WEBVTT - David Rubenstein Examines The American Experiment 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.840 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:12.440 Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. All right, 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.600 so grab your drink of choice. UH, settle into a 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.040 comfy chair. If you're driving, pull over because we've got 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.400 a great guest. Our next guest talks with all kinds 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.560 of leaders from all walks of our lives, the household names, 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.480 the exacts, the innovators, the warriors, the up starts, the artist, 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.520 and from those conversations, he has written a trilogy of books, 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.520 How to Lead on Leadership. The second, The American Story, 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.640 was all about the American history. UH, and the book's title, 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.400 The American Experiment, Dialogues and a Dream is his third 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.279 book in this series. So it's great to have joining us. UH. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.560 David Rubinstein, he's host of Bloomberg Wealth on Bloomberg TV 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:47.320 and Bloomberg Radio, and of course you know him as 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.880 co founder and co chair of the private equity from 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.839 the Carlisle Group. He joins us in our interactive broker studio. 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:54.920 Thank you for joining us. My pleasure to be here. 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:56.920 Thank you for having me. It's really wonderful and I 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.680 feel like you are someone who talks with so many 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.400 different people, different points of view. Um, we were wondering 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:05.880 about the last couple of years, with everything going on, 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:08.160 how that kind of has shaped who you want to 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:11.600 talk to and how you were thinking about this book, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.039 The American Experiment. Well, generally, I'd like to talk to 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.040 people who are willing to say something, as you know 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.200 from being an interviewer. Uh, if you watch the Sunday 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.200 talk shows, sometimes you say, why do these people go 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:23.760 on these shows? Because they don't want you want to 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.160 say anything. What you want is somebody who's willing to 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.080 say something and say something they haven't said before. That's 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.959 the best interview, right, And so I'm always looking for 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.040 somebody who is willing to be engaging and doesn't want 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.360 to just spar with the interviewer and not say anything. 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.520 So you know, that's that's a challenge, but that's what 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:42.720 I'm trying to do. And you always want somebody that 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.440 people will listen to and want to hear. So if 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:47.920 I got an engaging guest but nobody's ever heard of 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:49.880 that person, it may not be as effective. If you 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.840 can get Jeff Bezos, you know, you know that's people 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.279 want to hear from him. So if you want somebody 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.240 has a name and who's willing to engage. And some 0:01:57.280 --> 0:01:59.360 people are great and some people are not as great, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.400 And you know you've just figured out during the interview. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.840 But we think about what's happened with the pandemic, the 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.800 capital riots, um, the inequities, George Floyd, We could go 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.440 on and on. There's it feels like a decade or 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.360 two decades of history have happened in the last year 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.840 and a half. How is that, David shaped kind of 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.200 your thinking and putting this book together? And again, the 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:20.440 voices you wanted to get to, each one has a 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.400 different thing. The January six event, um, I do talk 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.840 about it extensively in the book, and I basically say 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.720 it was a severe stress test for America and America one. 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.280 And I dedicate the book to the public servants who 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.960 protect our democracy. Because remember we had sixty five lawsuits 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.040 that were filed to overturn the January, to overturn the election, 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.800 and none of them actually prevailed, none of them got 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.480 very far. All the judges basically complied with what is 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.680 the rule of law, and they basically didn't act political. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.400 So I think we learned a lot about the importance 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.520 of the rule of law in this country. We also 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.480 learned a lot in terms of the importance of healthcare 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.640 in this country. How it's so unfair that people are 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.760 her minority status are or are poor. Really we're suffering 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.200 disproportionately because of COVID because they don't have good health 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.240 care to begin with, and then have access to the 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.280 best health care. And it's a sad situation. But it 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.000 also made me think about this, my mortality. I'm seventy 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.760 two years old, and when you're seventy two, you had 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.160 a chance of you got this disease that you could 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.959 maybe not survive. And we now know that six the 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.400 people when on ventilators didn't actually come back out of 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.400 the ventilators. We were putting people ventilators thinking was helping, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.200 it wasn't. So we learned a lot about how to 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.360 treat people. But suppose I had gotten this and I 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.240 went on a ventilator, I probably wouldn't be here now. 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.839 So I learned a lot about my mortality and thinking 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:38.920 about it, and the result is I'm rushing to get 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.880 more things done because I now realize, Hey, life is 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.920 very sure, and something bad can happen very quickly, and 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.560 so that that's been something that I've been thinking a 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.080 lot about. It's like the Hamilton's right, I'm running out 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.680 of time right, As you point out in the book, 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.960 the American experiment has been relatively short at this point. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.120 And I'm wondering if you could contextualize the way that 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.200 you think about what happened over the last year, year, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.440 year and a half as to to what extent it 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:04.920 really stress tested us, because you do you do make 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.120 note of the judiciary essentially saving the United States, not 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.320 the lawmakers, because you do call out in the book 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.800 the lawmakers, the senators and the members of Congress who 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.760 voted to overturn the election. They are still in power 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.839 right now. Yes, And I know many of them, and 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.000 privately they will say to you, well, I had to 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.200 do that, or I knew it wasn't going to really prevail. 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.159 Sure many of these people are you know, I live 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.039 in Washington. I host I host a series uh in 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.480 front of Members of Congress once a month. With COVID 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.440 ending soon hopefully I'll be resuming that. And I know 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.400 a lot of members and so forth, and you know 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:38.680 privately what they say is, um, well I had to 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.080 do this and they didn't really believe in it, but 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.560 you know, and so forth. Some will say that I'm 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:45.960 not going to go say who said that, but clearly 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.360 it's a very political situation. It's just the saddest part 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.960 of the whole situation we now face is that we've 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.920 politicized the government so much so that the country's really 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.000 unable to move forward very much. We have people who 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.240 don't want to wear masks, who think that it's a 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.440 good thing to force people not to wear masks. In effect, 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:06.920 we we we you know, a sad situation in many 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.560 ways when you think about it that school children whose 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.840 teachers want them to have masks are being told they 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.640 aren't supposed to have that mask. So bad situation, and 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.480 people are dying because of this. When did debate become 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.240 like a bad thing? I thought that was what kind 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.480 of the routes of democracy. We're all about, this whole 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.400 idea of having different perspectives and hopefully talking it through 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.719 and getting to a better place. When I worked in 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.839 Congress and nineteen seventies and in the White House, uh, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.279 there was obviously political disputes all the time, and obviously 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.000 this was after Watergate, but people thought eventually you've got 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.880 to get something done. And so you had bipartisan legislation. 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.600 Now if to be considered a great legislator, used to 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.080 be were good at bipartisan legislation, get people on both 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.400 sides of work together. Now to be a great legislator, um, 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.880 you're probably somebody that is good in only getting your 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.640 Democrats or your Republicans to support you. And members of 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.640 Congress now spend so much time raising money because they 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.560 want to raise money for their campaigns or to wort 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.520 anybody from challenging them. And they have to spend their 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:05.320 time in the case of members of the House, to 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.960 raising money. And the money and the Internet and social 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.599 media has just divided the country in so many ways 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.279 that I find it interesting when I host these dinners, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.120 so many people say this is the most interesting thing 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.400 that members feel they're doing. In Washington. They can have 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.680 a dinner when nobody sees their meeting with somebody from 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:21.560 the opposite party because there's no press there, and they 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.240 can talk to people from the opposite house, which they 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.120 really do because they rarely have conference committees anymore. It's uh, 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.200 you know, look, I also recognize this every generation ten 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.560 thousand years back and so forth has always said, well, 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:35.880 in my time it was better, and now it's not 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.000 as good now. George Washington's father allegedly told him, well, 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.479 your dinner generation are not gonna achieve anything because you 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.320 guys are not hard working or whatever. Well, the truth is, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.120 every every generation tells the younger people, you're not gonna 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:49.839 be tough enough, you're not gonna be surviving, and I 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.440 ultimately civilization goes forward. So sure, they're they're challenges. Now. 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.560 I'm not happy with many things that have happened. One 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.039 thing that did happen, though, uh, during all this period 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.920 of time, it is the is the George Floyd murder. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.480 In that case, the thing that struck me was this, 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.400 we've been through. I lived for the Civil Rights Revolution, 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.720 We've lived through the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.480 and so many things that have been done, infirmative action 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.400 of the things. But this one murder crystallized for people 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:18.640 in this country the fact that we are still discriminating 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.640 in so many ways. Just think about it. All the 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:22.840 people that have been lynched over the years didn't seem 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.280 to have the same resonance as this one murder, maybe 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.760 because it was on TV. Maybe everybody saw it, maybe 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.640 because people saw it was so ridiculous the way it 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.440 was handled. But we've made some progress obviously on racial relations. 