Valuing Labor in a World Built on Extraction with Aparna Rae

0:00:07 - Rachel Murray Hi and welcome to the She Geeks Out podcast, where we geek out about workplace inclusion and talk with brilliant humans doing great work, making the world a better and brighter place. I'm Rachel.

0:00:18 - Felicia Jadczak And I'm Felicia. So this week we're really excited to welcome Aparna Rae to our podcast. Aparna is a writer, a speaker, an educator and an entrepreneur. She has actually started four companies. Wow, that's a bit more than us. Although I don't know, Rachel, you might be close behind, but in any case, Aparna does a ton of writing on topics like data, equity, systems change and the future of work. We were so thrilled to have the chance to sit down with her and chat. So, without further ado, welcome to the show, Aparna. Yay, All right, so our guest today is Aparna Rae.

Hi, welcome, Aparna. So excited to have you on the pod with us. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for being here, so we're just going to dive right on in. So I took a little bit of liberty of lifting some language from your website. So you are a self-described educator by training, innovator by choice or no, sorry, by chance, not choice, although maybe choice as well and a disruptor by choice, and you work at the intersection of equity, data and organizational and systems change. So we always love to start off with what is your origin story.

0:01:22 - Aparna Rae Yeah, that's a great question. So I feel like you know, in my teens I wanted to be a cross between Indiana Jones and a classroom teacher and so, of course, like I, at 19, went and worked on an archaeological dig and discovered that archaeology is actually really boring.

0:01:42 - Felicia Jadczak It's just a hat right Truth the hat and whip was really it.

0:01:48 - Aparna Rae Yeah, You're just like you're spending a lot of time in dirt. You like find one coin after 40 hours of digging it kind of it didn't feel worth it, even though that experience was actually really incredible. And then in 2006, I got into the classroom. I was a fourth grade teacher in West Chicago and I realized that I didn't actually have the skills to work with my coworkers and this is almost 20 years ago when we weren't talking about race and racism and the fact that most classroom educators are white women and you're teaching in environments where you have no lived experience and I think you see black and brown kids with such a deficit lens.

And so I did what anybody who doesn't understand their life circumstance does, which is like I went off to grad school and studied decolonizing pedagogy and really got into adult learning and realized that, holy crap, like the ways in which we raise adults is not setting them up to be successful and impactful in their lives and their jobs. And yeah, I think since then it's been a bit of an entrepreneurial rollercoaster. I've started four companies in the last 12, 13 years two for profits, two nonprofits. Three of them are still around today and, yeah, I feel like what I do now almost, is the pedagogy of work, the pedagogy of work.

0:03:23 - Rachel Murray Well, let's get into that a little bit, the pedagogy of work. I have to say I kind of want to dig into this whole like being a serial entrepreneur thing because I feel like we can definitely relate to that. Maybe if we have time we can dig into that. But let's talk a little bit about the pedagogy of work. You know a few years ago that you said that you stopped saying yes to clients who weren't interested in data-informed approaches. Definitely relate to that as well. Would just love to hear your experience with that. Did you get any pushback, any behavior changes? And I would just love to hear about your yeah, what your work is today.

0:03:59 - Aparna Rae Well, so you know, in 2020, when I started my firm, you know, in 2020, when I started my firm, there were so few people that were using data-informed approaches to DE&I. And what I'll say, right like the caveat, is, big companies have had people, analytics teams for a very long time, right, but when people think of DE&I, they're not really thinking about data, dei, they're not really thinking about data. The evolution of DEI on the corporate side has been, you know, employee resource groups going back to the 70s, when Xerox started the very first one, and a lot of anti-bias, anti-harassment trainings that came about as a result of women and people of color entering the workforce en masse in the 70s and the 80s, right. And then on the academic side, there have been scholars who've been talking about anti-racism, social justice, decolonizing for a very, very long time, and these two kind of areas start to converge. And then we start to get these commercial superstars like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi and Nicole Hannah-Jones, and the flavor of what DE&I looks like changes pretty dramatically and it starts to enter like sort of mainstream conversations, mainstream organizations.

But what is entering the mainstream is neither the nuanced conversations that are being had by academics, right, which have kind of like very limited real world applicability, because you essentially need a graduate degree to understand what white supremacy culture is. Nor is it, nor is there clarity that I think Fortune 500 companies have had for decades, which is we're doing this to appease a certain subset of employees so they come to work and they add value and they innovate here inside of our organizations, right, which was very much the case in the 70s, 80s, 90s, right, like that relationship was clear. And so that's the caveat right, when people think of DEI in the past decade, they're mostly talking about. They're mostly talking about like employee research groups, dei committees. They're talking about anti-bias training. They're not really talking about like let's look at the data of like how our employees are experiencing this organization.

