I am writing a new book entitled Love, Leverage, and Logistics: How You and Your Company Can Change the World. Of course, that means that I’m paying close attention to the role that love—which I define simply as taking care of someone or something else—plays in business.
Recently, I was talking with a friend about love, and I mentioned to him that the practice of saying “Love you” at the end of a phone call started after 9/11.
I have spent a lot of time flying around this country and to other countries during my career, before and after 9/11. At the beginning of each flight and just after the flight lands, people always get on their phones and call their loved ones to either say goodbye before taking off or to announce their arrival.
After 9/11, I noticed that every single caller said “love you” before hanging up.
Sure, some people were already saying this here and there. But this practice became universal—and still is—after all of us read the stories of the people on those fated flights, especially the flight headed for the Pentagon.
We learned of the messages that those heroes, who were about to break into the plane’s cockpit, left for their loved ones.
We all realized how important it was for those we loved to hear “love you” as we were hanging up because one never knows which phone call will be the last for either person.
We live in a time that might later be called the era of AI Agents. And while I am swimming in that pool as enthusiastically as I have in every other tech era, I am sure that loving human connections still matter.
In fact, I think they matter more than ever because we are the programmers now.
We are all teaching AI how to behave as we ask AI agents to work on our behalf. We are creating the community that we will be living in. And if we don’t bring love into it, it will be a dark and dangerous place.
A world filled with love is full of promises that are kept and lives worth living.
To anyone nodding now, I have two words for you:
Love you.
