all this reflection and time and studying and, you know, what does the doctor have to say of like, how do you look at the industry that you’re disrupting? Like, what is that disruption to you?

Dr. Karin K. Moore (11:19.298)
Well, I decided that I’m going to humans and organizations one at a time. There will come a point where I’ll write a book so I can scale, but I’m also still in data gathering stage just because the PhD has been printed. It doesn’t mean we’re done learning. And for me, the disruption happens one individual at a time, one client at a time. And it doesn’t have to be just women.

it would probably surprise many people to know I coach almost as many men as I coach women because there are a lot of, so, self -actualized men who want to know, just don’t know what to do or how to be better allies. I don’t even like that word. It’s just be better humans. because we all have sisters, daughters, mothers, and people want, hopefully want to do the right thing. So for me, it’s all about like.

customized individualized support so women don’t drop and leave STEM because then we’ve lost them forever. It’s also organizations, you know, for COVID and through COVID we saw the spike in DEIB. And then we saw like a lack of interest and like everything under the sun being blamed on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. And there’s like no balance. The pendulum went one way.

after COVID or between COVID and then it went swung the other way. And I want to see organizations continue to evolve and even organizations are living beings and for organizations to understand cultures. For me, it begins with belonging. I mean, if we don’t have that as a baseline, no one can grow, no one can reach enlightenment. So that’s what I look for is as a person feel a sense of belonging.

Andrew (13:18.827)
That’s an excellent way to put it, because if you don’t have a way to connect and feel a part of this equation, regardless of what the answer is, you’re not going to participate in it. And if you don’t participate, you can’t really have a feedback mechanism and externalize and get that feedback from others, because that’s really what you grow. Like you mentioned earlier before the call, this echo chamber. And I really appreciate the fact that you do coach men and women, right? It’s so important to recognize that there’s a lot of men like myself.

who are married to a very like my wife right now is the breadwinner and I am proud of that. I am not in any way ashamed or demasculated or anything like that. I am very proud of her journey and being a co -pilot with her, being a partner with her, it’s really taught me so much of just how much harder she needs to work to get a point across, right? And when she does or doesn’t do it a certain way, then there’s the other stereotypes we have to combat. And that’s not just with women, right? Like that happens everywhere.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (14:03.81)
Right.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (14:15.126)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (14:18.639)
If we’re more aware of it happening, then we can at least do something. But one of the things that really stood out to what you were saying is like your self -awareness journey, your time of reflection, actually pausing and looking internally and saying, what do I need to know? How do I need to grow? How do I even find fulfillment? Because if you can’t even figure out a direction to start doing that, then it’s going to be really aimless. And then how can you really have positive impact on other people’s or at least really meaningful deep connections? If you’re still struggling of like, well, what brings me joy and happiness? And a lot of times you find that through

Dr. Karin K. Moore (14:21.973)
Exactly.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (14:31.714)
Mm

Andrew (14:48.685)
other people, right? And helping other people and that validates some of these things of, wow, I can actually external, like externalize value and provide value to others and elevate others. And to me, that’s what I, for me, that’s what shines through, right? Just as a comparison, like I am good about seeing the potential in others to a fault sometimes, my wife says, but I see that potential and I gravitate to that and it gets me excited. And it’s almost kind of like, how do I help that person achieve their potential? And early,

Dr. Karin K. Moore (14:49.951)
Absolutely.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (15:07.176)
Exactly.

Andrew (15:18.301)
early on in my younger days, I would get frustrated sometimes. I’m like, you have so much potential. Like, you could do this, you could do that. But if they don’t recognize that, if they don’t appreciate their own value, that motivation, that self -actuation, it’s not gonna go anywhere. So I’ve learned that you need patience and grace for that, yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (15:22.817)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (15:30.302)
No, it’s funny you should say that. Absolutely. And my business tagline, I really thought hard about it. I didn’t want it to be something kitschy, but it literally under my logo says reaching your full potential. So once again, we’re on the same wavelength because potential left on the table, potential unrealized is value unrealized for everyone in the community and not just in tech, but truly like on the planet.

