WEBVTT - The World's Most Powerful People 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.040 If I deserve one bit of credit for the prescience 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.479 of my powerful People list over time. I actually put 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.000 Elon Musk on my list seven or eight years ago, 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:16.239 before he became as famous as he has become. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.600 Welcome to One Day University talks with the world's most 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:32.720 engaging and inspiring professors discussing their most popular courses. This 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.920 podcast is your chance to discover some of our top 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:40.760 rated lectures on your own schedule. I'm Steven Shregis. You 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.280 can easily look up the richest people in the world, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.720 but where's the list of the most powerful? That's a 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.280 little harder to define. Does being President of the United 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.920 States automatically make you the most powerful person in the world? 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.840 What about having lots of money or influence? Does social 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.400 media give you power? Professor William Burke White came up 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.959 with a set of criteria to create his list of 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.440 the world's most powerful people. He updates it every year, 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.920 and he has given multiple lectures on this list for 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:18.040 One Day University. William is an international lawyer and political scientist, 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.080 and he teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He also 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.760 served in the Obama administration. William says one of the 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.760 lessons he's learned through this process is that keeping power 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:31.360 is harder than getting it. 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.560 I think this started back in about two thousand and nine, 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.520 maybe twenty ten, and it's been fun to think about 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.520 who's powerful and how that changes over time. So every 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.840 year or every six months, we end up updating the list, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:55.960 and I think it actually, as you look back over 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.920 that ten year period, really helps us see both how 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.640 power is changed and how the world in which we 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.920 live has been reshaped by power. 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.559 I'm going to ask you expand on that a little 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:08.840 because I've seen you left your a number of times 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.519 on this. There's different types of power. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.520 Yeah, Stephen, So what is power? You know, we talk 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.840 about power all the time, and we often have a 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.760 sense of what we think we mean by that. You know, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.600 the vision of power that we most often probably think 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:25.040 of as military power. 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:25.760 It is. 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.640 The war in Ukraine today is a version of military power, 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.639 with missiles and tanks and drones on both sides. But 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:36.840 that is not the only way to think about power. 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:37.400 You know. 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.720 Another way to think about power is economic power. How 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.120 much money does someone have or does a country have. 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.760 That's another form of coercive power, but it's not about 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.880 coercion with a gun or a bomb, but coercion with 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:55.120 either the promise of economic wealth or the threat of 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.920 economic poverty. When we think about power economically, people lie 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:04.360 Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos start to look really powerful. 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.400 But that's not it'steven. There's a third way to look 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.360 at power, and let's call that a softer version of power. 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.720 It's about power that comes from others wanting to follow us. 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:18.640 It's not about coercion. It's not about guns or bombs 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.680 or either economic sanctions or economic wealth. And when we 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.200 think about power in terms of soft power, then you 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.920 know people like Oprah Winfrey, people who have lots of 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.320 Twitter followers or lots of TikTok followers. These are the 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.920 people who can shape an agenda or can get us 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.880 to read a book just because Oprah says it's a 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:39.560 good book. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.240 So we now know all the different types of power. 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:44.080 But how would you define it? 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.800 I would say power is to get others to do 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.360 something for our purpose, for whatever it is we bring 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.360 to that equation. Sometimes we get them to do it 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:59.440 through economic power, sometimes through military power, sometimes through soft power. 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:01.840 But when you put all these three together that you 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.760 get this ability to convince others to do something that 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.600 you want them to do, and ultimately, that to me 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:09.600 is power. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.480 Thanks for the explanation. I'm going to ask you about 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:18.400 six people, in no particular order. These are not ranked 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.960 in any way, but there are six people that clearly 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.320 would be on a list of powerful people as we're 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.120 having this discussion right now in early twenty twenty three. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.680 And the first one is Vladimir Putin. Tell me about 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:37.000 Vladimir Putin and why he belongs on a powerful list, 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.919 maybe even at the top of a powerful list or not. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.640 Yeah, gosh, I wish we didn't have to put Putin 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.200 on our list. And you're right, Stephen. You've said before 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.280 this list changes over time, and it does. But I 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.479 think in today's moment, in the context of a war 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.680 in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is hard not to have on 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:57.640 the list. So who is he? Right? He is the 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.000 President of Russia. Interestingly, he has been the president of 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.680 Russia for a long time now. And part of our 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.000 story of powerful people is there often people who have 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.320 figured out how to get rid of constraints, and Putin 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.520 has done this brilliantly. You know, when Putin became president, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.839 he was really constrained. He was constrained by a decrepit 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.919 economy after the end of the Cold War, he was 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.919 constrained by the oligarchs, these Russian businessmen who held a 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.120 lot of power in Russia. And systematically, for the last 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.560 twenty something years, Vladimir Putin has undercut every one of 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:37.120 these constraints. He has built Russia's economy, usually using the 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:42.040 leverage of energy warfare and energy coercion. Russia has some 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.359 of the world's largest natural gas reserves and some of 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.720 the largest oil reserves, and he used that to make 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.680 Russia rich. And then from there he used that wealth 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.960 to make Russia at least appear militarily strong, and Russia built, 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.280 you know, one of the largest militaries in the world world. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.800 It's why we see talk of Russia's nuclear arsenal or 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:09.520 of its hypersonic missiles. And then Putin again undercut constraints. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.920 He overrode the Russian Constitution, getting amendments to the constitution 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.680 to let him stay in power forever. And then he 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.640 undercut all of the power of democracy in Russia, getting 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.520 rid of the opposition leader, murdering essentially one of the 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.000 opposition leaders in red square, so there's no one to 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:30.760 stop him, and not surprisingly, then in February twenty twenty two, 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.000 what does Putin do? He invades Ukraine? And Putin's ability 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.799 to be powerful is in part because he is willing. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:42.440 In fact, he is dead set on destabilizing the international system. 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.080 He is willing to break the rules that say you 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.560 can't invade your neighbor and invade Ukraine. He's willing to 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:50.800 break the rules that say you can't kill civilians in 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.080 war and simply indiscriminately bomb Ukraine. Before that, he was 0:06:55.120 --> 0:07:00.160 willing to destabilize America's political system or electoral system back 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.520 in twenty sixteen when he interfered with the US election. 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.560 So Putin has a lot of military power, we might 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.120 question today how effective that is. He hasn't been able 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.720 to actually take over Ukraine. A lot of economic power 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.040 as the seventh largest economy in the world, and not 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.000 so much soft power. Today nobody looks at Russian and 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.320 says we want to follow you. But that economic power, 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:27.080 that political ability to undermine his opponents puts Putin on 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:27.480 the list. 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:32.240 What about his Ukrainian counterpart, Zelenski? Did you even consider 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:34.400 him as one of the top people. 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.000 You know, who would ever think that somebody who was 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.120 once a comedian, you know, started in a kind of 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.240 funny TV series, would become president of Ukraine, much less 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.920 become potentially one of the most powerful people in the world. 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.560 But you're right to say he could, in theory make 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.680 our list. Why because he has been able to galvanize 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.400 a global response to Russia's invasion. He has been able 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.880 to stop Vladimir Putin in his tracks and note Barack 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:08.239 Obama couldn't stop Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump couldn't stop Vladimir Putin. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:12.160 Angela Merkel couldn't stop Vladimir Putin. But Zelensky has and 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:16.000 that is really impressive. I guess part of why I 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.600 don't think he actually makes the list is because, first 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.800 of all, his ability to influence is very narrow. He 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:27.760 is really only able to keep Ukraine from being invaded 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.920 or being overtaken. He's not shaping the rest of global discourse. 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.760 So I think he's worth thinking about. And I think 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:36.920 there might come a moment where he makes the list 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.839 and Putin falls off that list, But right now I'm 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.640 afraid to say it's still Putin who's on the list. 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:47.640 But Zelensky certainly gets the surprise entry category as somebody 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:48.280 to think about. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:53.160 Then another counterpart, an obvious one, Joe Biden, President of 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.080 the United States. Some would say, well, that's the most 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.240 powerful person in the world day after day, year after year, year, 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:04.320 decade after decade. But you've made the point often that's 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.280 not really true. That's not the right way to look 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.200 at it. You want to explain that a bit. 