Steven Bartlett is the voice behind the world's #1 business podcast, The Diary of a CEO. He brings raw honesty, practical wisdom, and unfiltered insights to inspire leaders to build brands, cultures, and businesses that people truly believe in.
Steven has spent years interviewing some of the world's most successful people. But when asked at Oslo Business Forum what he's thinking about most these days, his answer wasn't AI, entrepreneurship, or success. It was time.
Steven has become increasingly interested in long-termism, and specifically how extending our time horizons can change the decisions we make today.
For leaders navigating accelerating change, Steven's message may sound counterintuitive, but it's necessary: Think further ahead. Experiment faster. Pay closer attention to the small things. And invest in what won't change—the human need for connection.
Steven Bartlett: Leading young entrepreneur who is redefining what it means to be a modern CEO – authentic, fearless, and relentlessly human.
Extend Your Time Horizon
When leaders expect to own, operate, or steward something for decades, they're more likely to invest in value that may not be immediately visible. Steven pointed to companies that have made long-term investments in infrastructure, technology, and capabilities well before those investments produced obvious returns.
Shorter time horizons create different incentives. When speed is the overriding objective, leaders focus on what they can see and measure right now at the expense of what will endure.
Steven believes the question leaders should be asking is: How would we build differently today if we expected this organization to matter 50 years from now?
That longer horizon also provides a useful filter for personal decisions. Steven described happiness as his own "North Star," a point of orientation that has helped him make hard choices.
"When you have clarity on what your north star is, logical decisions arise from that."
He dropped out of university. He left companies. He walked away from situations that no longer felt aligned with where he wanted his life to go. Others might describe those decisions as brave, but Steven sees them differently. Staying somewhere that compromised his North Star felt like a greater risk.
"We celebrate starting," he said. "But before we can begin something new, we often have to quit something else."
Build a Culture of Experimentation
Long-term direction doesn't mean moving slowly. In fact, Steven argued that organizations need to become much faster at discovering what works.
Strategies and tactics that are effective today will quickly expire. The ability to experiment—and learn from those experiments—has become an increasingly important competitive edge.
"How quickly are you trying things, excluding them, and finding the right answer?"
Steven described the difference through two business leaders he once worked with. One would send an idea through finance, procurement, legal, and multiple layers of review. Months could pass before anything happened. The other responded differently: do it now.
Sometimes experiments work, and sometimes they don't. But the real cost isn't failure. It's spending nine months deciding.
That philosophy shapes Steven's own companies. He has an experimentation team that reports directly to him, but experimentation isn't confined to that team. All employees are encouraged to form hypotheses, test ideas, and share what they learn. The company even awards a weekly trophy to the person who failed the most.
"We're in the business of 'did you swing,' not 'did you hit the ball,'" he said.
If leaders reward only successful outcomes, people learn to avoid experiments that come with uncertainty. If they reward thoughtful attempts, they create an environment where people are more willing to try.
Never Underestimate the 1%
Experimentation doesn't always mean placing big bets. Steven is also guided by an obsession with what he calls the one percent: small actions and improvements that seem insignificant alone but compound over time.
The challenge is that small things are easy to dismiss precisely because their immediate consequences are hard to see. Skip brushing your teeth once and nothing happens, but neglect it for years and the result is impossible to ignore. Organizational behaviors compound in the same way.
Steven described the early years of The Diary of a CEO, when he had few subscribers. Growth seemed slow—until it wasn't. Years of accumulated decisions and improvements eventually produced a dramatic trajectory.
"Sometimes when you turn over small stones, you win big prizes."
Some of those improvements were surprisingly small. His team once tested whether changing just 10 seconds of a three-hour podcast could affect subscriber behavior. That tiny change produced a significant improvement.
Even details like the scent in the studio, the drink offered to a guest, or punctuation on a thumbnail receive attention. Individually, none of those things seem transformational, but collectively, they create an experience competitors can't reproduce.
Resist the temptation to look for the dramatic initiative that will change everything all at once. Competitive advantage comes from caring about the things that seem too small to matter.
Bet on What Won't Change
The accelerating development of AI presents leaders with an obvious question: Where should we invest in technology, and where should we protect the human role?
Steven suggested approaching that question from a different direction. Rather than trying only to predict what will change, identify what won't.
That insight is shaping his thinking about his own business. He knows AI will become increasingly capable of creating informational content, but information alone isn't why people connect with a story, creator, or experience.
Steven used Formula 1 to show the distinction. "We wouldn't watch F1 if we removed Lewis Hamilton from the car, even if the car went faster," he said. "It's not really about racing. You watch because you can relate."
Watching Hamilton compete against Max Verstappen gives audiences something human to identify with: competition, ambition, resilience and struggle. Steven calls this the "irreplaceably human."
As more products, services, and experiences become automated, he expects human connection to become more—not less—valuable. Organizations can embrace AI while deliberately investing in experiences that create a genuine sense of connection.
A leader's job is to determine where technology creates greater capability and where being more human creates greater value.
Remember What You Were Building For
Near the end of the conversation, Steven was asked to give the audience one experiment to try over the next 30 days. His answer had nothing to do with business.
"Remember that the life you have today has already exceeded the expectations you once had for how you wanted your life to go," he said.
Ambition continually moves the horizon. Achieving one milestone establishes a new normal, and expectations accelerate. Gratitude, Steven said, comes from occasionally collapsing the distance between where you are and where you think you should be.
Long-term thinking, experimentation, compounding improvement, human connection. The principles Steven explored remind us to build deliberately and make sure what we pursue doesn't come at the expense of the foundations that make it worthwhile.
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