Douglas Rushkoff

To Douglas Rushkoff, Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of his most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In this talk, drawn from the book which won Porchlight’s Management and Workplace Culture Book of the Year award, Douglas argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not apart. Today, society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. But Douglas will show you how we can overcome it as a team—as a company, school, church, or any other group—and in doing so, retrieve the collaborative spirit at the heart of what we do.

This talk is Douglas’s impassioned call to arms—to recognize that being human is a team sport. In his own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Douglas will show your audience that when we work together, we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.

With the meteoric rise of generative AI technologies—such as ChatGPT and DALL-E—many of us are asking big questions about artificial intelligence and where it fits into our corporate culture and creative processes. Douglas Rushkoff, bestselling author of Program or Be Programmed, argues that rather than replacing human creativity, appropriately developed AI can augment human imagination and expression. Instead of substituting for human relationships, AI can help foster collaboration and compatibility. Instead of doing students’ homework for them, AI can challenge them to do deeper analysis and dig for deeper insights.

In this engaging talk, Douglas breaks down how AI works, what it threatens if we turn to it for the wrong things, and how we can use it in ways that augment human flourishing. He draws on the entertaining stories and actionable conclusions he’s learned over his long career examining how technology changes society. With his trademark energy and thoughtfulness, Douglas argues that our companies’ future depends on our understanding of what makes humans fundamentally different from machines, and our willingness to embrace the novelty that comes from humans and AI working together toward human aims. Rather than repressing human agency, AI can unleash the creative potential of our organizations—if we dare.

Five mysterious billionaires summoned Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive The Event: the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Douglas came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley–style certainty that they can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making—as long as they have enough money and the right technology.

In this engaging and eye-opening talk, Douglas traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, and the Metaverse. This mind-blowing work of social analysis shows us how to transcend the landscape The Mindset created—a world alive with algorithms and intelligences actively rewarding our most selfish tendencies—and rediscover community, mutual aid, and human interdependency. Instead of changing the people, he argues, we can change the program.

When we think about making a better society, we often assume that the first step is to get people to change. But bestselling author and intellectual Douglas Rushkoff says we don’t need to “get people” to do anything—we can create a better world by recognizing the underlying assumptions behind our economy and institutions, and shifting them to work for us rather than against us.

Named one of the ten most influential intellectuals in the world by MIT, Douglas has built an enormous following by tracking how technology has changed us and our society. In this brilliant, energetic talk, he offers four steps to creating real social change, drawn from his long career chronicling and examining the rise of the digital age. He shows us how we must start by questioning the underlying assumptions of our world and our economies. Then, we have to rewrite the codes we live by, so that they serve more people and reflect our own values. Thirdly, we must learn to work as a team—making it easier for people to ask for favors, to establish rapport, and to build solidarity. Finally, we need to cultivate awe: experiencing ourselves as a part of something greater.

Douglas gives us practical ways to put each of these steps into action in our own lives and communities. Through this process, he argues, we can bring about a better world without needing to change who we are as humans. Audiences will walk away entertained, enlightened, and equipped for the work ahead.

Douglas Rushkoff has built an enormous following by examining the rise of the digital age, and how it’s fundamentally changed our world for the better (and sometimes for the worse). His vast experience, encapsulated in over a dozen bestselling books, has given him an unparalleled perspective on every issue audiences care about: from political polarization to generative AI to the rapidly changing media landscape, and everything in between.

In this fully customizable keynote, Douglas asks audiences to come up with the ten social, technological, or economic issues they find most urgent, and then weaves a single coherent talk that combines them all. He shows how each issue—any issue—is interwoven with all the others, and how they’re all part of the same story. Then he shows how this helps us find community, so we can tackle all these topics as a team. This personalized talk is a must-listen for anyone who’s interested in how the concerns we face all overlap, and how we can find a way through all of them, together. Audiences will walk away with the tools, solidarity, and hope that we need to navigate our complex landscape.