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Leveraging Innovation to Revive the American Dream
01:18:11
Watch all of the day’s interviews. Prosperity today feels concentrated in a few places, leaving many Americans questioning whether the system still works for them. This panel asks how universities and the private sector can work together to address this critical issue. Can universities help restore faith in the American dream? Not just by educating leaders, but also by engaging with the private sector and generating the ideas, companies and industries that power national growth? We will seek to have a deeper understanding of how research universities can be engines of opportunity, creating ripple effects across health, technology and the economy, with examples of how innovation in one place can have lasting impact across the country and around the world. What examples of private-sector collaboration should we seek to replicate? Where does this relationship need strengthening? What support systems spur the best innovations, and build communities? And how can these innovative and e...
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A
This episode was recorded at the 2025 DealBook Summit. This year's Dealbook Summit sponsors premier sponsor Accenture, associate sponsors U.S. bank Vanguard Invesco, QQQ and University of Michigan supporting sponsor Capital One and contributing sponsor Invest Puerto Rico.
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B
This is Andrew Osorkin with the New York Times. You're about to listen to some fascinating breakout conversations from our annual Dealbook Summit recorded on Dec in New York City. You'll hear experts, stakeholders and leaders discuss vital topics that are shaping the business world and the world at large.
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C
Good morning everyone. It's a privilege to be here at the Dealbook Summit. I am Domenico Grasso. I serve as president of the University of Michigan. This fall, the Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with the National Opinion Research center, asked Americans whether they believe the American Dream is still a possibility and is still alive. 70% of Americans believe that it no longer holds true. That's the highest level in 15 years. There are many reasons for this. Rising costs, uneven opportunity, and a sense that prosperity is increasingly concentrated in just a few places. 72.3% of venture capital exists only in four areas in the United States Boston, New York, LA and the Bay Area. That's an incredible statistic. But I want to approach this question with a different lens. How do we expand the American Dream? Individually and collectively, we think about the American Dream as applying to individuals and I'm a product of that because I'm first generation to go to college. My brother was as well in the same generation. He went off to be a CEO. I am now at the University of Michigan in a significant position which I am very proud of. And before that I was chancellor at the University of Michigan Dearborn, which is a branch campus of the university dedicated to first generation and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. And they are all experiencing an aspiration for the American Dream. So collectively, America relies on the American Dream. It's part of our narrative of being an engine of innovation and prosperity for the entire nation leading the world.
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Research universities like the University of Michigan sit at the center of this challenge. These are places where ideas become discoveries and discoveries become companies and companies become engines of prosperity for the entire nation. But we can't do this alone. Today we're joined by a remarkable group of leaders who represent the full ecosystem of American innovation. Technologists, founders, operators, investors and civic builders. People who have lived the American Dream, questioned it and rebuilt it, and are now helping shape what it must become for the next generation. I'd like to introduce our panelists. First, we have Carolina Pluszynski, the coo of Michigan Central Carolina leads Michigan Central, one of the most ambitious innovative districts in the country. A place where mobility, advanced manufacturing and community transformation intersect. She has helped attract more than 180 startups to Detroit and is shaping a new model for inclusive innovation.
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Steve Case, Co Founder of aol Chairman and CEO of Revolution Steve is a pioneer of the Internet era and one of America's most influential champions of entrepreneurship in overlooked regions. Through Revolution and the rise of the REST fund, he has invested in startups across more than 100 cities, pushing the frontier of where innovation can happen.
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Kevin Plank Founder, President and CEO of Under Armour Kevin built Under Armour from a college idea into a global athletic brand. He brings an extraordinary perspective on grit, production, innovation and what it means to grow a world class company outside traditional tech hubs and in his case, Baltimore Neil Blumenthal Co Founder and co CEO of Warby Parker Neil helped redefine an entire industry. He built Warby Parker from a graduate school concept which a lot of people have but never bring to fruition into a mission driven publicly traded company. Neil brings deep insights on culture and affordability, AI and the intersection of business and social impact and Shivani Sorolla, Founder and CEO of Tala Shivani is redefining global financial inclusion. TALA uses data and technology to extend credit to millions of people historically left out of formal financial system systems. She bridges academic insight with entrepreneurial execution, a perfect example of innovation serving broad societal needs.
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I'd like to start our conversation this morning by asking each of you what the American Dream means to you, individually and collectively for the nation and what you feel its trajectory is going to be in the coming years. So we'll start by just opening it up for your thoughts on this. And who would like to go first is entirely up to you. Who would Kevin, would you like to.
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D
You're pretty.
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C
In the pre conversation I was deflecting Steve.
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D
But yes.
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It'S a. It's a difficult question. When I first got the call about this topic. It's something I'm incredibly passionate about and I think about the role of undrammer who is will turn 30 next year. We just surpassed last month our 20th year as a public company which is a long time and I realized having been someone who'd started the company, built it for a period of time, stepped away from the CEO chair for a number of years and then came back in about 20 months ago all the reasons why we should exist. Of course there's a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders. There's the Opportunity that we see in general, there's the athletes that we want to serve. But understanding also is that Under Armour, it didn't come from an MBA thesis, from an idea that someone had at a state school, which was a little bit different. Our industry, it's.
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Not quite typically seen as engineering until you actually get into the science of what it is, of what it means to truly bring innovation, which is a role that Under Armour wanted to play. But I really think that one of the reasons that excites me, it's going to a room or talking to a group of kids or talking to a group of athletes or anyone that I see, of knowing the ability to know that you didn't have to go to Stanford or Harvard, you can still have a good idea, you didn't have to be in Boston, Louisiana, New York.
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B
Or.
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D
The Valley, and you can still create a concept and bring it to life, is that it really is part of what gets me out of bed every morning, of knowing that you should know that this can happen. And it's not easy and it's not a straight line. And the amount of perseverance and grit, as you say, I'm really proud of that word that's associated with our. With our. With our brand. I think it's defining because there is a. A never quit. Not just because you don't have a good idea, like you can see the path. And look, I'm an optimist by nature, which is something you have to be aware of. And you also have 20 years of experience, hopefully a little bit wiser about, too. And so, yes, I'd like to say I do believe in the American dream. I'm really proud of the role that Under Armour represents and being able to say it is possible, but also knowing how smart we were about the path and also how lucky we got. But I also am a big believer that you create your own luck, too. So it's much easier. Let's empower people. Let's let people see that it's possible. So for sure.
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C
And so you think, Kevin, that the American dream is still as alive as it's always been? Or do you think it's viewed differently?
