# Transcript: Bacteria for every company

## Description

Good news for you: bacteria have been doing all this for four billion years. And they’re happy to share their wisdom.



Who is Josef Lhotský?



Josef Lhotský focuses on weaving and unraveling stories, with his favorite being the biggest one of all: evolution. He studied theoretical and evolutionary biology but also explored philosophy and the history of science. His specialties include symbiotic relationships, collaboration, and education. He has contributed to 12 books, taught at PřF UK, FSS MU, and FF UP, participated in numerous educational projects, served on the editorial board of the magazine Vesmír, and spent eight years acting in amateur theater.



Since 2015, he has worked in the corporate sector (banking, telecommunications), spending recent years as an agile coach, passionate trainer, and creator of unconventional workshops.

## Transcript

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**[00:10:00]** The things around you are stable; you know how to handle the things that come every day.

**[00:10:06]** This is great. It's clear that the brain will say any change here, any disturbance, is bad.

**[00:10:12]** But that's what our brain and our psychology say.

**[00:10:16]** This is all based on physiology. How brains work, how our bodies function.

**[00:10:21]** And that's another layer of the onion.

**[00:10:23]** And all physiology is based on phylogeny. Phylogeny is another word for evolution.

**[00:10:28]** It's the development of organisms from ancient times when life began on Earth until now.

**[00:10:34]** And we are influenced only by the outermost layer of that onion, the top orbital.

**[00:10:41]** To demonstrate this more closely, because for me it's very important that you realize the time perspective.

**[00:10:47]** I always try, I love Richard Feynman, the famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner.

**[00:10:52]** He was also a great popularizer and promoted what is called 'dressing numbers'.

**[00:10:57]** If you're a math-physics student and someone tells you some numbers, you won't imagine anything yet.

**[00:11:01]** That's why you always need to give it some metaphor, some example.

**[00:11:05]** This is a one-meter string, a thousand millimeters.

**[00:11:10]** Assuming one millimeter equals ten years, which is very little.

**[00:11:16]** Here we are somewhere in the scientific-technical revolution, here around the discovery of America, here is the story of Gilgamesh.

**[00:11:22]** Now imagine this is some experience of ours, let's say historical, chronological.

**[00:11:27]** What our written records reach, what we as humans recognize as our history.

**[00:11:32]** This is ten thousand years, so here we are, let's say, at some leather wigwam stake.

**[00:11:37]** Now, how to imagine the evolutionary scale?

**[00:11:42]** The time when life began on planet Earth is here on this scale from here in Prague to Ostrava.

**[00:11:50]** People argue a bit about this, but let's say we know,

**[00:11:55]** that about 3.8 billion years ago there was some form of life here.

**[00:11:59]** From Prague to Ostrava is roughly 380 kilometers,

**[00:12:03]** so this scale fits.

**[00:12:05]** So imagine pulling this string along the highway through Brno to Ostrava,

**[00:12:10]** this huge distance represents the time life has existed on planet Earth.

**[00:12:16]** Our history as some thinking civilization is just this long.

**[00:12:22]** And now what it tells us is, you can't handle adaptation, you're not capable, change is bad.

**[00:12:27]** That's just a small piece of time during which our species evolved in some way.

**[00:12:32]** The whole journey from Prague to Ostrava, however, tells a different story.

**[00:12:38]** It's proof that adaptation is something we can work with very well,

**[00:12:43]** as we will also show later.

**[00:12:45]** Because all this time, living beings did nothing else but live,

**[00:12:51]** absorbing some changes in the environment and adapting.

**[00:12:56]** Many perished, some didn't make it, but the rest stayed here.

**[00:13:00]** The first thing a person can take from this is that we are actually,

**[00:13:04]** and now this sounds like we're patting ourselves on the back, but biologically it's true,

**[00:13:08]** each of us is a descendant of an unbroken line from the beginning of life until now.

**[00:13:15]** We are the best of the best.

**[00:13:17]** So even when I whine in front of the mirror at home and cry about how shitty the world is,

**[00:13:22]** you can just say, okay.

**[00:13:24]** Even in such moments I say to myself, ha, ha.

**[00:13:27]** Stress started here, that this one earns more money, that one is smarter,

**[00:13:32]** and that one is more handsome, and that I'm a complete zero.

**[00:13:35]** Please, we are the best of the best.

**[00:13:37]** Even the biggest loser is the best of the best and that's how you need to approach it.

**[00:13:42]** So this is just to illustrate how long life has actually existed here,

**[00:13:46]** and all this time it has done nothing else but live.

**[00:13:49]** It enjoys changes and somehow absorbs the ability to change and adapt.

**[00:13:54]** So when our brain tells us, forget it, you can't do it, you won't make it,

**[00:13:59]** that's just the thin outer layer of an onion, so thin it's not even worth mentioning.

**[00:14:05]** So, that would be one thing.

**[00:14:08]** Now, why should I be the one talking about this here?

**[00:14:14]** My story began when I didn't know what I wanted to do at Gimpel.

**[00:14:18]** There are many people like that.

**[00:14:20]** I didn't know where my heart was pulling me, and so that it wouldn't pull me to the employment office,

**[00:14:24]** I finally decided and chose one university,

**[00:14:27]** the Faculty of Science in Prague, and started studying biology there.

**[00:14:31]** Originally, I entered with the intention to do genetics,

**[00:14:33]** because genetics is a progressive science, full of numbers,

**[00:14:36]** there are facts, and causality is clearly visible.

**[00:14:39]** I want something, I measure it, I know what I'm measuring, why I'm measuring it, what I gain from it.

**[00:14:43]** You measure, measure, get some results, but you lose sight of other things.

**[00:14:49]** I remember quite well how I once passed by the department,

**[00:14:52]** called the Department of Philosophy and Other Natural Sciences.

**[00:14:55]** And I looked and thought, ugh, something called philosophy at the Faculty of Science, no way.

**[00:15:02]** And after three years, I was already there because I realized,

**[00:15:05]** that I didn't enjoy fitting into one little niche and studying things

**[00:15:09]** just through the prism of being a geneticist, zoologist, or botanist.

**[00:15:13]** There are many traditional disciplines today, dozens of them,

**[00:15:17]** and within those, you can specialize even further.

**[00:15:19]** As a zoologist, you could study, I don't know, one mouse chromosome

**[00:15:23]** and never touch anything else your whole life.

**[00:15:26]** The specialization is so huge that people don't even meet

**[00:15:29]** in the basic disciplines, because the options to choose from

**[00:15:33]** are incredibly diverse.

**[00:15:35]** And I said, no, this doesn't interest me, these are just details,

**[00:15:37]** I need to see the big picture.

**[00:15:39]** So I went to the philosophy department, which was interdisciplinary,

**[00:15:42]** where theoretical biologists, evolutionary biologists,

**[00:15:47]** philosophers, and historians of science met.

**[00:15:50]** Sometimes a student of religious studies would join,

**[00:15:54]** or someone from the Catholic faculty, and so on.

**[00:15:59]** Ideas were fermenting there in such a mix.

**[00:16:02]** In the end, what I graduated in was theoretical evolutionary biology.

**[00:16:06]** Why? Because evolution is basically the overall framework.

**[00:16:10]** I'm not interested in details, I'm interested in the whole framework,

**[00:16:13]** how things work together.

**[00:16:15]** So that it actually says something about how the world works.

**[00:16:20]** Very early on, I realized

**[00:16:23]** that evolution, as most people think of it,

**[00:16:26]** doesn't actually look like that at all.

**[00:16:28]** Because when you say evolution, most people picture

**[00:16:32]** Charles Darwin, who is written about in textbooks,

**[00:16:35]** as the author of the first proper theory of evolution.

**[00:16:40]** And what normally comes to mind is

**[00:16:43]** nature, teeth and claws, blood and death.

**[00:16:47]** This is only part of the picture.

**[00:16:50]** It's far from the whole picture.

**[00:16:52]** First, it's a shame that most people know nothing about Darwin.

**[00:16:56]** If you look at his works,

**[00:16:59]** even if he had written nothing about evolution,

**[00:17:01]** we would still build bronze statues of him,

**[00:17:04]** because he was incredibly smart.

**[00:17:06]** He was a field practitioner, a pragmatist,

**[00:17:08]** not some dry intellectual.

**[00:17:10]** He was a man who spent five years on a journey around the world

**[00:17:14]** on a British ship that mapped the coasts of America

**[00:17:18]** and circumnavigated the globe.

**[00:17:20]** And back then, when,

**[00:17:23]** by the way, the way they mapped the American coastline,

**[00:17:25]** it was basically a precursor to today's Google Maps.

**[00:17:27]** Because the British Admiralty, military maps were always highly secret.

**[00:17:31]** They had strategic and commercial importance.

**[00:17:34]** And at that time, it was discovered that a large part of the army,

**[00:17:37]** a significant part of the army, was bored

**[00:17:39]** and needed to be occupied somehow.

**[00:17:41]** So they said, OK, let's have them map,

**[00:17:43]** we'll get a new piece of map here

**[00:17:45]** and then use it for commercial purposes.

**[00:17:47]** So it was actually also a precursor to Google Maps.

**[00:17:49]** Here you see how we keep doing the same thing,

**[00:17:52]** So, back to Darwin.

**[00:17:54]** When you say Darwin, most people picture that crazy image of him.

**[00:17:59]** That look, like an old grandpa with a scar on his forehead.

**[00:18:03]** Now his hair is messy in the back, just the remnants.

**[00:18:06]** This is from 1881.

**[00:18:11]** A year before Darwin's death, he had a portrait painted

**[00:18:14]** by John Collier.

**[00:18:15]** It was a well-known oil painting.

**[00:18:17]** It's always printed everywhere in all textbooks.

**[00:18:19]** That Darwin, just a year before his death,

**[00:18:22]** looks like a walking ad for a hospice.

**[00:18:24]** It's like he's already searching his pockets for spare change,

**[00:18:27]** to pay the other way.

**[00:18:29]** And most people perceive him exactly like this.

**[00:18:31]** Just some old man sitting at a table

**[00:18:33]** writing nonsense about organisms changing and adapting.

**[00:18:36]** That's not true.

**[00:18:38]** He was a man who in his youth was a rascal,

**[00:18:42]** a poor student, basically failing at everything,

**[00:18:44]** with himself.

**[00:18:46]** His brother was a total loafer,

**[00:18:48]** and then at 21, he thought he could go explore the world.

**[00:18:51]** So he went and looked.

**[00:18:53]** And this isn't like today, when you buy high-tech stuff,

**[00:18:57]** You're going camping somewhere and you have everything.

**[00:18:59]** And if you happen to get wet, you just go into a hotel.

**[00:19:01]** Not at all.

**[00:19:02]** When he was wandering and actually spent over three years in South America,

**[00:19:06]** he left the ship crew after the holiday, who were measuring there cheerfully.

**[00:19:09]** Darwin left, got himself some gaucho,

**[00:19:12]** with whom he paid a tip to accompany him.

**[00:19:15]** And now he was traveling across South America back and forth.

**[00:19:19]** And we're talking about times when the Spanish conquest

**[00:19:22]** was wiping out the last remnants of Indian tribes.

**[00:19:25]** So there were brutal wars.

**[00:19:27]** And it really happened that on every second crossing

**[00:19:30]** there were some corpses lying around.

**[00:19:31]** And it wasn't like you could just say,

**[00:19:33]** I'm white, I'm British, so don't kill me.

**[00:19:36]** It didn't work like that.

**[00:19:42]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:43]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:44]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:45]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:46]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:47]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:48]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:49]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:50]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:51]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:52]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:53]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:54]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:55]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:56]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:57]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:58]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:19:59]** And this is how it happened.

