← Firewall with Bradley Tusk
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- [00:00]
Bradley Tusk
Foreign. Welcome back to Firewall. I'm your host, Bradley Tusk. It's a Tuesday episode technically and with us is our friend and producer Hugo Lindgren. But it is a coming out on Monday and being recorded on Saturday. So it's a little bit of a mess, but nonetheless, not a mess. Hopefully people can follow.
- [00:27]
Hugo Lindgren
You know, it was a mess. I got here this morning and the alarm was going off and the doors open and I was super.
- [00:32]
Bradley Tusk
I was someone. Nobody. Here's the good. Nobody steals books, man.
- [00:36]
Hugo Lindgren
I know it would be a bad move, but Bradley was in here and
- [00:39]
Bradley Tusk
you know, it's funny, I was thinking about like, you know how I know we're going to get to talk about Zoran a little bit. But these, the city owned grocery stores. Maybe the way to get the left to take shop lifting seriously is you open these grocery stores, they're not going to believe in security or like that and then let them get robbed blind. And then finally they realize like, oh, maybe this is a problem.
- [01:00]
Hugo Lindgren
I don't like, I don't like where you're going with that.
- [01:02]
Bradley Tusk
I'm not proposing robbing that. I'm just saying that maybe that's what will end up happening.
- [01:07]
Hugo Lindgren
Well, it is true. I think I read a story about like Kansas City. I think they tried like, like, you know, publicly owned grocery stores or something and I think they did have a lot of.
- [01:16]
Bradley Tusk
Well, I mean, there's that. I mean it's just an analog of that saying a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Right. And so perhaps a city government that actually cares about shoplifting is a city government that has tried to operate a retail business and been a massive victim of shoplifting.
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Hugo Lindgren
Well, as we, as we know, there's a long history of people ripping off the city in one way or another, but maybe not just like literally running
- [01:40]
Bradley Tusk
out of the store.
- [01:41]
Hugo Lindgren
Maybe that's a new one. Okay, so we're going to talk about a bunch of things you're going to. You're one of the reasons we're recording earlier or the reason is because you're going on a college trip with Lyle next week and Lyle is a junior and so he's kind of getting down to the.
- [01:56]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah, yeah. Where he's done with the sats. He took it for the last. You can take it multiple times. Well, you know this because your kid super scoring. So he, his split was very weird. Last time it was a good, very good score. But like one was like almost a perfect score and one on the math. And then the reading was lower and so it was sort of obvious, like, why not try to just, you know, boost that so. Well, he took that last Saturday. We'll know in a week and. But I don't. I think he's basically the kinds of schools he's interested in. He's already in the academic ballpark anyway.
- [02:28]
Hugo Lindgren
Right. So where are you going this week?
- [02:29]
Bradley Tusk
He and I are going to D.C. and North Carolina. So we're going to look at Georgetown and GW in D.C. and then UNC, Wake Forest and Davidson.
- [02:37]
Hugo Lindgren
No, Duke.
- [02:38]
Bradley Tusk
He can't get into Duke, so we're not looking at it. We're. We're going. We'll be in Raleigh, which is close to Durham. Obviously we're flying a world. Turns out Raleigh and Charlotte are far away from each other. So yesterday Chelsea sent me the itinerary and I was looking at it and I was. I assumed we would fly from D.C. to Charlotte and then we would take like Ubers to the various schools. Right.
- [02:58]
Hugo Lindgren
Which is what we're doing.
- [02:59]
Bradley Tusk
Which is what we're doing for Awaken for Davidson. I don't want to have to run a car and drive. No, we're flying a Raleigh from D.C. and then it's like an hour and 15 minute flight later from Raleigh to Charlotte. It's not.
- [03:10]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah, it's a much shorter flight than that. I'm sure that's the schedule.
- [03:12]
Bradley Tusk
Maybe it's like, I was like first, like, maybe we should drive. And I'm like, I guess not. You know, that's not that long a
- [03:17]
Hugo Lindgren
drive, but it's not yet.
- [03:17]
Bradley Tusk
So it's. How long is it?
- [03:19]
Hugo Lindgren
You know, it's fine. I don't think I ever did it. I'm going to guess it's three hours.
- [03:22]
Bradley Tusk
I'm going to wonder then. Honestly, I take a look. We're not better off taking an Uber from Raleigh to Charlotte.
- [03:29]
Hugo Lindgren
It says it's fun. It says here it's only 2 hours and 10 minutes.
- [03:32]
Bradley Tusk
I think I should just do that because by the time I go to the airport, wait at the airport, get on the plane and then get from the airport to our hotel in Charlotte. Yeah, I think we should take an Uber. All right.
- [03:44]
Hugo Lindgren
You know, you probably should. It's funny, I got trapped in, in, in Liverpool on a day when incredibly, the trains weren't running. And Orly and I took a Uber from Liverpool to Heathrow, which is a long trip. And it was actually awesome. I mean, it was a little expensive, but like, oh, so much better than all the changing of trains and Everything. It worked kind of well. So.
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Bradley Tusk
Yeah. And then London has those other airports. I flew into one of them. There's one like in the middle of the city. Right.
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Hugo Lindgren
Is there?
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Bradley Tusk
Thought so. I don't know.
- [04:14]
Hugo Lindgren
The only two I know are Heathrow and gas. Maybe there's another. Okay, so you had some thoughts about AI and sort of the, the. You have one kid in college, you have another one about to go and obviously their future is very much dependent on this. Completely.
- [04:33]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah.
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Hugo Lindgren
Unknown.
- [04:35]
Bradley Tusk
Well, so, I mean, I think so. Lyle and I were going to the Knicks game the other day and I said to him, what's the greatest societal issue that concerns you? And I thought maybe he'd say climate or kind of Trump and tyranny, although he's not particularly progressive. But nonetheless, these are things that like, you know, thinking people and young people I think often will be concerned about.
- [04:55]
Hugo Lindgren
Sure.
