Podcast Ep. 13 Stanford MBA ’95 Carol Hamilton meets MBA ’25 Lauren Maymar

Today, I’m joined by Carol Hamilton from the Stanford MBA Class of 1995 and Lauren Maymar from the Class of 2025.

Carol is a tech industry veteran and education advocate. After shaping the early days of e-commerce as VP of Online Sales at Oracle, she pivoted to community leadership—raising three children, supporting education through strategic fundraising, and now serving on the Student Affairs National Council at Washington University in St. Louis. With deep experience in high-growth environments and a passion for mental wellness and inclusion, Carol reflects on how leadership styles evolve with time and context.

Lauren is a second-year MBA student at Stanford GSB and former product leader at Oura Ring, where she helped scale the health tech company through COVID and beyond. With hands-on experience in wearable tech, AI, and consumer healthcare, she’s now exploring how innovation can transform the U.S. healthcare system. Her vision? Using tech to empower healthier lives—especially through solutions that are more accessible, more personal, and more humane.

Together, Carol and Lauren explore how leadership, health, and technology have shifted over 30 years—from the launch of online sales in 1995 to today’s AI-powered wellness platforms. It’s a conversation about resilience, reinvention, and the unexpected chapters that shape our work and lives.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Revisiting the Past: Career Journeys
04:00 E-Commerce Evolution: A New Frontier
07:01 Health Tech Innovations: The Oura Ring Experience
10:01 Leadership Lessons: From Corporate to Community
13:04 Education and Diversity: A New Generation's Perspective
16:06 Reflections on Adversity: The Stanford Experience
19:37 The Importance of Communication in Leadership
20:57 Memorable Moments in Business School
24:55 Navigating Sociopolitical Changes
25:24 The Rise of AI in Education
31:12 Ethics and AI in the Workforce
33:23 Future Aspirations in Healthcare
38:07 The State of Healthcare and AI
41:11 Innovative Approaches to Healthcare Challenges
44:14 Consumerization and Longevity in Health
47:07 Cultural Shifts in Health Awareness
50:07 Personal Passions and Life Lessons
53:09 Embracing Change and Flexibility
56:08 Final Thoughts and Future Aspirations
01:03:56 New Chapter

Join the Podcast Series
Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Each of these episodes will feature a different pair of Stanford MBA people -- one from the class of 1995, and one from the class of 2025.

Remember to rate, review, and subscribe to stay connected with future episodes!

📺 Also available on YouTube:
Entire series playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSaVisoF0D_GKxVmHmakNxdpAJCb5_VTP

More info: https://www.katharinemclennan.com/

Contact: kath@katharinemclennan.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharinemclennan/

Chapters

• 0:00 Revisiting the Past: Career Journeys
• 4:00 E-Commerce Evolution: A New Frontier
• 7:01 Health Tech Innovations: The Oura Ring Experience
• 10:01 Leadership Lessons: From Corporate to Community
• 13:04 Education and Diversity: A New Generation's Perspective
• 16:06 Reflections on Adversity: The Stanford Experience
• 19:37 The Importance of Communication in Leadership
• 20:57 Memorable Moments in Business School
• 24:55 Navigating Sociopolitical Changes
• 25:24 Navigating Sociopolitical Changes
• 31:12 Ethics and AI in the Workforce
• 33:23 23 Future Aspirations in Healthcare
• 38:07 The State of Healthcare and AI
• 41:11 Innovative Approaches to Healthcare Challenges
• 44:14 Consumerization and Longevity in Health
• 47:07 Cultural Shifts in Health Awareness
• 50:07 Personal Passions and Life Lessons
• 53:09 Embracing Change and Flexibility
• 56:08 Final Thoughts and Future Aspirations

Transcript

Note: this transcript is generated by AI, so it won’t always be perfect, especially when it comes to: 

·        Incorrect breaks in a sentence (AI hears the pause and assumes a new sentence)

·        Exact word recognition – you may see that there are words that don’t make sense from time to time

Katharine McLennan (01:04)

Today I'm joined by Carol Hamilton from the Stanford MBA class of 1995 and Lauren Maymar from the class of 2025.

Carol is a tech industry veteran and education advocate. After shaping the early days of e-commerce as the vice president of online sales at Oracle, she pivoted to community leadership, raising three children, supporting education through strategic fundraising, and now serving on the Student Affairs National Council at Washington University in St. Louis.

With deep experience and high growth environments and a passion for mental wellness and inclusion, Carol reflects on how leadership styles evolve with time and context. Lauren is a second year MBA student at Stanford GSB and former product leader at Aura Ring, where she helped scale the health tech company through COVID and beyond. With hands on experience in wearable technology, AI and consumer healthcare,

She's now exploring how innovation can transform the US healthcare system. Her vision, using tech to empower healthier lives, especially through solutions that are more accessible, more personal and more humane. Together, Carol and Lauren explain how leadership, health and technology have shifted over 30 years, from the launch of online sales in 1995 to today's AI powered wellness platforms. It's a conversation about resilience,

reinvention

and the unexpected chapters that shape our work and lives.

Carol Hamilton (02:43)

hi, Kath. It's so good to see your faces. We were just sharing what we've done in their past and kind of how we got through business school, et cetera. I, as you may know, worked at Oracle for a while before business school and after. It turned out that was the best opportunity I found, even though I did some interviewing. It was very exciting. Yeah, it was a rocket ride. Honestly, I started in 88. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (02:44)

You

What a great company. What a great company to be with, especially at that time, Carol.

Carol Hamilton (03:13)

In a very unique way, I learned some management styles that I had to learn to unlearn later. It's very good for me. I initially went to work for KPMG undergrad and then worked for Oracle for a while. I wanted to change my career. decided to go to business school. And it did shift and change from a finance focus to more of a sales and marketing.

Katharine McLennan (03:24)

We'll come back to that.

Lauren Maymar (03:25)

You

Carol Hamilton (03:41)

focus so business school is really productive for me in that sense.

Katharine McLennan (03:44)

So how so Carol, why was the shift from finance to sales and marketing like psychologically? Yeah, yeah.

Carol Hamilton (03:49)

Why did I want to do that?

Well, just prior, first I had taken a sabbatical from Oracle initially to go to cooking school, which I had just told Lauren. And that was really mind blowing. And I did end up going back to Oracle. And I presented the opportunity to run sales compensation. This was before business school. So I paid the sales force. And the sales force at Oracle was notorious for extraordinary compensation.

Katharine McLennan (03:58)

away. Fantastic!

There we go.

you

Carol Hamilton (04:18)

I had a deal with them and I interact with them. thought I could hang with them. I can do this. So I should really be stepping it up and getting in sales or something closer to these digits. So yeah, my boyfriend at the time said, well, go to business school. That was John who I married. So I applied, went.

