PBD Podcast - Hip-Hop A CIA Psyop? The Truth About DEI & Police Brutality w/ Roland Fryer | PBD Podcast | Ep. 388

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, and Vincent Oshana are joined by economic and Harvard University professor Roland Fryer! Roland Fryer is an American economist the youngest African American to ever ...receive tenure at Harvard at the age of 30. Fryer's research focuses on issues of race and inequality, particularly in education and police use of force. He's a recipient of prestigious awards like the MacArthur Fellowship and the John Bates Clark Medal. ROLAND FRYER Check out Roland Fryer's work with Equal Opportunity Ventures: https://bit.ly/49oqNg6 Read Roland Fryer's publications: https://bit.ly/3IYW8eA MERCH: Buy two PBD Podcast or Valuetainment mugs, get a third FREE! Use promo code "pbdmugs" at checkout: https://bit.ly/3TBAMsq PBD LIVE W/ TULSI GABBARD ON APRIL 25TH: ​​Purchase tickets to PBD Podcast LIVE! w/ Tulsi Gabbard on April 25th: https://bit.ly/3VmuaRm MINNECT: Connect one-on-one with the right expert for you on Minnect: https://bit.ly/3MC9IXE Connect with Patrick Bet-David on Minnect: https://bit.ly/3OoiGIC Connect with Chris Cuomo on Minnect: https://bit.ly/4caZvfJ Connect with Adam Sosnick on Minnect: https://bit.ly/42mnnc4 Connect with Tom Ellsworth on Minnect: https://bit.ly/3UgJjmR Connect with Vincent Oshana on Minnect: https://bit.ly/47TFCXq CHOOSE YOUR ENEMIES WISELY: Purchase PBD's Book "Choose Your Enemies Wisely": https://bit.ly/41bTtGD BET-DAVID CONSULTING: Get best-in-class business advice with Bet-David Consulting: https://bit.ly/40oUafz VT.COM: Visit VT.com for the latest news and insights from the world of politics, business and entertainment: https://bit.ly/472R3Mz VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: Visit Valuetainment University for the best courses online for entrepreneurs: https://bit.ly/47gKVA0 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! YOUR NEXT 5 MOVES: Want to be clear on your next 5 business moves? https://bit.ly/3Qzrj3m ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

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Starting point is 00:00:47 I ain't running homie, look what I become. I'm the one. Yes. Alright, so this is a podcast I've been looking forward to doing for a long time. Dr. Roland Fry, for some of you guys that don't know who he is, you may have seen a clip that Recently went viral and when you hear about his background, maybe one of the most interesting stories We have in the entire country today. So his background
Starting point is 00:01:15 I mean I heard him say he's 45 years old and the only Living member in his family that's left that he's in in contact with. Just a very interesting life, you know, going from a former gangster, tough life, gets into Harvard, becomes, I believe, the youngest after his post-doc. He gets his PhD from economics in Penn State University in 2002. Then Friar's rise at Harvard was meteoric. Following a post-doctoral stint at University of Chicago, he joined the Harvard faculty by 2007 at the age of 30, achieved tenure, becoming the second youngest professor ever to do so at Harvard and the youngest African American to earn that distinction.
Starting point is 00:01:57 His research focused on racial and ethnic disparities and economics, particularly in an area like education and police interactions. And recently, I don't think this is recently, I think it's 2016 when he did it. He'll correct me because you have to see what this study was about. So he goes to school, he's at Harvard, he decides to do a study about systemic racism, about the link with police brutality towards blacks than others and then the results are surprising and you'll hear what happened here with that we'll get into but with that being said thank you so much for being on the podcast thanks
Starting point is 00:02:31 for having me it's great to be here yes this is probably not the typical podcast you get on that you're more used to you know Barry Weiss more you know economics more university professors but you'll see why we've been looking forward to having this podcast with you Rob can you start see why we've been looking forward to having this podcast with you. Rob, can you start off with the clip? I want you to watch this first. So this is him and Barry Wise.
Starting point is 00:02:51 And now you'll recognize after this who we have on the podcast today. Go ahead. And it was in this moment in 2016 that I realized people lose their minds when they don't like the result. So what my paper showed, you'll see tomorrow, like some of you, was that yes, we saw some bias in the low level uses of force, every day pushing up against cars and things like that.
Starting point is 00:03:13 People seem to like that result, but we didn't find any racial bias in police shootings. Now, that was really surprising to me because I expected to see it. The little known fact is I had eight full-time RAs that it took to do this over nearly a year. When I found the surprising result, I hired eight fresh ones and redid it to make sure.
Starting point is 00:03:43 They came up with the same exact answer and I thought it was robust and I went to go give it to make sure. They came up with the same exact answer and I thought it was robust and I went to go give it and my God, all hell broke loose. It was a 104 page dense academic economics paper with a 150 page appendix, okay? It was posted for four minutes when I got my first email, this is full of shit. Doesn't make any sense.
Starting point is 00:04:08 And I wrote back, how'd you read it that fast? That's amazing, you are a genius. And I had colleagues take me into the side and say, don't publish this, you'll ruin your career. I said, what are you talking about? I said, what's wrong with it? Do you believe the first part? Yes.
Starting point is 00:04:35 Do you believe the second part? Well, the issue is they just don't fit together. We like the first one, but you should publish the second one another time. I said, let me ask this. If the second part about the police shootings, this is a literal conversation, I said to them, if the second part
Starting point is 00:04:57 showed bias, do you think I should publish it then? And they said, yeah, then it would make sense. And I said, I guarantee you I'll publish it. We'll see what happens. So it was, you know, I lived under police protection for about 30 or 40 days. I had a seven day old daughter at the time. I remember going and shopping for it because, you know, when you have a newborn, you think you have enough diapers diapers you don't. So I was
Starting point is 00:05:27 going to the grocery store to get diapers with the armed guard. It was crazy. By the way, first time I saw this reaction you know to this, it takes a lot of courage and bravery and brass to do this. Keep in mind 2009 I think you're one of the top 100 Time magazine and at the time, if you're 45 today, you're what, 30 at that time, 30 years old to beyond time. I mean that's a prestigious place to be. When you were reporting this, how much did you think about this could potentially affect my career? Not at all. I think I was just naive, man. You call it brave. Maybe I was just dumb.
Starting point is 00:06:05 But I didn't think about it at all, honestly. And I have an attitude that if you tell me I can't do something, I'll show you that I can. And so when people say, oh, you can't publish this, it wasn't coming from a place where they cared about me or cared about the people in the neighborhoods who I've been working for since I got to Harvard. And so my basic view was, look, the people in the neighborhoods who I've been working for since I got to Harvard. And so my basic view was, look,
Starting point is 00:06:26 the people in the street know the truth, and we can't keep lying to them, right? Like I said the same, different time in that clip you showed, I say all the time, like, the conversations we're having in academia don't hit the ground in the neighborhoods that I care the most about, right? Like if you go to my old neighborhood, and we talked about Louisville before the show,
Starting point is 00:06:48 you go to Louisville and call someone BIPOC, they'll punch you in your face, right? Like that's not, they don't care about those kinds of things. And so I've always had the view that if this was your family, you'd tell them the truth, even if it was a hard thing to say. And you'd find a way to say it With empathy and with love but you wouldn't lie to them And so the idea that you would hide results Because you are afraid of what people would say or how they would feel or how it would affect your career It's just never been about me. It's about the folks in the neighborhoods. We're trying to help. What are you seeking because you know, sometimes
Starting point is 00:07:21 in the neighborhoods were trying to help. What are you seeking? Because you know sometimes everybody's seeking something else. Like for me, you know, I have a certain life that I've lived and I'm trying to get to the bottom of a certain truth for myself that to maybe tie a certain issue in the past, conflicts that I was trying to overcome. What answer are you trying to get to the bottom of for yourself? I'm going to put every ounce of effort I have in trying to make sure that kids, black or brown, don't have to endure what I did to get here. I'm trying to make the journey worth it, right?
Starting point is 00:08:02 So if you'd come to me at age age whatever, 15, it's one of the loneliest days of my entire life. I walked out of the Denton County correctional facility. I just visited my father in there and I remember that conversation because he was bragging about how comfy the slippers were that they gave people in jail. I thought that's like the dumbest shit I've ever heard. I walked out of there and I looked up and I'll never forget it. It was just one of these beautiful blue Texas guys. And I've never felt more alone in my life. I was 15 years old. Where was I going to go?
Starting point is 00:08:40 There was no one else. I didn't even know my mother. It was at that time. My grandmother was here one else. I didn't even know who my mother was at that time. My grandmother was here in Florida. And if you'd come to me at that time, and you'd said, look, I know things seem pretty impossible now. But these experiences are going to make you impervious to the BS when it comes to race in America and you are going to be able to analyze data and maybe make some progress for the next generation
Starting point is 00:09:14 of kids. I'd like to think that I would have taken on that challenge, but if you'd come to me during that day and said if you can get through this, we can have Chardonnay at 10.30 at Harvard University to hang out. We can talk about Play-Doh. I would have said, no, thanks, man. Could you just get my dad out of jail? And so for me, you're right. I mean, when I first got to Harvard, I felt guilty.