- [04:56]
Bradley Tusk
And should be. And he said job opportunities in the age of AI. And I was sort of struck by it. Not because it's not a valid concern potentially, but because, you know, he's about as well positioned as a 17 year old's going to get simply because he has a rich father. Right. Who really cares about his education and his career and everything else. And so he goes to a fantastic high school and he's gonna go to a good college and he's not gonna have any student debt. And, you know, it was slightly surprising that I figured if he's really worried about it, I mean, Lyle is an incredibly lucky kid. Right. Your kid's my kids. It's a tiny fraction of the average. And I don't know if your kids are worried about it. And I haven't heard Abby specifically say that, but if they're worried about that kind of thing, I can only imagine what a kid that doesn't have all of those advantages. And you know, like, I went to public school school, I had, you know, my parents were able to pay for college, but I paid for law school. And like, you know, I think that's much more of the norm. Right. Which is you go to public school and you take out loans to pay for, you know, higher ed. So, so I started just thinking about. And I was, I'm trying to remember who I was having dinner with the other night. And this was a topic. But just, you know, we've talked before on this podcast from whether the underlying way that we have created a higher ed system is just doesn't make sense anymore. Right. Like we had at some point this view was formed that everyone should get a College education and it should be four years and a liberal arts degree that you could then, you know, study stammer or whatever that wasn't called STEM back then or whatever it might be, but that this was the way it should work. And then there were graduate schools where you could. And I think it sort of turned into a higher industrial complex where like most institutions, the underlying purpose became perverted from how do we provide the best opportunity for our students? To what's the best thing to sustain the well being of the institution and the people that work out there. Right. And so we've talked about maybe it shouldn't be four years, maybe it should be two years. Maybe grad school should be folded into college and things are a more vocational path. Maybe, you know, while, while there's sure value in reading classics and learning other languages and all that stuff, maybe the value in an age of the Internet where all information is so easily available in analysis and translation and everything else, maybe, maybe it's really not worth years of your time and all that money and you just study the thing that you're doing. Maybe that basically it means that vocational school should become the norm in a way. And vocational just doesn't have to mean welding or plumbing. It could mean law, it could mean engineering, could mean lots of things. Right. So we've had that conversation and I definitely, I don't know how seriously that's all being considered in the sense that I think you have the right and the left mainly focused on either protecting and advancing or dismantling things like dei. I still don't think that either of them are really thinking hard about the underlying efficacy itself. They're just sort of looking at the various political touch points one way or the other. But then, you know, the. I really wish I could remember who I was having dinner with. But it seems like maybe even the high school curriculum and even before that should be redone too a little bit, which is we. We don't know what the future industries in an AI world are going to be. Right. I was. Did you. Travis Kalanick was on tbt. Did you listen to that? Tvpn, which is.
- [08:26]
Hugo Lindgren
I didn't.
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Bradley Tusk
Great tech.
- [08:28]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah.
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Bradley Tusk
Daily tv.
- [08:29]
Hugo Lindgren
I've never checked that out, but I want to.
- [08:30]
Bradley Tusk
Do you watch it often? No, but I've been on it. I haven't watched it often, but I watched Travis and I haven't talked about this, but he made a good argument from a macro perspective that AI, at least till we're at super AGI, probably won't be bad for Jobs in the sense that his point was, like, if you can figure out how to do physical construction in a vastly more efficient way, and as a result, in order to deal with the affordable housing crisis, he was saying, if you could have a thousand buildings going up in LA at the same time, and there are certain functions that still need to be done by humans, like, you're going to need more plumbers than ever. Right. And therefore, yes, you're going to eliminate some jobs and you're going to create other jobs or you're going to. And I think that kind of makes sense. But where I think maybe he was missing a little bit is from a macro standpoint, he's right. Every major economic transformation in history has ultimately led to a lot more jobs and opportunity and convenience and everything else. But the 40% of the workers at Block that got laid off or Facebook talked about or Meta laying off 20% of their workforce, I don't know that they're all going to become plumbers tomorrow. Nor is the vision.
- [09:47]
Hugo Lindgren
Well, they're not becoming plumbers. Right? I mean, that's just literally like a fantasy.
- [09:51]
Bradley Tusk
Well, nor is like the vision Travis laid out happening today. He might be right. I mean, look, I like to tell the story that the first time I ever met Travis, he said to me one day, no will on a car. They're all driving themselves and you'll get it by pressing a button. And he probably did more to move that forward than anyone in the world. Right.
- [10:09]
Hugo Lindgren
And did you think he was crazy or were you like, no, I think he's probably right or.
- [10:12]
Bradley Tusk
What was your response? I didn't know enough about the issue to know that he was right or wrong. I thought he was really smart and really interesting. I was skeptical enough in that it was a big statement without me having any real proof points to validate it. But at the same time, I agreed to take equity for my work to work on. You believe so I believed it enough, thank God. So I suspect that he's, you know, two smartest people I've ever worked with are Travis and Mike Bloomberg, and I suspect he's right. And history says he's right. There is this, though, at the very least, interim period. So then the question that came up at dinner was, what do you do right now? And so, like, I think I've told this story before that I was. I had a meeting with a member of Congress who was working on AI legislation, and he had asked me to convene some VCs just because he wanted to pick people's Brains, which was a really thoughtful thing to do. And everybody, he was happy to do it. The VCs were excited, it was a great meeting. But at some point in the meeting I turned to him and this was a little bit of a setup, but I said, okay, let's assume there's a lot of job displacement. What's Congress going to do about it? And he said exactly what I knew. Not because we had discussed before, but just this is what politicians say. It's like job training. That's what they all say all the time. Right. And then I turned to the VCs and they were all, or at least pretty much all over early stage VCs and say, okay guys, we're early stage VCs in New York, right. If anyone is being pitched the industries and ideas of the future, it's us, right? What are we training them in? And like no one had any ideas whatsoever. Right. And so have you seen people come
- [11:42]
Hugo Lindgren
to you with like trade school ideas?
- [11:44]
Bradley Tusk
Oh yeah.
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Hugo Lindgren
And we've invested you like some of that?
- [11:46]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah, we made an investment in, in one company called Lumion that's like the financial rails for vocational schools. And so like I do think it's worth, you know, Odyssey is a school choice marketplace that's for K through 12. But I think that there's some real opportunity there. So. Yes, there are some. Edtech is a tricky business to invest in because it is and it is not govtech, depending on the way that you approach it. I am generally not super bullish on GovTech because it's just a really tough business. Any business that effectively lives and dies with government RFPs is a pretty rough way to make a living. And, and then in addition to a really, really slow and bureaucratic and political procurement process, which could be fixed by the way. So we are in a company called Hazel, which is a govtech company right now, but I think won't be ultimately that does procurement via AI that radically. Yeah, we've had the founder, so like there are solutions, but overall, and maybe if Hazel becomes the norm, then govtech becomes a better category. But right now you have a combination of often low contract dollar values, a lot of churn, a slow process, and then really low exit multiples for the company itself. And so it's just too much work for not enough upside. So if edtech is selling into school districts, I think it's the same problem. But like Odyssey for example, in, in running the school choice marketplaces, it's just states, the state is the customer. It's only States that have school choice. So, you know, the most you could have would be 50 customers. In reality, the most you can really have about a dozen. Right. That's a different ballgame.
- [13:26]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah.
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Bradley Tusk
So, you know, ed tech's a little complicated as a result, but overall, I do think that there are some people working interesting things. But I guess my. My question here is me, I don't see higher ed at the moment. They probably offer like, here's a class on AI, here's how I work here, you know, theoretical classes, coding, whatever. Great. But I don't think they're rethinking their curriculum and the skills that students need to. To have. No, no. I think they're just perhaps offering some classes to seem like they're.
- [13:59]
Hugo Lindgren
I think they're worried about students writing their papers on it and have these sort of policing mechanisms that they're trying to.
- [14:05]
Bradley Tusk
I guess, totally know what this would look like yet. But I guess the question is, what if you just said, all right, there's a lot of specific stuff that we teach in school that probably isn't as essential. Like, again, we've talked before, like foreign languages. Right. I get that it helps with brain development in certain ways and whatever else, but when you have AirPods now, that can literally translate for you in real time when someone speaks to you in another language.
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Hugo Lindgren
Did you try those in like Turkey or anything?
- [14:33]
Bradley Tusk
No, because they don't have it in Turkish yet. Plus the problem I find when I travel at least. And I think the part of the problem is that I. Everything I do is too nice. Everybody speaks English. Right?
- [14:43]
Hugo Lindgren
Right.
