Dean’s Speaker Series: Calm CEO David Ko wants us all to check our mental batteries 

Before he became CEO of Calm, David Ko was an overworked investment banker—overeating at night, smoking in the work stairwell, and often sleeping under his desk.

Anxiety had been a constant throughout Ko’s life. But growing up, conversations about mental health were rare—a theme that carried into his adulthood. Those absent discussions, he explained, inspired him to reimagine how companies like Calm could normalize the dialogue.

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“I always felt a little bit afraid to talk about my mental health journey at work because I didn’t know if that would be perceived as weakness or how other people would perceive it,” he said at the first Dean’s Speaker Series of the semester, co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation. “But in fact, it was just the opposite. More people came and said it was more relatable. I just felt that was a lot more important if we were going to have a healthier culture going forward.”

Calm has become one of the world’s leading mental health platforms, with more than 180 million downloads across 190 countries. The app is most known for its guided meditations and “Sleep Stories,” which have featured celebrities like Jennifer Garner, Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Harry Styles, and LeBron James. Ko has extended Calm’s mission through his book “Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery, One Conversation at a Time,” which features interviews with leaders, artists, and innovators about prioritizing their mental health and managing stress in a world that keeps getting faster.

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Ko emphasized that what sets Calm apart isn’t just its scale but its trustworthiness. In a digital world, his goal is for Calm to have the opposite effect: for every user to leave the app feeling just a little better. 

One of the ways he makes these conversations more accessible is by comparing mental health to a phone battery. Asking, “How’s your battery?,” he explains, is much less intimidating than the more loaded question, “How’s your mental health?” The metaphor not only opens the door to honest answers but also normalizes dialogue. 

Ko’s path to his “why” was anything but straightforward. While still in investment banking, he advised DoubleClick founders as they prepared to take the company public. Inspired by their mission-driven work and tired of merely going through the motions, he knew he had to find his own purpose, which led him to roles at Yahoo and the gaming company Zynga, where he developed his understanding of data, user behavior, and engagement.  

It wasn’t until a conversation with former Aetna CEO Jack Rowe that Ko was pulled toward something more purposeful. He realized that if games could engage millions of people daily, applying those same behavioral insights to healthcare could be transformative. Ko went onto ventures at Rally Health and Ripple Health Group—which was acquired by Calm in 2022—where he began to align his professional path with his personal values.

“People sometimes stay very linear in their careers…But the reality is, you have a lot of choices,” he said. “And I think for most of you, along your own journeys, you’ll realize that it will zig and zag along the way. And you will question at times, ‘Is this the right job for me in the long term?’”

Ko has tried to carry this sense of purpose into how he leads at Calm. He pointed out that culture has to start at the top, noting that he follows former advice often attributed to former Apple CEO John Sculley to “listen first and speak last,” an approach that fosters an innovative, collaborative, and a healthy workplace.

He also made the case that not investing in mental health carries real costs, citing that the World Economic Forum estimates trillions of dollars in lost productivity globally due to mental health challenges. While companies often claim they “don’t have a budget” for wellness, “That’s not true,” he said.”You have the budget. You just choose not to prioritize it.”

Despite being the CEO of Calm, Ko was candid about his own life being hardly stress-free. To manage that pressure, he advises setting clear boundaries with technology, for instance never letting his phone be the first or last thing he sees in a day. He also prioritizes short moments of recovery, sometimes just 30 seconds of breathing or stepping away from his desk. 

“My hope is conversations like this continue … and that each and every one of you carry this message forward,” he said. “Reach out to someone and ask them how they’re doing, how’s their battery? Check in on yourself, and check in on others. If you can affect one person along the way, you can make such a big difference.”

Transcript:

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Welcome, everyone. My name is Sameer Srivastava, and I am the director of the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture—oh, I lost the sound there. Good? All right. My name is Sameer Srivastava, and I’m the director of the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation, on behalf of Dean Jenny Chatman, who has been called away. Welcome to today’s Dean’s Speaker Series. 

I’m thrilled to introduce our guest, David Ko, the CEO of Calm, and an author and leader in the mental health space. Since 2022, David has led Calm’s mission to support everyone on every step of their mental health journey. Through his leadership, Calm has been recognized as one of the best apps for meditation and sleep. David used his own experiences and those he has learned about while at Calm to write Recharge, a best-selling book. We are fortunate to have copies of the book for those in the room today. Please pick one up at the back of the room before you leave. 

David has been a leader in the healthcare space for a decade, with prior executive roles at Ripple Health Group and Raleigh Health. His previous tech experience was at Zynga and also at Yahoo. He’s been recognized for his leadership, named a LinkedIn Top Voice, and one of Rock Health’s top 50 leaders in digital health. He also finds time to serve on various boards at Calm and at his alma mater, NYU’s Stern School of Business. 

We were very fortunate to have David here back in January. Some of you may have been here at the Berkeley Culture Connect Conference, where he gave a really lovely talk and answered a bunch of questions about Calm and the connection to workplace culture. David’s leadership style and values really exemplify Beyond Yourself, and I’m excited to hear him today. 

So, some quick housekeeping before we proceed. You should all have at your seats a note card. If you have a question now or anytime during the event, please write it on the card, and be sure to include your name and the program you’re in. Our colleagues will be circulating throughout the event, and we’ll collect those cards. We’ll use that for the Q&A portion of the event. 

