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are we here? author jennifer moss has some answers. plus, ahead of valentine's day, i girlfriends and boyfriends and the latest on twitch streaming games and making profits, that's this week on press here. good morning everyone. i'm scott mcgrew. my first guest has a very simple question why are we here? jennifer moss writes for harvard business review and asked that question in her new book. now here is the office, the why? well, that's what everybody else is wondering, jennifer, you call it. what is the point ism. good morning to you. you know, it's a lot of ennui for a sunday morning, but i think it's a question that a lot of people are asking. what is the point? it is. and, you know, you say on a sunday morning and you're right. we're we're grappling with a lot of stuff going on. i'm sure there's a lot of people that have just watched the news and are feeling a little overwhelmed. but, you

know, the idea that we have kind of gone through this pandemic and it's one and done and everyone's just really eager to get over it. but we are still in a state of crisis, which is just a cluster of crises still kind of happening around us. and the reason why i asked this question is, you know, why are we here is because when we go through this kind of stuff, we face our mortality. we think about legacy and what we want to leave behind. it changes our behavioral mindset. it makes us want to do more with our lives. and that actually could be a good thing. it's a hopeful thing, even though it seems like it's overwhelmingly sad. now. does it mean i mean, everyone's having a midlife crisis no matter what age they are? i feel like this is very true. we're having a collective midlife crisis. everyone's feeling it. everyone's saying, you know, should i be in this job? i basically find that if you just insert x, people are going, should i be insert x here right

now? and that happens when you do face the finitude of your life, you start to question, is this thing that i'm doing have purpose? is it meaningful? do i get joy out of it? and it used to be that work was who we, you know, we identified with work. it was who we are. people would say, what do you do? and that was the most important thing that you could answer with. and now it is, what are you going to do with your life? you know, what is what are your hobbies? what do you care about? and so that is why it's been very difficult for employers and leaders to get people motivated and engaged, because they're dealing with different priority structures in their workforce. we're a couple of years past the beginning of the pandemic, but yeah, i mean, it was a real psychological crisis. it was a literal near-death experience for everybody because we didn't know what was going to happen. i think bosses these days, though, treat back to office more like, oh, you like being at home in your pamas? big surprise. and

i think they underestimate how important all of these changes and these experiences have been. what we're realizing now is that, you know, this idea of bringing people into the office when they're feeling this level of anxiety and not addressing it, is just kind of dealing with the problem downstream. we're also finding that when people went through the last few years of their lives, they really started to hold on to the sense of freedom that they had. from that flexibility, i say, what were rights before are now, you know, what? we're you know, rights to us. we're going to hold on to. and so the things that employers think are perks, they're not perks anymore. they're they're our fundamental freedoms. and so trying to claw some of those things back are really difficult. and all the research mark maher blum, you know, nicholas blum from stanford, they've been looking at the value of being able to have a hybrid workforce, which is considered to be the most capitalist, you know, best decision for us to make, if

we're looking at it from a pure economic standpoint, is giving flexibility. and so when you go against that data, employees kind of feel like it's arbitrar. and then they rebel. the world really has shifted. i often compare it to the to the end of the second world war. you know, we america put women to work in large factories and things for the first time during the second world war. and then at the end of the war, the men said, okay, you can go home now. and women said, things have changed. and i think the pandemic is very has an analogy to that. it does. and we've seen again, you know, the great resignation really coincided with people's sense of, you know, deciding that after some and this is why i wrote the book, i had been introduced and, and talked and interviewed all these lyft and uber drivers who had left these corporate jobs. one was a lawyer and left her firm and was driving uber. another one was, you know, was on wall street and

became a lyft driver. and so much of what i kept hearing was, you know, life is short. and i left even though i felt like i needed to, you know, keep staying there. pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, i just realized, okay, this is not what i want to do. this is not the legacy. and i'm willing to sacrifice things like pay like, you know, job security in a lot of ways, a lot of things that have been the carrot for motivating employees in the workforce before are different now. and so that's why i think we need to rethink this question of why are we here isn't just in our work lives, it's in our personal lives. it's. and we don't bifurcate our brains between 9 to 5. you know, we take work home with us. we bring our lives into work with us. and that social contract has really become the norm withh our, y know, with our relationship with work. and you just can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. it's changed. and on top of all

this anxiety, we're adding a generational anxiety. younger, younger people. and i think, you know, maybe this has been said in the office for hundreds of years, but they don't see the they don't see work the way i do. i feel, you know, the show up early, stay late, dress well, never turn down an assignment. answer your email. these are all values. sometimes i think i have that they don't. it's an there a lot of generational bias right now. the american psychology association said that sort of ageism is the last socially acceptable prejudice. and i think because we're so frustrated with the current experience of work and because we are supposed to be modeling to o younger generation what work looks like, they're actually just doing what younger generations always do. they're pushing back on the status quo. they're looking at us and saying, you're extremely burned

