Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Bradley Tusk - Voting On Your Phone Could Be The Future Of Democracy

Transcript

Interview Only w/ Bradley Tusk - Voting On Your Phone Could Be The Future Of Democracy · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
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  Speaker 1: Use that code. My guest today as someone who's been
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: at the center of American politics, business tech uh for
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the better part of a couple of decades, and because
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: there's so much happening in the world of business that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: is intersecting with the world of politics, and Washington in
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: some ways is becoming an epicenter of business in a
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  Speaker 1: derivative way, because it's frankly about a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 1: companies trying to figure out what it takes to keep
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  Speaker 1: Washington out of their business. But that in itself is
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  Speaker 1: a big business. So my guest is Bradley Tusk. He's
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a political strategist turned investor. He lives in this world
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  Speaker 1: in between in a political side. He was the campaign
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  Speaker 1: manager for Michael Bloomberg. And when Michael Bloomberg decided he
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: wanted a third term, which I wonder if in hindsight
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: he ever. I want to tell anybody who wants a
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  Speaker 1: third term, don't do it. Yeah, third terms never go.
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  Speaker 2: I'm trying. I was trying to sit here and think
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  Speaker 2: of a good third term.
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  Speaker 1: There's none, Bradley, there's none. Ask Mario Cuomo whether he
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: should have run for a third term. Ask Andrew Cuomo
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  Speaker 1: whether he should have been thinking about a third term.
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  Speaker 1: Third term. I Tim Walls is running for a third term.
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  Speaker 1: I want to say, don't do it. There's no good
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  Speaker 1: that comes from it. If you've if you've succeeded enough
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  Speaker 1: that a third term is viable. There's nowhere to go
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  Speaker 1: but down.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw a study once it said that after
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  Speaker 2: seven years, no matter who the chief executive is, people
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  Speaker 2: are ready to move on. And that's like every Taco system,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's a dictator or a mayor or a governor
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  Speaker 2: or anything else.
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  Speaker 1: Right, look at our own history. I mean, I'm a believer.
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  Speaker 1: And this will get to a little bit of our
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  Speaker 1: conversation here a little bit. But you know, I think
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  Speaker 1: any Democrat that is still consumed with Trump is sort
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: of wasting their time. And I don't mean this. Look Trump,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things he's doing that you that
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  Speaker 1: you may that may impact your life, and you've got
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to care about it. I get it, But I don't
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  Speaker 1: think he's you know, we're about to have a debate
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  Speaker 1: about what the post Trump world's going to look like.
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  Speaker 1: And I got to think people need to be focused
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  Speaker 1: on that because he's been in our lives for a decade.
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  Speaker 1: And guess what, nobody ever lasts that long. We're at
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  Speaker 1: the tail end, right, the Reagan Bush eraw basically ended
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  Speaker 1: with the nineteen ninety tax deal.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Eisenhower lasted, you know, you know, his era
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  Speaker 1: was about a decade, Kennedy, Johnson a decade, Nixon even
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  Speaker 1: less than that. I mean, you know, Obama sort of,
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  Speaker 1: you know, but it just we don't we sort of
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  Speaker 1: wear out. And if you look at the modern era
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  Speaker 1: of our presidents going back since World War Two, there's
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a reason that sort of a movement sort of petered
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  Speaker 1: out right in that eight to ten year mark in
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  Speaker 1: some form or another, and we're ten years with Trumpere.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, I think the question is to me, the
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  Speaker 2: things that he's doing that will go away when he
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  Speaker 2: goes away, and the things that he's done that will last,
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  Speaker 2: of which some might prove to be good, but a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: lot of it might prove to be pretty harmful long
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  Speaker 2: term the area. And maybe this is where kind of
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: my perspective from the business side is a little different
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: than the typical person in the political world is I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: don't like all the rule of law stuff, but I
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  Speaker 2: think that that ends when he ends right. That is
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  Speaker 2: very much a product of him specifically, Whereas some of
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  Speaker 2: the steps he's taking around the economy really do worry
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  Speaker 2: me from a much longer perspective as an investor, because
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  Speaker 2: if I were China and I said I want to
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  Speaker 2: put in the Manchurian candidate, and I want to undermine
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  Speaker 2: the long term strength of the US, our economy, one
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  Speaker 2: of the things you would really go after. So what
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  Speaker 2: are the things to me that make our economy unique.
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  Speaker 2: It's free trade, its intellectual property, it's rule of law,
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  Speaker 2: it's independent markets, independent data. It is getting the very
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  Speaker 2: best people through immigration. So a lot of the fundamental
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  Speaker 2: things that make our economy truly unique, Investing in R
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: and D, investing in higher ed, all of that are
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  Speaker 2: all things that Trump, for whatever reason, has really tried
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  Speaker 2: to undermine. So I worry more about the impact of
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  Speaker 2: just taking our strengths and undermining all of them than
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: whateverything he has said today that on truth social that
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  Speaker 2: makes everyone upset. I don't care about that stuff.
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  Speaker 1: No, I mean, to me, the biggest I've always said
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  Speaker 1: that there's the presidency. Actually there's three different jobs wrapped
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  Speaker 1: up in one. You're being elected to lead your party,
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  Speaker 1: you're being elected to command our armed forces as commander
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  Speaker 1: in chief, and you're being elected to be leader of
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  Speaker 1: the free world. And he has chosen not to be
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: leader of the free world. And that is something that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the public doesn't realize is a problem until it's gone.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very hard in fact, when you tell people
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  Speaker 1: you want to be leader of the free world, No,
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  Speaker 1: we don't want that. We don't want to be the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: beat cop. But as I always say, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: always say when people say I don't want to be
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  Speaker 1: the world's policeman, I'm like, yeah, but somebody's going to be.
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  Speaker 1: Would you rather be us or another country? You may
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: not want us to be the world's cop, but you're
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: not gonna like it if China is right.
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  Speaker 2: Which then how do you explain the other day him
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  Speaker 2: sending allowing the Vida to sell you know, the h
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  Speaker 2: two hundred GPUs to China, right like it? There are
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  Speaker 2: things that I don't get. So for example, he says that,
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  Speaker 2: and look if you were a full free trade you know, absolutist, right.
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  Speaker 2: But then the next day they issue an executive order saying, oh,
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  Speaker 2: States can't regulate AI because it's a national security issue.
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  Speaker 2: It can't be an ob security issue. If you just
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  Speaker 2: took the most valuable thing that your biggest rival would
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  Speaker 2: want and allow the to go to the.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about this is actually the heart of
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  Speaker 1: the conversation. I want to have which is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the business community in general has been frustrated with the
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  Speaker 1: last two Democratic administrations, sure for too much regular, too
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  Speaker 1: much regulation, too much red tape, things like this. And
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  Speaker 1: I get the appeal of, Hey, isn't it great that
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  Speaker 1: you don't have to have an army of lobbyists on
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill? You just have to go into the Oval
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  Speaker 1: office write one check or rite you know, or make
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  Speaker 1: one board seat change whatever. You only have to placate
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  Speaker 1: one individual as a hell of a lot easier than
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: placating you know, thirty members of Congress or ten senators
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  Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. So I understand the efficiency
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  Speaker 1: aspect of this, But are we doomed here because business
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  Speaker 1: such as an easy relationship right now with Trump's version
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  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, that they're now going to expect
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  Speaker 1: this kind of treatment from all politicians going forward. That
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  Speaker 1: this is something that we can't put back in the bottle.
