Book Conversations (and Joe Rogan)
September 15, 2025 – John Abrams
Since the publication of From Founder to Future, I have been honored to discuss the message of this book at several live events and on many podcasts. (This 21 Hats podcast may be my favorite!) Later this month and during most of October, I will travel for the same purpose. I also plan to visit a few of the organizations I profiled in my book, as well as a few companies I am currently guiding through worker co-op conversions. Here’s the schedule for the public events:
September 18-19: Peabody, MA (Fine Homebuilding Summit)
October 7: New York City (Ownership Economy Summit)
October 9: Portland, OR (New Energy Works)
October 16: Ann Arbor, MI
October 17: Cincinnati, OH
October 21: Asheville, NC (NC Employee Ownership Center)
October 23: Boulder, CO
October 23: Denver, CO
October 30: Watertown, MA (Authors and Innovators)
The above events will all be conversations and interviews, not presentations. If you live in any of these cities, or will be there on the date listed, please come. I’d love to see you. If you need information about particulars, please feel free to contact me.
I am grateful to those who are making these opportunities possible— Aaron Dawson, Andrea Steffes-Tuttle, Ari Weinzwig, Ben Bogie, Brian Hayden, Brian Pontillo, Deanna Varble, Ellen Vera, Jahed Momand, Jenna Grayson, Jonathan Orpin, Julia Rodriques, Kristen Barker, Lawrence Gennari, Nathan Schneider, Peter Koehler, Rob Pasick, and Rob Yagid. (My apologies if I inadvertently left anyone out.)
I hope to see you somewhere along this trail! And if any of you have ideas for other conferences, events, business schools, small business associations, or podcasts that might be a good fit, please be in touch. Thanks!
Speaking of podcasts, but switching gears, I have a question: Do any of you ever listen to or watch Joe Rogan? If you do, you share something with more than 10 million people. Nobody has more listeners. I was not one of them, until recently.
I watched Rogan’s two-hour interview with Bernie Sanders, one of my longtime personal political heroes. The first thing Rogan says as he welcomes Bernie is, “It’s a good time for you to be here, as the world’s gone haywire. What are your thoughts about this?”
Bernie had a thing or two to say.
During the conversation, they discovered that they share significant agreement. In fact, they found little about which they disagreed.
What I liked most about the conversation was the number of times each of them answered questions from the other by saying, “I don’t really know” or “I don’t know enough about that to give you an informed opinion.” It was an honest, authentic conversation, in which Joe Rogan said that one of the things he most admires about Bernie is something I share—that over 50 years Bernie’s message has been honed and refined but he has remained fundamentally consistent and has never changed to suit the moment or circumstance. I don’t know if you can say that about other politicians.
One of their recurring topics was: How do people find meaning in their lives as technology dominates their work more and more? Neither of them had many answers until, more than 90 minutes into the interview, Bernie started to talk about work done in Vermont to help workers own their own companies. He said that when workers share ownership and have a greater stake and voice, they gain a sense of purpose, absenteeism declines, and productivity goes up.
Rogan liked the idea.
Me too, obviously.