Carina Bhavnani on Power & Community

Carina Bhavnani is a brand strategist and marketing leader, currently Director of Brand & Marketing at Sonder Inc. She previously held roles at Uber, TripActions, and Exposure Therapy. With expertise in brand, strategy, and operations, she holds a finance and accounting degree from Western University.

So I start all my conversations with the same question, which I borrow steal stole from a friend of mine who helps people tell their story. It's a big, beautiful question, which is why I use it. But because it's big, I kind of over explain it like I'm doing now. So before I ask it, I want you to know that you're in total control. You can answer and not answer any way that you want to. It is impossible to make a mistake. It's the biggest lead up ever. But the question is, where do you come from? And again, you are in total control.

So the question where are you from is one of the most stressful and triggering questions that anyone can ever ask me. Just as a precursor.

Yeah.

I think the reason is because I'm always trying to understand what the question is actually asking me, where am I from physically? Where is my family from? Where did I grow up?

Where do I live? And then I get in my head and I go down some rabbit holes. So where do I come from?

Yeah.

I mean, where does anyone come from?

It's true. It's true. It's impossible to make a mistake and you can answer.

It's impossible. You're right. I grew up in Australia and that's where I was born. My family is from India. I live in Canada. I used to live and work in the United States. I did a stint in Singapore for a while. So I'm I'm from everywhere. I think if you come from everywhere, you can simultaneously belong everywhere and nowhere all the time. And that's kind of nice.

Yeah. What was it like growing up in Australia? What does it mean to be kind of from Australia?

It means we have a better sense of humor than everyone else. Strong, very funny people. Growing up in Australia is a very interesting was a very interesting experience, I think, because you grow up literally and figuratively on an island.

And in so it's a Western democracy, you know, in so many people's heads, it's the same as everywhere else. But the isolation has forced the country and culture to evolve in a pretty unique way. And I'm glad I got not just a two week vacation there, but like a 16 year upbringing and got to go deep.

So now it's definitely part of my my background story in that sense.

Yes. When do you feel particularly Australian?

When I'm drinking.

Really?

Sure. Yeah, I would say that my love of drinking probably comes from my cultural heritage there. But I also think that like Australians are very straightforward. They're like very direct people, especially in the workplace. And as someone who's worked in multiple countries, I find that Americans can some Canadians especially can sometimes be a little bit. They find it very jarring, the directness of Australians and Australians are frustrated with how soft and gentle Americans can try and be. So that's that's that's been an interesting part, I think. Yeah, my work life.

And do you have a recollection of what you wanted to be when you grew up?

I want to be a flight attendant. I think I always just wanted to get out and on a plane and go somewhere.

Right.

And I love to travel the the walkway from the terminal to the airplane was like a highlight of my life as a child.

Can you tell me more about that?

You know that like I forget what they're called. They're like the funny moving gates and they connected and they're full of ads. And they usually like HSBC and like global companies that want to show you the world and how you're connected to everything.

And my little six year old seven year old brain like really dialed into those moments. And it was always like you were going somewhere exciting.

Yeah. Nice.

Yeah.

And where are you now? And what keeps you busy?

Well, I work in travel. So that that worked out for me. I now I live in Toronto. So I have moved to the other side of the world and work for a company called Sonder. And I run our brand and marketing practice for all things related to brand and marketing, which has been fun for me and a new adventure because not my not my technical expertise or background, but something I found myself to in the last few years.

Yeah. And tell me about Toronto. What do you love about where you are?

I love the seasons. I think I really like change. I think that is a common theme in my life. I like novelty. I like change. I don't like things get too static. And everyone complains about winter. But I'll tell you, having lived in so many places, there's a sucky season no matter where you go. Like it's too hot or it's too rainy. So here it's cold. And I don't mind it. But it's a really ugly city.

Like, yeah, it's it's pretty hideous. But when you it's one of those cities where there isn't a lot to see necessarily. It's not like New York or London or anything like that. But it's very dynamic, very international. And I would say has one of the best food scenes in the world. And that is a good reason to be here.

All right. And tell me a little bit about what you love about the work you're doing? Where's the joy in it for you?

