Our Mission
Work has power. How, where, and why we work defines our identity, lived experience, and wellbeing. Our work, individual and collective, has a profound impact on the world, one increasingly amplified by technology.
Too often, we make choices about work based on unchallenged assumptions, effectively relinquishing these decisions to others.
re:work is an attempt to examine those choices about work so we can make better ones, and rediscover our freedom to make them along the way.
Who We Are
re:work was founded by two friends who started their careers at the same time, in the same company, and did everything conventional wisdom told them to do. Study hard in school, attend a good university, get a respected job, earn a healthy income, be happy. They soon discovered that living a fulfilling, meaningful and happy life is not quite that simple. And they drew different conclusions about what to do next.
David Flatscher is, on paper, perfect. An Austrian who moved to the US as a teenager, David studied economics at NYU. Powered, in part, by the anxiety over the financial burden he imposed on his parents, he graduated with top honours and a semester early. Then he went on to complete a master’s degree in social policy at the London School of Economics, studying how markets, government, and civil society improve human wellbeing, and distinguishing himself with an award for an outstanding dissertation. With a briefcase full of accolades, he began his career in human capital consulting, working for leading consultancies in London. Today his work is helping organisations rethink how work itself should be structured, which roles matter, and where technology fits. In short, he spent the better part of a decade thinking about work, technology, and the choices we make to live well. He is also irritatingly well-rounded: jiu-jitsu, bouldering, yoga, meditation. He speaks multiple languages, and is, reliably, every mother-in-law’s dream.
Tom Cabral could never compete with all that, so he stopped trying early on. Raised in Lisbon, Portugal, where he attended the French Lycée, Tom peaked at age 17, when he was admitted to the University of Edinburgh to pursue a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. During that degree, he endeavoured to optimise the fun-to-results ratio, qualifying for the honours list with a margin of 0.1%. Then, despite a lifelong anti-corporate streak, went straight into executive search: Heidrick & Struggles and later at the tech- and start-up-focused True Search, grinding up the ranks and earning a reputation as ‘high-potential ’- a prophecy that went ultimately unfulfilled. He spent those years interviewing highly successful people about their working lives. In 2024, tired of that daily diet, he left to look for a more intentional life. He now lives back home in Lisbon with his wife and baby boy. Through a lifelong debate, he hopes to find better answers for himself and for the people who engage with him.
The seeds of re:work were sown over many years of late-night conversations about work, about the daily grind, the salary negotiations, the repetitiveness, the virtual lockdown first imposed by COVID and later self-imposed by comfort and convenience. Discussions expanded into the purpose of life, on how to stay positive, feel gratitude, explore our internal world of consciousness, and have a meaningful impact on the world. All of this is an inadvertent exercise in developing a new conventional wisdom on how to live a good life.
re:work is an intention to open the conversation to the world. Reflecting on work’s role in our life, reconsidering how we work, and reaffirming why we work.
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Disclaimer
Everything published here is generated by human intelligence. Each piece is a genuine expression of the author’s personal views - born of experience, struggle, and curiosity - and offered with humility rather than any claim to be right. These views are the author’s own; they do not represent our employers or any organisation we’re affiliated with.
We use AI only for supporting work - editing, fact-checking, images - never to generate ideas or arguments themselves. The thinking and the words are ours.
It’s not perfect. It’s real.
