"This shift in what we optimize for doesn't mean rejecting productivity gains. Rather, it means capturing those gains as genuine improvements to human flourishing instead of feeding them back into an endless cycle of escalation."

"'When everyone can do everything,' one founder confessed, staring into his untouched wine, 'doing anything starts to feel meaningless.' After a thoughtful silence, another suggested that perhaps meaning was never about output at all, but about connection, presence, and the quality of our experience."