Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
stephen schwartzman
ceo and co-founder of blackstone one of
the world's leading
investment firms with over 530 billion
dollars of assets under management
he's one of the most successful business
leaders
in history i recommend his recent book
called what it takes that tells stories
and lessons from his personal journey
stephen is a philanthropist and one of
the wealthiest people in the world
recently signing the giving pledge
thereby committing to give
the majority of his wealth to
philanthropic causes
as an example in 2018 he donated 350
million dollars to mit
to help establish its new college of
computing
the mission of which promotes
interdisciplinary big
bold research in artificial intelligence
for those of you who know me know that
mit is near and dear to my heart
and always will be it was and is a place
where i believe
big bold revolutionary ideas have a home
and that is what is needed in artificial
intelligence research in the coming
decades
yes there's institutional challenges but
also
there's power in the passion of
individual researchers
from undergrad to phd from young
scientists to senior faculty
i believe the dream to build
intelligence systems
burns brighter than ever in the halls of
mit
this conversation was recorded recently
but before the outbreak of the pandemic
for everyone feeling the burden of this
crisis i'm sending love your way
stay strong we're in this together
this is the artificial intelligence
podcast if you enjoy it
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with me on twitter
at lex friedman spelled f-r-i-d-m-a-n
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and now here's my conversation with
stephen schwartzman
let's start with the tough question what
idea do you believe
whether grounded in data or an intuition
that many people you respect disagree
with you on well there isn't
all that much uh anymore since the
world's so transparent
uh but uh one of the things i i believe
in
and put it in the the book what it takes
is
is if you're going to do something do do
something very consequential
do something that's quite large uh if
you can
that's unique uh because if you operate
in that kind of space
when you're successful it's it's a huge
impact
uh the prospect of success enables you
uh to recruit people uh who want to be
part of that
and those type of large opportunities
are pretty easily described
and and so not everybody likes to
operate
uh at scale some people like to do small
things
because it uh is is meaningful for them
emotionally
uh and and so occasionally you get a
disagreement
uh on that but those are life choices uh
rather than commercial choices that's
interesting
what good and bad comes with going big
see we often in america think
big is good
what's the benefit what's the cost in
terms of just bigger than business but
life happiness the pursuit of happiness
well
you do things that make you happy it's
not mandated
and everybody's different uh and um
some people um you know if they have
talent like
playing pro football uh you know other
people
just like throwing the ball around uh
you know not even being on a team
what what's better depends what your
objectives are depends what your talent
is
uh you know it depends um you know
what what gives you joy so in terms of
going big
is it both for impact on the world and
because you personally gives you joy
well
it makes it easier to succeed actually
because if you catch something for
example that's cyclical
that's it's a huge uh opportunity
then then you usually can find some
place within that huge opportunity where
you can
make it work uh if if if you're
prosecuting a
a really small thing and and you're
wrong
you don't have many places to go so
you know i've always found that the easy
place to be
uh and you know the ability where you
can concentrate
uh human resources get people excited
about doing
like really impactful big things
and you can afford to pay them actually
because the bigger thing can generate
much more in the way of uh of
financial resources so so that brings
people out of talent
to help you uh and and so all together
it's a virtuous circle
uh i think how do you know an
opportunity
when you see one in terms of the one you
want to go big on
is it intuition is it facts
is it uh back and forth deliberation
with people you trust what's the process
is it art is it science well it's
pattern recognition
and how do you get to pattern
recognition first you need to understand
the patterns
and and the changes that are happening
and and that's
uh that's either uh it's observational
on some level you can call it data
uh or you can just call it listening to
uh unusual things that people are saying
that they haven't said before
and you know i've always
tried to describe this it's like seeing
a
piece of white lint on a on a black
dress
but most people disregard that piece of
lint
they just see the dress i always see the
lint
uh and and i'm i'm fascinated by
how did something get someplace it's not
supposed to be
so it doesn't even need to be a big
discrepancy
but if something shouldn't be someplace
in in a
constellation of facts that that
you know sort of made sense in a
traditional way
i i've learned that if you focus
on why some one discordant note
is there that's usually a key to
something important and if you can find
two of those discordant notes
that's usually a straight line to some
place
and that some place is not where you've
been and
uh usually when you figure out that
things are changing or have changed
and you describe them which you have to
be able to do because it's not
uh some odd intuition it's just focusing
on facts it's almost like a scientific
discovery if you will
when you describe it to other people in
the real world
they tend to do absolutely nothing
about it and that's because
humans are comfortable in their own
reality
and if there's no particular reason at
that moment
to shake them out of their reality
they'll stay in it