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.760 Yes, Stephen, you know American presidents come and go from 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.600 my list, and they often come and go at different 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.559 times during their presidency. But you're right, a lot of 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.440 people would say, oh, the US president ought to be 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.480 on the list no matter what. The US is the 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.160 world's largest economy, and that's true. The US has the 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.960 world's most powerful military. That's true too. The president may 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:31.480 be one of the very few people in the world 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.280 who has a nuclear football as they call it, next 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.679 to him at all times and could launch a nuclear 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.720 war that could destroy the world in an instant. And 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.240 so you're right, I think the US president should always 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.239 be a candidate for our list. But once we've established 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:49.240 that somebody has raw military or economic power, we have 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.000 to look at their ability to deploy and use that power, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.520 and as I talked about with Vladimir Putin, he has 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.320 an ability to deploy his power because he's undercut all 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.760 of the police opposition in Russia. He has nearly absolute power. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.120 And one of the frankly, in my opinion, very good 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.800 things about the US system is that our presidents rarely 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.840 have absolute power. Joe Biden has had an interesting presidency. 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.960 He controlled all three branches of government really, you know, 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.720 the House, the Senate, and the Executive for his first 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.920 two years, and for the beginning of his presidency he 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.880 didn't get much done. Sure, he got a COVID relief 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.400 package through, but he looked like a kind of embattled 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.360 and weak president. And in my view, Joe Biden got 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.360 onto the list in the last eight months or so 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.360 largely because three things happened. The first is that he 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:45.320 got a major legislative package through the US Congress on 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.720 the Inflation Reduction Act, among other things that I think 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.200 will have really long term impact. The second thing that 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.520 happened is he won the midterms, or at least didn't 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.679 lose the midterms, and showed that he was a political 0:10:57.720 --> 0:10:59.600 force to be reckoned with in a way that many 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.480 people didn't think he was. And then third, Vladimir Putin 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:09.400 invaded Ukraine and Biden became the global figure of coordinated 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.560 response to that invasion. So each of those things, to 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:15.600 me adds up to say, not only is this a 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.960 man with real potential power the tanks, the money, and 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.240 so forth, but also the ability to deploy that power. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.640 We'll have to see whether he stays on the list, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.720 but today, given what he's done in Ukraine, and given 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.680 his ability to actually get things through the Senate, he 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:33.520 makes my list. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.920 Let's change gears a little. I'm going to say the name, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.520 and clearly this is someone much more in the news 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.600 than ever before. You probably have a different take than 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.760 you would have a few years ago. Tell me about 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:46.520 Elon Musk. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:49.360 You know, if I deserve one bit of credit for 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.040 the prescience of my Powerful People list over time, I 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.600 actually put Elon Musk on my list seven or eight 0:11:55.679 --> 0:12:00.480 years ago, before he became as famous as he has become. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.800 And the story I used to tell about Elon Musk 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.000 back then was that Elon Musk had figured out how 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.160 to modernize hard power, the power of technology, what we 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.040 think of his military power, but that military power had 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.720 become something new because the real tensions in the world 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.200 were going to be about energy, and Elon Musk had 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.480 figured out how to capture energy. He had invented a 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.440 battery and built a capacity to deploy batteries better than 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.480 anybody ever in human history. And he'd also figured out 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.920 how to replace governments in driving the space race essentially, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.959 and so in many ways, to me, Elon Musk looked 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.880 like a combination of two of the robber barons of 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.760 the nineteen hundreds, right, Vanderbilt and Rockefeller. One was the 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.800 oil baron and the other the railroad baron. And Musk 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.880 had figured out transportation, you know, through his rockets, and 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.319 energy through his batteries. He built Tesla into the world's 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.840 most valuable company for a while, and he became the 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.480 richest man in the world. So now he not only 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:09.800 had the hard power of those technology sources, but also 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.520 the power of wealth. And Elon Musk decided to both 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.920 get political and to buy Twitter. So there's one version 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.360 of this story that makes him even more powerful, makes 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.400 him the most powerful human being maybe in history, because 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:29.160 Twitter was in many ways the way we measured soft power. 