WEBVTT - Roger McNamee 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.119 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Fess Podcast. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:18.560 My guest today is writer, musician, investor Roger macum. Roger, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:20.960 it is so good to be here with you, Bob. Okay, 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.320 so Roger, how are you coping with the COVID nineteen era, So, Bob, 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.520 After a two weeks where I was really trying to 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.440 figure out which way was up, I decided to adopt 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.440 a full zen program, and I am now one with 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.760 the quarantine and it's really working for me. Okay, let's 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.240 go a little bit deeper. You're one with the quarantine. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.159 Do you leave your domicile almost never. I'm lucky to 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.680 live in a semi rural area where I can go 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:53.000 for walks and get out without going near anyone else, 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.880 and that is pretty much where I am. I'm really 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:01.280 lucky because where we live, one of my bandmates chose 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.920 to shelter with us, and so we have been able 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.280 to play music every day, and we do a live 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:11.360 stream that's on our websites, on Facebook, on Twitter, and 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:16.360 YouTube every single day and that has made the whole experience. 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:21.039 It's given it a focus that's really been for me 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:26.399 at least wild change from three and a half years 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.720 of activism where I was on the road seven days 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.200 a week and you know, banging my head against a 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.440 wall trying to protect democracy from internet platforms. So let's 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.360 go back to the band. Why don't you uh tell 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.160 give us the U r L for those who are 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.120 unfamiliar to so they can live stream. So everybody should 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.039 understand that when I was in high school, I was 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.200 in a really really sorry When I was in college, 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.040 I was in a really cool band, but the lead 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.400 songwriter in the band didn't want to go for it, 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:57.760 and so I was one of these people who was 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.080 like completely left at the altar and felt crushed about it. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.760 And I went and got a real job because I 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.240 had what was a ridiculous amount of student loans for 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.560 that period, and I felt like I couldn't afford to 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.760 take a risk starting from scratch, but I always wanted 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.240 to play, so I kept playing you know, happy hours 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.520 and small band things all the way through. And then 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.000 about twenty years ago, I decided that I had gotten 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.040 far enough in my day job career that I could 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:28.880 afford to try to get serious and convert the industry 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.000 group I was in from a garage band into something 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.600 real and then it evolved into a full time band 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.000 called Moon Else. Uh T Bone. Burnett put us together, 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.280 recorded the first album, and the notion was he'd just 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.560 done Oh Brother Ware Art Thou and it was a 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:45.680 huge hit, and so he was going to do a 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:51.080 series of albums of Americano music in different styles. So 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.000 the notion was reinterpreting them, and he did three at 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.919 the same time. We were supposed to take the sound 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.640 of the Hate Ashbury and reinterpret it, and then he 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.600 got h Elvis Costello to do kind of I think 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.440 a New York folk thing, but what he really got 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:10.480 was Alison Krauss and Robert Plant to do Raising Sand, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.519 which of course became huge, and we and Elvis were 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.880 completely forgotten in the mix. I mean, we got the 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.359 album done in all, but you know, Raising Sand sucked 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.920 all the oxygen out of the room, and that forced 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.800 Moon Else, which at the time included Jack Cassidy from 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:30.320 the Jefferson Airplane, included Geez Smith, included people who have 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:35.280 been part of the Grateful Dead extended family. That band 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.960 essentially had to focus on finding another way to get attention, 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.600 and beginning in two thousand and eight, we focused on 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.640 Facebook and Twitter, So we did the first live shows 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.320 on on Twitter, and then we did we we figured 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.880 out how to use Facebook to build an audience, and 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.800 we got the hundreds of thousands of people with ridiculously 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.480 high levels of engagement as the band gradually figured out 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:06.839 what it's, what its thing was, and you know, we've 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.600 been at it now thirteen years and now we're called 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:15.560 Full Moon Eilis because last summer we added Lester Chambers 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.400 and his son Dylan from the Chambers Brothers and the 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.400 Tea Sisters, who are three sisters who sing tight harmony 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.920 to what was basically a hippie band. You know. So 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.000 we were really good instrumentally and our vocals were We're 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.640 good enough but not great. Now we've added these unbelievable 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.159 vocals and we've just recorded new album and we were 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:37.080 about to begin our first tour of theaters, right it 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.120 was supposed to start basically March one, and you know, 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.440 we had like I want to say, seventy shows set 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.760 up for this year, two thirds of the theaters, and 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.719 