**[00:20:00]** Detective stories really love this kind of rational reasoning.

**[00:20:04]** Go and read On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin,

**[00:20:07]** because the way he collects facts and then puts them together into a coherent story,

**[00:20:12]** it's just delicious, really great.

**[00:20:14]** And it also immediately humanizes the man for you.

**[00:20:19]** Darwin postulated a thesis about what actually happens in nature and how living organisms evolve.

**[00:20:25]** Now, we're getting to the bacteria, so bear with me.

**[00:20:29]** Here we reach the point that what he talked about were basically just more or less animals.

**[00:20:35]** Back then, no one was very interested in plant evolution.

**[00:20:37]** And there was this Aristotelian, dichotomous division,

**[00:20:41]** that we have animals, we have plants, and then some minerals.

**[00:20:46]** And those may or may not be alive, we still don't fully know.

**[00:20:49]** People stayed in this mindset for a very, very long time, basically until the end of the 19th century.

**[00:20:56]** If we go back to the timeline, animals, just like plants, are made of cells.

**[00:21:04]** Now, I apologize, I have to add a bit of biology here,

**[00:21:06]** but it's essential for you to understand what bacteria actually are.

**[00:21:09]** By the way, what does a bacterium look like? It looks like this.

**[00:21:11]** I scared this up from my kids this morning.

**[00:21:13]** This is Salmonella enterica, which causes typhoid, but don't worry,

**[00:21:16]** this one is trained and friendly.

**[00:21:20]** A bacterium is a single independent cell, but it differs from other cells in the biosphere.

**[00:21:25]** This difference is crucial, I need us all to understand it,

**[00:21:28]** because it will be the alpha and omega of what we will talk about next.

**[00:21:33]** There are two fundamental types of cells on the planet, don't worry, I keep going off on tangents,

**[00:21:36]** but I'll get back to Darwin, don't worry.

**[00:21:39]** There are two fundamental types of cells on the planet.

**[00:21:42]** There are bacterial cells.

**[00:21:44]** Now, I'll simplify a lot, if anyone knows biology, please forgive me.

**[00:21:47]** Bacterial cells are small and very simple.

**[00:21:52]** Then there are so-called eukaryotic cells.

**[00:21:55]** Eukaryon means true nucleus.

**[00:21:57]** These are huge cells with a complex internal structure.

**[00:22:00]** They have many different compartments, storage areas, factories,

**[00:22:06]** production halls, and such inside them.

**[00:22:09]** And the point is, if you compare the two types of cells,

**[00:22:13]** the bacterial cell, you can't see it now, but what I have in my hand

**[00:22:16]** is a small white kitchen bean.

**[00:22:18]** The kind that goes into Streničanský sausage in a can.

**[00:22:21]** A little bean like this.

**[00:22:23]** The eukaryotic cell compared to the prokaryotic,

**[00:22:26]** the bacterial one, is about this size.

**[00:22:28]** So it's clear to everyone.

**[00:22:30]** This is the first mistake that happens right in high school.

**[00:22:33]** I don't count elementary school, but in high school you come in and in the first lesson

**[00:22:36]** the teacher draws one circle, then another circle and says

**[00:22:39]** this is a bacterial cell, this is a eukaryotic cell,

**[00:22:42]** So take note. This one has this, that one has that,

**[00:22:45]** this one doesn't have that. Everyone writes it down,

**[00:22:47]** but no one understands the fundamental difference, which becomes clear,

**[00:22:50]** only when you compare how these cells actually differ.

**[00:22:53]** One is tiny, almost empty.

**[00:22:55]** The other is huge and it's a really sophisticated system.

**[00:22:59]** To put it bluntly, this is some small convenience store,

**[00:23:02]** selling just booze, and this is a huge factory,

**[00:23:06]** designed and running for 50 years, employing half the town.

**[00:23:10]** Škodovka, as a guy from Leslav told me.

**[00:23:13]** Back to Darwin.

**[00:23:16]** What Darwin talked about and for which he proposed evolution and adaptation,

**[00:23:20]** were animals made of living creatures,

**[00:23:24]** these cells here.

**[00:23:26]** Everything you see with your own eyes is made of these cells.

**[00:23:29]** Whatever you see, whatever creature it is,

**[00:23:32]** it's made of this.

**[00:23:33]** Bacteria are so tiny, though there are exceptions,

**[00:23:36]** that you can't see them alive with the naked eye.

**[00:23:40]** Evolution was only about animals for Darwin,

**[00:23:43]** because back then they couldn't do anything else.

**[00:23:46]** Not because it was stupid, but simply because there were no methods,

**[00:23:50]** to study such tiny things at that time.

**[00:23:53]** I'm quite surprised it worked like this until the 1970s.

**[00:23:58]** You heard right, basically only in 1986,

**[00:24:03]** the year I was born, a huge mystery was solved,

**[00:24:07]** which I'll touch on later.

**[00:24:09]** So this isn't ancient history.

**[00:24:11]** We only recently learned how living nature actually works.

**[00:24:15]** Now, going back to the timeline,

**[00:24:19]** animals, or living creatures, back then called animália,

**[00:24:24]** started to appear in what's called the British explosion,

**[00:24:29]** around 500 million years ago.

**[00:24:32]** On the highway, we'd be somewhere near Zruč nad Sázavou,

**[00:24:35]** 50 kilometers outside Prague.

**[00:24:37]** So imagine, from Ostrava through Brno,

**[00:24:40]** you drive all the way to the capital, and still nothing, just bacteria,

**[00:24:45]** because these were the first cells here.

**[00:24:47]** When you reach 50 kilometers before Prague, you're almost at the end of the journey,

**[00:24:51]** and only then do these cells, which have existed for some time,

**[00:24:56]** Only at this moment do these cells start to build

**[00:24:59]** those serving organisms.

**[00:25:01]** What I want to say is that considering evolution just as some adaptation

**[00:25:09]** in higher animals is very naive,

**[00:25:13]** because it overlooks that evolution was happening all along,

**[00:25:17]** the whole highway, it was just happening here in the cells

**[00:25:21]** and no one could see it there.

**[00:25:25]** Why did it take so long for these big cells to even form?

**[00:25:30]** One might think it was just an incredibly long time.

**[00:25:35]** It's simple here, it works a bit like with children's LEGO.

**[00:25:38]** I have some here too, I stole it from home as well.

**[00:25:41]** It takes a very long time before, and here we get to the first parallel,

**[00:25:45]** which you can then use in your own lives, whether at home or in companies.

**[00:25:50]** People often say some things aren't worth doing

**[00:25:53]** because they take too long. Evolution takes too long.

**[00:25:56]** That's not true, only some phases of evolution take quite a long time.

**[00:25:59]** It takes a long time to make a brick.

**[00:26:01]** To figure out roughly what kind of brick you want,

**[00:26:03]** what kind of brick you need,

**[00:26:05]** draw it, have someone manufacture it, and the brick is made.

**[00:26:08]** That takes a long time. But once you have the bricks,

**[00:26:11]** some initial creator, and a bucket full of them,

**[00:26:14]** you can build whatever you want from them.

**[00:26:16]** Whatever you want, and it doesn't take long at all.

**[00:26:18]** Take small children, give them a bucket of LEGO, and see what they build in half an hour.

**[00:26:24]** This is a principle that applies not only in evolution,

**[00:26:27]** but everywhere in our lives.

**[00:26:29]** The preparation phase takes a long time, if done well.

**[00:26:31]** But once the foundations are laid well,

**[00:26:33]** everything runs smoothly like butter.

**[00:26:35]** It's very clear to see in today's so-called agile transformations.

**[00:26:38]** Everyone is jumping in now thinking

**[00:26:41]** that companies need to be remade to be more adaptive,

**[00:26:44]** but at the same time everyone wonders why it takes a year or two and still bears no fruit.

**[00:26:48]** Well, of course, because they're making the bricks.

**[00:26:50]** Once you have the bricks, it goes exponentially faster.

**[00:26:53]** Now I'm getting to the bacteria,

**[00:26:56]** because one of the most fundamental questions in biology was,

**[00:27:05]** how did this, the bacterium, become this, the big cell?

**[00:27:10]** And the straightforward answer was simply,

**[00:27:14]** That's selection, that's the evolution of eat or be eaten.

**[00:27:18]** It's survival of the strongest and most capable.

**[00:27:21]** So these kept getting better and better and better,

**[00:27:24]** until these appeared.

**[00:27:27]** That's not how it is.

**[00:27:29]** And here I get to the point,

**[00:27:31]** which is what I really want to emphasize.

**[00:27:35]** Evolution is of course about competition,

**[00:27:38]** competition is an important component,

**[00:27:40]** but it only works on certain levels.

**[00:27:42]** Somewhere and somehow it doesn't.

**[00:27:44]** A much more significant component in evolution is cooperation.

**[00:27:47]** And that's exactly what's beautiful about those bacteria,

**[00:27:50]** they've been showing us, for almost 4 billion years,

**[00:27:54]** how important cooperation is

**[00:27:56]** and how we can be inspired by it,

**[00:27:59]** how we can actually benefit from it.

**[00:28:02]** There was a lady,

**[00:28:04]** named Lynn Margulis,

**[00:28:06]** she was American, but a really tough woman.

**[00:28:09]** From a young age. She was unstoppable.

**[00:28:11]** At 20, she started studying genetics.

**[00:28:13]** She married Carl Sagan.

**[00:28:15]** Those of you interested in astrophysics will know him,

**[00:28:18]** because he's basically the best popularizer of astrophysics ever.

**[00:28:22]** Carl Sagan is a legend.

**[00:28:24]** His series Cosmos aired over 20 years, since the 80s,

**[00:28:27]** broadcast in about 90 countries.

**[00:28:29]** Over a billion people watched it.

**[00:28:31]** That's a really famous name.

**[00:28:33]** And she was his first wife.

**[00:28:35]** While at home cooking like a stew

**[00:28:38]** and taking care of two small children,

**[00:28:40]** she was finishing her PhD in genetics,

**[00:28:42]** and this was their first idea.

**[00:28:44]** She said, guys, I think,

**[00:28:46]** she was also a woman in science.

**[00:28:48]** That's another beautiful story.

**[00:28:50]** I usually don't go for telling

**[00:28:52]** feminist stories,

**[00:28:54]** but here, if someone wanted to use it,

**[00:28:56]** there's really something to hold on to,

**[00:28:58]** because she stood against everyone,

**[00:29:00]** as a young woman, mother, scientist without a career.

**[00:29:02]** And then she came and said,

**[00:29:04]** I think you are all wrong.

**[00:29:07]** And then this came out of it.

**[00:29:09]** I think many of these came together here

**[00:29:11]** and said, let's try it together,

**[00:29:13]** we will help each other.

**[00:29:15]** And then this happened.

**[00:29:17]** These guys came together,

**[00:29:19]** dissolved their inner membranes,

**[00:29:21]** and from that one huge cell was formed.

**[00:29:23]** That's roughly how it was.

**[00:29:25]** She said this in the 70s,

**[00:29:27]** and everyone sent her away.

**[00:29:29]** Crazy woman.

**[00:29:31]** The pity was that back then there were no techniques

**[00:29:33]** to prove it.

**[00:29:36]** This was only achieved in the mid-80s,

**[00:29:38]** let's say 15 years later,

**[00:29:40]** than when she came up with it.

**[00:29:42]** And of course it turned out,

**[00:29:44]** that she was right.

**[00:29:46]** And now, at the time when I was at Gimpl,

**[00:29:48]** and we had textbooks there,

**[00:29:50]** it was already slightly mentioned.

**[00:29:52]** But really just slightly.

**[00:29:54]** She discovered that in every eukaryotic cell

**[00:29:56]** there are organelles,

**[00:29:58]** which are very special because they have their own DNA.

**[00:30:00]** I'll shorten it so it's not too hard and stays interesting.

**[00:30:03]** There are mitochondria. Mitochondria are factories that produce energy.

**[00:30:05]** You can't have a eukaryotic cell without mitochondria.

**[00:30:09]** Maybe there are exceptions everywhere, but let's say as a rule you can't.

**[00:30:11]** That's something in the cell that produces energy.

