What values are you willing to pay for? Does it change for your personal life, versus your work persona? When does ethical stop feeling ethical? This week, Divya and Kahran explore these questions in the context of today’s society, today's technology and the nature of late capitalism.
You actually have to be in a scarcity mindset sometimes when running a company. The question isn't whether you can afford your morals — it's which ones you can't afford to compromise.
The stories that tell the behaviors you want — that's how you encode ethics into an organization. The story tells people how to behave.
Hi, I'm Dhivya. Hi, I'm Kahran. In this episode of Thinking on Thinking, we discussed morals, ethics, values and how we think about them in context of our personal lives and in context of businesses. This was a very interesting episode because there is no hard lines here and we have to
discuss everything in almost moral relativism context and while it's an uncomfortable space to be in, it's still an interesting conversation to have. We hope you really enjoy it. I think something that you and I have talked about since we were early days of joyous, right, was how it's expensive to have morals, right, and to kind of be able to afford to
have your ethics means that you have to be having margins that are high enough that you can afford to, right, whether it means in your industry paying people well or you know, like using sustainable products or whatever it means, whatever your ethics and your morals kind of align, either right, those often have a cost associated with them. I also feel like it's sometimes presented as a dichotomy because we haven't lived in a world where people
are forced to be ethical in some ways. How do you think about what is the right thing to do? Like, as in like, what is your personal... Well, I think it comes a lot from like where you're starting from, right, and I think something, you know, we've talked about, many people talk about is like, you know, are you starting from a mindset of abundance
or are you starting from a mindset of scarcity? And I think a lot of times in these places, it's a scarcity, right? So then it's like, oh, we can't afford everything. So how are we going to make a choice among what we can afford? Hmm, interesting.
Right? Like, that's how you always end up when you're in a scarcity mindset. But I think if you're coming from an abundance mindset, then it becomes like, oh, you know, these are... This is the way I want to be, or these are the values that we have. And it's like, how many ways can I show these values? Huh.
You know what is interesting? I recently read this book, The Righteous Mind, which shares the moral foundations theory and how like, you know, left and right, the American left and American right, how they are divided across like these six different morals. And it was interesting, but now that you say this idea of scarcity versus abundance, like what people feel is abundant and scarce in a particular situation can be different based on who is talking.
So for example, like recently, especially because of the whole AI art, I guess, conversation, now it's also happening in the writing world where writers are fighting against AI usage in writing rooms and all of that. Clearly, there is a lot of scarcity mindset in some spaces. Like there are some people who are developers and who are very pro AI and other people who are developers who are very anti AI. And it's very interesting where one, where does a particular person put the value of certain things and two, where do they, like, how limited do they think the value is?
Hmm. But don't you think that's a kind of reflection of the person? A lot of times, I mean, and you know, the circumstance that led to them. But also the cultural context that they are living in. I don't think that like how we think circumstance.
Yeah, not circumstance, right? Like circumstance could be, see that would make like, you know, people who are living in the same household and are like mostly similar circumstances have the same political opinions or have the same moral values. But we know that like, you know, that's often not the case. I think that like what social group you feel like you belong to and like, you know, we think that this kind of a thing is right. And this is abundant. And this is not like basically what is worth being territorial about and what is not worth being territorial about. Like you can't be non territorial about everything you will think of some things as limited.
Or you can contest that actually. I don't know. I mean, that's what I'm wondering, right? Is that a guarantee? Do you have to situation where like, you know, you can imagine not being territorial about anything, not having like a scarcity, I guess, like locker on anything. Well, I think if you think about it from a company perspective, which I think is in some ways the way I was thinking about it coming into this conversation. Yeah, I think some companies are kind of built in a way that they are like, don't you feel like Disney is built in that way?
No. Say more. Like for example, I don't think Disney feels like creativity is infinite. That is why they like, you know, struck down copyright laws as strictly as they did. I don't think Disney thinks that like, you know, people's appetite for creative things is infinite, which is why they are so territorial about their audience and attention.
Yeah. Hmm. I'm not going to say Disney is an a moral company or anything like that. Might be. But like, the fact that most of their child actors don't have great things to say about it.