Starting point is 00:09:42 I had to figure out, I got to do something. And I feel like the time I feel like the clock is running out so I'm in a big hurry to make a big difference were you in Armenian there's a phrase that I couldn't stand they would say to us you know because of where we were at Mecca Mecca Mecca like oh poor poor poor Patrick poor bed Davids and I couldn't stand that phrase. When you went to Harvard, did they treat you like, you know, hey, you came from here and
Starting point is 00:10:14 poor you, let us treat you this, or were you treated like anybody else and the standards and expectations to perform? And if yes or no, did it do anything to you? It's interesting. I don't know if anyone said poor me But I do believe they looked at me different I felt like they looked at me like I was An exception Someone had beat the odds Someone who was curious. The New York Times did a profile of my life in 2006 or so. I remember, you know, colleagues coming up
Starting point is 00:10:53 to me and go, man, you sure you want all that in the newspaper? Because they talked about my family, you know, dealing drugs and blah blah blah. That, you know, I wasn't trying to hide anything at that point And but the the idea that I was an exception used to really piss me off. Yeah Because this is not about Helping a few of us beat the odds Right, that's insulting This is about unfettered competition so we can change the odds All right. This is about figuring out how we
Starting point is 00:11:25 give people real opportunities so they can do for themselves. I don't need you to pluck a few of us and pat us on the back. What we need to do is figure out how do we find hidden talent wherever it lies across the globe. It's interesting. So let's go back to the study and you know, you've shared a little bit about your background for you know, some folks who don't know. The study that you did, this specific study in 2016 that you know, we should be played a clip for earlier. When you're going through this process of with this study, were you yourself
Starting point is 00:12:07 this study, were you yourself expecting those numbers or were you yourself like surprised as hell when you saw it and then how did that change your perception and opinion of things? No one was more surprised than me, right? Like I'm not proud of it but I don't really like the police that much, right? Like if I'm going to the airport after this, if they pull me over, I'm gonna be nervous man. Like I thought it's not, I think a lot of us would be. So I figured this was gonna be the easiest thing in the world. People were out protesting and stuff like that after Michael Brown, but you know flying to St. Louis and locking arms was just not my thing. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, it's just not my thing. So I thought here's what I'll
Starting point is 00:12:42 do to help. I will figure out empirically what's really going on, because we'd only seen a few videos at that point. And I remember going to a colleague of mine and saying, here, I'm going to study the police, and here's an idea. And what he quickly told me was, you don't understand anything about the police, so how are you going to figure out what's going on with race and policing in America? So I embedded myself in police departments. We can talk about that if you want at some point. But I was extremely surprised. I was sure that there was going to be bias in police shootings. As the clip said, when I got the results back, I hired new research assistants to do it over again, just to make sure.
Starting point is 00:13:28 But once you have the results, once you have what you think is the truth, given your data, there's no other choice but to go out with it and try to educate people on what the data actually says. And what is the data? If you can just actually give us the data, what was in the data? What we found was that on lower level uses of force, so when it comes to pushing up pushing someone up against a car, pulling a gun, putting handcuffs on them but not arrested, and things like that, there were large racial
Starting point is 00:13:54 differences in police use of force. So black civilians are 50% more likely to have force used on them in any given interaction. Even when the police say they're perfectly compliant and they're not arrested and there's no contraband, etc., they're still more than 20% more likely than white civilians to have force used on them. But when it came to lethal use of force, shootings, we found absolutely no racial bias in that in any way, shape or form. And our data, I believe, is a lot better than what has been discussed in the popular press,
Starting point is 00:14:39 because they're looking at kind of statistical snapshots. They're saying, well, the fraction of black people who were shot by the police is 50% and they're only 13% of the population. Ergo, it must be discrimination. Sorry, I don't know if they forgot statistics 101. That's not how it works. What we did was say, look, here is two people are in a situation with police. Their behavior is the same. The other conditions on the ground are the same. The police decides to shoot one and not the other.
Starting point is 00:15:17 Is race a factor? In other words, accounting for everything else about that situation, does race predict whether or not a police officer will pull the trigger? And the answer emphatically is no. And that is the result that cause panic in a lot of people. Most people like the first result. What it do to you?
Starting point is 00:15:42 What it do to you? I mean, because there's certain, you're seeking the truth, because that's what you what it do to you. I mean because there's there's there's certain You're seeking the truth because that's what you keep seeing with Barry Weiss, right? I'm trying to get to truth and I love what you said and you said it again earlier today you said In one of the documentaries I watch I think was like 26 27 minutes where it says I'm not trying to beat the odds because one guy what does it feel like Roland that you beat the odds You're like, I'm not trying to beat the odds. I'm trying to change the odds, right? But individually, we're also going through a journey. There's a difference between saying guys look what I found
Starting point is 00:16:11 You will not believe this report. Look at what I found. But what am I going through? What are you going through with the life that you live? uh at that time I um I was not aware of what was going to come So, uh when we had the results, we pursued two tracks. One, you obviously publish it and we published it on a topic in Alex Journal. Great.
Starting point is 00:16:38 Seven people read it. Maybe six. The second path is we wanted a more popular version of the article, so the New York Times wrote about it. And for me personally, when people respond, you know, people send me an email and say, hey, your paper's crap, or hey, your paper's great. I do all I can to return every single one of those. And so, for me, I sat for days and returned thousands and thousands of emails from regular old Americans in Kansas and in Idaho and in Chicago, who said, I don't know if I believe
Starting point is 00:17:22 this or not, but thank goodness there's actually data, and can actually have a debate about it and we went back and forth and That that's kind of what I do for a living right? I'm a professor I I'm supposed to be teaching not just in the classroom, but if you release a paper like this is what you do So what happened to me? I got a chance to teach and if you if you Remember that time I didn't do any other press This wasn't about me out there thumping my chest trying to be on whatever news channel saying hey, look what I found we put it out there and then I
Starting point is 00:17:53 Over email and other means tried to communicate directly with people about what the results were about But what I'm trying what I'm asking is what did it do to you? so so because But what I'm asking is, what did it do to you? So because life, okay, I grew up in Iran and I see 10,000 men marching, flagellating their backs, screaming, Madag, Bad, Omri, call death upon America. America must be an evil empire. Then I watch Rocky IV and Rocky and Drago are fighting. Drago, Drago, Drago. And then Rocky, Rocky.
Starting point is 00:18:26 And if you can change, he can change. Anybody can change. And we're like, man, maybe we can bring Soviet Union and us and unify and realize we have a lot in common, right? And I'm like, wait a minute. But that's a movie. That's fake. This is real.
Starting point is 00:18:40 America must be evil. Then you go to Germany, live at a refugee camp. Parents get a divorce. Mom says, because that entire family were communists, their Bible was Carmox, Communist Manifesto, rich people are greedy. Dad, on the other side is an imperialist, they believe poor people are lazy. And then I get into the military, I get out, I get into sales.
Starting point is 00:19:00 And then I see the person that bitches the most, work the least, the guy, and I'm like, wait a minute, what's going on? And it changed my opinion about economy, about work, about politics, about capitalism, about who to vote for, about who not to vote for, about who's manipulating, about who wanted to use me, about who wanted to keep me poor, about who wanted to kind of make sure I didn't figure out the secrets to life, that I can go out there and figure myself out, about how they use fear to control, to keep your mouth shut, all of these things that I'm going through as a kid.
Starting point is 00:19:28 Right? I'm like in my 20s and I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. What did you go through, one on one, not anybody else? Did it change anything away from what you witnessed in your life to go back and say, man, I remember Bobby back in high school. Unfortunately, they sold him. He bought it. He's dead now He was smarter than me in math if he knew what I knew he could have been that sucks
Starting point is 00:19:50 It was really the social economic. It wasn't a skin color, but he was convinced. It was a skin color Why do we buy did you go through that? Evolution yourselves. Yeah, of course of course on a couple dimensions one I Yeah, of course, of course. On a couple dimensions. One, I was disappointed in social scientists. I didn't realize there was so much politics in academia until that point. I really thought that we were out there, all of us, searching for the truth.
Starting point is 00:20:26 I mean, we sit in these seminars and we beat the crap out of each other's ideas and papers, and it's all about trying to get to a place of what's correct and what's not. And to see people who I respected for years lose their way because there was a result they didn't like. It was very shocking to me. Can I ask you a question, Roland?
Starting point is 00:20:53 So you do this research, you have a fact check, double check, and the truth is there. Why do you think that truth is such a threat to your colleagues, to the powers that be going up the ladder of Harvard, to just the powers that be. It's such a threat. Why do you think that is? Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think the results themselves were a threat to them. I think they wanted to be on the right side of a particular issue.
Starting point is 00:21:18 I never thought of people as sheep until that moment. Oh, wow. You know, it's crazy you say that. My entire life growing up I don't have a four-year I don't have a two-year I don't even have an associates at a one point a GP in high school I was a math guy I love calculus love math analysis I can do math all day long had no interest for anything else trouble teenage you know kids got divorced all this stuff so so my route was I'm gonna go to the army. He went to the Air Force. He was the airman of the year
Starting point is 00:21:47 in the Air Force. So we're military. Tom's dad was a rocket scientist, literally was a rocket scientist. I'm not saying this as a... So Tom went, he became a professor, adjunct professor at Pepperdine, at Biola. He's probably had two billion dollars of exits and raising money, so he goes to Silicon Valley. So when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates do that interview that 300 people worldwide are invited to be there he's one of them that's Tom Tom's background is that so Thomas academia more coming from more coming from this side but a but a part of it I remember when I went to Harvard and for their OPM program
Starting point is 00:22:23 owner president management program You have to do ten million dollars a year to be able to go there and I qualified So I'm like Tom Tom's like Pat just go I'm like Tom. I we're running a company like Pat I'm telling you go we got the company will get Tom I hired Tom to be the president of our company at the time so I go for three weeks now Let me tell you what time it is when I go there I go during the debate between Hillary Clinton and Trump. Oh, wow and I go to this to this Chow hall I thought chow hall like, you know, I'm military
Starting point is 00:22:54 But this is a different chow hall at CHAO It's it's an Asian man. They give a hundred million dollars to Harvard. Oh, it's named after him. Oh, mr. Chow It's okay chow hall. Yeah, So I go to Chow Hall. There's 300 people from Harvard watching this debate and I'm thinking, Jellywood, Vinnie Bush, Schmied. Seriously, do it fast. You're doing it slow so we can hear. So I'm at this Chow Hall place and I'm hearing these guys and I sit in the sidelines, say nothing. And it's the line because you'd be in jail, right? Aren't we glad that a man like this isn't in the White House making the decisions and having control of whatever she says because you'd be in jail, right and
Starting point is 00:23:35 I'm like it has to be 50-50 now. I want to see 300 people in our room. It's got to be 60-40 I'm like Trump just said something The Trump people should root for him. Nothing. So this kept going for the two hour debate. Not one, 300 people are in Chowall. Not one person got up. The OPM program is a three year program. I'm supposed to go every year for three weeks.
