The film 4:27
If the machines carry the work, what is human life for?
Jonathan Whistman Founder, Near Zero Labs
Drive everything that drains you towards zero. Turn up everything that makes you human all the way up.
Chapters and transcript
Something remarkable is happening and most people are missing it. The cost of doing things is falling towards zero. Writing, research, scheduling, analysis. Every month the machine carries more of the work and most people they meet that with fear. But I want to meet it with a question. If the machines carry the work what is human life for? For years my work has lived in one place building A-plus teams with great humans helping leaders find, keep, and grow the kind of people who make a company great. But along the way the map has shifted under all of us. For the first time in history one technology is changing two things at once. How an organization works and the people who work inside it. How the work is done.
That's why I started Near Zero Labs. We rebuild companies around a simple principle. Zero people doing what machines do best and zero machines doing what humans do uniquely. But a company is not just a system. Inside everyone are people. People who go home at night, who have bodies, who have families, who have dreams, who get one life to live.
So the same principle has to go home with them and I call that Near Zero Living. Two halves of one idea. Near Zero Labs for the organization, Near Zero Living for the human. You put them together and this stops becoming a business strategy. It becomes a rethinking of how we work, how we live, and what we build together. A rethinking of society.
The idea at the center is simple. Drive everything that drains you towards zero. Turn up everything that makes you human all the way up.
Now let me be clear about what this isn't. It isn't minimalism. Minimalism subtracts things, takes things away. Near Zero subtracts drag. So you can keep the great kitchen, you can keep the art on the wall, just lose whatever turned those things into a burden. It's not austerity. Let's be honest, an empty room is not a full life and it's not a war on money. Money is fuel. Money enables. It's just not the destination.
So what does Near Zero look like? It comes down to five things. Near Zero friction. The admin, the logistics, the decisions that don't matter. Automate them, delegate them. Nobody wanted to do them anyway. Buy back your time. Two, Near Zero contaminants. What goes in you and on you becomes you. So know what's in your pantry. Know what's in your bathroom cabinet. Know what you're feeding your family. Number three, Near Zero noise. Your attention is your life. Spend one moment at a time. Guard it. Number four, Near Zero regret. Say the thing. Take the trip. Make the call while there's still time. And the fifth is the reason for all of the other four. Full-scale human. A strong body, a strong mind, deep relationships. Work you're proud of. Wonder. Magic. All of the things that make you human. That's what matters most.
But let's be honest, not all friction is the enemy. That heavy set in the gym, the long walk, the hard conversation, that friction makes you bigger. It makes you larger. It makes you more alive. Keep it. Seek it. Find it. The goal is never a life without effort. It's a life without wasted effort.
The machines are going to carry the weight. That's already been decided. It's here. It's well underway. What's still up to us as humans is what we build with everything the machines give us back. Will we build better companies? Will we build fuller lives? A society built around what only humans can do. We are entering a time of abundance, not fear. And in that world, the most important question changes.
For generation, the first thing we've asked a stranger is, what do you do? And let's be honest, what we meant was, what is your job? What's your title? What's your role in the machine? Where do you stack up? And that question, that question is fading. The question that's going to matter more now is a deeper question. Who are you? The human. That's the work of near zero in our companies, in our lives, near zero drag, full scale life.
Near Zero Labs rebuilds companies around one principle.
Zero people doing what machines do best, and zero machines doing what humans do uniquely.