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Hi, I'm Kara Swisher. This is a best of Rico decode from the VOX media podcast Network. Today. We're going to hear from two interviews. I conducted with journalists. Anand gear guard has the author of the book winners. Take all the elite charade of changing the world. The first interview was originally aired in October 2018 the following may I invited a nod to come back on the show for a live interview at a we work event space in New York City as I mentioned. This is one of our favorite episodes from the past five years.
So you are listening to a rerun but VOX media and New York Magazine will be bringing you new interviews on this feed later this year. So, please stay subscribed. You can still hear me twice a week on my other podcast pivot with Kara swisher and Scott Galloway head over there for fresh fun smart conversations about tech and media and all of businesses wins and fails and predictions for what comes next just search for pivot in your podcast app of choice, but now here's my interview with a non gear Goddess from October 2008.
team
to me. I've always thought there's a group of the top that loves the future and leaning into it. Some of them are very wealthy very obscenely wealthy. Then there's a bottom group that are lost and they're mired and opiates and bad eating and anger and all kind of racism and all kinds of things and then there's a group in the middle that some of whom are slipping down into that and and and others understand they need to lean into the future but they're terrified of it, you know what I mean? Like but that but it's really a development which is fueled a lot of what's going
on and I
I was reading something actually when I was in India about how one way to define the health of a society is is its middle class a poor version of the rich or a slightly richer version of the
poor right? Don't think are really putting their culture. They share quality of their
institutions their church-going just various indicators and we are definitely shifting from a society where the middle class was a kind of poor version rich with less money to the poor with a little more money, right because there just is so this not
his
overhang and so what was your point in trying to do this book?
So while I was radicalized by seeing all these places that were just you know, the American dream had just deserted those places a long time ago. I at the same time was invited into a benevolent secret society called the Aspen Institute. There was this henrique thing called the Henry crowned Fellowship of the Aspen and students and it's not secret. But go
ahead. It's like an open
secret society. Yeah,
I heard of it. So it's not
that
That does that proves nothing well, and I can't for that stuff and here was this group of people the whole purpose of it was to bring together young Leaders with an idea to making them solve some of the most urgent problems of our time the world's most intractable problems, right? And at first you thought great and while we're here, I am seeing some of these very big problems and and here's this group of people doing that and we'd meet there's mostly business people that was the idea and I was kind of LED in along with a couple other people and it's
Seem great we bonded, you know, you put bunch of people together and a seminar room. Yeah, you're good. And as I kind of got deeper into that world. I want the Aspen ideas festival and this and that and just start to see things are sponsored by Monsanto and Pepsi. Yep, when you're trying to make the world a better place and the Koch brothers sponsor the building where you discussing that yeah the deepening of democracy and and you know, Goldman Sachs sponsors the summer reunions about, you know, reducing inequality and fighting for justice and you start to wonder like what am I really participating in here? I my turn
Break down. These problems are actually part of how we're Shoring up these problems and I being used by this whole you are but go ahead. Yeah. Well hence the book and so I was in that Fellowship a couple
year in a bite the hand that feeds you most. Yeah sure
and I they asked me to give a talk there actually has made of a talk about the hate crime book and I said, yes.
And then I emailed them and I said, well, it's gonna be a slightly different talk than that. They said that's fine. Well, then I you know interpreted slightly in my own so I included one paragraph about the hate crime thing and then I decided to speak from the heart to a room full of millionaires and billionaires and trustees of this institute and my fellow fellows and a lot of you know people at every major company that in America Facebook and Google and Goldman, whatever all in that room.
And I just said look rich people in our time all think that they're changing the world. They're making it a better place there. They're trying to do good and I think we need to confront the fact that we in this room May literally be the problem. Right and we talked about doing a little more good but we never talked about doing less harm. We talk about critical programs for people. We don't talk about just paying people more we talk about, you know women leaning in but we don't we Lobby against we meaning these people's companies lat
be against maternity leave in Congress, you know, so there's a lot of generosity than talk of generosity that happens with rich people these days and this age of extreme inequality, but there's not a lot of talk of justice and generosity and Justice are actually not the same. It is a very good
point. Let's think about specific things you talked about how you got to this idea you were written about a range of different things. But when you're here at that is Aspen Institute, which I can just my skin crawls when I think about that room like I know is I've been in that room
You wanted to room where it doesn't happen
where it doesn't happen and where they also think that they do. I when I first came to Silicon Valley, I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal saying things I can't stand the tech people saying to me and changing the world was at the very top of the list. So we're here to change the world. Am I going to her to make money? You're here to make a product you're here to like you never would see a cigarette Mint or not cigarettes ensure. Just any come to make peanut butter. We're here to change the world. Correct peanut butter or Wall Street people do it. It was such an arrogant way of looking at basically was just cap.
Ilysm as far as I was young and so I made I did a funny guy
said just a note on that. This culture has spread so much though that sometimes their direction is reversed. I have some friends who have a company that makes replacement shoelaces is little plastic. Yeah shoelaces called hickeys great little product. They tell a story every time they talk to the press and I turned like picture story The Press will ask them. So how are you changing the world? How are you making a difference and they will say they don't know what Justice would you like a shoelace company? It's just truly it's like liturgist delays.
And it's actually the media that now yeah expects
a startup. Yeah. I don't have it the world story about
civilizational uplift. Yeah. I really just want to hurt it. That's my like how right that's my only interest is stop hurting it or if you're hurting it stop and fix it. I think it's no
accident that the company perhaps most associated with The Narrative of changing the world in our time actually ended up being the first company in American history to compromise an American election
and that would be Facebook. Yes. I'm going to be talking about that. So talk.
About some of the concepts you have in winners take all it is a charade. It is a charade. They do want to talk about it and they go to Davos or whoever the heck of think of wanna go to to do this. So talk about what that means. What give me some good examples of like taking all because they do they suck at one of the things I that drives me crazy is I've done lots of energy with various people, but when they do interviews with me and they're like, well we wanted to fix this and we're really sorry and you know, it's hard to have this it's they don't want to take the power. They don't want to they pretend they don't
The power they have almost free almost. Continually. I have a
whole chapter about that called Rebel Kings and worrisome
Berets. Yeah, and I was like, you took the money you took you ruin the media business, you didn't mind doing any of that and now you don't want to like take responsibility
for it. So let's talk about it start with the start with that one. Okay, so I have a chapter in the book called, you know, so the whole book is although it's making the argument that I'm making to you. It actually consists of stories of people in this world grappling with these dilemmas in trying to figure out Apple how to how to do how to do.
Ooh, right while also frankly clinging right to their to their privileges. So one of the chapters is about some at the summit at Sea cruise ship God. Okay. Yeah, 3,000 Tech entrepreneurs one Norwegian cruise ship and and just so much world-changing possibility. And so, you know right
before in the world before we did not
board the ship. There's this email that some people get the say, you know in a few days something transformational is going to be born from the sky and the Moon.
And it might just change history. We may not see the full effect now, but that's the case with any great shift any seismic shift amongst the plates of planet Earth. That's like the welcome email. Yeah. I know so we got on the ship and I tell the story of these people and shervin / shaver. This VC should be Shady guy pick about whatever is and I know serve you what do you think
of Sherman? I'm not going into it. But go ahead. Yeah Mama.