And so when I started doing that work, you said were there pushbacks? Holy moly, right, like. People were just like well, we're not ready to do this work yet. Or they would say to me you know, I want to start with what's easy and approachable, or I want to start with what my employees are asking for.

And over five years, I saw a lot of folks come back to us after they'd had failed engagements with other firms, and what was interesting to me is that the failed engagements came from corporate firms like Mercer, like Paradigm, deloitte, as well as like the failed engagements were happening with, like small shops, right, and I think the commonality was these organizations, these consultant consultancies, were offering their clients whatever the client asked for, rather than actually pushing back on the client saying here's what we think you need, based on what we're observing or what we're seeing in the data. And I would 100% make that same choice today, right, like, if somebody came to me and said hey, like, do you want to do some trading? I would say no, I don't want to do some trading because I know that that's actually like A, it doesn't do anything. But B, like it can cause real harm to employees from marginalized backgrounds.

0:07:40 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, no, thank you for elaborating on that, because I think you know it certainly resonates with what we've experienced in our approach as well. We've had very similar experiences where we talk about our sort of like initial conversation with clients as almost like business therapy, because they'll come and say we want this, and then we're like well, what I'm hearing is you actually need something totally different. And then it's a back and forth of are they open to that or not? It's a whole back and forth of are they open to that or not. And I think certainly in the timeframe where you initially sort of put this out there you know the 2020, 2021, it was so wild in terms of everyone was just looking to do something, and so I imagine there was quite a spread of how clients were reacting to that. But when you're thinking about data, if we drill a little bit deeper, what would you say like data informed equity then would mean to you, or what has that looked like for you in your work?

0:08:31 - Aparna Rae Yeah. So I think you know, like, fundamentally, is what informs your approach to equity, right? I think for a lot of people, what informs their approach to equity is just rhetoric, it's just words, right? And I think that data offers accountability. So we're not just having conversations based on your feelings. I mean, feelings are fine, feelings are valid, but I see it happen, and I'm sure you all have seen this happen as well as people. People are just kind of in their feelings and in their assumptions as well around what employees need or what community needs, and so for me, this approach isn't just like about numbers. I would say my approach has been what's called a warm data approach, which is about seeing patterns through relationships and stories and hard data, and I'll give you an example of that right One of my least favorite questions that companies ask on surveys.

You've seen it too. It's like do you feel a sense of belonging at XYZ organization, right? What the heck does that mean? Has the organization ever actually described what constitutes a sense of belonging? Is it that when I disagree, the conversation is respectful? Is it that I'm paid a living wage, you know? Is it that I have a friend at work? Like, what is belonging really constitute.

We don't actually ever tell people how we envision belonging. We just ask this question that, by the way, also doesn't make sense to anybody, that isn't in the jargon of DEI or the jargon of employee experience. And so people will say well, I'm not being wildly oppressed, so hence I must feel a sense of belonging. And then companies take that and they're like well, 87% of our employees feel like they feel a sense of belonging. And then companies take that and they're like well, 87 of our employees feel like they have a sense of belonging here. Therefore, this is a great place to work.

Meanwhile, it's a hella toxic place to work, right, and so I think data actually allows us to have way more nuance, and, and I will also say that the companies that are the worst offenders are the ones that consider themselves like a data-driven organization. They're the ones that, like you, present something that doesn't meet their assumptions, and they'll be like so wildly embarrassed and angry. They're like how could this be true? We're so amazing and I'm like but you asking a question about other people feel such belonging doesn't make you amazing, because you've never actually defined what belonging is or what psychological safety is. So that's kind of what I would say, like data, informed equity means to me.

0:11:16 - Rachel Murray I have so many questions.

0:11:18 - Aparna Rae Yeah, ask away.

0:11:22 - Rachel Murray You know, I'm just so curious because in hearing you over the past few years, I've been thinking a lot about how we approach this work. Right, because we do DEI training. So a lot of what you're talking about is, like you know we do. We try to meet our clients where they're at and try to give them what they are asking for in a way that feels meaningful. And when I think about it, I'm like are we making systemic change or is this more of an individual like okay, we're affecting one person and there's a ripple effect. We're affecting a handful of people and there's a ripple effect. Do you think that there is some validity to that approach and it's okay if you're like actually, no, your work is trash, Like that's okay. This is honesty. We love it. We'd love to just get your thoughts on like is there a nuance there?

0:12:15 - Aparna Rae I think there is a nuance there, right, and the nuance is what outcomes are we trying to achieve by using education as a tool? Right, and I think what's happened is that the tools have become synonymous with the work, but the tools are not the work. The tools are not the work.