**[00:30:15]** And she said that mitochondria are former bacteria that entered not only,

**[00:30:17]** that this cell originated from these coming together,

**[00:30:24]** but they kept adding friends there too.

**[00:30:26]** That cooperation, that symbiosis continues.

**[00:30:29]** It's the main driving force in evolution.

**[00:30:31]** They got inside and made mitochondria.

**[00:30:34]** And now they produce energy for the cell.

**[00:30:36]** And you can't pull them out anymore because they're really fused with it.

**[00:30:42]** Why are plants green? Because they have chloroplasts.

**[00:30:44]** These are tiny green bodies that also produce energy and food for the plant.

**[00:30:48]** She said again, well, those were former cyanobacteria.

**[00:30:52]** Cyanobacteria are also small bacteria. Cyanobacteria are not algae, okay?

**[00:30:55]** They got inside the cell, settled there, and now work for it.

**[00:30:58]** And others said, no, no, that's nonsense too.

**[00:31:01]** It wasn't nonsense, it turned out she was right again.

**[00:31:04]** What I want to demonstrate here is really,

**[00:31:07]** that competition obviously happens and works,

**[00:31:11]** but the main thing that happens in nature,

**[00:31:15]** and not only do we have it inside us, but it has never been otherwise,

**[00:31:20]** the main principle that works in evolution and organism adaptation,

**[00:31:25]** is cooperation and collaboration.

**[00:31:27]** Why do I find this interesting?

**[00:31:29]** Because as a biologist you get it, you say,

**[00:31:33]** OK, now we know it's roughly like this,

**[00:31:35]** we know cooperation is a great force there.

**[00:31:38]** Then when you look at it not through the eyes of a natural scientist,

**[00:31:41]** but through the eyes of someone who moves in a corporate environment,

**[00:31:44]** you suddenly realize,

**[00:31:45]** hey, this is exactly what companies are dealing with now.

**[00:31:51]** Back a bit, I forgot the introduction.

**[00:31:57]** Why I'm telling you this is,

**[00:31:59]** I gradually started specializing in the development of bacteria

**[00:32:06]** and how evolution actually worked,

**[00:32:09]** but seen through this new perspective.

**[00:32:11]** That means I'm not interested in the evolution of some chimpanzees,

**[00:32:14]** I'm not interested in human evolution,

**[00:32:15]** I'm interested in evolution as a whole, over the entire four billion years.

**[00:32:18]** And bacteria are absolutely crucial there,

**[00:32:22]** because for the first three billion years they happily lived alone,

**[00:32:26]** then they created these cells and then got inside them

**[00:32:28]** and enabled them to produce energy and function.

**[00:32:32]** Without bacteria, we could never be as big as we are.

**[00:32:35]** Bodies this large would never have formed,

**[00:32:37]** because they wouldn't have enough energy.

**[00:32:38]** It's the mitochondria that were found there

**[00:32:40]** and produce that energy.

**[00:32:43]** My love for this manifested in the fact that,

**[00:32:45]** a. I started writing books about it,

**[00:32:48]** I translated books related to this topic,

**[00:32:51]** I popularized it as much as I could,

**[00:32:53]** because one side is absorbing the information,

**[00:32:56]** but if you find the topic interesting,

**[00:32:59]** you need to share it, share it in a form

**[00:33:02]** that is accessible, so you always need to know

**[00:33:04]** who you are popularizing it for, what kind of people they are,

**[00:33:07]** and what you want them to take away.

**[00:33:08]** By the way, this is another thing

**[00:33:09]** you can use in a corporate environment,

**[00:33:11]** because very often, even at home,

**[00:33:13]** people often think

**[00:33:15]** they have to say the same thing to everyone.

**[00:33:17]** That's not true.

**[00:33:18]** Everyone needs to hear something different.

**[00:33:20]** You wouldn't go to a manager and a programmer

**[00:33:23]** and tell them the same story,

**[00:33:24]** because each of them has a slightly different mindset,

**[00:33:26]** each needs to hear something different.

**[00:33:28]** It's not about lying to them.

**[00:33:30]** You tell everyone the same thing, but from a different perspective.

**[00:33:34]** So popularizing was a place

**[00:33:37]** where you can really practice this well.

**[00:33:39]** I wrote for the magazine Vesmír,

**[00:33:40]** I was even on the editorial board for two years,

**[00:33:42]** which was amazing,

**[00:33:44]** because around the table sat incredibly smart people

**[00:33:47]** who had devoted their lives to

**[00:33:49]** studying something and then passing it on to others.

**[00:33:53]** They showed me how,

**[00:33:55]** when you have an idea you find interesting,

**[00:33:58]** you can convey it to others.

**[00:34:00]** I benefited from that later.

**[00:34:02]** Another thing that really helped me here,

**[00:34:05]** I taught a lot as well.

**[00:34:08]** I participated in the Přírodověci project,

**[00:34:10]** which basically sent people to various dimples.

**[00:34:13]** There we led workshops,

**[00:34:15]** both with students and teachers.

**[00:34:18]** In some way, we shifted how they view biology and natural science.

**[00:34:20]** And what interesting new topics

**[00:34:22]** they could assimilate.

**[00:34:24]** One of the topics I pushed there

**[00:34:26]** was exactly this: bacterial evolution.

**[00:34:28]** Because when you say bacteria to someone today,

**[00:34:31]** usually people only imagine something

**[00:34:34]** that causes disease or something you have in yogurt.

**[00:34:37]** Nothing in between.

**[00:34:41]** Then something happened, and this was also funny,

**[00:34:45]** in 2015, when I finished my doctorate,

**[00:34:48]** my wife and I were expecting our first child.

**[00:34:52]** We agreed that,

**[00:34:55]** since I am the storyteller,

**[00:34:57]** the one who does this framework science,

**[00:34:59]** which actually isn't science because it's just storytelling,

**[00:35:01]** while my wife is a molecular immunologist,

**[00:35:04]** working on tumor diagnostics.

**[00:35:07]** She enjoys it, is great at it,

**[00:35:09]** and is a real scientist, unlike me.

**[00:35:11]** So we agreed that when she returns from maternity leave,

**[00:35:13]** she would go back to science and I would find a regular job

**[00:35:16]** to support the family.

**[00:35:19]** I started working at a bank,

**[00:35:23]** I joined Česká spořitelna.

**[00:35:26]** And now I was looking.

**[00:35:28]** For me, it was a completely new world.

**[00:35:30]** These thoughts echoed inside me,

**[00:35:34]** see, see, your parents told you,

**[00:35:36]** what you would do for a living, Pepa,

**[00:35:38]** when you told them you would study evolutionary biology.

**[00:35:40]** And you told them you didn't care,

**[00:35:43]** as long as you enjoyed it.

**[00:35:45]** And now I had entered the real working process.

**[00:35:50]** I sat down with PowerPoint and Excel,

**[00:35:54]** and it was just never-ending boredom,

**[00:35:56]** the same thing over and over, numbers, numbers, numbers.

**[00:35:58]** I was completely lost.

**[00:36:00]** So I just kind of sat there.

**[00:36:02]** But, mind you, I don't want to belittle it,

**[00:36:04]** this actually gave me a lot,

**[00:36:06]** because the corporate environment thinks differently.

**[00:36:09]** I was used to science before,

**[00:36:11]** to revealing things at the end.

**[00:36:13]** I could talk with you for three hours,

**[00:36:15]** and only at the end would I get to a point.

**[00:36:17]** And it would be a wow moment.

**[00:36:19]** At the bank, I realized

**[00:36:21]** that if I don't tell people within 15 seconds,

**[00:36:23]** they say, 'I'm not interested anymore.'

**[00:36:25]** This is also very important.

**[00:36:27]** And learning that there are different types of people,

**[00:36:29]** who need extremely structured information

**[00:36:33]** at various depths.

**[00:36:35]** So no doubt about that.

**[00:36:37]** I was learning there,

**[00:36:39]** but it was like,

**[00:36:41]** what am I even going to do?

**[00:36:43]** Everything I knew was completely useless.

**[00:36:45]** And here’s a little aside.

**[00:36:47]** This is really beautiful for evolution.

**[00:36:49]** And it can be applied to personal development too.

**[00:36:52]** Many people dislike change because

**[00:36:55]** they are used to something

**[00:36:57]** and fear that in the new context,

**[00:36:59]** they will have to start from scratch again.

**[00:37:01]** But that’s not how it is.

**[00:37:03]** There is something called...

**[00:37:07]** By the way, when you have birds

**[00:37:10]** that flap their wings today,

**[00:37:12]** those wings obviously didn’t just appear like that,

**[00:37:14]** like some animal decided

**[00:37:16]** that those were normal limbs,

**[00:37:18]** which were first covered in fur.

**[00:37:20]** Then something started to form there,

**[00:37:22]** which structurally resembled feathers.

**[00:37:24]** The original function here was thermoregulation.

**[00:37:26]** And only later was it discovered,

**[00:37:28]** that it was actually good for something else.

**[00:37:30]** The idea here is,

**[00:37:32]** that you always have something,

**[00:37:34]** from your previous life.

**[00:37:36]** You can reuse it.

**[00:37:38]** Reuse it in a different context.

**[00:37:40]** You have tools you can work with.

**[00:37:42]** And then you find out it fits.

**[00:37:44]** This was really funny at the time,

**[00:37:46]** when the wave of

**[00:37:48]** agile transformations came.

**[00:37:50]** And now big companies,

**[00:37:52]** including the bank where I worked,

**[00:37:54]** started saying,

**[00:37:56]** the world is changing.

**[00:37:58]** From now until the end of our lives,

**[00:38:00]** it will be completely different, dynamic, unpredictable.

**[00:38:02]** We can no longer operate the way

**[00:38:04]** we used to.

**[00:38:06]** We can no longer be dinosaurs.

**[00:38:08]** We have to change our structure.

**[00:38:10]** And now those agile ideas

**[00:38:12]** started coming into those companies.

**[00:38:14]** Of course, I had no idea what agility was.

**[00:38:16]** So I went on Wikipedia,

**[00:38:18]** and I read and read, and now I read.

**[00:38:20]** Ability to adapt quickly.

**[00:38:22]** Communication.

**[00:38:24]** Feedback.

**[00:38:26]** And I read more and more.

**[00:38:28]** And suddenly I realize,

**[00:38:30]** wow, this is exactly

**[00:38:32]** what I knew from my previous life.

**[00:38:34]** What I had thought all along,

**[00:38:36]** was absolutely

**[00:38:38]** knowledge just for knowledge's sake,

**[00:38:40]** just that I learn something about evolution,

**[00:38:42]** to write a few books about it,

**[00:38:44]** maybe teach some students at most,

**[00:38:46]** and pass that knowledge to the next generation.

**[00:38:48]** But otherwise, it's practically useless.

**[00:38:50]** More than once I realized,

**[00:38:52]** that somewhere else

**[00:38:54]** behind a wall there is a world

**[00:38:56]** that has actually just started dealing with this

**[00:38:58]** and will be dealing with it forevermore.

**[00:39:00]** And that’s where the preadaptation is for me.

**[00:39:02]** I know something that is useful somewhere else.

**[00:39:04]** And just by chance,

**[00:39:06]** I was lucky, of course,

**[00:39:08]** it’s nothing but luck,

**[00:39:10]** that I really hit the mark.

**[00:39:12]** Because now everyone is dealing with change,

**[00:39:14]** everyone is dealing with collaboration in some way,

**[00:39:16]** and these are topics

**[00:39:18]** that people in the corporate world know

**[00:39:20]** are important,

**[00:39:22]** that they have to be integrated,

**[00:39:24]** that they have to educate both their managers,

**[00:39:26]** and the people below them,

**[00:39:28]** the employees,

**[00:39:30]** they have to educate entire organizations as a whole.

**[00:39:32]** But they don’t really know

**[00:39:34]** where to look for inspiration.

**[00:39:36]** Of course, you know,

**[00:39:38]** there are plenty of consultants and people

**[00:39:40]** operating in this field,

**[00:39:42]** there are many.

**[00:39:44]** But still, I think

**[00:39:46]** it’s not a bad idea to rationalize it somehow.

**[00:39:48]** To say that these concepts are deeper,

**[00:39:50]** than we think.

