The Heart & Soul Behind Insight Timer — Meet The Founder!

In this soulful conversation, you’ll hear from Christopher Plowman, the visionary founder of Insight Timer, as we explore the deeper mission and heart behind this app on The You-est You® Podcast. We talk about the journey of creating a sacred space for mindfulness, the role of conscious technology in emotional healing, and how to stay spiritually grounded in a fast-moving world.

If you’ve ever wondered how this beloved platform came to be—and why it resonates with millions—this episode will give you a behind-the-scenes look into the vision, values, and spirit that shaped it. Expect inspiration, honesty, and moments of stillness woven through storytelling.

Transcript

Hey,

It's Julie.

I just wanted to share really quickly this conversation with Christopher Plowman.

I am so touched by his vulnerability,

By his real and raw and openness and just willingness to talk about what it looks like to run,

You know,

A profitable,

Successful business as a capitalist as using,

You know,

Core values and sticking to your principles.

He talked a lot about how to stay in your lane.

This conversation goes really deep and if you've ever meditated with Insight Timer,

It is the world's largest leading app,

Free app,

Mindfulness app.

I've been a course creator teacher on there for actually I think about 10 years.

I thought it was nine.

There's a lot of teachers,

Many kinds of,

You know,

Meditations,

Live events.

If you've not checked it out,

There's a free version and it's an incredible place to really connect into yourself.

I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation.

I really appreciate Christopher being so open.

I also wanted to share that this is launching on Global Meditation Day.

So if you happen to hear this on the 21st on Global Meditation Day,

Come join me on Insight Timer.

I will be leading a free live global meditation and activation at 5 p.

M.

Eastern.

So come join me on Insight Timer.

Just look up my name there.

You can get it for free.

And I hope that this conversation inspires you and reminds you to stay connected to your values,

To what you value as important,

Whether that is love,

Compassion,

Integrity,

Service,

Kindness,

Whatever that is,

Or something else.

And as always,

I'm really honored to be here on your journey,

Being your US Jew.

All right.

Enjoy the conversation.

Hey,

Soul family,

It's Julie Riesler.

I'm so,

So grateful to be here with you on the US Jew podcast.

Thank you for tuning in.

You are in for a very big treat today.

I'm so excited to bring back Christopher Plowman.

Christopher is the founder and CEO of Insight Timer.

This is the world's largest free mindfulness app with over 31 million installs,

3 million users,

And over almost a million a day that are using this app.

It's been an app,

Honestly,

That changed my life.

And I just want to say that I never thought I could meditate.

I had to for my master's degree program.

I was instructed to and had to write a paper about it and I freaked out.

And then I found Insight Timer and I started using the app and I started with 30 seconds and then moved to one minute,

Then two minutes,

And eventually it's become a daily habit.

And this is over 10 years,

Nine years ago or so.

And so I just want to say thank you,

Christopher,

For what you've created.

I'm so excited to bring you back and to talk about the app and the future and the way that it's shifting and so many more questions.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me,

Julie.

I was looking at our,

I googled us,

As I mentioned to you earlier.

I think we spoke seven years ago.

You were the first person I ever did a podcast with,

I think.

I think that's true.

So it's great to be back.

I can't believe seven years have passed since we last spoke.

It's a little bit crazy.

It's so crazy.

You and I were chatting before and it was like,

I was like,

I don't know,

Four or five years ago.

And it's the time has just,

It's gone so fast.

And there's been such a lot of developments with Insight Timer.

Before we talk about,

There's so many questions I have for you because what people may not know,

First of all,

You have,

There are so many resources around emotional health,

Around mental health,

Around helping people to be more grounded.

Let's just for a moment talk about,

You know,

You,

The intention when you started this business and maybe just a little bit about how it's growing and what you're noticing as trends are changing.

We've added AI.

AI has come into our life over the last year.

So I'll let you just kind of take it from there and we'll go from there.

Well,

I mean,

When we bought it in 2014,

It was a timer.

There was a community already that had formed around the time and there was groups as well.

So it was a timer in groups and we just thought we could do a lot more with it.

So what was initially a timer has now become a community of 20,

000 teachers.

As you said,

There's 31 million installs,

All that have arrived and installed organically.

We've never spent any money on advertising and you're right.

There's now about seven,

800,

000 people on the app every single day doing lots of different things.

They used to just use the timer and now they do hundreds of different things every day because we've expanded through the teacher community.

We've just expanded to hundreds of different practices.

There's breath work,

There's mindful walking,

There's prayer,

There's mantras.

I mean,

You name it,

There's just a rich world of different practices because we know through research that we've done that two things kind of drive equanimity and resilience in your daily practice.

One is consistency and one is variety.

Variety kind of surprised us.

We conducted the largest longitudinal study on meditation ever and discovered that actually variety is key to consistent practice and consistent practice is key to equanimity and resilience.

Variety is the spice of life,

It turns out,

Which we know anecdotally,

But now scientifically we know that too.

What we've tried to do,

I'd like to say with foresight,

But really we just react to what we see on the app,

We've tried to introduce new features along the way that support this finding and that's sometimes challenging because we don't want to put too many features out there.

We often get criticized by certain groups on the app which say,

Oh,

I just want the timer,

But we know that we have a very sort of diverse group of people on the app.

We launched a new intentions feature on the app a couple of weeks ago.

We ran it,

As we always do,

A-B tested to a small group and then we're gradually rolling it out to a larger group.

I think now we have about 400,

000 people every week setting an intention,

Which is crazy when you think about it.

What we're learning is that guided meditation and sitting silently through the timer are important parts of many people's practices,

But there are lots of other things too now that help,

That underpin emotional health,

Good emotional health.

It's not just meditation,

But it's lots of different things.

