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Carol, see if I can redeem myself here. I don't know if you saw this elio today. There's some not some great news for maybe year in name. Sarita Rye, who covers AI in Asia, wrote in the Bloomberg Tech Daily newsletter about how there are some pretty astonishing virtual anchors in India. What from the public broadcast here, Here's what they do. They prefer weather forecasts, commodity prices, farming trends, and updates on agri research to in state welfare programs
to millions of farmers. She said she's pretty astonished by them, and she writes that the same tech behind fake videos of Ukrainian President Bolotomyr Zelensky surrendering to Russia or fake Taylor Swift supporting Donald Trump is also being harnessed to fill airwaves with legitimate news around the world.
Virtual anchors are one thing. I was gonna say, Taylor Swift, Fake Taylor Swifts are one thing. But fake anchors, Yes, virtual anchors. Now we've got a problem.
Should we be uneasy about the future.
I think maybe fair to say there's a lot of uncertainties about the future, about what comes next, but knowing what the future holds was our next guests job, Tim.
We got with us doctor Frederick Fert. He's founder of Google's Innovation Lab and he was Google's first chief innovation analyst. He's got a new book out, What's Next is Now how to Live Future Ready? He joins us from Santa Cruz, doctor Furt. Good to have you on the program. I love the idea of this book, the fact that people are so concerned about the future, and literally your job was to explain the future too, folks at Google, and
that's exactly where I want to start. What does it mean to be the chief innovation evangelist and founder of Google's Innovation Lab. What did you do there?
Yes, Carol and Tim, thanks for having me today. I, you know, love to dive into the future with you. So what I really did is observing people how they build the future and how they build a better future for everyone. Right, So I spend time with you know, thousands of people and trying to really figure out, like, how can you create a better future for yourself and that was really the driving question for me.
Well, you know, it's interesting. So when we think about that, like creating a better future for ourselves, how much is really in our control? How much is not?
Yeah, you make a great point, right. People often talk about the past rather than the future because it's just familiar and certain as it already has happened. Right. The past really provides it's a sense of security and predictability, which is comforting for our minds to be honest, However, constantly thinking and dwelling on the past really limits our ability to imagine and create a better future. So you mentioned previously when it comes to our future, we love predictions, right,
We love predictions like the weather. And you know what's what some futurists or other people might predict.
Back to the future part too great movie come true?
Exactly.
Yes, nothing of that might come true, right, But our minds really crave these forecasts because they create a sense of certainty. And this certainty, I think is a false one because no one can predict the future. And so what people are doing is they tend to adopt a passive stance, right, waiting to see what happens next, feeling that the future is something that happens to them rather
than something that they can influence. And so I'm now challenging us to rethink our relationship with the future instead of past. Yeah, go ahead, sorry please, Yeah, what might happen? You know, I want us to actively participate in shaving what will happen?
Right?
And I think the shift in perspective is crucial for overcoming this inertia that keeps us tethered to the past.
But this is not simply about framing. It's not simply about how you choose to look at the future. It's actually about being an active role in changing the way the future comes.
To you, right, exactly. Yes, So moving away from that question what will the future bring? That question we all love, right, But I want us to move away from that question towards what future do I want to create? Because that empowers us to take ownership of our destinies. And so most of what's happening in the you know, so called outer world, and you described a little bit about you know, we see fake news and all of those we can't control.
But what we can control is our inner world. How I like to describe it, how we respond to the things that are happening to us and also what choices we make in the moment, and this is really our inner agency where the true power lies.
So having said that, you know, I'm listening to you talk and I'm thinking, Okay, you understand the tech world in a way like nobody else does. So there's open source models and then there's closed ecosystems. Both can have value. So where's the balance of all of us as we try to figure out our future and kind of thinking it about it?
Maybe that way, yes, So when it comes to the future, right, I feel like it's more important to really focus on again what I describe as a mind state, Right, So that is your perspective if you have in any moment, and how you experience the present. So it doesn't mean like that, you know, we should focus on like what's the next tech or what's the next application, or you know,
what are some of the predictions. Focus on what you can control, and this is your relationship with technology where you can make choices and trying to experiment with new technology things out to really figure out like does what works for you and what doesn't work for you?
I think about this a lot. The idea of sort of the inevitable tech that comes to us from so many of the companies that Carol and I talk about on our program each and every day. And I'm wondering if there's ever, in your view, going to be a time when we reject a piece of consumer technology, or we reject some sort of innovation because as people, we don't want it to come to us. And I'm thinking of something like the AI world that is coming regardless of whether we want it to be here or not.
The fake robot calls that come during the political campaigns, the stuff we see on social media that are deep fakes.
What about that stuff?
Absolutely great points? Again, what I argue for is that we should not focus on the tech itself. We should focus on what we can control, and that is our mind state.
Right.