And if we could have those who will be circulating just raise their hands so everyone can identify them. And I would like to now turn it over to our MBA students, Esa Tilija, and Avanika Lal, who will lead today’s discussion. Over to you. 

AVANIKA LAL: Great. Welcome, everyone. Introducing the company that’s operating in over 190 countries with over 4,000 employees, with a man who has launched Calm Rooms for restfulness and mindfulness recently in the Hilton, and, quote, “the man who said the best way to motivate employees is Golden Retrievers.” Give it up for David Ko. 

We’re going to kick off with just a quick poll for you guys. So, we’re really interested in understanding which of these stresses affects you the most. Raise your hand. Is it one, workload; two, uncertainty; three, balancing personal life; four, current affairs; or five, identity. Raise your hand for workload. OK. How about for uncertainty? Oh, OK. A lot more. Balancing personal life? OK. Current affairs? OK, that’s the lowest. 

And identity? No one. OK. 

DAVID KO: How about all the above? All the above, OK? 

AVANIKA LAL: Awesome. OK. So we’re going to kick-start, David. Can you share the story of your career journey? What led you from investment banking in the East Coast to leading Calm in Silicon Valley, which is such a purpose-driven company, and what motivated you along the journey? 

DAVID KO: Well, first off, thank you all for having me here today. I’m really excited to be back and spending some time with you to have this conversation. In terms of my own personal career journey, I started my career in finance, and I was in investment banking. I had worked at Salomon Brothers. It was the ’90s. And I’d been there for a number of years. And then I got to meet two individuals. I think it was around 1998. It was Kevin O’Connor and Kevin O’Brien. I was working on their offering, and they were the founders of DoubleClick, for those of you who may remember them, later acquired by Google. And when I met with them, something just resonated with myself, which was, they were such mission-driven. It didn’t really feel like work, I felt, to them, and I just felt like I was going through more of the motions at work. And they were not only going through the motions, but they saw a bigger purpose. And while I didn’t act on that right away, it just started getting me thinking, ‘What else should I be thinking about in my own career journey?’ And I applied to a number of companies in the West Coast. A lot of them wanted for me to be in finance, and one company took a shot and said I could do product, and that was Yahoo. And it was in late ’99. I applied, got in, moved out from New York, out here in 2000, and that really just started a journey for myself around continuous learning. And I think that’s been like a key. Basically a cornerstone of my own career is continuous learning. 

ESA TILIJA: In your book, Recharge, which everyone should get, as well as your podcast on Spotify. 

DAVID KO: Thank you. All subscribe. 

ESA TILIJA: You share about your lived experience as a Korean immigrant. That really resonated with me as a Nepali first-gen immigrant. How has your upbringing and your community shaped your career choices, how you show up as a leader, and who you are today? 

DAVID KO: Yeah, what’s been really interesting—and I’ll go back actually in a question that you asked was—it’s really interesting, and all of you will have these opportunities as you go through your own careers. I went and spent 10 years at Yahoo, and in that 10 years, I thought that was just some of the best learnings I could have ever had. And I got to work many different jobs and work in different parts of the world. 

I took a leap of faith in 2010 to go to Zynga when everyone was like, ‘Why go to a company like a gaming company from where you are in a media company?’ And in that gaming company, I really learned about data, and what was really interesting was going from managing a user base of 800 million people a month to 100 million people a day. So 100 million people a day were playing games for five minutes a day. And I thought that was a catalyst for understanding data, user behavior, and engagement. 

But there was someone in 2010 that really changed the arc of my career, and his name was Jack Rowe. And that individual was the former CEO of Aetna. And he asked the question, ‘How many people play games?’ But he asked a more important question, which was, ‘If you could just change and engage 100,000 people in healthcare, you could change healthcare.’ I’ll finish that sentence with you later, but that really sat with me and moved my career more to healthcare going forward. 

I tell you that because people sometimes stay very linear in their careers. They’ll say, ‘I’m just going to stay in finance for the next 20 years, or I’ll stay in this arc.’ But the reality is, you have a lot of choices. And I think for most of you, along your own journeys, you’ll realize that it will zig and zag along the way. And you will question at times, ‘Is this the right job for me in the long term?’

I found real purpose in healthcare. I think with my own parents and growing up as an immigrant, what I would tell you is my parents just worked all the time. They made a lot of sacrifices. But one thing my parents didn’t do with me was talk about mental health. 

On a personal note, I had my first panic attack when I was 14 years old. My mom, who I love, gives me great advice, didn’t give me the best advice then, where she was like, ‘Just power through this moment.’ Because she didn’t really understand what was happening either; she didn’t have command of the language; she didn’t understand. And I would have these things repeatedly when I was under a lot of stress. It took until I was much older, until I understood what was happening, to even talk about it today. I think one of the things that I do very differently is I have two daughters who are 17 and 14. I’ve had conversations about their mental health since a very early age, because I wanted to normalize the conversation and have it in our home. It’s just for me—and working at Calm gives me a lot of pride that I get to work at a company where they actually use the products that I build. And I couldn’t always say that in the past. 

AVANIKA LAL: Can you think of a specific turning point in your career that made you realize you want to be in this space and that shaped you as a leader? 

DAVID KO: Yeah, I mean, going just back to healthcare, what I would tell you is when I first moved—these are hard decisions that you’ll make in your career. And when I wanted to go over into healthcare, a lot of people were saying, don’t go into healthcare. Stay in gaming. 

