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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: The private investment firm Vistyr Group is expanding its roster

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Speaker 2: of advisors to promote equity for underrepresented startup founders, and

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Speaker 2: they're tapping a pretty big name to do it. Daval Patrick,

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Speaker 2: the former governor of Massachusetts, recently joined the group as

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Speaker 2: a senior advisor. That's in addition to his job as

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Speaker 2: serving as a co director of the Harvard Kennedy School

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Speaker 2: Center for Public Leadership. Please to say, the former governor

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Speaker 2: joins us right now here on the big program and Devall,

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Speaker 2: I do want to start with your new job, your

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Speaker 2: job in the investment world, if you will, because of

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Speaker 2: course that's what we're most interested in. And I think

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Speaker 2: everybody really wants to know why did you pick Vistria.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think Vistory your group is the future of capitalism, right.

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Speaker 3: It's about long term value meeting, in this case, investing

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Speaker 3: in industries that we know are essential for the well

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Speaker 3: being of people. Healthcare, knowledge and learning, financial services, credit

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Speaker 3: and access, credit and affordable in workforce housing, the kinds

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Speaker 3: of things that are foundational for people to have real opportunity,

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Speaker 3: and doing that in a way that's both about driving

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Speaker 3: superior financial returns and measurable social benefit is where I

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Speaker 3: think capitalism has to go to as a system be

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Speaker 3: sustainable and really to sustain this idea that opportunity for

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Speaker 3: everybody is central to the American experiment, and.

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Speaker 2: That gets to the whole idea of what we've been

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Speaker 2: talking about over the last few years, a more conscious

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Speaker 2: form of capitalism. But as I'm sure you've seen, you've

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Speaker 2: also seen a very conscious pushback to a lot of that,

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Speaker 2: whether it's basically what you just described or some of

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Speaker 2: the ESG measures out there here.

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Speaker 1: How does that fold in?

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Speaker 2: Because I don't want to say the moment has passed,

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Speaker 2: but you're definitely looking at a situation where investors are

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Speaker 2: looking at that type of space much differently than they

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Speaker 2: did just a couple of years ago.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think, frankly, some of that pushback is background noise.

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Speaker 1: It's always been there.

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Speaker 3: It comes, I think from folks who are feeling like

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Speaker 3: they just don't want to have to do much more

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Speaker 3: then figure out how to squeeze every penny out of

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Speaker 3: every dollar. I think that notion of getting a superior

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Speaker 3: return versus a social benefit has been a false choice

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Speaker 3: all along, and I'll tell you some of the reasons

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Speaker 3: why I remain nowadays. You mess up in a company,

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Speaker 3: you pollute the neighborhood or something like that. Social media

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Speaker 3: is such that everybody knows it will hurt and affect

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Speaker 3: your bottom line.

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Speaker 1: Why not be more proactive about it?

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Speaker 3: Might not be more self conscious and self aware about

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Speaker 3: the impact of the business you do. You pay people

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Speaker 3: less than it takes to actually live and sustain themselves

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Speaker 3: and their families. That where it gets around, and it

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Speaker 3: does affect a business's bottom line. So the better and

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Speaker 3: more forward looking entrepreneurs and business leaders and executives are

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Speaker 3: thinking about all of their shareholders and their stakeholders and

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Speaker 3: how to optimize for all of them and making quite

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Speaker 3: a great return as they do. Those are the companies

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Speaker 3: where we at Vistriya want to be their capital partners.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you're saying there's no reason to choose between financial

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Speaker 4: return or social benefit, but to seek financial return as

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Speaker 4: well as social benefit. How do you go about measuring

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Speaker 4: social benefit based on the folks that you've spoken with,

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Speaker 4: the startup founders that you're in contact with, what is

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Speaker 4: the most appropriate and effective way of doing that?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think there, first of all, it's really important

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Speaker 3: to be transparent about that with the individual company upfront. Right,

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Speaker 3: So we're in conversations as we get into deals with

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Speaker 3: founders with the executive team about what their own objectives

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Speaker 3: have been, what ours are, how do we align those