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  Speaker 1: And I, you know, I'm sorry, I don't trust the
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  Speaker 1: tech industry with AI without guardrails, because I saw what
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  Speaker 1: the tech industry did was social media, which totally destroyed
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: our information ecosystem. So yeah, but this is the world
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  Speaker 1: you live in, and you're navigating, so you tell me, so, I.
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  Speaker 2: Would say, for me, the efficiency argument probably doesn't work
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: because it's it's too risky and too variable. Right, you
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: were dealing just with winning the favor of one very
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: mercurial person and who seems to a lot of the
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: time agree with the last person he spoke to about something,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and so I don't like the notion of basing an
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: investment strategy or regulatory strategy around that. And to me,
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  Speaker 2: the right analogy is when I have a company that
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I'm investing in that has some sort of new disruptive
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: technology that either we're taking on an entrenched interest and
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: there's a regulatory fight, or we're cruitting an entirely new
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: type of industry AI, crypto, flying cars, whatever, and you
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: need to build a regulatory framework. There's often the question
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: of do you go federal or do goo state? We
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: usually choose to go state by state, which is wildly inefficient. Right,
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about fifty different bills or whatever it is
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: that we rules, whatever it might be that we have
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: to create or pass. However I can get outcomes. So
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  Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen, the House Energy Subcommittee, on a bipartisan
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: basis passed unanimously legislation to begin the regulation of autonomous vehicles.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So right now, the US federal government has done nothing
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to regulator deal with self driving
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: cars or trucks or anything else. The bill passed the
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: subcommittee honesty and has never moved since, nor has federal
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: dot issued any sort of rules whatsoever as to how
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: this should work.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: This is for presidential administrations.
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  Speaker 2: Correct, right and at the same time in states that
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: you can like or not like any individual states rules
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: around autonomous vehicles, but they have them right, and you
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: can get to an outcome and even if you don't
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: get the president you want in one state, you have
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: fifty bytes at the apple. So oftentimes we're looking at
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: something and saying, Okay, where do we think is the
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: right starting point to launch this thing? Based on partly
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: the economics, so the market you know, and evermarally starts
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: in California, in New York and Texas, but also from
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: a political standpoint, where can we win? Because you know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: one of the things that when when I invest in
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: an early stage tech startup, I genuinely believe that people
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: are going to really like the product or the service
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: or otherwise I'm not deploying the capital or making the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: investment in the first place, and so like. For example,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: the very first tech company I ever did was Uber,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: starting in twenty eleven. And my view, which was the
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: same as Travis's view, was people are really gonna like this,
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  Speaker 2: So we just need to get this thing up and
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: running wherever we can show people how much better it
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: is in the taxi system, and then they will fight
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: for it. And in every market where we prove it,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: it gets that much easier in the next market. And
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: that basically it was a big fight, and it was
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: city by city in that case, but it turned out
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to be right. So I generally think the right strategy
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: to legalize most technology actually occurs at the unicipal or
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: state level, and not in Washington.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It's always been the I mean, look at the recreational
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: marijuana movement, the medical marijuana movement, same sex marriage. Right,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: we've in some ways to create critical mass to convince
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Congress that hey, you should get involved in this, you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: having it emanate. I mean, that's the beauty of federalism, right,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Like that is that is supposed to be the beauty
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of the system, which is why I'm glad to see
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: there's bipartisan concern about a moratorium on state regulations with AI,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and it it is you know that this is I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: think this is where if I were, if I were
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in this industry, I wouldn't want this. I mean, look
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: at the public right now. The public approval ratings of
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: AI are plummeting. Right we are, compared to the rest
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of the world, more dystopian about AI than most other
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: civil societies. I would argue that has a lot to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: do with how involved our polarizing president is with the industry.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I actually think if he were less involved, there'd be
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: fewer doom and gloomers about AI.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: With two caddiats, one is I actually think the political
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: tsunami and AI hasn't even hate.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I agree twenty eight is going to be that. I
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: think it's I think the fear I believe the single
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: biggest issue in twenty eight, and we'll see it a
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: little bit in twenty six. He is going to be
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: fear of AI displacement.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Well displaced on our jobs, combined with so every data
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: center requires so much compute and so much energy that
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: they're expecting it to consumption to double. We're certainly that
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: doubling supply, which means consumers electric builds are going to skyrocket.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: We already saw a little bit of this in Georgia.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Virginia, I mean Louden County. Man. You know, they were
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: making all this money lead some land on data centers.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It is now like you know, it's a they've declared
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: war on data centers.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I think we're going to see laws passing states this
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: year that say that localities cannot issue permits and zoning
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: for data centers without proof that there will not be
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: a corresponding price increase for consumers and electric bills. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: so you're right, But we had a world where let's
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: say that unemployment and the job numbers today, I think
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: further to except that they were valid. Further you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: support of this thesis that if job displacement keeps going up,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: and unemployment keeps rising and rising gets even potentially double digits,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: and electric prices keep going up, and because of Tariff's
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: other consumer prices keep going up, and you know, only
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: five thirty guys like Sam Altman become trillionaires, but the
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: rest of the world's you know, that's of the country
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: city of eighteen percent unemployment. That's the French revolution man,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: and I don't think either party necessarily understands that or
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: sees it coming. I think one, you know, Trump in
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: his view is like, doesn't matter. The only goal is
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: to get your hands on as much as you can
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: before you die. So therefore this at least fits with
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: his worldview. Democrats, I don't think have any plan at
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: all from one I can tell.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think they do either, and it strikes
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: me and I'm curious. Look, I take it you're trying
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to help Democrats be more pro business.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, in part because that's how.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You would describe your you know, your sort of your
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: altruistic goals here.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Often times, and I think, you know, not counting what
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I do out of my foundation, which is totally separate.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: But yeah, and I think oftentimes I feel like, and
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: you might appreciate this more than most people. Both sides
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: are so dug in that they miss the underlying point. Right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So you have these Silicon Valley types who are now
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: very powerful Washington a Mark Injuries or someone like that, right,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: and they hate regulation and their Libertarians and that sort
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: of sounds great in theory, no rules, but in reality
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: you can't build multi multi billion dollar industries. In the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: absence of all structure, you need a certain amount of
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: rules and regulation. Crypto, right needs a certain amount of
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: regulation to separate the coin basis of the world the
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: circles of the world. Companies that I've invested in with
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: total scams, right, And because there's a lot of fraud
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: in the crypto world, and there's also a lot of
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: genuine companies that you can decide whether or not buying
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: crypto is a good idea. That's up to the individual.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: But crypto itself only works because there is some level
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: of regulation that says this exchange is permissible, this exchange
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: is not right, so you need that. But then, on
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: the other hand, democrats, by sort of playing to their
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: extremes that all capitalism and all wealth is inherently corrupt
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: and evil in some way totally missed the point because
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: people need to make a living, and people are aspirational
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: and want to do well, and so just vilifying everyone
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't work either. And the reality is regulation is neither
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: inherently good nor bad. It's how it's applied. Like, let
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: me give an example. I was driving once from Santa
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Barbara to Alla, and I'm going down the Pacific Coast Highway,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: and I'm appreciating how beautiful it is, because you'd have
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: to be something really wrong with you not to do
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that right. And the thing that hit me was, Okay,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: what I'm seeing is from my car window the ocean.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: The reason why is that they are not gas stations
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: and you know, Chipolis and whatever else blocking the view
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: because of regulation. So in that case, I would say,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: a good regulation, I didn't get to LA and I
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: run into all these homeless encampments. Now again, again that's
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: the product of regulation. Bad regulation in that case, those
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: are regulations that make constructing affordable housing way too expensive
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: and difficult, and people don't have anywhere to live as
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: a result. So basically, zoning regulation on the same street
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: right resulted in a net positive at one part of
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: it and negative in the other. And anyone on either
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: side who just declares unilaterally that something is inherently good
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: or bad just doesn't understand what they're talking.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the best shape. My mother, single mother now widow, myself sixteen,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out how am I going to pay
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: for college? And lo and behold, my dad had one
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot, but
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: it was important at the time, and it's why I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: was able to go to college. Little did he know
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: how important that would be in that well, guess what.