Um, where's the joy? The joy comes from building something new. I think I joined the brand and marketing function before it was called brand and marketing was called design and experience. And it was we know we had this opportunity to rebuild the brand from scratch. And I'd never ever done a project like that. I'd never built a brand. I didn't understand what went into it. I could hardly explain the difference between brand and marketing at the time. And so it was just it was a whole new adventure. What I love about it is it's strategic and based in research and insight and science. But there's a huge creative layer. And it's it's one of the only disciplines that I've worked in where there is such an equal role for creative and quantitative or scientific. And I really like the interplay that that offers.

Yeah. I want to follow up on that, that the balance you're saying between sort of the qualitative and the quantitative. But maybe first, can you tell me a little bit about Sonder and like how you how did you get just what is Sonder? What do you what is it about?

Sonder is a hotel brand that offers both apartments and boutique hotels in 40 cities around the world. We traded more traditional high touch formal hospitality services for an app so you can request housekeeping or items that you forgot or look up a neighborhood guide all through the Sonder app. And it has a digital concierge built in. So 24 seven anything you need. Sonder is there for you. And it's really cool. It's a we focus on urban environments. We put you in locations you wouldn't normally get to be in. Our model lets us build smaller hotels in networks. So lots of tiny neighborhood spots, but always where you want to stay.

Yeah. I've had great experiences with Sonder. What's it been like working? I mean, where was the brand when you joined and what's it been like being part of something new?

I joined a really interesting time. I joined. We just we infused ourselves with funding. We're like heading towards that unicorn mark that we all used to chase. I would say back in day and then COVID hit and suddenly no one was traveling and no one was going anywhere. And we had this massive real estate portfolio. We're like, how are we going to generate demand for something like this? And so it was a lot of quick pivots to find new audiences. And new ways to basically help people travel and stay safe.

And then as sort of that dissipated, we were able to move back into growth mode. And it's really been trying to be one part tech company and build our whole in-house stack. And then also a

bit of a real estate company and trying to get these like great real estate deals and also be a guest facing company. And offer services that feel like someone is taking care of you digitally has been a really interesting and very different from my previous work. I started my career as like a CPA working at Deloitte, like super, super different. And then I spent a long time at Uber scaling up business. So it was just new challenge. And I love to travel. So it was something I could really like evangelize and get behind.

And what would you say? When did you first sort of discover the sort of the concept of brand? I mean, what brand is and all that stuff? It's a giant mushy world.

It’s a giant, mushy world, and I didn’t know what it was. You know, like, brand people always seemed like cool people in my head. When someone said, "I work in brand," I thought, "Oh, you must know everything about culture and have your pulse on everything." It sounded so cool and felt so out of reach for my own background and experience.

I got really lucky with the role I was in at Sonder. They brought in a new person to manage a new team, and he just needed someone who already knew the business. So, I got matched with this exec and landed on a brand project. That’s when I really started to learn—by watching someone who built their career in brand—what it could be, what it should be, and what it has the power to do for a business.

I think brand is very soft and squishy and often poorly understood, but there is a way to think about brand as the backbone of everything a business does. When you do that, it can really supercharge the business over the long term.

Can you tell me a story about that? I mean, that sounds like an awakening of sorts, if I may be so bold.

Yeah.

You described being a CPA at Deloitte, and then discovering the "squishy magic" of brand as the backbone of a business. Was there a particular moment when you recognized what was going on, or something that stood out to you?

I think it was when we were working on the brand DNA—the values, the mission statement, and all those components that everyone hears about as the building blocks of brand. We went through a ton of interviews with other execs, working with an agency that was brilliant. It was like a little door opened, and I thought, "Oh, what happens in these rooms? What happens in these conversations?"

I discovered the power of copy and the weight of every word you put down on paper. When a brand pitch becomes a three-minute film—or even a two-minute film—you realize how few words you actually have to tell a cohesive, coherent story that also has ambition, is future-proof, and is inspiring. You put so much weight on this tiny bit of content, and you start to appreciate what each word, letter, and punctuation mark can do. You start to see what each image does.

That completely sold me. I thought, "Wow, you can get so dialed into something that seems so... optional." There's this sense that brand can be seen as optional, just a piece of pretty creative work. But it has the power to change minds. It has the power to change behavior. It has the power to inspire. And you know what it is? I like power. I saw brand as being incredibly powerful, and I thought, "I want that."

Oh yeah. What is that power?

It’s the power to influence. It’s the power to take culture to a tipping point and push it over the edge. You can take any idea and, if you’re good at what you do, you can make it mainstream. You can change the world.

Is there a brand in particular that embodies that, someone you think is doing it really well?

