Ethan Evans: preference

Transcript context

…Amazing. Okay. Let's move on to the final area I wanted to spend a little time on, and this is called contrarian corner. I'm curious if you have any contrarian opinions about things basically that other people believe that you don't believe, something you see that many people don't see. Is there anything that comes to mind? Yeah, I think a place where I'm currently very contrarian is the return to office movement. Many leaders at my level appear or publicly favor the need to get back into the office potentially full-time. And I'm contrarian on this because of innovation. Specifically, I looked it up, you can check my facts on Wikipedia. The first purpose-built office, the first building ever built to be an office was built in 1726 in London. And so we're about 300 years into learning how to use offices well. And what that means is offices aren't going to get much better. What's the last major thing you can think of that got better in offices? You might say well open offices, but a lot of people would say that's not even a good idea. These big rows of desks and loud pits. With working from home, we've only been doing that for a few years since the pandemic began and at all since the internet started 20 years ago. Which one is likely to have more opportunity for improvement? There's so many things we haven't explored with remote work. And I think the people who say, "Back to the office, it's because we know it works," well we know what it is, but I have so much more faith in the opportunity to improve the remote experience. And so I think long-term, it's going to triumph. The one other place where I'm a huge contrarian is doing business on a handshake. I understand companies need lawyers, and I have an attorney for certain things. But I coach people. Most of the people I coach, there's no NDA in place. There's no contract in place. They pay me through PayPal and I do good coaching for them. I think too much of the world is contract driven, and we've lost the idea of your word being your bond, and you can actually trust me to follow through on my commitments. And I'm a contrarian there. I realize I will occasionally get burnt. Someone will behave in a way, they'll let me down. But I think when we're always suspicious of people, that's a high cost. And the other place I'm contrarian is just doing business on faith. That reminds me, Sam Altman has a similar philosophy of just trust people and assume it'll all be okay. Sometimes you'll get burned, but on balance, it'll end up being much better for you and for everyone around you.…

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