• 19:02
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• 20:01
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• 20:04
  Speaker 1: something you should really think about, especially if you've got
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: a growing family. You know, it's funny, I keep it
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: feels as if the Democrats are looking for the twenty
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: first century version of Bill Clinton, who who struck this
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: balance right now. He did it out of necessity. Democrats
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: had lost three straight presidential elections, all of them were blowouts.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: It was sort of you kind of had to have
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a Democrat who acknowledged at that point in time. And
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I have a friend of mine who we argue, is
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the country center right or are the institutions center right right?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: The constitution sort of arguably gives the minority a bit.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: You know, you could our rules give the current structure
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the right side of the spectrum has more advantages. I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: could argue fifty years ago that same structure gave sort
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of the Democrats a little bit more. But at some
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: point that is the structure that we live under. But
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton sort of you know want, Hey, we should
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: have a rules based, opportunity focused society, right like you know,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: should be fair, equal access and opportunity, and I remember
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: responsibility and opportunity, right, that balance between the two. I
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: guess you know. I could say Obama tried to get
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that messaging, and he was better about it by twenty eleven,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve. Frankly out of necessity, right he was. He
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: had a tough reelection, and he borrowed more of the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton language or the Teddy Roosevelt language of the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Square Deal things like that. It seems as if we
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: just haven't found the politician to meet the moment that
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: we're in. I think we all know them. We want
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to be both aspirational but with a I think we
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: want a stronger safety net, and we haven't figured out
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: how to. Donald Trump said, hey, I can do both,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't. Right, he doesn't really have the He
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't really have a political party behind him that actually
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: wants to do both. And I think there are those
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: in the Business Committee that don't believe the left wants
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to create what you said, a society that allows for wealth,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: right right, Yes, they want the strong social safety net.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: So with Ultimately, what we really want is strong safety
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: net and a realistic path.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And look, it's harder stand the other day, right, So,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: capitalism as a system, to me, I think almost just
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: incontrovertibly is the greatest system ever created because if you
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: look at the last eighty years since World War Two,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: three billion people who were living in extreme poverty now
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: have clean drinking water and electricity and less infant mortality
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: and longer life expectancy in higher literacy. You know all
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: those stats, right, So unquestioningly none of that happens without
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: globalization and capitalism. Capitalism, when taken into its full logical extreme,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: which is kind of what we tend to have here,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: often results in a lot of unhappiness and a lot
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of people who are frustrated with the system. Because if
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: the only ultimate goal to be successful and happy is
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to accumulate as much status and wealth as possible by definition,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: ninety nine percent of people can't be in the one percent,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: and those ninety nine percent are upset. So then you
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: look at it say, okay, well does Finland or someone
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: have it right, because it's capitalism, but with a much
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: stronger social safety net, like you said, so, yes, people
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: there if you look at say the World Happiness Report,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: are exponentially happier because both they feel compelled to need
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: less and they have more on the on the floor.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: But when you look at the last thirty years or
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: so and look at all of the innovation in the
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: world that has emerged, basically none of it has come
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: from Europe right other than Spotify, and there's not a
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: giant tech company that's been invented. So if you were
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to say, Okay, the US will be Scandinavia, as the
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Left I think would like to see the case, yes,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: you will have a higher floor for people, and I
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: believe in that. But at the same time, there is
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: something about our system that is incredibly unique and that
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: encourages the kind of innovation that has lifted the billions
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of extremely poor people that in theory the lefts you
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: care about the most out of poverty.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Well, I do think I'm one of those who believes
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: it's because we're a nation and immigrants that we that
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: if we if we have I think what you're I
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: think we could we would already be Scandinavia if we
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: weren't continuing to have fairly open doors, meaning if we
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: weren't importing more people who want it, who are looking
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: for the American dream. Like in some ways third and
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: fourth generation Americans are more satisfied than first and second
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: generation of Americas.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So would you say then that, let's say we have
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: so I would argue, which have exponentially higher legal immigration? Right,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: perfect world. You know who was at the quotas the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Bureau of Labor Stistics, because they would say, okay, the
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: construction industry has this whole.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Hospitality this by the way, along with the Social Security
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Administration where because we need new workers to fund Social Security, correct, right.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: You need tens of millions potentially of people. And that's
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: not at all exclusive with having strong borders. But the
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: question is if we said we're going to keep bringing
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: in the greatest talent from all over the world, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: if we do that, we're always going to have the
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: kind of innovation we need because those are I'm a
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: first generation America and I know I was raised in
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: an immigrant house, so I know exactly what this is.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: You like, right, right, It's always like you were I
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: mean education. First look, I grew up in Miami, an
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: immigrant community where it was just you felt it all around.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Everybody in that community even frankly, even the domestic you know,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: even those second third generation Americans like myself. You moved
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to Miami for opportunity. Nobody was a native of there.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: You were there for opportunities. So it had it had
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: an immigrants mentality, which means it hustlers. Everybody hustle.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: So let's say that we really increase that, which again
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: does not in any way have to me not having
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: strong border security. They're not mutual exclusive at all. But
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: let's say that we said we are going to radically
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: increase legal immigration so that the people who are the
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: hustlers are constantly coming in. Right, if you did that,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: could you have the kind of social safety net that
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Scandinavia has without deterring the innovation that America has because
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: that combination of the new people constantly coming in takes
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: care of that problem.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Well, it depends on when you make them eligible for
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the safety net.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Now, right, Oh, fair point.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And I think you and I think this is what
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I'm what we're talking about here. Some people would say,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: as heartless, what do you mean you wouldn't make the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: safety net available for the immediate first gen family at
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the same You know, I but I think that would
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: be a debate, and I think that's a fair political
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: debate to have. Is I don't think when should somebody
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: be eligible for the social safety net in the United States?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: You know, you certainly need to become the citizen, right,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I think that that's a fair that's a fair bar.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: You have to do the work to be a citizen.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: You have to proact. Now, I'll tell you this. I
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: remember this great George W. Bush quote when he used
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: to talk about people coming over there. He goes, anybody
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that's going to go over is going to fight the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: environmental elements to get across the Rio Grande River. I
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: want them in America. Yeah, because they're going to be