Working with them definitely means that there is something that is systemically problematic in the way that they are building their IPs. Hmm. I guess you kind of run into this other thing, which is like, like one of the ideas in product development is that you know secrets, like you know some of the ideas that are being built. You know secrets, like you know something about this problem that no one else knows. And a lot of times when you're building successful solutions, particularly in the consumer space, it will be because you've understood more about that problem than other people do.
Right. So, and I had one person I worked with years ago who was like, yes, you know, we need to have at least a certain number of secrets before we can go out and take this thing to market. I guess in some ways that those two ideas running contention because if you're, if you're in a place of abundance, you're not going to be thinking about retaining secrets. Right. Like that's a, that's a place you come from when you're in a place of thinking that right that there's not enough and you can't share. And if that's kind of what you need to build successful solutions, well then you can't be in a mindset of abundance when you're trying to build these things.
Also another thing, right? Like if you think about game theory and like playing infinite or finite games, you can't play all games in your life in an infinite game manner. You can choose which relationships you're going to play as infinite games and you leave the other ones in a finite game. Yeah. Because like ultimately there is a driver here, which is time on earth is limited, whether one acknowledges it or not time on earth is limited. Whether you're a person, whether you're a company, right, like all companies would die off at some point.
I don't know how many hundred year old companies exist today. Definitely like, you know, less than 1% of whatever existed 100 years ago. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Interesting. What I was just thinking about was like, if at the core of right, you know, like you're saying right, like their attention is scarce, life is scarce, right, like things will reach their finite point, like there is going to be a choice that has to be made in terms of what ethical choices, what ethics do you want to afford, basically, right? Yeah.
And I guess I'd be curious about how you think about that, right, like, I think I was starting from the contention when we were when we were thinking about this before the episode started that, you know, maybe the right answer is that you have to be pushed from more into an abundance mindset, right. And that like people who are running companies, the right solution for them is to be in a more abundance mindset and thinking that yes, you know, you can afford your morals, and you can afford to show your values across different channels in different ways. I think as I was just thinking about it now and kind of listening to you and talking through it. You know, I'm not sure if that's true, right, I think you actually you do kind of have to be in a scarcity mindset when you are running companies at times because you are trying to think about how do you maximize with a limited amount of resources. And, you know, how do you kind of build those secrets that are going to help you guys be successful, whether that means, you know, stealing, stealing, share from competition or outmaneuvering kind of, you know, new product waves right it can mean all sorts of things.
So I guess, yeah, I'm curious about how do you think about that right like when you can't afford everything how do you choose what you can afford. And do you set up the question that way. Hmm. So, honestly, before we started talking, I also did not think that the conclusion sort of that we would end up moving towards is that you have to make a hard choice at some point you have to draw the line. One of the thoughts that comes to my mind is I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is starting his second venture and I was like, what is like, what are some lessons that you're taking from your previous venture to this one. And he said, and this is like, we stuck with me.
He said that I think we wasted a lot of time in not making decisions. We just kept trying things like out and maybe we say, oh, let's just try in both places and three different connections and we were just not decisive enough and any decision would have been better than no decision. So I think that like, as I think about us building this, I would first maybe think about survival in some ways, not in terms of like, there is compromising your ethics, which is like giving up doing the wrong thing, then there is doing the neutral thing and then there is doing the right thing. And I think I would try to, I would never do the wrong thing, but I would try to sustain ourselves before forcing myself to go to the right thing. That's interesting.
I think that's a cultural answer, right, because I mean, and I may be romanticizing but my sense of like, like, you know, I don't know, Japan before America was the word Japan pre 1945, I guess, is like it's a place where people would rather, you know, die than do the wrong thing. I imagine it would, it would be permacive to business culture as well. You think that's romanticization. Yeah, 100%. Just like people think that samurai is were so loyal and like they were basically not. And how people feel that ninjas were disloyal while they were the loyal ones.