0:12:41 - Rachel Murray Yes, yes, and we actually say that too. I mean, Felicia, obviously we say the workshop, the work isn't the workshop, right? It's like, yeah, exactly that, you know, it's okay. What are you going to do with that information?

0:12:52 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, it's one of our favorite things to say, sort of company-wide, because so many clients think, oh, we'll do the workshop, check the box, everything is fixed, and then you know that's obviously not the reality. Yeah, also, everything is, and then you know that's obviously not the reality. Yeah, also, we constantly say that. It's one of the phrases I probably say the most with clients, because I'm like, yes, we'll do work together for sure. So I'm not discounting that.

But the real work happens when we leave, when we shut the computer down, go away, let me, you know, exit the, the space, and that's a real for some. Some organizations they get it and they've been doing the work and they understand that. Other organizations, to your point, they think the tool is the end game or the end goal, and it's actually not at all true. And I do think you know to your point earlier about. I like that you kind of referenced the history of this work, because I do agree that I think a lot of people feel like this just came out in the last five years, like DEI came up and was created in the last five years?

Absolutely not, and there is a long history to it. And I guess, like, with that in mind, I am curious, like, what do you think the state of DEI writ large is today? Like, do you think it's like? I feel like there's just been so many thought pieces and of course we have our opinions too, but is it dead? Is it evolving? Is it taking a mid-season break? What are your thoughts on that Oof?

0:14:15 - Aparna Rae Who really knows. I will say that.

0:14:20 - Felicia Jadczak Like, can I say the answers, but no one has answers.

0:14:24 - Aparna Rae Nobody has answers. I feel like this moment is definitely separating the weak from the chaff right, and that's actually really good. And I have been very clear throughout my career and, I would say, very consistent in just saying that, like DEI is not anti-racism work. Dei is not social justice work. Dei is a corporate philosophy for appeasing employees and creating value for the company. Right, that is what it is Now. In this moment, what we're seeing is because the moral standard no longer calls for supporting people and leveling the field. We're seeing people actually speak on what their real values are right and folks are so surprised on what their real values are right and folks are so surprised.

I think yesterday in Seattle, microsoft had a company meeting or a conference and there was an employee who's a part of you know no Azure for apartheid, who disrupted the meeting. And I heard from a couple of friends who were physically there and they said you know, I'm really disappointed that Satya Nadella didn't say anything. Right, the disruptive employee was removed and they carried on. And then at some point, you know, elon Musk made an appearance and they were like and I was just so surprised Like why was Elon a part of this conversation? And I said, because the reality is that all of these people know each other and they're in solidarity with each other. Who they're not in solidarity with is us, and the sooner that we realize that, the better we will be at evolving our practices so that we have a shot at not just preserving, you know, fairness and dignity and safety in workplaces, but also preserving some semblance of democracy. And so is DEI dead? No, I think what's dead is our misguided belief that corporations are our friends.

0:16:38 - Rachel Murray Word, as I used to say a lot in my youth. Yeah, I mean, that is spot on. And relatedly, one of the questions that we had for you too is you know, we are living in a time under an authoritarian regime, right Like this guy, and these guys are doing so much to disrupt our current way of life for better or worse. Who knows how it will shake out in the end, but in this time, do you have any thoughts on how we all can sort of show up in these still capitalist corporate societies in a way that feels authentic and good and still doing the work?

0:17:27 - Aparna Rae authentic and good and still doing the work. Oh, that's a really hard question, right, because I think fundamentally in a moment like this, we are having to make a decision between our livelihoods and acting with integrity and the fewer people and these are not mutually exclusive. They don't have to be mutually exclusive, but somewhere along the way we really lost the plot. On political education. That was kind of key in the union and there were some expectations around being involved in your teacher's union. And the Chicago Teachers Union is super, super active, right. They're going on strike every other year and actually winning a lot for students and for families and for communities, and I know that they are also political organizations.

I know not everybody loves the ways in which teachers unions behave, but at the end of the day, you know when you're part of a union, when you're part of labor that's organized, you receive a kind of political education that's just really missing right now, and what it's done is we've created the sense, or rather I think we've created the sense, or rather I think we've accepted that having awareness equals taking action, and liberals are guilty of that, I think, far more than conservatives are. We love to sit on our pedestal and use our jargony, language of social justice and, honestly, weapon, expect it from people of color, from queer and trans folks, right, like it's not their responsibility to be educating the rest of us. And show up literally show up it's. I think it's going to be imperative that everybody builds their activist muscle, and a lot of that just is about, like creative problem solving.

0:19:46 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, no, I mean we're just like aggressively nodding behind the screens here because, yes, agree with everything you're saying. Um, could probably spend hours just going down that pathway. Yeah for sure. I have so many thoughts and fields that I talk a lot about in therapy and with my community as well.