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: great workers.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's totally hart. Well, look, do you remember when
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Eric Adams all these migrants showed up in New York
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: City and Eric Adams made the decision that New York
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: City would house and feed everyone. Even though I am
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: wildly promegration and our first generation American, I thought that
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: was crazy for two reasons. One, so they didn't have
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the money to do that. It came to the expense
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: of sanitation and police and schools and everything else. But two,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: my family, your family, you know, millions of families have
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: come here, and what there are asking for is not
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: free housing or free food. What they're asking for is
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to work and to make a living. And
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I don't think you needed to provide that because I
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: think people would have gone to where the jobs were.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Some might be in New York City, a lot might
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: be at meat packing plants in Iowa or something like that.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: That's fine, right, But I don't think you even necessarily
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: need to at the beginning, because the truth is, most
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: immigrants just want to work, and the economy has a
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: lot of holes of jobs that are needed to be
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: filled that most Americans don't want to do. And so
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: I think the problem kind of solves itself if you
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: just let it happen.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, it's by the way, it's been true
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: if you fought, you know before, if you look at
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the immigration patterns at the border pre say twenty fifteen, okay,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and we've had some different surges for different reasons, I
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: would argue since then, but it usually went if we
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: had a lot of ope, but if our economy was humming,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: there were more people at the border. If our economy
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and humming, there were fewer people at the border. I mean,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: you know, if you thought you could find work in
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the United States, you came. If you didn't think you
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: could find work, you weren't going to risk your life to.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Come, right, right, Yeah, I think that that's I think
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: that that's right, and I think I mean, it seems
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: like it's a puzzle, right, which is, if you accept
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: that most people want others to do well right now,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: some of us have easier some mentality where literally we
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: believe that if you win, that means that I lose,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: and I think the president has that mentality quite frankly.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: But overall, what we're really talking about is enough resources,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: enough of a social statety, and enough opportunity and balancing
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: it so that it's fair so that people aren't starving.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And yet we are still innovating and creating.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So let me go back to sort of the premise
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that I that I really want you to deal with,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: which is, is the business community going to see the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Trump way of doing things and not want to risk
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of going back And basically, look, you brought up crypto.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Whatever you think of crypto, the industry decided, hey man,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: we're tired of waiting to convince the left on this.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: We're just going to buy supporters, right. You know, Look,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: they're not the first industry to decide to do that,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: but it was kind of it's kind of gross just
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: looking at it from my perspective, You're like, I don't
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: we're not making We didn't create that. That Genius Act
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: didn't pass because we thought it was a good idea.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: It passed because they bought enough politicians. I could argue, okay,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and we can we can have a we can we can.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: You know, I am pro blockchain, less convinced on the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: value of of of of the of the coins themselves,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: but I accept the pre tokenization I get right like,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I'm I find myself. I'm in I'm in the middle
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: on this. I worry that the value scam on one hand,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to get rich quick scheme part of it, versus the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: blockchain and all of that, which is a different type
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: of technology. But if I look at if I'm an
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: upstart industry in any sort, and I look at what
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: crypto pulled off, why do I want to risk the
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: other party coming in, who is just at the end
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: of the day going to be more bureaucratic.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but flipping around depends on the industry right.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So if you are the solar and wind energy industry,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: you feel exactly the opposite. Right. You felt like under
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: the Democrats you had the kind of regulatory structure, the
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: kind of tax credits, the grants, everything else that you
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: wanted and needed, and Trump came away and came in
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: and threw the big viewery.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I hear you. But should any industry be basically at
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the whims of which party wins?
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, to a certain extent, that is the point
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: of democracy, right. I think the bigger question really becomes
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: who's making the decisions? And to me, the real problem
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: is a structure one in that if you accept that
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: in a world of gerrymandering, only the primary matters ninety
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: plus percent of the time, and Stat's proved that out.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And if you look at primary turnout, which is typically
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: about ten to fifteen percent, and those voters are typically
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: the extremes, either the far right or the far left,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: or different special interests that can move money and votes,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: whether it's fair Shake doing Crypto or the teachers unions
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: or whoever it might be. And if you accept that
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: politicians will always do whatever it takes to get re elected,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: then by definition they're governing for that ten percent on
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: each side to the exclusion of everyone else. And I
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: actually think, you know, if you sat most people down,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: you could get eighty percent of people to agree on
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: a framework to solve almost every single problem we have.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: But those people don't vote in primary, so they're disenfranchised.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: So one thing that I've been trying to do with
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: you know, I didn't I can to grow up a
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: lot of money. We're in government. I didn't make much money.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Then I went into tack and I did pretty well,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: and so I've been given it away is to try
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to make mobile voting happen, because to me, you're only
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: going to get primary turnout from ten to say thirty
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: or forty by meeting the people where they are. Will
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: people take off from work and line up to vote
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: for president, yes, But will they do that for city council,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: state rep, state Senate. No, they don't. And as a result,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: and that, by the way, even congressional primaries have a
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: ten percent primary, you know, have ten percent turnout rate.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: So and yet close to one hundred percent of us
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: have phones. We live our lives on our phones, our banking,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: our healthcare, our love, lives, all this other stuff, and
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: if we were able to allow people to vote securely
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: on their phones, we could get turnout from ten to
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: say thirty, and then all of a sudden, I'm not
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: sure that any one industry is at much risk of
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: the whims of a party because it's not being decided
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: just by the extremes that either hate Crypto or hate
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: gran energy or whatever it is.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I just had somebody on as a guest who's
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: been advocating getting rid of partisan primaries, and I kind
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of think that it's pretty clear it is. I put
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it this way, I don't see how a taxpayer funded
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: primary is constitutional. The idea that I think it's actually
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a poll tax.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: If I tell you the only way you could participate
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: in this primary is you join a private club and
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: you could participate in this taxpayer funded election. That's that
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: seems you know, give where the where are my goddamn
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: lawyers here?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Come on, I'm an independent living in New York City
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: and my vote does not count.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's just that doesn't make It's like, what
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: are we doing, especially when you look at this youngest
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: generation and they're registering as independent or no party at
