He Left Finance to Fix the Way We Talk to Each Other. Meet the Founder of Banjo.

Ken Allen spent nearly three decades at the intersection of technology and finance — Electrical Engineering at Dartmouth, an MBA from the Tuck School of Business, and leadership roles at some of the world's most respected firms, including Blackstone, Bain & Company, EY Parthenon, KPMG, and Deutsche Bank. Over the course of his career, he advised or helped create companies with more than $40 billion in value.

Then he walked away from all of it to build Banjo — an AI-powered platform for civil dialogue — because he believed something was going badly wrong with the way we talk to each other. Hear directly from Banjo's founder and CEO about the story behind the company, and why he thinks better conversation might be the most urgent problem of our time.

In the simplest terms, what is Banjo?

"Banjo is a platform where people come together and engage in safe, civil, thoughtful dialogue around any issue. We facilitate that dialogue through a unit of debate we call a 'Think' — an affirmative proposition that can be discussed. It's a statement you can agree with, disagree with, or be uncertain about. By structuring conversations this way — in a Socratic format — we think we can dramatically reduce polarization, increase critical thinking, and bring people together to really engage with each other, even when they disagree. We very consciously show every perspective right alongside the others, so you can see this tapestry of Dialogue unfolding across different viewpoints."

What's broken about how people communicate today?

"People are not listening to each other. They're talking past each other and not taking the time to actually understand another person's perspective — even if they disagree with it. That's okay. Disagreement is okay.

 My dad always used to say, you learn a lot more by listening than you do by talking. The key is to listen. To try to understand the assumptions another person has when forming their viewpoint. To empathize. That's where real communication starts."

What pushed you to finally build this?

"I've been thinking about this idea for over a decade. Around 2011 — when social media was still relatively new — I was looking for a platform where I could have these safe, civil, trusted conversations with peers about important topics. And I didn't see it. I couldn't find one online. So I sketched out the idea for Banjo. The concept was to bring people together in Socratic Dialogue, where there's a prompt being discussed by people on opposite sides of an issue — getting them to collaborate, to discover, to learn from each other. At the time I couldn't pursue Banjo for family and financial reasons. But it kept coming back into my mind, every few years. I was always thinking about it. 

I started the company in 2024. I'm a relatively spiritual person, and in a way the timing felt like a calling — the problem had gotten so bad. I was seeing it with my kids, with the next generation, where the toxicity in our world is affecting people's mental health in very real ways. That's not the world I want my kids to grow up in. So I decided to do something about it. I took a leap of faith, left the world of finance — a very comfortable career — and decided to go on a journey to try to make the world a more peaceful place."

How does the platform actually work?

"You vote whether you agree, disagree, or are uncertain about a proposition, and then you put forth a claim, a reply, or a rebuttal to another claim — sourced with evidence if you like. People on both sides come together and engage, which is the whole point: to increase understanding of another person's perspective. And through the process, people actually change their minds. I've been part of conversations where I changed my own.

We also use AI in two ways. One is what we call the academic discussion coach — it's designed to help you think more critically, more empathetically, and more civilly as you engage. The other is conversation summarization. If there are a thousand posts around a topic, we can synthesize all of that very quickly and clearly.

The platform was co-designed by professors at Duke University and Wheaton College — educators who were already using existing software and simply weren't satisfied with it. It has professor DNA built into it. It was designed by educators, for educators."

Where did the name Banjo come from?

"I like to walk my dogs — it's one of my favorite things to do. I put in my headphones and listen to music. It’s a great time for me to think. And that's actually when I thought of the name for Banjo. I was deep in thought about the message we're trying to communicate with the world and how the name of the company — which at the time was Thinkifi — communicated our values and what we stand for. Then a banjo tune came on my Spotify. I love the banjo. I play it — very poorly. But I love the sound. I think it communicates warmth and joy and peace and harmony.

The banjo is an instrument that's designed to play with others — in circles, in bands. And in those settings, it's not the loudest instrument that wins. The idea is for all the instruments to play together in harmony. That's Dialogue to us: diverse voices, different perspectives, finding the song together."

Who is Banjo for?

"Ultimately, Banjo is for anyone who wants to engage in safe, civil, intelligent, respectful conversations — which we think should be everybody. But we're not for everybody. Some people don't really want to listen to another person's perspective, and that's fine. There are plenty of places online for that experience. We're just not one of them. It's a self-selecting community — you sign up knowing the rules through what we call the Banjo Pledge, a commitment to safe, civil, respectful conversations.

Right now we're focused on higher education. The use cases range from a professor engaging a classroom in discussion, to campus-wide debates, to student political unions. We're working with a history teacher at a private high school in New York who ran a simulation on whether the American Revolution was inevitable. We're working with a private college in Massachusetts toward a campus-wide deployment on political and philosophical topics. And we're in serious discussions with a number of leading universities. But the vision is broader. Ultimately this could be a platform for anyone willing to engage in a responsible, intelligent, ethical way."

What does the world look like with Banjo?

"A happier, more joyful place. More peaceful. Critical thinking, empathy, interpersonal communication — these are skills that can be learned. They're core to being human. And I think it's really critical that those are the ones we focus on. If we can accomplish our mission — to enhance consciousness, knowledge, and understanding in a moral, safe, and ethical way that benefits humanity — it's going to be a home run. Not just as a business, but for the world."

Follow Banjo's journey at banjo.media and on LinkedIn and Instagram.