Starting point is 00:24:03 I go to my main person. I said, are you guys, do you believe in debate? Of course we do. Is this a place where you guys entertain opposing ideas? Of course we do. Can I ask why 100%? So what do you think about Trump? He says, oh, he's a, you know, he's a, he would be a terrible president.
Starting point is 00:24:20 I said, why is it 100% of you all agree that Trump's a bad person? Why is that? I thought you guys are about debate. I said, I can't come back to the school. Never went back. I couldn't go back. The reason wasn't because I enjoyed debate. I want to sit down with Stephen A. Smith and I were talking two days ago.
Starting point is 00:24:37 Let's sit down and have a great conversation together. I love it. Yesterday, I had a friendly debate with the lawyer for John Barnett, who is the lawyer for the Boeing whistleblower on, hey, he committed suicide. Some of the stuff just doesn't add up. Company lost $50 billion on valuation. No, he just loved Boeing. It was nothing bad.
Starting point is 00:24:55 I don't know. I got some questions. I'm curious, right? Let's have the banter. But when I saw that, I said, this is not a university. They're full of shit. Now, this is my opinion. You don't have to have that position. This is my position Why and then kovat takes place and then you saw how extreme they got and they say they're against for education and then
Starting point is 00:25:15 Parents asked and said hey, I know I'm spending this kind of money for my kids to come and stay in campus now You don't want them to be on campus. You want them to come from home. Can we get some savings? Nope Harvard degree is worth the whole price. You got 60 billion dollars in endowment So all of these things made me go from you're from Harvard. Oh my god. How are you? Dr. Roland G fryer You're from Oxford. You're from this you're from that tell ya You know what? I don't know if you guys believe in debate That's where my mind went to,
Starting point is 00:25:45 because what I witnessed on Harvard campus for those three weeks, I could be wrong. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think it really depends on the individual faculty members involved. It really does. I mean, I ask myself all the time, who is Harvard? What does that even mean, right?
Starting point is 00:26:03 And if you were to come to my class, for example, I teach an undergraduate class that talks about issues like how much discrimination there is in the world, whether or not what education policy should we have, what do we know empirically about the effects of slavery on current outcomes. You have fierce debate in that class. And I think you'd be proud of what the students are doing in terms of different viewpoint diversity. If you go to other places on campus, it might be different.
Starting point is 00:26:35 I don't know. So it's a big place, but it doesn't surprise me what you've described. Rob, can you pull up what I just texted you? I just literally Googled this right now because you know how you can go and find out and say The article came out saying what percentage of Twitter executives and employees donate to the left or the right and then it was like 99% of like what and then have you ever seen this chart or no Rob? Can you pull up that chart because that's public it's not hard kind of find. It's all over Twitter and we have it. And then I said, okay, let me go a little bit further.
Starting point is 00:27:10 This is different. This is just, let me go show it to the top. Harvard Corporation members donated heavily to Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms. Look how much of it is red. You got the Pritzker family, heavy duty. You got the Wells. There's zero red. There's zero bipartisan. The only person that is, is Paul Finnegan and slightly red, all blue. This is pretty much 95% is all blue. So now, does it mean blue is right and red is wrong? Does it mean conservative policies and living a conservative life fiscally is a bad thing? Does it mean maybe if I go to Harvard, I come out, I have to be a liberal if I come out of Harvard because if all these smart people
Starting point is 00:27:54 at these places, God forbid if I'm a conservative at a place like that, I make it ousted. You know, and I know you have a very, very good relationship with Claudine Gay. I know you guys are best friends. We have barbecuing hanging out. You know you were having breakfast with her this morning. It was great, but So you hear a Claudine gay and you come out and you report this one in? 2016 2017 I just I googled literally right now to see that your article about You know New York Times star economist,ist writes this article, and that was in 2017, whatever it was, right? And then they're telling you what you're doing.
Starting point is 00:28:33 The next one comes out, Star Economist at Harvard faces sexual harassment complaints. And I went through your tweets. There was nothing about your tweets there was nothing about your tweets that was sexual they were actually funny you're like maybe if I didn't spend so much time studying stuff maybe I'd be better in sex I'd love to go to France I actually looked at your tweets text not your text I'm like yeah I mean we all probably talk like that every once in a while right so then they come after you then Claudine Gayine Gay, behind closed doors,
Starting point is 00:29:08 is trying to talk to, is it Larry Bobo? I don't know who it was, trying to get you to lose your tenure. This is pre-Herbian president. And do you kind of sit there and say, dude, are we not protected? Am I not, are you guys not trying to target me? Did that thought at all cross your mind that this school doesn't like some of the position clodding gay?
Starting point is 00:29:29 Maybe the average person on the left would say clodding gay should probably defend you Right if you're really about he should be on my side, right when you were going through that and obviously I'm not telling the whole story Yeah, but when you were going through that How are you processing all that? It was hard to process it and and what I focused on was What I could do better really right like I don't When anything happens in life, you have a choice you can either look in the mirror. You can look out the window and the first thing I do is look in the mirror and
Starting point is 00:30:06 look out the window. And the first thing I do is look in the mirror. And you're right, it's debatable whether or not telling jokes is worth that kind of penalty. But maybe I shouldn't have told them. Right? And so... Do you really believe that though? Do you really believe that? Yeah, the first thing I did was I went to executive coaching because I didn't understand right like the I know it's maybe hard for some People don't think well, you're a Harvard professor. You must know better we talked about how I got to be a Harvard professor and Nowhere in that journey was management training nowhere in that journey was hey, you know you I
Starting point is 00:30:44 I am very very casual Right. So when I think we're friends, we're friends And so I feel like we can talk about anything if you have Thanksgiving at my house Then I feel like we can banter in any way we want. It's just the way I roll And so it never dawned on me that you know for for years I had lots and lots of students in my house for Thanksgiving. And so those students I had a different type of bantering with than ones that didn't. And so I treated my workplace for people who I knew well, like my living room. And I shouldn't have done that.
Starting point is 00:31:18 And I don't know if it truly hurt someone. They said it a few years later. They said it, you know, a few years later, they said it did, and if it did, my God, I'm sorry, because that's not, you know, that's not what I had intended. So it's really not about what I believe, it's about what could be, and whether or not I can actually change my behavior. So that I've done.
Starting point is 00:31:40 Now, what was I thinking during that whole process? It was very, very confusing. And I had to figure out if I could actually do the work I wanted to do at a university. And more importantly, I had to figure out, because the world was treating me very differently from Monday to Tuesday during that time in my life. How I could still be on this mission to have impact. How was I going to get the work done that I needed to get done if I couldn't publish here or talk about academic papers there or have research assistants or what have you? How was I still going to make a difference?
Starting point is 00:32:23 And that's what I was truly focused on. Yeah, I mean you sound very nice. It's not about nice man, I want to be effective. Yeah, no I get that but to me also from the outside, do you think the approach they took to get it public and the way was was a form of trying to embarrass you a little bit? Was it a form of making an example because that could have been handled privately, you know, yeah, it felt personal. Okay, it felt personal but again What I? Maybe I'm being you call it nice, but What you gonna do about that right like back in the neighborhood I grew up in, people would say, man, fuck school, man. These people are discriminating.
Starting point is 00:33:11 What the hell you gonna do about that? You got a choice. You can either get up and work your butt off and see what comes of it, or you can sit here and talk about what you can't do. And so during that time, yes, I could have sat around, I'm not sure anybody would have listened during that time, but I could have sat around not sure anybody would have listened during that time But I could have sat around and said woe is me. It's not my style. I've never done that never And I wasn't gonna start then what I had to figure out is I got two kids in private schools How we gonna how we gonna make that work out? Yeah, right? I got kids my kids
Starting point is 00:33:41 You know, I grew up hating rich kids and I got two of them They like three Bree and shit. How am I gonna afford three? Those are the problems I got Will you protect it will you protect it from a clotting gay that tried to get you to lose your tenure so they could Fire you were you protected? Do you feel protected that? you to lose your tenure so they could fire you? Were you protected? Do you feel protected that they can't touch you and do anything to you because you came up with a study that goes against Claudine Gay and maybe her connection to former President Barack Obama who is loved by folks like Claudine Gay or the Democratic Party where she may
Starting point is 00:34:22 lose favor there? Why would you write a paper like this? This goes against our agenda of us being able to do this. We can't come up with, do you feel safe today? Like meaning if you do the next thing and you come up with, like for example right now, let's just say the next thing inspires you. Do you believe words have power? I do.
Starting point is 00:34:39 Do you believe affirmations, you know, daily affirmations? You give me the vibes of somebody that believes in daily affirmations. Not at all. Are you, meaning, meaning, do you believe that when you said, I am never gonna pout, I have never been that guy, that's a little bit of affirmation. Like you believe that's who you are, right?
Starting point is 00:34:57 So words have power. So, you know, let's say next thing you get obsessed with, you're like, you know what? I wanna find out if the CIA was involved in bringing hip-hop rap to the african-american community and
Starting point is 00:35:15 writing a song called After police, you know, you know and that goes viral and we pin the african--American community against cops and Words have a lot of power you and I can probably I don't know you I can recite a lot of songs by Tupac I can recite a lot of songs by you know bone thugs and harmony by you know RBL posse probably by a lot of those rappers from my time, right? And when you say some of the words you're like, oh shoot, I just go E.C.E.