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: a greater rate than either of the two major parties.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So I do think this might actually fix itself, meaning
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a majority of people plurality would prefer a non party
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of, Hey, I want to I want
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to decide, right, we're we're actually all libertarian, you know,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the whole idea of America's libertarian. You know, I would,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I would, I would argue. So I think we're getting there.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: But on mobile voting, you know, when you look at
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: mobile technology through the prism of our banking system, yep,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: it's really secure right now. The times that it's not, Like,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: there's nothing I hate more than when a credit card
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: company tells me, hey, you've got to change your number.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: We're doing this for your purposes. No, you're not. You're
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: doing it for your purpose. Like I just hate being
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: lied to about that. Like it's like no, no, no, no, And
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I even tell them, stop reading your script. You're not
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: doing it for my benefit. You're doing it for your benefit.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: But let's you know, let's figure this out. You have
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a You're going to have a hard time convincing the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: public that because cyber criminal activity exists when it comes
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: to scamming people out of crypto or scamming people based
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: on you know, a text message they get and they
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: click the wrong link, that they're going to have a
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: hard time believing that the voting is going to be secure.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Just think psyched the psyche.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. The polling doesn't quite show that.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: What's interesting is so before twenty twenty, we polled nationally
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: and about seventy five percent of Republicans, Democrats, Independence all
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: said if mobile voting is secure, of course we should
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: have it. Right after twenty twenty, we pulled again, stayed
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: in the mid seventies with Independence, and Democrats fell to
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: the forties with Republicans because of all the doubt cast
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: on the twenty twenty election. So, to me, the solution
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: to that, and this is what we're working on right
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: now by to start running legislation in seven states to
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: do this is to allow start with local elections and
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: let cities choose to opt in to offer mobile voting
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: as one form of voting for council, school board, may
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: or things like that. So Anchorage is the first city
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: that's going to do this. They're going to do it
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: in their April municipal elections and then if we pass
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: our bills in these different states that would allow cities
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: to choose to opt in if they want to, to
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: offer it for local elections only, and then let's see
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: how it goes. If people use it and it works
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: and they develop trust, we can move up the ladder
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: to state and then maybe one day federal. If not,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: then then we don't. But I think we have enough.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: You can start locally enough to sort of experiment a
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: little bit.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: What's your So give me some of the tech, the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: security things is it?
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Here's how it would work. Location?
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: What would it be?
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: So you would go on the app store. You live
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: in Arlington. So let's just say for purposes, you would
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: download the Arlington Board of Elections app and the first
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: thing would say, okay to someone named Chuck Todd, really
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: live in Arlington? Who's registered voter? Last four digits of
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: your social your address? Okay, now we know that there's
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: a voter named Chuck Todd in Arlington, but are you
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: really that person? So first thing is multi factor authentications.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: That's like when you figet your password, they send your code,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: you put it in the app. Then biometric screening so
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: they matt scan your face, match it up against your
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: driver's license or whatever idea you have. Now we know
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: this is really Chuck Todd. Ballot comes up on your screen.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Ballot is as simple and straightforward as can be. Whenever
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: you're done and you're ready to submit, three things happen.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Your ballots encrypted, your ballots anonymized, and you get a
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: tracking code, goes back to the Board of Elections. They
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: air gap it, which just mean they take it offline
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: once your ballot is on a flash drive and not
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: connected to the Internet. Then they decrypt it. A paper
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: copy of your ballot gets printed out. That gets mixed
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: in with all the other ballots. You can see where
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: your ballot stands because the tracking code will show you
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: it was received, tabulated, printed, and so on. And then
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: the underlying code itself is open source. So we've spent
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: the last five years building this thing out of my foundation.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: We posted it to GitHub a couple of weeks ago,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: so it is now public code. Anybody can use it,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: anybody can download it. I don't even known it anymore.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: It's just purely in the public domain, and any government
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: that wants to try to do it now has the
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: ability to do so. And I've already and I've spent
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: twenty million dollars my own money so far, you know,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: working on all of this, I've already paid for it.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: So I feel like, given that we live in a
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: world where polarization seems to be the contributing factor to
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: so many of our problems, and polarization is because not
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: that people are polarized, but because the only the extremes
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: vote in primaries, and that's where everything is decided. If
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: you could do something that could make it so much
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: easier to vote, especially in primaries, and you get do
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: you remember when Amazon wanted to put their second headquarters
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: in Queen So part of it went to where you are,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: to Arlington, right, and then the other half was supposed
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: to go to Long Island City, So hundreds of cities
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: competed for this. New York want a little unexpectedly, everyone's
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: very excited. The poland shows people are really into it.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Then AOC comes out against it and look for her politics. Fine,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: she's anti jobs, business, capitalism, whatever. Fine. So there's a
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: guy named Mike Gennaris who is a state senator in
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Long Island City, Queens. And Mike is just a guy.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: He's not good, He's not bad. He's not conservatives at liberal.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: He is just a political hack that wants to stay
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: in office, nothing else, and all things being equal, of course,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: it's exciting when your district is picked by Amazon to
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: be this thing. But now he says to himself, oh shit,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: if I support this, I could get a primary from
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: the left. Turn out I'll be around eight nine percent
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: based on the data, and the voters in that primary
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: will be the most left wing voters of my district.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And if AOC supports the opponent, I could lose. And
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: he had a choice forty thousand, forty thousand new jobs
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: for New Yorkers that are good jobs with benefits, or
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: one job his own, and he picked himself, and by
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: the way, that's what politicians do. But if he did
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the same analysis and turn out as primary was gonna
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: be thirty seven instead of nine, not because he cared
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: anymore about the voters, the district, the job, whatever, Nothing
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: only changed, just the math. He would have done the
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: deal simply because he would have needed to get re elected.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: So what if they were not partisan primaries or open primaries,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: that would definitely help. But you know, I still think
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: if you look at places with the open primaries, and
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I'm a big supporter of open primaries for local elections.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: You still just don't get people going to submit plays.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: With mail in voting, it's a little easier, but in
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: New York where you have to go, people just don't
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: show up. But you know what, those same people all
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: have phones, So when they're sitting on the subway or
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: they're waiting for their coffee or wherever else, if all
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: they have to do is press a few buttons, then
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: you can go from nine to thirty seven. I don't
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: think you can do that when people have to go
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: show up some money.