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Bradley Tusk
So, like, I don't really have that, you know, the places you go are too nice. And it's funny, I said to Abby, you know, when she was. Because she's in Spain for the semester when the AirPod thing was announced, I said, oh, do you want me to get you them? Maybe that'd be useful. And to her great credit, she said,
- [14:58]
Hugo Lindgren
no, that's why I want to learn Spanish.
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Bradley Tusk
Yeah. I don't want that. Right. Which is great. But Abby is the kind of kid where like a four year liberal arts degree is actually. She's the kind of kid that really will enjoy that. Benefit from it.
- [15:09]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah. And it's an investment in the rest of her life.
- [15:12]
Bradley Tusk
Well, but maybe the better investment is for her, perhaps. Right. But she's a unique kid in that, like, she is ultra intellectually curious, a little bit like, I don't know what kind of student. I mean, you were good enough that you went to Duke, but like, Abby's not a great student. She's gotten better in college. In high school she was a pretty indifferent student. But you know, you'd go into her room and she would be painting or writing a short story or doing an architectural sketch. It was never the thing she was supposed to be doing for her homework because she was doing things that were interesting. Interesting, right. Lyle is a very conscientious kid, but I guess the question is, should you revamp K through 12 and say, okay, in a world of AI where one AI is going to be here, two, we don't really know what the future looks like, so what are the skills? Right? And it's probably critical thinking skills. Right. More than anything else. And do you start to really prioritize those in both the types of things that you teach, the classes kids take, but then also even the way you teach the topics, whether it's, you know, history or reading or math or whatever it is? I guess math to some extent is sort of definitionally critical thinking. Science too. But like, should it, should the goal be not to teach you about the, you know, the, the, the World War II or the treaty of Kent or whatever it is, or the Magna Carta, but like, should it be to use all those things to just teach you how to think critically so that in whatever direction AI takes, you at least have the underlying ability to approach it in an interest, intellectually efficient way and efficacious way and do something with it?
- [16:56]
Hugo Lindgren
So let me throw something at you. I thought about this a lot with the school our kids went to and the experience we had. And I sort of identified three areas that I thought were like, not that they were totally missing, but that they weren't sort of focused on or emphasized with a way that like, I think would have prepared the kids better for college or life beyond. So there were three areas. There was one probabilities, like understanding, like, literally like, like I, I was like, I would love to have my kids learn how to play poker so that they could understand what like real probabilities were. The other was like emotional management, how your own mind works, like trying to figure out like, like not to get, you know, self calming meditation even. But things that are like, like so because especially in high school, like people's minds are all over the place. And then the third one is like public speaking, social skills, how to communicate, how to get your point across, how to connect with people. Those are three things that kind of like in one way or another are sort of touched on and yet aren't directly taught or really talked about in the way that I think would be really helpful for kids. Does that make sense to you? Like in the.
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Bradley Tusk
Yeah, yeah, it does, it does. You know, but I'm not even sure like, you know, that the private schools are thinking about the way you just laid out.
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Hugo Lindgren
No, I don't think they are either.
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Bradley Tusk
No. So
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Hugo Lindgren
teachers, right, incorporate that stuff without necessarily calling it that.
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Bradley Tusk
Well, some probably are, right. I think a really good, thoughtful teacher. And by the way, like, there are a lot. I don't know what the percentage is, but I would bet at least half, if not more of teachers who really do want work hard and want their students to learn and care about it. There are some that are just like, hey, I can't be fired because I'm in the union and I can, I don't have to work summers and I can leave every day at 3:30 and whatever. But I don't think that that's why most people go into teaching. I think some people get burnt out and that's fair, right? That's what they teach for America almost. That's what they were trying to solve for in a way. But. But yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I mean it's also like we had a, you know, a topic on a podcast maybe six or eight months ago where I was starting to revise my answer to people about going to law school. Right. For the same reason. Right. Which was typically speaking when someone and say they're, you know, in college or out of college, says to me, should I go to law school? I always say, well, do you want to be a lawyer? And I know the answer is no, because if the answer is yes, there's no reason to ask me this question in the first place. Right, Right. And then they say no. And then I say, then don't go to law school. And they, and that's not the answer they want. What they want is me to tell them it's okay to go to law school so they can get their parents off their back or delay reality for three years or whatever it is. So they get upset and they say no, what do you mean you went and look how it worked for you. And then I say, yeah, it's true, but it's not like my law degree really, I think helped me get any job that I've had since I think some of the training has been useful. But is that training worth, you know, what I said? Traditionally three years. And you know, back then it was a lot cheaper. I think I borrowed maybe 80 grand or something, but like now it's a couple of hundred thousand dollars and I didn't pay it off, by the way, till my mid to late 30s. And my answer is, usually it's not. I don't think the value prop is there if you're not going to practice law. And then what I started to evolve a little bit around was like, well, maybe if you're going to develop all these critical thinking skills and law school is very good about that because by definition, if the assignment is read this 20 page single spaced decision and, and then find the holding of the case, which is like the two sentences that actually matter. Like that's very useful, right? Because like I remember when I was deputy governor, one day it hit me like, oh, you know, so my job really all day is literally all day long. Someone comes to me with a problem and they have vastly more to tell me about it than I have time to know, right? And what I have to do is sort of ask the right, listen to as little as I can while still getting the gist of it, ask questions, make a decision and move on to the next.
- [20:57]
Hugo Lindgren
Get them out of the office, right?
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Bradley Tusk
And get them out of the office. And it did finally hit me. I'm like, oh, I actually think kind of law school was, was maybe useful for, for this. So maybe overall there are things in the legal curriculum now. I went to University of Chicago, which was great also in the sense that it's 100% Socratic. So I thought that was also just excellent training because if, if the professor could call on you, you have no idea if they're calling you or not and do so and stay on you for an hour, you better fucking know what you're talking. I remember one time early on I had like done the reading, but not carefully enough and I got called on and I just assumed I could bullshit my way through it because not only was I generally a good kind of talker, but I had been the press secretary of the Parks Department before that. I was like, oh, I talked to reporters all day. I know how to talk and answer questions and sound smart and whatever. And I got my ass kicked, right? Cause I really was not nearly prepared enough. And that was a great. It was embarrassing in the moment, but it was a good learning experience. So perhaps, you know, even K through 12 should be really rethinking. And maybe there are things to draw from law school on and it's just all about critical thinking, but just that
- [22:05]
Hugo Lindgren
you can recall things like that and that they, they like, I feel like that's the, that's the value. Right. Like the, the. The idea of like, of getting your ass kicked in, in by a. By a professor. Like, those are, you know, you know,
- [22:19]
Bradley Tusk
if it were two years instead of three and not as expensive, I think you could make that argument.
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Hugo Lindgren
Right.
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Bradley Tusk
The third year, third year is just a two. It's. It gets back to that point of the institution existing for the good of the institution. Student.
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Hugo Lindgren
Right.
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Bradley Tusk
And, and the cost. I mean, I got lucky that when I finally focused on making money, I did pretty well pretty quickly. But like, a lot of people struggle to, you know. The reason why a lot of people have to take jobs at law firm that they don't really want to take is to pay back the loans. Right. Which is sort of like counterproductive.