Or when I was trying to get funding for a company I had built, I went up and down Sand Hill Road, and we had just taken a company public, and it had gone public for $10 billion—the largest IPO after Google. So, I thought fundraising was going to be quite easy. We would just go up and down this road, people would throw money at us, and it was actually quite the opposite. People were like, if you build WhatsApp, we’ll give you money. I was like, if I was going to build WhatsApp, I wouldn’t need you. But when I told them I wanted to go into healthcare, nobody thought that was a good idea. And so, I was almost shut down in every place I turned, saying, ‘Healthcare is too hard; trying to work with payers and providers are really hard. Stick with direct-to-consumer. That will be an easier path.’ But at some point, I will tell you it didn’t really fit my ‘why’ of the things I felt that were important. It didn’t fit where I wanted to go from a personal perspective. It didn’t fit where I wanted to make change happen. And so, I thought healthcare would be a place where, if we were to take all of our insights that we’ve learned here over the last 10-15 years and bring that into healthcare, we could transform healthcare. And that is something I still believe in deeply today. 

ESA TILIJA: When you reflect on your career and going back to your investment banking days, like as a first-year associate till now, how would you say the conversation around mental health in the workplace and in general has evolved? You talked a little bit in the green room about COVID as well, and what challenges and opportunities do you see ahead? 

DAVID KO: Yeah, that’s a great question. When I was in banking, and I started as an analyst, we never had the conversation. There was no conversation around mental health in the workplace. It’s actually one of the inspirations behind the book in front of you that I hope you get a chance to read. That book was written because I would go out and have conversations with lots of individuals, lots of leaders that are out here in the Valley. And I think the conversation around mental health is the most approachable it’s ever been here in the U.S. It’s not approachable in all parts of the world, but here in the U.S., it’s definitely the most approachable it’s ever been. But it’s a funny thing, and it’s ironic for most people. Once you get to work, though, we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about mental health in the workplace. And it’s not like mental health knows that you’re at work.  It’s like the TV show ‘Severance.’ Once you get to work, we’re not going to talk about our mental health. It’s not how life works, right? But that conversation is so hard. How do you bring up a conversation around mental health at work? And so, the reason why this book was written—and again, with all proceeds going to NAMI, the National Alliance of Mental Illness—it was because I wanted to make it easier about how to have that conversation at work. So I equated having the conversation with a phone battery. So think about, you go up to someone and say, ‘How’s your battery?’ It’s a lot easier than saying, ‘How’s your mental health?’ And so, we talk more about it from a phone battery perspective. And it opened the aperture for many individuals that have come back to me and said, ‘Hey, it’s made it a lot easier to talk about it.’ So it’s easy to talk to someone and say, ‘How’s your battery?’ We all know it. 

I’ve had this conversation with my kids. If I asked my own children, ‘How are you doing?’ they’re like, “Fine. Go away.’ If I asked them, ‘How’s your battery?’ they give me a number. They’re like, ‘I’m at 70%.’ It starts a dialogue. And part of this is starting a conversation and a dialogue. 

Do you know most people at work are over 60%, 70%, 80% happier when they have one friend? One friend at work makes all the difference. If one friend at work can have a conversation with you about how’s your battery and can really talk to you and understand you, you’re so much happier at work. Work is hard enough. 

So, again, I mean, I think for myself, we didn’t have these conversations. I’m glad we’re having them today, and I hope all of you will keep that conversation going in the future. 

AVANIKA LAL: Nice. So bringing it back to Recharge as well, can you share a conversation or a story from your Recharge interviews that particularly stuck with you? 

DAVID KO: There’s been—I would say, when I started the book, I went out and interviewed a whole bunch of individuals: business leaders, musicians, actors. The first one set the tone for the entire book. I interviewed Randall Park, and he was so honest, so thoughtful. He basically said if he had not gone through and meditated, he wouldn’t have been able to have the conversation with me today because he just wasn’t having a good day. And I realized if someone could be that open with me in a short amount of time and set the tone, I could be more open as well. And I started to talk about my own journey at work. I’ve never done that before. I always felt a little bit afraid to talk about my mental health journey at work because I didn’t know if that would be perceived as weakness, or how would other people perceive it? 

But in fact, it was just the opposite. More people came and said it was more relatable. More people came up to me and said, ‘I’ve had some of those same experiences.’ More people now felt more comfortable to talk about it at work. I just felt that was a lot more important if we were going to have a healthier culture going forward. There’s so much in life right now that’s happening all around us, even when we started raising our hands. So, I really wanted to make work an environment where we could have more of these conversations. Because if you want to have a healthier workforce going forward, if you want to have one that really believes in the mission and your values, you got to spend time on your employees, and you got to spend time, especially with their mental health and your physical healtH because they’re deeply intertwined. 

AVANIKA LAL: Nice. OK. And on that note as well, talking more about strategies for preventing burnout. What do you think, from your perspective, has been most effective for preventing burnout among employees? 