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D
It's viewed differently. It's challenged. There's not as many experiences, but I look at history. Everybody always says, this is the worst time. Can you believe what's happening? I mean, I was born in 1972, and you had the Vietnam War and you had the gas crisis you had. There's a hundred things going on at any moment in history that you can look around and you can find the glass half empty. But there's also those that just say, I've got a really good idea. The lanes are there. Venture capital the way that it is today, especially for someone who wants to have companies like Revolution be able to invest in them, that wasn't available when I started Under Armour in 1996. I was talking, I was sitting down at First National bank in Washington D.C. trying to talk to a regular banker and he's like, it's a T shirt that does what? So, yeah, I'd say it's probably more available today than it was even in 1996 when I started, but it's different.
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C
Carolina, what do you think about the American Dream? You're square in the middle of that.
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A
I mean, personally, I'll start with I am like you, first generation. I went to University of Michigan Dearborn. You know, I wasn't supposed to go to college. That's not what Italian women did. And so I grew up in an environment where you, you know, you had to fight for your way. And I drove by Ford Motor Company every single day and you know, 20 year career there thinking about how do you continue to, you know, work hard to achieve those outcomes? And I think that that has gone away, that, that notion that you can work really hard and have the outcomes that you want. But I'll go back to why I stayed at Ford Motor Company for 20 years. And that's because Henry Ford in 2014 started the $5 a day wage, right? And that wasn't to give. That wasn't just a pay increase. That was a systems intervention and that was to create the middle class. And so I look fast forward to what we're doing with Michigan Central now. Ford Motor Company invested a billion dollars to renovate the train station. At that time, there were 600 workers at that station every single day for four or five years. To revitalize that, we are building an innovation economy and creating that opportunity for Detroiters. It's rooted in this innovation hub, is rooted in a community that has lost that hope and that trust to be able to work hard and achieve different outcomes. But democratizing innovation is going to open those doors again. And we see it. We have you mentioned in the beginning we have almost 180 companies in two years that we've pulled to Detroit. Michigan Central provides the resources for entrepreneurs. We do physical assets, the digital infrastructure, the regulatory infrastructure to give them the opportunity to start a business, to partner with universities, to pull the talent and keep the talent here and not have the great talent go in other places. We do workforce development, thinking of the jobs of the future. So you may not be able to jump into that job today, but this year alone, we did nine technical courses that were free for Detroiters to learn how to code, to fly drones, get your drone certification license, so that as these industries start coming to fruition, there's a place for everybody.
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C
Steve, you started an industry or part of an industry that changed everything and, and made access to the American dream possible for so many people. Where do you think the American Dream stands today? How do you define it in today's environment?
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B
Well, I believe in the American dream and believe in that America is still this land of possibility. But I recognize, and the data you cited, you know, kind of really puts a stark kind of focus on this, that. That a lot of people do feel left out and left behind, that roughly a third of the people still believe in the American Dream, wake up in the morning optimistic about the future. Nearly two thirds don't really believe in the American dream. And wake up in the morning anxious about the future. And so we kind of have this two Americas, some who really see what's possible and are excited by it, and others who are kind of frustrated, anxious, worried that new technologies, robotics, AI, other things might take their jobs. But I go back, as we're coming up on celebrating America's 250th birthday, that 250 years ago, America itself was a startup. It was just an idea. And like many startups, it was a pretty fragile idea, and most people didn't think it'd work, but it stumbled around. And Ken Burns great documentary, American Revolution, that just came out kind of highlights, eventually found its way forward and went from this fragile startup nation that nobody believed in to now the leader of the free world with the leading economy of the world. And that didn't happen by accident. That was the work of innovators, pioneers, entrepreneurs, who led the way with the agricultural revolution. And then we kind of pivoted and led the way with industrial Revolution, and then kind of pivoted and led the way with the technology digital revolution. And that's why we went from where we were to where we are today. You know, the challenge looking forward is how do we make sure we win in this next revolution and. And how do we embrace some of the new challenges and opportunities, but also do it in a way that brings along more people in more places, not just Silicon Valley, not just New York City, not just Boston, not just L. A, the whole country. And that's why we launched this rise of the rest effort, try to kind of level the playing field, create opportunity for people everywhere, because startups are the biggest job creators. Companies under five years are the biggest job creators. So if we're not launching startups everywhere, we're not creating jobs everywhere. If we're not getting jobs everywhere, that's why we're going to see people in communities feeling left out and left behind. So I believe in the American dream, but I think we have to lean in to the acknowledgement that it's really good for some people in some places and really not so good for a lot of people in a lot of places, and figure out ways to make sure this next wave, this next revolution, is done in a way that more people feel part of it, more people are excited about the possibilities of it.
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C
So, Neil, earlier, just before we started, we were talking about universities that are making access to their education affordable for less advantaged Americans. And at the University of Michigan, we had the Go Blue guarantee. So if your family income is 125,000 or less, you can go for free. And you were discussing a similar program at Tufts. In terms of access to the American Dream, how important is a university education to accessing the American Dream? In today's environment, where everything is moving to being interconnected, we're in the Internet of things, highly.
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Technologically driven society, how important is it that a university education be part of the American dream, or can you still access it without a university education?
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E
I think you can sort of access it both ways. But education is one of the reasons why America is in the leadership position it is today. Right. We've always had.
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At least recently. Right. But again, that was from 250 years of building and investing in the top research universities in the world. And that has led to innovation and has enabled Right. America to continue to lead. Where we've made some policy mistakes, I think over the last couple decades is around student debt. And what started with really positive intentions is how do we make sure that as many Americans as possible get a college education has had an unintended consequence of a lot of students graduating with really high debt loads. We know from the private sector that too much debt is bad for business and it's certainly bad for individuals. But this is a solvable policy issue. The underlying foundation of great foundations, strong education and strong innovation are here. So I get really excited when I hear about some of the things happening at University of Michigan and Tufts and these other schools that are working to take on that debt crisis and make sure that Low Inc. Americans are able to go to school and graduate with either no debt or minimal debt because that enables more social mobility. And that's what we're talking about. The American dream I define as very simply that you can succeed based on hard work, determination, and talent. And where we're seeing less social mobility than we'd like often is because of things like debt. And those just require some policy prescriptions. But as we think about, like Warby Parker, we started this in graduate school in one of the leading universities at University of Pennsylvania. And we were able to leverage the collective wisdom of our classmates, of our professors. But one of the things that keeps me optimistic is that it's never been easier and less expensive to start a new business. So if we think about the United States as a startup nation, we describ America as an experiment. Right. And we want as many people sort of being entrepreneurs, whether that's starting their own business or entrepreneurs within existing businesses or public institutions. It's never been easier to do that because of access to information. A lot of the infrastructure that Steve built and we now have, you know, we started Warby Parker with $120,000. I think we could have today probably start that business for maybe like $50,000 just because of all of the free tools and access to information that keeps getting more and more available. So I am optimistic.
- [19:26]
B
Right.