- [22:50]
Hugo Lindgren
Totally. Let's get back to Lyle. I want to ask you one question I just thought of when we were talking about high school and stuff. So Lyle is pretty into golf. How do you think that has helped him?
- [23:00]
Bradley Tusk
Just as a human question, first of all, I'm not sure it has. If it hasn't, he likes it, but
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Hugo Lindgren
he's really dedicated to it.
- [23:08]
Bradley Tusk
Well, here's where it's helped. So the answer that doesn't require the thinking that you're actually asking me to do would be, um. He's made like he's friends with a bunch of seniors at school because they're on the golf team and like. But they're now his friends and he hangs out with them. So that's really nice. He's outside. Right. Like today, right now, he's playing golf with three of his friends at Split Rock in the Bronx. And, like, that's great. He's not behind a screen. So, like, I think golf is, from what I can tell, just when I go out there with him, even though I'm not playing, it's just. It's a game of mainly failure and frustration, which seems like 90% of the time. And then 10% of the time he has a good shot or a good hole or a good round, and he feels great and that. So, so there's value in and of itself in all of that. I think your question is more. Are there larger life lessons that he's learning through all of this? I mean, there's certainly. I don't. I guess there's some level of critical thinking in golf in the sense that you have to decide what club to use and what angle and all that kind of stuff. Maybe, though. And so one of the things I really do like about venture capital is we don't necessarily penalize failure, right? Someone can be at a startup or have. Or create a startup fail, and if they can show me, here's why, here's what I got wrong, especially when they take accountability. Here's what I fucked up. Here's what I got wrong. Here's why I thought this but turned to be why. Here's what I learned from it. That's often for me, a reason to invest, right? Like. Like we almost. If you failed, but you learned from it. What's really nice about my. The one industry that I happen to be in, and I'm not sure how many others are, like, I don't know of many others that do this. We don't have a problem with it, right? We're like, okay, cool. You know, and I think golf probably on some level because it just seems like you're basically failing most of the time, right? Maybe there's value in that that's similar, you know, I don't know. I'd never thought about this way. So you spent all that time writing that article for the Times Magazine on that golfer. So, like, just from your observations, would you see.
- [25:12]
Hugo Lindgren
Well, I think that's. That's it exactly is. Is learning to. I mean, I guess one easy word for it is resilience, but it's really just keeping to your own. Like, I hate the word mindset because it's just such a cliche, but it really is like a. Like a thing of, like, things happen and you have to go hit the next shot regardless of, like, maybe you just hit the last one in the water. Maybe you did get really upset because you fucked up somehow and you just have to go make the next sh. And I think that ability, I mean, they're truly best golfers have an incredible talent. It just like. Like they're just always looking at the next thing and they don't carry the baggage of what just happened with them into the. Into the future. And I think that's like a. You know, I mean, I think that is maybe one of the most important life skills that you could have because bad things do happen and failures do happen. And. And of course, in golf, there is no one to blame, right? Like, you hit the shot. Like, you can't be like, oh, dad, you, like, stood in my.
- [26:10]
Bradley Tusk
Like, I'm sure there are people who play golf that find ways to blame other people for it, but Lyle, to his credit, does not.
- [26:17]
Hugo Lindgren
Anyway, so I was just curious because I think the idea of a kid in New York City getting into golf, it's not the thing that everyone else is doing. It's pretty.
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Bradley Tusk
No.
- [26:27]
Hugo Lindgren
Even with your ability to pay for things, it's difficult to get to things. You have to really decide, I want to do this. And I find with kids, it's not
- [26:36]
Bradley Tusk
like we go to something like the Hamptons or something every weekend. Yeah, he just checks out to the courts, right?
- [26:43]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah, no, he's up in the Bronx this morning on a Saturday morning up in Split Rock. So I think when you're, especially when you're younger, the idea of just doing anything that you is your thing and that you get passionate about is, you know.
- [26:56]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah.
- [26:57]
Hugo Lindgren
I mean, if he was doing drugs and was really into that, I think maybe it wouldn't be so great. No.
- [27:00]
Bradley Tusk
In fact, tie back to these colleges. It's to Wake Forest apparently has like this incredible golf facility that I guess is for the team, but that anyone can, any student can use. And when. Louder. After doing the other night, I said, like, okay, what are the, you know, for the schools? And then he's also, after he and I do those five schools, he's, he's flown back to New York and I go to LA with Harper to see USC and the Pomona schools. And I said, like, which of the, of the, say, I don't know, eight schools I'm going to look at. What are you most excited about? And Wick was one of the ones at the top. And I said, why? They had a few reasons, but I think the golf thing is, like, interesting to him. Right.
- [27:32]
Hugo Lindgren
All right.
- [27:32]
Bradley Tusk
Should we switch topics?
- [27:34]
Hugo Lindgren
Should we do a hard pivot?
- [27:34]
Bradley Tusk
Pivot.
- [27:35]
Hugo Lindgren
So you wrote a piece this week about Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism center, former director who stepped down and blamed the war or Trump's decision to go to war on the powerful Israel.
- [27:49]
Bradley Tusk
War. Yeah. I mean, the reason I wrote this was it felt like it was anti Semitism disguised as political analysis. Right. And therefore I wanted to and look for people who do happen to read my substack or who are listening to this podcast and like this podcast, it's because I think we're able to take things in politics and tech and the world and sort of explain what they really mean, how they really work, everything else. If that's our, if we have a skill set here, that that's probably what it is. Right. And so I, I, I just want to do that when it comes here. So, like, what Ken said was the war was started due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby and that Iran was not a threat. To Israel, I mean, to the United States, certainly. Threat to Israel. He might be right. Like, I'm not in the sense that, like, I'm not sure that Iran was posing an imminent security threat to the US Either. Right. And did Netanyahu want this war? And is it, is it good for him at least, if not for Israel, Yes. And did he probably lobby Trump? Very hard to do it, yes. But I just want to explain when you say, like the Israel lobby or the oil lobby or the pharma lobby or the, you know, farm workers lobby, whatever it is, whatever, whether you like the cause or dislike the cause or the industry or anything else, let's just explain what it is. So a lobby is a group with a very specific public policy interest. And it could be a company or a group of companies, specific economic interests. It could be a group of ideological interests. It could be on behalf of a foreign country who's got a lot of descendants who live in the US and want to protect that country in some way. So it, but it's ultimately some entity of people trying to advance a specific agenda. Right. And, and they're only effective if the politician that they're pressuring believes that not doing what the lobby wants could cost in their next election, or that if you work with them, it'll help you win your next election. That's it. That's the only thing that moves. Politicians and politicians are a lot of things, but when it comes to their next election, they're not stupid. Right. They know who's going to vote and they know what those voters care about. Which is why, by the way, catering to Israel right now is not something you're seeing in the vast majority of primaries on both sides. Because when primary turnout is 10% and it's typically the far left and the far right, where anti Semitism is often the strongest. You know, being pro Israel is certainly not so. And also given money is a factor, obviously in campaigns, but everyone thinks, like, it's all about money, like, they don't really understand how this stuff works. And like, evidence buys ORAN Mandami spending 17 million to Donald Trump to Andrew Cuomo 70, or Donald Trump spending less than Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton. Right. I don't think it's just about. Because when you say money, what does that mean in an expensive campaign? Money typically means television ads, broadcast television ads, and that is the greatest driver of cost in a campaign. And they're re in a big campaign. And the reason why is NBC or whoever it is has a literally specific defined amount of spectrum, and they can only sell so many ads and they're able to reach. Their markets are very big, right? So, like, the New York City media market is about 20 million people, stretches from about mid Central Jersey to Southern Connecticut. And so you're paying to reach those 20 million people. So the prices are incredibly high. But when you're living in a world where primaries dictate everything and primary turnout's really low, you're trying to reach 1% of that audience, a tenth of a percent of that audience. So it's wildly inefficient. And so overall, as we've discussed before, I think the role of money in politics is going to decline simply because the efficacy of broadcast TV in a world now where people don't really watch regular TV anymore is much lower anyway. And the other thing that tends to cost a lot of money is direct mail, which in my view is just a way for political consultants to make a bunch of money because they charge incredibly high margins on them. And I think people see them and they just go right in the trash. And it annoys them as much as it even gets their attention. But here's what we know. The Iran war has led to higher gas prices, right? We know that for sure. It has led to a weaker stock market, has led to a weaker economy. JD Vance said out loud not just the notion of American ground troops, but even a draft, which is fucking crazy. He must have walked that back politically, probably.
