How Important Are Other People? The answer is 35%.

No, really. I’ve spent the past 15 years trying to answer that question–not as an existential one but as an issue of measurement. Of course people are important to us, and are a major source of life’s meaning. There’s a reason solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment.

But that’s not quite the same thing as asking “OK, exactly how important?” And here we can have an answer. Now the way we’ve figured it out is purely mathematical, and that’s going to leave some people cold, but bear with me because it’s all about relationships and interactions.

It’s also about actions, as in “how much do people impact our behavior?” If we were somehow magically alone, and never interacted with others, we’d act very differently. So what we can do is look at how our actions differ when we’re alone, compared to when we’re with others. And when we’re with others, we do things about 35% differently!

This is the foundation for my startup, Social Value, Inc.

-Dmitri Williams, CEO, Co-Founder