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Lessons Learned: Equipping Businesses for Future Crises Post-Pandemic · Leaders in Lending

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to Leaders in Lending from Upstart, a
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  Speaker 1: podcast dedicated to helping consumer lenders grow their programs and
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  Speaker 1: improve their product offerings. Each week, here, decision makers in
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  Speaker 1: the finance industry offer insights into the future of the
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  Speaker 1: lending industry, best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's
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  Speaker 1: get into the show.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of Leaders in Lending.
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  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Matt Snow, joined this time by Chris Pilkerton,
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  Speaker 2: former head of This Small Business Administration, current author Chris
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  Speaker 2: Good to see again.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome you, Matt. Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, my pleasure. I've got a copy of your book
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  Speaker 2: right here, Plandemic.
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  Speaker 3: Great book. Really enjoyed reading it.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of good detail and I think a good
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  Speaker 2: summary of going through COVID and kind of the reaction
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  Speaker 2: and lessons learned. So maybe we'll get into that in
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  Speaker 2: a second, but you want to take a second to
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  Speaker 2: introduce yourself and tell me what you're up to today.
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  Speaker 3: Matt. It's great to be with you. Thank you so much. So,
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  Speaker 3: you know, as the book talks a little bit about,
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  Speaker 3: I started my most recent turn in government in twenty
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  Speaker 3: seventeen as the General Counsel at the Small Business Administration.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, the SBA is just this tremendous place
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  Speaker 3: to work because the mission is amazing and the people
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  Speaker 3: that work there are really so committed to it, the
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  Speaker 3: folks that are careers that have been there. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: I had two lawyers on my staff that had been
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  Speaker 3: at the agency for almost fifty years, and so you
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  Speaker 3: have a lot of people that stay. They don't really
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  Speaker 3: bounce around the government because they're just really committed to
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  Speaker 3: the mission. And so that was something that struck me
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  Speaker 3: right away. And it was a very hands on place
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  Speaker 3: in other words, when small business owners had questions or
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  Speaker 3: what have you, people were picking up the phone, you know,
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  Speaker 3: really being helpful, sort of you hope the government would be.
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  Speaker 3: And at the time, Lynda McMahon was the administrator and
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  Speaker 3: as you may, she was CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.
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  Speaker 3: Her and her husband started that organization, and so she
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  Speaker 3: was a true business CEO. And so when I first
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  Speaker 3: met with her, what she was looking for was someone
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  Speaker 3: that was a lawyer who was interested in policy, had
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  Speaker 3: that experience, but also had litigation compliance, regulatory experience, and
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  Speaker 3: all of that really translated in sort of the business
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  Speaker 3: general counsel that I was looking for. So I was
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  Speaker 3: involved in a lot of the meetings across the board
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  Speaker 3: from a policy perspective, with the different agencies, with some
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  Speaker 3: of the other secretaries. And then in April of twenty nineteen,
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  Speaker 3: she stepped down and so the White House White House
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  Speaker 3: named me to be the acting administrator. Now you never
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  Speaker 3: quite know how long those positions are going to last.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it could last a week or two weeks.
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  Speaker 3: But there's a whole process where I was deally in
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  Speaker 3: a Senate confirmed position. Someone actually has to get confirmed
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  Speaker 3: by the Senate. Well, the individual, Jovita Caranza, wasn't confirmed
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  Speaker 3: until January of twenty twenty. So I was in the
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  Speaker 3: role for almost a year as the head of the agency,
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  Speaker 3: and it really was just an amazing experience, and I
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  Speaker 3: talk about how incredible it was in the book, but
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  Speaker 3: in large part because it's so hands on your meeting
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  Speaker 3: with the small businesses. You're seeing the impact that technical
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  Speaker 3: assistance and the loans really make in their businesses, their lives,
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  Speaker 3: their families, their communities. And then when the pandemic started,
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  Speaker 3: I moved over to the White House, and that's where
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  Speaker 3: I talk about in the book, sort of my experience
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  Speaker 3: within the White House what was happening with the Paycheck
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  Speaker 3: Protection Program. And one of the things that I saw
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  Speaker 3: that was so impactful during PPP was the impact of
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  Speaker 3: community development financial institutions organizations that were literally inside these
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  Speaker 3: communities who were lending and making a huge difference, particularly
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  Speaker 3: in underserved communities. And so when I left the iministration,
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  Speaker 3: I ended up working going to work with Axiom and
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  Speaker 3: Opportunity Fund, which is where I am now as their
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  Speaker 3: general counsel, and it's the leading small business CDFI focused
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  Speaker 3: exclusively on small business and so it's a it's a
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  Speaker 3: great place, some tremendous folks. So it's sort of like
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  Speaker 3: the nonprofit extension of the SBA. So, yes, what I'm
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  Speaker 3: doing now, that's what I do. I've done a couple
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  Speaker 3: of fellowships, and one of the fellowships that I finished
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  Speaker 3: up at the Kennedy School was really the base or
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  Speaker 3: the basis for the book Plandemic and all the research.