even if they're ultimately completely
wrong
and i've always been stunned that when i
explain
where we're going what we're doing and
why
almost everyone just says that's
interesting and they continue doing what
they're doing
and and so um you know i think it's
pretty easy to do that
uh you know but what you need is a huge
data set so you know before ai and
people's focus
on data you know i've sort of been doing
this mostly my whole life
i'm not a scientist i'm not a let alone
a computer scientist
and you know you can just hear what
people are saying when somebody says
something or you observe something
that simply doesn't make sense that's
when you really go to work
the rest of it's just processing you
know
on a quick tangent pattern recognition
is a term
often used throughout the history of ai
that's the goal of artificial
intelligence
is pattern recognition right but there's
i would say various flavors of that
so usually pattern recognition refers to
the process
of the the we said dress and the lint on
the dress
pattern recognition is very good at
identifying the dress
as looking at the re the pattern that's
always there that's very common and so
on
you almost refer to a pattern that's
like an what's called outlier detection
in uh computer science right the the
rare thing
the the small thing now
ai is not often good at that
do you just almost philosophically
the kind of decisions you made in your
life based
scientifically almost on data do you
think ai in the future will be able to
do
is it something that could be put down
into code or is it still deeply human
it's tough for me to say since i don't
have domain
knowledge in a.i to know everything
that could or might occur
i i know um sort of
in my own case that most people don't
see any of that
right i i just assumed it was
motivational
uh you know um but but
it's also sort of uh it's hardwiring
what what are you wired or programmed uh
to be finding
uh or looking for it's it's not
what happens every day that's not
interesting
frankly i mean that's what people mostly
do
i do a bunch of that too because you
know that's what you do
in normal life but i've always been
completely fascinated by the stuff that
doesn't fit
or the other way of thinking about it
it's
it's determining what what people want
without them saying it
uh that that's a that's a different kind
of pattern
you can see everything they're doing
there's a missing piece
they don't know what's missing you think
it's missing
given the other facts you know about
them and
you you deliver that and then that
becomes you know sort of very easy
uh to to to sell to them to linger on
this point a little bit
you've mentioned that in your family
when you were growing up nobody raised
their voice
in anger or otherwise and you said that
this allows you to learn to listen
and hear some interesting things
can you elaborate as you have been on
that idea
what do you hear about the world if you
listen
well you you have to listen really
intensely to understand
uh what people are saying as well as
what people are intending
because it's not necessarily the same
thing
and people mostly
give themselves away no matter how
clever
they think they are particularly
if you have the full array of inputs
in other words if you look at their face
you look at their eyes
which are the window on the sole it's
very difficult
to to conceal which what you're thinking
uh you look at facial expressions and
posture
you listen to their voice which changes
um you know when it's
when you're you're talking about
something you're comfortable with or not
are you speaking faster is the amplitude
of what you're saying
higher most people just give away what's
really on their mind
uh you know they're they're not that
clever they're busy spending their time
thinking about what they're
in the process of saying and and so
if you just observe that not in a
hostile way
but just in an evocative way and just
let them talk for a while
they'll more or less tell you almost
completely
what they're thinking even the stuff
they don't want you to know and and once
you know that
of course it's sort of easy to play that
kind of game
uh because they've already told you
everything you need to know and
and and so it's easy to get to uh
a conclusion if there's meant to be one
an area of common interest
since you know almost exactly what's on
their mind
and and so that's an enormous advantage
as opposed to just walking in in
some place and and somebody telling you
something and you believing what they're
saying
um there are so many different levels of
communication
so powerful approach to life you discuss
in the book
on the topic of listening and really
hearing people is
figuring out what the biggest problem
bothering a particular individual
group is and coming up with a solution
to that problem
and presenting them with the solution
right
in fact you brilliantly describe a lot
of
simple things that most people just
don't do it's kind of obvious
find the problem that's bothering
somebody deeply
and as you said i think you've implied
that they will usually tell you what the
problem is
but can you talk about this process
of seeing what the biggest problem for a
person is trying to solve it
and uh maybe a particularly memorable
example
yeah sure you know if if if you know
you're going to meet somebody
there are two two types of situations
chance meetings
and you know the second is you know
you're going to meet somebody so
let's take the easiest one which is you
know you're going to meet somebody
and you you start trying to
make pretend you're them it's really
easy
what's on their mind what are they
thinking about in their daily life what
are the
big problems they're facing so so if
they're
you know to make it a really easy uh
example
um you know make pretend you know
they're like president of the united
states
doesn't have to be this president it
could be any president so you sort of
know
what's more or less on their mind
because the press keeps reporting it