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E
We're on the verge of an AI revolution that's going to be transformative. America is leading the way. Yes, it is scary. There is going to be disruption and some jobs will go away just as every other technological revolution, but new ones will be created. And we need collabor as a society to make sure that when that disruption happens, that we help our fellow citizens transition appropriately. But imagine a world where every American student has an AI tutor that is a subject matter expert in every subject and understands different learning styles and is catered to your child. Imagine a world where every American has a supplemental AI doctor that is an expert in every field of medicine and has knowledge of all the history of medical research. These are really transformative possibilities that are going to be here before we know it. And as America, we're best positioned to take advantage of these innovations.
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C
Thank you. So, Shivani, the concentration of venture capital and, and I don't know if you used venture capital when you started, Warby Parker, but the concentration of venture capital in these four areas.
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Would you consider this a natural market outcome or a market failure? And what are the risks of having this sense of concentration in these very localized areas? And essentially Having the majority of Americans not have access to that in trying to start these really creative startups here. And what do you think about this?
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F
I think it's a really good point because I think what you're alluding to with having the concentration of venture capital only in these four major cities, in some ways what it does is it overlooks potential. Right. And when I think about myself, I can just clearly say it as I don't necessarily fit into the pattern of what a typical VC might fund. Both from the mission of TALA and what we're looking to do. We're looking to unleash a $10 trillion economic potential, but globally, we're not looking at it only in the US we're looking at it globally. There's 4 billion people around the world that lack access to basic financial services, which to me is again, at the crux. Entrepreneurship potential. How do we actually do job creation if we are not funding entrepreneurship at the micro level? How can we really create a bottoms up approach? So I think I was very fortunate in that I was living in Los Angeles and I was able to use my savings to get us to have a prototype. I coded it myself. And so in that sense, I overcame a lot of the, I think, stereotypical barriers that might have existed, but I might have been overlooked as well. And so in that sense, I think we, by not seeing the potential across other cities or even thinking about where else can we find these entrepreneurs? Many of them are in universities. We are missing that potential. For me, the American dream, it still comes back to potential, but it's more about agency and enablement. And when I think about what entrepreneurs need and what America really needs right now is, yes, we need to acknowledge there's potential. And that belief has to be there. But it really goes into how do we partner to create the right feeding ground and support systems so that entrepreneurs and individuals can really thrive. And I think that takes an interdisciplinary approach. And I mean that at universities across subjects, but I really mean that across the private sector, academics as well as policymakers.
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C
So I'm glad that you segued into universities because that's where I'd like to move the conversation now. Not just because I happen to be at a university, but I think that universities have been the backbone of any great country's prosperity and success. So we are fortunate in the United States to have the best universities in the world, and it's contributed to the prominent stature of the United States in the world. So what I'd like to ask now is how you See your organizations partnering with universities, but I'd just like to contextualize that for a minute here. Universities, especially major research universities, are very special places. It's rare that you would find a major medical center such as the Mayo Clinic in one place, and then right next to it, something as profound as a national lab, like, let's pick Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos National Lab. So you have physicists next to major medical researchers. Then you have the talent that you might find at a place like Rand Corporation, where you have economic and sociological modeling, and then you have business people. And they're all in one place, they're all under one hood, and they are accessible to not just the students that study there, which is a remarkable achievement in America because that doesn't happen in major European cities. Universities, they typically subdivide their talented faculties, segregate them a little bit more. But it also is a, an opportunity or a resource for industries to access this interdisciplinary mix of individuals there. And just to give you a sense, at the University of Michigan, we do more than two. We spend more than $2 billion of research on research every year. We have. This past year we had 28 startups that came out of the University of Michigan and 600 new invention disclosures, and that's just at one university. And we also have a new strategic vision that we're calling look to Michigan, because I think we want everybody to look to Michigan. And we're investing $1 billion over the next 10 years in strategic initiatives. And part of that is investing in a biotechnology incubator where we're trying to move innovation from the laboratory to the marketplace as quickly as possible. And we're investing $250 million in that. So this is all happening on our campus. How do we interact with your creative teams to really supercharge this and make it even more important to the future of individuals as part of the American dream, individually and collectively. And our students that are studying on our campuses, they all have access to these wonderful resources here. So I'd like to.
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Talk a little bit about that and maybe, Steve, you could start with that.
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B
Sure. I agree with your assessment that university, particularly research universities, are a little bit of a secret sauce of the American innovation economy. But for the last couple of decades, in most places have been under leveraged. And some of that is because of the venture capital point you made earlier. The fact that 75% of venture capital goes to three states, and California alone gets 50%. Other states, Michigan and Ohio and others get more like 1%. So it's a huge disparity, but that leads to a lot of people graduating from Michigan or growing up in Detroit or some other city decide to leave to go to the coast, particularly go to Silicon Valley. And there's a brain drain of some, of, some of that talent. So we have to slow the brain drain of people leaving and actually create a boomerang of people returning. And that started to happen. But when we first launched our rise, the Rest effort at revolution more than a decade ago, actually, the first city we visited was Detroit, because we recognize the history it played over the last century in terms of the rise and then the decline and now the return to greatness. We said, what's going on in these cities? And now we've done bus tours to over 50 cities, really all across the country. I visited all 50 states. We've made 200 investments, 100 different cities. So we built a pretty broad network. And each city's a little bit different, but there are some things that are kind of common. And the capital piece is important, this talent piece, you know, not having a brain drain is important. But there's also a culture and connectivity piece where in every city we've seen things that are a little too siloed, a little too fragmented, and we've seen progress over the last decade. But universities are a perfect example of unleashing them by having. And Shivani talked about there's more interdisciplinary activities on campus, so there's not silos within campus. And you get some of the researchers working on ideas, working with maybe the business school and finding people or entrepreneurs who can maybe take that idea and scale it. So much more connectivity, much more of a sense of community and collaboration on the campus and then a lot more connectivity to the community. Instead of having the university over here and the large corporations over here and the small startups over here, each kind of doing their own thing. What we found, what really works, and it's certainly the secret of Silicon Valley, this idea of network density and connectivity. So universities are super important, super powerful, but are under leverage. And it's gotten better, but it still needs to be even better still, if we think about this, this, this, this next era. Last point I'll make is one of the great things about universities is they are a magnet for talent. People come to the universities from that region, other parts of the country, often all around the world. And having that fresh talent coming every year is a huge competitive advantage. Now, we have to be careful. Some of our debates around immigration policy have resulted in a decline in people from Other countries applying to schools in the United States, which is worrisome. But once the people are there, how do we get them to stay so they graduate and want to be part of that community, want to build this next chapter as opposed to feel like, okay, I learned some things there, now I'm off to go to one of the coasts because that's where all the opportunity is. So if we're backing more companies in more places, more people will come, more people will stay, more jobs will be created because more companies will scale up and then you'll create that ecosystem and that natural kind of economic growth and job growth that will result in more and more of these cities rising up and the playing field starting to level. It's not going to happen overnight. We've seen progress in the last decade. It's going to take decades more to really create the kind of inclusive innovation economy I think our country needs. But I'm optimistic that we will.