it was going to be really excited because Full Moon Elis, 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.359 you know, the notion of bringing back the Chambers Brothers 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.159 psychedelic gospel and the fantastic harmonies of the Tea Sisters 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.680 on top of what we were doing. People were really 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.479 groo it on him, and of course, just like everybody else, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:07.080 you know, we got shut down and uh, we've missed 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:12.320 all but one show from our and but we have 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.360 this album ready to go, and so we're going to 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:16.159 just try to launch an album. And if you go 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.280 to moon Alis dot com you can get the first 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.599 two songs, which include a new version of Time Has 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.320 Come Today with Lester now at age eight, on the 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.440 lead vocal as he was on the original and h 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.880 T sister song called Wo Wo that it's just it's 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.919 really hot and you can check those out if you like, 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:36.919 but it's you know, we're just like everybody else. So 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:41.080 we've we've resorted to pushing the technology really hard and 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.240 seeing what you can do with live streaming with multiple 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.440 locations and you know, we haven't solved the latency problem, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.479 so we can't all play at the same time, but 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.200 we've been able to have all of us on screen 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.560 at the same time using a thing that's better than zoom, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.120 and uh, with people playing from all locations but not together. Okay, 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.520 you know, this brings us to the question if you know, 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.159 the music business at large, recording end of it is 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.080 sort of solved with streaming not deeply affected by COVID nineteen, 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.599 but the touring business has been brought down to zero. 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.560 Do you have any insights on how you would address 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.640 this problem that may be able to move it forward. 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.200 I mean, Bob, we have spent our time doing almost nothing, 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:28.200 but so you know, we, like a million other people, 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.920 had the idea of how about driving movie theaters? Right, 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.200 and so we studied the economics, we started talking to 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.000 people who own theaters. Now do we begin doing this 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:40.480 some other more ago? And uh, you know, the problem 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.520 is the experience for the fans, right, I mean, you know, 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:49.159 the audio would be really imperfect. You can't get that 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.480 many people into them. The production costs are pretty high, 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.800 and so is it doable? Absolutely? Uh? Is it gonna 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.880 be hard? Yes? And you know the question of when 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:05.039 comes back? I think it's really super difficult because, let's 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.560 face it, we've mostly been hearing wishful thinking out of Washington. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.640 And you know, as somebody made a professional career in 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:19.280 the daytime studying technology and studying economics, and you know, 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.760 I pretty good at reading the news and The thing 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.880 that really concerns me is that, you know, one, we 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.120 have no leadership in the country, and so our response 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:34.040 to this literally couldn't have been worse. And yet there's 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.760 no solution on the horizon. I mean, it might take 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.880 multiple years to get a vaccine that works in enough 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.560 supply to actually protect the country. So we're stuck for 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.960 a while. And what does that mean for live music? 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.560 I mean, we're going to have to find new models 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.600 because until then, when people get close together, there's a 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.400 really high risk of getting sick. And in my mind, 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.280 folks who are older, and our audience includes a lot 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:05.880 of you know, older folks, they're going to be really 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:10.400 hesitant about what they do. And uh, we we haven't 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.920 got that figured out yet, but we're going to keep 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.480 trying until we do. Okay, let's segue to the COVID 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.080 nineteen And it's important because the wind ever, the facts 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.880 don't really change, but the spin does. That we're recording 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:28.320 this Thursday, May fourteenth, Starting today, we wave a magic 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.880 wand you're in charge. What should we be doing in 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.760 the US or maybe worldwide to fight COVID nineteen. Well, 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.679 in my mind, the United States as biggest failing right 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.920 now is that we don't cooperate with the rest of 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.040 the world about anything. So we dropped out of the 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:48.360 International Confederation to develop a vaccine that is insane. So 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.200 on day one, I would get back into that and 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.079 I would go to everyone around the world and I 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.240 both listened to what they've learned, and I would adopt it. 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.959 Our problem was we spend two months in a form 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:07.319 of quarantine which slowed the spread of the disease without 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.520 actually shrinking it. So every other country went to a 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.520 more harsh form of quarantine. Well, let's let's just go back. 