and and you see it on television you
hear it
uh people discuss it so you know if
you're going to be
running into somebody in that kind of
position
you sort of know what they look like
already uh
you know what they sound like you you
you know
uh what their voice is like and you know
what they're focused on
and and so if you're going to meet
somebody like that
what would you what you should do is
take the biggest unresolved issue
that they're facing and and come up with
uh a few interesting solutions that that
that basically haven't been out there
uh or that you you haven't heard anybody
else
i was thinking about so just to give you
an example it was
sort of in the early 1990s and i was
invited to something at the white house
which was a big deal for me because
i was like you know a person from no
place and and
you know i had met the president once
before
uh because it was president bush because
his son
was in my dormitory so i had met him at
parents day
i mean it's just like the oddity of
things so so i knew i was going to see
him
because you know that's where the
invitation came from
and um so so there was something going
on and i just
thought about you know two or three ways
to
approach that uh that issue and
you know at that point i was uh
separated and
so i had brought it it brought a date uh
to the white house and
you know you know and so i saw the
president and
we sort of went over in a corner for
about 10 minutes
and discussed whatever this issue was
and i
i i later you know went back to my data
was a little rude but it was meant to be
confidential conversation and i barely
knew her
and um you know she said what were you
talking about all that time i said well
you know
there's something going on in the world
and i've thought about
different ways of perhaps approaching
that and he was interested
and the answer is of course he was
interested why wouldn't he be interested
there didn't seem to be an easy outcome
and and so you know conversations of
that type once somebody knows you're
really thinking
about what's good for them uh and good
for the situation
uh it has nothing to do with with me
i mean it's really about being in
service
uh you know to to to this situation
that then people trust you and they'll
tell you other things
because they know your motives are are
basically very
pure you're just trying to resolve a
difficult situation or help somebody do
it
so so these types of things you know
that's a planned situation that's easy
is sometimes you just come upon somebody
and they start talking
and you know that requires you know like
different skills
you know uh you can ask them
what you've been working on lately what
are you thinking about uh
you can ask them you know has anything
been particularly difficult
any any you know you can ask most people
if
if they trust you for some reason
um they'll tell you and then you have to
instantly go to work on it
and um you know that's that's not as
good
as having some advanced planning but but
you know uh
almost everything going on is is
like out there and and people who are
involved with interesting
situations um they're playing
in in in in the same ecosystem they just
have different roles
uh in in the ecosystem uh and um
you know you you can do that with
somebody who owns a pro football team
uh that loses all the time we specialize
in those in new york and and you know
you you already have analyzed
why they're losing right inevitably
it's because they don't have a great
quarterback
they don't have a great coach and they
don't have a great general manager who
knows how to hire
the best talent those are the three
reasons
why a team fails right because they're
salary caps
so every team pays the same amount of
money for all their players
so it's got to be those three positions
so if you're talking with somebody like
that
inevitably even though it's not
structured
you you'll you'll you'll know how their
team's doing and you'll know
pretty much why and if you start asking
questions about that
they're typically very happy to talk
about it because they haven't solved
that problem
in some cases they don't even know
that's the problem it's pretty easy to
see it
so you know i do stuff like that which
i find is intuitive as a process
but you know leads to really good
results
well the funny thing is when you're
smart
for smart people it's hard to escape
their own ego
and in the space of their own problems
which is what's required
to think about other people's problems
it requires
for you to let go of the fact that your
your own problems are all important
and then to talk about your i think uh
while it seems obvious i think quite
brilliant it's a difficult leap for many
people
especially smart people to empathize
with
truly empathize with the problems of
others
well i have a competitive advantage
which is which is i don't think i'm so
smart
so good so you know it's not a problem
for me
well the truly smartest people i know
say that exact same thing yeah being
humble
is uh is really useful competitive
advantage as you said
uh how do you stay humble well i
i haven't changed much um since since
since i was um in my mid-teens you know
i was raised
partly in the city and partly in the
suburbs and
um and you know whatever the values
i had uh at that time uh those are still
my values
uh i call them like middle class values
that's how i was raised um
and um i i've never
changed why would i that's who i am and
and so the accoutrement of of um
you know the rest of your life has got
to be put on
the same you know like solid foundation
of who you are
because if you start losing who you
really are who are you
so i've never had the desire to be
somebody else i just do other things now
that i wouldn't do as a you know sort of
as a
middle class kid from philadelphia i
mean my life has morphed
uh on a certain level but part of the
strength
of having uh integrity of uh
personality is is that you can remain in
touch
with um with with everybody who's
comes from that kind of background and
