About Michael

Michael Hvisdos is founder and CEO of InQuizo and Better Inc. InQuizo researches what makes high performers excel — finding curiosity is a learned behavior directly linked to performance, innovation, and engagement. Better Inc. helps companies build the operating systems and behaviors to compete in a fast-changing world. Michael works across Fortune 500 firms and startups in financial services, healthcare, pharma, and technology — industry-agnostic, but obsessed with how people actually show up in conversations.

What we talked about

Curiosity as the performance lever — Diversive versus epistemic curiosity, and why organizations that over-index on efficiency shut down the behavior that drives innovation.

Speed without sacrificing effectiveness — Startups can stay fast and curious; the danger is squeezing people with process tools that optimize output but not outcomes.

12–18 months to shift culture — Behavior change needs awareness, repetition, and operating systems — not a one-off training program; one new habit averages 66 days.

The modern buyer has already decided — Gartner data: 72% of B2B buyers never want to meet a salesperson again; 68% of buyers are now millennials who arrive 50–80% decided.

Prep differently, sell differently — Twenty to forty minutes of AI-assisted research beats product pitches; buyers want insight, perspective, and proof you did your homework.

AI adoption across organizations — Fragmented individual tool use versus centralized platforms with firewall access — and why human interpretation still closes the gap.

Sharpest moments

On curiosity driving results:

if you help nurture and improve someone's curiosity level, the performance follows it.

On the efficiency trap:

we've over rotated in business to efficiency, squeezed more out of people.

On what kills a sales conversation:

If you're here talk about you, game over.

On buyer behavior shifting:

72 % of B2B buyers never want to meet with a salesperson ever again.

On staying valuable in the AI era:

don't lose sight of the value that you bring.

Key takeaways

• Curiosity is learnable (epistemic, not just Google-and-go diversive) and directly tied to performance, innovation, and engagement.
• Culture shifts take 12–18 months of consistent operating-system change — training alone fails without coaching and environment.
• Modern buyers arrive informed; product pitches lose to conversations about their business, risks, and outcomes.
• AI accelerates research prep, but clients still pay for perspective — how they compare to peers you've seen elsewhere.
• Companies are consolidating AI tools behind the firewall while fighting individual tool fragmentation.
• Effectiveness — not more efficiency — is the bet for earning the next meeting in a world of shorter buyer attention.