That means, like, what is our perspective on these things, and how can we, for example, be open towards these technologies to really figure out like what works and what doesn't work for us, right, and trying to experiment to really learn how these things work and then make a decision afterwards. Right. I feel like most of our times,
we you know, follow our what I call a negativity bias. Right, that is kind of like deeply ingrained in us where we trying to figure out like what are the flaws or what are the mistakes or the things that might go wrong right, instead of like just being open in the first place and say like, hey, what can this technology do for me? And how can I leverage to you know, something that I want to accomplish in my life.
Before I make a decision and say like, you know, I don't want to use that personally or in my in my professional.
Work, I have to say I feel like I'm in a yoga class, which I really kind of love, because that's the whole idea of kind of getting your mind, you know, in the right place if you will, or letting go right. That's kind of what can be tough with meditation, right you constantly have stuff coming in and you've got to be like put that on the shelf for a while because I've just got to kind of
take a moment. Having said that, can you get in the right mind state as an employee thinking about their future if your management is not that way or vice versa, as a manager or company, if you don't have your employer's employees that way, can you not kind of achieve the goals you need to.
Yeah, Carol, that's a great point, and thanks for sharing your story on your yoga experience. Again, like, I think what we've learned is that the best things we can control is our own mind state. Right, instead of focusing on someone else and the choices that you make, right, focus on the choices that are you making in the moment.
And you can make these.
Choices driven by you know, what I call radical optimism or unreserved openness or compulsive curiosity. Right, these could be helpful in a way that you look at situations just in a different way and then figure out, like you can actually have much more control of what's going to happen next instead of trying to change someone else like your manager, or change someone else in your team, trying to you know, focus on what you can control, because that I think is going to determine your future.
We only have about thirty seconds left and then we're going to do some news and we're going to come back with you, doctor Fert, But leave us just with thirty seconds on one thing that everybody should do between now and let's say I don't know the next few weeks to prepare themselves for the future.
Yeah, yes, So for me, what's really important is that you're trying to imagine. Imagine is that human super power that we all have, right, but we don't use it enough right to really trying to figure out, like, not just what I want to be in the future, but how do I want to be in the future, and ask yourself that question, because that might reveal that you know, you want to have qualities in the future that are related to compassion, kindness, openness, curiosity, optimism, and so forth.
So rather imagining like what I want to get in like my next years, trying to imagine how do you want to be?
I want to get back to our guest. We're talking with doctor Frederick Ferd. He is founder of Google's Innovation Lab and Google's first chief innovation evangelist. Is also the author of the new book What's Next is Now How to Live Future Ready. He's still with us from Santa Cruz, California.
Doctor fer One of the things I was curious about, and it kind of plays off a story that we have talked about here at Bloomberg that's talked about how Google how they have combined their research labs, and this was specifically combining the two labs their Google Brain and deep Mine, and now they have an AI super unit
called Google deep Mine. And they get into a lot of the reasons why and why it made sense, and some of it had to do with, you know, the AI competitive raise and you're seeing some upstarts and that seem to be more nimble. So I am curious this idea in a company that's as innovative as Google and Alphabet and this idea of being in that kind of right mind state. Is it more difficult as you become a more established, older technology company to be nimble and
be as innovative. Is it a little bit tougher or to rally the troops to be that way.
So I've spent about twelve and a half years at Google really trying to figure out like what's the what's the Google way to innovate?
Right?
And in my first eighteen months, I traveled to about twenty seven offices and worked with you know, hundreds of employees Googlers to reach figure out like what's the Google
way to innovate? And what I found is that every time I, you know, saw some groundbreaking technology or idea, that it's not about the resources people have it's not about the environment they're in, it's not about the time they're spending on these, it's their mind state, right, It's how they are radically optimistic, how they're open curious, how they experiment, and how they show empathy. These are, for me, the five dimensions what I call of a future ready
mind state. So when these are at play, right, I always saw that something radically innovative and different is going to emerge. And so for me, the question is always like, how can we all learn these dimensions of a future ready mindset and practice them so that we all, you know, are capable of shaping our future that we want to see happening.
But I kind of want to go back to Carol's question. Does that mindset still come to people who work at a company that is now giving dividends to shareholders or that has grown so big that you're not necessarily interacting with those teams all over the world. Maybe it's more siloed in this day and age.
So what's interesting is that we see the same things that happen in organizations actually happen to people, right, and human beings. Let's put a focus on curiosity, right, Curiosity drives us to explore and really understand our world better, which is really crucial in our rapidly changing environment. So we're all born with curiosity, and we have that natural curiosity that actually goes dormant over time right as we
grow up. So the good news is that we can reawaken it by continuously questioning and seeking to learn more about everything around us. Right, So that's true for human beings. We probably see the same in organizations right where we see that startups actually are the most curious, right. They don't have, you know, an established way of working, They usually don't have big funding. They have an idea, and
they're curious about developing or growing this idea. And so for me, it's really about helping people to rediscover something that is deeply human, which is their optimism, their openness, and also their curiosity and their sense to experiment and try things out right. And if we humans can do that and reawaken that, I have full confidence that organizations can do that too.