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A
You've just described my job.
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C
Because that's exactly precisely what Michigan Central is all about.
- [30:49]
A
Yeah, that's exactly what we've been trying to do. Right. Is bring all of those stakeholders together because that is what helps. Right. Bring the technology or the tech transfer out of the universities, get the research out of the universities and help it get to commercialization faster. And the only way you can do that is by having the talent ready to be working as entrepreneurs with these startups. You have to have the resources. And so we've tried to put in place things that would allow it. So I'll go to the University of Michigan. M City is a great place to do initial testing of ideas and technology coming out of the university. Right. But that's a controlled environment. So you move it to someplace like Michigan Central, where we've worked with the city of Detroit to do fast track permitting. Right. The first startup that tried to get a permit in Detroit, it took them six months, the startup would be out of business. Right. So now they can get a permit within 24 hours to do testing in the street. Bringing that applied layer that allows you to get to feedback from community insights, adoption of the technology education around it, that transparency of it. We put that infrastructure in place, we get you the tools, we try to bring the. We're bringing the industry. We're at the point that is probably our biggest gap right now is getting the industry. Industry's not used to it all working together like that. Either want to snatch up that startup and take them as their own or license the ip. And so we're trying to Convene the industry. And we're seeing it happen. They're not bringing their entire company, but they're bringing the right resources from their companies and they're implanting them at Michigan Central because they want proximity to those startups. And so you put those together and you then have the talent magnet. And we're seeing students stay, we're seeing the programs that we've created with the University of Michigan is bringing those talents here, putting them, locking them into a startup for a year, and they're getting training and they're getting paid, and they're making $100,000 based on that fellowship. And so that gives those students hope that things are. They're coming back. But without the universities and without places like Michigan Central, with the industry and the government and everyone working together, that we're not going to be able to lift this back up.
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C
So I.
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F
Okay, can I add one thing to that? I'd love. I mean, I think. I think what you're touching on makes a lot of sense in terms of job creation coming back to these cities. I also want us to think about it as it also enables us to solve problems within those cities. And I think about the resource of students from those cities are actually experiencing the societal issues, the systemic issues that are facing them, but also others. And so I've always thought of it as, you can't solve something that you haven't experienced yourself. And so if there's a way for us to essentially bring back social entrepreneurship as well in these cities. And I see many universities creating social entrepreneurship labs. I see USC has a society and business lab where it's the MBA students partnering with the social entrepreneurship.
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Master'S program. And so it's actually harnessing, again, that entrepreneurial spirit and that interdisciplinary aspect, but it's also then funding that innovation specifically for that city and what the impact can be there.
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C
So I just want to add one thing and then I want to turn it over to you because I want to ask you a question, Kevin.
- [34:24]
I do think what you said, Shani, is incredibly important. So the University of Michigan likes to think of ourselves as the best public university in the world, in the country. But what we're trying to do is move the adjective public out from in front of the university. So we want to be the best university in the world in the public interest. And I think that many universities, private universities and public universities should consider rethinking how they describe themselves, because we should all be in the public interest. And I think a lot of the criticism of universities is that some universities have been self serving or self centered as opposed to serving the public. And I think that social entrepreneurship or anything that we're doing should be contextualized in the public interest. But now, Kevin, I want to ask you a question because you were talking about when you were talking to bankers, they were asking, you were trying to explain why you want to make a special kind of T shirt, which I think Under Armour is well beyond that. But now with the advances in material science and wearable technology and AI, how are you interacting with all these terrific advances that are happening at universities in support of your work? Are you doing this in house? Are you partnering with universities? How do you see this interaction with universities?
- [35:49]
D
It's a combination. But I want to just react to the four major cities versus everyone else. And apologies for the gratuitous sports analogy, but at the peak of his career, I think in two separate years, Tiger woods, when he was playing the Masters, I think the bet in Las Vegas was either you could bet Tiger woods to win it all or you could bet the field. And I think it was about even odds. And I think over two years, I think he didn't win it one year and I think he won it another. I sort of think of that in this way too. Would you rather bet on those four cities or would you rather bet on everybody else? The way that works for myself, when I started Under Armour, it was an idea of a T shirt. And I didn't know what it was going to be, putting this synthetic, stretchy T shirt on a person's body. I heard everything from someone dehydrated, and that was because of your shirt, is that you reduce the ability for them to be able to sweat and get it out. It was actually the first thing that led me to Under Armour was a study done at Penn State in partnership with dupont, called the dupont Lycra studies. And they were trying to prove that by wearing compression, it would actually reduce the amount of muscle fatigue that you would have. And muscle fatigue is the leading cause to injury. And that if you could actually contain or control.
- [37:02]
The muscles and reduce the amount of excessive vibration and the amount of shaking of your muscles, it would actually lead to enhancing it. And I was like, this is something that will weigh much lighter and feel much cooler on a person's body and it'll look great on big, pumped up athletes as well. And so this combination of a. The idea, the commercial idea with the actual science behind it was something that Penn State and dupont led for us to happen today, we Work much closer. But as you get larger in scale in companies too, it's hard enough to keep your own innovation departments like on task. We're not a public interest, you know, university. When I think about social entrepreneurship, it's important, but it has to have a return because the money just won't be there. You're not going to. We have to apologies, but we have to eat what we kill. You know, we have to be able to produce and say if it's going to be a good idea. It can't just be the whim of a CEO or principal who's saying I'm going to make this because I think it's good for society. It's like philanthropy. The best ideas have to be ones that become machines that feed themselves and they allow themselves to sustain. So yes, we're constantly thinking about. We recently launched actually a competitor to Lycra, as ironic as that is, which is now a Chinese owned fiber. It's no longer owned by DuPont and Under Armour in partnership with NC State, who's one of the leading textile schools in the country, as well as Celanese, American chemical company. The three of us over five years partnered to build a new sustainable Lycra yarn, which is better. It actually, when you put Lycra typically into any material, it effectively becomes unsustainable. You can't recycle it. Neolast. This fiber that we built is something that allows us to do that. So that's a direct. We're just rolling that out now. We've got, we're launching it in the spring of 2026 and we have an incredible new T shirt called the Bouncy T shirt which will be launching in February. Www.underarmor.com Apologies.
- [38:57]
So it matters.
- [38:58]
C
Yes, Neil, when you started Warby Parker, social good was part of your mission. Right. And it was exactly down this path. You were giving away glasses for every pair that was purchased. So how much did you think that that played into the success of Warby Parker? And.
- [39:19]
Do you think that that's something that all new startups should be thinking about? Because to your point, Kevin, is that things have to be monetized. But unfortunately all public good is not monetizable presently. But it is very important to us. And of course the environment is a typical example of a market failure because we have trouble monetizing the environment. But talk a little bit about how you see the public good as part of the success of Warby Parker and potentially other stars.