Starting point is 00:35:46 You know? And you're like, wow, what am I saying? More murder, more murder, come, come again. What are we talking about here, right? Now what if you all of a sudden are inspired to do that? And you do the study, and it comes out it's true. Hip-hop used to be not gangster rap. 80s hip-hop is different than 90s hip-hop, right? And today it's mumbo hip-hop and you know
Starting point is 00:36:12 you've seen Snoop say mumma no mumma no humma no. It's a very different rap, right? So what if you get inspired to want to investigate that and all of a sudden you find out, dude these guys freaking tried to do this to us to put in jail so our communities would be hurt with social economics. That's dirty. Would you feel safe doing that investigation and that research today? Well first, I'm gonna answer that directly. It's a great question. First, if you take out the CIA angle, which I hadn't heard about, I'm doing exactly that study right now. Oh, fantastic.
Starting point is 00:36:46 So we'll get to that. Sick. Great. So I'm fascinated with the impact of not just hip hop generally on inequality, but the specific words and language, because I do believe that words matter. And AI has now come out and allowed us to do this in a much more serious way and scalable way. We can talk about that later.
Starting point is 00:37:07 Would I feel safe? No, but I've never felt safe and I'm not going to. But you got to buy Brie cheese. You got to get Brie cheese. You better get all of it. You got to be careful with that cheese. It's expensive. You know, I'm stocking it up.
Starting point is 00:37:18 I'm the only black person with Bree in the freezer. I got Bree on layaway and shit. Every week I put something on it. So you're saying you're a prepper, right? Oh my God. You're getting ready for post-scarcity work. Give me this calm tea on layaway. Oh my God. Okay. Give me this comte on layaway.
Starting point is 00:37:50 Okay, so you're and I appreciate that but so you're afraid but you're like you're still gonna do it. No, I didn't say I was afraid. I said I don't feel safe. They're different. Don't feel safe. No, I don't, right? Like and it's okay. I don't remember the last time I felt safe. I went to a friend of mine. I only have a couple of them from from school days, and I went to him and I said, man, I just, I, there's so much uncertainty. What do I do? He lives right outside of Dallas. And he said to me, but you love uncertainty. I was like, no, I don't. He said, well, it seems like you do, right?
Starting point is 00:38:27 Because you've lived in it for so long. Sure. So yes, I don't feel safe. I'm not going to feel safe. After our back and forth between Harvard and I, I'm never going to feel safe. That's just not an option. But I'm going to keep going because I'm willing to die on this hill. Now why are you why are you investigating this though? Link with hip-hop and...
Starting point is 00:38:52 It's the biggest cultural revolution that I've seen in my lifetime and we have no idea what the impacts of it are on economic mobility, inequality, teen pregnancy, all sorts of other social factors. So how I would ask you the question, how can I not? Yep. Listen, I admire that you're doing it because it respects you because again, Rob, what was the first gangster rap song? What was the first one?
Starting point is 00:39:23 What's the first gangster rap song like the first one? The pop like a popular one. I don't care if it's okay So iced tea had been emceeing since the early 80s But his first he first turned to gangsta rap themes after being introduced to schoolie These self-titled debut album and especially the song PSK. What does it mean? Which is regarded to the first gangsta rap song schoolie D schoolie D had am I black enough for you in the album of 1989 so that's the first one right Rob can you go to the lyrics of after police can you go to let me see this year if we go to lyrics and let's
Starting point is 00:40:02 see if there's okay right now with N it's NWF, full of action. So we're gonna go with the police straight from the underground. Young got a bat because I'm down and brown and not the other color since police. So police think they have the authority to kill a minority. That's not because I am the one for a punk mother with a badge and a gun to be beaten on thrown in jail. We can go toe toto-toe in the middle of a cell so this one you when you read this obviously it was a
Starting point is 00:40:30 hit I mean the beat was great first of all I played I'm I listened to my mom would sing this I my mom was like she'd hear a siren she'd be like the police I'm like mom so I tell you I'm 14 years old you should ask this question to my dad okay I said that can you stop by warehouse? My parents are divorced. I see him every other week I'm like buy me a tape 99 cents you go to warehouse you pick something up This is which one you I said, it's just this new jazz song that came out by this guy named easy It's a jazz song. Yes called real mother, you know, it's like well, you know, yeah, of course, so he says, okay Let's go we go buy it and we get in the car.
Starting point is 00:41:05 I'm like, freaking awesome. This great hip, you know, this is finally, I can play something while I'm working out when I'm going to YMCA. And he says, you know, I wanna hear this jazz song. See, you don't wanna hear it, it's not your type. Gabriel? Gabriel, you should ask him.
Starting point is 00:41:18 I'm going to. He's listening to it. When I put it in and he says, yeah, no, we went back for 99 cents, this guy returned it back to warehouse. He says, you're not gonna listen to that. I said, well, I listen to it when I put it in and he says, yeah, no, we went back for 99 cents. I returned it back to warehouse. He says, you're not gonna listen to that. I said, well, I listened to it anyways, but back in the days, it was a different story. So I admire you for wanting to pursue this to see, you know, what kind of an, do you
Starting point is 00:41:37 believe without even doing the research that it did have major impact in the community? Yeah, but probably different than you imagine. You think so? My hypothesis is that it had different effects depending upon where you were living. I don't know if this is true or not now and I'm on record saying I'm completely wrong about that. I was completely wrong about the police. But my view is for inner city, for people who live in the inner cities, this is gonna have very little effect. I think because I think it's already, this type of language is already out there.
Starting point is 00:42:07 People are already having these discussions. That's where the songs come from. Now the question is for the kid in the suburb who those discussions were not having, right? So imagine you move your kids out to the suburb, right? And then you're trying to get away from some of these things. And then now they can just tune in on radio and get the same
Starting point is 00:42:26 and log in and tap into that type of identity. That might be dangerous. So that's my hypothesis is that yes, it's going to have big effects, but not where you imagine. And music, I mean, if you think about it, music is so powerful. We always talked about it, especially with like putting a trance on people. Like if you listen to gangsta rap,
Starting point is 00:42:41 you like be honest, you feel like that when you listen to jazz, your mood changes, you're happy like and easy like you said you go you take somebody out of the hood and now they're in the in the suburbs and stuff and then they hear the police when they get pulled over what do you think their attitude is gonna be what it would it I do you have a clip of what ice you've said about this he didn't say do you have the other clip with the CIA guy or no what I don't know his name is John Holmes said he's a retired CIA agent. He did it. He admitted it up Okay, let's take let's take rap music. Let's take it
Starting point is 00:43:12 Same people who own the labels on the prisons So Wow literally the same people literally the same people who own the labels on private prisons. So, so, you know, it seems really kind of suspicious, if you want to say that word, that the records that come out are really geared to push people towards that prison industry. But they didn't make you write those lyrics. It's not about making somebody write the lyrics.
Starting point is 00:44:01 It's about being there as guardrails somebody write the lyrics. It's about being there as guardrails to make sure certain songs make it through and certain songs don't. Wow. Certain flavors are exposed on the record. You know, some records are made by committee. Meaning record company guys sit around
Starting point is 00:44:23 and tell the artists, is hot say that do this we're gonna have this guy write the lyrics we're gonna have that so the the narrative is really kind of you know structured and and and and and really made into what the record company want the record to be. You can pause it right there, Ron. You know, a lot of artists are... You should make a song called Hug the Police
Starting point is 00:44:50 just to flip it around. Hug the police. Hug the police! But you remember that one reverend. That better have a real good beat. Yeah. Yeah. Like, fantastic.
Starting point is 00:44:59 Fantastic beat. Yeah, yeah, they have to get like Scott Starch or somebody really good to make a sick beat. But by the way, if there's anybody that is qualified to speak on that, it's Ice Cube. One thousand percent. Is there anybody bigger than him? I mean, I just, right now we came up with the first, you know, Ice Cube's name is linked to it, so he has the moral authority to talk about that.
Starting point is 00:45:17 Tom, you were talking about a man earlier, George, I think it's Wackenhut or whatever his name was. Can you unpack the story you were telling us before? Yeah, so there's a bit of a rabbit hole here. We love those, Tom. But no, no, no, it's real. So George Wackenhut pioneered privatized prisons where rather than governments building prisons,
Starting point is 00:45:44 it's like, hey, you need a prison. How about we build it for you? And it'll be, you know, the state of California correctional facility, whatever it is. And, you know, you just send your customers, your criminals here, we'll take care of them, and you just pay us by the person. And then we'll take it. That way you don't have to build it, you know, because you have to get these big bonds to build schools water infrastructure prisons They come up on ballots all the time and people say need another prison they used to say yes
Starting point is 00:46:13 Oh my goodness. We need we got we're gonna do we're gonna reduce crime or rebuild the prison Never mind if they do the real research on recidivation rates. It's a fallacy Most prisons are crime college, and they come back out and go back in, unfortunately. And Wackenhut was then acquired by GS4, G4, whatever it was. And what's interesting is the privatization of American prisons was like turbocharged. And I think it's, Rob, I think it's a prison now, GS4, G4, that bought
Starting point is 00:46:49 Wacken Hut, and it's a major international conglomerate now. And what was interesting is they needed customers and the private prison industry in California lobbied for the three strikes law and the three strikes law that You know there comes rabbit hole that attorney general Kamala Harris in California You know she greenlit and modified the because the the weight based possession implies Distribution, you know I'm talking about that a certain weight, like over an ounce of marijuana, oh, you're intending to distribute. And now they can turn what was possession for my birthday party into a felony distribution charge and you get three strikes and now the customers are filling the prisons and there's
Starting point is 00:47:39 a big cycle there. But there it is, G4S. And now they are a giant operator of privatized prisons. And they needed customers. And then the three strikes law, it's always good to be a politician running to be tough on crime. And now you have this big cycle that comes around. Have you, have you, you're nodding a little bit. Have you looking back into, you were looking into crime statistics and looking thing. Have you looking back into, you were looking into crime statistics and looking and think, have you dove into that and had thoughts on that? I haven't at all.