and
you know even though i do some things
that aren't like that
you know in terms of people i'd meet or
situations i'm in
i always look at it through the same
lens uh and that's very psychologically
uh comfortable uh and doesn't require me
to make
any real adjustments in my life and i
just keep plowing ahead
there's a lot of activity in progress in
recent years around
effective altruism it's i wanted to
bring
this topic with you because it's an
interesting one from your perspective
uh you can put it in any kind of terms
but it's philanthropy that focuses on
maximizing impact how do you see the
goal of philanthropy
both from a personal motivation
perspective and a societal big picture
impact perspective yeah i i don't think
about
philanthropy the way you would expect me
to
okay i i look at you know sort of
solving big issues addressing big issues
starting new organizations to do it much
like we do
in our business you know we keep growing
our business
not by taking the original thing and
making it larger
but continually seeing new things and
and and building those and and you know
sort of marshaling
financial resources human resources and
and in our case because we're in the
investment business we find something
new that looks like it's going to be
terrific
and and we do that and it works out
really well
all i do in what you would call
philanthropy
is is look at other
opportunities to help society
and i end up starting something new
marshalling people
marshaling a lot of money and and then
at the end of that
kind of creative process so somebody
typically
asks me to write a check i i don't wake
up and say how can i
like give large amounts money away i
look at
issues that are important for people
in some cases i do smaller things
because it's important to a person uh
and and you know i have you know sort of
like i can relate to that person there's
some
unfairness uh that's happened to them
and so uh
in situations like that i'd give money
anonymously and
help them out and you know that that's
that's
it's it's like a miniature version
of addressing something really big so
you know at mit
um i i've done a big thing uh
you know helping to start this new
school of computing
and and i did that because you know i i
saw that
that you know there's sort of like a
global race on
uh in ai quantum and other major
technologies and i
i thought that um that the u.s could use
more enhancement
from a competitive perspective and
i also because i get to china a lot and
i travel around a lot
compared to a regular person um you know
i
i can see the need to have control
of these types of technologies so when
they're introduced
we don't create a mess like we did with
the internet
uh and with social media uh unintended
consequence
um you know that's creating all kinds of
issues and freedom of speech and the
functioning of liberal democracies so
with with ai it was pretty clear that
there was enormous
difference of views around the world by
the
relatively few practitioners in the
world who really knew what was going on
and uh by accident i knew a bunch of
these people
uh you know who were like big famous
people
uh and i could talk to them and say why
do you think this is a force for bad
and someone else why do you feel this is
a force for good
and and how do we move forward with the
technology
but the same by the same time make sure
that whatever is potentially you know
sort of on the bad side of this
technology with
you know for example the disruption of
workforces and things like that
that could hap happen much faster than
the industrial revolution
uh what do we do about that and how do
we keep that
under control so that the really good
things about these technologies
which will be great things not good
things
uh are allowed to happen so so to me
uh you know this this was one of the
great
issues uh facing society the number of
people who were aware of it were very
small
i just accidentally got sucked into it
and and as soon as i saw it i went
oh my god this is mega yeah
both on a competitive basis globally uh
but but also in terms of protecting uh
society
and benefiting society so so so that's
how i got involved and at the end
you know sort of the right thing that we
figured out was
you know sort of double mit's computer
science faculty and
and and basically create the first ai
enabled
uh university in the world uh and
you know in effect be an example a
beacon to the rest of the research
community around the world
academically and and and create you know
a much
more robust uh us
uh situation competitive situation
among the universities uh because if
if mit was going to raise a lot of money
and double its faculty well you could
bet that
you know and a number of other
universities were going to do the same
thing at the end of it
it would be great for knowledge creation
you know great
for the united states great for the
world
uh and so i like to do things that i
think
are really positive
things that other people aren't acting
on
that i i see for whatever the reason
first
just people i meet and what they say and
i can recognize
when something really profound is about
to happen or needs to
and i do it at the end of the day the
end of the situation
somebody says can you write a a check
to help us and then the answer is sure i
mean because if i don't
the vision won't happen but it's the
vision
of whatever i do that is compelling
and essentially i love that idea of
whether it's small to individual level
or really big
like the the gift to mit to launch
the college of computing it's it's it
starts with a vision
and it you see philanthropy
as um the biggest impact you can have is
by launching something new
especially on an issue that others
aren't really
addressing and i and i also love the
notion
and you're absolutely right that there's
other universities
uh stanford cmu i'm looking at you
that would essentially your the seed
will
will will create other it will have a
ripple effect
that potentially might help us be a