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  Speaker 3: So it's been a really fun few years and I'm
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  Speaker 3: just really committed to this space and it's all kind
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  Speaker 3: of worked out. Well, Yeah, that's great.
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  Speaker 2: You could find that combination in Axiom with small business
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  Speaker 2: and the CDFI. We've gotten some great partners that are
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  Speaker 2: CDFIs at Upstart, and I've learned more about that space
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't quite as aware prior to joining. And yeah,
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  Speaker 2: the ability that they have to really impact communities that
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  Speaker 2: they are in is really really meaningful. So that's really
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  Speaker 2: cool that you get to do that. And small business
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  Speaker 2: is hugely important to the American economy. So again, like
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  Speaker 2: seeing those through those stories through your book was really
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  Speaker 2: really great to read about. And maybe like starting with
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  Speaker 2: the end, like do you think we got it right?
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  Speaker 2: Like through the COVID pandemic, the stimulus, all the programs
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  Speaker 2: around PPP, like the focus on small business. You know,
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  Speaker 2: what's your assessment? Did we get it right?
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  Speaker 3: Was that the right reaction? Is it too early to tell?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't think it's too early to tell,
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  Speaker 3: because if you look at if you talk to folks
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  Speaker 3: on both sides of the aisle, left and right, you know, lawyers,
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  Speaker 3: policy folks, particularly economists. Given the circumstances that we were
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  Speaker 3: in at the time, I think it absolutely was the
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  Speaker 3: right thing to do, and in large part because the
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  Speaker 3: options were really limited when you go back to two
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  Speaker 3: thousand and eight. And you think about the Great Recession
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  Speaker 3: and different financial crises that we've had, these have all
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  Speaker 3: been issues sort of related to liquidity in the financial system.
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  Speaker 3: So cash infusions, all the things that had happened really
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  Speaker 3: were ways to sort of manage that. But in this situation,
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  Speaker 3: we didn't know when the virus was going to end
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  Speaker 3: or would be able to kind of get control of it.
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  Speaker 3: So the approach that was taken with the paycheck Protection
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  Speaker 3: program was really to sort of, you know, keep workers
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  Speaker 3: tied to their businesses so that they could continue getting paid,
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  Speaker 3: so that they can continue health insurance and all of
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  Speaker 3: these things that are just you know, so important for
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  Speaker 3: you know, any family living in America. And there were
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  Speaker 3: some external pieces of this too that that folks may
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  Speaker 3: not necessarily know about, and I talk about this in
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  Speaker 3: the book is you know, one of the questions that
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  Speaker 3: I've been asked by various economists is, well, why didn't
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  Speaker 3: we just do a massive unemployment program, Like why didn't
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  Speaker 3: we go ahead and inject money into the unemployment system.
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  Speaker 3: And there was a very significant unemployment piece associated with
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  Speaker 3: the Cares Act in pandemic programs. But one of the
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  Speaker 3: reasons that it wasn't done that way was because the
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  Speaker 3: unemployment system is set up state by state. There's a
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  Speaker 3: federal component, but really it's state operated and some of
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  Speaker 3: those operations were actually programmed, you know, forty fifty years
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  Speaker 3: ago on colbol programming language. So you know, there was
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  Speaker 3: so many possibilities that if there was just one tweak,
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  Speaker 3: one issue and a system goes down, what does that
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  Speaker 3: mean for you know, a community, particularly communities living paycheck
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  Speaker 3: to paycheck. And so this was the approach that was chosen.
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  Speaker 3: And I do think that when you look at the
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  Speaker 3: number of jobs that it saved, and there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of scholarship out there, you know, on the high end,
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  Speaker 3: on the low end, but even on the very low end,
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  Speaker 3: it was you know, the millions of jobs that were saved.
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  Speaker 3: And so what I try to do in the book
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  Speaker 3: is take a look at it really in you know,
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  Speaker 3: a bipartisan way, and say what did we do well?