DAVID KO: You know, I have spent a lot of time on the road talking to a lot of employees and senior management about burnout. I’ve been with large hospital groups where over 40% of their employees are burnt out. And I just want you to understand the difference between burnout. If you were going through anxiety, that may feel like a sprint to many individuals. When you’re going through burnout, you don’t even want to start. You don’t even want to get up. You don’t even want to start your workday. When a hospital network says 40% of their employees are burnt out, that means where you may go—send your family, your friends, your parents, your loved ones, your kids—they don’t really want to be at work. For me, that was a real wake-up call. And so, a lot of conversations we have about burnout is like, why? What is the root cause? And for many individuals, it’s the fact that they don’t understand the why behind things. There is an assumption, and I’ve been through this myself. I’ll be in a room with six to eight leaders. I’ll be like, OK, we have to do the next five things. And everyone was like, you got it? We’re going. Five things. Everyone leaves the room. Everyone tells their employees what they thought those five things were. It’s different. It’s like the telephone game. And nobody explains the ‘why.’ And more importantly, nobody takes anything away. So to the employee that’s further down the line, it feels like stacking. And I think stacking is something that is the root cause of a lot of burnout today in companies, because it just feels never ending. If you don’t explain the ‘why’ and take the time and you just keep stacking one thing after the other— so I make a very conscious decision, and this doesn’t always happen, so I don’t want to be hypocritical here, but when I spend time and I’m like, ‘Hey, I’d like you to do two or three things,’ I really try to think about the one thing you should stop doing. So, is there something that we shouldn’t do for you to do these two or three things? It doesn’t always turn out that way, but it’s a much more thoughtful conversation than just saying, do three, and then here’s three more, here’s three more. And then before you know it, you’re doing 15 things. And that’s a big cause for burnout today. 

AVANIKA LAL: Yeah, no, thank you. So as the No. 1 health and meditation app, you guys have definitely set the standard for mindfulness sleep and mental well-being. So, this is a two-part question. Looking ahead, how do you see Calm continuing to innovate to sustain its leadership as the industry evolves? And secondly, in your view, what will define success and differentiation in the future of wellness? 

DAVID KO: That’s a great question. A lot of people will come and say, ‘Oh my God, you’ve reached 180 million downloads. You’re in 190 countries.’ Honestly, I feel like we’re just getting started. And the reason I say that is because half our users today come to us because they can’t sleep. How many of you in this room can’t sleep at night? It’s like half. I mean, when you go out there–everyone needs to sleep eventually. And if you look at how big the population is from a global perspective, and you think about how those 8 billion people, how many of them don’t sleep at night, or suffer from anxiety or physical ailments, you realize that’s a lot of people. The fact of the matter is, we have just touched the surface. I think the thing we’ve really built is trust. So when folks ask me, ‘What have you done?’ I tell them, ‘We’ve built trust.’ And that’s really hard to do. And I tell you, it’s really hard to do because I was just with Apple, because they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re winning. We’re promoting your apps over other things. And there’s 2.4 million apps in the App Store.’ How do you know what to choose? How do you know who to trust? 

So, in the beginning for me, what I’m most proud of is, we’ve built trust with our members. And for people who don’t know us, a lot of them do go, ‘Ooh, yeah, I know your product. I’ve heard about it. It’s done something for someone else.’ I think in the future, what I’d like to continue to do is make sure that we’re a part of the solution and not part of the problem. 

I’ll bring this back to my own kids. If my kids see this one day, they’ll be like, ‘Stop talking about us so much.’ But there have been times where I’ve been with them—and you’re all going to use lots of apps. But there are apps for them, especially teenage girls, that don’t make them feel good about themselves, but they feel they have to use them. That’s where their friends are at. And look, we know who they are. And the reality is, those apps sometimes make them feel good, but sometimes, more than not, they make them feel a little bit worse about themselves. I’m just happy that when they use our products and their friends use our products, they always say, ‘I feel a little bit better about myself after I’m done.’ 

When I was at Zynga, I didn’t let them use the products I was building. I think that’s the ultimate litmus test for any founder in the Valley. Will you let your kids use the products you’re building? And if the answer is no, maybe you shouldn’t f—sorry, I shouldn’t curse. Sorry, sorry. We’re taping, right? Sorry. Rewind. Cut. Maybe we shouldn’t build those products. You know what I mean? That is the test for me. Would I let my own children use the products and their friends that we’re building? And I would tell you, the answer is yes. And that will be a core kind of part for me going forward, and that test with all products. 

ESA TAIJA: That’s a fantastic insight. I think the founders, product leaders here will definitely implement. You talk about in your book how, building off what you just shared, on one hand, technology can be really negative to mental being, but on the other, if we make it work for us, it has really powerful, positive impacts. So, kind of a two-part question. Firstly, how do you recommend professionals and leaders manage that balance? And then, secondly, how are you in Calm working to leverage technology to make mental health more accessible? 

DAVID KO: Thank you for that. I’ll tell you how I use technology for myself. And look, it’s going to be always on for many of us—especially many of you that will go to start companies if you choose to, many of you will go to startups, whatever profession. There is an expectation of always on, and it’s hard to turn it off. 

