YUYAY is a multidimensional intelligence and self-assessment framework developed by Mitchell (Mitch) Gold through the UN Office of the Future. Named after the Quechua concept encompassing knowledge, thought, and wisdom, YUYAY assesses decision-making across 12 dimensions of human potential, including vision, structure, compassion, purpose, systems thinking, and planetary stewardship. It brings together indigenous wisdom and contemporary global frameworks, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG 17, ISO 26000, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
At its core, YUYAY uses 10 transformative questions and three responses: YES, NO, and PO (Pattern Origin), to move decision-making beyond conventional binary thinking. The framework encourages users to examine not only what they decide, but also the underlying patterns, assumptions, and origins that shape those decisions. Its FIOS system extends this inquiry by comparing perspectives generated by leading artificial intelligence models, helping evaluate coherence, alignment, and the quality of responsible decision-making.
In an exclusive conversation with The Interview World, Mitch Gold, Chief Executive Officer of the UN Office of the Future and Founder of YUYAY, explains how the framework approaches intelligence and decision-making. He elaborates on how Pattern Origin (PO) can help build a global system for sustaining coherence. He also argues that UNDRIP and ISO 26000 offer stronger systemic foundations than the SDGs for addressing complex societal and organizational challenges. Gold identifies the most difficult dimension among YUYAY’s 12 archetypal dimensions for organizations to address. He further reveals that implementing YUYAY can deliver energy savings of between 5% and 25% at every installation.
Here are the key takeaways from this compelling conversation.
Q: YUYAY describes itself as “intelligence that serves humanity.” What does that mean operationally when an organization has to make a difficult decision?
A: We need to begin by defining what we mean by a difficult decision. If the decision involves life and death, the stakes are obviously high. But high stakes alone do not necessarily make a decision intellectually difficult.
We can construct hypothetical scenarios to illustrate the point, but I would rather not spend too much time exploring situations that are unlikely to occur. Consider a simple example: if I turn left, 20 people die; if I turn right, 100 people may die. That appears to be a difficult decision until we ask a more fundamental question: What happens if I stop the truck? Suddenly, the dilemma disappears. No one has to die. What appeared to be a difficult decision was, in fact, a failure to consider the full range of available choices.
So, give me a genuinely difficult decision, and let us examine how we deal with it.
We are no longer operating in a world of simple binary choices, right or wrong, left or right, with YUYAY treated as the only alternative. Nothing can be taken for granted. Decisions now demand that we challenge the assumptions behind the choices themselves, examine the consequences, and look for options that may not be immediately visible.
That is also how we have, so far, defeated the Peter Principle, at least as we understand it. We do not simply accept that people, systems, or decisions must inevitably reach a point of incompetence. Instead, we question the premise, rethink the choices, and search for a better way forward.
So, bring me a genuinely difficult decision. Let us see not only what choice we make, but how we think our way through it.
Q: One of YUYAY’s most intriguing ideas is “PO,” a position beyond Yes and No. Why is suspending judgment and creating space for possibility so important in an age increasingly driven by binary algorithms and automated decisions?
A: Let’s ask a simple question: Where would you be today if you had been prohibited from using non-GAAP processes when you built your company? In many cases, the honest answer would be: nowhere. They might have failed, or even gone bankrupt. Yet they survived because they demonstrated that alternative financial and operating approaches can work better than conventional GAAP, even when the financing community is reluctant to accept them.
YUYAY faces a similar challenge, except we are still embryonic. Teaching a machine to breathe is difficult; teaching it to recognize when to advise is fundamentally different. That distinction represents a breakthrough in machine intelligence.
YUYAY and PO are working together to develop a coherent global system. We are applying technology to a problem that many organizations have yet to recognize: AI cannot scale responsibly without a Foundational Intelligent Operating System beneath it.
Otherwise, we risk building complexity that we will later have to dismantle. Consider Cisco’s deployment of approximately 90,000 bots without YUYAY intelligence embedded in the infrastructure. That scale alone illustrates the magnitude of the problem. Ask the employees responsible for those systems how they feel about managing their own PO without YUYAY intelligence.