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  Speaker 3: What did we do? What were the challenges? Were things
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  Speaker 3: that we could do better the next time? And the
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  Speaker 3: reason I think it's important to do this book now.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, I was speaking to one one reporter about
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  Speaker 3: just doing an interview of the book, and he said,
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  Speaker 3: it's called plandemic, because wowre that's a you know, that's
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  Speaker 3: a really like title that's gonna gonna you know, turn
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  Speaker 3: people off. And I said, no, the point of it
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  Speaker 3: really is to put the plan together. Now, the idea
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  Speaker 3: that if we work on these things, and we work
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  Speaker 3: on them not just at the executive level, but you
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  Speaker 3: work with them with Congress, and then you're working within
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  Speaker 3: the communities, and so I think you know, at the
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  Speaker 3: end of the day, it's about planning and preparation, and
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  Speaker 3: it's about getting feedback, you know, not just from the communities,
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  Speaker 3: not just from the politicians, but you know, to the
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  Speaker 3: point you made before, also the lenders, right, what worked?
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  Speaker 3: What were we putting more regulatory burdens in this process
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  Speaker 3: than lenders could really handle. I mean I've had a
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  Speaker 3: lot of conversation with lenders that said, look, we got
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  Speaker 3: this guidance, you know, within a few days before, and
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  Speaker 3: I think everyone understood that a lot of this was
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  Speaker 3: being done in real time. You know, the legislation was
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  Speaker 3: lightning fast from a legislative perspective. But then there's the
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  Speaker 3: whole process of rules and you know, just FAQs and
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  Speaker 3: guidance and those kinds of things, and that can be
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  Speaker 3: you know, difficult for anyone to absorb, particularly you know,
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  Speaker 3: large lending institutions that have a lot going on anyway.
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  Speaker 3: And so going back to the planning idea, now we
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  Speaker 3: can sit down as a government, sit down with lenders
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  Speaker 3: and say, look, if we were in this situation again,
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  Speaker 3: what would make the most sense to you, How would
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  Speaker 3: you be able to assess these loans, and how would
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  Speaker 3: you be able to get money out the door? Because
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  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, you were talking about
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  Speaker 3: a program that was about eight hundred billion dollars and
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  Speaker 3: the lenders were the tip of the spear getting the
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  Speaker 3: money out the door.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I want to come back to a piece
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  Speaker 2: of that because the logistical challenges I didn't really appreciate
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  Speaker 2: until reading through this book and really like laid out
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  Speaker 2: a lot of those challenges, like you said, from a
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  Speaker 2: local to a national level, all the different layers of
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  Speaker 2: government and finance and the public sector and private sector
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  Speaker 2: working together, and how to bring that all together, especially
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  Speaker 2: as you mentioned like speed as the mandate, right, so
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  Speaker 2: you think about all the different possible solutions and what
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  Speaker 2: do you orient around. I think this crisis really called
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  Speaker 2: for speed is like the primary focus, So maybe talk
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  Speaker 2: a little bit about that, like, how how was a
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  Speaker 2: solution able to come together so quickly, partnering, like you said,
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  Speaker 2: with different cd CDFI's, in market, fintech's, traditional banks. How
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  Speaker 2: do you get all of those different stakeholders involved as
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  Speaker 2: well as you know, Congress and rulemakers and figuring out
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  Speaker 2: how to you know, manage a program like this.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I mean if you go back to when
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  Speaker 3: it actually was happening, because remember, you know this was COVID, right,
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  Speaker 3: so most government employees were not in the office. So
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  Speaker 3: you had this small group of folks within the SBA
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  Speaker 3: and Treasury, and you know, Treasury was really the big
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  Speaker 3: lead on this who were committed to getting money out
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  Speaker 3: the door. And to your point, speed was the most
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  Speaker 3: critical factor. And there was a lot of conversations that
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  Speaker 3: were being had, you know, not just with lenders, not
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  Speaker 3: just with trade associations, uh, but you know, with different
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  Speaker 3: communities on what's the most effective way to do this.
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  Speaker 3: I myself, after the FAQs came out, I would do
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  Speaker 3: all kinds of meetings and webinars with trade associations and
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  Speaker 3: different groups and literally try to get you know, thousands
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  Speaker 3: of people on these and just explain sort of the
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  Speaker 3: nuts and bolts of the process. Well, when you're explaining
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  Speaker 3: the nuts and bolts of a process that started twenty
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  Speaker 3: four hours ago, you're going to find issues, right, what
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  Speaker 3: about this situation? What about that? So people would say, well,
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  Speaker 3: you know, these FAQs are coming out, and then twenty
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  Speaker 3: four hours there's more FAQ's, and then forty eight hours
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  Speaker 3: from there there's more you know, information and what have you.