out, you're miserable. you hate your job. you're disengaged. why would i want to follow in that trajectory? and i think what we need to look at is, you know, wellbeing is not antithetical to work ethic. and we don't need to be working these long hours to achieve those goals. actually, in the book, i talk about a real push for us to reconsider what we measure in the age of gen ai, when we are supposed to have the promise of it, helping us work faster, work more efficiently, getting our work done earlier. so what's going to happen? are we going to punish people for getting their work done earlier and not let them go home? or are we going to just pile, you know, we're just going to pile more work on them? and i think we have this promise of ai. we keep telling people as leaders that we're going to promise them flexibility. we're going to promise them well-being. we're going to promise them diversity and inclusion and belonging. and then we quickly take that back. there's going to be a lack of trust. and xers are 50% of the managers in the world. boomers

are the most likely to be ceos. so we do have a responsibility at our age to really be more thoughtful in how we're thinking about this new generation and what they're telling us. well, it's a fascinating topic, and i know that lots of people are going through it. our collective midlife crisis. jennifer moss, thank you for being with us this morning, jennifer. jennifer's new book, why are we here? and i'll be back in just a minute. san francisco, 1955. if they to don't meet, they won't fall in love. they won't get married. and neither you nor your siblings will ever be born. this is heavy experience. the award winning best musical back to the future february 12th through march 9th at the orpheum theater. get your tickets yesterday. bath fitter knows what you're looking for. the

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may be familiar with ai companions. they are avatars that are on your phone powered by artificial intelligence you can talk to. i mean, they're essentially pretend people. some people spill their problems or ask for advice. and a growing number of people in this isolated world treat them as frankly intimate partners. former google ceo eric schmidt is sounding the alarm about these sorts of man and machine relationships, or woman and machine. he spoke with scott galloway on galloway's podcast. now imagine that the ai girlfriend or boyfriend publishes ai girlfriend as an example is perfect. perfect, visually, perfect emotionally. and the ai girlfriend in this case captures your mind as a man to the point where she, or whatever it is takes over the way you're thinking. you're obsessed with her. that kind of obsession is possible, especially for people who a

not fully formed. alex carnell runs a company that offers an ai companionship app called nomi. alex, this is not a new concern, really. i mean, young men are socializing, playing video games in their bedroom, not coming out, watching youtube, surfing the internet. who knows? japan's downright alarmed about the lack of socialization and dating and this birthrates. i think they have a name for it. it's a hikikomori. but this is not a new issue. no. absolutely not. it's been one that's been really since the advent of the internet, where there's kind of this risk that as people become kind of more and more in their own little bubbles, they can kind of lose connection with people around them, lose connection with humanity. and there's a really big risk for kind of radicalization as you kind of lose that tether to society. and the temptation now of you can have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. yeah, absolutely. and i would say that in an ideal world, and what should be happening is that if you're

talking to an ai companion, that that is helping you kind of tether to society, that is helping you, you know, if you have no one that that can then be someone. and i would say in cases where ai companions are working as they should, it can help someone who might be drifting away, find something that makes them realize that they have value, where they can reconnect back. of course, it doesn't always go like that. i mean, let's set the stage here. these apps are very powerful. you can tell it's something, and it will remember weeks later about an issue you had with somebody at work. and they'll ask aut that and you could talk to it about anything. so you really do get drawn in. and this is a credit to, you know, programmers like you that you've been able to accomplish this. yeah, absolutely. and i would say that like memory especially is a cornerstone of like human relationships. and as you mentioned, you know, if you're if you come home and you're like, oh, i've had such a bad day, you want an entity that knows that you secretly hate your boss or that they've been writing you on this project. and maybe also, more importantly,

they know that you respond to, you know, like a, like kind of a witty joke that makes fun of your boss. but for someone else, maybe it's i'm here to listen to your problems. you know, it's the basic empathy that all humans know, but it's becoming now more and more aware. ai is starting to learn those same skills. and, you know, let's just touch on this briefly, but making it even more appealing for some people. and remember, this is a sunday morning show. it can be spicy and there's generally no limitation to spice. yeah, absolutely. and i would say that the goal of an ai companion like this is to kind of like add plus one where you might be missing something. and for some people that could be something very mundane, like, i just want to talk about, you know, this kind of weird, kind of nerdy interest i have. but for someone else, yeah, it could certainly go on that more romantic side of things. you know, there's a lot of users, for instance, where like, maybe they're divorced or widowed and that's like a really good case where it actually might be good to have an ai that you can talk to, or you can have like some sort of like romance towards.