- [39:51]
E
Sure. So for every pair of glasses we sell, we distribute one to someone in need. And we've now distributed over 20 million pairs of glasses to people in need in the US and around the world. And that motivates me every single day. I acknowledge that's not the number one reason why people buy our glasses. Right. They buy our glasses first and foremost, how it looks on their face and then the quality and these other aspects. But it does help us recruit and retain great talent. And if I also think about my own personal journey, it actually started with social entrepreneurship. I moved down to El Salvador as the first employee of a nonprofit social enterprise. I was training low income women to start their own businesses, giving simple vision screenings and selling glasses in places where people are living on less than $4 a day. And I was motivated because there's about a billion people around the planet that don't have access to glasses. And I knew that typical philanthropy or just giving away glasses for free, we weren't going to be able to raise enough money to help a billion people globally. Right. And those people need new glasses as their prescriptions change. New people need glasses. So how do you create a sustainable model and this idea of social entrepreneurship. But it was that experience and actually visiting factories where here I was producing glasses for people living on $4 a day. And 10ft away on the same production lines were some of the biggest names in fashion that made me question, oh, like why are glasses so expensive on Madison Avenue? And. Right. And that helped lead to the idea of Warby Parker. And I think we find that most entrepreneurs in the US are actually in their 30s and 40s. And I think we do a decade disservice when we paint this picture of entrepreneurs being these crazy risk takers that drop out of school. That obviously happens, but it's rare. Usually, as you mentioned, you need to understand a problem in order to solve it. And sometimes that's not until a little bit later in life. So as we're training the next generation to thrive in the United States, I think we need to be thinking about how do we help expose them to really learning talents and skills that then they can go and solve problems. And that's, I think the beauty of America is that culturally we are about solving problems. And it's the only nation in the world that I know of that you can actually try something, take a risk and fail, and then still succeed. In most cultures, in most countries around the world, if you try something and fail, there is so much stigma that it's very. People don't take risks or it's Impossible to get the support of family or friends or other colleagues to succeed in the future. And that's something that's uniquely American, that gives me a lot of hope. But in general I think we can and have private sector partner more with universities and there continues to be more and more innovation on the tech transfer front. But then to your point, I see also social entrepreneurs partnering with universities. So there's this amazing doctor, Dr. David Fagenbaum, who started EveryCure and he works at the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania and he's developed AI that now look at already FDA approved drugs and try and apply those to rare diseases. And there's a market failure here because it takes about a billion dollars in 15 years to bring drugs to market. And there's about 18,000 known diseases only 4,000 do we have treatments for. And there's 14,000 that we don't have treatments for. And those rare diseases unfortunately don't justify a billion dollars in 15 years. But we have all these other medicines that might work. And the partnership between universities and social entrepreneurs like Dr. Fagenbaum are going to continue to benefit the American people and the world and hopefully unleash more prosperity.
- [44:15]
B
Just to build on that. One of the things that Neil said was the face of entrepreneurship sometimes is associated with people in their 20s who dropped out of school. And obviously there are, as you said, examples of that. But another area where there is a disconnect is the conventional wisdom in places like Silicon Valley is domain expertise. Understanding something about an industry is actually a disadvantage that if you know nothing about the industry, you come in with a fresh perspective. And there are examples where that's true. People say PayPal was successful in the fintech area because they didn't understand exactly how credit cards work. So I asked some questions and had some fresh insights. So I grant you that. But in the sectors that are emerging now, particularly where vertical AI will have a big impact and it's opportunity for cities all around the country who have this kind of domain expertise. It's important to know something about health care. If you're going to innovate in health care and sell to health care, it's important to know something about farming. If you have some ag tech product that you want to figure out how to optimize for farmers and then connect with farmers, you go down these what I've called third wave sectors, that domain expertise is going to become more important. This will advantage the universities and the cities in these rise of the rest cities that understand that. Because even though the current wave of AI most of the investment, most of the action is around the broad platform, these large language models. And Silicon Valley is leading with the big companies like Meta and Facebook and Google and many others, as well as new companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. This next wave of vertical AI is going to really advantage these cities. We backed a company in Chicago called Tempest AI that's focused on health care and discovery. A company, Atlanta, Hermes, is using AI for, for flights. You know, things go faster like Mach 5 engines. So these cities can rise up again in this AI revolution, not just focusing on the broader platform, but on these vertical opportunities industries where expertise matters. So you've got to understand the technology, you've got to figure out, have some fresh insights in terms of business model or other things you might want to do. But you've got to also make sure you understand those sectors. And that's where the cities that have that legacy in different industries, Michigan for example, in the transportation sector, are going to be advantage if they lean into the opportunity and recognize is not just a threat, it's also an opportunity.
- [46:43]
C
So all of you have started things from the ground up essentially that did not exist. And there are many, many people who sit in their dorm rooms or in their bedrooms at home and think, I've got an idea, right. And it could change the world. And they don't see it come to fruition. What distinguished you from those individuals? How, how was it just happenstance and good fortune? Was it hard work? Was it a commitment beyond anything known to humankind? What was, what were the distinguishing features if you were going to share how to take these ideas and move the their ideas into realization? The American dream of Shivani. Do you want to start by telling us about your story of how you actually became successful?
- [47:42]
F
Sure. I mean, I will touch on what Steve just shared, which is that expertise or the deep knowledge of the problem that you're trying to solve. So prior to starting Talla, I interviewed about 3,500 individuals in person across nine different countries. It took about five years and it was about 600 to about 750 people in every single country. So in terms of being proximate to the problem of lack of financial access globally, I really understood the crux of the problem and the systemic issues that were keeping people out of our traditional system.
- [48:22]
C
So can I just ask, were you interviewing them in preparation to launch a company or why were you interviewing them?
- [48:29]
F
I know.
- [48:32]
No, I was actually doing it as part of my job. So my background is in data science, but as also econometrics and so I was working with one of the leading economists for Sub Saharan Africa and West Africa as part of the UN Population Fund. And we were really trying to understand this question about sustainability as well as cost benefit. And so we have millions and billions of dollars going into development programs in the US as well as other markets. And do we really understand whether we're making progress? Are individuals moving out of poverty as a result of the capital going in? And so we wanted to understand it purely from an economic standpoint of at a unit level, are we actually seeing that progress? Most of the world, 85% of the world to this day, still spends money in cash. We see that across the US as well. Right. And so in order to get that data, I needed to go individually, person by person, to really understand where was money going in the system. And what I saw was potential. So it made me viscerally start to believe that actually potential lies everywhere and that if we can actually create the right enablement, we can actually unleash this potential for our greater good as well as make a profit alongside that, so that it's sustainable. What I realized was only 30% of the adult population is even in a credit bureau. So there are no credit scores, there's a lack of national IDs. And then lastly, it's that it's very cumbersome to be able to serve customers unless we're leveraging technology.