We're continually introducing new things and we're continually evolving and I have no idea what Insight Timer will be next year or the year after that.

I know that a couple of core things which were our promise on day one will continue to be true.

The first one is our primary objective is a quiet place of contemplation.

This will never change.

The other value that we hold dear is that the majority of what we offer on our platform should be free.

Generosity is circular.

We believe this and so we continue to double down all of the free features.

Thirdly,

That community and teachers,

People are central to emotional health.

You can't run an app,

Deploy AI and believe that an app or AI in isolation of community and connection and people will help deliver positive emotional health benefits.

You need all of the pieces together if you're really going to help people have strong emotional health.

You'll hear me talk about a lot about emotional health today because we know now it's commonly accepted that longevity,

A long and happy life requires two things,

Emotional health and physical health.

Lots and lots of companies over the last 20 years have been focusing on physical health,

But very few companies have looked at emotional health,

The social,

The spiritual and the mental health pillars that deliver that.

We're kind of just adapting and flowing and updating as we go and finding our way and it seems to be working.

It definitely been working.

I have to say,

Starting as a student and then I learned,

Oh,

I can add meditations.

I was one of your earlier course creators,

Teachers and I have noticed you've always,

As you've grown,

Really stuck to,

Even as you've expanded and added new features,

There's always felt like at the core has been integrity and heart and innovation and purpose.

I think one of the reasons I wanted to even have this conversation is to me,

It's very inspiring being an app,

So tech-based company that's also in the consciousness,

In the mindfulness space and staying to those core values.

I know it's not always been easy.

I always follow all of your posts and there've been different shifts to issues that have come up around,

Whether it's payment or for the teachers or other things like that,

Or how do you bring in AI?

I'm curious before,

Because I do want to get into emotional health,

What works for you to keep those core values at the center as we're in a really quickly shifting world around technology,

AI and things like that?

Well,

It's really hard and I think it's always been true,

But especially true now with the arrival of AI and I hope we talk about AI at some point.

There's this moment that,

Well,

There's a specific moment of tension now,

But there's always been this background hum of tension at Insight Time.

The risk always,

I believe that care is at the center of teaching,

Which means it's at the center of emotional health.

The challenge is that innovation often outpaces care.

For example,

You'll find companies in AI quickly doing things that they think are technically pretty cool,

But they'll forget what's inherent in care and emotional health,

Which is people and connection and these sorts of things.

I worry that there are companies out there right now who are very high on IQ,

Highly technical solutions and very low on EQ.

Some of the research coming out now confirms,

In fact,

OpenAI put out some research recently that said some people who are using ChatGPT for,

I want to make sure I get my wording correct here because I don't have the exact details of the study,

But are actually finding themselves more isolated by using AI than not.

It's very difficult trying to scale a platform like Insight Timer where quiet place of contemplation is the core promise because we need to do things to scale our platform.

We need to monetize.

The poverty model doesn't work.

We can't operate that.

We cost about a million dollars a month to run Insight Timer.

We have to make money because we just have to make money.

We've got to pay for the people and the infrastructure and the technology.

We need to send things out like notifications because some people want to be supported through their practice.

Dharma says that encouragement,

Gentle encouragement and things like that are important in a practice.

We're constantly challenged by a set of ideals and a promise which is quite,

And I'll say it a lot,

Quiet place of contemplation and free with this tension,

Which is we also need to scale our platform and make money in the process.

Also,

Not just make money so we can pay for the infrastructure.

It's very,

Very important.

I've said this many,

Many times in the last 10 years.

I am a capitalist.

I think capitalism has problems,

But I think it's important that we can build companies,

Successful,

Profitable companies and show everyone else and kids coming out of uni that you can actually earn a profit,

Pay yourself a salary,

Go on nice holidays,

Pay for your kid's dental,

Buy them Christmas presents and experience what it is to have wealth by building a company that has values too.

They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

The problem is there aren't many examples out there right now if you think of the big tech companies where these companies have maintained their values.

I don't know what it is,

But there's something about,

Usually,

It's men when they become rich and powerful where they absent themselves from responsibility.

I don't understand it.

Look at what just happened with the ruling with Apple.

The judges ruled that they're going to recommend the leadership of Apple to criminal proceedings for some of the decisions that they made to see whether or not they've intentionally broken the law and acted fraudulently about the whole App Store 30% tax issue.

Anyway,

Hopefully,

We'll talk about that at some point too.

I'm a little bit off topic.

It is challenging to maintain a set of values,

Build a profitable company in a space and a platform that aspires to be a quiet place of contemplation.

It's challenging to do all those things at the same time.

I'm proud to say I think we do a pretty good job,

Actually.

I think we built a profitable company.

I think we pay half of our income there roughly to our teachers.

I think millions of people rely on us worldwide for their emotional health.

I think millions more will do so in the future.

I think we provide other companies with a template or at least inspiration that it is possible.

Absolutely.

I have to say,

I think this is really important for everyone,

All of us tuning in,

Anyone tuning in at any time.

The and statement,

Having a profitable company.

I think this is so interesting because you are demonstrating that it's possible to have a profitable,

Healthy company and to offer incredible value and tools and ways to have emotional health and mental health and a quiet place to go within.

Both can be there.

I don't take that lightly.

You're definitely a representation of that.

Having been working as a course creator teacher for almost nine years,

I have to say everyone I've ever worked with has been fabulous.

I just,

Having those values at the center is so crucial,

Holding on dearly to those values.

I'd love to talk about,

You brought up a couple of different topics that we'll get to because I want to talk more.

We'll come back to the Apple situation,

To emotional health as well,

But I am curious with the values at the center and when you look at what's happening with AI and how it is exploding,

What are you seeing with the role of AI and Insight Timer?

How are you perhaps looking to integrate it?