leader or continue to be a leader in ai
this
potentially very transformative research
direction just to linger on that point a
little bit
what is your hope long term for the
impact the college here at mit might
have
in the next 5 10 even 20 or let's get
crazy 30 50 years
well it's very difficult to predict the
future when you're dealing with
knowledge production
and creativity um you know mit has
obviously um some unique aspects
uh you know globally and you know
there's four big uh
sort of academic surveys um i forget
whether it was qs
uh there's the times uh in london
you know the u.s news and whatever but
one of these recently mit was ranked
number one
in the world yeah right so so
leave aside whether you're number three
somewhere else
in the great sweep of humanity
this is pretty amazing yeah right so so
you have a
really um remarkable aggregation of
of human talent uh here
and um where it goes uh it's hard to
tell you have to be a scientist
to have the right feel um
but but what's important is you you have
a critical mass
of people and i i think it breaks into
two buckets
one is scientific advancement uh
and and if the new college can uh
help you know sort of either serve as a
convening
uh force within the university um or
or or help sort of
coordination and communication among
people
uh that's a good thing um
absolute good thing the second thing is
is
in the ai ethics area uh which
is is is
uh in a way equally important because
if if the science side creates blowback
uh so so that science is is
is um you know uh
a bit crippled in terms of going forward
because
society's reaction to to
knowledge advancement in this field
becomes really hostile
that then you've sort of lost the game
in terms of scientific
progress and innovation and and so the
ai ethics piece
is super important because you know in
a in a perfect world mit
would would serve as a global convener
because what you need is is you need
the research universities you need the
companies
that are driving ai and quantum
work you need
governments who will ultimately be
regulating certain elements of this
uh and you also need the media
to be knowledgeable and trained
so so we don't get um sort of um
overreactions to to one situation
which then goes viral uh
and it ends up shutting down avenues
that are perfectly fine you know to to
be
walking down or running down that avenue
uh but but if enough uh discordant
uh information not even correct
necessarily
uh you know sort of gets um
uh you know sort of is pushed around
society then you can end up with a
really hostile regulatory environment
and other things so you have
four drivers that that have to be
um sort of um
integrated uh and and so uh
if if the new school of computing uh
can be really helpful in that regard
uh then that's a real service uh to
science and it's a service to mit
so so that's that's why i wanted to get
involved
for both areas and the hope is for me
for others for everyone for the world
is uh for this particular college of
community to be a beacon
and a connector for the re for these for
these ideas
yeah that's right i mean i i think uh
mit is
perfectly uh positioned uh
uh to do that so you've mentioned the
media
social media the internet as uh
this complex network of communication
with uh with flaws perhaps perhaps you
can speak to them
but it you know i personally
think that science and technology
has its flaws but ultimately is
uh one sexy exciting
it's the way for us to explore and
understand the mysteries of our world
and two most perhaps more importantly
for some people
it's a huge way to a really powerful way
to grow the economy
to improve the quality of life for
everyone so how do we get
how do you see uh the media social media
the internet
as a society having uh
you know healthy discourse about science
first of all one that's factual and to
one that
finds science exciting that invests in
science
that pushes it forward especially in
this
science fiction fear-filled field of
artificial intelligence
well i think that's a little above my
pay grade because
um you know trying to control social
media to make it do what you want to do
sure appears to be beyond almost
anybody's
control and and the technology is being
used
to create what i call the tyranny of the
minorities
okay a minority is defined as
you know two or three people on a street
corner it doesn't matter what they look
like
uh it doesn't matter where they came
from they're united
by that one issue that they care about
and their job is to enforce their views
uh on the world and you know
uh in the political world people just
are manufacturing
uh truth uh and and they throw it all
over
and it affects all of us uh and um
you know sometimes people are just hired
to
to do that i mean it's amazing uh
and you think it's one person it's
really you know just sort of a
front you know for a particular point of
view
uh and this has become exceptionally
disruptive
for society and it's dangerous
and it's undercutting you know the
ability of liberal democracies to
function
and i don't know how to get a grip on
this and i was really surprised um
when we um it was up here for the
announcement
uh last uh
spring uh of the college of communi
computing
and they had all these famous scientists
some of whom were involved with the
invention
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of the internet and almost every one of
them got up and said
i think i made a mistake uh and
as a non-scientist i never thought i'd
hear
anyone say that and and what they said
is
more or less to make it simple uh we
thought this would be really cool
uh inventing the internet we could
connect everyone in the world
we can move knowledge around it was
instantaneous
it's a really amazing thing he said i
don't know that there was
anyone who ever thought about social
media coming out of that
and the actual consequences for people's
lives
uh you know so there's always some um
some younger person i just saw one of
these yesterday
he's reported on the national news who