- [50:17]
So I had no background in entrepreneurship. I did not know how to code. But I saw a problem and so I moved back to the U.S. prior to working at the UN, I had a background in the private sector, so I worked in capital markets. I was very fortunate in that sense that I understood the forces of how money moves and how do public markets work. So I brought together this solution around saying here's a societal problem. We can leverage technology and we can bring in new capital flows to actually be able to unleash this power. And so for me, if I had not actually had that kind of interdisciplinary background of both my career opportunities, but also my academic background, I don't think I would have come to the solution. And then the last thing that I think is at the crux of it is I somehow believed I could do it. And so I learned how to code and started to build the prototype on my own and just use my savings. But the point was actually that I never thought there was a barrier to my ability to solve the problem. I just focused on that one aspect of solving the problem. Instead of thinking about starting a company.
- [51:29]
E
There'S this phrase that I've come to use, deliberate serendipity. And there's aspects of that in your story where working in the private sector, working with the UN.
- [51:47]
You built a ton of goodwill through hard work. The American dream. So then when it was time to start your business, you had that expertise, but you were also able to call on people who picked up the phone and answered and supported you. And yes, there were moments where things came together that were luck, but there was also a lot of hard work and determination and deliberateness around it. And I think that that's something that.
- [52:17]
Not enough entrepreneurs sort of talk about. I know that in starting Warby Parker, we were successful only because, whether it was friends, classmates, professors, or our former employers were supportive. And our former employers, for example, were happy to introduce us to investors, were happy to give us advice because they trusted us. Because when we worked for them, we busted our butts and we earned sort of a good reputation and good standing with them. So one of the things that is, again, special about this country is that there can be deliberate serendipity.
- [53:02]
A
I love that you said that because. And you're onto something there. Because I think about my journey, right? And within Ford Motor Company for 20 years, I didn't stay in one place like I'm. My background from the University of Michigan was really bridging the gap between business and technology. And so I moved around. I stayed in technology, but I moved around the company to learn the business. And over that 20 years, I built relationships. And so Ford Motor Company tried to create something like this internally. They tried to create a Michigan Central, an innovation group internally. But the processes that they have to have in place to get 100,000 people to all work in the same direction defy innovation. So everybody's going the same way. And I'm trying to go left, breaking it out and putting it as a separate entity, opening up the platform for others to come in. I've had to, for the last seven years, pick up the phone and call in favors. I'm trying to do something that's against the grain. Like, trust me, I have a reputation. I've made those connections, and I think it's the only way that I have been able to be successful. We haven't, as you know, up to this point, tried to do that, and it didn't work. This is the farthest that Ford has ever gotten with something like this. And I think it's because. Because, yes, I have an entrepreneurial spirit, but it's also about the goodwill that I have created in the company where they trust me and I can go outside the boundaries that they're trying to keep everybody in to deliver quality products.
- [54:30]
C
Kevin, you want?
- [54:31]
D
Yeah, I'll just say entrepreneurship, it's scary stuff. And so for someone who started in their 20s and recognized a lot of people in their 30s and 40s, if I'd probably known more about our industry, of how big the bigs were, of how difficult it was going to be, I don't know if I would have tried it. We used this saying at Under Armour, which is, we were always smart enough to be naive enough to not know what we could not accomplish. And it's like, had that sort of like, why not us? If I'd worked in the industry for 10 years, I'd been like, I need a marketing department, I need hr, I need all these other pieces versus I'm going to build the world's best T shirt. I think the risk that we run today is making sure that the complexion of industry, it's not just limited to the current conversation around AI. I think the biggest risk we have right now is the way that dollars are flowing. Because when I started, I was 23 years old, and I thought, you know, I went $45,000 in a credit card debt. I took an SBA loan, I was personally signed to everything else. And I thought if I fell, I'd be a couple hundred grand in debt, I'd feel okay that I could get back up again. If I was 35 with, you know, married with kids and a house and a mortgage and all these things, would I be willing to take that type of risk? What we need to do is make sure that risk taking isn't just limited to one industry. Like the. When I think about AI right now, for there's companies that innovation isn't just lost there. And yes, there needs to be a touch of AI in everything that we do. And there's no denying it. I probably was forwarded this.
- [55:55]
Instagram yesterday over the last two days, and it was of a trade show from Japan, and there was this person. It was like people sitting around with pictures and they put a foot into this little module, and all of a sudden you watch this thing, just this light go up and down. And it was this knitting machine that just started building this shoe on top of this foot. And it was the most amazing thing. And I'm watching it and going, oh, my gosh, our innovation department stinks. How do we not know about this? How did this happen? And I'm thinking, like, what is this start emailing our team. And the reaction I got from a head of innovation goes, you're going to notice we're not late. That foot has seven toes on.
- [56:34]
Was just an AI image of, yes, that future is coming. But, like, we have to be able to invest. It takes currently, you know, close to 300 sets of hands just to build the shoe. So do we want that future where we can, you know, bring our manufacturing home, that we can do these jobs and have this a part of, like, what we do of building something? Yes. And there needs to be the AI lens on everything that we're building as a how can it speed and make us faster? But at the end of the day, it's one thing when it's code and it's lines, it's another thing we get into. How do we build? Like the hard manufacturing of making a car and using less hands and being smarter about the way we can do it and being more localized or local for local with the way that we produce some of those things.
- [57:13]
B
The common thread with all these entrepreneurial journeys in my own was similar, is somebody saw the world could be different, and instead of just thinking about it, they said, I'm going to jump in and do something about it. But often I certainly saw this. Of course, now the Internet is part of everyday life. People take it for granted. We got started in 1985, only 3% of people were online, and they're online an hour a week.
- [57:39]
C
But you made sure America got.
- [57:43]
B
But most people were skeptical. Like, why would anybody want this? If I. If I wanted to talk to somebody, I'll pick up the phone and call them. Why would I get in front of a keyboard and type a message E commerce. You actually think people are going to enter their credit card. And, you know, there was a lot of skepticism. And the skeptics were right. For the first decade, it was a struggle, and several times we almost didn't make it. Had to go through layoffs and so forth. Eventually we broke through. Remember, it took us 10 years to get 1 million customers. And a few years later, we're getting 1 million new customers every month. So it just was a lesson to me about the importance of perseverance and dealing with skeptics, including, by the way, my own family. My parents were like, like, we love you or you're passionate about this, but it doesn't seem to be working. And I have a young family. Maybe you should get a real job. But I said, no, I think there's something. I think there's something here. I Want to stick with it. And that's what we need to celebrate about what is still sort of unique about America and part of the American dream. There are many countries that people are skeptical about new ideas and not necessarily supportive of entrepreneurs. They're kind of a crazy disruptors. And we as a nation have been kind of leaning into the future. But again, it's not everybody in every place. There are many communities in this country that I visited where that same skepticism, that same kind of criticism of new people taking new risk on new ideas. And so one of the things that I love about Silicon Valley is that anything is possible mentality. We need that anything is possible mentality all across the country. So we have that cultural mentality. We have more venture capital, backing more entrepreneurs in more places. We have universities not just bringing people to them, but keeping them in those communities. We think about how to capitalize on new opportunities like AI, but do it in ways that kind of create opportunities for companies and cities all around the country. Then I think we can continue to win this next wave and America will not just be celebrating its 250th birthday and looking back, but be looking forward with great excitement. And countries around the world will continue to look at America as sort of this beacon of hope and opportunity. And like, I don't know exactly how they figured it out, I don't even know how they survived the country, but they still seem to have their mojo. They still seem to have this sense of possibility, they still seem to be innovating in the important sectors. If we at look lose that, things are really going to go negative. So we can't lose that. We have to lean into the future, but we have to do it in a way that brings more people and more places along. And as you said, universities are a key part of that.