**[00:39:52]** So, for example, when I was at that bank

**[00:39:54]** talking about agility, I got up from my

**[00:39:56]** PowerPoint and said, hey, this is good.

**[00:39:58]** And now I saw how people approach it.

**[00:40:00]** Skeptically, quite naturally, because when someone comes and tells you,

**[00:40:05]** hey, everything that was before is wrong, now something new begins, that's it.

**[00:40:08]** This is not the right approach. By the nature of things. You're basically telling someone,

**[00:40:12]** that everything they did until now was wrong and now it has to be done differently.

**[00:40:15]** This is not an approach that will open people up to you. And usually these are people,

**[00:40:19]** who have been in the company for a longer time. Not those who change jobs every two years.

**[00:40:23]** Those are the flexible ones. But the people who have been there for 10-15 years,

**[00:40:27]** are used to something and suddenly you come and start telling them,

**[00:40:35]** because they think, why should we? This is how it is now,

**[00:40:38]** maybe I'll get fired, maybe I'll stay, in 10 years another new wave will come,

**[00:40:42]** so it won't be Agility, it will be something else. And I saw huge confusion there.

**[00:40:48]** And of course, rationally, I can understand,

**[00:40:53]** that on one hand this whole game of Agility is a business game,

**[00:40:57]** where it's like, we know we have to, so we'll just do it.

**[00:41:01]** Period. Done. And we'll be agile. On the other hand, I see

**[00:41:05]** that it has its reason. And I came to the conclusion that if you want to convince people,

**[00:41:11]** you can do it in two ways. Either you catch them emotionally,

**[00:41:16]** or rationally. And ideally, you combine both.

**[00:41:20]** That makes it much easier to accept. Many people need to rationalize their position.

**[00:41:25]** And if you give them the awareness that what is happening to them,

**[00:41:30]** or what is happening around them, is actually completely natural,

**[00:41:34]** then people stop being afraid. And by the way, fear is normal

**[00:41:37]** as a biological reaction. Only psychopaths don't feel fear.

**[00:41:40]** So when a person is afraid, that's actually good. And you can work with it.

**[00:41:44]** You can work with it well. And here, how I always show people

**[00:41:47]** myself. Because when I started in corporations in 2015,

**[00:41:51]** I was in a state where, when my boss told me, call and sort it out,

**[00:41:55]** my knees would shake. And I would write them an email, then a second,

**[00:41:59]** then a third. And I was completely stressed out. There were things that

**[00:42:03]** didn't resolve well and I felt bad that day.

**[00:42:06]** These are things I don't dwell on today. Or I deal with them

**[00:42:09]** for two seconds and then discard them. I basically don't write emails.

**[00:42:12]** They hate me because it's a waste of time and efficiency.

**[00:42:16]** Basically, I'm an old-fashioned person who doesn't like change.

**[00:42:20]** Yet at home, for example, we got to a situation where now I'm the progressive one.

**[00:42:24]** And my wife just says, you were always a pain in the ass.

**[00:42:28]** And now you're going to give me lectures about how we have to be efficient

**[00:42:31]** and change quickly. So you can say, it can be worked with.

**[00:42:34]** And it has its advantages.

**[00:42:41]** This is this right here. So at Česká spořitelna, I opened a course,

**[00:42:46]** called Biology of the Corporation. And I thought I'd try,

**[00:42:50]** as a proof of concept, something where I explain these things to people,

**[00:42:55]** but using examples they're not used to.

**[00:42:58]** So we enrolled some people, including those, I don't know,

**[00:43:03]** ladies from audit or accounting, the ones who have been there 20 years.

**[00:43:07]** And that was a good test for me.

**[00:43:09]** Because such a person really represents the status quo.

**[00:43:12]** And when someone comes along,

**[00:43:15]** and I start explaining how we need to communicate better,

**[00:43:18]** do retrospectives, sprint in some teams,

**[00:43:21]** and do something different elsewhere, and now we have to be faster,

**[00:43:24]** and more efficient. Those are exactly the people who will tap their forehead

**[00:43:27]** and say, why on earth, it works fine for me now.

**[00:43:30]** So I opened this course, which was three hours long.

**[00:43:33]** I jumped in there with a backpack full of stuff like this.

**[00:43:36]** And I was explaining what evolution is.

**[00:43:39]** How our cells actually work, our eukaryotic bodies.

**[00:43:42]** Because it's nothing but cooperation.

**[00:43:45]** I'll get to that later, hopefully I have time.

**[00:43:48]** It's not just our cells, our bodies.

**[00:43:51]** Each of you knows we have bacteria in our guts.

**[00:43:54]** There are plenty of them. It's such a nice example,

**[00:43:57]** I'll keep it aside for now, I don't want to get into it now.

**[00:44:00]** But if you look at it and break down someone like me, Pepa,

**[00:44:03]** what is me, Pepa?

**[00:44:06]** It's thousands of different species living together

**[00:44:09]** and somehow cooperating.

**[00:44:12]** Isn't that fantastic? So then you say, when someone comes and says,

**[00:44:15]** that cooperation is impossible, it just can't happen.

**[00:44:18]** These people will never understand each other, these teams will never cooperate,

**[00:44:21]** this division will never work.

**[00:44:24]** That's when you can ask, why cooperation?

**[00:44:27]** And they start telling you, because cooperation doesn't work.

**[00:44:30]** People are competitive, that's the basic truth.

**[00:44:34]** And here you can say, well, that's not quite right,

**[00:44:38]** competition obviously exists somewhere,

**[00:44:41]** but cooperation is genetically rooted in us much, much deeper.

**[00:44:46]** That's the whole journey from Ostrava to Brno to Prague.

**[00:44:49]** Our genetic heritage speaks of nothing but the ability

**[00:44:52]** to collaborate with someone, to find a suitable modus operandi

**[00:44:55]** and of course, it's dynamic.

**[00:44:58]** Anyone who has siblings or a life partner knows

**[00:45:01]** that it's not like you always love each other or always hate each other.

**[00:45:05]** Sometimes you feel like hitting each other with a hammer, sometimes you want to cuddle,

**[00:45:09]** and sometimes you oscillate between the two.

**[00:45:12]** That's how it works, a constant search for some balance.

**[00:45:16]** But the whole four billion years have been about nothing else but searching

**[00:45:21]** for ways to cooperate and collaborate with someone else.

**[00:45:24]** And creating functional, working wholes that are so complex

**[00:45:28]** that any corporation is just a triviality compared to that.

**[00:45:32]** And that's the ratio.

**[00:45:34]** Because when someone emotionally claims,

**[00:45:36]** it can't be done. Why?

**[00:45:38]** Cooperation doesn't work. It does. How?

**[00:45:42]** Then I just start explaining it here.

**[00:45:45]** And you can't argue against that, of course you can disagree,

**[00:45:49]** but you can't deny this as a scientific fact.

**[00:45:53]** And for those employees, the so-called ordinary people,

**[00:45:57]** and I count myself among them, so I don't mean it pejoratively,

**[00:46:00]** this is a huge moment.

**[00:46:02]** Because here you actually help rationalize that it is possible.

**[00:46:06]** And people can always do things they believe are possible.

**[00:46:10]** If they feel it's impossible, they won't do it.

**[00:46:13]** If they feel it's possible, they just keep trying until it starts working.

**[00:46:17]** Here, the whole evolutionary story is actually a beautiful

**[00:46:19]** rationalizing story about why we should focus on adaptation

**[00:46:23]** and look at cooperation and collaboration.

**[00:46:29]** How did it continue?

**[00:46:32]** I gathered these things to show you

**[00:46:35]** that in some cases it must be valid,

**[00:46:39]** because otherwise I would never have succeeded in convincing various people.

**[00:46:42]** Even at the bank, I had to somehow fight for that course,

**[00:46:46]** why I wanted to do it and why I wanted to explain it to them here

**[00:46:51]** and not undermine the transformation.

**[00:46:54]** It worked, it had some success.

**[00:46:57]** Then I wrote to sedy, which is an educational platform.

**[00:47:00]** That was really nice, because when the gentleman replied,

**[00:47:04]** he wrote me a disgustingly long email.

**[00:47:09]** I wanted to throw it in the trash right away, but now,

**[00:47:12]** it seemed so crazy to me that I want to invite you and talk about it.

**[00:47:16]** And somehow I convinced those people,

**[00:47:19]** which I take as proof of concept,

**[00:47:21]** that there must be something to it, that it works in practice.

**[00:47:25]** From that came the fact that I moved from PowerPoint

**[00:47:30]** and Excel to agile management, so currently

**[00:47:34]** I actually work as an agile coach or scrum master,

**[00:47:37]** now at Czech Television.

**[00:47:39]** And below is BrainVR, which is actually the answer to where I came from.

**[00:47:43]** It's a great podcast by Vojta Hlaváček and Jirka Krištof Jarmar.

**[00:47:44]** Where did Honza hear me?

**[00:47:48]** Honza and I used to just miss each other at various events,

**[00:47:50]** for example, I have this from LMM, which was a huge unconference.

**[00:47:53]** We met there too, but it was only after this podcast

**[00:47:56]** that Honza actually wrote to me asking if I wanted to say something to you,

**[00:47:58]** which pleased me, it's a huge honor for me,

**[00:48:01]** so I hope none of us will regret it, or at least you won't.

**[00:48:07]** Now let's take a look at how the voting turned out.

**[00:48:10]** For question number one.

**[00:48:16]** Oh, that's nice.

**[00:48:21]** A total majority.

**[00:48:23]** I see here 88% of voters.

**[00:48:25]** Is it visible somewhere how many people voted?

**[00:48:26]** Probably not, right?

**[00:48:28]** Yeah, 94%, sure.

**[00:48:30]** Well, that's nice.

**[00:48:32]** That's nice because I think so too.

**[00:48:35]** Of course, I don't dismiss the opinion of those, I don't see how many said no.

**[00:48:37]** And no, is there anyone?

**[00:48:40]** Good.

**[00:48:45]** Well, that's actually great.

**[00:48:47]** I didn't even expect such a good result.

**[00:48:49]** It's suspicious because when no one has the opposite opinion,

**[00:48:51]** it's kind of strange.

**[00:48:53]** We'll see.

**[00:48:56]** So, now.

**[00:48:59]** Let's connect this a bit to,

**[00:49:06]** why this should work in the corporate environment.

**[00:49:12]** I don't know the composition of the people watching this right now.

**[00:49:16]** Of course, you might be someone who has nothing to do with the corporate world,

**[00:49:20]** so try to abstract just the personal development aspect.

**[00:49:23]** I think that aspect is huge,

**[00:49:25]** because, as I said, I am also a conservative,

**[00:49:28]** and I often suffer from various blues thinking everything is wrong.

**[00:49:32]** And this is what many personal development books I've read give me.

**[00:49:37]** It was exactly at the time when my wife was devouring...

**[00:49:39]** We had small children, and she was devouring books for mothers,

**[00:49:42]** about how to raise children.

**[00:49:44]** Because I was new in the corporate world,

**[00:49:46]** I was devouring books about

**[00:49:48]** how to behave as a manager, as a leader, everything.

**[00:49:51]** This kind of literature exists in piles,

**[00:49:54]** personal development literature.

**[00:49:55]** And it's not all bad,

**[00:49:57]** on the contrary, it's very good to read it.

**[00:50:00]** But you come across many things that actually apply in biology too.

**[00:50:04]** So I could relate to it as a biologist,

**[00:50:07]** because I have known for a long time, and by the way, this is a good trick to divide it,

**[00:50:10]** when you are really feeling bad and brushing your teeth in front of the mirror in the morning.

**[00:50:13]** And you might say to yourself, you can't do this.

**[00:50:16]** The whole world is against you, you are completely alone.

**[00:50:18]** But you are not alone.

**[00:50:19]** You are what is called a holobiont.

**[00:50:21]** Holobiont is a term that first appeared in the mid-90s

**[00:50:26]** and it basically means the sum of all the beings

**[00:50:29]** that make up one organism, in this case us as humans.

