We Are Pivoting to Radical Empathy

Good morning, staff. Thank you for attending this all-hands meeting, or, as I prefer to think of it, all-hearts meeting. As you know, I am returning to the office after taking some legally mandated time away to listen to your recent complaints about me and learn from them.

After summering contritely in Europe, I spent the past week at the Burning Man festival, consuming a daunting volume of psilocybin mushrooms in an attempt to expand my consciousness. I return to you a changed man. I have achieved an inner tranquility I had never even dreamed of before. For example, I’ve seen the deep inequities in our patriarchal system of marriage and have decided to live a life of ethical non-monogamy, a decision that I will share with my wife, Lisa, at home later tonight. Most important, I now understand the flaws of our capitalist society, and I’m ready to start making changes.

From this point onward, as a company, we are pivoting to radical empathy.

There are going to be some changes around the office. You may have already noticed that we removed the vending machines from the common areas. They will soon be replaced by cabinets full of complimentary plant-based snacks. It’s part of a holistic package of employee wellness that we are implementing, which will also include the installation of a meditation garden on the roof, and the introduction of an optional but highly encouraged company-wide 6 A.M. yoga class. All this is intended to nurture spiritual, mental, and physical well-being in a way that Western medicine traditionally fails to do. As a result, we will no longer be subsidizing employees’ health-insurance policies. The for-profit health-care industry is a moral outrage, and, as the C.E.O., I can no longer compel my employees to take part in it.

Additionally, while howling at the moon last Thursday in an orgiastic frenzy, I was struck with an epiphany. Many of you have been lobbying for increased paid time off after the birth of a child. And today I am announcing our new policy of unlimited P.T.O.—paid time on! They say that it takes a village to raise a child. And what is a sleek, state-of-the-art, two-hundred-fifty-million-dollar corporate campus if not a modern-day village? No more stewing at home after a baby is born, fretting about your lost sense of identity and purpose. Instead, you’ll come to work, keeping up your vital contributions to our shared mission, while your colleagues assist you with child care during their breaks and other unscheduled downtime. I’ve always said that this company is like a family, and I’m excited for this opportunity for you all to fully embody that ideal. I, of course, will continue to employ a nanny to care for my children, Ayn and Reagan, on account of my busy schedule and frequent divorces.

But that’s not all! As last week’s psychedelic journey reached its apex, I closed my eyes and saw myself from outside my body, flying at light speed through space, weaving between brilliant, twinkling stars. And I realized that we are, cosmically, tiny specks that exist for a brief and tenuous moment before disappearing forever. After we’re gone, it’s like we were never here at all, and to think otherwise is a folly of human ego. And that is what I plan to tell the Environmental Protection Agency next week when I am called to testify before them. How could I, who barely exists, be guilty of dumping hundreds of tons of nonbiodegradable materials on protected conservation land? I am but a flickering shadow cast by the luminous candle of history. Could the United States government fine a shadow $1.6 billion for environmental crimes? It sounds a little ridiculous when you put it like that, now doesn’t it?

Before I conclude, I want to share my single biggest takeaway from the my seven-day mushroom trip: there is no you or I, only we and us, inextricably bound together. And that is what makes it so hard for me to announce that we will be implementing ten-per-cent layoffs, effective immediately. Since we are ultimately one single cosmic entity, it’s like we’re all being laid off. On the other hand, as many of us will still be here, and we are all essentially intermingling clouds of stardust, it’s like none of us is leaving.

Some may accuse me of caring only about creating value for our shareholders. To that, I say: what values are more important than sharing with and holding space for one another? If I can’t run our company according to those principles, I don’t want to run it at all. And, believe me, I will not be relinquishing my stewardship, no matter what a plurality of our board of directors says.

Thank you for listening to this outline of the future of this company, which I think will eventually become a blueprint for society at large. If you have questions about any of this, I will unfortunately be spending the rest of the day in a sensory-deprivation tank, recovering from my strenuous mental voyage. But though my door is closed, my heart remains open. And I’ll see you tomorrow morning at yoga. Except for the people who are being laid off.

So, family, until next we meet, I want you to go out there and do what we do every day—manufacture those little rubber things that stop people’s headphones from falling out of their ears. ♦