- [60:27]
C
Well, I think that, and multiples of you have said this already, that there is talent and potential everywhere, but opportunity is not as ubiquitous. And this is what we're trying to match up the two and that's what we're talking about here. But one of the things that is a big opportunity in the future, and again this has been mentioned multiple times at the table, is AI. And AI has enormous potential and enormous risks and is very undetermined going in indeterminate going into the future. And I think that it is a technology that has changed so quickly the lives of so many people already and its insertion or diffusion into American society is faster than any other innovation in history. So how do you see. And we're getting near the end of our time, which I've really enjoyed here. But I would like to end with your views on how AI is going to impact the American dream and how it can catalyze it, how it might be an inhibitor if people use it as a crush. Neil, you were talking about the potential of AI having tutors and doctors at your fingertips. And those are all great things if they're used properly. Or else you could just rely on AI to do your work, and then you don't benefit from it. So how can we use AI to enhance the American, access the American dream for even more people. People, and enhance our country's collective American dream? So, Giovanni, you know, at the crux.
- [62:07]
F
Of something you just said, you know, the thing that came up for me was, and I think it connects to the rise of the rest and this idea of how do we leverage potential everywhere? I think it gets to, how do we last mile it? So again, if we think about the power of AI, is it still concentrated in these four major cities? Are students everywhere understanding the potential of AI and how they can actually build with it? How does it actually, again, help us in societal problems? And if we don't get to that, true decentralization of enablement through AI and the ability for entrepreneurs everywhere to actually be able to start their own ideas, even if they don't end up starting companies just solving problems for themselves. We see this with, you know, we see this with working mothers. They're leveraging it. We see this with students who are leveraging it on their own. They're not necessarily starting companies. They're just making their quality of life better every single day using these tools. But what I do see happening is that it can even. That power can get concentrated in just the few. And so whether that's across cities, universities, I think even starting earlier, as we're seeing in middle schools, ensuring that students understand what the power can be so that they are enabled to create jobs, but also just make a better quality of life for themselves.
- [63:37]
E
If the American dream is all about having success, all the successful people that I know are very proactive, right? In that that sort of aligned with some of the conversations we were having about entrepreneurship, right? That's all about taking the first step and taking action. And whether you're starting a business or running a family or working within a company, to be successful, you have to be proactive in solving problems. And I always sort of suggest to people like, hey, write down some frustrations, whether it's at work or in your personal life, right at the End of the day, you'll have probably a few by the end of the week, maybe 10 by the end of the month, you know, 40, 50. And then you can start coming up with solutions for those problems. And that can help you be happier. If it solves personal challenges, it can help you create a business, it can help you be just more successful in your day to day job. And Right. If we think about what AI offers is that it could help you come up with solutions and sort of think through those in a more robust way, whether you're working on a factory line or in an office here in midtown Manhattan. Right. The good things happen when more people and more Americans have access to information and access to expertise. And this was the promise of the Internet and it's the promise of AI.
- [65:13]
C
How do we ensure that AI enhances or catalyzes creativity as opposed to.
- [65:23]
Is.
- [65:23]
D
A, is a using it to cheat on paper?
- [65:27]
C
Well, that's a concern we have at universities. You probably don't have that because if it doesn't work in industry, it's not going to sell. But how, how do you make sure that we're using it to enhance the, the capability of, of our talent pool in America?
- [65:43]
B
Some of this is. Obviously there are a lot of risks of AI, including some that we've talked about in terms of, you know, jobs will be lost because new technologies tend to do that, new jobs will be created. We don't know what those jobs will be. But even, you know, it challenges every institution, including universities. You know, I almost think of universities as. While people focus on the content, the knowledge, if you will. I think the real value is in the network you build, the relationship you build and in some cases the brand you have the, that carries forward. I think the knowledge part, AI is going to keep cutting into. The reality is you can today and it'll get better next year. I'll be better still five or ten years from now. You can ask questions and learn things without being at a university, which is super empowering. It helps level the playing field. You have access to information on your phone or some other device that you didn't have before. We saw this with the Internet, farmers in Africa, some of Shivani's kind of customers, and have access to weather information and crop pricing information. That was never possible before. I think the same will be true with AI and you have to figure out what then is your secret sauce, your value added beyond the core, which will get commoditized. And I think every organization has to do that, every city has to do that every country has to do that, kind of understand how things are getting disrupted and what do you do on top of that. So in the case of universities, doing exactly what you're doing, building a broader network, saying it's not just about coming up with the idea, it's putting that idea into motion. How do we make sure we, we create a more entrepreneurial community? How do we connect the bigger companies in our region? How do we get access to more, more capital? That's something that really is going to be a more sustainable, differentiating kind of capability of a university. How do we make sure our brand does matter and people are going to be advantage if they have our particular brand, the knowledge itself, there'll be increasingly interesting ways to get access to that without necessarily sitting in a, in a classroom. Instead of running from that, we should run into that, lean into that and say, okay, the world's changing. I remember when I was young, I was older than some of you, and you know, calculators first were invented, people banned them from classroom because that was cheating. And then a few years later you were required to have one. And PCs with spreadsheets. Oh, that's cheating. Well, actually, we should figure out ways to make sure people know how to use that tool. There's no difference with AI. It's a tool that we should be teaching people how to use to advantage their lives, advantage their careers.
- [68:13]
A
I was going to say, I agree with you. I think we have a responsibility. I think there is still a very large population to your point, that doesn't have access to it. AI learns from using the tool itself. There's a huge population that's not using it. So are we making decisions off of data that is actually not fully informed yet? How do we lower that barrier so that everybody knows how to use it, bring it to a younger age, put it in the, you know, the school system, have training classes on it. We bring in the community regularly to talk about the different technologies. One of the things the community said is like, we don't want you to use AI in our area because we're in the center of an urban southwest Detroit neighborhood. And you know, we did some education on it. Like if you pick up your phone, you're already using it, right? That facial recognition, it's already there. But they're worried, they're worried about it, they're nervous about it. And so how do we help them adopt it, use it, help the tool get even better? Because it has now informed by all levels of society so that it becomes something that becomes Part of our lives and helps everybody succeed. It's our responsibility.
