WEBVTT - Episode 10: Critical Race Theory with Vivek Ramaswamy 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.600 Up next, The Truth with Lisa both part of the 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:07.320 game critical race theory. We've been hearing a lot about 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.760 the term these days, but what exactly is it? What 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:12.880 does it mean? And why should you be worried that 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.200 this poison is infecting American institutions from our education system 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.440 to the workplace. Today, I get you all the answers. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:30.840 This is The Truth with Lisa Booth. Yea welcome back 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.080 to the Truth with Lisa Booth. I've got a really 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.280 really interesting show for you guys this week. My guest 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.880 is vivek Rama Swamy. He's an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He's 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:47.080 founded multibillion dollar enterprises, led a biotech company CEO, became 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.720 a hedge fund partner in his twenties, trained as a 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.640 scientist at Harvard and a lawyer at Yale. Needless to say, 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.040 he's not a dumb guy. The Vega is also the 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.000 author of the forthcoming book Woke, Inc. Which takes us 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.200 inside corporate America's social justice scam. It comes out this August, 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.280 and after talking to him, I can't wait to read it. 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:08.360 I think it's gonna be really interesting. The Vega has 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.040 lived the American dream. His parents came here from India 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.760 as immigrants, and he has built something for himself. He 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.640 knows how unique and amazing America is, and that's why 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:25.080 he is so concerned about critical race theory infecting America's institutions. Also, 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:27.199 as an entrepreneur, he knows a thing or two about 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.880 what's happening in corporate America today. The Vegue and I 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.440 discussed critical race theory, this cancer, cancer that is infecting 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.200 our country. Right now, we're going to discuss the dangers 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.399 of wokeness, his career in business, and so much more. 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:43.800 And with that, I want to welcome the Vague Ramaswami 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.240 to the show The Vegue. Thanks for coming on The 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:50.200 Truth with Lisa Booth. Thanks for having me. So your 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.280 parents immigrated from India. How did that shape your childhood 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:59.240 growing up? Look? Actually, I was in second grade in 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.480 ninety nine three when I actually watched Martin Luther King's 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.280 I Have a Dream speech for the first time. And 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.560 in a certain sense, when I watched that speech, it 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.200 actually made me think about my parents. That that was 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:12.920 the one where he said he wanted his kids to 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.280 grow up in a country where they'd be judged not 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:17.959 on the color of their skin, but on the content 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.840 of their character, and as I thought about it in 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.200 the years since then, that was that was really the 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.360 dream that allowed my own parents to succeed in the 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.640 way that they had. Right my dad came halfway across 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.520 the world in the late nineties seventies with a thickening accent, 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.160 no dollars in his pocket, and built a career as 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.480 an engineer at GE in Cincinnati over the course of 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.840 forty years. My mom was a geriatric psychiatrist who created 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.320 patients with Alzheimer's disease for her entire career, despite being 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.600 a forg medical graduate. And to me, it was something 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.560 that I took inspiration from and that I definitely couldn't 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.400 do that today. What they did, pack my bags and 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:53.840 go halfway around the world, go to a different country 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:58.120 with a different culture, a different surrounding. And by the way, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.720 in an era where we didn't have an internet, they 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.560 had to have a loose phone connection. I wouldn't be 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:03.920 able to do that. So in a certain sense, I 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.560 took a lot of inspiration from the courage that my 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.200 parents had in voting with their feet to come to 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.000 a place where they wanted to build a new life. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.000 But it was also a reminder of what the place 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.720 they came to America was all about, was a place 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.600 where they could live that dream that I learned about 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.560 even when I was a young kid, that no matter 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.600 who you are or what the color of your skin is, 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.519 we now live in a country where you'd be judged 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.800 on the content of your character and the content of 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.560 your accomplishments rather than the color of your skin or 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.080 where you were born. And and to me, that's part 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:35.800 of why I was always been partial to the American 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.040 dream is that it wasn't just something I studied in school. 