Lauren Maymar (04:17)

You

Katharine McLennan (04:31)

Yeah, I love it, the digits.

Lauren Maymar (04:32)

Hahaha

Carol Hamilton (04:41)

and was able to go back to Oracle into what then was deemed the e-commerce initiative.

Katharine McLennan (04:48)

And even in 1995,

Carol, it was called the e-commerce or did that come a bit later? Yeah, right. Okay.

Carol Hamilton (04:52)

It was. It was. But

very early days, we didn't know what that meant for Oracle. So we studied it for a while. And then I was able to put together a business plan and help launch online sales. it became a sales channel selling our product through the Oracle store. We developed it all custom code. And I was VP of online sales for a while. And that was very exciting.

Katharine McLennan (05:05)

well.

Lauren Maymar (05:15)

it feels like very much like the start of e-commerce. I work for a company, for like a direct to consumer company and like we also on an e-commerce team, but like now it's so ubiquitous, but like back in 95, definitely not as much, right? It was just kind of like the dawn of it, trying to figure out where, how is that going to take shape and what's it going to look like?

Carol Hamilton (05:36)

And

how was it relevant to an enterprise software company? At the time, many people thought, what are you talking about? Doing this online? But there were a lot of productivity enhancements. You've got support renewals and other processes that you could automate through an online interface with your customer base. There was a lot of potential.

Katharine McLennan (05:42)

What are you guys doing?

You loved it. so

what's interesting, Carol, you are so representative of the world we went into in 1995, like right there. Oracle is right based there, right? Is it in San Mateo? No. Do I remember that right? So there it was. And 1995 was when Netscape went public. So we're at the entry. And Lauren, you guys are at.

Carol Hamilton (06:09)

Yeah, redwood shores, redwood shores.

Katharine McLennan (06:23)

I don't know, a very weird world, especially in the last 24 hours. Yeah, so what I find interesting, Carol, and I'm going to just I'm going to come back to you. But Lauren, tell us a little bit about where you are today even and where you are in the business school journey so we can get a little context.

Lauren Maymar (06:26)

Totally.

Absolutely. So I was telling Carol a bit about my background. So before school, I worked at a company called Oura Ring for about four years, joined when they were post Series A. There were about 70 people, only 10 in San Francisco. The rest of the employees, it was founded in Finland. So the rest of the employees were in Finland. And then worked there for four years. COVID was a very interesting, it's, yeah, yeah. So it is,

Katharine McLennan (07:03)

But wait, what does it do? What does it do?

Lauren Maymar (07:09)

basically a health tracking ring. It tracks sleep, your activity, a lot of your metrics. And during COVID, it was quite helpful too, because it was, I think, the only wearable that had a temperature sensor. So as everyone was spiking fevers with COVID, getting sick, like it was, it was actually very helpful to be able to catch early COVID before people were symptomatic, which is huge, right?

Katharine McLennan (07:33)

Interesting.

Wow.

Lauren Maymar (07:35)

stopping the

spread and all of that. So it was used in, I don't know if you guys remember, but in 2020, the NBA had a bubble in, I think it was Florida, I wanna say, to have the regular NBA season. It was a little bit abbreviated, but all the players were living in the bubble. And basically we were able to get in the bubble and the players were wearing it to help with.

Katharine McLennan (07:55)

Okay, no, I didn't know that.

Lauren Maymar (08:03)

if there was a COVID outbreak or people got sick to really like curb the curb this, able to like have the people that are feeling ill or like might be, might get sick in the next couple of days, have them like quarantine early so it doesn't spread everywhere, which was super cool. So it felt like a very, I think working at a company that was really able to make a pretty big difference during COVID, that was incredible.

Katharine McLennan (08:18)

Yeah. Wow.

Lauren Maymar (08:29)

And then it really just took off after. You see a lot of people, especially in the Bay Area, every single person has an O-ring, it feels like at this point. So when I left, there were about 520 people. So got to see it grow a ton and absolutely loved my experience. I was able to work on a lot of different teams. I was most recently on our product team, building products for the consumer app. So the app that everyone, all the normal people see.

and then came to business school with the goal of pursuing entrepreneurship. TBD, exactly what I do. Would love to have my own company post-grad, but trying to figure out exactly what that would look like. And I think probably we'll do something in more traditional healthcare. I really like the consumer space, but I think as we all know, the healthcare system, especially in the US is very broken, so many ways to make it better.

Katharine McLennan (09:02)

You already did it! What do you mean? You already did it!

Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (09:25)

And I think just seeing a lot of opportunity in that space in particular. So TBD on what exactly I do after graduation, but entering the final quarter just feeling really grateful for the past two years and really excited for the future.

Katharine McLennan (09:38)

Don't you think you

should have been teaching the entrepreneurship course?

Lauren Maymar (09:42)

I don't know about that. I don't know about that. was not

one of the, definitely not one of the founders of Aura, that is for sure. But it was, I think it was really cool to be able to join a company that early and really see the challenges that we faced and going not necessarily from the zero to one, but more from like the one to 10, one to a hundred. I it was really cool. I felt really grateful to understand a little bit more of just that growth stage.

Katharine McLennan (10:09)

dynamics.

Lauren Maymar (10:10)

Yeah, and how things change.

Katharine McLennan (10:13)

OK, so given that, Carol, let's go back to your leadership reflections. you go back to Oracle in 1995 or give or take, and you're on this new business venture. So does the leadership style change from what you were saying, don't like this? But what happens when you go into a new field?

Carol Hamilton (10:37)

Uh, there was a, well, Oracle was a particular corporate culture, a very hard driving, competitive. Um, I should, I don't know if I should say it, but macho for sure. Um, and you had to adapt to that if you wanted to be a leader there, um, and defend your turf, so to speak, protect your employees, Allah, ensure that your budget

Katharine McLennan (10:43)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Carol Hamilton (11:05)

you know, in that manner. And there were always coup attempts, you know, there were always people that liked what you were doing, want to take it over. And so you were always, so it was a very, I had a nickname at Oracle, which is not particularly flattering. I was, I was a pit bull, right? Because I could get my teeth in it and defend it, you know, and now, you know, so it worked for me. I was successful with this. It was not necessarily a style that was,

Katharine McLennan (11:25)

Yeah.

Carol Hamilton (11:32)

useful carrying over into say my personal life or my further leadership roles and educational institutions in other places. So I had to relearn a few things, but it was very effective there. You know, I cut my teeth there. That's how I, you know, that's how I learned.

Katharine McLennan (11:45)

So tell me, what would be, yeah, so if

you go Carol, Mach 1 in Oracle, and then you go Carol, Mach 2, where does Mach 2 show up, and what does it start looking like?