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  Speaker 1: percent off. Let me introduce a counterintuitive point about voting. Yeah,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm saying this. I'm not saying I
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: agree with it. So anybody listening that wants to try
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to like, you know, aggregate me and sort of say, oh,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: there he goes he doesn't want to if you choose not.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: You know, it's sort of like I'm not for compulsory
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: voting like I think you should. I think you should
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable made. You know. In fact, I think it's
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: been fascinating that that voter turnout goes down. The more
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: apathy goes up, the more content and stable our governments are. Right,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: apathy goes down a bit more unstable when our leadership
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: is a little bit more unstable. Maybe that's a good
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: thing that that people pay more attention, but it is
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is more uninformed people voting a good thing.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: You know what, if more uninformed people is more, it's
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: still a better reflection of the mainstream and therefore democracy
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: than fewer. And you know, I just when I was
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: giving a talk on mobilevoting somewhere someone said raise their hands, said, well,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: under your as system, we're going to have a TikTok president.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: We have a TikTok president, and a New York have
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: a TikTok mayor mayor.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Right now, we're already living in the biggest in the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: biggest markets. We're already living in that world so we're
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: we're already there.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: So to me, the thing that I learned I worked
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: in city government. I worked in you know, I was
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: in DC, I was sumer's communications director, I was deputy
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: governor of Illinois. I saw it from really every angle,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: And to me, the only thing that you can count
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: on is that politicians will do whatever it takes to
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: get re elected. And so even if it's an uninformed
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: thirty seven percent, a politician trying to sell for an
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: uninformed thirty seven percent is still going to land much
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: more in the mainstream than a politician trying to solve
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: for nine percent.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think you're gonna have an easier time
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: selling more rural states on mobile voting than urban.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: St It's one of the reasons why Alaska's are Alaska
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: is a perfect Yeah, a perfect example, if not for
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Yes, the challenge I have right now is
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: that red states don't want to do anything Trump doesn't like,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: and he hasn't said anything about mobile voting. But if
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: you are a paper only in person thing, then clearly
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: you're not gonna like mobile voting. And so therefore in
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: blue states, you not only don't have the concern about Trump,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: but you actually have the incentive of sticking it to Trump. Right,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: So in theory, what you said should have been the
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: rollout plan, Trump scrambled that. So now the rollout plan
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: is much more partisan, which I'd say again, I'm not
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: even an Emerald party anymore, right, So it's not like
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: I want one party as opposed to another or one
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: type of state. But I'm going to have mobile voting.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: I want ever want to have it. I think realistically,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: there's a world that I live in for what I'm
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: doing through twenty eight, and then there's a new world
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: that starts in twenty nine.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: That's interesting that you say it that way when you
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: say there's just a new world, that's you're just are
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: you sort of plotting and living? I mean I want
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: more people to be thinking this way, which is, Look,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: the Trump era is over. It just hasn't ended yet.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean He's gonna go away and norms will
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: be restored.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: So well, see that's the question. That's what I'm not
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I'm now starting to become a skeptical so we never
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: go backwards, Bradley.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: So I've been asking people who know Dvance specifically this question, right,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: because let's say it's any Democrat, we're probably going back
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: to a more normalized rule of laws system, right. So
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: now on the Republican side, even someone like Rubio probably
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: goes back to that. So to me, Vance is the
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: biggest of the major contenders, the biggest variable. He might
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: not want to, but remember when Jordan retired and the
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: NBA kept turning to manufacture these errors to Jordan and
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: it never worked. Right, you had great basketball players, but
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: until Lebron naturally came along, you just didn't have it. Right,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Vance and others will try to imitate Trump at every turn,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: and it's not gonna work because Trump is an end
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: of one and for better or worse, he's just unique, right,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: and if you try to imitate him, that will probably
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: look really inauthentic and actually fail. And so Vance would
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: be my biggest concern about continuation of the current approach
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: to rule of law. But I kind of think that
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: people are gonna want change, and I think that he
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: is gonna refer he has to run on continuity to Trump.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: And look, Vance is discovering this same trap that being
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: vice president for an unpopular president is like that Kamala
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Harris discovered you're never going to be judged on your
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: own merits, right.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Right, Well, do you think he learned?
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: So?
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Harris clearly regrets not distancing herself from Biden in any way.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Do you think Vance has learned from that? And if so,
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: when you're the city vice president and a candidate, how
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: do you distance yourself?
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: You can't. I mean the point is just because you
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: should doesn't mean you can, right, yeah, right, you know, look,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Hubert Humphrey couldn't do it, and he waited too long.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Al Gore to this day did the best version of
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: it that was possible.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: He found he was trying to figure out a way
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: to show distance on the things that mattered the most,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: the concerns that people had, which was the kind of
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the personal ickiness of Clinton, right, and Joe Lieberman was
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the tonic.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: You know what, you know, had Kamala Harris picked Elon
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Musks are running made, I don't know. I'm like trying
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to think, like who could have been the.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure anything. I don't know if anything.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Could even al Gore couldn't outrun it. Right, he got closer.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I will always go to my grave believing that race
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: got competitive because he figured out a way to walk
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the line of being, Hey, I'm going to be the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: stuff you liked about Clinton, and I'm not going to
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: allow the stuff you didn't like to happen either, right,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: which was but it was hard.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and bother one of the biggest what asks because
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: if you think about it, let's say Florida. You know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: a few ballots got fully punched through instead of hanging
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: had tats or whatever. Right, and the outcome is different.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: It seems to be there's two very radically differ friend
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: outcomes that we said of what we had. One is,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: let's just see nine to eleven still happens, because it
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: probably would have.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Right, I've gone through this. What if I'm curious where
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: you're going to go. I have an idea where this goes.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: See, you still get Afghanistan. That doesn't change, No.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: But I don't think you realize Rack, it's not just that, Bradley.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: If at nine to eleven happens under Al Gore, that's
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the ninth year of a democratic presidency. So while George W.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Bush was new and could claim the intelligence was new,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, if Gore's president, then the
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: whole well, you knew this guy was a problem because
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: your administration tried to kill him once and missed. You
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: were on top of bin Ladden, and you still missed this.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I think the politicizing of the intelligence failure under a
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: democratic administration, which is a continuation of eight years of
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: a democratic administration, becomes we are far more polarized. The
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: world we live in today is the world that would
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: have happened to us September twelfth, ninth, two thousand and one.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Meaning I think we would have gone immediately because it
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: would have been this was the because he would have
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: had the same CIA chief probably maybe he had the
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: same Secretary of State maybe, but you know what I mean.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: There would have been more continuation than difference, and it
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been a new president. It would have been
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: right like. So that to me is the is the
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: dog that didn't mark right, which is well, we were
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: we could have nine to eleven, could have gotten politicized.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: It didn't, right, and it was a unique set of
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: circumstances for why it didn't.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: But could you have gotten away with the WMD stuff?
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think Iraq ever happens right, right right?