I wonder though that there might be a cultural component to this survival versus like doing the right thing versus doing, I think we keep doing the wrong thing. I'm sure like, you know, it's one of those things where if your survival is at stake, even killing someone might not feel like the wrong thing, good and good, right. Like if you're in the wild and you're an animal, they're killing something is not the wrong thing to do. But I don't know. I just feel like it's very, again, I do not like moral greatness, but this is one of those problems that I've faced the more I have like read about morals and ethics and stuff like that. And I'm articulating this stuff like just right now as we're talking about this, but it's very easy to stand from the outside and say somebody did the wrong thing or somebody did the right thing.
I mean, if you're an indigenous people, again, that is 100% the wrong thing. But defects by omission are not as problematic as defects by action, if that makes sense. I mean, that's that's a blanket statement that could be just prove that. Yeah, that can be just proven in the edges, but like, you know, just the sentiment of it, of course, like Elizabeth Holmes didn't do the right thing at all. She did not like, you know, by by error, that was not the thing.
Like that's not what she was trying to do. She was trying to lie and cheat or maybe by hurting millions of people like that's very well. Her claim is like the technology wasn't that far away. And they just need a little bit more time is what she believed. Yeah, but she's not a technical person.
And there was no proof like there is nothing in there. Well, this is why the other man went to jail for a lot longer. Yeah. I don't know how do you think about. So I think when you're building things, which will last for an extended period, they the ambiguity around them tends to get lost.
I think it's an idea you were kind of referencing a few minutes ago. Right, but it's part of what makes people feel comfortable is when there's moral clarity. And I think so I think when you're thinking about building things with a long that you're imagining it will have a long tenure. It is kind of important to figure out what are the ideas, the kind of moral ideas that you're building around. And how are you going to be careful about sustaining it, I guess.
And I think to me one of the biggest dangers about sustaining come from the potential of just like hypocrisy, right? Like one of the things that can really undermine is when people feel like, oh, you've you're building because if you're building something without moral ambiguity, then that means the the tolerance for for deviation is so low. Right. I think that's why if you think about things that really long lasting periods and lasting, right, like like religions and whatnot, right, or or kind of faith in styles of government. Right, like there's there's clear cut sort of understanding of where the boundaries lie and when people step outside of that or when people are found to have kind of broken the faith.
It's so shocking for people. Right. It's so horrifying when like, oh, you know, how could this person do this? How could this priest commit these actions? How could this politician in Bezel in this way? Right, like it's, I don't know. I don't want to go too far into that part of it because I was trying to answer your question directly. I think that when you're thinking about building companies around this, I think figuring out what kind of ethics are central to you, and then figuring out, you know, where what kind of things are less central to you basically, right.
So what things are comparable and what things are not. And I think being clear about that and I think one of the ways to actually really be clear about that is to figure out what are the stories, right, what are the stories that tell the behaviors that we want. I think something we talked about a long time ago on the podcast. But one of something I learned from one of my good friends who worked at Nordstrom was this like this tale that you learn when you're hired at Nordstrom about how someone once tried to return a tire, because the store this right I think we told this story but I'll tell it briefly, but someone once tried to return a tire to a place that used to have a tire and now had a Nordstrom store and the Nordstrom took the tire, right and that kind of story tells the ethics that the company is willing to pay for.
Values versus ethics. Oh, that's interesting. You're right, I really blurred those at some point, I guess, because I'm sure that those are blurred, I don't think that you've learned them randomly. As we've been having this conversation that is another thing that I've been thinking about so I listened to this podcast sometimes called rationally speaking, and yeah, very crisply about so many different things. And like today it's been a little bit of a struggle just like figuring out different things and like you know what we are trying to say and where the boundaries lie and I don't feel like I've been as clear as I generally tend to be like I have not brought that to be a clarity.
It's very easy to look at philosophers and think oh my god you're just saying things that don't mean something but clearly like engaging with these kind of ideas on a day in, day out basis must give you a much richer vocabulary and ability to deal with these kind of concepts because I mean you tell me if I'm wrong but like I have felt like this is a difficult topic we've picked a very hard one. Well, yeah, I mean I guess I was still kind of thinking on that specific difference but yeah I think I would agree with you at a high level. I think specifically though I feel like when you say ethics though are you thinking like ethical behavior. I think like when the word ethics makes me think of doing the right thing or not doing the right thing. But I guess to me like the right thing is defined by the group of people you are around a lot of ways right it just depends on how big you draw that size.
So then doing the right thing for your company is kind of doing the right thing by the values. Hmm in some ways but like think about it if you are the CEO and you model the CEO of the opposing company and you are doing right by a company and your shareholders are you doing the right thing. Well, are you doing right by your values. Right and I say like let's say your company's value is that they can the company hire someone because the company's value is that they want to get to the top of the industry. Well, I guess that's where I think and this is maybe I come back to where I kind of started from a little bit but I think it's it's important to figure out where your values.
Right like which values are you willing to spend to afford right like whatever but what value because I think that's what differentiates companies and actually gives them personality is that there's some values that they're willing to pay money for. Right there's some values that we're willing to say oh we'll leave money on the table because this value is more important to us. It's like I was I was at this investor meeting yesterday and one of the presenters was talking about how she will not invest in distressed companies. She's like I don't want to build that skill set and we don't have that skill set to go and understand how to unpack and get the best value for distressed companies, we'd rather focus on the growth side and we think there's more than enough room to focus on the growth side. Right, so, but she's drawing a line where she's saying you know I'm going to leave money on the table, because this is the place where I want to focus in a different way so I guess I mean some ways I think that it's kind of a false dichotomy and saying that you're leaving money when you afford your values
and a lot of times in your values in that choice you're actually going to open up more possibility for yourself. Do you think that you would have different values personally versus professionally? Like in your work versus in your you know life would you have different values? I think so. I think like an example would be like when I go to my mother's house I will be cleaner in the kitchen than I will be in my own house. But that's just a behavior right? Like is that a moral slash ethical thing?
Well it's something that she deeply values right? She feels like the cleanliness of her kitchen if a guest was to arrive is a judgment upon her. So she associates moral value. So in that arena one associates moral value with it. So then you're considered differently or maybe a less hypothetical way of thinking about it. It's like if you go and work for an accounting firm and that accounting firm has more stringent rules around expenses or thinking about like what is an office expense than like maybe you would. But I don't think that like that at least for me that does not fall into ethics per se.
So let's say if you are you know somebody who is extremely environmentally like I have one friend who is like this they never order in. He always goes somewhere on his electric bike to get like you know to and he even when they go for shopping he will carry his own boxes and like they will always fill stuff including the 5 kg things. And like you know so much effort goes into it. Now if he was working he's working with a battery maker like a battery refurbisher. So like you know giving second life to that. His I feel like his ethics on work side and personal side aligned here right like environmentally conscious in his personal life and mentally conscious in his like working for a company that also cares about that.
Would you say that that can be like entirely different for you. I think it can be entirely different but I think what can happen is like it like I'm sure that not every person who works for that battery refurbisher is the same as your friend. Right there can't they're not going to all be carrying their own take out containers to restaurants when they want to take food home and right and like like you're I'm sure your friend is even in that places in the top 10% maybe right or maybe there's 20% right. So I think it's going to be 8090% of people who will be ordering food take out sometimes. And so what I'm saying is it's possible to work for a place that I think has maybe like you're not unaligned but it maybe is more strict than you would be. I don't know if it's possible to go the other direction I think it can be really hard to go the other direction and you start to eventually feel dissidents.
Like I have a friend I think maybe she's technically a distant cousin who is a food scientist and went to go work for I think Kraft or one of the big food companies. When she finished school. I don't know I talked to her after a few years and she just wasn't in so much of a happy place right I think it's just because it's hard if you if you feel like you care deeply about people and you care deeply about the environment and you're going and working in a place where a lot of what you're doing is figuring out you know how do you tweak something to make it more irresistible to people so they will consume more so they will buy more of it right and so then they will you know buy more plastic and do all these things and I think that that can be really hard. What it's like right the company is a broader view of what sustainability is and what means to do the right thing than you do.