Carol Hamilton (11:54)

Hahaha!

navigating local schools and taking on leadership roles there. Because your constituents or those you're trying to influence or lead, let's say, lead by example, are much more diverse and much more like regular community where you want to live and

Katharine McLennan (12:07)

So why schools though? Where do schools come in?

Carol Hamilton (12:25)

grow and learn and lead and help. And Oracle was very homogeneous.

Katharine McLennan (12:28)

What got you from Oracle? What got you from it?

So tell us what the jump was. So you went from Oracle to.

Carol Hamilton (12:34)

So

Oracle, right about the third child, was telling Lauren that my eyes rolled back in my head. And I kind of like I had, couldn't keep up the pace. I had actually hired a GSB classmate of ours to take over my group. Paul Work did that. And yeah, it was very great. It was super. And so I retired from Oracle and I had three little babies in diapers and I was

Katharine McLennan (12:53)

yes, fantastic.

Carol Hamilton (13:02)

Investing in a few small startups and I I did Did do a little bit of sales work on a part-time basis for those companies. It was very stimulating a few nonprofit boards, but mostly mostly my energies were focused on The local schools and volunteering there, you know when your children are engaged there. That's what you do I just found I had to to really relearn and understand

gentler way and more proper way for you know I just I just had to take it down a notch and really listen and hear where other people are coming from and rather than charging forward with my initiatives which really was rewarded at Oracle so you know I learned

Katharine McLennan (13:26)

Yeah.

Yeah, I get, yeah, totally.

Yeah, oh Carol. So you actually,

you actually got into the like just schools or like was it strategy? it what were you up to? Because I was reading too much. That's as much as I was doing. It looks like, yeah.

Carol Hamilton (13:59)

Yeah, literacy,

Lauren Maymar (14:00)

you

Carol Hamilton (14:02)

but mostly it was mostly fundraising and strategy, school foundation boards. then when my children went off to college, they all went to Wash U. And so now I'm super, super engaged as my husband as well with Wash U as an institution coming from the parent side where we led the

Katharine McLennan (14:05)

Fund raising, gotcha. Yeah.

okay, okay.

Carol Hamilton (14:27)

parents council and then I got engaged with with you know parent engagement in the San Francisco Bay Area for WashU and now I serve on the Student Affairs National Council and that's so stimulating because higher education of course is in the crosshairs right now and there's so much change that they're needing to. I'm so impressed with the leadership of WashU and how they handle all the change you know through the pandemic through you know funding funding problems that they're having now.

Katharine McLennan (14:36)

you

Carol Hamilton (14:55)

you know, with our government, just health and wellness crisis.

Katharine McLennan (14:58)

Yeah, it'll be it'll be at the forefront, Caroline. Like, isn't it fascinating?

Carol Hamilton (15:00)

Yeah, so all of that is everything

else. So we talked about diversity. Equity. So it's.

Katharine McLennan (15:06)

Yeah.

So you're

gonna keep those words.

Carol Hamilton (15:12)

Heck yeah.

Katharine McLennan (15:13)

Good, thanks.

I just, it's the crazies of the crazies.

Carol Hamilton (15:16)

I

Well,

you know, it's long.

some creative directives, And admissions, they know how to do that. They know how to attract a diverse student body without discrimination. I mean, they know how.

Katharine McLennan (15:27)

Yeah, they do. They do.

Well, speaking of which, Lauren, what I've experienced in working with your classes, let's talk about education because there's a lot of similarities from 30 years ago to a lot of differences. But one of the things is I'm struck by, first of all, I don't know if I would have gotten in because I'm not diverse enough, Lauren, your experiences.

the experiences you've had at starting a company and growing it the way you did. mean, all of your colleagues are extraordinary. You have to have a serious story. know, forget about what are they called again? The GR whatever to get into business school and forget about. Yeah, all the tests and the grades. mean, you guys have serious funky stories, right? What what have you found in hanging out with these 300 plus people? What are they like?

Carol Hamilton (16:10)

or test.

Lauren Maymar (16:24)

Yeah, think one of the commonalities between a lot of my classmates is the adversity that everyone has faced to get to where they are. think that it's really props to admissions. I think it's really interesting to, once you start to get to know people a little bit more, peel back the couple layers, you're really able to understand the trials and tribulations that they face to get to where they are.

Katharine McLennan (16:35)

And yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (16:49)

I think all the stories that people have and hearing those is just incredible. And I feel very lucky to be able to learn from these people, not even in the classroom, but also outside of it and really just understand additional perspectives. And I think also not even just from like a professional standpoint, like I think there is a lot of professional diversity within our class. Like you have people that...

like me who worked at startups, other people who have founded companies who did a search fund, who worked at private equity and consulting and finance kind of like their more traditional paths. But like you do have a lot of one of my best friends at school. She was a teacher before she ran a school like just like incredible diverse experiences. And I think I think what really brings us all together is is just the like the adversity that everyone has faced the things that we have that we have gone through and also

Katharine McLennan (17:26)

Yay!

Lauren Maymar (17:41)

that we've overcome in order to get to where we are. Sometimes I talk to people and I'm like, my life has been very good. I don't know why I'm here. Like a little bit of that imposter syndrome. And I feel, I just didn't feel incredibly privileged to be at this, to be at the school. I think, I think that it is absolutely, yeah. I think Stanford as an institution is incredible. and I were talking, we both went here for undergrad as well. obviously we need, yes.

Carol Hamilton (17:50)

You

Katharine McLennan (18:03)

You did! my god, you guys!

Lauren Maymar (18:05)

Obviously when you come back for round two, it has to be for a good reason, you know? I feel like it's, think Stanford is a great institution and they think they really do a good job of selecting people, especially for this class, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (18:17)

Okay,

you got an amazing job at selecting people like, you know, and I don't know what happens Carol, over 30 years, you kind of, I've lost my, my memory of how was it like aggressive? No, assertive, I'll say, and how I was climbing ladders and I was going to get to the next rung and I almost forget that part of me. And I wonder, Carol, what, I as we imagine, I don't know if I could

Go and be the person that you are being learned. Where are we, Carol? what's, yeah. No, no. So what happens?

Carol Hamilton (18:53)

I couldn't do that again. No, I couldn't do that again. But I think

so much more, so many more talents I think are rewarded in the workplace today than may have been, you know, at the time we were in business school. You know also, Lauren, that we were only 30 % or so women. And so, kind of,

Lauren Maymar (18:59)

you

Yeah, absolutely.

Katharine McLennan (19:15)

for very long time, many years.

Lauren Maymar (19:17)

A very different dynamic for sure.

