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Ken Dychtwald
Founder/CEO at Age Wave, Psychologist/Gerontologist, Trustee at XPRIZE, and author of 19 books including What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age and Radical Curiosity.
Ken Dychtwald is a prominent psychologist, gerontologist, and entrepreneur who has become one of America's foremost authorities on aging-related issues.12 Born in 1950, he is the founder and CEO of Age Wave, a California Bay Area-based think tank and consultancy focused on the social and business implications of global aging and rising longevity.14
Dychtwald's career spans over 45 years, during which he has:
- Authored 19 books on aging-related topics, including bestsellers like "Bodymind" and "Age Wave".25
- Produced and hosted PBS documentaries on aging, including "The Boomer Century: 1946-2046".5
- Served as a fellow at the World Economic Forum and presented at White House Conferences on Aging.1
- Received numerous awards, including the Esalen Prize in 2016 for contributions to advancing human potential.2
His work at Age Wave, founded in 1986, involves conducting research for Fortune 500 companies and providing insights on the implications of an aging population on various aspects of society, including lifestyle, marketing, healthcare, economics, and the workforce.13
Dychtwald holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Union Graduate School and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Lehigh University.4 His approach combines radical curiosity with a deep understanding of demographic trends, making him a visionary thinker in the field of aging and longevity.2
Highlights
Op Ed The Five Age-Related Questions/Issues that Biden and Trump Must Address
As birth rates continue to decline and the baby boomers turn 70 at the rate of 10,000+ a day, we are living in truly unchartered territory and longevity has become humanity’s new frontier. This demographic transformation will create new lifestyle and marketplace opportunities as well as potentially challenging medical, fiscal, and intergenerational challenges. Based on 50 years of research, analysis and activism on aging, I have come to believe that there are five transpartisan issues that must be addressed if our newfound longevity is to be a triumph rather than a tragedy.
Issue # 1: What is the New Age of “Old?” Our economy is hinged to 19th century notions of longevity and old age. When Germany's Otto Von Bismarck picked 65 to be the marker of old age in the 1880s, the average life expectancy in his country was only 45. Question for Biden and Trump: At what age do you think that people become “old” today and do you think of yourself as “old?” Issue #2: The Diseases of Aging Could Be the Financial and Emotional Sinkhole of the 21st Century. As a result of modern medical advances and public health infrastructure, we’ve managed to prolong the lifespan, but we have done far too little to extend the healthspan—as pandemics of heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s and diabetes are running rampant.
Question for Biden and Trump: Are you willing to make beating the diseases of aging such as Alzheimer’s before they beat us your “moonshot,” and commit whatever resources are necessary to help make our healthspans match our lifespans?
Issue # 3: Averting a New Era of Mass Elder Poverty According to the Government Accounting Office, 52% of all households near retirement (headed by someone age 55+) have no retirement savings and about 51% of our population have no pensions beyond Social Security.
Question for Biden and Trump: How would you avert mass poverty among the aging boomer generation (half of whom are already retired) and Gen Xers? Issue # 4: Ending Ageism In our post-industrial youth-focused society, many people of all ages are “gerontophobic”— and many of our institutions are ageist —from education, to advertising, to employment hiring practices to housing.
Question for Biden and Trump: What would you do to wipe out ageism in America?
Issue # 5: The New Purpose of Maturity Notwithstanding the obvious aging of our population, political, religious, business and community leaders have yet to agree on a compelling vision for the purpose of the additional years so many of us will be living.
Question for Biden and Trump: What is your biggest idea for what America’s nearly 70 million retirees could be doing to contribute more to our society? An “age wave” is coming that could either make or break America. It’s critical that our next president have fresh ideas and practical solutions for the unprecedented age-related changes ahead.
WHAT PRESIDENT REAGAN TAUGHT ME ABOUT AMERICA Excerpted from Radical Curiosity: My Life on the Age Wave On February 6, 1990, my wife Maddy and I found ourselves sitting within a few feet of Ronald Reagan, who was addressing an intimate group of fifty or so high level business leaders. We had been invited to a private island in the Bahamas for a four-day think tank focused on “understanding the future,” and the former president and I were both on the faculty.
We were informed that President Reagan would first deliver an informal speech on a variety of domestic and international issues. Then we would be able to ask him a wide range of questions. After he completed his talk, I raised my hand to catch his attention.
He selected me. I took a moment to stand up and face him, with respect. Although I hadn’t voted for Reagan and had issues with some of his political and economic policies, I must admit that when he turned to talk to me, I immediately felt engulfed by his legendary gravitas. I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and asked, “Mr. President, as a long-lived American, and as a prominent leader of Americans, I imagine that you’ve given a great deal of thought to what makes us and our country special. Could you share your feelings and thoughts about this?”
After first taking a moment to reflect and then fastening his eyes on me, he said, “Well, Ken, I have been thinking about that very question myself lately. Here is what I think makes America the greatest country in the world. In this day and age, you and your wife could move to Brazil, but in so doing you wouldn’t ever be considered Brazilian. If you moved to Japan and spent the rest of your life there, and even became fluent in the language and culture, you’d never be accepted as Japanese. Similarly, if you chose to live and work in France, and even raised your family there, the French would surely never think of you as a Frenchman. But anyone who moves to America from countries like these and gains citizenship can become an American!” A deep silence fell over our group as we all realized we had just heard something profound.
He went on to say that in our nation, people from every conceivable religion, race, political persuasion, ethnic background, and nationality have joined together to undertake a historic social experiment: the creation of a living, breathing democracy—from scratch. And to raise the ante, we were doing so by capitalizing on the combined resources, creativities, experiences, and values of a truly diverse mixture of humanity.
When he finished, a hush fell over our group as Democrats and Republicans alike let sink in the insightfulness of President Reagan’s reflections and the intensity with which he was feeling them. Reagan's love for America was pure, almost spiritual. He didn’t just believe in America, he genuinely loved America.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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