I think there are lots of brands, but often it’s brands with strong agendas. Patagonia is an easy example because of how well they've dialed in their brand. But getting to the platform that Patagonia now has—that’s the interesting part. Disney can do things. Nike can do things. Apple can do things. But I don’t know who the next generation of those companies is right now. It's hard to say.

Yes, true. What I'm trying to think. Do you have any mentors or touchstones that you other mentors that really sort of brought you up in that way and then or touchstones ideas that you return to over and over again in your work?

Yeah, I would say the exec I worked with was a guy named Matt Judge, who’s now at Airbnb. He was definitely instrumental in my discovery of brand. I’d also say Jasmine Bina and the Exposure Therapy crew played a huge role. Once I discovered that brand was something I wanted to do, I just wanted to learn as much as I could. I was very fortunate to stumble across Jasmine’s writing through Concept Bureau, and then I joined Exposure Therapy as one of the original members—along with you—and I’ve never looked back.

Yeah. How’s that been for you? How do you describe the Exposure Therapy experience?

I think I’ve always struggled to explain what it is to my friends. Every time I’ve tried, it ends with them telling me I’ve basically joined a cult—which, honestly, feels very on-brand for me. They're happy for me, but it’s funny. I think we even studied cults at one point last year, and one thing we learned is that a cult is a community where there's a very high emotional cost to leaving. The more time I spend with you all at Exposure Therapy, the more I realize that emotional cost is definitely going up. So yeah, maybe this is a cult.

That's awesome. I'm curious about your work at Sonder. What role, if any, does research play in your work there?

You know, Sonder is an atypical company—or maybe it's typical? I don’t really know, because I’ve never worked in brand at a different company before, so it’s hard to say. But we are a scale-up. We’re rapidly expanding what we do and how we do it. It's very much "building the airplane while flying it."

There’s very little bandwidth for long-term thinking or strategizing. We don’t always have the gift of time. One thing I’ve learned about brand is that you are the team thinking 20 years out while everyone else is thinking 20 days out. You’re constantly traversing the gap between immediate problems—like emails that have to go live and social media posts—and the longer-term vision for the business.

You’re operating in a very 24-hour content cycle, but your job is to make sure you’re steering the business toward something people are going to care about—and that will still be relevant—in the future. That kind of oscillation is one of the biggest challenges of brand work, but it’s also what makes it so interesting.

Yeah. So how do you manage that?

Sometimes you don’t manage. You just rush. But really, it’s about time management. When you’re working on two different timelines, it’s about carving out space to think longer-term, and sometimes negotiating with leadership—because they’re so caught up in near-term problems.

You mentioned earlier that brand work is both qualitative and quantitative. Can you say more about that?

Yeah. Some people say brand is a vibe, and vibes are hard to quantify—which is true. Brand isn't just data. Sometimes it’s just goosebumps or a feeling you get from a piece of creative or copy.

But when you look closer—and especially because the media landscape is changing—there are more and more quantitative data points available. You can quick-test things. You can build in marketing tie-ins. You can start measuring brand equity and brand momentum.

There are ways to put numbers and dollars behind brand work, especially longer-term work, to get leadership's attention when you’re advocating for the future instead of just the next 24 hours. For me, it’s about learning how to quantify and translate the power of brand into near-term, concrete things that demand attention.

Can you tell me a story about that? (I know that’s a hard ask.)

I’m trying to think of a successful story... I can definitely tell you failed ones.There were lots of swings at bat. Lots of swings—and misses.

What’s the struggle of being the brand person in an organization with all these constraints and pressures?

I think the biggest struggle is that sometimes you’ll be in a meeting, and someone will say, "I love your meetings because you get to pick out colors!"And you're like, "Yes, I get that your brain thinks the purpose of our team is to pick out logos, colors, and clever words."

But there’s sometimes a real disconnect—a lack of understanding—about the staying power of those logos, colors, and words. I once tried to explain it like this: brand teams make a dollar-a-day deposit into the account that is the brand.

Every day, we’re trying to make a small, incremental improvement, because one day the brand is going to mess up. We're going to have a misstep. And when that happens, we’ll need to draw down on that capital. That’s what we’re building—a reserve—so that we don't go bankrupt with our audience or our community.

Sometimes, when you're only making dollar deposits, people don’t realize they add up to something. They look at other teams who are putting in a million dollars at a time and think, "That’s where the action is."