So he you know is a complex character. Yeah. He's yeah he is giving this talk and I kind of describe his talk and but the thing that really
he struck me on the ship about these World Changers is I actually started to feel for and it's hard to understand why they denied their power which I think is such a crucial
issue. Absolutely. No, they push away power and you
can't they have this. I think John F Kennedy used this idea of it. Was it an Arthur Schlessinger book about the Kennedys this idea folk memory that we often have these like folk memories that are not our own memories, but I kind of passed down there's a folk memory and Tech of
being a rebel of being a hacker of being a tinker on
Outside right and and sort of the Apple. They remember they had the pirate flag in front of all of that. Yeah, and I think if you would
like 30 and working in Tech that just was never the actual net story of your life. Yeah, but there are some people who did live that
story giant kassadin babies, right? But go
ahead but I think if you were in that early group and you were up against I don't know Walmart or IBM or GE or
Kodak whatever might yeah,
right like you could feel like you were these little Rebels up against the man. I think the problem is they've
NG to that folk memory even as they won and so the analogy I use is you know, you see like on the news is war-torn countries. We have like a rebel Army that is advancing on the capital. Right and you got these Rebel commanders and their Berets sitting in the back of pickup trucks. I got one gun holding another gun, you know, sometimes the rebels went and sometimes the rebels actually make it to the Palace. They become the new king. They become the president the old guys taken off in a helicopter to some exile country.
And it's always a bad sign if the rebel when they ascend to the Palace keeps their Beret
on yes, because they lie. They were talking about Fidel Castro. Wish Castro Mugabe Saddam. They all kept the Beret. Yeah. And what does it mean when you keep the Beret it means even though you've arrived of yourself, right? But you've arrived you now
actually our power you're not the rebel right? You're the establishment. Yeah, and you haven't processed your arrived who you
are. You have an exciting.
Being constantly on a campaign rather than
governing or insect Trump's
rallies, right? Yeah. He just can't govern he just wants to continue on the campaign that he already won. Someone wrote me a tweet the other days like you're part of the elite and you're running everything and we're going to take power from you. I'm like, I don't know last time you looked but Congress and the all of Congress and the presidency is run by y'all and I don't have power like my people don't have power for sure and it was really interesting that they continued. I was like look up and see that you have the power and you're the one doing the damage not me. Yeah, and it was really interesting but
That is a thing and so in Tech, it's the look at least we're talking about tech particularly and I think you're right. They look like cling on to that concept of self. It's the juvenile close. It's the everything it's where simple even as they have. It's hardly
exact call Facebook a company always goes to the community. Yeah, he does that, you know, like it like they're like, I called it operation drums. Yeah that's starting to get closer to the reality though. It is closer the reality and it's not just a verbal tic or a clothing thing. Like they understand completely what they are doing.
Doing by not being seen as power, right they get to behave like baby.
But here's what's interesting. Is that you when you say that, you know South Dakota Community, it means he's just one of the members that's why he's doing it and I'm always like you're running like one of the things they were talking about. It's like well, he's not responsible and like he has full he controls the shares. He's the CEO and his 64 billion. I'm going with him who has the power like, I don't know. He's not it's not a community. It's a community run by one. It's community of one and you
and I both know this forget what they say publicly you and I both speak to people.
We in that company they will tell you that yeah, they could make less money and have way more people policing abuse. Yeah way more people under percent doing security and you just cost something. I mean part of the whole fantasy that I'm trying to dismantle on this Mac is it's a lot of social problems just involve the winners taking a
little bit Restless exactly and because that has been ruled out right?
We have a lot of problems. So the
idea is the idea that they are still the rebels that they are still the aggrieved that they are still which you disguise.
I thought that the same thing that brown people are taking away his rights, you know, it's not untrue so that there's still the
rebels. All right, but I think the overall government so I described in the book A Place Called Market world one word capital m capital W and Market world is a kind of overlapping complex of people and institutions that are trying to do well by doing good. Yeah that are trying to you know, make a killing and make a difference that are trying to have a win.
In right everything and so that is people at Goldman Sachs trying to do green bonds to change the world while also may be pushing Exxon stock that is you know, the Silicon Valley folks we talked about that is big philanthropy that is trying to take money that was made hurting people and then turn it around to help muffin those same thing Carnegie affect the Carnegie effect. I mean you have the number of banks you have right now that are you know, 500 million to revitalize America's urban areas like
like you literally were just find thirteen sixteen billion dollars for causing millions of foreclosures in this country because you like willfully fraudulently caused the financial crisis
that just the killed the literally killed
people around the world from Lost jobs and lost health care and any number of other things and and oh, wow you doing a five hundred million dollars of revitalization, but you also got ten billion dollars, you know from
Right the tax cut so it like and
and you have this whole dynamic where the winners of our age deeply believe that they can help people. They can fight for others. But only on their terms, right they are willing to fight for equality and justice in any way they can except by stepping off of people's backs, right? They're not willing to have an education system that funds Public Schools equally and adequately because that would cost rich people a lot of money. They're not willing they're willing to tell women to lean in because that's actually free.
You can just actually just say see I just did it. I just did it. I just literally just did I just said lean in and that's a social policy, you know actual social policy that would actually Empower women based on what like 15 other countries maternity leave childcare tax credits and like laws to prevent, you know, everybody from being groped in the office every day Etc. These are all these are not
Mysteries. It's not like going to space like we know alright, so one is thinking it having lack of self-awareness exactly who you are which is the bad person just like are the dangers.
Person the other the insistence on the win-win that the only kind of change social change that's acceptable is the kind of social change that also benefits the powerful and an example that the lien in thing is a great example of that where you say, you know, the best way to empower women is telling them to lean in not doing the kind of social policy that's going to like cost my company a lot of money. How do I do that? Why would I want to do that? That's that's too expensive, you know or on this public schools thing, you know, let's let's do a charter school here and every rich person wants to a charter school.
How many of them want to fight for why do like, why do we have why do we fund Public Schools according to the home value of people's parents home, but why we do that that's that's what we do in this country. It's right. So it's barbarism. Right? Right. Can you explain to a six-year-old why their quality of their education correlates the real like how nice their family's home is it's an insane idea, right but people don't fight on that issue because what would happen the homes and
Wren and Greenwich and Westchester would all the home values would go down if they didn't get to have these much better public schools and everybody else, right? Exactly. So we don't do that kind of change, you know, and then you also have this is a kind of third issue you have this newly ascendant idea over the last many years that you kind of need a McKinsey Goldman Sachs mind to fight
poverty, right the business people will take care of it. Right because because they, you know, carrots bread.
Gee, that means Reggie's
come on. I mean, it's
PowerPoint. You know, it's interesting. I'm just mentioning it. I remember one of the better speeches by Barack Obama finally was when he said tech people think there's always a tech solution to things and maybe government doesn't have it. There's no text solution to Poverty or there's no Tech
Solutions and I think he's
themselves to this and that like, I think he said his line that in that
same speech like the
stuff you guys do is easy. That's why you're fast and efficient at
it right everything through and 25 million people.