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, in that sense it doesn't happen, and we
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: probably still do Afghanistan. But what I'm saying is I
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: think we have a far more politicized world because this
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been the failure of a new administration. It
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: would have been the failure of an administration that, in theory,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: had been in power for nine years.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Right, right? I think that's probably right. Can I throw
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: one crazy idea at you, because.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Lad, that's what we do here at the Chuck Podcast.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: So, okay, So if you look at sort of modern
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: political history for the president, let's just say since Reagan,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: So there's been seven presidents, including Reagan's nineteen eighty five
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: of them, I would argue, were rock stars who were
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: definitely not the most qualified person to win. So Reagan, Clinton,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: w to some extent, Obama Trump. The two that were
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: ultra qualified, Biden and HW both only lasted one term.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Right, so I call them nineteenth century presidents. They'd have
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: been better in the non media era, right the at
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: least for president.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Americans want rock stars, and my argument is the DNC
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: or the RNC are the least qualified entities to pick
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: rock stars. Do you remember that show? I think you
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: were probably around this age Battle of the network stars.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: It's like when I was a kid, right, So, yeah,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: what if you did that in say in twenty twenty seven,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: where you said, okay, instead of a tug of war
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: in the mud, go to the waffle house of midnight,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: talk to the truckers, talk to the cops, talk to
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: the college kids, show them all of America and see
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: who comes and what they talk to you about. Call
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: inning of a Cardinals game on the radio, whatever it is.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: And put candidates in real world situations that are not
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: totally scripted and not totally packed with party faithful and
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: just see how they do. Because some will resonate, some
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: will not. And ultimately you got to pick the candidate
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: that has that intangible quality. And you're never going to
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: get that through the debates and the normal primary systems.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: You almost need an alternate method.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Well, you know we have. You know, it's funny, what
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: if I told you that we had already had that system,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: but we didn't like it, and it's called the Iowa CAUCUSUS.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: This single grind greatest aspect of the Iowa caucuses is
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: what you just described, the fact that candidates have to
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: go into small venues, They have to it's the only
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: time in the presidential process where you see more personal interactions, right.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: And you know, I've always thought that what people don't
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: understand that actually the two parties that stumbled on a
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: really smart way to do the presidential primary system. We
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: start in a super rural state that's very friendly, in
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the state of Iowa, and you're being tested, can you
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: organize ninety nine counties? Like that's essentially what you're being
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: told to do. You've got to figure out how to organize.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: You can't just win DesMoines. You've actually got to show
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: strength in ninety nine counties. Then with the second test,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: we're going to send you to a state that is
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: cranky independence and in fact they get to decide which
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: party to vote in and they vacillate Like two thousand
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: was fantastic. It was really a fight between McCain and
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: braw to see who could convince more independence to pick
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the D ballot or the R ballot. Well, McCain won that,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: and therefore Gore won. Had Bradley won the debate with McCain,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Bradley wins the New Hampshire primary, and then the messages said, hey,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: this guy is better at winning independence and it's a
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: test of that. Like I think the parties and we
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: didn't fully appreciate that the system that we had stumbled
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: into place you test or actually existed. And what you
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: have is you had a whole bunch of idiots at
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: the DNC who said, well, Iowa was too white, and
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: it is, and they had it, and they applied a
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: DEI test to the state of Iowa mistakenly realized, not
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: realizing that by preventing their candidates from learning how to
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: speak to rural America in a friendly state like Iowa,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: that they were going to fail in appealing to rural
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: America all over the country. So I absolutely agree with
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: what you're saying. And I'm like, we already had this
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: system because it tested Barack Obama, it tested Bill Clinton,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and in fact, it was in the small states and
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: their interactions in the small states that made the country
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: comfortable with what they what. We weren't sure whether these
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: were attributes that were going to work or not. So
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: we had the system, and we're now actually trying to
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: throw that system away, which I sort of am frustrated them.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Well because by throwing it, throwing it away and sort
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: of nationalizing it empowers the people inside the Beltway at
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: the expense of everyone else. But the problem is those
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: people like other people who went to Yale and write
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: in bullet points, and that is not a rock star, right, right,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: But let me go back, let me.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Throw some up at echew, which is which is? And
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: I've i've I've been working with a company that's basically
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: popped up, that didn't exist for a while, but now
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: exists as an entity to help corporations communicate how to
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: deal with tricky political situations, either with their own employees
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: or with the outside world. And it's sort of it's
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: a company now that it's thriving, and there's a lot
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: of Fortune five hundred companies that want this research, this information, etc.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: And what I've come to discover is that basically we're
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: now looking for the same attributes in our CEOs as
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: we expect in our presidents as you just defined, right,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: which is ultimately we're looking for the best communicator. Right,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: we elect the best communicator. We don't elect the best person.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: We're electing the best communicator. The companies with good communicators
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: probably are doing better on Wall Street than the companies
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: with bad communicators. And I actually think now we're communicating
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: is so much more important now to success in both
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: the business world, the political world, the entertainment world, frankly
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: even the sports world. That it is now a skill
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: set that is as important as learning how to type.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: It is a skill set that it's important as understanding
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: how to write. In fact, you need to know how
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to do that then you do right cursive. Right. I
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: just think it's a skill set that it's necessary now
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: and all walks away.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: In my world investing in tech startups, narrative is frequently
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: more important than economic fundamentals, right, you know, even and
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: P and L and everything else oftentimes takes a backseat
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: to who has the narrative, the rhetoric, the sort of
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: you know, flash that really gets investors excited, and that's
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: what drives evaluation. Look, think about AI right now. You
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: take two companies and you call one of them AI
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: and one of them not you think to be the
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: same company. The AI one has doubled evaluation immediately, right.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would even argue that a lot of
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: the spending the open aiyes and the Navidias are doing
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: on data centers and everything else is really short term
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: narrative and profit seeking disguise as long term plan. So
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: it looks like you're saying, oh, I'm thinking twenty thirty
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: years out, and the market loves that and they reward
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: it with higher share prices or higher valuations if you're
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: still a private company, and in reality, we have no
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: idea what we're actually going to need to power AI
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: in twenty or thirty years, because the answer might be
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: that we don't need nearly this much compute, right, maybe
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: the influence model works. I'm at a company that is
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: literally using rat brain stem cells to try to power compute.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Whether it works, who knows, right, But like, there's lots
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: of different ways to go about it. And I think
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: that if your Jensen want you know, you say, if
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: I announced I'm going to spend a trillion dollars on
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: data centers, my valuation goes way up immediately, and the truth,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: by the time that the bill comes due, I'm probably
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: long gone. My shares became worth more and more money
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: in the short term, and even if all that debt
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: goes bad and people's four oh one k's get wiped
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: out as a result, not really your problem. So yeah, narrative,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: you know, for better and for worse, you know, it
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: has overwhelming influence over everything else.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: No, and it's like, it's not just politics, it's it's
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: it's business. Let me get you out of here on
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: this is is it better to be a public company
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: or a private company in twenty twenty five and in
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: Six, that's a great, great question. I believe that tech
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: startups stay private for too long. And the reason they
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: stay private oftentimes is it's easier you don't have all
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: the scrutiny of the market and analysts and investors and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: all of that. And b oftentimes they're really overvalued and
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: they're afraid to go to the public markets because they're
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: going to face a deep cut in the share price.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: They might have a good IPO day, but then you
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: look six months later and it's down seventy percent, and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: that's because fundamentally the company was never worth what people
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: like me said it was in the first place. And