But I think that, in terms of this moment in time, we've talked a little bit about your career already and kind of how you've been doing your work and how you've approached it, and a lot of it's been in terms of kind of like bridging this gap between what employees want and need and what organizations want and need and what they can actually do or provide or what they are able to do or want, and all that. And I guess my question is, you know, do you have any examples, or even if it's a generic example, of an organization that is approaching this moment in time in terms of the cultural shifts, the societal shifts, the regimes that we're getting under, any examples of organizations that are handling it well or that are sort of riding the waves in a way that's not super harmful? Or maybe, on the flip side, are there any cautionary tales that you've seen where it's been the opposite? It's like, oh, this company just totally destroyed themselves because of how they approached what's going on right now.

0:20:58 - Aparna Rae Yeah, I think you know. This is like the point of like are companies totally destroying themselves? We have to really ask, like, what is being destroyed? Shareholder value, right? Yeah, yeah, I think you know. The truth is that. The truth is that white supremacy is good for business. It's actually really good for business, and the data theater that I think DEI practitioners perform, that HR people and culture folks perform it only adds to that.

Who is doing it well are the ones where the leadership is aligned and values labor. And valuing labor isn't just about creating spaces for people to whine, right, which is, I think, like a lot of the ERG type. Spaces just become like a place for people to come and complain, Right. Valuing labor is about making sure that people are paid well. It's about making sure that they have the benefits that allow them to come to work and be present and safe at work. And the companies that are going to ride this well are the ones that fundamentally value labor right.

Fundamentally value labor right. And when you look across the ecosystem, it doesn't matter if you're a philanthropic organization or you're a non-profit or you're, you know, a private company or a startup. When you understand what it means to value labor, it becomes really clear to see who is gonna win, and I think by win I mean like who is gonna survive sustainably into the future. It's gonna be companies that value labor, that where the leadership fundamentally cares about the humanity of their workers, regardless of whether they're in construction or forestry or retail or tech, right Like the industry doesn't matter. What matters is I see you as a full person and, to the best of my ability, I'm going to make sure that you come into work and know that your job comes with safety, dignity and that we care.

0:23:23 - Rachel Murray So you're talking about Costco?

0:23:27 - Aparna Rae I am talking about Costco, correct, I am talking about Costco, and I live in the suburb that Costco is from.

0:23:36 - Rachel Murray Amazing, I know, yeah, I feel I'm actually like a couple years into my Costco journey. It's very exciting and I love it so much, and so it was great to see that. And I'm glad that you mentioned that because, as you were saying that, I was thinking about a previous guest that we had on, catherine Bracey, who talked about VCs, and there just seems to be a fundamental disconnect. You cannot have a VC-backed company with shareholders and have a company that also cares about labor. It just seems like the two are diametrically opposed.

0:24:14 - Aparna Rae Right, because what are the goals? Right. And so I think you think about Costco. And Costco has become famous, I think recently, for standing up in support of DE&I. But even when I was in my 20s, I remember being at a conference and hearing somebody talk about how Costco promotes people and how Costco invests in sending their employees that started on the floor to MBA school, to what have you right, so that they can step into leadership roles, and that the vast majority of their senior leaders were people that started on the floor. Right, they're not passing lemons across Fortune 500 companies. They're grooming their own leadership.

And Costco is not the only one Like you. Look at Patagonia. They had, like they were sending nannies with their senior executives who were traveling for work with small kids. 10 years ago, they were doing that 10 years ago. They were allowing moms to ship breast milk back to their homes when they were traveling for work, 10 plus years ago. So we know that there are folks that are doing this, that do it well, and they're not trillion dollar companies. Right, patagonia is selling me a fleece that I'm going to wear until the ends of time. I'm not buying a new fleece every six months when the fleece fashion changes Because their product is not helping.

0:25:55 - Felicia Jadczak They're not building their fleeces to disintegrate. It's going to become obsolete every year, so you have to invest in a new one every year. Apple.

0:26:03 - Aparna Rae Right. So unless I gain a lot of weight and I no longer fit into my fleas, there's no reason for me to buy a new fleas. And I think that's just kind of worth paying attention to is that you can't scale to the size of an Amazon without engaging in horribly extractive practices. And, by the way, like our generation's Amazon was Walmart right, like we all grew up. We all grew up hearing about and actually watching Walmart decimate local grocery stores. Right, and not just one store, not just one grocery store right, but possibly a dozen stores in a community that were replaced by Walmart. We saw that right. But possibly a dozen stores in a community that were replaced by Walmart. We saw that right Like we watched Walmart have all of these lawsuits around their hiring practices, and the fact today is that the majority of the food stamp recipients in any geography where Walmart operates are Walmart employees.