Katharine McLennan (19:19)

Yeah.

Carol Hamilton (19:20)

We're starting to imagine the and opting.

Katharine McLennan (19:20)

Yeah. Yeah.

Carol Hamilton (19:23)

know, I said maybe didn't work for us. think a lot.

feel the power a long way.

even at a relatively young too. In terms of communication and in terms of supporting your employees and engaging in what's happening in their worlds, that certainly is really important in the future and I think even more so now.

Lauren Maymar (19:48)

Absolutely.

Katharine McLennan (19:49)

Yeah, it's so OK. So imagine like we I don't know about you, Carol, but I've gone through lots of waves of personality working, not working, know, motherhood crazy. My daughter is getting married this year, Lauren. She's probably about your age. Yay. It's like a whole different generation. But if you if I said to you, OK, right now.

Lauren Maymar (20:06)

Congratulations, that's very exciting.

Carol Hamilton (20:11)

Great.

Katharine McLennan (20:15)

Tell me the most favorite thing in business school that's happened in the last two years. What would be something, an event, an interaction, a memory? What would it be? Because you've got the fresher memories than us. We do.

Lauren Maymar (20:23)

you

Well, I would be really curious to hear your guys' answers as well. I don't know, I feel like there's been so many just incredible moments. It's challenging to pick just one. I think one of the really special moments that we have at school is, I don't know if this was a tradition when you guys were on campus, but there is something called the GSB show that occurs.

Katharine McLennan (20:35)

Pick one, pick one, pick one.

Lauren Maymar (20:52)

It did.

Katharine McLennan (20:53)

Carol,

Carol Hamilton (20:53)

Isn't it

Katharine McLennan (20:54)

that's

Carol Hamilton (20:54)

coincidental that she picks that one?

Katharine McLennan (20:54)

so funny! We were gonna say that. keep going, keep going Lauren, keep going.

Carol Hamilton (20:58)

Wait till you hear what we have to share.

Lauren Maymar (20:59)

Okay, I'm excited.

So I think that the show is just, it's a very fun evening, right? Like everyone gets dressed up in black tie. We go to the Fox in Redwood City. And it's just like a very fun night with like the entire community kind of coming together. It's very funny. And it's a great way to just kind of like poke fun at this crazy environment that we are in and the crazy experiences that we have.

Katharine McLennan (21:07)

Yeah.

dearie me.

Lauren Maymar (21:27)

And I just, I loved it. I think that that was just an incredible, like a really funny kind of culmination, but that's one moment. But I think honestly, just like the friendships and all of that.

Katharine McLennan (21:35)

But Lauren, what did you do?

What did you do in the show? Or were you, you, Lauren!

Lauren Maymar (21:39)

I didn't do anything. I was just, I was sitting in the audience. Are

you kidding? No way. No, no musical theater talent for me. I was sitting my ass in the back having a drink. Like absolutely not. Okay. So I take it, I take it that you guys were both a part of it.

Katharine McLennan (21:47)

Thanks.

Bye, Carol.

Carol Hamilton (21:53)

I love it.

Katharine McLennan (21:56)

Yes, and

Carol Hamilton (21:56)

in the

Katharine McLennan (21:57)

we were not talented, Carol, so...

Carol Hamilton (21:57)

show. We are not. So this is very funny. is fascinating about the show is people's hidden talents that you just didn't know exist come out. I remember, you know, I remember CJ and her acting with a cigarette and I remember a band like John Arms was in a band and they were so good and the acting and the humor we had.

Lauren Maymar (21:59)

haha

Katharine McLennan (22:02)

You

or not.

Lauren Maymar (22:07)

100%.

Katharine McLennan (22:16)

Yes, yes, yes, they were.

Carol Hamilton (22:22)

Al Samuels, was just an incredible writer, incredible comedian. It just was so fun. So I was thinking, well, what can I do? Well, in my youth, I used to be a tap dance teacher. When I was an undergrad at Stanford, yeah, I taught tap dance at Roebley Gym. And so I marshaled this crew of ladies, including our cat here, to do a little tap dance number.

Katharine McLennan (22:32)

funny.

Lauren Maymar (22:35)

No way.

Amazing.

Katharine McLennan (22:46)

I can't believe it. Anyway.

Carol Hamilton (22:49)

And we pulled it together and did it to the song, we're in the money, we're in the money. And OK, I even have evidence.

Katharine McLennan (22:49)

It's so funny.

my gosh, that is hilarious.

Lauren Maymar (23:03)

my God. No way.

Katharine McLennan (23:05)

lordy! Yes!

Carol Hamilton (23:05)

Can you see Kat?

Katharine McLennan (23:07)

Wait, bring it o-

Lauren Maymar (23:09)

That is amazing.

Carol Hamilton (23:09)

There she is!

And I'm the silly big grin in the back. But see they all had...

Katharine McLennan (23:15)

That's like, wait, wait, wait, move it.

Lauren Maymar (23:15)

my god.

Katharine McLennan (23:16)

recognize myself.

Holy cow. Wait, wait. it's so funny. You are crazy. So yeah, she taught us.

Carol Hamilton (23:19)

You're so cute. You are so cute. It was crazy.

Lauren Maymar (23:23)

I love

that.

Carol Hamilton (23:24)

It was crazy. And people were like, what? We were all wearing tap shoes and doing the spiral Busby Berkeley line dance with these big giant. And of course, all about money. It was great.

Lauren Maymar (23:33)

my God.

Katharine McLennan (23:39)

Yeah,

exactly. All about money.

Lauren Maymar (23:40)

those costumes

on point. You guys, that's incredible. You guys look great. That's so fun.

Katharine McLennan (23:43)

Yes, we think you should

Carol Hamilton (23:44)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (23:45)

think so.

Carol Hamilton (23:45)

We thought we were great, but that was the extent of our talent. There was no singing or acting or anything like that coming from us.

Katharine McLennan (23:52)

No,

Lauren Maymar (23:52)

Hey, that's better

Katharine McLennan (23:52)

that's right Lauren.

Lauren Maymar (23:53)

than anything that I could contribute. So hats off to you guys.

Katharine McLennan (23:56)

Well, you'd be surprised.

You'd be surprised. So what are the things, Lauren? Yeah. So what about though, it's been interesting with all the sociopolitical, not that I want to talk about politics, but I do want to talk about the impact on students as they're getting out into the world. You guys are our hope, you know, in terms of taking us through the chaos that's coming up. And it's been chaos.

Lauren Maymar (23:59)

Yeah, it...

Carol Hamilton (24:00)

Take rest, you know, that's me, right?