But I'm just over here in the background, doing my thing. Because one day, they’ll see what I see.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I was taught that the metaphor that was given to me is that the brands are like buckets and they're meant to capture, you know, accumulate sort of credit and blame, you know what I mean? And brands, a well-constructed brand actually collects it. A poor, constructed brand has like a leaky bucket. No credit accumulates. You know what I mean? The dollar just falls right through the bottle.

They just fall right through. Yeah. It's like having pockets of holes in them.

Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I'm trying to think what else I want to ask you about. Tell me more about exposure therapy and your experience there.

Exposure therapy was like meeting a hundred people I wanted to be best friends with all at once. It was very overwhelming. I think curating communities is so, so hard to do well.

Yeah.

It's, you know, we're at a point in culture when it's something everybody wants no matter what stage of life they're in. People want more friends. People want to feel more connected to things.

And we're all trying. We're all, you know, joining run clubs. I'm not joining a run club.

People are joining run clubs. People are on apps. People are, you know, in co-working spaces in the hopes that they are connecting with people, you know, personally and professionally.

And so when exposure therapy came along, I was like, oh, it's like a, it's a Slack community. I don't know what, I had low expectations, you know? I was like, I'll try it.

Whatever. I have never met so many curious people who are so generous with their brains and like the same things I like. And it's, it's, it's every week is so stressful because the number of unreads goes up and I don't want to close any of them because the next best idea I might have might be buried in there somewhere. And so it's just a massive influx of great minds, great thinking and just wonderful human beings.

Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah, I had low expectations and I was, you know, in a sort of a grumpy way, reluctant to join a Slack community.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's really great.

What's been your favorite part about it?

Oh, I mean, like you say, like the, there's so much effort put into, there's just always something going on. There's always an idea or a thought or a point of view that's worthwhile that's there. So it's like, it's just the potential of a new idea, really. But it's, they're so smart and the conversations are so structured at least that there's, it's always shifting. And yeah, so it's sort of constantly changing. And I think to your point about just like the potential, like new ideas, the other beautiful thing that they've done with the community is that there are opposing ideas in there and there are things. There are things that I wouldn't necessarily gravitate towards on my own or found on my own, but they've gone out of their way to put these ideas in front of us that they know won't naturally resonate or we won't naturally agree with. And that's the most expansive part. And I think it's really hard today to find ways to introduce ideas that are not part of your algorithm. I mean, we've just, we just kind of have given the wheel to these platforms, been like, you just tell me what I like.

Yeah, I'm fine. That's fine.

Yeah, exactly. I'll just agree.

So I want to go back to the, to the, maybe is it, how do you apply this stuff to your own work? I mean, the observation you just made about this hunger we have for connection and, you know, the sea of sameness that's out in culture. How do you, how does that inform the work you do at Sonder? How does a hospitality brand like Sonder respond or behave differently based on this stuff, if at all?

I'm not sure that I can, I don't know that I've, there's been anything that has truly made me set the brand on a different course, but what it has helped me do is re-examine the way I manage the team. So we have like an eight person org, and it's been interesting to see what kind of ideas I can put in front of them that are different or a new way of thinking or, and try and make them sort of think slightly differently, approach problems with different ways, share frameworks that I've learned, because really what you want to do is you want to raise the bar on the whole team. And then as individuals, they will bring in their own lens and their own ideas and help to drive everything forward. The heart of the Sonder brand is this really beautiful idea of like, we just want to be better. Every day we want to do a little bit better. We never want to be the best. We never want to say we're done. And so that's what we try and, that's how we try and act and think as a team, which is like, is it slightly better and incrementally better than the last thing we did? Great. It's a step forward. It never has to be perfect.

It's amazing. And how long have you been with Sonder?

Almost six years.

And how has it changed? How has the business changed or the industry changed?

I would say we've been very lucky that we've outlived a lot of our competitors in the alternative accommodations phase. When COVID hit the market, it destroyed a lot of young brands because they just didn't, they didn't have the capital and resources to survive what was an incredibly challenging period in a low margin business. And now I think alternative accommodations are some of the hottest products in travel.

So you've got the Airbnb, which I think people are starting to be a bit more polarized on. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Some people love it, some people hate it. But you've also got like tiny cabins and you've got a lot more apartment brands and you've got glamping and air streams and it's become such a huge part of the hospitality and accommodation space that we've seen changes on major player platforms. So Booking.com, Expedia.com, they've gone from being hotels only to expanding the products that they make available, changing the filters that they offer people because they know this is where people are coming in. And then on the flip side, you've got major brands like families like the Maria Bonvoy family and the Hilton's and the Hyatt's trying to snap up alternative accommodation brands so that they can also be players.