- [32:19]
Hugo Lindgren
Brian, you want to mention it again?
- [32:20]
Bradley Tusk
And so for the Israel lobby to get elected officials or Donald Trump to do something for them, the elected officials or Donald Trump has to believe that it advances their political agenda. Being pro Israel right now for the vast, vast majority elections does not advance your political agenda. Higher gas prices does not advance anyone's political agenda. A weaker economy does not advance anyone's political agenda. A draft certainly would not advance anyone's political agenda. And so, like, I don't know if Joe Kent's a fucking idiot or not, given that he works for. To work for Tulsa Gabbard by Trump, he probably is, honestly. But either way, like, this notion that some shadowy person just appears out of nowhere and they whisper a few key words and they get what they want. Like, that's as realistic as if you apply it to Joe Kent's world that, like, Jack Ryan or Jason Bourne are real. And the way that they do things is that's exactly how it actually works, right? And like, just like James Bond is not reflective of actual intelligence work. Like, the notion that a powerful lobby that whose interests in this case are wildly politically unpopular is able to drive a nation into war is about as realistic as house of Cards, right? And so I have no fucking idea why Trump did this. If you told me he did it cuz there was some sort of personal enrichment component, I wouldn't be surprised if you did it because he wanted to distract from something else. I wouldn't be surprised if you did it because Netanyahu flattered and manipulated him effectively. I wouldn't be surprised. So, like, there are a lot of reasons why this might have happened, but like, just if you're going to blame some ethnic group or business group or ideological group for doing something, at least have it make sense. At least be able to show that what they're advocating for is in the political interest of the people they're advocating to. But when it is in the direct opposite interest, then you can't blame him.
- [34:23]
Hugo Lindgren
So you would have given Joe Kent credit if he just said, hey, you know what? We said we were gonna do no foreign wars, and now he's doing foreign wars and I'm out.
- [34:33]
Bradley Tusk
I wouldn't have noticed it and gotten upset and written a substack about it. Why?
- [34:37]
Hugo Lindgren
Everybody said right as the war was starting that this was going to fracture the MAGA base, and then everybody realized that it wasn't fracturing the MAGA base and that Trump and MAGA are basically the same thing.
- [34:49]
Bradley Tusk
It's a cult of personality.
- [34:50]
Hugo Lindgren
Right?
- [34:52]
Bradley Tusk
Is that, by the way, that's just for Trump though. So, like, it will undoubtedly, in my view, fracture. Let's assume that he does leave in 2028 and you know, he'll still try to get attention, whatever it is, but he's pretty old. So like whenever he is not around, I think that base fractures wildly because anything built around a cult of personality. Talk about House of Cards. When the cult of personality, when the, when the, when the person who is the leader of the cult goes away, it all collapses, right? And they will then all just have Internet and warfare and try to kill each other. Like last night I had dinner with a candidate for Congress in a Democratic primary. We were talking about the race and she's a little more centrist. And in some ways the best thing she had going for her was she has two opponents who are both see themselves as pretty far left. And then the far left is fighting over which of those two is pure enough and real enough and which one's the imposter. And it's like that's the nature of ideologues on either Side, which is it's all about a war of exclusion. And so they end up cannibalizing themselves every single time. Right. So that's what will, once Trump goes away, I think that's what happens to maga.
- [36:02]
Hugo Lindgren
So when you see people like Tucker Carlson or Megan Kelly really leaning into this kind of evil Israel lobby Trump into war, they're just. And does it trouble you that they're getting such a like, well, here's what
- [36:15]
Bradley Tusk
troubles me in that, like, so on one hand, Jews have been around for 5,700 years, and Jews have been persecuted for 5,700 years. And I think in some ways, while obviously you don't want the persecution and things like the Holocaust, but the two are interconnected in the sense that other than some Amazonian tribes, we are the longest surviving group. Right. And I think there is something about our identity that both causes all of this discrimination and persecution, but also this perseverance and resilience and survival. And I think some of the.
- [36:52]
Hugo Lindgren
There are always going to be Tucker Carlson's.
- [36:54]
Bradley Tusk
There always have been, there always will be. And as we're seeing now, like, it takes very little for the anti Semitism to come back out. Somebody the other night was at a different dinner and someone made a great point that there was a period of time where being anti Semitic openly was unfashionable because of the Holocaust. Right? And now that all the Holocaust survivors are dead and basically everybody who kind of lived through World War II is not as a child are dead and even people who were child are sort of now pretty old, that sentiment is gone and it's now become okay again as we see the far left going out of their way to do so at every turn to be openly anti Semitic. But what I worry about with say, Megyn Kelly or Joe Kent or Tucker Carlson or whoever it is, I mean, they're fucking idiots. So I don't really care what they say or think per se, but I
- [37:46]
Hugo Lindgren
think they're not fucking idiots. Right? I mean, Tucker, I mean, that's the scary thing.
- [37:49]
Bradley Tusk
I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't care to hear what they think about anything. Yeah.
- [37:53]
Hugo Lindgren
Okay.
- [37:53]
Bradley Tusk
Let alone it's Right. It's not like I agree with them and everything, but Israel, I don't listen to them at all because I want to get to this topic. I don't want to pollute my brain with their nonsense. Right? But I don't know that the US Is able. I'm sorry, I don't know that Israel can survive Long term without strong support from the United States. And if that goes away. So Israel is only ever so. Israel existed in 1948, was created, the US was the first country to recognize its legitimacy. And the US has obviously been a very, very, very major reason why Israel has managed to survive since then. But still, 1948 was right after the Holocaust. And we have lived in this world where people still, up until now remember the Holocaust, right? If the US Starts to just see Israel, the mainstream American, as just another country, let alone something they don't like, and the support is not there. And also, by the way, if we are really normalizing relationships with Saudi and, you know, the UAE and a bunch of other countries, and Israel is not as much of a strategic imperative for the US from a military and geopolitical standpoint, then perhaps, you know, we don't really support Israel nearly as much anymore. And if we don't do that, I think Israel's ability to survive gets harder. I don't think it goes away completely because for as long as Kim Jong Un is showing, for as long as you have nuclear weapons, you kind of always have some ability to survive because nobody really wants to if they think you'll really use them. There's always at least some reticence, right? Just like where everyone, whether it's China or the US are reticent around North Korea, right? Because they're like, yeah, you know, who knows, right? So I don't know if North Korea has missiles that can reach the U.S. but if North Korea took out Seoul and Tokyo, that's a pretty big fucking problem, right?
