What happened in this episode?
Dax Shepard speaks with organisational psychologist Adam Grant about Grant’s book Vibe, which argues that connection is created in interaction rather than being a fixed personal trait. Grant lays out four relationship types — associates, allies, pals, and companions — and the tensions that arise when people expect one person to meet all roles. They discuss how proximity and repeated interaction often drive friendship formation more than stated similarity, and Grant questions the promise of matchmaking algorithms.
Grant and Shepard explore ways to build and maintain relationships, including lower-maintenance friendships, ‘pebbling’ (sending tailored links or messages as small signals of care), and strategies for handling ambivalent ‘friendmy’ relationships. Grant also describes a management approach he calls accepting emotions while containing behaviour, illustrated through a sports example.
A longer debate turns to technology and connection. Grant says surveys suggest a meaningful minority of young people with AI companions prefer them to human interaction, and he claims the loneliest older adults can become lonelier after using AI companions. He also cites evidence he says comes from experiments removing phones from schools, arguing it reduces bullying and improves girls’ grades and mental health. Later, Grant cites studies using the Ashley Madison leak to claim a link between infidelity site use and workplace misconduct; Shepard challenges the representativeness of that dataset.
Shepard adds personal reflections on intimacy in past relationships and how he believes it may have been misleading to some partners.
