From Start-Up to Grown-Up #92: From Startup to Grown-up: David Ko, CEO of Calm — from gaming to mental health, tools to combat burnout, and the rituals you can use in your own meetings
David Ko is the CEO and board member of Calm, the #1 app for sleep, meditation, and mindfulness. A former healthcare executive and tech operator, David previously served as COO of Zynga, held senior roles at Yahoo!, and founded a healthtech company acquired by Calm. He is the bestselling author of Recharge, and has been recognized by TIME, LinkedIn, RockHealth, and NYU Stern for his leadership in digital health.
What you’ll learn:
- How David transitioned from gaming to healthcare through mission-driven insight
- The real story behind Calm’s evolution from sleep and meditation to global mental health
- Why David uses “battery level” as a tool for checking in at work
- How leaders can model vulnerability without sacrificing authority
- Why burnout stems from poor workload management, not just long hours
- The power of shared purpose in turbulent times
- How Calm uses rituals like Jay Shetty meditations and Zoom-free days to reinforce its culture
- Why sleep, diet, and presence are core to David’s leadership performance
- How transparency builds trust even when the news isn’t good
- Why the conversation around mental health needs to start at the top
Some takeaways:
➡️ Stress is not the problem. Unchecked, unacknowledged stress is. Good stress can fuel resilience and performance.
➡️ “How’s your battery?” is a more meaningful check-in than “How are you?”
➡️ Burnout often comes from lack of clarity and excessive task stacking, not too many hours.
➡️ Leaders must explain the why behind priorities and remove as much as they assign.
➡️ Transparency about culture survey results builds psychological safety.
➡️ Rituals like 90-second meditations help reset and re-center teams.
➡️ Leadership can be lonely. Trusted colleagues make a critical difference.
➡️ Presence matters more than hours. Back-to-back meetings are not a badge of honor.
➡️ Sharing your own mental health journey is not weakness. It’s how resilient teams are built.
➡️ “We take better care of our phone batteries than our mental health batteries.” Time to change that.
Where to find David Ko:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveko/
- Calm: https://www.calm.com
- Book: Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery One Conversation at a Time
- Podcast: Recharge (available on major platforms)
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