Hardness not supposed to be fast,
right? It's not supposed to make money. It's I was arguing someone recently about the government cause that I said, it's not supposed to make money is it's really not it's not a profit Institute. Like it's supposed to cost money and if we're going to do it and obviously inefficient is one thing but it was sort of been a mentality that we have that if it's not if it doesn't make money like it's that concept so go ahead so so
so you have this idea that the people The Architects of our winners take all the
enemy are the people best positioned to address the injustices of our winners. Take all economy. Okay. So now foundations will bend over backwards to hire X Mackenzie X Goldman Sachs people to run their like equality
program, right? And this is
just about as disturbing an idea as the idea of hiring arsonists to be firefighters because they I guess know a lot about fire they do, you know a lot of it.
And so you end up having you know, I write about a guy in the book named. Sean Hinton is a really thoughtful guy about this issue worked at at Goldman and Mackenzie and then ended up at the open societies foundations working for George Soros, and he calls it the trying to solve the problems with the tools that caused it issue. Hmm,
right and he's talking about himself but
on the other hand, he knows that he's a smart capable guy and it's probably better that he's doing this then just write staying in banking but one of the things that happens is when the
Village of our social problems is reformatted for the operating system of business people's minds the nature of the problem is changed, right? We stopped actually talking about Justice and rights and power right we start talking about scale and efficiency and leveraging
synergies. And those are not just
different words, right that actually is a different diagnosis right what rich people don't like to do when they solve problems is kind of talk about who did it. There's always this thing when it every event.
It's always like okay Graham. Yeah, but but what are the solutions? Let's move
for us move for know. I just had this long argument on a podcast with Mark Zuckerberg about this, right? Yeah, I kept saying and how do you feel about what you did
Might that feeling those painful that you think you have to do it. How many times did I do? Gosh, how many I don't even know how many watts of edited out. No. No,
we didn't edit anything. It was four times. I asked the same question and he couldn't do it. How do you feel about the deaths in Myanmar in India based on your creation? What we really want to do is fix the
problem we really want to get two solutions. So I think getting two solutions is important. I was like, yeah, I got that but what do you think you what was your fault here? What did you do wrong? And how do you feel about that? How do you feel about people dying right dying? And well, you know Solutions are what is important to us? And I think whenever there's a problem there's a solution will you cause the problem? So how do you feel about causing that problem and it went like that for it was four to five times and finally he said to me let me just say he goes. What do you want me to say? I said, I want you to say I'm sorry and I cannot believe that what I made did this and I feel sick.
To my stomach I said That's you might start there like not to give you any like cues about what it was it was but what I wanted the point I wanted to make there is they can't and Mark is a lovely person. Let me just say he can't get there and they cannot get to that idea that they are at fault or take responsibility and contemplate what went wrong. They don't want to do that. They want that part. They don't want to do when it's important to the solution as far as I'm concerned.
So go ahead but I think it see when I was listening to that my observation.
Was and I had the same feeling watching that Elon Musk smoking spliff one that you know, I love to live in a world with their all kinds of different people. But I think we have to just watching these guys. We took knowledge that there they tend to be a very particular kind of person particular kind of man and they're often these kind of boy men who are not particularly developed in a lot of ways. They're not cultivated my
said they don't have Humanities courses, right the the it's
Interesting the many of them. Yeah.
I said he should have taken more a mystery manatees right nothing, but it's engineer they'll drop out right
and that's fine to have such people who kind of are not able to relate to other human beings and not able to connect to their emotions of and it's great to have them in the world. But to have so many of them essentially now in charge of what I've become basically the locomotives of human history. Now, these various
platforms is really really problematic for at times this
the kind of
You just described in that anecdote essentially deciding what kind of media we have deciding how secure are elections are deciding like what abuse women have to encounter online or don't for that man. Who's maybe less feeling a human being than many people you've met in your life feels really bothersome to
me. That was from my October 2018 interview with a non gear goddess. We're going to take a quick break now and we'll be back after this to hear my follow-up interview with him recorded live in New York City in May of
19
Kara Swisher here twice a week.i Cohoes pivot podcast with my close friend of me New York University Professor Scott Galloway, we break down the biggest stories in business and Tech but it is not business as usual these days. That's why we're hosting schooled a weekly five-part live event Series this summer will unpack how covid-19 is changing the global economy and the real impact. It will have on Tech media and commerce and Scott unfortunately will have to be there
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Thank you everybody. Thank you for coming to this place. This is lovely. Actually, I'm sort of amazed by it and I want to introduce on--and gear dose that right did a fantastic thank you very much. We're going to talk about a lot of things substantively have a seat on it can relax.
I would never quite relaxed around you. That's fair. Just Droid so many Tech Barons.
Yes, that's true. But you're not one of them so.
We share something in common about what we want to do to them. I am so glad to be here in New York. We're taking a lot of Rico decodes on the road because we really think one of the things that we made a bet on when we started the RICO d-cup podcast was that people like substance in this Twitchy horrible time and want to talk substantively it with great people about important issues. And so we've been doing tons and tons of live podcasts all over the country and we're going to be doing more as we move forward because we think it's super important to address some issues both with the
errors and other people who are critics of the players and so I'm very excited to talk to Anand because we did a podcast how long ago
but six seven months
ago six month about this topic that has suddenly gotten very big is what to do about tech what to do about big Tech what to do about really rich people ruining the world essentially. All right on and so thank you for coming.
So talk a little bit about your book and why you started do it for people who aren't familiar with Winner Takes all
I think I observe something that probably many of you have observed one way or another which is that we live in this time in which on one hand very rich people are extraordinarily generous and socially concerned and it's not only lip service right? It's not only all the hippie imagery that we see in a we work.
It is more money being given away than they've been given away his for the world. That's real. Right. It's a lot of the tech companies that you've spent so long writing about that genuinely have kind of civilizational missions and have done genuine good for the world while also doing other stuff. It is product. You can't go shopping without finding shocks that are going to change the world tote bags are going to change the world kick into bucks at Walgreens Bono is involved in all of it impact investment.
Hardest hearted business people on earth now feel a need to not just do it investing but impact investing. Right? Right and they want to empower Humanity unless your bill mcglashan you're doing impact investing but you don't want people who you're empowering to compete with your son for that seat that you bribe will get to him for him. So that's all true an age of extraordinary Elite generosity, but does the other half of the story which this is also an age of extraordinary Elite hoarding?
People use the word inequality. I think makes people's eyes glaze over inequality is just a gap. There's all kinds of gaps everywhere has a gap. I think what has happened in America is more specific. The rainwater of the future has been abundant in the last 3040 years. If you look at Spain country, like that's a different situation. I don't think Spain has been rained on by a lot of future in last 30 40 years, right as you know better than anybody in this room. We got a lot of future in this country. Yes. We'd write Innovations a Latin word for new shit. We've had a lot of new shit.
In this country in the last 3040 years. It's just that the very few have four have kind of monopolized the gains. That's true of tech. It's also True by the way of this thing in the news this week Chinese trade America as a whole has benefited from Trading with the Chinese investors have benefited companies have benefited consumers have benefited. It was just that we totally failed to redistribute the gains right from the country trading with China and that has been the case everywhere. So I tried to start the book.
the question what is the relationship between the extraordinary lead generosity of our time which Israel and the extraordinary Elite hoarding of our time the monopolization of the future itself and I think the conventional Theory out there is that the relationship is one of a drop in the bucket that yes, we do have these big problems, but these people are trying sokka's trying to go go people are trying the Wall Street people at trying the Goldman Sachs people doing social impact bonds are trying if only there were more of them and they had
More billions and they tried harder and we they crunch their spreadsheets and new ways. They could solve these problems and I started to become curious about an opposite possibility, which is that maybe the extraordinary lead generosity of our time is how we maintain the extraordinary Elite hoarding of our time. Maybe the generosity is the wingman of the Injustice and the making a difference is the wingman of making a killing and the giving back is a wingman of
Ruthlessly, and I reported it out because like you I'm a reporter. I went into this world and I found it to be unfortunately true.
