What would Elijah say? I live and work in the heart of Sillicon Valley where AI is all anyone talks about. I recently met someone at my physical therapy office who moved ot town from Sacramento and she commented on how strange it was to see the topic on every single billboard. “Welcome to San Francisco,” I told her. Over here in the land of tech it can be easy to miss how strange this moment is for humanity and that maybe, just maybe, it’s not the only topic deserving of our attention. 

Consider this statement: “It’s amazing how needs change when you’re 7,000 feet closer to the sun.” Sounds like a great metaphor for something, am I right? I do often find myself referring to how different things are in corporate life the “closer you get to the sun.” The “sun,” in this case, can mean “headquarters,” or “senior leadership.” Let’s be real, things feel different when at any moment you might find yourself in an elevator with your VP or if the program you just launched is visible to the head of communications as she grabs coffee.

The phenomenon that is Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson’s thriller series “Severance” took a while to land in my consciousness, much to my chagrin. When I learned that the entire story rests on the premise that a new technology — invented by the fictional Lumon corporation — can sever a person’s “work” persona from their “life” persona, I couldn’t believe I missed a sci-fi story that so perfectly encapsulates my own life’s work.