How to change the world for real? | Anand Giridharadas

first of all I'm really looking forward to actually speaking to him live please welcome to the stage on unguarded us and now for something very different I'm on any sabbaticals coming up for you were you in one I guess not I guess a you know the so interesting I've never followed such a relevant act before correct I mean that was an incredibly eloquent and brilliant speaker yeah with the very moving personal story and I think I immediately started wishing that I had a lawyer that good but if this is a house of beautiful business companies like Facebook should be shown the door not given a stage I once spent half an hour talking to Jared Kushner at a party and it made me realize that it's the smart thoughtful people which I would say he is and maybe a painful thing to hear but he is very smart it's the smart thoughtful people who go along with predatory structures abusive structures structures that are monopolies that abuse privacy that have no respect for our laws and democracy that lie to legislative bodies all the time it's the smart people who should know better and I'm very very hopeful that this conversation of a beautiful business is not just a conversation about business on its own terms becoming more beautiful but frankly business being forced to be less abusive and less predatory and frankly put in its proper place relative to democracy you've actually called Facebook's you you've called Mark Zuckerberg an authoritarian Titan if you were to take his seat from one week how would you use that position of power I would break up the company immediately I would cease and desist from all lobbying Act I mean we heard a testimony about regulation allows companies to do a lot of bad stuff I mean Facebook has more lobbyists and most companies on earth and is active I mean I've met some of them I have a lot of people who tell me what they do privately and not on stages and tell me that they're pushing for regulations that create the world in which Facebook can be predatory and abusive and which they're under regulated and so I actually don't think Facebook in particular is if we're talking about a particular company I actually don't think it's a redeemable company and I think there will be many people who create platforms for community there already are many platforms frankly I'd love companies founded in Africa to play that role I don't think a guy who started a social network in 2004 because he like couldn't meet people face-to-face and wanted to create awaited like great girls beauty on a website I don't think that person having behaved the way he has since that day and frankly at the beginning also should have the power over how so much human discourse the power to affect elections the power to allow foreign cyber war operations to go on unimpeded because the growth lust conflicts with letting regulators in or letting journalists in the amount they've threatened journalists who've tried to actually look into some of the stuff we were talking about earlier so I think Facebook is is is beyond repair and what's been really interesting I've spent a lot of time over the last year speaking of different things like this exactly set up like tonight where I talk and then I go to the line now the line as you'll see is not incredibly private but it's more private than this but it's not exactly a safe space people can hear what's being said maybe I can't tell you the number of Facebook executives who have felt safe enough in the line here to say our company is [ __ ] up and Zuckerberg is the problem and has to go I had that job I would resign well the reason why I asked about what you would do in that position of power is you've you've said that you want to bring the language of power back into the the public conversation which is a public conversation that I understand you to consider to be dominated too much by what you call market world now we're here at an event that is called beautiful business the house of beautiful business how would you describe market world to people who clearly care a little bit about business market world so one of things I learned a long time ago as a writer is that if you are writing the kind of book or article where you know you're going to Antarctica and you're telling you're describing something that most people will never see have never seen all you have to do is just straight up describe in straightforward words because it's a new territory for people then there's another kind of thing which this book is which is you are Reedus kryb 'uncle stuff they are intimately familiar with this is a book about the slogans you hear all the time it's about the companies we all work for it's about the billionaires we see in the news every day and so when you are doing that latter type of project we what you were trying to do is make people look again at what they already know what they already think they've seen and it's very important coinage is a very powerful tool to kind of reconstitute reality for people to maybe have people see it in a slightly different way so I coined this term market world to try to describe a bunch of things that are disparate phenomena that I think are part of the same phenomenon and as the phenomenon is a kind of community network of people and ideology guiding those people that that essentially says when when doing well by doing good maybe even beautiful business that you can base that we can basically live in a world in which we make the world better by the rich and powerful making as much money as possible and certainly never giving up power that that it is possible in an age of inequality an age of monopoly an age of elite capture that is somehow magically possible to lift up those prostrate it on the floor without somehow disturbing the people standing on their necks now this is a remarkable feat of physics let alone ideology and so market world is billionaires who to go with