The Holding Co.

We’re back with our latest edition of The Care Guild (https://lnkd.in/ez-Wd3np)! This time, we’re honoring innovators and intellectuals who are shaping how artificial intelligence and care come together in the coming months and years. At The Holding Co. we’re both excited about the myriad ways that AI can and is being leveraged to make caregivers' lives easier and also very aware of the potential pitfalls of technological advancement when it comes to this most sacred and universal of human experiences. The way we see it, this doesn’t have to be an either/or situation, but an and/both. We deserve the best that AI has to offer for our families’ thriving and we deserve human connection and touch, the dignity that comes from privacy, and a wise, deliberate approach to AI’s integration into our intimate, daily lives. These dynamics aren’t just theory to us; we’ve been testing the waters with our own project recently: The Sandwich Club (https://lnkd.in/eq7NKXnB), a membership club to answer caregivers' questions with both generative #AI and guidance from people with real, messy, beautiful caregiving experience. With this class of the #CareGuild, we wanted to highlight leaders who are exploring AI’s capacity for lightening the cognitive load, navigating care crises, and connecting otherwise isolated and vulnerable people to the support they need to stay safe and inspired to new levels. They are also leaders with an eye towards what could go wrong–academics and artists and professional caregivers who are committed to being part of collectives with our long-term human dignity as the northstar, no matter what technology brings (or promises to). Meet the Care Guild class of 2024. They are sure to inspire at a time when we so need it. Empathy's Ron Gura and Yonatan Bergman Rendever's Kyle Rand and Thomas Neumann Butlr's Honghao Deng TrueLoo at Toi Labs's Vik Kashyap CoreCare's Dennis Antonelos and Mehrdad Shafaie National Domestic Workers Alliance's Alistair Stephenson and Kelly Gannon Sheer Health's Jeffrey Witten, Ben Howard, and Dan Horbatt Devoted Health's Ed Park and Todd Park ElliQ at Intuition Robotics's Dor Skuler Ema's Amanda Ducach, MBA Happypillar's Sam Gardner and Mady Mantha PaidLeave.ai at Moms First's Reshma Saujani Rippl's Kris Engskov Faye's Emily King The Social Science of Caregiving Program's Alison Gopnik Care Daily's David Moss and Gene Wang CopilotIQ's David Koretz Spring Health's April Koh Roon's Vikram Bhaskaran, Arun Ranganathan, and Rohan Ramakrishna, MD OpenAI's Shyamal Hitesh Anadkat Zingage's Victor Hunt and Daniel Tian The Algorithmic Justice League's Dr. Joy Buolamwini Seeing AI at Microsoft's Saqib Shaikh Physical Intelligence's Karol Hausman, Sergey Levine, and Lachy Groom DeepBrain AI's Scott Tease

Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, November 12 at 10am PT / 1pm ET for a conversation on serving caregivers at scale. We’ll hear from Priya Krishnan on how Bright Horizons has shaped and continues to adapt to the care market given its four decades of experience in the space, along with insights from Niki Manby on the burgeoning challenges and opportunities in financial caregiving at the storied Mutual of Omaha. Hearing from these two influential leaders from their unique perspectives is bound to be a fascinating conversation. As always, this conversation will be moderated by The Holding Co.'s storyteller-in-residence, Courtney Martin. Care Guild in Conversation is open to the public (anyone who cares about care, which is everyone!), so feel free to spread the word to your colleagues, networks, etc. You can RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/ggtiFNz9. #CareGuild #CareGuildInConversation

We love to see this coverage by Rachel Cohen of the creative ways that states are figuring out how to raise the bar on child care teacher salaries, including the largest program to date out of DC, which paid more than $80 million over the last two years to raise salaries and was funded by a tax increase on DC’s wealthiest residents. These interventions fly in the face of the misperception that it is only already stretched working parents who are on the hook for child care salary increases; instead, there are structural solutions that make life better for everyone who understands what a high-quality investment early ed really is. https://lnkd.in/gGGbDsit

As we wait with bated breath to see what happens in next week’s election, we were so inspired by this story. Olympic track star Allyson Felix is among many advocates and institutions that are teaming up to provide free childcare to parents who need to get to the polls. This is critical, as The 19th reports, because caregivers, and especially single mothers, are one of the biggest groups of non-voters in the country. They have so much to gain and lose in this critical election. Care is definitely a defining topic for the next four years. https://lnkd.in/gBrAhnXK