- [69:24]
D
Yeah, the world is moving. I think what's happening now is the experience of the last 40 years has built the confidence of what AI is going to mean. And I think too.
- [69:34]
With Steve and other pioneers in just the Internet. I think of the Tom Hanks movie Big. If you remember, when he was hired to the toy company. I'm dating myself with this. But he worked at a section. The first job he had was called Computers. And there was a sign over. It was like three guys. We did computers versus now being in everyone. You know, the urgency that it gives us. This is not the latest du jour topic. This is not like talking about a SPAC treatment. And all of a sudden it lasts for two or three years. The trend was over. Everyone knows this is going to be here. But I think the thing that makes most companies, and again, for a business now we're approaching 30 years and again 20 years public. The need, the requirement to continue to reinvent yourself, to build a competitor who would be the competitor that would knock Under Armour off. Like, who would be that one? And we've seen a lot of them that have become real time at us. And so we think about, what would we do if Apple or Tesla started making shirts and shoes? What would that look like? What would they do? How would they perform? And that's where, when I saw that, the meme that I described the other day, we are working on that. We built a commercial about 11 years ago called Future Girl. And it was this woman who wakes up in some futuristic city at some point, undescribed in the future. And she wakes up and she puts on this sort of gray monotone garment. And you watch her basically get up in the morning and she adjusts the thermostat that controls the microclimate that exists between her apparel and her skin. And you're going back to this spacesuit idea of our apparel. And then you watch her get ready to go for a jog. And you watch her then adjust the color of her top, the color of her bottom, and then the color of her shoes that is attainable. AI does make that achievable in real force. And those are the things that we're thinking, if someone were to do that, we're not going to allow one of the other tech innovators from someplace else, is that our job right now is cornering as best we can, the market of innovation as it relates. And so we do this in very real, tangible ways of making athletes just A little bit better with everything we do and being best in class. And we can't do it by agreeing with the fact it's okay. That takes nearly 300 sets of hands to make a pair of shoes today. There should be a better, more efficient process for that. There should be a more sustainable way for us to do that. They should do it by giving consumers, athletes, in our case, the best advantage that they can from our brand.
- [71:47]
C
So we're down to the last couple of minutes here, and I just want to bring this to a close, but I want to give you all the last words. So I do want to say that it's been really inspirational for me to be here on this panel with all of you who have seen a different future and made that future a reality. And this is what many Americans are looking for when they think about the American Dream and what we collectively, as the United States of America, see as the secret sauce of what's made this country so special. So what I'd like to do is I am very optimistic about the future. After talking with all of you, I'd like to just go around the table and ask you for just one or two sentences closing on what you see as the future of the American Dream for individuals and collectively for this country in this new era of AI and high tech and everything that's going around in the world. So we'll start with Shivani. I know I should have looked over here and got over there.
- [72:57]
F
I think, to put it, I think, in one word, a lot of what we've talked about. To me, it just goes back to enablement. I think we are really at a place in history where enablement is really possible. It's possible for us to unleash the American dream for real, and I think unleash the potential of American citizens and global citizens because of AI, because of, I think, universities and the strength that we have to collaborate. And so I think if we can come at this next decade with both that enablement mindset and leveraging the tools, then I truly believe anything is possible.
- [73:39]
C
Thank you, Neil.
- [73:41]
E
Yeah, I'm hopeful. Yes, the challenges are real.
- [73:45]
Many Americans and many university students have too much debt. There are sort of other challenges that we face as a nation, but we're an entrepreneurial nation. The costs of education, the costs of healthcare, all of these things will come down thanks to these emerging technologies, thanks to using tools like AI. And to me, that just unleashes more American innovation and prosperity. And that leads me to be very optimistic.
- [74:19]
C
Terrific, Kevin.
- [74:20]
D
Markets are booming. Right now because of the promise of AI. And I think what I'd say is that it is probably going to be maximized in those four major cities that we talk about. And I think a sense of realism for any university to focus on what you're great at. I mentioned our partnership with NC State. They are probably the best textile school in the country and AI should have a complexion there, but it shouldn't be turning North Carolina State into an AI university. And so I think people need to be realistic with that. And if I had a message, I think for some of the university partners is that we have great partnerships from NC State to the University of Maryland to Notre Dame, some of our partner schools, and get realistic, reach out to your university partners. Don't just work in a lab. And we're very clear to say is that we're not, we're not a development program if it's outside of five years, our branch shouldn't be working on. We need things that we can commercialize now. And so that's where those strategic partnerships we have, if you can afford to work with the longer term picture, please lean on that. But please find a local company or someone that you can work with who has the expertise that is aligned with your expertise to make it better. I'm massively long on the United States and what this country has to hold, and especially the spirit of entrepreneurship. The two thirds that don't believe in the American dream, I ask them to reconsider that. It is possible. It's certainly not easy, but you have a shot here in America. And so I encourage people to take it, ideally in your 20s instead of your 30s probably too. So the fall, it won't be so far if you don't make it.
- [75:53]
C
Thank you, Kevin. Steve.
- [75:55]
B
Well, as we gear up to celebrate America's 250th birthday, I hope some of it is to look back and celebrate, you know, how we got to now, but mostly use an opportunity to look forward and understand what some of those unique characteristics, the secret sauce, if you will, that has driven the American story and double down on it. And some of that is embracing new ideas, embracing new technologies, embracing new people, trying to figure out ways to make sure that America is front and center in leading the next wave, the next. And if we do that and do that with a mindset around being more inclusive, so more people in more places in the country, instead of feeling left out and behind, they feel like they're part of the future, helping to shape the future, have a role to play in the future, then I think America can't be stopped.
- [76:47]
C
Terrific, Carolina.
- [76:49]
A
I am optimistic because I see it in practice every day. I'm seeing it happen at Michigan Central. I think what it requires, though, is universities, industry, government, all to work differently together because that will make the difference.
- [77:04]
C
Thank you. Thank you all for a terrific conversation. I am very optimistic that we will rebuild the hope in the American dream. And it's all because of your examples and models. And I really appreciate taking your taking time to speak with me today. Thank you very much.
- [77:23]
E
Thank you. Thanks.
- [77:26]
B
Dealbook Summit is a production of the New York Times. This episode was produced by Evan Roberts, mixing by Kelly Piclo and Katie McMurran. Original music by Daniel Powell. The rest of the Dealbook events team includes Julie Zahn, Hillary Coon, Melissa Tripoli, Beth Weinstein, Angela Austin, Haley Hess, Dana Prukowski, Matt Kaiser, Chantal Rainier and Yen Wei Liu. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Nina Lassom, Christina Josa and Maddie Masiel.