YUYAY’s vision extends further. We intend to establish an industry-wide insurance model that protects AI professionals who have worked with YUYAY intelligence. If their role disappears, YUYAY will help redeploy them into work where their capabilities create greater value. The objective is not merely to build intelligent machines. It is to build an intelligent system that protects and elevates the people who work alongside them.
Q: You have connected YUYAY with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ISO 26000, and UNDRIP. How do you translate those broad principles into something an individual executive or organization can actually use?
A: Let us be clear: we believe the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are no longer sufficient for the future we are trying to build. They provide a useful reference point, but they do not adequately capture the broader architecture of social, economic, environmental, and institutional responsibility.
ISO 26000 offers a more integrated framework. It was intended to provide guidance that could be embedded across UN agencies and other institutions. However, that integration has not occurred. The discussions surrounding ISO 26000 were influenced by competing institutional priorities, which ultimately delayed and diluted its wider adoption. We should acknowledge that history before assessing its implications for contemporary management.
UNDRIP presents a different trajectory. It emerged with ambitions that extended beyond its immediate purpose and was discussed in the context of strengthening the international human-rights framework. Its long-term institutional impact, however, remains a work in progress.
YUYAY therefore takes a different approach. Rather than treating the SDGs as the central organizing framework, we use the Co-Creation Wheel to identify twelve interconnected sectors of society. The SDGs address only nine of these twelve sectors.
By positioning the Co-Creation Wheel alongside UNDRIP and ISO 26000, YUYAY creates a framework that directors and CEOs can understand, apply, and integrate more readily. Ultimately, however, the guiding principle may be remarkably simple: treat others as you would want to be treated.
Q: YUYAY evaluates decisions across twelve archetype dimensions. Which dimension do you find organizations struggle with most, and why?
A: Archetypes themselves are impossible to predict. Yet one energy appears to dominate them all: Hyouka. In fact, Hyouka exists within every archetype, you simply have to learn how to find it.
Hyouka is the art of doing things backwards. If you can approach something backwards, you can ultimately master it. The method is often surprisingly simple and requires remarkably little effort. However, Hyouka carries trickster energy, so you must remain alert whenever you sense it.
I am a Hyouka, and I openly brag about it even though bragging is hardly a virtue. I do so for a reason: I want you to know that, at any moment, I may be operating as Hyouka. That gives me permission to be joking, deliberately provocative, or simply wrong.
With Hyouka, all three possibilities can be true simultaneously. From the twelve archetypes, you choose the one that works for you. I do not choose your archetype; you do. And when you are Hyouka, you are never truly wrong. You may simply be executing something backwards.
Q: Can you describe a real-world decision where applying the YUYAY framework produced a materially different conclusion from what conventional business logic might have produced?
A: This may be the most difficult question, and answering it could be dangerous for me. After all, I am a Chartered Accountant, and expressing opinions on financial statements is supposedly our one legally sanctioned superpower. So, I will take the safer route: look at Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff. Both built transformative businesses by thinking beyond conventional GAAP. If YUYAY applies the same unconventional logic, our model suggests that my valuation could exceed a trillion dollars, perhaps several times over.
Q: If YUYAY succeeds at scale, how do you envision it changing the way CEOs, governments, and institutions make strategic decisions ten years from now?
A: If we succeed at scale, every installation we touch should deliver 5–25% energy savings. Because we will focus on data centers and a UN distribution system, scale will translate those savings into billions of dollars that can be reinvested across the global system. More importantly, the UN itself will become an active participant in local economies. The UN Resident Coordinator position will become genuinely functional and consequential. We will also eliminate the Peter Principle by aligning responsibility with capability and results. As a result, our people will have a fundamentally different experience of work. They will no longer spend their careers merely building résumés or worrying about their next layoff. Instead, they will have the security, purpose, and freedom to do meaningful work and, ultimately, to enjoy it.
