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Wes Moore · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Westmore, a native of Baltimore like me, is a Rhodes Scholar,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: White House Fellow, Afghanistan War veteran five time book author,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and for the last four years has been running the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Robin Hood Foundation. He's stepping down soon and has plans
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to run for governor of Maryland. On this episode, appear
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to Pere West and I discussed the struggle for racial
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: equality in America, his organization's COVID relief work, and his
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: political ambitions. Welcome West to our show. It is so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: good to be with you. As always, David. Thank you
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: tell people what the robin Hood Foundation is because recently
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: some people think robin Hood. They think it's stock trading.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But that's not what you do, right, You're not in
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: that robin Hood, right that, that is not what we do.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: It was amazing during the whole uh Game Stop episode
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I had people were blowing up my inbox and saying,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you know, unblock my trades. And I'm like, I had
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: no idea how to unblock your trades, but I wish
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  Speaker 1: you'd luck with that. Um. But the Robin and Foundation
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: is a is a thirty two year old organization with
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: an exclusive goal of ending poverty and uh. And it
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: was started by Paul Tutor Jones and and Peter Borish
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  Speaker 1: and the collection to other people who are actually in
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the investment business. And they started this foundation where they say,
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  Speaker 1: we want to be able to take uh take metrics
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  Speaker 1: in best practices and invest in the organizations that we
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  Speaker 1: think have the highest probability of being able to end
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  Speaker 1: this scourge of poverty. And they started off making about
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: forty dollars worth of investments. Now thirty two years later,
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  Speaker 1: we have allocated just shy of four billion dollars into
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: this work and into this fight. And we fund everything
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: from education to housing, transportation, mental health and physical health,
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  Speaker 1: criminal justice reform. Anywhere where poverty is either the cause
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: or the consequence, we will find fund, build, if necessary,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: all these mechanisms that we think put us on our
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: better pathway of creating more equitable society. So how much
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  Speaker 1: money does Robert Hood giveaway annually? Side? Yeah? So so
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: over the you know, when we think about the process
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of the of the last year. Uh, you know, we
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: ended up raising around two hundred and forty million dollars. Uh.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: You know, just in the in the past four year
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: that I've been I've been the CEO. We've raised over
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: two over six hundred and seventy five million dollars. But
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the unique thing about our model is actually this is that,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you know, there are certain foundations that will say, okay,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we'll take a portion of our endowment and allocate the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: portion of our endowment into our grandmaking. Robin Hood's endowment
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: is essentially zero. Right. There's there's a uniqueness of our
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: model is that every dollar we get in it will
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: go out within that next within within the time period
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: of that next calendar year. And so every year on
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: January one, it's like, you know, it's like press go again,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: we raise and then we get the money out in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the capital as quickly as possible. But you have staff
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: who pays for the staff all the administrative costs that
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: usually in some foundations that could be uh, you know,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: five or ten percent absolutely if if not, if not more.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: And but you know, the other unique model, the other
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: mechanism of Rominan's model is actually the fact that our
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: our board actually covers all operational expenses. And your focus
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is New York City? Is that right? Principally it is
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  Speaker 1: it is even though you know, since our since uh,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: since the time that that we've come on board, we
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: really you know, continue to capture the imagination around the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: idea that that while poverty is nowhere near beaten in
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: New York City, poverty is not a New York City
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: issue either, right, So we we we are a very
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: proud place based platform and place based organization. But also,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: for example, two years ago, we launched an initiative called
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Mobility Labs and LABS actually is an acronym that stands
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: for Learning and Action BETS and we have found seven
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  Speaker 1: different communities around the country to really explore the issues
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: of urban, rural and suburban poverty and areas that include
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  Speaker 1: you know, my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland and your hometown
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  Speaker 1: of Baltimore, Maryland. But COVID must have made it more
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: difficult to raise money or to figure out how to
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: give it way and to run the the foundation remotely.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So how did you do that? Yeah, I mean code
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  Speaker 1: COVID was um COVID in This past year was a
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  Speaker 1: remarkable year, David, And there was a lot of uncertainty,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: uncertainty about how does what does that mean in terms
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of how we continue to move at a quick and
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a fast pace despite the fact that we weren't going
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  Speaker 1: to be together. How do we consider the fact that
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: we knew how damaging this was going to be on
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  Speaker 1: our communities and our community partners as as you know,
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  Speaker 1: we saw eleven years of job growth go away in
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: eleven weeks, and we knew which communities would be hit
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  Speaker 1: hardest by that. It was our communities and so so
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: but I I'm so proud of the way that we
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: responded and rebounded. You know, we activated uh something called
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the Relief Fund, which was the you know, for only
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the third time in the organization, in the history's organization
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that we've activated the Relief Fund. Once was after nine eleven,
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  Speaker 1: the other was after Hurricane Sandy, and now the third
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  Speaker 1: was COVID nineteen where we had a specific a few
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: specific focuses. One was supporting the nonprofit sector, which we
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: knew was going to take an extraordinary hit, and these
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: were all the organizations that were doing the social service
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: work in the city and beyond that needed it. And
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  Speaker 1: the second piece was emergency cash assistance, just getting cash
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  Speaker 1: into people's hands. We knew that from data that we
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: that we supported and funded and helped build that that
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that over around to people could not afford a four
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: shock with cash. Well, that shock, that shock was here
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  Speaker 1: and it was a lot more than four hundred dollars.
