The Secret To Loving Your Work with Bruce Daisley | E66

1. 0:00 – 1:52

   Intro

   1. SBSteven Bartlett0:00

      You were the VP of Twitter. Obviously, Donald Trump has just been booted off Twitter permanently. What do you think about that?

   2. BDBruce Daisley0:07

      There's a 70-year-long study out of, uh, Yale University looking at what these- the secret of longevity and happiness is. And the secret of longevity and happiness is...

   3. NANarrator0:20

      (Instrumental music)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:24

      Work, the thing we spend the majority of our lives doing. Today's guest is an expert on exactly that. How can you be an expert on work? Bruce Daisley spent the last five to 10 years studying what makes work joyous, what makes it miserable, how we get burnt out, and what matters the most when it comes to work. He's been named one of the most influential Londoners in the UK. He's been named as one of the most influential Britons in the United Kingdom. Bruce Daisley's book, The Joy of Work, became the best-selling business hardback book in 2019. He has his own podcast, so he's one hell of a talker as well. And as the world has transitioned over the last 10 months to this Zoom-centric remote working lifestyle, I think now is a great time to ask ourselves the question, what makes work enjoyable? How can we get the most out of work? How do we avoid burnout? And how do we maximize our motivation? Bruce has the answers. So without further ado, my name is Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. And I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

   5. NANarrator1:30

      (Instrumental music)

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:32

      Bruce, you, uh, you wrote a sm- I feel like that's an understatement. You wrote a smash hit book about work called The Joy of Work, and I've seen this book absolutely everywhere. It's been an absolute phenomenon. So you know, considering the fact that the world has fundamentally shifted over the last nine, 10 months because of this pandemic, and the way we work has

2. 1:52 – 12:11

   Your take on this new remote working culture?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:52

      changed so much, I wanted to get your view of this remote working, Zoom, um, sort of working culture that has now been forced upon us. Just before I let you answer, I'm gonna give a little sentence around- around my take on it. I hate it, um, and when- when- in March, when we were forced a- as a CEO of a business to tell my employees that we're gonna be working from home, and we have this amazing office which gives us all this community, um, I know that about 50% of my workforce liked the idea, but I 100% hate it for a number of reasons. What's your take?

   2. BDBruce Daisley2:26

      So I think at the outset, I shared some of your reservations. Brené Brown talks about this thing which is collective effervescence, and it's a- it's a good way, she's- she's coined a term for something you see quite a lot in social science, that even the introverts amongst us actually quite like being around people in- in some scenarios. And we get, uh, far more of our energy from the tribe we're in and the people we're surrounded with than we'd probably admit. And so when it first happened, look, the defining thing about work for me is laughing every day. I- y- if I laugh every day, and I, you know, in the organizations I've been in, they've been at times incredibly stressful. We've had, you know, at times when I was at Twitter, there was just, for good reason, there was like big headlines demanding stressful scenarios. But either the sort of the dark humor that you find in those moments or the moments of levity that you can just get if you're around people that you trust, soldiers talk about this or firefighters talk about this, you know, you can find humor, and I used to love that. And so the idea of shifting to a world where somehow we're plugging into the matrix and we were losing that camaraderie, that kinship that we get from being around other people, I wasn't necessarily the- the- the biggest advocate of it. I think what's clear though is that we've fundamentally moved into a- a different world, and some of those preconceptions that we might have had might have been partly ill judged. So- so- so working through those things, the- the number one thing we know, uh, 91% of people say they want to continue working in some capacity. When you look at the numbers of that, people say, broadly say they want to work at home three or four days a week. So there's f- some firms saying, "We're gonna let people work one day a week or two days a week at home." People, workers want to work more than that. So there's gonna be some degree of- of balance and we're gonna achieve an equilibrium. That's, so that's the- the demand side of it, and in fact, when you look at all age groups, uh, young or old, there is a slight difference. So younger workers have said that they were, they're happy at home, but they- they, it's close to how happy they were in the office, and we can partly understand that. A lot of young workers don't have home offices. They don't have nice desks. They're sitting on their bed or they're- they're sitting on their table that sits at the- the end of their bed. So they're working in slightly different scenarios. But even they report they're more productive and happier than- than they were in a big open plan office. So that's the first thing. Older workers are significantly happier. If you've got a bit of space, it seems to correlate with you feeling really happy. So broadly, all of the evidence suggests actually the- the experience of it has been at least on balance positive.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett5:15

      Mm-hmm.

   4. BDBruce Daisley5:16

      So then you look at the- the other side, and I guess it's firms, and it's really growing evidence that firms are recognizing that something has fundamentally changed. Bloomberg did something interesting, the business people, they did an analysis of all the earnings calls, so all these transcripts of like big bosses repor- reporting to shareholders what they think is gonna happen, and Bloomberg say that already about one in eight firms are talking about making their offices smaller. The FT did something where they said about half of British firms are already talking about their offices being smaller. So whether it's that demand side or whether it's that supply side, almost certainly we're going into something that's gonna look and feel a bit different to what we were used to before.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett5:59

      If you had to guess, um, I- I- I completely resonate with that. I think e- even for our organization, we realized how much money, I'll be honest, how much money we could save by not having an office, because it's not just the- the rent, it's the- the cleaning, the electricity, it's the food in the cupboards, the, you know, the maintenance of a, what was a 20,000 square foot office in Manchester, uh, and you- you strip back those costs and r- r- you know, it was that you were forced to realize that it is possible for there to be another way. And I think at first, we were, we- we were skeptical that r- our business could run in an, uh, c- completely remotely. Then we realized it could, and then we moved into phase three which was like...... "Okay, but what have we lost now?" And it was- it was- it was definitely a phase three thing because in phase two, we're like, "Oh, everything's fine." In phase three, we're like, "Now, we've got a problem because we've lost the, uh, uh, the sense of community that our company was giving to our employees." And for a company like ours, community was w- a huge part of our-

   6. BDBruce Daisley6:54

      Absolutely.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett6:54

      ... our value-add. You know, we are the steri- stereotypical, like, millennial office with, like, the slides, and the ball pit, and the and, um, and a real sense of strong community where pretty much everyone lives together. And so in phase three of this sort of, this sort of mental journey, what we saw... And I- I actually resigned just after in, in about S- September time. What we saw was a bit of an exodus of our employees because now, they're sat at home, they're looking at their to-do lists, and they're- they're- they're now thinking the remuneration or the value I'm getting from this job is this amount of money. And I'm doing these set of tasks. So now, I think I can get more money down the street at that place that has no working culture, whilst I'm still gonna be sat at home, and it will be a similar set of tasks. And it was l- yeah, it was, uh, astonishing. It was astonishing how many people, um... I'm being completely honest because I have no reason not to be honest, we almost never lost good people. The month just before and after I left, we- we lost our hu- the largest number of employees we've ever lost, uh, by a fold- factor of 10.