killed himself
when people use social media to
basically
you know sort of ridicule him or
something of that type
this is dead um this is dangerous
uh and um you know so so
i i don't have a solution for that
other than going forward
you can't end up with this type of
outcome
using ai to make this kind of mistake
twice is unforgivable
so so interestingly at least in the west
uh and in parts of china uh people are
quite sympathetic
uh to to you know sort of the whole
concept of
ai ethics and what gets introduced when
and and cooperation within your own
country
within your own industry as well as
globally
to make sure that the technology is a
force for good and that really
interesting topic since 2007
you've had a relationship with senior
leadership
with a lot of people in china and
an interest in understanding modern
china their culture
their world much like with russia i'm
from russia
originally americans are told a very
narrow one-sided story about
china that i'm sure misses a lot of
fascinating complexity
both positive and negative what lessons
about
chinese culture its ideas as a nation as
future do you think americans should
know about deliberate on think about
well it's it's sort of a wide question
that you're
you're asking about uh you know china is
a pretty unusual place you know at first
it's
it's huge uh you know you got
it's physically huge it's got a billion
three people
and the the character of the people
isn't as well understood
uh in the united states um chinese
um people are amazingly
energetic uh if if you're one of a
billion three people
one of the things you've got to be
focused on is how do you make your way
uh you know through a crowd uh
of a billion 2.99999
other people another word for that is
competitive yes
they they are individually highly
energetic
highly focused always looking for
some opportunity uh for themselves
um because they need to uh because
there's an enormous amount of just
literally people around and
and so you you know what i've found uh
is uh they'll try and find a way to win
uh for themselves uh and their country
is complicated
because it it basically doesn't have the
same kind of functional laws
uh that we do uh in in the united states
in the west
and and um the country is controlled
really uh through a web of relationships
you have with other people
uh and the relationships that those
other people have with other people
so it's an incredibly dynamic
uh uh culture where if somebody
knocks somebody up on the top who's
three levels above you and is in effect
protecting you then
then you know you're you're like a you
know sort of a floating
molecule there uh you know without
tethering
uh except the one or two layers above
you but that's gonna get affected
so it's a very dynamic system and
getting people to change
is not that easy because if there aren't
really functioning laws
it's only the relationships that
everybody has
and so when you decide to make a major
change
and you sign up for it something
is changing in your life there won't
necessarily be all the same people on
your team
uh and that's a very high risk
enterprise so when you're dealing with
with china it's important to know almost
what everybody's relationship is with
somebody uh
so when you suggest doing something
differently
you you line up these forces in the west
it's usually you talk to a person and
they figure out what's good for them
uh it's a lot easier and in that sense
in a funny way it's easier to make
change uh in the west just the opposite
of what people think
but but once the chinese system adjusts
to something that's new
everybody's on the team it's hard to
change them but once they're changed
they are incredibly focused in a way
that it's hard for the west to do
in a more individualistic culture
so so there are all kinds of fascinating
things
i you know um
one thing that might interest uh you
know the people who are listening
were more technologically based than
some other group
um that was with one of the top people
in
the government um a few weeks ago and he
was telling me that
that every school child in um
in china is is going to be
taught computer science now imagine
100 of these children
this is such a large number of
human beings now that doesn't mean that
every one of them
will be good at computer science but if
it's sort of like
in the west if it's like math or english
everybody's going to take it yes not
everybody's great at
english they don't write books they
don't write poetry
and not everybody's good at math you
know somebody like myself
i sort of evolved to the third grade and
i'm still doing flash cards
uh you know i didn't make it further in
math
but imagine everybody in their society
is going to be involved with computer
science
i just even pause on that i i think
the computer science involves
at the basic beginner level programming
and the idea
that everybody in the society would have
some ability to program a computer
is incredible
for me it's incredibly exciting and um i
think that should give
united states pause and
uh consider what talking about sort of
philanthropy and launching things
there's nothing like launching sort of
investing in young
the youth the education system because
that's where everything launches
yes well we've got a complicated system
because we have over
three thousand school districts around
the country
china doesn't worry about that as a
concept
they make a decision at the very top of
the
the government that that's what they
want to have happen and that is what
will happen
and we're really handicapped
uh by this distributed you know power
uh in the education area although some
people involved with that area will
think it's
uh it's great uh but you know you would
know better than i
do uh what percent of american children
have computer science uh
uh exposure my guess
no knowledge uh would be five percent
or less uh and if we're going to be
going into a world
where where the other major economic uh
power
uh sort of like ourselves is is got like