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.679 That was where the conversation was taking place in its 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.760 best form. You know, it is the global town square, 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:40.440 and Elon Musk now owns that town square. And so 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.960 you combined in one person hard power, soft power, and 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.560 economic power, and Elon Musk ought to be at the 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.720 top of our list. But I'm not sure Elon Musk 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.280 has deployed his power all that smartly, and maybe as 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.360 a result, he ought to fall off the list. As 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.640 hard as that is to believe, Let's look at what's 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.240 happened in the last year or so. Right, he decides 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.760 to buy Twitter just at the moment that the economy 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:09.439 starts to soften. He overpays for it, and in the process, 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.160 the value of Tesla starts to collapse. And because he 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.120 decides to get sort of political, a lot of people 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.640 start to leave Twitter as the town square. Today again, 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:21.880 I think he's still on the list, But if I 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.400 had to put a trend line for Musk, it's on 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.600 the way down, not on the way up. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:33.400 Today, after the break, China's power on the world stage 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:49.800 and Google's dominance in our everyday lives, come to ask 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.240 about another president, Gi the Chinese president, how does he 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:54.960 stack up? 0:14:55.360 --> 0:15:01.360 Jijinping is a pretty incredible example of power he is 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.920 the president of the country with the most people in 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.000 the world. She is also the leader of the country 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.760 with the world's second largest but fastest growing economy. Most 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.840 economists predict that the Chinese economy will surpass that of 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:21.120 the United States sometime in the twenty twenties. And she 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.000 has also, like Vladimir Putin, figured out how to get 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.680 rid of constraint on power. You know, five years ago, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.440 he amended the Chinese constitution to allow him to stay 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:37.240 in power for a third term. Traditionally, Chinese leaders only 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.400 stay in power for a ten year period two to 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.600 five year terms. Jijinping started his third term as China's leader, 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.320 and he has consolidated authority in remarkable ways. We've seen 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.520 China become a somewhat destructive force in global economy, or 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.320 at least an influential force, whether that be on the 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.720 trade war with the United States, whether that be asserting 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.520 its rights in the South China Sea, building islands in 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.920 the middle of the ocean to be able to deploy 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.120 its power globally, or the desire to shape institutions and 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:16.480 exercise its veto, for example, at the United Nations. Jijinping 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.760 has also done some incredible things, brought more people out 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.080 of poverty than anyone in human history ever has. Because 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.400 the wealth that China has created in the last ten 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.480 twenty years is unwitnessed before in human history. China also 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.960 now has a very powerful military. I would today say 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.920 the second most powerful military in the world. After Russia 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.600 has depleted its military in the Ukraine, China is definitely 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:47.040 number two. So that's an incredible story of power. China 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.040 has also under Ji figured out how to harness technology 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.320 to have power and influence. The ability to use artificial 0:16:54.360 --> 0:17:00.000 intelligence and facial recognition software, the ability during the coronavirus 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:04.800 pandemic to track people on their cell phones. China has 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:11.480 become a very scrutinized state where governmental power over individual 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.320 lives is quite remarkable. So all of that puts jesen 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.800 Ping on the list. Like Elon Musk, I think the 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:23.119 trend line on Jijinping today is in the downward direction, 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.280 not the upward direction. And here's why Stephen I think 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.600 she went too far in the closures and lockdowns after 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.000 the pandemic. He went too far because the Chinese economy 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.080 has really been in a bit of a tailspin from 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:41.719 years of lockdown. Chinese growth has slowed. Individuals are no 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.040 longer feeling like they have a lot of opportunity economically. 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.320 G's inevitability has been cracked. You know, for many years, 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.600 much of the last decade, every Chinese citizen has thought 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:57.000 Jijenping was the answer. And what they're starting to realize 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.959 is he may not be, and China's economy may not 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.040 be as able to continue to sustain the kind of 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.560 growth it's scene in the slowdown that we're seeing there today. 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:10.080 So she's on the list, But my trend line on 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.960 Gi is it looked better for him a few years 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:14.639 ago than it does today. 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.560 Okay, let's let's take another big turn to someone else. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.520 I'm going to ask you about a twenty year old 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.000 young woman who has redefined how millions of people think 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:27.760 about climate change. 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.919 I'm guessing, Stephen, you're talking about Gretit Thunberg. Many of 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:33.800 our listeners may have heard of her, some might not have. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.960 She is a twenty year old climate activist from Sweden 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:42.520 who some six years ago was frustrated by climate change, 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.199 frustrated by the unwillingness of governments and institutions and power 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.080 to do anything about it. So she painted a little 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.200 sign on a piece of cardboard that said school strike 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.679 for Climate in Swedish school strike, and she sat in 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.560 front of her school and didn't go to class. Greta 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.760 does not have a tank. Greta does not have a gun. 