The one thing that has helped me immensely, and I asked people, just try it, try it for a day, see if it works, then do it for two days. Don’t let the phone be the last thing you look at before you go to bed. I know that’s hard. You’re going to be like, ‘That’s impossible.’ And don’t let the phone be the first thing you look at when you wake up. Meaning, yes, you could shut off your alarm, but don’t open up your email or look at any notifications the moment you wake up. Just do something else. That could be, go make a cup of coffee. That could be, just go out, open the window. Just do something else. I find that that simple act for me, and I have my own data on this, has helped me sleep a lot—not the quantity of sleep, but it’s improved the quality of my sleep. So don’t confuse quantity for quality. And I think for many folks, it’s not about the number of hours at times, it’s how good is that quality of your sleep. And so, I found myself, when I would look at the phone right before I go to bed, I would just be thinking about it. It would not be good. It’d be like I had gone and hadn’t drank before I had gone to bed. But the fact of the matter is, if you can have a healthy relationship with your device and understand that there should be certain boundaries and recognize it’s going to be with us, you can work with it. The same way in the Calm app. I think for us in the app itself, we’ve had to adapt. We were an audible client basically in the beginning, and we did a lot of things around, kind of like you going to bed at night. And I had a chance—actually, tomorrow, Matthew McConaughey drops for us in a podcast. I told him, ‘I was going to bed to you almost every night, man.’ And he helped. He’s got a pretty soothing voice. But that was something that we realized later on. When people want to use it at work, you might not necessarily be able to have your headphones on for 30 minutes or whatnot, so we had to build audiovisual content, breathing exercises, tactile content where you could touch things on the phone. And we had to create a lot shorter content as well. And so, we really had to meet people where they were in their mental health journey in all aspects of the product. And that’s something we’re going to continue to do and evolve with over time. 

ESA TILIJA: So while technology can expand access, stigma is still a meaningful barrier that prevents so many communities. And people from trying Calm or just addressing their mental health, what are you all doing to address this stigma? 

DAVID KO: Yeah, I mean, the stigma of the products or stigma of mental health is real. I mean, even though, again, it’s been approachable. It is something that exists largely. You go to other countries today. My parents live in Korea. I give talks in Korea. It’s still not really talked about. It’s now being more talked about in Korea, because there have been younger—mostly on the musician side—suicides. And so, it’s bringing to light mental health with actors and other famous people. So unfortunately, that’s been a catalyst. But for many parts, there isn’t that talk around mental health. Now, it is getting better. If you go to obviously, the UK, for example, or other areas, there is much more of an open dialogue. I think it’s up to all corporations, it’s up to us, it’s up to individuals to keep having that conversation and bringing that dialogue forward. Many of you will be leaders, whether you’re a CEO, or running businesses, business lines, you can keep that conversation going. And it’s becoming very normalized. Look, I go to a lot of schools. Calm increased greatly during COVID, especially among schools. And in those schools, they may overuse the term around their mental health, but at least they’re talking about it. It’s not something that’s not being talked about. And now, people understand the linkage between your mental health and your physical health. People understand if you have health issues, you’re more inclined to have physical health issues. If you have physical health issues, you’re more inclined to have mental health issues. You’re more inclined to cost the system two to eight times more. So people understand that linkage. 

So now that there’s real data in science, everyone is now picking up not just from a U.S. perspective, but a global perspective around the importance about having this conversation. I do think, though, the stigma is going to take time, especially in the workforce and the workplace. But I do see this getting better and better, and you’ll see this as you go into your own workplace, because they do talk about this, because many people now in benefits offer solutions around mental health that they did not offer 10 years ago. 

And even in universities and schools, there’s wellness programs that are here. Great programs you should leverage. I’m a trustee at NYU. We didn’t do these things 20 years ago. We didn’t have these conversations. So, schools now are really leaning into this, and I think it’s really important that they continue to do so, like what’s happening here at Berkeley. 

AVANIKA LAL: I’m sure almost every student in this room would tell you that life as an MBA student is beyond chaotic. And they don’t feel like they have time to implement even small practices like meditation, mindfulness. What would your advice be for how to integrate these small, meaningful practices into such a busy life? 

DAVID KO: It’s the same thing I tell other CEOs: You have to prioritize it. There’s always a reason. We were actually talking about this earlier. Sometimes, CEOs will say we have no budget. I’m like, that’s not true. You have budget. You just choose not to prioritize it. And then you’ll question why employees are taking sick days or there’s absenteeism. It’s costing the world—the World Economic Forum said there’s trillions of dollars in workforce productivity lost to mental health issues. You’re not prioritizing it. I think for each and every one of you out there, it’s not about a 20-minute meditation. We’ve got things that go as short as 30 seconds—30 seconds. Can you prioritize seconds of breathing? I do. When I’m in the office and there are times where I feel I can’t be present, I will prioritize and take a break to recharge for myself. 

And that is, I’ll look out the window, I do three Ws. I look out the window, I’ll get up and take a walk, or I’ll grab a glass of water because I forgot to hydrate. It doesn’t take a lot. 

But I will tell you one thing. If you prioritize your own mental health, and it will help you actually—as it’s helped me—to be a better leader. Because if I don’t prioritize my mental health, it’s really hard for me to lead in the best manner for the company. And that’s why I think it’s important for each and every one of you, even in this chaotic schedule, to prioritize your own mental health. 

AVANIKA LAL: Yeah. So you touched upon how these practices can help with productivity and leadership. Are you able to go deeper into this? You know, a big reason why people do the MBA is to get into high leadership roles and progress in their careers. 

DAVID KO: Yeah. I think one of the things that you’ll continue to find in any job that you end up doing is that there’s nothing like a stress-free work environment. So, people often ask me, they’ll be like, ‘Hey, you’re the CEO of Calm. Do you meditate all day?’ And I’ll be like, ‘I’m probably the most stressed CEO you’ll ever meet.’ And they’re like, ‘What do you mean?’ And I’m like, ‘Every second, every second of every day, someone is using Calm. Every second, day or night.’ And I’ve shared that stat with employees. 