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.240 And i'd say in the book that while we've made 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.640 a lot of progress on racial relations and and and 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.160 gender equality and other things, we still have a long 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.560 way to go. The rhetoric that is in the Declaration 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.960 of Independence and the rhetoric in the Constitution is wonderful. 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.400 What we've been spending two thirty years try to live 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:49.920 up to that rhetoric, and to some extent we've made progress, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:51.720 and some extent we haven't. And what I say in 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.160 the book is that we have these genes. These genes 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.320 are part of us, the belief in the rule of law, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.080 the belief and equality, the belief in the power of voting. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.200 And we've been trying to make sure that people um 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.520 kind of honor these things that are part of our genes. 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.920 And sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. The rule 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.080 of law is a gene that's so strong that it 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.000 prevailed in the January sixth situation and and the and 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.440 the post election fight, and I think that was good 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:16.800 in many other countries. And you had a leader of 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:18.840 do what was done here. I think you could have 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.960 had a military takeover. Yeah, it could have been much closer. 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:26.000 I I wonder, David, about this sense of optimism that 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.520 you have potentially after writing a book like this. I 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.160 do think there is this collective despair over the last 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.360 eighteen nineteen months, as this pandemic has played out and 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:34.560 we try to get to the other side of it. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.840 And here we are sandwiched between extreme weather events. You 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.640 know that they're affecting the entire country, whether it's drought 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:45.120 or hurricane or fires. Uh, trying to get our kids 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.920 back to school. After writing this book and speaking to 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.400 these people and looking so closely at the history of 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.000 the United States, are you optimistic? I think most people 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.680 who are asked that question will say yes, because nobody 0:08:57.679 --> 0:08:59.800 wants to say no, I'm pessimistic. It sounds bad to 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.080 say pessimistic, and I'd be lying. If I said I 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.360 was pessimistic, it might make news as they I'm pessimistic. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.480 I am optimistic about many things. The young people are 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.720 so creative. We are solving some problems like global climate change. 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.240 We're working on some things. Racial relations are getting better 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.480 than not perfect. But uh, if you weren't optimistic. You'd 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:18.959 be hard to get through life. If every day you 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.240 were so depressed you couldn't get through life, you know, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.080 what would you do? So I'm optimistic, and I've had 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.000 been fortunate in my life to be be able to 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.200 be optimistic because of good things that happen to me. 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.840 But generally I'm reasonably optimistic. I've just been worried about 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.200 some things that we could solve that we don't seem 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:34.839 to be solving as quickly as I wish we would. 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.520 Let's talk about some of the conversations ken Burns Medline, Albright, Um, 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.400 juliep or who I don't know is necessarily a household name, 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.520 Um Alter, Isaacson, David McCullough, some of the things, Rita 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.640 morano Um. Some of the conversations that stood out, And 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.480 obviously they talked about very different topics, the different topics 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.880 of well. Ken Burns talked about Vietnam. And it turns 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.720 out in Vietnam, the political leaders knew all along, They 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:00.800 knew all along that we had no chance of winning 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.839 that war military. It was really a political um exercise, 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.080 which was disappointed because we lost fifty eight thousand men 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.320 and the Vietnamese lost millions of people. Um, David McCullough 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.720 did a wonderful job of explaining how nobody took the 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:13.520 right brother seriously in this country. They had to go 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.720 to France to kind of prove um that they could 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.880 they could they could fly. Another reason why we love France, right. UM. 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.640 You know, so, Rina Moreno is an incredible story and 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.880 a woman from Puerto Rico who was not taken that 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.480 seriously as an actress because she was from Puerto Rico, 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.920 she was given kind of Latino Latino jobs, but she 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.040 turned out to be an Academy Award winner and she 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.240 had an interesting life. She lived with um, a very 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.120 famous person for quite some time, Marlon Brando and I 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.120 think eight years or so, and then try to commit 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:46.120 suicide because he was unfaithful. And then she recovered from 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.040 that and obviously went on to now win an Emmy, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.160 a Grammy, uh, every other world Tony that you can win. 