What We've Been Losing

The Dreamers & Doers acquisition is about more than one company changing hands. To understand why, consider what’s been eroding for over half a century as humans engage with technology instead of engaging with each other.

Americans are joining fewer churches, fewer unions, fewer civic organizations than at any point in modern history. Gallup reports that fewer than half of us now belong to a religious congregation, a record low since tracking began in 1937. Only about half of Americans regularly spent time in a public community space in 2025, down from two-thirds in 2019. The pandemic accelerated that decline, and the rebound has been partial at best.

AI is widening the gap—and absorbing most of the capital. Global AI spending is on track to hit $2.5 trillion this year, according to Gartner. AI firms captured sixty-one percent of all global venture capital in 2025. We can now outsource information, advice, even companionship to a machine. The Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory declared loneliness a public health epidemic—with health risks on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Forty percent of American adults now say they’re lonely, up from thirty-five percent in 2018. Among Gen Z, it’s seventy-four percent.

The Counter-Bet

Against that backdrop, billions of dollars are now moving in a very different direction.

Investors are betting big on businesses whose core offering depends on humans being in the room—or in the community—together. Chief hit a $1.1 billion valuation as the first women’s community to reach unicorn status. Othership, a wellness "third space" (the term for gathering places that are neither home nor work) has raised over $20 million from investors including Winklevoss Capital and Kerry Washington. Brooklyn wellness destination Bathhouse is on track to approach $120 million in revenue this year. According to real estate firm Knight Frank, more private members' clubs have opened in the past four years than in the three decades prior.

What makes these businesses AI-proof? The product is the presence of other people. You can’t automate a sauna full of strangers becoming friends, or a members club built on exclusivity.

There’s a reason a yoga class with other students feels different than following along on YouTube. When humans are in the same room, our brain activity actually synchronizes; researchers call it interpersonal neural synchrony, and it functions as a kind of biological "social glue." Human touch triggers hormonal responses that calm our nervous system in ways that contact with a machine doesn’t. Our bodies register the difference, even when we can’t explain it.

The Moat AI Can't Cross

Dreamers & Doers is part of this same wave. But it points to something that goes beyond physical proximity. "Twelve years ago, I created the support system I wanted and needed," Haas says. "But now, people are craving even more authenticity in this world that is so social media, digital, and AI-driven."

Dreamers & Doers is primarily an online community (no saunas involved!) though it also hosts in-person events across the country. What it offers, on- and offline, is a space where women share the unfiltered version of their personal and professional lives. The vulnerability is real, and so is the risk—of judgment, of rejection, of being seen as someone who doesn't have it together. But when that honesty is met with acceptance rather than criticism, when other women say "me too" or "I've been there," something heals.

Most of us learned early to hide our struggles, especially at work. Having people whose opinion you respect see your full picture—and welcome you anyway—is what psychologists call a corrective emotional experience. You start to accept yourself differently because someone else accepted you first. As Harville Hendrix wrote, "We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship." AI will validate you all day. But validation from a machine can't reach the wound that was created by a person.

And because members have known each other for years, accountability builds. When someone nudges you toward your goal of a TEDx submission, you follow through partly because a real person wants you to. The outcomes are tangible: that TEDx talk becomes a TED Editor’s Pick, a last-minute book proposal submitted because of a community post turns into a publishing deal, an introduction leads to you selling your company.

Members both push each other toward growth, and hold each other when things fall apart—providing a version of what we therapists call a “secure base," a relationship stable enough that people can take risks from it. You can launch a business, pitch an investor, record the video series you’ve been putting off, because you know a group of women will be there if it doesn’t work out.

Tiffany Yu, who came to Dreamers & Doers after leaving a career in investment banking, told me: “Dreamers & Doers has been a space where I could show up as my full self, before any of the accolades or achievements most people see now, and where that was more than enough.” But this kind of environment breaks at scale. You can't be vulnerable in front of 10,000 strangers. You can in a curated group of 600.

Salerno, who has always been an operator, understands this. "Scalability does not mean better," she says. "It will take millions of years for us to evolve out of fundamentally being tribes-oriented. We need human connection and belonging."

Haas is staying involved with Dreamers & Doers, but she’s already thinking about what to build next. "AI brings a lot of gifts. But whatever else I work on will probably be some sort of counter movement to AI," she says, "making our increasingly digital lives feel more human."

Meanwhile, in the Dreamers & Doers community, women are still answering her question. How are you really doing? And they’re still telling the truth without running it through Claude or ChatGPT first.