And that weighs on me. Because at some moment when someone turns to use us in their moment of need, we have to be ready to respond. We have to be ready to help them. So it’s a tremendous amount of responsibility, whether you’re at home, or at work, or wherever you may be. I think, for myself and for each of you, as you think about, in whatever field you’re in and whatever pressure-packed job you may go into, there’s also different forms of stress. Dr. Aditi Nerurkar talked about in the book Good Stress and Bad Stress. And I try to promote more good stress—that’s called ‘you’ stress. You stress is actually when you have shared purpose—you understand what you’re doing. It’s not a stress-free work environment. It helps to build resilience and a better team. Bad stress is called distress, and that’s when you can actually lead to employee burnout, anxiety, and depression. And so, you want to foster—as a company, and as a leader, and as a person—more good stress over bad stress. 

AVANIKA LAL: Yeah, OK. Thank you. So you also touched before about trying to motivate organizations to focus more on mental health. But as you said, here’s a problem: A lot of organizations aren’t prioritizing it. They don’t have budget, they don’t have money. How are you effectively demonstrating ROI to actually influence organizations to focus more on mental health and well-being? 

DAVID KO: A lot of times, companies are spending—you’ll see this—companies have mental health in their benefit programs. But here’s the thing. If you really want to understand health, this is essentially the formula. It’s not enough to engage. And so, engagement is actually one part of the puzzle. So when Jack Rowe talked to me about 100,000 people engaging in their healthcare, it actually was an incomplete sentence. To complete the sentence, you need people to engage in whatever products you do. You need them to adhere to it. You need to test it to see if it’s actually working for outcomes, and then you need to go do it again. You have to adhere to a new program, and then test again. That’s why a lot of mental health programs, they test every four weeks. And then that way, you could see the efficacy of what you’re doing—if it works or not. In business, for a lot of companies today, you have these programs and you pay for them. And if you’re not using them, then it’s a wasted basically program that you have out there today. So again, for a lot of programs that are out there, it’s not about the quantity. It’s about the quality of these programs and getting people to use them on all those steps that I just mentioned. 

ESA TILIJA: Awesome. David, thank you so much for your time. Before we turn to audience Q&A, we’d love to wrap up by asking you, what is your hope for the future when it comes to well-being? 

DAVID KO: Yeah. My hope is the following—and look, my hope is conversations like this continue, just first and foremost. So that access is out there front and center. So when people need help, they can get it however they want to get it. I would say the second is my hope is that, for each and every one of you, that you carry this message forward. You remember to prioritize your own mental health. And the third is just: Reach out to someone and ask them how they’re doing and how’s their battery. Check in on yourself, and check in on others. And if you can continue to do that along the way, and you can affect one person along the way, you can make such a big difference, both personally and professionally. 

AVANIKA LAL: Thank you. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: So, David, we have some terrific questions from the audience. The first one comes from Kathy Hahn, who is in the MBA/MPH program, and she asks, ‘How do you measure success both for Calm but also in your personal life?’

DAVID KO: Success is a moving target. I’ll tell you one thing, and I spoke about this earlier to a group, the goalposts are always moving. When you are a leader at a company, the board is constantly moving the goalposts on you. You feel like, oh my God, I’m really successful. I’m getting to where I want to get to. And they’ll move it again. And guess what? They’re going to keep moving it. Those goalposts never stop moving. So for success in the workplace or where you think about it, those goalposts will continue to move at you. I think for a lot of us, the question is, how do we want to show up as those goalposts continue to move? And for many of us, what you realize is that you will affect many other individuals throughout the course of your lifetime at work. And whether it’s within your own teams, whether it’s with others in different groups, you will have an opportunity to affect many different people. Because all of us are culture carriers in our company. And that’s why culture is such an important part of any company that you may join. I had this talk with someone today and they say, ‘How do you know if you have a successful culture?’ And I said, ‘When the times get bad is to really see if that can pull through. When you’re going up and to the right, everything is working. When things get hard, that’s when you truly get tested. You’ll get tested to see if your mission statement, your culture, if everything is going to hold and can pull you through.’ 

And this company I was just talking to today has been very successful for a very long time, and they’ve had three years of tough times. But it’s been this culture part that’s been able to hold them together and what he believes will pull them out of it. I think that’s really important, so I hope each and every one of you continues to remember that you will be part of that culture and be vocal as part of that culture. Keep going forward. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Could you address the second part of the question about success in your personal life? How do you measure it? 

DAVID KO: Yeah, I mean, look, for me, for success right now, it took me a long time to figure out what’s important to me. And for me, it’s really been about purpose. I feel like I’ve found that purpose in healthcare, especially around mental health. I’m going to continue to be in this for a long time. And for some of you, you’ll find that right away. Me, I was talking to someone today, and he had become CEO out of college. And so, that was his first job. I was like, that’s amazing. I didn’t do that until I was past 40. And I was like, you skipped steps in my mind. But I think, a lot of—now, what I see with a lot of entrepreneurs, you skip steps along the way. It used to be like you go into accounting, then you go into finance, then you go to this other field, you keep moving. To build enough building blocks, then to feel confident to make the move. But so many of you will make the move a lot sooner. You will skip steps along the way. But what was really important for me was not skipping those steps. It was really trying to figure out my ‘why.’ Like, why is this important? Why is what I’m doing important? Why is what I’m doing going to make real change in this world? And yes, it can be easier to say, I don’t want to be hypocritical, because now I’ve had a chance to take a company public and sell two of them. But it’s taken a while for me to figure out my why. So don’t rush it either. Give yourself a break as well. 