- [39:48]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah.
- [39:48]
Bradley Tusk
If they took out Taiwan, we have no microchips, which might happen anyway if China does that. So that's where it worries me.
- [39:57]
Hugo Lindgren
Okay, you referred to this, but kind of leads naturally into this morning. Well, it's like, so how much is any of this? I mean, so you can drown out obviously the Megyn Kelly's and the Tucker Carlson's and the, you know, like. But what is in an environment like this, what is worth.
- [40:17]
Bradley Tusk
It's a great paying attention. I think about this all the time, right? So number one is I don't get news or opinions online, meaning on YouTube or on TikTok or Instagram or anything like that. I don't use social media, right? We have a few accounts, they're maintained by people at Touch Holdings. I don't even know passwords, right? But I read newspapers every day and oftentimes I open up the New York Times and my first reaction is like, yeah, because it's like just screaming and screeching about how terrible the world is. And it's not that they're necessarily. I don't agree with them on everything, but they're not necessarily wrong. I'm talking about the news, right? Like, I don't read the Times editorial page and I don't read a lot of the opinion writers either, but just the flat reporters who, by and large, I mean, I know a lot of times reporters. You know, there are some I don't like, and there are some that are hyper progressive and use their job to. To prove their virtue and their identity. But I don't think that's true of most of them. I think most of them are trying to get the facts right and whatever else, but, you know, their job is to one, report what's happening and two, to get you to want to read it so that they have. They have a job. Right? So. So I look at it and I think, I'm guessing you have the same thing, which is like, okay, how much here really matters? How much of this do I need to know? As opposed to how much of this is just noise that it comes and goes and it doesn't really matter or it's gonna. I even. One of the reasons I actually listen to very little political commentary, like I don't ever watch MSNBC or Fox or CNN or that shit is like, I don't find the people who are on there usually to be all that insightful, and as a result, it just pollutes my thinking. Right, Right. And like podcasts, for example, I do listen to people who do that, but I try to find the people who I really think are smart and try to be as objective as they can. So I am of the view that. Eric, I guess I don't have a view, but I'm always sort of trying to balance. I want to know what's going on. I want to be informed. It matters for me as a human being. It matters to be able to do this podcast. It matters for my work. It matters for a lot of things. Right. But I also a. I don't need to know every fact about every little intricacy of everything because most of it doesn't ultimately matter at all. And I also don't need to sort of emerge from every morning after reading the papers thoroughly depressed and upset, because that doesn't help me either. And so I feel like I'm in this constant filtering process that's based part on trying to know what I need to know, part on trying to protect my own mental Health part on trying to filter out things that aren't actually important. And it's just a hit or miss guessing game for me.
- [43:10]
Hugo Lindgren
Well, let me ask you. So there's two kinds of bad news stories. I mean, there's many kinds of bad news stories, but. So on the one hand, there's the war, like, oh, they're bombing the oil fields or the natural gas fields, or they're doing this or that. And trying to keep up with that, at least know a little bit about what's actually happening, feels like kind of important. On the other hand, there's like, like the front page story in the New York Times this week was the sexual assault charges brought up against Cesar Chavez.
- [43:37]
Bradley Tusk
Right, right.
- [43:38]
Hugo Lindgren
This whole legacy of that. So I read the first 200 words, 300 words of that story and I'm like. And then I looked at what the, you know, the jump page, and it was like this massive takeout that someone had obviously spent months and months on.
- [43:49]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah.
- [43:49]
Hugo Lindgren
And a super important thing.
- [43:50]
Bradley Tusk
It was good journalism.
- [43:52]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah. And obviously whatever.
- [43:53]
Bradley Tusk
I read, like, I read more than two or 300 words, but not 2,000.
- [43:57]
Hugo Lindgren
And it was, it was just an interesting case of like, okay, in this world and people attached him or who work in his legacy or anything. Obviously this is massive. But what's the much you let that into your own?
- [44:12]
Bradley Tusk
Well, I mean, it's interesting with that one. Right. Because I read enough of it and, you know, talked to a few people about it. That at least to me on that one specifically, there are a few conclusions. Right. That are worth. One is, I do think it's an important story because I think that there is a real. I think the notion of absolute power corrupts absolutely is true. It's always been true. And you know, yes, it's Jeffrey Epstein and all the people who are involved with him or Harvey Weinstein or whoever, but Cesar Chavez is literally considered a saint and a hero and everything else. And yet because of the power he had, he clearly felt, obviously never met him. But like, clearly it seems like he felt like he could just do whatever he wanted and get away with it. And felt like, I imagine that the work he was doing was so important that anything else he wanted to do was justified because he's like, oh, I'm really stressed and I need this sort of relief, physical relief, and that will help me lead the farm workers and the movement. So therefore any behavior I do is justified as part of the greater whole. So I think shining a light on that is important because hopefully that will deter, you know, People from behaving that way in the future. I mean, I've said this before on this podcast, which is, you know, Lyle and I read the post together every day from when he was about 7 to about 13, 14. And I wasn't what I meant for. But in a weird way, because there's stories every day, especially in tabloids, about powerful people behaving inappropriately that I think it actually was really useful as a parenting tool because he just saw this and was like, oh, here's how you don't behave, right? This is not what a good parent, human being, a good man does, right? And that actually proved to be quite useful. So I think, one, that's important to know. Two, why I do think that the more inequality we have from a wealth perspective, it probably drives even more Epstein like behavior. I don't know that it's a new thing. I think people have behaved in certain ways abominably throughout history. And three, people are complicated, right? There's this huge tendency today online especially, you know, I don't see it, but I read about it here about it, which is, you know, you just declare everything good or bad, right? Donald Trump, by maga, is a saint, and by the dsa, he's a villain. And I. I tend to side more on the villain side. But, like, Pete, there's some things that I agree with, right? And like, people are very complicated, and that's not to excuse when they behave in ways that hurt other people. But, you know, no one is all good, no one is all bad. Everybody is complicated. Everybody has a competing set of priorities and urges and needs and goals and ambitions and fears and anxieties. And the idea that anyone is not subject to all of that and is either only driven by all. Only bad emotions or only driven by good emotions, just. It isn't real. I mean, there are things in my life that I like weed, right? I struggle with weed. I always have. And I have lots of ways to justify using it. And then eventually I realize that it's doing more harm than good. And then I stop for a while and hope that it'll be permanent, but it never is. And I go back and forth and, you know, this is part of my life, right? And, like, everybody struggles with stuff, right? And it doesn't matter how rich you are or how famous you are or how revered you are or anything else, like. And everybody is just mixed. And I'm in no way trying to condone or excuse Cesar Chavez's behavior in any way, shape or form, but I just think that like, just like the, you know, there was a bust of him in the Oval Office and streets named after him and everything else. Like, and he did do incredible things for the world and he did terrible things.
