The lost art of conversation in a world that prioritises agreement or aggression

​There are two quick exits from a hard conversation: agree, or attack. Both end it early, and both leave everyone roughly where they started. Ellen Louw takes the hour on what sits between them.

​How to stay in an exchange with someone you don't agree with, past the point where it stops being comfortable. Why agreement so often gets mistaken for understanding. What it costs a room when nobody is willing to be wrong out loud, and what it gives back when somebody is.

​Then we do the thing itself: a talk, followed by the conversation about the talk, which is usually the part that runs long. The room is the usual mix, founders, independents, and people who spend their working days persuading someone of something.