a hundred percent
and we got five and and the whole
computer science area
uh is the future um then we're
purposely or accidentally actually
handicapping ourselves and our system
doesn't allow us uh to adjust quickly
uh to that so you know the issues like
this
uh i i find fascinating uh
and you know if you're lucky enough to
go to other countries
uh which i do um and you learn what
they're thinking
then it informs what what we ought to be
doing
in in in the united states
so the current administration donald
trump has
released the an executive order on
artificial intelligence
not sure if you're familiar with it in
uh looking several years ahead how does
america
sort of we've mentioned in terms of the
big impact
we hope your in investment in mit
will have a ripple effect but from a
federal perspective from a government
perspective
how does america establish with respect
to china
leadership in the world at the top for
research and development in ai
yeah i i think that you have to get the
federal government in the game in a big
way
and that this leap forward
technologically which is going to happen
with or without us you know really
should be with us and and it's an
opportunity in
effect uh for another moonshot
uh kind of mobilization uh
by the united states uh i think
uh the appetite uh actually is there
to do that at the moment
what's getting in the way is the kind of
poisonous
politics we have but but if you
go below the lack of
cooperation which is
almost the defining element of american
democracy right now in the congress
if you talk to individual members they
get it
and they would like to do something
another part of the issue is we're
running huge deficits we're running
trillion dollar plus deficits so how
much money do you need
for this initiative
where does it come from who's prepared
to stand up for it
uh because if it if it involves taking
away resources from another area
our political system is is not real
flexible
uh to do that uh if you're
creating um
this kind of initiative um which we need
where does the money come from uh and
and trying to get money
when you've got trillion dollar deficits
in a way it could be easy what's the
difference of a trillion and a trillion
a little more
uh but but you know it's it's hard with
the mechanisms
of congress but what's um what's really
important
is uh this is not an issue
uh that is unknown and
it's viewed as a very important issue uh
and there's almost no one in the
congress when you sit down and explain
what's going on
who doesn't say we we've got to do
something
let me ask the impossible question so if
you didn't endorse donald trump but
after he was elected
you have given him advice
which which seems to me a great
thing to do no matter who the president
is to contribute
positively contribute to this nation by
giving advice
and yet you've received a lot of
criticism for this
so on the previous topic of science and
technology and government
how do we have a healthy discourse
give advice get excited
uh conversation with the government
about science and technology
without it becoming politicized it's
very
interesting so when i was young
before there was a moonshot we had a
president
named john f kennedy from massachusetts
here
and in his inaugural address as
president
uh he has not what your country can do
for you
uh but what you can do for your country
you know we had a generation of people
my age basically people who grew up
uh with that credo
and you know sometimes you don't need to
innovate
you can go back to basic principles and
that's a good basic principle
uh what can what can we do um
you know americans have gdp per capita
of around 60
000 uh you know not every
it's not equally distributed but it's
big
uh and you know people have i think
an obligation uh to help
their country and i do that
and apparently i take some
grief for people from some people you
know
who who who um
project on me things i don't even
vaguely believe
but i'm like quite simple
you know i tried to help the previous
president
president obama he was a good guy and he
was a different party and i
tried to help president bush and he's a
different party
and you know i i i i sort of don't
care that much uh about what the parties
are i care about even though i'm a big
donor
for the republicans but it's it's
what motivates me is what are the
problems we're facing
and can i help people get to
you know sort of a good outcome that'll
stand
any test uh but we live in a world now
where
you know sort of the filters uh
in the hostility is
is so unbelievable
uh you know in the 1960s when i went to
school
in university i went to yale and we had
like
like so much stuff going on uh
we had a war called the vietnam war
we had you know sort of black power
starting
and and uh you know we had a sexual
revolution with the birth control pill
uh and um you know
um there was one other major thing going
on
and right the drug revolution
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there hasn't been a generation that had
more stuff
going on in a four-year period
than my era
yet there wasn't this kind of
instant hostility if you believed
something different everybody lived
together and
and you know respected uh the other
person
and and i think that you know this type
of
change needs to happen and it's got to
happen
from the leadership of of our major
institutions
and i i don't think that that
leaders can be bullied uh
by people who are against you know sort
of the classical version of free speech
and
letting open expression and inquiry
that's what universities are for
uh among other things uh socratic
methods
and uh so so i i have
um uh in in the midst of this
like onslaught uh of
oddness uh i i believe in
still the basic principles and we're
going to have to find a way
to get back to that and that doesn't
start
with the people uh you know sort of in
the middle to the bottom
who are using you know these kinds of
screens
to to shout people down and and create
an uncooperative environment it's got to