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.920 It was something that my family and I had the 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.760 privilege of living. But at what point do you think 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.440 this focus at what point do you think that came 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.640 into focus? I mean, at what point was there a 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.840 shift or or or when do you think this happened 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.080 in the country in terms of just this intense identity 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:03.360 politics focus. Yeah. Look, I think that the one of 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.480 the beautiful things about the American dream is something that 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.760 it's something that we aspire to, right, It's not a 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.080 destination that we reach. It is a vision that we 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.640 aspire to, which means we're always gonna fall forward. And 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.000 so I think for as long as we've overcome the 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.160 civil rights the civil rights the civil rights movement overcame 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.960 a lot of historical injustices. You know, we were never 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.600 fully all the way there. And so in the nineties 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.039 began the birth of critical race theory, the idea that 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.920 there were these invisible power structures that governed the social universe, 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.599 kind of like Karl Mark said it in the he 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.719 thought there were these economic power relationships. There was the 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.880 emergence of this new academic movement in the nineties, critical 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.040 race theory and related woke ism that said that actually, no, 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.279 it's not just economic disempowerment's racial disempowerment and bigotry and 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.760 misogyny and racism that govern our social forces. And this 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.320 is a fringe theory in the academy, and it added 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.320 something to the marketplace of ideas. It wasn't something that 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.359 I personally subscribed to, but there's always something about a 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.159 person who wants to challenge the system that I respect, 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.120 whether or not I agree with them. When this really changed, 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.200 actually was an untold story that begins with the two 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.359 eight financial crisis, when this went from being about challenging 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.120 the system, when wokism actually became the new system itself, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.719 and it was a tricky It was a tricky trade 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.560 underlying how that happened. But the way it worked was 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.560 after two corporations were the bad guys. Wall Street was 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.000 the enemy. Corporate power was the target for the old Left, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.200 and what they wanted to do was take money from 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.840 wealthy corporations and redistributed to poor people. Agree or disagree, 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.640 that's what the old left wanted to do. And something 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.480 new happened in the post two thousand eight period where 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.240 there was this new left, this new woke left that 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.719 actually said that now it wasn't really about economic injustice 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.640 or poverty, No, it was about racial injustice and misogyny 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.400 and bigotry. And that actually presented the opportunity of a 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:56.640 generation for the most powerful companies in the United States, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.320 presented an opportunity of generation for Wall Street. Because ocupy 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.000 wall Street's a tough pill to swallow, but this woke 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.760 stuff was actually pretty easy. And so basically Wall Street 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.359 jumped on the woke bandwagon, agreed to lend it not 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.240 only it's money, but it's legitimacy to this new racial 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.440 identity based movement, and together you've got a bunch of 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.159 big banks that got together with a bunch of woke 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.680 millennials together their birth woke capitalism, and then they put 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.320 Occupy Wall Street up for adoption, and that actually proved 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.400 to be a really convenient trade that took this nascent 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.240 idea of wokenness from the halls of the academy and 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.000 supercharged it with the potency of capitalism. And then once 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.320 wokeness got got in bed with capitalism, that's actually when 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.000 it became unstoppable. And so Silicon Valle did the same thing, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.760 a backroom bargain where they say they're gonna censor content 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.040 online that the woke movement doesn't want to hear, and 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:46.320 in return, the woke movement agrees to work with the 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.280 Democratic Party to leave their monopoly power intact. The rest 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.240 of corporate America started following the same pattern. That's really 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.840 when wokeness became unstoppable, as when it merged with capitalism. 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.040 And capitalism is a powerful tool, usually to organize the 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.400 society's products, services, and economic affairs, but now it's being 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.440 used to organize society's social affairs to under this guise 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.040 of wokeness. So long story there, but but if you 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.280 wanted the redux version. That's kind of how it goes. No, I, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.720 I think that's incredibly interesting. And so you've sort of 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.760 existed though in a lot of these structures where you know, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:22.440 wokeisum is so prevalent. Right, So you graduated underground at Harvard, 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.640 you went to Yale law school, you're an entrepreneur, you've 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:30.840 existed in the biotech industry. I mean, how much indoctrination 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.679 did you find going on when you went to school 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.120 at Harvard and Yale. Well, I actually think it's changed 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:38.760 a lot over the last decade. So to be clear, 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.240 Harvard and Yale were definitely left leaning places at the 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.000 point at the point in time where I was there. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.040 But I'll tell you this, Lisas, I actually benefited from it, right. 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.720 I think I got a better education than most of 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:54.440 my peers because I didn't necessarily subscribe to liberal dogma. 