True that this is to this is linked together that this is just a you'd rather them just keep their dirty money. Essentially.
This is a very good question. So the lot of the easiest and the most immediate pushback. I find guys like what you prefer. They just bought a yacht so it's a complicated question. Right? And I think most people's intuition is what that would never be better. At least they're doing something even if you're sympathetic to my view.
So let's take a so starting in some cases of course would be better off with them at least trying to do something than buying a yacht in some cases. I think there are other cases where that's actually not true. So let's take three one very quickly the Sackler so no one likes a sack lers because honestly like 400,000 people killed in your countries sort of genocide numbers. So it's not then
unattractive for those family keeping up opiates. Go ahead.
So
The cyclers made billions and billions of dollars members of that family by selling Oxycontin and now as Accused by several States including the state of New York knowingly pushing something they knew had problems. They knew was more addictive deceiving people Etc. So you make billions and then they spent Millions philanthropic Ali art museums everywhere, right? Yeah. They don't donate to art museums in the communities. They're hurting they donate to art museums and places where people like you and me.
Live so we know not to we know we think they're that they're good people all the big cities, but these were the journalists live The Regulators live and they did this for a long time. So now you say okay would we have been better off if the sackless that just bought Yachts I would argue. Yes, because what would have happened if they'd bought Yachts, they would have been doing this stuff with their business right people would have been dying and they would have had no reputational cover.
Regulators were not have thought of them as the art family journalists wouldn't thought of his art fam when I was growing up in Washington DC. This thing was going on. I didn't know about that. I just knew about the Sackler gallery and I believe it is plausible that regulators and journalists would have come for them way earlier.
If they had not had the moral glow purchased through philanthropy Mark Zuckerberg same story if he didn't have the change the world Vibe if we saw him the way we see anybody buying stuff for a dollar and selling for to in this country. I'm not saying as an evil person. I'm just not saying as a sage if we saw him the way you see someone of the chemical company, right if that had been our image of him right for the last 20 years. You think you would have gotten away with this
shit. Well, we'll get to him in a second. But what was it?
Actually, let's get this right now. Let's get to him right now. Do you never too early? It has not been as most of the tech people have not been as philanthropic Gates was the first one who really started and shifted His Image really drastically from sort of you noblest. Well Darth Vader, I was thinking two more to it's interesting because he was the apex predator. He was the one that you couldn't do. It couldn't make a move in Tech and everyone had that image of him from the very beginning not as a sweet.
You know sweatshirt wearing young man as sort of a nasty nerd really who decided to kill you he would do it and you couldn't start a business without him doing it. And he that was his reputation from the get-go not from besides being the world's richest man and aside from the odd little like he takes coach or whatever those kind of stories which are entirely untrue. He was not seen it
takes a coach on his private jet.
Be funny if you had a coach like with horses and everything personality coach. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, he doesn't have that so sorry. I shouldn't I shouldn't
mean I'm wondering when he's going to revoke the blurb on my book. Really? Okay. He already called me a communist when he was at
Davos. Okay good, which you clearly are. So when he started this off this philanthropy, but most of tech hadn't been that philanthropic in the way. The Sackler had been in some others, but go through Mark. So Mark
the mark made that big
that letter to his daughter that they were going to give away 99% of the shares, right which was a which is I think maybe the biggest statement in the tech world where someone had you know, after Gates this younger group had done it except they were going to do it through an LLC which is you know, study weird modality, but they're definitely they're definitely doing stuff and I meet Public School teachers all the time whose lives are being upended by Marx ideas about public schools because part of what I'm really writing about is a
You're not just a set of practices a culture in which we think people have made a lot of money should have thoughts about everything and that those thoughts with law. So Mark Zuckerberg as far as I understand it wanted to like find you know, build a social network to help people at Harvard meet each other. He ended up being the most dangerous person in the world and now incidentally as a byproduct of that gets to have thoughts about how Public Schools aren't America, you know, they have tech companies in Germany.
I don't think anybody in the German education Ministry is curious about the thoughts of German social networking CEOs about education. They're allowed to exist. I don't know. I think Mark Zuckerberg should legally be allowed to have thoughts about education. I just don't think they should have any more weight than he is able to express through voting every two or four
years. So nonetheless, he comes with him quite a lot of cash and I think
a lot of go through know what happened here in Newark. That was a huge announcement. It was on Oprah was on every it was everywhere about that. He was giving this money Cory Booker was right in there with him who's running for president. I'm going to give this much money to fix schools in
Newark. I've been Mark Zuckerberg Newark donation was when some ways modeled after another great philanthropist Christopher Columbus who also decided to change a place without having been there before.
And didn't seem to know much about.
Kind of saw it as a blank slate, right which is why his own blanket - yeah projected onto what he found and so Mark Zuckerberg have never been to Newark goes on Oprah makes us announce. We're going to transform Newark and a hundred million dollars, right and by all accounts, it literally did nothing but my disappeared, I mean just it did nothing and what is so remarkable about that is how obvious it is. This is the whole reason
That we transitioned over hundreds of years out of feudalism to democracy we have actually this thing is not new that they're trying to do. It sold. This is a reef utilization of a like if you watch Downton
Abbey
you understand the idea. There's a guy in a castle and then no one else owns land in the show and anytime the people don't own land get like a weird idea about how maybe they should own stuff to they died in a car accident and then you know, and and and the rich people are nice, but it's there in charge.
Of how the help works there in charge of shaping the society through their kindness through their generosity and this is the Zuckerberg model and now you know, it extends he's trying to get rid of all the world's diseases as if public education is the hard enough problem,
you know, and I just think how
remarkable with doctors he may not be aware of them. But we have some his wife is one. We have an entire Public Health infrastructure. We have the Centers for Disease Control with the
eh, but no Mark is going to get rid of all the diseases even though his own company is a plague.
Okay by any okay, that was a stretch of the imagination. So why do you think when as you are doing this book? Where is the mentality for from because we have a history also in this country you had Andrew Carnegie or the Fords or these all foundations, which now seemed rather Pleasant, you know, in terms of what they did whether it was libraries or the Ford Foundation continues all these even
You know, the Pulitzer prizes was the origin is not the greatest origin talk a little bit about this kind of like this is something we have are used to in this countries where the very wealthy people give back
but there's an interesting you're totally right that it's essentially Arc to the story. So this really began a hundred years ago where you started to have these fortunes that were kind of what we'd called billionaires today. Not just people who are rich but really essentially when they started becoming interested in giving money away the way historians defined this
this in philanthropy is they started to have enough money to be able to do the kinds of things that governments do right. That's one way to think of and that was really a hundred years ago. It was not benevolent associations and these things it was someone who could really privately govern and Carnegie wrote this incredibly important thing called The Gospel of wealth, which many of you may have studied in high school or college in which he laid out what has become the intellectual foundation for money-making and money giving and it was basically a true.
