Culturati Summit
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A community of CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors and other C-Suite leaders who practice and study cultur Unpacking the future of workplace culture.
Culturati brings together the best minds in corporate culture to share playbooks and perspectives, learn, and discuss what it takes to build cultures that drive performance, help employees thrive, and contribute to our communities. The Entrepreneurs Foundation, along with our Knowledge Partners, Microsoft and McKinsey & Company, welcome you to our 2022 Virtual Summit. Building on the in-person Cul
06/19/2026
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that enslaved people were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
It is a day to remember the atrocity of slavery, the injustice of freedom delayed, and the lives shaped by both.
For leaders, that history still carries a responsibility: To tell the truth about the past. To take dignity seriously in the present. And to build cultures where opportunity and belonging are real.
We are heartbroken by the sudden passing of Joshua Baer.
Josh was a founding member and sponsor of Culturati, the founder of Capital Factory, and one of the early builders of Austin’s tech ecosystem.
He saw what was coming before most. He started his first company from his college dorm in 1996, and went on to help create the infrastructure Austin entrepreneurs would come to rely on. From email to startups to coworking to AI, Josh was always an early adopter, moving toward the future with curiosity, courage, and optimism.
In a recent conversation with our friend Brett Hurt, Josh said, “I try to just be a positive influence… How do I make sure that I’m at least contributing to these things getting better?”
He did.
For founders. For Austin. For Culturati. For the people and communities he believed in, connected, challenged, and helped along the way.
We are grateful for his belief, his generosity, and his lasting influence. Our hearts are with his family, the Capital Factory team, and everyone feeling this loss.
“The number-one workplace challenge of today is not AI. It’s disconnection.”
Employee expectations have changed faster than most communication models have. Workvivo by Zoom CMO Gideon Pridor and AMC's Adam Murphy argue that trust now depends less on polished messaging and more on whether employees can actually hear from leaders, respond, and feel included in the conversation.
Watch their recorded 2C26 keynote on Culturati: On Demand: https://www.culturatisummit.com/culturati-on-demand?wix-vod-video-id=8f8a1c0516564a3da0022420b4812515&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-mnrtoro6
“Communication is a two-way stream, not just a broadcast.”
At AMC, about 16,000 frontline employees did not have an email address and were used to receiving information through managers. The launch of "AMC All Access", the company’s employee app, changed that by giving employees one place to hear from leaders directly, follow what was happening across the business, respond in real time, and stay connected to their own theater communities. With Workvivo, activation grew from about 74% to 94%.
That mattered beyond communication. AMC also shared that turnover, which was around 140% right after the pandemic, is now in the 70s. One platform didn't solve everything, but more direct, visible, participatory communication helped create a stronger employee experience and gave more people a reason to stay.
06/15/2026
Stress changes how people think, connect, and perform. Trust does too.
On June 23, Paul J. Zak will join Culturati: LIVE to examine emotional fitness through the lens of neuroscience, showing why trust, emotional regulation, and physiological readiness belong much closer to performance than to “soft skills.”
Drawing on decades of research on oxytocin, human connection, and organizational performance, Paul will explore what emotionally fit teams do differently under pressure and why that matters for resilience, collaboration, innovation, and ex*****on.
Sign up today: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1990594360317?aff=oddtdtcreator
06/12/2026
AI has developed a private life inside the company.
Employees are using it, hiding it, refining it, judging it, depending on it, and sometimes resenting it before leaders have created the trust and rules to turn individual hacks into enterprise capability. The blunt question is: when employees discover a better way to work, do they believe sharing it will make them more valuable, or more vulnerable?
Inside this week’s On Culture:
→ Harvard Business Review: Hidden AI use reveals the trust gap inside adoption
→ McKinsey & Company: HR’s mandate is shifting from process administration to work architecture
→ Financial Times: AI saves time, but botsitting and tool switching absorb the gains
→ Boston Consulting Group: Frontline AI use is rising faster than strategy and guidance
→ HR Dive: AI is increasing satisfaction and cognitive load at the same time
Read the full issue → https://www.culturatisummit.com/post/on-culture-the-secret-life-of-ai-at-work
06/10/2026
Why Paul J. Zak for a conversation on emotional fitness as a business imperative?
Because his work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, trust, human connection, and organizational performance.
Paul is a Distinguished University Professor at Claremont Graduate University, a top-cited scientist, four-time tech entrepreneur, and founder of Immersion Neuroscience. His research has taken him from the Pentagon to Fortune 50 boardrooms to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, studying how the brain and body shape cooperation, engagement, and performance.
In our upcoming Culturati: LIVE session, Paul will build on his Culturati: Summit 2C26 conversations to explore why emotionally fit teams are better equipped to navigate stress, build trust quickly, and make sound decisions in complex environments.
Join us Tuesday, June 23 at 12:00 p.m. CT for Culturati: LIVE, Emotional Fitness as a Business Imperative: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1990594360317?aff=oddtdtcreator
06/09/2026
A lot of leadership teams are being pushed toward a new growth model.
Microsoft’s latest WorkLab research shows how much of that shift depends on readiness. More than 80% of leaders expect agents to become part of their AI strategy within the next 12 to 18 months, yet nearly 80% of organizations say their data still cannot move across teams in ways that make agentic AI work, and two-thirds still lack executive champions to clear the path.
Karan Nigam’s Microsoft breakout at 2C26 focused on the operational next steps: equip teams with AI, redesign the workflows that shape revenue and service, and define where people and agents each create the most value.
06/03/2026
When pressure rises, some teams stay clear, connected, and accountable.
Others default to self-protection, risk minimization, and performative alignment.
What makes the difference?
In an upcoming Culturati: LIVE session, neuroscientist Paul J. Zak will explore emotional fitness as a business imperative, including how trust, emotional regulation, and physiological readiness shape the way people think, connect, and perform at work.
Join us at Noon CT on Tuesday June 23rd, sign up today: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1990594360317?aff=oddtdtcreator
Leadership transitions can destabilize an organization before anything formally changes.
At Culturati 2C26, Chris Jensen and Dana Larsen explained why: people can tell expectations are shifting, but they do not yet know what the new standard is. That uncertainty slows people down.
Chris Jensen spent six months shadowing the incoming CEO, paying close attention to his language, questions, and priorities so the team could understand what the new leader was signaling before the message was formally rolled out.
NXP already had a company aspiration, “unstoppable,” but employees still needed to know what that meant in practice. The team used the new CEO’s language to make it more concrete through speed, ownership, and innovation, while employee feedback helped sharpen where the organization needed more confidence and consistency in ex*****on.
They also chose not to wait for perfect messaging. Chris described moving when the message was about 70% there, as long as people understood what was known, what was still being decided, and when more direction would come.
The takeaway: shorten the period in which people have to guess. Make the new expectations visible early enough that the organization can move.
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