Starting point is 00:48:10 I'm not an expert at all on private prisons and didn't know Wagon Hut until you just mentioned it. But obviously, I've heard of them and the viewpoints about the issues with private prisons I'm aware of. But I didn't look into it in terms of research now and the street that three strikes laws certainly, California had a very bad effect Yeah, of course because you took young men that probably should have been in and out for a minor charge and suddenly three strikes they're in and now they're in crime college, right and It's it's horrible. What was interesting to me about all this we were talking also also about music and
Starting point is 00:48:48 How you know that there are these social triggers and be really interesting to see the depth of your research It comes out of that Tom was a big rap and forte guy back in the days. He's a oh Tom was a biggie Tupac When I look at Tom I say Biggie Tupac. When I look at Tom, I say, I think fuck the police. That's what I think. That's what we're talking about. That's what he was singing in the way here today.
Starting point is 00:49:10 Yeah, he doesn't play games, bro. He was humming in the green room. Hey, not to be proud of, but here we go. Here we go. Here we go. April of my senior year in college, I found myself in back of a police car at 10 15 in the morning Six moving violations in two miles and attempting to evade pursuit that last one really gets them going by the way And I was pulled over and I'm wearing a tie and a white shirt
Starting point is 00:49:39 I was late for work driving like a complete idiot and When I had my hands on the back of my car and I'm answering questions and they then emptied out my car they were looking for a seat or a rolling paper anything there's nothing in my car but they the back of my head he gave me a push and he bounced my chin and my nose on the back of my car oh my I didn't get blood if Tom no I didn't get blood I didn't get bloodied up but the point is there's a different world out there And if you want to cross over into the world of law enforcement, it's a different world And that's when you drove away and you played no
Starting point is 00:50:12 You're like, yeah, bitch, I know what you did. I got to go to ride. I got a ride in a police car and I got But but Roland you you you don't talk the talk you walk the walk when you said you were doing your research You went with cops on the ride alongs, and you said your attitude kinda changed, cause you were like, yo, this is not an easy job. You know what I'm saying? Like what, well, I remember the story that you said, Roland, about showing up and somebody OD'd,
Starting point is 00:50:35 and you were like, yo, let's go get drinks on me, and they're like, what are you talking about, bro? We still got to finish the job. Out of all the ride alongs, what was like the craziest thing that you saw that you're like, oh my God, because you went through simulation too, correct? Yeah, it was the busting in the row house
Starting point is 00:50:51 and watching someone die. Oh, yeah, man, that was, you know, it's not every day you see that up in Cambridge, thank goodness. So yeah, that was crazy, but it did, I think because given what's happened in the relationship with police, people aren't talking enough about the police mental health.
Starting point is 00:51:15 That's something I'm very, very interested in. We have all this data out there from body cam footage and other data. We should be developing predictive models that say, hey, this thing's going to escalate because in the past, this is what it looked like before someone did something that was against policy. So can we have predictive models to figure that stuff out? I mean, I think it's a really, really hard job. And it's hard not to, I'm embarrassed, but it's hard not to see everyone. I mean, you're as a criminal, you're out there like an Uber driver and just chasing around
Starting point is 00:51:48 going, what are you doing? What is that person doing? And on the other side, when you roll down the street, people just stop and start scattering, right? And so it's two sides to it. And that was probably the best education I've gotten since my grandmother taught me how to read was going around with the police and understanding what they see relative to what I thought was going on. Long term, what are you solving for?
Starting point is 00:52:16 Long term? Like are you aspirational? Is it, you know, hey man, just leave me alone. Let me teach. Let me write some papers, let me do my thing, let me be a father, let me be a husband, let me do my thing, and I'm enjoying my life. I have no aspiration for anything else outside for being a professor and getting to the bottom
Starting point is 00:52:34 of certain articles and, you know, issues that I'm interested in. What's long-term? What are you solving for long-term? No, I'm bad at all those things you mentioned because of my real aspiration, which is to fundamentally change the trajectory for minorities in America. Maybe that's too aspirational, but that's it. It is. My grandmother used to say, why do you work so hard?
Starting point is 00:52:58 You're killing yourself, et cetera. And I said, when we believe that the market for talent is perfect, I'll stop I don't take days off. I haven't had a vacation a little more than a decade. I Work Christmas Day because I am absolutely on a mission To ensure that everyone's got a fair shot at this thing What are your thoughts with affirmative action? You know, it really, the details matter when it comes to affirmative action, right?
Starting point is 00:53:32 So I'm sure I benefited from it and I needed it. I was a hot mess when I showed up on a college campus and there was more potential than my test scores would have shown because of what it took to get those test scores. Now my daughters, if my daughters need affirmative action, it's not because they face systemic bias, it's because they suck.
Starting point is 00:54:00 Right, like we put everything into them. Right, I'm sitting, you know, this morning, getting ready to come here. My wife texted me a link to a video with my seven-year-old playing the piano. It was awful. And I thought to myself, see, she's like, every passion is explored. Club soccer, piano, horseback riding, they're bad in them all. But she can eat brie cheese like a champ. Like a champ.
Starting point is 00:54:26 Like a, trust me, okay? Trust me. But we do everything we can to make sure that whatever passion they have is watered, is nurtured. And so, and they go to the best schools that we can afford. And so if they get to the end of that journey and they need lower standards, that is not okay.
Starting point is 00:54:53 Right? Now, on the other hand, if you take a kid from the inner cities or from Iran or wherever in the world and they have slightly lower test scores, but went through the shit to get them, that person's got more talent. And if you put them in a university and free them up from those constraints of their community and maybe their neighborhood, maybe even their own parents, I believe they can flourish.
Starting point is 00:55:17 So for me, it is all about finding people with the highest latent talent. And that doesn't always show up in test scores. So having this blind, like I just take the person with the highest SAT talent. And that doesn't always show up in test scores. So having this blind, like I just take the person with the highest SAT, I think that's wrong too. On the other hand, taking people who are from affluent families with low test scores who haven't had that kind of struggle, that's also wrong. And so I think it is all about the details
Starting point is 00:55:42 and the way we're doing it now is just lazy. It's not correct You think long term? the the current model of the educational system is going to be disrupted so bad that these Physical type of locations may one day no longer be around That's a big idea. I don't know Because there's still a big effect from going to these places. Maybe it's less than it was 10 years ago I don't know but it is particularly for Minorities and so I think that
Starting point is 00:56:13 Of course, it will be disrupted. Of course it will the question is what it will look like in 25 years I don't know. My guess is there still will be a substantial In person presence in the same model we see now. Have you seen the numbers that came about that shows who AI will be affecting the most negatively? I haven't, they put those numbers out like every day. Remember it was gonna be truck drivers five years ago. Truck drivers look safe, maybe data scientists or not.
Starting point is 00:56:41 Software engineers might not be, but show me the list, I'd love to see it. Yeah, it was actually, just came out, Robin. I think Brandon has it. The link between AI and who gets impacted the most. By the way, impacted the most. Do you have that? It's literally a chart, Rob, that shows, it's an image that shows which people with what
Starting point is 00:57:07 kind of degrees and higher education, lower education, who gets affected by AI the most. It's not that one. Brandon has it. If you want to have Brandon text you, I don't know if Brandon is listening or not, he can send it to you. But the people that were affected the most by AI, there it is, I just found it, here we go. Let me send this to you Rob.
Starting point is 00:57:29 Just pull this up, right there if you can pull that up. Look what I just sent you. Just pull that up and you'll see it. Numbers are surprising. It breaks down ethnicity, men, women, sex, do you see it Rob? And this is for the future, Pat? This is what's coming down the pilot?
Starting point is 00:57:48 No, and by the way, this is coming from Pew Research. What shares of workers are most expected to AI, are most exposed to AI in their jobs? Okay, zoom in a little bit more Rob. I know it's going to be zoom in a little bit more. So men 17, women are more. Women get more degrees than men do. Whites high, blacks 15, Hispanic lowest, Asians the highest. They're going to be affected by it the most.
Starting point is 00:58:15 Less than a high school diploma, they're not going to be affected. Because they're working in cars and stuff. High school grad 12%, some college 19. Look at bachelors Plus. So the people that are going to college are going to have the biggest risk to AI than those who don't, because those jobs will be replaced by AI and somebody doing it. So I wonder what's going to happen with college. And the reason why I ask that question, and what does that have to do with affirmative action, because is the idea of all those things you talked about, okay, allowing kids to go to
Starting point is 00:58:50 school, you know, the lady that paid $600,000 or whatever it was for her daughter to go to school and then she got exposed and, you know, daughter's embarrassed, she's embarrassed, sex in the city was one of the girls, I don't know what her name is. And then boom, we all know about it, Brian, and we all read about it. Imagine that kid, every job she ever gets aren't you? Yeah You're the one right? Yeah, okay, of course those people shouldn't get in with you know, I'm a Hollywood celebrity I'm a billionaire. Let my kid in she's not that smart but let her in anyways, I get it
Starting point is 00:59:21 But also, you know some of these guys that are coming whose parents are more disciplined with education Asians who are More about they they spend more of their money investing into their kids for education than the average person does when you look at the data And some of these places Some 25% of their income is invested back into their kids Education from K through 12, not even like just in college with the data, right? So you're thinking affirmative action, the concept of capitalism doesn't apply to affirmative
Starting point is 00:59:55 action all across the board. No, no, no. I didn't say that at all. In fact, what I described is much more market-based The thing is it is trying it is the market is connecting with not just an SAT score But an innate ability right that's harder to measure and so to get that innate ability Yes, of course SAT scores are part of that but the life journey it took to get those SAT scores is also important journey it took to get those SAT scores is also important. For sure because a person who's lived a harder life that they overcame I would much rather hire that person because that person is going to be able to handle tough times and be
Starting point is 01:00:36 mentally or emotionally tougher than the other person is. That's exactly it. But I don't think that's affirmative action though right? Affirmative action isn't necessarily that. Affirmative action is more having to do, well, let me transition to the next one. What do you think about DEI? See, I think of these things all the same. For me, it is about talent optimization. That's it.
