There is nothing uniquely human about empathy. Every species of fauna has it, displays it, and benefits from it. If anything is unique about the human variant of empathy, it is the degree to which we have become comfortable forsaking it for simplicity and convenience.
In the summer of 2018, while a Partner at Prophet, I met Zig Serafin, the President of Qualtrics. Zig had come to the company a few years prior after a successful 17 years at Microsoft, and I wanted to know what compelled him to join. So I asked him. His eight-word answer – “we’re building the feedback loop for the world” was spoken with excitement, conviction, and a faint dose of incredulity. Where else, Zig posited, could one be doing such important work, given the gap between how people want to experience the world and they way that they do experience it?
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