If you see someone has potential, you want to see them come to their maximum, you know, best selves. And for me, it was, you know, I mean, I could be moving widgets and building widgets and, know, pushing digital stuff here and there. And at some point, like I’ve seen it, I’ve done it. And that didn’t, that wasn’t helping people reach self -actualization, but

pausing to and I felt like I needed to have the education that comes with it. I know a lot of people work the 30 years and then stop and turn around and coach. That would be limiting whatever, whoever I’m coaching to my own lived experience. And I am not a black woman. I am not a Latina. am, you know, I’m there’s a lot of things I’m not that the research shows is even worse than it is for a white woman. So I needed to go explore

What do the scholars say? What’s been the challenge? And we’ve been wringing our hands about women and girls in STEM since the 1970s. So it’s for me, and I know I’m specifically speaking about my world and my frame, but it’s some of these problems, if you do nothing about them, do not change on their own with 130 years before there’s gender pay equity and 300 years before there’s gender equity period.

There’s no time to mess around. We have to use our privilege. I know I can make a difference with one life at a time. So for me, that “aha moment was just such a, it’s been hard work, by the way, let me just say opening up a book later in life and like having to absorb it with all the distractions in the world, but so worth it. So rewarding. Like I own the data. I know what I’m talking about.

Andrew (17:57.195)
I really appreciate what you said there about just that realization of like, yeah, I can go pivot to coach, but it’s really limited to my perspective. And I think that is something that we really lack because we’re so busy again, right? We don’t have time to really catch our breath and say, okay, I’ve been doing this thing for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. I know when I live and breathe this, this is my reality. This is my perspective. And there is so much beauty in that. And when you can find ways to, as I like to call it, like empathetic translation,

to translate that empathy to say, can actually apply, you know, like using analogies even to say, well, this is something similar that someone else is doing. Yes, it’s their perspective. I can never really relate to that, but I will try to understand it and see if I can adapt my learnings and share my experience in a way that will resonate with them in hopes that it will help them reflect on their own way. And that’s to me is kind of my little “aha” moment of like, okay, this is how I can impact is like, yeah, I can only own myself, only own my story.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (18:40.023)
You

Dr. Karin K. Moore (18:57.324)
Mm

Andrew (18:57.337)
And be proud of that. proud of the failures I’ve made and say, well, am I learning from that? And can I share my learnings? Because if I can help other people not make the same mistakes, especially now as a father, like if could help my kids not trip and fall and make these mistakes, that’s great. But at end of the day, they are going to be in a completely different world, especially with technology, like completely different from how I was raised. I’m not going to be able to relate. I’m not going to be able to force them into my perspective, nor do I want to even try to go down that road. So that’s going

Dr. Karin K. Moore (19:07.776)
Agree.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (19:17.718)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (19:26.863)
to be my own challenge in the coming years of being, you know, kind of taking the hands off the wheel, giving them that guidance. And as me and my wife say, like, all we can do is give a strong foundation, give our best advice, and then just let them go out in the world and, you know, send it like the little bird leaving, leaving the nest to like, let them learn to fly. Because otherwise you’re just forcing unintentional bias or perspectives. And that’s just added friction that just slows down growth. So yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (19:36.598)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (19:42.75)
Yes. Yes.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (19:50.602)
Yeah. I heard somewhere, Andrew, that where your parents got you to is your floor for where you take your children to, and that becomes their floor. And I heard that in the last couple of weeks, I wish I had taken note of the reference. I thought really resonates with me because as an immigrant and you know, my parents came to the U S for my dad’s job, but it was, you know, it was hard. It was, it was.

Andrew (20:00.755)
Hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (20:19.752)
not by design to stay here forever, we’re blessed that we could. For them, they were in survival mode, finding ways to get their parents here, know, selling things and establishing citizenship. I had the privilege of none of that. I had the privilege of, you know, getting into an education, working. These are all the things that I now know were not.

afforded to everybody in the world. You just kind of assume because your family of origin had one way, everybody had these things and that’s not the case. That’s why I’m such a strong proponent of education because hanging out in technology for the last 30 years as I have, I’ve been kind of hanging out with people that talk like me, look like me, you know, act like me. And I don’t think that builds empathy. I think that builds a sense of community, but you’re not really,

training yourself for the broader world. You’re kind of insulating yourself to the next widget we’re all building together. you know, it doesn’t feel valuable. But of course, you know, I put a roof over my head and I’m grateful for a lot of it. But you can have third acts, can have fifth acts, whatever. When you realize it, you need to do something about it.

Andrew (21:39.911)
It’s never too late. mean, that’s the one thing that I think trips people up a lot. And I know even in my own journey, I was just like, well, the conclusion I always come back to it’s like, it’s never too late to start again. It’s never too late to pivot something into something positive. Like it’s never too late to choose to make something better. Can you change it all? Can you have an impact? Like who really cares? Because at the end of the day, if you’re taking ownership and you’re internalizing that and saying, I want the world to be better, but if I’m not willing to take even a small

Dr. Karin K. Moore (21:56.031)
Absolutely.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (22:08.054)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (22:09.827)
a step with the knowledge, the gifts, the talents, the skills, the experience that I have to apply myself, then how am going to expect some of the most powerful people in the world or leaders that can really influence and drive change? Why would I expect that if I can’t even just choose to be nice to my neighbor, right? Or choose to not get frustrated with my wife or, you know, to get impatient with my kids or to, you know, and the list goes on. And once you start getting into that type of perspective, it really makes you pause and reflect before you really want to say anything to anyone else because then it’s like, well, I’m about

Dr. Karin K. Moore (22:23.998)
Mm -hmm. Absolutely.

Andrew (22:39.633)
to accuse you of this thing, but I can think of five times off the top of my head where I did something similar. So how about I just start first working on that on myself and then maybe instead of even talking to them about it, I’m just leading by example and they can start observing it. So that is a personal way that I started to adapt it because it just gets frustrating. You just get in an argument, you go back and forth. Well, you should be this way. You should be that way. And the other person’s like, well, you should be this way and you should be that way. And it doesn’t get anywhere. Right. So positive change really only comes through action. And I love that just the way that you walk

Dr. Karin K. Moore (22:44.502)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (23:03.585)
Now.

Andrew (23:09.469)
walked us through that journey. with all of that said, how do you kind of predict this going with not just what you’re focusing on, but like, what’s kind of the ripple effect and how do you feel, you you mentioned your book and like kind of scaling yourself. How do you see like the role with AI and machine learning automation? How does that fit in? If it does, like, how do we drive a more human centric future? Because that’s really what you’re getting at is how to be more human, right?

Dr. Karin K. Moore (23:23.042)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (23:33.334)
Yeah. There’s two ways that I look at AI. One is as a scholar. And I’ll talk about that in a second. And then I look at it in the workplace and I love the tools and productivity that it’s introduced. I used it in certain contexts of my PhD, like transcription, Otter AI that I was mentioning earlier. But I also think there’s room still for improvement.

I mean, we’re at the infancy of AI. I worry that it’s leaving women and people whose voices aren’t as loud behind. There’s a great book.

called Unmasking AI by Dr. Joy. And it’s fantastic. She’s an MIT scholar and practitioner. And she talks about how, as she was doing her thesis, she was realizing how much the data has bias from skin tone to what you feed. If you have bias in society and you feed it into your AI models, you’re going to get bias out on the other side. And so it has the risk of leaving behind a

of the voices that aren’t reflected in the data. So from a workplace perspective, I’m concerned about what’s fed. I’m also concerned about accuracy of what we get back. There’s a lot of misinformation that’s in the data that’s coming back. we bought our children encyclopedias when the internet still did exist and everybody thought we were crazy and that somebody had sold us a bill of goods.

But the first time I saw a report from one of my children that was literally gibberish, I was like, okay, where did you get that from? The internet. We’re getting an encyclopedia set. So that I’m concerned about, and we’re not close to truth on AI enough, but the tools and, you know, the productivity stuff, copilot, great. Knock yourselves out. Over here on the scholarly side, and as a professor now, I’m

Dr. Karin K. Moore (25:42.034)
wanting to make sure learning still takes place and people aren’t using AI to build their reports, build their PhD thesis. I personally chose to deliberately not use any AI because you know a year after you’ve written your thesis and you’re reading it you don’t know where that source may have come out of you. Are these your words or was this AI? I don’t ever want to stand and be accused of plagiarism and you know what

the spring, the plagiarism, Harvard, all the stories that were going on. like, you know what? I don’t want to deal anything with it. So from a teacher’s perspective, are we teaching our young or even our my age people what they need to learn or are we just making them go through an exercise of regurgitating what AI spits out? So I think those things need to be solved. There’s a lot of people making noise about it.

And I kind of want to sit it out and watch it instead of like, get in there. Cause I’m a not as informed as other people who are in the conversation and B I think there’s a lot of dust to be settled. and as usual, the bigger companies are, you know, still in that moment where they’re jockeying ownership and who’s going to get this piece of it who’s going to get that piece of it. So I’m, watching with curiosity.

And I’m hoping that, you know, it lands in a place where there are still viable jobs. I’m concerned about all the people that we pushed into computer science, myself being one of them that was like encouraging, go get computer science. You’ll never be hungry for a day. I’m concerned about all the tech layoffs and that what it does to the economy, these are some of the highest paying jobs. It means those highest paying jobs, people who are jobless right now aren’t spending.

So they’re, they’re, it’s kind of, they’re all so interrelated when you, know, these are not simple answers. You literally need a think tank, to analyze all these corners.

Andrew (27:48.907)
Yeah, there’s no solving it overnight. mean, we didn’t get here overnight, right? But we are moving forward and really like our evolution, like socially technology, like everything’s just by an order of magnitude. Yet we’ve done nothing to speed up our education and we’ve done nothing to speed up. just the analysis of like our post post -mortem of like, cool, like we’ve launched this product. Is it bringing good into the world? Right? I mean, if we think of like the early days of the industrial revolution, you know, there’s all of the toxins that spiked, right?

the dyes in the river, the coals getting burned, the lung issues, just the absolute annihilation of the public health. And it took years and years and years for environmentally, environmentally to recover to some point of stability, which we still haven’t fully. So to acknowledge that and really just that cycle of this old antiquated profit based system that does not allow for reflection because of the spirit of competition and the free market and all of these moving pieces of capitalism, which theoretically is a very sound system.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (28:19.906)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (28:32.364)
Mm

Andrew (28:48.717)
But you touched on something really important about the high income, the high talent, like the top, you know, 1 % even now is getting laid off. You think of the top talent at these mega tech companies. we have now with COVID really being that milestone of yes, mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of good things that came from it. There’s a lot of bad things. basically gave this okay of, well, we’re now supercharging tech industries because people are stuck at home using tech. Profits started to soar. And now all of a sudden we got a green light to say we can now do layoffs.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (28:56.296)
Yep.

Andrew (29:18.619)
even though we’re profitable, we want to be more profitable. And that is a line that seriously has me concerned and has now opened up a brief window, as you very well called out, that we now have these layoffs that are happening and those severance packages are going to lay off. There’s not enough jobs for those people to fill. The corporations, the companies, the business that had that, that was able to use that talent, right? To tap into that talent is now going stagnant. So those people are still hungry to work. I mean, I was laid off.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (29:20.044)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (29:48.503)
co -founder was laid off, our entire core team was laid off. And now we’re creating something special. It’s something with a smaller team. It’s more agile. We’re able to capitalize with AI in the right framework to truly be disruptive on a more community -based initiative, right? It’s more mission -based. It’s not just for profit. And I think that’s the big shift that needs to happen, but it’s such a massive paradigm shift because we’re so conditioned to think this way where we don’t have time to breathe. We need to be profitable. our business will die and we’ll be unemployed.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (29:51.65)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (30:03.65)
Mm -hmm.

That’s right.

Andrew (30:18.425)
and we’ll starve and we won’t be able to pay our bills. I’m like, okay, we’ve gotten so far extreme into that now that the machine now, you know, mentioned the matrix and the framework and how we teach things. We’re teaching AI, we’re teaching our own sons and daughters that this is okay. It’s okay to dehumanize ourselves for money. Yet we prove that money does not in and of itself bring sustainable happiness. So that cycle is not sustainable and there’s going to be a big crash either way. And not like that’s my bold prediction and like not

Dr. Karin K. Moore (30:19.511)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (30:31.883)
Yep.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (30:40.738)
correct.

Andrew (30:48.309)
do conspiracy theory or anything, just general economics. Like you can’t lay off that many consumers and get rid of that much expendable income to take that fuel out of the economy. So there’s going be some kind of natural recession, just to course correct in a free market. And then that’s going to either introduce a lot of very powerful and manipulative policies to prop up, you know, further inflation, et cetera, or it is going to be, you know, like the great depression. And why wouldn’t it happen sooner? Because our development cycles are shorter.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (30:54.497)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (30:58.742)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (31:18.658)
Mm

Andrew (31:18.741)
right? Our iteration on our technology is faster, so those good and bad consequences come to life a little bit faster. Those black swans creep up and spread their wings at a faster rate than we can even think about or anticipate. And that’s what scares me with AI is that we’re not taking the time to even talk about that stuff. So I’m really glad we started to broach that topic today and hear your perspective on it.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (31:27.467)
Yep.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (31:38.05)
Yeah, I think we need to. We need to. It’s people like us who are going to be rattling cages. I very simply say everything you said so beautifully, I say the wheels are going to come off the bus. Like it literally is unsustainable. You have college educated young people coming out and their job hunt is taking 9 months, 10 months, sometimes longer. They’re going to they’re finding themselves having to compromise from

you know, if you could be an engineer, you’re finding yourself being a technician and nothing wrong with being a technician, but four years ago, that same degree would have bought you a whole different type of job. Meanwhile, real estate prices are not really changing. It’s still virtually impossible to live right out of college on your own. it’s unsustainable and I love the new generation that’s coming out. The Alphas and Gen Z.

Because they don’t want to do any part of what they saw their parents do. They don’t want the misery, the drudgery, the unhappy. And it’s leaving a lot of, you know, holes because companies expect the next generation to do the same thing. Come on in, get on the treadmill. Let’s go.

And the young people are like, no, thank you. I’ll be fine if I rent. I’m not going to live like you. I want to go on my hikes. I want to go on my vacations. I want to leave my laptop at home. And I could not be more proud. I hope that becomes the trend in work.

Andrew (33:15.755)
Absolutely. I preach. I’m very adamant on how do we use AI to get to a 20 hour work week? Why can’t that be a scenario, right? Like, why can’t we lead with that? Why is it, well, you know what, you know, in 40 hours, now we can do 80 hours of work or wow, which means in 60 hours, you can do 100 hours of work, right? And it’s just, there’s no fulfillment in that. The actual framework work itself is to always optimize, always maximize and always marginalize. It’s literally the equation. So that equation no longer applies, definitely doesn’t apply to the future generation.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (33:17.791)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (33:21.932)
There you go.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (33:34.294)
That’s right.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (33:42.198)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (33:45.849)
not going to apply to my sons. And it’s time that we all be really honest and admit that and start having constructive conversations and try to collaborate on a better solution and introduce and start testing and experimenting different frameworks. I’m not saying like I have it all figured out and we can go, let’s move off the monetary system and live in communes. It just doesn’t work point blank. There’s way too much microeconomics that we have to consider, but that’s the beauty of getting to be more community -based and connecting more intimately. Like you said, bringing it all home. It all starts with the

Dr. Karin K. Moore (33:51.254)
Mm

Dr. Karin K. Moore (34:04.577)
Right.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (34:11.168)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (34:15.651)
with that human connection, that one -to -one, can change this one person’s life. And if we start looking at every opportunity, every interaction in our life, is that, hey, what can I do to help this other person? And we start collectively thinking about that, I totally have hope for humanity. And I feel like we are getting that wake -up call and a lot of people are thinking like us and it’s not, I don’t think we’re an exception anymore. And the more people get kicked out of this system, the more people get laid off, I mean, you don’t have a choice.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (34:38.336)
Agree.

Andrew (34:45.575)
but to work for free, right? So what are we going to do in that new system? I’m really excited to see what we come up with. We’re very resilient. We’re very creative as humans. So I have a lot of hope for us. And I think technology will help us get there if we truly collaborate with it. And if we’re honest with ourselves and take the time, reflect, unplug, really figure out what makes us happy, what are we passionate about, and how do we bring that to other people? So yeah, good stuff. Any closing thoughts or anything you want to add?

Dr. Karin K. Moore (34:47.02)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (34:53.196)
Yeah.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (35:09.41)
brilliant.

Dr. Karin K. Moore (35:14.108)
I think we’ve covered, I think the beauty of this conversation, it’s the start of a conversation. Nobody has all the answers, but for the longest time, at least in my career, we rarely, we never talked about salary. We never talked about, whether we were happy or unhappy with our trusted colleagues or bosses. Mental health has taken front and center. about the good things from, ironically, the good things from

COVID is that that opened the conversation to, you know, mental health in the workplace. I love that we’re starting, you know, the journey of that. It’s okay to have these conversations. It’s okay to say the human experience should not be suffering and drudgery created in the workplace. There is so much beauty in the short, short lives that we have. We can’t do eight to, you know, 10 hours a day of things that really are

depleting us so much as a person and then as a community. So thank you for, you know, being daring and jumping in and creating this space and having the capacity to reflect together first by yourself, I’m sure, but then inviting other people to reflect with you.

Andrew (36:36.639)
Yeah, I’m really excited and I really appreciate your time, your perspective. And again, it’s been a real privilege having worked with you and seeing firsthand a lot of the struggles and toxicity that you had to deal with and how you chose to really embrace that and choose to improve yourself so that you can actually provide value beyond just your experience in ways that other people can really understand and basically actionable feedback, right? Like you’re turning your experience into constructive mechanisms.

that can pull other people and make them aware and really show a reward for that. And I think that that type of stuff is so fulfilling and there’s never gonna be a dollar amount that we can put on that, right? You can maybe generate money off of it and have consulting and then do coaching and stuff like that, but that’s not what brings you joy. It just pays the bills so you have a house, right?

Dr. Karin K. Moore (37:24.37)
No. Yeah. Yeah, it absolutely if I was doing things for the money, I’d be doing something very differently. But thank you, Andrew. Thank you so much.

Andrew (37:36.779)
Well, thank you, Dr. Karin and we appreciate your time. Thanks for being on the show. And thank you everyone for listening and joining us as we dare to disrupt toxic leadership in every industry because it’s top down and there’s a lot of really good ideas out there that are just getting stifled. So hopefully more of those will come through the show. Please share your ideas and like and follow our different pages, add comments, topics, guests. Like this is a collective communal conversation. It’s the first, second, third,

infinite of many. Like there’s no numbers, there’s no quantifying this, right? There’s no perfection and there’s never really going to be a finished product. Like we are humans and we’re always evolving, we’re always adapting and let’s just make that a more inclusive experience for everyone. So thanks for listening today and have a good one. Cheers.