It basically said part arguments in two parts Part 1.
Making money is super hard. It's a jungle out there. You got to leave us alone. We got it. We got to pay people as little as possible. Maybe we can't pay our taxes as much as you'd like. It's just no judgment making money is hard. If we don't do all this stuff someone's going to eat our eat our lunch, you know this argument from rebuilding the value always thinks about to be eaten. And what was Radical about Carnegie on the other side is he said however when we then make a bunch of money
From being left alone in the jungle that money actually doesn't belong to us, right. We are mere Trustees of that wealth and have to spend it on the public good and do it within our lifetimes you can inherit. So he was a ruthless he wasn't he was a justifier of the most ruthless capitalism. However, he also advocated for a pretty radical mode of giving and and like a lot of rich people today like really remember the first part of Carnegie but like kind of forgotten the second part, but he laid out this bargain.
That I think has ruled till today where if they give back.
That buys them immunity from questions about how they made the money how they keep the money. We're talking about taxes. We're talking about wages. We're talking about what you Lobby for in Washington. There has been this silent bargain that all of us have participated in frankly. The media has participated in that generosity entitles you to a little bit of a suspension of scrutiny. And what was really interesting a hundred years ago when this was getting started while it took time for this immunity to develop when Rockefeller.
Hose the foundation 1909 to create kind of the First Foundation of that kind there was no legal structure for it, right 501 whatever all the stuff we have now didn't exist. So he was trying to figure out what's he asked Congress Congress said, no, you can't create a structure to give your money away. Right? Can you imagine that today? Why because they didn't want to make certain that much power of public life. He came back a year later. This is one of the most amazing documents I've ever read with a counter proposal to Congress. I've heard you I understand your
Concerned about one private citizen governing privately. You're right. Here's a counter proposal for a new idea for a charter and this should actually become a reclaimed Heritage. He proposed in various ways in great detail a way that to do a foundation with a public would have some say over it if the Congress or subcommittee at created decided that this Foundation was no longer doing better at giving away money privately then say congress it could just put the money into the treasury, right? It could dissolve it. It could create committees.
To help allocate the money, so it wouldn't just be some private guy and is like nieces and nephews and children allocating the money that whole Heritage of skepticism that and people even Theodore Roosevelt saying no amount of generosity can excuse how the money was made even Democrats don't talk like that anymore, right? Everybody's for these people giving back and basically what happened was that initial wave of skepticism gave way to those people spending a lot of money and every Institution
Tushin in this country one way or another started to be a beneficiary of that money. Right? And lo and behold you start bribing the society at large people start to develop a very positive idea of you and part of what I and there are several others right in parallel with me have been trying to do is to say, you know, a lot of this philanthropy a lot of this do-gooding impact investing is basically trickle-down economics with a cherry on top and a little bit of whipped cream,
right? What do you imagine they should do
Their money then I mean first of all right now Mark and others in tech for example who have all the money who have the obscene amounts of money actually are in trouble for their businesses how their businesses are operating which is which will probably never impact what they're making, you know, how they're what they're making. What do you imagine? So when they get that rich, they're like we have to give away the money. How do you get to that first idea that Ford had which is would be the correct one where you were you don't give these people more
Power on the other side that we've already given them in the
first one. First of all the question in that world. Everybody loves to ask and I think very rich people in general is like what can I do? What can I start what new thing can I do right? And so the first thing I would say to them is, you know to flip around John Kennedy ask not what you can do for your country ask what you've done to your country. Mmm, these people love being future-oriented because that kind of prevents us from being passed Orion. Yeah. I'm aware of that right? So I'm I'm more interested.
It ends up gerberg ceasing and desisting from doing a bunch of things and I'm happy to give him a list and you have even better. Listen to me. I'm way more interested in that than I am and what perspective things you can do. I'm happy to let Public School's principals and teachers go back to this running their own show. I think we'll be okay. I would love him to actually stop abusing our privacy stop compromising our democracy let government in to regulate what it needs to regulate not Lobby against that in Washington with that stooge. Who's that behind him, you know.
I think the more important what a lot of these folks do is these modest tax of do-gooding and they Lobby for stuff in Washington. Just a lobbying on its own that has a thousandfold the impact of the good that ugly one example, so Pepsi and Coke, right? They all had their playgrounds. They make the smaller cans now he got a drink to to get diabetes, you know, so that's great. They run these ads. We're basically a water company. You know, what sugar in the water?
But it was revealed during the Trump trade negotiations with the renegotiation of the trade deal with the Mexicans that one of the things that the I think these beverage companies and food come American food companies were pushing and the Trump Administration.
In the took their request to the Mexicans was to remove the Mexicans right as a democracy to put nutrition labels on a bunch of products imagine that for a second. So if the mech under this deal if the Mexican Government representing their people at wanted to put informative labeling on it, they wouldn't be able to because an American company had persuaded the American government to prevent the Mexican Government from doing what its people wanted to do under a democracy, right? And you wonder why
People angry in this age were in so I don't need Pepsi and Coca cola's playgrounds to help, you know, one thousandth of 1% of the kids. They have harmed lose a little weight. I need them to not do the things they're doing right now. And the real way to have them do that is to have government play a way more assertive role in public life and stop trusting. You know, the fox has to be the
innkeeper's is there any of these efforts that?
You think work with Bill Gates? For example what they're doing? Sure. So one of the
easier cases is places where government is not functional. So we're you're when you're giving money to places as he does. He also does a lot here, but when you're giving money to places where frankly government could never solve that problem, right? I think it's a much easier to justify by the way. I still think there's a lot of questions around being paternalistic being imperialistic how you do it, etc, etc, centering human beings, you know centering communities versus
Dictating all of that still applies but the case for crowding out public capacity in places where there is no public capacity is stronger where you're redesigning Common Core here, you're you're designing come it's education or you're jamming it down a bunch of State legislatures without a vote right and then people getting angry. I think there's a lot less of justification of that and people often bring up gates to me because Gates is not the Sackler. I don't even think he's necessarily suck but
I think even if you invent someone who made their money perfectly didn't harm anybody wasn't Darth Vader even in that case the question people often ask me. So is there any problem with that? Right? Let's imagine someone who really has not Serena Williams just makes a lot of money in society was a transformed everybody likes to be in a while.
Correct. Got
it. Even if there's no problem in that case with how the money was made there's no problem with any of that
stuff. She hit the ball. That was it. Correct, right.
There's still a question of should any one person. However, amazing have that.
Say over public life and the question it raises for me is why do we actually bother us so much about voting rights? Why is it so important that a relatively small number of people not get turned away at the polls, right? Why is it important that we fought against poll taxes and all this stuff? Why was it important to fight for women's suffrage if we create this entire system where the choices about our biggest shared problems are made by us, but then we create this.