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.120 Greta does not have much of a nickel to her name. 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:14.680 Greta would not appear powerful by most of our traditional measures. 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.160 But Greta, I think, really has reshaped how the public 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:24.080 is thinking about and engaging on the biggest threat the 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.960 world faces today, and that's climate change. And before you 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.760 knew it, the one point eight billion people in this 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:37.359 world who are under the age of eighteen were with Greta, 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.639 with strikes of their own in Berlin, in Paris, and 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:46.760 Akragana in Pretoria, South Africa, in Washington, d C. In 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.879 parts of Asia. But you know, Stephen, the thing to 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.399 me that was most remarkable is I've met with Greta 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.040 a few times. I've seen her marching in Madrid, Spain 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.679 during a climate conference with young people from around the 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.520 world following her. But I also watched one year when 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.600 she was with us in Davos at the Big Davos Conference. 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.400 A few years before the pandemic, and she started one 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:11.399 of her strikes, a march down bon Hofstrasse and Davos, Switzerland. 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.639 And at first it was just Greta, and within a 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.760 few blocks Greta was leading a march of some of 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.840 the world's biggest capitalists and the world's most powerful political 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:27.760 leaders who couldn't resist her call to act on climate 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.840 And if you can reshape political debate, if you can 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:35.159 get governments to act, if you can have the soft 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.600 power to influence one point eight billion young people, you 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.639 ought to be on our list. And so Greta is 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:42.160 on mine. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.560 The last spot on the list is actually two people 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:48.680 Bill tell us about the Google. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:54.639 Boys, Sergei Brinn and Larry Page. Yeah. So the Google 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:56.800 Boys have been on my list for a long time 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:02.400 because they invented a version of soft power that none 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.320 of us had ever really even thought of beforehand, and 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.480 today has redefined soft power. And that is the power 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.880 of Google. You know how many of our listeners today 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.680 have googled something. Maybe they had a product they thought 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.840 of buying, or wanted a restaurant review, or even to 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:23.360 find this podcast, and Google sent them there. Well, what 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.119 the Google Boys invented in their algorithm and built in 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:29.399 their company, and admittedly their company is one of the 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.760 biggest richest companies in the world. But what they invented 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:37.840 was the ability to shape the agenda, to set our preferences, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.240 to determine what we want, and they did so in 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.080 a way that makes them money. You know, I talked 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.160 about soft power earlier as an ability to shape the agenda, 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.119 and usually that means somebody like Oprah tells us this 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:52.960 is a great book, go buy it, and we say, oh, 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:55.320 if Oprah likes the book, maybe we should go buy 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.240 it too, and so we go and buy it. But 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.560 what the Google boys did is figured out how to 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.520 do that on a scale never before seen. Because anytime 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.399 we want something or have a question about something, we 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.960 turned to Google and Google answers it. But when Google 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.520 answers that question, it shapes our preferences. I'm not sure 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:14.040 where I want to go to dinner tonight. I go 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.080 to Google. I put in good restaurants in Philadelphia and 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:21.080 they give me three to choose from. They shaped my preferences, 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.560 and each of those restaurants probably paid them to do so. 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.560 That's brilliant. It's made them very, very rich, but it's 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:34.840 also about soft power. Google decided to start trying to 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.320 deploy the Internet in places that previously it had been 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.800 restricted or technologically impossible. They launched these special hot air 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:47.440 balloons into the stratosphere and they beam the Internet down 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.120 so that they could overcome government censorship and that they 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.119 could get the Internet to places it had never been before. This, again, 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.680 is the story of breaking down restraints on you. Ultimately 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:01.800 in ways, I think what Google is trying to do 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:03.840 is put a little Google Search engine in each of 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.639 our brains. They've shaped our preferences, They've told us what 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.240 we want, they have set the global agenda. 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:13.960 Final question, then, is there anyone you have a hunch 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.200 just might make the list a couple of years from 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.480 now that really you're pulling out of nowhere and is 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:22.399 going to surprise us. 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.040 So, hey, if I had a name, maybe I'd put 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:28.480 them on the list presciently, But I have some places 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.439 that I'm looking. India is soon to be the world's 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.399 most populous country, and I don't think it's Mody, the 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:38.680 President of India that makes the list. Maybe it's one 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.600 of the Indian business people, but it's whoever figures out 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:45.240