Join us on Tuesday, November 12 at 10am PT / 1pm ET for a conversation on serving caregivers at scale. We’ll hear from Priya Krishnan on how Bright Horizons has shaped and continues to adapt to the care market given its four decades of experience in the space, along with insights from Niki Manby on the burgeoning challenges and opportunities in financial caregiving at the storied Mutual of Omaha. Hearing from these two influential leaders from their unique perspectives is bound to be a fascinating conversation. As always, this conversation will be moderated by The Holding Co.'s storyteller-in-residence, Courtney Martin. Care Guild in Conversation is open to the public (anyone who cares about care, which is everyone!), so feel free to spread the word to your colleagues, networks, etc. You can RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/ggtiFNz9.

At The Holding Co., we are passionately interdisciplinary. We're a design lab focused on care, but that really means we draw on so many frameworks and fields — from anthropology to engineering, filmography to theology, graphic design to social policy. We are basically a bunch of makers, nerds, and big-hearted caretakers who believe that the only way to get the care system this country deserves is to use ALL the tools in the toolbox. ... Which is why we were so enamored with this latest piece from Elissa Strauss, whose book we adore, on the philosophical field of "care ethics." In short, it's the part of philosophy that speaks to one of the most foundational ways we relate and spend our time and energy: caring for others. Why do we do it? Who do we categorize as our responsibility? What happens when cultures of care fail? These are all the meaty questions that care ethics unpacks and we are here for it. Thanks to Elissa for mainstreaming such a critical conversation. https://lnkd.in/gVqa6iD5

It's great to see this reporting from Vanessa Fuhrmans and Veronica Dagher at The Wall Street Journal getting so much conversation going about the sandwich caregiver generation, 54 million strong. At The Holding Co., we've been innovating around this demographic as of late, but long before that, have been thinking about the mental and financial burdens that too often go invisible when Americans, especially women, are crushed by care. In our work helping companies, government agencies, and nonprofits redesign the care system, we see evidence every single day of what happens when we make this kind of care visible, design policies, services, and products in response to it, and validate this work as valuable and sacred. It changes everything. The inevitability of this demographic shift towards sandwich caregiving doesn't have to be a sad, isolating story. We can rewrite it if we focus on the right levers to lighten people's load and center the care experience. If you're working on something with this kind of sober optimism, let's talk! We'd love to learn from you and collaborate. #SandwichGeneration

We were grateful to see the long tail of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's unprecedented announcement about parents in mental health crisis on The Daily, and what better translator could there by than Claire Cain Miller, who gets the care beat in her bones? Intensive parenting has transcended class differences, and now everybody is expected to not just keep their kids safe and healthy in a mentally hazardous world, but engage them at every turn. The pressure is real and too much. How do we get wiser about what is and isn't necessary in modern parenting on the cultural level? How can we get more government support so that parents don't feel like they have to make it all work on their own, despite tremendous economic constraints? And what can innovators invite that actually makes parents lives easier, not even more administratively complicated? There are so many seeds planted in this great episode. https://lnkd.in/d2Wj8whn

We were so inspired by this breaking news that KiwiCo, Inc., the STEM-forward toy and activity brand, has generated more than $1 billion in revenue and shipped more than 50 million crates to more than 40 countries! We could go and on about the company's commitment to human-centered design, but what we really love is the HUMAN aspect of this success story. A mom in a mini-van created the company, and even though she has epic business chops, she never lost sight of who she was doing it for: kids and families that love tangible learning experiences. In a time of screen ubiquity, what could be more refreshing? Congrats to KiwiCo. There is so much for all of us to learn here. https://lnkd.in/g_tyDbpX

We are beyond thrilled to see Vice President Kamala Harris' announcement that, if elected president, she will introduce a historic Medicare at Home benefit. The idea behind this is long overdue and makes good moral and fiscal sense: get the 67 million people covered by #Medicare connected with the long-term services, like home health aides, that they need. Not only does this mean a better quality of life for our elders, but less expensive emergency room visits and burned out family caregivers. This is good for professional care workers, too, ensuring that they have better wages and more official recognition for their critical work in our culture. Thanks to VP Harris for her vision, rooted in her own experience as a caregiver for her mother when she went through cancer. None of us escapes the duty and meaningful opportunity to care, but not all of us can afford to honor our elders the way we would like; American can and should do better.