Other door to the nightclub of democracy where only people with a billion dollars can come in and they can just also sort of overrule
us on a bunch of someone with nobody should have this rule over public life. What would you do with their money just tax it and then we just tax
it more heavily right? First of all, you know, and and there's pretty good evidence that places that the texts more of it just have more dignity and decency people want to tell you that that's a mystery and we don't really know but we know
Many people in this room are probably been to those countries. It's just different there. So that's one thing. I mean, I remember when I lived in England for a year and England's pretty free market in the European Spectrum, but less so than us. I lived in England. I got sick. I went to the doctor and afterward I was like, so how do we how do we settle this out? You know, I don't know and they were like
Just go home. And not only was it free. I remember like that moment. There was an expressive. I felt a society was expressing itself to me was expressing its values in the transaction and the absence of a transaction. There was moral meaning
In the person saying to me who didn't wasn't a citizen was not even really technically a residence a student there. They didn't know any of that. That was just a person who looked like someone maybe they had colonized and from another country. They had colonized it's always a safe bet there and they were just like we got it we got and it's just like that's the like we got that sewage
should be the government. That should be deal. The government that you heart is it should be doing this
and to be clear. I'm just talking about our biggest shared problems, right? I don't
My phone to be made by the government. I don't want my flights to be airplanes to be made by the government. I don't want these chairs to be made by the government. What we are really talking about is the commons is the stuff frankly that the system's the infrastructure social physical that we are powerless
to do alone, but the comments is changed into a private thing. I think I just wrote about this last week that the Public Square is not Twitter. For example, even though it's been our Facebook, but it's become that that we've allowed for example political.
Yes, because it infects everything in at the comments not privately
owned more and more whether it's an online Commons or you know toll roads are of different when you I think what we don't sometimes realizes we've been on the receiving end of a 40-year war on the idea of government not just on government on the idea of government and this is an ideology the way any fundamental to Market fundamentalism. I call it capital Supremacy right and like every other Supremacy it
Excludes and marginalizes every other thing that's not it's reality and so in this culture money was good entrepreneurs are good businesses are good government is bad public purpose bad private gain good and so on and so forth this shaped everything at shape what people wanted to do when they were
graduate is an element of Technology will fix it. Yes, who the I that because that's an overriding part of it is remember what
Gates said so many things which so many things we have all these hierarchies in the physical world.
But when Tech comes in Tech doesn't care who you are. It's just going to eliminate those hierarchies from the physical world. I mean what an extraordinarily naive thing to say from the standpoint of 2019 by a man who was brilliant and meant well by saying that but I think was fully unable to understand if you take a historical view rather than the computer science view most new tools.
Submit to the existing power situation right new tools don't change everything. Nothing changes everything the you only think something changes everything we've a computer science degree and you dropped out two years early right that these people need to all go back to school and like get a liberal
arts. You know that, you know, you know, I think that so what is if we're in the state where people do welcome because state governments, welcome this money when they bring it in and then when people complain they get less attention,
What they're doing taxing would be one way just taking their money just taking their money and have the government decide to do with it. How do you get rid of this idea that these people are better and smarter because I think that's one of the ways will fix it for you. Will we know more about this and this and that and what's interesting to me on among all these people is Jeff Bezos doesn't do a lot of philanthropy. In fact, you just started which I thought was fascinating and he for he resisted for a very long time and then I think felt pressure and someone must have felt pressure.
In some way to do that and again, like
what was so striking about his announcement was that I think our
he's was to do what a
two billion dollars to start write a billion to a Montessori program where kids would be treated like customers at Amazon. That's his quote not mine. I guess you can return your education within 14 days or whatever and it's free and and then so that was creating his own.
And then the other billion was homeless programs that was supporting existing programs. I think in around Seattle. What was interesting about it is I think our societal view of this stuff is maturing. So whereas when Gates made his announcement people would just got like so nice so nice and even Zach several years ago is now that it was still fairly uncritical By My Side by my standards when the bezels thing happened in September. I think it was the
Day one story to use his favorite expression the day one story in the news media was yeah, but you pay your taxes. Yeah, but don't you have workers peeing in bottles? Don't you have all these work campers that Jessica Bruner wrote about a nomadland such an important book about these essentially homeless people live in live in Caravans traveling around the country working seasonal couple months here a couple months there at Amazon. Why are you fighting homelessness?
You know by philanthropic Moonlight while you're causing homelessness by operational daylight. Why don't you just not cause homelessness? Right? Right. Like I don't know like I'm sure these people in the valley, you know have teaching girls to code. You should thousand girls to go hear me. Why don't you just not run your companies in a way that increases the likelihood of a hundred and sixty million women in this country living under a misogynist. I think I think every woman I know would be willing to forego
Coding class for free but not live under a misogynist, right? It's so much better that these people just don't cause these problems right that they then clean up 1% of with this like little wet wipe of philanthropy.
Okay, we're listening to my live interview with a non-gear goddess from May 2019. I'm going to take another break now, we'll be back after this. Hey y'all. It is me Ashley Carmen one of the hosts of
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Let's move to San Francisco and Marc benioff and the the the tax he was for the thing which is text people more that's all and then the government and the government didn't want the money. I just interviewed the mayor there
that was such a fascinating situation right there
in that case San Francisco Marc benioff was for attacks. He wanted to be taxed more and other internet billionaires did not want to be taxed more and they were fighting with each other and then the mayor sided with the ones who didn't want to be taxed more
because she felt it to be too much money.
Suddenly for the city to administer well because they didn't have a plan. What was so interesting about this was and I've had interesting conversations with Mark about this because he's if you know, he's done a lot of the philanthropies FCS our stuff and this was I think one of the first things where instead of doing that we're with him giving the money and doing it he Advocate use uses money to advocate for Public Policy to raise taxes on people like him, right and I've talked to him since and he's sort of amazed at the amount of money. It generates every month because you know what the government is really big
Even the government of San Francisco is just really big and at least things operate on a scale that even these rich guys actually can't imagine and what's nice about that kind of tax is as in my British experience. It has an expressive value. It's not just about the money, right it Matt. This is a lost vocabulary, but it matters when a society does something versus a person doing it it matters when you know, San Francisco has a plan to deal with homelessness versus
A billionaire has a plan. We've lost the idea that that
matters but that's kind of the whole reason
we built a democracy, right? That's I mean the Chinese make very good public policy on a bunch of things. I would argue on an uncertain areas the quality of policymaking given the interest of their people is higher than ours, but I don't neither I nor anybody in this country wants to switch to their system because the
procedure matters the fact that we are
consulted the way we are in this country matters, and I think we're all willing to have a slightly worse outcome or
Course outcome if we all do to have just procedures.
All right, let's finish talking about the 2012 elections. A lot of these Democrats especially have been very close to the tech companies and the Quarry was very close to mark on Newark and other things. What do you imagine will happen just government have the will to sort of stop taking advice from these people
ever. Do you remember such as Cory Booker do our Obama sat and did a town hall with Mark Zuckerberg is the way you and I are sitting and doing this now. I mean, you can't imagine him doing that with
Some chemical CEO, right, right, like so many people participated in turning these people in them sages and need to stop doing that including the media now.
I think the 2020 thing I am actually I'm in the numbers are getting a little ridiculous. I mean, I'm sure half this room is now going to announce its running for the Democratic nomination. We're just want III becoming the clown car. I think it's like 25 now after today really do more today. Yeah. I don't know it's a lot but I actually think this is gonna be a phenomenal primary and there and I am not so alarmed by the numbers, you know, the reason I think it's phenomenal is we are going to have a real all out.