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:56.480 And that means you get your views challenge, and I 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.760 mean sometimes you change your view, and sometimes it means 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.720 that you've come out with your same view, but with 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.080 a better understanding of why it is you believe what 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.040 you do, rather than just knowing what it is that 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.280 you believe. So I was actually grateful for it and 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.720 when I went to Harvard I graduate two seven, I 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.720 still found it to be a place that was about 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.800 the intellectual meritocracy, in the marketplace of ideas, where the 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.840 best ideas and the best arguments when on their own terms, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.840 irrespective of the background or the color of the skin 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.360 of the person who's making that argument. It was it 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.640 was definitely tilted in one direction. But I actually do 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.240 that is tilted in my favor in that by being 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.240 in the intellectual minority, actually got a better education out 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.760 of it. I think things changed dramatically over the decade. 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:36.760 Over the last decade, I do not think that's the 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.520 intellectual environment at Harvard today. It is definitely not the 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.559 intellectual environment at Yale today. And now what you say 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.280 is merged with your identity that somebody can't evaluate your 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:53.160 ideas without also evaluating the other inherited attributes that you 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.640 were born with, your race, your gender, your sexual orientation. 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.920 And there was this bizarre move intellectual move over the 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.559 worse of the last few years, where race actually meant 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.200 something that went even beyond the color of your skin. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.360 Ianna Pressley, remember the Squad, summed it up actually pretty 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.360 well last year when she said we don't want any 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.840 more black faces that don't want to be black voices. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.280 We don't want any more brown faces that don't want 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.600 to be brown voices. The side note, I definitely don't 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.439 fit her description of what counts as a brown voice, 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:22.440 despite the fact that I have brown skin. But to 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.640 be being brown or being black was always about a 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.960 skin color, not about a voice. And so now that 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.240 created the opportunity to say that actually, there's such a 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.160 thing as a black voice and a brown voice. And 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.000 now it's just one step further to say that if 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:35.920 you then disagree with any of those claims, that actually 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.400 means you're racist, not in the conventional sense that we 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.600 think of racism is discriminating on a basis skin color, 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.640 but now racism as disagreeing with a dogma, even in 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.200 good faith, in the spirit of open debate. And that's 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.839 really what chilled open debate in this country and set 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.320 set in this new era, righted in this new era 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.720 of fear that has supplanted our original culture of free 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.200 speech and open debate. And the irony and all of 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.240 this is that in the name of diversity, we've then 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.720 sacrificed true diversity of thought, including at our leading universities. 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.800 I've seen it firsthand. In the name of democracy, democracy 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.000 is not just about casting some valid every November. In 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.600 the name of democracy, we've actually sacrificed our most important 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.280 democratic ideals of free speech and open debate. And in 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.360 the name of inclusion, including in our educational institutions, we've 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.240 created this new exclusionary culture or certain points of view 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.360 just aren't welcome. And so you know, for me, I'm 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.760 writing this book I told you about, I'm not doing 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.360 it as a journalist that's reporting on my findings. I 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.760 consider myself actually to be something more of a whistleblower. 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.400 Having been in elite I releague institutions, having been in 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.160 elite hedge funds, and then started a Company's a number 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.520 of companies that have en venture backed and successful in 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.719 the worlds of New York finance to Silicon Valley to biotech. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.480 I've had firsthand experiences that made me compel to say 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:52.960 that somebody needs to speak up, not from the outside 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.400 looking in, but from the inside looking out to really 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.400 reveal the heart of what's going on, because we're gonna 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.800 need a better way forward. But in order to for 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.480 you better way forward, we're gonna first need to understand 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.400 the essence of the problem that has really taken a 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.920 chokehold of all of our major institutions in the private sector, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:14.559 not just corporate America, but nonprofits, museums, philanthropies, universities, educational institutions, 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.160 and then of course the government itself well. And as 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.120 you just laid out, and as I laid out in 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.599 the intro of the show, and as our listeners, no, 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.520 I mean, look, you've accomplished. I was telling you earlier 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.480 and we were talking. I was telling you about some 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:28.199 of the things I was working on. I feel lazy 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.560 in comparison. You've accomplished so much at your age. But 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.240 you know, as you've mentioned, you're a hedge fund partner 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.000 in your twenties, founded multibillion dollar enterprises. Let you lead 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.760 a biotech company. You're on Forbes America's Riches Entrepreneurs Under 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.160 forty list. I've not made the list. I'm thirty six, 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.959 so maybe I have a couple of years. But you've 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.760 accomplished a lot, and lately, you know, you've been vocal 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.520 about this topic. You're writing a book, Woking, which is 