One of the things I will tell you is we’re really hard on ourselves. Everyone wants it now, and they’re pretty hard on themselves. I think, for the most part, to give yourself a break and give yourself some space in this journey as well. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Great. So going back to the topic of culture, you talked about Calm being a values-driven company. So there’s a two-part question. One is, what have been the key levers or action steps you’ve taken to help build that culture? And then the second part is, how do you sustain it as the company scales and grows? 

DAVID KO: Yeah. I spend a lot of time on this with the team around culture, and I believe that a lot of culture has to be started at the top. And what I mean by that is, if we don’t live our values, who else is going to live them? And so, it breaks down right away. 

In my management meetings, I’ve taken advice from John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple, who said his title was not CEO, but chief listening officer. I thought that was great. Because so many CEOs want to talk first and listen second. 

So in a lot of my meetings, I end up talking last. I want to hear everyone else’s opinion so that everyone feels like they’ve got a voice in the room. So it’s not about saying, ‘We must do this or we have to go do these five priorities.’ It’s about listening to the thoughts in people’s rooms. So just to really foster open communication and dialogue. A core part of our culture sits around that. And if you ever find yourselves as leaders, it’s OK every once in a while to pull the card where you’re like, ‘I’m the boss.’ But the reality is, you don’t want to pull that card too often. You want your employees to challenge. You want your employees to come with ideas. You want to foster a culture of innovation. That’s only going to happen if you have many different thoughts in the room. That’s only going to happen if you have many people comfortable speaking out. And that’s not always the case. And so, I think for myself, that’s been a very important part of our own culture. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Great. Next question comes from Ramy Azzam, who is in our full-time MBA program. And I think this question builds on the prompt you had earlier about what’s your charge—what’s your charge level? And it’s a great conversation starter on mental health. But the question here is, there’s some sectors like banking, consulting, VC, where it may be harder to pose that type of question. So how do you open that dialogue in that type of environment? 

DAVID KO: So I’ve spoken at a bunch of banks, so it’s there. You know, I was an analyst myself. I actually told my kids this story. I said I used to sleep underneath my desk in the office. I had a pillow. I think back how disgusting that is. I don’t know if I washed that pillow. But it was part of this culture—this hard-charging culture. I was probably the most unhealthy back then. Personally, I would smoke in the stairwell. I would overeat at night. I was way heavier. I was really unhealthy, and I was in a really fragile mental state of mind. I speak up about this now with other analysts to talk to them about how to manage that and to make sure that it’s more balanced for them going forward. Because it wasn’t sustainable. Eventually, you’re going to crash, and I did as well. I think for many young adults that are out there today where there’s fewer jobs coming, the pressures of the job to do more. It’s going to be even more important now than it ever was to take care of your mental health. And I think that is going to be a really big narrative for us. I think in fields like banking, for example, other fields, obviously, like healthcare, we see this happening–consulting. You got to prioritize that. And I’ll tell you what, the leaders are understanding that as well. Many leaders in banking right now—because I’ve spoken at the top banks-—understand they have to prioritize this. If they don’t, this workforce is not sustainable. And so there’s a real breaking point that’s happening. And I don’t say that to put fear. I’ve told them, I was like, ‘I’ve gone out and talked to your analysts, and this is their feedback. And so if this is part of the culture that you want to promote, then just keep doing what you’re doing.’ But I will tell you, many CEOs, they don’t want that to be part of their narrative going forward. And so, they do want to make things better, but they just struggle with how. And so that’s where this has to be a two-way conversation going forward. I was really appreciative one of the banks I went to. So many analysts spoke up in front of their bosses. They got up, and I was like, ‘That was amazing.’ I had analysts get up and say, ‘I use Calm because I’m overworked here.’ I was like, ‘Damn.’ I wouldn’t have been that brave, but they were. And it was great because you could see it. And actually, when we were done, I was explaining to them why that was so important to have that dialogue, to make it a safe space so they could have that dialogue, or else they’re going to talk about it behind your back, and they’re going to create clubs around it, and they’re going to create Slack channels around how terrible you are. It’s happening. So, why not have the conversation together? And that was a big part of that. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Great. Next question comes from Tomas Diaz in the full-time MBA program, who asks, ‘Selling mindfulness is hard. How do you use data to sell comms products to companies and users worldwide?’

DAVID KO: So we use a lot of data. We have a lot of data on this, and it’s outcome data. But I will tell you, it’s not just our data. We’re having a lot of data that’s published by third parties. So we have a lot of data that’s coming out from UCSF. And I think that’s when it gets more powerful—when it’s not data that you self-declare. A lot of people can self-declare things. If you’re starting a company, by the way, you should self-declare everything. But the fact of the matter is, for you to be taken seriously over time when you get to a certain scale, data that’s independent is the most important. Data that you don’t pay for by accredited institutions that have done things in, like true RCT tests, where there’s random control tests or others, where it’s not paid for or sponsored by yourself, that’s when data you can really use to leverage. And we have a lot of third-party data that we didn’t use and pay for that others did on our behalf that we use as promotion. And I think that’s the best form of it. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Great. Next question comes from Venkata Gadi in the EMBA program. And the question here is: AI transforms both health and consumer tech. What are the opportunities or blind spots that you think leaders have, particularly when it comes to mental health? 