Do you think it's broken down when you look at the political environment globally?
Again, Like what I feel like is for me, probably one of the most important dimensions of a future ready mindset is what I call expensive empathy. Right. What I mean by that is understanding and connecting with the experience of others. Right. It really enriches our interactions and decisions and ensuring that they are considerate and inclusive, which is
really essential in a diverse global environment. So I feel if we all show more empathy, right, and that means you as a parent, as a as a journalist or a reporter, or as a teacher or a politician, right, you have more empathy for each other. I think we all see that the better future will actually happen.
It's it's I love the optimism, but but that's struck down. Yeah, yeah, I mean we don't live in a world. I mean, look at the look at just politics right now, there's a real lack of empathy. I would say in Washington, d C. Among colleagues, members of the House, who continually scream at each other. There's a lack of decorum that was present just a generation ago, Doctor Fert, How can you say that we're in a place where you're optimistic about empathy exactly?
So I'm optimistic that we all can rediscover it and we can actually practice and train it.
Right.
So there is a way you can learn to be more optimistic. There's also a way that you can reawaken your curiosity, and there's a way that you can practice empathy, right, And it's something you're absolutely right, tim that we need to all develop and grow more. And in my book, I actually give practices that we all can try out to become more empathetic, to become more optimistic, to become
more open and curious. And so if we all use those practices and at the same time learn from these stories that I share, I think we have a good chance that you know, we see a better future happening.
There's a great I got to say at page one seventy nine, change your mind state note, And it's an experiment can do kind of you say, writing a public transportation and you know, sometimes I look around and just everybody's buried in their phones and nobody has any awareness of anybody technology that's doing that, And that's technology.
To always wonder what Steve Jobs would think if he, you know, we're around today and just walked into a subway car and saw everybody just looking at their phones.
Well, doctor Fird, is that part of the problem. We're so buried, we're still looking inward we're looking we're buried in our phones. I mean, we don't kind of think about the people around us and what's going on. And forgive us, we only have about thirty forty seconds here.
Yes, so I think when we look on the phone, right, we're not looking inwards, right, That's the first thing. So Carol, I would argue in the same way with you, right, we should probably look more inwards. Right, and doing meditation practices and reflecting practices I think help us to really trying to discover what's going on in our inner world. Right, what is our mind state currently? Are we actually more closed, more afraid.
More uncertain?
And if we are, right, how can I shift? How can I change this mind state to be more open, to be more optimistic and more curious again. And I think if we are able to do that and practice that even more again, like I think, we're going to see a great future happening really interesting.
I'm so glad we could get some time with you. Thank you so much, congratulations on the book. Good luck with it. Doctor Frederick fert He's founder of Google's Innovation Lab, Google's first chief innovation evangelist, and his new book that's out, What's next is now how to live future ready. We forgot to say he actually sends a packet of seeds.
You can hear the seeds right now in.
A little bag.
Seeds for your future now.
Yeah, very cool, kind of loving that.
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This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
It is Bloomberg Business Meet Carol. You'll remember on Friday we talked about this story about how everyone really is sick a lot more often in our post COVID world.
Yeah, it kind of has been staying with me in a big way. I keep thinking about that, talking and having a lot of conversations in around the newsroom about it. Yeah.
Here's the data that we were citing here. At least thirteen communicable diseases, from the common cold to measles and tuberculosis are surging past their pre pandemic levels in many regions, and often by significant margins. That's according to analysis by Bloomberg News and London based disease forecasting firm Affinity.
So we are very curious what doctor Iman Abuzaid has to say about this. She's co founder and CEO at Incredible Health, there are marketplace that connects nurses to hospitals. She joins us from Austin, Texas. We've leaned on her coming out of the pandemic, during the pandemic, during the pandemic to really get a good gut check on what's going on among the healthcare community and in particular what's going on with nurses. Doctor Abouzaid, Great to have you
back with us. We do want to kind of start there because you do. You're so good about telling us kind of what is top of mind for the nursing community. And I am curious about if they're seeing people more, you know, sick with kind of strange strange ailments, if you will, different communicable diseases. What are they seeing specifically.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So, the US healthcare system is seeing increases in patient demand, right, so, the demand from patients and sicker patients continues to increase, and we're struggling to make sure that we have enough healthcare workers to support to support patients. In our most recent so our platform our two sided marketplace as hospitals and nurses. We work with over one million US nurses
in the country and over oney five hundred hospitals. Our most recent study was actually of healthcare executive or hospital leaders. They are ninety percent of them are stating that they project the nursing shortage to worsen in the future years and only thirty two percent are satisfied with the ratio of nurses to patients on their units today.
We care about how this looks over time, and we care about sort of the trend and whether or not things are getting better things are getting worse. What do the data tell you?
So the thing the areas that are getting better is that we're there's a larger portion of nurses that are staying in the profession. So during COVID, we were seeing like an exodus not just out of the their current jobs, but out of that opting out of being nurses altogether. So we've definitely seen an improvement there, and we've also
seen an improvement in mental health for nurses. The areas where we're not seeing much improvement is staffing and ensuring that there's enough nurses on the floors and so, and that's reflected by the fact that only thirty percent of hospital leaders are satisfied with the number of nurses that are on the floors given the volume of patients that they each need to take care of.
You know, one of the things I want to ask you is, I feel like we've talked to you, you know, for a long time, and in terms of the trends, it feels like it continue continue to be a very stressful one for nurses and that there's just not enough. Is there anything moving in the positive direction?
Yeah? So, you know, we still seeing burnout as the number one reason for why nurses leave their job, and we're still seeing high turnover of twenty percent. I think what's changed in a positive and more optic optimistic direction is that we're seeing more and more hospital leaders listen and address the challenges of this workforce. Specifically, we're seeing continued increases in wages and salaries for nurses across the board.
We're also seeing more hospital leaders pay attention to and implement more flexible scheduling so nurses have more flexibility and in their work schedules. And then finally, we're also seeing more investment in career advancement and career training for nurses as well.
How is the pipeline looking for nurses coming from nursing school. It's something that we've talked to you a lot about the lack of availability of training for these nurses to fill these positions that are open. How's that looking.
So there have been increases in the number of nurses graduating from nursing school, which is which is great, but it's still not the numbers that are increasing. There are still not keeping up with the demand that we need. And so that's the reason why ninety percent of healthcare leaders believe the nursing shortages is going to continue and
into the future as well. The other sort of the big change that we've seen is just an increase in verbal and physical assaults that nurses are tackling are handling. So sixty percent of health system leaders have seen an increase in assaults, and so there's definitely a need to improve workplace, you know, to address workplace violence too.
One of the healthcare executives, what's their views on immigration in terms of feeding the nursing community and the jobs that are needed, Because I think any of us who've been in hospitals, we see how important the immigrant community has been ultimately in terms of providing nursing.
Absolutely, the immigrant community has been critical to stabilizing the healthcare workforce in the US. And I think on the whole health system leaders would love to hire from abroad, but I don't think our immigration policies today make that easy. And so a lot of the health system leaders that have tried international nursing and have tried to hire from abroad can't do it as easily as they were able to, you know, a decade ago.
How willing are they to take it on politically, as you know, you take a stand on different political issues and it can come back with you, you know, come back to you in a big way, in a negative way.
Absolutely ready and willing to take it on politically. I'm also in the tech industry, and so I know that my counterpart CEOs are taking this are taking the immigration issue very seriously in Congress. But at the end of the day, the appetite of both parties is not where it needs to be when it comes to this topic, whether it's tech or healthcare. We need more immigrants and there's not enough Americans to provide the workers we need in both of those industries.
Yeah, we talk about this a lot, and not with relation to nursing, but with relationship economic growth in our country, Carol the idea that, Yeah, in terms of birth rate here in the US, we're not having enough kids to actually replace all the people who are dying. So we need immigrants to fill that gap and come and do those jobs that those people who are retiring and dying are no longer doing.
Yeah, it's such a massive issue. And I don't know, doctor abouzaid, how do you think about kind of what's the conversation you, me and Tim might be having in five years. Is it going to be markedly different? Is it going to be more stressed? How do you think about that?
That's a great question. So we're we're there's many leaders in many companies and health systems and so on working on tackling these challenges. One sort of bright spot area is AI, and so over half of health system leaders in our study say that they are using artificial intelligence for nursing operations. It's primarily being used and implemented in
scheduling and more administrative tasks. It's not yet being used in recommendations for patient care, but health system leaders are sort of leaning into this new technology to help relieve their workforces as well and to see if there's certain tasks that can be automated. Given the overall challenge that we've been discussing.
You know, I think everybody's probably seen the videos that are out there about kind of human humanoid robots are being made in China specifically to help with elderly and maybe providing healthcare. Is that something that you think, Okay, it's just a matter of time that we'll see that, certainly throughout American health care institutions.
I think given the pressure that health system leaders are under to you know, manage their P and L to drive a profitable business and to deliver on patient care, I don't think they have much of a choice. They have to lean into newer technologies including AI.
Unbelievable, Yeah, but yeah, I get it. Doctor jimont Abuse, thank you so much. Co founder CEO had incredible health joining us there in Austin, Texas. Great to check in with her once again.