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  Speaker 3: And that was just the nature of it. And I think,
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  Speaker 3: you know, with hindsight, I think everyone understands and appreciates
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  Speaker 3: that because it was being run through the SBA, but
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  Speaker 3: it was a new program, you know, you know, as
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  Speaker 3: a lender, the seven A program, which is the flagship
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  Speaker 3: program at the SBA, it has very specific rules, you know,
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  Speaker 3: rules like credit elsewhere and some of these other sort
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  Speaker 3: of lending SBA terms, but they weren't applicable here. But
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  Speaker 3: while you're trying to get the money out the door,
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  Speaker 3: there certainly was the understanding that you also have to
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  Speaker 3: be as responsible as you can. I think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: when you're talking about eight hundred billion dollars, is there
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  Speaker 3: going to be fraud in a government program that big?
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I think anyone would say, yes, there's going something is
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  Speaker 3: going to happen, right, and there's different estimates on what
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  Speaker 3: the sizes of those those are. And obviously the paycheck
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  Speaker 3: Protection Program wasn't the only issue there, but the reality was,
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  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, this was a way
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  Speaker 3: to keep people, like I said before, tied to their jobs,
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  Speaker 3: tied to their health insurance, and get them through whatever
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  Speaker 3: that period was. And it goes back to the point
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  Speaker 3: I made before. We didn't know how long that period
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  Speaker 3: was going to last. And for me it was really
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  Speaker 3: interesting because when I was doing the research in the book,
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  Speaker 3: I only looked at the United States, but I looked
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  Speaker 3: at a number of other countries and sort of how
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: they did things differently, particularly through Europe and Asia, and
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  Speaker 3: found that the way that they looked at the pandemic
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: was in sort of a rescue period so called maybe
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  Speaker 3: the first four or five months of the pandemic, and
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  Speaker 3: then a recovery period, and so a lot of the
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  Speaker 3: things that they did were based on, you know, how
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  Speaker 3: do we build these businesses back up? And I think
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  Speaker 3: the US process there was there was elements of that,
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  Speaker 3: and the rules of the PPP did change somewhat, but
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  Speaker 3: I think there are pieces of that, particularly around like
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  Speaker 3: deregulation and things that can be done on the very
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: local level to help small businesses. I mean, the perfect
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  Speaker 3: example is, you know, we all heard about how local
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  Speaker 3: ordinances were pulled back so folks could do takeout and
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: sort of be eating outside and all those kinds of things.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: And those are small, but anyone that's ever worked with
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: local government before, that stuff doesn't necessarily happen overnight. And
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: when I was at the White House, I would do
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: conversation conversations with mayors and governors and local economic officials,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: and I mentioned this in the book, that you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: some folks had a sense of what they wanted to
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: do or needed to do. They would all tell me
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: that their first, you know, their first top three problems
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: were obviously health and safety for their communities, concern around
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: the small businesses, and then housing because obviously the small
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: business is high, you know, and so the workforce. But
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  Speaker 3: there were some mayors, and I didn't really blame them.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: They they didn't know what to do. And when you
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: get a call from the White House, you know you're thinking,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: all right, I'm gonna get the answers. But the role
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: that I had. I was trying to find out, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: what they needed, and it ended up becoming the sort
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  Speaker 3: of fascinating, you know, policy process for me because I would,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: you know, talk to a mayor in one city that
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: they still had shove already construction jobs where they were
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: trying to lay fiber optic line through bridges, but they
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: didn't have workers who were trained to be able to
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: do that. And then I'd speak to a mayor in
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: another city that actually had a maker space or workforce
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: development center where they were training people to do that. So,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: you know, trying to find ways to match people up.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: And so it goes back to once again that that
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: preparation that certainly has to be done at the federal level.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: And I sort of make the case that going back
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: to the FAQs and things that I mentioned, you could
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: pre write some of these things. There's always going to
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: be a need to tweak and the circumstances are going
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: to be different, but you could pre write some of that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: You could pre write maybe some of the emergency legislation,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: recognizing that, you know, no matter how bipartisan is, it
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: still Washington and people are going to have their own
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: takes on things. But if you had, you know, the
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: bulk of the project plan ready then for the next crisis.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: And I'm not talking about a health crisis, just a
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of a i'll say, a garden variety
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  Speaker 3: economic you know, circumstance. Those kinds of things could be implemented,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: and it may not be as easy as flipping a switch,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: but you certainly wouldn't have to start from scratch.