0:27:03 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, no, it's such a good point and, you know, as we were kind of exploring this, what also came to my mind was what I've been calling like the backlash to the great resignation, because we had the great resignation a few years back. What was that? 2021 ish, I want to say, and that's when we really saw, for the first time in a long time, and maybe for the first time in many industries, especially in tech, I think, there was such a shift of power to the workers. And what we're seeing now, in addition to everything else that we've been talking about, is, I do think, in large part a corporate reaction to basically yanking this power back and saying, oh no, you thought never mind, and so you know it's again. This is.

There's obviously all these other issues and societal shifts happening, but just it's so interesting to think about, you know, from a company perspective or a corporate perspective, like what are the end goals and how can we do the least amount of harm by also supporting our people and you know, walmart is just going to look at that bottom dollar all day, every day, and your last point is so well taken around the welfare of their own employees and at the same time, like you know, but they just didn't make you know a couple extra decimal points on their balance sheet, they would probably be in such a different position.

But it's just so disgusting like how gross and capitalistic our society has become in these ways. But there are some companies out there, there are people out there who want to shift this. But it is challenging because that's just the way the society is built and I know that's where a lot of folks in these fields especially, like there's a lot of difference of opinion around. Do we work within the system to try to change it? We just completely break the system apart, and I feel like this moment is such an interesting moment from that angle only because it's like, well, the choice may actually not be in our hands anymore, so we'll see what it looks like to do both, because we're experiencing all of it happening all at once. Yeah.

0:29:05 - Aparna Rae You know. So I think here's what's interesting, and last year, when I took the year off right, it was on a sabbatical I started reading very differently, because when you're working 60 hours a week you don't actually read for pleasure, you read because you have to, for work, you're reading reports, you're reading books that you know your client is doing a book club and you have that book to read. I read two books that I so highly recommend to your audience and like to you and to anybody who's listening, and the first one is called Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, who famously wrote the Dawn of Everything and he is sadly no longer alive because otherwise he would be writing more incredible books. And the second is a newer book. It's called Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman, and you know Rutger Bregman actually references David Graeber's work pretty heavily in his book.

And what researchers are clear on is that most people in the Western world don't see their work as having a positive impact on the world, and somewhere around I think like 50% of Harvard grads go into either finance or management consulting. And what a colossal waste of talent. What a colossal waste of talent. I went from doing some of my most impactful work in my 20s and early 30s to what like? I became a management consultant in my late 30s, right, and I think you know people really have to square off what's happening because it's not just a talent drain away from doing impactful work, it's a talent drain that's causing a loss of democracy the world over and that, I think, is a point that you know, we can. We can like talk about, like DEI and company culture, culture all day, every day, and like what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing. But I think that, like if we zoom up, you know, above the trees, what's really clear is that having healthy workplace cultures is actually key to being in a state of democracy.

And when you look around world, there's no country that has a democracy that we envy, that doesn't also have incredible work-life balance, that doesn't also have paid family and medical leave, that doesn't also have universal healthcare right, and, of course, a lot of it's being subsidized by cheap labor in the global South. And we can. That's a different conversation to have. But when you look at countries that are operating without within a high degree of democracy, which america is not america has never been a democracy right at the very most, it's a republic they have good, fundamentally good workplaces, right. They're not countries where you're like oh, what are like the five companies that are doing good? No, they probably have like what are the five companies that are shit and everybody else is actually doing pretty well?

0:32:15 - Rachel Murray Yeah, and it makes me want to jump a little bit around to a question that I've been thinking so much about, which is we're in this world with AI, right? So you're talking about like human value, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately. It seems to me like this is the wet dream of corporate leaders. Is AI Like to have the robots take over because, ultimately, this country was founded on slavery, and like this is just what they want? Like this is the? They want slave labor and if they can get it through robots, they don't have to deal with the messy humans and the dignity of work and all that so like.

How do we like when we think about the future? Yeah, what are we optimistic?

0:33:02 - Aparna Rae are? I think we are Because, look, you know, people are worried about robots taking over our jobs. No, they're not going to take right, like they're not going to take over our jobs. I don't fundamentally see robots today being capable of doing complex thinking that humans do without actually thinking right but today though Aparna, like today, but like sure the.

I mean, are you gonna approach the singularity? Maybe, maybe, right? Okay, so I look, I think this is a really deep philosophical conversation about, like, how is technology going to shift how we, we are in this world? Right, but today, look at self-driving cars and they are clunky. Something that a 16-year-old does is licensed to do without getting into accidents every week or every month or every year. Cars cannot do that. Cars cannot do that. We get into our cars every single day. We drive. We're not getting into accidents.

