"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Why Tandem?
AI is forcing a false choice between automating everything or rejecting it entirely. Tandem exists for the third option: high agency, on your own terms. This means making intentional decisions about what you delegate and what you keep, designing for autonomy rather than scale.
The question is less "what can AI do?" and more "what do I choose to keep doing myself?" What separates augmentation from dissolution is whether you can still judge the outputs, whether you remain capable of doing the work yourself if needed and whether you're building on top of AI rather than becoming dependent on it.
The tandem way is frugal and intentional: saying no, keeping things understandable, changing direction without permission. It keeps the person as the one who decides what gets delegated, above the line rather than under it.
Food for thoughts
From the selection of the theme to our preparatory conversations for the Tandem dinners, topics and questions emerged.
We're delighted to share some of them with you. Read them, share them, challenge them. This is experimental, just like the whole dinner series is.
FAQ
Your co-hosts
Margaux Pelen
Margaux is the founder of episcope, an AI research and consulting studio based in Paris and Berlin, focused on AI transformation in work and learning. With fifteen years of experience as a "Company of One," she advises leaders and builds ventures at the intersection of AI, work and learning. Alumna of HEC Paris, Télécom Paris and Singularity University at NASA (full scholarship).
Marine Buclon
Marine is an entrepreneur and executive coach based in Paris. With a background in the humanities (ENS Paris-Saclay, Sciences Po, HEC), she has spent fifteen years in tech entrepreneurship exploring what remains profoundly human: education, learning, and the future of work. Former COO of Wave.ai, an AI-powered coaching service, she now supports leaders and independents seeking to claim their singularity in a world where AI is rewriting the rules.
Marion Nicole Trigodet
Marion Nicole Trigodet is a 10-year experienced Learning practitioner designing learning products, strategies, and teams across EdTech and corporate education. Former Head of Learning at OpenClassrooms and Tomorrow University, she is now empowering Learning Leaders through efficient learning-focused practices, teams and products.
They loved the first dinners
"What struck me most was the variety of people from different professional backgrounds, and the fact that everyone got a real chance to speak."
- Paris guest
"I walked away with so many different viewpoints, different experiences on AI in positive and negative ways, and having met 10 very different but genuinely fascinating people."
- Berlin guest
"The tandem format was something else: the mix of ultra-pro preparation and improvisation, the collision of perspectives from wildly diverse backgrounds. Brilliant casting, and revealing LinkedIn profiles only afterwards!"
- Paris guest
"Conviviality without superficiality, diversity of viewpoints, and above all that collective capacity to step back without losing concrete grounding. The discussions were alive, sometimes electric with fertile tensions."
- Berlin guest
"Being all in the same room, around one table: it immediately creates an exceptional quality of listening that you just don't get anywhere else."
- Paris guest
"Not only tech people, but also people from psychology, finance, and beyond. That mix made the discussions so much richer and genuinely representative of the world we're all navigating."
- Berlin guest
"What I loved was the balance between structure and freedom. It was guided, but there was real room to digress, explore, and build on each other's thinking."
- Paris guest
"The open-mindedness and humility of the participants, the diversity of backgrounds, the respectful and curious atmosphere. And I especially loved that introductions weren't centered on professional roles."
- Berlin guest
"The follow-up email after the dinner was remarkable: a synthesis not only of what was said explicitly, but a genuinely sharp reading of what remained implicit. That level of care is rare."
- Paris guest
"The diverse approaches, the passion of the participants, the real listening and respect for every voice in the room. I left energized and inspired."
- Berlin guest
"The intimate venue, the carefully curated group, the confidentiality of the exchanges, and the freedom to let the conversation go wherever it needed to go."
- Paris guest
"I loved that introverts were genuinely thought of, with ice breakers and prompts that made sure every voice was heard."
- Berlin guest
"The preparation was thorough without ever feeling academic. And somehow we all converged around the theme of writing, which touched everyone in some way, without it being planned at all."
- Paris guest
"The quality of collective attention given to each person who spoke was something I hadn't experienced in a long time."
- Berlin guest
"I usually meet the same kinds of people. This was different. A small group, genuinely diverse, and that made for a far more meaningful conversation."
- Paris guest
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Tandem dinners happen regularly in Paris and we share notes after each edition. Leave your email to stay in the loop!