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  Speaker 1: So we knew immediately what you had to do was
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: get cash supports into people that needed it most and
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: specifically people who we saw government intervention was not touching.
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  Speaker 1: Let me ask you during uh COVID, many nonprofit organizations
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  Speaker 1: have suffered because they would say their donors don't feel
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: as wealthy as they did before. Did your donors say,
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  Speaker 1: you know, not right now, I know it's a problem,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't make as much money as I used to,
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  Speaker 1: Or did you get more money from your donors? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: We we actually saw people who have who stepped up
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: signing nificantly, and and and and I think there's a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: couple of things, uh you know that we learned and
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  Speaker 1: really helped to n package with all that, um you know,
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  Speaker 1: one was that one was that, you know, the reality
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  Speaker 1: was that not everyone was getting financially hurt during this time.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: That while you did have certain people who did see
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: their incomes their incomes decrease or or in many cases
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: their incomes go away, you saw some that actually saw
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: their businesses increase and their businesses jump. And part of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: The challenge that we also continue to see was how
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: this separation in this divide and the wealth divide, how
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it shows itself. And so you had people who that
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: dynamic and that reality showed itself also in philanthrop and giving.
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  Speaker 1: The second piece was I think we saw a measure
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  Speaker 1: of human pain and a universality of the human pain
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  Speaker 1: that was impossible for people not to respond to. Let's
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: talk about how you became the head of the Robin
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Hood Foundation, because you're not You've worked in New York,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: but you're from Baltimore, as you mentioned earlier, and you're
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: minding your own business this you're in Baltimore, you're living
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in Baltimore. How did they come to hear of you?
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  Speaker 1: And had you been doing anything like this that would
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: have given you the qualification that for them to think
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that you'll be the right person. David, I I call
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  Speaker 1: myself the most accidental uh foundation head that you could
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  Speaker 1: ever possibly imagine, you know, because I had no background
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and in in in philanthropy, Uh, you know, I and
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  Speaker 1: I and I thought to myself when they first approached
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: me and they said, uh, you know, uh, they were like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we'd like for you to consider being the
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  Speaker 1: CEO of Robin Hood. And I said, I don't know
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. And I said, I'm thinking of
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of reasons why, but let me give you three.
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  Speaker 1: And I said, the first reason is, you know I
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  Speaker 1: live in Baltimore. You know I'm a Marylander and I
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  Speaker 1: don't plan on moving, and so I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: i would run a New York based organization when I'm
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: here living in Baltimore. The second piece that I said
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  Speaker 1: to them was, you know was I'm enjoying the work
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that I'm doing here in Maryland. And then the third
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: piece was I said, you know I've been I've been
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  Speaker 1: critical of philanthropy historically, and in fact, the head of
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the search committee was became the chair of the board.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And a good friend said, you know, we've it's all
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: over the internet. We've seen it. We've done our diligence,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and have you realized you're not that persuasive? Then you
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: couldn't persuade them not to go after you. But let's
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: talk about your incredible life story. We were born in Baltimore.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And then, um, your father died when he was when
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you were young? Is that right? He died when I
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  Speaker 1: was when I was about four years old. He died
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in front of me. Uh, from a from a a
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: rare but a but a treatable virus. Your mother said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna move you to New York or she wanted
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  Speaker 1: to move to New York. Did you move to the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Bronx then? Yeah, so, so she was having a really
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: difficult time with the transition. Um, you know, she became
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: a widow in her twenties with three children that she
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  Speaker 1: was going to raise on her own, and had a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: really difficult time with it, And eventually she called up
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  Speaker 1: her parents, my grandparents, who lived up in the Bronx. My,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: you're right. My grandfather was a minister in the South Bronx.