**[00:50:34]** And when you add it all up, there are a gazillion different things.

**[00:50:39]** There are hundreds of bacterial species,

**[00:50:42]** thousands of viral species,

**[00:50:45]** various protist organisms, which are eukaryotic cells,

**[00:50:48]** but single-celled protists, like paramecia.

**[00:50:51]** If you get out of school, you'll see what was called protozoa.

**[00:50:55]** All of this lives inside us.

**[00:50:57]** And now just to illustrate, I return to rounding numbers.

**[00:51:02]** It is said that the human gut microbiome,

**[00:51:05]** microbiome is a very trendy term and such things,

**[00:51:08]** each of us, a healthy adult, carries 10 to the 14th power bacteria in the gut.

**[00:51:14]** Okay. I don't know what 10 to the 14th power is.

**[00:51:17]** And practically everyone I've talked to

**[00:51:20]** has no idea what that even looks like.

**[00:51:22]** So I thought I'd try to calculate it and bring it down to an example,

**[00:51:25]** to make it a bit more vivid.

**[00:51:27]** Let's go back to the bean. A small white bean.

**[00:51:30]** One bacterial cell.

**[00:51:32]** The question is, how big is the pile if you put 10 to the 14th of these beans together?

**[00:51:37]** So I calculated and calculated and came to the conclusion

**[00:51:40]** that it would be a cube with an edge of 300 meters.

**[00:51:45]** For comparison, that's the size of the Eiffel Tower.

**[00:51:48]** 300 meters is the Eiffel Tower.

**[00:51:50]** You have that dimension up, sideways.

**[00:51:53]** And the whole volume is filled with those tiny beans.

**[00:51:57]** Note, this is a living organism.

**[00:52:00]** It's a cell. It doesn't have a brain, but somehow it thinks.

**[00:52:04]** It takes care of itself. It doesn't want to die.

**[00:52:07]** That means it makes decisions. There is some decision making.

**[00:52:10]** The bacteria actively take care of themselves.

**[00:52:13]** Every living being, every cell actively takes care of itself.

**[00:52:16]** So it thinks about when and where to feed.

**[00:52:19]** What to feed on.

**[00:52:21]** It thinks about who to team up with.

**[00:52:23]** With those buddies around.

**[00:52:25]** Or with the cells in our intestines.

**[00:52:27]** What they will talk about and share.

**[00:52:29]** And they do talk, and talk a lot.

**[00:52:32]** And each one does this.

**[00:52:34]** And now there is a cube like this,

**[00:52:37]** completely filled with those bacteria.

**[00:52:39]** Each of us has this in our intestines.

**[00:52:41]** Compared to that, agglomerations like New York and Bangladesh are small.

**[00:52:47]** This is simply many times more.

**[00:52:49]** And they have to communicate.

**[00:52:51]** They communicate.

**[00:52:53]** They actively communicate.

**[00:52:55]** By the way, there is a phenomenon called glowing oceans.

**[00:52:58]** Sailors noticed it.

**[00:53:00]** Darwin described it when he traveled on the Beagle.

**[00:53:02]** On that ship.

**[00:53:04]** So the sea glows.

**[00:53:06]** You sail at night under the moon, and suddenly the sea phosphoresces.

**[00:53:10]** Often, these are algae.

**[00:53:12]** More often, bacteria.

**[00:53:14]** Bacteria have the ability of bioluminescence.

**[00:53:16]** That means they can light up.

**[00:53:18]** But to light up, they have to agree that it makes sense.

**[00:53:21]** Because if each glows separately, it won't be visible.

**[00:53:24]** So they have to communicate with others around them,

**[00:53:27]** to decide that lighting up makes sense.

**[00:53:31]** Glowing areas larger than 15,000 km2 have been described.

**[00:53:35]** That's just insane.

**[00:53:37]** That's about the size of the Central Bohemian Region or so.

**[00:53:40]** This whole area lights up.

**[00:53:42]** And now you have these tiny cells,

**[00:53:45]** these little critters, about three micrometers in diameter.

**[00:53:48]** There are so many of them that the number has an exponent that's crazy.

**[00:53:51]** No one can really imagine how many there are.

**[00:53:54]** And they coordinate this.

**[00:53:56]** So when someone says we’ll never communicate in life,

**[00:54:00]** that's not true.

**[00:54:02]** Communication does work.

**[00:54:04]** How does it not work?

**[00:54:07]** Of course, communication is an active and demanding process,

**[00:54:10]** constantly ping-ponging between wanting to express something and needing to find out something.

**[00:54:13]** You keep going back and forth.

**[00:54:16]** You receive inputs, you give outputs.

**[00:54:18]** The idea that it will run smoothly,

**[00:54:20]** especially at work, is naive.

**[00:54:23]** I don’t know, my wife and I have been together 12 years,

**[00:54:25]** and we can still argue about things

**[00:54:27]** that you’d think we already know how we see.

**[00:54:29]** Yet it still happens.

**[00:54:31]** There are bacteria that live inside aphid cells.

**[00:54:33]** That’s the pest that ate your peas

**[00:54:36]** when you were little and grew them in elementary school.

**[00:54:40]** These bacteria have lived inside aphid cells

**[00:54:42]** for over 260 million years.

**[00:54:50]** And it still happens that sometimes they don't understand each other

**[00:54:52]** and they totally struggle with that cell.

**[00:54:54]** After a quarter of a billion years, something like this happens.

**[00:54:58]** So don't be surprised that you argue.

**[00:55:00]** You have a golden wedding anniversary and after 50 years you argue like crazy.

**[00:55:04]** By then, after 50 years, you should understand each other.

**[00:55:06]** That's completely naive.

**[00:55:08]** And now, when you apply this to coming to work,

**[00:55:10]** where you've been for 4 years, spending some time with those people,

**[00:55:12]** but not that much, and you don't communicate well

**[00:55:14]** and you leave thinking it's all nonsense,

**[00:55:18]** that's completely normal.

**[00:55:20]** The key is not to give up on it

**[00:55:23]** and to keep trying to communicate.

**[00:55:28]** And again, when they get to the biological example,

**[00:55:30]** I wouldn't give up on something that these stupid cells manage,

**[00:55:35]** with forgiveness, like stupid cells.

**[00:55:37]** And on such a scale.

**[00:55:39]** It's just normal. So let's do it, don't be afraid.

**[00:55:42]** When you look at what today's companies actually deal with,

**[00:55:45]** or rather their CEOs, who try to steer those companies

**[00:55:48]** and prevent them from sinking,

**[00:55:51]** these are the kinds of things.

**[00:55:54]** Sustainable growth.

**[00:55:56]** The company simply needs to keep growing.

**[00:56:00]** Taking some risks.

**[00:56:02]** This means that risks must be taken,

**[00:56:05]** because if you don't,

**[00:56:08]** you'll end up being overtaken by everyone else.

**[00:56:12]** Regulation.

**[00:56:14]** That's an interesting topic that many people supposedly deal with,

**[00:56:17]** that the company is actually bound by various regulatory requirements,

**[00:56:21]** which it doesn't impose on itself,

**[00:56:24]** but are imposed from outside, from somewhere else.

**[00:56:28]** Use of technology.

**[00:56:30]** We simply have to catch what’s new, how it works,

**[00:56:33]** and how we could use it.

**[00:56:35]** Adapt in general, sense what the market needs.

**[00:56:38]** How to move fast.

**[00:56:40]** The days when a project was created.

**[00:56:42]** And if we make a three-year project,

**[00:56:44]** after three years we say we can't keep up,

**[00:56:46]** we extend it by two years, then launch it,

**[00:56:48]** it will cost a lot of money,

**[00:56:50]** and everyone will say they don't want it.

**[00:56:52]** But that's how it's been done for years, so it's fine.

**[00:56:55]** This is something that will never work today.

**[00:56:59]** So the pressure to innovate.

**[00:57:01]** Evolution is all about innovation.

**[00:57:03]** It's one big story about

**[00:57:05]** how and where to come up with something new so that,

**[00:57:07]** and it's not really about

**[00:57:09]** being better than others.

**[00:57:11]** In the end, it's about simplifying things for myself,

**[00:57:14]** so I can get more out of life,

**[00:57:16]** enjoy it more, survive,

**[00:57:18]** and therefore have more offspring than others.

**[00:57:21]** Try to flip it sometime.

**[00:57:23]** It's not about crushing you all,

**[00:57:25]** because I have something you don't.

**[00:57:27]** It's more about having more of us,

**[00:57:29]** enjoying life even more,

**[00:57:31]** having even more offspring, and not caring about the rest of you.

**[00:57:34]** That's a somewhat more positive approach.

**[00:57:37]** Culture of collaboration.

**[00:57:39]** Here I come to the second question.

**[00:57:42]** I was really curious if you think

**[00:57:44]** that adaptation and collaboration are key topics

**[00:57:47]** that will decide the survival or failure of companies

**[00:57:50]** in today's fast-changing market.

**[00:57:53]** I definitely think so.

**[00:57:56]** And I even think adaptation is a topic

**[00:57:58]** that will soon be exhausted,

**[00:58:00]** because of agile transformations.

**[00:58:02]** Companies already know they have to deal with it,

**[00:58:04]** and many are doing so.

**[00:58:06]** The topic that will immediately follow,

**[00:58:08]** in my opinion, is collaboration.

**[00:58:10]** Because very soon we'll hit the limits of

**[00:58:13]** being more successful in the market,

**[00:58:16]** so we need to improve collaboration.

**[00:58:18]** Both between people, between teams,

**[00:58:21]** and basically also between those companies.

**[00:58:24]** They can help each other and form some symbiotic bonds there.

**[00:58:27]** This is the future and this is exactly the topic,

**[00:58:30]** where we can beautifully get inspired by nature.

**[00:58:33]** You just need to go into the forest and think about how the forest works.

**[00:58:36]** If you look down,

**[00:58:38]** there is simply a huge universe of mycorrhizal fungi,

**[00:58:42]** which spread their filaments there

**[00:58:45]** and then information, energy, genes travel through them,

**[00:58:48]** bacteria fly around, everything is shared and so on.

**[00:58:51]** It's beautiful. It's exactly about collaboration.

**[00:58:54]** What do people deal with as individuals?

**[00:58:57]** When I relate it to a person,

**[00:59:00]** a person as an individual is terrified of change.

**[00:59:03]** I've already talked about this, so I won't dwell on it much.

**[00:59:06]** But usually, we end up in some state,

**[00:59:09]** where we question ourselves.

**[00:59:12]** Is this what I want to do?

**[00:59:15]** Am I capable? What should I do now?

**[00:59:18]** I'm afraid of the change.

**[00:59:21]** Again, we hit on the fact that

**[00:59:24]** what was once supposed to help us,

**[00:59:27]** our emotions and then our neocortex,

**[00:59:30]** now brutally trip us up.

**[00:59:33]** Because it slows us down and constantly pushes us down.

**[00:59:36]** And those who get too high, they get hissed at.

**[00:59:39]** It used to be better to keep a low profile.

**[00:59:42]** Unfortunately, that doesn't apply today.

**[00:59:45]** I think people who continue with that philosophy,

**[00:59:48]** companies that continue with that philosophy, will actually finish first.

**[00:59:51]** After all, it's like in war.

**[00:59:54]** Anyone who's been in a pinball battle knows exactly

**[00:59:57]** that if you crouch behind rubble and tremble there,

**[01:00:00]** you will probably get hit very, very soon.

**[01:00:00]** Usually, those who keep moving last a bit longer.

**[01:00:04]** Maybe I was quick, not sure, I see here 92% think yes, 5% no.

**[01:00:13]** Thanks for that, thanks for the answer.

**[01:00:17]** Now actually, these topics viewed from the perspective of those bacteria

**[01:00:22]** And that actually brings me to the conclusion, because I see time is running out.

**[01:00:27]** Sustainable growth, if we, and now we're just skimming the surface here,

**[01:00:32]** this is really just the surface of the ocean, and every topic that one might,

**[01:00:36]** whether we see it here or any other topic you might think of,

**[01:00:39]** can actually be scaled here.

**[01:00:41]** And different people have different personalities and therefore are interested in different things.

**[01:00:45]** There are simply managers who really care about the company growing.