I mean, of course, there are lots of car accidents happening all the time, but we do it on kind of an autopilot that the autopilot is not capable of, right? So I think the thing that we have to start talking about and start solving for is how are we designing technologies that remove burdens for humans, rather than technology that's looking to replace humans? Because I don't fundamentally think that technology that replaces humans is going to be additive for our mental and emotional well-being. I don't think that that technology is going to be additive for dealing with global climate change, which we don't even call it climate change anymore. We now have started calling it the climate crisis, right, because it is well and truly a crisis. So yeah, and I think the faster we're able to get to a place where we can deeply value humanity, the faster we're going to be able to push back against these vulture technologies.

0:35:31 - Rachel Murray I hope you're right. I'm not optimistic, but I hope you're right, I know.

0:35:35 - Felicia Jadczak Let's all cross our fingers and send a prayer, up or down, or wherever you send your thoughts and feels, and thank you, Aparna, for letting me go down that road with you.

0:35:46 - Rachel Murray Yeah, of course.

0:35:47 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, I mean my two cents I'll just throw in really quickly is. I completely agree with what you said, aparna, and I think that's my fear is that I think the people who are in these positions of power or driving this race towards the singularity, or AI or whatever it is that you want to call it, aren't thinking about it in the way that you and we are thinking about it. They are thinking about it, I fear, in the sense of this, will replace humans. I'm in my boat and Rachel knows this. I talk a lot about it is I'm always like we need to be using these robots and AI and technology to do all the crap work that we don't want to do, so we can create music and think and dream and be humans, but what's happening is the technology is doing it for us, and that's not the way it should be. But so far, these few people in power seem to be okay with that.

0:36:40 - Aparna Rae So anyway, that's like my own two cent rant that I'll add in challenge is by people thinking chat, gpt or Claude or Copilot is so cool because now you're having it write your emails right or you're having it create your absolutely shitty LinkedIn content. I mean the garbage that I see on a platform that was so beloved to me even five years ago. I'm like nobody gives a shit about your shitty content on LinkedIn, but everybody's out there trying to secure their bag right and they see becoming thought leaders and influencers as a pathway to that. But here's the thing like real thought leaders and influencers are not using AI to create their content because they know it's not great, right, but we have to. I mean, we just have to.

This is a genie. Here's what I'll say. This is a genie that I do think we can put back in the bottle, right, I think it's harder. It's harder for us to do away with canned beverages. We've had them for such a long time and the idea that we could, we would live without canned beverages, feels harder. But can I imagine a past where I was thriving without claude 100? Yeah, it was like three years ago. Right, it was only it was only three years ago. So I do, and you know, a lot of technologists will say like that. My thinking is incompatible with the reality that we're in, but I do think that these are some like some of these things. We put it back in the bottle. We don't need it. Also, you don't need to use AI to draft an email to your co-worker at the cost of 80 bottles of water's equivalent of energy.

0:38:45 - Felicia Jadczak Why? Yeah, totally agree. I mean again, I don't even know if we talked too much about this, rachel, but this is a pet peeve of mine, where I started going off about the state of our education system and critical thinking, and I've seen, just in my own lived experience, such a shift in how people understand things because there's such a reliance on AI. So 100%.

0:39:07 - Rachel Murray I mean there's just, yeah, there's just such a big reliance on technology and I've been on Substack lately a lot and I just find that that is a breath of fresh air of a space where people are really writing from their hearts and I haven't seen it really anywhere else like I do there.

0:39:25 - Felicia Jadczak This might be a good tie in to one of our other questions that we wanted to touch on with you. So, speaking of LinkedIn, our favorite place to hate, as practitioners and entrepreneurs and business owners and people in this world your reports on LinkedIn, as we are.

And so you had a Forbes article called when DEI Went Wrong and what Must Happen Next, from March of this year, kind of viral on LinkedIn and maybe outside of LinkedIn as well, and so just curious if you could maybe speak a little bit more about you know kind of what you presented in the article, maybe why it touched a nerve for some folks and have your thoughts at all since March I know it was like a loaded question for you so, yeah, oh.

0:40:07 - Aparna Rae So I don't even know if it was the article that touched a nerve, but the former chief diversity Uber wrote a really scathing review of the piece and that is what went viral. And look, I think corporate DEI was never going to be the solution for why work doesn't work well, right, it was never going to be the solution for why we have such gross inequity in our world of work, and I think just this morning, like Google announced a $50 million settlement with 4,000 Black employees for wage discrimination, dei was not going to solve for that, and I think that part of why it went viral is it held up a mirror to a community of practitioners that feel so entitled to making their livelihoods from a set of practices that are harmful, while believing that their work is necessary and good.