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  Speaker 1: My grandmother was a school teacher for twenty five years
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  Speaker 1: in South Bronx. Both immigrated to uh, to this country
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and uh and uh it their their house was barely
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: big enough for them, but they figured out a way
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to make it big enough for all of us. Sorry,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: she moved up there, and you were the perfect child.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: You never got in trouble and everything worked out where
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I was that right in my in my own mind? Yeah, No,
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  Speaker 1: I mean I had a that was a really hard
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: transition for me. Um. By the time I was in
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: seventh grade, I was you know, I was literally kicked out,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, I found myself hurting people that actually
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: did love me, so I could impress people that could
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: care less about me. I mean, I felt I first
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: time that I was handcuffed was when I was eleven
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: years old. And uh. And so by the time I
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: was thirteen, after years of threats of sending me away
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to this school or send me away to that school
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: or whatever it was, when I was thirteen, my mom
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: made good on her threats and she sent me to
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: military school. All right, you went to a military school.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And I assume you weren't dying to go to a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: military school. And it wasn't my was my first choice.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I straighten you out a little bit or something like that.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: They did, well, you know it. It took a little while, David,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And you know, I read away. I think I ran
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: away five times in the is four d ease? All right,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So eventually you go to military college. Is that right?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: That's junior college. I did. I graduated from high school
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and then I uh uh, and I was trying to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: figure out what I wanted to do and and Honestly,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: for many people in my life, particularly a lot of
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the men in my life who were my mentors at
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that point in my and the people I admired, they
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: all had one thing in common, and that's they all
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: wore the uniform of this country. And uh so I
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: went to I joined the army, and then I went
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to a military college. All right, But then you eventually
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: went to Johns Hopkins, right, And at Johns Hopkins you
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: must have done reasonably well because you were elected as
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a Rhodes scholar. Now, sometimes people that win Rhodes scholarships,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they go to Oxford, they get a degree, or they
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: don't get a degree. Then they come back and say, Okay,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to Harvard Law School, Yale Law School,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go um into something important like private equity,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be. Right, what did you decide to do?
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: How Come you didn't go to Harvard or Yale Law
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: store some other grade law school. How come you decided
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to do something? Probably not that many Rhodes scholars were
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: doing well. You know, at first I actually went to
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I went to the World of Finance, and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I was there for a little while, working at Deutsche
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Bank in London, and it was great and it was nice.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And then I tell you, David, I was. I remember
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: getting a phone call uh and I thought I was
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I was brand new, a brand new analyst working on
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: deals and uh. It was from my good buddy UM
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: at that time, Major Mike Fenzel, who was with the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: eighty second Airborn Division. And he said something me uh
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that he said, uh, so when are you going to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: get into the fight? And that was indicting for me,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: as you know, because I trained, I'm a paratrooper, I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: had gone through gone through all my training with my soldiers,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and and as as my soldiers are now deploying to
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan and deploying to Iraq, you know, I was working
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: in in high finance and I literally went back and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: thought about it and prayed on it and and I
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: went back and and and called him back up I
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: think a couple days later, and said, Mike, I'm in.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: And so I ended up doing a They end up
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: doing a by name request for me. Uh. And I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: left finance and I went and I joined up with
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the eighty second Airborne Division. I went actually down to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Fort Benning, Uh to go uh, to go do my
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: training and and and mobed up. And then literally probably
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: around nine months after that conversation that I had in
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: this stairwell of Deutsche Bank with Mike Fenzel, I was
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: getting ready to deploy with the eighty second Airborn to Afganistan.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: All right, so you go to Afghanistan. But did you
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: ask for an office job there, something that you could
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: be kind of not be shot at or something like that. No,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: not at all. We uh, I was very clear. You know,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I went over and I led a group of paratroopers
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: as as a special operations officer. They're working you know,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: information operations psych psy ops, which is you know, psychological operations,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and we were very much in the field. And you
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: know what was interesting is that, uh, so much of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the conversation at that time two thousand five was was
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: iraq Um. You know, we had about a hundred and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: fifty thou groups in the rock at the time. In Afghanistan,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: we only had about seventeen thousand troops. And so I
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: remember actually when I got deployment orders for Afghanistan, there
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: are a lot of people like who, you know, a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: leash's not going to Iraq uh, not knowing the kind
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of fighting that was going on in Afghanistan at that time.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And literally within the first days of Afghanistan, Uh, I
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: started seeing firsthand, you know, literally you see first firefight,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you start seeing, um, just what kind of fighting was
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: going on in Afghanistan. So how long were you over there?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I was over for a little, a little shy of
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: a year, Monk. Then you came back to the United States?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Did and what did you do that? Uh? Then I
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: actually started working back and now so I did. First
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: did a White House Fellowship. Mike Fenstin Gentleman was a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: former White House Fellow, and actually I came back from
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a mission one night and he said, I want you
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to apply for this thing called the White House Fellowship.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And he said, you know this is it's important for
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: people back in Washington to get a first understanding of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the year that you're having right now, so they can
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: actually see what's going on on the ground. So I