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.040 So she's UM quite an impressive person now still performing 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.920 at age eight or eighty nine. She was at our 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.920 Boston Pops event and she just fire got to meet her, 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.280 and she's unbelievable in terms of her energy. You also 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.240 talked with m Walter Isaacson, and I think innovation is 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.800 something we spend a lot of time here, uh talking 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.840 about around the table. And you know that governments the 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.680 complicated relationship really between governments and innovation. We're seeing it 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.680 once again. What did you glean from that conversation? Walter 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.800 points out in his book really focus on the Innovators, 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.640 a book right before The Codebreakers. Codebreakers, a new book 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.680 about a woman that won the Nobel Prize for infect 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.920 discovering crisper Um, and and that's a great book as well. 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.440 But but the Innovators is about all the people that 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.840 have changed our lives. Who invented the micro processor, that transistor, 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.360 the smartphone, the internet, all the things. How could we 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:46.640 live today without the internet? How could we live today 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.959 without smartphones? All these things? But now these all came 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.840 about because of smart people doing things that people said 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:54.959 couldn't be done. And typically as part of the teams, 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.280 there are very few geniuses. They're discovering things by themselves, 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.280 he points out. Usually it's a person working with somebody else, 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.679 and usually they're building on some something that somebody else 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.160 actually did before them. But the most important thing is 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.680 our country has been a country where We've been strong 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.800 because of innovation. We are the country that innovates. We're 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.679 reinventing ourselves all the time. Why aren't people in Europe 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.360 inventing great companies like with companies we have. You don't 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.240 see as much in Europe or in other parts of 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.719 the world as we have been seeing here right now. 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.480 The technology that's dominating the world, certainly outside of China 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:29.800 is American technology, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, um. All these 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.760 companies are American companies. Why don't we aren't we dominated 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.800 by European technology companies or Middle East technology companies? Because 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.080 Americans have innovative style and we really incent people to 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.760 do things innovative here. Wait, I gotta follow, So what 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.720 do you think about what's going on in China right 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.240 now in terms of really clamping down It feels like 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.839 on the innovators. Well, in China, I think what's going 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.000 on is the Chinese government is trying to make it 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.360 clear to everybody that we, the government, are the most 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.679 important thing and not the innovators. And so I think 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.559 there's a concern that sometimes you get entre preneurs are 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:02.840 worth a lot of money, they're they're cult figures themselves. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.280 Jack ma on the equivalent, and they kind of rival 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.719 the government leaders, and the government doesn't think that's appropriate. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.680 So the government is doing some things to constrain this. 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.240 We'll see whether the impact is to have people not 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.480 be quite as innovative, or whether people will try to 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.320 take more money offshore, or or or entrepreneurs will come 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.040 to this country and not go back to China. You 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.920 don't know yet. We're talking parts with David Rubinstein. His 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.840 new book is The American Experiment, also host of Bloomberg 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.560 Wealth here at Bloomberg Radio and TV and co chair 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.360 co founder of the Carlisle Group. But it's interesting, David, 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.520 do you think it will prevent China from being um 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.240 kind of a global presence when it comes to innovative technologies, 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.240 which is what President ga said he wants to be. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.600 It may have some impact, but right now, for example, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.160 what is up in the air is who is going 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.640 to dominate technology and the around the world of the 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.280 next ten years. Is it going to be the American 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.960 technology companies or is it going to be the Chinese 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.000 trying right now, the Chinese technology companies have largely been 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:01.200 successful in China. Google and Facebook really don't quite operate 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.839 in China. They have their own equivalent there. But have 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.239 China been able to take Alie pay Uh and financial 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.640 Um or Ali Baba outside of China that much? Not 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.080 so much, or the same with Bai Do now. The 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.480 only one that's really become a major force outside of 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.800 China is Byte Dance, which has TikTok, but it doesn't 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.280 operate all in China. It really operates outside. But over 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.600 the next ten twenty years, twenty or thirty years or so, 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.080 there will be an effort by the Chinese to say, 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.120 let's take our technology companies and use them in Europe, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.840 Latin America, the Middle East, and who will dominate what 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.200 we have two internets or we just have one internet? 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.840 And and it's not clear to the extent that we 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.480 weaken our technology companies in this country. It may be 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:42.440 that we won't be dominant around the world as much 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.000 as we have been. But you think about it. You 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.040 go anywhere in the world. Now you can turn you 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.920 can use Google, you can use Facebook. You can't go 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.800 use Bai Do or or Alie pay anywhere in the world. 