0:41:19 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, I mean, if we only had another hour to dig into this further with you, because I hear you and I appreciate it and it was very interesting as sort of someone in the space, but not directly involved of course, to see the discourse go down on LinkedIn, especially in the back end there, and I think, again, it's a larger conversation, but I do think it speaks a little bit to what we've sort of touched on a little bit already throughout this conversation around DEI as an industry.

Right, because it's not just thoughts and feels, it's not just about the data, it's not just about the storytelling, it is an industry and in a lot of ways, even though it has been around for a while, as we know and we've spoken to, it's not like other places or other spaces, rather, where you know there's I don't want to call them like guidelines or rules, but like there's less bumpers to it than perhaps you might find in other for-profit industries where there are ways to sort of allow for how we talk about this. How do we not have harm, how do we, you know, kind of make sure that what we're doing is going to be impactful and not hurtful to the people that we're trying to help and so anyway, that's a whole other conversation, but I can imagine and I saw it in real life, so I don't even have to imagine that this really, really explains a lot of that for people.

0:42:53 - Aparna Rae So it was a lot like having conversations, I think, with people that work in philanthropy or in nonprofits right, like the work that you're doing, fundamentally right. Like if you work in ed reform I don't know, I mean, I struggle to have respect for you in this day and age Like you've decimated the public education system and pulled resources away into all varieties of like charters and hybrids and right and. But you think you're doing God's work, and I think that's how a lot of DEI practitioners are right. Like it's very similar to you. Think you're doing God's work, but what you're actually doing lacks nuance and, by the way, like you also don't have skills, and that's something that I've seen across the board. I'm like, what is your domain expertise? Is it adult learning? Is it people analytics? Is it strategy, or are you putting together a hodgepodge of things and delivering a training which you kind of do on repeat again and again?

And I've seen so many practitioners it drives me wild who are just like, well, I'm gonna milk it while it's good. And I'm like, well, that's the same thinking that people in finance have. And like, look, we got like the housing crisis and millions of people couldn't retire and we had seniors working at Walmart. So I mean I guess we can extrapolate the impact. And now we have right, like now we see what doing that kind of work has done where I don't know, like, has racial resentment been this high since the 50s? Maybe not. Like we are seeing the impact of bad programming in this massive overcorrection where even the white folks that we think are our allies, they've been burned and they're not showing up yeah they're not showing up yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:44:52 - Rachel Murray I think there's a lot to that. I think there's there's a lot of shame baked into what was being discussed at the time and just a lot of not accepting. There was a lot of not grace for people making mistakes and learning from them. It was a wild time, you know, and it was to me speaks to just power dynamics and power shifts and how that happened, and just you know the pushull of it and how a lot of it is toxic and can be in both directions. And I know that you had talked a bit about workforce trends, for you know 2025, which how is it half over basically getting there? Anyway?

0:45:34 - Aparna Rae We don't know.

0:45:35 - Rachel Murray I don't know Time. What is it? Just would love to sort of hear what your thoughts are. You mentioned mental health, disability, justice, working across difference, class solidarity, more organizing. Do you think that there are any changes or shifts that you're seeing?

0:45:51 - Aparna Rae I would double down on all of it. I would double down on all of it, and I think if there's anything that I would add to it is we really have to protect queer and trans people in a way that we haven't, you know, thought about protecting them. Love to hate on immigrants going back hundreds of years. Right, immigrants are always like the boogie person, and you know so. I think for me, as an immigrant who only recently naturalized as a US citizen, that conversation is and the challenges there are really clear, right, I think we're really clear that CBP officers, ice, law enforcement of any kind isn't our friend.

But I think if there's one thing that I would add is for companies to really be paying attention to the lives and safety of their current trans employees, right. Like, please don't send your employees to conferences in Florida and Texas and other states where they risk being arrested, right. Like, don't send them to international conferences where they may actually have issues coming back into the country. Like, I'm not even worried about somebody going to Spain, I'm worried about them being able to come back into the country, right, and I think that pregnant women, like that's right. Like, how are we thinking about and caring for people who are bringing new life into this world in an environment that is keeping brain dead, pregnant mothers on life support against the wishes of their family, right, and jailing healthcare providers.

And so I think like we have to really double down and organizing gets us there, because I think you know, I said earlier in our conversation the CEOs, they're organized, they're organized, they hang out with each other, they're on the same page and they tell us as much, I think you know, in probably at the end of 21, when I think people were still high off of like the meaty DEI contracts they're. I think Jamie Dimon was the one who said something like you know, workers have gotten too much power in the last two years and we have to put an end to it, right. And there was another CEO who had said something like you know, until workers feel pain, they're not going to get back in line and they're having these conversations and we're the ones that are having these conversations and we're the ones that are.

0:48:38 - Rachel Murray We're not. That's right. We're living in fear.