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:58.000 out auguste Why what what compelled you? Why did you 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.000 feel because obviously there's a level of risk. There's always 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:02.880 a level of risk in speaking out for you know, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.280 particularly uh for you and you know, with companies and 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.520 with your work. Why why did you speak out? Yeah, Look, 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.599 I felt some sense of obligation to do it. I 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.880 actually consider this my form of public service, at least 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.280 in the near term, because I told you about it 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:19.880 at the very beginning. It's near and near to my heart, 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.400 the American dream, because I've lived it right. I've gone 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.800 in a single generation from being the kid of immigrant 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.000 who came to this country with literally no money forty 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.040 years ago to becoming the founder of multibillion dollar companies, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.080 including one that's going public this year for over seven 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.280 billion dollars in a single generation. That was the dream 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.560 that I was able to live. And you know, as 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:41.400 I let a company a CEO for seven years, I 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.080 developed medicines for a number of diseases, probably the one 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:45.720 I'm most proud of as a drug for the treatment 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.440 of prostate cancer. But at the end of the day, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.160 there was a new cancer that even the best of 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.040 science wasn't going to address. It was a cultural cancer, 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.760 not a biological cancer, and it was a cancer that 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.320 threatened to kill that dream that I really cared about, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.200 and that was, of course the cancer that I that 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.080 we all call woke culture. And I basically think the 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.400 essence of woke culture is that it's about waking us 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.000 up from the American dream. And that's what happened over 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.200 the course of the last decade. We woke up. And 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.640 the problem when you wake up from a dream is 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:17.920 it pretty soon you forget what it was doing about. 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:19.520 You might remember how it felt to be in it, 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.360 and let enough time pass, you forget how how it 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:23.920 felt to be in the dream too, And that's the 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.560 phase that I think we're in. I don't think it's 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.960 irreversible quite yet. I think that if the tens were 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.840 about celebrating our diversity and our differences, at nauseum, in 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.480 my opinion, ought to be about reviving our shared sense 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.560 about who we are as a people. But like I said, 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.080 you only get a little bit of time once you've 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.719 woken up from a dream to go back to remembering 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:45.360 what it was all about. And I think that's the 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.480 period that we're in. So I felt some sense of 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.960 urgency to be able to speak out actually to make 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.640 a pretty tough decision earlier this year, when I stepped 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.440 down as CEO of my company to do it. I 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:57.440 do think that when a lot of left leaning ceo 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.960 is like Mark Benioff or whoever write books about their 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.640 own politics, it tends to help their businesses. But the 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.800 reality of the world we live in is that that 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.760 standard isn't applied evenly. And it was really important for 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.280 me to practice what I preached by the way I 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.439 think business and politics should be kept apart. I definitely 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.400 uh endeavored to never use the business to foist my 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.640 political views on anyone. I was always only speaking up 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.080 as a citizen, But as I really entered the public 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.360 sphere with the book and a lot of other initiatives 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.560 I'm working on, I wanted to practice what I preached, 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.120 and you know, in order to really protect the company's 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.080 voice as separate from my own, I stepped down as 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.160 from my role as CEO, so I could really speak 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.840 not as a CEO but as a citizen. But the 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:36.440 flip side of that is I'm going to speak with 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.000 candor in an unvarnished way, and I really lay out 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.600 a lot in the book that's probably gonna take a 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.880 lot of people by surprise that is going to leave 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.720 me with fewer friends at elite ski conferences and fancy 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.840 ski towns that I might have otherwise had. But I 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.560 do think that that's the kind of sacrifice that people 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:53.960 in my position are gonna have to be willing to 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.080 make if we're going to turn this cultural tide. So 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.160 it was the least that I could do. Can you 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.480 give us a highlight from that? I mean, now you 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.200 piqued my interest? Yeah, well, um, well, look it's it's 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.240 in the final stages of being touched up in a 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.680 books available for pre order now. It comes out mid August. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:11.600 But you know, look I talked a little bit about 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:17.080 some of my experiences in in you know, seeing this firsthand, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.240 and I guess, having been the CEO of a company, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:26.240 actually am and really actually pretty sympathetic to the younger 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.960 generation of workers who want to join a company who 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.920 does more than just print a buck by making products 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.080 that matter. In fact, that was part of our pitch 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.680 as a biotech company, is that you don't want to 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.560 be part of a generation that's just looking at turning 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:44.680 you know, a lot of cash into a bigger wad 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.320 of cash by going to All Street. And I, by 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:47.920 the way, I've done that or tonangement for a while, 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.920 Or you don't really want to be programming an app 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.240 that allows you to click one millisecond faster on some 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.720 guy with a mustache, on an app that disappears via 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.760 text message. Whatever it is. You want to be applying 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.200 your talents to something that matters. Come do it at 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.160 a place that allows you to make medicines or patients 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.120 who need them by fixing a broken industry. So that 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.840 was actually one of the pitches for recruiting employees early 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.360 in the early days of when I even started my 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.440 company back. So I think that it's a good thing 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.200 when capitalism works by making products that matter for people 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.280 who really need them. Where I think it goes awry 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.880 is one of these businesses espouse social values that have 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:21.880 nothing to do with their businesses as a way of 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:26.040 signaling their virtue, but in ways that actually serve as 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.120 a distraction from the essence of what those businesses ought 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.200 to be about, not just for themselves, but a distraction 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.440 for our democracy. And I guess one of the things 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:34.560 that I talked about in the book is some of 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.480 my experiences in dealing with the next generation of talent. 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.280 Right if from a millennial, you know, the gen Z 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.640 talent pool, looking to enter the workforce. One of the 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.360 things I've learned is they're actually really hungry for a cause, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.440 hungry for a sense of purpose, if I may say it, 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.880 hungry for identity. And I think we live in a 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.880 moment where we have to recognize that, you know, religion 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.760 has nearly disappeared, Patriotism is on the decline, and human beings, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.199 especially young human beings, are hungry for a cause. And 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:09.920 that black hole, that vacuum for purpose and identity and meaning, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.320 that's actually the void that wokeness is filling. It's become 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.600 the equivalent of the modern opioid for the masses. And 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.359 I think that that has our work cut out for 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.840 us in fighting this, not to not to just go superficially, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.840 as many on the right seemed prone to do and 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.600 countering wokenness, but rather to do the harder work of 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.360 rebuilding a shared vision of not only what it means 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.000 to be a conservative, but what it means to be 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.280 an American, which we lack a good answer to that 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:40.040 question today. I think rebuilding that answer and revising a 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.359 new brand of Americanism as that same sense of shared 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.200 purpose could actually be the cultural cure that we need. 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:47.560 And one of the things I talked about in the 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.040 book and some of my first stand experience is the 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.760 first becoming really frustrated and sort of wringing my hands 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.800 in the air with what exactly happened over the last 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.800 ten years that allowed our private sector to become as 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.080 defeat as it has with respect to the pursuit of 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.520 these flimsy social causes and values, to really reflecting more 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.600 deeply on the fact that actually a lot of these people, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.679 and I probably grew more sympathetic to it because many 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.720 of them have worked for me over time, are really 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.680 well motivated, talented if they're given the right mission, even 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.080 hard working people, but who need to have their hunger 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.840 for purpose and hunger for change, and hunger for identity 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.680 and hunger for a cause satisfied with the cause. That's 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.640 far more meaningful than the skin deep attributes that corporations 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.920 and elite institutions are selling them today. I think the 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.480 equivalent of Virginia Slims advertising the insecure teenagers back in 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.480 the that's effectively what war corporations are doing today to 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.080 the next generation of Americans. But what impact does it 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.119 have on companies in the sense, you know, one of 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:41.880 the biggest things I hear from a lot of people 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.120 in corporate America is there's just this intense, intense desire. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.400 It's all about diversity. Diversity, you know, skin color, meeting quotas, etcetera. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.080 What impact does it have on a company when that's 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.960 the focus versus just a meritocracy who's best for the 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.919 job regardless of their skin color? And and also that's 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.520 sort of belittling to think that someone can't the job 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.200 based off of you know, meritocracy and just based off 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.560 of you know, skill sets, and it has to be 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.080 focused purely on race. I agree with you. I mean, 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.280 if you just look at United Airlines in the last month, 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.080 for example, said that the pilots in the cockpit had 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:15.879 to be women or persons of color by the way, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.119 an expression that I detest, taking a hundred fifty cultures 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.160