Katharine McLennan (24:24)

before the political administration. Technology, will be interesting to talk to you over the last 30 years. it's so weird right now. when you guys actually think about the concept of how you're going to be in the world as a give or take 30-year-old, whatever you guys are, but around that generation, what are you thinking? And how does your thinking compare to what it was before business school?

Carol Hamilton (24:31)

and pressing energy change,

Lauren Maymar (24:33)

Absolutely.

It's

really interesting because I think obviously we probably wouldn't have this podcast without talking about AI. So I'll just get right into it. But I do think that it's a really interesting time for us to be emerging into the workforce. It's quite fascinating because I think we've been at school through the rise of Chad2BT and just the proliferation of AI across all industries.

Katharine McLennan (24:56)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

That's it.

Lauren Maymar (25:15)

When I first, so actually right before I left Aura, we were having initial conversations around, okay, there's this thing called Chashu BT, don't really know how to use it. I maybe used it a couple of times. Like how could it, like, is there something like this that we could use in our product? And we were like, okay, maybe something that like a person can like have a conversation with and like talk about like their data or like what it like, we were really unsure though, like what, how this would actually take shape and.

Katharine McLennan (25:40)

So is the rest of the

world.

Lauren Maymar (25:43)

100 % and how it

could be useful. think we were, it was an interesting, I think that I had a good amount of exposure to it before, more like traditional machine learning technologies, just because I was working on a product that utilized a lot of that. But it was really interesting, just like the consumerization of AI and how much more people were using it in school and how it really changed a lot of our learning, honestly, in business school.

I use ChatTPT for a lot of my classes to help with summarizing readings. I use it, I even use it, did the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program where you do coaching and it helped me kind of help brainstorm questions that I can ask one of my co-chefs who's going through something or experiment with different strategies. It's a really helpful tool for your own personal growth and learning. And it is obviously caught on wildfire throughout the entire world, but I think

especially in an educational context, it's just like incredibly useful. It makes you so much more productive. You can learn so much more. It takes your productivity to another level. I do think it's really interesting though, because I feel incredibly grateful to have already gone through high school and college without ChatGBT. I, being able to learn how to think critically, to write, to...

like just those really fundamental skills that you will use throughout your entire life that chatty PT can't teach you that chatty PT can't teach you how to write a paper, can't teach you how to like argue something, can't teach you how to think critically about a certain question or problem or like form your own opinion. And I think that it was helped, it's been a very helpful tool in business school as I've been trying to learn all of these, like I took a

There's optimization and simulation modeling class where you learn how to code. also there's another class that you take too, where you kind of understand the more foundational building blocks of generative AI and chat-t-pt. Super interesting. And it was an incredible tool to be able to learn those things and to help me kind of understand those more, yeah, just understand those new subjects.

But again, it just doesn't replace like the hours upon hours that I spent in high school and college writing a paper, reading a book, formulating an argument. And like, I think, yeah, it's really interesting. So that's kind of on the educational side, but like, obviously it's going to change a lot of how we.

Katharine McLennan (28:04)

Okay.

But Lauren, are you?

But this is really, this is at the core of the argument. And so what it's interesting, and I was just having this conversation last night actually. So, and be interesting to reflect Carol what your university is doing. But okay, so the way we got into business school was because we could think like that and we could actually create and argue and take debates and.

get at it in a different way if the conceptual thinking that everybody in that business school would have and that we did is the chat chippy tea is a fantastic tool for them. however, if we're teaching our kids the normal way, which is learn this history date and do this mathematical equation and da da da da da, I'm not sure we're gonna be setting up people like they can go to Stanford and.

and query what do you guys think Carol in your university space in terms of and your kids actually.

Carol Hamilton (29:14)

I think,

yeah, I think I'm grateful that my kids got through high school without that as well. But they also, I'm grateful they got through middle school without smartphones. know, there's an analogy in every emerging technology. yeah, I think leaders in the future, they're gonna have to figure out how to apply leverage, how to apply this AI, this intelligence.

not the solution in itself. There's a science of writing prompts even to try to extract, you know, specifically take your conclusions or your work to a higher level. You have to have the fundamental grounding to be able to do that. Human intelligence is so important in this equation. It can't be replaced.

So I hope that there's a way we can ensure that leaders are getting that education and can do that before applying the power of AI.

Lauren Maymar (30:13)

interesting to think about it in like the, in obviously it's going to disrupt a lot of professional industries. I think it's really interesting to think about like job displacement and like how I, Carol, to your point around like education and having leaders that can actually understand how this can not necessarily replace people, but empower them, right? Like that, that.

I think that that's like the most important.

Carol Hamilton (30:38)

The promise

is leverage, that's the promise, but to get there.

Lauren Maymar (30:40)

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think

there's a lot of conversations around how AI will start to reshape just like the broader global economy and it will 100%. But I think there's a lot of interesting ethical debates going on right now too around is it right to displace all these people from the workforce? How can we actually empower them and upskill and train? I think that it's not only

question for educational institutions, but it's also a big question for business leaders. And how do you actually, how do you implement this technology in a responsible way that really enables people to benefit from it, not just experience the adverse effects from it taking root.

I think as I approach graduation and think about my future, I'm really drawn towards healthcare just because I think I have this deep desire to help people live healthier lives. think I've been very privileged to, like, my parents have always been

We've always eaten healthy. They really promote exercise. I feel like I've lived a very healthy life and know that that can make such an amazing difference and how I feel and all of that. definitely like feeling drawn towards healthcare and to making it more, making it work better for more people. There are a lot of issues in healthcare and I think AI is a really interesting technology to apply to healthcare just because of its potential to streamline operations to

reduce administrative burden to really help people, help providers help

Katharine McLennan (32:12)

lost her a

Lauren Maymar (32:12)

I think drawn to healthcare because I think it's an incredibly broken part of the US system and there are a lot of inefficiencies and a lot of ways to make it better. Physicians and providers are really burnt out. People are so fed up with healthcare.

Katharine McLennan (32:18)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (32:31)

I mean, you just see it reverberate throughout, right? Like the UnitedHealthcare CEO being shot is an incredible example of this, of just like how shitty the system is and how much we can do to make it better. So it really excites me to think about healthcare. And I think AI is a really interesting technology to apply to that space in particular, because there are so many inefficiencies and there are so many things that just don't.

Katharine McLennan (32:48)

Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (33:00)

really work, but people kind of just accept it because that's the way that's always been done, right? And so I think it just, really excites me to think about that and like being able to apply. There's a lot of like innovation at the intersection of AI and healthcare right now. A lot of people are throwing AI at everything and hopefully we'll see, we'll see what sticks. So it's a bit of a question of like, what will the enduring types of technology be and what will actually

Katharine McLennan (33:21)

Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (33:29)

what will continue to be helpful and useful. But I think I'm just drawn to healthcare because I ultimately just want to help people and I want to help people live healthier lives and I think it's really important. Yeah.