DAVID KO: Oh my God, we’ve gone 50 minutes without talking about AI. It’s a record. Thank you, Berkeley. Thank you, Berkeley. Listen. This AI conversation is all around us. I mean, literally. It’s interesting. When you go all over the country, not just in the football cities, I would say, this conversation is being had around AI, because it’s affecting people all over the country. I’ve had a thesis around AI, about how we want to use it within Calm. So, if you’re starting a company, people will be very aggressive around AI today because you have nothing to lose. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a lot of companies that are very young in their stage, and they’re using AI, and they’re being very aggressive in terms of how it’s being programmed, the types of recommendations it’s giving, especially with young adults today. I can’t afford that on a personal note. I don’t want to footfault and lose trust with my member base in terms of how we’re thinking about AI. So we’ve used obviously AI in three buckets, I’ll tell you. One of them is just table stakes, efficiencies across the board. You’re going to do that in every company. That’s just table stakes across the company—coding, marketing, other areas. That’ll be table stakes. Everyone will use it. Everyone will create efficiencies of scale. There’s been a part of AI we’re using in our products. Sleep stories generated by AI content, sure. That will be table stakes as well over time. All companies will have some form of that personalization around that as well. The third part will be the trickiest part about how you want your narrative to be as a company, and mine is human-centered AI. And so, I still want to keep it very human-centered and personalized and think about how I can support us as we create new products and services. That part is the part we’re probably spending the most time on. That’s the part that we probably at times disagree the most internally on. I’ll tell you how we’re thinking about it because there’s a lot of debate. And I’ll probably go slow to go fast here to be perfectly transparent with you. I’m not going to rush it. And I think this is something where I want to make sure when we have such a large audience that we work with, and so many people that rely on us. I want to make sure that we’re being really thoughtful as a company in terms of how we’re going to use this in terms of customer facing going forward. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Great. Let’s make this the last question since we’re running out of time here. But it’s a big one. It comes from Nikhil Kotta, who asks, ‘What are the top three pieces of advice that you would offer to someone coming out of college who wants to do a startup in the healthcare tech space?’ And then the second part is, ‘Looking back on your journey at Calm, what are the biggest mistakes you’ve made that you would redo if you could?’

DAVID KO: I’ll start with the mistakes. I could talk about mistakes forever. I’ll tell you about this not just at Calm, but I would say this is a little bit of an arc because I’ve given this to some others. I felt when I first started managing—whether it was one individual, or hundreds, or thousands—I always felt like I needed to make sure I was heard and sometimes lead from authority. And I didn’t get the best out of the people around me. Because at some point, they were like, ‘Oh, he’s just going to do what he wants to do. So I’m just going to wait for him to tell me what to do.’ And I felt that I became the most, I would say, efficient and got the best out of employees when they felt they had a voice and we would be more of a team. It wasn’t ‘I,’ it was more of a team. And that part for me was a key learning point because it’s hard. Sometimes, when you’re the youngest person in the room, you feel like you’ve got to almost over-perform because you’re the youngest person in the room. And some of these older people are looking at you saying, ‘Why should I listen to you?’ And so, you feel like you got to go out there and just beat a little bit and show them how smart you are. But the reality is you don’t. So for so many individuals, you can be the ones listening first, really being thoughtful, and then coming back with a thoughtful answer. I also realized at some point that I don’t need to have an answer for everything. It’s perfectly acceptable. And I do it today where I say, ‘Let me get back to you. I don’t have an answer.’ And they’re like, ‘You don’t have an answer?’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t have an answer.’ And I actually feel better about myself when I feel like I don’t have to answer everything in the room. And it’s made so that people are like, ‘OK, you can come back with an answer. Just be thoughtful on that.’ And the last is, and this is hard, to at times, celebrate failure—not repeated failure. But there’s a lot of companies that are like, ‘you can’t fail, because we’re just going to let go  everyone who fails and operate out of fear.’ I don’t think that sustains. And s,  I do think that you have to—and I’ve made this mistake—make sure that people are OK with taking risks and chances, which I do today. If you’re going to go into healthcare, what I would tell you is cast a wide net, meaning: I was given great advice by a lot of CEOs that said, ‘If you’re going to talk to anyone in healthcare, if you’re going to start, go talk to a nurse.’ The first person that I added to my company board when I started my last company was a nurse. They know more about healthcare. Sorry, docs. I mean doctors, too, but nurses are like the backbone of the U.S. healthcare system. So, if you want to get smart and really learn about healthcare, start from patient care. Because what’s missing right now is the patient. Talk about ROI. We’re losing the patient. And so, nurses understand the patient’s journey. So, focus on the patient, focus on nurses, and I would say focus on intervention. A lot of health care today focuses on—sorry, focus on prevention. A lot of healthcare focuses on when you get sick. Healthcare does great. High NPs, does really great. But what are the things you can do prior? How do you focus on prevention, not just intervention? I’d focus a lot on prevention going forward, and that’s where AI is going to make a big difference in my mind. 

SAMEER SRIVASTAVA: Terrific. Two very practical tips for all of you thinking about healthcare startups. But just amazing insights throughout this afternoon. So please join me in thanking David for his time and insights. 

DAVID KO: Thank you, everyone.