But if it's narrower I think it's more reasonable. Like or sustainable I guess is the right word. Basically if your models do not completely clash with your companies models you could find a middle ground. And you can make some compromise. But I think the interesting thing that is kind of occurred to me in this conversation.
I think it might be the right thing for companies to be setting out a tighter moral area to play in. Because then you'll be able to attract these people who have a broader moral compass I guess right but are looking for something that's somewhat aligned. But if you feel too broad can be a real turn off for people who are tighter than you are right so if you have a really broad understanding of sustainability and what it means to be. I don't know like committed to reducing plastic in the stream but you know that manifests as saying that like 2% of your packaging is recyclable or something or made from recyclable plastic. Well even though that might be doing like something more sustainable than other people in the industry you're still going to have trouble attracting people whose moral purview is much more narrow.
Of course though even as I was saying it I was realizing that if you are if a person is having to make a choice though and it's a choice between two bad options they're going to choose the less bad option. Or that might not even occur to them as a criteria like a 2% recyclable plastic versus non recyclable. I'm like when you're using tons and tons of like packaging material it makes a difference but I don't think that human beings would be able to make a decision based on just that. And there are other factors as well but it is interesting like I can see how a narrower focus would be more helpful. For a company to practice the right kind of people.
Yeah and the way you said that also gave me an interesting thought that like yeah we human beings are not very good at noticing right so you have to give people multiple ways of understanding the same thing for them to understand. If you want them to think you're sustainable give them many ways to think you're sustainable. As you're thinking about morality and particularly at least for me as I was thinking about morality and building organizations and building companies. It's like where do you carve how do you think about what is yeah what are the right kind of things to stand up and say or these are our values. And then which which ones are first of all which ones are the moral values and which ones will kind of like you know give you a sense of what what does ethical behavior for us.
And then I think as you do that I think trying to think about how you build multiple examples of that into the ethos of your company. I think for me I think you know always thinking about the stories and like how do you what are the stories that are going to tell those tell the morals. Right. What are the stories are going to tell everyone what's the most important thing to do here. It's very interesting because one of the things that he discusses very early on in that book that I that I was talking about that I just mind.
He says that there are in different societies there are different moral truths and norms and people will pick up on moral violations as well as non-violation. But the boundary between the two will vary depending on which culture you are a part of. So they did some experiments where this was with kids because it was a developmental study but they were talking about how super young kids you tell them that you know this boy is wearing a girls clothes but the parents and teacher are okay with it. Then the kid is like oh that's okay. So they understand this is a non-violation.
This is not a moral violation. But then they say that this kid pushed another kid on the playground and the teacher and the parents are okay with it and the kid still does not think that it's okay. So the kid has an internal understanding of it's not okay to hurt other people but it is okay to do non-violation as long as other people are okay with it. Interesting. That's really interesting because that would point to there's like some contention that there's like laws of nature and laws of mankind and that almost does support that contention.
Yeah you should actually check out the book if you're interested. There was some I don't think that there was like as clear an understanding of what exactly it was and it was much more of a these are the soft boundaries that you can draw between things kind of a situation even though we tried to present them as like an iron clad case. It really was not that. But yeah just like as you were speaking about it and like you know what do you keep as values and like you know what do you want to afford. It's almost like you know drawing that dividing line between we will do a lot of things and some of them would be core to us and those are our moral truths and everything else is a normal.
So we might end up breaking a norm as the world changes but we will never break our moral truths. Yeah I think that that's exactly that's a really good summation. Exactly how I think about it. That's interesting because I don't know how many companies really carve out it like that. Right and I think a lot of the really successful companies now have a sense of personality and I think a sense of personality really comes from knowing these are our moral truths.
This is what makes us different. Okay this is interesting. Yeah super fun. Yeah. Well.
Okay. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Thinking on Thinking. Our theme music is by Steve Gomes.
If you found any of the topics we talked about interesting this week we'd invite you to get in touch with us. We'd love to invite you on the podcast or just have a conversation about how these topics apply in your business and in the decisions and problems that you're struggling with. You can get in touch with us on our website joyus.studio.