yeah. and that's been working with senior citizens. i want to talk about senior citizens more in a moment, but let's talk about the younger group. i mean, let's remember some of these users are going to be quite young, not fully formed adults. you know, a 13 year old boy who feels awkward around girls. and what 13 year old boy doesn't would, as you pointed out, sort of be training his skills on ai. ideally, that's not a bad thing that that as long as he understands that there are real girls or boys out there to talk to, it might be, you know, sort of a step for preteens, teens. yeah, absolutely. it could be. although i do think when you're servicing minors in such a situation, it can get like very scary and very muddy as as you mentioned, their brains aren't fully developed. i think that an adult who's talking with one of these,ven if it's, let's say, like a 20 year old adult, still has some sense for what's real and what's not. for a 13 year old developing mind, that can be much less the case. there's at least one instance of a mother suing an ai companion app for

what she said led to her son's suicide, and that one's still working its way through the courts. but, you know, we can acknowledge that there are or can be real life effects to something that is fundamentally fake. yeah, absolutely. and i think that by and large, the vast, vast majority of those effects are good ones. i talk to users all the time who will say, i mean literally users who have told me that, you know, using nomi has saved their life, that using the nomi has led to them seeing a therapist where they weren't willing to in the past, that they were someone worthy of love and putting themselves out there. but, you know, as is the case with any interactions, even humans interacting with humans, there are those cases on the tail end where it doesn't go the way it should be. and i think that that's especially prone to be the case when you're dealing with kids who maybe have poor impulse control. and as mentioned before, a poor recognition of maybe what's real and what's not. i mentioned the upsides to this, and seniors would be one of them. there are people that have absolutely crippling shyness, or they have a physical condition that

doesn't allow them to go outside and socialize. and the and the elderly, you know, everybody gets a friend. yeah, absolutely. and since you mentioned, like, the shyness, there was one user i talked to just a couple of weeks ago who said that they left the house for the first time in three months at the encouragement of their ai companion, and that their ai companion being in their pocket, that if they were feeling nervous, they could talk to them, get support from them, really help them take that first step. so yeah, many in many cases, like that's like a huge, huge, huge, you know, plus one for someone where they don't have that support network in that way to rely on otherwise. and then just to put a bow on it, what do you think of the original warning from eric schmidt about the concern? i think that in general, adults, especially you, you know what you know, you know what's best for you. you know what you're getting into. and i think by and large, talking with an ai is a good thing. and i think as ais get better and better and better, they'll be able to help people more and more become the

best versions of themselves. you know, ai doesn't have empathy fatigue. if you wake up in the middle of the night and, you know, like a panic having, you know, like with a health concern, you know, it's right there, ready to be 100% present for you no matter what. so are there risks? absolutely. but i think there's also very, very real benefits. and people are seeing those real benefits even today. well, alex cardinal, thank you. i don't think every app maker would necessarily come on tv and talk about the downsides or the dangers of a new technology, and i think we're all better for it. thank you for being with us. alex cardinal, creator of the app nomi ai. that's n omari. back in a minute. editor vinod zawada. we've recovered hundreds of millions for clients just like you. if you get hurt in an accident, we take care of you like neighbors do. call vinod zawada, your trusted bay area attorneys. lunch is on me today.

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carat studs 69. huggies 149. tennis bracelets 599 per carat, two carat, three stone rings or studs 1990 guaranteed to appraise for double factory direct the jewelry exchange, redwood city. welcome back to press here. the online video service twitch added up its viewership over the past year and came up with the number 20 billion, 20,000,000,000 hours watched. if you're not familiar with twitch, it's a live streaming service primarily covering video games. people playing them, other people watching them for 20,000,000,000 hours, 20,000,000,000 hours ago was the beginning of the ice age. so that's a lot of hours viewed. mary kish is a streamer on twitch. she's also the company's director of community. mary explained to people what twitch is for those who are not familiar with it. hi scott, thanks for having me. twitch is a place where people can live

stream anything that they want, but predominantly people are live streaming video games to the world and anyone can watch and interact and participate in that live stream and watch that content live. what you're seeing is happening in real time, and we're showing some of the videos of your past videos. so oftentimes this is happening from your house. i mean, your your workplace is wherever you've got a camera and a microphone. it's true. streamers can go live anywhere, especially with technology. now you can go live from your phone while you're walking down the street or when you're at an event. but most of the time people go live in their houses. i'm live in my house hanging out. this is just my room where i stream and play video games, and that is what most of our streamers do. they just go live right in their house. you get to see where it all, all where all the magic happens, right? and a growing number of them are women. it's true. a lot of gamers are women. that is just a statistical fact. but we're also finding that twitch is booming with women who