be done
uh at the top with core principles
that are articulated uh and
uh ironically um if people don't sign
on to these kind of core principles
where people are equal and
and you know speech can be heard and
you know you don't have these enormous
shout down biases subtly or
or out loud then they don't belong at
those institutions
they're violating the core principles
and and um
you know that that's how you end up
making change
uh and but you have to have courageous
people
uh who are willing to lay that out
for the benefit of not just their
institutions
but for society uh as a whole
so i i i believe that will happen um
but it needs the commitment uh
of of of senior people to make it happen
courage and i think for such great
leaders great universities there's a
huge hunger for it
so i i'm too very optimistic that it
will come
i'm now personally taking a step into
building a startup
first time hoping to change the world of
course
there are thousands maybe more maybe
millions of other first-time
entrepreneurs like me
what advice you've gone through this
process
you've talked about the suffering
the emotional turmoil it all might
entail what advice do you have for those
people taking that step
i i'd say it's a rough ride
and you have to be psychologically
prepared for things going wrong
with frequency you have to be prepared
to be put in situations where you're
being asked to solve problems you didn't
even know those problems existed
you know for example renting space it's
it's not really a problem unless you've
never done it you have no idea what a
lease looks like
right you don't even know the relevant
rent
and you know in a market so everything
is new
everything has to be learned what you
realize
is that it's good to have other people
with you
who've had some experience in areas
where you don't know what you're doing
unfortunately an entrepreneur starting
doesn't know much of anything so
everything is
is something new yeah and um
i think it's important not to be alone
uh
because it's sort of overwhelming
uh and you need somebody to talk to
uh other than uh a spouse or a loved one
uh because even they get bored with your
problems
uh and and so you know getting a group
you know if you look at alibaba um you
know
jack ma was telling me they went you
know they basically were
like a financial death store at least
twice uh
and you know the fact that there it
wasn't just jack
i mean people think it is because of you
know he became the
you know the sort of public face and the
driver
but but a group of people
who can give advice share
situations to talk about uh that's
really important
and that's not just referring to the
small details like renting space
no it's also the psychological yes
burden
yeah and you know because most
entrepreneurs at some point
question what they're doing because it's
not going so well or they're screwing it
up and they don't know how to
unscrew it up uh because we're all
learning
and it's hard to be learning you know
when they're like
25 variables going on if you you know if
you're missing four big ones you can
really make a mess
uh and so the ability to to in effect
have either an outsider uh
who's really smart that you can rely on
for certain type of things
uh or other people who are working with
you on a daily basis
um it's most people
who haven't had experience believe in
the myth
of the one person one great person you
know
makes outcomes uh creates outcomes that
are positive
most of us it's not like that
if you look back over a lot of the big
successful
tech companies it's not typically one
person
it you know it's and you will know these
stories better than i do
uh because it's your world not mine but
even i know
that almost every one of them had two
people i mean if you look at
google you know that's what they had and
then that was the same with microsoft at
the beginning and
you know it was the same at apple it
you know people have different skills
and and they need to play off of
uh other people so so um
you know the the advice that that i
would give you
is make sure you understand that so you
don't
head off in some direction as a lone
wolf
uh and find that either you can't invent
all the solutions
um or you make bad decisions on certain
types of things
this is a team sport entrepreneur
means you're alone in effect
and that's the myth but it's mostly a
myth
yeah i think and you talk about this in
your book and i could talk to you about
it forever
the the harshly self-critical aspect to
your personality
and uh to mine as well in the face of
failure
it's a powerful tool but it's also a
burden
that's that's very interesting uh
very interesting to uh walk that line
but let me ask
on the in terms of people around you in
terms of friends
in in the bigger picture of your own
life where do you put the value of
love family friendship
in the big picture journey of your life
well ultimately all journeys are alone
um it's great to have support
um and
you know um when you you you go forward
and say
your job is to make something work and
that's your number one priority
um and you're going to work at it to
make it work
you know it's like super human effort
people don't come
become successful as part-time workers
it doesn't work that way and
if you're prepared to make that 100 to
uh effort you're gonna you're gonna need
support
and and you're gonna have to people
involved with your life
who understand that that's really part
of your life
uh sometimes you you're involved with
somebody and
you know they don't really understand
that and that's a source of
you know sort of conflict and difficulty
but if you
if you're involved with the right people
uh
you know whether it's a sort of dating
relationship or
you know sort of you know spousal
relationship
um you know you you have to involve them
uh in your life uh
but not burden them with with every
you know sort of minor triumph or
mistake they they actually get bored
with it
after a while and and so you have to set
up different types of
e