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: applied for a White House Fellowship. I was blessed to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: receive it, and I had the honor of working under
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: under Events Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice uh And and
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: her team, which was just an unbelievable and and a
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: life shifting experience for me to be able to go
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: through that. Okay, so you after the White House Fellowship,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you work for Condoleeza Rice. Did your mother say, now
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: can you get a serious job that's a full time
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: thing makes some money? Is that what you finally decided
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to do? What did you do? I? I did at
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that time my mother was like, all right, slow down
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and started actually preparing a family. And also I was
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: newly married now at that point too, So so now
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: you really are starting to think about, all right, what
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: are the things that you want to be able to do?
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And I started thinking about the things that I was
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: interested in, this in the skill sets that I had had. Uh,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And so I decided that so maybe I should try
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: to give U give finance a shot. And then I
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: had to had the pleasure then of working at City
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and working for for a few years at City as
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: at first as an analyst associate than a vice president U,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you know, just working on collections of deals. So you
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: moved to New York. I then moved to New York. Yes, yes,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: so we were living in Maryland. I got back Afghanistan
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and moved to New York for a few years. Then
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: when did you move back to Baltimore. Yeah. I, UM,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I remember having a conversation UM with UH, with another
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: mentor of mine, person who was running investment banking. Uh
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: now is running premier Ray McGuire and UH. And I
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: went to him and I said, you know, I think
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I'm I think it's time for me to do something different.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I just finished actually writing a book called The Other
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Westmore UM, which was an important process in time for
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: me just will also be reflective about my own life.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And UH. And that's when I said, I made the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: decision that I really wanted to leave finance and and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to go focus on on these issues that are really
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: my life's burning issues. Being a Rhodes Scholar and a
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: White House fellow isn't enough. You have to write a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: book as well to make everybody else look bad because
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: you're doing too many things. So tell people now who
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: are watching, who the Other Westmar was. It was. It
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: was actually during that same time period of the Rhodes Scholarship.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Um that that it was right after I got the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Rhodes Scholarship. Of The Baltimore Sun, which is our hometown paper. UH,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you know, wrote this article about this local kid who
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: just got an award and was now getting ready at
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: help to England on this scholarship, and at the same
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: time they're writing a whole series of articles about four
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: guys who walked into a jewelry store and um and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: attempted to rob the jewly store, and in this botched
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: jewelry store robbery ended up murdering an off duty police officer.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: And there was a twelve day national manhunt for these
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: four guys, and finally, after twelve days, all four guys
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: were caught. One of the people that was eventually caught
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was a guy who's uh we were living in the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: same area, We're around the same age. We both grew
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: up in single parent households and his name was also Westmore.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And I reached out to him and I wrote him
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: this note. He wrote me a note back, and eventually
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: those that single the note turned to dozens of notes.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Those dozens of notes turned to dozens of visits. I've
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: now known west for for for almost two decades. But um,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: but at the same time I was getting ready how
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: to England, he was getting ready to start his life
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: sentence in prison. And so the other west Moore was
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a book that really evolved from our years of of
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of of friendship and about these two kids and what
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: ends up happening that causes this split amongst these two
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: kids with similar backgrounds to include names. So you've now
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: written five books. Um, one of them is about Freddy Gray,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and this was a person who was taken uh into
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a police patty wagon and en route to the police
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: station I guess died and cause riots in Baltimore and
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: so forth. Um, what is your own view now on
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: whether the racial situation in the United States, because of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: examples like Freddie Gray or George Floyd, have gotten worse
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: than when you were growing up. Where do you see
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: any progress being made? Yeah, I mean I I see,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I see the potential for progress being made. And the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: potential for progress being made is the fact that that
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: we're now understanding and talking about this is not just
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: isolated incidences, but we're understanding the the the the longevity
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and the lineage of this that that the damage of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of George Floyd wasn't just the fact that we watched
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: a homicide on camera, but it was the fact that
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: his name gets added to a much longer lineage of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: names that there's just been no accountability for. Right. But
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it also comes down to the fact that we watch
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: how these acts and we watch how these issues of
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: systemic racism do show themselves, and not just policing, whether
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you're talking about educational attainment, whether you're talking about wealth,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: whether you're talking about uh, where you're talking a maternal mortality,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: whether you're talking about whether you're talking about um, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: basic acid allocation. It's race. And it's impossible to understand
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: this without disaggregating the importance of it. And so I
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: think that the platform for progress is the fact that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: we are now having a mature and an honest conversation
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: about what is it going to take for us to
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: move into a better space and a place where we're watching,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: We're watching. It's not just the press populations who are
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: demanding justice. And that's the power of this moment. So
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: many African American men of your age or older have
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: told me of their own life experiences where they were
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: stopped by place for things that didn't seem appropriate at
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the time to them. Certainly, have you had those run
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: ins with the place since you've been an adult? Oh?