I know that there are adults,

Children that can be on this app.

What is the vision as of today?

I know this could change in six months,

In a year,

But as of today,

How do you see AI playing a role with Insight Timer?

Well,

I think AI,

I think any company that ignores AI won't be around for much longer.

I think it's one of those unfortunate situations where the card has been dealt and I blame,

Quite openly,

I blame the leaders of the companies that are deploying AI at the moment,

The ones that are building it for that situation.

I think that they've been deeply irresponsible,

In many cases,

Deeply dishonest.

They have absented themselves from their responsibilities.

I've often talked about the important symbiotic relations between rights and responsibilities.

One has a right to wealth,

One has a responsibility to share,

For example.

One has a right to innovation,

One has a responsibility to preserve.

I think what happens is there's this arms race going on at the moment with AI and a very small group of people is making decisions purely about money and scale and competition while they're dealing with technology that they don't really understand.

I think that's irresponsible.

Unfortunately,

We have a situation now in the US where these people also have so much power and influence that they are essentially immune to regulation.

That sounds like a pretty big sentence,

But I think it's true.

With that backdrop,

Which is doom and gloom,

We as a very small company need to consider how we deploy AI responsibly.

The truth is no one really knows.

Anyone that tells you,

Julie,

What they do,

They don't.

They're just waffling on.

We see,

If I put aside the ethical concerns and the big macro conversation about AI,

If I bring it back to a functional,

Daily consideration,

We see AI as two very distinct opportunities.

The first one is background intelligence that's organizing and making life simpler for teachers,

For our developers,

For our team to do a lot more than they would otherwise be able to do if that AI didn't exist.

I'll give you a very small example,

But just to give your listeners context.

Let's say someone turns up late to a live event and they've missed the first 20 minutes.

An AI that's been present during that could quickly tell that person who's arrived,

This is what we've talked about in the last 20 minutes,

This is where we're at right now,

This is what you need to do in order to get up to speed.

That's a very,

Very small example.

We use AI in lots of different instances to do things like that.

We hope we reach a place where AI will allow teachers to have deep and meaningful relationships with many hundreds of students rather than with perhaps 50,

Because AI allows them to expand their capacity.

We use AI in the background to analyze our 300,

000 guided meditations.

We haven't deployed this on the app yet,

But it's now possible,

And we have done this with AI,

To break up every guided meditation into an individual audio footprint.

We can now determine using AI what the introduction is of a guided meditation,

What the intro is,

What the descriptive part of that guided meditation might be,

What the actual practice is,

What the outro is.

If someone uses that guided meditation regularly,

They might be able to skip past the introductory piece and go straight to the practice.

If someone's experiencing a very specific issue in their life,

We're able to identify within all of the 300,

000 guided meditations where there are specific bits of knowledge that might be relevant to them and take them directly into that.

You can't do that without AI.

I think that in that respect,

AI is going to be hugely beneficial because it will augment the capacity of our teachers.

That's the first part.

The second part is there are lots of companies popping up all over the place that are saying,

Well,

AI is going to replace teachers.

You won't need teachers anymore.

AI is going to become the teacher.

I don't know if that's true or not.

I think it would be a very unwise person that bets against that outcome because if you look at the pace of AI,

I was going to say certain.

I don't know if it's certain.

I think it's highly likely that within,

I'm not going to give a time frame because I don't know.

I would say a small number of years,

Not a big one,

But it could be months,

It could be decades.

It is certainly now possible to go onto apps and express a problem that you're experiencing.

That app will then generate a guided meditation for you on the fly.

You can select the language and the tone of voice and it's guided meditation.

We believe that care being seen has always been at the very center of teaching.

If you want to experience everyday well-being and transformational shifts,

These are the two we believe that emotional health requires you to,

On a daily basis,

Implement routines and habits that are good for you.

Then from time to time in your life,

Go through these transformational shifts where you will go to a retreat,

You'll run an extensive course with a teacher,

You'll shift in your mindset,

You'll discard the old way of thinking,

It's the hero's journey.

We believe that those moments require not only a teacher but a community of people that you conduct that shift with and that you can't do those things with AI.

This is one of the reasons why Insight Time has just launched our retreats platform because getting people off the app and onto a beach around a campfire we think is just essential to emotional health.

I know that all my most important meaningful experiences in life,

Apart from the deeply personal family ones,

Birth and what have you,

Children,

The most meaningful experiences in my life have always been retreats or when something becomes clear because a teacher has explained that to you.

I'm actually very excited about what we are going to do with AI to amplify and augment the importance of the teacher within the transformational shift experience.

That means that we will be releasing AI features soon that ask our users to talk about an experience that they're dealing with,

To talk about their background,

To talk about their childhood and once they've done that we'll be able to then recommend to them using AI teachers that we think will be helpful to them for that particular issue.

I'm absolutely certain that there'll be a group in our community that rage against it and say we sold out and so on.

We haven't.

Our mission which is to build a vibrant community of teachers is as strong as ever and in actual fact the introduction of AI makes me now believe that it's more important that we get that right than before AI.

The challenge is because so many tech leaders have acted so irresponsibly with AI and continue to do so and will continue to do so,

The challenge is we kind of have to talk more loudly about the fact that we're going to try and do this right because the assumption,

As it should be actually,

Will be sceptical that we won't do this right because they have good reason to be sceptical in our community because so many tech leaders have failed so miserably.

I've said often that the irony about someone like Sam Altman is he spends his entire time telling the world that the only person that can save the world from Sam Altman is Sam Altman,

Right,

And it's just like well,

Stop.

If you believe this technology,

You know,

Well anyway,

I think the sentence kind of says it all.

So to summarize,

We're doing lots of things already using AI to become more efficient and to ensure that our teachers can do more and we will be at some point in the future launching a specific feature which will ask our users to engage and share and reveal and talk so that we can then augment those relationships with the teachers that will look like some kind of AI agent chat bot,

Call it what you want,

And we'll test it and if it's popular we'll keep doing it and as you know if it doesn't work we'll throw it out and try something else.

You know what I'm hearing Christopher that you're saying is,

You know,

The underlying question that's coming to me is really,

You know,

Are we using AI in service of our community,

In service of the teachers,

And in service of the community of listeners?

Is it in service of having more contemplation and time to go within,

To gather in retreats,

To come,

You know,

I lead live events all the time,

They're wonderful,

To get people to the meditation teacher that's best for them.

I'm hearing a real intentionality and a real care and being careful and around using AI and I think the question is not necessarily,

You know,

It's not necessarily all bad to use AI.

What I appreciate is,

Look,

Here's a way,

What I'm hearing is,

Here's a way of using it in service of,

That's what I kept hearing,

This is in service of building greater connection,

Emotional health,

Communal,

You know,

Feeling a sense of alignment with others and and also feeling supported.

So that's something I've noticed in this community is when something works or doesn't work,

You know,

You're open,

You're open to changing and to taking it off or adding it.

I think it's actually very interesting,

The AI tool in helping listeners to really access the right teachers.

I mean,

It's grown so much.

I know when I started,

I mean,

My gosh,

It's now,

There were definitely not as many teachers or meditations.

I mean,

Now when I go on there,

It's fantastic.

It's like,

You know,

You're at a buffet table with like every kind of dessert and appetizer and meal you could ever want at any point.

It's like that with the courses and the meditations and the offerings and the lives and,

You know,

You have so many offerings.

So my sense is that could be helpful.

I'm curious when you,

We were talking about emotional health and what is the role that you see Insight Timer playing in emotional health?

And I would even say,

You know,

In for adults and children and with this app?

I want to make sure I get the answer right.

I don't know if you feel this.

I don't even want to start that question,

Start my answer with some kind of technical response.

I kind of like to start with a human response.

I find more and more,

I try not to be too doom and gloom either because you could get really doom and gloom right now if you wanted to about what's going in the world.

I just know that I'm happiest when I'm sitting at the dinner table with my kids giggling about their day or I'm dropping my daughter at school and there are no phones.

That's the kind of baseline statement,

Try it.

You know,

I mean,

There are families that put their phones in a bucket at dinner and then they,

Whatever,

But I kind of,

It's to me,

Those kinds of solutions are necessary for some people,

But just release yourself from the screen for a while and just consider the physiology of your body when you're having an enjoyable moment with your child or your partner that you're at the beach or you're walking in the park,

Or I don't know if it's because I'm getting old or if it's because I've had a,

You know,

Personally speaking,

A tough few years.

I don't know what it is,

But I do know that the older I get,

The more I understand that the very simple moments in life are actually the ones that give the greatest amount of joy.

And I know everyone says it,

But actually it took me until 50 to actually realize it.

If I can walk on the beach every day,

Spend time with my family,

That's it.

That's it.

And so if you ask me what I think Insight Time's purpose is,

It's to create more of those moments.

And that might sound like a contradiction because I'm sort of advocating for less screen time,

But I don't see it that way.

I think that tech has turned out to be a huge disaster.

If you take the combination of social,

Always on what they call freedom of speech,

They lie.

It's not freedom of speech anymore.

It's freedom of aggression.

And the sort of the addictive nature of a screen,

And you put all that together,

It's a disaster,

An absolute disaster for us as human spirits.

And there are no alternatives at the moment,

Except for Insight Time.

And I truly believe that.

I'm not some guy that sits in an armchair and just throws rocks at everyone else and says,

Oh,

You're all not doing it properly.

I spent 12 years building an alternative,

Right?

And it is true.

I think anyone who knows Insight Time will say this.

If you spend 10 to 15 minutes on Insight Time and then close your phone,

You will feel better than you did than when you started.

You can't say that really for any other sort of time-wasting app.

You can't say that for,

You just can't say it.

You don't feel better when you get on Instagram or Twitter or whatever.

You feel worse.

And the truth is,

In order for Insight Time to be successful and to get people to spend more time with people,

In people moments,

Enjoying themselves without tech,

We need to start within the tech.

We need to get inside.

We need the Trojan horse,

Right?

We need to get on the internet.

We can't say,

Hey,

Come over here and we'll communicate with you without pen and our smoke signals.

We have to get into an app and we have to kind of dive in.

And so I'm hoping that the fact that we have a million people on the app every day and that we're now launching our retreats platform and we have Insight Time Live where teachers can interact with people in real time,

I'm hoping that eventually,

You know,

It's like those movies where the egg cracks from the inside and the light shines out.

I'm hoping that we've planted Insight Time inside this toxic world of tech and its influence will eventually ensure that people push the tech further away and bring the people closer.

This is kind of my,

This is my vision and someone's got to do it.

I mean,

Someone has to do it because otherwise I look at what my kids have got available to them,

Twitter and Instagram and TikTok.

It's just a bunch of rubbish,

Truly a bunch of rubbish.

So I haven't given you a technical answer to it,

But that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to bring connection.

I don't use the word social because unfortunately the word social,

Which by definition is quite positive,

Has now social networks have a very,

Rightly so,

A very negative connotation.

So we actually believe now that there's a very big difference between connection and social and we talk internally about connection,

Not about social.

I hope that we can give kids alternatives and adults alternatives so that they end up spending more time with themselves in nature and with people and teachers.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Beautifully said.

I mean,

I,

The time spent,

However,

You know,

Meditation,

Guided,

Quiet,

Whatever that looks like.

I mean,

I know what I've seen with myself,

With people I've worked with,

With communities that do this,

What I'm hearing you say,

It allows us to be present.

So those moments where you're walking on the beach,

You know,

With your child or out at the park with your partner or a friend,

I mean,

Huge difference because then you're actually able to be present in the conversation,

Present in the moment,

Present to show up,

Present to care.

I mean,

It definitely connects to emotional health.

That time spent through the app that leads,

It's,

You know,

It's like,

Kind of like a gym,

Right?

You lift weights and it allows you to be strong and healthy and balanced.

And so I think that's well said.

And yeah,

I have,

I could go way down the rabbit hole on that.

I have two teenage kids that,

One who's super into all the apps,

The other,

Not so much.

And,

You know,

There's a lot of comparing and anyhow,

Well,

I don't need to go into that,

But it's,

It's,

It's been interesting as a parent who didn't grow up with any of this.

I think we're in a similar vintage.

Like we did not,

I didn't have a phone until I was in my mid thirties.

You know,

I didn't even know what these apps were not too long ago,

But you know,

Our kids growing up with it,

It's a whole different thing.

And I appreciate what you're saying.

I'm curious and I'll leave this kind of open-ended.

What would you say have been some of the bigger challenges that you've had to deal with and,

And work through in the last year or so?

Well,

You know,

They always say that startup is the equivalent of inviting someone to put a hundred problems on your doorstep every morning.

You've got 24 hours to solve as many of them as you can.

And the next morning they'll bring another hundred.

So if you only solve 60 of them,

You got 140 the next day.

If you don't solve any that day,

You got 200.

I'm just trying to,

I mean,

The biggest ones.

Well,

I'm just going to answer that by the ones that come to mind without thinking,

Because I think that they're probably the most honest.

The first one that came to mind just then was holding the line.

So when we launched Insight Timer,

Or when we started out with our model,

Calm and Headspace were spending hundreds of millions of dollars advertising.

Their model was very different,

Which is they didn't offer any free content.

You had to,

You know,

They locked you out and lots of things.

And so we were watching Calm and Headspace getting all the press and all the coverage and all the revenue.

And we were just,

You know,

Just,

And one of my investors said to me,

Christopher,

He,

He's an investor in Roblox,

Which is a very successful gaming platform.

It took them 14 or 15 years to become successful.

And he said,

Christopher,

Hold the line.

He says,

Building community with integrity takes a lot longer.

But you got to hold the line because if you do it,

Eventually you will prevail.

So that was hard because,

I mean,

We're still 12 years in,

We're not 14,

But,

And of course,

Along the way,

What that means is you need to raise more money,

You need to dilute your equity,

You know,

Like it's hard.

And then you have many,

Many nights where you think,

Gosh,

Is this going to work?

So that's the first one,

Holding the line on values and principles and making sure that we continue to give everything away for free and trusting that we'd get there.

That was really challenging.

We did,

By the way,

We're profitable now,

We got there.

That was the first thing.

And the second thing that came to mind relates specifically to teachers.

We are a platform of teachers.

We've built what I consider to be a very strong and trusting relationship with our teachers.

I was surprised to learn that teachers are people after all.

You expect all the teachers to be perfect individuals.

Of course,

They're not,

We're not either,

You know?

So I think that understanding that managing a group of 20,

000 teachers with two or three resources,

You mentioned our teacher team,

You said it's great,

We have the most amazing teacher team ever.

We have a brilliant team of people in the Philippines,

Truly brilliant,

Who take care of the publishing and so on,

Where they're led by Veronica and Maddie and Imran and Luke.

I mean,

We're just so spoiled for the joy and the compassion that our team brings to our teachers.

But it's challenging too,

Because we started out as a free platform,

Then we introduced money.

And then when we introduced money,

Teachers suddenly had this expectation that we would continue to produce money.

Not all,

Most of the teachers kind of remained kind of committed to this ideal that we'd get there eventually.

But knowing how to deal with a smaller group of teachers,

Where the money became more important than the mission,

That was challenging,

Because I didn't expect that,

Actually.

So I think that for some reason,

That was the second thing that came to mind when you asked me that question.

It was harder building a teacher platform than I thought it would be.

And it was long and lonely nights holding the values while we waited for Insight Timer to become of sufficient size.

I think that would be the two most honest answers I could give you.

And I appreciate your honesty,

Not overthinking it.

That's something I always appreciate with you.

It's very real,

Authentic.

You can feel that.

You can feel that.

As I was saying earlier,

The comments,

The messages that you've been sending out over the years,

I've always,

Always caught on to just the care and authenticity and the integrity that has never wavered.

You'd mentioned earlier Apple and the 30%.

I didn't know if you wanted to go into that experience at all.

Well,

I mean,

That was very challenging.

I tried very hard to fight Apple about that a year ago or so.

I remember that.

Yeah,

I went on national breakfast television in the US to kick and scream and complain.

And of course,

They did nothing.

Apple,

Absolutely nothing.

They decided that when a teacher spends time hosting a live event,

And someone makes a donation to that teacher,

That Apple's entitled to a third of that income.

And I was just like,

Guys,

Absolutely no fucking way are you going to get away with that?

No,

It's just,

Excuse the French,

But I literally,

I was just like,

This is just so deeply greedy and unreasonable.

And their argument was that it's digital content.

I was like,

It's not digital content.

When an Uber driver spends an hour delivering food to someone's house,

Apple doesn't take a third of the delivery fee.

It's just not how it happens,

Right?

And if I'm a teacher and I'm giving my time,

And Apple's view was,

Well,

Their view was,

No,

Get stuffed.

We're going to take it.

So I begged with Apple to not do it,

And they threw us out of the app store.

And so we had to concede because we're tiny.

Now,

While this was going on,

Thankfully,

I might agree with some of their methods,

But I certainly admire companies like Spotify and Fortnite who fought ferociously with Apple to stop this anti-competitive tax of taking 30% of every single cent that,

And I don't know the exact details.

I'll be careful here because it's all,

You know,

I don't know the legal ramifications of it,

But three or four years ago,

An American court ruled that Apple was not allowed to stop people from linking out of the app to go and purchase or pay the app developer on their website.

They said,

Listen,

You can pay,

You can force 30% payment in the app,

But if the developer wants to send them to their website where the consumer can pay over there and charge the consumer less,

They should be allowed to.

You can't do that.

And so what Apple did was it agreed to implement that policy,

But then it said,

But we're still going to charge 27% if that user goes to the website.

So it's like,

If I'm someone who wants to subscribe to Insight Timer,

I can pay $60 on the app,

Apple takes a third.

If Insight Timer wants to send that person over to the website,

Then either Insight Timer can still charge the $60 if they want and keep the extra,

Or they can charge $40,

The consumer pays the same amount,

Apple doesn't get anything.

And Apple said,

Okay,

Well,

We'll let you do that,

But we're still going to charge 30%.

Anyway,

It was just greedy in the purest form possible.

And what we now know from the ruling a week ago is an actual fact that one person at Apple encouraged Tim Cook,

The CEO,

To not charge the 26.

He says,

Listen,

It's not right.

The courts made the ruling and the CFO at Apple convinced Tim Cook that actually they should do it.

And the judge said,

Tim Cook chose poorly.

And the judge has actually recommended that some other legal body in America investigates whether or not any fraudulent or criminal activity took place as a result of this.

My point is different though.

I was reading this and of course,

One expects big companies to be greedy and to what have you,

But we've reached this place in society where not only is it okay,

But shareholders expect CEOs to do anything possible,

As much as possible to preserve their investments,

Even if they know it's not right,

It's unethical,

It's greedy.

Tim Cook made a decision that he would actually get away with this.

And I was thinking we've got to this point in life now where people don't make decisions based on what's right.

They make decisions based on what they can get away with in order to make as much money as possible.

That's what Apple did.

They said,

What can we do now to avoid the ruling,

To line our pockets?

We're not going to consider what's right,

What's fair,

What's not greedy,

What's good for teachers,

We're just going to consider the Apple shareholder.

Thankfully,

The judges finally after years stood up and said,

Stop,

Can't do this.

Apple's now capitulated.

Spotify's rolled out their app without the tax,

Fortnite has,

Patreon has,

There's this flood of companies now who are rolling this stuff out.

But it took every last cell of energy from thousands of companies and people to finally force Apple to do the right thing.

And my point is,

Why didn't they just do the right thing in the first place?

And that's what I think is at the core of the problem with AI right now,

Is people don't do the right thing,

They do what they can get away with.

And it frightens me.

Anyway,

I've been on my soapbox,

I'll get off now,

Julie,

But you asked,

No,

I,

You know,

Thank you for sharing so vulnerably.

And honestly,

I think,

You know,

The idea of conscious capitalism and mindful leadership is even more important.

And so when there are companies out there as big or small,

For example,

As Insight Timer,

You know,

What I'm hearing is the commitment is to conscious capitalism,

Is to having,

You know,

A mindfulness based leadership of consciousness of connection.

I'm curious if you have a network or connect with other companies,

CEOs,

Founders,

You know,

I know there's organizations that do that,

But in terms of having other support out there to hold the line,

What does that look like for you as the CEO to,

You know,

Stay in your lane?

Well,

The short answer is,

I mean,

I don't have a,

I'm very well supported by my investors.

I have a wonderful board,

Bo Shao,

Who's my chairman,

Who's a successful tech entrepreneur,

Who launched a foundation called the Evolve Foundation.

He put $100 million of his own personal money into a foundation and he invests in companies that are trying to do well and do good.

That's his mantra.

I meet with him once a month.

We're very good friends.

We've been,

We've known each other now for 10 years.

So I,

I lean and depend on him heavily because I'm human too,

Julie.

Sometimes I'll,

I'll like say,

Well,

We could do this,

Be like,

You know,

He'll,

He'll remind me.

I have another person,

Gretel Packer,

Who's a private investor in Australia,

Who I met 10 years ago on retreat.

And I lean on her heavily for sort of,

It's more about the spiritual center of Insight Timer.

She was the first investor.

And I have others too,

Anthony Lee and Charlie Hartwell on the board who are investors and who provide a lot of interesting counsel.

I don't think there is,

I'm sure there are organized,

Like there's B corporations and there's lots of different constructs out there for people that want to do things a bit differently.

I kind of looked at B corporation.

I don't really like B corporation wasn't right for us.

That's not,

I don't like them.

I think they have wonderful intentions,

But I think I wanted to build a capitalist commercial enterprise that did the right thing at the top.

Not,

Well,

We're going to restrict ourselves with these rules that say we can't do this and we can't do that.

No,

I don't want that.

I'm a capitalist.

I just believe that I want to operate a commercial enterprise and just not make shitty decisions that are greedy.

That's it.

And also,

Julie,

I think it's important to say,

It's not like we're some kind of holier than thou company that's got a shrine of,

We don't,

It's not like we've embedded a whole bunch of unachievable,

Unattainable things in our organization.

It just means that we don't deploy dark patterns on the app.

We don't try and encourage people to come back at all costs.

We don't throw up paywalls all over the place.

We pay our tax,

The right amount of tax,

You know,

It's just,

It's just standard things.

It's not that we kind of do more than,

Than other good companies.

It just means that we do the right thing and that's it.

So I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands,

Hundreds of thousands of people like yourself who do all of these things too.

I just talk about it because we're in a position now where I think I have a responsibility to talk about it because I've built a bigger company maybe than others.

And so it feels like the right thing to do,

To talk about it.

And people ask me about it a lot.

So there you go.

Yeah.

Well,

There's a,

There's an aspect,

I think,

Of also being a role model,

Showing what's possible,

Profitability,

Conscious capitalism,

And mindful leadership and,

You know,

Doing the right thing.

You said,

You know,

Holding the line and not that I'm sure,

You know,

Just like there's no perfection.

It's,

It's,

It's,

Um,

Helpful and it's positive to hear.

I think for anyone tuning in,

I mean,

There's a lot of,

I've always been amazed by the,

You know,

And,

And,

And appreciate the integrity aspect.

I am curious,

Christopher,

Two part question.

One would be,

What are,

What are one or two things you are really most proud of and most excited about for the future of Insight Timer?

Well,

I'm a product guy,

So I'll,

I immediately jumped to some new features that are about to launch.

So I guess I'll,

That will be my answer.

The first thing that jumped into my heart,

The first thing I'll answer,

I think for lots of people,

Meditation is hard.

I struggle with my practice up and down,

In and out,

Go for months without meditating.

Um,

What we've learned through data and just experiential design and things like that is that there are lots of things you can do to improve your emotional health,

Whether it be social,

Spiritual or mental.

And so what we're doing at the moment is we're developing tools that our community will be able to use in micro moments throughout the day that will support their emotional health.

And we're using AI to suggest some of those tasks that you'll be able to do during the day.

And we kind of borrowed this a little bit from Duolingo.

Duolingo is very,

Has got a funny little bird that talks a lot and can be a little bit annoying at times,

But Duolingo has very successfully worked out how you make learning a language simple.

If you've never learned a language before,

20 years ago,

Someone throws you a big fat book and says,

Go learn French.

And it's just daunting.

And what Duolingo did is it broke language learning down into modules and mini exercises and even smaller exercises.

And they have a team of people at Duolingo whose job is to shorten the amount of time required for you to learn something about a language,

Because they know that if you land on the app and spend 60 seconds and learn something,

You'll then stay and spend three minutes and learn something more.

And then you'll stay for 10 minutes.

So they've kind of created this gentle on-ramp into language learning.

Mindfulness,

Meditation,

Equanimity,

Emotional health,

Call it what you will,

Is hard.

It takes time.

Not only to learn,

But to appreciate and understand.

And so what I'm excited about is I think we've learned this perhaps later than I wish we had learned it,

But we've learned it nonetheless.

And so what we're doing now is we're thinking about emotional health as many different things you can do that will eventually get you into a dedicated mindfulness meditation practice.

And I think using AI,

Hyper-adaptive suggestions and personalization and integrating teacher and community,

I think that Insight Timer over the next 12 months is going to look very different than what it currently looks like,

Which is a big library of guided meditations and lots of teachers running lives.

It's going to shift fundamentally.

So I'm excited about that.

It could be a complete disaster,

Julie.

We've done things before that have been complete disasters,

But I'm excited about that.

I think that's the primary one.

I think we've learned,

We've discovered how to do this.

That's the first thing.

And the second thing is it's kind of an aspirational thing.

Perhaps it's optimistic,

But it does keep me up in the morning or get me up in the morning.

I was very excited to start my day.

I get up at four o'clock every morning and I'm always very excited for the day.

I'm lucky in that regard.

I would like Insight Timer to become a $10 billion successful platform in the emotional health space,

Because at that point we can tell everyone that it's possible.

It's possible.

And if we become a billion dollar platform,

A $10 billion platform,

What that will mean is hundreds of thousands of teachers around the world are being supported in a meaningful way financially by Insight Timer.

They're able to step away from perhaps their primary vocation and focus full-time on teaching on Insight Timer.

There'll be a real shift in how we bring teaching and people back to tech.

And so that's something I'm excited about too,

That that's possible.

We can kind of map it now.

I'm not saying it won't be hard,

And I'm not saying that we'll get there,

But at least I can sort of taste and see how if these certain things happen successfully over the next two or three years,

We could get there.

I set that intention with you as one of your teachers and users of the app,

And so many,

So many that I know have used it and referred it to.

It's a beautiful vision and intention,

Which I know maybe that could be your intention because you have the new intention aspect as well that you've added on Insight Timer,

Which is really cool.

Really cool.

Well,

I mean,

We have a team of 80.

I've got the same senior team with me who've been with me for 10 years.

I have the same investors.

We're kind of,

We're all old friends now.

So we'll spend the next 10 years seeing if we can do that.

Our intention is set.

And so it is.

I love it.

Yes,

Please.

And I'll say having,

I think it's actually been almost 10 years that I've been,

You know,

It's so funny.

We started,

It was free.

I did it for free.

I always laugh.

I'm like,

I was putting up things here for free.

And then all of a sudden you start getting paid.

I always share this.

You just never know,

Right?

You follow the energy.

I was so excited.

Like,

Wow,

I'm going to get paid to have meditations.

And now obviously it was way,

Way more than just,

Than just these,

You know,

Meditations.

You have so much,

Such a huge library.

So my question before we wrap,

Christopher,

I,

Well,

I call them heart flares where,

You know,

There's just something maybe I didn't ask or that's coming through that you'd like to share,

Or that was an insight,

No pun intended,

Um,

Something that you'd like to,

You know,

End with that,

That perhaps we haven't discussed yet,

Or just to wrap something up.

So I'll,

I'll give the mic to you.

Any heart flares,

Any wisdom,

Any insights that are coming through to you at this point?

Yes,

I have one.

This is not a plug for Insight Timer,

But we're,

We're doing our most important work over the next two years.

I really believe that.