And instead of it being like, oh, it's a hotel or an Airbnb, we're seeing this spectrum of options, which is, I don't wanna say leveling the playing field, but expanding the field. Pretty dramatically, and that's been fun to watch.

Yeah. And presumably that's very good for Sonder. How does Sonder fall out in that mix?

I think we're in a really good space. I think this is something that we had hoped to see when we were very young. We wanted to offer more different types of spaces, but still with hotel level services. So we wanted first brands to bring that sort of apartment style accommodation, but with housekeeping attached to it, with onsite staff attached, all the amenities. You don't just get the space with us, you get the whole experience. And that was a good bet to make. And now everyone's trying to play catch up. And of course, you're constantly iterating with the technology and the real estate, but it set us up for a longer term success. Yeah, it's cool. And I feel like I was one of those people who Airbnb is sort of a novelty and it's sort of fun every once in a while, but I really have kind of a hotel set of expectations and I'm uncomfortable in other people's spaces. Sonder is sort of the nice balance between those two things, right? Yeah, it's really, Airbnb is, when you think about it, it's wild how they made us so comfortable staying in strangers' homes. These weren't professionally managed races, they were other people's homes. And it's one thing to get into someone else's car for an Uber X ride. It's another thing to bet your whole expensive vacation on this random person.

Yeah.

And they did it. And now we all do it.

It's true. It's true. It's true.

Yeah, it makes me wonder when we think about, everyone talks about AI all day, every day, but what are these major behavioral shifts that this is going to trigger for us and how's that going to change our lives? What seems insane today that will become commonplace five years from now? Will we all just have best friends?

Yeah, probably.

Or digital?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I feel like this isn't the way that I generally think about things, but certainly when approached with the question, it does feel like, well, I was taught that we consume what we're afraid we're losing. And so if we can agree that we're kind of losing connection, then we're going to definitely, we're going to create connection with AI. And we're going to further isolate ourselves from each other.

And they're making it easier, whether that's their intention or not, like it's getting better.

I always think of this as a little bit of a, it's like a, I don't know that this was the moral of the story, but it always strikes me as like an Edward Scissorhands phenomenon where I like that character. Do you remember Edward Scissorhands? You've never seen it. All right. You went quiet there, so I figured that was the case. So anyway, it's Tim Burton movie. Johnny Depp plays, I guess he's a little bit like a toy, like a To Frankenstein toy, like he's made up and he comes to life, but he's got like scissors for fingers. His fingers are blades. And so of course he's this creature that just wants love and affection, but his hands are knives. So I always think about that as this, this paradox, right? So, and I feel like AI is a little bit like that too, like, oh, we just, I don't need people. This AI, it converses just as good as a human person that likes me. And that makes me feel the same. So, so much better, easier.

And I think it's, I think it's what it makes us feel. Like if two humans talking to each other feels one way and then you talking to an AI feels the same way, what's different?

It's true. And it's just a continuation too. I'm just thinking about how, I mean, I grew up playing video games and the world of video games is so much easier than the real world, just for all the, just because it's orderly and it has rules. And if something goes bad, you just start over and the graphics have gotten, I mean, there's no wonder. I mean, so many people spend so much time within these worlds. It's so much easier than real life.

We talk about it as escapism. Oh my God, I was thinking about this last night. We call it escapism, but often we’re escaping into much more violent and crazy places. Still, those places feel more soothing than our actual reality—because reality has become so unpredictable.

Yes. And confusing. Messy.

And hard. I think the more alone people feel—and the harder life gets—the more those effects compound. You just want to remove yourself from it.

Yeah. Yeah. Following this thread... These are old ideas, but they're connected. I know I've probably shared this before: Peter Kahn studies human-nature interaction, and he talks about something called "generational environmental amnesia."

He tells a story to illustrate it: imagine three generations at a playground—a child, their father, and their grandfather. The child points to the woods next to the playground and asks, "Is that the forest?"

The father says, "Yes, but when I was a kid, this playground wasn’t here. It was all forest." The grandfather adds, "When I was young, there weren’t any developments at all—there was forest for miles."