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:53.520 That may change unless you're in a part of China 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.000 where it's correct blocked uh. David given what's happened in 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.200 China over the last few months, would you be hesitant 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.000 to deploy appital there to to invest there, at least 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.200 for the near future. I am an investor in China. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.720 I've been a long term investor there my firm UM 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.440 as an investor there. I personally invested there UM, but 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.720 I'm not thinking forward over the next few years. Given 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.400 what's happened over the last few months, there clearly are 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.320 going to be some constraints on growth and valuation. So, 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.200 for example, UM, many of the companies have had some 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.280 constraints the and financial transaction is one and where the 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.840 valuations come down because they're not going to go public 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:29.960 quite as quickly as they were going to. I still 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.200 think though, you've got a population of one point three 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.600 billion people and a gigantic market, the biggest market in 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.960 the world, and the country is becoming increasingly wealthy, and 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.240 therefore people are recently spending money. We operate a number 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.360 of companies there. We operate with our Chinese partners and 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.600 McDonald's in in uh in China, and clearly that's a 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.840 growing business doing well. So I wouldn't be hesitant to 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.800 invest in China. I just be hesitant to do things 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.400 that the government isn't going to really like. You've got 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:55.960 to be very careful and make sure you know what 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.640 the government will tolerate and not the book at the 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.800 very beginning you include the preamble to the Constitution. If 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:04.880 you could sit down with a forefather today, who would 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.320 it be and what would you want to know? Well, 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:09.720 I winswer on one second. I would just say that, interestingly, 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:14.960 we had white Christian property owners men who are founding fathers, right. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.200 If we had a new constitutional declaration independence, who would 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.920 those people be? It wouldn't be all white men right 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.680 or property. We'd have presumably women, We'd have minorities. Would 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:26.800 we get a different constitution? Will we get a different 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.560 declaration of independence? Probably would um. If I could have 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.480 dinner with any one of those founding fathers, I guess 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.920 it would be Thomas Jefferson, just because his rhetoric is 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:37.320 writing style is so wonderful, And I'd ask him how 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:39.320 come you never made a speech as presidently made one 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.600 public speech. If you ask Water Risings, he would say 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.200 he'd like to have all the people he's written about, 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:45.840 He'd like to have dinner. I think he would say 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.120 with Benjamin Franklin, because he's so creative and so brilliant, 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:53.320 so many ways uneducated by traditional standards, but now any 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.120 of them. I think if I could have dinner with 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.800 anybody that's ever lived and who's an American not currently live, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:00.920 it would be, without doubt Abraham Lincoln. It might be 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.440 the greatest American of them all. Kept the Union together. 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.440 Uh freed the slaves, though not as quickly as some 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.680 people would want it. But he was an incredible person, writer, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.320 credit speaker, and and I just like to ask him 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.639 this a lot of questions. And it's interesting phenomenon. You 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.240 and you and I are all in the interview business. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.040 And this is a business where it's just relatively common now, 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.440 it's not unique to be an interviewer, right, lots of people. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.600 Everybody has a podcast. I think there should be a 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.840 bumper secret and says punk if you don't have a podcast. 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:28.920 Everybody kept their own podcasts. Everybody cut there on TV show, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.680 everybody's got their on radio show. But this is relatively new. 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.679 For most of organized history, there were no interviews. So 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.159 we have no interviews of Shakespeare, we have no interviews 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.760 of Cleopatrick, we have no interviews of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington. 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:41.879 I wish we could go back and interview them. I 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.400 thought about doing a book interviewing what these people would 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.639 have said if I'd interviewed him. That's a great idea. 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.320 So I got to say, William Shakespeare, No, will Um, 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.119 why do you think it is that people think you 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:54.520 didn't write these plays? Or did you really write these plays? 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.040 Tell us the truth? Or Cleopatri who was a better lover? 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.960 When Mark Anthony or Julius Caesar? When the interviews right? Yeah? 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:02.919 For Henry the Eighth, why why didn't you just get 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:04.960 a prenup instead of chopping off the head of your wife. 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:06.880 There'll be a lot of great questions. We we want 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:08.600 to know the answers to what you took. Number four. 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.680 You did get some fantastic names for for this book, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.159 you know, including Ken Burns as we talked about, Madeline Albred, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.919 John meetch Um, Billy Jean King. Uh. Who did you 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.720 reach out to that you couldn't get? Who said I'm sorry? 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:25.720