**[01:00:49]** And they are not interested in technology; others are interested in innovation and technology

**[01:00:53]** and don't care about finance or things like that.

**[01:00:56]** There are people who struggle with something specific, and others don't struggle with that

**[01:01:00]** and struggle with something else.

**[01:01:02]** So please, this is not a one-size-fits-all.

**[01:01:06]** It's more like a thesaurus of all the topics

**[01:01:09]** that companies, organizations, and people deal with.

**[01:01:13]** And in all these topics, in my opinion, you can find inspiration in nature.

**[01:01:18]** Sustainable growth.

**[01:01:19]** If someone is interested in what sustainable growth means,

**[01:01:22]** go and look at the nearest Petri dish.

**[01:01:25]** How bacteria grow, how they form colonies or some suspension somewhere,

**[01:01:29]** that's exactly it.

**[01:01:31]** And they are not just small, dumb cells that don't know what to do.

**[01:01:35]** They actively communicate with each other.

**[01:01:37]** My friend Halina Šinková and I

**[01:01:40]** even tried to write this into a children's book to make it understandable

**[01:01:43]** and have been instilling this in children from the start.

**[01:01:46]** Because there actually aren't books on this topic.

**[01:01:49]** The bacteria talk to each other.

**[01:01:51]** Communication is truly the alpha and omega of biology and everything.

**[01:01:54]** That doesn't mean they talk about Plato,

**[01:01:57]** but they send some signals, receive some signals,

**[01:02:00]** and make decisions based on them.

**[01:02:02]** For example, when a colony grows or in the gut,

**[01:02:05]** when we have the microbiome and something is running low,

**[01:02:08]** and it's necessary and they can't live without it,

**[01:02:11]** they signal it.

**[01:02:13]** Someone raises a hand; here it might happen through potassium signaling,

**[01:02:16]** they start sending potassium molecules and shout.

**[01:02:19]** Hey, hey, stop dividing now, not now, we're missing something.

**[01:02:23]** Everyone else listens with ears they don't have,

**[01:02:27]** then they listen and actually stop dividing.

**[01:02:30]** The whole colony replenishes what it needs

**[01:02:33]** and then they start dividing again.

**[01:02:35]** Of course, it's not always this rosy,

**[01:02:38]** some bacteria always suffer somewhere,

**[01:02:41]** but basically the whole system behaves in a coordinated way.

**[01:02:45]** And you can look at what it actually looks like

**[01:02:49]** when we want things to grow sustainably.

**[01:02:53]** Risk of stagnation.

**[01:02:55]** Evolutionary biology has many different metaphors.

**[01:02:58]** One of them is the Red Queen metaphor.

**[01:03:01]** It's from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, the Red Queen,

**[01:03:05]** who tells Alice she has to run as fast as she can just to stay in place.

**[01:03:09]** This expresses the fear of competition.

**[01:03:12]** You have to keep moving, you have to take risks,

**[01:03:15]** otherwise everyone else will outrun you.

**[01:03:18]** Evolution is all about that.

**[01:03:20]** Regulation.

**[01:03:21]** Hey, if you want to talk about regulations,

**[01:03:24]** we can take this eukaryotic cell here,

**[01:03:28]** and see what limitations it actually has.

**[01:03:30]** There is something called evolutionary constraints.

**[01:03:33]** These are limitations that the external environment places on the cell or organism.

**[01:03:36]** And you have to deal with them.

**[01:03:38]** So even if you don't like GDPR, you have to deal with it

**[01:03:40]** and somehow manage it project-wise for your company.

**[01:03:43]** But you're not alone, every dumb cell does this,

**[01:03:46]** every smart cell in our body.

**[01:03:49]** Every cell also has some regulation above it,

**[01:03:51]** interesting that we find this here too.

**[01:03:54]** Use of technology and pressure to innovate,

**[01:03:56]** that's absolutely undeniable.

**[01:03:59]** Bacteria are a much better example of this than any other organism,

**[01:04:02]** because we, eukaryotes, have everything we can do in our genes.

**[01:04:05]** How do we pass on genes?

**[01:04:07]** Typically through sexual reproduction.

**[01:04:12]** That has certain pitfalls.

**[01:04:14]** In our case, humans, it's about

**[01:04:17]** when you want to pass these genes and that information on,

**[01:04:23]** so you first have to painstakingly find a partner,

**[01:04:26]** then convince them to pair with you,

**[01:04:28]** then you have to have viable offspring.

**[01:04:30]** That offspring must survive until it reproduces on its own,

**[01:04:33]** and only then does it start to work.

**[01:04:35]** Bacteria don't have sexes,

**[01:04:38]** they don't have something like sex.

**[01:04:40]** They have many other interesting ways

**[01:04:42]** to exchange genes.

**[01:04:44]** And that's something we can only dream of.

**[01:04:47]** For example, they do this,

**[01:04:49]** they simply bud off genes.

**[01:04:52]** They really can bud or exchange genes.

**[01:04:54]** So if I looked at Honza and said,

**[01:04:57]** you really have an athletic build,

**[01:04:59]** much leaner than me, I'd want that too.

**[01:05:02]** So I'd go to him and say, bud me.

**[01:05:05]** He would just pull the genes out of his breast pocket and say,

**[01:05:08]** here, I'd copy them and say thanks.

**[01:05:11]** And in a week, I'd look just like him.

**[01:05:13]** That's exactly what bacteria do.

**[01:05:15]** That's also why bacterial resistance exists.

**[01:05:18]** Because once one bacterium has an enzyme,

**[01:05:20]** capable of breaking down some antibiotic,

**[01:05:23]** the others start borrowing it,

**[01:05:25]** because it's useful.

**[01:05:26]** And it doesn't make sense to take millions of years

**[01:05:28]** to invent it themselves.

**[01:05:29]** They borrow it and can keep borrowing it like that, thanks.

**[01:05:32]** Another thing is they steal it in a way

**[01:05:36]** by waiting until the other one dies.

**[01:05:38]** So if I translate that here,

**[01:05:40]** I would wait until Honza dies

**[01:05:42]** and just before the environment decomposes him,

**[01:05:45]** I would pull out that gene and incorporate it like this.

**[01:05:48]** And I'd say thanks too.

**[01:05:49]** And it would work exactly the same.

**[01:05:51]** And now, if you consider how many bacteria are in that environment,

**[01:05:55]** going back to those beans,

**[01:05:58]** estimates of the total number of bacterial cells in the biosphere

**[01:06:03]** They range around 10 to the 28th to 10 to the 30th.

**[01:06:06]** Here in these beans, that would be volumetrically 200 planets,

**[01:06:12]** 200 Earth-sized spheres.

**[01:06:14]** This right here just is.

**[01:06:16]** That many beans is beyond any imagination again.

**[01:06:19]** And they are here with us, all around us, inside us.

**[01:06:22]** They are in the soil, in the Earth's crust, three kilometers deep.

**[01:06:25]** If you add it all up, you find out,

**[01:06:27]** that everything is happening there and they are doing something.

**[01:06:29]** They are in clouds, where they act as crystallization nuclei,

**[01:06:31]** thanks to them rain is triggered.

**[01:06:33]** They are simply everywhere, there are so many of them.

**[01:06:35]** And now they send genes to each other, communicate,

**[01:06:37]** exchange innovations.

**[01:06:39]** Beautiful.

**[01:06:40]** A culture of cooperation, that's exactly it.

**[01:06:43]** Now the bacterium doesn't ask,

**[01:06:47]** do I have what it takes or not.

**[01:06:49]** It just goes for survival.

**[01:06:53]** It can decide very quickly,

**[01:06:55]** prioritization is the alpha and omega of corporate training.

**[01:06:58]** Why don't people do what they should, when they should?

**[01:07:01]** It's difficult.

**[01:07:02]** We are simply used to doing something,

**[01:07:04]** and the activity itself is proof for us that,

**[01:07:07]** well, I'm doing something,

**[01:07:09]** but that something has to make sense,

**[01:07:11]** it has to bring some value.

**[01:07:13]** When conditions change for bacteria,

**[01:07:15]** the cell constantly checks its surroundings,

**[01:07:17]** and when conditions change,

**[01:07:19]** it immediately reacts.

**[01:07:21]** It switches something and starts doing the thing

**[01:07:23]** that makes more sense.

**[01:07:28]** Because my time is running out.

**[01:07:31]** I see I haven't used many props.

**[01:07:34]** A condom, then I have a kitchen towel here.

**[01:07:37]** Never mind, maybe next time.

**[01:07:40]** Maybe next time.

**[01:07:48]** I'm thinking how to sum this up,

**[01:07:50]** to kill as much of it as possible there.

**[01:07:53]** I understand that flying through it like this is really tough.

**[01:07:56]** I get that a different world has been thrown at you,

**[01:08:00]** a bit like the Matrix,

**[01:08:02]** where it's hard for you to find your way.

**[01:08:05]** I understand that there are so many new ideas,

**[01:08:08]** that at first you don't even know,

**[01:08:10]** what exactly you should focus on.

**[01:08:13]** If we wrap it all up into some simple education,

**[01:08:18]** it's just about this.

**[01:08:21]** People as individuals very often doubt themselves,

**[01:08:28]** are afraid of change in life, and think they can't handle it.

**[01:08:31]** That adapting, or maybe creating some networking,

**[01:08:34]** some connections and collaborations, is beyond their strength.

**[01:08:38]** Maybe, but it's like when people learn to walk.

**[01:08:41]** Of course, a baby doesn't get up and start running a hundred meters right away.

**[01:08:44]** It takes some time.

**[01:08:45]** Likewise, this is a skill that is learned.

**[01:08:48]** You can't be mad at yourself because you can't manage it.

**[01:08:51]** Because the generations before you who learned it,

**[01:08:54]** each time again and again, there were countless of them.

**[01:08:57]** And when we're gone, there will be others who will experience it again and again.

**[01:09:01]** So there's no need to be afraid, no need to constantly whine about

**[01:09:05]** how hard everything is and how everything is changing under your hands.

**[01:09:08]** No, because those before me experienced it too, and those after me will experience it as well.

**[01:09:12]** This is simply the fate.

**[01:09:14]** Actually, it's very beautiful that every generation discovers this for itself.

**[01:09:18]** The same applies to companies when you scale it up.

**[01:09:22]** There's no point whining that the world is unfair.

**[01:09:26]** You need to look at how to convince the company, the people, the structures,

**[01:09:32]** to be functional, to deliver value not only to customers,

**[01:09:37]** but also to the people.

**[01:09:39]** And examples that show this is possible, that it's basically the modus operandi,

**[01:09:44]** of any living creature, are shown to us by evolution.

**[01:09:48]** The last prop I'll use here is this.

**[01:09:52]** As I said, I played in amateur theater for many years,

**[01:09:58]** and I think each of you knows such a prop.

**[01:10:00]** It's that feeling when you're really scared, you run out on stage and think,

**[01:10:04]** oh God, I'll mumble something, then you go back backstage and think,

**[01:10:09]** phew, it's over, now I'd do it again and better, and I know what I'd do,

**[01:10:15]** Again and better, but you can't anymore because it's already gone.

**[01:10:19]** In that theater, we can do reruns, but when it comes to our lives,

**[01:10:26]** we reach the end and there are no reruns, or we can pretend here

**[01:10:29]** that we reincarnate into Velhac's pony, sure, that's possible,

**[01:10:33]** but as we are here and now, it is limited in duration.

**[01:10:37]** Even if we live to eighty, here it's like eight millimeters,

**[01:10:41]** then we die, then there is nothing.

**[01:10:43]** So, if you want to try something, divide your life into iterations,

**[01:10:48]** then stop and ask yourself what was wrong, what was right, and now again and better,

**[01:10:52]** because if you don't do that, you'll go day by day, day by day,

**[01:10:57]** live your lives, and in the end, we come here and nothing happens.

**[01:11:02]** We won't, but the world won't notice.

**[01:11:05]** Even if you were super, whoever knows what,

**[01:11:10]** the community might build a statue for you somewhere,

**[01:11:11]** but then they will forget you anyway.