Starting point is 01:00:55 It is putting the best people in the best job. And now we have to figure out what it means to be the best person. But when it comes to DEI being a training to have me more sensitive here on the podcast, I don't think that has much effect at all. If DEI is, you know what, we should have better technology to find talent in hidden places in America that we don't already have, that I'm all for, right? So for example, there was a medical school that the typical way they were admitting students
Starting point is 01:01:32 was that they would have 75 people they thought were interesting. They'd fly them up to campus and they would interview all of them and they'd pick 40 out of that 75. I'm just making up numbers here. During COVID, they couldn't do that because people weren't flying up to campus. And so what they did was just they zoomed with three or 400 people. And
Starting point is 01:01:50 that was the most diverse class on many dimensions, not just race and gender that they'd ever had. Why? Because many of those people never got a shot to even get in the applicant pool. Right? And so that's what I'm talking about. When I went to my third year graduate school, I went to the University of Chicago, and they were known for, like Harvard at the time would have 25 graduate students and they would, you know, they'd finish 25 graduate students. Chicago was known, some people thought it was bad, I thought it was amazing, to have 50 graduate students in year one and then they would and the and the cream would rise to the Top and they would take 25 in years two three and four, etc
Starting point is 01:02:30 That is the kind of thing I'm talking about opportunity And that's how I think about Affirmative action at its best is that DEI at its best is that now the terms have all sorts of baggage, etc best is that. Now, the terms have all sorts of baggage, etc. I'm ignoring all that. All I care about is that the kid, whoever they are, wherever they are, that has really good talent, we find a way to actually identify that talent, nurture it, so that they can flourish. Should skin color matter when it comes down to who we choose to go into school? Should we favor certain skin colors and give them a higher score of likelihood of getting to
Starting point is 01:03:10 a school than those who are white? Not alone at all. But should be one factor? Well no no what I mean by that is what else? People are a lot more interesting than just skin color. So what else? If you're asking me the question, all else equal, should we favor a, should skin color matter? I don't think so. But skin colors correlate with a lot of other stuff, like income of the parents, et cetera.
Starting point is 01:03:40 So it wouldn't surprise me that skin color would matter for admissions, but not on its own. It has to come up with other stuff. For example, I don't think anyone should admit a very, you know, Obama's kids, right? They don't need affirmative action. I don't know if they need it or not, but they shouldn't get it. Right? My kids shouldn't get it.
Starting point is 01:04:10 And so therefore, should race be a factor? No, not for my kids at all. But for, you know, man-man in the inner city who grew up across the street from me? Yeah. Yeah. who grew up across the street from me? Yeah, yeah, because that race is correlated with a lot of other things that are limiting his potential. It's all about talent, right? Like, my daughters come home and ask me about race
Starting point is 01:04:37 all the time now, and they're getting older. And I tell them, it's one part of a person. But why don't you try to get to know the other parts, too? And once you understand those other parts, then come back and tell me how important race actually was. And that's what I'm saying here. We need to focus on all the other stuff. Yeah, I'm trying to see.
Starting point is 01:05:03 Okay, so why though? Maybe go a little bit deeper. Why do you think that's important for us to consider that? And let's just say we have across the board golf score, five categories. Johnny has a better GPA than Bobby. By slight, whatever, 4.5, 4.4. SAT, 1490, 1440 okay Johnny on the golf score has done the same amount of community service as the other guy a little bit more you know
Starting point is 01:05:35 when it comes down to math scored on math slightly higher than the other way a little bit more but Bobby is a Hispanic from the inner city, and Johnny's as white as they can get. You know what, let's take Bobby. Is that fair? Maybe. Why is that? Because if the obstacles he had to overcome, if you actually account for those,
Starting point is 01:05:59 then maybe his score should be a perfect 1600. Meaning, what did you have to go through to get them? Right? You can't, you can't. Okay, so let me ask this other question, okay? We have Bobby and Johnny, okay? Bobby is 6'8", 260 pounds, with a 41 inch vertical leap,
Starting point is 01:06:24 runs to 40 in 4-4 okay. Hence there's a guy named LeBron who I gave you the date on who he is. It was easy okay and he's he's black. On the other side Derrick is 5'11", okay, vertical leap, 29 inches, runs the 40 in 4'6", okay? He busted his ass 24-7 training, and he loves the game of basketball. Should he be favored to go into the NBA over LeBron? I mean, that's unfair because that guy worked a lot harder because he had to practice his shot more and I'm being serious. No okay but combine scores are not great predictors of NFL success anyway so
Starting point is 01:07:15 what you and that's what they're doing when they interview the players right they're trying to figure out do you what is this person's work ethic? But LeBron is the better vote I don't care what color LeBron is he's the better guy to take over draft pick but LeBron hasn't trained as hard as Derek has well in this case actually he did and he's got great work oh they use a different guy let's take a different guy not a LeBron go to a Kwame you know go to go to a, I don't know, take Dwight Howard, okay? Let's go to Dwight Howard.
Starting point is 01:07:47 6'11". Jumps 40 inches, okay? Incredible body. Fast. Benches two plates 25 times, okay? But partied, hooked up with girls, never came to practice, didn't do his homework. Everybody else did his homework. Everybody did his stuff for him. He's been paid for a long time, then we have Derek.
Starting point is 01:08:09 Should Derek be in the NBA instead of the white? No, of course not, because it's not a factor that should overcome all. No, the reason why I ask this is because this causes people to like Elizabeth Warren to say she's a Native American and then later on they find to be able to get into school because on the application it would benefit for me to say she's a Native American and then later on they found to to be able to get into school because on the Application it would benefit for me to say I'm a native American and I'm not white Again to get in what you're what you're describing or lazy practices that I don't like either No one should like and the system is set up to be that's practices. Well, that's the system. You're asking me what's ideal, right?
Starting point is 01:08:41 Like and so I'm you're asking me what my opinions are I mean we can sit here and say this college does it wrong so we should throw the whole thing out That's that's one thing. I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying to talk to a guy who's smarter than me in this area more experience Who is you're in it? I'm not in it. I'm simply questioning and wondering if there is a better way because my entire career has been in the world of business is is a better way because my entire career has been in the world of business is what markers when I'm hiring somebody is the best instead of oh, he's Hispanic, he's probably gonna be,
Starting point is 01:09:12 he's this, he's white, or let's say, I can't do that in business. You can't do that anywhere. No one's asking for you to do that. But they're doing it in schools. And they're wrong. I've said that like three times. They're wrong.
Starting point is 01:09:23 But in your sports example, right, if you say, well, here are two people who are extremely close. One of them is in the gym every day and the other is doing the things you described. And yeah, if they're extremely close, if their verticals were a millimeter off, then I'm gonna go with the person who's in the gym
Starting point is 01:09:40 because I think they're gonna have a longer career. But it's not like any of these factors outweigh all the other ones right the only difference is how do you okay so help me understand how do you judge that okay how do you judge capacity how do you judge a the you know I do an event once you're called the vault conference we'll have 10,000 people at the event this year in Palm Beach and one of the things I talk about is The underachiever achiever overachiever nothing new everybody's heard about the underachiever achiever overachiever
Starting point is 01:10:13 But to me the way I explain it I explain it with the capacity of the individual not necessarily you may have more capacity than me and I may be an overachiever and you may end up being an underachiever and you can still kick my ass Exactly. I don't know if that made sense. You could still beat me as an underachiever. So we can't measure that We don't have the technology for that. Well, I think that we don't we don't measure it. Well, right there is no way to measure it though I You know, I think the psychologists are trying to get really good at trying to understand stuff like grit Resilience and these other factors that are really important beyond the more traditional measures like education or test scores.
Starting point is 01:10:50 For example, let me give you an example. I think hopefully this will help. One of the things that I've been working on is trying to understand what actually predicts economic mobility. It's the thing I care probably the most about, right? And what we did was something really, really simple. We went out and we took, we found a couple thousand people, all of which who had been born into poverty.
Starting point is 01:11:18 Let's imagine 30% got out and 70% didn't. We spent hours and hours with all of these people trying to understand their lives, et cetera, so we could predict. Why is it that some people got out and other people didn't? What we found was that education was the number one predictor, not too much of a surprise.
Starting point is 01:11:38 There's been lots of work on that. But then what we found was like, five out of the next seven were all psychological Locus of control which we talked about earlier, you know, do you internalize or do you externalize things that that happen in life? grit resilience Etc and so it's not perfect at all. I agree with you It's really hard to measure capacity
Starting point is 01:12:04 It's not perfect at all. I agree with you. It's really hard to measure capacity But why aren't we but but the amount of effort that we're putting into trying to understand that Which all of us think is extraordinarily important relative to trying to figure out exactly which threshold for SATs is way off the future of talent optimization has to be in thinking through those types of skills and those types of capacities. Okay, but to me, I'm with you. So, if I'm running a school and a person ends up coming up with a study that shows, yeah, cops are not worse on blacks than they are on whites. And then you bring that study to me, and I respond back to you that this is bullshit. And you say, wow, you're pretty fast. Read it.
Starting point is 01:12:51 How'd you read it? I didn't have to read it. I just saw that it's 150 pages. You said how many pages was it? I don't know. 160 pages? You said some big numbers. Speed reader.