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, And and you know, and but it's it's
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: it's both the fact that we've had these interactions, um,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and and and the fact that the sound of a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: police siren, it just has a different pitch depending on
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: what neighborhood you're in, and and and and your heart
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: rate speeds up in a different way when you're already
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: anticipating the fact that this this encounter could go wrong,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and and how it could be interpreted by other people.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: But it's also the fact that you know that I
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: as a as as as a as a father, now,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: um that I know that I'm going to be forced
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to have conversations that other people are not gonna be
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: forced to have with our children. So now you are,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: um gonna be leaving shortly Robin Hood. You're gonna go
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: live in Baltimore. Are you going to pursue what I've
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: called the higher calling of private equity or are you
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: thinking of doing something else. I've read in the newspapers
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that you're thinking of running for governor of Maryland. There's
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: there any truth to that. I am exploring running for
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: running for governor of Maryland, and um, and you know,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and and I'm thinking about it just in terms of
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I know, I want to focus on on true systems change.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I think we're just at a very crucial point where
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: on issues that I have spent my entire adult life on,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: whether they be ending child poverty, whether it be uh
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: eliminating the racial wealth gap, about how do we think
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: about education in a fair way that we're actually providing
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: real pathways for our students. These are all issues that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: are right in front of us right now, and we're
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: making generational decisions right now. And so I know the work,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I know the issues I want to get done. I
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: know the work I want to try to do. I'm
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: thinking about what's the right platform, um, and I think
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: that there is not just a unique potential, you know,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: a lane, but there's a unique way to be able to,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: you know, finally put in any of issues I care about.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Suppose the President of the United States is watching this
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and he says, Yest, look, running for office, that's tough.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Why don't you come in. I'll give you a senior
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: job in the administration, to become a cabin officer or something.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Would you go in they buy the administration or you
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: really want to run for office and the governorship of Maryland? Yeah, No,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I mean I have I have a deep admiration for
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: all folks who choose to serve in administrations. UM. I
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: also know that I'm at the stage of my career
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: as well where I know my skill sets uh, and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I know what I'm good at um and and I'm
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a pretty good executive. I know to run things and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: um and and run large organizations. And I work within government.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I've worked within and with government my entire career, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I know that that for me, this is not about
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I want to go into politics. UH. For me is
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: this is about the fact that the executive role who
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: actually controls a budget, who is has a chance to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: actually change a destiny for a generation of children and families.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: That that's something makes my heart beat faster, and that's
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: what makes me excited. So UM. For people who are watching, uh,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: they would say, Okay, after he got his life together,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: he want to Rhodes scholarship, white House fellowships, written five books,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: heads Robin hood, happily married, two kids. Uh. This is
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a perfect picture. Make us feel that we're not so
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: inadequate ourselves. UH. Tell us something you're doing that doesn't
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: work out, where you've failed, there's something so we can
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: feel that we're just not watching a superhuman We want
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to rutch somebody has mistakes or fail there's something you
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: can say you're not good at. There there let me
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: tell you something there is uh there. There is plenty
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that I am not good at, and plenty that I've
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: failed at. But I tell you one thing about me, David,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is I'm not afraid to fail um and and that's
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: one thing that I think I've really tried to try
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to push on. It's an incredible story. I always like
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to see somebody from Baltimore who's made good, and you
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: obviously have. So thanks very much for being with us today,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and you too. Thank you. It's great to be with you.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen