Why Venture Capitalists Are Mad, With Bloomberg Beta Venture Capitalist Roy Bahat

Venture capitalists, founders, and others in the tech industry are feeling pretty raw these days. Once admired as upstarts fighting the status quo, they now feel under siege, under attack for the negative things their products do without being appreciated for how they improve our lives. Bloomberg Beta head Roy Bahat, a veteran venture capitalist, joins the Big Technology Podcast for a nuanced conversation about what's going with the tech world, how it's innovation may be connected to its problems, and how it should handle the criticism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put Agentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay?

• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation.

• 1:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast. Great to have you here for another week. Our guest today is an amazing guy. His name is Roy Bahat. He's the head of Bloomberg Beta. It's a venture firm funded by Bloomberg LP that currently has $225 million under management. So no small amount. I think Roy is like the dean of the VCs here in Silicon Valley. I respect him greatly. I feel like he's one of the more even keeled folks in this world. And I'm really excited to be able to sit down with him for a conversation today, talking about everything in the tech world, from the venture capitalist controversies to what's going on with social media and the election. So Roy, a warm welcome to the Big Technology Podcast.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  That is really kind of you, Alex. I feel myself like I'm more on the outside of the inside than... But dean status in this industry, if this industry goes in the right direction, would be an awesome thing. So thank you, and I'm ready to talk about whatever you think would be of interest.

• 2:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Awesome. Yeah, I mean, definitely like, I feel like... An important thing in this world is like setting the right tone. And you're like one of the VCs out there that are very public with what you think. And I've always been impressed with it. It's not hyperbolic. Really, you tackle like the important issues in this world, not skirting around them. And I feel like you don't yell at journalists and that's a good start.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  I definitely do not yell at journalists. I mean, as a person who once thought I might be a journalist and failed at it. I like, I basically think journalists are looking for the truth. And if we all want to operate in this world, let's help them find the truth and then we can figure it out. And I've found, I mean, it's funny, you just mentioned about having a voice. You know, a question I got asked by a founder in our portfolio is like, why is VC Twitter so weird? Like, meaning like, why when people are talking on social media and they're venture capitalists? Are they like, just kind of gross?

• 3:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I think you're getting right into my first question.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay, so the national question.

• 3:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, no, no, I want to hear, I want to hear what you have to say.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I was thinking about it. It's like, look, venture capital is a strange business because what do we do? Like, we, people think we invest in companies, kind of. We really sell money to companies because the companies have so much leverage when they're doing well. And you only want to invest in great companies. So you think the ones you're investing in are doing well. And so, you know, in a way, we're all salespeople and what do we sell? Or, you know, in the language of tech, we are customer success people, meaning helping our customers, founders to succeed. And we sell money and money is a commodity. Meaning like literally my product that I sell is legally equivalent. It's debt for all tender for all debts, public, private, whatever it says on the bills to other VCs.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  And so as a result, as with all commodities, the way you distinguish yourself is with your brand reputation. And so VCs just have become in a lot of cases, these like flat out braggarts who just are incredibly annoying. And I've tried for myself to figure out, how do you? Highlight the things you're proud of and the founders you're proud of while also having something that's very difficult to have in public, which is authentic, genuine engagement. And it can be maddening. Like, you know, I'll tell you an Uber story if you want about one that was maddening for me a week or two ago, but yeah, but I'm trying. Well, it's just that Uber, Uber came out with this public statement of like their plan for supporting drivers. And since our fund, Bloomberg Beta, focused on the future work, even though we're not involved

• 4:46Speaker 01

  in Uber or Lyft or any of those companies in any way, um, we, I have views on what they should do to better support their drivers. And I've written about those views and some of them are complimentary and some of them are critical. And anyway, they released this plan, which I thought was a step in the right direction. And so literally, that's what I said. It's a step in the right direction. And man, the hate that started pouring at me from all these activists being like, do you realize you've just endorsed a company that blah, blah, blah? I was like, I didn't endorse them overall. I said, it was a step in the right direction. Literally the next day, they then threatened to shut off in California. And I said, well, kind of two steps forward, one step back. And then I started getting crap from all my friends in tech. And, and then I

• 5:25Speaker 01

  learned that Uber had included a portion of my tweet in, um, in their message. Well, no, not, not that, in a message to like even more to all of their drivers. Like, I don't know, hundred, how many hundreds of thousands of drivers. And it just reminded me that one of the reasons I think people are, and I love podcasts for this reason, by the way, one of the reasons I think people who are inauthentic in public is the fear that they could have any piece of what they say excerpted and flattened and mischaracterized. And I've just kind of concluded that that's going to happen sometimes. And I'll still just try to be myself. And one reason I like podcasts is, and we've invested in a bunch of podcast companies, is, um, is that in a podcast, it's very hard to do that. It's very hard to pull out that little piece and flatten you and the

• 6:08Speaker 01

  listener is typically paying close attention. And so that makes for a better conversation.

• 6:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I agree. I like them too. I do think that you can talk with a level of nuance here that you can't on Twitter. And it does worry.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Alex, we get to hear your, we get to hear your radio voice. So we're all good.

• 6:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  I know. As long as people don't see my, my radio face.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Exactly. Mine too. Somebody's like, did you finally shave? Yeah. I haven't worn a belt since lockdown started.

• 6:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  I was just thinking like in the quarantine time, like sometimes I'm just like, okay, now which T-shirt am I going to wear for three days straight?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 6:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  You pick one out and you're like, all right, this is going to be the uniform for the week.

• 6:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  But yeah, it is true. Like, one of the things that I worry about these days is that there's a whole segment of the conversation that's left out because

• 6:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  any attempt to be nuanced can be rewarded with what you mentioned, picking something out of context and people yelling. People love to yell. And like you mentioned, you talked about the VC brand. One of the things that I'm wondering about is that why do so many who need to find a brand decide that their brand is one of grievance versus like, can't, can't folks? I just feel like this sense, you know, among many VCs is they feel very aggrieved right now. And, and you know, if you're have a brand, is that the real, the one that you want? Where's, where's the source of that?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  There is a lot of victimhood going around. I don't know. It's like you would think if you ended up waking up on the other side of a decade, billionaire, enjoying your life, that you wouldn't be like whining about the shit that people whine about. And I think it is. So I actually think this is something I've not talked about in public before, but that I've been thinking about. I think that it stems from an entire piece of the ideology of the technology industry, because I don't think the aggrieved thing is just VCs. I think it is founders of companies and executives and mid level employees. I think it's like kind of endemic to the tech industry at this point.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  And so I was thinking about, why is that? And I think it is the root cause, and I'll zoom out on it a little bit, but I think the root cause is that a bunch of people entered tech with a certain set of beliefs about how the world works. And those beliefs don't align with how the world works now. And I'll give you an example of that. And I call this the tech paradigm. But one example of that is That we in tech are the attackers, right? There was this famous Steve Jobs line about, you know, it's more fun to be a pirate than to be in the Navy. Well, what do you do when the pirates run the most valuable companies in the world? And have more power than the Navy does? Well, then all of a sudden you're the Admiral. And so tech does not know how to wear the crown of criticism

• 9:00Speaker 01

  that comes with all that responsibility. And, you know, instead it's like, well, you know, I'm just misunderstood and if only you got it, I'd be, you know, you'd be happier with me. And instead of saying, ah shit, there actually is something valid about this. Since I have power, maybe I should show a little nuance and responsibility. And as a result, they feel aggrieved because, you know, they've been attacked. And I mean, I, I remember there was an article that a journalist wrote about a VC fund, basically saying like, this VC fund is falling apart. And the VC fund was led by somebody who was really sympathetic. And it's not even important who it was, because this could have been many situations. It's like, it's not about that person. People who, and, and all the responses to the, the journalists were like,

• 9:42Speaker 01

  well, why didn't you write about all these other things that that fund is doing that are great? It's like, well, because that wasn't, the point of my story was not to grade the fund overall. The point of my story was to talk about this one thing. And, you know, and like not getting that that is the dynamic is a big part of this ideology. To zoom out, I think the ideology explains a lot of tech's kind of bad behavior in the world. And also all of its good behavior. So like, I'll give you one example of a core tenet of the tech paradigm. Like if you said to people, actually, let me ask you, if you were to go, I don't know, like down a hall in the hill in Washington, or talk to a general business reporter who you've worked with, who doesn't have much tech industry familiarity, if there are any of those left. And you said to them, well, what characterizes the culture of the tech industry?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  What do you, like, I'm not trying to test, I'm just curious. Like first things that come to mind and what do you think would be included in that?

• 10:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, I would say brash.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exciting. I think people generally find that this industry is more exciting and dynamic than, let's say, you know, people trading bonds.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  And sort of, they would also say that there's a level of immaturity.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  I would think that folks have no idea, even though they talk a big game about, you know, power and stuff like that, they really have no idea what their tools are doing and tend to view people as numbers versus actual human beings.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Numbers versus human beings and not knowing. Yeah. So I think a lot of those I really feel. And so I've been trying to introspect myself because I'm part of the tech industry, obviously, and think about it as I look around at what are the qualities that drive? Like, how did tech turn out that way? Is that just an accident of like what the personalities were of a few people? And I think it's not an accident. I think it is actually very much follows the how the tech industry originated and how people in tech got into the industry. And you touched on a bunch of this in your book around sort of the engineer's mentality. And I think that's a big part of it. But let me try to characterize. So one of the

• 11:44Speaker 01

  things that I think is really important is tech is indifferent to norms. Tech is proudly like the kind of place where it's like, well, if society says we should do X, maybe we should do it, maybe we shouldn't, but we should decide for our own reasons. And so there's this kind of independence of thought that comes with that. And I, my personal view on that is why did that happen? Because a lot of the people in tech historically were outcasts when they were younger. They were the nerd in high school. I certainly was the nerd in high school. And as a result, they had to develop this studied indifference because if they swallowed into the norms, they'd think poorly of themselves. A second one that comes with that is a hyper obsession with focus of like, you know, this is part of the engineer's mentality. It's like, I'm going to stare at this problem and only this

• 12:27Speaker 01

  problem and decide it's the only thing in the world and everything else shall melt away.

• 12:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Like if you're in a coder, if you're a coder and you're like in the zone.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're totally unresponsive to all others.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  But there's also like focusing on the thing you care about and ignoring, you know, short sellers if you're Elon or critiques.

• 12:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not ignoring those short sellers.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Well, that's fair enough. Fine. He's taunting them now. He's sort of level two on that.

• 12:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  But not being.

• 12:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  To their concerns.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  That's right. Being indifferent to their, to their concerns. And, and out of that. Comes a similar and related things, which is the focus on optimization, which is to say, "Give me a problem." You know, Amazon says an objective function, "And I will find you the best answer to that." And you know, consequences kind of be damned on some level. And so the immaturity, I think, is more a consequence of indifference and focus, indifference to norms and focus than it is like, "Oh, they're bad people. They just are not world aware."

• 13:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  And I definitely think it's not a bad people thing. And so you got that optimization, that focus, that indifference to norms. And then the last part is an obsession with speed. Because the winning, this is more a matter of like a Darwinian thing. Yeah, but of like, the faster you went, the more likely you were to survive. Therefore, all the powerful, you know, entities in tech have a culture of incredible speed. And you add all those things together, and what do you get? You get organizations that can bring an electric car to life, or can make a thing that you speak to that speaks back to you and answers your questions, or, you know, deliver things to you before you even knew you wanted them and all kinds of stuff. And you get a blindness to, like, the way I put it is if you're looking at the screen, you're not looking at the street.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  And you get this blindness to all of the consequences that in some ways become more pronounced than the core facts. I mean, I remember I was talking to this guy, very quintessential founder, like, for better and for worse. You know, recent Stanford Business School graduate, you know, smart guy, had worked at a late-stage tech company, blah, blah, blah. And I asked a question that are often asked in pitch meetings, which is, "If you are successful, what will the underside be of that success? And how will you manage it?" And he said something, he said, he gave a bit of an answer, and he said, "But those are unintended consequences, as if you're not responsible for unintended consequences."

• 14:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. If you know they're gonna happen, I mean, you should definitely, you can't call them unintended consequences.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Real leadership is whether or not you know they're gonna happen. You're responsible for the consequences of your actions. And I just think that the leaders in tech, many of them, not all, many of them believe deeply that they are responsible, they're making the world better. You know, they're not as focused on money and greed or power as people think, but they're just not fully aware and empathetic to all the consequences that they've caused. And as a result, they come off like fucking assholes. And- They, I mean, and look, you see this like, you know, let me write a, let me be a billionaire writing a blog post about income inequality and how people shouldn't worry about it too much. It's like, you know, maybe you should have thought to ask somebody who wasn't rich before you did that, you know, that kind of thing. So you end up with that, that, that

• 15:39Speaker 01

  tone deafness combined with a genuine error of calculation. Now, the, the problem is, and then I'll shut up and let you go on to whatever you want to talk about next. But the problem is, if you over correct for it, you also fail. Like Uber would not exist. The entire rideshare industry would not exist had they said, we will strictly follow the law. And I actually think it's a way better world that they didn't. And to admit that we might have a better world for people who selectively ignore norms is a really tough one because, you know, tech is also in the world of optimization, really good at thinking ad infinitum to absolutes. And this, you know, I think once you are big and powerful, you cannot live in a world where it is always right to go 100% left

• 16:21Speaker 01

  or 100% right. You have to let in the complexity of actual situations and tech is terrible at that. Both ways, right? Like you don't listen to the experienced consultant just because they're experienced because you might fail. But if you never listen to them, you might fail too. And so that's, that's, to me, the tech paradigm evolving to account for its own power is the kind of like the next generation of tech founders. I think that's one of the things that will distinguish them that the previous generation just doesn't get.

• 16:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, that's fascinating. So it's almost as if what we see the tech industry produce is also tied up with all this bad stuff.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, inextricably linked.

• 17:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so then is there a hope for it to change?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yes. I think, I think that we are going to have to, I mean, look, you have plenty of examples of industries that changed. The question is to me, whether it will be violent change or thoughtful change. Like violent change would be like tech gets something like the Glass-Steagall Act, where it's like, okay, now you, thou must be cast.

• 17:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Can you tell us a little bit more about what that is?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Glass-Steagall was the act in the financial industry that, I forget how many years ago, 80 years ago, let's say, split apart consumer banking. So banking for humans from wholesale activities, investment banking, all that kind of stuff. That's maybe not a good technical description, but that's my terrible layman's description of it. And it was a, it was ultimately 70 years after his past, so maybe 10 years ago or so, I don't know exactly, overturned or repealed and not overturned, but repealed by some other law. And it created lots of issues. It was a very, it was an arguably good, but very clumsy solution and certainly not optimal. And so if we end up with like, you know, members of Congress who don't know anything about tech, which is not all of

• 18:12Speaker 01

  them, but it is some of them, you know, and we'll talk about government later, but deciding to, um, to break apart the tech industry, but doing it in a stupid way, there might be smart ways of doing it, will be, it'll be really awful. And tech is not immune from all of this power. I do think there's one way, I see one path for tech to grow up that I'm really hopeful about.

• 18:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  To do it on their own?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think it's hopeless. But I do think it's very much at risk. And I think, you know, all of us who care about how the world unfolds and, you know, okay, more parochially, if you just care about how the tech world unfolds, we should want that tech paradigm to both be able to create amazing new things and be able to grow up to the effects of its power.

• 18:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And then, so the way to do that, first of all, I think that if there is any big legislation coming in from the government right now, it will almost certainly have really bad, negative, unintended, you know, to use our term, consequences, um, just given, I mean, I've been in the hearing rooms and seen the questions and I know like, there's a push for people to like, cut these folks some slack, but I really can't. I mean, it just, it's a shame that our government is like, really falling flat on its face and its responsibility to try to rein some of these companies in or at least

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Among many other government responsibilities.

• 19:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I mean, I believe in government, but I believe in competent government.

• 19:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Yeah. And right now, we're not exactly, we have one and not the other, but at least, I don't know, at least we have one, maybe. I don't know. It's hard to find bright spots. So, um, so if we, if that's not the thing that's going to end up really helping the situation. So what's it going to take? Is it going to be a moment of the tech industry, like all of a sudden

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I'll give you two raises of hope.

• 19:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  And saying, we need to do this on our own. Or like, like, how does that look?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  So here's what I think is not going to happen. What I think is not going to happen is that Zuck is going to wake up tomorrow and be like, you know, I've been thinking about that free speech thing and how much I am an absolutist about it for all these years. Eh, I did overdid it. I take it back. That's not going to happen. I, I, I, I think that it will take power to shape power. And I think government is a last resort. I'd prefer that government didn't need to act, but it may need to. I'll give you two other rays of hope, though. One, which takes a long time and one which I think could happen faster. The one that takes a long time is, you know, the dominant tech companies 15 years from now might not be Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Netflix.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  You know, they might be new companies that are arising now. And if that's the case, the new generation of founders, I just think is more aware. And one of the reasons for that, I believe, and you know, Uber is not a good example of this, or maybe it's the exception that proves the rule. But as it like my like dummies history of the tech industry is first 25 years of the tech industry, they just made tech in the corner, like chips and wires and computers and screens. And that was all essential infrastructure for what we have now. The next 25 years, with the exception of Amazon, were really about information industries. You know, Facebook, Google, like they move bits around. The next generation is about tech expanding to everything else. And what happens when you expand everything else, like, you know, accommodations in the

• 21:24Speaker 01

  case of Airbnb or logistics, transportation, you know, we're investors in Flexport, shipping broker, is you need to know the real world and how it works much faster than, much earlier in the company's life than you did when all you did was move bits. Because bits become significant, but there are issues around privacy and cybersecurity. But like, you know, the chance of somebody dying with a bad Google search was a rare occurrence. There's somebody, a chance of somebody dying with a bad Airbnb stay could happen very early in the company's journey, may even have happened for all I know. And so I think that next generation of founders, A, out of necessity and B, just culture, like, not all the founders were outcasts when they were kids, you know, like, it's become a more central, normal thing. And as a result, I think there, I'm

• 22:09Speaker 01

  not saying it's bad to be an outcast, I was one, but, but I think that there's a world awareness that the next generation of founders has. But that's going to take a long time, because this current generation is here for a while. The second one, and this is one of the things I'm saying.

• 22:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  The fast one?

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, the faster one, is the rising, like, is, is the only constituency, the rise of the only constituency that actually has power over the big tech companies. And that is, the employees at those tech companies. And so, things like the climate organizers at Amazon, or the Google walkout, or even more momentary actions, like when a bunch of Uber employees got Travis Kalanick to step off the president's, like, advisory board, because they didn't want him working with Trump. Those moments all show that the only constituency that really has leverage over the big tech companies, is the employees of those tech companies. And, by the way, not all the employees right now, I mean, I think it's really hard to organize Amazon warehouse workers, although it is happening,

• 23:06Speaker 01

  but I mean, the kind of, like, mid-level software engineers and product, exactly. And as those folks organize and articulate what their interest is, I think they are an enormous power to be reckoned with. And if, you know, I, so I'm very, I'm spending time with folks who are doing that, I'm trying to learn about them, you know, because I think that if you want to be a successful company of the future, you need to anticipate that your employees, as an organized collective, I mean Kickstarter's employees just unionized, that they're going to have more power. And I think that power is on balance. Not always, it won't always be good, but it is on balance, a good thing.

• 23:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I want to ask you about that, because the one counterargument to that being a good thing is people might say, We're going to move essentially from an unchecked leader to now an unchecked, and pardon the expression, but mob, which is the word that people use of employees that are pushing tech policy,

• 24:01Speaker 01

  and which is better and which is worse.

• 24:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  So why do you think that this is, you know?

• 24:05Speaker 01

  I think what's better is a balance of power. If you, you know, I, I, I don't think either one of them is, I'm not going to hand the keys to the world car to any constituency.

• 24:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  You know, but I think that a check makes a lot of sense. And I think the same way, not all leaders are made the same, not all groups are made the same. So some groups behave like irrational mobs. And I think especially when you make decision, when one makes a decision based on perceived sentiment on social media, like Twitter is not the world, as much as I enjoy Twitter.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  You know, it is not the world. Those perceived sentiments can be very volatile, but you know, the organized behavior of groups of people who have to come together and decide collectively in some mechanism, whether it's a membership association of employees, an informal group, even a union, you know, those tend to behave more reasonably. And, you know, I think it's hard to look at the economic and social history of the United States without crediting unions for an enormous increase in the welfare and happiness of many people. Not everybody, they were racist for a long time. I mean, it's, it's bad. I'm not saying it's unambiguous good, but I do think at this moment in time, it's an ingredient that if we add it into the mix, will make for a better mix.

• 25:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. I mean, and more broadly, just like their push for recognizing worker rights, even if it's in the union or outside of it, has definitely lifted the middle class of the country. Although right now that middle class is suffering. Uh, so it's an interesting, interesting economic moment. I guess one-

• 25:42Speaker 01

  100%.

• 25:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  One group that you haven't mentioned, which I'd like to ask you about, and this is something I spoke about when Tim Bray was on the show, and I think will be a recurring theme is, I wonder why the customers and the users have been, you know, fairly silent about this? Because these issues do seem like issues of pushing back against big tech policies.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Well, silent about, sorry, let's talk about which issues.

• 26:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, let me give, let me give one concrete example. One of the things that I think will eventually happen is there will be a council. Of Amazon customers that go to Amazon and say, hey, Amazon, if you're so obsessed with customers, here's something that you should know.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  I don't think that's gonna happen.

• 26:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  More than getting a package to our door in a day.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  But it's gonna take.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  It's gonna happen.

• 26:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I would say it would probably take some central organization, but I'd like to hear from you why you think.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, here's why. So, so I would love, by the way, for that to happen. I think it'd be great. I'm an advocate for things like, not in the customer context, but in the employee context, for putting an employee representative on the board of these companies, an elected representative, not somebody who the company picks. And the reason I think it won't happen with Amazon customers, it might happen with AWS customers. I don't think it's gonna happen with Amazon retail customers because they're too distributed. Like, that is basically like equivalent, you know, arguably, the most elegant way to organize Amazon customers is the US government.

• 27:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Like, that is a representative association of Amazon customers.

• 27:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but just like.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  It's so distributed.

• 27:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, but just like citizens get together and lobby the government.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Oh, of course. But I guess what I mean is citizens can get together and lobby the government because a small number of citizens can have an extraordinary influence on the outcome of an election, let's say. But I think it's actually very similar to how many issues get ignored by the government when they are felt by a broad section of the populace, but it's not no pronounced need. So it is like that. And that's the reason I'm more hopeful about AWS customers because you have a smaller number of customers who control more of the business. They have more influence. There are fewer of them. And it's why I'm optimistic about employees organizing because I think the employees are more similar to each other. I think they haven't in the main historically, in part because the industry was changing so fast. It was so bewildering. Employees kind of, you know, it was, it took some time to realize.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  And one weird thing about tech is that employees often identify with the boss in a way that is very different from other industries, in part because they, this is a good thing, in part because they have ownership through options.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  And in part, just culturally, they see themselves getting there versus being like a different class. So, you know, I think that that is a very strange thing about the tech industry. Here, I'll give you another example of that strangeness in action, which is, let's say I told you, Amazon is really bad for startups because they have too much power over the market. You would think that if you were a startup founder, that would make you unhappy. But one of the sentiments I found is startup founders in at least venture backed kind of startups, not like talking about like a small retailer on Amazon who doesn't aspire to get much bigger or doesn't aspire as much to get much bigger.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  They identify more often with the tech monarch than they do with their own short term self interest, that that tech monarch may be hurting the behavior of their startup because the possibility that they might end up in that class, you know, like the star power thing, they identify with the star more than they do with their own kind of, in my humble opinion, short term self interest.

• 29:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, they become enamored with someone like Bezos and.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Or more than enamored, they think they can be that.

• 29:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  So they really, it's an identity thing as much as anything else.

• 29:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And then all of a sudden it becomes more difficult for them.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  And by the way, let me get even weirder on it, which is as an investor.

• 29:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  We love getting weirder here on the show.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. As an investor, I want to back the founders who identify with Bezos. I want to back the founders who want to create something enormous and transformative. So even though it's, I don't think it's rational on some level, that irrationality is central to this search for outliers, this search for the enormous that is in many ways, the venture backed startup quest that we're on. So, you know, it's weird all around.

• 30:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that when we come back for the, from the break. We'll be right back here with Roy Bhat. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by App Point. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it and prove it's under control. That's exactly what App Point does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate, your data, your cloud, and the agents acting on your behalf. It's how more than 28,000 organizations deploy AI with.

• 30:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Confidence, so innovation scales without scaling risk. Avpoint, the unifying trust layer for AI. Head to avpoint.com to see how enterprises deploy AI with confidence. Learn more at avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast. That's avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast.

• 31:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we've returned here on the Big Technology Podcast with Roy Bahat. Man, I just ended that last segment really NPR like. I'm not very happy about that.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  I like your NPR intonation.

• 31:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I want to, let's start the second segment just with a quick follow up on what you said. And the last part, which is that you want people who think they're going to be the next Bezos. And then one of the, I mean, that's sort of what the venture capital model is. You want to, you know, put investments in people and then have them make 100x the money. And then, you know, you get one of those that worked out and you can make lots more bets for the rest of your career. And I wonder, is that, is that healthy? Like, do we want, I mean, because you talked a little bit in the first segment about speed.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Speed is so important. And is this a healthy model to start funding businesses? And doesn't that lead to a lot of downstream effects? Like, what do you think the role of the VC is in all this?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so yes, it's a healthy model. Otherwise, I wouldn't practice it in the sense that I think it's good.

• 32:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, okay.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  No, it's not healthy if it's the only model. And so I'm really excited about many of these other experiments happening with different forms of capital for early companies. And I can talk about why VC is the way it is because as a founder, I really didn't understand it. I was like, wait, you'd be unhappy if you only made three times your money? Like, how could that be?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  And, but I can explain that now that I've been doing it for almost a decade.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  I also think it's unhealthy to embrace that model without qualification and reservation and just say, hey, if the company got good, then, you know, then it's great. I remember I was talking to this VC. And he said Bloomberg is a terrible company. I was like, what are you talking about? Like how by any definition, like, what do you mean? He's like, well, I think it wouldn't get a very high multiple in the public markets. And I was like, that is your definition of good company. Okay, you know, you do you kind of thing.

• 33:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  But it just goes to show how people think. By the way, I don't think that's true, but anyway, but the there is this way in which VCs and some founders, but not the best of them, have come to accept their model as 100% true in every case without qualification. And and that I think is nonsense, almost like anything else is nonsense. So that's my that's my qualifications to the is it healthy answer?

• 33:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but let's zoom in, though, on the actual VC element itself.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, oftentimes people.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. What responsibility do VCs have in all this?

• 33:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, they get basically what's happening is if you fund people who feel this pressure to grow 10, 20, you know, 20x, then sometimes I mean, you see very often that they'll go and do.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Does it have a downside? Of course it has a downside.

• 33:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what role can you play to ensure that that stuff doesn't happen?

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Excellent question. So I absolutely think VCs are responsible. And it is a is not easy to figure out how to act on that responsibility or else they would have acted on it already. And one of the challenges is no VC really has that much power over any company. Like, we own 10%, maybe some VC owns 20% of a company. You know, oftentimes we don't even have voting shares. It's like, and that can be that plus the highly competitive nature of the market can be an excuse to let yourself off the hook. I remember I was with one of the top five venture capitalists in Silicon Valley at a private dinner years ago, three, five years ago, I don't know. And he was talking about gender issues in tech and how more companies should be disclosing

• 34:41Speaker 01

  the gender statistics of their workforce. I was like, yeah, but hey, you're like a super powerful VC. Can't you just make that a requirement when you invest in a company? And he was like, oh, but if we did that, we'd lose every deal to Sequoia. And I was like, uh, okay. And by the way, on a certain level, he might be right. But he might not be, especially not now. But on another level, it's like, well, why don't you just call Sequoia and the five of you get together? You know, there's like four or five firms that are the best firms in the valley, that if they do something together, and it's hard for them because they all compete with each other and blah, blah, blah, but they've done things together. If they do something together, you know, there's then all of a sudden, it will change the industry in its entirety in a heartbeat. And so, you know, I think some of it requires a little organization among VCs.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  And some of it requires indirect influence as opposed to direct influence. And I think there are many cases where many VCs, I don't mean to cast them as like all bad. Of course, like great VCs have led many companies in a great direction. You know, Andreessen Horowitz helped Airbnb expand the size of its customer guarantee dramatically. You know, there's, those are just like, they're examples we know about. My guess is there are thousands of examples we don't know about.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  But the question is, how do you use that influence? And I think the first way you do it is, what's the first contact founders have with VCs is their reputation? Is you try to set an example yourself. The second thing is, you set expectations. And, you know, we try at Bloomberg Beta to be the most transparent venture investors. You can read like so many details on our website of how we work, the valuations of companies we invest in, blah, blah, blah.

• 36:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  You have a ton on GitHub.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. That's where we put it. Because a good place to manage it, you can look at our section of our website, which has our diversity, equity, inclusion and justice plans and statistics. And you can call us on it. And there's a number to reach HR, you know, if you need to tell somebody that we've done something wrong. And so I think that, and by the way, I don't see us as a leader on those issues. I see us as trying to just be a model citizen on those issues. And so I guess the short answer to your question, which is a very good one, is organizing among the VCs. And by the way, we saw this with the diversity rider, a bunch of VCs just added to their term sheet about committing to try to get investors from underrepresented backgrounds. So organizing is number one, and the second is indirect influence and expectation setting.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  And that's why I get so pissed off when I see VCs out there like sort of flaunting the fact that you can ignore the law and people in government are stupid and journalists are stupid.

• 37:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  And you know, because what they're doing is not just oversimplifying what I'm sure or what I really hope is a much more nuanced view that they hold, but they're creating permission, they're creating permission for generations of founders to think that way. And that's not okay with me, like, we should respect journalists.

• 37:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  For example.

• 37:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm with you on that one, for sure.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  I assumed you would be. Do you think we should respect people in government? I think we should respect elected officials in general. Yes, some of them are stupid. Many of them have bad incentives, but you know, nonetheless.

• 37:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, there's a difference between being disrespectful and then being, you know, tough on your elected officials and tough on your journalists. And I think that like, we should definitely be tough on reporters. We should definitely be tough on government officials. But I think oftentimes it descends into hate and it descends into, you know, disdain. And you never really get something done if the people on the other side are people you hate or people you disdain. So respectful, I think it starts with respect and if you actually care about solving the problems, you're talking about, that's, that's where you begin. You don't go into campaigns against, against folks. And I mean, you go into political campaign against a politician you don't like, but the idea of just right, you know, railing against somebody on Twitter, it's not really

• 38:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  a great way to get your, your goals pushed ahead.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  You were saying it starts with respect and I agree with that. And I do think you can be respectful and critical. I'll give you an example of another complicated tech and government issue, which is, which I agree with, which is Uber and all of the criticism of how it's related to people in Lyft too, and I say Uber, I mean, all those companies, would not have had an opportunity to exist, or certainly not to exist in the same form, had governments not done a better job on things like public transportation, taxi, you know, regulation. And so, you know, in a way, like, I guess my point is there's truth all around and it does start with respect for everybody except for Nazis. No respect for Nazis.

• 39:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Respect for Nazis.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Well, whatever.

• 39:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you on that. Okay, let's take another quick break and then we will come back here to talk a little bit about the election and what's going to happen after.

• 39:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  It inevitably ends in chaos.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  November.

• 39:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's right.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. We'll be right back.

• 39:35Speaker 02

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• 40:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here for one last segment with Troy Bahat from Bloomberg Beta. We've had a great conversation so far. Let's go to the finish line with a discussion about...

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Finish line, indeed.

• 40:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  The finish line, which is the election coming up in November, or maybe it's the starting line. Who knows? Or maybe it's just a line painted in the sand that everybody...

• 40:26Speaker 01

  As long as the line continues and doesn't come to a stop, I'll be happy.

• 40:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, what do you think's going to happen? Because, I mean, I mean, you know, of course, we're only somewhat qualified to talk about this. We're, you know, two guys in the tech world. But I also think that we follow this stuff pretty closely. And there's a lot of alarm over what's going to happen when this election comes.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  I have no idea what's going to happen. I mean, despite having worked in government, and my wife and I have been really active, really with her leadership on raising money and being, you know, devoting a lot of time and effort to trying to move the country in a better direction, I have no idea. So the thing I would say is, what I look at is the prediction markets. And it looks, as far as I can tell, like the price to buy Joe Biden is 59 cents, and I think it pays off for a dollar. And the price to buy Donald Trump is 45 cents, and it pays off for a dollar. But, you know, who knows? I literally have no clue whatsoever. Also, Kamala is at 4 cents, which suggests that there's some significant expectation built in there that Joe might die during the campaign.

• 41:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. I don't think anyone's questioning Joe's physical capabilities.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I don't know. I think, I guess the way I'm thinking about it is there's real risk. And, you know, we have a lot of work to do. And I am certainly, you know, putting tremendous time and effort between now and the election to try to get things to turn up the right way. One thing I'll say about tech in this is, if you go back to 2016... I remember having a conversation with someone, maybe it wasn't in 2016, but shortly after. Tech used to be much more ignorant about politics than it is. And I remember that there was this tech founder who I was talking to, who exited for a lot of money, millions and millions and millions of dollars. And he was complaining about the, one of the grillings of Zuck on Capitol Hill.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  And he said, oh, that guy, and he was talking, I think about Orrin Hatch. He said, he like, didn't even know what Facebook's business model was. God, how ignorant, right?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  And by the way, I mean, I had a corporate executive once asked me in 2007, what is the difference in email and I am? So like, let's not pretend that there's like a deep well of knowledge out there in the world.

• 42:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  That was a while back. At this point, everyone's.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, it wasn't that long ago. But in any event, the, the, the, fine, fair criticism. And then the meeting that Orrin Hatch didn't know what he was talking about. And then we hosted a fundraiser for a political candidate who we really believe in. And this person came and gave, and the next day he asked me, when would I get my tax receipt? And I was like, what do you mean your tax receipt? You know, the tax exemption? I was like, um, giving to money to elected officials is not tax free. And the point is that the same things that were obvious in the tech world, like what is Facebook's business model? Like, members of Congress didn't know. And the things that are obvious in the political world,

• 43:21Speaker 01

  which is that giving money to elected officials is not tax exempt, were not clear to this person. And that reminded me of just this, it was just a little moment that reminded me of this enormous gulf in understanding. And, you know, we at our fund have tried to learn and bring others along in our learning. You know, we organize these trips where we would take VCs around the country with members of Congress before COVID to learn about their startup ecosystems, the Comeback Cities tours. And we went to places that I'd never been, Flint, Michigan, Tulsa. Place I had been like Atlanta anyway.

• 43:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you did. You did the Zuckerberg tour without posting every.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Without, without, without milking a cheap or whatever. Yeah. Um, yes, something like that. And although privately and without the fanfare.

• 44:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  It wasn't a presidential run as, as far as.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  It was not a president who I was not even dipping my toe.

• 44:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Zuckerberg did deny to me that he was going to run for president on that one. So can we have a similar denial from you today?

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Yes, I deny that I will run for president. But I've been around enough elected officials to know. I mean, geez, I keep telling my wife that as a husband, I hope she doesn't run, but as a citizen, I hope she does.

• 44:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  But I certainly don't want to. Anyway. The, but that's changing. So after the elections in 16, when people got freaked out, we, my wife and I started to have friends coming to us. And given where we live, many of our friends are in tech and just saying, we want to do something. We don't know what. And we were like, well, we don't know what either. Let's just compare notes and figure it out together. And I remember in December of 2016, we got a group together. We called it bowling together. And this was a time when like every group in tech was.

• 44:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Bowling alone.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  The putt in the book. Yes. Every group in tech was getting together and not every group, many groups of people were like, we're going to go rent an Airbnb for the weekend and solve fake news. And I was like, good luck. Is Zuck coming with you? Because otherwise you don't, I think, have a chance, but sure. And anyway, um, the, uh, the, the, but the point of this group was just to learn from each other. And what emerged was that many of us wanted to figure it out together. And we have embarked on this really four year journey with a lot, a number of people who we care about and trust of learning together about how to give more effectively. And now, you know, um, there's a community of kind of, of, of, of people in tech who have new access to resources. You know, maybe they're in a company that's about to IPO or something that's called First Principles,

• 45:36Speaker 01

  where we study together about how to give back philanthropically and socially. And so I think, at least in my perspective, this is changing and that makes me feel good. It has to change fast or else we're all screwed.

• 45:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Well, you know, let's wrap up here talking about the responsibility of social media companies and what they should do. I'm going to pick up on a few things that you said over the course of our conversation, seeming that seems to me that you'd like Facebook to step in a little bit more and take some posts down from, you know, politicians. And one of the things I

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  I worry about is that when we have a social media company step in, we're actually just addressing like the last mile of the problem. It's always the manifestation. It's not the roots. And I feel like there's this tendency to seize on to the fact that like, this is all Facebook's fault, whereas like, you know, there's 99% of the stuff underneath the surface before that 1% bubbles up.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  It is not all Facebook's fault.

• 46:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  It is not all YouTube's fault. It is not all Twitter's fault or anybody's fault. The New York Times, you know, random blogger X, you know, it is not all anybody's fault. It's all woven together in a fabric. And I think that participation in social media, and you know, look, I teach a media course for the MBA students at Berkeley. And I think about this a bunch. I think it's both cause and manifestation. And so, yeah, I do think that people get radicalized by seeing things on YouTube. And I do think that, you know,

• 47:06Speaker 01

  that all these companies have a responsibility. I think my most profound wish is I wish I believed that they, the leadership of those companies was as deeply worried about where things are going as I believe they ought to be. And it's hard to say, like, I just don't know.

• 47:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  And, you know, you hear things and it's not clear if it's lip service, but I mean, a bunch of people have said, well, there goes, who are at Facebook said, well, there goes Duck again, you know, moving as little as he needs to do, address the issue in the moment, and then moving on with his vision. And That scares me, you know, I'll admit, although I think Zuck is a contemplative, I mean, from what tiny interactions I've had and from observing from afar, is a contemplative, thoughtful person with deeply held beliefs and courage of his convictions. I really respect a lot of that.

• 47:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'd agree with that.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think the thing I'm trying to say is, I don't think it's like an easy answer of like, just take down some more posts and then we're done. The way I look at it more is, technology has its own wants. And the Kevin Kelly book on this, What Technology Wants, is amazing.

• 48:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  And

• 48:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's your number one recommendation on your Amazon book list. Actually, just check.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  It is my number one recommendation on my Amazon book list.

• 48:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  I just checked your list and bought it this afternoon. So I'm looking forward to reading it.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Awesome. Well, I hope you like it.

• 48:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  We can compare notes.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  And I'm curious what you think.

• 48:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. But I think that, and you know, for example, by the way, back on the tech paradigm for a half second before I finish this, because I think it's relevant. One of the things in the tech paradigm is it doesn't matter who you are. You could be sitting anywhere and typing at your computer, you know, sort of on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. And that's the indifference norms thing. And I think that's why tech has been so blind about sexism and racism and all other forms of discrimination, because it just doesn't compute. It's like, well, aren't that person's fingers typing on the keyboard the same as mine? And so there's this great complexity when you just open up the aperture and look. And I think that, so I wish that I felt that more from the leadership of the social media companies. And they've created something so big and

• 49:04Speaker 01

  so complex that it's not like Zuck knows the answer. It's not like, it's like, oh, just do X and he can figure it out. It's hard. We don't know, as a society, how to deal with this new tornado that we've unleashed. And like any force of weather, we can shape it. We can't stop it, I don't think. Like, the people who would just want to put it, put the tornado away, like, that isn't going to happen. And so to me, the great quest is the quest of figuring out how to shape the power of these tools that we've created. And that is not the sole providence of any of those companies. It is not the sole providence of government. Government, we have to figure it all out together. And, and by the way, just want to say one other thing. Well, why don't you go ahead?

• 49:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  I was just gonna say, it's so strange that like, this is like, you know, they're focusing on running a business. The government's focused on, I don't know what they're doing. And then like, when, when it's so rare, like, yeah, exactly. It's so rare that we actually have these conversations that detail that go into, okay, now what is, what's the impact on society? You know, I know journalists spend a lot of time on it, but like, what percent of this stuff is actually?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's true in all times in history.

• 50:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  That those conversations kind of had to be crammed in among doing regular business, you know, like the Treaty of Detroit, between the auto companies and UAW that set the template for sort of modern American full-time employment. You know, vacations and healthcare benefits and that kind of thing. You know, it's not like they could just stop everything for six months and work on that while they did it. They had, you know, that's the nature of, of, of, of action is you've got to keep on with the flow. And, you know, as much as I can be a critic of some things, I also use the tools, you know? Like I've got this daily Twitter thing that I'm doing now, like giving tips about work.

• 50:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is not advice.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Election thing.

• 50:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  I've been watching it. It's great.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Thank you. This is not advice. Thank you. Feedback or if you have questions we should hit or come on as a guest at some point, actually.

• 50:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  That'd be great.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  How to talk to a journalist. Anyway, but, but the, like, the election project that I was gonna say that now I'm gonna have to disclose in public before this podcast episode comes out.

• 50:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Great. We're gonna break some news.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. News, news. I have been working with some folks around the country on a new project that we've been working on for just about a little less than two weeks now to try to get more votes out in this election. And as we've looked at the issues with the US Postal Service and mail delivery and the safety issues around voting in person, you know, we saw some of the news around ballot drop boxes and how would they work? And could you just bring your vote over? And so we are organizing local, call them voting parades. Sort of people in their neighborhoods marching to the polls together. We're calling it Walk the Vote, hashtag Walk the Vote.

• 51:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  So cool.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and we could not do that but for the existence of all of these tools and platforms, including, by the way, no and low code tools and the whole thing spun up. Like, what is that effort? It's like, it's not an organization. It's not incorporated in any way. It, but it is a Google, you know, Drive folder. And so, you know, The way to me to think about it is text like the weather. It has powerful force. You can't stop it, but you can shape it and you've got to both learn to use it and endure it and all that. And, you know, and the more I think we see it that way, the more, the faster our industry grows up and the better an impact we can have.

• 52:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, that's a, that's an amazing way to leave it, Roy. I know that you have a hard stop now. Man, I feel like we could keep talking about this stuff.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Let's do it again.

• 52:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hours. I'd love to have you back on. Thank you so much for joining us. Why don't you let everybody know where they can find you on Twitter and stuff like that?

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, just Roy Bahat on Twitter, although I'll just say this, as a person who sells money to founders for a living, if you're looking for me on the internet and you can't find me, that's my fault. So please tell me somewhere else. I should be findable everywhere.

• 52:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  The only thing I'd say is I only accept LinkedIn requests when I know the person well enough that I could ask them for a reference. So, you know, you can reach or you can write to me there, but just that's my only thing. But Twitter is like, is my poison of choice.

• 52:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, same here. And you're open to emails and things like that.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  I am open to emails. In fact, if somebody wants to ask me, what is my, I actually did this session with a company that we invested in called Speakeasy. That is like a learning service where you learn at small events. And I joined an event where I learned about poetry and freestyle and rap. And they said, what is your favorite form of writing? And I said, email.

• 53:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, yeah. As a newsletter writer, I would agree.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  There you go. And I love the newsletter. All right. To be continued.

• 53:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right, Roy.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Thank you, Alex.

• 53:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you for joining and everyone, thanks for listening. We hope you join us for the next episode and subscribe and rate and all that good stuff. And we'll see you again here next Wednesday.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 54:12Speaker 03

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• 54:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  You stay classy, San Diego.

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