Starting point is 01:12:59 100 pages. OK. So then I come back, and you're like, yeah, no, you're full of shit. I thought you were scholar and an educator and a professor who can entertain opposing ideas Got it then that goes against what I'm trying to pitch to the African American community to the Democratic Party to the political side which is What the school uses many times and it goes against me then I can come back and find a way to and it goes against me, then I can come back and find a way to
Starting point is 01:13:30 find something to fire you and get rid of you, although you may be one of the best professors we have on campus. So then it risks a guy like that because you're you're no longer part of that, you know, hey, you got in here because of affirmative action, you better be loyal to us, what are you doing? You got in here because of affirmative action, you better be loyal to us, what are you doing? You got in here because of that, you know, you owe us this, you better stay like this or else, you know, what are you doing? You're playing with fire, don't forget, you owe it to us, we did this favor for you, and
Starting point is 01:13:57 then you're like, wait, this reminds me of what happened 400 years ago. So let me get this straight, so now you're using affirmative action against me because you felt sorry for me? I go there. Me. I'm not saying you. Maybe you didn't go there but I went there for myself. I've never liked that. I never liked, hey, we want to drop off some turkey for you guys on Thanksgiving because you guys are poor. I didn't like that. It bothered me. Stephen A said something about his mother where he said, well, my mom was on welfare for a couple months. She was disgusted by by it she couldn't wait to get off of it she couldn't wait to get off of it right there's a lot of people that are using the system to get on it of course so all I'm saying is if you create the guidelines for me to be
Starting point is 01:14:40 accepted based on low standards no problem I'll take advantage of it yeah and that'll be a guideline that I'll be looking for no matter where I go on work, at a job, in corporate world, no matter what it is. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, no, I understand the incentives, but nowhere in what I said I talked about low standards. None. None. I'll move my flight back. We can see her all day. So if we go with your guidelines, I say you pick a basketball team, I'll pick mine. You probably would pick Muggsy Bogues. You probably would have Spug Webb. Oh my God.
Starting point is 01:15:17 You would probably have, let me keep my mouth closed. Put on some gangster rap. Put on some gangster rap up in here. Well, Steve, I'm going to go to you would probably have these guys that made it in, in the NBA that should have never made it. And then I'll go and say, forget about it. I'll take the guys. I don't care who it is. I'll bring Shaq. I'll bring all these guys.
Starting point is 01:15:37 I didn't know you were against work ethic. I didn't know you were against work ethic. Bingo. I am. But that's the point. But for me, when it comes down to that, I think at the end of the day, unfortunately, no matter how much I love baseball, and I love baseball, right? No matter how much I love sports, guess what, man?
Starting point is 01:15:54 You shouldn't put me on your team because you need to meet a requirement of a Middle Eastern. But that's not a good requirement. I hear that. I'm just giving you that advice. If you all of a sudden start getting into buying a team and I'll call you and I'll say, hey Roland, do me one favor bro. Let me play running back one day. You shouldn't do that.
Starting point is 01:16:11 No, I'm not gonna do it. Okay. I'm telling you right now. But I'm Middle Eastern. I came from a divorced family. I was poor bro, give me a fricking break. I'm gonna give you a break by letting you watch. But you don't.
Starting point is 01:16:21 But you don't become Kobe without both you don't become LeBron without both I'm okay with that right and so that's that's what I'm saying you got that's why you have to measure both you don't become great like I I study these guys Muhammad Ali I teach a class on on black geniuses I study these guys and all of them have the end they have both so that's why the whole debate and I think it's fun to have here and stuff, but I do worry that people in the world who are making these decisions
Starting point is 01:16:51 are sitting here treating it like ore. It's gotta be and. And you gotta be looking at everything. And you're right, universities are doing it in a lazy way. The universities don't have the data sets. They don't actually know what the grit and resilience of the applicants are. That's the problem. And so they have to rely on these silly metrics that they're using. I'm saying, let's change the whole system. I'm not paying attention
Starting point is 01:17:13 to what they're doing now because it's wrong. You and I agree on that. Let's change the whole system. Let's actually collect much better data on these applicants. Let's have them do very different things. And then we can make the right decision for the most talented people, not just the people who work hardest, not the people who have higher scores and refuse to go to class, because we've met those people, those geniuses who refuse to do anything. It's the combo.
Starting point is 01:17:38 It's the and. It's the Kobe's. It's the mamba mentality. I'm heartbroken knowing the fact that if you ever became the owner of a restaurant, I wouldn't be running back. You broke my heart. No, no.
Starting point is 01:17:48 There's bias. I feel discrimination. I feel like I'm... You should. Because it was applied. And I'm okay with it. And I'm okay with it. That's my point. I love you, but I don't care if you're okay or not.
Starting point is 01:17:56 It happened, brother. I'm going to go home and cry to my mom. This is not a good situation. I mean, so let me go into another one since we're already on this topic. I can't be okay on that. It happened, brother. I'm going to go home and cry to my mom. This is not a good situation. So let me go into another one since we're already on this topic and this is the world you're studying because you are given a different perspective. Systemic racism.
Starting point is 01:18:15 Have you ever gone down that rabbit hole to see how it started, who it started with, and the cause of it or no? I have. And I think of a lot of that stuff is is is viewed by me at least as buzzwords I need to get to the details of what exactly they mean if you if you're asking myself the question if you ask me the question have you studied whether or not labor markets have discrimination them yes I've studied that whether or not police interactions
Starting point is 01:18:39 have discrimination them yes I've studied that I don't know what the systemic racism mean to you You're at Harvard you you're you know, I'm sure they talk about it We got no shot 34 running back Patrick bit David wide Wide receiver Tom Bizduck. No, when you say, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Tom, go ahead.
Starting point is 01:19:09 So when you say systemic, I see a lot of systemic things. I have a daughter that just went through the whole college application process. She carefully selected a school for what she dearly wants to study, did the early decision and did that. My eyes got open to a systemic thing in early decision and what I saw was it was very interesting and in the admissions process. This is how broken
Starting point is 01:19:35 it is in some other ways. At her school there are three students that got early decision at Duke. The admissions counselor told the other students that didn't get in, you should not in your heart be ranking Duke as your number one school. Because Duke will never take more than three or four from an individual high school. Pat, I don't know if you know about this, I just got my eyes open to this. And I'm like, wait a minute. So there's worthy kids that just didn't get in ED or maybe didn't choose to put an early
Starting point is 01:20:12 decision application in or they put an early decision application at Princeton and Duke was their number two choice. But now they're going to submit to Duke, but Duke's going to say no simply because of the count. And so I see the systemic issues in that I'm also married to a Schoolteacher who will tell you what you said that if you erase everything else and you look at the quality of the high school and Then look at the GPA and then look at the SAT
Starting point is 01:20:40 There's got to be is what you say the and where's the and to discover the correlation effect Because the SAT may not have been good because it was a noble person in a horrible school That never had the quality of the math instruction to even approach a Reasonable score despite that so I agree with that and I was just when you look at it It was just a comment of agreement with you not really a question But it's just a comment of a call of that for just an agreement But it's it's it's also it's it's also a question of You know, I'd love to find the AI that could measure grit because I think that is like teasing teasing
Starting point is 01:21:28 I'm like he's about to tee off. Yeah, it was for play and then it just all went down Hey, don't talk to my new running back I'm gonna wear my dog collar like work done. I'm gonna be undersized. You got I'm gonna make it. They've got better calves Okay going back to systemic racism The does the idea does the idea that you hear I mean you said you don't even look through it you don't even you know the topic is there a definition that you would think what systemic racism stands for or no you don't even have a Let's read it. Maybe pull up the Wikipedia that you had Rob where we were at until Tom's phenomenal question while they rob is going to be the center of this team.
Starting point is 01:22:11 Rob's going to be the center. I know he's a little sharp, but Rob got power. Institutional racism also knows that systemic racism is defined as policies and practices that exist through whole society or organization that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people in unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race or ethnic group. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, education, and political representation. The term institutional racism was first cop coined in 67 by
Starting point is 01:22:50 Stokely Carmichael and Charles v. Hamilton and black power the politics of liberation Carmichael and Hamilton wrote in 1967 that individual racism is often in the in the and I can't see that word What does it say? Identifiable because of its overt nature institutionals and racism is less perceptible because of its less overt Far more subtle nature. So have you ever read that book black power the politics of liberation or no? I have not read that book. No, have you are you familiar with Stokely Carmichael? Yeah, of course okay, and Charles Hamilton haven't read that book and you know, it's I think part of the the I haven't read that book. And, you know, it's, I think part of the, the, the miss here is that I'm an economist. That's not how, how economists really think about the world in terms of, you know, whole
Starting point is 01:23:33 societies, I guess macroeconomists would, but they're not studying racism. And so we're looking at things that are much more micro, which is what I described earlier. Is there specific discrimination going on in the labor market? How would we actually measure that? Those types of things, yes, I have studied those and continue to do so. And what you see in those situations is that if you take the wage gap between blacks and whites in America, for example, her Hispanics, And you say, let's imagine that as one. The real question is, how much of that wage gap is happening because people come to the
Starting point is 01:24:13 labor market with different skills versus people come to the labor market with the same skills and their price differently? Right? The second one is discrimination. The first is not discrimination per se in labor markets, but bad schooling, whatever else you want to call it. And I'd say that the vast majority of the work out there at a high level summary would say two-thirds, maybe 70% of it, maybe even 75% of it, is of the differences in labor market outcomes is because people are coming to the market with different skills, not because
Starting point is 01:24:51 the market is pricing those the same skills differently. Are you a fan of Thomas Sowell? I wouldn't call myself a fan. Can you be a fan of him? I mean, I know his work. You know his work? Yeah. Do you respect his work?
Starting point is 01:25:05 I think it's interesting. I think there's a lot of interesting hypotheses out there, and I have never met him and don't know him personally. I like, I think the difference between some of the stuff that Soul has done and what's being done now is what's being done now has a lot more rigor to it. And we're really interested in causality
Starting point is 01:25:21 and really interested in specifically pinpointing what's going on. What Thomas soul has done which is Really interesting in my opinion is generated a lot of hypotheses that we can test he's got a lot of ideas and there's a lot of things out there, but but It's not it's not the level of rigor. I would want it Who were some of the economists you admire because for some somebody to become an economist you almost have to have a few economists you look at and say you know because you start off reading other people's
Starting point is 01:25:51 rights. So who were some of the economists you studied? Well that's not how I became an economist but there are economists I admire so which one do you want? Give me the second one. Glenn Lauer is an economist I admire. Steve Levitt is an economist I admire. Steve Levitt is an economist I admire. Gary Becker is an economist I admire. Milton Friedman is an economist I admire. Samuelson, there's plenty that are phenomenal, phenomenal thinkers. Ken Arrow is another one.