Carol Hamilton (33:40)

Thank you.

Katharine McLennan (33:43)

I mean, okay,

Carol Hamilton (33:44)

I hope

Katharine McLennan (33:45)

so yeah, solve it all, Lauren, come on.

Carol Hamilton (33:45)

you were able to solve it, Lauren. Thank you for focusing on this. It's so important. Yeah. Good for you.

Lauren Maymar (33:47)

It's a tall task. It's a tall task, but we'll see. We'll see what difference we can make.

Katharine McLennan (33:55)

It's

interesting, Carol. So if we look at the things that we were thinking about doing, what strikes me about this class and your generation maybe is that, Carol, you said it really interestingly. You're starting with the problem we're trying to solve first and then backing up and seeing, OK, what can we do with this technology to do that? And it was almost, I mean,

I'm kind trying to get the words in, but it was almost that we were trying to build the technology platforms so that businesses could run better. wasn't, and I'm making broad generalizations, it wasn't taking social issues and then working backwards. And I don't know if that's a broad.

Carol Hamilton (34:37)

We were making

a lot of assumptions about what was needed and building things really, I mean, lot of entrepreneurs build things that they personally need and who are those people that are building them? They're technologists, you know, so that's what you get first is what comes out of their brains. taking, you're right, flipping it, looking at what is really truly needed and then building, building to address that is so much more, it's so much more difficult and important.

Katharine McLennan (34:40)

Yeah.

Yeah.

But to build, like what's interesting

though is for us to go, and this is what my main kind of contextual interest is, for us to go, and I say, look, broadly, Carol, you're an exception in terms of, Oracle was an exception. if we go, you said starting to go retail when Netscape launches, kind of opens up this whole retail and use of the internet. Lauren, you said now AI's

in the common person's hands and it's going commercial. The interesting thing for us to watch is people like the Stanford class taking social issues and coming backwards. And so your health care, but that's not only Lauren. So when you spend the two years in education at Stanford doing an MBA, what's going to help you with taking this broad field of health care?

and bringing that back to, okay, here's one, two, three things I want to look at when I graduate. How does it help you? Because that's a huge amount of effort we've gone to in business school.

Lauren Maymar (36:12)

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Obviously, I was talking very broadly. I definitely have a couple areas that I'm most interested in. just quickly, I think that it's interesting what you guys are... It's interesting to think about what you guys were just saying and also just thinking about the moments in which we both have graduated and also will be graduating into. I think there's a lot of uncertainty around how this technology will actually evolve, 1995, what?

Katharine McLennan (36:16)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (36:41)

Like what is the internet going to look like? E-commerce is like a really interesting hypothesis that ultimately panned out, right? And with AI, we're seeing very similar things. So it's like, it's just, it's cool. Like it feels like there's a lot of parallels, especially from a technological standpoint. So I think, I think just going back to healthcare, I think it's, are a couple areas that I'm most excited about. There's a lot of conversations. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of conversations in healthcare around

Katharine McLennan (37:05)

Tell us one, yeah.

Lauren Maymar (37:10)

administrative burden. It's a huge problem. It's a shitty process for physicians, for administrators at hospitals. They have these massive billing departments. It's just a disaster. So that's one area. Something that is like a problem, but not something that I'm like super interested in right now. I think what really excites me when thinking about healthcare is like, how can we actually make it more proactive and helpful for people? How can we actually...

spot that someone's gonna have a heart attack in the next 30 days and let's get them in, get a scan done and figure out what we can do for them. How can we help people that are, help like women who are trying to get pregnant actually have a higher chance of success? Like the whole IVF process is definitely laborious and long and expensive. it's not great, right? So how can we predict

How can we leverage all these incredible predictive technologies to help people not only avoid incredibly awful and traumatic and terrible life events like a heart attack, but also help them with things that they, like having a kid, right? There's just, there's so much power that we can leverage within these tools and.

just the amount of positive good that they can do, like really excites me in thinking about how we can enable people to live healthier lives. And that's kind of like where I would love to focus on moving forward.

Katharine McLennan (38:41)

That's where I'd

love for you to focus. So start now. But what makes it interesting though is maybe, Carol, if we look back on, I don't know, one of our classmates started eBay and allowed commerce retail to come into our hands at home and allowed us to sell things that we otherwise would have had to go or so. But this shifts health care so that it can be about

Lauren Maymar (38:43)

Totally.

Katharine McLennan (39:10)

lest I use wellness, but it can be about instead of the constant fixing a problem that's so specific because it started 18 years ago when you weren't doing wellness, it can put us in the hands. That's what I find exciting. Lauren, that kind of, and I listen, your business, yeah.

Lauren Maymar (39:28)

Yeah, and I think you're right.

I think you're right. I think that you definitely see a trend similar to what you guys kind of saw with this trend towards e-commerce. I think it really opened up this floodgates for people. Everyone has an e-commerce site now. If you look at Aura, that's how we sell all of our rings is on our e-commerce site, on our website. And so I think that...

Katharine McLennan (39:50)

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Carol Hamilton (39:51)

Mm-hmm.

Lauren Maymar (39:56)

It's interesting to think about like that as almost like a corollary to healthcare and like, how can we actually make this? I think that the consumerization of it is really interesting. And like, I think Aura is a great example of that, right? Like you actually see way more people taking charge of their health and be more proactive and more thoughtful. And there's this big kind of push around longevity and increasing your health span. really feels like that is, that's also the thing that I'm really interested in is like how, like this whole idea around.

Longevity it really I don't know if you have you guys do you guys know Brian Johnson? Have you guys have you guys heard of him? Okay, look look him up so Brian Johnson is So similar super super similar to peer to similar to Peter Ritio, but Brian Johnson is like even more intense like he gets blood transfusions from people like he doesn't actually eat raw like straight food he like only drinks it he like

Katharine McLennan (40:33)

Yes, but tell us about them.

Carol Hamilton (40:36)

I of Peter Atiyah right away.

Katharine McLennan (40:39)

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Carol Hamilton (40:48)

my gosh, I can't imagine. Wow.

Lauren Maymar (40:57)

sleeps in this really like controlled environment like dare I say a little bit too extreme for my liking but like it yeah like

Katharine McLennan (41:03)

Let's hope so.

Carol Hamilton (41:03)

Yeah, a few creature

comforts need to be, yeah, no sacrifice. I don't think so.

Katharine McLennan (41:07)

Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (41:07)

100%, like,

yeah, absolutely. Like, I will eat my broccoli instead of blending it up into a smoothie. Thank you very much. But...

Carol Hamilton (41:14)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I think so. do that.

Lauren Maymar (41:21)

Yeah. But it is really interesting where it's like this, this whole, there is starting to be this trend around longevity, but you, you do see definitely more of this like consumer mindset and like individual focus towards of your health. Right. And I think, and I think that I'm grateful that I started to really understand that when I was 20, like I, and I think it's,

Carol Hamilton (41:37)

You do need to take charge of your own healthcare. You do, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (41:39)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lauren Maymar (41:51)

I think for some other generations that was never really a focus. I think about my grandparents. My grandmother smoked three packs a day until she was 90 and had dementia. Physically she was totally fine, which is crazy. I don't know how that happened, but I think that, yeah, I'll take her genes, thank you very much. But that's a really interesting example of just like...

Carol Hamilton (42:11)

Good mitochondria.

Lauren Maymar (42:19)

I think the shift, there's definitely a cultural shift around people taking charge of their health and just focusing more on it. And I think you see these products like Aura that I work for becoming more ubiquitous. And I think it's definitely, I think it just shows that for sure.

Katharine McLennan (42:35)

Well,

it's awesome. Now, it's interesting about longevity, I'm thinking at this point, we're all hovering around 60, give or take. And the meaning of longevity, I don't know. It's interesting as we get older and older.

Carol Hamilton (42:47)

Right, we're just now catching all of this, right? what we should have done when we were younger.

Katharine McLennan (43:01)

I look at you, Lauren, and I say, yeah, we're about the same age. We're talking. You probably look at me and say, yeah, you're about 60. it's the concept of age that is interesting, Carol. How have you noticed your own experience of yourself? And one of my classmates, Jillian,

Carol Hamilton (43:10)

All right.

Right?

Katharine McLennan (43:28)

She, Leslie, she said she went to the business school a little bit ago and she was sitting with a bunch of people like Lauren and she was like, can I join in your conversation? This is fantastic. And they all looked at her like she was an old lady.

Carol Hamilton (43:42)

Well, you know, I guess we are, but we don't think that way. We don't see ourselves that way. still think I'm that student wandering around in gap shorts, wandering around campus, right? And I think it's now all the buzzwords are all about health span versus lifespan, know, and that improving and keeping your mental and physical health.

Lauren Maymar (43:42)

Hahaha

Katharine McLennan (43:44)

you

No. No.

Yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, yeah, cool.

Carol Hamilton (44:12)

As a priority as you age so that you can age well so that you can be there for your children you know we're having families later in life and So we need to to really focus on you know trying to stick around but in a quality fashion right so All of this all of this matters all these new authors that are giving us tips on things that we should have done perhaps But now can implement

to improve the quality of life later in life. Stay in your home longer. All these things are so important.

Katharine McLennan (44:48)

Carol,

so Carol, right now, what's your, if I had to say number one passion that may not be work related, what do you absolutely, if I said, you can do for the next two hours, what would you say?

Carol Hamilton (44:58)

God, there's two

things I have to say. is this started, Lauren and I were about to get to what we said. I was thinking about what I said I was going to do when I entered the GSB. In my application, I wrote I was going to be a food product VC because I had to cooking school. I was passionate about entrepreneurs who were developing their own. You you're talking about small condiments or emerging new food categories or products.

Katharine McLennan (45:18)

Fantastic.

Carol Hamilton (45:27)

And I thought that I was going to be the one that would fund that little. It wasn't, it wasn't a whole lot of money in it. But I, I did, you know, I'm still passionate about food, nutrition, about feeding others. I love cooking and feeding and, the whole breaking bread together, the concept of being together and sharing, the joy of

Katharine McLennan (45:52)

Hmm.

Carol Hamilton (45:56)

you know, our good fortune that we can be omnivores. So, no, I would not just drink my food. Couldn't go for that. have to have, yeah, have to have variety. Variety is the spice of life, right? But, you know, I love being new and emerging spice companies or new products can merge, you know, but, but also seeing the new emphasis on whole foods and eating, eating whole foods rather than processed foods.

Katharine McLennan (45:56)

Mm-mm.

Hmm. Hmm.

No. Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (46:05)

Carol, I'm with you, I'm with you. And also,

it's funny, Cap, yeah.

Carol Hamilton (46:25)

That's really important to me as well. So nutrition and passion. We also talked a little bit about dogs, about Labrador specifically. So I have her and it's a little much, but we've, oh, there you go. We have a bread, three litters in my kitchen as Labrador Labrador retrievers. Yeah. And, um,

Katharine McLennan (46:33)

I've got two hanging around here. There's one of them, but yeah.

Lauren Maymar (46:38)

jealous. I'm jealous. There we go!

Katharine McLennan (46:39)

Just one?

Carol Hamilton (46:55)

It's quite an experience for the family to go through that as well, as well as just being able to place all of these dogs in the most perfect homes. We've changed the lives of so many of our friends with these dogs because they really are extraordinary when they're raised in your kitchen. They think they're humans, so they're really amazing. John and our children are kind of obsessed with

Katharine McLennan (46:57)

Wow. Oh, wow.

Carol.

my gosh. Carol, that's a...

Carol Hamilton (47:25)

labor retrievers. I never was able to turn that into a business. It was always barely break even, not counting any of my labor. Many hours of labor, labor of love, actually.

Katharine McLennan (47:25)

I would be too. I would be too.

Lauren Maymar (47:31)

Yeah, no kidding.

Katharine McLennan (47:32)

What?

I

wait, so, okay, besides all the, you know, people, if somebody said, this is when I first came to Australia, I was 22 and I loved it because nobody asked, asked, what do you do for a living? They all said, What, what do you do on the weekend? What? They just wanted to know. Yeah. But I like, what are up to this weekend?

Carol Hamilton (47:54)

Better question.

Lauren Maymar (47:55)

Yes, was actually,

Catherine, was actually funnily enough, I was just in Australia for part of spring break, which was great. We were in Byron Bay and in Sydney.

Katharine McLennan (48:04)

Fantastic. You

picked the two best places. These guys, they're amazing. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So, Lauren, what's your favorite? What do you love, like, passion-wise?

Carol Hamilton (48:09)

We were talking about how global these students are today and how much travel they've experienced together.

Lauren Maymar (48:09)

Yeah.

Lot of travel.

I grew up in, I was telling Carol, I grew up in the Bay Area, so just north of San Francisco and Marin. And my family and I, were a big skiing family. So I grew up skiing in Tahoe, grew up ski racing and did that until I went to high school. So that was like a big, that's a big passion of mine, something that's really important to me. And just like generally very, very active.

Katharine McLennan (48:30)

Yep. beautiful.

Awesome.