0:48:42 - Aparna Rae We're living in fear and we're also too busy. You know, hoarding ourselves, or I think you know, in the last couple of years and I'm guilty of it as well Like my, my partner and I've been talking for many years about, like could we retire early and I would love to not be working when I'm 70 years old. Like I want to live and enjoy my life when my body still feels good.

0:49:07 - Rachel Murray Yeah, or just do things that you care about, right, like you should be living that way. Now is can we do things that we care about that feel good to us, to us? But no, we can't, because we have to make sure that we have health insurance and that we can pay the rent or the mortgage or whatever, and, like god forbid, any of us have kids, and at that expense, you know and I don't have kids, and I and I don't have kids.

0:49:30 - Aparna Rae For that reason, carly's holy moly, who's gonna take care of my kids? You?

0:49:35 - Felicia Jadczak know we're, we're our childless cat ladies here, yeah, yeah.

0:49:39 - Rachel Murray I prefer the term child-free myself, but you know Child-free cat ladies with my cat literally sitting right next to us.

0:49:44 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah.

0:49:46 - Aparna Rae And yeah, so I think you know like we need to be. We like need to deeply be in solidarity with each other and yeah, and I think I hope, I hope that people realize that hustle culture and starting a business and being an entrepreneur and like selling our friends, things is not. It's not gonna get us there.

0:50:08 - Rachel Murray See, that's like that's for the next conversation.

0:50:11 - Felicia Jadczak I know we could probably keep talking, but we do wanna respect time. We know it is a social construct, but we're still respecting it for the time being. So what's next for you as we start to wrap up? I know it's also another loaded question, but anything coming up for you that you're excited about or that you'd like to share?

0:50:27 - Aparna Rae Oh well, I have been collaborating with some smart people, at the risk of maybe perpetually being unemployed or underemployed, but I'm really, you know, looking forward to collaborating with folks who are interested in building a future of work that's grounded in safety and dignity and in care. That's that's kind of where I have been putting my energy for the last couple of months as I've come back from sabbatical, and, yeah, I want to work with people and companies that want to make that vision a reality, right, and for us to. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I just think that we deserve so much more than what we have and I want to be a part of making that possible.

0:51:19 - Rachel Murray Same yeah With you. We support that, we support that. And did we miss anything that you wanted to mention before we? No, we could have totally another. I could literally just have a conversation with you on the future of work too, so that might have to be an offline conversation at some point, I don't know. And then, where can people find you if they want to learn more?

0:51:42 - Aparna Rae They can find me at aparnarae.com. They can find me on LinkedIn. I guess they can find me on other social platforms, but I have to be honest, I'm not particularly responsive outside of email and LinkedIn. And that's just me showing my age. Boundaries. I mean, don't, don't DM me on Facebook, I don't check it. Great. Can't be, cannot all be everything everywhere all at once, you know do you guys remember that movie I think it was maybe love actually where Drew Barrymore is like has a crush on this guy and she's telling her friend about the challenges of dating, and I think this, this must be like the early or mid 2000s, where she's like, you know, I left him a voicemail and then he sent me a text message and then he, you know, like aol'd me and then I, you know, texted him back and then he left me, and now I just feel like we've added like TikTok and blue sky, and we're some of us are still on X and you know, right, I'm just like how many? Well, there's like signal if you're an organizer, but there's also WhatsApp, you're brown and Telegram, and Discord and Reddit. Oh oh yeah, can't forget Reddit, right, I'm just like, how many things am I supposed to check every day while also being a productive member of society?

0:53:05 - Felicia Jadczak Right, it's not a puzzle, it's really yeah.

0:53:08 - Aparna Rae If you're looking for me. If you're looking for me, you can find me on LinkedIn or via email, or you can send a pigeon Love that.

0:53:16 - Rachel Murray I love that.

0:53:20 - Felicia Jadczak We're going to send you a pigeon. Thank you so much. Now I'm going to go down a whole rabbit hole of raising pigeons to send to people. Anyway, thank you so much, Aparna. This has been a really thoughtful and deep conversation. Appreciate your time. Thank you for having me.

0:53:34 - Rachel Murray We did it. Oh, such a great conversation with a partner. We're so happy to have her on. We hope you enjoyed listening to this interview as much as we enjoyed the conversation.

0:53:43 - Felicia Jadczak Yeah, absolutely, and, as always, thank you so much for listening. Please don't forget to rate, share and subscribe. It makes a huge difference in the reach of this podcast and, by extension, this work. You can also visit us on YouTube, instagram and LinkedIn and sign up for our newsletter at inclusiongeekscom forward slash newsletter to stay up to date on all things. Inclusion Geeks Stay geeky. Bye.