**[01:11:16]** So the alpha and omega of what living organisms experience is that

**[01:11:18]** above all, they must enjoy life.

**[01:11:21]** Specifically, animals handle this very well,

**[01:11:27]** because they fulfill their needs and are able to perceive them.

**[01:11:31]** They know when they're hungry, when they want to mate, when they're pissed off,

**[01:11:35]** when they're simply angry, when they're happy on the other hand.

**[01:11:38]** Animals know this very well, here I'm not talking about snails,

**[01:11:39]** but let's say primates.

**[01:11:42]** And this is something we have forgotten.

**[01:11:49]** We forgot to perceive our needs and forgot to communicate needs within the group with others.

**[01:11:53]** If you do this, you'll find that you live life much fuller

**[01:11:56]** and it will also move you forward.

**[01:11:59]** So, that's probably all I wanted to tell you.

**[01:12:02]** I thank those of you who came in person very much.

**[01:12:06]** To those of you sitting far away, thank you for taking the time.

**[01:12:08]** I wish you all a lot of happiness in life

**[01:12:12]** and that you achieve what you set out to on your life path.

**[01:12:14]** Honza, thanks for the invitation.

**[01:12:18]** Thanks.

**[01:12:20]** So, can I push a little further?

**[01:12:22]** Great.

**[01:12:23]** Thanks a lot.

**[01:12:31]** Just a reminder, you can definitely ask questions through the slides if anything interests you.

**[01:12:36]** I imagined you cutting me here with that knife and taking my gene,

**[01:12:38]** when I died here.

**[01:12:41]** Before we started, we were actually talking about Jaroslav Petr.

**[01:12:47]** And that's a breakfast about genetics, which you can of course also watch.

**[01:12:53]** I found a few things there really interesting.

**[01:12:56]** You talk about needs, etc.

**[01:12:58]** And what really stuck in my mind when he was talking is,

**[01:13:02]** that humans are the only animal species that, when they do well,

**[01:13:07]** reproduce less.

**[01:13:10]** Yes, that's true.

**[01:13:12]** And now I'm thinking, in the context of what you say,

**[01:13:16]** like bacteria, etc., how does that fit with evolution?

**[01:13:20]** Why is it like that?

**[01:13:24]** I think this question can be approached

**[01:13:27]** from different perspectives.

**[01:13:29]** But purely biologically, it's about the fact that

**[01:13:33]** as quality of life increases,

**[01:13:36]** people want to do other things than just take care of their children.

**[01:13:39]** And unfortunately, in nature it is like this,

**[01:13:41]** that organisms are roughly divided into two types.

**[01:13:45]** R-strategists and K-strategists.

**[01:13:47]** R-strategists have a lot of offspring,

**[01:13:49]** they don't take care of them, so it's kind of free.

**[01:13:52]** K-strategists are organisms that have few young

**[01:13:56]** and have to work hard to raise them to a certain age.

**[01:13:59]** We belong to that group, for example.

**[01:14:01]** And it's a big parental investment.

**[01:14:04]** I can imagine having 30 kids

**[01:14:09]** and some of them survive, so that's better than nothing.

**[01:14:11]** But most of us don't operate like that.

**[01:14:13]** Most of us want to take care of our children

**[01:14:15]** and live with them somehow.

**[01:14:17]** So, if you have 10 kids,

**[01:14:20]** the quality of life for everyone will be different

**[01:14:23]** than if you have an only child.

**[01:14:25]** This is a completely rabbit-related reason.

**[01:14:28]** It's just that if the primary motive is

**[01:14:33]** to pass on your genes somewhere further.

**[01:14:36]** And I actually want to ask you.

**[01:14:38]** Is this the case, is it also in those bacteria,

**[01:14:40]** that they want to kill us?

**[01:14:42]** Because there's one very interesting question there.

**[01:14:44]** By having so many of them inside us,

**[01:14:47]** could it be that they actually control us?

**[01:14:50]** Is it not actually balanced,

**[01:14:52]** that they are the primary ones?

**[01:14:56]** They. It.

**[01:14:58]** Well, purely from a biological perspective,

**[01:15:01]** it certainly holds true that the drive

**[01:15:05]** to pass on one's genes to the next generation

**[01:15:07]** is really strong.

**[01:15:09]** Only because of that, this is the driving force,

**[01:15:11]** which compels us to reproduce

**[01:15:13]** and thus preserve the lineage.

**[01:15:15]** The bacteria here don't think about it,

**[01:15:17]** they just try to survive.

**[01:15:19]** If they survive, they divide,

**[01:15:20]** and that's how it happens here.

**[01:15:22]** In humans, we obviously have that desire too,

**[01:15:25]** but because our thinking brain and rationality evolved,

**[01:15:29]** we are able to work with this building block in some way.

**[01:15:31]** So most people don't walk the streets

**[01:15:33]** and rape each other just to pass on their genes.

**[01:15:35]** So these things are kind of at odds.

**[01:15:37]** And regarding dominance,

**[01:15:38]** well...

**[01:15:40]** Look, when you say dominance,

**[01:15:44]** it already implies something.

**[01:15:46]** There's a bit of that old view

**[01:15:48]** that someone has to be on top.

**[01:15:50]** Someone is more, and someone is less.

**[01:15:52]** What I try to show is

**[01:15:54]** that hierarchy as a value system

**[01:15:56]** about who is more and who is less,

**[01:15:58]** does not exist.

**[01:16:00]** There are different nodes in a network,

**[01:16:02]** there are different partners in a community.

**[01:16:03]** Each is skilled in something slightly different, and varies in size.

**[01:16:05]** But you can't say one is better,

**[01:16:07]** and another is worse.

**[01:16:12]** They have to cooperate together.

**[01:16:14]** And the bacteria inside us,

**[01:16:16]** have no interest in us dying,

**[01:16:17]** because then they wouldn't have a place to live.

**[01:16:18]** You said a very nice thing

**[01:16:21]** in the context of cooperation.

**[01:16:24]** Often, when I talk with companies,

**[01:16:26]** it's actually about growth, beating others, and so on.

**[01:16:28]** But when you talk about cooperation,

**[01:16:30]** it's not about both sides giving their best

**[01:16:32]** so that something new can emerge.

**[01:16:34]** And actually,

**[01:16:37]** there's maybe a bit of ego involved,

**[01:16:39]** territorial or personal,

**[01:16:41]** where you want to get ahead at someone else's expense.

**[01:16:43]** Do you feel that too in companies

**[01:16:46]** between teams?

**[01:16:50]** Or what is cooperation really like

**[01:16:52]** between different parts

**[01:16:54]** within one company?

**[01:16:57]** Yes, yes.

**[01:17:01]** You're right.

**[01:17:03]** This is deeply rooted in us.

**[01:17:05]** We are simply trained this way.

**[01:17:07]** In psychology, this is called

**[01:17:09]** transactional analysis.

**[01:17:14]** And it really applies.

**[01:17:16]** It's like when you scratch someone,

**[01:17:17]** you really want them to scratch you back.

**[01:17:18]** We measure in our heads

**[01:17:20]** how many times we've scratched someone and who scratched us.

**[01:17:21]** There is a whole science called ethology.

**[01:17:22]** It's the study of living beings' behavior.

**[01:17:25]** And you read that certain behaviors and patterns,

**[01:17:28]** what and how, are already the simplest

**[01:17:30]** in vertebrates like fish and so on.

**[01:17:41]** And with those primates, it's very developed.

**[01:17:43]** And in us, it's deeply rooted,

**[01:17:47]** that if I give something, I must get the same or more back.

**[01:17:50]** But that's not how it works in the rest of nature.

**[01:17:55]** Fortunately, there's this idealistic idea,

**[01:18:00]** that different systems give according to how much they can.

**[01:18:03]** And it's taken as, they give that much,

**[01:18:06]** because that's all they can.

**[01:18:08]** Fine.

**[01:18:09]** I don't mind if it's a thousand times less than what I gave.

**[01:18:13]** A beautiful example is the mycorrhizal symbiosis here.

**[01:18:16]** If you listened to Petr Kohout's lecture on the Podhoubě,

**[01:18:21]** it's really fascinating.

**[01:18:24]** And you yourself say they 'borrow' from each other,

**[01:18:26]** but the word 'borrow' automatically makes you think,

**[01:18:28]** that you have to return it somewhere.

**[01:18:31]** But this is an interest-free loan,

**[01:18:33]** where I give you something and you keep it,

**[01:18:36]** because it's good.

**[01:18:39]** And ultimately, the beneficiary is the community as a whole.

**[01:18:41]** And it's not some bacterial socialism.

**[01:18:45]** It's simply natural selection as well.

**[01:18:48]** Only the unit it acts on,

**[01:18:50]** is not a single cell, not the individual,

**[01:18:52]** but the entire community.

**[01:18:54]** So the community has to strive to function together.

**[01:18:56]** Maybe you're answering Denis's question,

**[01:18:59]** about what the key attribute is that convinces bacteria

**[01:19:01]** that cooperation is beneficial.

**[01:19:03]** When even bacteria decide that cooperation isn't worth it.

**[01:19:06]** Of course, there are such cases.

**[01:19:10]** Unfortunately, in evolution, many simplifications are necessary.

**[01:19:12]** It's not like bacteria, for one,

**[01:19:15]** think about it, because they can't.

**[01:19:17]** They just live.

**[01:19:19]** They take in food, release some waste substances,

**[01:19:21]** behave somehow next to others,

**[01:19:22]** and either die or decompose.

**[01:19:29]** And now.

**[01:19:30]** Of course, that's how it is,

**[01:19:32]** if we look at it from our perspective,

**[01:19:35]** sometimes they are nasty to each other, sometimes selfish,

**[01:19:37]** sometimes they oppose each other, sometimes they are competitive.

**[01:19:39]** But at the same time, we would very often see,

**[01:19:42]** that sometimes they give, exchange, or lend things to each other,

**[01:19:46]** but that's already in the human vocabulary.

**[01:19:48]** There you would find just about everything.

**[01:19:50]** And the important thing is that those

**[01:19:54]** mutualistic relationships,

**[01:19:56]** there are actually quite a few of them in the end.

**[01:20:00]** There are questions that actually caught my attention too,

**[01:20:04]** and I wanted to ask you about sustainable growth

**[01:20:07]** and actually the surplus we are living with here now.

**[01:20:11]** It's probably also something

**[01:20:14]** that doesn't occur much in nature,

**[01:20:16]** some surplus or accumulation.

**[01:20:20]** Could you explain what I might imagine under the term sustainable growth,

**[01:20:24]** trying to flood the market with surplus products,

**[01:20:26]** which become waste,

**[01:20:28]** we need to minimize them, and so on.

**[01:20:30]** Sure. Again, this is a complex topic.

**[01:20:34]** In ecology, there are many different sub-disciplines

**[01:20:39]** that could talk about this for days.

**[01:20:41]** In general, to sum it up, it's like this,

**[01:20:44]** you always have to define the system,

**[01:20:48]** because it's never the case that the whole universe could be sustainable by itself.

**[01:20:50]** Whenever I have some welfare and surplus here,

**[01:20:53]** I am drawing energy or sending waste

**[01:20:56]** probably somewhere else.

**[01:20:58]** That's the first thing a person has to realize.

**[01:21:00]** So, for example, we in Europe get rid of diesel engines

**[01:21:02]** and send them to Africa.

**[01:21:05]** That's one thing.

**[01:21:06]** Just think about

**[01:21:07]** where the system I want to describe has its boundaries,

**[01:21:09]** and whether something we are talking about

**[01:21:11]** is not being shifted beyond those boundaries and we are making,

**[01:21:16]** that it doesn't exist.

**[01:21:17]** That's point number one.

**[01:21:18]** Secondly, in nature it simply works like this,

**[01:21:20]** that food resources appear very often

**[01:21:27]** somewhat sporadically.

**[01:21:28]** And now just around that, I don't know,

**[01:21:30]** something dies somewhere, for example.

**[01:21:32]** That's a quick example in time.

**[01:21:33]** Something dies somewhere,

**[01:21:34]** so various scavengers rush in,

**[01:21:36]** bacteria, molds,

**[01:21:38]** and other things that decompose it.

**[01:21:40]** And at that moment, they have an abundance of food.