• 17:25
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• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Chris, A lot of great detail in there,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: and maybe on a lighter note, one of the things
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I still remember about that time. Whenever my wife and
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I order from our favorite Mexican restaurant. Here we live
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: in a small rural town in Ohio, things move a
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: little slower, you know. We order our margeritas to go
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: and I can get that in that cup. But it
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: always feels a weird, a little weird driving back home
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: with a margarita next to me.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: But you know, still it's a reminder of some of
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: the innovation.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And like, you know, pushing the boundaries a little bit
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: as we're trying to help small businesses stay, stay alive
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: and a float through you know, that uncertain time. But
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: you also mentioned I was struck by a couple maybe
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: seemingly extreme concepts in the book too, where you talk
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: about the correlation to healthcare, and maybe we can talk
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: about doctor Osler a little bit, but the idea of
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: you know, washing your hands as the best preventative mediciner.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: You know, those simple things that you can do can
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: help keep you out of trouble long term. Not that
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: it's going to prevent a pandemic, but you know, how
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: do we think about planning ahead and doing those essential things,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: but also in those times kind of extreme remedies for
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: extreme diseases and like being fast. So maybe talk a
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: little bit about the parallels you saw there and that
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: through line as you discovered doctor Osler and his following.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, so doctor Osler was a physician who was
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: one of the founding physicians at Johns Hopkins University. And
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: whenever I write, I try to come up with some
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: metaphor that connects the circumstance, you know, back to the
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: reader in a way that's digestible. And for this book
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: really focused on the idea of what doctor Osler brought
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: to medicine. So every medical student who or any doctor
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: who's listening to this had to read a book by
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: doctor Osler, and he has one of the foundational books
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: that's required for medical school. And you know, he lived
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: in the eighteen hundreds into the early nineteen hundreds, but
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: he's sort of known as the father of modern medicine.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: And he's known for that in large part because he
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: brought to the medical community this concept of medical students
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: doing rounds, actually engaging with patients as opposed to just
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: learning from a book. And he would he was at
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Johns Hopkins, and then he was over at Oxford and
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: he would really engage with these students, and you know,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: he had apparently the best medical library in America at
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: one point, and so students would come to his house
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: and he would actually give them keys to his house,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: and they would research at his house in his library,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: and they got this nickname the Latchkeears. And these students
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: would come in and apparently on any given night, you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: some would come, some professors, and it would sort of
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: turn into this party of just a discussion, you know,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: all these different folks, the sort of salon of people
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: just talking about it, like on you know, a random
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Tuesday or what have you. And so I thought it
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: was really important to use that as the example of
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: kind of the doctor patient relationship because in these circumstances,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: of course, the private sector was incredibly important, but the
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: government was setting the stage and in large part, these
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: small businesses were the patients in this circumstance. You know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: people always use the phrase that small businesses are the
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: engine of the economy, they're the backbone of the economy,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: and that's all true, but in this case, they really
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: needed the help, and they really needed the support and
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: so Ostler was also a bit of a character and
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: had some really great sayings and phrases, and so I
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: use some of those in the book as you reference
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: to really kind of talk through what are ways that
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: we can kind of learn to really apply some of
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the lessons of the pandemic. And you talked about sort
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: of the idea of clean hands sort of just being
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: the best antiseptic, and that I think part of that
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: is too, is just common sense, right, And so I
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: think a lot of this is common sense, and that
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: was the experience that I had inside the walls of
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: the White House and inside the government to be able
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: to do that. But you know, I think, but something
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: is going to happen again, and being prepared for it
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: and understanding it. It's not just about you know, reading
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: the history of you know, ten years from now, twenty
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: years from now. It's not about reading the history of
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the pandemic. Sure that's going to help, but if we
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: actually have an action plan in place that is practical,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: you know, it's not one of these Blue Riven commissions
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: where former governors and you know, a former whoever are
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: sitting on it. Those are fantastic, they have their place,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: but in this circumstance, you need people who I think
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: who were there or at least very close in time,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: including you know when I say people are talking to
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: government lenders, small businesses, local officials to really help put
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: this together. And so my hope is that this concept
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: and these suggestions will be picked up. And fortunately I've
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: had some good conversations with policy makers and I think
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: they will. That's great.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think one of the other things that
