Building AI With Empathy: Meghan Joyce on Leadership, Motherhood & Mission

2025-10-16

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After leading high-impact teams at Uber, Oscar Health, and even the U.S. Department of Treasury, Meghan Joyce stepped out on her own to tackle one of modern life’s biggest bottlenecks: the endless “life admin” tasks stealing our time. As co-founder and CEO of Duckbill, she’s building a human-first AI assistant that blends machine intelligence with real-world persistence to help people take back control of their days.In this conversation, Meghan shares the kitchen-table moment that sparked...

After leading high-impact teams at Uber, Oscar Health, and even the U.S. Department of Treasury, Meghan Joyce stepped out on her own to tackle one of modern life’s biggest bottlenecks: the endless “life admin” tasks stealing our time. As co-founder and CEO of Duckbill, she’s building a human-first AI assistant that blends machine intelligence with real-world persistence to help people take back control of their days.

In this conversation, Meghan shares the kitchen-table moment that sparked Duckbill, what she learned navigating hyper-growth cultures at Uber and Oscar, and why “human-in-the-loop” help is the future of productivity. She opens up about the mindset shift that made her leap from operator to founder, and how motherhood reshaped her leadership and boundaries.

From early experiments that de-risked her idea to the values that now guide her team (“high standards, high support”), Meghan breaks down how she built a startup culture that balances speed with empathy. She also offers grounded advice on raising values-aligned capital, using AI without guilt, and redefining success for founders who want both ambition and presence.

Timestamps:

[00:00] Introduction

[02:37] The kitchen moment that sparked Duckbill

[05:46] Lessons learned from Uber and Oscar Health

[09:02] Why Duckbill blends AI efficiency with human touch

[10:28] Knowing when it’s time to leap into entrepreneurship

[14:43] Early hiring decisions and how her leadership evolved

[19:04] Defining company values and keeping them alive

[26:17] Finding values-aligned investors and staying mission-driven

[32:41] Using AI without guilt and redefining help

[43:26] How motherhood reshaped her leadership and boundaries

[48:37] Running low-stakes experiments before taking the leap