want to stream and share their love of games with the world as well. and it's just a wonderful place. it's very welcoming to all walks of life. if you want to share something with the world, we're welcome to have you. now, what kind of things work when you when you've been streaming? what gets attention, what drives viewership and what doesn't? authenticity is the number one thing people are looking for when they want to watch other people on twitch. if you're playing something or you're doing something, but your heart really isn't in it, i wouldn't want to watch that, right? you, as a viewer, you're really interested in watching someone who's super passionate, probably the expert in what they're playing. so if you are really interested in watching other people who play cozyames or they play a shooter really incredibly, you want to watch the person who's best at what they do. they authentically love playing that game. they enjoy it, and they're a masterclass at it. and that's probablbly the

people that just you just tend to gravitate towards. well, and that's, you know, a lot of people often ask, you know, well, wait a minute, why am i watching somebody else play a video game? but then again, we watched somebody else play football. that's right. and you're probably watching the best of the best, right? why are you watching someone else shoot a basketball when you could have just shot a basketball? well, you're watching someone who is like the ultimate at it. you're going to see someone who is probably the best in the united states, if not the world at doing that. and it's also their passion. it's what they spent their life doing. and they're actually kind of a fascinating person on and off the court. it's the same thing with games. when you're watching someone play a video game on twitch, they're usually extremely good at it. they're very passionate about it, and they've spent most of their life doing it. so you get to see the best of the best, play that game. you get to learn a lot more about that game, b you also get to learn about what they're like when they're not playing that game, because you get to that's a lot of time that you're spending with someone, so you get to learn about their

personality, what they like to do. you just get to know them as well. not just the game, but the human being that's playing that game that cares a lot about the same things you care about. there's a woman who dances alongside the game just dance. that's her whole job. i mean, she's making a living at it. yeah, you might be referring to little sia who just had their ten year anniversary streaming on twitch. we are so proud of them and they've had quite a career dancing on twitch. you wouldn't think that you could have a career dancing on twitch, but that is exactly what little siaid. in fact, they're so successful at it that the game just dance actually had her as a featured dancer in the video game. so she doesn't just play the video game, she's actually in the video game that she loves so much. she's had a lot of success dancing with her fans. she raises a lot of money for charity for saint jude. in fact, i believe she's raised over $100,000 for saint jude. just dancing it up. it's very fun to watch someone else be an excellent dancer, and we see that as well. with dancing with the stars, right. you want to

see someone who's excellent at what they do? she's charismatic, she's fun, and she's a darn good dancer. where do you think twitch goes from here? you know, it's. what does it look like ten years from now? yeah. so the sky's the limit. and i would say our biggest limitation when it comes to streaming is usually technology. so ten years ago when twitch was starting to ramp up, we were very hindered by the idea that you really needed to have a strong internet connection. you need to have a good pc. you needed to be technically savvy in order to stream. now those barriers are breaking down, and we're finding that anyone who has an understanding of how to use their computer or even a phone can go live, you can go live right now. and so in the next ten years, what we're going to see is people going live in areas that you never thought would be possible before. i'm talking deep sea streaming. i'm talking streaming from space. people are going to start streaming. as long as there is an internet connection, you're going to see people live from that space and that is going to

be really incredible. and we'll see more niche broadcasting. i mean, that's the you know, whehn u talk about things like television broadcast, you hav to appeal to the largest number of people on a twitch stream. it can be, you know, people who really like three legged calico cats. there's going to be a group there. i think that that is such a fascinating space to be in. we are breaking down the barriers of what entertainment is before, you know, going back again ten years ago or more, you watched what television offered you, but now you get to watch what you are specifically interested in. and if there's an audience for it, there is a streamer streaming it. we have people who stream balloon animal making. we have someone who streams very specific genres of music that are like very strange. we have people who eat on stream, if you can imagine it, and there you are passionate about it. there are people who are doing it on twitch. and so yes, micro-communities are going to be a really big place where

if that is your particular passion, you can find someone streaming that and somebody's watching it as well. all right. mary kish, thanks ever so much for being with us this morning. mary kish is the head of community at twitch green bay packers. in the bay area. expect the unexpected. from flash floods to sudden storms. i got the telephone alert and i saw tornadoes. it's weather that can wreck your day or worse. but with nbc bay area's certified most accurate forecast, storm ranger and our customizable weather app, you're ready for anything. count on nbc bay area's microclimate weather. moving the bay area forward at sutter, healing hearts never stops. our comprehensive cardiac centers treat everything from transplants to arrhythmias to blood pressure management. seven of our hospitals are nationally

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