**[01:21:42]** They multiply and multiply and multiply

**[01:21:44]** until they gradually exhaust the resource.

**[01:21:46]** And when you scale this up,

**[01:21:49]** on an ecological scale,

**[01:21:51]** this happens continuously.

**[01:21:52]** The whole ecosystem,

**[01:21:53]** if we talk about our landscape, for example,

**[01:21:55]** works with certain resources

**[01:21:56]** that are gradually depleted.

**[01:21:58]** And if the ecosystem wants to survive,

**[01:22:01]** it has to find technological breakthroughs over time

**[01:22:05]** that allow it to use resources better

**[01:22:07]** or tap into other resources

**[01:22:09]** and move to another place.

**[01:22:11]** Otherwise, it simply can't be sustainable.

**[01:22:15]** We'll take this now,

**[01:22:17]** whether we go to Mars,

**[01:22:19]** or how it actually turns out.

**[01:22:22]** How do bacteria fear germs?

**[01:22:26]** Easily.

**[01:22:27]** They don't fear them at all.

**[01:22:32]** And now possibly,

**[01:22:33]** how do bacteria deal with

**[01:22:34]** those that are lazier.

**[01:22:35]** They pass it on, they pass it on.

**[01:22:36]** It's actually like if it.

**[01:22:38]** I feel like Pavel is hitting the mark

**[01:22:40]** It's human comparison,

**[01:22:42]** when I think about it

**[01:22:44]** in the functioning of a company.

**[01:22:46]** Some are lazier,

**[01:22:47]** some do more,

**[01:22:48]** some do less.

**[01:22:49]** It's not really like that.

**[01:22:52]** No, every cell lives differently.

**[01:22:55]** It is its own distinct organism

**[01:22:58]** in bacteria.

**[01:23:00]** It could be,

**[01:23:01]** that we say about some cell,

**[01:23:03]** that it's a bit of a slacker.

**[01:23:04]** That's how it is.

**[01:23:05]** But maybe here is a cell,

**[01:23:07]** we look at it,

**[01:23:08]** and one will be like,

**[01:23:09]** it won't move much,

**[01:23:10]** and the other will be

**[01:23:12]** kind of inspired.

**[01:23:15]** You can't compare

**[01:23:16]** what is better.

**[01:23:17]** It's always measured retrospectively

**[01:23:19]** through the lens of

**[01:23:20]** who was more successful,

**[01:23:22]** who managed

**[01:23:23]** to establish a new colony,

**[01:23:24]** to reproduce more.

**[01:23:25]** Because under certain circumstances,

**[01:23:27]** the slacker might be better.

**[01:23:29]** When all the activists go off to war

**[01:23:31]** and stomp their feet,

**[01:23:33]** the one sitting in the office chair,

**[01:23:35]** actually survives.

**[01:23:36]** This is very context-dependent,

**[01:23:38]** and generally context is something

**[01:23:39]** that is very hard to work with

**[01:23:41]** both in nature videos

**[01:23:43]** and in companies.

**[01:23:44]** It's hard to put

**[01:23:45]** It's hard to explain that to people,

**[01:23:47]** but context is something

**[01:23:48]** extremely important,

**[01:23:49]** because even the same things

**[01:23:50]** in different contexts

**[01:23:51]** have different consequences.

**[01:23:57]** What potential do you think microbiome research

**[01:23:58]** brings to people, for example its transplantation?

**[01:24:00]** Huge, huge.

**[01:24:03]** There's a whole chapter about it in the book,

**[01:24:06]** where...

**[01:24:08]** Not a joke,

**[01:24:09]** because we...

**[01:24:10]** The point is,

**[01:24:11]** that many things,

**[01:24:12]** like for example,

**[01:24:15]** here's a good example,

**[01:24:16]** like oriental medicine,

**[01:24:18]** where a person drinks some teas

**[01:24:19]** and feels better and so on.

**[01:24:20]** For Western science,

**[01:24:21]** for that scientological method,

**[01:24:23]** where you need causality,

**[01:24:24]** these were complete fairy tales,

**[01:24:27]** because we had nothing to hold on to.

**[01:24:29]** And suddenly it turns out,

**[01:24:31]** that where the rational story was missing,

**[01:24:33]** if you have a community in yourself

**[01:24:35]** and you drink some herbal decoction,

**[01:24:38]** and the chemicals from that decoction

**[01:24:40]** somehow change the frequency

**[01:24:42]** of the individual species,

**[01:24:44]** adjust something there,

**[01:24:46]** then your body starts to behave differently.

**[01:24:47]** And these are exactly the places

**[01:24:49]** where we, through the microbiome,

**[01:24:50]** are able to target phenomena

**[01:24:52]** that previously seemed like between heaven and earth.

**[01:24:57]** And now we know they don't exist,

**[01:24:59]** that it's just this part here.

**[01:25:01]** Specifically about transplants,

**[01:25:03]** people who have problems here,

**[01:25:05]** and suddenly there's a way to help them,

**[01:25:07]** that's amazing.

**[01:25:11]** By the way, fecal transplants,

**[01:25:13]** what transplants actually are,

**[01:25:15]** they don't transplant the actual excrement.

**[01:25:18]** It's a capsule you swallow.

**[01:25:20]** It's not from ass to ass.

**[01:25:22]** People always ask me that.

**[01:25:26]** I think I've had 70 questions about it,

**[01:25:28]** so we don't have to.

**[01:25:31]** Look, I'll ask you,

**[01:25:33]** if I imagine,

**[01:25:35]** and I don't want to twist it,

**[01:25:37]** but this is your course,

**[01:25:39]** about how people succeeded with change,

**[01:25:41]** how it went,

**[01:25:43]** now you've given us an hour and a half,

**[01:25:45]** about what,

**[01:25:47]** if I wanted,

**[01:25:49]** people to take away that,

**[01:25:51]** change is simply necessary,

**[01:25:53]** that community is more than individuals,

**[01:25:55]** that collaboration is work,

**[01:25:57]** that there are big challenges,

**[01:25:59]** which I will lend you

**[01:26:01]** and you will return to me, like we won't do it,

**[01:26:03]** how would you help?

**[01:26:07]** Wait, use a condom.

**[01:26:09]** Something you have, right?

**[01:26:13]** Please, can you repeat it to me

**[01:26:15]** in a shorter version,

**[01:26:17]** what was the assignment?

**[01:26:19]** Basically as quickly as possible

**[01:26:21]** and most effectively,

**[01:26:23]** because they've had, like,

**[01:26:25]** so many attempts,

**[01:26:27]** because you have training on sitting and so on,

**[01:26:29]** actually

**[01:26:31]** to convince people that

**[01:26:33]** the change is really real,

**[01:26:35]** so that they leave with the feeling,

**[01:26:37]** ah, yes, now I understand something about it

**[01:26:39]** and I also understand what my role might be.

**[01:26:43]** The introduction to this answer is,

**[01:26:45]** I found out,

**[01:26:47]** I found out that different people

**[01:26:49]** at different stages of their life cycle need to extract something different from this,

**[01:26:51]** so for example, when

**[01:26:53]** I talk to people, I always focus on what they

**[01:26:55]** specifically need at this moment.

**[01:26:57]** If you only touch on the

**[01:26:59]** topic of change, let's all understand

**[01:27:01]** that change is necessary, inevitable,

**[01:27:03]** and that it can be managed,

**[01:27:05]** there's basically nothing else to say about it,

**[01:27:07]** it's simply a fact,

**[01:27:09]** a physical fact, you know, everything changes everywhere,

**[01:27:11]** and that just kills me,

**[01:27:13]** but it's also a biological

**[01:27:15]** fact. In our body, every second,

**[01:27:17]** billions and billions of

**[01:27:19]** biochemical reactions happen.

**[01:27:21]** Everything changes, nothing stays

**[01:27:23]** the same.

**[01:27:25]** You hear people everywhere

**[01:27:27]** say that change is

**[01:27:29]** the only constant in our life. It sounds like a cliché,

**[01:27:31]** but it's true. And like any

**[01:27:33]** natural scientist can confirm.

**[01:27:35]** So the first thing is,

**[01:27:37]** people have to understand that this is just how it is.

**[01:27:39]** And they can resist it,

**[01:27:41]** not wanting to admit it.

**[01:27:43]** You let them breathe for a year or two,

**[01:27:45]** then they realize they have to come to terms with it.

**[01:27:47]** The first thing, understand,

**[01:27:49]** that change is life.

**[01:27:51]** By the way, there is no definition of life, you know.

**[01:27:53]** Biologists are the only discipline that doesn't have

**[01:27:55]** a defined field of study.

**[01:27:57]** There are hundreds of different definitions

**[01:27:59]** and actually none is

**[01:28:01]** exclusive, there's no formula for it.

**[01:28:03]** If there was, then life would be

**[01:28:05]** change too.

**[01:28:07]** So thank you.

**[01:28:09]** Thank you too.

**[01:28:11]** Thanks a lot for making time.

**[01:28:13]** I'll try again,

**[01:28:15]** there were already questions.

**[01:28:17]** So, if you

**[01:28:19]** liked today's change,

**[01:28:21]** please give us feedback.

**[01:28:23]** We really appreciate it.

**[01:28:25]** That means there will be some

**[01:28:27]** stars on the slide.

**[01:28:29]** About five stars would be ideal,

**[01:28:31]** one star means

**[01:28:33]** we've kind of aged, so thank you

**[01:28:35]** for letting us know.

**[01:28:37]** We,

**[01:28:39]** maybe someone is already

**[01:28:41]** voting there,

**[01:28:43]** but we'll skip that.

**[01:28:45]** What we really enjoy

**[01:28:47]** is that you take this change

**[01:28:49]** as some kind of opener,

**[01:28:51]** a way to open the topic,

**[01:28:53]** and it's definitely great to talk about these things,

**[01:28:55]** reflect on them,

**[01:28:57]** write them down, so we have prepared for you on the website

**[01:28:59]** whether it's

**[01:29:01]** a reflection questionnaire where you answer

**[01:29:03]** some basic questions, like some kind of

**[01:29:05]** aha moment, what you enjoyed, what surprised you,

**[01:29:07]** and it's really great when

**[01:29:09]** You will discuss this change with someone,

**[01:29:11]** who might be from your team or family.

**[01:29:13]** We started these

**[01:29:15]** circles

**[01:29:17]** at the beginning of last year, they're called

**[01:29:19]** Brain and Breakfast Digestive, and actually,

**[01:29:21]** regarding the ways of working

**[01:29:23]** and how to really implement things,

**[01:29:25]** I will be talking about that

**[01:29:27]** with people I invited

**[01:29:29]** from the Red Button network,

**[01:29:31]** which will include Peťa Pouchlí Jezevec,

**[01:29:33]** Peťa Skondrany, Lenka Pinkot,

**[01:29:35]** Radek Ajdušek, Hanka Jadavan and many others.

**[01:29:37]** So if you want to be part of it,

**[01:29:39]** on January 31st,

**[01:29:41]** from 5 PM,

**[01:29:43]** on the Red Button EDU platform, remotely,

**[01:29:45]** don't worry,

**[01:29:47]** it won't be in person, everything is remote,

**[01:29:49]** so you can join us and

**[01:29:51]** we can discuss it together, I'm looking forward to it.

**[01:29:53]** Another project Red Button is doing is the Book of the Month.

**[01:29:55]** In January, Hanka Jadaván chose the book,

**[01:30:00]** Essentialism; in February, Pavel Pumperl chose the book Can't Hurt Me,

**[01:30:03]** so definitely check it out, both books are really great.

**[01:30:06]** For me, this is kind of a farewell,

**[01:30:10]** because I'm passing on the Book of the Month,

**[01:30:13]** as Hanka Jadaván is taking it over,

**[01:30:16]** and she has big plans for it,

**[01:30:18]** it's exactly the kind of thing where we pass the torch,

**[01:30:21]** to make the community happier.

**[01:30:23]** So I wish Hanka all the best and lots of wind in her sails,

**[01:30:25]** so definitely follow the Book of the Month.

**[01:30:30]** And speaking of books,

**[01:30:33]** we still have a special price on the book Inspiration by Batya,

**[01:30:36]** because Batya Viny is something we really like,

**[01:30:50]** Gabriela Končetíková was a guest at Red Button,

**[01:30:54]** Brain&Breakfast, and coincidentally,

**[01:30:56]** I think on January 27th on the Red Button EDU platform,

**[01:31:02]** a new show will start, and it will be Batě Viny with Gabriela Končetíková,

**[01:31:08]** so definitely join in.

**[01:31:10]** The next breakfast will be about our ceiling,

**[01:31:16]** and we are really looking forward to welcoming Pavel Pumperleu,

**[01:31:21]** so on February 17th from 8:30, as usual, whether in Magenta,

**[01:31:26]** or in the virtual world, or on the Red Button EDU platform,

**[01:31:31]** I will be looking forward to it.

**[01:31:33]** Thanks a lot, take care, goodbye and hi, and Pepa, thanks again.

**[01:31:37]** Thanks too, goodbye, hi.