Philosophical argument about so many things in this country because you have represented among this group very Pro Tech and people want to break up the tech companies people who are very close to billionaires and people who want there to be maybe no billionaires anymore or much fewer many fewer you have died in the wall capitalists. And then you have a Democratic Socialist and then you have an Elizabeth Warren someone whose policies are very close to Democratic Socialist, but says she's a capitalist in Her Bones. So we are having already.
And it's going to get better a real conversation of a kind that I don't think we've had where a lot of the fundamental values of this country are tested on this on these questions of power and Justice and and capitalism whether you can have a real democracy when wealth is as concentrated as it is, I think this is going to be a great this is going to be the primary about
everything. So when you think about wealth is concentrated is because it really isn't it is concentrated among when you look at the list of top 10 richest people. They are mostly tech people actually. How do you
You change that. How can it be changed without them just giving away the money it continuing, you
know
family after family, you know generation after
generation of tax capital gains tax crack down heavily on evasion and avoidance right people like to treat it like some huge mystery. I it's so complicated, you know, one of the one of the people I interviewed for the book that who's so brilliant. Is this political philosopher named Kiara Cordell at the University of Chicago and she's a
Of philosophers studies wealth and philanthropy. She's writing a book called The privatized state which sort of gets a we were talking about earlier and she said something that is so profoundly true. She said these people by which he meant sort of the tech Barons, but just the plutocratic class more. Generally. She said these people have a concept of agency that makes no sense when they want to work government power.
To get glass-steagall repealed when they want to work government power to shoot down Obamacare when they want to work government power to make sure medicare-for-all doesn't happen when they want to work government power to make sure a minimum wage increase doesn't happen. They're very capable of navigating the system. They're very they have Lobby. They're very definitely are suddenly you say, how do we fight inequality instead of increase it? How do we raise the minimum wage? How do we create a wealth Tech sudden?
Like, you know, the system is just so hard to under who even understands the system. Yeah, I can just do my thing over here. I don't understand. I'm so I'm so small guy very rich and I can do I can just do what I can do through my Foundation I can control I just I don't under I'm so sorry little I just don't understand that
they do that when you when you ask them about how to fix the Thinker egg on first when they spend most of their time explaining how smart they are.
They are and then when you actually ask them to fix something there like it's very hard Cara. It's very hard very hard, but
somehow when I say I thought 20 million dollars a year lobbying in Washington, right? Exactly.
So what would the perfect rich person look like who gives money away because there's always going to be charity and Cherry Dustin and important part. Like do you mind them buying making hospitals or or things like that? Is that a bad thing or it's
okay, but here's what I here's what I say. I
think you don't like it. Get me don't like Pepsi making a jungle gym. I
That part but no
I get it. What would be the good use of people who make enormous question? Well, what would be the way we let them give their money to
us besides taxes. Look, I to be clear. I think I want to live in an America in which is fewer billionaires would see where to give away but we're not there yet. We're not we may not get there. So we got to work at a trillionaire. Right? Go ahead. We do need to work in the premise that you just laid out for now and I think when you live in an age of extreme inequality like this one a hoarding Elite whore
Adding Elite monopolizing of the future itself. If you are a serious person who wants to give in better ways. The only acceptable kind of giving is traitor to your class giving right FDR was a traitor to his class FDR ran this government as a traitor to his class good for people bad for his fellow rich people. I think the kind of philanthropy that would feels right to me in this moment is FDR style philanthropy except philanthropy not running a government, which is fine.
Therapy that would actually break down dismantle help accelerate the end of a bad system instead of shore up a bad system. So Goldman Sachs 10,000 women program. That's just giving back. It's not really giving anything up. It's not dismantling a bad system. Right? It's actually trying to buy yourself a little bit of wiggle room to continue being Goldman Sachs, but Goldman Sachs saying we're gonna actually get out of the student loan activities that we're doing which are actually just hurting and dooming millions of people. We're going to stop lobbying against glass.
Steve we're going to stop lobbying against this Consumer Financial Protection because actually would be good for people even though be bad for us that would actually be giving up and you could have philanthropists. I was at a roomful of philanthropists this afternoon. I asked them how many of you in this room about this size because they all worked for big foundations giving away lots of money and I said, how many of you your foundation is random foundations how many of your foundations work on impact investing maybe half the rooms hands went up 3 quart 2 quart at two-thirds of the room.
Hands went up like most foundations in that room are engaged in that I said great. How many of you are working on how many your foundations are working on a wealth tax. It's like one lonely guy in the middle is like, right. So it's very simple what I advocate people in that room more of them through working on the wealth tax more than should be working on equalizing public school funding winning a Supreme Court case so that it is no longer legal in this country to fund Public Schools. According to how big mommy your daddy's house is those kinds of
of things that would actually help dismantle a bad system and would actually not crowd government out but crowd government in where you'd use your giving to test things privately and then try to mainstream it into policy that Heritage has been lost under this fantasy of billionaire best who want to want to build these companies as Little Kings and then want to rule over public life as Little Kings and who I think if they don't quite get on the right side of History are going to meet
Fate of some of the more despised Kings in art and
history. All right. So very last thing
Impact investing that guy
Phil mcglashan. Yeah, fantastic guy how many of you know the name Bill mcglashan?
How many you know that I'm Lori Loughlin or Felicity Huffman? Yeah, this is the problem with America to actresses taking the fall for a bunch of so here's what happened. Right? We all know that we were all spoon-fed this story of two actresses ruined America. Well, a lot of men have been doing this for a very long time with a lot less scrutiny cheating on a much bigger scale than by one college seat. So in this group of defendants,
But the two actresses was actually the most important person yes caught up in that thing Bill mcglashan who was the wave of alert from Bill mcglashan right there who was the head of something called The Rise fund right tpg biggest private Equity Fund in the world of bad is good. It is it is the best and and he and they created their normal like ruthless private Equity Fund, but they created the side fund the rise fund that was about helping people.
Fighting poverty Injustice Bono was literally involved in this one. I'm not just saying that they were like brothers are co-founders of this rise fund. They both went to Davos in January there sitting and you know, the obligatory parkas even though it probably like inside a studio, you know wearing the park has like talking about fighting poverty through impact investing and what was only revealed
a few months after Davos is that this guy who has been out there out there the lead that this is a two billion dollar impact investing fund. A lot of impact investing has been like half a million dollars or like 5 million is a lot of 2 billion There's real money claiming we can fight poverty through finance and it turns out the dean of impact investing bill mcglashan. It is now revealed by the feds was after trying to empower the poor through financed by day was going home at night and making
Phone calls to make sure that a seat and college was reserved for his son through bribery so that none of the people that he was empowering through his impact investing fundamental how empowered they got no matter they went to some better for-profit school in some African village or whatever the hell he was doing that. None of those kids could at the end of the day compete with his kid for the seat that had been bought.
And I think there's something so profoundly metaphorical because what it teaches us is when you have someone like Bill mcglashan a domain like impact investing trying to make the world a better place in ways that pay them a high return on investment. It is a clue when you put those with the most to lose from Real Change in charge of change you can expect some distortions. They're going to change change and I think what I am calling for is for us to Simply take the changing of the world back.
From those who actually don't want change at all and have stolen the idea of it in order to defend
it. All right on that note questions from the audience.
