Duration: 50:16 | Recorded on April 25, 2026
S3E16 – What happens when you take 16 people’s phones away for an entire evening, sort them by how well they talk, and see who rises to the top? Kyle has been dreaming about this experiment for 30 years. A few weeks ago, he finally ran it. The results surprised everyone, especially the people who thought this wasn’t for them. This is not a typical episode of Bourbon and Rum. Hosted today by our producer, Becca.
Show Notes
/ The Dream: For decades, Kyle has been chasing a question: Can you engineer a great conversation? Inspired by a corner bar in Memphis, a grandmother with an eclectic friend group, and too many good nights standing around a keg in college, he developed a concept he calls the Sling Tower.
/ The Experiment: Sixteen people. Four rounds. Multiple environments, including a hot tub, a speakeasy, a car ride to the dollar store, and a keg. Phones collected at the door. Facilitators taking notes. A bracket. Kyle calls it Founders Night.
/ The Fifth Floor: By the end of the night, five people had risen through the rounds to the final conversation, facilitated via Zoom by Kent, who watched the whole evening unfold from a distance. What he found when he got there flipped the script on everything Kyle thought he was building toward.
/ No Phones, No Factions: Crystal, one of the evening’s facilitators, on what happened the moment the phones came back.
/ What Makes a Good Conversation: The fifth floor group reflects on listening, vulnerability, human connection, and why so many of them went home thinking: my kids need this.
Reference
Earnestine & Hazels, Memphis, Tennessee
The Fifth Floor is a Bourbon & Rum production. Special thanks to our facilitators and to everyone who trusted Kyle enough to hand over their phones and climb the Sling Tower. And to Earnestine & Hazels for showing us the blueprint!
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