- [48:01]
Hugo Lindgren
Let's, let's just do a quick thing on Mamdani and then. Yeah, and then you get.
- [48:04]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah, I don't have any recommendations, so.
- [48:06]
Hugo Lindgren
Well, I have a recommendation question. So let. Do talk about the Mandani e bike thing that you wanted to do a little.
- [48:14]
Bradley Tusk
Well, just, you know, it's more the point that I have been trying to get across both publicly and you know, to Mondani himself, is that in my view, and this was a view shaped by Mike Bloomberg, city government, but especially New York City, which I think is just unique in its place in the world in this way, is it's a template. And your job, if you are the city, is to make that template as appealing as possible to look, to create a value proposition that makes it desirable to be here if it feels clean and safe and well run. That's all you really have to do in a lot of cases because at least a place like New York, if you can do that, incredible people from all over the world want to be here desperately and are even more likely to come here and stay here and create amazing things. Businesses that employ lots of people, organizations that help lots of people, cultural things, whatever it might be. And so that's in my mind, like Byron Bill de Blaj the job of city government is to erase income inequality. No, it's not like city government doesn't really deal with the economy. Right. And to the extent that New York,
- [49:30]
Hugo Lindgren
they don't have the levers.
- [49:31]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah, no, the extent that New York City government affects the economy, it's mainly what I just said, which because if the city is relatively clean and safe and well run businesses will come here and be here and stay here and open here. And if it's less, then you'll have less of that. Right. I mean, I don't think there's that much else. There's some job training and whatever. And obviously what we talked about earlier, New York City schools, which I think are generally abysmal, the way that they educate or fail to educate kids affects the economy in a long term way for sure. But I always, I felt like Zoran sort of understood that. Right. And my view was always, you know, I'm not that worried what he's saying about Israel or socialism or whatever else. If he gets that in terms of his job as mayor, it'll probably be okay. And I think a lot of his appointments around operations were pretty decent. I think keeping Jesse Tish was obviously critical, but I'm starting to see some backsliding. And I, you know, I see how it happens because these things aren't presented as a whole of quality of life. And then it's like each component, they're presented in their own individual context, which has a lot of variables that you're dealing with. So there are two that I think to me are concerning that have happened recently. The first is they announced that they're not going to crack down on E bike violations because a lot of E bike riders are delivery workers. Delivery workers are immigrants and people of color. And therefore, in the view of the far left, they shouldn't be subject to laws and rules because they are historical victims of discrimination. And therefore there's nothing they could do that would be problematic. Here's the problem. People fucking hate the E bikes. It is the number two cause of admissions to emergency rooms in New York City. I've polled this. You know, the vast, vast majority of people see it as a menace. You know, my kids now are adults. In fact, I worry about my kid being a problem on an E bike. But, you know, when they were little, and you're trying to get little kids down the street, like you're worried about everything, right? And like, that's fucking. Now you have people running E bikes on sidewalks, you know, down the street the wrong way. That's terrifying. It is a real tangible, visible, quality of life thing. And I understand that the bike lanes
- [51:49]
Hugo Lindgren
don't work with the. The way they're sheltered from the. From the street now with the. Like, with a. With an E bike going that fast on the bike lane because you can't see them, like, to get across that.
- [51:59]
Bradley Tusk
Well, is that happening to you?
- [52:01]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah, all the time. I mean, it's. It's. I mean, you have to change the way you are as a pedestrian. But I agree, so.
- [52:06]
Bradley Tusk
So I just think it's one of those things where, like, I get it, he's got his base and he has to appease them. And by the way, he is of them. Right. He believes all of the things that the ultra left believes. But, you know, you have your individual ideological position here. But if it was, it's sort of like, I've said this before. I believe that Eric Adams lost reelection the first day that they realized there was an illegal weed chop in operation, and they didn't do anything about it. Right. Because that ultimately sent an at least subconscious signal to everyone. Here, like no one's in charge. Right. And I think the ebike thing has the risk of doing a version of that. And the other one is they slowed the speed limit for cars, or at least they're in the process of doing so. Why? Because they want to give out more speeding tickets to generate more revenue. You. Because he wants to spend more money and he doesn't want to. I think he believes that all forms of government spending or redistribution of wealth. So even if it's again solely for the sake of the institution itself, not for the taxpayers, the residents or anything else, he still believes that. So more revenue, that means more spending is a good thing in his mind. But if getting across town, and this is why congestion pricing has been successful, but you're going to eliminate the advances if you make it just basically impossible to get from point A to point B because you're going so much slower, that also then you know, really deteriorates quality of life. Because we're all, you know, even though I don't, I. I have a car that I haven't used in six months. I'm in vehicles, I am in Ubers, you know, like it matters. It affects me. So. And that's true for everybody, one way or another. I don't, I don't know that many people that are never in a vehicle of some kind or even a bus. Right. So I just think that he is making these individual choices. And I can totally imagine the meetings where it happens and why they rationalize it is okay. And maybe in an individual context you can make the case that this one thing is okay, but when you start to do it a lot and it adds up, then all of a sudden you have a very different situation. And I'm not just talking about his reelection. Like I don't particularly care if he gets reelected or not. I'm just talking about living here as a resident or as someone who comes in for work, or as someone who's a tourist or whatever else. You're making it worse.
- [54:22]
Hugo Lindgren
On the subject of Mamdani, this week I got a call from a friend who works in real estate. He was freaking out about something he read on the hiking of the inheritance tax. Is that something that you think is a big deal?
- [54:33]
Bradley Tusk
I don't know about that one. But yesterday and this one wasn't Mondami, at least directly, but. But it came out that New Yorkers thinking about decoupling from qsbs tax treatment. Do you know what that is?
- [54:43]
Hugo Lindgren
No.
- [54:43]
Bradley Tusk
Qsbs. I don't. Qualified Business Savings Whatever. It says that it's a federal tax provision that says that if you invest in a company and it doesn't be a tech startup, it could be a bookstore that has evaluation. It was originally 10 million, now it's 15 million of under that amount. And you hold it for a specific amount of time, the gain on your investment when it was at that, that particular amount, that linear gain is not taxable. Right. Because it's meant to encourage investment in small business.
- [55:12]
Hugo Lindgren
Right.
- [55:13]
Bradley Tusk
And there's a policy that the IRS has it then the states abide by two. New York is now looking at decoupling from that, which means they just are saying, hey, we don't want, we want every bit of revenue we can grab, so let's do that. And I have spent a lot of time yesterday and this morning talking to lots of venture capitalists in New York because the question is, obviously everybody wants to pay less taxes and a better tax treatment, but it's really. If New York becomes a really unfavorable place to have early stage startups and tech, it doesn't have to be less of a thing. Yeah. And maybe you do generate $100 million a year in your tax revenue, of which the vast majority will be spent inefficiently anyway. But you're going to lose a lot more than that because ultimately all of these companies that, that get built in New York and people who work for them pay taxes, if they're not here anymore, you're going to lose a lot more than you gain. And so is this just him putting
- [56:11]
Hugo Lindgren
pressure on Hochul to get these.
- [56:13]
Bradley Tusk
No, I don't think Mondami's. This came from what I heard Senator Garnard is. Which is surprising because he's usually someone who kind of is.
- [56:20]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah.
- [56:20]
Bradley Tusk
Gets attacked. But so, but, you know, maybe he's worried about his own primary from the left or whatever it is. So. No, but so, you know, there are things. And this is where New York is at a real disadvantage, which is when you have this massive civil service system that in order to feed the beast, you have to just keep generating more and more revenue, which just comes from taxes. At the end of the day, you. It's like the higher ed thing that we started this podcast with, which is when the point is the good of the institution as opposed to the people the institution is supposed to serve, the whole thing collapses. And you know, it's one thing if the federal government does something from a tax standpoint, I don't really know virtually anybody. It's like I'M going to renounce my American citizenship or green card or whatever it is, because I don't want to pay those taxes. So I'll move to another country. Right. That doesn't really happen, but moving cities or states is very. A lot of people do.
- [57:15]
Hugo Lindgren
That happens all the time.
- [57:16]
Bradley Tusk
Right. And so, you know, I don't know the inheritance tax thing, and I don't know how I'd feel about it one way or the other. But I think generally speaking, you know, New York is in a situation, California too, where it's always clawing for more and more revenue and, you know, it might solve a short term need of like, oh, we can now pay this, you know, cost of living increase for this union or whatever it is. And then, well, that union won't oppose us in our next primary. But ultimately, you're killing the golden goose.
- [57:48]
Hugo Lindgren
All right, I'm going to ask you a recommendation style question. Are you watching the JFK junior Show, Love Story?
- [57:53]
Bradley Tusk
You know, Yeah, I have watched some of it. I wasn't going to, and then someone had told me that it was really great and it's pretty good, so. But what's interesting, I was talking to Gary about it the other night. Gary Ginsburg, does he like it? He only watched. So Gary Ginsburg's a, you know, friend of ours who. He's on our Knicks text chain.
- [58:11]
Hugo Lindgren
Right.
- [58:12]
Bradley Tusk
He was best friends with jfk. They went to college together.
- [58:15]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah.
- [58:16]
Bradley Tusk
And then Gary was the first employee, I think, at George magazine and very. And, you know, obviously was, you know, very much part of his life. As to Gary, are you watching it? Like, is it accurate? And he said he can't really. He said he watched the last one just to sort of. But overall he said he can't really bring himself to. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure to watch it, but yeah, it's not bad. Are you watching it?
- [58:39]
Hugo Lindgren
No. I mean, I work there too, so. And no, say, I mean, I don't have the close relationship that Gary had or anything close to it, but. But I didn't. I didn't really want to relive someone else's version of it.
- [58:51]
Bradley Tusk
Did you? He said that George is still like the best. Gary said a lot of successful jobs in his career. His best job he ever had. The most fun he's ever had.
- [58:58]
Hugo Lindgren
Oh, really? Yeah.
- [58:59]
Bradley Tusk
You agree with that?
- [59:00]
Hugo Lindgren
It was the most fun I ever had at work, but I did like it.
- [59:02]
Bradley Tusk
You liked it?
- [59:03]
Hugo Lindgren
Yeah. Me working in New York magazine was the best.
- [59:05]
Bradley Tusk
Right, right.
- [59:06]
Hugo Lindgren
But George was good, too, and also depends on.
- [59:09]
Bradley Tusk
I Think when you answer that question, it's not. It's also like, where were you in your life at that? Totally. Right.
- [59:14]
Hugo Lindgren
Well, that's the other question I wanted to get to. That's exactly right. But so this is like, for younger people, this show has been like a touchstone about, like, wow. New York in the 90s was really like this golden age. And I was like, you know, I both loved living in New York in the 90s, and I had the most fun in terms of like the work I was doing and the friends and the relationships and all that stuff. But I don't think that, like, New York, like, if that was a golden age, like then the whole golden age.
- [59:42]
Bradley Tusk
I mean, I loved New York in the 90s. Cause I was in my 20s. I was having a great fucking time, you know. So from that standpoint. Yes. And. Well, here's the thing. So if you, if you're looking at it from a pure New York City standpoint, in the mid, Rudy won in 93, took office in 94. And as much as you might not like him now, and I certainly don't like the way he is now, he did an absolutely incredible job in turning the city around in his first term. Right. And the city went from feeling really out of control to becoming very safe. And so it did get a lot better in terms, it did become, as we talked before, safer and cleaner and better, full stop. No question that the management of the city, the safety of city, the quality of life of the city improved exponentially. But what's funny is back then, you know, we talked before the movie Reality Bites, which I think came out in 94. The whole point was how terrible it was to be a member of Gen X, right? And how sad and depressing and how few opportunities you had. And like, this was a generation and the baby, their parents, the baby boomers, basically took everything for themselves. And so, you know, you're right, it is funny. But I will say so. I've been wondering, this came up in a Matabal or text thread the other day whether we won't look back at the 1990s as the peak of the US because in the 1990s, it was this one brief period that was the world. It's not just the world was aligned, right, in the sense that Gorbachev kind of in the Soviet Union collapses, Gorbachev happens, Berlin Wall falls, Soviet Union collapses. It's at that moment trying to become sort of a Western economy, even though it sort of just became a different type of kleptocracy. You know, Soviet bloc countries are becoming democracies, nafta, free trade globally. China is modernizing, but not yet a antagonistic superpower. And there was sort of a feeling of global unity and hope. I mean, he had protests and whatever else, but overall relatively peaceful. And it felt like the world was on the same page in some ways. Best personified by, if you remember the 2000 election between Bush and Gore, what everyone remembers is, you know, hanging chats and all of that. But during that campaign, I remember thinking, like, they just keep talking about prescription drug costs, and if, like, that's our biggest problem, we're doing pretty fucking well, right? Not that it's not a problem, but like, you know, all things considered, and the world feels like vastly worse than that now. And obviously the social media was the thing that, you know, Internet and social media, things that were created that changed a lot of it for the worse. And then Trump, of course, 9 11. 911 Trump, all that. But. But I'm not sure that we're not going to look back on the 90s as the peak of US power and maybe even the last time, maybe for a long time, that the world felt so much more.
- [62:45]
Hugo Lindgren
So it's a version of the 1950s was like when we were growing up, people talking about it in that way.
- [62:50]
Bradley Tusk
Yeah, I think that that's right. But I would say the 1990s, if you just look at the US at least in the 1950s, it does sound like this sort of golden era. But a lot of people didn't have rights that they have today. You know, gays couldn't get married, people with disabilities didn't really have protections. Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights Act. There were so many things that. So, like, it was great if you were a white guy. Right. But like, the people living below the poverty level. 1950s was about 33%. Today it's about 11%. Right. So, like, I don't know that the 1950s really were a golden era, but it's certainly perceived to be. Yeah.
- [63:30]
Hugo Lindgren
All right, Bradley.
- [63:31]
Bradley Tusk
All right, thanks. Firewall is recorded at my bookstore, PNT netware, located at 180 Orchard street on the lower east side of Manhattan. We'd love to hear from you with questions, feedbacks, or idea for a guest. Just email me at Bradley Firewall Media or find me on LinkedIn. And to keep up with what's on my mind mind in my latest writing, please follow my new substack@bradleytus.substack.com thanks again for listening.