Lauren Maymar (48:50)

run, I bike. We were in Australia to go surfing, which was quite super fun. Yeah, and that's amazing. I love it. And I think like, it was funny, I was telling, when Carol mentioned that she went to cooking school, that's always been something that I would love to do. Because I very similarly, I think my, I grew up in a family that was, it was really, we had every single Saturday night, we had big

Katharine McLennan (48:55)

You rule. You rule.

Carol Hamilton (48:57)

Awesome. I come from a surfing

family too.

Lauren Maymar (49:18)

big dinner party every single day during the week. would have a family dinner, like no technology. My dad would be there. My dad worked at time, but he would always come home for dinner and we always would have dinner as a family. And even into high school, were really, we really kind of, that was like a big focus of ours. And I just loved that tradition and think that it's so intimate and also just such a great way to connect with people.

Katharine McLennan (49:22)

Really.

Lauren Maymar (49:48)

make them dinner to have them come over, sit at your table and talk and talk about life. And so I think that that was like something that I really grew up with and something that I still absolutely love to do. And yeah, so one day, one day, Carol, I'll go to cooking school and follow in your footsteps.

Katharine McLennan (49:52)

I love that.

Well, I

Carol Hamilton (50:04)

You should.

Katharine McLennan (50:05)

tell you what, Carol is the most magnanimous and magnificent host when we have our reunion, which is coming up soon. I don't know if you've been, you know, volunteer Carol, but it's, I love that. We all gather in her beautiful, beautiful place. that's probably was my favorite event, Carol, to tell you the truth. Yeah, I think so.

Carol Hamilton (50:18)

I have.

Lauren Maymar (50:20)

You

Carol Hamilton (50:29)

I think that maybe that's going to be a repeater. That's

Lauren Maymar (50:33)

I love

it.

Carol Hamilton (50:33)

a backyard and it's amongst the redwoods with dogs and what could be better?

Katharine McLennan (50:35)

Beautiful.

So let's wrap up a little bit, well, a lot, say, Carol, all the advice, which nobody wants to take anyway, whether we're 60 or whether we're 30, I mean, who wants to take advice? But if you had to say one or two things to Lauren's class, to Lauren in particular, that would have changed from when you left.

Lauren Maymar (50:42)

That's amazing.

Katharine McLennan (51:08)

in 1995 to what you kind of realize now. I don't know, anything come to mind?

Carol Hamilton (51:15)

Don't create rules about what you're again going to do.

with your education or what you set out to do when you entered. Obviously I changed completely and made some choices along the way that are not for everyone, but certainly were in response to my environment and the challenges. And so now you're coming out in time of like unbelievable upheaval, political, public health wise.

Health, of course, being a main theme for you. Just don't establish too many rules or expectations for yourself. It's gonna come into place, be flexible. obviously everyone too, when you're asked this crap, you always say, live in the moment while you're at the GSB. Maybe I didn't do enough of that, I'm such a planner by nature. I'm always planning and thinking ahead.

Katharine McLennan (52:17)

I did it. I did it.

Carol Hamilton (52:21)

right, and planning and thinking ahead. So I think it would have been nice if I had slowed down a little bit and really just pinched myself and enjoyed those days, those relationships, because those are the best years of your life, really. So much fun. And you're going to have those relationships forever. So keep fostering them. Keep connecting with those classmates over the years. Even new and new classmates as well.

Katharine McLennan (52:41)

forever. Yeah, yeah, actually, that's really important. Yeah,

Carol Hamilton (52:49)

didn't really know 10, 20 years later and they'll just blow your mind and you'll say to yourself, wow, I'm so glad I know you now, you know, so that's happened to me.

Katharine McLennan (52:52)

So true. They will.

It's very true,

Lauren Maymar (52:58)

Totally.

Katharine McLennan (52:59)

it's very true. what would you say that we need to think about do or be or what comes to mind?

Lauren Maymar (53:09)

It's a good question. think that it's funny. The line that comes to mind for me is also stay flexible. I think that we are in such an interesting time when it comes to technology and just as you guys mentioned, like especially these next four years, like we'll see what happens. And I think like continue to have an open mind. I think that something that I've seen a little bit with my parents is

just a little bit more of like a fixed and rigid mindset around like these new technologies and not necessarily being as open to try them and to do all the things. I think that, I think if I got my dad on chat, TBT, like it would be game over. think, so I think, but I think it's like, think it's, it's amazing, right? So I think, I think that that's, I think that's what I'd say too is like, just.

Carol Hamilton (53:56)

I just tried it. I just tried Satsuki tea. It's great.

Katharine McLennan (53:57)

you

Carol Hamilton (54:01)

Yeah.

Lauren Maymar (54:05)

maintaining an open mind as all these things are coming through and all this change is occurring, I think is the most important thing. I think for all of us too, right? I think that it's hard to fully fathom and also imagine how much things will change within the next five to 10 years, but I think it will absolutely. And I think it's up to us as people to be flexible and be open-minded into what this could be and continue to think positively about.

about the future.

Katharine McLennan (54:36)

And I think Lauren, the one thing I would add as I listen to you and reflect on what Carol said is our organizations have to have your wisdom at 30. We have to be able to access it and honor it. mean, Carol, you would have been honored as soon as you came back from Stanford, I hope, and not, that's youth. And to really honor the thinking that you guys bring to the work.

workforce and the curiosity and the energy. I want to make sure that organizations have cultures that really honor that because, you know, the oldies start getting a bit stale. Perhaps.

Carol Hamilton (55:20)

Yeah, and well-being

and, you we all understand now that well-being in the workforce and workplace or school setting is priority in terms of productivity and.

Katharine McLennan (55:23)

Yeah.

we'll end with saying, one idea that popped into your head over the hour

Lauren Maymar (55:36)

I don't know if Carol said this before we started recording or maybe after, but I think you said, you said, don't wait. And I, and I, that definitely like, that definitely hit me a little bit. I was okay, I shouldn't wait. And I think that I do think that sometimes I'm also a bit of a planner and I think I really love the sentiment around like taking a step back and being present. But I think with those things that I've always wanted to do, like there was no time.

Katharine McLennan (56:02)

Yes.

Lauren Maymar (56:06)

So that definitely gave me a little bit of like, okay, maybe this summer I'll go to cooking school. Okay, maybe I'll do it. So I really, I love that. I love that.

Katharine McLennan (56:15)

Don't

Carol Hamilton (56:15)

Do it.

Katharine McLennan (56:18)

wait and and Carol, what about you?

Carol Hamilton (56:18)

Good.

I'm just blown away by the talent and gift that you are, Lauren, to our world. we need to be focused on changing through your great GSB education. So I'm grateful for that.

Katharine McLennan (56:33)

thank you. Thank you