something you said earlier make their money actively by committing harm I believe Facebook actually is in that category connecting the world is a slogan it's not an activity and then do good works on the side to purpose washes you eloquently put it I believe it's also young people who are not billionaires were 22 on college campuses deciding what to do with their lives and I start to start the book with Hilary Cohen's story she's one of them not famous not a philanthropist but determined to make a difference as so many young people are now and determined to change the world and who end up at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey because that's what they're now told is the way you acquire the skills to change the world you you apprentice with the people most responsible for degrading the conditions of the issue you want to work on I believe also there's a kind of circuit of thought leadership which I write about in the book the kind of Aspen Ted Davos world where maybe I just got here but I suspect that may be true where there's a lot of good content and a lot of good ideas and there is a certain kind of intellectual boundary oftentimes that keeps out the kinds of ideas that people may not like to hear when they've paid two or eight or ten thousand dollars to get some ideas pour it down their throat and so all these things are different the billionaire is different than the 22 year old is different than the ideas circuit but what they all have in common is I believe an explanation for why we're living in the age we are why are we living why is Donald Trump president why is Briggs it happening why are the inequality numbers even in European countries that do have better tax regimes so bad the piketty's numbers on Europe are in America but not great why-why-why right I think we all the defining question I feel from people when I do events is like why is this happening which is the name of Chris Hayes's podcast why is this happening and my little answer to why this is happening is we have outsourced the reform most people agree we need transformational reform of our societies right now we have outsourced the leadership of such reform to the people with the most to lose from actually changing anything and I believe in this book is a passionate plea for taking change back from people who deep down have no incentive or desire or willpower to fight for the kinds of structural change that are going to see them be actually less wealthy less powerful and have less impunity [Applause] [Music] you mentioned the idea of win-win situations in August the Business Roundtable which is basically a lobbying group that represents hundreds of the largest US corporations they issued this statement basically proclaiming that the business of businesses business the Friedman 1970 slogan should no longer hold true by itself that corporations should no longer just maximize profit but they should actually sort of also stand for a very kind of goodness for society for individuals and some people might say that you know business is becoming more value driven and considering that kind of impact that that's a win-win situation that that's a good thing are you optimistic a that that might actually happen with the corporations that the Business Roundtable represents and be what's the problem with that why do you have a problem with a company that follows it's its bottom line and yet also has a social impact get comfortable tell you a little story so in August this this statement comes out you're right and it was you got a call I would say it was billed as a historic statement page one in The New York Times right I mean normally you put out some press release saying you have a new opinion about something the New York Times doesn't put on page one it was considered such an assist auric statement that 180 some CEOs now understand what your five-year-old kid at home understands which is that like human beings matter but it was a really big deal for these white guys to come to this understanding that [Applause] and I think there's like a like one or two women in that group so that's nice letting them in and it may have been letting them in that actually led to the statement probably so so this thing so this statement comes out and it's immediately greeted as like wow and you think like what what if we were this credulous about claims about the military or by the military or claims by senators and congresspeople or by anybody else right like a hundred native companies just said a statement that they now pledge to factor in people are they now does any of those companies I immediately asked publicly any of these companies planning to renounce a tax practice that they're currently using that they won't use next each calendar year any of these companies plans have not Lobby on some issue that they were currently lobbying for any any I didn't get any answers but because I was quoted in the New York Times article announcing this thing I did while on vacation in August get a phone call get an email which led to a phone call from Jamie Dimon JPMorgan Chase runs the biggest bank in the world but also runs this umbrella organization so he's like the CEO of the CEOs in addition of Ryan's company and you know most people in this kind of position are like let's talk off the record or whatever but to his credit or for whatever other reasons he did not say that so we had a half an hour spirited discussion that gets to the heart of why you can't outsource the job of hen protection to foxes and so I so he said what you know why are you giving this kind of quote to the new york times i mean you know you're skeptical i was like you know what you've signed up for is like a pledge of voluntary virtue win-win right beautiful business you might say you've committed to have your businesses be more beautiful but what's making that a requirement they said well you know regulations counterpane is all the like business bro you know the guys are the vests that have their like VC firm written on the vest like that guy the same stuff that you always hear from those guys right look we're regulations really counterproductive those guys all have the same voice just remarkably really old all of them they literally all have that voice yeah like it actually actually really like sociologically interesting as a side tangent like a lot of women work in business but managed to like not have like three talking points from their first year of the MBA program about business but somehow these guys are just like really stuck in like you know regulations go too productive and you know toxis just reward poor people and so you know I'm hearing like a lot of this from it was powerful CEO in America and I just kept pushing him on like if you believe companies you treat people better fantastic let's do a minimum weight like let's do that for everybody looks like make it the law your bank tellers other people I say you know if there are a lot of exploitative companies whether or not you think yours is on that list that sign this thing there's people peeing in a bottle to work their shifts it's been reported in the paper and he said I know I know those CEOs they're nice guys and you know a lot of people just don't like to work right so people keeping their life-savings with this guy who thinks they don't like to work we talked about lobbying why don't you require any company in the Business Roundtable that is now duty-bound to follow this statement that they're not going to defile the planet and hurt people by running their businesses to lobby for a law there's a Elizabeth Warren has a plan Bernie Sanders has other plans accountable capitalism Act the accountable capitalism act is basically what they said in a statement as an actual [ __ ] law right it's like a law where you have to do this stuff they said they were gonna do oh no no no no no I can't police my companies and we're not a police force and it just became very clear and I've had other conversations like this with Paul Polman and others like including the very woke CEOs that at the end of the day these people work for shareholders and it's about time we all grew up and stopped expecting them to take care of us and started using democracy which is an amazing tool to take care of ourselves now [Music] let me Jamie is Jamie is gonna be your next interview is that right yes right after I wish um let's pretend like they actually were about to do something about what they just announced and there were actually these activities with positive impact I have a feeling that you would still consider win-win situations to be non-existent that the idea of doing the bad or maybe doing your company's main activity while also doing these you know announced sort of niceties on the side that that just doesn't fly with you so my question is you say elite generosity is the wingman of injustice is elite - generosity is that's any better if they don't do any of this isn't there's a first step might one say that it's a great question it's a very important question first of all I don't want to say there's no win-win situations in the well there's plenty of win-win situations right the the concept of win-win arises from like basic economics and trade like you know if if I want that jacket because I a really stylish jacket and I'm willing to give you an amount of money for it that makes you happy like we could do a trade and that might actually work that out of this the other room and that's a win-win what a win-win becomes problematic when it rises beyond someone selling a jacket or ice cream and rises to the level of the richest and most powerful people who have too much power in a given moment that's not true at all moments in history that's I'm talking about this moment in history and it's also was true of you know Brahmins in India and it was also true of the people in Downton Abbey living in that damn castle all by themselves right when you have particular moments in history where you have really insane distributions of power which is what we're talking about and I believe we are in one now right where a handful of people own as much wealth as a bottom half of humanity in the United States forty-nine percent of new income goes to the top one percent we kind of know the data now in such a moment like that a Downton Abbey moment we can call it for simplicity's sake a win win is essentially saying let's solve the problem of five people being in the castle all the land and the oppression of everybody else let's solve that in a way that is awesome for the people in the castle and what you do is you gain that out is you will actually not solve the problem to do a win-win is to side with power when you have an unequal distribution of power there's no win-win answer to the me2 movement right yeah you got to deal with your rapists and assaulters which is a certain number of people but all men need to have less power and impunity in all the spaces we operate in to even begin to address that issue I say this again and again real chain the nicest man on earth who has never done any of that stuff enjoys too much power and impunity in many of the spaces he operates in right real change involves the loss of power I'll say that again real change involves the loss of power it's easier to think about it historically then now there was no way to end slavery in a way that was a win-win for the white planter class there was no way to give women's suffrage that wasn't diluting the power of a male vote there was no way to get children's little faint fingers out of the factories without cutting the profit margins of factory owners they were all the right thing to do they were all done over the objection of many people who had power and they were the right thing to do so to the question about generosity I think it's a complicated question if are we better off if people didn't do nice stuff I mean a version of this I often get is like would you rather that we just buy a yacht so the obvious did not read first of all you know you're buying that yacht anyway second of all and you're buying it in part because the philanthropic donations gives you a tax deduction that we all pay for the lodge by the yacht ten two billion dollars a year in the US alone spent on that by regular people and I think in most cases obviously we'd be better off with rich people at least trying to do certain things if they have not made their money in a predatory way that is you know manifestly being covered up etc right however I think that is so obvious that it's worth suggesting that in a significant minority of cases we might actually be worse off with them doing a good thing instead of buying a yacht and here's why the buying of the yacht allows us to see with great clarity who they are and our situation and our distribution of wealth it makes the situation clearer and clearer situations don't necessarily favor awful power distribution but when you spend that million on the shelter for girls instead of the yacht if it's one or the other a museum in New York for what start you know what starts to have let's use a real example that you that you're alluding to I think the Sackler family you're making money on the opioid crisis killing people in the hundreds of thousands of scale genocide levels of death hundreds of thousands of deaths right then you're sprinkling all this money to art museums everywhere right first of all you're killing people in all these rural areas there's not a lot of media not a lot of voice it's everywhere but it's a lot of rural X urban areas right what are you putting the art museums are you at least giving the art museums to the families of people being killed now you put in the art museums in places where people like me and you live right why so we don't make documentaries about it so we don't write stories about it right all the philanthropy the Sackler did was in places where fancy media people and influential people lived right people a lot of Instagram followers and so you do that you sprinkle this money a couple things may happen a you may wash your name I grew up in a city with a lot of Sackler wings I literally did not know about the opiate crisis but I knew about all their arts philanthropy and I don't I think I read the paper more than like most sixteen year olds I didn't know about the other thing so you are able to obscure your name in a way in the New York State Attorney General made this point in their complaint against her complain against the settlers she said that philanthropy allowed them to do the things that kept killing New Yorkers right so the do-gooding thing may buy you enough reputational room to keep doing something that may even involve killing people second it tends to alter our collective conversation about change right so internet.org is the thing they did by the way that free basics as part of that which is a very coercive program where they were telling people like Facebook's the only way to get on the Internet in some of these developing countries but a little bit of do-gooding might allow you to like maintain a monopoly and have better relationships with government officials who might otherwise come after you and and and finally and in some ways the book is an attempt to start to push back against this a little bit these elite gestures of do-gooding alter our collective conversation about what change even is and so the discourse starts to change and things that are actually good like labor unions start to sound bad because of who's getting platforms and who gets to write books and things like charter schools which are not as good as labor unions start to sound good because of who has their back and on the question of feminism and empowering women an idea like lean in which is essentially trying to convince women that thousands of years of patriarchy is a posture problem if women if women were to have reclined at a different angle oppression over you you have done animate rayar key right there one shoulder at a time and then you got like real feminists pushing structural change and universal day care like things actually revealed through policy to actually empower women but they're marginalized because they would make people like Sheryl Sandberg pay more in taxes you start to get in the situation where we might be better off with the yacht's because we would actually probably come after these people and actually have the kinds of public policies that end plutocracy faster and more effectively than we do when we're all getting smoke screened let's stick to that idea of buying the yachts to sort of display your actual character you were quite a outspoken about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal specifically because you were part of a jury of a an award that MIT gives out and you were very outspoken about the fact that all of the money that MIT and the Media Lab specifically had taken was specifically anonymous right where do you draw the line of what is OK to take what kind of money and what is good enough money to take because obviously just for context MIT said well of course we are you know we are fundraising we're trying to do research where this is also for scholarships we do need this money so number one is there a red line for which kind of money to take and then what about the anonymity thing you sort of alluded to that with the yacht yeah first of all this is such a good question and this is actually since I know there's a lot of people in this room who are capable of building things and doing things unlike me this is a great I'm gonna suggest a great thing for someone to do because there's a thing that needs to be done there's not a quick answer to that question this is something that needs to be studied and I actually think we need a commission and it should involve museums university buddy who fund raises on that scale and feels that they're part of this issue of you know being kind of drive through reputational laundromats I think there should be a commission that should study this for a year and answer that question because my quick answer is there is a red line and there's some money you should never take no matter what because you are literally just enabling a child rapist in that case to keep raping children by giving him the moral glow of MIT right there is no way they should have ever taken that money or Harvard should have taken that money right the difference in MIT and Harvard is like MIT got caught and so let's not forget Harvard and I think the Sackler money and by the way now this is a non controversial thing museums that took it or now you know ending the name I don't know they're giving money back or not and so I think there's definitely a red line where there's just like under no circumstances but to be honest I think the interesting case and then there's some money that like none of us may have any problem with right we can call that the Green Line or whatever I think frankly most of the interesting cases are in between the red and the Green Line so if you take something like the Walton family buying Walmart I would definitely I am I have huge problems with Walmart the kind of labor practices etc but I'm not suggesting that it's the same as the Sackler family or Jeffrey Epstein let's be clear I'm also not saying it's on that side of the green line where everything's fine I do think we're gonna live in a world in which that money's going to get taken regardless of what I think and I think there's probably circumstances in which it's fine to take it the question is and this is just not happening right now there is a lot of choice around how you take it and around what you offer these people in return and that's what this commission that I'm proposing needs to study and so you could give them credit which helps with the reputation laundering or you cannot but there is a asterisks there of like if you don't give them credit is it anonymity that is shielding them you know so you have to be that again this is why it's worth like studying for a year it's complicated I do not think they should get tax deductions for things you're putting your name on a building you're trying to you know impress your fourth wife candidate and and and and and you put the name of the building you're deriving a benefit why why am i working longer hours every year to subsidize your tax deduction for putting your name on a building and pressure fourth wife candidate and so there's that question I think there's the question of meddling I mean remember epsteen epsteen was not just someone who gave money he was like coming around you know what you guys you know I think this science is good I mean he also at Harvard he funded the program on evolutionary dynamics acronym head he funded the ped program at Harvard and you know there was this moment in the story that to me is the perfect encapsulation of your question and the answer which is there was his moment in the MIT narrative story where an anecdote where f scene had come around to the lab I don't know some years ago and had been accompanied as he often was by these like very young women who present seemed a little weird given the fact that was a visit to a lab and a bunch of women who worked in the lab thought there was a reasonable possibility that those women were being trafficked in other words were not like free slaves essentially in the lab and these women who work at MIT like got together and the side according to this story and we're like if we have a moment where he is separated from these women we could rescue them so noble that they had that conversation I would just say maybe don't raise money from people if you suspect that you might need to rescue their sex traffic slaves during a lab visit mate like maybe just don't take that money maybe what do I know now so one thing you just suggested as a commission this is one particular issue and you offer a lot of especially in your book you offer a lot of explanations you offer a lot of catharsis quite frankly I'm wondering even though I also sensed a very strong warning against quick solutions in your book and in sort of easy fixes I do wonder about the the sort of answer right is the answer just tax the moral that politics to all is the answer vote for Elizabeth Warren is the answer sack all the CEOs what do you actually propose I propose a return to democracy as the place we go to change the world to solve our biggest shared problems now I want to be very clear because I think I'm misunderstood on this count and as I think you know people like much more prominent in this conversation like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and others are misunderstood on this count like I don't think even Bernie Sanders has proposed the nationalized setting of a single corporation in America right like all we are talking about in this conversation is on the biggest shared problems we have that problems at a scale where individuals are too powerless on their own to fight them that those things those kinds of shared problems become the subject of public democratic institutional and universal solutions okay so I'm very happy for my phone to be made privately but I do not think the racial wealth gap with a legacy of slavery and segregation and and and and mass incarceration America can be remedied by rich people throwing coins at black people I just don't think that's true anymore than I think Sheryl Sandberg's lean in circles can can deal with patriarchy I think when you're talking about though and I'm and I'm specifically talking about those types of problems that are the reason we have government right like the whole point of government most things in life are solvable down here most things it's a very small fraction of this that are not solvable on our own and that's why we have government and we have lived under an ideology for 30 40 years emanating out of the United States but spread many places that has told us government is bad government is bad government is the enemy government is slow government is inefficient government doesn't know how to regulate government is just giving your money to undeserving people and I think many of us who are not really intellectually sympathetic to that idea in its core form have nonetheless inhale the secondhand smoke of that idea so that Ronald Reagan says government is the problem Bill Clinton says the era of big government is over that's the left version of the same idea so my solution is a return to politics and what that means practically is everybody in this room has some issue in your society or some three issues or ten issues that you care about things that piss you off about your community I hope you do and if you do what I'm suggesting very simply is next time you think about doing something about it do not go into this door that we've been told to go into for the last 30 or 40 years which is the door of market when when doing well by doing good solutions do not solve that problem by selling cupcakes that give back do not solve that problem by getting blackrock persuading blackrock to start an impact investment fund do not solve that problem by reading Ray Dalio book do not solve that problem by you know having a shoe sent to some poor country for every shoe that you wear I've been to many developing country I've never seen those other pairs of shoes by the way if we have any investigative reporters here see me afterwards and in the other door in the other door is organized is fighting for laws and policies that will actually solve these problems at the root for everybody and if in a space like this your role is not just that of a citizen organize get involved that's kind of obvious it may be that you are part of institutions right now that are actively complicit in that not being a viable way for us to solve problems you might be part of organizations that are lobbying against the government doing you know the government doesn't not solve stuff because it loves to not solves that like I know through my job but a lot of senators and congresspeople do you know that how boxed in they are by these lobbyists who threaten them all day long with campaign contributions and getting kicked out of office if they don't stick in the amendment that's going to help Facebook so first of all it may be worth if you're one of these in one of these institutions unwinding your complicity I have a feeling a lot of letters of resignation will be written tonight you know it may be in some cases I think Facebook's a good example where there's just no hope in a particular organization and resigning is the moral thing to do but I do think most organizations would benefit from people who are willing to think differently I'll give you one example of something was very moving to me I said something about at an event for you know business and social responsibility types of folks and maybe many people in the room who do that kind of thing I said you know all of you thought it was like the clean water person at coca-cola was right before me so maybe that was a similar set up to today and people who did the good thing with in each of their companies right and I said to this group I don't doubt that what each of you do in this room is actually probably good for the world net-net I don't doubt that you're I mean maybe the clean water person is like dumping sludge but I think probably what she does is net I look the problem is you have a colleague who you may know or you may not know who probably is a nicer suit than you lives in Washington DC or London or whatever who is slipping things into federal budgets putting things into trade agreements that is hurting way more people on a much bigger scale than your lovely initiatives going to do right and this guy comes up to me afterwards and he said you know that really that really changed my life I said where do you work he's works at a big pharmaceutical company one of the biggest in the world he's not he probably doesn't agree with 90% of what I say but he connected with that and so he said here's what I did this is senior guy he was the head of the good stuff sustainability or that he like Big Top three or four you know probably at this company and he said never occurred to me that I'm being undermined by my own colleagues and you're right like any anything slipped in the federal budget of the United States or a trade agreement or in a WTO Accord on drugs obviously is operating a much bigger scale than anything the sustainability arm of my company is doing he said so I actually went down to Washington and he's like I'm a senior guy so I could you know I could ask to go meet these and I met them and he's like you were right they were doing all kinds of stuff that were completely undermining everything I work for every day and I don't like that and I've started have conversations with them about harmonizing that so you may hear me as someone who's who's talking about as I am democratic solutions being the only fundamental solution so then that's what I believe but if you are in organizations like that think about that guy that is a thing you can do there's versions of that you can do on taxi why did we pay no taxes it's interesting boss we pay no taxes that's kind of weird right have that conversation do you think that's gonna change bosses though I'm still wondering cuz you are also you're not just talking about corporations you also talking about billionaires you're talking about individuals who as you said and made very clear will have to give up a lot of power what kind of incentive could you possibly think of for them to have to change why should they I think my suggestion that people ask the bosses nicely is like that moment in weddings where you're like if anybody knows a reason why this couple should not get together speak now like you're not really hoping or thinking that that's going to happen but it's important procedurally to give people the opportunity so like I feel like we should give these CEOs a theoretical opportunity to like hey if you like want to start paying your taxes before the pitchforks come or the wealth tax comes you should that now's the time hey if you want to actually drop your opposition to the account of capitalism act and fight for it even though you're a billionaire now's a great time and like give them a chance to do that and I've been trying to give them a chance to do that for a year I don't know that I have any signups actually that's not true in the last year the one thing where I have seen movement is you do now have and I've talked to many people I know some of them I do not know I just read about there aren't some billionaires who have started to advocate not just for higher income taxes which was always an easy thing because they don't have a lot of income you know if you're that rich you can arrange to not have income they've started advocating for wealth taxes right which was considered vaguely communist in this country until pretty recently and not this country of United States communism is fine here and and I see the signs everywhere man it's like it's like a Bernie rally on crack out here and and I think I do not count on any of those people to lead the bandwagon what I think those who are doing that and it's it's it's an impressive group of people what they are doing is rendering their fellow plutocrats or pollutes as I call them to save time rendering their fellow pollutes ridiculous publicly rendering them ridiculous right they are stripping off the clothes of these private emperors because they are admitting right Alexis Ohanian has started what reddit reddit right and now is much more famous for being Serena Williams as husband he had this great line when the wealth tax discussion first came out right people were like you know if this 2% wealth tax on north of 50 million dollars goes through like I will never start a business again blah blah blah right they got the guys are the vests in the voice and Alexis Ohanian to this great tweet me in whatever year he started right at me in 2003 whatever was you know I was about to start this company but a wealth tax just passed so I'm gonna not start this company now right like said no one ever right and part of what I want to do is actually play poker with these guys right I want to play poker with these guys we're gonna move to Singapore if you pass a wealth tax we're gonna move our company somewhere else we're gonna leave Britain if you pass this tax work you know what let's play let's play you know what you know I don't believe you because you actually benefit you who threaten us by leaving New York for Florida or leaving America for Singapore you who threatened us all day long benefit more than almost any of the rest of us from the amazing democratic societies we have built and you are leeches on those societies by benefiting from them benefiting from them and undermining them all day every day and threatening us that if we pass policies to maybe give people health care maybe give people education maybe empower people who have dealt with historical and justices that you are going to leave well go [Applause] [Music] now before we run out of time which we already have I do have to say when I got to the end of your book I couldn't help but feel like the very end should have really been at the beginning you have these acknowledgments that you might as well have called disclaimers because you very openly say you went to very nice private school you went to Harvard you worked for McKinsey you spoke at Ted you spoke at Aspen you are part of a lot of the circles that you critique at least you were part perche all of them virtually all of them actually and to be honest at the very end I thought huh what would you say to someone who kind of shows you the mirror and says well clearly it's kind of irresistible for you to to be part of the system that you so clearly condemned it is a book about why it is irresistible and why yet it must be resistant I say in the book the best way to know about a problem is to be part of it you know I don't think it was possible to you know live in the Florentine Renaissance and be not complicit in the world the Medicis were trying to run that's the point and that it was my exposure to it and my complicity in it my having those moments which I described in the book where there is a little bit of gentle unspoken pressure to change what you're saying at an event because one thing will go down a little bit easier on the powerful and the other where you are working at a place because you are persuaded by what turns out to be a phony notion that you have to first apprentice in the tools of oppression to be able to dismantle it I felt so many of those things and I felt that I like so many people had been indoctrinated in a phony religion and what I tried to do in writing the book was write my way out of it and I continued to try to write my way out of it and what I have found to my great joy over the last year is so many other people who are in their own way trying to write their way out of it because the one thing I think most of us have in common now is it a desire is a desire to live in societies that are really different than our societies are right now and and I thought I want to tell that story thank you for telling it thank you so much I'm here that us [Music] [Applause]

Channel: House of Beautiful Business

Views: 62,669

Keywords: beautiful business, House of Beautiful Business, Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All, Plutocracy, Digital Economy, Big Tech, Thought Leadership, Market World, Conference, Léa Steinacker, Lisbon, Social Change, Social Inequality

Id: pPWhpXRYzNg

Length: 44min 37sec (2677 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2020