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.240 We stopped the spread, but we didn't shrink that. Please 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.920 amplify that from my audience. So essentially, the way to 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:22.959 think about this is if you look at New Zealand, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.719 or you look at Taiwan, or you look at South Korea, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:34.160 they implemented measures immediately, they tested immediately, they went to 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:40.200 social distancing immediately before there was widespread infection, and the 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.360 result of that behavior was that they stopped the thing 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.840 from spreading and made it possible to resume economic activity 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.880 after a couple of months. In our case, we waited 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.480 for almost two months after the first case before we 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.720 did anything significant. And then when we implemented our quarantine, 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:00.839 we did it in such a way that it was 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:06.080 already too late in the Northeast, and we didn't think 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:12.400 about elements of our economy like meat packing facilities, like 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:20.079 retirement homes, prisons where people are tightly packed and where 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:26.560 the normal behavior did not have public health standards that 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.160 would be resistant to a communicable disease like COVID. And 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.800 so the result is we are still having outbreaks at 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.400 exactly the time we're trying to reopen the economy. So, 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.000 you know, they talked about this rate of infection called 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.960 are not and you want to get that thing significantly 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.520 below one in order to get the actual spread of 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.719 the disease. Now that's how many people one person infects 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.280 can In fact, right, we started out I think around three, 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.720 you know, now we're down to just slightly over one. 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.320 And the result is we're sort of stable with twenty 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:04.319 to of thousand people a day being diagnosed and between 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:09.800 fifteen hundred a day dying. Well I'm sorry, but you 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.560 can do the man. I mean, you know, if you're 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.680 going to have let's say an average of two thousand 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.960 people a day dying, that's sixty people a month, right, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:24.400 So that's bigger than Vietnam every single month. And you 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:28.040 know that means that by this time next year, if 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.080 it persists, of this time next year, you literally have 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.720 more people dead in a year than died in the 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:38.720 Second World War. And so that's not a solution, right. 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.719 We have to find a way to get the numbers 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.080 so that you know they're like everybody else, which is 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.439 to say that there are some days you have next 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.160 to no new infections and nobody dying, and we haven't 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.120 done any of the things to do that are testing 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.800 is woefully inadequate. We started so late that we missed 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.120 the window when this level of testing would have made 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.800 a difference. Now we need the testing to be five 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.800 times is great to produce the same effect that this 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.120 part would have done if we've done it three months ago. 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.920 And so I find all of that obviously alarming, because Bob, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.760 you and I are not spring chickens, right, we are 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.400 in the portion of the population that needs to be 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.120 super careful, and many of our favorite people in the 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:25.920 music business are also, and obviously to the extent that 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.480 anybody has had any past health history, you know, if 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:34.280 you've ever had hypertension or heart disease or lung disease, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.319 or you're a smoker or overweight or whatever. I mean, 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.000 those things just make it a lot more dangerous if 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.600 you've and god forbid, you've ever had cancer. And so 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.920 you know, to me, we've had a massive failure of 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.160 you know, public health administration in this country and there's 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.400 no sign of fixing that until best case, January of 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.280 next year, right, which is like, wow, you know that's 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.880 just okay, Just so I know what would happen theoretically 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.400 on January one next year. It wouldn't be January. Fe 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.839 be January right when you change presidents. Okay, but let's 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.840 I don't I don't want to make this false equivalences. 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.480 But since we the pass is locked in stone, if 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.880 hypothetically you were in charge today, what would you do? 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.199 So the first thing that I would do is that 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.319 I would I would simply there there too two paths. 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.960 I would take, one relative the economy and one relative 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.640 to the to the the coronavirus. And keep in mind, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.280 I'm just a citizen. I have a professional analyst, so 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.240 I have Oh yeah, but the reason you have a 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.840 long history in tech, and just like with many people 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.400 saying about climate crisis, climate control in there there depending 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.160 on tech solutions. So your viewpoint is important. So to 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.440 be clear, I do not I think the tech industry 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.080 is grossly overstated what it can do on this. Relative 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.720 to the pandemic. We have got to find a way 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.800 to increase the testing by a factor of five, like immediately. 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:10.600 And we need to culturally and this notion that the 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:15.360 pandemic is part of the culture wars, this notion that 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:21.280 somehow people's liberty is being infringed upon because we're asking 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.000 them not to kill grandmother, grandfather or someone else in 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.680 their household. That I mean, we have you know, the 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.080 first thing I do is try to bridge that gap 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.880 politically and because we have to work together on this. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.880 This is this is a situation where the country is 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.800 threatened in a way it has potentially never been threatened 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.200 in its homeland, certainly not since the Civil War. And 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:49.280 you know, we have to start doing the right thing. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.920 But on the economy, I think it's really simple. Trump 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.680 has focused all of his energy on protecting his friends, 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.400 basically billionaires, large corporations, and that is insane. We have 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.240 got to have focused the energy on the people who 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.560 work in our economy and on the small businesses on 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.240 which it depends. And you know the thing that I 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.240 would do is I would I would sit there relative 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.720 to Congress and go here is the deal. Okay, we 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.760 need to have something that guarantees an income to every 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:23.520 single American for the duration of this crisis, and it 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:28.480 should be uncontestable, and we need to have billionaires paying 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.120 their share. From a taxpoint of view. You need to 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:35.520 have corporations recognizing that they're not going to be allowed 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.280 to use the pandemic as an excuse to harm employees 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.920 or to harm customers. And you know, the reality is 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.600 we're paying a price here because for forty years we 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:51.040 deregulated our economy in a way that shifted all the 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.480 power and most of the wealth to a tiny fraction 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:59.840 of the population. And you know, ideas that worked pretty 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.160 well in the eighties became a disaster by two thousand 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:09.080 and a train wreck. Recently, and my very strong opinion, 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.040 having spent a career looking at this stuff, is that 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:17.160 our economy right now looks like an authoritarian regime. You 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.000 have a small number of monopolies that dominate every industry, 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.680 and that contributed to magnifying the damage to the pandemic. 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.440 If you look at it, we had been firing employees 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:32.200 and shifting production of low cost things outside the US 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.880 for forty years, to the point where today you cannot 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.560 make cotton swaps in order to do a test. Right. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.880 We've lost the ability to things that are absolutely essential 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.160 to the economy because we were so focused on optimizing 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.880 shareholder value in the short run, and our supply chains 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.480 are really fragile. Our health care system is a train wreck. 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:56.760 It is not designed for any kind of public health disaster. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.320 In fact, the entire economy has no margin for everything 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.480 is so efficient that any disruption at all breaks. And 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.760 that is what's going on. That is why they are 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:11.199 thirty three million people that are explicitly unemployed. But the 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.159 reality is it's probably much much bigger than that. And 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:16.760 you know, you look at this and you just go. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.960 The thing that I would be all over on day 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.240 one is a new new deal that we've got to 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.959 get out there and recognize that all of the people 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.560 that live in this country deserve to be treated better. 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.239 And so I would follow that up. For example, is 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.560 I mean I would reverse everything Trump has ever done 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:42.320 on immigration, and I would absolutely recognize that the people 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.679 whose jobs are on the front line. So these are 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:47.840 the people who work in healthcare, the people who work 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.920 in retail point of sale, particularly like grocery stores and pharmacies, 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.359 the people who work in u meat packing and other 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:01.439 food supply things. Those are essential abs, we say, but 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.680 we treat them like they're not, and that's insane. These 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:06.480 jobs need to be paid better. In fact, we need 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.359 to look at the whole ecounty. We need to recognize 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.280 that part of the reason we're here is that we 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:16.520 cripple public education, right, and so are are too many 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.280 people in our population have lost critical thinking and they 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:25.719 can't see facts as facts. They can't appreciate why expertise 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.960 really matters. And so I would love, you know, to 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:34.680 use the current environment to reset the whole economy and 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.320 to sit there and say, look, our goal should be 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.639 to get back to you know, we hold these truths 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.120 to be self evident. You know, everybody's created equal, right, 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.479 I want to form a more perfect union, and you 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.919 really want people to be able to pursue their lives 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.280 without fear. And you sit there and you look at 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:01.200 that poor situation where a jogger in Georgia is hunted 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.040 down and killed in broad daylight. And you said, you 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.119 see these guys in Michigan, armed to the teeth with 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.880 heavy weaponry, who are claiming that somehow their rights are 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.200 being infringed. I'm going the whole world is upside down. 