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: struck me is, I think we joked about this before,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: like the idea that history doesn't repeat itself, but it
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: often rhymes. So I think you do a good job
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: of comparing not only you know, health related pandemics, but
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: other disruptions in the economy, whether that's you know, war
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: or terrorism, other you know, massive shocks that that disrupt
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: the economy. So you know, not being so specific about
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: like you know, another disease driven shut down of the economy,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: but like what else can we learn from and how
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: can we prepare? So I like, I like the correlations
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: you draw throughout the book as well through that, but
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: so do you see, like in in the short time
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: after the pandemic, like, are we thinking proactively about some
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: of these things? Is there stuff that's changing, or you
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: mentioned the state unemployment systems being written on co bal
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: or those being upgraded, or are there tangible things or
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: is there like another hungry wolf at the door that's
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: taking our focus away, and like, you know, maybe this
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: is a distant memory that we're focused on the next
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: urgent thing.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think right now, you know, we're we're taping
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: this on October ninth, and so at least the United States,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: it's certainly focused on an election in a few weeks.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And there's still a hangover I think from from COVID
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: from the pandemic. Right, there's still they're you know, small
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: businesses are still feeling it. There's still obviously, you know,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: the small business optimism decks has been low recently in
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the face of inflation. Some of that having been done
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: are accountable to you know, a lot of the spending
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: that happened over the last few years and those kinds
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: of things. So I think we're as a as a country,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: maybe we're not ready to do this yet. But as
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I alluded to conversations that I've had with folks, this
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: this just makes sense. Right. No one has come to
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: meansidy Chris I don't think we need a plan because
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, people who are on the right
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and the left appreciate and understand that. And I really
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: do think that this can be bipartisan, you know. There
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: the legislation for the Cares Act was ultimately passed in
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: five days, which is just amazing when you think about
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: how long these conversations can go on the hill, much less,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: you know, actually getting a vote. Now, granted, it was
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: obviously emergency circumstances and an incredibly unique time, but one
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: of the other quotes I have in the book is
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: from Louis Pasteur, and he says, it's it's the microbes
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: who will have the last word, right, So we can't
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: pick the time when this is going to happen, so
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: we've got to prepare now.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally agree. Well, I've really enjoyed the conversation, Chris.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I know you've got another project you're working on which
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I'm anxiously awaiting. Is there any other piece of advice
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: or a thought leader, you know, other book podcasts that
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: you want to leave the audience with maybe to stay
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: up to date with stuff like this, or how they
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: might follow you.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can follow me on X at c Pilkerton.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: One of the projects that I'm working on right now
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: is the impact of artificial intelligence on small business and
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: workforce development and what we you know, can expect going forward.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: And I've had these tremendously fascinating conversations with all kinds
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: of AI small businesses that are sort of they seem
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: to be popping up everywhere. But you know, people always
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: talk about the greatest business successes our fifteen year overnight sensations.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Right They've been really working at this for a while,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: and so there's just some amazingly interesting products out there.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: And I think in the context of sort of what
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: we're looking at at current events right now, what does
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: automation mean for the workforce. When I was back in
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: the administration, this ties back to the pandemic. I had
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: the chance to go down to spend time in North
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Carolina in some of the advanced manufacturing centers they had
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: there to support sort of reshoring textiles, and one of
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: the ones that I worked on was working with was
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: focused entirely on apparel. They were working with some of
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: the big apparel companies and doing T shirts and shoes
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: and all these kinds of things, and a lot of
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: it was, you know, coded in the background. You didn't
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: necessarily see the workers and the factories, but there was
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: a lot of technology that was being developed by the workforce. Well,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: what they ended up doing during the pandemic they called
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: me and said, we know that people need masks, we
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: know that people need gowns. They turned their entire operation
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: on a dime and started creating this. And what was
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: really fascinating to me was it was almost like this
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: World War two effort, and it showed the importance of
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: the domestic manufacturing supply chain. So while I'm also looking
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: at AI and looking at the impact, I'm really hoping
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: that as a country we start focusing more on these
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: manufacturing ecosystems. So as a country we were producing, we
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: can be more resilient when it comes to supply chain issues,
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: and I think things like that will ultimately help the
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: next crisis.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, yeah, like I said, looking forward to it.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Hopefully you'll come back once you finish your research there
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: and share more what you learned in that.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I would love it. Matt really appreciate the time today.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 29:06
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  Speaker 3: Yeah,