   8. BDBruce Daisley8:00

      Yeah. And it's fascinating. So, so let's look into that because you're exactly s- you're spot on. These are the big themes that are emerging now. Firstly, how can you make people feel like they're part of something when the old way they felt part of something was the energy they had when they're around people, right? You know, there's- there is some buzz, and- and it's not an exaggeration. I've chatted to some of the world's leading experts, and they say good workplaces do have a buzz to them. They have almost, like, this tangible energy. Um, and I think that's one of the challenges we've got now. If you've got a situation where people are on video calls back to back and, you know, it might be not with a big boss, it might be with clients they're dealing with, or it might be with customers they've got to keep happy. But if they're on back-to-back meetings with those people, then they can just feel, "Well, look, that's gonna be exactly the same wherever I go. We're not gonna have the same energy." And there's far more evidence that when people feel part of something bigger than themselves, it's transformational. So I've been... I- I'm sort of writing something about resilience at the moment, a book about resilience. And what you discover is that actually, w- what you hear about resilience is that people tell you all these myths about resilience, that it's this individual strength or it's this, it's this trait that we can de- develop. And what you discover about resilience is it's normally a collective thing. It's because you feel part of a resilient community, you feel like you've got the strength of others to draw upon, you feel like you can tap into something. One person in some of the research I was reading said, "You can't be resilient on your own."

   9. SBSteven Bartlett9:30

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BDBruce Daisley9:30

       And there's so much truth in that. Now, what does that mean for the way we're working right now? Well, if you've got someone in a bed sit or a studio flat or a flatshare, and they're sitting on their own all day, and they feel lonely, it's almost certain that those reserves of resilience have been tapped. And, you know, th- there's one thing that psychologists talk about all the time is this notion of- of affect. It's- it's sort of- it's a fancy way of saying mood. It's a psychologist's way of saying mood. And what you discover about affect is that the- the mood we're in is really influential on a lot of the things, on our experience of life, on the, uh, creativity, on our sense of collaboration. So scientists talk about positive affect and negative affect. And positive affect, best way I can sort of frame, uh, positive affect, it- it suggests that, like, the mood we're in transforms some of the decisions we make. And the best way I can frame that is that when you're a kid growing up, whether your main carer's a grandparent or a parent or a- a guardian, but you knew from the age of four or five, you knew that it was a good time to ask for something and a bad time to ask for something. You knew based on the mood that your carer was in that there was a good time to ask for something and a bad time. Affect, the mood we're in affects our decisions. Well, the situation we're all going through right now is not positive affect, it's a negative affect. Loads of people are feeling burnt out. Average person during lockdown has been working about an extra 45 minutes a day. That's on the back of the average working day has gone up by two hours in the last 10 years. So people are finding themselves in this lonely, unaffiliated, disconnected sense of exhaustive burnout.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett11:11

       Mm-hmm.

   12. BDBruce Daisley11:11

       So it's no wonder people are quitting their jobs 'cause they just don't feel like the good version of them that they used to feel like.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett11:16

       Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, the contrast as well. So this idea of contrast, where you can remember how your job used to be.

   14. BDBruce Daisley11:22

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett11:22

       And if your job used to be a 10, and now because it's- because a h- a central part of what made it a 10, say, the community or the culture in the office or, you know, that sense of camaraderie, or that sense that, you know, you were a group of people working together towards a goal, now you're kind of sat in your bed sit on your own on the end of your bed doing a to-do list. Um, if your company was a 10 because of that culture, and it's now dropped down to a six, something i- in my mind makes me think that those companies will actually hurt more-

   16. BDBruce Daisley11:48

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett11:48

       ... versus the companies that were, like, an eight before and are now a six. Um, and that's part of what I think with- with- with our company, Social Chain, because culture is such a big thing that people must be thinking, "Oh my God, what the hell is this?" Um, being sat alone. And we try... I think... No, I- I can't speak to the company now 'cause I'm no longer there, but I know there was a- ample efforts with all- as with all companies to do these, like, Zoom bingo things, and that lasted a month before everyone got k- sick,

3. 12:11 – 29:03

   What causes burn out?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett12:11

      sick to death of that. But you mentioned the word burnout there, uh, a very popular phrase, a topic of much mystique as well, I think. Um, I saw your TED Talk about the topic of burnout, and I saw your- your- your- your thoughts there. I guess my- my- my question is, what causes burnout in your view?

   2. BDBruce Daisley12:28

      Yeah, there was a really interesting... There was, um, a really interesting book that just came out last year, and it was based on a, a successful article that had sort of blown up on BuzzFeed by a woman called Anne Helen Peterson. And she talked about she... The premise of her article, really good article worth searching for, is that the millennials are the burnout generation.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett12:47

      Oh, I read this.

   4. BDBruce Daisley12:48

      You remember that one?

   5. SBSteven Bartlett12:48

      I think maybe you shared it, right?

   6. BDBruce Daisley12:50

      Right, it was all these matchy-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett12:51

      Yeah, yeah. Yes.

   8. BDBruce Daisley12:51

      ... it burns out matchies.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett12:52

      Yeah.

   10. BDBruce Daisley12:52

       And what she said is she said, um, she'd encountered it as a journalist. She's thinking, "Oh, I'm feeling something. I wonder if I could capture it." And she was thinking, "Is there such thing as errand paralysis?" So what she means by that is that she was getting to the end of, like, these productive working days, and then she would get back to her flat and she would, she would open a bill, or she had, she, she had something she needed to do, and she just done- didn't have the energy. This high-performing, really successful person, didn't have the energy to get those things done. And so she was thinking in her head, "Is this some sort of weird, um, sort of duality that you can be really accomplished at, at one set of things but you can't in others?" She started looking into it and she realized it's not that you're avoiding one thing, you're just exhausted. And th- her lesson was that anytime we teach- we treat our energy as infinite, that's when burnout comes. And we so often do it. We, we treat the idea that we can work all the time. And the best examples I can give you are the ones where we actually check in on ourselves. So I f- I used to find myself, day job working at Twitter, worked at Twitter for eight years. I used to, uh... When I was especially guilty of this, I used to have back-to-back meetings on Monday. What's the consequence of back-to-back meetings? Your inbox is, is exploding. It's, it's absolutely overloaded. And so I used to get home on a Monday night, get myself a cup of tea, deal with all my domestic responsibilities, and I would sit there and work and do emails for about four hours, and just try and catch up with what I was doing. And I, quite often I would check myself, and about nine o'clock, I'd be spending as much time changing the music as I would-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett14:31

       (laughs)

   12. BDBruce Daisley14:31

       ... doing emails. Or one long email that's like a two-pager. Who sends these emails? These criminals sending long emails.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett14:38

       (laughs)

   14. BDBruce Daisley14:38

       But I'd find myself reading this... You know that feeling where you read it, "Oh, I should read that again." And then read it again. And what you discover, there's, there's science for this, it's called ego depletion. And the people who look into this say that our brains are sort of far more finite, far more limited than we might imagine. Our brains are far closer, if you want a metaphor for it, our brains are far closer to the batteries on our phone than the infinite broadband that we, we normally deal with. So your brain's sort of got a certain amount of charge in it, and when you use it... And so the way you'll w- you'll witness this is maybe you walk into a situation and someone asks you a question at the end of a long day or whatever, and you're, "Hang on, can you just give... Just give me a minute. Just give me a minute." Or someone asks you something really complicated just as you're about to... "Oh, oh, okay. Hang on. Can they just give me..." And, but effectively, our brains are sort of far more finite. So once you recognize that, you start thinking, "Okay, I wonder if that should influence the way I think about doing my job." And, and of course burnout is one of the things where we don't treat our energy as finite. We... It, it is, it is, uh, finite, but we don't treat it like that. And the end result is then we just feel like we're running on empty, we're running on vapors. And so when you look into it, the World Health Organization, uh, recognized burnout as a real phenomenon, and they say that burnout is, is all about, um, when our energy feels spent, when we feel emotionally exhausted. They talk about this other thing called depersonalization where, when you're really burnt out, you don't necessarily construe other people as full and empathetic individuals. But sometimes you're a bit sort of dismissive of other people or you're a bit reductive of their motives, or you start seeing people around you as an annoyance. So in the old days, if you ever found that the person you sat next to, their chewing or their tapping was driving you crazy, that can be a little bit of an exam-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett16:34

       (laughs)

   16. BDBruce Daisley16:34

       ... example of depersonalization. So it's a real phenomenon. It's a... I, I think, to my mind, it makes you rethink the way you work. So if you knew, "Okay, the most i- can do every day is eight productive hours of work," and you can, you know, there are evidence to suggest you can do more than that. But if you started treating it like that, and said, "Maybe actually, if I'm honest, it's not eight really high intensity, productive hours, but maybe it's five or six really good hours, and then, you know, other stuff is dealing with email or d- dealing with, with phone calls." It... I suspect it would change the way you made decisions. And you see evidence of this. Barack Obama used to have someone who followed him round, who... Uh, Barack Obama never chose his lunch in eight years because this person just made all his decisions for him. And you see, Albert Einstein said something similar. Einstein used to wear that same outfit every day.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett17:28

       Mm-hmm.

   18. BDBruce Daisley17:28

       And, uh, it was because he knew when he got to his lab, when he got to the, the place he was making, uh, decisions, he knew that if he went there and he hadn't cluttered his brain with all these little micro-decisions, he was... He just felt a bit more imaginative, inventive, creative. So we see evidence of it in other people's behavior.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett17:48

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BDBruce Daisley17:48

       But normally when it comes to us, we don't treat our brains like that. We don't treat it like something we need to protect, our energy to protect. We t- we tend to treat our energy as infinite. But that's why burnout comes.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett18:00

       Does, d- does the type of work... You know, you talked there about eight hours or five hours or whatever it might be. Does the type of work you're doing and the amount of intrinsic motivation you have, or joy you get from it, impact your likelihood of being burnt out?

   22. BDBruce Daisley18:15

       Yeah.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett18:15

       'Cause I... 'Cause that's what I, that's what I suspected in my life, because the people that I've seen that get burnt out... And this is all anecdotal and there's no scientific evidence really to support these, these assertions, but people that I've seen get burnt out the most are typically-... typically, especially during the lockdown, working alone often-

   24. BDBruce Daisley18:33

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett18:34

       ... often freelance, um, often doing a repetitive task, usually doing things that aren't that enjoyable. And I had a friend actually come here and sit on the sofa, which I've talked about, I think, in the last few podcasts, and he basically told me that he was feeling a bit burnt out. Um, and, uh, lack... and he was struggling to get out of bed and go and do the, go and do his work in the morning. He's a, he's a freelance, freelancer, working on his own in his house. He used to work within teams during pre-pandemic and I, I was saying to him, like, "Think about the things that make your work enjoyable and what, what are the, you know, what are the things about work that are intrinsically motivating to you? All those things have gone right now. So now you're just left with waking up alone, sitting in front of a computer, and maybe because your intrinsic motivations or the intrinsic joy of your work has been stripped, maybe you're now, um, encountering burnout." I think that resonates with me as well to some degree. Like, if I've ever got close to feeling unmotivated or quote unquote "burnt, burnt out," it was when I was doing things alone, pre-Social Chain, on my own just for money.

   26. BDBruce Daisley19:32

       Well, there's a couple of things there. So two things. So, like, th- this, I think, is all related to resilience. So there's two things there. The first thing is that the evidence we have is that when we feel an absence of control, we de- we generally feel more burnt out. So let's think of examples and the, the research on this, some of the best research on this, is about nurses. So very timely for the moment we're in right now. When nurses choose to work extra hours or you might have known friends when you were doing jobs before, your career, where, you know, I used to work in fast food and some of those dudes used to work 14-hour shifts and you're like, "Wow, where do they get the energy?" But they were electing to do it. And the evidence we have is that when people choose to do those things, it often impacts them less. They, they feel like they've got control over it.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett20:17

       Mm-hmm.

   28. BDBruce Daisley20:17

       So, you know, I... These guys who used to work with Burger King at me... with me and they were doing 100-hour weeks, but because they were choosing to do it, because it was really important for them to afford a car, to do things, they were... What you discover is that when you're electing to do it does seem to give you some degree of protection.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett20:34

       Mm-hmm.

   30. BDBruce Daisley20:34

       So control is a really important part. The more control we feel over our lives... So why might you now be feeling burnt out? Because imagine if your company has you on 40 hours of Zoom calls a week, or your inbox is always full, or you've got a difficult person you have to deal with, a, a client relationship, who's phoning you all the time. You might be feeling the absence of control or your, your friend who's the, the freelancer might be feeling like, "I'm just... I'm not in control of things." But there's a couple of other really important parts and they're about our identity and about the, the s- our sense of community. And you get really good evidence of how when we feel part of something bigger than us, and feeling that connection, being around people is a really important part of that, it tends to enrich us. It tends to, to protect us. And you see really good ex- evidence of this. You see when people go to a hospital, if they have like a heart operation or they have something serious. When they come out of hospital, the people who reported that they were part of groups before, their chance of survival, their chance of avoiding depression is massively higher than those who live in isolation. And look, that's the experiment we're going through right now. The... You might have wonderful friends that are at the end of a Zoom line or a messenger link or a WhatsApp, but if you're not around them-
4. 29:03 – 42:43

   What kills and causes creativity

   1. SBSteven Bartlett29:03

      Creativity, something you've talked about at length. And, um, for me, I've, I've always believed that I'm least creative in the office. I've always thought I was... I'm more creative in the gym and in the shower than I am when I'm, when I'm sat in a boardroom with a bunch of people. And I know this is something you've spoken about, so I wanted to get your take on where we're most creative, what kills and causes creativity?

   2. BDBruce Daisley29:23

      Yeah. I mean, look. F- firstly, I would... All I ever feel in all of these situations is that I feel like I'm a, a vessel that's passing on other people's knowledge.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett29:31

      Mm-hmm.

   4. BDBruce Daisley29:31

      So, I found myself being consumed with all these things and interested in their learning. So, look. Let me tell you, um, what I've, I've discovered that neuroscience is really intriguing. The, the most compelling thing about neuroscience is when you look into it. Uh, neuroscientists used to work on experimenting on animals. You know, "I'm not, I'm not keen on that." I was like... I was, you know, in, in a protest group by animal experimentation when I was younger. Um, and they used to look at brain injuries. So, that used to be the main way that neuroscience worked. And it's only tw- the last 20 years that brain scans have had any degree of sophistication. But what they've discovered in, like, the time that they've had brain scanners is some of the things that they presumed about the way our brain works aren't necessarily right. So, let me give you one example. When they used to put people in these brand new brain scanners and they would watch what their, their brains do. They give them a puzzle. They give them a Rubik's Cube. Their brains would light up in these sort of different places. And then they'd notice what happened when people stopped playing on the puzzle, and their brains would light up in sort of-... loads of places as well. And so, it was- it was baffling. "What's going on right now?" they'd say to these people. They'd say, "Oh, right, sorry, I was a million miles away. I was daydreaming." Say, "Okay. Right, that's interesting." Your brain's lighting up when you're- when you're not thinking about something, when you're sort of switched off. And so, the way that neuroscientists categorize this, broadly, they say, these three systems of cognition. First one is like when you're doing that Rubik's Cube or when you're typing an email.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett31:00

      Mm-hmm.

   6. BDBruce Daisley31:00

      It's called the executive attention network. So it's the main thing you're focusing on. And then you'll know, while your executive attention network is watching Netflix or while you're writing an email, you can also be aware of, like, the room you're in. That's called the salience network. And the third one, the third... So there's three of these systems. The third one is that one when you're daydreaming, the one where you're a million miles away, the one when you're in the shower-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett31:23

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BDBruce Daisley31:24

      ... which is called the default network. But what we discover is that people generally report having their best creative ideas not when they're frowning into their laptop screen, but when they're in these default mode, uh, situations. So, you might have it... In the old days, if you were on a train somewhere or on a plane somewhere, loads of people... I've got a friend who sh- who says she has all her best ideas staring out the windows of planes.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett31:49

      Yeah. (laughs)

   10. BDBruce Daisley31:49

       And so, you know, if- if that was you, then this year has been an un- uncreative year.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett31:54

       (laughs)

   12. BDBruce Daisley31:54

       But, um, my favorite example of it, there's a really famous screenwriter called Aaron Sorkin. It's... He's written The West Wing, he wrote... There was a, um, there was a film he had on Netflix just before Christmas called the Chicago 7. He's written all these big things. Very famous for zingy dialogues. He wrote The Social Network film.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett32:12

       Oh, yeah.

   14. BDBruce Daisley32:12

       Things like that, sort of, you know, um, really, sort of really... What's better than a- a million, a billion? Like, he's written all these zingy lines, and he's realized that, uh, he has all his best ideas, exactly like you in the shower. He said he had... He- he told Hollywood Reporter magazine, he had a shower installed in the corner of his office, and he has eight showers a day. And he was asked by them-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett32:33

       You're joking.

   16. BDBruce Daisley32:33

       ... he was asked by them, "Hang on, is this like some weird OCD thing?" He said, "Not at all. I find that when I..." You know. "So I'll be sitting here, thinking of something, trying to come up with an idea, but it's only when I disengage my brain that something comes to me, an idea comes to me." And so what you described is exactly what a lot of these people, whose job it is to be creative, have recognized. And as soon as you know that, you start thinking, "Wow, okay, I need to think differently about being creative." Because creativity can then be, "Right, I'm sitting at my desk, I'm sort of taking all this inspiration in, stimulation, ideas," but then, it's about disengaging. Going for a walk, going for a cycle ride, going to- to do a workout might be the moment where the idea hits you.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett33:22

       Mm-hmm.

   18. BDBruce Daisley33:23

       And I- I don't think necessarily we think about that enough. You know, if you go back to this idea that your brain is a bit like your phone battery, then some of those moments that effectively can recharge your battery can be the moments where creativity hits you and inspiration hits you.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett33:39

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BDBruce Daisley33:39

       So, I think, sort of rethinking the way that we treat a productive w- week of work, of... You know, these blocks of work, but then moments where... You know, it might be your personal routine is you go for a walk every lunchtime. That can be far more creative and productive than you might imagine.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett33:57

       Well, how do we make our work environments more conducive with creativity, then? Is there a way, or do we just resign to the fact that that's not going to be the best place for our creativity, and if we're gonna reach our creative potential, it's probably gonna be away from the office?

   22. BDBruce Daisley34:11

       Y- I think it's about recognizing there's a yin yang, there's a balance-

   23. SBSteven Bartlett34:15

       Mm-hmm. Sure.

   24. BDBruce Daisley34:15

       ... of work and- and imagination. So, I- I always loved the example of, um, Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens, obviously, um, like incredibly productive. I think he wrote 15 novels, 200 short stories. He edited a weekly magazine about a mile from here. You know, he's sort of incredibly productive, but he didn't work afternoons. And so, Charles Dickens would sit down at his desk at 8:00 in the morning, he'd write for about four or five hours, and then he'd go and walk, and he'd walk 10- 10 miles every afternoon. And that was like him lost in his thoughts, you know, striding through East London-

   25. SBSteven Bartlett34:52

       Mm-hmm.

   26. BDBruce Daisley34:52

       ... probably sort of imagination popping. When he sat down the next day, he had loads of ideas. And I think some of us have eliminated that... sort of the- the brain fermenting ideas. We've eliminated that a bit. So, you know, it might be that your way to do this yourself is to s- to make sure you just got some downtime, or you just got some time where, you know, you put music on but you turn podcasts off-

   27. SBSteven Bartlett35:16

       Mm-hmm.

   28. BDBruce Daisley35:16

       ... or you just... You try and get a bit more balance in how- in how you're, uh, using your energy.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett35:22

       So, let's conclude this point about work and creativity. Say that I, today, made you the CEO of a company that had 100 employees, um, and you could design from scratch the- the- the working environment, how often people worked, and some of the sort of key, sort of principles and foundations of that working environment. What kind of things would be important to you, based on all you know?

   30. BDBruce Daisley35:44

       So, let's look into what happened in lockdown. The first part of lockdown, most people reported that their engagement went up. And why did their engagement went up?
5. 42:43 – 45:53

   How do I know when to quit?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett42:43

      (page turns) I was thinking, what are some of the things people really want to know right now? And one of them, I'm sure, is like, "I hate my job, I don't have control, my boss is an asshole. Do I quit?"

   2. BDBruce Daisley42:54

      Yeah. Uh, look, you know, big questions. (laughs)

   3. SBSteven Bartlett42:58

      (laughs) Yeah. Yeah.

   4. BDBruce Daisley42:58

      You probably could tell us more than that.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett42:59

      Well, I've just

   6. NANarrator43:00

      (laughs)

   7. BDBruce Daisley43:01

      ... put my thoughts there.

   8. NANarrator43:02

      (laughs)

   9. BDBruce Daisley43:02

      Um, yeah, I, I think, you know, the, uh, the critical thing about that is, is probably checking in with yourself and asking, you know, "Do I feel any sense of reward by my, from my job?" Obviously, it's not a great time for anyone right now to be debating doing something that makes them economically precarious.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett43:19

       Mm-hmm.

   11. BDBruce Daisley43:20

       That, so you, you don't necessarily wanna risk something that is going to put you in a difficult situation. But I think, you know, evaluating our jobs, generally when you look into the research, when you say to people, "Have you had a good day's, uh, a good day at work?" it generally comes down to whether people feel pride in their organization-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett43:37

       Mm-hmm.

   13. BDBruce Daisley43:37

       ... and whether they feel like they've made meaningful progress in something they've been working on. So, meaningful progress actually can be difficult right now. If your job feels like you're the expert in emailing and, and video calls-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett43:51

       Mm.

   15. BDBruce Daisley43:51

       ... you sometimes feel like you've made no progress for weeks. You haven't done anything for weeks.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett43:55

       And also, if your organization is struggling-

   17. BDBruce Daisley43:56

       Mm.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett43:57

       This is a really interesting phenomenon, because some organizations, pre-COVID, were in, uh, were, were growing, so, uh, uh, naturally, when you're an employee in those organizations, you're dragged up with it-

   19. BDBruce Daisley44:06

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett44:06

       ... you're given promotions and pay rises, and there's the cash to fund that. Now, organizations are in decline, or a lot of them are hanging on, and so you're not getting a promotion, your pay's been frozen, you might have, be on a pay cut-

   21. BDBruce Daisley44:18

       Mm.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett44:18

       You might be furloughed. And it feels like suddenly you've gone into decline-

   23. BDBruce Daisley44:21

       Mm.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett44:21

       ... in your career because the organization you're in is in decline. Um, and I think that also causes a lot of people to start to think, "Well, you know, I, my, my whole life up until this point has been about progress and climbing the ladder. Why am I going down the ladder?"

   25. BDBruce Daisley44:37

       Yeah.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett44:37

       "I didn't do anything different or wrong," you know what I mean?

   27. BDBruce Daisley44:40

       There's a really interesting philosophical thing about that, because the whole idea of the career, a career, is the invention of the last 40 years. You know, our ancestors, our grandparents, our great-grandparents never had the idea of a career where I was going to be accomplishing shing- something and, and developing and changing. You know, the job you were going to be doing next year was the job you were doing last year. Well done. And the job that your kids were gonna do was gonna be the job that you did. And the, the, this idea, and it brings with it a degree of insecurity, this idea that we will be on this developmental path is a construct. Look, and it's a construct that suits the economic system we live in-

   28. SBSteven Bartlett45:20

       Mm.

   29. BDBruce Daisley45:20

       ... because it makes us always strive to be accomplishing more than we did last year and to be earning more than we did last year. But it's a construct of the last few years. Whether it's the origin of happiness-

   30. SBSteven Bartlett45:32

       (laughs)
6. 45:53 – 52:54

   Childhood trauma in the elite

   1. BDBruce Daisley45:53

   2. SBSteven Bartlett45:53

      It's interesting, 'cause, you know, with, uh, there's this thing called, like, gold medal depression, where, like, Michael Phelps, he set these, set these tar- it's one, one thing I kind of investigated in my book is the idea that we think stability, we think chaot- we think we live in chaos and, and in search of stability. But the moment we find stability, i.e. completed goals and, um, you know, a roof over our heads and everything's normal, we actually descend into chaos.

   3. BDBruce Daisley46:18

      Mm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett46:18

      So, in fact, we're meant to keep, uh, th- this is a philosophical idea, I guess, but we're meant to keep our lives in forward motion, in that chaos, because when you look at people that have achieved all their goals and they have nothing left to accomplish, they so often fall into some kind of depression-

   5. BDBruce Daisley46:31

      Mm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett46:31

      ... and lack of purpose and meaning. I think Jordan Peterson talks about it and Ben Shapiro said a lot about it, that, well, you know, m- much of, um... I was looking at the stats around life expectancy in the UK and the US, and over the last two years, it's declined for the first time ever. B- and they say, and they say, "Why is that?" They say, "'Cause the opioid crisis." And say, "Why is there an opio- opioid crisis?" And they say, "Well, because there's a lack of meaning." And, uh, so I, I began to realize that in my own life, I think I'm meant to keep myself, um, my goals way out in front of me, almost unattainable, um, and keep myself striving. And I've even seen it in my person, which I've talked about a little bit on this podcast, the days where someone came along and said, "Here's $50 million, we'll buy your company," or, "We're gonna go to the stock market and you're gonna be a millionaire," were the most confusing days of my life. Because, um, I immediately didn't know what my point was anymore.

   7. BDBruce Daisley47:18

      I wonder wha- th- there's something really fascinating. So, there's a, there's a study of, um, Olympic medalists, a British study, really fascinating piece of work. It's called the Great British Medalist Study, and, um, it was commissioned by the British Olympic Association. So they wanted to know what was the, what was the creation of a champion? And they did this fascinating thing. They did, they gathered 20 what they called super elite athletes. So these are athletes, you'll know them, all of them are household names. They don't name them in the study, but it's people like Kelly Holmes, it's people like th- big, iconic names. And, uh, these were people that every time they went to a championship, they would win gold or they would win... Th- they would b- be right in contention. Then they took a second group and they called these elite athletes. Super elite, elite. And these were people who went to championships but kind of didn't medal. Or if they medalled, they medalled third. Biggest difference between them, these ones had all received significant childhood trauma.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett48:14

      The elite ones?

   9. BDBruce Daisley48:15

      The super elite ones.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett48:16

       Super elite ones.

   11. BDBruce Daisley48:16

       The best ones had achieved significant childhood trauma. Let's start counting the cases. So Kelly Holmes, um, she was bullied at school. She was the only child of, of mixed race, ethnicity in her village. She said she experienced c- continual racism. Tom Daley, his father died when he was-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett48:35

       From baton

   13. NANarrator48:36

       Yeah.

   14. BDBruce Daisley48:36

       ... training. Yeah, um, you know, you, you look at countless examples of these things. The, Andy Murray was, you know, greatest British tennis player, maybe grea- greatest British sports person. He was at the Dunblane shooting, the only mass shooting in British history. So all of these people have experienced significant childhood trauma. And what happens is they tend to direct their energy, based on what we know, they direct... Like, they're fortunate th- it was a coincidence that they were gifted supreme talent. And what you discover is childhood trauma normally correlates with addiction. So if know, if it correlates with anything, it correlates with obsessive behavior. But both of them have something in common. You're trying to fill that void.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett49:14

       Mm.

   16. BDBruce Daisley49:15

       And so these people are fortunate that they've been gifted with this super elite talent that they can fill the void with striving for something. And the people who end up a- addicts with the same challenge don't, but they're still striving to fill that void. And so there is something in, you know, it's, it's almost inevitable that these people who are striving for the elite, uh, accomplishment, hoping to fill this, this hole that sits inside them. Of course, when they get there, they realize it was all an illusion, it's like a mirage in the desert. But, you know, there is something in what you say there.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett49:44

       I mean, I've got, I just, I mean completely. Like, I think w- I, when I, I sit here and speak to people that are tremendously successful, and the one thing that I've seen common with all of them, actually think I said it to Joe Wicks when he was... sat here two weeks ago, was they all seem to have some real severe childhood trauma that no one else has experienced.

   18. BDBruce Daisley50:00

       Okay.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett50:01

       And even in my... I, I said to Joe, I said, "You know, my, I've got a friend who's a billionaire. He's not happy."... but he has had this deep obsession since he was a kid because of some things that happened with his father, and his father making him feel that he just wasn't enough or he wasn't adequate enough, which has made him obsessive about success to the point where it's unhealthy. Um, and he's, uh, got there now, he's a billionaire, but he's not happy at all. He's in t- you know, he's tremendously unfulfilled. The same with Eddie Hearn. Eddie, I went... and Eddie, Eddie Hearn was on this podcast a couple of weeks ago as well, and he, he is the most relentlessly obsessed person I've met. Um, just nonstop. Each, to the point where he'll say to his kids, like... he, he'll, he'll tell his wife and kids that they are second priority to his box... to, to being a boxing promoter. You ask him where that's come from, he said, "Oh, you know, my, my dad, my dad always made me feel like I wasn't enough."

   20. BDBruce Daisley50:49

       It's really interesting though, because it depends... I'm intrigued then how these people pay it forward, because Andre Agassi, supreme tennis player, great tennis player, married to the greatest, the... up there, equal greatest tennis players of all time. Uh, he's married to Steffi Graf. And, um, and he says that his dad bullied him constantly through... like-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett51:08

       Mm-hmm.

   22. BDBruce Daisley51:08

       ... his dad was never happy. He's... the only place his dad, who was a Persian, Iranian cab driver, could afford to own a tennis court was in Las Vegas, so they moved to Las Vegas and his dad bullied him into becoming a tennis player. And Andre Agassi, fantastic autobiography, wrote about how much he hates tennis. Hates it with every single bit, every fiber in his body. And he says, "I will never do to my kids what my dad did to me."

   23. SBSteven Bartlett51:33

       Mm-hmm.

   24. BDBruce Daisley51:33

       And so it's like this really interesting origin of success is the thing that propels you, this driving force that propels these people-

   25. SBSteven Bartlett51:41

       Mm-hmm.

   26. BDBruce Daisley51:41

       ... who just keep going relentlessly. Is it something missing rather than something extra? And I think that's the interesting conundrum, th-

   27. SBSteven Bartlett51:50

       And I don't think it's predictable.

   28. BDBruce Daisley51:51

       Mm-hmm.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett51:51

       And this is the thing, 'cause I think you think, okay, well if someone has trauma, they're gonna become successful or they're gonna become an addict. Or, if someone has a b- upbringing that lacked empathy from their parents, then they'll become an arsehole or a serial killer. But in the case of Joe Wicks, he was... he talked about how he had... you know, he looked at the, the doors in his house and they all had fist holes in them. His dad was an, an addict, his mum had th- these problems, and, and he is the single most empathetic person I've ever met. He... you know, when they announced the third lockdown, he does a livestream crying his eyes out, because... not because of him, he's fine. He's saying, "I can... I'm feeling the pain of people losing their jobs right now." And you think, well if your dad was... you know, you grew up in a home full of domestic abuse, wa- and violence, how can you become the most empathetic person that I've ever encountered? Genuinely, genuinely empathetic, this guy. Like, I've never seen. You know? Um, uh, you know, 'cause everyone says about, you know, pee with Joe, and they all, like, send him the memes every time there's a lockdown of him, like, putting his shoes back on or whatever. But the guy gets, um, really down, really, really, really down, because he knows that other people are hurting. Never seen anything

7. 52:54 – 1:01:34

   The Trump Twitter ban

   1. SBSteven Bartlett52:54

      like it. However, here's my question. So we talked about childhoods, um, making people very interesting. There's one guy in particular who is... notoriously had a very, um, hmm, interesting childhood which made him a certain way, Donald Trump and his father. Um, you know the story of Donald Trump-

   2. BDBruce Daisley53:11

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett53:11

      ... and his father being, you know. Um, you were the VP of EMEA of Twitter. Um, obv- obviously Donald Trump has just been booted off Twitter permanently. Wh- what do you think about that? But also, I wanted to ask you, were y- if you were Jack Dorsey in that, at that time, would you have made the same decision?

   4. BDBruce Daisley53:32

      Number one, it's so incredibly hard. And I think the... I mean, I always felt lucky. I worked four years at YouTube before, uh, Twitter.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett53:41

      Mm-hmm.

   6. BDBruce Daisley53:41

      And the time that I worked at YouTube, there was a lot of, um, mass shootings. There's always mass shootings in the US, but there's a, there's a lot of mass shootings, and the phenomenon at the time was that a lot of the mass shootings, th- it was being discovered that the people had YouTube channels. And so I remember sitting in a meeting with lawyers in the San Bruno headquarters of YouTube-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett54:04

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BDBruce Daisley54:04

      ... watching them debate what the, the right moral thing to do was in these... fascinating to watch things that were being invented, challenges that no one had conceived of-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett54:15

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BDBruce Daisley54:16

       ... five years before. Now you've got these things, and so you're watching all these things going on. And, um, and so, you know, when Twitter was invented... When Twitter was invented, it was a way... 15 years ago, it was a way to text all of your mates at once. And so there was a short code and it was a way... it was... it took, took like your MSN Messenger status and it sent it as text messages. That was the idea, before everyone had internet connections on their phone. So there... it, it feels like a different lifetime now, but it's just an illustration. To be 15 years on from that, debating whether you deplatform the most powerful, most well-known... is he the most famous person in the world? May be the most famous person in the world. To deplatform that person is such a, a journey to be on. And I know the people... I mean, I, I know Jack, I know, uh, the, the other person who made the decision, and I know that they don't make any of those decisions lightly. You know, it's like... it, it really, uh, weighs on them. But to my mind, it was a singular situation where firstly, I, I saw some people on social media saying, um, saying that this was an illustration that the employees of tech firms were woke. And it's just really interesting equivalence because six people died in that event, and if you watch back all the footage of what led to it, then it d- it doesn't take a huge leap of logic to say, "I can see why that created that." So six people died, and I think it was at the end of a long period where increasing numbers of the tweets by the president and the people associated were being labeled with, "This isn't true."

   11. SBSteven Bartlett55:56

       Mm-hmm.

   12. BDBruce Daisley55:56

       And you, you do reach a point where a lot of critics were saying, "Where does your responsibility kick in here? Do you have no responsibility for what your platform is being used for?" I think, knowing the people concerned, that-That was the last thing they wanted to be, to be in a position where they were making a decision. Angela Merkel has come out saying she's, she feels uncomfortable with it. And, and I can definitely imagine that everyone in Twitter felt uncomfortable with it.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett56:23

       Hmm.

   14. BDBruce Daisley56:24

       It was one of those difficult things. Everywhere you went for the whole Trump presidency, people would say, um, "What are you doing? Why are you not taking this down?" And of course, you know, the first thing you've gotta say is, "Irrespective of anyone's opinion," and that's the only way you can look at this, th- this is an elected leader of a country. And so, you know, irrespective of anything else, for a private company to be saying that we, we take an opinion which transcends, uh, the election result is a really uncomfortable one. So I know that it would've been a really careful decision, I think, a really deliberate decision. Jack's been on podcasts and, and in places, uh, on Joe Rogan, talking about he believes that bans shouldn't be forever, so who's to say that, you know, there wouldn't be a route back on these things? But I do know that the decision was probably made carefully, reluctantly. I, I think-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett57:19

       What was your view?

   16. BDBruce Daisley57:19

       I, I think it's the right decision. I think it's the right decision, and I think the timing of it was probably right. I, I would be... You know, it felt, it felt... At the moment it took place, it felt like the intensity of dialogue and the toxicity of dialogue was reaching such a stage that, you know, six people are already dead. It's just like, "This could get... This can escalate even further." And I have to say, since it's happened, it does feel, to me-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett57:48

       Yeah.

   18. BDBruce Daisley57:48

       ... like a bit of the stress in the room has gone. Someone said something, uh, about, uh, I think pre- uh, President-Elect Biden said, um, that, you know, a natural order of things, you don't think about your leaders every day. You kind of know they're there. You've got context that they have an awareness. But, you know, this sense of peril where you're thinking about your leader and what might happen every day j- just contributes to bad mental health.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett58:13

       Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

   20. BDBruce Daisley58:13

       It's not a healthy place for us to live in. So, you know, I would guess that there would always be a route back for people, even if they've had a permanent ban. Jack said that, but I, I do think it was the right decision.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett58:26

       I, I, um, I, I'm really not sure. I think I consider myself s- uh, someone that's on the left, I guess, to some degree, or maybe left of center, left. But, um, I, it does make me feel a little bit uncomfortable because you're right, it sets a bit of a precedence for the future, uh, in terms of how we deal with, um, uh, uh, opinions we don't like, things that might be considered to be inciting violence.

   22. BDBruce Daisley58:48

       What would you have done in this case?

   23. SBSteven Bartlett58:50

       I think, I think I would've, um, suspended his account, um, temporarily.

   24. BDBruce Daisley58:56

       Like the Facebook approach?

   25. SBSteven Bartlett58:57

       Yes.

   26. BDBruce Daisley58:58

       Right.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett58:58

       I think that was, I think that was probably a better approach, all things considered. Um, I think because Trump is a very unique, very powerful individual, I would've also had s- someone... I'm, I'm not sure if this happened, but someone from Twitter contact his team-

   28. BDBruce Daisley59:13

       Right.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett59:13

       ... and really have a dialogue about it and, and lay out that we can't allow our platform to be a place where we're, like, denying the election results and, and therefore c- inciting, you know, these kinds of things, and basically, uh, do m- And I would use the suspension period, I think, to have that conversation. Um, uh, uh, yeah. But yeah, but I think with the removal is it sets a bit of a strange precedence. And I did wonder before this moment... You know, social media is very left. It's a very, it's a very, like, uh, liberal place. I think if you were to just look at social media, you would think that the Labour Party were always gonna win, typically as well because the con-

   30. BDBruce Daisley59:51

       Do you think?
8. 1:01:34 – 1:08:44

   Where does social media go from here?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:34

      where does social media go from here? I mean, it's, uh, it feels like it's a really pivotal moment.

   2. BDBruce Daisley1:01:39

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:39

      We've got this big case with Facebook at the moment in the US where they're trying to, you know, considering breaking up Facebook. And we've got Trump being banned from Twitter. We've got Parler being pulled from the App Store and Amazon Web Services. Um, it feels like we're in a bit of a... I don't know, uh, maybe we've always been in this-

   4. BDBruce Daisley1:01:54

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:54

      ... constant debate of what social media is and where the lines are. But what, what are some of the big changes you see coming to...

   6. BDBruce Daisley1:02:00

      Look, I think it's pretty clear that regulation's coming in some, in some capacity. Uh, I think, to be honest, I think most of the big organizations would welcome it. When it comes to choosing to deplatform people, whether they're the president or whether they're troublemakers, having some rules that are agreed by an independent authority would be welcome for most of those platforms, I think. You know, th- it's really uncomfortable when organizations are losing sleep. Being on the inside, it's really uncomfortable when you're losing sleep about, "Should we be doing this? Can we be doing this?"How do we account for doing this? Uh, Jack Dorsey did a, a series of tweets a couple of nights ago trying to... Uh, he's formidable, I think, trying to demystify how decisions are made. It's a no win. Almost everyone who reads it will be critical of it, but, you know, he's trying to say, "Look, this is how we reached that decision." Um, I think there will be a degree of regulation. I think that's probably a good thing. I suspect some of the big groups will be broken up and, you know, Facebook and Google I think will probably be broken up. And the question will be whether they are willing to embrace that and do it, and all of the shareholders and all of the users and all the people who work there benefit, or if they resist it. And, you know, the lessons with Microsoft, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will say, "We lost 10 years of our company because we spent 10 years resisting, uh, regulation and resisting control." Had they just given up to that, they'd probably... Microsoft's in a good place again, I think. Biggest company in the world again. But, you know, they, uh, they would've been in a better place to, to avoid those things. So, um, I think regulation's probably coming. I think it's probably a good thing.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:41

      Do you think they're gonna break up Facebook?

   8. BDBruce Daisley1:03:43

      Yeah.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:43

      You think they will?

   10. BDBruce Daisley1:03:44

       Yeah, in the next five years.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:45

       Really? So you think they'll, they'll force Facebook to sell WhatsApp, or Instagram, or something?

   12. BDBruce Daisley1:03:51

       Yeah, or both. Yeah. Or both. Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:53

       Really?

   14. BDBruce Daisley1:03:53

       Almost certainly. I, I would guess YouTube will be sold from Google as well.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:57

       Really?

   16. BDBruce Daisley1:03:57

       Yeah.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:58

       Blimey, that's crazy. Gonna go sell my Facebook stock. (laughs)

   18. BDBruce Daisley1:04:02

       But is it better for a consumer? So number one, if you own any of those shares, every time that there's breakups, uh, the, all of the value of the firms is worth more than the constituent parts. So from a shareholder point of view, it's a really good idea to pick the right moment but break yourself up. And, um, and it's good from a consumer point of view. I often sit there, a big YouTube consumer. If you're a YouTube consumer, you sit go- going, "Hang on, this used to be, like, the big daddy of video." They've missed TikTok. They've missed Twitch. They've missed, like, all of these big opportunities that YouTube was right in the box seat for. They've missed all of them. Why? Because big firms generally are slow and don't innovate. And so it's better for everyone if you've got people experimenting, doing new things. It... And, you know, if you've got a v- a layer of regulation over the top of that saying there's degrees of norms, of behavior that you expect, it's- it's- it's much better for everyone. And it's really exciting, I think.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:02

       In the case of Facebook, Mark, Mark would respond to that and say, "We've got 10 years," or 15 years, whatever it is now, "of experience moderating terrorist content and, you know, really, you know, horrific types of content. We've built AI systems which are the best in the world. And we're removing... You know, we're spotting 90% of posts before they're reported. And this has taken us, you know, decades and billions of dollars of investment to get to this point." If you take Instagram and put it in the hands of an, I don't know, an Adobe, they don't have that experience. They don't have that, um, data. Th- they don't have the AI systems. And so it's not gonna help for, um, missing d- misinformation and, and-

   20. BDBruce Daisley1:05:37

       It's misdirection there, isn't it? I mean, that specifically. If someone is saying, "We have learned... We've developed mach- machine learning that can do these things," that sounds like a marketable product. That sounds like something that shouldn't be the point of difference. That shouldn't be a differentiator that you've got better capacity to deal with those things. But rather, that should be something that some entrepreneur avails to other firms.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:00

       Mm-hmm.

   22. BDBruce Daisley1:06:01

       And I think, you know, sometimes we can get locked into an idea of thinking, "Oh, the narrative that we're being given is the right one here." But rather more than thinking, "Actually, if someone could put a layer of safety over the internet that used that machine learning to spot things that were really heinous, that, that used that learning to make sure that no one had a bad experience, wow, Pinterest could use that, LinkedIn could use that, TikTok could use that." It should be something that everyone could plug into their product. And then you immediately start saying, "Wow, there could be gaps in the market for new products here." Maybe there's a version of Twitter that's mega safe.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:37

       Mm-hmm.

   24. BDBruce Daisley1:06:37

       Maybe there's a version of Instagram that just has a, a, a different aspect to it. So, you know, my view would be absolutely we've learned these things. But the notion that somehow that safety of experience should be a proprietary benefit rather than something that is afforded to everyone is just, I, I think a, a, a bit of deception, a b- a bit of misdirection.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:01

       The other talking point Mark Zuckerberg would rebuttal you with is ............................ 'Cause I've, I've looked at his arguments for not breaking up Facebook. He says, "Well, what have we got a monopoly in? We're not as big as iMessage in messaging. We're not as big as this platform for, uh..." He, and he rattles through the platforms and says, "What, what are we big o- what are we the, the monopoly on?" And, um, uh, he says, "There's tons of competition. We've got TikTok at our heels, Pinterest, Twitter, you know, uh, Google, you know, these platforms." So he says, "Well, where is the monopoly here?" Um, and I have found that kind of compelling. I know, again, it's a bit of misdirection, but I, I can't tell you what he's the... what, what Facebook have the monopoly on.

   26. BDBruce Daisley1:07:41

       Yeah, well firstly, monopolies don't have to be more than 70%. I think, you know, I think by the rules for monopoly in the UK, it's, like, more than 20, 30% of a market, so...

   27. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:50

       Oh, really?

   28. BDBruce Daisley1:07:50

       You know, so, so to be monopolistic, you don't have to be dominant. But, you know, when you've got three of the top five apps, you start questioning whether there is a degree of undue influence.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:00

       Mm-hmm. Sure.

   30. BDBruce Daisley1:08:00

       Look, I've got no dog in the fight. Um, my view personally is that I, I suspect these firms will be broken up. And the question then becomes do you serve your employees better? Do you serve the people who use your apps better? Do you serve this, this-
9. 1:08:44 – 1:11:32

   Whats next for you to keep joy in your work?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:44

      ... talk a lot about the joy of work, and we've talked a lot about, you know, your past experiences at YouTube and Twitter. What is next for you? When you're thinking about what's gonna give you joy from work in the future, what are you thinking about?

   2. BDBruce Daisley1:08:54

      Um, I'm writing a book about resilience. Uh-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:57

      Are you going to tell us the title, or-

   4. BDBruce Daisley1:08:58

      Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, th- the title is a big ongoing discussion.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:02

      Okay.

   6. BDBruce Daisley1:09:02

      So I'm not at that stage yet.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:03

      Sure.

   8. BDBruce Daisley1:09:03

      Um, which is just about, all about the things we've talked about, how resilience is actually a collective thing rather than an individual thing.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:09

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BDBruce Daisley1:09:09

       Um, I real- I've really enjoyed sort of doing things like that. I, I, I'm doing a, a couple of things on climate change. So I worked with an organization last year.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:19

       Al Gore's-

   12. BDBruce Daisley1:09:19

       That's trying... Uh, yeah, yeah. Al- uh, so I'm working with Al Gore's Climate Reality Now, but, um, I did something with an organization last year that's trying to reduce our plastic footprint. And, you know, so, so there's a few things like that, and I really enjoy those things because they're... I think they're non-linear. I think, you know, what success looks like is really hard to judge, and it's all about sort of trying to achieve things. So I did something through October where I presented into about 100... 70 different companies. I presented climate change into 70 different organizations, and, you know, connections have started from that. So the... Al Gore's Climate Reality is... Al Gore did that film, An Inconvenient-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:01

       Yeah.

   14. BDBruce Daisley1:10:01

       ... Truth, about 15 years ago. Probably saw it in school. And-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:03

       My dad made me watch it.

   16. BDBruce Daisley1:10:04

       Right.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:04

       He s- sat me down and said, told my brothers and sisters, "You gotta watch this."

   18. BDBruce Daisley1:10:07

       And he's turned his-

   19. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:08

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BDBruce Daisley1:10:08

       ... work on that into an organization. And it used to be you had to pay $7,000 to go and be trained in Las Vegas. Now, he's, in the era of Zoom, he said anyone could be trained on it for free.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:18

       Really?

   22. BDBruce Daisley1:10:19

       So I trained. The only commitment you have to do is you have to commit to spread the word. So hence, I did about, you know, all these presentations, getting out and, and spreading the word. Um, and that's really energizing, sort of, because I think a lot of us feel a certain way towards climate but feel powerless about what can we do. So, uh, I've done a bit of that. Hopefully I'll... Um, I've got a few more things coming along on that, so...

   23. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:43

       Will you ever get back into the world of social networking?

   24. BDBruce Daisley1:10:45

       I, I, I really want to avoid doing that. So that's why I'm sort of working hard on podcasts and writing, because if, if I can pay the bills doing that-

   25. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:54

       Mm-hmm.

   26. BDBruce Daisley1:10:55

       ... you know. Full-time jobs are really demanding, and, you know, my, my social media consumptions remains. I'm a huge user of Twitter. I'm a huge user of TikTok and, uh, so most social media consumption is still there, I just don't wanna, I just don't wanna work in those organizations again.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:12

       Why?

   28. BDBruce Daisley1:11:13

       Just, you know, they're really exhausting, you know. Like, you work really hard. I had so much fun working at Twitter and YouTube before, but, you know, you do long days, especially working with California, you-

   29. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:25

       Mm-hmm.

   30. BDBruce Daisley1:11:25

       ... up in the morning and you're, you're working late at night. So I don't wanna really go and work in a big company again.

10. 1:11:32 – 1:12:57

    Whats the one thing you'd do to make work enjoyable for everyone?

    1. BDBruce Daisley1:11:32

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:32

       I'm gonna conclude this podcast by just asking you, you know, for you, and f- from everything you know about the joy of work and what makes work joyful and fulfilling, if you had to just focus on one thing that was the most important factor for you, um, in work, what would that be and why?

    3. BDBruce Daisley1:11:50

       This, um... There's a 70-year-long study out of, uh, Yale University looking at what these, the secret of longevity and happiness is. And the secret of... It studied these guys for like the whole of their lives, and the secret of longevity and happiness is love and friendship. And I think work is far closer to that than we might imagine. When we feel a connection with the people we work with, it makes everything worthwhile. And I think hidden in all the chat about productivity and strategy and, and, you know, market fear and USPs, we lose the fact that when we feel most motivated by work, it's when we feel like we're doing it with other people. And so that's it for me. I used to l- a great day at work was when I laughed 12 times, and, you know. And it was almost... It felt trivial to mention that. It felt like, "Oh, why do you love your job?" To mention that I just love these people, I love being around these people, I'm energized by these people feels really embarrassing to admit. But I think that's the secret of it. When we feel part of something, our jobs can feel defining. They can feel part of our identity.

Episode duration: 1:14:03