Each generation is born into a more degraded version of nature and accepts it as normal. It’s like one step forward, three steps back. And socially, I think it’s happening too. Young people spend more time in digital spaces, and...

No, you’re right.

It’s like if a child pointed to a chatbot and said, "Is this my friend?" and the dad said, "Yes, back in my day, my friends were real people, but we still chatted on AOL."And the grandmother would say, "Back in my day, if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to see them face-to-face."

Yeah, and my phone was connected to the wall! You had to dial like this.

Exactly. It’s a constant evolution toward a degraded normal.

Joyful stuff for a Monday!

Perfect Monday conversation. Okay, let's take a break from the bleak talk.What’s been exciting you lately? Any rabbit holes you’re diving into?

I’m really into history. I love diving deep into different periods. I recently got into a podcast called Empire. Each season focuses on a different historical empire. They’re flexible in how they define it—not just the Roman Empire.

One season was about powerful women who had emperor-like powers. One fascinating thing I learned is that historians can measure how much power a woman had based on whether her image was stamped on currency.

Usually, only male leaders were stamped on coins, so finding a woman on currency was a sign she had risen above and beyond. And it’s crazy to think about because nowadays, like in the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth was on all the currency. That’s a big deal.

That’s amazing.

Yeah.

I'm picking up a theme here, Carina...

Power. Girl power.

Definitely girl power.

I’m also on the "Romantasy" train. If you’ve heard about that.

What’s the state of Romantasy right now?

There are lots of names for the genre, but basically, it’s another form of escapism.You escape into these stories—often violent, but still more orderly than real life—and you always know you’ll get closure. No matter how crazy the heroine’s journey, it will end well. She'll get what she wants. There’s something really comforting about that. You get to go on a wild ride but still find resolution, which might not happen day-to-day.

It sounds like the heroine’s journey.

Very much. There’s a lot going on in these books, but at their core, they’re about women finding their power. And everything gets resolved. That’s very attractive right now.

You said that in a particular way. What were you thinking about?

I think it gives you hope. You read a story that ends well, and you think, "Maybe my story will end well, too." Maybe the thing you're worried about will work out.

There’s a book called The Storytelling Animal—I can't remember the author’s name—but he talks about how stories allow us to rehearse life experiences without actually living them.

Exactly. That’s what myths and folktales were for: learning lessons without having to live through harrowing journeys yourself.

You mentioned Jasmine might have more thoughts on why this genre is having a moment. What were you thinking about?

Another narrative I've been thinking about lately is how our modern world wasn’t designed for women—or at least not with women at the center of it. For example, in women's health, there's a lot of talk about how women were excluded from clinical studies because our biology is less "consistent." It made the studies simpler to focus on men.

No shade, but it left us with a culture—and a world—not designed for women. Now, products and ideas are emerging that are made for women, by women. Whether it’s femtech or Romantasy books, these things center women’s needs and experiences. And I think there’s a gravitational pull toward that. Toward spaces where women feel like something was actually made for them.

It’s shocking, really—the decisions men made. I remember learning that most medical knowledge is based on male biology because it was "inconvenient" to study female bodies.

Yeah, and there's also the fact that women are the only species, basically, to outlive reproductive years. There’s something called the "grandmother hypothesis"—the idea that humans survive longer and better because older generations of women help care for the younger ones. That shared workload and wisdom is a unique evolutionary advantage. It’s amazing. And it begs the question: what can we do to supercharge that?

That’s so cool. And it reminds me of Chip Conley’s work—he had an elder program at Airbnb, focused on preserving and transferring generational wisdom.

Exactly. One thing we’ve lost—because of remote work and other things—is multigenerational relationships. We’re so stuck within our own age groups now, but there's so much value in friendships that span generations. And as people live longer, you’re seeing figures like Martha Stewart, who’s 83, still crushing it—being influential, staying connected across generations. If we can foster that, it’s going to make us all stronger.

Totally. I was reading that because of the affordability crisis, we’re seeing a rise in intergenerational roommates.

It makes so much sense. You’re seeing it in the travel industry, too: multi-generational trips—grandparents, parents, grandkids traveling together. It's interesting.

One last thought. A friend of mine, Dawn Breeze, once suggested starting an "intergenerational detective agency" in Hudson. Isn’t that a beautiful idea?

Let’s do that.

Right? It’s so good.

I love that.

Carina, thank you so much for accepting my invitation. This has been so much fun.

Always a pleasure. It’s always good to hang with you, Peter.

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