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: we tell me if this is a little too technical,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: but in the venture world, we have gotten into a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: game where the real way for people to make money
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: is have more AUM assets under management, because you get
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: a two percent fee. So if you can have billions
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: of dollars of AUM it doesn't really matter what your
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: investment performance is because the management fee is worth tens
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars and if you're the you know,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: the main GP, you can pocket that. And so as
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: a result, if you are raising much more money than
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: you need to get that two percent, you have to
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: deploy it at much higher evaluations to make the math work.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: And everyone's in on the joke from sort of the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: earliest stage, you know, investor to Fidelity, whoever at the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Series F for g. And then they know that it
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: all works for as long as are not exposed. And
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: what exposes it is often the public markets. As I
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: think tech companies stay private for way too long as
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: a result, and that is really harmful to the employees,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: to consumers, to a lot of other people. So I
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: think that ultimately I would really like to see the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: speed to market increase.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: How would you incentivize that because right now, I mean,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, is as much as look, I'm an
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: advocate of the public markets. I think the public markets
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: are for all the reasons you just said, right, It's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: a way to protect employee rights and all those things
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: you have. You know, it's having another set of eyes
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: on everything. But I think the incentive is to stay private,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: and atentive is But if you so, how do you
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: incentivize the public. How do you incentivize.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Driven by the institutional capital allocators, meaning the giant pension funds,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: the sovereign wealth funds, the endowments that give hundreds of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars or billions of dollars to a private
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: equity fund of entra capital fund, whatever it is. Because ultimately,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: every year that the company stays private, the RR of
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: the pension fund goes down. Right, So the people who
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: ultimately control the money are way too lax in the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: requirements and pression that they put on the funds that
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: they invest in.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: And so you think that people running the pension funds
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: could put more pressure in these private companies. And you
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: want our if they want our crash, you need to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: go public.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they said to Sequoia, if you don't get your
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: average company from your investment to an IPO down by
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: twenty five percent, we're not doing your next fund. At
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: the next board meeting, the person with Zaquoia on the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: board is betting in the table, saying we got to
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: get to the market faster. So that's where the power
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: lies in this situation. And I really think that in
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: some ways because the public pension funds especially or look
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: when I was deputy governor of Illinois, like I saw this.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: We would appoint people, but there are pointees right to
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: the pension funds. They weren't business people and as a result,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: they're often poorly run. And you know, they are more
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: eager to be able to say I'm in sequoia, I'm
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: in in grease and whatever it is KKR. Then it
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: is demaining that the leaders of those funds be accountable
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: and provide really good returns. And so you know, that's
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: where it has to come from.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Anybody, uh, anybody getting grabbing your attention for twenty twenty
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: eight that you're excited about yet.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: Or no, because in part, if you go back to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: the conversation we had about twelve minutes ago, I would
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: say that I don't know who the rock star is yet,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: and I know that if I just find the look
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: you know, like you people come through New York and
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: they're rising money or whatever in the car.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you meet these people, right you kick, they're smart,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: anyone's for president smart, they're impressive. Well, they're they're also
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: super narsiss. I always say this, like you run for president,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: You're like, boy, you know you're You're a bit different
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: than most of us who don't think we should be right,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: but you're.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Good at this. And so I don't trust my own
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: reaction in those meetings. And I've spent a lifetime around
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: politicians because I understand what they're really good at, and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: that's what they're really good at, and so I don't
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: maybe it's you know, returned to the version of Iowa,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: but I would like to see something that shows me
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: because look, I'm a rich guy in Manhattan, right. I
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: am not an any way indicative of America, right you.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: I live in downtown, I went to Ivy League schools.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: I'm everything that the that the right hates right many ways,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: and I'm not a good barometer for who's gonna win
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: Iowa or New Hampshire. And so for me, what I'm
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: trying to do is know what I don't know. And
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: rather than saying, oh, Josh Shapiro is the guy, Yeah
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: he might. I don't even know Josh Piera, but he
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: might resonate really well with in a one on one
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: launch or whatever it is. But so what right, So
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: I would like to try to figure out a way
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: that who is the candidate that can do what you
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: talked about, which is they figured out how to navigate
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: the independence in New Hampshire, they figured out how to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: organize ninety nine counties in Iowa, and then through that
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: you knew this person has the intangible skill.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Well it goes back. You know, it's funny you brought
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: up the Battle of the Network Stars. By the way,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: if you if you ever want to entertain yourself, go
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: look at go go watch highlight reels of that on YouTube,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: because they haven't. Okay, oh my god, it's it's fantastic.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable, right you just see the You're like, how
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: much cocaine was being done behind the scenes, right, there
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: is no doubt, Like you wouldn't have it if there
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: was it, like you know, the amount of like crazy
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: s seventies coke that was taking place. But anyway, that
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: ought to be actually a pretty good Netflix limited series
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: like behind the scenes and the battles and would starts.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it'd be you know.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Just hilarious investing and we're going to make the show.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: Let's make that show. It would be you know, tell
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: us the real story of Farah Faucet and Lee Majors,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: you know, like those those sorts of things. But there
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: is a series of tests that we want these candidates
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: to go through. And while I don't think we want
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: it to look like Survivor or a game show, in
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: some ways I do. I do like that there are
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: all these weird obstacles in the primary calendar, or that
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: there used to be, because while it doesn't test you
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: on whether how you're going to handle Putin, if you
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: can't handle you know, the person that you got to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: deal with in Columbia, South Carolina, that that in order
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: to navigate you know, precinct, why well, then how the
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: hell do we expect you to be able to handle
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: a tough moment with Putin? Right?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: So, the modern version that actually is the candidates who
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: are truly adapt to new forms of technology, whether it
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: was Kennedy and television or Obama and text, or Trump
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: and Twitter or Mandani in short form video, they do
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: really well because that becomes the way to do it.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: No, it's a you're not wrong, it's like how do
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: we how do we how do we sort of celebrate
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: that part of the prime because you know, there's plenty
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: of people who will criticize our conversation. You're trying to gamify.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: It is sort of, it's not gamify. It's simply finding
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: the person who's got the best attributes to handle how
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: the job is done today.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Plus a binary contest is a game by definition, right,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: So like we're already in that construct.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, mobile voting, when will we see the first votes.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: April in Anchorage? And then my hope would be a
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of these in different states.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: What does success look like to you? Fifty turnout? Like
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: huge increases, You're not.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: Going to get that in year one. So Estonia is
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: the one country in the world that has had internet
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: voting for twenty years. I went over there this summer
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: to kind of meet with a lot of people and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: learn more about it. So in year one it was
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: one point three percent of voters voted online. Today it's well,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: it's a significant majority, right, And they went from having
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: higher national turnout and low local turnout to sort of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: normalize get across the board, whereas now even Musp elections
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: are getting fifty instead of five because people just got
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: used to it and it just became so easy that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: there's no reason not to do it. So that's what
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going for.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Hey, in nineteen ninety five, the state of Oregon ran
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: this interesting experiment for mail in voting. It was the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: special election to replace Bob Packway the entire West coast.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Now it majority votes by mail. Yeah right, you know,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: and that was just thirty years ago.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: So that's that's what I'm hoping to do here.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'll be watching rather than this great conversation
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: and this was.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: Super fun and yeah, absolutely loved it to meet and
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: sort we'll do it again, all right, See, thank you.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered that original offer six hundred and
• 1:10:47
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