So I get to be Willy Wonka

giving out 4,000 golden tickets this year. You mentioned that getting people rowing in a common direction was part of this process. What resistance did you face and how did you

align people? My main way I run the company is I do these reviews of everything in the company every week, every two weeks, every four weeks, every eight weeks, every 12 weeks. And it's basically with my directs, their directs, their directs, basically the chain of command. And then we launch major products twice a year. So the way we align the companies, we put everything on these deadlines twice a year. And what it does is it actually creates a rhythm of the company. It gives people a sense that they're working together on a common cause.

What I really like about that is the term you used was rhythm. You actually have a cadence for when people are going to collaborate and how they're going to coordinate, as opposed to just assuming it's going to happen and letting it either be haphazard or maybe not really treat it as anything other than an afterthought. I think in some ways, the fact that you have a rhythm is more important than what you put in it. You know what I was fearful when we went public? That the only identifiable

milestones of the company would be the quarterly earnings reports. And the quarterly earnings reports are very important for investors, but it's not what I want employees to think about every three months. That's not what you should be focused on. So you need to give people something to focus on. And having this rhythm, by the way, it means I know when to give everyone a vacation. They have this period of intensity, but they know that after that period of intensity, there's lulls where they can go away. Like summer is a little slower for us, believe it or not, even though we're a travel company, at least for most people working in headquarters. So that rhythm has become really, really important. It also gives people milestones to look forward to. The rhythm also creates this sense of shared experience.

You've created at an organizational level something that I've always tried to do in my own work life. I've always had a little bit of a seasonal approach to my work where I'm teaching in the fall and then I have the rest of the year for research, writing, speaking, and all the other hats that I wear. And it's great for coordination because I know I'm going to be a lot more interdependent with people in the fall than I am other parts of the year, particularly my students. But also, it keeps me looking forward to work, knowing that now I cannot wait to get back into the classroom. It's been a while since I've done it. And then I know when December rolls around, I

have some projects

that I'm really

excited to dig into. When there's not a rhythm, there's a treadmill. And when there's a treadmill, then you end up with that kind of office space dilbert. I think people get more existential. And I think the vibrancy and the excitement goes away. The novelty of their work, the freshness, the curiosity, I think it starts to diminish. It

makes me think that you're trying to bring a little bit of Europe into America. One

of my heroes is Walt Disney and used to say, I have a foot in the past and a foot in the future. And I think in Silicon Valley, a lot of us want to have two feet firmly rooted in the future. I've always wanted to have one foot in the future and one foot in the past, like understanding history and culture and where things came from. I think the best companies are going to marry the old timeless ideas of generations before us with a frontier, willing to have the courage to go where no one's gone before. Thank you for being generous with your time and with your stories and your insights. This is a ton of fun. I'm really glad that we got the opportunity to have this conversation and hopefully have another in the not too distant future.

This conversation gave me a new perspective on what it means to build a community. Community is my favorite alternative to calling a company a family. I've long seen a community as a place where people bond around shared values, feel valued as human beings, and have a voice in decisions that affect them. Now I'd add that in a truly strong community, people continue to feel valued and cared about even after they leave. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. This show is part of the TED Audio Collective, and this episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our producers are Hannah Kingsley-Ma and Asia Simpson. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Leighton Brown. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winning, Samaya Adams, Michelle Quint, Ban Ban Cheng, Julia Dickerson, and Whitney Pennington Rogers.

My optimism is that you have all this amazing new technology, these incredible new tools, and people all over the world can interact online and come together and create some amazing things. Hopefully in

the physical world too, not just in the digital world. Or just a bunch of fake news and cat videos. Support

for the show comes from Brooks Running. I'm so excited

because I have been a runner, gosh, my entire adult life. And for as long as I can remember, I have run with Brooks Running Shoes. Now I'm running with a pair of Ghost 16s from Brooks. Incredibly lightweight shoes that have really soft cushioning. It feels just right when I'm hitting my running trail that's just out behind my house. You now can take your daily run in the better than ever Go 16. You can visit brooksrunning.com to learn more. Hey,

I'm Bilal Sadoo. I'm a visual effects artist, a spatial computing expert, and a cautiously optimistic AI enthusiast. I'm the host of an exciting new TED podcast, The TED AI Show. If you're afraid of losing your job to a robot or struggling to keep up with the latest tech, we made this show for you. I'm taking everything I know, from my work building AR VR products at Google to my passion for making reality-bending videos and diving deep into this crazy new technology that's changing the world as we know it. I'll be talking to our researchers, artists, journalists, and people whose jobs haven't even been invented yet to make sense of it all. Adapting to new technology is stressful, but I actually believe that there's a lot to be excited about and a lot of important questions we should be asking. So let's figure out together how to navigate AI before it navigates us. Subscribe to the TED AI Show wherever you get your podcasts.