Um,

And we're trying to recruit new people that are tired of working in big tech and actually want to come and work for a platform that,

That is competitive,

That is commercial,

That wants to be hugely successful,

But also wants to do the right thing.

We're hiring for a new head of design.

I want someone to come and sit beside me every day for the next three years and help us really design great new products.

We're hiring a new head of global communications who can come and help me tell my story.

We're hiring lots of new people,

Um,

Either on the West coast of the US or in Asia or in Sydney.

And I know that there are people out there doing what they do,

Wishing they did something else.

And so I'm putting my hand up and saying,

Just give us a call.

It is a plug.

It is a plug,

But you asked for a heart flare.

And that's the first thing I thought we need the right people to stop selling ads and clicks at Google and Tik TOK and Twitter and come start helping me build a platform and our team,

A team build a platform that's going to create a happier planet.

So if you're that person,

Come find me on LinkedIn.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

I've never,

I've never seen an ad from Insight Timer.

You haven't because we've never spent money on one.

Um,

It's not technically true.

I didn't add,

I did a billboard about six years ago.

Calm had bought three ads when they launched their sleep app.

As you drive into San Francisco from the airport,

They'd bought three big billboards that said,

Come sleep with us.

And I rang the advertising because I was,

You know,

I rang the ad company.

I said,

Is there a fourth billboard?

And they said,

Yes,

Actually there is.

It's right next to those three.

So I bought one ad my whole entire life.

And I put a big,

You can go Google it.

I put a sign up,

Which said,

You shouldn't pay people to sleep with you.

Come sleep with us for free.

My board was horrified.

Anyway,

It turned out to be the most liked post we've ever had on Insight Timer because it was funny.

And it was just kind of trying to point out that you can pay calm $60 a year,

Or you can come to Insight Timer and use it for free.

I did get a lot of very angry emails from sex workers saying it was insensitive,

But that's a whole other story.

Anyway,

You won't see ads for Insight Timer because we don't advertise.

If you advertise,

You have to dress yourself up.

You have to dress yourself up.

You can't meet people sort of authentically.

If someone comes to Insight Timer,

I haven't promised them anything.

I meet them at their level of understanding.

I open the door.

I say,

This is what we've got.

That's it.

And we find that that's why we have retention that's three or four times higher than Headspace and Calm,

Because there's no promise.

There's just a quiet place of contemplation.

Yeah.

Beautifully said.

All right.

I have one more question that just came to me,

And then I promise.

So the show is called,

You know,

The USU,

And I'm curious,

What is the USU mean to you both in personal life and as the CEO of Insight Timer?

It's an easy one.

For me,

It's all about my own personal time outside of Insight Timer with my family.

The USU to me has nothing to do with my work.

I get a huge amount of joy and satisfaction from company building and team building.

And I love my work every single day,

But I am never remotely as happy as I am when I'm sitting at the dinner table with my kids or driving them to school or chatting with my partner about what she's up to for the day.

That's,

It's all about everything that has nothing to do with work that makes me,

That gives me joy.

Walking along the beach,

Throwing the tennis ball to my dog,

Good coffee,

Good food.

That's it.

It's just not work related.

And I said to my son the other day,

Once you realize that there is no meaning to life,

Your life will have so much meaning.

Just enjoy all the little moments and do that billions of time before you die and you'll have a great life.

Wow.

That's,

That's nothing else needs to be said.

Thank you.

Very powerful.

Great reminder.

It's the little moments.

Savoring,

Loving them.

Yeah.

Thank you so much,

You know,

For your real raw vulnerability for,

For who you are.

Thank you for coming back on this show and,

And sharing,

You know,

What's happening and how you're,

You know,

Looking to grow and expand and the reality and the vulnerability and the,

You know,

Really the heart.

To me,

What I'm hearing is a lot of heart and being centered,

You know,

And I'm just coming away with hold the line,

Like hold,

You know,

Stay in your lane.

Really appreciate you.

And it's fun to reconnect again.

And I just appreciate your energy and your commitment and the mindfulness,

Even if you don't meditate,

It doesn't matter what you're bringing in to what you're doing.

And it's,

It's really,

It's a gift to be able to share this with others and with our global community.

Thank you so much.

Well,

You're welcome,

Julie.

I really enjoyed it.

We should catch up again in another seven years and see where we got to.

Yeah.

Woo.

Can't even imagine.

I hope this show is continued and expanded.

That is so cool.

Who knows,

We'll all be probably flying around with AI powered,

I don't know,

Whatever,

But let's do it again soon.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I'm just going to say an extra special thank you to you,

Beloved listener,

Wherever you are around the globe.

So much love for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know,

You're tuning in right now and listening and being a part of this conversation and really taking that moment to connect to your highest potential,

Your higher self,

Your USU.

It makes a difference.

And like Christopher said,

Finding that time to be quiet,

To go within all the answers are there within you.

And hope you remember that.

Remember how worthy and special you are.

So much love.

Reviews

Really appreciate this discussion with the CEO who I did not know was a fellow Aussie! Love the honesty and the respect Christopher has for the community, business and his own values.
Will be sharing this far and wide 🌎 xx

Thank you both Julie and Christopher for this incredible insight into Insight Timer. It explains so much about why I have felt 'at home' here, and didn't hesitate to become a Plus member on day one. The integrity and strength of commitment to the purpose and people of this project is clear. And now I see (hear?) why. I've always wanted to share meditations with people, and am fumbling around figuring how to do this well so it's worthy of the high quality I've found here! I look forward to seeing what the future holds!

Extremely refreshing! Wonderful. Thank You Both So Much!

Love this app, it has helped me immensely. Thanks for the interview Julie!

IT has been the most helpful tool to get me through a divorce. I am deeply grateful for this app, everything I learn on this platform and the peace I’ve achieved through using it. Great interview. 👏