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Speaker 3: in terms of compensation, in terms of measurements of environmental impact,

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Speaker 3: what they use, how they what they acquire, whom they

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Speaker 3: use to sustain their own business, in terms of subcontractors

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Speaker 3: and what have you. Where they are doing business, what

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Speaker 3: is the wage they are paying to their employees and

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Speaker 3: how and the benefits and how can we think about

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Speaker 3: enhancing those in ways so that we reduce the cost

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Speaker 3: of turnover for example, right one of those trades, and

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Speaker 3: we enhance the sort of inherent value and respect of

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Speaker 3: a company, particularly one that has a consumer facing nature,

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Speaker 3: so that it's overall financial value also grows.

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Speaker 4: So Deval, you had said that Invistry invests in healthcare,

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Speaker 4: knowledge and learning solutions, financial services, housing, that's a pretty

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Speaker 4: broad swath of the economy of those. What is your priority,

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Speaker 4: What are you focused on? What do you think is

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Speaker 4: most urgent?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's a fair question.

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Speaker 3: I love it all because in fact, in real life,

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Speaker 3: as you know, Scarlett, all of these things intersect in

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Speaker 3: individual families, right, They all have to work for individual

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Speaker 3: families that have a platform to lift themselves and for

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Speaker 3: their own ambitions to take flight. We have at Vistria

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Speaker 3: eleven billion dollars under management right now. Between those different

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Speaker 3: funds and initiatives, we continue to grow, We continue to

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Speaker 3: My own work will be helping to fundraise, to source deals,

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Speaker 3: to coach the teams, help them close deals and so forth.

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Speaker 3: And because so much of what we do embraces public policy,

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Speaker 3: I think there's some from my own background that I

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Speaker 3: can bring to Bearer to help there as well.

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Speaker 2: Well. Speaking of public policy, Devall, I mean, we're all

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Speaker 2: focused right now on the potential for a government shut down.

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Speaker 2: We did learn earlier today that lawmakers have reached some

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Speaker 2: type of deal. This is a deal that pretty much

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Speaker 2: we just keep things going for maybe about three more weeks,

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Speaker 2: rather than actually solve our budget problems. Here. Do you

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Speaker 2: think we're going to gather or get to a point

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Speaker 2: where we see a little bit more continuity in the

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Speaker 2: budget process and the budget process on the timetable that

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Speaker 2: the constitution mandates.

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Speaker 1: Wow, what a profoundly important question.

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Speaker 3: First of all, You're right, it sounds like what they

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Speaker 3: what we have is a kick the can solution that's

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Speaker 3: better than a crisis. But it's not really good enough,

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Speaker 3: not for a mature and serious democracy as America is

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Speaker 3: meant to be. And it seems to me that one

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Speaker 3: thing that has not happened is that there haven't been

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Speaker 3: political consequences for the obstructionists who keep us from negotiating

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Speaker 3: a sustained and long term budget.

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Speaker 1: For our government. And I wish there were.

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Speaker 3: I think that has to be a part of the

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Speaker 3: political activity and conversation as we go into the next

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Speaker 3: election cycle.

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Speaker 2: Do you miss government at all?

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Speaker 3: There are days what I miss it, But listen, we

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Speaker 3: need good government. I have worked in the private sector,

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Speaker 3: of the public sector, not for profit and for profit.

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Speaker 3: We need all of these sectors to be pulling in

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Speaker 3: the same direction.

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Speaker 1: And this back to this idea about opportunity.

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Speaker 3: And how do we make that real in every corner

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Speaker 3: of the country for everybody.

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Speaker 2: All right, Deval, I appreciate you taking the time, and

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Speaker 2: I'll just say on behalf of myself, a kid who

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Speaker 2: grew up on the South side of Chicago to watch

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Speaker 2: your trajectory from the Robert Taylor Holmes to where you

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Speaker 2: are today, always inspiring, no matter what.

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Speaker 1: Your bent is.

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Speaker 2: Daval patrick Over now at the Vistriya Group, former governor

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Speaker 2: of Massachusetts,