I'm happy to also offer artistic criticism of all the we work. No you may not they're
very nice to have us you be
nice really radical in this is a nice summer it you
be nice stop it. I agree becoming I think you'd make a great mayor of New York about it. You got a crazy right now. Thanks my
In is about this sort of Rise of the rest mentality. I don't know feel like Steve Casey case in Mark Cuban and there was like this recent article about like, you know, spreading coding Academy in Appalachia and like this sort of idea that the prosperity of tech can spread to the rest of the country and I just want to get your thoughts on that and there's differences just to be clear Steve is doing more of investing in companies across the country. He's not doing a lot with coding. He's not that involved as yeah. It's very clear coating is going
Aditi so it's not going to be the savior of anybody in
Appalachia. It's just not voting is the new coal and up
Alicia exactly. It's not going to be but the idea is to get promised really his idea was that right now 80% of venture funding now goes to three states and most of it to California and most of it to Silicon Valley and so he they want to spread around the investing but what do you think of that? Huh?
And I think those initiatives are great.
At the margin, but the problem is my understanding of the problems in West Virginia, which is limited to what I read are, you know, I think the lack of venture funding is an incredibly small part of the problem. I had I have a feeling that if they like, you know paid the teachers what they teachers wanted to be paid in those strikes and had actually decent education system. I think you might see some of that startup activity happening on its own.
A lot of this stuff ends up being like nicotine patches for massive systemic failures of governance, and I just I mean you can try it but I just think you're gonna get a lot more newark's and a lot more Columbus thing and I don't think it's going to change anything.
Okay next. Hi. I just want to ask you what you think about the Bedrock foundation and what's happening down in Detroit. I was just there and there's a Resurgence. There's can't remember the name, but the
Guy who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers? Yeah. Yeah Gilbert. So he's investing changing the city but there's still so much homeless and there's still so much work to be done there. A lot of factories out there. Shinola is out there doing watches and everything else and they're saying that it's made in America, but it's really not so I just kind of want to see what you think of the capitalist point of view with philanthropy.
I mean,
interesting that I just saw this the other day, but you know, there was a story that you all probably probably saw that Turbo Tax has been lying to people
who could file for free for free and they've been like gaming the search results so that they don't know that and have to pay TurboTax something. You know, TurboTax is like a spinoff from the company the Dan Gilbert, you know was involved in founding and so this is sort of how it works like you you have these entities that generate a lot of money and some of that money goes to trying to help Detroit.
But frankly, I bet a lot of people in Detroit. We're also screwed by that practice and various other practices, you know Detroit from what I hear is also sort of becoming like Dan Gilbert's town which to me feels like Reef utilization. I just think we worked really really hard to leave the Middle Ages where you had like towns where you had one Lord and Lady and then everybody else was just there like seamless drivers, you know back for ejected 500 years, and we're
We're at we're like willingly re-entering that world in so many ways. There's just so many strong. I was just in Michigan like a couple weeks ago. So many structural issues racial segregation water and Flint just structural issues in Michigan that some rich guy throwing coin is just not going to be part of solving and they have that CEO Governor. I don't know if they still have that guy Snyder, you know, like was Private Equity guy or something like that. It's like the people who caused this problem.
Be nowhere near the wheel of solving it.
Okay, one more. Hi, I'm a
big-time Kara Swisher fan. Hello there and much like another nothing. I think that Kara Swisher should run for I don't know president, but I think maybe enforcer for Elizabeth Warren anyone comes out. He's a smart lady. Yeah. And so I think it's
smart for the men.
Well sometimes much like the throne. Yeah, you know the person who needs the who should be in power isn't the one who's actually
In
power. Yeah. So the question thank you is there has many been there's been a lot of amendments made to the Constitution of the past two addressed growth social inequities or things that need to be addressed. What what do you think would be like three main topics that could be in that amendment. I mean first of all our country so broken that we can't pass like spending resolutions an amendment requiring three quarters of the states and 2/3 votes. I mean, it's complicated. However
I actually think the issue of inequitable public school funding is the in some ways the gravest unresolved constitutional violation of this country. I just there's no because it's basically racial segregation on going through class. Right? And so at de facto Jim Crow is still on the books because Greenwich can fund Greenwich other schools and Bridgeport funds Bridgeport School.
In Connecticut and everywhere so I and when I talk to people not politicians, but regular people on the right in this country, they're actually as offended by that that's not a particularly conservative value either. There's a little bit of local control thing, but I think abolishing unequal public school funding would do more to advance Justice in this country than maybe any other single thing right now. It is legal. I mean, we just have to get your
Your head around the idea that there are places in their districts in this country. That's been thirty thousand dollars a year on public schools and their other districts sometimes next door that's been five thousand dollars a year on school. This is essentially picking some kids to condemn because their parents house is smaller and usually because they're more likely to be poor and black and whatever else so to me this feels like something that's as unconstitutional as various other things that we couldn't achieve through it.
Ruling and had to do through that process. So that's what that's what I would
submit. So last question very quick. Do you think the tide is turning on
this? I do I'm going to give a real shot out to someone who I think has been such an important Catalyst for Change and Awakening in this country, which is Donald Trump. Okay, because for 30 or 40 years
This ideology that I've been talking about we've been talking about has been pretty indomitable right business. People are smarter than everybody else success in some domain means you should have thoughts about all the domains people who cause problems are the most qualified to fix them. This has been in the water for a long time. It's the tech rhetoric. It's the bankers rhetoric.
But no one has so quickly efficiently and flamboyantly discredited the entire Tau of philanthropy capitalism. The way Donald Trump has in just two years. It is
now in
arguable that being a business person is no guarantee of intelligence. It is now in arguable that knowing one industry does not make you an expert even necessarily on that industry and certainly anything else it is now inarguable.
That in fact being the guy who made ties in Mexico and China does not make you supremely qualified to bring jobs back from Mexico each other arsonists are not in fact the best firefighters and so my hope and I think we saw a lot of this in 2018 with all the improbable victories all people running for office all the women who ran who didn't even necessarily win, but are going to be running next time and the next time that people are actually waking up to the idea that we're not going to change the world through a nap.
Right, we're not going to change the world through like management consulting firms or CSR OR tech companies or whatever that you get the kind of society you're willing to invest in democratically democracy is not a supermarket. You know, I need milk. I'm gonna pop in grab a little milk to farm, right? You don't grow anything. You don't plant anything you don't get anything and I think that has been awakened and I see a Revival of Civic life.
I see people knowing the names of various bills HR 64 what like there is an Awakening happening that I don't think I've seen in my lifetime and I think a taking back of just the very idea of self-government and people with Donald Trump's level of IQ.
Often have unintended legacies that exceed their intended legacies is a nice way to put it and I think his unintended is his intended legacies are disastrous. So don't get me wrong. But I think is unintended Legacy may be greater in the long run. If we survive the intended legacies that we woke up to the idea that we weren't going to be saved by money and then we're going to save
ourselves.
Thanks again to Anand gear. God has for coming on Rico decode as always. You can follow me on Twitter at Kara Swisher. My executive producer is Erica Anderson at Erica America. My producer Eric Johnson is at hey, hey esj. Don't forget to subscribe to Pivot with Kara swisher and Scott Galloway for fresh conversations about tech business and more every week. Thanks. Also to our editor Joel Robbie will be back here with another best of Rico decode episode on Wednesday tune in then