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.880 It is backwards. And if you know, if you made 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.000 me president for a day, my goal would be to 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:30.920 try to remind people that we actually have shared interests, 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.840 that we you know, this notion that each one of 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.200 us is an independent like Marlborough man and not depend 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.360 on anybody else. I mean, that's ridiculous, and you can 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.560 see that in this pandemic. Okay, let's before we let's 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:48.359 just step focused on the other half for a second 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.719 before we leave it behind. How should we be fighting 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.040 COVID nineteen irrelevant of the economic effects. So here's the thing. 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:57.560 I'm no doctor, but I can tell you about the 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:02.680 tech part. Everything that you've heard it about contact tracing 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:08.359 using smartphones is nonsense. Everything you've heard about using surveillance 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:13.000 is nonsense. And here are the problems. So this notion 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:18.080 that a smartphone can be used to create automatic automated 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.879 contact tracing fails. For the following reasons. The core technology 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:24.920 and the smartphone that you would use to figure out 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.000 whether you got close to people who had symptoms or 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.879 people who actually were infected with COVID is bluetooth. And 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:37.080 the problem for this application with bluetooth is that while 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:42.160 it can get you within roughly six ft, it doesn't 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.240 recognize walls, So you can be within six ft of 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.240 somebody but nowhere near them relative to the disease. Because 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:55.000 there's a wall between you and the way the systems 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.760 are set up, it's very hard for them to keep 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:02.600 track of how long you are close to somebody. Right, 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.840 That's what Apple and Google are trying to create. They're 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.879 trying to create something that would would fix that. But 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.600 the fundamental problem is you're going to get massive numbers 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:16.000 of false positives, and that's going to require a ridiculous 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.360 level of processing. Because with a country of three and 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.320 thirty million people, if you get you know, if half 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.520 the things you get are false positives or two thirds 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.680 of the ones you get are false positives, that number 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:28.479 would be staggering. But it's going to be more like, 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.879 are gonna be false positives? And so let's assue for 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:39.199 by some miracle, just say to be inherently in the 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.520 way the phones are designed. This is an unsolvable problem, 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.320 or could Google and Apple come up with a solution 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:47.439 to this issue. Even enough time, you can come up 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.160 with a problem. But with the time constraints were under, 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.359 you're not going to get there fast enough, which is 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.040 a big reason why Google and Apple are radically narrowing 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.760 the scope of what they're trying to do. So the 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.000 second piece of the problem is artificial intelligence, which is 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:09.200 certainly artificial but not intelligence. The current state of artificial 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.520 intelligence is so grossly oversold that it will not help 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.560 you to solve the false positives problem. In fact, if 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.960 you look at it, all these people claiming that they 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:23.120 can create these uh heat based cameras to identify people 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:28.600 are sick. That is all utter nonsense, okay. And all 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:30.080 these people who say, well, I can look at a 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.880 picture of you and identify whether you have COVID or not. 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:37.480 I mean that is I don't know what language we 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:39.479 can use here, but that you can use any language 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:44.080 you choose. Bullshit. Okay, it is just not So doesn't 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:46.760 mean you can't get there eventually, but the current state 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.280 of the technology, it was not designed for that, and 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:51.520 so it's not going to get you there quickly. So 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.359 here's the thing that I believe really matters. When I 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.359 look at the tech industry my big problem and I've 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:00.919 spent you know, I've been there since night teen two, right, 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.560 so from when the Space program was the most important thing, 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.399 before PCs were the dominant stuff. So I've watched the 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:08.080 whole thing and I've had a front row seat. And 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.680 technology has so much promise, but the industry is out 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:18.840 of control and it fundamentally it it's driven by this 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:23.000 passion to take advantage of the weakest elements of human 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.960 psychology because the technology allot should do that. That's what's 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:29.520 wrong with YouTube and Facebook and is just just before 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:31.880 we go because now we're going down a very deep avenue. 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:34.800 But let me let me just fine. Fine, So they've 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.639 got that thing, but the other part, the enterprise products 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:41.040 all they're eliminating jobs. And I say, COVID is a 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:46.280 perfect opportunity to fix that problem. Because contact tracing is 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.199 actually best done by human beings enabled and empowered by 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.520 a small amount of automation. So the thing that Apple 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:59.719 and Google can do is, you know, empower a huge number, 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.879 you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:07.879 who are physically going and meeting people who have symptoms 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.960 and doing that contact tracing. It would have been so 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:15.760