Starting point is 01:26:17 Matt Jackson, who really brought networks to economics, is another one. So why Milton Friedman but not Sowell? Because Milton was dealing with, I mean, he's fundamental issues of price theory. I mean, these were these were field changing. Sowell, again, zero disrespect. It is a different time when he was studying these things, right? You know, looking at the outcomes of immigrants versus the outcomes of American, black Americans born here. An interesting hypothesis, but there's a lot more that can potentially explain those differences than just immigration status
Starting point is 01:27:00 alone. And so I just want to keep, take those hypothesis, dig deeper, be more rigorous. That's all Milton I have a painting in my house and the painting in my house has eight people in it. Okay, and Rob if we can get that video ready, maybe show the painting first zoom in a little bit into the painting It's called dead mentors. Okay, it's a pretty bad name, but I'm not trying to resell it but so It's actually what is that Christiano Ronaldo look at your picture on the left change it no somebody took
Starting point is 01:27:33 that and change it to something else and they're selling it Rob can you just go to the original one don't worry zoom in so you got Einstein Kennedy Lincoln Tupac myself in the middle blue suit JFK, Ayrton Senna, Dashaav Iran, MLK, and Milton Friedman, right, and an empty chair. And they're debating in the vault two books, Communist Manifesto and Atlas Shrugged, is what they're debating. That's what's in my brain. This is why I'm naturally high. I have issues. You don't even know why I have I have here can you play this clip by Milton Friedman? Have you ever seen a Milton Friedman interview with Phil Donahue? I don't think so
Starting point is 01:28:10 By the way, if you haven't this is this is the era of nadir Ralph Nader And so all this stuff and this was one of the sickest interview Vinny. Have you ever seen this whole thing? I know I saw a clip. I think you showed me a while ago, but I've never seen it. This is a must watch the entire thing. I'm just giving you the 2 minute clip. So here, you know, Phil, obviously a left socialist, you know, Democrat is how he would portray himself. And he's talking about the greed of the wealth. Go ahead. When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots,
Starting point is 01:28:53 when you see the greed and the concentration of power within, don't you ever, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea to run on? Well first of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy. It's only the other fellow who's greedy. Yeah, good point. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.
Starting point is 01:29:30 Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history where they have had capitalism and largely free trade, if you want to know where the masses are worse off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold
Starting point is 01:30:12 a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. But it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system. And what does reward virtue you think the communist commissar rewards virtue You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think excuse me if you'll pardon me. Do you think American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?
Starting point is 01:30:51 You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me, where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us? Well, I don't even trust you to do that. Honestly. It's one of the best clips. How long is the whole interview? 43 minutes. I'm going to watch it. I'm telling you it's a clinic. By the time you're done, you're going to get as close as being as good of an economist
Starting point is 01:31:18 as Roland is. Like by dynamics type? No, no, no. Not that good? Not that good? Okay. And if you work hard, we'll let you in. Thank you. Okay, cool. This is the kind of reasoning of why I, five years ago, started a venture capital company.
Starting point is 01:31:32 Because I was worried about the impact that academics can have in the world. And it is, we didn't talk about it as part of the police work, but, you know, after that work had meetings with Obama and other people in the White House, and we got nothing done. Meaning, not, we did research, it was people talked about it a while, but we got nothing done.
Starting point is 01:31:55 And on the other hand, a really good friend of mine was an investor in early stage ventures, and he was partnering with people who were truly changing the world through effort Right and and I thought how would Milton Friedman approach this would he start going out and fundraising with philanthropy and trying to? Put things out and hoping the government would adopt it no way So we started this little venture capital company to do exactly this, to invest in people and ideas that accelerate things that researchers showed will increase social mobility.
Starting point is 01:32:30 So I'm all about using the market to accelerate the changes we've been talking about around this table. I mean, when I was a kid, I was taught capitalism was the problem. As an adult, I think it's the answer. Wow. Did you ever read capitalism and slavery? No. No.
Starting point is 01:32:48 I had a guy in my life. I feel like I'm getting a lot of homework. I'm the professor. I know. You got to look at this. No, no, no. I'm the uneducated economist. I'm just very curious about this entire space. And a lot of it is because of my upbringing who was my you know My parents communists imperialists, you know Benefits of communism benefits of socialism and then you're like wait a minute what benefits of communism this book right here capitalism and slavery was given to me years ago in it by Eric Williams and it talked about how
Starting point is 01:33:19 Capitalists did all bad to you know blacks and slaves and all this stuff but What what benefits do you see in socialism? I have not thought about that Benefits Why do you think it's so trendy and attractive to so many people on the left? Perhaps because they think there's, you know, that individuals maximizing their own utilities in the way that Milton just described, without guardrails will somehow catapult us into a place that's much worse.
Starting point is 01:34:15 But other than that, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that approach. What I spend my time doing is thinking about how we can use capitalism and the power of the market to solve a lot of the problems that people who like socialism are talking about. Right? So for me, the issue is not about the amount of inequality in the country. It's about the amount of opportunity. There's always going to be inequality.
Starting point is 01:34:41 In fact, there's an optimal level of inequality that people have studied a lot. Some people think we're far over optimum. Some people think it is what it is. But I'm much more interested in thinking through how do we use the power of the market and entrepreneurial zeal to solve the social problems that many of the socialists you're mentioning say that they're interested in solving. Why do they seem so certain? And why is it that most kids that come out of college, you know, they're more coming from the mindset of socialism than capitalism is rich. You know, capitalism is bad, you know, that they're bad people. These people, all they care about is money. I don't see that, I gotta say. I mean, if you come to, you know, that they're bad people, these people all they care about is money. I don't see that, I gotta say.
Starting point is 01:35:26 I mean, if you come to, you know, the day that the students at Harvard sign up for clubs, the longest line is for the finance club. And so I don't know what they're saying to virtue signal to people, but there is a huge desire for finance and capitalism at college campuses. That's been my experience. I mean, I teach a class called Using Markets to Solve Social Problems. See, I love that.
Starting point is 01:35:57 In any given semester, I mean, there's a couple hundred students in that class and they're all there because they wanna do well. There's no doubt about that. But the're all there because they want to do well. There's no doubt about that. But the question is, should they do it through investment banking or starting a company that helps people, you know, makes it possible for people to apply for affordable housing online?
Starting point is 01:36:17 Or take your pick, right? But I am noticing that, yes, there are all sorts of issues on college campus, for sure. I live in that environment. But one of the stories that's not being told is that I'd say the modal thing I hear from my students in that class I just described is, Professor, there's no doubt my parents want me to do well. Financially, I got to do well. But I want to, if I'm going to get up at 4.30 or 5.00 5 in the morning to do well I want to do it by doing something that's good and that actually is very very encouraging to me
Starting point is 01:36:51 To me as well. Yeah to me as well final thoughts here any any Last words, I'm gonna give it to you to finish it up Your level of optimism with the craziness that we have going on in America today with how weird it is every time you turn on the television, you know, fights, arguing, the challenges we're facing economically today. Some say the market's killing it. We're doing great. Some who are actually going to shopping, they're saying they're feeling it. What level of optimism do you have and what feedback do you have to people? Final thoughts? I actually am tremendously optimistic.
Starting point is 01:37:31 Really am. I couldn't do what I do if I didn't get up every morning feeling like today's the day. And I'm not a great man with big thoughts, but I will say that what I've been trying to do over the last 21 years now is demonstrate to people that the study of racial inequality in America is a scientific pursuit. It's not something that's done armchair from my feelings, et cetera. It is about the causal effect of race on outcomes and opportunities. And if we can have an honest conversation about it, rather than trying to signal to
Starting point is 01:38:17 each other that we're not biased or that we are on the right team or whatever, we can really make progress. And so the only part that I'm not optimistic about is the inability for us to have real conversations about these topics. I go into my undergraduates, and I say, in this big class I described, I go in 30 minutes early and just chat with the students before class.
Starting point is 01:38:47 And I asked them, where do you all have your deep conversations these days about religion and race and food, whatever it is? And they looked at me like I was crazy. They said, we don't. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, when I was in college, I know this sounds, I'm old, but when I was in college, man, it didn't get heated over religion and about personal responsibility and et cetera.
Starting point is 01:39:17 And he said, no, no, we don't, we have anonymous chat rooms where you can do that, but we don't actually have conversations about it. People across the hall chatting on anonymous things about their ideas. That I'm worried about. I'm worried about the lack of free exchange of ideas. I'm worried that if someone says, hey, maybe part of the problem is that the government hasn't figured out a way to help poor people, or maybe part of the problem is that poor people haven't figured out better how to help themselves.
Starting point is 01:39:47 That that is a no-no. That's what I'm worried about. But look, these topics are so incredibly important and they're too important to lie about it. If we really care, if black lives truly do matter, then let's tell them the truth. Amen. I love it. I'm so glad we invited you. I'm so glad you accepted the invite.
Starting point is 01:40:21 It's gonna be a tough weekend for me. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I have a hard time this covering from it I think I'm gonna need to go to church both days. Okay, sir Well, I mean listen one of my dreams was just shot by this guy right here And this is I'm gonna have to go talk to my wife and sorry if you've had okay Don't get emotional fight at the end of the show Rob get better help ready You can for anyone's listening. Don't make him feel better
Starting point is 01:40:51 He's not good You can always be a kicker and I can't even do that plenty of better options for you how to blast is there anything you want the audience to go read or drive to is there a website article paper anything book anything you want them to go visit. My articles are on my Harvard Economics website and some of the things that we're doing in terms of our investing in people and ideas is at eoventures.com. eoventures.com. Equal Opportunity Ventures. Equal Opportunity Ventures.com. So let's drive to that, Rob.
Starting point is 01:41:21 If we can put the link below in the chat as well as the description that would be great Doc professor Roland G. It was great having you on today, man. Thanks man. Thank you everybody. Bye. Bye

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